The Karol Markowicz ShowThe Karol Markowicz Show: Exploring the Business of Bourbon and Cigars with Tony Katz
In this conversation, radio host Tony Katz shares insights about his journey in the media industry, his passion for bourbon and cigars, and the importance of personal growth and introspection. He discusses the evolution of his career, the challenges he faced, and how he found happiness through honesty and self-reflection. The conversation also touches on family, mortality, and the joy of pursuing one's passions. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. A few days ago, this big story broke involving a squirrel. A guy in New York State had taken a squirrel and a raccoon as a pet and put them on the internet. Peanut the squirrel became an Internet sensation, had half a million followers, and people just loved that little guy. Then a few days ago, the Department of Environmental Conservation seized Peanut and the raccoon named Fred, from owner Mark Lungo's home. He had an animal sanctuary in rural Pine City, New York. They then euthanized the animals. So they take the animals from this guy's house where he films himself snuggling with this squirrel and kissing the squirrel constantly, and they're just like best friends, and they kill him. They kill the squirrel. A lot of people were outraged, me included. Now, I think it's important to note that I hate squirrels. I am not into them at all. I have an animal loving mom who saves turtles and you know, feeds stray cats, and she used to feed the squirrels on my balcony in Brooklyn and I was very anti that whole thing. They're really gross, They're gross, they're vicious. I mean, I think the only animal I dislike more than squirrels are pigeons. Just itw But coming into someone's home and taking away their animal who isn't bothering anyone, scares me, and I think it's scared a lot of people who heard the story. And I've seen a lot of commentary around this go something like people are more concerned about squirrels and they are about blank could be you know anything. I saw high grocery prices, the border death and gaza, etc. But I want to say that I found it very encouraging that people cared about the insane thing that happened with this squirrel. We can't culturally accept that kind of action from our government. If they do that, what else can they come and do? As I like to say, this show is not about politics, and it's not the politics of this that bothers me. It's not that it happened in New York. If it happened in a red state, I'd be just as mad. Where in this time where people tell me they can't sleep because they're so worried about what's going on in our country, and I really think that small stories like this squirrel story really exacerbates that. Silly as that may sound, we need to be able to count on things going a certain way, and the government coming to your home and seizing and you're, yes, weird but harmless pet should not happen, and then killing that pet is just really crossing the line. I told my kids' story, and they wondered, why didn't they just set the animals free? After all? The whole concern supposedly was that their wild animals and shouldn't be living in someone's home, right, Why kill them? I worry about the future of the country with stories like that. I really do people need to know what to expect During COVID, I just wanted normal seedback and we were willing to move to Florida to get it. People need normal, They crave normal. I think stories like this move us away from normal, move us away from knowing what to expect, and that really harms our country overall. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Drop me an email, Carol Markowitz Show at gmail dot com. Ka r O L M A R kow I c isn't charlie' z as and ZBrush at gmail dot com. Coming up next and interview with Tony Katz. Join us after the break.
Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is radio host Tony Katz.
How's it going?
It is going well.
I didn't know if David Marcus rules applied and whether or not I could smoke.
Dry you could totally smoke. Go ahead.
Have you done an interview with David Marcus?
I have, and I discouraged him from smoking, just because I like picking on him.
But yeah, he smoked pretty much the whole way through.
Okay, But but.
He's a cigarette smoker and he needs to. I'm a cigar smoker, right.
So tell me about your Before we got on, you were telling me you have three radio shows, which you know, I would say, seems like a lot. But I have two podcasts now, so I get it. So tell us about your shows.
There used to be a time in radio where you could do just one show and feel like you made a living and feel like you know everything's gonna all right.
It's a tenuous world, it is radio.
So I'm the morning host of ninety three point one FMWIBC in Indianapolis. I've been doing the morning show here for ten years, and then I am I'm the host of something called Tony Kats Today, which is nationally syndicated. We're we're in Memphis, We're in Tulsa, here in Indianapolis, throughout Indiana. We then share the show on weekends, and then I host the which started as a hobby because I'm a cigar guy, Eat Drink Smoke, which is the largest cigar in bourbon radio review program in the country. We're on eighty eight stations across the country on weekends, myself and Fingers Below, who is a Joy and a treat of a man.
And that's led to books on barbecue and bourbon, and you know.
Just a very idea of I have a hobby, I like this thing, I talk about this thing, and then it turned into kind of turned into a business.
Turned out that's the best, right.
That is actually when magic happens when you can talk about something that you love to talk about and make money from it. I love bourbon also, I'm actually I'm more into rye. Do you is it all brown liquors or do you limit to bourbon?
Rye is Rye is unsung in Indiana. It is. It is the drink.
Yeah, I'm much more a fan of Midwest Rise and let's say East Coast Rise. I'm not as much of a whistle pig guy as I am some of the other things.
Me, some of your favorites, I need, I need some recommendations.
See that that's unfair.
Favorite is I can give you recommendations, but I can't.
I can't rank Pikesville.
I think every liquor cabinet should have Pikesvill Rye in it. I think that is absolutely unsung. A spectacular, spectacular drink out of Indiana. There's some guys called Hard Truth, which is down in Nashville, Indiana, Brown County, which is a beautiful, beautiful spot.
You guys have a Nashville right.
It's there is no Broadway, no no girls going, none of I can. I'm over if you need it, but no, please please, There's.
Only so much of that one can handle. Uh. So they do some great work because they do it.
They do a sweet mash rye, which is you know they're not they're not using a starter, They're doing it fresh every time. So as far as Rise, those two I think should be in liquor cabinets all.
Over the place.
But no, it's it's not just it's not just brown liquor rum is fantastic with a cigar and people never ever put it together.
Bamboo b u M b u.
If you've never had a bamboo rum with a cigar, I think is great. We we just did an Irish whiskey that was absolutely spectacular, kind of like apple and pear pie.
Mixed with butter. It was.
Yeah, I'm not an Irish whisky guy at all. That is not where I feel. It's like Japanese whiskey that is just not it's not enjoyable. But no, it's it's it's more about just being able to taste and get an idea of what it's like. What is an artist trying to do? It's like the cigar, this is this is art, right? What was the plan here? What's the thinking here? And kind of exploring what they're all about. And I'm much more of a cigar person than a drinker by any stretch.
I don't have to finish the drink. I will finish the cigar.
What kind of cigar are you smoking today?
So this is an oliva or sometimes pronounced Oliva. I leave it to others. The Suri v this is the Millennia, which is not Millennia. This says nothing to do with Trump.
It's just just not.
A bad business idea. The Millennia.
Say someone hasn't done Trump cigars already.
Oh, I'm sure they have.
You know, they haven't created an eight inch cigar and just called it huge. That has to have happened. I like this is a pretty moderately priced cigar. The regular seriv is probably about ten eleven bucks. This is probably about seventeen. But I find it to be a very easy, all purpose smoke, no matter what you're doing, when you're doing coffee, whether you're doing bourbon, whether you're doing a diet coke, which is a nice clean way to cleanse the pallet each time without affecting flavor of the cigars. It's it's it's in the humand or constantly. But it isn't my every day It's just what I happen to pick right now.
Can you see yourself getting into the business of maybe a bourbon or a cigar or something.
I had Michael Knowles on the show. He has his own cigar.
Company now, Clay and Buck my my overlords here at iHeart. They started a coffee company. I think people are kind of branching out. Can you see yourself doing that?
I think that is it's the business and the brand and the concept of the brand, and I think we're all in it and it gets very very strange and very odd. I know Carol Markowitz from the New York Post. Now it's Carol Markwitz from the podcast, and soon will be Carol Markwitz from the stage show New re enacting the life of Elaine Strich. That's clearly what's coming. For those who don't know Elaine Strich, you might have to go to Google and check that out.
Yeah, so I'm doing I did when COVID started.
I did a rye whiskey called Recovery Rock and we raised money for hospitality workers impacted because of closures. Right, So myself and a guy who owns a cigar lounge, Corey Johnston, and a group called Backbone Bourbon and we did this and it did very very well, tens of thousands of dollars, and was thrilled to do it. I have coming out in the end of November my first barrel pick that I did with Hotel Tango Distillery. Vetteran owns here in Indianapolis a ten year, so I've.
Got a ten year barrel pick.
And now it's a conversation of doing a collaboration on a bourbon and a series of bourbons really kind of focusing on what they refer to as orphan barrels, this idea that this barrel never got sold or this barrel turn out the way people want it.
Well, what if you did this and mixed it with that?
What if there's an idea here, What if there's something here that's just perfect on its own, uncut, and just just get it out to people and let them try it. And I think that it's all part of it is all part of joy, right, being able to do like I did the podcast, Eat Drink, Smoke because I wanted to an escape from the politics, and then it became its its own thing.
That is that is, that is lightning and a lightning in a bottle. Lovely. But it's never it's not necessarily about the money.
Being a capitalist, why not, you know, why not make money along the way.
There's no way I agree with you. Why not make make money?
Sponsorships now available, But it's it wasn't the driver. It's never been the driver. The doing, to me is much more interesting than than the rest.
I would argue that I I'd probably.
Be further along in a career, more financially successful in a career if I had made some of those moves.
But I kind of like just doing the stuff.
Doing the stuff is kind of fun and let the chips fall where they may. So, uh, Doing a cigar is far different than doing a bourbon. You've got a lot of people out there that you could work with, reach out to and do something in a collab aborative effort, and then use whatever platform you have to try and get it sold. A cigar is only going to go as far as the people who sell the cigar or can push it, because they're gonna buy the box and then they have to sell the twenty cigars that are inside. There has to be something worthwhile, a story that they're going to buy into and believe and share, and it has to actually be good in order for those cigar lounges to do it.
So you know, you can.
You can gimmick a cigar from now to the end of time. And there are a lot of people in the celebrity world who get in cigars? Those people are gonna suss it out. You can't get you can gimmick bourbon. A Snoop can give me gin and juice all you want, and and Ryan Reynolds can get lucky as bloody heck with Aviator Gin. Fantastic marketing. I'll leave the gin to others what George Clooney did with tequila. Remember, no one's made more money than Sammy Hagar with Kabba Loabo. I mean that guy is the originator for sure. But people will do it for the kitch, not a cigar. Cigar has to be good and I haven't yet just decided on the cigar maker.
Well, I would.
Smoke the Tony Cats. If you make it, I will smoke it.
So I pledge that to.
You right here. Do you smoke cigars?
I mean occasionally, I'm not like, I don't think I would do it at ten twenty am on a Wednesday.
Well then I'll I'll do it just to say cut time and that's a great lighter.
But yeah, yeah, I absolutely you know, late night with a whiskey?
Sure? Why not?
What do you drink? Is?
What is the Carol Markoitz end of the day. I've told people how great Florida is.
Well, once I've gotten through that, you know, I don't drink as much.
As I'd like.
I know everybody talks about drinking drinking less. No, but it's true, Like my bar has really grown, and my husband and I are always like, oh, we should drink more.
We just don't remember to do it. But again, I'm a whiskey person.
Like if I go to an event and it's like red or white wine, like kill me right there. And I would say my most controversial opinion is that wine is bad. So I get a lot of flack on the Twitter X for that. It's just whiskey is so much better. It's just it's a different universe.
So all right, but what is this?
I would say, you know, in a in a bar where I know they're going to have it.
Woodford Rye is sort of the one that I would go for. I love four Roses. I I do like whistle Pig. You know, I like all those Kentucky brands, so you know, I like.
The fancy stuff too. I drink all kinds of Wellers.
And my husband, when I had my third kid, he got me a bottle of pappies.
I mean, you know, we do it right.
Also, so on the pappy side, the well Or twelve I think is a brilliant, brilliant bourbon. You don't have to spend the pappy money. The four Roses a great pick, The small back Select I think is exquisite. And on Woodford, Elizabeth McCall would be a great interview. She's she's now the master distiller there. She's tremendous, and they do not only the Rye is good, but the Woodford double oaked and there isn't small batches, the double double oaked spectacular.
Really all right, I have to check that out.
So how did you get into the radio world before you even had the show about the whiskey and the food and the cigars. What was the first step into this kind of landscape going broke?
I had moved to Los Angeles to start a tech company with a friend of mine, fraternity brother still dearest friend in the world.
And this was when the bailouts came.
In two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine, and anybody who was an investor was running for cover trying to figure out which end was up and lost our funding and I lost I had to short sell my house back in Florida Tampa Bay at the time, and spent a year trying to figure out which end was up. And as this was happening, the tea party was coming into existence, and I started that I was one of those original people and did that first rally in California on the Santa Monica Pier, which is a weird place to have a tea party, yeah for sure, but on the on those steps right at the end of the pier, that was that was me in the first word, spoken at a tea party in California and did that for a while and said I wanted to have these conversations, but I didn't want to make money off these people. I wasn't gonna be a guy printing T shirts or anything like that. So I knew of a radio station where I'd done a little bit of work in Clearwater, Florida, and I bought the time, and I bought an hour a day and did the show from California on Skype Wow Los Angeles, and that's and that's how I got started. That's how I started my my my radio career. And it was right around the time where Arizona was.
Was having this law SB ten seventy.
You have a lawful stop, you can ask the person you stopped what country they're from. People were upset and they were saying boycott Arizona and don't do conventions in Arizona. And Congress members from Arizona was saying this. I thought this was nuts. I started offering free advertising to Arizona businesses, which.
I mean California. The shows in Florida today make sense.
A guy I know, John I haven't spoken to in a great number of years, had run the story on his website and some other people put the word out and then Kavudo called and three days later I'm doing the Okavudo Show, my first time on Fox ever.
And that was the start of the career.
I'll be right back with more from Tony kat.
So.
A question that I ask all of my guests is what advice would you give your sixteen year old self, Like, do you still follow that path?
Do you go into tech?
No? No, I knew nothing about tech.
Had a friend who was smarter than me, who had a good idea, and I said, here's my money, and I was willing to risk all my money and I did.
I lost everything. In that my sixteen year old self.
Was an extremely unhappy kid, an outrageously unhappy kid that led to real depression in my twenties and being suicidal.
It was a it was.
An awful decade, sadly a wasted a decade. You know, it is cliche to say it gets better, but I would argue that you can get through this. It's just going to take a lot of work. And maybe maybe you want to recognize it a little bit earlier than you did, and it'd be proactive about it if I was giving myself that that advice. But the the also maybe the idea that nobody knows anything.
They all have advice, but no one knows.
Crap, and and and try some things on your own and see what works. It's okay, Failure's fine.
Right, So how did you turn it around? I?
Uh A have a spectacular wife, absolutely spectacular. I went to a a wasn't a psychiatrist psychologist once once because my wife had a job and it was covered by insurance, and and I went and I went back a second time and the guy was basically like, why are you here.
I'm like, oh, all right, I must be fine. I wasn't cured.
Yeah, right, magic, I tell you is it's like taking the collidal silver.
You're heeled of all your ailments. I I certainly wasn't.
I'm not sure I've ever heard of therapist turned down clients before.
But you must.
You must have been a good one.
I don't.
I I it was. It was odd. As I look back on it, it was very, very, very odd.
But it it was a reminder that it was really up to me. I saw something wrong, right, And that's first recognizing that you're seeing something wrong. I should have been more proactive. And the thing that turned me around, which really didn't start working until my thirties, was I stopped lying about everything. I never lied to another person again. I never lied to myself about anything, not the smallest detail, not how this shirt looked, not the fact that my hair is total.
I don't know what's what's there? I nothing.
I don't lie about anything anywhere at any time.
Let the chips wall where they may.
And it really got me into this idea of don't do things for the money, do things because they can be done.
Do the thing, try the thing if it doesn't work.
Yeah, it's like in November November fourteenth, I'm gonna shameless plug. I'm doing an event understanding the election in three bourbons, right, so hopefully we'll have Electra results by then. I'm gonna take it down for a crowd what happened in the battlegrounds and in the Battle of the sexes and everything else.
And we're gonna pair it with bourbon. And we've got food. Where our cigars Afterwhere's the event? This is in Fishers, Indiana.
You can go to tickets dot Tony Kats dot com, tickets tot dot com.
Thank you, I will fly you out, Carol. If you want to be a part of.
It, well, I will certainly consider that.
I've never been to Indiana.
Indiana in November.
I'm not sure I have the warm clothes anymore.
For that.
Oh, we have goodwills and the willingness to give you a sweater. These people are very friendly. That has been years me saying I want to do a live event. You know you talk about like Clay and Buck doing the coffee and.
Back at coffee check it out.
You know, all these kinds of things. Do the thing. I have no idea if this is gonna work. I have no idea what it's gonna make money. I don't know if people are gonna leave going.
That sucked, or they're gonna say this was a great time. If they leave saying it was a great time and then they learned something, that's the win.
Great time first, Right, that's gonna be tough. I just liked the idea of doing and saying I have to do this.
I got to get this out of my system, get it out of my soul, and so I now just do anything I dang well.
Please, I love it. So what do you worry about? In whatever path? Do you think that question lead you?
Yeah?
So, I mean you could argue some of the basic stuff. Right, I have a family, I have children, and certainly concerns for them in this world, in this society, without question being Jewish, it's something that we both talk about on social.
Media, noticeable than before, right, more noticeable than than ever before.
You know. I used to argue that very often what you saw was an anti semitism, it was moronism. Somebody brought a swastik on a stop sign, right, and you're down the street. They're not after Jews. They were a smuck and they thought, oh this will this will be shocking. It's it's you know, it's like pick the latest teeny bopper star who thinks that getting undressed for a camera is shocking.
We grew up during Madonna. We've seen literally everything you.
Made a how she made a whole book.
You cannot you cannot surprise us in the slightest. But I will tell you that maybe it's a function of age. But over the last year death I part of the whole depression thing was being obsessed with family members and what would I do if they passed away? Like it's a weird, odd thing to be to be a part of it. How would I handle this? And how would handle that? Like somehow you could control that, but I couldn't control anything else in my life, which is part of the depression. So I invented things that I could grab control of. And it makes sense as a you utilize that as a crutch, as a vehicle dealing with the fact that mortality will come. And I the only thing that has truly ever stuck with me on a philosophical level from my father passed away in June. He said, the worst part about the idea of passing away is I want to see what happens next.
Right, Yeah, yeah.
That is that is as a matter of just take a step back and have a sip of that, you know.
Carol Mark, WIT's proved wry. I want to see what happens next.
Yeah, I want to see how things turn out.
Yeah, it's all going to go on without me. That's all going to go on without.
That.
Yeah.
So maybe worry is the wrong word. That has gotten a lot of my attention lately.
I think about that a lot.
I was raised partially by my grandmother, who I just was like, you know, obsessed with, and she died before things got good. She died before I met my husband, before my career took off.
Before any of that happened.
She died when I was largely like a drift, and I wish she had gotten to see, you know, it turned out okay, it went better than expected.
So I you know, fully hear you?
Yeah, I uh so, I don't.
I don't know if I think the idea that I do radio and I've done TV stuff and I've had these interviews I.
Think tickled my father to no end.
And he lived in the in the villages, and I am sure that everybody there heard, oh my son the radio like it was like it was Jerry's father, you.
Know, did you go in the public or just I don't know.
We didn't usually talk in that kind of way, so I don't know have the ass but it's a it's an interesting thought, uh, for for sure.
But does it does it bother you?
Do you?
Is that something you obsess about?
Obsessed about?
No, but it is definitely like the regret, you know, the regret of like my grandma didn't see that it all turned out okay. Again, it was like I was. I was in graduate school when she passed, so it wasn't like I was completely a mess, but I I had definitely been a mess in my twenties. And when you were talking about that and you started with have an amazing wife, I mean it was definitely my husband also that turned my life around.
And I think that I wish she had gotten to see it. That's really that's it.
I wish she had gotten to know that it was all good and that my brother got married and had two little girls and just all the whole picture of like the family turned out okay, because when she died it wasn't going that great.
Yeah, that's a I think that's a relatable. I think that people are going to understand that very very well.
Definitely well. I've loved this conversation, Tony.
I feel like we had laughs, we had sadness, We really ran the gamut.
You smoked the cigar.
I wish I had to leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Oh, no pressure, No pressure from Marky Markowitz.
Has anybody ever referred to as Marky Markowitz?
We have? But I like it.
Copyright. Remember that, that's right.
I don't know how you're supposed to lead a good life. It's like, what's the best cigar? Hell if I know, I don't know you. I don't live in your taste buds. I have no idea what your palette is. I think maybe the question is, have you asked yourself what that is? I mean, honestly asked yourself and ripped apart the other stuff to get to the thing. I get that it sounds hokey. It sounds like I voted for Marian Williamson.
But I cannot.
I don't think I can give it enough words to how true that is? That it all got better when I stopped lying about everything. The weight just went away, to an extent that something can go away. It went away better and better for time, but it went away. Have you ever asked yourself what makes you happy? And have you ever asked yourself? Are you willing to do the things that get there? Because just because it makes you happy doesn't.
Mean it isn't tough. That's I mean.
And by the way, it could be that taking care of your family makes you happy, and that means you work a job you don't like and there there's reward in that. There's reward in that sacrifice, that is that is valuable stuff. So I don't know if I've got the good tip. I don't know if I'm you know, I like that.
Thank you, I don't know.
Prospection introspection with Tony Kats.
I love it.
That's that's the new podcast that is coming on the podcast podcast podcast number four.
Thank you so much for coming on, Tony. I love this.
Go to Tony's event, tell us one more time?
Where is it? When is it?
Here's November fourteenth, tickets dot Tony Kats dot com. You can find me on locals at Tonykats dot com because of course love the locals, and on Twitter, accent on Instagram.
At Tony kats. I hope you get to talk to you and thank you Carol for having Thank you.
Tony, thanks so much for joining us on The Carol Markowitch Show. Subscriber wherever you get your podcasts.
