Driving Eureka! Newsletter #25
Your Innovation Podcast. This is the 25th episode of the Driving Eureka! Podcast. Segment 1: How Leadership can learn to Trust Their teams; Segment 2: How to create an innovation culture; Segment 3: Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy.
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Show Notes
[00:00:01]
The Driving Eureka! Podcast
[00:00:33]
Episode #25 – The Theme is Trust
[00:01:24]
Why Don’t Executives Trust Their Teams?
[00:02:43]
Small Ideas are NOT a substitute for Big Ideas!
[00:03:49]
Cost Cutting is a Dead End
[00:05:06]
Executives/Leaders Lack a System (Method) to Innovate
[00:07:11]
You Have to Do Innovation – End the Talk
[00:09:39]
Must Find a Way to Win
[00:10:32]
The Innovation Gurus Don’t Know How to Ship
[00:12:36]
Make it a REAL
[00:14:54]
Driving Eureka! Book Segment – Absolute Conviction
[00:15:22]
Absolute Conviction – Bill Conway, Nashua Corporation
[00:19:59]
Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy
[00:20:23]
Absolute Trust Come from Your Product, Not Marketing
[00:22:17]
Craft Beer Brought Something New and Better
[00:25:33]
Some Whisk(e)ys are Just Bad
[00:26:35]
Whiskey Companies Spend too Much Time on Marketing and Distilling
[00:27:27]
Focus on the Wood!!
[00:28:55]
Craft Cocktail Recipe – The Mint Julep
[00:29:08]
The Mint Julep – The Kentucky Derby Drink
[00:29:59]
Making Mint Juleps Requires Firm Muddling
[00:30:29]
Step 1
[00:30:33]
Step 2
[00:30:37]
Step 3
[00:30:39]
Step 4
Transcript
Tripp: [00:00:01] Welcome to the Driving Eureka! podcast where we share ideas and advice for helping you find filter and. Fast Track Big Ideas. Hi I’m Tripp Babbitt advisor to global organizations on the Deming philosophy and host of the Deming Institute podcast.
Doug: [00:00:23] And I’m Doug Hall inventor speaker teacher and whiskey maker. I’m also the founder of the Eureka ranch and author of the Driving Eureka! book.
Tripp: [00:00:33] This is Episode 25 of the driving Eureka podcast. You can learn more about this episode by reading Doug Hall’s newsletter at Doug Hall dot com in the menu. You can see newsletter. Click on it and you can subscribe. So Doug trust this week it’s funny I. I’ve just been interviewing some folks for a neuroscience podcast and and this is one of the big topics especially around neuroscience and how people gain trust in an organization some of the things that happen and how the brain works. That’s kind of when we’ve talked we’ve touched upon some of these things before about fight fight or flight type of scenario for people when their fear strikes them.
Tripp: [00:01:24] And we’ve definitely talked about fear so in trust what you’re talking about this week seems to be how or how leadership and trust and trusting their team. So let’s get into this a little bit. Talk to me about what you’re seeing in leadership and why they don’t trust their teams.
Doug: [00:01:48] Well I think when you get to the root cause you know I’ve been doing this for a long time almost 50 years from when I did my first invention in years of consulting and you know the premise that you’d innovate so to grow sales and profits people buy into that concept.
Doug: [00:02:09] But at the root cause of why leaders don’t sort of put their their weight behind it their time energy and money behind it. I think at the root cause of the issue is they don’t trust that their people can actually innovate successfully that they can do it. And in this lack of trust in their people doing it creates a chain reaction of bad behaviors you know because they don’t trust their teams that they can do big ideas. They say well let’s just do some small ideas.
Doug: [00:02:43] The problem is the small ideas are you know not enough of a change to matter. And so they don’t have enough wow factor. So the small ideas fail because small ideas fail. You know people think well if I do a small idea it’s a higher odds of success. The answer is No that’s not what the facts say. It’s just a smaller loss.
Doug: [00:03:02] When you do them but but the odds are about the same actually. And when they fail on the easy ideas they lose confidence. So then they eventually turn around they go let’s go get a guru let’s get a design blah blah blah whatever to come do it. And they come up with these fancy ideas a lot of marketing smoke and mirrors but not being connected to the reality of how the actual service is delivered or the nonprofit or the product or whatever it is is delivered. Those ideas soon fail. And so management turning around and saying OK we can’t do big ideas we can’t do small ideas the guru ideas don’t work. Clearly we can’t innovate or our industry can’t innovate or whatever dimension whatever excuse they wrap themselves up in.
Doug: [00:03:49] So then they go to the what what seems to be the practical and prudent thing to do which is to cost cut their way to growth and this you know initially works but it soon hits diminishing returns until soon they’re replaced and the cycle begins again. I mean this is this is the way this is the way it happens. And it started because the leader didn’t trust in the ability of the company teams to innovate.
Tripp: [00:04:18] You know this there’s a lot to unpack here. First of all because one of the things that I find in working with leadership teams is usually that’s a reflection of themselves. In other words they don’t trust themselves. They don’t have from a from a leadership perspective. When you start digging into it you know these are people that they hired into their system and then to kind of back off and not trust their teams. Really is a reflection on that leadership team as far as being able to do it.
Doug: [00:04:54] I’m going to give them more sympathy I’m going to have more sympathy I’m going to have a lot more sympathy for them than that. Okay. I just don’t think that they’ve ever been taught a way to do it.
Tripp: [00:05:05] That I would agree with.
Doug: [00:05:06] And so you know ignorance of how to do it. Ignorance of a discipline system ignorance of a discipline system of investing in the systems we have all these huge systems for finances we have always used some systems now for manufacturing but we don’t have real systems in place. We have a lot of judgments you know. Well the you know the criteria things have to hit but the systems to enable innovation. Until we started with innovation engineering and started to put together the courses I mean we’re really the first course ever that teaches you how to create communicate and commercialize ideas. There’s no other field of study that does that. I mean this being built to do design thinking at the front end this people that do engineering but in this people who do marketing and finance but to take you from idea to the market it’s the first integrated system that teaches you a mindset which is all based on applying the work of Dr. W. Edwards Deming of systems thinking approaching innovation as a system of interconnected parts just as he changed manufacturing from a departmental silos to a system of interconnected parts.
Doug: [00:06:23] And people can do this but they need to be trained and they need to learn they need to learn and and so what we’re finding is as we go in and we talk this and we say you need to learn they go. I got it. And they say well how can we learn. Well we’ve got to we’ve got a course you can take it on campus for credit you can take it off campus you can go online you can do in person I’ve got books I’ve got a 10 hour audio book driving record you can listen to allow Well no no no no. That seems like an awful lot. What we’re finding is under the leadership of Maggie Nichols the CEO of the ranch is we’re finding that the best way for them to build trust is to do what we call a Eureka and Benning project in collaboration with their people.
Doug: [00:07:11] In other words walk the talk with them all the talking’s not going to do it. You’ve got to actually get your hands on and do it. And when they can see that their teams can actually create communicate and start the process of accelerating it to market faster than ever before they then start to build the trust so they don’t trust because they’ve never seen it happen before but it can’t happen because there’s no method by which to do it. And so you’re in this crazy do loop and so you have to just get started and you have to just get a proof of concept that we can do it. You just have to do it. Now I mean nobody would talk no more debate. Just do it as our friends at Nike say.
Tripp: [00:07:53] So Doug when when you. I agree. I if you have method that that certainly breeds trust in an organization but then you know I also look at and curious as to your view on this where you have an organization that has you know we talked about fear before. You’ve got you know they’re almost there so command and control within their organization. You know they don’t they don’t inquire about anything everything is about advocacy.
Tripp: [00:08:22] You know you got to do it this way and make sure they’re following the process type of thing versus I watched actually a documentary last night on Pixar where you know John Lasseter had these these teams and they’re putting together Toy Story and they’re putting together all these different movies and then they did after they’ve had you know for great success successful movies with Bug’s Life and took Toy Story and Monsters Inc. They are. Yeah. They bring in a guy named David de that John Lasseter and worked before. And instead of people going oh no we know everything because we’ve done it. They cut. They embrace this guy as he comes in but with new thinking. So you get it. So from my first look I see this almost spectrum of things. For an organization that really you know so command and control so much fear little.
Doug: [00:09:18] Yeah. But how do you get of by Tripp. How are you going to stop that. How are you going to stop.
Tripp: [00:09:21] Well that’s why that’s my question.
Doug: [00:09:22] You’re not going to stop it. So you have to. I think you have to ignore all of that because you can quickly get in. And I you. I mean of course the organization screwed up. Of course the system screwed up. Of course it is. It’s a hopeless bureaucracy. That’s why they’re in trouble.
Doug: [00:09:39] Ok. But the only thing I can think of is you have to get you have to run to daylight. You’ve got to find them a way that they can win. And so you know just like we enable an individual in their sphere of influence you’ve got to enable that they can win.
Doug: [00:09:56] And I’m going to I’ll be. I’m not in delusion land here. You’ve been doing it as many times as I’ve done. I’m not going to tell you that. You do what idea a miracle happens and the good do it. No sometimes you got to do it a dozen times before they believe because they’ll come up. OK. Well yeah. You did it this time but that was because of this. A fine. OK. Let’s do it again OK. Do it again. We do it again. Do it again. Nobody is against innovation at the heart of hearts. Nobody’s against it. They’re not against the idea of innovating what they’re against is actually doing it because they don’t know how. And they need to be done.
Doug: [00:10:32] And it’s not enough to teach them it’s not enough to preach them it’s not enough to cajole them. It’s not enough to debate it. You got to get your hands dirty and do it. And the problem I have with most innovation gurus is they don’t know how to ship. They don’t know how to ship. They’ve never gone from idea to market.
Doug: [00:10:50] And unless you’ve done that a dozen times then it’s very very hard for you to sympathize with the operations people the finance people the sales people and all the rest of it of all of the things we don’t need more frickin ideas. We need people that know how to ship and play the tradeoffs and that and the gyrations that have to happen.
Doug: [00:11:11] I mean it’s really hard you know which is why I love having the whisky business because it makes it so real even to the ranch team who is used to shipping because we ship software and education courses. I mean we have to go to market. We have customers and people that we have to ship those products so they get it in a you know and in the New Economy way digital and training and that kind of stuff.
Doug: [00:11:36] But shipping physical product and getting approval from the TTB and then the insurance companies and then oh yeah head blows up. OK. But you gotta learn how to deal with it.
Doug: [00:11:49] Keeping an operations plant running maintaining quality reducing variation in the process. I mean this is the stuff that successful entrepreneurs. The devil’s in the details. And and when we get people engaged this way that’s when they start to trust that’s when they start to trust because then they can see the organization engaged and that’s the only way that’s the only way. No amount of preaching is going to do it. No amount of teaching no four day seminar. It’s not going to make the change or it will make it with about 10 or 15 percent.
Doug: [00:12:25] If you look at the diffusion of innovation curves 10 to 15 percent you can get to the vast majority you’re going to get nothing.
Tripp: [00:12:32] So. So that the emphasis on the doing.
Doug: [00:12:36] You’ve got to make it real. If it if you don’t make it real and the problem is is that making it real it’s inherently risky. I mean to the outside person if you’re a consultant or an internal person it’s like well we failed at this for 10 years. And what makes you think you can solve it.
Doug: [00:12:53] Well the reality is is that we have methods that make a significant difference in getting you to look at ideas and see ideas and accelerate them differently than otherwise. We can test faster cheaper we can fail faster. We can inspire more. I mean there are other methods.
Doug: [00:13:11] I mean I’ll never forget the chief marketing officer of one of the biggest companies in America brought his team to the Eureka! Ranch and we were we were talking and and we were out at the bar that we have at the ranch the Brain Brew Bar and that.
Doug: [00:13:31] And he said he said Doug okay I got to tell you the truth. He said the reason I came here this week is because management’s decided to shut this down. And I was like Well let’s see if the ranch can do it. If they can’t do it there’s nothing so I came here. We’ve already got a death sentence. And this was the last gasp. And the team doesn’t know it. I said I said So what do you think. He says I’m going back to fight for it he says we can save this thing.
Doug: [00:14:04] And sure enough they did. They saved the thing they made an acquisition and it’s a big business right now. Confidentiality prevents me from saying the name but it’s a it’s a one that people would know because we were like the last gasp because when we do it and and you know you’re kind of annoyed that he would do such a thing. But at the same time you’re proud that he you know he said if he failed I was OK with it because we like geez I don’t like it when somebody says I’m OK if you fail it irritates me. Had that happen again recently on another one. Doug it’s OK if it doesn’t work it’s like what mean it’s OK if it doesn’t work that’s ok ok with me.
Tripp: [00:14:43] Yeah. Now that’s that’s good.
Tripp: [00:14:54] It’s time now for the Driving Eureka! book segment with author and inventor Doug Hall Well let’s continue this conversation in the driving Eureka book segment where you’re talking about creating an innovation culture. And your lesson four as you put in your newsletter is absolute conviction.
Doug: [00:15:22] Yeah yeah. So this came from an interview with Bill Conway the former CEO of National Corporation who was the first Fortune 500 leader to embrace the system thinking of Deming and as I sat with him and talked you got a real sense of absolute conviction. He was 84 at the time. He’s since passed in his absolute belief in the power of Systems Thinking was still clear and very persuasive.
Doug: [00:15:53] He he said you can’t dip your toe in. You got to jump all the way and you got to do it. You can’t you can’t hold back. And so when we get those leaders to that point where they believe there’s a certain point where I have a conversation I said OK now it’s time to go all in. Now it’s time to go Alan now is the time. Let’s go and some are ready some or not. But when the senior leader says we’re doing it and that’s it it creates an alignment and it creates a belief. And it has an echo effect that energizes the organization. So in the beginning you got a few pioneers who were doing something amazing and they’re fighting against the world. And then you get more people through the system you know production manufacturing all that believing sales believing in it. And as you get to that belief you get to a certain tipping point and then the leader to create a culture if you want this to go from an episodic event to a cultural dimension the leader has to have absolute conviction that that makes sense.
Tripp: [00:16:59] Well what what is a certain inflection point then where they have to be all in. I mean where do you look for for that or is it different by organization.
Doug: [00:17:09] Well it is different by organization and some of them have lead times that are massive you know I mean I’m working on it with a drug company right now and we’re looking at a clinical for an experimental thing that we think is pretty cool. Well this is going to be 18 months to do the clinical study. OK. So this has got a long burden to it. You know and while we can have some indications and we’re optimistic it’s an 18 month burn to see if we can win in the clinical. So it’s a it’s going to take a lot longer. In other cases you can do it quicker.
Tripp: [00:17:41] But but getting the buy in what what are the criteria then that that where you’re going to have to say OK it’s time to be all and I guess I’m trying to look for a little bit more of a meaning around what you mean by all in what.
Doug: [00:17:54] There’s an urgency when the teams are starting to say OK we’ve compartmentalize it so people will compartmentalize they’ll say OK you people do the innovation you people don’t innovate or I’ll say you don’t think anymore OK. You just keep doing what you’re doing. And suddenly the people that are innovating you know are running into friction and friction and friction. And the other people are saying well why don’t we get to innovate too.
Doug: [00:18:21] And there’s a certain point where there is a it’s a groundswell across the organization that causes this. It’s the organization that becomes engaged in it. And you can feel it. I mean you can feel it in the organization. They’re ready to go. They’re ready to go as a simple sign is people are quitting because it’s not changing and they’re deciding they can go do something else.
Tripp: [00:18:47] Interesting that that’s. Yeah. That’s funny. I see different things but kind of the same types of inflection points when I wrote redesigning an organization. There comes a point where we always have. Especially if you start with a team as you say you guys go with the willing. When you’re working with an organization to start with and then some of the people around it that weren’t necessarily the willing but they may not have been fully out either they want to become a part of that because they see them doing fun things. I mean it looks like a lot of fun. for what you’re doing. So it seems to fit to be when people start to see that there’s some momentum around something. How do I become a participant. So that’s one of the criteria.
Tripp: [00:19:37] At least I’m hearing that you look for when you start to hear somebody say hey how do we how do we begin to participate. And then that is one of the indicators then that takes you to the leader is that sure OK. Sure. Very good.
Tripp: [00:19:59] This is the brain brew whisky Academy podcasts where we will take you behind the scenes so you can see what it takes to build a whiskey distillery business Eureka ranch team led by Doug Hall are creating a craft Whiskey Company with patented technology like has never been done before
Tripp: [00:20:23] Well what’s move to our Brain Brew Whiskey Academy absolute trust comes from your product not marketing I love this one as far as the message that that’s here around the role of marketing versus you know the role of a repeat customer.
Doug: [00:20:42] So if you’re in the craft spirits business or any business marketing will get you your first purchase but repeat purchases are driven by is the product awesome. And frankly that first purchase usually lose money on it because the marketing expense for that first purchase your profits come from product not from marketing. I’m sorry marketing people I know I know you think you’re God’s gift to the corporation but nobody repeat buys marketing. OK it’s just the thing that gets the attention. You’re just a trial generating device. And don’t don’t give me the foo foo on this because otherwise what you’re going to end up with. You know what happens in the craft business is there’s a whole lot of people that sell products it’s a one and done you know it’s a souvenir of visiting the distillery. Oh wait. Oh and that’s such nice people. I love what they’re doing here. There’s spirits at products not really that good but here this is the least bad one I’ll buy one of those. And just us to support them and now they’ve got a tourism trinket. It’s a souvenir. It’s not a product that’s consumed. Mm hmm. And what I want is a product that’s consumed which is why I love blind tests. I love blind tests with this no marketing with it because it’s just straight up is my product awesome or not. No spin movement on it. No hype on it just straight up. Is this product awesome. I mean that’s what that’s what you want to do. And and and in fact this is the problem. I mean the American craft spirits association did a survey a couple of years ago. Poor product quality.
Doug: [00:22:17] One of the very top issues associated with what was holding back craft spirits products aren’t good. The products aren’t good the product isn’t great it’s not great it’s got to be better. The beer guys the craft beer guys had more flavor than the Budweiser is. They brought something new to the party. Craft spirits people were not careful.
Doug: [00:22:45] I know you love your vodka but it’s kind of hit really hard to get anybody to give a damn about your vodka make your cocktail with three different vodkas and tell me you can tell the difference.
Doug: [00:22:56] I challenge you make your gin and tonic with most gins and you’re except for a few which don’t have Juniper or not it’s not gonna be that different by the time you put all that sugar in it now make your whiskey unique really unique. Use finishing use different methods to really make it unique. Push the grains way two different places change the way you do your aging cause 70 percent of flavor comes from the wood manage the wood and now make a cocktail and one of things we do is what will make for old fashions with our four core products. And then we’ll also make the old fashioned with vodka. And and it’s five different experiences five totally different experiences because of the amount of flavor in the way that we’re doing it because we purposely make our stuff taste different. So you got to have product product first then marketing. That’s my view. It starts with the product. You got to have amazing product. And the industry of the Spirits world tends to be less on product.
Doug: [00:23:58] I was at the wholesaler show down in Orlando and they had brand battle where people came out and they talk blah blah blah about their brand and the amount of conversation about the product was about 5 percent and I’m like Mom then worked for me is the product. Awesome.
Doug: [00:24:18] One guy actually said well yeah we’re doing it and we’ve got a bourbon. You know it’s a good bourbon like everybody’s bourbon. He literally admitted he had a commodity. I’m like if I had a button I hit the button and he would be like Bugs Bunny would’ve gone to the floor. So I’m sorry I’m ranting I’m ranting and tired of this marketing b.s. that’s going on. Oh fancy bottle fancy package fancy this. We got bottles that cost more than the juice bottles and cap label cost more money than the whiskey inside the bottle. That’s ridiculous. Ridiculous and that’s why I love Tito’s. He puts it in the product not in the package. Something to be said for that.
Tripp: [00:25:08] Yeah. You know it’s interesting. Obviously you know since we started these conversations I really didn’t know that much about whiskey. You’ve taught me everything really I’ve learned at this point about whiskey but as I’ve gotten into it now I still haven’t tried your Relativity product that I know of unless it was one of the samplings that I did. One time I was at the ranch or or the Noble Oak.
Tripp: [00:25:33] And then you’ve got the four new products but one of the things I am finding is there are certain there are some whiskeys that I and I sometimes I wonder Doug it is a matter of my palate that I just don’t like that particular whiskey or is there something more. I guess I have risen to the level of knowing what’s what’s good and bad. Now I did have I won’t mention the name but but in Indiana whiskey and there is not that many actually here in Indiana but that are that are Indiana made and tried a couple of them. And in my opinion they were awful. I mean they were just I couldn’t mix them with anything and they tasted terrible straight up to me. And you know so bad.
Doug: [00:26:19] Yes bad. Yeah. They bad products. Yes at products.
Tripp: [00:26:22] And so people then as you see it from what you’re finding is they’re leaning more on the marketing than actually trying to get a product that’s good. Is that kind of what you’re seeing in that industry anyway.
Doug: [00:26:35] That’s right. They’re not if they’re not investing. Well the big problem. I mean I mean just really cut to the chase. The big problem is they don’t understand what whiskey is whiskey is made from wood not from distilling the distilling is five or 10 percent of it then it’s the mash bill and then it’s the wood. I mean the wood is this 70 percent of the flavor. I mean that’s where the flavor comes from 75 70 percent from the wood 25 percent from which grains you use and 5 percent is in the distilling and they spend all their time on distilling as opposed to the wood you know and it’s the wood and the wood maturation and how you manage that wood that is it.
Doug: [00:27:16] And by the way it’s epically expensive by the way. I mean the problem with it is it’s really expensive to have all these different woods and to be finishing them and to be having barrel. It’s really expensive.
Doug: [00:27:27] It’s really really expensive. I mean it makes the cost of the distillery look cheap by the time you have to get the barrels that you need which is why systems like our time compression approach are critical for something like this because we’re able to do it much faster much cheaper and still getting the amazing tastes but you have to manage what you’ve got to manage wood and you have to be careful about it because if you’re not careful like some people are using small barrels thinking that help and you’ve got to be really precise when you manage those because if you’re not careful what you’ll end up with is a wooded new make spirit meaning that you’ll have a whole lot of oak in the product. It’s like a doughnut. Like at the center of the doughnut but it’s wrapped around this harsh new make spirit because you haven’t converted the alcohols which is one of the things that has to happen through the aging process.
Tripp: [00:28:19] Mm hmm. Interesting that that. And so so people are working in your view in the whiskey industry people are working on the wrong problem.
Doug: [00:28:30] Well but they just don’t understand. Maybe they just don’t understand and they don’t understand that. I mean they don’t understand how whiskey is actually made that would be a problem. Then I guess then you would have to lean on marketing quite a bit. Then it becomes more expensive obviously to do that. Yeah. Over time. Yeah. Interesting.
Tripp: [00:28:55] Well let’s move to our craft cocktail recipe now we’ve had the Jalapeno julep I think was one of our earlier drinks that we had. This one is the mint julep.
Tripp: [00:29:08] So try this at this. This is this is a staple though isn’t it. This is the mint julep is the one that they serve. So like at the Kentucky Derby and that type of thing. Right.
Doug: [00:29:17] Right. And coming up to derby time I thought it was a perfect time to do that and to get people prepared so that they can have one most Mint Juleps are horrific. And the three floors are they had too much sugar you know and they use a lot of sugar when they have the wrong whiskey. And that’s number two is the wrong bourbon whiskey that they’re using and the three thing is is not muddling with force. You really have to use real force when you do the muddling in order to make it work.
Tripp: [00:29:56] So how do you model with force.
Doug: [00:29:59] You really really take the muddeler and press and press and press and press the press and I really learned this down in the Dominican Republic where the Mohit ho there was a lady there who really just ground the with a moral and pesto really. Did the Mint. And after that I was I was very impressed. OK.
Doug: [00:30:29] So it’s really simple the muddle really firmly five mint leaves.
[00:30:33] One teaspoon of simple syrup. That’s it. One teaspoon.
[00:30:37] Add some ice crushed if you have it.
[00:30:39] Two ounces of our noble oak bourbon which you can get if you’re looking for it go to Noble oak bourbon noble whiskey search it up on the Internet we put in the show notes there’s a product finders that you can find it where you are it’s in most of the states now stir and enjoy with a sprig of mint as a garnish and you got the classic mint julep it’s an elegant product in fact I think I’m gonna have one of these tonight I think I have never made one so it’s all it’s always a bourbon so.
Tripp: [00:31:11] So just a question I have for you Doug is is one of the four your local Cincinnati whiskeys. Is that a bourbon or are they all more complex than that.
Doug: [00:31:24] We have two bourbons awry and a four green whiskey.
Tripp: [00:31:27] Okay. So the bourbon would be the kill but now it’s paddle wheel paddle wheel had a wheel and then the smoked the Tall Stacks up top stack. OK. And tall stacks will give you a smoked julep which is actually magnificent. So it’s really cool.
Tripp: [00:31:45] But but for this one you prefer the No. Noble Oak then?
Doug: [00:31:49] No I just thought I mentioned noble oak. I just I just decided to use this one. This is this uses a sherry oak staves so it’s a little different taste. And I just thought I’d do this I I. I had a cool experience at the craft at the wholesaler conference was at the Ritz Carlton down in Florida. I was in Nathan’s the big restaurant. They are the big fancy restaurant.
Tripp: [00:32:15] I saw the picture. Yeah.
Doug: [00:32:16] Yeah I said I said Do you have anything that’s craft. I mean you’ve got all these big corporation stuff and you know Johnny Jimmy and Jack and you know all these mega corporations that on those brands you know there’s no people there anymore. And I said Do you have anything real craft. And Christine the bartender can move over and she says I have this thing here called Noble oak. We really love it. We’ve been we just got a bottle of it and the staff loves it. Yeah I know it that is.
Doug: [00:32:44] So she gave you a wonderful cocktail and we had a great talk about it. No sooner had everybody over there and I I put it up.
Doug: [00:32:51] I just snapped a picture put a little thing on linked did. It’s almost 50000 views. Wow. It’s crazy. It’s crazy but it was it was awful nice to be you know. And she hadn’t heard any of the marketing of the hype of the rest of this stuff and she just said I like the taste. And again it was it’s product product wins product wins.
Tripp: [00:33:13] Very good. All right. Any parting words for our Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy.
Doug: [00:33:19] Now the big thing is folks make products that you love OK don’t make crappy products and don’t ship crappy products. And and I know I know the industry you want to make everything yourself. The fact of the matter is is in the history of whiskey the biggest whiskey people pre prohibition were blenders who would take the whiskey from different people and put it together. That’s an honorable profession being a whiskey maker.
Doug: [00:33:47] Remember the whiskey maker the person who takes the barrels or puts it together or if you’re working with us where you choose you would build and put it together. The whiskey maker is the higher paid employee versus the distiller the whiskey maker gets paid sixty five percent more than the distiller this isn’t beer it’s whiskey. And in the world of whiskey the talents are bring it together. And if you don’t know how to do that come see us we’ll teach you. We’ll teach you how to do it.
Tripp: [00:34:17] Very good. And for the consumer don’t settle now.
Doug: [00:34:22] Probably don’t buy the souvenir when you go visit them. Don’t buy that souvenir. Tell them. Tell them you know they’ll buy a bottle and just have it sit as a souvenir.
Doug: [00:34:31] We need to help everybody and we need to fight for great products. We’ve got to get everybody making great products
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