- Chef Bob Hurley.

- How you doing?

- Good. Some Powers John's Lane Irish Whiskey for my favorite Irish. Fáilte, ar ais to the bar and it's a massive Fáilte today. Welcome Chef Bob Hurley.

- It's great to be here.

- Yeah, it's been a while.

- Yeah, my favorite beverage.

- And I've been at your bar many times over the years when you had the restaurant, but now I finally got you to mine, so-

- That's right.

- I'm happy to return the hospitality, so.

- And this is more of an Irish bar right here. You know, it's just a plank. It's perfect.

- Nowhere to pull pints though. It's just all whiskey.

- That's right.

- So, I known you for a number of years. We'll talk about that as we go through this. But you're retired.

- Yeah.

- Congratulations.

- Thank you. Thank you. Lot of people ask me if I miss it.

- And?

- I miss my customers and I miss my staff. They were all family to me. The work I don't miss at all.

- Okay.

- I've never wanted to be, I don't know, define my person, defined, definition be a chef, you know. I mean, that's what I did and now I can just be free.

- Okay. But just obviously, you still refer to as Chef Bob or Chef Hurley.

- I still answer to that because a lot of people, that's all they know me by. So I'll hear Chef, Chef and I'll oh.

- It's not "Yes Chef" or "Oui Chef"

- Never went there.

- Good. So Hurley's obviously an Irish name.

- Right.

- But you were born and raised?

- Born and raised in San Francisco.

- Okay.

- As was my father.

- Okay.

- Who is the Irish in my blood, comes from my father, my father's side. My grandmother was born in County Kerry.

- Okay.

- Castleisland, County Kerry.

- [Andrew] In the Kingdom.

- Yeah. And she came here when she was like 16 years old. It's a sad but very accurate Irish tale where they picked her out of the family and they kind of, eeny meeny miney, you got to go. And-

- Really.

- They sent her to the States to live with some relatives and that's how she got here. 16 years old, crossed the ocean, and then hit New York, then New York all the way to the West Coast by herself so.

- That's a journey, isn't it?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Back in the day, that was a big journey.

- Yeah, so.

- So I know you, I've been here since 2008 and folks will know that I hosted an event in 2010, 2011, When Irish Wines Are Smiling.

- I still have the T-shirt.

- I know. And we'll share the t-shirt on the video bwcause you wore it recently at another event I saw on your Facebook. And you were very supportive of that event back in the day. And I've thanked you over the years for it, and thank you again. I was trying to highlight the kind of the Irish ancestry and history in some of the wineries and wine labels that existed here. So you were very, very supportive then. We did a live stream event of that in 2013 back before all of these, you know, live things existed. We were ahead of our time.

- You were ahead of the game.

- Well, I won't go that far. And if I recall, we had some great people on that event. So again, some Irish ancestry vineyards. But you brought a beautiful lamb stew to the studio that night.

- Oh my Irish stew, yeah, yeah. That was one of my favorites. And it was one of the favorite dishes on St. Patrick's Day, which is, I used to do, it was a big day at Hurley's. We did a lot of corn beef and cabbage of course, but second runner up was the Irish stew.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, very good.

- And you always said, back in those days, you didn't want to be defined by, your Irish ancestry or Irishness for one week or one day of the year.

- Right.

- You know, you took out the shamrocks and the tricolours.

- Well, it's funny because when we named the restaurant, I didn't want to name it Hurley's because I didn't want it to be pigeonholed as an Irish restaurant or an Irish bar. Finally, I gave in beause we couldn't think of anything else to name it, so. And it didn't. It didn't get that role, you know, as an Irish, although I did on St. Patrick's Day. You know-

- But everyone does.

- Yeah. And you know, my father, it's funny, the Irish coming, the immigration of the Irish here, a lot of them held onto their roots. But a lot of them, they didn't want anything to do with the old country. My father was the latter type. He didn't relate to his Irish ancestry. He didn't hang out with fellow-

- Okay.

- You know, people that were common, you know, Irishmen and stuff except for my relatives. And then when my relatives would get together, of course it all came out. But other than that, I was the one that went back and started feeling my Irish roots.

- So here's a, not on the script for the day, but an interesting question now that you say that. Was there a generation of immigrants that cast off some of their Irishness because they wanted to be American?

- Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I think that's true of most of the immigrants that have come to this country. That some of them, but there were some that held onto that. You know, you still have the Irish neighborhoods-

- Yeah.

- In San Francisco, very typically, there was just an Irish enclave.

- Yeah.

- Started out in the Mission District.

- Yeah.

- You know, and then moved to the Sunset District.

- I was going to say and West, yeah.

- Yeah. And you know-

- Funny that the Irish always go west.

- Yeah.

- So, for folks who don't know, and we'll pour a little bit of your favorite Irish into a glass here, while we're chatting.

- Okay.

- For folks who don't know, your restaurant Hurley's was in Yountville.

- That's right.

- Little bit of a food mecca Yountville is. Not just in the Napa Valley, but across the country.

- Right.

- More restaurants per population, I think.

- More Michelin stared restaurants per capita than any city in the world.

- Now, I think-

- I'm not sure if they still hold that.

- Okay.

- Some of them, they lost a couple of stars.

- Okay.

- Here and there. But it used to be, but still, Yountville is known for that food. I mean, it used to be known for the Vets home.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- And other more sorted details in its older past.

- And then, when the food started shadowing the wine. And becoming a big thing in this valley. Food with wine, of course, it was a great way of marketing it.

- Yeah.

- That's when Thomas came, Thomas Keller came, and it changed the whole dynamic in Yountville particularly. It's very exclusive.

- Yeah, but you can almost kind of call it Restaurant Row, so to speak. You know, and there's obviously, you know, Yountville's got a population of three and a bit thousand, so, we call it a city, it's

- Yeah.

- Legally a town. In Ireland that's a village. Goodness, yeah, we're going to be get distracted by the John's Lane. There's always been North Yountville, and, you know, South Yountville, you know, when you got the creek there, Hopper Creek.

- Such a small town.

- I know, I know, I know.

- Oh, you're from SoYo or-

- SoYo, yeah. But it's been interesting actually to see in the time that I've been here how NoYo actually has expanded.

- It has.

- And done well. You were in South Yountville or Central Yountville. You mentioned Chef Keller.

- Right.

- You can call him Thomas. I can't. I don't know the gent, but I have huge respect for his work. You were on essentially his side of the street. And obviously, Chef Chiarello has a number of restaurants on the other side of the street.

- Correct.

- So how was it having a restaurant surrounded by other restaurants? Is it that classic location, location, location?

- I got to say that I was one of the first ones in there when I came up to Yountville and I started at Domaine Chandon.

- Okay.

- When I came into the Valley. And then I went and opened up Napa Valley Grill and I had Napa Valley Grill for seven years. Not mine, but I was, you know, people thought it was mine. That's kind of the way I ran it. And then we opened Hurley's. Now during this time is when a lot of the other people came in, so I've seen the growth and yes, to have three other restaurants within, a stone's throw of my restaurant was an absolute help to me because yes, people used Yountville as a destination spot to eat now.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's one of those fascinating places for a, we should say Sláinte while we're chatting.

- Sláinte, yeah.

- So retirement happened in 20, was it '18 or '19?

- '19 I guess it would be. Yeah.

- Great.

- It goes by, it's gone by fast.

- Great, good timing.

- It was great timing right before the-

- We've had a global pandemic in the meantime, so.

- I'd like to say it was all skill, but it was dumb luck that I, I was trying to phase out at that time. And Thomas stepped up and gave me a great offer for it.

- Okay.

- And I haven't looked back.

- Great.

- It's been really good.

- Great. So obviously, time on your hands.

- Yeah.

- Now with retirement, which is great.

- Yeah.

- You and I talked, you know, about various things. What have you been doing? Obviously, cooking at home.

- Yeah. I cook at home. I'm learning, it's been, you say three years, I'm still learning that doing nothing is okay. You know, just to relax and, let the world go by. It's an okay thing to do. I'm still not there yet, but I'm getting there. I do a lot of fishing. My brother has a boat, so we go out for salmon all the time.

- Great.

- That's not to say we catch any, but we go out. And we're traveling. You know, we'll take a trip to Ireland in July coming up.

- So I know in the past your son Seamus and you took a trip to Ireland. Remember you and I talked about that, goodness, five, six years ago we talked about it.

- Yeah. One of the high points of my life.

- You've got a smile on your face again when you think about that. You told me you went to Ireland. You had a rough plan. You were going to go from town A to town B or village A to B, but that was it.

- That was it.

- Literally-

- We flew into Dublin. We knew somebody there. We stayed with him for two nights. Then we knew we wanted to go up and see, up to Slane.

- Okay.

- To see the-

- The castle.

- The castle plus that was the battle grounds for the Battle of the Boyne. And then the ancient-

- Newgrange.

- Newgrange.

- When you do that, it's Newgrange.

- That's where we wanted to be. And we went up there and saw that it was great. And we ducked into this pub because there were police everywhere directing traffic around Slane Castle so we knew there was something going on. So we ducked into this pub.

- Of course you did.

- By the name of Dolly's. So it was right on the road, right. And we go into the pub and asked the bartender, "What's going on here?" I think he was the pub owner. And he told us, "Oh, there's a concert at Slane Castle." And he named off all the people that were going to be there. I had no idea who they were, but my son, his eyes lit right up. So we said, "Can we get tickets?" He said, "Well, you can go to town or you can stay right here and have a pint with me." And he said, "And maybe we can find you some." So he did. He found us a couple of tickets, half price because apparently they were giving them to the locals, which is I guess-

- The right thing to do.

- And we went to this concert with god, 17,000 drunk Irishmen. It was great.

- In a field, in a castle.

- In the field, in the rain. It started raining. It was just superb. What a great experience. And we came back, walked along the road where the pub was, walked by the pub. "Oh, let's go have a pint Seamus to call it a night." And they weren't letting people in there. And then suddenly the bartender, "Oh, let them in. They're friends of mine." So we felt so special. Right, so that was our pub. We went there quite a few times during the course.

- We've always talked in Ireland about, the Céad Míle Fáilte, the 100,000 welcomes. Obviously you felt very welcome.

- Yeah, oh yeah.

- When you were there in Slane, so. Now that we're getting back to some sort of normal, and you're retired, there's travel in your future, I'm guessing, so back to the Emerald Isle?

- We are. You know, after the trip I took with Seamus, my wife and I went, Cindy, my wife, we did the same thing. And because of that experience at the bar there at Slane, where this guy, not only I said, "17,000 people. How do we find a place to stay, you know?" And he said, "Oh, let me fix you up." So he did. So we realized that all you have to do, the big social directors in Ireland are the bartenders, you know, the pub owners.

- Yeah.

- And with Seamus and then later on with my wife, we made no reservations, no plans. We just pulled into the pub about four o'clock in the afternoon, have them draw us a pint of Guinness.

- Guinness o'clock, is it? Four o'clock?

- That's right. And asked the bartender and they hook us up every single, without fail, hooked us up, places to stay, things to do. "Oh, there's a football match over here, you know. Tonight you want to go see that and whatever." And we had a fabulous time.

- Fantastic. It's lovely to hear that.

- Yeah.

- So you're back next year? Back to Ireland?

- Back to Ireland next year. We'll do Portugal also.

- Okay.

- And then Ireland. And we're going to camp out for a month in Cork.

- Good for you.

- Yeah.

- Good for you. And obviously since I've left Ireland and since you were last there, things have exploded on the distillery front.

- Oh, I'm just totally amazed at, I mean, Irish whiskey used to be such a simple thing.

- Yeah.

- Now it's gone crazy. I see all the different barrels they use and different techniques and everything. It's-

- And the different distilleries.

- Yeah.

- And where you say, you're going to be in County Cork, obviously Midleton is, you know, the main distillery down there. And they do a great job with the, you know, the major brands that we know. But you've also got some independent distilleries down there.

- And that's not what I've seen. I've been to Midleton. You know, and seen the, I don't know, two dozen brands that come out of there. But I'm really excited to go to the individual, the new distilleries.

- Yeah and I think you're going to be heading over into Kerry as well while you're there, so. You don't see a lot of it here, but famed one there is Dingle. They do a phenomenal job. I think-

- I drink their gin.

- Okay, yeah.

- But I haven't had their whiskey, but I hear their whiskey's good too.

- Yeah.

- I got to check that out.

- They've got a great reputation for their whiskey. So yeah, a month in Cork and Kerry. Yeah, I'm envious, so.

- Yeah, we'll just, you know, we'll become Irish, you know.

- So back to the restaurant. When I would come to see you there, we talked about a number of things over the years. You'd always offer me a Powers.

- Yeah.

- Why was that?

- There's a good story. You know, my history with whiskey is when I was quite young. Well, when I was very young, when we have holidays at our house, or when I would go over to my relative's house, it would be a high ball. It would be-

- Okay.

- It would be a cheap bourbon, like Old Crow or Ten High or something like that with 7-Up. And that's what all my relatives drank. My uncle, you put a good bourbon in front of him, he wouldn't know what to do with it. He liked Ten High. That was all he would drink, right. You know, that got old on me real quick. And I started drinking Scotchs.

- Okay.

- So Scotch was my drink for the longest time. And you know, I just got this kind of fatigue, this, you know, drinking fatigue on the flavor. I'm just getting tired of the peatiness that Scotch had. And I found Irish whiskey, this gentleman who had a wine shop across the street from me, his name was Phil Guggenheim, and he turned me on to this Irish whiskey called John Powers. I'd never heard of it before. I'd heard of Bushmills.

- Yeah.

- I've heard of Jameson and all the, you know, the famous brands. I'd never heard of Powers. And Powers was about the same price. So I had it and it changed my life as far as whiskeys go.

- Okay.

- It was a lot lighter. It didn't, you know, it wasn't a bear to drink, you know, that raw alcoholic sting.

- Yeah.

- It didn't have that. It was smooth. Now I, I'm a little bit of a heretic. I like my whiskey with ice. You know, I'll have a cube or two in there.

- Okay.

- And I mean, I'll drink it meat too any day of the week. And Powers went so well with that. You know, so I started pushing it. I brought it into the bar and I started telling people about my new discovery. And a lot of people, you know, I turned a lot of people onto it. It's a good whiskey.

- Yeah. And obviously we're trying, what is your modern favorite, so to speak, with Powers, which is their John's Lane, which is the, you know, the top of their three. And obviously we've taken it off the shelf here. You know, the Gold Label, which is their intro one, which is really interesting. It's gold but red.

- Right, right.

- Has a chunk of Pot Still in it. And I think value-wise-

- And that was the one that-

- That got you turned on.

- Yeah. And I'll still drink that. That as an everyday whiskey.

- Yeah, I agree.

- Sometimes I don't want to think about what I'm drinking. You know, if I have a great Irish whiskey in front of me and I can sip it, that's great. But some, occasionally I'll just want to have a drink.

- A drink.

- And not have to think about it too much. That's great.

- Yeah, yeah, and what's interesting, because we're, you know, we're tasting it here. These are tasting glasses. When I drink a whiskey, I'll use a, you know, classic tumbler, a crystal tumbler. I used to be a big ice cube.

- Right.

- With every whiskey. But some of them I will still drink like that. And some I will have with the few drops.

- Right.

- Which, as we work through this, we'll put a couple of drops in. I think for the lower end, the entry point whiskeys, I think having them over a cube of ice helps. But when you get to this level, Bob.

- Yeah.

- You know, these are seriously crafted whiskeys and I want to respect the craft and-

- You know, though, try this too. Put a little ice in your whiskey, get it nice and cold with the ice in there, and then take a sip and, or yeah, a little bit more than a sip. Like, not like you'd be tasting it here, but take a little bit more of a drink, but let it warm up in your mouth. And it's amazing when it's cold. Of course, that mutes everything, but as it warms up in your mouth, you get the layers, not all together, separately. These layers of flavors that come into your, you know, that you can recognize. Suddenly you recognize this. And then there's this, then there's, as it's heating up in your-

- That's something new to try.

- Yeah, try.

- Of course, the thing I do when I'm tasting is I roll my head back just a touch and let it get all over my tongue. Obviously, you know, the sweet receptors are there on the back. So it's a fascinating process tasting this. So yeah, I'm a big fan of, of the John's Lane. Obviously, I've got all three of them. This is, you know, their highest end expression that we can get here in America. They are still doing individual bottlings for various places back in Ireland. So the Palace Bar in Dublin would have a bottling done for them.

- Ah.

- The Friend At Hand in Belfast, I believe and-

- Just private labeling.

- Yeah. And I think they might be either single or a number of casks that are done for those. And the literally the only place you can get them is in those bars. So, you know, before you head to Cork or Kerry, we'll do a little bit of digging and see if you can-

- I will.

- Enjoy a couple of those.

- And maybe I'll bring you home a bottle.

- If you insist.

- So our John's Lane here is a single pot, obviously, right?

- Yeah.

- And. But it's not a single malt.

- No. So there's obviously, there's malted barley in there.

- Right.

- So when the modern version of Single Pot Still has a mash bill. Essentially, the recipe is a blend of malted barley and unmalted barley in varying proportions.

- Right.

- What I think sets Powers apart at this level is where they take the cut in the distillation process.

- Okay.

- So the heart of it versus the heads and the tails.

- Right.

- They seem to, and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong on this, but they go for that really nice spot in the middle where you're getting all these flavors from the distillation. So you're getting a lot of the flavors from that. And then whatever their barrel program is afterwards adds a lot of those, you know, that extra complexity.

- Now it's usually around what, 30% malted against 70% unmalted. Isn't there a law in Ireland?

- Yeah, the law is 5% of other grains.

- Okay.

- So, 95% malted and unmalted. And I believe it has to be 30% minimum of malted AND unmalted. So you could have, for example, 60% unmalted, 35% malted, and then 5% oats or rye or something along those lines.

- So it came off as a way to avoid taxes for the Irish, correct?

- That's the story.

- Yeah, that the malt was, they bought it from the English, right?

- Yeah, well, so the British imposed-

- Where they taxed it.

- Yeah, the Malt Tax, and I believe it was 1784 - actually 1783 was the year the Malt Tax was introduced. And essentially this was, you know, the cute Irish way to get round paying tax on your malted barley was to throw in some unmalted barley. So that's the story.

- Right.

- There is a movement in Ireland now to go back to what they're calling Heritage Mash Bills. So back in the day, wheat and rye and oats were also used in Single Pot Still. They went out of favor as we got into the last century.

- Right.

- So there are a number of people now who are working on that. And I think we're going to see, so the 2014 Technical File Law defines what Single Pot Still Irish whiskey is. But I would bet money that that will be amended or changed.

- Right.

- But the Pot Still that we know today is very much an Irish distillers recipe Pot Still that is more modern than a lot of the heritage ones. So back in the day when Powers was arguably the preeminent Irish whiskey producer and their whiskey was sold all across the planet, they would've been using mash bills, including probably rye and wheat and barley and oats. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see that evolve so.

- Well, this is, it's opening up too. Like a wine, you know. I'm opening up. I'm getting like a caramel.

- Yeah, yeah. Just to me, I agree with you. And so you're the first person I've had at the bar here who really knows their flavors, you know, because obviously flavor was a huge part of your life in the kitchen. Yeah, it's lovely. I'm going to put a little drop of distilled water in there and just see how she opens up. So this weighs in Bob at the ABV 46%, so 92 proof. So just a three, four, five. I just put. What I'm seeing more and more is they're lifting the alcohol from 40. And they're going to kind of 43 to 46. I believe, it lifts the flavors. That little bit of alcohol. And then you and I can add a couple of drops and we can dilute it just a fraction.

- Yeah. I find the flavors just, instead of being faced with this aggressive alcohol sting with the water in there, you know, the flavors I think come out a little bit more and I'm not distracted.

- I find more of the spice comes through with the water. That's classic Pot Still character is that spice. So yeah, it's lovely. Lovely. So, the whole time I've known you, obviously you supported me with the Irish Wines event, but you've also been a huge, as we do here in Napa Valley, you've been a huge supporter of the community.

- Yeah.

- And you, I remember back in the day, I'd always see photos of you doing an event after event after event, some of them to raise money and some of them just for great causes and-

- You know, it was part of our mission statement when we opened the restaurant. And it's something I learned after working at Chandon and then Napa Valley Grill is I really related very well with the locals, you know, with the community.

- Yeah.

- And they were supporting me and I felt it was the right thing to support the community too. I mean, a restaurant really is a community endeavor.

- Yeah.

- Right. I mean, it's a place where people come and exchange thoughts and, you know, politicians and winemakers and, people would come there and have meetings, make decisions. It was a community place.

- Yeah.

- And then at the end, come and have a great time at the bar. So yeah, I was a big supporter of any community event that brought people together. And it was part of my marketing strategy too.

- Of course.

- Let's not, yeah, let's not-

- Yeah.

- Make it sound like I'm a saint or anything, but-

- It's a nice way to do marketing, isn't it?

- It's beautiful.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Brings it all together.

- Yeah, yeah. And I know one of your favorite events that you did was at the Vets Home in Yountville. Every year, you and all the other chefs in Yountville would rally for the cause around Veterans' Day.

- Well, you know what, there was a point, Andrew, where I was sitting at the bar with the president of the Chamber of Commerce. Her name was Cindy Saucerman, at the time.

- I know Cindy.

- I was lamenting that those poor Vets, you know, it's half the population of Yountville or more sitting up there and they couldn't come in and have a nice dinner in Yountville. It was too expensive and it was just hard to get there for them. So we decided that we would do this one event and bring it up to them. And so we got all the chefs together, I got all the chefs in Yountville together, and we each did a course and we did a meal for the Vets. Well, they appreciated it so much and myself and the other chefs were just blown away by the Vets. I mean, they're wide-eyed. They're alive. They've got opinions. They've got stories and there's a lot going on up there. It's not just like the old, cranky old Vets are up there, right.

- Yeah.

- Which is kind of, you know, easy to imagine but, so we decided to do it every year. So we've been doing it for 16 years now.

- And even though you're retired.

- I still do it, yeah. That's close to my heart. That one I really got to enjoy the Vets quite a bit. And you know, these days, they seem always to be at the end of the stick, so, you know, it's nice to get up there and do something for them.

- Yeah, no, good on you and your colleagues and the culinary world in Yountville. It's something.

- And the town gets together and, you know, supports it too.

- Yeah.

- So, it's a good thing.

- It's great. So, obviously Powers is your thing, but you brought a gift for me.

- I did.

- Yeah. Because you said that you're also known to imbibe a dram of Redbreast on occasion.

- Yes, that's right.

- You very kindly and folks will know that I love Redbreast and you know, 12 was my gateway whiskey.

- Right.

- And I've got a few more of them up here, but you're about to add to my collection. And in return for that, Bob, I'm going to put the cork in this when we're done and I'm sending you back across town with this.

- Oh, that's great.

- Don't get stopped by the cops for an open container. On the way. So, because I know you love this stuff and I do too, but you brought a bottle of Redbreast 15.

- 15 Year Old.

- So yeah, thank you for-

- As far as being-

- So generous. This is obviously something you love.

- As far as a Pot Stilled whiskey, Single Pot Still, Redbreast is my go to.

- It's, you know, and it is a few degrees above the Powers line.

- Yeah.

- It's a little more pricey. But as far as a special whiskey, a sipping whiskey, this is what I'll do at night after dinner.

- Okay.

- Right.

- This is your go to.

- Without ice. And I'll just sip it, just sips, you know. And I can stretch it.

- Oh, look at that. What an interesting color. I haven't had 15 for a number of years. I said to you, my folks brought a bottle out from Dublin duty free back in 2019 and, you and I have talked about how with whiskey your palate can get used to, if you drink the same one over and over.

- That happened with Scotch with me. Just got palate fatigue.

- Yeah. So, I haven't had 15 for a while. It's going to be interesting to and actually, I think this will definitely benefit from the back and forth as we just opened the bottle. Yeah, no, thank you for bringing, so. Yeah, I love the Powers, deep rich. You know, you talked about caramel and that sweet is up front and then that spice comes through with little bit of water that we add. This, lovely again, lovely. Lovely color to it. This one needs to open up a little.

- Yeah, it does.

- So back to the restaurant, because as I said, you always used to say, Andrew, you know, if I was coming in you'd, you know, offer me a Powers. You did a whiskey bar there.

- Yeah.

- So to speak back in the day. And I'm going to say, Bob, you were before your time.

- Yeah, well, I don't like white spirits. I like gin.

- Okay.

- But other white spirits I'm not a big fan of. I don't like vodka at all. And I'm not a fan of tequila. I like brown spirits. And I noticed some good whiskey bars. I wanted to have some good whiskeys in my bar.

- Yeah.

- So we started bringing in the good Irish whiskeys. We didn't have Redbreasts. I brought in Redbreast, brought in Green Spot. I brought in Yellow Spot. Then I brought in some real good bourbons.

- Okay.

- And some, yeah, just different whiskeys. And lucky for me, my bartender, she was the star of our show there. And she liked whiskey too.

- Okay.

- So that was great. So we paired together and we made this whiskey bar and we did tastings and you know, that kind of thing. And who does whiskey tastings? But we did.

- Well, they're a thing now.

- Yeah, they are.

- No, you were ahead of your time.

- Yeah.

- And you know, back then you've talked about Green Spot, you talked about Redbreast, you know, they're Midleton whiskeys, Irish distillers brands. You know, and back when you were doing your whiskey bar in 2015, 2016, 2017, that's still all that was really available.

- Yeah.

- Certainly out here in California.

- Right. No, you're right.

- You know, you talk about you're going to go to Dingle. Dingle was kind of the first of the independents. And I believe, happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, they were 2011, 2012, 2013 that they opened up. You know, I've got a local distillery now to where I grew up, but, that's Powerscourt. They opened in '18 and I believe they first distilled in 2019. So-

- It's Dublin, right?

- Well, it's North Wicklow.

- Okay.

- But you know, Teeling in Dublin and Roe and Co and you know, Dublin Liberties and the other - Pearce Lyons. You know, it's four now.

- You know, these are getting like craft breweries were in Northern California, you know. You had a couple that were going on and suddenly it just exploded. And now these craft breweries are everywhere.

- Yeah.

- I don't think that the distilleries are going to get to that point, but they certainly are getting, you know, diverse now.

- There's almost 50, Bob, on the island.

- Wow.

- Yeah, so it's-

- Whoa.

- Yeah, no, it's-

- Well, I'm looking forward to getting-

- Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, for me, I left in 1990. I ended up as, you know, going into wine. That was, I was fascinated by wine. How can the same grape be grown in all these different places?

- Right.

- And you get, you know, different characteristics, that come from the soil, that come from the climate, etc. And I was intrigued by that. And here I am now 30 years later, intrigued by what we're doing back in Ireland and-

- Same thing, right.

- Something I'm immensely proud of. And obviously, they do a great job at Irish Distillers where these come from, but they've spawned all these new, essentially micro and independent distilleries who are all, because the big boys are doing a great job, all the small players can ride on their coat-tails.

- Now, Scotland was way ahead of that, right. Scotland had all the little glens here and there. And I remember taking a trip to Scotland and finding these distilleries that were just, you know, very small distilleries and they just put out limited quantities.

- Yeah.

- But they were very distinctive, so-

- Yeah.

- There we go.

- Yeah. And it's expanding. And you know, you brought a 15 Redbreast Year. Would that have been available when you were doing your whiskey bar?

- Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

- 15 was available. And obviously on the shelf here, I've got two of the Iberia SEries.

- Powers, different bottling, but same stuff. Although I don't think the-

- [Andrew] Three Swallows, it was just, I think they did a reserve.

- [Bob] Not the Three, I'm sorry, this one.

- [Andrew] Yeah, this-

- I don't remember that one. This first-

- Launched in 2012 and it would've been launched in the old thin bottle.

- Okay, right.

- So this was essentially the first Single Pot Still launched out of Ireland in a long time in 2012. But it was in that long classic Powers, so this all changed in 2020. This is the bottle shape at the top, most folks won't know, is a homage to the shape of a pot still.

- [Bob] Right.

- Which I think is, you know, it's kind of cute, but I think you and I are old school. I think we prefer the old bottle. So we've warmed this up.

- Yeah.

- That's sublime.

- Now the creaminess is coming through, right.

- And you can definitely taste kind of the deeper flavor.

- Buttery.

- Yeah.

- Buttery to it.

- Oh. For me, there's some candied orange and candied lemon coming in the back, believe it or not.

- Yeah.

- Orange I've gotten a couple of times, but just kind of winter candied characters.

- Yeah.

- It's lovely.

- It is really nice.

- Yeah. Thank you for bringing this. This will last a month or two here, I would say. As you know, and I've shared, we're big Redbreast fans in this house, so I'm going to drop two, three, four, five, in there.

- Yeah, that's good.

- Perfect. Now this has been a treat, so. So obviously you're retired, loads of time on your hands. You're now a man about town here in Napa. I'm jesting. Are you a cocktail man? Do you like a whiskey cocktail?

- It's funny, I'm the worst guy for craft cocktails in this whole explosion. You asked me about the whiskey bar.

- Yeah.

- And I'm just remembering now, the craft cocktail movement is what drove me to do my whiskey bar because I hate craft cocktails. I don't like the, okay, well think of this. I'm a chef and, you know, everything is right at, you know, tasting. It's all about the flavors and the tasting and the balances. And craft cocktails to me are just way too sweet or they're way too acidic or they have too many goofy things in them to make them, you know, to sell them, you know. It's a marketing thing, my opinion. And I was asked on several occasions to be a judge at a craft cocktails event, twice, and the third year I wouldn't do it anymore because I just didn't like any of them. But I did like the whiskey. So my favorite cocktail then is, I don't like cocktails generally, but the old classics. I'll do a Manhattan.

- Okay.

- If I have to do something white, I'll do a martini with gin.

- Okay.

- Gin martini or something. Those would be my cocktails. Otherwise, it's Powers with a couple of cubes.

- Okay.

- Or neat, you know, if I'm going to do like a Redbreast, yeah.

- Okay. And if you were to go out for a whiskey in town here in Napa, where would you go?

- I would probably go to the Bounty Hunter. Bounty Hunter has a great, they have a nice whiskey bar with tastings and all that. You mentioned the top of the Archer too. I know they have a whiskey bar there. Yeah.

- And you shared with me that you're a member of the Moose Lodge.

- Oh, and the Moose Lodge right across from that.

- Obviously, that's a highly exclusive place.

- It is, very.

- They obviously have-

- It's a great working class bar and that's what I like and that comes from my Irish roots I think.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And I convinced them to carry Powers so they brought it in. So I'm a happy guy.

- I think that's what it's going to take to get Powers front of mind for people is people like you who were advocates and ambassadors for it. I have become that over the last number of weeks as I've tried them. I really, really love it. I think every bar should have the Gold Label.

- Yes.

- Behind, I think it's a phenomenal value at $28 to $30 retail. I think it, I actually think, because again it's got a bit higher alcohol, bartenders would love it.

- Yeah.

- As a base for cocktails.

- And what a great introduction to an Irish whiskey.

- Yeah. And it's, again, happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but I believe it's got 60 to 70% of its blend is Pot Still. So it has, you know, a lot of that deeper, richer character. So, no, I'm a big fan. And you know, even though I'm not a fan of the new packaging, the modern bottle, it actually looks good on a back bar. It stands out. The bottle's got a story as well as all the other-

- It's short.

- Yeah.

- Bartenders like that.

- Yeah, exactly. So, I'm not sure how it is on the pouring front, you know, whether the little flange here is an issue. Anyway, but it's a phenomenal whiskey. So, we're going to keep sipping, Bob. We're going to stop recording and we'll keep chatting, but it's been fantastic to share some time with you-

- Yeah, to catch up a little bit.

- Yeah, to have reconnected with you after the bizarre times. And it was lovely to, you know, to catch up with you a few weeks back. We chatted and yeah, your passion for and love for Irish whiskey has been going for years. Long before mine was, well, my fire was lit so.

- I have to admit, I've cut down on my whiskey drinking when we, you know, left the restaurant. And not only do I not have my private bar there with anything I could imagine, which I was a kid in a candy shop. But yeah, I'm drinking a little less these days, but as we discussed before, now I just, you know, when I drink, I drink quality too.

- Well, if you're drinking whiskeys like this.

- Yeah.

- You know, there's nothing cheap about them. I'm not, you know, these aren't for, you know, they're treats. You know, it's 60 ish bucks a bottle, at 90 ish bucks a bottle. You know, these are, but yeah, if you're going to have, you know, a dram or two at the end of the night, then it's going to have to be something that's, and obviously now that we've reconnected and you've seen the bar.

- Yeah. I'll be back.

- Well, or you invite me over and I'll make sure that I Uber home.

- Bring the bar.

- Well that is hardwired, not hardwired. It's bolted to the wall as it has to be here.

- Yeah, you're earthquake safe, aren't you?

- Yeah.

- Smart man.

- All down through here and up top, it has to be because we're 150 yards from the West Napa Fault here, so it's-

- Right, right.

- I don't want to lose any of this. So, yeah, no, it's been, obviously for me, it's been a fascinating year getting into this. And here I am coming to the end of the year and there's 70 bottles of Irish whiskey on my shelf. It's, you know, who would've believed it. So, yeah. So, no, I again appreciate your time. Great to chat. And we should say Sláinte.

- Thank you. Sláinte.

- There's not much left in there.

- I can still get that. Although, you know, I would, just for old time's sake, how about a little bit of the-

- Of course. Of course.