Whiskey, Grit, and the Untold Story of Big Nose Kate (BRC S4 E11)

00:01.15
Kerry
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever time it is that you are catching the show today.

00:00.95
Mel Heim 
Thank you.

00:04.47
Kerry
Today on the show, i have Mel Haim, who is here to talk to us about Big Nose Kate. And as you can see, I've already taken quite a bit out of this bottle.

00:15.07
Kerry
This interview has been a long awaited. Our schedules have just not been able to pair up. So, um you know, once I open the bottle, I've been trying not to drink it, but it's very good. So, hey.

00:24.35
Mel Heim 
think

00:26.59
Kerry
But it's ah it's very good, so I'm i'm having trouble not not doing it. So now and that it's open, i will be able to to finish it, which makes me quite happy. um And I have a dog stuck on my cords. Okay.

00:39.69
Kerry
So anyway, I'll be able to finish it, which will be great. um But with no further ado, i would like to introduce Mel. Mel, how are you today?

00:46.14
Mel Heim 
Hi, I'm good. How are you, Carrie?

00:47.92
Kerry
I'm fantastic. So um I noticed this brand, I don't know, maybe two years ago, and then we met at an event, gosh, probably almost a year ago now. And um we've been trying to do this ever since.

00:57.10
Mel Heim 
Yes.

00:59.12
Kerry
But I did want to talk to you about so many things about this brand that I think is very interesting. First of all, Big Nose Kate, we'll need to get into why is it Big Nose Kate? Who is this woman on the bottle? um then I know you have some some people backing the or investing in the company, which are also some very interesting people, so we can get into that.

01:17.26
Kerry
But first, let's talk about you and your whiskey journey. When you were a wee little lass, did you ever think that someday you would be running a company with the word nose in it um about whiskey?

01:21.82
Mel Heim 
and

01:28.03
Mel Heim 
but No, maybe ah company with no's in it about me.

01:32.21
Kerry
No, no, no, no.

01:32.23
Mel Heim 
just going to cry in a big no's now. but And that just worked out.

01:36.44
Kerry
oh no no no

01:36.91
Mel Heim 
No, didn't think that. I didn't think I'd be in whiskey. I didn't i didn't really have big ideations um about working when I was young. So call that a nice protective bubble childhood where play was a number one priority. But Nope, never saw that coming. My journey in whiskey is an interesting one. it definitely was not a linear path.

01:59.50
Mel Heim 
I was a liberal arts major, which means I have the potential to do anything except for STEM, so I thought. ah But I do live in Portland, Oregon, born and raised here. so really immersed in the craft beverage mecca, craft brewing and wine country is about an hour away. So my journey started 17 years ago as an office admin at a brewery.

02:24.30
Kerry
Okay.

02:24.17
Mel Heim 
And that job was not great. And I think I was on the brink of being fired.

02:29.20
Kerry
Oh no.

02:29.25
Mel Heim 
you know And mostly because I was hanging out in the distillery. So this brewery, this was the early aughts, had a pirate, ah pirate r well, it was a rum distillery, a pilot distillery on the second floor.

02:39.63
Kerry
Okay.

02:41.16
Mel Heim 
and I found that very fascinating being on the West Coast, not being um in the midst of, you know, Kentucky or bourbon country or or places with a lot of heritage and spirit. So spending all my time up there.

02:54.07
Mel Heim 
I was offered an internship or apprenticeship to work with that distiller. And um I, again, being the wandering, goalless person that I was, said sure.

03:08.01
Mel Heim 
And that sure and many other sure's along the road have brought me here to being the co-founder and head blender for Big Nose Kate Whiskey. Thank you.

03:17.08
Kerry
Okay. And so how long were you at the brewery doing distilling under this man?

03:23.41
Mel Heim 
Well, the apprenticeship was about seven weeks and then the very condensed curriculum and he left for law school. ah Luckily, he was my brother-in-law, so I did have access to him for more time.

03:34.70
Kerry
Oh, okay. ah

03:37.12
Mel Heim 
ah So there was seven weeks and then I took over full production. I ran two stills. We ran um ah two runs a day. had seven fermenters and I gave tours you know twice a day and it was a full-time one-woman operation

03:52.30
Kerry
Wow.

03:52.36
Mel Heim 
And I did that two years.

03:54.63
Kerry
And is that brewery still in existence?

03:54.54
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

03:56.83
Mel Heim 
It is. It's Rogue Ales and Brewery, one of the first, you know, kind of nascent craft breweries in the Pacific Northwest. They're 30 plus years old now.

04:04.93
Kerry
Great, great.

04:05.56
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

04:06.51
Kerry
you're and Okay.

04:06.26
Mel Heim 
Still independently owned.

04:08.42
Kerry
And ah your brother-in-law no longer is there either? Just you? I mean, just be either one?

04:12.00
Mel Heim 
No, he's a lawyer. Poor Sap. Yeah.

04:15.78
Kerry
Did he at least go into something like, you know, how to like liquor laws or something? No?

04:20.55
Mel Heim 
You know, I have never been interested enough to ask.

04:26.01
Kerry
I love it. I love it. You could be a divorce lawyer.

04:27.94
Mel Heim 
but

04:29.36
Kerry
You could be a bankruptcy lawyer. You don't know.

04:30.26
Mel Heim 
Yeah, you'll be fine. Something. He's he's employed.

04:33.40
Kerry
There we go Well, that's that's what's important these days, right now, especially.

04:35.90
Mel Heim 
Exactly.

04:37.47
Kerry
um Okay. so um when you ah so how how So when you were at the brewery and you were doing all this, when did you decide or was there a step in between um that and Big Nose Kate?

04:48.76
Kerry
And how did you get there from there?

04:50.79
Mel Heim 
Yeah, many steps. I know I sort of brushed through that. no many steps. So the brewery um bought a couple of farms and started to grow in their own barley and hops for their beer production. And during one of our meetings, I said, oh, are we going to start using this grain for whiskey?

05:09.39
Mel Heim 
and I thought that was definitely going to happen. But the the president at the time said, how much do you make? And I said, 10.75 hour.

05:16.62
Kerry
Wow.

05:17.86
Mel Heim 
now make 12.

05:19.16
Kerry
Okay.

05:19.10
Mel Heim 
and he said now you make twelve And that was my first race because it clearly sparked some idea.

05:24.70
Kerry
wow

05:27.29
Mel Heim 
ah But they did end up, ah we started brewing beer specifically for distilling. um and And I believe Rogue was maybe the second person to make single malt.

05:38.87
Mel Heim 
And this was like in 2010, like a small batch single malt.

05:40.66
Kerry
okay

05:42.51
Mel Heim 
So a actually kind of left right around that time where they started putting whiskey down. Um, it was dead guy whiskey. And that was because of my own, um, I had my, my own personal things going on. I was in my mid twenties and, um, you know, needed to, to tend to my mental health at the time.

06:05.70
Mel Heim 
So I stepped, took a step back and, and left the best job that I'd ever had.

06:10.88
Kerry
Right.

06:10.67
Mel Heim 
um sort of reset. ah But I like the phoenix rising from the ashes.

06:17.29
Kerry
yeah

06:17.24
Mel Heim 
I came back a year later and was looking for sort of my next gig in and distilling. um But it was it was such a ah young industry here out west that most of the craft distilleries you know the distillers were the owners it was you know it was a passion project someone did it so it was very hard to come in and say like i've been distilling for two years i want a distilling gig and they're like that's what we do um so i said i just love it so much i'll do anything i'll be your tasting room manager i will move buckets uh and i am

06:35.48
Kerry
right

06:54.07
Mel Heim 
I'm bucket girl. I've been bucket girl. Move that bucket to over there and that bucket over there and dump that bucket in that barrel. And i got back in at a, at a small distillery being a part-time labeler.

07:05.12
Mel Heim 
I said, fantastic. I can label. I'm a very good labeler. And, um

07:09.93
Kerry
Was it putting the stickers on and writing or just the stickers?

07:12.64
Mel Heim 
that's the stickers. Yeah. I'm a lefty writing on labels is like, not my jam, but smeared numbers.

07:16.12
Kerry
Oh, nice, nice.

07:19.54
Mel Heim 
Um, but I've done it. And, coming back into that space. Um, I rose in the ranks at that distillery, um, and helped grow that, uh, over the course of eight and a half years to be the first publicly traded craft distillery on the NASDAQ.

07:34.88
Kerry
Oh, wow.

07:34.73
Mel Heim 
Um, yeah, just a small journey.

07:37.70
Kerry
That's tiny.

07:37.66
Mel Heim 
ah yeah, and yeah.

07:38.44
Kerry
Yeah.

07:38.84
Mel Heim 
We started, we were at a thousand square foot space in Southeast Portland and then bought a ended up in a 40,000 square foot facility and, um,

07:50.65
Mel Heim 
helped in the operations of making some acquisitions and yeah, we grew that little, little baby. The time was right. Um, there were so many craft players that fortifying ourselves with, you know, small mergers was, was a really good playbook.

08:05.63
Mel Heim 
Um, so yeah, grew that EVP of operations and then came the pandemic and during the pandemic, uh, everybody was, well,

08:15.28
Kerry
Making hand sanitizer.

08:16.54
Mel Heim 
Hand sanitizer and wondering what was next and is this going to be three months or four years and um I, they released me from my contract so I was the only employee on a contract and because we didn't know what was happening.

08:17.34
Kerry
do think

08:28.86
Kerry
Oh, that's about

08:31.72
Mel Heim 
Um, and I actually had a newborn at the time. So it was like, Oh, just an extended maternity leave indefinite. Maybe we don't know.

08:39.44
Kerry
right.

08:39.40
Mel Heim 
Um, but I was lucky enough that that contract, they had to buy the contract. So they had to like pay out my contract.

08:44.65
Kerry
pay Yeah, okay.

08:45.25
Mel Heim 
So I had some stability and it did give me some time to breathe and sort of assess the next steps. Uh, and I, and I thought, you know, maybe I'll take a break. Like, can I do this with a baby? And ah Then I got an email, and those emails, ah and the email was like, hey, Mel, this is from Becky Harris.

09:04.26
Kerry
Becky Harris. Okay. I know Becky Harris.

09:06.41
Mel Heim 
um palbeck Oh, yeah. Who doesn't know Becky Harris? And she said, Mel. She's like, I got this deck. And I've had it for a while, and I couldn't think of anyone who'd be a good fit.

09:16.41
Mel Heim 
And said, it's because I'm unemployed, isn't it? She's like, well, yes and no.

09:20.18
Kerry
Sort of. 50-50.

09:21.04
Mel Heim 
Sort of. Sort of. them Because they're looking for someone

09:23.49
Kerry
fifty

09:24.52
Mel Heim 
if 50, So I read it and it was this like very um vague deck. And it was just like, the idea is this name, it's a big nose, Kate, here's her story.

09:39.32
Mel Heim 
This would be a great story for a whiskey. And I'm like, well, yeah, whiskey and storytelling goes hand in hand. But I wasn't sure. I was like, I don't know if I'm ready to like be an entrepreneur. I've always been the employee, you know, pay me for my service.

09:52.25
Kerry
Right, right. Exactly.

09:52.85
Mel Heim 
Not like this is my responsibility. So I waited a little bit and i and I shot them back an email like a month or two later, maybe two months later, and said, I received this deck.

10:05.52
Mel Heim 
Very interesting. Can you tell me more? And I got another email and we emailed and some emails and they sent me a book in the mail. um and it was called According to Kate. and you know, i thought this is okay.

10:20.23
Mel Heim 
Like if I had all the funds and the time, this might be something I would pursue in like a year and a half. So maybe it's just now. Maybe the opportunity is now and it's not when I have my ducks in a row or we know anything.

10:31.63
Mel Heim 
Maybe we just jump.

10:32.13
Kerry
Right, right.

10:33.28
Mel Heim 
Life's already turned up to like difficulty 12. Let's just turn it to 13. Like who cares?

10:38.95
Kerry
Right.

10:39.15
Mel Heim 
yeah. It's that sure attitude, which has really carried me pretty far. So I said, sure, what do we want to do? And they said, well, we need a whiskey maker. Like we have the idea. My co-founders, one is a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the Kellogg School of Business. And one is the former head of innovation at ah Beam Centauri. So, you know, just some guys.

11:03.45
Kerry
Right.

11:04.09
Mel Heim 
but they don't know how to make whiskey. um And I was like, well, I knew that. So like, again, Captain Planet with our powers combined, i think we it ah our skill sets were all aligned.

11:10.72
Kerry
right

11:14.48
Mel Heim 
So we just met over Zoom and I got to work on figuring out what the whiskey is. i dragged those fellows through like an additional year of research.

11:25.82
Mel Heim 
I said, we can't make a character whiskey because we're not lazy, right? We're we're intent people.

11:28.97
Kerry
right

11:30.51
Mel Heim 
So if we're going to be intentional, I need to know everything about this woman because it's also going to dictate how I make this whiskey because we're not just making something and putting a face on it and being like, we did it. It's $70.

11:45.14
Mel Heim 
You're welcome. You know, it's, there's going to be more to it.

11:46.40
Kerry
Yeah.

11:49.14
Mel Heim 
And they were like, Oh wow. She's a real crafts person. and i was like, you bet. Like if I'm going to put my name on it. So yeah, We, ah yeah, they gave me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted. And the more I learned about Kate, it was really an exercise in, like a...

12:07.81
Mel Heim 
ah a literary exercise. So like, let's talk about Kate as a person, adjectives, and then let's talk about grains and mash bills and feelings and flavors and do the crazy, like connect the red string between the two and kind of see what happens.

12:20.40
Kerry
Right.

12:22.69
Mel Heim 
And was a discovery process, not only in what it should be, but what it shouldn't be. I kept trying to force bourbon into this. Don't get me wrong. I was, it's bad habit. It's a reflex.

12:33.79
Mel Heim 
It was a reflex. And then I said, wait, wait, What if it's not bourbon at all? What if there's no bourbon?

12:40.74
Kerry
It isn't.

12:41.20
Mel Heim 
What if there's no corn? Does that make sense for Kate? And yeah, it does. She was a Hungarian immigrant, came to Davenport, Iowa, headed west. She was feisty as hell.

12:52.62
Mel Heim 
She wasn't sweet. She wasn't, you know, that just, that world didn't really make sense. So, so i omitted bourbon and then it got even trickier. I was like, I just sent myself back by two months, but I think I'm onto something.

13:05.53
Kerry
ha ha ha

13:05.34
Mel Heim 
Yeah. they're like, whatever, this whole thing's happening in my kitchen. So it was pretty funny. Um, but what I did settle on was a blend. Kate's a blend of many influences, many places.

13:17.53
Mel Heim 
So I knew it was going to be a blend. We're not building a distillery. We're an NDP. So I'm not distilling this naturally. Um, so I sourced from, you know, my friends whose work I admired and said, Hey, I really like this pot distilled rye that you make with that roasted malt. Like can I have some?

13:33.55
Mel Heim 
I'm sure the answer will be yes. Cause you're also making hand sanitizer. So I also had a lot of access, um, just from my, my peer group and, and everybody was, you know, didn't know what business was going to look like. So I did get access to all these really great products and, and got to bring them in and make something, you know, harmonious out of, out of my friend's juice.

13:56.02
Mel Heim 
And we ended with, yeah, the, the rye single malt mix. Um, And it's pretty unconventional, but accessible. Incredible.

14:05.01
Kerry
hey

14:06.01
Mel Heim 
You know, like checked all the boxes for us. And and that's.

14:08.98
Kerry
So what is mash bill then? Yeah. then

14:11.78
Mel Heim 
Yeah, so what's in this bad, bad girl? um The mash bill at bottling ended up being 53% straight rye and 47% malted barley, American single malt.

14:21.21
Kerry
ha yeah

14:22.64
Mel Heim 
And yeah, funky. I love it. And then part of it is pot distills. Part of it is column distilled. And then the two cooperages is your typical heavy char American oak.

14:34.99
Mel Heim 
But there's also an s STR cuvee cask um that has ah part of the blend is in there.

14:37.37
Kerry
ah Okay.

14:41.25
Mel Heim 
And that is the piece that we get from Virginia Distilling Company. You get a single malt from them that was put in the STR.

14:46.56
Kerry
Okay.

14:47.35
Mel Heim 
So, yeah. So there's all these different components. I don't like to do things easily because I want people to taste it and make it taste easy, but you couldn't, I couldn't just give them the ingredients to say, no, you can make this too.

14:59.46
Mel Heim 
It's like, you know, I made it a labyrinth at the same time.

14:59.89
Kerry
Right, right.

15:03.01
Mel Heim 
So try and one.

15:04.10
Kerry
And how how long did it take from when you decided with the guys, okay, we're going to do this, to when you had all the components for the recipe and had a bottle made?

15:16.68
Mel Heim 
Well, geez, uh, let's see. It was April to August to February. So about 18 months.

15:22.81
Kerry
Okay.

15:22.90
Mel Heim 
Um, before I figured out all the liquid components spoke with each supplier and said, you know, this is what I want to do is this again, when building it, I needed to ensure that this product was available, like in the long road, you know, not just this right now, but like, can I do this consistently?

15:38.59
Kerry
right

15:41.21
Mel Heim 
What's your bandwidth for that? And yeah, the first commercial bottle. Yeah, it was about a year or so later. And it was just a small amount.

15:54.92
Mel Heim 
um But luckily for me, I also have a good friend, my co-packer in Santa Fe, New Mexico. um And so we got that out. And that first batch was, geez, four barrels um total.

16:07.06
Kerry
while

16:08.68
Mel Heim 
Yeah, total blended, done.

16:11.52
Kerry
So how many different, ah different people's whiskey do you have in say this bottle right here?

16:18.02
Mel Heim 
So we have... One, two, three, three right now. We did lose Balcones.

16:29.11
Kerry
Okay.

16:28.80
Mel Heim 
So we'd started with Balcones using their roasted, that pot distilled rye. um I was able to get a like product from Law's Whiskey House in Colorado.

16:39.07
Mel Heim 
Not the same because nothing's exactly the same.

16:39.89
Kerry
Okay. Right.

16:41.73
Mel Heim 
But when they sold to Diageo, they were going through um an acquisition, but we didn't, you know, that was not. ah told to me, which makes sense. But now there's three three different suppliers in here, but there's four different total whiskeys because one supplier I'm using two different whiskeys.

16:51.57
Kerry
Right.

16:59.12
Kerry
and Okay. Four whiskeys to make this.

17:00.19
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

17:01.56
Kerry
or Is it two single malt and two rice?

17:03.63
Mel Heim 
It is. Yeah.

17:04.30
Kerry
Okay. That makes sense. um So I know when I tasted this, because i'm i i'm i'm I love whiskey, all whiskey, yes, of course, but um bourbon is my least favorite of the whiskeys.

17:06.16
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

17:19.90
Kerry
um

17:19.70
Mel Heim 
Don't tell anyone. Mm-hmm.

17:20.83
Kerry
I do, I mean, there are some bourbons that I really, really, really like. um Generally, those are high rye bourbons.

17:26.92
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

17:27.29
Kerry
um I had a high rye bourbon yesterday that was, well, was half single malt, half high rye bourbon.

17:27.44
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

17:32.26
Kerry
And I was like, okay, and this is why I like it because it's a high rye. So by the time the bourbon's in it and there's already half single malt, then the bourbon was little, you know. Yeah.

17:40.88
Mel Heim 
yeah

17:41.67
Kerry
And I think if I had started drinking whiskey in my 20s, bourbon would have been where it was at for me because I i feel it's very sweeter. um And I'm i too old for that palate at this point.

17:53.86
Kerry
I say that and then there's people older than me that swear by it But anyway, um I digress. ah So i my favorite American up until the new legislation saying we actually have a single malt was rye.

18:07.63
Kerry
um So I'm very excited about this. And I haven't had this in a while because I wanted to make sure that I was fresh tasting. So I'm going pop it open.

18:14.42
Mel Heim 
so fantastic.

18:15.65
Kerry
Do you have a glass to share?

18:17.15
Mel Heim 
Why didn't I bring a glass?

00:01.46
Mel Heim 
I do.

00:02.95
Kerry
and vibe right I'm to grab a little bit here.

00:03.27
Mel Heim 
I do. Certainly do.

00:11.83
Kerry
Okay. I love the color on this, by the way. It's really nice gold and amber. Beautiful color.

00:20.76
Kerry
And that nose. Okay. So um while we while we take a sip of on these legs, look at this. This is great. I'm just so impressed with the way this looks and smells.

00:31.05
Kerry
Yeah, that's that's that's the stuff right there. So tell me a little bit um as we drink this, tell me a little bit more about Kate.

00:38.05
Mel Heim 
you

00:39.10
Kerry
Like what what was it about her story that you said, yeah, okay, I can i can do something with this.

00:44.56
Mel Heim 
When i read Kate's story, well, back up. Before I read her the book that they sent me, according to Kate, and just had the the one pager in the deck about Kate, I said, okay, let me go to a trusted source, Wikipedia, and see what else I can find out.

01:00.78
Mel Heim 
And when I went to Wikipedia, it opened like this. Big Nose Kate, American Prostitute. That was like the first sentence. I said, interesting, that wasn't even mentioned in the slide deck that I got.

01:09.75
Kerry
Okay.

01:15.23
Kerry
Wow.

01:15.38
Mel Heim 
Not that it bothered me, but I said, okay, well, here's a story that seems fragmented and incomplete in the two and the two times that I tried to learn more. So then I read the full book.

01:27.02
Mel Heim 
And I said, wow, this is a real lesson in bio-mythography, which is how do we tell stories? What are the myths? What's the lore? We know the word.

01:35.19
Kerry
right

01:35.16
Mel Heim 
um I feel, not I feel, but it was it was very apparent that Kate's story was written From one point of view, which was a male point of view, it was written with the bias of mostly from someone who really disliked her, which was Wyatt Earp.

01:50.16
Mel Heim 
So most of the tales we have about Kate come from him because he gave the most interviews and um really monetized his story well beyond his cowboy years.

01:51.33
Kerry
Ah.

02:00.31
Mel Heim 
So... I was very disappointed that this person had been diminished to, you know, a sidekick or ah a singular experience of of being a sex worker in the Wild West when you know there was just so much more complexity to it.

02:19.52
Mel Heim 
And it in it to me, it became a challenge. Like, how do we even tell stories? So I feel like this exercise has not been done in the bourbon industry until very recently when we sort of learned the truth about Jack Daniels and we all know that story.

02:34.50
Kerry
Right. Okay.

02:35.83
Mel Heim 
And I said, okay, so these stories have been highly polished. Let's tell ah highly polished story about an imperfect person. And to me, that's a story worth telling because it's much more relatable.

02:48.81
Mel Heim 
It's not about being a woman. this you know It's actually just, there's a bit of equity here. like And it's not about for every male character that we idolize on a bottle. It's that if we're going to tell the females, it needs to be with the same robustness and depth and and And ah I think, well, I've lost my train of thought.

03:10.48
Mel Heim 
but We'll just edit that out. No, but it was, you know, when i I read it, I said, this is it. This is a great outlaw story, but not in the Hollywood sense. It's about overcoming. It's about perseverance. It's about grit, persistence, survival.

03:25.07
Mel Heim 
Those are the stories that I like. So that's why Kate ah was the perfect person. Thank

03:32.27
Kerry
Okay. And then ah if somebody wanted to know the full story of Kate, do you have that up on your website and all of that goodness or?

03:40.60
Mel Heim 
Our website, yes, tells a very good story, but we also spent the first two years um of our business having her Wikipedia page rewritten to include the full story.

03:51.42
Kerry
wow.

03:51.69
Mel Heim 
So if you go to her Wikipedia now, it does not start with that sentence and it's actually um filled with more sources and more information. um than it was just a couple of years ago.

04:00.83
Kerry
Wow.

04:02.24
Mel Heim 
So her Wikipedia is a pretty good place to start, but the book, according to Kate is the real, is the only full collection of first person accounts, Kate's first person account, um as well as letters that she wrote that, that gives us the big picture.

04:17.28
Mel Heim 
So there's really, you know, again, history in the, the, the characters of the West, um, did a very good job of almost writing her out completely.

04:27.95
Mel Heim 
So we have resurrected in its entirety for folks to enjoy and learn about.

04:28.61
Kerry
Wow.

04:32.91
Kerry
Wow. And what year did she come over to the US?

04:36.16
Mel Heim 
She came to the U.S. in 1870. seventy Nope. Yep. 1870. She was 15 years old. Trying to get that name right.

04:44.08
Kerry
Okay.

04:45.41
Mel Heim 
She was on the USS Bremen from Germany. So she was born outside of Pest, Hungary. Her father was a physician. um They were very affluent, but there was a bit of ah political turmoil in Hungary at the time, and they were forced to leave. So they came to Davenport, Iowa.

05:04.36
Mel Heim 
Her parents passed away. And she was orphaned um and faced with a life at an Ursuline school. And she took off. She said, I don't think so.

05:17.27
Mel Heim 
That's not for me.

05:17.55
Kerry
See ya. Yeah.

05:18.69
Mel Heim 
I'd rather see what else is out there. um and And so that was in the the late 1800s. And then she passed away in 1940 in Prescott, Arizona, at the one week before her 90th birthday.

05:29.73
Kerry
Oh, wow. said she Yeah, it's pretty old. That's that's a great, and great life.

05:34.07
Mel Heim 
Yeah, and and she outlived them all. Yeah, quite interesting. um And that's it.

05:38.69
Kerry
So what's the what's the connection with Wyatt Earp? Like what, yeah. yeah

05:44.15
Mel Heim 
Yeah, the Earps. So she when she ran away from home in Davenport, she was a stowaway on a riverboat and not knowing where it was headed. And she was soon found out by the captain of the boat. ah But he did take pity on her and was very impactful.

05:59.83
Mel Heim 
in that short amount of time that she even adopted his last name of elder for a while. So, um, that riverboat landed in Dodge city, Kansas, which might have been the most lawless town, uh, in the United States at the time.

06:15.19
Mel Heim 
And she soon found work with Nellie Earp, um, which was a sister-in-law Wyatt Earp.

06:20.67
Kerry
Okay.

06:22.14
Mel Heim 
And that was as a working girl. Um, She wanted to maintain her independence. She wanted to make her own money. um And that was really the only viable option for women at the time who didn't want to be betrothed.

06:37.80
Mel Heim 
So that introduction sparked the next 50 years of adventure. And she followed one of the Earps to Fort Griffin, Texas.

06:49.41
Mel Heim 
And in Fort Griffin, Texas, she met Doc Holliday. where they started a fiery affair that lasted eight plus years. um But she ended up following Doc and he was following the Earps across the West and, you know, to New Mexico, to Arizona, um briefly in the Colorado territory.

06:58.98
Kerry
Wow.

07:09.71
Mel Heim 
And Wyatt Earp actually gave her the moniker, Big Nose Kate. So the...

07:16.12
Kerry
Okay.

07:17.46
Mel Heim 
the

07:17.67
Kerry
Her nose doesn't look that big.

07:19.55
Mel Heim 
That's well, let's talk about that. She, she doesn't have a big nose. She has a very cute proportionate nose to her face. Um, but he would tell her, Kate, keep your big nose out of our business because she was always but again, and she famously replied, your business is my business.

07:35.49
Kerry
Gotcha.

07:41.74
Mel Heim 
Um, and so he referred to her as big nose Kate after that, but then she wore that name like a badge of honor. Um, you know, what, what he called nosy, most people would call curious or industrious, uh, you know, inquisitive.

07:57.92
Mel Heim 
So she just wanted to know, Like, oh, Pharaoh, you can make money playing Pharaoh. Like, tell me how to play Pharaoh. And then she started running her own Pharaoh tables and making her own money. So it was really just the the entrepreneurial spirit that gave her that name.

08:06.75
Kerry
Nice.

08:10.71
Mel Heim 
um And so we love telling that story, too. She doesn't have a big nose. I'm like, no, she was incredibly nosy, which is how she survived for so long.

08:18.44
Kerry
Yeah. Did she ever marry?

08:19.38
Mel Heim 
Yeah. She did. ah so she technically, she was known as doc holidays, common law wife because they worked together for so long. And she did use that to her advantage to get, try to get a confederates pension, um later in life.

08:32.27
Kerry
Yeah.

08:32.69
Mel Heim 
But when her and doc had their final breakup, um, just before his death, she married a gentleman, um with the last name Cummings, and he was an alcoholic and abusive, and he actually died um by suicide.

08:50.87
Mel Heim 
And she was destitute, but she was also loyal and filled with integrity and contacted his daughter and gave the little inheritance there was to her.

09:03.33
Mel Heim 
um and Yeah, and she was in her 50s, late 50s at this time.

09:03.41
Kerry
wow

09:08.93
Mel Heim 
And yeah, she just moved. Cochise County, Arizona, she set up shop. She was a maid. um She was destitute for quite a while after the adventure sort of wore down and, you know, the West became more industrialized and populated.

09:26.13
Mel Heim 
um But then later, yeah, she she would use to her advantage a prior relationship with the governor. So she tried to get the pension to live at the ah heres the Prescott Pioneer Home.

09:38.73
Kerry
and Okay.

09:39.79
Mel Heim 
And, but you had, she was not, she did not qualify. And she wrote two letters to the governor reminding him that he was once a customer of hers and she was granted access.

09:53.90
Mel Heim 
Look at that. ah and lived there for 11 years until her passing.

09:57.97
Kerry
Wow.

09:58.88
Mel Heim 
yeah

10:00.25
Kerry
And the governor was still around then? he was? Okay.

10:02.31
Mel Heim 
ah The governor was well, was retired. Yes.

10:04.87
Kerry
okay

10:04.94
Mel Heim 
But, but he was, she wanted a letter of reference. um to get and She needed a sponsor to get in.

10:08.40
Kerry
Oh, I gotcha.

10:11.05
Mel Heim 
um So the governor was the most high powered person that she, she had in her life. So

10:15.80
Kerry
That makes sense.

10:16.83
Mel Heim 
yes

10:17.05
Kerry
Wow. So just the one marriage, it seems.

10:19.91
Mel Heim 
I believe it was the one marriage.

10:22.14
Kerry
Okay. And it seems relatively short lived.

10:24.28
Mel Heim 
So she claims she married a dentist before meeting Doc Holliday, but there's no record of this marriage. And his name was Silas. And there's no record of the marriage. And she also claimed to have had a child who died of yellow fever. There's also no record of the birth of a child.

10:40.78
Kerry
Wow.

10:40.82
Mel Heim 
The only time this story was told was in the Pioneer Home in her late eighty s And um because there was no verifiable sources, the the interviewer chalked it up to mixed up memory because she was with Doc Holliday, who was a dentist, and she claimed to have married a dentist named Silas Melvin.

10:59.61
Mel Heim 
um But there's no corroboration there that it happened.

11:04.29
Kerry
Interesting.

11:05.39
Mel Heim 
Very interesting.

11:05.72
Kerry
but when When was she supposed to have had this child before Doc Holliday?

11:09.35
Mel Heim 
Before Duck Holiday.

11:10.69
Kerry
Okay.

11:10.71
Mel Heim 
Yep. Yeah. ah know what's out I know.

11:13.41
Kerry
Wow. Yeah, so I never heard of Big Nose Kate until your brand came out.

11:15.13
Mel Heim 
I know.

11:19.61
Kerry
So I'm very fascinated by that. Like, I mean, I don't know how I didn't know about her with all the Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp stuff.

11:26.62
Mel Heim 
Because still the Western lore pretty

11:27.97
Kerry
and

11:29.69
Mel Heim 
is primarily focused on the, you know, the the male heroes. Even today in media, when we have all these stories that have are being told, 1923, Yellowstone, it's about the men, it's about the cowboys.

11:43.99
Mel Heim 
um When I think there could be a whole series about Kate or people like Kate, you know, it's what is an outlaw? What is a hero? You know, they're very similar.

11:55.22
Mel Heim 
um But I didn't know about her either. And that actually... made me pretty upset because I'd seen Tombstone at least 400 times. And I was like, oh, the Hungarian devil.

12:03.81
Kerry
Right? Or variations thereof, Tombstone of you know,

12:08.21
Mel Heim 
was like, oh, the woman that's on his arm. And I was, yeah. And so when i actually read her story, was like, her story, she like, she was the boss. She made the money. He lost money, hand over fist.

12:18.72
Mel Heim 
um She kept him alive as long as she could as a caretaker and as someone who helped you know, direct good decision making. So yeah, we wouldn't have doc probably for as long as we did, um, had it not been for Kate's influence.

12:34.35
Kerry
Wow, that's crazy.

12:35.27
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

12:36.42
Kerry
All right.

12:36.36
Mel Heim 
Yeah. I like okay think that too.

12:36.74
Kerry
So, so and the the other the founders that had the deck, how many are there?

12:39.35
Mel Heim 
Mm-hmm.

12:42.59
Kerry
Two, three?

12:43.50
Mel Heim 
you

12:44.12
Kerry
Two? Okay. And um what, what role do they play today? Or do they?

12:51.58
Mel Heim 
They do. um As founders, we have like a flat hierarchy where we're all involved in kind of the the many aspects of the business. um Paul is like our brand guru. he's He's all about Kate's world, bringing it to life, how that looks, um consistency. And then Kevin is our blocking and tackling guy um who's who's very operations oriented. I am the CEO, which is the chief entertainment officer.

13:20.89
Mel Heim 
I'm just going help everybody have a good time. ah But no we all work on all all aspects of the business all the time. um i I get paid. That's the difference.

13:32.64
Kerry
Oh, they don't get paid?

13:33.92
Mel Heim 
now

13:34.77
Kerry
No.

13:34.72
Mel Heim 
Founders, I think they have real jobs. They actually do have jobs.

13:38.23
Kerry
OK.

13:38.20
Mel Heim 
um This is my job. So they're involved. And then we have you know our sales employees. And we we've... always been incredibly lean.

13:48.84
Mel Heim 
I think the most we've ever had working at the same time is six people ever.

13:55.00
Kerry
Wow. Wow.

13:57.43
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

13:57.54
Kerry
Is that including those two?

13:59.52
Mel Heim 
Yes.

14:00.62
Kerry
OK. Wow.

14:00.96
Mel Heim 
It comes and goes.

14:01.48
Kerry
OK.

14:02.66
Mel Heim 
Yeah. So it's like you've been in rotation. Um, I guess I will say, so I'm lucky enough to have a ah co-packer, so they're not our employees or anything. So I'm not adding them to our book but there's a full operating team at the distillery in new mexico that helps bring this out to the people um so including them at at eight more people

14:13.34
Kerry
Right.

14:21.37
Kerry
Okay, now how did you guys end up deciding to produce this in New Mexico?

14:27.72
Mel Heim 
That was another amazing moment of serendipity. i again, intention, and intention, this whole thing is driven by intention. i could co-produce it anywhere. I could make it in Kentucky. It doesn't make any sense.

14:39.39
Mel Heim 
um Really want to keep to have a home and a sense of place. So I put the call out to my distiller friends during this development process and said, all right, who's in the Southwest? We had whiskey DelBac in Tucson. There was Santan.

14:53.92
Mel Heim 
in Arizona, there's a couple places in Texas. I didn't have close relationships with any of them, but I was like, I'm looking for a co-packer. And then i got a text from a good friend and colleague, Kaylee Shoemaker, who said, who's a former head distiller for Proximo, Stranahan's Hangar One.

15:07.25
Kerry
okay

15:11.59
Mel Heim 
And she said, Mel, I'm building a distillery right now, right now.

15:11.73
Kerry
OK.

15:16.47
Mel Heim 
in Santa Fe, New Mexico. and said, oh, that's interesting. Kate owned a dance hall in Santa Fe, New Mexico, about a hundred yards from the rail yard.

15:25.13
Kerry
Wow.

15:25.45
Mel Heim 
We've been trying to find it. We've been trying to find the location, but these businesses weren't on the books, if you know what i mean. So it's like, nobody really knew the physical location, but she was smart enough to set up shop on the rail yard where men were coming in and out.

15:32.59
Kerry
Right. and

15:39.92
Mel Heim 
And Kaylee goes, oh, it's on the rail yard. I said, no. I said, are you kidding me? And she goes, no, it's on the rail. It's on the tracks in the rail yard.

15:51.62
Mel Heim 
I was like, wow.

15:53.54
Kerry
Wow.

15:53.49
Mel Heim 
And she had a shell in building. And I said, i would love to be Copac, like Copac with you. And she was like, well, right now it's a shell. And I said, that's okay. Right now we're a shell of a business too. We're still ideating, but I need to find a home and get this prepared. So we were the first product made at her facility.

16:10.16
Kerry
wow

16:10.22
Mel Heim 
Like were ready to commercialize when she turned the lights on. Like that was the timeline. Um, so really the fact that Kate is produced in a place that she worked and lived, and it was an important station in her life.

16:24.13
Mel Heim 
And really couldn't ask for a better partner or a situation.

16:26.89
Kerry
Yeah. So how long was Kate in New Mexico?

16:27.67
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

16:30.12
Kerry
Okay.

16:30.66
Mel Heim 
She went in and out of New Mexico twice. Um, so she was in Santa Fe, but then she was in, uh, Las Cruces as part of her wandering journey. And, um, there's another small town just East of Santa Fe and I'm, pardon me, I'm forgetting the name right now, but she also had a worked for a dance hall there.

16:48.93
Mel Heim 
Um, so Kate would make her way in and out of New Mexico and Arizona, um Multiple times. She never went back to Texas. And she never made it to California, which I also also thought was interesting. So many people kept going um towards California. But yeah, she went in and out.

17:09.90
Kerry
okay

17:10.13
Mel Heim 
Just following work.

17:12.53
Kerry
That's awesome. Okay, so then let's go to the next part of the story.

17:13.50
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

17:16.67
Kerry
You were working with the founders and you guys came up with all this great um ah information about Kate and you found but the like the ah components to make the expression.

17:16.92
Mel Heim 
Let's.

17:27.99
Kerry
You found a place to co-pack it and then you got some investors involved. And how did you get these investors? Did you know these investors? And who are these investors?

17:40.08
Mel Heim 
Okay. So we have a couple investors, but I know which ones you're alluding to.

17:44.45
Kerry
We can talk about all of them, unless you can't.

17:44.66
Mel Heim 
and Oh yeah. no No, we can. Oh yeah. no it's No, we ah we do have some really great core investors who came in when we were you know young and and spry. um Springdale, which is you know a CPG consumer goods focused fund, Beatbox, Goodles.

18:03.04
Mel Heim 
um They have a couple like really great brands under their belt, including Desert Door Sotol. So they're like, they're in the mix. Um, and then Goat Rodeo, which is a great name.

18:16.21
Mel Heim 
Um, they also have Archer Roos and some other, they're, they're very like beverage and food focused as well. So we had like some, some anchors and then, ah we have our other investors, um, which,

18:31.25
Mel Heim 
was kind of a shock to us as well. And that's Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone, um, a list Hollywood superstars. And because of, um, our relationships in Hollywood from previous gigs.

18:44.31
Mel Heim 
So myself, I actually made a celebrity whiskey at my former job. Um, I needed created, sold it after three years, we actually sold it to the celebrity.

18:48.51
Kerry
Okay. Right.

18:52.77
Mel Heim 
That was kind of the pathway. So I'd been through that journey. And then, Kevin, having worked with Beam Suntory, they did um a lot of work in Hollywood as well. Mila Kunis was part of, you know, I'll remember that.

19:04.45
Kerry
right

19:05.10
Mel Heim 
and so we had we had um contacts that that kind of overlapped. And so we actually sent a bottle. I think it was from our first batch.

19:15.71
Mel Heim 
So that's how early this was. Like, we don't have, we're not, this is like pre-revenue.

19:17.00
Kerry
and wow

19:21.13
Mel Heim 
And we said, this is, you know, oh, and even Paul, Paul, And his ventures also had a celebrity deal going. So we sent it for fun to the creative artists agency said, here we are. These three people, we all kind of, you guys know us in some capacity.

19:39.00
Mel Heim 
This is what we're up to enjoy. Like this is all we're out making really no expectations until they called us back like six months later, kind of forgot what was going on.

19:51.58
Mel Heim 
And did say that they had someone who was interested and it was Melissa and Ben. Um, and we said, oh my gosh, that's really interesting. Actually. um we didn't want a celebrity brand.

20:03.23
Mel Heim 
Okay. Let's just the, the traditional sense of the word. Like we don't want that.

20:07.01
Kerry
Right. Right. Right.

20:08.28
Mel Heim 
We don't want someone that we, you know, an endorsement deal. Like we're too small. We're selling an organ and out of the taste room in New Mexico. Like it really doesn't make sense to have a huge megaphone.

20:16.08
Kerry
right

20:18.30
Mel Heim 
What we really needed was money. um money, money, money, like any small business, like the way we build this is with cold, hard cash. So we were introduced to Melissa and Ben.

20:31.73
Mel Heim 
We did like a reverse interview. Like, why do you want to be involved in this? You know, it was like the most stressful call ever. um Again, I had like a baby. had to take the call in my neighbor's yurt, which was in their backyard.

20:43.80
Mel Heim 
Actually it's a funny story. I like couldn't be in the house because it was like a bungalow and the kid was awake. It was just so funny.

20:48.76
Kerry
Right.

20:49.46
Mel Heim 
Um, I'm in a yurt. I was like, it's very Oregon. Just roll with it. Um, But we took a call and we all kind of hit it off. They really liked the founder story. They liked the female maker story.

21:00.66
Mel Heim 
They love whiskey. So that was like a good fit. They have never and really endorsed anything. They've been in commercials, like, but they've never like backed anything.

21:09.53
Kerry
right

21:09.61
Mel Heim 
ah And this would be their first foray in like philanthropy. um And I said, well, i love money. So yes, I will happily make them.

21:20.29
Mel Heim 
I know what it costs to do this. And, and they did. So they came in as a seed round, not just as our partners, but as an investor. And then they were essentially silent partners for almost a year because we didn't have use, you know, for their sort of weight in the industry.

21:34.82
Mel Heim 
Like we, we couldn't have them just doing a bunch of stuff and us being like, well, we only have 400 cases or like, you know, we're tiny.

21:41.42
Kerry
Right.

21:41.43
Mel Heim 
Um, so ah again, a little bit different, um, but we like different here. We like different. And I think consumers are a bit fatigued, um, from these celebrity brands where they're just like,

21:52.89
Mel Heim 
shoving it down your throat. so we have a ah really unique relationship and partnership with them. Um, we do events every so often and you know, they're not on like a rigid big nose Kate schedule by any means.

22:05.69
Mel Heim 
Um, we did one bottle signing. We're doing another one next month. Those are the only two we've done in four years. Like it's, it's, you know, they're actually just cheerleaders, um, and investors on our cap table, which is really amazing to know we have their support and access.

22:11.47
Kerry
Right.

22:21.41
Mel Heim 
But to us, it was more important to build this thing organically, make sure that the liquid is acceptable. Can this survive without an endorsement?

22:32.16
Mel Heim 
Can this survive in the whiskey space, not just in a brand space? So um they've been, you know, really great partners in letting us do that.

22:36.78
Kerry
right

22:42.96
Kerry
So did the agent, like, was he like just giving drams to people when they came in?

22:47.53
Mel Heim 
Apparently, allegedly, yeah, I don't know.

22:48.68
Kerry
and you Did you only send them one one bottle or did you send?

22:50.63
Mel Heim 
We sent them three bottles, sent them three bottles, um, sent three bottles.

22:52.12
Kerry
Okay.

22:54.94
Mel Heim 
And yeah, I, I should get that story a little bit more like the actual, when it got to them, because I know the story of when they, once they had it and tried it and liked it and knew our story, I know all that part.

23:06.15
Kerry
Okay.

23:07.48
Mel Heim 
I know how that happened and how they were excited and motivated and, um, interested and curious, but yeah, I don't know if he was like, like had people in his office or what that piece of it looked like.

23:20.04
Mel Heim 
Um, I feel like it was again, more happenstance than anything else. Um, but I'll take that. They just really like whiskey. And I was like, and for me, you know, there's a lot of parallels in, in their story.

23:34.93
Mel Heim 
Like they both really made it in there when they were 40, you know, like right around that time.

23:38.55
Kerry
and

23:40.41
Mel Heim 
And I'm trying to make it, you know, I'm 42 and I'm also just trying to make it in a male dominant in an industry that's really hard to break into,

23:49.78
Kerry
Exactly. Yep.

23:50.57
Mel Heim 
and To survive it and thrive it and let alone thrive in. um And so, the and then I saw a lot of parallels with Kate's journey. Like you just had to work, work, work, work. And um they definitely, you know, made their way, their own way. And I liked that.

24:04.36
Mel Heim 
um Nothing was handed to them. Nothing was handed to Kate. Nothing's been handed to us. And we're just out there trying to make something worth celebrating. So yeah, I was very intrigued um because there's also not a lot of women in whiskey.

24:20.56
Mel Heim 
You know, there's a lot women behind tequila brands and vodka brands and wine, but I really couldn't think of someone who was backing a whiskey company.

24:21.29
Kerry
Mm-hmm.

24:23.63
Kerry
Yep.

24:30.04
Mel Heim 
um

24:30.81
Kerry
Right.

24:30.79
Mel Heim 
So we like all those things.

24:33.52
Kerry
That's awesome. um

24:34.67
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

24:35.48
Kerry
Do you, I mean, I know Ben writes a lot of stuff but that, that Melissa does, albeit comedy.

24:41.50
Mel Heim 
Yes.

24:43.39
Kerry
um Although I don't know, this could have some comedic.

24:43.63
Mel Heim 
Yes. Yes.

24:47.53
Kerry
Is there, has there been any talk about making the film about this?

24:52.62
Mel Heim 
I don't know. I think we're also overwhelmed with just trying to make it and that making a film ah is sort of, I guess that would be like a very long-term vision of the brand world and, and Kate's potential.

25:07.94
Mel Heim 
You know, if we really put pen to paper, I think we could come up with something pretty brilliant. ah I do feel like the, i feel like, people are ready for a story like this.

25:20.14
Mel Heim 
um It would be refreshing.

25:20.54
Kerry
Mm-hmm.

25:22.10
Mel Heim 
would kind of, again, break up the dichotomy that we have going with, I think it'd actually be a great shoe in with Yellowstone and the followup to the Yellowstone and the other spinoff to Yellowstone.

25:25.59
Kerry
Yep.

25:31.91
Mel Heim 
And, you know, all these, what the West is in right now for whatever reason.

25:35.50
Kerry
Yeah, yeah.

25:36.40
Mel Heim 
an interesting part of history. um

25:37.99
Kerry
Have you called Taylor? Yeah.

25:39.83
Mel Heim 
and know, Tay Tay. Tay. ah Really anyone. I'm like, if you like whiskey, this would be a great whiskey for you, but. um She's from Tennessee, right? She probably has her own, i don't know, connections there.

25:53.29
Mel Heim 
But ah I really think there is a space for Kate in the zeitgeist of of today's um culture.

25:54.08
Kerry
Probably.

26:01.73
Mel Heim 
Again, there's so much happening in music and media and fashion um that the West is the west is in. um So we're you know how we leverage that and get the story of Kate out, you know we're a tiny team. so We're just telling people like, hey, you should also know about Kate.

26:22.64
Mel Heim 
I love starting conversations. Who knows about Doc Holliday? And like everyone raises their hand. I'm like, boo. And I kind of like, boo. um And I'm like, but who knows Kate? And it's like less than 10%.

26:33.27
Kerry
Yeah.

26:33.73
Mel Heim 
So we're out to change that. I think a mini series would be great. ah

26:37.77
Kerry
Yeah, I think so.

26:38.60
Mel Heim 
We'll call a meeting.

26:38.97
Kerry
That'd

26:40.31
Mel Heim 
We'll put it on the edge agenda. Yeah.

26:42.82
Kerry
be great.

26:43.73
Mel Heim 
yeah

26:45.64
Kerry
So um what is your goals and plans for the next five years for the company?

26:52.52
Mel Heim 
be rich. Um, no, I'm kidding.

26:54.83
Kerry
Yeah.

26:55.12
Mel Heim 
oh No, the goals for us, like we really want to like plant a flag in the Southwest and say, you know, this is a Western whiskey. And we did that because it really, there's, it's a DSS, it's a distilled specialty spirit. So it can kind of live in its own space categorically. It could be a ride, but I'm like, no, this is a Western whiskey. It embodies the, ethos of the West, which is like, you know,

27:21.00
Mel Heim 
fake it till you make it, show up, do the work.

27:22.90
Kerry
Yep.

27:23.70
Mel Heim 
um It's influenced by so many things. The West was a melting pot back then. i mean, like truly she was a Hungarian, like there are so many influences.

27:29.02
Kerry
yep

27:31.93
Mel Heim 
And so we just want to like plant our flag in the West, really want people to understand and, and learn more about non-bourbon whiskeys, which thank you to the TTB for giving us American single malt.

27:45.85
Kerry
yeah

27:46.64
Mel Heim 
That's great. um You know, as a blender, I saw the potential for single malt as a blending agent because Europe's been doing it for 200 years. I'm like, blending malt is really fun and beautiful and great.

27:59.06
Mel Heim 
um So in the next five years, i would just have love to have like a nice core business um and a hub and people know about Kate. And I'd love to see Kate, you know, get a bar call. I just...

28:17.02
Mel Heim 
Internally, have a goal, bigger goal. Jack, Jim, Johnny, Kate.

28:23.01
Kerry
There

28:22.95
Mel Heim 
That's my video, that's it.

28:23.39
Kerry
Yeah.

28:24.39
Mel Heim 
Like, let's just break up the boys club, but that should be, she should be a stalwart. um

28:29.23
Kerry
yeah

28:30.00
Mel Heim 
You know, it's not an overcomplicated crafty thing. It's a $40 bottle, Jack, Jim, Johnny, Kate. Like, that's what I'm working towards. It's, you know, a bit of the pushing the rock up the hill, but I'm committed.

28:43.27
Mel Heim 
I got time.

28:43.57
Kerry
yeah

28:43.77
Mel Heim 
Yeah, I had nothing but time.

28:44.29
Kerry
yeah Time is good. Time is good.

28:47.66
Mel Heim 
Time is good.

28:48.99
Kerry
So how often do you get down to New Mexico and how often do any of the investors, not just Melissa and Ben, but does anybody get out there to like check on things and chill?

28:58.65
Mel Heim 
yeah Yeah, i I go quarterly. um so I live in Portland, but I typically go down when we batch and we're doing ah a batch a quarter and our batches are much bigger now.

29:10.09
Mel Heim 
um But we'll go down and go through the whole sensory barrel picking. um All the inventory gets brought in when when it's in-house. That's when I go and it's, you know, five to eight days. of, of processing. And then we'll do the blend.

29:24.55
Mel Heim 
Um, and then the blend will sit for 30 days in vats. And then Kaylee will send me a sample to my home. I mean, it's olive oil, but like USPS, like get with it.

29:35.97
Mel Heim 
Uh, and then we'll do the like yay, nay, like our little like zoom sensory situation. um and then, and then her team bottles it. So I don't have to be down there all the time. I don't have to micromanage. It's the best partnership I could have asked for, frankly. um I mean, I'm totally willing to relocate to New Mexico. Don't get me wrong.

29:56.09
Mel Heim 
Um, but I don't need to, I don't need to be there all the time. Um, but I want to go more, but I have to work, you know, I gotta do the things.

30:07.71
Mel Heim 
Uh, the other founders, we were down there in July. were there for my birthday. um and like, if and like, yeah, it was in July and like a founder meetup.

30:11.64
Kerry
Oh, happy belated.

30:14.95
Mel Heim 
Um, So yeah, we get down there um as much as we want and need to. It was a lot in the beginning. Now it's twice. I think all of us maybe twice a year.

30:25.64
Kerry
okay And what states are you currently available for purchase?

30:27.01
Mel Heim 
Me more often.

30:31.88
Mel Heim 
We distribute to Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico. We are no longer in Washington. That's the wild west.

30:39.56
Kerry
Hmm.

30:40.12
Mel Heim 
You want to know about the wild west? Go to Washington. Okay.

30:42.94
Kerry
Yeah, they got some strange rules up there. Yeah.

30:45.63
Mel Heim 
there's a lot There's strange rules and then no rules at the same time. It's like very bizarre. We found it very hard to to to get into the market with like without a ton of capital.

30:56.96
Kerry
Right.

30:57.16
Mel Heim 
um And then mostly because chains rule the roost up there and independents can price it however they want. So we'd see like a $36 bottle and then we'd see like a $67 bottle.

31:08.52
Mel Heim 
And I was like, how does the customer navigate this?

31:09.57
Kerry
Oh, my.

31:11.27
Mel Heim 
I just felt bad for the customer.

31:11.74
Kerry
Yeah.

31:12.47
Mel Heim 
you navigate this?

31:12.68
Kerry
Yeah. Well, then and then the taxes they put on it is ridiculous.

31:15.55
Mel Heim 
Plus the tax. And so I just started, once we were out, I just started sending Washington to our e-commerce. And so then we also have e-commerce. I'm like, you will save money. You can just buy this online and have it at your door in 10 days, you know, and you're going to get a consistent price.

31:30.49
Kerry
Yeah.

31:31.69
Mel Heim 
It'll be fine. um I have ideas of opening, guess technically we're in Wyoming, as in Wyoming ordered a case this year. and I said, oh, look at that. They bought a case. They're a control state, so they can do that.

31:45.80
Mel Heim 
Um, but I'd love to get into Colorado e-commerce has been a great way for us to learn where our community is. Um, you know, so we're not just like throwing noodles, kind of identify what's going on, but for us, the West is best.

31:53.55
Kerry
ye

31:57.42
Mel Heim 
We're not out to like open 50 States and, you know, just like bleed money. We really just, you know, people like it, they can get it online. We do have presence in the Western States. Um, no, no, we're not even East of New Mexico.

32:08.50
Kerry
Nothing on the east right now?

32:13.87
Mel Heim 
ah

32:14.03
Kerry
Wow.

32:14.84
Mel Heim 
Yeah. I mean, and no, not in Nevada.

32:15.36
Kerry
and how what How about Nevada?

32:18.72
Kerry
Yeah.

32:19.38
Mel Heim 
Although that is, it's an expensive market.

32:19.47
Kerry
Right.

32:21.67
Mel Heim 
If people don't understand the distribution set up, I know we would do well there, but the cost is also a lot.

32:24.95
Kerry
yeah

32:27.63
Mel Heim 
So um we really, again, we, even though we have those investors, we haven't raised, we haven't brought in any money for over a year.

32:28.03
Kerry
right

32:37.21
Mel Heim 
um We've raised in, we're in our fifth year now almost, $3 million dollars over five years.

32:45.56
Kerry
Okay. Yeah.

32:45.83
Mel Heim 
But if you know anything about whiskey, the taxes, the, yeah, just the compliance um and opening states and in distributors and in their margins and, you know, the bigger you get, the more it costs.

32:51.67
Kerry
yeah

32:58.87
Mel Heim 
So for us, we've always been a small startup. Like we still consider ourselves a startup, um which is,

33:09.00
Mel Heim 
Well, it's not good or bad. but I'm like, whiskey is experiencing a bit of a reckoning right now because of the the bourbon boom and then bust.

33:17.16
Kerry
Yeah.

33:18.05
Mel Heim 
But we're outside of that. We intentionally did not choose bourbon because when every hedge fund invests in bourbon, you're now taking something that's collectible and creating a commodity.

33:22.43
Kerry
Right.

33:28.87
Kerry
Right.

33:29.00
Mel Heim 
And I saw that happening seven years ago and said, this isn't going to shake out well. um But it has disrupted the market a bit. um We can kind of operate on the outskirts of that, but still, um, there's a ton of inventory and we have to compete against that.

33:47.34
Kerry
Yeah.

33:47.53
Mel Heim 
So for me,

33:48.45
Kerry
So speaking speaking of inventory, how many how many bottles do you guys make a year currently?

33:54.21
Mel Heim 
uh, what are we doing this year? well last year we did, we sold, don't know, 4,000 cases.

34:03.47
Kerry
Okay.

34:04.69
Mel Heim 
This year we're about flat, to be honest. We're about the same. um And that's losing Arizona. For us, it's not really, well, for me as an operator, you know, growth is great, but depth is better.

34:17.61
Mel Heim 
So I could rather just like when things are tempestuous and uncertain, which they sort of are right now, I'd rather have my repeats and just work with that and know that I'm not losing any business, which is where we're at.

34:24.60
Kerry
ye

34:29.03
Kerry
Right.

34:30.29
Mel Heim 
So we're like, we're, we're looking at a flat this year, even though Distribution has changed. There's been a shakeup. um

34:37.40
Kerry
Oh, yeah. That's been a big shakeup.

34:38.77
Mel Heim 
but Oh, I don't want to, that's a whole new podcast.

34:42.13
Kerry
Yeah, it's a whole other oprah, as they used to say.

34:43.82
Mel Heim 
Yeah. yes So for me, I'm pleased. So it looks like we'll, we'll do 4,000 or maybe a little more. I always produce more than I, you know, forecast to sell naturally, but it's a six.

34:54.67
Kerry
And is your case 6 or 12? Or 24? 6, okay.

34:57.89
Mel Heim 
It's a six. Yeah.

34:58.94
Kerry
Okay, cool. Very cool. Well, it's a delicious, now let's now that we've been and talking and tasting, um let's talk about the flavor profile for a little bit.

35:03.50
Mel Heim 
Oh yeah.

35:07.11
Mel Heim 
Sure.

35:07.74
Kerry
um

35:07.83
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

35:09.37
Kerry
I mean, the nose on this bad boy. Bad girl, excuse me. that's bad

35:13.11
Mel Heim 
I know. Bad girl. I do.

35:14.89
Kerry
but The nose on nose. The nose on big nose, Kate. don't

35:21.02
Mel Heim 
That's also by design.

35:21.09
Kerry
i Yeah, um I do. I do smell both components, the the single malt and the rye.

35:29.45
Mel Heim 
yep

35:31.04
Kerry
And it's not an overly hot, like I was expecting to maybe burn my nose on the rye, but I did not.

35:31.17
Mel Heim 
ye

35:38.24
Kerry
So that's what's the 45.

35:38.21
Mel Heim 
No. So even the rye that I chose is a bit more, it's not Maryland rye or Pennsylvania rye.

35:40.73
Kerry
Okay, 45. forty five Okay. forty five

35:44.93
Mel Heim 
It's actually a bit more floral. um It's grown in in the plains and on the west. It's in Colorado and Texas. So the rye itself from a profile perspective was not like your traditional baking spice um profile.

35:51.55
Kerry
okay

35:58.90
Mel Heim 
It's a little softer. There's some stone fruit in there and a little more floral, orange blossom, things like that.

36:00.39
Kerry
It is softer.

36:05.58
Mel Heim 
ah And that was by design.

36:05.97
Kerry
But yet it still has a rye flavor.

36:08.49
Mel Heim 
kick yeah i know um which isn't that lovely i know and that's um again choosing some like high congenre pot distilled whiskeys to to throw in there um

36:09.13
Kerry
Yeah. yeah so

36:13.06
Kerry
And the oil on this, I mean, look, I don't know if you guys can see this, but yeah.

36:23.13
Mel Heim 
again, for the viscosity and just for the mouthfeel, because this is 90 proof, you know, it's not a hazmat. It's not a high proof whiskey. it's It's nice. You can sip it, but it's also great for cocktails.

36:33.29
Kerry
Right. Mm

36:33.56
Mel Heim 
um Yeah. though That was again, by design, it should take you to sort of a time and place. I did not want you to smell this and be like alligator char. Like I didn't, you know, it's, or it's cigar blend. I didn't want those, you know,

36:50.32
Mel Heim 
kind of extreme ah flavors and then not using corn as an emulsifier, like not using corn as a flavor bridge um was ah a really great exercise for me as a blender.

36:57.66
Kerry
hey

37:00.88
Mel Heim 
Like how do I bring these two components together like harmoniously, right? It's chaotic. You take all these things, like how am I, how do I do it again?

37:09.20
Kerry
Yeah.

37:09.40
Mel Heim 
Take the time, but I'm yeah. take the time but i'm so please

37:14.10
Kerry
Well, you've taken the time. it's It's a beautiful dram and I love it. And and and to be honest, this is actually, i i finished the bottle you sent me.

37:16.66
Mel Heim 
yeah

37:20.75
Kerry
This is another bottle.

37:21.97
Mel Heim 
Oh, thank you. i was like, good Lord. i was like, she's just been milking that thing.

42:50.97
Kerry
So let's talk about what's next. Um, cause right now you have one expression and, um, are we goingnna have another expression?

43:01.66
Mel Heim 
I do.

43:04.81
Kerry
And if so, what will that be?

43:07.14
Mel Heim 
We will. I actually just debuted this um down at SIP in Louisville. I just got back on Sunday night. ah So the Bourbon Women Association. I took a very, very sneak peek of the next expression, which will be our first in four years.

43:24.05
Kerry
Okay.

43:24.16
Mel Heim 
ah The Tokay barrel-aged big mouth gate.

43:29.36
Kerry
Okay.

43:30.34
Mel Heim 
Okay.

43:31.52
Kerry
Nice.

43:31.59
Mel Heim 
So going back to Kate's Hungarian roots, um it made sense not to do

43:37.01
Kerry
That's a wine, isn't it? Okay.

43:38.34
Mel Heim 
It is, and it's region.

43:38.49
Kerry
Yeah.

43:39.92
Mel Heim 
ah Yep, yep, for the region.

43:40.06
Kerry
yeah

43:42.06
Mel Heim 
um And so, yeah, tokay wine is very, ah it's well known for its noble rot. I mean, that's the noble rot process. So they actually just let it um ferment on the vine and then drop, and it's it's very sweet but dry.

43:55.74
Mel Heim 
um And so we were able to get tokay barrels. I ordered 24 about six minutes before Russia invaded Ukraine.

44:06.91
Kerry
Oh my.

44:06.85
Mel Heim 
And it caused a bit of a disruption in the supply chain.

44:07.19
Kerry
Right.

44:10.55
Mel Heim 
I did receive 12. Um, so I have 12 to K barrels. I did age the individual components of K in those barrels. Um, I didn't want to just put the finished blend in and and do that. I wanted to know how it each, each piece reacted.

44:25.99
Kerry
right

44:25.97
Mel Heim 
um and so the individual, individual components aged between six and 18 months, depending on what it was. And then

44:33.44
Kerry
um

44:34.13
Mel Heim 
pull those out and do a blend, um, that was sitting. And so tokay expression is, is and homage to Kate before she was Kate, she was born. then we haven't covered this. ah Maria Magdonia Isabella Horani is her, her name.

44:52.04
Kerry
And how'd she get Kate?

44:52.25
Mel Heim 
And then anglicized to Mary Catherine. So Maria Magdonia to Mary Catherine, to Mary Kate, Kate, that's the journey, the evolution.

44:56.30
Kerry
Okay.

44:58.68
Kerry
Gotcha.

45:02.06
Kerry
Wow.

45:02.12
Mel Heim 
um And so this is this is basically known internally as the prequel. So before Kate was Kate, she was Maria, and she came from this other place, this other world. And so the mash billet bottling, taking those individual components is actually inverted. It's 66% American single malt and 34% rye.

45:22.24
Mel Heim 
um It's a completely different character um because Kate was a completely different person.

45:25.25
Kerry
Right. Mm-hmm.

45:27.55
Mel Heim 
um And so I don't have a release date. I really want to do it this fall, um but it will be limited because of the not all of those barrels are ready for bottling. So what I did pick, um it might be like...

45:36.77
Kerry
right

45:40.62
Mel Heim 
I don't know. had to just determine the proof. Um, we were trying it at 111 proof, which is straight from the barrel quite nice, but I haven't even, ah haven't even experimented with our proofing down. I really love straight from the barrel.

45:53.69
Mel Heim 
If I can do that, that's great. Um, but that would be very limited. I mean, I'm talking like hundreds of bottles, not thousands.

45:59.85
Kerry
Right.

46:00.42
Mel Heim 
Um, But it's very good. It's very distinct. ah It's very unique. And I did, i was lucky enough to have um Lisa Roper Wicker try it and Jane Bowie and all my friends and peers when I was at SIP.

46:11.48
Kerry
Nice.

46:17.44
Mel Heim 
And they're like, you got to get this out. So that is the next expression. It's incredibly limited. But now that I have those barrels, hopefully it can become annual or semi-annual and get that out.

46:28.89
Kerry
That's awesome. Well, I can't wait to taste it.

46:29.77
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

46:31.33
Kerry
If you have a sample you can send.

46:31.29
Mel Heim 
I'll send you some.

46:32.85
Kerry
Yeah.

46:32.85
Mel Heim 
I'll send you some. Yeah.

46:34.01
Kerry
Yay.

46:34.08
Mel Heim 
I think that's a fair sample.

46:36.46
Kerry
Fantastic. And then do you plan to have any more after that?

46:37.76
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

46:41.81
Kerry
Or you just going to go with the two or you just see where life takes you?

46:46.01
Mel Heim 
So I'm like a creator bursting at the seams. um That's my problem. But at the same, yeah, I'm an English major with a whiskey making problem. Watch out. ah But no, there's, I mean, there's, ah there's ideations about doing just the barrel strength, which is quite nice.

47:02.01
Mel Heim 
I mean, we try it every time we batch before we we start proofing and um it's really nice.

47:06.19
Kerry
Right.

47:07.75
Mel Heim 
It's more of what, you know, it's not about me. It's what the market can bear right now. which is the most unsexy way to talk about a product that you make.

47:14.32
Kerry
Right. Right.

47:15.81
Mel Heim 
But I do think I want to keep things simple. I don't want to dilute the value of this brand or this person by creating ah too big of a portfolio of LTOs or limited time releases.

47:27.99
Mel Heim 
I do think the barrel strength would be a nice addition to the lineup. um Beyond that, you know, you're not going to have a big nose cake seltzer. It's not happening.

47:38.06
Mel Heim 
I know you want Carrie. It's not happening.

47:39.75
Kerry
No, no, I don't want it. i can

47:41.17
Mel Heim 
I'm just kidding.

47:41.80
Kerry
I can make a big nose, say Kate Seltzer. I just get some seltzer.

47:44.06
Mel Heim 
Yes, you can. A highlight.

47:45.44
Kerry
Yeah, make a little highball.

47:45.46
Mel Heim 
I know. That's my thing. I'm like, do whatever you want um with it. So I think simplicity for me is, is it unless I get some sort of, you know, hair to do something else, but barrel strength and toque.

48:02.05
Mel Heim 
um Again, like intention, the blending piece of it is really important to me.

48:07.83
Kerry
Oh, yeah.

48:07.84
Mel Heim 
The tokay was quite a process. um

48:10.82
Kerry
How long did it take you to to source the barrels?

48:11.19
Mel Heim 
yeah

48:13.14
Kerry
and might might Minus the whole delay for the...

48:13.63
Mel Heim 
Oh, Lord. Oh, all here ah the delay was almost a year.

48:17.80
Kerry
Okay.

48:17.88
Mel Heim 
I knew right away that I wanted tokay.

48:18.04
Kerry
And so...

48:19.48
Mel Heim 
I actually thought tokay staves would be a part of the mate the the core skew, but realizing the scarcity and then wanting to get them from Hungary, not just use a cooperage that's buying the oak.

48:23.73
Kerry
oh wow.

48:29.34
Mel Heim 
It was like a process. But ah no, so we pulled out. We pulled out a majority of the product in February and then the remainder of the malt came out in July.

48:41.49
Mel Heim 
So the very last piece of it came out in July last month and was put in.

48:43.62
Kerry
Okay. Okay.

48:44.88
Mel Heim 
And so now it's been vatted. It's just sitting there. And I said, Kaylee, like send me two bottles from that vat, like as it is just, you know, get your beaker and do it. um And I was very pleased with how it is right now. So like, I think that could be like commercialized immediately.

49:00.27
Kerry
and okay

49:00.43
Mel Heim 
um so it's with the delay and that and the 18 months, July would mark 18 months for that part of that malt. um Yeah, it's been almost two years, you know?

49:12.15
Kerry
always a journey when it comes to whiskey, right?

49:13.58
Mel Heim 
It is. and it's like

49:14.35
Kerry
It's always a journey.

49:15.17
Mel Heim 
I'm just making stuff to make it, to get it out on the shelf. And like, it's, it's, whiskey tells you what time it is.

49:23.18
Kerry
Exactly.

49:23.26
Mel Heim 
You know, don't tell the whiskey what time it is.

49:24.05
Kerry
Yeah.

49:25.22
Mel Heim 
So.

49:26.31
Kerry
I love that saying. I love that saying. um Okay. I do have one more question about the book.

49:30.11
Mel Heim 
Please. Yes.

49:31.06
Kerry
The book, um who was the author of the book that you read?

49:31.51
Mel Heim 
Yes.

49:35.45
Mel Heim 
Chris Enns, E-N-S-S.

49:37.06
Kerry
Okay.

49:37.69
Mel Heim 
She is a ah like Western historian, and she's the author of the book, according to Kate.

49:41.18
Kerry
Okay.

49:43.66
Kerry
Okay, and have you spoken with her?

49:45.74
Mel Heim 
Many times. We've done events together. um We are fairly close. We did an event ah in Prescott for um where Kate is buried at the Palace Hotel where Kate has her own booth, um which was so cool.

49:59.05
Kerry
Oh, wow.

50:00.96
Mel Heim 
It's like taking a step back in time. um And we did a lecture together on Big Nose Kate and then also had the whiskey. ah But yes, we are close to the author and and we use her as a reference anytime we have questions as well.

50:12.81
Kerry
Have you thought of doing one of these expressions as like maybe the single cask or a cast strength, maybe doing a single cask where you do a gift set with the book?

50:25.11
Mel Heim 
I would love that. We actually, so we did a set, um, when we launched the, the brand, um, you know, I wouldn't call an influencer case or anything. It was really to my peers and people that i wanted to try and get their, their real feedback, but we did send out kits that had the book in it, um, signed by Chris. Like you need to read this book to understand this person.

50:46.55
Mel Heim 
and had a deck of cards and, the expression You know, was just like a nice little, like, learn about Kate. um But yeah, no, we send the book, like, and I take the book to all the events that I do.

50:59.34
Kerry
Great.

50:59.40
Mel Heim 
um So people can look it up on the Amazon.

51:01.48
Kerry
How many pages is it?

51:03.13
Mel Heim 
What's that?

51:03.76
Kerry
How many pages is it?

51:05.30
Mel Heim 
ah Less than 200.

51:06.82
Kerry
Okay.

51:07.78
Mel Heim 
Yeah, because she gave one interview.

51:07.99
Kerry
So quick, quick green.

51:11.34
Kerry
That's so crazy.

51:12.25
Mel Heim 
One in her 80s. And then when he started asking about Doc Holliday, she stopped the interview. Yeah. Yeah. She was like, this is my story. Yeah.

51:23.14
Mel Heim 
People, and they came, journalists came to her. Everyone wanted that, you know, wanted that firsthand account. And so many of the Cowboys were killed that Kate was like one of the only people who was there for the shootout, the okay corral.

51:32.17
Kerry
Yeah.

51:35.62
Mel Heim 
She was there for all these things.

51:36.14
Kerry
Yeah.

51:37.44
Mel Heim 
Um, but what, you know, was propositioned and proposed as like, we want to talk to you ah quickly turn to, you know, tell us about the men

51:46.49
Kerry
Yeah. Right.

51:48.53
Mel Heim 
and She wanted to tell her story. um And so she, again, Kate, stubborn mule, would rather be poor than sell a story that wasn't hers, which, dang, yeah, very admirable.

51:59.80
Kerry
Yeah. No, that's cool.

52:00.82
Mel Heim 
I don't know, but it's very cool.

52:02.30
Kerry
Right. Right.

52:03.29
Mel Heim 
Yeah.

52:04.81
Kerry
Very cool. Well, I am very impressed with, with big nose Kate. I love the dram. Um, I can't wait to try the, the two other expressions coming out. And, um, uh, I think I'll need to go get the book and take a ah nice read about it.

52:17.64
Kerry
And Mel, I'm, I'm wishing you and the company the best of luck.

52:17.62
Mel Heim 
It's good read.

52:21.97
Kerry
And if you are ever in LA and want to do an event, let me know. I'm happy to get the word out. And, uh,

52:28.01
Mel Heim 
Excellent.

52:29.22
Kerry
um Hopefully we can get you in the Barrow Room Chronicle shop so people can order you ah right now when they're watching the show.

52:32.31
Mel Heim 
would love that.

52:36.42
Kerry
so

52:37.40
Mel Heim 
That'd be great.

52:38.54
Kerry
All right. Thank you so much.

52:39.70
Mel Heim 
Cheers. Thank you.

52:41.26
Kerry
Oh, yeah. wait oh Wait. No, wait. We got to do that proper. Let me get a little.

52:44.10
Mel Heim 
Oh, was like, gotta do it proper and have a little bit left.

52:46.45
Kerry
Got to do it proper. Cheers. Cheers.

52:48.99
Mel Heim 
Cheers.

52:49.38
Kerry
Clink.

52:49.42
Mel Heim 
Thank you. Cheers everyone.