Music. All right. Welcome back to the Proof University Show. I'm your host, Justin Obie, today with Tyler Boone. Today, we're thrilled to have Tyler here. He's hailing from Charleston, South Carolina. I'm not sure if he's there right now. We'll get into it later. But he is an acclaimed American singer, songwriter, and also a spirited entrepreneur making waves in the bourbon industry.
Tyler's journey is as rich and smooth as his bourbon, which recently clinched many awards, including a platinum at, I think, Los Angeles, double gold at the 2022 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
Competition and now he's on a mission to take his highly awarded bourbon nationwide already gracing shelves in 24 states including south carolina georgia florida texas california new york and many other markets tyler's bourbon is fast becoming a staple for connoisseurs across the country uh today we're going to dive into the story of melodies entrepreneurship and the art of bourbon making tyler welcome to the show man thank you justin absolutely
um so where are you today Where are you? Are you on the road? What's going on? So I, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. Um, I, but the, the brand and I'm from Charleston, but the brand is, uh, manufactured and bottled in Charleston and so is our beer. Um, but I just moved back from Los Angeles, uh, in October. So I've been in LA working the brand and playing music over there. But, um, I also have a music festival in Charleston called the Holy city homegrown festival. And, um.
Uh yeah it's got a major focus on the on the bourbon and beer obviously um but yeah i just moved to nashville because i'm going to get back into touring again because uh in california i mean obviously i toured but you know yeah you have to fly out and run equipment and i mean oh my gosh it was so expensive to do that so i was like well you know it's way easier to live in the southeast so that's where usually i tour so um so i used to live here anyway but but also to mezcal
tequila and um celts are huge on the west coast they're not whiskey's not so it's easier here especially that you know i'm in louisville like every weekend uh it's selling or lexington uh with our new distribution deal selling the bourbon that's two hours away you know so it's way easier to sell brown liquor over here so yeah so you're in tennessee now um do you find it's it's it's highly is it harder to sell in kentucky um like is it is this just super saturated there or you know
what's the market like no uh everyone bourbon there's religion so everyone loves bourbon yeah but it's all about the brand um so i you know i play music but i make sure the front of it does not say that because i want it to be an actual bourbon brand not a hey i'm this country artist and here's my new vodka. Like, you know, I think it turns people off. They just want to, is it good? You know, that's the question.
So what's in it though? You know, so, so no, it's not, but you know, also we have RNDC, which is the big distributor there. And, you know, we kept getting offers for a long time because it's going to be six years and maybe we've been doing this, but when we launched in Kentucky, 2020, 21.
One uh yeah 2020 right i was supposed to play bourbon and beyond that year uh it's a big music festival um and there's loud and live it's the same day when it presents they put it on and then you know covid happened and so then all that stuff was canceled so then we waited a year and then rdc i i waited strategically i was like hey we're gonna sponsor this event uh to spend a lot of money but uh but rdc is like oh great that's how you're gonna roll out
here then we'll pick you up and so since we have rndc that name that heavyweight name of rndc people in town will be like oh you're rndc though well then it has to be good instead of getting like i don't mean this in a rude way but like you know joe schmoe down the street could have a liquor license but you know no one knows who that guy or that person is so um you know distribution's a whole uh.
Political discussion too man that's like honestly the if you have if you get the brand looks decent enough and it tastes okay and you have the biggest distribution deal you're gonna kill it i mean i'm not gonna mention any names but there's a lot of uh flavored whiskeys out there that are and i'm not talking about fireball i'm talking about other stuff like all this the whole thing of flavored something they'll be in every store and they'll
have six different skews but because they have some huge distribution deal you know what i mean and then you'll look at them like those bottles bottles have dust on them no one's touched them but they're able to get the muscle in to go to the stores go hey you got to pick up this product you know um and that happens all the time like uh.
I'll end it with this like um there's there's the howler howler monkey one the usc one and that's uh they used to be bottled out of our facility out of charleston too that we now just partnered up with okay and you know it's decent whatever but i'm just saying when that came out and i was like i was all over the country colorado texas uh nevada every store i went to and they you know they do like a case dropper it's like three of them on the store floor there would
be but you know and no one was buying it but i was like but i'm like they probably have a huge distribution deal and if you think of it this way if you get like every state with the big guys and you sell three cases to every store i mean you make millions of dollars you know so um but doesn't mean doesn't mean there's a depletion though you know so anyway that's what that's why i came right here because we're able
to get depletions and um it's way easier california is um awesome though there's There's BevMo, Total Wine's now out there killing it. So there is opportunity for sure. Yeah, California's very chain-driven for sure, which can be great depending on the product you have. So can I ask you a question? So are you in the business? What do you do?
Yeah um so i i i um we we have two things we have uh i started a company called ob creative we cater to the spirits industry so we are a marketing firm uh having been in in the spirits industry uh i started first i started a company called social boston sports right out of college that was cool um we built that that was a community we built that bootstrapped that over 10 years to 80 000 members throughout boston so we through that we partnered with so you
would sign up for a league like a sports league you know kickball dodgeball soccer softball flag football and then you would you'd play that league you'd go to the bar with all your friends so we partnered with you know 60 on-premise accounts back then we just called it we just called it bars right i didn't i wasn't in the industry at that point um but we weren't we partnered with, I mean it just it was logical like beer craft beer companies craft beer was
getting really big at that time this is like 07 through 2017 when I sold the company and so um we also partnered with like deep eddy vodka when they rolled out we helped them launch throughout the entire city of Boston.
Um you know southern comfort we worked with all these big name brands a lot of cool like harpoon brewery sam adams um peak organic tons of different companies we would partner with just made sense in addition to like chipotle and another fast fast food places um sure, i sold that company 2017 and then that's awesome congrats yeah thanks man it was great it was a great ride i learned a ton bootstrapping that whole thing um and it was really community driven All the marketing we did,
it was all about building a community, which is totally different than just an audience. And then I landed at a company called Kiel Vodka. And I dove into that. And that was...
And vodka is 40 across the board right it's unlike bourbon where you can have like high proof low it's like vodka is 40 we were trying to do something different and it was 23.8 abv so it was supposed to be like a better for you stay balanced enjoy yourself you know enjoy tonight and tomorrow morning kind of thing um totally which there was a lot of education behind because people were like can i just put like maybe i don't have to drink two right can i just have one um or i can
just put you know put some water in in the glass and with the vodka and now it's you know more balanced so you know there's a lot to that and and we would say you know you can't make bud light out of budweiser by pouring water in it you know for sure that's that's a good point right and so like we it was perfectly blended we we distilled it out in idaho but being there for For three years with them, I learned a ton about the industry.
I also learned how much things cost. We were pretty well-funded, and agencies would say, hey, we'd love to work with you, blah, blah, blah, and it's going to cost this much. I've been on calls. And then after I left Kiel, I consulted with six, around six or seven different brands from a marketing lens, helping them with various projects. But I was on calls with people trying to do like a whole Shopify build out. And the quote was like $150,000 just to get going.
And I'm like, yeah, in what world does this make sense? It doesn't make sense. And so, you know, are you saying how, when the agency gives their proposal to the brand, is that what you're saying? Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I get them every, every week, LinkedIn, whatever. And, uh.
People just give up my number you know and uh and then i look like the jerk when i go no like dude there's no way you'll bankrupt us and i will say yeah i we have done stuff like that before and more i'm just saying man i get it because i also own a music label service company but it's really a it's a pr company with that's worse we like we do some insane stuff we have like an instagram program that that blows you up like you launch them behind you and does all those crazy things okay um we do
a lot of stuff press i can get you in forbes you know i mean whatever but what i'm saying is you know i also worked on that side but when when you say it's press or agency or marketing you know if it doesn't work out you're like well we tried then they take all your money you know yeah and so uh and that's and that's just the old school way of it you know what i mean so i always go no we're good and what do you mean i go
well all you need is some good articles i can can get those and we've already been featured in like billboard and rolling stone before, and didn't even pay for those but what i'm saying is it's all about social media.
Uh online because you get to everyone's phone and we know how to do that we're super good i'm also i'm actually a meta partner so that's you don't you spend you spend like half a million dollars on ads you become a meta partner it's it's that's it nothing special but what i'm saying is uh that's it but the only way to actually get sales is to be out of the streets like you got to have tastings and you got to be working every day. So all these marketing firms always are like, yo, hire us, man.
I'm not going to say the brand because they're represented by our firm too, but they're one of the biggest ones at the moment. And there are guys asking us to, and it's like seven grand a month. I'm like, what? Why would we do that? I'm just going to be working. Because I do four tastings a week. My dad does three to four tastings a week. And that's the only way the brand grows.
And it's awesome. You do it for a year of every weekend of like, hey, babe, can't go to dinner tonight night because I'm out of tasting. And then a year later of doing that, then you actually kind of build some fans. You know what I mean? But hiring a marketing firm for a brand out the gate, unless you have the money, unless you have millions of bucks, you don't get a return on it, in my opinion. Not in the beginning. I think you have to be really established and then do a big front.
Like, you know, look at Ryan Reynolds, dude. He's a marketing genius with that aviation gin. By the way, do you know how he sold that? No.
So I'll make it really short. this is some big badass you know rock and roll stuff dude well he uh because you know diazio, consolation it's all about the multiple i did a big interview with rob durdeck once on his podcast about oh yeah he's great because because he has a feather whiskey and even he was like your brand's better than mine i was like oh he's like he's like but all it is is the is the multiple and i learned that from him really is you know if you go
hey we did 10 000 cases i'm worth this much right and so that's what he did so he did this case number so he went to rndc in southern this big distributors and goes all right i'm gonna sell you these like six bottle cases that are usually 120 bucks for three dollars the whole thing and so he sold all of them and he goes back to diaz and goes hey look i did it and they go here's your 200 million that's how he did it that's crazy wow really but but he got but he got it
out of the warehouse and he got it on paper paper and they saw and the store's like hell yeah i mean obviously major disc and then obviously i'm sure there's some deal where he has to stick around and promote it you know what i mean sure but that's how he but he got but he hit the he hit the number case number and then he got the multiple i'm like dude that is rock and roll isn't that crazy yeah that is that is crazy it's a crazy that's if that's true that's wild uh but
it's also ryan reynolds right it's his name but i've I've been told that story from like three different, like big time people. That's how he did it. Yeah. I believe you. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there's, there's a lot to that. It's the same way where like brands can go out and say, I'm in, I'm in 24 states. Great. You know, what does that actually mean? And, you know, are you selling anything in those 24 states or,
you know, out of 24, maybe you're actually selling in two or three, you know? And yeah. So we, we, we, we didn't know what we were doing. We went to 26. Yeah. Cause I was touring and the next thing, you know, I was like, this is too much. It's a lot. So now, now we're down to eight. Now we're down to eight. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think that's when like, a lot of i've talked to a lot of brands and they make that same that's a pretty common thing to do right like a lot of brands like hey we got to go out we got to go everywhere we got to be everywhere maybe they work with a broker and the brokers that's that's kind of the incentive and that's their strategy that's what it's a big mistake and then like and it'll get away from them and i've
advised brands i'm like please don't do that like you're gonna fuck yourself uh because unless Unless you have 10 million bucks, like minimum, you're just ready to go deploy. It's really, really hard to support that many states well. If you're not there, you don't know what's happening. It's all pretty darn positive. There were some things happening where we didn't get paid. You know what I mean? They were doing back-end deals.
I was like, hey, that does not make sense. And then guess what happened when I called in broker out? He quit. quit, you know? Oh, wow. The next day he just goes, you know what? I'm out. I was like, I was like, cause I caught you, you know? So anyway, he's just the guy, there's a cool Bloody Mary mix out of Charleston called Charleston Bloody Mary mix. And the guy that owns a genius guy, pretty sure he sold it. He had a quote saying, if someone has a really shiny thing over here and you're
not near it, you shouldn't do it. You know? Yeah. That's a great, keep it, keep it, keep it near you. Like that's how I moved back to Nashville, you know? Cause I'm able to do Kentucky and Tennessee and some Georgia. And then my dad's able to do, cause my dad's part of the brand and he does South Carolina and Georgia mainly. So. Okay, cool. So he, cause he lives down in South Carolina still. Is that right? He's still in Charleston. Yep. Charleston. Cool. Very cool.
Yeah. And so that's why, so I started the agency to help brands because I had seen both angles and I was shocked at the spends that were happening. And every agency for some reason thinks that, you know, because you're in the spirits industry, you must be making millions and there's massive margins and it's not true right like i mean the distributor takes 30 points right off the totally and so you know it's a business of nickels and dimes and it's it's logistics business.
May I, did I lose you froze? There you are. There you go. Now you're back. You're back. Yeah. But I mean, it's logistics. Um, I think that's on my end. What's happening. Are you there now? Yeah, I think so. All right. Sorry about that. Um, but the last thing I heard was you saying that most people think brands have a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. And the agencies, you know, they charge stupid amounts of money. And so I was like, listen, I bootstrapped a business.
I know what to do. So we're trying to help brands really build community. And I think community is the heart of every brand, what every brand should be striving for. And to me, that means you've built a following. People like, they seek you out. And they're brand evangelists, right? They're bringing Boone's Bourbon to the party down the street or to their Christmas gathering, right?
Whatever it is um they are they're your biggest fans and that's what you need to do and it's built through various ways tons of meth you know but um that's what we help brands do and so we also we just started um we just also launched proof university so just uh it which is first and foremost it's a community for people in professionals like yourself in the spirits industry so uh it's a it's a community like a forum you can jump in there uh we just launched last week
so brand new nice but you know you can jump in you know network with other owners and founders um or distributors and just you know shoot the shit talk you know help each other you know share tips etc um and then there's a course right so we've we've we met a lot you know My partner and I in the business, we've had a fair share of conversations with new founders who have made mistakes. And so we created a course that teaches everybody what you should know.
We go through pricing in depth on the course. You know how to look at your numbers, figure out your FOB, etc. Different state taxes. It's pretty nitty gritty, but it's distribution management. Management, I mean, it covers a lot of ground. So, That's, that's who I am. That's what we're doing to answer your question. Long, long-winded. No, it's great, man. Um, usually the podcast is, is about you.
Well, no, I just think it's always cool. Cause I'm like, Hey man, like, you know, there's a lot of people that say they're in the spirit industry and, and it's, it's, it's just like, are you, you know what I mean? It's just like a lot. It's, it could be such a, well, Well, when I got in it, man, I was 25 working at a liquor store here, funny enough. And now, you know, now they sell a ton of my bourbon, right? And so I was just like a college grad. 10 bucks an hour, it sucked. I hated that job.
But now it's this huge liquor store. It's right next to my apartment, actually, funny enough now. But it's like right next to downtown, the Gulch. And it's like, I mean, dude, it's a multi-million dollar liquor store.
It's so, they kill it. and so um but what i'm saying is that's when i got in it and then i i partnered with a distillery down in charleston and then the lady that owned it is a very bad not so good person and you know she stole money from us um we're suing we're suing the hell out of her but and she's totally screwed but but we're not the only person she did it to she it was she was trying to create like a um.
Uh well we're now with um we're now with the coastal pier which used to be terra sentia okay and terra sentia is that terra pure process same it's the same building everything it just green river bottom then sold them now it's a company out of chattanooga called like world-class spirits or something they do like uh that football players stuff what's his name they do a lot they did chicken cock out of there they've
done okay huge huge brands but what i'm saying is she was trying to replicate that. And what I learned, man, um, as a young entrepreneur, um, cause I also have other businesses is if you're not looking at your books, a hundred percent, you're getting screwed. And so, uh, that was a really big thing. And, you know, I mean, I don't know, man, I can't tell you the exact number cause she won't show us the books cause she knows she stole. Right.
And so we're trying to subpoena them. I mean, dude, she's so, I don't know why she would want to even go on stand and that's where we're at the moment, but it's about to get there which is nice it was like yeah maybe we could see the end of the tunnel yeah but i'm just saying um you know what i learned i learned that you know it's not don't work with just everybody.
Um but i didn't know what i was doing so i so i just like hey let's like let's partner and we she wasn't the owner when we started it was other owners okay it was just nice awesome three dudes and they they sold it and so she bought it and so that's how we ended up getting connected and um yeah man but you know what here's the one thing i learned too and maybe you'll get this because you've sold a company yeah is uh my lawyer told me this too he's like if
no one's screwing with that then you're not doing that good of a job you know what i mean like she she wants to own our brand because our brand is so um successful for a completely bootstrapped um brand if we were doing nothing she wouldn't care you know what i mean so it's just uh you know whatever man you you know yeah get take this you gotta take the lows because only you go up as high but i'm just saying there are days where i'm like oh my god you know
but then i'm like you know what dude but like you own this thing and it's all over the internet and that's pretty cool you'll get through it so and i'm just saying i've been through my up and downs too man it's crazy you know i mean so have i and i think if you haven't i mean maybe maybe you're lucky maybe i don't know any entrepreneur who hasn't been through the ups and downs even like i mean daily daily basis. I think I have, you know, ups and downs, emotion.
Like my wife's like, man, like, just don't talk to me about this because I'm like, oh, it's crazy. It's hard. It's hard. And then it's like, oh, everything's awesome. You know, like, and that, that can happen daily. That can be weekly. I mean, I've gone through some shit in my, my other businesses. And, you know, there were times where I didn't think there was a light at the end of the tunnel.
It was just like, things are going to crash. You know, it got that bad and you just keep like that, that quote is Like you can't, you can't fail if you don't quit. Um, and I just kept going, you know, we turned everything around and then we sold the business and, you know, it's been awesome from there, but it, you know, it, the other thing is like the hard times make you better, right?
Like you wouldn't be who you are today if you didn't have the shit to go through, you know, to have nothing faded me anymore. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. You're better for it. If someone's a dick to me, I'm like, whatever, I did see it. But I used to be like, oh my, they were mean to me.
I i really want to make sure they like me now i'm just like whatever dude just get it get away from me you're not meant to be a part of what i'm doing because all the time there are people that hey i want to be a part of this let's figure it out i'm like dude get away from me i know what i'm doing like you know it's very interesting but uh yeah man but you know but anyway but with the brand though it is is doing really well i mean i was uh the first artist to go on to start engine.
And uh oh cool to put a whiskey label on there the first to put a spirit on there because after that it was um whatever his name is the guitar player from cheap trick he put his vodka up there it's called rocket vodka um and so and then walton goggins put up his mahalan distillery oh yeah um and so we kind of did a trend but i will say this though man uh starting a marketing campaign if you don't get a lot of money they take about half of it out of fees they're
not very clear about that in the beginning um and so you don't even get half that money and then now here's the the issue. And I'm not to anybody that invested, you know, God bless you. Thank you so much. But I will say now there's 550 people who have my number and my email and, you know, I'm not rude to anyone. I'm just saying, it's just like a lot of people want an instant response like Amazon or something. And so it's like, you know, I'm out, I'm out working every day and then they
go, Hey, what's going on? I'm like, Oh my gosh. But I will say this though. And I think you'll, you'll chuckle at this. The people that give you 10,000.
Or like we'll be in touch if people give you a hundred dollars they're like dude call me you're like oh my god you know it's very interesting i learned that i'm like whoa dude but but i mean but how how beautiful is that 550 strangers and like music fans of mine yeah that's amazing that's amazing so yeah and i've heard the same thing i've heard you know start engine the other other crowd funding uh methods are are highly expensive you know that
the fees are extraordinary so it's insane insane uh you had to pay 10 grand to start they don't pay you up front they take it out the back 10 grand to start and then after that 10 grand each round and then they take about half then they take yeah and then they take half uh of every investment so we did about 300k and so we got less than 150 you know what i mean that's crazy but but you know everyone thought everyone thought we were killing because you're like oh
my god look at because it was so exciting online yeah You know what I mean? Yeah. And we, and we could have, I think dude, we could have definitely raised a million, but I was so, it was a full-time job. I was so tired of doing it. I pulled the plug. I was like, we're done. Like, this is okay. You know? Yeah. So no fundraising is, is a full-time job. It's hard, you know, when you're going through that.
And that's, that's been interesting to see the, the environment change over the past three years, you know, brands. I think some would argue this. I do think you can build a spirits brand profitably.
It's just really fucking hard to do um because the model for so many brands is you know we've raised money we're going to lose a ton of it in building this thing and then hopefully we'll either have another round which you know hopefully we get through and and then hopefully we get acquired like that's that seems to be the business model for most brands um and i think i think you know it's coming to a a moment where you have to kind of think like how can we you know stretch a dollar as much
as we can um and really grow smart grow profitably and actually as an entrepreneur you appreciate this like look at your bottom line you know like it doesn't matter if you made a million dollars in revenue if it cost you two yeah 100 you know so that that's you know it's i i do think that's when you have to like get creative get really smart it sounds like you're doing that not indulging a community like and as a musician I think you have an edge on.
Or at least a different perspective from other founders and you know i'd love to dive into that like you mentioned you have the uh the music festival and that's an annual that's where is that again that that's in charleston that's in charleston it's uh it's uh it's like a 3 000 person amphitheater it's brand new wow downtown charles has never seen that before so last this year was like 1200 people so i'm hoping next year to get a bigger but that's a dude you know i i we broke even
on it yeah yeah but yeah so here's i think you know in my first business we we were we had 6 000 people going through our events every week and to me uh it's always shocking that like brands don't try to host their own events because yeah you know it's totally i get it it's really hard it's you know hard to build a build a following and like will anybody come to my event but i think if you can partner with the right uh we'll call them influencers but you know
they can be other brands um that are that work well with you right they're not not competitive they're synergistic brands it's you might break even but that sure beats you know dropping fifty thousand dollars just be a sponsor of the event yeah yeah we had we have my buddy uh uh, Scott Hanson, he has Island Coastal Brands, uh, but it's Island Coastal Beard. They, they did like 6 million on Start Engine and, uh, they're from Charleston too.
We launched the same time. I didn't know him. And we had the same distributor at Breakthrough for a second. Okay. We're both, they're no longer with Breakthrough, but, um. That's why I met him. And so like, you know, I was like, can you just give me some beer and I'll put your name all over it. And so it was Boone's Bourbon, Boone's Beer, but Boone's Beer was only a VIP section. Okay. And so everything else was Island Coastal Beer, you know? And so it was just cool synergy.
And they love to be like that hipster, active type brand where it's like low calorie. And so it's all these young college kids. It was great. I love doing stuff with that brand because they get it. And every time I talk to him, how's everything going? He's like, I'm still here, right? Oh my God, yeah, same. Me too. Because I don't understand how a lot of brands stick around because I know how hard it is. And I'm like, dude, you have to be hemorrhaging money.
And I will say this to a lot of brand owners.
That i've met they find it beneath them to go do tastings i'm like dude yeah i have sold three cases in 30 minutes before because it's just there's a high foot traffic store at friday, and i'll and i just say i'm the owner and i'm right there in the front and all sides like boom boom boom boom boom boom if you're a taster they're just on their phone and they're like yeah it's a bourbon i think and then you spend 150 bucks you're like wow i lost money you
know know what i mean yeah you're spending 150 bucks an hour you know tasting three hours and then they they they might show up late or this happened before we don't i don't hire tasters anymore unless the distributor is like no if you hire this taster we'll pick up 30 more cases my very cool like some other kind of deal you know um we've done that before distributor yeah like that that's a whole different thing but we didn't before we hired like a tasting group and um
they didn't even like call into the store and there was two bottles there and we showed up not to check up on them but just because we were excited to meet them yeah and they thought we were spying on them and it was this all dramatic thing but i was like there's two bottles here they go yeah i go what the why didn't you call them oh you know we forgot i was like well you're fired so yeah what a waste what a waste you know you can't
there's no roi in a two bottle uh yeah but dude but what a what What a cool gig. If I was in college, I'd be a taster person. Sure. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's tough. I worked in college. I had one of the best experiences working for Red Bull. And I was on their street team and I learned more in that job, but it is amazing. Every time I walk through either a liquor store or grocery store and there's a taster, you know, they don't even look up from the tip.
I would say 95%, maybe 99%. And it's such a wasted opportunity for everybody involved. You know, it's. They don't engage. Right. And that's like, there's even sitting behind the table. I have a problem with like, you should be getting out there in front of the table, talking to people. Hey, how's that going? You know, being a social chameleon being, oh man, love the grateful dead. You know, that's where'd you get that sweatshirt? It's fantastic.
Right. And like immediately connecting with people, you can do that. And like, no one does that. Like tasters are just like dropping the ball left and right and brands keep doing it and they settle with, oh, we have an average of three bottles sold every tasting. And, you know, I mean, I, I, I move like at least two cases of tasting and if I, and if I don't, I will, it's usually three hours, you know, five to eight or something. Sure.
Yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll stay around until 10 until I saw them all. I'm like, no, I'm not leaving today because I got to get these out because I got to move some more cases then, you know? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're right. Like a lot of founders don't do that. And, you know, there's such a value to being on the ground with your customers, you know, like being at those tastings is so invaluable for you, you know, to be able to, to hear what people, you know, have to say about your product, you know, what, what they think about the brand, the label, you know, what are the motions that it evokes? Like you can have a great conversation with people and learn a ton.
Maybe, maybe you're going to rebrand or like do a new label, you know, that that all that value now you can you don't you know you don't have to run. You know a case study or anything like that well we uh student community though um we have uh like you know those clubs on facebook yeah i saw that you have like 10 000 people in your club, yeah it's kind of crazy awesome yeah so about like a little over 100 a week usually join it now.
I'm sure you've noticed this now there's a lot of bots out there yeah and a lot of bots do get in and i have to individually remove them and it's crazy what these bots do now they will every time there's a bourbon or whiskey in a post not even a hashtag they'll see it and they'll hit it and they go if anybody hit me up dm me i'll send you some bottles they automatically do it and then unfortunately unfortunately an older person will fall for that
because they go who's this they don't know you know what i mean they're not tech savvy and then i've had people reach out go hey i bought some bottles where are mine and then they think i have them you know and i'm like oh no no no no that's that's illegal it has to go through an online store what did you do in the go i sent sent some guy a hundred bucks on paypal and i'm like oh no so that's that's kind of wild and it's also on the facebook post it'll happen
all the time i'm like dude this is wild it's like and then that then they have all these like copy and paste things now what they're doing is now that now these bots are making their own groups and they're like hey join our group called bourbon lovers and it's all fake and people join it and they start i mean dude like oh you know you can to go to jail for not paying your taxes but they don't go to jail for i'm just kidding like you
know like no it's absurd yeah what's happening out there yeah there's a ton of scams it's wild uh same same thing like facebook marketplace you know it's crazy all right and then the resale market of actual bottles too that's wild too so so have you found value from from building the community like overall. That's how we raised our money okay so uh halfway through it i was like gosh darn this is taking.
Really you know because face are going to boost everything right yeah and so uh all of a sudden an at everyone future came out through halfway through the raise and so i was able to ping everybody and so i also have a talent boom one it's like 5 000 about it was probably 3 000 then.
And um yeah just start pinging it and all of a sudden it just skyrocketed so oh um i do have an instagram program that my partner invented with another company called artist formula, and it watches and likes stores a day on instagram and so many of that blue check, and people who aren't trying to be like an influencer or a brand they don't get a lot of notifications right yeah and so now it used to be you had to swipe up to see the heart on your story now notifications yeah you get it right but
we have that blue check that sits there for like four or five days and so if you're not someone that gets a lot of notifications you're you're going to see that thing every time you open up Instagram. And so with the blue check, it's kind of funny and silly, but unfortunately our society thinks it's a big deal. Right. And so, uh, I mean, I have never had super fans ever until we invented that thing.
And I have people that fly to my shows, man, like from Canada to from Austin, Texas, Miami, New York, like there's just this group of people where, and the fine thing is they become a community. They know each other. Yep. And so like, cause they're in all the groups and then like, I'll see on our festivals, So they're all, they're from all over the country and they're all like hanging out with each other. Like, cause they're like the super fans.
Well, I used to do, um, and I, and what I'm saying with that, with Instagram program though, we, I got, we raised some money from that because my link, my link was the starting people. Damn. Hey, I just put like, you know, 500 bucks in my go wild. But, um, but, uh, you know, with the whole super fan thing and all that, I used to do tours, um, years ago when I was in Nashville the first time with a whole bunch of guys from American Idol.
Like they're like the actual winners from back in the day not not not like the previous years like from like 2008 i did one with david cook i did a whole bunch of them wow what i'm getting at is i learned a lot from those tours i mean i did i was making no money doing them um that's usually how it goes too they're like hey we'll pay 100 bucks tonight you know and you're getting a hotel and you're driving wow and so um but but you're on the tour
there's a thousand people there you know so what are you gonna do you know so if you're trying to make it whatever making it is But what I'm saying is those super fans, I relate to ours because there are these people that just follow them every freaking night of the tour. And they bought all this stuff. You came out and you shook their hand. You hugged them. You knew them by name. And I just started my bourbon brand. That was 2018.
And I brought it with me all across the Midwest. And we weren't even in those states except Chicago, Illinois. But what I'm saying is I was like, oh, cool. I have to be like that. That's exhausting.
But also, too, you're being a good person. because these people that buy your product, or come to your show um this is a good quote from the minch that great documentary that mike myers put on okay i forgot what artists they're talking about but it was oh do you got to watch it because it's about i'm right now not it's not just about the music business it's about the entertainment business right and whatever r b singer it was he canceled the
show and the minch he used to manage uh alice cooper that was his big artist okay and he started he started iron chef and i mean his dude his story is insane wow and he told us and i always told took this one to heart he told his artist he goes dude you cannot cancel the show this weekend he goes no man like he was a rock star at this point now i'm gonna cancel it was no these people don't make a lot of money you don't know what they do they worked
all week to go to your show this is like their big night and you're gonna cancel on your fans and then like a week later week later unfortunately the guy got in a car accident he's paralyzed but um but crazy story but i'm just saying but from the super fan standpoint there's been people that come to our tastings all the time in certain of our certain stores like definitely in south carolina.
Um where they're like every time my dad's there they show up and go mr ben on your back you know and oh wow it's pretty cool it's that's amazing pretty nuts it's pretty cool so anyway you got to be appreciative of the people that support you so yeah oh for sure and i i i when we were building our first company you know as we started to not be the face of the company we were hiring people to like run things i i would tell everybody i'm like as soon as you
walk into that door across that threshold you're on like you are an actor right like i don't every all the shit that you had to deal with that day you might have had a bad day but it doesn't matter anymore because the people who are here they're paying to see you perform right and like that's all that matters and it sounds like you guys are really doing it right i think that's that's fantastic i actually just oh sorry yeah i would say well i mean it's just if you don't act that way people
are not gonna yeah one last quote her last time like oh my god i love that quote yeah songs don't songs don't make people come to your shows like the person does like if you really love that artist like that's a good guy not because he's got the top 40 hit song there's a lot of shit bags that have top 40 hit songs there's a lot of good people like that's a good guy i like or that's a good girl you know what i mean so it's you got it you know you just gotta what you put out in the world to get
back you know so yeah totally true i i believe in all that what so just 2018 you said you started boone's bourbon why like. What like what inspired you to say i'm starting like so i need to start bourbon. Of all things you know like where was the motivation 2015 um i uh had a music deal in Nashville with a really big manager I'm gonna say his name but um.
Great documentary uh food fighters 2016 i think okay it's called sonic highways hbo, okay now what's called max now um yeah anyway they go to every big city and they interview people and they then through the interviews he writes the lyrics and he makes the phone so the nashville one with the songs with zach brown but interviews down our buck black keys can when they talk about the music road deal and so i was kind of getting courted to have like maybe a possibly music road deal
where it's like they get they get justin the best looking dude you get a pub deal pub deal is the songwriting um like i own my own pub company i don't make i'm not a millionaire but you know i make some decent money from my pub but i also get to control it but uh pub is like the songwriters you might maybe get a word in there but someone's gonna write your music especially well this is a top like 40 music or country deal
i didn't play country music i don't even know why i was maybe because my name tyler bone sounds pretty southern right so pub deal you get a record deal because.
Uh it's a bank and they can to break a single at radio costs like a quarter million so after you get a number one in the country world you hear it all the time these cma's all that stuff that's not really my world at all but they'll be like i mean i got my number one man oh my god like it's such a country thing but it makes you a product right like jelly roll like that i mean obviously he's a good dude but you know he's you know he's does that i got number one you know it's it's just a
country thing and so that was that was the uh deal and so because of that deal i was getting a lot of attention from people in the business side of things and so this guy came along actually my friend's dad and he was like hey you should start spirits your name on it and everyone thought i played country music you know and so i was like okay well my last name is boone so uh bourbon it's better also bourbon was 2015 man i it was like
a whole world opened up i was looking at liquor store i was like what is bourbon angel's envy bullet like it was different back then yeah And so I was like, okay, well, it's going to be a bourbon. I learned what a bourbon was, the difference, all that stuff. And so the guy was supposed to fund it. Well, also, by the way, I turned on that music deal because I was like, dude, I can't. I'm not going to sing about red dirt and beer.
Can't do that. And then next thing you know, I was for George's name is King of the World.
And then chris stapleton came out as like a big artist because he was he was doing it forever but it's chris stapleton jason isbell chris stapleton they kind of dave cobb was the producer he kind of made everything more authentic again where like you can hear the guitar and it's not all this beat, tequila i want to see i want to roll my window down like no you know it was like songwriting again kind of right and so and it's so funny man everyone this town not hanging
on it but everyone does follow whatever is the new big thing and then you know machine gun kelly when he came out now like morgan wallen's got a song with a hip-hop beat on it like it's just that's how the industry thing now yeah yeah so but it's huge nelly you know he always does stuff but yeah what i'm getting what i'm getting at is uh the dude didn't have the money and so i was like well i've turned down that deal and i think if i do a liquor maybe this will help my name as an artist,
but so i'll move back to troston and i had everything set up i had the label made i had my cola, I had my federal license. Didn't have my state license though. And I had no money. And so I was broke. And so I moved back to Charleston for eye surgery. As I'm recovering, I found the distiller that we first partnered with called Stripe Pig. And then.
My i i was like you know i'm gonna stay in charleston because i i'm so tired of being broke because you can't really play music you're gonna make a living but in charleston it's just like the keys in florida you do cover gigs every day and so i started making like i was hustling i was doing like four to seven a week wow on top of like a part-time gig during the day and i launched my other company too i was four million so i was making about gigging thousand bucks a week that's not bad
so as a musician with like four dollar rent like i thought i was i thought i was a badass you know and so then uh so with the money that my dad's like hey i want to do this thing with you so he put money in and then we went 50 50 and we launched it 2018 and it was uh 223 cases six packs 750s and uh you know for us that was a lot yeah and then next thing you know we just kept flipping it and flipping it and flipping it and then billboard did a big article on us and And then in 2020,
we got Double Gold New York. Then we got named Toxic Road and Forbes. And that kind of skyrocketed a lot of sales. But those are the sales that we weren't collecting on. That's a whole legal issue. Yeah. Okay. But on a timeline, not like P&Ls and all that other finance mumbo-jumbo that I've learned about, but like actual POs, we're getting close to a million dollars in sales. Wow. Congratulations. That's fantastic.
It's really awesome. And so now, you know, all the time people are like, oh, I want to buy your brand. And we've been offered, you know, like $3 million. And when we do the math, we won't make much. And so we're taking it as a compliment and be like, okay, cool. Let's keep going for another five years, which is like starting now. Because we've been, I mean, dude, I had an offer this morning. I was like, can I throw out a business broker?
And he's like, hey, they want to meet. I'm like, I don't want to sell it, man, because I know we could sell this for more. and it's already five years in, you already got offered to get bought out. It was, yeah, I just said 3 million. And I was like, okay, I think we can do this for more. But we are getting offered now from a couple of people where they want to invest like 2 million into it. And that would be really awesome because, you know, just things happen, dude.
You got to pay a lawyer for something, you know, whatever, you have all this cash in the bank and then you zero it out again. You're like, ah. And then, you know, every weekend I do three or four tastings. And if we, you know, if we weren't doing them, then we wouldn't be, you know, it's just, it's a lot of work, dude. People want to just stand and our one secret thing though, is our beer. And so I'm trying to bring the beer here.
That's why I want that investment. So you don't have to use our own cash because I'm trying to hold on to that. But the beer is great because it's a pre-prohibition barley mash. Our bourbon is 117 proof cash drink bourbon, 75 corn, 21 rye, 4 barley. So the American Pilsner is a barley mash. So it's kind of like an orange, kind of unfiltered looking beer. And God, dude, it tastes, honestly, it tastes really freaking good. And it's a boiler maker. So you take the shot, you drink the beer.
But dude we launched the beer uh over a year ago and everyone in south carolina that you know that's where it's only uh distributed in yeah it's like dude now you're now you're killing it i'm like what and i think maybe because you get you get to go to the bar and they maybe because the tap handle or they think it's it's it was harder i might know this is way easy to do a beer um the bourbon was way harder yeah and but but people think the people think we're killing it but the So the secret,
I guess, sauce is, you know, on-premises is really tough. And so, but for beer, it's not because they have rotating taps usually. They go, I need a Pilsner. You got one? Yeah, dude, send the keg. You know, we'll tap it out in a couple of days. But then I get the report from that, from our beer distributor. And then we'll go down as Boone's Bourbon, Boone's Beer. Hey, thanks for putting up our beer.
Hey, by the way, we got this bourbon and it's 117 proof, but we sell those bottles for 20 bucks a pop. It's on purpose. And so they're usually on the retail shelf, especially in South Carolina, it's like $32, but over here it's like 40, but it's a really, really, uh, inexpensive high proof. And so the bars, I was like, Oh dude, well, yeah, let's, let's bring the bourbon in. And so now we're landing more bars. So that's been a really good strategy. Yeah.
And it was by accident. I was just like, dad, I think we should start a beer. And he's like, okay. And then we did it. And all of a sudden, like we're getting these reports and RNDC in South Carolina is like, where are you getting these bars from?
Like we're doing it. you know so it was pretty cool so if i could and if i could do it here we could ship it from south canada but it would make it more money uh but if i could do it here what you know everyone wants to be like this is locally made especially in nashville it's like all those little nashville brewed beer people freak out more of it so it'll be with a fat bottom brewery um really cool brewery but we just you know we haven't started cooking it yet so that's awesome um
yeah i think that's It's also a very unique part of your story is, is the beer and the strategy is brilliant. So congrats. That's, that's really cool. Yeah. Thanks man. What's, um, I know we're coming up on time and you're, you're a busy guy, so let's, let's wrap up. We've got, um, quick four kind of 60 second questions. I like to ask everybody, um, if you don't know, it's fine.
We can just pass whatever you say, skip. um what what's the most impactful or your favorite book that you've read recently um.
You know you mentioned we mentioned a lot of documentaries already yeah yeah let's say yeah my my my bass player james we've been playing for like over 10 years he lives in san diego okay he bought me a book what was it um i can't remember the title but i've been reading it he's very much in like the philosophical things because you know i mean he's one of the the homies you know and you know he's traveled the whole country with me and i'll just be like wow Wow. Fuck.
And he'd be like, bro, dude, think about it this way. And I'm like, oh, gosh, I wish I could remember the name of the book. But I'm really into that kind of stuff because all these quotes, like I've got one guy, he sold a water or something. He was on Joe Rogan. And it's the same kind of vibe. I'll make this quick, but the vibe about that book, I wish I could remember the name of it, where it's like, it's okay for you to be like, hey, no, I can't take a meeting with you.
You know don't feel bad yes yeah yeah yeah because because like i'd rather go it's been three days since i've gone to the gym and i gotta go you know what i mean and it makes you feel better and i when i was in la my rent was so much because i chose to choose this box i thought that's what i needed to do because i started making more money and i wanted to make it happy so all i would do was working all the time to pay the freaking rent
and uh i was not a happy dude for a second I think because all I did was wake up at seven and work until midnight, you know? Oh, wow. So, you know, whatever. I mean, you've been there, man. You know. You're just in the trenches. So anyway, I can't really read the book, but I like that philosophical stuff. It's cool. Okay, cool. Very cool. We'll, we'll connect. We'll put in the show notes. How do you stay organized with, with all these things going on?
You've got at least four, you've mentioned still.
I, you know, my phone because i saw i was out uh i had one of the chiropractorics i love going to that and i was like oh i gotta get somewhere to park because i got this call with justin just my phone your calendar on your phone that's if i don't do that it i get like a couple hundred emails a day from my other business um it is pretty successful and i will totally miss someone's email and they think, they think i was a jerk i'm like no no i just didn't see it
you know so yeah my phone dude number one and i have a little planner um it's like a little it's like a glenn levitch tasting book that i just use to put all my tastings in and if i don't do that i will miss a tasting so oh wow okay all right so like pen and paper and and your phone calendar. I like the pen and paper for the bourbon stuff. I mean, for like an internet thing like this, it's buzzing my phone. Yeah. If it's like my, my tasting stuff, it feels a little more cool,
I guess. I don't know. Okay. All right, cool. So, um, do you believe in balance or how do you maintain balance in your life? Or is it just kind of all together? Uh, I forgot who I did. I watched talking all day when I'm working. I forgot who said this the other day. And, uh, maybe it was Joe Rogan or Kevin Theo Vaughn or Kevin, one of those guys. I love comedy a lot too. We used to do a lot of comedy shows in LA.
Oh, cool. cool thing called the thing called jam the band it's really cool um anyway i forgot who it was but it's true when someone says i got it figured out no they don't you know what i mean nobody hasn't figured out because it's dude we live in the craziest time of because after covid i feel like people are still on edge you know i definitely still am and so um uh yeah i mean you know i do my best to do it the one thing i do now um i used to go out a lot
not because like i had a drink i just I just used to go out all the time, um, playing music, work for a bourbon company. It's kind of fun, right? So you meet a lot of people, Hey, let's get a drink. Let's get a drink. I go to bed now. So that's the way I keep my stuff more balanced. I go to, I try to go to bed around 10. Cause I used to always go to bed around two and not, not because I was out. I think I was so wired being out. I would just be on my laptop work.
Yeah. I mean that, and that leads to the final question, you know, how do you, uh, maintain energy and focus? I don't know if I lost you there. More sleep and just eating better. Yeah. It's the magic bullet more sleep. Yep. I love it. Um, Hey Tyler, thank you so much for being on the show with us today. Appreciate you. And, you know, we'll be looking out for both, both, you know, boons, boons, bourbon and your beer, uh, on the shelves. So appreciate it.
Thanks man. If you're ever in Nashville, give a holler. Absolutely. I still, I've never been down, so I'll have to, I have to make a point to get down there. It's, uh, it's definitely like if you're, you're married. Yeah. Yeah. So like you're, you're, you know, restaurants, like it's one of those spots, you know? Awesome. So your wife would love it. And then if you want to go get a beer, you beers don't bars on coastal three Broadway's fun.
So always live music. So well, awesome. No, thanks so much, Justin. Yeah, absolutely. Tyler. Thanks a lot.