162. A trip Down the Rabbit Hole with Seven Beautiful Bottles

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

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

Yeah, we drove downtown Louisville, Kentucky, here in the urban Bourbon Trail, as everybody calls it. And we came into Rabbit Hole. Now, if you haven't been to Rabbit Hole, it's like an architect's dream here, this building, right? It is so modern, nice and clean. Not what you'd expect for a distillery.

Very modern, very modern, very future looking kind of architecture. It's definitely an eyepiece of the city.

Yeah, it's very beautiful and stuff. And then we walk in here and there are seven glasses, Glencairn sitting in front of me with bourbon or gin.

Yeah. So we're going to, we're going to taste through their full lineup today, but first let's welcome on our guests. What do you say? Yeah, let's do it. All right. So we've got, uh, Kaveh Zavinyan. Perfect. Is that perfect? That is perfect. Oh man.

I practiced it too.

And Adam Edwards. Hello. Welcome to the show. Uh, I will get a chance here to sort of talk about who you guys are and what you do for rabbit hole. Uh, but we kind of like to get straight to at least the first glass of whiskey. So would one of you like to lead us through that first one?

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. We're going to start with Cavehill.

Cave Hill is the one.

Yeah, and Cave Hill is a very special bourbon because this was my first recipe that I started rabbit hole with. It's a four grain bourbon. We call it a four grain triple malt bourbon. Very special 70% corn, 10% honey malted barley, 10% malted barley and 10% malted wheat and. What else can I tell you about it? We aged and toasted and charred barrels. We put it in the barrel at 110 proof and it's in the bottle at 95.

Wow. Looking forward to it. Cheers. Cheers.

I don't know if it was because he said honey. But I get some honey on that. Yeah.

You know, one of the things about rabbit hole that's special is our emphasis and focus on malted grains. That's one of the things that, you know, was a page that I took from the craft beer guys, you know, I think within the boundaries of what constitutes bourbon. One of the things that's really exciting about it is that we can create a lot of different types of expressions organically just using different types of ingredients. So you got your basic formula of what it has to be 51% corn and then 49%. I mean, now you can do all kinds of funky things with it. So for us, that's one of the ways we approach whisky making, which is very similar to the culinary tradition. We start with the ingredients, focus on how you cook them and process them, and go from there.

Now I'm getting jalapeno honey. Jalapeno honey. That's the first time I've heard that, Mike.

That's a good one. That fruitiness on there. A little fruitiness, a little spice.

Yeah, yeah. I'm also seeing, I think, a pretty big influence from the malted grains. I get this little sense that I'm almost right at first, I get this Irish sense to it a little bit. Is that something you've heard before?

You know, it's I used to be a big Scotch drinker before I met. My wife was from Louisville, Kentucky. She's the one that kind of got me on this bourbon path 20 years ago, practically. And, you know, this was in some ways a nod to Scotch from a standpoint of secondary flavoring grain being barley rather than what's typical, which is wheat or rye. So in that sense, we wanted to do something that's a little bit more, you know, to your point, maybe peter or earthier. but at the same time approachable, and that's where that honey malt comes in.

Okay, well let's taste it. Cheers. Cheers.

That jalapeno honey is coming right for me. I'm gonna stamp that right on the bottle. I am.

I love it. I love it.

I don't know if you've ever had any jalapeno honey before, but it's absolutely delicious on a hot biscuit. I'll have to try it.

It's almost kind of green tasting. I know what you're talking about when you have like that, not the spice of the jalapeno, but like that green kind of fruitiness to it, like the bright flavors of it.

Yeah, it just kind of, I like the spice too. good old Texas boy growing up in Texas, you eat just a couple of jalapenos in your life, almost on anything. I can remember my stepfather having a big jar of pickled jalapenos and he'd go through about a jar a week. So that's something that's vivid in my mind, but my mom would always make jalapeno jelly.

I got to try that, man.

Yeah, I can't believe you've never heard of like jalapeno. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, like a nice pepper jelly. Little cream cheese and a cracker. That's nice.

Yeah, I think I kind of, I kind of pick up sort of the same. It's like a green right on the mid palette. And it's like almost a green apple or pear for me, but like that same kind of bright sort of acidity you get. I mean, honestly, when you're talking about like jalapeno, I can understand that. Okay. So I can get kind of where you're, where you're coming from on that. I mean, for me, the honey and you said, well, I don't know if it's cause he said it. It's because it's there. But the honey, it's huge on Caveville. And that honey malt, when we're milling honey malt here, the whole place smells like honey and not Cheerios. It really has such a honey presence that carries all the way through the process.

Yeah, I'm going to jump on that pear bandwagon too. I think you're absolutely on point there. I think this has got a pronounced pear taste to it. And it's not all upfront for me. In fact, it seems like it's mostly at the mid for me. This really sits on my mid palate. It's got a nice finish to it, but it kind of sits there on the mid and gives you that, I'm going to agree Mike, honey jalapeno, but with pears. I definitely get the pears.

Yeah, for me it's apple and pear. Okay. You know, both of those.

So Kavi, you are the owner and founder of Rabbit Hole. How'd you come up with Rabbit Hole?

Well, when I started talking about getting in the business, I was a psychologist before I started making whiskey. At the time, we had a seven-year-old, five-year-old, and a four-year-old. And when I talked to my wife about it, she kept saying, you're going to take the family down the rabbit hole. I mean, she was basically worried that this is a serious midlife crisis, if you would. And that's how the name came to be. But when I thought about it, You know, for us, craft distilling and what we're trying to do really is a journey. And it's about taking a chance to make these distinct recipes, not knowing exactly how we're going to come on the other side. I think that's one of the risky and the courageous things that craft distilling guys do, which is make their own recipes. They don't know how it's going to come out four or five years down the road. But in the end, the rewards are there if you actually stay persistent and go through that Rabbit Hole, if you would.

I always think of Waymoor Blues in my mind. When I think Rabbit Hole, I think Waymoor Blues. You know that song? I'm Lost. No. Really? No. Should I?

I'm Lost, too.

You know Country Music Band? Well, I don't know about all that. It's a Wailing Jetting songs. Get a rabbit out of the log. You got to be a DOG. And I always think... Oh, I love that. You just have to look it up, but Wayla Jennings sang it. And when I think of rabbit hole, I always think of way more blues. And man, I tell you what, it fits right with that too. The bourbon whiskey does, I think.

Yeah. So that's kind of neat the way you brushed aside the singing it and just talked your way through the words.

It seemed like you preserved your like manliness when you did that. I could probably sing it if I really tried. I don't know.

I'd have to drink some more bourbon, I think.

after the second one.

We can definitely do that.

We'll see. We'll see where we are at the end of this. And Adam, so what do you do for Rabbit Hole? So I'm the digital brand ambassador for Rabbit Hole Distillery. I actually came on board pretty much right when the distillery opened to the public in 2018 and we're coming up on my three year anniversary. So it's been quite a ride. I started as a tour guide and then I started kind of developing the tour program here. You know, last March when The world essentially ended for hospitality. I mean, it's been incredibly tough here for all of our hospitality partners. Cave and Michael Matamadi, the number two hire for Rabbit Hole Distillery, they really made this offer to me to be an ambassador, but really capitalize on the situation, right? How do you bring people into, you know, they're really fans of Rabbit Hole or maybe don't know anything about Rabbit Hole. How do you bring them into the distillery? you do it digitally, right? So really started a whole private virtual tasting program that has been wildly successful. I'm the self-proclaimed bourbon nerd. Like I'm such a bourbon nerd. This is really my milieu is like bourbon podcasts and YouTube. And so it just was a natural fit for me. And I just get to talk about bourbon all day long.

So it's needless to say you're right at home right now. 1,000%.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, we're going to get through a number of expressions in the first half here. We should probably move on to number two. What do you think? Let's do it.

Let's do it.

And what do we have in our glass this time?

Adam, do you want to take us through this one? Absolutely. So this is another Kentucky straight bourbon. This is high gold. You know, really these two bottles, really similar on paper. They look almost exact, right? They're same proof, 95 proof, same barrels, you know, coming from Kelvin, those toasted and charred barrels, same ratio of grains, 70% corn, 30% malt. the malted grains change on high gold. This is a high rye, what we call a high rye, double malt really is what this is. This is actually 25% malted rye and 5% malted barley.

Oh, let's do it. This is right up Jim's alley. That four grams right up my alley. Cheers, Jim. Cheers.

Cheers. That's a different animal.

Yeah. That's why we do two bourbons. I mean, you all just basically said what we love to hear. You're a four grain guy. You're a high rye guy. That's why we do it. We do two different bourbons because we want to make sure that we're kind of spreading that base out a little bit. We want to make sure that we've got something for everybody. Some people want that honey. Some people want that spice.

You know, the funny thing is about this is I, because I, I didn't pause after nosing it to sip it. I went right from nosing it to sipping it.

But I'm getting a really amazingly soft palate off of it.

And it's almost like it's a creaminess. It's coming from the rye. But it's not overly spicy. It's soft up front, a little bit spicy, but not overly spicy. Pretty intense. I like that.

I get a rich leather on this. traditional bourbon notes off of this on the nose. I'm getting that oak in there, just a tad bit of spice. Now, I didn't cheat like you did, Jim, and sip on it, but I'm about to. All right. Well, go ahead, Mike.

We want to hear what you have to say about the palate.

That's one of the things that we, we, we try to do with the expressions and see if we can get them to be well rounded, complex, bourbons, as Adam was saying that they're all different and distinct on their own. And, and ultimately, you know, each person finds their favorite basically based on their palette and what their inclination is.

Well, I think Jim hit it spot on on this. It does have that creaminess, Jim, kind of velvet taste to it. A little bit of spice, which I kind of expected. Just that slight Kentucky hug. Not a whole lot, not overpowering where I'm like, pow, it hit me in the mouth or anything. Exactly.

Yeah, you're getting a little bit of that cedar menthol kind of finish on it. Just a hint of it that lets you know, yeah, you're sipping on a rye, something with a little bit of rye in it. Not too much pepper on the back end, not too much spice, but just just about right, I think. But I love that creaminess. I love how soft it is up front. It fools you right at first. When it first enters your mouth, it kind of fools you a little bit.

Yeah, this is definitely like the velvet glove. Yeah. You know, Cave Hill is a very bold expression. High gold is just a little more nuanced. And like Kade said, I mean, it's all about being distinct. You know, there's no reason to make two birds exactly the same way, right? There's no reason to do that. And we want to make sure that both of these side by side are two completely different experiences.

I've always liked expressions that included malted rye in the mash bill because it brings something special to the game, I think. It does.

Yeah, you're right. You're right.

OK, so what do we have next, guys?

So we're going to our Boxer Grill, which is our Kentucky straight rye. Now, this is a standard 95.5 recipe, and obviously it's made in Kentucky by us, but we also finish it in the toasted and charred barrels. that are wood fired. We use the same oak that's used to construct the barrel for toasting and charring the barrel. And it goes in the barrel again at 110 and in the bottle at 95.

So I want to make sure I followed that. So this is a double barreled, right?

No, it's a single barrel.

OK.

But the barrels are toasted and charred.

OK, got it.

Yeah. And I think one of the things that we emphasize is that we don't use gas to toast and char the barrels. We use wood fire as essentially the toasting and charring, which think about Gas barbecue or charcoal, huge difference, right? And I think that's one of the things that for me when it comes to this expression is pretty distinct because there's a lot of great 95 fives in the market. But as we taste it, my experience with it is that you get flavors and notes that are not typical of a 95 five rye whiskey.

And the 5% is malted barley.

Correct. Got it. Correct.

All right, well, let's check it out.

Sweet and sticky. That's what I get on the nose. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, this is one of those that, you know, for me, almost every time I get, I get rose and these floral notes on it.

That honeysuckle going down a dirt road kind of floral notes.

Yeah, hard candy, kind of a hard candy, a sweet hard candy, but

Which for me, it's unusual for a high rye expression.

You were going to say whorehound, weren't you? Whorehound candy.

No, because I'm kind of not getting the root beer aspect of it. But I am getting a little bit of medicinal note, but that's true with most rides, you get a little bit of that. This is just a little bit more of a hard candy. I mean, I would almost say whore hound because it's the closest one I can figure to match it, but it's not whore hound. Adam, do you know what whore hound is?

I don't think I've ever had that.

Me neither. Neither one of you? Yeah. Wow. I think they're still available at Tractor Supply or Rural King. That's about it. It's a country candy.

It's more of a medicinal, almost a cough drop. It is a hard candy though.

I think I know what you're talking about. I remember that when I was a kid.

It's hints of anise and root beer.

There is that sort of like almost, almost like Shezwan pepper or like clove right on the tip of tongue of this, like come from that anise, right? Where it has like that little numbing aspect right up front. But like Javi was saying, I mean, you can put this up against any 95.5 and that 90 other 95.5 is going to be all spice all day long. This one I think just has a much more floral characteristic to it. There's almost like this pipe tobacco thing on the finish that I just fall in love with every time with Boxer Grill. And to be fair, I'm a rye guy. I love rye whiskey.

Let's taste this thing.

Man, that's full bodied. It's very true to a good rye. I mean, it's got a nice, very nice, sweet, full pallet experience. It's kind of sizzling on the side of my tongue. It's just the side of my tongue. I only have one on the side of my tongue, just a little bit, but it's finishing with this nice oaky and it's kind of, I don't know.

Come on, silver tongue devil. It's nice. I think you're right, Jim. It is full-bodied, just a tad bit of spice that kind of coats your mouth. Nice and light. I wouldn't call it a spring or a summer sipper. It's a little heavier than that. This would be more of your fall or late winter rye.

I agree. It's a cowboy rye. Yeah, this would be a cowboy ride, right? I think this is a cowboy ride.

It's a compliment. I like that. It's a major compliment. I like that. Could John Wayne fit this in his saddlebag?

That's the whole idea behind the flattened bottle is that it fits in a saddlebag.

That's right. Here you go. Now, Cobby, who designed your bottle for you? Who came up with that design?

You know yours truly, I do all the bottle design and the label design and now we've been able to actually put a team together here to work with me to bring that vision to life. So, you know, one of the things I wanted to do initially with the bottle was to do something unique, just like the liquid. But also, you know, we know there's a lot of women that are just joining the ranks of whiskey consumers. And we wanted to design a bottle that has both masculine and feminine attributes. So you got the sash, you got the slight curve. But it's also when you when you hold on to it, it's pretty substantial, right? So, you know, it's a hardy bottle, but at the same time, it's got some lines that, you know, blends both those masculine and feminine elements.

It's kind of got that, and I guess that would be like an almost an embossed rabbit on it.

That's right. It's a debossed rabbit there. That's right.

Did you call it a debossed? Yeah. Yeah. So that's when it's into?

That's into exactly as supposed to coming out.

Got it.

I'll learn something new today, Jim.

Yeah, that's one of the fun things about, you know, being a rabbit hole between creating the recipes for the for production distillery and then the packages. You know, this is a dream come true, guys. It's like, you know, I come to work and it's like going to a playground and you got great people like Adam and some of the folks who work at the distillery and we just, you know, come up. Pardon the expression, shoot the shit and we come up with some ideas and we go from there. In fact, about five percent of our production is really dedicated to experimental stuff.

Really?

Yeah. So we have right now five different recipes of bourbon in production, three different recipes of rye. And we've gotten in a whole bunch of single malt expression, what I call American single malt expressions, playing around with some of our partner's grains from these malting houses and probably about a dozen different finishing projects that are in the works.

Wow. I like that you said you just sit around and shoot the shit. Me and Jim, we always say that. We're not bourbon experts, right, Jim? We're just bourbon bullshitters. We'll sit down and talk to you about bourbon, but we definitely don't consider ourselves experts at it. We're just kind of experimenting our way along down a bourbon road.

But, you know, I tell you, this is one of the things that actually got me going, because what I learned eventually through those early years was, you know, back in the day here, we had over 2000 distilleries in Kentucky and all farmer distillers. They're the ones that really set that foundation for what we have today in Kentucky and Tennessee and Virginia. And I took inspiration from those guys, and in some ways demystified the process for me. Because making whiskey is an art, it's a craft, it's not rocket science. I think anybody can do it. The question is, can you do something original, number one? And number two, can you produce it consistently in a kind of quality that you want in the bottle? So the folks that are buying your product know what they're getting.

So how did this idea spark? I mean, what was the initial spark that just got you?

You know, honestly, the initial spark was my frustration as a consumer. I cut my teeth in the hospitality business. I grew up in the bar and restaurant business at a soft spot for wine and spirits all my life. And when I started coming down to Kentucky back in the early 2000s, and at the time we were living in Chicago, I just couldn't believe how few people outside of this Kentucky, Tennessee belt really are familiar with the range and depth of history, tradition of bourbon. And when I really dug into it, I realized there's a lot of essentially bottles on the shelf with the same recipe. And that was the light bulb moment for me, because I was thinking, OK, knowing what I know about the history of bourbon in Kentucky, what happened to all that diversity of whiskey expression? You know, it all went away a couple of hits. You got Prohibition number one, World War two, number two. And all of a sudden you got essentially a handful of distilleries making a handful of recipes. And that was it.

And then the consolidation that took place later on in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

That's right. Precisely. And for me, it was the consumer in me that said, you know, again, pardon the expression, this is bullshit because I'm paying whatever I'm paying. I'm paying 20 bucks a year and 50 bucks a year, 70 bucks. Therefore, essentially the same liquid and just different packaging. And that was the aha moment for me. It's like, look, I think we can join and do something really unique and add value to what's happening in this urban Renaissance.

Well said.

Thank you. Well, you definitely jumped head first in, right? That rabbit into the hole, right? No kidding, man. Yes. And what's your wife say about that?

You know, now she's happy about it, but I got to tell you, there was a lot of nights both of us were on our hands and knees just praying to anybody would listen to us up there because it was a risk. You know, we hawked everything. Everything just, you know, our savings and everything went into it. And then it started with like, you know, most startups, family and friends or anybody who was stupid enough to invest in our company. And then it just went from there. I was fortunate enough that the timing was right. And there was a lot of folks here in Kentucky who believed in us and joined the ranks and we were able to get the business off the ground. But it was pretty damn scary those early days because, you know, the challenging thing about making bourbon is that you lay something down and you just don't know what it's going to be like four or five years from now. And that's what she used to say. She's like, how the heck do you know this recipe is going to be any good? And I'm just looking at her saying, I have no idea, man. I have no idea.

I don't know. Fingers crossed. Exactly. Fingers crossed, but well planned, well executed. You had a certain amount of confidence, I would think.

Well, you know, it's confidence and I got to give respect and accolades to the people that worked with me. You know, Larry Ebersole, for example, was the master distiller at Wild Turkey for a while. And before that at MGP, before MGP was when it was Seagrams, you know, he was instrumental in helping me learn the trade, helping me put a team together because you're only as good as your team. You know, and I tell folks that the romance of making whiskey fades away pretty fast because you can make a good batch or two. But if you're able to do it, if you want to do it well, you got to be able to scale it up and do it on a consistent basis day in, day out. In order to do that, you need a capable team.

Larry Evesole is a legendary consultant who has shared his knowledge with many companies like yours. In fact, those who soaked it up and really listened to what he had to say put out things like what we tasted today. Can we move on to the next expression? Absolutely.

Do you want to lead the charge on that one?

You got it. So I will start by saying this, you know, when I first joined Rabbit Hole and this really great conversation with Kawe where he told me, you know, ask me anything you can think of. You're going to be talking about me a lot in your career. So just ask me any crazy question you think of. And one of the last things I asked him in that conversation was, oh, why don't we make gin? And he goes, you know why? Because I like gin. I always thought that was a brilliant answer. I love that answer. And I will, you know, I never was a gin drinker before I had this. And this one really is called Bespoke Gin because it's tailored for the bourbon drinker. This is a gin that is a London dry taken from GNJ, which is the oldest gin distillery in London, I think, maybe the world. They send it to us. We finish it in those boxer grill barrels for about six months. And it's unlike any gin that you've ever had. I mean, even the color alone is just absolutely gorgeous. To be blunt, it tastes like lemon cello and Earl Grey tea. This one is phenomenal.

I'm excited because, you know, I've said this before, gin is my other bourbon. It absolutely is. I can drink gin. Well, I did drink gin all 10 days in Mexico. Quite a bit, actually.

I'm with you. I'm not a gin drinker. I had a bad experience when I was a younger man, and I just never looked back. It's one of those things you just don't reach for and stuff. But I would tell you, this has an absolutely beautiful nose on it. Citrusy, I can see that limoncello coming through in it.

Now, is that from lemon verbena?

I know this one is so this one is, I mean, it's a true London dry. I mean, it's it's got the juniper berries. It does. It's I think to be London dry, it's got to have like 70 percent juniper in the basket.

Yeah, it's really classic juniper forward, pine forward. The base liquid is, you know, I compare it to Tangeray. I mean, if you think about a Tangeray, which is very juniper forward classic classic, you know, that's kind of where this is.

We'll sip this thing. Sip it.

You know, most people don't remember that the gin that came out of seagrams was aged in barrels. And it had the same color. And this was part of the inspiration behind this as well. Because I actually used to drink gin when I was a young man. And as I got older, just my palate's changed. And I just couldn't drink that real piney juniper type gin. So this was, how do we soften it up a little bit more, make it more of a sipping gin? But at the same time, at 89 proof, it really does well in a cocktail as well.

Yeah, I mean, it's sweet and buttery at the same time. I would wonder what else is in that basket, because for me, it seems, obviously, the juniper berries are, like you said, 70%, I guess. There's something else in there. And you say it's not lemon verbena, right?

There's definitely, I mean, GNJ is pretty proprietary with their kind of herbals. But I mean, I think we're educated enough we can kind of get most of it. I mean, there's definitely rosemary in that basket. There's definitely auris root. There's definitely citrus in that basket. They definitely have citrus peel in that basket.

I actually think this is play nice with just a cube ice. Yeah. Yeah. This is a sipping gin. I would go with that.

It's good for a thunderstorm as you can tell. It's really good. This is the thunderstorm gin.

I always say this, listeners, if you can pick this up, there's a big rainstorm outside, but they can never pick it up. I always say that because I'm like, I'm so embarrassed that we got all this background noise, but these systems never pick it up.

So the only thing I think people will pick up the rain is this poor horses of track today. That's right.

And probably some spectators out there because this is kind of.

the Wednesday before Derby. And this is where the locals get to go to the races. And I can't imagine it is listeners. It's absolutely pouring outside.

If it doesn't rain around Derby, is it really Derby? I don't think so.

Yeah.

The weather's always such a set so up in the air during the Derby week that you never know what you're going to get. But I think it's going to actually turn out this year to be halfway decent on Derby Day and on Oaks as well.

It's supposed to be. Yeah, we're excited about it.

All right, guys. Well, let's move on to the last one. And what do we have in our glass this time?

So this is a weeded bourbon that's finished in Pedro Jimenez sherry casks. This is derringer. It is. I think really special for lots of reasons, in part because the base liquid is a weeded bourbon that we make. And the Pedro Amento sherry cask, you know, PX sherry is, from a spectrum standpoint compared to other sherrys, it's the highest sugar concentration. So you get a lot of sweetness in that barrel. And we have a partnership with the amazing Coop Ridge in Spain called Casconolia. Believe it or not, the wood actually gets harvested and procured from Ohio, goes to Spain. They put the barrel together, give it to a winemaker who ages sherry in it for two years. Then they take the sherry out and send the barrels over to us here in Louisville. And then we age, you know, the range really is anywhere from three months on the low end to nine months on the high end, average about six months in the PX sharing.

Well, Mike, we kind of like these Finnish bourbons, don't we? We do. We actually had you guys. We did a show just on Finnish bourbons, and I thought we had reviewed this. We didn't. We actually did a Finnish bourbon show to kind of explain to our listeners about Finnish bourbon to kind of discuss that and kind of open that conversation up because Finnish bourbons do kind of get beat up a little bit by bourbon nerds right bourbon purists or whatever you want to call them but it's bourbon bullshitters they are what they are and you got to take them at face value as long as you're putting finished bourbon on there

Yeah, I think, you know, part of the challenge with the bourbon connoisseurs or geeks or nerds or whatever you want to call them is that there is a little bit of confusion between is this truly from the standards perspective bourbon or is it something else? Because according to the federal government, this gets qualified as what they call distilled spirit specialty. Once you put it in a secondary cask that's not basically brand new oak container, it changes that classification. Now, what that means is that you can, and some people do, we don't, but some people do, can add flavoring and color to it. You know, for us, it's all organic, so it goes in the PX, it ages organically, we don't add anything to it, and that's what it is. So I think part of what that concern, at least that I've heard with some folks, is that, you know, is this kind of getting out of that bourbon category? And I say to them, look, as long as you, a producer, does it without adding flavoring and coloring and does it purely, it's bourbon.

I think it opens more people up to drinking bourbon. It's kind of a gateway whiskey for people to get into bourbon, and it's a little bit easier on a palate, right? Yeah. And especially when you take a weeded bourbon, which I know about that much about, right, Jim? Yeah, just a little bit. You take a weeded bourbon, which is already soft and floral, and then you take and put it in a sherry cask. Man, what a beautiful expression.

Let's check it out. Check it out. Cheers. Cheers.

That sherry comes right out of it. It's soft, sweet. Very soft.

Skips right over the mid palette, goes straight from the front. Big impression on the front, goes straight to the back, sort of sits there and starts to build on the finish. It's sweet, it's floral, it's rich, it's got, I almost want to say like, well, I mean, it's got a deep fruit and oak and a little bit of tobacco on it, but not much, just a hint of tobacco, almost like that.

Not sherry, but a little bit of a cherry there.

Yeah, I can say that.

There's quite a bit of red fruit in this, that thing. And I like how you kind of said that about the mid-palate because that sort of exists for me too. It's almost a break between the two barrels. It's like when you smell it, you get the sherry first and kind of the weeded bourbon on the back end of the nose. But when you taste it, you get the weeded bourbon first and then you just hit this wall of dark chocolate and that is really where the bourbon barrel ends and that sherry casserole takes over. You get the almond and the black tea and the stone fruit and all the cherry and the kind of dried fruit notes that you're all talking about. This is like the charcuterie of bourbons, right? It's sweet, it's nutty, it's rich.

I'm definitely getting the almond now that you mention it. You had to pull that out of me, though.

I had to plant that seed. Yeah.

And we've talked about pairing it with a charcuterie. Yeah. I mean, it's the dried fruit, the nuts, even like a soft cheese with this.

Yeah. It's really amazing.

Yeah. So, Kavi, how did you go from, and I've been one to ask this question at a couple different distilleries, but this is the perfect setting for it. You're the perfect pair for this. How did you go from deciding between having a PR firm, right, which is usually outside of the state, people that some of them don't drink bourbon, to actually having a brand ambassador?

You know, we do. I believe in kind of a vertical system. If you think about business, you know, I just learned the hard way the first couple of years of rabbit hole that we do better if we bring people into the fold and work together as a team, because, you know, the family motto for our family motto is love and work. And I take that very seriously as part of the DNA of Rabbit Hole. Essentially, what I tell folks is that we make whiskey, but we're also here to inspire people to find their dream and go after it. My dream was to become a whiskey maker. A mid-career may change to the whiskey business. And if I can inspire people like Adam or other folks to find what they love and go after it, then we've done you know, a lot more than just making whiskey here. And I think in order to do that, in order to achieve that family experience, that experience where the ecosystem is there to create greatness, you need to bring people in the fold. So for me, you know, someone like Adam, I mean, Adam's like family, right? He's been with us from the earliest days that we started the distillery. He knows the ins and outs of it. And personally, selfishly, I would love for him to stay with us for the rest of his life. But at the same time, if he decides to part ways and do something incredible that he has dreamt of and wants to do, I'm 100% behind him. And I think that's where the magic is. We do that with packaging. We do that with the liquid. We operate together as a team rather than parsing things out and farming it out to agencies and other people.

Well said. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, we're up on the break now, so we're going to take a few minutes here. We're going to sort of pause on drinking and take a break and listen to our sponsors. And when we come back, you've got a couple of expressions to introduce us to in the second half. Sounds good. Well, 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 swords 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, listeners, we are back and we're at Rabbit Hole. We got Kawe, the owner and founder of Rabbit Hole, and we got Adam in the house with us. And you guys have just poured two special pours for us for this second half. I'm super excited, Jim. What about you?

I'm very excited. I want to take time on these. On the first half, we had to get through a number of expressions and we got to really taste them and talk about them. That was all great. But I really want to savor these two because they come in a box. Not just a cardboard box.

One box is a wooden box. It looks like it's got puzzle pieces to it.

It's pretty sharp.

It doesn't matter how beautiful the box is, no matter what. If it's inside the bottle.

It's not about dressing up a pig or something like that.

It doesn't be dressing up a rabbit.

Alright, so what do we have in our first glass?

So this is part of what we call our Founder's Collection. And Founder's Collection is meant to be a series where it's all about giving us an opportunity to flex our creative muscles and do some neat things. And also work towards, as we're marching towards, older expressions. The first glass is our Boxer Grail, which is our Kentucky straight rye whiskey at six-year-old that is offered at Casque. Okay. So that's what we're tasting first.

So this is your distillate that you have aged here and now it's at six years of age. That's right. Awesome. Ready to try it. Cheers. Cheers.

but deeper of a nose on that. You're more rich, which I would expect out of a cast strength.

A little bit more citrusy. I think a little bit more of an orange than a... That orange zest? Yeah, orange zest.

You know, one of the things I'm curious about in terms of your reaction to this is just seeing the evolution of that Kentucky straight rye over the course of the years. Right. So we got at least two years older than what we tasted earlier. And just see, I would love to hear what you guys think in terms of how it's evolving.

OK, let's take a sip. Yeah, it's it's it's becoming more. It's becoming more syrupy, more candy like.

like warm syrup. Yeah, yeah. That's just a mouth coating that almost like it's on hot pancakes. With a little bit of orange zest on there.

There's nothing stopping you from doing that by the way. You can put this on pancakes if you want.

Yeah, you guys could make a syrup. We could. Out of these casts when you're dumping them for this.

Make some maple syrup in it.

Yeah, that's that's and I love to see when rise sort of take the turn, you know, they sort of take that turn and they become this more more syrupy, sweet, candy like kind of rye. But they still have all those notes that they carried along through their aging. This is this is an improvement over the four year. The four years good. No doubt about it. But this is an improvement over and I think it's heading in the right direction. I would love to taste this. I assume you're going to try and do something

Yeah, you know, what we're doing right now is we're laying down for 10, 12, 15 year expressions. So that's kind of where, you know, I'm just chomping at the bits to taste those barrels in a years to come.

So you're really, you're laying a found work and you're not sourcing from anybody. You're doing your own work here. That's right. Just so our listeners know that they're not buying their whiskey from anywhere else, Jim. They're actually putting in the work. But the part of that is with whiskey, right? It's pretty much a liquid investment.

That's right. That's right.

What's your wife say about that though?

She says, I got to take her on vacations more often.

She's earned it.

She's definitely earned it. Look, without her, I wouldn't have been here. No question about it. But you're right. Right now, 21,000 barrels a year we're laying down.

Now we're 21,000 barrels. That's a lot of barrels, right? You're not fitting 21,000 barrels in this place right here.

No, no. Henry County. So we've got warehouse campus, maturation campus in Henry County about 30 minutes north east of here.

Yeah, we know exactly why. I used to hunt up there in Henry County.

Hey man, you might be able to hunt actually on the, you know, side. Yeah, I mean.

I think deer are pretty much, they're attracted to barrels.

I'm a bow hunter, so there's no... We got a couple of distillers here that are bow hunters in Henry County. Connors as well.

So your aging warehouses are on a hill in Henry County?

beautiful just and one of the things we're doing right now is mapping out the kind of ecosystem of every single barrel so you know the temperature fluctuations humidity all those things that you need to know to you know understand the personality of a warehouse now is that a traditional rick house or Yeah, so it's traditional in the sense that it's a rack system, but we use steel rather than wood. We made the decision a few years ago just because I thought that steel is a more sustainable and lower maintenance, if you would, material. So that's what they are. It's a traditional rack system, but with steel rather than wood.

Now, are the barrels horizontal or vertical?

Okay, so still traditional storage. That's right. Okay. Yeah, there's nothing palletized. It's all on their belly. And I think if you go in, it's set up just like a traditional wood rick house. The only difference is that a wood we're using steel.

Now, Adam, you had to go up there and roll any barrels.

I will tell you, I've rolled a few barrels here. I've done pretty much everything around it. Kave made me make sure I understood everything that was going on. But I will tell you one thing that I really love about those rick houses is that when they put the barrels in, so we've got three of them right now. And the first one will pick one barrel up at a time. And it's almost like a big claw. And it goes up on this big kind of lift and clocks it for you to make sure it's going to be attendant to. The second warehouse we built, it's actually a turret truck. and it'll pick up two barrels at one time, clock them for you, and make sure they're rolling where they need to go. It's amazing. And that's very much rabbit hole, this idea of having traditional foundation with very innovative practices. I mean, that carries through from grain to glass all the way through, from grains to rick house, basically.

Well, you could also keep a worker healthy longer. Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Yeah, those guys appreciate the system for sure. Have you uprighted a barrel by yourself?

I have actually. Well, not all by myself. A few other hands help me.

There's very few men in the world that can do that.

Oh my God, yeah.

There's small fellas that do it, that do it all the time. They've got that, there's just a certain rhythm or cadence to it.

Just like our warehouses, they are also made out of steel at that point.

I, uh, we, me and Jim had went to a distillery and we actually got to do our interview inside their, their warehouse. Right. And, uh, we needed to get into the barrel and stuff. So I was like, let me have that thing. I'll get it. I'll get it flipped over. He looked at me and he's like, I guess you can, I feel the next day, you know, I'm, I'm only 47. So I still, I have a farm, so my back still hurts a little bit from 24 years in the military, but I felt all right. All right, so some final notes on this, Mike? You know, I'm not a right guy. It is a little bit hot for me. A big Kentucky hug on this for me right here. Probably not for me, as a rye whiskey drinker, I would rather have the four-year. This is pretty powerful, pretty special drink. I could see sitting down with you, Jim, and drinking this by fire, though.

Yeah, for me, this represents kind of where the well-aged rye should be. You know, it's sort of entering into that realm of well-aged ryes or extra-aged ryes. And they do something magical kind of when they get into that six to 12-year range. They just change. They become this candy in a bottle. And I think you're almost there. It's really good. I would love to have a bottle of this. I don't know if you're thinking about that. I would have one of these on my bar though. That's great. So should we move on to the next one?

Jim is the total rye guy. I know if we get a special bottle of rye and we had one the other day that we reviewed, I didn't even blink an eye. And I loved that rye. But I said, hey, Jim, I know that you deserve this one. And usually, if it's a weeded whiskey, I usually end up with it.

Well, listen, we got one for both of you. So the next one should be of interest to you then. It's not a weeded bourbon, but it's got a good story. So one of the other crazy hobbies that I have had for the last 15, 20 years is collect bottles, dusties, and sometimes, especially now this goes back in the early days when actually the price of a barrel of bourbon was not what it is today, I bought a few barrels. And there's a collection of bourbons from barrels of bourbon from different distilleries that I've had. And I didn't do anything with them in part because we have our own recipes here and I wanted to stay true to that. But what I was also fantasizing about was how do I take this liquid that's really special on its own, but add our own fingerprint or our own touch to it? I'm a big fan of terroir. You know, I think about, okay, where the grains come from, what's the impact of the environment on the barrels. And I've been thinking about Japanese whiskey for a long time. I enjoy Japanese whiskey as well. I think they do some really cool things. And I was thinking about how do we get our hands on a Japanese oak barrel? And these Mizunara barrels are basically what kind of was the key for me to age this 15 year old essentially combination of high rye bourbon from different distilleries. We blended them together and finished them in these Japanese oak barrels. I call it the ultimate double oak because not only the base liquid is Kentucky straight bourbon, the youngest is 15 years old in the blends. And then the Mizunara barrels are virgin Japanese oak barrels. So, again, legally speaking, this is a Kentucky straight bourbon, just happens to be aged in two different types of containers.

Man, you know, I'm a big fan of anything that's double-oaked. Yeah. It adds a whole new level of sweetness, doesn't it? Oh, it does. Well, heck, let's notice this thing.

And I'll say this about this Mizunara finish. I'm a mouthfeel guy, right? That's what I really key in on. I'm like really nice bourbons and rye whiskey is just the mouthfeel. How does it feel on your palate? It's not too many times I can know something and really tell what the mouthfeel is going to be when I know something. This just has such a deep, rich presence from the moment it hits my nose. I know it's going to be heavy on my palate.

So as you nose this, you get this creamy mouthfeel.

Kind of, yeah.

Understand I'm actually getting like a chocolate covered toasted marshmallow on us on the nose And you guys know what you're talking about, yeah, you know, you know bit of honey candies.

Oh, yeah If you were to chocolate coat a bit of honey, I think that'd be kind of I And I have a taste of you. That's just the nose, but.

Let's let's taste this thing. I mean, cheers for it.

I take just be careful. It's a cask too.

Man, that's like a lip smack and good right there. I think the mouth feel on that is it's kind of sticky. It's it's that it is that chocolate coated marshmallow that's been toasted over a fire or something.

Yeah, and it kind of... As you're sucking on that bit of honey and you get that creamy candy goodness that comes off of it, it's kind of coating the back of my mouth. I'm kind of getting that right now.

On the back end though, Jim, you know that one candy we really like, this is Pop Rocks, you're just ta-ta-ta-ta.

Yeah, I love that everything you all do just goes through candy. I love that. It's like a flavor wheel, but it's just different candy brands. I love it.

Well, so, you know, if me and Jim led a tasting, right? We even did a couple tastings. for different bourbons and we're talking to people and trying to teach them. We say don't just throw away that tasting wheel, right? Because that's for really to me, it's for a wine drinker. That's how it came about, right? Let's taste from what your childhood experience is, those sensory memories that you had. Jim's usually will say cedar on a rye or I'm on a weeder. I'm usually some kind of cereal. So.

Well, I mean, our listeners are full spectrum. Yeah. Right. I mean, so we've got everybody from people who are chasing bottles and true bourbon connoisseurs and nerds right down to just beginners who are just starting. And they want to know how to taste bourbons. And they want to know, you know, how do I how do I express what I'm tasting? And the best way is to say, you know, go from your knowledge, go from your library you've built over the course of your life. And that may be and what we use a lot of times are cereals and candy bars and candies and other things like that, because that's what people can relate to who aren't. trained palette of, you know, experts.

So honestly, we are. And I can tell you right now we do the same thing. I mean, you really go back on your experience. I'm like, I'm a camper. I'm a, I'm a hiker and a camper. When you're talking about the kind of flavor notes of this, I mean, it's, it's graham crackers and marshmallows to me. It's like a s'mores almost, but not the marshmallow.

When you all the way burn it, when you almost burn it.

But I love what you guys are saying, because it's a great reference, and it's a great way of getting folks to get in touch with their own personal experience and let that guide them as far as the tasting experience. It makes a lot of sense.

Now, Kavi, I'm sitting here wondering. When we first started this, you said I was a Scotch drinker. And a lot of Scotch drinkers can't bring themselves to enjoy bourbon. My father-in-law being one of those, 80 years old and he's like, I don't know how you drink that sweet stuff. I'm a Scotch drinker. Did you find yourself that same way when you first met your wife? She's I am from Kentucky and I want you to try this, this real whiskey.

Yeah, you know, You know, I actually initially had to force myself to drink scotch. This was in my 20s, and I was trying to be cool because everybody older than me was drinking scotch. My dad used to, he was a Crown Royal guy and chivas guy, and I just didn't get it. And I kind of forced myself into it. But as I approached my 30s, it really started to I started appreciating in the ways that I just didn't in my 20s. And I think my palate was evolving. But then once I and the bourbons that I had the time, not bad necessarily, but I had beam makers, not nothing really, you know, in some ways revolutionary. But Old Forrester was the first bourbon that really got me going. You know, that was the one when to me it was like, this is spectacular and it's bringing something to me that makes more sense. And I actually at that point, I know you guys, you guys asked this question earlier. That was really the true, I think, the beginning of that aha moment, because I thought, you know, I don't understand why most people are drinking scotch around the world and not bourbon. because bourbon is a much tastier whiskey than Scotch. And I think if we do it properly from a standpoint of promotion, marketing, branding, and spreading the gospel, I think the world is gonna just love bourbon over Scotch all day.

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I know Jim does it, that people just need to understand it and then sip on a little bit and say, man, this is super tasty. I enjoy a good scotch every once in a while. I drink good Irish whiskey or even a Japanese whiskey. Yeah. But I come back to bourbon every time.

Yeah, but I think I think that's the other thing that's really exciting about American whiskey for bourbon in particular. Within that range of what constitutes bourbon, you can play around with so many different recipes. So as a whiskey maker, for me, what's exciting, it's like a kid in a candy store. I'm going there and I'm playing around with different ingredients. And you can really bring out different notes in a way that you just can't with scotch and Irish or Japanese because they've got that limitation of you got even single malt. You got barley, barley, barley. And again, there's variation in terms of terroir and all that. But there's something added here. There's a there's a little bit of a more nuance to to bourbon that I think is again, if we spread the gospel right, people will will understand it and will wrap themselves around it.

Well, Adam, so Covey kind of told us about his first bourbons there, right? What he had had when we knew he was Scott Strinker. What about you? Are you from Kentucky? I am from Louisville. So what? What was your first bourbon?

My first bourbon, so when I was in college, I was much more of a vodka guy, believe it or not. I was just vodka and seven up, things like that. After I got my degree, I moved back to Louisville. I went to UK. I moved back to Louisville and I really started learning about wine and wine led me into bourbon. It really did have that sort of progression and the first bourbons that really did it for me were things like Maker's Mark. I always loved, and it was like the look of the bottle. I loved the way the bottle looked. I've told this story before. I love this story. The first bottle of bourbon I ever bought for myself once I knew that I really loved bourbon was actually a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23. Just sitting on the shelf at the liquor store I worked at. No one was buying them back then. I mean, mid 2000s. I bought that bottle. I had no idea what I was doing. I remember being like, this tastes like an oak branch. I mean, it was so oaky, right? But I mean, I think that was when I realized the complexity of bourbon because I had gone from drinking Maker's Mark, which is, you know, a four to six relatively simple weeded bourbon to a very complex weeded bourbon in much older barrels that I knew there was a broad range there. And it was like a light bulb for me. that just really, really touched me. And that's where that passion kind of sparked for me.

And for our listeners, it doesn't take a long time to zero in on that profile that really sings to you, right? I mean, you'll find it. And a company like Rabbit Hole has such a wide variety of expressions. They're going to find something in this range that sort of fits that. But they're all very different. They're all very different.

That's the hope. I think the other source of inspiration for me was, as Adam was saying, was the wine industry. If you think about where wine was in the 70s and early 80s, most consumers were like, OK, white wine, red wine, rose. And now look at what's happened in terms of the consumer's IQ when it comes to wine and understanding their own palate and what they like, what they don't like. And this is our hope for American whiskey. We can get to a point where people can say, hey, you know, I'm picking this one because it's a weeded bourbon. This is my palette. This is what I like and and even order by that. What are the challenges that we had when it comes to branding and marketing was we realized consumers are ordering by the brand rather than by the liquid in the bottle. That's part of the reason we came up with the secondary names on the on the products, because There is no standard like you see in wine. You got Cabernet, you got Pinot, so on and so forth. You don't have that with American whiskey. And we need to kind of educate people and begin to have the nomenclature so people understand, OK, what is the difference between, let's say, what we have in Derringer versus Highgold or Cave Hill? And how do you call for it when you go to a restaurant or a bar?

Well, Mike, I've thoroughly enjoyed myself here. I think we've had just a little bit of bourbon.

Yeah, I mean, I'm ready to go to the dentist now. My lips are a little bit numb. I'm feeling it. I think I bit my cheek a little bit, you know, after visiting.

I'll tell you what, Covey. This Founders Collection is something that's a little special. And I hope you keep doing it. Thank you. I hope you keep introducing new expressions from that collection. And both of them were special in their own way. Personally, I kind of lean towards the rye a little bit. I think Mike probably liked this 15-year-old. Good Lord, I loved it. I like them both, to be honest with you, but I just, I like those spicy whiskeys. I just like it. And I love what you guys have done with your rise here. I really do.

Well, thank you. And listen, because you guys are so special to us, I just want to give you a scoop that our next Founders collection is going to be coming out in September. And it's a double chocolate malt bourbon. five grain double chocolate malt. And it's just absolutely spectacular. We call it Race King. It's Derby weekend. It's our way of basically kind of giving a nod to the horse and racing tradition here in Kentucky. Really, really excited about it. And I think you guys need, you have to come back and taste that one with us.

Oh, most definitely. Hopefully we could, hopefully we could be the first people to review it.

Well, you know somebody.

We do know somebody. A lot of people said that to us.

We never got that chance to review that. All right. Well, we have had such a wonderful time today. You guys pulled out all the stops, no doubt about it. You guys have given us sort of the grand tour of your expressions and we can't thank you enough. We'd like to give you the opportunity of letting our listeners know where they can find you on the web, on social media, what you have going on, anything you'd like to announce at this time, the floor is yours.

Adam, do you want to say a couple of words?

You know, the best place to find this is definitely our website. It's an incredible resource for all sorts of things. Just rabbit hole distillery dot com. There's all sorts of amazing videos on there. We were just talking about that derringer earlier. There's an incredible video on there about the families that really put that together. What do we say? Three families, two continents. And it's I mean, that's a really, really cool story. And as we're going forward, I mean, I think Kavi already left the cat out of the bag. You know, we've got this amazing five grade coming up soon. Something I always piggyback off of you, you know, Kavi says, you know, find what you love and go all the way in. I go one step further for me. It's find what you love and share it with those that you love. That's really the secret to the happiness in my life.

So, yeah, yeah, well said. So we all know that you know this summer we're kind of looking forward to things kind of getting back to a little bit of normal. I think most of the distilleries downtown are still closed down to some extent but they're going to open back up. Do you guys expect some maybe summer or fall opening?

Yeah, we actually are looking at mid-June as our grand reopening, if you would. So probably June 22nd is our date.

Okay, great. I mean, people are itching to get back into Louisville, I think.

Yeah, and so are we, to get going again.

So I truly believe that the bourbon industry and the bourbon trail are going to re-breathe life into Louisville, Kentucky.

I agree, I agree.

That's that rising tide. Rising tides raise all ships, right? Absolutely. And it's going to take the bourbon industry to help the city rise up from kind of the ashes and rebuild itself again. It's did it in the past several times, and I think it's time to do it again. Absolutely. So, Mike, where can people find us on social media? So you can find us on TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. We also have a private Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies. 1,700 people strong. You got to answer three questions to get in there. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Hell yes, everybody likes bourbon. And do you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any what, Jim? No rudeness. What was his name? Woodrow McCall was the Texas Ranger that said that on Lonesome Dove.

Yeah, we don't tolerate any rudeness. In our group, we're all kind of family. We like to share what we're drinking, share what's going on in our lives. We like to share the latest bottle that we got. We even share a whiskey a little bit, don't we?

We do like to share some whiskey.

Well, anyway, so we've got master distillers, all kinds of industry experts in there. We've got authors and musicians and chefs and comedians and all kinds of folk that love to come in there and hang out. I would hope that our rabbit hole friends here will join in the bourbon roadies and answer a few questions. Awesome.

Already a part of it. Glad to have you as a roadie.

It's a great place to feel free to speak your mind without getting jumped on by others.

So thank you guys for everything. This has been spectacular.

So we also have our website, the bourbonroad.com. You can find our swag on there, our glasses from Distillery Products. You can find our hats. You can find our famous shirt now, the bourbon bullshitter t-shirt. You want to get yourselves one of those, wear it in here to rabbit hole and stuff. Let them know that you're just a, not an expert, just a guy that likes bourbon or a guy that likes bourbon. So get yourself one of those shirts. You can find our articles, our blogs. There's not always about the episode itself, That's kind of what I'm thinking about today. Some days Jim's write those, some days I write them. We also have our bourbon reviews on there. You want to check those out. Adam Boothby, he helps us out with those.

Yeah. So we do two shows a week. We do a short episode every Monday where we just explore a single expression and do a review. And every Wednesday, we'll like today, you know, we'll do a long episode. We'll take a deep dive in a distillery with some good friends and go through a number of expressions and, and give you some lengthy content and enough to get you to work and home from work. Right.

Yeah. I think we drank enough whiskey today to get you all the way to the East coast, back to the West coast.

All right, well, if you want to reach out to us and let us know, you know, if you've got some recommendations for the show, you've got somebody you'd like us to have on. If there's a bottle you would like reviewed, make sure you reach out to us on Instagram. You can find me at Jshannon63. I'm One Big Chief. And we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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