Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Joe Pelati. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Joe, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

We took a trip to Kentucky and toured a number of distilleries, just for fun and not expecting to start our own whiskey production. Viewing the process as a life-long research chemist, the fermentation and distillation processes were now high tech, but the aging process seemed archaic and wasteful. It became a curiosity that drove me to start experimenting with old barrel staves and flaming. Next, I looked into extraction and aging of the flamed wood using a simulated “moonshine”. I experimented for a full year and was nearly ready to give up, but a couple of major breakthroughs were timely. Soon after, we made a large test batch and gave it to friends to verify the success. All the feedback was positive so we made the decision to form our company, Dynabarr LLC, and began the lengthy and expensive permitting and licensing procedures. After two years since starting to do some experiments, we formed our company and started making our smooth, flavorful whiskey. My 36 years in petrochemical research produced many patents and new implemented technology; those lessons in experimentation and development of technology were key to unlocking the secrets of wood and whiskey aging.

Joe, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have had a full career as a research chemist. I am new to the whiskey business and learning a lot. My experience in my first career really helped me to develop a new way to make whiskey with our proprietary accelerated aging process. I am too old to wait ten years for a good whiskey, so if I could not make good, smooth-drinking whiskey in an accelerated time frame, I was not going to start a company. Luckily, I learned how to process and flame old whiskey barrel staves and use them to make whiskey ready for bottling in just two weeks of aging. Since we use old barrels conventional producers no longer want as our starting material, we are making sustainable whiskey as no new trees were cut down to make our products. Our aging process make a very smooth and flavorful whiskey. We think we have the smoothest whiskey with the most body and flavors. We have a new product, our Texas Rye, which we are very excited about because there is no rye like it. It is smooth like the rest of our Smiling Oak products, yet is packed with flavors.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The whiskey business requires a lot of approvals from local, state, and federal agencies. That process is difficult and expensive. I imagine many people give up due to the ordeal. Our first site was rejected. It cost us three months rent because we had to have the location before applying for the permit to get started. Luckily we found a much better location but it did cost money and time. The frustration was a challenge because the requirements were not crystal clear and legal interpretations vary with the examiner. Also our labels must be approved and that has created a number of back and forth situations.

Also the Association of Irish Whiskey producer didn’t like our first Paddy O’Barrel label. Actually the name is an inside joke derived from my two years on our back “patio” working with “barrels”. We were able to work out an agreement and changed our label.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

We are a classic “Mom and Pop” operation. Leslie is the CEO and I am the COO. She handles the business side while I focus on the manufacturing. Our whiskey is completely hand crafted. We buy our distillates from a large distiller on the other side of Houston. They are great folks and make very good product. We gather old barrels and work them up to our secretly treated aging staves. We mix the wood and the distillate then filter and dilute to bottle proof. We hand label and bottle each product. We had to quickly develop some filtering processes. We built one system and modified a second one. The first time we filtered and bottled was tense and exhausting. We stopped at a steak place on the way home as we had not eaten since breakfast and it was late in the afternoon. We sat down and had a drink; we looked at each other and asked each other if we were crazy for starting this company. I am glad we stuck it out as we are getting into more and more retailers now.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dynabarr.net
• Facebook: Paddy O’Barrel Texas Whiskey

Image Credits

Leslie J. May, CEO of Dynabarr