Fabian Geyrhalter:
Welcome to the show, Brandon.

Brandon McCraney:
Fabian, thank you for having me.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
It’s so great to have you. I love your story. You’re the founder and the master blender at Olde Raleigh Distillery, which is family owned and operated. It’s a craft distillery. You focus on small batch and limited release bourbon and whiskeys. Two years into your journey with Olde Raleigh, it was honored with the prestigious title of Best Micro Distillery in the US at the International Whiskey Competition, which is insane. Congratulations. It’s a huge deal two years in. Your story started in the Air Force. You also have a master’s from Harvard under your belt, and then you kept busy as a biz dev guy working yourself up the corporate ladder. And now you’re really developing business, your own. When and how did you take that plunge into doing your own thing? It must have been about 10 years ago, right?

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah, it was. I think the genesis of this idea was in December of 2016. And before that time, it was just a passion project for me, whiskey and bourbon, and never considered taking the leap. I was climbing that corporate ladder. My previous company I worked for was helping them start a division and scaling it. And I loved that challenge. And also I was trying to obtain that big national VP title that I always thought I wanted. And I was fortunate enough to, one, to be given that title on an interim basis. And about a month into that realized I was chasing a title and this isn’t what I loved. I loved the creation part of it. But also one of the greatest things ever happened in the corporate world was a failure. Ultimately did not get the role. Somebody way more qualified, got it. 15 years my senior, specific to the industry.
But that was around the time that this bourbon thing started to intersect with my passion for building business December 2016. And that’s when I pitched the idea to my wife thinking she was going to tell me I was crazy and I have my midlife crisis maybe in another 20 years because life was pretty good. But she didn’t do that. And three weeks later, I was in Louisville, Kentucky, just getting a crash course on building a brand and operating a distillery and thinking that in 60 days, open a distillery. And that was the most naive thing I probably could have imagined at the moment. It actually did not happen until four years to the month that we opened in April, or excuse me, January 2021. And actually it took me another two and a half years. It wasn’t until September 2019 that actually found a location that we could open a business in and actually have the courage to take the leap and have no health insurance, have no 401k, have no salary, and try to support a family.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Who needs health insurance if you have whiskey?

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh my God. The stories are always so similar. You have a certain idea of like, well, how difficult could it possibly be? Well, let me tell you. It can be very difficult. I think you’re the only person who has Moonshine University right next to Harvard University on your LinkedIn. It was amazing. So you opened right before COVID then, didn’t you?

Brandon McCraney:
Well, we actually opened during COVID. Our original opening date was supposed to be April of 2020, right when COVID started. And then sad didn’t happen. We opened January of 2021. But to be honest with you, I mean, the world was chaos. We had some delays because of COVID supply chain, but really it was the local county in the construction process. They about bankrupted us before we opened. A lot of that had to do with changing the design with, when you talk about high-proof spirits, involves a lot of fire code and building code.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh yeah, of course.

Brandon McCraney:
And so when they made me start changing things, I had obtained a business loan, which by the way took me, I got rejected 12 times before the 13th said yes from a bank. But they gave me a loan based off a design the county had approved. And when they started making us do some changes to the construction, ultimately we went through all of our construction money for the loan, contingency money, all of our process piping funding for our production operation. And I had to wipe out my 401k and make sure we opened the third week of January 2021.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Well, the good News is people were drinking. They really were drinking.

Brandon McCraney:
We all were trapped at home just drinking like fish. I mean, bourbon and whiskey was surging back then. But when we did open our doors, I mean, folks were talking about whats your plan inI three years. It was like, I got to pay the heating bill to get through February. That’s where we were, just scared to hire people. And it was an interesting time to start a business, to say the least.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure. But I mean, at this point, life is pretty different. You’ve got a thing going on that’s called the 1000 Whiskey Challenge. That’s pretty awesome. And when I saw that, I’m like, I got to have this guy on the show. This is so cool. On your website, it states the following, and I’m going to read it real quick for the audience. “Experience an ultra rare, (so that means one of one bottle), a flight of whiskey that never reaches the public offering. Each week, our master blender releases three unique whiskeys in Olde Raleigh’s quest to be the first brand to release 1,000 unique whiskeys.” Tell us more.

Brandon McCraney:
So when I started this brand, it wasn’t about becoming big and becoming mass produced. It was about me as a whiskey blender wanting to be immersed in the art of creating. And I think we live in a world today where it’s just mass production. It’s overwhelming the amount of information get thrown at you all the time. And I just wanted to pause and just immerse myself in the craft. And I created a canvas that we call the Thousand Blends Challenge or Project Thousand Blends from my end, where I just get this blank canvas to just create and identify new flavor combinations and then share that with our patrons. And it’s not about being out in stores and mass production. It’s not even about the revenue aspect of it. It’s about just focusing on the art and sharing that with an intimate audience. And so we started it almost a year ago.
I believe we’ve completed about almost 150 at this point. So we’re doing three a week. And we received some great feedback from those that visit. And they actually, there’s a QR code on each one of the bottles where they get to rate it and provide me some feedback and their notes so that I’m getting just composite, this Rolodex of just memory of information that we can pull from when we decide if we want to scale up some of those products to reach stores or to sell online.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
That is so crazy good because I mean, you get to play, you get to experiment, you get to continuously force yourself to innovate and rethink and keep honing your craft. You have people that are part of a very, very exclusive club that feel like they get something that others don’t. And it’s true, no one will. Most probably no one will unless you release something in the future. And you get all the data points of what people actually like. It’s brilliant. It’s brilliant. So that’s one way of you building a tribe. And I think it’s a word that’s been overused in the world of branding, but it is so important. And I know that with my own startup, it’s like you got to have these fans, you got to have these people. I saw on your Instagram, I think last night I saw it, you had a guy put your logo, excuse me, he put your logo, which is your logo is already very much like a tattoo because it is old school and it’s kind of like these overlapping letter forms.
And he tattooed it onto his arm. That’s pretty cool. That’s when you know you kind of made it, right? I mean, that’s exciting.

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah, it’s pretty wild to think you create something from scratch and somebody thinks so highly of what you’re doing and believes in what you’re doing that they want to imprint that on their body for the rest of their life. But it is very humbling. But also it’s mindful. It’s a reminder to me that we’re creating something that’s not just this surface level brand, that it matters to people and craft and art matter to people. And that’s why I wake up every day to do what I do. It’s a total blessing. And yeah, I’ve got story after story of things like that, people driving eight, nine hours just to come visit for two hours. We’ve got customers sending us pictures of. One guy sent me one the other day. He has over 200 of our bottles.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Wow.

Brandon McCraney:
And it’s an entire room. And it’s so humbling. And I’m so thankful to have the patrons and the customer base and the followers that we have because it shows that they believe in what we’re doing and we believe in what we’re doing. I’ve got a great team around me. They’ve bought into our vision and we’re just going to keep on doing what we do our way and hope that that tribe will continue to grow.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Amazing. And I mean, when you talk about this customer who has a room full of your bottles, I mean brand is super important to you from day one. I know there were a lot of struggles. It was hard to open. It was hard to pay for anything, but yet you have this really unique bottle design. It’s brilliant because it really is reminiscent of the old, but something that you don’t see anymore today. And it was likely pretty expensive for the company to do that. Did you do that from day one or was that something that after a couple of years when you had some revenue coming in, you said you’re going to create an actual highly branded bottle design?

Brandon McCraney:
Well, that was from the initial start of the brand. I knew that in order to, if you’re in a store, before you’re trying the liquid, you’re looking at the packaging. And so we wanted a bottle that was more of a decanter style. I met with a design group out of California and I said, look, I’ve thrown away thousands of bottles in my day. Why don’t we create a bottle that folks maybe could repurpose it as a decanter or gifting to someone? And so I sought out on the journey of creating the bottle. I just kept adding more and more details to it. If you look at the top, there’s my homage to being in the Air Force. There’s a challenge coin, which when we’re in the service, everybody has their unit coin that you’ll take to a bar, you’ll slam down your coin, whoever doesn’t have a coin while they’re buying the round of drinks for everybody.
So I’ve got just a little homage to being with my time in the service. But yeah, we did take our time with it. Outside of whiskey, it is our most expensive purchase of the year because it’s a custom mode and we have to buy the shipping container.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah, exactly. That’s what I figured. That’s unbelievable, but your people must really appreciate it. And I think it says a lot about how you thought about brand from day one. And it’s such a big expense, but it makes all the difference in the world. And you were thinking about how it’s going to look on the shelf in a store, even though you were far from selling it in a store. And I think having that foresight as an entrepreneur building a brand is so important. And then the next thing you know, you’re doing a call-up with the Chan Wick movie. How did that come together? That was last year, right?

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah, that was kind of crazy how that came together. They reached out via andf email, and I get a lot of inquiries, and it could be anybody, like a college student creating their own documentary wanting to put our products in their first film or you just never know what’s thrown at you. But they reached out and it was the movie Ballerina, John Wick. And they sent me the trailer and I clicked on this trailer thinking it was just going to be a college student’s first video or something. And I went, “Hold on. Is that Keanu Reeves? What? And who is this person?” And I was at the bar reading it, and I asked our customer, I said, “Do y’all know something about a new John Wick movie coming out?” And they said, “Yes, ballerina’s coming out. People were raving about it.” And I said, “I have somebody from that film asking if we want to do a collaboration.” And they were going crazy.
And anyways, I responded back to the email, still not sure if this was true, saying he could call me just to see. Maybe I’m getting catfish or something. And called me back in 10 minutes and said, “Hey, look, here’s what’s going on.” With that movie as part of it, they were spotlighting certain parts of the country and Raleigh was a target market.
And a key part of that movie is when all the assassins are in this private bar. It’s like a speakeasy just for the assassins. And they had done some research on our distillery and our tasting room. And they said, “We’re looking for a bar, but not only that, you create your own product. And what do you think about us doing a collaboration where we can do this John Wick engraved bottle, and then we’ll do a John Wick takeover as part of the release into Raleigh?” And they said, “Do you think you can make something like that happen?” And of course, absolutely I could.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
You’re like, “Let me think.”

Brandon McCraney:
So it was a two-week blitz to make it happen. We did a John Wick takeover of Olde Raleigh, did these custom bottles of which we had people lined up two and a half hours before we opened – Amazing. To be part of the celebration, to purchase the bottles, which sold out very, very quickly. And our team was just talk about Cloud nine rolling out of there, your employees, your staff, being able to be something that’s so much greater than what they had ever envisioned. Yeah. So that was a great moment for us. And also a takeaway, I’ll tell you, you’re building a company. I tell our staff, folks are driving hours to come here.
We owe them our time. We owe them our best. We needed a home run every day. And so for that, we tried to hit it out the park for Lionsgate. I had a photographer come in, and normally photographers will take a week or two to get back photos. I said, “Look, I’m working with the studio on this. If you can get me these photos tonight, I’ll give you all the credit. I want, in their inbox, a file where they could just look at all of our social content Monday morning to show them we put our best foot forward.” And so he did, and I shared the photo cred. But a few months later came knocking again, and it was the latest screen movie that happened in February. Same thing happened. All because the mentality of our staff, we’ve got to hit a home run every day.
We got to put our best foot forward. You never know who’s watching.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It’s amazing. Yeah. It reminds me with my startup Toneoptic when I got an email that was similar from Rough Trade Records, which is the largest record. It is one of the coolest and largest record stores in the world. And they opened up a new store in the Rockefeller Center in New York City. And he’s like, “Would it be possible to have 52 of your units?” And I read the email 10 times. I’m like, “Is this…” And sure enough, it was the same thing. I’m like, “Call me. I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow.” And he called within 10 minutes. And then it was the exact same thing, flying to New York and you’re just hustling that. But it’s amazing. And like you said, it speaks volumes when that happens because there was so much work leading up to it that people even notice that you even exist.
And I think that’s really exciting. When you look back, what was for you? What was that big breakthrough moment where you felt like, “Hey, we’re not that small distillery. I mean, we are at heart and we want to keep it small, but we’re actually turning into a brand. People talk about us, this is going to be a real thing.” Was there one moment? I mean, you already mentioned a couple, but was there a particular moment where you turned to your coworkers or your wife and you’re like, “You know what? I think this is happening.This is turning into a real thing.”

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah, that seminal moment for me was the third week of April of 2021 when we did our first product release. So we opened in January, but our first official product did not come out until then. And up until that point, I had some family members, because we did not grow up with alcohol in my family household thought I was crazy. And that release date, and this is during COVID, keep in mind with social distancing, we had people waiting over two hours to purchase that first bottle of our first batch of bourbon. And that product sold so quickly. We never even placed it in stores because so many people traveled because folks had watched our story and our journey to get open and they wanted to support the brand. That

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Was a big difference. And that’s what it was, right? In the beginning, it was mainly you leaning into your story and leaning into social media and being super authentic and transparent and people being excited about this actually finally happening without ever having tasted it, but they were the first to do so.

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah, I keep using the word humbling, but in this journey I’ve been so humbled, it’s just not even funny. But that day was a day to beholden. And you know what’s interesting? I believe in the power of visualization. And from 2019 up until that point, right before I walk out of my office, I had a picture of a theater that had this long line of people wrapped around it to get in. And I looked at that picture every day and I said, “Someday I want that. I want that for the brand.” And that day came a lot sooner than I anticipated. It was on our first batch release.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
Day one.

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
File under when grown men cry. That must have been an amazing, amazing end of day for you. I mean, Jesus, unbelievable. One thing that one just keeps thinking about, and you talked about how your family, you come from a non-drinking family, obviously alcohol sales are declining, vineyards are being destroyed due to the lack of demand. We hear every day about the next generation preferring low or no alcohol drinks, but yet here you are going against the grain, no pun intended, when it comes to all of that data. Was that ever a concern of yours or you’re like, “No, it will always be around. And if you do something with passion, the craft will never die.”

Brandon McCraney:
Well, I agree with you that we are in some challenging times, but I think that it’s all the more reason to figure out what makes you different. If you got a thousand products out there, they’re all the same stuff, well, you’re going to have some challenges. So product differentiation is critical, but also producing a quality product is critical. And for me, this isn’t about just trying to sell a lot of cases. And I don’t have shareholders that I’m beholden to. There’s a craft in art of making whiskey, and that’s what I’ve dedicated my profession to. So whether or not we eventually cross and expand into 50 states or we’re more regionalized, I can’t determine what that final path will look like. But I will tell you every day I’m going to wake up and continue to blend and share the world and my craft with others.
And that recipe has seemed to work for us so far, so I’ll just continue doing that.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love it. I love it. Entrepreneurs like to talk about their successes as much as they like to reminisce about their failures. I mean, obviously it was a rough ride for anyone, especially in your industry, and you are having a store and you’re selling liquor. And there were so many hurdles and not having private equity behind you or anything like that. I mean, there were so many hurdles, but was there any brand feel? Was there anything that was going on where you felt like, ah, shoot, you know what? Someone can learn from that?

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah, the big one would be we don’t operate our production equipment. So we’re Olde Raleigh Distillery, but when we opened the doors because all of our money went into these change orders for construction, I couldn’t cut the stills on. And so yes, I’m a blender by trade, but I was going to oversee a staff to operate that equipment. And then over time in four to six years, we’d start blending our own whiskey. But because of what happened, it forced me to pivot and start networking around the country, obtaining different and unique and really premium sources of bourbon primarily at the time. And so my twist on that was that, well, we’re just not going to replicate any batch we ever make. So one, I’m not beholden to any other providers
I get to create. But the failure in that was that if you were to see the camera behind me, you’ll see our stills. They’re still not operating. And I spent my first two years trying to get those stills operational. And then I had to come to Jesus meeting with myself and said, “What is it you love to do?” Because over those two years, I started networking and I’d obtained whiskey up to 25 years old that I never could have envisioned. It wasn’t a reality being able to obtain something like that in 2018, 2019. And so I made these strategic decision, we’re not going to cut these stills on. But the hundreds of thousands of dollars that I’ve invested in this equipment is definitely a failure. But I guess I don’t look at things as a failure, I should say. It’s you learn and you move on.
And what now I’m focused on acutely now is where some of my bandwidth would normally or originally would’ve been overseeing the distillery operation. Now I’m just focused on the blending and I’ve got an access to a network of people that are making stuff for us around North America. And so what may be a failure on one side is a radical success on the other. But I’m a reminder. It’s a reminder when I walk through these doors every day of the big failure because these stills right now –

Fabian Geyrhalter:
They’re right there.

Brandon McCraney:
It’s the most expensive artwork in the Town.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I was wondering, do you sell it or do you keep it? And obviously you keep it because I mean it’s beautiful, but every day it reminds you of that. And it reminds you of a pivot, which you took so seriously because you had to innovate at this point. You can’t use anyone else’s whiskey, you had to blend. And so now it’s a whole tiny niche that you created almost accidentally, but it’s your passion. You love it. I mean, it’s beautiful. It all worked out. It all worked out in the end.

Brandon McCraney:
It has.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
We talked a little bit about branding, obviously. It’s hard to get by my show without diving into this. But now that you’ve had this run of 10 plus years, if you include all of the work getting opened, what does branding mean to you? I feel like branding must have meant something very different to you when you were at Harvard or when you were doing BizDev. But now that you spent almost a decade building your own brand, how would you describe branding to others?

Brandon McCraney:
I would say branding is the story customers tell themselves about why your product or your service matters. It’s deeper. Yeah.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
In the end, that’s what it comes down to. And you and I had a little conversation before we went on air about telling that story and even you reminding me as the brand guy of how I need to tell more the story of my own brand and how it works and how we’re going into how every screw is perfect and how everything is meticulously made. And that’s what made your brand a brand from day one where people line up around the block. You didn’t even have a product the day before. And then people line up. And it’s so powerful and it’s such a great reminder of why it matters to sweat these details and to tell these stories. As we’re slowly coming towards the end here, I always love to ask my guests this. Taking your entire company, your product, what you stand for, like you said, the story that customers tell others about how they see you as a brand.
If you take all of that and you put it through a funnel with your organization, you’re pretty familiar with that. You blend it. And then out comes one word, only one word. So Coca-Cola wants us to think about happiness. Liquid Def is on the other side. They want us to think about mischief. What is one word that describes your brand?

Brandon McCraney:
I think if you follow the journey, it would be perseverance. The brand itself and the product. It’s art. We make art. It’s art.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love that. I love the perseverance part because in the end, that’s why people love it too. And I think my parents had a vineyard and just seeing the harsh conditions under which they’re basically farmers. And then when the actual wine is being released, when there’s the harvest, it was so much hard work. It was perseverance. It was like going through the hill. It was going through the rain. It was like doing all of it. It’s not much different with what you do. It’s like in the end when there is that drop in the glass, I mean, it took a lot to get it there. And I think people feel that and I think people want to feel that it’s poetry. It’s very nice. Do you have Any brand advice for entrepreneurs, for founders out there as a takeaway of what you learned through your journey when it comes to brand?

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah, I mean some takeaways would be when you’re starting out your brands, be acutely focused on identify who you are, but more importantly, identify who you’re not. I’ve met with so many other entrepreneurs and when you’re first opened and you’ve leveraged everything to get open and you got all this pressure on you, it’s very easy to chase the squirrel, you’re trying to make money and sometimes it’ll lead you down a rabbit hole that’s not core to who you are. And so I’ve been very mindful about who we’re not, and that’s allowed me to maintain focus and get better at what is our core, which is whiskey and bourbon primarily.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love that. It’s like in the end, all you need is that, I hate that word, but the true north, but it’s really a threat. What’s the threat that goes through your company? Then you just got to stay on that and not get sidetracked with the shiny things that might suddenly turn you into something that you’re not. And people will very quickly realize that. So no, it’s great. Who are you not? Sometimes brand people say, who’s your enemy? And I really don’t like that, but I like the idea of this is exactly who we are and this is who we’re not. And if we are anytime drifting a little bit away towards to who we’re not, we’re in trouble. What’s next for Old Rally? What are you excited about in the next six months besides hundreds of new blends, three a week?

Brandon McCraney:
Yeah, I think we’re really excited about just pushing the envelope for multiple cask finishes, whiskeys and different flavor combinations. If you were to come visit in our back barrel aging area, we refer to that as our pantry. And we refer to it as a pantry because I’ve got whiskey from all over North America and I partner with the states around the world to do some cask finishes. And so I’m kind of back there like a chef with a spice rack and I’m pulling different things. Could be a few ounces to a full barrel depending on our release. But we’re looking to really expand the envelope and push the envelope for what consumers know as cask finish whiskey. And that for me is being able to release that into stores and share that with the world. That’s something that gets my juices flowing for sure.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
That’s super, super excited. Do you ship pretty much everywhere in the US where alcohol is allowed to be shipped?

Brandon McCraney:
Yes. Depending on the state law, we do. You can go on our website and we ship to, I think it’s 40 some states. And then we’re in brick and mortar states in Virginia, North Carolina. We just got into Florida. We just got to get a sales team to get on that. Yep.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
That’s fantastic. Where can people find out more about the Olde Raleigh? Is olderaleighdistillery.com?

Brandon McCraney:
Yep. olderaleighdistillery.com, social media, Olde Raleigh Distillery. You want to see what I’m up to as a blender? It’s Brandon McCraney. I’m pretty active on Instagram. Love to connect and share any insights that folks may have a curiosity about.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
And old is with an E because it’s really old, so let’s make sure that People find that.

Brandon McCraney:
We’re so old, we’re spelled the old way. Yes.

Fabian Geyrhalter:
I love it. I think it’s great. Listen, Brandon, it was so awesome having you here and share the journey and so many good nuggets here to take away. So thanks for carving out over half an hour of your day to be with us.

Brandon McCraney:
My pleasure, Fabian. Thank you.