188. Bourbon On The Banks 2021

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.

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we are once again on the road, but this time we're in Frankfort, Kentucky, at the Capital City Museum, the newly renovated Capital City Museum. And we've got a couple of really special guests today.

Yeah, it was like my red pickup didn't even have to have directions to get here. It knew. I think it thought it was going to Buffalo Trace. But when I didn't go to Buffalo Trace, it got a little hiccup.

It wind a little bit as you pass by. Where are you going?

I'm not used to going this way, but we are downtown. And like you said, the Capital City Museum. And we got with us today, we got Diane Strong, Diane is the Festival Director for Bourbon on the Banks, and that's a big bourbon event that we've talked about in the past. Yeah, it's a big deal. It's on the 22nd and 23rd of October this year. I can't wait for it, Jim.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Now, I don't often look forward to cooler weather, but in this case, I think there's a good reason.

Yeah. And Diane brought with her Renee True. He's one of the board members for Bourbon on the Banks, but Another special thing he does, he was one of the founding members of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, and he brought some of their picks with him today. I'm pretty excited. You know, some of these picks are pretty special.

I love drinking picks, Mike. They're always they're always a little bit of a surprise in a bottle, right? Yeah.

And what we did is we chose two of them. And the first one we're going to start out with is one of their Buffalo Trace picks. And not a lot of people get to see these, right? Not a lot of people get to see these. Well, Diane and Renee, welcome to the Bourbon Road.

Thank you for having us.

Yeah, we're glad to be here.

Yeah, it's an exciting day. We get to sit in this beautiful museum. We get to drink some bourbon with some new friends. We get to talk about an event that's going to be pretty amazing, I think, this fall. But before we get to all that, what do you say we get to that first sip? Yeah, let's loosen up a little bit. All right. Renee, why don't you tell us a little bit about this bottle, since this came from one of your picks, right?

Sure. Jim, I wish I could say that I went on this pick. I don't get to go on all of them. You know, the bourbon distilleries, they are limiting capacity in a lot of cases when you can go. So we can only send like maybe six people. But the Buffalo Trace picks and specifically this Buffalo Trace bottle, That's there every day, but when you get a single barrel pick, it's special. And this one is special. It's very smooth, and it sells out with our members really quick. So, we get maybe 190 bottles, and two weeks in, it's gone.

Now, this is their rye bourbon mashbill. They're very famous for their weeded bourbon mashbills. This is actually their rye bourbon mashbill.

Well, good thing I just wrote a post about this today. So it's the number one mashbill from Buffalo Trays, right? And story goes, it's only got a 10 percent, 75 percent corn, 10 percent rye, 15 percent malted barley.

And I have to say that it's got a mellow nose on it. It's not too spicy. A little bit of caramel, a little bit of vanilla, a little bit of sweetness. What do you think?

Well, I'll tell you what, that had a little bit of, it's got a lot of aftertaste to it. Oh, you're already tasting it. Oh yeah. I'll be on the nose.

I definitely smelled the vanilla. I mean, it's, and the caramel, it's, I smell the vanilla first.

I think that the Buffalo Trace is known for being an easy drinking whiskey. I don't think it's overpowering in any way. It is their flagship, right, Mike?

Yeah, there's no doubt about it. In 1999 when they, Sazerac, bought it out and restored Buffalo's Trace, and this was going to be their release. Everybody got pretty excited about it and used to be able to find it by the cases around the world. But now, you know, you get outside of Kentucky, it's pretty hard to find. Such a beautiful bourbon. I did a review on this. And even on this one, I still get that warm and caramel and vanilla nose on it with just a hint of honeysuckle.

Yeah, it is a little floral. I have to agree with that.

Walking down that country road with this. And maybe that's that 15% malted barley that they're using, Jim.

It could be. I have tasted it since we talked about the nose, but this has also got a little bit of a mid-pallet bite to it. Not too much, but it's kind of well balanced. I like it. This is a good bottle.

Yes, it is. And as I said, our members love it. This is the second time we've been able to get a buffalo trace pick from the second barrel over a period of four years. And we wish we could get one every year.

I think that little bite you're talking about, that's that buffalo roaming around in the bottle. Would you agree with me, Diane?

I think you're right.

Spot on. Every now and then he hops off that label and takes a tour in the bottle, right?

Yeah, yeah. So let's get into Bourbon on the Banks. When was Bourbon on the Banks started?

Its very first year was just 2019. We started planning for 2020 and had to cancel because of the pandemic. So we had a great first year though. We had 40 distilleries present then and we've got at least 40 coming back again this year.

And why October?

Well, originally in 2019, it was in August. We got very fortunate that the weather was just perfect. It wasn't as hot as it should have been. But we chose October because it's going to be a little cooler and we were hoping it was going to give us a little bit more distance from the pandemic. That may or may not bite us this year. We'll just have to find out. But I think that October is, I think it's going to be a good month. It should be just cool enough so we can all relax and space out.

I think, you know, you must have been listening to me because me and Jim have been talking about bourbon festivals in August and September in Kentucky can be extremely hot. I mean, it can be almost 100 degrees and nobody wants to be walking around drinking whiskey on a hot summer day, you know, but give it October, you know, late October, that fall chilly day, get some fair food, a festival food, Jim. Yeah. Big old glass of whiskey on the banks of the Kentucky River. Probably smell some mash from Buffalo Trace.

Absolutely. Man, it rides up the river. Yeah.

This is an event that's not just, I mean, it's not just the event coordinators putting it on. This is kind of, I mean, you guys coordinate this, but the city's involved, big business, and Frankfurt's involved in this.

Absolutely. Our city has donated in kind, so they help us tremendously. We work with emergency management and the logistics, the little things like port-a-potties and all that good stuff. They're taking care of us and making sure that everything goes smoothly. So, and yeah, we've got Community Trust Bank is our main sponsor for this event. We've also got the Esprit Bank Urban Street on Broadway, which is Friday. We've also got the Goodwood Afterparty, which is after our main event on Saturday, hosted by Goodwood. So they've stepped up and they're hosting that. That's gonna be a good time. It's free for the community. So is the Urban Street on Broadway. That's completely free for the community on Friday.

So unlike some other bourbon events that limited their tickets, this is open to the public.

Bourbon Street on Broadway is free and open to the public, yes. It's not limited. The main event on the river, we don't have a max capacity at this point, but it is ticketed.

And how much is the ticket for that?

It's $65. $65. But there's going to be over 40 distilleries there and you get to sample their products. There'll be lots of food trucks and it's going to be well worth it. If you wanted to sample all of those distilleries, even in your lifetime, you'd have to dedicate quite a few weekends to it to make it to all of them.

Well, I tell you what, Mike and I went to a beer festival a few weeks back and we drink beer too. We don't just drink bourbon, but we went to a beer festival a few weeks back and they had 40 beers there and we couldn't do it. I mean, and those were just little pores too. So I don't see how you can get through 40 samples of urban.

Well, we discourage that. I don't think so. But you get to pick and choose.

Sure, sure, absolutely.

It would be hard to go to all of them, Jim, and still walk out. Unless they're serving in thimbles, right? Well, we're asking them to do quarter ounce pours. Yeah. And they may have more than one product there. So if you multiply that out, it would be quite a day. Right. Yeah, you can't make all 40.

It is from three to seven.

So you have, you can space it out quite a bit, but you're still going to that's still 40 distilleries times three products times a quarter pour. That's 30. That's more than a 750 ML bottle. So that's, that's why you don't want to do that. You do not want to definitely not not want to do that. That's your big chief. You can pack it away. There's no doubt.

We will have we will have Lyft and Uber there and some golf carts that can drive you back to your hotel, but still not the point of that.

That's not the point of the event. But so Frankfurt in general, you know, it's good. The streets can be packed with people here. Is this kind of an event that sort of spreads out and covers the downtown area?

Well, I think Friday is going to definitely be a little bit all over downtown. The Saturday event, the main event on the river, you know, that's we're going to have a lot of people and when they're done, they're going to roam through downtown to make it over to Goodwood. So, I mean, Saturday is pretty pumping anyway in Frankfurt.

Yeah, it is. It is. We got some great restaurants here, great little liquor store here too. And they got buffalo trays here. I mean, I would say that's one of the most famous distilleries in the world.

Absolutely.

Mike, I would say you could go down to that liquor store right now at Capital Cellars and you'll find somebody that came from the Buffalo Trace tour from Michigan or Wisconsin or Maryland or California. We meet somebody new every week that's traveling here from a great distance to go to Buffalo Trace and then they discover downtown Frankfurt.

Yeah, what a beautiful downtown. I mean, it's really set up nice here. I think it's going to be a spectacular event. Now, Renee, you're doing something else here that's special in the event, right?

Well, Friday night, we have a rare and collectible bourbon auction, so we've asked some of the distilleries that are participating in the Saturday event if they will participate by donating some items for the auction. And we're also opening it up to some local charities that have collected bottles, and we're going to sell them at our auction. for those charities. And so I've got a few of them, if you want to let me tell you about them. Like for instance, Town & Branch, we have one signed by Dr. Pierce Lines, which has passed away a few years ago. We have several donations from the master distiller, Bourbon Affair Releases. Have you all heard about that? Have, yes. Okay, we've got several of those bottles in this auction. Buffalo Trace, is our number one contributor to the auction. And we don't have their bottles yet for this auction. But in years past, we've always had a flight of the wellers. We've always had a pappy. We've always had a couple of the antique collection. And the last couple of years we've had, and I'm saying couple of years, you're thinking, well, I thought you've only had to event one year. So I'll explain that. We've had another event called Burbananza, which the Burbananza, the main attraction of that was the auction, and we are folding that event into Bourbon on the Bank. So this will be our fifth year. I don't know if we can count last year since we did our auction online last year. This will be our fifth year for the auction. We have a barrel pick experience with Buffalo Trace. Last year, we had an EH Taylor single barrel pick, and we did it by sealed bid again. It was the pandemic year. This year, we have another Buffalo Trace barrel pick that will be part of the auction.

And you're going to be that auctioneer though. You're going to be slinging those prices out.

I'm ready to rock and roll.

You must have a slick tongue.

And that's a separate event. It's also a ticketed event. Those are a hundred dollars per person. But we've got heavy hors d'oeuvres and you're not going to you're not going to walk away hungry or disappointed. It's quite the event and it's at our history museum here in Frankfurt downtown, just a stone's throw from the event that's going to be taking place at the same time. So when they walk out, they'll be tantalized by circus, fire and crazy performers along the street. It's going to be fun.

Renee, what are some of those charities that are going to be there too?

Well, some of the charities, the VFW Post 4075 here in Frankfurt. I know you guys, that's near and dear to your heart. Castle & Keys donated a couple of things. LifeHouse for Animals has donated some bottles, and then the rest of them are coming from the distilleries. Well, the barrel pick is going to benefit Yes Arts here in Frankfurt. Yes Arts is an organization dedicated to helping people that have addiction problems get involved with the arts and find ways to move forward in life.

So how many people attended the event? How many people were here?

In 2019, it was right around 1,500 people that attended the main event.

And what do you expect? Similar or more?

Well, in my experience with putting events on, they tend to double each time. Now, this is a strange year. So I'm planning between $2,000 and $3,000. That would be my guess.

There's a little pent-up demand. Yeah.

People are excited to get out. They're ready to go have a good time. And with this being outdoors, you know, We're hoping for higher numbers, for sure.

Well, listeners, did you hear that? What Diane said that all the roadies out there that are listening to this need to show up here in Frankfort, Kentucky.

That would be great.

I'll shake everyone in your hands.

So what's it take to put on an event like this? I mean, it's a pretty big deal, right? I mean, is this a full-time job for you?

It is, but I don't get paid. Yeah, volunteer.

It's all love, right?

It's a passion project. I absolutely love it and it is. It's a lot of work, but I really enjoy it and I'm super excited about it.

Do you start planning for next year right after?

Yeah. I mean, we, after 2019 got together and went over what went right and what went wrong and you learn from it, you take notes. Um, and, and then we start planning again right away, you know, making a timeline of, of what we need to do first. And we meet, we pretty much meet every month, even when we're not, you know, year round just to go over the plans.

And when you approach the distilleries the second time around, they are like, heck yeah, we're in again.

Yeah, a lot of them were ready, just ready to go. No, no problem.

That's a good deal for a distillery to get, you know, 1500 people sampling their brand and looking at their and, you know, meeting their people. What a great deal.

Absolutely.

What about music, Diane?

We've got musicians that are gonna be at the event. There were no amplified music. It's all non-amplified, everything from jazz bands to some bluegrass and just, it is kind of neat this year because instead of me having to reach out to everyone, I have people asking, is there a spot for me? Can I come here and do this? And it's, It's not begging people to come to my event. They've heard about the event. It was such a great experience, or they've heard so many good things that they want to come back and ask to be involved.

And most of those vendors, are they bourbon-related products?

Yeah, I mean, when I say vent, I mean, it's the distilleries are asking about, you know, joining. But we have just a handful of of merchandise vendors. This is not a craft fair. And that's not what I want it to be. But I did want to have some stuff available for people to take home if they really want to take something special home. So we've got some craft some guys that make some really cool stuff out of bourbon barrels. We've got a bourbon candle company. Of course, we've got some bourbon chocolates that'll be there. Just a handful of bourbon merchandise that I think people will like it.

Yeah, and Diane, just for those folks, and we don't really know who they are, but the ones that don't like bourbon or haven't tried bourbon, we do have a couple of wine vendors and a couple of beer vendors.

Yeah, we've got some local breweries that are going to come out and give some samples, and even Alite is going to be there giving some samples this year.

I like the male eight. Everybody likes that. Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Gina, Gina, she's the main sponsor for Kentucky.

I'm told it makes a good chaser.

That's absolutely. Well, Mike, I think this is probably a good place in any for us to take a short break. And, uh, and when we come back, we'll talk a little bit more about bourbon on the banks, the Frankfurt bourbon society and all the things going on in Frankfurt in the month of October.

All right, this is where we're back. We're still on the road here. We're at the Capital City Museum in Frankfort, Kentucky. And what we're talking about is Bourbon on the Banks, which is the 22nd and 23rd of October. It'll be nice and cool here in Kentucky. And you're going to want to come here because they have all kinds of great stuff planned. And in the middle of the break, we were talking about bands, Diane. Now, what bands are we going to have?

Well, we are going to have a little bit of everything. We've got five bands that are going to play along the river, stretch it out amongst the tastings. None of them will be amplified. We're going to have a Dixieland band, jazz, bluegrass.

I think we've got a blues band. Blues. And one very special surprise.

One very special surprise you're gonna have to come to find out. Exactly. It's gonna be good. Yeah, it'll be nice. We've got a great guy that gets all of our music and he's super excited about the lineup this year.

And Renee, why don't you take us through some of those distilleries that we're going to have here?

Sure, Mike. And so we have some of the bigger guys and we also have some craft distilleries and that's on purpose because we want people to experience something that they may not have an opportunity to have experienced before. So, we've got Blanton's is going to be here, Angel's Envy, Bardstown Bourbon Company, so those are some of the bigger ones. But then we have Billy Goat Strut, Bluegrass Distillers out of Lexington, Boone County, and if you haven't tasted Boone County's product before, it's pretty tasty. Yeah, we've had them on the show, haven't we? You've had them on the show. Excellent. Casey Jones, Ingram, out of far western Kentucky, agent of their product on the Mississippi River, and Kentucky Artisan Distillery, they're the ones that make the Jefferson's product. Two of your alls that we talked about, Jepta Creed and Bullitt will be here, Makers Mark, Um, MGP, y'all may have heard of them. Yeah. They're a little bitty distillery. They're a small one, small one.

And you're letting the little guys in here.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a small one in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. They just started putting something out on their own label a couple of years ago. Before that, they were just, you know, figuring out how to make it.

Well, now they have their own Kentucky distillery now, LuxRoe. So, I mean, yes, they're Kentucky now.

So, and in Rabbit Hole, our Louisville and Uncle Nearest out of Tennessee, some Tennessee whiskey, we're not going to be that much Kentucky leaning that we won't let a few Tennessee folks come and join us and experience some tastings with us. Absolutely.

And if a distillery still wants to get in on the game here, be part of this festival, who do they reach out to?

They can reach out to me, send an email to my email address, diannstrong at ymail.com, or they can reach out to bourbononthebanks at gmail.com. I will get all of those emails. I don't know if I want to give out my phone number.

No, it's fine. But you are telling everybody that there's more room here.

We can expand. That's the great thing about having an outdoor event along the river. It's a long river. It's a long park. I can keep adding more room. So we're not turning anyone away yet.

So it's just a stroll down the river, grab a bourbon sample, listen to a little bit of music, move a little bit further down the river and grab another bourbon sample and just sort of work your way through your favorite distilleries.

You've got, you've got from three to seven to take your time. You can take a break and get something to eat. We've got an amazing lineup of food trucks. I've got a gal that's acquiring just the most unique food samples that you can find or not samples or their food trucks. So you'll have to pay for them, but just a huge variety. It's a little bit of something from everything you can imagine.

And I'm guessing there'll be just a few of the Rebecca Ruth candies here.

Most likely.

It's possible we might have some of those bourbon balls.

Well, they're famous, all right. I mean, heck, who doesn't like those?

Absolutely.

Now, in the first half, we had a Buffalo Trace bourbon. It was a pick by the Frankfurt Bourbon Society. I must say that was very, very tasty. We definitely enjoyed that. Now, in this half, you've brought another bourbon for us to try. And this is also a pick by your group.

It also, yes, it's a Russell's Reserve 10-year. And I think we picked that in 2019. And let's see, grab that bottle. We brought several samples, but y'all are limited to two. I don't know, I'm not sure why, but. Well, we have to drive home.

Now, Wild Turkey makes Russell's Reserve and Wild Turkey is just a little bit more than a stone's throw from here, but what about? You can get there in 15 or 20 minutes. 15 or 20 minutes, so not too far. Right down the Kentucky River. Right down the Kentucky River, but kind of meanders a little bit. It's not a straight line, is it?

Well, no, it's not. But I'm glad you said something about the Kentucky River, because I know you talked about the things in Frankfurt. But to my knowledge, Frankfurt has the only Bourbon River tour. around. Really? And if they ever open up the lock between here, between Frankfurt and Anderson County, we'd be able to go all the way to Wild Turkey, but you're not able to do that right now. But you can start at Buffalo Trace and find the history of the bourbon distilleries that are no longer here in many cases. Buffalo Trace obviously is, but the other ones aren't. And so yeah, we have a history to her.

That's kind of a unique thing. So you've got the museum that we're at right now as well, right? This has kind of got a lot of bourbon history here as well.

It does. There's a bourbon exhibit here in the Capital City Museum in downtown Frankfurt.

And, you know, kind of talking about things you can do while you're here, what's the big pitch to tell everybody that Frankfurt's kind of the place you need to stay when you're coming to Bourbon on the Banks in October?

Well, a few years ago, we started a committee called Bourbon Strategies because Frankfurt had not really embraced its bourbon history in the fashion that maybe say Bardstown and Louisville, Kentucky have, and you've seen the success there. And so we've done that now. And, you know, we had a successful story that you may have heard before that, you know, there was run into folks downtown that said, Is there something else to do here besides bourbon? And there is, but that's a good thing because you can go into any store, any restaurant down here, and there's bourbon related swag and things that you can buy. And our restaurants and bars all have a pretty wide selection of bourbons to choose from.

So you've got plenty of hotel rooms. You've got plenty of bourbon suites here, right?

We have got a lot of Airbnbs here, and many of them are bourbon-themed. It's a great way to decorate. It looks good. So yeah, I mean, you can definitely embrace the bourbon when you're here.

in restaurants. So you talked about bourbon themed restaurants that embrace the bourbon, but you've got plenty of restaurants here. They're not just nationwide chains, right? Oh no.

I don't think we have any chains downtown anymore.

I don't think we have any chains downtown. We have a bourbon on the main restaurant. Goodwood has their bourbon that they've sourced from somewhere, but aged in their beer barrels. We have an Irish whiskey bar downtown called Mortimer Bibs. So that is, it's only been open, I don't know, three or four months. So there's plenty of, plenty of things to do downtown. What about Rick's White Light Diner? Are they still around? Yes, they are. And as you know, they were on, um, the, uh, diners and dives.

Yes.

Yeah. Kind of got a little bit of fame there for a while. Huh? I've eaten there a few times and I've always enjoyed it. Small place, like two or three tables, right?

Absolutely.

People want to get out of here, you know, for the day they've came here, they're going to do the festival. They don't want to come on Friday. You guys are just really a stone's throw from some neat little towns around Frankfurt too, right?

Right. I mean, we're close to Lexington. We're close to Louisville. You can even make it to Cincinnati. But really, for our event, we've got a lot of things going on right here in Frankfurt, including the Bourbon boat. The Bourbon tour is going to be going on basically every two hours throughout Friday and Saturday. The KSU boat will likely be taking some history tours as well. We're gonna have walking tours that are history Bourbon history walking tours and art tours We really want you to stay here for the Bourbon on the banks weekend for sure Definitely, but if you want to move here This is a great place to live too because we got a lot going on and we're easy to get other places that have a lot to offer to so we're centrally located and There's lots of jobs here, right?

Sir, there's jobs everywhere.

There's jobs everywhere, yeah.

Yes, lots of jobs, lots of opportunities.

But Diane, on that downtown Bourbon history walking tour, it's very possible that somebody might run into E.H. Taylor.

E.H. Taylor, yes.

It's very possible. He's just walking around here.

He does, and he gives a great tour. He's pretty amazing.

I think I'd like to take that tour.

Yes. And he plans to be doing some tours that weekend, so you can get signed up. We're going to have those tickets to those tours available on our website very soon. They're not there yet. We're getting the fine details out of the way. www.burbanonthebanks.org. That's your place to get for tickets.

We hope there's a hundred thousand people that come here and just swarm the Capitol.

Oh my word.

And let's make sure this is a big event listeners. Let's make sure that Diane and Renee, they get plenty of support here. It's still a small town feel here.

Oh yeah. Everybody knows everybody. And if they don't know you, they treat you like they know you, like your neighbor.

And just what a quaint little town it is, really. I don't think people could realize how how it looks when you drive it down into the river valley and you see the state capitol just kind of bursting out of the trees. It's all green and everything. It's just I think it's so quaint right on the river.

It's gorgeous. It's considered one of the most beautiful state capitals in the country. The building is. And of course, we're right on the Kentucky River goes right through the middle of our town.

Well, I know we've got a lot of distilleries that listen to us. We certainly have a lot of bourbon drinkers that listen to us. We've got our core group, the roadies. I would expect a good turnout from the roadies. We also got a lot of people who enjoy traveling and visiting bourbon country. And, you know, Frankfurt may have been on their list last year and they didn't get to come. This would be a great excuse to get away for a weekend and spend some time, a little bit cooler weather, in sort of the heart of Kentucky, right? This is the heart of Kentucky, isn't it? It's right in the heart.

You can hear it beating from here.

There's nothing wrong with this. This pick right here, I've drank several bottles of this, and I'm sure Jim has too. And some people don't even know that this is from Wild Turkey. Sometimes it shocks me that they don't know that. But Jimmy Russell, bless his heart, I think he's 86 or 87 now. He's been there forever. He is, when I think of Bourbon King, he's the Bourbon King right now. He would get that title. He's been there forever.

Sort of the patriarch, the granddad, the man in charge. They call him the master distiller's master distiller, right?

I think that would be accurate. And we were fortunate, and you may have noticed that I have his autograph on that bottle. So the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, when we did this, not necessarily that barrel pick, but another one, he came to one of our events and signed the bottles. And it was just, it's just awesome to have him show up.

I remember that. I've got a picture with him. Very proud.

That's a neat part of our community that people can get to meet Jimmy and even meet Eddie, his son, and they're both there working together and building that distillery. I mean, it was already famous, but I think they've really put it on the map as far as a place to visit and a tourist attraction to come in there. Whether you like Bourbon or you don't, you still want to go there and see that kind of cathedral of Bourbon. It's super beautiful. I think it's just a treasure to have on the Kentucky River there. Probably one of the most beautiful views on the river, too, there, I think. Besides here in the capital is right there at Wild Turkey overlooking the cliffs and stuff. Yeah, it's pretty.

The entire Kentucky River Valley is just gorgeous. And it's just kind of a little bit special here in Frankfurt, though, the way it winds around the city and cuts through the hills. It's just really, really something.

This this whiskey right here that we're drinking is bourbon is Spicy cherry juice. That's what I got out of it. Yeah

Yeah. I always get a, I always get a bit of toffee and a deep dark caramel out of it. It's a little floral sometimes, but it's got an overpowering oak. I think if I just get a lot of oak from it, you always tend to, Mike, you always tend to find those floral notes. You get those, those fruit notes, those floral notes really stand out to you. For me, it's a little bit more about the oak and the spice. And I'm pretty sure there's a Kentucky wildcat pinned up in that bottle was trying to tear a hole through my tongue right now.

Cause it's, it's got a little bit of spice to it.

I get a burn in the middle of my palate and on back down a little aftertaste to it. It's still burning a little bit. Not, not bad though. Not a good burn. It's a good burn.

Now what about you, Diane?

it's at the front of my palate so I don't know what you're thinking and then I kind of have had the burn in my nose it's not in my throat at all this is I think we might all be different we are we're all very different everybody gets what they get out of a bourbon and we all have our own taste buds our own palates and we and we kind of have our own memory center right we all have those memories from childhood of the foods we ate and the things that we relate to and we're tasting bourbon and that's why you get so many different tasting notes not because people don't know what they're doing, it's just because they taste what they can connect to. You connect with something. You connect with that flavor that you remember. I remember Necco candies when I was a kid, and I'm getting those, or whatever it is. And that's what we love about it.

I've had a prickly pear too before. Get a little bit of that prickly pear on this one.

There's a few people that have had that. I've actually got one in my yard and I've never eaten any of it yet.

I'm always telling him, I don't know if the prickly pear he has is big enough to eat them. And what I'm talking about, the fruit is a red pear and they got to be pretty good sizes. You can peel that. You take a knife and you scrape all the stickers off of it. And then you peel that back and inside there, as a beautiful fruit. And then you can make my grandmother made jelly out of those. Man, you talk about good.

It's interesting that you say that the taste of bourbon has your memory attached to it. I moved to Kentucky about 21 years ago, so I wasn't born into bourbon, and I originally didn't like it very much. But when we would have family come visit, we would take them to the distillery, because that's what you did. So I wouldn't see my family for years sometime, but when I did see them, we were tasting bourbon. And so every time I tasted bourbon, it was always a good warm memory of having family visit. And so I developed this love of bourbon now and I think that has a lot to do with it for sure.

It does. It does. It really, really does. You know, we'd like to give you guys an opportunity to tell people exactly how to reach out to you. You know, how to get a hold of you if they've got further questions, both for the Frank for Bourbon Society and for Bourbon on the Banks. Take a few minutes, tell people about your website, your email addresses, whatever it is that you want to get out there so that people got one last chance to write this down so that they can get their tickets for this coming fall.

Can I do a brief description of what Friday and Saturday looks like as well?

Let's do that.

OK. So Friday, we've got the main ticketed event at the History Center, which is the rare and collectible bourbon auction. That's $100 for a ticket, but you're going to rub elbows with master distillers. and sample some really great bourbons, you're going to have heavy hors d'oeuvres, you're not going to leave hungry, and you're going to have an opportunity to bid on around 30 at least rare collectible bourbons, including a barrel pick from Buffalo Trace. At the same time, well, from 6 until 1030, we've got Bourbon Street on Broadway. That's a free community event. We've got circus, we've got fire, we've got street performers, music. It's just nonstop. Eye Candy is what I like to call it. That's for everyone to come out and check it out. So it's a good reason to come to Frankfurt early, for sure. Then Saturday, that's our main event. Oh, wait, we've got a Jim Beam pub stroll going on on Friday as well during the same time. That's from 6 until 1030. We've got about eight restaurants slash bars that are going to serve some Jim Beam drinks, different mixes. You'll get some swag to take with you. You don't have to go in any order. You don't have to do all of them. It's kind of a free stroll there. But the main event is on Saturday. That's from three to seven. That's $65 a ticket. And you're going to get to try it. Well, we're going to have at least 40 distilleries present. You can sample some rare ones. You can sample some little guys, big guys. There'll be lots of food trucks there to try. After you're all done with that event, you can stroll on down to the Goodwood after party. It's just a couple of blocks away. And there's going to be more music, more food. more alcohol. So you're going to have a fun-filled weekend. We've got the Bourbon tours going on, Bourbon history tours on the boat, walking. It's nonstop. Anyway, if you want to come, you want to check us out, the website is www.bourbononthebanks.org. You can get your tickets there and learn more about the events. You can email us at bourbononthebanks.gmail.com. You can ask questions. You can inquire about if you're a distillery we take them all there. So that's how you get ahold of us.

Jim, I just want to add on the Friday night, the VIP tasting before the auction, we have committed Castle & Key, the owner, Will Arbin, one of the owners is going to be there. Bullitt's master distiller is going to be there. Four Roses master distiller, Brent Elliott is going to be there. Town and Branch master distiller is going to be there. Wilderness Trails, co-founder Shane Baker is going to be there. So we're working on a few others, but those are the ones that have been committed. And then you want me to tell you a little bit about the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, I guess. So the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, we've been around since 2017. Amazingly enough, we have members from as far away as North Carolina. They don't come to our events very often, but they want to be in on our barrel picks. So we are still accepting memberships. We have about two, I know how many members we have because I looked it up this morning, 245 members. We actually have more members in our Bourbon Society than Louisville's Bourbon Society, because I went to their meeting about three weeks ago with Diane, plugging bourbon on the banks. So if you are interested in learning about the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, go to frankfortbourbonsociety.com.

You know what I didn't mention is the fact that we're a nonprofit. And some of our proceeds will go to KSU, Kentucky State University. They have a distilling program. As well as some of it will go to DFI, Downtown Frankfurt, Inc. They're all about making Downtown Frankfurt awesome. And I forgot to mention that KSU Marching Band is going to be here Friday. They're gonna kick off the events at six o'clock. And if you've never seen KSU marching band. You are just missing out. They are just phenomenal. They were here in 2019 and it made the day so just unforgettable. So definitely you want to be here downtown Frankfurt at six o'clock because you don't want to miss that. We also give a little handout to them at the end of the event too, to the band. Well, I mean to the scholarships for the band.

That's awesome. Well, I'm going to be there.

Well, I think we're both going to be there.

Hopefully our podcast will be there. Absolutely.

Hopefully we'll have a booth there. Maybe we'll even be at the Ox and you never can tell where we'll show up at. Maybe you could rub elbows with old big chief and have a pour with us, have a pour with Jim. More than likely, Jim will drink some rye and I'll drink some wheat. That's right.

That's right. I'll drink a little bit of both. Why not? All right, Michael, where can people find us?

So you can find us on all social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Man, what else is there? That's where you can find us on all those. We also have a private Facebook group, 2200 strong and growing every day. It's called the Bourbon Roadies. You want to join that group. We have master distillers in there. We have world famous chefs, authors. Heck, world travelers. I don't know. We got all kinds of people in there. All from all walks of life. It doesn't matter. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Jimmy, like bourbon? I love bourbon. You like bourbon? I love it.

And you'd love bourbon. Yeah.

Yeah. And do you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any rudeness? That meaning that we like to lift everyone up. It's all about the celebration of bourbon and whiskey. So if somebody buys something from the bottom shelf and they are celebrating somebody's life that just passed away and they say, hey, cheers, we don't want to be beat up in there. So keep your comments to yourself. If you can't play nice, go find another bourbon group. There's plenty out there.

One strike, you're out, right, Mike? We want you in there. We want you to be around. We want to have a good time sharing stories and sharing pores with you, but we don't want to tear each other down. So if you're having trouble in another group, you just come see us. We'll make you feel it right at home. Mike, we also do two shows a week. Every Monday, we do a short episode. It's a review of a bourbon. We call our Craft Distillery Monday. Usually we focus on craft distilleries, try to shine the light on a small up-and-comer, somebody stepping out of the box. Every now and then though, we do get a big boy on there, right? We just had a big boy on.

Yeah, we did the Russell's Reserve 13-year-old.

So, you know, you never know what we're gonna have on Mondays. You make sure you wanna tune in then. Every Wednesday, we do kind of a deep dive, what we call a medium format or a long format episode, about an hour long, like today's show. We have guests on, we dive a little bit deeper into a topic, give you enough to get you to work and back on the car drive, help you if you're cutting the grass on the ride more, you got enough to get through the lawn before you run out of something to listen to. We do that every week. We'd love to hear what you think about the show and Mike, what do they do to tell us about that?

Well, first you want to go out there, hit that subscribe button on whatever app you're listening to us on. It'll tell you, hey, these two jokers are putting down a show again. So go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Then you want to scroll on down, hit that five star review for us. Leave us a review. It helps open those doors for us. It gets us into distilleries. It gets us these great guests like Diane and Renee on our show. We're bringing you good information about the bourbon culture. If you don't leave that five star review though, you're going to get a visit from the big bad booty daddy with his bottle of bourbon. My alter ego, I'm going to come drink that bourbon with you. It's going to be one mean night. So make sure you give us that five star review.

They don't want that.

So the other thing we want to do is we want you to check out our website. We'll put our reviews on there. And I write an article about every show. I guarantee you there will be an article this week about this show. I'll be talking about Bourbon on the banks and the greater Frankfurt area and what you can do here on your trip to Kentucky. So you want to check that article out, leave us comments on there. We would really appreciate it.

Absolutely. We want to know what you think about the show. Like Mike said, we'd love to see a review. You can always reach out to us on the website. You can always reach out to Mike and I on Instagram. You can find me at jshannon63. I'm one big chief and we will see you down the bourbon road.

so