180. Weller Special Reserve and Wild Turkey 101 - A Retrospective

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 Hyde. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today it's a look back day, Mike. We're going to take a look back at our beginnings.

Yeah.

And drink a little bit of special whiskey here. Got a couple of great bottles to try today.

Well, let's tell listeners why we're going to do this. So for you listeners have been listening for a while. You know us, you know who we are, you know what we drink, you know what we love. There's no shock in that, right? Everybody knows you love rye, I love wheat, and that's why we're a successful podcast. But for new listeners, we wanted to take you into our two favorite whiskies. Everybody's always asking, what's your favorite whiskey? What's your favorite? We both have a go-to whiskey. We just don't get to drink it that often anymore. So what we wanted to do was take you through Jim's whiskey and then my whiskey, some bourbon basics, and then kind of the history of the podcast. Yeah.

Yeah. We do get that question a lot. We get asked, you know, what's our go-to whiskey or if I could have one bottle, what would it be? And I mean, usually for that second question, if you could have one bottle, what would it be? Uh, I usually say one that I haven't had. Yeah.

You know, it's always one that I haven't had because I'm looking for that next special bottle. That's right.

And, uh, you know, I've had a lot of bourbons, Mike, you and I have had an amazing number of bourbons in our podcast career. Uh, your, your shelves are full, your cabinets are full. Uh, you give it away as fast as you can. It still keeps piling up.

It's like, uh, it's like rabbits.

But still, there's that little motor churning inside me that says, what's new? What haven't we had yet? And I'm always excited to try it. But where did it all start?

Yeah, where did the podcast start?

Well, you know, I've always liked bourbon. Well, you know, I'm the founder. I started the podcast, started it, what has it been now, about two and a half years ago, I guess, about two and a half years ago. I've always been a bourbon lover, always liked my bourbon. Started drinking bourbon back in the early eighties, kind of right out of high school, you know, just, just reaching that age where I was able to drink and Wild Turkey 101 was kind of my go-to.

And no surprise, that's what we have in our glass right now. That's right. Kind of backwards, but from what usually we go to lowest proof to highest proof, usually what we do, but today we're doing a little bit different. So right now you poured me a big old pour, both of us, a big old pour of Wild Turkey 101.

Yeah. I figured we might as well have a decent pour. I mean, we're going to be sitting here talking for a while. We don't want to run out, but we usually run out.

Yeah.

So I don't want to run out today. So it's a hefty pour. Yeah, it's in reverse order today, a little bit higher proof in the first half. But, you know, Wild Turkey 101 was kind of my first bourbon. It was my first grown up whiskey, I guess is the best way to say it. And I've been drinking it ever since. So I always loved it. Always thought it had a great profile. Uh, I never really searched out like in the early days in the eighties and then the nineties, I never really tried to search out. something new. I just always went back for that same, that same thing. You know, it's empty now. Let's go get another one. It's empty now. Let's go get another one. Um, so while Turkey one-on-ones kind of been it. And when I think back, um, you know, the, the bottle that I likely added my hand, uh, when I first started was probably an 81 101. Wow. Yeah. And right now I don't know what they cost to get an 81 101, but I want to say it's pretty expensive.

I can imagine it is now back then. Was it a screw top or was it a cork in it? Do you remember? Uh, you know, honestly, I can't remember Mike. I would have thought it would probably have been a screw top. It could have been for that price range.

Yeah. I mean, they certainly was a lot cheaper back then than it is now. And, and you know, right now it's still pretty good bargain at what? $23, $23 for that bottle. Yeah. But it never disappoints. And you know, a lot of people have, I would say, a misunderstanding about wild turkey. It's the most misunderstood whiskey there is. People tend to relate it to bad boys and bikers and college parties. And you know, it's a great whiskey. It's a great whiskey. And you know, as well as I do, this is not four-year-old whiskey.

No, it's six, seven and eight year old whiskey, right? Um, depending on what they got going on, which is, that's pretty respectable when it comes to Kentucky bourbons and age, that eight years starting to hit that sweet spot, right? That we really, really love. Um, and $23. How can you beat that?

Every now and then, the flavor profile of what's on the shelf changes just a little bit based on the stocks that they're pulling from the wild turkey. It's always pretty close. It doesn't vary a lot. But sometimes there might be a little bit more older stuff in there, even older than eight years. It's happened a number of times in the past where they've had to dip into older stocks in order to keep up with production demand. What's the match bill on this? 75, 13, 12. So it's pretty high corn content. Oh yeah. They call it a high rye, but at 13%, you know, I don't know that that's a high rye, kind of a medium rye, right?

Yeah. When I think of high rye, I think of something that's like 20%, you know, rye and over. I think that maybe back in the day that was been a high rye.

And it probably was. I mean, people are pushing the limits now, right? Things are really, you know, they're starting to explore and do some out of the box mash bills and the Rye contents are definitely going up. They have been for a while. And well, with the popularity of Rye, Rye itself has gotten more popular in the last few years.

And I would imagine the more Rye you make. with is let's say you, you went up in that percentage, but you're at that 20, 30, 40% stuff kinds get sticky. Yeah. Um, it's hard to, it's hard to work with. So, you know, you hear people say rye whiskey, they, they say it's a mess to work with. So you kind of wonder about that. Well, heck, we've been talking for a minute. Let's, let's taste this. Let's get into it.

Well, I always loved that nose. It's like coming home for me. It's really good. It's. It's got that caramel toffee. There you go. Toffee. Yeah. But oak, oak too, you know, it's got, um, I mean, you know, there's some age in there. You know, there's a bit of older whiskey in there.

I think a little bit of rich leather and that oak, like you're in an old, uh, smoking room of somebody's house that's in, you're in a big leather chair that I don't know why I get that. Maybe a little bit of tobacco in there, you know, pipe tobacco. That's what I get off of this. And that toffee, when you say toffee, I think of a Heath bar. I get that Heath bar inside this.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's really, really good. Let's cheers. Cheers.

Wow. What a great profile. Never, never disappoints. You were talking about the misunderstanding of wild turkey. And here's the thing is whenever you go into a bar that's outside of Kentucky and you order a wild turkey one-on-one usually comes in a shot glass. Oh yeah. Drink it as a shot. And that's not the way to drink this. You drink it out of a rocks glass with a little water in it or a little ice cube or like we're drinking today out of our Glen Carons. That's the way to drink it.

Yeah. I mean, every time I taste this, every time I put this up to my nose, it just reminds me of being in the Rick house picking barrels with Eddie Russell. You know what I mean? It just, it just, it brings back that memory that the Rick house at Wild Turkey. smells like, well, Turkey 101. It just does for me. It's been a long love relationship. And I'll never give it up. I'll drink a lot of different whiskeys now and I'll try a lot of different things, but you'll always find a bottle of wild turkey one-on-one in my place.

Yeah. I was like, I didn't really want to dig through cause I have a bottle, but it's, it's probably buried pretty deep right now. And I was like, man, did I dig this? Or I just asked Jim to bring over a bottle today. I texted you and said, here's the idea for the show and away he came with a bottle.

Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty darn good and it's a guaranteed sipping whiskey. In other words, what I mean is you can be sure no matter where you go, if you end up at a bar, a whiskey bar, a bourbon bar, an expensive restaurant and you want to order a bourbon and you pull out that list of bourbons and that list of bourbons, you know, they're 14, 20 to $36 a pour depending on what it is. You can just about be sure there's some wild turkey on the menu and it's probably $4 or $5 or worst case, maybe eight, but you can always, without looking at the menu, without worrying about what the price is, you can just order a wild turkey meat and you're not going to be shocked when you get the bill. And that's a great thing.

Yeah. Well, let's get back to the podcast, I guess. So you came up with the idea of the podcast. Now, how did you come up with an extra host?

Well, I kind of, I kind of didn't want to do it on my own. I wanted to have conversation on air. I didn't want to always have to have a guest. You know, I thought, you know, let's do this thing, but I don't want to, we didn't start out reviewing bourbons. In fact, we stayed away from reviewing bourbons in the beginning. We just wanted to have conversations about bourbon, drink bourbon, talk about it, have guests on, you know, have a good time, but not literally review the bourbons and give them a thumbs up or thumbs down kind of thing. So we pretty much avoided that.

probably almost for the first six months or greater before we ever really started reviewing any burdens.

My co-host, my original co-host was Randy and I think Randy was on for 20 or so episodes. Is that about right?

I think it was 21 either I was a guest or I think the 21 I was a guest on somewhere in there. And then, um, two or three later, you guys were like, Hey, we need, we're going to have to do some changes.

Yeah. Randy was a great partner. We had a great time doing the show. We, we actually, figured everything out together in the beginning. So it was a matter of, you know, you start from nothing. When you start a podcast, you've never done anything like that before. And it doesn't matter if it's a YouTube channel or you're doing TikTok or whatever it is, you know, if you've never done it before, there's a lot to learn. And, uh, we had to figure it all out and we figured it out together. It was nice to have a partner. Nice to have a friend to do it with. And, uh, you know, it was, it was sad when he announced that he was going to move away and go to another state, moved to Virginia. He remains a friend of the show though. And we have him on every now and then. And he picks his head out of the mountain. He picks his head out of the mountain. That's true. He does. And, uh, he still loves his bourbon, still drinks his bourbon and, uh, I guess somewhere along the way, we were fortunate enough to run into each other at a bar and kind of struck up a friendship. And I just, I could see it. I could see the personality. I could see it. I knew that you would be good in that position when I knew Randy was leaving. So,

Well, I appreciate it. You know, what a journey it's been and how many great places we've got to travel to, the doors that we've opened up. And I can remember those first days and I was like, well, how many like listeners do you guys have? Because I've met you right about the same time as your first episodes went out. Because I was like, how many episodes you have? And you're like, two or three. And I was like, all right. So I listened to those and I'd wait till the next week and listen to it. Um, I was like, well, how many subscribers are there? And you were like, maybe eight or nine, 10. I don't know. Not very many. Yeah. Uh, but we knew he knew it was going to grow.

Yeah. I mean, we're getting some good feedback and you know, we had opportunities to talk to some listeners and get some feedback from people and made a few changes. Uh, you know, there's some things we did differently, but we've always had good sound. good equipment, good sound, even from the beginning. It's gotten better, but it's always been good. And I think that's one of the hallmarks of our show is that, you know, our, We're easy to listen to.

Yeah. I think we've had some hiccups to where we're in a rush or stream yard is not working. A mic's not working. Internet's not working for us. Me trying to do stuff from a cell phone rather than a computer for a while, just being stubborn. But building that, And then building our social media following has been a challenge. And then having guests on is, you know, what a great decision not to be by yourself because Trying to schedule guests is, as you know, is extremely difficult. And try to come up with a fresh idea every week. Two fresh ideas every week. Yeah, two fresh ideas. So we'll talk about that for a second. Reviews. Why didn't you want to do reviews when you started?

There were a lot of reviews, shows out there, and I didn't want to do it because I wasn't sure that we could do it well enough and different enough to make a difference. And I thought that there was a lack of bourbon culture, shows about bourbon culture. And that's kind of where the name The Bourbon Road came from. This show started as a bourbon culture show to include people, not just bourbon industry people, but to also include just regular everyday people that drink bourbon who have an interesting story. You'll notice throughout our history, we've always had guests on that are excited about bourbon or bourbon is not their business. We've had musicians on, we've had chefs on, we've had authors on, we've had other roadies, our roadies, and we can talk about that a little bit later, but we've had friends on, just a wide variety of people who are interesting, who are willing to sit down and drink bourbon with us while we were on the show. And that's really kind of the only requirement of the show, right? If you want to be a guest on the bourbon road, reach out. You got to drink bourbon. Yeah, well, you had an episode where somebody couldn't drink anymore. That's right, we did. So we had a gentleman on, and I'm not going to mention who he is. If you go back and listen to some of the early episodes, You'll figure it out. But we had a gentleman on in the early days who was a very interesting person and bourbon was kind of part of his schtick, you know, talking about Kentucky bourbons and the bourbon culture and all of this stuff. It was kind of what he did. We're like, oh, let's get this guy to come on the show. It'll be great. But when he came on, we got him invited. He came there. We sat down. We started to record the episode. We were going to pour him some bourbon to drink. And he said, no, thank you. And he couldn't because he wasn't able to really control it himself. So it's something he had to walk away from, even though he still talked about it, wrote about it, performed with bourbonic themes. He wasn't able to actually drink it himself. But we made a show of it. We had a great show and we talked about What a great thing it is to be able to draw that line when you need to, right? If it gets control of you and it's not something you can control anymore, you better put it down. Sure. Right.

Yeah. I mean, that's just like, it's like a credit card, right? A credit card can spiral out of control if you're not careful. Um, a lot of people realize that a lot of people are living their life by credit card and it will spiral out of control if you don't, uh, use it, if you just, you just got to cut it off. That's right. You know, cut it off, don't let it build up. And that's the same thing about alcohol and drinking responsibly. And some people can realize that like that guest did, but, you know, I can imagine that was somewhat of a difficult, uh, cause I remember listening to it and I was like, Man, that's, that's going to be a tough, tough interview.

It was okay. I mean, it still turned out good and it was great to have him on. And you know, that, that's something that, um, we probably ought to do more often is have that conversation with our listeners. You know, some shows I listen to, they do the dry month every now and then. Well, they'll do a series of shows without drinking because they're trying to take a break. And I fully respect that. I've never had to take a dry month myself before. But if I ever got to that point, I think I would.

I don't sound too fond of me.

Now, I did walk away from cigars. So, I used to smoke cigars. I used to be very, very into cigars. But I smoked them a little too much. So, I put them down forever and I haven't touched them since. And I probably never will. But I do love cigars. I just feel like I can't have just one every now and then.

So as we built the podcast, it was probably almost a full year into me being with the podcast where we talked about doing reviews. Me and you had that conversation on the road and talking about doing reviews. And then finally we pulled the trigger and said, okay, let's do our reviews differently than everybody else is doing it. And the way we did that is usually we'll only do craft distilleries. We'll throw the big boy in there every once in a while. When we say big boy, we mean a monster distillery like heaven heel or Buffalo trays.

Not necessarily a big boy bottle, but a big boy distiller, a distiller, you know, a giant out there in the industry.

We'll do one of those bottles, just a, say, Hey, you know, let's hit it all, but mainly craft distilleries is what we like to do. And that we're always searching for that next great whiskey, right? That next great bourbon across America for even here in Kentucky, you know, you never can tell what's going to end up on the show.

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of distilleries in this country that are trying to emerge. You know, they want to become recognized and every little bit of exposure they can get helps them out. And some of them are doing some, some really great stuff. I mean, some really, really good stuff. And they just need that opportunity. And I think we kind of give it to them. You know, a lot of times they may not have a wide distribution, but the good thing is we do have a wide distribution. So we will reach people in their listening area. And you know, we will reach people who are going to be traveling through their local territory and can pick it up.

That's often the case right there is people will be traveling through, they're going there for business or they've got family that lives there. They want to see it. Let's, let's talk about Jim Shannon real fast. What's your background? So our listeners know who you really are. What do you do for a living right now?

Oh, so right now I spend most of my time writing software. I'm software developer. But I have done a lot of things. I've been around a lot of years, so I've done a lot of things. I did join the Navy out of high school and spent eight years in the submarine force serving, you know, the United States and armed forces and decided at eight years that I wasn't going to make it a career. I think probably the reason I stayed eight years was because it was so interesting what I was doing. So I don't think if I'd have chosen a different profession in the Navy, if I'd have stayed longer, I think I chose the right one. It's just, I don't think I was a career kind of guy. I kind of wanted to get out, more of an entrepreneur, wanted to get out and do my own thing. And sure enough, I got out there, worked for other people for a while and then ended up owning my own businesses, running companies and did that for a number of years. I was in the biotech industry for, I still am, but I was in the biotech industry for 25 years. In research and development, in management, I was operations manager for a biotech company and ended up starting my own biotech company. And I still own that company. My wife and our son, Zach, they operate the company. I'm kind of out of it now because I'm doing, I'm late life. What do they call that? mature career. I'm in my mature career right now. Are you a late bloomer? I'm a late bloomer. I get to do, I get to kind of do what I want now. And what I love to do is write software. I always have, but what I really love to do is write software. So now I'm a consultant. I write software and really enjoy it. Have a great time doing what I want to do. Work from home, which is nice.

And hobbies are, you have a small farm. You got some pygmy goats, you got some chickens, you got three dogs.

Or a cat out there. Got a cat or more, depending on what's wandering through the barn.

And you got those large giant dogs out there.

The big dogs, the ones with the mane and a tail. Yeah, the horses. Horses. We don't ride them, so they're big dogs.

And hobbies, what kind of hobbies do you do?

Well, the podcast is a hobby to me. I've been doing it for a while now and I really enjoy it. And it does take a lot of time, so it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for other things. But most recently I've decided to take up fly fishing again. So that's something that I used to do a lot in the past. I was a big fly fisher. fisherman, fly fisher person, person who fly fished. And I did that for quite a number of years, but I haven't had a fly rod in my hand for probably at least 15 years. Like legends of the fall, fly fishing. Yeah. And you got a trip coming up too. I do. I do. Going to Colorado, then I hit the South Platte River and the Arkansas River. Believe it or not, the Arkansas River is in Colorado. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of amazing. But yeah, I'm going to hit those two rivers out there. I'm going to catch some trout. And of course we got plenty of trout in Kentucky too, but I'm going to go catch some Colorado trout.

Well, that sounds pretty like a fun trip. Me and you had actually talked about that stuff. I think that's a pretty good window into Jim Shannon. Jim Shannon's favorite whiskey, Wild Turkey 101, is what we're sipping on right now. Actually, if you look at my glass, Jim, it's empty. It's empty.

Yeah. I mean, I knew it would happen. It's good stuff, Mike.

Well, I got my good friend Woodrow down here keeping us company. Woodrow, the whiskey dog's here. We're over here at the farm just chillaxing. Hopefully you listeners are getting an insight to what we're about tonight and what we like to drink. Some bourbon basics, you know, inside of us. That's in the podcast.

Yeah. So, you know, usually when we drink a whiskey and we talk about it a little bit, especially when we're doing a review, we like to sort of break it down a little bit and talk about kind of the nose, the palate, and the finish. On this whiskey, I think to sum it up, we got kind of toffee and caramel on the nose. I think I heard you mention a medium finish. Yeah, I'd say it's a medium finish. I agree with you completely. It's got that rick house on the nose. It's got that rick house on the palate. Uh, you get a little bit more like maple syrupy on the, on the palette as it sets in the glass.

Right. And I was sitting there as you're telling me, and I'm thinking it's kind of got that either maple syrup or a hot honey. It's been warmed up to me, a hot honey tea, you know, and just kind of sweetness on the tongue and stuff. And some people were like, wow, Turkey doesn't taste like that. Yes, it does. If you drink it right, it does trust us.

And you know, it, um, it gets a little peppery on the finish. And I think that's one of the reasons why people like to say, ah, it's a spicy whiskey, you know, because it is, it's got that peppery finish on it and it's a little dry too on the finish. So it's not, there's no sweetness on the back end of this one. And, uh, it's just a darn good whiskey, six, seven, eight year old and sometimes higher made by, uh, the Godfather of whiskey, right?

60 years. Jimmy Russell's been distilling for 60 years at Wild Turkey right there in Orangeburg, Kentucky. I mean, that's, that's saying something right there. Yep.

And they, you know, this is, uh, this is something that I hope will never change. I hope Wild Turkey's, foundation will never change. I mean, they can come out with new expressions, they can introduce special releases, they can do all this. And I'm glad they are, but don't change the foundation. And I don't think as long as Jimmy and Eddie are in control, it's ever going to happen. So.

We'll see. Well, you know what I'm hoping I'd see from them, but I probably won't see it in my lifetime. I know that, that they're more likely than they'll ever make a weeded bourbon than I know of. Probably not. And I'm fine with that.

And you know, they're making a rye though again. So, hey, I'm pretty excited about that.

And that's Jimmy's grandson that was the one push for that. So it's nice to see them kind of push out there a little bit. And you know, they've got some finished stuff and, I mean, heck, Jimmy Russell has even come out with his American honey, you know? Yep. A lot of people love that. Yeah. People hate on it a little bit, but a lot of people love it.

It's popular though. It's a cash cow.

Well, I tell you listeners, what we had in our glass was we got told that we need to repeat what we're drinking a little bit for listeners that come in halfway or they'll pause for a little bit. So what we had in our glass in this first half was Wild Turkey 101. You can buy it for $23 pretty much anywhere in the world.

mashmills what 75% corn 13% rye and 12% multi-barley so it's got a pretty substantial rye content and barley content so good stuff and and still 75% corn that's up there for me i don't have to tell you that this is a this is a buy because because i buy it quite often but you know it's it's definitely a sipping whiskey it's inexpensive enough where you don't feel bad if you're mixing it. you can give it to anybody in a glass. And if they honestly, if they don't know what it is, they're going to be impressed with the bourbon. If they know what it is, then they're going to do a double take because it's wild turkey. And that's just the way it is. Yep. But I would definitely say this is something to have on your bar or something to buy. You're not going to give it away as a gift, but if you really need to convince somebody how good it is, give them a bottle at 23 bucks. Why not?

Yeah. Well, listeners, we'll be right back for a second half and guess what? We're going to be drinking a weeded bourbon. I'm ready.

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Like I said in the first half, we've had some hiccups, right? And we've learned from those things, like we really learned a lot from about sound and just all kinds of different things. that you don't think about unless you're doing a podcast. You think, hey, am I doing this right? Am I doing that wrong? But as far as I know, we try to do everything right. You know, I was talking to somebody yesterday, I was down in Barstown and somebody asked me about social media and how to build their social media. And I said, one thing that piece of advice we've stuck true to, We have stuck true to this is don't buy your followers. on Instagram. I believe that true. We haven't bought one follower. Nor will we ever.

Because what's important is not how many followers you have, but how much engagement you get, how many people's comment back to your posts, how many people read your posts, like your posts, how many people actually engage with you. in a conversation on social media. Having 30,000 or 40,000 followers and they're all from India or Pakistan doesn't help you out in the least because they're not looking at your content, they're not engaging in your content, they're not- Or are they going to buy the products that you're reviewing or- Exactly. Exactly. And you can spot the accounts that do this pretty easy. And there's a lot of them on social media. You go into their followers and you look and you see 95% of the names you can't pronounce because they're from other countries. Not that we don't have followers from other countries, we do. And we have followers from India and Pakistan and other places, but they're organic followers. They're people that really care about whiskey. And you know, some cases they post comments, they like us, they like what we do, they're engaging with us. And that's the important thing.

Yeah, I think that's the key part is having people that are truly kind of whiskey nerds like us. I used to not like that word at all, but now I'm just a whiskey nut, I guess. A bourbon bullshitter, as we call ourselves. We're not experts, nor I don't think we'll ever be experts. We're just two dudes that truly, truly love bourbon and we love all forms of whiskey. Don't get us wrong, but bourbon's our game. Yeah, bourbon's our game.

We've been at this long enough, Mike, where yes, we're bourbon bullshitters. We like to refer to ourselves as that. But every time we say it to somebody, they go, come on guys, how many bottles have you had on the show? It's like over 600 bottles we've had on the show. I guess probably we've tasted enough bourbon to have an opinion.

I mean, we do have our opinions about certain bourbons or the, the false hood out there of certain bourbons or the myth of some bourbons or people that say, Hey, that young whiskey can't be good. Um, we've dispilled that too, because we've went to different regions of America and tasted different bourbons from different regions of America. Yes. Listeners out there. bourbon can be from other places other than Kentucky. Yeah. And there's some really good whiskey out there.

And there's some people that really know what they're doing and really do a good job. And, and you know what? I mean, I'm surprised at some of these craft distilleries at the amazing stuff they're putting out. Um, you know, it's always kind of the benchmark for a young distillery to shoot for who's making bourbon to shoot for. I want to be as good as that Kentucky bourbon, right? I want to be as good as the big boys in Kentucky. And I have to say there's a number of distilleries that have hit that mark and surpassed it in their own way. Sure. And they've got their own little signature. There's a lot of examples out of Texas. There's a lot of examples out of the Northwest and quite honestly all over the country, right? I mean, we've had distilleries that have just blown us away.

It's just always surprising to me. Um, yeah. So let's stop talking for a minute and I'll tell you what we got in our glass. So we have Weller special reserve. This is, this is my bourbon right here. This is something I do truly love. This is Mike's jam. This is the, this is the, the big chief's jam. I got several bottles of it. I hoard it like a madman. I won't give it away. I won't sell it. I won't, You say you don't give it away, but. Well, you don't have a bottle at your house. So I said, Hey, you know, I got a couple of bottles. I'd had to make sure you have a bottle on your new bar. I appreciate that. So you do give it away. You just give it away, uh, reluctantly. You have to be really, really good friend to get one of my bottles. But as you know, Jim, I do drink this. Uh, I truly love it. Now, if you don't know who Weller is, it's not Wellers. A lot of people always say that Wellers and people beat them up on how you spell it, however you want to. But William Louis Weller, he is the Godfather, the King, the true King of We did bourbon. He's the guy that came up with that recipe. Um, he's the guy that there, there wouldn't be weeded bourbon without him. There would be no Pappy van Winkle without William LaRue Weller.

Yeah. So back well, William LaRue Weller, um, and the Weller brand has been around since, uh, let's just say at the wild, wild west. Well, that that'd be definitely true right there. And, uh, if you, if you watch an old Western and see a bottle being pulled down off a shelf, good chance that was a, that was a weller bourbon.

And everybody always wonders why, why does it have that green label? Right. Um, and I think that's a, throwback to where he would put a green thumb stamp on his barrels. Um, honest whiskey from him for honest price. I think it was, it was.

Yeah, so the late 1800s, the second half of the 19th century, it literally was the wild, wild west of bourbon. I mean, you had a lot of manufacturers, you had a lot of people consuming bourbon, a lot of bourbon being shipped west. most of it was being done in kegs or in casks or in barrels and You know before it enters a bottle with a label on it, which didn't come around until old Forster introduced the glass bottle You know you you just didn't know back then you just didn't know what was in the barrel because there were still people back then producing bad whiskey and unsatisfactory whiskey, and then they would sell it because they couldn't take the hit on, uh, on not being able to sell a bad whiskey. And then you'd had rectifiers to try to make it taste better, look better. And, uh, there's a lot of bad stuff out there. So that green thumbprint meant something back then.

So the mash bill on this is undisclosed. Nobody knows the mash bill, but I would think it's probably got a pretty low content of weed in it. Undisclosed, but understood what it is. Yeah. Everybody knows it's a weeded bourbon. This is the king of weeded bourbons. $22 a bottle is MSRP for it. Um, I personally probably wouldn't pay over $32 for a bottle of it. Um, I think the big bottle should be around 35 to 45. That's your price range for this bottle right here. Don't pay more than that for it. Wait, just wait your turn.

Yeah. Or go to a bar and have a pour of it and understand that, you know, um, you can wait until you find it at retail because it's, it's just not, I mean, it's a wonderful bourbon. It's a beautiful bourbon. Yeah.

A lot of people beat it up and stuff. Do you know who that is? People that can't get their hands on it.

You know, it's very typical, you know, somebody, um, if they can't get something, they'll talk bad about it to make themselves feel better. Uh, but honestly, uh, Weller bourbon has been, uh, appreciated and revered for a very long time. Yeah. Well, let's stop talking about it for a minute. Let's sip on the sucker. Cheers. Cheers.

There's those floral notes right there.

Yeah. So see on this, we get a little bit more of that fruitiness, a little less of that, uh, that dusty floorboards of the Rick house. Like we got in the wild Turkey here, you're getting a little bit more of a floral note, a little more fruitiness, get that sweetness off of it.

I'm going to say, uh, sugary.

caramel kind of a really sweet caramel nose on it.

I could get all that. Um, I always think a little bit of honeysuckle on this as I always say, you know, going down that dirt road, I guess a little bit of fresh fruit. Like if you cut up some strawberries, some peaches, um, I get all that in that nose.

Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a great nose. I mean, what's the proof on this Mike? 90 proof. 90 proof. We did mash bill. Buffalo trace produced.

One of the probably the line of these, the whole lineup, I don't know if there's a more popular lineup out there. Probably not.

This is probably the king of, yeah, the king of, uh, um, names. What do you call that when a distillery has a line up? I guess you had it right. This is a line up of bourbons they have under one expression that You have the Special Reserve and then you have the Antique and then you have the Weller 12 year and then you have the Weller full proof. And now they got a single barrel. And you got the CYPB. And the Wyatt label. Right. So this group of expressions all falling under the Weller name and the granddaddy of them all, William LaRue Weller itself from the BTAC collection. Uh, just great bourbons, really good bourbons.

And all of them really, even the green label can, they could be extremely hard to get your hands on. Well, they are.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they're we're in Kentucky. We can't hardly get them. I think, you know, Texas and Ohio seem to be the two places that are able to actually put their hands on a bottle without too much trouble.

Yeah. I think when I went to Texas, I was shocked to see cases of, of the special reserve. Well, let's taste this sucker. Cheers.

Cheers.

Yeah, it's good stuff.

That's, um, sweet, soft, floral, a little bit of baking spice, a little bit of cherry. It goes without, without saying caramel and vanilla. You get a lot of that, a little bit of baking spice.

It's got a, for a naughty proof, it's got a nice Kentucky hug on it. It does. I don't know if that's the barrel spice from it that I'm getting. medium finish, but it's super light on the palette. It is light on the palette.

So it definitely washes across. Um, after giving you that first impression on the front, you know, that sweetness, that floral, that, you know, it kind of, it kind of sells back a little bit. Doesn't really hit you big on the back. A little bit of pepper, not too much, but that's barrel. I think that's barrel. Oh yeah. And, uh, you know, like you said, Mike, the finish is probably medium on this. What a great whiskey for 90 proof, 20 odd dollars a bottle when you can find it.

Yeah. If, if it wasn't such a popular whiskey, imagine this be on the shelf and just back in the day it was, you could, that's why I liked it so much. I was like, well, I'm going to pay, you know, $200 a bottle when I can drink something really nice for $22 a bottle. Yeah. Call me cheap. Like Rob did on last episode, but, And I'm not a cheap guy. I just, I really do love my weeded bourbons and I've come to love them even more since, you know, I became on a podcast. Yeah.

Well, there's no more FOMO for us, right? You and I, we don't really have FOMO anymore. We're not worried about not getting a pappy. We're not worried about not getting, Whatever, a BTAC collection bottle. We're interested in something new or something we already know is good.

I don't get us wrong if one happens to fall in our lap. I got a CYPP a couple weeks ago and I was glad to get it. Somebody offered to buy it like right after, like the next day they were like, Hey, can I buy that from you? And I was like, no, you can't. I'm going to, I've already opened up. Matter of fact, I already drink from it. It went up on the shelf.

Yeah. Well, nothing wrong. I've been through my phase. I went through my phase of chasing bottles and looking for unicorns, and I had a grand time doing it. I really enjoyed it a lot. Had a blast, built up my bourbon collection, shared it with my friends. I've still got quite a few of those bottles on my shelves. Um, and I visit them every now and then to really enjoy it. But, uh, you know, it's, uh, it's just something that I just don't do anymore. Um, but I get excited if I get it, if I get something special, I still would. So Mike, tell us a little bit about yourself and tell me a little bit about. where you come from. Let everybody know a little bit about what's inside the world of Mike Hyatt, the big chief.

So I grew up in Texas on a pretty good size ranch, I guess. Not really in Texas size. It's not big at all. I joined the military when I was 18, went in the army, was a watercraft operator. They said you could either be a dental technician, They gave me a whole list of stuff, but the top two was a watercraft operator. And I had these grand visions of. those river boats in Vietnam.

And I was like, man, PT 109. I was like, I'm going to do that kind of stuff. Oh yeah. John Kennedy, right?

Yeah. Well that would be the Navy ones, but the army ones I'd saw before. And I was like, man, I could do that kind of like swift water stuff. And I was like, I could, I could see myself doing that. And I got educated really fast that that's not what they were. They were landing craft and they build ports and they have tugboats and barges and they can build floating like cities pretty much and offload, uh, roll on, roll off ships and they moved the army around. Um, so I did that for 10 years, wasn't going anywhere. And, uh, I was going to get out of the army and start a construction business and had a small construction business building decks and fences, doing some home remodeling and that I'd seen that that wasn't going to be the way to live a life. And then I support a family. So I joined the coast guard. Like the same day I got out of the army, I joined the coast guard and, uh, did 14 years in the coast guard. Kind of never looked back. I, you know, the military has treated us so well, our, my family that, you know, 24 years later, I, you know, I looked up and I was like, It's over with my prison sentences. They're releasing me. Let's retire. Yeah. And somehow, some way, the Coast Guard said, hey, we want to keep you as a Coast Guard civilian. Come to Louisville, Kentucky. And they offered me a job here, a position here. And today, as we sit here, I'm a search and rescue and emergency management specialist. I'm a stand watch inside of a command center. I call it the black box. There's no cell phones in there. There's no cameras. There's none of that. It's just a bunch of computer screens and monitors everywhere. And we pretty much look at 10 states and make sure that they have all the assets they need for that, whether it be search and rescue, whether it be a barge going ground or, um, pollution, anything that has to do with the river systems. And I always say the Ohio Valley, the Cumberland Valley and the Tennessee Valley, that's our big three rivers and all the tributaries that go with that.

Now, 10 states is, it's the second largest area for the Coast Guard. So if you're fishing on Cumberland River below the Wolf Creek dam, and you get into trouble with your boat, you get all hooked up or something goes wrong or you get anchored in a, or they turn on a bunch of generators and the water starts coming out and you can't handle it. You're picking up that phone to call for help. You're the people they call, right?

Well, if they dialed 911, they would get help. But if they called a Coast Guard number, there'd be somebody in our office that would pick up the phone or radio. And we, what we'll do is we'll make sure the proper County gets there and make sure that assets get there, the right amount of assets, the right people for that job. Cause it's a, it's a unique area. The entire river system is lots and lots of locks and dams, lots and lots of tugboats, lots of bad stuff go up and down the river system.

A lot of that area, a lot of that river area is controlled by the army corps, right? So how do you guys work together with the army corps? I mean, you're pretty tight, right? Very tight.

It's a well oiled machine. Uh, the army corps is really here to control the flooding and that's what they lie. These locks and dams were put in for, but not only that, but produce electricity in the, in the Cumberland and Tennessee valleys, but They let the, they control the locks, they dredge, the coast guard puts the buoys out. They move the buoys around in the river system when the channel changes as it does in the river all the time. We'll send the buoy tenders out and they re-mark it. It's a large operation.

Yeah. So if something goes wrong on the river, like you said, a barge goes ashore or like we had not too long ago, boat crashed into a barge, had some fatalities and some people going into the water. Uh, You're on high alert.

Yeah, I live for that stuff. Even when I was active duty, I was the guy going out on a boat doing law enforcement and doing search and rescue. And there's no greater feeling than that. I would say my first couple of months in the Coast Guard were really bad. And I didn't get to go out and do any rescues or something. It took one search and rescue case of these seven little kids on a paddle boat out of the middle of Lake Erie in the middle of the winter. It was kind of slushy ice. When I'm talking about slushy, it looked like a slushy on Lake Erie. They were out there in the middle of the lake in a little paddle boat that you would see in a park. Some of them had hypothermia. We pulled up to them and grabbed them off of there. And those little kids, they put their arms around your neck and you're trying to get them warm, putting a blanket around them and we're getting them back to shore. The parents are just coming up and hugging you. And they hooked line of sync with me right there. They got me all at once. I was like, there's no better adrenaline rush. Now there's been some lows in that too. I've seen some bad stuff happen and, you know, seeing children die. and stuff always weigh heavy on you. But at some point I had to stop doing that, right? My body kind of broke down on them. I got a little age on me, kind of like you, and I said, you know, I'm going to have to end this. I got a lot of age on me. You got a little age on you. You got a lot on me. But now that's what I do. I sit in that black box and a direct kind of direct traffic like that.

So is it fair to say that you and your team save lives on a regular basis?

I'd say not on a regular basis. We assist lives or save lives. I felt like the other day I had a case and I felt like we were, we saved a life of three lives. Um, I felt like somebody was about to go over lock and bam and we lost communication with them. We didn't have their personal cell phone died. They didn't have radio on board and I pretty much, I caught launching the world. We, we launched assets and when they, they got rescued and that's awesome to me, I came home and I was smiling and that's a good day right there. It's bad days when you have like a collision with a recreational boat and a tugboat. That's the bad days. And there's nothing else I could do with that except for throw the world at it and put everything I have into it. But at the end of the day, I didn't come home feeling good about that. You knew that I told you I'd had a bad day and But you know, you have good days and those good days make everything worth it.

Yeah. It's a lot like working, like your wife, she works in a hospital. I'm sure she, she has those days where she's at patients that recover and she's got those days when patients don't, don't make it and it's rough. So.

You imagine two people having, you know, both of me and her come home before, you know, and we've both had a rough day and it's not a good day at our house. But yeah, that's what I do now. But my hobbies, besides having the small farm here and everybody's like, what do you farm? And I said, well, we got hay or hay field. That's kind of what we, produce here, but more it's about living the best life we can and having Woodrow and having a small garden. I'm an avid hunter, as you well know.

Yeah. When we get into the winter episodes, we talk a lot about hunting. Hunting. Yeah.

I'm always trying to, you know, and you know how we kind of schedule, we do schedule the podcast around hunting season kind of, cause you know, I said, I've told you whenever we started, I said, Hey man, I love to hunt. I just absolutely. love it. Not, not only the hunt part, but I love as many of the listeners know, the older listeners will know that I love to process my own meat and I love to cook with that. I just, I just, I can't get enough of hunting and I love to fish too. I used to love to fish all the time. Matter of fact, as you listeners are listening to this right now, I'll be on a boat in Oregon, off the Oregon coast or some Oregon rivers, salmon fishing.

I hope you're going to bring some back. Well, I hope we bring a whole bunch back too.

I'm going to do that with my brother and with another veteran that owns a charter fishing boat, Hammerheads Charters out there. And I just have an outdoorsman. That's what I really love to do. I mean, I've got some other hobbies and stuff. I like to write a little bit. I wrote some poems that have been published. I don't know, that kind of sounds weird coming from a guy named Big Chief. No, it's cool. It's cool.

See, you're big enough where that's like, nobody's going to say anything.

Yeah. I'd love to write a book one day. I've started a book before and then I stop and then I'll go back at it.

Well, you've written enough blogs that if you put them all together, they'd be about a 500 page novel.

Yeah, I'd like to write about a 2000 page novels. It's like a dream and I truly have started. I probably got a whole two chapters written.

So let me dig in here a little bit. So would this be like a science fiction? Would it be a fiction? Would it be an anthology? Would it be kind of historical novel? You know, what would it be? What would it be? It would be called, the title is The Last Drive.

And it would be about the last cattle drive in America set in World War II. Oh, wow. Pretty cool. I've had that idea in my head for so long and I'd like to see it as a movie one day. Um, but that's my, my idea for this. And so who would, who would star in this movie? Ooh, Woody Harrelson is the main, probably the actor. Um, a discarnal disgraced officer that has to lead this monster cattle drive to kind of save, drive some beef for the army and stuff. And then, I don't know, I have a whole bunch of actors in my head, but whatever happened, I don't know. I just figured there'd be some people from Loats and Dove in it. Well, I don't, you know, um, some of those guys, Robert Duvall and them are getting a little bit older, a little bit up in age and stuff.

Well, maybe they would consult with you on it. Consultant? That'd be nice.

I'd hope to do that one day. I'd really love to finish that book and maybe once I fully retire, I'll write it. I don't know if I'm that good of a writer to write something like that.

Well, that's what editors are for. So, you know, writers just create the story. Editors make it read, write.

That is true. I mean, but that's my dream and hobby kind of, and one of my passions. I mean, I got all kinds of hobbies. I told you, you know, the podcast is a hobby and I just feel like when you do a hobby, you got to go at it at 150%. That's my problem sometimes. I just go at it too much.

Well, Mike, I kind of hope we've, you know, took a step back here, looked back a little bit into where we come from. And, you know, we've got a lot of listeners this show. They're all over the world, all over the country. A great group of people who like, who like bourbon, who like what we do. They're loyal. A lot of them are roadies. Not everybody's a roadie, but a lot of them are. But if we don't do this once in a while, if we don't go back and recap, we don't always give the new people the benefit of where we come from and who we are. So I think it's good that we do this every now and then. I think we should try and do this once every year or two just to make sure that we You know, reset.

Yeah, we're keeping everything on track. And, um, you know, it's, I think this, this year, this summer, since everything's opened and back up, we'll kind of get back on that bourbon road and, you know, have some different guests on some authors and some, some chefs and some musicians and.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of the, um, a lot of the people who you have on as guests have gotten kind of used to this whole, uh, zoom, Google meet online meetings. And yeah, it's kind of not us. I mean, we really like to be in person whenever possible. And if that means traveling, it means traveling. Yeah. But we like to be face to face. We like to be experiencing their distillery or whatever it is that they do. We like to take you there. That's why we call ourselves the Bourbon Road, because we wanted to get out there and sort of let you live vicariously through our bourbon road and our life. Um, uh, you know, exploring the bourbon culture, I think we'll get back there. I just don't think it's going to happen overnight. It's not like, okay, COVID's over. Everything's back to the way it was. I don't think it'll be that way.

Yeah, I don't. It's going to take a minute to get us back to where we were and rebuilding that and rebuilding those episodes. We do have some special guests coming up. Um, matter of fact, we've got our, bourbon challenge going on, right?

Yeah. So, um, if you're listening to this show, go back a week. and listen to the Wednesday show from the week before, and you will get all the details you need to get involved and participate in our Bourbon Challenge. And if you're listening to this show within a few days of it releasing, there's plenty of time for you to do a good job and get entered into that challenge.

Yeah, and I've locked one special judge in, special guest judge, She is a master blender. She has been on the show before. It's none other than Ashley Barnes, the witchy woman of bourbon. She's got some, some magic, uh, just a magic palette. I really, yeah.

So she's got a magic palette. She's got the skills to taste and analyze and give recommendations to distilleries who are trying to do a better job. Yep. If you enter this challenge, she'll taste your whiskey along with other judges.

And hey, I think it's how many people get to have their whiskey blends tasted by a master blender. And she's worked at Four Roses and Buffalo Trace. She's truly an artist. And I'm excited that she has went ahead and partnered with us and said she would be a guest judge. And we got one other guest judge we're going to try to get. I haven't confirmed that judge yet, but I'll keep working. I promise I'm going to keep working. You got to August 1st. to enter that challenge. You want to be, you want to be in this challenge.

Yeah. Cause you know, if Mike and I are judging your whiskeys, we're just bourbon bullshitters, right? I mean, we'll tell you what we like. We are going to judge it. We are, but I'm saying if it's just us, if it's just you and me judging, people are like, yeah, there's just a couple of bourbon bullshitters, right? But no, if Ashley's here, I think it's kind of, Raise the bar a little bit. It did.

Yeah. And don't forget, we've given away some great prizes. The winner of the challenge is going to get an engraved barrel head, each one of our shirts, a bourbon bullshitter t-shirt and a bourbon road shirt. You're going to get a Glen Caron. You're going to get a hat. You're going to get a sample of Jim's old hoot blend. And you're going to get a sample of my big chiefs blend. You're not going to go wrong getting all that. And then Jim, the person with the best name of their bourbon.

I mean, you know what I'm really looking forward to? I love to drink bourbon, don't get me wrong. And I love to taste, but I'm looking forward to some crazy names. Robin had a crazy name. What do you call it? Carter's George, what was it? Carter something dickle or something. You had a good name, but you know, uh, the names are fun. You know, the names are fun. And I think that's, that's going to, that's going to just make it a blast.

So that person, um, is going to get a sample, each of our blends and a Glen Karen from us. Yeah. And I'm throwing out there four ounce pourers, people. You know, when a four ounce pourer, that's a pretty good size bottle of little bourbon right there.

Yeah. I mean, everybody buys a two ounce bottles. Mike, you buy the fours and the eights. A big old big cheap.

Well, the eights are just for you, Jim. That's strictly for Jim. Most people are getting no eights from me. That's like a quarter of a bottle of bourbon right there.

All right, Michael, this has been great. I've really enjoyed it. We've both emptied our glasses once again. The Weller Special Reserve is just amazing. I'm so happy you gave me a bottle of it. I'm going to put it up on the bar with pride. I'm going to make sure it's open though, because that's what we do. Yeah, open your damn bottles, people. That's right. O-T-D-B, hashtag O-T-D-B, open the damn bottle. Yeah. You know, it's important to drink the whiskey. in addition to, you know, collecting the bottles.

So I got a whole collection over there on that pub table. They're empty collections. Yeah.

Yeah. All right, Michael, where can people find us on on the Internet?

So you can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, whatever else social media thing will throw at us. We can do it. We're going to get it done. You find us on all those. We also have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. You gotta be 21 to enter. You gotta love bourbon. Who doesn't like bourbon, Jim? Come on now. And you gotta agree to play nice, meaning we don't tolerate any rudeness. Our moderators, they'll get you right out of there. Now, the other thing we really need you to do is scroll on up top, hit that subscribe button. You'll find out that we put out two shows a week. Your app or whatever you're using to listen to us on Spotify, Google, Apple podcast is going to tell you, Alexa, it's going to tell you, Hey, these two jokers have another episode out. After you're done subscribing, make sure you scroll on down, hit that five star review. You know what's going to happen to them, Jim? The big bad booty daddy of bourbon is going to come find them. That's my wrestling alter ego there.

I'd like to see that costume. So we need to get a picture of you in the big bad booty daddy of bourbon costume. Everybody's a costume maker out there.

I actually have a luchador wrestling mask that my little brother got me because that's a thing down in Mexico. Everybody's like, are you a professional wrestler? No, I'm not. Got a little bit of that lineage in my heritage, but yeah. So that's what we got going on.

We do two shows a week, Jim, you want to tell them about those? Yeah, we do a show every Monday. It's called Craft Distillery Monday. It's about a 15 or 20 minute episode, not too long. We take a single expression, Um, like Mike said earlier in the show, it's either from a craft distillery or sometimes from a big distiller, but we'll take one expression. We'll explore it. We'll deep dive it. We'll tell you what we think about it and we'll give you our recommendation. You know, should you buy it? Should you leave it on the shelf? Should you just, uh, you know, go have a pour at your local bar? You know, whatever we feel about it, we'll let you know. It doesn't mean we're right all the time. We're just bourbon bullshitters, but we do have an opinion. We drink a lot of bourbons. Every Wednesday, we do a long version episode where we definitely dive deep. We get into a lot more detail. Sometimes we'll have a guest on, a master distiller, or a you know a musician or somebody else who's willing to sit down and drink bourbon with us for an hour and and we'll let you uh we'll let you explore kind of what they have going on or and sometimes it's just mike and i um chit chatting like we are today doing a retrospective on the past two and a half years of the bourbon road we'll do a one hour episode and uh and every week you can expect those two episodes the wednesday episode will get you to work and back The Monday episodes kind of something nice in the middle just to keep you going. So you don't get bored. If you are getting bored, I mean, we have 175 episodes in the past that explore every whiskey you could imagine. Take time, go back to number one, work your way up to today. Uh, you won't be disappointed.

Don't forget to check out our website, www.theburbanroad.com. You can find our blogs, our articles, our reviews on there. Most importantly is you can find our swag on there. You can find that bourbon bullshitter t-shirt. You're going to be wanting to wear that. We also have our newly released the bourbon road black t-shirt. You're going to rock that thing out. We have our Glen Caron's on there from Distillery Products. check those out or one of our caps on there, support us, buy our gear. We want to see you this summer in our gear at Distilleries.

Absolutely. Well, Mike, we want to hear what people have to say. We want to know what they think about the show. We also want to know who they think we should have on. If you've got a local distillery or local bourbon celebrity that you would like to have interviewed on the show, if you've got a bottle that you would like to have reviewed, make sure you let us know. You can always reach out to us. Probably the best way is on Instagram. You can reach me at jshannon63. I'm One Big Chief and we will see you down the bourbon road.

Bye!