138. Buzzard's Roost Sipping Whiskeys - Bourbons Bistro

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 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 on the road once again. This time we're in Louisville, Kentucky though.

Yeah. We're up in the, I guess, Frankfurt Avenue area. Clifton. Clifton Hills area. Bunch of great restaurants down here. And one of the most famous restaurants, Bourbon Bars in America. It makes all the list. is Bourbon's Bistro, and we're here with Jason Brauner, one of the proprietors, owners of Bourbon's Bistro. But he's not here to really talk about the Bistro today. He's here to talk about something else. He's got Buzzard Roost. It's a new sipping whiskey company that he has just launched. You can see it on the shelves here in Kentucky right now. I just saw it the other day over at Liquor Barn, all sitting there pretty and stuff. So Jason's with us today. Jason, welcome to Bourbon Road. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me.

Yeah. Welcome to the show. You've got these lined up here. Got four of them lined up just like soldiers ready to go to work.

Right. Definitely.

Alright, so we like to get straight to the whiskey and then we'll talk about, you know, how things came about and what you have going on. But for right now, in our glass, you've got something poured for us and we're ready to take a sip. What is it?

Okay, the first selection we're going to do is our very small batch. This is kind of the first product we came out with. What we do is we source some barrels from MGP. We're not shy about that. They make a great rhyme. And then what we do is we've developed some barrels, proprietary barrels through Independence Stave Company. And what we'll do is we will re-barrel these from Independence Stave. We'll re-barrel them in our barrels, our proprietary barrels. And they'll sit in our barrels anywhere from six to eight weeks. Uh, and then that's kind of what we do is kind of put our little touch on, on, uh, an already good product. So.

All right. So, so these are double barrel whiskeys and like you said, MGP, but everybody knows MGP is. well-respected stuff, especially in the rye world, right?

Definitely in the rye world. They're starting to pick up some speed in the bourbon world, too. But definitely in the rye world, a lot of the labels out there are probably MGP. Absolutely. Can you tell Jim's excited? He's licking his lips over there.

I've got a nervous twitch here, man. He is the rye guy.

I get kind of like Pavlog's dog over here, you know? I start to drool a little bit when you ring the bell.

All right, well, let's check it out. Oh, wow.

So to give you a little history about it, I was never a big rye fan. I really didn't sit around and enjoy drinking ryes. I know ryes are great for cocktails. They kind of stand up to what you want to put on top of them. So really what with this ISC with these barrels that we've developed, I was kind of out to make a bourbon drinker's rye. So this is, it's a little more mellow. I think you can really sit around and sip on it. And that's why we kind of came up with buzzard roost sipping whiskeys. That's kind of what I'm out to do. All right. Is to make some sipping whiskeys.

Well, I'm just, I'm just checking out the nose right now, Mike, and I'm getting candied orange, a little bit of juniper berry, I think.

I get that citrus on here. You know, that standard MGP nose on here. Some light chocolates to me a little bit coming out. Whenever we talk about sipping whiskey in a bourbon man's whiskey, I was actually watching Mad Men the other day and Don Draper on there. He is famous for his drinking rye whiskey and I thought that was very interesting. Being from a spirits podcast and seeing in the 60s what they were drinking back then because they try to stay as close to Historical facts as possible on that show so Coming back out with a gentleman's whiskey, right?

I mean, I think so There's nothing wrong with right whiskey. I just think you know, I being here at Bourbon's Bistro for that many years, I really came to love Bourbon and I love all the nuances of Bourbon. So with this kind of new company that we've started that I love the possibility of how we're not really manipulating the juice, but just the evolution of the barrel. We're kind of trying to consider ourselves some maturation experts, or that's what we're going to field in. If you think about, well, these are 95% rye, 5% barley, so that's a really high rye. If you think of some of the ryes on the markets, just to name one or two, they're usually probably in the 55% to 53% range. That Kentucky rye style.

Yeah.

So these are real high rise, and to do what we're doing, our barrels and our maturation with them, I'm really excited about the future.

Yeah, I think, you know, as I taste this, I just took a sip, Mike. Cheers, by the way. Cheers. But as I take a sip of this thing, I'm just overwhelmed by the sweetness and the amount of flavor that hits the tongue all at once. Kind of, I'm kind of wondering if that second barreling hasn't just really shots that upfront sweetness up pretty high.

It is, and like I said, I can't tout enough what these guys down at Independence Stave are doing with the innovation of the barrels. So if you think about everybody with even bourbon, all using almost the same ingredients, you're going to get the difference in yeast, which is a huge thing. But a lot of the flavor comes from the barrel. So it's just a different way of treating the barrel. And chemically, we can analyze that. I've learned so much about wood over the past three years of what extractions come from the wood at certain temperatures, at certain time, under different types of heat. And that makes a huge difference on the barrel. So we use number one char exclusively. We do have a toasted product out, but we'll also use a really, really heavy toast. So what we do is we'll toast that barrel for an extra long time, bring all those sugars to the surface. We'll use a number one char. It's easier for the liquid to get through that number one char to get through to that heavy toasted layer that we've got in there. And I think it can kind of see, it makes a pretty good difference.

I'm getting a little bit of orange marmalade, maybe on a biscuit in the morning on this right here. There you go, there you go. That sounds good right now.

Yeah, it does. Yeah, I think a bourbon drinker could easily gravitate towards us, no doubt about it. I think if you want to present a rye to a bourbon drinker, this wouldn't be a bad choice.

Yeah, I think it's a definitely good entry level to the rye world, even though we're starting at a 95.5. So I felt that we took three non-selling points and turned it into selling points. So we're working with some young whiskey. All of the stuff that we've been working with is three years old. We're also at a high proof. We're at 105 proof. That's our minimum and then It's a 95 5. So these are three aspects that might turn some people off that for me all of a sudden You know, it's only 105 and and it's only three years old. I don't think it tastes like any of those You know, I think it's got a little bit more Roundness a lot more Quality than you would think in a three-year-old.

It's very bold Where some 95 fives have a more of a sweetness candied taste to it, you know I said this had an orange marmalade This has more spice to it and maybe that comes from that that toasted barrel that you're putting them back into Where the other ones haven't had that in the past for me, right?

And these are going to open up definitely with, you know, we're having the meat right now. Once again, drop a little drop of water in there, one or two. A cube of ice doesn't hurt it. It almost makes it a little more dangerous.

I'm a little curious about the barrels. Can we go back to that just for a minute? Sure. So you guys are having these barrels specifically made for your purpose.

That's correct.

And you're taking this, this, uh, this MGP 95-5 Rye and, uh, carefully placing it in these new barrels for about six months. I would imagine that- Six weeks. Oh, did you say six weeks? I'm sorry. Six weeks, six to eight weeks, depending on the weather. So are these barrels, is it something that, um, that is seasonal dependent? Are you doing this in like the fall, the winter? Are you trying to do this in the summer? Does it really matter since it's such a short time?

We're doing it all year round. And like I said, the barrels will put such an impact on the whiskey in such a short time. And like I said, even the winter time, I think it only drug out to about eight weeks. And we really haven't done that much more than that. We pulled them pretty quick because we were happy with the results that we've got, but we're still also going to look into leaving it in our barrels for a little bit longer to see if it even, you know, we don't want to overcook it as they say.

So you were able to taste its progression over that six weeks and you said, okay, it's ready. We need to pull this out.

Definitely.

Okay.

Definitely. We were ready, ready for market for sure.

So let me get to your name, Buzzard's Roost. That name sticks with me for some reason, probably because I live outside of Shelbyville, out towards Waddy, and there's a Buzzard's Roost road out there.

There is, as a matter of fact. When we got started with this project, we were looking to do a distillery. We actually tried to get a full blown distillery done, and if you're familiar with Bardstown bourbon company. That's what we wanted to do. You know, 36-inch column still. We wanted to be a big producer. I'm pretty picky with my whiskey. I wanted my own brand. I didn't want a source. You know, I was kind of stubborn at first. I didn't want a source at all. So we looked at a farm. We put some money down on it. Did all the, you know, got the tax incentives. Had an investor lined up and last minute the guy backed out, which Maybe good, maybe bad, but it was actually a farm that bordered Buzzard's Roost Road.

I kind of thought that, but every time I passed that road and then I saw Buzzard's Roost, I was like, man, are those two connected in some way? But for people that don't know about Buzzards, they do roost at nighttime, just like wild turkeys. Sure. They're a bird of prey. A lot of people don't know that. It's still a cool concept to me.

Yeah, and the farm was beautiful and it just kind of slipped through our fingers. I wish we really could have gotten it. We had plans for about 13 different warehouses on the property, had a nice old, a real old homestead on there that we were going to use as kind of a gift shop B&B type thing. It was just a beautiful farm and I hated to see it go, but like I said, I realized pretty quick that somebody wasn't going to give me $30 million.

Well, this is definitely a tasty rye and I'm curious to know what your MSRP on this.

The small batch is about 50 bucks.

And that's available here at the restaurant as well, right?

It is. It is. And right now we're in the state of Kentucky. This year, 2021, we've took on some investment and we should be in about five states by the end of the year. Awesome.

Good job. Are you able to ship out of the state of Kentucky right now?

No, not at the moment. Not yet.

Not at the moment. Now, what five states are you able to tell us which five states you're going to be going to?

They're working on all the ABC laws with that. And excuse me, that's our Our CEO is working on that, Judy Hollis.

I'm sure one of them you could be sure about is probably DC, because everybody tries to get into DC right away.

Well, I really can't say. Our listeners will just have to look for you out there. Yeah. Just on our social media, we'll, as soon as we get something locked in, we're going to be posted on our social media and, and, uh, we'll get it to the folks somehow.

Well, I mean, everybody tries to make a bourbon bourbon pilgrimage to Kentucky, right? And, uh, whenever you come to Kentucky, um, I'm sure you're going to hit a plenty of stores, but what you'd need to do is come downtown Louisville, right? Not really downtown.

We're about three miles from the heart of downtown. Heart of downtown.

But well worth that three mile drive or Uber ride over here. Come into Berbers Bistro, you can buy some whiskey, eat a great meal. Maybe even see Jason in here.

I'm in here quite a bit. Very recognizable. He'll be wearing a cowboy hat and he's got a big O.T. Yeah, I'm in here quite a bit. All right. So shall we move on to the next one?

Well, you still got plenty of whiskey in the glass. I told Jason I was going to drink mine.

Well, I'm going to drink mine, but I learned from my last week.

You made good on your statement there.

Well, I'm a little bit larger of a man than Jim is, so I can take just a little bit more.

What we're going to move on to is our single barrel. This single barrel actually won a gold medal in 2020 in San Francisco World Spirits Competition. So we're really proud about that as our first hitting the road, hit the ground running type thing. We were surprised by it, but still, like I said, think we're kind of on the right track with what our secondary aging is doing.

Well, heckles knows this thing.

Oh, it's got a little bit deeper sweetness to it.

And what was the proof on this one? They're both 105. 105. Now, was there a reason you picked 105?

You know, I've always been a fan of 100 proof or better, you know, kind of a, it's just, I think that's where all the flavor is. I think getting under, as long as I've been tasting whiskey, there's some great, you know, 80, 90 proofs out there, but I just think that you're really gonna start to get into some flavor when you hit the 100 proof range.

And 101's taken, 107's taken, 105's right in the middle.

Yeah, you know, our whiskey just kind of works at 105. And I think, you know, for the small batch or even at the single barrel, if you want to mix a cocktail with it, it's got enough to stand up to where you can put some stuff to it and still have that flavor come through at the 105 level.

So this one is different. It's a little softer for me, I think. It feels a little softer. And also a little more oak influence, I think, on this one. A little less sweetness, a little more oak.

But is this double barrel? They're both, yeah, they're both double barrels.

So in this case, you're putting one barrel into another barrel and then carefully not blending that one and just using it as a single barrel.

Exactly. So we'll buy whiskey from MGP. We will have our barrels sent from, our barrels are made in Lebanon, Missouri. So Independent Stave Company is in Lebanon, Kentucky and Lebanon, Missouri. I don't know why, but. A lot of oak out there.

A lot of oak in Lebanon and Missouri.

Right. So we get them from Lebanon, Missouri. We will re-barrel them. And like I said, these are brand new 53 gallon barrels. We're not cut to any corners. I'm kind of a traditional guy when it comes to whiskey. You know, I'm not trying to put any influence on it that shouldn't be there. This is all just treating the wood a little different, you know? And like I said, so the aged whiskey, we will buy around three-year whiskey, and that's what we've been working with. You know, we figured if our experiment went wrong, it wouldn't cost us a whole lot of money, but still, you know, to see what this does with this young rye is pretty cool.

Yeah. Well, let's taste this thing. I already did. That's good.

That's delicious. I was just going to let him finish his conversation there.

I don't think he's going to finish.

He's drinking. That's all right.

Mike's doing his work in the background there.

That's some less spice on this one for me anyways. I don't know if that's cause it's a single barrel. And when the first one you had blended a couple in that small batch, one barrel might've had a little bit more spice, but this is less spicy. Yeah.

Yeah. It is a little bit softer. Not as sweet though. So same amount of time though.

Same amount of time. Okay. And that's what we try to, you know, what I'm looking for is kind of the, the, the, the one that sneaks by that you don't, it doesn't really drink like it's 105 proof. doesn't really drink like it's three-year-old. So we try to find, especially those barrels that stand out, we'll say, oh, you know, we'll go through our tasting and say, wow, this one really shines, and the reasons why it shines. So, you know, we try to have a portfolio that has something kind of out there for everybody.

I think that's definitely nice. Some companies will start out with one whiskey, or they might start out with two. But heck, you've started out with really five, I guess, or four in front of us today. And I'm sure that was tough to do just right out of the gate.

Well, like I said, we had been working on a distillery for a while, and we had these plans. We've been doing this wood research for a while as well. So we've had plans for over probably three to four years. So when we finally got going, it's like, well, these are the products that we had, and we already had them kind of in the gun ready to go.

So whenever you do go up to MGP and buy barrels for our listeners, you know, do you go in there and taste every barrel or do you go in there and they say, hey, here's 50 barrels that you can have?

Well, it's a little bit of both. I mean, we're somewhat selective of what we can what we get from there just because. I mean, we just. they'll give you a big list of this is what's available. And we kind of go through and pick and see and what type of barrels it in, what part of the warehouse is it in. There's a lot of stuff that goes into just picking MGP juice for us. and then we'll get sent samples and we'll either send them back or we'll say, yeah, we'll take so many of those and so many of these.

So is it representative samples that you get? So this represents a group of 10 barrels? Exactly. Got it. Exactly. Okay. And you find that to be pretty accurate for the most part?

We do. We do. You know, I've never really had a bad barrel from there. I mean, we've had some simple samples that we've not used. You know, we've sent them back and say, well, and kind of honed in on, you know, certain, like I said, certain floors and certain types of barrels that they use, because they use a couple of different types of barrels and things.

What's the price point on this one, you said?

Now, the single barrel is around $70.

That's still a great price, you think, for MGP juice. I've seen it way higher than that, almost double in some places, so not a bad price point for a nice, beautiful bottle.

Yeah, you know, like I said, when we came out to the public, I didn't want to have something that was, you know, unreachable. I didn't want to have a hundred dollar bottle of whiskey, especially at our first swing at it. We're real happy with what's going on. It is expensive how we do it. And you know, our brand new barrels that we put it in, they're kind of sitting in storage and it's like, man, that's a brand new barrel.

And they're expensive. So anybody that goes out and buys used barrels for a hundred bucks, $150 a pop, they have no idea what a new barrel costs, right?

And these are used for only six weeks, so they look brand new. But we technically can't use them again if we did. We've thought about maybe coming up with an American whiskey to where you can use a barrel twice.

As long as you're gonna, as long as what you put in there is gonna spend a little time in it, right?

Definitely.

Second time around anyway.

Yeah, we've talked about doing it, like I said, an American whiskey, a bourbon style American whiskey, but that's where you can use that, that barrel twice. So, uh, we'll see what, we'll see what happens down the road.

He needs to find himself a honey company is what he needs.

Send them off, get them back, then pour something out. Right. Exactly. All right, well we're coming up on the break. It's been awesome to try two of these. I think I'm really looking forward to the next two in the second half.

Anytime you say barrel strength and toasted.

Yeah.

In the same sentence.

And rye? Why not? That's like the trifecta for me.

That's your trifecta, but I'm super excited about the second half. Obviously you can tell that I really enjoyed your whiskey, Jason. Yeah.

All right. All right. We'll be right back. But 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 offer the absolute finest trending and handmade glasses 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. So if anybody's wondering what all this noise is in the background, we are in an operating restaurant here, right, Mike?

Yeah, we're Bourbons Bistro. They're getting ready for their night tonight. This place will be stuffed to the gills with people. Even if COVID, they got their tables distanced a great deal apart. But still, for what they have out tonight, it'll be packed. I've never been in here, been by here, and this place isn't full. Yeah. So that would speak to its quality.

Got a great little bourbon bar up there, Quaint.

You can't set up the bar right now in Louisville area.

Well, we've got tables that are sitting just off the bar. So you're technically sitting at a table.

But still, you could come in here and get a good bourbon, great bourbon. He's got a good list up there. I think you got, say, 160 bourbons on the shelf.

You know, I quit counting. You know, they come in and out and it's not, you know,

The shelves are full.

Yeah. And it, you know, we kind of look at more of the quality these days. I mean, we're trying to anyway, but yeah, we will keep anywhere from 130 to 160 bourbons out there.

You got to back private stock somewhere.

Oh yeah.

With a special list for special guests.

There's some folks out there that have been to the office and the office is kind of where my heart lies.

So you've probably got a little bit of food that's off the menu too. Now you've got a few bourbons that are off the menu.

Yeah, exactly. Well, when you have a chef on staff, like I said, you can look at me until I don't miss many meals. But yeah, the office, I've been collecting bourbon for a long time. I'm a huge fan of anything made before 1980, you know, just because different way they used to make it, the flavors that they're, you really get some unique, unique, bourbons from back in the day. I think I've had bourbon in every decade from 1900 on.

Wow.

So, a lot of prohibition stuff, a lot of stuff from the 40s and 50s. Just really good stuff.

Yeah, Mike and I have had a few on the show. We definitely enjoy the dusty shows as we get to try some of those bourbons. So, it was a different time back then. Things were done a little bit differently.

Yeah, it's hard to get somebody to open up a bottle from pre-prohibition though. That's the key. Everybody always wants to show up to me. And I'm like, heck, let's crack that thing open. Well, in the second half here, what do you got for us?

All right. We're going to start with our barrel strength. So like I said, we kind of hit the ground running with our small batch and single barrel. We knew we were always going to do that. I'm a big barrel strength person. So that was a question out there. Where are we going to find some good enough that we could put out? And so... That was, of course, a yes. So this one comes in at 115.2. We've got a few different ones out on the market, because we've done different barrels with them. I think there's a 113 floating around out there and a 114. So they're right in that range.

So this is a barrel strength. It's also a single barrel. That's correct. OK, so you're getting the best of both worlds there.

Right, right. And that comes in at retail. That's about $80.

Man, I'm getting some grandma's canned peaches on this. Some peaches, huh?

Oh, it's so funny you mentioned that grilled peaches.

Yeah, I could, you ever take, you know, my grandma would, she would can a peach. And then my grandfather, when he's cooking steaks, he'd put it on that grill, not a fresh one, but a canned one. And it would still leave those grill marks, kind of toasted that syrup that was in there and stuff.

I'm not sure how to call that out if you hadn't mentioned it, but that suggestion of yours made it just like pop right out.

Me and my weird tasting notes and a beautiful nose on this for sure.

Yeah. It's also got a, it's also got a nice sweet nose to it. Now this one, uh, I mean they're all spending time in that secondary barrel. That's, that's your signature run right there. Right. Right. Got it.

Now, which barrel they spend time in, um, That's not noted, but we have probably, I think it's nine or 10, we're up to nine or 10 proprietary barrels that are just made for buzzard roost. So it's buzzard roost one through 10.

I wouldn't have guessed this was a rye whiskey when I first nosed it, just because of the sweetness on it. It doesn't have that. I think most ryes have a little pungent nose to them. This doesn't have that at all, especially if I'm getting that peach, toasted peach.

Yeah, I think you'll find sometimes, like I said, a lot of ryes are A little bit grassy, a little earthy, a little more. It has some grassy green tones to it.

Yeah, this one's got a little caraway though, for me. Just a little bit of caraway. So roasted peaches, grilled peaches is better, right? Yeah. Now, do you pour anything on those grilled peaches when they're grilling? Do you pour a little something on them or? I'm always sipping on something with them.

You know, sometimes you can slice off a little piece and you could even slip that in your bourbon if you wanted to, or even in your rye whiskey.

I think they call it chef's choice, wouldn't you? kind of cut a little piece off and make sure it's doing what it's supposed to be doing.

I'm not going to forget that Micah. So the, the, the label color at the bottom is, it's got a little bit of peach colored stripe on it.

It does. You're right. Now the bottle, how did you come about selecting this bottle?

Well, kind of along with the name and the, I wanted an older sounding name. I wanted to sound like it's been around a while. I didn't really, I didn't want anything new kind of sounding. I wanted it like we almost revived an old name, but we didn't. I didn't want to go through the pain of doing that. And the bottle, I just think it reminds me somewhat of a kind of old, tall, cylindrical Western bottle to me. Even though they, a lot of people say it's the wine bottle or it's the, you know, the shouldered bottle. I've always just, I just love that, you know, that tall kind of cylindrical look.

It's kind of like the, it looks a little bit like the, like the, the, what are they, the BTAC bottle, right?

Yeah, kind of. Kind of. It's got that long, slender neck, which I like. You know, I posted on social media lately about bottle shapes and sizes of the neck. To me, it matters a lot because on a short neck bottle, you know, they're square or even Blanton's bottle. Whenever you pour that, and a lot of people don't think that, but that neck and that lip on the top of the neck, It'll always, it's hard to pour because it doesn't want to pour out there. It wants to leak down the side of the bottle and who wants to waste a whiskey, right? Exactly. That's an important thing to me.

Well, I mean, if you want an accurate gun, you get one with a long barrel, right? If you want an accurate pour, you get one with a long neck.

Yeah. Well, I'd call it a long and sexy neck. Well, let's taste this thing. All right.

Yeah, that's concentrated goodness right there. It's definitely concentrated a little bit more. You know, for me, the difference between the first two had to do with the spice. This one is amped up because the flavors are more concentrated and you got a little more proof to it.

It just coats your mouth. It's just like eating that canned toasted peach. It just coats your mouth and flavors. It's very complex. I'm still getting that peach on there though. I love it. This is very very delicious.

It's Definitely viscous, you know, it kind of coats your mouth. It's got that good front to back mouthfeel to it and You'll find some whiskies that'll finish up front or finish in the back. And I'm always looking for that whole package. I love just a long finish, a good start in the front. You get a little bite up front, moves to the middle, gives you a good finish in the back. And it almost ends up in your chest a little bit for everybody knows about the Kentucky Hubs. It's here.

I feel it. I would call that almost. It's definitely, this to me would be an after dinner whiskey. Maybe even sit down with a good dessert, like a creme brulee or something. or even a piece of cheesecake or heck, anything. A piece of fat man's chocolate cake. I don't care, but I would sit down and sip this with it.

It definitely goes well with a good piece of chocolate. We get some of the, you know, cocoa pellets in the back we use to make our, we make all our desserts here and things. And depending on the milk chocolate or the dark chocolate, it goes really cool with both of them. I'll send, sometimes I'll send just pieces of that chocolate out and really taste it with that. It's really cool.

So the restaurant, the servers you have here and the bar staff and the chefs, I mean, they're very knowledgeable about their bourbon as well, right?

Very. The COVID has kind of knocked us back a little bit with some of our staff and what have you. But we definitely put them through some pretty rigorous training about their bourbon because they need to know what they're talking about. And when people are coming here asking, almost every table asks you questions about bourbon. So we try to make sure that they know what they're talking about and can help you and guide you down the right path.

So it's a good place to do bourbon and food pairings.

We do. We've done everything from, you know, we did, we were in, I was a wine enthusiast, I think, with, we did a bourbon and cheese deal, which was really cool. Here was a bourbon and cheese dinner and came out with some really interesting things out of that. Of course we've done the bourbon and chocolate. We have bourbon desserts and marinades and salad dressings and you name it, we've tried it.

How do you do some special events here too? Have you been doing bourbon buzzard roost?

Ever since we started here, we were kind of one of the first to do bourbon dinners. We've probably done 75 to 100 bourbon dinners here over the years. kind of fell out of style there for a while, at least with us they did. So we really haven't done any bourbon dinners lately, but you know, we're talking about reviving and getting back into them. I know a lot of people are doing them. But you know, we will have cocktail parties and do whatever with different bourbon sponsors and whatever, you know. But we really haven't done any events with Buzzard Roost yet. I think probably this spring we'll do a few.

Now we're hoping things will open up here soon, right?

Yeah, this year has definitely been a challenge for all of us. And hopefully we are geared to make it through the other side. There's definitely a light at the end of the tunnel.

All right. Well, let's see what's in our next glass, Mike. And then we'll talk a little bit about what you got going on now, what people can look for in the future.

Very good. The next one is we did this exclusive. This is just a toasted barrel. The secondary aging barrel, it's all no char. It's just a real heavy toast. And I know there's some other toasted products on the market now, but I think we give them a run with this one. And it also comes in at that barrel strength. We did say it was 115. This comes in at 105 as well.

Okay. Now, Jim, I'll tell you, I know this thing and this thing's got a sweet, sexy, delicious nose on it. If the whiskey is as good as the nose, this thing smells amazing.

For me, I mean, I don't know what you got, Mike, but I got, I got butterscotch on the nose.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. This was a, this was a showstopper. We were real happy about this one and it is a, It's something nice.

You can sense your profile underneath that, but that but that but that but that butterscotch for me is way up front on my nose.

Well, heck, let's just go ahead.

Yeah, OK. That is. It's just dripping. Yeah, I mean, it's Werther's butterscotch just dripping on my mouth. It's just. everywhere all at once. My entire tongue is coated. Very viscous.

Now what was the proof on this again? 105, yeah. So this is a 105. Just a beautiful whiskey. Listeners, I'm telling you, if you see this on a shelf at a store, you better snatch it up. Now what's this run for MSRP?

And that's 80 as well. So that's right there with the barrel strength.

I'd put this bottle of rye right up against Elijah Craig toasted barrel, which we had high praise for. It seems like anything toasted I love. And I know you love it too, Jim.

I do. This is just amazing. Toasted barrel just does magic on whiskey, doesn't it?

Yeah, I think so. And it's not overly toasted where you're going to kind of get that smoke. You're not getting so much of the smoke. I'm not really into that deep, deep, darker marshmallow type thing. This is kind of a, even though our toast is a deep toast, because it didn't sit in there that long, it's just got this hint of a great toast. And it's almost got a little bit of nuttiness to me, like almost a toasted, like almost like a pistachio or something. I can't really put my finger on it, but it's like a, it's just real smoky, not smoky, but like almost nutty.

I'm thinking peanut brittle.

I just can't get over the butterscotch for me though, Mike. It's very viscous, very mouth-pudding, very dripping. I almost want to say honey, like dripping honey butterscotch. Yeah, you got four fine soldiers there. This one's the captain of the guard.

Well, you can kind of tell their popularity too, because it starts out at the very small batch, just has a little out of it. Then you go to single barrel, has a little more. And then the barrel strength, it's about one third gone, but there's not a whole lot left of that toasted barrel left.

Yeah, so what we were doing with that is when we produce toasted, it's always going to be in the fall. And then whenever it kind of runs out, it runs out. In the spring, it'll always have its hay day in the fall. And we'll be making more of it, because obviously we want everybody to have it all year. This one's slowly fading away very soon. We're doing the barrel strength and that's going to be mainly I think in the spring. And so that release will be in the spring and then hopefully it'll go through to the fall. So we're kind of back and forth with the toasteds in the fall and then the barrel strengths in the spring.

Now why not a toasted barrel strength?

Now, you know, I wanted to come out with it. I don't know if you guys are from town and I don't know if you're quite as old as I am, but you know, the guy he, I think it was Sun TVs. He said, I want to, I want to give them away, but my wife won't let me. That type of thing. I wanted to do that and my group's holding me back. It's like, Jason, we've got to make some money at some point, because that would be obviously a little bit more expensive to do a barrel strength. And we still didn't want to hit that $100 mark yet. That would, that was my choice. I actually have a bottle of it in my office. I said, you have to hold back one bottle of the toasted ad barrel strength for me. Hey, I'd pay 99.95 for that.

I would too, line up.

Honor a hundred bucks. Psychologically anyways.

Yes, I buy it. It's good stuff. And I wouldn't doubt if we don't put out a barrel strength of that. I just, you know, they, they, they, they can't fight me forever on that one.

I think if the word gets out on this, when you're going to have people lining up on release day, I mean, it's really, I mean, they're all good whiskeys. I mean, they're all good whiskeys. That one's special.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. We're really proud of it and we're, you know, I mean, we're proud of all of them. And like I said, this is our kind of first year of scratching the surface and we've got some other things in the pipeline that we, I guess we can talk about.

That's what we're here for.

Yeah. You know, so moving forward, we do have a few things in the works. We've What's really interesting to me is, you know, I told you I wasn't a rye fan at first. And I'm not a Scotch fan either, even though I drink it for comparison and whatever, you know, drink all types of whiskeys. But I think Buzzard's Roost, we're going to do an attempt at a Pete smoked rye. And then we're going to do a tobacco smoked rye.

A tobacco smoked rye. Yeah.

So what we'll do is we'll take some, it's actually some Kentucky Pete and we're going to smoke the barrel with a Kentucky Pete and then secondary age our whiskey in the barrel that's been smoked with Pete.

I think that what you'll find there is probably just a hint instead of an overpowering.

And that's, that's exactly what I'm looking for is just that hint, that hint of smoke and that hint of Pete and earth. So we're, we're got our fingers crossed on that one and the tobacco barrel, I think hopefully he's going to,

I mean, that kind of tells the Kentucky story, doesn't it? Sure does.

I think so. So we'll do the same thing. We'll take some select tobacco, smoke a barrel, and then secondary finish our whiskey in that. And we're going to see what happens. We're really hopeful on both of those.

Now I know our listeners are wondering, are you going to do a bourbon?

You know, I'm glad you asked me that because, uh, we're, we are, uh, in the process of, we are going to source some bourbon from MGP. Um, and, uh, we're going to secondary barrel that as well. And then, uh, we've actually, so we do all of our, um, operations are at Kentucky artisan distillery out in Crestwood. And, uh, what we're going to do is we're getting ready to source some of our own products.

So finally there's some expertise out there.

Definitely. Oh, Jade's doing a good job. They're all doing a great job out there. And we are, we're going to have our own, you know, our own new make that we're going to put down here pretty soon.

So now what I haven't seen anybody do yet.

Anybody.

is a toasted, weeded bourbon. Here you go again.

Toasted, weeded. That might be over sweet. I don't know. We'll see.

Weed of King of Kentucky would drink it. I'm telling you that. I would drink it all day. One bottle sold for sure. I haven't seen it out there. I think for those sweet tooth people, a true dessert whiskey. I bet you I could get a line around a block here.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely think there's room for all kinds of innovation. That's what I say. But for us, we try to stick to tradition. But also, like I said, we're just manipulating the wood. So we're not really cheating. We're just not throwing a number four char, or throwing into a number four char. We're actually paying attention to the breakdown in the wood and all of that. So that's kind of our gig. That's our deal.

Well, I know that it's kind of common knowledge that, I mean, I guess I've heard different numbers, but I've heard 60% of the flavor whiskey comes from the wood or 60% of the impact of flavor change comes from the wood. Sure. And you're dealing with that portion rather than the green bill or the yeast. Exactly. You're focusing on the barrel, which has the biggest impact.

grain bill at the end of the day is, I mean, you definitely have to use quality product. I mean, I've learned that in the restaurant business. You got to start with quality product and move your way up. And the yeast is big. Yeast is huge. And I really don't think a lot of people talk enough about yeast. But with what we've seen in the percentages of the flavors that people talk about, 60 to 80% of the flavor comes out of the wood. We're just really putting the wood truly under a microscope and seeing the extractives that come out at different times at different temperatures and different types of heat. And it's unreal. I think it's really gonna open up a whole new thing in distilling. And it's really cool because we're a small enough company that we can do that. I mean, Jim Beam's not gonna change their... their flavor profile. You know, they may come out with something else. They've got plenty of money to do it, but you know, Jim beam is Jim beam in that way for, for a hundred, 200 years.

Well, I'm hoping Jason, you beat them to the punch and come out with that toasted, weeded bourbon. You heard it here first on the bourbon road. If you make it before, after this podcast, you owe us some money.

Big Chiefs, signature blend. I'm so pleased with this because I love seeing a small craft whiskey company do something totally different that they believe in. You've kind of got this going on across the board with your secondary Bayer aging that you do. It's delivering a very interesting profile, a different profile, but a profile that's yours.

Definitely. Like I said, over the years, picking single barrels and all of that kind of developed this palette of mine. I'm pretty stern on a lot of whiskeys. You either like them or you don't. I think these should do us well, I hope.

Well, Jason, we got to say thank you so much for having us over here at Bourbon's Bistro and letting us go through your expressions and taste them. What a treat for me and Jim.

No, I really appreciate having me on the show. I mean, this is a, like I said, with our new product and I know you guys got a huge following and, and today it seems like, you know, like I said, we got, I got the business, you know, bourbon business 15, 20 years ago. It's like, it has changed so much with, And even with COVID, you know, it's changed so much, but there's tons of podcasts and there's tons of clubs and bourbon clubs and things like that. But I know you guys have got one of the good ones out there. So I really appreciate you all having us. Where can our listeners find you on social media? You know, Bourbon's Bistro is on all the media platforms. And I'm sure Buzzard Roost is on all the media platforms as well. Me, I'm just on one. I'm the Bourbon Redneck. I'm on Instagram.

All right. All right. Follow the Bourbon Redneck on Instagram. Check out Buzzards Roost on Facebook and on Instagram. Make sure you come into Bourbon's Bistro and support this local business, this local man. Small businesses like his need to thrive. Stop going to those big chain restaurants. Stop going to those fast food restaurants.

Come in here and get a real meal, a real steak, a real dinner.

And walk out the door with a real bottle. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Sounds great.

All right. Well, you can find the bourbon road on all social medias at the bourbon road We also have a website called the bourbon road comm Mike. What do we have on there?

So we got our swag on there We got our bourbon bullshit or t-shirt. We got our bourbon road hat We got our Glen cares that you always see us drinking whiskey out of go on there and buy those We also have our Facebook group, and if you're part of that Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies, you get a 10% discount off all of our merchandise. Also on our website, you can read our blogs about, not just about the interview itself, but about what we're thinking about the day, about whiskey, whatever I come up with. Sometimes I write it, sometimes Jim writes it. You can also find our reviews on there. The Adam Boothby, one of our moderators for our Facebook group, he puts our reviews up there, helps us out. Go on there and check that out.

Absolutely, and you know we invite you to come on to the roadies because I tell you what when our show releases and And our our group is in there They kind of like to throw questions out and ask about things that came up on the show. We'd love to have you in as a member Oh, yeah, definitely

Yeah, just let me know how to do it. All right.

We'll educate you on it. No problem. So we do two shows a week. Every Monday we'll do a craft distillery review. Sometimes we'll do a big boy, but usually it's a small craft distillery doing something, you know, stepping out of the box a little bit. We'll review one of their expressions, kind of give you our feedback on it. Then every Wednesday we do a full-length episode like today where we have somebody on the show. We interview them. We try to dig out the dirt. I don't think we dug out any dirt today, but we had a good time drinking your whiskey for sure.

So if you like those episodes, you're listening, make sure you scroll up the top, hit that subscribe button, your phone, Alexa, she'll tell you, Hey, the bourbon road just released a new episode. If you like it so much though, what you'd really help us with is scroll on down to the bottom, hit that review, give us a five star that helps us get into the doors like places like this. Let's interview great people like Jason and Buzzard Roost. If you want to give us a one star, we want you to be honest with us. Just tell us how to get better though.

We've only got one on there, Jim. I know you keep saying that. Nobody's listening to you.

Well, hopefully those reviews do help us. I know it's a pain to go on there and do a review, but they really do get those doors open for us. And it helps us meet great piece of people like Jason.

Absolutely. So we'd love to hear what you think. Hop onto our website, hop onto our Instagram, hop onto our Facebook. Let us know who you want to hear on the show, what bottles you want to hear reviewed. Our ears are open. So Mike, They reach us where you find me a one big chief. I'm Jay Shannon 63 and we'll see you on down the bourbon road.