Willett Distillery

No.

And but those were two, like, like, when we were released, like, what, five of them at a time, we had 20-year Dickel, the Willett barrel, and then the two Wooden Bills in, uh, Bardstown, I think, at the same time, and I thought the two Wooden Bills were, like, my favorites out of all of them, and they ju- it just, it-

Well, I, I think it just goes to show you the difference between what is a hardcore bourbon nerd, people that are following us that don't get access, versus the people that are just coming off the street-

Yeah

That Finger Lakes barrel, the blueberry and lemon custard one, that became sort of an underground hit with inside of the Discord community.

I think that one was a really good release from us that most people probably had never gotten a chance to be able to try.

The barrel pick side probably doesn't surprise me to the point where I'm like, "Yeah, well, of course people liked it," was those early Willett barrels that we picked.

Yeah.

The food was good.

It's nothing, you know, it's not like going to Willett.

You ever been to Willett?

No, I haven't.

I haven't.

So we went down for that.

It was so fun.

We had a great time, but we did not hit Willett and we did not eat there.

Heck yeah

... uh, prior to being distilled in-house Willett ryes, those were-

Mm

... cinnamon, cinnamon amazingness.

When you have a weekend or actually starting on Thursday like we had, it is kind of hard to recover.

We're getting older and it's not as easy to bounce back from things like that, but we're We are so excited and we were so happy that we had a bunch of our patrons and listeners in town for the Willett Estate Tour.

But just before we even talk about any of that and Kenny's festivities at his house, I just want to give a big shout out to... samuel mason brian uh ron ron's friend was his name was his friend dominic oh i can't remember i can't

remember donnie donnie

I

wasn't because.

So I went on the Willett Family Estate Tour.

That's the reason all these guys were in town mostly was because Mason actually took the initiative and said, we got a family estate tour about a month.

That was very cool.

Other than that, like I haven't seen too many, like we, we don't have the Willett pot still bottle where you can make like bongs out of-

[laughs]

... and, uh, various other things that I won't mention on, on the air.

So I wanted to bring that one.

And I've really been enjoying this old Bardstown, which is a Willett product, bottle and bond.

You can only get it at the distillery.

It's only, you know, obviously bottle and bond is unapproved, but government regulated, all the fun stuff that goes in a bottle of bond, but I've really enjoyed.

And I think I'm just a Willett fan boy at the end of the day.

You know, what was that that we had? That was really good at Will It, too, as well.

Pure

It was super fun.

We also went to Willett with everybody and hung out.

Most people.

Most people.

Willit is absolutely worth going to.

It's been a minute since I've tried any of their SKUs besides... um like the family estate ryan and bourbon i forgot how good some of those are um and the restaurant wildly good um there were only like four things that i could eat there because of my dairy allergy but the two things i did get were like super super awesome

Yeah, I mean, I always have nothing but good things to say about Willett.

I think people think of them as purple tops and they don't like that because their heart and bread and butter is within their other brands.

Michael Hines is the co-founder of Nashville Barrel Company.

And Mike takes us back five or six years to NBC's humble beginnings, starting with local charity picks for cancer research, hunting down Jack Daniels, Weller 12, and some Willett single barrels, but really making frequent runs to Bardstown to kind of continue to learn the ropes.

But then he decided to start Nashville Barrel Company.

And there were plenty of operational headaches like sourcing whiskey and dealing with shady brokers, but a few mismatched samples unexpectedly got them a hit and they kept on playing it with their Kelvin barrels.

So the next year, but by that next year, I really fell in love with Weller 12.

You could go and just get it off the shelf.

So I kind of started finding stuff I liked and that's when I kind of ran into Willett.

So this has

I think those two trends I see happening this year.

And then, again, like, you know, talking about the latest wave, like I, you know, I hear there might be barrels be available from experimental ma- with experimental mash bills from distilleries we all know and love, you know, Willett and New Riff and things of that nature.

Yeah, the-

That would be really great