Ep 103: Raj Bhakta Created WhistlePig; Now He's Reinventing the Whiskey Industry (Again)
55:27 Share

So i'm sitting there, i'm sitting there actually drinking some the kilo with the body. And I, what if I crossed the border? What if I could get an elephant and I could come in to amErica like handle on an elephant? I said, what if I could get an elephant and a mario che band.

right? This sounds like get to .

kila inie that get to do this. So I call of my dad, and my dad, we get to get an elephant from india. And my dad is, but getting elephant from india, getting elephant in america 呀。

Roj buckra is an american entrepreneur. He's best known for founding whistle pig, an amazing whisky brand. He's building a new high and with key brand right now.

You know what american greatness? And this was the greatest whisky you ever gna taste. He has a really .

colorful background. He wrote Nelson in across the border when running for congress. He was a star on the all sorts of fund stories. I really enjoy drinks and whisky with them, learning about the hand whisky world.

Why did this international spirits merchant by a college in vermont? And after making tons of money on this first switch, what he tried to do with the second one, and what is he learned? I think you'll enjoy me in roj.

I'm jil lones. Deal well into american optimists. Really excited to have roj box with us today.

They say that, right?

You got a joe. awesome. Well, thanks for being here. Roj, there's lots of ways to describe you. International whisky merchants are really successful. Among other things, you recently acquired a Green mountain college in vermont, building a world class of the university and spirit library. Sounds like what's the plan there?

Well, joe, I bought IT kind of with a couple of box in my pocket during covet locked down.

And I was a little candidates like the new company was going very well and I was like, well, you know, if I create the greatest liquor business ever and they put statues of me in kentucky in wherever IT was right, and and I make one hundred billion dollar enterprise, the kind of like if IT wasn't truly that motivating, as as funny as that sounds internal itself. And I was like american education, which you understand very well as screwed up. Here's a college going up for a whole physical infrastructure, going up for auction on the road.

Like, I need big anchors and big projects to ground me. Otherwise, I, and this was one of those things that I gotten, developed a vision over time for IT to become a place of, I would call like, fundamental education based on, you know, seven virtues, faith, hope, love, tempts, fortitude, justice and prudence. The classical virtues.

the for four classical with three religious virtues. So folks know you, of course, this is a founder, whistle pig whisky when going back to that, but also about your new venture, or box or bRandy.

what's this? So I exited whistle pig in the beginning in a two thousand and nineteen. Never had any idea that I would just sit on the beach.

So had a couple of box in the pocket. And as OK, well, what's the next big thing? Whistle pig was based on two factors.

One, there are so many stories here. I lost the race for congress when I was Young, was very ashamed in my defeat. And so I kind of ran off and bought a farm. And from montairy, this is the race for you.

You, I think, did you write in an elephant across the border?

But the idea was, well, it's a whole thing like you shouldn't be able to get into the country illegally, right? So know they're talk about build the wall. So we got to build the wall and widen the gate was my point so you can come illegally.

But so the real issue was its september, october of the the coming up to the election, right? Yeah polling terrible. I'm in the wrong county.

Got convinced to run in this by political consultants that he wanted money. The end, of course, at the same time, I think roj about time. A I can overcome whatever .

you've been on the apprentice of a star, you do people to do IT.

I'm reading about london Johnson path, the power and all this stuff, and like actually as early years, and like I can do this, I can overcome all the odds. And but I needed, I needed, I needed, I needed a rabbit right out of my hat because i'm a republican in a democratic district name, raj doctor, who just came up for reality TV show, right? The press wasn't good. And so I need, and I couldn't get the fillet off your press the right about me. So like.

I got to get national press. And bush was not too pop there by that day, does that?

About the worst time of republicans lost forty seats. IT was a disaster. They developed a good relationship with our own inspector who you know didn't didn't have A A good end.

But let me let me answer the question the so i'm like what I am I going to do to get press like I got to get national press. And so IT shows up on the polling numbers. The very beginning of this, that that this immigration issue is, is beginning to be a big issue.

What can I do about education? I, me. What can I do about immigration? So i'm sitting there, i'm sitting there actually drinking some the kilo with the body. And i'm, what if I crossed the border, you know, want a donkey and that's one thing.

What if I could get an elephant and I could come in to america, like, honble know, on an elephant? And what if I could get an elephant and a mario chi band, right? And basically .

sounds like A A in red .

that I got to do this. So I call up my dad, and my dad, we get to get an elephant from india and my dad by getting elephant from india, getting elephant in america 呀。 So I stuck calling up these contractors for the circuses.

And like, I need an elephant in Brownfield taxes at this time. And at a study, you at a study at a ranch. So we didn't have the, we were on down because.

you know, call us, we call star bed around here now, because the really funny did IT there I would.

did IT in Brownsville had a whole crazy? Anyway, that's a story. So I did IT make national news from page to you a little bit with with a polling, I mean, IT help me in that I felt that I didn't just like go down doing nothing. So I like, took a swing and I can tell an interesting story and did everything that I possibly could to win, but as .

basically impossible race that improduence, you're recovering from this race.

i'm recovering from this race. Then I go to india. I think I probably told this story before.

But at I have this big party defeat party, and I end up misbehaving a little bit with some of my donors. Anyway, that's bad night, right? I'm wake and baked in shame.

Met there and i'm with a Young lady, the who is the daughter, my donor and my and my and I like he's like my council area, I guess, is my chief council goods friend from college. And he sees at him down, he need something to pull me out of IT. And he was, you know, wouldn't IT be funny.

Steve irwin had, just like that day or the day before. And he was, wouldn't be funny if there was like an indian character for crocodiles. You know that I will catch the tiger.

There is no such animal that I cannot charm and put him anything. I said that IT, i'm going to go to india. I'm going to find the guy.

I'm going to make a star. I'm going to take twenty percent. I'm going to clear my campaign death the so and I need, I just want to get out a dog, right?

I go to india. I travel all around the country. I figured this one point four billion people. I got to find the guy. I got all the different national parks.

There's going find the guy that there's no Stever.

there's no culture. There's like what why I do you want to play with a dig you can kill you know practical just does not make any sense of so I come back and I feel like i'm such a loser. I can't win a TV game show, a simple TV game show.

You can go on a game show when a game show on T, V, this, the where trump red me. Then you can win a congressional ACE. And in a country of one point four billion people, you can find one son of a bitch h that can fit the bill.

So I like feeling like maybe you're a loser, maybe, you know, so that in that mindset I bought the farm. Yeah, but I still had a couple of boxes from some different stuff. So I could like, I could, I don't know, eat and drink and pay the mortgage, the but then the economy tanked. And that when you know, I needed to figure out how to host on my way out of the situation, saw opening in the high end of the american spirit.

which is dry, was IT.

was just at opening in, in, in the category, right? AmErica has known it's a big, rich country with a new is still in tradition. But we've nothing to compete with account and nothing. So that was the big picture.

And I said, what are we going to do? What are we are going to do? What's the vehicle? And the vehicle was that right? Risky was just getting hot in the cocktail bar is and conferences go on the or in chicago.

Supplies were running out. And I found a great stash in canada and basically hustled the hell out of IT. And you got pigs in manhattan walking on street.

What was the pig thing? Why White pigs?

So I lived in veil, or was doing a project of my dad, and he's beat me up. Did I raise some? You rich White boy, you don't have the hunger of the immigrants in you anymore.

You know, you're giving people like fifteen dollars and our work in the front as how did you become so soft and I could do that in his accident, which is a little bit funnier, but I don't want to be racially insensitive to my own father. The soul. I end up going for a walk.

And this guy, i'm going to make a long story, a pop out of a bush. Strange french go and starts like in the middle, right? The middle, not later from, no, i'm walking in the rockies.

This guy pops up, could be so big just like that. Could that be if is a big and he keeps talking me like this and i'm like, I had a little bit of an arbor touch of things. Well, I took my walk in iraq, so i'm trying to calibrate happened no, I wish I wasn't a heavy, just a little of the and so but I was still trying to calibrate.

Like, are you actually reading the situation correctly? This seems very strange, but maybe maybe your perceptions. I'm like, no, no, no, no. This is a certainly odd, he walks off and I like, what are the chances that this is happening? I said, don't practically zero, right?

That somebody pops out of the the side of the road search talking y and french action about us, something called the whistle big. You don't even know the word in english, but he's not, is not as first language. I said, this is god, and he once may do something with the name.

This is all for someone. I bought the farm five years later, four years later, three years later. I call the whistle pig so I had .

the name got IT and that's why it's also hoggs worth for the new stuff too. I have pay .

respect or I have good luck with .

the poor sees that's cool. I'm jewish, so we don't eat that, but there nothing.

This is the only coach pig you can .

have that's perfect. Go, let's go back to this. Start a little bit first while I I get your background.

So your father immigrated the U. S. From india, and you were born raising filly. Talk about your problem.

Well, what we were talking about a second before. So I grew up classic american dreams s story, like actually many most good jorths who came to amErica and indians who came to america. Very successful immigrant group, as you know, kind of a model immigrant group.

We seem to have a lot of really smart .

ones that came as is that they're all smart. The smart can think we ve got the cream. yeah.

We definitely some .

amazing people are some amazing. So indian, not particular religious father who is an amazing coming to amErica story i'd say medieval irish catholic mitic mother, immigrants as well. And I mentioned you also, I have this in a group with and with a lot of indian influence, a lot of what's a irish catholic influence. And the woman who kind of was effectively my grandmother, was a jewish immigrant, austrian jew, one of this from this old thing called the austral emir.

Quite a combination .

of cultures, interesting .

combination of cultures.

I it's a double draw up of guilt.

guilt and good drinking .

and good ball shooting .

at the irish. Some of this like you think marines to start off after school.

Ah your people a good research, Chris, right? So reading a book, we are a john kigin, the military. So i'm reading, I was going to go off to investment banking because I was the thing you ve got to school.

You got to go go whatever. And so I was on that path, and I read this sentence, and IT was something like this. I gotto find the exercise. But I was like, some men are driven by fame, some men driven by fortune.

The warrior is driven by the desire for the a steam of his fellow men who know his fibre and timber in the midst of battle. Yes, I like that. The should I want? Yeah, I want to go in. And so then I go in the marines, which which, by the way, I walk into the marine core, right? I'm reading all my history books.

You got your history books around you and i'm like, okay, you know, i'm a special guy, right? So they should hand me effectively my command and I will take my troops and take me to some war games and i'll show you that I wipe your s but with these very wrong ideas in my mind, I walk and I managed to get into officer candidate school, which was difficult to the time as they were downed des in the military um and I walk in in all these other guys means black, six, four, two strong, you guys I thought that they were my they assembled some men for me to command. Funny in my head.

I'm jacket and tie walk and I look at there and like looking at them with my best martial bearing, like letting know that I am their leader and they shouldn't look so directly into my eye the and I say to the to the captain, captain, are these my men and and he, like, he was no rage. These are your vocal officer candidates. And oh, shit.

But now we're going away for a weekend. Yeah, and they're going to all want to kill me, which they all want us to kill me. And then they make me blue on commander the the and then the gunny surgeon wants to kill me.

Everybody wants to tell me. But truly, of the moments that i'm most proud in my life, I came into that forty eight hours. The rest of them went in the bus, the back home, the captain called me over.

He was told the story, this crazy I they came in there and there's a lot of stories here. So i'm going, then we know time the any goes raj come. And he brought me into the officer's car and drop me back home.

And I was like, made for IT. And then I basically, so I go in. I have my i'm supposed to show up in us, yes, but before.

And the guy tells me the capital and tells me and where you got, I like, tell me if i'm going too far and to these things because as so many different stories, they don't go skiing for a whatever reason, you know, like, don't don't s go skin. There was a girl that I wanted to complete some things good before I went to war with. So I take her, the ego to austria.

James bond, pick up on the airport, you know, go to my friends, little, you know, Shelly, and the helps. And it's like, bam, everything's going so great. First run, first day, SHE goes off ahead.

I go to like to show off my skies, cross. I pop out of my skies, slammed into the side of an ice mogo, shatter everything on the right side like snap crackup. And that was the end of my marine. But, but I have my discharge papers. I was actually in the marines, but I can't pretend that I want to burn anything up that's rough.

But you recovered to find them after that. Yeah, just can go. The marines. Good jeans. amazing. And so and you also, you also started the dog calm is kind of a thing to do in two thousand. Is that right?

yes. So actually this was the only time I came out to palo alto because one of the jobs that I had as I was like a Young analyst in a small booty gamin, a shop, and one of the clients, one of to buy a chipmaker in pale to called watkins Johnson, was the name of the company, old chipmaker. This is like ninety nine, and i'm a little banker and they send me autism Young.

And I must know things about the new things, but i'm Young, I don't about anything. Things play, put a deal together. They got the financing in place.

The the guy buys the company for I one hundred million box and takes the public six months later for a billion. So i'm my fuck. This is easy money.

This is the wrong, I mean, the wrong business. I can go do that. So I come out to california. And anyway, very long story short, we created an interesting solution, be able to a Price cars online. So you going to buy a car.

Remember everything in one thousand nine and everything was going to get to happen line, and then a rubber dog shit that comas were two billion dollars, right? So the the car business, big business, the problem was gonna buy a car, are going to trade your car in. We provided a trade and .

solution eventually.

which was an interesting lesson know that I learned kind of jump around, like stick around. And I would have been a much like I would have been in a different kind of trajectory of business if I had stuck with IT.

Like you've done really .

well in business, but a humble farmer, liquor merging.

well, you did. You did also require the world's but largest stash of army .

yark recently. Yes, that was a cool. That was a coup that took big balls because I got into army eck. And then when covet broke out, you know.

everybody panic, and all the Prices of the stuff.

everything.

dumping good wine for cheap .

to everybody there, month period where there was legitimate panic. And in that period, and this is when I was like, I was like, baby, the good lord is looking after us. I mean, IT was a midd of a pandemic, but I had a little bit of a different mindset of we're loaded for bear. We're all cash .

yeah and you all just the company.

There's a global economic crisis. We're going to get get twenty times leverage of these cash compared to what IT was before. And at the same time, I literally started buying up all the oldies, iris, from all these french novels we've been collecting IT for in generations.

And we bought listens to these numbers of the global stocks of spirits. IT takes a second to rap. You had to around the the nature of this cool in my business, sixteen century spirits eighty five percent, one hundred year plus spirits seventy percent, and fifty years plus almost have. That's crazy, crazy, right? Of the global stock.

I know how much is how liquid is that? How are do you think about the size of if you put .

IT in the bottle and sell at its worth about half a billion.

how many bottle, how many bottles is that?

You know what I bottle is like, okay, so that half a billion number is basically selling IT over with the four percent. And i'm not good at math. You're probably Better. But like to give you an idea of stock. We've got lots of full shadows and farm in four months and places that are you I don't want to like basically .

basic because over ten years, ten million over ten million doors or something that at least this sounds like, could I be five and be that if there maybe not over ten? Okay, so over over.

over a few million or so. Let's take, let's take, go to take five hundred million and dive divide by a thousand.

right? Thousand.

five hundred, two thousand bottle. But at at those Price points.

got them. And and you're mixing some of this with a good american stuff too. You have part, in some cases, is good to drink. Part america, an whisky.

part I an to what? Pull you one. Yeah so this is hugs worth and how .

do you figure out how to mix the your am?

I mean, you've learned when you start a whistle pig.

you like some top guy from makers mark helping you and you .

dd teach you pick you know, dave taught me many things, but blending wasn't hey, no, he did. He taught me. We put together this twelve year old called the old world.

He taught me a lot. He um I kind of those on the blending side. You you have an act .

come from that the Catherine of the indian side.

I think it's probably the catholic side, I think so. So here's a story I created with a big whisky sold at several ing all ties. But I remain funded pigs.

My work felt in complete this, while american whisky needs to shake up. So I present hogg's worth that is the finest bottle. You'll find that even ten times the Price taste and see we're going to do this in a second.

The hugs with marie's america's best burbo with exquisite army. Yx from france, some over forty years old. What kind of burma are using here? Two different ones at tennessee from a great supplier that we have down there and some really unusual organic stuff from minnesota. That's a beautiful flavoring.

And mixing well, tell me about mixing you do you like go and try a bunch of different commons ah you takes a bunch .

of different stuff, right and then you say, okay.

this this might be good with .

this and then you start blending them all and then you have to leave them through.

Is this like wine like that? I knows some some wine you'll have like always going to have like three percent of this little thing to mixed IT. Yeah, somehow. Why is that three percent?

AmErica can sometimes when you're back on these coast, you can to my blending laboratory and i'll show you that you put in of of the right flavor. You can put in two or three percent. It'll change your flavor profile. But that's a lot of it's not like Edison staying away all night or whatever. But IT is a lot of trial.

And what are the really high end places get right? So you're obviously good. This what my other favor ones puppies, one of other ones is really .

good out there are obviously we .

ve got to fix you the puppy .

thing OK maybe you .

have been misled, sir. I take things like you said.

You like the third peppy, wyo. I think you told me that, right? That's great. But the twenty three old .

stuff stay away. Just why not?

It's just overlooked and it's total hip y and I mean, like they go on like you can't get this, but the puppy people going to be pissed off.

They seem like nice people is very good yeah.

So you get you get a lot of baLance. You get more if you do a blend. okay.

So put IT to you this way, a poppy twenty three or twenty three role barbury is very unattractive. It's very okay. All right. There's good parts of that. But if you do a blend, I think if at this way think about being able that you're still Young, right? And they still Young. So imagine at another ten years, you know, things are a little bit not quite as good the and you confuse, right, you're fifty year old brain with your eighteen year old body like this .

crepy guys that get the blood from the Young people and put them into their.

what's that crazy? Son of beach is the chief guy who trying .

to live forever.

Brian jon dinner, oh, yeah. But he's crazy. A sad thing.

But he is .

very I think IT .

is interesting to work on angevine.

but you have a good point there. Focus eternal life, brother. I'm going to work on converting .

you to the dollar. M no, my, you practice a faith jewish. My grandmother .

was very .

cafe like my father.

Rough for the institutional .

side of Christian universe is the other side of IT. The catholic church and every.

every regidors in the history of the world has been perpetrated by the cathode church. On the other hand, the entire modern world really is a result of the cathode church, which save civilization. After the collapse of room.

the hours monasteries definitely preserve a lot of civilization. And from the couple six, seven rivers, who wouldn't have a lot the renaissance probably IT wasn't .

for them so that that's that's definitely ure and IT was probe gregory who when rope rome was exploding deeply and Justinian was coming in to try to assert the roman emperor through bezan's um the he created what with the economic engine from which he created enough resources that you can have a bunch of guys writing stuff down, right? Because when the lights out you don't have time.

So I have have the greatest respect for like this extraordinary men who ran the catholic church and things they did. There's also, obviously you said some really evil ones and but isn't an institution itself actually not of god. I can become corrupted .

they how the institution the trick, right because you um the church is um Christs let's call bright on earth, right? So on the one in you of this deeply holy institution that has an unbroken line from Peter, right, by the way, started by all juice the from Peter to Francis, who have not a huge friend of the, but they're human, and they can go way, way off base and be acceptable to the deadly sense, like anybody else.

But IT doesn't mean that their mission isn't divine. And so, like, you know, joe, I can be whatever out of IT, but IT doesn't mean that amErica is whatever. But what makes .

amErica great, of course, is.

by the way, great day america. This is a great day.

america. We're recording this right after the election.

Yes, indeed. Appreciate your invitation. The party I got some people little look at up last night.

he put him to harassment is and alcohol. When I start to beating religion, I got to be careful. But why I definitely have such you just like for Christian, I think, got up in this bias IT is funny. Being jewish.

there is a sense that what did you make a decision to that you were gonna with one side of the other at the same thing. I didn't do ism.

I was raised to ish. I had a barma. I raised in the tradition, in the culture, and it's us. And I was just thought at .

the way I found .

I was brought up a lot of respect.

You who who you are, but your father's h your mother's jewish ish.

My father was not religious and same thing .

happening on the catholic m said there's .

these like this, buy some like partido ism. There are a little bit little, which is like both good and bad also and .

you can chosen people thing you .

know like there's probably some. I wouldn't say this, but it's just like, know, you needed to create Christian and that everyone else could be civilized. And I things like the horrible.

but is really positive. But I love, I love. I mean, I think everybody needs to get together. And Billy liising, you can go to heaven without, you know, without believing in jesus. So I to like, I got to have, I got to work on you.

because i've an obligation. Every jewish. Me, I think these jesus little Better irish ing up at a filler .

and then going off to boarding school, they put a hell of a pounding on me. And so you had that, I guess, jewish matriarch really, who's you know saying you got a kid.

you are really special and you're, I benefit that .

from one of the best elements .

is a duty to go and good things. And that's right.

And you can do anything you want to. There's no stop. And you were .

in america. Now that's to that. I have to ask me.

I love the name of your podcast, by the way, I have an inspirational message on this.

but I know I I ask you the about optimism as well as in the core things there. But I have to ask because Donald trump did just get elected president and you work with them directly on on the apprentice. Like, how? How was that?

My god? Like, okay, I have to set the stage, and at least a some point you get on this reality TV show. So I go on this reality TV show. Was my egg from the family business, couldn't stand working with that.

I love my dad but but we were did not jail you know in the business world yeah these hotels hotels the cars in the beginning and hotels um and i'm looking for a way out and a buddy of mine um who who am bitching to all the time about my life at front first I picked the hotel and veil because that was going to be fun living in the ski time but I don't know if you know the demographics of the ski time between girls and guys it's bad. There are like seven guys. Every three girls, at least at that time, throws the market of Better. And so i'm coming out in new york and miami and I move there.

And the right and the .

moves that I have are not not the right moves for for the the girls who are living and know they want to go mountain biking in all this time. So because what are you two biggest problems in life, right? I can't stay working with my dad, and i'm going to put this politely in case my kids even listen to this trouble in the love life.

Yeah, the is I got a solution for them both because you go on your pronounce, it's going to give you a piece with another exit from the family business, your dad going to think it's cool you on a real safe trip and you are going to have no problem with the chick because you're famous on TV and in my first reaction was like, no, no, i'm a serious man. I'm not gonna some reality T, V show like these jokers. The but then I thought about IT and IT was a great piece with on our exit, and IT would solve those two problems. So now we're going to try that.

I am excited about this. This is amazing by the what is this cost?

It's free. It's like I got a low enough.

Why not free from you?

But like it's a minute, it's free on the shelf. Two, this is fifty box. Like everybody guy, go get their hugs work literally it's wait to cheap for thirty four hundred and fifty.

I think .

it's yeah online so you'll be able to buy this in the shells betwen forty and .

fifty box depending on the markets we're just out is very good. congrats. Are able to buy stuff .

but only just doesn't like the Prices as which is margin. That is I this in my catholic side of milk .

stuff and carbo cover pound worth is also a said you guy, be careful making c if they get tricking on, kind of want to wash you very much.

I know, I know. Burn them out and like, is .

very, you need fast.

No, my CFO game. Josh, a mosquito smart .

guy.

twenty eight, this is nineteen twenty eight. So this is, have you ever taste something under as well? I know you're rich guys.

You probably have them out from the specific year in one thousand twenty eight, but they they have to be some old army.

all this vintage in here as for one thousand nine hundred and twenty. But this is a blend. Also associating the only other spirit in the world, listen, is to the only other spirit in the world you're able to get like, you know, li trade the fancy bottle of the stuff yeah, as a drop of a one hundred year old spit that's like three, four, five. This is, I brought this to the american whisky drinker as a gift. This is a right whisky pair with some ancient french grandes up two hundred and hundred years old, going so well.

How much is from nothing? Was this the greatest .

plan ever put together from? Like, no one would ever do this. You have .

to be totally, if I we drink, drink that chairs can try this.

This is a little punch.

Here I said, good to go taste you. Good taste apples. And that's really cool. That's really cool. amazing. And my boobies pass last last year, or one hundred and three, he was born in nineteen, twenty, twenty. And so I used sometimes with my cousins, bring like a this is, this is Better.

though even mixed IT really well plant. And I appreciate, I appreciate IT. That's amazing .

stuff like this for sale too. And you can buy, you can buy this, this.

this like, so this is the entrance to the world of box that which is a house of vintages. So give me an idea, right? You think of like, okay, you buy twelve year michelin every year is the same twelve your Michelle?

yes. So this not a advantage, not difference.

So we're bringing vintages to the world of spirits.

the high spirit .

ventures, and but not really much, I can you should buy a vintage. So that which is driven the wine world for centuries, as you know, single states.

And when I went to dig a long time ago, they don't do this. But like, there is a special thing with that one thousand .

eight ninety one particularly habit. Right after my mary.

no, I tried IT again is good. He was giving.

yeah, the good night I I was from, I looked at my watch, is everyone who was like.

eleven o'clock, man, guys and rest.

What time did you guys locked in?

people? People left about one. So he was, he was. Election was done in by eleven.

And where you can tell we were looking to do hick IT tell me about this.

the betting holy market, the betting, the bedding markets, they knew they were all right this time. They were right weaker to add time, which is impressive. So these guys, these guys, when money is on the line, people get.

get at this time, focus the fox and averages out.

Markets are powerful things when, you know, teach us more about whisky. So the vines, just like with mine, and matter for whisky as well, other certain years.

they are best for. Absolutely, the crown rules in the world of spirits are really army. Yc, right?

So to give you an idea like why should you drink or if you're putting out an interesting bottle, well, I think i've mentioned to last night when we were talking to the center from miami, the urban deliveries, risky stories that they run twenty four, seven. I make amazing product and nothing wrong with that, but they run twenty four, seven. Yes, the armani ax are the result of maybe three or four different days of distillation.

So that that bottle of eight, two that I gave you your birthday wouldn't been produced in the year of one hundred eighty two. IT won't been produced based on the harvest of that year. So in the terms of rarity.

it's like point O O O one one hundred at least.

And what is army ya is you've onya so it's it's a french is distilled from wine, southwest region of france, oldest region, oldest recorded spirit in human history. Thirteen oh, seven, I think by a cardinal of the church who was sent up by the pope to do a catalogue of what is Christine makes is a great .

part of the church. There are very good at these things.

He, you would also, you would also mark one of the lines that he writes back to the, to the a poly lac. Holy father. I found the greatest stuff.

And you can tell you, used to drinking like five, six, seven percent alcohol wine and now is getting hit with fifty been a percent alcohol. And he's like waked while he's writing the letter. And he's like, IT makes everything so much Better. You feel great, recalls memories that you feel bigger and and and IT in livers. The member alive.

the member of.

what did he mean? What member was he supposed to be? I mean, he must have been drunk to be writing about a one maybe was a liberal. Pop, wow.

that's impressive and cool. impressive. Like, no shit, these guys.

So why does an army I make IT out of the region? Why this? The oldest category in this is the best stuff you can get? No, why doesn't make IT out?

People there love? No one knows about.

what do they know about IT?

Because if not enough, that to sell IT before, or what .

kinder outside the story, the so major french port in the south west of france that sends a lot of wine up begins to the bee ado bodo. Um in one hundred years war is taken by the .

english right.

and the english then develop empire. All the feet was the thing.

all the rest rats to you, because that was like the nice thing from bro.

you. And so the wine, while the wines were flowing on the border to the spirit that was contiguous ous to the border region and connected to the the river you want. The was army.

Yc, I mean, sorry, was was konya. C yeah. So kony gets spread throughout the world.

Kenya was called back champagne. Can I remember they called the champion for some reason for a long time.

There is a champagne grand connect, which is, which is, enter the room .

that I know .

ign region I believe, right? So no, i'm an area that i'm not one hundred, but I believe there is still a champagne e konya I believe. But the aryks .

not x is not its .

land locked. It's not it's not connected to the river. Number one, number two, so during one hundred years war there's all this strife. If you're the fourth sun of an english duke, right? See what are you getting.

But yeah, you've got to go to .

a business, primo genitor.

So person, you got to go to business .

is a great thing to go to business.

You've got award. First, son goes into the takes the plot, right?

Second son, families got the connections and he goes to the church. Third, you know he becomes a bishop. The third one, you know.

gets you on a patronage in .

the family. Your connections at court run out and you be like, kid, sorry, your second time. Tit, you ve got to go.

You got to go. You know, we're doing a war over there. Go over there and see which you can figure out. This is henney, basically. So you had this hustling blood that goes into the area.

So you ve got hungry immigrant blood effectively during in one hundred years war, that going into the try to merge of the trying to trade baba a ba. Where's armenia? Landlocked and rich. So flooding .

the belly? Yeah.

no need for them to go hustle. Go hustle. You know, you have a nice four gra. So why go run around? And so, you know, until I shoot t up.

amazing. I, I, I want to look back. So, so you showed up, you got all this, you build the business. Um you know you're in vermine. What were you doing with the college .

was the next step there. So by the place and you know code time the everyone to go not buy a college in middle. And I would try to figure out what to do that.

And a bunch of ideas is is like.

shut down for now IT basically IT. Like when we got, like the rapture had taken place, you know, pencils were on the tables and yeah.

got a couple of these. There's a budget buildings there for sale for pretty cheap because because things blow up, basically you can fix that.

So I mean, bit bought a super right? But you know the maintenance on a basically a town .

of is the problem either mainer your basis .

goes up quick. The so I really thought about that. I mean, I had this moment when I made a couple of box, right? I got very sad. And I was expecting the exact opposite, the which I think began a bit of, I would say, a spiritual journey. This is as like there's nothing that I can build on this earth that's going to endure.

People talk about legacy, you know, put up the status, the statues come down, the everything goes to dust in the end, they, what the hell, the point, the feeling sad, basically, and and point, listen, you know, all that. And so I looked at and what's happening with the a civilization, I think, well, it's a very happy day and we have hope in the republic and our civilization is a today. The trajectory is, I don't think, necessarily a completely good one. I only that's a contentious statement. And the the frame of the moral fabric of society and the creation of the basic building blocks of civilization itself.

which is a family of these traditions.

the courts are civilize actually provided the very basis for you and I to be sitting here right now, which is basically functioning society. So what creates functioning society? I think IT goes back to the great faiths, right? Yours, mine, the, although I will start work on converting you because we want to get you to heaven, I ve got to do IT.

It's a duty. The, the is, we got to go back to these deep, fundamental basics. And so the school is dedicated to teaching those and its faith based, particularly catholic. The, which I note I was started by using in the when you practice the face.

we don't for others who were safe to bring in and include a little bit a 理 yes.

a difference. You are very elite, get the market. And because the salvation .

of our souls .

and that but making a serious point here, the I realized in a couple of years we started to school, we started for our kids. Um the vision is to bring together to create a community that is driven with a mission of not just um profit and abundance, to use that word which will have plenty of the but to like really creating a flame of revival um where the deep values that you come there, whether you're a whether you're a jew, whether you're a hindi, whatever you'll see good things in action. The creation of good families, happy children, well baLanced.

hopefully good looking and so it's a beautiful vision is as a college versus or earlier right to start .

that how do you think is that only you needed to involve IT, right? So like like but like i'm trying to bring in my key members of the team from a business standpoint saying, you know, you're working for google and you just got you, you have to pick your pro and it's difficult to raise your kids the drinking waters mixed up, broadly speaking, the eternal 的 TV， it's mix up. Come here. If you're top talent, we've got great upside to offer. Your kids can go to the school for free.

We've got plenty of bowling, that is, wait like good family.

families into the town, top town, that are not just driven by god, but also got in profit for the, for the creation of america, of Young families, right in the future of our civilization, because the future of civilization is large. God fearing families, which, if you practice the catholic faith, because there's no jerking off and those six before marriage.

you're gonna have currently, that was a problem for my father. But another .

topic conversation, yeah ah yeah. I've gone to confession.

Ve had a wild journey. What's your advice to .

inspiring Young entrepreneurs? I was thinking about this the other day, and I was did this panel at the at the school. I think it's about, you know, you just got to stick with I think you're got to have a dream and you got to stick with IT the because life's going up on you and you have to have the fortitude that virtue of fortitude keep you you you give .

you a really funny to on that today is very I think this is is this is a theme right now in our country. But there there's a great post. You tell me who is says this if you feel once, twice, three times, IT doesn't matter. Learn from your mistakes and push forward to Victory. The sweetest feeling there is.

you know, that is Donald truck .

twenty thirteen.

That's so smart. I love a joe. I hear your smart guy. You going to make a some great systems. We going to be able to tell the chinese, don't fuck with us. We get some great systems coming.

We going to blow up about your stuff, bring you like that, like the by the way, I think what you're doing in defense of listen to a couple of things is really cool. There is so much opportunity, there's so much waste. And the generals always fight the last war.

right? They do. If you want piece, you got, prepare for the next war properly. I say what we're fine for.

its right? And we'll produce the babies, which will produce the troops if you .

don't have enough johns good to have. Both were trying to I don't have quite many kids as my friends work on number six, that's pretty.

That's good. I get five.

That's a good number here in the club.

I'm right. So here i'm, i'm, i'm, i'm anna. Give you i'm going to give you one by calvin college only. President.

I was amazing, amazing president, one of my favorites.

okay? Nothing in the world can take the place of persistance. Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not unrewarded.

Genius is almost a proverb, education will not the world's full of educated delict persistence and determination alone are not important. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve more problems than anything else in the human race. I love IT persistence is key.

and as an entrepreneur years of that you and I both know. There were multiple times when people thought for sure around her was dead. There were multiple times when at a par of the government to company, like they were fAiling this. This stuff takes a lot of processing.

is a lot of up sometimes. So I have a question for you. What's the darkest moment in your entrepreneurship? Ourn you think i'm fuck or you never had a because just such a winter.

Now probably the dark kest was right around two thousand and eight. I tried to do too, too many things at once. The core company was sort of working, but the new finance side had had a lot of struggles. We have the Peter core company, count pound here was sort of working, but I was still really early. That wasn't quite enough.

The vision starting that just another them in simple terms.

the vision was the vision, I mean, IT for totally honest about a couple drinks. The vision was to kill the efg bad guy.

The vision was the stop type C2Blow up.

The vision was a rebil, the IT infrastructure of .

amErica targeted target.

See what's going on, bring all the day together, see what's going target guns. I'd find the bad guys. So people are ended up, as you probably know, helping find over ten thousand terrorists that we eliminated in those in those years and printing lots of major.

And that was the goal. And and of course, you wanted do that. While protecting civilities ties is the framework.

The idea is that when you're fighting a war, you become like your enemy. Sometimes we didn't want to have to become like the muslim terrorists. We want to be able to have the technology be so good, freedom. Well, in the bag guys said that was, I worked there was great and and you know, we actually made so OK.

So that's the vision on your two thousand eight and yeah.

your dark moment. You know, my mom passed away that ear in february. And if IT is a bit off, of course, dealing with this, and I was trying to do too many things at once. I was trying to start things, the hedge fun. I was trying to build things in the final side of pantier. I just just had a lot going on and I felt like like all the sudden, like everyone turned on me and and the things weren't working and the core company was was a risk now that .

you feel like because of your state of mind that people were turning on you or they actually I think .

that was probably is a combination of, like there was probably one guy that was a bit a snake and then there was probably fault, I think enjoy ed blaming yourself, by the way. So I think my fault was I was doing too many things at once, but .

sometimes .

you're under .

a take.

I was about my self thing as under attack. I because I was trying to do so much at once. IT wasn't doing any bit in a plus way and and IT was just like I was just going to just be done and and not useful and everything is my foot.

And I just, just like this, horrible. And then my coat was way up. Then the fun was crashing because I was two thousand.

and I was personal count in the fly.

I say I was a trade or I was a top trader. The fun, but like, but like, he was like.

everything was you that makes you look bad if your accounts up in .

the fun is down. I just IT IT was fine, but IT was like, the couldn't pay me if the whole phone crashes. So the fun was gonna be gone anyway, because this crashing and like, you're just a mess and like people were realty at each other, was very emotional. There was, the whole thing was just like this, like disaster. And the guy was the junior guy, rely on a senior guy at the time we were, he was like, i'd been like to start the star child for years, as now I was said, and everything was like a big mass.

This was and what do you think very at time? Await psychic family at at a the counterbalancing that i'm curious, what do you feel like the chief gifts that god has given you? Like one, two or three?

Oh, I have a lot of gift. I'm very lucky.

Like chief, chief among them, the overriding over.

I want a winner. I know, I know to win.

But you would say that as you think, as you reflect, like you know beyond i'm a winner.

I mean, I know I know I A great strategic mind.

I know how. So you can see .

the I can see about, I see the systems, I can see the strategy. I could be the chest champion, whatever. And I could attract .

my smart st.

Friends and and I war and i'm never going to give .

up .

so I never to those .

are four minutes are .

obviously seven .

thousand year old the helmet of .

because you're loser .

one hundred bad like this.

great. Great as early. great. No, listen. But like you get and like the world, I think the world set up. Where does question you right? The world says like you suck, you're to lose, you're wrong in is only you who could sight if if you're that way or not because the basic everyone's like everyone's ago at this person.

we thought I was a the bullying, all right. The you have there is this, you overwriting like, if you study the grades, they have gone through great diversity, which is given them the piece and vinegar to push, right? I think i've benefit greatly from being bullied, the, but many don't. What do you think of this?

That's interesting.

You look, you and you know.

I was a kid, gotten to a lot of fights. I stand up for my nerdy friends, but I always want. I never.

I basically no.

But in each people I always on physical fights. But I always got the big meat fun of, yeah.

that's fair. Do you find this foundational to your character?

I think I think that does this same question. I for me, was standing up for my friends in, like, from the narrow my head was. I'd fight back against, like the rubble is a bad guy. But it's nursing is when I, when I make friends with them is actually a nursing, you know.

MC hammer.

We make friends with the jerks. I mean.

sometimes this in these little boys and hammer was my igher.

or moved into town, class, neighborhood.

Like ice eyes, baby, no. Like hammer, hamer hammer, just good guy.

And he had these nephew's cousins, whatever we ve brought in, like, you know, different energies into your neighbor, asian, White, medical ass neighbor. Od, in a came, where is a freeman? You speak california? Still come valley. And these kids would bully the nurse, and i'd fight him. And we get fights.

and then .

we will become, no, I was like, a big kit. I was like, the biggest. I was like the biggest kit and and .

my friend and also winter physical, joe is a winner.

He doesn't in winter.

That's part of very strong, is very strong, confident. He said, no fight with my friends.

We're up the back to you on all once and good. But that confidence is helpfully for me is like that confidence is actually IT is different, is a different energy. Of course, I think this thing.

I cannot a lot of people up, but I can also be a good thing.

I think I think a lot of trees, neural vertically makes you stronger for sure. And that's what answer ships partially about on an asteroids. We're finishing here.

You know, a lot of people are down. The future of america. Know what you say to them.

Look, I think think of the story of this nation. You got an italian guy from general who .

gets a commit works go this confirm that checked in DNA .

is also a part of, we do so jewish guy from general. He gets a commission from the catholic queen of spain.

and he was catholic.

And yeah, he was one of the conversion inquisition. Anyway, gets and takes three boats, tiny little boats across an unknown sea, plants of flags, so to speak, in our hemisphere, following him couple hundred years later, some pilgrims in england, some quicker and philatelic, some Virginia of some english catheters in the south.

And they create out of the wilderness, right, with their ideas and their hard work, a light in the world which attracts so many people from all around the world. And they conquer, like the wilderness, step by step, all the way of the pacific, right, the the end. This light of this civilization is a beacon of hope and freedom.

The dreams of mankind were you. And I can sit here now and look into the heavens, literal heavens, not just of the the universe, but of our nature, and say, we can be the shining city on the hill. We are the shining city on the ill, but we must believe that.

And if you believe IT, then you do IT. And i'm just so happy to be in american. Like if we think about the greatness of the story of this country, nothing like IT.

But cheers to that. cheers. Thank you, us.