Andy Koenig| Koenig Distillery

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

And now, here's your host of Shaping Six Test, Wes Tankersley. All right, what's up everyone? Welcome to Shaping Sixth Test. I'm your host, Wes Tankersley. Today I have a special guest with me, my friend Andy Koenig from Koenig Distillery. I've known Andy for a couple years now, just a few, but we are uh having a little bit of his Seven Devils Caldwell Night, so cheers to that. Sorry, I didn't even tell you we were gonna be doing that. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's good to have you. That stuff is good stuff. Well, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. Um, you know, it's funny I've I've told you this story before, but um my dad a couple years ago, who you you've known for quite a while now, um it's probably I say a couple years ago, it's been probably about 14 years ago. Um, when you first started making bourbon, I used to go over to his house and he'd walk in, and every once in a while you'd give him some potato vodka or some whatever you had at the time, and he'd roll in and my mom would go and hide the Huckleberry vodka, and he pulled out one time the bottle of Seven Devils. Well, a couple weeks earlier we had had bourbon, I had had bourbon for the first time. I got a bottle of Wild Turkey 101, and he goes, That's the worst thing ever. You don't want to drink this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bourbon's not great. I hate it. And then next thing you know, that's pretty much all we drink as a family. So it didn't really, it didn't really stop him. Well, that's good, right? Yeah. And it's good stuff, but you've been doing distilling for a long time, right? It started out as as brandy and some other things, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, so when we first started the distillery, uh, yeah, we started making European style brandies, um, which is kind of an interesting story because my dad was originally from Austria, right? And in Austria, you can have a little bit of uh uh production that you do on your on your own for your own use. If you have like a few fruit trees or something in your backyard, you would have somebody who would come to your house and distill your fermented mash for you, and then you could keep the you know, the few bottles that you made for yourself. And when we were kids, we lived in Austria and we were able to kind of live that culture and see it and see how it was produced. And that's kind of I was in fifth, sixth, or seventh grade at the time in middle school over there. And uh that's kind of where it caught on, and I said, God, this would be a fun career, which I thought of later in college. But that's how it all began is with uh European style fruit brandies. But then, you know, the business evolved as we grew, and you know, we got into vodka production and then uh whiskey production and then sh uh just recently the tequila that yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Which the tequila's really good too. It's it's funny, I don't think that you have anything that I would say isn't good. Now, I haven't, like I told you last time, like I haven't got into the brandies, and I feel like I need to. So I I think the next time I go to the store, I'm gonna have to buy a bottle of brandy because I've had it before, but usually when I see it, it's not the clear one, right? It's like uh it's aged in a barrel. Right. And um and I'm not a big fruit fan, but it doesn't, it's not super fruity, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Uh so that's the interesting thing about those types of brandies. They're not sweet, which I uh you know is makes it kind of more of a niche market thing. They're more of a like an after dinner drink that Europeans enjoy, you know, after dinner or just as you know, a very small poor like this after dinner or with friends or something like that. So but they aren't sweet and um you know they're very dry because they're purely distilled fruit, there's no sugar or anything added to them. Right. So they're definitely a niche thing, but they're for those that know it and understand it, it's you know, they're kind of special because it takes like 30 or 40 pounds of fruit to make one little bottle of it.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So it's kind of fun. So what they don't know is that you have your own little farm that you pull all the fruit off of, right? And that's where you make that's what you make the brandy with.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah, correct. So when we first started the distillery, we most of the fruit that we uh acquired for the brandy production was all from our own orchards. We actually bought a lot of fruit too from neighboring uh ranches around us, you know, up on the sunny slope and whatever. But uh yeah, all the plums, pears, uh peaches, all that kind of stuff, um we grew ourselves and we still do today. Um but obviously the business has grown into different things and taking its taking new shape.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

So well and it's uh the one thing that we talked about the other day, I don't know, it's been about a month or so. We were on Wondering Wednesday when you when you released the tequila was the fact that you like to keep everything pretty local. So the majority of what you're getting in is local, right? With your with your brandy or even though it's not all on your farm, like you said, you get it from other farmers and things like that from around the area.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, everything comes from you know within 50 miles of the distillery there. So which local's good and we try to, you know, support local growers and we have nice fruit in Idaho, so we try to promote that and use it as best we can. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Yeah, so it's it's interesting to me just to kind of see like the projection of where it went though, because you got so brandy was something that kind of came after the wine, right? Your brother is a is had a winery.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Uh yeah, so the the winery and the distillery kind of started in the same time.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

But uh yeah, he started on the wine side and I started on the brandy side, and then you know, we kept expanding. Eventually the winery moved to a different location. Uh the distillery's always been in the at the same location that you see. Um and then, you know, the winery kept growing, the distillery kept growing, and here we are today.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Well, what did you do before this? Were you just uh I say just a farmer, not just a farmer, but was it before you had the the grapes and things like that, what was your what was your job then?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Was it um I actually didn't have a job. I was uh this was uh right after college we started distillery. So uh shortly after I graduated from college, I studied agribusiness at the U of I. Um we started planting all the orchards and the vineyards there on the farm that we have. So uh yeah, this this was my first and only career, I guess. I mean in high school I had summer jobs and that kind of stuff, and in college, but uh but yeah, it was I the it was my first and only career so far.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah. So you mentioned that you were in Austria for a time. So did you you were born here, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Yeah, we were I was born in Idaho, my brother too. Um and we grew up in Ketchum actually. Okay. And uh but my dad was from Austria. My mother grew up on a farm uh between Meridian and Cuna, actually. And my mother and dad met up in Ketchum and uh started the family. And but when we were in middle school, my dad wanted to take us back to Austria to say, hey, you know, I want my kids to see where their dad grew up. So we lived over there and went to school for three years, uh middle school, and uh it was definitely uh a very challenging thing for us because we didn't speak the language at the time. Yeah, you know, so we were forced into school and we went to regular school and it was uh it was uh we pretty much got thrown in the fire there.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

But it was how did they do that? I mean, that's interesting because like you think about here, like we have a lot of um Spanish speaking people, right? And I can remember when I was in high school or in elementary school, they're coming and they have to go to like an aid all the time to have them help learn the language so that they can do what we're doing in in English. Was it kind of the same thing over there, or what did they do?

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Uh no, there was nothing because it was a small little town, you know, on the right on the Swiss border, and there wasn't really a tourist area, so there was no not much English spoken at all. Uh-huh. So we had to learn the language, or else. So it it was uh the first year was very, very hard. The second and third years got easier because kids picked the languages up pretty quickly, actually, and we were yeah fortunate to do that. But it was it was definitely very hard and and challenging, and there's a lot of a lot of stories I could tell about that.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

But it was did they did they pick on you, this American guy? I mean, was or were they nice to you? Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Some some kids were pretty nice to us, and and at the time this was in the early eighties, you know, America was kind of a cool mystique, you know, so people in a way thought we were pretty interesting and cool kids. And my dad was half Austrian, so we weren't really considered foreigners either, but we weren't really considered locals, so we we kind of fell between the cracks, and but uh for for the most part, you know, everybody was very nice to us and you know, accepting, but it was uh it was the the language barrier was the hardest thing. You know, learning learning math or algebra in a foreign language when you don't speak the foreign language is kind of a problem.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Yeah, it's hard enough as it is. Yeah, exactly. So um how did your mom deal with it? Because she you you mentioned she's from she was from here, right? So she had never been there before, or did she go with your dad before and kind of had an idea of it?

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Uh she had she had been there several times actually, but you know, just for visits. But when we moved over there, she actually picked up the language also, but it took her longer because she wasn't in school over there. Right. She was mostly at home, and so it took her or it was and it was more challenging because she was obviously older.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Little kids absorb stuff like sponges, and we were uh you know, it came easier to us, but she actually picked it up and yeah, it's gotta be harder because you you would think that like like you said, you're at school, so you're around a bunch of people speaking it, so you either gotta figure it out or yeah, or you don't you're you're not in the conversation or you're not doing anything.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, she probably had to figure it out at the grocery store. Exactly. Yeah, she did grocery store and just errands and through friends and whatever, and so it was definitely harder for her, but uh it w it was a good experience for everybody, and I think we all look b back at it in a positive way. Yeah. And it it's how I kind of started my career.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

So Well, you went so I got a couple questions about it because I was thinking about like so did they actually come? You had mentioned that they would come and ferment your fruit for you or whatever and give you a portion of that. Did that actually happen while you were there, or is that just something that you knew kind of happened?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

No, my dad uh had a the house that he actually grew up in, and it's she's it's been in the family for centuries. Uh-huh. And in the backyard they had a few pear and apple and plum trees, and they had some fermenters in the in the cellar or the barn, I guess you'd call it. Okay. And uh so one fall my dad said, Hey, let's make some brandy and we'll do this like we used to, you know, in the old days, like in the 50s and 40s and whatever. So anyway, we picked the pears off the trees and the plums and we fermented them. And then somebody comes that has a mobile still that's like horse-drawn behind like a cart, and he pulls into your backyard and then uh distills your your uh brandy in your backyard.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

How quick is that process?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

I mean, was it like a couple days worth of work or yeah? It was a couple days fermenting it. You know, you pick the fruit and you crush it and add the yeast and that kind of thing, which and then you wait, you know, six to ten weeks and then you distill the uh brandy. But the distillation was like a day project.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

So basically you just take your mash in and then they they like steam it, right? And that's how the liquid that comes.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Very similar to the stills we have, you know, they heat the mash up, they separate the alcohols, then redistill it another time to refine it. So but it was, yeah, I mean it was in a way kind of primitive, but it was it was very interesting. And they still do it today, actually. You you still see those guys doing that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

That's pretty cool because you just you know, like you do anything like that around here, you'll probably be put in jail, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yeah, the liquor laws are much, much different over there where you know it's more more acceptable to do those things, and and it was only for home use. You couldn't, you know, start a commercial operation out of your backyard, but you know, you could make so many liters of alcohol for yourself from your own product. So um anyway, but it was it was fun, it was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

So, but you ended up going back right after like in when you started this process, we talked a little bit on One Drink Wednesday about how like the stills and stuff you actually went over there and watched them make them or pick them out that you have now at the at the distillery.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah, so those stills are actually made by a German company, um, also a family-run business that's been in business since 1811, and it's all hand-hammered copper that you know is kind of also a a dying art in a way. It's uh a copper smith degree is what you have to have in order to make those stills. And they hand hammer all those nice forms out of uh uh you know sheets of copper into stills that they're still making today. So it's it's it's really interesting. That's a uh fascinating facility to go watch because it's it takes you back in time. It's n nothing's nothing's done with machines, it's all still handmade, and uh it takes them forever to do anything. Yeah, it takes two years at least to make it.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

I was gonna say, didn't you have to like put your order in and then you had to wait a while?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Oh yeah, yeah. It took two years at least for the first round and another year and a half for the second round. So but uh but you know, they they pride themselves on you know good craftsmanship and not having any maintenance issues ever, which is really true. So um it's and there there's still stills that these guys have built that were built in the forties and fifties that are still in operation today.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

So you kind of wonder how fast it would take for like copper probably doesn't break down very fast, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

No, eventually the copper wears thin, you know, just from the abrasiveness of the fruit or the mash or whatever, but but the components um you know they'll last a lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

So So do they when did you actually get to see them make them or did or did you get to see that process?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah, I spent about a week there um when we were ordering our stills, um, and I got to see the process and did they take like just like a sheet of copper and then they start forming it over something round or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

I mean, how do they how do they do that?

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Um it's pretty crazy. They take a sheet of copper and then they start hammering it with these little ball pean hammers, and they've been doing it for so long. And I mean some of the guys there are sixty, seventy years old, and they're just sitting there patiently pounding on one piece of copper to make a nice round shape from nothing, really. Right. And uh it it's it's unbelievable. I mean, that was a very fascinating thing to just watch because in this country you'd never see that. I mean now they would be pressed really quickly and thrown together and on the truck, and and uh you know they'd also cost probably a a third of that, but but uh they still yeah, they still do it the old school way, which is pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yeah, and it's always the the thing that's really cool about useless, if you haven't if people haven't ever seen one, but they're like they have the little hammer marks in it. You can see it. It's really kind of like a pretty thing because it just looks like almost like scales, kinda.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Yeah, yeah, you can see every little ball peen mark, and um amazingly though they're very uniform and they're very, you know, you would think they would be ununiform or not square or straight, but they're all pretty dialed. But you know, the Germans do beautiful work and most European countries, you know, those those trades are very interesting to watch. So yeah, a lot of patience, I'm sure, because I don't know that I'd be able to sit there and I mean some of those components take them a month or two months just to make you know a a uh a head for one of those stills. So it's it's uh a little more time consuming than I would probably have patience for.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

And how old are the ones that you've had? You've had them for 20 20 years or so?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

So we've been open since 1999. So they're the first set of stills is 27 years old, and the other one or the vodkas produced is uh over 20 years also, 22 years old.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

So and you make a couple different vodkas. My wife likes the huckleberry. Is that still that's still potato, but it you add the flavoring to it, or how does that one work?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

So uh we first started with the potato vodka, right? Right. So that's potatoes that are distilled right to 96.5% alcohol to get it nice and neutral, and then it's blended with water and filtered and bottled. The huckleberry vodka, we take the 96% uh uh potato alcohol and we soak huckleberries in them for like six to ten weeks. So you get this nice purple kind of maceration of fruit and alcohol. Then we redistill that, and then that ends up back put back into the potato spirits as flavoring, which is what makes the huckleberry vodka still clear, but it still has the flavor of the floor. I was gonna say it's not purple. Yes, and that comes through another another round of distillations. Anything that's distilled becomes clear.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Right. So and that so the potatoes, same kind of thing, just locally, whoever's got potatoes, you go and get them from them and right. Potatoes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

I mean they're grown all over the northwest. And uh um yeah, potatoes are available and they're there it's it's kind of nice because you know, potatoes are pretty much always available. Same with the grains and corn and stuff like that. Whereas, you know, the fruit production when the cherries are ready or the apricots or whatever, you kind of have to work them like right there and then and project what you're gonna use for the next two or three or four years. On the potato vodka side, with no aging being involved and the commodity being pretty available, it's a lot easier to predict and you know gauge production, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

As far as like your production goes, so we'll talk about bourbon in a second, because that's you know, obviously, my favorite subject. Uh between all the other ones, though, that you have, um, do you move the most of the potato vodka or what's what's your number one with the stuff that you actually distill?

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Uh so the Huckleberry vodka is probably our biggest skew. Being in Idaho, you know, huckleberries are a big thing. Yeah. And, you know, potatoes are a big thing, and so it kind of makes sense that that's a big skew. And it's a very versatile uh vodka. It goes in many people can drink it straight. People make huckleberry lemonades in hot summer days like today. Um, you know, they can put it in tea, they can do all kinds of things, so it's a very versatile vodka, and I think that's probably why it's popular. Popular, yeah. The ladies like the huckleberry lemon. And it's good, so that helps.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

I've I've had it. I'm not calling I'm not a big fan of it, but you know, I have a little bit different taste. But um, my wife loves it. She's always we've always got a bottle of it in the in the other room because this is my room and we put what I want in here. But the man cave. The man cave, yeah. So, you know, you s we got through the brandy, you started, you were doing the vodkas, things like that, and then uh what has it been what did we say? 10 10 plus years with the bourbon? When would you start doing the bourbon?

SPEAKER_00 18:17

We started first aging bourbon in 2010, so it was 16 years ago, roughly. So yeah, that was in 2010 we started putting our first barrels away.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

And that was the original just seven devils straight straight bourbon, or that's is it not called straight bourbon, is it?

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Yeah, yep, straight bourbon. So that that was what we that was our first product that we came out with in 2014. It was four years old at the time when we first released it. Yeah. And then, you know, as as the business grew, we started aging rye, and then the the Seven Devils Rye came out. Yeah. And then we made um a honey version, I want to say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Which is you said that's a big mover too, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

That's a a really big mover, especially uh in our tasting room when people get a chance to try it. Um people adhere pretty quickly to that one because all that's in it is it's half rye, half bourbon, and then honey from bees that pollinate our orchards, actually. We have bee boxes on our property. Uh-huh. So all that honey goes into well, and you sell the honey too, right? So I've gotten some of the honey before. We have a beekeeper. I don't do the beekeeper. You don't you're scared of the bees, are you? That's not my forte. That's that's above my pay grade, but uh but we do have bees on the property that pollinate the trees, and then we we uh try to keep everything on property, and so all the all the honey that goes into that is is those are honey, those are honey bees, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Like I remember that don't they use what are the cutter bees? Isn't that a big thing around here too that they use to pollinate like alfalfa and stuff?

SPEAKER_00 19:47

So those are leaf cutter bees. Those are the ones like for the alfalfa seed and and other seed crops. These are actual honey bees. Honey bees, yeah. So you got your own little boxes out there that they uh yeah, well, they're not mine, they're the beekeepers. He he takes care of it all, but so he works for you, he's your beekeeper. But they're on our property, just just to the west of the distillery there, so that they can be ready. And what's neat about that area too, there's a lot of of other flowers from weeds and a lot of Russian olive trees, so that kind of influences the honey and and the way the honey tastes. Oh, I never even thought about that.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah, like you just think that honey's honey.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

No, honey is very different, actually, um, from depending on where what what they were pollinating with or what they were making the honey out of. Um, one of my favorite honeys actually is um it's like an orange blossom honey, but it, you know, you can't get that. The only place you can get that is where they grow citrus, which is in Florida or in California or someplace like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

So I never even thought about that. I I did think about it, and as I said it, I was like, you know, my my cousin once told me she's like, if you are allergic to stuff, a lot of people will use the local honey from where they're at in their area, like if you have seasonal allergies, and it actually is supposed to help you get used to whatever those are because they are pollinating everything around them.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah, that's what they say. I you know, I I eat a little bit of honey every day and I don't have any allergies, I guess. So maybe I'm living through I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

I got the worst ones ever, so I end up having to go get the allergy shots every three weeks, so it's terrible. Um, but uh you always try to find whatever you can to stop them, you know. Right. So maybe you should start drinking honey whiskey. I know I gotta start doing that. It's funny, I I don't I think I told you this before, but that this stuff is great for like when you have a cold, right? You know, if you're you make a hot toddy with with the honey whiskey and it's it's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah, no, and that in the in the winter time, if you put that in a little tea or something, it's it's pretty cool. So yeah. But it's also good straight, and the latest I hear is people are putting it on like vanilla ice cream and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

And uh they just I've had the Seven Devils ice cream quite a few times at the still. Oh wow, you know, the the right the infused one. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's pretty good. You're kind of a local legend. I mean, you got this. All these things all around you that is all local stuff. Ice cream, bees, honey, all kinds of stuff. So you can put you can put that in about anything. Yes. Um so the bourbon process is a little different though, right? Because you what you do is you purchase the barrels from a distillery in Kentucky, and then they come over here and you age them, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Uh yeah. So the distillate is made in in Kentucky. We work with several distilleries there. Um and the alcohol comes to us um like at 60% alcohol. We fill the barrels mostly at the distillery and then we age them for four to six to ten or however old. Oh, you fill the barrels. Yeah, most of the time. Sometimes we've brought in barrels that are full also, but we've filled some and it depends on you know which distillery we're working with, and cooperage availability and and you know, all kinds of you know, how does it come over when you do you just like buy a truck like a is it like a milk tank truck full of full of alcohol or how does that work? Uh yeah, usually in in a tanker or in like uh uh uh totes, they're like stainless totes that they put them in. Okay. If they come in barrels full, then they also just come in in semi-truck.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yeah, I didn't realize that you were actually filling them. I thought that they I thought that they came full and then you just put them in the room.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Sometimes we fill, sometimes we we buy the barrels just depending on you know the circumstances, the freight, the you know, there's a bunch of factors in it. Yeah. But uh but we always keep the mash bill consistent, you know, on on all the products so that we have good consistency throughout.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

So every different product that you have will have the same, and that's what you just said, but I'm just reiterating. So like the the regular Seven Devils straight will have the same mash bill pretty much every single time it comes in, and then you just throw it in a new oak chart barrel, right? And then it ages and for however long you do it.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yep, yep. So we have several a couple different mash bills, you know. One in one is for the seven devils bourbon, then we have the rye, which is a different mash bill, and then we have the Caldwell Knight Rodeo uh mash bill, which is also different, and then some of the whiskey clubs are different, some of the single barrels are different, so we have we have quite a few different uh's gotta be tough with the whiskey club though, because uh do you just like I'm gonna order because how many barrels are per whiskey club right now?

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Uh so we have about 500 members.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

We're actually about to cap the whiskey club. Oh, you're gonna stop it. Um well, we're about at capacity where we can still keep it nice and small for keep a good quality experience for everybody. But uh we usually go through about four barrels for a whiskey club. Everybody gets two bottles, so that's about what we do. But uh yeah, all of a sudden we're getting to a point where it it uh our facility isn't big enough to handle all the whiskey clubs, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

And that's a tough thing because I mean if you guys can kind of see up here, we've got a bunch of the whiskey club bottles up there. I think there's what one, two, three, four. There's about ten up there right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

How many releases have you had? Uh so we've been doing the whiskey club. Ooh, now you put me on the spot at 2023, yeah. Okay, probably January 2023, so it's been three years now. Yeah. Um and there's four a year, so it's about twelve bottles. Yeah, so every quarter a uh a new release.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

So yeah. Has that been fun for you to get to do? I know we talked a little bit about it because I always have like these ideas, hey, you should do this, you should do that. But like a lot of people probably tell you, hey, we need to do this kind or we need to do that kind of has it still been fun, even with the feedback, because I'm sure that can get annoying after a while.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Um, it is fun actually, and and you know, people come whiskey club members and they're very passionate about it, and they always run ideas past me and say, hey, what about this or what about that? And some of some of the ideas we've actually used, and uh they've turned out great. So yeah, it's a fun project to do on the side because it's always something different, it's something unique, and it's limited release, so it's not a you know, it's not a huge quantity that you have to do. And you know, people are appreciative of having something unique that they can share with their friends and say, hey, look, this is local, and it's something that you just can't buy on the liquor store shelf.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Right. Yeah, and I'm kind of I we were talking about a little bit before, but I'm kind of uh annoying with it because I'm like, oh, I get two bottles, that means I can save one and I can drink one, and then like I end up saving it for a little bit longer, and I'm um like it it can go bad. So I'm gonna start drinking it.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

It won't go bad, but uh yeah, you might have the biggest collection I've seen. Oh, really? Well, it might be worth something someday if I'm dead.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yeah, there you go. I don't know. I mean it's just it's cool because they're the the the I think the problem with me is like I have that bottle and I'll never have that bottle again once the second bottle's gone, right? Right, yep. Yep. So you did say that you're gonna do a repeat on one, but it's not gonna be the same one, right? That's the thing that's cool about bourbon, is like every bottle tastes just a little different sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah, they do. It depends on which which barrel we use, which cooperage, how long they age, you know. Uh this one that we are repeating is uh fruitwood finished bourbon, which is basically we cut some orchard out of our or uh, you know, some older trees and we charred the wood and then added those charred pieces of fruit wood back into an already aged uh like six-year bourbon.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

So do you basically so you have the barrel and you just put a couple of these pieces of wood inside the barrel with it?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

With it, yes, correct, for another year or I think this one's been in there almost a year again.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

So it's so you're planning. I mean, I was there when I was there the last time and you could see those, I was asking you what those what are those barrels?

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Because you can see the special ones, but they're all the whiskey club ones, it sounds like. Yeah, we you know you have to plan way in advance because you know, if you're finishing uh bourbon on a special barrel, you know, you might need a year, a year and a half, depending on how it progresses. So you really have to think ahead. We're already thinking, you know, into 2029 what kind of whiskey club we're doing. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

So yeah So I gotta get my request in for like 10 years from now.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Now would be the time to make requests, but we're always looking for good ideas.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

But uh I mean I think you've kind of nailed the ones that I like I like. I was telling you, I'm kind of I'm kind of big on the barrel proof. And I uh the one time that I went when I first met you, my told my dad, I'm like, I want to go do this. I want to go see that he's like, I'll call Andy and see if we can get in there. And we went in there and you pulled it right out of the barrel for me. So I got to drink it out of there, and I was like, Man, you should bottle this. Yeah, and then a few years later, there it was.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

So the barrel proof you think it was your idea. Yeah, there you go. I got my idea.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

You were probably already thinking about it way before, but yeah. I mean, that's it's interesting how many different ways that it can be, and it could all be from the same mash bill, but you could do whatever you want with it to kind of and then you start making drinks with it too, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yeah, so you know, there's tons of possibilities. I mean, everybody thinks that bourbon's all the same, but if you if you really taste across these, they're so much different because and I I notice that when I'm blending even regular bourbon, you know, just the straight bourbon that is in all the liquor stores. When we pull barrels after four years, even though they might be from the same lot, same cooperage, each barrel's a little bit different. And there's a lot of factors to that. You know, it's how the barrel was actually charred, you know, who was doing the charring, how much it was charred, where it was maybe in the barrel house, right, how long it was, and and sometimes even the age of the oak tree prior to harvesting the oak tree makes a big difference. You know, some of the some of the oak trees taste spicier than others or more astringent than others.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Um, some of them are more mild, some of them make make w a smoother whiskey for some reason. So it's always interesting after four to six years, even though they might be part of the same lot, they're actually still quite a bit different if you taste them side by side.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

How do you differ how do you like so for someone who's drinking bourbon for the first time, one of the things that's funny is like I know I like it, but I can't really pull, you know, hey, it's got this flavor. I always read your tasting notes because I know that you've gone through there and figured out what it is. But what do you what would you tell someone if they were trying to figure out, hey, what's this flavor?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Um, so I always try to tell people I I always say so bourbon is gotta be by law 51% corn, right? So corn is typically pretty sweet when distilled, like before you put the whiskey in the barrel, it's it's actually has a a hint of sweetness to it. Uh-huh. So I always say the the sweetness comes from the corn, right?

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

And you know, the the oak and the char and the depth of character all comes from the barrel. And then the smoothness is often just a a result of time, you know, time in the barrel. Yeah. And just working through the seasons cold, hot, cold, hot. And that's kind of kind of how I try to describe it to people. And like, look for the corn as what the original distillate was, and then you can kind of taste, you know, the the chard of the barrel or the char in the barrel. And then the smoothness and the and the blending and the filtration, that's that's that's where all that kind of comes from.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

So it's funny because I'm thinking about because like my dad, you know, he has kind of the grape background and he's talking about wine a lot. Right. And wine's kind of the same way, right? Like it could be it could be aged and oak, it could not be, it could be sure. There's all kinds of different things. And I know that you your brother is a wine guy, right? Does he drink, does he drink your bourbon or does he only drink wine? Yeah, he drinks he drinks a little bourbon. Yeah. You have to if you were gonna be in my clan, right? What's what's the go-to like family drink? Is that is that kind of how it goes? Or is it like you bring the bourbon, he brings the wine?

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yeah, we pretty much you know, swap stuff and yeah, whatever, depending on what we're having or what time of year it is or whose birthday it is or whatever. Yeah, but we we try all kinds of things and it you know make it.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

I I kind of wonder like on the bottling day how you um make it through. Are you telling are you taste tasting or testing the product?

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Interestingly enough, um no, actually no, because everybody says, Oh, you have a great job, you sit around and sample whiskey all day. I said, No, um I I joke with everybody at work. I said, you know, I'm just the maintenance guy here. I make sure everything runs and is flowing and everybody's happy and you know, but uh the hardest part of bourbon production for me is when we pull barrels out of the barrel house, picking, you know, we we'll usually bottle 30, 40 ball uh barrels at a time, picking four 40 or 30 barrels that are consistent and similar to the last bottling or the previous. So I always am lining up previous bottlings and say, okay, well, this matches better. Let's use those barrels instead of these. So that's actually what takes the most time is is tasting through those barrels and making sure that we remain consistent with our final product.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Yeah, so so the the and I'm gonna talk about the process because I think I kind of know, but the the regular seven devils is basically you pick how many barrels and you put it all in one vat, right? Then cut it, then bottle it.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Right. First we taste through them, right, to see which ones are gonna go into the into the um final thing. But we'll take 30 or 40 barrels, put them into a vat. Uh they come out of the barrel at like 58 to 60 percent alcohol, roughly. Uh-huh. And then we have to blend it with uh water down to you know 90 proof, so 45% alcohol. So there's a little bit of water that has to be added to it. Then it gets uh filtered lightly, and then it's ready for bottling.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

So do you do so like the the barrel proof that is one barrel or is that a couple barrels just not cut?

SPEAKER_00 33:23

So that's about six barrels that I have kind of hoarded over the last eight years. Um and those come, we probably put you know six or eight of them together at a time, or ten maybe, and then we bottle those. But it's very small, limited runs of that because it's at least eight years old. Some of the some of the barrel proof now is almost ten years old that we're using.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

So are you gonna do a special 10 year or is it just you just kind of keep it the same?

SPEAKER_00 33:49

I still I have some barrels actually from 2015 that are in the cellar that I'm kind of contemplating what to do with. Let me know when you crack those up, I'll tell you if it's good or not. Maybe maybe we do a 12-year, um, you know, we've got a a 30-year uh business anniversary coming up in 2029. So maybe something like that. We'll have to see.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Yeah, that's I it's always it's just neat to just kind of think like how how much more does that change it being age that much more long, you know, or longer. And it would be interesting to see, you know, does the 12 year take like I'd like to have my call by this one's this week.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

You can come try you can come try when we open them, but uh they are quite a bit different actually. They the the bourbon gets a lot smoother and it gets more mild as time goes on.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yeah, and there's less in there, right? Because it it it kind of what do they call it, the angel shared, the kind that the part that just disappears after a while because it evaporates.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Yeah, so after four years out of a 53 gallon barrel, we might only have 42 to 43 gallons left. Oh wow. So we've lost almost 20%, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

But after 10 years, I mean we have barrels that maybe only have 25 gallons in them. Yeah um from uh uh an original 53. That's interesting. So but what's left is is pretty exceptional because all the flavors are concentrated and it's uh you know super dark and very complex. You gotta find a way to squeeze those staves a little bit, right? Maybe so, yeah. Put them outside in the winter or something.

SPEAKER_01 35:17

Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. So what so now we're here because we're gonna talk about Caldwell Night Rodeo, but you have the Caldwell Night Rodeo, you're the sponsor for that, right? It's and you we have this special bottle here that I I have up here that is well, I mean it it used to be a little more special because it only came out during Caldwell Night, right?

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Uh yeah, so that one uh so we became sponsors of the rodeo uh six years ago. Okay. And at that time it it was the 97th anniversary of the Caldwell Night Rodeo. So when we started the sponsorship, we had a 97 proof to match the year of the rodeo. And then we every year we built it up from 97, 98, 99, and then finally on their 100th um annivers, 100th anniversary of the rodeo, we uh came up with this product, which is from from that point on, which is uh what two years ago? Uh-huh. Uh that's what the Caldwell Knight Rodeo is now. It's it's a hundred. It's gonna be a hundred proof. So yeah, we kind of capped it at a hundred proof because it gets pretty strong after a hundred. Yeah. Some people really like it stronger than a hundred, but it it gets pretty, it's kind of become something for whiskey drinkers only, and we wanted to make sure that everybody could still enjoy it at uh you know the hundred proof, which is which is a nice proof for that whiskey.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

It's funny that it stops uh I was thinking about that, like Wild Turkey's got 101, right? And then you've done a 101 rye. What's what's with 101?

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Is it just because it's like one number over a hundred, or is there some yeah, probably, you know, it's marketing and and whatever, but it's you know, it's fifty and a half percent alcohol. And it's strange when you start getting into the higher alcohol like that, a half a percent is a lot. Oh, really? So and and you can definitely taste the difference. So much over a hundred um becomes really a whiskey connoisseurs whiskey. Yeah. So you gotta like it. And you have to almost add a little water or a little ice to it, you know, to dilute it just a hair. Yeah. But some people like the barrel-proof neat, right? You do. I do, yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

I I definitely do like it's funny. Every bottle that I ever open, I start out neat, you know, and then I I have the big ice cubes and I'll put those in there, you know, for the second glass if I have one. But it's yeah, I want to know, I want to taste. I know that I can't really pull everything out, but you can tell. Like I was telling you about this. I I kept the label last night because I finished this one off, the PX, the PX Sherry Cask. I don't like sherry cask typically. Like I've had it, like I can't think basil Hayden's had one, and there a bunch of pe different places have them. Like, and sometimes scotch come in a sherry cask too. Right. And I'm not a big fan of it, but that one was probably one of my favorites out of the whiskey club that you did, and I don't know why. I mean, it's just the the barrel aged it a certain way, it had the right flavoring in it.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

It was really good. Yeah, that one was good. It it um those were really old barrels that we had. Some of those barrels are 60, 70, 80, 100 years old that we we procured a bunch in in Paris from a barrel broker. But some of those were really old barrels, so they had a lot of a lot of flavor left in them. And uh we didn't leave them the bourbon in there very long because I didn't want it to be over overcooked, you would call it, even though it's not you're not cooking it here, but overaged, where the sherry would kind of overpower overwhelm the bourbon. So it was kind of a thing where that wasn't in there very long, um, just to make sure that it didn't overpower it. But it's got a nice subtle, uh almost a little sweetness to it and a hint of smoke that's pretty cool. So yeah, people a lot of people really love that one.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Yeah, it's weird because like I said, and that must be what the other sherry cask ones I've had has just been in there too long because it just didn't taste it taste you could taste the sherry, you didn't you lose the bourbon flavor.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Right. And at the end of the day, it's still a whiskey club, so I want to make sure it tastes like whiskey, but you want to also have the subtleties of what the barrel was about that we finished them in. So it's kind of a balancing act, and that one we pulled fairly early so it wouldn't be too too much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Well, it's it's good stuff. I I like I said, I enjoy the whiskey club because it's just it gives you an opportunity to take something that you already like and have a little bit different flavor with it.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

No, it's been fun, it's been great, and the whiskey club people have been phenomenal and stayed loyal to it and makes it uh all worthwhile. So it's good.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

So the tasting room, you know, it's kind of a newer thing, right? What is it now? Did you say three years old? Uh uh see, 2021 we opened, so five years. Five years, okay. And now you're gonna get uh you're you're adding a bar to it, or is it can I say that? Should I not say that?

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, no, we we so this so for since we opened the distillery, we uh legislatively, you know, you're not allowed to pour your own drinks at your own distillery. You're only allowed little quarter ounce pours. So we actually went to the state legislature this winter and we tried to get a bill passed that would allow distilleries to pour their own products at their distilleries in cocktails. So the legislation passed overwhelmingly through the House, Senate, and the Governor's Office. So July 1 that became law where we're actually allowed to serve our own cocktails now with our own products. With uh more than just a little amount. Yeah, so you can have a full, a full pour. So instead of a quarter ounce pour, you can have you know, cocktails are typically an ounce and a half or two ounces. So um, yeah, everybody can come and and enjoy some specialty cocktails that feature our products.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

It was funny when I told my dad about that, he was like, Oh, he's asking for trouble. I'm like, no, he's not, it'll be fine.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yeah, and that's the thing. We don't or you know, it's even though it's considered a bar license, we're really not a bar, we're still a tasting room that you know try to promote our our own products, and you know, we close at six o'clock in the summertime. So it's not like uh we're gonna be there at two in two in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

So right, yeah, people aren't gonna come out there. It's just nice because now you can have a cocktail instead of just having what four four what are they what'd you say they're worth it?

SPEAKER_00 41:21

It's three one quarter ounce pours is what we could do. So but uh yeah, now no now people can come and say, Oh, I would rather just have uh a huckleberry lemonade and then they can sit out on the deck and listen to music and and have a nice cocktail and and uh enjoy our spirits. Or they can still have if they just want to do a little tasting, we can do little tasting flights. It just opened a lot a lot more doors for us and gave customers you know something that we couldn't offer to them. Um so everybody's been happy about it because it was kind of confusing. People would come to the wineries in the area and they could drink unlimited amounts of wine, you know, tastes, yeah, or buy the glass, but they would come to the distillery then and say, Well, how come we can't have cocktails?

SPEAKER_01 42:04

So I was the worst for me because my wife likes wine and they like to go wine tasting, and so they'll go wine tasting, and I don't like wine, so it's like what am I gonna have?

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

I think Sawtooth was the only one that had some beer that they gave me a beer one time.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, beer and wine and spirits are just two different categories. So it it's kind of nice because yeah, you see it a lot. A lot of couples will, you know, take four or five couples will go out wine tasting. Somehow all the men end up back at the distillery, and then the the uh you know the women get to go on a nice little wine tasting without their husbands, and everybody's happy, and at the end of the day, I guess they meet back up, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Yeah, and it's a it's a good environment too. Um, you know, we've been out there a couple times for the silo, silo Saturdays. You're probably missing one right now because you're here with me, but um those are a fun thing too, right? I mean, you go out there, you got a nice courtyard where you're you know, we take the kids out there and you got some games out there every once in a while, a food vendor and and the tasting room is open. So that's kind of a fun environment as well.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Yeah, that's great. That's yeah, every Saturday in the summer through Labor Day, we do that. Uh it's always a local musician comes, live music, there's always a food truck there, and then now we can have our own featured cocktails as of last week. So uh yeah, no, it's been fun and it's it's been very well attended and uh people love it.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

So I was kind of wondering because I don't know that I've ever you're probably there, but I don't every time I go out there on a Saturday, I don't ever see you there. That's probably your day away, I'm guessing. I'm pretty good at hiding. Yeah, I know. I know where you're next time. I'm just gonna go search. Yeah. Well, uh the the last thing we'll talk about is the tequila because that just came out and we we did talk about it on Wondering Wednesday, but tell us a little bit about that and what got you into the tequila because now we have we got brandy, we got vodka, we got tequila, we got bourbon. It's a one Stop shop, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Yeah, the the distillery just continues to evolve and grow. And um a few years ago I I kept I'm always watching Spirit Trends, and tequila is a huge popular item. And in Idaho there's only one other little tequila brand, and nobody none of the local distilleries have uh you know launched besides the the one uh a tequila brand. And I said, you know, this would be something interesting. The cool thing about tequila is it's um it's all made or aged. The stuff that is aged is aged in in X bourbon barrels. So it's kind of a neat tie to our distillery. Um so we partnered with a distillery in Mexico and um they're doing our production for us because we can't we're not allowed to do any production of tequila if you want to call it tequila. It's gotta be made in Mexico, you know, in the tequila region of Mexico. Similarly to like champagne or cognac, they have to be made in specific regions to be called something.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

So we partnered with a uh distillery in Mexico and um took us this has been going on for almost two and a half years just to get the you know the trademark done, the branding, everything. But uh in May we released the tequila. So yeah, we have a nice brand. We have a blanco, we have a reposado, and we have a añejo.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Yeah, that's that's my favorite one. Yeah, I don't know what it is with the aging. I just I guess I just like the ones that are aged a little longer.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

Yeah, so the añejo that's aged uh at least a niejo has to be aged one to three years. Uh this one's aged almost three years, so it's got a nice, you know, vanilla toasty taste to it. Um and then our reposado, those have to be aged between two and twelve months, so they're just lightly aged. And then the blanco, of course, is unaged or the uh silver you would call it.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Now you we talked about this, and I'm sorry, I'm not gonna try and throw you under the bus. I guess I am gonna try and throw you under the bus. Now the article came out that you know you were sending the barrels down there to have them aged it, aged in those barrels, but that wasn't the case. Are you planning on I know we talked about it, I can't remember what you said, but are you planning on sending um used barrels down there for them to age it in, or is that so uh right now they're using barbon barrels from the Kentucky area, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Or similar. Similar. We don't have enough volume to supply them a truckload of empty barrels. But we want to eventually like make an extra in Yayo where we do a very uh limited release, and that would be something that would be aged three plus years. Uh-huh. So we'll probably end up doing something like that uh with our ex bourbon barrels.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

So do they just send you so at that point they can send it here, it just has to be made there, right? So they can send it unbarreled and then you can just barrel it yourself.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

No, everything has to be done in Mexico. Oh, it even has to be barreled. It has to be bottled, labeled. Oh everything has to be done in Mexico. Interesting. So it's yeah, it's kind of a logistics thing for us. It's you know, it's a lot of work because you got to send bottles down, labels down. Um, you know, for them to get to fill up purchase orders, there's quite a bit of steps, and then you have to import it and pay the taxes, and yeah, it's it's quite a process actually.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Well, when we talked about it, I think it has been two years, right? Because you said this is this had just come out, the hundred year had just come out, and um you were like, Oh, I'm getting ready to do that, and then it took a couple years for it to actually happen, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:25

Yeah, just it just the the legal hoops with getting an uh a trademark and um getting all the supplies down there, you know, making sure that the quality was what we wanted and all that stuff. It just just took a long time. But hopefully uh it'll be smoother sailing from here on out.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Well, I mean it's a it's a great product. It's funny I uh I hadn't seen it in in the liquor store. Like we went to the release party that you had, and then it took a couple weeks for it to actually show up in the liquor store. And then I now I've seen it right every time I go in there, and it's it's cool to see it. And then they have the minis in there too. And the minis are really cheap. I I bought a few of those because I'm like, hey, you know what? I can get four of those for like four bucks.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Yeah, so uh a lot of people have been in liquor stores. Where's the Koenig uh tequila, right? Well, uh I failed to mention that it's actually uh under a different brand. It's called Bone Orchard Tequila, right? And Bone Orchard is kind of a cowboy slang.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

That name is I I for I was just about to ask you about to explain that because it is Bone Orchard, it's a cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:26

Yeah, it's a it's a neat name because it's it's a cowboy slang term for uh an old cemetery. Yeah. So we kind of wanted to play, you know, something about the West and you know, tie it to Mexico and and kind of have a catchy name. And it it's it's it's been well received, and although it's a a little bit funky and obscure, it's uh it's been a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

And I think if you know that story, it just makes it so much better.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

But uh anyway, yeah, no, it's been good.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

So I got one more question for you. Okay. At the end of the day, Andy's had a long day and he goes home. What goes in his glass when he gets home?

SPEAKER_00 49:02

Um, it depends on what uh what you know, what if it's winter, summer, or whatever. Honestly, um I love uh Mexican beers. Oh really? Yeah, so like I love Pacifico and and uh I like a lot of like European beers too, like lagers and stuff like that. Um, but uh if I'm drinking one of our products, it depends. Uh if it's winter time, I love like just like the rodeo whiskey or um one of the clubs on a big ice cube just in a glass, you know, for a little before dinner drink.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

Do you have like a whole bunch of bottles at home, or do you just like I'll be right back, I'll go across the street, or what do you do? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 49:43

We have a few. We have a few sample bottles at home, but uh yeah, I like I like that, and then and then in the summertime, I mean, nothing better than a good vodka tonic with potato vodka. Um, and the you know, the Huckleberry lemonades are obviously very good, but it just kind of depends on what we're doing and what what my mood is. But a lot of times, um, you know, I'll just drink water or have a little Mexican beer, and then I'm usually so tired from being in the whiskey all day that I'm just all right, I'm ready for bed.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

You smelled enough of it, you need to go to bed.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Yeah, and that's the weird thing. If you're doing it all day and you're emptying barrels or blending or whatever, you don't really have any whole lot of interest in drinking a ton of it at night when you get home, you're like, I want to do something else now.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

It's funny, every time I go to 10 barrel brewery, I see the guy who brews the beer in the back there drinking a beer while he's watching it do something.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

I don't know what he's doing, but those beer guys are different than different guys. That's a different that's a different breed.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Oh man. Well, hey, I appreciate you coming over here, and it's really cool to actually get to kind of we've talked about it before, but it's it's the story is just awesome to see where it's come from then from now. And I didn't realize that it was just you went right into it right out of college. So that's pretty awesome. Yeah. And if you guys get a chance, you need to go out to the distillery. It's a really cool place. It's there's a lot of stuff out there, and you like bourbon, you like spirits, you like what a good environment to go hang out, you should come check it out.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Yes. Well, thanks so much for having me. And uh we'll talk again on One Drink Wednesday. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Yep, the next the next release. Perfect. All right, everyone. Thanks for hanging out with me and Andy. Until next time, I challenge you to find the shape of your success. I feel like I have to say, and then there's the hard part.