140. Old Soul 15 Year and Some Good Times Honey

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. I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And Mike, it's icy. It's cold. Fire in the fireplace.

Yeah. Woodrow podcast dog in the house. He is. He's chilled out there.

He's taking himself a little midday nap. But you and I have decided to kick back here at Jeff the Bin Farm and do a long episode and talk about some special whiskeys.

Yeah, two unique whiskeys, really. One that has a weird mash bill. And then one that is a finished whiskey, but it's right around cast strength. Okay. High proof finished whiskey. So two Mashbills are two whiskeys that I think are kind of unique and stuff. So the one we're going to start out with is called Old Soul from Cat Head Distillery in Jackson, Mississippi. It's 15 years old. You know, we've drank some 15 year old bourbons on the show, right? Well, we have, yeah. Recently. Recently, yeah. So I wanted to talk about this mash bill because somebody had sent me a new question. People always send us questions and like we're a encyclopedia of whiskey and I wanted to give him a good answer. So the mash bill, well, let me go back. He sent me a photo of the World Whiskey Society's whiskey this year or their bourbon. and I couldn't find a whole lot on it, but on the photo of the bottle, on the bottle was the mash bill. So I was like, I'll just type that mash bill in. Cause it was an odd number. It is an odd number. It's 78.5% corn, 13% rye and 8.5% malted barley. That's an odd mash bill, right? Sure. So I looked up the mash bill and lo and behold, like six other, 15-year-old bourbons came up. Chicken cock has a 15-year-old bourbon right now that's out. We've drank in some third chord. Three chord, yeah. Whiskey drummer, I think, is what it's called. Yeah. We did a review of that and several others. And then the more I dug and the more I looked, there was all kinds of stuff about that mash bill, but nobody can figure out where it comes from. And only one of those bottles says where it's distilled. It says the town. Which is Frankfort, Kentucky. Well, what's in Frankfort, Kentucky?

Yeah.

The big boy. Yeah. Buffalo traces there size of rack, I guess. Um, Does it come from there? I'm not sure. Other people have taken guesses of Heaven Hill and Jim Beam because Jim Beam has their 15 year old.

And that's not far off the Heaven Hill mash bill. I mean, it's not far off, but it's off enough where it's not them. It's not their primary mash bill.

Yeah. And some people use that whiskey in other blending too. Barstown Bourbon Company and a couple others have used that whiskey, that 15 year old mash bill in their blends. So what is it? I'm not sure. I just thought it was very unique, but also is also actually a distillery, cat heads distillery, um, that I wanted to take a tour of when we were down in Mississippi and I just didn't get an opportunity to go there. So I was like, heck, let's drink this bottle. Um, I was pretty glad to find it. I mean, I got it at total wine for $129, um, for a 15 year old pricey bottle though.

Pricy bottle, but for a 15 year old, probably a fair price. I mean, I've heard a lot of people say $10 a year is probably reasonable, right?

Yeah. So, you know, did I get a steel on it? Probably not. I just, I feel good about it. Uh, right next to the chicken cock though is $199. So for supposedly the same bourbon could be, well, let's know this thing. All right. Oh, wow.

Right up front, I get a sour note on my nose. First, first little whiff there. Like a, like a goes or Berliner Weiss, something like that. You know, like a, a sour beer.

Yeah, I'm not getting that. I'm getting a, uh, some kind of a tobacco, almost like, uh, We used to have this old neighbor lady that she dips snuff. You ever heard of snuff? It's like a powder tobacco and it has a very distinct smell. And that's what I kind of get on this.

You know, now that you mentioned it at Copenhagen, it's got that smell, a little bit of Copenhagen smell to it. I'm familiar with that because as a very young man in the Navy, I used to dip Copenhagen. Copenhagen's my thing. So it's bad for you. Very bad for you. And I got away from it.

But snuff is actually something that people don't do anymore. A lot of ladies would do it. Back in the day, it was an old little tin can. Yeah, my grandmother did it. Did she?

Yeah.

I don't know. I, you know, I just don't think of ladies of having a dip. And this, she was a, I would say she was in her seventies at the time, Mrs. Blevins, and she would always have that snuff dip running down her lip.

But this does remind me of some other things we've had in the past. I mean, the, the notes I'm calling out, the, the, the, the sour note is not the primary note on this. It's just something I picked up on and I thought it was a little unusual.

It's got a little bit of a floral in it. Um, like a dark, dark rose or something that's, that's, uh, almost done. You know, if you ever smell some roses that you bought your wife, um, you could smell those and get that dark, rich floral note.

I'm not picking up any butterscotch notes though, really on it for me. Maybe a little bit more of an oak, a deeper oak though. But yeah, I would have to say Mike, you probably nailed it. The probably the predominant note on the nose is, is probably a kind of a mixture of maybe caramel and, and, and tobacco is probably the.

Now this is 102 proof. Um, so a little higher proof, I think then, uh, then you would get on, uh, I can't remember what three chords was, but 102 proof. Um, supposedly this one in the barrel at 125 proof and it came out at 102.

Well, I think if you put a 15 year old whiskey in a bottle at 102 proof, you could be a little, you earn a little respect from that.

Yeah. Um, the bottle on this, uh, nice that wine style bottle on this. I would call this definitely a wine style bottle. Um, really nice label on that. Uh, gray, dark gray with a gold on it. What did you call that color? Yeah, that's gold.

Oh, the color of the whiskey. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, that's deep Amber.

Yeah. Deep Amber. So super beautiful bottle. I'm, I'm glad to have this thing. I like older whiskeys anyways. Um, I think whiskeys do have that sweet spot. You know, bourbons, you know, that eight to 12 year old is where we both have agreed before that they're, they're good at that age. Right.

Um, well, Mike, I think we need to proceed. Well, yeah, let's do it. Cheers. Cheers.

That's buttery on the palette. I was thinking real light, but it's buttery.

Yeah, it's not a lot upfront. Nope. Hits you in the mid, attacks the back end a little bit. It is kind of a viscous, thick, whatever you want to call it. You said thin, but I mean texture-wise.

When it first hit the front end, I thought it was thin, but it's just buttery once it's worked itself to the back. And it definitely has a hug on it. This thing's got some hug on it.

For me, it's the absence of sweetness. I think it's a little bit more dry. This is more of a dry bourbon. I guess you kind of expect that a little bit. Yeah, this definitely reminds me of some bourbons we've had in the past. This, this flavor is not uncommon. Um, well, this profile, I should say, not this particular flavor cause it is different, but this profile is not uncommon. And some of the names you mentioned, um, I think the, the three chord St. Cloud, who else, who else is on that list?

There was a couple of barrel pick ones that we haven't had, but those are the ones you named. I actually have some St. Cloud up there that's 12 years old. And I'd wonder if this is the same mashbill. But what a fitting mashbill, fitting bourbon, the 15-year-old for old soul though. Because this bourbon definitely has an old soul to it, doesn't it?

It does. Yeah, this has got a great sipping profile to it. For me, it definitely is a back-end bourbon. It's hanging out on the back end. I'm getting that hug. The back of my palate's kind of lit up a little bit. It's got a little bit of spice to it. What fruits are there are deep and dark. Not a lot of that caramel sweetness up front. Zero corn sweetness. I mean, it's gone.

This thing is all barrel all day long. It's definitely there. That barrel spice is there. I would have felt this had been higher rather than 13%. Um, with that backend spice, I'm getting at that burn, but, uh, it's all of 102 proof for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. I would, I would imagine I don't smoke cigars anymore. I used to, but I would imagine this is a great cigar bourbon right here.

So you'd say to our listeners out there that smoke cigars, go out and find this bottle.

Yeah, this wouldn't be a bad choice. This would definitely be one to, um, to experience with another, gentlemen or ladies, ladies smoke cigars too, to experience with some other people with a good paired cigar. And I'm not good enough to do that anymore. I used to be pretty decent at it, but I just had to give it up. It wasn't for me.

Well, I would say you put some blues on, you know, whatever blues music you like. I like a little Otis Redding. Oh, Otis Redding. A new artist, Marcus King out there. Put some Otis Redding on though. Get yourself a cigar. Get a bottle of this. get a good fire, a good dog, and just sit down. Maybe your wife's in the room with you, or your husband, and just relax.

So I can see you sitting out on the edge of the dock, Woodrow next to you on the edge of the dock, your feet hanging over. Smoking a cigar and drinking bourbon. Smoking a cigar, drinking bourbon, and listening to sitting on the dock of the bay.

Yeah, man, that's a perfect evening right there. Yeah, I'm glad I tried this. I'm still curious about where it's from. So, Cathead. Yeah, I'm interested to know this. So, we talked about Cathead a little bit and you said it's a Southern biscuit and there's Cathead biscuits, right? And I said it's a nautical term for a beam on a boat. But Cathead Distillery is a nickname that blues artists give each other, meaning they have total respect for that other blues artist.

So if you, if you're a blues artist and you're waiting to come on next, then you're listening to the guy before you and he just kills it. When he's walking off, you said, man, you're cat head. Yeah, that's, that's mad respect, I guess.

So that's Cat Head right there. They're in Jackson, Mississippi, a small distillery. Make sure you stop by there if you're going through Mississippi. A lot of people travel that route down through Jackson to get to New Orleans or even go down to the Gulf shore. Good way to get there. So make sure if you're traveling through there, You got some time, stop by Cat Head, pay them a visit, buy some bottles of bourbon. I don't know how long this is going to be on the shelf.

Well, I mean, it does say very clearly on the label, 2020 rare and limited release. Yeah. So I don't know how many are out there.

But we gave you some other brands, too, to check out. But Cathead's got some other bourbons out there. They are making their own whiskey now. They're there. Definitely, me and Jim are kind of fond of our craft distilleries. Each state has their own kind of I would say weather in Mississippi, definitely. If you've been down in Mississippi, it's nice and humid down there.

Yeah. Yeah. I would say they could eat some barrels down there.

Yeah. You remember the movie Crossroads? I do. That's not too far from there. So if you want to see a go to the Crossroads, it's up a little bit north of Jackson, Mississippi. Go down there and check that out.

So are you talking about the actual road that they filmed on where the two roads came together and he's standing out there with us? Yeah, that's a real place. And that people go there to see that.

Yeah.

It was a pretty famous movie. Who was the guy that started that? Well, Ralph Macchio was the one of them. He also was a karate kid. He was the karate kid. And now Cobra Kai. He's aged a little bit. Cobra Kai.

Yeah. He was also in The Outsiders. Was he? Yeah. He was real young though. Was he? Well, I think he was young in the crossroads. A good movie, I think somewhere in the 80s, that movie came out. It was about blues music, slide guitars, and blues houses down in Mississippi. But it is an actual place that you can go to. Some people say that musicians went to the crossroads and sold their soul to the devil. And that's how they could play the blues so good.

So if you had to pick one of them you think did that, who would it be?

So the famous guitar player, blues guitarist, was Robert Leroy Johnson. And supposedly before that, he couldn't really play the guitar that well. And he went to the crossroads and supposedly sold his soul to the devil. That's where the story originates, right? That is where it originates from. So if you want to check that out, check out Robert Leroy Johnson, the Delta Blues. He is just fabulous. His blues music is just amazing. You can listen to that old stuff. I dig that kind of music and stuff that just raw talent. There's no. Big show, no dancers behind them. They're just on their guitars and they're getting at it. Speaking of that, we're going out tonight to watch a band at the Barrel Room. Yeah. Joe Clark Band. And you've seen them before?

I've seen them before, yeah. Just local guys? Just some local guys. Well, they get around a little bit more than local, but great music, quality sound. Kind of got a few of their own songs too. You know, they don't just cover other people. So definitely nice to hear. And one of our favorite local spots.

Yeah, the barrel room. We were actually there last night, had a couple beers, couple pours. People are going to think we're drinking a little too much. Well, heck, we have a whiskey podcast. I mean, if you're going to drink, you might as well say you're going to go drink. We do go to the barrel room quite often. There's not a whole lot of bars, as we said before, in Shelbyville. Um, where is Simpsonville? Is there a bar in Simpsonville?

Uh, there are, well, there used to be, uh, the, um, stuff, the old stone in had a bar.

Yeah, but I don't think that's, it's a restaurant with a bar. Yeah. Yeah. The barrel room is just pretty much a bar.

It's a bar.

Yeah.

Um, no food. Well, they got some crackers now. They didn't beef jerky too.

But if you do, you come to Shelbyville. We met a couple last night from Knoxville, Tennessee, that they were on the Bourbon Trail. And a lot of people stay in Shelbyville because there's nice Airbnbs here, a couple of them.

And Shelbyville is flat out dead center of the Bermuda Triangle of Bourbon. Yeah, you go to Lexington or Frankfurt, Louisville or Bardstown. And we're right like equal distance to all of them. Yeah.

They'd never even heard of our podcast before, so hopefully we have some more listeners now. It was nice to meet them. I bought them a pour.

We ran into a roadie there too.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think we had a couple roadies in there last night. Oh yeah. It was nice that we didn't get bum rushed or anything like that, but it is nice to meet your listeners and say hi. Hey, you bought me a couple drinks. That was nice. It's always a good thing. So on this right here, would you say long finish or just medium on this?

I think the hug sticks around longer than the finish does. I think it's a medium finish. I like it. My glass is almost empty.

Yeah, I'm there with you. I'd say medium. As it's set in a glass, it has opened up a little bit. I'm getting a little bit more sugars out of it. Not a whole lot. I mean, it's still really light. It's not something that's going to knock your socks off. But if you want something older bourbon to appreciate, you know, then this will be it. It's a good 15 year bourbon. Oh yeah.

All right, Mike. Well, um, we are going to go ahead and take a break here. And when we come back, we've got another expression to try and another story to talk about.

Yeah.

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Yeah.

What is it?

So just out of the blue one day, some people sent me a message and said, we're going to send you some whiskey. And I was like, And then they said, well, they'd meet me. And I said, oh, OK, well, I'll meet you. And I was going to try to meet them. And the meetup never happened. And sometimes I can get lost in my work work and the farm and just doing stuff. So a packet showed up on the doorstep. And I was thinking, well, nobody sent me a text saying how you're going to get this. You're going to get that. So I opened up the box, and I was shocked. There were four bottles from good times. And people might've seen them out there yet. They kind of formed last year by two buddies, Nick and Jimmy, their local guys here. Not Jimmy Walker. Not Jimmy Walker. Okay. No, not that, not that Jimmy.

Not that good times. No.

These guys live here locally in the Louisville, Lexington area. They work out a three boys distillery. That's kind of where they work out. But what they do is they finish bourbons and that's all they do. This is actually a pretty special bottle right here we're drinking now. So this is a bourbon finished in a honey barrel. And then the bourbon is MGP Weeder.

MGP waiter. So already I can see a smile on your face. Yeah. I mean, okay.

How can you get any better? And then these guys must be listening to me all the time because this is 120 proof.

MGP Weeder. So it's a Weeder. It's 120 proof.

It's finished in honey barrels. Yeah. And this is actually a pick. It's going on the secondary market for around $200 is what they told me. And this is called Mo Honey Ali. And it says float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. This honey barrels as bad as me. I love it.

Yeah. That's a great, that's a great pick sticker. I like that.

Really nice bottle. I like the bottle I picked. It is a standard whiskey bottle. It's got that bulb neck that I always talk about, kind of like an onion or something. Color looks good. This is supposed to be four to five years old. Now these two guys in the middle of the COVID is when they started this.

So this is real new.

This is pretty new. I don't know what you'd call a bourbon company. That they're finishing barrels and they said they could only afford four barrels to start out with, right? They took all their pennies. Jimmy sold his bourbon collection to help buy those barrels and start this company. We know to start a distillery, it is costly, right?

It's costly. And that's not counting the whiskey. That's just to get the licensing and all the legal fees and all the things that go along with that.

Yeah. So it definitely isn't cheap. So he must've had a pretty nice, bourbon collection, I would assume. Most people in the world that are into bourbon have a nice collection. I wish that I couldn't, I wish I didn't open so many bottles, but you know, the podcast, you, you get a lot of open bottles. That's kind of what we do.

Yeah.

There are some stocks saved back, but of my favorite bourbons that I find, or people ship me one or two and I'll push those back in the back of the shelf. But we tend to open our bourbon and drink the hell out of it and share it with people, so there's not a whole big giant whiskey collection.

Well, there is. They're just all open bottles.

Yeah. Yeah.

What'd you say you had now about 600?

Somewhere around 600. I've been depleting that number because I've been given a lot of weight and I've had some events over here. And, um, we had a welder event in town and I gave four bottles of whiskey away there in samples. So I just want to share whiskey with people. I think I mean, you find something special. I want to tell the world about it. Absolutely.

Well, this is kind of a nice looking bottle. It looks like it's a double dip. It looks like they dipped in white and then dipped the tip in black, made it sort of that two tone wax dipped cover on it. Correla DeVille. Correla DeVille. Yeah, there you go.

But no, it matches the label. You know, there's black and white label and stuff. They actually, the four bottles they sent me are very unique. A finished brandy, a chocolate finished bourbon, which I'm kind of excited about.

No, finished brandy. You're talking about a brandy finished bourbon?

No, I'm pretty positive it's a finished brandy. We'll pull it out after the show to check it out. And then they sent me one of their just regular bourbons. But they are sourcing for MGP. They're really upfront about what they're doing and how they're operating. I can't say enough good things about these guys. If you're a group or your store is looking for a pick, you want to put something special on your shelf. or your group wants to do a special pick, these are the guys to go to. We just had Nashville Barrel Co. on. So these guys ain't doing a whole bunch of different stuff than Nashville Barrel Company, except for their finishing. So if you're into finished bourbons and something unique, I'd say check them out. Now we have had, I've had the Bell Mead Honey, which is a very hard bottle to find.

Yeah. I mean, you got to be willing to really stand out, spend a lot of time in line and hope, hope you're lucky enough to get one of those bottles.

Yeah. And then we've had Garrison's brothers, uh, honeydew honeydew. Yup. Um, I actually got a full bottle of that, that I haven't opened. It's stuck back for special occasions. It's hard to find too. I just got lucky enough. Somebody said, Hey, would you want to get a better bottle of this? And I was like, yeah, why not? And they shipped us a bottle too. And we reviewed it. Um, My, the fallback on those were that they're not cask strength. Right. Um, where this is 120 proof. This is, this is a big boy.

Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, you know, traditional thinking is probably that the honey needs that, that softer amount of alcohol to sort of play its song, but we'll see how it plays at a higher proof. Well, let's know is this thing. Right. Yeah, I'm picking up the proof on it. I'm getting a little bit of a, um, kind of a young wood nose on it. Are you getting that?

Yeah, I could get that little bit. I know she said before that you could get that honey in there. So if you're already picking up the honey, I couldn't pick up the honey. Maybe a little bit of honeysuckle.

It is floral. I never actually try to use flowers because I'm just terrible at that. You usually do pretty good at flowers with me. I'm, I'm, I'm lacking in knowledge, but I can say floral. Yeah. I mean, There you go. Kind of that young wood, floral note. I am picking up the honey on the nose, that sweetness, that softness of honey, that little bit of sweetness there. Could be something to do with that weeder too.

That could be. Definitely, I was thinking that, that, you know, a weeder is often softer than a regular bourbon. So, you know, hats off to you guys that picked a weeder and had a higher proof and you put it in a honey barrel. You know, I say check, check, check.

Yeah.

Well, it's a good nose.

I enjoy it.

Let's taste it.

Oh my goodness. That is some sweet whiskey.

That's a, that's a, that's good right there. That's, that's honey smackums. That's a honeycomb. That's, that's every cereal that has honey in it. I've ever tried.

Boy, I'm telling you, it's going to take me a few minutes to put my finger on what that is. It's that, it's that young wood nose that's now on my palate, but it's something I've tasted before.

That's pretty damn good right there. Um, complexity of that. It's got a spice to it that maybe that weeder barrel spice to me on the middle palette. And then it works its way all the way down. Definitely got some spice to it.

Wow. That's really good. It's a little bit sweeter than the bourbons. I like to drink on a regular basis, but I'll be honest with you. Uh, it's so different from the other, this is so different from the other honey bourbons I've tasted before. This is, uh, That extra measure of, of proof, I think really ramps it up.

I can see why it's going for $200 on the second barrier market. I mean, those honey barrels, always people crave those. Um, this is a great after dinner, after dessert whiskey right here, buttery, just so creamy.

Um, ginger snaps, a little bit of ginger snaps in it. Yep. I think that might be what I'm getting. Not like full on ginger, more like a ginger snap, like a little bit of a spicy, spicy ginger.

I could get that on that with a little bit of spice to it. Um, And at 120 proof, it drinks like 120 proof.

It's very present. Yeah. Let you know. But that sweetness is just, it hangs around. It's got a pretty decent little hug on it. I have to tell you that.

That finish sticks around with you too. It'll, uh, it just sits there on your tongue. Maybe it's that honey in there that's making it viscous like it is, but.

Yeah, I think that's what kind of lingers for me on the back end is that ginger that kind of that ginger snap. Um, very nice. Very nice. Like I said, for me, a little too sweet, but, uh, that's just me. You know, everybody likes what they like. I'd sit down, drink this bottle with you any day. No doubt about it.

That's to get you in trouble right here.

I think we've got some roadies who are going to want to try that. You think? Yeah, I think so.

I think you're right. Man, we might even have to think about doing a pick from these guys right here just for the roadies. Something like this is pretty magical. I like when somebody takes a chance and does something weird out there that nobody else is doing. These guys got a niche, I gotta say. Now I'm excited to try these other bottles they sent us. We've said before, we usually won't pull a pick on a show. We definitely won't review a pick because a pick isn't something that everybody, all of our listeners can get, right? Right. So that's kind of unfair, but I know they're going to do more honey barrels. So I think that's a good thing for them if they're going to keep doing honey barrels, but they only do picks. That's the thing. So, Kind of that's one of the reasons I'd like to a lot wanted to have them on the show was was to showcase what they can do We wouldn't review this just because they are they're doing picks. Yeah, but if you're looking to do a pick though I'd say these guys from this bottle right here, they know what they're doing.

Yeah. I think we, you know, we have picks on the show from time to time, but we review them as a, as a representation of the expression.

Yeah.

Not so much as the pick itself because yeah, it's hard. A couple of hundred bottles tops and

And that's it. Yeah. This one says it's about a 134. So, um, at this proof, you know, it's 120 proof, I think 200 bottles somewhere at 180 to 200 bottle range. Um, this was the 13th barrel they'd done. So they're pushing out some barrels now. Yay.

Glad to hear it. Local fellas. Yeah.

I like to see a success story. Um, And I don't know how their wax was to open up. You open this bottle.

I used a knife because I wanted to cut it clean along the black-white line. I'd have just ripped it open. Yeah, there was no pull on it. No, no pull. No, there's no pull. I didn't know how to get it open short of pulling a knife out.

Well, you know, from other expressions we had, this tops those expressions, I gotta say. I remember when we tried the honeydew, we were a little bit disappointed in what it was. Yeah. Um, that it was 80 proof. We're like, eh, you know, we're used to a little higher proofs. But the honey plays a big part in this one. It does. It plays a really big part in this. So the question would be when you proof it down to something like 80, are you just watering down that honey? Yeah.

See, I'd like to know, here's what I'd like to know. Maybe you do know because we haven't really talked about this. So did they just take a standard honey barrel that had only had honey in it? And once the honey was dumped out, then they put their bourbon in it? Because maybe that's where that sort of young wood flavor is coming from.

Yeah, I'm not positive. I don't even know if people put honey in a barrel or not, you know? Or if people are bourbon barrel aging honey and then returning the barrel back to the distillery again.

It's hard to say. Maybe that's a good question to ask them.

I'll have to get back in that. And on this episode, I'll try to write that in my blog. So if you're looking for that answer, it's going to be in our blog. I promise you I'll write something on that. So Mike, we're kind of batching it this weekend. Yeah, your wife's down in Bowling Green visiting grandkids. My wife is down in Louisiana visiting grandkids.

Left us here to hold down the fort.

Yeah, before you got here, I had to make sure I washed dishes and washed laundry, make sure the house was clean. I even swept and mopped the floor.

Get it done early so you don't have to rush it the last minute before they get home.

Well, Vivian doesn't come home until I think Wednesday night. And I was actually supposed to be in Oklahoma this weekend. But we got these major snowstorms that are just hitting the south and the Midwest here. Yeah. I mean, we have a half an inch of ice on our trees here. My driveway is just an ice rink out there where I park at and stuff. Now, my regular driveway is not bad, but it's cold. I'm stuck. You're stuck, yeah. But these bourbons make it better.

Yeah, so that's what we do. Wives go out of town, we record podcasts, drink bourbon, go see country artists, and you're gonna have to dinner with some friends and go into somebody's house for dinner and I'm curing some bacon. You're gonna cure some more bacon, huh? I'm gonna cure some more bacon and I'll report back on how that goes, but this is my second batch now. and making a big pot of charro beans. I know you love charro beans. I do like charro beans. I don't like it when people put hot dogs in them. Yeah. No, this won't have any hot dogs in it, but we'll have some pork rinds in it.

Some pork rinds. Really? Yeah. I don't know if I've had pork rinds before.

Well, you know, they're not the typical pork rind. Once they get in a charro soup, they become more of a pork skin kind of. Yeah, there's all kinds of stuff. There's so many different versions of churro beans when you go looking at recipes.

Oh, I'm sure there are. Today, whatever you look up, you know, a thousand, two thousand people have written something about it. Yeah. It's just the natural occurrence of stuff with people staying home right now and making stuff like that. And they're posting stuff. I was watching a show on influencers yesterday. and how the COVID had kind of exposed some of those influencers out there on social media because they're posting pictures at the beach and still going out and trying to stay up to be an influencer on social media. And those people are getting thousands and thousands of thousands of dollars of merchandise and money to, to be an influencer. Um, I would say like us, right? Well, I was giving us clothing or nothing. That's for sure. T-shirts and hats. Yeah. That's nice to have. I, I, Hey, you want to send us some t-shirts and hats? Send, send us stuff away to us. I'll wear it. And they did, they do send us whiskey. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's not a bad thing. I didn't pay for this good times right here. Good Times was good enough to send us some bottles, wanted us to talk about it. They said they realized we're just two good guys that might sit down in front of a fire and talk whiskey, and that's exactly what we're doing.

That's right. And we've got a few people to listen to us because it's just the easy go and talk, right?

Yeah. I mean, if people don't think Woodrow's right here, he is. He's laid out. He's enjoying his fire.

All right, Mike. Well, we need to wrap this up here. And the only reason I say that is because I am literally stuck in the ice on your drug. You got to get the tractor out and you have to pull me out. Okay.

But where can people find us on social media? So you can find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. and YouTube at The Bourbon Road. We actually have a private Facebook group called The Bourbon Roadies. You got to answer three questions to get into that. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon or whiskey? And do you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any what?

No rudeness. We want our roadies to treat each other with respect and kindness. And if somebody's coming on there and they're a brand new green roadie, never been on before, and they make their first post, Uh, and they want to review a whiskey that maybe everybody else doesn't think is their kind. Just leave them alone. Cheer them up. Tell them good job. You know, don't tear somebody down because they don't drink the kind of whiskey you drink.

Yeah. If they want to mix it with Coke, they want to mix it with lemonade. Like I always say, they want to make it, mix it with milk. Let them, let them do it. L a one. L a one. You know, that's that Kentucky ginger rail. A lot of people say, um, so yeah, uh, come in there, join a group. be part of our family and stuff. We'll pop in there every once in a while, say something. We do two shows a week. We do a long show like today where we're being, Jim just kind of set around a fire and talk. And then we sometimes we'll have a guest on. Um, we usually try to do four or four or four or five of those. That's a big one's coming up. We do. We're going to be an Evan Williams experience downtown with Bernie Lubbers and Heaven Hills, artisanal, the Stiller Jody. And then, um, we got logs, log steel.

The story's coming up. Yeah. Back at Angel's Envy again. Father and sons.

And his boys will be on. So those are some big shows that are coming up. Working with some other small guys, small craft distilleries for more reviews. You can look forward to those. Just keep telling us what you want to hear. So if you like this show right now, scroll up, hit that subscribe button. that way your phone, Alexa, whatever, it'll say, hey, the Bourbon Row's got a new episode for you to listen to. And if you really like us, scroll on down, hit that review button, leave us a review on whatever you listen to. If you're listening to it on Google or if you're listening to it on to iHeartRadio or if you listen on the Apple Podcast or Spotify, please leave us a review. Those really help us open the doors. five star, you know, or a great recommendation. We'd like those for doing something wrong. A one star. Um, but just be courteous enough to tell us what we're doing wrong and what you would like us to improve on. That's the only way we get better.

We are an Amazon music now. We're on Amazon, Amazon music now. So you can find us on our heart radio, Amazon music. You can find us on Alexa. I won't say it cause she'll start playing it as you're listening. But, uh, you know, uh, Spotify and Google play and Apple podcasts, all of them were everywhere. So whatever your favorite method of retrieving podcasts is, are you going to find the bourbon road there? Awesome. So we also have a website, the bourbonroad.com and on there, you know, we do write a blog every week to go with our podcast, the long version. And then we also write a review for the Monday episodes, for the craft distillery episodes. You'll find those reviews on there as well. Thanks to Adam for making that happen. We really appreciate that Adam. And you know, we also have some swag on there. We've got our t-shirts, we've got our Glen Caron glasses, we've got our hats are on there too. So pop on in there, take a look. If you're a roadie, and I certainly encourage you to join the Bourbon Roadies, you immediately get 10% off.

Man, we get 10% of those people. 10% off.

So when you go on the bourbon roadies page, it's pinned right at the top, the code. Go on the website, enter it in, get yourself 10% off.

On this last article I wrote, I wrote about the top three things to do in Louisville, right? So top three being top three hotels to stay at, top three restaurants to eat at, top three distilleries to go to, and top three bourbon bars and top three liquor stores to go to. So, uh, this week I'm going to be writing about Lexington area, top three hotels all down the line for you. And then the next week I'll do barstown area for you.

So to stay in three hotels. eat at three restaurants, shop at three bourbon bars, go to three distilleries. That's full weekend. That's Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Oh yeah. Three nights.

Not necessarily I had been to those places, but those are places I'm recommending off other people's word. Louisville, all the places I wrote about were places I've been. But the other places are off other people's word of telling me, Hey Mike, this place is awesome right here. Some obvious choices are going to make the list. Um, but there's a few, few surprises in there that you're going to be like, wow, I got to check that place out.

So where is it? We're going here in about a week or two. You said you had some big plan for us or something.

So this Saturday night we're taking our lives to the repeal Oak fire steakhouse in downtown Louisville. Um, brand new steakhouse into the steel hotel down there. Uh, we want to check it out. We're going to get all, uh, dud it up, dud it up, I guess.

We're going to stay at the still too, right?

I think we are. I think we're going to stay there. Um, If you're out that night and you want to see us dressed up, I will be in my 1920 swag pretty much. Probably. I'll be wearing a newsboys cap and stuff. No boots on as you'd regularly see me. So come out, see us.

If you see us, say hi to us. Yeah. We might walk down the strip there and call it whiskey row, right?

Yeah. If anything else is open, but that's where we're going to go eat at. And we'll report back to you on the next vlog of how that steakhouse is. I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah. All right. Mike's been a great show. Great time. Love it. Love it. Love it. If you guys know of anybody who you'd like us to interview, any bottle you would like to have us to have on the show, make sure you reach out to us. You can reach me on Instagram at jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we will see you down the bourbon road.

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