🚀Inside the Future of Whiskey 🥃 Innovation, AI & Bourbon with David Mandell Whiskey House of Kentucky

📢I talk🎙️with David Mandell Co-Founder and CEO of Whiskey House of Kentucky, the most Innovative Whiskey Distillery and largest via their 176-acre campus in the USA and beyond! 👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂  😁

Sound Bites

• "We bootstrapped this business."
• "You have to create the entire ecosystem."
• "You're never gonna get perfection."
• "We focus everything on our customers."
• "There's always a black swan out there."
• "YPO has been extremely powerful for me."
• "2025 will be a challenging year."
• "The industry fundamentals are very strong."

📽️ Watch on YouTube! 🎞️ https://youtu.be/FsR5HYO13Lc

🔥 From Attorney to Whiskey Pioneer! 🥃✨

In this exciting episode, Jessie Ott sits down with David Mandell, co-founder and CEO of Whiskey House of Kentucky, to explore his incredible journey from the courtroom to the whiskey world. 🚀👨‍⚖️ ➡️ 🥃

David spills the tea (or whiskey!) on the highs and lows of his career, from the rise and fall of Pink Vodka to building Bardstown Bourbon Company and launching Whiskey House. 🍸📉✨ He shares valuable insights on leadership, empowering others, and creating a cohesive business ecosystem that drives success. 💪📊

This conversation dives deep into the evolution of the whiskey industry, highlighting the importance of mentorship, innovative production processes, and staying humble in the face of uncertainty. 🌎🔥 David opens up about navigating the impacts of COVID-19, adapting to market changes, and his optimism for the growing international whiskey market. 🌍✨

Expect key takeaways on networking through organizations like YPO, embracing challenges, and the rewarding yet tough road of entrepreneurship. 💼🙌 If you're a whiskey enthusiast or an aspiring entrepreneur, this is your must-watch episode! 🥃🎧

🎉 Cheers to an inspiring journey filled with lessons, laughs, and a lot of whiskey wisdom! 🍻💡

NOW ON YOUTUBE!!! Thank you for Listening! Join us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Chapters

• 0:28 Introduction to David Mandell and Whiskey House of Kentucky
• 5:54 David's Journey from Law to Distilling
• 11:55 The Rise and Fall of Pink Vodka
• 17:59 Founding Bardstown Bourbon Company
• 23:45 Transitioning to Whiskey House and Leadership Insights
• 26:05 Building a Successful Ecosystem
• 30:09 Leadership Challenges and Growth
• 32:39 Transitioning to Whiskey House
• 37:03 Innovative Production Processes
• 51:26 Mentorship and Personal Growth
• 57:32 Embracing Uncertainty in Business
• 59:21 The Value of Networking and Support Systems
• 1:01:43 Navigating Market Transitions Post-COVID
• 1:06:45 Long-Term Outlook for American Whiskey
• 1:12:13 The Journey of Entrepreneurship and Personal Growth

Transcript

Jessie Ott (00:00.871)
Hello and welcome everyone. have David Mandel, co-founder and CEO of Whiskey House of Kentucky today. Welcome David.

David Mandell (00:11.128)
Jesse, thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Jessie Ott (00:14.789)
No, I am tickled pink. I swear when I, when I, when I learned of what you guys were doing, it was so much in my wheelhouse. I knew instantly. I was like, I gotta, I gotta have David. I got, he's gotta get, he's gotta get my podcast. Cause what you guys are, are doing is simply amazing. And you're all in on innovation and taking things to the next level. I can't wait to kind of get into some of that. you know, you guys, really invested highly into technology.

David Mandell (00:26.99)
you

Jessie Ott (00:44.229)
I don't know if you used AI, think you probably put some of those things in place, which is, I'm sure, and shoulders above any or most in the world. So, and it's, and your facility isn't small. I mean, you're on what, 170 acres?

David Mandell (00:47.512)
We do.

David Mandell (01:00.0)
Yeah, 178 acres, Yeah, yeah, 178 acres, 110,000 square feet in phase one. So it's a good size facility.

Jessie Ott (01:01.725)
78 acres, so it's not small.

Jessie Ott (01:12.731)
Yeah, that's huge. well, I mean, also you guys, well, let's get into your journey and then, cause I'm just so excited. I want to jump in, but let's meet David. Okay. So where are you calling from the distillery today?

David Mandell (01:30.414)
We're based here in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, so about 40 minutes south of Louisville.

Jessie Ott (01:36.839)
Yeah, that's not too bad. Yeah, that's not bad at all. Okay. And are you from that area?

David Mandell (01:43.222)
No, I'm not. I've been here for a little over a decade now. So I came here in 2013 to start Bardstown Bourbon Company, but I originally grew up in Philadelphia. And so that's where my journey started 50 years ago. And I hate saying that because this was the year of the 50th birthday. And while they loved it, well, thank you. they like to say age is just a number. It's not.

Jessie Ott (01:47.581)
Okay.

Jessie Ott (02:02.477)
happy birthday. I'm not far behind you.

Jessie Ott (02:10.909)
You know, I'm sure you get this all the time, but you have a, look like a celebrity.

David Mandell (02:20.44)
Nah, I do not get that. It's very nice of you to say that, but the real question is which one?

Jessie Ott (02:23.227)
really?

Jessie Ott (02:26.809)
Okay, so I always forget his name, I okay he's the he's the the Avenger with the bow and arrow and he was in mayor of Bardstown.

David Mandell (02:36.526)
Okay, well, I think I know who you're talking about, but that's good, I'll take it. That sounds great. There are a lot of other celebrities you could have said I would have looked like that I maybe not would have been thrilled about, but it is what it is.

Jessie Ott (02:44.259)
He's awesome.

Jessie Ott (02:50.777)
No, I, the show. It's, got, sorry, I have to, cut this out, mayor. I put Bardstown.

David Mandell (02:54.851)
Yeah

David Mandell (02:58.158)
No, do it.

Jessie Ott (03:10.147)
arrow guy

David Mandell (03:12.514)
And I love our mayor of Bardstown, but the two of us do not look alike.

He's a good looking man too. god, I'll take that. Thank you.

Jessie Ott (03:21.831)
Jeremy Renner. He's really good. He's great. I love him as an actor. Mayor, he's in...

It's not Bardstone. I don't know what it is. Anyway, he's mayor of something. Not really, but that's the name of the show. It's kind of messed up, but fun to watch. It's, guess he's an interesting character. but anyway, I digress. So you're from Philly, sir. Are you an Eagles fan?

David Mandell (03:38.136)
You

David Mandell (03:47.032)
Yes.

David Mandell (03:51.95)
I am. I've held season tickets since 1997. So it's been a long time. My father and I still have the tickets to this day. We don't get to as many games. We end up selling a lot of them. But I do take the boys. I take my kids. We get to a handful of games every year. We certainly watch all of them. And it's not a bad record so far. So we're happy with 12 and 2. We'll see how we do.

Jessie Ott (03:59.143)
Wow.

Jessie Ott (04:17.734)
Yeah, that's good. That's good, especially losing one of the Kelsey brothers, you know?

David Mandell (04:22.882)
Yep, Listen, after being an Eagles fan for as long as I've been, used to in my early days judge my weak by how the Eagles did. And that's how much it affected me at this point. I don't do that anymore. And I think that's where most Philly fans get to is you assume you're going to be disappointed at some point. And if it doesn't go that way, it's all good.

Jessie Ott (04:34.875)
no.

Jessie Ott (04:50.865)
Yeah. mean, they can't be, they can't be great all the time. I mean, we're Kansas city chiefs and we're just enjoying the ride. We've been okay for a very long time, but, but now we're, mean, we're kind of going through that, you know, era of, of the goat, right. when he was playing at the.

David Mandell (04:58.026)
Mmm, let's this. Well.

David Mandell (05:08.494)
You guys are more than okay. Here's the problem. So my business partner, the other co-founder, John Hargrove, is a huge Chiefs fan. So he's got tickets to the Chiefs. And so, you know, this is something that I deal with on a regular basis. So the two of us talking, is the same thing.

Jessie Ott (05:30.677)
My mom was from Kansas City, so we were Chiefs and Royals fans. And of course we default to the Chicago. And then, and then there's always minutes because we're, because in Iowa, you don't really, you know, we don't have anybody. So we pick them all. Just, just not the, the Wisconsin team. Yeah. The Green Bay. I know that it's, it's, it's built on cool principles and a cool Sicilian guy.

David Mandell (05:42.732)
Right.

David Mandell (05:54.231)
Yes.

Jessie Ott (05:59.375)
And they own their team and everything, but I just grew up, know, was Brett Favre, grown up. Like we always lost against Brett Favre. So that's why. Silly. know it's very silly. So how did you get involved in our, in the industry?

David Mandell (06:07.98)
Right?

David Mandell (06:20.3)
Well, you know, been a very interesting journey. And so I started my career off as an attorney. So I went to school in St. Louis. I was an undergrad at Washington University. And I was a history major and an English minor. And really sort of got to the end of college and said, well, what am I going to do?

I really I had not I wasn't sure you know what my career path was ultimately going to be so I decided to go to law school and that was predominantly driven by watching the OJ Simpson trial and enjoying that at you know at that at that stage which probably was my junior or sophomore year of college but I did I went to Temple University

I went to Temple University Law School in Philadelphia. I ended up staying in Philadelphia and practicing at a law firm called Blank Rome. at that time, we represented Governor Ridge. So we did a lot of outside counsel work for him. And I, at that time, also ended up doing a lot of election fraud work.

which ended up sending me to Florida on the recount as a very young man. And when I came back, it was Bush Gore and I was representing George W. Bush and I was sent down there doing the military ballot arguments. I had three counties, Lee County, Collier County and Manatee County. And if you can imagine this, was probably 20 I don't

Jessie Ott (07:29.821)
wow.

Jessie Ott (07:38.449)
Was that the gore? That wasn't Gore It was.

David Mandell (07:56.782)
25 or something like that, thrown into that. And I came back from that after the Supreme Court ruled and the chairman of law firm at the time said, basically for what you have done, you should consider a political appointment in the administration. It's not something I ever even thought about. I wasn't particularly political. And so I did it. I went down there before 9-11. And shortly after 9-11,

I went in as counsel to the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. So we went in right September 28th, 2001. And that's what started my career in government. We spent a year there, and then Marion Blakey was appointed head of the FAA. So I went over as chief of staff of the FAA for the next four years. But it was during a trip in 2000.

Jessie Ott (08:47.917)
wow.

David Mandell (08:54.382)
It was 2002 that I was out with my college roommate after a day. It was crazy. We were meeting with Elon Musk at the time.

because the FAA regulates suborbital flight and they had just started SpaceX and they had the Falcon 9 rocket and hangar in West Hollywood and we were out drinking in the evening Red Bull and vodka at 1 o'clock in the morning at the Sky Bar, myself and Dan and we said like what are we doing? We're having a cocktail that's not making us tired why can't we just make alcohol that doesn't make you tired? And so we left from that trip, worked on it nights and weekends and two years later we launched

Pink Vodka, which was the first caffeinated alcohol in the US out of a two-bedroom apartment in East Side of New York in Stuyvesant Town, and that started the spirit's journey.

Jessie Ott (09:47.111)
Pink Vodka, is it still around?

David Mandell (09:49.198)
It is not. It is not. was a Dutch vodka infused flavorlessly with caffeine and guarana. Beautiful, beautiful product. We built that to 45 states, five international markets, about 75,000 cases. We sold that in...

Jessie Ott (10:05.917)
Wow.

David Mandell (10:09.102)
2009, and I'd love to say that that was a success. That business was not a success. All of the fun money that went into building that brand and expanding that brand very rapidly, which, as looking back, was a mistake. But be that as it may, we learned a lot from that process and something we can talk a lot about. anyway.

We sold it in 2009 with Houlihan Lokey when, of course, the market collapsed and all the fun money that went into building that brand dried up. And so we sold it with a long tail on it. And then a product called Four Loko came into the market and destroyed the fun of caffeine and alcohol for everybody. That was the end of the caffeine and alcohol craze at that moment. mm-hmm, Forloko.

Jessie Ott (10:38.279)
Mm.

Jessie Ott (10:56.465)
Yeah, for loco. I don't even know if people are still drinking it.

David Mandell (11:02.094)
Yes, I think they are. They ended up taking the caffeine out of it. That was never the problem, by the way, with Four Loko. The problem with Four Loko, that's also about the size of the can at that time, too. And so the problem with Four Loko is it was a massive can, pop-topping, you know, it was like 23 ounces or something, and it had the equivalent of five servings of alcohol in it.

Jessie Ott (11:15.005)
Hahaha!

David Mandell (11:26.688)
So the caffeine, which is regulated by the TTB, it's 200 parts per million, is actually relatively small in the grand scheme of things. That was not the problem. The problem was it was presented as a single serving and, you know, young individuals, whether they were of age or underage, were chugging these things because you couldn't taste the alcohol. They were very fruit flavored. You know, and having your drink, you drink five surfaces of alcohol at one time. You drink two of those and it's, you you're in trouble.

Jessie Ott (11:47.719)
Right.

Jessie Ott (11:55.527)
You're in trouble. Yeah, dangerous.

David Mandell (11:56.662)
Right. And that's where the problem was. It wasn't the caffeine, but it created a mess.

Jessie Ott (12:00.615)
Yeah. Yeah, it sure did. So then what happened?

David Mandell (12:05.102)
I'm out.

So very, you know, interestingly, after Pink, Dan went back to LA, I went back down to DC, and we did a lot of beverage consulting among other things that we were doing at the time. When we got into whiskey, we actually got involved in a project with Hillhaven Lodge.

with Brett Ratner at the time as he was developing what ultimately became Hill Haven Lodge Whiskey. And we did the original plan for that, this was before Diageo. It's actually a story that most people don't know. And they wanted to do rum. We said, really need to do whiskey. We put the whole plan together for them. We had met them.

during our pink vodka days. it was 2009, and really you had just sort of the meteoric rise of American whiskey was beginning. And what we saw on the market was there was a need for more products, particularly a different positioning on whiskey at that time. And so we did a lot of research and we did a lot of work on it. And that project ended up not moving forward till years later.

Jessie Ott (13:00.337)
Yeah.

David Mandell (13:19.212)
But we came off of that and the work that we did and we said, know, we really need whiskey is where things are headed. And so with our primary investor, was, you know, my other business partner at Bardstown Bourbon Company, we started Bardstown Bourbon Company and I came out to Kentucky in 2013, founded the company and moved out here and, know,

ourselves in the community. Dan moved from England. Another woman, Garnett Black, who worked with me for years was my right hand at National Transportation Safety Board and FAA, I'm sorry, at FAA, and then Pink Vodka. She and her husband moved here and we all settled in Bardstown and started, you know...

an absolutely amazing company which of course you see where it is today and that in and of itself we could talk for two hours about it very easily.

Jessie Ott (14:16.695)
I know. What was the thought process that kind of went behind that? where did, I mean, you had MGP, right? That was around, I think there might have been a...

David Mandell (14:28.014)
So this was really, it was very interesting because you look back at these times and you say, how did you ever do this? And in many ways, Bardstown was the culmination of everything that we had learned, myself, Dan, Garnett, from all of our jobs. I think you take certain skills.

and you bring them from each part of your career and certainly from law. I learned a certain skill set, which was predominantly a way of thinking and writing from running and being a high level at National Transportation Safety Board. At National Transportation Safety Board, learned crisis management. FA learned crisis management and large organization management. Pink Vodka, we learned startup, starting up in the alcohol space. And then...

Jessie Ott (15:19.975)
Yeah. And that's when you started the legalities of alcohol.

David Mandell (15:23.95)
Well, yeah and and and really what we learned most about pink was how to build a brand as an independent in a spirit space what not to do and we made Probably 99 % of the mistakes that everybody that gets into the business that doesn't know the business makes and so we were

Jessie Ott (15:42.407)
But you know, even with that brand, you said you got that brand up to 75,000 cases. There's only a handful of people in the world that have ever done that.

David Mandell (15:51.658)
It's true, it's true. It is very true. It's huge. But at the same time, again, it wasn't the right way to grow it. so now, look, it wouldn't have mattered in the end anyway, because of what happened with caffeine and alcohol. we were determined to take every sort of taking everything that we learned and bringing that to Bardstown and saying, you know what, we're now going to do this.

Jessie Ott (15:53.585)
That's huge.

David Mandell (16:15.118)
And what's interesting and I'm just kind of a prelude to when we get to Wizgey houses because we got the chance to do it again after that and so Wizgey house was taking everything we did at Bardstown and actually doing it all over again and improving even further and so you rarely get these opportunities in life and we got a couple of them and so Bardstown was very much an evolutionary process. We did not come and say this is what we're gonna do and here's the whole game plan and it's all laid out. It was not like that at all.

Jessie Ott (16:31.463)
Yeah.

David Mandell (16:44.962)
wasn't like that at all. We bootstrapped it, we figured it out. Bardstown has a story of this amazing group of people that came together in a moment in time and created an absolutely magical place. But it didn't come, it did not happen with a plan. It was an evolution. And so when we started, I'll never forget the day I stood out.

where the property is here and the city was showing me, head of economic development, Kim Houston, was showing me the property across the street. was much smaller property. She said, this is what we think for you. We looked at where we stay and said, well, what about this? There's a hundred acres here. It's like perfect. on the parkway. No, no, no, you can't have that. That's, that's like, we're, keeping that for attracting a really big business. We're going to be a big business. and so

That's where it began and we had a tremendous amount of vision as we developed it, but also the community trusted us and we delivered and that's something that not everybody understands and we worked really hard over years and part of that was us all moving there, us all getting very much involved in the community, but delivering on that vision and as we built Bardstown, we proved to...

Bardstown, Kentucky now, because you remember we were the first distillery in 100 years, new distillery there. so first new distillery in 100 years in Bardstown we built.

Jessie Ott (18:11.921)
first distillery in a hundred years there. Wow. Well, you know, there's been droughts. You know, if you, get the guys together that have been doing this while, you know, multi-generational, you know, distillers and they're like, there was a time when we could give it away. And they all came together and held hands and said, let's get through this together.

David Mandell (18:19.79)
Yeah.

David Mandell (18:29.848)
That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah, and when we came in, first question that I wrestled with is what set the vision was, well, what's the story? What are we going to be? Because what you saw at the time was a lot of brands trying to either make up stories about this crazy heritage that, yeah, my grandfather was a distiller, these new brands, or they're resurrecting old brands. He said, look, we're not doing this. We're going to go the opposite direction.

And we are going to build a place that is really about celebrating not only the craft of making whiskey that brings this community together, but in a transparent and open way. And so from the design of the facility, every aspect of the facility, actually, because what was happening at the time is there was this push that was beginning.

And a lot of it was coming from some early, you had some controversies that were very public about people using MGP liquid and not being open about it, right? And so we said, look, we're gonna deal with this by, not only, we're gonna say everything about what we do. We're gonna put it on our labels, we're gonna talk about it, we are gonna be about transparency in whiskey making. And it went as far as even, saying we didn't have a master distiller. So this was a distilling team.

Jessie Ott (19:28.349)
Yep. Mm-hmm.

David Mandell (19:48.896)
Steve Nowley was a master stiller, we approached us as a team, we approached us a lot of different things. And so that was the beginning, but that's not what built Bardstown. What built Bardstown was the idea of doing custom whiskey production and the collaborative distilling program. And we came up with that idea as we saw in the market. You had brands that were being produced at Heaven Hill and Beam that were getting cut off their contracts because they now needed.

their own supply because everything was growing. MGP didn't really do custom. You bought like three or four match bills and you buy them off the shelf and they age it. And so we said, we're building this facility, let's go out there and get all this business and change the design of what we're building. I went out and sold the concept and we sold out the capacity before we were done building it.

Jessie Ott (20:18.269)
They were growing. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (20:40.465)
Wow, that's incredible. I wish I could do that with my business.

David Mandell (20:46.254)
Well, that's just the beginning of story because it was easier said than done. So we did that, went out and sold it, and then the question was, wait a minute, how are going to do this? Because Barstow was not designed to do that. And so it was very much a rudimentary design. We jerry-rigged it because we built that. We started with $11 million. So it was it. We bootstrapped this business. That's another crazy story.

Jessie Ott (20:53.884)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (21:02.631)
Okay.

David Mandell (21:14.562)
But so what we had to do is we kind of cherry-gripped it and it wasn't, you and when we started that, you know, in those days what we were doing is we were actually really starting off doing advanced manufacturing whiskey, doing multiple mash bills in a facility, 10, 20, 30, ultimately, you know, we got it up to about 50. That was unheard of, you doing that. And so the facility was not designed to do that. And so in the early days we really struggled. We were not doing well. We weren't.

almost lost our contract with Diageo for doing bullet. And it wasn't until I was able to attract John Hargrove, who was the superstar young distiller that came over with an advanced food manufacturing background. He was at Barton at the time. They had the other half of the bullet contract. They were getting the gold standard. They were knocking out of the park. He was brought in with the new Sazerac team. I recruited him to join us at Bartsdown in late 2017, and that changed the whole trajectory. And so we...

were then able to, changed, from 20 to 20. Huge. It was the single most important change, decision in the history of Bardstown-Burman Company. was John, know, joining the distilling team because I was spending a huge amount of my time, we all were, on the distilling side. Now we didn't know distilling. We had the concepts, we had the idea, we had the vision, we could bring people together, but we didn't, at the end of the day, we didn't know it.

Jessie Ott (22:13.597)
Wow, that's pretty powerful.

David Mandell (22:38.794)
So when there were problems, all I could do was try to bring people together. And when he joined us, we went from 25,000 hours to 50,000 100,000, HACCP certification, ISO certification. And then we were able to then take our attention and go do the things that we knew. Build a brand, build a restaurant, build a visitor's experience, all of that. And so that allowed us to then go focus on all those things which formed the foundation for what you see really thriving out there now.

Jessie Ott (23:07.429)
Yeah, so how many brands are made there now?

David Mandell (23:12.898)
I'm not sure what it is now. And so when we left, we were producing for...

David Mandell (23:25.326)
And so, you we sold the business two years ago, 2022. But it was a really incredible, incredible journey. And so each step of the way, so you'd say about the distillery, building the restaurant, we could talk an hour about building the restaurant. I mean, we could tell you a whole hour about that. Building the Visitor's Center and the team that we brought together.

Jessie Ott (23:42.119)
whole other part.

David Mandell (23:50.7)
is doing that and you know one of the real superstars, not the the biggest superstar out there, Dan Callaway. I hired Dan. Dan was the manager at Deca in Louisville at restaurant and he came in with us when we were just about to you know build the restaurant. We built you know the team that was the beverage team out there and we said to them like we want to approach this totally differently and

Dan started as running the restaurant and then the beverage program and then went up. He's now the vice president of innovation. He's supremely talented individual and it was something that I saw in him very early on. And I think that's part of the story is you find great people and you find the talent and you let them, give them the room and the space to thrive and the environment.

and amazing things happen and that's what happened there in those early days. Now look, it sold to Private Equity, it's a different place now. But, you know, we take, so we took all of that and all of the lessons from that and founded Whiskey House.

Jessie Ott (24:59.825)
You know, it's not very often I hear any leader say those words. And it's something that I myself have struggled with in my career, trying to find someone to just to do those exact things. Because when you're absolutely right in finding those gems out there, because they're there, you just got to listen, you just got to be aware, right? And let them run. There's just not many people that manage

situations or people like that because people, I believe people don't always know how great they are and what they can achieve. Other people can sometimes see it earlier or faster or see it differently and I feel bad that people don't get those experiences to be their true self, know, to really explode like that because all they need is someone like you to empower them.

to tell them that. And then they get their confidence and they see that they can do it. And I wish that was more of like a principle of leadership.

David Mandell (26:01.442)
Well...

It's true. It's...

David Mandell (26:10.648)
Well, it's true, and I think it's more than just that. You have to create the entire ecosystem in the business so it all works together. And sometimes the best and the most creative people are also some of most challenging, too, right? They just are. And so it's finding them and then figuring out what's the best way to make them successful in the business.

Jessie Ott (26:17.308)
Yep.

David Mandell (26:40.618)
I'm very lucky because my partners in this business, John Hargrove, is absolutely a superstar at operations. I could not do what he does in a million years. And Dan Lind, who is our chief strategy officer, but also really strategic financial position, he was the CFO. And then because he's based in England, we have a CFO full time here.

but he was a CFO at Bardstown. He still plays a very strong financial role. My point there is, you give me basic math to do and I can't do it. I'm very honest about that. It's not my strong set. It's not my skill set, but he's great at it. And so I've had John with operations, I've had Dan on the financial side, and then surrounding yourself with great people allows me to do what...

I believe my best skill sets are in everything from the vision of the business to setting the direction to the sales side of it, to the customer acquisition and working with our customers, to everything from kind of design to working to create the right environment within the facility. And so we make a great team.

But you gotta have all that. And so it just takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work.

Jessie Ott (27:58.593)
You, it does, it takes a lot of work. mean, it's not a marriage, but it's like a marriage, right? Cause you, all want, once you get to know your role, you run, right? But sometimes you get to learn how to do that. And, know, small companies that want to grow, that's a big challenge. My, my wife is certified in, helping companies achieve that goal, right? There's, there's personality tests there. You need an operator, you need a processor.

David Mandell (28:12.534)
you

Yep.

David Mandell (28:23.668)
she knows.

Jessie Ott (28:24.923)
You need a visionary, you need all the things. if you can have the four things, there's no stopping you, right? Cause you have those, those skillsets that are so important to build a very, you know, a good, strong business.

David Mandell (28:33.762)
Yeah.

David Mandell (28:38.798)
It really is and I think over time, I know we're going a little tangent here. I think there's so many lessons that you can learn and one of the things that I've certainly taken away now doing this three times, you're never gonna get perfection. And so you're never gonna find perfection in any individual and so really kind of creating that balance both in yourself as you drive and try to push people, understanding this is what we can accomplish now.

Jessie Ott (28:55.408)
Mm-mm.

David Mandell (29:08.718)
And here's what we're going to get to, and figuring out the right balance there of kind of pushing, but also having some patience. Because you're going to find anybody that's perfect, and you're not going to be able to do everything perfectly. so as you build, especially in the startup phase, there is a balance there. We drive really fast and really hard here, as you can see. But we're also very careful in terms of not going too far or making sure that, you know.

even little things with people and how you work with them.

There's only so much everybody can do and finding that right balance and trying to get the best out of everybody.

Jessie Ott (29:54.289)
Yeah. What do you feel in terms of being a leader is the hardest for you? I'm trying to think of like a different way to to word that because it's not great, but you know, I mean, is there anything that stands out as a leader that you've had over the, you know, your experiences?

David Mandell (30:13.934)
Yeah, sure. I guess the way I'll answer that is with a little bit of story here. I'll never forget when I was appointed chief of staff of the FAA at the time. And gosh, was again, I was in my very late 20s. I was the youngest one, apparently, ever in the agency. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (30:37.669)
Yeah, I would say in probably sense. Not very many people are capable of doing that in their 20s.

David Mandell (30:42.978)
Well, capable is a totally different thing. Capable is like, was I capable of it? That's really sort of the crux of this. And so I remember saying to the chairman of law firm at the time, David Joy DeCarlo, because he went out and he took me out for lunch and he said, how are you feeling? And I remember that first year. But this was early on and I said, I really don't know. said, do you feel like?

You don't know anything. said, mm-hmm. He said, you feel like everybody knows that you don't know anything. I said, that's about right. So insecure. said, yep. And he said, good. You want to feel that way. He said, make sure you feel that way. He said, what you do is keep your mouth shut, listen, all right? And because I was a lot younger than all the people that were reporting to me, he said, that feeling, he said, use that feeling and have that drive you every single day.

And so that was really good advice. I think, and it's something I look back at, and it's something that I think about for all these positions. So what are some of the things as a leader? Well, it's challenging sometimes when you are not by any means the expert. so I'm in a building right now where everybody here knows a lot more than me about what we're doing on a technical level.

Jessie Ott (31:43.037)
Very good.

David Mandell (32:10.934)
And so I think a lot of it is absolutely it's good. So it's about understanding that, being able to focus on the things and knowing the things that you're good at, surrounding yourself for the people that the things that you don't know and that you know you're not good at, and figuring out how to get everybody to work.

Jessie Ott (32:10.941)
That's good though. That's good. Yeah.

David Mandell (32:33.486)
together. So I think that's probably the biggest challenge. Now we've got to do it multiple times. I feel like we've really hit an amazing stride here.

Jessie Ott (32:44.805)
Yeah. So do you want to kind of talk about the venture? And we'll kind of switch gears here and kind of, mean, so you sold the company and so what's the next thought that y'all are having?

David Mandell (32:47.0)
you

David Mandell (32:51.263)
Absolutely.

David Mandell (33:01.602)
So basically, and I'll kind of fast forward, know, the sale of Bartstown is another whole other story that could spend another hour on. But so in 2022, you I had stepped back from the business. There were three owners of the business, myself, Constellation Brands, and the trust of my former business partner who passed away. And so John had stepped back as COO. know, Dan had.

know, left Bardstown quite some time before that. And three of us got together and we said, you know, there's actually a couple of things that are happening in the market. Well, first of all, we have all this experience. We have, built the collaborative to stolen program, which is the first of its kind, but we never were able to take it to where it needed to go to because the facility in and of itself, you know, was not designed.

to actually do custom whiskey production. So you're constrained by what you originally create. And so we said, well, if you have an opportunity to do it all over again, what would you do differently? And the three of us got together and we said, there is a very interesting challenge in the marketplace right now. And that challenge is that when we sold Bardstown, Bardstown bought Green River, which was also another large contract producer. You had Campari bought Wilderness Trail, which is another contract producer.

and Luxco and MGP merged, which is also obviously, and that's really the competitive set, but what happened in that dynamic were multiple things. One, all of those companies are now focused on their own brands predominantly. They do contract production, but they're focused on their own brands. This is a very significant shift. It was a significant shift that took place when we sold Bardstown, you have private equity come in, totally changes things. And so...

you've got an inherent conflict of interest in the brand, in the business, because if you're a contract customer, the question is, are they making decisions that prioritize certain interests for their own brands over you as a customer? What happens when those businesses sell? Because when Campari bought Wilderness Trail, they kicked out all their contract customers, and they started trying to get them back.

David Mandell (35:11.214)
And so if you're a branded contract customer and you're looking for a long-term production partner You know your question is do you feel like you're you know your best interests are being served there? You know the companies producing brands that are competing against you in the market Decisions about where you go in the warehouse decisions about what production you get when times are good you get pushed aside When times are bad well, you know, then they you know show you more attention. So, know, we're gonna fix this

And that's Whiskey House. And so Whiskey House is now the most advanced distillery in the country, hands down. We do nothing but custom whiskey production for an exclusive group of customers, brands, or companies with a direct pathway of the liquid to a brand. In a facility that is the only facility in the entire world, is actually designed to do custom whiskey production. So the design is really a mix, is a melding of advanced food manufacturing.

meeting distillation so that you're incredible quality from a massive system, but the flexibility to be able to go down to very small runs if you need to run it all through while keeping complete consistency. I'll talk more about that. That is a massive engineering challenge.

without any conflicts of interest because we're closed to the public, we don't have our own brands, we don't run hospitality, we don't have sales forces that are out there in the market competing against our customers, we're not running restaurants. Everything here is focused 100 % on our customers. All of our attention completely and everything from all the spaces that we've built, you know, inside the facility that really bring our customers in here so they can design.

great liquid with us, great really differentiated products and we focus everything on them.

Jessie Ott (36:57.915)
So can you walk through a process? Let's say I came to you, David, and I said, hey, I want to build my own brand. Like, what is that process? Can you walk us through it?

David Mandell (37:08.344)
So in most cases the answer would be, it's not something we would work together on. And the reason I say that is, our customers that work with us are almost in all cases extremely well established. so we are very selective about who we work for. So we produce for three of largest spirits companies in the world. We do excess production, we do innovation, great craft distilleries at a certain scale.

really great brands. there are a couple, you know, we'll do some production for some new entry brands, but they have great backing. They have a team that either has a lot of experience in the industry. We do lot of international production. we are, if you call us, and we meet, know, have tons of people that come meet with us all the time, but you have calls that say, I am so and so and I'm just interested in getting into whiskey.

You know, I actually talk to everybody and a lot of that conversation, I can point you in the right direction, but you probably don't need new-filled production. If you want to start a brand, go start it. Get some aged inventory. Do something unique to it. Go build the brand, but you don't need to be laying down new barrels for something that you're just trying to get started. There are other companies out there that will do that. They'll take your money, they'll produce it for you. We don't do that.

Jessie Ott (38:38.109)
I didn't, I didn't even think about, you mentioned something about innovation, like, and I don't know if Beam is one of your partners and you certainly don't need to say they are or not, it would be, it's interesting because you have these amazing facilities and probably you can use AI to create recipes now. I've, I've, I've seen it in the market. one of them is a, is a client of mine. but it would be interesting to have these.

David Mandell (38:38.796)
So, yeah, so far, yeah, so good.

Jessie Ott (39:06.791)
bigger whiskey houses come collaborate with you guys on innovation and what is the new thing? Like how can we evolve and, you know, try something completely different. Like that's really cool. I didn't even think about that.

David Mandell (39:19.564)
Yeah, so some of things that we can do, and again, what's really unique about the design of the facility, and so the design of the facility really represents the life work of John Hartgrove and Roger Henley, who was our head of engineering. Roger was the head of engineering with John when they were at Sazerac, and then came with us to Bardstown, and then came with us to Whiskey House. But between the two of them, you have advanced,

manufacturing, advanced food manufacturing, distillation, and then Roger also has tremendous competencies, not only in the electrical engineering side, but software development. And so he is a real driving force for our move towards Industry 4.0, which is we have a fully automated facility, but we also collect all the data seamlessly from every aspect of production, every piece of equipment.

You know, every pump, every piece of equipment in our lab, everything's giving off data. We created in-house over two years with a very significant change to budget by about 10 million. And day one, the system in-house to collect all that data and then use that data and then be able to package that data up and begin to give it to our customers in a way that becomes very valuable to them.

So we can come back to that. But so we designed the facility so that we can replicate any historical distillation method. So we can produce like Seagrams did. We can take the fermenters down into the 50s. We can do long fermentation times. We can do everything that even with, if you wanted to produce the way Wilderness Trail does with, you know, high infusion cooking, shorter fermentation times.

we can affect every single point of control across the system that impacts flavor. And so that flexibility allows lots of different companies to come in and say, let's test something. So we can run 100 barrels as a test run. We can run one fermenter, 33,000 gallons. So we can do testing, and then we can scale. And so you can do all of that in one facility.

Jessie Ott (41:21.021)
That's cool.

Wow. I got goosebumps.

David Mandell (41:26.006)
All closed loop system too. All closed loop. So no open top fermentation. I mean, that's nice for tours, but it's not good for production. You're getting cross contamination if you have multiple different customers you're producing for different recipes. That was one of the problems we had at Bardstown is because you've got all open top fermentation. We did that because of the tour, right? So, but we also did it in the other facilities because it was cheaper to have much cheaper to build that kind of system. But

You get cross contamination. It's extremely laborious from a quality standpoint, a cleaning standpoint. It's a nightmare. You're putting tarps over everything. You've got your employees handling all of the chemicals. But here, with a closed-loop system, it's all fully automated. We can take it from in there. We can isolate it. We can take it offline. We can clean it. Everything's cleaned internally, automatically discharged. All the wastewater is immediately treated and sent out. No one touches it.

All right, so it's amazing and you have much, much more sanitary environment, which is really important in a contract whiskey manufacturer.

Jessie Ott (42:20.637)
That's amazing.

Yeah.

Jessie Ott (42:28.657)
Yeah, especially if you're doing runs for several people. Yeah.

David Mandell (42:31.832)
Exactly, and we're running, we started July 1st, we've almost 50,000 barrels already, 18 unique mash bills, 43 different recipes, and that's only in six months. The system is working beautifully.

Jessie Ott (42:43.773)
Jeez.

Jessie Ott (42:47.429)
Are you at full capacity right now? Okay. That's amazing. I guess he went out and sold the idea ahead of time too. Cause well, I yeah.

David Mandell (42:49.474)
We are. We are.

David Mandell (42:55.778)
We did. We did. And so we have some room for next year. Not much, but we have the entire expansion we're working on right now. So in a two week time period, once we pull the trigger, we can tie in. can go from 112,000 miles to 224 in a two week. We can tie it in a two week shutdown without disrupting operations. So that's what we're working on right now.

Jessie Ott (43:22.747)
And so how big is your production facility right now?

David Mandell (43:25.39)
So 110,000 square feet, the facility is very large. Yeah, huge. 112,000 barrel capacity annually. Again, all built to expand to 224. We'll have 19 warehouses on site, traditional RIC, but a new design. So they're longer and skinnier. And so we designed that with Busick Construction and with the Thermodynamics Company so that we

Jessie Ott (43:27.869)
Okay. Yeah, huge.

David Mandell (43:54.83)
engineered the dead zone out of the warehouse so that for our customers... So the most economical warehouse that you build is under Kentucky state regulation is a 58,000 barrel 800. This is a big box. Cheapest to build. That's what we predominantly build at Bardstown. That's a lot of the other companies build. And it's because it's the cheapest build. it's cheap as relative, right? They're still expensive. And so the problem though with that big box...

Jessie Ott (43:58.063)
Interesting. What does that mean?

David Mandell (44:23.946)
is that it's a law of thermodynamics. So in the middle, you just don't get the same airflow. But when you're one of the big companies and you have your own brands, you know, OK, these barrels in here are going to age differently. We're going to use these for one product, or we're going to blend them into something else. And these areas where we get much greater performance, we're going to use those for higher end products. The problem is a contract manufacturer is whose barrels go in the middle and who gets the good spots. Right? And so.

Jessie Ott (44:48.253)
I'm glad you guys thought of that before he built them. That's really smart.

David Mandell (44:53.9)
Well, so you know how that decision goes. And so that goes back to my whole point about conflicts of interest. So with us, we wanted to take that out. Everybody gets great maturation performance. So instead of having a big square box, we now have a long rectangle. It's more expensive to build, but it's much better. So our customers all get great maturation performance. They can store their barrels as long as they want. We don't have any restrictions.

And so we bring one of those online every four months. So we'll have 19 of those on site. have four. we're going about to start our fourth warehouse now. And we'll have to put another about 16 across the street. But the property itself with the warehouses, have bottling coming in 27. We palletized warehouse for finishing projects that nobody else has. So dedicated space. This will be online next year.

eight different climate control zones, and then we have rail on property too, which is really important for the future of the business, for the international market. So we're located here in, we got the last five parcels in a fully mature industrial park in Elizabeth Town, which is an incredible community, manufacturing community, business community here in Kentucky.

Jessie Ott (46:13.223)
that's great. And easy access east and west for.

David Mandell (46:18.07)
right on I-65. So, trucking, rail, it's actually faster to get here from the airport in Louisville than it is for me to go from the airport to my house in Bardstown. Just because you go right down the highway.

Jessie Ott (46:33.627)
Yeah. Yep. That's true. Interesting. So yeah, I guess, your thought process was, was obviously right on the mark, with the market. What was happening with it? I don't know that companies were going to NGP doing innovation and things like that. Probably not, because that wasn't their, obviously that wasn't their competitive competency, you know, at the time.

Like you said, they were building off the shelf stuff. so I'm sure, so what my point is, is that you really built this in mind with those companies, the bigger companies with the volume that want to play around with different types of bourbons add to their volume with, it's probably cheaper to go to you and say, can you mimic this same flavor profile? We're going to put it in a can or whatever the case may be. That's really interesting to me.

David Mandell (47:32.11)
Yeah, we had to... Well, it's not even... It's not necessarily about size because we have plenty of smaller customers, but it's about the experience. It's about the stability of the company. It's about where their brand is in the market. you know, we have a lot of... You know, we have a good number of brands that we produce for that are on the smaller side, but they've been in the industry either a long time or they've got a team behind them where they've got a brand...

Jessie Ott (47:32.429)
and you're not playing around with the little guys or the, that's not your competency. Okay.

Jessie Ott (47:47.271)
Gotcha. Yep.

Jessie Ott (47:58.897)
Okay.

David Mandell (48:01.836)
And clearly, they are in a position that doing new fill production and innovation makes sense. So what we really are doing and where this business is transformational in this part of the market is we are consolidating the best brands in the industry into one facility that need this type of production.

want this kind of customer service, that want this type of focus, this long-term partner. And we predicted, we saw what was coming in the market because there was too much capacity being created, which exists now, in the contract market. Too many people that were standing up facilities or quickly building what I would say, what I call...

sophisticated capacity and that means like you're throwing up a distillery as fast as you can as cheaply as you can because they thought they were going to just do investor barrel production you know that's what was getting hot during COVID it looked like it was easy money but very few people that get again they get into the business understand building distillery is one thing running operating being able to not only create have the team the training the sophistication

the systems, know, the certification, it goes on and on and on. And what it takes to actually get the business that you need, most of those people have no idea and many of them don't. And so there are a lot of facilities that are out there that won't make it. So you're gonna see that. You're gonna see that over the next year, I would tell you. You're gonna see a number of these closed or go under and it's not...

Jessie Ott (49:31.857)
Yep. Well, growing to scale too.

David Mandell (49:42.566)
function of the whiskey market being healthy or not healthy. It's about decisions that were made during a time with artificial growth where they shouldn't have done certain things.

Jessie Ott (49:54.759)
Gotcha. Well, maybe it was right for the time and it's just not right for the time anymore.

David Mandell (50:03.63)
It's one way of looking at it, yes.

Jessie Ott (50:07.517)
That's the optimistic way of looking at it.

David Mandell (50:11.448)
In the optimistic way, I would say is that, you know, the other thing is you know you're getting into a business that you don't know anything about and that's always a dangerous thing and that's certainly one thing. If you want to talk about the lessons that I've learned in my life, you know, it takes time to figure it out and so we're doing it now three times. Bardstown was a huge success for us but this now is a very very focused piece of Bardstown and that's one of the things that we learned was like it's not easy to do a

what we tried to do all in one place. It worked in one moment in time, but it's not necessarily the best solution. so that's why we took Whiskey House and we said, actually, this solves another problem. It's very clear. And you only learn those things after you've been in the business and you're immersed in it for a long time. Because every business, and within even certain sectors and segments, it's like the contract market.

Jessie Ott (50:43.366)
All. Yeah.

David Mandell (51:09.77)
is totally different than the larger bourbon market. So they have their own dynamics, they operate completely differently, and it just happens to be something we know, we learned a lot about.

Jessie Ott (51:24.935)
Well, and you're a whiskey house, so you, you make all kinds of whiskies, I assume, not just bourbon. So you're not.

David Mandell (51:31.308)
No, anything in the American whiskey portfolio we can do here.

Jessie Ott (51:35.877)
So how did you guys sit down and start researching and even trying to figure out the equipment that you wanted and like, was it created or did you have to have it created?

David Mandell (51:49.114)
John knows the stuff like the back of his hand. mean, for him to be able to, this is like again, I'm with Roger and the two of them, you know, be able to say like, design the place. They've been thinking about this like their whole careers as they've been doing this. It's like, wait a minute, okay. Now we get to actually build the perfect facility. Like I was, as he just, you know, did it nights and weekends, worked on it, you know, and John has all the context too. So what made this amazing is with our construction company, Bucik, which...

Jessie Ott (52:06.631)
Yeah.

David Mandell (52:16.402)
We built Bardstown with, which was actually the first distillery they built from scratch. And now they've gone on to build so many. We were able to move very quickly. were able to design, build, do all of it in parallel. and we built this, about $110 million for this. If one of the big guys tried to build this, it would be a $200 million build easily.

You know, and you were just able to do lots of things and use a process that saves a tremendous amount of time and money. And again, the only reason we can do it is because we did it, like we did it once already. We did it once already. We've been through it. We've been through all of it, you know, with multiple expansions too, building from scratch and the multiple expansions. And then, you you work with a construction team where you can finish sentences with each other and we're able to do it.

Jessie Ott (52:53.713)
You did it. You've been through it. You have the relationships. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (53:11.805)
So there's been, you know, the last few years, whiskeys that are kind of, they're not bypassing the whiskey process, but they're changing it, right? They're not just like, you all have the Rick houses, you're doing the traditional barrel aging. Are you using staves or are you finishing whiskey in fun barrels like rum and peach knobs or whatever, you the thing is?

David Mandell (53:37.39)
So we will be, again, for us, we will do anything that the customer wants. And we'll work with them. That whole facility that we're building for the palletized warehouse with the climate control zones is all for finishing. Predominantly, we're to do some...

empty barrel storage there, new chard oak, because of the humidity levels we can create, we can store them up to three months, just much greater quality control. But yes, so if a customer wants to do it, we'll do it. We've already done actually helped, we've had a number of customers early on here that we've done some filling and some finishing, because we have every capability here. can do barrels, totes, tanker trucks, everything. yes, so the short point is...

This really is about what the customer wants.

Jessie Ott (54:33.115)
That's great. So switching gears here, David, do you have any mentors that you want to talk about today that kind of helped you along your path?

David Mandell (54:44.718)
So, you know, I've had many, right? I've had many. I obviously, it started with my parents, who were wonderful inspirations. Both came from nothing. And my father grew up in Philadelphia. My mother came from Lancaster County, a small town out there, Loyola. Small farming community, and she, you know...

They met in Philadelphia when she was in nursing school, my father, because he retired as a college professor from Drexel in Philadelphia, and my mother, in a very late age, went to medical school, actually, when I was 13, 14, and became a doctor. And so they were real inspiration in terms of people that were working very hard. then, you it's always one of those things, I think, that...

Jessie Ott (55:31.057)
Yeah, definitely.

David Mandell (55:36.524)
Many.

is something that men tend to, you know, tend to feel. So you know, always want to, you know, try to, you know, be, you know, as successful as your parents, right? And that's, you know, whether that's the right motivation, but you know, I think for many of us, that's always there. And so, as I went forward, know, David Jordan DeCarlo, who I mentioned, who, that story I told you about when I was at FAA, he a great mentor. The first...

lawyer that I partner that I worked for who's actually counsel to us now. Matt Samita was a tremendous mentor. Marion Blakey, who I worked for at National Transportation and FAA was a great mentor. I learned a lot from her. Not only I learned a tremendous amount from her, but particularly learned a way of dealing with the press and public speaking.

handling very tough situations from a public standpoint. I that's what she was incredible at, at NTSB and at FAA. So there's a handful of them. I learned a tremendous amount from all of them.

Jessie Ott (56:53.575)
That was great.

Yeah, that's awesome. You know, some people are lucky and have the opportunity to have amazing people in their lives.

David Mandell (57:05.336)
Well, and the thing is, what was amazing about them is the opportunities that they gave me. And that's where I'm so grateful because they gave me opportunities at a time when I certainly didn't have any experience to say, yes, you're ready to do any of these things. So they had a lot of faith in me.

Jessie Ott (57:25.65)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (57:28.945)
Well, and you know, we all kind of fake it till we make it a little bit, you know, you know, everybody has the imposter syndrome until you go, yeah, sure, I can do this.

David Mandell (57:37.89)
Right? Right. Well, and I think that's right. But I think that that's always, you that goes back to the story that I was telling. like, you know, that's, I think it's always good to have that, whether it's a level of humility or, you know, not thinking that you ever know everything.

because you don't. The other thing is there's always a black swan out there, right? And it's always lurking on the horizon and you don't know what it is. it's, you know, it can take a business down, can take, it can be anything, right? And so, why, I'm not sure what the advice would be there, but it's always lurking out there and you have to kind of think about that in terms of, you know, how you plan it. Yeah.

Jessie Ott (58:23.005)
play offense a little bit or defense.

David Mandell (58:25.582)
or how you plan or what you're thinking about because it's always there. you cannot, not necessarily you can do anything about it. And tends to nature of the black swan, but you know, it's there. Yeah, and maybe not getting too comfortable anytime, you know, particularly in business. Thinking that you're just gonna own, you you're gonna be able to do what you do forever and be successful without.

Jessie Ott (58:38.695)
but knowing it's there, being aware of it, being prepared to handle it. Yeah.

David Mandell (58:54.822)
whether it's without constantly evolving, without constantly looking at the business, you don't want to get too comfortable.

Jessie Ott (59:05.703)
Yeah. Good point. Yeah. I guess for me, being a visionary, I don't ever get comfortable. I'm never in a, you know, I'm always wanting to learn or I'm always wanting to try new things or explore something else. So yeah, that's good advice.

David Mandell (59:07.424)
somebody's always right there to take it.

Jessie Ott (59:28.081)
What about resources? Is there anything in particular that you use or used along the way that you want to share with the audience?

David Mandell (59:36.238)
Well, mean one of the resources I've used has been, you know, very helpful to me and my professional career is I've been part of an organization called YPO for the last decade and it's been extremely, extremely powerful. So if there are people that are listening, that is a phenomenal organization and young presidents organization.

Jessie Ott (01:00:01.437)
Okay, good to know.

David Mandell (01:00:05.806)
And it's, you know, is a, it's not, it's not a, you know, there are qualifications for getting into it in business, but, you know, and it, you know, and it's an investment, but there's a tremendous amount of reward because you, you spend a lot of time with other people that are presidents or owners of businesses. And the most valuable thing that they have is something called Forum, where you are, you know, put together with

anywhere about eight other people and I've been with my forum for 10 years you meet monthly it's mandatory it's completely confidential and you talk about there's a process but you talk about everything that's going on in your your business life your personal life and you really get you know to share and get learned from others in a way that you're not you know being judged and that is extremely valuable particularly when you know

of business, have problems in your personal life and there isn't really anybody you can talk to that understands what it's like to be in the position that you're in.

Jessie Ott (01:01:12.283)
Yeah, I've heard great things about that organization. Other people have mentioned it on the podcast before, so that's good to know. Yeah.

David Mandell (01:01:16.288)
It is, yeah. It is very good. I know it's probably one of those resources that I would say have been most impactful for me.

Jessie Ott (01:01:26.781)
Okay, that's great.

about you know any pain points that your your pain points are you know specific to your side of the business but if you want to talk about what you're seeing maybe even in the American whiskey you know business free to to talk about

David Mandell (01:01:46.894)
Yeah, mean, it's a very interesting time. And I think it's really, a time of transition. But a lot of this stems from COVID, honestly. So we created an artificial market for a period of time that was not sustainable. mean, basically everybody was at home.

spending in many cases the money that they would normally spend on lots of other things, expensive bottles of whiskey. And it drove a lot of, and this was across the spirits industry, but it drove a lot of things during that period where you had too many products created.

Too many people getting involved in the business. Basically anybody that could buy any aged whiskey, stick it in a bottle, distributors would buy it. So you created a lot of excess inventory at the retail level. You had facilities that shouldn't have been built. had facilities that shouldn't have been expanded. And this is not just whiskey, but this is across all spirits. And then of course, it's over. Everybody's released.

Jessie Ott (01:02:34.791)
Yep.

David Mandell (01:02:58.442)
know, spending habits change very quickly. They go back to the way they were. And so you also over that, lay that over with, you know, it's some, you know, economic challenges, know, high inflation. You've got, you know, a lot of different, you know, issues there going on and people are cutting back on what they're spending. And so I think this is, it's a transitory period. There is a lot of talk about

younger demographics and not drinking and drinking differently and cannabis and all of these things. I think those are all, you know, they're all important trends to be aware of, but I don't think there is, you know, as immediately impacting everything as much as the things that I just mentioned. I think, you know, we're seeing probably 2025 will be a challenging year, but this is going to be a year where

We continue to kind of the, you know, a lot of things have to work themselves out that again, of these things that I just mentioned, have to kind of clear out some of the clutter, you know, on the inventory level, on the brand side, some companies won't make it, but then there's gonna be kind of a, I think we'll be facing a good situation because American whiskey fundamentals are very strong. They're still strong domestically.

Jessie Ott (01:03:59.601)
Yeah.

David Mandell (01:04:14.894)
There is long term, not short term, but long term tremendous upside in the international market. It's not gonna happen overnight. It's not gonna happen in five years. You're talking 10 to 20 years. But there's massive potential down the road. And so there's a lot to be, a lot to be planning for.

Jessie Ott (01:04:36.253)
Yeah. You know, as I'm getting into the cruise lines, duty-free export markets, I'm learning more and more. I do think, you know, I've been to Europe a few times. I haven't been recently, but you you've got Jack Daniels and me. You know, there might've been another bourbon, but there certainly wasn't the availability. And obviously it's expensive too, right? So that's kind of a barrier just because of, you know, exporting it.

David Mandell (01:04:55.49)
Not much.

David Mandell (01:05:00.59)
pray.

Jessie Ott (01:05:05.757)
But yeah, I completely agree.

David Mandell (01:05:06.19)
story. So you're seeing, I you're seeing a lot of the same things out there.

Jessie Ott (01:05:12.485)
Yeah. And I will say in terms of the market and the transitions, you're on point with all the executives I had on. I've spoken to you outside of the podcast. I've had on the podcast. I was talking to David, I think earlier about a round table that we just recorded with different women and throughout the industry in different positions. And so they're all saying the same thing about this transitional period, 2025.

You know, and it's interesting too, when you think about when we were in COVID and okay, well, how long is this going to take to really get out of this? Right. And if you talk to, you know, the people in the medical industry, they're like 20, 25. You know, it's going to be 20, 25. And you're like, okay, well, I could see that. And, you know, as we had ships.

David Mandell (01:06:02.446)
Sorry.

Jessie Ott (01:06:05.949)
hanging out for months in the ports, you know, for how long? Ugh, that was such a nightmare. But, you know, I don't know. mean, it's 2025. Is it the year where we kind of get back to normal? You know, what is this transition kind of period going to look like? And I think we all don't really know. But to your point, the fundamentals are there. We're not in a recession, right? I think...

David Mandell (01:06:20.962)
Yeah.

Jessie Ott (01:06:32.185)
One thing to note that we did talk a little bit on the podcast that I don't know a lot about, but personal debt is at the highest level it's been ever. That's scary to me. That's a very scary metric. Because then that means they're one house payment away from making the next one, right? That's not good. So, you know, we don't know at 25. I mean, we never know what you're up against, you know, the new year, but.

David Mandell (01:06:44.215)
Yep.

David Mandell (01:06:50.754)
No, no.

Jessie Ott (01:07:00.061)
I will say just in terms of, you know, from feedback, guess, or just a dialogue is that that's very much in concert with many other people in the industry, or the people at the

David Mandell (01:07:10.734)
Yeah, I think that's right. I think you're right. mean, it's that that is why you see spending habits change. There's a lot of pressure. Let's hope. And then there's one way out of it. We've got to grow our way out of it. So that's really the only path way forward. It's got to grow the economy. And so I'm that that.

you will take place. so, you know, look, there are lot of things that people talk about in the industry. There's a lot of talk about tariffs and how it's going to impact all of these things. And again, it's too early to see. Like, you know, we just got to wait and see, you know, because again, you can't predict all of these things. you know, that I think, again, in the grand scheme of things, we're kind of looking at longer cycles. This is, you know, I think this is short term. And

see how everybody comes through this and where we end up on the other side. it's certainly looking like we're headed in the right direction.

Jessie Ott (01:08:08.891)
Yeah, I agree. think the growth in these other segments is going to continue and be in to your point. think you, nailed it. Like the fundamentals are healthy. Right. And that's good. That's going to help our industry stay on point.

David Mandell (01:08:26.158)
I mean look, there's all sorts of different reports and I've go to a lot of the different conferences and you'll hear everything from younger demographic is not drinking, younger demographic is drinking better but less. Some will tell you that the younger demographic you don't know yet how they're going to drink because think about your drinking habits in your 20s. I know in my early 20s I was drinking beer.

Right? And so it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I was, in my late 20s, early 30s, that I was transitioning towards cocktails. You know, and really enjoying that. And so there's still a lot that's unknown as to what, you know, this younger generation and how those habits, you know, how those habits will develop, if they will develop the same way or they'll develop differently. You know, what impact does cannabis have? We don't really know.

Yet how much is how much of it is eating into the market share probably some of it and you know the data that comes from Look at Tulare brands, and you know what's going on with them in Canada. They have some interesting data on changing habits there But again, it's just it's you know it's just it's it's early to say you know that it's gonna have a you know an earth

changing effect and also then if it does domestically change more does that mean it's going to be international the same way you've got you know something like you know I forget the number of people somewhere in the range of like a hundred million people each year in India you know are coming of age drinking age so whiskey culture is it shifting you know can that culture shift you know to bourbon into American whiskey well the big companies are working on it I won't happen overnight but if it does

and it moves away from Indian whiskey and scotch and more towards bourbon over a 10, 20 year period, that's enormous. So you don't know how these things balance out.

Jessie Ott (01:10:24.561)
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a huge market over there, for sure.

David Mandell (01:10:31.298)
Just won't happen. think one of the misconceptions is that it's an easy answer for short-term issues. not, know, still pricing is very low. International competition and selling, you know, it's very, very low cost. It's gonna take time to change because, you know, you're talking, you know, decade or more.

Jessie Ott (01:10:49.383)
Yeah, I don't know what the drinking culture is there. I've never been. But I dated an Indian when I was in college. And they never drank in front of their parents. It wasn't a social thing. It was a respect thing. And so I don't know what exists today or what that looks like for that culture. But I would say that I'm sure for the traditional families, there's still some of that.

Now that's not to say they're, when they go out with their friends and do their own thing, they're not going to drink or do whatever. But I do, I do know back then, and this is what 20, 25 years ago, something like that, you know, but yeah, whatever, like five minutes ago, I don't know. You know, so, and yeah, it's, I remember when Southern went into that market, gosh, years ago.

David Mandell (01:11:33.582)
Or whatever. Right. Right.

Jessie Ott (01:11:49.021)
I'm pretty sure it's a process. That's a whole cultural process right there. But yeah, but at least there's an ear for, okay, hey, there's another potential market that's going to come online at some point.

David Mandell (01:12:03.82)
Yeah, I think there's a lot of opportunities. It's it's not immediate. It's long term, but again, the fundamentals.

Jessie Ott (01:12:12.985)
Any other outlook points you want to make or anything else that you want to...

David Mandell (01:12:18.638)
No, we're very excited. We're very excited for how the business is performing, where we're headed, what we're seeing in our segment of the market. And so we're very optimistic and very excited for 2025 and beyond. So it's been great and it's been very rewarding.

Jessie Ott (01:12:35.825)
Yay.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, I congratulate you and your team and your partners to have the vision. I'd love to. I have got to get out there. Okay, I will. I'd love to get out and do the Bourbon Trail and swing by there and just spend some time. And I've been able to interview some amazing people. And I will tell you this, just swinging back to you.

David Mandell (01:12:43.438)
Thank you.

anytime. You just let me know. We'll take you through.

Jessie Ott (01:13:07.567)
being from Philadelphia, bet 10 or 12 % of the people that I've interviewed on this podcast are from there. Which is you. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty, pretty interesting to me. Must be, in the blood there just to be entrepreneurs.

David Mandell (01:13:14.082)
Really? That's funny. Yeah.

David Mandell (01:13:21.56)
good town. It's a good town. Maybe, It's not something I ever anticipated I would be doing.

Jessie Ott (01:13:31.217)
That's great. So do you have any passions that you have that is outside of work that you want to share? Get to know you a little bit.

David Mandell (01:13:39.15)
I mean, look, so much of it is work, I mean, obviously I spend a tremendous amount of time with my children, my significant other. do a lot of traveling. I enjoy it from a recreational standpoint. It's something we really like doing. But a lot of beyond those two things, that, a lot of it is obviously focused on

business these days, because it's early days again.

Jessie Ott (01:14:12.529)
Yep. I just interviewed Mikoshina who has mochi gummies. say mochi gummies and they're amazing. Your kids and your wife, they'll love them. I mean, it's good for all ages because they're not super sweet, but they still give you that little like fruit flavor of goodness. Yeah, and she even made them so that you want more. And so you like the

David Mandell (01:14:23.534)
I love it. I love it.

Yep.

David Mandell (01:14:33.262)
Mochi gummies?

Jessie Ott (01:14:41.403)
The bags aren't very big, but you just want to like eat the whole thing. It's huh. Yep. Yeah. She was, she was born in Japan and moved when she was eight and started the company and her first, her first hit was, was central market. Yeah. Central market. Yeah. Central market. Yeah. Central market. I think it was, can't remember, but yeah, it was just a sample she sent. And then within two years she's on the cover of, ink magazine.

David Mandell (01:14:43.118)
Right. Are they made in the United States? Yeah. That's great.

David Mandell (01:14:57.57)
Well, it's great.

David Mandell (01:15:11.094)
amazing. It's great. These are wonderful stories.

Jessie Ott (01:15:11.133)
That is amazing. Anyway, the point is, is that she has a family too and children. And she said, you know, the first two years, you know, and she said, founders don't talk about this, but the first two years, you really have to put everything you've got into this business. You know, you're going to forfeit a lot of other things, but it's worth it because you're, you're, building your own business. You know, you're putting all the efforts into the right place.

David Mandell (01:15:35.086)
Yeah, no, it's a very rewarding process. There's no question. But it's not for everybody, and that's OK. I tell people that all the time. I speak to lot of younger groups and things about business and entrepreneurship. And we place a lot of romance in it, too. But it's also very hard. you've got to be able to lots of highs, there are also a lot of lows. And you've got to be up for that. And it's OK. There's nothing wrong.

with finding a stable job and working at a company and building your way up and creating a career. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Starting your own business is fabulous, it's great, but you gotta know going into it, you gotta have the stomach to do it or develop it.

Jessie Ott (01:16:20.401)
Yep. Yeah. Every day is Groundhog Day. Every day is Monday. Right?

David Mandell (01:16:23.566)
That's right, yes. Yeah, and every day there's also, there's always a problem. And so you gotta be able to figure out how to work through them.

Jessie Ott (01:16:28.882)
Yeah.

Yep. But it is very rewarding and a lot of fun.

David Mandell (01:16:33.774)
That's right.

It is, it is, it certainly can be.

Jessie Ott (01:16:39.505)
Yeah. Well, David, it's been amazing to meet you and to talk with you and to learn about your journey and the outstanding team that you have built around you. And what you guys are doing is certainly forging innovation at its highest level. I mean, what you guys are doing is really incredible. And I'm just so appreciative that you had time to sit down with me.

David Mandell (01:16:43.918)
Thank you.

David Mandell (01:17:06.531)
It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me on. look forward to meeting you in person at some point.

Jessie Ott (01:17:12.219)
Yeah, we got it. We'll do it. Or an event. We'll have to connect at an event. Do you go to a lot of energy events?

David Mandell (01:17:14.348)
Sounds great. That's fine too. That's fine.

I do, most of them are focused really more now around this part of the market, this segment, but yes I do. I go to WSWA, go to the big conferences each year. I go to Market Watch in New York every March, going to ProWise.

Jessie Ott (01:17:41.245)
Okay, I might head to Proline this year actually.

David Mandell (01:17:44.268)
Yeah okay well great let me know we'll be there.

Jessie Ott (01:17:46.811)
Okay. Yeah, we might get a table and, you know, get our international business going. I've been to Proline before and it was remarkable. It's one of the greatest experiences, as an industry person, it's one of the greatest experiences I've ever had.

David Mandell (01:18:03.682)
Yeah, it's a big, big event.

Jessie Ott (01:18:07.653)
Yeah. I had a, I had a winemaker from Moldova that made a Chardonnay that made me cry. I'm not kidding. It so good. So, so good. I mean, the Portuguese wine portfolio, we don't know anything about it over here and it's just, they're so good, but nobody can pronounce them. Yeah. I was, you know, this is in 2014 before I got into the military side of the business, but.

David Mandell (01:18:13.097)
Hahaha

David Mandell (01:18:27.234)
Definitely had an impact on you.

Jessie Ott (01:18:36.923)
I was going to build my own importing business and you know, yeah, it's really hard. I'm not doing that now. I'm just building a portfolio brands to sell. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the market's good here. We got enough people selling, not a lot of people selling out outside of the U S so.

David Mandell (01:18:43.362)
Yeah, it is tough. Yeah, that is tough.

David Mandell (01:18:52.354)
Yes. Yep.

David Mandell (01:18:57.774)
That's wonderful. good luck.

Jessie Ott (01:19:00.445)
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, well, I will let you get back to it and happy holidays and happy new year. OK, you too. OK, bye. So how are you doing? I'm at 99 percent. I don't see yours. OK, so I wonder if we're both kind of at 99. Yeah, no, that was.

David Mandell (01:19:06.338)
Thank you. You too. Same. I have a wonderful one. Bye bye.

David Mandell (01:19:17.976)
Great, did we do all right?

David Mandell (01:19:23.342)
I am too. 99%. Yeah, it's showing the arrow and it's going up.

Jessie Ott (01:19:29.839)
Okay, yep, yep, yep, yep. No, that was so cool. I wanted to nerd out on the data piece because obviously I'm analytical at the data company when you're talking about taking in all the data and I'm like, let me run predictive analytics on that.

David Mandell (01:19:46.84)
Yeah, that's exactly a big piece of what is, of what's coming. Hold on one sec, just one text here.

Jessie Ott (01:20:09.443)
And these... Yeah.

David Mandell (01:20:09.506)
Yeah, yeah, anytime we want to do another one at a later date, happy to talk more about it too. That specific subject.

Jessie Ott (01:20:20.783)
I do. Actually, I do. Because I want people like you to understand the value of it to start talking about it. So the way I see myself is a conduit from big data business analytics into business, because there's no one really being able to be that conduit. And so if I can have people, especially people in our industry, that would be.

David Mandell (01:20:29.848)
Sure, happy to do it.

Jessie Ott (01:20:50.065)
That would be huge. Like, yeah, like if you're up for it in January, let me know because I'm going to kind of start launching my business in January. And so I'm going to have a little segment of analytics and see where it goes. If it becomes its own person, know, personality, I'll push it off to a different platform. But yeah, that'd be great.

David Mandell (01:21:13.582)
Great. That sounds good. Sounds good. Happy to do it. All right. So now, I, how do we, what do we have do here to make that go to 100?

Jessie Ott (01:21:18.031)
Okay, awesome.

Jessie Ott (01:21:26.021)
You just got to let it sit so we can.

David Mandell (01:21:27.542)
Okay, so we'll drop off and just let it stay open. Okay.

Jessie Ott (01:21:30.693)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. I'm gonna stop.