148. Two Special Bourbons with Cruise Customs Flags

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

We would like to thank our friends at Premium Bar Products for sponsoring this episode. If you're ready to step up your game at your home bar, check out premiumbarproducts.com to choose from their wide selection of glassware, all of which can be custom engraved with your personal message or logo. And there's no minimum order. So after the episode, head over to premiumbarproducts.com and check out everything they have to offer. Now let's get on with the show. Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we are in Shepherdsville, Kentucky.

Yeah, home of Jim Beam. Yeah, south of Louisville, about 20 minutes? Yeah, I'd say 20 minutes down here. People would say it's in Claremont, right, that Jim Beam is, but it's really in Shepherdsville. But we're not at Jim Beane today. But we do have a lot of barrels around us. Well, cut up barrels. A bunch of cut up barrels. A lot of sawdust in this room. The fellow we're going to have on today is covered in sawdust. But we're down here at Cruz Customs Flags. And we got Chris Cruz with us today. And what he does is he cuts up barrels, Jim, and he makes them into American flags. We're using those barrels that we love so much.

Right. And he doesn't just make flags. He makes a lot of different things, right? He's got quite the array of products here.

He's got a little bit of everything. He does. He's about to have some coffee in here too, but his flags are what's beautiful, but he's got some bottle openers. He's got some key chain or key holders, I guess, with magnets and stuff, one of every state. I didn't see, he didn't have a bourbon barrel one that he made. I was kind of wondering about that if he thinks of bourbon barrel one.

But he's got a great story and that's why we're here. That is why we're here.

So Chris, welcome to the Bourbon Road, man.

Thanks for having us, guys. Well, Chris, you know, everybody who comes on our show, regardless of whether they're in the industry or not, has to agree to drink bourbon with us. And there was no twisting of your arm, was there? Not at all. Not since it's Friday. All right. So we like to get straight to the whiskey and then we'll talk a little bit about you and what you do. But, uh, but today you have brought the first bottle we're going to try and what did you bring for us?

I brought the Elijah Craig toasted barrel.

This is the toasted barrel, Mike. Now this is, this is sweetness, right? Oh, we love it. You know it. It's like, it's like a marshmallows at a campfire. Well, this is a, this is a good choice and very happy you brought this. I think we're going to enjoy it a lot. So what do you say we dive in and check it out? Absolutely. That's got a great nose on a Mike, but you can, you can pick up that little bit of extra sweetness on the nose. Can't you?

Jim, I'm not going to lie, man. Um, I drink a lot of bourbon last night, Chris. Um, so I just went ahead and dove in and started drinking.

All right. Well I'll give everybody the benefit of at least a short nose on it. Yeah. It's a definitely a sweet caramel honey kind of nose on it. The oak is there definitely picking up the oak, but it's got a little bit less, um, a little bit less, um, kind of, it's not as thick and not as deep and not as dark as you might get with a, with a barrel proof. This is, this is a little different.

This 94 proof, um, it's not as viscous. You know, you'd expect a little bit more caramels out of this, but the, the toasted, it gives it a little bit of something extra. Um, And when we talk about toasted, all they did was take that regular old Elijah Craig, right? Um, that they sell at 94 proof. They poured that into a toasted secondary barrel. So this is really a double oat.

Um, and the toasted barrels tend to just add a lot of those caramelized wood sugars and they kind of bring up the sweetness. They kind of ramp up that sweetness a little bit and they do contribute a little bit of the Kind of the new oak flavor too. You get a little bit more of that.

But when you sip on this though, you get that campfire marshmallows.

Yeah, I've always been a fan of toasted barrel finishes. I think so have you. Yeah. And it doesn't matter to you what the whiskey is. If it's toasted, barrel finished, it's going to amp up that sweetness.

My tongue almost falls out of my mouth when I hear toasted. And if I could get somebody to toast a weeded whiskey out there, a weeded bourbon, please listen to Big Chief and toast me a weeded bourbon.

A lot of people say it's already sweet enough. It's already soft up front. It's sweet.

They don't know what they're talking about. Let the Weedy King of Kentucky decide. You can even call me up. I'll drive down and sample it for you.

Yeah, I'm a Weedy bourbon guy myself, so we got something in common. Well, let's talk about that for a minute. What's your go-to? You know, I'm a Weller guy.

Most people like Weller, like the 107. Yeah, you guys are sitting on the same side of the room. Very, very similar tastes.

Jim, Jim likes that Weller 107 too. I don't let him lie to you now.

I do.

He loves wheat and bourbon.

I do like it. However, I like the double oak too, the Woodford double oak. You could put that stuff on ice cream.

You could, couldn't you? It's nice and chocolatey. It's got that sweetness and caramels and stuff to it. This right here has almost all that, you know, I, I, beautiful expression. I was so glad last year when heaven heal said, Hey, we're going to put this. And that was about this time of year that they put this out last year. Um, I'm so glad they put it out. Um, very shocking that they would try something new and not stick to their game.

Yeah. I think this is one bottle that I'm happy to repeat on the show as many times as it comes up. I'll be, I'll be right there for it. It definitely can be a star.

Um, you know, so Chris, where are you from? I'm originally from Mississippi. From Mississippi. And so you're an Army veteran, combat vet, right? Yes, sir. And what'd you do in the Army?

So I was a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, so never really did my actual job. I was a fueler, never pumped a gallon of fuel the whole time I was in. I was the environmental guy for the battalion while we were in Garrison. When we got deployed, we became MPs basically over at FOB Ridgeway, which is 20 miles west of Fallujah.

And how many years did you serve?

I served four years active duty and did one year Kentucky national guard. And then said, I had enough. Yeah. Well, my wife said, my, my soon to be wife said I had enough. Sometimes you got to listen.

That's definitely true right there. Well, thank you for your service. Thanks for going overseas and defending our thoughts and stuff and our, uh, our freedom, our way of life here in America. I know a lot of people forget to say that, but we thank you. Me and Jim, both being veterans and stuff, we appreciate those. I did 10 years in the army. And I wasn't a ground pounder. I was a watercraft operator, but I sure hauled a lot of 82nd gear around with me through the years and stuff. So I appreciate it. And I had a lot of buddies in the 82nd airborne. Fort Bragg is a lot of good soldiers on that base right there.

Yeah. I was proud to be deployed with those guys for sure.

Yeah, so I did eight years in the Navy, submarines, and I had about enough being closed up in a little steel tube underwater. My dad was 101st Airborne though.

Cool.

He was a paratrooper.

Is that why you like a one-on-one so much? It could be something to do with it.

I don't know. Subliminal bourbon.

Nobody ever brings that up when they're talking about bourbon. They just say, you know, wild turkey one-on-one, but I don't know why, why wild turkey hasn't made a one-on-one, um, you know, like bottle just for, for the army. Um, you know, other people made the 82nd bottle, which you have a bottle of that and stuff. And, um, it just makes sense to me.

Yeah, I think the fellow that made that 82nd Airborne, I think he said something about making a 101st Screaming Eagle bottle too.

I think he did already make it and stuff. You know, I think that there's, well, 10th Mountain out there is a different brand. But a lot of people making bourbon for soldiers, sailors, Marines, you know, the military, they drink a little bit of whiskey, right?

Yeah, yeah, a little bit. That's what the AA patch stood for, I think.

Now tell me about this AA patch.

It's all American. It stands for all American, but a lot of people say it stands for Alcoholics Anonymous.

So do you remember your first sip of bourbon?

Yeah, actually here in Kentucky, I never drank bourbon until I moved to Kentucky. Really? Yeah.

All that time in Army and you didn't touch a drop. All that time in Army. So you're a beer drinker?

Yeah, a little bit of everything, but, uh, never, never bourbon. Never, uh, I guess bourbon, you start drinking bourbon when you get a little older, I guess. I don't know. Uh, it just never, never appealed to me until, so I moved to Kentucky.

Maybe that's when all them bottles out there get opened. When everybody gets a little bit older, right? I don't, I guess I, I don't know.

I've been drinking bourbon for a long time. Um, not the best bourbon at that military special. You ever seen those little men bottles in classics or, uh, I was going to say some other ones, just stuff that you're like, Oh, like old crow, anything on that bottom shelf that I could afford. When payday came around, I'd grab, go grab it and say, Hey, 10 high. A lot of people don't even know what that is.

I haven't had it, but I know what it is. You don't want it. No, I actually started, I started out then on wild Turkey 101. That was my first, Of age whiskey I ever drank and I kind of stuck with it for years. I wasn't an adventurer. You know, I go, I go to a restaurant and I get the same thing every time I go kind of guy, you know. Now we're at Mississippi. You're from?

I'm from a Southern Mississippi. So around Laurel Hattiesburg area. Hattiesburg. I know where that's at.

Yeah. Yeah. And then you joined the army about 18 years old.

No, actually, I played college football a couple of years before joining the military. And then I was told I was not good enough to go division one. So I was used to being told what to do. So after that, I joined the military.

Wow. That's tough. Hey, I'm right there with you. I probably should have played college ball at the University of Texas. But back then, I wasn't smart enough to go to class or didn't care about grades. I didn't really care about school. I cared about football. Yeah.

Yeah, me too. And that's, that's, I was kind of lost after they told me I couldn't play anymore. I'm like, that's what I've done since third grade. What am I going to do now? So, uh, best decision I ever made. So it was, it was, it was a good move.

Well, everything happens for a reason. You probably wouldn't be in this room right here with us today if you didn't make all those decisions and, uh, absolutely making some stuff. But what we're here for is your, um, your flags you make out of bourbon barrels, right? How did you come about this idea and say, Hey, am I cut some barrels up and make a flag out of it?

Yeah. So it was Christmas one year. So my father-in-law is a veteran. My father's a veteran and we got tired of exchanging gift cards every year. Like here's a Lowe's gift card. Here's an Academy gift card. We got tired of that. So I said, I'm going to do something special this year and ended up making them a flag. But prior to that, My wife wanted something rustic in our four year that represented both Kentucky and me being a veteran. And I was like, there's nothing more Kentucky than bourbon. And there's nothing that represents a veteran better than the American flag. So I set out to make a flag for our four year. When I was out there, I was like, this is pretty cool. I enjoy woodworking, never knew I was a woodworker before that. And I found that it was therapeutic for me. I was like, let me try a couple more and see if I can, can actually do this and do it right again. So I ended up making them a flag and just seeing their expressions on Christmas when they received them, I was like, we have something here because it's therapeutic for me. The customer loves it or the recipient loves it. And I basically said, there's a way to help other veterans. I had a full-time job at the time. I didn't set out to do the business to support me or my family. I just wanted to help other veterans. And we set out to do it, started in the garage in 2017. And here we are, 2021 out of the garage. We've been out of the garage a little over a year and had some pretty good successes of late.

So, three to four years now, you've been doing this. You've gone from an idea to a garage business to busting at the seams in your current building, contemplating building another one to help your expansion. Tell us a little bit about that first year. When in that first year did you realize, wow, this is probably like a real business?

I don't know if it's stubbornness or just being persistent as a person, but once I start something, I kind of go all in. So if it's fishing, I buy all the fishing equipment and just go all in. Anything I do, I research and just go all in. I've been an entrepreneur since Heck, junior high, I owned a detail business when I was in junior high. So it's kind of always been in my blood to run my own business. And it's just, it's in my DNA to give back. And I think as a veteran, it's in all of our DNA to serve something greater than yourself. And I think that's what we do here.

That's awesome. I know two guys like that, that just go all in on everything they do. You know, Jim sitting over there, We talk about making bacon. I make bacon and stuff. And next thing I know, Jim's making bacon. He's always, you know, I have a pellet smoker. Jim's like, I got a pellet smoker. Get me a pellet smoker. He gets one and he's all in on that. And I think you're right. It's the veteran way. It's like a podcast. We don't know how to do it any way, but do it the right way, buy the right equipment, put it out the right way, make it sure it sounds good. Right, Jim?

Well, I think, I'll be honest with you, I think the military training makes entrepreneurs. It creates entrepreneurs. I really think it does because you get that feeling that you can do anything, you can figure anything out. Nothing's out of your grasp. With enough persistence, with enough work and enough effort, you can get to the end. That's something that's not taught in the schools anymore. Maybe at one time it was, but it's something that the military has in spades, I think. Absolutely.

Yeah. So we set out to help other veterans and we end up growing out of our garage like we talked about. And then, End of the year last year, my position was eliminated at my job. I've been an environmental health safety professional for 15 years. A month before Christmas, they said, you no longer have a job. I was like, that's great. Good thing I have this side gig to get us through Christmas. After the first of the year, I'll go look for a job to support my family. Little did I know COVID was right around the corner at the beginning of the year. We had some unforeseen success because we were looking to grow the business. What happened was no one was buying wooden American flags. They didn't care what it was made out of. They were buying toilet paper and groceries. And we looked at each other like, what are we going to do? And my wife is actually a healthcare professional. And she's like, we're going to work a lot of hours. We're going to need meals. We're going to need this. I said, okay, we'll create something special for you guys. And we come up with the America One heartbeat flag that has a heartbeat through one of the stripes, the staves. And we'll donate all the profits to the medical community. and we will pay the bills here and keep the guys employed and keep food on the table. Well, we got noticed by local news here in Louisville and then we got some national news attention and ended up selling somewhere around 5,000 flags in a couple of weeks and was fortunate enough to donate $70,000, $35,000 to UofL Health and $35,000 to Norton and be able to keep our business not only surviving but thriving.

Wow. That is so great. So how long does it take to make that many flags?

It took us about two months to catch up. Once again, that veteran mindset, we set the mission out in front of the guys and they got it done. It was all hands on deck. Actually, we had the interview around seven something that morning. We had an emergency meeting around lunch that day and said, Hey, what are we going to do to get customers their flags? And, um, We put a plan together and made it happen. We brought in, it was all hands on deck.

Wow. All hands on deck. I love that saying. I know you do.

So you've had a lot of success with the flags and stuff, but you also have your pitcher and was selected by Evan Williams for salute to heroes, right?

Yeah, so every year they choose six veterans to tell their stories on the side of the bottle. And we were chosen or I was chosen because of what we do here at Cruise Customs is help other veterans. And yeah, they put my big head on the side of a bottle and they make the one liter bottles and people joke they had to make the one liter bottle to fit my big head on it. But no, Evan Williams has been a great supporter of us and actually use our flags for the displays of the American Hero Edition bourbon for the last two years.

That's amazing that they selected you for not only what you do, but you as a person and as a combat veteran and stuff. I walked down the liquor store. I'll be trying to buy up all the bottles if I had that. I'd be in trouble.

Yeah, there wouldn't be any for anybody else because you would own all the ones with your picture on it, right?

I would. I'd just have them displayed up on a wall, a whole wall full of them. I'd probably try to make a flag out of them. Yeah, we bought a few cases for sure.

He's always wanted a me wall. He just didn't think it was going to come like that, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I never thought I'd have my head or my face on the side of a bourbon barrel. It's been awesome though. The support by the bourbon industry has been great.

So all your employees here are also veterans, right?

Absolutely, yeah. So what we say is bourbon barrels won't serve a good purpose, aging bourbon, right? And veterans won't serve a good purpose serving their country. So what we do here at Cruise Customs Flags is help them both find their new purpose. So, you know, Making an example is one of our employees used to work at a seat manufacturing company. He's like, no one cares about the seat in their car that they're going to sit in, but when I make one of these flags, they care about what I'm making. When you're a veteran, just a regular old job, don't cut it. When you get out, you're like, We want, you want to do more and you want to be able to give back. And that's what, that's what we've been able to do here is, is hire veterans and be able to give back to the community at the same time. And like I said, it's in our DNA to serve something greater than ourselves.

That's awesome. Well, Jim, man, this, this, uh, toasted bourbon, uh, you know, from Elijah Craig, what do you think? Chris, do you, uh, you like it? You get all those notes we talked about.

Yeah, I like sweet bourbon to start with, but the marshmallow and the campfire, that's what I like now. It's getting, here in Kentucky, it's getting where you can have a fire outside and it's not too cold. Nice, cool night. So I think this weekend I might finish off this bottle. You've got quite a bit left in that bottle. It's about two-thirds full.

It'd be a nice night. Yeah.

Well, my wife drinks bourbon now too, so I've convinced her. Yeah, lucky man.

Yeah. Well, on the second half, we brought a special bottle, a new bottle out there, right? And, and we'll get into the second half of some of your other media outlets you've been on and how some American companies have supported you. All right.

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Well, Chris, on the second half here, we brought a newer whiskey that just came out this year. You ever had any Ezra Brooks? I have not. So they came out with it's at a Luxco Lux row really, um, down in barstown that just got bought out by MGP up in Indiana, get their big foot into the Kentucky bourbon now. Right. That's right. Um, so this is the Ezra Brooks 99 proof.

All right. So we had a 94 proof in the first half. We're moving up the ladder a little bit. We've got a 99 proof now a little bit and let's see what it's like. Shall we check it out, Chris?

Yeah, absolutely.

That's definitely a different nose than the Elijah Craig. This is a butterscotch nose. Butterscotch and cinnamon. A little bit of sweetness there, but not like that Elijah Craig.

No, it's not as sweet as Elijah Craig. It seems creamier though.

Creamier. I do know this about Asher Brooks bottles. They went to war with, with, uh, Jack Daniels back in the day about their labeling. I think it's in the fifties, um, that Jack Daniels sued them and said, Hey, you're infringing on our label. And, uh, they actually won, um, against Jack Daniels. So I think there came to probably a mutual agreement or something, a gentleman's agreement, but,

They mutually agreed to back off. Yeah.

Yeah. I like the nose on this.

Really nice. Well, I took a sip Mike, but I'll say cheers anyway. Yeah, that's a, that's spot on nose palette right there together. Not much difference getting a butterscotch little bit of sizzle though. You getting that sizzle? Oh yeah.

Yeah. There's a little bit of burn on the back end.

Just a tad bit of that Kentucky hug coming on. Um, It's got, it's sitting on the tongue really nicely. Um, I like the finish on this man. Yeah. That sweetness.

It does carries a little bit of that leather to the back though. I'm picking up a little bit of leather, um, but it's still butterscotch for me. It's still cinnamon. I'm getting that spice sizzle on the middle of my palate. That's a pretty good bourbon. Pretty good.

Yeah.

I like it. And the finish is really there, but I'm getting back in sweetness though. Are you getting that? Oh yeah. Wow.

This is probably right, but me and him is like middle ground for bourbons, right? Cause he's a right guy. I'm a waiter guy and something like this right here is just somewhere middle ground, I guess more sweet.

Yeah. So when we pick our bourbon of the year, it usually is not anything that anybody else would pick. because I'm a rye, hot rye. I love spicy ryes. Mike loves soft, sweet wheats. So for us to agree on something, it's got to be kind of in the middle somewhere. Sure.

Yeah.

And so we usually end up picking bottles of the year that are kind of off the wall a little bit, aren't they?

Yeah. And then people write us and say, how did you pick that? Oh, me and him talk. We, we discuss it over long truck rides down a bourbon road. Uh, we'll, we'll sit there and talk about what, what bourbons made to show and how many times we might've drank it and how much we really liked it. And, um, some good conversation there about bourbon. Um, it's more conversation off the podcast and really on a podcast about bourbon and what's going on in the bourbon world. So, Let's get back to your story, Chris. So you've been nationally recognized too. You've been on Fox News several times.

Yeah. Yeah. So we've been on Fox News three times. The first time they came to our shop and it actually flag day happens to be the same day as national bourbon day and the army's birthday. So a couple of years ago they came here and visited the shop and highlighted National Flag Day and Bourbon Day and all of that. And then they picked up the America One Heartbeat flag that we're doing to help the healthcare workers. And they did a follow-up segment highlighting the donation we gave and letting their viewers know, hey, your contributions matter and thanks for supporting us and allowing us to support the healthcare workers.

American companies recognize you too, right? You've got a whole bunch of yellow and a black equipment here. I didn't see anything else, right? Which is DeWalt.

Yeah, so I always say this. If it wasn't for DeWalt, we wouldn't be in business. Early on in the garage days, we reached out to a few tool companies and we wanted American-made tools as much as possible. A lot of power tools aren't made in America, but We reached out to DeWalt, which they have several lines that are made in America and bringing in more. And they donated a significant amount of tools at the beginning to help us get started.

And that's all we'll use wherever we can. How did that feel when they did that?

That validated us, I think. I think it said, hey, this is something that, you know, larger companies are seeing what we're doing and they're supporting us. And so it kind of, it validated those long nights after work, making flags for customers and the early mornings and the weekends and everything in between. So it kind of gave a little shot in the arm saying, hey, we are doing something good and we're being recognized for it from a significant brand like DeWalt.

Yeah, that almost had to be overwhelming to get that phone call, right?

Oh, absolutely. I was like a kid at Christmas getting the tools in and kind of like what we talked about earlier in the show is Anything we do, we want to do it right. We want to do it. So as we grow and as we hire more veterans, we want them to have the best tools that they can have. And we feel DeWalt is definitely one of the top power tools that we can use. And the fact that they make products in the U.S., why wouldn't we use them?

Absolutely. I agree with you completely. That's definitely validation. And let me ask you, you know, the big boost that you get anytime you go on national TV, it must be amazing.

It's amazing and stressful at the same time because when you get that kind of boost, you can either make a bunch of customers happy or you can make a bunch of customers mad. Obviously, the latter is not what you want. It makes for a lot of long nights, a lot of customer service emails. It's a stressful time, but it allows us to have that that boost to help us grow and hire more veterans. So anytime we do that, that's what we use the proceeds for and we're steadily growing every year.

So I noticed over on the wall over there, you got a couple of presidential letters and you got a flag hanging in the White House right now.

Yeah, so this past year, we were chosen to represent Kentucky in the Made in America showcase at the White House. Unfortunately, we didn't get to go the day before we were to leave to go to Washington, DC. President Trump got COVID, so we didn't get a chance to go. He did send us a letter. That's probably one of the highest honors to be invited to the White House as a business and to represent Kentucky. There's so many businesses in Kentucky and to be chosen as small as we were. And that's the cool thing about this showcase. They choose small businesses, large businesses. Anything from Northrop Grumman to Goya Foods to Cruz Customs Flags got invited. It was an honor. Unfortunately, we didn't get to go, but we did get to make a flag for President Trump and made a flag for the White House, which is pretty humbling.

Let's talk about the cost of a flag. What a flag will cost one of our listeners. They want to buy one out there. Your smallest flag, what's that cost?

Yeah, so our lieutenant flag is our smallest flag. The regular lieutenant is what we call it. It's a regular flag made out of bourbon barrels. It's about six inches by 14 inches. It's $75. Then we have the captain size flag. It's $275. We have the kernel size flag, which is, uh, it's a two foot by four foot and it's pretty large. It actually takes more than a barrels worth of a barrels worth of bourbon barrel to make. And it's a $440. And then we have what we call the Mac daddy of flags. And that's the general it's two and a half foot by five foot, weighs about 70 pounds and it's $895. Perfect for a conference room. Um, we've done several conference room flags this year. If you want a show piece and a conversation piece, uh, one of our flags definitely does that. They're veteran handcrafted, uh, uh, combat veteran handcrafted. That's all we have working here. So, um, yeah, so that that's our lineup of flags. We have customization options, hence the name Cruz custom flags. Uh, we want our customers to be able to give a gift kind of like I did when we started to my, my father and father-in-law.

So what kind of customization options? Like a name on it or colors?

Yeah, so on our website you can actually build your own flag. You can put something in the field of stars. You can put a name etched into the stripes. You can put nameplates. So we didn't limit the customization options because Um, we want our gifts to be, to be special. Um, we're tired of the generic stuff that you buy out, made in China, somewhere else. Um, we actually take pride in what we do and we want that to, to show when we, uh, when someone, you know, receives that flag.

That's kind of like bourbon, right? It only comes from America. So, um, it is American flags only come from America.

That's right. It's America's spirit. So.

So, I mean, and you're moving quite a few of these. I mean, from our talk with you, it's like UPS is backing up here every day or FedEx and you're filling the truck.

Yeah, we move quite a few flags. We have a lot of customers, a lot of loyal customers. We always could use more. Our business model is pretty simple. The more flags we sell, the more veterans we hire. It's not rocket science. There's no shortage of bourbon barrels, empty bourbon barrels. I don't see that being a problem, so the supply chain is pretty full.

We're emptying them as fast as we can.

Yeah. And you know, all the listeners on the podcast, I appreciate you guys emptying barrels. That's, that's helps us out every day.

So I'm looking at Jim right there and he's sitting along a wall full of all those flags already made up or those just boxes.

These are the flags over here. Those are actually our other business we haven't talked about that are both veteran handcrafted. Our bourbon barrels are made out of cherry, but we have a business called the Wooden States of America that's a magnetic key holder of all 50 states. We bought that business in July to give our veterans something else to work on and opportunities to grow.

I just think it's awesome. When did you go to get your own custom packages put together too?

Interesting thing about these packages, I never knew I was going to be a box designer when I started this thing. And to be able to design our own box was actually kind of fun to put your own stamp on it and make it something worthwhile for customers to receive. And it says on the front, veteran crafted, American made.

There's no doubt what you're getting when this arrives on the porch, right?

Absolutely. It's kind of overwhelming to see you go through all this. I've kept an eye on you, especially veteran businesses. I do the social media part of our podcast, so I'm always keeping an eye on veteran businesses and how they're doing. trying to make sure that we show some love and stuff, but you're tied to us really because of bourbon. Me and Jim love the bourbon culture, no doubt. I'd say listeners, if you're listening to this, go on his website. Uh, which is cruise customs, flags.com and make sure you're, you buy one of those heck. If you own a business, Jim, what do you want one of these in your conference room?

I think it would definitely set off because it's a, it's a conversation piece, right? You, you're going to sit down at the, at the board table there and you're going to have your guests in it or you're going to have a sales meeting or something. That big old flags up on the wall. Everybody's like, tell us about that.

What's the story there? What more to say than it's made from bourbon barrels, which is America's spirit from the hands of veterans. I don't think it gets any more American than that.

If you've got business guests coming in from out of town and they're coming to your conference room and you're in Kentucky, you need to have something on the wall in that conference room that speaks. Kentucky speaks. Oh, speaks a patriotism. Why not? And that, you know, bourbon barrels are about as Kentucky as you get.

Oh, and there's no doubt about that stuff. The wood, wood comes from here in Kentucky or over in, um, usually Missouri, right? Yeah. Ozarks, right? Ozarks. Um, but other people were, were putting out barrels now too.

So it's, uh, yeah, the unique thing about. The barrel wood is kind of like veterans. They get beat up, banged up, they age. They serve from four years to 20 some odd years. Veterans serve from a few years to 20, 30 years, similar to bourbon. They have that story from aging in that rick house and they have their own character. And veterans are very much the same way. So there's so many comparisons, believe it or not, to veterans and bourbon barrels and new purpose and all that. So that's why we choose the medium of bourbon barrels to use for our products.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Well, Jim would be that sweet range of bourbon, the 8 to 12 years, right? I'm that old, old crusty barrel. 24 years. Just, just, I'm, I'm as beat up as it can be. It's still working for the coast guard. It's still working.

Yeah. You take a lot more sand in.

That's definitely true. There's a lot more character in that barrel. I'm definitely rough around the edges. Well, uh, man, this bourbon word sipping on.

It's really good. I mean, it's really good, Mike. I'm, I'm very surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if we, if we don't at least consider this one at the end of the year. Yeah, this is shockingly good people.

If you have seen this on the shelf, I'm telling you just came out and when I saw a bottle, I had to get it. The price on it, shocking. $29.99. Great price. Um, for a hundred proofer, um, great taste. I tell you people, Ezra Brooks, 99 proof, buy it and buy it fast. Um, before MGP says no more.

Yeah, I think it's a people pleaser. I mean, it's definitely right in the middle where somebody like you and somebody like me can both appreciate it and like it. Um, I think it's, uh, it's something that'll, it'll be something that a wide, what do you think, Chris?

I don't have any left in my glass. Pour some more, man. No, it's good. It is, like you said, it kind of meets kind of the both ends of the spectrum right in the middle of the road.

Right. Absolutely. Well, Chris, we definitely appreciate you coming on the show today. We love to give our guests a chance to tell everybody where they can be found, you know, website, social media, all those kinds of things. Any events you have coming up, any kind of specials you have going on, anything like that. We'd love to put it out.

Yeah, so we're on all the social media channels, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, all of those. Cruise Customs flags. And we also own the brand The Wooden States of America. They're on Facebook and Instagram as well. Honestly, all I want to say is, if you want to support veteran owned businesses, we'd love to have your business. better now than Christmas. We really get busy during Christmas, but I will give a little sneak peek of what we're about to work on. We're going to call it B3. It's going to be called Bill Bourbon and Barbecue. It's basically a man's version of Like the wine and painting, but what we're going to do is allow customers to come in, build their own Lieutenant flag, have some mission barbecue and do some bourbon tasting at the end while their flag's drying. And they'll get to take that flag home at the end of their, their session. So, uh, We'll be doing that this summer and when this COVID thing lets up some. But yeah, it's going to be called B3, Bill Burbin and Barbecue. We're anxious about that. A little team building, a little fun. You can take your own flag home and kind of see what we do.

I think I want to sign up for that. Sounds like something I'd like to do.

I'd like to come out here and lead a bourbon tasting for your customers. That's what we'd like to do. Yeah, well, we'll do it. Definitely. I'd be afraid me and Jim start drinking bourbon and shoot ourselves in the hand with a nail gun.

Well, we have it lined out and we have some waivers, but what we're going to do is allow you to build your flag first, then you get to eat, then you get to taste burger.

Now your products are online. Yep. They're on a website that you have. What's the website?

Yeah. So it's cruise customs flags.com customs being plural. So C C R U I S E C U S D O M S flags.com.

Well, make sure you listeners follow them on face Facebook, uh, which is cruise customs, KY, and then make sure you follow them on Instagram at cruise customs flags. Um, you know, those followers will help you out, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it might not be something you want to get now. It may be a Christmas gift. It may be a Father's Day gift, anything like that. But perfect for the mantle, perfect for above the fireplace, perfect for the conference room.

And all these COVID restrictions, we all know they're getting ready to sort of be a bad memory, right? And people are going to start flooding into the burping country again. When they do, you're going to be having, what's it called, B?

B3 or B cubed. We haven't decided. B3.

So they should probably plan a day of that. If they're going to have an extended trip here to the bourbon country, they ought to plan on coming down here and building a flag, eating some barbecue, drink a little bit of bourbon, and having a great time with some veterans.

That sounds like a good day right there for, you know, women usually get to do their... paint a barrel head or go paint a picture, pictures in wine or something, paint in wine, building an American flag and eating some barbecue and drinking bourbon. That's pretty manly. I guess you can have women come do it, right?

Yeah. I mean, we don't discriminate for sure, but some women are better with power tools than men for sure.

Probably most women are probably more careful with them anymore.

Now, do you offer any military discounts?

Um, actually for this podcast, I'll, I'll shout out a discount since I was, uh, in the 82nd, we'll call it all American and it gets you 10% off. So code all American on cruise, customs, flags will get you 10% off.

So when you go to the website and you put your, put your order in the card, it'll ask you if you have a coupon code, you put an all American there. It gets you 10% off, 10% off. There you go. Roadies. There you go. Uh, listeners, uh, what's stopping you, right?

Exactly.

All right, well, we also are on all social medias. You'll find us at The Bourbon Road. We also have a Facebook page that has a group assigned to it, a private group called The Bourbon Roadies. Mike, tell us about The Bourbon Roadies.

So we're about 1,600 strong right now. We're growing every day. Somebody told me the other day, Jim, we're growing about 150 members a month. That's pretty good. And these are good people. Yeah, so you got to answer three questions to get into our private Facebook group. Are you a 21? Do you like bourbon and do you agree to play nice? So we just don't tolerate any rudeness in our group, meaning that if somebody is going to drink a bottle of Jim Beam and they want to post a picture up of that, if they want to mix it with Coke, They want to mix it with champagne and orange juice for a permanent mosa. We want people to post those photos up and enjoy themselves in our group. So if you can't abide by that, then there's other groups out there for you. We don't talk about politics, religion, or social issues in there. We try to stick straight to the whiskey. If you want to celebrate a birthday or if you see a post about some buffalo down the side of the highway and think I might want to ride a buffalo, We enjoy posts like that.

Yeah. Fun stuff. No doubt about it. Yeah. We've got some moderators in there and they're pretty on the spot. You know, if you, if you get out of line, they'll let you know. They'll be nice about it, but they won't let you stick around if you're, if you're trolling people.

So not really. We also have a website. Um, you want to go to that website. Everybody out there knows Jim's a website designer, so ours is pretty dang special. You can go on there and read the articles that we write about each show. Check those out. It's not necessarily about the show itself. Sometimes it's about what to do in the state of Kentucky when you come here on your bourbon pilgrimage. Check those articles out. We also have our bourbon reviews on there that Adam helps us put up. Check those articles out if you're looking for a whiskey out there that we've talked about. It'll be on there. Yeah, check that out. We also have our Bourbon Swag on there. We have our Bourbon Bullshitter t-shirt. We're about to have our Bourbon Road shirt. I know I'm telling you we're going to do a pre-sale for that. So look for that in the next couple weeks. You're going to definitely want that shirt. We have our Glenn Karens on there. We have some hats on there. Who knows what we're going to put on there. We're going to add more stuff. More and more stuff is going to go on there. So check out that website. We really appreciate it. It helps support the podcast. It gets us on trips like this to come down here and see Chris.

Um, yeah, so we do two shows a week, show like this long episode where we, uh, have somebody on the show. We interview them. We talk about them. We drink a little bit of bourbon together. And then every Monday we'll do a craft distillery show where we sort of highlight a small bottle, a small company. Sometimes it's a big boy. Usually not usually craft distillery that's stepping out of the box, doing something special. We want to highlight them. Make sure you check out both those shows. Mike and I do want to hear what you have to say if you've Got an idea for a show? You've got an idea for a guest? Make sure you reach out to us. You can reach me on Instagram at jshan63. I'm One Big Chief, and we will see you down the Bourbon Road.