Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: It was the Hard truth.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: We messed up that day. It was. There we go. See, that's your Hard Truth story. When we interview you guys, we're gonna ask you your story. Oh, sweet. Okay, right there.
[00:00:12] Speaker C: Hey everybody. Welcome to Indiana Success Happy Hour. Brian Quinlan here from Daniels Real Estate.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Brad Nickin from Nest Mortgage Group. Fantastic.
[00:00:20] Speaker C: Tequila Scott moved me to Indy on YouTube. And you'll notice we have another guest today.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Sir.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: Tell the folks who you are.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: H. I'm Jeff McCabe from Hard Truth down in beautiful Brown County, Indiana.
[00:00:33] Speaker C: Fantastic. Now we had Brian, your master distiller on a couple weeks ago and now here you are, founder of Hard Truth.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Yes. Yep.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: Or one of.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Yes, one of. Yeah, like I said, the good looking one.
We've got a smart one, a quiet one, hard working one and a good looking.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: You know, we're going to have to agree with you because we have, we haven't actually seen any of the other ones so we're gonna just.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: I have, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna
[00:01:00] Speaker A: take the hard truth on that one.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Right?
Yeah.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: All right. Brad Velour. I see over here.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I wanted to finish this off. This is the, the high proof batch two that just came out and it is officially sold out at the importer and brand level. So some distributors still have it, you will still find it on some store shelves, but it is disappearing quickly and once it's gone, it's gone. So if you can find this bad boy, it is in some places here in Indianapolis and other places around the state. So go to velo drink velour.com to find it. But it is, it's a fantastic.
We've had below.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah. We're gonna chase this with some whiskey. About halfway point.
[00:01:43] Speaker C: Fantastic.
I have a Quaffon beer. Shocking from Hard Truth.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Well, they're.
[00:01:50] Speaker C: Are they technically separate companies?
[00:01:52] Speaker B: They are. Same ownership.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Same ownership, same guys. Started quaffin back actually 17 years ago. Oh, I dig it out.
[00:02:01] Speaker C: Okay, so this is one of my favorite Quaffin beers and I do like several of them. The strawberry blonde, super good.
Along with the six foot blonde. My blonde happens to be about five seven, but close enough. And yeah, thanks for bringing this in today.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: You know, we used to keep a step stool at the bar at the first place in Nashville, the little group hub because women would come in and they say, well, I'm not six feet tall. We just have them step up.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: There you go. That's a great idea.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: All right.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: And you're drinking Squirt today?
[00:02:32] Speaker B: I am.
[00:02:34] Speaker C: It's got a long drive back to Nashville.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Started that when I was a kid.
[00:02:38] Speaker C: All right.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Phenomenal. It's one of my go tos for sure.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: I just wish when you're driving between here and New Mexico, every gas station had it. Yeah, they don't. I didn't.
[00:02:48] Speaker C: That was hard to find.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: No, but now, you know, there's. What is that Mexican one? I like? Trop Tropical.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: There's the fan.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: What's it called in Mexico? It's Search of the F. Fanta.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: I think it's might be. It might be fan.
Yeah, I know I can't get them here, but they have. There's a real Mexican squirt that has real sugar in it.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Love that.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: And it's. They're coming around now, so you're starting to find them. I swear some of the Mexican grocery stores will have them.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: So that's going to be my next search. Is that real sugar?
[00:03:24] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Tastes better.
[00:03:26] Speaker C: All right. So, Jeff, you and I met absolutely. On a whim. My wife and I were down enjoying, you know, the Nashville area. Checking out the distillery, which was our second or third time there, which is a great place.
And we sat at the bar to have dinner. We happen to be sitting next to you and your colleagues, and I'm going to throw Stephanie out there. And she was like, okay, these guys over here are talking like they're important.
She says, I think you need. So we asked the bartender and she goes, yeah, that's. That's Jeff and is Brian.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: I think Brian and Jim.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: And so struck up a conversation and here we are.
So, so a thank you for coming. I know it's not necessarily a short trip from where you are, but we appreciate you being here.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: Well, it gave me a chance to stop at our place at Bottle Works. Oh, yeah, garage. You know, we've got a hard truth there. So it's good to pop my head in and help them dust off some of the bottles up in those shelves up there that's too high to reach and, and, and say hi to everybody. So worked out. Great. Awesome.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: I stop in there every time my bottle works and there's a drink that they make with your toasted coconut rum.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: So good.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: I mean, I can drink that out of the bottle anyway, but I. I go ahead and have them make the drink out of it.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: It's delicious. Do you make a couple get lost maybe?
[00:04:44] Speaker A: I think that's what it is.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Or lost in the woods.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: No, that's it. Lost in the woods. Yeah.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Yeah. It's. It's really popular. You know, that's the only bar we have that's only a bar.
And it's fantastic because, you know, it's right there at. Where everybody who's from somewhere else comes.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: In Indianapolis. If it's the Final Four, if it's the. Yeah, the NFL combine, whatever. We. We get more new fans from that place than you can shake a stick at.
[00:05:13] Speaker C: And you don't have to make food.
[00:05:16] Speaker B: You know, that's really.
[00:05:17] Speaker C: It's a bonus.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: I love the restaurants, but. Yeah, that's really. That's a blessing. Absolutely.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: I was told the. The best way to make a million dollars with a restaurant is to start out with two.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
You know, I wish somebody told me that. 17 years.
[00:05:35] Speaker C: All right, so let's get a little background on you. Maybe before Hard Truth, before Quaffon, any of that.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: What.
[00:05:41] Speaker C: How'd you get where you are?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: How far back do you want to go? I actually, I Actually, I'll. I'll. I'll do a quick tour. We. I. I graduated from school at Annapolis.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: And went from there to fly helicopters in the Navy.
Had a great time doing that. I am really excited about some of the things that are happening in the Middle east right now because I'm actually old enough that when I was in flight school, the Shah. The. The Shah that. That. That regime fell, and all the Iranian pilots who were in my class had to go immediately back. And then we had. And then I went. You know, as soon as I got out of flight school, I was in the Middle East. Right. On aircraft carrier. Wow. And, you know, that was a tough time to be out there doing that stuff and. Sure. And to see 47 years later thing kind of come around and maybe we have a chance for a piece in the Middle East.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: That would be nice.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: No. Actually makes me happy.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Okay. Pretty incredible. So did you. You flew helicopters?
[00:06:41] Speaker B: I did. Wow. Flew H3s. And then quickly after that, came back here to Indiana, Flew. Flew helicopters in the Guard. Indiana Guard. That's where I met Jim Dunbar, who's one of our partners.
Didn't stay in Indiana very long, though. So after Desert Shield, I.
I went to France, worked. Worked for a company called Turbo Mecca that makes really good helicopter engines and. Cool.
You know, I've just. I've just done a bunch of different things. I've. I ended up at American Express. Had a great run at American Express.
Ran a big part of the corporate card business. I remember you.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: You were the guy that called me and asked me to Leave home without it because my credit was so bad.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: You know, I was the guy who would. Had the. Had the form letter with my signature printed on and said, please pay your bill.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: No, I'm kidding. I never was able to even get an American Express back then.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah, the. The. The most interesting card story I have is, you know, I ran. I ran part of the card business, and I got. My assistant came into the office one day, and she said, there's a baseball player that wants a black card. And a lot of people don't even know there's an American Express black card.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: It's, like, really cool, right?
And she said, he really wants it. And I said, what's his name? And she said, derek Jeter. All right. And I said, who's he? Yeah, because he was.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: I would have been the same.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: He was a rookie. Oh, wow.
And. And he got on the phone with me, he said, Mr. McKinnon, really? Like a black car. He said, all my friends on the team have, you know, we worked it out. He got his black car.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: But I had no idea who he was when I called. Very polite when he was asking for the car.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:29] Speaker C: All right.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: All right.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: Is the black card still around?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So what, what.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: What do you have to do to qualify for the black card?
[00:08:36] Speaker B: I think I have to spend it. Used to be, you know, at one point it was $150,000 a year on the card. Now I think it's a quarter million. Cool. Wow.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: I'm going to be a little short.
[00:08:46] Speaker C: Did I see Derek Jeter in a
[00:08:48] Speaker B: commercial for an American Express black card in the last. I don't know. I don't know. I.
After American Express, I came back here to Indiana. We came back for good. We. We. That was 2003. After we got everything taken care of after 9, 11, you know, I decided I had enough of that.
And that's when we started doing some of the things we're doing now.
[00:09:11] Speaker C: So that's an odd road from all of that to starting a beverage company.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: What. What made you go this route?
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Well, we moved back to. We moved to Grant county and, you
[00:09:26] Speaker C: know, New York City to Brown County.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Well, actually, I had an office in New York City. I had a one in Atlanta, and I had the family living in Atlanta.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: Okay. That is a quality, a change of life.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Big deal. And actually, my son Ian, who works in the business, you may have met him, was in the eighth grade. And I just. With my wife, and I said, ian, do you want to. You want to play Football here in Atlanta at Big Centennial High School, or do you want to go to Brown County?
He says, well, if I go to Brown County, I can play football and I can be in theater.
Cool. He wanted to do everything. Okay. So we moved to Brown County. All right. That's very cool. Nifty small school. You can do a lot of things if you're a kid, you're not stuck in one track.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: What school district is that?
[00:10:12] Speaker B: That's Brown County.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: It's Brown county because I know the other one's Nineveh Jackson.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's just north.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: They always cancel school.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Well, that's when you see on the news all the time this week because of the rain. Oh, I imagine. Yeah. Flooded ropes.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And then if there's ice, the school buses can't go up.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Remember when we were kids, though, they'd
[00:10:31] Speaker A: be like, swim across, walk.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: My mom would say, walk to school.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Walk to school.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Like, I just remember it. They didn't really care about us as, as kids.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Not as much. I remember walking, walking to school. You know, when I was 6 years
[00:10:44] Speaker A: old, I, I, I walked to kindergarten, as did I. Just like. And then I got whacked throwing snowballs at the teacher, and I had to walk home and tell my parents.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Well, and see, because of that experience, you probably never would throw a snowball at a police officer in New York City.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: I would not throw snowball at a police officer in New York City. I would, I would like to say that that one paddling in the kindergarten would, you know, I then straightened up, but that, that wasn't the case.
I got paddled all the way until they could kick me out.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah. All right. I don't get paddled now. That's good.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: That's good.
So I guess then, so moved to Nashville. And was it moving to Nashville with the intention of starting Hard Truth, or did that kind of evolve when you were there?
[00:11:32] Speaker B: Well, I really didn't worry about what I was going to do. I really wanted to, you know, because we had moved around a lot and that kind of thing. And my, you know, my family put up with all that. And, you know, part of that time, like I said, I worked over in Europe. A part of that time we worked in Asia.
You know, this was more about what my family was going to do and how things were going to be for them. But pretty soon, you know, you know, I had a, I was on the board of a couple companies and, you know, so I still got out and got to, got to do my thing. And ultimately I met Ed Ryan, who we talked about earlier, my partner. And he was the only guy who had a stock brokerage in town. And I invested some money with him and then we started to buy some of the commercial property in Nashville. And the way this all got started was there, this was 2008, 2007 started, but a bank had foreclosed on a really neat little restaurant called. Of a historic restaurant in Nashville called the Little Brown Jug.
And we, we bought that in foreclosure from 2008 from a bank in Michigan.
And we were just going to lease it to somebody who had a restaurant dream, who had a. Who had $2 million. Right.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: And instead my son in law, Tim, who is one of our partners, was brewing this great beer on the back porch of a bed and breakfast we owned and he had a beer exchange. We thought, well, there's no brew pub in Nashville, so why don't we turn Tim loose on that. Oh, and was born. Yeah. Why don't we please our Quaffin and Big Woods. Yeah, Big woods restaurant.
So, you know, we thought we'd please ourselves and turned out we could please other people too. Right.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: How do you think the, your time in the military shaped you for not only the jobs that you had, but then running a business today?
[00:13:30] Speaker C: Really, really good question, Brad.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: I throw that out there. Well, I can tell you my experience at Annapolis. Four years of having to make my bed every day.
And do you still make your bed today? I do. Okay. Every day.
[00:13:44] Speaker C: Carry on.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: And my wife shakes her head, but you know, also being a major offender at Annapolis for three years, you know, in terms of demerits, totals and making my bed and then going out and marching with a M1 rifle. Right.
That kind of discipline helped me get. And learning how not to get all those demerits was helpful. But, but seriously, you know, that discipline is very helpful. And doing some of the things you have to do on active duty, you know, you get a different kind of confidence in what's possible. Right.
Nowadays the young people at Americans, not American Express at hard truths and qualifying, we talk about unreasonable belief. Right. I mean, to do some of the things you have to do in the military, you have to have an unreasonable belief that you can do them. But same's true to be an entrepreneur. Right. You got, you take risks that other
[00:14:42] Speaker A: people shouldn't take or are afraid to take.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Or afraid to. You know, it's not for everybody.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: And every risk hasn't been a winner I'm sure,
[00:14:52] Speaker B: like a lot of people, I say the same thing. I learn a lot more from my failures than my successes. Right.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: You know, the greatest line I was ever told is, the best knowledge comes from a failure, as long as it's learning from somebody else's failure.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: That sounds like something Charlie Munger would say.
[00:15:09] Speaker C: Right?
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Yeah, true.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to come up with the idea. You just have to do it better than the guy.
[00:15:14] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Make a better mouth who came up with it.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: All right. So the foreclosed restaurant you purchased turned into Big woods and Quaffin.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Well, the beer was Big woods at first.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: And we filed for the trademark for it and for Big Woods Brewing Company.
And we could get the federal mark for restaurants, but we couldn't get it for beer because there was a guy up in Minnesota who had big wood. Oh, okay. And I went up to Minnesota to see him. I said, can we share that or can we make a deal? And he said, I've got the big wood. Right.
He said, well, I beg to differ.
You know, I'm not making that up. Oh, my gosh. Like that joke.
Anyway, so we went back and rethought it because we. We always thought we could do something with it that was worth having a federal trademark.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: So we.
So we changed the name and quaff.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: I was gonna ask, how where's that name come from?
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Well, you know, I studied Shakespeare at one point, and in every one of Shakespeare's plays, somebody quaffs. Right. One of the. One of the great characters from Shakespeare's Falstaff.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: If you ever want to know where Falstaff came from as the name of the beer. No kidding. Yeah. Falstaff was this big.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: It's a great beer jolly guy.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So. So quaff means to. And actually, since we're going to get into the nitty gritty, let's go.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: The first written use of the word coif was in the Canterbury Tales. Okay. Was that 1123 or something like that
[00:16:53] Speaker C: you're throwing on now?
[00:16:54] Speaker A: When I said I got in trouble in school a lot.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
So it just means to drink. Hardly.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Better. Yeah, for sure. Drink hard.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Quaff on I.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: All the time.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: See, was the six foot blonde beer the first of the beers?
[00:17:10] Speaker B: It was in the first group. Another one in the first group that I think it was the name heard. It was Possum Trot. Okay. People didn't drink Possum Trot. No, no, no.
Six foot blonde was one of the first busted knuckle was out. You know what I think was Tim's first big breakthrough? Because that's really a different beer.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: That's the peanut butter. Right.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Well, now there's peanut butter. Busted knuckle. Before that, it was just this robust porter that actually did really well. Yeah. Cool.
[00:17:41] Speaker C: They're very unique names. Any story behind, like, six foot blonde? Was it named after an actual six
[00:17:49] Speaker B: foot blonde that somebody knew?
So do you want the true story?
[00:17:54] Speaker C: I. You know, as long as that goes.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: We don't do with the Epstein files.
[00:17:57] Speaker B: Nothing like that. That's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. My.
My daughter Megan did a lot of the original beer art. Cool. All right. And you know, a lot of the names came up from around this table. We'd sit at and drink and throw out a name. And six foot blonde came from that. But then we were thinking about.
And I should say she modeled the six foot blonde. That's still on the labels from the Bond girls.
Totally. See that thing at the beginning of the movie that. That's. That's where that notion came from. Ah, all right. Right. And.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: And your daughter drew that.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: She drew that. Cool. And then we were trying to think of a T shirt.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: What?
[00:18:43] Speaker B: We'd put on a T shirt that the bartenders could wear because it, you know, it was popular right off bat where we thought, what would be a cool T shirt. So she did the art with like the label art on the front. Then I said, well, what do we put on the back for the bartenders? And Megan's quiet. She. But she held up. She held up a bottle.
And this was for the bartenders. Right. So she said, I'd tap that.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: Right, Perfect.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: Right. And so we put. We put that on the back so that when. When the bartender turned around, you'd see that.
[00:19:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Right. And what's really. This is the best part of the story.
So then an article came out in the indie star where the writer was talking about how inappropriate the craft brewers around Indiana are, and they had a picture of our T shirt. Yeah, right. That was. That was part of the article.
Our sales, like, blew.
[00:19:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:42] Speaker B: And I. So I called the writer and I said, I gotta thank you.
She said, for what? Right. And I said, you really helped our brand with that story.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: And I've seen your picture. And it'd take 12 beers before I'd tap that. Thanks for calling.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:00] Speaker C: That's great.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah. True story.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:20:03] Speaker C: The original restaurant you purchased, is it the one that's there on Main street
[00:20:06] Speaker B: in Nashville or is it the one
[00:20:08] Speaker C: that's on your hundreds of acre property?
[00:20:10] Speaker B: It. It's. It's one. It's in the alley behind the one on Main Street. Oh, okay. Right. It's a little place that only had 30 seats.
[00:20:18] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: And is that still there? Yeah, but now it's Moontown.
[00:20:22] Speaker C: Okay. I was curious if that was it.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: We thought, you know, we, we, we weren't using the building. We used it for catering, that kind of thing. It makes a great kitchen. And we thought, well, why not bring some competition in for ourselves to. Cool. We like, you know, that's craft beer is all about. Oh yeah, I like Moon Town.
And so we, we did a deal with that. That's cool, right?
[00:20:43] Speaker C: So then I guess I don't know
[00:20:46] Speaker B: where I want to go with this.
[00:20:47] Speaker C: Let's talk about the, the large property that, that's there.
How did we get over there?
[00:20:54] Speaker B: So we lusted for that property, the, the 325 acres that were on for a couple years, and a lot of other people did too. And over several years, different people tried to sell the family trust that own that the core part, the 71 acres, on the idea of a golf course.
They drew golf course plans and a subdivision and all that kind of stuff, and the family could never agree on selling it. So we just hung in there for a couple years.
And you know, while we were trying to get everybody lined up, we thought about what it would look like.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: We'd actually go up in the woods there because it was all woods then, and we'd.
We'd put little engineer flags out for where the tour center would be and that kind of stuff. And you know, we like to have fun with each other. You know, a little drinking out there in the woods and we'd move each other's flags and that kind of thing, see if the other guy noticed. But took a couple of years and then finally all 12 members of the family trust agreed on the same day. We got the 71 acres. And then folks around us, you know, the donut part sold. So that's how we got it. But you know, you have to. If you really want something, you've got to hang in there, right? You can't put short. There you go.
[00:22:14] Speaker C: I'll leave it short.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: Have you ever heard me tell that story?
[00:22:17] Speaker A: I'll be honest.
[00:22:17] Speaker C: No, I don't.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: I have not. So back in the day when I worked with American Express, I hosted a golf school that was co hosted by the world's greatest golfer of all time. Byron Nelson. This is back in.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Oh, I thought you were going to say John Daly.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that would be fun too.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: I can't wait.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: But so this back in the 90s and he was in his 80s. Oh my gosh. And anyway, I hosted the. After two years of hosting this thing, it was for like C level executives, you know, guests.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: One way to get a guy who's running a big, big corporation out for a few days is to have him go learn from.
Yeah. So anyway, I'm sitting there, Las Colinas in. In Texas. And after the second golf school, Myron and I were meeting to talk about the third one. And he said, you know, no, Jeff, this year, why don't you give your golf spot to somebody else? And I said, sure, what are you thinking? And he said, well, you're not going to get any better.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Well, that wasn't very nice, you know,
[00:23:27] Speaker B: I mean, Byron, he said, you're the guy in the bar who shoots pool with these guys and you know, you do your thing, but, you know, instead of seven guys, you get eight.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: And so I love the way he thought. So we did. But then what? That third year, while we're watching, we had a pro for each guest from around the country, Right. So the pros were always up first. They're out there on a putting green first, they're working my. Are drinking coffee, watching the guys putt. And he said, jeff, what do you see?
And I said, well, they're missing a few putts. And he said, yeah, but what do you see? And I couldn't get the right answer. And he said, look, he said. He said, watch, watch, Frank. And he said, these guys never cut short.
And I said, right. And he said, if you put short, you never had a chance.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: If you remember anything for me, never put short. Putt long. If you're going to miss, miss.
Well, a few putts short, you'll not. You never had a chance.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:24:37] Speaker C: Never up, never end.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: That's like one of the great lessons that really is.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: That's a lesson of life.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: More than just golf. That's.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: Don't put short.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. That goes to. I always said, if you're going to fall down, fall forward.
Yeah, right. That's kind of the same, like, mentality. That's pretty awesome.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: Sorry you put it short so long, Brian.
[00:24:57] Speaker C: So a decent putter.
All right, so you got the restaurant going, quaffons going. How does that evolve into hard truth?
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Well, it was 2014 or so that, you know, we couldn't own a brewery and a distillery back then because the legislature, you know, law didn't allow it. So a bunch of folks got together and influenced the legislature to get the artisan distilling bill passed so that we could own a distillery in a particular. Oh, cool. So what else are we going to do? Right?
[00:25:30] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: We could do it. So why not do it? Yeah. But. So we started out, bought a pilot system. We put it up on top of the second floor of that building that's got Bigwoods Pizza. And Brian started. Brian and another Smith call Smith, started creating recipes up there on that pilot system.
And they did that for a couple of years while we built the big place. Yeah, cool. Right. The.
[00:25:56] Speaker C: The.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: The cinnamon vodka and the toasted coconut rum, the white rum, the gin all came out.
The formula we use now, you know, in those first six months.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: But we.
We also did a lot of traveling during that time, and somebody we met in the beer business, the guys at Wilderness Trail, also mad scientists who own a company called Firm Solutions. If you had a yeast problem in your brewery, they would fix it. Right. And so we. So we knew those guys. Not that we ever had problem with our yeast, but they started Wilderness Trailers Trail Trails. They're one of the sweet mash pioneers. We're sweet mash distillers, and they helped us get started.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: We're talking about hard truth, and some
[00:26:45] Speaker A: was brought here, so we need to have some.
[00:26:48] Speaker C: All right, we're going to take a break. We'll be right back.
All right, we are back, and hard truth has entered the show. Sweet mash rye, courtesy of Jeff.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: Thanks for bringing this. Sure.
[00:27:01] Speaker C: And our friend Brian brought it last time as well. So we're hooked up here at our bars.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: Which batch is this? Let's see.
I don't have my glasses.
Where am I looking? Right over here.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: It's batch number 13.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: Okay. That's a good one. Okay. Every. You know, with sweet mash, every batch, part, one of the reasons that sour mash distillers Sour mash is because that helps them get better consistency batch to batch.
And, you know, our. Prof. A little different. So we get. We get great consistency, but we also get very variation between batches. That makes it really interesting that people will go, I like batch six.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: You know, just as much as they say, I like the seven year or the.
[00:27:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:49] Speaker C: So you said this one's batch 13. How high did the batches go?
[00:27:53] Speaker B: I don't know. Okay. I don't know.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: There's a good really Nice, but not that high.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: There's a nice dark cherry note.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:28:03] Speaker C: All right.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: So,
[00:28:06] Speaker A: yeah, Brian's my big drinker.
[00:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah, he's not. But so hard truth and no, Quaffon and Big woods come together.
Why a pizza restaurant, by the way? I love Big woods pizza.
Why. Why a pizza place of all food joints?
[00:28:26] Speaker B: Well, you know, we're in that little place in the back of the alley, right. And we couldn't get enough people in. The only complaint we had was that can't bring our kids and. And you don't have enough seats. And, you know, I can't possibly get in on a Saturday. Yeah, right, right. So the lady next door who owned the building that were. Were in there was. I think she was 73 at the time. And one day, after a couple of years, she came and said, jeff, I think you should buy my building. She said, you're the one to take it. You know, I'm ready to retire. And it was a mall, right? It was a little inside mall. Okay. It had eight different shops. So over a period, a couple of years, we migrated people out, but it was just.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: I remember when that was a mall.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And when we thought about what people there at Nashville would like, you know, we like pizza, but everybody likes pizza, right? And lots of people do, so. So. So we.
We jumped right in with pizza. Dude, it's so good. And you know what?
Pizza is fun to make, right? I mean, the whole. There's a lot more to it or can be a lot more to it.
[00:29:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Depending on how much you want to get into it.
[00:29:39] Speaker C: I feel like you're going to talk.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: Isn't it wonderful?
[00:29:42] Speaker A: Yeah. There's a nice, like, leather and a nice tobacco note, like in the finish, and you get this really nice chocolatey cherry note.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Was really good. I think most of the whiskey in that batch, tens to five years.
That's very good. Yeah.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: There's a. There's a little thing that my. I have a. Some friends have a podcast called Whiskey Tequila Fridays, and I need to get your stuff on this podcast. What they do is one of them's
[00:30:08] Speaker B: a whiskey hunter, brings a great whiskey,
[00:30:10] Speaker A: and he's very knowledgeable. The other's a tequila guy. So he brings a great tequila, right? And they do it. They taste the tequila, they talk about. They taste the whiskey, they talk about. And then they do this thing called a quick sip.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: Right?
[00:30:23] Speaker A: So they do the glass of whiskey and the glass of tequila, and you'll nose the whiskey, taste the. The whiskey, and then before the finish is done, you nose the tequila and taste the tequila, and you see what the tequila brings out in the whiskey.
And, you know, then they talk about that. Then they go the opposite direction.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: It. Right.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Then they'll nose and taste the tequila, and before that's gone, they'll taste the whiskey.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Then they'll say, which way did you like it best? And every time it's, you know, they're almost always, like, opposite or they're shocked, you know, oh, I liked it this way the best. But if you do it the. The. The way the one spirit affects the other spirit in both directions, the flavors are amazing. Like, they're just crazy what. What they do to each other, you know, because what's. What you eat before you drink, what you. You know, that all affects what you're tasting and smelling. So it's. It's a really neat experience.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: There are a lot of things you reminded me of. A couple things, you know, because part of it's psychology, but part of it's neural pathways, sensory stuff. And, like, you know, that whiskey wins a lot of blind competitions. Doesn't matter who it is.
And they're all great whiskeys. So say there are five of us in this blind competition. Four of them are sour mash.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: And could be, you name it, great whiskeys.
But in blind competition, we compete really well. We win more than our share.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Right. And it's not because the other four aren't really great.
I'm convinced that it's because sweet mash is just a little bit different.
Right. I think what. What resonates with the judges, whatever, is that they, you know, it's just in the back of their mind, they just remember the one that was a little different because they're all great. Yeah. But there's one that's a little bit different.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: They're all great.
[00:32:16] Speaker C: It's hard to distinguish, but one that's just slightly different.
[00:32:20] Speaker B: Yeah. The other thing that you made me think of is with barrels, we do a lot. We sell a lot of single barrels now, whether it's to retailers or collectors, private people, whatever. So we're selling a lot of barrels. We do a lot of tasting the barrels, and a lot of times they'll bring in five or six people to taste the three. Typically, we'll do three barrels up to five.
And what I. I keep track of everything. Right. For fun.
The second barrel wins more often than any other.
[00:32:49] Speaker A: No kidding. Interesting. It really does.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: And I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's just a lot but it's
[00:32:54] Speaker A: really cool that you say that, because I. I do this in tequila and taste single barrels. And we just went down and tasted eight barrels. One of them will be an ano single barrel that comes out right this fall.
And a lot of people liked the second barrel.
Now, I. I liked barrel number seven.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: And it.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: When we went back through them and we. We did tasty notes and talked about them, 2 and 7 became the two most popular barrels out of.
[00:33:24] Speaker C: Someone needs to do a scientific study on this.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: That's really interesting. So we know that, and a lot of times we think we have an idea what would be the best barrel for that group. Yeah. Because we know what they sell in a restaurant, for example.
You know, I mean, those things make a difference.
So I kind of say if there's a barrel you really think this group will want, you're better off to make it number two than to try to convince them if that's not their first choice. Good research right there. All right.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: You know, the blind changes your whole process of tasting a spirit because you come in with a preconceived notion of. I like that one better.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: And a great example. I did a blind with Pappy 15, Buffalo Trace, Weller 12, and Blands, but I didn't know what they were. Right. I just tasted through them my. I went Weller 12, Buffalo Trace, Blanton's and Pappy's last.
And I thought, you know, if I would have known what they were, I would have probably said that Pappy's better because it costs two arms and a leg. But in the blind, you know, Buffalo Trace and Weller were really close. And back then, you know, Buffalo trace was 20 bucks and Weller was 60 bucks.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Right, right. It's. There's an article, and I don't know where. It's just something I saw that I haven't read yet. Up to my pile of stuff to read. It's all about the psychology of that.
And, you know, with the changes that are happening in the whiskey world now, it's.
How long will that psychology hold that you'll pay that much for a bottle.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: Based on the name?
Yeah.
[00:35:02] Speaker A: Yeah. That's a big switch that's happening in all spirits. Right. Every spirit is changing.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: But I think. And tell me if I'm wrong. When you have a local brand like you have and people know you as a great spirit, but also local, don't you think that gives you a better foothold in this market at least?
[00:35:21] Speaker B: Sure, absolutely.
You know, in Indiana, folks are very loyal to all things Indiana.
[00:35:28] Speaker C: For real.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: Right. I mean it's, it's, and with us, you know, it's Doug Miller from Brown county who grows our corn. Right. Doug Grozer, our red winter wheat. And you know, you know, when we tell the story, people say, okay, so the grains from Indiana, you guys from Indiana, you're doing it here. It's, it's, it's water from the, from, from the aquifer nearby and that kind of thing. Yeah, they want to, they want to like it, right? It's like going to the theater. What do they call that? The theater? The willing suspension of disbelief.
[00:36:02] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, yeah, people want to like it. It's great right now. We, I, I spend, I like to be at the tour center on Saturdays and I like, I love, you know, just like talking with you guys. You guys are great. I love talking with people. Right. And seeing what they think. But I also like to be like the secret shopper, you know. So yeah, you know, if I don't want people to know who I am, I don't wear my Hartree jacket, my heart truth hat and I, you know,
[00:36:29] Speaker A: comes in with all the Jim Beam
[00:36:31] Speaker B: stuff on my dirt, my dirty jeans, whatever. Caring some red stag.
Yeah. And you know, I just listen to, you know, there'll be somebody gonna say, oh yeah, they're pretty good friend. Yeah. But they're, they're, it's not like Kentucky. Right? It's not like Kentucky whiskey. You know, I, I, I love to get a conversation where, you know, I don't tell them they're wrong, but I help them see the truth. Yeah. The hard truth.
[00:36:55] Speaker C: Uh, very good. How many states are you in now?
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Well, it's 36. Wow. Yeah. I think last time when Brian here was here is probably 30 some somewhere around there. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: Okay, I have a question for you.
So you've had a lot of success, you've done a lot of things in your life.
I want to say thanks for your service as well because that's.
If you could go back and look at your 25 year old self in the eyes, busting out the questions. What would you tell your 25 year old self that you wish you would
[00:37:29] Speaker B: have known then today?
Almost everything. Right.
[00:37:33] Speaker A: Almost everything.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I mean part of the beauty of being 25 is that you don't know.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Right. And you'll do some really stupid things. Right?
[00:37:43] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: You know the, the thing, I guess seriously, when I was 25, I was already I was already married. I already had two kids. Kids. Right, right. I mean I married my high school sweetheart.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: She, she, she still married to my high school sweetheart.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Very cool. And you? We got engaged when I went to Annapolis. Okay, right.
She actually moved out to Annapolis after I was there two years just to make sure I would graduate.
She said, I've got an investment in you.
Nice. And you know, she's, she's act on us a lot for us, be able to do things we did.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: So if I could think about what I had known that, what I, what I would like to know then, that I know now, I think I'd just like to appreciate her more.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's really good.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: All right, so I have another one. Another deep one like that Boy. So now that you have created this business and you've had this success, who.
And this person can be alive, dead, famous, whatever, who would you most want to sit down with and pull this, this whiskey out and share it with them and tell the story of where you are today and have that conversation?
[00:38:59] Speaker B: Well, that's not a hard question for me. My, my, my dad passed away several years ago.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Right. And before, before yet we were in the beer business but you know, before 2014. Sure. Stuff I would love to be able to tell him about and have him see what we've done.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: Because he always, he's, he always said we could.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: He always said, you know, every time I said, I don't know if I do that, he said, you can do that.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Right? That's me.
And same for my mom. She would do the same thing.
You know, just.
I can't think of any, anything too unreasonable that. I mean, I, I would, I propose to do some crazy things. They say, well, you can do that.
Right.
You.
[00:39:49] Speaker C: In our extensive pre show research which involved talking to you when you walked in the door and drinking his products. And drinking products, of course.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: I mean that's, that's really important.
[00:39:58] Speaker C: You had mentioned some sort of a rating that you guys had just been given.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: It's crazy. So. And I've got to thank everybody listening. Right. We, we was. About a month and a half ago, Newsweek picked a list of finalists for the best distillery tour or experience in the United States.
We made the cut as one of the finalists, the top 10. And we were in there with like Woodford Reserve, Maker's Mark, Buffalo Trace, Whistle Pig, you know, just a great list and it's really people's choice. So from there people had to go to Newsweek, Dot com and vote. And I know you guys voted and I appreciate it.
We got notified yesterday that we're it. We're the number one.
[00:40:48] Speaker A: That is fantastic.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: That is still our experience in the country.
[00:40:51] Speaker C: All right, now for those who have never been there, what experiences are there
[00:40:56] Speaker B: available there in Nashville? Well, first of all, I gotta say, you know, it's this beautiful 325 acre.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: It's amazing.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: And the truly is rolling hills. Right. And we didn't screw that up.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Well done.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Yeah. There's not much concrete, not much asphalt. It's a beautiful place. Into trees. Remember we had a contractor who came in to bid on doing some of the site work and he said, well, let's cut the top of the hill off flat and it will save you a lot of money.
That was the last conversation.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: See you later.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: And you know, because everything's different levels, but when you get there, you know you've got a great place to eat. Right. You've got a staff that's really happy to see you, you know, that truly are. I really think that's part of the. Part of the story. A big part of the story for us is that the people who work there, really proud to work there and they really want you to have a great experience. But you know, some of the things that I think set us apart, we've got this great whiskey, we've got great other spirits.
I mean, we. We appeal to just a really wide demographic. Because if you think about it, when you guys go, does everybody really nerd out on whiskey group? No. A lot of them, you know, they want that Lost in the woods drink. Right.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:42:12] Speaker B: With the toasted coconut rum or something like that.
And.
Well, they want beer or they want beer.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: I will say this. Brian and I nerded out, but we talked.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: But you process, but you bring people with you, you know? Yeah. And so you want to. You want to appeal to a wider race. So we've got things for everybody to do. You know, the music, live music.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: You have like a natural amphitheater. Yeah. Honestly, the way that nobody, nobody wanted
[00:42:37] Speaker B: to contract that for us.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: Why?
[00:42:39] Speaker B: Because it's steep.
[00:42:40] Speaker C: Right.
[00:42:40] Speaker B: It's wonderful. And we built those terraces.
We did it ourselves. Red Rock is steep.
Yeah, right. I mean, steep is how you get that sound.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: How that guy can sing way down
[00:42:51] Speaker C: there and everybody can hear it.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: And you've really got to see it. Yes.
So most popular tour is the Get Lost Tour. Right. The ATVs we drive did that one and four drink stops in the woods. And they're Themed. I haven't done that. Oh, it's, it's cool.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: We need to go make, we gotta go make.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: So we make a really good gin. So we've got a, we've got a gin joint in the woods that's, it's really like a prohibition area. Prohibition area. Like a pop up party. Okay. Right. It's just a shack in the woods that's got chandeliers and stuff in it. And you drink gin. Right. All right. And then one of the other stops is Beer Bluff where you drink this beer. Yeah.
[00:43:35] Speaker C: Sitting on a swing going over the bluff.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: But to give you an idea, you know, we get, we have families, we have the whiskey aficionados and I think our inside the barrel tour is as good as anybody.
[00:43:48] Speaker C: Haven't done that one yet.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: Well, that, that's where you go FIFA barrel in the rack house. And you know, it's, it's, it's more exclusive and you know, you ever show
[00:43:57] Speaker A: like the cooperage and how they burned the barrel and shot the barrel, that's a cool tour.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: So actually one of the new things we're doing this year. Cool.
We're. And we've always talked about the barrels, but you know, Brian doesn't mind telling you what he does with the char and the toast.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: You know, because nobody's going to be able to do what we do.
[00:44:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Let them do their own thing. But so we love to get into that.
Not just the science of that, but it's really about how that affects the flavor. Right. And how the way we toast, you can get the, that liquid.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: And it's very cool to watch them do it. To watch them. Yeah. I've watched them redo barrels for the tequila world. So I've never seen the new barrels done. I've only seen them redone.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you're actually, we're now getting some barrels from West Virginia, Great barrel company because they've got great oak in West Virginia and they're, they've got a new video that we're going to be able to show on the tour. You know, just a quick one that kind of takes you inside what they do.
And you know, we've got that little smokehouse where a lot of the barrel stuff will be. So that's addition, that's an addition to the tour. But part of the secret too is you, you always have to change. Right?
[00:45:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:10] Speaker B: So we've got the tiki boat out there. That's right.
[00:45:13] Speaker C: Haven't done that yet either.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: Where else can you go on a tiki Cruise in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the forest in Indiana.
[00:45:20] Speaker A: Exactly. That's fantastic.
[00:45:21] Speaker B: We're in. Right? Right.
[00:45:23] Speaker C: So my wife and I, our first time, few years ago, we had signed up for the ATV tour and we had hit several establishments in Nashville prior to making our way to Hard Truth. And so we stumbled our way in. And the whole time I'm walking around Nashville, I'm thinking, how am I going to drive an atv? I've had way too much to drink. And then we show up and someone drives. You just get in, get in the atv, take a tour, get more beverages along the way.
[00:45:50] Speaker A: It was great.
[00:45:51] Speaker B: And, you know, we've got the best group of tour guides we've ever.
[00:45:54] Speaker C: Yeah, he was fun.
[00:45:55] Speaker B: You know, most of the tour guides now are folks who were customers first. Oh, yeah. It would be like you saying, jeff, I wanna. I wanna work here someday.
[00:46:03] Speaker C: You know what? In my retirement, I might do that.
[00:46:05] Speaker B: I want to share the experience. But we've got this. We've got a couple who are school teachers. Oh. See, they're. They're actually awesome because they know how to teach, manage groups. Yeah, right. They.
[00:46:16] Speaker A: They get people. Well.
[00:46:17] Speaker C: Okay, so consider this my application.
I. I taught for 20 years in Center Grove. My wife has been an educator, now administrator in Perry Township for 30 years.
So we're. We're going to come work there in retirement.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: So. I love it. Yeah.
Kind of like the wizard of Oz, right? You gotta. You just have to say, I want to do it.
[00:46:39] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:46:39] Speaker B: Click your heels. And, you know, everybody who's working there is having fun or they don't.
[00:46:46] Speaker C: And I said this to Brian when he was on the show.
I've been there two or three times. I've never had a bad experience with
[00:46:54] Speaker B: people who work there.
[00:46:55] Speaker C: And twice we've sat at the bar and the bartenders are knowledgeable and super friendly and generous.
And that's actually when we met you. The reason we sat at the bar was because we had such a good experience doing that last time.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:11] Speaker C: And I have nothing but good things to say about visiting Hard Truth in Asheville.
[00:47:16] Speaker B: Well, that's where we like to hang out at the bar. We meet great people.
[00:47:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:47:20] Speaker B: Wow. You know, when, when we started to tell people yesterday about the Newsweek thing, we had people crying.
[00:47:26] Speaker C: Oh, no way.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: Wow. They just thought it was so great. That's great. Right? They're proud of what they do. That's awesome. Right.
[00:47:31] Speaker A: I'm not going to come teach, but I would love to partner with you on making A great agave spirit.
[00:47:36] Speaker B: We need to talk about that.
Hey. All right. We've got some great barrels.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: Well, I know where to. I know to take those great barrels, too.
[00:47:44] Speaker B: Very cool.
[00:47:45] Speaker C: Okay, so Nashville location. And there's two, technically.
Then there's the one at the garage, right? Where. No, there's one in Bloomington. Big Woods. Big Woods Pizza and Hard Truth in Bloomington.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: Downtown Speedway. And I know, I know you don't know that.
[00:48:03] Speaker C: No, I've been there.
[00:48:04] Speaker A: No, I've been there. Race that goes on and all of that stuff. But. And that is amazing.
[00:48:09] Speaker B: You know, Speedway is kind of the big horse, right?
[00:48:13] Speaker C: It's a big one.
[00:48:14] Speaker A: Big restaurant.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: It's a huge restaurant. And it's our best vanity project. Right. That timber frame inside.
[00:48:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: It's so cool.
[00:48:22] Speaker B: Oh, it's great. I love it. Everybody loves it. Just for trivia, so you can impress people. 1,841 wood pegs. Okay.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: No kidding.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: No, there are no 1,140, 800, 841 wood. Wood picks holding that frame together. That's a take note. You love it. And we'll never do that again. Yeah, right.
[00:48:42] Speaker A: Yeah, that's another.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: I don't want to emulate that.
[00:48:46] Speaker C: And what a great location. Just down the street from Speedway.
[00:48:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Motor Speedway.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: That is. So you did that early. Like, did you. Did you have the vision that Speedway was going to do what it did and really transform that little town to
[00:48:58] Speaker B: what it is today? I'll give a guy named Ian Nicolini credit for that.
I forget who he's with now. He's with. He's in Indianapolis now, but he was a part of that redevelopment commission that really got all that started. And you're right, they weren't done yet, Right? Yeah, there were a couple, you know, Daredevil was building.
[00:49:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: It hadn't built.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: Dalar wasn't there yet. Right.
[00:49:22] Speaker B: Laura wasn't there yet.
And.
Excuse me. We.
We had to make a bet, right, that it was going to work out because I, I went down, did a tasting down there, beer tasting down there one Friday night, and a young guy named Ian was there. Ian Nicolini. He called me Monday and he said, hey, I'm on the Reed Development Commission. We've got a piece of property we think that would work for you.
Right.
Okay.
You know, that was the corner. Tef and me. That.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: It is great. It's a great. It's a great facility. The food is amazing. The drinks are amazing. I. A lot of musicians that travel into town and play like an 8 second saloon. And so we always take them there to eat and they're always like blown away from the. Of the place and food. And then, you know, back to eight second saloon where you hope your car doesn't get stolen, but it's always a great time.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: I love to hear that. Love to hear that. You know, the.
The bar is proportional to the track.
There's 66 seats around it instead of 33.
[00:50:23] Speaker C: Are you serious?
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. We did a lot of interesting thing. If you look on that concrete bar top, there are car parts. Those are Sarah Fisher's car parts.
[00:50:32] Speaker C: Oh, that's cool.
[00:50:32] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:50:34] Speaker B: Lots of neat little things.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: Like, if you know this trivia and you come in, do you get like a free drink?
[00:50:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, sure.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: Yeah, he said.
[00:50:42] Speaker C: So I am bringing a clip of the show. Look what Jeff said.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty. And every year that gets better and better.
[00:50:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's very.
[00:50:51] Speaker B: A lot of the race teams love it. AJ Foy loves the pizza.
[00:50:56] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: He calls, says, bring me a pizza.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: He's always so sweet, isn't he?
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:02] Speaker A: Bring me a pizza.
[00:51:03] Speaker B: Right? All right. Okay.
[00:51:04] Speaker C: So we've hit all the locations that I know of. Are there any that we missed up in Noblesville?
[00:51:09] Speaker B: Noblesville, 146th Street. Hazeldale. It's. That's Big Woods. Hazel, Del.
[00:51:14] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't know there was one.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: I don't get it.
We're at the outlet mall in Edinburgh, too.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: Okay, I did know that one.
[00:51:23] Speaker C: Okay. And there was a big woods location in Franklin at the golf course that
[00:51:27] Speaker B: I know just closed up. Yeah, they're gonna. The owner is a friend of ours and he's just gonna put a steak restaurant in there. Always wanted a steak restaurant. Okay. Very cool. That's cool.
[00:51:37] Speaker C: So are there any coming soon locations,
[00:51:39] Speaker B: future locations you're thinking about? Well, you know, there will be. I just don't have any to talk about. No, that's okay.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: Nothing to share. No worries to share.
[00:51:46] Speaker B: No worries.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah, he shared a lot already.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: But be confident, all right?
[00:51:51] Speaker C: I feel confident about it.
[00:51:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: I feel like I'm going to be able to do more stuff tomorrow just because you were here.
[00:51:56] Speaker C: I want to go run through a brick wall.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: Turns out I don't have any. Oh, we do.
[00:52:00] Speaker B: We have one right there.
[00:52:02] Speaker A: What else you got for Jeff, man? I want to say thanks. Thanks for everything, like, to that. That you've put in this work with our country that. That you were so focused to build a business like you built and have a vision and then be able to make that vision happen.
And also, it's. It's really cool to meet somebody that's still married to their high school sweetheart and made that work because that is so rare.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: That's rare. 48 years.
[00:52:25] Speaker A: 48.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: Congratulations. That's great.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: We're, we're 11 behind you.
[00:52:29] Speaker B: 30.
[00:52:29] Speaker A: We'll be 38 this year.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: Bring it on.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: So.
[00:52:31] Speaker B: All right.
[00:52:31] Speaker A: That's, that's really cool.
[00:52:33] Speaker C: 29 this year.
[00:52:34] Speaker A: I think it's awesome. So thanks for coming, coming up here and doing this. Thanks for the whiskey and thanks for sharing all of your knowledge.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: I appreciate you. Well, I appreciate you guys really do.
It's. It's just so much fun to be able to do what we do and make new friends and keep friends and, and we all grow and change. It's just a lot of fun. Awesome.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: Awesome.
[00:52:54] Speaker C: Well, to you. We'll see you next time on Indiana Success. Happy hour. Cheers. Over here and over there.
Thanks for watching.
[00:53:01] Speaker A: Cheers.
[00:53:01] Speaker B: Cheers.
[00:53:02] Speaker C: It's Brian and Brad.
Grab your seat.
Real talk served with a boozy beat Tune in, don't even blink Cuz real estate makes us drink.
