126. Angel's Envy Cask Strength Bourbon - 2020 Retrospective

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.

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And tonight, Mike, we have a big boy bottle. Yeah, I'd say it's a big boy bottle.

$199 MSRP. Yeah. I've seen it a lot more than that. And I didn't see the charge on our account. So I think you just bought this out of your own pocket. Yeah, because I had to have it.

Yeah. So it's Angel's Envy 2020. cast strength bottle and that big, beautiful wooden box that Wes Henderson came up with.

Yeah. It's a, it's a big boy whiskey. Yeah, it is. It's always a beautiful, beautiful box. You know, they really do it right. Don't they? They know how to present a bottle to somebody. It looks like a million bucks.

It's something you can definitely put on a shelf, on your bar, whatever you want to put it on. Inside is like a velvet coated, uh, coffin for whiskey.

So the 2019 that we had released from Angel's Envy, we had with Whiskey Lore on a show that we had along with some of their Scotch whiskey, right?

Yeah, it's not a bottle I break out too often, but we're good friends. Got Rob over here tonight. Got you. I would like to break you out one of these bottles. Whiskey, the way I felt, was pretty special. He made a long trip to come see us. Collaboration. And I felt that it'd be a nice whiskey to drink. But you could drink that bottle of 2019. And I pulled it back out. I seen your eyes twinkle, twinkle, twinkle little star Jim had in his eye. And this one, I think, is just going to be a special. I haven't tried it tonight. We cracked this thing.

It's fresh. So when you're thinking about a fine, I mean, a fine Finnish whiskey, a fine Finnish bourbon, my brain immediately points to Angel's Envy.

Yeah, I think Wes Henderson and his boys have figured it out. Him and his dad, his late father, Lincoln, had definitely figured it out. And Wes has continued that with his sons there at Angel's Envy. And this is a hundred and twenty point four proofer. So it is definitely cast strength. It's dark. It's rich looking. Now I haven't put my lips to this thing yet, Jim, but I'm, I'm expecting high things from this thing. And while we're drinking this 2020 thought we could recap and we'll start a new tradition. our first episode out of the gate, besides our craft distillery review, but our first long episode every year. I think we should start it off with a recap of our previous year. So next year, I want to do it with a 2021 angels in the cast strength.

So every year we're going to sit down in your basement or mine, we're going to crack open a fresh bottle of Angel's Envy, and we're going to talk about the year gone by. Hell yeah. Well, I'm ready. I don't have to twist your arm on this, right? You don't have to twist my arm. I definitely have. Look, let's go back a couple of years. Let's go back a couple of years. finished bourbons weren't actually at the top of my list. Right?

Yeah. I'd say that true on you, but I love some finished whiskey.

I do now, but I was a little bit worried because I was kind of the purest, Mike. I was kind of the guy that was saying, Hey, wait a minute. You can start doing all that stuff to it and it's no longer bourbon. But then, you know what? I kind of decided that as long as the label is clear and it's telling the consumer exactly what's going on with that whiskey, I'm okay with it.

And this one is very clear about it. If you haven't seen the Angel's Envy bottle, you probably live it in a hole somewhere, but it's got Angel's wings on the back. It tells you what it is. This is a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey finished in port wine barrels.

Finished in port wine barrels. So it starts out as a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey and then they put it in port wine barrels to finish it off. This is cask strength. You know, we've had, uh, Pat, other whiskeys in the industry that have not been as clear on the label as this, wouldn't you agree?

Yeah, I think they sometimes like to twist a little bit or market a different way, but heck, Angel's Envy is doing it the right way. They're upfront and honest. There's other people that are upfront and honest. They'll tell you they're a finished whiskey. This one definitely says finished import wine barrels. It might not call itself a finished bourbon. It doesn't say finished bourbon, but it's telling you what it is. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Some people might beat them up on the price. You know, I'm getting a beautiful whiskey and a beautiful bottle and a beautiful case that I can display. And it's something I break out just for special occasions with great friends. I got two great friends in here that have made Kentucky a home for me. Um, you know, I met Jim in a bar and I met Rob in a, uh, I guess in, um, either a bar or a whiskey store where I meet most of my friends at. Um, but something I like to share with friends, uh, pour out for special occasions or pull up, pull up for special occasions. But yeah, uh, 2020 was a rough year for some people, but I'm hoping we can finish it up and recap this year and talk about our, um, year over this whiskey. So let's try this thing.

Let's do it. Wow. That is absolutely fruity, floral and syrupy all at the same time.

Well, I just went ahead and sipped it. Did you?

I went straight to the nose.

I didn't even nose it. I'd already nosed it in the bottle a couple of times. It's a, it's powerful. It's got some spice on it. What's the proof on this again? 120.4. 120.4. And do you have the match bill on this? I do not. It's their standard. It is their standard on standard angels in the,

So I guess Mike, there were about 17,000 bottles of this made. So it's not like, uh, there's not like a thousands of cases available out there. This is a pricey bottle. No doubt about it.

Yeah, it is a pricey bottle. I've seen it as much as $289 in retail. Now I picked this up at Kroger, $199. That's what the MSRP on it is. I saw the price and I had to snag it. I actually snagged a couple other bottles for some roadies today that are coming into town. They can't get suburban somewhere else. So they'd asked me if I'd pick it up. I did.

So if you're grabbing some, some bottles for, for a roadie, that's called an angel grab, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So Drew Allen asked me, he's like, I can't buy this. And I'd found it on sale is our actually bourbon of the year for 2020, a maker's mark, 46 cast strength. And, uh, I found it for 51 99. There you go.

Good bourbon. Good price. You know, that's one of the reasons why that bourbon made our bourbon of the year was availability and price.

Yeah. A lot of people beat us up on it and I had to say to them, what's your bourbon of the year? That's me and Jim's bourbon of the year.

Something that we had to both agree on. And that's hard for us because you like the sweet, soft, wheat upfront bourbons. I like the spicy, smack you in the face, kick your behind, rye bourbons.

That one had a little bit of both, had a little bit of barrel spice. And it didn't fare good in our last episode because it did go up against a bunch of big boys, but it's still our bourbon of the year because we both agreed on it. It was availability. It's in all 50 States. It's a cast strength. It just met everything that we needed from a bourbon this past year.

A little bit of advice to people. If you're going to have a, bourbon contest. If you're going to have a blind bottle share, you know, pick a bourbon that's middle of the road. Pick a bourbon that's kind of enjoyable by everybody. If you pick something that's bold, either juts out in one direction or another, you're probably going to be polarizing, right?

Well, you know, I wrote my blog on our website and I said this, I'm a study of people. I like to know people, what they like. No, I like, I know what you like, Jim. You like that spiciness. I've studied Rob a little bit. I knew he was competing. So I studied him a little bit. He likes that spice a little bit too. Oh, you were unfair about this. But he also like, he's told me before he likes weeded bourbons. And then I knew Jordan loves weeded bourbons and I like weeded bourbons. That's what I brought. I studied all three of you know your competitors so you can whoop their ass.

for the win. All right, Mike, well, I'll tell you what, this angel's envy, much like the premium expressions that Wes has put out in the recent years, this is something that does not disappoint.

Good Lord, it doesn't. This is high proof. This is big boy whiskey, or as we like to call it sometimes, grown woman whiskey. It's got some complexity to it. I'm getting some cherry notes coming out. That port wine barrel is there. It's definitely there.

Yeah, if you take a sip of this, you let it sit on the front of your palate for just a second, then roll it back down the sides of your tongue and let it just envelop your entire palate. It is syrupy, it's sweet. It's got that nice floral essence to it. It's got that cherry, that same ruby port kind of sweetness that you get from all angels envy. I mean, it definitely comes out in it.

Not a whole lot of Kentucky hug on this, just a slight bit. It's going down a little bit. But man, what a beautiful pour. Rob's in here drinking with us now. He's been our guest tonight and his glass is emptying. Rob, go ahead and pour yourself another pour of that stuff. It is big boy whiskey. Um, but man, what a whiskey that West has put out for us. Um, I'd say if you see this on a shelf somewhere, you want to go buy it.

Yeah. So Mike, you know, how long have you been on the show?

It was September of 2019.

September, 2019. So a little over a year now you took over for Randy when he had to, he had to move on down the road. Uh, he's in Virginia now, but you came on as the cohost and it's been a whirlwind since you came on.

It has, we've grown tremendously. We're almost at 10,000 on Instagram. You know, social media is kind of my game for the podcast. I do the post for all of our social medias and stuff. Every once in a while I'll say, Jim, I need you to do this. But mostly that's me. You're the guy. I'm the guy you'll see in a bourbon roadies. Jim, every once in a while pops in there says, hello.

Yeah, not too often. You know, I'm not the social butterfly. I mean, I like people. I love our roadies. I think they're great. It's just that, I don't know, I've just always been kind of that. You're the backstage, the curtain guy. The guy behind the curtain, the wizard of Oz, the guy behind the scenes that's doing the website and doing the editing of the podcast.

You're going to see me in videos and out there on the road sometimes. Just try and promote the podcast as much as I possibly can. But 2020, it started out as an amazing year for us. We were like, 2020, we're going to bust down on some doors, right? Absolutely. We started out hot and heavy. We had Jackie's, I can, from Old Forster on. We were the fourth and fifth person ever to drink the 2020 birthday bourbon.

Yeah. So we had a lot of great people on a lot of big interviews going on. Uh, we had some great music artists on and some other, you know, desirable guests and then COVID hit. And, you know, like the rest of, you know, media out there, we all had to take a step back and, uh, and kind of rethink how we were going to do what we did.

Yeah, but we, we kind of improvised a little bit here and there. We learned how to do, um, stream yard is what we use for our video conferencing.

we chose to use StreamYard. StreamYard was something that, you know, just kind of fit us, I think. And we did a number of episodes by StreamYard. I think up until the point where we did our first remote episode, we said we would never do that.

Yeah. Cause we always felt like, you know, to go to a place, get on that bourbon road, travel to that person, look them eye to eye. Um, and asking questions and you know, both of us got that knack of pulling that extra story out, um, getting to know that person, looking at my eye and just communicating with them. It's hard to do that. I always tell Vivian it's hard to text somebody for me because I always feel they, um, miss understand what I'm trying to say in a text message. But if you look at them straight on and say, Hey, this is what I mean. I'm a big talker, you know, with my hands, I got these gigantic dinner plates, his hands, and I like to talk with them all the time. They're flinging all over the place. Sometimes it makes people nervous because they think I'm going to smack them in the head. But it's hard to do that on video. And then you have sometimes a couple of seconds lag. And we had started out so strong. We had Michael Veach on, we went up in his, in his attic, his office, cigar smoking, whiskey just all over the place, whiskey in the bathroom. There was whiskey everywhere up there, right? Absolutely. That's kind of how we started our year last year. And then when COVID hit, it kind of shut everything down for us. Matter of fact, me and you were doing an episode In the middle of that episode, we have a roadie on, Jason Baller and his wife were on, Jen. And in the middle of that, I have a music artist, Brent Cobb, was going to do an episode with us that night. And he's texting me back and forth in the middle of that interview saying, hey, I got to cancel. They shut the venue down. And I had to turn our bus around back to home to Georgia. And I, it almost, It almost killed me because I was stoked for that. I love some music and I like his music. So I'm like, wow, Jim, what are we going to do? And you're like, we're going to get through this, Mike. We're going to get through this. And I thought it was going to kill us. What I didn't realize is everybody was going through what we were going through.

Yeah, they're all going through that. And our listeners, including the bourbon roadies who are, you know, kind of our true fans, absolutely loyal, wanted to hear every episode we put out, didn't really care whether they were in person or remote. They just wanted content.

Yeah. Even before we did all that, We had angels in me on, we had Wes Henderson on. Um, we kind of helped start another podcast. I think we had the bourbon life on their podcast out there.

Yeah. So it's kind of funny. We had Mark Rucker on from the bourbon life. You know, here's a guy who, um, a bourbon lover, absolutely loves to drink bourbon, share bourbon, enjoy bourbon with his friends, uh, came on our podcast and, you know, very shortly after coming on our podcast determined that, you know, he wanted to do podcasts of his own. You know, that's kind of a, that's about the best compliment you could get.

Heck yeah. We'd even made a Tennessee trip down to Tennessee just to meet you and our wives. We went down there and I'd went down the night before and that was where we had our first interaction with Leapers Fork on. And then we had did Nelson Green Buyers. We had Peggy no Stevens on before COVID hit and we had dads drinking bourbon on weed. Um, you still think that's one of the funnest episodes we did all time. It was, it was, it was, if you imagine, uh, us and John and we're sitting in a hotel room at 10 o'clock in the morning with what do we have about 25 whiskey sitting there?

Yeah, at least 25 rescues. Absolutely.

We're sampling them all. And by the time our wives got there, it's about one o'clock in the afternoon and, um, we're three sheets to the wind and just having a great time with big John from dad's drinking bourbon. So me, you were like rolling. We were kicking 2020 in the ass. Um, we felt like we're where we need to be. And then COVID hits. Um, and then, you know, it just, um, everything we had to re kind of rethink everything.

Yeah. Absolutely. So, you know, all the distilleries were going through the same thing we were. It was impossible for us to set up an interview with somebody because nobody wanted to meet in person, right?

We got ahead, we were like five episodes ahead at the time because me and you were planning this great big trip to Mexico and where we'd get the pool and do an episode and we're about five episodes ahead. So we had some in the bank, right? We knew what we were, we felt like we knew what we were doing. You know, we had Mark and Sherry Carter recorded already. We had Steve Coombs, our good friend. He's an awesome guy that knows how to pair whiskey with that. He calls it hillbilly prosciutto, which is ham. But we had all those recordings set up and prepared. Um, so that, that first half of the year, we were kicking ass. Like I said, we just, we felt like we were moving on down the road.

Yeah, it was going pretty good. Mike, you had a trip to Texas mid year where you had an opportunity to go down and visit a few distilleries and hang out with your son and, and try some Texas whiskey. And, uh, that was a nice, nice change for us. You were able to actually get into some distilleries and.

So I think everybody kind of had figured out COVID a little bit and things have kind of settled down. Everybody's kind of getting used to it. And some distilleries, some states were opening up and iron route and balconies were open. Nice enough to open up their doors to me. Heck, I even got stopped by a keepersaw winery and see Jimmy's bourbon, their owners and talk to them a little bit. That was a great trip. And we were about mid year right there. When we come back, we'll talk about our second half and what we started up about mid-New Year. About June, we decided we were going to do something new. We were going to add an episode every week. So I think when we come back in a second half, we'll talk about that.

Sounds good, Mike. All right. You know, you can't drink whiskey without glassware. And Mike and I are extremely pleased to have a sponsor like Premium Bar Products. Premium Bar Products offers direct to consumer, the finest whiskey glasses, cocktail glasses, and bar tools with your own personal engraving. I mean, you can write anything you want on these glasses, anything from a company logo to a personal statement, and there are no minimum orders. Their direct consumer platform offers you the opportunity to purchase small quantities of your favorite glass shapes that enhance the pleasure of enjoyment and drinking a whiskey and make it all very positive. They are for the absolute finest trending and handmade classes, as well as a comprehensive range of styles. And all of their items have been designed with purpose, practicality and longevity in mind. So if you're a bourbon or whiskey group and you need custom logos, you need to reach out to premium bar products. If you're an individual, you just want a few for your bar to impress your friends, to give out as gifts, you need to call Premium Bar Products. They need to be your one and only source for custom glassware. I can tell you right now, the Bourbon Road, that's who we use. Janie and Carson and the team there at Premium Bar Products will take care of you. They'll treat you like family and they'll take care of you with every order. All right, Michael, we are back and we're still sipping on a little bit of this 2020 angels in me castrate bourbon. Absolutely. Totally. 100%. Man, I want this on my pancakes. This is syrup. That's good, man.

Like you said, if a whiskey drinker could put whiskey on his pancakes.

Matter of fact, we had that in 2020. We did have that.

Yeah, this is a great bourbon, great finished bourbon. I can't say enough about Wes Henderson and his sons over there.

I'm absolutely converted, Mike. So like I mentioned earlier in the show, I think in the beginning with these furnished bourbons, we were kind of like, yeah, well, is it bourbon?

Is it not bourbon?

Whatever. I am absolutely beyond that now. I'm to the point where I don't really care. If it tastes like this, I'm all about it.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it is definitely good. Um, and I think we've, we've had to open our eyes up a little bit, um, not only to these, but the craft distilleries, right? So in 2020, we, we said, me and you had talked and we said, let's, let's try something a little bit different. Let's give these little guys that don't have that marketing budget that these big giants do. Let's give them a, let's give them a shout out every once in a while.

And I have to be honest with you, you know, what we do, what you and I do, the podcast, it takes time, right? I mean, it's not easy what we do. It takes time. It takes research. It takes preparation. It takes production. You know, we are, um, working hours and hours and hours a week to get out that one show that people were listening to.

Yeah, I'd say it takes on the average for both of us put together, probably takes between three and four hours a day. Um, and I know that might sound a lot like a lot that we're putting in, but it does from the time of getting up, we're communicating with each other. Um, we're texting each other back and forth or calling each other on the road. Um, We're trying to come up with ideas, brainstorming, communicating back and forth the distilleries.

And you know what? Drinking whiskey.

Well, that's tough, Jim. Oh, having the FedEx guy, the UPS guy show up to your door. That's a pretty, when the FedEx guy knows who you are. Yeah. That's a good thing. Yeah.

But then, but then you came to me and you said, Hey Jim, we got all these craft distilleries out here. they're not getting the exposure that they need. I think we ought to start a second show every week to highlight craft distilleries and sort of raise up these guys and get them some attention that they need. Small business America.

Absolutely.

And you know what? I was behind you a hundred percent, but the work that was involved to make that happen was not really something I was ready to take on. But at this point,

Six months later. Is it six months later now? Well, nine months, nine months later. I'm glad we did it. I guess it is six months. So our first one was uni horse. Yeah. For the Wilson, right? Yeah. Wilson actually is out. He lives in Chicago, but he, uh, lives down. Right. Yep.

Yeah.

He, he lives out of Chicago, but Kansas city is where union horse is from. And he was our first guy and, uh, he had sent us his whiskey and we told him, Hey, you're going to be our first craft distillery. Um, and we didn't work with craft stories like Liebers fork and a couple others, but we hadn't had them on and reviewed them. And so we were saying, well, we're going to do reviews, um, which we hadn't did before.

We'd never reviewed a whiskey before. No. So we were just, we were talking to, we were all about people. We're tasting whiskey. Yeah. We're drinking whiskey. You know, we're, we're, we're, um, we're trying whiskeys, but our focus was the story and the people.

Yeah.

And now we're switching ourselves over to reviewing craft distilleries and talking specifically about the whiskey and reviewing it. Just once a week.

Yeah. We'd like to do that once a week. And it was like the flood gates open. Yeah. FedEx tracks. You know, once a day arriving at the house and let's drop it off some whiskey. What's in those boxes?

Hey, Mr. Big Chief, we got a delivery for you today.

Yeah, we've tasted. We've tasted whiskey all the way from Ireland, from Scotland, people of Senate. And I love it because I get to taste all these different things. Even some big boys, they'll send us some stuff every once in a while. But, you know, you see down here, there's whiskey stacked up everywhere. And it's a good thing. Businesses are booming. You know, people want us to, I think they respect our reviews. And I mean, you are as honest as possible about it. Even if we didn't like it, we'll call back and talk to the distillery and say, hey, this is what we, our thoughts on it are, or it's too young or something. And I realize, and I think you realize too, that a bad review could, that's bad business for a distillery.

Yeah. Well, I have to be honest in saying this. Not too many people out there making bad whiskey. Most people out there making good whiskey.

We, I mean, we've had some phenomenal whiskeys years. Freight Ranch.

Yeah.

My Lord, their rye whiskey and their bottle, their bottled and bond rye whiskey, their regular bourbon and then their cast strength. My Lord.

Yeah. So we, you know, we had, uh, annual awards that we gave out and we gave both an award for our bourbon of the year and we gave an award for the craft distillery of the year. And for us, that was a tough choice. I mean, it was a really, really tough choice. We had to take a lot of things into account, but some of the things we took into account were distribution. How widely distributed is this company?

Yeah, we had, uh, I don't know. We, we knew you had talked about Woodinville forever, forever, right? We were, Hey, let's get up to Woodinville. Let's, let's try their whiskey. You talked to me. How nice would it be to drive out there to, to Washington state trial Woodinville? Everybody's talking about him and stuff. And I was like, ah, you know, I don't know about this Washington whiskey thing. You know, we mean you tried it. Another craft of stillery. I was like, I don't know if I'm big into it and Ariel. Her national brand ambassador reached out to me and we'd had their whiskey on a show and, uh, we'd reviewed it. And I thought, I was like, this is pretty damn good. Yeah. Maybe you're right. And she reached out to us and said, let me come on and let's, let's talk about it.

So we had her on. It was a good show. We had a great time. She brought some great whiskeys for us to try. And, uh, you know, we had at, at, by the time the end of the year came, we had to make her choice. It wasn't an easy choice at all.

It wasn't. We had so many craft distilleries out there. You know, one of my favorites is a iron route down in Texas, Texas boy, right? And heck, I might've just,

picked them, I might've tried to persuade you a little bit, but their whiskey is hard to get in Kentucky anywhere else and stuff.

It's very hard to get, it's sought after. And same thing about Freight Ranch, Leapers Fork, I could go on and on and on about the distilleries out there, balconies. I just, all these places that we've tasted.

But there were dozens, dozens of distilleries that we tried over the course of the year that are putting out just absolutely amazing liquid that we enjoyed. We thought was, I mean, you go back and listen to the episodes, you can hear us. We're just totally over the moon with some of this stuff.

It's really good. Yeah, we had Boulder Spears, J.W. Kelly. And we had Boone County, you know, I could just boondocks. You just keep going TX out of Texas.

Oh, TX. I left an impression on me. No doubt about it. I had that pecan in there.

Yeah, it did.

Great, great whiskeys. But at the end of the day, I shouldn't say at the end of the day, at the end of the year when we had to make our choice, You know, there was just this one distillery that had this national distribution, this great, well, more than one expression, multiple expressions that were just absolutely delicious. They had the market penetration. They had the respect of the market. They had a national brand ambassador that was just near and dear to our hearts.

Yeah, if you haven't met Ariel, and you get to meet her, you need to give the girl a big hug. She was just straight out amazing. I called her a whiskey slinger. And that's a term of endearment for me. I just think the world of her, when people reach out to us and embrace us as a podcast, I love it. She put them over the moon. She put them over the threshold. I even told her owners, I said, you need to give her that woman a raise right there.

And you know what, Mike, we've got a bottle shop here in Louisville called Westport Whiskey and Wine, and they did a barrel pick with Woodinville.

that was just out of this world. Yeah, it was, it was pretty damn good.

Probably, you know, if we honestly, if we had a whiskey of the year, like an individual whiskey of the year, like this bottle is like the best I've had all year long that wouldn't feel a Westport whiskey and wine pick would be it. We kind of don't do that because, you know, barrel picks or single barrels are kind of limited to just a couple of hundred bottles and you can't really, everybody can't get them.

Yeah. I mean, you set that as a bar for ourselves. We said, we do not review, um, barrel picks. We just don't do it. We'll drink that on the show or something else, but, um, we think it's unfair to review that whiskey cause How many people get to try that? 200, right? 200 bottles. Maybe a couple hundred people get to try it. But at the end of the day, that's not fair. I mean, you set that as one of our bars and that's, I think people need to know that we, when we said we were going to do craft distilleries, Um, we're going to do reviews. We sit down with a set set of rules for, right? Yeah. We said, Hey, we're, we're going to set stated these rules. We're not going to do our picks. Um, you know, which a lot of other shows do. That's fine. That's their show. Me and you, we, we don't feel that's fair to do a pick because only 200 people can drink it. Not enough exposure there, but hey, Woodinville hit it out of the park this year. No doubt they were our craft distillery of the year. Can't say enough about them. We both got to do some special shows this year though. Kind of trying to save 2020. You went up seeing our good friend Jason on a mashing drum.

Yep. So I was able to be on a show on the mash and drum. It was a great time. Jason is a shooting star in the YouTube world. His, uh, his show is just taken off and I can see why, because his, his palette. As far as I'm concerned, if Jason says it's good, I believe it because our palettes match very closely. You know, Mike use yours and I, my palette kind of differ a little bit, but Jason's right on par with what I like. So if he says, Hey, I really like this, uh, whatever it is, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm buying in on it.

Well, I'm still, still sticking the Jackie's. I can't say to hide a beautiful palette. So, Yeah, she did. And if, if that woman says I have a beautiful palette, then I feel pretty, that was a, uh, that was an honor for her to say that about me. I don't feel like I know anything about whiskey. I just, um, I got my cereal dose I'd taste from and candy and cakes and whatnot. And, um, I don't take myself too seriously when it comes to that stuff. I just, I feel like I'm regular Joe drinking whiskey and I kind of feel that the way about you. Neither one of us.

We just, I don't feel like we're experts. No, bourbon bullshitters.

Well, that's, you know, it's what we are, I guess. Um, I got to do a great show with my son, Jacob this year. He was actually on two shows with us, but, um, I got to do the Blanton's, um, with him trio. And we added a couple of tastings in this year. We added those, right? Yeah. You did a Blanton's while my wife was sick. I couldn't leave the house. It was quarantine. And, uh, you went into the blends for me.

So I did, uh, it did a series of plans, including the bank Blanton's goal, Blanton straight from the barrel, uh, Blanton standard edition and the Blanton's, what was it? The green label. I think you did do the green label. Yeah. So great tasting. You know, one of the things we want to do more of in 2021 is to do some taste lead tastings with groups of people. And you did one as well.

Well, no surprise that I did a Weller's tasting. Um, It's the same place, the barrel room, some great friends of ours here in Shelbyville. That's where we met and we kind of started our friendship at. But I did a Weller's tasting. Everybody knows. If you don't know, I consider myself the Weedy King of Kentucky. I love Weller's bourbon. I've had people say I didn't like weeded whiskey. But my good friends will tell you, I like a little bit of weeded whiskey, don't I?

You do like a little bit of weeded whiskey, Mike.

Heck, if I could get more people to send me some, I'd really appreciate it. I don't have enough weeded whiskey, weeded bourbon in my life. But to us, 2020 did turn out to be a spectacular year. Um, we didn't get on the road as much cause of COVID.

But it's going to change. You know what? I truly believe Mike, 2021 is going to be altogether different. I do believe this COVID thing is going to go in the rear view mirror pretty quick. I believe it. I trust it. I hope for it. And, uh, and I'm looking forward to us getting on the road and, uh, visiting some distilleries. I'm ready to go to Iowa.

Yeah, I would be a good state. Washington state will be a good state. Heck, I want to take you down to Texas and see my home state and show you what they got down there.

Absolutely. And Oregon, right? Can you believe how many distilleries are in Oregon?

Yeah. I mean, Hey, how much better could get it? I'm looking forward to having some more podcasters on having some more, uh, YouTubers on, Um, having some more Instagram guys on, you know, we've got to work with some whiskey lore. We'd brought him up before. Um, dusty dance for dusty dance reviews.

Dusty Dan is coming back on this summer. He's going to come to Louisville. We're going to have him on and we're going to drink some. Antique whiskey.

Heck yeah. It sounds like a plan. We have rare bird one-on-one this year. Uh, come on. Um, we had Bo Garrett come on and do a Instagram thing with me where he played his gobble box. And, uh, we're going to redo some things about our site this year about our show. Um, and Bo Garrett's actually going to cut a little music for our intro for us on his little gobble box. Looking forward to it.

Absolutely.

So. 2021 is going to be a great year. You're going to get to see us get back on the road. Our first show is coming up. We'll be with some moonshiners off Discovery Channel. It'll be a great time. All right.

Well, Mike, I'm looking forward to it. We've got two shows a week now. We've got a short episode every Monday. We do a craft distillery review every Wednesday. We do a long show. call it an hour. We sit down and we talk this week. It's just you and I, but normally we got it a guest. And, uh, you know what? We'll, uh, we'll keep doing that every week, two shows a week for as long as we can. And, uh, we hope everybody gets a chance to listen to both shows every week.

Yeah. I think it's a great time. So you can find us on, uh, anywhere on social media. You can find us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at the Bourbon road.

Yeah. And we've got a website called the bourbon road.com on that website. You'll find our podcast episodes. You'll also find our web shop where you can buy our t-shirts, our hats, our Glen Karen's, uh, everything to do with the bourbon road, including our bourbon bullshitter t-shirt. Right, Mike?

Yeah. We're going to add a couple other things. Our glass, um, we're going to have two more t-shirts on there. So stop on there. If you're a bourbon roadie, which is our private Facebook group. Um, you can get 10% off to join that group. You got to ask, answer three questions.

Yeah. We want to make sure that you understand you're getting yourself into a bourbon group. You are 21 and you agree to play nice. We want you to play nice because why Mike?

Well, we don't like any rudeness in there. We, if you drink Jim Beam, just white label, that's what you drink. You put it up there. So this is my first bourbon ever. Everybody's going to tell you how great it is or they'll give you advice. Or if you ask, Hey, what's next? What's my next bourbon? They'll give you advice. Nobody's going to beat you up on it. We got three great moderators, Jason, Adam, and Drew. Two of those guys got on the show this year, Adam and Jason. But if you don't know those guys, listen to those episodes. They're going to take care of everybody in that group. Just some great folks. We've got Master Stillers in there. We got industry folks. We got cooks, got chefs. Everybody's in there. Me and Jim are in there talking to people. Put your whiskey up there, talk to us, have a great time.

Yeah, absolutely. If you've been in another group and somebody's come down on you hard or made a rash comment or give you a hard time for whatever bourbon it is you're drinking. Uh, you know what? You don't have to pay attention to that. Come on to the bourbon roadies. We'll invite you and your family. Uh, we don't care what bourbon you drink. We just want you to drink bourbon because every bourbon drop that's drank raises up the industry and, uh, makes us all feel good about what we're doing. Right, Mike?

Speaking of bourbon being drank. We actually did our first pick in 2020 we did Amazing pick the bourbon road to paradise with paradise spirits and wine our good friend James over there We got to say you think James? for having us What a great pick it was. We are sold out, Jim.

We did. We sold out. And you know what? There's several more picks coming this year. We hope everybody jumps in on it. We're having a great time doing it. Great bourbon, great friends, good times. You know what? It's bright. 2021 is a bright time, right?

It is. So if you're listening to our episode right now, you want to scroll up, if you like what you're hearing, hit that subscribe button. Right, Jim?

That's right. Hit that subscribe button because you don't want to miss an episode.

Yeah. It'll get your phone, get your radio. It'll tell you, Hey, the bourbon road just released new episode. Scroll on down. If you like what's here, leave us that five star review. We really appreciate it. Um, it helps us to get into distilleries. It helps open those doors. It gets big chief and Jim in to talk to people. Hey, once we get in the door. We're in there. Open up. We'll get the story.

All right, Mike, like I said before, you know, we'd love to have you hear both episodes every week. If there's something you want to hear, if there's somebody you would like to see on the show, if there's a bourbon you would like to see reviewed, let us know. Absolutely. Let us know. You can reach me on Instagram at Jay Shannon 63. I'm one big chief and we will see you down the bourbon.

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