(energetic rock music) (energetic rock music continues) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag," I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I'm also a farmer, which means I grow grain.

Some of the best things that grain can be turned into is alcohol.

Today we've got Tate Ulm, now he is the brand ambassador for Black Band Distilling.

How you doing, Tate?

- I'm doing great.

How are you?

- Okay.

Black Band Distillery.

Now where is that?

- We're right in the warehouse district here in Peoria.

We're just up on Southwest Adams.

- Did you walk over?

- No, it's really rainy today, so I didn't.

I could have, but I didn't.

I decided not to.

Yeah.

- What does a brand ambassador do?

- So basically my job is to kind of do things like this, to talk about the brand, promote the brand, just really kind of expand the awareness of the distillery, especially locally is a big part of what I do.

I also am the tour guide, so if you come and take a tour at the distillery on Saturdays, I'll be the one showing you around the place too.

- All right, those guys, the tour guys, they always have jokes.

Have you niched those down?

- I mean, I try and keep it, you know, pretty conversational.

I might throw a little joke in there, one or two, but not- - So, no.

- (chuckles) Yeah.

- No is the answer on that question.

- There's a little bit of humor.

It's not super dry, I promise.

(chuckles) - The alcohol probably helps, right?

- It does, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

- I mean, how do you start a job like that?

- So, I have been a fan of whiskey for all of my adult life, honestly.

And, you know, I had a little bit of experience with doing tours and like talking to people about stuff.

You know, I'm pretty comfortable talking to people about new and interesting things, especially if I'm passionate about it.

And kind of early on with Black Band, our owner, our founder was still doing the tours.

His name's Chris.

And I took a tour early on and caught his ear at the end of the tour and had a really nice conversation with him and, you know, kind of really understood his passion and what he was trying to do.

And it just so happened he needed some help.

You know, he at that time was still doing everything.

I mean, he was- - One-man band.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- Janitor to CEO.

- Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah.

And would, you know, he wanted someone to help out, show people around, so he could focus on making the spirits.

And I started on just doing tours.

That was kind of my weekend side gig for a little bit, for about three years I did that.

And then this year, early this year, last February, I started on full-time as brand ambassador.

He had enough of a need to, you know, bring someone out that could do stuff like this.

- I mean, did you kind of make that yourself?

Did you just like say, "Hey, you know what you really need is this."

- There was a little bit of a back and forth.

- [Rob] There's nothing wrong with that, right?

- Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And to be able to talk to people about the brand and, you know, hopefully bring in some new fans.

- It is a small batch craft distillery.

I don't know what that means.

It means you're not doing a giant vat.

- Exactly.

So, it's, you know, we run stuff batch to batch.

We have a, you know, very, I guess you could say a very distinct start and stop, you know, we start in the morning by cooking the grain, and at the end of the day that grain is transferred to a fermentation tank.

And then in a little less than a week, we pump that over to the still and we run a batch of spirits off the still.

So it's not, you know, a big industrial produced product doesn't have the, that very clear like start and stop.

- So, like the big boys down in Tennessee, it's always revolving.

- It's a constant flow.

- You guys are doing one batch at a time.

- Right, right.

Exactly.

- What's the better way?

- Our way.

Of course.

I'm so glad you didn't go, "Oh, well there's pros and cons to both."

- Well, I mean, in all seriousness, taking the time to really focus on every step of the process just makes for a better product.

I mean, really, it doesn't matter what you're doing, but specifically in producing spirits, it makes a difference.

- Where do you get your grain?

- So we're an organic distillery, and we kind of went that direction, honestly, for a couple reasons.

We like partnering locally.

We have a bar and restaurant attached to the distillery.

We have a lot of local farms come in and, you know, we do kind of farm to table food, what we can get fresh.

But we wanted to partner locally in the distillery side of things as well.

So we source our grains from a place in Ashkum, Illinois called Janie's Mill.

Really excellent organic grain producer.

And kind of, you know, that decision of organic was partly because of that partnership.

You know, organic producing is not necessarily an easy job.

Yields tend to be lower than kind of the traditional farming methods.

So that partnership's been beneficial in both directions, if that makes sense.

You know, they've benefited, we've benefited by high quality grain as well.

- Okay.

I'm a farmer that, I do not believe that the grain is higher quality in organic.

That's my belief, you got yours.

But why did you go with the organic?

Is that because of a belief or because of what you thought your customers wanted?

- A little bit of both, honestly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And a lot of, so there's a lot of talk in the, let's say the wine industry about the grapes and where the grapes were grown and the soil and all of that, and how it affects the final product and the flavor of the final product.

There's not as much talk of stuff like that when it comes to spirits, but it makes a difference too.

And using really high quality grain, whatever the grain may be, really high quality grain makes a better product, honestly, because you want, in whiskey, you want that grain flavor to be expressed in a way that is obviously pleasant to drink.

And, you know, we believe that the types of grains that we're using achieves that.

It's not just, and, I mean, we're saying grain as a whole, but very specifically, we use white corn, we use Danko rye, and we use warthog wheat.

- Never heard of the warthog wheat before.

- Yeah.

It's an heirloom grain.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

It's a grain that, that Janie's kind of, I wouldn't say specializes in, but are very known for growing warthog wheat.

- I think most of the white corn grown would either, maybe it's not certified organic, but it would be the same type of practice.

- Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a lot to the certification, you know, that goes into all of that.

We are also certified kosher as well.

And that was kind of another thing of something that we can check off the list.

- I thought that was like, I obviously don't know what the word kosher means.

- I mean, honestly, I don't know everything that goes into it.

But, I mean, we had a rabbi come to the distillery.

It's similar to getting organic certification where you have someone come do an inspection and then you got your certification.

- Where'd the name come from, Black Band?

- So to talk about the name, you've gotta kind of talk about the distilling history of Peoria as well.

We had a really rich distilling history here.

- Peoria did?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

At one point, Peoria was actually known as the whiskey capital of the world.

- Oh, okay.

- Believe it or not.

There was more whiskey made in Peoria than any place else.

- Huh.

- Yeah.

This was clear back prior to prohibition.

This was in kind of the mid to late 1800s.

That was peak production for the distilling industry.

The first distillery was in 1843.

So that first legal one.

Well, right, yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

Almiron Cole was the name of the guy that built the first distillery.

He was a steamboat captain.

But from that initial distillery until the early 1900s there were 73 distilleries in Peoria.

- Hmm.

- Yeah.

There were over 20 breweries as well.

So there was a lot.

- [Rob] And prohibition?

- I mean, you think about such a large industry, like what we had, when prohibition hit the economy in Peoria was, I mean, destroyed.

- Yeah.

- Right.

- So bringing back to the name, that's where the name comes from.

You know, Peoria was, like I said, known as the whiskey capital.

That was a pretty big cultural loss for Peoria when prohibition hit.

- Yeah, we had to give it to all those hillbillies out in the mountains doing it illegally now.

- Right.

Well, and not just cultural, but economic as well, right.

So when the idea of our name refers to, you know, in many cultures there's a tradition of wearing a black armband, like let's say a loved one has passed away, that black band would symbolize, you know, loss or more positively, to commemorate, to memorialize the loss.

So the idea of the name, and we even have, you know, on the bottle, this aluminum sticker is our black band.

- [Rob] That's aluminum, huh?

- Yeah.

It's an aluminum sticker.

But that idea of commemorating that loss that Peoria experienced, but to remember it, right.

To try and bring it back to the front of everyone's minds.

When I do tours, I talk a lot about the distilling history because it's such a part of just our history in general.

So to be able to maybe add a little bit to that history over the years in our little part, hopefully.

- The next chapter.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Let's quit screwing around.

So is there a proper way to, I don't know, open and pour and all that?

- I mean, not really for pouring, but for- - It's a sexy bottle, by the way.

- It's a really nice bottle.

- We can see the lip down there and everything.

Yeah, that's a man's cap.

What is that?

It's a cork cap?

- Yeah, yep.

Absolutely.

So yeah, the bottle design is very unique.

We get a lot of compliments.

Kind of the cool thing about, you know, it's got this little glass, almost like a coaster When it sits next to bottles, that kind of bumps people off to the side, like, hey, scoot over, I need a little more room.

- Yeah.

I gotcha.

- Right?

Yeah.

But yeah, for tasting or for sampling, you know, the main thing, do you mind if I pour?

- By all means.

- So when it comes to sampling, there's a couple things that I try and tell people to keep in mind.

The nose is very important.

That's what we call when you smell in the glass.

So I know people that, you know, when they sample whiskey, they just stick their nose in there and really get a good sense of that aroma.

That's a big part of the experience.

And then for the taste, if you're doing samples, you know, it's a good idea after sampling, kind of to open your mouth a little bit, let out some of that ethanol to really get those full flavors.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- I've never even heard that.

- I see a lot of people that'll take a sample and they almost like just shoot it back and then they have a bad experience, right, because you're not allowing it to breathe.

You're not allowing those flavors to come out.

- All right, so sniff.

- Yep.

- Okay.

We'll sniff first.

- So you do just a little, it's called nosing to get fancy.

- Okay.

Go ahead, the snoz is down in there.

- Yep.

Absolutely.

And then the way that I, so we don't give a ton of what I call tasting notes.

You're probably having a different experience than I am.

- I'm doing good.

- So it wouldn't be great of me to tell you what you should be smelling, right.

But if you have some ideas, we can talk about it.

- Okay, I'm smelling.

Okay, so you smell, it smells like whiskey, but it's got that, I don't know, almost like a buttery.

Certain whiskeys have like that buttery taste to it.

- Kind of dark.

- That's what I said.

Dark.

It has kind of a dark- - Butter that has been browned, dark, roasted, maybe even.

- Browned butter.

- Sure.

- Maybe you should tell people what to say.

(chuckles) - I get a lot of sweetness, but like some dark sugar sweetness, like brown sugar or maybe even caramel on the nose.

- No, you're wrong.

Buttery.

- See, that's the thing about, that's actually why I love doing this, because everybody has that different experience.

Everybody has a different palette.

- Let's bring in an expert, because whenever we have stuff.

Oh, Steve.

Steve, what do you smell?

- Smells like whiskey.

- That's, I mean, you know, he's not wrong.

- Browned butter.

- Browned butter.

Thank you.

It's brown and buttery.

- Brown and buttery.

I'm really getting that whiskey smell.

Any fruit coming through maybe?

Not pomegranate.

- I smell cherry because I feel like that should be an old fashioned.

No, like dark cherry, like a- - [Steve] I smell some of your mustache.

(Rob laughs) - That's a great idea.

- Now I will say, so this bottle, just so we're all on the same page on what's in this.

This is our Peoria Bourbon.

This is different than our standard bourbon expression.

- [Rob] He didn't say drink it yet.

- No, that's fine.

- I was just getting... - I'm gonna drink yours.

All right.

I'm sorry, I interrupted.

Go ahead if you wanna drink it.

- That's really good.

I didn't do it right.

- That's okay.

- No, that's pretty much your MO.

- That was very good.

- Thank you.

- I wouldn't say there's a right or wrong, you know.

- All right.

PBS - This bottle is pretty special for us, honestly.

- [Rob] That's how you pour it, by the way.

The idea of putting Peoria back on a whiskey label was important to us, of course with the distilling history.

This is different from our standard bourbon expression because of the grain bill.

So when you start talking about whiskeys, start talking about bourbon, you gotta start talking about grain bills, right.

That is the percentages of grain that make up that spirit.

So bourbon by law has to be a minimum of 51% corn.

- [Rob] Okay.

- It also has to be aged in a new charred American white oak barrel.

It also has to be made in America.

You can't make bourbon in any other country.

- [Rob] I'm liking all I'm hearing.

- Yep, it is a distinctly American spirit.

The grain bill on this is 78% corn, 15% wheat, and 7% malted barley.

- Okay.

- Okay.

Our standard bourbon expression has some rye in it, it's 66% corn, 27% rye.

Rye has more kind of robust sort of spiciness, a little bit like that different profile.

If you're familiar with rye whiskey then that's where kind of you get some of those spices, a lot on the finish.

- Can I drink now?

- Yeah, absolutely.

You can drink and I can talk.

- Okay.

Well, I didn't wanna be rude.

- I just didn't know if we need to have silence for the drinking.

- You want the reaction?

- Go ahead.

- Okay.

Should we?

Here.

Cheers.

- Cheers.

Yeah.

Ethanol.

I would be brutally honest if I didn't like it, but that's wonderful.

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

Did you like it?

- Yeah.

I didn't do the ethanol part, I might have to try again.

- All right.

You keep talking.

- This is a little bit higher proof than some of our other expressions as well.

A lot of our expressions are in kind of the low 90 proof.

This is 111 proof, so it's a little- - It's got a kick.

- Little bit.

- Yeah.

- But the thing that I always find really nice about it is you get some warmth in your chest, right?

But it doesn't burn in your mouth, on your palate, on your tongue.

It's just nice and gentle, it's a good sipper.

Something to take a little bit of time with.

- This is quality.

'Cause sometimes you get the local stuff and it's swill, right?

It burns and everything.

This thing, it's like, I want it to be cold out just so I can take a nice sip and just have it feel good all the way down.

- And, like I mentioned, this is a pretty special bottle for us.

This is our batch two of the Peoria Bourbon.

I don't know if you're familiar with, in the bourbon industry, there are like allocated whiskeys that only come around once a year, a little bit harder to find.

This is kind of our version of that.

Batch one we left at cask strength, meaning we didn't proof it down.

So whatever it came off of the still, we put it in the barrel and then whatever that was barreled at, meaning we cracked open the barrel, we tested the proof, and that went in the bottle.

- So how strong was that?

- That was 134 proof.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

And that, we kept that distillery only, that was the only place you could buy it.

Batch two we proofed down to 111 and we did a little bit of limited distribution on it.

So you can find it in a couple stores locally.

Of course, we prefer you come in and buy it at the distillery, but you can get it at some local places, which is always nice for people as well.

Once this is gone though, that'll be it.

We will move on to batch three.

Batch three, we will probably keep again at cask strength and then distillery only, and then we'll kind of flip flop that.

So it's a way for us to kind of get people a little excited about, hey, we've got a new batch coming out.

You know, is this gonna be proofed down?

Is it gonna be cask strength?

Am I gonna have to go to the distillery to get it?

But it's just important for us to have Peoria on a whiskey label.

We also are donating a portion of the proceeds to some Peoria charities as well.

- Oh, nice.

- Being a community member and being involved in the community is very important for us, so giving back a little bit as well.

- As we're finishing up, tell me about you.

You got four boys?

- I do, yes.

Yeah.

- What's the range?

- 11 down to two, and they're all about three years apart.

- Oh my gosh.

What are you doing here?

(Rob chuckles) - I mean, you know, there's a reason why I'm a whiskey fan.

(chuckles) - That's gotta keep you hopping.

- Absolutely, yes.

I love it though.

I'm local too, so I'm from Farmington.

It's just a little town outside of Peoria.

And being able to kind of stay local with the local product is always nice as well.

I was a fan before I worked for them, you know, it kind of makes my job easy being able to talk about stuff that not only I like, but then I believe in as well.

But, you know, having some kids and local family is always nice.

- Yeah, no, that's fantastic.

- Yeah.

- So if people want to find Black Band Distillery, where would they go?

- So a couple places, online you're gonna wanna look on Facebook and Instagram and then our websites as well.

Blackband-distillery.com.

I also mentioned briefly, we do have a bar restaurant.

That is called The Bar at Black Band.

So we keep 'em a little bit separate online as well.

For the bar, we are open at four o'clock on the weekdays.

I should say, Tuesday through Friday we open at four.

We do happy hour from four to 5:30 and then our full sit down dinner service at five.

Saturdays we open at noon.

And again, we do happy hour menu until 5:30.

I run tours on Saturdays at 12:30 and 2:30.

You can sign up ahead of time online if you want.

- Who's taking the tours?

Just people from Peoria or?

- Oh, no, everybody.

I've got groups that, you know, have family in town that come in.

I've got people that are in town for something else.

You know, maybe they came to a concert at the Civic Center, they want to do something Saturday afternoon.

So yeah, I get all kinds of people, locals and people visiting all the same.

And then another cool thing that we're doing at the bar, on Monday nights from five to eight, we do what is called Vinyl Night.

So we've partnered with a local DJ collective called River City DJs.

They come in and set up and, and spin records.

So it's a little more casual, it's bar service only.

If anyone's interested in just kind of getting a feel for the place, you know, it's not the full fancy sit down.

- What's a vinyl?

You playing that rap music?

Wiggity wiggity wiggity whack?

- Honestly, anything.

So they play stuff from the '50s clear up until today.

- Oh.

- Everything.

There's several of them.

- Taylor Swift, you got some of her stuff?

- Probably, I mean.

- She's always sad.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- She's got a few happy songs.

- Okay.

(chuckles) Well, Tate, I want to thank you for coming in.

I really appreciate it.

It's very cool to see someone putting Peoria back on a map.

It is cool to see someone have pride in the area in Peoria and this, especially since you have a drink that is so delicious.

So it's a lot of fun.

Yeah, we think it's important for the area and we hope that, you know, we can reach out and bring in some more people too.

- Yeah.

I thought it was funny when I poured all that.

I'm like, I'll just.

I think I'm gonna have to end the show.

(Tate chuckles) Tate Ulm, thank you very much.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

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