The Great America Show - December 27, 2025


The Great America Saturday Show: December 27, 2025


Episode Stats

Length

37 minutes

Words per Minute

187.6203

Word Count

7,018

Sentence Count

11

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary

In this episode of The Great Americana Show, Ron talks about the importance of freedom of speech in America, and the dangers of censorship and deplatforming, and why it's a dangerous road to go down.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 hello everybody and welcome to the great america show it's great to have you with us on this
00:00:06.420 beautiful chilly chilly day in america at least here on the east coast the northeast i should say
00:00:11.420 a chilly chilly day uh we're back from phoenix arizona where we spent the weekend at am fest
00:00:17.980 uh some really terrific people there uh i was forced to spend the weekend with uh our friend
00:00:23.860 here on the show the great mark mitchell um we were uh hip and hip if you will for the weekend
00:00:30.320 a terrific terrific time uh i gotta give it to am fest i've never been to one of their events before
00:00:35.640 but they do an absolutely terrific job an admirable job uh taking care of all of us who attend there
00:00:43.540 um the hospitality was absolutely amazing uh they did this little thing for what they call
00:00:49.180 influencers so you know media personality like us uh where they really want us to come to the
00:00:53.940 event they want us to cover it they want us to talk to the people they want us to interact with
00:00:58.200 the crowds and i've been to cpac uh probably the last 10 years um and i've got to tip my hat to
00:01:05.500 turning point usa they do it i mean 10 times better job at anything that i've ever been to at cpac and
00:01:12.240 the crowd the energy the people um was something i've never never never seen before and you know
00:01:18.720 it's um a testament to what charlie kirk built to the great great industry to the great uh grassroots
00:01:25.680 movement now you know some of the people you see up on the stage you don't necessarily agree with or
00:01:31.760 care for but this is america it's where you have the platforms to say what you want to say
00:01:40.220 it's a freedom of speech now we don't always agree with everything everyone says
00:01:44.080 but that's the good thing about america is that we can say it you can let people make their own
00:01:51.220 determination if they agree with you or not so you saw some people out there who are calling
00:01:57.160 for the censorship of people and you know it's it's the same folks who
00:02:02.800 four years ago were crying that people like donald trump are being censored
00:02:10.120 and deplatformed remember folks the first amendment doesn't protect things like
00:02:18.360 me telling you you got nice hair it protects the things that aren't necessarily always the most
00:02:25.380 popular things to say the things that are needed to say and that's what differentiates america from
00:02:31.340 any other place in the world that first amendment
00:02:34.240 where in some countries you're killed in some countries you're imprisoned
00:02:41.820 china venezuela north korea russia some places in europe how about the united kingdom
00:02:51.020 where you can't say gay
00:02:53.720 or even talk about gay so that's what differentiates america from the rest of the world and for those
00:03:03.660 people who are calling for people to be censored you think i think you need to take a step back
00:03:08.440 and evaluate yourself and evaluate what this country went through
00:03:12.180 when people were censored we had a sitting president in the united states be platformed completely
00:03:20.060 and had to go out and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build his own platform
00:03:23.580 so the american people could hear from him think about the dangerous precedent you're setting
00:03:30.520 by calling for people to be censored if you don't like them don't listen to them it's simple
00:03:36.960 dialect is healthy we shouldn't agree on 100 of the things 100 of the time
00:03:44.660 it's called being a sycophant and that's a dangerous road too
00:03:49.600 here on this show i've went hard for the epstein documents which we've seen coming out now
00:03:56.840 where'd you add some people saying oh we we don't need to release and we don't need to
00:04:01.180 it's one of the areas where we disagreed with the administration respectfully
00:04:05.460 and laid out our position on why we believed it should be fully transparent
00:04:10.280 that's what makes america great so end of the rant for me folks so like i said we were at amfest over
00:04:18.120 the weekend we met some terrific terrific people i got to meet some people i interview here on the
00:04:22.120 show that i'd never met before steven gardner one of them who's a wonderful youtuber who we have on
00:04:26.880 the show and i've you know got a good gratitude to him uh he was driving mark mitchell and i around
00:04:32.940 to giving us rides appreciate him but he's been a really good friend on the show he's helped me grow
00:04:37.180 our youtube channel uh and helped me get this thing on around so steven garner a terrific american
00:04:42.340 it was great to meet him some of our partners over at rumble and like i said some of our guests that we
00:04:47.820 have here on the show now while we were there we did some interviews we didn't anticipate on it but
00:04:52.300 in this industry uh sometimes you're thrown into situations and you got to do it but we were happy
00:04:58.900 too so one of those interviews we did was with the great the great uh roger stone and uh you guys
00:05:06.760 know how we feel about roger here on the show we have him on the show uh each and every single week
00:05:10.520 uh and it's for a reason because roger is indeed a great american and he's a great friend of the show
00:05:15.200 so we get to spend some some time with him um but anyway we did an interview and i did a joint interview
00:05:20.420 with vanessa broussard uh from lindell tv and if you don't tune into her show it's every day at 4 p.m
00:05:26.340 eastern time over on lindell tv if you don't already catch her uh vanessa broussard uh vanessa and i sat
00:05:32.760 down and we we did a little joint interview with roger and it was uh more fun than than i could
00:05:37.220 have expected to happen so we want to bring you that like i said tomorrow we've got kyle rittenhouse
00:05:41.720 uh coming up here on the great america show um i sat down for an interview with him that was
00:05:46.720 absolutely amazing we did a live interview in front of a crowd of people at am fest a shout out to real
00:05:52.480 america's voice terrific terrific people uh for allowing me to uh to use their studio and their
00:05:58.320 setup uh parker sig and rob sig if you don't tune into real america's voice we recommend great american
00:06:04.080 network this is the season of giving folks we got to give credit where it's due so now without further
00:06:10.180 ado i want to bring in this interview that we did with the great roger stone and vanessa broussard
00:06:14.940 uh over at uh lindell tv a fun one in the middle of the interview you're going to see uh there's a
00:06:20.080 little bit of a distraction uh grant cardone from 10x if you guys don't know grant good friend of
00:06:25.720 the show came over and was trolling us a little bit uh he was trying to buy some suits from roger
00:06:31.180 stone roger stone's probably the best dressed man in america here's the interview folks i hope you
00:06:36.780 enjoy we're coming right back in less than 60 seconds please stay with us
00:06:40.880 hey everyone now i am joined by john fawcett and the one and only roger stone so good to see you
00:06:54.260 both how are you doing great to be here a delight to be here a delight to see you guys both roger
00:07:00.140 culture uh always a delight to see you what do you think so far it's really quite amazing there
00:07:06.380 were 20 000 people last time there's 30 000 young people this time there's an amazing spirit here
00:07:12.720 charlie's horrific murder i think has lent itself to determination people understand that the mission
00:07:21.360 is all the more important uh and uh for those in the kings who say oh we're going to lose the 2026
00:07:29.080 election way too early to decide that if you look to the spirit uh the determination of people at this
00:07:35.260 conference that doesn't appear to be true i'm glad you mentioned 2026 because we are on the hills of
00:07:40.960 2026 we have to win these midterms or they're going to come after all of us again you know about that
00:07:46.780 all too well talk about how important 2026 is for america and for president trump it's finally
00:07:52.840 important they would like to undo all of the reforms they would like to launch a whole new series
00:07:59.420 of witch hunts you see there's something strange going on in the country if you're james comey you
00:08:04.620 can break the law and there'll be no repercussions if you're latisha james who has prosecuted people
00:08:10.260 for the very crime of mortgage fraud that she was charged with she will pay no penalty
00:08:15.800 if you're adam schiff you can claim your principal legal residence is in california at the same time
00:08:22.100 you claim your principal legal residence is in maryland and get a lower tax rate and a lower
00:08:28.000 insurance rate and a tax break so democrats are held to a different standard if we do not
00:08:34.560 see those who launched the seditious conspiracy against donald trump the conspiracy that began
00:08:43.120 in 2016 in washington dc takes you through the russian collusion hoax to completely fake
00:08:51.400 uh impeachments the 2020 election what we learned in fulton county yesterday was really quite
00:08:58.300 extraordinary what we said was true the whole time was stolen uh takes you through the january 6 fiasco
00:09:05.540 all the way to the radar martin lago one continuing seditious conspiracy run by the same people
00:09:13.420 my question for pam bondi my question for time launches when will they be arrested when it's not
00:09:21.760 difficult it's not complicated it just takes will yeah i'm sorry and you're right you know that's
00:09:28.320 the question your question but it's the question of so many americans when are we going to see an
00:09:32.500 arrest the american people want arrests made a situation uh in my case john and i've talked
00:09:39.740 about this my case is identical james comey we were charged with the exact same crime
00:09:45.420 how come he gets to stroll in 10 days later and turn himself in but the fbi raids my home hold on we
00:09:51.780 find out yesterday too that the raid on mar-a-lago the fbi agents didn't even want to do it they said
00:09:56.960 we're not going in this is ridiculous there's no case to go in there and they sent them back
00:10:01.380 multiple times i think six times and said go back and figure out a way to get this raid on mar-a-lago
00:10:07.520 and and these people are walking the streets free roger that's because i think we now understand
00:10:12.300 the purpose of the raid mar-a-lago was to get the copies of the very documents that tulsi gabbard
00:10:19.740 declassified months ago that prove that there was a cabal and that there was a conspiracy this was an
00:10:27.300 effort to cover their tracks and it failed by the way the president legally had the right to
00:10:33.380 maintain any document he wanted so i think there's three prongs to this one it is the economy the tax
00:10:41.660 cuts to regulatory cuts the tariff policies uh the interest rate cuts that we will get when we get
00:10:49.220 when we no longer have a politicized uh federal reserve board run by jerome too late powell
00:10:56.320 uh you're gonna have a booming economy even stronger than it is today you'll have a strong economy by 2026
00:11:03.680 you'll have a boom economy by 2028 secondarily we have to have accountability and justice it's not
00:11:12.500 about revenge and retaliation the people at the new york times are full of crap uh and then lastly
00:11:18.380 this is very important we have to have honest elections uh if the electronic voting machines
00:11:24.900 were as i believe manipulated from venezuela manipulated from china there's a working group
00:11:32.400 studying that today we need their report and somebody somebody has to go to jail yeah you're
00:11:39.420 absolutely right and you know you're on the right network right now mr stone about uh elections and
00:11:44.700 securing our elections mike lindell a huge fighter for uh going to paper ballots and burning down those
00:11:50.440 machines and melting down the machines uh do you think we'll see a change before 2026 when it comes
00:11:57.340 to election integrity will there be a bill in place will there be an executive order in place i mean
00:12:01.500 we are just months away from the next election we have no choice like you said bam bondi's got
00:12:09.640 to do something tulsi gabbard's been doing a terrific job but she's being stonewalled at every point you
00:12:14.400 and i both know that there's people still inside the deep state who are stymating anything she tries
00:12:20.040 to do and we saw it months ago roger when they came to tulsi gabbard with the whole iran thing and
00:12:25.600 they set tulsi gabbard up to make her look bad in front of president trump president trump wasn't happy
00:12:30.000 but i think president trump is smart enough and he figured out that they're trying to set tulsi
00:12:33.960 gabbard up i don't think she falls for any more of their tricks and i think we have no choice we
00:12:39.540 either fix it or we lose it all and there's nothing hyperbolic about it from a legal point of view and i'm
00:12:47.120 not an attorney thank god but if the gabbard working group proves definitively the the
00:12:54.420 the manipulation electronic voting sheets and the abuse of the paper ballots
00:12:59.580 our elections are governed by 50 state laws and are governed by federal law but the president
00:13:07.800 can declare a national emergency and therefore could under that declaration insist on one day
00:13:15.320 voting paper ballots simply and to mail in ballots simple let's talk about your suit can we talk about
00:13:22.740 his outfit real quick no because he's gonna he's gonna belittle me he's gonna tell me my suit's not
00:13:27.220 good it's only a zenya suit fine you know we can talk about the suits i think he's he's one of the best
00:13:32.800 men in all of politics and you've been making a lot of headlines with your attire so i have recently
00:13:40.200 developed and released my own line of menswear you can go to rogerstone suits.com or you can go to
00:13:47.780 the stone rogerstone collection.com or you can go to shop.tailorontap.com it's not for everybody
00:13:56.640 i admit that but the basics for a young man starting out i'll probably lose my ass fight
00:14:02.740 actually but i get some pretty cool stuff so check it out all right you definitely will i heard roger
00:14:09.760 is making a custom suit for his good friend steve bannon to make amends is this true
00:14:14.880 he could certainly use a suit first he could use a bath
00:14:19.400 i think zelinski needs a suit as well would you make one for him
00:14:24.420 can we do a double deal like here
00:14:27.800 yeah that's an idea done done deal
00:14:32.400 take this to a serious note i find these emails that have been released in which they reveal a
00:14:38.980 very close relationship between steve bannon and jeffrey esteem disturbing uh i find the pictures
00:14:46.400 that have been released of the two of them together disturbing uh and we know that there are 15 hours
00:14:52.980 of video interviews of epstein by steve which we're told was made for the purposes of a documentary but
00:15:00.900 there is no documentary so i believe that those videos were practice sections for epstein's upcoming
00:15:08.560 interview on 60 minutes which got canceled when he got arrested and charged with child sex trafficking
00:15:14.720 steve bannon owes us an explanation because i don't understand who associates socially politically
00:15:21.880 or from a business point of view from someone who's a convicted sex criminal
00:15:26.780 and those uh epstein files were just released yesterday we saw a lot in those uh there have
00:15:32.800 been a lot of questions surrounding the people who were at that island had connection with epstein
00:15:37.040 uh bill clinton uh and i think that was a hot tub a hot tub uh and if you've seen that uh photo that
00:15:44.940 was one of the photos dropped there was a uh miner in the hot tub with him they have xed out and blocked
00:15:50.340 out her face uh for security reasons but i think uh mr stone we're going to learn a lot from these
00:15:55.900 epstein files and i hope that uh there is some justice you know we may love these people
00:16:00.980 and uh we don't know everything and have all the answers just yet but if you were you know suspect
00:16:07.300 in this then you need you know we need some answers and you need to serve some time here's what we do
00:16:13.240 know donald trump cut off jeffrey epstein in late 20 in 2004 bill clinton continued to accept money from
00:16:21.940 him to party with him to go to his island right up until the time he was charged in 2019 clinton's
00:16:29.540 claim that he was never on the island is a lie yes disproved by these new photos disproved by the
00:16:35.820 faa records so the democrats i think are going to have a huge boomerang effect the political figures
00:16:43.300 you went to the island all democrats yep larry summers the treasury secretary bill richardson the
00:16:49.980 governor of new mexico george mitchell bill gates uh woody uh woody allen woody allen uh and the only
00:16:58.020 other person i know who's visited various epstein properties would be steve band we've got to get to
00:17:05.580 the bottom of it roger stone yep good to have you on here what doesn't good to have you as well what
00:17:10.880 have you been up to covering the the big shoes that the great lou dobbs left me uh we do the great
00:17:17.560 american show five days a week roger stone is with us once a week um and we're carrying on the torch
00:17:24.420 of the great lou dobbs the greatest journalist of all time it's a hot show tell people where they
00:17:28.980 can see it okay apple youtube rumble wherever you guys get your podcasts you can find us there and
00:17:35.560 you can see roger there once a week the great american podcast the great america show yes absolutely
00:17:41.380 and the stone's up you both and uh thanks for stopping by i know you're a busy man and glad to
00:17:45.900 have you here honoring charlie as well at america fest thank you thank you i hope you guys enjoyed that
00:17:50.920 interview with the the great roger stone and vanessa brassard over at lindell tv if you don't
00:17:55.140 already uh follow vanessa's show um lindell tv she's on each and every day or you can find her
00:18:01.060 on social media vanessa brassard um join her each and every day really terrific show and she goes on
00:18:07.160 before me so you can catch her show have dinner and then come join us here for the great america show
00:18:13.220 we're going to take a quick break here folks on the other side of this quick break we're going to do
00:18:16.460 something a little bit different today uh i want to start showcasing some american businesses
00:18:21.700 some american corporations that are doing great work here in america who are employing americans
00:18:27.780 who are taking care of americans and uh who are providing for the american people so on the other
00:18:34.960 side of this quick break we're going to be joined by a a business owner down in raleigh uh brandon
00:18:41.000 mccraney he owns old raleigh distillery uh military veteran who followed his dreams to
00:18:47.680 get out of corporations get out of the ladder climbing and follow his dream into doing what
00:18:54.200 he wanted to do and build an american business we're coming right back here on the great america
00:18:58.760 show folks please stay with us if you join us on rumble or youtube please be sure to hit that like
00:19:03.240 subscribe and follow button give us a thumbs up we're coming right back in less than 60 seconds
00:19:07.780 please stay with us
00:19:08.940 thanks everybody for staying with us here on the great america show i hope you enjoyed uh our
00:19:19.220 conversations uh from amfest uh a terrific event of great great patriots speaking of great patriots
00:19:25.720 um i want to start doing something a little bit more often here on the great america show and it's
00:19:30.160 showcasing uh businesses that are run by great americans businesses uh that are built here in america
00:19:35.860 businesses that are run here in america businesses that employ americans here in america uh not the
00:19:42.860 corporatists and the elitist overseas not these massive corporations uh overseas so i asked a friend
00:19:49.200 of mine today that i met about a month ago at a great veterans event he's a veteran himself uh from old
00:19:55.200 raleigh distillery uh brandon mccraney brandon it's a delight to have you here on the great america show
00:20:01.680 um so brandon runs a terrific if you guys drink bourbon uh one of my favorite bourbons now at old
00:20:08.680 raleigh uh not the norm it's not not out of kentucky it's out of raleigh that's what is the best bourbon
00:20:15.120 i've ever drank in my life brandon i want to get started with your business the growing pains you
00:20:19.940 opened up in the heat of covid and you're still standing you're still kicking uh for the audience
00:20:25.740 the small business owners out there the people who want to start small businesses just how you got
00:20:31.300 started with you know a good military career and now you're back giving back to the community in
00:20:37.680 other ways yeah it's truly a blessing yeah thank you john for having me um yes we're about to wrap up
00:20:43.880 our five-year anniversary uh but we're family owned and operated uh we did this the old-fashioned way
00:20:48.740 i saved up 16 years throughout my professional career first office in the air force and then i was
00:20:54.480 climbing that corporate ladder uh but i had a dream to uh to blend whiskey and blend whiskey from all
00:21:00.160 over the world uh but i didn't want investors and private equity pushing us to be in 10 states and
00:21:05.980 watering down our product i wanted to do it our way and so uh finally took the leap in 2019 purchased a
00:21:13.220 building right side out of raleigh north carolina and our original plan was to be open april 2020
00:21:19.180 which uh historically was the worst month in the last 100 years i think so my timing was
00:21:25.620 was great let me tell you my wife was uh loving me at that point uh uh but we actually didn't open
00:21:32.860 until about eight and a half months later still open during covid but i tell you back then john um
00:21:37.860 folks asked what's your five-year plan and the county about uh bankrupt us to get open with some
00:21:45.140 construction changes we had to do completely liquidated my 401k to get open so when we opened
00:21:50.660 third week of january 2021 really it wasn't about a five-year plan it was let's pay the heating bill
00:21:56.420 for february uh didn't even hire anyone i wasn't sure you know businesses that were open back then
00:22:02.120 bars restaurants retail you just i mean it was just challenging times so when we opened uh scared to
00:22:08.800 hire anybody because i didn't want to employ anyone and then they come over from a gainfully employed
00:22:13.960 other business and then you know we just totally tanked uh but luckily for us the the community was
00:22:19.580 very receptive to us and um i'd say uh we're five years forward and out here we're across north
00:22:25.440 carolina where virginia just expanded in a beautiful florida we're talking about going to france in
00:22:30.740 february and we're available online in 39 different states right now and uh it took you just three short
00:22:36.880 years to become the best u.s micro distillery in 2023 uh i think you guys do a terrific job
00:22:43.500 you know i was talking with your wife who's a wonderful woman um it's just such a good story
00:22:48.800 i mean two people starting a business that's now uh growing whereas i i was talking to you before the
00:22:54.000 show you know we support these corporations and sometimes you don't even realize you're buying
00:22:57.840 something brandon and it's owned by a massive corporation you know my previous favorite bourbon is
00:23:03.220 now owned by a bacardi i won't say their name but uh you don't realize what you're buying it really
00:23:08.880 comes down to and this this show is like the most grassroots you can get the people
00:23:13.500 are so pro-american that's why they do it into the show every day um give us a sense what it was like
00:23:20.460 the government you said the government almost shut down your business before it even opened and i think
00:23:24.700 that's like the biggest hurdle for anybody is getting past the the corporate uh governance of
00:23:31.500 getting past you know the oligarchy that runs these governments you've got to do this you've got to have
00:23:35.860 this kind of front door in your place it's you know kind of like what you'd see in modern day uh
00:23:41.100 north korea or venezuela this has to look this way this is uh it's the global homo um ideology
00:23:49.140 was that your biggest uh roadblock getting through the government red tape yeah i'd say our local county
00:23:57.380 government yes and and here i guess to give you more background on that they approved a design for
00:24:03.520 our building that i then got an sba loan small business loan to help do that construction and
00:24:10.020 then from there once construction started then that is when the inspectors came in and proceeded to start
00:24:16.400 changing everything that they did so the impact of that was we ate through our construction money
00:24:21.460 we ate through contingency money wait through all our process piping for our production and then i had
00:24:26.820 to tap into my 401k um i will and i will tell you that i'm not one to throw stones at anyone anything
00:24:34.380 like that uh i did in a very polite way reach out to our town and i said look i'm gonna open because i'm all
00:24:41.380 in on this thing but there's no telling how many other businesses didn't get open and didn't run through
00:24:46.180 that gauntlet and i will say to their um to their credit they took action and although it didn't help me out
00:24:53.540 they ensured that um what happened wouldn't happen again for any future business in the town
00:24:59.640 moving forward yeah but yeah it was real it was real we all remember brandon we all remember covet um
00:25:07.160 we all handled it differently some of us got sick uh some of us enjoyed it spending time you know home
00:25:12.500 but you know after a certain point brandon it came to the point where like what the hell are you guys
00:25:16.540 doing like you're ruining our society you're ruining our children uh you're ruining our business i i think
00:25:22.900 about how many businesses didn't make it out past covid up here in new york brandon where you were
00:25:27.100 just about a month ago uh they shut down everything in the most draconian way possible whereas
00:25:34.140 businesses had to operate like it was no pun intended but prohibition if you wanted to go get
00:25:39.600 a haircut brandon they had to bring you through the back door bring you through the basement if you
00:25:43.060 wanted to get something to eat they had to board up the fronts of restaurants or you had to eat
00:25:46.460 outside the middle of the street on fifth avenue behind a wooden barricade uh it was literally the most
00:25:51.460 draconian thing possible so for you guys to survive through this whole thing it just makes the story
00:25:57.220 even greater tell the audience about the business where you guys are based employees and what you guys
00:26:02.780 are blending now all right so uh we're old raleigh we're located just outside of raleigh north carolina
00:26:08.140 that's where we live our family lives and so we're what we do is uh i'm a blender by trade and we blend
00:26:15.000 some of the oldest whiskey in north america up to 25 years old and then i import casks from all over the
00:26:20.180 world and do some cask finish uh whiskeys primarily bourbon because we're in the backyard of bourbon
00:26:25.320 country but our twist on that is that we don't replicate any batch that we ever create so in doing
00:26:32.060 that it gives me free form as an artist to showcase how i can make that bourbon pop differently from batch
00:26:37.300 to batch everything that we do is by hand so we blend by hand we bottle by hand we label by hand we do
00:26:43.100 everything the old-fashioned way i say we're the antithesis of factory bourbon beautiful we're about as uh
00:26:49.300 as hands-on as you can get when it comes to whiskey as long as your hands aren't in the whiskey
00:26:53.760 but from what i understand it boils at a pretty hot temperature so it's probably not even possible
00:27:00.440 and even if it was everything uh one one uh master distiller once told me i was in his factory he goes
00:27:05.740 man you put anything you want in there the the heat kills everything so that's a little bit more
00:27:11.140 reassuring um it is absolutely it's a craft and how you got there we all have our stories right most of
00:27:18.440 us brandon we go to college to do one thing we go into life to do one thing and then we come out and
00:27:23.540 it's like completely 180 and what i went to school to be a pilot and somehow i got looped into going to
00:27:29.640 capitol hill and working in politics and i was like this is the worst career choice i've ever made in my
00:27:33.800 life then i went to fox news i was like all right it's getting a little bit better and then i took over
00:27:37.860 the show i'm like oh god here we go we're back on the down slope again but now we're back on how do you
00:27:42.100 go from being a military man yeah the air force is my favorite one i gotta be a little partial as a
00:27:47.980 pilot um how do you go from being in the military to to following your dreams yeah so uh when in the
00:27:55.880 military one i'm a third generation military so i just um i think we live in the greatest country in
00:28:01.960 the world just an honor to serve but i knew around year three that i just had this entrepreneurial bug
00:28:09.440 i just didn't quite know what that was yeah i was always jealous of like that 13 year old they
00:28:14.960 knew they wanted to be a dentist and they just track and there they are yeah so i did the corporate
00:28:19.440 thing and i was you know chasing those titles and uh trying to get that vp role but um on the side this
00:28:26.020 little thing of bourbon started to grow started to learn on the side about blending whiskey and things
00:28:32.060 like that and and as i was climbing that corporate ladder you know best thing that ever happened to me i got
00:28:36.400 this interim vp title that i always thought i wanted in a month into it i realized i that's what
00:28:41.880 i was chasing was just a title and so that's when this bourbon thing started to rear its ugly head
00:28:47.820 towards me that was in december 2016 and over a bottle of wine at a holiday movie i was talking to
00:28:55.060 my wife and i said you know babe i think i want to start a whiskey company and not the smartest thing
00:29:01.020 to say if you're you know married with three kids and got a pretty good career um but um she said you
00:29:06.420 know i think you'd be pretty good at that for x y and z reason and i'd say three weeks later i was
00:29:11.540 over in louisville taking this uh distillers course just learning about the red tape in the industry
00:29:16.420 and at that point i said this is what i want to do but uh i was naive enough to think that would be in
00:29:23.180 60 days it wasn't yeah of course three years to the month that we did it and then it took me it
00:29:28.320 wasn't until 2019 that i actually had the uh the nerve to take the leap from the corporate world
00:29:34.700 you know it's scary when you you got you've got your health care you've got a salary you've got
00:29:39.300 everything and then just take the leap but that was september 2019 and then we didn't open until
00:29:45.040 january 2021 yeah nobody realizes it until you have it and there's nothing like working for yourself
00:29:52.000 you know there's nothing like not having to answer to somebody there's nothing like you know
00:29:56.460 waking up and saying this is what we're doing today for the business and you know for you guys
00:30:00.400 to have this it's absolutely uh awesome and as i said your wife is a i could tell the support
00:30:05.780 was there she's a terrific woman percent just a model of what a wife should be and uh you know i guess
00:30:12.060 most guys brandon when they tell their wife that they say the wife would say yeah get your ass back to
00:30:16.120 work get your head out of the gutter you've had you know you've had too many glasses of wine uh go to bed
00:30:22.300 wake up in the morning and get back to your inner vp job it's um you know that's this is what america
00:30:28.660 is brandon and that's why i wanted to have you on we need more small businesses we need more people
00:30:33.640 to take the leap of faith because what we've seen over the last and it's not even the last
00:30:37.760 administration it's not the last it's over the course of the last quarter century i mean the last
00:30:44.460 25 30 years where we've turned to exporting everything to other countries down to our foods
00:30:52.020 i mean four or five years ago they were making i think it was uh oreos in a different country you
00:30:58.600 know these great american companies that came they were built by great americans they chased the
00:31:03.680 dollar they chased the dollar and they figured out how they can expand their profit margins and
00:31:08.880 minimize their costs and it all came down to exporting everything out of america and then bringing it back
00:31:15.140 into america that's why i think it's so important brandon for companies like old raleigh that you run
00:31:19.940 american-based american sourced american worked people don't realize that when they go to the
00:31:26.080 store and they're picking up something off the shelf read the labels read where it comes from
00:31:31.940 and support your local businesses what do you say to that yeah i'd say you know i really appreciate the
00:31:39.280 question um you know i'd mentioned that we do everything by hand we don't have any machinery in our
00:31:45.080 place and a big reason for that john is that i discovered early on that if we did production
00:31:50.560 and i was running a bottling line that i could have a couple people come in and work for 40 hours
00:31:56.820 for one week but i might not see them again for six weeks and i said okay well how am i going to
00:32:02.880 build a community here of people if i'm just asking them to work once every six weeks
00:32:08.480 so as a result of that we started doing everything by hand it might take them 20 times as long
00:32:13.860 but i'm building a culture they're gainfully employed and now we have a full-time team we don't have any
00:32:19.900 turnover issues but that was important for me because the people that were employing this is their
00:32:26.220 livelihood yeah they're buying into our vision and so i want them to grow with me and so with that
00:32:32.000 sometimes you take you make decisions that aren't for about profitability yeah it's about building a
00:32:38.000 company creating and also helping improve the lives of others that come join your company as well
00:32:44.340 yeah i think is where can people go it's the holiday season it's i think it's the best season
00:32:49.520 brandon where uh you know you can be buying uh um alcohol and buying products and you know like i said
00:32:56.080 not for everyone if you don't drink you don't drink and it's uh you're probably uh less happier than us
00:33:00.740 who drink bourbon and have a my two guilty pleasures ran i don't care for anything bourbon and cigars are
00:33:06.860 my two guilty pleasures and they luckily they go hand in hand and uh we got a kinship then i've got
00:33:12.900 some really really great uh sorry back there i met brandon at a event a bob woodward event uh for
00:33:18.940 veterans uh this last veterans day and i tried one of his uh bourbons uh and i never had it before and i
00:33:25.140 said you know what they had a raffle which all the proceeds went to um to the veterans the bob
00:33:30.500 woodruff foundation i didn't care how much the thing went up i was bidding on that thing and i
00:33:35.560 went home with uh two terrific bottles of old raleigh whiskey brandon where can people go where can
00:33:41.160 they go to buy uh where can they go to get the supply so you can go on our website old raleigh
00:33:47.700 distillery.com click on shop and we can ship to 39 different states have that to you right around
00:33:53.740 christmas and it's old raleigh o-l-d-e yeah raleigh yeah raleigh and we'll have the link folks in the
00:34:01.740 description here if you want to go check you don't you know if you don't want to buy go check it out
00:34:04.900 go check out the small business and if you're in the area uh all the pictures i got to come down and
00:34:09.300 visit you guys at the distillery it looks absolutely beautiful so if you're in the area
00:34:13.600 where can they come stop by yeah we're located in a suburb of raleigh it's zebula north carolina
00:34:18.820 209 north arendell avenue i'm there most days giving the tours nerding out about whiskey
00:34:24.380 popping barrels and having some fun so come join us there you go folks uh brandon a delight to have
00:34:29.540 you with a merry to have you with us a merry christmas to you and the family let's get you
00:34:33.680 back on here soon and we'll come down there maybe do a show from there uh of course we can't drink
00:34:37.500 during the show because i might say something that we'll have to come down there and visit you have a
00:34:43.920 merry christmas to you and the family my friend merry christmas thank you thanks to brandon
00:34:48.380 my granny folks and thank you all for being with us today here on the great america show if you want
00:34:51.840 to check them out it's old raleigh distillery.com if you're in the rally area go stop by it and check
00:34:56.760 them out even if you don't drink um alcohol and this isn't an episode to promote drinking alcohol
00:35:02.280 it's uh it was an episode to promote a great american company i think we need to do more of it and uh
00:35:07.380 if you guys have a company or you have a uh someone who owns a big business that scales across america
00:35:13.620 reach out to us info at lou dobs.com info at lou dobs.com or you guys can uh message me on twitter
00:35:19.740 uh i want to do more of this i want to promote more american companies because it's really what
00:35:24.100 matters in this country america first we've got to take care of our own before you take care of
00:35:29.540 anybody else and uh i want to start doing this more so if you know a friend if you know a company
00:35:34.320 corporation that scales um you know across america reach out to us and let us know we'll uh we'll do our
00:35:41.520 best uh because it's really what matters in this country employing americans hiring americans um
00:35:47.820 and good old uh american product that is all for us tonight here on the great america show folks
00:35:53.040 please be sure to join us tomorrow for the great america show we got an exclusive interview i did
00:35:57.120 uh over the weekend with ready for it are you ready for it kyle rittenhouse good old kyle rittenhouse
00:36:05.080 is back in the media uh he's got some big plans he's back in the public eye uh after charlie's brutal
00:36:11.100 uh assassination uh kyle told me he couldn't sit on the sidelines anymore so i sat down for an
00:36:17.200 exclusive interview with uh with kyle which we're going to bring you tomorrow on the great america
00:36:20.280 show uh really nice kid whose life was just turned upside down uh 22 years old right now i think
00:36:27.600 everything he went through that's just at an adolescent age um terrifying to think so join us for that
00:36:34.740 tomorrow on the great america show uh we'll have some more good stories and all that good stuff
00:36:38.700 uh and a uh wrap up from uh am fest in phoenix arizona terrific terrific event great great
00:36:44.360 patriots please be sure to join us for that tomorrow only here on the great america show folks until then
00:36:49.200 may god bless you may god bless america and may god bless the great
00:36:52.760 blue dobbs have a wonderful night everybody
00:36:54.880 okay
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