186. Smoke Your Bourbon

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

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

Yeah, quite a meal. Well, you know, both of us like to smoke a little meat in our lives, right? That's right. We do. And lo and behold, here in Shelbyville, Kentucky, there are these two fine women making smoking chips here out of what else? Bourbon barrels. Kentucky bourbon barrels. Yeah. So today on the show, we got two guests. They have barrel proof bourbon barrel bark, smoke your bourbon, cast drank smoking chips. made from authentic Kentucky bourbon barrels. That's Kentucky proud right there, right? That's right. So we got Susan Jackson with us. We got Tracy Hunter with us to find Kentucky women. Southern Bells, I'd say.

Entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs. Welcome to the show, ladies.

Thank you. Thank you. We're happy to be here.

And we're going to drink some bourbon today. Are you guys happy to be doing that, too?

We'll see in a minute. Oh yeah.

So today's more than just a show for us, right? Cause today we're having a big meal that was cooked using their product.

Yeah. So, you know, I was kind of worried about it, having a pellet smoker and not knowing how to use these chips with a pellet smoker. Cause they don't have a line of pellets yet, but supposedly he's coming. But Susan said, Hey, just pour them on your diffuser plate. and it'll smoke. So as soon as I poured them on there, it started smoking even more than it regularly does, and it smokes good. But we're going to taste how these ribs are here in a little bit. So I cooked six racks of ribs with my special technique I have, you know.

And then for appetizers, we had some smoked queso and some smoked... Pecans. Candied pecans.

Bourbon candied pecans.

Yeah. So this is all about the smoke today. Smoking and bourbon too. We got some bourbon. We're going to drink some bourbon lo and behold. So the bourbons I picked out, Jim, is two Kentucky bourbons. One of them You can find it outside of Kentucky, but it's a hard thing to find outside of Kentucky. Uh, the first thing we're going to drink on the first half is JW Dant bottled in bond, 100 proof old school bourbon right here. Old school bourbon. That's right.

That's right. So this is a heaven hill product. Heaven Hill. Let's not confuse the two, right? It is a heaven hill product. It is a heaven hill product. JW Dant, um, is a historical brand. been around a lot of years, and was acquired by Heaven Hill at some point. And Heaven Hill produces this as a bottle and bond, four-year-old, 100-proof bourbon, quite tasty. Yeah.

Have you ladies ever had this before?

I have not. I don't think I have. You're doing an introductory.

So this is like a $12.99 bourbon on bottom shelf that most people overlook that they shouldn't. It's a solid good bourbon. I don't know why people overlook it probably because the price they just

Well, people, people, when they go bourbon shopping, they're looking up. They're not looking down.

Well, when you look down, you skip out on the good things in life.

All right, Mike. Well, ladies, I think we should get right to the bourbon here. Let's do it. So we're going to, we're going to nose it and talk a little bit about it. And then we're going to taste it, talk a little bit about it, and then we'll get to asking some questions. Yeah, it's just, it's just bourbon. It's just good solid bourbon. It's got the, the traditional notes, Mike, you know, the, the caramel and vanilla nose, a little bit of oak influence. doesn't have a youthful note to it at all.

I get that rich oaken on it. I actually get a little bit of sweet tarts on this. Do you? Or maybe even some Skittles.

You open that bag of Skittles.

I kind of like them Skittles.

Kids bourbon.

Yeah, well, all bourbons are kids bourbon because it all has that candy note. But I get that sweet smell from it. Maybe a little bit of honeysuckle there I'm getting, like on a back country road or something. Me and you were talking about honey tea earlier and another bourbon and I get a little bit of that honey tea with this. Um, so something great out of a four year old though.

Yeah. I mean, it's not heavily layered with a lot of different flavors, but it's got a few good notes to it. It's solid. Um, I'm ready to taste it. Obviously I like this bourbon cause you can see how much I've drank of it.

Cheers. Cheers. Ladies.

Cheers.

So who started the idea that let's chop up some bourbon barrels and smoke meat with them?

Actually, my husband, we have another company that we take bourbon barrel heads and bourbon barrel staves, and we personalize them for people. We have our own website, and we also have an Etsy site. And he already was a big green egg fanatic, so he loved smoking food in general. And several years ago, he said, Why couldn't I use these bourbon barrels in my big green egg? So he tried it and we've been using them ever since. And then about a year and a half ago, we were all sitting around talking about it again. The guys are nine to five-ers and then some. And we said, we'll do it. So we took over and started the company. So we're women owned and Kentucky proud.

Yeah, that's a big symbol to have on there, right? Is it a lot to get that Kentucky Proud symbol on there?

There are several different things that you have to stipulations and guidelines that you have to meet, but I'm not sure exactly what they were because I wasn't the one actually doing that.

But we felt very strong on getting that Kentucky Proud logo on our bag of chips and blocks. Super important.

So who's, you guys are like sitting out there with some axes, just chopping up chips. That's what I'm envisioning. Is that what you do, getting a suntan and chopping up chips?

Well, it's a little more complicated than that. But we do have some specialized equipment that we produce our product with. And we put a lot of time and thought into our bag. We have a high-end Kraft brown bag that's fully lined and has a zipper on top. It's very important to keep the bourbon moisture in the bag. That's something we take a lot of pride in. Our product is freshly dumped and it's highly saturated with the bourbon that helps add to the tremendous flavor in the smoking process.

And we do have our machinery. We've even adapted it since we started and we have more control over the size of the chips now. And so we try to keep those at a really good size so that it's not like a bag of lays where, you know, we love lays, but where there are a bunch of crumbs in the bottom, you know, we try to keep that, we try to keep that uniform.

Uniform size.

Yeah.

So when you get these barrels and you get these barrels from a number of places out there, distilleries, I assume directly from distilleries typically. Yes. You ever open them up and there's just a little bit of bourbon in there?

Oh yeah, we've opened them up and it's flowing out. Actually we had one recently, it was a hundred proof barrel of Woodford and just the spark from the saw opening up the barrel caused it to burst into flames. So they're really high proof in there.

I just, I'm just visiting you two. You started out with Axis chipping up these barrels. And then you were like, we're going to go up to Royal King here in Sheffield. We're going to get ourselves a wood chipper.

No, no, we, we did a lot of research before we, before we dove into equipment. And then we did a lot of research after we dove into equipment and bought new equipment.

Well, cause that's what a man would do, right? Man would start out with an axe and he'd be like, well, you know what? I can do this easier. I'm going to go to Tractor's Ply buy myself a wood chipper. Then that wouldn't be good enough. So we'd take another trip to Lowe's and we'd buy a bigger wood chipper.

We kind of did that, but not necessarily at tractor supply.

Bubba would just take his truck and jack it up off the ground so the rear tires could spin free. He'd duct tape butcher knives to it. But you've got some fancy equipment. That's what it's for. This equipment is meant to turn wood into equal size chunks.

Yes. I mean, not totally equal, but they're all similar. There's a range that we allow of size. And then we have other machinery that kind of sorts it so that anything that's not in that range that accidentally makes it through doesn't make it past that point.

They're fairly uniform that goes in the bags in size.

Well, that's important, I think, because people want that. I mean, I've bought hardwood chunks before for smoking, and sometimes you get them, they're as big as your fist, and sometimes they're as big as your thumbnail, and you're like, ugh. You know, I think the idea of having equal size, you know, chunk sizes is important.

Well, and we have, we also, speaking of chunks, we also do have what we call bourbon barrel blocks. So we don't just have the chips, we have the blocks. So if you wanted to do, um, if you had like a charcoal smoker, a regular Kamado style, anything, um, and you wanted to do a low and slow, then you can throw a few chunks in there too. And that smoke will last a little bit longer than, than a handful of chips.

I poured half the bag on mine.

But you didn't run out of smoke then?

No, it's never going to run out of smoke. But I tell you this, when I did open the bag up, Jim, man, it was almost like opening a bottle of bourbon. And it's definitely loaded down with bourbon on there. And as soon as I put it on the smoker, it was like I had a Rick house right next to my house because that, you know, that smoke has just opened it up. It smelled beautiful. I was like, man,

They're about 24% saturated in bourbon. Susan's favorite line is it blows your hair back when you open the bag and smell it.

Yes, we're actually coming up with some t-shirts right now that say smell this with our logo on there.

because that's what everybody says.

We say, smell this, but then when they do, they turn to the person next to them and say, hey, smell this. So it's kind of become a fun little tagline for us. And then we've got one social media influencer that loves our product that he's got an open fire grill called an art of flame, which is a super cool grill that has the griddle on the outside and open fire in the middle. And he just, he loves the chips. He just keeps throwing them on there. Cause he likes the way the smoke smells. You know, he's like, I don't know if it's doing anymore to the food because I've already gotten so much smoke on it, but I love the way it smells. So he just keeps throwing it in there. Kind of like seasoning, like your salt and pepper.

He just keeps sprinkling on, but it's chips.

Well, I liked it so much. I was out there. I just got buck naked out there beside my smoker and was waifing on one. My wife came out there, what are you doing? I'm so glad I didn't get here early. I was like, that smells good like bourbon and smoke.

New cologne.

Yeah, I did notice. Now, we saw you guys the other day out at the bullet event and you had a number of these bags out there. It was a hot day. It was kind of warm.

It's very warm.

You got like a little window on the front of every bag and they were all steamed up and they had condensation on them.

All bourbon.

All bourbon. That's all bourbon.

That's all bourbon. We add nothing to that. Every bit of that moisture that you saw in that window is from the wood, from the bourbon soaking into that wood during the aging process.

The part you didn't see was Jim took that bag behind your tent there and was trying to drink out of that bag.

We did have a guy who he said, do I need to soak the chips? And we're like, well, some people like to, some, you know, they've got a moisture content already, but you know, some people just have that mentality that they need to soak the chips. And so he, he poured water. just a little bit of water into the bag and he said that bag was so airtight that there's still water in it. So it does a really good job. We shopped and shopped and shopped for packaging and that bag does a really good job of containing all that alcohol and not letting it evaporate. It's a beautiful bag.

It looks great in gift baskets around the holidays or Father's Day, Christmas, all year round. If you want to give somebody a gift basket with bourbon and barbecue sauces and rubs and things like that, a lot of people use them in gift baskets for gifts.

You can buy them online like that at A Taste of Kentucky around Christmas. They put baskets together with it.

Okay, all right. So, let's talk a little bit more about this bourbon, ladies. So, we're having a J.W. Dant, bottled in Bond, Heaven Hill product. This is a 100-proof, four-year-old bonded whiskey. If people are coming to Kentucky, to visit the distilleries. They need to make sure that they leave here with a number of bottle-in-bottle whiskeys, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, we were actually over in Lexington at the distillery district over there. somebody ran across this knew who we were and we're talking about it. And he was like, what would you leave here with? I can't find none of those big bottles that everybody talks about. I was like, well, here's the ones I would listen. JW Dent was definitely one of those. I said, look on that bottom shelf down there. Get T.W. Samuels, get J.W. Dant, get J.T.S. Brown Bottled and Bond, get Early Times, get these bottles right here that are bottled and bond 40 years old. You're not going to go wrong. You're not going to be upset when you go back.

Get the Heaven Hill 6 year, get the, and that's not a bonded whiskey, but still darn fine whiskey.

Six years old for $12.99. I mean, yeah. That's not breaking the bank. His wife, she's like, slow down, slow down. You're going too fast for me. But I wanted to make sure they had the hint on this. Not a very sexy bottle, but like I said, you can see how much I like to drink this. It comes out all the time.

It's about empty.

Well, it's time for a new one.

And it doesn't burn you. It doesn't set you on fire, right?

It's a little bit spicy, but I taste mostly oak. The oak is strong for me.

Yeah. I think that this is a good value whiskey if you have a bourbon decanter at home. One where you just pour the bourbon in and it's always there for people when they come over. It's not a bad whiskey to put in your decanter.

I think that's a smart idea right there. I mean, especially for somebody's beat us up for saying something like that, Jim, to serve our guests bottom shelf whiskey. So that's how dare us. But Whenever you don't know if your guests are bourbon nerds like me and you drinking whiskey straight, they want to mix it with a Coke. Well, I don't want to pull off a $200 bottle of whiskey off the shelf and be like, here, pour this $200 bottle of whiskey and some of your Coke or ginger ale. I'm like, hey, here's a great mixer right here. I'm not breaking the bank. There's nothing shameful about that. That's just reality, right? You know, I got other bottles up there than you could drink anything in my house. But if you're going to mix it, Hey, here's a great whiskey right here. It's Hunter proof. It tastes good. It'll taste good with a Coke. It'll make that Coke zero tastes better. But yeah, that's well on a second half ladies, let's get into the future of your company and where we're headed down that bourbon road with you guys. And, uh, we'll drink a different whiskey on a second half.

Sounds good. Sounds very good.

All right.

Let's have some ribs. Yum.

You know you can't drink whiskey without glassware and Mike and I are extremely pleased to have a sponsor like Premium Bar Products. Premium Bar Products offers direct to consumer, the finest whiskey glasses, cocktail glasses, and bar tools with your own personal engraving. I mean, you can write anything you want on these glasses, anything from a company logo to a personal statement, and there are no minimum orders. Their direct consumer platform offers you the opportunity to purchase small quantities of your favorite glass shapes that enhance the pleasure of enjoyment and drinking a whiskey and make it all very positive. They offer the absolute finest trending and handmade glasses as well as a comprehensive range of styles and all of their items have been designed with purpose, practicality and longevity in mind. So if you're a bourbon or whiskey group and you need custom logos, you need to reach out to premium bar products. If you're an individual, you just want a few for your bar to impress your friends, to give out as gifts, you need to call Premium Bar Products. They need to be your one and only source for custom glassware. I can tell you right now, the Bourbon Road, that's who we use. Janie and Carson and the team there at Premium Bar Products will take care of you. They'll treat you like family and they'll take care of you with every order. All right, so we are back, back at Jephamton Farm, back from our break. Starving, we could smell the food, Mike. We're going to eat after this.

We are. We got all kinds of food here. I mean, it's a plethora of it.

Yeah. But to sort of recap the first half, we had J.W. Dant, Bottleman Bond Whiskey. We've got a couple of great ladies here, entrepreneurs. SmokeYourBurban.com, right? Right.

Barrel Proof is the name of the product, but SmokeYourBurban.com is the website.

And we're going to talk a little bit more about kind of what's going on in your future during this half. And we're going to drink another bourbon. What do we have for Mike?

We got early times bottled in bod. So big news about this was it was a Brown Foreman bourbon, right? And they sold a Sazerac. You know, these whiskey companies just keep buying each other up and buying each other's brands. And I'm not sure why that whole deal happened.

Not sure. I've always been a huge fan of early times, bottle and bond. It's kind of a darling. It was a darling of Brown Foreman. Um, it was something that, um, I mean, you can go into a bar and you can get a pour of early times, bottle and bond for about $4 typically. Yeah.

I mean, that's a good whiskey to get. It's still one of those things you could pour into a mixed drink too, and be fine with. Well, let's get straight to this whiskey right here. Let's see if we could make these ladies laugh just a little bit.

Well, we haven't done that enough on the break.

They're so serious.

We'll drink a little more. We'll laugh a little more.

I'll kind of guide you through this one a little bit. Now, you guys have been drinking bourbon for a number of years, but you're not what you would call bourbon connoisseurs, right?

I would say that is very fair. Yes.

Okay. Uh, but you do enjoy it. It is kind of your industry you're in and you have lots of opportunities to drink bourbon doing what you do now.

Yes.

So might as well do it well. Do you ever like drink some of the bourbon out of the barrels?

We haven't, we haven't yet, but we've been tempted several times that, you know, um, I think it's in the cards.

It's in the cars.

And I'm sure we sweat it out when we're working with our product. Yeah, because we don't just own the company. We honestly get in there and do the work. That's good. We're in there chipping, chopping blocks ourselves. We look like coal miners sometimes when we come out of there.

We got black on our face, black on our arms. We're bagging it up, boxing it up, putting it on the pallets. But hey, hands on.

Yeah, we're involved in every step of the process, really.

Okay. All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about this bourbon. So this is early times. This is what's in your glass. This is another bottle and bond whiskey. Do you ladies know what bottle and bond means? No. Okay. So we're not going to go through the whole thing, but bottle and bond is pretty much just a guarantee. It's kind of a guarantee that this stuff is going to be four years old, a hundred proof good whiskey. All right. And it was a national act that was passed back in the late 1800s. You ever heard of the word hot rot gut? No, no rocket that. Okay. Well back in the day, back in the. early days, there were a lot of underhanded things going on with whiskey. It wasn't always whiskey that you were getting in your glass. Sometimes you were getting some pretty weird stuff and would kill people sometimes. So there were laws enacted. First Consumer Protection Act in the United States. I think it was 1897. 1897. First Consumer Protection Act for food or beverages was to protect our whiskey from being adulterated. So anyway, this is a bottle and bond whiskey. You could pretty much guarantee that it's good stuff. That's the simple explanation. We have other shows that you're welcome to go back and listen to listeners if you want to find out more about the bottle and bond act and exactly what it means. This particular whiskey is a little bit more dark. Did you notice that?

I did.

This is kind of a, Deep copper, almost a chocolate color. And it kind of goes for me with that chocolate flavor a little bit.

Well, it's got that brown sugary molasses with it. You know, sorghum. It's heavier. Oh, definitely a little bit sweeter. That chocolatey like Jim was saying, you know, every once in a while I like just to come in here and get a big old bottle of chocolate syrup and drink on it.

Kind of reminds me a little bit of like chocolate, cocoa, a little bit of Cola. I don't know if you got Cola in it, but.

I'll tell you, again, the wood stands out to me. We talked a little bit while we were on break about things that bring back memories. And funny enough, when I drank this, when we came back on, it takes me back to the barn. My family's been in horses always. And that's what it reminded me of when I took a drink, kind of those feelings and smells from the barn. There you go.

There you go. Yeah. food and bourbon should do. They should sort of relate to memories, you know. Oh, that's good. That reminds me of something I did or something, you know, earlier in life.

To me, this one tastes like it might be good in like a hot cocoa.

I think it probably would be very good, like a bourbon cream.

We'll have you ladies over this winter.

Let's do that.

We've got a big old fireplace here. We'll put a fire on, have some hot cocoa, pour some bourbon in it.

roast some s'mores over the fire with our bourbon cocoa. That sounds amazing.

And our chips. Oh, we could smoke, yeah, smoke the bourbon in the hot cocoa.

There we go.

Speaking of smoking your bourbon, that's another thing that people are doing with the blocks that we have. They're turning them over on the charred side, lighting that, and then getting the smoke off of there and putting their glass over that, collecting some of that smoke and then making a drink in there.

So how hard is it to get one of your blocks burning by itself? I mean, just, you just flip it over. Do you use like a torch?

Right. Just, yeah, just a little hand lighter. Like you don't have to be, it doesn't have to be the propane torch torch, but just the little grill lighter torch.

And they'll actually start.

Yeah, it'll start to smoke. A flame, it'll catch flame and then it extinguishes and then the smoke comes off.

And then what do they do? They put their drink in there or whatever and they cover it with a...

They put the glass, empty glass, upside down, over the smoking chunk block and then collect the smoke and then they start pouring, turn the glass back over and pour everything in there. That smoke stays in there.

We're going to try that right after this. Smoked old fashioned.

Smoked whiskey sour.

Yeah. Well, that sounds pretty damn good right there. For me, it does. Yes. Let's talk about your past in bourbon. Do you remember your first bourbon, Susan?

I do. I was probably 22 or something like that at a horse show, actually. And it was wild turkey.

Yeah. I can relate. Tracy, what about, Tracy's like, yeah, I was like 13.

Not 13, but I probably was 18 or 19. And I do remember some university of Kentucky football games that included burping and some diet Coke that probably had melted with the ice and gotten lukewarm with maybe Jack Daniels, but it was still good.

Now you've got a bourbon sister, you said, or sorority sister that's pretty famous in the bourbon biz too, right?

I do. She's very famous. Peggy Ngo and I were AOPIs at the University of Kentucky. So I see her all the time on social media. She's doing very well in the bourbon industry.

Yeah, she's a good friend of ours. She's been on the show. Seems like every time we're out, we see her somewhere and she's bought us drinks.

She never let us pay the favor though. One night she actually brought back signed copies of her book for our wives. Yeah, that was nice.

That's cool. Well, she was very nice back then and very, still is very nice and looks the same as she did when she was in her twenties.

When I think a Southern charm, um, and a Southern lady, Peggy, no Stevens is it right there. She's just as a polite as could be. Yes, ma'am. No, no ma'am. God bless your heart.

I totally agree. And she, you're going to say me.

No, she was totally a Southern charm back then and a leader in our sorority and she's still a leader in the bourbon industry.

So where do we see the future of smoke your bourbon barrel proof? Where do we see that going in the future? We're going to see you guys like nationally branded and all over the world.

Yes, that's our goal. Right now, I think we're in 18 states. We're less than a year and a half old. And we're already in 18 states. I just had a request yesterday to ship to Denmark. So we're working that out. But definitely would love to be overseas, especially in Europe and in that area. That's a big item on the goals.

We got a friend, James, in Australia, and I will guarantee you he's going to want some of your chips because that's all that bad post is barbecue.

Yeah. You got the international shipping worked out?

We're working, well, yes, yes and no. We can ship international, but we're trying to get the cost down because we're trying to make it more cost effective for our customers. We've got people from so many countries that follow us and that are interested in the product. So we're trying to make it easier for them to get it. And they can buy our product on our website.

in addition to of course all of our retailers that sell our product. But it's smokeyourburban.com and the products sell for $18.95 and $17.95 per bag.

Yeah, I've been to a lot of places. I see your product everywhere.

Almost everywhere I go, right? I mean, Mike, it's pretty much everywhere. Well, if you're a distiller here in Kentucky, you see it. You need to pick this up, take it home with you, and try it. And I mean, everybody barbecues, right? Everybody's either got a grill, a smoker, and you can use it on a smoker, a grill, or a pellet smoker. Or a gas grill. I'm hoping to see you guys have some pellets. I'm praying what you do.

Hang in there. That's all I can say. Stay tuned. Yes.

Yeah. Cause when you, when you do your sorting of sizes, you must have some small stuff that gets kind of left over, right?

We have, we have all different kinds of stuff and we've got several skews in progress right now.

Okay.

So some, some fun stuff coming out.

Good deal. Well, I should be the tester for those pellets. Would you get them?

We'll keep that in mind.

You'll be top of the list. We need to try different grills, right? Not just the Yoder. We need to try the green mountain grill too, right?

Yeah, and you can eat it. Well, you've tried the big green egg because I brought food here.

Yeah, queso. Which was awesome.

I brought smoked queso and smoked bourbon candied pecans. Oh, those pecans. Yeah, and we've got some smoked steakhouse potatoes and a cast iron skillet coming up too.

Wow, we're eating right in this house tonight. Yeah, absolutely. Well, so where can we find you ladies on social media?

We are on Instagram at smoke your bourbon and then on Facebook right now at barrel proof hyphen smoke your bourbon and then a website as Tracy said, smoke your bourbon.com right now.

Most of your activity on Instagram? It is. It is.

We've got several social media influencers that we have just really become good friends with, honestly. We're going down in October and spending the night with one of them while we're in Florida and cooking with her. And she's a member of the Big Green Egg team and has some other affiliations too. But a lot of people were going to cook with somebody on the FOGO charcoal. He's also on Big Green Egg and on Art of Flame team. So we're having a lot of fun and really making some great new friends.

Is Big Mo using your chips yet?

We left him with Big Mo at Memphis in May and he seemed to really like him and us and we loved him. And I actually gave a bag to his whole team of the blocks and they were, they seemed pretty excited to get them. So we're waiting for some feedback on that.

So Susan, we've talked, right? And our listeners can expect a giveaway between the both of us, the podcast and Smoke Your Bourbon in the near future, right? So listeners pay very close attention to that Instagram post that we'll put up. There'll be certain rules you got to follow, but giveaways coming.

All right. And it's still, it's still smoking season. So it's always smoking season. That's true.

But I mean, if it's snowing, we're smoking.

Yeah.

Yeah. Put the gloves on, put the ear muffs on and we're smoking in the winter. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't do all that, Jim. I just put the Crocs on in my I don't know.

My smoker, I control it from my phone while I'm watching a ball game.

There you go. Well, we do have, even with Big Green Egg, which we have three of, we have something called an Egg Genius and you can control that from your phone too.

Well, this early times gym was just, is a great bourbon. If you see it on the shelf, people pick it up.

Yeah.

If you see it at a bar, grab a pour of it.

Yeah. I mean, you're not going to pay too much. That's for sure.

No, pork and Coke, heck, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, Tracy's over here. She doesn't drink two or three glasses of this. She's sitting sideways now.

I think Tracy liked, I think Tracy liked this one a little bit better than the JWD. She did.

I could tell. I know her and I can tell you she did.

Well, just remember, early times is, that's the blue label, by the way. Yeah. Blue, blue gray, kind of a blue gray label. Not the early times bourbon itself. This has got to be the bottled and bond. Yeah. The bottled and bond.

Make sure you get the bottled and bond. Thank you so much for coming over here and sharing your product with us and our listeners. And we just wish you so much success. Kentucky proud product here. These, these smoking chips. What a great. Reuse of a barrel probably it's after it's been used once or twice. It's getting reused. So You know great way to save the environment, right?

Yeah, as soon as it's after it's been used once actually, so Then we then we get it

It's awesome. Well, Mike, where can people find us? So you can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. It's, you know, YouTube, Twitter, whatever else is out there. You're going to find us on there at the Bourbon Road. We also have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. We're 2200 people strong. Got to answer three questions to get in there. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Ladies, do you like bourbon?

We like bourbon. We love bourbon.

And they're roadies too, right?

Yes, we're roadies.

Awesome. You also have to agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any rudeness in there. So if we have some of our friends like Susan and Tracy in there and they want to drink a bottom shelf or if they want to drink a $300 bottle, whatever they're drinking, We want them to enjoy it and be proud of that and be able to display their product and their barbecue in there and photos in there and not get beat up by other people. So we don't just don't tolerate any of that. There's other groups for that.

That's right. One strike, you're out. But we hope you don't get that strike. We want you to stick around and have a good time with us. Oh yeah.

Yep.

All right, so in addition to that, we just want to let you know we do two shows a week. Every Monday, we do a craft distillery review. This last week, we actually did a big boy. We did a wild turkey bourbon. But you know what? Sometimes it's just a craft distillery that's just trying to get a little recognition out there. And we'll try their bourbon. We'll tell you what we think about it. On Wednesdays, every week, we do a deep dive, kind of like today, have guests on the show, go into a little more detail, spend 45 minutes to an hour. kind of give you something to listen to driving to and from work, right?

Yeah, 30 minute drive into work, 30 minute drive home. That's what the average American drives into work or their commute. It'll get you there. We also have a website we want you to check out, the bourbonroad.com. We have our articles on there and we have our reviews on there. The article is not just about the show, kind of what I'm thinking about that day, some insight of the Bourbon Trail. I'll probably write about barbecue this time though. So I might even throw in a couple of recipes in there of big cheese. And I might write a little bit about the ladies and stuff in Southern Charm and what it means to me.

That'll get you some readers.

Yes. So go on there, check that out. Also, our swag is on there. We have our bourbon bullshitter t-shirt. If that is too controversial for you, we got our bourbon road shirt too. That's right. We do have our Bourbon Road shirt.

We've got our Bourbon Road hat. We've got our Bourbon Road Glencairns and more stuff coming. So we'd love to have you pop into our shop and pick something out. It helps the show. It definitely helps us. All right, Mike, helps us to get out and do a little traveling. Get sewn down that Bourbon Road. That's right. Well, you know, we always want to hear what you think about the show. If you've got a feedback for us, we'd love to hear about it. Mike, what can people do to tell us what they think about The Bourbon Road?

Well, first you need to scroll on up and hit that subscribe button. That way you know we got those two shows. Your phone goes ding, and you know, you'll know that we're about to do another show. But then you want to scroll on down and hit that five star review. Leave us a nice review. Otherwise, you know who's going to show up at your house, right? The big bad booty daddy of bourbon is going to show up with his bottle of bourbon and it's going to be one hell of a night. So leave us that five star review because you don't want me showing up.

All right. Well, you know, we do want to hear from you. Reach out to us. You can reach out to us on the website. You can send us an email. Mike at the bourbonroad.com, Jim at the bourbonroad.com. Probably the best way is on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we'll see you down the bourbon road.

Bye!