E187 Phil Morgan

This week's guest is Phil Morgan, who joins us from Brooklyn, New York. Phil opened the first of his many restaurants in 1994 and later founded a notable design and construction firm that created over 150 new spaces in the hospitality market. Over time, Phil was ready for a change and decided he wanted to make something that people can take home. And this is how Phil got into the world of distilling.

Phil is now dedicating his time and commitment to distilleries, consulting on process improvements in the creation of high quality spirits. Phil is a person of many skills and talents and we had a fascinating discussion with him. Enjoy the show. We are back with another episode of the industry podcast.

I'm Kip. This is Dan. What is happening with you, sir? Not too much.

Just hanging out. Another fun day of work like a chump. Yeah. Work in this.

Work in my body. Take it. It's not working on my way. But you have things going with you.

Everything's good. Yes. Business at the bars. We're doing all right.

Yeah. I'm excited for the winter to be over. February, March, not the best times in the bar business. But we're heading around the corner into spring.

Usually the Thursday before, good Friday is a pretty big night in the bar industry. So that's as we're recording. That will be this Thursday, but you'll be listening to it after that happens. So hopefully I've had a great, at least Thursday night.

Yeah. So yeah, if you're in the kitchen, why don't we wear you want to check out my bars? Sugar Run is the speak easy in downtown Kitchener at Sugar Run Bar on Instagram to find out what's happening there. And then Babylon Sisters Wine Bar, uptown Waterloo at Babylon Sisters Bar if you want to check out what's going on there.

If you like what we're doing here on the show, then you should follow us. Subscribe, rate, review depending on what your platform is that you listen to it. But definitely give us a follow. And if you can post a review, it helps us a great deal.

If you'd like to be a guest on the show, you should DM us on Instagram that's at the industry podcast or you can email us directly info at the industrypodcast.club. The Instagram page, the design work is done by zakana at zakana.co. Z-A-K-H-A-W-N-A-H. Check out all his stuff.

He's totally retooling his whole concept. So he's putting up some pretty cool stuff right now. So you should definitely check that out. That's that can.

Anything else we need to talk about before we bring in our guests? It's pretty much covered at all. So good. Okay.

Well, joining us now from Brooklyn Long Island is Phil Morgan. How are you Phil? I'm good. It's Brooklyn, New York, which is at the bottom of Long Island.

Oh, I thought you were. Oh, okay. So you're just Brooklyn, New York. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I was trying to be a funny guy. Oh, I was like, shit. I thought there was a part of Brooklyn Long Island.

I didn't know, but I didn't want to screw that up. It is technically the bottom of Long Island. Then it turns into not New York City anymore. And then that's where long in quotes Long Island sort of starts.

Oh, I got you. Sorry. Thanks a lot more sense. We're just dumb Canadians.

But I do love Brooklyn. I have a friend who lives there and I've been to visit a few times. That's become sort of the, is that still the hot new neighborhood in New York or has it moved on to somewhere else since I've been there? Brooklyn is not the, as square feet or square miles go or square kilometers, is not the largest borough of Queens is, but there is I think north of 2.7 million people that live in the borough of Brooklyn alone.

So it is the most populous borough, but it is not the physically the largest. And I think that population creates for some really cool diversity and, you know, there's still some places that are still a bit dodgy that you may not want to live in, but that's where a lot of artists go to make really cool stuff. And like one of those areas that's now no longer super cheap, but still really cool is Bushwick. And I'll often see a lot of European tours going there to see the street art where a lot of, you know, tag artists have gotten into painting the side of buildings with spray cans or brushes of paint.

And it's the street art in Bushwick is exceptional. It's really cool. Yeah. Okay.

So I was going through your bio and I think before we started recording, we were talking about how we were sort of linked up by a former guest Devin who, what does she say to your member? Oh, I can't remember. You'll remember Phil. Libra.

Libra. Yes. Yeah. She's the nomadic business company.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. So when I was reading through your bio, like trying to figure out exactly what you would consider to our listen.

What I do, what I do is I'm a recovering general contractor and interior designer and went down a rabbit hole probably 12, 12, 13 years ago and decided to open up a distillery, which I still haven't done yet, but I'm now designing building, running, creating flavor profiles for distilleries. So, and also focusing on New York City and have been since probably 2012 and I started help built and did do all the construction for Kings County Distillery in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Didn't know. They went through four different construction expansions and I ran all of them and was in 2021 and running production for them.

And so making whiskey. Right. And so how do you sort of try to figure out the way to ask this, but like, how do you sort of transfer it from going like sort of physically building these places to sort of becoming involved in the distilling process? Before I was a interior designer and a general contractor building bars and restaurants in New York City and during that time we built over 150 bars and restaurants in New York City.

We also built stuff in Paris, London, Vegas, San Francisco, sort of all over the place. But before that, I actually ran my own bars and restaurants. And before that, I was a car mechanic and a car salesperson. This is way back in the 80s because I'm old.

And where from the 80s? Don't worry. Yeah. I'm not from the 80s.

I'm from when you can start working in India. Right. Okay. But I was in the automobile industry and I was really, really good at what I was doing.

I was selling small trucks and cars for Chevrolet. Before that I had studied mechanical engineering and was an electrical diagnostic definition for Chevrolet. And I didn't have a lot of people about selling cars. They'd say, Hey, there's the customer report says there's a problem with the switch.

And I wouldn't say like a regular sales. No, that's not true. I would say you are right. But in three months, it's gonna get warranty.

We're gonna change that switch for free. So in that free, so I didn't have a lie to them and I was really good at it. And I said to myself, I better, I need to get out of this industry. I'm gonna be in the automobile industry on my life and I'm not sure if I want to do that.

I was 23 at the time and I moved to France to study French and six months wasn't enough. So I did another six months and I met my business partners and one English guy and one Irish guy also living in Paris, France. And I ended up falling in love with the hospitality industry because I met them at my first job was working in a kitchen. And I went from that to bartending and met Baldre Jenkins and John Cole, my coil, excuse me, John coil my, my business partners in France and I helped them build Stulli's stone bar, which is a place in the fourth area in Dizmo in Paris that is still open today.

This is, we opened this March 17th, which is St. Patrick's Day in 1991. I did all the plumbing, I did all the plumbing, electric for it and it is still open today. And in my opinion, it is one of the best bars in the world where you can go in and get a great pint of Guinness, you want a great cocktail, you can get that too.

It's got all the languages spoken, not just French. There's Irish or Australian or Canadian working behind the bar. So it's really great. And that went so well that I ended up building another bar and I ran that, I ran that for five years and crushed it.

We opened the, opened the places called the Lizard Lounge. So the lizard is also in the fourth area in Dizmo and a beautiful old building from 1634. So it's just a really beautiful building and John was a study architect. He did all the design, we did all the building together and all of our put together the cocktail menu and we had friends that helped us with the menu, the food menu and we opened up a bar restaurant in 1994 and the lizard is still around.

It's got a beautiful DJ thing and this vaulted cab in the basement. So to ask how I got from one place to another, I've gone from a bunch of different things and been in the hospitality world and distilling being a whiskey consultant is, I want to say, on the peripheral or an important part of what makes a good bar is what you have to get from a bar. So what I want to ask is you've sort of done obviously a bunch of shit and a lot of this has got to be like just not saying no to anything. It's like, oh, we'll try this.

We'll try this. So you go from like physically constructing these bars. Now, were you also an owner of the bar or were you just helping to build them? You know, it depends on some of them.

We would, we'd wave part of our design and construction fee for ownership. So there's a, I want to say an adult club that is sort of a less called the box on Chrissy Street in Manhattan. And we're still partners in that and it still crushes it, still very successful. So we wave part of our fee for that and also Bobo, which is a French restaurant in the West Village on 10th Street and 7th Avenue right in the corner in an old brownstone.

It's an other place that we did design construction, wave part of our fee to be partners in that. And so I run those. We did as a, Etio Ink was the name of my design and construction company, which we started in 2004. And we signed a lease on the corner of Bond and Pacific for what was going to be our business card that you could walk into.

So we bought a bar and bought a blank space. It was really a blank canvas in a building from 1909. And we built a 90 seat bar and restaurant and then added another restaurant afterwards. And I ran that for, we had that almost for 13 years.

So I was running bars and restaurants and the construction company, the construction design construction company, I was just tired of it. I was doing all this beautiful design work and construction, a lot of work in New York City. And I said, I need to get into, I want to make something that people can take home. I want to make something that's not for all of these other, these beautiful facilities, these bars and restaurants that are making that are super bad ass.

I want to make something that people can take home. And it was on my birthday in 2011 and my buddy had bought me a bottle of bourbon. And I said, I think I want to open up a craft brewery. And he said, fuck that, you don't want to do that.

You want to open up a distillery. And a big light went off above my head. And then I went down a rabbit hole and started studying all of the things about fermentation and distillation and grains and the TTB compliance and zoning laws in New York City. And I went down a rabbit hole and said, I need, this is what I need to do next.

This is what I need to do next. And I have made some whiskey for myself, some projects where I've been the only distiller. But it gives me an enormous amount of pleasure to take something that farmers spend all their life or they toil very, very hard at making beautiful grains and fruit. And we take those beautiful grains and fruit and we turn them into something really beautiful.

And to quote Ralph Lorenzo, who is the founder of Todel Town Distillery, a friend. He was one of the first craft distilleries in New York State, not the first. I think they opened in 2007. I don't know if you've heard of Hudson Baby Bourbon.

Yeah. So he started that distillery. And to quote him, distilling is an agricultural ant and that act I find amazing. And creating these relationships with these farmers that are making these beautiful corns and barley and rye and the maulsters that are taking this beautiful corn, barley and rye and doing wonderful things with it that then we as distillers can turn it into something amazing like whiskey.

Yeah, Hudson Baby Bourbon, that is delicious stuff. We can't really get it here in Canada, but the first bar I opened was sort of a whiskey-based bar. And I would just go over the border and bring some of that stuff back and Hudson Baby was one of the first ones that I brought back, but it's just delicious. It's really delicious.

Do you remember what the bottle of bourbon was that your friend bought you that started you down the throne at home? It was a, I want to say it was basil, Hayden, I think. And I may still have part of it left just because it was like this was the turning point. And I've now made vacuum distilled beer whiskey where we hold a super hard vacuum and it allows you to collect these flavors and aromas through the distillation process that you can't get off and almost still.

I've made whiskey in Mexico, in the Yucatan Peninsula out of Marydum. There's a distillery called Grand Mizelle. And that's G-R-A-M-A-I-Z-A-L.com. You can find the whiskey there.

And one of the partners is a, his is doctorate in my infirmentation. Oh, wow. Yeah, his doctorate in my infirmentation. I'm like, I have to speak this guy.

Super cool. They are propagating their own yeast off of this corn. They're, they're taking that corn, which is a ancient, ancient varietal corn that has never been turned to my knowledge, never been turned into whiskey. And they toast it, they grind it, and then they distill it on this handmade pot still that I taught them how to run.

And then they age it in these clay casts. And for about, really, it's more of a rest. It's sort of like a reparçado tequila, where it's only resting for around three months. And it's a beautiful, lovely whiskey from Mexico.

It was a really fun project. That's crazy. So how, it's one thing to say, OK, I'm going to open my own distillery. So I'm going to do a lot of research about this.

But how does that then transfer where you're just able to, I don't know, make your own whiskey somewhere? How do you convince people that you're the guy for that job? When really, like your resume says, I build bars and design cool bars, right? Like, how do you make that leap?

Like, I know how you make it, but how do the other people accept it? So in 2012, I met Nicole Austin at a whiskey event. And she was the distiller and blen Blender for Kings County distillery in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Oh my god, we need so much help.

We need something to help build our distiller. We don't have fermenters aren't working. We need nobody knows how to make anything. Can you come and help us?

So I helped them set up their fermentation tanks. I took distilling classes with, I don't know if you know, Black Button distilling in Rochester, New York, not from the North. So Jason Barrett and myself took our first whiskey distilling class in the Hudson Valley. It was a Cornell class.

And so we took a whiskey distilling class with Cornell and Christian Carl, which is a bill manufacturer out of Germany, went to all of the conferences that I could. It took as many classes as I could. And it's the same thing I did for general contracting. I didn't study.

I went in 2004 and went to NYU and took classes on how to be a general contractor. I'd already built my own bars and restaurants. But to be officially understand what I'm doing to have the proper lingo and the knowledge of how to build a quote with all the standards that you need to have in New York City, I took that class. I did the same thing for distilling.

After working with the coal, who is now the general manager at George Dickle, the Tennessee whiskey, she hired me to do that. And I then was working with her on some different match bills and techniques for improving the quality of King's County distillery. And then she invited me over to do the blendings with her. So then we did, I don't know, 15 or 20 different blendings of their whiskey together.

So then I learned under her how to do that. She learned under Dave Pickerall. I don't know if you know who Dave Pickerall is, but he's basically the Johnny Appleseed of craft distilling in America. So he started, he consulted with just so many distilleries throughout the States.

Hill Rock is the last time I saw Dave alive, he died in 2016 or 17. I saw him at Hill Rock, which is another consulting distillery that he worked for, Whistle Pig, which has a lot of Canadian whiskey in it. Whistle Pig was another Dave Pickerall project. So he ran around America and started up to salaries and taught people how to do it.

So Nicole learned and would consult with him and then I would then blend with Nicole. And through that, I would offer my services and general contractor to help build. But then I understood the distillation process, so then would help people with either having a new facility or a new facility that was having some problems with quality. So I helped them with their quality, they weren't running.

They're still properly and I was able to fix their problem through all the classes and time that I spent learning how to distill. What are the, I actually have two questions for you, but the first one I'll start with is what are the different challenges for contracting and building a bar compared to distillery? Super good question. A bar and having a good bar inside your distillery for me is certainly nowadays, and if you look at the professional now, people have a good bar.

You're not doing it right. You need to create a great bar is basically theater. You've got great music. You've got a great tender behind the bar, possibly a DJ.

Somebody controlling that music and the lights to create an ambiance that is that theater that is your shtick that's happening inside of your bar. Doing that to create a great ambiance to have inside of your tasting room where your bar that you have in your distillery is super important. In New York City, you can do a bar or a restaurant pretty much anywhere. You can do it in a residential zone.

If they have a commercial overlay, you can do it in a manufacturing zone, so an end zone. But distilleries, you can't, breweries, you can't. So you can put a brewery in a commercial zone, no problem. But distilleries are a little different.

So you've got this high proof alcohol coming off the still. So to make a burp, and it's got to come off somewhere under 80% alcohol. Well, what if it's 75% alcohol? Yeah, that's just flammable.

And you aren't running the still properly. You can have that ethanol vapor pop into the atmosphere and it could cause a really big explosion or, you know, burn shit down. So you can only put a distillery into an em zone. And I was hired in 2014 by Proximo to do a zoning study for them to figure out where they wanted to put great Jones distilling company.

The great Jones distilling company, I think they opened in 21, I think, or in 20. But six years after they hired me, and then we started looking for locations. So basically the long story short and where you can put a distillery and the difference between where you can put a barn and a distillery is it has to be in an em zone. It technically has to be in an em, three zone, which is sort of like where you're going to make gasoline or have a refinery.

And there's not a lot of those zones. But with the department of buildings, if you meet the performance standards in an M2 zone of an M3 zone, you meet those performance standards, you can put it there. And that's what we did with great Jones distilling, which is the first whiskey distillery in Manhattan since prohibition. Wow, that's crazy.

Having opened a few bars myself now, and this is just an Ontario and sure it's way worse in New York. The red tape that you have to go through and some of the nonsensical bylaws and rules in depending on where you're doing, just even opening a bar. I can't even imagine like dealing with that when you're actually producing alcohol. Like it's gotta be nuts.

It is not. I just moved to help move New York distilling company and they created, they just launched their brand new J-Walk rye. So it's an heirloom varietal of rye that they put in J-Walk that nobody else is making rye from this varietal. And they again, worked with Cornell.

They had like 10 seeds. They grew that into 10 acres. And now it's on 100 acres. I love it's 100 acres.

It's a time. They're still exceptional whiskey. But they lost their lease and they had to move. And the NYPD changed their code.

So now they're their co-g They didn't think they're gonna have this many crap distillers pop into New York City. And there's a ton of them. There's New York distilling. There's King's County's distillery.

There's Van Braun still house. There's there's a Fachibrudo, which is making some amaros. I mean, there's just like a ton of them. And they're like, shit, what are we gonna?

The code doesn't really fit to that use. But now all the existing distilleries are sort of grandfather Dan. They don't have to worry about meeting this new code. First distillery since they put out this new code to meet it.

And they opened up. I just commissioned their other with the engine still two months ago. I think it was in February that we finally got that up and running. And they're now making they're making gin in Bushwick, New York.

And Bushwick is awesome because it's owned at 3D. It's got like clubs and copy roasters and distilleries and some other company called Air. I don't know. They're turning air into into vodka, which is sort of crazy.

But Bushwick is really and then it's got this incredible street art. It's a really fun place to go out. And again, it's you know, the rents are not crazy. Not like other parts of Brooklyn, but it's a really interesting part of the city, certainly because you have that manufacturing zone, which is really, really important to have inside of any city.

You've got to have someplace where people can make shit and not have to disrupt somebody with, you know, sawed up or, you know, pink fumes or whatever. You can't. So now you can't change the don't have manufacturing. You have to have something.

You've got to have manufacturing. So important. Okay. So one of the other questions I have for you is how long do you think it took or how long would you estimate it took you to develop your palate to a level where you felt comfortable consulting for distilleries?

And it's sort of too part of it. Do you think that that is something that one can learn or is that it was part of it that you're born with? I think it probably took eight to 12 months before I was comfortable saying that I know what something is. Right.

And though I was able, because I was running bars and restaurants and building cocktail menus and wine lists since just Christ, since 1994, long fucking time ago, I have a palette. I had a palette. So I've been doing a lot more with cocktails and with wine, but I think, you know, tasting wine and spitting wine is similar in many ways is different because, I mean, Jesus, you know, the alcohol from tasting a bunch of whiskey is just washed as your palate. It's really difficult.

Yeah. And I have been a judge for ACSA multiple times, the American Fafs Spirit Association, which Devon does a lot of work with. And you're tasting 75 whiskeys at a time. It's just like, it's really, really, really difficult.

Yeah, I can't even imagine. 75 whiskeys. It's a pain in the ass. It is a lot of work certainly at the end to stay focused because you sure you're spitting it, but you sure you're also getting intoxicated.

Yeah. So to be fair to all of the people that are entering their spirit in those conferences, you have to, it takes a long time doing that. Practicing blending outside of those conferences is really important to be able to judge your own palette on something after you've had 30 whiskeys in your face, to be able to be fair to the last 10. But it took 10, I think probably 10, 12 months.

And I have a pretty large selection of whiskey at home that I'm constantly playing with myself and putting on the counter and then doing, you know, blind tastings or have three and say which one is the standout. So you just get used to sort of putting your face into it. But to answer your second part of that question is some people have the ability and some to go. Right.

Okay. So that is the thing, right? Some people don't care and like they love drinking a really light lager and don't like a big, they don't, it's just not for them. And that's fine.

Yeah. They're better at other stuff. Sure. Yeah.

Well, and it's funny because like I have taken the W-Sight courses, spirits and wine and tried to, and had to the part where you had to do the blind tastings, everything like that. And I never thought I was specifically great at it. And I was like, the more I drank, I didn't think I felt like I was getting any better at it either, which leads me to believe that maybe I'm just one of those people who wasn't born with that ability, right? Now, but you can't improve.

Like, and a lot of it is. Yeah. Yeah. But you'll never be as good as the people who are really good at it.

So that's why I wanted to ask you like, question, like. Yeah. I think for sure. Like some people have a gift and they're better at it than others.

And also if you really work hard at it and you have a huge passion for it, you're going to get good at it. Yeah. You know, you're probably running a bar. So you have a lot of other stuff to do.

Right. Right. And just focusing on that is I'm going to say it's almost like a full-time job. Yeah.

Almost. So do you have a favorite style of whiskey? Like meaning like Irish, Scotch, Canadian, bourbon. I love all of them.

And I'm not necessarily a big fan of these huge peat things that people do make because it blows out your palate and it's hard to taste a lighter, cleaner Irish whiskey, for example. Or you can't go back, right? Yeah. You really need to finish.

Yeah. Yeah. You really need to start with the lighter stuff and work your way up. It's almost like you're okay.

You're doing a tasting with a sales team on your mind. You're going to start with the lighter, cheaper white wines and then you're going to end with the bigger, more expensive white wines and then you're going to go back to your lighter reds and then you're going to finish with your bigger reds. Right. Same kind of, you don't want to start with a peat monster and then everything else tastes like it's nothing.

But I love a single pot still whiskey. I love rise that are not too old. A younger ride, three to five is just sort of a lovely place. I love what New York has done with their empire ride.

I don't know if you've ever heard of Empire Ride, but it's got to go into a barrel at or below 115 proof. It has to be spilled of 75 or maybe it's 75% or more, ride from the state of New York and has to be distilled in New York. So it's sort of like Tennessee whiskey, but it's New York and it's rye. And there's really, there's not a whole ton of distillaries that are doing it.

Mackenzie up in Mackenzie Rye is really beautiful and the finger like distilling makes just a killer one. Kings County distillery makes an exceptional one. Copper seed distilling out of New Palt's New York. Holy shit, that stuff is really amazing.

He's got a really old school there, Alambic direct fire pot stills. So the flame is actually hitting the bottom of the pot and he molds his own grain. So if you can find that whiskey, it's really, really exceptional. And the head distiller, Christopher is also, he's a badass.

He's really, really good at making some fantastic ride. Do you have a favorite spirit that you were a part of, either through just consulting or helping them or even just even, even just say, oh, we built it, whatever. Like do you have one that you're most proud of? You know, the grandma's L, that's some really proud of that.

It's something really different. It's using a corn that's never been distilled to anyone's knowledge. That's a really fun one. And also also Kings County distillery, that sort of the first whiskey distillery in New York.

I've helped them with install their 150 gallon or maybe it was a 250 gallon mash time and it was 11, 12 years ago for their, their sales that came from Scotland, the four-site stills installed the boiler system and then that system wasn't big enough. So I then we had to do more work outside, install 4,000 gallon outdoor from enters and get their 1,350 gallon stripping still that was made by Vendo and Coppernbrass install that and it's also shaped like a, like a submarine. So their ceilings are only 13 and a half feet tall. So they had to like swap the thing and make it, you know, it was custom fit to fit there.

Like it is, I think maybe a half inch from one of the beams on the ceiling. Like the squeeze is in there, getting it in and also two double door, two double four-foot doors that are at the loading dock and the circumference, the diameter of the pot with its legs had to fit through that door, that opening. Oh, wow. Otherwise you would get hot.

It was nice. It was really a tight fit. That guy should, it must be fun for you though, like trying to figure that, especially coming from like a mechanical engineering background. Oh, yeah, you get really, you get to put that.

You want me to put those in? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And then commissioning those, getting those things up and running, you can't figure out like the spirit's not coming off right, what's happening is our cooling water too cold, too warm, is our conversion at right during our machine process? Is there something wrong with the grain or we not have the right enzymes in our molds? Like working on all that is super, is super, super fun. Okay.

I got two more questions for you and then we'll let you go. I could talk to you all day to be honest with you, but not very much. I can talk about bars and facilities all day long. Well, you've led a very fascinating light.

When you were doing the judging for the conferences, is there one specific spirit that you remember blowing your mind more than any other that you could mention or? Yeah, there was and it didn't win, but we, and we at least our table and the table next to us. I'm going to open up my mic. So it was in Colorado this year.

And there is a wall in Denver called Spirit Hounds and they have these great wall. Everything they sell is just one barrel. It's a barrel. And also there they call around with a little wall.

And they have a big spirit home. And I'm going to play for whiskey's at all. But this was really, really great wall with a base in use. It was very number 37.

It was a special. I didn't like was the super high hazmat. It's a thing right now, but it just watch. Certainly when you're judging, it just washes your palate.

It's like it's like drinking one of those P-bombs. They're really hard to judge because there's so much, you know, they're 72% out all. Yeah. That's like that's Spirit Hound was really there was everyone at our table was really like that should win.

It didn't and that's fine. It didn't win the gold medal. It didn't win best in show. And I went with Nicole Austin happened to be judging that same that same that same year.

And we went to the bar and did a flight of tasting and bought two bottles each and took them home because we love them. That's great. Yeah. When you mentioned those like pick alcohol bomb sort of spirits, I always wonder who are these four like God speed make whatever you want.

But like who what is the audience for like this 72% you know, it's a really you should I should see if I can get Colin's boom in on here for you, the owner of King County Distillery. He'd be great to have on. He is the right guy to ask. And I think the answer is for him at least or at least for that particular facility because they also do these hazmat releases is it sells.

They get people lining up around the corner and they love this shit and this is what they want. And you know, if you water it down a bunch, it's fine. You just have to add a little bit more water or a large ice cube. I guess that's true.

Yeah. That's the answer to those at the well. And then like it is going to be a flavor. Yeah.

Yeah. I add a little bit more water than I or ice than I normally would. Right. That's right.

But yeah, Colin would be I can make an intro. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He'd be a good another, you know, another distillery focused person on here. Yeah. And I love talking about this shit. So a lot of people we talked to are just like our service industry professionals and those are always fascinating.

So it's like it's a rare treat to get someone who's on the back end of like producing the product. So I got one more question for you and we'll let you go after that, which is the dream still to open this distillery. I know you've already thought of the name of it. So you can tell us what the name is going to be if that's still in the books and then what do you think you're going to make?

You know, it's evolved a lot. You know, I, the concept of a couple of different ideas. Originally, it was about if you go to Ireland or England, you have the pub and at the pub you have, you've got this corner where you can buy the bread and the Marmite and the jam and maybe some butter and some other stuff that you can get a couple of pints and then head home with, you know, some groceries. And I wanted to and still want to, to an extent to have a distillery that would have all of that, that would be nothing but New York state products.

And why New York state? I mean, it'd be really great if it was like the tri-state area or just really like a 100 miles local kind of thing, which for New York is a little tricky because it would be a 100 miles from here is like Philadelphia and Pennsylvania and Connecticut and New Jersey. But the way that Ralph Lorenzo, who we mentioned earlier from Total Con DeCilary, really helped change the laws in the state liquor authority in New York, allows you to have a craft, a farm winery, a farm cidery, a farm brewery and a farm distillery. And to be able to have a bar that focused nothing on New York state agricultural stuff and to have that and with the distilling in New York state class D license, the farm distillers license, you can sell all that stuff and I can sell it by the bottle and I can sell it distributed.

So I can distribute all that, you can walk into my bar, pick up some New York state butter and a New York state bottle of wine and a bottle of my whiskey or my gin and you can put that in your bag, pay for it, have your cocktail and walk out with all of that. So in New York, the off-license shops, you don't have the big box shops or two, there's in Long Island or something. It's all mom and pops and so they can only have one. And there's not enough of them that support there are locally because I go in there and they're like, hey man, if you're about this really great stuff that King's County doing and they do barrel picks for the local guy.

So they've got really great like King's County and other local products. But if you have a bar where you could have that and add that to the neighborhood where you have the distillery to really spread the agricultural act that's happening and to be able to bring that to the city for people to see. The other thing is Brandi and I love whiskey dearly but to be able to create a brandy product that is really fantastic because I don't think that there's, I think there's so much room for Brandi to grow. We know Coneyac and Armagnac and Calvados, I think maybe Calvados not so much but everyone knows what Hennessy is.

But to be able to make a New York state Brandi and in my head the first thing that I think and this is not part of the naming process but why does the big apple not have its own apple Brandi? Good point. Yeah. Right.

Now I'm focusing more on my thoughts on a Brandi and maybe it's not a little apple but maybe it's great but still that's sort of the direction. There's a lot of historically a lot of great cocktails made and you probably know this that are made with Brandi. And I hope that there is a wave of people picking up more of that kind of stuff like this is cool. Let's get onto the brandy wagon and yeah Brandi focused.

Awesome. A lot of whiskey is out there but you know yeah I think a good Brandi and maybe there's some finishing fun ideas that I have for that as well. Nice. Well it sounds awesome I'm excited for you to still be excited about this after all you've done in your life.

This is good. So the dream is still alive and we look forward to eventually seeing the film organ products out there. Me too. Yeah.

Alright well thanks so much for giving us your time Phil. This was super fascinating like I said I could talk to you all day and I will reach out later and see if you can connect us with the Kings County. Yeah a lot of people that might be good and yeah let's get more people on your podcast. Awesome.

Thanks again Phil. Really appreciate it. Have a great evening. Have a wonderful night guys.

Take care. Yeah thanks Phil. You too.