Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I see a red light down there at the.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: Oh, I turned it on a while.
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Oh. We've been recording, even be able to grab some. Wow, that's fantastic.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: All right, well, you do a lot of editing.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: That is part of the experience here.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: It is part of it.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: All right. Well, hey, everybody. Welcome back to Real Estate Makes Us Drink. This is a success happy Hour. Brian Quinlan with Daniels Real Estate.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Brad Nicken with NEST Mortgage Group.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: And success Happy hour is not complete with just the two of us. So we have a guest today. Ma'am, I know you. Who are you? What do you do?
[00:00:31] Speaker C: Ma'am?
[00:00:32] Speaker A: That's right, ma'am. We're that old.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: I would have done it differently. I would have said, doctor.
[00:00:38] Speaker C: I'm Julie Schmaltz. Juliet Schmaltz. I am the owner of Fortune Spool.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Oh, see, you're. We've had a few celebrities on the show. Stephanie Quinlan, celebrity, simply because we talk about her often.
[00:00:52] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Fred Celebrity, because he is our largest follower. Comments all the time. We've had him on the show Friends with Brett. We've had Fortune's fool on our show multiple times. And our first.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: You're welcome.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: And we wouldn't if it sucked. So there's that. But previous guest. Who was our first success happy hour guest, Chris Weatherford. Hi, Chris. Hi, Chris.
He raves about Fortune's fool with.
Exactly. Exactly. So as. As I was talking to Chris a couple weeks ago, I'm like, we need to have Dr. J on the show. And I say Dr. J. So let's start there.
Dr. Julie Smalls. You don't introduce yourself as Dr. Julie anymore. So that's. I don't know.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: I don't usually. Unless I'm in the operating room.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: And I've always known you as Julie, so. Yeah.
You previously were an anesthesiologist. Can you give us a little background on that?
[00:01:52] Speaker C: Yes.
I practiced anesthesia on the south side of Indianapolis for about 16 years. Hated almost every minute.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Oh, fantastic.
[00:02:04] Speaker C: Just was looking for something else that was going to click with me a little better.
And it took that. It took 14 years to get out, but it eventually. And I tried several things and nothing really got me there. And a lot of it was starting a business.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: There was a part post anesthesiology pre Fortune's fool where you helped me with some acupuncture.
[00:02:29] Speaker C: Oh.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: I had rolled my ankle playing basketball and you came over and pinned the hell out of me, which I had never had before. That was interesting.
[00:02:38] Speaker C: And if I recall, I pictured you playing Basketball.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:02:43] Speaker C: If I recall, we had a great outcome with that.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: It worked out well. Yes. Yes. And so you were into and may still be a follower of like holistic medicine, right?
[00:02:53] Speaker C: Yep. Did the integrative medicine fellowship.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Kind of what got you honest out of anesthesiology, perhaps?
[00:03:00] Speaker C: Oh, I sure tried. It was just difficult because I'm not primary care, so it's hard to get into a job, so I'd have had to create one. And that's where I kept hitting a roadblock was I'm not a business person and I don't feel super savvy in that world.
But when I met my now husband in 2017, he just happens to be a have an MBA, has worked in finance, He's a serial entrepreneur.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: So here we are, a businessman's wife and now you are a businesswoman.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: I just wanted to make sure you knew that a serial entrepreneur is not someone that owns like Frankenberry, Booberry and dude, Count Chocula.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: That's. That's the key right there.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: But that's, that's not a serial entrepreneur.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I think Mr. Kellogg would disagree.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Mr. Kellogg?
[00:03:51] Speaker A: I don't think he great fellow. I mean, I think he just he that man. Serial entrepreneur. It's spelling difference. You want to spell it for me?
Exactly.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: I don't have any of those letters.
[00:04:03] Speaker A: All right, well, as I'm sitting here listening to Julie talk and this wonderful fortune's fool is sitting in front of me, we need to cheers this. First of all, Julie, can you tell us what it is that we're drinking here in batch number one two bottles. We're going to have two different samplings.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: Here today are my very first release. Almost exactly to the day a year ago is the prelude. Thanks. I don't remember what day it was, but we. Our release party was the first.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Is that when we were at that unnamed bar? Yes, I will. We don't. We don't say the name of said bar because my man here is a member.
[00:04:42] Speaker C: Oh, are you?
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Yes. And. But that release party was early October last year.
[00:04:47] Speaker C: Yeah, it was.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, that was a good time.
[00:04:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So this is the prelude. It's a straight rye Whiskey. It's a 10 barrel dump barrel strength, 109.6 proof. All of my whiskey is cradled in the world's finest barrels.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Now that is one thing that I feel is unique about your product.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: If.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: And I could be wrong, but yes, like you go out and choose the wood for the barrels or choose the barrels or something to that extent. Is that Accurate.
[00:05:21] Speaker C: Well, what we did was in realizing how important the barrel is for the final product and in realizing that we are never going to be Cranking out whiskey 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that we could actually afford to invest in more expensive, higher end barrels that will give us a better product early on and later. So we did research, asked a lot of questions about people like, hey, if you could just go anywhere and use their barrels, whose barrels would you use? And we kept getting sent back to this one. Oh, cooperage. That happens to be in Napa, California. Sega Maro.
They're fantastic. I could talk about the barrels like for a very long period of time maybe. I don't know if you want me to go down the rabbit hole.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: What, whatever.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: I, I edit so I can do whatever. So go for it.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: So that, that's what we decided we had to find. There has to be a story and there has to be a differentiator in a crowded field like whiskey. So for us, the story, there's a few storylines with our brand and then, you know, our north star is quality, definitely not quantity. We're making 300 barrels a year, which it looks very cool. And there's a picture of me in front of all my barrels. But the big boys, you know, they spit that out since we've been talking. So, you know, it's not very much.
So, yeah, Sega Maro started in Cognac, France, and they still have a cooperage over there. And they historically did cognac and wine barrels.
And then smartly they put in a cooperage in Napa, California. There's a little bit, a little bit of business over there too. And about 18 years ago, they started making whiskey barrels on top of their, the other ones.
And they just have their eye for quality is different from at the tree.
They told me I was at their mill in Arkansas in December. And independent Stave also has a mill in that same area. And he said, when we're on the highway and we see a truck with a bunch of logs in the back, we know which mill it's going to just by looking at the trees.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: So older trees, fewer knots, fewer faults in the actual wood. They sample every single log that comes into their mill. They take three drill holes and they pulverize it and liquefy it in some way, send it to a lab and test it. And every log gets determined to be high or low aroma. And that's just chemical content.
And then they decide which, okay, this tree, how are you going to spend your best Life, what are you going to be cradling? And they're very specific about the best use for each individual tree. So then the wood goes through the mill, they cut it into staves, put it on a pallets. The wood that is going to go for our top, we buy their top of the line barrel goes to Missouri and sits in nature for 24 months. So snow, rain, wind, moss, bugs, everything. And that all plays a role in preparing that piece of wood.
The bugs don't stay. They would love it, I'm sure. I mean, if you're gonna go, why don't you go in alcohol?
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Does the cooperage do the charring on the barrel, address the distillery?
[00:09:02] Speaker C: The cooperage. So go ahead, go ahead.
Once they get the wood to the cooperage for the barrel, the science is gone. And now it's like old school. And it's only a wood oak fire to bend the staves to make the barrel shape, only an oak fire for toasting and charring. And so there's no steam and gas, which it just given you more like fire contact, which is going to help with flavor and preparing the wood more naturally for interacting with the, with the liquid. And then they don't kiln dry most, I would say industry standard is probably maybe a three month drying period. And then you rapid kiln dry it to get it dry enough to be a stave.
Maker's mark, who I'm a fan of, boasts a nine month drying period. Ours is 24 months.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: So. And there's other people that do that, but nobody does it. There might be a couple people out west that are really small that use someone like Seguin Moreau exclusively like us. But it's extremely rare and certainly none of the big labels. They can't afford it. There's no wood that sits out there. Not that volume. Yeah.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: So do you have a level of char that you get to choose or are they all charred the same way?
[00:10:26] Speaker C: I pick whatever I want. I can toast and char to order. I could order each barrel differently if.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: I wanted and then pick a great single barrel, different char. So when I know aging is a longer time than you know, I talk about tequila on the show all the time. Much longer time than tequila. But after four times. Right. That's pretty much when the barrel loses its gift back to the alcohol. So do you use the barrels over and over again up to a certain amount of time or are you only using your barrels one time?
[00:10:57] Speaker C: We're only using the barrels one time for whiskey.
And we were like, man, these Barrels are really nice.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Right?
[00:11:06] Speaker C: Huh? What can we do with really great used whiskey barrels?
[00:11:10] Speaker B: I know what you do.
You're going to be amazed at how different that spirit reacts to a whiskey barrel than what the whiskey does. And the change is much more rapid.
[00:11:22] Speaker C: I'm looking forward to it. So we.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: We're going to come back.
[00:11:27] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: All right. Because that. That will be. Yeah. A later conversation.
How the hell do you get from.
I want to be a doctor someday. Anesthesiologist, of all doctors, because you go to school longer than anybody else, then you transition out of that, and now you're making whiskey. How did you get here before?
[00:11:52] Speaker B: She says, I know.
Oh, she was knocking people out at parties in college. Then she knocked people out as a anesthesia.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: So I want to point out we have a studio audience. Stephanie is sitting over there shaking her head. No, viciously.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: Was just guessing.
[00:12:09] Speaker C: Not that I wasn't knocking people out at parties. No, that wasn't really mine.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: She was the party girl, the biggest bomb.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:19] Speaker C: I was the book nerd.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: There you go. We're getting a definitive. Yes, entire theory. Yeah, Sorry.
Okay, little backstory here. So I met my wife in college, and she and Dr. Julie have been friends since college.
If we met at iu, no offense, I don't recall that.
[00:12:42] Speaker C: So brief.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:12:44] Speaker C: I know I met you down there, but.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Oh, while drinking.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: It was definitely at Purdy's.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Okay. Definitely at parties.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: In the basement from Sigma Nu, doing shots. No, no, no, no.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: I was probably the dd.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Who's this chickpea? It doesn't matter. Just get in the car. Yeah. So, I mean, Dr. Julie and I do go back quite a bit, so.
All right, back to my question. How. How do you get from medical world to this?
[00:13:12] Speaker C: I did medicine, honestly, like, I really. When I was a kid, I'm like, I just want to help people when I grow up. Which, you know, is a great thing.
[00:13:21] Speaker B: You're helping people now than, you know.
[00:13:24] Speaker C: And people would always say, oh, you could go. You know, I had great grades growing up. And so people be like, oh, you could be a doctor. And I'm like, okay, okay. And that's really. There's no doctor in our family. I had no. I was probably the least informed on the first day of medical school in my class. All right, well, I'm here.
And like, oh, crap.
Literally, I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon or do sports medicine or something in the. In that realm. I was thinking, like, knee scopes. I wasn't really thinking about, like, hammering on you know, total joints.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Could you fix my knee?
[00:14:00] Speaker C: I got acupuncture needles.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: All right, sounds good. Continue.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Literally, the very first week of med school, I get to follow an orthopedic surgeon. And the end of that day, I went home, and it's like, I am not in that club that is in Hammers and Falls.
I just knew I didn't fit the profile. Like, I still liked it, but I just didn't think that was going to go well for me if I did that. So then it was just a search for what I wanted to do.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: I've had that experience.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Still searching.
[00:14:36] Speaker C: Still searching. Yeah.
And then once I got, you know, once I did, anesthesia was out in practice. You know, it's just.
I think there were some things against my personality, like, some things that don't quite mesh, that I was just making work, and I did. I literally just twisted myself into a pretzel trying to make this work. Because it's so much easier just to stay. Right. Oh, 30 years, what you're saying? Yes, it's easier to stay to a point. Until it's so painful to stay that it's actually easier to leave.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:15:10] Speaker C: And I did try to leave a couple of times, and it was just, you know, I ended up having to go back. And so let's get to the fun part. The fun part is I've always liked whiskey. Like, we've always liked whiskey.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Well, okay, so we're 51, and back when y'all turned 40, there was a. A Caribbean. No. A Mediterranean cruise.
[00:15:36] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: And not long after that was a trip down to the Bourbon Trail.
You were part of that, I believe.
[00:15:42] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't know. Was that when we were 40 or.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: It was like, 41 or 42? It was close to that.
[00:15:48] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: And so obviously, you've had an affinity for bourbon for a while.
[00:15:53] Speaker C: Yeah. And you guys drink Beam, right? Yeah. So we should almost have my girlfriend's drink, Beam.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: My wife drank Southern Comfort.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Oh, sweet. So does my dad.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: I don't.
I just remember Maker's Mark. That's all I remember. I don't. I never drink Beam like that. I don't know where it came from with the other three.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: Tammy, was it?
[00:16:16] Speaker C: Tammy, yes, for sure. Okay. So.
So I've always liked whiskey. And then actually, one of the things I was thinking about when I was figuring, what can I do after anesthesia? I was kind of into wine at the time, and I just really like the art and science. You know, you make all these decisions. There's this huge Decision tree.
And somehow you get something really delicious on the other side. And same happens with whiskey, except for your glutton for punishment even more, because you got to wait longer, 24 months longer.
So. And I don't know, I was just became fascinated with the barrels and realizing how important the barrels were. And so I just wanted to learn as much as I could about that. So then when my husband and I sat down, like, what. What would you want to do that would just, like, you'd be passionate about? I'm like, well, I would really love to learn how to make whiskey.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: That's so awesome.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: I think that's super cool. Credit to your husband for just being on now. As previously described, serial entrepreneur. He's probably open to a lot of ideas that others may be like, nah. Do you really want to risk that credit to him and him pushing you to doing this? I think that's great.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: Yeah. We talk about he can tolerate a level of risk that I do not.
And especially in on the business side, because, I mean, it is terrifying at times. I'm just like, oh, good Lord. I'm like, does it ever, you know, smooth out? And he's like, really?
It's kind of horrible all the time.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: As an entrepreneur and some of that's owned many businesses. You just go, yeah, let's give it a shot. And you're like, ah, that happened.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, at some point, it's just like, well, let's see what happens.
And here you are with two fantastic bottles of whiskey here.
[00:18:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: I can't wait to see what you have.
[00:18:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Do you have. I. I seen on your website that you have. There's three bottles that you have or two bottles that you have right now. But then there were two bottles that didn't have anything on them yet. They were just like ghost bottles.
[00:18:23] Speaker C: Ghost bottles. And were those a different shape?
[00:18:27] Speaker A: Oh, I'm not sure you got that?
[00:18:28] Speaker B: I don't know. Are they a little bit different shape? I did, you know, I seen they were, like, ghosted. I know it's making our slideshow, and I was like, oh, there's four. Like, there's only two here, but there's four. So I guess I didn't notice this shape. Now. Are those currently resting somewhere?
[00:18:44] Speaker C: Well, we have. We have. Obviously we have a rye mash bill, but we also have bourbon mash bill, and we have a weed and bourbon mash bill, and we have a custom bottle, which is why. Okay, so asking about the shape. Yes.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: Fantastic.
[00:19:01] Speaker C: All coming down the pike.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: All right, so I know the bottle shape has been, I don't know, creatively chosen by you, if I'm not mistaken.
Number of sides to the bottle or there's a story there.
[00:19:21] Speaker C: There's a story there.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Okay. And it all is a reference to your name. If I'm not mistaken, it's all reference.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: To Romeo and Juliet. Because my name is Juliet.
Shakespeare theater.
Yes. Okay, so it's seven sided.
Seven is for luck.
Around each side on the bottom there's a word that starts with F. I joke that my favorite one is not there.
But they're all in reference to. They're like fortune, folly, farce, fantasy, fiction.
Always for get a couple. There's seven.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: F. Forgot.
[00:20:01] Speaker C: Forgot.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: I. I'm such a child.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Fart is the word thought of when she said farce. I know that popped into my head. Anyways, sorry. Welcome to the ship.
[00:20:12] Speaker C: That was not my favorite word.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: 10 year olds.
[00:20:17] Speaker C: And then it looks like curtains. And. And our releases, these are called the prelude and the overture as a introductory term for our custom bottle. And the custom bottle, the releases will be an acts and scenes which is, you know, theater related. Of course at the time when we decided we did not realize that Midsummer Night's Dram was scenes, but.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Oh well, you know.
[00:20:44] Speaker C: So it's not 100 unique, but it very fitting.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: And I didn't know that. So you're good.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: And fortune's fool. The name is from Romeo and Juliet.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: It is. It's from a line.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: I mean, I'm not a Rome Juliet fan. I think many of us studied that in high school and did not give a damn about it. But that is a line in there.
[00:21:03] Speaker C: Yes, Romeo. It's kind of in the dark. I mean it's not like the happiest of plays.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: Well, Brad was asleep during that particular portion of English class, so he was in the dark.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Anyways, I know they killed themselves.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: Romeo kills Mercutio and exclaims, oh, I am fortun's full.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: Boom. There you go.
[00:21:22] Speaker C: And Yeah, I mean you can read into it in a lot of ways. It's definitely from the play. I think it sounds not only like a great whiskey name, it sounds like a great racehorse name, does it not?
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Yes. Not as good as my racehorse name though.
[00:21:34] Speaker C: What is it?
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Who Hoob hearted.
[00:21:40] Speaker A: Just because I want.
[00:21:41] Speaker C: Seriously. Okay.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Who parted by a.
[00:21:43] Speaker A: No.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: And then I had another one that I can't think of was a much naughtier.
[00:21:48] Speaker A: I think it was dirty.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: Okay, this is. This is flashback to the Simpsons.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: Oh, well, okay. Welcome to. Here's the thing though. If.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: If we were on the simpsons. This is the future.
Because the simpsons always tell the future.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: That's correct. This was predicted by the simpsons at some point years ago.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yep. I. I have a friend in horse racing. We actually had a couple horses. We got their pictures up there, and they said they would not let who. Who parted. Become a name. There's actually a process to get the name in there, and then they turn them down. Something like that.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: But I bet fortune's fool could make it in there.
[00:22:23] Speaker C: Yeah, maybe someday.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Be a great.
[00:22:25] Speaker A: Oh, I actually think that is.
[00:22:27] Speaker B: That sounds like a derby win.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Let's go.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: Maybe you should throw all your money behind that and try that next.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Don't do it.
[00:22:37] Speaker C: Not gonna do it. Here's $10.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: I can think of a worse way to try to make money. It's with racehorses.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: I believe it's pretty neat.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Ready for a break? I'm ready for more. My glasses.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: All right, well, we're. We're going to pause here and fill up with some overture and talk about that and the future of fortune's fool, so stay tuned.
