E255 Blake Canning

This week's guest is Blake Canning, who joins us from Toronto, Ontario. Blake is currently the National Canadian Brand Ambassador for Bareface Whiskey. In our interview with Blake, we covered Blake's career journey from acting and bartending to becoming a Spirit's Brand Ambassador. We talked about Blake's role in promoting Canadian whiskey and detail his current responsibilities as a Brand Ambassador, including setting up and attending events, tastings and R&D work, while emphasizing Bareface's innovative approach to whiskey and his passion for supporting the hospitality industry through education and collaboration.

We also talked about how during the pandemic, Blake created a popular Instagram bar series that led to partnerships with Canadian Distilleries and helped build his industry network, plus we covered a whole host of other topics as always. You can find Blake online on Instagram at bareface. Blake and at the bidder and bar, or check the show notes as always for all the links. We want to thank Blake again for taking the time out to join us for the interview and enjoy the show.

Okay, we're back with another episode of the industry podcast. My name is Kip and this is Dan. Hey, that's me, man. How's it going?

I'm good, man. How are you doing? It's still awesome. Yeah, yeah.

It's a shocking response. It's good. It's just a nice day. Nice to live your life in constant awesome.

It's great. Yeah. I'm always kind of massed the misery somehow. Just swamped in awesomeness.

Totally. Totally. How's your week coming along? It's fine.

I got no complaints at all. Yeah. I'm trying to move into a world of zero complaints because what do we really have to complain about? Yeah, that's true.

I mean, they also be open. Aside from the first world problems. Yeah, that's a lot of first world problems. So, yeah, let's not worry about them.

Okay. If you're living in this first world and you're in the kitchen while Lou area, why don't you come check out my bar downtown kitchen or should I run at should I run bar on Instagram to find out everything that's going on there. It's a great time to start booking Christmas parties. In fact, by the time it was in this, you might be too late.

Get in there. We're rolling these parties into January and February now anyway, as most people are. So info at sugarrun.ca to book parties and at sugar on bar if you want to figure out what's going on there. If you're looking for liquor or wine for your Christmas holiday celebrations or for your bar, kipsonders at gmail.com is the way to get ahold of me for amazing spirits from a Lord to stealing company.

And wine from Malaguar winery, a Lord, a stillery gold medal for their lemon cello at the World Spirits Awards and silver medal for the Cafe and wire special, the cure at the World Spirits Awards. Big news, big news for a Lord's stillery and obviously Malaguar constantly awarded in Ontario wine. So that's kipsonders at gmail.com to hit me up for wine or booze. If you like what we're doing here on the show, the best way to help us out is to subscribe, rate, review, follow, telephone.

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Let's say you were looking to look up a quick cocktail recipe if you're behind the bar and you're in the weeds. Or perhaps you are just trying to make cocktails around your house or looking for great cocktail, classic cocktail recipes for your Christmas parties. What would you personally do? I probably turn to my mobile cellular device and bring up a lovely application called Ambiblia.

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Visit www.aniblia.com for more. And as always, check the show notes for the links for anything we talk about. Yeah, and Biblioth seriously, we're coming up on the holiday season and a lot of you want to impress your friends and family with amazing cocktails over the holidays. And Biblioth can help you get there.

It's better than hiring a bartender. Sure is. Yeah, way better. Okay, well, I think that's all we need to discuss before we get to yet another amazing guest here on the industry podcast today.

We have Blake Canning. Blake, how are you? Good, fellas, how are you doing? Doing well, doing well, actually taking time out to come to meet up with us.

Hey, give me some art. So Blake, the reason we wanted to have you on the show is you are the brand ambassador for Bearface Whiskey here in... Well, how big is your territory? But as big as a very tiny little man to manage that.

That's it? You're the guy. Yeah, the whole country. So I cover all of Canada for Bearface.

And it's been an interesting couple of years to say at least. That's only been doing it two years? It's actually going to be three in June. So I guess a little over two and a half now.

Yeah, and Bearface has really sort of become prominent on the shelves at the LCBO and in most bars around Canada. So you're doing something right? Obviously the product's good. But I would imagine also you're getting a bit of a boost from our orange friend down and stuff.

Whoever could you mean? Like I said, my territory is in Canada. So I actually have no idea what's going on inside the country. I can either confirm nor deny the existence of anybody who is not a Canadian citizen.

Pretty sure you're pretty sure it's the only country, right? Yeah, that's it. Yeah. No, I am obviously, yeah, it's been there.

There's been some pretty wild stuff that's gone on in the past. God, is it really just a calendar year? Yeah, at least. I know.

Yeah, it's been really interesting, but it's been even more interesting taking my role before any of this happened. And then and seeing the progress we were making and seeing how people were kind of coming to the brand beforehand and then seeing things afterwards. And I was actually surprised that that, you know, the shift obviously there was one, but it was kind of wild to see how many of how many people had already kind of gotten on the train as it were, you know. I've been saying a lot of things about how, you know, I always thought Canadian whiskey had so much to offer.

And it wasn't anyone, any of it was a catalyst for people to just sort of realize how true that was, you know. Yeah, I mean, obviously, as listeners, I don't know, I do work for a lot of the story also makes whiskey. And the like, I think it's almost done these smaller distilleries or more independent distilleries of favor here. It's like getting forcing our Canadians to try the great products we're making here in Canada, which needed to happen already because, I mean, talk about doing us a favor.

Having all the American products pulled off the shelves at the LCBO is forcing people to try shit they should have been trying already. And like you said, like some people were already ahead of the curve on that, but it doesn't hurt to have the boost because now these people probably won't go back. They'll be like, shit, we're making good products right here. I couldn't agree more.

It took the words right out of my mouth. And that's sort of what we've realized after however long it's been of this is, you know, people start to realize now that they've had a full sort of menu rotation and keep like, I work with a lot of bars and restaurants. That's, you know, I come from hospitality. That's my background.

So that is obviously what I focus a lot of my energy on in this position now. So, you know, working with those folks and having been through like a full menu rotation of time with the Canadian products, people are coming and going, whoa, I see how popular these would be. And I go, well, I did. Thanks for coming along, you know.

It's been so, so great to see people make that realization that you have been trying to have been trying to tell them for so long. And, you know, people were doing it every day. Now it's just some people are doing it without me ever having to meet them, right? Now I'm walking into bars and people are going, oh, you're the various guy.

Like, we use a lot of their face. You know, you do I was here to talk to you about it. And you're like, we love their face. Oh my God, I'm going to.

Mommy's going to cry. Yeah. So your role as an ambassador is like, how would you describe it? It's not quite being a sales rep because like the products really available in the LCP are going to buy it or they're not going to buy it.

So it's a different scenario. So being an ambassador, how would you describe like your day to day role? My role is much more focused on at least how I would describe it. In education and professional geekery.

I have always just been that total spirits dork, the nerd who wanted to know everything about every spirit that he was using on his back bar and blah, blah, blah, whether it be, you know, reading label or googling it or, you know, stealing a sample off of the bar when the bar manager's not looking like, you know, you got to get an eye product, right? So I was always down to talk to guests about what they liked, right? And why I liked what I liked and getting people to see the difference between the intricate differences, right? I mean, you know, you get a consumer who would come in and they go, you know, give me a whiskey and I'm like, okay, well, let's narrow that down a little bit.

He goes, no, no, like the brown one. I'm like, oh boy, can we get a lot of work to do? And that's totally fine. But then you start from the ground up and you're like, okay, like Irish do like, do you do like American, do you like Canadian, do you like Japanese?

And they're like, I don't know, like whiskey. I'm like, oh God, you know, it's it was always so much fun for me to walk people through that. So that's kind of how I sort of came to this role was I was just constantly wanting to talk to people about that and, you know, get their opinions and have a discussion about it, right? And increase education as opposed to just self product.

And I got nothing against, you know, myself reps are a lot of friends where it's a sort of many different company. And I absolutely am in awe of, you know, the definite knowledge that they have for some of their portfolios, especially the wine right friends like crazy how much, how many different things they have to memorize and how many different brands they have to have knowledge of. But for me personally, what I really focus on is education. So if there's a a staff training is we done, if there's a seminar that needs to be done, if there is a dinner that needs to be hosted, if we have to do anything in terms of promoting a new product, my job is to get words of mouth and liquid lips.

You know, is just getting people to understand what product is and why I think it's awesome and hopefully get them to understand how awesome it is as well in a nutshell. Okay, well, we'll talk shortly about why you think it's so awesome. But let's back it up a little bit and talk about your career. How did you, when you started out in the service industry?

Yeah, yeah, pretty much from the day I was legally allowed to, which apparently is actually less time than some of my friends. But yeah, pretty much right when I was right, right when I was able to start bartending, I, you know, was in there, I used to be in film TV. And so in the, that's a very like gig focused work, right? So on times where I wasn't on set, I needed a sort of day job.

And I always thought the idea of being a bartender would be really cool. As I'm sure a lot of 18 year olds did. So sorry, just like in film and TV like acting or yeah, yeah. Yeah, you glossed over that.

So obviously, yeah, yeah, you at one point you wanted to be an actor. Well, I did it for a little while and we need a whole other podcast to talk about why kitchenating actors are so smooth. It was, it did at least tell me, you know, with talking from a crowd and being a fool and stuff like that. I was scouted out of college.

So really, it wasn't even my choice, right? But I did it because at the time the money that you were making seemed like a lot, but I ended up really, really enjoying the day job, which is bartending. Right. Started a golf club to literally apply on my resume to get it and it's like, oh yeah, you've got two and a half years of experience.

You're 18 years old. Yeah, that checks out. So I, but you know, that's just, you know, genotonics and maybe the occasional Caesar, but which is why I still hate making those. Yeah.

But work my way up eventually got into weasel my way into the opening for a cocktail bar, which will remain name was for safety sake, but got canned after the first like two weeks, you know, when they were turning the fat got like badly canned and because I didn't know anything about constantly. I think the nail in the coffin was was when I made the beverage director probably the worst degree ever made on the face of planet earth. And it was a miracle. It even got through the one sip like the face he made was I knew right down there that I might think was the old.

So I got canned from there, but obviously I was a precocious little chip and I didn't like the idea of being like over something that I didn't know how to do. So I immediately started going around to other bars and specifically cocktail bars and just sitting there and talking with the bartender, a gathering the hell out of them. So I'm more excellent preparation for what you do now. Just sitting at bars and bugging people.

Now, yeah, now I'm a professional. Welcome. Yeah, eventually one of them did actually actually I mean I shout out to the club bar boy that that place was. One of the great one of the great Toronto institutions.

One of the great stuff is still to this day in been providing has been perfect to has one of the had one of the best vibes of any content. One of the city I have Sunday like you know basement. I don't think we turned the lights on just all candlelight. Nobody gets the damn thing, but it was cute.

So, you know, got it got into that became really, really into cocktailing and that's how I got really into spirits and you know from there was it was all down. Eventually, you know, you worked your way up the ladder and I just absolutely loved it, but I was still a total geek. So you're still pretty young for someone who's made the transition to like go into the ambassador role. Usually it's people who.

That's bad. But like generally it's people who have been in the industry for like decades or find like I don't want to do this anymore. What else can I do with this career? It's how do you move into like consulting or being an ambassador or a rep or whatever.

So how did this? How did you make this transition and why? That's funny when actually because we're the enough I actually fought against the idea of moving to brand ambassador for a long time. I thought I still had a couple of good years behind the bar in me and boy.

Well, so how to try and stay interactive like ramble a lot. How it all kind of came about was when lockdown happened, obviously everybody stuck at home and not about to go to our jobs and I noticed a lot of my friends were getting into a bit of a dark place. And you know, a lot of us are, you know, we need something to do with our hands. We need, you know, somewhere to go, someplace to be where we don't work desk jobs, right?

We need to be in the action, right? We secretly love being in the weeds. Yeah, I just interrupt you here. Like I always say to people is like it takes a certain type of, there's only certain people who can do the type of jobs that we do.

Like, and that's why we love having the shows, like talking to people, like like minded people is like, we're not willing to sit behind a desk. We, we, there's something fucked up in us that doesn't want the steady income. We, we wouldn't want to know like knowing that a month, a certain amount of money is coming in every week kind of freaks us out. We want that threat of crushing poverty.

It takes weirdos to do it. But anyway, you're precisely right. And those are the kind of people said don't usually do super well. Locked up at home for like not knowing what it's going to end.

I can't even like obviously that era was terrible for everyone. But like I think the people who do our jobs, it must have been the most soul crushing for us more than anyone else. Like it was, it was rough. Yeah.

And you know, again, at the time, like, I know it's a lot of young people who were getting into a dark place. Some of them had who had just left home. Some of them who, you know, had had had just say moved to different province or into Ontario from other provinces or countries, you know, just had important periods in their lives. And they suddenly didn't have any network to physically be around.

So this all happened around the same time that I moved into an apartment. I'm related and I, well, I just moved in with my girlfriend at the time. Now, fiance was so happy to finally have like a place that I wasn't trying to roommates. So it was like all our space for the first time.

And when we moved in, I noticed this one little corner of the main room that we weren't really using. I go, are we using that corner? And she goes, well, I don't know. I'm thinking maybe kind of like a dining room.

I'm like, where am I going? Are we really going to use a dining room? Like we're in front of the team, right? You're in front of the top table.

We're like, also, we're not allowed to have dinner parties right now. So it's really going to have a dining room. Come on. And so she's like, yeah, okay, fine.

Do whatever you want with it. And she lives to regret that decision because I had a tiny little bar cart, like just a tiny little, you know, Ikea thing. And I decided that my code project would be to build a an actual bar in the middle of my living room. That's how you do it.

That's how you do it. I mean, well, you can't just force your way in there, right? Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness out of the permission. So something called the bitter end bar was was born from that.

And once it was built, my buddy's COVID project was building furniture and stuff out of like skids and pallets. They even great. So he came and he helped me with this like beautiful wood bar. Got a bunch of shells.

I got like a hanging rack. And when it was done, it looked great. And I built this little makeshift studio. And what I did was I started going and I knew nothing about social media, like not, but I started going live on Instagram every Friday night.

From like, you know, six till eight or whatever. And I would tell all my friends like, hey, tune into the live and like pour yourself a drink and let's just chat through the like chat thing. And it'll be as close as we can get to like being at the bar together. And it was just a way to, you know, have some form of community again, right?

Some form of normalcy in an environment that we're all used to. So we started doing that. It was great. And I started people would start asking like, Hey, make a cocktail or they messaged me afterwards.

You're like, how did you make that? And I give them the spec and then sometimes I'd start doing like cocktail, almost like, cocktail classes. And then I start talking about bottles on the back bar and stuff like that. And it turned into this form of education, right?

Because I love doing that. And eventually I was getting so many requests and I was quickly depleting what little stock I had. So I, the idea that I had was to reach out to Canadian, small Canadian distillers, including normal actually, who was fantastic with it. They did that they were phenomenal.

I recently said, Hey, I have practically no following. I had no resources. I have nothing to offer you except using this in in like a. In a cocktail or talking about it in the unique process.

If you want to, if there's any new releases, something like that, especially product placement. So yeah, you can speak to the product, what they're doing while you're making a drink out of it. But I think that's valuable whether you have a following or not. Right.

So especially those categories, right? Precisely. And I was actually shocked at the amount of people who, I mean, I guess they were as bored as I was, but the amount of people who were so on board. I reached out to so many distillaries, pretty much everyone in Canada that I could think of or find and just the me.

And so many people responded and stuff that they were like their chorus questions, stuff they brought out to release stuff that they were, you know, weird stuff that they wanted to talk about. And that's how I gained a love of Canadian spirit specifically. I just thought it was so, so cool to see how many different distillaries were doing so many cool different things. And, you know, how many like, especially small operations, big operations, it was really cool to be able to talk about all of them.

And I just gained this absolute love for the whole process of what Canada is able to do and how much Canada is able to offer. Before you continue there, I just want to say like, what a great fucking story because like there are very few positive stories that came out of the pandemic and it was such a dark time for all of us. But what a great fucking tale of like you doing this thing and then having the Canadian distillers get on board with that and be like, yeah, let's get involved. Let's do this.

Even though like they didn't even know if it was going to profit them in any way, like at that point, because like you said, you started with a very small following just in your fucking apartment, right? So that honestly, like that's a great fucking story. Like so I just wanted to pause and recognize that. Yeah, yeah.

It's been the whole better end run is was a and you know, so it's been a while ride because like I was very suddenly, practically drowning in products. I would be having new walks like every two days, right? So many of them. And it was so cool.

Some people would include handwritten notes about like, you know, what kind of facility they were, how they started. I fell in love with so many different facilities and brands. And it's what's so crazy is that some of those distillers and brand ambassadors and brands and companies are now good friends of mine that I see on the on the trail that shows and stuff all the time. So it also without me knowing created this incredible network of friends across the country who are making great stuff.

So, you know, that went out of control. We went viral a couple times with some of our some of our skits and some of our education videos and stuff. And that's actually how Mark Anthony found me, the distributor for Bearface. And the one of the reasons they they reached out to me was because they're like, so you're obviously pretty good as an educator.

Would you ever think about being a brand ambassador, right? Yeah. And they had seen that and I honestly, I thought it was fake at first. So I didn't answer them.

But I also I had done a cocktail competition. One of the bars that I was working on, one of the judges was working on things as well. And they sort of gave me a better idea of what it was like, but I still thought I had a couple of good years of me, right? I was like, I don't know if I want to leave the bar yet.

Like I love the idea of being able to geek out with people for a living. But then like two weeks after I got in the initial sort of approach to apply and this wasn't a sure thing. I just buy the bar and I work for the last call bars, right? So it's like nearing last all the time.

It's been morning shake my in the bar and literally I think so consciously my body was trying to send me aside. I literally like, I don't know if I tore my shoulder or sprained something or popped it right out of the pocket, but I'm just shaking regularly and suddenly my arms was live. Oh my God. The shaker just like comes right out of my hand, you know, she like breaks open on the floor and I had to get my bar back to like massage my shoulder back into place.

And I just go, buddy, I think it might be time. I felt like I felt like the old the horse who was like, all right, I think you need to take me back behind the bar. I think it's time. So a real old yellow situation there.

I think it's time bust. It all came together though, sort of for a bunch of different reasons. And so I went through with the application and you know, it was like still six months of interviews. A long time.

Yeah. And you know, I went back and forth with actually a quick question about that at that time. How many of them were in person? How many were remote over?

Oh, this was so now this was this was an aftercoat. Okay. I mean, for the most part, because it didn't end with a whimper on a bank, right? Like there is all these off and on.

But this was after COVID. There was, I want to say God, I think like three online and three in person, something like that. That's a lot. So quite a few.

Yeah. Just meeting various people, you know, meeting Andreas or master blender for the first time. That was a it was terrifying at the time, but I look back on a laugh because he's just so awesome. And he emulates a lot of the different traits that I try and uphold and bring to the role.

Like he's just so passionate about what he does and so interested in creativity. You know, the first time I did our sort of deconstructed tasting of our triple oke for expression with him was such an eye opening experience, even for me, someone who had, you know, on the other inside of the bar done so many tastings and so many, you know, portfolio lineups. And this was something totally different. And I was like, wow, this is so, so cool because we got to taste components of a blend as opposed to just like, here's seven of our lineup, you know, enjoy.

Aren't they all delicious? Not totally destroyed afterwards. Like it was, you know, they're all cool because taught me something and it was awesome to see that. So it by the end of it.

And I was still on the fence right up until the last moment, but I'm so, so glad that I did end up going this direction because now I can't even imagine doing anything else. Okay, so I talked to our listeners who we've had obviously branded as on the show before, but like for people who may be listening to us for the first time, it talked us about what you're like weekly, like your day to day in a week looks like like what are you out there doing? What are you doing? What is it's and you know what in a lot of ways it's kind of like what we talked about previously I still got that box of blood in me where, you know, it's never the same week twice.

Right. It's never like, alright, you know, Monday morning. And that's what you want. That's what you want.

Yeah. Exactly. It's it's a role that is completely based on adaptability. You got to be prepared for anything.

And you know, like I worked some days a week. It's, you know, it's not 10, 10, 12 hours a day every day. No, it's, you know, there's always something going on. Almost every week I've got some form of event or training or or staff tasting or a new place that's opening up that or something that a friend of mine has told me they want me to come and help them with R and D or something like that.

I think the only consistent in my week is inconsistency. Yeah. Now, and like let me ask you this. Are you like, is this like you're out there hustling to do this or does some of this work just come to you?

50 50. Yeah. It's I mean, I'm I'm a lover of the community and hostile industry in general and also all my friends and so it's kind of the space in which I live anyway. Right.

So any time that I hear about a new place, open up or my body, you want to work at a new spot that I have been to a little while. Like, you know, I am making the effort to go out there. Say hi, even if I'm not there selling something at this point, hopefully, I'm friends know who I am. What I do, you know, I'm just there to show support.

That is probably the second most important part of my job behind educating people is just helping my friends do the stuff that they always want to do. Right. And so that means providing product for something they want to do a cocktail contest, a competition or like or just like maybe a new cocktail that's almost off the other bar. If you can be there to provide support with product or just be there to provide education to people coming in on night with their launching a new menu or something like that.

Totally. And it can get that that can take so many different forms. Like hell, I, I, the amount of different things that people have come to me with. I love that.

My absolute favorite part is when someone comes to me and says, I've got a really weird idea and I go under it as I'm already, you've already got me at least 75% of the way there. And you know, we like, I'm not, I'm not this. I'm not rich over here. Like, you know, we're not the largest brand in the world, but I try and make our dollars go as far as humanly possible.

Like a couple months ago, we did an event at a gift shop here in Toronto where they came to us and said, this is the middle of summer and they go, it's Canada day. And I go, yep, I, I obviously would love to do something for that. I guess I got an idea. I'm like, okay, what's up?

He goes, I want, I want to build a patio. I go, let me stop you there, partner. That's good. He goes, he goes, you know, like gift shop.

It's a speakeasy. That is one of the smallest bars in the city. Yeah. Yeah.

I go to the barbershop. Yeah. And I go to my go, how exactly do you plan on doing that? And he goes, no, no, it's only for one night and it's going to be out back and like, and, you know, sort of in the area behind the bar and I go, there's an area behind the bar.

I don't know. You're moving like, you're off the trees and stuff. Oh boy. Okay.

Yeah. Sure. Why that sounds fun is not like the hilarious. So, you know, like we put down, we put down sod and we like hung up in Canadian flags and put out Adirondack chairs and made like and set, but put up string lines, right?

So we made a patio for an evening to be like, would you, would you say that like probably your favorite part of the job is getting to say yes so many times? To like whatever the fuck people say. I feel like I feel like I say yes to that. My phone's going to me.

Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. I said you know, what, what, you know, I'm not shy about this.

Yes. That is completely true. I do try it. I mean, just for you, first of all, you're not obviously going to be able to say yes to anything, but that must be the most rewarding part of your job is kind of what I'm getting it.

100% getting to say yes to these crazy ideas. Totally. And getting, you know, because I'm lucky enough to show off my brand's creativity every single day and, you know, open people's eyes to, you know, our, our super unique process and stuff like that. I'm able to have that feeling every day.

I want my friends who are, you know, still in the position that I was in at two and a 10 times better at it. I want them to be able to showcase their creativity and their fun and their, their bar, aka their livelihood, right? So that, you know, they can therefore get, you know, more butts in the door and some more drinks and, you know, build their reputation, right? I think Toronto, especially, actually, you know, Canada in general is really, really so deserving of so much attention in the cocktail sphere globally.

That I love being any small part of that that I can be across the country anytime somebody wants to do an event or a pop up or any kind of feature or special or whatever, right? There's so much to showcase in this country, so much talent. So that I think is what I love the most. Well, you're completely right about that and I couldn't agree with you more.

Before we get you out of here, we obviously need to talk about the product itself. So talk to us about bare face. Why should people be excited about it and, you know, give us your elevator pitch? I think elevator pitch, you know, have not proven enough that I will be able to, like, crazy.

I'm about to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to pour myself a whiskey at that. I think the really thing to remember about bare faces that, at its core, we're so focused on innovation and, you know, taking a whiskey in a new direction and just trying things, right? Experimenting and throwing things at the wall, seeing what sticks and, you know, not being afraid of things that might not because, I mean, again, our master blender Andreas, he is a total genius and crazy like a fox. I don't think that guy looks at a single angle of anything from the traditional standpoint.

And if he's even anywhere close, he'll throw out the idea and try and look at it from the opposite standpoint, right? He's all about doing things in a totally different way and rethinking the way that we look at the whiskey and whiskey in general, right? So that, I think, was the ethos behind, you know, making bare face like a single brain whiskey, right? Especially corn base, right?

I mean, we see a lot of really successful hundred percent rise. We want to do a hundred percent corn whiskey and our elemental aging process, right? So like we don't age in traditional like big temperature control warehouses. We age in shipping containers that are, you know, completely exposed to the elements.

So, and that started as an experiment because we wanted to see what that would do to the barrels. What does it do? So, glad you asked. To put into context, like places like Kentucky, where we'll see a diurnal shift or a temperature flush version of, I think, somewhere between like 12 and 13 degrees max or something like that.

In Canada, we've got so much more, well, country to work with. There are certain areas that we can see upwards of sometimes over 20 degrees in tensor shifts, right? And that, and if you're able to get that barrel as exposed to the elements as humanly possible, you know, that barrel will breathe so much and get so much more influence out of that barrel. You get these flavors that are just incredibly robust and full flavored.

And, you know, when you put those into a blend, it's in a lot of ways. This is how I like to talk about it with my friends who are also in hospitality, right? Like a lot of what they do is blending, right? It's finding the perfect balance of these different flavors, right?

We do the same thing with cats. And I loved how much I was able to understand that coming onto this side of the, this side of the bar as it were, and into this position. So, and just always trying to do something different things. And, you know, we've got that experimental cast series too.

I guess the wilderness series, you guys may have seen, we've got, actually, the third one just came out a couple months ago. We try and celebrate a different terroir of Canada with every release. So, you know, the first year we celebrate the Earth. So, we did a finishing in Matsutake mushroom cast.

The second one we want to celebrate the ocean. So, some of the water that we, or the water that we use to cut down the proof was derived from seawater that we took right out of middle- and the BC coast, right? Like, just really thinking about different things. And this year we want to celebrate the forest.

So, we use what they call, or what we call the skin blood and bones of the tree, right? All these different aspects of the forest in our finishing cast that we used maple burelee barrels, so x maple syrup barrels that have been sort of torched on the inside. We used birch bark in some of our casts. We used to toasted, hungarian oak, like all these different things that create such complex and layered wisties.

It's just so cool to see the process, you know? It's got to be one of the most experimental distilleries around. And I'm not talking just Canada, like, maybe North America, why? Like, obviously they do crazy shit in Europe.

But, like, when you really think about it, I mean, if you think about it, like, going back to what you're saying about using these old barrels, like, in America, like, if they're making bourbon, they're trying to trap the flavor in these new white oak barrels all the time, right? And the whole point of the finished product is that that liquid has been trapped in this barrel and taking on the characteristics of the barrel. And you can say the same thing with Scotch and lots of wine as well, right? So, you're kind of trying to do the opposite of that, allowing the elements to seep in, which is, I think, kind of like, mad scientist crazy and unique, you know?

Like, who else is doing, are there other distilleries doing this that I don't know about? What I always like to say is, you know, I never like to claim to be, you know, the most anything, because the one thing that I'm always trying to do is find, you know, I'm still like, you get hard, right? Like, I still love every brand that I can get my hands on, right? I love talking with my friends about their new releases and finding new distilleries.

The same as I always did when I was starting the bitter end, right? And also because I don't like to get myself back checked, but you never know, there could be, you know, somebody off in some random place. But I, and I don't see often a lot of people who focus on the, the experimentation, the way that we do. And it was that that drew me to the company in the first place is the fact that I've always been so curious about breaking the mold in so many different aspects and ways that when I first found bare face, and I found that before they found me, like, I was actually using them on my rail from the first time I ever saw them.

I was one of those guys who's trolling through the shelves, looking for new things every single week, essentially. And I found them for a great price. And I was like, okay, maybe we'll give a shot, tried it, went, whoa, this is punching way above his weight class, and immediately switched it on my rail at work. And the results spoke for themselves.

People were like, that's a really good old fashioned. I know it is, because I found it myself, like, I figured out an answer, and it was cheaper than what most of the other rails were anyway. So I've always been just obsessed with how they were always trying to make great juice for, you know, a great price and always be focused on creativity and experimentation, because that's what I was always doing. Right?

Well, that's the whole point of it, right? And I think it's a cool way for you to be able to, as you mentioned earlier, pitch this to bartenders. It's like, hey, you know what you are always trying to do? That's what we're trying to do, right?

So yeah, it's a perfect marriage and it must make your job, you know, slightly easier. I mean, yeah, there's, there's, you know, in a lot of ways, it is all about finding common methods of communication, finding a way to get folks to understand. Well, we all need a fucking pitch, right? It's funny.

I was, like, even today I was listening to a story about this old college football coach named Barry Switzer, and he's coach Oklahoma back in the 70s, right? And he became the Dallas Cowboys coach after that, but recruiting was different back then in college football. And he was, he was telling the story about how he used to go recruit kids and he would go before he rang the doorbell. He would go into the alley behind their house and open their garbage cans to see what kind of beer bottles were in the garbage.

And then he would go into the house and be like, it's when the dad offered him a beer and he's like, well, only if you got old Milwaukee, because that's what he saw in the garbage can behind the house. And I'm like, what a great sales approach, right? Because now he's already got that. That's wild.

Yeah. But that's kind of what we are all doing here, right? And I mean, whether you're a server, a bartender, an ambassador, a bar owner, like, we're all just doing sales. So if you can figure out these little angles to get the sale.

That sounds like I have some dumpster diving in your future. I mean, you can say, I mean, I'm 19. That's, that's the bit. I'll give you that.

Go to say, I'll go, I'll go dive into a lot of things. I don't know. Well, behind people's bars. I don't know.

If I take copper back there too, you know, I can't, you know, if this is ever goes so big, we can treat living, striping copper water. I got a shot there. Okay. Well, thanks so much.

We're going to do a time today. This was awesome. Tell our listeners how to find beer face, how to find you if they want to collaborate with you. What's the best way to get in contact?

So I always say I am, I'm an open book until my phone just explodes in my hand, which sometimes I feel like it is going to, but, you know, the easiest way to get a hold of me is probably through my Instagram. That's bareface.blake. Bareface like the animal, not like a naked face. V-A-R-F-A-C-E dot B-L-A-K-E.

Bareface.blake. Obviously, if you were, if they're curious about about some of the stuff we talked about earlier, the bitter end bar actually has its own Instagram as well. That is the bitter end bar. Yeah, I just want to double check.

Yeah, it is the bitter end bar. And honestly, I keep tabs on all of them. I haven't been able to do as much on the bitter end as I used to. But it's a very interesting part of my history that I was trying to keep up with.

I'm going to guide you where you are today, right? So literally. And then I guess I should probably say bareface whiskey. Obviously, if you want to see what we've got coming up, that is a round handle of bareface whiskey, no E in whiskey.

But yeah, that's probably the easiest way to hold me. I guess I probably shouldn't turn my phone number into an email address. That's all early. We just started dating here.

Please don't do it too fast. Thanks so much for coming on the show. This was super fun and entertaining and educational. So yeah, thanks.

Thanks for your time. And that's a look with everything going forward, man. Appreciate you. Like I said, it's an honor.

The podcast has been so cool for this industry. And it really is. It's a feathering attack to be thought of. So it's a great honor.

We really appreciate it. Thanks, man. Appreciate that. We appreciate it as well.

Yeah. Great talking. We'll talk to you man. Next time I'm in Toronto and look you up.

So please do. I owe you guys whiskey. Thanks very much. Cheers, guys.

I'll be over the bitter end. Perfect. Have a good one, guys.