Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Cocktails Distilled, a podcast that takes your favourite spirits and the cures from the still to the cocktail glass. In each episode, we talk to distillers and creators about particular expressions that their brand have released, what they are, why they were created, and in what cocktails they can be used. Are you ready to understand what's in your glass? Or perhaps should be welcome to cocktails distilled.

(00:41):
Many of us have heard stories about properties or businesses that are not too distant ancestors owned, and if you have, you probably thought, 'what a shame that it got closed down or sold'. But what if you could resurrect the past and reestablish what has been lost? This is exactly what the descendants of P & H Egan, an older Irish whiskey brand from Tullamore in the county Offaly decided to do.

(01:09):
Known to produce some of the finest Irish whiskeys in the world for over a hundred years. Egan’s, which also dealt in general, groceries was forced to close at the end of the 1960s due to the advent of retail supermarkets.

(01:24):
But back in 2013, fifth and sixth generation family members got together to reprise the dormant enterprise and have since been sourcing and ageing expressions that celebrate their lineage. To find out more, we talked to Egan's Master Bonder, Rupert Egan, about legacy, conviction, and how to plan your future after resurrection. Thank you for joining us for Rupert

Speaker 2 (01:52):
And thank you for having me

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Now, we should probably start with your title. If people aren't aware what a whiskey bonder is, you're not a distiller as such, but rather an explorer and curator of whiskey as your predecessors were, is that correct?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, that's, that's a good summary, Tiff. Up until the late 1960s the distribution model for whiskey was quite different. So, it was, you know, you, you referenced in, in your your introduction that it was in the late 1960s that P & H Egan went into voluntary liquidation. What really prompted that was indeed the opening of supermarkets and the kind of slightly changing face of commerce and how trade was done, but not least of all the advent of bottling from distillers who started bottling their own, their own whiskeys.

(02:45):
So prior to that, bonding houses used to take full barrels, they often used to bottle it themselves or deliver it to pubs in full barrels delivered to on-premises in full barrels. So a bonder would've been a non distiller in so far as, you know, he didn't own his own distillery, but he would take casts of new make spirit or of mature whiskey or maturing whiskey and store it in his own bonded warehouse and mature it in his own bonded wear as often choose his own casks, and then often choose the blending process at the end for delivery to, to customers via, you know, public houses or bottling it himself in his own bottling line.

(03:28):
So the Egans, were never distillers. We have our, a few old expressions, you know, old bottles that have seen from the 1930s, 1940s, and they are, you know, they're, it's a gems and whiskey. It's a, it's a powers whiskey from John's Lane, but it is bottled by p and a.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Just explain what exactly is the difference then between a bonder and a blender?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
So, bonding is, is the, you know, bonding has a, a kind of a tax consequence with it as well. So the, the distilleries would, would sell to the bonder who would've a bonded warehouse. So, so excise duties wouldn't be, wouldn't be payable. That wouldn't be payable until the, the whiskey came outta that bonded facility out of, you know, a, a large warehouse. You know, to put it simply at the end of the bonding process, in some instances, the casks would be sold as, as is in other instances they would be. So you would have the marriage, the, the blending of several casts together, different styles of whiskey, and then the bottling of that married, blended product into bottles and then sold. So the, the, the bonding is a kind of a, a storing and a maturation and kind of a, a shepherding of, of the process whilst the whiskey matures, whilst it turns often from new may spirits into whiskey. And then when you marry those products at the end, that's, that's the blending process.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Now, many of our US listeners will be very familiar with the term bonded or bond bottled in bond. Does Irish law have the same protection as that that can be found in the us?

Speaker 2 (05:09):
No. So you, you'll see some producers in Ireland put things like, sort of borrow those expressions saying bottled in bond. It doesn't have the same meaning as it does in the states. So, you know, there are only a handful of genuine pure bonders in, in Ireland. It was, it was something that we were very proud of that the, that the Egans used to do and did it very well, and are reviewed very well for having provided a great product and having looked after some of the best spirit in Ireland so carefully. So that's, that's the route that we wanted to go down and just, you know, re re off the the business as it was back in 1852 and even before then. But, with regards to, you know, what you would need to, to describe yourself in the States from a TTB perspective, as a Bonder doesn't exist in Ireland. It's, it's more a colloquial business description in Ireland.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
The, you can name is well known across Ireland, but your knowledge of blending hasn't been passed down as such. Instead it's been, I suppose, newly learned. How much pressure did that put on the family to get it right?

Speaker 2 (06:25):
You know, it, it it's put quite a lot of pressure, tif, so, just by way of background, I mean, I, I used to be in finance. I lived in London for, for many years. And when I decided that I had I wanted to change careers, I actually left my old job, quit my old job outside the, the delivery room, immediately following the, the birth of my daughter until my boss that I fancy doing something else. And I don't think he quite believed me, but maybe 10 years later, he now believes me. And the first thing I decided to do, you know, I wanted to get back into the family business and I made it my, made it my business to try and find out what I needed to do, what qualifications I needed to pursue, what time I needed to spend on this project, really to, to to be credible.

(07:15):
And I met a really nice guy called James Swan, who was one of these great master distillers that was introduced to him by a chat called Fi O'Connor, who's a great fisha on pastel whiskey in Ireland. And Jim said to me, you know, Rupert, if you wanna do this for the next 20 or 30 years, you need to go and get a qualification. The qualification he recommended was the Diploma Distilling, which is offered in Scotland. So I spent about three years traveling back and forth to Scotland and sitting in classes with all these extremely talented quality control engineers, production engineers, blenders Stillman for the most part, working for Diagio. And I made it, I made my business just to try and ask them as many questions as I could. So I kind of immersed myself in this world, and at the truth be tell I did more work for that qualification, which took me three years, and I think I probably did in college.

(08:11):
I enjoyed it an awful lot more. But they had this expression for me. They said, I was just like this, am I sick, spy. Every conversation that would be going on, I will be listening into, there was this really talented woman who worked for compass Box. She was one of the blenders for Compass Box. And every lunch I would sit down and I would ask her as many questions I possibly could start going through whiskeys with her, and really learn about the, the production processes is one thing, the blending process is something else. But I left that after three years, you know, really comfortable that I had I had got on on the pitch with regards knowledge.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Now, if people are looking at the Egan name on a bottle today, what should they expect?

Speaker 2 (08:58):
I mean, what, what we try to do, TIFF, is that we try to do no more than our ancestors used to do. So that is be the best Bonder Blender and Butler. So we're not a distiller. What we, what we offer is access to the best spirit. So we have a number of relationships with really good distilleries in Ireland that produce not only good distillate and good whiskey, but the type of distillate that we feel fits best with brand. And there has been a couple of experimental, well, I think this is probably fair to call 'em, experimental whiskeys in the gans range. Vintage Grain, we were the first to do an all grain whiskey. There's fortitude, which is the first all px matured single malt. But for the most part, what you're gonna come across is a really good bonding and blending process. So we're very transparent about what's going into the bottles. We're very comfortable talking about the various portions of each types of blend. So there should be a conversation between when you're looking at the bottle and you're holding in your hand what our ancestors would've done. And that's not pretending to be a distiller, not pretending to be anything that we weren't doing 170 years ago, but really just continuing to access and source the best new make spirit, the best mature whiskey, and blending and marrying those mature whiskeys into, into fantastic expressions.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Now, tell us a little bit about the sourcing. How, and the process. How do you choose the tasks that you were gonna use?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
A lot of tasting, you know, so

Speaker 1 (10:41):
But is there anything you're looking for specifically, or?

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Well, you know, depending on when, depending on when we choose the cask, our, our process will be a little bit different. So at the moment, we buy as new make nearly a thousand tasks a year, and that's laid down. That's for the most part in AB one. So first fill bourbon casks and Sherry bots both, all also on px. Now I'm very comfortable with the distillate style that is going into those casts. It has, it has it has a profile that is able to withstand long maturation times. So I've spent a lot of time working with our disturbed partners to ensure that we are getting the best, the best distillate really for the type of products that we're gonna produce. But every single cast that's filled is nosed by me. So, you know, that takes quite a while to put your face into a thousand tasks a year.

(11:39):
And there are some that I'm not quite sure about and we, we reject quite frankly cuz the mistakes for opening it up 20 years down the line and finding that it wasn't perfect on day one are are, are too expensive. So that's the, you know, what I'm looking for at the new fill level and the more mature whiskey level. You know, we're, we're trying to think of an interesting blend. So a marriage of a few different casts, and we'll go through, you know, what, if I go up to great Northern Distillery in Ddo, where a lot of our casts will come from, you know, you walk into the blending room there and it's like, it's like, you know, Willy Wonka's chocolate factory for adults, you know, but, but with, with more boos and, and and less lumps and it's great fun.

(12:23):
It's a great day. I have to make sure that I I don't drive a car up and we'll spend hours going through what we think would be an interesting products, and then we'll bring them home. We'll try a few of them again in the next few days and we'll, you know, think, okay, well that just doesn't work. It doesn't fit in the category doesn't fit in our portfolio. It doesn't have a resonance with what we used to do. You know, we're not just trying to recreate what we did. We're trying to take it as a template and make sure that we, that we progress and we move forward. But, you know, the, the, the focus TIF is always on spirit excellence. And if we're not sure about something, then we, we politely move on.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Speaking of that process, we'll go back to new fill. How do you know what the liquid needs? How do you know what sort of barrels to put it in, what to blend it with? Would that come from experience or is that being based on the template you were talking about?

Speaker 2 (13:27):
That comes from experience. It comes from probably having gone a 500 ish whiskey tastings. I was catching them up the other day. It comes from owning thousands of barrels and seeing them go through their maturation profile. It comes from a lot of tasting with a lot of really clever people, with really good pallets. I try to, I try to get as many women as I can to taste our whiskeys. My my experience, if women have extremely good pallets, and I try to get non whiskey drinkers to taste them as well, because they tend not to rely upon or revert to sort of more traditional ways of describing whiskey. And sometimes that's quite refreshing. So I, I, you know, like a lot of good businesses, they collaborate and outsource and include and rely upon experts and non-experts to sort of build a cohesive structure about what is, what's a really good whiskey.

(14:25):
And, you know, we work a lot with the blenders in our distilleries as well, and they have an idea what we're after. And it's amazing. You know, you add a, you know, add 3% of petered malt and you like when the, you know, the first thing is all you can get is a bit of peach, but then you'll find that it sits alongside the other whiskeys and, you know, doesn't envelope them like a, like a heavy is of malt. And, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of trial and error with those things, things, and there's a lot of errors. Well, you know, we, we try things and we just not sure about them, so we don't proceed. And there are some whiskeys that are more favoured than others, but we think they're all excellent and they all stand up in their own right. And they're all in the result of a fairly long and exhaustive process, a fairly long exhaustive and expensive process. And we've, we like to feel that we, that we hit the mark, but we're always, always trying to do something interesting. Whilst keeping, whilst keeping an eye on, on where we've come from.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Now, how much control do you have over the final result? Are the flavours that consumers pick up on flavours that you have designed to be present?

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, I mean, you can. I suppose it depends a lot on, on the, on the circumstances that you're thinking that a drink will be, will be consumed. So, you know, a, a light grain whiskey, so something like vintage grain, which is, you know, sort of nine years old, 10 years old it's all bourbon matured. Bourbon ca matured. So it's, it's light and floral and it's sweet. This finished is short, it's got lots of vanillas and things like that. Well, what are the circumstances that is gonna be picked up in it, consumed in, you know, sometimes straight, sometimes over ice in a cocktail. So it'll be designed in great part for how we think it's going to be enjoyed. You know, you move to the other end of the spectrum, TIFF, and some of the, you know, very expensive, well relatively expensive single mold products that we have all the way to the Genesis release.

(16:31):
We're looking for something, you know, big and luscious and quite luxurious you know, make you kind of raise an eyebrow and, and sort of sit back and, and, and, you know, give full attention to the drink that you're having. And, and that will be, you know, we'll, we'll, we will, you know, we, we don't have a, a process where we're doing a small releases to see if consumers like them. You know, I have my own informal sort of tasting panel made up of friends and family, a lot of Egan’s involved in that. So that will be our, our profile group, our target group.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
How much thought do you put into the final use?

Speaker 2 (17:30):
When you, when you move past, when you move past vintage grain and to a lesser extent to single malt products. The, the, the no age statement, single malt. A lot of our whiskeys probably don't lend themselves to participating in cocktails. They're, you know, it, it, it's, it's it's your house. You can decide what, how you want the interior design to look if you buy the whiskey. But they're, they're, you know, they're not bottom shelf whiskeys. They stand up, you know, very well on their own over ice with a drop of water if that's, if that's how you prefer to take them. On the vintage grain side, we had a few people around on a Saturday night, and there was a lot of whiskey sours made and there was a lot of old fashions made. And I suppose there's a conversation between that vintage grain whiskey and some kind of a bourbon style of drinks. So whatever cocktails tend to accommodate bourbon tend to be happy with vintage grain them as well, when you move into the, you know, single maltz or conviction, which will probably go on to discuss in a few minutes. For the most part they are enjoyed outside of cocktails.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Now let's talk about conviction. You brought that out earlier this year. What flavours should consumers expect from that particular expression?

Speaker 2 (19:04):
So conviction is a blended whiskey with won 2022 Spirits Awards, best blended whiskey under 12 years old. It's a 10 year well age statement, 10 years. But there are some whiskey significantly older than that in there. It's a blend of single malt and single grain whiskeys married together and then put in a cognac cask, I suppose that's quite a good example of, of the, the blending process. We went through lots of different ratios of how much malt we would add. And, you know, the, the, the grain product on its own is really excellent. You know, that's one of the, one of the one of the, the takeaways that the, the spirit plate that it comes off in, the amount of copper contact that it has in the column makes it a really good product. I mean, we've gone through tastings with people and they are very happy, just consuming the grain.

(19:58):
And then, then you start adding mold and they're like, wow, it's a completely different drink. But that grain on its own was fantastic. So that has to be the starting point. And with that starting point, then you are gonna pick up a lot of those flavour notes that you get from, from grain whiskey or bourbon matured grain whiskey, which is caramels, fudges there's a little bit of spice, little bit cann. And then you add in a kind of a well aged, relatively old single malt, and it starts to broaden out and you'll get those sort of maltier tastes. That's got a nice broad feeling on the tongue. It's, it's quite floral. It feels weightier. It feels like it's got, it adds real depth to the whiskey and sits really well alongside the grain. And then you put it in a cognac ca cognac does some something fantastic to it and continues to make it quite floral.

(20:54):
And it just, it sort of calms the whole, the whole drink down and in. Whenever I go through flights of Egan’s whiskeys, I always kind of, when start from vintage grain and I might finish. That's some of the legacy series. And I keep on coming back to conviction. Cause I think it's a really, really sophisticated, well blended product. It is still quite, you know, still more expensive whiskey. It's nothing like as expensive as the, the Legacy series. And nothing like expensive again as Genesis, but sits really well, sits really well in our range. It's got sort of, you know, on the noses kind of buttery and grapefruit. There's quite a lot of dark chocolate and spice, a lot of the elements that you'll get from the malt. And then they are balanced really well with the kind of a more sweet of no

Speaker 1 (21:42):
Obvious question, I assume, is where did the name for the expression come from?

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Well, the name is sort of a play on words. So P & H Egan was started in 1852 by my great, great great grandfather Patrick Egan. He had two sons, pat Patrick, junior and Henry. I am five generations down from Henry Egan. And Henry Egan, as was his brother, was a great agitator for for land reform in Ireland. So up until 1829, Catholics couldn't own land in Ireland until the penal laws were repealed. And, you know, for many decades after that, there was still an element of being kind of a second class citizen as a Catholic in Ireland. And Henry Egan was a, a, a strong supporter of the Land League, which agitated for, for 10 inch rights. And he was a man, they saved great conviction. So we thought as a, as a, as a reference to Henry and his his endeavors, we would release a whiskey to coincide with a hundred years following his passing in in 1919.

(23:00):
And the second play is, well, the play on words is that as a result of his great conviction and his his, his dedication to the task he found himself in prison, convicted on, on more than one occasion. And there's a lot of great stories about Henry. He was you know, on, on one occasion, two prominent land leaguers were, were put in prison and to try and frustrate until a more jail as was at the time, and to try and, and frustrate the operation of the jail. He and other supporters at the Land League on one day reportedly visited the jail on 36 separate occasions on, on one of those occasions, smuggled in a tweed suit two tweed suits into the into the prisoners cuz they felt that they shouldn't be in as political prisoners. They shouldn't be in the same, the same clothing as, as, as the more common criminals.

(23:57):
And, you know, when they were released, these two, these two gentlemen, one of whom unfortunately died six months after being released such was the, the brutal treatment they received in prison. But the other was was an MP and sitting MP in, in Westminster. And every time he went to Westminster, he always wore that tweed suit that was smuggled into Tallomore jail by my great, great grandfather Henry Egan. So Henry was he was, I suppose a colourful guy, you know by all accounts, you know, a great orator, a great, you know, a strong businessman, you know, great conviction. What he believed. And it was really in his honour that this whiskeys are released

Speaker 1 (24:40):
Now. What do you want people to take away from their experience with conviction?

Speaker 2 (24:46):
You know, it's, it's a really, really well made blended whiskey. It's, it's, it shows I mean, I prefer it, I prefer it to either its component parts on their own. And the cognac cask is doing really interesting things to it is it's bringing some of that sort of grapefruit and apricots is bringing sort of fine oak taste to it. And, you know, there has been a trend towards moving towards single malts. And I think that they 100% occupy a place, but they're expensive, you know, and they're not for everyone and be inaccessibly expensive in a lot of instances. And when we wanted to put out conviction, it just felt, it felt like it occupied a really nice place in our portfolio. It's a nod to Henry, you know, who is on my side of the family and my cousin who I'm going to Japan with on Thursday to promote Genesis is on the Patrick's side. So it's something that is quite, is quite close for me, and it's something that I'm really happy to be involved in. And, you know, we hope that, that people, when they sit down, they, they, they read the, the the marketing material in the box and, and understand how close it is to the people who are still involved in the business and, and, and they enjoy it more and, and feel and, and feel kind of involved in the product.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
Now when you talk about people sitting down and reading the box, who is the Egan consumer

Speaker 2 (26:18):
There? There's, there's a large range in the Egan portfolios. So there will be at the, at the less expensive ends, there might be those who enjoy cocktails more, you know, at the more expensive range, more expensive end of the range. Those enjoy expensive single malts. We're finding more and more women enjoying actually the more expensive drinks. It's not a dusty brand. We are trying to align ourselves with what we feel best in class Irish businesses. So we've recently designed whiskey for a two star mission restaurant called Li, which is not far from where I live, you know, to try and pick really amazing spirit for a really amazing business. They, they have a, a fantastic offering. It's very kind of avanguard Irish cooking. It's kind of a, a forward looking brand, say it's for extraordinary tastes. We're, we're constantly trying to make sure that we're honest to how the business was set up in the past, but not be stuck there because, you know, unless your second name is Egan that's not a particularly interesting place to be stuck. It has to be modern, it has to be, it has to be migratory and evolving and organic. And, and that's, and that's how we, you know, that's where we wanna land with this. And, and I feel we've done good job. And most of the people that we speak to are consumers, sort of identify it as being an Irish brand, but not not kind of dusty bottle in the back of the shelf that you only see elderly guys in bars consuming. It's, it's, it's for everyone.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Now, speaking of that, I assume you would agree that there is room within Irish whiskey for innovation then?

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, 100%. So, you know, I I I, I think Irish whiskey, the Irish whiskey technical file affords quite a lot of innovation, certainly in regards to wood policy much more so than it does for our our, our cousins across the border in Scotland. And that really plays into the hands of, of a, of a bond or, and a blender because it does afford you, you know, a lot of a lot of innovation, a lot of bandwidth you know, you can have a lot of fun with different casts. And, and that's where we are. You know, we, when we go up to, to blending labs and we will take out all of their products and, you know, there might be 50 different caste types have been used. And some of them, some of them clearly aren't gonna be for us.

(28:53):
Some of them are, are, you know, for a particular branding offering, but a lot of them are, you know, really interesting ways of presenting, presenting Irish whiskey. And you know, when you look at the story of Ireland, where it's come from, you know, our business was started in 1852, so just when the famine finished in Ireland, so, you know, amongst the darkest periods for Ireland. And you look at where it is now as a country and you kind of tell that story and the story ofs over that, over that period with this sort of narrative arc that the whiskey seems to provide it, it really feels like, you know, that we've got this great runway in front of us for continuing to innovate and continuing to excite our customers as Ireland and Whiskey and the s all move forward together.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Now, speaking of moving forward, next year Marks the 10th anniversary of the Brand's Reincorporation. Has the last decade been what you thought it was gonna be when you decided to relaunch?

Speaker 2 (30:00):
No. I mean, I suppose when, when we relaunched it was, it was, there were, there were, there were baby steps. And you know, the main difference Tiff is that Irish whiskey is, is has has blown up, you know, over the 10 years. And it will do so again over the next 10 years. I mean, yeah, they estimate by 2030 we will, we out sell Scottish whiskey in the United States. So, wow, even 10 years ago, that was, that was really unthinkable. So we're very fortunate that we are our boat is being lifted by this rising water. And had we'd been asked to predict that 10 years ago, no one would've really predicted it. The other thing we didn't predict is how the world has really taken to the particular style of distillate that Irish whiskey tends to produce versus scotch versus bourbon, north American whiskeys.

(30:56):
And that, that's kind of, that's fortuitous. And I don't think anyone planned that, or if they did, they didn't reveal those plans to me. So the path has been meandering one, much like the GaN story, it's been, yeah, you know, there's been many successes and many challenges and, and an equal measure. And no one likes hearing about a business that has got nothing but successes. No one likes hearing about a family that has had nothing but great commercial and success. And ours isn't that story. It's, it's, it's constant work, it's constant endeavor. And where we are now, we didn't think we were gonna be there now, but when we look at the hundreds of thousands of hours of work that have gone in over the last 10 years, maybe we should have, maybe we should have expected to have made a success of it. And and we're not stopping of course, we're we we're, it's, it's all, you know, shoulders to the wheel at the moment as, as we push the brand forward.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Now, if you're not stopping, what should people expect from the brand in the future?

Speaker 2 (31:56):
I really like the idea of doing, you know, increasingly sophisticated blended whiskeys using interesting cast types, leaning on aspects of the familial history. We have a release just for the Japanese market called Genesis. And it is 170 bottles to commemorate 170 years of the incorporation of P and h, which happened in 1852. And it is, it's fantastic. It's, it's, it's a beautiful whiskey and a beautiful, beautiful pack. And it's really exciting selling products like that because you, you know, you sort of feel like you're, you are, you're ambassador for Ireland and we're, we are, you know, literally going off to the far east to sort of spread the story of, of Irish whiskey and thes and quality and, and hard work. And that's the sort of, if we, if we can keep our business in, in, in with that as its guiding principle, we'll continue to put out fantastic whiskeys.

(33:02):
And that's one of the things that Johnny my, my third cousin and I talk about all the time, just, you know, how do we make sure that we, we don't shock anyone and upset anyone with the sort of whiskeys that we put out or the direction we take the company. And the way we've decided to do that is to almost assume tif, that our ancestors are in the same room as us and the kind of eavesdropping and conversations that we have. And if we do everything honestly, and we don't pretend to be doing anything that we're not doing, and we give full transparency about, about the whiskeys that we're producing and the direction we're taking the company we think will be successful.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
Now, if people want to get their hands on a bottle of Egan’s where can they find it?

Speaker 2 (33:49):
Well, I suppose that's, that depends where you are. You know, we have exclusive deal with total wine more in the United States. We're with Master Malt in the uk. Were with Celtic Whiskey Shop in Ireland, number of online retailers. We're gonna, we're expanding into Nigeria and next year, which is Oh, bless. Yeah. Which is kind of amazing. I'm going to Japan Thursday. I've never been to Japan, I've never been to Nigeria. I'm the the first guy to put my hand up and say, I wanna be the guy going to Nigeria. I think that sounds like so much fun. You know, we're expanding. We're still a small brand. We wanna make sure that we partner with the right distributors who understand us. A lot of my time is spent educating distributors as to exactly how to describe our product meeting with key accounts. But that takes a lot of time. And you wanna make sure that, we wanna make sure that we, that we don't do anything hasty. You know, we don't make mistakes because it's very easy to happen, you know, you can have your head turned. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's difficult to, to, to repair damage like that. So we're making sure that we're opening up more and more accounts and geographies but in a, in a measured and, and, and sober way. If you'll excuse the pun.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Now, if people want more information about Egans, they can of course go to your website, which is egans whiskey.com or alternatively connect with the brand on your socials.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
, we're always happy to engage literally directly with any consumer who wants to know anything about any of our whiskeys.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Anyway, Rupert, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us, us today.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
That's my pleasure. That's my pleasure. And thank you for having me too.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
And we'd also like to thank you for listening. Be sure to visit cocktails to distill.com to access the show notes. And if you like what you've heard, we'd love you to subscribe, rate, or give a review on iTunes. Until next time, cheers.