OUR STORY

Founded Based on a LOVE of Innovation

The Deming Institute completed a video Case Study on the Brain Brew, our approach and way of working.

Co-Founders Joe Girgash (left) and Doug Hall (right) created the Brain Brew Distillery as a “product first” company.

Doug learned the importance of starting with a product that is Meaningfully Unique, from the 10 years he worked in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble. Joe learned the importance of Meaningfully Unique over many years creating new Bar & Restaurant concepts.

They named the company “Brain Brew” to remind the team and themselves that in order to win in the highly competitive world of Bourbon, they need to think smarter and more innovatively than the competition.

Milestones

Product Insight Started it All

The product insight for Brain Brew was sparked over 20 year ago, when Doug was helping the Macallan brand create new whiskies in Scotland. One day at lunch, the Macallan experts explained that 70% of the flavor of Macallan and all whiskies, comes from the interaction of whiskey with wood during aging.

This reminded Doug of a time when he was a Chemical Engineer at Procter & Gamble’s Mehoopany Pulp Mill, where heat was used to remove the lignins from the wood pulp.Similarly, Bourbon is created by the spirit soaking into the barrel wood during the warmth of the day and summer – bonding with the lignins in the wood – then coming out of the wood during cool nights and winters. This process plus the filtering of the whisey through the char layer sets off a chain reaction of transformations in the Bourbon … taking it from raw and rough, to rich and smooth.

Driving out Variation in the Wood / Bourbon Interaction

The pair decided early on that they would not change the process of wood interacting with whiskey. What they would do is to REDUCE VARIATION IN THE INTERACTION. Instead of variations in weather conditions and barrel storage locations, they created a process for heating and cooling that controls the temperature to within a tenth of a degree – resulting in a 99.5% reduction in variance. The result being the highest quality control of the whiskey / wood interaction in the industry.

Four Double Gold Medals won

Winner of Two of Eight Double Gold Medals!

After thousands of experiments and hundreds of consumer paired comparison taste tests over 18 months, the Brain Brew Crew won 2 of 8 Double Gold medals at the North American Bourbon & Whiskey Competition. As they sipped their award winning Bourbons, they were struck by how much fun it was to create new Bourbons and share them with family and friends. From this was born a simple belief, “The world doesn’t need another Bourbon – but everyone needs their OWN Bourbon.” This would lead to new opportunities.

Noble Oak Collaboration Goes National

Doug & Joe partnered with Edrington, makers of the Macallan in Scotland to create and produce Noble Oak Double Oak Bourbon and Rye. The combination of a world class product, scoring 94 points in Ultimate Spirit Challenge – Double Gold in San Francisco, plus an innovative promotion where “Every Bottle Plants a Tree®” made the brand the fastest growing super premium Bourbon in the world during COVID.

Distillery Expansion

The growth of the business encouraged the team to expand the Distillery capacity for WoodCraft Finishing and packaging to enable 2500,000 – 9 liter cases a year.

Dexter Is Born As Our Flagship Brand

During COVID, the Brain Brew Crew set out to make the best Bourbon ever. The result was Dexter Three Wood, a remarkable brand that was named “One of the 12 Best Bourbons in the World” and received a 95 point score by Ultimate Spirits Challenge. The brand quickly became our best selling product. It offers the quality of a $75-$100 Bourbon for $49.95.

This remarkable product is named after Edward Dexter, a famous Cincinnati Barrel Blender. He was so well known that author Charles Dickens and the future King Edward the VII of England visited him at his home on 4th street.

The brand was introduced in a limited release on the morning of January 2, 2021.It sold out in 50 minutes! This initial success lead the team to do test markets in Ohio, Colorado, New Hampshire and Kentucky. Again the response was beyond expectation. Today, the Dexter business unit is lead by Joe. As of January, 2025, the brand is available in 14 states across the USA, with more to come.

In addition to the Flagship Dexter Three Wood – Straight Bourbon Finished with 200 Year Oak, Cherry and Maple Wood, the brand also offers three Small Batch Editions. The Great Grains Collection as it is called, celebrates the great grains of whiskey: Dexter Small Batch Wheat, Small Batch Rye, and Small Batch Single Malt. The last of the great grains “corn” is the primary grain of Dexter Three Wood Bourbon.

Returning Bourbon To It’s Roots – Bourbon Customized For Each Customer

In the 1800’s over 85% of American Whiskey & Bourbon came from Cincinnati. The city featured over 100 barrel blenders, who took whiskey distilled by local farmers and custom blended it to the personal taste of each customer. Edmund Dexter was a world famous barrel blender in the USA. At the same time in Scotland, grocer John Walker was also custom blending for each customer.

Doug & Joe had a simple idea – what if they returned bourbon to it’s roots, as a product that was customized for each customer.

Innovation – A.I. Powered Bourbon Wizard:

Experts at our sister company, Eureka! Ranch, built and validated an Artificial Intelligence App that allows consumers to create their custom Bourbon recipe in minutes. Consumers simply answer 13 questions on their taste preference and voila! they have their own one-of-a-kind bourbon, just like in the 1800’s.

The custom bourbon system has been commercialized at two franchise locations. Barrels & Billets on Main Street in Louisville and Willow Run in downtown Cincinnati. At these locations, consumers can attend a 1-hour blending experience to create their custom bourbon recipe, use the Bourbon Wizard at the bar to taste their bourbon. They can also purchase their custom bourbon by the bottle, using a special version of the blending machine.

What’s Next for the Brain Brew Crew

Eureka! Ranch Distilled Spirits Group: In 2025, as the world of whiskey and bourbon experienced challenges due to over supply and changing consumer behaviors, it became clear that there was an industry need for bigger and bold innovation. To address this, Doug and Joe created a new business unit named Eureka! Ranch Distilled Spirits Group. It leverages the advanced innovation systems of sister company Eureka! Ranch, to help companies create winning spirit brands and products that leverage Brain Brew’s WoodCraft Innovations.

The Eureka! Ranch Distilled Spirits Group and Brain Brew Distillery deliver products that regularly realize 60/40+ taste test wins versus products costing 50-100% more. Most importantly, they deliver unprecedented speed and savings:

SPEED – Idea to market prototype in 30 days!
SPEED – Prototype to production 3 to 6 months!
SAVINGS – A 50,000 case brand saves $30MM in working capital.
SAVINGS – Aging costs decrease by 51%.

What Have We Learned? Looking back, the secret to our success has not been luck or magic. Rather, it’s the result of the mindset we nurtured among ourselves and our team. We call it – The Brain Brew Way. It’s a never ending commitment to continuous improvement in our products and ways of working. It’s a modern application of the approach of Dr. W. Edwards Deming taught Toyota, Sony, and other companies following WWII and USA manufacturing companies in the early 1980’s. It’s also the foundation of the System Driven Innovation work of our sister company, Eureka! Ranch.

To Learn More About The Brain Brew Way

CLICK HERE to view a short Video Case Study on Brain Brew by the Deming Institute.

CLICK HERE To Purchase a copy of co-founder Doug Hall’s latest book – PROACTIVE Problem Solving. This book tells the story of how the Brain Brew Crew enables innovation by everyone every day.