190. Broken Barrel Whiskey Company

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.

And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we are in Studio 1A. Or as I call it, Big Jim's Bar Lounge.

in the basement, got the bar going, got a special guy in the house.

Heck yeah, all the way from California. Like, I think he brought the heat from California with him.

I know he brought a trunk of whiskey. He did.

He opened up that trunk and it was like, no. So we got Seth, the quadruple threat from Broken Barrel. He brought a bunch of his whiskey with us. We're going to try it today. Seth, welcome to the Bourbon Road. Thank you guys for having me.

Welcome to the show. It is nice to get you out of that heat because I know you've been, it's been sweltering out there. Yeah.

Well, the car, the AC cut out in the car about an hour under the drive. So Six hours later, I'm very much enjoying the AC down here. So that's great. Well, we certainly thank you for trudging across the state.

Come to see us here in Simpsonville, Kentucky.

Yeah, we did feed you a little bit, though. Oh, you guys. Thank you again for that. No problem. Appreciate it.

So we've got a couple of your whiskies we're going to talk about on this show. And Mike and I like to kind of get straight to the whiskey. So before we start the interview process, we'd like to go straight to that first whiskey. Yeah, let's do it. What do you have in the first class for us?

We are drinking aptly named for where I'm from and where the big part of our whiskey, which is the barrels, where the barrels are from. We have our California oak Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey that is distilled in Owensboro, Kentucky. What we do with every one of our whiskies is we take barrels, break them down with literally sledgehammers, axes. You'll see tons of videos on this online on our Instagram page and our website. And we take those broken barrels and we put them into the whiskey. So wood in the whiskey, not whiskey in the wood. And we say that we make that distinction because it's a very different process and it actually has led to some of the naming and some of the stories behind the brand that have gotten us to sort of where we are today. So this California oak is a Cabernet, Central Coast Cabernet, California wine finished bourbon that also has a little bit of French oak as well. So we take the French oak staves and the Cabernet staves and we actually put the ratio of the different oaks on the bottle. We call that our oak bill. So every bottle will tell you what the mash bill is. And this one that you're about to drink is 70% corn, 21% rye, 9% malted barley. Again, it is distilled, aged, the whole deal in Owensboro. And then it is dumped. And that's when we come in and do our thing, which is the smashing, the breaking, the staves, the finishing, the kind of like second little age add-on. And then we go ahead and we do that for a period of time. It's, it's worked, it's worked out nicely. Uh, this, this one here, uh, is a gold medal winning, uh, whiskey at 44% 88 proof.

I'm getting a little bit of tobacco on this one. Interesting.

It does have a nice sweet nose on it.

Yeah. Like that sweet tobacco you would get in, like when tobacco was hanging in a barn. You remember those days? Yeah.

I mean, it's not red man. This is, this is like a barn tobacco. I agree. Yeah. If you walk into a barn now, it hadn't been hanging there long.

It had to be, you know, just within the last 30 days, but in the barn, that's about what you're looking at.

That's nice though. I've always loved that smell.

Maybe a little bit of cherry on that, that little bit of dark fruit.

Yeah. Floral fruity, sweet on the nose. I'm ready to taste it. Cheers. Cheers guys.

That's all they're drinking away.

Yeah, I'm chugging away. Uh, I like the finish on this one. It's my first sip, so I'm really gonna go back for that second sip before I really get too technical on the tasting notes, but.

Yeah, so 21% rye. You can call that a high rye. High rye bourbon, yeah. It's got a little bit of pop rocks going on there, Mike. Kind of sizzles a little bit coming across the mid-tip palate.

You know, the Pop Rocks is an excellent descriptor.

Yeah. Have you had it before?

Yeah. I remember Pop Rocks very well when I was a kid.

Yeah. Yeah, I remember the Pop Rocks. They're hard to find now, I'll tell you that. I wonder if they still make those. Oh, they do. We found some for a photo.

But it has that sweetness, but also that tingle on the tongue. It does. It doesn't burn, but it's tingling, it's dancing, it's doing things. And then you've got What I like about this one too is that sort of sweeter dry, sorry, sweet finish, but the middle of it, it's a little drier. It is. From the beginning of it, you really get those sort of, your mouth reacts as though it's drinking a wine almost, one of those dry little cabernets.

Yeah, when I first nose this, it was a little sweet and a little aromatic. I was thinking, okay, this one's going to be a little bit of a sweet, kind of a Swedish bourbon. And then it hits the front of your palate. You get a little bit of that. But then when it hits the mid, you get that a little bit of spice and sizzle to it and a little bit of dryness. Not overly dry, just a little bit, kind of. you're thinking maybe dry red wine, you know, a little bit.

I think this would pair good. This is a good whiskey to drink right before an Italian meal right here. Cause you get that wine dryness, just a little bit of sweetness with it.

And then right before you're eating that Italian meal, it's a bit of an, uh, an acidity to it and like a tannin, um, element, tannic element. Vinius would be the word I think I was looking for.

So what component of your maturation process do you think contributes to that? Pretty much the wine part of the barrel?

Yeah. So the French oak is meant to still retain some of that woody Flavor, you know, a lot of wines are typically put into French oak barrels So we wanted to keep that element true in the same way that wines were made. We wanted to have that French oak influence coupled with And it's actually a lot of French oaks now coming out bourbon finishing French oak. It's becoming more popular I mean, yeah, just this week. I was drinking Charter oak French oak.

Okay.

Yeah had some of that out in Owensboro and that was really, really good. And I was like, you know what? There should be more bourbons in front choke. It's quite tasty. It does something to it where it really gives it that softer, kind of smooth wood flavor. It's not as abrasive as that charred American oak, that level four char, that real carbon. It's not like that. It's a little more nuanced. It's a little more refined and it really softens out the whiskey, in my opinion. And so you'll see on several oak bills we've released, including we've done peach brandy, we've done port, we've done... Well, I think those are the other two that we've used the French oak on, as well as some of the other whiskeys we're gonna try tonight, which include our small batch and our rye whiskey. They also use French oak.

Okay. Let's get into the start of Broken Barrel. Take us to that very beginning where you guys like laid your roots down.

Yeah. Uh, we, We're not a bourbon company at first. We actually started in vodka and then moved on to whiskey in 2017. We put out 500 cases, which is about 10 barrels. And we sold out immediately on those first 10 barrels. And then we grew the business by adding a rye whiskey and a Cast Strength bourbon in 2018. And then in 2019, we launched the first time as Broken Barrel. So prior to that, everything was under one, you know, you see a lot of distilleries that launch a gin and a vodka and a rum and a whiskey and a, you know, an Amaro or Absinthe or something, but all under one name. And then there are other distilleries that have, you know, their whiskey brand is a whiskey brand and their vodka brands got a whole different name and look and bottle. And if you saw them on the shelf, you'd never know they were related. And we originally started in that first camp of everything under one label. So our parent company, my company is called Infused Spirits Group, and we do the infused spirits, vodkas, the infused bitters, and then we were doing the infused whiskeys. You know, ultimately, This process was born out of the idea that we were going to infuse the whiskey with oak. As finishing became more popular and as we thought about who we were and who we wanted to become and who we were looking to be as a brand, as a company, as a producer. We really started to divide the whiskey out and we had some pretty compelling conversations with some industry veterans and said, hey, your whiskey brand is what you're doing on its own with the hammers and stuff. That's a brand. That is his own brand. You're crippling it by having it under the same name as your vodkas. I mean, your vodkas are this healthy, natural, Whole Foods-y kind of thing. You got this really aggressive hammers and axes and you got a whiskey brand here. Separate it out. You've got two things going on. You can't apply the same brand to two very different things. You don't see Nike making pillows. If they want to make pillows, it's a different brand. That's not Nike. Ultimately, we chose the name Broken Barrel. We always were broken. It was Infused Spirits Broken Barrel Bourbon. We took the infuse off. We called it Broken Barrel. So in 2019, we did the single oak series where we explored just one very specific oak. And we also did our first ever blend. So we were blending wheat and single malt. We were blending corn whiskey from Indiana with corn whiskey from Kentucky. I just went crazy. I just did whatever the hell I could think of and launched it, won some awards, got 95 points on one of those. We did Mizunara from Japan. It was just crazy, crazy times. I just I tried to take over the world. I was just like trying to do this crazy thing and just whatever I could think of, I was just going for it. And then last thing, you know, we moved production out of our vodka facility and we went full Kentucky, you know, a grain of glass. We have amazing partners out in Owensboro. And, you know, we'll talk about this, I guess. for a bit today, but then we really went all in on the broken barrel. Now we've got a whole new look and feel to the brand that I'm excited to tell you guys and talk to you guys about. And you guys got to see the bottles tonight. So you're actually one of the first. Yeah, we're pretty excited about that. Pretty much. Yeah, first.

So I'm intrigued by this breaking of the barrels. I've been to your website. I've seen the videos of, tell me a little bit about this. I mean, do you have like a team of barrel breaking people?

I think my title on the bottle, it says Chief Barrel Breaker.

Is there something to breaking a barrel versus cutting it up with a saw?

Truth be told, the barrel breaking is certainly, for the people listening to this podcast, they're probably wiser whiskey drinkers than the average person who would just easily assume that's how we do it every day. I actually just broke a barrel yesterday. It is back breaking work. I'm a little sore today. It's a whole thing. Now, it's much easier to just take a small hammer and a hoop driver and or even a like a small crowbar or something like that and just jimmy off the top two rings and then the bottom two rings and you flip it over and you can you can take the thing apart like an onion without breaking a single piece of wood oh okay you can take it apart really easily yeah uh so it doesn't have to be this aggressive you know, smashing thing, but we do prefer the smashing if there's some cameras around. We like to smash it as aggressively as possible. fun, but it's obviously easier to move and transport. So the bulk of the barrels are broken very cleanly and very methodically so that we can get every last piece. We're not cleaning up little chips and shards off the ground because the smashing creates a mess.

You know, us old guys, we probably do it a totally different way. We take our tractor with a front-end loader, smash it, and then pick it up. And that way, we don't have to do a whole lot.

Yeah. Sweeping up all the little shards after is like painting the ass. So yeah, the breaking of the barrel is certainly a fun thing to do. And ultimately, the point of it the science of it really is surface area. You have the back, the sides, the staves are providing more contact of oak to whiskey than just filling another barrel.

And the, and the sides and the back of the staves have not, have not been introduced to whiskey before. So they're, they're still different flavors coming off of that. Right. So they still got a lot of the wood sugars in them that never got dissolved. They've got a lot of, uh,

They have the atmosphere, they have the environment around them. The name for that is really seasoned oak. The outside of every barrel is a seasoned piece of wood. It's been exposed to element, it has different bacteria, it has different attributes to it that are going to bring different flavors out in the whiskey as it sits there and the whiskey kind of eats away. It's not the same process as being in a barrel where you're talking about the breathability of it and expansion and contraction and that stuff. you're in a tank now. The whiskey is in a tank and the heat of the environment is going to certainly speed up the flavors being extracted from the oak. But it's that surface area that piece is that the important piece there is the surface area and how much whiskey is touching how much wood.

So I mean, when you're, when you're ordering barrels new from a cupridge, uh, premium barrels are always coming in, having air dried for a number of years to make them that, that exposure to the sun and the outside air and the moisture and the humidity, all that stuff is good for the wood. And it actually helps it to be a better, better barrel, better barrel. Yeah.

Generally, we don't order too many new barrels. We are typically breaking down barrels that have previous contents, be it whiskey, be it like ex bourbon barrel, or ex rye barrel, or ex port barrel. So there is certainly, for us, we are sourcing out all kinds of exciting used barrels. The new barrels that we do end up using, they are from Independence Dave, and those are the barrels that the Owensboro Distillery uses to age the whiskey. The bourbon you're drinking right now is a straight bourbon that spent a minimum of two years in charred, new white oak.

Well, my glass is empty, Jim. I don't know. You guys are slow tonight. I've just got my new glass here. You're doing all the talking, Mike. I know. I know you're just over there talking away. I'm like, God dang.

Final thoughts on the California?

I think that was phenomenal and stuff. I really liked it. Like I said, I think that'd be a perfect before dinner whiskey. You know, we kind of break it down like that, right? We got a before dinner, during dinner, and after dinner.

And we talk about seasons too sometimes, right? Yeah.

That's a, it is actually that the 88 proof would be a, still a good, um, late summer, early fall or late spring where it's not too warm outside still, you know, um, mid season sipper. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you completely.

It's not too heavy. It's a little refreshing. You get a little bit of that pop rocks going on. It kind of refreshes you a little bit. Yeah, I love the finish on it. I think it's a little bit longer than I expected. I kind of thought when I first tasted it, this won't have a long finish, but it's got a medium finish.

Yeah, so Seth, what's up next for us? What's in the second glass? Because I'm ready to drink some more whiskey.

So we've got the small batch yellow label. This is our 95 proof bourbon, straight bourbon. Same Nashville. So here's the fun part. You just drank the straight Kentucky bourbon 70 21 9. This is the same exact Kentucky bourbon 70-21-9. The only thing that's changed is the proof. We've gone up a little bit from 88 now at 95 and the oak bill. But you'll immediately notice this is a different whiskey. This is not the same animal. And that just goes to show you, more than anything, what the oak does, how important the oak bill is, why it matters. On our homepage, we talk about oak contributing 80% of the flavor of whiskey. It's thyme, it's oak, that's what it is, you know?

I get a little bit of peach syrup on this one right here.

Peach syrup?

Oh my goodness. That is so different on the nose.

You know that syrup you get out of some canned peaches?

That's a stone fruit nose. It's very stone fruit. Yeah. Much more than yesterday. I almost want to tell you guys that I was drinking this yesterday and the day before off the line and out of the actual tank too. It is evolving. It is changing as it settles in the glass, in the bottle. It is really mellowing and evolving and just only because I've been drinking this consistently for three or four days in a row, which I don't always do with our whiskies. But when you're in town for production and you're doing that kind of stuff, you get to try it more consistently and it it's getting better and it's mellowing and it's really balancing out. The nose is the best I've smelled yet on this. It really has changed dramatically in just the last couple of days.

You trying to find that peach in that glass?

You know, the rise there on the, on the, on the body. Oh, it is. Yeah. The ride may not have been on the nose, but it's there in the, it's there in the glass.

Yeah. The nose was, I mean, totally different than the, than the previous bottle. I think for me, it was kind of surprising and a little bit delicate.

There are some familiar flavors now coming through that rye grain is really carrying the, the, the whiskey here in a way that I don't think it was in the last one.

That's warm. Super warm on the tongue. Almost a, a white pepper, Jim. Yeah. Just not overly spicy. Just kind of slowly warms that tongue up a little bit.

And so, in your opinion, Seth, I mean, this increased spiciness that we're getting on our palate right now, it's not necessarily due to the increased proof. This is more to do with the finishing process.

Well, the oak bill here, and this is the difference, and this is where some of those stone fruit syrupy notes come from. This is 20% sherry cask. 40% ex bourbon, 40% French. So twice as much French oak as the prior bottle. And that's where you're going to get, you know, the Pop Rocks thing is gone. There's no Pop Rocks here. When you go to 40% French oak, you really balance out. That smoothness I was talking about in the last one, it's brought to the forefront here. It's kind of in the background. Now it's really, and I hate the word smooth, but it's really mellowed out is how I'll phrase it. You have the double oak thing going with that second bourbon barrel addition, 40% ex bourbon barrel. So you got the outsides, the insides of a nice well-aged bourbon barrel. And then you just, you got to throw some sweetness back at it with that sherry and the sweetness really the nose it's there and that finish that real kind of Almost, uh, I'm trying to come back to me. I'll think of, I'll think of a tasting or I got to taste one more time.

You think that tighter grain in the French Oak is what gives it that more smoothness out of there, right? Smoothen that whiskey out a little bit. Um, where American Oaks got that much open up grain on the whiskey can dive in there, pull out some of that spice.

I always want to say, Like a marzipan, like that. Almost powdery sugar, like powdered sugar. It's got a sweetness that's not super grainy, but it's got a fluffy sort of almost marshmallow-y sweetness. It's got a creaminess to it.

You ever had any baklava?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Nougat. I get a little bit of that. You get a little nougat.

Yeah.

Like that kind of white sugar, white powder. Um, I can't put my, I'm just getting all these desserts. I float, you know, that rat tattoo where he's, he's, he's got the little flavor cheese and grapes and this, it's like he got these little like foods above my head. Uh, it's like tastes like that and that and that and that. Um, but yeah, so about the oak, uh, Mike, the, The grain, yes, is part of it. There's way more scientific and intellectual minds out there that can answer oak questions. A great example is on a podcast once, the same podcast, the host was talking about Gariana oak from the Pacific Northwest and the Oregon oak. There's a lot of brands in Oregon, in Portland that are all about the Gariana oak and that tree is so special. It holds water differently than other trees and it's got more moisture and that leads to a different kind of finish. I know a guy in Los Angeles who uses Hungarian oak and so there's a lot of different people that have sort of a a knowledge base about oak that goes so deep and so much further than I kind of go into the subject. And the reason for that is I'm a trial and error person. I try and I try and I try. I make hundreds and hundreds of different samples of different things. It's something that was kind of born out of my vodka side and trial and error with fruit in the bottle. How does a pear, how does a peach, how does a cinnamon stick do? How do almonds do? We just throw stuff in the liquid and then we taste and we taste and we review and we refine and we get to where we want to go. So ultimately, it's all going to be predicated on taste. How does it taste when you're done? And is the quality, is the source of where you're getting your stuff good? So are you getting the best French oak you can get? Are we paying or overpaying, I should say, for French oak? Probably. You know, can we get cheaper French oak? Sure. But we don't. We opt for really high quality toasted French oak. We offer or we opt for The independent stave used bourbon barrels. We don't source bourbon barrels from different distilleries. We use our own X bourbon barrels. We use our own X rye barrels on a different bottling. And so Sherry cask, we have them wrapped. We don't let any evaporate or we don't lose any of the flavor by wrapping the barrel after it's dumped and then bringing them over fresh as can be. So we want that. really, really good quality barrel and we have multiple sources for the different things we use. So yeah, we're keen on getting the best quality we can get.

I have a question for you and it's probably something I should know already and I don't, but I'm just going to ask you because right now you are the barrel expert in the room, even though you say there are others out there that sort of take oak to the fifth level. When you order a barrel, you typically order a particular

period of air drying, you order a toast of some sort, and then you order a char of some sort.

And those are the three things that kind of define how the barrel is treated in preparation for getting its first whiskey into it. That's right. When they do the toast, do they toast the entire barrel? In other words, the entire barrel is subjected to the heat?

Toasting versus charring is a time distinction. Okay. So a toasting is a light burn or a very light, you know, 15 seconds, 30 seconds is considered a toast. A char is when it burns. When you've really burnt the barrel to 45, 60 second, minute and a half, temperature of the heat applied. So if you're applying, uh, I'm going to make something up here. You're applying 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit versus 400 degrees Fahrenheit, right? It's the type of flame, how hot that flame is, and the amount of time that it's applied to the inside of the barrel.

Well, that's good information for me and probably for a few of our listeners.

Well, with all these toasted barrel finishes coming out, like Basil Hayden just launched one, it's good to know the distinction between toasted and charred. I do have this great chart that they have where you can look at the degrees, the amount of the heat temperature, and different flavors come out at different heats. So you want that kind of coffee, you're going level four, you want that vanilla level three, you want that almond nuttiness level two, you know, and that those toasted barrels are the ones that have really soft, nice, nuanced walnut flavors. Those are the really good, you know, sort of smoother, warmer flavors that come out on the toasted. And then you have the the char which gives you those really heavy caramel, heavy vanilla, heavy, you know, char flavor.

And toasted does seem to be the the treatment of choice lately on at least a few brands. You know, I love them.

Hey, to finish this one up though. Small batch. It has a nice smooth Kentucky hug. It just kind of eases itself home and says, Hey, I'm here to party. I like that. That bite to it, it's just a nice warm, it doesn't have a deep whiskey bite. It's just kind of warms, like I said, it warms the tongue up and it just kind of goes down into your chest a little bit and warms that up. And that's a nice whiskey right there for the fall or the spring.

Yeah, I agree with you, Mike. This one here, the rye really does shine through on it. It does have an interesting nose that sort of takes you by surprise. It's a great nose. The finish on it is longer and that hug is a little bit deeper than the last one. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. This one's drinking almost, I want to say better than the California, which is not normally, I'm in agreement tonight with you guys. I'm normally saying California is my favorite. So it's drinking really good tonight. I don't know what it is.

Well, you know, our palates change, our moods change. We're human beings and you know, we like one thing one day and something else the next. That's why we have such variety in what we can choose. Yeah. That's why you put out so many expressions, right? For so many people.

Yeah, we want to try to have something for everybody and hit those different proofs. So something in the 80s, something in the 90s, something in the 100, 110s, and then the 110s.

So Seth, what's the price on these two whiskies, the first two we drank? What's the price of those?

What do you think there?

Well, I bought some of your whiskey before. OK. So I'm thinking in the $35 to $40 range. 30 to 35 range.

And that's what the new package and everything too.

And what a, what a beautiful new bottle you guys are released there. Um, yeah, but kind of a simpler label on it. Um, kind of slim down cause the label was big before, right? It's just, it's night and day.

I mean, it's a whole different, it's a whole different animal. Um, but yeah, since you brought it up, the, Cool thing I've brought you guys today is this, this new package that launched this week. I mean, we just bottled small batch yesterday. We're bottling, I believe California today. And, uh, I think a little bit of a rye as well. And then tomorrow cast drank.

Is that a nervous feeling? We, you know, everybody knows what your old bottles look like. Right. And everybody's like looking for that. And then you put it in a new package and you're like, man, is it going to get lost on the shelf?

No, no, I think this new bottle is going to be the reason people find us on the shelf because they're going to see this and go, I know this brand and I like the way it looks now because it's really, really cool or I don't know this brand and I don't recognize, I never really found the old one. This is going to bring a whole new level of attention and a whole new audience to the brand that I'm hoping we can keep up with the demand on this because I think it's going to be Very popular.

Yeah. I'm that guy. I'm that guy that sees the new package, sees the new bottle, sees the different shape or the different label and I'm grabbing it because you know, if it's something that I usually drink and it's got a new label, I want to know if what's inside is changed maybe or if it's better or if it's the same, you know, who knows? But I'm always intrigued by packaging.

It gets my attention. You know, uh, I would, compare or tip my hat to Templeton. They did a packaging change and I went, I never bought Templeton. I've bought a lot of stuff. I never really went for it. They did a packaging change and I saw it and I was like, damn, that looks really good. And they released a 10 year. So I'm like, I'm going to go buy the 10 year rye whiskey. And I went and picked it up. The packaging game today, if you're sticking to stock bottle and basic labels and basic artwork and basic messaging, it's going to be really hard to weather the storm of brands. I think the TTB saw 40,000 different skews of spirits last year, 40,000 different registered spirits just last year in 2020, during a pandemic too, nonetheless.

Well, I think you know your new bottles and stuff. There's a reason you coming on the podcast So all of our whiskey listeners right out there. We're gonna find out about your bottle. They're gonna see the photos They're gonna see the video and they're gonna be like I gotta go out there and get this

This one is special. Now it's a bottle that I think anybody would be proud to bring to someone and put down in front of them and say, hey, got to try this brand or this is a brand I like. And if you've liked our whiskey up till now, if you know about us, if you've tried it, if you've seen it online, Instagram or something, We appreciate the support and I think this is for those people more than anything. This is to really bring new people into it, but also reward the people that have supported us up till now and have worked with us or bought our old bottles. We want to give something out to people that it's just... It looks amazing. I don't know how else to say it. I'm of course biased, but it's just the flood of comments. I mean, I posted a photo of the new bottle yesterday and it got like three or 400 likes. And that's not normal for us. We're usually in like the 200 range or 150 or something. And I posted that at a random time, like not like a good time of day, like not first thing in the morning or last thing at night, you know, when you're supposed to post or something like that. I just kind of posted it as I had a minute of free time yesterday. I'm like, oh, I got to get something up. And I posted it. And just the influx of the eyeballs, the emojis with the heart eyes, or the fires, or the people just going, I love the new packaging, or take my money now. And you feel good. I started this last September. I've been working on this for a long time.

You want to hear that confirmation. That's your baby, right?

This is now, I mean, when I, two years ago, three years, well, yeah, 2019, two years ago, we knew we were going to do Broken Barrel as its own thing. And then I knew it was going to end up where it is today. I knew it was going to have to go through this metamorphosis of changing the name first. It was a phase. So phase one, change the name and change the place. So we take it to Kentucky, get it out of Vegas, just do it, you know, grain of glass. That was phase one. And then phase two was give it its own life, give it its own name, its own look and feel, its own attitude and really separate it from the other company, the vodka. And Also from every other whiskey on the shelf. I mean, this just doesn't look like it. You've got a couple hundred bottles here on your shelf and it doesn't look like any of them. It's going to stand out and it's going to be its own thing. It's its own shape. It's its own style. It's top to bottom. There's stuff on the bottom of the glass, like no detail spared.

Well, listeners, so you heard it here first, they got a new bottle, right? So if you see their old bottle, go out there and buy all that stock first, right?

We're not making a single, we are done. No more old bottles. So if you like the old bottle, that was your preference, get them while you can because they're gone. We're not doing those again.

You got to buy stuff up so you can get the new bottle too.

Yeah, get the old one, get the new one, get them both. Try them side by side. They're small batches, so not quite as distinguished as a single barrel from barrel to barrel, but our batches are different. And I actually went on Instagram at one point and did a live tasting where I drank through nine different batches of our stuff, starting with batch one, two, three, and then I missed, I don't have four, five, six for some reason. I did seven through 12 after that. And even for me, doing it live, it was really educational because I was watching how we've grown and it was really cool. And I like doing that once in a while with our stuff. I got to go back and do it with the rye now because we've got about seven or eight batches of the rye, which is enough to really do a solid, serious, long flight. I'll do that from time to time. So if you're not following us on Instagram, please do that. Just go on, follow us and we do some cool stuff. Well, speaking of rye, you did bring a rye for us. I brought the rye. Do you want to give it a try?

We're going to take a break first because we need to stretch our legs and have a commercial break. We're old guys. And when we come back, we'll taste your other two whiskeys that you brought us. We'll talk a little bit more about kind of what's in the future for Broken Barrel Whiskey and what people can be on the edge of their seat for. All right. All right. All right listeners, we are back and we've got Broken Barrel Whiskey in the house, Seth. And we had two great whiskies in the first half. We had your 88 proof California oak and your 95 proof. And that had some oak in it from a couple of different sources.

Yes. And so here we've got our rye whiskey. And the quick story on that is We were telling people, we were explaining, I think, I can't remember who it was. I was explaining to someone what it is we do, the whole breaking the barrel and the smashing and the whole thing. And they go, man, that is sacrilege is what you're doing. That's heresy. You guys can't do that. You can't put barrels in the whiskey. You gotta put the whiskey in the barrel. We're gonna do it our way. And then they told me that and I go, Heresy. That's a good name. That's what we'll call the rye whiskey. Heresy rye whiskey. So this is our Heresy rye whiskey and it's 105 proof. 95% rye, 5% malted barley. The same Oakbill, 40% French oak, 40% ex bourbon barrel, and 20% sherry cask. This is Kentucky straight rye whiskey. So you know it's not MGP, it's Kentucky straight, which means it had to be aged in Kentucky. Barrels can't leave the state. And you guys are some of the first people trying The Kentucky straight right whiskey in the first time ever we used to have one year old in there that's gone now straight wire whiskey 100% Kentucky. So this is really the next version of that and so did not get the patch number though. I don't know what patches it's Pretty sure it's either seven or eight

So you're saying Mike and I are in the first half of dozen people.

We were at the distillery tasting this with a couple different people yesterday and then we were tasting it with their entire team on Tuesday. So my first taste of this was out of the tank on Tuesday and then that's the first time I ever tried it. And then I said it was good to bottle and everything was delicious. And we were, we were awestruck when we tried it at the tank. We're like, damn, this is good. Uh, although I think we were trying it at like one 20. So we do take it down to one Oh five. We keep that one Oh five. We've always been 105 proof on the ride.

This is definitely got that, that bubble gum or I know it was to it.

Yeah, but it's not minty, right? It's not like, no, it's like some rise can be minty. This is bubble gum. Yeah. You get a little bit of that. I also get like some more evergreen notes.

Yeah, I get the evergreen. You know, I'm terrible at that. I'm always saying juniper or not juniper, conifer or cedar.

I could get a little bit of juniper. Ironcone, yeah. There you go. It's a bit foresty and that's, it's nice because we have this like forest green on the bottle that we use and it's got a, it's got a real, Real nice nose on there. And for the proof, it actually doesn't, no burn. You can really get your nose in there.

Yeah, it is a nice nose. There's not a lot of burn on it. Um, there's not, it's not too sweet, but a little sweet, but it's got that, yeah, that I'm going to, I'm going to go with the pine cone. It's got that pine cone on the nose and I love that. Well, hey, cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

Oh wow. The rye flavor really at the end there, almost right before the finish, you get that burst of rye and then all these other things kind of come through, right?

That's a candy. That's candy. That's syrupy. That's very aromatic. I think it is. It is aromatic. Not like earthy, but you know, if I walked into a redwood forest in California.

Oh yeah. That is a really good rye. You like this one? Yes. This one is... It's a next level rye from our previous ryes. Something has dramatically transformed in the older, couple more years on the product, on the recipe there. And the blend on these batches is really good. And what's this bottle priced at? Same as the other two. Oh my gosh, go buy it people. You think about rye whiskey, right? So you've got some pretty, basic or bottom shelf. Not that they're bad. I actually drink them and I like them for cocktails too, especially the bottom and bottom stuff, but you got written house, you got overhaul. And then from there, you kind of jump 20 something dollars to get to the next rye. I'm discounting things like Dickel and other, you know, other rye whiskies that exist, but most of them are in the 90 proof. They're not really in the 100 proof. You don't see a lot of non-corporate, like so not knob Creek, not bullet. Like you don't see a lot of hundred plus proof rye whiskies from a small independent producer like us or people like us, uh, at that price range just doesn't exist. So we're really hitting a niche there at, you know, between 30, $35 for that post hundred proof rye whiskey.

Yeah. I'd say it's a standout. There's no doubt in my mind. It's a standout. Now rye whiskey is kind of my thing. It's, it's what I like. It, you know, I love, I love bourbons. I dream about some, some bourbons. I dream about them, you know, Mike always drinks the, he loves the Weeders, but I like we eat whiskeys too, but I kind of like that a little bit more punch. I like that rye. I like that, that.

I'm the same way. I'll take Elijah Craig over larceny, you know, because I just like the rye.

You know, that question's coming about wheat though. It's coming. We'll get, we'll get to it. But this, this rye right here is whenever you sip on it, it almost opens up your palate a little bit with that spice, makes your mouth water a little bit. It's opening up those taste buds, I think.

The second and third sip really get to a place. The first sip, I had a little bite of bread between tastings and I burnt that out, kind of burned that off on the first sip, which I always tell everyone that's when we do tastings at our tasting room, we always go, hey, that first sip, it's kind of a throwaway sip. You'll get some stuff, but it's the second and third and fourth sip where you're really gonna get into what that whiskey actually tastes like because you might have had coffee or you might have had a bagel or this if you know you ate during the day and there's well something in your mouth little salt little oils little whatever you got to get rid of that you got to wash that out and alcohol you know really delicious mouth mouthwash for you right yeah first sip is the mouthwash the second sip is really where you're going to get flavor flavor flavor and so You guys can tell. The bottle I brought, unfortunately, is not full. We got into it last night. Damn near polished off half the bottle by accident.

Well, when it's gone, I'll get some more. And I'm looking at my glass and I'm seeing these legs that just don't go away. It's kind of definitely a heavy textured whiskey. It's got a lot of weight to it. Yeah, it's got a lot of weight to it.

It's thicker than the other two for sure. Not that the other two weren't thick though. I mean, this one just is a definite leak, I think.

The first, the first thing that hit my mind when I tasted it was that sort of candied syrup kind of mouth to it. I got, you know, it's just, it's really good. Um, but it does warm you up a lot. I mean, I'm feeling nice and toasty inside right now.

Yeah. It's a, it definitely feels good. Yeah. I mean, this is our third pour, so we should be feeling nice and warm. Yeah.

We're working our way up the ladder too. Yeah, we're climbing. We're climbing. Do you guys want to do the next one?

Let's talk about this just a tad bit more.

You got more to say.

Well, I got all kinds of stuff to say. I'm full of words. You should start a podcast. That's a great idea, Jim. We should start a podcast.

I think we'd be OK at it. I don't know. Bourbon Road. The Bourbon Road. Think about those.

It's got a nice ring to it. I don't know if our voices are right for a podcast, though. I don't know. I could move away and like Barry white, a nice, you could drink this year round. I wouldn't put it. That's a, that's a high praise right there. This was a year round drinker right here. And for that price, would I be ashamed to pour in a nice cocktail?

I wouldn't be ashamed to do that either. I want people to do that. I think the 105 and the price point are kind of a perfect combo for making Manhattan Boulevardier do an old fashioned with this. It will penetrate. It'll punch through because you've got so much proof, so much backbone that you're going to still get great flavor, great rye, you know, it's 95% rye. You're going to get great rye flavors in that cocktail that you're not going to lose it at like a 90 proof or 80 proof, you know, whiskey. You're just not going to lose that. And that's kind of, you know, we exclusively use rye whiskey for cocktails at home.

And if you're a person that likes a little bit of ice in your whiskey every now and then, this will stand up to it. Oh, that's, that's that one.

Let's get onto this barrel proof.

Last but not least is our Castrank 115 Proof Broken Barrel Kentucky Straight Urban. This is our black label. Black, gold, yellow. This one, we, I guess at the time of this recording, we haven't done it yet, but by the time you're listening, we just released a picture of this right before the weekend, last weekend. And you'll notice this is visibly, this is our prettiest of the lot. It's just super cool. It's got that inverted color from the small batch. And so What we did here is it's the same 70-21-9, same Oakville 40-40-20, 40 French, 40 ex-Burban, 20 Sherry. And we left the proof there. Our old one, we were getting 116. So forever, we were always able to just know that our cast rank was coming out. plus or minus like half a percent or one proof for the 116 per barrel. By the time you blended it all together, it was always 116 point something. And you get like a half a percent tolerance to call something cast strength. So you don't have to hand write the decimal point. And we're small, but we're not super small to the point where we don't have the manpower or the time to write out the decimal points by hand. Sure. With the extra year now minimum on every whiskey we use, the Kentucky straight bourbons here, we found that it was 115, not 116. The angel share is collecting a little more of that alcohol in that next year. And so the average barrel dumped is 115 plus or minus. So that's now we've got a 115 proof cast strength. Yeah, we're losing about... They enter the barrel at about 120. Yeah, Owensboro does an entry proof on the barrels at 120. It's small enough batches and they can draw the proof and then they do the blend and then say, hey, we're at 115.8. Okay, well we can we have up to you have up to one and a half technically percent to still be cast right? Okay, cool. So you can mellow it out. So you mean we add like the smallest amount of water to get it to the sure it has no effect but there's no effect really but it's just you know, we don't handwrite the proof on every bottle.

So man, I've been nosing this whole thing.

I haven't even, I keep, I keep bringing it to my face and then talking and then come back.

So we're going to be at bourbon on the banks in October and I am sure that they're going to have some warm kettle corn there.

Yeah.

And this is what I get on this right here. Oh my God. It smells so good.

a little bit of buttery on it.

You know, when they, they put that sugar in there and you kind of get that toffee taste to it.

I get a street nuts. I get like those candy coated, you know, when they toss the almonds. Yeah, they, they, there's like those guys and they got the big spoons and the big deep metal bowls and then they're roasting nuts on the street. And sometimes they add sugar and like, they get them kind of like candied. I kind of get like that hot, It's like a hot, warm, candied, nutty sort of smell.

We had some of those the other day. Our friends at Barrel Proof, Susan brought over some smoked candied pecans like that.

And they were done the same way, kind of. Yeah.

You kind of just like pick. You could probably do it at home pretty easily, but people just don't really do that at home. It's one of those things people make too commonly.

Nice nose. I mean, I'm getting a little bit more of the heat on it. I can tell it's a little bit higher proof. Uh, it's got that nice caramel sweetness on the nose though. Uh, it is a little deeper.

Yeah, deeper buttery.

That's buttery.

Well, cheers. Cheers.

That's one that's velvet.

This one's nice. That rolled across the tongue like velvet. Very, very nice.

It's crazy. It's got kind of a short finish, but Man, there's a lot going on from start to end in the middle there.

Seth, this is a big chief approved right here. Big chief approved? Hey. Yeah, man. I'll take it. Listeners, if you don't go out there and buy this, you're crazy. Now, what's the price on this one? Like $42 to $45. Oh my god. That's it.

That's it.

Listeners, listen to me. If you don't want that big bad booty daddy to come over and visit your house, you better go out and buy that right now.

Better see if Big G wants it on your shelf or else he's going to come by. He's going to make you buy it. Pick you up, take you to the store and you're not going to leave until you get one.

Now on the nose, I get 115 proof. No doubt about it. When I taste it though, I get that velvet coating on my tongue. Uh, very nice. Very, very nice. It doesn't taste as, it doesn't taste 115 to me.

The finish is starting to compound in a way that the first sip I just said a moment ago, kind of short, second sip a little longer, third sip. Now it's sitting. Now it's sticking a little longer, a couple seconds, five, six, eight seconds. It's lasting a little bit more. There's a little like honeycomb thing in there too that I'm getting he's in the he's in Big Chiefs territory now Honeycomb cereal man Yeah, it's it's got it's got that kind of that bright sweetness like that is from a honey. It's not like that. It's not that darker caramel maple sort of a sweetness. And I would say even there was more maple sugar on the rye than there is on this. This is a bright honey.

I'm actually getting a little bit of Jolly Rancher cinnamon candy on this. Is there a cinnamon flavored Jolly Rancher?

Oh yeah. Is there? All right. I thought it was all fruit.

I don't know. Maybe I'd know. I don't eat Jolly Ranchers, but I know I've had one.

I don't know. It seems you know your cereal and your candy pretty good. I'm a fat guy, you know.

I gotta know those things. That and ice cream, but I just know McDonald's ice cream machine never works. Yeah, I heard that recently.

You know, a lot of times I'll have whiskeys on a show and there'll be a number of expressions and we'll have a couple of this and a couple of that and we'll get through, you know, a number of expressions through the show. And they're all good sometimes, you know, but sometimes they're not like on profile for me. You know, sometimes like, you know, that's not exactly what I would drink on a daily basis, but Yeah, it's good. It's good whiskey. I like that. I have to say today has been the exception. Every single one of these that I've had today would be something that I would revisit on a regular basis on my shelf. I haven't found anything in these four whiskeys that wouldn't be like, I would be okay to have it as a daily drinker.

They're priced to be that. So the idea here was create a whiskey that looked amazing, which now I think it, not that it didn't before, but now it, it, it just does. Like, I'm just going to say it looks the best it's going to look. It's just so much fun. The bottles are phenomenal, the labels, the logos. Shout out to Tilt Design out of New Orleans who helped us on this bottle, this package. I worked with a couple of the guys there on that team and they did an amazing job. But it's the juice, it's what's in the bottle that's obviously the most important. And the combination of the price, the package, and the product, the actual liquid itself, It's something you can enjoy, feel special, but you can drink it unabashedly. Just kill bottles and go get more. And there's no issue with that because it's priced to be something you can just keep having. as often as you like. It's meant to be something that you can have every day or a daily sipper, daily drinker.

And these aren't extra-aged whiskies. These are whiskies that are straights. They're in the two to four-year range. It just goes to show what expert craftsmanship can do to a whiskey, you don't have to have a whiskey that's six or eight years old. You can actually have a whiskey that's very tasty. And actually, there are some notes in youthful whiskeys, and I don't know that you call a straight a youthful whiskey, but in a two to four-year-old whiskey, there are some notes that kind of disappear after four years, right?

There are different things that you would not want to maybe throw a 10 year in a cocktail.

Yeah.

You wouldn't want to throw a really fine older whiskey that's lower in proof over ice even. It's kind of like you lose the special characters. So these are whiskeys that you can do those things with that you may not do with a more expensive or older whiskey. And as somebody who owns a lot of whiskey. I'm a customer. I'm a student of the trade. I'm a supporter of all. I buy every other whiskey brand listening to this. I support you. I buy your products. I share them with everyone and anyone I know. But there are whiskeys and there are types of whiskeys and occasions where you want ice, you want a cocktail, you want to mix it, you want to make a Kentucky mule and throw some ginger beer at it. You want to have different things, different times. And you need whiskeys for that occasion too. So then you're kind of looking at your shelf going, okay, what am I going to use to mix that's going to be strong enough and deliver good flavor? But also, I'm not going to feel bad about pouring. that it's meant to be drank straight. It's meant to be drank neat. You know, am I going to throw this, this very fancy, very expensive whiskey in this cocktail or am I going to use something else?

So, well, I gotta agree with you about here that all four expressions that you brought today are extremely good. Um, The barrel proof is just phenomenal. I'm just blown away by it and the price that you put with it that you took that chance. You could have way outpriced this at $90, but you didn't. You probably want your blue collar guys, cause you're the guy that said they're busting up barrels, right? You know what it is like to put the work into it. And you know what that dollar means to that guy out there working nine to five, working that shift, what his money goes towards. So we got to come in on that. I mean, I think that's very important to us, but here comes that hard question. Where's the weeded bourbon at?

Where's the weeded bourbon at? I think, well, I think you'll see a wheat whiskey from us before you see a weeded bourbon because I have a handful of barrels of wheat whiskey aging. They're at three years now. I've got some single malt whiskey aging that is at three years as well. I've got some ridiculous blends. I got a peated, weeded malt that's aging. I've got an orange flavored corn thing that I'm working on that I've talked about on a couple of different shows or interviews or whatever. I'm doing a Moroccan whiskey. that my dad's from Marrakesh. So I'm going to do a Moroccan whiskey. It's going to drink like a cocktail. So you pour it over ice. It's 50% 100 proof, but you just pour it over ice and you add an orange peel to it. And it drinks like a cocktail. Lots of flavor. It's infused with all kinds of herbs and spices and cinnamon and all this different stuff. and orange and all these great flavors. We're giving a little bit of our infusion expertise. We're lending that to this Moroccan whiskey with a lot of Moroccan spices that you'll get in traditional Moroccan cooking.

And then that'll come out next year.

And then we have some single barrel projects coming out for some of the groups around the country. We really haven't done too many group picks or group barrels. We've mainly done store barrels, like retail barrels. So we've done, we call it the reserve oak series. That is where you're going to see some more exciting barrels like port, rum and rye together on a bourbon. We've done a stout barrel. We actually are doing a stout barrel with Modern Times Brewery down in San Diego. Those guys are really, really cool. They've got some really amazing stuff. We did a collaboration with a tabula rasa, which is the second chance brewery. So we've done some really cool brewery collaborations. And then we've got also interestingly a peach brandy cask finish. So that one's that way. You know, if you got stone fruit from that one small batch, imagine peach brandy. I mean, the thing is like peach rings on steroids, 115 proof. And that stuff's really, really good. So, Seth, you're kind of living the dream. We're having fun. We're experimenting. We're getting into it.

So how much time do you spend, how much time are you able to spend in your facility versus out on the road?

We do it all. We're a small company. We wear a lot of hats. I do marketing. I'm running the Broken Barrel social media. Another teammate of mine runs the Vodka social media. A different teammate running the Bitters social media. I'm out selling. I'm here in Kentucky. I was just in Houston. I'm going to be back in Kentucky in a couple of weeks. I'm going to go to Boston, I believe, in Chicago and head out to do a lot of different sales runs. I do production runs. So this week is actually a production week, not a sales week. And then back here for Bourbon Festival. So those listening, we will be at the Kentucky Bourbon 30th anniversary of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown.

I think a lot of our listeners are planning on being there.

Come say hi to us, I'll be there.

Speaking of listeners, we have listeners in all 50 states and about 40 countries.

Where can people get your products? The easiest answer is online. Don't drive around searching for it like in a frenzy thinking you're going to just find exactly what you want at the first store you go to. We're widely distributed. We're in 30 states. OK, that's good. Yeah. We're in 30 states. You guys are in more countries than we're in states. It's crazy. It's easy to hit subscribe on a podcast. Yeah, it's easy. Yeah, we have to go through the goddamn three tier system, man. It's a little harder. Regulated guns, alcohols, and tobacco. That's how it goes. 30 states, you can find us online. You know, call ahead. That's the only thing I tell people, call ahead. If you think the local liquor store has it, just call, call. And if you got a local liquor store, you got a good relationship, ask for it. Just ask the, hey, You're probably living in one of those 30 states, listeners, and so you can ask your local liquor store to bring it in. And that works wonders. We get emails every week from a retailer somewhere, New York, Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma. We get emails from retailers all the time saying, hey, somebody asked your product. We want to bring it in. Who's your distributor? And we, we within days or a week have the product in that store.

That's good. That's awesome. Well, here's another question for you. Sure. I want you to make me a promise because now you just blown my mind. You're telling me all this stuff, right? About all this stuff you're coming up with. I like your weeded whiskey and that Moroccan whiskey. Yeah. I'd like me and Jim be the first to review those.

Well, I come back here often and you guys are a stone's throw from Louisville where I usually start the trip. So yeah, let's sit down and do Moroccan whiskey and wheat whiskey and maybe some single malt, maybe some, I have a seven year American whiskey coming out too. Oh wow, that's good. Yeah, we got some seven year 2014.

I know people are thinking out there, listeners, you're thinking why would Big Chief and Jim want to drink a Moroccan whiskey, because we like to take those side rows, right, Jim? I've actually been to Morocco. Yeah. What a beautiful country, right?

I've been. I went in 2019 with my grandmother, who hadn't been back in 50 years. So can you imagine being somewhere your whole life and then leaving and then going back 50 years later to see how it's evolved? The tears streaming from her eyes to like happiness and joy and sadness. It's just like a whole trip. She's like, couldn't stop. It was so great, but it was just so, it was amazing to go to Morocco, but to be there with her was a whole different, it's amazing. That's awesome.

Well, Seth, we can't thank you enough for coming to Kentucky, coming out here to Shelby County down here to big Jim Shannon's bar and lounge. and sharing your whiskey with us. We really appreciate it, man. You know, we always love our guests on and stuff. We're glad that you're wearing a bourbon bullshitter t-shirt right now.

We'll post the picture of this one, too.

Where can our listeners find you guys on social media?

Instagram, number one. We have a Facebook and you can follow us there, but I don't think we actually post anything to the Facebook group for whiskey at least. I think the vodka one has some posts, somehow it's linked up, but Instagram. Instagram is the preferred social media for us. So you're doing TikTok yet? I made a broken barrel whiskey TikTok and I put some barrel breaking videos on there. But I forgot about it. I made it like three months ago, but I haven't really been ticking or talking.

What happens when you drink half a bottle of whiskey?

Yeah, last night, right? No, Instagram is kind of where it's at. We don't tweet or anything like that. So you got a great website, though. Website's good. But yeah, follow us on Instagram. We're at Broken Barrel Whiskey. Be sure to check out our website, brokenbarrowiskey.com. You guys broke some good news today about the new packaging and what's on the pipeline.

We always love to get that opportunity. Thank you so much for allowing us to do that.

Thank you guys for having me here. Where can our listeners find you personally if they want to follow you?

I created a whiskey Instagram for me to interact with whiskey people and keep my personal life and family and stuff off of, you know, just any kind of like weird random people that just, you never know who's out there, right? So I created a separate, I have a, I have all the vodka Instagram, whiskey Instagram, my Instagram, then I have a, I have a cess whiskey Instagram, it's called Benheim's Bottles. Benheims underscore bottles. And it is, I'm an avid whiskey collector myself. I've got a thousand bottles in the library. I used to do a podcast myself. So check it out. I post a lot of the stuff that I'm drinking, which varies from minute to minute.

Well, today has been an absolute blast. It's been such a pleasure to have you here in my home. Thank you so much. Thank you again for having me.

Mike, where do people find us? You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. I don't know what else. Twitch is out there, but we're not on Twitch. We're not going to be on Twitch. I don't even know what Twitch is. I don't really know what it is either. I just see young kids watching it all the time.

You can only do so much when you're our age. That's right.

Well, and I got these big old giant fat fingers, so I am limited to what I can do. Um, you can also find us on our website, the bourbon road.com. You can buy our swag on there. The bourbon bullshitter t-shirt that Seth is rocking out right now.

I'm going to wear it. You're going to see me in this on a lot of our Instagram posts, but yeah,

You can find our Bourbon Road shirt that Jim is wearing right now. You can find our glasses from Distillery Products. Our frying friends over there, Carson and Janie, they will hook you up with your group. You want to make sure you visit them. They will rock it out. They'll create a great glass over there at Distillery Products. Check them out. Say that Bourbon Road sent you. Make sure you tell them that. We'd appreciate that. You can find our hat on there. You can also find our reviews that we write and our blogs or articles. It's not necessarily about the episode, just what I'm thinking that day. You know, it might be about Kentucky or whiskies around the world. And man, I'm going to have to check out Morocco now, like deep dive into it and whiskey. There are no Moroccan whiskies.

I looked this up. There's, there was one, but I think it got discontinued. So I think someone tried, but. Good luck getting a drink in Morocco.

You're going to pick up the torch and run with it though.

Amen to that. That's what I say. So Jim, we also have a private Facebook group. What's that all about?

It's called the Bourbon Roadies. And if you go to our Facebook page and look for our group, you'll find us there. It's called the Bourbon Roadies. It is about 22, 2300 like-minded people, kind of an active group, a lot of posting going on, good friends, good people, sharing whiskey, sharing stories, sharing pictures, just having a good old time. One thing we have to warn you about though. We don't allow any rudeness in there. So if you are the kind of person that's going to come in and chop somebody off at the knees for drinking Jim Beam, go find another group. Right?

Yeah. I mean, if you're a whiskey person, you've been watching. Instagram or Facebook lately, there's been a little bit of drama on there, not in that group. We're not going to allow you to do that. That shouldn't be in the bourbon culture and the whiskey culture, just going about somewhere else. That's not what we're about.

We like lifting people up, so absolutely. We want you to join. We'd love to have you in there. And we hope Seth will join the Bourbon Roadies after this, because I'm sure a lot of our listeners will have some questions. I'm in. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. And you know what? You'll find out everything that's going on in the Bourbon Road, where we're going to be, who we're going to be talking to, what whiskies were recommended at a given moment in time, what contests we're having. Right, Mike?

Yeah, we have our Bourbon Blended Contest that's going on right now. We got all our samples in. We're going to get Ashley in the house, and then we're going to start rocking it out. We're going to figure out who's going to win this thing, who's going to win our grand prize, who has the best name. It's pretty awesome.

All right. Well, it's been awesome today to have Broken Barrel in the house. We do two shows every week. We do a short show on Mondays where we review a craft distillery. We do a longer show like today with Broken Barrel where we do a deep dive. We kind of go into detail. We give you enough content to get you to work and home. nice 30 minute drive to work, nice 30 minute drive home, or cutting the grass or sweeping the house or whatever it is. We'd love to have you listen to both shows every week. And Mike, how do they make sure they do not miss a show?

This is your favorite part, isn't it?

It's my favorite part.

What you're gonna do is go ahead and scroll on up hit that subscribe button After you do that, you know, you're gonna get to listen to us then But then what we need you to do is we need you to scroll on down We need you to hit that five star review or you know what's gonna happen The big bad booty daddy a bourbon is gonna come find you bring his bourbon bottle with him and we're gonna drink all night long It's gonna be a long night We're going to have a little bit of fun. But after that night, you're definitely going to leave us a five-star review.

Well, we'd love to have your input. We'd love to hear about what you think about what we're doing. You can always reach out to us. Probably the best way is on Instagram. You can find me at jshannon63. I'm OneBigChief. And we will see you down the Bourbon Road.

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