One Burger, One Shot & One Beer

Intro/Outro (00:04):

It takes a bit of a blend of art and science to get baking just right and having extra eyes, ears, and hands can make a big difference along the way. That’s where Ab Maori, north America comes into play. We are the team behind industrial and artisan bakers that help optimize success. We’ll discuss more on this episode of the Oven Light. So let’s get going. Flip the switch.

Rick (00:31):

Welcome back everybody. The switch is on. We’re excited to be back. It’s another episode of The Oven Light. I’m your host, Rick Sack. Today we double your excitement with double the number of guests, both intriguing individuals within the distilling industry. So we’re going to switch things up. We talk a lot about baking, but we’re going to stay in the fermentation front. And yeast does some wonderful things as well for distilled spirits and beer and wine and so on, so forth.

Rick (00:55):

But our first guest, he’s the founder of 1879 Distilling Company right here in St. Louis, Missouri. Also a former Anheuser-Busch executive owner of an iconic regional roast beef restaurant chain called Lion’s Choice. If you’ve been through the region, you know it. A purveyor of a favorite watering hole in St. Louis, known as the Village Bar. I will tell you that we always went there at Anheuser-Busch days after we had a successful program showing off our marketing wears, we would go to the village bar. He’s also a graduate of Missouri State University, has a BS degree in marketing and a whole lot more. Welcome to the oven light Mark Disper. Good

Mark (01:34):

Afternoon.

Rick (01:35):

Alright, his tag team partner next to him at the table. He’s the head distiller for 1879, distilling a long history in farming, even groundskeeping. He’s a baseball fisha. Worked for AA minor league baseball squad as well. We’re going to talk to him a little bit about that in a moment. But let’s meet the one and only Kyle Decker.

Kyle (01:55):

Hey guys, glad to be here.

Rick (01:56):

Great to have both of you guys on. So, okay, we’re going to just, let’s ease into this thing a little bit. We have a thing called the hot pan, but today let’s maybe change it up. We’re going to call it quick shots, right? We stay in the distilling vein and we’ll call quick shots. Let’s go first one, mark at our roots Bread, beer distilled spirits, yeast, they kind of rule the day, but hey, when you start your day, is there a typical baked good that you like and why? Where does that come from?

Mark (02:22):

I like a hard roll. I like that with

Rick (02:25):

My eggs. You butter it Is there jam? You got to give me a little more detail here.

Mark (02:30):

Occasionally if there is jam.

Rick (02:32):

Okay, and if there is a jam, what is it? What kind of jam?

Mark (02:34):

Strawberry preserves.

Rick (02:35):

Okay man. In my own heart, I love that. Alright, Kyle, how about you? You’ve got some Arkansas ties. Is there a biscuit or something in there?

Kyle (02:41):

Not necessarily a biscuit. More kind of just traditional family thing. Banana bread. Banana. There’s always something was essential to have around growing up at family events.

Rick (02:49):

Do you even bake it? Are you the holder of the recipe now?

Kyle (02:52):

Yeah, every once in a while I’ll bake it, but not the holder of the recipe. That’s my sister.

Rick (02:56):

Okay. You throw walnuts in, you got to give me a little scooper

Kyle (02:59):

Here. It’s pretty basic. I throw pecans in it more than anything, every once in a while. That’s kind of just my taste on it, what I like in it.

Rick (03:04):

That’s a southeast us play. I love that. That’s great. Alright, so let’s talk about your passion area. The second one of the quick shot, Kyle, we’ll start off with you. What’s your ideal cocktail or maybe hard liquor drink and why?

Kyle (03:17):

Yeah, going to be pretty easy about this one, but an old fashioned is always going to be right where I belong. Kind of when it comes to a cocktail, I can experiment with different kind of bourbons, whether they’re weeded corn forward, it always just something I can explore a little bit farther into what they are.

Rick (03:32):

Okay. How about you, mark? Mine is gen and tonic. Gin and tonic. Okay. Alright. And I’m holding onto this great bottle. This is an award-winning gold medal, 1879 rye whiskey. And we’re going to talk about this as we get into it. So last one of the quick shot. We got to talk cheeseburger. I mean Mark, we’re going to dive into the village bar and how you’re known in the area as being the top cheeseburger maker in the business. So what’s the right topic for a cheeseburger? In your heart of heart, how do you cook it? And then what are the stuff that you put on

Mark (04:02):

It? Medium rare tomato, little mustard American cheese, sharp American cheese. It’s about quality service and taste.

Rick (04:10):

You sound like a Jimmy Buffet guy. A little cheeseburger in paradise all. How about you Kyle? What do you got?

Kyle (04:15):

A little bit different than Mark. Still keep it medium rare, but like a nice Kaiser bun, pepper jack, cheese, and a lot of pickles and onions on there.

Rick (04:22):

You want a little spice?

Kyle (04:24):

A

Rick (04:24):

Little something to it. Alright. Okay. Alright, now we’re kind of warmed up now. So Mark, we’re going to get into the nitty gritty. So we’ll start with you. Boy, you’ve covered a lot. When you look at your resume, you’re like, oh my goodness, this guy has had his hands in a lot, but a lot related to food. The beer piece with Anheuser-Busch, the beef, the burgers, now the distilled spirits has food. Always been a little bit of your passion. If somebody didn’t know you, they’d be like, wow, this is his bailiwick.

Mark (04:50):

Food has been. And it’s all about quality. It’s all about taste, and it’s always about good people. And being in the restaurant business, we have opportunity to deal with people all day long. We have great service with great people and that’s what inspires me every day.

Rick (05:07):

And coming from a marketing guy, I mean, I love that when I read that and I’m like, he’s a marketer. I am kind of in that space. And so I certainly appreciate it, but you don’t always see the marketing to maybe a food connoisseur,

Mark (05:18):

But it’s quality. But it’s the design, it’s a creative part of it. It’s putting all the pieces of the puzzle together to talk about your brand and talk about your people, and that’s what makes it successful.

Rick (05:30):

So let’s hold that piece on storytelling. We’re going to come back to that. That’s going to be a really important aspect of helping people understand how 1879 came to life. Kyle, how about you? You’ve come to us, you’ve been in the farming more recently and now you’re in the distilling side and you throw a little bit of baseball and grounds keeping of things. Boy, how did you land on it? But there’s always something about Mother Earth here too, right?

Kyle (05:53):

Yeah, yeah. No, I think I kind landed in that kind of place with everything because of a lot of the innovations that was coming on the industry the past 10, 15 years. I saw it throughout different states, throughout different parts of the country that we got to see. But ultimately, I think going back to the bare bones, everything being a start on the farming background and understand the chemistry behind a lot of these grains is what pushed me to pursue a lot of the, what is the next step? How can I use this different mash as an experiment, as an innovative part of the industry. So kind of the same thing as in tune with baseball. There’s a heavy, heavy tradition within that sport. All we know is hearing even in St. Louis with the Cardinals heavy tradition, been going and seeing games since I was a kid. So that just carries a lot of passion.

Rick (06:38):

Let’s keep this going a little bit because I believe you are the lead distiller for Treaty Oak down in Dripping Springs, Texas, and I think it was the fourth distillery to ever open up in the Lone Star state. So how did that experience a few years ago kind of prepare you for working with Mark on the 1879 front?

Kyle (06:57):

Yeah, I mean it was a tremendous learning experience for me, being able to kind of go into it without any prior knowledge in the industry at all. It was great. It gave me kind of that understanding from the very point of it. Say, Hey, we use all these different types of grains. We were doing four grains, we were doing rye whiskeys, we were doing single malts, we were doing weed bourbons, 99% corns, and we were kind of covering the board in the forest, the bourbon spectrum, and even I was doing specialty gins down there, rums vodka. So that was an important part for me to be able to understand those kind of different spectrums of the industry. And that also with that, we got through a pretty big growing pain and got to go into a different vast marketing spectrum with going into different states and not just Texas at the time. So that prepared me to see a lot of the parts of the industry and how to grow and how to also keep it in tune with everything we have going on in our story.

Rick (07:47):

Alright, let’s get back to Mark A. Little bit. Let’s talk about 1879. We’ve kind of set it up a little bit, but let’s talk about the origin story for how you started this distilling company. Can’t be easy, right? Coming off of Covid, you’ve got the beer background, but all of a sudden you’ve got this wonderful barn behind the village bar. Let’s unpack this a little bit. Tell me about how this whole thing came together, the architect.

Mark (08:10):

Well, the barn was there, as you know, and I was in a little disrepair and my partner and I, Chuck kind of sat down and talked about, Hey, what can we do to make this thing productive for our business There with the village bar, we looked at a couple of different options, whether it was a brewery or a microbrewery, and we came up with a distillery. So we spent a couple of years renovating the barn, bringing it back to the nostalgic old feel of what the barn was about and the era of 1879. The barn was built in 1879, the original farmhouse. The original farmhouse was built in 1872 and we’ve been renovating it ever since.

Rick (08:50):

And who would’ve thought people would be playing pickleball 150 years later right

Mark (08:54):

Outside.

Rick (08:55):

But there’s more to this story besides the barn. I mean, you guys are so dedicated and so diligent, so into the nooks and crannies of starting this business. How has that been bringing this whole thing to life? Because you guys are very proud of what you’ve got holding a bottle of an award winner, but you’ve got a dozen other trophies for both a DI, the American Distilling Institute, and we’ll talk about that in a bit. And also the World Spirits Competition. So there’s a lot of action going on here.

Mark (09:25):

There is. And having Kyle join our team and working on our processes during covid really helped us get a stronghold on being able to partner with MA and look at people around the world and take the collaboration that we’ve had with AB Ma to new level and being able to make products that are perfected from the beginning versus trial and error.

Rick (09:50):

Let’s stay on that. He kind of teased it a little bit about a working relationship, and we’re going to toot our own horns here a little bit, right? Because 1879, distilling, there’s no secret AB biotech, which is one of our divisions, worked really closely with you guys hand in hand as well as the people that kind of created the still for you as well. Why was it important having somebody side by side? I’ll throw a name out there, Kevin Kawa and Greg Strauss, those two guys were hand in hand making sure the process was going great, making sure he had the right kind of yeast and nutrients, that you had a wonderful product and now it’s award winning, so hey, it’s worked out, right.

Kyle (10:26):

Yeah, no, that established a relationship with Kevin, Greg, all of you other guys on your team was amazing from the standpoint when I got there, being able to have that all laid out and established to understand this is what’s going to work best for us, this is how we can tread the lines of where we want to be in that. But yeah, just being able to have that relationship with both Kevin and Greg has been great from the very beginning. Ever since we started with those guys, they’ve been able to help us execute on every single fermentation that we’ve gone after and even going after into our vodkas using our vodka for even a gin recipe that we’re working on now as well has been just kind of formatting everything we can do from here on out.

Rick (11:03):

And you guys had to come out with the white spirits first, obviously, right? Because of aging and all that. So how was that process? I mean, I assume that’s standard, right? You try to get going, but you need some way of bringing some capital back in and keeping some interest while your other stuff is kind of in process.

Kyle (11:19):

Yeah, the vodka was a challenging standpoint from the very beginning, but I think once we found the very perfected level of three times, still three times filtered, we found it worked really, really, really well in that process. It also allowed the yeast to work properly in the mashing process, being able to use that as well as our bourbon yeast to kind of just kind of streamline our recipes and understand what we can do moving forward.

Rick (11:43):

And I’ll throw out the brand name just in case you’re curious. It’s Pinnacle. Pinnacle is our distiller’s yeas. So Mark, I want to kind of jump into what Kyle was talking about. We talked a little bit about collaboration, make this thing really go, but let’s use Red Barn vodka, your award winner as part of this. And with the gold being taste, you kind of went against the grain literally with a different input. So tell me about that and why it’s so special.

Mark (12:09):

Well, we did our research. I mean, we had time and we didn’t want to rush doing what we did with the significant investment that we did and the distilling equipment. So we wanted to maximize our product, but we wanted to have product that was unique that it had taste. When you look at all these other vodkas out there, some have no taste, some have a little bit of taste, and we feel that our taste that we have in a taste profile stands out well above everybody else that’s out there, especially for mixability and for taste. Just tastes straight.

Rick (12:41):

And you guys were rewarded with doing something different and not doing the typical mash bill?

Mark (12:47):

That’s correct. We did some research, we went down the path of looking at different grains, we looked at different yeasts, we looked at the whole gamut of everything putting this product together, and we’re very proud of the taste profile that we finalized and brought out in Red Barn vodka.

Rick (13:06):

Alright, so I got to bring the marketer back in because now you’ve evolved and now you’re established and award-winning. You’ve got a history, but now the marketer comes in and says, wow, I got something else I can throw in here. How about a speakeasy? Right? Speakeasys are cool. I love ’em. I try to search ’em out when I go to different cities. And now you have one that’s kind of right there established with the barn and with the village bar. Tell us why that’s important, mark.

Mark (13:33):

Our whole tagline is quality, taste, and tradition. So building on tradition is what we stand for at the Village Bar in 1879, but the original farmhouse is built in 1872. So we were throwing ideas around what we could do with that and we made it a retail store and a tasting room. So before you come through the distillery, you come in and sign in and look at the retail and then be able to taste some of the drinks that we have from all of our award-winning products. So it’s building on a tradition, it’s kind of incognito. It’s right there when you pull into the bar and it’s cause a big excitement.

Rick (14:09):

And you guys do tours and special events and all that back in kind of the barn area? Correct.

Mark (14:15):

We’re in the process of opening that this spring. We’re finishing up a few details on the speakeasy right now, but this spring, early spring we’ll be opening the retail store on limited hours

Rick (14:25):

And then kind of stay on the promotional front. A lot of your labels have really cool looking dogs, hunting dogs and such. So where did all that come from?

Mark (14:34):

It comes back and we have the store on the back of the bottle talking about tradition and quality and people, and it’s a German area. That was the expansion down Route 66 and over a hundred years ago. We wanted to carry on that tradition. The dog that’s on the back of the bottle was the man’s best friend back there. They were out in the morning hunting and they came back together and they brought dinner home, put it on a table. So we carried on that tradition and these old recipes and built upon that.

Rick (15:01):

I think it’s pretty cool. I mean, hey, there was an Anheuser-Busch brewery that was going on. They had some dalmatians too, but people love dogs, don’t they? Historically, people love dogs and babies and I’m glad you didn’t put a baby on the label that would’ve taken things in a whole different place. So alright, Kyle, so let’s talk about getting involved. You guys have really jumped in quickly to establish yourself in the state of Missouri and there’s a Missouri Craft Distillers Guild. You guys are very active and why is that important to be in the industry and talk with other distillers and talk with other businesses?

Kyle (15:34):

I think that’s always very important to be able to kind of bounce ideas off like-minded people. They’re always going to be your best friend when it comes down to how can we create the next best thing, but also the best experience possible for the state of Missouri. And our instance with this being with the Guild and the activity we’ve had with them, it’s been great to be able to understand where everybody’s at and where else can we push the next steps of whether it’s legislative or down the road of how can we push a better experience for an expedition in Missouri to be able to give people kind of more incentive to go and visit all the distilleries in the area.

Rick (16:06):

So if you’re just tuning in right now, we’ve got Mark Disper and Kyle Decker here from 1879 Distilling Company in St. Louis. If you do have a question, you can always shoot us an email. We have an email, it’s called the oven light@abmaori.com. So if you’ve got a question you want to get it to Mark and Kyle, we will pass that on. Even if you write us a nice note or saying you enjoyed the episode, we’ll send you some swag as well on behalf of our company. So Mark, did you have any other comments on this as we talk about getting engaged in the industry? You guys we’re going to talk about a DI. So let’s do it here, because the big craft show, craft distilling show, there’s multiples, but really the granddaddy is a DI and that comes up in San Antonio in August. I’m sure your eyeballs are already kind of fixated on it.

Mark (16:52):

Having a collaborative relationship with people in the industry is really important, and we’ve learned a lot from our partnerships with many of these distillers out there. That’s really important. You look at the tradition that’s been out there for over 150 years in this country and different states and being able to pick up the phone and have a great conversation on somebody with somebody about specific issue that you might have or a technique that you’re learning about, or even a different distilling process or a different product. I mean, that’s really important.

Rick (17:20):

Well, it’s interesting. I mean, our paths kind of cross a little bit Anheuser-Busch time, and you find in the beer industry, you find the distilling industry even find it in the baking industry, people are willing to help others. If you’ve got an issue, I mean, Kyle, you’re the guy who’s in the sight lines, right? If something’s going right, great. If something’s not, you’re looking for help, right?

Kyle (17:40):

Yeah, no, of course. Being able to look on past colleagues, people that are surrounding the same setting as you is always going to be a good outreach, whether it’s in the world, the marketing world, there’s always going to be avenues of people that have that next push for you to be able to say, oh, I just needed to do that thing next, or I needed to raise my 10 degrees in Distill just to get to that point of proof. So yeah, no, it’s very, very important, not only with other distillers and other people in the industry, but our partners as well.

Mark (18:07):

Matter of fact, we had a sister distiller out 66, about 47 miles away from here, bring about eight people in this morning and kind of tour through our facility because they’re expanding their facility down in Herman, Missouri. And they wanted to look at things and look at how we changed a few things in different processes and our expansion to modify theirs. So

Rick (18:29):

Yeah, people are not always competitors in a way. You’re going for the end of the common good

Mark (18:34):

And the economic benefit for the state of Missouri. The more we expand and bring jobs to Missouri, the better off it’s going to be for everyone here in Missouri.

Rick (18:42):

And then back to a DI. So this is a big show in August. Is there anything planned? Do you guys have anything, any new wrinkles that maybe you’re looking to introduce? And the timing just kind of makes sense as these guys look at each other, right? You’re not getting that over audio, but maybe they don’t want to show other cards and that’s fine. That’s fine. So Kyle, we’re, we’re going to switch back to you. You and I chatted a little bit before the program about baseball. We both have a shared interest in it. Let’s talk about AA baseball down in Arkansas. You worked, I think with the Woo Pig suey at the Arkansas Razorback Baseball program. And then tell me about your baseball story. And by the way, did you play grown up?

Kyle (19:21):

I played, yeah. Yeah, I played little league going on into just basically into club college ball. Yeah, it was just fun for me to have that as a side gig going on in college.

Rick (19:30):

What was your position?

Kyle (19:32):

Oh, I was third base. I was in the hot corner.

Rick (19:34):

So you got a good glove.

Kyle (19:35):

I was always stressing out.

Rick (19:37):

Well, people do hit rockets down, I tell you that. But you’ve got to have a good bat too, to stay

Kyle (19:42):

In the line. Yeah, that’s what carried me more through the lineup is my bat. My bat for sure.

Rick (19:46):

Righty or lefty?

Kyle (19:46):

Righty.

Rick (19:47):

Okay.

Kyle (19:47):

Yeah, I wish I could be a switch hitter, but not everybody’s that talented.

Rick (19:51):

Were you hitting for power or more for average?

Kyle (19:54):

Yeah, more for average. I was in high school closer to a 3 50, 400 batting average. A lot of doubles, a lot of rbis getting people in. But yes, college went on. Just kind keep turning it over and keep doing that in club ball.

Rick (20:05):

Kyle, you had to have a nickname come on. And maybe one that maybe you can at least say in this audience here with Bryn or

Kyle (20:11):

Audio One, I can say least is concrete, Kyle, it’s always had a pretty tough head,

Rick (20:17):

But that’s tough. If you’re a third baseman, that means you’ve got tough hands, right? Concrete. I’m going to use that maybe as the bat you’re hitting

Kyle (20:24):

Stroking. It’s versatile, right? You can use in both settings. Right.

Rick (20:27):

Okay, let’s leave that one there. We’re not going to dive any further on that one. Alright, so let’s talk about your passion for ball though.

Kyle (20:33):

Yeah, no, I mean it all started from very young age. Growing up in St. Louis, being around the Cardinals, early two thousands. I mean, my dad was taking me to games all the time. Old Bush Stadium, new Bush Stadium. We kind of got to see the mix of that. I mean, pool holes, Edmonds, Scott Roland, all growing up. They were just huge inspirations in me for the game and to always be involved. I think that always kind of being involved just in tune kept me in the game and always around it. Going into college and pursuing sports management degree, but also being around it on all sides of it from the ground keeping side, like we talked about. And both from the internship side on the Northwest, Arkansas Naturals,

Rick (21:09):

The Naturals. I mean that’s just a great name. I mean, we talked about the walkout music, obviously from the natural, but alright, so baseball always seemed to have a stronghold. Beer wood as a drink of choice when you go to a ball game, come on, you guys are not in beer, so you’re on the little spirit side. So what’s the ideal drink while you’re watching a minor league baseball game or maybe a Cardinals game?

Kyle (21:30):

Oh, I’m always drinking beer. That’s the thing.

Rick (21:33):

Boy, we’re going to cut that one. No, I’m kidding. We’re going to let that one fly. How about you, mark? I’ll have a vodka to, vodka to, all right. Alright, stay the whites. There we go, spirit. Okay. You’re not going with your award-winning rye. Okay. It’s a little hot in the summertime. Yeah, I know. I hear you. I hear you. You got to throw some ice cubes in there a little bit. Alright, mark, we’re going to come back to you now. Let’s talk about the village bar. And if you have not been to the St. Louis region and you’re looking for a great cheeseburger, honestly they say it on the menu, they tout it. But I’ve had many in my life and it’s a fantastic cheeseburger. So why has that business been so successful for you? And then kind of leaping into the roast beef world with Lion’s Choice, you’ve kind of, boy, there’s farming, there’s cows and there’s meals and all that, but it seems like you’ve hit that sweet spot there too.

Mark (22:19):

But it’s about quality. I mean, there are two unique brands that we have. We have Lion’s Choice, which is cooked on site. It’s a rare roast beef. Nobody else does it like we do. And it’s all about quality. And the same thing with the Village Bar. I mean, we take the time to do it the old fashioned way and make it by hand. We take the time to do it. We take time to train everybody the proper way, and we don’t compromise on quality when it comes back to quality, taste, and tradition. That’s what it’s about. And everybody that comes to the Village Bar has a story and has a tradition of their grandparents being there, their parents being there, their grandkids being there, and continue that down the path of just having a great product and a great experience at the Village Bar.

Rick (23:04):

And I’ve seen plenty of families come into the Village bar. It’s not just a 21 and over kind of blaze, it’s bring the kids in, have some great burgers and fries, and watch a little ball game. Just kind of have a good time. But there’s a quote out there somewhere, I can’t remember who said it, but if it’s like it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing, right. And that feels like the attitude that you’ve got across the board and all the businesses you’re involved in. But

Mark (23:26):

The onion rings that we make, we make from scratch and our chicken wings, we make the best and we don’t make the most, but we make the best. And the same thing with our mushrooms. We bread ’em fresh and everything’s done. Quality, taste and tradition. It’s just always there.

Rick (23:43):

And Kai, you probably would say that as a too, right? It’s about the quality, not the quantity. You’d rather have the best versus the most.

Kyle (23:50):

Yeah, no, of course. That’s something we’ve always preached from the very beginning is why not take the extra time, extra effort to be able to push it to the next extraordinary point.

Rick (24:00):

Yeah.

Kyle (24:00):

Yeah.

Rick (24:00):

Alright, let’s go back to a couple of quick shots here. Alright, we’re going to kind of lighten the mood a little bit. So I like to talk music in sports, obviously on the oven light. If you could describe Mark 1879 distilling or maybe you personally in a song or an album or a musician, where would that be?

Mark (24:19):

Okay. Mine would be Metallica forever trusting in who we are because nothing else matters. And that’s what we do every day. We believe in ourselves, we trust in other people, and we trust in ourselves to carry this forward every day.

Rick (24:34):

Now, I can’t get Mariana Revere out of my head, the Yankee Hall of Fame closer who always came into Inner Sandman. Wow. Okay. That’s good. Kyle, how about you? Well,

Kyle (24:44):

I’m going to have to come back on that one. I’ll have to think about that one. That was too hard to,

Rick (24:47):

I know. That’s a tough one. Alright, let’s go to the next one and we’ll come back. So Kyle, outside of your typical work week at 1879, what do you do to wind down? I mean, I kept probably suspect based on our conversation, but maybe you have some other things that you’d like to get involved with to kind of take a break.

Kyle (25:03):

I think right now I’m still heavily influenced in my family farm outside of, or out in Vle, Missouri. It’s an hour and a half away from the city, so it’s a super easy weekend, get away to still be involved into and

Rick (25:14):

What’s on the farm?

Kyle (25:15):

So it’s a 2000 acre farm all road crop that my stepdad has been doing. He’s a fifth generation farmer, so he is been around for a long, long time. The family has. And yeah, we do all corn and soybeans for ethanol, biodiesel production. But here in the future, hoping to get some specialty corn for some stuff, maybe down the road. But yeah, no, I think it’s always something I can look for and get away from as far as, yeah, St. Louis always has those intriguing places to go, games to go to. And it’s also just a nice divide for me to get away and do my thing out the farm.

Rick (25:47):

And a little sidebar as I look at Greg Strauss from AB Biotech here, part of the business too does work with biofuel, so we also have a Summit East product that goes into Bioethanol use. Mark, how about you? Do you have a happy place when maybe you’ve got a couple minutes out of your day or maybe a free weekend? Is that even possible?

Mark (26:06):

I like to get away. I like to go hunting to go fishing. I like to go on a float trip, get away for a couple weeks and go on a float trip. Southern Missouri, we’re just camping out and barbecuing and just hanging out and thinking about nothing. And just getting away from the city.

Rick (26:19):

You’re not doing anything light, it sounds like. Again, if it’s worth doing, you’re going to do it right and you’re going to do it well. You’re living well.

Kyle (26:27):

A lot of beer, a lot of whiskey,

Rick (26:28):

A

Kyle (26:28):

Lot of hot dogs. Just something easy to snack on. Ham and cheese sliders. Yeah, just

Rick (26:33):

Ham and

Kyle (26:34):

Cheese make it easy. Right.

Rick (26:34):

Ham. Favorite concert or favorite album? All time. If you want to say Minuto, that’s fine. We’re all friends here.

Kyle (26:42):

Went to a lot of country concerts back in my day, so it’s a lot of country that I play in the distillery. If anything. A lot of Jason Aldean, a lot of Luke Bryan, stuff like that. Just a little bit more top hot country right now.

Rick (26:53):

Nothing wrong with that. We’re wearing a camo hat, so it kind of fits. Grew up

Kyle (26:56):

On a farm we got to do just, we got to just drink and travel on gravel roads on the weekends. That’s what we did.

Rick (27:02):

Okay. ATVs out there too.

Kyle (27:04):

Oh yeah.

Rick (27:04):

Okay. Alright. So here we are. We’re sitting, it’s a new month. We are getting close to St. Patty’s day. Anything special on the horizon for you as we start to get into warmer temperatures, big events with Memorial Day and summer and July 4th and so on, so forth. Anything that’s planned from 1879 that people can look forward to?

Kyle (27:26):

Well, I think in correlation with Village Bar, of course we’ve always had a great opportunity to produce or put a platform out there for our product. We just released a brand new cocktail menu. We have array of options to include all of our products and those feel free to come by and obviously try one of those cocktails, including anywhere from our flavored vodka to our whiskeys, bourbons our rum as well. So that’s a great thing to be able to come and try out at Village Bar. And like Mark said earlier this spring we’ll be opening the retail shop. We’ll be getting more of a basis for tours and tasting so people can come and experience everything at 1879.

Rick (27:58):

How about on that list, mark? Is there one that you’re like, boy, that was one I put in.

Mark (28:02):

Well, there’s a couple of things that we’re planning on this year. We’re really thinking about an American aave and really kind of pushing that down to the pike here and getting us dialed in on making a great American aave. We’re also looking at some Irish cream, different flavors of Irish cream we’ve been tasting right now. So hopefully later this spring summer, we’ll be rolling that out. Perfect. And

Rick (28:25):

You’ll have that ready for as we get to fall and wintertime. I mean, we know the other popular one out there. I think it rhymes with Maylee that might be out there. Kidding. But yeah. Well that’s exciting that you’ve got some new products coming out. How about for a DI? Is there anything else besides what you have going on inside the Village bar? Maybe a new campaign in terms of how you’re reaching people, anything like that? We

Mark (28:47):

Just released our website in early February, 1879 distilling.com. So if you guys want to go out there and check it out, that kind of gives you an overview of everything that we’ve done, our collaborative partnership with all of our vendors, our charity sponsors that we have. It’s all listed on the website.

Rick (29:05):

Okay, great. And it sounds like you guys are, obviously you’re active in the community. What are some of those things that you do to kind of make sure you’re touching people within the region?

Mark (29:14):

We support all the softball teams. We support the churches and the kids programs. So we’re part of the community. We think the community is really important and anything that we can do to help community, we take part in.

Rick (29:27):

Fantastic. Well guys, it’s been a pleasure talking to you. Again, the website, if you want to know more about 1879, a distilling company, it’s 1879 distilling.com. They can check it out. Again, if you’re curious about taking ’em up on cheeseburger offer, stop by the Village bar. The speakeasy is coming out in the next couple months and you don’t want to miss it. You just got to knock two times and three times on the side and maybe they’ll let you in. I’m kidding. But hey, it’s been a pleasure having both Mark and Kyle from 1879 distilling here. So thanks so much. Thank you. Appreciate you guys joining the program. I wish you all the best. Look forward to seeing you on the show floor later this year. And for now, the switch is off, the oven, lights off. We look forward to seeing you next time.

Intro/Outro (30:10):

We hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of the Oven Light. Until next time, when we discuss more about the wonderful world of baking technology trends and more, the switch is officially off. Goodbye for now. See you next time.