Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 90 - Misunderstood Whiskey

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

It's a Happy Lunar New Year with Misunderstood Whiskey and a Quick Bite with Ronny Chieng in the middle of his Hope You Get Rich Tour! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hey, it's our goal. Hey, it's time for Breaking Bread with Papa. Hey, don't you know? Hey, it's also a show. Hey. Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Breaking Bread with Tom Papa. I'm Tom Papa. Thank you so much for joining me for another wonderful episode.

We've got three great guests, two categories. One is the great Ronnie Chang. He is, we got a quick bite with Ronnie. because today is Chinese New Year, the Lunar New Year. And I wanted to see how he celebrated and what are the great treats that he had. So we got a good call with Ronnie. And I spoke to two Jersey guys who are the founders of misunderstood whiskey. They are so great.

I love, as you know, I love anybody that is really passionate about anything, especially when it's food or comedy related. And two great guys, it feels like the guys that I, the friends that I grew up with, and they just researched and got into making this ginger whiskey, and they've formed this company. It's misunderstood whiskey, and they're killing it. That's J.D. Rekobbs.

I'm sorry, J.D. We never talked about your last name. And Chris Baglisi. And two really great guys, and I can't wait to actually get back to Jersey. Jersey and have some with them. This is a great episode. It's really, I know the rest of the world is super cold right now. I've been touring and I go out and I taste it and then I come back. But it's the thing that I'm feeling right now is that we are getting out of the troubles. There's hope

coming ahead. And to talk to Ronnie with the Lunar New Year, he's such a great, funny, super funny guy and for him to be able to come in and just kind of import his knowledge on us, impart his knowledge on us is great. And then to have the whiskey brothers come on and I just feel like we're coming out of the troubles. Let's celebrate a little bit. Let's open up our minds. Let's open up our hearts and enjoy the hell out of it. And this is really going to be a good one. I hope you enjoy it. No sponsors. this week. The only sponsor is Tompapa.com. I'm touring all over the place. I was just telling my buddy, I'm going to Fargo, North Dakota soon. I'm going to Irvine this weekend. I've got four shows in

Irvine, California. I've got the Come to Papa Live in New York doing the Valentine special with my good friend Morgan James and Jim Gaffigan and Dave Hill and Mike Yard and Rachel Feinstein. That's next Tuesday, February 8th at the Comedy Cellar. And touring all over the place. So tompapa.com for all that love. All right, let's get right to it. We're going to start off with the Whiskey Brothers, misunderstood whiskey, and then we'll grab a quick bite with the great Ronnie Chang. All right. Well, thank you for being here. This is very exciting. I love any time that I can talk to people who are food and drink obsessed who also come from New Jersey. I feel like that last part. I don't know about that last part. It's totally. It's totally.

Totally sincere. I am from New Jersey. It's no joke. That is one of my, that is, that is, that is one of my loves. I love it. I'm very happy to be here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you both still in New Jersey? I know you've, you started in your whole thing in Jersey. Yeah. So I actually in an Asbury Park with my fiance, yeah. And Chris, although currently enjoying the sunshine out in Florida has moved to

Austin, Texas. Ah, no way. Yeah. All the cool kids are going to Austin. I was just there. Yeah, it's a very fun town. Yeah, it's a little bit, but it's a fun town for sure. Yeah, it just performed at the Paramount last weekend. That's a great, wow, it's a great, great spot.

Yeah, it's a really good spot. Wow. It's not your jersey, but it's okay. And you're part of the Asbury Asbury Park revival? Yeah, I guess so. I mean, honestly, I'm kind of renting right now, but we're going to find our way.

But yeah, it's been great. We moved earlier this year. And just being by the shore and Asbury has been awesome. We kind of started in, obviously, you know, in Jersey and then trickled down Asbury Park is one of our beta markets, quote, unquote. And people here are awesome. Yeah, yeah.

So how did the whole thing start? I mean, so you guys were pals for since you were kids? Yeah. Yeah. So we've known each other since elementary school, honestly. We grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. So Tom, where exactly did you grow up? We've got family in Clifton.

Oh, so we're neighbors. I have a nephews in Montclair right now. And yeah, Clifton was like where my grandparents were and my parents, you know, before they had us. And yeah, that's like our roots is all in that area. And then we move. I was raised up in Bergen County, of north of that. Yeah.

And then down a Long Beach Island. And that's, yeah, that's been our whole run. That's awesome. So, yes, we probably know the same places. I mean, we could do a whole podcast on, you know, Clifton, Montclair hits, you know, Holsteens. We could go through the sopranos and, you know, do the whole thing, right? Some guys driving in, in Illinois right now, like,

please don't do that. Like everyone else who's listening to this is like, just shut up and go on with the whiskey story. Tell us about the whiskey. But yeah, so we grew up in Montclair, literally 10 houses down from each other. We went to watching elementary school at Montclair.

We actually were student in the month together once, believe it or not. Tom, there's this infamous photo where we were fed just way too much as 10-year-old children. and we can share it with the afterwards, but we just, we're well fed, and you can tell by,

maybe they felt bad for us because the student of the month, but it was a pretty hysterical photo. Two little pudge balls. On top of it, Tom, my mom dressed me an all red that day with a turtleneck up to my, it was terrible, man.

Yeah. Mom's love a nice turtleneck. Unbelievable. And tuck your pants, and tuck your pants in with a belt. Exactly. She used to make me, homemade lunchables. That's how my child would have went because she refused to, you know,

feed me that crap. She sounds great. She's awesome. You could probably do another, another show with her. Yeah. But yeah, so we, we've just known each other forever. And, and obviously, you know, really became close. And, you know, a few years after college, you know, that's really when like the whole bourbon boom and kind of cocktail revival started. So we were trying not to be poor anymore as college kids and, and, you know, getting our first jobs. And so started getting a little bit of cash here and there with our first, you know, a few years out of school and started kind of getting into bourbon, starting to develop a passion for it and whiskey.

But the fun thing was, you know, our friends, our parents, not our, not our dads, but, you know, particularly our moms, you know, they weren't really sharing that same appreciation that we were for some of these craft distilleries, this craft bourbon movement. Right. They were. What were you drinking at the time? like when you guys first got into bourbon. So not making this up whatsoever because you're going to be like, when I tell you

how long it took us to figure out, you know, the end product, you're going to be like, you idiots. But we were definitely slinging bourbon and gingers. Right. Right. Yeah. So we were really good. I mean, I don't know, Chris.

Like I'm pretty sure that's what we were doing besides all after we got rid of the rum phase and the vodka red bull thing, right? Right. Vodka Red Bull was a phase I knew couldn't last. Yeah. Well, you'd be surprised you could start sending in these bars, at least in Jersey, the Jersey Shore, you know, it's still alive and well. It is. It's still going. It just never made sense to me. I know. And then along with Yeager, it's kind of wild. Good for them. But yeah, so we stood. But on top of that, we just really, you know, just kind of entry-level whiskeys we started getting into.

And then we started getting, you know, more and more high end. So, you know, you can start up with the bullets or the blend. or excuse me the Buffalo Trace and then you kind of graduate your way up to to the good stuff you know the blands or the eco rairs which you can't even find anymore but on that then there was you know 2999 on the shelf and you're good right but yeah um that's when we started kind of getting a real appreciation for it and we start seeing these other guys start popping up you know like widow jane and some of these other guys doing some some hudson some doing some really cool stuff but again we were bringing home these bottles of whiskey and to our buddies and our friends are big group because we all kind of grew up together and they're just kind of like spitting it out like this is

and we're like why like this is amazing stuff and but they would gravitate towards the flavor whiskey that would either be jam packed with sugar or like Chris likes to say right you leave the bar and your your feet are kind of sticking to the floor at the end of it but they were they were drinking this stuff and we just couldn't wrap our hands around like these guys are crafting this their entire life putting their entire life in this beautiful elixir liquid put in a bottle and you're just we just didn't really understand and we realized that the common thread was just like the finish of that whiskey just that whiskey finish just wasn't really applicable to a lot of other folks it might have been to us right millions of other people around the world but there's this huge group that just wasn't there

yet so we got to thinking how do we make this kind of fun applicable to a whole lot of their demographic and really bring new folks into the whiskey category without pissing off your bourbon drinker. Right, right. At, ha ha. Yeah, that's a good combination. No, that is, that is tricky. Because like when you were a kid and you first like even like just not even stealing from

your parents, but just smelling it around adults, you know, bourbon is like, whoa, what are you doing with that? Right. And then, and you know, vodka, you're like, okay, we should probably, we should probably try and get some of that because it's not making my hair curl. Right. And what are you mixing it with, right? You're mixing it with all this other stuff. And kind of with the vodka, you might be doing the same exact thing that's with a nutflare of whiskey, like dumping the sugar or dumping the juice or whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. So Chris and I were just kind of thinking here like, okay, there's this definitely this divide in the category and the market is in general. So is there room for us? And maybe we should just take a stab. Kind of like one of those moments where you're on the couch drinking your, like I said, your bourbon and ginger as you're like, oh, how cool would it be to start a whiskey company, you know? They can't tell you how many bourbon gingers we were into when we said we wanted to do it.

It could have been quite a few. Had you had any inkling of food and beverage? Was that anywhere in your world? Was it in school? Or was it just purely the love of? you were drinking at the time. No, sir, we just really, we didn't have any experience. I think, Chris, I think you were a busboy for two weeks.

Is that right? I put that on my resume and I was all you needed, you know? Yeah. Yeah, we had no, we had zip experience and, I mean, maybe if we did, it wouldn't have been such a roller coaster to launch the brand. I mean, we tell people it took four years to launch your brand, which is true. And you're in your early 20s. So you're figuring these things out, but you're also learning about a very complicated industry

in weird ways. It's regulatory-wise and stuff like that. And you're making booze. So maybe if we had a little more experience, I would have taken it. We would have launched two years earlier. But we were grateful for the experience and the learning experience we had that we felt pretty equipped when we launched. Yeah.

Four years actually sounds pretty quick, actually, from not knowing anything. to like getting a bottle it felt like 10th it felt like yeah yeah but i mean just we are also again being just such rookies and you know we were really passionate but i think that's kind of what even got us to to start uh and then people to start picking up us our calls after the 10th time of calling them because you know you got some you know jersey guys okay first of all we got that going for us right And we're calling around, you know, Kentucky, Indiana. And at that time, there's like, you know, seriously, like, you guys are really, because they don't want to take on a client or a partner or whatever that they don't think

necessarily is going to be able to get that reorder or doesn't have that experience. Yeah. But who are you calling it? Who are you trying to get on the phone? Like, what's the first step there? So we weren't going to distill ourselves. So we were looking for partners to help us source our juice. but also it had to be very particular because with our infusion and using real ingredients,

it was very particular. It's not like we can just go, oh, hey, like a lot of the guys do, let's get Mash Bill A, mash bill A, mash bill B, we'll wrap it together, we'll sprinkle our ginger recipe on there and call a day and we're going to pick it. It took a lot of refinement. And so we were calling pretty much every distillery that we've heard or were open to clients, you know, working with them on a custom, you know, product. Right. That's everywhere from Colorado, Indiana, right? Chris, what am I missing? Florida,

Kentucky? Um, yeah, there's probably 20 of them and sent a little mason jar homemade recipe. Right. And they said, hey, can you make this? Can you help us make this? Tom, those were good times, man. Like, those were awesome. Like, these guys thought we were nuts. Like, giving them a mason jar, they probably thought it was like, you know, whatever. It was awesome. So. So what do you bring to the table at that point? It's just, the idea and the passion, I would imagine. And persistence. Yeah.

Look, these guys were awesome at the end of the day. I just think they were just getting a lot of calls. And we just, it also for us, we kept on changing because we wanted to be perfect. And we tasted everybody on this. And before we even got to ginger, like we've tasted probably every mix known to like we, I'll tell you right now. And I always say this, avocado and whiskey don't mix, Tom. Don't ever do it.

Like it's just it's not shelf stable. It doesn't go well. It's awful. So don't ever do it, man. But we did like, you know, pears and mangoes and cherries and all these things. And, you know, we were even trying like the apples and honeies of the world. You know, that's already out. But we just wanted to understand. This was a, as Chris was saying, a learning curve, we just needed to understand, okay, you know, what a mash bill is. Let's go back to the basics of whiskey. Like, what is this wood? What are these char levels, what are these toast levels going to do to our whiskey? Right. What is that going to marry with this, this, whatever we want to put in there to make it

kind of mellow and different for folks. Right, right. And then again, the whole idea was to bridge that gap between those folks who were like shooting whatever sugary shot was at the time without naming any names. And then, you know, still the guys that, you know, were aligned with us as far as getting into, you know, the finer bourbons of the world, the finer whiskeys of the world. And where's that balance? Right, right. Again, without sacrificing quality for flavor. So we found that ginger finally, by the way, not to talk your air off, man. Chris was right. I don't shut out.

That's why you're here. That's why you're here. But there's more than one type of ginger, Tom. I don't know if you know that, man. There's like multiple, I'm sure you do, actually. There's like multiple species of ginger. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And types. And they source from all over the world and each one can be a little bit different. And so we're in Jersey, right? So we had this source like baby ginger from like New York State because that wasn't in this season down and like wherever we were looking. And so I think my mom still has frozen baby ginger from 10 to six years ago or

whatever it was like in her freezer. We were like we were looking for a younger ginger and it was in the dead winter. And we found this place who had it. They had it just left over from their harvest in the summer. And we only need it. Like, I'm talking about going to a grocery store and buying a little bit of ginger. And they're like, all right, man, what do you want? You want 25 or 50 pounds?

I'm like, 50 pounds. We just going to put in a mason jar. You know, so he, Jady's mom still in the freezer eight years ago. Now, I'll say, still has baby ginger sitting in the picture. So what were you doing when you get that ginger, that fresh ginger, and you're messing around and trying to figure out if this is good? it. Are you literally just mashing it up and mixing it in? Everything. We learned about what a quezine art was during that time. You know, we were mastering. We were cooking it down. We were boiling it down.

So we were kind of making, you know, reductions with it. We were also just putting the raw ginger in there. And it's very different. Again, not culinary trained at all. Right. Right. So, you know, to a chef listening, listening to this or even to Utah. Like, you're probably like, you idiots. Like, you could have cut, you know, all this time. But for us, you know, we were also having fun. Like, we would never take that. We were still working full-time jobs in the city.

So we'd be running home, you know, and just, you know, so excited to like, oh, we'll try this concoction. Like, that's a more. Yeah. That's what makes it great. That's really. That is what makes it great. It's like, yeah.

Yeah, there's a passion behind it. So how did you know that you had gotten the. right amount. And what was that? Like, what, was it a reduction? Was it a? Yeah. So we, we have our, we have our, our secret formula here, but it was, uh, it was a combination. It was basically a combination of like cold pressing the ginger and then also extracting some of those natural oils, um, from a couple species of ginger and then combining that into the whiskey. Now, you also know that when you juice ginger, it's super, super cloudy. So that was the other thing because this is where we are today.

It could have very easily looked like oat milk, right? So we had to another hurdle. But we ended up doing a combination of things to really just properly express that ginger. But really, the idea was not for when you enjoy misunderstood, to be like, oh, this is ginger all over the place. It was really just to have that nice subtle, fresh ginger feel at the end of when you're having this understood. And so there was a lot of moving parts if the folks listening, if you probably understand

by now, I'm sure we'd beat it with a dead horse. But, you know, that's kind of, that was what happened. So that's where we ended up. That is, it really, I mean, because just going from zero, to, or we're going to go do this. It's like every single step is, how do you get the bottle? How do you get the label? Who's the guy with the thing? How are we getting the ginger to the to the bourbon? How are we going to make this consistent? I mean, it's, it's a huge, huge. Consistency was key. And Tom, Chris can speak to because Chris actually does this. And I'm sure he doesn't,

he doesn't love to do this, but he's the best at doing it because we sure as hell don't want me doing it. But he actually manages all of our raw goods, our dry goods, everything to make sure that, you know, it's on time for production that we have, you know, enough juice in stock. And, you know, kind of does those operations. So, right, Chris, glass has been a lot of fun this year, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, everything's been fun. Yeah. But, yeah, glass has been interesting.

But, yeah, I mean, you know, we were just talking about the liquid here, right? And we haven't spoke about, you know, the brand and creating a brand, which is this is such a brand heavy market. Right. Yeah. One of the most competitive CPG industries in the world. And the brand had to match what's in the bottle like to us. And that was, you know, a parallel project with, you know, spending late nights and, you know, try not to burn down the kitchen. Yeah.

You have, you know, creating the brand on the other side too, which is. And there's probably one, like, presentation that he has on his laptop that has like 600 slides in it of just different concepts and ideas that we had that some will probably, we could look through it. It's almost like a scrapbook. Yeah. Cry laughing from some of the stuff that we dealt with, but eventually landed where we landed on. And, and what we had to. It's important, though. It really, I remember I did a, I did a corporate gig for one of the biggest liquor distributor.

in the world. It was in Vegas. And they did, what was it, InBe? Maybe not InBev. I forget who it was, but they handled like everything from, from 50 cents liquor to all these whiskeys. And it was makers mark. And I mean, there was just tons of stuff. And they would have this presentations, you know, before each brand. They would bring out the brand and they would talk to all their salespeople, thousands of people and the videos that they would show. And I mean, the backstory and the logo and the way the bottle looked, it was everyone was such its own thing. And honestly, some of it worked. Some of it would turn you on. Some of it you'd kind of laugh at. It was like, you could be dead in the water without even realizing that you just pick the wrong lettering.

100%. It's crazy. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. crazy like we we're not designers either we could probably do a whole other podcast just like you know what we're not um but uh so what we got here so far chef's not you know um but uh and and designers but honestly the design piece is is crucial uh you know we had a vision for what we wanted we knew what we wanted people to feel with misunderstood that we knew from day one right and then also and did you know the name no no no no That came later too. Very last.

Oh, very last. Yeah. Yeah. It was a big puzzle. It was a big puzzle that we're putting together. Right, right. So I'm sorry to interrupt. What was the thing that you wanted them to feel?

I think we just wanted people when they looked at our brand, when they drank our brand, when they enjoyed our brand. I think we just wanted people to relax and just kind of smile. I think if we put a smile on someone, face, we did our job. And there's multiple ways you can do that as a brand. Obviously, you know, if you enjoy our whiskey, hopefully you get a little smile on there. But with all of our branding, some of our videos and things, it was really kind of make people feel good because in our, respectfully, in our, you know, category, whiskey. I mean, there's history beyond, I mean,

whiskey is a big deal in the United States, let alone the world. Yeah. And we saw this constant, the same thing. And still kind of today. to be honest with you, although we enjoy pretty much every one of them to come out, it's the same side of branding. It's the same mission. It's the same this and that. Although it's a little tweak here and there. And although there's a lot of artists that are behind those barrels and that distillation process

and that blending process, we felt with our target consumer, that wasn't going to speak to them. Right. And so, again, our goal was to bring in a lot new folks to try something different. And try something different can be new to whiskey or, you know, very much so educated in the category. But just trying something new kind of having some fun. And I don't know, not being so pretentious was a big thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because that that market definitely did become a little bit of a handlebar mustache. Yeah. You know, a little of the snob appeal of we know, I know more about this than you do kind of a thing. which is a which just means that that that that segment of the market has grown it's become it's become big and and and it starts bringing in the people that really like digest it and stuff but it's a it's funny it during that movement it was like people i had two good friends who really got into bourbons and and whiskies and not single month so much and and they were they were drinking a lot of it and i was like this is still bourbon like this is This isn't like we're just like drinking like IPAs and you can have six of it. Like this is like still serious, serious stuff.

But if you can make it fun, if you can put a little, a little lightness to it, that that is refreshing for the category. Yeah. And so we knew that like the people we were kind of speaking to, I think wanted that. They didn't want to feel if they were trying this, they need to know everything right away. We wanted them to experiment. They wanted them to feel good about trying something new and it's okay if you don't know everything, you know, like just kind of welcome into this awesome whiskey world. And then when you try this, maybe you'll try another awesome brand.

And then maybe you'll graduate from there. And although we have one skew now, we do plan to expand. And, you know, we can, you know, potentially take that customer on this really fun journey of spirits in general, but mainly, you know, whiskey, kind of breaking it out of its bottle and just, I don't know, just having some fun. Hell. I mean, you know that. you make people laugh all the time,

like that's kind of like, no, it is. Yeah, that's a great mission. I mean, it's not a small thing, especially these days,

to give somebody that kind of like a little, a little cul-de-sac of, of joy where you can get out of the scrum. That's, that's totally, totally worth it. I mean, I looked up your,

your website when we were signing up to do it. And it does have that feeling. It's not, it's not a guy with a plaid shirt and big old dirty jeans with suspenders. God, I'm so happy I took my plaid shirt off today because I literally had a plaid shirt off before this. I'm not kidding. You know what I mean? Like those big old guys that look like like the bear jamboree.

Yeah, no, for sure. Like the moonshiner's, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we wanted to, I mean, everyone uses the word modernize. I don't know if that's exactly what we're doing. But anyway, we just wanted to kind of go back to the basics but have a little bit of a twist and still respect. you know, the history that has, you know, even got us into the, you know, the category, but kind of do our own twist on it. And, um, and the other thing too, Tom is like when we

launched like, you know, with this, which we didn't know what this was going to do. We knew we had something, but we weren't sure what the market was going to respond, you know, how the market was going to respond. And man, when I said the cocktail boom, wow, like this, uh, the product really is just so fun in, in cocktails. things and that was awesome to watch even for day one because again we never spent a day behind a bar so just learning from all these folks whether you had a mustache or not i mean these guys were it was really really cool to see what they were coming up with and again talking about having fun that was yeah that was awesome yeah is it hard getting it into places i know somebody a friend of mine

had a had a spirit and uh it was like literally on the ground showing up at bar as introducing them these guys to it and hoping that they'll carry it will they put it up on the shelf all that stuff that's uh is is that a is that a difficult thing to pull off it's very um the liquor industry is very antiquated in that way where it's a lot of door to door sales and um luckily for us we have a unique product that it that people seem to really like and it seems like it has a lot use behind the bar so it's pretty fun and um and i mean ginger's such a proponent behind them you think about how much ginger is used behind an average bar um so it's easier for us because you know we do have a unique product and we have some really good sales programs we've learned how to sell

the whiskey but it's very antiquated in certain ways man like you you do a lot of door-to-door sales i mean yes that's that's that's part of the game and uh you build relationships with these people. And sometimes those people leave those places and go to other places. And it's part of the game. It's like a big game of whackable. You know, right, right. But it's, um, did you have one? Did you have one like big one that you're like, holy shit, we got into whatever? Yeah. Oh, man. Um, yeah. Yeah. I can think of, I can think of one. It doesn't exist as it is today, but there was this big beer garden in New Jersey City. Um, That was our lighthouse account.

And I mean, we didn't know what to do with ourselves when it put us in a strawberry ginger lemonade and it was on tap. So it's like a draft. Oh, man. And I mean, I'm not lying to you when we tell you the first weekend, we were so focused on this account and they didn't order enough like strawberry puree from their distributor. And it was like fourth, it was right before Fourth of July weekend. And we're like, we're not letting this drink.

is being poured all weekend. JD and I go to shop right, the grocery across the street, buy all the lemon juices. I mean, like so many cases of strawberries, like Phil's the shopping cart. And we're back in their loading docks with a blender,

blending strawberries. Chris, you forget we had to go to Montclair to get the cuisine art. Yeah. So remember I talked about a quezine art? This is great. It's as we're coming full circle, like this was planned.

where we're not. I totally forgot. Go back to the poise dart. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I just never forget like all the bus should all this stuff up. I just never forget like all the bus boys looking at us and like we're sitting there like squeezing lemons and like blending strawberries.

And it's like they have like those loading carts like going around us and it's path that weekend. Yeah. But you know what? We saved the drink and we that drink was on. But that was our lighthouse account. Amazing. At that point in time. And yes, you do.

get those accounts that really get behind a brand. Yeah. That was one that was, yeah, we gave everything that we, it was a great partnership with them. That's so great. We also had like, it was Cecilia's like lemon juice, too. It wasn't like a, like a U.S. foods, like proper restaurant, like gallon of lemon juice. So we're here literally squeezing lemons. Like you're having a party in your house.

They even have big ones they sell. It was like the little guys. Yeah. No, yeah. I remember. I remember. I remember pulling up to shop right and I bought all of the Sicilia lemon juices. And this old lady next to me looked at me like I was, like looked like I was the devil.

Like I had a whole shopping cart. And she just wanted one and I felt like, I was like, here, take a couple. There you go. I cleaned house of the shopper. It was amazing. Those are memories that you just, you never forget when you know. No, no, of course not. So when this whole, when the troubles hit.

and the food industry is, you know, you mentioned a little bit about dealing with the glass and stuff. Yeah. Was it, was it really just the supply of the ingredients that has been the challenge for you guys? Or did you feel the impact of people not serving as much? I mean, because I guess two sides of it. One was people weren't going out as much and showing up at the bars and stuff, but people were buying a lot of nicer alcohols to have at home. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yep. They were also buying a lot of, they were also buying that. We saw, you know, just in general, we saw a spike in value brands, value wines, things like that. And then yes, we, they were buying more premium. For us, you know, Tom, we were very, we feel very lucky. I mean, we worked hard. But, you know, in that time, you know, Chris did a great job, you know, kind of we invested in some of those, those dry goods early on. And we, we were. And we, we invested in some of those dry goods early on. And we. we're able to kind of carry us over, which for us and we're not a big company, so that was a big deal to do that. But we also launching this brand, unless you have, you know, a lot of cash to start off, you know, tastings are a big deal. Hitting the ground and educating people on the brand.

And we do extremely well. Once it's liquid ellips for us is kind of like a no-brainer. We have a lot of fun introducing new folks to the whiskey. Yeah, right, right. So before the pandemic really got, like, really got heated up and, you know, talking like 20-20 here, 2019, 2018, Chris and I, well, just say date nights were on Tuesdays, because Thursdays, Fridays, Saturday, Sundays was just a liquor store after a liquor store for liquor store. And that was okay.

And we're thankful that we did that. I think what we do, Chris, over 500 tastings or something like that. Wow. Yeah, so in New Jersey itself, just in 2019, we did, we did 300 tastings. And so you think, just think about, so average, you're sampling 50 people per taste. And this is a team of four times. So, Jaydie says, date nights are off. Day nights are off, man.

You know, unless you're going to meet us in aisle 15, you know, shop right. That's it. But we did 300 tastings in 2019, a little bit less than 2018. But if you're thinking about 50 people per tasting, like that's 15,000 people just to and liquor store tastings that we sampled in New Jersey and 2019. So it saved us from, because this is a discovery brand. So you kind of have a double-edged sword when you're a,

when you're a unique brand because, yes, once you sample people, they're like, there's nothing like this out there. You're great. But also there's a tad bit of shelf reluctancy where it's like, oh, it's a ginger infused with, I want to try that before I buy that, you know?

And that's, it's a, It's not an issue. It's part of the world. Introduction, yeah. But we were lucky enough to really kind of sink our teeth into the markets that we were in and it helped this in 2020 for sure. Right. Oh, that's great. And the commerce piece, of course, too. You know, we kind of pivoted to that as well.

We couldn't really be face to face to folks. And then that's kind of when like some of the creative videos. And we started having a little bit of fun to get a little bit of eyeballs. Tom, you haven't seen it. I'll send you this video. We did. It was called the misunderstood cleanse for January because January is typically a little slow. Right. You know, making that, that green drink better with ginger, Tom.

That's what we did. And a buddy of ours had a gym and we kind of did the whole, that's great. You know, a little introduction. I'll set it too. You'll get a kick. I think you'll appreciate it. Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

Dry January, I think, went out the window as soon as Omicron hit. Everyone was like, all right, screw it. For sure. Talk to me next year. Yeah, I was just on the phone with Chris, you know, right before the call. I said, I don't think we've ever been so busy in January. I think everyone's just ready for, you know, the majority of the country to heat up a little bit, get ready to spring and summer.

And they're planning right now. Yeah, no, I believe it. All right. So what is, so you went through this whole process and, oh, I'll ask that question after. So how does the name, how did you get the name? Where did the name come from? What does it mean? Yeah, so it was a long process, man.

We actually went through a few names beforehand and they just didn't pan out. But misunderstood. Really, our whole mission was to kind of, again, welcome new folks in the whiskey category. We felt that flavored whiskey in general, we needed to change that kind of perception. So that's what we wanted kind of hammer home with this product. And just changed people's perceptions about. flavored whiskey, yeah, but also kind of whiskey in general. And so we feel that whiskey can be misunderstood, especially if you're talking to a

purist and like, what the heck are you doing to the whiskey? Right. And then they try it and they kind of understand. Same thing with, you know, a rookie going in there. They have this perception about whiskey. We're here to change that as well. So kind of speaks to our whole mission, if you will. And then, of course, we have a lot of fun, you know, again, tasting.

I can't tell you how many. I could tell you everything, every response that we get like, oh, did you know, that I'm misunderstood, you know, or like, hey, you could reach out to that singer who sings misunderstood, you know, and they start singing after their third sample. Right. But that's kind of the origin of the name. Nice. And also, as Jay, like Jay said, the fun with the branding. So just get there. People laugh.

They can people smile. It's not so serious. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It should be fun.

have great memories. Yeah, yeah. That's a big thing for us, too. Is it a, how do you recommend you drink it? Straight up. So, it'll be here all night. It will be here all night. How much sound?

Yeah. Your personal, your personal preference. I love misunderstood on the rocks with a fresh lemon peel. That's probably just without anything else, if you put it on the rocks, because it, you know, with any spirit, but specifically, leap of whiskey, you add just a little water. Most distillers and blenders would recommend that it really actually opens up the spirit and you just get just like flavor bomb of whatever that, you know, whatever the grain is or whatever, really that whiskey was sitting in at the time.

So that's why the importance of some of these, you know, multiple cask finishes or whatever, really just opens up that flavor profile, reduces the alcohol a little bit and really allows that spirit to shine. So it's very similar, you know, you really get some of that, that, that, that younger ginger, that more floral ginger, it's kind of like perfumy, if you will. Lemon just really complements it. It's probably my go-to, but in the summer if we're working, man, and we're drinking at the same time, yeah, we're always drinking on the job, by the way, Tom, it's great. Not a bad job.

We call it stood in soda. So just little soda water, little lime juice. It's like a boozy ginger ale. It's super crisp and refreshing. Nice. And, yeah, but I don't know, Chris, I know you're a big student soda fan dude, but Stud and soda is definitely, it's, it's too easy to drink. Yeah.

It's a good, it's a great one. Yeah. And it's cool, because it's, you know, you don't, whiskey with soda water sometimes, it's, it's kind of a, it's definitely acquired taste for sure. Yeah. But this just tastes like a light ginger ale without all the sugar. I also like classic cocktails with it. So your old fash and your metast and your metast and it's sort of delicious with it.

Right. I love kind of sillens as a cocktail, so that's a really good thing too. Right. And then you can just dive into a very deep hole of all the cocktails you can do with it, but I'll leave it with a couple of plastics there that are really. Is there something to when the purest say when like with even getting more to like a single malt scotch and things like that where they think if you put any ice or any water in it, it's like, you're like a sissy.

Yeah, sometimes. Is there something to not. putting stuff into it into those. I know this is outside of out of your bottle, but no. We'll talk about whiskey all day and that's how we started. We just have a passion for it. I could do this all day. Yeah, I think, you know, sometimes, you know, cast strength is becoming a big thing too. It's just you're getting the full approach of that whiskey. You're getting the full family there. You're getting all those beautiful notes that's in that barrel. Uh-huh. That whiskey and it's just coming together. Um, and that's super, again, there's no, I don't

think there's a right way and at least this is our positioning like you drink it how you like to drink it man sure i mean guys who are the leads at sazirac and start pap and van winkle these they'll tell you the same thing i mean it's like you drink it how you want to drink it it's whiskey i mean at the end of the day we're all getting rid of it the same way so like you kind of just enjoy it and take your own approach to it right so the guys that love the you know the single malts or the scotches or whatever. To be honest, like, I'm not, Chris actually is a bigger scotch guy than I am. He likes the Lefroigs and the smoke bombs and things like that. For me, I'm a little bit on the lighter side. But, you know, I think it's just kind of how you want to approach. I think now a lot of the blenders,

at least that I've read and had the pleasure of talking to, they do encourage you to just maybe even a couple dashes of water just to open it up a bit. And that's what we've been seeing, at least on the on the American whiskey side. Right. Right. Yeah. Tom, as he was saying, it's, you know, the whiskey's getting stronger and stronger and stronger. So there's more barrel-proof stuff that's coming that's not coming to any water to begin with.

It's almost like you're proofing the whiskey yourself, right? I mean, if you think about it that way. I mean, I drink very strong stuff and J.D. and I will sit there sometimes an open of a bottle. I'm like, what's the proof on this? this is insane I give me water right now this is I cannot drink this yeah I mean

we have those moments as well and we're I mean anything we're like anything but what about you Tom are you what are you into man um yeah I in this whole area I really like

a lagavulin okay yeah I really yeah I really like I like that very smoky peaty peaty uh piti thing and but I don't drink

it that often. It's usually like an end of the night kind of a thing. It's not like what I. And then my, um, I do this radio show with Fortune themester and she, she comes from the South and she really loves the bourbons. So we were, uh, we were starting to make old fashions when we were hanging out and stuff. And we got into, um, what's the angels envy? Yeah. Yeah. She was, that's like her favorite. And, uh, and when I did that event, like I have a whole bunch of it that got sent to my house. And I don't like, I don't, the whiskeys and stuff, I don't drink straight that often, you know, and the bourbons, like I do the single malt.

Like, I will make something out of it. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I'm into all of it. I love, I really like drinking. I love it. I love it.

The misused of old fashion is delicious. So, whenever. Yeah. That's great. So how many bottles, how many bottles you crank out a year? we produced we're on track to produce 25,000 cases this year. So, yeah, so 150,000 bottles this year. Wow.

But that's not including. We're also coming finally, which worth two years too late to this, not late, but we should have done two years ago. 50 M.L. Little bottles, too. So we're going to start that stuff out. And that's a drive trial. So that's a business strategy. to get it on the registers and stuff like that. Right.

So, yeah. Oh, that's great. We're not too proud to be in a mini, Tom. No, how great would it be to be on a flight and have the little misunderstood bottles presented by your flight attendant? I know. Anybody had JetBlue? One time when my just jogged a memory, when my daughter was teething and we were on JetBlue,

she was screaming from L.A. to New York the whole way. just so miserable and so much pain that they literally gave her little Jack Daniels bottles. That's what my dad did. I just have pictures in my mind of her with two little bottles of Jack Daniels screaming and crying and waving them in the air. He used to rub it on my gums. Yeah, it worked. When I was teething.

Yeah, and he still does. It's really awkward. Well, you know, you're a close family. Come on, dad. Like, we don't, you know. Sorry, this little, little humor. I love it. thank you so much for spending some time. It really is such a great story. And hopefully when we'll

cross paths in New Jersey, if somebody comes back from Austin once in a while and we'll have a drink together. I'm here, Tom. So like, count me in, man. Would love to take you out. That'd be a lot of fun. Great. All right. Cool. Continues success. Thank you, sir. All right, guys. Take it a good one, man. Ronnie. Mr. Papa. How are you? I'm okay. Good to hear from you. Yeah, it's nice to hear from you too. Thanks for coming on. I was very excited.

First of all, I want to say congratulations on your tour. It looks like you're having a great time and really killing it on the road right now. Thank you. Yeah, I think lucky people are coming out to the shows, and I think I hope I'm delivering to them. It feels like I'm delivering to them, so hopefully they come back again. And I feel like I'm getting a lot of first-time, comedy go with us too, which is...

Oh, really? Oh, that's cool. Yeah. What do you think that is? Why, as in, why do I think that way? Yeah, no, it was from the special or? Oh, yeah, I think from the special, I think that's also like, to be quite frank, I think, like Asian Americans or Asian people,

or even Asian people outside of America, there's not really a lot of kind of history of going to see an Asian stand-up comedian or even a live performing comedian of any type. So I think there's a lot of like, oh, what is this? You know, what we go see? Is he going to do the same stuff he did on Netflix? The doors open at 7. Does that mean he's going to be on at 7? You know, where is he?

Why aren't you on stage? It's 715. Why aren't you on stage? You know, and people. Yeah, yeah. And then you kind of do the show and then they kind of, oh, they kind of get it. Like, oh, okay. Right.

This is what it is. Yeah, yeah. It's always fun that way. Yeah, that's very cool. That's great. Well, it's awesome to see. I've just seeing the venues that you're playing and everything. It's really super cool.

And, you know, I love anything during the year where we're supposed to eat food and enjoy ourselves of any culture, I get very excited because it just gives me another reason to not stop eating. Sure. And I know we are right now entering the lunar new year. We've got New Year coming up on February 1st, but we're supposed to be eating coming up. So I wanted to tap your brain and see what the history was in your family and tell me what I should be eating. Oh, yeah.

Man, where did I begin? I mean, the whole thing kind of begins and ends with food, as I think most holidays kind of do, most of the fun ones anyway. I think the leader, up is you want to get some snacks that are traditionally kind of, you put them out for people who visit your home. So during the New Year, you're supposed to go visit your elders, elder family members. So when you go to their homes, they will have like a spread of kind of pastries and confectionaries. Like it's this really nice pineapple tart that I think

you should try if you get a chance. Pineapple cart? Yeah, go Chinatown, go ask for the pineapple time. They're like, they look, they're small, each, it's small serving size. So it's not like a giant cart. It's not like a hand-sized tat. It's more like a, yeah, like a smaller than a recess pieces. And then, yeah, that's, I think that's a pretty original thing that I haven't seen, and you tell me, I mean, I don't think I've seen white people replicate that particular.

No, no. Yeah. No, not at all. That's actually a good thing. Maybe I roll in and just start buying all this stuff because it's not stuff I'm probably going to be able to make. Yeah, no, no, you don't want to make. This is, yeah, this is like, you need baking skills, you need raw ingredients, you know, there's no like ready-made makes. You have to kind of make it from scratch.

Yeah, just go buy. And there's some famous one, you know, there's some famous brand. So I think number one, the kind of lead up to this. Lunar New Year is pineapple tarts and there's some other stuff, but I think pineapple tarts is a good kind of get-way. Right. And it was, and it's, you basically celebrate for a good week leading up to the actual New Year, right? Yeah. So, I mean, the, the super traditional, like, back in the olden days, you go for like a month.

But in my lifetime, I've never, we've never gone for a month. gone for like a weekend at most even a weekend is like kind of long you know usually we can't make it we reduce it down to one day but uh yeah so you know you have plenty of time to go visit all your extended relatives you know because family is very important in our confusion um confusion kind of culture but uh in modern times we can't really spend a month you know doing this stuff anymore so we just kind of make it like it's almost like Thanksgiving where uh the first the first day of lunar New Year and the night time is traditionally the that kind of it's the it's called a reunion dinner so everyone kind of shows up

usually for all these reasons you'll be at the grandparents house and everyone shows up and then you just like Thanksgiving you have to brave traffic jams and overpriced flights and tickets and you know it's just a logistical nightmare right everyone to just squeeze into this you know everyone's trying to get somewhere on that day is so annoying It's so funny that all of like all of like of like of course the cultures are so different but the all the aggravations are exactly the same. Yeah and it's, you know, you're fighting to get to this thing and and for me I'm like, man, you know, if we just, if we staggered this, oh, we all have a good time.

You know, you do trying to do this day, I'll just try to do it tomorrow, you do it, you know, we staggered it, oh, it'll be perfect, but we all got, you know, seven billion, whatever, we all have to, like, you know, get our cars and drive. And it's always like, you know, that you live in the north and then you're trying to get to the south, and then you live in the south and try to get a north. Of course. And then you finally get there, and, you know, there's a lot of, oh, and then the other tradition during China's New Year is like you, you kind of buy new clothing and you have

to cut your hair before the New Year. You can't cut your hair during the New Year. So it's like Oh right, right Yeah And there's something like With sweeping out the bad luck Oh yeah

Yeah you don't There's lots of little superstitions Like you're not supposed to like sweep your house During the New Year Because you're sweeping away the good fortune So you just have to like sit in your filth For like It makes nothing makes sense

And then And then Which is way more lucky right It's very more lucky to just be gross We all know that Yeah you'll be you'll be You really won the lottery sitting in your filth. And then you, so you go visit your grandpa's house and you're wearing, you know, your nicest,

it's like you're wearing your Sunday best, right, your new clothes for the year. You just cut your hair. And then you meet up with relatives. And then, you know, depending on your family, traditionally, there's a lot of, like, gamble. You play cards or something. Depending on how strict your family is, right? So the gambling will happen regardless by, like, the question is whether your parents are the kind of parents were like, all right, we'll make an exception.

Right. I'm like, yeah, we'll let our kids kind of gamble with like, you know, a 10 cents on 20 cents. Or are your parents like my parents where they're like, we don't condone this at all. You're not, you know, you're not going anywhere near this gambling. And get this uncle out of. Stay away from my uncle.

Right. In fact, they don't, I didn't realize when I was a kid. They don't like you even watching because, like, I didn't understand, but it was like, oh, of course, you know, when you're playing poker and like your freaking nephew is behind you. You don't want him to give away what the hell is going on. So they'll always be so angry with us

and we would not understand why we couldn't just watch. You know what I mean? Right, right. That's funny. And then what do you eat? What do you eat when you're there? Oh yeah, that wasn't even the food part. So then, yeah, you get the reunion dinner.

And honestly, it kind of like, man, it can, it really depends. Like, we get wrong here. like usually roast pork is like a go-to for like Chinese celebrations but I don't even think that's mandatory I don't know whether we kind of lost the traditions right I'm sure someone will come and tell me like traditionally eat this and this but I'm just saying like it wasn't like that was like a turkey go-to you know I mean like right so we would do like steamfish you probably have like braids obviously everyone would get rice maybe roast dog

but it's all the kind of celebratory foods I would say like all the big highlights I read something in the New York Times because I'm you know I wish what you should cook and as they're coming up into the Lunar New Year they were talking about longevity noodles if you ever

Oh yeah and then there's these yeah okay so I guess you could yeah you could do that too yeah like and then like I get black sauce noodles Yeah, black sauce noodles and they're never cut or broken by the cook and if they can be eaten without biting through the... You're choking hazard. You have to do this, you have to swallow these noodles whole. That's literally like, hey, try to swallow this thing whole and you can live a long time.

And you're like, I'm pretty sure that's the opposite of what's going to happen. We should chew it really well and get as small as you can before you. Yeah, and we would tell kids this, you know. So five, six-year-old kids are like trying to swathing. swallow entire noodle strands without breaking them. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. That's a sign of the long line.

Yeah. You can survive that. You'll probably survive anything. Right. You can survive the holidays that your family's house. And that's cross-cultural, too. Right. I guess we call that,

anyway, Malaysia we call those like, different names or same stuff. Right, right. Yeah. What is your favorite? What is your favorite? it's for the holidays. Is there one kind of a...

Yeah, I guess it would be roast duck is underrated. Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be my goat too. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, you just eat it

with just rice and like a nice, like honey glaze sauce. Ooh, nice. Yeah. I know. Duck is definitely underrated. I was actually reading about like an old recipe. One was like into researching and how duck was such a dominant thing at one point.

And then it kind of falls up. But it also kind of, it's like goose and duck. And it almost makes it more special during the holidays. Yeah, I guess it's a unique, it's a more unique dish. But it is, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, how do Americans eat duck usually? It's almost like French style, right? Yeah, right, right.

Like duck breast. Yeah. And it's kind of a little bit, I don't want to say undercooked, but they definitely eat duck on the pinker side. Right. French people will kind of eat a bit pinker, but I think a good roast duck, I mean, man, it's crazy. I mean, there's a reason the Peking duck became like one of the go-to dishes, you know, like associated with Chinese culture because those guys mastered it. Right, yeah, exactly.

That makes perfect sense. Yeah, and I was lucky to actually eat Beijing. Like, I think at the one of the restaurants that claims to have kind of developed it, like invented it. Yeah, and it was really good. Oh, amazing. This is a big year. So then also the Olympics. Oh, yeah, I completely forgot about that.

Yeah, I know. Everybody's forgotten about the Olympics. Yeah, I mean, geez, that was a top. I think the Olympics, the, didn't, the Tokyo have an Olympics? Was it a winter Olympics? I think it was summer. Yeah, I think that was summer. Yeah, we can't remember.

And that was like, guys, don't, it's fine. You know, they were like, no, no, we have to do it. And we're like, no, no, it's fine. You don't have to do it. Right, exactly. We could take it some time off. Have you noticed that over the last 10 years, maybe, like, since Atlanta, 96, and I might even go as far as I'll give you 2000, Sydney Olympics, 2000.

But after that, okay, maybe I'll give you 2004, Athens. But after that, okay, actually 2008 in China, they really wanted it. But after 2008, I feel like there's been this like, we don't want it. We don't want it. The cities have been rebelling. I mean, have you felt that? Yeah, they kind of like second guess it. Well, it always is, every single time, it's the same story.

They're not going to be ready. They're going to be bankrupt. It's going to be a big problem. We don't know if they're going to make it. And then it always, they always pull it off, and the city ends up making a bunch of money. But I think the funniest thing was like, I think Boston was in the running with someone else. I can remember for the next, like, in the next two Olympics or something, like, two Olympics away. And Boston was like, we don't want it.

And Los Angeles was like, we don't want it. And then, you know, obviously the committee is organizing. I'm just saying, I think American cities are like, we don't want the Olympics. I know. I felt this thing, the last 10 years, I've definitely felt this American, like, we don't have it. Unless you're going to have it in like, you know, like Arizona or like somewhere that's a bit less like where it's not a nightmare to get around anyway, you know. I know. Like the idea of throwing an Olympics on top of Los Angeles.

That doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm down. I'm down for that. I'm down for a lot having Olympics in the city. Yeah, it's so funny. All right.

So I'm going to grab some pineapple parts. Yes. Roast duck. Maybe some longevity noodles. Yes. Let me try. What dessert? I need to get a good dessert, too.

Okay, well, try this. This is dark and pineapple tarts, not that adventurous in a good way. You know what I mean? These are nice, solid choices that everybody will like. So for dessert, I'd just recommend, maybe try something a little different, something a little outside your palate. I think Western Palace don't really like the chewiness of Asian desserts sometimes. This is really strong divide.

When things get chewy, it doesn't matter what it tastes like. If it's chewy, like, Western people don't, like, they reject that dessert. So my olive branch out is like, just try this one thing. It's kind of chewy, but it's sweet and delicious. It's a little gingery in a nice way. It's gingery sweet. it's called in Chinese

it's called Tong Yun and it just means like it's like sweet gluttonous balls it's like a ball it's a ball in the soup

of like almost pure sugar right so Americans will love it there's like ginger in it and then in the ball you can choose the filling so sometimes it's sesame sometimes it's red bean

sometimes there's no filling at all and just go go get some glutinous rice balls okay and it means it means long life as well it's got a lot of good connotations

But really just try it. Just be the first, you know, American on your block to try it. All right, I'll do it. Yeah, someone's got to do it. Someone's got to. Ronnie, continue luck on the tour. Thank you for making some time and checking in. We've got to get together soon.

I miss seeing you. Please, thanks so much. Thanks for trying to try some good Chinese food. All right, man. I'll see you soon. See, Tom. All right, everybody. That's the big show.

I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you go out there and get some good Chinese delicacies. I hope you get some good whiskey and enjoy your lives. We'll see you next week.