214. Thanksgiving Roundup with Wild Turkey

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

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyatt. This is the Berman Road. And today, Mike, it's a couple of weeks leading into Thanksgiving. So this is kind of our Thanksgiving prep show, right?

Yeah. Well, you got to have some time to prepare. You just don't want to rush out that day, because usually nothing's open on Thanksgiving Day.

Nothing's open, and the shelves are kind of barren some places, right? Yeah. We definitely need to plan a little bit early this year.

So we want to talk about some of the things that people will serve to their guests on Thanksgiving Day. And what kind of bourbon or what kind of whiskey would you serve on Thanksgiving Day?

I think those are both very good questions and questions we need to explore in the show and talk about it. We always like to get straight to the bourbon.

And since we're talking about turkey day, what do you think? Well, you have to have some kind of feather in it, right? I would think it would have to have some turkey, especially some wild turkey.

We're going to start the first half with a wild turkey we haven't had on the show yet.

It's a wild turkey, right? 101.

101 Rye. I'm pretty sure we haven't had it on the show. We haven't spotlighted it on the show.

I don't think we have. I believe we had Rare Breed with David Jennings on the show. We did. But we didn't have this. Not the 101 Rye.

And everybody knows that I'm a fan of Wild Turkey 101 to start with. I'm also, ryes are some of the things I, the things I really like in life, right? Rye whiskies. This is kind of the best of both worlds for me. This is a wild turkey rye.

Now I haven't had this yet, but I'm hoping it would be like a dessert whiskey because some ryes are sticky and sweet. So you gotta have that on Thanksgiving, right? I think so. Well, you know what else we got in the sticky and sweet? Our new sponsors, Jim. We do have a new sponsor. Seldom Seen Farms out of Ohio. They are new sponsors. Kevin, Holly, we've ran into him several times. Somebody we talked about we'd like to do business with. Now what's special about his farm is they make maple syrup.

They make maple syrup from trees on their own farm.

Yeah.

And they've got quite a few trees.

It's 2000 trees to be exact. I think is what Kevin told us, which is pretty amazing, right? Um, a farmer in this day that's starting his own farm and getting started, you don't hear about that very often.

Yeah, our friends at seldom seen farm, Kevin and crew have really taken syrup to a new level. The bourbon barrel ages maple syrup. You know, the unique aging method really extracts the deep bold flavors of the bourbon into the sweet finish of the maple. It's just, it's just a match made in heaven.

We know it's not just for breakfast either, right? You can make cocktails out of this. You can use this as a barbecue glaze. I just made one the other day. I made a braided pork loin and then I used their maple syrup. It was perfect for a bourbon glaze on top of that pork. Truly delicious. And you could use this as a dessert syrup too.

I actually made it old fashioned with it. yesterday and it's absolutely amazing a maple old-fashioned made with their syrup and just so folks know it really goes a long way I used a half an ounce of maple syrup a couple splashes of bitters and two ounces of rye whiskey now you can use bourbon if you like I used rye over a big round ice cube. I got one of those big spheres and it was an absolutely delicious old fashioned. I actually threw an extra couple shakes of orange bitters in there too, just cause I didn't have any fresh orange peel really makes a great old fashioned.

Well folks go to seldom seen maple.com and check out Kevin's great maple syrup. Buy some today. Tell them the bourbon road sent you. Well, Jim, I'm ready to drink some of this rye right here. You know, I haven't had it before, but I'm sitting here nosing it and it, it does have that rye aroma.

Yeah. The wild turkey one-on-one rice has been around for a long time, Mike. It's kind of a hard to find sometimes. It's pretty available in our area, but it is available nationally. It's just a little hard to get your hands on sometime, but it is a, um, it's a Kentucky rye. You know, it's got that 51% barely legal rye mash bill. It's also got a 37% corn and 12% marten, malted barley. So definitely a low rye rye.

How long is this aged for? Do you know?

You know, in keeping with the wild turkey tradition, you know, the wild turkey one-on-ones, um, six to eight years old, I would hope that they rise about the same. Now what's the price on this? This can be had for about $27 a bottle.

That's not bad for a ride that it's a 101 proof. I mean, that's all up there.

Yeah. You pick up the, the one-on-one bourbon for around $20 a little bit more sometimes depending on where you're picking it up in the, and the rise available for about 27. So you can get both of them for right around 50 bucks.

Nice. Nice. Well heck let's taste the same.

Cheers. Cheers. It definitely knows it's like a rye, doesn't it?

I'm already tasting it. It does know it's like a rye. Super sweet.

Very sweet. Very, um, syrupy, very candy like.

Yeah, not bad. I can see this drinking this, um, as I almost dessert with dessert, right? Yeah. you know, speaking of desserts, what's your favorite dessert on a, or a side, I guess, favorite thing?

Yeah. I mean, I like, uh, I like sweet potato casserole. It's kind of sweet and it's got the nuts on it. Um, I've always loved it. My dad makes a great sweet potato casserole.

That's his, his recipe. That's his recipe passed down probably through generations and stuff. I got a favorite thing that I almost got to have. It's addictive. And probably the only persons that eat it are me and my little brother, but he geeks out when Vivian makes it. And that was passed down from my mom, from my grandmother. It's called pink salad and stuff. Um, and all the recipes we're talking about today, um, the dishes, I'll make sure I put them in this week's blog. That way our listeners could see what me and Jim are actually talking about. You know, that's just one of the things I almost eat that before. If she has to kind of swap my hand at it stuff.

Not pink salad. That's the, the marshmallow fruit and, uh, um, whipped cream kind of stuff all mixed together.

Yeah. Oh yeah, baby.

I've, I've heard it called a lot of things. I've never heard it called pink salad.

That's what I always call it. Pink salad.

Yeah.

Hey, it's, uh, probably not really good for you, but it dang sure tastes good.

I'm trying to remember what we used to call that. I think we call it heavenly hash. Heavenly hash. Something like that. Yeah.

Now, do you, you know, I know you guys have, traditionally, you usually can't do Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving with your entire family because you're spread out over several states and, oh, you've been over here. You guys kind of do a Saturday thing. You know, you got daughters kind of spread over your sons in Colorado and stuff and you guys get together. What's the thing that you look forward to most about Thanksgiving?

We usually spend most of the day all together in the living room with a ball game on and just catching up. Cause we are spread out, you know, and it is, we always do it the Saturday after Thanksgiving because it gives everybody the opportunity to travel in.

Now what's the one thing that Mel cooks that you're just like dying for?

Oh my goodness. She makes so many good things. She is like the dessert master. So everything's sweet. I gotta say she, she can bust out some desserts. She sure can. Um, you know, I really like her strawberry pretzel salad. Um, what else do I like? Um, Oh, I like her a Mountain Dew cake.

That's all sweet stuff.

It is sweet. That's what she's good at. I usually end up, I make the turkey, I do the stuffing. Mashed potatoes, we'll take turns at that. But she's always busting out the sweet stuff.

Viv's favorite thing she cooks, she'd found it in a magazine years and years ago, is her green beans. Neither one of us eat green bean casserole. Now, I know listeners. That sounds sacrilegious on Thanksgiving. We just don't do it. Neither one of us like it, so we decide why cook it. So if I ever come to your house for Thanksgiving and you got green bean casseroles, probably one thing I won't eat right there is green bean casserole. Vivian, she kind of takes, what's it called when you steam your, they're not done yet, the green beans. You blanch them. Blanch them and she puts them in ice and shocks them. And then she pan fries them with like bacon and onions and walnuts and some red pepper flakes. It is to die for. I love that dish right there.

So that recipe is going to make it in. That recipe will make it in.

Well, I've got another one for you.

And this is, I'm surprised it wasn't the first one to come out. It's a Melody's Corneroni. If you had it, I think you did have it.

Seems like I'd remember that.

Oh, it's absolutely amazing. So it's just, just, this isn't the recipe, but this just gives you an idea. take cream corn, whole kernel corn, butter, Velveeta, and macaroni and cheese, right?

Yeah.

So it's like a mac and cheese and corn all mixed together. Really tasty.

You should have never told me that because I'm going to give her a hard time about being from Iowa. That's a kind of inside joke amongst the four of us is about the corn and stuff. And I always tell her that, uh, that I was known for hogs, but it's known for, for corn though. It's known for corn.

It's known for, they do have hogs out there, but most States have hogs.

Yeah.

They got probably a little bit more hogs than other people because they got so much corn, so much corn out there.

I don't know why that's always the vision I have. I think it was some movie back in the day and they just showed the hog farms and I was thinking, man, that's Iowa's got a bunch of hog farms. But if you ever driven through Iowa, there is nothing but corn there. Literally it's corn after you might see a single little tree just, just waving out there in the middle of nowhere.

And about halfway through the state, you hit their distilleries though.

Yeah. Yeah. They got some good distilleries. They got all that corn out there. They got to do something with it, right? What's your favorite besides turkey? Do you guys have anything else?

We usually have turkey and ham are the two things we have. So pretty traditional, I think, you know, not everybody likes turkey or wants to eat more than just a piece of it. So we always have a ham as well as spiral cut.

Yeah, I'm the same way. I, I, we are very traditional when it comes to that. I always got to have a spiral sliced ham. And then, um, I used to fry my turkeys, but several years back, um, I took and fried a Turkey too long and I don't know what you caught on Turkey. I just called the Turkey's ass fell out. Um, it just, it, it just, it overcooked it. Um, So, but now I have a smoker and I smoke my turkeys I injected some people run them Smoke it for I think 12 hours when I go let my turkeys go for I'll stuff it with apples or oranges inside there and that moisture content just kind of steams that inside of that bird. I know you'll smoke a turkey.

I smoked it and I think I followed your directions. I stuffed it full of oranges and smoked a turkey and it actually turned out really good. I mean, everybody loved it. So I might do it again this year.

And if you don't like the oranges, I've used onions before inside to just take that whole onion and stick it up inside that cavity. Um, and you can actually pull those onions back out and serve them as smoked onions and stuff. And either way, whatever way you like it. Um, you know, I know different people across America, they do it different. I know, um, Vivian quite likes me smoking a turkey because I know a lot of women out there or men that will spend a lot of time in a kitchen. It keeps you out of the kitchen.

She's pretty happy about that.

I never thought about that.

It could be her, her, uh, other reason, right?

Yeah. Um, we do apple pie. Um, we try not to, um, buy anything, uh, store bought just, that's just us. We don't, maybe a pumpkin pie, but Viv loves to cook her meal and stuff. And I, I love her for that. You know, um, we cook our apple pie a certain way. It's gotta be thin sliced apples. You know, what'd be good inside that apple pie? Yeah. A little bit of, This Wild Turkey 101, you can put a little bit of that in there.

Yeah, absolutely.

This rye right here with that sweetness with the crisp apples.

Before you cook it. Oh yeah. You got to get rid of that alcohol so the youngins don't end up with it. Everybody can eat it.

Yeah. pour this rye in there, put some cinnamon, nutmeg, some butter, you know, you got a pie right there, but those apples soak in there probably about 30 or 40 minutes. They'll suck it up and then you cook that alcohol off, but it'll give a good flavor to it. I think that'd be good.

We've talked about enough stuff here. We're going to have the burden road Thanksgiving cookbook.

Well, we'll have a whole, we still got a second half to talk about. We got another whiskey set in here to drink and talk about that stuff.

Back to this Wild Turkey 101 rye. It's very sweet. It's very spicy at the same time. It's kind of a honey. It's got kind of a real honey, you mentioned that, a real honey flavor to it. It does have that little bit of rye kick to it, so it does have that spice, but it's got a true grain flavor to it. You can kind of just taste the grain in it. I think it's the rye grain just sort of shining through.

I, I, I quite like that. You know, um, I like the sugary sweetness to it for sure. And that, that you've hit it now on the head that I don't know what it's not gritty. It's just super thick for, especially for 101 proof.

And for as light as it is, it's a light liquid.

It is a light, uh, light whiskey. not meaning light, but light in color. Um, very good, very tasty. You know, hard to beat this, especially for the price gym. Now on a second hand, let's talk about some cocktails that you could make at Thanksgiving. We'll talk about some other stuff at Thanksgiving and we're going to drink another whiskey. All right.

All right, listeners, we are back. And it's kind of our Thanksgiving pregame show. Yeah. And we've gone through some recipes in the first half. We sipped on a little bit of wild turkey 101 rye. In the second half, we're going to sort of sip on a little bit of the standard wild turkey. And we've got a little bit something special towards the end of the show that we're going to sip on. We won't tell you about it now, but it's something you're going to hear our review on, no doubt about it.

Nice.

Nice. So Mike, going back to the turkey dinner, you said you smoke your turkey. Yeah. What's the key to a good smoked turkey?

I think low and slow. You know, if you rush it, you turn that temperature up too much, right? You can dry turkey out.

So does it. So when you, when you smoke your turkey, do you do it? When you say low, how low is that?

I do mine at 190, 195 depending on the outside temperature, right? Cause that's going to fluctuate on your smoker, right? Especially if you have a thin walled smoker, you know, I got a little bit of thicker walled smoker so I can do that 195 and it'll keep that temperature stuff. But, And we both have pellet smokers used to have a stick burner, right?

Yeah.

Um, that would be totally different, but low and slow to me is about 190. Um, you go lower that little higher. Um, and it takes a long time.

Now you're trying to get the internal temperature to about 165. Yeah.

Okay. Well you want to dang sure, make sure when you're talking about poultry that you're above that 165.

Right. So you have to hit 165. So, um, and it takes about 12 hours.

Yeah. 12 hours.

So you stay at, you stay at one 90 the whole time on your grill temperature.

Yup. And then right at the very end for the last 35 to 45 minutes, I cranked that sucker up and it'll crisp that skin up on the outside. And that's what gives you that golden brown and stuff. But you know, I inject it and I rub it down. Um, I got a Creole season. I pour all over it and that'll give it that nice crisp look too, that you're looking for. Some people don't like that.

Some people don't like smoked turkey. And you don't wrap it at all. So you let it take 12 hours of smoke. That's a lot of smoke for me. It is. Now when you're doing other types of meats, you wrap them, right?

I let my pork go for 12 hours and then I'll do a five hours wrapped up and it, you know, sucks all that juice.

What about ribs though?

I do the same thing.

You let them go the whole time?

No, I do a three, two, one.

Okay. Got it.

You've had my ribs before.

I have had your ribs.

They're darn good. Three, two, one method. You know, you go three hours smoke. Um, two hours wrapped in one more hour on the smoke.

And the reason behind that is, is you don't want that smoke to penetrate too deep, right? You want it to be flavorful, but not over-smoked.

Yeah. You don't want to be coughing up smoke four days later, burping up smoke and tasting that smoke. Uh, And I, that's why we, we both, I think we love our pellet smokers so much is cause you don't get that big, uh, sometimes smoke can be bitter. Yeah. You know, and I, I smoke, try to smoke with a fruit wood myself. I like pecan. Um, that's a Texas hill country thing. We've had a little pecan, um, yeast bourbon on before. So, That's the wood I like to smoke. I grew up with that flavor, so I like that. But you probably use apple or something like that.

Yeah, I use an apple blend. I think it has apple as the primary hardwood. So I'm trying to get back to this smoking thing. So you used to deep fry your turkeys, which locks in all that juice. Oh yeah. and it really makes some fantastic juicy turkey, right? But on a smoker, it's not as juicy, right? It can be a little more dry.

Well, it can be, but I haven't had a dry turkey in a long time. I just, you know, I've perfected that smoking process and that's why you do inject it. And that's why you do either do a brine or you, you know, sticking those oranges or apples or onions in there, that moisture in there, it'll just steam. It's pretty much steaming your turkey and the moisture staying in there. So you want to make sure you keep some kind of moisture in there. The other trick in there is you could put a pan of water inside your smoker and that will steam too and keep that moisture inside that bird. I mean, there's several different ways to do it. I've brined a turkey before.

Now you prefer larger birds or smaller birds like 12 pounds or 24 pounds.

I think that 10 to like 12 pound bird is that perfect bird. You know, you get a 24 pound bird. Sometimes they're tough.

Yeah.

Yeah. I agree with you there.

That's, that's, that's an older bird. I think I'm going to do it again this year. I think I'm going to, I think I'm going to smoke another Turkey this year.

Now I still got a Turkey fryer, you know, every once in a while I try, try my hand at again, but what do you do with five gallons of oil after?

Yeah. I mean, that's it, right? You, uh, well, I mean, I guess you could run your truck on it, right?

Well, you could try to use it again for fish or something like that, but the oil goes rancid after a while, doesn't it? Yeah.

I don't think you reuse it. I mean, I honestly don't know, Mike. I think once you cook a Turkey and small, he's got to get rid of the oil.

Yeah. And I'm not big into fried food anyways, you know, and I'm even wondering about the new thing old thing this year, right? Was the air fryer.

Yeah, but it's not really for, it's not really for like meat, right? For heavy, thick things. It's just for like French fries and stuff. Well, now I'm wondering if you could fry a whole turkey. I don't know.

I mean, is it big enough to get a turkey in there?

I don't know. I mean that you're, you're pushing the envelope of what should be done here. I think.

Well, let's, let's, one of our listeners reach out to us and let us know if you can fry a Turkey in a, in an air fryer. That'd be pretty neat. I think to see. Um, but yeah, that's my tech. I like to smoke a Turkey. I I've did that for man. maybe 10 years now, smoked turkey and I just, I smoked, I've smoked up to 12 turkeys at one time before. Oh my goodness. For when I was in the Coast Guard and I would cook a Thanksgiving meal for the entire unit. Um, I just have all these turkeys smoking at one time, loaded up on smokers.

So what do you inject them with?

Um, I use a Creole seasoning you get at Walmart, uh, pretty much anywhere. I think, you know, you'll see that yellow. I don't know what the brand is.

I use as soon as you share his stuff.

Okay.

You mix it with water.

No, I just put this, you supposed to mix it with water. No, you said injecting. So I want to know how you inject it. If you don't mix it with something, I just take that little needle thing and pump it out. But I actually got a couple other injectors.

Oh, it's the liquid form of it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was talking about the granular form. That's what you rub down on the outside.

Yeah, but I, it's got a, I don't know, a little pint of that. One of those will do a Turkey. Now, Vivian said, Hey, we're, cause we're going to see my son in Shreveport, right? Um, and she's like, you got, you need to bring some of that stuff with you. I was like, they'll have it down there. He go get it. Cause we're traveling down there this year, uh, from Thanksgiving down to Parkdale air force base. And, but I'm assuming that I'm going to have to do some cooking down there.

We could always take the turkey already prepared.

I think once we get there, he's supposedly he's going to buy the bird and he's hopefully he don't buy it on like 50 pound turkey.

Yeah. Tell him two 12 pounders is much better than a 24 pounder.

I think all we need is a 12 pounder and that little ham. And we actually have a ham we're taking with us. Uh, they had a sale on hams and I was like, I'm gonna buy a whole bunch of those things. You know, you see something on sale these days, you better buy it up.

You know, the funny thing is I'm sitting here sipping on Wild Turkey 101 and I don't even think to talk about it because it's just, it's something I sip on almost every day. Well, when I'm not doing it to show. And it's just such a solid bourbon. It's just such a great bourbon. You know, I think people are starting to catch on because I was at the barrel room the other night and I was talking about, and I always get asked this and so do you, what's your favorite bourbon, right? That's the number one question that bourbon podcast hosts get asked. And my immediate response to them is, what, my daily drinker or the one that I would like to have on special occasions? They said, oh, no, your daily drinker. They want to know what your daily drinker is. I said, it's Wild Turkey 101. And lately it seems like I'm getting a lot of people going, yeah, that's a good one. You know, they say, yeah, that's a good, it used to be you'd get, Oh really? Turkey one-on-one. So I think people are coming around a little bit.

Well, it's a very affordable too, right? 20 bucks. I mean, you can't beat that. Now you don't like the new label though, right? It's growing on me. It's starting to grow on me. Yeah. I mean, I, Did they change the bottle to the bottle shape?

Yeah, the bottles got that embossed Turkey on it now right on the front where the label used to be. Yeah, I like that. It's a little bit more classy.

I think now I like the photo of the old Turkey was good, right? It didn't make the bourbon taste any different to me. I mean,

Now the bourbon is the same. The price is still great. It's still six to eight year old bourbon out of Wild Turkey distillery. It's still all about those, uh, toffee notes and those honey notes and those, I mean, it's just, it's just great, great bourbon.

And what's the mash bill on Wild Turkey?

Well, the Wild Turkey mash bill has really a high compliment of corn. It's at 75% and then it's 13% rye and 12% malted barley. You know, they say on the side of the bottle, or they used to say on the side of the bottle, high rye. Yeah, but that's not even close to high rye, right? Not today, right? Today we got craft distilleries that are pumping out 20, 30% rye bourbon mash bills, right? Yeah. So we've seen some even higher than that. We've seen some mash bills.

Almost forties. Almost forties.

So, Yeah, it's pretty, uh, it's pretty impressive what some of these, uh, you know, young craft distilleries are doing. So now the, now the neck label says bourbon 101, like, like they wrote the book, right?

Well, I mean, Jimmy, he's been around for a minute.

Yeah, he has been, he built that house.

Yeah.

Well, not really, but Rippey's built that house, but he's, he basically has lived in it for a very long time.

He's done redesigned it. He's done redesigned that house right there. So some other things you said football, you know, and that's a big thing in our house is, uh, especially in one of my son's house. Um, and what team do you think we're going to be watching?

Oh, you're going to be watching them, uh, Texas Longhorns.

Yeah, they don't, uh, they used to play on Thanksgiving night, but they used to play Texas A&M until Texas A&M jumped ship and went to a different conference.

But we definitely are watching the Dallas Cowboys.

Usually two teams play on Thanksgiving night is the Dallas Cowboys every year and the Detroit Lions.

Oh, so you're doing Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving day.

Yeah. Got it.

We always do it on Saturday.

So I'm thinking college football, college football that Texas will play. I think Friday night is the night they play. Um, like when they played Texas A and M, I think they played on a Thanksgiving day or that night at a giant bonfire and they stopped that. I think back in the nineties, they had a big accident where it killed a bunch of people. you know, the good things that they get rid of them. Somebody gets hurt. I know it's terrible.

So we always watch the Ohio state Michigan game, which is big game, right? It's a big game.

One of the biggest rivalries in college football right there, along with Texas, Oklahoma and Auburn and Alabama. I, Notre Dame and USC that's, and then maybe one more, right?

Army Navy. Army Navy. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's Navy's turn.

I say go army, beat Navy. That's what I say. Old army guy. Um, I was thinking the other things that people have across the nation for Thanksgiving day. What about some cocktails? Yeah.

So when you were talking about stuffing those oranges up in the turkey, I immediately thought of old fashions. That's what you're sipping on when you're cooking that turkey. But, you know, get a little bit of orange peel on that old fashion. You probably go ahead and skin those oranges ahead of time and get that skins ready for the old fashions, right?

I wonder this year I might take and take one of those oranges, not stuff in the Turkey and smoke an orange and then use that in my old fashioned. That would be good. Well, just smoke the orange peel.

Yeah. You don't need the actual inside of the orange, just the orange peel. You know, that's actually a pretty good idea, Mike. You might be able to make a little money on that one. Smoked orange PLO fashions.

That does sound pretty good, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. Well, one of the cocktails I like to make is some apple cider. You pour a little bourbon in there. You don't need much else than that. There's clothes and a cinnamon stick. You put that on a stove, let it cook down, have yourself a little hot toddy. you know, the temperatures are kind of getting right now for that.

Yeah. I was thinking when we were sipping on that wild turkey one-on-one rye, I was thinking, you know, this is the perfect hot toddy. You don't need to add the honey cause it already has it. Yeah. You just need to add the lemon. So you could basically take a hot toddy with some, a little bit of warmed up wild turkey one-on-one rye and a little bit of lemon in it. There's your hot toddy. Yeah.

That's pretty simple, right?

It's very simple.

Yeah. What if you took a smoked orange and squeeze that in there? I mean, yeah, that's the money right there. Yeah. Well folks, I mean, Hey, we wouldn't be remiss. You gotta have some pumpkin pie, right?

You know what? I'll be honest with you. I like them big old giant platter size pumpkin pies from Costco.

The things are humongous, but they're good. They have a great flavor and they've got a good crust. They do. It's hard to beat one of those until you've had a homemade pumpkin pie though. They're some pumpkin pies. If somebody knows how to make a pumpkin pie really good, luckily, you know, I married a wonderful woman that could cook her bottom off. I mean, her pumpkin pie is delicious and I always love it. I didn't know there was a difference in the type of pumpkin. Apparently there's a pumpkin pie pumpkin that you have to use. Did you know that?

No. So wait, does Vivian make pumpkin pies from raw pumpkin?

No, she does.

Oh, she buys canned pumpkin.

But she lectured me the other day. She, she, she gave me some tutelage on pumpkins. Yeah. I didn't know there was a pumpkin that you had to use for pumpkin pie.

Yeah. She trained me on biscuits the other day too. She knows her biscuits.

Watch out. She, she get upset about biscuits now. Yeah. She don't like the flaky biscuits. And that's a whole other show we're going to have is biscuits. What's the best fast food biscuit from our area? Cause you can't get biscuits from anywhere. You can't do just fast food, right? You have to include like Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel. Yeah.

Because, I mean, we could do restaurant biscuits. Restaurant biscuits. There you go.

National chain restaurant biscuits.

Yeah. They have to be available in pretty much every state. Well, not every state, but let's say two thirds of the United States.

I mean, there's some big chains out there that have biscuits. I mean, biscuits are important thing in life.

We'll do this show. We'll have somebody calling us in from New Mexico saying, you forgot Rogers biscuits or something. Sorry.

Yeah. You'd have to be a national chain.

Because now there's biscuit restaurants, right?

Yeah. Biscuit love. Biscuit belly. Yeah. There's all kinds of biscuit places out there.

As long as they got good gravy. I love some good gravy. Especially when it's got old folks sausage in it. Well, that's right down the road from us right here.

Old folks. Now, what about for breakfast? Do you guys eat breakfast on Thanksgiving Day?

Uh, I mean, we're usually up pretty early getting the meat on, right? Cause you got to get started pretty early on that, right? Actually you're up the night before doing, if you're just smoking a turkey, but a lot of the stuff has to start going in the oven real early. See how we're eating some breakfast, usually either pancakes or, uh, um, bacon and eggs and sausage.

Now folks, you don't know what right down the road here in Simpsonville is old folks. Um, that's where they make it her nails, her nails. Yep. But that's old folk, right?

Yep.

Yeah. That's the word. All the, I, I heard those pigs one day I was over there. Uh, now it's the lavender is the lavender company. Little Mount Lavender. So it's right there by that little, little Mount Lavender company. We were in there one day and I heard some hogs back there and Vivian's like, what's that sound? And I was like, that's a sausage about to be made. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not a fun thing. I'm sure the fellow that works in there or the lady that works in there that has to end a day for them, them hogs is not, doesn't go home with a smile on her face.

Well, I mean, it's a job. I mean, Somebody's got to do it, but you know, it's a, it's a sad thing, right? I grew up on a ranch. So I had been, I never, I never really paid any attention to it. It's just part of life. You know, there's the cycle of life right there. Uh, you know, and as long as somebody's eating it and somebody's getting fed, you know, and there's people that do eat that. Um,

Yeah, I've always seen the trucks come in in the evening. You know, they come in there full of hogs in the evening and then they leave in the morning with frozen sausage or sausage, whatever they make out of it. Sausage and brats and they do all kinds of stuff there.

Sure. Yeah, breakfast is always a big thing for us that morning because we'll try to eat that mid-afternoon meal, right? So you do not an early breakfast and you have about eight hours in between somewhere in there, five, six, seven hours, I guess. but you do know what goes good on some breakfasts. You got to have some either pancakes or waffles, right? And nothing goes better on that than some maple syrup, some bourbon maple syrup. Matter of fact, from our good friends up at a seldom seen farms in Ohio.

I mean, not only does it make great old fashions, I love a bourbon maple old fashioned, but, uh, man, early morning pancakes on a, on a Thanksgiving day, a little bit of butter on them. Let it melt just a little bit. Pour some of that barrel aged syrup on it. Real maple syrup.

Yeah. I mean that it is amazing. I think this year what I'm going to do for my hand though, because when you do smoke a ham, right, cook it, I'm going to make a bourbon glaze out of that.

So you don't glaze it before you smoke it, right? You glaze it after you smoke it. Yeah. Cause that, that'll kind of lock that smoke up and going in, right?

Yeah. Right there at the very end for about that last hour, just glaze that sucker on there, let it get all sticky and stuff. I think it'll be delicious. I just gave people an idea. So you need to go, to seldom seen maples.com order some of their bourbon barrel aged maple syrup. You make your own glaze.

Yeah. And, and you can make your old fashions too.

Well, you gotta have old fashions to sit there and watch that football game with and stuff. You're already going to be fooled. So being, you always say, one of the reasons we drink bourbon is cause beer does fill you up, right?

Yeah, it kind of bloats you, right? I mean, I love beer. I like wine too. I like a lot of different things. But beer tends to fill me up and bloat me and it kind of makes me full. And I want to keep that tummy kind of empty and ready for that smoked turkey when it comes off.

Now, do you, uh, do you guys save your turkey and, um, like have turkey sandwiches the next day?

A little bit. It, it, we can't do it for long. I mean, we can do it a couple of days.

Yeah. You can only eat turkey for so long.

Yeah. I mean, and you know, when you smoke a turkey, you're not going to be using it to make soups and casseroles and things later. It just doesn't, I don't know. It's got too much of that smoke flavor on it.

I tell you, Vivian, don't be telling her that. Does she do what she do?

Some turkey.

Like mac and cheese. No, she was, she, well, she takes the Turkey carcass and saves that and makes a broth out of it.

Oh, and so a smoky kind of broth. Yeah. Yeah. For me, it just doesn't sound great, but maybe, maybe it's good. Maybe I just don't know.

She's got bags and bags of it. She, I don't know, especially when I was in the coast garden, we'd do all this Turkey. She's like, Hey, I want all the Turkey carcasses and I'll cook it down and we'll have broth. And she makes soups and stuff throughout the year. And instead of having to go buy a broth that's store bought, she tries to make her own.

Well, by the time our next show comes out, our next Wednesday episode, we're not going to be talking too much about Thanksgiving because it's going to be too late to go shopping, right? Yeah. Folks, you need to get out there this week. You need to get your turkey bought. You need to get all your fixings bought. You get your maple syrup ordered from seldom seen maple.com. Get those things in so you're ready to go. Go ahead and give it a shot. Smoke a turkey this year if you haven't done it. And you know what? I mean, as a secondary choice, deep frying a turkey is pretty amazing. It is. But be safe. Do it outside.

Well, Jim, tomorrow is Veterans Day. And to veterans ourselves, I'd like to take a moment to thank all our brothers and sisters out there that have served our nation very proudly. They laid it all on the line. They've got to come home and stuff. That's what veterans do. Some got to come home. Some didn't, yeah. But Veterans Day is just go out there and thank a veteran, shake their hand, tip your hat to them. Heck, I offered to buy my meal and stuff. Just say thank you. So from us, we say cheers to you.

Yeah, cheers. Cheers to all the veterans that listen to the show and those who don't. Thank you very much for your service. Mike, I always have a routine on Veterans Day. I usually go out and get some breakfast, go out and get some lunch, go out and get some dinner. It's all free. There's businesses in every town that take care of the veterans, get a free oil change, get a free haircut. I'm not taking advantage of it, but I'm celebrating those businesses that recognize veterans.

I mean, it's always good to go in and do business with those folks too and stuff. I highly encourage you, if you are a veteran, to, you know, don't shy away from that. Go out there and, um, You know, just don't go in there that day, go in there and go all the time and stuff. And I'm always so grateful when somebody offers up a discount for us. And it's always that good feeling when a company decides to make that dip and say, you know what? I'm a supportive veteran. It's like going to Lowe's and you see that veteran parking spot, right? You know, you got to get out of that vehicle you're driving and walk tall a little bit and say, Hey, I did service nation and this company is giving it back a little bit.

Well, I'm going to go ahead and mention the places I visit often, but also on Veterans Day. So I have breakfast at Bob Evans. Thank you, Bob Evans, for providing a free breakfast for veterans on Veterans Day. I think there's others that do the same. I have lunch at Joella's Chicken. Joel has got that Nashville chicken, right?

Yeah.

I have lunch there. I usually go sometime during the day and get my breaks done at Midas. They do free oil changes for veterans on Veterans Day.

Uh, and then dinner at Old Charlie's. Old Charlie's. Old Charlie's.

So those are some great places, but I tell you what, if you're a veteran, uh, and you know, pay attention to the people who, uh, who thank us on Veterans Day for what we did.

We do live in a great nation that, that gives back. Absolutely. Well, Jim, what a great episode. Um, our listeners will have some great recipes. Um, put a couple of recipes in the blog this week. That sweet potato casserole sounds delicious.

We'll get that sweet potato casserole on there. We'll get that corneroni on there. You're going to put that pink salad on there and a smoked turkey, smoked turkey, and also green beans and a green bean. You're going to get them good. So there's, there's a nice smattering of recipes that people can try out this year.

Yeah. Make sure you go out there and get your old Turkey gets your stuff. Uh, we say happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Um, so I want to make sure we get this in before the end of the show, Mike, because our listeners were kind of teased with it early on, but, uh, we're having another wild Turkey product here at the end of the show. And just to sort of celebrate Turkey day, I've got a 1977 eight year wild Turkey one on one. Thanks to Chris Thomas for bringing this on a previous episode and we had enough left over where let's finish it off on the turkey day show. What do you think?

I think that's pretty fitting and stuff, you know, and I think that, um, for Thanksgiving, you know, it's always nice to set out a nice bottle for your guests. One of those top chauffeurs that, You know, you might not sip on too often, but pull that sucker off. This is definitely a special bourbon. We were both kind of shocked by it, weren't we?

Yeah. I said it was feathery. You said it was feathery. I thought it might be a weeder. We got it all wrong.

I was hoping it was peppy, but we were wrong. One thing I said was feathery and he was like, yeah.

Y'all feathery. So let's check this out. Mike, 1977, eight year wild turkey 101 from Chris Thomas at made South. Thank you, Chris. Thanks. Cheers.

Still feathery.

Still soft up front. but it's got a little bit of that pizzazz on the back end. That's what made me think it was a wheat very, um, very butterscotch. Got a little bit of grandma's closet.

Yeah. That, um, almost waxy. Yeah. That does that make sense? Yeah.

Absolutely. We've talked about this before, you know, bottles that were made a very long time ago and they've been sitting in storage either in a back room of a liquor store or in the basement of grandma's house or wherever, you know, wherever they they're stored. You've got sort of a 50 50 shot is the bourbon inside is still going to be good because they used natural corks. Those natural courts can degrade over time.

Well, this has been quarter. You think this would have been, this would have been corked in 77. Really? You think so? Yeah, I would have thought it would have been a screw cap. And, um, what had one of those, uh, like little white pieces of paper on there.

Possibly. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not familiar with the 77 bottles, so I can't answer to be sure.

When did they, you don't know when they went to cork though?

Yeah, I really, I really don't.

I could see one of those decanters, you know, they'd come out of that time period, you know? Um, but I, I don't know. I guess it's something I'd like to look up to see what a 1977 bottle look like. Um, And who was making that back then? You know, who was making wild turkey at that time?

Well, I mean, Jimmy Russell was definitely at the distillery at that time. And so he was involved in the production of this. And, you know, 1977, Thanksgiving of 1977, I was a ninth grader and definitely not drinking bourbon yet. But, uh, where was I? You know, I was probably having a family Thanksgiving, living with my parents in the Cincinnati area of Ohio. Um, probably had a lot of family in from across the country.

I was probably getting attacked by a dog in 1977.

Is that when you had your dog attack?

Yeah, that had been around that time. Um, you know, probably a pretty tough times, uh, for my mom back then, I think, um, pretty, pretty tough times. Probably was on the verge of going to a foster home back then. So yeah, I was four years old. So I'd been right about that time. Um, He was talking about collecting stuff from 1977 or from your birth year. And I probably do have some stuff from 63.

Well, I've got a pretty, yeah, I've got some stuff from 63. I actually, I just shipped out a bourbon from 1963 to one of our roadies. It was a 1963 Stitzel Weller. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. That's, that's a nice bourbon. I, the only thing I've ever collected from my, uh, birth year was a 1973 pickup. Um, and I still, I wish I'd had that thing now. I got rid of it. I think you could buy a 1977 bourbon. Um, but I think it costs you right around $3,000.

Well, here's, here's some tidbits of information. So we're drinking a 1977. An average house costs $49,000. The average American made $15,000 a year. Wow. Cost of a gallon of gas, 65 cents.

65 cents. 65 cents.

If you were buying bikini, it would cost you $9. I didn't buy any bikinis back then.

I was gonna say, did you buy a bikini by then? What a gallon of milk cost.

Elvis Presley died. Atari released the Atari. Remember the Atari? Was that the knobs?

Uh, the Atari 2,600, which would be the two. You're plugging it into your TV and go back and forth with the bar. Yeah.

Yeah. The Panama Canal was given back to Panama that year.

The Apple two computer came out. Apple two computer. Yeah.

Oh, it was when they built the, uh, the open, the actual open, the transatlantic, uh, trans Alaska pipeline over there.

Wow. Would that get open today? And Star Wars premiered. Star Wars, huh?

Now I remember the Star Wars premiere. I was in LA for the Star Wars premiere. I actually went downtown LA and watched the premiere in a theater in downtown LA.

Really? Yeah.

It's pretty cool.

I don't even know if I'd seen a movie back then. I think the first movie I ever saw was Dune. Oh, that was a decent movie. Yeah, but kids today, they watch it with you and they'll be like, that's a horrible movie.

Yeah, because I mean, you know, special effects have come so far. Yeah. That, you know, things are just, I mean, it's, they watched star wars too. It's like kind of goofy, right? Compared to what we have today is a little bit.

Well, Hey, Jim, we're just rambling on here, but, uh, a thanksgiving show for everybody. Check out our blog, check out those recipes, uh, go buy your stuff right now. You won't regret it. I'm getting it early, getting it in and stuff. All those veterans out there, once again, thank you for your service. Jim, where can people find us on social media?

Well, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok. You can also find us on our website. All those things. Well, except for the website. We're at the Bourbon Road, right? At the Bourbon Road. On our website, we're the bourbonroad.com. On the bourbonroad.com, you can find our swag. You can find our episodes. You can find our blogs. You can even write us a note and tell us what you think about the show. Definitely visit our website. And when that little thingy pops up and says, I want to be notified, go ahead and put your email address in. We'll make sure that you are the first to know when we got something releasing.

Is there a prize for the first person? Well, we don't say what we're releasing. It might be releasing a bourbon barrel pick.

We might be releasing an episode. We might be releasing news about us being at an event, tickets for an event. You never know. So we're not going to spam you. We're going to send you one every now and then. So it doesn't hurt to sign up. We expect you'll be pretty happy if you're signed up for that. You'll get some good emails. We do two shows a week, Mike. Every week we do a short episode where we explore a craft distillery, a single bottle. We tell people whether or not they ought to pick it up and add it to the bar. And we do a longer episode like today. Now today we didn't have a guest on, but we kind of deep dived topic, right? We deep dive kind of Thanksgiving prep and drinking wild turkey.

Oh yeah. Drinking whiskey on Thanksgiving. Stay out of the kitchen is pretty much the hint of everything.

And you didn't realize that though, did you?

I guess I never thought of it.

We had a couple of great bourbons on the show today. We had, well, great whiskeys, I should say. We had the wild turkey one-on-one row. Ryan, the first half, we had the wild turkey one-on-one in the second half. And then we had a special 1977 eight year wild turkey one-on-one to finish up the show. So today was turkey day.

Hey, two great whiskeys, two great whiskeys. So if you want to hear our shows, you want to make sure that your app tells you, hey, these two jokers got a new show coming out. Make sure you scroll on up, hit that subscribe button, hit that check mark, hit that plus button, whatever you got to do to make sure you get notified. Make sure you do it. Scroll on down, hit that five star review because you know what's going to happen if you don't I'm going to bring the big bad booty daddy of bourbon over. He's going to bring that wild turkey one-on-one. It's going to be like your college days again. We're going to drink it all.

You have one hand to ride one end of bourbon. Yeah.

Double fisted that sucker. It's going to be one hell of a party. I will guarantee you by the end of the night, you're going to leave us that five star view. It's important to us to get that five star review. It opens those doors to distilleries, to great guests, bringing you great content from the bourbon road. We'd appreciate it.

If you've got an idea for a show, you've got an idea for a guest, make sure you let us know. You can reach out to us. Mike and I are very available. You can reach me at jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. But as we always say, it's probably the easiest way is to hit up our DM on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm big bourbon chief. And we'll see you down the bourbon road.

I'll be back.