Olde Raleigh Distillery: Brandon McCraney, Owner/Master Blender; Ep. 60

Daniel AI: Welcome to Bourbon Brass and Beyond. Tonight, Dan and Bob welcome Brandon McCraney, Master Blender and president of Old Raleigh Distillery. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.

Dan and Bob: Good evening. ⁓ welcome to Bourbon Brass and Beyond. How's everybody tonight? How are you doing? Good, how are you? Good. tonight we'd like to welcome Brandon McCraney from Olde Raleigh Distillery down in ⁓ North Carolina. And a of samples up for us to try. So welcome Brandon.

Brandon McCraney: All right. Dan and Bob, thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. It's excited to have you. Yeah, welcome. These are always the ones I like the best, just being able to talk through what you guys got going on and obviously getting to taste some some good stuff too along the way, I guess. But Yeah, and for me I love the education. Yeah. I I I learn more from doing this than I I in quite a while. So this has been a great experience for us. especially with blending, 'cause i ⁓ it been till recent that I I I started getting Blended bourbons. And I know there's an art to it, I know there's a science to it, so I'm really excited to talk to you about it. ⁓ so you can kind of walk us through the process and and what what you're thinking. now you sent up a couple samples, ⁓ small batch 17 ⁓ a ⁓ four old stogie.

Brandon McCraney: Okay, yeah. ⁓ yeah. It's our cigar blend, yes.

Dan and Bob: Beautiful. well I guess let's let's start with the the small batch. What's what's the what's the story behind that?

Brandon McCraney: Yeah. Right, so the ⁓ the story on the small batch is that our s by the way, sm small batch is a marketing term. It really doesn't mean anything, but ⁓ but ⁓ you know, consumers send it like that on the label. our small batch though with that particular product we yielded ⁓ sixteen hundred fifty bottles. And what that blend of straight bourbon consists of ⁓ barrels of bourbon ranging from four to twenty-one years old.

Dan and Bob: Ha ha ha ha.

Brandon McCraney: And then ⁓ we used ⁓ seven different mash bills or recipes amongst that to make that particular batch. ⁓ four total grains. So we've have ⁓ five ⁓ five that use rye as the second dairy grain and then two of those mash bills used wheat as the second dairy grain in Ninety three proof. we don't like filtering at Olde Raleigh, so ninety three is the lowest proof that I can push it to where we don't gotta push it through that cold filtration cycle to to where if you were to add water and ice to it it wouldn't get cloudy. So ninety three is gonna be the lowest proof that anything at old old Raleigh that we offer.

Dan and Bob: Nose and ice on it, that's for sure. Yeah, no, and actually that's something new. I I I hadn't actually heard that about deciding proof that you would have to worry about it getting cloudy for putting ice and water in it. But that's Now I've also had a couple blends that I didn't like. And and I don't know if it was bec where I got it they weren't real well known for blends. are there things that set each other off in a negative way when you're doing the blending?

Brandon McCraney: ⁓ yeah, I mean it always starts with a good base. So you can't I mean I could be the best in the world, but if you're dealing with just, you know, not high quality ingredients, you know, you can give it its best effort, but ⁓ you know, you need to start with base. So a qualifier with me with any ⁓ barrel that ⁓ that we bring into our barrel area ⁓ production is or we harvest, it's gotta have a nice quality mouthfeel. So how's it coating the tongue?

Dan and Bob: Right. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: You know, and I like a nice oily whiskey and and then on top of that it's okay. Is it having a conversation with you afterwards? Right. So the conversation's gonna be subjective depending on who's drinking it, but it's okay, is it have something, a story to tell, and do I like that story?

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Yeah. I love the nose on this. Yeah. I mean the nose is fantastic.

Brandon McCraney: So we could technically call this a label, it could just be straight bourbon whiskey, 'cause it's all straight bourbon. but we call this blended bourbon whiskey because we want the consumer to know that's what we do. We blend and that's what we really try to double down on at Olde Raleigh.

Dan and Bob: Now so it's a really nice flavor, great mouthfeel. I almost get like a finished cask. Yeah. Well like a is there finished casks in this?

Brandon McCraney: Not on this one, this is all straight bourbon, charred oak. Mm-hmm.

Dan and Bob: I th you mentioned that you would like to for it to have a conversation. I think that's one of the we talk about how things just last and I the flavor lasts on this a long, long while. I think that's like you still just I still keep pulling extra little stuff coming out of this too. So Yeah, and that's just a first sip. That's yeah. So we we haven't talked about this, but do you wanna like we've talked you and I and Dan and we've talked about a little bit, but do you wanna talk a little bit about the history of you guys and what all you guys got going on down there? Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: Yeah, I'd love to. Sure. So we're old Raleigh, ⁓ we're family owner and operated. So I started this the old fashioned way, just saved up, you sixteen years a bit of chase my dream of blending whiskey from all around the world. we just happened to open during COVID. ⁓

Dan and Bob: timing on your part, right?

Brandon McCraney: I closed on the building right before and ⁓ that my timing was horrible. Our original opening date, according to our construction schedule, was supposed to be April 2020. So ⁓ that obviously didn't happen. ⁓ we didn't open till January of the following year. caused some of those delays, but ⁓ in particular and we got hit with a lot of delays by the local inspectors for construction. I mean it was a bit of a

Dan and Bob: ⁓ I mean I I think we we take all that stuff for granted so quickly now because it feels like it's a lifetime ago, but realistically, I it's that's the hard you were in being in construction, like I I just remember what it was like for the schools here. I can't imagine trying to build something when nobody's allowed ⁓ wearing mat even outside. Like it was a whole thing. So and those zoning guys are horrible.

Brandon McCraney: Yeah, they ⁓ they put me through the ringer pretty good. Some of what they did we never recovered from. actually I I went through all of my small business loan, ⁓ loan, I mean everything for our process piping. I had to wipe out my four ⁓ one K right before Christmas to buy my kids presents and then ⁓ enough money to to stock the bar to get open. ⁓ yeah, it was it was crazy times. I mean, I was afraid to hire people. You know, it's ⁓ nuts. but ⁓

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Crazy, yeah. Right. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: But when we open, we ⁓ we ⁓ exclusively blend. Our original intent was to actually have a production operation. ⁓ when that all that stuff happened with construction, that kind of went out the window, had to go to the back burner. And so the intent was maybe year two, we'd be able to start up the ⁓ the production operation for distillation. ⁓ the intent was to train a staff to start making it. Inevitably we could start blending our own. And so we were chipping away, getting all that piping done. And then I started to notice ⁓ flipping the market a little bit. see and during COVID, we couldn't make whiskey quick enough, right? It's just everything was ⁓ and with that came a lot of folks saying, Wow, this is a great opportunity. Let's jump into this and try to ride this wave. And folks started producing a lot of contract producers got in. ⁓ but ⁓ what they weren't thinking about maybe

Dan and Bob: Everybody was buying everything, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Brandon McCraney: not too acutely was that trend couldn't continue, that surge. ⁓ and two, you make today what the world needs in four to six years from now. So here we are. And so, you know, about two years ago I started getting calls from people and saying, Hey, Brenn, you seem to be pretty good at blending. Why don't why don't you let us make you some stuff? And these are the same people that wouldn't return my calls when I open when I was trying to get two or three barrels, you know.

Dan and Bob: Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: And ⁓ initially I was like, No, this is this is blasphemy. I've got these stills, I'm gonna get it up and running and then after about six months and I kinda had to come to Jesus, me with myself, and said, Well what do you love to do? And it I've always I was the blender. That's that's my trade, that's my craft. And and you know, the conditions have changed. And I have access to, you know, more whiskey and the I mean old exceptional whiskey that I never could have dreamed of when I started this venture in, you know, twenty seventeen. And so, you know, I made the decision A year and a half ago, it's like we're a blending operation here. ⁓ I don't see us cutting on our our stills anytime soon. ⁓ maybe where I'll leave that is if my kids want to take over one day, maybe that could be their that's their stamp because cause distilling and blending are two completely different crafts, like completely different. ⁓ and I can't give, and that's our challenge with me growing a staff, I give like an SOP or a manual for a staff member to say.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. You got it there, you might yeah.

Brandon McCraney: Here you go and go blend now because your tool

Dan and Bob: Here's right. Here's how you make great tasting. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: Yeah, 'cause your your palate is your tool. And that takes just years and years to develop. ⁓ and that's the part that I love about, you know, being able to make whiskey is is the creating aspect of you know, pushing the envelope, finding new flavor profiles and sharing them with the world.

Dan and Bob: Yep, right. Something cool to do and yeah. So in you know it as an Air Force guy you'd probably appreciate this, but you know, I always talk about flying is ⁓ have to have just as much of the technical knowledge as you have to have the touch. You have to have the feel. You know, in and it ⁓ both it it's it's a very different situation when when somebody's learning to fly. So I I I imagine that you have to have the palate and to be able to pick and choose in order to do this. I think it's one of the things I really have liked that some of the stuff like you we'd we've been down to see Macaulay at Dark Arts and I think I it it feels like there these guys, you guys are getting so many of these specialized, individualized barrels that and and blends that end up coming into really, really good stuff outside of that. Like I I think that the big players have a hard time adjusting to small market trends like this. And I think that's where you guys and especially with the way I you probably to your point are get not only you're getting access to barrels, but they're probably way cheaper now too. Like that's gotta be the other nice part about not having to distill your own stuff is like they're knocking on your door trying to get an unload product at this point, I have to think too. So

Brandon McCraney: for sure. And because we don't replicate any batch we ever make, I'm not beholden to any supplier if they were to get purchased by Diageo or or whatnot. ⁓ and yeah, I think it does make us a lot more nimble, a lot more adaptable. and also I don't have shareholders. I don't have a CFO running our company telling me half the stuff I'm doing's crazy. You know, I'm I'm my own consumer. So ⁓ we we can we pivot, we can take risks.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: And and we enjoy doing that.

Dan and Bob: I always say I hate the monotony of mowing the grass every day or whatever that thing is. It's it's the new project, it's the new thing that always is the nice part. So you're you get stuck, I guess, but you're always in a perpetual new loop with this. Like that's the nice part for me is it's not the same, it's never two days the same. It's always what's the next new cool project that I get to work on.

Brandon McCraney: Yeah, I've ⁓ I really enjoy my work. the the first product that you tried, that small batch, that's be as we out the stores, scale out in the stores, that's gonna be like a standard one you'd see. ⁓ so our you know, we want to be known for if you see Olde Raleigh on the shelf, it's a quality product. We know they're gonna roll out something good. We hope you think that. but every batch is gonna be just a little different depending on what barrels I'm able to

Dan and Bob: Okay.

Brandon McCraney: know, procure around the country and and basically, you know, I'll I'm gonna wrap flavor profiles based off of the barrels that we select and, you know, what we think is interesting.

Dan and Bob: This is the the cigar the old Stogie, the cigar blend.

Brandon McCraney: Yeah. Yeah, so this one is ⁓ I think barrel proof or a hundred and twelve proof. And so we cask aged year old bourbon. It's a three-grain, rise of secondary grain. ⁓ casc aged it over a year in Armagnac and Tiny Port casks. And so the first time I I did this batch and and all the previous three have been around a hundred proof. But I liked how the cask finish on this one is really starting to stand up pretty nice. nice leathery tobacco notes also hitting on this one. but but the cask strength ⁓ at at a hundred and eighteen proof it was shining pretty well. So I I slow dripped some reverse osmosis water in there down to one twelfth, just to let the cask shine a little bit more. ⁓ but we only released this once a year, ⁓ yielded less a thousand bottles. And this is our most acclaimed product out in the The metals community and all that stuff. This one's done very, very well.

Dan and Bob: The nose is really nice on this thing. Like it's it's very mellow. It's yeah. I do get a little of that Armagnac. Yeah. Yeah. w we are Armagnac fans. We we've Yeah. It's really easy to fall into that trap. So I we I think it started we had something that was OADE yeah, well I think we it was finished in something and then we that came about and we're like, well man, this works itself really perfectly. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: Are you yeah. Yeah, I didn't realize how many Armagnac estates there were until I went to Paris, this giant spirit spirits expo in February. And we were right by the Armagnac, I guess they put us right by the fortified wines, the North Carolina Spirits. And man, there had to be ⁓ 20-some there. ⁓ And could not believe how big Armagnac was over there.

Dan and Bob: Okay. Yeah, yeah. Well I think it's very much a smaller craft it's not made for distribution, it's made for just local consumption at a certain point. So I think there's a they're just hiding all over the place out there. Wow. Yeah. That's fantastic.

Brandon McCraney: I'd say right now that one's probably my nightly drinker along with our our barrel proof that we have.

Dan and Bob: Finish is crazy good on this. So I've I've had a number of cigar blends, and this is far my favorite that I've had. I mean this is

Brandon McCraney: Thank you.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's fantastic. I think it pairs really well with the rye in there too. Yeah. Yeah, the it just very well balanced. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: So I found on that cask finish the Armagnac in particular, and the first time so we don't harvest based off of age statements. Never. Every one of these casts are gonna develop a little different. Same thing with the ⁓ the whiskey in the barrel. So the first time that did the old Stogie release, at around the eight month mark, that Armagnac cask just started to open up like a flower. It was just it was there, you know, it but that eight month it just started to get so much more complex. ⁓ But okay, how much further we let this thing ride. So every year we'll push between twelve to fourteen months just depending on how that that particular cask is developing.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. So I want that job. I want the job of determining whether the cask is ready. Lance no rapidly. It'll be okay.

Brandon McCraney: Ha ha. Yeah, we're not short on volunteers these days for sure. Hm.

Dan and Bob: I imagine. imagine. So mentioned that you've th with all these different blends, how many you don't get to do this I mean you have a couple, I guess, but how many are we talking? Like is this ten different things that you do? Is this twenty? Like how many th this is the part that I really love. Like how how often and how many different products are we talking here? What's the goal, I guess?

Brandon McCraney: Well, we blend quite a at Olde Raleigh. A lot. And that's intentional. ⁓ so I've created a company and a canvas where I can just create all the time. And so we've got certain SKUs like our small batch that we use to help us scale and get into new markets, get in stores. We've got limited release products. We've got a bottle club that I'll make things for, just exclusive bottles for folks every month. And then we've got another ⁓ avenue that I call the Thousand Blends Project.

Dan and Bob: Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: And that's where ⁓ every week we release one of one bottles ⁓ we want to be the first brand to release over a thousand unique one-off whiskeys. ⁓ our consumers that come to the taste room is called the Thousand Blends Challenge. So they're coming in on Friday when we open and then trying to knock out those three to to work their way up. But ⁓ the purpose of all that though was just exploration and creation, right? And sharing that with people. you know, there's all kinds of different flavor combinations out there and you know, we've got

Dan and Bob: Okay.

Brandon McCraney: We're we're doing five cask finishes. We're doing, you know, rise with ⁓ blending with things that just doesn't make any sense. But, you know, how does that how do they work together? And so, you know, those type of projects that we do, if you were to come in, there's a QR code, you snap on it, you'll see my blending notes, but then also it allows for that patron to rate it themselves and put in their own tasting notes. And then we use that as a giant repository of information.

Dan and Bob: Awesome.

Brandon McCraney: to where we can use that to say, okay, this particular one of one was a big hitter and these were all the comments about it. Why don't we use this as a candidate maybe to be a limited release? ⁓ so we're we're constantly just trying to create, getting a close feedback loop and then just figuring out what do we want to do next.

Dan and Bob: So you're saying if Dan shows up every Friday and he and he's really good at this, he can be a master blender as well, is what we're saying.

Brandon McCraney: Ha ha ⁓ I you could definitely be well on your way for sure.

Dan and Bob: You just gotta be on the short list of the best comments and the most most interesting feedback. That'd be awesome. Well I know what you're doing. ⁓ I'm not I've never been told I'm short on comments. So So how did you into this? What was your start? Was it bourbons or whiskeys?

Brandon McCraney: Yeah. Ha ha. It was bourbon and it was similar on your side of the table. That was me fifteen years ago, back before the big bourbon collection was like this cool thing. I just this is my office at home. ⁓ I had just had a couple hundred bottles of whiskey, you know, fifteen years ago, and I just got fascinated with the nuances of it all. Like how you can have the same bourbon with the same mash bill, distilled the same day. They're on different floors and they taste radically different. And why is that? And I just got very curious and started, you know, accumulating more of a collection, going to workshops, picking up skill sets, still not thinking this was gonna be my career. And I was Yeah, yeah, I was just climbing that corporate ladder. And best thing that ever happened to me, just an intersection of I finally obtained that national VP title I thought I wanted with previous employer, realized it was not gonna fulfill me. ⁓ the grind is grind and then ⁓

Dan and Bob: Just something you were into and thought it was cool and fun. The grind is the grind.

Brandon McCraney: I had a failure that I didn't get the role. Ultimately, somebody way more qualified got it over me. Perfect fit. And then that's when the intersection of this bourbon thing showed up and asked my wife, ⁓ I th I said, honey, I think I might want to start a whiskey company. What you think? And she didn't call me crazy. Tell me to shut up. She was ⁓ very supportive and that took me on a a mission of just ⁓ I went out to Louisville.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: you Moonshine University, if y'all have been out there, ⁓ they got a distillers course, took that, gave me a crash course on the the the good, the bad and the ugly in the industry. And that's highly regulated and and I wanna know the ugly and that week didn't scare me away. It said, Yeah, this is what I wanted to do and, you know, along the way, ⁓ the blending thing just picked up stronger and stronger. You know, I did a ⁓ a workshop with Nancy Fraley many years ago and ⁓ she's ⁓ She's fantastic. ⁓ but she was the first person that I saw ⁓ that I met with that she took whiskey like blending as a a serious profession. It wasn't about drinking, it was about, you know, very intentional and and and her train of thought just worked right with where I was thinking. I was like, that's the path that I want to go down. They're right there. And so, you know, that was probably about ten years ago or something like that. But then as I got into blending, you know, I got to thinking about, you know, we all have, you know, you're a pilot, for example, right? you know, how do you get better flying? You log hours, you put in the reps. Right. It's not just about, ⁓ I've been a pilot for 10 years. It's all right, how many hours have you logged in those 10 years, right? So it got me thinking about if I'm, you know, if I'm truly mastering this craft, you know, I want to put in more reps than anybody else. And because I've created a company where I get do what I want.

Dan and Bob: Hmm. Yep.

Brandon McCraney: And I don't got people to tell me I'm doing crazy stuff, we're gonna keep pushing the envelope, putting in reps. ⁓ because I'd like to think if we get to one, two, three thousand unique releases that you know, the book of work that this brand created will speak for itself.

Dan and Bob: Awesome. Is there anything crazy that you've done that both surprised you and was just awesome? You're like blueberry blueberry and something else just magically made into something you that shocked you?

Brandon McCraney: Yeah, we I guess I can give you two examples. one we had our batch eight of our small batch that you're trying there. ⁓ we used a a ⁓ wheated out of Colorado, like packaged the the blend around it. In this particular bourbon on the nose had a strawberry bubblegum note and on the palate the same as well. And I went, This is really interesting. It doesn't taste like Any bourbon that you've ever tried before, but this is this is cool. So I I released it and I was ready for the hate, you know, the Facebook just bourbon group, just ⁓ And surprisingly, that did not happen. surprisingly, here's what happened with the thing: I was giving you those notes on the nose of the palate, those tasting markers in the nose, it was undeniable. And so where this really impacted us was. That consumer or maybe the female looking to get into the in the bourbon, it's just very like, look at my collection and all this stuff. And they're they're timid to jump in or and they don't pick up on all these pretentious tasting that's we talk about. That one was so undeniable that ⁓ when we gave tours, generally it's it's mainly couples. So you've got someone's the whiskey head and the other one's, we'll get to hang out for an hour or two. but we got to the end of the tour. ⁓

Dan and Bob: Yeah. They're driving. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: We had a f we give them a flight and I would do a blind flight, and whoever was not the bourbon drinker, you I'd say, You're gonna tell me which one batch eight is. Like, you don't understand. I drink wine, I drink cocktails, I drink beer. That's isn't my thing. I said, You're gonna tell me. For six straight months, one hundred percent of the time they got it right. In doing that, it just it was really cool after that. They went, had this aha moment, and then the next hour that couple was talking about whiskey, which before they were just

Dan and Bob: Crazy. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: Death scroll like, yeah, ⁓ yeah, spicy, sure, you know. So that one was a pleasant surprise just being able to bring in folks that that perhaps ⁓ then the other one was ⁓ we talked about a coffee cask finish bourbon offline. my first attempt at training a staff to blend was the coffee cask finish bourbon. And they left, I had to I had to leave out of town, I said follow these instructions.

Dan and Bob: Yeah, it's great. Yeah. Gateway. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: And I came back two days later. And I walk in and one of the production workers goes, Hey sir, that cask finish is ready. And I said, A, you haven't worked here long enough to tell me anything. And B, why would you say that? He says, 'Cause we can smell it from the back of the production space. I went, You can smell. Smell what? He goes, smells like freshly brewed coffee up in here. And I went, Show me what you did. I went in there.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Brandon McCraney: And that team, our team, they skipped the most important step in the process, which ⁓ we apply some beans, but coffee beans are so strong that we know the exact bean count of a total barrel that we would need to give it a bounce. Well, they skipped right over that step and just dumped a whole bag in there. And so when I popped open the bat, it smelt like I walked into a Starbucks.

Dan and Bob: ⁓

Brandon McCraney: Guys, what did you do? And they you know. So I'm doing the calculations on how much extra bourbon I have to put in this cask to thin it out the way.

Dan and Bob: You need a whole other semi to show up.

Brandon McCraney: ⁓ my gosh. It worked out to like eighteen thousand dollars. Some something. And you know, I've got my production team back there. You ever seen like kids they're in trouble and they're kind of walking around to see what what kind of punishment you're gonna give ⁓ acting like they're cleaning up. Yeah, I got a little bit that. And I looked down, I'm like, I'm not doing this. I'm not putting in more bourbon. This is no. I was like, you know what I'm gonna do, guys? I went to the bar, I grabbed one of the bottles, I poured it in there, went to the bar, I set it down. And there were people at the bar that day, and I just told them the story because people asked me, Hey Brandon, do y'all ever do mess ups? I Yeah, yeah. One them was right here. I was like, this thing's called the coffee bomb. And our team destroyed it. They're like, let me tell you exactly what they did. So it was twelve and a half times what was needed they put to to make what they did. And ⁓ of the gentlemen at the bar goes, Well, can I give it a try? I said, ⁓ Go ahead. do nothing throwing out anyways. So he tries it.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Good luck, yeah.

Brandon McCraney: Loves it. Loves it more than the regular stuff because he likes black coffee. Person next to him, give me get a let me get a pour of that. Next to him, same thing. Three people said, I love this stuff. Can I buy a bottle? I went, Are you kidding me?

Dan and Bob: Hold on, I'll be right back.

Brandon McCraney: We sold three bottles then and word traveled that we made this thing called a coffee bomb. so we wound up bottling all of it. It was sixty one concentrated bottles, sold out in like a week and a half, all word of mouth, all right. ⁓ but total screw up. ⁓ and now every year folks expect Hey, when's the coffee bomb coming back? And I'm like, Yeah, I don't about that.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Yeah. So they I when we l we tried to learn from that lesson. Those are the ones that are awesome to me. This is this is the cool part when we we talked before. These are the cool things that I think are just awesome that you try and figure out and the mistakes end up working out sometimes. So that's awesome. So well, and I was gonna mention the so the one of the most important things he said was that the support of his wife. And she's very smart because she graduated from Ohio University. ⁓

Brandon McCraney: Yeah. Yeah, we even Yeah.

Dan and Bob: So it all comes back home. It all comes back home. So I have to get a sh give a shout out to OU. You know, that's a awesome.

Brandon McCraney: I love OU. I ⁓ I went there ⁓ we dated her last year when I was at NC State, she was at OU. But I actually met her. I had s I went with a group up there to visit another fraternity and just happened to be when y'all do the No, I didn't I came back from Halloween, but I I came in the spring when they fast forward clocks an hour, so they lose an hour in the bar and they start rioting in the streets. ⁓

Dan and Bob: Was it for Halloween? Okay. Nice. So what year? What year was that? Do you remember?

Brandon McCraney: And there are p I say what? ⁓ man, that had to be two thousand

Dan and Bob: Okay. So I was I was there from the s fall of ninety five until well I went a little long. the of ninety nine. Okay. And we had the very first time change riot. ⁓

Brandon McCraney: That was more. It it was nuts. They were flipping over cars. ⁓ there were police officers with horses and rubber bullets. And granted, I'm at a I'm at a keg party on the second floor looking down on the street like, why are they so mad? They're like, They lost an hour at the bar and I'm like, They're riding over an hour at the bar? It was crazy

Dan and Bob: Boom. Yeah. Yes. there's like twenty six bars in one square mile. That's Court Street. You look over I I I'm probably in one of those apartments at one time, looking over yeah and doing that. But ⁓ yeah, I remember being out on the very first one that happened, I wanna say it was ninety seven. yeah, i it would have been ninety seven, the first time change riot. And CNN was there and go into class the next The next day, Monday, I remember we had this professor that I loved, her name was Margene Stewart, and she was just so disappointed in us. You know, she's like everybody's grandma, but just the whole class just kept saying how disappointed she was in us because of CNN being there for the time change riot. But yeah, it was a good time. It's funny.

Brandon McCraney: Yeah. Great university. Love it.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Yeah. see it yeah, l these are sneaky good, like yeah. Even it. Yeah. Anything special coming out for Father's Day? I saw on the website that you're doing a Father's Day special where people come in and can choose bottles, but

Brandon McCraney: Yeah, well that was our toasted French oak. So I I've we've got five custom recipe or four custom recipes that we use for that. So on that day folks are gonna come in and they'll pick out what custom toast they like the best. We'll bottle it for ⁓ beyond that where we're really keeping, you know, things fresh. But we just released a five cask finished bourbon with our bottle club. So we got members all over the country to sign up for that. And basically it's if you want something rare and custom made just for you, I do that once a month. ⁓ ⁓

Dan and Bob: Awesome.

Brandon McCraney: We've got a Peach Liqueur coming out next month, which is gonna be Peach Liqueur Finish Burton. ⁓ So that one ⁓ is hitting pretty nice right now. ⁓

Dan and Bob: That's cool. Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. It's very cool. Now I did want to ask the bottle. Where did where did you find the bottle and or come up with that design?

Brandon McCraney: So I work with a team out of Napa, California, and the the vision behind that was, you know, I've thrown away thousands in my day. Why don't we create something that folks want to reconsider using as a decanter or gifting to someone? and that was the premise behind it. And so ⁓ I'll say outside of if you're looking to get in this industry, by the way, ⁓ one to suck away a lot of capital is if you want a custom bottle, because that's outside of bourbon, it's our most expensive procurement. 'cause have to buy it by the shipping container very costly.

Dan and Bob: They're beautiful. Like I I we were talking about it. It's somewhere between a birthday bourbon and a fancier version of an old Fitz decanter bottle. They're just beautiful. It's the labels too. I I'm impressed. Whoever th those guys are getting it right for you.

Brandon McCraney: I'll give him a plug at CF Napa. it it's pretty amazing to me. ⁓ I had a phone call yesterday, as a matter of fact. ⁓ a gentleman from New York, he loves our coffee cask, finished bourbon. His son gifted him a bottle and and sent it up to him. And so he's been ordering online from our website that that product. And I guess he's purchased like eight bottles. So he called me up and said, Hey, I don't have the heart to throw these bottles away. He goes,

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: If I sh if I UPSed them down to you, could y'all do something with it? I went, you wanna you wanna ship me down the bottles that you just bought from me just so I can do something with them? He goes, he goes, Yeah, I love your product, I love your brand. I just I don't I I can't throw these things away. Can you do something with them? And I went, Well, yeah, we can find something to do with them. But just the thought that somebody values what we created that much and even to ship them, even offer to ship them back.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Brandon McCraney: I mean, for me it's it's incredibly humming humbling and ⁓ I don't know, I just feel very blessed to be doing what we're doing every da

Dan and Bob: They're awesome. It's great. It's a great story. Yeah.

Brandon McCraney: Thank you.

Dan and Bob: Yeah, it's good. Good stuff, I tell ya. Yeah, that's really nice. Yeah. I think I'm I've become a much more I I think when I first got into bourbon, I was very much a traditionalist. You know, I wanted to find the old school bourbon, the the the the long heritage, and I've transitioned to finding just the right thing that I like, you know, with with the nice blends. This is fantastic. There's so many sneaky good things out there. This is this is the great way to find them. It's good. Yeah. That's good. So can you ship to? Which states can you ship to or can you ship to all fifty?

Brandon McCraney: we can ship to states that allow shipping. So I think there's around forty. ⁓ like I interestingly enough, we we can't ship in our own state. ⁓ North Carolina doesn't allow it, but the way you get around these crazy laws or to be compliant is you go on our website, you buy the bottle, our distributor is located up in DC. DC's law says, Yeah, we can pretty much ship to everybody that will allow it. So which is around, you know, some forty states, something like that.

Dan and Bob: Okay. That's what I thought. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Okay. And what what's your w I guess for everybody watching or listening, what's your what's your website?

Brandon McCraney: Websites ⁓ old Raleigh Distillery dot com, Instagram old Raleigh Distillery, Facebook Olde Raleigh Distillery, TikTok. and then if you wanna see I'm up to as a blender, I'm pretty active on that with Instagram, just Brandon McCraney, all one word. Happy to connect.

Dan and Bob: We'll make sure we link everything in the in the description. Yeah, in the in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. That's awesome. I appreciate you. Yeah, and talking through it. ⁓ we appreciate you being here and making the time for

Brandon McCraney: No, thank you for the time, gentlemen. Enjoy the conversation and ⁓ spreading the gospel in Olde Raleigh.

Dan and Bob: Yeah. bet. Thanks so much. Thanks.

Brandon McCraney: All right, cheers y'all. Thank you.

Dan and Bob: Cheers.