158. Traverse City Whiskey Company

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 this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we're once again on StreamYard. We've got a great guest with us, though, don't we?

We've got Chris Frederickson from Traverse City Risky Company up in Traverse City, Michigan. A great white horse. Just a little bit more for us to drive today. What a beautiful city up there. Hi guys, very nice to meet you.

Chris, welcome to the bourbon road. Glad to have you on the show today and, and glad to have a few bottles of your whiskey sitting in front of me. So I'm, I'm pretty excited about this. It's always a good day when we get to drink whiskey and it's always a great day when we get to drink whiskey with new friends. So thanks again for being on the show with us.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Um, really nice way to round out the week. That's for sure.

Well, Chris, we always like to get straight to the whiskey. You had sent us a total of five bottles of your whiskey. The first whiskey that we poured for ourselves was some of your bourbon whiskey.

So the product that we just poured is our four-year-old straight bourbon whiskey. A very big background on the spirit itself. This is the first depression that we launched 10 years ago. And I'll go into some more detail about how we got started as a company. But the first product that we released back in 2012 is this four-year-old stray bourbon. It has a mash bill of 71% corn, 25% rye, and 4% molded barley. It is crafted and designed to be versatile. It's, um, you know, right now we're all sitting in neat, but of course it, uh, it plays very well in cocktails and on the rocks and otherwise. What are you guys tasting? What, what notes are popping out?

Yeah. And the nose I'm getting, uh, I'm getting a nice, uh, caramel waft. Um, it's, it's not, um, it's not a heavy nose. It's a light nose, a floral nose, a little bit of fruit, trying to nail down exactly what I'm getting there, but.

Yeah, get that nice, almost like a nice spring bourbon for the oil. And I was like, you said Jim, not the honeysuckle. I can't quite get that flower, but it's, it's almost like the walk I've said before, like walking into a oil shop. Little oak, little caramel.

Yep. And so the barrels that most of this bourbon is rested in are all number four char. And so you're going to get a little bit more pronunciation of the oak. And I agree with that the loft of caramel in the nose and the traditional light vanilla undertones on the taste. This is bottled at 86 proof. So it, um, you know, it's not a, it doesn't pack into a big punch and it's aged long enough where you kind of lose that ethanol bite in the aftertaste. Um, the finishes is I would say medium and it carries on just long enough to want to lead you to the next, to the next step.

All right. Well, I'm going to take a sip here.

Cheers.

You're right. Mike about buttery. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Kind of a, kind of a nice, I want to use the word congruence between the nose and the palette. They kind of match each other a little bit. There's no, uh, surprise there. I'm actually getting a little bit of, uh, a little bit of bubble gum off of it. I think that's a good thing though. I don't get that too often, but when I do, it's kind of a, yeah. Yeah.

That's interesting. That's, I think that's, um, I like that. I have not recently used bubble gum as a descriptor for the burden.

Yeah. Well, I do. Well, it's, it's, I guess it's got that, that, that kind of powdered. Yeah. You get the same thing from an echo candy, kind of a powdered, um, starch and sugar mix kind of a, that's really, uh, really nice. Very, um, very nice on the palette. I give you definitely a medium finish on it. I think it does make you reach for another, another sip. Very nice.

So Chris, while we're sipping on this, run us through Traverse City with some company when we just founded and your role there as the stiller and co-founder.

Yeah. So it would probably be easiest just to break down kind of how we started and then kind of phase that into my role within the company. But we started as a company back in 2012. I was I was practicing management consulting and both of my business partners were attorneys. And we were all kind of living our professional lives, but getting burned out of the grind. And back in 2011, my father and I found a set of my great-grandfather's distilling patents that we at the time didn't know existed. And I shared those patents with my business partners. Jared and Moti. And we just talked about what we could do with the patents and how we could kind of leverage those to do something fun and unique and kind of create a hobby. And what started as a hobby or just kind of a passion project led to or us creating or building everything that exists out of the Traverse City Whiskey umbrella today. We started in 2012. We sold our first four-year-old bourbon. It was a sourced MGP bourbon with the same flavor profile and recipe that we're currently sipping on right now. And fast forward 10 years, we've since launched close to 10 expressions, nine or 10. And we'll be tasting through the lineup today, most of the lineup. And yeah, so we broke ground on our distillery downtown Traverse City back in 2014, opened the doors in 2015. One thing that we have learned along the way is that whiskey barrels take up an enormous amount of space and they don't move fast. As you guys know, they're sitting on a physical barrel for three, four, five, 10 years, it just keeps adding to the problem and rarely are you taking it away. So fast forward a couple of years, we acquired our production facility or our current production facility. And that's where I'm at right now, our headquarters, where we have our offices and we bottle, age. We also make our cocktail cherries. here, which are a huge part of our business, or have become a huge part of our business. Yeah. And in my role here, I do everything that needs to get done. I do distill. I do blend and bottle. We do have a dedicated team for that now. But we let myself and my co-distiller, his name is Curtis, We kind of let our flavor, our taste profile drive our products and product innovation. So I tackle everything from production management to R&D to any market, really anything. And we have a thousand responsibilities split between the three partners.

Kind of curious about that transition from sourcing to distilling your own and trying to stay on profile with that original whiskey. So that was probably a pretty good challenge, wasn't it? Because of course you're not going to know for sure until the product matures. But how did you go about trying to match that original profile?

Yeah. So that's a great question. A statement that I always joke around about that was uttered by my grandmother, when I was a child, and it was just kind of a running joke in our families, she'd always say, anything we're doing is worth paying somebody else to do. And we laugh about that now. But frankly, when we started as a company, you know, as a distillery, specifically a distillery that distills whiskey, you can't really chance it, right? You can't you can't make mistakes at the beginning only to realize four or five, 10 years later that you messed up. So every part of the process that we've construction and evolution of the business has always been with a helping hand. And we've always relied on industry veterans to help guide us. And we are not afraid of asking for help. So we chartered the support of several distillers. We started by working with Dr. Chris Berglund at Michigan State, who has led a craft distillery incubator program. And then through his network have developed friendships with a lot of these folks that have been in the business for a really long time so that when we transitioned or begun the transition from sourced MGP to our own juice, there wasn't a dramatic impact on product quality, flavor, anything that may be important to our customers.

So Chris, so you guys are pretty far north. I wouldn't say you're the most northern discovery, but you're pretty far out there. And yeah, why this bourbon, it's like more bourbon, I think. got some nuttiness to it, buttery, everything we sort about was in the middle of the stuff. But I'd be curious with the temperatures up there, are you guys almost on that Scotland kind of range?

Yeah. To answer your question, we are not quite as far north as Scotland. We're more in a similar latitude to France. And we are the Whiskey of the North. And why that's relevant is, you know, Scotland is, Scotland's up there. Scotland's actually very cold a lot of the year. One thing that we are blessed with here in Traverse City are four very defined seasons. And that frankly is what Whiskey of the North means to us. We have very high highs and very low lows. So from middle of the winter, the temperature flux, you know, kept as low as negative 10. And in the summer could jump up to as warm as 110. Why that's important and relevant to whiskey is that the expansion and contraction of the whiskey in the barrel supports a higher quality aging life cycle. And because we have so much fluctuation and so much, therefore so much expansion and traction of whiskey in the barrel, we realize a higher quality flavor profile fester. And that is, you know, that just speaks to Whiskey the North. Our rick house is not climate controlled. During the winter, there's a, because of the evaporation from the barrels, there's a wall of ice on the eastmost wall. of the of the barrel warehouse. And, you know, just we we let the whiskey do its thing. We don't touch it. We don't play with it. We may, you know, spend time fixing any barrel leaks. But other than that, the barrels are kind of on their own to play with the northern Michigan climate.

Yeah, I broke ice into Traverse Bay there. And also, I don't know if you know this or not, Jim, but the military doesn't put AC in the house. It's up there. It's just straight out. You don't need AC up there. Maybe one or two days of the year.

Just on those 110 degree days, right?

Right. Well, you just go outside and enjoy, enjoy, uh, Michigan. Exactly.

All right. So, um, I'm pretty excited to move on to the next expression. If you guys are okay with that, because I'm kinda, I'm itching for that rye. So I've already poured, I've already poured it in my glass actually, Chris.

All right. Well, I will, I'll join you. So Jim, what are you getting out of this rye in your nose?

And I'll tell you what, that's a, that's a different, that's a different animal right there. That's nothing like the bourbon. It's totally different. There's no doubt in my mind, when you put this up to your nose, that you're sniffing on a rye. This is, uh, this has got that Cedar plank, right? A little bit of, uh, yeah, Cedar plank, a little bit of a conifer. I'm getting a rye muffin though, just a little bit of rye muffin there. It's still sweet, but it's, it's got that nice, uh, that nice cereal rye bread, uh, that note to it that, uh, you can call it rye toast if you want, maybe that's it.

I'm getting a little bit of juniper berry, which would be tying with your suitor there. Um, yeah, I get bubblegum office every time I'm on a ride. This is a 100% rye right.

This is a blend of two rye recipes. So our North Coast rye is a 50-50 blend of the first recipe is 95% rye, 5% malted barley. And the other rye recipe is 100% rye. With the 95-5, you're going to get a lot of traditional peppery notes. And with the 100% rye, Um, kind of that buttery zest that you'll, you know, you typically can find a lot of pepper and butter and in a rise, but it's typically one or the other. And when we built the North coast ride, the goal was to kind of harmonize those two distinct, uh, qualifiers that make up a lot of, a lot of great rye whiskies.

Let's taste it. Cheers Chris. Cheers.

Oh, that's nice. That's really nice. Uh, Mike, I am, I'm sort of getting a little bit of that, that bubble gum on it here too. It's kind of faint on both the whiskeys, but it's there. It's just something that I've tasted a few times in the past. And it seems to be a note that sort of picks at my brain when I get it. So I've got to say something about it.

I'll say this is a lot more funnier. very tasty. No spice to me at all. No very nice sipping whiskey. This is a perfect spring whiskey.

Yeah, it's kind of a, it's kind of got that, that light and, uh, texture, texture wise, it does have that buttery kind of feel to it. But as it washes across your palate, it kind of introduces a sort of a light and airy sense to it. And I think the, you mentioned, uh, juniper berries. I think that helps to lighten it up a little bit and give it that nice flavor. There is a little pepper for me on the backend though. I'm getting a little bit of pepper that rice spice sort of carries through. I get the right toast up front. It's a little sweet. Got a little bit of sweetness there. The finish on this is probably medium as well.

I think I would agree with that. I gotta say cheers to you guys. Great. Go ahead. Um, expression of where I ride with me. Um, I knew Jim was excited about this. Um, I, I, I've attended to start moving towards rise and started liking them more as being on the podcast. He doesn't drink more rye whiskey. So man, is this ever a spring or summer? So we're right here in 90 proof, very beautiful.

Yeah, there's a free rise that, um, that we've had that really jump out and say, Hey, you can enjoy this year round, you know, can enjoy this really well in the summer and spring months as well. And this would be one of them for sure. Uh, this, this would be a year round ride for me.

So gentlemen, one thing that I wanted to call out was the, the age statement. So we talked about the age statement of the bourbon being aged four years. The rye is a blended barrels that have been aged between three and five years. So the weighted average is about four years, but the 100% rye actually has matured quite a bit faster than the 95.5 because when we started distilling it back in 2015, there was a nationwide oak wood oak shortage across the country because the forest down in Arkansas and Kentucky were all flooded. So it caused a drought in the oak market. Therefore, whiskey barrels were very, very difficult to hunt down if you didn't have an existing relationship with the big Coopers. So we ended up partnering with a, a Cooperage called Canton and Canton Cooperage has w we didn't know this at the time, but they, their, their barrels are the Ferrari barrels. All of our, all the Canton Cooper barrels that we have in house are all a number three char. The staves have been conditioned and air dried for between 18 and 24 months. And at the time we were really disappointed that we were paying double. So instead of paying, call it about $200 per barrel for the empty barrel, we invested in each barrel that was $400. And we were much smaller at the time and it was a big hit, but it was either we pay the money and get the whiskey aging or we sit on the whiskey, the distillate until we could find barrels to put it in. So at the time it felt Like a punch in the gut, you know, we don't really have a choice. Our hands are tied. We have to invest in these what we thought were overpriced barrels. But we realized within about 24 months that the product had matured so fast because the barrels are awesome. And they are still the finest barrels that we have in-house.

Yeah, Mike and I are familiar with Canton barrels. We, uh, we have a sort of a, an inside love for Canton barrels and, uh, have a lot of respect for them. So good job there. Good choice.

Well, Chris, we're going to take our listeners out now for the first half. Um, and on the second half we'll be drinking some of your guys' barrel proof of the bourbon and of the rye whiskey. I know James is very excited. for us to try. So listeners, hang with us, we'll be right back.

You know you can't drink whiskey without glassware and Mike and I are extremely pleased to have a sponsor like Premium Bar Products. Premium Bar Products offers direct to consumer the finest whiskey glasses, cocktail glasses, and bar tools with your own personal engraving. I mean, you can write anything you want on these glasses, anything from a company logo to a personal statement. And there are no minimum orders. Their direct consumer platform offers you the opportunity to purchase small quantities of your favorite glass shapes that enhance the pleasure of enjoyment and drinking a whiskey and make it all very positive. They offer the absolute finest trending and handmade glasses as well as a comprehensive range of styles and all of their items have been designed with purpose, practicality and longevity in mind. So if you're a bourbon or whiskey group and you need custom logos, You need to reach out to premium bar products. If you're an individual, you just want a few for your bar to impress your friends, to give out as gifts. You need to call premium bar products. They need to be your one and only source for custom glassware. I can tell you right now, the bourbon road, that's who we use. Janie and Carson and the team there at premium bar products will take care of you. They'll treat you like family and they'll take care of you with every order. All right. So we are back and, uh, you know, we've got Traverse city whiskey on today and we've got Chris Fredrickson with us. And, uh, we have just finished up two of their expressions in the first half. We had their, their flagship bourbon. We had their. Right. And now in the second half, we're going to sort of mix it up a little bit. So Mike is actually going to be drinking their barrel proof bourbon. I'm going to be drinking their barrel proof or I go figure. We're going to do that first. And then of course we got a special dessert that we're going to hit right towards the end there. But, uh, Chris, is it possible for you to lead us through both as we taste them? Absolutely. Okay.

All right. Yep. We kicked off our conversation with the, what we call our bottle proof bourbon. So the flagship bourbon and the only difference between the, the, original bourbon and the barrel proof bourbon is age and proof. So something else to mention about the whiskey of the North or the climate in Traverse City is that, you know, right now in any whiskey barrel, you have two things, you have water and ethanol. And because we have a high relative humidity in Traverse City, one evaporates before the other, typically down in Kentucky or Tennessee, water is lost first. But up in Traverse City, we lose ethanol first. So it drops the proof of a barrel proof, any barrel proof product. Our barrel entry proof is right around 120. And when we crack open the barrel to make the barrel proof bourbon or the barrel proof rye, the proof is anywhere between 110 and 120. Of course, it depends on the barrel. What, what's the proof on the barrel proof bourbon that you're sipping on right now?

So I got 116.6 on this one.

Okay. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm right around 117 and these are probably the most standard, the most standard ranges in work from 115 to 118. So we're right at that sweet spot for, for our barrel proof. The bottle-proof bourbon is aged four years, whereas the barrel-proof bourbon and the barrel-proof rye are aged between five and six years. We submitted the barrel-proof bourbon two years ago in 2019 to the San Francisco International Wine Experience Competition, and the barrel-proof bourbon took home a double gold and best in category. Um, which really put Traverse City whiskey on the map, uh, not just nationally, but across the world, which is pretty neat. Um, last year at the same competition, it took home a gold.

That's really quite an accomplishment.

Yeah. Thank you. It was, it was a huge accomplishment for, for our staff and my, um, my colleague Curtis, who I mentioned earlier that. distills with me. He was, he couldn't have been more geek. Regarding the flavor profile, you're going to notice a lot of this similar notes from the flagship, but just more pronounced. At least that's what I'm getting in with my pour. You tell me.

I'm getting a lot of a lot of karma on this, almost that kettle corn note that you get from like a fader or something. The sweetness coming off of it. It's a very beautiful nose on this. Um, can't wait to taste it. It's a little bit of chocolate there. The oak you would expect from a, from a nice bourbon that's uh, that's barrel proof. A little bit of actually cherries there, dark fruit, you know, I would think, you know, a really dark cherry. Very beautiful. Let's, let's taste this thing.

All right, let's go for it. By the way, when I'm saying cheers, I know you guys can see this, but I am raising my glass with you.

I get all the same notes. We keep going back to that word buttery. This is super creamy. A long finish on this. A little bit of that Kentucky hug going on. Not a whole lot of spice, but it's lingering there. It's drawing back in for another four. I'll have to save some of this for Jim to sip on.

Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that.

Very beautiful expression. I always say, uh, all the time, Chris, I'm always saying, man, I wish they would have sent us some cash frame. And you guys definitely stepped up to the plate here and knocked it out of the park with this burger. Um, very beautiful. You guys are to be congratulated on this, um, that award well deserved. Yeah, thank you. I know, uh, Jim is itching to taste that ride though.

I am. I'm about ready to say it's right time, Mike. It's right time. Can you give me that sort of the numbers on the right here, age and, and, uh, are there any differences between it and the right? We tasted in the first half as far as the mash bill or anything.

Yeah, great question. So the, we mentioned earlier that the North coast ride, which is our, our bottle proof expression. is a blend of the a hundred percent rye and 95, five, 50, 50 mix of the two. The beer for fry is a, it's, it's a single recipe. So it's a 95% rye, 5% multi barley. And the age statement is anywhere from five to six years, potentially a little older if it's a single barrel, but the kind of the sweet spot is, is right around, right around six years.

Okay. So the one I'm sipping on here is, uh, one 12.4. Is that right in the middle of the range?

Yeah. Yup. That, that would be, it's, it's a bit on the lower side, but you know, frankly, and this is just my personal opinion. I don't mind a bare proof product at a slightly lower proof. I really, I appreciate the kind of the moment. where you can enjoy more of it and not worry too much about getting, you know, knocked on your, knocked on your rear side, because it's such a high proof and, you know, at 140 or 130 proof, you can only have properly enjoy a single glass or two, right? But with a lower proof, it's just, it's more of a session barrel proof or

Well, I can tell you this, so as I nose this rye, I can definitely pick up that it's a more full-bodied, it's got a lot more robustness to it. Uh, I get a lot of the same notes that I got with the, with the first one. I get the, but I am getting a little bit more like sort of that, that buttery right toast nose to it. Uh, I am getting the, the conifer or, or whatever you call it, pine or, uh, Mike, what'd you say they were juniper berries?

Juniper berries. Yeah.

I'm getting that, but this is a little bit more, uh, savory. It's got a little bit more of a, um, sort of a full bodied earthy savory note to it, which I kind of like, it's not as light as the first one. This has got more body to it.

Yeah. And it's, I'm also noticing at least my pour and I'm, I'm bottle I'm sitting on is actually around 114, but it is a little more floral than the bottle proof. Right.

It's got a great nose on it. I'm looking forward to the palette. Cheers.

Cheers.

Yeah, that's a, that's a full palette experience there that hits you everywhere all at once. It doesn't travel across the palette. It doesn't give you a little upfront and a little in the middle and a little on the back of the scoring through it. It's kind of, it kind of hits you everywhere all at once. Uh, there's no bitterness there. It's, it is buttery. Mike, I think that's a, that's sort of a consistent note that I've gotten on everything I've tried so far is sort of that, that buttery texture that, uh, I don't know whether or not there's, there's diacetyl in this or not. You would know more than me because you're the distiller, but I would almost think there's a little bit in there, you know, which is, which is a good thing for me. I like that.

Well, I'd rather have that.

Well, this is a clean sipping rye. I would say that it probably plays well year round as well, even though it's heavier in proof and though it's more full bodied. I would say it still plays well year round. I don't think it has to be reserved for the cold winter months sitting around a campfire. Um, I think it, I think it plays well wherever you're at would definitely stand up tall in a cocktail. Although I would, I would personally would prefer to drink it neat.

Agreed. Um, one of my go-to Friday cocktails, typically my, my fiance and I will swing by our Tasty Room, which is our cocktail bar in Traverse City Friday evening. And my go-to cocktail is a barrel proof rye old fashioned light on the simple syrup. And it, it is a, if you haven't tried a barrel proof rye old fashioned yet, I would absolutely recommend it.

So your, your old fashions, are they, are they, um, strictly old fashioned bitters or you do Angostura bitters or a little bit of orange bitters? I mean, what do you prefer?

Yeah, my preference right now is Ango. It's, um, it's a very consistent flavor profile. We've been talking actually about aging, uh, making our own version of those bitters and then barrel aging and. using that as kind of an additive, but, um, typically my recipe is a two ounce pour of the barrel proof rye, four dashes of angle bitters and about a quarter to a half ounce of simple. And we make our, all of our ingredients in house. Um, so our simple is homemade and, um, muddled orange with a, um, a lemon or citrus expression on top.

Well, with, with you guys doing, making the cherries as well, I imagine there's some Manhattan's in there somewhere, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. The Manhattan and old fashioned are some of our best selling cocktails, the traditional classic whiskey cocktails.

Well, speaking of cherries, Jim, you know, Traverse city, that is one thing they are known for is the cherry trees, the cherry blossoms up there. They're almost that time of year where it's just going to be. cherry trees as far as I can see. And Chris sent us some of their American cherry edition whiskey. Chris, can you run us through that?

Absolutely. So some very quick family history. My father is a third generation cherry farmer. Traverse City, Michigan is the cherry capital of the world. So after we released our straight bourbon in 2012, the next natural expression, which we released in 2013, our American cherry edition, it's the same bourbon recipe, 75 corn, 21 rye, 4% of the barley, but We cut the whiskey from barrel proof down to 70 proof, and then we steep, kind of like a tea bag almost, 10 pounds of Mount Morenci sour cherries, which are the most common variety of fruit to grow in, in Michigan. So we steep, we steep the fruit for a few days. It's the, the whiskey kind of takes on the character of the cherries, pull out the bag of fruit and then bottle the whiskey. One fun thing for us to share is that not only has the cherry whiskey become our, our best selling expression, but in the last year or so it has become the best selling craft spirit in the Midwest. So it's a, it's something that's very near and dear to us. And of course now it's becoming a staple of Northern Michigan distilleries.

Wow. That's pretty amazing. So best selling craft distilleries expression.

Yes.

I'm excited. Let's, let's just check it out.

This thing that like, this is like a fake cherry pie from your mother. I mean, it is all fairies there.

That's got an amazing nose on it, Mike. I mean, absolutely amazing, but I can still get the whiskey, but the cherries, the cherries are on top. There's no doubt about it. So to speak.

Yeah. So our goal with the cherry whiskey was whiskey with a hint of cherry, not cherry with a hint of whiskey. You know, there's some of the other flavored whiskies in the market that are flavor forward and not whiskey forward. So our goal here was to make sure that what you're drinking is still whiskey. And it's really helped us on board. A lot of non-whiskey drinkers that aren't ready for a barrel proof bourbon or a barrel proof rye.

That's like two years. Let's try this cherry.

Cheers.

Cheers.

It's simple. It's flavorful. It's refreshing. It's, uh, it's got amazing cherry notes. I mean, it really does. It's amazing that you can take 10 pounds of cherry and do that to a barrel of whiskey. Blows my mind. I want to know what you do with the cherries after you pull them out.

That's a very common question. Um, At the end of the process, the cherries are not salvageable. The ethanol and the whiskey kind of eats at them, eats at their character for days. And by the time you pull them out of the tank, they're nothing shy of you know, little, they look like a little brains almost a little white, well, not white, but creamy brains. It's, it's very, very strange. You'll notice even if you hold the bottle up to light, you'll notice some of that, um, color shining through the whiskey. So it's, it's amber still, but it's a light, there's a very light red tint to it.

Yeah. I can notice that. Yeah.

That buttery notes still coming through with this. So perfect with that cherry, um, through before this episode. And I was kind of expecting that, like you said, on other flavored whiskeys, you'd kind of get a syrupy taste. And I don't get that all. I get the whisky on this first, like you said, and then the cherry, that buttery note, almost like that crust that's been buttered. And then you get that little bit of cherry underneath. Perfect. Perfect syrupy whisky. I don't even know if I'd call this a dessert whisky.

I think it would be great at the end of a meal. I think it's definitely a whiskey. It's not a liqueur by any means. This is a whiskey. It reminds me of like a cherry turnover, but the whiskey shines through. And I think that that makes it a great sipper for after dinner probably. And I kind of agree though with what you said that, you know, if you're trying to introduce some people to whiskey, you know, this might be a gateway.

Absolutely.

Chris, we're getting towards the end of the show here and, uh, we'd just like to hear a little bit about what you guys have going on right now. What's, what's kind of in your future real quick. Uh, what people can expect from Trevor city whiskey, especially if they're in the area, you know, what, what can they expect?

Yep. Yep. So one thing that we're really big on as a company is hosting. We love hosting. Um, our culture is based around what we call Northern hospitality. And that means everybody under our roof is a guest. Your fellow employees, the FedEx driver, customers, everybody is a guest. And so we welcome with open arms. We haven't started tours back up just yet, but we will in the next month or two once Michigan opens up a little bit more. And in addition to that, In the next month or so, we're breaking ground on our future distillery campus, which will become the largest family-owned facility north of Kentucky. So we're expanding our guest experience. We're going to be including a much more robust tours and where you can experience everything from tasting all the way through the end of the distillation and barrel aging process.

So Chris, working on our listeners finding you guys on social media.

Yeah, please come check us out on Instagram or Facebook. Our, our handle is at TC whiskey or facebook.com slash DC whiskey.

You guys have a website as well.

Uh, TC whiskey.com. So, uh, feel free to, to check us out, learn about our story, maybe a little more depth and our, our Instagram really does the best job of, of narrating, uh, who we are and how we're growing as a team.

But, uh, thank you very much for coming on the show with us today and sharing your whiskey with us. It's been a blast.

Gentlemen. Thank you. It was a lot of fun.

All right, Chris, thanks for being on sharing your whiskey. Like Jim said, we really appreciate it. Yep. Cheers.

Cheers. Cheers. All right. Well, you could find us on all the social medias at the bourbon road. And when I say all social medias, I mean, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, more to come. I'm sure. Uh, but we also have a website, right? Mike.

Yeah. We have a website, the bourbon road.com where you can find our articles, our blogs, our reviews. You can buy our swag on there, our t-shirt, our hat, our glass, whatever you need to get coming by for road. Um, great website. We'd like you to check it out. We also have a private Facebook group called the bourbon roadies. If you're a bourbon roadie. So make sure you're part of that. Jim, how do you become a bourbon roadie?

It's real easy. Go to our Facebook page on our Facebook page. You'll see a link for the private group, the bourbon roadies. Click on that link. You'll be presented with three questions. We want to make sure, you know, uh, that you're getting yourself into a bourbon group. Also want to make sure you're 21 because we talk about whiskey. We don't want the children in there. Right, Mike? And then we want to make sure you agree that you're going to play nice when you're in there, because we're kind of like a family. We kind of lift each other up. We don't tear each other down. So, uh, we want to make sure when you come in there that you're, you're agreeing to sort of join in and be part of the fun and not part of the problem.

and hit that subscribe button. That way, whatever you're listening to us on, we'll go ahead and tell you, hey, those two jokers, they've released another episode of Somebody. Either a review or a long show like today, it'll let you know. So go ahead and scroll down, hit that five star review, because you know you love Jim and I. You'd love listening to us, a great guest we bring you, the great reviews that we do. We're just kind of truth tellers, sitting around shooting the ship as we are as bourbon bullshitters. So please leave us a review. It helps us open those doors.

So we do two shows a week. We do a short episode every Monday where we review a single bottle, a single expression, whether it be from a craft distillery or a big boy, we go about diving into one single expression and telling you what we think about it. So you can decide whether you want to buy it or not. Then every Wednesday we'll do a long episode like today's where we interview somebody or we do a deep dive on a couple of bottles and, and give you the benefit of some exposure to the industry. We'd love to have you listen to both shows every week. Uh, like Mike said, if you want to know about it, you need to subscribe. You'll get that notification every week that we got a show coming out. You won't have to worry about remembering. It'll just let you know.

So Jim, if people want to reach out to us, right. And they want to leave us some comments, where do they do that?

Well, you can always go to our website. We've got a comment page on there, the bourbon road.com go on there, hit the contact us page, uh, fill it out, send us a question. We'll be happy to respond. You can also email Mike or I I'm Jim at the bourbon road.com. He's Mike at the bourbon road.com, but probably the best way is through Instagram, right? Because that's where we're most active.

Yeah, most definitely get us up on Instagram. You don't work and they find you.

I'm Jay Shannon 63. one day chief and we will see you down.