20. Talking Turkey with Bo Garrett of Montgomery Gentry

So your guitar playing got interrupted by baseball? It did. And you got a little bit older. Did it get interrupted by girls as well?

That's when I figured out where the guitar came in with that. Ah, the light bulb went on. Exactly right. I heard an interview with Gene Simmons from Kiss one day and he said, anybody that tells you they got into music because they love music and didn't get into it for girls, they're lying.

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

We're glad to have you all back for another show, but before we get started, I'd like to take a minute and thank our very good friends at Logheads Home Center for supporting this episode. Find out more about their rustic, handcrafted furniture at logheadshomecenter.com. Now today, Randy and I are sitting down with somebody that many of you might already be familiar with. He's a native son of Kentucky who's been on the major music scene for quite a while. He loves his bourbon almost as much as he loves his music. And when he's not on the road playing concerts with Montgomery Gentry, he's hanging out with Jimmy and Eddie Russell and leading tours at the Wild Turkey Distillery over in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Welcome to the show, Bo. Hello, Garrett. Welcome to the show, man.

Thanks for having me. Appreciate you guys inviting me over. Well, you're a twofer. You know, you're what we call a twofer.

So not only do you embody the bourbon culture with the music, you know, playing with Montgomery Gentry, but you're also a guide out there at Wild Turkey, so we'll talk some turkey as well. Sounds good to me.

All right, so we're going to get right into the first pour here, if that's okay with you. Yeah, I twist my arm. All right, so what we brought today for the first pour is Wild Turkey Decades. And this is, I think, the second offering in the Master's Keep collection. Yep, it was. It was. This is a 104 proof bourbon. And it is a non-chill filtered bourbon. And the barrels that went into this particular bottle were selected by Eddie in an honor of his 35 years.

Right. Yeah. And obviously the decades, 10 to 20 year old bourbons. Right. Yeah. You'll get a lot of good stuff out of this one. I think it's pretty complex myself for what I like.

All right. Well, let's go ahead and see what we have. We've already poured it, so it's in our glasses. Oh yeah. So you can, I mean, you can definitely tell Turkey right off the bat on that nose.

I was just thinking the exact same thing. As soon as you know that you can, you can already tell what you've got.

Oh yeah. Oh, that is, that is really good. It's, um, it is bold. It's 104. And mouth feels phenomenal.

I love non-shell filter bourbon.

Yeah. I'm getting a little bit of, uh, a little bit of oak and leather in there. I can get the oak.

Um, I'm picking up a little bit of that anise that's in the wood, liquorice maybe. Well, just a hint. Is that what I'm getting? Okay. Let me see.

Yeah. I'm getting some, uh, um, like plum raisin.

I guess a fruit, maybe that's what I dark fruit on that back. Yeah. Dark fruit.

Exactly.

Rounds the corner. Well, and it's a finished lass. It's got a good finish. It's very mouth coating.

It's very, um, um, you can definitely tell it's an on chill filtered whiskey.

Yeah. That's, that's one of the things I love about it. And I know that having talked with Eddie, he loves non-chill filter too. That's one of the things he really likes. So he's like a champion of the cause, right? Yes. Yeah. I heard Bruce say one day, everybody talks about more non-chill filter. He said, well, buy more of it and we'll make more of it.

Yeah, I remember when we were down there picking a barrel with Eddie, he was touting non-shield filter the whole time. It's what he prefers.

It's a completely different thing. If you try something that's non-shield filtered right beside of something that is, you can tell that mouth feel immediately to me.

For those listeners who might not know what chill filtration is, we'll just give them a quick rundown of it here. A whiskey contains some compounds that at low temperatures will come out of solution and cause the whiskey to become cloudy. Exactly. Distilleries like to chill the whiskey down after production and then filter those compounds out so that it doesn't happen on the shelf. That's exactly right. The problem with that is... that there's some flavors in those compounds that you're going to lose. Yep. And, and also some texture and viscosity that you have in the bourbon as well.

So it won't be as bold and rich. Right. And I think the texture too is one of the most noticeable. That's why I keep, I call it buttery creaminess that you'll get from that non-chill filter that you won't get from others. Yeah.

Well, that's a, that's a delicious bourbon and I had not had it before. You'd had it before, right? I have had it before. Yep.

I've been fortunate enough to have a little bit of each one of the decades, or a decade, the masques keep so far.

Also, you've had the cornerstone as well. I have. Oh, gee.

There you go. And you're back to that long finish. That's another thing that speaks to Eddie Russell. He loves that.

Yeah. This does have a very long finish on it. Makes you want to keep reaching for that glass. Exactly right. It's really good.

I'm not done yet. Let me try one more time.

So, Bo, are you Kentucky born and bred? I am. I was born and raised up in the eastern part, up in the mountains. I moved to central Kentucky. My original plan was to move to Lexington for a while and then to jump on down to Nashville and try to get in the music scene as the fates would have it. I wound up not having to go to Nashville, so that worked out great for me.

How did you get into music?

My family played music my whole life. After church on Sundays, we'd all get together and everybody would be on the porch. playing bluegrass music. So I grew up listening to bluegrass music with my family playing. My grandfather played the banjo, uncle played a little bit of everything. Just everybody was always there every Sunday. So I always wanted to be a part of that as a kid. Then for me, it started out just, I want to be part of what everybody else was doing. But then as I started learning to play and finding other types of music, I was like, well, I kind of like this too.

So what drew you to guitar actually?

You know, I wish I had a really good answer for that because most people want to be the lead singer. And when I was a little kid, I would stand in front of the mirror and pretend like I was, you know, put a little record on and I'd play along, act like I was playing along.

Kind of like those rock star poses you do with Montgomery Gentry now. Yeah, I got you.

We see you out there, man. I had to work on those at an early age. A lot of stretching involved. But when I was doing it in front of me, I was always pretending I was the guitar player instead of the singer. I don't know what that was. Just something fascinated me about the guitar.

So about what age are we talking here? I started out...

I took a few lessons, learned a couple of chords and stuff like that. I was about six years old. Wow, that's early. But then I stepped away because I fell in love with baseball. So then I thought I wanted to be a professional baseball player. That was my dream. And, you know, I'm not as young as I look, so you're not supposed to laugh. But anyway, I'm the one with all the great hair. Uh, back then you didn't wear knee pads and all that, you know, so by the time I got into high school, I was already old and slow, so to speak.

So your, your guitar playing got interrupted by baseball and you got a little bit older. Did it get interrupted by girls as well?

That's when I figured out where the guitar came in with that. The light bulb. Exactly right. I heard an interview with Gene Simmons from kiss one day and he said, anybody that tells you they got into music because they love music and didn't get into it for girls, they're lying.

Can I go down two paths? Sure. Yeah. Absolutely.

So did you think from a young age that you would be on a stage playing for the masses?

I don't know that I thought I would be. I knew I wanted to be. It was one of those things. I guess being born and raised up there in the mountains, you know. So what part of the mountains are we talking here? Prestonsburg and Floyd County. Okay. Literally, when I say I lived up a holler, I was literally up a holler. There was a mountain on each side of the road. And you know, if you found a little open area that was flat, you'd build a house in it. Right, right. Or set a trailer in it. You know, one of the two. I heard a whole lot of growing up that you need to forget that idea. You can't do that. And I couldn't get it through my head. I've always been a little bit stubborn. Why not? What's the reason I can't do that? If I'm good enough, can't I do that? So I just never, never let that get to me. And once I left up there, you know, once I got down to Lexington and realized, okay, hey, I can do this. I can play with all these guys.

So early influences. So we know that bluegrass was what you grew up listening to.

Bluegrass was the beginning. Excuse me. Old country, Hank Williams Sr., things like that. My dad and my mom, they love that old country. I remember my mom, Fats Domino, she had a Fats Domino album and I fell in love with that. I played Blueberry Hill over and over and over because I couldn't get enough of that kind of thing. And I was watching TV and I had one of those, I don't know if you remember those little, you may not be old enough to remember, those little cassette recorders that you had to push the two buttons to make it record.

I don't know anything about that.

Already, you're too young for that. And it had that little tiny microphone that you could have a little prong stand on it. There was a PBS special on and it was a jazz festival. Well, jazz, blues, whatever, at that point in time, they didn't really differentiate. And Rock Hooter and Muddy Waters were on there. And I was like, holy cow. And I ran and I got my little recorder and put it in front of my old television set and recorded them playing. So the blues at that point was it. I was wow.

And I didn't get turned on to Ry Cooder until Crossroads. You know, he did all of Macchio's guitar work. And when he was older, and I know, but man, the stuff he was doing, I was like, okay, Steve, you're pretty good, but hey, Ry ain't no joke either now.

Yeah, man. He was phenomenal. And then I kept digging. I got into Sun House and Robert Johnson and those guys. And the blues really just really was the one that just got me. Then discovered Skinnerd. And that's when it, as you say, the light bulb truly went off when I discovered Skinnerd.

It started broadening your horizon there.

Well, they were taking... country and blues and rock, and they were putting all three of those things in the same spot. And I was like, oh, this is the coolest thing I've ever heard. So they were probably my biggest influences early on.

Well, somewhere along the way, you found yourself with a bottle of bourbon in your hand, right?

Oh, yeah. Was it moonshine in the hall at first? Originally, it was moonshine.

Exactly. My grandfather was moonshiner, so yeah.

My great grandfather was, so yeah, I understand.

So tell us about that first experience. My first bourbon experience, the first bourbon I ever tasted was actually early times. The reason that happened to be that, it wasn't like I went to pick out a bottle of early times or something like that. What happened was At that point in time where I was growing up in Eastern Kentucky, my county was dry. All you could get was what the bootlegger would sell you. There was no choices. He had two products. He had Schlitz beer and he had Early Times bourbon, and that was it. That was the first one I ever tried. didn't realize at that point in time what else was out there. But then I got into like Hank Williams Jr. came along and he started, every song it seemed like he was singing about Jim Beam. And I was totally infatuated with Hank Jr. So I was like, I'm going to find out what this guy's singing about. Well, the next county over was wet. So you could go over and buy different things. I went over and got me a bottle of Jim Beam, white label. started drinking that. Uh, and then the ball just kept going. It's like, okay, what else is out there?

So that's how I think Booker wrote a few checks to Hank. Just a couple. Yeah. Yeah. How did your gig with Montgomery Gentry get started and how did all that come about?

When I moved to Lexington originally, um, I started out with a little band on new circle road. Um, It was a place called New Circle Inn, which is not even there anymore. And I was playing with a band there. And I guess Troy happened to come in one night or something. He had a night off or whatever. And Troy came in and he and I started talking. He liked what I was doing. And I had heard of him, obviously. When I got to Lexington, you immediately heard of the guys who were like the more popular guys in town. Troy was one of those guys. We just started talking, man, and he and I became buddies. There was a point in time when he and I would play on Sunday nights, a place called The Grapevine, which was his dad's bar here in Lexington. We'd just take our acoustic guitars. It was funny because he didn't pay us. His dad would give us an open bar. We thought, well, this is the greatest gig in the world. There's times when we can leave the bar at the end of the week owing them money. We played together there. I had another band at one point in time that was managed by Les Taylor from Exile. Les was trying to help us out and we were starting to sniff around the edges of a record deal. Troy came over to my house one night. I was living a little trailer over on Georgetown Road. Troy came over to my house one night and he said, let's make a deal right now. I said, what's that? He said, this was over bourbon again, of course. He said, if anything good ever happens for either one of us, we'll do what we can to take the other one along with us." I said, that sounds like a deal. I was kind of looking at it like, he's a lot better looking than me. His odds are going to be a lot better than mine, so I might need to help. Let me jump on this coke job before he takes it off. That whole thing with my band kind of fell through, as you see with so many bands when you get turmoil inside and all that. And then Eddie Montgomery had the idea, you know what? Brookson Dunn has no competition. So he approached T-Roy. That's true. Yeah. We needed to do something to give them a little competition rather than trying to do this thing. solo. And I got a call from Troy one night, hey, Edro's talking about doing this thing. Would you be interested in playing with us to see what happens? I'm like, sure. So we started rehearsing in Troy's mom's basement.

And there it went.

That was it.

Yeah. Is that what they mean by the beginning wasn't so glamorous?

We were in the basement for real. Yeah. And truly in the basement, in his mom's basement.

Wow. Okay. Now we know. About what year was this?

That was about 95 or 96, somewhere in that area when we actually started rehearsing for what would become Montgomery Gentry, but we didn't have any name or anything at that point in time. We played car lots and bank parking lots and anywhere that we played the auction off the cars over there. We played there one time. The Key of Dealership, we played the parking lot in the Key of Dealership one time. Do whatever you can, right? Anywhere we could get that would let us get on stage, yeah. Right.

Well, so I'm sure they're writing songs at about this time, right? Did you help in the writing or just arranging?

What we did... I guess I have to give some credit to the producers of that first record, Joe Scaife and Jim Cotton. They actually came from Nashville and came down into Ms. Troy's mom's basement. All the songs that wound up on that first Tattoos and Scars record, They came down and said, play them for us. Let's see how it sounds when you do it. And that's unheard of. But today's times, it would never happen. You're absolutely right. They sat there with one of those tape recorders, those little handheld recorders. They recorded us. playing Daddy Won't Sell the Farm, playing Hillbilly Shoes.

Okay, hold it. Hillbilly Shoes. Did you come up with that lick in the beginning of Hillbilly Shoes?

I so wish that I could say I did. I mean, I can say I did, but it'd be a lie.

I remember sitting around trying to learn that for a country band I was playing with, and I said, whoever did, I'm going to choke somebody out.

Well, the riff wasn't a guitar riff when we got the demo. Really? What was it?

It was a bluegrass song.

Oh, wow. Okay.

That was a banjo riff. Wow.

Yeah, it was... Yeah, exactly. So, translated it over to guitar, but the riff was actually on a banjo. But it was awesome. It was, man. Kicked. Yeah. And, and nobody was doing that. Oh, no.

Uh-uh.

It was very unique when it first came out. Yeah. The label wanted to release something totally different. Nedra was like, nope, I'm going to kick them right in the teeth on right out of the gate and let them know who we are and what we're doing. That was the first single.

Yeah. Well, like I said, when you guys first came out, there were some of us trying to emulate what you guys were doing. Not as successfully, we might add, but anyway.

The label was terrified. They did not think it would work because at that point in time, everybody was doing love songs and how beautiful life was and all this. He told the president of the record label one day, he said, I don't care who you are and who you're married to, you ain't that daggum happy every day of your life. Go ahead, Grove, yeah. Tell him. Yeah, he's never been one to have a great filter. I'll give him that one. So you guys had a rise.

Oh, yeah. Nowadays, there's this big resurgence of old country acts and stuff. Did I say old?

I didn't mean it like that. Classic. Classic, yes. Eddie said that's when he knew it was old. First time he saw it called classic country music.

Oh, really? Yeah. But a resurgence. You guys are on the road how often?

We're averaging probably three, four days a week right now. Maybe a little over 70 shows this year, something like that, which we'd do more if they put us out there. I guess, I don't know. It's cool to see that. We just played the State Fair last week.

I bet that was a rush coming home.

Hometown crowd.

That was packed.

It was absolutely packed. It was the coolest thing because we can't really see the crowd when we hear our little intro tape start rolling. That's when we start walking up on stage. And when you walk up there, man, that home crowd, that was phenomenal. See a people. It was awesome to see. It really was. Wow. So to see those crowds still out there, you know, 99 was that first single, so 20 years later.

Wow. Yeah, I get you. I see what you're saying. So take us through a normal day for a country act out there playing state fairs.

Just from my perspective, it's pretty easy, honestly. I won't lie to you until I've got it so hard. It's really easy. I get up and I have most of the day to do whatever I want to do. Even more so when Troy was still with us, he and I had a bunch of different buses at that point in time. Every morning one of us would text the other ones like, Hey, did you know this is so many miles away? Or did you know this was this close? And we'd go out and see whatever, you know, we've been to the Grand Canyon pretty much. I couldn't name all the different. places that people travel to on vacation, we were just there and decided to go see it.

So you saw it together? We did.

A lot of it. Yeah. He and I actually, I've got pictures of me and him and several of the guys in the band went up on top of Crazy Horse. Oh, really? Yes. The lady that is the daughter of the gentleman that started the carving in the mountain. She took us up to the top and let us stand right underneath his face to take a picture. It was one of the coolest things. You don't realize how big that is till you get up there.

You're standing there underneath that thing. A lot of people get to travel for work, but not everybody gets to travel around with really good friends and see places.

And the hardest part of my day for me, soundcheck.

You got to get it dialed in.

Somebody's got to... You have to get it dialed in. But it's kind of like, I know how to play these songs at this point, you know? So for us, it's kind of like, oh, I got to play this again. So, but that's the hardest part for me is that I have to go out and do a sound check. I asked Gary Rossington when we first got to play with Skynyrd and I was like, like I told you, those guys were like the ones that changed my world. Right. Even the fact that I was sitting talking with Gary Rossington blew me away. But then I asked him, I said, you guys are still so ridiculously tight. How often do you guys rehearse? He looked at me really odd and he said, if I can't play Sweet Home Alabama right by now, I never will. I was like, that's a good time.

So sound checks at what? Four or five?

Yeah. Well, we'll try to get them done early if we can. If we've got really good crew guys, those are the guys that work. It's almost unfair that the guys that work the hardest are the ones that nobody would know if they passed them on the street. And don't get paid. They walk right past the crew guys and never know that they're even there. And those guys have been up first and they go to bed last. Well, they're supposed to go there.

And they have the power to sandbag you if they want to do.

Oh yeah. The last thing you want to do is take off your front of the house cap.

Exactly. It's like taking off a waiter or a waitress.

You're going to pay. Exactly right. They've got the ability to pay you back for it. So yeah.

You're going to pay. So favorite Montgomery Gentry song that you like to play?

Sorry, that cage is going down really nice. You take your time. Still hillbilly shoes.

Is it? Still hillbilly shoes.

First one is still my favorite one. Absolutely. It's so much fun on guitar. I mean, there's so much happening through the whole song. Then it'll change up. It's not the same through the whole song. You'll get to the middle and then there's a bridge that goes completely different. It's just a lot of fun.

That's not all one, four, five and onto the next.

And then they let me solo at the end of it too. Me and Frank are the guitar player. We just get to go off at the end of it. So, I mean, watching out for love as a guitar player.

So you guys have had some pretty big television appearances as well. I mean, you've been on The Tonight Show.

Yeah, we did.

Yeah. You've done the CMA Awards.

We've done about a bunch, yeah.

Yeah, ACM, Jimmy Kimmel. So you guys have done the whole gamut of television. How do you prepare differently for something like that than you do for just putting on a show out on the road?

Getting in front of the camera with all the millions you know are going to be seeing you out there.

Yeah, and they're not there where you can see them. That's the thing that gets in your head if you're not careful. I think it changed for me through the years. At first, when we first started doing it on television, you're really nervous about that because, like we were just talking about there, you know there's millions of people that you can't even see who are watching what you're doing. That's on tape forever. You screw that up. People can always go back and find that. And they will.

And they got a remote in their hand, and Nielsen's watching.

Absolutely. So at first, when we first started doing a lot of TV, that really would get me kind of nervous. But after a while, I kind of started, I don't know why, I just kind of started relaxing and thinking, you know what? I'm going to play this song the same way I'll play it for people every night. But so I don't even know why I get nervous. So now it doesn't bother me now, but back then it did. The only thing it can get you is sometimes like some of those shows, like when we do the Tonight Show or the Kimmel, something like that, you have a hard break that you have to hit. So like if we're doing Hillbilly Shoes, that's a four minute song. They give you a three minute and something window. So you have to figure out what parts you're going to cut out and work that up before you get there. So it will be a three minute and something song. Now does that take a rehearsal? It does. The problem is when you get there, if you don't really have that shorter version ingrained in your head.

You want to do what comes natural. Exactly.

If you just let it go and start letting it eat, then you start playing through the parts you're not supposed to. So that could be a train wreck.

Has that ever happened?

I hadn't, I haven't, but we've had a few train wrecks, but I've been very, very fortunate that it wasn't me that did it.

It's not my fault. I'm just saying.

And the funny thing was, is anytime anything would go bad for our whole career, anytime anything would go bad. Because when we got started, I had crappy gear. I had an old fender amp that buzzed like a chainsaw all the time. So anytime there's something that would go wrong, Troy and Eddie would look at me. I'm like, it's not me, man. Why are you guys looking at me?

But then from what I understand, we're coming up on a couple of years now for Troy. But a lot of people maybe didn't know what a prankster he actually was. So he was going to pick on you from what I understand, no matter what happened anyway. So the one story I found interesting, I think that the listeners would find interesting, is the board potty story.

Yeah, that was early on when he did that to me. So we were playing this big festival and we didn't have a bunch of buses or anything at that time. Didn't even have one of the best buses on the road. We just had what we could afford. What could be afforded, I should say, at that point in time. So we're all on one bus. Crew, merchandise guy, road manager, band, we're all on one bus. Oh, bless y'all. So obviously with that many people being on one bus, Your bathroom was off limits to certain things. So the last thing you wanted to do was somebody else see you go into a porta potty. We're playing one of these festivals in the middle of summer. And I had to find a porta potty. It was that time. So I was like, okay, but you always check. The one I was most concerned about was Eddie. I thought if Eddie sees me in his porta potty, some bad things could happen. So I'm watching behind myself there, keeping an eye on Eddie, seeing if he's looking out the window or whatever. I thought I was scot-free. I have no idea where he was at, but Troy saw me go into that porta potty. So I'm in there. The next thing I hear, I hear a big racket and he had grabbed an entire roll of duct tape.

Oh my goodness.

Duck, take me into this porta potty. All right. Now it doesn't sound too bad until you realize it's a festival. It's like 185 degrees outside. And you weren't the first one to go in there. That's exactly where I was going with that. So yeah, he duct taped me in there and I thought, okay, now I knew Troy for a long time. So I was like, at least the last thing I need to do is let him know he just got to me. But like I just said, it's 120 degrees in the summertime in a porta potty. You don't want to stay in there any longer than you have to. Oh my goodness. So I decided to try to wait it out. And I did. And then I hear the duct tape coming off. I was like, I won. I opened the door and Troy had went and got everybody from every other band, every crew guy that he could find. And they were all standing in front of this porta potty. So when I opened the door to walk out, everybody starts applauding. You take a bow. I didn't think about that. I was embarrassed. Real quick, one of the best ones he ever got on Ed Row. Eddie always said that like when we stop at truck stops, you know, you go use the restroom or stop at rest areas. Eddie said his biggest fear was that somebody would recognize him in a truck stop rest area or something like that when he was in the bathroom. Troy waited until he went into his stall. Troy went in behind him and he starts from behind the door saying, Mr. Montgomery, can I get your autograph? So Eddie's sitting in the stall. I'll be right there. We're getting ready to leave. Can I just reach the paper over the door to you? Oh my God. Give me just a minute.

And then he finds out it's T-Roy.

Oh, it was T-Roy, man. It was awesome. We cried. We laughed so hard over that one.

Cause that was like his biggest fear come true for him.

Oh my gosh. That's a great story.

So, if you had the opportunity to share a bottle with anyone past or present, who would it be and what would it be?

That's a good one. I've actually been thinking about that one all day and still that's a hard one because as far as in the bourbon world,

We'll do a couple. Do, you know, just put them in a category.

That's a hard one for me because, you know, whether I realized it at that time or not, I do now. I've been able to be around and know so many of these master distillers that it'd be hard to pick one. It'd have to be something that was gone for, which is a very, very lucky and fortunate thing to be able to say. But in the music world, my hero has always been Stevie Ray Vaughan.

There you go.

So I think it would have been awesome to sit down and have a drink with Stevie Ray. And Stevie seems like that guy to me that if you sat down to drink with him, I don't know what his drink of choice was, but I would think you could probably sit down with a bottle of 101 with him and he'd have a ball with you. Yeah. I think he'd enjoy that. I think he would. I think that would be something, cause he didn't seem like a big high maintenance guy. So I think you just take in a really good bottle of bourbon, sit down with him and the stories would be awesome.

That's a great story. We are now at the point where we need to take a break. And we'll continue sipping on our decades. And when we come back, you've brought something for us to try. Absolutely. Looking forward to it.

And we can talk turkey in the second half.

That's right. All right. Sounds good. We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Log Heads Home Center, nestled in the hills of Kentucky, is an industry leader in building handcrafted rustic furniture. Family owned and operated, they take pride in offering only the very best for their customers. The Log Heads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled wood crafters who are passionate about creating rustic furniture for people who appreciate the beauty of natural wood. Owners Tommy and Gwen don't just sell the rustic lifestyle, they live it. And you can be sure that Loghead's furniture will always be handcrafted in Kentucky by artisans who embrace the simple way of life. Loghead's rustic furniture is made from northern white cedar, a sustainable wood that's naturally rot and termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warmth to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com. And while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at LogHeadsHomeCenter. Okay. So we are back from the break and, uh, Bo, what did you bring for us today?

Well, I brought my personal favorite turkey product for me. Uh, the rare breed. This is the 116.8 batch.

Now this is a batch from 2018, right? Okay. Yeah. This is what I remember drinking here.

Yeah. It was 108 originally, then it went to 112. Now this one's 116.

Well, let's, uh, let's take a nose on it and. You still get that turkey on the nose. Yeah. You know, this is really an exceptional bourbon. You cannot mistake that. You put that to your nose. I don't care. Okay. It's not blind. And I like to say that if it were blind, I would know. And sometimes I've been fooled pretty bad because blind is the great equalizer. That's true. It is very much so. But I would like to think that one whiff of that and I would know turkey immediately.

They had me do it because I kept talking about my love for rare breed. So one of the girls that was working over there at that point in time, she said, come here for a second. And they had put four glasses down there and they put four different products in there. And I said, okay, let's see how much you really know about this and how much you think you know about this, I should say. I got three out of four right. And the one I almost missed was like, it was the rare breed. I was like, It's really familiar, but go with your first instinct. I said, well, I want to say it's rare breed. I said, but there's just something a little bit different about it. It was the 108 bottle.

Oh, there you go. Yeah.

So I felt pretty good. Three out of four is not bad.

Better than I could do, that's for sure.

Well, we've jumped up a little bit in proof here. So we came off the decades at 104. We're at 116.8 now.

But it's almost like I'm getting a little citrus on the front end. Almost like an orange or lemon kind of thing.

It's not the dark like we had with the decades.

Yeah, it's a little brighter.

I get that fruitiness on the nose when I smell it too.

Yeah, and I'm getting a little more ethanol in the nose now. I mean, I would expect to get a little bit more obviously, but boy, the oak is still there.

The oak in this one is, I love the way it comes through in this one.

But I don't get leather.

Nope, I don't either. I did get a little bit of leather in that decades.

Yeah, you mentioned that, but I don't seem to get it in this.

Well, that's a delicious pour. I tell you what, to me personally, why I love this so much, I like barrel proofs like we were talking before we started here, because you can make them what you want them to be. With a little bit of water, you can make a barrel proof whatever you want it to be. But I love what Jimmy did with this because of the way he crafted the flavor. by using the whole Rick house where you've got six, eight, and 12. You've got six from the top, eight from the middle, 12 from the bottom. So there's those bright notes that you're getting from up top, the smoky, nice sweetness from the bottom, eight pulling it all together. Man, I think that works really well for this.

So let's talk a little turkey. How did you get the job as a tour guide there?

Well, it kind of segues from our first segment into this one. So that's probably a good first question. When we lost Troy in the helicopter accident, I was really thinking I wasn't going back on the road. I was just like, man, the only reason I'm out there is because of Eddie and Troy and just, I don't know how I'd feel about going back out there and him not being out there with us. So I was torn with the idea of staying home. And I was at a point where basically all I was doing was just going to the gym, coming home, sitting in the dark. I guess I thought since I was going to the gym, I was still healthy, even though upstairs you can be just as unhealthy as you can downstairs. My wife, Jeannie, I have to give her credit for pulling me through that whole thing. She's from Eastern Kentucky as well, so she don't take none off nobody. Including me. Especially you. Especially me. She's usually giving it to me. But anyway, she came home and was very honest with me one day. She said, you've got to get out of this house. She said, you don't even see it, but you're falling into this really dark spot. Well, I don't know what I'd do because all I've ever done is play music. So we talked about that a little bit. I get a text from her at work. Two days later, I guess it was. And that's when she said, did you know that Jimmy's looking for a tour guide? Because she and I are backtracking a little bit. I'm sorry about that, but all right. I actually met Jimmy Russell the very first time when I was at Fred Noe's house. I was at Fred's as she and I were over there and Jimmy happened to be there. That's the first time I ever met Jimmy, which to me, I thought that was really cool that those two families love each other that much. But anyway, now you fast forward, she texts me and she says, do you know Jimmy's looking for a tour guide over there? I was like, I don't think Jimmy has to look for much of anything anymore. I think somebody does that for him at this point. But I said, oh no, I had no idea. Well, the distillery is probably with traffic there in Lawrenceburg, 10 minutes from my house. There's no traffic in Lawrenceburg, so we're looking at six or seven minutes. I went over and talked to Sarah up in the offices there, just a regular interview. Did not try to play the Montgomery Gentry card or anything like that. Just talking about how much I love bourbon and was interested. Called me back that same day. He said, if you want to come try to do this, we're glad to have you. And man, I didn't even realize at that point in time how much passion I had for the bourbon until I got there and started really getting into it. And you know, when you've got a resource material like Jimmy Russell sitting in there and I can walk over and ask him any question I want. You're not going to get a book that's going to give you a better answer than Jimmy Russell.

Nope.

Eddie's the same way. The whole family has been so good to me. If Eddie comes in there and I want to ask him something, I walk up and ask him. Usually he and I are talking about where you've been this week. I don't know where you've been, but they're all great people.

And you know, Fred, no, too. Hey, I just want you to know folks, the bourbon road, we say yes to the no. Exactly right.

Saw him at the Kentucky state fair, by the way. He was there with us.

Randy, let's be honest. We say yes to everything.

I told Jimmy the other day, I saw Fred the other day and he said, and before I could finish the sentence, Jimmy said, you don't believe nothing Fred says, do you?

But you know, that's something that I've really enjoyed about getting into this whole bourbon culture thing is they're very supportive of each other. Absolutely. They're all in the same business. Hey, he's doing it this way, he's doing it this way, but they're still very supportive of each other and you don't hear them putting each other down or the product down or anything like that there. It's awesome.

You go back to the Heaven Hill fire when it was so bad. Jimmy and Beam, they got together and Jimmy Booker, here, we'll give you some juice to keep you going. We've got to get you back up and moving again. Oh, wow. They help each other out if they need help, they'll help each other.

So I would imagine that, you know, when you're on boarding as a tour guide at Wild Turkey, they must have some kind of like a training guide or something to teach you guys what to say, or is it, or do you have instant access to Jimmy and Eddie and?

Well, they give you a script. This is the information that we want you to transfer to people as you go out through your tour. Again, very lucky that my wife, she always says, I don't know how you're planning on doing this because you've never colored inside the lines your whole life. So I kind of did what to me would be the best of both worlds. I got all of my information from them. that was in that script. And then I was able to move it around to talk about the process as I'm standing in front of it. I think people will learn more from seeing something when you hear about it. It's like, I've learned more about this nation's history by visiting those places and seeing them and then hearing the history behind it than I did reading it out of a book.

That's 70%. If you hear it, see it, and then are able to touch it, that tactile kinesthetic, you can remember up to 70% of what's been presented to you.

Exactly. And I approached the tour. When I first started talking with Jimmy, I asked him a question about the process. I'm a big process guy. I love the entire process of making it, the history, all of that. I don't remember what part it was I was asking about, but I asked Jimmy a question about the process one day. He and I were sitting in there talking. And before he answered my question, the first thing that came out of his mouth was, Bo, I like to talk in simple terms. That way people understand me. I was like, holy cow. Again, that light bulb. Don't talk over people. Talk with them, not at them. So I kind of try to do that. Cover the process, cover it in language they understand.

Well, can you give us an example of something you talk about or do on your tour that's sort of outside the guide that you've developed on your own? Something that I do?

Yeah. I will look for somebody that's having a really good time. And, you know, like not too long ago, I had a lady, elderly lady on there, but she was obviously a ball of fire. And so as soon as we got on the bus, I'd been talking, I always go down and I meet the people that I'm about to take on tour and I try to talk with them and break that ice before you ever get on that bus. Because that way you know, what kind of tour they want. My job is to make sure they enjoy themselves, not to flatter myself in some way. So I go down and I meet those people. Well, this lady, I was talking to her inside the gift shop area there and I was like, oh, she's a Spitfire. She sat right up front in the bus and I just started messing with her. The entire bus loved that because I was like, y'all need to keep an eye on this one right here. If you see her running, somebody throw a rock. Just that kind of thing and mess with her. And she asked me a question at one point and I said, all right, that's all. She started to ask me another one. I said, sorry, you've already asked your question. I can't answer another one for you. Just make it a personal experience for people rather than... A lot of times, I feel like the distillery tours I've been on, a lot of times it really does feel like they just took the script with them and they're reading it to you.

Yes, and depending on your guide, it can be very monotel. Yeah, it can. And over here, you can see the three kinds of grain we put in our bourbon.

We're going to take this corn and we're going to put it over here. You know, you can say that in a way that makes it interesting.

Well, walk turkeys is a little unique in that you guys meet in the gift shop, you hop on the company bus. The big white bus.

The magic bus is what I call it.

And then you've got everybody in a seat and they've got your attention. So you get to talk to them as you're driving to the first stop.

Right. That's when I go into history. That's what they ask you to do, or suggest that you do, in the script they give you. We'll talk about the history as we go up to the actual distillery. You can find ways to put your own personality in there. When we're talking about the original family that came over, they were from Tyrone, Ireland. And I'll tell people they're from Toronto, Ireland, and then I'll follow it up with something like, I don't know how long you've been here in Kentucky, but I bet it took you five minutes to figure out we pronounce words the way we want to. So we call this Tyrone. And once people realize that you're into having a good time and you really want it to be fun, they'll relax and have a good time with you.

So we've got a listener out there somewhere and they're listening to you talk about your tour and they're like, man, I want to go to Wild Turkey and I want him to lead my tour. What do they have to do to make sure that that happens?

The best thing right now since it's tour season would be to call over there and see what days I'm working.

It just requests both. You can do that. Yeah. So the distillery is very accommodating to your schedule.

They have been wonderful, man. When Eddie decided that he was going back on the road, he called me. And Eddie was one of the big, besides my wife, Eddie was another one of the big factors in me going back, because he called and he and I were talking. And Eddie's probably the best friend I have in the world. And he said, brother, what are we going to do? We don't know how to do anything else. I said, if you want to go back, I've got your back. So I go in to the distillery and getting ready to go to work one day. And here comes Jimmy, of course, getting his chair to hold court. And as he walks in, Eddie had made an appearance on the local TV station to announce that he was going back on the road. And Jimmy had seen it on the news. Jimmy said, I saw Eddie's going back on the road. I said, yeah, I saw that too, Jimmy. That's a nice little interview they did with him. I guess you're going with him. I said, well, I am, but I wanted to talk to you about that. So I basically went to Jimmy. I was like, if I can get Jimmy to give me a good word, maybe they'll let me stay around here. And so now I just told him, I said, I'd love to come in here when I'm off the road and work. Cause I love it. It's so much fun.

And you were able to give them pretty good advanced notice of your schedule.

I do. I'll give them like a month ahead of time. This is my availability.

Put me in there. Put me in coach. So when you're got some personal time on the site, what's your favorite place to go to? What do you like best about the Wild Turkey site? What's that one building, that one place that just pops to you?

For me, I was talking to somebody about this the other day. It's got to be warehouse A. And that's the history in that building. It's not necessarily anything about how the bourbon comes out of it. It's the history of that building. It's the oldest one over there. This thing was put up in 1894. That's a long time ago. And it sits right over the river looking out over that railroad bridge. So to go in there, and then when you get that smell, as soon as you walk through the door, that smell hits you. You're like, oh yeah. I don't know, and that's where Jimmy started rolling barrels in that same door, those kind of things.

Now, when would that have been about? He started in 1954, so somewhere in that area. Wow.

Yeah.

And there were, there were others before him, obviously.

Oh yeah. You had the Rippey family before him. So, I mean, and that was that same warehouse. Yeah.

So there's so much history there. If the walls could talk. Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So you mentioned, uh, Fred No. Oh yeah. You're friends with him and you met him many years ago. And, uh, so, you know, um, So what's it like hanging out with Fred and do you talk turkey with Fred or do you just talk beam with Fred?

If I haven't seen Jimmy for a few days and I have a question about the process, I'll text Fred. Fred will text me right back with the answer. Wow. Absolutely. He loves Jimmy Russell, and I've seen it personally between the two of them interacting. This is not like, hey, I'm telling you something to make it sound great for the bourbon world. I've seen those two together. They love each other.

Have you been around when they've actually been tasting bourbon together?

Separately, I've tasted with them, but not when all three of us are in the same room and saying, that would be, okay, I take that back. Let's see that bottle question again. Yeah, I want to take a bottle and sit down between those two and do that.

There you go.

That would be fine. Yeah. That family too, though, they've been so good to me, man. It's like when I keep talking about being so blessed. First time I ever tasted Booker's was with Booker.

I was just getting ready to ask you if you knew Booker.

Yep. The last two years he was with us, Jim Beam was a corporate sponsor for Montgomery Gentry. And we were over there with the buses doing like one of those photo shoot publicity type deals over there at that old house.

Booker was a piece of work.

He was a character for sure. Well, we like what he put down. That's for sure. So he kind of fooled me, I guess you might want to say. He said, come over and drink with me. If you ever heard Booker talk, I'm sure you've seen interviews where you pretty much have to look for the English language inside of that. Come over here and drink with me, boy. And I went over and he poured me a glass of Booker's and I was just like, oh, this is awesome, man. I didn't know at that point in time, I knew the importance of Booker, no, but I didn't know it was like a legendary type thing, if that makes any sense at all, because I'd known these people for a little while. And I took that first sip. Holy cow. It just about brought me to my knees because there was no water in it. And his proof is 130-something proof. 130-something proof, you know. When everybody else comes off the steel, he puts his out at that proof. But we still say yes to the no.

Exactly.

He thought that was hilarious that he just toasted my head with that bookers.

So what did your bar look like? Any special bottles there? Or do we just talk in Turkey today? You got a plethora of urban bottles out there?

I think for me, working over there, you get questions from people about what would you recommend for this? Again, this goes back to Jimmy, and I've got all kinds of stuff in my bar. The reason I do that because I was in there one day, and I don't remember the guy's name. I remember kind of his face. It was in there. I guess it was in there. I was over there with him, and he was trying to get me to help him pick a Wild Turkey product. I'm new to Wild Turkey, but I was like, well, what proof? Jimmy was in there, and it was only a few people in the gift area at that point in time. Well, next thing I know, Jimmy had gotten up out of his seat and wandered over there to where we were standing. And I still, I hope this guy knows what an experience he had that day in that distillery. Nobody gets that. Nobody gets to have Jimmy Russell help him pick out a bottle. And Jimmy was like, what do you drink? And the guy looked at me and said, it don't matter to me. We're all friends. What do you drink? And the guy told him what he drank. He said, well, then you're going to like this. And it helped that guy pick out his bottle.

So you drink other stuff because it helps you figure out where the turkey products fit in all this.

Exactly. So that way, if somebody asks me something, I can say, oh, it's kind of going to be more like this or like this. I've got a few. I'm not a unicorn chaser. There's too much good bourbon out there to me to do that.

So not a lot of special bottles per se. I've got a few.

I don't have a boatload. I've got a few. We were talking earlier about the 25th anniversary of Knob Creek. I've had a couple of those. Now I've only got one. But I've got the old Fitz 9 and 11. I've got both of those. The 18-year-old single barrel, Elijah Craig, got one of those. Couple of the orphan barrels, the 25 and the 15, I've got a couple of those. Just different things, you know, from all over the place. Just trying to stay up with what's coming out or what's going on, you know. Obviously I have all my turkey stuff in there, but that's just beside the point.

So what is your desert island bourbon? You've heard that question asked before.

I'm going to, and I know this is probably, again, this goes back to me not being a unicorn chaser, 101. Yeah. It's always going to be good. Solid, all around great product.

Because if you're on a desert island, it's hot out there. And I'll be honest with you, that rare breed's a little hot.

You don't need anything to take the heat on up. You're going to need a lot of coconut milk and that sucker. And I know I sound like a broken record on that, but I truly think it's one of the most underrated products out there, man.

Well, what's interesting here at the bourbon road is, you know, Wild Turkey 101 seems to come up more than any other product, you know. People will drink other stuff or they'll bring other stuff and whatnot. But, you know, when they keep going back to what's considered to be a solid product, and you and I were talking earlier, when I was in Georgia, that was a dirt road bourbon. Absolutely.

It was a good old boy's drink. Yeah. So if you had to sort of, in a sentence or two, explain to somebody who's never had Wild Turkey 101 what it tastes like. What it tastes like?

Yeah, what does it remind you? Somebody who's never had it, or never had bourbon, or just never had the other.

Never had Wild Turkey 101.

Never had Wild Turkey 101. I think it drinks underneath its proof when you taste it. I don't think it drinks like it's over 100 proof. There's a sweetness that I like about it. You get the oak, you get those kinds of things, but it's not overpowering. Now, I'm not going to sit and try to tell them it's one of the most complex bourbons they ever drank, but it's going to be one that you say, I like that. I drink that again.

It can stand up to a little water. Absolutely. Stand up to a little ice. Yeah. Tastes good in a cocktail. Shines through in a cocktail. Yeah. Yeah.

That's, I mean, honestly, when I'm home, that's, if I'm just going to reach in my cabinet and grab a bottle of liquor, that's what I grab.

And you know, I had a boss that's, it went to any convention he went to with him, that the bottle was under his arm, 101. And he drank it with Sprite and ice.

You can't get anything but 101 on Southwest Airlines. That's right. That's the only thing you can get.

Well, that's enough to make you want to fly Southwest.

Not only are their airline tickets affordable, but you only get 101.

Yeah, I don't remember exactly, but it was 1981 when I turned 18. And the drinking age in Ohio at that time was 18. And I think my first bourbon was probably an 81-101, which I wish I had a bottle today.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And mine was, that was my second right around in that, that, that area, white label, Jim Beam was, was the first I remember ever having, you know, but, uh, that, that wild turkey from right in there. And I had an uncle who collected all the decanters during the eighties, you know, that stuff, you know, the, the decanters, that's what he would port from. He just didn't care.

So you had this, the turkey in flight,

Pouring something out in the glass.

If you look at what you get versus what you pay for with 101, I'm in good grief. At the price point, you've got six, seven, and eight-year-old bourbons in there.

I think that you're going to see stuff like that making a comeback because with the price of everything going up, with this whole big bourbon boom, you're going to go back to some of the more basic stuff that you can get at a decent price.

Unfortunately for people who really like good bourbon, There's a downside to what's going on in the boom right now, you know, with collectors and this and that and whatever. It's not as much about just enjoying a good bourbon as it used to be. So that's- Finding that unicorn or having that- Yeah, it's about having something nobody else has. And that, I'm sorry, there's a lot of good bourbon out there.

Yeah, there's a certain pleasure that comes in sharing a bottle with somebody. So if you've got something that somebody, one of your friends has never tried before and you crack that bottle open, you see that look on their face when they get to taste it for the first time, there's no substitute for that.

Absolutely. And the master distillers, man, I've talked to them. I know this is a fact. They're not really thrilled about you. buying that bottle to collect it or resell it or whatever. They make it for you to drink, not to look at. And I've heard them all. The great example of that, I had a bottle of the 17, the Master's Keep 17. And I had found, I told Eddie in there one day, he and I said, I said, I'm going to bring that bottle in here and have you sign it. And I said, I've had Jimmy sign one before. I don't think I've ever had you sign a bottle. I'm going to bring it in here. And he said, did you drink it? I said, well, no, I didn't drink it. I just said, I'm going to bring it in there and have you sign it. And he said, nope. You drink it and I'll sign it for you, but I didn't make it for you to look at.

But there's something about going to somebody's house and you know you're special when they go and they do that combination on that safe and they open that sucker and they bring out that unicorn and you go, oh, I've never had that.

Yeah, that was one of the cool things about hanging out with T-Roy. He liked to find those unicorns. Yeah.

Wow. Well, you know, if, if we've got a couple of bourbon drinkers out there that are also guitar players and you're kind of thinking about that future in music, you've got any kind of advice you'd give them? Anything you would say to, Hey, you know, guys, this is what I went through. And this is what a few words of advice I have for you.

I think for me, it's different now than it was when I got in. So I think what I would tell them, number one, be good at what you do. There's a serious lack of talent in the music business right now. People have started listening with their eyes instead of their ears. I agree.

It's not as complex as it used to be.

No. If you're really good, you can play anything. Be persistent. Unfortunately, I can't believe I'm even saying this because it irks me. Of course, well, I was in the hair bands in the eighties, so I can't believe I'm saying this.

I've heard of you guys.

Yeah. When we got married, my wife found, I had one of the pair of the old spandex pants that I wore back in the eighties. She said, oh my God. Why did you keep these? I said to remind myself to never do that again. But it has become about looks. So have your own style, your own thing, but don't be all about that. Don't be all about how you look or how you're dressing. If you're good, that's going to show. And don't give up when people tell you you're supposed to.

Because if I'd done that... None of us would have been playing. I'd still be working back up in the coal mines back in Eastern Kentucky.

That would be the advice I'd give. Just work hard at it. Work on your instrument or your vocals or whatever. Be good at it. If you're good, it shines. You can see that. If you're passionate, that's a good word. If you're passionate, you'll see that. Nobody has to point that out to you.

And if you've had a bad day, there's always 101 waiting when you get home.

Exactly. Don't forget. Sometimes that can open up your creativity and things start to happen good for you. There you go.

All right. So Bo, we'd like to give all our listeners an opportunity to know how to reach out to you, get a hold of you on social media, on the internet, you know, maybe where your next show is. So why don't you just take a minute and let them know how to get in touch with you.

I'm on Instagram a lot. It's at firebird because that's the guitar I play so much at firebird bow Okay, is who I am on Instagram same thing on Twitter. Okay, so I'm trying to keep it simple That's actually so I can remember it at my age more so But that's the easiest way to find me Instagram and Twitter I'm on there all the time I do post about where we're going, what we're doing, things of that nature always. And I'm always spreading the word about the bird on there too. So, you know, I'd love to have anybody want to check it out, man. If they have anything they want to ask, ask me. I'll get back to you.

Good deal. Well, it's a pleasure to have you on today. We really enjoyed it. We had a fun time.

It was great. It was worth the wait. It's been a while trying to get you here. This has been a blast.

I mean, how do you have more fun than sitting around talking about bourbon while you drink it? That's right.

That's right. So let's try to make a point of doing this again someday in the future.

I'd love to. Absolutely would love to.

Well, thank you, Beau. We appreciate it. And we look forward to seeing you out on the road.

Tell Ed Rowan, the gang, we said, hey. I will do that. Thank you guys. Appreciate you.

We do appreciate all of our listeners and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions, and if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.