144. Evan Williams Experience with Bernie Lubbers and Jody Filiatreau

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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Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon.

And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. Mike, I'm so giddy right now. I'm just coming out of my chair. I cannot believe where we are.

I know. I drove you downtown today and brought you to the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience right here on Main Street downtown.

Yeah, about what, is it Main and Sixth? Between Fifth and Sixth Street, yeah. So we're actually sitting in their Speakeasy room, and we've got a couple of Evan Williams... Royalty? Royalty.

Royalty in here, yeah. To come into Speakeasy, you've got to walk through an old safe door, which is cool in itself. And they've got a gigantic bar in here. The photos in here just are amazing. If you get a chance to come in here and come down here, make sure you take a look at the photos on here. So much Louisville history on the wall. I love it. But our guest today, got two special guests. We got Bernie Lubbers, the bottled in Bond man, the whiskey professor. He's a singing, singing wizard. He's, he's everything, man. He's all over the world. He's their whiskey brand ambassador for Evan Williams and Heaven Hill. So we got him on and we got, who else we got on Jim?

We got Jody Filiatru. Now Jody, you're the artisanal distiller here, right? Yes, that's correct. All right. Well, we are so happy to have you guys on the show and to spend a little time with us. You know, we've had to do a number of shows. on Zoom and on StreamYard and everybody's kind of had to do that. But it's nice now, even though we're taking normal precautions, to get out and see some people face to face and record a couple of episodes. So we are extremely happy you guys invited us here and looking forward to a great show with you.

Well, thanks for coming and thanks for having us on.

We always like to get straight to the whiskey. Man, you guys put out three, to me, top whiskeys. The first one, if you don't have it on your bar out there listeners, you should go pick this one up. But Bernie and Jody, they set out the Evan Williams Bottled and Bond 100 Proof for us. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and this is a good old white label.

So this this is a part of just about everybody's bar that I know Yeah, you know the funny thing about this brand was It really didn't exist until 2012 or 13. I mean it was the only place that had do you remember that old? You probably had some of those old labels of the Evan Williams bottom bond.

It was green the green label

And it had like a little cabin on it. It almost looked like maple syrup or something. It's cool. A short squat bottle. Yeah, so ugly. It was cute. It was great. But we had several regional bottle and bonds, JW Dan, JTS Brown, T.W. Samuels, Heaven Hill bottle and bond. And you just, because of the restrictions of bottle and bond, and of course I'm the bottle and bond guy, I love bottle and bond. It's barrels you can produce in a six month period. So right there, you're restricted right down to that. So you got to pick one. You just can't push five national bottle and bonds or else it's all from the same year, it's all from the same season. So we chose, you know, the number two selling bourbon in the world. And it's just, that brand is just, everyone's just loving it. And it's, it's on, it's about cocktail, you know, all the cocktail bars love it. Consumers love it. I love it. Let's drink it. Let's do it. All right. Let's taste this thing. It's four years old, 100 proof. Cheers. Cheers guys. Thanks. Welcome to the, to, to Evan Williams. You know, for a four-year-old bourbon, man.

You can't go wrong with this bourbon. I mean, four years old, bought and bond. It checks a lot of the boxes and it makes a great cocktail. You can drink it straight. I mean, or straight up on the rocks. It's just, you know, it's very good.

I tell you, you're right. You know, one of the things you said is right there, it checks all the boxes. I think 100 proof sort of sits right in that sweet spot. Right, Mike? I mean, it's right in that, that saddle that you like to have your bourbon in.

Well, when you think of bourbon, you know, um, you do think of, it's got a little bit of sweetness on it. You taste just a little bit, a tad bit of that oak that is coming out of that barrel. It's old enough to know, hey, I'm a bourbon. It doesn't have an overpowering, overpowering Kentucky hug. It's not going to burn you up or anything. It's a nice sipping whiskey for a great price, too.

So what's this bottle run in the store? It's going to be around 16 bucks for 750. And so, you know, it's you know, the handle is I forget the price of the handle, but you know, it's It's a great price. And that's one reason it sells real well. I think it sold probably initially because of the name Evan Williams and then the price, which is probably what a lot of our products do is fine. But, you know, that bottle of Bond, as you say, I describe words on labels as you have to earn them. They're like men or women in the military. They're medals you've got to earn. You just can't get it. The whiskey medal you have to earn. You can't be made of molasses or sugar or fruits. You have to be green to be whiskey. Then bourbon must be a not just grains, but it has to be a certain amount of corn. 51% corn, and it has to be a brand new charred barrel. You have to earn the bourbon metal. Then you have to earn the straight metal that's aged in the appropriate barrels for two years. You have to earn that metal. Then Kentucky, that's a good metal. You've got to be made and aged in Kentucky. to be called Kentucky, but it also means something because of the experience. Distillers like Jody and other folks around here, they don't have that in Florida. Those people don't exist down there. Plus, we have the water here. We have the seasons, the chains, the cold winters, the hot summers. You don't have that everywhere. So that's a good metal. But bottle and bond on top of that, You have to earn all those medals, then you have to earn all the medals that go along with the bottle and bond. Well, it's one medal, but it's sold a lot. It's from one distilling season. It has to be exactly 100 proof. It has to be nothing but pure water added to get it down to that 100 proof from the same distilling season. You must list the name of the distillery and the unique DSP. I call the bottle and bond the Navy Seal or the Green Beret of Spirits, because it has all the medals. Why wouldn't you want every single one? Cheers. It's like the Swiss army knife.

Yeah, right. Jody must have really liked his. I was thirsty, by the way.

Can you go thirsty at a distillery? Well, you know, try not to.

If you can help it. You know, sometimes for me, the first bourbon of the day, because this is my first bourbon of the day. I'm proud to say this is the first bourbon of the day for me because it is still a little bit early. Sometimes a little bit of bitterness to it and for me none of that present not even a little bit I can't say this I made another distillery in a taco parking lot. So this is a, you might even call this a true thoroughbred, right? I mean, this kind of, it checks all the boxes you said, it's earned all the medals like you said. And in Kentucky here, you know, we kind of look up to thoroughbreds as being kind of the crème de la crème. Right.

And one thing, you know, it stands by itself. I mean, it can, you know, it's, you know, you can, like I said, you can drink it on the rocks or you can make a cocktail with it. And, you know, it's just, you know, they're ready for whatever you want to do with it.

Now, Jody, how long have you been with Evan Williams?

Well, I've been with Heaven Hill, our parent company for 40 years, this August.

40 years.

Yeah.

So, 40 years, you told me you're from Bartstown, right? Grew up just probably smelling the mash cook. Every day. Every day. And you actually told us beforehand, you kind of grew up on a present day distillery grounds, right?

Right. The where Luxro is now is my grandfather's farm. So he sold it when he retired. The Ballards bought it and they turned around and sold it to Luxro when they started to want to build a distillery out in Barshtown.

But is that, is that something pretty neat to have your family history? It's going to stay around for a long, long time now.

Yeah, that, that's, that's pretty amazing. To have that history tied in with Nelson County is pretty cool in Barshtown because, but I, all my family has been in the bourbon business. My dad worked for Bean for 20, 40 years. My father-in-law worked for Heaven Hill for over 40 years. So I've had, you know, family, you know, tied into this, you know, bourbon business for a long time. It really is in your blood.

It really is in my blood.

I had an uncle that sold whiskey in Louisville for 51 years. It's really ingrained in the lifestyle around here. What does an artisanal distiller do? Well, we make one barrel of bourbon here a day. So at Bernheim, they make 1,300 barrels a day. Here, we make one barrel a day. And we make that barrel by hand. We measure out the mash bill by hand. We dump the grain by hand. We run the steels by hand. We're taking samples off the steels out of the trial boxes. And we're using hydrometers and checking the proofs and making all of our adjustments by hand. So when I say this is a handcrafted bourbon, it really is. So that's just a really just a fancy word for moonshiner, really. Legal moonshiner. I guess, but one thing that's really cool though is about making that one barrel a day. You can do a lot of different things with that barrel. We have made about, I don't know, a dozen different match bills here, so we get to do some different things, get to try some different things, and it's a whole lot of fun doing that.

Was that always your dream, I guess, to become a distiller?

Well, when I get a little quick little story here, when I started 20 years ago, I had just finished up a job and I was 20 years old. Forty years ago. Forty years ago, I'm sorry.

Forty years ago.

Yeah, 40 years ago. Just at 20 years old looking for a job. So my uncle, like I said, he sold a whiskey down here. He said, go out and see Mike Shapiro out in Heaven Hill. Maybe he'll give you a job. So I said, okay.

Max Shapira is the owner and president of the company.

So I go out to Heaven Hill Balling House on Monday morning, walk in the office, knock on the glass, the lady behind the glass slides it back and says, I've got an appointment to see Max Shapira. She says, you do? I said, who are you? He told her my name and told her the story. Well, Max comes out and he tells him my story, you know, and he says, who are you again? So he said, go out and see our HR guy. Maybe he'll give you a job. So I said, okay. So I went to the HR guy. So they put me on a second shift as a laborer doing jobs around the balling house. So from there, I was a label machine operator, worked in the shipping department, loading trucks on a forklift, worked at the old distillery down on 49, and then went to the barrel warehouse and rolled barrels for over 28 years. So I started out there as a supervisor, I mean, a laborer, working for them as a supervisor. And I did that job for a while and I got too old to work in the warehouse. I thought, and this M. Williams bourbon experience opened up. So I thought, well, what the heck, I'll give it a shot. Sy didn't made a resume because you didn't have to, back in the day, you didn't have to make a resume. He's got my daughter to show me how to do a resume. Did a resume. First resume at 50. First resume. Did a resume and got hired on as our assistant artisanal distiller to Charlie Downs. He was our first artisanal distiller here. And then from there, Charlie retired and I moved up in his spot and been having a ball ever since.

That's awesome. True company man. No doubt about it. Yeah.

And you know, what better, Most distillers don't get to be in warehouses. They know about warehousing. Jody actually worked in warehouses for 28 years and that doesn't happen. So it's a unique quality that he has that a lot of people don't have.

Yeah, we spend a lot of cold mornings and hot summers in those warehouses.

Yeah, I imagine so.

Yeah, so you really get a fine appreciation of what goes into a barrel and what they do.

I bet you know where all the good barrels are stored too.

I know where a few are. I know what houses I like.

So Bernie, what about you? How long have you been with Heaven Hill and Evan Williams?

Well, I've been with Heaven Hill since September of 2012. And before that, from 2005 till then, I was with Jim Beam. So I've been with the number one bourbon company in the world to the number two bourbon company in the world. So it's been quite an experience to work with, first off, Fred Noe over at Jim Beam and, you know, the folks, all the folks over there, Tommy Croom and All the folks over there, just characters that most people don't get to talk to or hear from because of the behind the scenes, but that's who you learn all that stuff from. For the first year and a half, I just did events and promotions and I said, boy, I'd sure like to do what Fred does. kind of representative, but I'm not a family member or distiller, so how the hell is that going to happen, right? But I just decided I was going to learn as much as I could and educate myself because in 2005, There were 10 distilleries in Kentucky. Today, there are 69. We filled a little over 400,000 barrels as an industry in 2005. Today, Heaven Hill fills 400,000 barrels by themselves. It was not something that was popular. I remember when I went up to Chicago when I first got hired out of Jim Beam. one of the vice presidents. All the companies do a great job onboarding people. They just roll out the red carpet for you and they do lots of training and that kind of stuff. Just socializing and that. One of the vice presidents comes up to me and I was just doing events and promotions in Kentucky. An important job. I was an ambassador, but I wasn't an ambassador. I was running little neighborhood joints. Because it was Kentucky, I only had a budget for bourbon and whiskey. Everybody else had budgets for vodka and tequila and gin and all kinds of stuff, but because I was in Kentucky, it's just that. And this vice president comes and says, welcome to the company. We're so glad you're here. He says, where do you live? And I said, I live in Kentucky. He goes, oh, he says, it's too bad you're in Kentucky and only representing whiskey. Nobody's drinking that. That's the number one bourbon company in the world. A vice president is apologizing to me because I only have a budget for bourbon. That's where bourbon was in 2005, which is pretty interesting. Even though I've only been in the business for 15 years, I got to see it when it was kind of at its bottom. A couple years later, a year and a half later, I was hired on to be an ambassador for Knob Creek and the Small Batch. Then I started teaching about bottle and bond and words on labels like that. People just weren't doing that back then. Heaven Hill got in touch with me and asked me if I'd come work for them. I was kind of vulnerable because a bigger company like Jim Beam had changed. It had reorganized and stuff, and I had been stuck into a place that I didn't really want to be. So, I wasn't looking for a job. I said, all we want you to do is be an ambassador. They had so many bottle and bond whiskeys. That's very, very cool because I was a bottle and bond guy. I came there in 2012 and I'll probably end my career here. This is a great place. Being family owned and operated, it's real refreshing. There's nothing wrong with Jim Beam and other companies. or every company is great and makes great whiskey, but the family-owned part's kind of neat. I mean, you know, does Max remember that day you walked into his office? Do you ever talk to him about that? You know, that's a good question.

I haven't really... You should ask him sometimes. He probably sees people all the time, so he's not going to believe it.

Well, not many 20-year-old kids walk in and go, I'm here to see Max Shapira, and then there's Max Shapira. It's kind of neat. You know, I almost bet that

You know, because you're still in the company, you've been, how many people were with the company that long, you know? Sure. I'm sure they are a great employer, but that longevity, he's got to remember you.

We'll find out one day. Right.

So, I notice everybody's glass is empty, Jim. Absolutely. I mean, that's a sign of good whiskey, right?

Absolutely a sign of good whiskey. I was not going to leave a drop behind. None of that stuff. I'll tell you what. So, what's the second pour you guys got for us?

Well, let Jody talk about this because this is kind of his, this is one of his absolute favorites and Jody and I were both on the tasting panel. We kept rejecting the samples that they sent back time and time and time again. Chris and everybody was getting tired of us. We were like, no, it's got to be right. So, you tell the story about that, Jody. Sure.

So what we have here is the Edmund Williams Masters Blend. And what's really cool about this and really unique is that it has all the Edmund Williams products in it. It has the Edmund Williams 23-year-old. And that's amazing to be that older bourbon that's blended in there, mixed in there. And then the Single Barrel, the 1783 Small Batch, our Bollard & Bond, which you just had, and the Signature Black Level. So this is at 90 proof. And what's really, really cool about this is, you know, they have a set formula that they put this with, but the final product is finished by taste. So if it needs a little bit more than 23, then we just got to suck it up and put it in there. But when you taste this, it's something that, so take about half of it. And then we want to put, when you get done with that, we want to dry it a little something different.

Put a couple of drops of water in it.

Drops of water and try it out. Cheers. What do you think?

So having all those, even it's the same recipe, having those different ages and the different products gives it a depth and complexity that is And that finish is just, there's a, there's a, I can't describe it. It's either a caramely or something that finished something back there.

I'd say it's a, people don't like this word, but super smooth on that front end. And as it eases back, it's like a, give it a little, a cinnamon train on the way to the back.

And something I think personally, I really pick up some of that tannins from that 23. Oh yeah. That's probably what I'm tasting. Yeah. And it really comes in there.

I'm getting a little bit of almond on it too. What does that come out of? Is that coming from one or the other? One or the other or picking up some of the barrel.

A little bit of a nutty flavor there. So I just take a little bit of water. I put a little bit in my cap and then I just kind of put it in there. and then let it sit in there. So it's like two bourbons in one. So you get to drink half of it neat, and then you put a little water or maybe a little bitty ice cube in it, let it sit, and then you got a separate bourbon. So you get two bourbons in one. It's only available here at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience, and it's readily available. It's not like you got to wait in line or sleep out and be the first one in. And it's, you know, Rare, rare bourbon is only available in one place. I think it's like 60 bucks.

That's not bad. But something when you add that water to it kind of opens it up. And I think it gets just a little bit more spicier.

Me and Jim are past those days of us sleeping outside.

We've done it. We've done it, but it's been a while. It's been a minute, they say. I don't think our backs will take it anymore. Ah, but I'll be sure to pick up a bottle of this. This is right. And yeah, it does get a little more spicy towards the back of the palate, I think. You get a little bit more, and it finishes sort of settling in now a little bit too. I'm getting a little bit of hug there. Yeah, you get the Kentucky wrapping its arms around your heart.

It is, it is. Lovingly wrapping. Right.

That's more like a pat on the back.

So this is called the Evan Williams Master's Blend. Master's Blend. Does that make you guys the masters?

As long as this bottle, as far as this bottle is concerned, it is.

Master distillers. So some master distillers kind of blend into together. So it's a neat, it's a neat, like I said, we rejected. And when he said that they finish it off or they do it to taste, the they that he's talking about is Mike and Chris and Tawny. And they're our sensory panel. I don't know if that's a real title, but- Tasting panel, sensory panel. They just have some, especially Tawny has learned. You know, other distilleries have buildings full of food scientists and people with doctorates. I mean, that's awesome. I mean, that's right. But Tawny's got the palette, man. And she's just- Yeah, she learned from a good- From Mike Sonny, and he's been there as long as I have. Chris on the team, if they have anything, they just know. And so she said she could probably never work for another distillery ever, because she knows what Evan Williams tastes like, and she knows what that's supposed to taste like at the end. She knows what Elijah Craig's supposed to taste like. She doesn't know anything else tastes like. It would take years. They pointed the barrels in the right direction of the products that they're going to go into. And it's pretty amazing what those two, three people do.

Now, do you think the ladies have a little bit of an edge on us when it comes to that?

That's what they say. And I agree with it because most every company... I can taste, I wasn't from the Parker Beam and the Fred No and Jimmy Russell of philosophy. It just tastes like good bourbon. I really don't put that much, and it's interesting to talk to a distiller like Jody telling me, when you're looking for you're looking for what's not supposed to be there. Right. We're looking for the stuff that's exactly what's wrong.

So when I taste that, I'm looking for the off notes, you know, the high fusel oil or, or, you know, something that's I can't pick up or something that's not supposed to be there. So, you know, when I taste that, you know, that's what I'm looking for. So when I find something I like, you know, you know what you like. I mean, that's one of my things, you know, you know, what a good bourbon is, you know what you like. And, you know, somebody might come up with some, crazy thing that they taste, but I don't have that refined palate to come up with those 25 things that's enough taste of bourbon or whatever it is, but I know what's good.

I think there's a lot of truth in that. We have a lot of new bourbon drinkers that listen to the show as well, and a lot of times I think they might be a little intimidated by all the tasting notes. But one thing I think holds true, like you said, you know what you like. Exactly. a glass of bourbon and it tastes good and you like it and it's enjoyable. It doesn't matter if the word is smooth or I like that or whatever it is, you know what you like. Right, exactly. Calling out the notes or being able to pick this or that out, that'll come in time. The most important thing is don't let anybody tell you what you like. You like what you like.

I always tell people, I said, you know, that's your bourbon. You bought it, you know, you enjoy it. You enjoy it the way you like it. You know, if you want to put water in it, that's fine. You want to put it on the rocks. You know, you want to put Diet Coke in it. I said, you know, but if you get a pour of 23 and you want to put Diet Coke in it, go right ahead. But I'm probably going to turn my back while you do it.

But just drink bourbon.

Just drink bourbon. Just enjoy it. I like Frankie Blair with our company. She's with Diet Mountain Dew and larceny. She loves it. You know, nothing wrong with that.

Hey, if she bought it, she likes it. I enjoy it. Good Lord, buy more of it.

We did a Coke show. We did a show where we blended different bourbons. We don't talk about who they were, but we blended different bourbons with Coke. We tried to pick out which one made Coke taste the best. And you know, uh, we got a little flack for it, but at the end of the day, caramel is a tasting note and barrels. Sure.

What's wrong with that? We got more people that liked that episode than, than didn't. Um, some people, yeah, they give us a hard time for it and it said, how dare you, uh, pour Coke in that. Well, you know what? Every one of those bottles that we had, Jim, we bought ourselves with our money.

And there weren't any unicorns there. We didn't play that game. These were all just regular, available bottles. But I'll tell you what, this is nice. I'm going to have a bottle of this on my bar for sure.

It's just different though. It just makes it cool. Yeah.

Like I said, it's not crazy priced, overpriced. It's good, 60 bucks a bottle. You're not going to go broke, you know, drink it, but it's got a really unique flavor. And I think it's pretty cool.

So we're coming up on our break. I noticed Bernie brought a guitar with him. Maybe we can get Bernie to go ahead and take us out for our first half. Bernie, could you do that for us?

Yeah, absolutely. I do a tasting with bourbon, bourbon through bluegrass. And sometimes I have my, you're talking about my buddy Hickory Vaught and Steve Cooley and a few other folks that joined us over the years in that. But over COVID here, I've written a few songs, you know, so you're sitting at home, right? And you're playing the guitar. And so I was thinking, you know, when I was, my mom, She used to give us a little toddy or whatever when you got sick, right? You know, whiskey, honey and lemon. And I thought about it. I was like, oh, that could be a song, right? I thought you understood it. And then I wrote the first thing about I hated it. It was terrible. I was a hokey. And then all of a sudden, one day, I was driving down to Bowling Green to just visit an account down there. And this came to me. When I was growing up and I wasn't feeling well Mom would do what lots of moms did then She'd kiss me lightly on the forehead But she didn't go and grab the aspirin She'd mix up whiskey, honey, and lovin' A kiss on my forehead and my cheek Spoonful of whiskey, honey, and lovin' A second dose so I could fall asleep Now I'm all grown up full grown man and my dear sweet mama she is gone I still get sick from time to time but I will not spend one dime at the drugstore so just like her instead I'll mix up whiskey honey and love it a kiss on my forehead and my cheek I'll feel better there I quit With each and every sip Her love's right there in the recipe So next time you're not feeling good, mix you some whiskey, honey and love and get you some kisses on your forehead and your cheek. You'll feel better there right quick with each and every sip. Her love's right there in the recipe.

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So listeners, we're back here. We're at the Evan Williams bourbon experience, downtown Louisville, part of the urban bourbon trail. And we got Jody, their artisanal master distiller. And then we got Bernie Lubbers, the bottled and bond man with us, their whiskey brand ambassador. And you guys poured us a pretty special pour that, you know, you don't see this thing on a shelf anywhere else, really. Just a couple of places. So what'd you guys get for us?

So this is our 12 year old, Evan Williams. 101 proof. Now, this is a red label. So this is something that's going to be pretty unique. So when you taste this, you can only get it here at the Everyone's Bourbon Experience in Japan, and maybe one or two spots in Louisville. But this is something that's really unique, really tasty.

So our listeners over in Japan, if you're listening, you know this very well. And it's a brighter red label on that.

Oh, it is. So it's not exactly the same bottle. This is more of a flat finish, I guess you would say. Yeah, 12 years old and 101 proof. In 101, I was always trying to ask, here's a little tip. When you go to a bourbon festival or you go somewhere where there's a tasting and there's someone like Jody who's been around for 40 years, or Fred, or when Parker Beam was around, Conor O'Driscoll, our master of solar now, if it's Jim or Eddie Russell. If you really want to know something, ask them because they have so much knowledge and they'd like to share it. I asked Jimmy Russell one time, I said, where'd the 101 come from? I mean, you guys are iconic for the 101. I said, but there's 101, 103s, 107s, where did all that come from? He goes, oh, without hesitation. Well, that, Bernie, that was the barrel proofs of the time. I said, what? He goes, well, you know, we couldn't put the one, putting the entry level to 125, that was changed. It was 110 for a long time. And most distillers like us, what was our original entry proof, right, Joe? It was like 107. 107, so most people's entry proof was 107, just to be under the 110, right? And so, when you age it and it goes down in proof in the lower floors and up in proof in the higher floors, pretty much when it came out and you dumped it, 101, 103, and 107, I don't know why there weren't any even numbers, but those were the barrel proofs of the time.

So, pretty cool. That's interesting. You know, I absolutely have not heard that before. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. So, just ask the question. Right.

So, 101 is one of those deals. Yeah. You know, most, you know, distillers, you know, they love to talk.

So, if you ask them a question, they'll be happy to answer for you. And they'll tell you what, I mean, you know, Especially if somebody's been around 20 or 30 or 40 years, they sometimes don't tell you what the marketing department or somebody's, you know, you should say this. They're just going to tell you the truth, right? But there's nothing usually to hide on anything or whatever. But they'll tell you exactly what's going on. And that's the cool thing about it. And I've learned where the 101 came from.

So I know that this bottle is something that is highly coded and people, when they do travel to Louisville, they try to make it a point of picking one of those up because it has a good reputation.

Yeah, I personally think it's a little overpriced, but that's probably not a line that they want you to tell. You know, it's 12 years old. I think it's about 120, 130 bucks. And so, you know, we make a 12 year old barrel proof Elijah Craig, you know, that's 60, 65 bucks. I mean, you know, half the price. So I'd be, if it's me, I'd be going for that. But the fact that this is the only place you can get it if you're not in Japan, you know, and there's probably not a lot of it floating around Japan. And it does have a great taste and it is not the same as the 12 year old barrel proof. So I'll just throw that out there. So I guess it is really worth it, but I'm just saying, you know, it's tough for me to tell somebody to go buy a hundred and thirty dollar bottle of breads.

And I think it looks good on the back bar at home too, right?

It looks phenomenal. When you taste that. Not many red labels out there.

Maybe me and Jim can sneak out of here with a bottle.

So when you taste this, kind of, uh, kind of get the mouth filled for it. And then, and the finish it's pretty, pretty unique also. Okay. Let's do it. Cheers. Cheers.

Well, maybe it is worth a hundred and thirty bucks. It's been a while since I've had this.

It's good. That's a whole new level. It isn't. Both whiskies we've had so far were phenomenal. This is a step up, a step in a different direction. Takes it up a notch. The body, the mouth feel.

You like the spice, don't you? I like the spice. This is your jam. I know it is.

I like the dripping on the back of my palate. It's just dripping back there. It's a good descriptor.

It is. It's a long finish. It is a long finish. It's got that viscosity, that oily, like I call it oiliness. I know that's probably not right, but you're right. It's got a quick finish though. It's dry. It's a dry finish. Yeah, very dry, very dry. It's dry, but the flavor lingers very long. Correct.

I think if you were a dry red wine drinker and you wanted to get into the whiskey, this would be right up your alley. Cause some of those dry red wines will have that little bit of spice to them. Um, and this definitely has that and this is drying on that backend, which everybody's got their own thing, right?

Everybody likes something. Their profile differs a little bit from somebody else. And this, this thing brings something a little bit special to the table.

Yeah. I mean, we were talking, Off air before this, I always hate those posts of people like, what bourbons don't you like? What's the worst bourbons you ever take? I hate those questions because it really doesn't matter. Some bourbons that someone else says they hate, I love. So why does that even matter? So you give them all a chance. And here's two expressions that are only available here at this visitor center. But when you come to Kentucky, I know a lot of your listeners live here in Kentucky, and some of them who aren't from Kentucky are going to come to Kentucky. We do have a couple of products that are available only in Kentucky. That would be the Heaven Hill Green Label 6-year-old 90, which is It's a secret that's kind of not a secret anymore. So it's kind of getting a little bit harder to find. And then we discontinued the 175 bottles of it and everybody freaked out and thought we were discontinuing everything. So they cleared shells, but no, we're still making it. That one is only in Kentucky. Six-year-old 90 proof. It's like $14 a bottle. And then you've got the old Fitzgerald Prime, the gold label, kind of in a squat bottle, I call it. And that is a really great product. And it's got the old Fitzgerald name on it, which is really neat. So you can take that You can buy a case of the old Fitzprime for a little over a hundred bucks for a whole case, take it back home, give them away to friends only available in Kentucky. Maybe it's not, but I say the line, it's rarer than Pappy Van Winkle. It is, right? It kind of is, right? You don't have to spend a lot of money on life. That's why I love all the bottle and bonds. Mellow corn is another one of those. The only bottle and bond straight corn whiskey that I know of. But some people always say, well, I've never seen that old Fitzprime. I've never seen the Heaven Hills. I've never seen mellow corn. I said, you know what? Because you're always looking up. Everybody's always looking at that top shelf. You're looking for gold dust. And you should always grab gold dust because it's not always there, right? So if you see it, grab it. But you're stepping on bricks of gold to grab the gold dust. And that's fine. But don't forget to pick the brick up and put it in your cart too. and you're just stepping on it. You're not even picking it up. You're just kind of turning your nose up at it. There's some great bourbons down there, not just from our distillery, but other distilleries that have these little gems that are... Jodi, the folks that you worked with in warehousing and in the distillery, You know, they didn't wait for the gold dust, right? They had go-to everyday bourbons and some of the, what are some of your favorite go-to bourbons?

They would get, you know, the A. Williams Black Label, J.T.S. Brown, you know, J.W. Dan. You know, they would pick bottles like that.

Who's singing my song?

Me and Jim, we did a barrel pick in another distillery and we did an event for that, our release event at a liquor store. And some folks come in and out of town. I think they were from, I want to say they were from Michigan. they, they seen us and they were like, what are you guys doing here? We told them and they were like, Oh God, I bet you guys know a little bit about bourbon. I was like, we know a little bit. We're just two bourbon bullshitters really. We're not experts at all. But they said, well, you walk down the aisle with us and tell us what we should get. And I said, well, grab a shopping cart. Cause You're going to love it if you're not from here. And all those bourbons that you just mentioned, I said that JTS Brown, that JW Dan, that T.W. Samuels, if you're not putting those in your cart, you're wrong. And he's like, are you serious? That T.W. Samuels is good stuff. And I was like, I drink it. It's a daily drinker. I like it. And that guy left there that day, right? It was full cart. Full cart. Like full shopping cart, full of booze. He's like, I'm taking all this back.

Sure.

And obviously the liquor store is a friend of ours. Thank you so much. He's like, you told him what I probably couldn't tell him.

But I do the challenge where I say I'll take a hundred bucks into a liquor store and you'll take a hundred bucks in the liquor store. And my cart's going to be more full. And in my opinion have, not better than yours, but fuller and just as good a quality if not more. And you might just buy one bottle that's 85 bucks and go, oh, well, you've got 15 bucks left. Well, hell, all those bourbons we mentioned, we still got money left over. We can put all those in the cart and still have a little bit left over to put something else in the cart. You've got a few cigars in there.

I think it's really nice to see a lot of the younger, newer distilleries, the craft distilleries, jumping on the bottle and bond wagon, so to speak. Absolutely. But you spent kind of a good portion of your career educating people on that. And how many, exactly how many expressions are we talking about here that are coming out of the distillery?

Well, you're exactly right there. And the way I look at it is because it's so hard to achieve that designation of Balamban, I think it's a way you'd have to ask the distillers like the New Rift did it, Wilderness Trail did it. You know, Wilderness Trail did the very first thing. They didn't come out with anything. until they had Bottle & Bond, which is pretty cool. I think it's a way to make them look legitimate as real players in the marketplace to come out with a Bottle & Bond. I hope that's one of the things we're trying to achieve. I mentioned there are 69 distilleries in Kentucky. There are 1,800 craft distilleries. There are still 10 major distilleries. We make dozens of labels. Let's just say everybody makes two labels each. That means there's between 3,000 and 4,000 labels of American whiskey on the landscape today. And to my knowledge, there's less than 40 bottle and ponds. So that's why I call them the Green Beret and the Navy Seals. Because I remember one of the first movies I went to at the Uptown Theater in the Highlands here when I was a little kid, when it was a theater, one in Qdoba, it was a theater. And it was John Wayne and it was the Green Beret. And I remember there was a album that's all with it. Master Sergeant Barry Sadler sang the title tune, right? But he says, put silver wings on my son's chest, make him one of America's best. 100 men will test today, but only three of the Green Beret. So that's why I call Balamban the Green Beret of spirits, because the other one's washed out. That is so great.

There's a funny thing about Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the place where you go to become a Green Beret. Veteran Boulevard down there. The place, and you can't stop there and look at it. The MP will pull up until you get on. But that place is called John Wayne High School.

Oh, wow.

Really? Or John Wayne University, or whatever they call it. they say that's where men go to become men right there. So hats off to those guys that have that fortitude to go through that school right there. But back to our bottle and bond. If you're a listener and you're not picking up some bottle and bond one of these bottles, you better do it.

Absolutely.

Well, Jody, I know you got to go. We appreciate you being on with us.

Well, thanks for having me. I had a great time. I appreciate y'all letting me come in and talk a little bit and share it with Bernie. And like I say, I'm looking forward to listening to this. All right. Now don't pat me down when I leave because I might have some of this untucked under my arm. Like I say, I appreciate it again. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Jody.

Appreciate it. So let's talk a little bit about the experience here at Evan Williams.

We were the first at Evan Williams Bourbon Experience in 2013 to open up in November there to have a distillery in downtown Louisville. And now there's 10, I believe. So it is really interesting. We were the first to plant the flag of having a distillery in downtown Louisville. Now, of course, you have Brown Foreman, and of course, our distilleries are technically downtown. But we don't have tours, so places you can come. And then since then, like I said, 10 other distilleries. pretty amazing. And then you still have the urban bourbon trail because the brilliance of that urban bourbon trail was, I just went and visited four distilleries and I like to come and have whiskey from all those distilleries. Well, back then people didn't have whiskies from every distillery on their back bar. So it's kind of a way to guarantee that whoever you visited that day, because most people stay in Louisville or Lexington or Bardstown. Sure. There's not a lot of hotels in some of these little towns that have distilleries, and now with Airbnb, that helps out a whole lot. But still, that's where all that came from. We're proud to be the first. We call it the Evan Williams experience because it's our flagship brand. I call it the engine that pulls the train at Heaven Hill. You've got to have a strong engine, and it is the number two selling bourbon in the world, Evan Williams. It is growing at a very big pace. Just think about that. Little Evan Williams, you know, that you've sometimes looked down on and scoff at, right? That it's always on the bottom shelf and it shouldn't be on the bottom shelf, right? It should be in the middle part there, but still, you know, but it outsells maker's mark. It outsells Wild Turkey, outsells Bowie. I mean, those are amazing brands, right? And you'd think, if I told you that Evan Williams outsold Maker's Mark, you'd say, no, he's full of shit, right? I'm learning all kinds of stuff today.

This is really great. I would have believed that Wood outsell it because your common drinker, your common liquor store guy that goes in there, that's been drinking bourbon since high school. They're typically going to go for that bottom shelf. They're not going to nerd out on that whiskey. They're going to be like, well, that's what I can afford today. I'm on a budget, my blue collar guy, right?

Well, you're buying a 175 and it's easier to buy a $21, $22, $175 than a $48, $49, $50 bottle. And it's just price. But you know, Makers is awesome. I'm not putting anything down about, you know, my cousins, the masters still were over there, Denny Potter, you know. We didn't know we were cousins until about a year ago. And then he did a DNA, a heritage DNA kind of thing. And he's like, he says, George and Gertrude, and I'm like, those are my grandparents. He goes, oh, well, shit, I think we're cousins, right? So, turns out we're Cuzz. So, hey, Cuzz. So, but, you know, it's just Price does a lot of things and they're both amazing brands. But if I just told you that Evan Williams outsold that, you wouldn't believe me, but it does. Pretty neat. I think I would take a lot of people by surprise.

Really? But not you, because you seem to have an insight there, Michael.

Well, I do. When it comes to the blue collar guy, the working man, the guy that's working in the factory, the guy that's working in a restaurant, and they're on a limited budget, you can't always reach for something once a week that cost you $30 or $40, because then you're going to take some off your dinner table, right? So if you can spend $15, though.

And we have products that are several hundred dollars. I mean, we have soup to nuts, as they say. We have that, but it's hard to live and die with a hundred dollar bottle. Like during COVID, hopefully you're listening to this two, three years from now and I remember the days of COVID. But or just in any time. If your bottle's $85 or $100, that's not your everyday bourbon. And if it is, good for you. You're either scrimping and saving and doing that, or you just got a good amount of expendable income to be able to do that.

So back to the distillery here. So I feel like I have received a bit of an education today. I guess that's why they call you the whiskey professor. I appreciate that. But you know, you've got, what can people expect here at the distillery?

So, here this is a building we're in right about six in May. It's a building that the Shapiro family owned. It housed the offices and it was a warehouse for their department store business. That's when they got into business. After Prohibition, Their business was not affected by prohibition. They did not sell liquor or make liquor. They were in the department store business, so they had some money to invest, and they did. But this building was that company. Of course, they hadn't been used in that company or doing anything with that, so they had this building. It was Harry Shapira, actually. Harry is the one who ran that department store business. He loves retail. He loves selling shirts and hats and all that kind of stuff. He's like, what if we turned this into a visitor's experience in downtown Louisville? Oh, that can't work. There's no distillery downtown. There's nothing to visit. And he had the vision. And then he sold his cousin Max on it. And Max, they talked to him. It's family. It's their money. Even though they own the building, they gutted it. I think it was $12 or $13 million they put in. I always think about that. When our family makes an investment like that, that's $13 million they could have kept in their pockets and gone to the south of France or wherever rich people go and have a great life the rest of your life. But they invested in the future of the company. Max tells me all the time, Bernie, I want to be family owned and operated 100 years from now. and you have to invest and you have to put back and you want your communities to do well. We want the whole industry to do well because you can't be a bourbon attraction with one distillery. So we want 20 visitor centers in downtown Louisville. So when other people have them, we were like, oh no, what's happening? We're like, oh great. And so when you come here, because it's a shotgun building, you're not really gonna see a typical tour. you're going to see the history of Evan Williams, who was one of the founding fathers of the city of Louisville, and that he was the first, he collected taxes on the wharf. He was a wharf master, which sounds like something from Star Trek, you know, wharf, the Klingon. So he collected taxes. He was a builder. He built the first jail and he built the first courthouse. And I think that's a little unfair. You know, it's kind of double-dipping, right? But he did. He was a businessman and he was a distiller. You learn about Louisville's history, and we always hear about Kentucky's history, but you very rarely hear about Louisville's history. So with that, you're gonna learn that. And it's kind of like, I would describe it as kind of like an Epcot kind of an attraction. We use video and we, so it's, you go through and you see that history of Whiskey Row on Main Street where we're located and things like that. Kind of immersed in the whole field. Yeah. So we try to get you very excited about that and about who Evan Williams was. And we were not related to the Evan Williams family whatsoever, right? It was a brand that we created. Before the Wikipedia and the Google machine in the 1950s, we had to actually hire historians and find who was the first commercial distiller in our area, and that would have been Evan Williams. That's why we made Evan Williams Bourbon, created that. We make this building all about Evan Williams and that history. That's what you're going to learn here.

And not only that tour, but you also have where we're sitting at now in the basement. Absolutely.

We have the Speakeasy tour, which now we have two tastings that happen down here. One of them will be all about prohibition. So that's why we're in the Speakeasy, because you had to speak easy and quiet so we can hear you. hear you. But it gets a little raucous sometimes. You learn all about prohibition and that in the tour guide, bartender if you will, stays in character and tells you all about like he's in the 1920s or she in the 1920s. Then we have a new experience that tells the history of the first African-American published cocktail mixologist who had a cocktail book. His name was Tom Bullock, and he was at the Penn Dentist Club. One of our tour guides here, George, really immersed himself into it. He stays in character, and he's Tom Bullock. You make that old-fashioned that he would have made at the Penn Dentist Club. To hear that history, It's just, you know, it's something different. And it is an experience that you can, you know, think, remember fondly when you leave here.

Yeah. So, and I assume for the moment you're on limited, limited hours. Most, most places are, but we all hope that... In limited days. In limited days.

And those limited people, we used to have 20 people on a tour, now there's six. But it looks like the clouds are parting a little bit and there's some, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. Hopefully it's not a train going to run us over, but I think things are heading in the right direction. I do know and do believe firmly that bourbon tourism will bring the city and the state back faster than most other states and cities.

Where can our listeners find you and the Evan Williams experience on social media?

Sure. If you Google Evan Williams Bourbon Experience, the website will come up. The phone number will come up. Right now, we're doing all the tours through reservations on the website. We also have the Bourbon Heritage Center in Bardstown, Kentucky. If you Google that, the website comes up. We've just done an incredible We've redone everything. We've got two glass sides of a huge Rick house. It's going to be an amazing part of the tour. I also encourage you, if you want to learn a little bit about our brands, but also just about Bourbon in general. But at heavenhilldistillery.com, we've got some incredible videos and some incredible education on that of just how a rick house is built. We have a time-lapse photography of how a rick house has been built and things like that. So there's a lot of great information there. I have my own personal website, which is WhiskeyProf.com. There's information on bottle and bond and different articles on bourbon and whiskey.

speak to, right?

Well, Max pays me. So, you can't hire me. So, I'm paid by Heaven. I'm an employee at Heaven Hill. So, I can't be hired, but you can call, you can request me and I can show up. That's nice to me, I think.

Well, I have a request. That guitar is seeming awfully lonely over there. Can we play another song?

Absolutely. Well, this is another song that I wrote and We're on Whiskey Row here in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. When you go to the Bourbon Heritage Center in Bartstown, if you go down North 3rd Street there, that was called Distiller's Row. All the master distillers lived right on North 3rd Street there. That's where Fred and Sandy live. Noh lived there. Next door was Freddie and Kay. Across the street was Jack Beam. Next door to the Noh's house and Booker Noh's house was Samuel's. Bill Samuel's dad lived across the street. I call this Distiller's Road because I mentioned 26 bourbons in the song that tell a story. All right. My old granddad, he passed away, but he lived 94 years to the day. He's laid to rest right up on Heaven Hill with a spray of four roses on his grave. So we got three here with me. He'd drink a quart each and every day of some good store bought Jim Beam. Dr. Forrester said, hey, Pappy, now you better cut it down. But then the good doc passed away, so who's to say? So raise a red eye to old granddad. Don't count that twice. He lived to be an ancient age. That old crow sure left his maker's mark, and now he's drinking with the angels far away. It should have ten if you're counting it whole. When the weekends rolled around, oh, the stories aided flow. Like Yellowstone amblin' down Knob Creek, Heaven and William start to sing. Brother Elijah's voice had ringed. Jimmy passed the jug to his buddy Parker Bean. So raise a red eye to old granddad. He lived to be an H and H. That old scout, he sure left his maker's mark. Now he's drinking with the angels far away. While turkeys, they all were in like eagles, they were rare.

See what I did on that one?

They bottled and bonded all the day. And all into the night at Basil Hayden's sheer delight They tell stories by the cabin still they raise Raise the red-eyed two-o granddad He lived to be an ancient age That old stag sure left his maker's mark And now he's drinking with the angels far away Got three left He'd throw old fence if he didn't get his V.O.B. Now he's drinking there with Booker far away. All right. 26.

How do you remember all those? You sing it a few times, right?

Yeah, I wrote it and then I have to, you have to remember it. But yeah, see, and I added three. So it's tough to remember the, it started with 16 and now I've got 26. So it's kind of neat to find a place to crease something else in.

So that's like right up there with Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson.

I've been everywhere, man.

Storytelling. That's right. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, it's been a pleasure having you on the show today, Bernie. Well, Jim, thank you, and Mike, thank you so much.

Oh, yeah. Well, you can find us on all the social medias at The Bourbon Road. We also have a website, Mike, right?

Yeah, the bourbonroad.com. You can go on there. You can buy our swag on there, that Bourbon Bullshitter t-shirt. You need to get one of those. We also have our Glen Carons on there and we have our hat on there. And I promise you soon we're about to have a Bourbon Road t-shirt on there. We'll be putting some photos up of that. We have some articles on there. Check those out. It's not always about the episode itself. It could be about something else, something me and Jim want to talk about. We also have our whiskey reviews on there. Sometimes it's about a big boy, but usually it's about a craft distillery, something out there that will be a little bit hard to find. But you want to find those things that we review. and support those small distilleries. But the big boys too, every once in a while we'll throw one of those in there. So check out our website. We got some live events coming up.

We do. So Mike started doing these live events every week, every Tuesday, at least so far.

Tuesday or Wednesday.

Tuesday or Wednesday. It's nine o'clock at night. We do a live event. We'll call it our, what? Bar Night with Big Chief. Virtual Bar Night with Big Chief. Make sure you attend that. We also do two shows a week, every Monday and every Wednesday. We do a short episode on Mondays where we sort of focus on a new expression, sometimes a craft distillery or sometimes a big boy, just depends. Every Wednesday we have a guest on like today and we kind of do a deep dive into a distillery or an expression or an individual. And today it's been a great pleasure to have Bernie on the show. We also have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. 1,500, 1,600 like-minded individuals, good people, family, right Mike?

Growing every day. You've got to answer three questions to get in there. Do you like bourbon? Come on, doesn't everybody like bourbon? Are you 21 in the United States? You've got to be 21 to drink. And do you agree to play nice because we just don't tolerate any rudeness in there if somebody's gonna drink Evan Williams bottle and bond 100 proof From the bottom of the shelf. That's what they're gonna drink and we were gonna praise them for it. Cheer them on. Heck yeah So that's what that's what we got Jim. Yeah

Well, like I said, Mike, it's been great to spend a little time here at Evan Williams. It's been extra great to get back out on the road, stretch our bones, stretch our muscles a little bit, carry the gear around. I don't mind. Do you mind?

I don't care at all. Hopefully, you know, Bernie has assured us that our next time with him is going to be down at Heaven Hill. I'm excited. We can do that. We're excited to get down there. We love some Heaven Hill products. Obviously we do. We came here today. Get downtown Louisville when everything opens back up, support these businesses down here and help it thrive. There's so much to do down here. He was talking about Evan Williams. It is a stone's throw from the waterfront. Literally. Yeah. And there's some stuff down there. There's two river boats down there. There's an old Coast Guard life-saving station down there built in 1881.

Listen up, Coasties.

So come to Louisville, spend your money in Louisville. Come to these experiences. It's well worth your time and money. I'll guarantee you that.

And we've got our ears open, fellas, gals. We like to hear what it is you want to hear about, who it is you'd like to have on the show, what expressions you'd like reviewed. Make sure you reach out to us. On Instagram, I'm jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we'll see you down.

time.