Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, this is Brad. Nick with tasting Tequila with Brad. This is probably the coolest video I've done so far. I've got to do so many really neat things, but today I'm going to bring something really special for you.
Hey, Paul, we're here at Waikulu, Correct? Did I say it right? You did I say so many of these things wrong? I've got friends on Facebook and all these social media, they make fun of me from my. They call it a Midwest accent, which I didn't think I had. And then I say things wrong. But we're here at the distillery on Maui island and we have all of their agave spirits here. And I just went through a fantastic tour, an amazing tasting and these things are awesome. So I wanted to introduce you to Paul. This was like your brainchild, right?
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Yep, it is. Okay.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: So I asked this question to a lot of people in this industry, how and why agave spirits?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: It's kind of funny, I somewhat fell into it.
I've always been just a fanatic about tequila. It's always been my go to drink.
And I moved to Hawaii, I bought kind of a larger parcel and it was AG parcel zoned ag And I was looking for things to grow. And everything's kind of a challenge to grow in Hawaii. There's, there's a lot of difficulties and some of the problem is because everything grows here. All the bugs, all, everything, you know, so you're fighting that. But in my search for plants, I came across somebody selling some agave starts and I was like, well, I'd love tequila. You know, I'll get them and put them in the ground and I don't know if they'll grow or not. We put them in the ground and they just took off and flourish. And that's when I started to look into it more and, and you know, what climate do the plants like and what's the right growing conditions? And it turns out this is almost.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Ideal growing conditions with great volcanic soil. Right. That's awesome.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's actually not fantastic soil. The trick in Hawaii is it's year round warmth. So the soil is very active. The bioactivity of the soil is really high, but otherwise not great soil. But that's one of the challenges of growing different crop here. And it's one of the benefits of growing agave. Agave just slow growing 7 years doesn't need really fertile, really nutritious soil to grow.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Right. They actually thrive better when it's kind of stressful on the plant is what they tell Us. So.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: So I was told today that you've got these massive agave plants and we wanted to put them behind us, but I took a bunch of pictures. I'll put them in the video. How big do some of your penis come out when you finish stuff? Because I've heard some numbers that are amazing and the plants are some of the biggest plants I've ever seen.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
Well, they vary a lot, but for us a small one would be £100, which I guess is about average in Mexico. Yeah. Regularly we're pulling out three 400 pound plants.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: 635 pounds. Holy cow. That's a massive plant.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It was every bit as big as an aging barrel. Wow.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Well, as we went through your distillery tour, I was amazed at the equipment. And you've built this really awesome mini stone oven that is steam, right? Steam cooked.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: And it's really awesome. It looks like it connects the honey and autumn too. Like doing. You're doing Mexico sil just right.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: That's pretty awesome.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And I did that oven and it's cast for me like concrete and which makes it lighter and makes the, you know, the insulation higher. Because energy is super expensive in Hawaii.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: And so we have a propane steam boiler and that heats it up. But the vermiculite holds a lot of heat in it. Yeah. But then it's still just a low pressures, you know, steam oven. Yeah.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: I was surprised when you said your cooking time is, you know, that same 36 to 48 hours that we see in Mexico.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: And then I have to say the coolest piece of equipment I've ever seen is your. I'm going to call a mini mechanical tahuna.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: This. And I'll. I'll show some pictures of it in a video of it. This thing's amazing. So how in the world did you come up with that?
[00:04:19] Speaker B: It. It was. You know, my background is fabrication and product design and I was trying to figure out the best way to crush it because I wanted to use traditional methods and. Way to go. But I didn't want. Right. And so then the problem becomes how do you. How do you spin, how do you move the wheel around, you know, And I've seen someone. Mechanical devices that come up with in Mexico and that's not, It's. It's not an easy thing, you know, to have some engine off the side, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I'm thinking, I'm like. And then suddenly it hit me, like, why not move the pan instead of.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: The wheel Instead of the wheel. Yeah.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: And that cured a lot of other problems, too. Much easier on the operator. Cause they don't have to stay in front of the wheel and push the fibers back under the wheel.
Yeah. And that was sort of like, whoa. Yeah. And so I made a mini one to try it, and that worked out good. And I made this bigger one that we have in production.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: But someday, I think I see four or five of these buildings and you pumping out a whole bunch of this. But I was told that's not really your goal, is it? You're just having fun, aren't you?
[00:05:25] Speaker B: Well, it's meant to be a profitable business, for sure, and it is. But this is just a. It's a great size because it's very manageable. We do it with.
And I can focus on quality setting. Just all the headaches of going to business larger and larger.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: I like your shipping method. The shipping method is buy a place, you get, fly to Maui, come check this place out and take it home yourself.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Well, fermentation is pretty neat. You've propagated your own yeast, right, using the pinkas and the plants in the area.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Literally took one of the agave, the hearts of it, mashed that up, added some of the juice out of the oven and some nutrients for the yeast, and got a colony going. So it's a. It's a yeast. It's a yeast that's, you know, evolved from here. Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: This is your yeast. So, you know, there's a lot of master distillers in Mexico. And one of the things you learn, when you hear their stories and you talk to them, you find out there. There are all these geniuses that come up with like. Like J4 has this amazing Frankenstein that instead of it being volcanic stone they made. The concrete is made out of volcanic stone. And they have a metal mechanical wheel that rolls across, it, crushes it. Because elite men wanted something that was more efficient.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: It's a big, giant wheel doing the same process. You know, so many people come up with all these great ways, and, you know, you fit right in that same, like, genius person to come up with all of these things to be able to make this here. So thank you. I hope the people here appreciate what you're doing as much as I do. This is really awesome.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I think thanks for coming. And that's one of the other beautiful small operations, get so many interesting people coming here.
We're actually going to drink it. Yeah. Instead of just selling it to the distributor or something. So we're going to drink it.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: We're going to enjoy it at our bar. And I picked up a bottle for my buddy Tequila Cop, who's a Instagram social media guy. We'll get a bottle down to him and we'll be sharing this in our bar and telling your story. And I appreciate your time today.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Right on. Yeah. Thanks for coming.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Thank you, Paul.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Ye.
