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Open the episode with our blind bourbon tasting and cigar choice for the evening, we discuss SC SB533, several liability law and the effect on South Carolina bars.
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Details
Open the episode with our blind bourbon tasting and cigar choice for the evening, we discuss SC SB533, several liability law and the effect on South Carolina bars.
Comment
Open the episode with our blind bourbon tasting and cigar choice for the evening, we discuss SC SB533, several liability law and the effect on South Carolina bars.
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The friends are discussing the renaming of their podcast, settling on "The Smoke Show." They then proceed to do a blind taste test of a bourbon, discussing its flavors and guessing what it is. They eventually discover it is a variation of Barstow Bourbon. They also discuss cigars and their preferences. Hey, so welcome to the episode of the now we just voted on live, the Smoke Show. How'd you guys arrive at this? We just decided to say fuck it and go with our original idea. Yeah, so we are now officially going to say we're the Smoke Show. We're no longer offensively poured. The Smoke Show? I'm sad, but I'm happy at the same time. The Smoke Show. The Smoke Show. We just went all four sides of a fucking square to get back to where we were. That's one of the things, you went around your ass to get to your elbows. And I went a little further to my armpits. And back to the ass. Straight back to the ass. Always, always end back at the ass. So, oh, where is, okay. So where's our mystery bourbon? One or two. I mean, five? One or two what? But for real, I feel like we really need to have a segue into the show. I feel like we're always going to be dead-aired, rabbit-holing, not really knowing what the hell we're doing until, as long as it holds the contents, that's all I care about. So welcome to the Smoke House podcast, Smoke Show podcast. Welcome to the podcast formerly known as Smoke Show. It was formerly known as the Smoke Show, then known as offensively poured, and then intermittently called random things, and now the Smoke Show podcast has been reborn. Smoke offensively show. Smoke offensively. That's actually not horrible. Smoke offensively. Smoke objectively. The offensive show. I think there actually is a podcast called The Offensive Show. So. So, for an intro, we should probably have something scribbled. I lost my notebook already. What am I going to do here? Yeah, I'm going to say you don't have any. I mean, I'm not getting blitzed, but I ain't got to have a baby pour. That's a hefty piece of glass right there. It is, man. Those things are solid. A little butt plug. Hey, fuck. Right back to the ass. The Smoke Show, we begin and end at the ass. And there's your smoke defensively. So, to come in on this, we would sit there and basically say, hey, welcome to the Smoke Show. Whoever's talking at that time, because I said, like I said, for the first several episodes, it'll have to be a constant reminder of who we are. So, you know, it's like, it's done. Yeah. So, welcome. You know, welcome to the third. Welcome to the Smoke Show. I'm the mayor. Here with me today is Hickey and Jared. We're going to sit here and discuss something that we feel is pretty near and dear to our hearts. It's something that I think a lot of people in South Carolina are going to care about. But before we get into that topic, what we're going to do is we're going to go, we're going to do our basic little sampling of a bourbon that Jared has brought for us. So, what we plan on doing is every episode, we're going to do a blind taste test to a bourbon. And then we're also, what? Hickey's face. Apple juice. Got a little funk to it. Apple juice. Apple juice. I was like, am I saying something wrong? Am I doing bad here? I was like, I thought I was kind of doing good. But, so, yeah. So, Hickey apparently has tried it. He doesn't look really impressed. No, it was one of those, I was like, it's sweet. And then it kind of kicks you right in the esophagus. It is pretty sweet, isn't it? Oh. Yeah. You're going to, yeah, you'll feel that later. Got a good strong back end bite. This is that, what do we have, $50, $60 range. So, the purpose of this, we're going to try this bourbon. We're going to talk about it. Tell us how much it's hurting my stomach right now. And then Jared, you know, since he brought it, he'll give us little tidbits. And we're going to kind of try to guess what it is and go from there. And this is why we're doing it. It's a raw taste test. It's not because we know what it is. Nobody's sponsored by it. It's just that we went out and bought this person and we're giving a true review over it. It's poured meat. Yes, this is poured meat. I prefer mine on the rocks. This one would benefit from the rocks. Yeah, it can be cut a little bit. On the front end, it's real sweet. And then it just kind of grabs you by the short hairs there. Yeah, but I'll tell you what, you give it a minute, it settles. I thought it was going to be really harsh on the stomach, and then it just kind of settled nicely. It's like a canter with that massive butt plug. It's like an inverted butt plug, though. It's a variation of something I've burned in here before that was pretty good. It's oaky. It's breaking a little bit today already, so. Yeah. It's definitely got a little vanilla. How aged is it? Why are we looking at it age-wise? I'm going to cover my eyes. They're vert, so there's no cheating. I want everybody to know there's literally a hand beside my face. I don't know because I can't read. Ooh, that second sip. It's hard. It's kind of real sweet up front. I really want to cut this. It says fall of 2017 is when it was distilled. It's got some legs, but the bottom of those legs are cleats. It was distilled in 2017, but when was it bottled? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Is it like a 5-year? 2017 in June? I mean, because if it just came out this year, it would be a 7-year. That don't taste like a 7-year. That's easy 9. If not, man, that is strong. It's got a strong oak to it. Now I'm feeling like if you cut it, it's actually going to be pretty good. I'm going to bet this was in some kind of barrel. It was finished in some other barrel. Mashed bill is corn is 69% wheat, 20% malt, barley 12%. Six-year. It's like 6, 7-year. It's a variation of something we've had. Damn. It's not bottled in bond or anything. It's 100 proof. It's 100 proof? That makes sense. I have no idea what this is. I'm telling you what it is. It's a variation of something he's brought. Yes. And I'm trying to sit here and think. So if anybody knows the collection of... It smells sweet. It tastes sweet initially, but oof. Yeah. It's got, you can tell it's high alcohol. But it doesn't hit you up front. No, it hits you on the back end. It's at the back of your, like the bottom of your throat. When it goes past your Adam's apple, that's when you feel it. And it's going down into your gullet. You feel it right about here. I have no idea what this is. I really, really don't. I'm trying to think. Our selection of alcohol is massive and random at this place. It is. We put a lot of liquor stores to rival. Is it... They just had Yellowstone. It's not Yellowstone. And it's not a Penelope? No. Uh-uh. It's not in any of the real common families, I don't think. I'm trying to think. It doesn't have beam sweetness. No, it doesn't. No. But Jim Beam, every product they've got has the same... It's not a Woodford, is it? No. Damn. To me, that has a Woodford vibe. I'm going to bet this is some kind of Makers. It's a Knob. Is it a Makers? I was really thinking it's a Knob Creek. Because it's got that oaky hit just like a Knob Creek or a Woodford does. What is this? What is this? A Barstow. Oh. A Barstow. He has had many variations of it. And this is the Origin Series. So the first bottle I got was the Fusion. That was good. That was good. I do remember that. I remember that being very... Oh, man. I'm going to do a little bit more bite to it. Well, that's not bad. But, man, God, it's got a strong... It's got a bite to it. About 50%, so... It is... Hey, did I ask you bottle... Is it bottled and bottled? I didn't... Boom. It says bottled and bottled. I was like, I know that tastes like a bottled and bond. That helped it. A little bit of water. Yeah. I'm about to say, if you cut it, it seems good. But I like to cut every... I like to ally all mine on the rocks. That would be better on the rocks. A little bit of water. That's not bad. That's not bad. You can repair it with Mexican mineral water if you'd like. Yeah. Barstown, I'm not talking shit, but damn. Settle the ulcers a little bit. That first sip, I was like, hmm. And then it kind of just punched me right in the esophagus. I was like, oh, that's a hot apple cider. Yeah. This is that, like, sitting around a campfire when it's fucking cold outside. Actually, I don't feel like that made it any better. Oh, God. How much did you put? I put like a splash. That opened it up. Yeah. I did a gulp. You opened up. I poured way too much in there. I just cleared the sinuses with Barstown. No, that opened it. Wow, it changed the whole perspective. It's like I just ate a fucking jalapeno. I mean, that's spicy. That's like an apple-y, like a spiced apple cider taste. It's just Topo Chico, Mexican mineral water. The fucking Mexicans having to make it all spicy. Oh, God. I mean, it's sitting right here. It's there in the bubble. Keep pushing it back up. Maybe we should pop it on the second bottle then. No, no, no. Maybe the second bottle will cancel this out. I mean, it's got a good up front, but that burns a little rough. Yeah. Oh, God. How did I pick up my cigar? Careful, that shit will burst into flames if you draw on it. Liquid cherry. Put the flames out. That actually helped it a lot. Good old Maduro's. What are you smoking tonight? Mayor? Ask Icky. Let me settle down. I'm about to say. I'm smoking the Oliva Connecticut. Just grabbed a sample bag. That's what I grabbed off the top. It was not the correct pairing with this bourbon. It's a spicy Connecticut. It's mellow as it goes down. I like Olivas. They're good sticks for what they are. They are a little spicy up front, but almost all of them kind of mellow really well. Connecticut doesn't. I'm not a Connecticut guy. I normally like Maduro cigars. It's a mayor stick for sure. Spicy all the way. I love spice. This, but not this. Yeah, this with this is just a double kick in the throat. That swig actually mellowed out a lot. That was pretty good. That's good. That would be a good bourbon on the rocks on a cold night. Now since my taste buds are dead. That actually helped. That might help on the next bottle. Oh God. What did you bring? A wrist of crap? Booker's barrel proof. God almighty. Booker's way too overpriced. Way too overpriced. For a mediocre bourbon. Baker's. Now Baker's I do like. Booker's, my God. If you don't put like a good, you know, a finger. You have to have a finger of the bourbon. And then four fingers of water. I mean that God is strong. Everything is barrel proof and 120 proof. I don't know why everybody. Everybody's like, oh, I like hot alcohol. I'm like, no, you can't enjoy it. But to answer your question, Jared. We'll go back. I'm smoking a Drew Estates underground. Sorry, under crown Maduro. It's simple. It's well known. It's simple. It's a good Maduro. It's smooth. You know, you get a little bit of that dark chocolate off of it. Earthy. That's a good just daily. It is. It's a good chill cigar. You can't go wrong with it. It won't break your budget. You know, it's not one of these things. It's not a $15, $20 cigar. It's like a $9, $10 cigar and it's not bad. I like it. I like it. I've always liked it. It's one of my favorite Maduros. For a while there, the shop in town, you had a really good selection when it opened. And then I feel like they kind of fell off. And the only thing they really have are undergrounds and nubs that aren't flavored. Everything else is some kind of flavored stuff. But underground, you can't go wrong with it. It's a good show every night. It's a heavy smoke. You feel like a smokey factor in a cigar. I'm smoking a Tabernacle. Something that I can't read. That's a good stick. Red band. Tabernacle. Nice, dark. Tabernacle's a good cigar. I like Tabernacle. They make a good smoke. Never had a lot of issues with them. The one thing I will say first. This thing burns even as shit. You don't touch it up ever. No, that's Olivas, man. They're good about that. It's hard to get one. Not really. You said that's an O Series? No, that's just Connecticut. Oh, it's Connecticut. Yeah. Huh. I had the G Series earlier. I like the O. Everybody likes the V. You know everybody's like, Oh, V, V, V, V. Series V's a good stick. But it depends on the wrapper, too. Like, I don't like the Robusto Series V. Brainfire, the Perfecto's much better. For whatever reason, it just smokes better for me. I like the Boxpress Toros. That's a good one, too. The Morano's. The Morano's are good. Well, let's bring out number two and see what we've got going on. I'm ready. Yeah, I'm ready to go. We're going to have to get into this topic we were talking about, man. So this is a plastic top. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's going to be a classic. Fucking rock. This is what, let's see, let's see, let's see. This is a plastic Canadian Hunter. Look at that. Oh, my God. It looks like water. This is like Pine-Sol. He didn't even pour me anything. I was like, I'm not going to insult you by pouring you a real cup. This looks like fucking apple juice. That's something you see in a movie. Pour me, give me a little bit more. Give me a little bit more. Stay with it. On the nose, you could taste it with your nose right out the gate. Oh, fuck. He did this on purpose. He's like, I'm going to hurt these guys tonight. So it was a $50 bottle. Now we're down to the $10 plastic cap. This is the one he had to search for something shitty. And he's like, I'm going to a party and I don't like these people. And it didn't bite me last year. Great. That was not what I expected. I'm not going to lie. It's not bad. I mean, after... Holy shit. It's pretty good. We probably just burnt the hell out of ourselves on the first taste. No. It's pretty mild. Well, then this is a good combination. Take a shot of that and then finish with this. I don't even know what this is. Okay. Sorry for the plastic here. What's the proof? 40, 80 proof. It's low. But this is a 45%, so 90 proof. That's not as low as I thought it was going to be. Let's see. It's still for three days. Is it a... It's like a three year. Nelson County, Kentucky. It's sweet. It's young. Looks like a Pepsi bottle. Yeah, I would not... Gold medal award for excellence. Jim Beam. That's not Jim Beam. No. It's a sour mash. It's a sour mash? Yeah, it's got that going for it. Damn, I would not have pegged that as a sour mash. Maybe our taste buds are damaged. And they're not coming back. That first sip of that last one was like, Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, that thing. Bull. I mean... Price range. This is less than 30. Less than 30. Less than 30. Less than 30. Less than 30. Have you ever had old granddad whiskey? Almost just said that. I know it's not old granddad. No. Old granddad. What's the word? I can see the bottle. It's got a green label square bottle. It's not a rye, is it? No, it's definitely not a rye. I don't... What is that? It's a green label on a square bottle and I can't remember what the hell this stuff's called. But that's the taste I'm getting. It used to be the real bourbon at the House of Blues years ago. I can't remember what it was. Is it a popular brand? Yeah. I think it's probably not far off from what we just drank. It's not overly popular. Does the barge sound generic? I suck at this. What is that green label on? I suck at this. Evan Williams? Nah. Is it Evan Williams? Is it Evan Williams? No. Evan Williams' green label is a rye. It's of the Willet Distillery family. Really? Of the what? Willet. Willet Distillery? Huh. That tells me nothing. I don't know the distilleries. Like, that's the thing. I love bourbon. Been drinking bourbon forever. And I know, like, everybody knows. We gotta drag you out and let's do the tour. There's the Buffalo Trace. Everybody knows the Jim Beam's. But when you get into some of these other... Other beers? Yeah. And that they're popular. People know who they are. But I just don't. Because I don't give a shit about none of that. I don't care where it's made. I don't care how it's made. I care more about how I feel the next day and how much I enjoy drinking it. It's funny to me, too, because I get people that are like, you know those expensive bourbon drinkers that they buy based on price, not taste? Yeah. I can find a $30 bottle of bourbon that's good. Jim Beam Double Oak. I still swear by that one. So how would you rate this compared to the first one? This one's much smoother than the first one, but it's slower. But I want to try this another day without having that other one in front, without having the Bardstown in front of it. So the Bardstown had a real nasty kick in the back. This has none of that. And I don't know if it's because my taste buds are dead. It's numbed everything up. There's definitely not as much of a kick in this. What's the year? Like, did it say? I have no clue because it's a plastic cap. And I don't know the last time I bought a plastic cap. Is it a glass bottle or a plastic bottle? It's a glass bottle. With a plastic cap. Oh my God. I'm still like Canadian Hunter. I have no idea. I'd be straight up guessing at this point, but it's real sweet. Old Bardstown. There you go. It's the same damn bourbon. Holy shit. Well, the old stuff's better than the new stuff. Yeah. Whoever did the old stuff, give him a rate. Give him a rate. This is just an example of why you should not try to improve on shit. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But no, that's the whole thing with this stuff. Well, that's a bottle and bond. So I knew when I tasted it, that's a bottle and bond. That flavor is dead on bottles and bond. So, again, that's my thing. I don't know distilleries, but I know... Like, I can usually pick an age. I can usually pick an alcohol content. I thought that was... I thought it was not 90. So, half the price? Better drink. That would make a damn good old-fashioned. Yes, it would. That really would make a good old-fashioned. It's just younger. You could put that in that smoker infuser you got. And that would make it really good. That other Barstown would kill you. Yeah. It'd be too much. Too much oaky. That doesn't have a lot of oak to it. That other one would be really, really good mixed with something. I'm just trying to figure out how long it would age. I think it's about $28 a bottle. It's got to be young. It's got to be at three years. Five years at the most. Yeah, I'm thinking it's probably at three years. I'll bet it's three. Well, I'll bet you're on the five. Well, it's 90 proof. It's probably about a three. I'll bet it's three to five. Yeah, I'm going off with three. But a 90 proof, went in strong. They didn't age long. Yeah, but no kick to it at all. Well, that's also weak. But you can tell that some gun has been cut. Oh, yeah. Because of that? It's a blend. Yeah. Well, I think they said it had... I didn't know if it said anything about what's in it. It's been made for the method developed through generations. The Willett, blah, blah, blah. I didn't realize. For some reason, I didn't realize Bardstown was made by Willett. This is an old-time... This is Bardstown Distillery. So I don't know if there's any correlation between the two of them or not. I'll bet it's some dude from Bardstown, Kentucky is the one that... Yeah, yeah. This could have been just an original thing that Willett made. Well, you could also get guys that just... That distiller has a reputation. So they use the name. I always forget the guy's name. It was the Four Roses Master Distiller that could take a shot of bourbon from anywhere and tell you not only which distillery made it, which brand it was, which rickhouse it was in, how long it was aged. But that's somebody who's paid to do that. Oh, it's ridiculous. I'm just kind of sore. So for the old Bardstown, it's Willett, Olds, Bardstown, straight bourbon, 90 proof. Yep. One of the flagship brands produced since the 1980s. That was back when bourbon wasn't popular either. Well, you look at like... So the guy I was thinking of was J.W. Rutledge, who used to work for Four Roses. Four Roses is my go-to. Four Roses Small Batch is my go-to bourbon. It's got just the right amount of spice. It doesn't have the... I don't like rye because, to me, for whatever reason, the taste I get from rye always has like a dill pickle edge to it. Yeah. It's just not my thing. So he left Four Roses and started making cream of Kentucky. It's a great bourbon. But they ride on his name to that last batch he made, the single barrel and small batch. I have a collection of bottles of that I'm keeping. It's just really good. It's funny. You get people that don't drink bourbon that are expensive. You get a single barrel bourbon. I prefer the single barrel. Which barrel? Because if you put four bottles together, they're of different colors, they're different tastes, they're different everything, depending on what rickhouse it was and what level. Four Roses, all their rickhouses are only two stories. So you don't get a drastic difference where you go to like... Buffalo Turkey's got four or five, ain't it? Yeah. Well, you go to like Wild Turkey. They share a campus with them. Wild Turkey has a seven level, and they have to rotate the barrels because based on the height, it changes the profile of the bourbon. So that was the best. If you ever go to Kentucky and do a tour, Wild Turkey, do not like their bourbon. But the best tour of all. See, I think their Long Branch is really good. Wild Turkey Long Branch, to me, is a really good bourbon. I don't think that's that bad. I think Wild Turkey 101 is underrated, actually. Wild Turkey 101, for mixing bourbon, it's decent. But I'm not drinking that on the rocks. It's just not my thing. I like spicier tasting. I like 101 on the rocks. I think it's pretty good. I much rather have their Long Branch. Their Long Branch, just with a little bit of ice, not a whole lot. Get you a craft ice, a big old block or a spear. It's good. I'll do it with maybe two or three cubes. And that's all you need on the Long Branch. I think it's a very, very underrated bourbon. I really enjoy it. I'm afraid to say what are underrated bourbons because I feel like they get on runs where all of a sudden you just can't get it. I like Buffalo Trace. I'm not paying $70 for a bottle of Buffalo Trace, ever. It's a $40 bottle. And that's the high end. It used to be $25, $30 for a bottle of Buffalo Trace. Now they're hiding under the counter for $100. They got smart and marketed it. And that's what they did. They made it something. They took something and made it into something. What was the HBO series Buscemi was in? I have no idea. I don't watch HBO. That's what got Blanton's. That's what made Blanton's impossible to find. You could get it everywhere. And then Steve Buscemi was drinking it on HBO thing and everybody had to collect it. I still think Blanton's ain't all that in a bag of chips. It's decent bourbon. It's not a $100 bottle of bourbon. No. That's what I'm saying. It's not that to me. I'll be the guy to say it. Okay, it's good, but... Pappy Van Winkle? Way over. Good bourbon. I will never pay what retail value is for Pappy. It's not worth it. Man, I had one of their like 17 years and it was nasty. I don't know what people are like, oh my God, it's so good. I'm like, no, it's age too damn long. There's a sweet spot. Like that 7 or 10 years is where you want your bourbon. Yeah, 7 or 9 years. That's me. 7 or 9 years. This, if it's a 3 or 5 year, I could still drink it. It's real sweet. You can tell it's younger than sweet. That sweetness kind of tapers off with age. It's good. That would make a good old-fashioned. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right, guys, I think we've dwelt on this long enough. We're going to move on to our topic. I'm actually going to let Mr. Hickey take the reins on this one. This is something that he's dealing with and pretty knowledgeable about. In the great state of South Carolina, there's not a lot of rules. I will say, having moved from a state with a lot of rules to a state with very little rules, it's easy to work in South Carolina. However, the rules South Carolina does have tend to be over-exhausted and stupid. And it just is what it is. I am a politician, full disclosure. However, there's a line where you go, hey, is this something a stupid person would do? And that should be your first filter when you see a bill. And, unfortunately, some people don't go, hey, is this stupid? They go, hey, can I leverage this to something bigger? And that's where we get into liquor liability, tort reform, all that kind of stuff. Why is this so complicated? It's a plastic cap. I'm bringing the whole damn thing. So we're going to do a little kind of rundown on liquor liability and stuff tonight because we have a lot of friends that are involved in that, obviously, looking at what we cover in our podcast and looking at what our hobbies are. Liquor liability is an impact. So there's a couple bills that were introduced, and if you're not familiar with the situation, liquor liability in South Carolina requires this. I'm going to interrupt you. So liquor liability in South Carolina, they have this ridiculous requirement that has to do with a lot of factors. But the biggest thing is personal accountability should be what we base it on, but we don't. So now there's this liability issue where all these bars have to have this ridiculous level of liability coverage, and there's no severability, which means that, essentially, if I go out drinking in town, and I go to four bars, and at one of those bars I decide to kill a 12-pack and then drive home and kill little Jimmy on the corner, all of those bars are now responsible for me being an idiot, even though only one of those bars over-served me. And realistically, we all have that friend that can kill a 12-pack and drive home, and you'll never know, we have that friend that can drink half a beer and they can't walk out of the bar. Yes, we do. So it's really hard to gauge that. And because of that liability coverage, a lot of insurance providers are pulling out of the state of South Carolina. And as a result, the market for insurance has dwindled down to only a couple of providers, so the cost of insurance is going through the roof. And I know the initial gut reaction everybody is, well, it's the insurance companies being jackasses. Well, if I'm going to insure a bar that has no major problems or no complaints, but that bar could get sued because Joe Shitshack down the road over-served somebody, and now the bar that I insure is liable for the damages done by that bar, I'm not going to underwrite that bar. Why would I? So the cost of insurance has gone up to cover that. And there's bars seeing 300% to 500% increases in insurance. Wait, how much? 300% to 500%. So if you think that through, it's already expensive. If you go to North Carolina, it's already less. Out the gate, it was less. So it was harder to get liquor liability coverage in South Carolina anyway. And now you get places that are getting insurance quotes that are higher than their total revenue of last year. So you come in and that's ridiculous. Yeah, your bar does $100,000 in revenue. That is not profit. You built profit in there. They're making $50,000 maybe off that if they're lucky. And now all of a sudden we're going to come in and say, well, they did $100,000 in revenue. We're going to charge you $130,000 in liability coverage. That bar is under water. They're done. And we're starting to see bars closing left and right. And we're even seeing, like, successful bars, places that have been around for a long time that have weathered everything. And to me, the biggest thing in this is the kick in the nuts of you weathered COVID. You went through the biggest bunch of bullshit. Regulation hit from different cities, our city included prior to my term. But stupid decisions were made that impacted restaurants and bars that made it impossible to generate revenue or even be open to that extent in some places. And then you get through all that to come out and have your insurance provider go, you know what, dude, we just can't help you. Like half the bars in South Carolina went to renew their insurance and their provider went, we just can't cover you anymore. So you've got to go back. And they're getting that notice a week before it's due. So you get this letter in the mail saying, hey, you've got to re-up your insurance. You call, all right, cool, go ahead. In your business model, you've got to go, all right, it's going to go up. Nothing ever goes down. It's going to go up. But you get all of a sudden you're like, all right, cool, my bill was like $30,000 last year. It's going to be $35,000, $40,000 this year at the most. And it's $140,000. What the hell just happened here? So how did this all, like, okay, okay, that's the thing I want to know. How did it get to that point? Yeah. I mean, what the shit? There's several lawsuits that happened. The big problem is, and there's litigators, their job is to benefit whoever they represent. It is what it is. And they benefit from the ability to attach all kinds of stuff to lawsuits to get as much as they can for their client. That's their job. It should not be the job of government to make that easier for them to do. You know, I understand that we want to protect people. We don't want drunk drivers. We don't want people making stupid decisions. But at the end of the day, that person made a stupid decision. And the bars are having to pay for it. And because the bars are having to pay for it, the insurance companies are having to back the bars. And it's not just – it's frustrating because there's so many layers to this that some make somewhat logical sense. Some are just so far out in that field. And after speaking – so I went to the state legislature. I talked to the lobbyists, which, let's be honest here, the lobbyists run the legislatures. I don't know if anybody listening knows that or not. But if you want to get your local whatever politician to do something, talk to whoever the lobbyist is that spends the most money on their campaign. The fact of the matter is that's who's driving that person. That's sad. There's a handful of people that I will say – I'm not going to mention any legislator's names now because I don't think it's right for me to call anybody out or support a campaign in an election year. But at the end of the day, there's a handful of people that – I really thought you were about to drop somebody's name real quick. I'm so close. I'm biting my tongue so hard. I'm not going to say anybody's name but this son of a bitch. Yeah, I've got a couple meetings scheduled that a month from now, I'm not going to lie, names are going to get dropped. But – if they don't come around to understanding where they are. But you can see which lobbyists carry the most weight. And the problem with the restaurant lodging lobby is they're so competitive with each other that it's hard to represent them as a lobbyist, which makes it hard to influence legislators. But when you're lumped in with a lobby that supports a legislator and that lobby is their way or the fucking highway, whatever you say – and if the trucker's lobby is the reason this is happening, I'll put that out there. Why is the trucker lobby involved? Now, this may make sense. This is the rundown I got. It makes no sense. There was a lawsuit years ago and I don't know the parties involved necessarily, but a truck was legally parked. A car tried to pull out of a – it was basically a parallel park on a road next to an entrance to a commercial lot. A car tried to pull out of that commercial lot and a car coming down the road creamed that car and killed the driver or devastatingly injured the driver, whatever it was. But you have a limit of liability for those cars. So the litigator went, well, if that truck wasn't there, there's a chance this accident didn't happen. So they went, cool, we're going to lump this truck in. Well, there's no percentage fault. But that's a what-if. But he won. How do you win off a what-if? He convinced a jury. Well, then they appealed that all the way to the South Carolina Supreme Court. The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld it. And, you know, that truck is deemed minimal at fault, like single-digit percentage at fault. But there's no severability either. Man, that makes me want to find one of those juries and trip myself and bust my face and be like, if you weren't walking there, I would have never done that. Now you know how everybody else feels, you moron. Exactly. I mean, you're going to go down a bad, bad rabbit hole. And that's what happened. They went down this rabbit hole and then we had those instances where, like the Folly Beach incident, where the couple got railed by a – they were driving a golf cart and a drunk driver smashed into them, killed his newly married wife. Yeah, I remember that story. It's a whole mess. Well, there's another incident. The same thing happened. They went back and they said, all right, well, this guy went to these X number of bars. Every one of them contributed to this situation. So we sued them all. And they all got lumped in as a percentage fault. And it's not like you're 2% at fault. You're just at fault. So when they get their judgment, whoever has the best coverage pays the majority of the judgment. They don't have a choice. I mean, you're all going to pay and your insurance company is going to cut you a check and they're going to get into a fight and blah, blah, blah, blah. So now the insurance company is going, well, if there's a chance this bar that's never had a complaint could get lumped in with Joe Schmoe's shit check, I don't want to write this guy. You know, it should be harder for the bar that's got all these complaints to get insurance, but the fact of the matter is now nobody can get it because there's a chance that this reputable institution could get screwed by this dipshit institution that's not following rules. So it's harder. And the trickle-down of that is, again, I didn't realize how bad it had gotten. It's not in my level of politics. It's not in my stream of stuff. So I was contacted by a local establishment saying, hey, is there anything you can do? And I'm like, it's outside of my wheelhouse. I can't touch that. But I can get you a meeting with people that can. And it was two weeks before the session was going to end. We got up there. We met with the people. And there was a bill that was introduced. Senate Bill 533 in South Carolina, which basically was this omnibus bill that said, we're going to address this severability tort reform, all this kind of stuff, so that we can fix this across the board. But it lumped in so many different things that the Senate couldn't get their head around it, and they were never able to get it elevated to a point where they could do anything with it. And it just kind of died in discussion. So then Senator Tom, I'm not going to mention any names, sorry, Senator Lookup 1048 and the sponsor, and you'll know who it is, introduced a bill that patched it. So the same problem happened in Alabama. Alabama's ISO went from like a 2 or a 3 to a 10. And when the ISO gets to a 10, it's no longer an open market for insurance. It's who's willing to take that risk? I'm going to pause you right there for somebody who's like people out there who aren't knowledgeable like me. What is ISO? So the best way to think of ISO is like a risk factor. So the lower your ISO, the less risk you have. When your ISO jumps real high, like a 10 is a stupid high. Nobody's touching a 10. You know, something simple, if you're going for homeowner's insurance, you look at your fire district. Your fire district has a rated ISO. If your ISO is high, your homeowner's insurance goes up. One of the things we fought for locally was getting our ISO down. Got a new fire chief. Busted his ass. Got the training up. Did the bare minimum to drop our ISO a point. It seems like nothing, but that one point reduction in ISO is a major reduction in people's homeowner's insurance. Yeah, it's like our moderate. Yeah, the same thing happens with insurance. So the same thing happens in every industry. There's an ISO rating for what they do or whatever their liability is. And the ISO got too high to be justifiable. Alabama found a fix. They changed a couple lines of code and open market again, fixed the problem. South Carolina, the senator introduced Senate Bill 1048, which was like the Band-Aid that we're going to fix these couple little lines that would allow the insurance companies to come back. We spoke with the insurance lobby. We spoke with insurers. And we spoke with out-of-state insurance companies and said, hey, is this legit? Like, this bill would have fixed it. Like, yeah, so we went down there and were like, dude, 1048, let's go. You know, how do we get this done? And it got blocked by a senator from an area that's very rural. And who's unopposed? Who's between North Augusta and Greenville? Look it up. So the senator blocks it. We'll take a two-third vote of the Senate to override that block. And it's an election year. So nobody wants to override the we'll call him the majority leader. Well, he's this hero of 533, and he's the guy that blocked 1048 because, well, it's a Band-Aid. Well, and the problem is all these senators are like, well, it's just collateral damage when you're fighting for greater good. Well, the problem is the restaurant and bar industry is the number two industry in the state of South Carolina and the number eight employer. So, yeah, you might win leveraging that, but how much are you willing to lose to win that leverage? And then when you look at it, like the group that really is behind this, the truckers' lobby, was like, well, I don't want to get cut out of the deal. And, really, the deal came from the truckers, like, hey, we need to fix this. And if they don't get their way, fucking nobody gets their way. So they went in and leaned on him like, hey, hold the freaking line or we're going to walk. And this large group leader may or may not have aspirations of running for South Carolina governor someday and needs that money. I will not fucking vote for him. No, and I have a string of emails that I may or may not email to everybody that has an email when he decides he wants to run. And I may share his party, but fuck him. That's the thing. Like, you need to look at what you're really doing here. And I understand wanting to. It's kind of like you don't discuss gun control after a mass shooting because everybody's tempers are up. You can't look at it level-headed. Yeah, there's no reasonable thought. But at no point, the gun lobby is not the problem here. It's just emotions. In this case, you're looking at major industry for our state. Truckers can still be in our state and deliver to Georgia and can deliver to North Carolina and can deliver to Florida or wherever the hell they want to go to. Joe Blow restaurant owner is stuck or Joe Blow bar owner is stuck. Their business is here. If you make it impossible to do business here, the only ones that survive are the chains. So you're killing the small industry, small bar, small taverns, small everything. The local water and coals. Yeah. The ones that you and I and everybody else that probably would listen to this are going to go to. Like, you want to go to your neighborhood bar, have a drink after work, or on a weekend you want to go have a cigar and a bourbon or whatever, and all of a sudden those places start closing. And everybody says, well, it's the economy, it's Biden, it's this. It's not. It's a state. The problem is everybody wants to say it's a federal issue. It's a state legislature being irresponsible and not understanding the ramifications and being more willing to carry a bargaining chip and really look at the impact to the state. And I think right now you're only seeing small stuff. Like, we've seen like seven or eight bars close in the past week. But some of those have been existing for 30 years. But seven to eight bars closing in a week is a scary thought. Oh, yeah. Because once this thing keeps taking forward, you know, keeps going forward and forward and forward, who's next? And the messed up part is a lot of bars, taverns, restaurants go, oh, my competitors shut down because their insurance went to buy. Cool. Well, that means you have less competition. What they don't understand is they're not taking away the competition. They're taking away the playing field. So you can't win a Super Bowl without a football field. But does this, like, affect just like an establishment that's just a bar? Yes. Or what about like a restaurant? Also, it has to do with your percentage sales. If your percentage sales is over a certain percentage of alcohol versus food, you're a bar. What's the percentage, though? I don't have – I think it's 70%. So if 30% – Allegedly. Allegedly. If 30% of your revenue – if 31% of your revenue comes from a bar, you might get screwed by this. If you serve alcohol after 5 p.m., you might get screwed by this. If you vote for this particular prick, you might get screwed by this. So you're not even saying that bars can close down. You're saying like restaurants can close down. I'm saying like Applebee's could be in trouble eventually. So chains could leave. But a chain can survive it because they're getting revenue elsewhere. But you also know, like, if you're looking at – remember, like, in California, like, a lot of the department stores, Target and all those places were having this mass – like, people just stealing shit constantly. And what do they do? They cool it out. Well, if you're saying our insurance is so high, there's two things that are going to happen. They're either not going to sell alcohol or they're going to limit you so they don't go over. Or they're just going to bounce. And who – I mean I can go to a restaurant and not drink beer and be fine. That doesn't matter to me. I don't care. I don't go there for the alcohol. I'm going for the food. But there's a lot of people that go to those places for both. But I'm going to go to our local taproom, brewery, wine bar or whatever to have a drink and a cigar. And when that goes away, you're looking at major industry problems. Not only are you looking at tax revenue for small towns. If you look at most small towns, your biggest source of commercial tax revenue is going to be bars and taverns. It just is. You look at the employees that they have, the other sources of stuff. Like if you're shopping in a small town and you want to grab a drink and go poke around or go to like a sip and shop, you can't do it anymore. They're just gone. You're going to have a second prohibition. It's going to be terrible. So is there anything immediately that some of these small town bars and whatnot can do to lock and load? The governor can override all of it. From my understanding, and I'm still in the research phase of this, but it sounds like the governor by executive order could fix this stuff like tomorrow. But again, we're talking about a majority leader in an election year. Pick your battles. And from a political standpoint, is it a battle you want to pick? Especially in a stateless South Carolina, we're going to go red. It doesn't matter what you do. Democrats aren't winning here. It won't happen. Unless this kind of thing takes off. So from a political standpoint, it's kind of that we want to keep it quiet. And most bars, you figure they get their insurance between May and November. Because you open for the summer or you open for the Christmas season. So a lot of these places are like, I don't have to worry about it until November. Cool. Well, when November comes, they don't have to session until January. And if they do everything by the book, it goes to committee, subcommittee, discussion, vote, all that kind of crap. It didn't happen on January 1st. This happened in May, June. So there's a place a year out. You're screwed. A year from now, they might pass something to fix this. Or the governor could come in and, by executive order, at least band-aid it. And I don't like policy band-aids. And I don't like that we're introducing policy to fix policy. Just repeal the policy that's bad. But that's not how legislators think, especially not how litigators think. So it's really just a terrible situation created by people trying to use an industry to leverage another industry in their wishes. So I'm hearing boycott the truckers. Oh, you can't. I mean, there's part of that. To start slashing tires. When you go to vote, or if you talk to anybody running, like, listen, what's your thought on tort reform? And if you don't see that as a primary thing on their stance right now, they're destroying small business in your town. Period. Anybody that doesn't have tort reform, severability, discussion of this, any of that, any of the debates, discussions, or campaigning, they're garbage. Vote for somebody else. And if they're the only one running, put your name out there as a write-in. Like, put your name on a ballot. Get Joe Everyman to run for something. Become a citizen of the legislature again. Stop letting these litigators do everything. They make money off this. It's not a conflict of interest because they're not making money directly, but they are. And they don't want to step on that. And this is something they can litigate into the ground. They can discuss into the ground. But at the end of the day, most of your legislature, people who are fairly independently wealthy, most politicians in general, you can't be poor and a politician. You just can't do it. No, that's why there's career politicians. I mean, they can make a ton of money. I mean, how many politicians out there can you name that came in being worth nothing, and then they come out and they're worth millions? You shouldn't call AOC out like that. Or Pelosi or any of them. It doesn't matter what side we're on either. You can call out any guy that's been in there for 34 years. Absolutely. 10 years. You can see their income, their net worth is way higher than their income. Oh, it's stupid because you get insider trading. You don't care what you do. You know stuff's coming before it's coming. Even at a local level, I'm not saying that local politicians are out of the loop. At the end of the day, we know things that other people don't. If we choose to take action to make money off that, that should be a conflict of interest. But if we filter it through something, we're free and clear, which I think is bullshit, which is why I refuse to take a salary even. To me, that's bullshit. At a local level, you shouldn't have a salary. I don't care what anybody says. But at a state and federal level where it is a full-time job, yeah, you should have a salary to compensate your efforts. However, that should be your only salary. You should not be playing in the stock market. You should not be supporting industry. You should not be doing any of that stuff. Land deals. Yeah, you sure as hell shouldn't have anybody related to a lobby or a PAC funding your fucking campaign because you know they're in your ear. And what's sad, there will never be term limits because term limits, I feel, would fix a lot of this because you don't have the time and the opportunity. If you limit how long these people are in there and you say, hey, look, you've been in here 10 years. Time for you to go. Get out. I can't affect change in 10 years. Well, if you can't, then you suck. Well, so there's the double-edged sword of term limits. I am pro-term limit. I'm going to put that out there initially. But if you know your term is up next year or two years from now or you can't run again, you're either lame duck or deadly. And you could be deadly in the worst possible way because you've learned enough of the system to know how I can screw whatever I want to screw to get what I want. And I know I'm not going to come up again, so fuck it. I'm going balls to the walls. That's when you get into the Trump-Biden stuff or whatever. Presidents have two terms. In their second term, they're either lame duck or they're nuclear. It's just what they are. When you're in a local level where nobody's paying attention to you and you know you can't run again, that's the thing. This is state-level politicians doing this. Nobody pays attention. Nobody knows who they are. Half the time, there's one or two that might be in our area. Everybody knows who Brandon Guffey is. He's a great dude. He knows his stuff, whatever. Most people just know the governor, and that's about as far as it goes. So when you get into the legislature, they don't know. So if I know I'm not going to run again, my agenda becomes my only priority. Because campaign finance doesn't matter anymore. What the people think, really, from the day you get elected until then, it no longer matters. It becomes a personal, whatever the hell I want to do. You can just stuff your pockets. There is kind of a, you really need to pay attention to make sure you elect somebody who's in it for the people. Because if they're not, their personal agenda becomes their only agenda. Yeah, but out of 50 people, you might have four that are like that. And they don't run for office. Yeah. But that's the whole thing. And the sad thing is, there would be a way, like you said, if you have somebody come in and they come out in the second term, they're going to be disruptive. They're going to destroy everything because they didn't do what they want. They're like, you know what? Fuck everybody. I don't give a shit. Honestly, I wish there was a way you could bring them up for prosecution, but I know you can't. But there has to be a way. And everybody was like, oh, the people will fix it. The people ain't going to do nothing. Not unless you lynch them or something. No. Well, the people also, like, look at the shiny object over here while I do all this. Yeah. And you can dangle – That's most politic. Yeah, you can dangle something that looks plastic over here and do anything you want behind the scenes and nobody can touch it. So that's what's happening here. Politics suck. The greatest quote I heard was, it's collateral damage in pursuing the greater good. And I'm sorry, the number two injury, number eight employer isn't collateral damage. It's detrimental. Like, you're going to see a major impact across the state over the next year, and everybody who's in office now that's running again should seriously be looked at. Where did you vote on these two bills? Where did you vote in cloture on this? Where did you vote on this? And if you didn't vote the right way, you should not be put back in office. So basically, just don't vote for the incumbent. Go look at the incumbent. Hey, did you vote for cloture on this? Did you force this to a voter or did you allow them to continue to debate dumb shit? And if you allow them to continue to debate, fuck you. You're out. Put the next guy in. They're never going to look. Again, it's a presidential election year, so everybody's looking at Trump and Biden, and Trump and Biden are not the ones closing bars down in South Carolina. You've got to look at it like this, too. South Carolina is not a wealthy state. No. I mean, it's a poor state, highly, highly, highly, highly blue-collar agriculture. You're not getting a lot of people who are going to have time and want to put the effort trying to learn about what's going on, and that's what's sad. You've got to find a way. How can you make these resources more available to where Joe Below doesn't have to try to find a computer and search all this crap, and they have no idea or interest in what they're doing, and they're not going to find it. They're going to be like, you know what? This sucks. Fuck it. I want a beer. Wait. I can't get a beer. That's really the problem is that there's not a good way. We're not a well-read society in South Carolina, which is what it is. No. I mean, we're blue-collar and poor. I mean, household income and education correlate whether you like it or not. And you can be highly educated and just not give a shit, which is you go to other states, they can be super highly educated. They're just not paying attention to the state and stuff because who cares? You know, when you get a presidential election, everybody thinks that what happens on Pennsylvania Avenue is extremely important. The state is still important. I mean, your taxes are set locally. Your state controls most of that stuff. It's going to affect you more than what goes on federally for the most part anyway. Oh, yeah. And they're like, we need to change all the local politicians. We need to change all the state politicians. But they don't look at what they did. You know, half the time, especially if you have a first-year incumbent, all they've been doing is hanging on for dear life to figure out what the hell happened from the previous person, especially when you take an office where somebody's been in office for at least a term or two. Yeah. They may have fucked things sideways. And you come in, you're just trying to get the ducks in a row so you can do anything. It can take you years to do that. Legislation takes forever to pass. It takes forever to get – everything in government has to go through so many layers of crap. At any given time, you can disrupt it, but the people don't pay attention. You know, but they can tell you what Biden had for breakfast yesterday. They can tell you his favorite ice cream. Exactly. You know, they all know that Trump likes a Big Mac and a Diet Coke. But at the end of the day, they don't know that the majority leader in the Edgefield region of South Carolina is blocking a bill that's closing bars. Yeah. They don't see that. They just see their bars closing. And I've already seen the comments on Facebook that it's because of inflation. Because insurance – there's no way. There's not 500% inflation. There's just not. You know, when you close the market and you only have one or two people willing to take a risk, they're going to take that risk at a high dollar. You know, it's the same thing like if I'm gambling on something and the odds are shit, I'm not investing in that. Why would I? You know, that's what insurance companies do every day. They're gambling on you not causing a major claim that's going to bankrupt them. Everybody thinks insurance is to your benefit. It's still a business. You know, when major storms hit, there's a reason they go for FEMA funding and stuff. Because if insurance companies provide all that – the hail storm we just had recently. I'm in a neighborhood of 300 houses. 150 of them need new roofs. If all state covered all that, the local offices could toast. Yeah. You know, I mean, you can't do that. You have to have layers of protection, and there's none in South Carolina. You're just stuck. Man. That's just – It's an eye-opening clusterfuck is what it is. Yeah. It's like it's hard to – like, what do you say? Just like that sucks. But it brings up so big – I mean, yeah, the issue of bars and the liability and stuff. But it's like, is that where it stops? Because it's like what I'm saying. You could be walking down the street, and you bump into somebody, and they – you know, it's an accident. Those two people weren't paying attention. Somebody falls down. Say they hit the back of their head the right way, and they end up passing away. The family could be like, well, if that person was not there walking, that wouldn't have happened. Or if, you know, if that tree wasn't planted there and that branch didn't fall and kill or hurt my partner or my friend, whatever. Yeah. Where's the line? So who planted the tree? So not only are we going after the city for allowing a tree to be planted, we're going after the company that planted the tree. We're going after the nursery that grew the tree, you know. Eventually, we're going to try to sue God. Yeah. I mean, it's just – where's the line? And if we can't – and, I mean, there is lines, but too deep. I mean, at the end of the day, it's personal accountability. If you fuck up that bad and you kill somebody, you should have to see the ramifications of that. You know, if you kill the primary breadwinner in a household, and that person has a lifelong income based on this, that, and the other, and you're going to litigate that and say this person had the potential to make $3 million in their lifetime, then absolutely sue that person. You know, if that person's injured, sue that person's estate. Sue whatever. That's who should be responsible. Yeah. You don't have to have a bar blatantly over served. Like, you're staggering drunk. But I can tell you, after having worked in bars, especially in a college town – I mean, we've all done it. You go into a concert, it's going to be $15 a beer. I'm going to kill a fifth of something in the parking lot. I'm going to walk in, Stone Cold's over, 15 minutes later, I'm drunk. That's not that bar's fault. I've had one beer there. Yeah. But that fifth of liquor I drank before I walked in there is what screwed me up. We've all been young and dumb. So if that liquor store didn't sell you that bottle, it would have never happened. Exactly. Liquor stores retail, though. They're not serving you. But now, right now, they might not. Exactly. But where's the end? That's what I'm saying. Where does it stop at? And then you're going after the distiller. You're going after the people who work at the distiller. I mean, where's that rabbit hole? The lawyers are what's going to keep doing it. You get a high-paid lawyer that knows what they're doing, that's who's going to fuck everything over. Well, it goes back to, like, the gun laws. You go back and look at the reason, like, Brattle left Maryland. I'd go after the gunpowder manufacturer. Exactly. None of it would have happened if it wasn't gunpowder. Yeah, exactly. China. I'm going after China. China invented gunpowder, so that's who the fucking party is. Everything's blames come right down to China. But you were born with a finger, so how much liability do you have? But they invented gunpowder. They invented gunpowder. You couldn't have pulled the trigger if you didn't have an index finger. So where does it end? I'm going after the brass manufacturer. Whoever invented brass is who I'm going after. Ah, the Roman Empire is screwed. Invented, not discovered. Oh, Jesus is in trouble, man. No, not Jesus. He's his daddy. But, I mean, that's the thing. Like, we're going down these stupid-ass rabbit holes. To Joe Everyman, this is stupid and it's easy to fix. But when you get litigators involved and a congressional body involved. And a lot of money. Yeah, and campaign finance during an election campaign, it becomes a problem. And it shouldn't. This is the thing. Like, if you run for office to run for office, don't run for office. Like, you're the problem. Every decision you make should be based on what's best for the people, even if it's unpopular. Because you see everything. Like, you understand behind the scenes. Sometimes you're going to make a decision that's just not popular. You know, I can tell you from personal experience, I've made decisions that on the surface appear blatantly horrible. But when you see the full picture or how we got to that picture, it's a decision that has to be made. Someone's got to do it or you keep kicking the can down the road and make it the next-best problem. That's what they'd rather do. Yeah, but I'd rather be the responsible guy to take the heat right now to know that something's moving forward. You know, if you don't take the heat now and get over it, yeah, you might lose your next election. But if the next person does anything, you can win again later. Or you can sleep fine at night knowing that you made a moral decision based on the information you read. But they don't have – most politicians don't have a soul. No, that's the problem. They're in it for one thing, that's money and power. Or two things, money and power. That's their biggest thing. And that's the reason why a lot of people want to run is they want the authority. They want people under their thumb. Yeah, I don't want authority. Like, to me – and I know a lot of people in the statehouse and a lot of people at local levels across the state that don't want authority. They just want to fix fucking problems. And you can't fix fucking problems because they keep piling on dumb shit. Oh, yeah? So that's our topic tonight in a nutshell, in a very wide-brush nutshell. Yeah. I mean, but it's something near and dear. I mean, you've got to really think about it because that affects so many freaking people. Oh, yeah. And, I mean, not just that, okay, you can't buy your alcohol. Okay? But it's jobs. It's livelihood. Because these politicians care so much more about their next campaign than they do actually making real change, making real effective policy. And it's easy for us to sit here and say, oh, they should do this, they should do that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, I mean, what does it come down to? Like, how do you do it? You can't change people's minds. Well, the other thing is you can't legislate morality. You just can't. You can pass every rule in the book, but a shithead is going to be a shithead no matter what the rules are. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you take away bars, people will drink at home. You take away booze at all, people will make toilet poop. Well, we already have prohibition. Yeah, it didn't go away. I mean, we know it doesn't work well. Look what happened. No, you just create a black market for it. And you just created a whole new class of criminals. Well, that's that whole thing with gun laws and how they're doing stuff now and they're taking honest people and making them criminals. You're taking a law about a citizen and making them criminals and that's a big problem. Exactly. And that's what you're doing right now. You're making people liable that should not be held liable that really didn't have anything to do with it. I mean, you're asking some person who's been in the bar business for six months to make a judgment call because there are people out there that can really hold their alcohol and you don't know that they're absolutely crap faced. You just don't know. But there is a point to where a bar has to be like, all right, man, you had 17 beers in an hour. We're calling you an Uber. We're calling something that's going to take you home. Because, I mean, as a bar person, I would much rather pay a $20 Uber tab than that. Well, then the other side of this too is you go to the bar. I'm not going to let you drive home. I don't have the right to detain you. So my option is call the police and get you a public intox when you leave. Like, how do you get around that? So, I mean, you think about, like, we're also in the era of Google reviews. Like, I go to a bar. I wouldn't do it. Hypothetically, I go to a bar and I drink 10 beers in an hour, which I've never done because I just can't drink that much that fast. But if I did… College. Yeah, okay, college maybe. But, I mean, if I go in there and get plastered and a bar owner says, hey, you can't drive home. And I say, go fuck yourself, walk out to my bar, and they call the cops. It's a Google review era. Everybody around is saying, well, they called the fucking cops, man. Don't go here. And you get that word of mouth, like, don't go to that bar or they'll call the police on you. That's the bar I'm going to. But, I mean, for a lot of people, I'd rather go to a bar that's not going to let me do something stupid. But still, at the end of the day, it's my problem. I did it. I got drunk and drove home. That's my fault. But there's a limit of liability for me, which is much lower than that bar. And my insurance is definitely not going to be as good as a commercial enterprise. Someone will start blaming country music. That's the problem. Yep. Yep. Even though I love it. But somebody's girlfriend dumped him, and now they're listening to some sad love song about… Bubba shot the jukebox. Yeah. She took my truck and then took my dog and took the house and my kids, but she left me the shotgun and took the shales. Hit rewind, though. His life just got awesome. Yeah. I see. If a player ever takes a country song and rewinds it, it's amazing. So that's the gist of it. It's basically like this is why people need to pay attention. It affects your daily life. And nobody in D.C. did this. Nobody at a federal level did this. It wasn't your congressman that did it. We're at 108. See, that was a whole episode. Easy. You don't need any more topics. We got into the nitty-gritty of it, but I think it's important for people to understand the nitty-gritty of that. Pay attention to local elections. Pay attention to state elections. Talk to people. The advantage of state level is you can get them on the phone. You can call their office. You can talk to that person. You can schedule a meeting with that person. Do it. Ask the question. But see, this is another thing, too, that this episode was to go further out. Say we had a bigger audience than just us. And it's like, this could come to your state. Because whatever these big insurance companies are going to be like, no, look, this is what we're doing in South Carolina. And it could come here. So we're just going to go ahead and jack your fucking race. It happened in Alabama. They fixed it. South Carolina ignored it until it was too late. And restaurant, any industry, if you see somebody who's your competitor getting ass-raped, pay attention. Like, don't relish in the fact that they're losing over something that they have no control over. Look at the situation and go, hey, could this bite me? And understand that that's the playing field. That's not the game. And in this case, they took away the playing field. They didn't affect the game. They fucked up the playing field. If the only way you can beat your competitor is for them to get shut down via the government, then you're next. And if you're not thinking like that, then get out of the business. Stop fucking everybody else up. Be ready to fight for what you do. But you know what I'm not going to stop doing? Drinking. Drinking this old barstow. That's some good shit. I'm going to get a bottle of this. For real. I'm going to keep a bottle. This is the kind of shit you put in your decanter. Online, $17. See, there you go. But you buy $17 and keep it in your decanter, and you know you're going to have people over for a dinner or something? Not saying we want to sponsor. I'll drink your head. We're up for a road trip. Yeah. Yeah. We might get it over. We will not contribute to your liquor liability. We'll take it back. No, sir. We are somewhat intelligent. We know how to use a phone. We'll bring a DD. No, I'll do that. That old barstow, man, that's some good shit. Man, it's surprisingly good. I really expected that to be harsher the way you piped it up. Yeah. I mean, when he busted out the plastic cap, I was scared. It looked like a Jim Beam bottle with a plastic cap. I was like, is that plastic or glass? If it's plastic, you know it's a rock dud. That shit's going to hurt you. Because that way, when you pass out, the bottle won't break. That could be the new thing. Hey, squeeze the bottle real quick. Can you flex it? Fuck, I'm not drinking that. You hear that? That's Canadian club. Yeah. I'm a big fan of the Will It stuff anyway, so I'm really impressed with it. What else does Will It make? That genie bottle? Yeah, the Will It pot still. That's good. Will It's good. I've got two bottles. Two bottles in the house. It looks like a genie bottle. It's really good. Oh, that's Will It. Yeah. Like I said, I couldn't tell you about a lot of stuff, but there's a lot of stuff I like because I remember it. It's like, ooh, that's a fancy bottle. That's why whenever we do those bourbon calendars. We have done them a couple of years. I want to do one of yours again. The bourbon calendar. Chris is really good for... I went to the liquor store. This bottle just looked awesome, so I got it. What is it? I have no fucking clue. That's what I do. Seriously, there's so much. I've tried so many different ones just because that Noah's Mill. That man you sat with. That Noah's Mill is harsh. It hurts, but when you cut it. I was looking at you about this. The Noah's Mill? Yeah. It's good if you cut it. You cut it and make it on the rocks or cut it a little bit with a little water. Damn, it is good. Look at Monkey Shoulder. It's a good scotch. Funky bottle. I got it because I was like, it looks cool. It's like chicken cock. You're buying it just because of the name, but it is a good bourbon. It's pretty good. I enjoy it. You've got to be careful how you say it. You don't want to be like, I enjoy good cock every now and then. The Chanticleer Athletic Foundation, that was one of the things. It was a chicken cock bottle with a chicken decanter. It was one of their little door prize things. I'm trying to be like USC. First of all, we were part of USC and we branched off and got better than USC. That's why you're still trying to be like them. Hey, it's cheaper to change the colors than the mascot. Good point. You kind of stopped the argument there. We don't have our local actually missing. One of our guys, he actually went to USC. He'd be here defending it more. I'm not saying more than I'm saying, but I'd rather go to a coastal game than a Gamecocks game here recently. Gamecocks had a little rough go here. A little bit. Yeah. A little bit. This year was great. What's that? This past year was not great. No. The past few. It's been a. It's clowny. Yeah, it's not been awesome. I'm a Gamecocks fan to a point, but. I am not. More so than Clemson. I mean, the only thing good to come out of Clemson is blue cheese. I'm not saying their engineers suck, but they suck. They're not as bad as Charlotte. Fair. UNC Charlotte. God almighty. Sorry to all you people out there that are from UNC Charlotte. Get new professors. 49ers. Jesus Christ. Just go back to mining gold. I swear to God, every time I get an intern from. I do construction. So every time we get an intern, we'll get summer interns from UNC Charlotte. I swear. My faith in humanity just drops. Dramatically. In fairness, every modern class engineering student that thinks they're going to walk out making 100 grand a year stamping plans. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck all of them. Yeah, you're not an engineer unless you have the stamp. Just know that. You're just a person. Even when you have the stamp, you just got lucky on the test half the time. Yeah. It's multiple choice. Some people multiply guess well. Fuck engineers. I hate engineers. All of them suck. Every engineer I know. I don't especially admire anything. Fuck engineers. I'm going to hide my stamp in my pocket. Stupid engineers and stupid degrees. I've turned a wrench before I've stamped things. Yeah. Well, I guess, yeah. I mean, that was a good discussion, guys. I mean, really, that came down to a great discussion. I'm glad you brought that up and brought that to our attention and hopefully to the attention of many other people. And, you know, it's one of those things, it sounds kind of lame to say it, but keep up the good fight. I mean, I'd love to, like, throw names in there and businesses in there, but, you know, talk to your local bars. Talk to your local politicians. See what they're saying. You know, your bar is going to feel it. You know, your politician, if they don't know about it, their head's in the sand. I mean, or they're part of the problem. Yeah. Get to know your local people, man. That's what's affecting everything. Yeah. Yeah. City Hall, set your taxes. Not the main avenue. Yeah. With that, man, crack open a good bottle of bourbon. Grab a good stick. Have a good conversation. That's the name of the game. So, with that, y'all, we're out. We're going to finish this bottle. We're going to smoke this cigars, and we're going to have a good night. Later.
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