118. Beam Suntory's Legent Bourbon

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Find out more about their fine rustic furniture at logheadshomecenter.com. We would like to thank our friends at Premium Bar Products for sponsoring this episode. If you're ready to step up your game at your home bar, check out premiumbarproducts.com to choose from their wide selection of glassware, all of which can be custom engraved with your personal message or logo. And there's no minimum order. So after the episode, head over to premiumbarproducts.com and check out everything they have to offer. Now let's get on with the show. Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we are once again on StreamYard, but we've got a great guest with us today, don't we?

Yeah, we got Adam Harris. He's from Legion, which is with Jim Beams of Torium. He is one of their, I guess, lead brand ambassador, national brand ambassador. He's been with them for 15 years, so that makes him the man out there on the road. He's out there slinging that whiskey like we've had in the past, right? From other people, kind of like that old medicine man that rolled up in his wagon trying to sell his hooch to people. That's what Adam does. Adam, welcome to the Bourbon Road.

Well, thank you very much. You just made me sound like a snake oil salesman almost there, didn't you? Well, it's good to be here, guys. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thanks for being on the show with us. You did take your hat off earlier. You were wearing a hat for us, and maybe that really sets the mood for that snake oil salesman. I don't know.

That's right. I'm just trying to make sure that first appearances didn't get judged too heavily on the current hairdo.

All right. Well, what we like to do here on the show is get straight to the whiskey. So why don't you tell everybody what you have for us today and then lead us through a little tasting.

Absolutely. I'm really excited to be bringing Legion to you guys. I don't know if you've had the chance to try it previous today, but Legion is a really exciting new bourbon from Beam Suntory and the Jim Beam Distilling Company down there in Claremont, Kentucky, where we've been located since about Prohibition. What this really is, Legion is a very unique bourbon. It's something that only we can do as Beam Suntory because of our prominence and our heritage. But we are taking East meets West. You know, when Beam Suntory became an entity over five years ago, we started working on a way to really announce ourselves to the whiskey world, announce ourselves as spirits world in general. And so A couple, two, three years back, this project started coming to light, and I started being involved in the tasting of Legion. And the story behind it is an amazing story, and it's a great, true story. It's the coming together of East meets West. You think about whiskey-making cultures and whiskey-making heritages that are represented between the United States and Japan. Coming over, when we look at Bean Centauri, we'll look at the name Bean first. And that's going to be our Kentucky heritage, our American heritage, the heritage that comes from the Bean family and the No family, which is now eight generations deep leading the charge of that distillery and for the whiskey. What I think we do in Kentucky really well is we make great whiskey. You know, we distill great product. We put that into that new unused charred oak, which rests in a very dynamic climate, which is perfect for aging whiskey and getting big full flavor out of every drop of that barrel and every drop of that distillate. So what we'll do there is we have our two legends that are behind Legion. One of the reasons why Legion works so well for the name of this product, we have Fred Note, you know, the seventh generation master distiller from our family. Booker Knows Son, Booker being the innovator of Small Batch, and he's the co-author of Legent with Shinji Fukuyosan, who is the fifth-ever chief blender from the house of Suntory. And you've got Fred, who is world-renowned and awarded and has plenty of accolades to rest his hat on, or to hang his hat on. then he's in charge of making the whiskey, right? So you think about our strength, you think about what we do so well, and it's really that calling card of a big full flavor, you know, especially with bourbon, especially what we do with our small batches and stuff like that in Claremont. And then the other co-author, Shinji, he sort of takes up and Fred and he work in concert together at this point of the story where they start to finish some of the whiskey that Fred's created. So we'll take some of the bourbon and we'll put that into a x-red wine barrel. We'll take some other bourbon and we'll put that into x-oroso sherry barrels and we'll let those finish for a while. And then as we start to create these three liquid streams, because we're letting a little bourbon age for a little longer as well while these other bourbons are finishing, Then Shinji is going to take over and start to write his chapters of the Legion story where he will then start to blend these whiskeys together and then thinking about leaning into your strengths, talking about big full flavor coming out of Kentucky. You know, what do we really recognize Japanese whiskey for? It's the blending, right? And so being able to put together flavors of all these different whiskeys that they have, whether they be different distillates, whether they've been aging in different types of casks or different types of casks over there in Japan. putting those flavors together is what he's known for. And he's highly rewarded, highly awarded and highly regarded individual in his own right, and in the whiskey industry globally. And so having these two legends together, doing what they do best, it's an amazing process. And it's an amazing partnership that brings together a really amazing, unique bourbon. And Legent through and through is a bourbon, I think, because we have that partnership between the US and Japan. I make it some people tend to want to think it's a Japanese whiskey, but this is a a bourbon. It's got the soul of bourbon and sticks out a little bit of that Japanese finesse as far as really being able to create those nuanced flavors of the blending process. So I think it's an amazing bourbon. It's been fun kind of being out there on the front lines a bit in the last two years. At first it was going to be a very limited release. We did do that for about a year or so. And then this year it started to come out more and more in the world. And we're very happy about that because it's definitely a bourbon that's worth sharing and we need to get the word out there. So thank you very much for having me on the show. Do you have any questions or should we just hop into the tasting?

No, let's go ahead and get on to the whiskey and then we'll talk a little bit more about it as we sip on it.

Yep. So as I mentioned, what we've got is an extra aged Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. That's going to really bring those vanilla and caramel flavors forward as we know. If you wanted to kind of draw a comparison to something you might already know flavor profile wise, and Jim beat black might be something in that wheelhouse right there. Thinking about the red wine cast, we're going to let that whiskey rest and finish in that red wine cast for about one to two full summers. and the same thing for the Oloroso. So we're going to bring those three together. And you can see it has that wonderful golden amber color. I think that you get a little bit of the influence from the Oloroso cask with a little bit of a darker amber. And then when he knows it, you smell bourbon right up, there's something there that's a little bit more complex. And there's a lot of depth and richness to this bourbon. And that comes through, in my opinion, with stone fruit. I think that comes through with some red, bright round fruits. I think there's a lot of fruit going on in here. You know, there's not a whole lot of oaky char. It's more fruit forward and vanilla caramel forward.

Yeah. I think the oak is there, but it is, um, it's sort of masked a little bit by the, by the fruitiness of the nose. I think that it's definitely for me a little bit more, uh, a little bit more of the red fruit, I think than the stone fruit.

What I get a lot is like current and cherry. and plum, those sort of like just ripe, round red fruits. You know, I think that those are really prominent. And those are also going to add a little bit of an acidity. And that's going to come from what the red wine cask is going to contribute to the overall flavor. So as we get into the flavor itself, and then after the break, when we try it with a little bit of water, you're really going to see that wine kind of come out and sing a little bit more, which is really, really quite nice.

I don't know. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation I have right now, Jim, but I'm getting a little bit of cherry Slurpee on nose on this.

Hey. Oh, like, uh, like the ICs of the old times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. With a little polar bear on it. Right. That's right. That's right. Yeah.

I still get the caramel. I get the bourbon in there. Um, I do get those stone fruits and stuff, but that freshness of, uh, like that icy or Slurpee, I'm getting that in there a little bit. Um, a little bit of floral notes. It smells very beautiful for an expression from Jim beam. Yeah.

So let's go ahead and I think, go ahead. Sorry, Jim.

So you, uh, you mentioned extra aged bourbon in here. Are you able to put your finger on it a little bit?

Yeah, you know, we're going to we're going to start everything at four years old, four to five. And then as those whiskeys are finished, we're going to let some of that bourbon. The majority of the blend is going to be the X range bourbon. And so we're really looking at about a six year old flavor profile at this point. That's going to be roughly it. The other bourbons, all in, once they've kind of been finished as well, they're going to be about that six-year-old age too. One thing I didn't mention about Legion and something that Shinji really likes to do when he's blended over in Japan is he'll actually take the whiskies at cast strength and he'll let them mingle for about 30 days in stainless. He thinks it's a good opportunity for the whiskey to get to know each other before it's just bottled. And I think it makes sense to me, you know, letting the flavors kind of mellow together, get to know each other, mingle. And so that's one thing that we do over Kentucky too, is we'll take these three, let's just call them liquid streams, and we take those three streams and we let those rest at cast strength all together in stainless for about 30 days before we bring it down to the bottling proof for Legion, which is 94. and then bottle it up.

Well, it sounds like it makes sense. I mean, to somebody who doesn't blend, you know, I don't really understand all that, but I guess the mechanics and the chemistry of, you know, the water chemistry, it all makes sense. It needs a chance to do its thing before you start taking it down in proof.

Yeah, I agree. I think so. So let's go ahead and give it a taste. What do you say? Cheers. Cheers. All right. Cheers to you all. So unmistakably bourbon, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. First thing on your mind when you drink that is bourbon. No doubt about it.

And then as that second wave kind of hits you, you start to see how layered the flavor really becomes and how complex the flavor becomes as those finishes start to come to light. I think the wine comes first and then as you start to finish the way that that retro nasal breathing begins to affect, uh, the back of your palate moving forward. You've got that Olorosa that kind of kicks in with some of those salty nutty, uh, resiny raisiny notes that kind of give it a really great body of the finish. And it's just, it's mouthwatering. My mouth's watering right now in a good way. It makes it one of the drink. I think I can, I can oblige.

Yeah. I think it's a, like I said, on a nose, the nose kind of matches the palate there. a little bit of nuttiness there as you would expect out of something from a beam, some Torium, you get that nuttiness out of it. Those floral notes are still there kind of on the tongue that, uh, I don't know what it's hitting me. Maybe some cherry juice, something like that, a little bit on there that Sherry cask.

You can see it in that expression, but there's a, and I think, um, are you thinking maybe like, um, floral candies like maybe those lavender pastilles or something like that kind of as far as that is because there's something very bright in there and it's a beautiful flavor. You know, I think that this is a really pretty whiskey. It's a great mixer, it's a great sipper but I think that it's not elegant because it definitely has a big flavor but it's a very, it's a beautiful big flavor.

You know, I maybe not that, but, uh, my wife likes to, she's half German and she likes to, when she gets cold, she uses those cough drops, Ricola. And they got some floral notes inside there and stuff. And I pick up a little bit of that in there. Okay. Still get that little bit of Kentucky hug. It took us, took us time working its way down nice and easy to the back of the tongue. And like you said, it makes your mouth water a little bit, just begging for another call.

So I think that little delay on, on the Kentucky hug definitely speaks to a Shinji's role, you know, that, that blending, I think really kind of. letting some of the lighter flavors, some of the smaller things get noticed first before you kind of start getting that hug is a really cool treat from the blending process and what Shinji's done.

Yeah, Mike, I think you nailed it on the head there. It's kind of an aromatic hard candy kind of sense to it. And when I take a sip of this and then I revisit the nose, but the nose is a little bit more, um, a little less floral, a little more caramel. The fruits are a little bit darker now for me. Um, it, it, it's not overly sweet on the palette. I really expect it to be sweeter than it is. Uh, it's not, um, it's got a nice full body palette and the sweetness is not overpowering on it. Like you might expect from a finished bourbon. Uh, but it's very pleasant. Um, Got a nice little hug to it. A little bit of burn on the back of the palette. Not too much. A little bit of spice there. Not too much. Uh, well balanced.

No, I think it's, and it's all those things make total sense. You know, the, those bigger flavors, the, the hug, the, the bike is going to be bourbon. You know, that's how it says I'm bourbon, but then that nice little, all that pleasant nuance flavor is going to be due to Japanese blending. And so you really get to see that this isn't, you know, 70% Fred, 25% Shinji or vice versa. This is really a nice 50 50 partnership. The two gentlemen have put together in bottle.

Let's talk about the name itself in the bottle. Uh, how did, how did you guys come up with a name and how did you come up with a design on the, on the bottle itself?

Have you, uh, have you tried to look up the word legion and dictionary? It doesn't exist, right? To be completely honest with you, you know, it was just a bunch of, folks sitting around trying to think of this new product, what's the name of this new product? And you know, I think you start thinking about words like legacy, you start thinking about words like legend. And then as those words started floating around the ether, The word Legion came up and we just sort of stuck. It seemed like the right name for something like this because it sort of evokes things like legends and legacies. And you know, you think about the legacy of being some Tory and, you know, blending whiskey is something that we're doing. all around the world with our Scottish distilleries, our Japanese distilleries, a little bit of the Irish distilleries there. And then it's coming more to light here in the United States. I think that, you know, unless something is a single barrel, we've always been batching and blending. And it's helping to bring to light the importance of a blender here in the U.S. You know, we don't celebrate our blenders quite like we do abroad. We love our distillers here. But for good reason, a lot of times they are the family names. But I think that something like Legion, and then you look at what Fred's son, Fred is doing with Little Book and blending whiskey, they're blending straight whiskeys that create unique stories every year for his limited releases. You know, we're really starting to show what can be done when you pay attention, when you start to really sort of play around with blending over in the US. And that was a bit of a digression there, but putting those two legends together, that's really making the story of Legion. And then You can see, and I know that people aren't following, and for those of you following on News Channel 4, who can actually watch this, the bottle itself is a very unique package. You know, you have from the cork closure, It says, Kentucky, Japan, with the double L seal, you open it up and on the bottom it says, two legends, one bourbon, of course, speaking to Fred and Shinji. And then as you go down and you look at the big, the bottle itself, the body of the bottle, you have the Naples bear, telling its story with one truly unique bourbon, two true legends responsible for it. Then we have this distinctly Japanese character, this curve where they paint with the horse tail brush. I can't remember the name of that practice on the top of my head right now. But inside those curves on that paint stroke or that brush stroke, you'll see at the top you have Fred's silhouette and profile and at the bottom you have Shinji's silhouette and profile. And then next to them, you have their signatures and their role at the company there. So this bottle is a is beautiful. It tells the story. I think every bottle of whiskey tells a story. Let you know where it comes from. Let you know what it's made of and let you know who did it. And I think that Legion really seals the deal as far as letting you know pretty much everything you know about this whiskey in the bottle there.

I bet you very few people knew that their silhouettes were on the bottle of this. That's pretty neat to see.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's definitely something that a lot of people have had to have it pointed out to them. And I like the fact that it's not just in your face and it's not just apparent right off the top. It's the fact that you have to kind of take your time looking at the bottle and it actually gets a little easier to see it when it's empty. Not that I'm encouraging people to drink a bottle just to see things, but I think that you It does become a little more parent as it's empty, but it's a really pretty bottle. I like it quite a bit.

So I was kind of curious, you know, with a long distance relationship like that and, you know, working on a project together, what kind of back and forth was there between the two masters in this case?

Yeah, it's a great question. And it's, um, it's a timely question because Fred and Shinji were, you know, exchanging information and being on phone calls together, you know, Fred would be agent of bourbon and then they'd be finishing the bourbon. And so he'd send over some samples of finished bourbon and they'd meet up at odd hours of the day or night to get together over these kinds of calls, Zoom calls, whatever teens calls and discuss the whiskey. And so there'd be some times where Fred would be waking up for Japanese time. There'd be some times where Shinji was waking up for American times to get these flavors together correctly. And when Shinji would blend, he'd send them back over to Fred. You know, they did over a hundred different blends. before they agreed on what the flavor of Legion would be. And so that's a lot of back and forth. That's a lot of FedEx, right? And a lot of late night calls. And so I like to tease Fred, you know, because he's, he's Fred and he's been doing what he's been doing for so long. And he, he doesn't like to sit on a computer and like that. He likes to be out making whiskey and talking to fans and friends. And so I like to tease him. The fact that he was ahead of the call ahead of the curve on the zoom stuff. Cause he and Shinji were doing this like in the last, you know, three, four years at this point. But that is pretty much how they did it. When Legion was coming to light, Shiji came over a little bit and hung out in the United States for a couple of weeks and mostly talking Japanese whiskey, but teasing out a little bit of Legion. It's mostly been my job and then my colleagues' jobs across the country to go out there and launch this whiskey and keep supporting it over the last year. Obviously, that support looks a little bit different in 2020, but we were having a lot of fun with it on the road as we were getting it out there in the world back in last year.

Well, I'd almost said, uh, you know, when you ask about the word Legion, I thought, and what I kind of was thinking about mine, it was the blending magic of two legendary gentlemen. So you got Ellie from legendary and then Gent from gentlemen. Um, to me, that would have made total sense.

Well, you know, I'm like from eight up where you can say whatever you can, you can define it however you want. I kind of like the way you said that. So I might steal that a little bit.

Well, we'll get back in a second half. We'll put some ice on this, see how it tastes with some ice. We'll go into what the future of Legion is. We'll talk a little bit of beam with everybody. We'll keep sipping on this. So we'll see you back in a second half.

I'll be here.

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Yeah I threw a little cool water on mine that's been a some ice water. It was ice water and I was just some cold water on top of here. And, you know, I think, Mike, I don't know, I don't know how far removed from your Texas roots you are, but you know how we all like a cold drink down in Texas. So I pretty much just drink all my whiskey on the rocks. Especially after I get to know it, I'll always try whiskey neat, you know, do a little experiment, add a little water. Let's see what ice will do to it. But if I like the bourbon and you see me drinking it on the rocks, wherever I might be out in the world, when we're allowed to be out in the world, then you know that I like that bourbon because But if you'll notice, I think that you can see, no matter if you did ice or water or whatnot, just on the nose alone, you can do dramatic change. A lot of that depth, a lot of that richness kind of subsides to some of the brighter notes that come forth from wine. Sorry, go ahead, Jim.

It kind of gives you that indication that it's closing down a little bit, so the aromas aren't freely escaping the glass like they used to when it gets chilled. But I think what does happen is it allows different aromatics to make it out, and maybe some of the heavier aromatics don't. I don't know the science behind it, but it does change.

It brought out more floral notes in it to me, just that almost like a fresh spring, you know, flowers and stuff where they open it up. A nice light wine finish on it, maybe.

Y'all pick up on that acidity now?

A little bit. Jim's over here sipping on it already. He's beating us to it. Punch.

Yeah. Because, because for me, I'll just be honest with you. For me, it kind of closed down the note, the nose a little bit. So I'm losing those, those bourbon, uh, aromas, but I'm getting a little bit more of like lighter, airier, uh, floral notes, maybe. I don't know. So I wanted to try and enhance that nose a little bit. So I took a sip because I thought maybe that'll bring that nose out a little bit more.

We might as well drink it now, Adam.

Yeah, let's join along. All for one. I think it makes it kind of an interesting proposition is when you drink it neat, I think, or in certain cocktails, you can really rely on those. richer flavors and aromas which really kind of put it more towards the fall and winter and then when you look at adding a little ice to it and the appropriate application I think you could probably say this would lean itself more towards the warmer months with some of those brighter lighter flavors and aromas so it's a really that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you guys taste it as is and then taste it with a little bit of cool water or ice just to kind of see how how dynamic it is. I don't want to say it's a drastic change because it doesn't become something completely different, but it is a way of highlighting the complexity of this merman, you know, really getting to know just how much is happening inside that glass.

I think whenever I put the ice to it, instead of reaching for an old fashioned or something, I might reach for this in the springtime or summertime, that hot heat, put some ice in this and sip on it. It definitely opened it up. I wouldn't have to make a cocktail. There's, I get a little bit of brown sugar sweetness to this, just ever so slightly. Some of those buttery notes, some of that floral that me and Jim were both talking about comes out in it. Just nice and refreshing.

Yeah, you can play, you can play, you go either way. You know, you can go for some of those, like you were saying, the brown sugar, depth richness and sweet flavors, you know, throw some spices in there if you wanted to to really kind of double down on that complexity, but then also go in a different way and add a little citrus juice in the summertime and maybe a little spritz on top of that, make a little Colin style drink or something would really, it's got a big sandbox as far as how it can play with everything.

I think this would be great for that whiskey person that just getting into whiskey in the summertime, they don't want that big hug. They can put a couple of drops of ice in there at 94 proof, and then you're proofing it down even more with the ice. Um, that it just kills that hug altogether. It kind of kills that spice altogether. And then those rich notes are still there on the back end a little bit. Nice and refreshing to me. Super easy. Very good.

Yeah, definitely focuses a little bit more on the back of the palette with the ice on it. I am getting that buttery brown sugar on the back of the palette. The sweetness up front, what little bit there was to start with is kind of gone now, but the back end is nice. It's very refreshing. The hugs kind of dissipated. I think that he almost said it. This is almost a cocktail as it is. Grab this instead of a old fashioned mic is what you said.

Yeah, I would do this all day long right here. This is perfect. Sometimes an old fashioned to me can be too sweet, too sugary where this is not bad. It's not too sweet. It's not too syrupy. Um, but I still get what I'm looking for. That, that brown sugary butter and us that me and both Jim are both talking about. Um, you know, somebody that's just getting into whiskey. Like I said, this is a great thing to pick up off the shelf. And what's the price point on this MSRP?

Uh, currently we're looking at about $35.

That's a pretty good price point for something like this that's been finished. It's, you said six years old and it's finished in century cask, man, spot on right there.

It's hard to beat.

Is this product blended to a profile to be as consistent as possible? Cause obviously you're making this batch after batch, right? This is not just one. Do you expect it to change over time or is it going to be pretty consistent?

That's a great question. And the answer is, no, I'm not really expecting any changes. I think that we have made some choices as far as how we look to produce this now and in the future that will hopefully maintain. You've noticed I've kind of mentioned just red wine barrels, right? I didn't say specifically what type of red wine. I didn't say what region it came from or country it came from. That's on purpose. I could tell you right now that the batch that you're drinking should use California Cabernet barrels. But we're not handcuffing ourselves to California Cabernet because what's the deal with wine? It's like the vintage things will change, right? So the flavors will change. Now, that can very much affect bourbon, depending on if we said we're only getting one type of barrel for one producer, that would change the flavor. And so we're giving ourselves the flexibility to move around in the wine world and find those barrels that are going to, hopefully, with our expertise and figuring and predicting how things will affect flavor, give us the same flavor profile time after time. Now, that being said, Shinji does know Oloroso sherry barrels very well based on his experience blending Japanese whiskey there. And so we are, I can say without hesitation that we will always use Oloroso sherry barrels. But the important thing on the other side is going to be it's just red wine barrels, right? Not particularly one type of red wine barrel. And that's going to give us the opportunity to be more consistent with batch to batch to batch to batch as the years go by.

So it's possible somebody could see a little variation from year to year on this, but it'll be very slight.

I don't think people will, to be honest. I think we're going to do a good enough job on our end of things to keep that flavor consistent and make sure that that profile doesn't change. There should be no noticeable flavor profile difference.

Now, Jim, thinking about it at $34, I can't think of another finished bourbon out there in this range. And at $34, I think you'd be hard pressed to find that. Usually looking at somewhere in the north of 50, right? $34, people could pick this up and they got a great little bottle.

Yeah, I agree with you there, Mike. I think that, um, finding a expertly crafted finished whiskey in the $35 range is a good find and certainly one that holds up well to a little bit of ice and at 94 proof and a beautiful bottle. It's a great presentation. I think, yeah, the value is there. No doubt about it.

Now, Adam, how many states are you guys in every state in the United States and then how many countries around the world are you in?

Yeah, we're getting into more states. Last year, we launched in 11 markets back in the spring of 2019. And this year, we've expanded into most of the country. With the world being the way it is, we We thought the world, more of the world could use a drink or a good drink. And so we made it out to more states. I couldn't tell you exactly how many of them, but I say we're definitely doubled our original launch and more, maybe even more. And then we did get up to Japan and I think maybe Europe at the end of last year, beginning of this year. So it did stay an American exclusive for the better part of the full year.

I know our listeners in Australia, England, and Canada, they'd all be looking for this. Can they find it up in Canada and in England and Australia?

The one that I think they might, your friends in England might be able to find it. I think your friends, I don't think they can get it North or in Australia yet.

Well, I think our Australia fans, they deserve some of this. Hopefully a beam can ship them some down there.

We should, you know, say for the longest time, uh, was the biggest, the biggest, uh, consumer, uh, jumping out there in the world because, uh, they were, they were crazy for the RTDs that we were doing back in the day. And so they, they used to drink up a ton of Jim beam, still do. So maybe we can, maybe we can, uh, reward their efforts with a little Legion someday.

Well, Adam, I don't know if you know this or not, but this is not the first time we've had Legion on our show. We actually had it on episode three. This will probably be episode one 17 or something like that. So on episode three, episode three, we had it on with, uh, chef David Danielson, uh, from the executive chef of Churchill downs. Yep. And, uh, we drank Legion with him.

So it tastes the same.

You know, it was the spring of 2019 and I just don't remember, but I don't notice any different.

2019 was 10 years ago at this point, right?

That's right.

Long time ago.

So in your, in your team, Adam kind of explained to our listeners, what does, we've had a brand ambassador on the before, but at beam's Victoria, what does a brand ambassador do for beam?

Sure. We have, we have some of the best jobs in the world. You know, this is not something your high school career counselor tells you about. being a brand ambassador. This role, this job, this awesome opportunity is really just a way to be a conduit from the distillery and our brands to our fans and consumers and trade partners. And so what we like to do is we'd like to consider ourselves to be folks that are rooted in education and rooted in knowledge of what we do and day to day to make these products, rooted in the knowledge of history. And when you represent 225 years of family history, that's a very big honor. And it comes with a lot of responsibility to be out there and talking and doing things the right way, talking about things the right way and respecting that heritage, but also having a lot of fun too. We like to be out there and promoting our products in fun and safe ways, maybe happy hours, cocktail events, all the big cocktail conventions and conferences going across the country. We're usually throwing events somewhere there, doing tasting somewhere there. We love hosting dinners. We love working with our distributor partners and making sure that they're up to speed with the latest and greatest that we're doing and what our initiatives might be for the year or the quarter, whatever that might be. We're just always out there kind of as the Sometimes the mouthpiece, sometimes the face of the brand, always hoping to build the brand and trying to foster that connection, a real connection between anybody that wants to know more about us and those who will listen to us talk as much as we want to talk about our whiskey. I love having a drink, but I love talking about it almost even more.

Now, is there a place that you got any events coming up where our listeners could come see you talk or sling some of that whiskey out there like an old snake snake?

Oh man, I wish I wish I go back a nice, nice way to bring your full circle there. Um, I, I wish I could tell you that I had a whole itinerary of amazing events that I was doing to close out the year. But, uh, you know, I've been doing a lot of these virtual things and working remotely from home, same as most of us have. Uh, I'll be, um, in Brian college station. If you have any Texas listeners there in Aggie country, I'll be over there next week doing a dinner at a little steakhouse there, which I'm very excited about.

So Bryan College Station is the home of Texas A&M, the Gigam Aggies. I don't like those people too much because their football sucks and they went to the SEC, but obviously they like some whiskey. So Adam will tell us where he's going to be at.

Porter's and College Station. And I'm a big 12 guy myself. I went to Kansas and so anybody that leaves a big 12, they're dead to me after that.

So they're quitters. That's what I call them. They're quitters.

That's right. That's right. I don't know why anybody wouldn't hang around the bit 12. You got plenty, plenty of schools in mind to beat up on, but that's all right. Basketball seasons here. That's all we care about basketball seasons here.

Basketball season. We got a little bit of basketball here in Kentucky, big blue card, cardinal red. So, uh, Me and Jim are kind of flushing between them. Yeah, right in between.

Can you all tell me where he'd offer up with the college and where he learned how to play basketball?

I'm guessing you're going to say Kansas. You're guessing right. He went to Kansas.

If we, if we were talking and if y'all were in North Carolina, I'd ask you where Dean Smith went to college and where he learned how to play basketball. You say the same thing.

Oh Lord.

We don't play football. So I got to get it somewhere.

Well, I was going to think you could bring up Mike K and see where he played.

Army.

Army. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I got to say that game's coming up. Go, go army, beat Navy. No, no, no, no.

We're getting to my bases here. I live by three days, bourbon basketball and barbecue. So let's talk some barbecue quick.

Heck yeah, I could talk barbecue all day long. What's the big barbecue joint down in Houston?

Uh, we got a few, um, there's a great place called Rays, which is a chat show, a gas station. They've been making kind of this area barbecue for a long time. Uh, there's a couple. Texas has done a thing, you know, central Texas barbecue has become so popular over the last many years that that style is starting to influence a lot of a lot of just, you know, northern and southern Texas styles to as as you see that style getting out into the country and the rest of the country as well. But as far as good Texas barbecue, we've got a great place called The Pit Room, which is really good here. We've got Killam's, which is good. There's a place called Truth, which has its roots in Brenham, Texas, which is really good. You know, I live in Texas. We got good barbecue everywhere. You can't throw a rock without, you can't throw a rib bone without finding good barbecue.

Now, what about whiskey bars? If our listeners come to Houston, you're a native of Houston. Where would our listeners go to get a good pour of whiskey in Houston?

Yeah. If I'm looking to have a whiskey from any region of the world, I'd probably head over to Reserve 101. That's in downtown by where we play basketball. If you're looking for more of an American focus, you can't beat Poison Girl. Poison Girl is an amazing bar down here and it's got a much more relaxed vibe. It's a very fun place to be. One of my favorite bars to go to when I like to go to crowded bars and I want to be loud. And, uh, and that's one of my favorite places to go. Um, and then there's a new place that opened up called permission that I have yet to go to, but everybody's told me it's great. So I'll be, that's on my radar from when I'm out and about a little bit more.

And then one last question for you on it for our listeners, cause we do have listeners that go to Houston all the time. Um, where would be a little liquor store they could hit up if they want to find some gyms out there?

Well, You can't be in Houston about going to Specs. Specs is a huge store. They do have a great stock all the time. A lot of times that's where I go to find the LTOs and the rare finds that might be on the shelf for 30 seconds if you're there at the right time. And then we've got a really great little spot called, there's tons of great little spots and I hate to promote anybody over anybody else, but I like to shop at the Houston wine merchant every once in a while too. And I'm going to go to a little smaller mom and pop shop, but there's a little independence as well. So there's too many in name, but those are just a couple that I did. So if anybody's listening, please hold it against me that I sent you in two directions out of a thousand, I could have.

And what are the things looking like at the distillery right now? I mean, tours and gift shops.

Yeah, we probably have the most boring tour in the world right now because we don't have any tours going on. We've been closed for quite some time now. We won't be opening up again until May. That's a decision we've made for safety sake, obviously, and for public health sake, obviously. We did do, in the earlier COVID, we were making the hand sanitizer, things like that. So we have sort of pivoted to help out with the larger cause. But we're back to making out, to making whiskey again. But nobody can come see us do it. We're doing that out of safety for sure. And then also we are doing a big remodel of the distillery. We're keeping all the producing facilities are still going to be the same. But as far as the visitor trashing goes, we're doing a major overall of all that. And so if you've been to the distillery as recently as, you know, January, when you come back, uh, and mid summer, late summer next year, it's going to be a completely different experience. I'll probably barely recognize a place when it's done. So we've taken this, uh, you know, we're, we're, we're making lemonade here and we've taken this time. As an opportunity to do about three years of construction that we have to do slowly and systematically around visitation and things we decided to do three years of construction about 18 months and we've got a hell of an experience like first all we get on the other side of this it's going to be. super cool. And I think that we're really going to be one of the, one of the crown jewels of the bourbon trail. I mean, we, we've been one of the crown jewels of bourbon trail for a long time, being the number one bourbon maker in the world. But I think that we will really truly, truly earn that title with some of the, some of the attractions that we have coming in the way that we're just going to present ourselves to the world and any visitor that comes on bourbon trail and just comes to see us.

So Adam, where can our listeners find Jim Beam and Legion on social media?

Yeah, you go to Jim Deem official on Instagram, you'll find us easily there. That's where we do most of our chat. We also have a legion bourbon on Instagram, too, where you'll see any sort of messaging or fun. That's all we might have of Legion. And then if you care to see me, I put something out there in the world every once in a while. And you can follow me at Mr. Adam Harris. That's just Mr. Adam Harris, my name. So I'm happy to happy to follow back and happy to have you all follow along. So That's where you can see me. Everyone's gonna throw up a little recipe out there, maybe what I'm doing. Maybe you'll see me next week in College Station from the dinner event that we'll be doing. Responsibly and safely, of course.

Well, Adam, I got to say thank you for shipping us a bottle of this, uh, of Legion. Um, it's mighty fine expression coming on and spending some time with me and Jim today. We always love having a guest on from distilleries, uh, whiskey slingers like yourself. Um, Jim working our listeners find us.

Well, you could find us on all the social medias at The Bourbon Road. We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can also find us on our website at thebourbonroad.com where you'll find our blog. You'll find our podcast episodes. You also find some of our glassware that you can pick up. Mike, we also have a private Facebook group, don't we?

Yeah, we have the bourbon roadies. Um, it's right around 1300 people right now of, uh, whiskey drinkers, whiskey makers, whiskey, uh, bullshitters. little bit of everybody in there. You got to answer three questions to get in our group. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon and do you agree to play nice? Cause we don't tolerate no rudeness in there. Come in there, share whiskey, just don't sell it. If you want to buy some whiskey dough, me and Jim still have a pick out our first pick road pick number one. Um, you'll see our post in there. You can go to our website and you'll see click on the link that says barrel picks. Um, click on that and it'll follow those instructions. I'll tell you how you can get it. a limited number of bottles out there, still. So hopefully you'll be able to pick one of those up.

It's always nice to have a guest on the show. We do two shows a week. Every Monday we do a craft distillery show where we do a review of a bottle. Sometimes it's a big boy, but usually it's a smaller craft distillery. On Wednesdays we do a full length episode like today's, where we've got Adam on from Legion. And we try to put out two episodes a week. We really love to have you all check out both those episodes.

So if you're a whiskey group out there, like the bourbon roadies, you got a small whiskey group, you're looking to save some money on your glassware. We want you to go over to our sponsor's website, reach out to me and I'll hook you up with Janie at Distillery Products. They got a great team over there. They're going to save you some money if you're looking for that big purchase order right around Christmas. She's still got a little bit of time for that. They got the same Glen Carons we have. after Christmas, they're going to add some decanners for a infinity bottle. Uh, you looking for that, but if you're looking to save some money for those whiskey groups out there, or if you're a craft distillery and looking for somebody else for glassware, Janie is the person to get with. Um, reach out to me at Mike at the bourbon road and I'll link you up with her. Help us both out.

Absolutely. Well, if you're just trying to reach out to Mike or any time, probably the best way to do that is on Instagram. I'm Jay Shannon 63. I'm one big chief and we will see you down. We do appreciate all of our listeners, and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate it if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop in all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions. And if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.