230. The 2022 Bourbon and Biscuits Challenge

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

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we're out at Jeff The Bin Farm.

Yeah.

It's our first full-length episode of 2022.

Yeah, and we're going to do it right.

We're going to do this right.

Yeah, I think so. So we've got guests on the show today. We've been talking a while about having them on. We have. They're, like, famous, though. Everybody knows them.

Everybody that went to Bourbon on the Banks knows who they are.

Yeah. Bourbon on the Banks, any other event we've been to, we try to take them along with us. They're our gal pals, our wives. Yeah. We got Mel Shannon with us in the house. Uh huh. And Vivian Hyatt. Ladies, how are you doing?

Good.

Oh, they said something, Jim. All right. So now it's going to let loose the floodgates, I think. Yeah. So what we're going to do today is we kind of came up with this episode. We've been talking about kind of doing something like this, right? But we got four breakfast or brunch cocktails each one of us made. Our wives each made a cocktail. And then we got four different types of biscuits from four different restaurants that we could get here in Shelbyville, because we are kind of limited a little bit.

Yeah, I think it had to be something we could get within a short drive.

Yeah, and I believe that these are four biscuits that you could get almost anywhere across country. One of them being Bojangles might be limited to where you can get that because I don't think Bojangles is a nationwide chain, right?

I think they are a nationwide chain, but that would just be me guessing at it.

Yeah. I really don't know. And then we got two different types of country ham that are pretty special to Kentucky and they are world renowned. They've been on all kinds of lists. One of them was on, I think both of them actually are on Bon Appetit. If somebody reads that magazine or reads that website on the New York Times, best country hams in America. Um, we didn't have your favorite Benton ham. Yeah. But we're going to talk about that. Why we did do two Kentucky hams. So yeah, that's the, the, uh, episode for today. Um, we, we are going to drink some whiskey in our cocktails.

We are, but we'll talk a little bit about which whiskies we chose, but basically Mike, I think you chose two whiskies you felt would be all around good choices for making breakfast cocktails.

Yeah, they're high proof enough that you're going to get that bourbon or whiskey taste in it. They're readily available on any shelf. That's what I wanted, really, was something that anybody could get. So we're going to be drinking in our cocktails today. Our old granddad, 100 proof, bottled and bond.

The bonded, yeah. Great whiskey, right? Absolutely a good whiskey. Yeah, spicy, but so it really stands out a little bit. Yeah. But it's got that 100 proof, which is like a key That key point, I think, to stand out in a cocktail, right?

And then, I don't know why I had it under my shelf. I think you left it over here. But I have a bottle of Wild Turkey 101 Rye. And I was like, what a great whiskey to drink in a breakfast cocktail. It's got, like I said, that proof, that spice that you want to have, that you're going to know that you're whiskey. That's the way I like my cocktails. I want to know the whiskey's in there. I don't want to know that I put a bunch of sugar in a glass and I'm trying to drink the sugar, right? You want to have that flavor of whiskey.

So we have talked about this quite a bit. We've actually had the biscuit discussion a dozen times or more on the show.

It seems like when we get in the car and we start driving, all four of us, we start talking about biscuits and we talk about the best biscuits. We have some funny conversations though. We'll talk about mayonnaise. We'll talk about lunch meats, potted meat, hams. We talk about all kinds of crazy. I see Mel over there making a face about potted meat. She doesn't like probably. Not a fan. Yeah. That's just a poor man's meat in a can right there. I don't even know if you really consider it meat. But Mel is going to be first today. She picked the biscuit. She picked the type of ham for it. And then she made her own cocktail up. So Mel, what's your cocktail for us?

So my cocktail is called Mel's Mulemosa. And in that, I have two ounces of light ginger beer. two ounces of orange juice, one and a half ounce of Old Granddad, and a little bit of ice. Stir it up and drink.

Wow. Well, let's try this thing. Let's try it. I'm ready.

Yeah, that's a breakfast brunch drink if you ever had one. We've all been fans of mimosas, and we call them bourbon moses, right?

Bourbon moses. manmosas, whatever you want to call it. This is, I actually said before we started, this is actually a little bit better. I think it's got a little bit more sweetness to it. I think using that ginger beer, a little bit more spice to it. You know, we talking about champagne and I don't think any four of us are champagne drinkers, are we?

Just when it's in a mimosa, that's it. I mean, I really don't drink it otherwise. I guess if somebody were to raise a toast at a wedding or something, I'll have a glass.

Now, Vivian's mom, she might be the world champion in drinking champagne. She drinks a little bit of it. That's the only thing she'll drink, right, Viv?

Yep. That's about it.

That's about it. What do you think about this cocktail?

I think it's good. I like the sweetness. Like Jim said, champagne's usually pretty dry, but I'm not a fan of the dry. So yeah, it's good. And the sweetness kind of takes over, cuts the flavor of the orange juice, the acidity of the orange juice.

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good review there. I like it because I'm feeling like I'm drinking kind of a mimosa with a kick, like a mimosa with a little bit of kick. Now, obviously the bourbon, the gold granddad is going to give it a little bit of a kick, but so does that bite from that ginger.

Yeah, it's nice to me. Viv hit it all on the spot, I think. She should write cocktail reviews. She made it sound beautiful. So Mel, what kind of biscuit and ham did you pair together?

So I paired the McDonald's biscuit with the Finchville ham.

So, Finchville Hands, Jim, that's right down the road from us.

Yeah, I mean, Finchville is, it's about, I think it's not even a five mile drive from our house to get down to the Finchville factory store. And, you know, they don't really have a showroom in there or anything. I think at one time they did, but now they do what the curbside pickup. But you'll find them in all the Kroger's, you'll find them in all the grocery stores around. And like you said, Mike, you'll find Finchville Hands on all the top 10 lists. of hams as you're looking around, right?

Country hams, they kind of make the list. Yeah, I was shocked. I started looking up country hams. Me and you were talking about this and I was looking up country hams and what we could get. And I was just like shocked. I was like, Fitchville hams on there. You could order them online also, but I've seen it in Kroger before. We've had it before. They're actually sold out in Kroger right now. Yeah. Well, ham is a, I didn't know it was a hard thing to get right now, but it is. But the unique fact I found out was that there is on Kentucky tourism's website, there's actually a ham trail across Kentucky.

Yeah, I wonder how closely that matches the Bourbon Trail. I mean, you could do both right at the same time.

Probably not. It don't even match it. Down by the Green River, down by Owensboro, there are several ham places down there. Mel brought up one from a town she lived in. What's that called, Mel?

It's outside of Campbellsville really, but it's Penn Sam.

So then we got Finchfield and we got Fathers today, another ham that's down there by the Green River and stuff. But super beautiful ham on a biscuit. Little bit salty, what you think. Neat thing about McDonald's is most people will go in there now if they're listening to this and be like, I want a biscuit. And they're going to say it's not on a menu, but McDonald's will sell you biscuits. They said it's one of their biggest ordered things. Just the biscuit, just the biscuit, just the biscuits. And it was relatively cheap. Probably the cheapest place there was to buy biscuits this morning out of the four places I went to like three bucks for four biscuits. Now that's a lot for four biscuits.

Now, when you're when you're reviewing a biscuit, I'm going to I'm going to look over Vivian on this because she's kind of the resident biscuit expert here. But when you're reviewing a biscuit textures a lot, right?

Yes, it is.

So you got flaky, cakey, fluffy. What, you know, which do you prefer?

I prefer flaky. It's the McDonald's biscuit to me is a little chewier, not as flaky. It's a little bit more dense. Um, which to, in my opinion, it makes it a little dry. Um, but.

But it holds together real nice in a sandwich.

It does hold together. Yes. It doesn't crumble.

Maybe that's a lot of what they're thinking of there when they're, when they're designing their biscuits, they're thinking, wait, we're going to make biscuit sandwiches out of this and we can't have it crumbling in people's hands. Right?

That is true. That is true. It is the prettiest biscuit out of all the four biscuits we looked at.

What do you think, Mel?

Um, well, I, uh, I really do like the ham. I'm not a big country ham fan, so this isn't too salty for me, which is good. Um, I agree with Viv on the biscuit. It's, it's just seems a little bit dry, but it does not fall apart in your hand. So.

Well, heck, what a combination. Yeah. Ham biscuits and a meal.

Bourbon Mosa cocktail. Yeah. So how are we, how are we scoring all this, Mike? Cause we are having a contest here, right? Is it a contest or is it just a...

I think we're just doing something to have some fun here with the ladies, uh, get them on our show, right? Cause we two and a half years, almost three years. Um, we've taken them all over the country, just about, and we drag them into just about every distiller we can drag them into. They've got some nice benefits out of it, I think, but they sometimes just have to sit there and just listen to us.

So is this more of just a biscuit show then? So the ham is there to enhance the biscuit, the cocktail is there to enhance the experience, but we're really going to score a biscuit, right, at the end of the show?

Yeah, I'd say the best biscuit, we'll say who the best biscuit is.

So this is our 2022 biscuit challenge.

No, I think we need to score on the drinks too.

She's throwing down.

She must have a good one coming up.

No, I wouldn't say that. It's just, you know, they're all going to be good, hopefully. Time will tell.

Well, we do have three other cocktails. We've got three other biscuits. We'll have Finchville Ham on another biscuit. Then like I said, we had Father's Country Ham. And we just want to say to all of our listeners out there, thanks for staying with us. Thanks for listening to this first show, long show in 2022. We plan to do more fun things like this, try to lighten it up a little bit.

Break up the not-knee a little bit, you know? I mean, bourbon and rice and American whiskeys are really the core of what we do, but you can have a lot of fun with it, right? You can have a lot of fun branching out a little bit and trying some different things. And I think food and pairing is always something that we want to talk about. Cocktails play a big part in the spirit experience, so I'm glad we're doing both.

Well, you know who hit me up last night? Peggy No Stevens wants to do a show with us about cereal.

Cereal.

Okay. So we're going to pair cereal with her, huh? Yeah. Yeah. I think it'll be, that'd be a fun show to do with bourbons and cereal. Cause we're always coming up with cereal and I'll try it. So hang with us. This is going to be four 15 minute segments. We'll be right back. So Jim, you know what's good to have with cocktails? You're going to tell me. bourbon barrel aged maple syrup from our good friends up in Ohio, seldom seen farms. I know you like to make those old fashions all the time.

I do. I do. Listen, it's so easy guys. You just take a half ounce of this maple syrup, bourbon aged maple syrup. You put two ounces of bourbon in there, a couple of shakes of your favorite bitters over ice. You could put a little bit of orange peel in there if you want to, but man, what a fantastic old fashion.

Now you don't have to pour it in an old-fashioned. You can have it on chicken biscuits. You can have it on pancakes. You can have it on waffles. I mean, you can pour it just about on anything. But Kevin Holley up there, this is his time of the season to start taking that sap out of those trees. I've seen several posts where he's got all of his lines going right now. So he's up there making it. Once he gets it, he cooks it down. makes the maple syrup, and then he puts it in those barrels. He's working with New Riff. He's working with our good friends down there at Leapers Fork. Several other distilleries around the country are starting to reach out to him because his stuff is magic in a bottle. So make sure you grab this. You said they can buy it in a case, right?

They can get them 12 in a case. You can also get them as part of gift sets as well, like candles and things like that. So definitely worth a visit to the website. Seldom Seen Maple dot com. Check out everything they have to offer. They support the Bourbon Road. Take care of our sponsors. Yeah.

We're back to our episode. So listeners, we're back. And just to remind everybody, we got our beautiful wives with us, Mel and Vivian. You ladies still doing good?

Yep. Doing good.

You got that first cocktail in you. So I see the smiles are going now. She put a full shot in that cocktail. Full shot. Yes. So that's, that's get you going on a nice cold Sunday morning in Kentucky. We got the fire rolling. We got Woodrow the whiskey dog, keeping guard over there at the door.

And we're going boy, girl, boy, girl today.

So, or man, woman, however you want to say it. So Mike, you're up next. I am. So what I got is I got big chiefs bourbon coffee. All right. Um, so my, uh, take on this right here, going to take a ounce and a half of bourbon, which I use Wild Turkey 101 Rye Whiskey Gym. Good choice.

Yeah.

Great choice. I know everybody's out there just kicking themselves that I didn't pull a weeded bourbon for this.

Well, you know, this is a, this cocktail you're, you're, you're making here is, is,

a little on the heavy side, so you need something that can really cut through, right? Yeah. So my cocktail has a ounce and a half of Wild Turkey 101 rye whiskey, three quarters of ounce of maple syrup. What kind of maple syrup do you think I used to use? We seldom seen for sure. Yes, sir. Three quarters of ounce of triple sec, an ounce and a half of heavy whipping cream. I know people whipping cream in a cocktail, but trust me, you're going to love this. And then I went ahead and added two and a half ounces of cold brew coffee to that. Perfect. You stir, put a little ice in it and serve. So it's called Big Chief's what? Big Chief's. Big Chief's. I was going to say bourbon. You use anything you want, but Big Chief's bourbon coffee.

All right.

Let's taste that. I know the lady said they're going to tear my stuff up, so.

Man, that's a good one, Mike. I don't know how to tear it down and do a tasting on it the way Viv did in the last episode. Viv, what do you got for us?

That's pretty good. I think it's dessert in a glass.

It is dessert in a glass. I would probably not have this necessarily for breakfast, but maybe after dinner cocktail.

After dinner cocktail? Yes. It is a little heavy and sweet, but honestly, it's still cold, because you put that cold coffee in there.

Yeah, you still get that coffee taste to it, right? That maple syrup kind of adds a little bit of smokiness to it. I don't know whether I taste the triple sec in there or not. I can't taste the orange.

Yeah, I'm surprised that it's not coming through. I'm not sure why that is, Mike, but I'm sure it's adding some layer of flavor to it, but it's no longer discernible as like an orange.

It tastes more like coffee. I think the coffee, maybe if we would have got a lighter roast, maybe then the orange would have come through a little bit more. I believe this was a stronger roast coffee, dark roast.

Yeah. Well, the biscuit I picked was from Cracker Barrel. And I don't know if people know that you can go into Cracker Barrel and order biscuits or not, but you can. It was really quick. They had them there. I called in and said, Hey, can I get four biscuits? And they had them waiting for me when I got there, which was nice.

It was just a few shows ago where you were telling us how you called ahead and had some pancakes ready for you. Yeah, I did.

So you're a big Cracker Barrel fan. Well, I'm actually not a big Cracker Barrel fan. I'm a big Waffle House fan, but you can't get pancakes in Waffle House unless you really want to mess with them.

So you got a Cracker Barrel biscuit. And what kind of ham you got on that biscuit, Mike?

So on this biscuit, I paired some father's ham out of Bremen, Kentucky. A very famous ham, I guess, ham farm, ham shop. Been around since 1947. Finchville hams, if you noticed that, are both started around the same time, right after World War II. Right after the war, huh? Yep, yep.

So a lot of people coming back from the war looking for that, uh, that career, right? Looking for that purpose in life.

Yeah. I think it's father's ham. He tried, uh, he bought 200 hams to try to start his business. And, uh, They had a flood because they're down on the Green River, Ohio rivers. The Green River pushes into the Ohio and that pushes that water back up into the Green River and flooded everything out. It flooded those 200 hams out. Oh my goodness. So I'm sure back then that was a humongous loss for them. But to his good nature, he kept at it and he bought 200 more hams and did it again. I'm sure it took him a while to recoup that money from that 200 hams that were lost. But today they're still in business. That's a long time, over 70 years in business. That's pretty amazing.

So, you know, we found Finchville because they're real close to us here. They're Shelby County, very close to Shelby County. But how'd you find out about fathers?

Well, like I said, Bon Appetit has a article that was written about hams in America and I was no doubt I thought I'd find one Virginia place on there and they do Edwards hams is on there Benton's is on there at number five, but Finchville and fathers was like at three and four Wow That's saying something right there. That is saying something, yeah. A foodie magazine picking two rural areas to pull hams out of. Now, our good friend Steve Coombs calls this, what's he call it? Does he call it redneck prosciutto?

Yeah. He wrote the book on ham, country ham. He did.

And he's actually the guy that told me where to get this at, a little place called Morris's Deli over in the Highlands. Little liquor store, little deli. You can get sandwiches in there, but you go in there and get a pound of ham. I will tell you this and you know this because you went over there and got the Finchfield ham. That ham is about $17 a pound. Yes. It's not cheap. Country, this kind of country, country biscuit ham. So yeah, I'm always glad to support small companies like this. Father's, Morris's Deli, Finchfield hams. Anytime I can support a small business. If there was a small business in Shelbyville that made biscuits, I probably would have went there and ordered biscuits, but there's no breakfast place in Shelbyville except for fast food. So Yeah.

So Mel, what do you think about this biscuit?

Um, it's, it's dense like the other one, flaky, but it's, it's not quite as dry. So the ham, the ham's a little saltier than I lug for a Hentra ham, but it's still good.

Yeah. I thought it was a little more salty too. I felt like, uh, But this is a little more concentrated ham flavor too. It's like it's a little more aged maybe than the Finchville ham.

Well, I almost bet this is a different type of hog too because this is super dark. Yeah. And that Finchville ham was super light. So whenever you do get different types of a different hog will be a different color. I always give Mel a hard time because she's from Iowa. When I think of hogs, for some reason, I think of Iowa. But she told me several times, and I know it's not known for hogs, it's known for corn. But for some reason, I just think there's just hogs, a plethora of hogs there.

Now, Vivian, I'm watching your technique over here, and I'm seeing you like to eat the ham and the biscuit separate and knotted together. So is there some technique to that?

No, I was just trying to figure out the density, whether or not the biscuit was flaky or not, and then eat the ham separately because I didn't want to combine the two to mix up any flavoring. Since we were talking about ham and biscuits, I figured I would just do each one separately, not together. Together they pair well. Um, but the definitely saltier than the first one, but I do like this flavor better with the biscuit. I feel like the biscuit might be a little bit sweeter. So the two combination and probably a little bit of grape jelly might go good with it, but that's another show.

Well, you know, sometimes people put on ham, uh, country ham and biscuits and put a little bit of apple butter. and we didn't have any apple butter today, but.

Well, we do have apple butter. Oh, you do? Well. Come on now, you're on Jephthah Bend Farm. We're going to try to have something, everything. Some of this aged maple syrup might've been good in this, but I think this cocktail pairs good with the saltiness of this ham right here. It is a little bit saltier. For those that don't know, hams are usually either salt cured, or sugar cured. And then they put them in a smokehouse too. And they can smoke them and cure them that way too. This one right here is obviously salt cured. Oh, absolutely.

Definitely. Now, one of the things you can do with your country hams, if they're too salty for you, is to rinse them off, soak them in a little bit of water before you cook them up, and that'll take some of that saltiness out of them. Now, I'm sure there are people out there, purists, who say, don't do it, don't do it, but I was actually on the Benton Hams website, and there were some comments in there from people talking about how they were too salty, they couldn't eat it, right? And then of course the comment were back, the response back is, well, if it's too salty for you, you need to soak some of that salt out of it.

You know who lives right down the road from Benton Hams? Who's that? Our good friend, Adam Boothby. Oh, there you go. Him and Sarah, Sarah actually grew up around there and she actually used to work at this cheese place called Sweetwater up in Cleveland, Tennessee. which I thought was pretty cool because she might have worked at the same time. Me and Vivian had went there and visited Sweetwater Hams or Sweetwater Cheese. It's been a long time ago. But yeah, I thought that's cool that he lives right down the road from there. So he said next time we want some ham, tell him he'll go get us some.

Awesome. That's a good way to do it. Yeah.

But you can go on their website. Fathers has a website now. Most of these places will ship their stuff out to you. Just remember that it is a small business. And right now with shipping, it's going to take a little bit.

And you're better off to get a whole ham shipped to you because it starts getting real expensive when they get into the smaller packages and sliced. By the time you pay shipping and everything, you can get a whole ham for 85 to 100 bucks. But then again, if you want a couple of pounds sliced up, it's going to cost you 30.

Well, speaking of hams, you know, yesterday was New Year's Day, right? Did you guys, do you and Mel have a New Year's tradition with ham or anything like that?

No tradition, but we did have a traditional meal yesterday. So we had pork roast and sauerkraut.

We were talking about that, me and Viv were, about different traditions. I think we have a more Southern tradition where we eat spiral sliced ham with black-eyed peas, collard greens, and cornbread. That's our Southern type of meal right there. I think that sauerkraut and pork roast is probably a more Northern meal. Kind of a German thing, right, Viv?

I'm not sure about that. I mean, that's what I hear. I can't remember if that's what we ate or not. I believe you are probably correct.

What do you think, Mel?

I don't have any other comments on that. I'm not a big foodie, so I just ate what Jim prepared.

What Jim prepared?

Yes. Was it homemade sauerkraut? No, it wasn't homemade sauerkraut, but it was German style.

You should have gave us a call. We could have got you some homemade sauerkraut right from there. Here you go. That's right. Viv likes to make her own. But it's a short supply this season because she didn't make that much, I think.

I think I made 12 jars, 12 quarts.

So that's enough. It's like a jar a month for us. Yeah.

No, we don't eat that much sauerkraut.

Well, two great cocktails so far, two great hands. No doubt, I would buy both those hams again, especially Finchfield, because Finchfield's, that's our kind of our home place.

I don't know, I like the second ham with Mel's cocktail. That was a better pairing.

Really?

Yeah, because the saltiness of this ham and the sweetness of her cocktail, the ginger beer and the orange juice, I think was a much better pairing than your cocktail. However, your cocktail was good.

So her cocktail is better than mine so far?

So far, yes.

Oh, man. Oh, man.

And the biscuits, everybody's got it in their mind so far where the biscuits stand, right? Because that's what we're going to do at the end of the show. We're going to sort of talk about which biscuit prevailed. Yeah.

Oh, we're going to talk about which pairing goes with which. Which ham and cocktail I think should, and biscuit goes together. Okay.

You didn't know we had, you didn't know we had Big John's sister on today, did you? She's gonna take it over. She's doing a podcast takeover.

Well, see, Mike, you and I were at a disadvantage because we didn't know that taste of either ham, how, how they do.

Oh yeah.

See, we were at a disadvantage for our pairing.

I hadn't tasted it yet. I hadn't tasted either one. I was just like kind of waiting until we ate something, but uh, I'm happy so far. I don't know. You get some biscuits and some ham and some great cocktail with friends in front of a fire. That's the way to spend a Sunday afternoon, right?

The way to start out 2022, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, stick with us listeners. We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by seldom seen farms, bourbon aged maple syrup out of Ohio, six to nine months in a bourbon barrel. Jim, where can they find it at?

You can find it on seldom seen maple dot com. Get yourself.

Listeners, we're back. Just to remind everybody what we're doing here as we're having brunch, breakfast cocktails. with some biscuits and country ham. It started before noon, but it's lasting well after noon. Yeah, that's the way it's supposed to happen. We got our fire going. We got Woodrow the whiskey dog. He's got about half his toys out here in the living room now. Our wives are both smiling now. They both got a little whiskey in them. A little bit of fire popping in the background. Yeah, yeah. So it's Viv's turn with her cocktail and her biscuits and ham. So Viv, what do you got for us?

Viv's Apple Bourbon Fizz.

Oh, she got a good name. Sounds nice.

OK, so I used I took four glasses and. made a cinnamon and sugar rim. I put orange wedges and just kind of put it around the rim so that when the sugar dipped it in cinnamon sugar and make a nice little crust. And then I took three tablespoons of apple butter, two ounces of bourbon. I used Granddad bourbon. pinch of cinnamon and put it in a shaker glass with some ice and shook it up and poured it into a glass, the rim glass, and then topped it with ginger beer, about four ounces of ginger beer. And then I made a garnish, because I like to be bougie, as Mel said, with a cinnamon stick and an orange wedge on the edge.

Is there a song like that? Bougie like Viv? Bougie like Vivian on a podcast date.

That's Mel's song, Mel and her grandson's song.

It's bougie like Applebee's, right?

Yes. Yep.

I don't cat tell you the last time I'd ever been to an Applebee's.

So what, no, what was the name of this drink one more time? It is by far. The one with the most outstanding look to it. It's the best looking cocktail so far.

Viv's Apple Bourbon Fizz.

Apple Bourbon Fizz.

And I paired that with Bojangles Biscuit and Father's Country Ham.

Awesome.

Cheers.

Cheers. This is actually pretty good. Reminds me of a cold fall day.

Oh, this is like spiced apple cider. This is really good.

Reminds me of apple pie.

Apple pie in the glass, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's pretty dang tasty.

Yeah, it is.

I love the contrast of the ginger beer with the apple butter.

It kind of really is nice. I think that old granddad bottle and bond stands out perfectly in this, too. Yeah. Nice whiskey to pair with this. If you're looking for a whiskey on the bottom shelf, it's got that beautiful orange label on it. And for our listeners that don't know, who's old granddad, Jim?

He's Basil Hayden.

Yeah. A lot of people don't know that, that that's old granddad and the old granddad distillery is not over by Jim beam. It's over in Frankfurt, Kentucky. A lot of people don't know that, but that's where it's at. Um, not too far from Buffalo trace, right? You'd think, you know, Jim beam's gotta have a, a foothold in Frankfurt, right? Now that's not a distillery you can go to and to or anything, but stands out well in this cocktail. I think it's a beautiful cocktail, like Mel said, apple pie and a glass. It looks beautiful. If you wanted to serve, I'd say you're having a Christmas party, these would be nice to make.

Yeah, it's very festive, very kind of, yeah, holiday, get that holiday flavor to it.

Now the question is, how's old Bojangles biscuits?

I have to say, Vivian, Bojangles is one of my favorite biscuits. But you gotta make sure when you set it down on a counter or something, you gotta have a napkin under them.

I think the sweetness of my drink and the saltiness of the ham pair very well together.

Yeah, I think that biscuit and that ham go well together. That's salty. That's why I picked it. That biscuit's got a different flavor to it, doesn't it? A lot different.

It's a little bit more, it's got a better crust on it, I think. You know, it probably cooked a little bit longer. Now, while I went in there this morning, they were in there cooking biscuits. Yeah. I think their sign says new biscuits every like 20 minutes or something like that. Um, but it's got that little bitty crunch to it.

Now I've run up there for just to get biscuits. It's been a while, but you can get just a big old box of biscuits from you get box full of 10 biscuits if you want. Yeah. That father's ham and the, and the Bojangles biscuits. What a good pairing. Excellent choice.

Thank you.

Mel, what do you say about this biscuit?

Um, I like it. I do like the crunchiness of it, but it's not my favorite so far.

No. No. Well, you grew up in a country, right?

No.

You're a city girl. Right. So biscuits and ham wasn't a thing.

No.

But you moved to Kentucky at some point down in, uh, Campbell'sville. Right. Right. Is that where you introduced to biscuits and ham?

Definitely where I was introduced to country ham. Yes.

What about you, Jim? Cause you're from Ohio.

Yeah, I'm from Ohio. I mean, I grew up eating biscuits. Most of my family, at least my mother's side is from Kentucky. You know, beaten biscuits and country gravy was pretty much something you had every day of the week, pretty much.

No, they cooked them in a big cast iron skillet or?

I don't know. I know we used to go to our family reunions and the older women in the kitchen was scoot everybody out and get out of their way because they had to beat them biscuits and get them ready to go. But no, they just shoved them in the oven, but they just pounded those biscuits and made them real thin. And then when they cooked up, they were kind of layered. Really good.

I can't even remember my first biscuit, but my mom would always make homemade biscuits. It wasn't out of a pack or anything. And I remember her putting it, pushing them together. You always thought biscuits had to be separated, but she'd push them together so they'd rise up and it'd look like a big biscuit cake. So, but I'm kind of, I kind of liked the just canned biscuit, I guess, just because it was so flaky and layery.

I like this cocktail a lot. I think with having the cinnamon stick on it though, you gotta, you gotta kind of get rid of it pretty quick. Otherwise it's going to get real sentiment real fast.

Yeah. Maybe skip the cinnamon stick next time.

So both of you ladies, uh, has the bourbon road been fun for you? Like travel long and watch it grow.

Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

Yes, it has. I feel like we've met a lot of cool people and uh, been introduced to some pretty good bourbons. Yeah.

So Mel, what's your favorite experience that we've got to go on? Do you have a favorite place that you've gotten to go to or?

Well, I would say two different places for two different reasons, but Leapers Fork was a lot of fun that day when you guys did multiple shows and we got to listen to multiple country artists upcoming and of course got to hang out with Matt all day, which he's an awesome dude. And the other one was Bourbon on the Banks. Even though it was super busy and crazy, it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, because you ladies never got to leave that, or like t-shirt table, right? You were just there the entire day. None of us got to leave that tent the entire day. It was just slam packed to the tee. We had great friends in there helping us besides you two. We had Abby come in there and help us and stuff. You ladies just worked it and worked it and worked it. Standing behind the table, I know you were exhausted by the end of the day. We were, never got a chance to, our plans was to go down and kind of experience bourbon on the banks. but there was just no time. Um, I didn't think we were going to have that many fans come in there to our, to our tent. We even talked about recording an episode while we were there in our little lounge, but it was, it was not going to happen. Well, there's somebody playing music across the way and we're, you know, we're always concerned about our sound and our sound quality. We just had too many people coming in there at one time for us to kind of get away and do an episode, but a great experience. And then, you know, everybody knows how much we think about Leapers Fork. That's why we named them our 2021 craft distillery of the year. Um, What a great team they are down there. And we'd said that how well they treated our wives because that's what we want our wives to have a great experience. We always want you ladies to when you walk into this area, you feel like home. We'd actually talked about when we went down there before another trip. When we went into Pennington Distillery, me and Jim were back recording in like a separate whole area. And we came back and you two were feeling pretty good by the time we got to you.

They took care of you. They set them up to the bar there and they got in the gift shop, right? They had cocktails. Yes.

That was a fun experience as well.

What about you, Viv? What's your favorite experiences?

I've had many. I would have to say I agree with the bourbon on the banks. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Bardstown Bourbon Festival. We got to just walk around, which was a lot more fun than just sitting in a booth. We got to walk around. I met tons of people, had lots of drinks, had dinner with Drew and his beautiful wife, Heather. Um, so that was fun. And I don't know, I've had so many, I enjoyed going to angels envy and, uh, and meeting that gentleman, that distiller and sitting on their couch and feeling like a million bucks there. They treated us well there as well.

Yeah, Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Mel and Jim were on vacation down in Puerto Rico and you guys weren't able to attend, but I was supposed to have a great time there. I did have a great time, but Viv was supposed to be my designated driver, but she got to feeling too good. So I ended up having to drive home. That's how it usually happens. So next year you'll get a room. Well, yeah, we actually have a hotel company that wants to work with us that said, hey, if your roadies would like to come and stay at our hotel, we'll do a block of rooms and we'll do something for you guys. Good deal. So maybe look for that roadies this year. I guarantee you we're both gonna be trying to be at both of those events. I can't promise you that we're gonna do everything, but we both got full-time jobs. Both of our wives have full-time jobs. Mel, what do you do?

I am a paralegal for Appras Inc. They're a corporate paralegal.

Wow. So, writing the law all the time.

Yes, working with attorneys and keeping us legal.

I think that's pretty cool. Viv, what do you do?

I am a critical care nurse in the ICU at Norton Brownsboro Hospital.

Two women that are working all the time, Jim? Yeah, maybe you could just stay at home husbands, I think.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know how well that'd go.

We might be living in a shack if you do that.

Well, stay with us listeners. We'll be right back for our last cocktail and our last biscuits and ham. All right, listeners, we are back. This is our fourth cocktail.

Jim, this is your cocktail. Yes, this is mine. I won't say it's well thought out or anything like that, but it did seem breakfast-like, brunch-like, a little refreshing light. So that's kind of what I was going for here. So anybody who's familiar with a Paloma, This is actually a rye paloma. So in this case, what we've got is two ounces of grapefruit juice, two ounces of sparkling water, a half ounce of lime. So you can sort of sound a little refreshing, right? And then an ounce of rye bourbon. In this case, it is the Wild Turkey 101 rye. And just shaken over ice and poured over ice. That sounds pretty refreshing to me. Yeah. Cheers all. Cheers. So if you're a big fan of grapefruit juice, I don't know if you are. I like grapefruit juice. I don't drink it all the time. I would say that most of the time I opt for orange juice, but I do like grapefruit juice.

What do you think, Mel?

I like it. I like grapefruit juice. I'm not sure about the rye with it. because it's just a little, I don't know what it is, but.

A little spicy? Drying, maybe?

Dry, dry for me. I probably would have liked it with the old granddad in it.

Little sweeter bourbon. Yeah. What about you, Viv?

I agree. I think a sweeter bourbon was a little good. I liked the flavor of the grapefruit. It tastes a little bourbon-y, maybe a little bit more than two ounces were put in, I'm not sure. If I know, Jim, maybe just a tad more.

Jim, I think it's great. It's a, after eating biscuits and ham that are salty and stuff, it's kind of a palate cleanser. You know, when you go to a really fancy restaurant, they'll bring out that sorbet ice cream, cleanse your palate with. That's kind of what this reminds me of. It's kind of cleansing my palate before we eat this next, I keep wanting to say chicken and biscuits, but we're having biscuits and ham. So what, what biscuit did you get, Jim? So, uh, I chose the Hardee's biscuit.

It's probably my favorite. It's, it just barely beats out the Bojangles as far as I'm concerned, but, but it does, in my opinion, uh, carry a little bit more weight in my mind than a Bojangles biscuit. But, uh, in our ham, we're going to go ahead and use the, um, Finchville ham on this cause they are so close to our home. So, Go ahead and take a taste. Tell me what you think.

So I like that pairing. I like that vengeful ham with the Hardee's biscuit.

The Hardee's biscuits got a, got its own savory flavor. You know, it kind of, I don't know what they do to it, to make it different, but they do some, something's in the mix to make a Hardee's biscuit. It can almost stand alone in my mind, just eating the biscuit. What do you think Viv?

I agree. It's very buttery. It's very soft compared to the other biscuits. The other ones are more dense. I wouldn't say it's flaky. It's just a very soft biscuit, kind of melt in your mouth biscuit with the slight sweetness of the ham and the drink. It's a perfect pairing.

I've got to figure it out. I got to figure it out why the Hardee's biscuit is so much different. When I went there this morning, first off, four biscuits cost me $10.

They're very proud of their biscuits.

I could have got biscuits and gravy or just a sausage and biscuit a lot cheaper. Probably half the price for four biscuits. But I went ahead and paid the $10. I just was in a hurry. But I watched her rip the biscuits apart. And she dipped into a, I don't know if it was a tub of that, what you would call it. It was full of butter and slathered it on there. And she slapped it back together on both pieces and put them in there. And I asked the guy, I said, Hey, did she just put butter on it? She's like, Oh yeah, that's what makes our biscuits taste good. Um, but nobody else did that. So it had time to kind of marinate together. I guess you'd call it marinated. Yeah. A butter marinated biscuit. That's something old Paula Dean would say, right? Yeah.

I've always been a big fan of them. I mean, you know, we went to a, we went to a whiskey festival once and there was a chef there. Actually the chef was from Hardee's and he was preparing, uh, he had prepared a Hardee's biscuit with duck fried duck on the biscuit. So they took duck and they fried it in duck fat and put it on a Hardee's biscuit. And it was just, it was really, really good. Probably the one meal I remember from that festival. And from that day forward, I've always loved Hardee's biscuits. They've just really had a place in my heart. So.

My dad loves Hardee's biscuits.

He does. He, first time I ever met him, he's like, we're going to go get some Hardee's biscuits before we go fishing. Took me by there. And I think that was the first time I'd ever had a Hardee's biscuit. And I was like, man, this thing is loaded down with some grease, but it's loaded down with butter, as I found out today. And maybe that's what it is, is the butter soaking in there. So far, since we're done, right here, this will be my favorite biscuit so far. That's saying a lot for me, because it was buttery, it was kind of flaky, you know? And then that ham, right pairing with it, not too salty. Favorite cocktail for me would probably, man, that's a toss up, but you know I love my bourbon mimosas. So Mel, you went out for me. That's my cocktail choice. What about you, Jim?

Well, I hate to vote on my own biscuit, but I kind of knew going into it that I was probably going to like the Artie's Biscuit the best. I'm kind of predisposed to liking it. As far as the ham goes, I like them both for different reasons. The father's ham was amazing. It had a really great flavor too. It's a darker ham, a little too salty for this particular application, I think, but what a great ham. It could be used in any kind of an hors d'oeuvre or something would be great, right? Even on a biscuit with a little, like on a Hardee's biscuit, I think it'd be too much because a pair of that butter and that extra salt, But actually, both hams were great. Hardee's Biscuit is my favorite. As far as the cocktails go, it's sort of a toss-up between the two girls' cocktails. I'm kind of leaning towards Vivian's because of the holiday nature of it, kind of the spicy apple butter. Because I was mentioning apple butter earlier going ham, and I think it is kind of a nice pairing. And then she stuck apple butter in it.

Yeah. Went perfect with biscuit. Ladies, then I'll go with you first. What's your favorite biscuit and what's your favorite cocktail?

So my favorite biscuit is the Hardee's biscuit. And I like it paired with the Finchville ham. Like Jim said, both hams were really good. I'm not a big country ham girl. So the less salty for me was the better. That's why I like the Finchville ham better. I actually enjoyed all of the cocktails. So as you all know, I'm not a big bourbon girl. So for you women out there, or even men who don't really love bourbon, these are great cocktails to try. I thought it was interesting. Jim and I kind of chose lighter ones. And then you and Viv kind of chose, in my opinion, like dessert cocktails. So I would drink any of them again. I thought they were all great.

Viv, what about you?

I agree. All the cocktails were very, very good, full of flavor. I'm going to go with the Hardee's biscuit and the father's ham. I like the saltiness with the butter taste in my opinion. And I'm going to have to go with Mel's drink. I think her Mel's mimosa was a spot on with the saltiness of the father's ham.

Yeah. Well, I don't think I said a ham, but I think both of them were just spectacular. Like I said, anytime you can get something from a craftsman, um, kind of like her from both our sponsors, right? Seldom seen farms and cruise customs flags. Anytime you buy something from a small business man or business woman, uh, I like doing that. And I know all three of you love doing that too. Um, Listeners out there, if you support small business, do it. Do it all the time. That's what keeps America great, keeps America running, keeps people's dreams alive. I'm sure Father's Ham, whenever they had that dream of making hams, he did that first 200 hams and they flooded away. And that perseverance of Get back in there and do it again. Yeah, that just screams America right there. You fail first, get back up, lift yourself up and do it again. But four great cocktails, four great biscuits, but the Hardee's, it sounds like it won the day, right? I think so. Grease might be happy to hear that, I think. I think he would. Grease from the podcast. He'd love to hear that. He's a big Hardee's fan. That's probably why you went to that whiskey event and had that deal was because of him. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah. Mel's cocktail, it sounds like Mel's cocktail, two votes for that. So I'd say Mel, she probably pretty much won out on that cocktail. And it's no secret to everybody that listens to us knows we all for love that bourbon mimosa. Anytime we get our hands on one, we're traveling down the road. It all started from a great weekend in Nashville, and now it's just a thing now. We try to go to a restaurant. I try to order one of those for breakfast. It just hits the spot. Well, Jim, what do you think?

Great episode. I think it was a great episode. I think our listeners can mosey over to our website and check out the blog on this. I'll be sure that there'll be recipes in there for the cocktails. Yeah. There'll be links to the ham websites and the biscuit websites so that people know where to try and reproduce some of this if they've heard something they like. And yeah, check out our blog. I think it's a good idea. Mike, where can people find us on the internet?

Well, I think both of our wives both have Instagram accounts. Mel, what's your Instagram handle?

Iowa silk.

No joke.

No, you named me that.

Iowa silk is because she's from Iowa and silk is for corn silk. Viv, what's yours?

Viv, it's V-E-V-E-E 621.

So you check out both of our wives on Instagram. Give them a follow. A big thank you from us to them having them on. We've been promising this forever, trying to pull them on the podcast.

Reluctantly.

They came on reluctantly, right?

We want to make the chocolate cake, the chocolate bourbon cake.

Well, I think that was a big chocolate cake. Everybody, if you don't know about the chocolate cake story, Viv and I gifted Mel and Jim a chocolate, bourbon chocolate cake mix for Christmas like two years ago. And it just got cooked not too long ago.

No, it attempted to get cooked.

It was meant for a show. It was meant for a cooking show. It just didn't happen. You guys cooked it. Maybe it had met its expiration date or something.

I think it had.

But listeners, I promise you, we'll try to do that this year. We'll do some TikTok video with that, maybe. Stitch it together. Pour some bourbon in it. We'll have a good time with it. But you can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. You can find us at all those locations. You won't find us on Twitch. We don't do Discord, or any Reddit. We don't do all that. But you can't find us there. The best place to find us is on our private Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies. A great family in there. We just don't tolerate any rudeness. If you'd like to drink from the bottom of the shelf, which we kind of did today, really. Two bottom shelfers for our cocktails. Or if you like to reach from the stuff on the top shelf, do that. but don't down anybody else's bourbon. What do you got ladies think about that? Do you like that we do that?

Absolutely. Cause not everybody can afford top shelf bourbon.

Yeah. We always try to say you're bourbon your way. We try to stick to that. If you want to put Pappy and Coke, go right ahead.

Yeah. And the best bourbon is not always on the top shelf guys. Just keep that in mind. Sometimes there's a real gym looking down a few shelves.

Yeah, we like to see us put craft whiskeys on there. It gives me and Jim great ideas. We like to see cocktail recipes on there. We like to see celebration of life. I saw that in the last couple of days. People lost some friends. I lost two great friends this last couple of weeks. We want to see that celebration life on there. Bursts, Matt King, we said that Matt and Kim down there had a baby and stuff. We want to see those celebrations on there. So show that stuff to us in the bourbon roadies.

Absolutely. So we do two shows a week. We'll do a short episode every Monday where Mike and I will pick a bottle. We'll pick a distillery. We'll kind of take a look at one expression, tell you what we think about it, let you know whether we think you ought to add it to your bar or not. Every Wednesday we'll do a large format show, long format show, about an hour in length like today's where we'll do two 30 minute halves. Actually today we did four 15 minute halves. Yeah. Quarts, whatever, quarters. What do you want to call it? But we'll spend about an hour. We'll get you to work and we'll get you home again. We'll do a deep dive on a subject today. It was all about what's our 2022 biscuit of the year. Congratulations, Hardy. You won this one out. We had some great cocktails today, actually all of which I never really had before. These were all new cocktails for me.

Yeah, I think all four of us would say that, all new cocktails. A great way to ensure that you get to listen to our shows is make sure you scroll on up, hit that check sign, that plus sign, that subscribe sign, that makes sure your app on your phone or however you listen to us, by Amazon or on youtube or alexa alexa uh it'll make sure that you get to listen to that show the next thing we'd like for you to do is scroll on in hit that five star review you don't know how much it helps us if you don't you know what's gonna happen right i'm gonna grab these two bottles of whiskey

I'm going to bring Jim, I'm going to bring our wives with us. We're going to make cocktails all night long.

We're even going to bring the big bad booty daddy of bourbon with us. He will drink it up. By the end of the night, we're going to get that five-star review out of you. But seriously, those five-star reviews open up doors for us. It helps us get great content, great guests with like our two beautiful wives we have with us today. We really appreciate it. And they would not have come on the show had it not been for all our five-star reviews. That's it. That's what got them on here. They both said. Ladies from the bottom of our heart, thank you for coming on and enhancing our podcast today.

Thanks. It was fun. It was fun. Thank you.

All right, we'd love to hear from you. You can always go to our website. We've got a contact us page there. If you've got a recommendation for a show or a topic or a guest, we'd love to hear it. You can always reach out to us. Mike and I are very, very approachable. You can send us an email if you like. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. But like we always say, hit up our DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down.