209. Eli Mason Old Fashioned Cocktail Mixer Review
Jim & Mike mix a Leapers Fork Rye Old Fashioned with Eli Mason cocktail mixer live in the Leapers Fork Distillery stillhouse.
Tasting Notes
Show Notes
Jim Shannon and Mike Hyatt wrap up the Stillhouse Sessions at Leapers Fork Distillery in Leapers Fork, Tennessee, with a laid-back Craft Distillery Monday episode that takes a slight detour from straight sipping. Recorded live in the distillery's stillhouse — fans off, tours rolling in the background, and the Tennessee heat doing its best — the guys turn their attention to the art of the cocktail, specifically one of the most iconic American drinks: the Old Fashioned.
This episode shines a light on Eli Mason Old Fashioned Cocktail Mixer, a product brought to market by Made South founder Chris Thomas. Designed to take the guesswork out of building a consistent Old Fashioned at home or on the road, the mixer combines the sugar and bitters components into a single, shippable syrup. Jim and Mike follow the label's two-to-one ratio — two parts whiskey to one part Eli Mason — and reach for a bottle they know well: Leapers Fork Straight Rye Whiskey, distilled right there in the building where they're sitting.
On the Tasting Mat:
- Leapers Fork Straight Rye Whiskey with Eli Mason Old Fashioned Cocktail Mixer (2:1, on the rocks): A rye-driven Old Fashioned built on-site at Leapers Fork Distillery. The rye whiskey lends natural spice and backbone that cuts through the sweetness of the Eli Mason syrup, delivering a balanced, refreshing cocktail over cube ice. Jim and Mike note that rye is their preferred base for an Old Fashioned — more so than weeded bourbons, which they find can tip the drink toward excessive sweetness — and the combination here delivers consistency and ease without sacrificing character. (00:02:51)
Beyond the tasting, Jim and Mike reflect on the broader Stillhouse Sessions weekend — a stretch of live recordings, great guests, and more than a few pours of straight whiskey — and give a genuine tip of the hat to the Leapers Fork team for their hospitality. The guys also make the case for keeping a bottle of Eli Mason in your travel bag alongside a bottle of rye: simple math, big payoff. Whether you're tailgating, at the cabin, or just want a foolproof nightcap, this episode is a reminder that a great cocktail doesn't have to be complicated.
Full Transcript
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. This is the Bourbon Road. And today we are in Leapers Fork Distillery, the Stillhouse. This is the last of the Stillhouse sessions. And we've got tours going on in the background. We've got activity going on here in the Stillhouse. So you might hear a little something in the background. But Mike and I are here to do another Craft Distillery Monday episode. And today we're taking it in a little bit different direction.
Well, yeah, you know, We always drink whiskey or bourbon on these shows and both of us like a good old-fashioned, right Jim? We do. We absolutely do. But sometimes you're on the road and you just don't have everything to make that old-fashioned. Well, our good friend Chris Thomas over at Made South, he actually has a old-fashioned cocktail mixer called Eli Mason.
And a lot of you are probably familiar with Eli Mason. Eli Mason has been around for a while. It's a fairly popular brand and you can order it and have it shipped through the mail because it's not alcoholic, right? Yeah. It's a fantastic mixer that makes making a homemade old-fashioned simple. Now, I'll tell you, for me, I think I make a pretty good old fashioned, but my problem is consistency and I don't always make it good. Sometimes I slip a little bit and I put too much of this or too much of that in. And this is designed to make it as easy as possible.
Yeah, this is super easy. They even put a recipe on the side of the bottle. You want to mix two parts whiskey. You use a rye or a bourbon if you wanted to. And then one part syrup, which is this stir over ice and then you got your cocktail right there. I mean,
that's uh pretty easy right it's really easy and you know chris even mentioned for him you know and he and his wife they like to change it up a little bit they even go three to one or four to one on the mix so you can you can mix it up to your own taste a little bit now you mix these up what'd you do to them Now these are by the label, the ones that we have in our glass in front of us. And thank you to Matt from Leapers Fork. He brought us a couple of rocks glasses here and had them full of ice. And we mix these up according to the label and it's two to one. So two parts bourbon, in this case it's not bourbon, it's rye whiskey. We did two parts Leapers Fork straight rye whiskey and one part Eli Mason old fashioned mix.
I can't wait to taste this thing, Jim.
I'm ready because I'm a big old fashioned fan. And quite honestly, Mike, we've been during this steel house sessions episode, we have been drinking just a little bit of straight bourbon.
Yeah, I think somebody counted yesterday and I might've had right around 15 to 20 bars of whiskey.
And we haven't been holding back, have we? Cause we're not driving. No, no. Our wives are taking care of us this weekend.
Yeah, we're going to owe them after this trip. I think we owe them probably something pretty special. Maybe a beach trip or something like that.
But you and I are not driving, so we're able to drink what we need to drink to get these shows done, to make the most out of our opportunity here at The Steel House. And so let's talk a little bit about this old fashioned again. We've got it over cube ice in a rocks glass. It's darn cold and it's mixed according to the label. You ready to try it out? Let's do it. Cheers. Cheers all. I was half tempted to take a whiff of it, nose it, but you just don't, you just don't do that with an old fashioned day.
Not really. You know what? I don't, I don't do that.
I don't know if you'd get anything. I'm going to try it though.
Yeah. No, there's nothing there.
You just got to drink it.
It's good. It is an old fashioned and now it's been sitting here for a minute. So with the ice did play a little factor into this. Um, But I'd say it's 85, 90 degrees in the steel house.
Yeah, it's pretty hot. Now we've had to turn off the fans in the steel house there. And thank goodness for Matt and the crew here at Liebers Fork. You know, they've been very accommodating. And when you're working in a steel house and somebody turns off the fans, you're not the most popular person in the world, are you? No, but we are. We are. They love us down here.
Yeah, Jim, I'd say this is right up there, especially for on the road like we are the Bourbon Road. This is quick and easy. Put in our bag. Bottle of whiskey. Bottle of this syrup right here. The Eli Mason old fashioned cocktail mixer. And away we go.
Yeah, so I mean, if you're making your own old fashioned home, you know, and most of you who are listening to the show have probably done it. You need bourbon or rye whiskey. You need sugar and you need a little bit of bitters. And how you make that up, quite honestly, is there's a lot of variation in that. Some people use sugar cubes. Some people take the sugar and they turn it into a syrup or a bar syrup, right?
Yeah, or you just grab some maple syrup.
Oh, you can do maple syrup.
Like our good friends over there at seldom seen farms up in Ohio.
Yeah.
They make some bourbon aged maple syrup. You could use that.
But I mean, the difference in sugars, the difference in bitters, the difference in whiskies can all affect the outcome of your old fashioned. And honestly, personally, and you know me, I prefer a rye whiskey in my old fashions. Yeah, you're a rye guy.
But what about you? What do you prefer in your old-fashioned? I would rather just do a rye whiskey than probably anything else. Because if you use a rye bourbon, you're going to add that spice to your cocktail. If you use a weeded bourbon, it could be too sweet. So if you just stick with that rye whiskey, you get the sweetness, you get the spice, you get everything.
So as much as you like well, or you're probably not saying, let's put it in my old fashioned. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, in addition to old fashions, there's a lot of other things that are available out there. I certainly encourage everyone to take a look at Eli Mason. In addition to the old fashioned, they also have some other, some other mixers that you can use to enhance your bourbon experience. And, uh, you know, our good friend, Chris Thomas from made South, he's, he's got this brand under, under his belt. And, uh, I think it's pretty special.
Well, you definitely want to go check him out. EliMason.com, order his cocktail mixer, the old fashioned, uh, get it shipped straight to your house. Stop by Leapers Fort distillery here in Leapers Fort, Tennessee. Take a tour, grab a couple of bottles of the whiskey. Or heck, you can go to the liquor store here in Tennessee while you're here and pick up one of their bottles of rye whiskey. Makes a perfect cool down cocktail here at football season.
Yeah. And I think the Eli Mason old fashioned mix comes in a 750 milliliter bottle. For those big boys like me. For the big boys. No, you think about it. If it's a two to one, if you're following the label and you're doing a two to one, that means that you've got two bottles of bourbon, one bottle of Eli Mason. That's three bottles that you get to mix up. That's a lot of old fashions. Yeah. Yeah. So you won't have to pick any up for a while. So. Highly recommend it. Definitely a bourbon road pick, I would say.
Well, Jim, you can find us on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, all over the place.
Absolutely. So we do two shows a week. We do a short episode every Monday. We do a long episode every Wednesday where we kind of take a deep dive. Today's episode is a short one. We're kind of spotlighting Eli Mason, a little bit of Leapers Fork Rye Whiskey, trying to let you know that this is something you want to give a shot. It's a nice diversion from drinking that straight bourbon. We like cocktails almost as much as we like straight bourbon. Not quite, but almost as much. And we certainly encourage you to explore cocktails as well. We want you to listen to both shows every week. Mike, how can they be sure not to miss an episode of the Bourbon Road?
Well, you want to scroll on up, right? You want to hit that plus sign, that check sign, that subscribe sign. It'll tell your app will tell you, hey, these two jokers got a show plan today. They just released an episode. So do that for us and scroll on down. Hit that five star review. If you don't, I'm going to bring my buddy, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon. I'm going to free him from his cage. He's going to bring some of this cocktail mixer right here. We're going to drink old fashions all night. By the end of the night, we're going to get that five star review though. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. Guaranteed. So give us that five star. It opens the doors, distilleries like Leapers Fork. It brings great guests on. Like Chris Thomas, it brings the guest on like Austin Taylor Die. It brings guests on like Joe Siasiska. It just opens those doors for us and allows us to put out great content for you guys.
Absolutely. And we appreciate all our listeners who have stuck through this Steel House session that we've had. It's been amazing to record five episodes in a distillery steel house, to have great guests on, to drink great whiskey, and to kind of enjoy it. An amazing weekend here in Franklin, Tennessee. Thank you so much to Liebers Fork for making this happen. They're our good friends.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
All right. So we do two shows a week. Like I said, we'd love to hear what you think about those episodes. If you've got an idea for a show, if you've got a guest that you think needs to be on the Bourbon road and you need to let us know, you can always reach out to Mike and I were very available. We're out there. We're approachable. If you see us somewhere, come up and tap us on the shoulder. Otherwise send us an email. I'm Jim at the bourbon road.com. He's Mike at the bourbon road.com, but probably the best way to reach out to us, does it hit up our DMS on Instagram? I'm Jay Shannon 63. I'm one big chief and we'll see you down the bourbon.
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