184. Pappy Gate - Netflix's Heist - Bourbon King

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

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

Yeah, we're at our good buddy Rob Carter's house out here on this newly refurbished back porch.

Now, is this the first time we've recorded an episode at a roadies house? I think so. This is pretty positive. This is the first time we've been one outside, too. So out till two first today outside at a roadies house. Brand new outside cafe here you got here, Rob.

Welcome to the party barn.

And then we got another guy that's been on before. Big, big seven footer, Matt Simons.

Thank you all for having me again. And Rob, I got to say, man, this place is pretty cool. I mean, it's nothing like having a covered patio with TV. A little fire pit, cigar flowing, a little bourbon.

Yeah. I mean, it's a 90 degree day today, but under here with the fan going, it feels like mid to high seventies.

Not bad.

Pretty good, Rob.

Thank you.

You're going to put a bar here. We'll be coming over all the time.

Bar's next. It's all about friendship.

Well, I saw you put a privacy kind of fence around your hot tub.

You got to keep some of my friends at a distance.

Those are kind of friends you need, right? All right, Mike. So today we've got kind of a special show. We've got the four of us together to talk about a subject. Why don't you kind of give us a lead in there and tell everybody what's going on?

So everybody watches Netflix, right? Everybody likes to have Netflix and chill, as I like to call it. Is that what she calls it? That's what my wife calls it. Netflix and chill. But the show Heist on there has came out. And two of the episodes, they called it The Bourbon King, which was kind of offensive to me. But it was about the Pappy Heist at Buffalo Trace over in Frankfurt, Kentucky. And I thought we could sit down and discuss that while we're drinking some whiskey from two of the distilleries involved, because Buffalo Trace wasn't the only distillery involved, right? It was also Wild Turkey, which a lot of people didn't know. I don't think either four of us knew that it was Wild Turkey also.

Yeah, I think that's just something I recently learned, yeah. Yeah, which was a neat fact and stuff, and that was whole barrels of

of wild turkey. So what I brought on the show today was a bottle of Eagle rare, which is a 10 year, right? The stamp still on the back and a deal of Russell reserve 10 year. And I figured that would be right around that time. And those barrels, they got stolen. They'd be about 10 years old now.

Yeah, so it was 2013, right? Yeah, somewhere around there.

When it all started, right around 2013. Well, that's when the Pappygate investigation started, but I think he's been stealing whiskey for a long, long time.

People have been dipping into barrels for a while, haven't they?

Yeah, you don't get into the investigation mode until you've been taking the bourbon for a couple of years at least.

So I thought we'd discuss that on our four viewpoints, just kind of talk about that while we're sipping on Suburban. So everybody right now has some Eagle Rare Tenure in their glass. Let's sip on it and talk about it, Mike. Yeah, let's do it.

All right. Cheers, y'all. Cheers. Cheers. We also got some cigars going here to add to the ambiance. What you guys smoking on?

You know, I'm going to, I'm going to not lie and I'm going to be completely transparent, but I am smoking one of the best cheap cigars that I've found. I have smoked a lot of cheap cigars looking for like a three or $4 cigar that is worth a darn and I've never found one. until I was executive cigar in Simpsonville, Kentucky and they have one from the Quorum brand and Quorum is known as a cheap cigar and they have many that are no good, but they have one called the Havana and it is excellent. I bought a 20 pack of them for 60 bucks. So it's like $3 a cigar and it's a, it's a really good cigar. I wouldn't put it up there with, you know, the great cigars, a legal provider or whatever, you know, but it's for $3. It doesn't taste like they swept it off the floor and into a cigar and rolled it up. You know, it's not bad. It's got some earth tone to it. It's got a little spice. It's got some body. Um, and for the price, I like to smoke one cigar every day. Uh, if possible, I didn't smoke one on Sunday cause I smoked two on Saturday and I felt like crap the next day. Uh, but. Like that you can't smoke $10 cigars every day like that unless you got it like that, which is okay. That's cool. Uh, but I found these and so that's what I'm smoking tonight. Uh, out here on the new, we got to come up with a name for this. I know we call it the party barn, not quite party barn, but it's like, uh, the shed.

We're going to have a name, a naming party. Bring a bottle, submit a name. All right.

We've got a few listeners. I'm sure we'll appreciate that cigar review and we'll probably pop right out and try to find one here pretty soon. Rob, what are you smoking on?

I was doing a blueberry swisher suite that somebody dropped on me one day. I'm trying to recapture my youth over here and somebody gave me those and I'd hang it onto it and I forgot how good they were.

Hey, no, no shame. Your cigar, your way, right? Yeah. Hey, smoke it if you got it. Exactly.

I'm going to have some Boone's farm tickle pink here.

All right. So back to the Eagle rare.

Any comments? Well, this bottle has made a presence or two on the podcast. Um, so we know it's, it's a great bourbon, right? Some people say that, you know, you'll get a bottle every now and again. That's not all that great of Eagle rare, but to this date, I haven't had a bottle that's been bad.

I've had some that are exceptional. Oh yeah. But I've had, I don't think I've had a bad one.

No. Um, you know, I'm glad you framed it that way. Cause I was thinking about that as you were saying, and I was like, yeah, I think I've had one before that I thought, but, but I think it was because I've had many that have been exceptional and I'm like, Ooh, really good. And then I've had some that are like, Oh, you know, this is, it's not what I remember the last one being, but it not bad. I mean, and you know, Once again, there's that economy of scale, right? But no, I think Eagle Rare is for the price when you can find it. If you had a friend in from out of state or just a friend over and you had to buy a legal rare and you break it out, somebody's like, Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. It's really nice.

I always get a real detectable smoky flavor that I always recognize when I do the Eagle Rare.

You know how you identify an authority on Berman? They're the ones with the empty glass. He's got one.

He don't even have regular whiskey glasses, beer glasses. You're drinking out of a chalice. I think this one, it's long lasting. It's got that long finish on it. It's got that right amount of spice on the back end. I know Jim, you're just loving that, right? I do. And it's got that sweetness up for it that I love. That's why I think we just really dig these Eagle Rare bottles. They just hit the spot. They're the right age, 10 years. Here in Kentucky, I mean, $35.99, I think that's what this bottle I picked up for. Can you beat that for a 10-year bourbon?

You can still find it. You can still find picks of this bourbon when you go out and find them at restaurants. You can find them at package stores.

Yeah, I mean, you got one at Doc Crowe's. Both of us bought a bottle of that. We couldn't pass it up, right? I think it was like $50.

$50, which, you know, you're going to pay $10 to $15 over. on a pick bottle because it costs more for a package store or restaurant to put out a pick bottle.

On the Eagle Rare, on bourbon in general, if I said this guy's name, you both know what I'm talking about. He's a bourbon connoisseur critic guy that does things, writes things, attends things, speaks at things. People hire him to come talk about bourbon. And I was speaking to him off mic one day at an event for the Crohn's and Colitis Society downtown Louisville that I was doing the sound for. And he was telling me his tasting notes, you know, kind of just in general, it makes a good bourbon is what my question was. And he mentioned that long finish. He said, you know, if it has a long finish of some sort, he said, people like what they like. He said, but that long finish indicates a high quality. And he said, and I was asking him about 04 or 86, because I just think it's a solid bourbon for the price. He's like, hey, it is a solid bourbon for the price. But just notice that finish is not real long. It jumps off pretty quick. He said, now notice something like a, and I think we were talking about the wild turkey rare breed barrel proof or whatever. And he was like, notice how long that sits on your tongue and just hangs out. The Eagle Rear does that too.

Yeah, no doubt. A long finish is something that you're always looking for. You're especially looking for it when you have a good finish, a flavorful finish, one that is pleasing to you. When it's pleasing to you and it lasts long, That's a double header right there.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. $35 is not breaking the bank at all. Right. Um, and when you can get something like that, both of these bottles tonight are at that $35 range. So to me, you know, when I find those, those $35 bottles that are 10 years old, And that three that come to mind are these two bottles right here. And from another distillery would be the Henry McKenna tune here. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Good luck on finding that nowadays.

You know, sometimes I'm lucky man.

Hey, they had some here in town recently at the new place out the past, uh, Collins high school there here in Shelbyville, but yeah, he had two bottles sitting there. I pulled the trigger on one.

Yeah.

Good deal.

It's always, you know, it's always a good day when you can find a bottle of McKenna 10. I've still got, well, I had two bottles left out of my, I had bought like two cases of it right about the time at one world whiskey of the year. Uh, went out and bought two cases of it because I knew it was going to get harder to get in. It did.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

I used to buy it evergreen liquors in Louisville for 35 bucks all day, but two cases of it. And I've been sipping off those 4,000 series bottles now for.

Oh, what has it been five years now?

I got two, had two bottles after Andy came into town about a week or so ago. And I just, I saw the look on his face. I had to give him a bottle. So gave him a bottle. I got one left. That happens sometimes.

Yeah.

Well, I tell you what, I think I like the smokiness, the oakiness. It's definitely an oaky bourbon. It's got that 10-year palate to it. It's a little bit drying on the back, a little bit sweet up front. It's got that spice, a little bit of smoky, oaky kind of, it tastes like a Rick house a little bit, right? I love it. It's a great bourbon and that's why you can't find it. Well, it's also, you can't find it because it's made by Buffalo Trace, but it's also a very good bourbon, a 10 year bourbon for a good price.

Rob obviously loves it.

Pouring another beer. I don't know. Is that a beer or?

It's radio podcast. You can't see the glass, but it's like, uh, he's drinking out of what I would describe as what you, like a tulip almost that you would drink like a Belgian out of, or a, uh, something like that.

Those are eight ounce tulips, right?

Yeah. And he's got about a four ounce more in there.

That's a big, nice poor. So I guess to start our conversation. So it came out, it's a, heavily discussed episode on Netflix, right? There's two episodes and Toby, the guy that he didn't get caught still in the pappy. He got caught with five barrels of wild turkey from the Frankfurt police department while they were searching. They got somebody tipped him off and stuff, but it starts out where he started it. He started his 28 years at Buffalo Trace. And his first day they brought him in and said, Hey, try some of this. And he looked around. I thought it was a trick. Yeah. Are these guys tested me or not? You know, and he ends the show and says, you tell me if you didn't have two bottles of Pappy van Winkle sitting in front of them, it's your work. You wouldn't take them. And me and my wife looked at each other and said, Nope, sure wouldn't. I couldn't do it.

Ironically, Pam and I were staring at one another and said the same thing. It's like that, you know? I don't think so.

Can I get on the pulpit for a minute? And I won't go all the way out there on the pulpit, but let me say this. And we were talking about this off air here, off mic. There are universal truths, no matter what you believe in, what your beliefs are spiritually. But one of them is, you know, thou shalt not kill. I think we can all agree that killing bad and thou shalt not steal. You shouldn't steal something that's yours. And corporate theft sometimes takes on a, you know, white collar crime or stealing from the man takes on a different cloak sometimes. And I do get that. I don't want to say that, but. you don't steal and you just don't do that. And those things though, no matter what you believe, and I believe in more of an organized spiritual theme, I'm a Christian, right? But those things always come to light because they're wrong. And eventually someone grows a conscience And they, they tell someone tipped off the Frankfurt police department. Why? Cause they knew about it and they were laying there one night and they thought, you know what? This is wrong. This is not right. And he, you know, and it, and you can turn a blind eye to things that are fun and things that are, um, yeah, I don't know. And recreation, bourbon, beer, uh, gambling, Oh, you know, gosh, he's my bookie on the side here, you know, and I don't want to get into that whole can of words. But you know what I'm saying is that, you know, those things aren't sanctioned. And this was theft at the core of it. It was theft. It's stealing. And so that's my two cents on it. But

And to extrapolate a little further from what you're saying, you know, being the oldest guy here by a long shot, you know, we talked about earlier. I don't know. Isn't that a long shot? You're getting up there, Jim. You're a young looking dude, though. Got all that hair. What the hell? But, you know, a culture was set way back, man. I remember I had buddies way back that, you know, if you're in the bourbon industry, it flowed freely and it was sanctioned by the you know, by, by the industry and those in power. And, um, I don't know, you know, we, I guess we've all kind of cultures change. We've grown up a little bit and realize there's some perils involved with overindulgence, but, um, you know, it's kind of tough. You know, we're all kind of buddies here, you know, and can you imagine being in the middle of that? And, you know, these guys were all buddies and, you know, man, that rocked their world. And these, these are all good guys. At the core, they were all good guys and I could see me being good buddies with them.

It might not have bothered me so much. All four of us are sitting here and all four of us have did some kind of sin in our life. Yes, sir. In the dark, and we thought nobody would see. And I'm sure each one of us to the man would say, yeah, we did that. But at some point, we were like, can I get some forgiveness from this? And I wronged somebody, or I did this wrong, or did that wrong. My grandfather used to always say, what you do in the dark, come out in the light. And if you kind of live by that motto, But also he said, Hey, if you do something wrong, admit up to it and ask for forgiveness and learn from that. And what struck me wrong is with the very end of that whole documentary, it didn't sound like he, he was, he was upset that he got caught and placed a lot of blame on, uh, the sheriff himself and say it's political and it's, um, he's trying to make a name for himself. And, um, but at the end he still said, you know, you tell me if you didn't have two bottles set in front of you, you wouldn't take them.

I would hope that most people would answer probably not. They wouldn't do it. You know, I think most people wouldn't do it. Um, I think there's a certain amount of people that would, who thinks it harms nobody, you know, Buffalo Trace has all the money in the world. They're not going to miss a few bottles or whatever it is. But at the end of the day, yeah, it's wrong. It's wrong.

Well, you know, Johnny Cash, he got it one piece at a time and it didn't cost him a dime. You know, and you knew it was him when he came through your town. He's going to drive everybody wild, you know, ride around in style. You know, GM wouldn't miss just a little piece. Now we all talk, I get that, but you know, Listen, I think we all laid out four good perspectives on that. And Rob, I appreciate you saying that because you're right. Back in the seventies, eighties, when you couldn't get bourbon away, it was sanctioned at the distilleries. It was, and even, you know, my aunt works at a distillery and they don't steal, but, um, until the last five or 10 years when a larger national company or international company took them over, they, you know, when it come Christmas time, they'll hear, have a bottle, have a case, have a this, have a that, you know, especially stuff they didn't sell or, you know, whatever, you know, they would, they would give it out and, but, but that's fine. They, they gave it out. Right. You know, and, you know, Rob, when you, when you said that though, it takes me back to, I'm sure all those guys are good guys. Probably great guys play softball with, pitch some horseshoes with, hang out, drink some bourbon down at the lake. But at the end of the day, my mom said two things to me that just keep popping in my mind when you were talking there, birds of a feather flock together. And if all your buddies jump off the bridge and ask you to do it, are you going to do it too? Now, it depends on how high the bridge is and how deep the water is, maybe. Or how hot the day is. If it's a hot day, I might jump off the bridge. So there's no, listen, there is no right or wrong answer to this. There's some gray area here, big chief. I mean, there's some gray area on this. I think what happens is, is you get rolling on a heist like this. And even when you start getting investigated and you're like, they got nothing. They haven't even talked to me. I'm not, you know, and when I'll tell you this, where all of my sins, not all, but a lot of the sins I've done in my life has been, I've been desperate. And when you need money, and you don't know where the money's coming from and you're overextended and mama needs a new pair of shoes, you do dumb stuff sometimes. So there's some gray areas to this. I'm not going to give the guy a damn nation, but I'm also not going to give him a pass. I think it was a dumb decision. You know, they say he's not a bad guy. He made bad decisions. That's what bad guys do. They make bad decisions. And if he can humble himself and say, hey, I did some wrong here and own it.

He'll be all right. I don't know. I don't think he owned it. You know, how long has it been since he, he, he hasn't owned it yet. I don't think, you know, you don't go on a documentary and say, you know, what would you do? And, um, but see now you got me defending the guy because that's editing. He might've said that in the first sentence and then they threw it on the last sentence.

And that's what we don't know. Yeah, they finished the show with that, which, you know, we don't know what the, what the, what the editor did. Yeah.

The other thing is, is they made, uh, Pat is a Pat Tillman. Was that Melton, Pat Milton. They made the sheriff look like the bad guy. And I was like, man, this is making, you know, being law enforced myself for so many years, making the police officer look like the bad guy because he was doing his job and making his sheriff's department do their job and showing the public that they're doing their job.

But that's what's popular now, Mike, to make the police look bad. I mean, I don't, let's not get out there on. Oh, that's a different time. 2013. Yeah. But get, but they just published the documentary. See, we're talking about editing and putting the show together. Right. And there's no tin foil out here. So I can't make a hat, but you know, he did not get reelected. That's a whole other can of worms because society tells us that it's okay to steal from the man. It's okay to run a few bets on the side. Yeah, he probably didn't get reelected because people were like, oh, may dried up my peppy.

Yeah. I don't think as a general rule society makes it okay to steal from the man. I don't, I don't know that that's true. I, I think you can still have a sort of a moral fence that guide you. Right.

Yep.

I agree.

Yeah.

Well, I, that's what was my original point was. I think those things are innate. I feel like they are because you know, that's wrong. Cause like the guy said, he thought they were testing him. Why would he say that they thought they were, they were testing because he knew this is wrong. That's right. That's his knower. That's his knower telling him what he, what he should know.

Right? Yeah.

It's, it's wrong to drink on the job.

It's wrong to take from the, you know, you knew that now when I, one of the first distilleries I'd ever went to was heaven heal and the, uh, the tour guide there. I wish I had known this guy's name, but he, I'd say he was in the seventies at the, at the time. That's Ken. I think Ken, isn't it? I'm not sure what his name was. He was older and he, he was telling me he was like one of his first week on a job. He, he's 18 year old guy. It might've been him. Um, he said, you know, they said, do you want to get some whiskey out of this barrel boy? He said, yeah. Well, how do we get it out of there? And he said, well, you got your money in your pocket. He said he got paid back then in cash. And so he, he took out the only money he had was a hundred dollar bill and rolled it up, stuck it part way in the barrel and sucked out some bourbon. And he said it burnt so damn bad. Cause it's barrel proof, right? He blew that a hundred dollars back into the barrel and they were like, $100 gone, boy. So he had to go home and tell his dad. His dad said, you know, back then he said, he said, I have to go home and I give all my money to my parents. I lived at home still. And he said, I got home and my dad said, did you get paid today? And he said, I had to tell him that story. And my dad didn't drink. Man. Well, that time, you know, he probably scared death.

Oh, well, a hundred dollars back, you know, if he was 70 years old, let's say whenever, and he was, yeah, yeah. Back in that time, a hundred dollars is big money. That's the mortgage payment. Oh yeah.

But I got to thinking about that when I was watching that documentary of Dana, that's where he started that now where Toby, you know, maybe sipping the product on a deal. Hey, that's buying into your product. And maybe the distillery wasn't, um, Maybe they didn't care about that. And maybe they didn't care giving out a couple cases here and there when they're giving it, when they're saying, here, take this. Because I've lived by Anheuser-Busch and had neighbors that worked at Anheuser-Busch and they would, hey, you drink Budweiser? I'll get you a couple cases. I did get two cases every Friday when we leave work. They give them to us. They're not taking them, they're giving them to us. So maybe Buffalo Trades back then did give out some bourbon and say, here's some bourbon, and that was common practice in the deal. But at some point, there's a difference between your employer saying, here's some samples of our product, to backing your pickup up to the warehouse loading dock, and your buddy saying, let me load you up with a couple pallets of Eagle Rare. That's, you know, that's, that's brazen. Yeah.

As I, as I get deeper into this class of Eagle Rare, you know what I think of? I wish I'd known that guy back then. Now we did talk about that, right? Now here's the thing, some guy comes to me and says, hey, you want a bottle of Pappy for $400? If I'm into Pappy, which you all know I'm not, don't get me wrong, I'll try some of yours if you got it. Yeah, you know, hey, I got a couple bottles of Eagle Rare, you want some 20 bucks a piece? Yep. Can be four, you know, whatever. If it's, if it's selling below retail. Yeah. I got to ask some questions. Well, you know, and here's the thing though. I don't know if his grandma gave him some bottles and he don't drink.

That's true. So if somebody, somebody backs up to your house and says, Hey, I got up, I'll sell you a whole barrel of wild turkey.

Now I'm asking questions for $3,000.

Wild Turkey would probably, I don't know what a wild turkey barrel would go for. $16,000. Yeah, $10,000 to $15,000. $10,000 to $15,000. I went high, but yeah. He says, hey, take $3,000 for that whole barrel.

No, but see, I know the three tier distribution system and all that stuff too. I know that they're not selling barrels. when I was at that Crohn's and Colitis Association thing with the bourbon guy, they auctioned off a barrel of Knob Creek. Somebody bought it for $15,000 to benefit the charity. It was donated, but then they take that and then they bottle it. And then there was 183 bottles or whatever are then given to that person for their own, well, actually it's not even given to the person, it's given to a liquor store that then- They can go pick it up. They go pick it up. And then they do with it what they want, which I'm sure is put it back in other bourbon auctions and as a barrel pick and whatnot.

All right, Mike, we're coming up on the half. So, uh, why don't we take a short break here? And when we come back, we're going to try something from the other side of the highway, right?

Yeah. So on the other side of the highway 64, we're talking about it runs splits Kentucky down the middle, right? Um, splits Frankfurt down the middle. Yeah. Sort of kind of, sort of kinda. Um, we'll talk about the Russell reserve team here and we'll get deeper into this discussion, but listeners, Hey, While you're at it, make sure you hit that subscribe button. We want you to subscribe. We want to we want you to know that we have two shows a week. That way your app goes ahead and tells you, hey, these two jokers, they got another show. They might have some fine guests on like Rob Carter and Matt Simons. Then go ahead and scroll down and give us that five star review because my alter ego. This is a big, bad booty daddy of bourbon. We'll come find you with his bottle. We'll drink that bottle. You never can tell how that night will end, but it surely is not going to end right.

All right.

Well, we'll see you all after the break.

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I think it's five and six and it's called The Bourbon King.

The Bourbon King, part one and part two.

Let me tell you why that pissed me off so bad. Cause he's not The Bourbon King. Well, and they're selling episodes, man. You know, some things just irk you a little bit and that irks me. You know, I like, I don't consider myself Bert. Now we the king of Kentucky, that's a whole different thing. You know, I like some weeded bourbon.

Well, let me, let me ask you this. What would qualify someone to have the moniker the bourbon king?

So what came to my mind first off, Jimmy Russell.

Yeah. Yeah. Now Jimmy Russell is the bourbon king. Yeah, there you go.

He's no doubt the bourbon king. with that.

Or the guy that passed away a couple years ago from Four Roses. He's great. I mean, he's not what Jimmy Russ was, but he was a great distiller. Al Young?

No, the worthy of the moniker, the bourbon king. Al Young, yeah. Somebody that... it has had a lot of respect in the bourbon culture and, um, maybe has a, their name on a bottle. You know, that, that I'd put it to that.

What are we drinking now?

Well, we got Russell's reserve, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, 10 year old. Now this is one of my wife's favorite bourbons. She don't like a whole lot of them, but she's like, this is like drinking cherry juice. This is the 10 year old.

Well, I said to you when we reported here just off Mike, we were taking a short break. I love it. I think, you know, on the nose, is there better noses out there? Sure. But on the nose, you can tell this is going to be sweet. It's going to be good. It tastes like, it smells like something that you'd pour on pancakes. You know, it just got that. maple-y, oaky, just kind of sweet thing going on. And then it finishes well. It's a nice, good bourbon. I know that the white label they blend and then the maroon label is the single barrel or the barrel proof kind of thing. But for $35 and you can find it all day, every day, most anywhere, it's a good whiskey.

Well, let's back up for a minute. Anybody who has maybe listened to the first half of the episode yesterday on the way to work and today on the way to work, they're listening to part two, the second half of the episode. Maybe we need to kind of recap a little bit. So we're talking about the whole movie, The Heist. Actually, it's not a movie, two episodes and a show on Netflix. And in that show, it kind of surrounds the whole thing about Pappygate and the theft of bourbon that happened in the teens, 2013 through 2017, 2018 timeframe. And the two distilleries that were involved were Buffalo Trace and Wild Turkey. And the fellow who kind of, I wouldn't call him the star of the show. You know, when the police put those charts up on the wall, they got people's faces and then they got the guy at the top, the kingpin, right? This guy was the kingpin, right?

Mastermind.

Mastermind. What was his name?

Toby Kurtzinger.

Toby Kurtzinger. So this all happened in Frankfurt, Kentucky, uh, with just a few years back and Toby did serve just a little bit of time. Yeah. 30 day shock probation, shock probation. He's out now and he's doing documentaries.

Well, you know, so it's funny you mentioned that. So how did you get, and does the documentary make this connection? How did you get from, I work at Buffalo Trace and I'm taking product that I have access to, to taking product in from Wild Turkey. At some point, you had to jump the shark and be like, he's known as the guy that will move bourbon.

Yeah. And that was how they put it all together is another buddy said, Hey, I know somebody that'll get you some whole barrels. And he's like, well, I can sell that too. And next thing you know, he's getting barrels and they were spray painting over them, um, hide the stamps, hide the stamps and stuff. And you know, he had five of those barrels in his yard. Now, my thing is, Most criminals are dumb, straight out dumb. I don't care who the guy is and how good he is. You know that the cops are looking for who's stealing all that bourbon. You're maybe not stealing all that pappy, but you're stealing bourbon from that company, right? It, at some point I would have been like, Hmm, I need to get rid of all this shit away from my house. Yeah. Or buy a storage unit in your cousin's name.

put it in there.

Grandma, dad, grandma's name, whatever you got to use. Yeah. Stick it in some barn in the middle of a pasture somewhere, but not in the back of your house where people have, there's public access to it. Um, there was a whole bunch of stuff in that documentary. I was like, Not to put any blame on Buffalo Trace and Sazerac, right? But when Sazerac bought that company, their large enough company to where they were putting barcodes on their barrels. Well, what about putting some cameras up? And I'm sure every one of us watched it said the same thing. How much does a camera system cost?

Well, you guys, you guys talked a little bit about this in the first half. Rob, you kind of mentioned it. You know, it kind of has been. sort of accepted practice over the many years of burp and distilling that employees would take a little here and a little bit there. I think it's kind of- But taking a nip.

Right. You know what? And even today, if you're out there slaving in that hot Rick house and you're taking a little nip every now and then, you know, I really don't, I really personally, I don't have a problem with that.

Even so, to look at the company, Buffalo Trace or Sazerac, it's cost versus benefit. If they're losing 100 gallons a month of bourbon to people taking a nip, or whatever it is, compared to what it costs to hire one more security guard to prevent it, and just take my bourbon. You know, they're probably not going to invest the money because that bourbon is a raw material and a great deal of value to it. But you go in there today, though.

A different story. We got cameras everywhere.

Yeah. Well, and what we're talking about, too, is if this story would have came out and it had been like, well, back in 1997 or whatever, you know, I understand that. Because the cameras, to be honest with you, the quality of the image was so bad anyway that you'd never, like, this guy robbed a story or watch an episode of Cops, you know? I don't know who that is. No way I could tell. It's so granular. But in 2000, even in, well, 2008 is what I judge technology on because 2008 is when the iPhone came out. Actually, 07. And it had a high-def camera on a phone, right? And so, IP cameras were readily available to be easily put on to a network without sucking a bunch of bandwidth back then. So there's that.

I think the politics of it has caused them to have to do what they've done. You know, the fact that they can't go through another Papi Gate. They can't have this happen again to them. You know, they have to learn from their mistakes. They have to prevent this stuff from going on in the future. I think that actually at the end of the day, the amount of bourbon that was stolen, 176 bottles, guys. Let's face it. Drop in a barrel. That's nothing.

That's not worth the salary of one security guard. It's just not. It probably wasn't. You know, you think about a, no, I didn't think about this when I was watching the documentary, but at that around that same times, how many Rick houses burn up or collapsed and how much bourbon did they lose? And they have more pressing concerns than a pallet full of Pappy disappearing.

Well, here's another left field question for you guys, but how do we get the name Pappygate on this when Pappy was probably the least of what was taken?

That's what threw us all for a loop, don't you think? Yeah.

Well, I mean, I can answer it as well because it's the most, you know, glamorous due to allocation of bourbon, you know, and that's why it sells. sells looks, but it wasn't Pappygate. This was, you know, if anything, it was Wild Turkey Gate or Buffalo Trace Gate or whatever you want to call it.

The actual value, I mean, the actual street value or retail value of all the bourbon that was taken, Was what, 26,000 you said? Convicted upon, yeah. But in the media and on the show, they talk about being hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, those are secondary market prices, right?

Yeah, but also there's probably the tens of thousands of dollars of stuff that was never caught. Yeah, they only, you know, it's not what you show. It's what you can prove. Right. And so what was proved in a court of law was equal to a certain amount of dollars, but I guarantee you it was hundreds of thousand dollars of bourbon. I'm sure over time. Yeah.

He, he wasn't just a bourbon seller. He was a steroid seller, which is to me, whether you're selling a weed or you're selling steroids, um, you're a drug dealer. He was a, he's a drug dealer. No matter how you look at it, one causes cancer. One causes you to get the munchies and get fat. I mean, when it boils down to it.

I think what we're talking about in his ear, we're talking about crimes of opportunity, right? And it boils back to what I said in the first segment. When you're desperate and you need some extra cash, you're looking for those ways, those things that are easy to get and easy to move. And nobody's really gonna say much, because everybody at the gym, not everybody, but certain guys at the gym, they're doing the roids, they want them, they get them, they buy them from you, you make you $20, $30 here and there. Same with the bourbon. That doesn't excuse it, doesn't make it right. It just makes it what it is, which is a crime of opportunity.

Yeah. I mean, I keep going back to that, but you go back to your teaching as a young man or young woman and you think, man, can I get away with this? And a prime example in my life, I took my son, I think he was nine or 10 years old at the time. We went deer hunting in Texas. we're on a ranch and nobody's out there. I mean, there's, we're on thousands of acres out there. Nobody's around. I knew nobody was around, but I could see the property line right off in the distance. And I'm not hunting, but my son's hunting. I'd already killed a buck. You get one buck tag and he had his buck tag. I already filled mine and, He had this little bitty youth .243 rifle. I mean, it was tiny. It'd probably been hard for me. I could shoot it, but it had been hard to shoot it for me. But I was positive I could shoot it. We're hunting there and you know, he's nine or 10 year old boy. He's fidgeting all over the place. Be quiet, be quiet. There'll be a monster buck out. Sure enough, right up to the fence line. Here comes this, I wouldn't say as a world record, this is the biggest buck I'd ever seen. You know, and I'm like, Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. And I, and I was like, Hey, that deer crosses that fence. You, you blast him. So he never crossed the fence. A deer stayed on the other side of the fence. He walked back and forth, back and forth. And I was getting irritated. I was like, God dang, I'm calling him and he just is not coming. And I thought he probably had a doe up in the cedars up there. And he was just out munching on that grass on the edge of the fence. He'd dip his old nose down there and get the grass on the other side and come back up. And I'm like, oh man. And I said, as soon as he comes over and he's like, it's going to have to come way over. or I can't shoot it. He's like, I don't think I shoot that far. And I was like, so he finally does cross. He walks way down the fence, out of range for my son and jumps over the fence. And I was like, shoot him out. Shoot, shoot that deer. And he's like, I can't, I can't shoot that far. It's too far. So I was like, I'll tell you what, ain't nobody out here. I was like, I'll shoot it. I'll tell everybody you shot it. Now this is some good upbringing right here. He looked at me straight in the eye and he's like, but me and you will know. There you go. Oh, and I said, God dang, how can you not be a proud parent at that point and say, that's the difference between right and wrong because me and him will be, we would know that we did wrong, right?

You gave me chills when you said that. Hey, y'all would know. And it wasn't right.

Yeah. And I knew better. And I don't know if I was really testing that time or not. I've never killed a deer illegally. You wanted that deer bad. I was like, there's a monster. There's a monster. Oh, enough about you. Back to Kurt.

So back, actually back to the bourbon. Let's talk a little bit more about this, this Russell's here.

Rob, you got anything to say about it? Uh, you know what? I'm kind of like you guys. It's always been one of my favorites. Got a sweet flavor, always recognizable for me. And just, um, I don't know, just something, you know, when you talk about a 10 year old, uh, that always, that always, um, kind of piques my interest when you, when you're in that age range and, um, you know, you just, I don't know, you just think back what somebody had in their head 10 years ago, you know, and, uh, it's a good one to me. It just got great flavors.

I've got a buddy that just visited me from Eureka, California, which if you don't know where that is, it's on the very top of California up in Humboldt near Oregon. And, um, he's from here and he said, I, every now and then I asked him, Hey, let me send you some bourbon. He's like, yeah, don't send me anything. That's not 10 year. You know, he's like, if it's not 10 years, I could probably get it. And he said, I'd prefer 10 year single barrel. And you know, we trade some goods. He's got some things in California. He can get that. I can't get here and he'll send me to boot anyhow.

Yeah, we're a little familiar with Eureka. That's where our friends Mark and Sherry Carter are from. Carter Bourbon. Oh yeah. Old Carter. Now, I don't know if they still maintain their place out there in Eureka. They've got a place also at the north end of Napa Valley, and they've got one here in Louisville as well.

Interesting thing about Eureka, California is it never freezes, but it rarely gets above 75. Wow. They have like, it's kind of a rainy season in the winter where it's like 50 and rainy a lot. Uh, and then in the summer it's like 68 to 72 and just perfect. Yeah. And lush just up in Oregon.

I'm going to tell you what at nighttime. It was in the forties.

I mean, these people don't even, they don't have air conditioners in their homes.

He doesn't have an air conditioner in his home.

He's like, I don't need an air conditioner. It's rare days that it gets to 83. It's not humid. And we just open the windows. Exactly.

You got, you got breeze blowing through the fog and chilling things down.

And that was a problem for those Oregoners. What do you call them? Oregonians, Oregonians, Oregonians. Yeah, it got hot a couple of weeks ago. It was hot there. And nobody has air conditioners.

So you guys need to introduce me to these old Carter people. You know, that was the bourbon of choice on my 60th birthday. Oh, Rob Carter. When old Carter myself turned 60. And I sip on that occasionally. But of all my bourbons, I actually kind of savored that one.

Well, they're definitely friends of the show. We haven't had, we've had them on a couple of times, but we haven't had them on in probably a good year.

Yeah. With COVID, you know, they were very busy, but we probably could arrange a meeting. It just, you'd have to drive downtown with me. How about that?

I'd drive to Oregon, dude. I don't care.

They have a shop.

They have a shop right in downtown Louisville. So I have an apartment down there too. This show's taking a few left turns, and I know we try to stay on topic, but I've got a buddy who's a neighbor of mine. He's a 20-something guy, guitar player, kind of aloof. He doesn't really even drink that much. He'll drink, but he's not a drinker. And he's got a friend who is a couple of years older, whose wife makes $60,000 a year as some sort of a surgeon. No, not a year, a month. as some sort of a surgeon. And this guy collects O'Carter, to your point. And he bought like, when they released some batch, he bought like, he's got like 40% of the bottles. And anyhow, my buddy does, my neighbor does some work for him, just goes out and helps him do odd ends projects. And the guy gives him these bottles of bourbon, which has been a score for me because this guy doesn't drink that much, but he knows I like bourbon. So he comes over the other night, brings Will It Rye, But he has a bunch of O'Carter, O'Carter Rye. He has, he got the, what's the Woodford? That's the, they did a Sherry cask finish on or something, or some sort of a finish recently. He had a little pint of it. It had like a hand printed label on it that this guy gave him.

The little 375.

Yeah. So that's been a win for me, by the way, on the bourbon tip is that I've got a neighbor who doesn't drink that much, but has access. And now it's built this whole, he's had a whole cabinet in his parents' basement because he still lives there. He's that young of a twenties. That's nothing but like 150 and up bourbons.

He can come live with me if he wants.

You know what I'm glad about this Russell Reserve 10-year? I'm glad that this didn't get stolen. Yes. So guys like us can enjoy it at an honest price. I actually picked this up. It was $36.55, I think, at Paradise Spirits and Wine, our good buddy James over there. That's still an honest price for this, though. I didn't have to drive very far, did I?

Everything's an honest price there.

Yeah. For me, uh, not so much the cherries. Now your wife says cherry juice on it, but for me it's a little bit more, um, kind of toffee and maple syrup. Um, it's, it's, it is a sweet bourbon though. No doubt about it.

I like it. I like for bourbon to give me a little bit of nose finish, you know, where you kind of the, the, the, effervescent up in the nose. So it does give it just enough of that without being spicy, you know? But yeah, it's got that toffee maple syrup for me. It gives me a little bit of a nose finish when you drink it neat. When you put it on the rocks, I've noticed that that disappears down a little bit, but that happens for a lot of bourbons too.

So I got a question about this whole Netflix heist. Yeah. The bourbon king, right? Do you feel like this is going to make the bourbon boom even bigger, but like more people out there be like, damn, that bourbon is so good. They still on it. We might as well get some of it.

Publish the, uh, you know what they say. Politicians, man, since time immemorial, even bad publicity is good publicity.

EZE, the former member of NWA, rest in peace, bought a $10,000 a plate ticket to a Ronald Reagan fundraiser in Texas one time, and the media was there just swooping in. Why would EZE uh, buy a $10,000 a plate, you know, to go to Ronald Reagan thing. And he said, I just spayed it $10,000 for a million dollars worth of publicity. And so I don't think that you're, I can't see it being wrong. Um, it may even, it may even drive the price of Pappy up because people will say, well, I want to know about this Pappy gate, anything gate, right? You know what I'm saying? I want to know more about this gate stuff, right? Um, which is inconsequential to guys like us who live right here in the heart of bourbon country. And we won't go down that road about the hope happy thing, but you know, it's inconsequential to us, but that allocation strategy will continue to succeed because now it's out there in California and all over the world of, hey, this guy stole this stuff, it must be great.

You know, the, and I guess we should have probably said in the first five minutes of the show that this is a spoiler alert, right? Spoiler alert, we're going to talk all about the show right up until the last thing they say on the show. So we hope you still want to go out and watch it. I think it's a good show to watch. I get to, I think you get to see a lot of people have talked about it. You get to see what actually happened from the producers and the directors point of view. But the one thing I thought was just, well, there were two things I thought really captured my attention. One was, like you said, Mike, I had no idea wild turkey was involved. That's something that I just learned. I had no clue that all those barrels of wild turkey were probably the largest portion of the bourbon that was taken. And then the second thing is that our friend Toby, What was his last name again? Kurt Singer. Kurt Singer. Toby Kurt Singer. The, uh, the kingpin, the top of the pyramid guy who was involved in all of this did not actually steal the Pappy from Pappy gate. Yeah.

The guy that stole it all got immunity. Um, or he stole the lion's share of the Pappy van Winkle. Um, Anglin before he answered everything. So they said, Hey, we're going to give you immunity. You know, once it's on tape and they promise immunity to him, um, they couldn't prosecute him. Yeah. He's got free.

He's like, okay, now that I got immunity. Yeah. I took all whatever he started out saying. What I took one case. No, I took two. No, I took eight.

No, I took 17 cases. That kind of still boggled my mind, but I don't think that fellow is working for Buffalo trace anymore.

Let's get to a bigger issue real quick. I don't know how much time we got left here, but if there wasn't the allocation of Pappy and it was what it was, you know, we were talking about this weekend, my friend from Eureka recalled with me that in 1992, we were seniors in high school and our friend, Mr. Jeff had a party at his parents' house. He was a sophomore. He decided to have a big boy party, invite some seniors over. And we got in his dad's liquor cabinet. There was a bottle of Pappy 20 sitting right there. And we cashed it, it was open, the neck was drank out of it. And we cashed it, saw your dad, he'll never miss it, put iced tea in it, it's all good. And then we stumbled out of the party like Snoop Dogg and the Dray Day video into the bushes and disappeared into the night. That bottle probably cost Mr. Ron 50, 60 bucks or whatever that bourbon was in. So the bigger thing is, another issue to discuss is that allocation, the inflation of prices of this whiskey lead to these types of devious behaviors.

Well, I, it probably does. Um, because it wasn't just Kentucky news at the time. It was, it was world news. You know, they showed a documentary that is on, you know, good morning America. It was all over the place.

Well, nobody, they wouldn't have put it as just a story about somebody still in Oh, grand dad bottle and bond. No, it was, It's still at that time, it was still a great bottle of bourbon. It's a great bottle of bourbon.

Yeah, it's a great bottle of bourbon, no doubt. You know, there is a reason why everybody covets it. Not just because it's weeded bourbon, but it's because it's pappy, you know, and as people still love it. There's a reason why. Um, you know, people love, well, it's so hard to get. It's a good bourbon. Did this, will this drive the sell up, will drive the bourbon boom up? I totally believe it will. Um, it's, At one point it's bad for Kentucky, I think. Um, but at the same time, damn, is it going to be good for Kentucky to have that, um, in the national spotlight? And people will be like, Hey, what's this? Is wild turkey really that good? People would steal it. Yeah. I mean, we're right in the middle, middle of it.

So we think, you know, what effect could this have? But you know, It's still, bourbon is still a niche in the world of, of distilled spirits. Yeah. Of whiskey, of whiskey. Well, I mean, it's still a category is still a division of all the people that drink distilled spirits. Bourbon is a subsection of that. It's a subsection of a subsection. Yeah, exactly.

And if you, if you'll give yourself a little time and you, and you want to kind of learn the bourbon industry and the taste and the feel of it. You know, I mean, you think about drinking stuff straight, you know, here as an old guy, I kind of got tired of getting bloated by, you know, 72 ounces of beer and, you know, mixing all kinds of stuff with tequila and vodka to drink it down and to finally take a sip of bourbon and to experience a lot of different flavors and, man, just, you know, smells and that whole concept of bourbon and just sip on it. Look, I'll tell you, it's an acquired taste. You may not like it day one, but If you want to drink a little alcohol, have a little enjoyment and taste some unique flavors, give yourself some time. Go into it easily, sip on it, savor it, and learn to like it, so to speak. I mean, I don't know, it sounds stupid, but I mean, to me, bourbon is the diet drink of choice. All this stuff has the same number of calories in the 1.5 ounce pour, but most of them you're trying to put Coke and something else in it, something else in it to make it taste good.

Well, I thought you were going, Rob, was if you want to get into bourbon and hear the stories. I love that too. Of the industry.

Thank you, go there.

I mean, that's where I think the real charm of bourbon lies. And that's where, Chief, to answer your question, I think that's where this lies. It goes down into the lore of bourbon, which it started a whole sport, NASCAR. wheeling around moonshine. I mean, this, this liquor that we have in our glass right now has spawned an industry. It's built houses. It's built empires. It's ruined lives. It's, it's made lives. It has made good friendships, good friendships. It's created a whole sport. It's, I mean, you want to get into the, where I thought you were going Rob was if you want to get into the lower bourbon, This is just another brick in the wall, as Pink Floyd would say.

I agree with you, Rob, about, hey, I love some beer. Jim will tell you that. I can drink just a tiny bit of beer. I know there's one other man who might be able to sit with me and drink beer.

He might be sitting here with me probably. I went into the liquor store the other day and I wanted to meet some Modelo, right? I like Modelo every now and then. Good stuff. I went in to get me a case of Modelo and I walked into the cooler. And there's a big old case of Modela right there. I was like, that's, I'm going to grab it. So I grabbed it and went up. I paid for it. I got home. I opened it up. It was 12, 32 ounce bottles.

12, 32 ounce bottles.

There's the big ones. And I tell you what, I was very upset at first, but then I realized that I never drink just one beer. So it's perfect. It's like two 16 ounce pours. It's perfect.

So it worked out all right. Well, I think you hit the spot on the head. If you're looking to work out and not feel bloated, I'm a big dude. And if I drink a whole bunch of beer, I feel like I'm bloated. I don't feel good. Um, I don't know if I'd necessarily feel cause I like to drink wheat beer and it probably does hurt my joints a little bit. So I can sit down and drink some whiskey, uh, especially on a nice cool evening or something or in a winter time, uh, have one pour. I don't feel bad about it. Uh, it's, it's good to, to learn how to drink it and stuff and learn about this subset of, of the whiskey world and stuff. It's sweeter than scotch. It doesn't have that smoky taste all the time. You might have that smoke from the barrel itself, but most of the time it's going to have that little bit of sweetness to it, right, Jim? That's right.

You can throw it on a cube of ice and kind of chill it down. That's sacrilegious. No, I'm just teasing. Well, not so it is for me. I don't do it anymore. You should, you should do what you want.

I'll tell you, uh, I'll go there. Uh, um, enjoy it and eat many times, but I, if I'm having a cocktail, you know, and having a night, I don't mix it. And that's what y'all were getting to is that you don't have to mix it. There's enough flavor there. I'll throw it on a cube ice, get my little square cube out. I'll throw it on there and I'll let it, you know, I'll have a couple of sips off of it before it gets let it Then I let it open up and it's chilled and it's nice in the summer. Now in the winter, I find myself not drinking a lot of iced bourbon, mostly neat, in the fall and the winter and in the spring. But in the summer, yeah, I'll throw a cube in there.

Well, let's let everybody know that no Coca-Cola was harmed in the taping of this episode.

Absolutely not. In fact, we've got a lot more bourbons on the table than we talked about tonight.

Well, I wanted to make sure that we had some more wild turkey in some more Buffalo Trace products here. So I did bring it. I knew we had a couple other guests here from out of town, so I wanted to get a good taste of Kentucky.

So even though we're not going to taste them tonight, Mike, talk about the other two bottles that you brought

Well, there's four extra, four bottles, extra bottles. And we got a bottle of Elmer Teeley, right? Um, thank you. There's a hard to get bottle, right? Um, it's just the regular one hundred proof. And then I bought, brought a bottle of the 17 year old while Turkey bottled in bond. It's excellent by the way. Um, a great bourbon little oaky on that one because of the 17 years and stuff.

I apologize for that.

Uh, and then I brought some Woodford reserve batch proof 128.3. That was this year's release. That's my finisher. Oh man. That's a big boy bourbon right there. You can expect us to do a review on that shortly. Um, and then I was over Lexington today, Jim. And I mean, you had had some buzzer juice, um, recently and they had that toasted rye and I, you know, man, That toasted rye is pretty damn delicious, right? From Jason Brunner over at Bourbon's Bistro. So I saw a bottle of that and I just had to grab it. And I thought I'd bring that and share some of that tonight with one of our good friends, Matt and Rob here, our regular guest on the show, as we would call them now. They've made a couple of appearances on the show. So that's what we got lined up. Plus our Eagle Rare, plus our Russell's Rare. What a great discussion, guys. We appreciate you coming on here and talking about that Netflix heist documentary, The Bourbon King. I thought it was a great discussion. Me and Jim talked about it. I talked about you two guys. And just to kind of give everybody our viewpoint, we're all pretty much on the same point. Like I said, all four of us have committed sin in our lives. But we all know that, hey, You got to repent at some point.

Yeah. I won't be cast in the first stone. That's for sure. That's right.

You know, and you know, thank you for that. Saying that as a Christian, you know, gosh, your heart goes out to this whole episode of stuff. You know, I hate it for these guys that are even on this stupid episode, their wives, their wives, their families, the kids, the kids. They were in tears. They were in tears almost every time they were on the camera. I'll tell you, I, I, I really couldn't quit crying myself. You know, we're all fallible people and, you know, it just, uh, we could all get caught up in stuff. And, um, these are, these guys are great guys. You know, this group of guys, I mean, come on softball team, you know, resonates with me a little bit. And, um, Good bunch of guys just kind of got caught up in some stuff. You know, how about let's showing some grace and love and let's don't cast any stones. So it's, you know, it was a cool little show. Pappy's Pappy's, you know, real and now and you know what? We like bourbon. We like them. I'd love to sit down with any of those guys and talk about softball, not stupid shit. So, you know, we're all one time I, I,

cast a stone like that and five stones hit me in the head.

So I'll say this, you know what, as we've talked this through, I think I haven't come three, you know, one 80 is people always say three 60 mistakenly because three 60 to end up back where you started. But, but I've, I've come 90 on this and that Not all of this was bad for the bourbon industry and I don't want to see it happen again. I want to see people live fruitful lives where they don't have anything on their conscience that they have to deal with. Uh, but I don't think these guys were, uh, Capone. Yeah.

Well, at the end of the day, you know, they, they did some wrong. They got convicted or not, or whatever happened. They paid their price. That's all behind us now. They're all, they're all paid their, their dues to society on probation and whatnot. That's right. So the, you know, the kind of, it's all behind us now. It's all a different day. Um, we get to enjoy the story. We get to learn a little bit about what happened. It was kind of great today to sit down and talk about this and. kind of reflect on, you know, what if, or how if. You know, Rob, when you were talking about bourbon earlier, you're talking about it being a dinner drink, about it being the only thing you need is low calorie. You got me thinking about that beef commercial. You remember that beef commercial? Where's the beef beef? What's for dinner? What's for dinner? What's for dinner?

What's for dinner? It's what's for dinner.

What do you have for dinner tonight? Bourbon bourbon. Just bourbon. You know, at the end of the day, when I take everything out of this, right at the end of the day, bet you Sazerac and Buffalo Trace, if they were being honest, they made a shit ton of money off of this.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. This is, this is the key to their future.

Looking back eight years, you know, this is, Oh, it was back then it drove the bird boom. And I think they're, they're like, Oh yeah, we're going to make a lot more money. Yeah.

I mean, you know, what, once again, back to my easy thing, how many Republicans you think, uh, bought easy ease album the next day to see what it was about and then ripped their hair out when they heard it.

All right, Michael, where can people find us on the Internet? So you can find us on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, whatever.

I'll be tick tocking.

Oh, I don't know. We do have some tick tops coming from Sarah and Adam. So you'd be looking for those. They're going to they're going to help us out and make some. So look for those funny videos coming from them. I don't know if they're going to dress up as Big Chief and Jim. So yeah, that's where you can find us at. We also have a private Facebook group called the bourbon roadies on Facebook, 2200 and growing every day. We got some great people in there. We got master distillers. We got authors. We got chefs. We got the industry folks from the bourbon culture. You want to check that out? Join that group. We got three rules. You gotta be 21. You gotta love bourbon. Hell, who don't like bourbon? I mean, come on now. And we don't tolerate any what, Jim?

No rudeness allowed. We gotta be friends. Yeah. I like you. You like me. We talk about bourbon. We take pictures of it. We share bourbon. Most importantly, we share bourbon.

Yeah. So if you want to celebrate a birthday or retirement, um, you want to celebrate a death of a friend, meaning you're celebrating their life and you want to raise a glass to them and say, cheers to that life. We want you to be able to do that in there. If you want a bottle by a bottle of some bottom shelf bourbon and that's your first bourbon and you want to celebrate that post that picture up in there, nobody's going to beat you up for it.

I'm not going to beat you up because I love me some bottom shelf bourbon.

All day, every day. Who doesn't? You know, it's like my son, he loves some Blanton's. If he went to another group, people beat him up for loving Blanton's. But guess what? That's what he loves. He loves it. I love him for that, but he sticks to his guns on that. Um, so we want to raise the glass up to you, whatever you love. We're going to love it. We're going to put great comments on there. So check out that group. Please join the bourbon roadies. We do some great giveaways in there. We actually have, this is your last show.

This is the last chance. So if you're listening to this episode, I want you to perk up those ears and listen in because this is your last chance to get into our contest.

Right, Mike? Yeah. So we have a bourbon blending contest. You want to check out our episode on that. It'll be on our web page. The bourbon road dot com. Go to articles. You'll go down to the article that has a photo of the old hoot and the big chiefs blend on there. Go to the article. Read in there. You'll see the rules. You'll see my address, where to send it to. You got like three or four days left. Send us your blend. You can put two bourbons there. They got to be between 95 and 105. Send us your blend. We got some special guest judges that are going to come on with us.

Not just anybody.

These are real bourbon judges, right? Well, Ashley Barnes is one of them. She is the wicked witch of bourbon. She's that witchy woman that can just make some magic happen with bourbon.

She's saving distilleries every day by blending their bourbons and getting them out of trouble spots, right? Yeah.

I mean, how can you not love that and stuff? And she's a Kentuckian. from over in Harrisburg. We love her. She's been a guest on show many times. So seeing your stuff in for us, we got some great prizes for that winner. We have a barrel head that's gonna be engraved with the bourbon road on there. We're gonna put some other stuff on that barrel head. A bourbon bullshitter t-shirt. a bourbon road t-shirt, a bourbon Glencairn and a hat. Rob called me cheap the other day. So it will also throw in some of our bourbon blends, me and Jim's. And then for the best name out there, you got to name your bourbon. Name your bourbon. Um, we're going to throw in a glass and a bottle of each of our blends, a bottle of four ounce pour. Um, check that out. Make sure you send us in there, your blend. You got three to four days left. It's gotta be postmarked by the first. I'll probably even take this second, Jim, because I think Monday.

I mean, we're not hardliners. Yeah. If it's a day late, I think we'll be okay.

But, uh, understand that internally we're going to draw a line somewhere. I've only got three, three samples at my house right now. That's not good.

Well, it's a lot of fun to blend bourbon. I mean, it's a lot of fun. And I'll give you a few tips here, all right? You need to pick a base. You got to pick a base. Some base bourbon that sort of forms the... Wild turkey rare breed. There's a good one. Yeah, absolutely. Wild turkey rare breed. Pick a base. Pick something that's going to form that base. Then get something that takes it in a really crazy direction. Something that... Raw whiskey. But you could do a high rye bourbon that takes it in that direction. And then your third bourbon, and you can have more than three if you want, but if you take that third one, you should try to balance it out. You're probably looking for something that's a little sweeter, maybe a toasted or something else that's got a little more sweetness in it. And you get that nice balance, that core base, you get a little bit of age in there. be surprised at what you can do.

Yeah. And if you guys aren't doing infinity bottles, by the way, that's kind of the concept of the infinity bottle, right? They have these casks online. You can go, I went to Amazon, got one it's called truth serum. It looks great. And you know, I just pour the little ends of bottles in there and every now and then I'll, I'll take a pour of it and I'm like, Ooh, what do I have in here? Cause this is good. You know, and then every now and then I'll take a pour and I'm like, Oh, keep pouring, you know, um, But yeah, that's the same concept, right?

It's a little blend. And it's trial and error because good whiskey A plus good whiskey B doesn't make good whiskey C. Sometimes it makes bad whiskey C. So you got to try, it's trial and error. You got to do a few tastes and yeah, it's a lot of fun. I had a blast doing it. Mike's had a blast doing it. Um, I really think Rody should take a hold of this and run with it.

I do too. A lot of fun. Hey, you in the past, when I've been on here, have asked me what I'm promoting. Do you mind if I promote something real quick, something where it's dear and dear to both your hearts too? Let's do it. Here in Shelbyville on August the 21st, we're going to have the Shelbyville Jeep Invasion. I'm a Jeep guy as well as a bourbon guy. And we're going to have over a hundred modified crazy looking Jeeps. But we're also going to have a concert down at the barrel room here in Shelbyville with a national artist named Dusty Bow, who's from Louisville and spent about 14 years out in LA cutting his teeth with a couple of touring bands. And he's going to be playing for us at the barrel room that night from seven to 11 on August the 21st. Love to have any of the roadies come out and the barrel room is not only known for their beer, but they also are also known for their bourbon. They have a lot of good pours in there.

We can also go in a barrel room. and ask for the bourbon road flight. And that's a flight of bourbon that me and Jim have curated for them. It's what we love. So you go in there, ask for that bourbon road flight. You might even get a drink out of one of our glasses.

I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm coordinating this with the owner of the barrel room and I am going to offer you 10% off of that flight. If you mentioned the bourbon road podcast and say, I want the bourbon road flight. Uh, Fred's going to set you up with 10% off of that flight. I'll make sure that happens.

Uh, on the day of awesome. That's so awesome. And I guess the streets of Shelby will be lined with jeeps.

No, what we're going to do is we're going to meet down on the, uh, on the west end of town. The police are going to parade us all the way through town. It'll be a huge Jeep parade at 4 30 PM. Um, we'll be meeting in a private lot, uh, which is just down at the edge of downtown or down by third street. And then, uh, that goes on till about six 30 and we'll push everybody up to the barrel room for the music that starts at seven. Uh, so it'd be a big. huge downtown party like we do here. Fourth Fridays in Shelbyville, Kentucky are always big parties, but this one is a Saturday, August 21st. And Dusty Bow, you do not want to miss. If you like Americana, country, roots rock, just good sounding, you know, anything like that, you'll like Dusty Bow.

So if you have a Jeep.

yeah this is the place to be actually thank you for that if you have a jeep meet at the village plaza shopping center in shelbyville it's right on the main drag it's behind the dairy queen harbor freight tools right harbor freight tools between four and four thirty four thirty is when the parade starts And you can have any kind of stock Jeep you want. There will be plenty of modified, fun, big, big tires, but lifted Jeeps. But just come out there and meet people and have a good time. My club, the Christian Jeep Association is sponsoring this event. And we're looking forward to having hundreds of Jeeps and just people having a good time and enjoying spirits responsibly.

Well, remember that there's also some distilleries in Shellyville. So if you want to come to some distilleries beforehand, there's Jeff the Creed. distillery right on I-64. And then there's bullet bourbon. I mean, everybody loves some bullet bourbon, right?

Well, and there are a plethora now, and I don't use that term lightly of airbnbs and VRBOs and Shelbyville that are nice. I'm talking about Nice HTV nice, or you know, you can, there's some that are more, you know, a little bit more affordable, not that those are affordable. Uh, but yeah, HTV nice, uh, come down and make a weekend of it. Come down on Friday the 20th, join us all weekend, say to the 22nd and have a great party on Saturday and I'll get big chief and Jim out there and we'll do the bourbon road flight with you guys. 10% off at the barrel room.

I'll drink one with you. No doubt about it. All right, Michael, we do two shows a week. We do a long episode like today's extra long today. Actually, we really got into detail. We do a short episode on Mondays where we kind of spotlight a craft distillery. We look at a smaller brand, somebody who's trying to sort of step out of the box and do something a little bit different. We'd love to have you listen to both episodes every week. What should they do to make sure that they don't miss an episode?

Well, like I said before, you want to scroll on up, hit that subscribe button and scroll on down and hit that five star view. Like I said before, we don't want the big bad booty daddy of bourbon to come find you with his bottle. It'll be a very dark night. a dark night, indeed.

Are you going to put on lipstick like the Dark Knight?

I don't know about all that.

Well, we're always looking for great ideas. If you've got somebody you'd like to see on the show, if you're from small town USA and you've got a local distiller and you think their light needs to be shined a little bit, let Mike and I know about it. We'll reach out to them, we'll taste their bourbon, we'll have them on the show, we'll give them a shout out. We're always trying to lift up these small and emerging distilleries.

And if you know an Olympian, by the way, if anybody that's listening to this podcast knows an Olympian, email Hal and we'd like to get them on for an Olympic show, right?

That'd be great. Love to have Lee Kiefer on. Now she just won gold in fencing, right? Yeah. Pretty amazing. From Lexington.

From Lexington. So if you know Olympian, Send me email Mike at the Bourbon Road. We want to do this show like quickly. So as soon as you hear this, if you do know Olympian, we'll have to win a gold or a silver or bronze. If they competed in the Olympics, we want to know if they drink bourbon, we want to know them. So we have on a bourbon road and see how their journey was to the Olympics. I'm not talking about this year's Olympics. I'm talking about any Olympics. 1962, my brother Dave. So send me email. We want to know about that. So Jim, where can they find us at? So you can always reach us on Instagram.

I'm jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we will see you down the bourbon road.

Oh,