It's time for Barbecue Nation with JT So fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.

Now from the Turn It, Don't Burn it studios In Portland, here's J.T.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the Nation, Barbecue Nation.

I'm J.T.

along with my co host and co commander, Ms.

Leanne Whippen, who happens to be in the hall of fame, I might add.

We'd like to thank the folks at Painter Hills Natural Beef, Beef the way nature intended, and also the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.

From sea to plate.

Actually, last year, it went from plate to Leanne's mouth is what it did when we were.

A lot.

A lot of it like that.

I should pray I'm not insulting you, but you look like a little chipmunk, which is crab in your mouth.

Well, I store it for later.

You store it for later.

Okay.

Today we're very privileged to have Carrie Bringle from Peg Leg Porkers there in Nashville, and outstanding restaurant.

I've been there, I might add.

Outstanding.

And the booze isn't too bad either.

Oh.

So, Carrie, you've never been on this show before, and I thought we'd just give our listeners some background to start with.

How did you decide to, you know, turn the key and open the door on Peg Leg Porkers?

Well, you know, I've been cooking barbecue for probably, I guess, 40 years now.

And I learned from my grandfather and from my uncle.

I competed in Memphis in May for 31 years and in this last year, switched over a new competition, Smokesland.

I never had been a big circuit guy.

I'd go cook every once in a while and some other competitions, but mainly just Memphis in May.

I cooked.

You know, I cooked my whole life, but I had a career in health care and then in technology and finally decided, I always knew that I would open the restaurant, but finally I decided to.

I had already started the brand Peg Leg Porker while I was cooking, you know, barbecue just as on the side, and.

And so I had my sauce and my rub bottled, but.

And I didn't.

I didn't even really push it out there into much retail.

We were in a few spots, but I certainly promoted the brand a lot.

And so I finally decided to.

I'd had enough of, you know, the corporate life, which never really was my thing in the first place.

And I finally decided to pull the trigger on the restaurant.

And because I'd already sort of started the brand and built the brand up some.

And the hype that when the restaurant opened, it was just Kind of the physical manifestation of that.

And so was nice and it.

And it.

It's been a success.

And, you know, now we have nine companies and we have four restaurants and spirits company and clothing and wholesale retail, food and real estate.

It's an empire.

You have an empire.

Do you want to tell the listeners where your four restaurants are?

Yeah.

So we have Peg Leg Porker as our flagship.

It's here in Nashville in the gulch area.

And then we've got Pringles Smoking Oasis, which is a new Texas style place.

I say new.

It's been open for two and a half years over in an area called the nations here in Nashville.

And it's.

It's beef and.

And pastrami and smoked turkey.

Whereas Peg Legs only chicken and pork.

Peg Leg is straight Tennessee barbecue, nothing else.

No beef served at all.

And then we've got Pig Star in the airport, which is a kind of a hybrid and a scaled down version.

And then we've got.

We're partners in Fat Belly Pretzel and Deli over in East Nashville with chef Lavon Wallace and his wife Kim.

And they make amazing fresh baked bread and sandwiches and pretzels and danishes and all the good stuff.

Yeah.

Do they use.

Do they use your meat products in their sandwiches from Peg Leg?

Sometimes we collaborate and they do.

They don't always, but sometimes they do.

When.

When you started.

So Pig Leg's been open for what, 10 years?

12 years.

11 and a half years now.

How did, how did the pandemic hit you back there?

I mean, people have different stories, Carrie, from around the country and.

And out here, they locked everything up tighter than the church door, you know.

Yeah.

Now it.

Our mayor was, you know, pretty, pretty liberal with his lockups.

And, you know, they closed us or I think six or eight weeks, and then they allowed us to open up only for.

To go.

But when they did that, we.

We had applied and got some of the PPP money, so we knew we needed to bring everybody back to work because when that first came out, there were very tight restrictions on it.

Right.

We used it to work with Operation Barbecue Relief, and we brought people back and we started serving meals for our community for free.

You know, that we provided for free.

We worked with OBR and worked with our food providers.

And so I put my people to work, and over the course of two weeks, I think we fed 34 or 36,000 people.

And you have to understand that in Nashville, the pandemic came right on the heels of a tornado that came through town.

And Affected a lot of businesses, specifically a lot over in East Nashville.

But I was very vocal during the pandemic with our mayor and with the media and actually with the national media about, you know, about what I thought about the lockdowns and what I thought about what they were doing to us.

And our.

Our city council and our mayor gave us a 34% tax increase, property tax increase right in the middle of the pandemic.

And so my property taxes had gone from $9,900 when I opened this restaurant to now they're at $75,000 11 years later.

Oh, my.

Holy crap.

So I've been.

I've been a very vocal advocate for not just myself, but for my community, other small business owners that have been affected by what our city has done, not just during COVID but.

But in general.

Well, we can't.

We can get off the barbecue track for just a little bit here, Carrie.

But how do they justify that, you know, increase, 4,000% increase or whatever the number is?

Well, my property, you know, when I moved into this neighborhood, it was very industrial.

There was really nothing around us.

Now I'm surrounded by high rises.

And so they like to say, you know, well, your property has increased so much in value.

And I also took a 3200 square foot restaurant and I added, after four and a half years of being in business, I added 9000 square feet to it.

I went up and I went back.

And so, you know, they value the property at what you could sell it for.

The problem is we're just a restaurant.

We're not a hotel.

We're not a park high rise.

We can't spread that cost Amongst, you know, 350 people that are there every day.

Right.

It all falls on us.

And, you know, unfortunately in Nashville, they're pushing more and more independents out of business.

And we're.

We're 100% independent.

I've got no backers, no investors.

It's all family owned and operated with me and my wife, and we have three children.

And so we have funded every bit of it.

And so when they start levying those types of taxes on you, it really hurts.

Oh, that's.

That's nuts.

I mean, I thought Portland was bad.

The goofy stuff they do out here all the time, because we're always in the news for something dumb.

Oh, yeah, but I didn't.

I didn't realize that was going on in Nashville.

I haven't been in Nashville in years, Gary, so.

Well, we've had a.

We've had a complete transformation in the past 15 years, it's something else.

And like I said, we.

We didn't have any high rises around us at all.

And now I can walk outside and spit on, you know, 10 high rises all around.

That must have helped your business, though.

Well, it does and it doesn't, so it will eventually help the business.

But right now, like today, as a matter of fact, every street around me is under construction.

And so parking was already tough enough in our neighborhood.

And now I've got streets that are blocked off.

They're digging them up.

I got buildings being built on three different sides of me and they're constantly stopping traffic, tearing up the roads.

And so that's made it, you know, it's made it difficult for us and for our customers.

And also in Nashville, they've given out, I think, six to 800 new restaurant licenses in the last year alone.

Wow.

I mean, everybody's coming here and we're just getting an influx.

We got great food scene.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Influx of too many.

Too many restaurants at this point.

Are most of those independents or are they more chains coming in?

Most of them are venture backed or investor backed, you know, out of New York, Chicago, L.A.

you know, and the problem is some of them are chains.

Some of them are, you know, chef driven.

The problem is when they come in and they're back with that big money, they start jacking up what they're paying people to get people because.

Right.

You know, the labor market's tight.

And then when it doesn't work out for them, they pull up stakes and take off and leave a wrecked market behind them.

This is a bit of a parallel, but especially because you're in Nashville.

I saw that in the music business 30 years ago when all of a sudden the urban cowboy thing hit and they were sending people from New York and all this, and they were sending them Nashville and the record labels opened up satellite offices there, you know, from RCA and LA and etc.

Etc.

And then that tanked and they just left town.

You know, very similar to Branson.

Yeah, well, but you seem like a guy that can survive and withstand stuff, Gary.

I.

Yeah, I think you're going to be all right.

We take it all in stride.

Look, I'm a lucky guy.

I was lucky to survive cancer at age 17.

And I've got a great business with a great team around me that I love that we've got a lot of families that work in our business alongside my family.

And so that's something that we're proud of.

And we, we treat our People well, and, you know, I'm a lucky.

I'm a lucky guy.

Oh, good for you.

We're going to take a break.

We're going to be back with Kerry Pringle from Peg Leg Workers there in Nashville and talk more about his barbecue business.

And I really want to talk about spirits business, too, if I can get Leanne to sit still long enough because she's always bragging about Peg Leg Porkers.

She likes that.

She is.

So we'll be back on the Nation right after this.

Don't go away.

Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.

I want to tell you about something really cool.

Heritage steel cookware.

I just got mine.

I do a lot of cooking and it's got five ply construction.

Stay cool handles.

It's titanium strengthened.

It's got all the great stuff.

Just go to HeritageSteel us and find out more.

You'll love it.

I guarantee it.

Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.

I'm JT along with my hall of Fame partner, Leanne Whippen.

Today we're talking with Gary Pringle from Peg Leg Porkers there in Nashville.

Before we jump back in with Gary, you can find us on our personal Facebook pages, Twitter, Instagram, all that.

We're out there.

Just Google it.

And you might have trouble getting signed up on Leanne's now because Leanne just got featured, I'm going to put it that way.

In Forbes magazine is one of the top 50 women in the country.

You want to talk about that for a second real quick?

Oh, well, it was in the lifestyle category.

And, yeah, a lot of great women.

And they consider me a culture creator and basically, you know, a breakthrough in the man's world of barbecue.

And so it's a very nice and honored award.

Yeah, I liked it.

What do you think?

What do you think of that, Gary?

I think it's great.

Earlier this week, I thought it was dynamite.

Yeah.

And the fact that they even considered someone, let alone a woman, but somebody in barbecue was in, in my opinion, you know, a pretty big deal.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, I.

I wanted to bring that.

Up because I thought that was very cool.

I was very, very cool.

And congratulations.

The funny thing is, is when they reached out to me, I thought it was spam, and I blew it off for like a month.

And they kept sending me stuff, and I blew it off and blew it off.

And they're like, we haven't heard from you, but you have been selected.

The one thing that I don't answer.

Then you get in.

Right.

It's funny.

I like It, I like it.

Well, you know, famous leading, as they say.

And, but they weren't going to let you go on that.

So, Kerry, what made you decide once you opened the restaurant, what did you, I should say, what was your decision, making progress on what to put on the menu?

You said you do at Pig Legs, you do pork and chicken, but, you know, you, you obviously have to have the recipes and, and the right smokers and stuff and all that.

And what about the pushback about not having brisket?

I'm sure you dealt with that or you still do.

No, absolutely.

So, so when I, they were, you know, the, the other folks in the barbecue market in Nashville, which have wonderful restaurants that do a great job, we really got a great barbecue scene here and we're all friends, which is nice.

They were more, their barbecue restaurants were more kind of barnwood and tin and country music and they had a spattering of everything.

And so they sort of catered to everybody.

And I really wanted to be more like, you know, my family's all from west Tennessee.

I grew up in Nashville, but my mom and dad grew up in Memphis.

My grandparents are from Memphis and Covington.

And, and so I grew up on, on dry ribs down in Memphis, in Memphis barbecue.

And back in the day when I was growing up, nobody was serving brisket at all.

And they would tell you, you know, that steak one and two go to Texas if that's what you want.

And so, and I love brisket.

You know, that's not to disparage brisket, but, but it was always pork and chicken in the state of Tennessee, especially in west Tennessee.

So when I was opening the restaurant, I wanted to have a distinctive, different feel and flavor.

And that was, you know, cinder block and concrete floors and blues and soul.

So much more like a Memphis place than anything that we had in Nashville.

And that's what I did.

And I made the strategic decision to say, look, we're going to do ribs.

We're going to do them this one way.

We're going to have a very limited menu.

We've got six sides.

We're going to do chicken, we're not going to do brisket at all.

This is what we're best at.

And we're going to focus on a one page menu that we think that we can do better than anybody else.

We're going to do a true dry rib.

And a lot of people will cook a rib.

They'll pre rub it, they'll cook it, they won't sauce it, they'll serve it to you.

And Go.

That's a dry rib.

That may be a dynamite and great rib, but it's not a West Tennessee dry ribbon.

A West Tennessee dry rib has a barbecue seasoning on it.

It's not a rub.

It's a barbecue seasoning.

And you smoke that rib with nothing on it except for kosher salt.

And you can mop it with a vinegar mop, and then once it comes off the pit, you hit it with that dry seasoning.

And that is a true West Tennessee dry rib, which was invented by the Rendezvous.

And so the Rendezvous has been a staple in Memphis for 85 years.

And we wanted to become that to Nashville, so we wanted to be the Rendezvous of Nashville.

And we.

You know, my.

My attitude was we can do that by focusing very narrowly on a specialty niche and being something that nobody else in town really is.

And I think we accomplished that.

And I did get a lot of pushback at first.

When we started, I had a wet rib and a dry rib, and I was.

I was sick of the people saying, you know, trying to decide.

And then we would have people say, I want the wet rib.

And my staff would be like, you really want the dry rib?

That's our specialty.

Customer get upset.

Well, you try to change my mind.

So finally, I just.

I took.

After probably within the first three months, I took the wet rib off the menu and said, we're going to serve one kind of rib, and that's it.

And that's worked for us at Peg Leg.

That's what we're known for.

And.

And we do pulled pork, you know, pulled pork sandwiches.

And.

But keeping that narrow focus has helped us keep the quality up.

It's helped us keep it very quick service and be very consistent with.

With what we do.

And I think it was the right decision.

And over at Bringle Smoking Oasis, I didn't do that.

I didn't intentionally pigeonhole myself.

So we can do a lot at Bringle Smoking Oasis to experiment with different things, but at Peg Leg, it's very, very traditional.

Do you think sometimes people, when they open a restaurant, especially a barbecue restaurant, that they try to be too many things to too many different people?

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, you know, they.

They do, and they're trying to please everybody, and that's impossible to do.

You're not going to.

Because you're going to start to be not very good at some of those things.

We've always, you know, we said, look, we're not going to do chicken fingers for the kids.

We're not going to do this.

And that because, you know, if you really value barbecue and you love barbecue, you ought to be teaching your kid to eat barbecue.

I agree.

You know, so you can eat a smaller barbecue sandwich or they can eat a rack of ribs.

You know, all my teeth, I mean, all my kids cut their teeth on rib bones.

You know, that's.

Develop a love for barbecue is by eating it.

And so we drew the line and even that type of stuff.

And I think that it's, like I said, I think it works for us.

Yeah.

Sometimes you go into a restaurant and any type of restaurant, but especially barbecue, and there's 47 things on the menu.

You know, customer doesn't like that.

Yeah.

There's 16 sides.

Yeah, that's a lot of sides for a lot to come up with.

We're going to take another break.

We're going to be back with Kerry Bringle and Leanne and myself.

And Carrie, of course, is the mastermind behind Peg Leg Porkers in Nashville.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

Hey, everybody, it's JT And I have eaten.

If you've ever looked at me, you know that.

But I have eaten seafood all over the world, and I can tell you there's no place better than here in Oregon.

Oregon and our Dungeness crab.

If you want to learn more about Oregon Dungeness crab, just go to oregondungeness.org find out how to cook it, how to catch it, where to buy it, and the sustainability of what they're doing there in the Oregon Crab Commission.

Check it out.

Welcome back to the Nation here on USA Radio Network and all the platforms, of course, when it becomes a pie cast, Leanne's got that.

That lemon meringue pie behind her there.

It's not lemon meringue.

It's my grandmother's own design pie.

Okay.

Looks good.

It looks good.

Yeah.

I've actually cooked that on a Weber Bullet and got a perfect 180 with that.

Did you really?

In Danville, Virginia.

I'll never forget it.

And I'll never make another one like that.

That wasn't easy.

It wasn't EAS like that.

Excuse me.

We're talking with Carrie Bringle from Peg Leg Porkers today.

Carrie, when did you know?

You said you were working in the.

You had tech in the medical worlds and that in corporate, and I feel for anybody that works in corporate.

I really do.

I tried it for about six months.

Wasn't my thing.

But when did you know you had the.

The recipes and the skill to actually go into the restaurant world?

Well, you Know, I'd been an entrepreneur my whole life.

I started working when I was 13 and started my first business at 15 or 16.

And so.

And even when I was working in corporate America, I always had a business on the side.

So business wise, I knew that I would do something again, and it was probably going to be a barbecue restaurant.

I spent a lot of time, you know, perfecting my recipes, researching, meeting with food service reps, meeting with attorneys, meeting with CPAs, meeting with real estate people.

And so I, I consulted during that time, which was nice.

I had left my corporate job and I was consulting in the IT world, and that gave me the flexibility to work on it while I still made money.

But I put in a ton of research, a year or two's worth of research and calculations and spreadsheets and planning and, you know, then I felt comfortable doing it.

And you never, you're never totally comfortable.

You know, you go to open a restaurant and there'll still be a lot of stuff that's going to change and be wrong.

And I had a ton of huge ideas that I was going to do before I opened my doors.

And then, you know, next thing you know, you're like, well, that's not practical.

That was a stupid idea.

You know, that doesn't make any sense now that I'm actually running a place, you know.

Right.

So it was, it was something I always had in the back of my mind.

I thought that I might wait until I retired to open a barbecue restaurant.

But I just.

Something hit me at the moment and I was ready and I just felt ready.

And.

And so I, you know, I went out there and I found.

Found the money, which I wasn't able to get from the bank, and I had to find a private investor, and then I was able to buy him out.

And we bought our building and, you know, that was it.

We hyped it a lot, and luckily it started doing well and making money from day one.

I was in the restaurant business for a very short time.

Leanne's been in IT over the years a lot.

And you've been in it a lot.

What I don't understand is people, when they go to do a restaurant and they're leasing a building and, you know, leasehold improvements and, and triple net and all that stuff, and those may be terms they don't even use anymore, I don't know, but I don't understand how you can make the nut on those.

You know, if you look at success.

You can, but it's hard.

It's very hard.

And Like Carrie said, he started off in that position because he couldn't buy the building, you know, from the beginning.

And, and you work your way to that point because ultimately it is part a real estate business too.

Yeah, yeah.

And like I said, I.

That combined with the over presentation of items on your menu, I mean, there's all kinds of food costs and stuff, as you both know very well, more than me actually associated with those.

So you've got this massive menu, you've got a lease space like that.

And here in the, on the west coast especially, we see a lot of people and some of them barbecue, which kind of breaks my heart, but they try, but they, they just can't cut it.

And part of it is maybe the food quality isn't what it should be.

It's not going to make you sick or anything.

It just doesn't taste great.

It's all prepackaged stuff from United Grocers or something like that, and they're throwing it on the.

In a smoker and saying, here, here's barbecue.

That's not it.

I just find that you'd have to be pretty brassy to think you can actually make it like that.

What would you say, Leanne, 1 in 1 in 50 make it or something?

Oh, I don't even know the numbers, but Carrie knows.

I'm sure he's seen people rise and fall around him.

And, you know, a lot of what he said I can resonate with because as he said, he has families working with his family in the business.

And that's exactly what I had in the beginning with wood chicks, and that built the foundation.

One of the most important parts of the business is your employees.

And, you know, if you don't have that, it basically falls apart.

In my opinion.

It does.

You really got to have great people that believe in your, in your product and in your brand.

And I've been fortunate that, you know, I've found a lot of those people.

And we have a very low turnover rate here at Peg Leg.

And, and, and that's nice, but it, when you go back to the leasing, it makes it very tough.

You know, I see that a lot.

And, and I question when some, when I see somebody lease a space and then dump $2 million into it, I go, you know, I'm thinking you just dumped $2 million into somebody else's pocket, right?

If I'm spending $2 million on a building, I need to own the building.

And one of the things is that a lot of restaurateurs assume that it's cheaper to lease or that it's less risk to lease rather than buy.

And depending on the area where you are, that that could be the case.

But a lot of times they make that assumption, not even doing the research on, well, if I bought this building, what would my monthly cost actually be?

And it would be less than the lease.

You know, now I got insurance and everything that's got to go, and property taxes, but, you know, they don't.

I mean, when I.

When I bought this building, you know, it was our.

Our mortgage was less than the going rate for leases around me, and now it's a whole lot less than the going rate for leases around me.

And when I talk to.

I mentor a lot of folks going into the restaurant business, and, you know, I try and tell them, look, if you can own the real estate, then that's the best thing that you can do, because that's a hedge.

And it's like buying options on stocks.

You know, you're hedging your bets is what a hedge fund does.

They hedge their bets.

And it's the same in the restaurant business.

If you can own the real estate, it's a hedge against failure.

Even if you fail, you still own the building and your improvement.

And now you can lease it to somebody else and it can cover the cost.

So it's tough, but it can be done.

And I'm living proof, because like I said, I went to three different banks who would not loan me the money.

And I went out and I found a private individual who believed in me and believed in my story.

And then.

And we bought the building together.

And because I got real creative on how I structured it, and then I was able to buy him out.

He made an incredible return on his investment, you know, and I was able to walk away with the building and the complete business, which is rare.

Yeah, but that is rare.

And it's very savvy, though, because like you said, Carrie, even if the.

Even if the restaurant closes for whatever reason, you still own that building.

It's still a valuable asset on the books and can still generate revenue for you.

So.

And I think people overlook that sometimes.

Well, and the value of this building has allowed us to expand into other businesses because I did the research, chose the right area to buy the building and got it at the right time before it was developed around me.

It has gone up exponentially in value.

We've been able to take that value and leverage it to buy the building for bringing Oasis, and then same thing over there, up and coming neighborhood.

As it grows in value we can leverage both properties now to buy them.

We got our property for our tasting room and bottle shop for our spirits company and bottling facility.

And so you can, you could stack that leverage by owning the real estate.

And if you do the right research and find the right deal and structure it correctly, then it can be, it can change your life.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

What's your favorite part about going to work every day?

I, you know, I love the social aspect and I love the people.

I mean, I, I love what we're doing with all of our, with the brand and, you know, the different aspects of it.

Leanne will tell you.

And, you know, we live a barbecue lifestyle.

We don't just talk about it.

We're not just doing it on the weekend.

We, we live it.

And so, you know, for me, that involves, you know, barbecue and, and people and friends, and it involves bourbon.

And so, you know, luckily I just, I incorporated all that so that when I go to work every day, it's like I'm having a good time most of the time now you got to deal with, you know, all the issues that come along with owning a business.

But generally, you know, feeding people and having them be happy and satisfied just gives me an overwhelming sense of pride and honor and, and community and, and so, you know, I like to go down and sit at the corner.

I'm not as active in the day to day, you know, on the floor of the restaurant as much because we've got so many other things going on, but I do like to go down every afternoon and sit at the corner of my bar and have some drinks and meet some customers and talk to my staff and, you know, just stay involved.

I like that.

Can I have your job?

It sounds all great, but.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I pulled all my hair out, you know.

Well, how about if I just fill in for you every afternoon from 3 to 5?

How's that?

We can do that.

We're going to take break.

I'm back with Kerry Pringles from Pig Leg Porkers there on the nation.

Stay with us.

Hey, everybody, it's jt.

You know, I talk about Painted Hills all the time and we always say beef the way nature intended.

But it's more than that because each bite of Painted Hills will make your taste buds explode.

Put a big, bright smile on your face, and whoever's at your dinner table will have a big, bright smile on their face.

And you can thank me for that later.

Just go to paintedhillsbeef.com and find out more.

You won't Regret it.

Hey, everybody, J.T.

Here.

I want to tell you about Hammer Stall knives.

Hammer Stahl combines German steel with beautiful and functioning designs.

They're part of the Heritage Steel group, which also does their pots pans.

So go to heritagesteel us.

Check out the Hammer Stall knives.

If you're really into cooking, I think you're really gonna like them.

Welcome back to the nation.

We're talking with Gary Pringles today.

Pringle, I should say, sorry, from Peg Leg Porkers in Nashville.

Terry, where can they find, like, your websites and your social media and.

And that.

Where can people check you out on there?

Yeah, we're@peglegporter.com and then also, you know, on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, it's all at Pegleg Porker.

Then we've got at Bringle Smoking Oasis, and then we've got at Peg Leg Porker Spirits or pegleg porker spirits.com so they can find us, you know, most anywhere.

A quick search ought to bring up any of the.

Any of the locations.

Sure.

You know, did you.

Did you plan on going in the spirits business?

You know, I had worked with Jim Beam Black for a number of years, who were the sponsor of my team down in Memphis, and I always thought that we might do a collaboration, and we had talked about it for years.

The problem is they're so massive and so big that you get lost in the shuffle.

They just, you know, a small guy just didn't go get much traction.

And anybody who's advocating for you is.

Is worried about their job every November when they restructure.

So, Right.

I wanted to be in the spirits business and wanted to have a bourbon brand.

And the guy that actually got me involved with Jim Beam had left Beam, come to work for a local distributor.

He knew about a load of bourbon that was available.

He called me up because he knew I wanted to start a label and a brand.

And it was the worst time in the world for me.

It was six months after we'd opened the restaurant.

I had spent every dime I had.

We were just, you know, wanting to make it and hoping to make it.

And, you know, I had to come up with $50,000 to buy that first load of bourbon.

I didn't have it.

Went.

Went to my bank.

They wouldn't loan it to me.

I called a fraternity brother, and he worked for a bank, and I was like, look, I got to get this money.

And he.

He made it happen.

And I bought that batch, and we.

I designed the bottle and the label, and we put it out there.

It was successful, but I wanted to add to it and I wanted to make it more of our own.

And so I developed a process where we filter through hickory charcoal after we debarrel the bourbon.

So after it's been barreled and aged, when we're dumping the barrels, we run it through hickory charcoal and that gives it our signature flavor and taste.

And we've just grown it and grown it.

Turtle wins the race still all self funded.

And we've grown it now to.

We're in 12 states and about to be in 13.

And last year we won best bourbon in the world, which was a huge, huge, huge accomplishment.

So it's been, it's been great.

Are you in Florida?

We just picked up Florida and you will see us very soon down there and so look for the announcements on our social media, but we will be in about 130 stores down there right off the bat.

That's fantastic.

Congratulations.

Well, see, Leanne, there's hope for you yet down there.

No, I think that's amazing.

That's an amazing story too, that where does the bourbon actually come from?

I mean, who distills it for you?

Yeah, so in the early days when we started, we bought aged product that was out on the market and available.

I'd buy, you know, I'd buy 25 barrels at a time and then I sell, you know, sell that, grow and then I'd buy maybe 50.

And I taught my bank how to loan on bourbon and, and then I got a line of credit and I was able to buy more.

About five years ago, we started contract distilling with a contract distiller that's here in the state of Tennessee.

And all of our products so far has all been distilled and aged in Tennessee.

And so then we started laying down our own supply, working with that contract distiller to lay down our own supply.

And that's what we do now.

We lay down between 600 and 1200 barrels a year with the contract distiller and then we age them and then we just started on this last batch of our white label.

That was our first dump of our contracted barrels.

We still have some aged product that we're trickling out there as different various stages, but all of it goes through the hickory charcoal process that I developed.

And, and that's what makes it our signature flavor and taste.

We will, we'll look at building a distillery when it's time, you know, but we went a different route.

Most of people in, in town have built out, you know, distilleries that are kind of, they've got a small still and it's a showroom and a kind of a tourist destination and they, they can produce enough for, for there, but, but they're not gearing up for the overall, you know, global market.

We went a different route.

I invested in the juice, I invested in the brand and getting the name out there.

And so we've geared up enough product to where we'll go nationwide and globally.

We're in the UK right now already and we just finished a blending and bottling plant, but we waited until we were forced to need it.

Same way with the distillery.

If I can go to a contract distiller and get what I need to my specifications and not have to have a 25, 50 million dollar investment, then why would I not do that now?

Until the business justifies me putting 25 to 50 million into a distillery dedicated to just us, I can contract for that right now.

And that works for us.

And it's been it, you know, it.

That's, it's different than some people.

It's the same as others, but it works for us.

Somehow.

I think you're like a mad scientist, Carrie, when you, when you talk about, and I say that with all reverence, when you're talking about coming up with a filtering system with charcoal and stuff for your bourbon and then, you know, your, your sauces, your dry rubs, different things like that, I, I picture you in the back of the kitchen sometimes, you know, doing stuff like that.

And it's a, it's a great image.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate it.

What does your wife think of all this?

She's been with you through thick and thin.

Yeah.

So Delaney and I have been together for 37 years.

We've been married for 29 years.

And she has been, you know, my rock.

She's been there.

It's not easy to be married to an entrepreneur and it's not easy on your wife, it's not easy on your kids, and especially when that entrepreneur wants to run a restaurant.

For the first three years that we had this restaurant open, I was here every shift, every hour of every day that it was open.

I'd have a cot down in the kitchen sometimes and sleep in the kitchen.

And, you know, we tell the kids, if you want to see daddy, you got to go down to the restaurant.

And she, she'd cook dinner and come down and bring it to me and we'd sit down in the dining room and eat together.

But, but she's been great and she has kind of stayed in the back and until recent years.

And so she wanted to get more involved in more recent years now that the kids are grown.

And so she actually started her own barbecue team called I Only Smoke When I Drink.

And it's an all girls barbecue team that now competes against me down in Memphis Smoke Slam.

This last year, she actually beat me by two places in the whole hog category.

Good for her.

You took 8th place and I took 10th place.

So, you know, it's great for her.

She loves it.

She loves her girls and the camaraderie.

She's seen me do it for years and now it's, it's, it was great to see her start her own team and, and get into it more.

And now she's been on two TV shows.

So, you know.

Well, there you go.

There you go.

Gary Bringle from Peg Leg Porkers in Nashville.

Kerry's going to stick around for the after hours.

That's where things can always go.

A little more humor involved in that part of the show.

But, Carrie, thank you for joining Leanne and myself.

Great story, great story, Great story today.

Yeah.

Having not a problem.

That's going to wrap it up for the radio version of this.

Leanne and I will be back next week.

Actually, Leanne won't be back next week because she's flying around the world again doing something.

But I'll be here.

And remember our motto here.

Turn it, don't burn it.

Go out, have some barbecue, have some fun.

Be kind.

We'll see you later.

Barbecue Nation is produced by JTSD LLC Productions in association with Salem Media Group.

All rights reserve.