Hard Truth: Indiana's Fastest Growing Distillery with Bryan Smith

now 77,000 barrels get tasted correct holy SM so this whiskey that's brown that's all from the o one of our whiskies has made his top 100 every year since 2020 no way shared my whiskey with from Southbend to Evansville and everywhere in between this is get in the show focused on the hooer state and the incredible stories happening here today I'm Nate spangle founder of G Indiana and I will be your host for today's conversation today I'm joined by Brian Smith the Master distiller at Nashville Indiana's own hard truth Distillery he's known for harnessing science and Innovation to create bestselling flavors like cinnamon vodka toasted

coconut rum and straight Ry and bourbon whiskey hard truth Distilling Company is Indiana's largest destination craft Distillery 325 wooded acres to be exact featuring a full service restaurant tours tasting Center outdoor Amphitheater with live music I was just down there a few weeks back and it does not disappoint they also distribute to 25 States currently and have plans to be in all 50 over the next 2 years today we're going to be talking about why Indiana is a must visit destination for whiskey lovers Indiana's booming bourbon business and uh dip into the science of distilling a little bit of the history of of hard truth

and that come up over the last uh nine years and The Incredible Journey there um Brian welcome to get in hey thank you so much for having me and need appreciate it dude after going down there uh just a little bit ago I mean like two or three weeks ago I was blown away and like you know it's starting to turn into fall it's not quite fall yet but it's turning into fall and now Nashville Brown County it's just like wow it was it was a heck of a Time thank you so much I really appreciate it yeah it's a fun place it's um it's

very difficult to describe in words or pictures well and just like the explosive growth like I I mean drove up there and it's three it's it's huge it's 325 Acres total property but like uh 28 of them 30 of them are are fully developed right now like there's so much room for growth and I went on the the ATV tour and the little Tiki Cruiser around the little dude it was so fun uh it was just a good time Good Vibes all the way around but it it hasn't always been like this so first we're going to get into a little bit of the background

right like this massive Distillery started in the top of a pizza restaurant 10 9 10 years ago right correct kind of take us back to the beginning and where kind of hard truth got the got the be the start from sure yeah so my partners um were very successful in the Brewing industry with quaon Brewing Company they learned that they could sell their beer and have Success Through brew pubs and then all of a sudden their brew pubs started when you think about Brew Pub versus Brewery what's the like difference is a brew pub just serve food yeah so when I when I speak of

Brewery I'm talking about the actual production facility so it's really not a place where the public is is welcome but like you know sometimes breweries have tasting rooms quaon does not but they they you know they're in little Nashville they opened up now it's you know called the original which is the little first brute Hub and that's where where they were selling their beer um and then they started with the you know the the wings the smoked wings and the pulled pork nachos and and then that really um captured a lot of people's hearts and Minds um and so stomachs yeah for sure so then

they started growing that business and you know they're they're just they a breed entrepreneurs my partners so you know they they love opportunity they grow on opportunity um and so as that business was growing um quaon Brewing Company which is was the original tenant above the the pizza restaurant um they moved to their their production facility where they are now so it left this infrastructure and some brew equipment up there at that same time the laws in Indiana changed allowing for it was called the Indiana Artisan distillers permit which allows a collocation of a Distillery if you have a brewery or a winery in good

standing so they you know again jumped through those Hoops said you know we're just going to kind of figure this out as we go and uh that's when I started with the company um I worked with Cole Smith who was the um the first guy up in The Distillery and helped put it all together and uh and he and I got up there and kind of knocked out the you know the original iterations of of what hard truth Distilling Company was going to be so to my partner's credit they kind of let us they kind of let me loose with and just like from the

product side right it's like what what hard truth is go like what the product going to be what's the liquid going in the glass that's what you guys were figuring out what year is this so this would have been 2015 2015 2015 uh you're you're down there in Brown County Nashville just figuring it out yeah so it's an unusual story because really with the bourbon boom and everything that's going on with craft distilling most upstart Distillery started with you know a principal partner or somebody coming off from one of the big Distillery operations and with a Clear Vision and a product kind of like Angel's

Envy where Wes Henderson started out and he said hey this is what we're going to do they got millions in Investments they built it they did the thing you know whereas from like you know one of the big players it's like you leave to go start your your startup correct yes and so with us it was more of a you know we've got a track record of making good liquid of you know making good beer um offering a great customer experience at the brew pubs great food um let's see what we can do here it's going pretty well thus far I would say uh you

know like going like I think the the level of success that quaon and the breweria scene is like is really good you know but I think that the level of success the hard truth is scene is almost like insane it's been um it's been an insane ride it has been an insane and it's you're only halfway to the entire country so I can only wait to in the world right like CU I mean there's International Distribution on on some cruise lines and stuff already right there's insane stuff going on and I'm we're going to get into all of it but we go back to the

beginning you're sitting there you're in the upstairs spot of a pizza restaurant in Brown County and like where do you begin to be like this is what a bourbon brand and Company like where does it start so the the I think that the the synergies of of my partners and and all the people involved to kind of put the thought together on what the brand was going to look like the ethos of the brand um was a very collaborative effort as far as the liquid um they really gave me the reins to or I I I kind of raised my hand and said hey let

me run with this and for for me personally this was the culmination of a lot of things leading to this so 10 years ago if you'd ask me what was was this possible you know or would you be doing this absolutely not but as I look back through the lens of time and I talk about this a lot as I go around the country there are a lot of things that led to this you know my curiosity um of science I've always love you know first time I learned about scientific process and did you know a science experiment in the fifth grade I was like

oh my God this is incredible so i' I'm super scientifically curious um and then my love and passion for creating flavors through food I'm an only child only grandchild my grandmother um I was her um pal in the kitchen um and so she was deconstructing her dishes and letting me try little ingredients in building my palette I've got this incredible and satiable love and passion for creating flavors for food and then when I saw everyone's very visceral and emotional reactions to my grandmother's food um it it absolutely changed my brain and so ever since that moment I have always pleased my family and my friends

around me with with food um and then my love of Science and then I grew up in Evansville so had a you know experience making wine and beer with with family and friends growing up up um and so really there's a lot of things that kind of came together to this moment you know it's like where preparation meets opportunity right so I was prepared for something I didn't really wasn't aware I was prepared for and then I had this this opportunity through these incredible entrepreneurs um what were you originally hired at qua because it was at quaon right that's where you were originally hired through

to just be like a Brewers assistant or something like that you know I I was uh I just turned 40 and I I was uh you know I went to school at IU to become to be a Rec Recreation therapist and so I I was I was working in the field yeah the path clearly makes sense from Recreation therapist to to master Brewer or or distiller Master distiller it it kind of does if you think just the word recreation therapy right you put them together but uh I had always wanted to see what the inside of a brewery was like right so I talked to

my wife and I was like you know I'm 40 seems like a good time to do something weird um what do you think about me going hanging out in a brewery one day a week just like washing kaks right so I had a friend who was selling beer for for quaon and she said yeah sure whatever get out of here um so uh I I say that lovingly she supported it's been incredible support but um so I went just to literally see what the inside of a brewery was like one day a week that was it see that's something that I think whether you're 40

14 21 whatever it is like that's like a lesson that people like I I don't if enough people like put themselves in the place to get the opportunity it's like go do this like go spend a day like you're probably making 10 bucks an hour or less or whatever it's not about the money it's about the exper exactly $10 half I know it's like 10 bucks you're you're literally probably what and were you working four or five hours uh yeah now full day full day all right so 8 hours so you know 80 80 bucks a week cleaning kegs hanging out but getting yourself in

the area and now what 10 that was 10 years ago yeah nine a little over nine years ago like okay nine years ago you're getting one day a week yeah 10 bucks an hour and now like Master like that's crazy that's an insane decade it is okay so you're you're washing Kegs and then how does how do you end up you know being the person making the liquid sure the juice as some people in the industry say yeah so I I always describe my time at the brewery as like it was like a pirate ship right I mean it's like everybody's kind of doing the

doing the damn thing and and but it's a small crew crew of guys and everybody kind of was doing everything um um but you know I I kept hearing about this that they were bringing in a still and like a still and then I then they were telling me about the the distilling license and this and that and really piqued my interest I had a really great friend from college Jason hegenberg who um helped to start the distilling program down at Starlight Huber um with Ted Huber many years ago so I called Jason and I said hey what's you know can I come down and

see what you guys are doing and so went down there visited with him spend a day with him and uh and then you know I asked the one of the partners Tim O'Brien I said hey Tim would you mind if I go up and check out what you guys are doing with the Distillery he took me up there I met Cole and Martin grof at the time um who now Martin is is at The Distillery or current Distillery um basically running the show down there um and uh I just was immediately fascinated and then I started listening and I'm like wow you know these these

guys really I'm sure they're going to find something great but there's not a clearly defined vision and uh what I've learned is that you know as I look back for whenever I create food I have this unending kind of like bottomless uh motivation to it's kind of like when you got a hobby that you're just obsessive about right so with me creating flavors is that so I I I just saw this opportunity and I thought wonder if I could get in there and create something but at the time there wasn't any real investment money behind it other than just cash flow from the restaurant Brewery

um so it it was step by step by step incrementally but um from the moment that so so then I asked them I said hey instead of working here one day a week kind of go up to Distillery and help um at that point Cole had done I think one malt whiskey wash basically they call a wash or or distillation um wash and then distillation and um so they said sure So I went up there and um man ever since then i' I've been a a man obsessed oh absolutely what was the first thing that you like felt like you created like what was the

first thing that came out and you're like oh this is was it good was it bad what was it sure so like I said Cole had taken so so because we have a brewery we have a lot of malted barley and so you know malt whiskey or Scotch whiskey you know single malts are essentially malted barley that you ferment distill and then age and so so far he had he had done one of those um it was interesting they were doing some kind of flavored stuff almost like a flavored moonshine kind of thing I I just I started researching what was happening in the craft

craft space and I found out that you know really whiskey was where you wanted to be um but whiskey takes time and so in the meantime people typically will offer you know they'll figure out how to make a good clean vodka a white rum um a Jin you know um and so those are things that you can basically from the grain to your finished product be done in under two weeks right instead of five years for risky right because this is the thing when people talk about like going and starting a brand yeah uh it takes years like you like your startup like imagine whatever

you start a software company right great now you have your your software but you can't sell anything for five years right like what do you do you sit on your hands and wait like you got to go out and that's where the spirits right the vodka and that that stuff comes in that's kind of like how you guys but now we're I don't know how many years in like I I feel like you guys are going to exponentially bring more to Market because there's so much stuff in your rack house yes rack house is yeah so you know really the first product that we took

to Market that was the one that really went into distribution just outside of our Tasting Room was our cinnamon vodka um and that was sort of kind of a happy accident um in itself but it really uh resonated with the people who were visiting the Big Woods location there in Nashville and so really on that success that's when the partners were you know they had already always had in the mind that they wanted to to buy a big chunk of property and do something that incorporated the brewery and the restaurant experience but then with the distilling come in came coming in they thought we'll do

all three then as the success of hard truth ramped up then that became this is going to be the campus of hard truth tell me about those early years and like when did you guys know like oh wow we really got something here from the first product was cinnamon vodka to then we released a white rum we released a Jin um every new product that we released and I mean it was like boom boom I mean with within like a a few weeks of one another um our fan base who were coming to visit at our tasting room down right below um were was growing

exponentially so it was organic it's like people very or absolutely yeah it was very organic um and then you know whenever the the the group decided to make the big leap and and by the 325 Acres then it was really you know put to me you know we've got this experience vision for what we're going to do on this property what are you going to make and so then it was like okay so that was a good probably you know 9 to 12 months of a lot of trips many years how many years in is it this was one year in oh so this is

like 2016 is yeah oh yeah and like so when did they get the property um I believe it was at the end of 2016 beginning of 2017 yeah I think so all right so you're and then you're going out to Kentucky and being like hey like this is the mecca of you know whiskey bourbon all the stuff and it's like go down there and learn what you can and like they're just letting you yeah come on in it is an amazing industry so what what I think is fascinating was fascinating for me the American whiskey industry the bourbon industry um is massive right I mean

it's it's huge there there are more barrels of whiskey in Kentucky than there are people I mean it's it's just a it's this massive industry with only a handful of people you know really responsible for the making of this industry it's and and the great news is is those people are almost all of them are incredibly awesome people it's crazy when you think when you go down and tour plac and you're like this is where all of the bottles of bourbon and whiskey in the world are like not all but a lot of them are created right and it's like why in my head I

think like oh you know assembly lines and automation stuff and all this and it's like it's not that crazy it's really not it's like pretty like it's it's wood barrels stacked up in Aging for years and then you empty those out and then you put them into bottles I always say when people say you know like what's you know oh wow I can't believe you I'm like man all I do is I just screw around with corn copper and Oak and which really is pretty much that's it this is the crazy piece too that like I just picked up in the past like year maybe

and it's like everyone like talks about the little pallet wheel of like oh I'm getting notes of like a fruit like they're like oh it has Citrus in it and it's like oh so like The Distillery like they put citrus in it at the front it's like no there's four ingredients yes right it's like four grains water and a barrel that's it right like it's crazy to me cuz I always thought like oh they must have like like with beer if you're going to have like a citrus wheat ale there's probably some like citrus in there that they you know ferment and or not distill

but Brew with but with you guys it's what corn barley wheat Ry Rye those four grains and some combination of those like you and your evil scientist laboratory back there create different liquids an American White Oak and that's and that's it that is crazy to me okay so so this is 2017 right around there you have 325 acres and like we're GNA we're going to make it a must visit experience destination and it's your job to make it something that people can take home with them right like what they're what they're really coming there for yes there are a couple couple pivotal moments for me

when I was in Kentucky that really um formed a lot of the way that I thought about this so so kind of back to where we were talking about the the friendliness of the industry I got to meet Bill Samuels Jr principal for Makers Mark and created that with you know his parents and then him and then now his son's running it and um Bill Samuels Jr I mean maker Market is huge you know it's just one of the classic worldwide bourbon whiskies in the world and and uh bill was spent like four hours with us and and um you know basically any competition yeah

well so here's what he said you know he said the the American whiskey the the dent that American whiskey has made worldwide we've just scratched the C surface so we you know the big brands are really working on International growth and um you know he said anything that we can do to help other American whiskey makers make better whiskey makes us all better you know it's kind of like you know Rising tide floats yeah you're you're growing the market like all of you together are chunking out this piece of spirit drinkers or or like alcohol hard alcohol drinkers worldwide right and they don't and you

know they don't they don't want bad americ whiskey out there and then also on top of that most I mean if you're in the whiskey industry and you're not somebody that can get along with other people and have fun you're in the wrong industry you know so so most of these people are just great people anyways um but that that really stuck with me and then the really a formative moment was my visit to Wilderness Trail distillery in Danville Kentucky um so Shane Baker and Pat Heist Dr Pat Heist um two principal Partners they were kind of uh you know Shane is a a chemical

engineer uh and Pat was or is a molecular biologist PhD um and so they were working they had started a yeast company and then they were Consulting to help distilleries around the world to become more effici efficient then the bourbon boom started they said hey you know we live in Danville let's start a distillery in Danville well they didn't just start a distillery in Danville they ended up building um one of the largest producers of bourbon and Ry whis which Wilderness Trail just hit the shelves just a maybe four five maybe maybe six years ago now so they've not really even been on on the

market that I don't really know them yeah man they're huge so um but they were the ones where I went down to visit again they spent an entire day with me and by the way they got acquired by a another company just recently for $600 million okay yeah that that'll play that's right um and and not it's because they're they're incredible they make incredible liquid they're super smart guys but they've they've been very pivotal to help a lot of people grow um but the the real key moment for me was they kept talking about sweet mash and sweet mashing as a style of making whiskey

everybody's familiar with seeing sour mash on Jack Daniels bottle hearing about sour mash whiskey it says it right on the Makers Mark bottle um as a technique of making whiskey that term has been romanticized as this incredible way to make whiskey it makes the best whiskey not going to argue with that but Shane and Pat were talking about sweet mash and they were talking about it from a biochemical standpoint and why it was Superior right and so um for me it kind of sort of sounded like marketing at first and then they took us to their Rick house and this wait can you can you

give me the difference between a rick house and a rack house yeah so Rick house is a Rick is is an actual structure inside the building where a barrel is on its side and rolls down the Rick um a rack house is a barrel Warehouse that has some sort of rack system that holds the barrels vertical we do it vertical a lot of other people also do it vertical um but there are also racks that that hold it horizontal um storing your what ours is really considered a palletized rack house so it's just easier to move the barrels around safer for our employees ages the

whiskey the same got you all right yeah so they took me into this into their Rick house and their oldest whiske at the time was 2 years old so they had nothing in the market and Shane drilled a barrel of their oldest Ry whiskey it was only 2 years old and let us taste it I have never it was a moment I I can still taste it it was so incredibly complex soft it wasn't out of balance so I'm a big balance so I I think of everything through my palette so I like to create really interesting complexities but you don't want things out of

balance I've never experienced that in any whiskey less than like six to eight years old and I could and they they weren't like cheating nature or Advanced aging or you know trying to do anything weird it was just their process of mashing going from a sweet Mash to a sour mash plus they're they're excellent whiskey makers when you when you talked sweet and sour what's the difference so in the simplest terms sweet mashing is every so a mash in is basically cooking the grain okay so that's the starting process process of making whiskey you cook grain into water so with sweet mashing in the simplest

terms you're starting with fresh water fresh grain and fresh yeast every single time you mash in so the consistency the difference with sour mash you have stuff that's been doing this before yeah so the the the way that the sour mash has been romanticized is they kind of describe it like a sour dough mother you know that's that's something alive that's in there for 200 some years but that's really not the sour mash technique for making whiskey sour mashing and whiskey is they found in these bigger distilleries and I won't get super technical but they found these bigger distilleries that they were having problems with

bacterial contamination so once you mash in and you've got this sweet cereal liquid you throw yeast in it and it makes ethanol alcohol right well let's just go through the whole process real quick like in the the 100 or 10,000 View so you start with you have all the grains in there and the water yep so in the simplest simplest whiskey making from kind of from Soup To Nuts is you have grains so corn like you describe corn usually for a bourbon it's got to be at least 51% corn so corn oftentimes rye wheat and melted barley and so you take those grains they're dried

right like in a in a commodity form and you grind them to flour all the way down to flour then you mix those with hot water and so when you mix them with hot water all the starches from those grains go into that into solution so now you've got this starchy solution ah yes chemistry words yeah then you add malted barley so you add malted barley because malted barley is has a lot of enzymes in it so the enzymes converge those starches to simple sugars so if you think of a starch is kind of like a big tree branch and then those enzymes go in

and cut that tree branch into little bitty chips um the yeast need that starch into little bitty chip form in order to eat it so grind it up into flour add your maled barley now you've got this really sweet cereal um Mash they call it then you add yeast the yeast go in they consume those sugars and they make three byproducts they make ethanol carbon dioxide and heat they also make some other flavor molecules that add to kind of like the nuances of whiskey making but essentially that's what you're doing so then or it's the same process as making beer wine if you look down

in like one of these giant Vats it's like and the yeast has gone in it's like it's it's alive oh it's bubbling it's like bubbling and you know it's crazy it's like oh is this boiling and it's like no right correct that's the carbon dioxide it's eating it yeah it's crazy yeah so it's similar to like when you make bread and the bread Rises same thing it's the it's rising from the carbon dioxide bubbles so you're it's same process for for making beer essentially so now you've made what they call distiller beer all right so then all the alcohol you're going to make you make

in that that fermentation process so there it is right so now you're like okay what do I do with this you put it into a still all the still does the the still does not create any alcohol it's just separating the alcohol away from everything else so this concoction Brewers beer Mash goes into the still and you start to heat it correct and I did learn this when I was on my tour right because alcohol has a lower boiling point than water corre question mark So then it rises to the top and then you flash it with the water or the cold water that like

takes it condensed yes and then that's what comes out the other side uh as like alcoholic distillate correct yeah so that's what people think of it's called a lot of different names new make white lightning moonshine you know whatever but it's clear as water yeah it is intense it is very intense yeah yeah so then from there in order to make you know American style whiskies like bourbon and rye whiskey if you want to make a straight bourbon or a straight rye whiskey the next step is to take that liquid and put it into a charred and for us also toasted White Oak Barrel and

so you know what that does is then that that whiskey he goes in the barrel and then it sits in a rack house or Rick house uh for you know four plus years and there's no temperature control so when it gets hot that Whiskey's hot and it pushes into that Oak pushes past the Char into the toasted wood in in especially in White Oak are a lot of wood sugars ton of wood sugars literally sugar when you Char and toast those barrels you know if you take a a handful of white sugar and eat it doesn't really taste like anything if you take that handful

of white sugar and you put it in a pan and cook it it turns into caramel Rich buttery butterscotchy same thing happens with this wood sugars in Oak Barrel when you Char and toast that barrel all those wood sugars get all this butterscotch caramel toast smoke mocha all these kind of flavor compounds now you're putting whiskey or new make ethanol into this Barrel that methanol through the temperature getting cold and hot is pushing literally into that wood it's a little flavor it's grabbing all that good wood sugar and it's bringing it back into the whiskey so this whiskey that's brown that's all from the that's

all from the oak that was mind-blowing to me that it's like it comes out of the still and it is looks like a vodka it's just clear and it gets the color all from the barrel and a lot of flavor yeah yeah so which is wild so we work with our Cooper to make very specific custom Char toast barrels specifically to match our whiskey I love it I mean I think it's so fascinating and it's like and the science like this is the piece that as I've talked to people from hard truth and other distiller it's like the I think people just think it's like

oh it's just people who like to drink or whatever and it's like no it's like the nerd science people that that also love to drink we could we could be on this podcast for about three weeks straight 247 you know 247 and we wouldn't get to the bottom of it man I love it well let's kind of like shift gear right so so so things start to to like go well you have the cinnamon vodka that's going well you have the toasted coconut rum or the white rum that's going well um and then you get to the point where you have to I mean if

you want to reap what you sew you have to sew it four years ago correct so when do you guys start to Barrel some of your first uh whiskies you know spend a lot of time in Kentucky for ated the plan I pitched the plan to the partner group in a hotel room in Bardstown Kentucky they said yes we contacted Vendome copper and brass works we got us still on order which was very expensive you saw all the copper there when you were there what is like the startup cost for a still oh boy it's a lot hundreds of thousands oh no a more than

that oh yeah holy smokers oh yeah there's so vendom copper and brass Works in Louisville Kentucky is the absolute gold standard Platinum standard worldwide for Stills so they make all the Stills for Jack Daniels Jim Beam Makers Mark all hard truth right um and so there's a reason why because they make the best right so put the deposit down on the still started to design the property um my partners really took the experience portion and the restaurant portion of what that was going to be like and let me focus on the um whiskey and of course obviously we all collaborated on that as well well

um as far as the systems but then we hired an engineer in-house engineer Clint hamus who we still have on on board uh smarty pants from uh Rose Holan and um and so we started to build this took took a little over a year and a half to build the actual system um and then commissioned that system October of 2018 made our first Whiskey on the system by that time the tour Center was open and giving tours even though we don't have still running yet uh and then the restaurant had been launched um so we we originally were going to do The Distillery first and

then add how were you making how were you making the cinnamon vodka and the other stuff the other the other Distillery was still running oh the little one correct with that was not the Platinum standard correct correct okay got you yep so that was still running going hard Cole and Martin were over there working their asses off um and then we were all deploying our our energy toward building this new facility Shane and Pat from Wilderness Trail um consulted with us and helped us to design the inside of the the system which is great because those guys know exactly what they're doing um and then

of course we put on our own touches on it so we started distilling October 2018 and it's been Off to the Races since then so now we've got about 11,000 barrels in the in the in the rack house with huge expans or huge addition plans coming forward right correct as of October 1st this year we're going to um increase our production for our elves fourfold holy smoke CU you're so you're going to put up new rack houses yes yearly uh we've got I think two more in in the works but we just we just built number two and number three in the last year and

a half holy smokes okay so like there's a lot there's big things coming and it's like you have the supply now so now it's making sure like on the other side it's like getting it all distributed and sold right um because it's like so you start that in 2018 but you don't get your first whiskey till 2022 yes into 2021 we had a rye whiskey um one of our Mash pills are sweet Mash Rye um Rye typically the more Rye so when I say Mash bill that's essentially recipe so it's the percentage of the grain so our sweet Mash Ry Mash bill which is mostly

Rye 94% Rye Rye is a grain that tends to get delicious a lot earlier so a threee old rye whiskey is not uncommon it can be very very very good um so our at the fall very end of the fall of 2021 we released our sweet mashai and then the the guy who is the biggest most well-known whiskey reviewer writer everything Fred minck Fred Fred mck picked up our sweet Mash rye and uh called it the best first batch of whiskey for any Distillery he's ever tasted in his career and uh that was a big moment for us because Fred is uh he is internationally

known but uh he also is not a pay to play guy I mean you can't I I I didn't try to pay him but I tried to get his attention sent him countless emails tried to go drop whiskey off in his mailbox I tried everything and Fred was like Hey look thank you but you know chill out just chill out right so then he found our Whiskey on his own and um and since then our whiskies uh one at least one of our whiskies have made his you know he reviews about 900 whiskies a year and um isn't that job one yeah one of our

whiskies has made his top 100 every year since 2021 no way yeah okay so you said that's that's a huge moment for us and like I I love you being a team player what did that mean to you as the guy behind the liquid well I say yes very purpose it was tremendously satisfying um I don't operate with a whole lot of ego so this is going to sound counterintuitive what I'm getting ready to say but I knew what we had hell yeah because you don't do it right so here's the thing about me and same thing with my food creation my goal is never

to I'm never looking at the like the out I'm never building something for a specific outcome because I know I've got Partners who are doing the business part of things right they're like hey you just do the best version of what you do right so that's that's what I focus on so I you know when we released that final you know the the first release I had countless hours of the planning there's thousands of decisions that went into what was in that bottle from the equipment grains water source you know decisions all the stuff right not only that but then I've tasted you know before

a you know we've got 11,000 barrels in the wreck house I taste every one of them probably seven times before they're ever released every barrel every barrel you have 11,000 barrels yeah and you've had so I've got help now I've got help now 77,000 barrels get tasted correct holy SM and I've got a lot of help now but the my my point is we're not kind of like saying like hey let's see how this goes right by the time it goes into this bottle I am telling you this is the best I have to offer and so what I have um what I do have

confidence in is through my many years of doing other stuff with food and flavors and and all that is is that if I'm satisfied with it I'm I'm probably going to hit most people's pallet in the way that that that that they're going to like it's like an artist right like it's very you know you know that it's good and it's like whether or not the big reviewer or whoever and that's why it's also impressive because it's it's everyone's palette is a little bit different you so it's like man if you just happened like there were probably really good distillers out there that Frank is

that his name Fred Fred that like just don't hit Fred's pallet right oh yeah and some of our whiskey doesn't hit his pallet right and you know so we've got a a wide portfolio of whiskey and I very purposefully um designed those Mash bills to pull the flavors from all the way over here to all the way over here and everything in the middle all of them Delight me but they're not all for everybody and also with whiskey tasting for for people that maybe are listening to this that aren't used to tasting whiskey neat or you know nothing in the GL just the glass and

the whiskey it's a very jolting experience for your palette right it's not it's not you know you got to work at it's kind of like getting to no coffee or getting to no wine so you get that southern Indiana hug yeah man there you go I like that I like I like the change in the but but it you know it really is something to where um you're going to hit people's palette differently and it's that's okay because all I'm all I my goal is is to make the best thing that I can make and so um that's what I always stay focused on because

if I start putting my focus on chasing Trends or trying to hit this One reviewer or whatever I'm going to screw it all up hey everyone quick pause in the action to introduce you to futterman Von re a true Hidden Gem Indiana especially for all you watch afficianados out there founded by an Indiana State graduate from Batesville this family-owned brand has Deep hooer Roots dating back to the 1830s they are even proud members of the Society of Indiana Pioneers which I didn't know existed but is a sweet organization they are based in India and are redefining luxury watches meticulously crafted in Cookoo by a certified

watchmaker in his Apprentice the designs blend classic Elegance with a modern twist plus they offer exclusive limited editions and are rolling out an exciting watch toober Fest promotion this fall don't miss their Chase Brisco race day VIP experience giveaway an incredible opportunity for for race fans Chase is an awesome NASCAR driver from Mitchell Indiana you're going to be learning more about him soon follow flutter Von Reese to explore their stunning Collections and join their journey to Greatness yeah you just have to like it's it's the process right it's like you and it's so clear just from hearing you talk how just like in love with

the process of making whiskey and bourbon and spirits and like the flavors like that's what you get pumped up about I can tell are you kidding me yeah I mean this is a dream yeah and it's like this is what you do for a this is your job it's unbelievable like I get to say I get to interview people and be curious for a living and it's like this is crazy right and curiosity is a big part of this too like trying different and like I'm sure there are multiple times where it's like you put something a mash Build Together whatever and it comes out

and you're just like yep that probably ain't it you know like like it takes a lot of trial error chemistry trying to get into this bottle I think that's like what people need to remember for sure and and just another little kind of inside baseball that's really fun is that that the more that you're into it um the more I can like the more experience that I have the more I can experiment with mash bills and flavor profiles in my head before they're ever made because I understand the flavor components and what they bring to it right it's kind of like you're a Sim like

you're simulating it in there like if we do that that that's going to taste pretty close to I can taste it you can tast without it ever that's great that's so cool that's being a master of your craft and then back to the Wii and because when you said you know you use the word we you know being the director of the creativity is is one thing but then once you get to the scale that we're getting to and then everyone's jobs start to change and now that we're moving out into multiple States my job is to to come and do this kind of thing

but I do it all over the the country you know I'm going to New Jersey next week launch Texas last year you know and so I'm doing a lot of this the team that we have assembled some people have been there longer than me even just within the organization are absolutely as passionate as I am or more in what they do and they are super talented that Distillery is running far better at with the people who are who are running the day-to-day than I could ever do it for sure and so they get the credit I love that and I think that's that's what and

a lot of times with business or anything it's like what got you here won't get you there right and it's like getting awardwinning early stage like the startup grind is you're literally figuring out what's going to like help grow this but then you got to figure out how to operationalize streamline like if you're gonna what' you say uh over the next five years how how much you guys growing your production by yeah well so by by next month we're going to be essentially we're going to be making four times the amount of barrels so which will which will satisfy this National footprint um because there's

a lot of I mean for for people out there who are whiskey fans or even if you're not it's kind of like what happened with craft beer there used to be like six beers on the shelf and then all of a sudden there were 160 beers on the shelf and you're like what what's going on here same thing's happening with American whiskies there were a very there was a used to be a very small bourbon section one hand right yeah now it's like insane so in order to push through that morass as a brand first of all authenticity I mean we are grain to glass

right there are a lot of brands on the shelf that borrow other people's whiskey I call it borrow but they just buy barrels that somebody else made come up with a Cool brand get a bunch of they're a marketing company they're a marketing company and that's and that's fine there are some great whiskies out there not down in them we are going to push through because Doug Miller Dwayne cool and Schmidt grow our grains Doug Miller and wait what Dwayne Dwayne cool and Schmid yes and then you know Travis and you know we've got we've got Farmers on the front end that grow our grains

Farmers on the back end that take those the spent Mash wait where where are the farmers from so one of our Farmers uh that grows some of our is from Mount Vernon Indiana um Dwayne kouen Schmid he's actually an anesthesiologist he's tried to retire like three times and he's and he's got a little Distillery called Dusty Barn Distillery if you're ever in Mount Vernon definitely go down Mount Vernon like down by Evansville down by Evansville yeah okay posy County yeah and Dwayne's a trip he's awesome um and then Doug Miller is a sixth generation um corn farmer from Rush County he's got farms in Rush

County and Brown County um and his sons have businesses around Bloomington so we got to know them through their other businesses but sixth generation corn farmer um and then we've got Farmers on the back end that take the grain and feed cattle and have a cattle operation we we're we're doing we're actually we're building the next Heritage American whiskey brand we're not building this to to to jump on this bourbon Trend and sell out you know what I mean we're we're doing this because we believe that what we're building is is la is a lasting thing and and because we love doing it and you

guys I think that's important for listeners to know is there are great local brands that do cool things but like hard truth is going out to compete on a national and international stage absolutely like when you say heritage American brand like there are a few gentlemen's names that are on are on glasses or bottles of whiskey all around the world right that's where hard truth is going and and is already well on the pathway there 25 States the the other 25 coming in the next two years like that's incredible yeah so I think like the scope of where you guys are it's like oh yeah

they're like a local Indiana like they are local and they are built here in Indiana and the far or the corn is raised or grown in raised the corn is grown in Rush County but like this is distributed very very far right and we and we so it's it's kind of always that we're we're we're we're doing both things right we are it's and this is what I always tell like whenever I talk because it's interesting trying to build our brand in Indiana sometimes is a little bit even more difficult because people view us as a local brand and they're like a it's just local

you know it's some people love the local thing and other people like ah it's it's it's kind of a little local brand I'm going to get my Makers Mark right um but what I what I try to impress on folks whenever we're you know trying to get placements Behind Bars um right restaurants liquor store shelves is I'm like guys this is us you you are you know like bars and restaurants in Indiana you are part of hard truth this is a story that we're taking to the country I want everyone here in Indiana Hoosier land to feel the same Pride that I feel you know

I'm Evansville born raised I'm Hoosier through and through our farmers are hooers people that work at The Distillery hooers we're authentic grain of glass we are building um you know something that's going to represent Indiana in an incredible way from coast to coast and you know eventually internationally so I want everybody to feel that Pride right when people think like Lynchberg Tennessee or like Louisville like like sure you're going to be thinking Nashville Indiana yes like that's so cool to me yes um and I do want to dip into that just a little bit and I have some fun kind of segments here at the

end when you think of bourbon you think of Kentucky when you think of whiskey like you don't necessarily the world doesn't think of Indiana how are you using that to you guys' benefit and how like it's probably easier right to like go move down to Kentucky and build a Distillery there it's like the I think the commitment Indiana is impressive and I love it it's obviously the shtick but like uh I just want to know about that process and how this connection end up being a net win for you guys because you are different and you are in Indiana a good deal of the Corn

that ends up in Kentucky bourbon is grown in Indiana you hear that absolutely no no no way around that and then for the people out there who who kind of are in the node there used to be this little kind of mystery that no one really knew about or people weren't talking about and then all of a sudden now if you're in the whiskey world it's it's it's out in the open everybody knows about it and it's now kind of celebrated it's a little distillery in Lawrenceburg Indiana by the name of now it's Ross and squib but it's been known as MGP before that it

was segm so if you ever go down Lordsburg and indana you as you're getting ready to go across the river you'll see this big you know kind of industrial complex on the left old red brick and a big steam tower and it says seags on it that's where all the Seagrams gin was and is made still um but that Distillery was it's it's kind of bought and sold multiple times um over the years and in fact part it was featured in um pey blinders uh there's there's one of the one of the big players that talked about this Distillery that they were running and running

whiskey out of that that came out during prohibition cuz they still had one of those medical medical medicinal whiskey licenses medic that a real thing we live in just a constant cycle of the same thing right right I know it's crazy so so anyways so MGP has been making this gigantic volume of whiskey for the last 20 years and it built a lot of brands that are Kentucky Heritage Brands now on the back of their whiskey is there like rack houses and all the stuff down there it's huge it's huge but they never had their own Brands they would make whiskey and sell it to

to other people to make their own Brands so for I mean I I could name off a bunch but I'll just pick one bullet bullet bourbon bullet Rye both those whiskies from Kentucky Frontier Kentucky Frontier whiskey were all made in Indiana now they they built their own distilleries and now they're starting to use their own whiskey yeah so for a while that was kind of like the little dirty little secret now everybody knows MGP makes great whiskey see and I think the other dirty like the secret is that like I mean I think I grew up thinking if you wanted to be a bourbon you

had to be made in Kentucky yeah they've been telling that like that's like a been telling that for a while it is but it's 51% corn is what makes it a bourbon correct but but going back to your Indiana thing so the the reality is there has been this incred for the last 20 years some of the best bourbon and rye whiskey made in the United States has been made in Indiana now it's out in the open now everybody knows about it um MGP recently was was just purch purchased and you know acquired so now there's some brands that are being run out of there

but but it's it's kind of out in the open now that Indiana is and has been making some of the if not the best bourbon and rye whiskey in this country for a good good piece now and then now we are all growing so there are you know there's Starlight down near um Louisville there's um Spirits French Lick there's new a new one called Old Homestead there's Cardinal Spirits there's there's um Hotel Tango there's West Fork there's forefingers there's uh I'm going to miss a bunch 18th Street they're all they're all great friends of mine old 55 there's this gigantic boom of Indiana craft distilleries

that are popping up and they are all making tremendously good whiskey so and the industry it's is definitely taking taking a look at it and talking about it and um so hard truth definitely is proud to be kind of at the Forefront of that yeah um I think that's super interesting to think about right and I I I love it's this classic who your humbleness who your right it's like we're making all this great whiskey but we're just giving Kentucky all the credit right yeah absolutely um okay so so when you think about the future kind of like like what's on the horizon you mean

you've been here almost a decade now at hard truth' been growing like crazy what's the next decade look like for us it's so we've got our five you know sweet Mash grain of glass whiskies kind of our core whiskies two rise and three Bourbons out in the market got a lot of things up these little small sleeves here for the future as far as releases um but really it's a matter of uh you know when you look at that like I said all the all those whiskies on the shelf and all that bar space that's still occup Ed by another thing that people a lot

of people don't know is most of the whiskies that they view as Kentucky whiskies or whatever whiskies that have been around forever most of them are owned by about five um International hundred hundreds of billions of dollars corporations that came in and bought them all up the power that they have to get those placements behind the bars and to get Distribution on the shelves of liquor stores is is it's difficult it's definitely a David gath kind of thing yeah you're you're like already like fighting with one hand behind your back a little bit there it's it's unbelievable so really the next 10 years is doing

the hard work grinding it out with our Distributors um you know we're we're still rein every dollar that has been realized through hard truth is being reinvested in sales and distribution I mean nobody's gotten cut a check it is all going back in so the next 10 years is really really doing the hard work you know I'm going out um our Salesforce is going out the other partners are going out and we are doing the hard work to build this brand it just you know I would love to say that the the because the liquid stands out and everyone loves it that that's going to

be enough it's not you know just like anything else in America if you want to if you want to if you want to get to where you're going you have to grind so the next 10 years is grinding and it's a little bit different right it's like you you've kind of like hit that early startup like this is a thing like we we got something here now we got to make sure everyone knows what we got right you have to like go blow it up and like you know get it in all 50 states behind every bar so people are drinking hard truth and Coke

yes that's right yeah Hey listen I I'm not also you don't know me I'm not precious you can drink my whiskey however you want to man I grew up drinking whiskey and ginger ale on Ice I still love it love whiskey ginger ale I mean you know I go to all these stuffy things and everybody's talking about notes of you know lavender and bed leather and tobacco you know and and I'm like all right can I get some ginger Ed just a little bit come on um I love it I I think that it's important for who to know like like what when they're in

the liquor store they're at the bar and like you're you're buying it already right it's like it's it's whiskey it's bourbon you know like there is some differences there but it's like this is a brand that is like on the rise doing big things and when you like get away from one of those you know large conglomerate Corporation Brands and like pick something like a hard truth like you're helping fuel this bourbon economy in in Indiana and helping like that grow and and like what you're doing like you just gave 10 shout outs to like what people would think of your competitors right like the

West forks and the four finger like like great people yeah great and you're doing the same thing that I'm sure was done for you where you went down and like met with all those guys like I think that's awesome yeah and and also you I think the the big the big change I think in that's that's hard to to push through locally is that sometimes people think I probably ought to buy that it's local you know I want to buy it because of that I don't want you to buy it because of that I want you to buy it because it's really really good you

know so what what I I think sometimes people are hesitant because they they are like I don't I just want you know I want to buy the real deal the good stuff right but what and when you're local that's kind of some of the stuff that we fight against whereas when I go to Tech us with hard truth were were not something that they've seen before and so they're like hey what's going on there then they read about us then they drink the liquid I mean I've got people in Texas that are like clamoring for as much hard truth as I can get them because

they're like this is the best whiskey we've tasted that's come out of the American Market in Forever we're not fighting against the fact that it's them thinking they're just trying to help out the look so it's it's an interesting it's kind of an interesting challenge I wouldn't think about that from like gu of but it's like yeah like drink it because it's good we all so local yes right and it's like we're you're out there competing with the best like like when you think of like I I love that I think that's super important for people to know um and I also like subtle plug

to go down to the Distillery and check it out and do the UTV tour do the boat Tiki tour like do The Distillery tour stay in the cabin it's phenomenal like I had so much fun yeah uh it it was a really good and it was like a Thursday like we weren't even getting like wild wild like that concert venue like you guys can pack that thing out and you have Harvest Fest coming up right yes harv harvestfest coming up which is going to be awesome we're releasing the third of our collaboration with melon Camp whiskey company um it's going to it's a great whiskey

by the way I mean I love working with those guys it's going to be an awesome party but yeah to give people an idea we have over 400,000 people visit our Distillery a year the the experience that we built there is that and that's my partner Vision I I'll not take zero take zero credit for that because I I don't have that kind of vision the experience that we built there was also based on them going down to Kentucky them doing all these Distillery tours and saying hey these kind of all are the same like they're great they're historic everybody should do them but after

you go on so many of them it's kind of like so in Indiana we didn't have the same kind of restrictions that a lot of the dry counties that those distilleries are located in have that's crazy to me that they're yeah and then they had their experience with the with the brewery and the restaurants and so they really their minds they just they just went totally you know outside the box we weren't confined to any kind of Paradigm cuz we're we don't have a 200-year history we are creating a new tradition right and so when you come to The Distillery if you if you have

in your mind what you think a Distillery is going to be like or you're like ah maybe one day me and the guys will go there maybe one day my wife and I will go there I mean bring your kids it's this is not this is like it's kind of almost what Napa did with the Winer experience where it is we are familyfriendly we now the tours it's 21 and over just by law but um you know the with the walking trails around all the Lakes we've got this big outdoor ampi area it's very kid-friendly lots of good even if you're not a drinker it's

a great place to go so we really kind of blew up the idea of what a distiller experience was like obviously Brown countyy is gorgeous um and uh it's it's it's a it's kick in the pants and in fact I will tell you this we have seen a lot of our Kentucky friends you know in like you know the like the like dark glasses with the fake noses and stuff coming through you know doing tours and uh and a lot of the tours are starting to change in Kentucky so I'm I'm not saying it's because of us but I'm just saying you know I think

blowing up the Paradigm is I I think that we need maybe get a party bus or something and get our own like Indiana tour Indiana Trail absolutely you know like just start ripping through all the different distilleries there's been a lot of talk about that there have been multiple kind of starts and stops on how to do an Indiana Distillery Trail um there is an Indiana Distillery trail.com I believe already and so it's it's kind of like we're we're in such an infancy infancy infancy phase with all these this explosive growth with distilleries everybody's doing so much work trying to build their business that it's

difficult to get like kind of a a plan nobody has time yeah cuz know you're trying to go take over the world right the bourbon World U okay well we're coming to the end and I have some fun you know interesting questions I think that we're just like going to loosen up a little bit the first one being I it's like a two-parter one who is like the the like coolest or most famous or or person that's tried besides Fred who's like the coolest person that's like tried your your whiskey your bourbon your product and like loved it that you were like man that's pretty

cool we we did this collaboration with melon Camp whiskey company um one of the principles at HUD melon Camp he was asked to be on a show recently an ABC show called claim to fame so he was on claim to fame season 3 which the the conc to the show is is everybody has a famous relative um and the it's like a reality show so they're trying to figure out who who each other's relative is and so I found myself randomly invited last Tuesday to Nashville Tennessee um um for the for the finale part the ABC finale party and uh so I shared my whiskey

with Trace Atkins and um you know John melan Camp was there but then also some of the cast members which was Marlon Brando's grandson so I would say that night was uh yeah John Cryer's niece um let's see U uh uh yeah who oh God there's Mark Anthony's nephew I love it it's Mark anon's Nephew so there have been all these there have been definitely some big whiskey people and some big like kind of very important mentors in my life um that have that have tried and loved our whiskey that that certainly mean you know a lot more but just most I'm trying to go

to my most recent memory I Trace Atkins Drinking Your Whiskey is pretty yeah that was that was kind of a trip I was sitting there I was like wow this is really interesting this is an interesting night who would have thought nine years ago you're like going sweetheart like I'm just going to work one day a week in the brewery like it's just one day partying with Marlon Brando's grandson with Mar I love that um that's so fun okay this segment is our younger year segment you're gonna give a little guidance to uh to those that are coming up and figuring out what they're doing

this question is brought to you by our friends or Fellowship they're a great organization here in Indiana helping develop young Business Leaders across the state Brian what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self continue to F I never I I never had a problem of fostering the things that I was passionate about that didn't do anything for me vocationally so it's really kind of like an anti- suggestion but I loved spending way too much money on all kinds of crazy ingredients and cooking a ton of really awesome food for my friends Japan I've got an aunt who's Japanese so I cook a bunch of

Japanese food cook a bunch of this and you know whoever I was dating at the time or you know girlfriends or friends they' be like what are you doing why are you spending all this time I'm like because I love it right so my advice to my 22-year old self is is keep doing that stuff don't don't lose it because you never I mean passion is that's everything right so you know you can if you can figure out a way to weave passion into um to success for you from a business business standpoint I mean for me this is none of this has been a

struggle I mean there's always difficult times and hard things that we have to work through from a business perspective um but when you got passion The Winds of passion at your back yeah and it's and I think that that's important of like you wouldn't be where you are today without the passion but it was when you were 40 correct right like it wasn't like you were 22 23 like oh I'm going to make cooking or this flavor like I'm in the business you're guy the area in the business of flavor town right it wasn't always like that but it the right opportunity struck and cross

segments with passion and now here you are yeah I had worked in restaurants you know when I I was younger and I can't tell you at least 100 times someone said to me oh my God you should open a restaurant and I said absolutely not are you crazy have you ever worked in a restaurant you know I I'm I'm not a person that likes chaos so so that's the nice thing about distilling is it's very predictable so you know I would I would say that even though I I knew that it wasn't something that I was going to ever do it was what I was

passionate about so I kept it alive I didn't let it die so just whatever you're passionate about keep it keep it alive and you know it's my partner Jeff always says you know luck is the you know where opportunity meets preparation so when all of a sudden there was an opportunity in front of me and I was like oh wait I'm prepared for this and I didn't even know it heck yeah I love that all right now we're gonna get to the lightning round so we're like you know quick hitters we're gonna like bust through some questions really quick you got into whiskey what was

the the drink you had Bourbon and ginger ale and we called it and we at the time we used George dickle and we called it the dickle tickle the so if you're just getting in try a little tickle tickle that's right yeah yeah there we go um so name a whiskey you think everyone should try at least once you can give us a hard truth or and and like a a brand out there that you're just like I really like what they do sure hard sweet Mash Ry and Wilderness Trail bottled in bond six-year-old Ry whiskey O Okay the six-year-old bottled and bond what do

you love about that one you will never taste anything like it I okay all right I'm game I'm uh I'm all in on that um what's your favorite whiskey and food pairing so I I did an event in Cape Gerardo Missouri which if you've not been there I had no idea how awesome that little town is um and there is a chef there named Dwayne sha and he's got a place called celebrations he put together I've done a bunch of these whiskey and food pairings where you know I come in and then the chef does some you know compare and they always do it with

cocktails Dwayne is brilliant enough to where he he paired a neat pore of whiskey with five different courses each course he had the whiskey replace some sort of element that was needed for the dish so if it was a rye whiskey it was like the peppery element in the dish and so it was really meant to drink them together and the guts that it takes to pull something off like that so um I would say my recommendation would be to go to celebrations in Cape Gerardo Missouri and eat Dwayne's food and ask him to um to suggest a hard truth whiskey pairing with one of

his that all right celebrations in Cape Gerardo Missouri all right okay this leads us to we're going to talk Indiana though uh besides hard truth down at Distillery best place to grab a drink in Indiana Mo's house in Evansville oh what's Mo's house uh so Mari Rose opened up a bar she's got one in Henderson Kentucky too but it's down off of parrot Street in like Haney Corner area in Old downtown Evansville Indiana and um it might be the best oldfashioned I've ever had heck that's saying something yeah heck yeah and what's the oldest bottle of whiskey you've ever tasted so there's a couple places

in Louisville that that are known for they call them dusties it's a good question I can't it was an old Forester it was a really really really old old Forester I I don't remember the the year but it was like from the it was like from the 40s or something oh my all right what's the most expensive whiskey you've ever tried birthday bourbon I I have had papy Van Winkle before is that a PO uh what's that like what's that what's the price tag on well so that's what's interesting about these expensive expensive whiskies is that the like the the retail price is really not

that expensive on a lot of them um but it's just secondary Market drives the price up so there's only so many of them correct yeah but I the the best expensive por I ever had probably was uh well or 12 and I'm I don't get crazy about all the Buffalo tray stuff but um Weller 12 is legit all right last kind of fun question then we have our three ones that I do every time sure where did the name hard truth come from one of my partners Jeff McCabe and Ed Ryan they were going back and forth on what the name of The Distillery brand

was going to be and um Jeff was on his way down to visit his mother in Florida and saw a billboard and it was one of those accident attorney Billboards and it was an X NFL star and he was has fists like this he was crushing a a semi-trailer and it it was like you know it's like hurt in an accident or you know kind of one of those things but it all it said was it and that's the hard truth and Jeff pulled his car over got on the phone to Ed and was like Ed get with the attorneys see if hard truth has

been trademarked it was not they came up with a product to show proof of use quickly they put it on a bottle they submitted it and we got it away from from one of those posters I wonder who the NFL player was I he uh Jeff could tell you everybody knows Jeff because if you go on our property you're going to meet at least Jeff or Jim dumbar one of the other partners um around and it's funny everywhere I go somebody's like hey I met the owner of your place and I was like guy with cool hair they're like yeah I'm like that's Jeff I

love that hard truth oh yeah H that's so fun all right well here are our our always the same lightning round question we got three of them for you all right we're going to start with what's something the world needs to know about Indiana you should explore um the beautiful deep hardwood forests of Southern Indiana they are I've been all around the country not all around the world but a lot of places in the world I love beautiful nature kind of spots that's my jam um and I always go explore places I'm like oh my God this place is incredible and then I go down

to hoer National Forest and I take a high and I'm standing in groves of you know 80 90 foot oak trees and just the feeling when you're inside these deep hardwood forests in Indiana is unlike anywhere else heck yeah yeah I love that uh what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana one of my favorite little spots to go hike is uh himl Cliffs so it's down kind of it's a it's you know if you look at who your National Forest on a map there's a few spots that are kind of broken up so it's on the way south like if you're heading down towards Cor

in Indiana and it's actually it's like Indiana's own little box only Box Canyon it's this cool little Geographic um uh place and if you go there in the late summer early fall there's just like these crazy mushrooms that grow everywhere like just ones that you normally don't find in Indiana beautiful hike definitely go check out it Hemlock Hemlock Cliffs Hemlock Cliffs I love I haven't heard that one yet either it's good final question who's a hooer that we need to keep on our radar someone who's doing doing big things uh My Buddy Alan Bishop what's Alan Bishop doing so Allan Bishop is the first distiller

at spirits of French Lick and he helped develop their program he just started um with a group of Partners Old Homestead Distillery they just started distilling um but Allen is a a really really first of all he's an awesome dude but he's he's a historian on uh he he loves to dig really dig deep into the history of distilling in the state of Indiana he has forgotten more than I'll ever know about it um you know the the little area down kind of around the the 64 Corridor is known as um the black forest of Indiana because a lot of German settlers that came from

the Black Forest settled there because it reminded them of home um and so there was a lot of Apple Brandy being made there were a lot of spirits being distilled one of the things that Allan always says I love is that uh if you have ghosts you have everything and uh and he'll tell you stories about you know all this history and and he makes Incredible Spirits he makes absin he makes great whiskey um Allan's great look him up all right I love that Allan um final I guess I just thought of this one okay final thing take us out when it comes to hard

truth and all the awards and everything that you guys have made what's the one thing you're most proud of the thing that I'm the most proud of personally is the community people that we've built call our our our family of of I don't refer to them as employees but the community of passionate artists and makers that we've um found and and kept together as family care as much about what we're building as we do and this includes our farmers and and everybody on our property um but the folks working with us because you know with with without people really believing in where you're going you've

just got employees and and in order to build something great you have to have people that that really believe on where you're going I love that I think you guys are doing a great job I I believe in you I believe and I think the best is yet to come when it comes to everything with hard truth this is a subtle plug to all the listeners make sure you make it down to The Distillery like just pack up this weekend go do it like it's it is worth the time the food's phenomenal especially if you check out um like the event kind of calendar like

the the venue the stage and like it's humongous I can't even like put it into words how big and like how many people could fit back there for a concert so go check it out real easy to find hard truth.com and then you know also ask if you if you got a favorite Watering Hole Bar restaurant ask them for some hard true sweet mash whiskies um yes people asking customers asking to bring in our product is infinitely more more impactful than me going in and trying to sell it in so if you like hard truth ask for it at your local place yes go to

your everyone go to your local place tellone put some hard treuth on the Shelf yes sir I love it thank you for listening to this episode of get in if you like what you heard make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcast this show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater whether you're trying to start your own podcast or looking to take your show to the next level make sure you check out sweetwater.com for all your creator needs if you want exclusive behind the-scenes content on all things Indiana make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok @nate

spangle thank you for being part of what makes the hooer state so amazing we'll see you next week here on get in