Patrick and the People - Tasting Mead w/ Tony Fry of Arkansas Meadery!

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Tony Fry of Arkansas Meadery visits the studio for a mead tasting with Patrick and the People! From flavors like Arkansas Elder to Hawg's Blood, we try them all including a new mead in the flavor of rootbeer! #mead #meadery #arkansasmeadery #meadtasting #alcohol #patrickandthepeople

What is going on everybody? I'm so excited right now. We've got the Arkansas Meatery here and if you don't know about them, man, you should know about them. We're going to learn about them today. We're going to try some of the beverages. This is really exciting. This is Tony. He is the owner, operator of the Arkansas Meatery. Tell them a little bit about the Meatery. How much time do you got? I got plenty. Go ahead, man. Take your time. So my name is Tony Fry. I've been a long time beer brewer, wine maker, and of course a meat maker since like 2000. It's kind of a side hobby of mine. A lot of my friends have gone on and opened up their

own breweries, Stone's Throve for example. Yes And so our good friend Theron down there from Stone's Throve, you know him. And ultimately was part of the founding member of Central Arkansas Firm winners, which was the local nonprofit club for people to come in and learn about brewing beer, making wines, making meads. Supporting the industry and bringing people in to keep it going. Absolutely. And so kind of a founding member of it since 2003, just kind of a passion of mine and meat is one of those things, nine times out of 10 people think that I'm saying meat like steaks.

I literally thought I was here for meat. Are you telling me we're not here for me? Yeah. Well, um, so I have to make sure I'm pronouncing that correctly nine times out of ten because most people in Arkansas have no idea what what mead is. Well, you know, I'm probably one of those people, so educate me. Tell me about mead and what it is. It is the oldest fermented beverage of mankind. The thoughts were that there was probably a honeycomb in a tree back way before anybody had any alcoholic beverages or the word alcohol was even a thing yeah and it fell

probably from a barricade and it got some water in it and they went out and grabbed the honey and they drank this honey and of course you know what happened they liked it they that'd be my guess yeah they pretty much did like it from there they understood that it was actually fermented and there before after that became... So wait, I know that when you make beer or alcohol and it ferments, but honey ferments? Oh, absolutely. Like a fruit does? You put anything that got sugar in it, it'll ferment with the right type of yeast. Obviously wild yeast is in the air

and you can cultivate it and whatnot. But ultimately that's where mead came from. It's been all over the US. A lot of people think that Vikings invented the mead and they did not. They were just a participant in it, just like everyone in the world. So how does mead differ from any other type of, I mean, what, what is its

distinct profile in alcohol? Yeah. So, um, I get that a lot and I usually tell people that as a grape is to a wine that makes a winery honey is to a mead that makes a meadery. Um, it is, it depends. So meat is very flexible. It can mix with a lot of different fruits, spices. I mean, you name it.

I mean, I even have a root beer here today. Oh, okay. Wow. So, uh, it's very flexible, but, uh, ultimately it's if you ferment it all the way out to where there's no sugars in it, it's very comparable to black, a Chardonnay like a dry Chardonnay. Okay. So it's, it's comparable, uh, in absolutely. It's more than a beer family. Yeah I

mean it's a lot of people ask me if it's you know is it like a beer is it like a wine. It tends to be more of a wine because it is considered by the federal government by the TTB which is our regulations or wonderful government. They actually have a classification of it being a honey wine. Okay. So, my understanding of it is that you have a like 12% to 18% is what they consider a wine type. So, that's where why it would fit in that category, right? Correct. Yeah.

So, a traditional style meat is going to be anywhere from 12%. Ultimately, even my Buffalo River Float root beer that I'm gonna be putting out, it's a 7.2%. So it's like Sam Jackson beer, it'll get you drunk. Yeah, I mean it will get you there, but it is still considered a wine by the federal government because it's 7%. But a lot of people will consider it a, you know, a hydromel, because the word hydro meaning it has water in it. See, we're going all different. So how much is like a regular beer, like a Budweiser or something like four to five percent?

It's always a small difference in it. Well seven to twelve percent. He said is that right? Oh seven to twelve I just heard seven seven eighteen is usually the average Yeah, I mean you'll find there are some needs out there that are like five and six percent. They're very carbonated Yeah, we don't mess with that by How long do you control that by? How long you keep the fermentation in there right? You control it by how much honey you add to it. Okay all right well I got a little off track but a lot of the federal regulations are based on what the base base sugar of the beer is so like beer is from barley and grains and it's

considered malt beverage. Beer below like 5% is beer above that it's called malt beverage. Okay. Federally just federally red tape. So is that the only difference between a malt beverage and a beer is the name? Is the name yeah. Okay. It's the legal designation. So malt liquor is just beer with a higher percent. Yeah so I've always been shamed for malt liquor as You know the trashy as you should be yeah, but to that Anything that's fruit-based is a wine and then honey base is obviously meat. Okay, so they're there in the difference Okay, and there's then there's, like he was saying, the alcohol volumes, there's different designations

on what kind of wine, what kind of meat, you know. So barley, grains, beer, fruits, wine, honey, mead. Basically. Yeah, pretty much. That's a pretty, pretty, pretty succinct way to describe it. All right. So what we're going to do is you brought some different ones for us to try and because I've never had a meat in my life and I'm pretty stoked to try it out to be honest. Well it's kind of going

through in 2015 we purchased our eight acres in Saline County and that's where the meatery is located at. Okay. That was also the same year that Saline County went wet. Oh well that worked out well same year that Saline County went wet. Oh well that worked out well. Thank you Saline County for you know. Finally getting with the times. And I was sitting there twiddling my fingers and going yes this is going to be great. In fairness to Saline County they were the exclusive meth provider for many years so they had their own thing going they just opened it up a little more now. That is absolutely correct so now I'm there so

we're gonna take it even further. But ultimately right around 2016, obviously I started wanting to create the metery. So I got it LLC that was when it was founded. But my day job is not with the metery. It's actually working in IT. And so I started the TTB process and obviously about five, it took me about five years. The Meadery officially got all of its licenses from the TTB, the federal, the ABC. So it's kind of a process to do that. Process is a very, very good word for that.

Yeah, in other words, it's a bunch of bullshit you gotta go through, is that what you're telling me? I'm throwing my fair share of mead during the process. They're gonna be working for it, that's for sure. But you can make this at home like you can beer. Right? Oh, absolutely. And that's actually Being in the beer club at Centralix our firm mirrors and just talking to people I really and so these bottles that are here in front of you. Unfortunately, I had to I usually use flip top And all my flip top the carrier that has the glass So I'm waiting on those so

they're on my back order for like two or three months but being the reason I went to flip top is because I want people to make their own mead especially I tell people that making mead is the easiest thing to do but it's the hardest thing to master because there's so many different ways so many variables yeah I mean I would have to think not only percentages of what the ingredients are, but temperatures, time in, all of those different things, the aging types of honey. Man, when I would go to Theron's house,

like in my younger 20s, it looked like he had a- You went to Theron's house in your younger 20s? What? What? I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. He's the heir to Ben Fransbury. Oh, that's too many questions.

Before Patrick existed. Right? But his, you know, his house would look like he was running like a science laboratory with all the different, well, he's beer making. So I have to admit, I've actually tried my head at making mead. So I've actually got a couple of bottles that I've actually made for gallon. Where are they at? Well, well, it was a learning thing I've actually got two that's been sitting there for a year that I actually haven't pulled out. So they're just been sitting there

remaining with the J-Gun top or everywhere. It's it's called that supposed to keep the books out. Okay well, and that's one thing that a lot of people shy away from making meat is because They just think that they're doing it wrong meat doesn't it's not like a beer. It doesn't, you know, in food, three, four weeks, um, it's a lot more complex than that. So usually all the meats that I make at the meatery, no matter how good I am at making it, it still takes about six months to eight, six to eight months before a batch to be ready. Yeah, that's a long process.

It didn't take that long to ferment. It just takes that long to mature. Right. I'm thinking about the wines, at least you didn't have to put it in a cellar for 100 years. Like this has aged 100 years. I struggled with the clarity. I've noticed the clarity on yours are just, it's like really clear. You know, so where mine are a little bit darker, you know, the longer it sits, the clearer it gets from my understanding.

Right. That is correct. Yeah. All of a sudden it will fall out. There's some, there's some things you can add to it, you know, to clear it out. But I try to keep mine, I do have a filter through it, but ultimately, Tom is your best friend.

On yours, do you back sweeten them or? So I don't back sweeten. So we start off with one recipe that we ferment all the way out dry. then from there like we have our hogs blood It actually has muscadine Muscadine grapes added to it and that's where it gets it. No, you said it right the first time muscadine. You don't I did I like that one better Well, let me pause what's hogs blood is that another one of us could on or is that a flavor? No, it's actually one of our

It's up here. You'll try it. Okay, so it's actually our play on a Vikings blood. Oh Vikings drank a lot of mead and When they added tart cherries and some different things from their region Sometimes they'd had hops and tree bark. I mean you name it But I don't know't know crazy weren't they Vikings yeah they tried everything mm-hmm I drank a lot of me yeah a lot a lot of it takes a lot to conquer be surprised how many movies you've watched what they've talked about drinking meat and then pay attention to it like yeah Robin Robin firetruck that's the main meat yeah remember yeah so uh what I

had in telling you about the hogs bug, cause it's the longest descriptive me that I can probably tell you about is, uh, I'm a Razorback fan. So living in Arkansas, Arkansas, you know, kind of, um, you know, when on the play of it, it's a Razorback red color to use as part cherries, uh, the muscadine, which is a native grape to Arkansas. Cause I wanted to use something from, I didn't know that was native to here.

Is it? Wow. Okay. Yeah. And so on the bottle, which stinks, it just says grape on it because the federal government, as you know, they're, uh, they regulate everything and because it's not. Yeah. They take all the fun out of it.

Yeah, they do. And I'm like, well, so I really would have liked to have said musket on, um, however we want to say it musky muska. And, um, but, and then it also finishes with ginger because a lot of these meads I've made over and over and had a lot of people drink it such as yourselves and get tasting profiles on them. And you know I'm not a real big, I don't like a lot of sweet things. And a lot of people think that mead has to be sweet just because it's made with honey. And I will admit, um,

I've traveled the country drinking a lot of meads and probably 80% or more, all completely so sweet. They, they, they prepare more like a Riesling or something in that regard, a dessert type wine versus a more traditional dryer pallet beverage. Yeah. And I have that dryer pallet I don't I don't like to scrub my teeth You on that time. I'm like scrub my teeth out there drinking them like oh my gosh, that's too sweet Yeah, you know, but we'll get into it that way we can start off and you know, I went through it

I'm gonna I'll start us off with our traditional. So our traditional was the first me that I nailed and from everything on our traditional was the first mead that I nailed. And from everything on our traditional, everything is built off of that. Okay. It's kind of like Darren's regular beer. Yeah. Yeah. You take, you take the beer. Right. Regular beer. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I have regular mead for you, which is, it starts off with a pretty high, it's a 16%. Okay, great. So that's the way I'd like to start, yeah. Yeah, so it starts off at 16%, most of your meads, if you went and just picked one off the shelf, we're the first metering in this state, so there's only two of us here,

but if there's over a thousand meteries in the United States, so we were one of the last states to get the metery, which is a metery, that's why I was like, I've gotta open a metery because people don't know what it is. Right. Right. Why didn't until till now, you know, you're going to feel like it even more after today. I'm stoked about it actually. Well, so, uh, you know, the traditional, you know,

I just had to hammer it cause it is really the hardest to make. Um, because it is completely dry and it is a higher alcohol. There's nothing to cover it up. We use Wildflower Honey from Arkansas. Was a beekeeper for about eight years. You were a beekeeper? Mm-hmm. Well, that's fascinating by itself. Yeah, so, and that's, you know, in the mead world,

and going to clubs and stuff, if you're a beekeeper, that is pretty awesome, because guess what you have? Honey. Honey, yeah. And if you know how to ferment, guess what you're gonna do? make me I can't make me yeah that's kind of I was like okay everything started lining up Sling County those goes wet I've got the perfect facility to do it then beer brewing and wine making for a really long time enjoy doing it so yeah that's

that's where all came from but on But on the dry traditional, it's really good for mixes too. So on our ArkansasMeatery.com, if you want to visit our page, we have all of the liquor stores that you can get our meads at. We have recipes, we have mead making tips and guidelines for those that are kind of interested in it. Of course, all you have to do is Google it and it's just all over the place. Um, you'll get some bad advice and some good advice. Uh, that's like most things I think, uh, the first YouTube video that I ever

watched on me making, I think they added raisins and oranges to it. Wow. That sounds odd. And if you understand the reason behind it, it's like, okay, they just didn't have, they didn't know better. Whenever you're mead making, honey has a high sugar content, but it does not have a lot of nutrients in it. So therefore, when yeast is, whenever it's eating all the sugars, it's kind of like if I gave you a box of chocolate and you ate a lot of chocolate, eventually you're real excited, but eventually your body's just gonna, you know, it's, or drinking a lot of chocolate, eventually you're real excited but eventually your body's just gonna,

you know, it's or drinking a lot of caffeine or coffee. It's gonna be enough. You're gonna be like, oh this is not good and so that's kind of some neat things about that a lot of people don't know about mead versus like beer making and wine making is you do want to give it nutrients. And so there are, you can visit different beer stores or there's nutrients that you could put in it when you're making it. So people that have never made it before, that's one of the things that you can add to it. You can add yeast nutrients to help make it.

It used to take years. They used to say, oh, it takes me two years to make. Well, it does, but if you takes me two years to make. Yeah. Well it does But if you add yeast nutrients keeps the yeast healthy and then they can speed the process along the process up Yeah, so not getting off track, but I'm gonna let you guys talk and I'm gonna open up a bottle. All right All right. So so you've been Trying your hand at some meat for a little bit Yeah came across the YouTube channels. I was like, oh that looks fun

And then the problem is you buy a kit and you're like you see like 20 different flavors or mix or way to make it you're like That that and then obviously, you know, you spent like 200 bucks on stuff. You're like, okay now which one do I pick? I actually tried a Honey and I'm maple syrup. Mmm, and then I tried the blackberry and Mmm, and then I tried the blackberry and Then just regular honey by itself Interesting interesting. Okay. I made a made a blackberry mead myself about

20 years ago. Yeah when I first got into home brewing and It's still in my closet. It's still aging. It's still aging because yeah, it's it needs a little more time And we'll just say that. OK, it may never get open, is what you're saying. I open a bottle about once a year, have a little sip of like, no, it needs some more time. Was there even an estimated crack date? No, no, no.

Probably about the time I die and they're cleaning out my house. Like, what the hell is this? I'm going to pour it over your grave. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great That's a good idea. Let's cook with it No, I guess yeah. Yeah, I didn't think of that. Yeah, I mean it's it's it's finally gotten to the point where it's not terrible It's like the people with pot now. They want to cook with their pot too. We have a friend that has butter with pot in it Y'all try to cook with your drinks

butter with pot in it y'all try to cook with your drinks well yeah I could see that I could see how that would work and create a place and people go wine when they're playing or whatever it is sorry to make all the noise over here no it's alright they love it they like rackelstown well they don't end up the little safe I don't want you guys to match you know that's fine that's great when I go to liquor stores and I'm giving a sample, I have to start off with the small ones. Yeah. So everybody wants to drink more. So this right here is our flip top bottles for those that you can see it. Yeah, that's a cool bottle. We love these bottles. We've been using them for two years. So the Meadery has been in business since September think that year I saw a lot of four or five cases and I think last year we sold over 150 cases.

Wow. That's awesome. That's great. Yeah. Um, our big, uh, go-to believe it or not, even in Arkansas, uh, the Renaissance festival that's in hot Springs. It's funny because usually they'll run about 15,000 people for the Renaissance festival of two days and then, um, in in March March 1st and 2nd in hot springs they'll have

the Vikings Festival the Vikings Festival usually has about 5,000 people and they'll drink about just as much meat yeah well they're crazy they're they're Viking people they are they are crazy but this is our traditional I like to start off people if they've if they've never had meat before, I start them off with a traditional, I tell them it is going to have a bite to it. Because meat is not like a wine, a wine is a little bit kind of easier to drink.

It just, especially, but all wines kinda taste very similar. This right here is gonna be dry, it's gonna be the high 16%. So if anything, I tell people to remember that, uh, what this tastes like, because if you taste this and get it locked into your brain, then all needs may going forward, you'll be like, okay, I picked that up. Um, I picked that up. I know what we're, what we're in for. Um, and then from there, you know, a lot of our 12%, 14%

meads kind of vary in sweetness. It's gonna have a little bit of a kind of a hopefully you'll be able to pick up the the honey from it. Again we use a wild flower honey from Arkansas. We have a beekeeper that we get all of our honey from and we probably go through about 55 gallons of honey a month. Yeah, that one's spicy. Yeah. So that right there is kind of, the reason I bring this is because it's honey and water fermenting it all the way out. Yeah. And that's it. Now it's going to have a little bit of a bite. More like a base. It is very much. And so the neat thing, the reason why I wanted to go instead of just like a 14%,

I wanted to go with a 16% because number one, it's harder to make, and number two, it allows you to mix it. It allows you to mix it with a little. A lot of it. Mix it down and still have a good content. And I've had people mix this with ginger ale and feel like, ooh, that's one.

Yeah, it's spicy. Oh, I bet it would be good with ginger ale. That carbonation. Yeah, that's interesting. I like it. Yeah, so and then from there has a lot of the different varieties are We took the traditional after the first year, you know, obviously If you name the different fruits and spices that are out there You can obviously my list is like over a thousand long because you can mix can look very tall now you know on the metery scale back in home brewing you know we can do some pretty wild stuff but when you go to scale it to kind of commercial size then you're like I don't have that many

strawberries I mean that many blackberries so a lot of it becomes if you're using a lot of real fruit, it becomes more specialized as something you want to put in the bottle for to share. And so I have some pretty amazing stuff, but, um, on our line that we actually put out to liquor stores, I had to make sure that we could produce it in quantities. Right. Mass produce here. Yeah.

Um, but I was sitting there, um, what you'll find on the next one. Uh, and I'm actually in the midst of bottling a lot about 55 gallons of it which is actually smaller than I did last year I did a hundred fifty gallon limited release of our bourbon barrel aged mead okay so what I did is I took our traditional and I put it on a bourbon or in bourbon barrels I used used a Wilderness Trail barrel and then I also used some Brocktown distillery bourbon barrels. So if you've never done that as a beer, you know, obviously beer and wine, I kind of thought, well, mead really pairs good with anything you put it at. So

the next mead that you're going to try is our bourbon barrel aged and believe it or not, it actually grabs some of the bourbon out of the barrel and ups the percentage so it goes from a 16% to 18% So the barrel is so permeated and soaked with actual bourbon Yep, that it it flows into the meat. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I'm last year, you know Went on a tour and Kentucky and picked up a four roses barrel to the meat. Yeah, absolutely. Wow, yeah. Yeah, and last year, you know, went on a tour in Kentucky and picked up a Four Roses barrel, so. Oh wow.

I mean, filling that up, and so it'll, well, and the bourbon barrel that you'll be tasting is over a year old, so. Okay. That's traditional, I think I made it probably in 2023. So what you'll find is, is there's those releases that are about, you know, six months to a year and a half that are Old and obviously if they're in the liquor stores

They're gonna be set on the shelves for a little longer and really do want that right? Yeah to age out a little more even Well, we're better ration of burning barrel Wonder if that'd be good. It might be I would I would not recommend recommend aging alcohol in a burn barrel I see it in a rusty ash barrel. No, I mean there's somebody that would drink it, but I wouldn't reckon no one recommend it It's probably portified with iron Yeah, the people I know that make wine usually do it like what about in some kind of bread bag like a like a hostess You know what one of those breads then? You know break it up and their orange juice from the morning. Most of my friends. People from jail basically.

I was gonna say most of my friends. You talking about toilet. Toilet hooch. Toilet hooch. Well I don't know if I'd be wanting to drink any of that but I've heard some pretty interesting stories about people making stuff in bathtubs. They're pretty creative. I'm sure they've found a lot of unique flavor profiles. So on the bourbon barrel, what you'll notice is it'll taste very similar to the traditional, but it's going to have a little bit more of that bourbon. Who are bourbon drinkers? Well, I'm familiar with it.

Yeah. Familiar with some bourbon? Well, um, Jamie, you're tasting this one. Rumor has it I'm familiar with it. Yeah, I'm familiar with some bourbon well, um Give me your taste. Oh rumor has it. I'm not a lady When I drink bourbon, well, who's bringing the rumors? Oh No, no I'm gonna keep my mouth shut over here. Yeah. Oh, that's No, no one any of them early 20 stories coming back up. Where's your oh right here? Sorry?

My little queen be up there for us All right So that right there has been aged in bourbon barrels this one's been aged in there for a little over nine months So you're gonna be able to get Yeah, I can I can taste that difference. It doesn't smell as stout as that other one. That other one, you knew it was it was going by. It's pretty funny. So this one is a little bit a little bit sweeter.

It is. So when we put it in the urban barrel, definitely taste that bourbon. And oh, my. And so believe it or not, the bourbon barrels do pull down because of all the tannins and stuff It kind of kind of gives you that I don't know that mouth feel. Yeah, it does Yeah, that was one of the things they came across when I was looking They didn't and on if you didn't do certain berries you just did straight

You got to put and they had to get a little bit more of the richness from the honey. That was good That was really good. I like the first one too, but not my speed. But that's a good one. Well, this one comes out a little sweeter, a little smoother and a little stronger flavor profile versus an alcohol profile. Is that accurate? It's pretty light.

Well, this one, I think, you know, we actually had a little bit more honey on the front end and then we pulled it off right before it was completely done. So it would have a little bit more honey on the front end and then we pulled it off right before it was completely done so it would have a little bit sweeter. Okay. A little bit sweeter. You get the same alcohol but you a little bit we wanted a little bit sweeter. And that one's 18% he said? Yeah. I'm sure mead and it's alcohol so it's the same it's the same amount of alcohol that I've got. Exactly the same. But over time like these higher alcohol beers have or I'm gonna speak for beer. Anyway The higher alcohol beers and I have made some 16 17 percent beers

They have a lot and when you get that high the yeast produces a lot more of what's called a fusal alcohol And like when you drink that's what whiskey is basic Okay, or less when you drink you get the hot whiskey. Yeah they kind of, you feel it going to that. That's a fusal alcohol. Okay. And over time those will mellow out and those will calm down and become smoother. And you won't like, you can, you can tell that from this is it's, it's a lot smoother. Right. So it, but to the time it smooths that down, that bite a little bit. Well, that's also a reason that you bring up really good one that I wanted to go

to 16 because it just, you know, kind of balls you like that. Yeah, I got it. But the because it is harder and you'll get a lot of that useful. No, you can definitely smell potential domestic violence in it. Like I can. The next one I don't want to keep us, you know, keep us up. But the next one that we're going to try is our hogs blood. And now this one, you said had cherries in it that you use.

This one has, it has tart cherries. You know what I said? No, no, I didn't bring my hibiscus apple. Sorry. Maybe there's next time. Right? Yeah. Yeah. There'll be an extent. You have a hibiscus apple that, apple that that we have out in the stores as well And it has hibiscus and of course apple in it right that was actually our snob. This is a flower correct That is correct. Yeah, a cider like cider. Did you call it cider? No, no, I wouldn't call it cider because the siters are made from apples Okay. No, okay. No, here's the thing thing about

Meads is of course, there, if you mix it with different things, it changes its name. So technically if you mix Mead with apple juice and ferment it out, it's called a Sizer. Okay. So it changes names. Now I know the most famous cider, Dixon cider. Tell her familiar with that one. You've had it before, I guess.

I have. I told you I wouldn't tell stories unless I've had it. Oh yeah. You know people that have had it. That's correct. I mean I've never had it. You never tried it. I got you. I wasn't my favorite.

Yeah, now the profile is a little different. Yeah. I missed this apple we came out with. I actually made a couple different variations of it and someone was asking me for a sweeter mead and I'm like, okay. So it was actually our sweetest meat that it's still the sweetest that we have out. Not overly sweet. I can still drink it and not go, Ooh, that's too sweet.

Yeah. But it's, it's got that floral, like a hibiscus flower and the apple, I actually use apple juice. You were asking about sweeteners earlier I don't back sweeten with honey and a lot of people do not that I can't so if I was to make a sweet meat I can back sweeten I usually just try to start off with the amount of sugar on the front end because I wanted to go through that fermentation process and kind of keep it all level and even there yeah I mean

that's I mean that's one thing I was struggling with it was off you do have to get all the sugar out of it but then if it comes to dry then you backseat with buddy put honey in it or put a actually put sugar in it but the fermentation is can still keep going with real sugar so you have to do a big sugar if I don't get think of like Steve yeah yeah and that's it either unless you tell you kill the yeah there's there's different um there's of course obviously there's so many different chemicals that you can add even from a commercial level to stop fermentation process and actually it's very well encouraged especially

when you're dealing with bottles yeah especially in the wine world they'll always add sulfites to it to keep, um, fresh. It'll still keep building pressure. Yeah. Interesting story. I was driving one time to my brother's house in Austin and I had, this is back in the two thousands, late 2000, you know, still making wines and things. And I get about 30 minutes from his house. I'm like, wow, is there a bread factory around here somewhere wow that smells wonderful

I realized that I had a few bottles that blew up in the back of oh no And so you know they stayed in the refrigerator. They're in the refrigerator. They're fine, but you know on a seven-hour trip Yeah, it's banned 30 minutes. It almost made it there and It's not wonderful. Yeah Immediately had to go to a car wash and clean. Yeah, it was. But yeah, that's one of the things when you're home brewing and making vines is you have to watch out for bottle bombs.

You definitely don't want you to definitely keep in the closet. Yeah, they're considered there. So when they blow up, do they just crack or do they like explode like bus? Oh, they'll send shards of glass through drywall Wow Wow Yeah, it's it's completely you have to be responsible Oh if you're at home when you're making it your hair the first thing or home, you know Yeah, the first thing you're gonna learn there's kind of a couple different things

I'll keep everything clean how many people have died from exploding bottles in the home brewing? Meth labs still win. No, meth labs definitely win. Meth labs still win. I was just curious, is that something that happens? If it doesn't happen? I'm sure it does.

I mean, I- Probably more just accidents. Someone not paying attention. Not death. I've had a coworker of mine and, you know, obviously TikTok visit is gonna end or yes or no. But anyway, he says, you know, I found everythingck visit is it gonna end or yes or no, but anyway No, he says, you know

I found everything that I needed to know about making meat on tick tock and I'm like, I'm sure you have Yeah, and I was like, but don't forget and he's a co-worker of mine I say but don't forget I'm here to help and you know I was telling about airlocks and all these different things and he said I got all these different Liquor bottles that I want to I'm gonna put the meat in, whatever I get done with. Oh, awesome. If you have any questions, let me know, but be careful. Cause the one thing he was wanting to do

is just do the balloon. So a lot of people put a balloon over the, I'm like, no, spend the money, go get a $2 airlock. Yeah, that's what I recall. It's not that expensive. Well, in meat making, obviously he thought it was done fermenting after two two or three weeks and it was for the most part but down to that last 10%

he didn't know and so he bottled it all put it in these really really expensive nice liquor bottles that probably have bourbon or whiskey in them and he had like a 13 14 year old daughter that came home from school one day. Like a dad, uh, something happened in the kitchen. Apparently he had it up on top of his cab and it sent shards and it was the thick glass. Oh wow. So I thought it was done for me and I was, Nope. No, I didn't tell you that.

Did it? Yeah. So that was kind of one of those. I was like, all you had to do was ask me, I could have told you it was even though beer and usually beer is usually done after two or three weeks. It's the fun part of learning. You can still, if it doesn't, a lot of people don't know how to measure it, the sugars, is it done fermenting, how much residual sugars, there's some tools out there like hot draw. Do you still feed keep or not anymore. So the same year that I actually, you know, fought with the TTV to get the

licensing for the metery was the same year we had like a snow storm and birch. I remember that. And if you're a beekeeper, you know what that does to the bees. So the bees usually around February start building out their their new bees to come newbie But what happens is though the brood they'll go out there to the brood that are in the in the hive and they won't ball up So when they ball up like in the middle of winter like especially tomorrow night or coming when there's gonna be 15 degrees They ball up and they're able to stay warm and that's how they're

Able to survive a winter but in the when the spring comes through they actually go out to that brood where the Queen has laid The larva and they'll keep it warm and draw it out and make it a newbie Well, I think I had seven of eleven hives that I lost that year Oh, wow Yeah, and a lot of a lot of beekeepers lost a lot of hives that year, but if you lose a hive, you can't just leave the boxes around because the boxes will get mobs in them

and different things just completely destroy a hive. So you know, you have to spend the money either to repopulate it, which is about $150, if not more, to get what they call a nuke, a new box. You can order them. They sometimes come from Georgia, Alabama. And there are places around here that'll actually create their own new boxes. But at $150 for seven hives, I was like, well, I got to hang this up for right now.

I got a new box. Well, so ultimately, and there's beekeeper clubs here in Arkansas. And so, uh, you know, I'm very well friends with all of them. Um, Arkansas, there's an Arkansas honey festival that I go to and attend every year, um, that's at Bemis, uh, and yeah, Bemis bee farms, if you've ever heard of them, they're, uh, just on, they're own Asher, but they're south of Little Rock and they'll have a Arkansas honey festival and they bring people out let you taste the different types of honey They usually do some type of like a mead you need to you need a

Your means turned in because they usually will do like a $50 Whole prize for like humburs. Yes, I'll do a mead contest Well, so I always try to do stuff and I'll do it once and it might come out great Then the next time I'm like, I think I got it in like the crap rest of the time Just well, it was so much effort the first time so I just never We're really needing you to do is reach into your closet bring out that me that you said Yeah, that's an agent for about 20 years now that it's ready. I bet it's ready. Um, Yeah, it's been aging for about 20 years now. I bet it's ready.

I bet it's ready. So the next meat other than the hibiscus apple that we made was our hog's blood. Obviously, I was talking about the hog's blood earlier. It's a play on a viking's blood. It's made with tart cherries and it's made with muscadine, which is the native grape from art. So this one will be sweet. It's not gonna be terribly sweet, but it is going to, it's gonna be, I call it a-

Here, why don't you put, can I? You wanna upgrade? Yeah, you're just pissing my liver off. You wanna upgrade to the- You know, it's a hobby if you make it, but if you don't make it, then you're an alcoholic, whatever. I mean, people don't call y'all alcoholics, do they?

Maybe functioning alcoholics is a better term because we have to get up and go to work to drink more. Yeah, to afford to drink more. To drink more. I do have like, on the side of our bottles, like if it's a dry or medium or a sweet. Oh, you got a little sharp there to kind of get to. And you know for all the mead makers and winemakers this is 1.000 this is 1.010 1.020. So what did you say the percent on this one was?

Oh yeah I got it. We did 16 then we did 18. This one's 12 so this is gonna be a lot easier drinking. Did I get you? Yeah, you got me. And if I didn't get you enough, let me know. Oh, that's super smooth. Yeah, so it finishes with the ginger. So we kept making it, kept making it. You know now that you say that, I sense, I feel that ginger. I do taste that. Everybody likes to finish with the ginger. Hahaha. I went through them. Whatever, whatever preposition you want to use, I gotcha. So this one right here, that ginger has that finish.

So it is probably the most well balanced me that we've made. It's what I would call this is easy to drink. It is. I don't know. I feel like DV was that's the domestic violence one. The second one. That was pretty smooth. Urban Barrel. Yeah, I remember I was smooth. But I'm just saying this one doesn't second one. That was pretty smooth. Urban barrel.

No, I remember I was smooth, but I'm just saying this one doesn't have a lot of bite in it like the others. You know, you have more of an alcohol bite in the others. That was more akin to a spirit to me. Or if it is there, then this is one I wouldn't consider. So most of the Shardon name, most of the times on meads, I usually only were four or five ounces is what I'm normally drinking at because it's a higher alcohol Mm-hmm, but that one I mean I've known people to go through the bottle

in in less than you know 30 minutes, and I'm Wow this one Yeah, the bourbon barrel is probably our most famous at the Vikings Festival because it is our alcohol. Yeah, because it has that feel. You know, it has that spirit. You know it's real. This year in the fall we came out with our latest mead, which is Ozark elder. It's an elderberry mead.

And it, when we're making it in the meadery, it smells the best. Do the names refer to elderberries in Monty Python? Yeah. I thought so. I thought we were going geriatric. I don't know. I think of the lime.

Yeah, something along your father's. Yeah, it smells about right. Yeah, something like that. Something about a goat and elderberries, I don't remember exactly, but yeah. So the Ozark elder, um, believe it or not. Um, we were trying to come up with a name of it and, uh, chat GP did a wonderful job on this one.

Really? They did it. Well, we were, we were coming up and we were like, okay, what's an Arkansas? Um, what, you know, what can we use? And, and literally it just sped out, you know, I was our elder and we're like, that sounds really awesome. Going forward, we really always want to use, we're trying to use more of Arkansas names like our hog's blood.

Uh, we hadn't gotten to the Buffalo river float root beer yet. I think that's a brilliant actually, because it's in the name of your, your whole business. So why not? I mean, um, I pretty much took the whole state whenever we went what's the bird? What's our bird? The mocking mocking bird I think it's a mocking bird shit or something spicy I mean, yeah, you know, we got a feather from a mocking bird. We're grounded and down So this one is our Ozark elder

it has a elderberry elderberry blossom and then it also has raspberry. The raspberry, so the raspberry we had to add to it because we kept making and it was too sweet. Okay I like raspberry though. So the, we found that the raspberry just pulled that tartness. Yeah. Sling County, you have a place called The Moon there. Have you ever been to The Moon? Been to The Moon. It's out in Bauxite.

I don't know, I just think The Moon, something. Are you talking about the Paper Moon, what? No, not The Paper Moon. Yeah, I know. Are they still open? No, yeah, maybe. Maybe, I don't know. I think so, yeah.

I haven't drove by there in a year. So that one you're gonna get a lot of the uh, That elderberry that it's the blossom. Yeah, so we we did it with elderberry And then once we added the blossom like I said, this smells the best one. This one's real bright Uh, it feels light and bright to me. Oh it does It does it really does. I was pretending you and bright to me. Oh, it does. It does, it really does. I was pretending you were talking to me.

He was, but he was just looking at us. Yeah, I was. Right. Because he was cyber. Yeah, that's a nice profile. I lie to myself every day. The neat thing about Meads is, just name it. This is a good one to get hammered into the morning.

This feels like a Sunday morning getting hammered at brunch. That's one that you could easily forget you're drinking alcohol. Oh, that's the one you can't. Yeah. Yeah, it's almost, almost has a juice soda profile.

I mean, it's really, really pleasant. It's kind of great. Elderberry's good for you. I was gonna say, I hear that in commercials a lot when you get sick. So like this has got elderberry Yeah, it's sinking it and kind of couple of different things. I can't think is really good too for cold So if you get a cold drink think of your body or other life Mmm, I have had though in liquor stores when I'm given tastings. I hear everything right

And it's quite funny. Some people love most of the time they love elderberry but every once in a while you'll get those that are like who elderberry because it brings them back to some medicine. If you think of oh I was wanting to make a really bright cherry me and every time I tried to do it I'm like cough syrup. I was like I can't do it. It's probably gonna be real popular just call it lean. Yeah yeah just about every cherry beer of that cherry flavored beer I've ever had. Room just reminds me of cough syrup. Listen, I swear to God, bottle it, call it Arkansas lean.

You'll sell the hell out of it. You'll also cherry cokes. I hate cherry cokes. Anything. It probably is similar to that in a way. Yeah. Well, and our hogs blood has cherry in it. Uh, it's tart cherry. Correct. And so that was hogs blood has cherry in it. It is tart cherry.

Correct. And so that was another thing that the federal government doesn't let you do. The descriptions of cherries. So I couldn't put tart cherry. Oh my God. So some people, if they go to a liquor store and reading it, they're going, Oh, it has cherry in it. They're going, I mean, I'm not really, I like cherries, but I don't, I don't like that

old cough syrup. Be cherry. Right. Right. Right. Every time I tried to make it, I kept getting that and I was like okay I'm just gonna move on you tried black cherry black cherry is really good getting my hands on a lot of it is hard to do the blacker the cherry the sweeter the juice I'm very very you know something I really enjoyed it I mean do you have one that you've actually tried

that was like what was one of the wildest things that you've ever tried to flavor profile? You know, I've seen some like distilleries trying to take Mountain Dew and make oh some spirits out of it There I've got a good friend So obviously I try to get as many meat makers that I can get with and I have some friends that come to the meatery And help, you know come up with different flavors and we mess around We're usually getting a little tank tank to the favorite fruit is kiwi Kid kiwi being done. I've got kiwi. I mean, there's so many kiwi coconut I've got one that's okay. I'm looking at maybe even some rum barrels. Oh, yeah, that'd be interesting

I do I do what now say that, I do like, what's the one white frozen drink we can get on a cruise? A Pitney Colada. That does have rum. What about, what about blueberry? So blueberry is definitely one blueberry. So what happens on blueberries, a lot like strawberries, it's a very, you don't you don't pick it up. It's very hard to pick up a flavor profile. It's really hard to pick up those flavor profiles. It really is. It's more subtle. In beer anyway, when I've used blueberry or strawberry, I use the fruit and it gives it the color but then I've had to back flavor it with some extract, with the fruit extracts

or else you're just not getting the flavor from it. Not getting enough out of it. Peach is a lot like that too. Peach is very light as well. It's super light, yeah. Blueberries, some of the blueberries that I've done, I'm like, eh, don't care much for that, but then the blueberry, there's a blueberry vanilla that I've done. Oh, that's probably good. What about figs, currants, things like that?

You pile it up. You put them all in there, more than Merrier. But yeah, there's so many different flavor profiles that you can get. I came up with one. It was, I called it the honey bun. And it had like bourbon vanilla. It had some little bit of like a cinnamon bun.

Oh yeah. I ended up using some malt dextrin for it to give it a, it's kind of a, of course, you know, obviously if you can't have milk, you can't drink my mead, but it gave it that body. Okay. Like you were having, I didn't want it to be a cinnamon bun. Well like orange. So malt addiction is like a milk fat basically?

Correct, exactly. And you can add it to a lot, I mean, when I'm drinking a Guinness, that's what I think of, I'm like. So it gives it kind of a thicker body. Yeah, and it's basically an unfermentable sugar. Okay, I made a maltodextrin, clearly. Thicker profile.

Well, I don't wanna keep us from moving on because I'm figuring that we'll wanna go back through all. We're asking too many questions, aren't we? No, I love questions. Y'all are not asking enough, asking enough really you sleep with socks on I have a co-worker that asked that too, and I don't understand why why they asked you it yeah I don't know I just thought a weird question in that switch shit out weird I mean kind of makes you uncomfortable coming from a guy my girl necessarily that it's pretty

I don't want the next line of questioning. So kind of going in the, we call this Buffalo River Float. Obviously the reason I was trying to- That's this one right here. I brought those, y'all are good to take those home. I'm showing that. I know, but it's reverberating when you pick it up

if you're gonna do that. Is it, it goes, whoa. What, do that again? Oh, he goes, Whoa, what do that again? What's that? Oh, yeah. So the, uh, Buffalo river float is I consider it one of our, like a session mead because it is a lower alcohol, but it is still made from our base. And what we do is kind of like, we use a root beer, kind of an extract for it. And carbonated is slightly carbonated and a

can it, and it's going to go out and we don't even have in the liquor stores yet. But we do have a full line of, uh, we call them cocktails, but it's, it's, it's really a smart name because you know, float has a dual meaning in this case, you know, you float the river or you have a root beer float, right? Right. So that's pretty clever. Well, and I'm, I'm glad you said that because I I'm trying to come up with these clever names like the Hog's Blood. Yeah. It is red and we are from Arkansas so. Yeah, no that is a good name.

And I'm not a Viking but I am a Razorback fan. Yeah, no I think that's a great name. So I'm intrigued to try this because I'm a root beer fan to be honest with you. So this one is going to be somewhat steel. We still meaning it's not highly carbonated. It's going to a lot of times when you go to festivals, they do not have any carbonation in a lot of the root beers. Not only that, I get into what's called bubble tax. I won't bore you guys with that, but I know all about it. I bet you do.

It's even worse for wine. It's, I don't know, They need to do away with it. So in other words when you add carbonation it bumps your tax rate up. It puts it in a different designation so they can get more taxes. Yes, so the government can get more. That's what it is. It's a money grab. America. Yep. They just want more money, right? But this one is going to have kind of, uh, the best way I can describe it, that I've been described and I pick up on it as if you remember those root beer

candy barrels as soon as I taste it. No, it adds where mine is. This is fantastic. Yeah. I mean, and that's, and that's 7.2, 7.5, you know, run there. And I don't, I don't know anything about processing or anything but I wonder if this had just a little bit of maltodextrin in it if it would give more of that ice cream flow want well I'm just saying for flow purposes if it had that little just that little thicker it but I mean the flavor

is just phenomenal well and it's funny you say that. So there is, you know, obviously in the mead world and any type of world when you get into drinks, there's a lot of extracts out there. There's a lot of good companies that do it. And the one that you're probably talking about that I've used before is called a heavy cream. Okay, well yeah, something like that.

Kind of balance it a little bit. Because the flavor on that is I mean it is root beer I mean it is a good root beer Makes you want to grab some ice cream It does, that's what I'm saying over there If I could just get that little part in it too Cause I would drink this with milk Oh yeah, no I would drink that on any day

I don't like that That right there I would drink any day of the week Yeah so we're gonna, this is currently a I 16 ounce, um, uh, black hand, but we're going to be putting into 12 ounce, 12 ounce, uh, silver cans, selling them in four packs, probably about $11 range. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a great, because it's light, uh, it's refreshing. And if you like root beer, I mean, it's a, it's damn good. I mean, it's a great profile on that.

Well, the neat thing about it is this opens up a canning line for us because ultimately being in bottles, that's the one thing you can't do is float down the Buffalo with a bottle. You're right. They don't like that. Or being on like, yeah, they kind of, and I frown on it too, especially even around the pool.

I'm like, oh, keep the meat up there guys. Yeah. But this is going to be one of those things Kind of even if you can't notice but even on the label, that's actually that really truly is the buffalo, right? I see that I think that's very cool. Yeah, they may want any more. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'll take this one I'm sending you guys home with a four pack Well, thank you. I because I will enjoy this and also a bottle of some of the need mmm meanwhile so what a recipe are we gonna come up with next

guys I've definitely girls I'd like to definitely come away with you want to want some ideas I think that to me what what I don't see here is something that would be along the caramel profile. You know, something of that type of Werther's type buttery, caramely type flavor, you know, might be an interesting. Butterscotch, yo. Yeah, something could be like that. Now, what are we going to call it? Well, that's a great question. I'd have to think about that, but I guarantee you, but

got a lot of listeners on here, right? Absolutely. And I'm sure they could come up with some ideas for, and they probably have ideas on different flavor ideas, different, all kinds of things. So feel free, you know, messages up or met message, uh, Tony, you're at the Arkansas meat or he and say, Hey, I was watching you guys on Patrick and the people and, and here's an idea I have. And I'm sure he would welcome that.

Absolutely. Well, there's also, um, you know, the community of meat making is quite interesting and fun and another sun's throws even, uh, done some things before in the past where, um, a lot of the, uh, roars will bring their recipe. And if they won, you guys would read up, would remake it. Um, uh, and I, I and I welcome the same thing there's a lot of me makers out there I think that's one of the great things about you know this type of industry versus so many other industries out there is that

most industries push people away that want to get in you know they don't want you in they they're very proprietary this is one of those industries where they're like no come on in let us show you how you do it. You know, we'll help you get started. We'll show you the right, the way to make it good. Yeah. And that's kind of cool. We have a lot of snatches in our world. Well, yeah, it's, it's one of those, um, you know, it's a pet peeve of mine. If I go somewhere, um, and I say, what kind of hops are in this? And they say, oh, I can't tell you that that's restroom. Like him like okay I'm not drinking any more of your beer yeah I mean I'll tell you I use what

yeast I use I use the d-47 youth well I mean look in my car yeah no I think that the ingredients are secondary to the process. You know, anyone can have the ingredients, but the process is the critical component that makes those ingredients work. So even if I had this exact same ingredients as you, and I go start, it's gonna come out different than what you do because of the different variables

along the road. So it's not really a competition because I'm not gonna do it the same. And it's that way with all professions too, even in IT, you know? Yeah, well, probably through that. I have to be like, well, I could have done that. And I'm like, but you didn't.

But it would have taken you three hours. Right. No, I like IT. I'm one of those guys. And to that point, there's a lot of breweries out there, like big ones like Avery or Dogfish Head They put the recipes on them on their website. They don't care. They put them on the bottle sometime Yeah, they don't care like if you want to make this a home brew recipe here you go. Here's how you do it

Yeah, cuz you're not gonna you're not gonna produce it the way we did. It's not gonna Yeah, it's not gonna be it may not gonna be that beer that it's gonna be the beer that you like But it's not gonna be their beer. That's right. That's right And so, you know, I think it's wiser because the more people you bring in, even if they don't end up long term being makers, they're going to be enjoying it and part of the community. And that's I think what makes this special is there is a community that's involved, whether it's beer beer whether it's mead, you know There's a community of people that love and have a passion for this and share that passion Well, I'm not again that's cool. It gives that type of stuff I know the look sure I go to only has the Vikings blood. That's the only brand it has I guess

If your store doesn't have these ask your store to get these in. Yeah, but these are I mean It's it's great because I would have never tried it had I'd not been watching a lot of YouTube. Like, well, let me try before I tried making it. Cause I would have nothing there to and I, well, I really liked that. Okay. Let me see if I can do it. And, uh, I may feel inspired by it.

Yeah. I mean, and then had I known you before, I'd have probably been blowing your ear out going, okay, what do I do here? I mean, did I put this enough? And we were like, God, dude, shut up. You know, be knocking, like paint on, like this. Okay. What do I do here? I mean, did I put this enough? And we were like, God, dude, shut up. You know, be knocking. Pain. I like this.

Right. With the, what'd you do to it? I don't know. It tasted, I'm teasing it. And I, and you said you love me. Well, uh, one thing that I didn't, I didn't really hit on too much is our honey. We use a wildfire honey that's from Arkansas, but there are different variations of honey, um, you know, whether it be, uh, no, there's variations of honey. Um, you know,

whether it be, uh, no, there's in all the different places, you know, you have clover honey, obviously. Um, but you have different honeys to blow honey, which is a really good honey. Um, have you tried that? Was it say legit honey? I have not. What about motor honey? I haven't heard of that one. Yeah, don't try it. But orange blossom, obviously you're going gonna be pulling in some of that orange zest. Oh, yeah, that's interesting. And so I didn't realize there were so many different honey profiles to be honest. Yeah, I had no idea. I assume just the area that they're easier in, right? Yeah, they're gonna pick up the flowers and whatever they're...

Right. So yeah, there's a I mean that honey alone is to change a meat. So yeah, all these different traditionals, again, you can't put them all together. So again, even the same recipe, you may use a different honey. Excuse me. That may completely change the flavor and profile. The yeast is going to change it. The water is going to change it in the honey. So even if you use those three basic ingredients, it's going to change no matter where you make it, how you make it. Do you use different types of yeast on it or do you use the same yeast

or do you try different types of yeast to get different flavors out of it? I've tried different yeast and the problem that I have is different yeast pull out different flavor profiles and esters and stuff so I went with the yeast that was very reproducible. Yeah, and I can replicate easier. Um, EC 11 18 is a really good yeast. Um, I've used it, um, at the homebrew level. Um, but whenever I started going commercial, I started getting some, you know, this just didn't play to what I'll probably say.

It has a lot of esters in it. Yeah. Um, and so, um, D 47 is very. And obviously with me doing a higher alcohol, 16%, it's a very forgiving yeast to get to that high level. Yeah. And get that clarity that you want and what that makes sense. Yeah. Well, man, this has been fascinating. You know, I've learned a lot. Number one, about me, I've learned that I like me.

I didn't know. So now I know. And number two, now I know I'm interested in, uh, and having more and trying more and thinking about different flavors of things, cause it's kind of a fascinating thing to be involved in. It is quite interesting, quite fun. Um, obviously Theron can, um, they, you know, sometimes when you get to the commercial level, you have good days and bad days. I haven't had too many bad days because it's not my day job.

This is one of the things that I love to do. Um, and go out there. Oh, I like more than anything, put together different recipes. Yeah. Um, and just kind of come up with a different flavor profiles now. So if people, you know, want to interact, they want to find out, they want to learn more, what they go to Arkansas, metery.com is that thing at our website?

Um, we're really interactive with all of our Instagram, Facebook. I mean, we've got the tick tock and all the fun, all the social media is you can just put in Arkansas metery. So metery will be out there and you guys, uh, well, you know, we'll communicate if you have ideas, you can send them to us, you can reach out to them directly. I think it's probably better to just reach out to Tony and his team and and We like the tag so okay tag tag you guys you get me at some point get your own little brew kit They just sell I know there's a lot out there

But sometimes it's easier if you went to a visit your factory that you could buy it right off the shelf Well, and you're absolutely right. I mean, it's just kind of like buying grains directly from stone. So you guys started that up for the fermenting community for the home brewing community. I didn't know that. That's cool, man. That's cool. And so it's kind of neat to be able to do those things. And obviously, I'm buying honey and fifty five gallon drums. I go through that about once a month is what I do. And I have four hundred and. Yeah, I have 450 gallon fermenters and a 290 gallon fermenter, which obviously I'm keeping them in for

quite some time, but they do, you know, but that's what the scale of the meter is and we've been doubling every year. So this will be our fourth year in business. That's awesome, man. Well, hopefully, you know, we're going to help you grow that even more and would love to have you back on in the future You know as you bring out new flavors new profiles new things like that. Come on by let's talk about it. Let's do it All right, man. Thank you Theron for coming in. Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate you coming in do that Michael Thank you for coming in. Of course, my beautiful bride Laura. Thank you for coming in my boo and Thank all of you and we'll see you next time. All right