The B Team Podcast
Talking all things Business, Bentonville, and Bourbon. Hosted by Josh Saffran, Matt Marrs, and Rob Nelson. New episodes every Thursday!
The B Team Podcast
Ep. 87 - Beyond the Bottle: Inside NWA’s Exclusive Bourbon Club
If you’ve ever stared at a $6,000 unicorn behind glass and wondered how anyone actually tastes it, you’ll feel right at home here. We pull back the curtain on a thriving Bentonville bourbon scene where access comes from community, not luck, complete with a speakeasy barn, disciplined barrel selections, and a 100-member club designed to share costs, spread knowledge, and raise glasses together.
Mike Hodges walks us through building a space where bottle shares and curated tastings bring people together. He breaks down the math that turns a single $150 bar pour into an evening where twenty people sample multiple legendary bottles and enjoy dinner, all while learning their palates. Then JS Bull takes the baton, detailing how he structured a legally clean, no-profit bourbon club capped at 100 members so every barrel yields at least one bottle per person. Thanks to local relationships with major distilleries, the club’s first-year lineup includes Weller Full Proof, Nashville Barrel Company Honey Cask, Rock Hill Farms private selection, and an Elijah Craig Barrel Proof that snaps from cinnamon candy to elegant oak.
Along the way, we get practical: how real barrel picks differ from mailed vials, why you should smell everything before tasting barrel proof, how age and warehouse floors shape flavor, and what to do when a dusty cork disintegrates mid-pour. We also talk brand profile consistency versus single barrel uniqueness, how to avoid overpaying on the secondary market, and why the best bottles are often the ones you share.
Pour something you’re curious about and dive in with us. If this conversation sparks ideas or makes you rethink how you chase bottles, follow the show, share it with a bourbon-loving friend, and leave a quick review so more people can find it.
Welcome to the B Team Podcast. I am your host, Josh Saffron, with my co-host, Matt Morris, and our permanent guest, Rob Nelson. We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bettonville, bourbon, and business. The B Team Podcast. Be here. Welcome to the A-Team Podcast. I'm your host, Josh Safron, and my co-host and permanent guest are not here today. But I am going to FaceTime Matthew. Let's see if we can get him an answer. Let's see here. There he is. Welcome to the A-Team podcast today with your host Josh Saffron and my A guest. Mike Hodges and J.S. Bull. Well, we've changed it now. On the slogan, it says A team. We've we've removed the B and moved it to an A because look at the guests that we have today. Look at this. I know. I love it. And did you see the picture I sent you that there's a Mickters 20 year hair? Oh, I did. I see you're rubbing it in. I'm just trying to make sure that you feel inclusive in the event today. We'll save you a little.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe.
SPEAKER_03:Matthew, well, where are you? Tell all the the all our loyal listeners where you are that you couldn't join today for J.S. and Mike Hodges, two of your favorite people. I'm up in God's country.
SPEAKER_00:I'm in Park City. Well, what are you doing? We're uh So we're uh we came up to see our daughter in uh Utah and we ran up to Park City. It's like 30 minutes from Provo where she goes to college.
SPEAKER_03:Who's better than you? Huh? Who's better than you? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Who's got it better than you? Nobody's got it better than you. You're drinking without me.
SPEAKER_03:Hey, did you have a question for JS that you texted me? You had a question and I said you ask for yourself. I know. I was gonna ask before I decided if I would answer if I was in the club.
SPEAKER_01:We're gonna talk about the club on the podcast today. We'll get we'll get there. We can even talk some uh some rationale and numbers too.
SPEAKER_00:We want you in the club. I can't believe you waited until I was gone to do this. I know you planned it.
SPEAKER_03:There's there's no doubt in my mind that as soon as you left town, I'm like, let's get JS and Mike Hodges here just to got just to stir up the pot even more. Oh yeah. Yep. I love it. All right. Well, we'll miss you. I'll make sure I save you none. Okay, okay. Bye, Matthew. And uh and do good.
SPEAKER_00:Take care, you guys. See ya.
SPEAKER_01:See you, bud. All right. So that was the purpose. You got text messages showing now, Mike.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, it says I'm in a store, but ask him if I could be in the club. I said you ask yourself. So for me, this was important to bring you guys in because we we talked so much about Bentonville business and bourbon, and you guys are involved in all of those different things. Uh, I want to introduce first Mike Hodges off to my directly in front of me left, and Mr. J.S. Bull. And you guys have done are I would I don't want to say bourbon connoisseurs because that's probably not the right word, but you guys are heavy into the bourbon scene, uh, very generous, uh, high-end bourbons, and both of you are doing interesting things in the community here to further the bourbon game. So let me start with Mr. Hodges to do an introduction. Nice to be here. I never thought I'd get the call. It's listen, when when you're when we had to go from B team to A team, we had to up our guest list.
SPEAKER_02:Well, when you said, hey, it'd be you and you and uh JS, I was like, why why would you want me in the room with JS?
SPEAKER_03:Well, but and truth be told, and you're quite humble, but like what you've built out in Little Flock and the way that you're hosting with your speakeasy and bourbon events, we have Jance Giving coming up, um, the way that you're doing some of the um the helping people get stuff in town that they can't get, uh, the way that you're doing some tasting events. Like just share a little bit about what you got going on out in Little Flock because it's it's very cool and very inclusive.
SPEAKER_02:Well, so uh on my property I have a uh barn. I everybody's I always say it's a barn, and then people come and they say, I wasn't expecting this. This is not really a bar. I tell them it's a barn, but there's no horses and hay, and they just like my my father-in-law thinks I'm I'm I'm an absolute crazy lunatic because he's a rancher from East Texas, and see every barn I ever had had hay. So then he then he comes over and he has he drinks bourbon with me, so it works out. But um, so I built this barn with the with the idea that one day I I always wanted my own speakeasy. And so it just kind of came together and I started putting some ideas like, hey, let's build this mezzanine with this bourbon. And then as my bourbon collection started to grow, I started to envision a little bit a place where you know 20 to 40 people could hang out, just chill, drink, not drink, just chill, play some music, just enjoy and and and uh just come together and it's worked out.
SPEAKER_03:Have you been to any of the the bourbon tasting like the at his place?
SPEAKER_01:No, I haven't. I got invited to one and was out of town. Yes, but uh doing another bourbon thing, ironically. But yeah, uh I definitely want to hit one up. It's a great concept. Well, so super cool.
SPEAKER_03:It's like so for he does two different things. So one is everybody bring your own bottle, which I chuckle because I bring a bottle, and then then you're going through the cabinet's like, do I have a bottle good enough to be included? And then you feel bad like when your bottle's not open because the bottles there are so good. Like, I thought I had a good bottle, but everybody's bringing like really, really good high-end stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. The the you know, the typical bottle share that goes on all over Northwest Arkansas, and sometimes it's three people, and sometimes it's 30 people, and there's five bottles or a hundred bottles, you know, you get to taste from, which is always great because it's as your collection grows or you're getting into bourbon and whatnot, you don't want to go out and buy a bottle for a hundred bucks or potentially thousands. There's just no way you can't buy them all, but then you go, well, I I love that one so much. I'm gonna I'm gonna source one of those. In fact, I got invited over to his house, and the the very next day I'm you know searching the country, trying to find a very specific bottle that he let me try. That he and when this guy says this is one of my favorites, that's a better freaking lesson. Yeah, you know, so but then we do uh a deal, we're gonna try to do it at least quarterly, where I bring in five to seven super high-end bottles of bourbon. Unicorns. Unicorns, yes. Um, stuff that's either being produced now, but it's you know, super allocated or super hard to get, or stuff that's like the unicorns of the vintage world, like uh, you know, a CGF in the wild turkey, or we just did one where we had a wild turkey donut from the late 80s that's just unbelievable bourbon. And so what I do is whatever it costs me to source these bottles, if it's 500 for this bottle, you know, 5,000 for that bottle, whatever it is, I just divide that by 20 people. 20 people come over, we split the cost of that, we have dinner included, and that way everybody gets to try these super high-end bottles without having to go spend$10,000. You spend a few hundred bucks, but you get to try all of these bourbons uh where one pour of one of those would cost you the same or more.
SPEAKER_03:Now, now when you ask people to come, it's like, hey, it's like typically, and you divide it out, you're as generous as they come, as are you, and it's like, all right, well, it's like 300 or 400, depending on what it is. And then you start to do the math, you go, all right. Well, if I wanted a pour of this at any bar, it would be 150 bucks. And they start to go, it's actually a really good deal. And then by the way, you're throwing in food.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, a great example is uh so Mictor's 25. Big unicorn bottle. That's pretty much anywhere you go, it's a$6,000 bottle of bourbon. And the only time I've ever seen it at a bar, it was$585 for a one-ounce porch. And when we did our tasting, there was six other bourbons, high-end bourbons, along with that. And with dinner, it was, I think we came out at four, it was either four fifteen or four twenty-five.
SPEAKER_03:It's one of those when you get the text and the price tags there. Well, that's expensive because it's a big, it's a big investment to drink bourbon. And then you start to back into the math and you go, this is like really reasonable to come out and drink.
SPEAKER_02:Well, they produce 400 of them a year, and so when are you ever going to get a chance to try one? You know, and it and that's just one example. We've done double eagle rares, myter's 20, uh, just you know, some pretty cool stuff.
SPEAKER_03:So let's pour this while we're talking because just a splash, because um it's a Micter's 20.
SPEAKER_02:Might as well have something in our glasses. Yes. Oof.
SPEAKER_03:Now, I do if Matt was here, he would start doing his typical Matt Jovial laughter, and he would tell the story of the first time he was at a bottle share. And and I'm surprised it wasn't the last time he was at a bottle share at your house. And JS, you're gonna love this story. So we go, and one of the guys in the group brings a Blanton's like 1991. Like, and it's I don't know. I don't know enough to know that it's like the year that you're supposed to be finding the early 90s. He's telling the story that the bottle was so cool I had to split it with a buddy. It's my unicorn. He's going through building the story up. And Matt, after about three, four, five, six, seven drinks, grabs the cork and the bottle, and the whole cork explodes into the bottle. And the guy's face are like, Who's got a trainer? Who's got a trainer? I got a trainer. And Matt was like, like, you know, that was amazing. And I was like, I am Matt is like every time I get invited back to Hodges, I am so thankful because of how bad I screwed up this guy's bottle.
SPEAKER_01:Old corks have a tendency to do that. Oh man, we opened a chestman together, yeah. An old crow chessman uh over the bottom. And I I brought a strainer and a new bottle, you know, to decant into because and literally, like I didn't even pull, it just kind of fell off. Yeah. It was unreal. So yeah, you just you come prepared. Cheers. Thank you for the beautiful pour.
SPEAKER_03:Sorry you're missing it, Matthew.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome color.
SPEAKER_02:I'll say this about Micters. Oh my god. In a 20 and even the 25, they don't like a lot of bourbons when they get that old, they start to get PD like Scotch. Yeah, in my opinion. I call it I call it decay. Right.
SPEAKER_03:That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this bottle certainly does it.
SPEAKER_03:So this bottle MSRP, and then on the secondary market, just for people at home watching along ish. I don't even know what MSRP is. Anything 250 or something?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it's under 300 bucks, which you'd never find. You'll never find it. Excuse me. Um secondaries 3 to 35. Somewhere in here.
SPEAKER_01:That's probably right.
SPEAKER_03:That's fantastic. All right, Mr. J. S. Bull. Hey. So I I got a chance to get to meet you a few years ago as CEO president of White.
SPEAKER_01:CEO of White Spider.
SPEAKER_03:Yep. Congratulations. Sorry about that. Yeah. But congrats on an Airbnb. You are you are a patient man. Glutton for punishment. Yes.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Um, and the first time I met you, we were talking bourbon, and you open up the white spider cabinet and you had a bunch of uh few. Few stickers back there. Yeah, I'm like, wow, this guy's all into this stuff. And now you've done something even more cool. Is that cooler? More cool is not appropriate. Um, you started a bourbon club here locally, which I think is just absolutely amazing. And you got everybody involved, and I'd love to spend some time talking about it and you and what you're doing here in in northwest Arkansas.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. So in 2021, Eric and I sold White Spider to a group uh from London uh company named Central PLC. They owned Flywheel Digital, which is the largest media brand advertising group for uh on Amazon for retail media networks, right? And what they saw is they saw White Spider as the Flywheel equivalent for Walmart that Flywheel is for Amazon. And so we kind of became the Walmart arm of this company. Um, and so this was in 21, and as part of the agreement when we sold, um, I was on for two years, and so that ended um at the end of 23. And so at the time I decided I'm gonna take a year off. Now, did you actually work those two years with them? Were you just kind of in and out? No, I in fact, for a year and a half I worked probably harder than I did before, right? I mean, it was it was hardcore. Um, and it was part of an earnout, right? And so how the performance that we did paid well, and so it's like this is the hardest I'm gonna work in my entire life because I'm gonna make more, I've got an opportunity to make more money in this period of time than ever in my life, right? And so we grew the team at that time from like 35 people to 150 in that year and a half. Um, it was just awesome growth. And we had a blast and maintained an amazing culture, just great people, great time, uh, great business. It was fun. Um, and so uh started try to kind of work out a deal to stick with the company. And it just, you know, there were a lot of CEOs already there. They they'd made like eight acquisitions in a year's time, and we were one of those eight. And so it was just kind of clear, you know what, I'm gonna write off into the sunset. This will be good and whatnot. Probably the last four months, I got really bored because we were in transition, making sure everything was covered that I was doing, and it all went quicker than I expected, which I was proud of because it means I prepared the team, right? Um, and so anyway, at the end of the year, um, the New Year's Eve party that year was kind of my retirement party. We knew it wouldn't last long, but uh we had fun with it. And so I took a year off, and uh in that year I started reflecting on some of the stuff that has been great. And so um I got into bourbon a long time ago, like 2013. I got heavy into it. Uh started the first Facebook group for trading bourbon called Bourbon Exchange. It went by BX. Um local group, no, it was a national yeah, and you know, Chuck Cowdery wrote an article about us because I hit him up on it trying to get the word out a little bit, and um, it became a huge like controversy in the world of bourbon, right? You got the old timers who hate me because they're like, now everybody wants those papies, and I used to be able to just walk in and get them, and you messed it up for me. And there are other people who are like, I never would have gotten to trial. And you get these messages, people are sending them. Oh, yeah, not anymore. But I mean, back in the day, there was a it was a lot of love and a lot of hate, right? Um, and um, so I I basically I'm managing a group, thousands of people on Facebook from all over the world, in fact, and I'm having to police all day long all this activity that's going on. At the time, it's you know, it's kind of a gray market, like people aren't really talking about it because you're trading alcohol without a license, and how does that really work? But I'm having to follow the market really closely. And so, like, I start seeing people getting ripped off, right? And I'm just like ripped off, meaning somebody said I got a bottle of midwinter and you're gonna get it for 500 years. Yeah, and then you know, their market would have been 150 at the time, right? Or 100 at the time. And so um I decided, okay, I like I feel bad that my group is leading to people getting ripped off. And if I go reach out to him, I'm like, hey, you got ripped off, it just makes them feel bad about themselves. They're not gonna understand. Because he's happy he got this policy 500 to get plus. And so other people start commenting. I'm like, hey, just let it go. Like, it's not your business, let it go. And so you're spending a lot of time policing this. Oh man. And at the time I was I was working, you know, in another company, this is well before White Spider. And so, I mean, it was like a night job and a day job all in one, and I've got my main job. And uh I felt like I was babysitting adults, and so I got pretty burned out on it. But before I kind of slowly stepped into the Bush Homer Simpson style, right? Um I got invited to start doing some barrel selection. Uh and it was usually liquor stores, and they treated me like a celebrity picker, right? And I'm I'm the whole time I'm like humility was solid with me. Like I'm like, guys, I'm no expert. Like, I just started a group. That's all I did, right? And um, but through the experience, um, I started learning how to properly select the barrel. And started learning it's not as easy as you think, but there are right ways to do it. And I started learning that I'm actually pretty darn good at it. And so the barrels that I pick, I can differentiate between barrels. I mean, we did one pick at Four Roses um where we tasted 21 barrels. And we, I mean, in one sitting, a barrel-proof bourbon. You want to talk about palate fatigue?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you guys must have been drunk out of your minds.
SPEAKER_01:Man, it was and yeah, well, it was one of the few tastings I've ever done where I'm leaving bourbon in glasses. I there's just no way now they wouldn't have different because you didn't find the one that you liked in the first 21. We came in and they had 21 set out for us. So I I was with a company called Crown Liquors in Indiana, the largest liquor store chain in Indiana. They had like 25 locations around Indianapolis, and we literally bought 14 of the 21 that day. Wow. And so anyway, to be able to do that, you have to come up with a process, you know, follow a plan and and do it right. And so um, so I learned it was good. Well, then I went to work at White Spider and bootstrapped the thing and had no salary for over a year. And, you know, basically I couldn't even keep up the collection of bourbon that I had at the time, right? Um and coming out of that, when we sold White Spider, um, I decided to plan a trip to go watch the SEC basketball tournament in Nashville with some friends. And I had been hearing about Nashville Barrel Company. Well, you know, on these several trips that I'd went on with got on with um with liquor stores, you know, they had access to go get the barrels because they removed enough of the product and gotten the allocation for the barrel. And so I'm there my end, right? And they'd usually give me or sell me some of the bottles from the picks, you know, and man, just experience was enough payment for me, right? Yeah. Uh the bottles just icing. And so um I thought, you know what? I'm gonna go buy a barrel at Nashville Barrel Company. Yourself, yeah. Like they they open it to the public to do that. Now they're more expensive barrels than if you had worked through a liquor store or something like that. And for those that don't know, when you're buying a barrel, you're buying probably 200, 250 bottles. It depends on what the proof is, right? I mean, it can be as few as 100. It could be as much as, you know. But you are the proprietor and owner of yeah, 180 or 200. That's how many you're getting. And so, you know, I had friends going in on some of it with me and that kind of stuff, uh, the ones on the trip. But so we we go and none of them had ever done it before, right? And so I'm saying, God, you y'all are gonna have so much fun, da da da da. And they're like, Yeah, cool, we're gonna go drink bourbon. I'm like, no, no, no, no, it's not just drinking bourbon, it's the experience and the understanding. And we walked out of there and it was like leaving a revival, you know, forgive me. But it's like lives were changed, right?
SPEAKER_03:And and these folks now these guys were people bourbon fans that would thought they were going on like a bourbon tasting, like they didn't realize what they were getting into.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, they knew what they're getting into, but they they were not bourbon fans, they were guys who drank bourbon some, mixed with bourbon or whatever. Until you go do it, it you just don't really get it, right? I mean, is that fair to say? It's it's an epic.
SPEAKER_01:So you've done it also, yeah. Okay, yeah. And so um, so they walked out, and now there's some of you know, they they're collectors, and uh one of them I'm going to do a bottle share with tonight at his place, and uh he's got just a phenomenal collection now. And so he's got stuff that I don't have, and I just have a blast over there. Was that an invite job? Yeah, right. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:It kind of threw the only for 18.
SPEAKER_01:So the uh I need to know each guy. Yeah. Unfortunately, he's bald, so he won't be at the gents place anytime soon. Shout out though. Oh well. Um, so we went, had a great time, saw just how it impacted folks, and thought, man, this was really cool. Next year, we decide we're going back and we're doing it again. We go back, we do it again. A few different people join the group, same kind of deal. It's just this experience is just you know, you don't know it's bucket list if you don't understand it, but it should be bucket list for anybody who likes bourbon. And so at that time, uh, I said, you know what? It'd be fun to do this and and and spread this to more people. Like, how can, you know, and for the love of bourbon, if nothing else, right? But also community and camaraderie and charity and other things that I thought it can move into. And so in this year that I had time off, I couldn't get it out of my head, and I can't help myself from committing to things. Entrepreneur, entrepreneur, entrepreneur, entrepreneur. Um, but I had this concept where I said, all right, um, a little bit selfish. Now I can justify going and buying one barrel a year and getting one experience. If I create a group that can go in and do six or seven barrels a year, then I'm not stuck with 200 bottles of one thing. Like I can get my share of it, but I can get seven different barrels and bottles that are awesome. Because, guys, if one thing people need to understand, if the right person is picking, 100% of the time a single barrel selection will be better than what you can buy on the shelf. Oh, absolutely. Of the same brand. Right? And so it's 100% of the time, those seven are gonna be seven of the best bourbons I taste this year. And I'm gonna have several bottles of each.
SPEAKER_03:You need to explain that for a second to people that don't understand it, and I'll tell you why. And I'm not where you guys are, but I I four or five years ago when I got into it, somebody handed me a buffalo trace, like, oh, it's good. And then they had a buffalo trace store pick from Mac and Doodles at Walmart, and you do them side by side and go, wait, wait, same label, same bottle, same brand, totally different. Yep, right, and it's like, and it is a huge difference between both bottles.
SPEAKER_02:A lot of times to do with age. So, like, uh, for example, I know this for a fact, like uh some Eagle Rare uh store picks, your Eagle Rare is 10 year. I've got some store picks that are 11-year, eight month, 11-year, 12 months on 11-year, 10 month.
SPEAKER_01:So just that extra year and a half or year and 10 months in a bottle in a barrel, it's it's just a different well, and I and I could give a dissertation on age and bourbon and how it doesn't matter, but it does, right? Yeah, and like how a barrel goes longer than another barrel. It's some of the most interesting things. Like the science of bourbon is very interesting to me. Um, but I I've had store picks that were absolute swill. Oh, yeah. Right. So I mean it it really depends on who's picking.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and so some store picks are not they're not picks really, right? So a lot of a lot of a lot of what what you see in in some liquor stores when they go, hey, we just got this special barrel pick or barrel buyer, whatever they want to call it, what they got was they got a package from whatever distributor or or whatever bourbon company, and there were three vials in a in a box. And you get to pick one of those three vials, and that's your store. That's a common way to do it. And that that's really the most way, yeah. Or you get to do like what JS is talking about is he goes to the distillery, pulls the juice out of the barrel, or has a selection of barrels to pick from, and that's how you get away. And we sign our names on the barrel.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's cool. Because you're gonna show us, like, yeah, I want to like because you sum it. Yeah, and we can we can move to these here pretty soon. I don't want to rush them, make there's 20.
SPEAKER_02:No, but but that's that's usually a huge difference in when you a true barrel pick is like what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_01:Now, in theory, take it even further, though, like these days, it during and maybe it's fading back, but it got to a point where the distributor would call the store, say, Would you like a private barrel? If they said yes, they ship them one and they've never tasted it. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_03:But it's a store pick. It's just absolutely a private barrel. And it's really an allocation of a private barrel and a store pick are not necessarily the same thing.
SPEAKER_01:It can be, yeah. I'm not a store and it's private barrels. I, you know, I mean, I guess semantics. Okay. You can get there, right? I would I would say they they're used interchangeably.
SPEAKER_03:Because the logic cracker says private barrel, right? Which again would be the same thing. It's really the nomenclature they pick. If guess who had a private barrel, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. But it's most likely barrel of bourbon. But most likely Hart and that team is not going down and picking it, they're shipping them vials and they're sampling and tasting it here.
SPEAKER_01:That or they're taking luck with the draw and seeing what they can do. Okay. Which and I don't fault any liquor store for it. Of course not. It's such in demand, they had to streamline the process. And you I had this claim one time. I had helped a store do a pick, and there were four. And uh, we did a um Evan Williams single barrel, and we did a Henry McKenna, and this was I don't know, eight years ago or so. And there were four of each, and we tasted them, we rated them, and like they've actually let me pick which ones we were gonna do. When we got those two in, I was like, I'm not real thrilled with the Evan Williams, but this was the best of the four. And the Henry McKenna is absolute money. They came in and it was exactly reversed. And I'm like, these are not the barrels to be tasted. And you know, we got lucky on one, but I'm just like But you knew, yeah, and most people won't let you have the experience, and then they just but I guarantee you they sent the same four samples to another store and the same four to another store, and they were hoping they'd pick different barrels, and they all picked the same, and then one got it, and the others just got a different barrel. But you you knew when others were like, Oh, this is good.
SPEAKER_03:Like they like you you you knew enough to know that. Yeah, it wasn't the same. Like, I mean, yeah, you know, I just remembered how epic, you know. So do you call them up at that point and say, hey, this is not the right barrel?
SPEAKER_01:Um, you don't have to be powered to that. I mean, it wasn't my barrel, right? And it's sold just as well on the shelf, yeah, right. So um, you know, it's almost like it's victimless crime, right? Because we're still getting good burp, and it's not like bad bourbon, it just wasn't as good, right? Yep. Um, but yeah, so anyway, the thought was how do I, you know, spread this to more people? And so I came up with this idea of um, in all the barrels I've ever picked, a hundred bottles was the shortest fill that I ever had. And so, and I take it back. There's one at four O's, but we knew when we picked it that it only was gonna have like 40. But um, a hundred was the shortest. So I said, okay, if we cap the membership of a group club to a hundred people, then everyone gets a bottle from every barrel, right? Because I don't want anybody short a bottle for the year, right? And that's the bare minimum. Like multiple people can get access to two if they're without him down. So so the idea is offer back to the membership to buy multiples. I mean, I we had a member this time who actually went on the trip with us to to Elijah Craig, which I brought first to try, um, and he bought a case of it, 24. And and by the way, it had 180 bottles on a nine-year barrel-proof Elijah Craig, which blew my mind. And so, and and by the way, when you buy a barrel, you don't pay an amount and get whatever comes out, you actually pay by the bottle that it produces.
SPEAKER_03:So that's interesting. So you have an idea in your head of what it's gonna cost, but if it ends up being 130 bottles versus 230 bottles, you're only paying for the yeah, about half, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, so um, in this case, you know, I was gonna crap, this busted the budget. But good news is I've got a hundred members to take extra bottles and help me cover that extra cost. And so um it really is a great system. Um, but but the fun part is it's about getting seven amazing bottles from seven amazing barrels each year, having a peace and community and building camaraderie with other members, finding other people who have the same passion as you. But then the biggest thing to me is the experiences. And so one of the one of the first things we did, and I did. Um the uh in December we had a kickoff party, and Heaven Hill sponsored it, and they brought um it was like 18 different barrel samples um of Elijah Craig.
SPEAKER_03:And was it up here you guys did this?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they came up here, brought it to my house, and sponsored. So it's these guys, right? So I'm supposed to hold it up so people can see it. But you know, these sample bottles, right? And so, you know, this one we've got some notes, but this is 1 uh 22.1 proof, uh floor four. Um is a nine year from Shenley Rick House? So these are all different each. That one, yeah, that one's from uh the bargetown location. But this is two, I've got another one in here. But the um, you know, basically what we got to do is we got to set up a mock barrel selection. Dave LeProuse. Because almost nobody in the group had ever done a private selection. And so I got to walk through this is what'll happen when you go on a trip.
SPEAKER_03:But the better part is they appreciate you, they would they flew everything up here for you to do up here. Like you what you didn't have to go down there to do this.
SPEAKER_01:You did it here in Bedford. The beauty is is in bed. We happen to have Walmart and Sam's. And so we have a Heaven Hill representative up here who happens to be in the group. And which is why we get access to great stuff at Heaven Hill. Uh-huh. And so we we actually have representatives in the group from Buffalo or from Sazerac. Um who owns Buffalo Trace for anybody who doesn't know. So Sazerac, um Diageo, Heaven Hill. I feel bad for forgetting it. But we've got four of the major distillers. And these are all friends, acquaintances of yours that you know that are all up in Northwest Arkansas and they're all in the group? Friends or friends of friends. So what happened is December 15th, I launched, or December 1st, I launched the group. January 15th, it filled up. Which I thought to get 100 memberships sold for this commitment is$850 a year, right? And it's all bottle price. It's all price of the bottles, and you're getting them well below secondary, right? So my attorney said very strictly, I cannot make a dollar on this club, right? Or then liquor laws come into play. But this is a group of friends pooling money together to buy barrels. And it comes in to Liquor World in Fayville. I was partnering partnered with me on it. Comes in there, we buy it from them, pay the taxes, and then distribute it to Fronts, right? With the money they've already paid me. So that's how this all works from a legal standpoint. Right. Um, but anyway, I mean that's that's the concept.
SPEAKER_03:So we've got but this is where I went wrong on the front of this, and I give you gonna laugh at me. So JS sends me this text last December says, hey, I'm I'm starting this club, and we were like neck deep in Jen's place. Like I'm looking at these bills coming, and like I don't know if I could pay the groceries this week, and I'm like, this looks good. And then I go, I know JS well, he is a good guy on the up and up for$850. Am I gonna be having any good bottles in this? I don't really know. I I gotta believe when I see it. And then I see the list of bottles that are published in year one, which I'm gonna ask you now to tell folks. And I go, are you kidding me? Like it's too good to be true. The bottles that you have and the and the things that you have access to, you can't get forget a store pick. Like you can't find anywhere, and all of a sudden I get a private barrel, one bottle, and this being the club. Like, it it's amazing.
SPEAKER_01:We've been, we got super blessed. So, and it and it honestly, it all kinds of starts from Gentsgiving last year, right? So Gentsgiving was November anyway. First week of November, first of this year. Okay, so at this point, I was already working on a website and a business plan for how to run this club and this stuff, didn't launch it until the beginning of December, but that I it was in motion, right? And there was a barrel of Buffalo Trace available. So at that time, and at the time I talked to you, I really didn't know what barrels I was gonna be able to get access to. I mean, I was thinking stuff like Blue Run and uh obviously Nashville. I had the relationship with them already, so I'm like, we can do a couple Nashville. Nothing wrong with those, but that was not what that was what I was expecting. And you know what? I 100% confidence that we would have gotten amazing barrels from all of those places, right? I mean, you've tasted the Nashville honey, right? I mean, it's just off the charts. And so um when that barrel of Buffalo Trace came in, I said, hey, this is for charity, and at least I'll get one Buffalo Trace or Sazerac barrel in the membership this year. So I was just gonna roll it in. No, I wasn't gonna be able to get the money back that we bid because that thing went high, right? Somebody with a last name shocking. Somebody with a last name Mars was beating.
SPEAKER_03:We were bidding against Dave Mars. Shout out to Dave, and I was watching this going on, where's this gonna go?
SPEAKER_01:So he didn't know I was desperate to get it for this purpose, right? The beauty of it is, is that um through connections that I had uh through old business and through friends at Sazerac, I was able to turn that barrel of Buffalo Trace that I'm vastly overpaid for for a very good cause. Um, and they were very impressed by that we were able to do that in in Arkansas, right? Um, into a relationship where they've now extended the opportunity for us to pick multiple barrels a year at Buffalo Trace.
SPEAKER_03:And they've barreled of, like and let's go through, don't be shy. The bottles you had last year were incredible.
SPEAKER_01:So, yeah, so in in 2025, um so far we uh we started with um a selection of Weller Foolproof, and we selected That's Weller Foolproof for folks at home, yes. At the uh at the end of January or at the end of February, um, and then in March we picked the Nashville Honey Cask finished barrel, which is I think the second barrel they've ever sold of their honey cask. Usually they just sell the bottles in their gift store, and so it's it was very exclusive for us to get access to that. Um and then we went back and we did um a Rock Hill Farms, which is not even distributed in Arkansas. So uh it was the so the Rock Hill Farms was the second private selection that they've ever offered in 15 years. Can you repeat that one more time for the listeners at home? That was the what? Rock Hill Farms, the second private selection they've offered in 15 years.
SPEAKER_03:As a member of your club, you get one of those bottles.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. It's incredible, and maybe access to buy another one. We may see how many come, right? Incredible. Um, after that, we went to uh Heaven Hill when we did an Elijah Craig barrel proof, and we'll taste it in a minute here, but it's one of the coolest uh experiences, I think, in bourbon. This um, and and I'll go ahead and spoil it because I get them already talking about it. Um, but it it starts with like this cinnamon candy and honey flavor, and then it's like halfway through, it just shifts like 90 degrees over to oak. And you know, Elijah Craig profile is very oak forward, yeah, right? And and sometimes they can kind of get danky oak kind of it's a lot of oak, right? Yeah, uh, but I mean this one is just like it's this amazing candy forward start, and then it moves into just that Elijah Craig. Have you tried this one yet?
SPEAKER_02:I have and I had his place, and I was and he's he's telling me about this private barrel that he did with Elijah Craig, and I'm like, eh, I like Elijah Craig. Yeah, they they it they never miss, right? And there are a lot of a lot of private barrels around, and a lot of everybody's got one, right? And I'm like, oh okay, yeah, I'll try it. I was like, wait a second. And so I left his house with one. So I mean And freaking for you, that's saying something. Well, it's there's there's there's a lot of Nashville barrel rare character, Elijah Craig. Every liquor store's got a version of the their barrel proof or their private barrel or whatever, and you can't get them all. And if you did, most people's palette, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between three of them out of a hundred. This one is just it's it's not like any Elijah Craig I've ever tasted.
SPEAKER_03:So, how many bottles did you taste there before you picked this one?
SPEAKER_01:We uh we tasted six. They were gonna start us with three, and then I did some quick negotiating to ask them to please let us try six. So, what what I what I've learned, and and they're like, if you don't like any of these, then we'll go pull some more. And I and one of the biggest rules of doing barrel selection is before you taste anything barrel-proof, you need to smell everything you're gonna taste. Because as soon as you taste barrel-proof, your nose, your sense of smell.
SPEAKER_03:Hold on.
SPEAKER_01:So they're gonna pour six. So you have to smell all six of them before you even taste the first one. And take notes on them. Yeah, you gotta take notes on them because you won't remember over. So you're writing stuff down. So you're writing stuff down. And they honestly, Heaven Hill does a great job giving you like a little book with like tasting notes to think of, and it's like, you know, some common aromas, and it'll go through all different nuts or trees or you know, flowers or whatever, you know. And I'm more simple, like I'm like, ah, it's very floral. Like, I'm not gonna use it. A lot of times, yep. Um oak, heavy oak. Elijah Craig's very heavy oak, right? And so um there's some profiles that kind of that's what they do. And and by the way, the the job of a master distiller for these brands is to keep their taste the same over time. It's not to make it the best tasting that can to them, or else all the brands would taste the same. Yeah, it's to create a profile and follow that profile over time. And so if you buy a bottle of Blantons from 91 and you buy one from last year, they should have the same profile, the same type of flavor. And obviously, there's gonna be differences, right? Uh, there are bottle barrel to barrel, but in general, you know, it should work well.