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In November of last year, power couple Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello announced their breakup via Twitter. Their statements read, “We started our relationship as best friends and will continue to be best friends. We so appreciate your support from the beginning and moving forward.”

Despite the hopeful sentiment in those words, it looks like the separation wasn’t as easy as we all think. Mendes posted a vulnerable Instagram video over the weekend, opening up about heartbreak, “A lot of the thing that also is like resonating in the lyric for me is like, ‘Oh f*ck.’ You don’t realize when you’re breaking up with someone, you like, think it’s the right thing. You don’t realize all the sh*t that comes after it,” he said.

He added, “Which is like, ‘Who do I call when I’m like in a panic attack? Who do I call when I’m like, f*cking, on the edge?’ And I think that’s the reality that kind of hit me: ‘Oh, I’m on my own now.’ Now I feel like I’m finally like, I’m actually on my own. And I hate that. That’s my reality, you know?”

Mendes then previewed a new song “When You’re Gone,” which contains the lines, “It’s hard for me to let go of you, so I’m just trying to hold on / I don’t want to know what it’s like when you’re gone.” He revealed last night that the song will be dropping on March 31.

(Spoilers for Netflix’s Bad Vegan will be found below.)

Sarma Melngailis, the celebrity restauranteur who fell from grace in Bad Vegan, took umbrage with the show’s ending, and the director’s now stepping up to defend what transpired. This vegan-beef is different from the other one (how Sarma felt “sick” over how Netflix was marketing the show, by “mocking” her belief in the dog-immortality claim) that we recently discussed. Lots of vegan-beefs! Let’s get down to business.

The series ended with an audio transcript of Sarma on the phone with Anthony Strangis (who previously operated as “Shane Fox”). Even though the show made clear that this call had happened “22 Months After Prison” (Sarma took a plea deal, as did Shane, and she served time at Riker’s Island), it wasn’t made explicit that this call had taken place back in 2019. If people weren’t paying close attention to the timeline (Sarma’s tabloid appearances involving the pizza-order busting took place in 2016 when the two were caught as fugitives), then yeah, it’s easy to assume that the call was pretty close to present time. And that irked a lot of people (on social media), who watched how the two defrauded Sarma’s investors and shafted her employees for paychecks.

Sarma made clear that she wasn’t thrilled, writing how “the ending of Bad Vegan is disturbingly misleading; I am not in touch with Anthony Strangis and I made those recordings at a much earlier time, deliberately, for a specific reason.” Now, series director Chris Smith and executive producer Ryann Frase have spoken with Newsweek to defend their call to, well, include the call in the way that they did:

“The inclusion of the last phone call isn’t to imply that Sarma and Anthony were still close. The call is dated “22 Months After Prison”–and Anthony clearly says at the end of the call “it was nice to hear your voice”–which we feel shows that communication between them is not common.

“In this call, we found Sarma to be confident and strong—making fun of the tales Anthony had spun, telling him that he had to show up on a unicorn for there to be any reconciliation (meaning there is no reconciliation)… Lastly, this call was one of the few pieces of audio we found of them communicating in a way that helped us understand their relationship in the first place.”

It’s a fine line there, and again, it’s easy to see how people would have been misled without a clear “2019” label. And they’re pouncing on Sarma, who did some very Bad Vegan things, yes, but she did claim to use the money from Netflix to pay back her employees. That doesn’t fully fix things, obviously, but yeah, there are no winners in the Bad Vegan story. So to sum up, Sarma insists that she and cult-leader-esque Anthony “Meat Suit” Strangis aren’t in contact. Hopefully, it stays that way.

(Via Newsweek)

Sandra Bullock has been in some stinkers over the years. This is not an insult; when you’ve been a working actress for as long as she has (her first credited role was in 1987), of course there’s going to be some duds in there. Like, Miss Congeniality 2 – Armed and Fabulous, and Two if by Sea, and Murder by Numbers. But there’s one movie in her filmography that she regrets starring in more than any other.

When asked by TooFab about whether she has any professional embarrassments, Bullock replied, “I have one no one came around to and I’m still embarrassed I was in. It’s called Speed 2. I’ve been very vocal about it. Makes no sense. Slow boat. Slowly going towards an island,” she replied, adding, “That’s one I wished I hadn’t done and no fans came around.”

1997’s Speed 2: Cruise Control was the Keanu Reeves-less sequel to 1994’s Speed, and while it made $164.5 million at the box office, it also cost $110-160 million to make; meanwhile, the original film made $350.4 million on a roughly $30 million budget.

Bullock’s The Lost City co-star Daniel Radcliffe tried to cheer her up, claiming that Speed 2 has “a kind of cult love,” but nope. “Very quiet. Like 5 people,” she said. “Him [the interviewer] and the other four 12-year-olds who were watching the slow boat going towards the tiny island.” Maybe it would have been a success if producers had gone with the original title: Speed 2: The Boat That Couldn’t Slow Down.

(Via TooFab)

A few days ago, Lizzo declared her new album is finished, writing on Instagram, “Oh yeah b*tch… I just mastered my album and turns out its 100% DONE ! YOU THINK U KNOW BUT U HAVE NO IDEA. BABY HOW YOU HEALING? HEALING GOOD AS HELL.” Last night, she guested on The Late Late Show With James Corden and offered a taste of a new song called “About Damn Time” by sharing a sample of it on the show.

During the interview, Corden pulled out a vinyl record with a simple sleeve that said, “TOP SECRET Lizzo New Music 2022.” He then popped the record on a portable turntable and played about 30 seconds of the track as Lizzo, fellow Late Late Show guest Gabrielle Union, and the studio audience danced and clapped along to the beat. Indeed, it’s a song to dance to and the soulful, funky, disco-inspired tune sounds like a hit.

Lizzo also noted the song is set to be released on April 14. That’s just two days before her upcoming appearance on Saturday Night Live, so it seems likely she’ll end up performing the track on the show.

Elsewhere in the show, Lizzo popped up after Corden declared ’80s music is the best for dancing to. They then had a “riff-off,” with Corden singing ’80s tune while Lizzo sang Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar,” BTS’ “Butter,” and her own “Juice.”

Watch clips from Lizzo’s Late Late Show appearance above and below.

Lizzo is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

This year’s Oscars telecast is already bound to be a hot mess, but while people marvel over the show’s bizarre invitation list, there’s a more serious concern looming large over everything: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Eighteen years ago, there was another global issue that hovered over the Academy Awards, and one in which America itself was the aggressor nation. In 2003, the ceremony took place shortly after the George W. Bush administration launched the Iraq War. And while viewers got to hear Michael Moore, accepting for his documentary Bowling for Columbine, tear the then-president a new one, the night could have been even more political than it was.

In a recent interview with the Sunday Times (as caught by Variety), Adrien Brody — who won that year for The Pianist — claimed that his fellow Best Actor nominees almost didn’t attend, at the behest of Jack Nicholson. The legendary actor, nominated that year for About Schmidt, invited his four competitors in that category — Brody, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michael Caine, and Nicolas Cage — over to his house, where he urged them to boycott the show in response to the Iraq War. Brody, though, was reluctant.

“I said, ‘I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going,’” Brody told the publication. “I said, ‘I kind of have to show up. My parents are coming. This doesn’t come around too often. I know you guys are all winners. You can sit it out. But I can’t.’”

In the end, no one boycotted it and Brody won. (He also infamously grabbed presenter Halle Berry for an unwanted kiss.) Instead of protesting the war with his absence, Brody used his speech to decry the war that would last for eight years and cost anywhere from hundreds of thousands of lives to over a million.

“I’m filled with a lot of sadness tonight because I’m accepting an award at such a strange time,” Brody told the crowd. “My experience of making this film made me very aware of the sadness and the dehumanization of people at the times of war, and the repercussions of war. Whomever you believe in, if it’s God or Allah, may he watch over you, and let us pray for a peaceful and swift resolution.”

There won’t be any such boycotts at this year’s ceremony, though attempts to make the show topical have been both ill-advised and, thankfully, impossible.

You can watch Brody’s win in the video below.

(Via Sunday Times and Variety)

We know that Donald Trump will eat (or at least pose for a picture with) his Trump Tower taco bowls, but did he ever eat a Trump Steak? Did he ever play Trump: The Game? Did he ever take a course at Trump University, ride in Tour de Trump or fly on Trump Shuttle? He reportedly doesn’t drink, so he’s probably never guzzled Trump Vodka. But there’s another product of his we now know he doesn’t use: his Twitter clone Truth Social.

A month has passed since Trump’s contribution to the social media game had a soft launch, and pollster Frank Luntz noticed something (as caught by Raw Story): Trump himself hasn’t posted on it since he bestowed it with its first-ever post.

“Get Ready! Your favorite President will see you soon!” Trump wrote on February 15. Jump over a month to March 21 and he still has yet to follow that one up.

Mind you, there’s not a lot of people on there anyway. When the service went live on February 20 — available only as an iOS app and only in America — it was an instant disaster, plagued with outages, quirks, and difficulties with the sign-up process that still haven’t been resolved. Things don’t appear to have gotten much better, which have reportedly made the former president who now lives in resorts hopping mad.

Truth Social was supposed to be Trump’s take on Twitter, which banned him shortly after his violent supporters stormed the Capitol building, attempting to overturn an election he lost. But not only has it been drowning in technical issues (and sketchy behind-the-scenes allegations), it also has to compete with a sea of other far right social media services, like Gab, Gettr, and Bumble. Is there even room in this realm for the guy who started it all?

Why hasn’t Trump posted? Maybe because it’s a ghost town. Maybe because, as people like Joe Rogan find out when they try one of those “free speech” social media services, it’s deeply unpleasant to be in a place that exclusively attracts maniacs and not everyone else as well.

Of course, one day Truth Social could get its act together. It could finally expand to Android and desktops. Trump himself could start firing off bizarre and alarming tweets like it was 2020 again. Or maybe it will just be yet another Trump failure, one more misfire for a guy who’s lost more than he’s won.

(Via Raw Story)

The 2021-22 season hasn’t been overly kind to the Los Angeles Lakers, but the team picked up a notable victory on Monday evening. Led by a monster night from LeBron James, the Lakers went on the road and toppled the Cleveland Cavaliers by a 131-120 margin, and James energized his old home in Cleveland with a few throwback moments along the way. One such moment occurred late in the first half when James caught a pass with a head of steam and threw down a mammoth dunk over old friend and teammate Kevin Love.

Following the game, it was a celebratory atmosphere for James, who finished the night with 38 points (on 17-of-29 shooting), 12 assists and 11 rebounds. Naturally, he was prompted about the dunk that made the national rounds and, in short, he almost apologized to Love, saying that he “hate it had to be him” on the other end of the highlight.

Obviously there is a bit of good-natured trash talk in here, but Love and James teamed up with Kyrie Irving and company for a title in Cleveland, so there is history there. James is correct that the dunk didn’t make the difference in the game, but it certainly was the most memorable play of the evening. Furthermore, it was another reminder that James is still one of the best players in the world, and it was even more appropriate that he put on a show at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

Disney hasn’t been doing so hot lately. Staff at the corporate behemoth have been revolting over CEO Bob Chapek’s clumsy handling of the company response to Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, legislation seen by critics as anti-LGBTQIA+. With walkouts planned for this week and next, the company is a little too preoccupied for what was supposed to be a nice management retreat.

As per Deadline, the retreat, which was set for next week, has been postponed as the company deals with internal rebellion. Instead, leadership at the media company will reportedly go on a “listening tour” with employees in an attempt to repair staff relations and bolster their commitment to queer rights issues.

The news was broken during a town hall for all Disney employees that was led by Chapek, who last week enraged some of his staff over his response to the bill. In a memo released two weekends ago that went public, Chapek expressed solidarity with the queer community but stopped short of taking a public stance on Florida’s controversial bill.

During the town hall, Chapek took a much firmer stance, saying the company would oppose anti-LGBTQIA+ and anti-trans legislation not only in Florida but also in places like Texas, whose governor, Greg Abbott, threatened to target parents of transgender children on charges of child abuse.

The company’s walkouts are scheduled over the next week starting Tuesday. Each day will feature a brief walkout, during breaks. On next Tuesday, the 29th, there will be a larger walkout. The town hall, originally scheduled for early March, was moved to Monday so that any employees taking part in the walkouts could attend.

Also taking umbrage with Chapek’s response, if for different reasons, were conservatives, including Florida governor and bully Ron DeSantis, who mocked the company as “Woke Disney.”

(Via Deadline)

While Donald Trump has gone from praising Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to awkwardly backpedaling, another former host of The Apprentice has been handling the issue much better. Last week, Arnold Schwarzenegger released a moving video, in which he pled with the Russian populace to see through their leaders’ lies about why they’ve attacked a neighboring nation. And Russian state TV is not happy about it.

As per The Daily Beast, a bevy of Russian personalities have come out in force against the actor and former governor, who’s quite beloved in the country, in part because he played a KGB agent in 1988’s Red Heat. (Also because he wipes out an entire army singlehandedly at the end of Commando.) One of them was Vadim Gigin, who railed against the actor on the state TV show Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovievon.

“That face is the cover page of American imperialism and colonialism,” Gigin roared over the video. “Not the caricature image of Uncle Sam, but this Schwarz, in a Hollywood production.” He added, “He, in California, will tell us, who live here… the truth?! That is their approach towards us.”

Gigin took particular umbrage with the second half of Schwarzenegger’s video, in which he discussed the cup given to him by champion weightlifter Yury Vlasov. That set Gigin off. “Vlasov couldn’t transfer any of his brain [to Schwarzenegger] with his handshake and the gifted cup,” he steamed.

Then host Solovievon chimed in. “Schwarzenegger twice traveled to Iraq to support the American troops and never tried to tell the Iraqi people why they’re being destroyed,” he asserted.

Russian powerlifter champion Maryana Naumova also trashed Schwarzenegger in a column published by Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda. While struggling to claim Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky can be a Nazi even if he’s Jewish, she also dove into the actor’s filmography.

“Do you remember how in the second part of the Terminator your hero goes back in time to prevent the creation of Skynet, which would bring the death of all mankind?” she asked the actor. “Russia’s special military operation does not aim to destroy the Ukrainian people. It is aimed at the neo-Nazi Skynet, which over the years has completely subjugated Ukraine and was about to turn into an uncontrollable monster, dangerous for all of its neighbors, not only for us… Don’t side with Skynet, Terminator.”

Writer Zakhar Prilepin also tried to use Schwarzenegger’s movies to hang him. “In his video message, Schwarzenegger, who killed three million Russians in his films, told the Russian people how much he loves us and how wrong we are about Ukraine,” Prilepin wrote on Telegram. “This Austrian, the son of his father, who served in the SS and was wounded near Leningrad, is trying to act as the good cop.”

Neither Putin himself nor his cronies in power have yet to comment on Schwarzenegger’s video, which he posted not only on Twitter but also on Telegram, which is used almost exclusively by Russians. But Russian powers and propagandists ought to have seen enough of his films to know what happens when you cross him, even if you’re Sinbad.

(Via The Daily Beast)

Nick Smith — head distiller and director of distilling operations at Bardstown Bourbon Company — is one of the shooting stars of Kentucky bourbon. Smith, who grew up in Bardstown, a stone’s throw from some of the biggest whiskey distilleries in the country, has a passion for whiskey that shines through in every release.

As the head distiller for Bardstown Bourbon Company, Smith makes whiskeys for one of the freshest distilleries in Kentucky, while also chaperoning a contract distilling operation for a long list of whiskey brands. While the former is easy enough to understand, contract distilling is a frequently maligned process, misunderstood by the average whiskey drinker and likely completely unknown to the passive whiskey drinker.

It can take millions in start-up capital to get a distillery up and running, not to mention the years of aging. That’s where the contract distiller comes in. Often times, brands will hire a contract distiller to produce their whiskey from start to finish, well before they can build up their own production capacity. Other times contract distillers work with heritage producers just looking to get some extra juice aging to meet skyrocketing demand, over and above what those producers can make on their own.

Of course, there’s a lot more to the process than that. Smith and Bardstown are making juice for some of the hottest names in whiskey right now, from Blue Run to Kentucky Owl to Belle Meade to Pursuit United, running 40 different mash bills in 2021 alone. We figured that if anyone could help shed light on this process, it was him.

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So what is the difference between contract distilling and sourcing bourbon?

With contract distilling, the big difference is with us is customization from the very beginning on. Every customer we have is definitely different, from start-ups that might not know anything at all about the bourbon industry but they want to get started in it, to people who already have an established brand and know what they want but just don’t have all the details. That then goes all the way up to big names that have been doing this for over 200 years and just need a little bit of extra juice. Where we come into play is to be able to customize what it is that they’re looking for. We’re able to do any bourbons or whiskeys. The customer can sit down with us and go through that process step-by-step to customize it just for them.

And then on the sourcing whiskey side, you’re just going to be purchasing what is available on the market. So, no customizations. It’s just going to be what’s already being produced, and, usually, you’re not able to get too many new fill barrels. It’s going to be something that’s aged, and, currently, it’s hard to find any good products out there because a lot of people aren’t releasing as much of it as they used to.

So, let’s stick with the contract distilling side and walk through the process. How much influence do you, as a master distiller, have over the actual customization? Are you helping them select grains? Are you helping them select yeast? What’s the process there?

It’s definitely customer-dependent. But where I come into play is definitely how we do things here at Bardstown. You know, how our equipment runs, our beer age, our aging, where it’s going in the warehouse, the char of the barrel, the coopers that are available. As you said, the yeast we use. Everything from very start to finish.

So, say if it’s a new customer who doesn’t have any idea what they want, but they want to get into this industry and know how many barrels they’d like to start laying down, it all starts at the very beginning with a flavor profile. So, what we’ll do with a brand new customer is, we’ll go into the lab and I’ll pull out a wheated bourbon with a low wheat percentage, a wheated bourbon with a higher wheat, a wheat whiskey. Then we’ll move into a lower percentage rye bourbon, a high rye bourbon, and then some rye whiskeys, a four-grained bourbon, and then into American single malts as well. And we’ll go through all those profiles and try to see which one they’re most interested in for the grain profile that they would like to start with or the spirit type.

Once they get that and say, “Oh, I’d really like, say, wheated bourbon. That’s what I want to go with. I like the one that had a little higher percentage than the lower percentage.” we’ll dial it in from there.

What’s being dialed in?

So, if they say, maybe it was a 38 percent wheat that they tasted and they want to run one at a 36 percent. Then we’ll ask, “What percent corn do you want? Malted barley percentage?” And then we’ll dial it from there. After we get our grain recipe, we ask, “What yeast strain do you like? Here are the ones that we’ve used, the flavor profiles that you’d be looking at.” And then we go over the proofs, entry proof. What proofs do you want it off the still? Off the doubler, for those flavor profiles?

And then here’s the cooking process. That’s where I come into play, especially with the new customers. I’m working on the temperatures the grains are going to go in. I’m designing the actual procedure.

But then if you jump over to an established brand, they know exactly what they want. They’ve been running this same recipe for over 100 years or more. They come in and it’s more of how does our equipment run compared to their equipment? Things like what temperatures I set for our facility versus theirs. And with a lot of the technologies that we have in place, if they have the specs that they know that they like to run to produce at their facility, we can plug those same specifications in here to run the most similar product to what they’re producing at their facility. So you’re not going to see a big difference in that inventory whenever it comes of age.

How much customization can you do on the hardware side? I mean, you know, some people have Oregon pine fermentation tanks that are open, while other folks have stainless steel fermentation tanks for their mash. Some people want column stills, some people want pot stills.

On that, it’s more of a what we have situation. So with that type of customization, we don’t have, like you said, the different types of fermentation tanks. We’re operating all stainless steel fermentation tanks here. So, that’s what our process would be.

A customer that I do have — he’s a craft distiller down in Arkansas — what he produces in one year is what we produce in one day. So for him, it was like, “What’s in my best interest? Am I best to expand my facility, have that overhead, the extra labor, everything? Or partner with these guys and I can get that extra volume in a very short amount of time?” And with him, he runs a pot still. We have column stills here, so that’s where things are a little bit different.

But to make the most similar product on the grain side, I’m bringing in his Arkansas corn that he uses at his facility. His Arkansas wheat that he uses at his facility. He has two yeast strains that he uses. We’re using both those yeast strains and the yeast nutrients he likes to do in fermentation. So we run it as similar as we possibly can, but we’re handcuffed to the equipment that we do have here on site. That said, we have looked at possibly putting in a pot still and things like that, just to make us a little bit more complex.

That’s fantastic. And you’ve answered my next question about bringing in grains.

You name a grain, we’ve probably used it here. That’s all customized as well. We definitely use the main four grains the most, but we’ve also used, you know, popcorn, black popcorn, red, blue. We’ve used your bloody butcher heirloom corn, your hockey blue, white wheat, smoked mesquite malt. We use a lot of different grains here; Munich malt, 360 caramel malt. So, a lot of different varieties and different things for that customization for the customers.

How much advice do you give your customers in the barreling process? I feel like there are a lot of ways you can go with sizes, times, woods, and so on.

Yeah, we definitely give the customer as much advice as possible. If they want to do something, we will do that for them. But we will give advice like “this is what’s possible to happen if you do go down this road instead of a traditional route.”

But with the aging process, you know, it starts by what cooper they want to use. We’ve used maybe nine different ones here. Our main one is Independent Stave Company which, you know, they’re the world leader for a reason. So putting our product in those barrels would add top quality. We actually have a contract with Independent Stave Company to do a certain percentage of our barrels from them. We also use West Virginia Gray Barrel Company, Bayside, Kelvin, Barrel 53, Canton Cooperage, Zach Cooperage.

So you lead them in the right direction as best you can.

We use a lot of different ones and we’ll give our advice on which ones we prefer. But if the customer wants to go with a different cooper, then that’s fine. Then once we have the cooper, we’ll dial into what entrance proof they want to put it in at. I’ll give advice on what different proofs can provide. You know, a lot of the big guys that are looking to make the dollar at the end of the day, they’re going to go with that max 125 proof. If they know that they’re going to come out with a product in four years that’s going to be 90 proof, they’re going to be cutting that down to 90 proof by adding a lot of water. That means that they’re going to get the max amount of bottles out of that production. So they’re looking at the money side of things.

On the quality side of things, you can get different flavors if you go in at lower entry proofs. But you might not have as much volume at the very end because you’re not going to be cutting that spirit down. But you could have a lot better flavors coming out of that barrel. So, we’ll give all that advice for which direction they want to go. We have a lot of samples here, as well, to be able to pull from different entry proofs to show that aging out and let them try those.

What about warehouse placement?

Currently, we’re somewhat handcuffed on that because we are still a new distillery. We’re filling warehouses as they’re being built. You know, we only maybe have a two-week window on a warehouse being ready before we run out of space. With that, we have to kind of fill the warehouses as we can until we start pulling a lot more barrels out to re-gauge as these barrels get older. That will give us a lot more spaces available where we can kind of pick and choose, see where some customers might want to go.

That naturally leads to getting these whiskeys into bottles. Are you providing blending rooms and blenders to help them along that process? Do they bring in their own people? Is it a mix of both?

Everything. We definitely are involved on the blending side of things. We just don’t do the custom distillation here. It’s also custom blend, custom bottling, everything from pretty much start to finish. You know, we even have compliance in place for all those tricky things and getting your colors approved on your bottles, every single thing like that.

A lot of these new customers, they’ll need to get a product going right away. Of course, they want to wait at least four years, usually, on aging their bourbon. So a lot of times, these new customers, once we get a couple of years into their bourbon being aged, if they have some source material or anything like that that they’ve purchased, that’s where we’ll come together. Usually, it’s me, our quality manager, Travis Cantrell, Justin Willis, the head of operations, and then the big player in all the blending is Dane Calloway, our VP of new product development.

So, we’ll all get in there with the customers. We’ll work on the blends with the products they have available or any source material we might have available that we could sell them. And then that kind of gets their product going as they’re waiting on their units to age. So, once we get that blend ready to go, we’ll go to the bottling side of things and Johnny Caldwell, our bottling operations manager, takes it from there and they’ll go through bottle designs, label designs, cap designs — every single thing like that for the product, start to finish, to be ready to go. And usually, they’ll release that before their product that we have in the distillery is aged. That way, they can get their brand started and name out there, ready to go for people.

Is there a sort of acid test you have for which people you’re going to take on? Obviously, if somebody comes to you with 200 years of tradition and just needs that extra juice to keep up, it’s very different than somebody who’s wet behind the ears with more money than they know what to do with. What’s the selection process for Bardstown?

There is somewhat a selection process, you know. We would definitely prefer to help out the smaller guys or the start-ups or the established ones looking for a little bit more of that juice. A lot of ones that are getting into this industry right now are investors. So you know, it takes money to make money, right? So, a lot of investors are seeing that you know, “If we can lay money into bourbon and maybe let’s say we produce 1000 barrels and we’ve got the money to pay for them, it’s no big deal to sit on them for four years, six years, whatever it might be and then quadruple that value when we can sell them as a four-year oak.”

So, that’s become kind of popular, that a lot of these investors are getting into it so they can make some more money off of it in the long run. We do produce for people like that, but I would much rather produce for the ones that are truly wanting to start their brand and build their businesses, things like that. Instead of just an investment opportunity.

It’s interesting because, at the end of the day, you’re putting out stuff that you’re putting your blood, sweat, and tears into and you’re not even on the label, you know? It’s somebody else’s label. It’s somebody else’s story. What sort of pride do you feel when you see something go out there and it actually pops and lands in the market and makes a dent? As opposed to, you know, do you feel a sort of regret when it doesn’t?

I definitely take pride in it. I’ve always said that I take pride in every single thing that I make. One day, it’s going to be really cool that I’ll be able to go and sit down at a bar anywhere, any bourbon bar, and look on the shelf and probably be able to pick out 30-40 different brands that I created the product for. Which you know, name, recognition might not be on the bottle, but that’s no big deal to me. I’m not chasing fame or anything like that. I just have a passion for making bourbon. As we’re building our brand, it’s really great that we’re able to help out these other ones.