Rock Town at 16: Phil Brandon Talks Rum-Finished Rye, Arkansas Oak and What Comes Next

Rock Town’s next anniversary whiskey has a connection that reaches further than a purchased finishing cask: the barrel previously held rum made by the same Little Rock distillery. Founder Phil Brandon told The Bourbon Legends that the rum had spent six years in that barrel before it became the finishing vessel for rye.

That announcement was one part of a wide-ranging October 1 conversation about building a distillery in Arkansas, learning from Dave Pickerell, scaling production with Bardstown Bourbon Company, turning Arkansas rice into bourbon and experimenting with barrels made from Arkansas oak.

For Arkansas whiskey drinkers, the interview offers a detailed look at the decisions behind the bottles. Brandon discusses the practical work—equipment, fermentation, distillation proof, barrel sizes and warehouse costs—alongside the people and local connections that have shaped Rock Town.

This feature draws from the interview conducted by The Bourbon Legends. The original video appears above, and the extended Q&A below follows the conversation in order, including follow-ups, audience questions and conversational prompts.

In the interview, Brandon identifies October 23 as the masterclass date and October 24 as the public bottle-release date. When asked why he chose a rum finish, he points to Angel’s Envy and reveals an Arkansas connection: Owen Martin, whom he identifies as its master distiller, worked at Rock Town early in his career.

Brandon says Martin’s first job after distilling school in Edinburgh was in Little Rock. He recalls approximately a year and a half at Rock Town before Martin moved to Stranahan’s in Colorado, eventually becoming head distiller there and later joining Angel’s Envy. Angel’s Envy’s own company history identifies Martin as its master distiller.

The finishing barrel’s history gives this release a particularly local identity. Brandon says it held his own rum for six years. He also mentions a rum barrel selected by Legacy Wine and Spirits, a connection ArkansasLiquor.com previously covered in Legacy’s Rock’n Rum release. That earlier retail release is related coverage; the interview does not establish that it was the same barrel used for the anniversary rye.

Brandon’s answer to the opening question is personal. He describes himself as a fifth-generation Arkansan who wanted to establish a business in his hometown and use Arkansas grains to make Arkansas bourbon. The opportunity to set a standard in a state without an established modern distilling industry was part of the attraction.

He recalls the original operation in an old warehouse district on East Sixth Street. In his telling, the business began with a rusted-out warehouse and a coat of paint, long before the surrounding area developed into what visitors see today.

He also says Rock Town did not buy sourced whiskey to sell at startup. Vodka and gin provided cash flow while bourbon aged. Looking back, he acknowledges that the decision may have made the finances harder, but says his principle was to make his whiskey his way and accept the consequences.

That startup history is distinct from Rock Town’s later collaborative production at Bardstown. The interview makes clear that Little Rock production and Kentucky production are both part of the broader whiskey story; the details of each expression matter.

Brandon did not arrive with professional distilling experience. He says he had an engineering degree and a background in industrial automation and manufacturing sales, including visits to manufacturing plants across Arkansas and neighboring states. He understood production as a business and a process; whiskey was the subject he wanted to learn.

Choosing equipment was one of the early decisions he remembers as especially difficult. Some craft distillers were using German stills influenced by the brandy tradition. Brandon chose Vendome, describing access to parts and support closer to home as practical reasons for the choice.

Vendome also connected him with Dave Pickerell, the former Maker’s Mark master distiller. Brandon describes learning the finer points directly from Pickerell rather than following a ready-made school curriculum.

His account includes late-night reading, the American Distilling Institute forums and experienced distillers sharing knowledge. It is a useful reminder that the earliest stages of the business required both technical study and relationships with people willing to help a newcomer.

Some of the most revealing moments are the mistakes. Brandon recounts a rice batch that felt gritty in the fermenter. The material settled to the bottom and blocked a transfer pipe, requiring workers to open it and getting them covered in rice.

His explanation is that the cooking sequence had placed rice with grains added during cooling. Rice needed a higher-temperature step, he says, and should have been added with corn as the cook heated up. He describes taking the cook to 192 degrees so the rice starch could gelatinize and subsequently be converted into fermentable sugars.

The hosts ask whether that happened just once. Brandon says it did, then recounts a separate incident in which an unfinished cooker was pumped into a fermenter before conversion was complete. He describes it as a failed fermentation and remembers late-night calls to Bardstown’s management.

These stories show what changing ingredients and scaling a recipe can mean in practice. They are Brandon’s accounts of production problems and the lessons taken from them; the complete explanations remain in the Q&A.

The early Column Still Collection releases, identified in the interview by orange, silver and blue wax, were primarily aged in smaller barrels in Arkansas, Brandon says. He describes initial 2020 and 2021 production brought back from Kentucky for that maturation.

He also explains the cost of warehouse space and building a rickhouse. Other barrels stayed at Bardstown, including on fifth and seventh floors. For the Bourbon Y’all bottle he shows, he describes five years of Kentucky aging on the seventh floor.

The branding has a different kind of origin: he associates it with the look and spirit of the 1990s and Yo! MTV Raps. His explanation pushes back against making every pour an exercise in chasing bottles or elaborate tasting notes. He wanted a whiskey people could drink while enjoying a conversation.

Together, those comments explain why an Arkansas-founded whiskey business can have multiple production and maturation paths—and why a bottle’s individual story deserves more attention than a broad assumption about the brand.

The hosts repeatedly praise Rock Town’s cocktail bar, service and role as a place to take visitors. Brandon explains that the standard tasting begins with vodka and gin, moves through whiskey and finishes with coffee liqueur and bourbon cream.

His point is straightforward: visitors have different preferences. A range of products gives someone who does not enjoy gin or bourbon another way into the experience. When the hosts mention vodka sales, his response is that those sales help him make more bourbon.

The conversation also includes his wife’s candid tasting feedback, the surprise of Beefeater’s master distiller seeking out his gin, a granddaughter’s brief visit and an audience question about DeLuca’s pizza. Those moments give the technical discussion a human scale.

Asked which bourbon to recommend to someone unfamiliar with Rock Town, Brandon chooses the original 92-proof Arkansas Bourbon Whiskey. The hosts also float a live show and a barrel pick at the distillery. That remains a proposal in the interview, rather than an announced booking.

For another expression of Rock Town’s Arkansas identity, see our coverage of Natural State Bourbon – Cedar Falls. The full questions and extended answers from this conversation follow below.

The following section preserves the questions directed to Phil, follow-ups, audience questions and related conversational prompts in interview order. Questions asked of the other hosts or of his granddaughter are outside this Phil Q&A.

Quotation note: Answers are transcribed from the supplied interview transcripts and captions. Punctuation and paragraph breaks have been adjusted for reading; bracketed words mark clarifications or uncertain transcription. Separate quotations indicate intervening host comments. The linked recording is the authoritative source for exact wording and speaker identity.

Brief exchanges with uncertain attribution remain in context rather than being assigned a made-up Phil answer. The narrative and the official anniversary facts above are separate from these interview quotations.