Around the Barrel - Transcript: Ep038 Greg Olliver

 

Greg Olliver: Everywhere we went, you would find this sort of love that crossed all boundaries and all walks of life. People really do appreciate it as something that's not just like a cool looking bottle.

 

Lucas Hendrickson: It’s impossible to count the different ideals the world famous square bottle and black and white label of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee whiskey represents: family tradition, rebelling against the everyday, following in the footsteps of your heroes. It's a never ending pursuit to find individual meaning tied to one of the most popular spirits on the planet.

 

On this episode, we talk with Greg Olliver, director of the new documentary film “Chasing Whiskey: The Untold Story of Jack Daniel’s” about the physical perils of that pursuit, how the mere mention of Old No. 7 brings up both positive and negative reactions around the world and how rock and roll just wouldn't be the same without what emerges from Lynchburg Around the Barrel.

 

Welcome back to Around the Barrel, the official podcast from the makers of Jack Daniel’s. I'm your host, Lucas Hendrickson. There are likely dozens of ways to tell the thousands of stories that shape the experiences of millions of friends of Jack Daniel’s around the world, so let's dispel any myths that there's just one way to approach uncovering the legend of Mr. Jack and Lynchburg, Tennessee's most famous export. You got to pick a lane and follow it. 

 

Documentary filmmaker Greg Olliver – spelled with two L’s for those of you checking IMDB right now – found his path a few years ago when starting the project now known as “Chasing Whiskey: The Untold Story of Jack Daniel’s.” 

 

His route? Find an outgoing order for a couple of cases of Old No. 7 headed to the most remote place he and his crew could feasibly get to and chase those cases across the globe. Along the way, Olliver found so many extra stories about how the people who make Jack inform the lives and loves of the people who drink Jack and how the company's unique history helps shape its fans' vibrant present.

 

Greg: Hey, everybody. My name is Greg Olliver. I am a filmmaker originally from Houston, Texas, but living in Brooklyn, New York for the past 25 years. I make documentaries, feature films and all sorts of commercial stuff to pay the bills.

 

Lucas: Greg Olliver, welcome to Around the Barrel.

 

Greg: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

 

Lucas: We're happy to have you, and we're very excited about your latest project that's getting ready to be out there in the world, “Chasing Whiskey: The Untold Story of Jack Daniel’s.” Like anything like this can be, you know, the definitive history, but I think you did a pretty good job of pulling all these things together.

 

Greg: It was a challenge to say the least. Like, you have 150 plus years of history. How do you get all that into an hour and a half movie and keep it entertaining at the same time? It was a challenge, but a welcome challenge that we had a lot of fun making.

 

Lucas: Yeah. If someone were to come up on the street to you and ask you, “What is your film about?” give them the little ten second elevator pitch on “The Untold Story of Jack Daniel’s.”

 

Greg: Oh man, that's a good question. Give me the ten second elevator pitch. It’s like, “How do I do that?” It is not a movie about a brand, but about how a guy named Jack Daniel impacted the world of whiskey and pop culture over 150 years and how intertwined they are all together. 

 

And it's also about what makes whiskey such a romanticized drink and what makes Jack Daniel's one of the number one brands in the world and why people love it and why people love making it. And I think that's some of the – I’ve got to refine that elevator pitch, but that's a little bit about what it's about.

 

Lucas: Sure. And I feel like – and trying not to give too much away as part of this, but I feel like there's a fantastic through line in this film about basically how Jack Daniel’s makes its way out of Lynchburg, which is part of a story that we've been involved in telling for the last three years or so, but also how a specific couple of cases made their way around to the other side of the planet. What was the process of picking the destination where they ended up landing?

 

Greg: It starts from the beginning, when I actually got the job, and I was in Louisville pitching my film process to the then president Mark McCallum and Phil Epps and these guys. And I was like – I was just asking them. I'm like, “What are some of the things you want to make sure come across in this film?” 

 

And they, everyone said, “You know what, a lot of folks don't believe that it's actually made in Lynchburg and shipped all over the world, and they just don't think so because they just think it's made in other countries and we just say that it's made here.” 

 

And so I said, “Why don't we prove it? Why don't we film an order going out and shipped to the farthest place that we can travel to and the farthest place that we can actually film, you know, logistically speaking?”

 

And that's sort of how the idea came about. And so that took a year, at least a year, of logistical coordination to make that happen. Cause we had to shoot – first it gets, you know, comes out of the – it goes on a truck, then it goes on a train and the train goes to a freight ship. The ship goes across the seas and then we decided we would follow it into the outback of Australia. 

 

So, that's what we did. And that took a long time to get there, as it naturally does. It takes weeks and weeks. So, it was a really fun, extensive process. 

 

And in the middle of all that, we were following a train that had our car on it that we knew the whiskey was in. My cinematographer was leaning out the window with – Matt Irwin, our cinematographer, was leaning out the window with his camera, and his phone rang.

 

And he answered. And somebody – it was our producer saying, “Where are you guys?” And he yelled, “We're chasing whiskey! We're chasing whiskey!” And he just threw the phone down. And that's how the title came about. I mean, we were literally chasing whiskey. 

 

Lucas: Wow. 

 

Greg: And so it was trying to trick you to think of a visual through line that you could follow throughout the entire film. And that sort of became the thing that we thought would be a challenging, you know, visual to put forth and have. Viewers would enjoy it, because then you get to go on an adventure to places that you might not have ever been before. So, that's how that came about.

 

Lucas: Yeah. You have this through line, and you kind of jump in and out of the story of the physical product making its way not only across the country but around the world, but then interspersed with all that you do touch on those, you know, hometown aspects of Lynchburg and the worldwide popularity of Jack as exposed through pop culture and movies and TV. 

 

And certainly music plays a very big role in all this. How did you come about wanting to try to tell this story this way?

 

Greg: I mean, it was a challenge from the start. When the job became mine – and I fought really hard to get it. You know, I fought a lot of other filmmakers to get it. And then when I got it, they were like, “How are you going to tell the story?” 

 

And I said, “I'm going to tell you straight up. I don't know, because there's so much that needs to go in here. And any filmmaker that walks in here and tells you they know how to tell your story is full of it. So, I need to explore it and really figure out how we can work it all in there.” 

 

And it's a little bit of a sloppy process, not being able to just write it all down in a perfect outline and then having it say, “Here's how it's going to look.” That's not how I make my films. My first film took me three years to shoot until I figured out that I had shot too much. But this one, you know, like you said, all these things are part of the brand, right? Pop culture. Music is a huge part of it. 

 

But the people at Lynchburg – you could easily make a film on just the people in Lynchburg that make it and are so passionate about it, right? That could be its own film. The music could be its own film. The history, going all the way back to the beginning, should be its own film. So, there's so many topics that we had to put in there. 

 

So, we did our best to weave it in and out of a film that hopefully has a natural story arc that you can get into and follow something from the beginning to the end and find characters that are compelling.

 

Because without that, it's not a film, right? Nobody wants to just watch a film about a bottle of whiskey. You want it to be relatable and characters that you can fall in love with or disagree with and all these things. So, it was a lot of things that we put in there. So, it was a tricky film to navigate and a really tricky film to edit with hundreds of hours of footage that we shot. But, you know, we tried to make sure that we hit on all those key points a little bit throughout the film, and hopefully that comes across. Hopefully folks feel that way. Hopefully they're satisfied. 

 

Lucas: Yeah. Certainly folks who listen to this show are interested in the process of how Jack Daniel's is made. As a documentarian, though, it's part of the drill to get behind that curtain and understand how things are done. What's been the most interesting part of the making of Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Tennessee whiskey been as you've uncovered your understanding of it?

 

Greg: You know, it’s funny. Going back to when this started, one of my favorite parts of this project was the then president Mark McCallum and Phil Epps telling me that I could film whatever I wanted. They're like, “Whatever you want to film, just go film it. And if you have a hard time, call us, and we'll make sure you get through that door.” 

 

And I was shocked by that. I'm like, “Wow. Really?” and they're like, “Yeah, call me.” Mark McCallum gave me his phone number. He said, “Call me if you have trouble getting somewhere.” I only had to do that one time, I think, in the whole process. But they were really open, like the brand itself is very – they were ready to be totally honest. And there was no curtain there, like, “Just go where you want to go.”

 

And so one of the through lines I wanted to put in the film – and as a filmmaker, I'm not an expert in whiskey making. I was – never been an expert in any of the other subjects I've made films about, but you learn about it while you're going. So, I'm like, “I'm going to treat this film with that same naivete, and let me dig in and learn about it along the way so viewers get to do that.”

 

So, we filmed every part of the process. We filmed corn being harvested. We filmed corn being dumped off, the mash being made, the water from the cave, every bit of the process. And the charring of the barrels and the – we filmed trees being cut and turned into, you know, barrels and all that. And, I think overall, I was fascinated by how much of the process makes me really love the product.

 

There was nothing that I saw that I was like, “Aw, man, I really wish they weren't making it that way, and I don't know how to film that because it doesn't look good.” It's all how you want it to look. It's real whiskey being made by real people with real hands all over the place. 

 

And every step of the way there's passion and there's real stuff and real fire charring the wood. It's not – there’s no BS, man. And it sounds cheesy. I'm not a paid spokesperson for the brand by any means. I'm just a filmmaker. And I really fell in love with the product itself and the whiskey itself by watching it be made. 

 

And I think that's the part that surprised me a little bit. I'm like, “It can't be real, that all these folks really love making it and all this hard work really goes into it,” but it does. It's true. And so that was an enjoyable part of the ride, from the charcoal being made and the charcoal filtering – but visually one thing that sort of blew us away – it was funny. Our cinematographer, Matt Irwin, and I were talking about what was really fun to see. 

 

And we went to film the bottles being made in – I think it was in Ohio. And we're like, “How exciting can that look?” And that was like a Star Wars set. I don't know if anyone's been to a full blown, massive glass plant. And there was this – they took us up into the ceiling of these blowers, and they were melting sand into glass. And there was waves of lava falling out of these weird shoots. And we opened the film with it, cause our minds were just blown by what it looked like.

 

It's like hot blobs of lava falling out of the ceiling into these little molds, and they blow it with air. And next thing you know, this glowing bottle of Jack Daniel’s, beautiful, glowing, warm – not warm, but hot glass comes out.

 

Lucas: Sure. Molten glass.

 

Greg: Yeah, and it's the most awesome thing to watch. So, the whole process was really fascinating. So, again, there's going to be a whole film. You could just sit there and watch it being made for an hour and a half if you were really into it. So, it was just really hard. What do we cut out? We cut out so much stuff.

 

Lucas: Right. Oh, sure. Well, and there are a number of visuals throughout this movie that I imagine took quite a bit of negotiating to kind of get. You talked about Mark and Phil giving you free rein, full access, but there were other things like riding up alongside the ship as it's coming into port.

 

But then also winding through the limestone cave spring. Also kind of the first filming inside one of the palletized barrel houses in Lynchburg, which I think will probably be a surprise to some people who will see that for the first time. What was the most difficult shot to get?

 

Greg: Oh man, most difficult shot. There was a lot. The palletized warehouse, for sure. That ruffled some feathers. Cause we went there one day. We were filming warehousing and barrels and doing a drive around tour. And then I was like, “What are those warehouses?” And they're like, “Eh, you can't film there.” And I'm like, “Eh, well, I'd really love to check it out.” They're like, “Those are locked.” I'm like, “Well, don't you have the key to those?” 

 

And it was ultimately showing how the company's growing and how you handle the growth. And that's all it is, but it's not something you normally see in the commercials where there's, you know, guys rolling barrels. It's a different – I'm not going to spoil it, but it's a different style of warehousing. So, that was tricky just on the level of the folks that normally are so used to cameras roaming around not being too excited to do that, because they hadn't done that before.

 

The glassblowing was incredibly hot and dangerous. That was tricky, but I think you mentioned one of the shots. Matt, my cinematographer, had to chase a freight ship. We were in the Bay of Sidney on this little ship to get up alongside of it. And then they're jumping waves to chase the ship down. They get on the side of it. 

 

But then we were flying drones through the outback of Australia. And we were trying to fly a drone in Cuba to get a really beautiful shot in Havana, and the drone operators were local guys, and they were so afraid of the rules there. And so they just were just – there was a lot of things to navigate around the world that you'd never expect. So, I think each step of the way was a little bit like it was problem solving to make a film like this. You solve a thousand problems, and then finally you get to be creative.

 

But there's – you know, the funny thing about a film, when you watch it, you don't know that 90 percent of the time we were behind the camera cursing and stressing and complaining how hard this is but no one appreciates it. But hopefully you see some of that in the film, because we shot all over the world and we wanted to make it look beautiful. 

 

But actually, let me real quick – one of the – the dump room in Lynchburg, where they dump the whiskey out of the barrels, was one of the trickiest ones to shoot, because the fire marshall, who sort of oversees all of Jack Daniel's sort of fire safety – and his name eludes me right now. He didn't want us to film in there, because he said any spark would just – the whole dump room was going to explode.

 

So, we had to rent underwater scuba gear for our camera that would completely seal it from any possible fuse getting in. And that was hard, really hard, to use that gear, cause it's really heavy when you're standing on the ground. It's a lot lighter when you're in the ocean. 

 

Lucas: Sure. Buoyant then. Not so much on land. 

 

Greg: No, so it was really hard to get those shots of barrels being opened and whiskey coming out. But hopefully it was worth it, cause that's just part of the process that I really wanted to see, that whiskey coming out and then going, you know, into the room where they start bottling it. 

 

Lucas: Sure. On the flip side of the physical danger of some of that, and maybe there was some physical danger in these. I don't know, but you have a lot of great interviews with folks from various aspects of pop culture who have intersected with the brand either on screen or on stage or, you know, musically, that kind of thing.

 

Folks like Shooter Jennings who created, you know, your original music for the film itself, Eric Church, who’s highly knitted in with the brand these days. What was the process of kind of knitting those things together? How many movies and TV shows and recordings did you have to go through to kind of come up with the examples that you wanted to put in the film?

 

Greg: You look at these films that you remember seeing the brand in and you're like, “How can I make sure we really do it justice and talk about these moments that –” and especially films that people might not remember, like “The Shining.” Jack Nicholson sits down at the bar and he's like, “Hello, Lloyd. I'd like a drink.” And Lloyd gives him a glass of Jack Daniel’s. 

 

And so we had to talk about that in the film. I wanted to do our best as filmmakers to get those references in there that really show you how Jack just sort of infiltrated movies forever and ever. And it's not a paid marketing thing. I think – it's funny. 

 

All those films basically just did that without asking. From what I know, they weren't – it wasn't like, “Hey, we'll give you – you know, give us some money and we'll put your product in the film.” Jack doesn't do that. And it's pretty cool that that's never been the case. 

 

But you see it in so many films just because it represents something that you can't represent otherwise. And just somebody holding something in their hand, you know, like how do you tell something about that person so quickly besides – a bottle of Jack tells you something instantly about a person, about a character in a movie. So, that's why it was important to put that in there.

 

Lucas: Sure. In talking with these folks, specifically musicians – and if people don't know about your history, you did a documentary on the late Lemmy Kilmister, the lead singer and linchpin behind Motörhead, in 2010. But how many times in talking with musicians about Jack Daniel’s did this phrase come up: “I probably shouldn't tell this story, but…”?

 

Greg: All the time. It's funny. Like most good film interviews, people are like, “I'm going to tell you this, but after you're done recording.” But yeah, there was – it was funny. Eric Church even mentions Lemmy in there as, “Who have you seen drinking it?” You know? 

 

And we put a lot of photos, like the photos of musicians holding it in their hand and drinking go back to the beginning. It's so fantastic when you start digging into it. But yeah, it was like – I was curious about how Eric Church got hooked on it. And he just sort of did through his father and his grandfather, I guess. 

 

But like you said, Lemmy – I don't think I would've got to make this film if it weren't for Lemmy and Motörhead, cause I spent three years on and off touring the world with them. And Jack Daniel’s, just everywhere we went, that was just part of our meals basically everywhere we went.

 

And I really learned my way around a bottle of Jack thanks to Lemmy. And I know he was on the list of celebrities that consumed Jack Daniel’s to an extent that made the brand nervous. You know, I think someone put it that way, put it lightly. 

 

So, I definitely thank him and the band for getting me into the brand, cause I don't think I would have – they wouldn't have looked at my films and said – without that on it, I don't think I would have had a chance of getting to do this film. 

 

Lemmy – in that film, so many people talk about all the times they drank with Lemmy on the road. It was just part of his – part of Lemmy. Jack Daniel’s was literally part of Lemmy.

 

Lucas: Right. Shooter has one of the, kind of, for me, the pullout quote of the film, talking about rock and roll. 

 

 

Greg: What would Jack Daniel's be without rock and roll and what would rock and roll be without – 

 

Shooter Jennings: No. There's no – Jack Daniel’s will be exactly the same without rock and roll, but rock and roll would never be the same without Jack Daniel’s. And you know that. I mean…

 

Lucas: Where did that kind of phraseology, you think, come from in his brain and in your conversations about the spirit and the brand?

 

Greg:  You know, that line was absolutely not planned, rehearsed. The questions I asked him were not given to him in advance. We had a – we were in the middle of recording for three days and I'm like, “Somewhere in the middle, I've got to sit you down and talk to you, because I need you in the film.” 

 

And so we did, and I think that was like two o'clock in the morning. We may or may not have had some Jack Daniel’s by that point. We were talking, doing our interview, and I was like, “Where would rock and roll be without Jack Daniel’s and vice versa?” 

 

And that line just came out, and it was so powerful and so true in the way someone like that – he's the son of Waylon Jennings. He knows his share of whiskey and traveling and music and the industry and pop culture. You know, he lives and breathes it every day. 

 

And he's – that's sort of why it passed down from generation to generation of these rock stars. I feel like it's sort of like this symbol of, “Yeah. I do live and breathe rock and roll.” And, you know, Jack's been part of that from day one. And it's really, it's kind of hard to explain until someone like Shooter says it. You know, he sounds way cooler saying it than I do, so.

 

Lucas: So, in following around Lemmy for a number of years and being ingrained in rock and roll, for this project, what were your other kind of more formalized research sources? You've got Nelson Eddy, the Jack Daniel's official historian, on camera a number of times talking about various historical things. What other things did you dive into document wise or, you know, historical avenues that you went down to try to continue to tell this story?

 

Greg: Like you mentioned, Nelson Eddy was such – he was my favorite fuzzy bearded buddy on the road. And I wanted to let Nelson do a lot of the talking to that. And I think – so we go to the official archives outside of D.C., and we cracked open some of Jack Daniel's actual old checkbooks from like, I can't remember what year it's from, but he was writing checks for a dollar and 20 cents, you know, and depositing checks like that. It's really early days. 

 

And so, you know, the history is just as important as the people that make it now. And again, I think we only scratch the surface of that in this film, because it's so rich. It goes so far back: 150 plus years. There's so much history. It was like, hopefully I did it justice, cause I feel like I barely, barely did. 

 

Cause again, it should – some folks would probably watch hours and hours of the history, because it's so fascinating. And Jack Daniel’s was such an interesting character. But the history – I'm just thinking back. Do you want to talk a little bit about Nearest Green, which sort of blew my mind when we were filming?

 

Lucas: Well, yeah. And we've touched on the Nearest Green story a few times across this show as well. I think it was an important choice to make, to include the framing of that story. And certainly Fawn Weaver's ongoing comments about it really being kind of a story of love. 

 

That idea of Jack and Nearest working side by side and their descendants continuing to work side by side to this day to make Jack Daniel’s on an ongoing basis. What was your takeaway from that? And you were filming right around the time where that was a story that was continuing to be kind of uncovered as we went along.

 

Greg: It was. It was very much. I think there was a big New York Times article on it. And everybody at Jack was sort of, you know, navigating how much attention it was getting. And I read about it and I was like, “Wow, that's amazing.” But I didn't really know much about it, or didn't know – I had no idea, as we were filming, until that, that some of the descendants were still working there at Jack Daniel’s. 

 

And I remember sort of hearing a little bit about it, but we were filming one day with the warehousing crew, the guys that roll the barrels around, and they're like, “You know that this guy down there, Jerome, he's one of the great, great, great grand nephews, I believe, of Jack Daniel’s?” I'm sure I'm getting it wrong, but Jerome Vance.

 

And I was like, “Really?” And so then I went and saw – we went and talked to him and then we met Jackie Harden and Debbie Staples, who are sisters, and they’re descendants of Nearest Green. And I was like, “Whoa, this is amazing.” 

 

And they were like, “Can we talk to you?” And I was like, “I'd love to,” so we put them on camera, and they just sort of gushed and opened up and they were so – it was such an unexpected, emotional ride that we went on. 

 

You know, you're making a film about a brand, and all of a sudden, no, you're not. You're making a really important story about this history of a slave that helped teach Jack how to make whiskey when he was really young, and then now all the descendants of that guy are still working there.

 

So, there's this definite love there that for me, personally, was unexpected. And it became one of my favorite parts of my experience in making this film. And again, it's a part of the film that should be its own movie. That barely scratched the surface in our film, but we had – I really liked those folks and how open they were and how they wanted to talk about it and make sure the story was told their way. 

 

And that's why we let Jackie and Debbie and Jerome tell it their way. And Fawn Weaver – so awesome, the way she helps sort of weave it all together. And again, I never expected that going into this project, and really thankful for how open and honest and willing to talk all those folks were, because it's a really special story that I got to help tell a little bit of there. 

 

Lucas: Sure. In your talking to all different kinds of people, again, people with boots on the ground, making it on a daily basis, and then, you know, people with their names in lights frequently around the world, who do you think was the most effusive in telling you their story? Who was the biggest fan of Jack Daniel’s?

 

Greg: Oh, man. There's so many unexpected fans. I mean, sure. The obvious ones are obvious. They’re, you know, like Eric Church loves that brand more than any musician I met, right? But so does Shooter Jennings. So does Matt Sorum of Guns N’ Roses. So does Jesse Dayton, who's an incredible guitar slinger. 

 

But then we were traveling to – we went to Cuba, because we wanted to film. There's like a gray market there, where it's not imported that easily into the country for all sorts of reasons, so they have to get it by any means necessary. And the bars want it and the people love it there, but it's just hard to get. 

 

We went to a sort of after hours speakeasy type bar that was on the roof of an apartment building with this really rickety old open elevator that took you up there. And we just went there one night after we were filming, and this giant muscley bouncer put his arm up to, you know, “Stop before you come in here,” like to stop me from getting to a bar. And on his forearm was this gigantic Jack Daniel’s bottle tattooed. A tattoo. 

 

Lucas: I know. That’s a great visual.

 

Greg: I'm like, “Wait, this guy in Cuba has a Jack Daniel’s tattoo on his forearm?” And he just sat there and told us about how much he thinks about the work that it goes into Jack Daniel’s. And a bouncer in Cuba is sitting there telling me at three o'clock in the morning how much work goes into making a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. And that sort of blew me away. 

 

The same thing happened in Tokyo. A bartender at a very fancy cocktail bar told us that he got into the business because of a bottle of Jack Daniel's he found in his parents' closet. So, it was sort of like everywhere we went, you would find this sort of love that crossed all boundaries and all walks of life to be like, people really do appreciate it as something that's not just like a cool looking bottle.

 

Lucas: Right. So, again, you know, talking about all these places that you traveled that have such a love for the brand, such a love for the whiskey itself, who do you think had the stronger negative reaction when you brought up Jack Daniel’s, people from Scotland or people from Kentucky?

 

Greg: Oh, man. Equal? It’s equal. We went to a Kentucky bourbon only bar to talk to in Louisville – and Louisville is where the headquarters of the business of Jack Daniel's is – to ask them, and they had fun poo-pooing it. 

 

But I think Scotland, maybe, because at the time I found an article that said that – I don't know if it's still true today, but Jack Daniel's was outselling scotch in Scotland across all the trades. It was outselling it. And we interviewed some very fancy scotch connoisseurs that write about scotch, and they were great. They were great, really awesome characters in the film. 

 

But then at the end of the interview, I was like, “Do you mind reading this article out loud?” And they did not like that. And that comes across in the film. Hopefully it comes across. It's very subtle, but there's anger there in that man's eyes. It's kind of awesome. And he's like, “Well, good luck to them with their whiskey.”

 

Lucas: Right. How does it feel in this moment when the world has been kind of shut down for us in a lot of ways over the past year? When you look back on the film and see the footage of that Eric Church show with thousands of people singing at the top of their lungs, you know, what's your kind of – do you have any sort of visceral reaction to that? And, “Oh, how quickly can we get back to being able to do that safely?”

 

Greg: Oh, man. All I want to do is go to a hot, sweaty bar and have some loud talking, close talking person that I don't know next to me yelling into my ear. I miss that. I guess it's terribly frustrating, what's happened to the world. And it's like, that's all I want. 

 

Like, I miss the travel we did for the film. It would be so hard to pull that off right now. You couldn't even go to half those places, and you couldn't be hanging out with these people. Yeah. It's really changed our way of life. And for people all around the world stuck at home right now, it's incredibly frustrating. It's not just me, right, or you.

 

So, maybe the film will be a little bit of a release. You could watch it. But maybe it will be frustrating, because you'd wish you could go do these things. And yeah, like the Eric Church concert was just one scene where there's thousands of people in it. And then we're in tons of bars all over the world shooting. 

 

Yeah. We really do need to get back to that way of life again, because it's important. Human interaction, I think is, you know – Jack Daniel's makes that human interaction a little bit more fun, but we need human interaction with or without it. And I certainly miss it, man. I've been in my bedroom making films through Zoom on my laptop for the past year, and I'm tired of it.

 

Lucas: Yup. What kind of myths do you think you had in your head about Jack Daniel's that have been now dispelled through the making of this movie?

 

Greg: I mean, I guess a myth would be that it's just a cool bottle. You know, maybe it's just a cool bottle, or it's just everywhere cause they're really good at marketing it and it's just a ton of money behind it, so they can just push it wherever they want, say whatever they want, and people just believe it. 

 

So, that was a myth I wanted to break down and find out for myself, that no, it's actually – the authenticity that they put forth is real. And the quality in the bottle is real, cause I watched them make it all. They weren't faking things for us, you know? 

 

Lucas: There are no shortcuts. 

 

Greg: No. There’s no shortcuts. And, you know, the aging process. It has to mature for a long time for a reason, because it comes out – you take it out of the barrel too soon, it's not going to taste that good. So, it's a slow process that you can't rush. 

 

I don't know. Yeah, for me, the myth was it's one of the biggest brands in the world, and so I felt like they should've had a lot to hide. I'm like, “They must have a lot to hide. How are they gonna let me make this film?” But they didn't. There was nothing to hide. 

 

And that still really, really sort of blows my mind in a good way, that, you know, they really are who they say they are. The brand really is what it claims to be. The history really is as complicated in some ways and as rich and other ways as they say.

 

Lucas: What do you ultimately hope viewers will walk away with after watching this film?

 

Greg: I mean, I think it's something that I asked a lot of people in the film. I hope they look at a bottle of Jack on the shelf and they see something more than just the bottle of whiskey. I think there's so much that it represents, so much history, so much culture. It's sort of ingrained in popular culture and music and all these things. There's a lot behind that bottle that's not just whiskey, and a lot of folks in the movie say that, but I really feel that it's true. 

 

And then I also hope that viewers appreciate the authenticity and honesty that I tried to put in the film. That's how I make films. I try to let the lead characters speak for themselves. I don't have an angle or an agenda as a filmmaker. I'm not making a news piece. So, I hope that they feel that authenticity and also see that it really comes from the brand itself.

 

Lucas: Sure. What's next for this project? Where can people kind of follow along to see where it's going to be released? Kind of keeping tabs on it on social media, where can folks continue to be involved in “Chasing Whiskey”?

 

Greg: I'm pretty sure chasingwhiskey.com is going to be the hub. I know it's coming out – it's going to be – you know, the way the world changed, we're going to do a digital release of it. So, across all the streaming platforms, which will be fun, cause we're all – most people are stuck at home, so what better way to watch it safely? Cause then you can also responsibly have a sip of Jack Daniel's while you’re watching it if you want to. 

 

So, I kind of like that about it. But yeah, I think you'll start seeing a lot – I'm sure you'll see it on the Jack Daniel's social media sites. Hopefully they're proud of it, as proud of it as I am, so they'll be pushing it, but I think chasingwhiskey.com is sort of the hub of the film right now, where you can learn about all the details.

 

Lucas: Okay. And if people want to follow along with your work moving forward, where can they latch on on the various socials?

 

Greg: Oh man, I'm all over the place. Greg Olliver with two L's. I usually get an L left out of my name, but I'm out there. Secret Weapon Films is the name of my company. I have my own podcast that we've been working on for a while called Shoot, Don't Talk about filmmaking adventures and misadventures. 

 

But yeah, I don't know. Just Google me, man. There's a lot of stuff out there. I made a lot of films that I feel passionately about, just as passionately about as I do this Jack Daniel's film. So, if you like it, dig into my other ones, and stay tuned for more to come from me.

 

Lucas: Well, Greg, thank you for, you know, getting after it while chasing whiskey. We appreciate your time, man.

 

Greg: Thank you so much for having me. And please tell the folks at Jack thanks for the adventure I got to go on. It was once in a lifetime.

 

Lucas: Thanks for joining us Around the Barrel.

 

Thanks for checking out this episode of Around the Barrel. If you want to hear more stories about how Jack Daniel's intersects with pop culture across its history, check out episode nine from season one, featuring legendary copywriter Ted Simmons talking about the power of the brand’s Postcards from Lynchburg ad campaign and episode six from season three, looking at the unique kinship between Mr. Jack and Frank Sinatra. 

 

You can find archived episodes of Around the Barrel on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and more, plus on the web at jackdaniels.com/podcast. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and review while you're at it. Cheers, y'all, and join us next time for more conversations Around the Barrel.

 

Your friends at Jack Daniel’s remind you to drink responsibly. Jack Daniel’s and Old No. 7 are registered trademarks, Copyright 2021 Jack Daniel’s. Tennessee whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume, 80 proof, distilled and bottled by Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around the Barrel is intended for listeners 21 years of age and older.