The Origins of American Single Malt with Caitlin Bartlemay of McCarthy’s Whiskey (S4 E7)

00:22.16
Kerry
Well, hello, good evening, good afternoon, whatever time it is you are catching the show today. Today on the show, I have Caitlin Bartlemay, who is coming from us live, sort of, from Oregon. And we are going to talk about some wonderful Oregon single malt whiskeys today ah from McCarthy's, which, for those of you who don't know, this is the original American single malt brand.

00:43.37
Kerry
And they've been ah doing American single malts for about as long as I've been legally allowed to drink. So it's been a while. um Anyway, welcome to the show, Caitlin. How are you?

00:55.49
Bartlemay
I'm doing well. Thank you, Carrie, for for having me on here to talk about McCarthyism and what we're doing up here in Hood River, Oregon.

01:02.09
Kerry
All right. So um I usually start out the show asking about your particular whiskey journey. So if you would love to take us through when you or we little asked, did you ever think that one day you would be sitting on the phone with me in a barrel room with a bunch of bottles of whiskey and barrels ah behind you, which are much more real than mine, um to ah to talk about your career in whiskey?

01:24.44
Bartlemay
Yeah, i I don't think really at any point in time, even as recently as a couple of years ago, did i did I think that I would have the honor of being on camera with you. Certainly, but let alone in ah in ah in a barrel room here representing McCarthy's and Clear Creek Distillery as the master distiller. so So it's been, you know, when you kind of lay it all out line by line, point by point on how I've gotten here, it seems very direct. At least that's what I'm told. It seemed like a direct translation. I was always headed and destined to be here, but it certainly didn't feel like that at any point in the journey.

01:57.44
Bartlemay
um I actually, so I grew up on a wheat farm in Eastern Oregon. I was my dad's right hand man, as it were. And I started at a very young age because when you're seven years old, you can crawl into really tight spaces and you have nimbly little ah fingers that can find things and turn tiny little screws on on equipment.

02:15.59
Bartlemay
And I was driving tractor and combine by, know, 12, 13. you know, I was, yeah, I was doing a lot of stuff before I was allowed to drive, which is ridiculous.

02:27.47
Bartlemay
um Every once in a while, I would zoom out.

02:29.40
Kerry
As happens on farms, you know, that's...

02:31.12
Bartlemay
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Rice farm kid stuff. um i was I was the only combine driver and if the truck driver that was driving grain out of the fields was gone, which was pretty much all day, right? Because he like brings the truck.

02:46.51
Bartlemay
takes a full one out and then away he goes. And I was like, I am 13 years old and a piece of equipment that's my family's livelihood costs about half a million dollars. And I'm the only human in like five square miles.

03:01.97
Bartlemay
was like, this is weird.

03:02.72
Kerry
Wow.

03:03.75
Bartlemay
I'm going to not think about that because like terrifying. Yeah,

03:06.68
Kerry
And also probably not good cell service if even cell phones were normal.

03:10.85
Bartlemay
yeah we had had a I had a Nokia brick.

03:13.38
Kerry
OK, I had one of those.

03:13.93
Bartlemay
um But even even then, like, yeah, you had to be on a hilltop.

03:14.46
Kerry
Yeah, my first phone. Yeah.

03:17.69
Kerry
Right, right.

03:18.39
Bartlemay
Yeah. or and And then hope that you can probably get somebody that'd be able to bail you out or ask you or or answer a question. So um really interesting start.

03:25.63
Kerry
I love that we have the same phone.

03:28.02
Bartlemay
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. was the best. You know, you get bored, you still got battery, playing snake in the middle of the nowhere while you wait for somebody to come save you.

03:34.81
Kerry
Yeah, yeah.

03:36.81
Bartlemay
So yeah. And then my parents started a winery as well because we were a small family farm and trying to find a way to diversify. And so Got the fermentation bug at a young age, helping my dad with the winery as well. And they they needed me to go to college because that was something that they didn't have the opportunity to do. So they didn't care. i think Well, I think they probably cared a little bit about what I went to college for, but they mostly didn't care. um And I went to Oregon State and got a food science degree. And while I was at college, was shocked to realize how little I really knew about hard alcohol and its production, right? I had been working in a winery for some time at that point.

04:15.13
Bartlemay
and understood how the beer side worked because it's not you know it's not too much more complicated.

04:20.85
Kerry
Right.

04:20.87
Bartlemay
And then was just completely knocked back at like, oh, wait a second.

04:20.95
Kerry
Right.

04:25.80
Bartlemay
Like there's so many more details. There's so much more that goes on to spirits. It's not as simple as it seems on the surface. And really at that time, the only way to find more information was to get a job at a distillery.

04:37.54
Bartlemay
And and part of the industry is still definitely is an apprenticeship style learning opportunity, right? There's definitely opportunities to go to school and there's a couple of master's programs here in the States and there's programs in Europe and Scotland for you know further distilling education, stuff like that.

04:43.72
Kerry
right

04:55.42
Bartlemay
But here, It's still very much like get a degree in something similar or just get a job at a distillery and start at the bottom and work your way through. So i was very fortunate.

05:05.56
Bartlemay
I got hired at Clear Creek Distillery the day after my last final and started on the bottling line, which was a rough ah rough entry.

05:09.05
Kerry
Wow. Oh,

05:13.90
Bartlemay
I was like, I work so hard and I have all this debt and I've got this food science degree. And my first day at Clear Creek was um sorting a pear in the bottle. So we actually have a pear brandy that we grow a pear in the bottle.

05:25.28
Kerry
ah wow

05:25.38
Bartlemay
um And it takes a while for the pears to sink and we try not to sell them until they've sunk. So my first day ever employed as a distill as a distillery person was sorting sinkers from floaters.

05:37.69
Kerry
um

05:37.78
Bartlemay
It was a little demoralizing.

05:38.71
Kerry
I'm assuming the mouth of the bottle must be a little wider than most. I mean...

05:45.61
Bartlemay
No, no, no. So the pears actually grow in the bottle. So when the pears are teeny tiny in the spring, we stick them in the bottle and then, and the bottles hang upside down in the orchard all summer long.

05:52.47
Kerry
Wow.

05:56.08
Bartlemay
And then the pear grows, grows, grows, grows.

05:58.27
Kerry
wow

05:58.42
Bartlemay
And then we take them, clean them, fill them full of pear brandy.

06:04.26
Kerry
That's fun.

06:04.93
Bartlemay
Yeah. And then as with my time here at Clear Creek, you know, i was I was hired by Steve McCarthy, who was the original founder.

06:05.51
Kerry
going to have to check that out.

06:09.74
Bartlemay
He founded the distillery in 1985. And I got to work for him for four years before he was ready to retire and sold the company to Hood River Distillers. And went from logistics coordinator and distiller and packaging and all those things to then head distiller and then master distiller just about a year ago.

06:30.74
Kerry
but congratulations.

06:31.50
Bartlemay
So it's been nearly 15 years and one heck of a journey to make here on camera with you.

06:37.29
Kerry
Yeah. So now that we've talked a little bit about your journey, let's talk a little bit about ah McCarthy's journey. um Because it it does fascinate me that ah you guys are the longest running, oldest, as far as we all know by, you know, documented paperwork, um ah single malt distillery in America.

06:53.09
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm.

06:56.81
Kerry
So tell me a little bit about, like, if you know, like, what was the decision to start using single malt in making these expressions?

06:56.78
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm.

07:06.62
Bartlemay
Sure. um Well, Steve McCarthy founded Clear Creek Distillery in 1985, as I said before, in Portland, Oregon. And the idea behind their ah the distillery was using the the all of this beautiful produce, all this this beautiful fruit that we have here in the Pacific Northwest, and turning them into fruit brandies that would then rival their European counterparts.

07:27.78
Bartlemay
So The Bartlett pear is the same as the Williams pear. It's a whole story. If you're bored, it's a fun rabbit hole to fall down.

07:34.93
Kerry
Mm-hmm.

07:34.96
Bartlemay
um And that was so that was the whole idea. he he had fallen in love with all of these European brandies. Why can't I make them here at home with the fruit that grows all around us? So he did, right? cant It can't be that hard.

07:46.34
Bartlemay
And then started the craft distillery in the country, right?

07:47.18
Kerry
ah

07:49.34
Bartlemay
And so really inventing the wheel, you know inventing all the supply chains and stuff and just trying to find his way through and then a lot of times create the rules be essentially being the reason for the rule when it comes to like tasting rooms and taxes and all that kind of stuff um and all the minutiae of owning a small craft distillery.

08:10.95
Bartlemay
And then he was on a trip to Ireland some years later, the distillery being well established, has a few distillers and him and his wife were were avid adventurers. They were going to go on a hiking adventure in Ireland.

08:22.66
Bartlemay
And unfortunately for them, it was way too stormy to be able to go and meander through all of the grass covered hills. And they were staying with friends and those friends happened to be avid single malt collectors. And so, well, if we're not going to be outside, well, I guess we might as well be inside and and help ourselves to all of these beautiful whiskeys.

08:40.16
Bartlemay
And so that was really the first really big education he had on single malts and and specifically peated single malts.

08:46.69
Kerry
and Okay.

08:46.85
Bartlemay
And so on the flight home, he's like, all right, well, craft brewing is having a moment in Portland, right?

08:47.05
Kerry
sure.

08:52.05
Bartlemay
Portland, Oregon being, you know, one of the the kind of beating hearts of the craft brewing movement in the mid to late 80s.

08:57.81
Kerry
but sure

08:59.65
Bartlemay
And by this time, we're in the early 90s. And so he's like, well, we know that there's barley that grows in Oregon. We know that there's actually peat bogs in Oregon. And now that we've got craft brewers, there's probably some craft malt houses. So why can't we put all those things together and make an Oregon peated single malt?

09:16.59
Bartlemay
Unfortunately, at the time, the the small malt houses weren't willing to take this project on because then every beer that came out of Portland would be a smoky beer.

09:24.36
Kerry
Right.

09:24.70
Bartlemay
And so the only option to really see his initial vision through was to import that peat malted barley from Scotland, which is what we still do to this day. So absolutely determined to see his idea through, mostly because he was he wanted to make his own, right?

09:31.64
Kerry
wow

09:37.05
Bartlemay
It wasn't like he had this profound moment where he was in the middle of a liquor store and looking at all the shelves and was like, you know, how come we aren't a part of this you know global single malt community? How come there's only a couple of scotch single malts on and, and, and like, why are, why don't we have access to that? It wasn't anywhere near as planned.

09:55.11
Bartlemay
It was just because we can, right. And it turns out because we can made us the first.

09:57.73
Kerry
Yeah.

10:00.65
Bartlemay
So,

10:02.02
Kerry
By a long time.

10:02.47
Bartlemay
oh Yeah, and for a long time, Widmer Brothers was our brewing partner, so we still don't ah do handle any of the grain in-house. We work with brewing partners in our community to brew the wash, which is definitely a part of the American single malt tradition at this point in time, because it's very expensive to essentially have a brewery and then a distillery.

10:21.53
Kerry
Right.

10:21.62
Bartlemay
But if you have a partner brewery that can make your wash, then you only have the distillery pieces of it. So there are a lot of bigger brands that now obviously have everything in house, but started with, you know, the brewery across the street or the brewery next door.

10:34.29
Bartlemay
So we're still doing that. We're still working with our local community. We've since for almost 10 years now, we've been working with Double Mountain Brewing, which is here in Hood River now that we've moved from Portland to Hood River.

10:44.10
Kerry
Okay.

10:44.23
Bartlemay
So we we just continue on the the the tradition, you know, what Steve started and we' we're always small tweaks and try to make it bigger and better and better than ever. um But, you know, it's still made with the same heavily peated malt barley that we import from Scotland. It's still aged in 100% Oregon oak barrels, both new and used cooperage.

11:02.89
Bartlemay
um There were some, during the early years, there was some experimentation with the barrel size, but we've settled in um between 223 liters and 200 liters, depending on what we can get at the time. So we're really excited about having made it, you know, 31 years since the first distillation of it. And with the ratification of American Single Malt, there's just so much opportunity ahead of us as a category and then also as a brand.

11:27.34
Kerry
For sure. Now, how far is Hood River from Portland?

11:31.14
Bartlemay
ah It's about an hour east down I-84.

11:33.60
Kerry
OK.

11:34.21
Bartlemay
So it's a beautiful drive through the scenic Columbia River Gorge, but hop, skip, and a jump.

11:39.72
Kerry
Very cool. And then how far from Hood River is where your home farm is or was or is?

11:45.12
Bartlemay
ah Interestingly enough, it is about an hour and a half west.

11:50.34
Kerry
OK.

11:51.17
Bartlemay
So not very far.

11:51.32
Kerry
Sort of like in the middle.

11:52.06
Bartlemay
It was essentially smack dab in the middle between my where my family farm was and Portland. Yeah.

11:57.25
Kerry
Very cool. And so you said 19, I think that we said this off camera, so 1994 was the first ah single malt?

12:03.57
Bartlemay
Yeah. So January 20th, 1994 was the first, ah the first ever drops of American single malt went into an oak aging vessel.

12:13.49
Kerry
That is very cool. And I had another question and I just lost it.

12:15.12
Bartlemay
Yeah, and I just actually posted that barrel entry that, cause Steve's barrel book was all, it was all just kind of like loose graphing paper. And I think it's even in pencil, which is like kind of horrifying from like the perspective of my trying to make sure that that doesn't degrade any more than it has.

12:22.65
Kerry
Oh, nice.

12:30.29
Kerry
Right, right.

12:31.39
Bartlemay
i hate um But yeah, I just i just posted it up on the Instagram channel today, of the the photo of that piece of graph paper with his handwriting in the original entry. So yeah.

12:40.75
Kerry
That's really cool. I love that kind of stuff, um especially when it's like hundreds of years old and you find like this document that's like, don't touch it or it'll crumble.

12:46.08
Bartlemay
yeah

12:50.59
Bartlemay
Oh yeah, no, I've gotten to the age where my parental units will, every time I see them, I end up being bequeathed another family heirloom.

12:51.00
Kerry
so

12:59.69
Kerry
Oh, yeah.

12:59.94
Bartlemay
And so like this last time I saw them, I was bequeathed this like box and within the box was like just a bunch of weird old papers mostly, but also my great grandfather's wallet that he had on him, like when he passed, I guess.

13:11.96
Kerry
Okay.

13:15.18
Bartlemay
But like on the inside of the wallet, there was like, receipts for stuff that were like over a hundred years old. And I'm just like, I'm not, I'm sorry.

13:22.70
Kerry
Wow.

13:25.14
Bartlemay
I'm a dirty under the stairs kid. I'm holding like, this is an artifact of a time long, long since gone, like weird.

13:30.93
Kerry
Yeah.

13:32.71
Bartlemay
It was totally a trip, but, but yeah, no, that, that it, you know, Steve's old barrel book is awesome. And actually like we're perched just below that first barrel. We actually still have that first barrel still in production.

13:43.65
Bartlemay
It's still aging whiskey.

13:45.09
Kerry
Oh, wow.

13:46.23
Bartlemay
So yeah.

13:46.58
Kerry
Okay, so let's talk about your your whiskey making process there. So after you you get it ah from your you're partners over the brew house, what what's the first thing you do and how long do you usually, i mean how many mean, it sounds like you recycle the barrels forever.

13:50.65
Bartlemay
Sure. Yep.

13:56.03
Bartlemay
yeah yep

14:04.11
Kerry
So like tell me tell me all that process.

14:05.91
Bartlemay
but sir Sure. So we're importing that peat malted barley from Scotland and then Double Mountain Brewing is brewing the wash forest. They brew enough to fill a tanker and we're very fortunate that there is a food safe tanker service right here in town.

14:19.16
Bartlemay
So the barley has to travel an awful long ways, but the wash makes, I think, a three mile journey up the hill from the brewery to the distillery.

14:25.65
Kerry
Oh, nice.

14:27.87
Bartlemay
So pretty quick. And then we start distilling it. takes us a couple weeks to distill it all through our stills. um And, you know, when we start, we talk about and not only the the brewing, but also the distilling process, we pretty much immediately start breaking the rules, right? So we're using a partner brewery.

14:43.68
Bartlemay
And then instead of a double pot distillation, we're doing a single distillation in a hybrid brandy still. So it's a pop-up bill with a short column on top of it.

14:49.29
Kerry
OK.

14:52.13
Bartlemay
It's only five windows with a deflamator on top. So you can kind of control how much the work those windows are going to do for you. So instead of twice, once, but we're still getting our bulk proof between 148 and 155 proof, So we're still able to get that whiskey proof, but only in a single pass.

15:08.34
Kerry
Okay.

15:12.87
Bartlemay
The neat thing about that, and we're also making, um we're making O2V style cuts, right? on that spirit as well. So we're not taking fatty cuts, leaving some of the, especially going deep into the tails, right, for a lot of those phenolics.

15:25.94
Bartlemay
But by making the choices that we're making with a single distillation, but also those tight cuts, we're excluding some of the, what, what some people would describe as harsh phenolics, those really tough peaty characteristics, smoke characteristics, um but also we're maintaining a lot of that flavor and a lot of those oils from the barley itself. So when you taste the McCarthy's, you're going to get lot of that maltiness, you're going to get some of the access to some of those fruity notes, stone fruits, some apricots, some dark cherry leather,

15:55.63
Bartlemay
on top of the the earthiness of the peat and a little bit of that smoke characteristic. But the peat, instead of being barnyardy, is a little bit more like old growth forest loam.

16:06.41
Bartlemay
So there's almost kind of like a pine quality to it.

16:07.11
Kerry
Okay. Nice.

16:09.13
Bartlemay
So it's very earthy, but it's kind of got this like sweet green high note to it as well. And the the the smoky characteristic, it's it's not like being in the middle of a forest fire. It's being in that same old growth forest a distance away from the campfire where you can hear your friends laughing, but you're not close enough to hear what they're talking about, right?

16:27.72
Kerry
nice

16:27.96
Bartlemay
So this kind of like damp, meandering, drifting smoke, the kind of cartoon Looney Tunes style just kind of wafts under your nose and leads you where you need to go.

16:38.44
Kerry
Oh, I love that.

16:38.48
Bartlemay
and so all of those things coming together means that for those that are often scared of the style of peated single malts, often find McCarthy's is a great way to to get into and understand the peated single malt category because it's not too aggressive, it's not too much, but those that really like that category aren't feeling like they're being left without.

16:58.83
Bartlemay
And then again, aged in 100% Oregon oak casks, both new and used cooperage. um It's really important to have some neutral barrels in a program just as it is to have new oak.

17:10.14
Bartlemay
All of them are medium toasts. So none of it's charge and we listen to the whiskey. So when the barrel or the whiskey say that that's time for that container to be done, that container is done.

17:20.89
Bartlemay
But um you know few people understand, and and certainly the community is changing as we spend more time as distillers educating consumers, but the the color and stuff that you're getting out of those barrels, that's only like half of the game that's going on in proper barrel, right?

17:38.59
Kerry
Right.

17:39.53
Bartlemay
You have all that oxidation, you have that opportunity for all those organic acids that you worked so hard for to then interact with the alcohol and esterify over that long period of time in that barrel.

17:51.15
Bartlemay
So you get flavor development in the barrel, even outside of any of the extractives, the color that you're going to get from the barrel itself. So there's still a lot of really wonderful things that are happening with a properly barrel aged whiskey, even if it might come out not quite as dark and not quite as impactful on the oak characteristic.

18:08.45
Kerry
Wow, that's cool. Never thought about that part.

18:10.34
Bartlemay
we've We've sold single barrels that are, you know, in third fill Oregon oak casks. We've sold single barrels that are in first fill um that are either three years old or six years old. It's all about listening to the whiskey and it's all about listening to the cask and making the decisions based on that.

18:27.04
Bartlemay
Because honestly, like we don't want to, these these you know these were trees. We don't want to waste what they've given us. And so if there's still life left in these barrels, then we'll keep them.

18:33.77
Kerry
Right.

18:37.00
Kerry
Yeah, keep them. So, oh, I had a question. ah Oh, so when you were um on that bottling line when you first started day after school, ah did you say, okay, my goal here is to become the whiskey master distiller?

18:56.55
Kerry
Or were you thinking about doing something else?

18:56.50
Bartlemay
no

18:58.59
Kerry
Or was this like, I'm just going to do this little job until I get something else with my degree? Or

19:02.93
Bartlemay
It was, I'm, i I was on a mission to learn. Right. And I, and, and, and I didn't have, I didn't have a 20 year plan or i don't think I really even had a five-year plan. I wanted to learn more about distilling, got a job at a distillery.

19:16.67
Bartlemay
Cool. And then I just threw myself into learning that everything that I could like too much, I think too, I, I think, think Steve really loved it.

19:27.43
Bartlemay
I think he had a little bit of a soft spot at his heart for me. um Yeah, there was some interesting exchanges. Like being a farm kid, like one time i my parents stopped by and ah dad my dad, my dad's are so weird. he He was like, you know, you've got my best combine Skinner.

19:44.07
Bartlemay
like And like, I was like, I wasn't even there. Like dad's like, yeah, you know, you have my best equipment operator. And Steve's like, well, like, you know, I've got, you know, this amazing distiller. And I was like, I'm standing right here, guys. Like I can hear you. This is weird.

19:58.19
Kerry
That's funny.

19:58.22
Bartlemay
Um, but yeah, no, Steve, absolutely. I think he really appreciated how much I was just interested to learn anything and everything. I think there was definitely some management, uh, underneath Steve that was maybe a little bit frustrated with how willing I was to throw myself at literally everything.

20:12.25
Bartlemay
Um, I think within six or eight months I'd taken over all of the, uh, pulling all the orders and doing all the like logistics for the domestic shipping and fulfilling orders. So like,

20:20.93
Kerry
Oh, wow.

20:21.57
Bartlemay
My first title change was logistics coordinator. So it was like spending time on the bottling line, spending time on the stills, learning how to make all this stuff, but also like Thursday afternoons and all day Friday, like pulling orders, calling distributors, like organizing things, printing the labels and all the paperwork to get everything ready to go. So um i yeah i've I've done all the packaging stuff. I've done all the office logistics stuff.

20:45.06
Bartlemay
um I was the barrel room coordinator and and I still spend time with our distillers, Garrett Trotter, Ramos and Everett Rubin working on blends and teaching them what I know as they you know grow on their journey as well. so Yeah, just I've always just been in the thick of it. And I don't know if I have, i don't know if I ever at any point had a plan. I was just like, well, I'm still learning and i don't hate this. So we're just going to keep at it.

21:10.72
Kerry
All right. So out of all the different things you've done ah at the distillery, what is your favorite part?

21:17.18
Bartlemay
oh I think as I have grown in my career, my favorite part at this point in time is the consumer education and and um the ability to leave the distillery, not because I hate being at the distillery, but it is a pleasure to be able to travel and speak to people like you and um you know work with our distributor partners and do bartending or bartender education events.

21:25.96
Kerry
Okay.

21:43.58
Bartlemay
where I have the opportunity to not only talk about the brand and the brand history, but like get a little bit nerdy with all of the things that we're doing here and really honestly answer questions just about the industry in general. um the Yeah, the opportunity to share what I know and to spend time with people out in the industry has been a lot of fun last couple years.

22:02.39
Kerry
Okay, and on that note, I think it's time you give me a little education on these beautiful bottles that we're about to taste. So you said we're going to try the white label first, right?

22:10.32
Bartlemay
Yeah, the white label, that's going to be the flagship. That's what started it all. Until 2021, MacArthur's was always released in the white label three-year-old version. It is, again, 100% Oregon oak casks.

22:23.44
Kerry
yeah

22:25.25
Bartlemay
And the three-year is actually proofed down to 85. So it's not chill, filtered, and proofed at 85. The other ones are going to be a little bit higher, little bit warmer.

22:35.35
Kerry
Are going taste with me? I see you have the bottles back there.

22:36.80
Bartlemay
Oh, I can't. Absolutely.

22:38.38
Kerry
Do you have a glass?

22:41.37
Kerry
Or are you just going to...

22:42.47
Bartlemay
No, it wasn't as good.

22:43.35
Kerry
Aha!

22:43.63
Bartlemay
a No, I have a glass down here. i was just, just had camera shot.

22:46.54
Kerry
Okay. Great.

22:47.94
Bartlemay
I hilariously have you propped up on two boxes of minis on top of a barrel in front of me.

22:53.43
Kerry
Oh, nice!

22:53.50
Bartlemay
I know, I know I've managed to make this look like it's a professional barrel room studio, but i a hundred percent thought like through this together about seven minutes before we start.

22:59.38
Kerry
I mean, yours is... ah Yours is a real barrel room where mine is my photograph of a barrel room.

23:04.19
Bartlemay
but what

23:08.74
Kerry
So um now all the ones that you've sent me are all peated. ah do you guys ever or have you ever or will you ever do any non peated expressions?

23:12.70
Bartlemay
right

23:18.47
Bartlemay
it If we did, I'm not i'm not sure. i mean, we would could totally consider it. I think it would be a lot of fun. i'm not entirely sure if it would be ah line extension under the under McCarthy's. I'm not sure if it would say McCarthy's on it.

23:31.32
Kerry
Okay.

23:31.50
Bartlemay
um But like but we haven't really we haven't really wandered down that path yet. I think at this point in time, you know when we define McCarthy's, and that McCarthy's you know, now that we're 31 years into that brand, it's a peated, it's a peated single malt.

23:43.76
Kerry
Yeah.

23:46.17
Bartlemay
So I don't know who knows, who knows what that creativity could look like down the road, but for now it's all the same malt.

23:51.74
Kerry
Okay.

23:53.12
Bartlemay
It's all the same process.

23:55.40
Kerry
Well, very Petey Nose, but it's not, but you're right. I got that whole Looney Tunes like waft I'm getting. ah It's not like, um it's not the iodine band-aid, which which which is good because I don't like iodines and band-aids.

24:08.22
Bartlemay
Okay. Nope, it's not an iodine bandaid. It's also not a not as an ashtray either. Right.

24:16.03
Kerry
No, it's it's very much a ah pine forest campfire.

24:17.56
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm.

24:22.03
Kerry
all right, so um i didn't pour very much of this because as I i told you off camera, going be driving a little later, so i don't want to go crazy, but it's got a beautiful like golden yellow.

24:28.68
Bartlemay
but

24:34.97
Kerry
i don't know if you guys can see that. What's this a little bit?

24:36.80
Bartlemay
was going to maybe it's easier to hold it up. i put I was a little bit more generous.

24:38.40
Kerry
Oh, yours is good. Yeah, you've got a beautiful, beautiful glass there with a nice big bulb.

24:41.10
Bartlemay
o i you know I only drink at work mostly.

24:44.35
Kerry
All right, I'm going to take it. Take a taste.

24:47.05
Bartlemay
so

24:50.94
Kerry
Wow.

24:53.94
Kerry
Well, that is definitely unique. um I mean, I feel like I can taste definitely the Scottish peat, but it doesn't taste like a scotch, which I like about that.

25:05.26
Bartlemay
yep

25:07.46
Bartlemay
I almost always like there's just this kind of flash almost of like raspberries and cream, which maybe it's just me being crazy.

25:08.14
Kerry
It's like.

25:15.71
Bartlemay
I think the the distillers pick it up sometimes, especially when we're picking out individual barrels.

25:20.13
Kerry
and Okay.

25:20.52
Bartlemay
It's almost like as you're breathing in before you actually take a sip, it's like bra raspberry. My brain is always like, excuse me, ma'am, raspberries. Mm

25:30.47
Kerry
and Now I'm going to have to have this with like vanilla ice cream and raspberries just to like you know accent that.

25:35.24
Bartlemay
hmm.

25:37.91
Bartlemay
And then when you know and we talk about what the Oregon oak contributes to the whiskey, you know everybody's fairly familiar.

25:38.31
Kerry
That's very nice.

25:43.99
Bartlemay
I would say most average American consumers are pretty familiar with um heavy char white American oak. right That's what a lot of things are aged in. And these are medium toe, so we're not even doing a Charlie here for a couple of reasons.

25:56.01
Bartlemay
The big one is, is that Oregon Oak is very similar to French Oak in the way that it grows. So it has what's called soft tyloses, which are these end caps in the straws that build the wood fibers.

26:08.84
Kerry
Okay.

26:09.11
Bartlemay
um And so with American oak, they're they're hard. So you don't get any liquid penetration past those end caps on those straws.

26:12.34
Kerry
Mm-hmm.

26:16.21
Bartlemay
But with French and Oregon oak, those end caps will kind of break down as those staves dry out in the yard before they're made into barrels.

26:24.77
Kerry
okay

26:24.78
Bartlemay
And so you don't need to damage the wood grain with that charring process to get that deeper penetration through the wood grain. And then where American oak, sometimes you get like, you get a little bit of bitterness from the char, but you also get things like lime and coconut and stuff like that with the Oregon oak, it changes the citrus portfolio or profile, profile sorry, the citrus profile of the whiskey. So it's a little bit more like burnt orange peel instead of lime.

26:52.48
Bartlemay
And you get kind of like toasted, roasted hazelnuts and like a more like a richer, more oxidized Madagascar vanilla instead of what I like to think is a little bit more like a sweeter, almost artificial vanilla that you would get from an American

26:52.62
Kerry
OK.

27:05.67
Bartlemay
So it's a different kind of profile that matches up and it's really big and bold oak.

27:05.92
Kerry
okay

27:11.40
Bartlemay
And so what should be kind of a war in the cast between a really big oily whiskey and a really big oak is actually this really nice compliment together it kind of makes this cohesive flavor.

27:22.48
Kerry
Yeah. And okay. So I just opened the the sixth year, the burgundy maroon one.

27:28.28
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm.

27:30.68
Kerry
And this is, so what's the difference between this one and the white? The white is how three years.

27:35.99
Bartlemay
So the Burgundy label is going to be six year and it's also at a hundred proof.

27:42.06
Kerry
So is it the same exact thing? Does it age longer?

27:44.36
Bartlemay
Just age longer.

27:45.43
Kerry
Okay.

27:47.86
Bartlemay
And the first time we released a six year was in 2021. So it took us from 1998 to 2021 to actually make enough whiskey to hold it, hold it back so we could age it for twice as long.

27:52.00
Kerry
Wow.

27:59.99
Kerry
That's drastically different.

28:01.59
Bartlemay
Okay.

28:02.43
Kerry
Wow.

28:05.04
Kerry
I like that. And the nose on this one, I feel, and I don't know, it could be the glass because I didn't, it's not a true Glen Karen, but I feel like it's not, this one punches you a little bit more with the peat than this one.

28:17.80
Kerry
Or is that my glass? What do you think?

28:19.11
Bartlemay
um I would say the peat definitely with the six years a little bit it's not it's not lessened but the balance changes right it's not quite as earthy you have a little bit more of the sweetness from the barrel but I wouldn't say that the but that it is overtly sweet as a dram but it is it's like it's an uptick in the richness right

28:27.22
Kerry
I think it's like a little, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

28:38.53
Kerry
Right.

28:44.37
Bartlemay
It's all the things the three year was, but it's just richer.

28:47.99
Kerry
Yes.

28:47.99
Bartlemay
There's more to it. It's like, you almost feel like you want to, like it has that chewiness quality to it. And that's just, you know, again, when you talk about all the stuff that's happening in a barrel, other than the flavors that you're getting out of the wood grain, you're also losing more of that angel share, right? Which is you're losing stuff that you don't want to have in the first place because it's the more volatile stuff.

29:06.33
Bartlemay
And then you're concentrating all the good stuff in return. So it is going to always be that like little bit richer quality.

29:14.75
Kerry
Okay. Now, This one I was very excited about and cheated the other day ah and already took a little sip.

29:22.45
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm.

29:23.11
Kerry
um This is the PX Sherry Cask Finish, also peated. um But i I always started out as a peat, a yeah sherry cask lover. So when I first started out, ah well, still really to this day, I love the Speyside region of Scotch.

29:33.02
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

29:40.84
Kerry
um the best out of all the regions. um So I love to see when when the space side and the Islay meet, so to speak.

29:51.36
Bartlemay
but I do have another one.

29:53.52
Kerry
So I'm going to pop that in here.

29:54.92
Bartlemay
So with the Sherry Cask Finishes, that's again the sixth year that goes into the Sherry Cask Finish. We have the Pedro Jimenez, which is what I sent you. And then for those that are in the Pacific Northwest um or anybody that wants to go online, we have it on our website as well.

30:08.53
Bartlemay
We have an Oloroso Sherry Cask Finish, which was a smaller release, ah but it's still available. And and it but like both six year. So they spent six years in its original aging cask, Organ Oak. And then with the PX around...

30:22.37
Bartlemay
six months and for the Oloroso closer to nine, 10 months for the finish. The Oloroso takes a little bit longer, but we're picking the the barrels for those blends before it goes into those barrels. So with the Oloroso, we're picking things are going to play into that more oxidative and herbaceous kind of earthy flavor that the Oloroso Sherry has.

30:44.37
Bartlemay
And with the PX, we're picking barrels that have that a little bit more of that fruity and floral. We're not trying to flavor the whiskey. I hate an over-finished whiskey. But what we are trying to do is we're trying to use those Sherry cask finishes to nudge some of the things that we already really enjoy in that whiskey and just bring them closer to the surface.

30:52.47
Kerry
Yeah.

31:02.71
Kerry
I was going to say, this is definitely fruitier floral, more floral than the two other ones, um which obviously is because the sherry.

31:08.11
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm.

31:10.30
Kerry
And now I know it's because of the PX versus Oloroso.

31:10.42
Bartlemay
Yeah.

31:13.98
Kerry
um So I'm ready to. Oh, and I also noticed this has got a little bit darker, more amber color, which is beautiful. And I love amber. um if i get it So I have two male Scotties and they're both named with Scottish names because Scotties are the closest you can get to whiskey and a dog because they're Scotties or Westies.

31:29.17
Bartlemay
Awesome.

31:33.57
Bartlemay
hu

31:35.32
Kerry
You can do Westies also.

31:35.27
Bartlemay
Perfect. Sure.

31:36.72
Kerry
um But if I they're both males. But if I get a female, one of the names would be Amber because of the color.

31:42.71
Bartlemay
Yeah, absolutely.

31:44.80
Kerry
And if I get another one, I might name it Copper, but then I'll have to get um ah fox and name it Todd. Or is that backwards?

31:51.46
Bartlemay
Uh-huh.

31:52.55
Kerry
Copper and Todd from Fox the Hound?

31:53.60
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm.

31:54.15
Kerry
Yeah. For those children out there who've never seen the Fox in the Hound, it's an old old cartoon movie.

31:58.91
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm.

32:01.10
Kerry
All right. Okay, here we go.

32:03.07
Bartlemay
So the PX for me, it just, you know, there's sultanas and there's like sun dried, you know, golden raisins.

32:08.96
Kerry
Wow.

32:10.71
Bartlemay
And it just, it tastes like McCarthy's with plus like a perfect, like late summer, early autumn, sunshiny day. Mm-hmm.

32:19.56
Kerry
Okay, now that I tasted these back to back and I went back to this one, totally changed the flavor of this one.

32:23.92
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

32:26.59
Kerry
Obviously because I've now tainted paintinted my palette.

32:28.37
Bartlemay
Sure. Mm-hmm.

32:29.89
Kerry
um

32:29.85
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm.

32:30.51
Kerry
But oh, this is my favorite.

32:32.86
Bartlemay
Yeah, no, PX is great. We have a tradition started by my predecessor, Joseph O'Sullivan, who's now the master distiller at Minden Mill down in Nevada.

32:41.04
Kerry
Okay.

32:41.12
Bartlemay
And every solstice, we have a cigar and a dram of whatever you want that's in the building. And we have a cigar and ah and ah and a drink. And we we finished work a little bit early that day out in the parking lot.

32:54.43
Bartlemay
And there is a construction company that is in the business next door.

32:55.18
Kerry
Thank you.

32:59.67
Bartlemay
And that's usually around the time that they're coming in from a job. And we are kind of jerks about it. And so we we we roll out like we have these. i mean, they're beaten up, but they're like beaten up old rolly office chairs.

33:10.80
Bartlemay
And we'll bring like a five gallon bucket out to prop our feet up or something like that. So we're just like, and there's three of us, right? So it's not like the huge crowd of people, but there's a three of us with like snifter in one hand, cigar in the other, but you know, really chair with our feet propped up at like two 30 in the afternoon in June or in December.

33:27.61
Bartlemay
And we're just like, yeah, Hey, how'd you day go? And they're like, you guys are awful. You're terrible neighbors. How come we never get invited? Yeah.

33:34.91
Kerry
That's funny. ah reminds me, um I work ah the Spirit Awards every year. Not our Spirit Awards, but the um Hollywood Spirit Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards, which used to be the day before the Oscars every year, but this year it was the day before the SAG Awards.

33:46.49
Bartlemay
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

33:48.99
Kerry
um But it's always in a giant tent on the beach in Santa Monica. And ah um I only get to usually work um like the rehearsal day and the day of, but then everybody else who's like there all week setting up the tents at five o'clock when sunset is happening, they all go out with their bottles of wine or their champagne or their whatever. And they just sit on the beach and they have their, and I'm like, I need to come work in the mobile office ah just for that because ah fun, fun stuff.

34:19.45
Bartlemay
yep

34:19.62
Kerry
I'm like, I'm missing out. I got to come, come. and We always have like a meeting meeting. right after at sunset for like the day before. And I'm like, why we invited like an hour sooner?

34:27.86
Bartlemay
who

34:32.53
Bartlemay
hu

34:32.86
Kerry
So yeah.

34:33.54
Bartlemay
please

34:34.86
Kerry
Okay. Well, these are.

34:35.17
Bartlemay
Well, the PX has been the the dram of choice since um since since we've been making the PX. so

34:42.08
Kerry
And how long have, well, um yeah. How long have you been making with you?

34:44.06
Bartlemay
I think it's been out for a couple years now. Two, three years maybe?

34:48.34
Kerry
Okay. Wow. This one's 112.2 proof, by volume.

34:51.60
Bartlemay
Yep, Cask Storm.

34:55.02
Kerry
And this particular bottle is

34:58.82
Kerry
and was bottled on september eighth nineteen twenty nineteen twenty twenty two wow

35:04.74
Bartlemay
The year of our Lord and Savior 1925!

35:05.51
Kerry
nineteen twenty two

35:09.04
Kerry
yeah a wow twenty twenty five years in and i'm still going back to nineteen

35:12.97
Bartlemay
hundred

35:15.84
Kerry
team

35:16.62
Bartlemay
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I've been there.

35:21.04
Kerry
Well, Gen X, baby, Gen X.

35:23.31
Bartlemay
Yeah.

35:25.67
Kerry
oh I'm trying to think. There was one other question I had for you and I kept thinking of it and I should have written it down because now I keep forgetting it. And I'm sure I'll remember it as soon as we get off.

35:37.02
Bartlemay
Yeah, probably. That's how it works.

35:39.23
Kerry
Yeah.

35:43.23
Kerry
Okay. So, um, At hood at your at okay at the the facility where you're at right now, are you do you guys only do McCarthy's or do you do other products?

35:53.66
Bartlemay
yeah so the team and i are actually in charge of like 20 some odd liquids and distillates so we actually the way to make it all make sense in your head is hood river distillers um we're going to use the solar system so hood river distillers is the sun and i did saturn for clear creek because it this is my story and saturn's the dopest planet

35:59.05
Kerry
Wow.

36:13.77
Bartlemay
So Clear Creek is Saturn and all the Clear Creek brandies and liqueurs are going to be the actual planet with McCarthy's being the ring, right? So McCarthy's is an original Clear Creek distillery brand.

36:25.33
Bartlemay
But when you're talking about, um you know, what does what events are Clear Creek going to go to What bar liquor store is Clear Creek going to go to? It's not going to be always the same one that McCarthy's might go to.

36:36.57
Kerry
Right.

36:36.59
Bartlemay
And so while their stories are really important to each other, McCarthy's is getting increasingly treated a little bit more like it's an independent brand.

36:36.69
Kerry
Okay.

36:43.97
Bartlemay
Right.

36:44.21
Kerry
okay

36:44.17
Bartlemay
So that's why it's the ring. Still very important, but like kind of still a little bit separate. And then here at the distillery, we're also creating a handful of other independent brands for the larger company as well. So those are all of Saturn's moons.

36:57.40
Bartlemay
So we make the De Graff Amaro and Aperitivo. We make Timberline Vodka. We make old delicious double bourbon barreled apple brandy. We make the Lewis and Clark premium vodka.

37:08.92
Bartlemay
And then we also, we we moved production down the main facility, but we still consult and do the R&D for the trails and bourbon line. So we do an awful lot of stuff between the three of us, especially considering that I'm also doing quite a bit of traveling for the company.

37:20.67
Kerry
Yeah.

37:24.81
Bartlemay
So um we we stay very busy, but yeah, we we have, you know, 20 some odd liquids that we're keeping track of and and trying to to make all year round. And so McCarthy's is awesome because we can make it year round.

37:36.01
Bartlemay
So when it's pear brandy season, which is what we make the most of for Clear Creek Distillery, we only have between September and February to make an entire year's worth of pear brandy. So if we were to run out of pear brandy in July, we'll be like, too bad.

37:49.35
Bartlemay
We're probably not going to have fresh spirit ready to put in bottles until October. Right.

37:53.27
Kerry
Yeah. Right.

37:53.64
Bartlemay
But we try to, we're very careful and we try to do the math and try to make a little bit of extra so that doesn't happen. um But we're stuck with Clear Creek as far as our brandy production with the the seasons.

38:03.73
Bartlemay
So we we're we were were're following the fruit harvests as we go through the year.

38:04.33
Kerry
right

38:07.55
Bartlemay
And then we plug in the holes with everything else to keep us busy throughout the whole year.

38:12.61
Kerry
That's fantastic. And so if ah if some of our diehard painted whiskey fans out there ah want to get you guys McCarthy's, where would they find it?

38:25.54
Kerry
um And how many states are you in?

38:25.70
Bartlemay
Well, we do have distribution and I think it's 41 states and seven countries.

38:27.30
Kerry
and

38:30.82
Kerry
Okay.

38:31.29
Bartlemay
We're around, but we're not going to be quite as easy as, you know, maybe some, you know, bigger multinational brands might be defined anywhere in the United States. ah We're pretty easy to find if you're in Oregon, California, and Washington and New York for sure.

38:45.40
Bartlemay
But the best way to do it, we have our website.

38:45.60
Kerry
Okay.

38:47.68
Bartlemay
The McCarthy's is on hrdspirits.com. There is a find the product part of that website. So you can type in your zip code, your city, and it'll help you find it. um And then we also have, I believe, all of the SKUs of the McCarthy's as well as a very special edition single barrel release of a rum product.

39:06.25
Bartlemay
age McCarthy's. I think there's still two or three cases left on the website and that I believe ships to 38 states. So we do some direct to consumer shipping through our website. Uh, if you can't find a local retailer and then absolutely worst case scenario, if you absolutely have to have it, you can't find it with those tools.

39:22.65
Bartlemay
I am the one that actually runs the Instagram accounts for both Clear Creek Distillery and McCarthy's. So if you send a note to either one of those, uh, yeah.

39:29.10
Kerry
You're so busy.

39:31.04
Bartlemay
And trails end. Um, So if if you send a DM to any of those accounts, I'm the one that's going to be answering it. And I'm sure the sales team super loves it when it's a random Saturday night. And I'm like, hey, where can I find a bottle of Six Year McCarthy's in Iowa?

39:45.09
Kerry
yeah That's great.

39:45.74
Bartlemay
Really great about answering my questions and helping to track down bottles. So there's a few ways that you can hopefully find us. But McCarthy's has been around for long enough that there's quite a few ah bottle shops across the country that carry us. And certainly if it's a more niche specialty whiskey bottle shop, we're more likely to find it.

40:02.99
Kerry
Fantastic. Now, one more thing i want to talk about before I let you go. I noticed you have one bottle back there that I do not have. So tell me a little bit about that black label.

40:11.32
Bartlemay
Oh, yes.

40:11.54
Kerry
And what's that whole story?

40:13.29
Bartlemay
So we occasionally do, we do some fun stuff with McCarthy's. We do some single barrel releases and some experiments. So like I said, that rum aged barrel ah that we still have a couple cases of, it's also in a black label, but the black label McCarthy's usually indicates either a specialty finish or a single barrel release. So this one that I have in my hand is a cognac cask finish that we did for the Maloma Whiskey Library 2022.

40:36.63
Bartlemay
and twenty twenty two But it's the representative black label bottle that we still have here in the distillery. um Usually if it's a single barrel, it'll have a logo here in the corner of whoever picked the single barrel and any other special details on it.

40:50.15
Bartlemay
But we do a handful of single barrels every year and then, you know, send me a note if you want to explore a specialty finish with us. and We've done a couple of them. We did a cognac cask finish and let's see the rum finish. What else have we done?

41:05.67
Bartlemay
I know there's a couple more that have been kind of loitering around, but definitely a lot more single barrels. So yeah, in ah in ah and a collect them all situation, there is four labels that are floating around out in the universe.

41:18.56
Kerry
That's great.

41:19.73
Bartlemay
Yeah.

41:19.91
Kerry
Now, if I happen to be up in.

41:20.44
Bartlemay
Oh, no, five, because the Oloroso is navy blue, so I don't have a bottle.

41:23.91
Kerry
Oh, right.

41:25.08
Bartlemay
But the Oloroso is going to be navy blue.

41:27.49
Kerry
Nice.

41:27.74
Bartlemay
But technically, there is five five colors. Collect them all. ah

41:32.14
Kerry
ah Now, if I were up in Oregon and I wanted to come take a tour, do you guys offer tours or is it a closed shop?

41:37.06
Bartlemay
We don't actually do public tours for the distillery. While the barrel room looks super awesome and nice, this is this was set up to be a working distillery. So we don't have a big, super awesome, flashy consumer front for the distillery tours.

41:50.98
Bartlemay
And like I said, there's there's only the three of us. And with me gone all the time, it's really only two. So we don't really have the capability to do regular public tours. However, we do have a tasting room here in Hood River.

42:01.77
Bartlemay
It is a bit of a destination location in that and in the summertime, there's all kinds of hiking and water sports.

42:02.32
Kerry
Fantastic.

42:07.96
Bartlemay
In the wintertime, there's all kinds of hiking and snow sports. So it's a really beautiful area.

42:11.30
Kerry
Nice.

42:13.51
Bartlemay
There's lots of hotels. it's We're kind of a resort town without actually having, like, there's no big resort. There's a bunch of little cutie hotels all through the area. um But there's definitely... Lots of fun to be had for for people that come and visit the area. There's wineries, there's beautiful locations, great places to eat.

42:30.41
Bartlemay
And then we do have a tasting room in the like cutie, like it's very, I feel it's got like frontier vibes downtown area. And the tasting room is actually in the old bank building.

42:37.79
Kerry
Nice.

42:39.94
Bartlemay
So there's a small, and as a part of the tasting room, they kept the original vaults.

42:40.92
Kerry
Oh fun.

42:45.06
Kerry
Nice.

42:45.00
Bartlemay
So you actually go through this like turn of the century vault door with like glass so you can see all the inner workings. And then there's this like little history kiosk in the actual old bank building vault.

42:55.65
Bartlemay
That's a couple, you know, that's a hundred and some odd years old.

42:55.97
Kerry
That is awesome.

42:58.12
Bartlemay
So um really fun.

42:59.20
Kerry
That is awesome.

42:59.82
Bartlemay
And then that they have everything that we have there at the tasting room. And if you're going to find something special that we released, it's going to, there's, there's usually a couple of bottles there.

43:08.02
Kerry
And does that have all of your stuff, including all the Brandy's and everything else, or just your McCarthy's?

43:10.56
Bartlemay
Yeah, so it has all of the Clear Creek, Trails End, McGrath, McCarthy's, but it also has all the other products for Hood River Distillers.

43:12.70
Kerry
OK.

43:18.06
Bartlemay
Hood River Distillers is actually the largest and oldest distillery in Oregon. It was founded in 1934 here in Hood River. ah The original idea was to make fruit brandies and liqueurs just like Clear Creek started making in 1985, and they turned into a rectifier and blender by the late 50s and returned to their distilling roots by buying Clear Creek in 2014.

43:32.88
Kerry
OK.

43:36.44
Bartlemay
So they actually have, including Clear Creek and McCarthy's, being representing only two brands, they have 30 brands spread across 300 different SKUs.

43:36.64
Kerry
Oh, wow. OK.

43:45.85
Kerry
wow

43:45.88
Bartlemay
So you can not only try everything that the team and I make here at Clear Creek Distillery, but you can try what we make up at our sister distillery, Captive Spirits in Seattle. We have a gin distillery up there that produces big gin, as well as a bunch of other blended brands, cordials, liqueurs.

44:00.89
Bartlemay
We have a ah new Canadian whiskey line called Fourth West Whiskey. that comes with three flavors.

44:05.12
Kerry
wow

44:06.21
Bartlemay
So um you could stay in Hood River and taste your five things and it might might take you a week to try everything that you can that you can try there at the tasting room.

44:15.11
Kerry
and do Can you shop at this tasting room or no?

44:17.66
Bartlemay
Oh, absolutely.

44:18.78
Kerry
Oh, good.

44:18.75
Bartlemay
And the cool thing is, is that because we're a control state, the price at the tasting room is the same as anywhere in the state.

44:18.98
Kerry
Okay.

44:23.96
Bartlemay
So doesn't matter if you're buying in our tasting room or you buy it at a liquor store in Portland or somewhere down in eastern Oregon, it's going to be the same price.

44:32.06
Kerry
That's great. Well, Caitlin, thank you so much for being on the show today. This was a fantastic pleasure, and I am glad I got to hear your your whiskey journey and the history of McCarthy's because I've i've often wondered about it once i found out about it some time back, um being the oldest one.

44:46.08
Bartlemay
ah

44:48.79
Kerry
And um i as most people know, I'm not a huge Pete fan, um so i I always am delighted when i taste a pitted whiskey that I not only...

45:00.48
Kerry
can stomach, but enjoy and would buy. So you have made my day.

45:03.75
Bartlemay
Sure.

45:06.76
Kerry
And again, the sherry is my favorite.

45:06.81
Bartlemay
Awesome.

45:09.85
Bartlemay
Oh yeah.

45:10.85
Kerry
um So anyway, thank you again. And we look forward to catching you up with you in the future.

45:16.51
Bartlemay
Awesome. Thank you so much, Carrie.