160. Reviewing Old Forester 117 Series with Jackie Zykan

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 have got a fantastic guest on for the show. Kind of excited about this. Last year, it was a great show for us. And we're excited every time we get to have this person on. So tell us, Mike, who do we have today?

Well, she might be crowned the new queen of bourbon. She's just a great personality in the bourbon world. Not just a personality, but a bourbon expert. One of our bourbon bullshitters, I guess, really. She tells it like it is. We got Jackie's I Can on from Old Forester Bourbon, Louisville's bourbon. Jackie, welcome to the bourbon road.

Thank you so, so much for having me. And thank you for the kind words of all of the things you said. I will take the bullshitter first. It's the best way. That's the most comfortable ever. Nice. Oh, I see the shirt. That's perfect.

Yeah. And then I'm wearing a hometown bourbon of bourbon.

Nice. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I don't think I even have one of those old Forrester shirts.

It's getting wore out. I've had it on. So it says, uh, what does it say? The hometown bourbon of bourbons hometown. Yeah. Pretty nice shirt.

That's right. That's what we are. That's what we claim to be.

Well, Jackie, it's pretty amazing to have you on the show today. Mike and I are super stoked and we're really, really excited to talk about this bourbon. We have poured in front of us. Our kind of thing is to get right to it, not waste a whole lot of time. We'd like to get straight to the bourbon and then we'll talk about other things afterwards. So what do you think?

I think that sounds like a plan. I've already poured mine. I'm ready when you are.

All right, let's do it. Let's dive in.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers. So listeners, what we're drinking is, is the old Forester, the 117 series, uh, high angel share barrels. Jackie, while me and Jim are nosing this, why don't you tell us a little bit about the, uh, this 117.

Sure. So the old Forrester Distillery down on Whiskey Row in Louisville, Kentucky opened up, let's see, June, July will be our third year anniversary coming up here. And so of course, when you open up a home place, you want to be able to have something that other people can't find anywhere else. And so It took us a long time to really decide on what we wanted to do and to buy some time. That's why we released the President's Choice for a while there. And that's not going away. We're going to keep that going. I actually dropped off a box of samples to Campbell Brown yesterday. He's very excited. His weekend just got shorter and longer at the same time with that one. So once we finally it's been meeting after meeting after meeting of kind of you know everybody wants to do something different but what we landed on was this 117 series it is in a 375 size so 375 milliliter size bottle it travels friendly let's put it that way in that nice little size there so if you're from out of town you come to visit us it won't take up your entire suitcase so happy about that But it is meant to be sort of a deconstructed series. Instead of, you know, because when you do innovation, you can disguise the limit, you can infuse it with Froot Loops, you could do you know, you can do whatever kind of weird stuff you want to do with it. But then it's kind of like why just for the sake of being weird. This, I wanted to be a little bit more geared towards helping everyone expand their knowledge of kind of the blending process and sort of what goes into Old Forester. as it stands. And so this is what lower yielding barrels taste like, which is awesome to be able to share because it's one of my favorite barrels that exists in the warehouse.

All right. So Mike, I'm getting a lot of oak on the nose here now. I can't tell you. It's kind of sweet, maybe brown sugar oak. I don't know. Very nutty, though.

I'm getting This is going to be weird, but I get banana fosters on this, some cinnamon spice on there a little bit, toasted oak and some rich caramel on this.

Very nice.

I was going to say a little bit of ginger kind of sneaking out of the back end there. All right, let's taste it. Cheers.

Cheers. I was getting nervous. Some people taste, I shouldn't be right. Like you should get that out of your system before you release a product. Get concerned, but I always get nervous still.

Wow. That is, that is full of flavor. I'm getting like brown sugar and ginger cookies kind of.

I can definitely see that. And it's ginger snap kind of note going. Yeah.

Ginger snap. But there's a little bit of like a licorice or anise, a little bit. There's quite a bit actually of that.

I get a sorghum molasses, some ripe cherries on this and an atomic fireball candy. That spice is coming through for me.

Now, what was the proof on this?

This is 110.

I would say it tastes about right there.

Yep. I don't think this is...

True to its proof.

Exactly. This isn't like your, um, what's a good example of that? 1920 is a great example. It does not drink like 115. It drinks a lot easier than 115, but this one, it definitely shows up in its full form.

Yeah. The finish is kind of hanging around for a good amount of time. And, and it kind of, for me that anise is just sort of sitting right there on the back. Is anise the same thing as licorice?

Um, yes and no, but you're still that black licorice note is the most easy to articulate for the American bullet, I guess anyway. So that is a flagship old Forrester note for sure. That's always kind of there in the finish, sometimes more, sometimes less. This one is pretty substantial.

Very complex bourbon. I mean, there's just layer after layer after layer. And I'm sure as it sets in the glass, it's just going to keep opening up and just putting out beautiful notes for us and stuff. Jackie, so as the master taster there at Old Forester, the lady that kicked down the door and said, I want this job. as we told our listeners last time. Um, could you tell our new listeners today? Can you give them a, uh, some advice on how to properly taste bourbon and how to approach their own tasting notes?

Sure. So, um, step one, don't feel forced into drinking anything at all. There are so many different products on the market right now. It can be kind of intimidating on where to start. Um, in general, I'm not saying there's a wrong or right to it cause If anyone out there knows me, knows I'm not a purist by any means. I am all for a cocktail and I judge no one for adding anything to a whiskey whatsoever. But if you're not accustomed to drinking straight alcohol, whether that's clear spirits, brown spirits, doesn't matter. Obviously, starting with the highest proof is going to knock your socks off a bit. So start in the lower realm, the 80 proof and 90 proof zone. We have a couple of really great products. We have an 86 proof that's pretty approachable. We also have a 90 proof that you can 70 expression. So if you're starting with Old Forrester, then definitely try those first if you're starting meat. Otherwise, I mean, the sky's the limit. Try however you like, but. If you're going to really want to get into tasting notes, obviously, meat is going to have to be how you go eventually. The way that we sort of do it when we come to write down descriptors is to compartmentalize into different groups. And so if you go up to a glass of whiskey, obviously, what's the first thing you're going to smell is just whiskey. Your mind's just going to go, it smells like whiskey. It smells like whiskey or alcohol. If you try to then focus it and when you breathe in, breathe in through your nose and your mouth at the same time, you're going to divert that alcohol fume so that sweet air map can come through. try to focus on a category and not so much the whole picture. So just focus on fruit. Just think fruit, fruit, fruit. What fruit do I smell? Or just focus on sweet. What sweet do I smell? Is it toffee? Or is it brown sugar? Or is it butterscotch? Or is it vanilla ice cream? You know what I mean? So when you break it down into categories like that, it's not so overwhelming. And then you can move on and do the whole thing. Focus on what spices are you picking up? Is it more black peppercorn? Is it more brown spice like whole spice, cinnamon, things of those sorts. And yeah, and once you go to taste it, take your time. Take your time. There's no rush. And honestly, when I write tasting notes for marketing copy or for hang tags or websites or what have you, I spend a couple of hours if not an entire day with a glass of whiskey just getting to know it because it will change so much as it starts to open up and air out a little bit. You don't want to miss anything. You want to be able to capture it all. But then again, if you're getting into whiskey and you keep trying it and you're like, I just don't get it, that's cool too. You don't have to drink it. That's the beauty of it. It's fine. It's fine for those who love it. It's fine for those who don't. Whatever. We're pretty laid back about it.

So how does the addition of water help or hurt with the tasting process?

Well, so there's this big argument out there of, well, the way it's in the bottle is the way the distillery meant for it to be consumed. And that's its best form. Well, that's not necessarily true. This is a really great example of that. This particular product is basically bourbon concentrate, if you think about it. These are very low-yielding barrels. The flavors are very, very rich and dimensional. And in a bottle at 110, because I could not go any higher than that without it losing at least a little bit of balance. This is not the ideal proof point to sip this whiskey at. Personal preference is going to be all across the board. But for me, I like to bring it down. Adding a quarter to a half ounce of water to a glass of this is actually going to do wonders. The texture is going to change completely. And you're going to get a lot more of those volatile notes. So florals will start coming through, and really bright citruses will start coming through. And so that's something that kind of happens. You add water to alcohol. It's what's called an exothermic reaction, meaning it gives off heat. You're doing that. And that's not to say in your one little glass, you're going to like all of a sudden going to feel that it's warmer. But if you have a big container or an entire bottle of barrel strength and you add significant amount of water to it, yeah, the entire thing heats up. You can feel the heat coming off of it. With that excites a lot of those molecules that are otherwise trapped so that they can actually be volatized and they're up and they're right in your face. So it does literally open up and everybody gets to spread out a little bit more and you can experience a little bit more. It's not a rule of thumb. I'm not saying go to every single glass of whiskey and add a bunch of water to it. No, maybe it's already cut down to the point where it's going to exist in its best form. But for this one, I definitely recommend adding a little bit just to see what happens. Just try it. If you don't like it, that's cool. You can go back to it. But I definitely recommend adding a couple drops at a time and seeing how it really develops. It's really, really oily and really velvety as you start to add water to it, which is a really, really cool thing to experience.

Well, I think as a good experiment, we'll revisit this whiskey in the second half and Mike will, one, see how it's changed or opened up over the duration of the first half of the show. And two, we'll add a little bit of water to it and see how the effect is there. So it'll be nice to see that.

So Jackie, this week is Derby week here in Louisville. And this is actually, this will come out the Wednesday after Derby. But as a bourbon executive, What do you do in Derby week? How's, how's your week go?

There's a lot of media coverage for the Derby. So. first and foremost, my schedule gets kind of packed up with that stuff. This year's a little bit different because it's a limited amount of people at the track. So it's, you know, mini ish Derby, even though it feels like normal. But on a regular Derby week, you are up at two, three in the morning so that you can get to the track to do interviews on the backside and talk about MIT Jewel-ups and talk about the perfect old-fashioned that's official to get Derby and talk about the distillery and talk about any new releases. And that's radio and TV interview. And then you switch over to the front side of the track and then continue the interview stuff on that side. And that goes on all week long until you get to Derby Day. And then we actually sponsor the race that's right before the Derby. So that's the turf classic. That's an old Forrester race. So Campbell and I do the trophy presentation. And then we shake hands, we take the pictures. And then we bolt all the way back up to see if we can actually catch the race in and of itself. And then the race is over and you bolt out of there as fast as you can so that you don't get stuck in traffic. And that's Derby week. And we're in the middle of it. So it's fine. It's fun. And it's going to be one of those things that if I ever, for some reason, I don't know why I wouldn't, but if, if I'm ever working in a, on a different brand at Brown Foreman or if I'm ever doing something different with my life, I will miss Derby week so much because it is just a whirlwind. It's great.

So how many Derbies is this for you?

Hmm. This is my fifth Derby in a row with old Forester. Yep. So last year, because Derby last year wasn't in May, it was in September. So we didn't really do a lot around that, but we did do the turtle race and we are bringing that back. The Kentucky Turtle Derby will be a thing now, I guess, a new tradition for us every year. So that'll be going on. But and then I want to say it was four years ago. I got the flu on Oak's day and ended up in the hospital and didn't make it to Derby day and was like, I'm going to get fired. I didn't show up. And they're like, you have the flu, go away. Um, but so yeah, I missed one.

Was that the day that it was like, uh, 35 degrees and rainy?

Yeah. Yes. It was brutal.

So do you recycle your Derby hat? Um, cause that's the big thing here, right? Is a Derby hat, getting a Derby hat. Um, and people are talking about women, uh, and men, all the fedoras and the women's hats are just amazing.

Yes, fortunately, because I am on screen and I'm on screen on the big board at the track and through all these different news outlets. Brown Foreman is very generous and they do provide us a budget for a hat every year. So I do get to have a hat. Fresh hat, fresh air, good to go.

So Jackie, Brown Foreman is really kind of a pretty big umbrella. It has a lot of brands under it and Forrester being one of those. Do you get a chance to interact with some of the other brands and interact with their tasters or their brand ambassadors and kind of maybe get a little bit outside of bourbon sometimes?

Oh, of course. I interact with Arradura Tequila a lot in my own free time. Let's put it that way. When when we used to be able to travel, we would all have these company provided educational travel trips and we would go to different production facilities and such and all these different teams that come together and I miss those definitely the most but. Actually, let's see, on a day-to-day basis, the sensory lab, so I don't just taste Old Forrester, I do have to also taste the tequila, the vodka, the Jack flavors, all of that stuff ends up in those panels. So you're never just exclusive to one, even if my focus is primarily, my say-so is exclusive to one. I can't go and tell tequilas what to do with their tube. We're all kind of mixed around. And they move us around a little bit. So Brown Forming kind of likes to keep things fresh and moving. And so you'll have people like our production manager at OFD now works at Casa Heredera down in Mexico. And so when travel comes back up, I get to go down there and spend a couple of weeks training with him as part of my production development. So yeah, it's fun. It's a big old family.

And the Scotches and the Irish as well?

Yes, definitely. So that trip was, oh gosh, I guess it was the June right before the COVID, June before COVID. So what was that? 2019? 2019. It's all through Scotch Distilleries and Slain and I have those coming up again for more granular production training as well once travel opens up. So a lot of my development has been sort of just arrested at this point for production training because of the travel limitations.

but it opened up a little bit. And that's nice.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Mike and I just returned from 10 days in Mexico. And although a lot of restrictions are still in place and people are still taking care, it was nice to sort of let loose just a little, you know, just a little bit. And of course that week for us was a vacation from Bourbon. So we spent time drinking clear spirits, which is okay, right?

It's completely okay.

Well, Jim, I think we're coming up on our first half listeners hang with us. When we come back, we're going to put a little water in this bourbon right here and see if it opened up. We'll see how it opens up through the break. Hang with us.

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All right, listeners, we are back and we got Jackie's I can on from old Forester, the master taster Jackie. This 117 series is straight up just ridiculously good. I love it personally. It's got that spice that I'm looking for in a bourbon, that complexity. I don't, you know, that's a, that might be my favorite so far of all the old Forester expressions.

Oh, thank you. That means a lot cause there's like 30 of them, you know, right now. So that's amazing. I'm glad that you enjoy it. It's a, it's unique. It's definitely unique. There's a lot going on in a little bottle.

So we actually are pretty, uh, pretty excited about old Forrester brands. One of the, I think it was a 20, our 2019 bourbon of the year, Mike was the,

1920.

And for Mike and I, you know, Mike is a very much a, a weeded sweet bourbon man and I'm more of a spicy kind of ripe bourbon guy. So for us to, when we kind of agree on something for our bourbon of the year, it has to kind of hit both of us in a certain way. So our bourbons of the year are kind of surprising sometimes, but honestly, I think that was a big winner. This might be a contender this year, Mike.

It might be, it might just be, and that's going to go up some, get some heavy hitters out there. So, um, this is just, it lingers on the palate. Uh, after you've sipped on it, it just keeps coming and coming and coming and saying, Hey, uh, you probably needed to take another sip of this right here. Maybe it's that Sorghum molasses I'm getting, um, as a kid, you know, we would use Sorghum, my mom, would you bake with it and stuff? So maybe that's the sensory I'm getting, but it's just lingering on my palate and I love it.

That's awesome.

Let's, uh, let's revisit this after it sat in the glass now, you know, throughout the first half, I'm not noticing a big difference on the nose. Although I think the ginger is sort of poking at me a little bit more this time.

I think that that oak is just coming out was opens up in the glass to me.

Let's taste it again, Mike. Well, it could just be me, but I think the sweetness is amped up just a little bit this time around.

Yep. It starts out kind of snarky, not going to lie. Fresh out of the bottle, it starts out with a little bit of snark to it, but it does sort of start to sweeten up as it gets to know you a little bit. I went ahead and skipped and put some water in there, but I'll refrain from saying anything about it until you do that as well.

It's got one heck of a Kentucky hug on. I'll tell you that it reaches out and just grabs ahold of you and says, Hey, I'm here. I'm ready to play. That's a, it's a bourbon. It's no doubt about that.

Well, Mike, let's do that. Let's add a little bit of water and I'm not sure how much to put in. So I'm just going to put in just a few drops of half a cap full of a water bottle.

Don't make it white claw. Don't, don't overdo it. You did that once. I remember I did. We drank some, uh, the stuff was, I think it was called hazmat. It was like right around one 60 and it was, it was potent, but I needed to clear my glass out. So I just poured almost a half a deal of water in there and I was like, Oh, look, I made myself a white glove. Oh man. Just, just pouring that water in there. A couple of drops. That amped it up, the nose on it. A little more floral? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm going to taste it. Cheers.

I'm so excited for this moment.

Yeah, it totally changed the texture of it.

Yes. That's like a good, it still works.

Like creamy almost, uh, Jim.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

I'm getting a little pop rocks now. Just a little bit of pop rocks on the, on the middle of my palate.

Pop rocks. That's awesome.

I love it.

No, it just, it becomes so creamy is a really great word for it. Creamy, velvety, viscous. It just, it thickens up and um, It's interesting. You'd think adding water would thin it out. It does the complete opposite, but a whole diff... It's like peeling layers of an onion off with this one. And every time you add water, it just keeps changing and changing and changing and changing. And it's great.

For me, it kind of really amplifies on the middle of the palate, right on the center of the tongue. It's a little bit sweeter up front. No doubt about it, but I'm getting just this nice creamier texture and it kind of sits a little bit more on the middle of my palate, the middle of my tongue, a little bit more. I said pop rocks.

It's just like a sizzle on the middle of my tongue. I'm feeling that spice there in the middle. So I think that you hit nail on a head, Jim, is that, that pop rocks rolling on your tongue and stuff. Um, I think this, would it's just great for the bourbon guy or gal that kind of likes wheat but they kind of like our eye it kind of meets in the middle there you get that sweet spice with um the floral notes just like i said before it's complex yeah really good definitely a different animal with a little bit of water and i would highly recommend

our listeners, if you get your hands on a bottle of this, and I hope you're able to get your hands on a bottle of this, that you take the time to enjoy it with just a little bit of water. Let it open up a little bit, add a little bit of water and get that other experience that you get from this whiskey after that.

So Jackie, so this, it says 117 series. What can we, what can we expect in the future from this series?

Well, I do have another, um, expression coming out. Eventually, I can't say when I can't say when but there's more there's more to come and actually I'm trying to see if they'll let me put out more of this one. I didn't know it was going to go in three days and be gone. You know what I mean? Like the whole goal of this was to have something there for people to have access to that they couldn't get anywhere else not to sell out in three days. So um if y'all keep asking for it we'll just keep making it and plus i gotta clean up the warehouse i've got all these low yield barrels laying around on the floor taking up space and they're getting kind of mad at me so i need to get them into a bottle somehow right so um but there are different expressions of this series that will be coming down the road um there's actually going to be I won't say what they are, but from today forward, there'll be three different Old Foresters coming at you in 2021 to be able to taste. But I'm not going to say when and I'm not going to say what they are because I don't want to get in trouble. But it's an exciting year. I mean, why not? Old Forester is a brand. People are falling in love with it all over again. And we're just happy to be here and be a part of it and just give the people what they want.

Well, I'd hope to see as a Weedy King of Kentucky, maybe one of those three would be a Weeder.

I don't know. I have no idea. I'm not going to say yes or no on that, but we have all kinds of great tricks up our sleeve coming out in the next few years.

So was that a wink? Are you winking?

Just taking it all in. Just taking it all in.

So do you expect to release 117 series on a cadence or just as inventories allow or as inspiration allows? I mean, kind of what's the plan there?

Well, it comes down to a couple of things. So we bottle this off-site because of the size, the unique size of it. So it comes down to when they have availability on their bottling line. It comes down to when we have pockets in the calendar. So we're not going to release a 117 in September because that's birthday bourbon month, right? So things like that, they won't overlap. It just, it'll be a couple of times a year and it'll be at random, but just when things start to seem kind of quiet at old Forrester, then you'll see one hit the shelf. So kind of keep an eye out.

Awesome. Awesome. Exciting. Very exciting. You mentioned birthday bourbon, Mike, I'm sure you got a question about birthday bourbon.

Well, so we know it's a 12 year, right?

Do you, I don't know, is it?

That's what the news on the street is.

It's a 12 year street news person happening here.

I'm not going to say who the street news is. I've heard it's a 12 year and it's 104 proof.

I haven't heard any of those things. We had to do birthday bourbon really early this year because with COVID making shipping and materials and things like that take forever. Um, we didn't want to miss it. Oh, Two weeks after we released the 2020 birthday bourbon, we had to batch out and plan for the 2021. And it was like, can we not just take a break? No, there's no stopping. So it is done. And all of those things have been decided, but I am not allowed to confirm nor deny any of that information until the press release comes out about first day.

The funny thing is last year, I think it was just pre-COVID. Mike, I think it was just before COVID hit. We had you on the show. We were at the old Forrester facility downtown Louisville and you surprised us with the birthday bourbon and allowed us to taste it and told us that we were one of the first five people to ever taste it, which was very exciting for us. We didn't get that opportunity this year, but we certainly understand why, but we look forward to trying it in the fall. Hopefully, maybe a little bit early, but always exciting. I think we were pretty blown away about the 20 with the 2020, right Mike?

I was, I just thought it was, you know, people compare different years and stuff and I don't try to ever do that. I'm going to say this is better than that year, better than that year, better than that year, because it's a different bourbon. It's aged differently. It's in a different barrels. So really I don't think you should compare them. You just say, Hey, I'm glad they've released another one. And we were excited that you offered that up to us. I just remember you came out with this humongous rocks class and it was about half full with us, with a birthday bourbon. And I was like, you were like, Hey, you're a big guy. You can handle this. And I was like, Oh man, I got to drive.

I remember that we were in the Atherton room because yeah, you guys that come in, it was February, I think. We did the approving process in January. And so I always have leftover barrel strength from that process, just kind of hit sitting around and happy with those who will appreciate it. But yeah, I mean, I still have a little bit of barrel strength of the 2021, so I'll save it until I can share it with you guys.

That would be amazing. Thank you so much, Jackie.

Not a problem.

So Jackie, this, this year, do you have any like life changing, uh, events in your life? Anything big you want to tell us about?

Um, not necessarily. I mean, if there's anything coming, that would be a big change. I can't talk about it yet. But in my personal life, no, just same old, same old, you know, supporting our tequila brands. And then on the side, you know, supporting of course or so I'm joking. I'm joking. But I don't know. We'll see. You never know what's around the corner. So full of all kinds of secrets today. I'm sorry.

I'm trying to pull it out of you.

I hear all kinds of street news. What is the street news? I want to know what the street news is.

No, that's all right. I'm not going to say anymore. I'll just keep it to myself. Those secrets.

OK, we'll see.

So Jackie, we all feel like the last year has been a pretty big challenge. We've all had to buckle down and do what's necessary to make it through this challenge that we're in. But I think it's evident now that we see a little bit of light at the tunnel. Things are starting to open up a little bit. People are doing the right thing and people have been doing the right thing. And so the result is that we're able to visit a few of our places that we really like now. Places are open, capacities are increasing, bars are getting back to business, bartenders and waitresses are getting back to work. What's the second half of 2021 look like for you and for Old Forrester, and in particular the downtown location?

Yeah, so we are still close to the public for production tours down there. We have now officially opened the retail shop in limited capacity and on a very limited schedule. But we do still have our curbside service if you're more comfortable with that option as well. They do a great job packaging everything up super nice. They'll bring it right up to your car right there on Main Street. We have not yet been given a date of reopen for production tours because obviously, you know, all the whiskey row, all the single barrels, any specialty stuff, including birthday bourbon gets bottled at that facility. And if there is any sort of outbreak there amongst the production staff, they're going to be behind weeks of putting stuff into a bottle and that's not going to go over very well for anybody. So we are being very, very, very protective of them. And we don't want to charge people for a tour to come and see something that's not in operation. You know what I mean? It's just not right. So we're being patient, kind of, I guess. But we'll probably know about eight weeks ahead of time before those doors are going to open for that purpose. So everyone will have plenty of heads up if they want to go ahead and secure their tickets and make their plans to come visit us in Louisville. But other than that, yeah, I'm extremely happy to see more bars and restaurants coming back to life. That's for sure. And seeing people being able to get back to doing what they really are passionate about. So it's still gonna be a process. We're still slowly but surely, but one day at a time getting there.

So with the drive up service, so how do people access limited release bottles and things like that that are available in the gift shop utilizing this drive up service? Is it a- Yeah.

Well, so if you go on oldforester.com, you can actually sign up to receive emails from Old Forester. And those emails are the ones that give you all the information of what's coming out when. So if you're not in the email database, you probably are just trying to keep up on social media of who's getting what and when. And by then, it's usually too late to get your hands on a bottle. So sign up for those emails, definitely. But you can also purchase things through the retail shop through that site. Oldforester.com is your gateway to that entire universe.

Awesome. Awesome. So Jackie, you know, Derby's over next week. So I asked you what Derby week was like with you. What's your plans after Derby's all over and done? Or is it a vacation time? Is it relax a little bit?

Well, every year that we have a normal Derby, I usually take off the week afterwards and go somewhere where I don't see a horse or a racetrack or a jewel up for at least seven days. It's just sort of detox from it all. But this year is just it does not work out to do the week afterwards. So I am still head down and Pushing forward all the way up until the last week of May is when I'm finally taking time off after Derby to go hide in the mountains in Colorado with no juleps. I'll be like, I need a julep. I don't know. We'll see. You never know. But yes, it's important to balance it out. You are running 16 to 20 hour days, 7 days in a row. And then having... It's not just like go to work. It's also smile and be presentable and be happy and represent a brand and be on the whole time. It's taxing. And then drink all day long, but never get drunk and just show up smiling the next day. So... I cannot complain. I mean, there are worse things to be doing with your time right than being paid to drink whiskey and smile about it. But it's a taxing week for sure for our entire team.

Well, This, this come on up Sunday will be mother's day too. And you're a full-time mom, right? So we'll go ahead and say happy mother's day to you. Um, we, we love all the moms out there that, uh, that are hardworking moms to stay at home moms. That's a full-time job in itself. If you stay home with your kids to have a job like yours, that's probably super taxing on your time and balance being a mother. That's tough. So hopefully your, hopefully your son will, uh, we'll get you a good mother's day card and pick up, pick some flowers or something.

Maybe we shall see. He's, he's seven. So he's still, you know, it's not like he can drive himself to the store to pick one up, but yeah, I'll just be happy.

Well, Jackie, it's been a pleasure to have you on today. I do want to give you a chance to let our listeners know where they can kind of reach out to you personally or to the distillery and find out whatever information they need to find out or reach out and message you or whatever it might be.

Oh, okay. Well, if you want to keep up with all things Old Forrester, oldforrester.com, like I mentioned earlier, make sure you get on that email list because that's where they announced kind of when anything special is coming to fruition at the retail shop downtown. Old Forrester social media at Old Forrester all together. It is a great place to also just keep a rest of things going on. If you care to peek in on my personal life, at Jackie Zichen, all one word is my Instagram account. And if you send me a message on there, it goes to message requests first. And if I don't get to it immediately, I apologize. I'm sifting through them slowly but surely. But just be patient with me. But yeah, that's where we're at. And if you happen to be at the track this weekend, come say hi. We'll be all over the place.

Jackie, thank you so much for coming on the Bourbon Road podcast. We always enjoy our time with you. We can't wait to get into the stillery and sit down with you in person and do an interview. Hopefully that'll be around the birthday bourbon release. So me and Jim can sample on that a little bit with you and sit down and have a pour. So once again, thanks.

Thank you very, very much. I'll be sure to save a little sample for you guys. Don't worry.

All right.

All right. See ya.

Yeah. So Mike, where can everybody find the bourbon road? So you can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and of course, Facebook. Uh, on Facebook, we have a private Facebook group called the bourbon roadies. You got to answer three questions to be in the roadies or be a roadie. Uh, are you a 21? Do you like bourbon? Who doesn't like bourbon, Jim? And do you, heck yeah, we do. And do you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any what Jim? No rudeness allowed in the bourbon roadies. We also have a bourbon website, the bourbon road.com. You can find our swag on there, our shirts, our hats, our glasses, go on there and order that. If you're a roadie, you get 10% off for 2021. So you want to check that out. We also have our reviews on there from our good friend, Adam Boothby. He helps us put those up there. He writes some himself. Articles and blogs are on there. If you really dig into the articles, you might find some information on cities around Kentucky, such as Barstown, Louisville, and the Lexington, Frankfurt area, or someplace that we have reviewed or tasted. You might find some tidbits on those cities, too.

All right. Well, we do two shows a week every Monday. We'll do a short episode by short. I mean, 15 minutes or so, uh, where Mike and I will dive into a single expression and we'll do a review on it. We'll kind of give you our take on it, whether we think it's something you might want to pick up. And then every Wednesday we do a full-length episode like today's episode. We had Jackie as I can on today, but, uh, you know, Mike and I'll spend about an hour and we'll do about it. We'll do a deep dive and we'll really get into a distillery, a group of expressions, uh, an individual and what they have going on. Uh, we kind of give you a little more content, a little bit more time enough for that drive to work in that drive home.

So what you want to do to make sure that you're here in those shows is you want to scroll on up, hit that subscribe button. That way, whatever you listen to us on, whatever app, Spotify, Apple podcast, Google podcast, whatever you listen to us on, it's going to tell you, hey, those two jokers, they are drinking some bourbon today. So make sure you hit that subscribe button. Then scroll on down. You want to hit that five star review for us. Type up a little sentence or two. Tell us what you're thinking about us. That helps us open doors. It helps us get great guests on like Jackie. My guest next week's going to be rabbit hole. Help us out. Write those reviews.

All right. So we want to hear from you. You've got an idea for a show. You've got a particular expression you'd like to have reviewed. You've got a hometown bourbon whiskey that you'd like to see on the show. Reach out to us. You can always find me on Instagram at jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we'll see you down the bourbon road.

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