215. Johnny Fever Bourbon Whiskey Review

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

Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon.

And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. Today, Mike, another Craft Distillery Monday.

Yeah, a brand new craft distillery. Brand new craft distillery. And it's taken a long time for this bottle to reach our glass.

Most definitely. So this is out of Burnt Church Distillery in Bluffton, South Carolina. Now, me and Vivian, we took a little trip to see some friends, Kevin and Kat, and they live in Margaritaville. It's a 55 plus community there near Bluffton and stuff. And that's right near Hilton Head. Pretty famous South Carolina destination, right? Just north of Savannah.

They let you in that 55 plus?

Yeah.

They did.

Well, one of the spouses has to be.

Oh, okay. I was going to say you're a young fella.

Yeah, they did. Just to check out a lifestyle, see our friends. We haven't seen them in a while. Um, really good friends, but they were like, Hey, there's a distillery here. Do you want to go? Come on now. Say no more. Say no more. Let's go. So we pull up to this distillery. It is not an old burnt down church by any means. To me it looked like they'd built it from the ground up pretty much and they're still working on their I guess the piping or the fitting of their steals and everything, but they were in there putting everything in there. So they're getting ready to cook. So they contract to steal some bourbon. Um, now I bought two bottles to bring back. Um, I bought one for, for Kevin and cat, um, to gift to them for being such great hosts to me and Vivian showing us a great time while we were in South Carolina. But I brought up, I was going to bring a bottle back for us. So, I go to check my bags and the airline we were flying on bags are free for military for both the spouse and the member. So I was like, Hey, I stuck it in a bag and it's going to check all my luggage. But the girl was like, no, that's not the way the policy read reads. And I was like, okay, Hey, I'll just carry this one on with me. Fine. I'm good with that. Well, lo and behold, the bag I grabbed to carry on with me was the bottle that had this. So I didn't think about it until we got up to TSA and I saw the TSA agents screen the bag and they put my bag aside and I was like, man, it popped, light popped on. I was like, well, too late for this. That's it right there. You know, they're going to take that bottle. And luckily the TSA agent was awesome. Hats off to him. I told him, he said, Hey, did you know you had this in here? And I said, Hey, it was a mistake. I told him what happened at the gate. And he was like, we'll go try to get your bags back. And I said, no, I said, it was my mistake. I said, I own it. I said, but what I would like you to do is go to the USO here in the airport, taking, if you could take this up to the USO, give it to them and ask them to give it to another veteran that likes bourbon. And he did it. He came and found me in the terminal and said, Hey, they accepted it. They'd like you to give them a call. So I called the lady and she said, We got a guy that comes in here all the time. He's a veteran. Um, we're going to give it to him. Awesome. So perfect. But burnt church reaches out to me and says, Hey, how'd you like your bourbon? So I tell them that same story. And, uh, He's like, wow, I'll ship you two bottles. And I said, well, you don't have to do that. I said, it was my mistake. You know, I'll pay you for them, whatever I got to do. He's like, no, I'll ship them to you. So they shipped us two bottles, one for you and one for me. Um, pretty nice looking little bottle though.

It's got an interesting top on it.

It does. It's hunting season. So it's got a giant shotgun shell on here. I don't even know what gauge that would be.

That would be like a, Have you ever shot a 10 gauge? Yeah, but that's bigger than a 10 gauge.

Yeah. I don't even know. That'd be like a five gauge. Um, it is a, it's a great looking bottle. Uh, the, the metal part of the shotgun shell is what comes off and as a cork and it's got that little rubbery shell casing, I guess. Um, but the bottle's got some gold leaf on it. Um, it's named Johnny fever. straight bourbon whiskey. It's a four grain. This is like the middle road for me and you, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So four grain is kind of that hits that magical spot, right?

Yeah. Well, it should. It should. Um, this is 100 proof. Now these are pricey. They just started up. They're trying to get them lights on and keep them on. This is their top shelf stuff. Um, so you gotta take all that into mind whenever you're buying from a small craft distillery. And we've said that time and time again, have we?

That's true. Absolutely. And you know, if you want to know more about Johnny Fever and why it's called Johnny Fever, they've got a great, they've got a really good website. I mean, I've seen a lot of distillery websites. They did a particularly good job on theirs and they've got a nice video on there that sort of explains the, how Johnny Fever came to be. And I would suggest giving it a watch. Pull your heartstrings. It will pull your heartstrings just a little bit.

Especially if you're a hunter and you're into that lifestyle or even a fisherman. And you can remember taking that fishing trip with either your father or your father-in-law, you know, he building that bond and stuff and those trips. It's hunting season right now. And I, I know you went fishing with your son. Um, I've been hunting with my son and it's, it is a bonnie experience. Sure. Unlike anything else you do with your, your kids and stuff, but you write a great story that they have there on their website. So go and check that out. Um, so I do know where this is distilled at gym. I'm going to save it until the end of the episode. I'm going to tell everybody where it's distilled at. Okay. So this is, distilled in Kentucky and it's aged a minimum of two years, but we know it says straight bourbon whiskey, right? Yeah.

So two plus years, is that? Two plus, two plus. No, it is not age stated. It is not. So it means if they're following the rules, it has to be at least four. At least four. But you know, not everybody's following the rules, the labor rules, right?

I would hope they are. Now the cold leaf on here and you look on the back, you will see some, some grass on the back of this bottle. A stunning bottle. I like it. Yeah. A great Hunter's bottle, whatever you want to call it. I'd call that a dark Amber inside there.

It's dark. It's a dark bourbon. So it's kind of checking the boxes here, right? Yeah. They're ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I mean, we've got a hundred proof. Yes. We've got four grain. Yes. We've got Kentucky. Yes. We've got, um, dark amber color. Yes. Beautiful bottle.

Now I'm hoping once they get their steel up and running and they start to build up some reserves and stuff, they'll go for four years and age their own bourbon there in South Carolina. That's that. I don't know. I always talk about I-64. If you drove down I-64, you could draw a line straight from Virginia. all the way over to Missouri and you kind of get that straight line. So this is down south a little bit. It is.

Yeah. So South Carolina is, uh, well it's South of North Carolina.

It's kind of, I'd say it's in line with, uh, Georgia.

Uh, yeah, Tennessee, Georgia, I guess, I guess, Kind of, what is it? I-26 or something that runs through. I can't remember now. It's been so many years. It's a long time ago. I lived in South Carolina for six or seven years.

Well, I say let's, let's nose this thing. All right.

Cheers. Cheers.

Kind of sweet and sticky smell, right?

Yeah, it does. It does have a sweet, sticky smell to it.

It's got that four grain aroma to it. You know, when you mix that something about mixing rye and wheat together.

So it tries to be soft, but it can't be soft because it's got that rye in there. So you kind of get the mix of the two.

I'm getting a little sorghum molasses.

You know, it does have like a nice dense sweetness to it. And I guess dense sorghum is kind of dense. So yeah, I'll go with that. A little ethanol-y, but not too bad. I can't, I can't put my finger on the age here. I can't tell you whether it's just a little below or a little over four years. If it's under shame on you for not labeling your bottle correctly.

I'm getting a little bit of Oak on there. A little bit of that caramel. You made that sticky sweetness, you know, caramel is a sticky sweetness and stuff. Um, I don't know what that, that knows I'm getting on that is there's another note there. It's a little bit of juicy fruit, juicy fruit. Yeah. I was going to say a serial note to there, but I couldn't for the life of me. I can't think of a serial note that goes with this.

Let's taste it. Cheers. It's nice. It is a kind of an explosion of flavor. little drying, not too bad. The sweetness kind of stays on the sides of your mouth, kind of the front sides of your mouth. I got a little bit of pop there.

I'm almost in pop rocks, but the sweetness is there more than I thought it would be for a four green.

I'm really surprised at the color of this for a hundred proofer.

It's pretty dark, pretty dark and it's a little bit viscous, right? Yeah. For a hundred proof, I didn't think it was going to be this viscous, a little oily. This is a good bourbon. I'm getting a little marshmallow on this toasted marshmallow. Maybe I would almost think it was a toasted. Maybe that four grain is playing with me.

Yeah. I, you know, I, I think this, this has definitely been, I'm, I'm going to lean closer to older than younger. Four years. Yeah. It's, um, it's got enough oak influence on it. Uh, a lot of that corn sweetness is gone. It does have corn in it. 51%. We know it's a requirement. We don't know what the mash bill is, but we know it's four grain. Yeah. Uh, that corn sweetness is all but gone here. So that takes a little while to get rid of that, particularly when wheat's present, right?

Yeah.

I like this right here. It's a good bourbon.

I am glad that they sent us two bottles because sometimes me and you got duke it out over, um, who's going to get bottles, but now you got a bottle. I got a bottle. It don't matter though. Heck, we both got bottles in our house that each of us love each other's house that we'd be like, Hey, I'm going to grab some of that.

Yeah, so my shelves are full, so either I build more shelves or I change them out every now and then what's on display.

Or give some away. Give some more away, yeah. There's always friends stopping by, always. People are stopping by and saying hi. Medium to medium finish on this. I was going to say long, but... Uh, maybe a year or two more.

It's, it's, it's pretty impressive though. The finish is good. Um, it does have a little bit of a hug, but it's up higher. It's not, it doesn't go so deep. Um, yeah, Mike, I mean, this is a, this is, this is definitely something I'd be happy to sip on from time to time. Now the price, let's be fair. It's a little high. It is. Um, but we understand that distilleries need to do what they have to do in order to stay afloat. And you can't blame a man for what he has to charge for his product. You can choose whether or not to buy it.

Yeah. Yeah. Wholeheartedly. What I'd say is if you're in South Carolina, you know, and you see a bottle of this, um, you're in there. I wouldn't shy away from not buying it. Great gift for a hunter, a bird hunter at that, because it's got a shotgun shell. Shotgun shells are notorious for duck hunters and pheasant. So I liked the bottle. I obviously bought some cause I like supporting small distilleries like that. I really love it. They decided not to make that vodka, you know, so, they're still kind of building their brand there. So, um, I gotta give them kudos for going out and finding a contract distiller to, to help them and work with them. So a hundred proof, $99 over two years old. Cause we know it's a straight bourbon whiskey distilled here in Kentucky. Where do you think it's distilled at? as he takes his last sip and I poured you a healthy pour Owensboro. Nope. We're only about, I got to think of what to exit we're at right here. We're at exit 27 right here, right? So what you get off at exit 32, and take a right and then take your first left and drive down that road, Jim. So this is made by Jep the Creed.

It is. Yes, sir. Fine job. Fine job on making this.

Now, hopefully everybody understands why I waited till the last to talk about that and to show that this is contract distilled. They said, Hey, we want it made this way. There's a reason we want it made this way. Um, they can produce good bourbon there. Yep. Um, they're fixing to release some more bourbon from theirs and I hoping that it's as good as this.

Yeah. So we, um, we live very close to this distillery. They're in our backyard, so to speak. Uh, we would love nothing more than to shout to the heavens success, right? Uh, because they're beautiful distillery, beautiful distillery. This is a fine whiskey here. This has a great flavor to it. It has a lot of good notes. It has been expertly crafted. There's no doubt about it. It's been aged appropriately. Now, could it stand some more age? Sure. But does it have to have more age? No, I don't think so. I think it drinks well right where it's at.

my only hit on this was like you said, is the price at $99. Uh, that can be, that's a hard take on some, some people and stuff. Um, you know, I wouldn't say everybody out there could afford a $99 bottle to, to take a chance on it.

But like Mike said, if you've got a hunter in the family, you got an outdoors person, uh, who drinks bourbon there, their eyes are going to be, big and round when they see, when they pull this bottle out and see the shotgun shell on top. It's pretty cool.

Yeah. And to be fair, I drank this at the distillery. So I knew it was good bourbon, you know, as soon as I tasted it and, and they sit down with me and, uh, it was neat, uh, when I walked into the story, they automatically be recognized and they were like, Hey, you're Mike Hyatt from the bourbon road podcast. I was like, that's me. And they were like, what are you doing here? And I was like, I just checking you out, you know, they're like, why didn't you call? Why didn't you set something up? And I was like, I, I didn't do that. I just come here and drink some whiskey with some friends and talk about whiskey and I said set me up old-fashioned. I actually had one of the best old fashions I'd ever had in my life there. And then they brought me out a whole flight of their bourbons and we tasted through them and I talked about them with our friends. And I actually had a couple of people come around and kind of listen as I was going through it. And this was the bottle that I picked out to bring back. Cause I was like, and then they were like, Hey, that's made at Jepta Creed. And I was like, well, heck I live on Jepta Ben farm. I down the road from them.

Well, that's a great story, Mike. You know, I would highly suggest that our listeners take a few minutes after the show here and go ahead and hop on the web. And their website is, oh, just search Burnt Church Distillery.

Yeah, you're not going to miss it.

It'll come up.

The Burnt Church was a burnt church road. I guess the story is lost there somewhere. But I'm sure South Carolina, there was a burnt church at some point in history. Beautiful distillery if you're in Hilton head you're in savannah. It is worth the drive to go to that distillery It is absolutely beautiful inside leather couches all over the place a big One of the biggest bars I've ever seen in the distillery before.

Yeah. Wow. Super nice. I need to get down there. So Charleston's a short drive and, uh, Buford and Savannah. Yeah. Yeah. So anybody in that journal area should probably check it out.

Heck, you can probably pop right out down into, uh, Florida if you wanted to. Yeah. I mean, it's not that far of a drive, right? To Jacksonville from Savannah or Athens or Athens. Yeah. Yeah. That's not that far.

All our listeners in those areas, you know,

Get out to get out to the coast there and check it out. Well, Jim got a new sponsor on with us. We talked about him last week. Cruise customs flags, veterans for veterans. Um, he's, uh, employing veterans. He's making these custom flags out of bourbon barrels. So he's recycling too, right?

He's got quite an operation there, right? I mean, it's beautiful to see happen. It's, it's great to see that kind of craftsmanship go into repurposing, but held our bourbon, right? I mean, it's amazing to see those veterans at work and they're all veterans, right?

All his employees are combat, combat veterans at that. These guys have seen the worst of it. but he's making sure that they have a place to work, that they are safe. that he's putting out a great product. This guy has been featured all over the place, though. National Media, he's on the Evan Williams bottle, on their Hero bottle, which I think is just one of the coolest things ever.

You'll see him on Fox News from time to time. I mean, he gets out there just a bit. So you definitely want to check out Crew's Custom Flags. Their products are Absolutely amazing. I've got one on my bar. I've got the smaller version, the lieutenant.

Yeah.

Uh, I think you have one too, don't you?

I do. He gifted us both one. Um, way back when we had him on the show, we both can rock his caps. Um, I just can't say enough about this guy. Um, he gives back. He's a veteran owned and operated business just like we are. Um, you know, and I'm, we're proud to have him on board with us.

So Christmas is coming up, right? We'll, we'll mention this from time to time. Nothing better than patriotism, bourbon barrels and veterans.

Yeah.

There you go.

You got a threefold right there. Even if you have a business and you wanted to put a big giant a flag out front in your foyer or in your conference room. That'd be the general. That would be the general. Yeah. So go to his website, Cruise Customs Flags, check him out. You can guarantee he will get it to you before Christmas. And tell him the Bourbon Road sent you. Yes, sir.

All right. Well, Mike, where can people find us?

So you can find us on tick tock, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. We're all over the place. We've got some tick tock videos now. We've got three up there. Um, there'll be one on this show and we'll make sure we're putting those out there.

Yeah, TikTok is something that we've talked about a long time, but we're just now getting into, and it looks like it's starting to catch on.

Yeah, I think people do go on there and use it. I use it a lot for recipes, but you'll find our reviews on there. We might do a short snippet of our review real fast. Talk about it. I'll put it up there on there. You could see at least a photo of the bottle and us talking about it real quick. but check us out. Go on there and follow us. We are the bourbon road or the bourbon road. If you want to say it proper, I guess.

The or the? The. The Bourbon Road. Yeah, we're southern. It's the Bourbon Road.

So check us out there. We do have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. Jim, what do you got to do to join that?

Well, you got to answer three questions. Go on to Facebook, search the Bourbon Roadies. It'll come up. R-O-A-D-I-E-S. When you search it out and it comes up, it'll ask you to join. Click join to answer three questions. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? And do you agree to play nice? Because once you're in that group, if you don't play nice, if you're mean or if you're not playing nice, you're not going to last very long. That's why our group is below 3000 members, right? Because we're very careful about the people that are in there. Those who don't play nice don't stay very long. We just want it to be a great family.

Well, we don't sell bourbon in there. Number one, um, we don't like spammers in there. You know, you want to be a business coming there, come in there and talk to the roadies, talk to them, tell them what you got. Um, don't just, uh, screenshot it and put it up there, I guess. Um, we want you to be part of that group. We want to support your business. If you're a part of the bourbon culture like we are, we want to make a post.

I love it when other podcasts come in. I love it when distilleries come in and other people in the industry come in and they make a post and they take a few minutes and write a few sentences to talk to our roadies. You know, they introduce something or they introduce themselves. Those are awesome posts. We welcome them.

Yeah, we got some good buddies that post in there, right? Scott page from my bourbon journey. Uh, Jason, sometimes from, uh, mash and drum, uh, they'll post in there. Mark Rucker every once in a while pop in their purse post from the bourbon life. Uh, we got some other social media out there that'll post in there. We'd love that. Uh, We're all inclusive. We try to be that way. We're just a giant family. Now, Jim, I think we're going to get to 3,000 one of these days.

We will, but we're not in any rush, not any rush. We want, we want good friends. We're, we want friends that we know.

Um, so, and we got some great friends in there.

Yes, we do. Well, we do two shows a week. Every Monday we do a craft distillery episode where we focus on a single bottle from a craft distillery, usually a craft distillery, sometimes a big boy, normally a craft distillery. Though today it was Johnny Fever from Burntchurch Distillery in South Carolina. Great bottle. Check them out. No doubt about it. It's one of our new favorites, I would say. Most definitely. Um, every Wednesday we do a longer episode lasts about an hour. We'll do a deep dive on a subject. Sometimes we'll have a guest on sometimes. Hey, if you've been listening lately, we've had a couple of musicians on to play a little music for you. So we'll, we'll do a one hour episode, two 30 minute halves, get you to work, get you home. Nice drive time. Two episodes every week. We'd love to have you listen to both.

So make sure you do get to listen to those episodes that your app tells you, Hey, these two jokers got a new episode coming out. Make sure you hit that subscribe button, a check mark plus sign, whatever your app has on it on Spotify, Apple, Google. Anything that's out there plays podcasts. Make sure you subscribe. That way you'll know that you need to scroll on down and hit that five star review because you know what's going to happen. It's hunting season. So I'm going to release the big bad booty daddy of bourbon. He's going to bring this Johnny fever with him. We're going to drink bourbon all night long. I guarantee by the end of that night, you're going to leave us that five star review. Now, folks, those five star reviews, they are important to us. They let distilleries know about us and what people think about us. They let the doors open wide for us. Let us come on in, record great content for you. So we would appreciate it.

We also want to know if you have an idea for a show. If you've got a suggested guest or you've got a distillery in your hometown you think needs to be highlighted, let us know about it. Mike and I will reach out to them. We'll get a bottle in, we'll taste it and we'll let you know what we think. Just like this Johnny Fever here, we'd love to bring a little bit of light to a smaller distillery, just trying to break through. It's always fun and it's always good to drink new whiskey and it's always good to make new friends.

Heck yeah.

One of the ways to reach out to us is on the website, get the contact us page on the bourbonroad.com. Let us know what you think. You can also write us emails. 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 say, probably the best 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.