Whiskey Talk with Joe Beatrice, Barrell Craft Spirits

0:00 Well, hey everybody, welcome into the Film and Whiskey podcast. I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad G. And we've got a special guest with us here today, Brad, joining us for the first time in, I don't know, eight or nine months, which for them is an eternity because they're always putting out new stuff. It's our friend Joe Beatrice from Barrel Craft Spirits. Joe, how you doing today man? Great. Thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. How you guys doing? You look, you guys look good. You look like you're ready to go. Yeah, you know, well, fed, as they say. So, you know, we're doing well, man. I am always so excited to talk to you have. You have you guys seen the tik Toks where where there's two dogs and it's like if dogs did podcasts. No, it's.

0:45 Cool. Oh gosh. Is it just a picture of Bob and I's face? That's kind of what reminded me of it. Yeah, I think that's perfect. Now. Now, Speaking of Tik Toks, I don't know if I got a chance to tell you about this, but our our highest performing TikTok of last year was when we were at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. And Brad and I have very publicly spoken about the barrel slushy that we love more than anything at the festival. And so our, our whole TikTok was here's the best thing we tried at every booth of Kentucky Bourbon festival. And so we went over to like the Heaven Hill booth and, and filmed the sign. And then I just would raise the barrel slushy up into the frame. This is the best thing I had at Heaven Hill. This is the best thing I had at 4 roses. Listen, man, as a, as a guy from a market, please Brad, go ahead. I.

1:31 Was gonna say and it was an honest TikTok. It was the one true thing you could find on the Internet that day. I don't know whose idea that was, Joe, but like, give them a raise because it is. It's the best thing every single year there. Yeah, we love doing that. It's it's, you know, we publish the ingredients, but it's a secret recipe. So there you go. Hard to be replicated. But yeah, I mean, it's, we're real. We're so excited that everybody loves it, you know, and it, it's, it's become sort of the fan favorite. So yes, we're going to have it this year. I it takes, I mean, in the volume that we have to produce. You know, we have, we have two houses. We, we, we Airbnb 2 houses there and, and talking about it yesterday, they, they're already laying in the surprise supplies.

2:14 They have to they have to coordinate this and mix it up in the kitchen and do it in batches. It it's like a well, this thing is a well oiled machine. I I love this event. It's just, it's such a good event, but. We'll be sure to come by the tent and get many, many slushies. You know, I think at some point we start calling them slushies, Brad, because that's, it's kind of replicates our feeling, right? Yes, it's easily the best part of the KBF for me. Well, Joe, it's been about nine months since you've been on the show. And I wanted to kind of lead off a little bit by talking about what's new at Barrel because you guys are, I mean among the the top of the industry in terms of always having something new in the pipeline, whether it's in your core lineup or in your kind of specialty release. The finished series I think is going fantastic right now for you guys.

3:00 So catch our listeners up a little bit about what's been new at Barrel over the last nine months. Yeah, I mean, it's been, we have been extremely busy and and you know, we've done a bunch of releases. We did the, we did the, the we just did. It's in the it's going in the market now the decade release, which is so this is Canadian, it's Canadian whisking that is OK. I I want to make sure I say it exactly right. It's. From don't get the TTB after you're here, yeah.

3:43 Well, first of all, it is we can't. We can't, OK, technically we can't call it Canadian whiskey because it's whiskey from Canada that we imported. But once you finish it, it's no longer Canadian whiskey, according to the regulation. Obviously makes sense. So it's whiskey from that there's distillate from 1995 to 2005 from each of the years and that we blended in to make this decade. Yeah, that's a that was, that was a fun project. And yeah, it's, it's like 127 proof. Yeah, that, that's a good one. We got that. We got that out there.

4:24 I'm just have to remind myself what else we did. We did a full proof bourbon, which is a which is bottled at the proof at the barrel entry proof. So, you know, and since we have such a wide range of products we put in, there was a complicated thing to get it all down into the right, into the right proof level. We had toasted Vantage, which was one of my favorites. We had a 33 year old whiskey. I think there's one other thing that what are we? Oh yeah, the, the, the, the triple rum cask finish product. So, so we're we're really busy and and I mean, right now coming up, we got coming up, we're going to be doing this which we're going to taste the Armagnac Batch 37 is in the market.

5:21 We have a with a new year bourbon and we new. Year is always such a good release. And I like I'm I'm the wrong person to ask because I'm like. Listen. Because I love them all, but it's really if. I can, if I can sum up here, here's what I'm hearing is that you guys have so much going on that you can just kind of throw away the phrase, Oh yeah, we had a 33 year whiskey. And then not give any additional context to that, like it's just another one in the line. Well, you know, and we're, it's, it's interesting because we're, we're sort of we're experimenting a little bit with it, you know, because we have our core line of products and foundation is doing really well. And we release a double barrel version, which we may have talked about that.

6:03 I think we did the double barrel, which is doing well. We're doing a little bit of package tweaking redesign, but you know, we're also doing more. We're we really last year was one of those years right, where we talked about it and said, you know, we got to get back. We, you know, we, let's get back to our roots and do the things that we really like to do, which are these, you know, really interesting, you know, complex releases that that are just, you know, they just are nuanced and layered. And, and so we've been trying to balance out the release of those products is largely dictated by the whatever the barrel ingredients we're using.

6:47 So it could be 500 cases, it could be 1000 cases, it could be 100 cases, you know, And so we have all these concepts, we have all these products that we have lined up that we'll do. And, and so depending upon the yield, we sort of sequence them in a way that we try to make it so that the most people can get it. And in the rare exception like we do that, we, we do the, the 20 year old single barrel, there's only one barrel, you know, And so we decided rather than doing, you know, 1 release with the 10 barrels, we're going to do 1 per year because now this year it's going to be 21 and 22 years old. So that's the only one that's really that limited. But but yeah, I mean, we got a lot, a lot happening. Barrel for all the people.

7:30 That's what I love, that's what I love about them Bradding. For the masses. A true democratic company here. Well, we have two samples that we're gonna be sipping through as we talked to Joe today. One of them from their core lineup, it's their Batch 37 bourbon. Get it in the shot here. Now, this is a cast strength bourbon that's a blend of straight whiskey, blend of straight bourbon whiskeys. I'm counting 7 different bourbons in here, Brad, from Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee, ranging from 8 years up to 15 years in age. Guys, I'm gonna start sipping on this. Brad, why don't we talk a little bit? I, I thought it'd be fun as we talk about what's new with Barrel to talk about what's new in movies as well.

8:11 And Joe has had experience in the movie industry and he is a lover of movies. So I know this guy's been going to the theater at least a couple times this year. Joe, while we sip on this, walk us through a little bit of what you've been watching this year and what's really stuck out to you. I, you know, I have sort of a collective taste. I, I like a lot. I, I'm not a big Marvel Universe movie fan, but I, I felt like it was a tad lean this year. But to me, the three things that really stuck out were, well, a Mission Impossible franchise. I, I can't get enough of that. We went, we went back and watched the last, I don't know, a dozen back-to-back before we went to the theater. That was, it was really good.

8:59 That was a great experience. I just love those movies. I, I can't, I can't, I cannot get enough of watching that stunt when he jumps off that Canyon. It is incredible. It's wild. So good. And that whole train sequence was just, I loved it. So that was really, and it went on forever, which I love. So we had that. The other thing I thought that was excellent this year was Ballerina. I I am so excited about that movie. I love Keanu Reeves's cameo. He was perfect. I think you're the second person to bring up Ballerina on the podcast. And it's funny because you know, it it was, it wasn't a huge money maker, but I think the people that saw it really liked it. And my recommendation to people is just listen, there's a, there's a sequence at the end of this film with dueling flamethrowers.

9:45 And if dueling flamethrowers sounds cool to you, you need to see this movie. That's the selling point. That I was exactly gonna say that that to me is and that's after a 10 minute action scene sequence in in that town. That was amazing. Then how do you how do you end it with a with a flamethrower battle? What? What other way is there? Yeah, that's do I imagine? That's what I imagine like the cooperages do when they're like toasting barrels at the end of the day, they're just like, you know what? Let's just shoot these at each other for a while. Why not? As if dueling flamethrowers isn't the pinnacle of Action Cinema.

10:27 Like What Are We Doing? It's the high point. There's that one and then the other. The only other one that to me, I think was for me was noteworthy this year, which is it's hard to believe was was Spinal Tap. I, I mean, so so I have a personal history response app. I worked in the movie business for a couple years out of college and and I was involved in the theatrical release in New England of. Oh nice. Yeah. And so we actually, they performed 2 concerts, one in New York and one in Boston. And my wife and I, John, I went to the one in Boston and it was everything you'd expect it would have been. They showed up, performed through the whole soundtrack of the original. Oh, that's.

11:08 Cool. They did. That's incredible. It was an 8:00 concert and they showed up at one or two in the morning. Something like that. It was. It was. They were writing character. Yeah, in their white limousine. That was really cool. And so it was really, really great to relive that movie because it's so good. It's it's so well made. I love, I love the spot of that. I'm I'm really psyched for the next one. I I feel that makes me think of like if you were a businessman and you got a call from like Andy Dwyer trying to sell you paper, like in, in real life, he is trying to sell you paper. That would just be absolutely perfect. I love that man. No, yeah, I, I'm super excited for the new one to come out as well. I love that we're, we're revisiting not just like legacy sequels of comedy, as you know, we got Happy Gilmore and now we have a new Naked Gun, but that it seems like we're returning to just out and out silliness in comedies, which we haven't really had in a while.

12:02 I went and saw Naked Gun just the other night, Brad, and it was just the stupidest. It, it reminded me of like something we haven't had since maybe Zoolander, where there's a million jokes in a row and half of them are just dumb funny. And I I've really missed those movies, I'm not gonna lie. I, you know, that is how I didn't, we didn't get to it 'cause I told you we had, we had COVID. I, we didn't get to it this yet. It is on my list happily once you're right, you know, you know, and also like if you go back and look at some of those movies like Happy Gilmore, you know, Cheech, any any Cheech and Chong movie, you know, you look at that and it's like, wow, this, it just it's just you go and just laugh. It's just funny.

12:43 Yep, 100% man. Whisk whiskey. Yeah, yeah, Barrel 37 Brad, you and I have been sipping on it. Let's give some brief notes here because we will put full reviews on our website. You guys can go to filmwhiskey.com and hear what we think of both of these releases. But Barrel 37, Brad, Good, Very good. Honestly, I can't comment because I'm drinking the barrel arm and yak because that is freaking delicious and it's what I poured. So well, let's do this, then I'll give some notes on 37. You'll give some notes on the to be named Whiskey at the end of the podcast here. Joe, right before we pressed record, you told me that this batch 37 bourbon you've nicknamed Nostalgic Halloween.

13:27 So I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. Yeah, it was there's when we're doing the notes, one of the things that came out was we we referenced Halloween candies. And I was thinking as as I was tasting, it just sort of triggered a whole bunch of things. I'm like, you know, it really is nostalgic. I get candy corn, like I get candy corn. I get, you know, apples, a cherry, you know, I, it just, I said that to somebody recently and they're like, oh, do you mean nostalgic Halloween? Like the smell inside of a plastic mask? I'm like, no, I did not mean that candy corn. That's a very specific memory. Then she went on, I mean, this was this was this is where.

14:10 And she went on to like really dig into that. I'm like, wow, you have you must have spent a lot of time with that mask on because but that wasn't where I was going. To me, it was, it's more of it, it's that just that everything from when you're a kid and you know the the intense amount of of different sugar and the things that you want to everything about Halloween, you know, you cram me as much in as you can before you get home. You know that kind of stuff. I I don't know if this is on there since I'm drinking something else, but my my favorite thing at Halloween is to have the the glass dish on the table with candy corn and peanuts. I don't know if you guys have ever done that. It is an excellent move.

14:55 I've never had that. Cause like candy corn, as you get older, the sweetness is like you can have like 3 individual kernels and you're like, I'm done. You throw a handful of just, you know, salted peanuts in there with the candy corn. It is a pro move, I'm not going to lie. Brad introduced me to that and it it really does. It cuts the sweetness a little bit 'cause you get the fattiness of of a nut, right? Well, salt. I got to say, man, this is everything you just said. Like nostalgic Halloween is the perfect description for this. Candy corn's definitely present. I get a ton of like Luxardo cherry on this. And then towards the back of the pallet, you're right, you do get some like red apple peel. It reminds me of like bobbing for apples at Halloween. I think it's just this is a perfect, perfect description of a bourbon as we get into the autumn season here. And there's also like, there's a little like licorice it, it, it's, it's a it's elusive, but it's a it's in there a little bit.

15:52 So anyway, it's there and it's a just sort of a note on the whiskeys too. I mean, when you reference, you know, the, the different whiskeys and what we, what you have in when we when we list that out, those are the ages from the states that that are participating. But within that there may be on the 11 year old, there might be 4 different with four different bourbons that we put in there. So these they are our blends are increasingly becoming more complex and part of it's a function of, of us. We have a pretty large barrel inventory.

16:33 And so we and we spend a lot of time with that. We're constantly tasting things. So we, we, because we, we have a Rick house in Louisville and we keep not all of our barrels, but a big chunk of our barrels there. So we have access to them and anything we need to replace we bring in as we need it. And so and so they're really, we look at that as ingredients. And so we have all of those barrels. So we have barrels from that lot. And then we also do things like we'll take a couple of different groups of barrels. It could be the same the, the celery, it could be the same management or it could be a different one. And we make micro blends. And so we kind of put those aside and because we've figured out that there's a, there's a particular note that comes out really strong strongly in one of those. And so we keep that.

17:25 So now we have, we have, we have I think there's something like is like 50 steel containers that we have that that have from that's from 250 down to I think we have some smaller ones like 75 or 100 gallon ones that we just there it's that's really our spice cabinet. So as we're doing the final tweaking, we just grab a little of that, a little of that, put it in there. I I. Love that you use the term spice cabinet like my spice cabinet has like, you know, a dollar spices from the store. Yours has millions of barrels of whiskey and that. It sounds. To sprinkle over the rest of it, you know. And then, yeah. And so, and we have so many experiments that we've been doing with, with different kinds of barrels, toasted barrels, so that that it, it just becomes a really, you know, it, it's just a it's play time. That's the best part.

18:16 But, you know, I mean, like if that could be everything that you only do, that'd be great. But the real world is that's you got other stuff you got to do. Yeah. Yeah, Well, you know, I wasn't going to put you on the hot seat here today, but I think, you know, now that the whiskey's hitting a little bit, I might do that a bit. You know, Brad and I have been talking a lot. We we've been doing episodes every week of just kind of news updates in the world of whiskey. And, you know, the bourbon industry is going through an interesting time right now, to say the least. And we haven't really talked a lot on the podcast about brands in your category, which are non distilling producers. And so I think first of all, it might be nice to just kind of give our listeners a bit of an overview of what a non distilling producer is and does, but kind of what the outlook for NDPS are over the next few years. Because I feel like there are situations and challenges that are hitting one part of the industry, which are the distillers and their inventory, which may not necessarily affect NDPS going forward.

19:14 So as you kind of look to the future, what do you see happening in your category? Yeah, it's, it's a really good question. I'll try to keep, I could talk about this for hours. So I'll try to, I'll try to, I mean, again, as I mentioned, you know, we have blending whiskey and then there's the business of this business. And so I spend a lot of my time in the world of the business of this business. So first, you know, it's a good, it's funny, you know, generally speaking, people who in the West world know what an NDP is at this point. And when we started, they didn't, we probably mentioned this at one point. If I'm repeating, just tell me we, we were, Trevor and I were, when we'd have to explain what it is that we do. You know, we say we're not a producer. So let me, let's let me hold that for one second. So when I first started the, the, the company, my wife John, I went and visited his salary and I was looking to do I, I was trying to sort out what I wanted to do. And I was like, you know, why don't we build the store? Why don't we do that?

20:16 And it, and she was like, we talked about it and it was OK. And then it took me one week to figure out that I did not want to build the story. It was absolutely not what I wanted to do. Was it the capital investment was ridiculous that, you know, I had the time, I did no trip. We had the expertise afterwards. But now at that point, to me, it was a little bit and I didn't want to build the factory. I mean, and I'm not, and I don't mean that any disparaging way, but producing bourbon and people who produce bourbon well are actually making a factory. I, I was using an example with somebody of like, if you've ever read the case study of Tropicana orange juice, it is an amazing science what they have to do to make that carton of orange juice taste the same because oranges have as much variation as bourbon barrels.

21:04 How interesting. We didn't want to do that and wanted to focus on the brand. So so yeah. And then like, you know, it was the cast strength limited release, the unique, unique, unique limited releases was the Corey wanted to do. So we'll Fast forward that and come back to the NDP. So we decided to be an NDP and. And it was funny because I never really, I never really thought that it was going to be. There'd be so many questions about it because people one point said to us, is that even legal? You buy whiskey and put it in their brand. And. And I was like, did you realize that there's like 4 distilleries in the world? 90 more now there's 2000, yes.

21:44 Is the United States 2100, something like that yeah. But it was it was different. It was a different world. So. So yeah. And so I figured the place that we could add value and what I was most interested in was in in what we put in the bottle of creating something that was really amazing. And and so that's really where we spent all of our energy building, building that out. So that that's the NDP world. You know, we're me. I try to be looking forward all the time. That's that's why when you ask me what we produce this year, I'm kind of like, I don't remember. I got to go back and look right, I'm living, I'm living in next year already.

22:26 So and so part of that was there was clearly in 23 things changing. And so we got out in front of a lot of this stuff, you know, made some hard decisions, you know, but they're the right decisions for a business. And you know, we and we and we are, we're living with that. I think what you're seeing is, you know, you're right to separate the world into those which produce bourbon, especially on the contract world, which is a different business than we're in. And they're, they have their own challenges and you know, and, and you know, there's been some consolidation, but I think that, you know, they continue to make it. I, it's I just the, the amount of whiskey that's being produced every year is staggering.

23:12 But they, you know, they and presumably they all have homes for it. So otherwise they wouldn't produce it. That's one beside, but the other side of it for us is the business of, of the, of the brand. And so our focus has been to, you know, to be as consistent with an inconsistent product, meaning, you know, the quality being as consistent and, and always delighting. I don't like that word usually, but you know, delighting people with something really different and new. So you may like one of ours more than another, but it's not getting in that bottle unless it tastes good. So that's, we've built on that reputation and, and you know, we're, we're, we're doing OK. But you know, it's a, it's a down market.

23:53 If you look at pre COVID and now, you know, the, the, the curve goes like this. So, you know, and it's slightly flat. It depends on who you listen to and what segment, you know, is it flat or down 5 to 8%? It's, it's, it's depend on the segment you're, you're playing. It is down a little bit overall, overall adult beverage consumption is up. There's been share traded with RTDS, wines really down, beers struggling a little bit, craft especially. I don't know, it's, it's so there's, there's a lot of a lot of noise in the in the, in the market and yeah, we're, we're doing what the thing that I think that we can do is to maintain our share and our growth. You know, it isn't the growth, it isn't COVID growth, you know, it's but yeah, but we're holding our own and we're kind of we're actually really the only like independent in the Nielsen ratings in the top 10 whiskeys, especially in the high end segments.

24:54 So, you know, and it's it's tough. I mean, it's, it is a tough market that distributors are consolidating distributed. I mean, you know, RGC in California was it's a mess. You know, I think that this brand scrambling, you know, we have we work with about 17 give or take distributors across country and and that's been hard fought. We've built that relate those relationship over the years. And you know, we're happy with with whom with whom we're working. And you know, and so we you know, we focus on our business. It's, it's, it's I, it's, it's tough.

25:34 I mean, it's right out there. I mean, we're, we have, we have a lot of challenges, you know, but we're, we're trying to address them as they come up. Well, in the midst of all those challenges, you guys keep releasing extraordinary whiskey. Like I I've been drinking this arm and yak and I'm just like, is this the best thing I've drank in the eight, 8 1/2 months of this year? Like it, it is up there. I so Brad, let me first of all, Joe, thank you for for giving such a thorough and thoughtful answer there. You know, and, and there have been challenges and I think that it's been interesting. No, it's been interesting doing this podcast because you know, when we started the show, the box office for movies and the, you know, returns on bourbon were at an all time high. And now I've seen both industries kind of enter a bit of a dip here and and tough decisions get made and challenges facing the industries. And so it's been interesting for Brad and I to kind of report on those as they come up because just the, the tambour of things has changed a little bit.

26:34 And I think, you know, we find kind of comfort and solace in the fact that the the product that's still coming out in both industries is really, really great. And Beryl, I think is a fantastic example of that. I cracked this Armagnac the other day. And Joe, I'll, I'll let you go ahead and intro it a little bit, but I this is a very strong contender for my favorite whiskey of 2025. This is unbelievably good, man. Yeah, I'm really, I'm really glad you like it. So this was so so the the Armagnac Cast 1 is this is the fourth or fifth in release We've done. We did a we started out with a probably a very obscure one on the Tale of Two Islands, which was our rum that was in the was the bourbon that was finished in Jamaican and Isla casks.

27:25 That was the, so we, we had a, we, we did a rum drinking rum. Then we then we took the, some of the remaining. Then we finished some bourbon in those casts. That was a little bit obscure. So the first one cast release was a bourbon finish in two different casts, a rum cast and an Isle cast. So that was that was the first one. Then we did a, a Mizanara. We did a Mizanara. We did the ice wine and we have a PX Sherry right now that's in the market. So this was supposed to be released in the winter. But we, you know, we, we take as mentioned, we taste, we're, we're constantly sampling our barrels to see where they are and it wasn't ready. So we just, we left it.

28:09 We left it too and decided we just do as a fall release. It's a relatively small 1. I don't think there's more than there might be 1012 hundred cases of this something like that. So but it but it's it's out. It's going to be out there. It's blended where it'll be in the market. Probably you'll start seeing on the shelves in early September, early mid-september. But yeah, I mean, that's that's the side of it. This is this is OK. They're all I'm the wrong person to ask. I think they're all amazing, you know, I mean. No, this one is like, it reminds me a little bit Bob of that Bushmills 30 year we had.

28:52 Like there's like this fruity stone fruit prune bomb, but it has like some cinnamon and spiciness going on with it. And like it has some classic brown sugary stuff that I'm just like, how do I not love every single drop of this? It's so stinking good. But at the same time, though, the, the, it, it's got, there's a dryness of it that is that it that So that that's the thing here is it's sort of like I, I think of like when you think of when you have a really good cherry wheat beer, right? Like a real one.

29:33 The key is it not to be sweet. So it's, it's unsweetened cherry concentrate generally, or some version of that that's used. And when you, when you taste that, it's like you get the full blast of that, of the cherry, the black cherry, rich cherry. But it's it, it has to be not sweet because otherwise it, it doesn't work. That's one of the things I really get here. Like, you get all of those incredible sweet notes, but it's not sweet. Yeah, it's the other. Way Agricole it's the way Agricole sort of operates in the rum world where where for me I love Agricole is is a little on it it doesn't have a huge popularity it's not the kind of it's not the rum it's not the rum profile that American drinkers like I think it's popular you know because it it's sort of like where tequila's minds it's different like like what people like well is different from you know what tequila quart tequila is yeah, I'm going to get we're going to jump all of those but.

30:29 Yeah, no, honestly, it reminds me a little bit. I was in Ukraine back in 2010, I want to say. And they had like a cherry juice there that was like, it was somehow tart but not tart and sweet but not sweet. Like it was one of the best things I've ever drank in my life. And this does remind me of that, where it has everything you want from both worlds, without really any of the negatives that you might associate with it. There's no cloying flavors. So like when you when you think about yeah. So when you think about sort of the like this little Papa nickel ginger caraway into those those spices are all in here. You think about the, you know, just the the way to me, the finish on this thing just it just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes goes.

31:17 So this. Is. Yeah. No, I think I think this is the perfect time of year to release it too. Like you know you released 37 about a month ago and I think that leads into the fall season really, really well. I think releasing this Armagnac finish here at the beginning of September, that leads into the late fall, early winter season. Really, really well, Brad, I think that that month between like Thanksgiving and Christmas where you're like hearing songs about figgy pudding and you're just eating different kinds of desserts. This goes so perfectly with those kind of like early Christmas vibes. I, I'm going to be drinking this all through the fall season, man. It's really, really great stuff, Joe. OK, until the new year comes out, then you drink that. Exactly, Joe, before we let you go today, you did mention one thing that I want to make sure we get to and and talk about an industry that's struggling, but an industry that we all really, really love and that is the drive in movie. Now we are in the end of the summer season, drive ins will be shutting down at some point.

32:15 They'll probably go into October ish around here. Brad, Joe, what is it about the drive in that appeals to you? It does have a sense of nostalgia. I I freaking love, you know, for me being just a cheap bastard, I love getting 2 movies for the price of one. That's the best part for me. I. You know, I think it's for me, it's a it's, it's from, it was big when I was a kid. There were a lot of drive in theaters. It's, you know, it's also part of a misspent youth doing the drive ins because you could do that. You know, you could you, you fill up the car, you go and have fun. I, I, I love the experience. I mean, you're outside, it's the summertime or the fall and or the spring and you know, it's beautiful. You can sit outside, you can be in the car. It's to be the best of everything. And you know that the into what the concession stand movie. I mean, the concession stand video, like, isn't that like the best thing in the world?

33:10 I I OK I hate to admit it but I've actually watched them on YouTube. You've searched them out. You know, the dancing hot dog and the, you know, it's just, it's so good. But yeah, it's just, it's a, and also like there's a having been to dozens of I don't know how many. There's sort of a criteria. I mean, for me, like I was thinking about this last night. I was thinking about drive insurance, right? I was thinking, I was really thinking about this. I was thinking like, like, what's a good drive in movie? Like, like Alien is not a good drive in movie. One of my favorite movies. It's too dark, right? You get lost. You, you, you lose some of the, the, the, the punch of that. I made some notes.

33:58 What's a good one? Lawrence of Arabia is a spectacular. I mean, it's epic, it's big, it's bright, it's got a great soundtrack. You know, you can, you can be in and out of it and kind of, you know, watch it. Any anything we believe so, yeah. Yeah, I think Drive. Insurance are like the perfect venue for summer blockbusters, slash horror movies. Horror movies are are huge at the drive in. But to your point, like they can't be too dark because the the part of the charm of a drive in is that the projection is not always the best. And so you have to wait till it's pitch black outside to see anything on the drive in screen. Yeah, but there's there's something like Jaws is I think about Jaws as like that is the the pinnacle of a drive in movie for me.

34:43 That was on my list. Jaws was. Jaws was the second one on my list of being a movie to see. Yeah, and then, you know, you can't forget Halloween, right? I mean like. No, Yeah, nostalgic Halloween. Now, listen, we're not going to advocate. We're not going to advocate bringing open containers in your vehicle to the drive in theater. But I'm just saying they would pair very well, Joe. Yeah, I agree. How do we feel about animated films on at the drive in because my my favorite drive in double feature. Partially just who I was with. It was a great night but Despicable Me. Really solid animated film followed up by Toy Story 3, one of the greatest animated films that was a great double feature. That's a good one.

35:30 I mean, any toy look, any Toy Story, I can watch it over and over and over again. And cars, dude, cars is another one. Yeah, see, Cars is a movie that I don't go back to that often, but if you told me it was at the drive in, I'm like, you're basically caught. You're cosplaying to go see Cars at that point. I think it's great like. No, the other animated movie, because I because I have a grandson now and he's like, he's like, you know, these things is Madagascar. That movie, that movie is so funny. That movie is. I have never seen Madagascar. It's good. Brad, we had a great drive in experience last year. We we took the kids. They did inside out two and then, you know, there's the little intermission with the hot dog on the screen and then they followed it up with the Garfield movie, which, you know, I hope there's no big defenders of the Garfield movie absolutely sucked. I mean, like, like by far the worst movie of the year for me last year.

36:25 However, by like the 25 minute mark, it was, you know, 12:30 in the morning, the kids are passed out. So I looked at my wife and I was like, this is awful. Do we leave now? And she was like, yeah, let's do it. So it was great. We didn't have to sit through the the bad one. They programmed that at the end. It was, it was fantastic. Yeah. I love it. I'll tell you the funny, the, the other thing too is like we even, we even, you know, brought our kids to the drive in too. And, and like, so we would go, we spend a lot of time in Cape Cod because I grew up in Boston. We love Cape Cod and, and going to the movie theater, going to the drive in the Cape is, is a singular experience because the mosquitoes are so bad.

37:06 So you have this balance of like you have to, you have to have the car running for a while, but the windows up and cooling it down. But then the second you know you can't sit there, your car right now, you turn it off. It's like, it is like it's, it's almost like a cartoon. The the, the swarm comes in and just attacks you. That's a nut. It's probably not a really it's probably not doing a lot for the drive in tourism trade. Yeah, not an endorsement that they're looking for right now. It's just. Want to be eaten alive? Now are you guys like I'm going to take my lawn chairs and sit outside the car type of people or are you because I like to do windows up, lights turned all the way off, air conditioning on and listen on the radio because then you get the surround sound experience. Yeah, I, I tend to be the, I tend to be in. Well also I get to sit in the front seat so that makes it a lot better.

38:01 I'd say we, we've done the the back of the truck, sit in the back of the truck with your radio. That's always a good time. Even now. We, we haven't taken my kids yet, but the other day we went to an ice cream shop and it was raining outside and it was a tiny shop and there's no room. So we just opened up the Hatch of our minivan and sat in the sat in the back of our minivan and ate ice cream. I could see that being a great place to watch a drive in film. Yeah, there. There is something great when you're a kid about when when the parents open the back hatch and you're allowed to sit in the place that you were not previously allowed to sit. Like it's just memorable. I get to watch a movie and break rules like what could be. Better than that. Well, you, you back in like you back up on them and you looked it up. Yeah.

38:44 Oh yeah. That's that is a good way to do it. Joe, I will once again advocate for at at some point when, when we are all together, we need to host some sort of film and whiskey barrel craft spirits movie night because it's it's always great to talk to a guest who knows his way around a movie. And it sounds like you know the insurance and outs of a, of a drive in theater as well. So. Yeah, we should that that's actually they do some. There are some in Louisville too. I think that that there are some outdoor movies. I have to look into that. Let's make it happen. Or just get a sheet in the projector. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, we're going to see you in a couple weeks here at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.

39:25 But let let me just say, on behalf of me and Brad, thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you for these bottles of whiskey. And thank you, Joe Beatrice from Barrel Craft Spirits for joining us on film and whiskey today. Thanks for having me, I had a great time. I love doing this but yeah, so much fun. All right, guys, we will see you next week with another regularly scheduled episode, but until then, I'm Bob Book. I'm Brad. G and we'll see you next time.

40:12 Music.