241. Green River Distillery First Look

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.

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 seldomseenmaple.com. Get you some. Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, The Bourbon Road has led us to Owensboro, Kentucky. Man, it's been a minute since we've been on a road, right? It has been a minute, but we're in a big river town now.

I think this is a famous river town right here. So we're in the home of bluegrass. Bill Monroe started this place up kind of, uh, I guess he would be called the grandfather or the granddaddy of bluegrass. And then you got some great barbecue here to, uh, Mecca's of barbecue. You know, you look at a top 10 of barbecue and you think Owensboro, Kentucky, right? But they got something else here in Owensboro and that's why we came here. Not for the barbecue, not for the bluegrass, not that we don't love both of those, But they got this place called the Green River Distillery.

And they're making whiskey here on the bend in the river, aren't they?

Yeah. I mean, it's not just the Ohio River. They got the Green River here, too. I always think there's a song called Green River. I'm not going to try to sing it for you, Jim.

Yeah, don't do it. I don't know what all the words do it.

I always think about the Green River with my work, regular work. You know, the river's important to me. And I know Owensboro like the back of my hand, but we got a pretty special guest with us on that man. And he's got the lineage to back it up. Eighth generation distiller, Jacob Call. Jacob, welcome to the Bourbon Road.

Thanks guys, glad to be here. Yeah, welcome Jacob. We're really excited to be here. I think it's a long time coming. We have kind of been pining for the opportunity to come over here for a couple of reasons. You've been poking me for like two years.

Mike, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's get on the road. And, you know, stuff kind of get in our way every time. And I was like, man, we got to get this done now. So let's get down there. So, you know, February 10th, these pretty special day for you guys though, right?

Yeah, this is a date we've had circled on our calendar for a long time. We're releasing our Green River five-year-old flagship bourbon brand finally. So it's been a long time coming. We're super excited.

Yeah, it's great to see this bottle. I mean, we've known something was coming down the pike for a while, right? Yeah. But we haven't had a chance to take a peek at it and today's a big day. And we're going to be some of the first people to drink this, right?

Besides yourself. That's right. Yep. Yep. It's, I think you're going to really enjoy it.

Well, we're going to get to that in the other part of the show, but let's talk about Green River Distillery history and where it all started from.

Sure. So very, very historic distillery dating back to 1885. Originally, the site here was originally known as the Green River Distillery. And it burnt down 1918 right before Prohibition, but was one of the most heavily advertised brands pre-Prohibition. Won a bunch of awards in the 1900s in Paris, official whiskey of the Marine Corps Hospital, The most expensive whiskey ever sold, 20 barrels traded for an interest in a gold mine. So yeah, very, very storied history here at the facility. And then, you know, even when it was rebuilt after prohibition, Around 1936, it went by the name of the Medley Distillery, and there were some pretty iconic brands that were done out of this place back then too. Ezra Brooks, Mellow Corn, so a lot of history at this place.

That's some brands everybody knows, right? Oh yeah. They talk about still today, those brands are still around. But we're actually here to taste your whiskey and stuff. And you've got a couple other whiskeys here for us, too. I think that's pretty amazing. And right before the show, we learned that your guys' whiskey, Green River Distillery, had the last ship of bourbon that left the United States going to Cuba back right before prohibition.

Yeah, that's the pretty cool thing about launching a historical legacy brand like this. Now that the word's getting out, we're starting to hear some of these old stories that have been forgotten over time. We get people really from around the country that hear shows like your show and they're like, oh, you know, we found this bottle in our attic and they'll send us different pictures and stuff. We had somebody that had an old picture frame. that was covered up with a picture of FDR and behind that picture was the employees and the staff from like 1904 or something and they sent it to us. So all that sort of thing is soon to be on display in our visitor center here. We've spent a ton of work remodeling our visitor center And, you know, we're a Heritage member on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. We get people from around the world that come visit us. So we got some pretty cool artifacts to show off.

Well, we definitely want to get a little more into the history. I think we got a little bit more there to talk about, but our mantra is to kind of get straight to the whiskey. And we've been chatting a bit here. So what do you say we get straight to this first whiskey you've brought for us? And we'll do a little tasting of it.

Sure. So, let me tell you a little bit about it. This is a brand called Yellow Banks and Yellow Banks was actually the original name of Owensboro. And this is a 70% corn, 21% rye, 9% malted barley, 92 proof product. You'll get some sweetness on the nose. I think it's sort of a butterscotch-y, popcorn-y type product. But it's just under three years old, only in Kentucky, only in this limited area right now.

Jimmy, you know what I'm going to say on this nose right here? What are you going to say? You got that, that kettle corn that you smell. Yeah, I think you do. Man, that kind of caramely still got that corn smell to it. Very beautiful.

Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because this is a collaboration that we did with the Kentucky Corn Growers Association. We put their logo on the label and 5% of all of our sales go back to corn and ag research in Kentucky.

That's pretty amazing. I love the bottle. How, you know, it does have a old school label looking on it, but it says yellow bank and it's in yellow. And it's kind of got that, you know, I love that bottle, Jim, right? Cause it's the perfect pour bottle. It is the perfect pour bottle. It's got that tulip neck on it stuff. And the bourbon in the glass, I would say that's like a golden honey.

It's very nice. So is this a bourbon whiskey that you would expect to find in a well at a bar or is this something more? It's maybe a little bit more upscale than that.

It's in the price point of around $24 kind of price point. The bars around Owensboro do have it in their bars. And you know, it's, We're really kind of holding back on it until we get our Green River brand launched, which is, you know, starting today. And once we get Green River out the gate, then I think we'll have a little more push with Yellow Banks.

Sure. That's a super affordable whiskey right there. I still, you know, that $25 Mark, Jim and a lot of people I think will search that out and especially a historical brand like that. And it's given back to farmers. Man. To me, that's a story in itself, but I know Jim is over there. He's about to die.

I really want to taste it, but I do want to confirm the kettle corn, Mike. Absolutely. I think you hit it on the nose there. It's got a little bit of an aromatic spice to it. Not too much, but it's nice. Maybe that's from the barrel, you tell me, or it's from the rye.

Yeah, most of that spice profile will come from the rye profile. We do have a proprietary yeast strain that we use in our recipes. We've got two different yeasts that we blend, and then we have a special yeast for our rye whiskey that we do. All right. Well, let's taste it. Cheers. Cheers.

There's that spice kick too. It's got a nice little bit of sweetness up front.

Got a little corn sweetness. I think it does lend to that kettle corn and stuff. Pretty beautiful. I would like to mention that we did bring our wives with us this trip, Mel and Viv, the stars of the show a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. But they're over there as usual drinking cocktails. Well, Jacob, were you the one that came up with Yellow Banks, or were you the innovator of that?

No, we've got a full marketing team that works on different brands and does a lot of historical research. I do work closely with the Kentucky Corn Growers Association and their board. We pitched the Kentucky corn growers probably five or six different labels and brands because we wanted it to be a collaboration. We all kind of settled on that one.

Now, Owensboro, I mean, when you drive along the river through Owensboro, you can't miss the giant grain of, I don't know, would you call it a factory, or what do you call it?

Yeah, that's Owensboro Grain. Yeah, they've got massive silos down there where they process corn and soybeans and load barges and different things. Yeah, they're an institution here in Owensboro.

So has Owensboro always been sort of a big grain, kind of a grain depot town?

Yeah, I mean, you know, we're we are in the heart of heart of corn country. Some of the most the best corn is grown in this part of the state. We've got very fertile soils. We've got the Ohio River and the Green River here where they all come together. And, you know, every year some of the highest yielding corn crops come out of this area. So, yeah, it's definitely we've got a river port here in Owensboro. So a lot of a lot of corn grown in Owensboro.

I'll tell you, it's probably this port with Evansville is one of the largest ports on the Ohio river. Yeah, you would know that, right? I would know that. Probably Paducah is a little larger port in Cincinnati, but for a small town like Owensboro in Evansville, Indiana, which is kind of right across the river, right?

Yeah.

I saw there was a pretty significant Coast Guard station here.

Yeah, there's a cutter right here that does aton for the barges and they want to make sure that, you know, that's a big, big, big thing to make sure the river, cause it's not a straight river, whether it looks like it is or not. It's changing all the time, but it's, it's, it's kind of flood season right now. You know, when we were coming in here, I saw some floods, uh, fields flooded and stuff. And the good thing about that is a lot of people don't realize that it does bring destruction and But the good thing is it brings more fertile soil and dumps it on those fields. And those fields near the river probably produce more corn than the other field around. And you guys are probably recipients of that.

Yeah, we buy all, you know, local Kentucky really from about a 30 mile radius of the distillery direct from the farmer.

Now we were walking around, you know, and we're talking with you and stuff. You're showing us the distillery, which to me, you know, Jim, for me, it was one of the most amazing tours I've ever been on. That was pretty good. I loved it. Probably. I don't know. That's a big column still. It's, it's monsters.

Yeah. I've seen, I don't know that I've seen a whole lot that size. That's big. You fit me in there. I could go swimming. Oh yeah.

But you were telling us that you guys own your own farm and stuff.

We do, yeah. We have a thousand acre farm about an hour away. We have our own cattle that we feed our stillage to. We have our own fleet of trucks. We deliver stillage to farmers for free.

What's that say on the back of that truck?

feeding cattle since 1885. Yeah. Love it.

That's great. So we kind of left the story of this distillery here prior to it being abandoned. So it was abandoned at some point.

Yes, so after the Medley family took over, United, which is now Diageo, they bought it around 1992, and they just wanted those brands, they wanted those labels, so it was shuttered. And we bought it July of 2014, and we We started distilling September of 2016, spent about $25 million rebuilding it. And I was employee one and we've got about 85 employees here in Kentucky at the moment. And we've expanded three times along the way. So now we're at 94,000 barrels of production and

makes us the fourth largest independent urban distillery in the U.S. Wow, so to keep our listeners from having to do any advanced math here, how many barrels a day is that?

We make on average about 300, roughly, barrels a day.

So that puts you right in that top tier of big distilleries in the country.

Yeah, you know, we're certainly not a craft distillery. We're definitely on the upper level.

To me, I just I love that and kind of going back to you guys having your own farm and stuff and you know when we're walking around Jim and I are wives one of those trucks drove past and they were coming in here to get that grain and I'm sure most of our listeners if you go to a distillery or if you look up old photos of a distillery you'll see the drawings of them and you always see cattle pens because they had to get rid of that sprint spent grain right and how much spent grain do you have from a

Cook. From each one of our fermenters, we're left with about 12,000 gallons or two semi loads of stills. We need to move out about 110,000 gallons in 24 hours to stay even. The big distilleries like a Jim Beam, they've got a dryer house and they'll dry that grain. But for us mid-level guys, we don't have a wastewater plant. It cost us about $7 million worth of capital investment to build a dryer house. So that's one of the good things about being 120 miles from the closest distillery. We don't really have much trouble getting rid of our stillage because we're close to all the farmers.

Yeah, we saw the big trucks in my truck pulling up and then we saw a farmer pulling up to dually pickup with a goose neck and he had a big tank on the back of it to, to grab that and feed it to us. I'm guessing cattle probably. That's, you know, that's given back and you don't charge those farmers for anything, right? No, it's all free. Yep. That's, that's to me, that's just amazing.

So what's it like to see a vision like this come together? I mean, this was, I mean, you really kind of started with almost nothing.

Yeah, some of the bones were here. We had the doubler, we had the cookers, the still. The shell was here, the bones were here, but we did a lot of work. For me, it was kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity to to get to come here and, you know, rebuild something and kind of put your stamp on it. So, definitely the highlight of my professional career.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you started to make whiskey and you started to barrel whiskey in 2016. Right. It's now 2022. And we're seeing your product come out with a pretty respectable age statement on it.

Yeah, so the Green River product is five years old. We're going to lead with this 90 proof Green River product. We had to pay a few bills when we started out, so we had to sell some of our bourbon at the beginning, but this is some of our older stuff that we bottled, original product.

Well, heck, we got it in front of us. I don't drink the yellow banks.

Yeah, it's gone.

I got a little bit left. I say let's try this new product right here. Now, how hard was it to wait five years?

Uh, it was hard. I did a lot of sampling. You got to check on those barrels all the time to make sure they're okay. So, uh, we did quite a bit of that.

Is that what you tell everybody? I gotta go check on my barrels. I'll see you guys a little bit.

I want to make sure they're aging properly. Now, I'm certain the whiskey was delightful well before the five year point, but

Yeah, we debated at four years. You know, we were going to go out at four, but it was good to wait till five. I'm happy with how it turned out. So this is that same match bill. Yeah, this is 70 corn, 21 rye, nine malt. So a little bit, a little higher on the rye. But I think that that rye really carries through and gives you some really good notes on it.

Now, what can our listeners expect to pay for this?

It's going to be $34.99. So very affordable five-year-old product. You know, we wanted this to be the, the every man's, you know, kind of bourbon. I think with the packaging and the liquid, I think it's got a lot of potential.

Awesome.

So 90 proof.

That's got some, that's got some pretty good color to it, Mike. I'm seeing it sit next to the yellow banks and it's significantly darker at a few, a couple of proof points lower. So. Yeah.

And you also got a unique bottle in a time period when there's a glass shortage. And I don't, I can't think of a bottle I've seen like that. That's your guys' bottle.

Yeah. That's our custom, custom bottle. We took a lot of the cues from the original packaging back in the early 1900s, the rivets in the bottle, the strip stamp. We've got an homage to Owensboro. We've got the city of the pride of Owensboro in the glass. We're super proud of our relationship with Owensboro, the fourth largest city in Kentucky. And they've been great partners for us. We've got the horseshoe in the bottom of the bottle. It fits really good in your hand and I think it's definitely something that people are going to remember when they see.

Yeah, it's kind of round on one side like that horseshoe and then square on the front of it. Not square, but flat. The neck is longer, longer than that. You know, most squatty bottles, they have that little short neck. And then, you know, I've said this many a times, Jim, it's urban or run down your label. Um, I don't know. I'm just sometimes you need freak. You don't want your label to get all nasty and stuff, but 34 bucks. Good Lord. That's a great price.

Yeah, I think it's a great price for it. If our five year old bourbon, uh, yeah, very nice. Um, you know, and I love the way that the bottle, yeah, it's sitting on a horseshoe base, but that horseshoe shape sort of carries all the way the full head of the bottle up to the neck anyway. So it's got that nice flat front and rounded back. It's, it's a great looking bottle. Let's check it out.

Mike little, little, uh, I've been nosing this thing. It little almost toast there to me. Oh, that oak is coming through almost that toasted marshmallow.

Yeah. I was, I was going to say exactly that. I was going to say I was getting like a toasted marshmallow off of it. Not overly sweet, a little more oak influence on it, a little less sweetness than what we had tried earlier, but let's taste it. Cheers. Cheers. And it's solid. Now that's got that pop rocks going on, Jim. Yeah. Yeah. The Rye is, uh, the Rye is playing a tune there.

No doubt. Yeah. It's surprising how much the difference between yellow banks and this is. And, but they're each in the same barrels.

Yep. Same barrels. Just, just more age.

Not a different Rick house placement. Nope.

Really? No. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. That rye really, really shows itself. Um, I kind of liked the way that it, uh, it kind of tangles the sides of the tongue a little bit. You say pop rocks. Yeah. Pop rocks or. Yeah.

It's a, I call this a sizzler. Sizzler. Yeah. It's, it's, it is lovely whiskey. Let me know. Not as much a Kentucky hug as I would have thought for a sour mash.

It's got a nice finish on it. I think, uh, yeah, I mean, this is a great whiskey for the mid thirties. So you mentioned earlier, eighth generation distiller. Can you tell us a little bit about that lineage?

Sure. So, uh, my family dates back to, uh, 1791 in Bourbon County, Kentucky. So the first guy, his name was Samuel Call, and he was a distiller. He had a 75-gallon still, 120-gallon still, dozen fermenters, fortunate enough to find his estate. When he passed away, he had 10 kids. So, of course, they were all fighting over all of his stuff, which turned out good for me because I could find his records from the lawsuit. He had some dealings with Elijah Craig. We found some depositions involved with that. I guess, effectively, my family is one of the oldest distilling families in Kentucky.

That's pretty cool to find that stuff out. So it didn't just drop in your lap though. You had to dig a little bit.

I did. Yeah. I always knew I was a seventh, but I couldn't go back any further. You know, back during the pandemic, I guess I was like a lot of people and was looking at ancestry.com and trying to pass the time and hit some roadblocks. So I actually hired a lady named Linda Colston. And she used to be a former tour guide at another distillery and she was really into genealogy. And turns out it was the best 500 bucks I ever spent because she dug it up and said, you're not going to believe this, but look what I found.

Where's Bourbon County, Kentucky at for all of our listeners?

Yeah. So Bourbon County is up around the Paris, Versailles kind of area up around Lexington North and Lexington, Nicholasville up in that area.

That is some lineage, you know, I'm just a history nut. And those guys that walked the Buffalo Trace, the true Buffalo Trace, they walked part way up the Kentucky River and then they were going through the wilderness, pretty much briars and stuff. And then they got to the Buffalo Trace and they walked, I think, 17 miles on that. And then what they were doing was they were surveying land. And so your generations of your heritage there, your family, could have been some of those guys that were surveying for rich men is what they were doing.

Yeah, that wasn't their land.

Well, they were serving for own land, but they were picking out prize property for these probably millionaires back then, really, is what they would have been today. But they went and surveyed their own land over on the Salt River area, that area, Nicholsville you're talking about, Versailles area, and that's where they got their land at. I'm not there on the Kentucky river, but over on the salt river where four roses is actually.

Oh yeah.

On that area. So that man to sit here with some of that, that family is pretty neat.

Yeah, so have you been able to go back even further than that, or is that about as far as you've been able to go?

You know, I stopped there. I guess if I wanted to keep paying for it, I could keep going further back. But I said, let's stop there. That's a good stopping point. And then, you know, in more modern times, my grandfather worked at Jim Beam, and then my dad worked at Jim Beam for a long time. And, you know, my dad was sort of bookernose, kind of right-hand guy. My grandfather was friends with him. I kind of grew up in the business. I remember when I was a kid, they would have these bass fishing, Jim Beam bass fishing tournaments for the employees. So I'd fish with my dad and we used to call him Freddie, but it's Fred now. So Fred would fish with with Booker and, you know, they had a big look like a barge, uh, with their big John boat out there. And, um, yeah, that was some fun times doing, doing, uh, those bass fishing clubs back when I was a kid. And there's another Freddie now. Yeah. Yeah. Younger Freddie, right?

Can you remember that first sip of whiskey back, back in the day?

Uh, yeah. And I tell you, you know, uh, my dad had a lot of those, uh, decanters, uh, sitting around and I, uh, I think I probably, uh, snuck, uh, snuck some out of one of his decanters he had laying around the house.

The canter is a good choice because you can't see the level in it, right? That's a smart idea. Yeah, you were doing, you were playing the smart game. Yeah.

Well, imagine what that whiskey would have been worth that day though. Yeah, he's, he's, it's a good thing he, uh, he's not a seller. He's more of a displayer. A drinker. Or you were the drinker. I guess so.

So you got that lineage and stuff. Where, at what point did you say, Hey, I think I'm going to be a distiller myself.

Well, I was a banker for a while. I went to Murray State and when we moved to Florida, my dad took over a place called Florida Distillers and he created all the Cruzan rum products. I was a banker for a while, then I went to work for him. I really learned the business, the real business from my dad. He made sure I had all the really challenging jobs when I was a kid in college. I worked on the bottling line and worked in processing. I've done a lot of the stuff in the industry. And, you know, after graduating college and being a banker, I just really wanted to get back in the business. And, you know, bourbon was not cool again yet, but it was getting cool again. And, you know, it's just one of those things that, you know, if your relatives do that, it's kind of like always pulling you back in. Yeah. And when this place became available, it was just, man, I got to come up here and do this. So I brought my wife up and we walked around the distillery and you saw some of the pictures. This is in pretty rough shape. And I was either the only one crazy enough to do it or it was just meant to be maybe.

Yeah. Was it like the light came on and you saw your vision?

Yeah, I could see what I, you know, it was, it took a big step, big step of faith, but, um, yeah, I could see, I could see where it was going.

Yeah. And, uh, and, and during that, that process of bringing this back to life here, were there any regrets along the way?

Uh, no, no, not one regret.

Yeah.

A few times we were like, what the heck are we doing here? Normally with all the expansions, you know, normally you get going and you're, you're cranking out, you know, 18, 20,000 barrels and you think you're doing something good. And then, you know, uh, it's still a business. So, uh, well, can you make more? Like, yeah, we can make more. So then we went 70,000 barrels and that was a big, Big adjustment. We went, uh, went 24 seven at that point in time. Um, and then the, you know, the last expansion, I said, that's it. No more, no more expansions after this one.

Well, we can get into that in a second half, Jim. Uh, and we'll keep sipping on this green river.

newly launched, gonna be on the shelves in a select few states, right, Jacob? Yeah, so it'll be Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, and Florida. Yeah, and Indiana, too.

Is that so your dad can buy some?

Yeah, he'll probably get some for you.

Well, listeners, I'd say 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 at 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 fan. Fantastic old-fashioned.

Now, you don't have to pour it in an old-fashioned. You can have it on chicken and 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 Holly 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?

Yeah, you 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, seldomseenmaple.com. Check out everything they have to offer. They support the Bourbon Road. Take care of your sponsors. We're back to our episode.

So we are back listeners. We got the master of Stiller, Jacob Call. You're really the jack-of-trades here, master of none, right?

Yeah, I'm the general manager and the master of Stiller. Master of all. I don't know about that. It takes an army. It takes a village, that's for sure.

Yeah, because you got 85 employees and stuff. I didn't see a frown walking around here for sure. Everybody seemed, even your gate yard, your guy that's managing the front gate up there, he was He's the nicest fella.

He's come on in. He was a great guy. I really enjoyed the short conversation we had with him before we came through the gate. Mike, just one last note about that Green River whiskey. I'd like to sort of say we talked a little bit about it during the break as we were finishing up our glass. We actually went back for another pour. Yeah, Jacob has a bottle here. Heck, we're trying to empty that sucker. And our wives got more cocktails. I just had to say how much I love bourbons that have that prominent butterscotch note, and I think it was there in that one.

Yeah. You know what? We did chat in the break about what made this so great. Not just that price point where every man and woman could buy a bottle, but it is that bourbon that is perfect at 90 proof.

Yeah.

Our thing is we always say, oh man, let's really like to taste that at Cast Drink, but Jacob, man, I'm going to tell you what, you hit the nail on the head on this thing that five years seems like that's that right mark where that spice is what gives us that extra kick or that, where that butterscotch taste. Um, I can't say enough good stuff about it. I'm glad we're here for the release today of this and be some of the first guys to get to taste it. But we get to move on.

We have another bottle. And this is right up my alley, Mike. Well, another bottle just showed up. Bottles are just popping up.

So next on our list, what do we have, Jacob? This is sort of a taste of things to come, if you will. This is our rye whiskey. This is a four-year-old rye whiskey, 90 proof. This is a 95% rye, 5% malt. So it's a full on rye whiskey. Yeah, man. 95.5. Wow. Let's check it out.

So that is a 95.5. That's more of a Maryland rye or East coast rye.

Well, you know, back when we got started, we had to pay a lot of bills. So we were competing with that famous 95% MGP RA that everybody wants. So we thought people would appreciate a Kentucky version of that. So that's what we went after.

So anything different here, any other like a different strain of rye or different, anything done differently here?

You know, it's a winter rye that we buy. No, it's just, I think it's just a good solid 95% rye whiskey. Full on rye, you know, a lot of the ryes are 70%, you know, rye. Rye is hard to work with. It foams bad. It can turn to super glue if you don't watch what you're doing. So.

I was going to ask if you had any challenges with the rye. Cause a lot of people talk about those, those challenges with the foaming and the.

You know, no, we, uh, you know, we've, we've got all that under control. Um, but, uh, you know, it's a more expensive grain. That's another reason why people use less of it, but you know, we wanted to, we're going to make rye. We wanted it to be a full on rye.

So for the purpose of the podcast here, we're just calling this rye.

Rye whiskey, no brand associated with this four year old yet, but I would say, you know, Maybe sometime next year. Yeah. Green river may have a, a shelf mate. I mean, it sounds perfect, right?

Green river, right? Yeah. I mean, that's, I'm going to have to buy that name right there.

I'm sure they're, they're, they've got an advanced army taking care of those things.

So, uh, Jim, I, this right here, you know, the thing about a Kentucky ride, it's like 65% right. Yeah. Um, Is it's not as sweet, but when I get a 95 five or I, I get that sweet nose. Um, just coming out a lot of floral. Yeah. Nice. A little bit of candy there. Almost like a gumdrop. You know, this gumdrop spice gum, spice drops.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I know all of our listeners, like you two with your candy notes and candy and cereal, right? We just, we can't do oak and leather and we can, but nobody wants that.

All right, Mike, let's check it out. Cheers. Cheers. That's nice. Buttery.

Yeah, it is. That's that got that creamy mouth feel that just kind of flows over your palate.

Yeah. And it's got a little bit more of a, so you can get, and I know that the notes are similar between a niece and licorice kind of, but I think, you know, you know, when you go to an Indian restaurant and you're paying your bill up front at the counter and you leave and they got that little bowl of, uh, Seeds in a dish and you can put, put a few in your mouth. Have you done that before, Mike? This is, that reminds me of this.

I'm not putting my fingers in something everybody else put their fingers in.

Well, you know, times have changed. This would be pre COVID.

I've never been that guy at the bar and be like, I'm going to have, I'm going to eat on those, uh, like everybody else is eating.

Oh, you don't do that. Huh? No, I just order something off the menu.

Maybe at Five Guys, isn't they have those peanuts you can crack open? I eat those. That's that buttery mouth feel. Everything we said in the nose is there in the taste too. That spiced gumdrop, you know, maybe a little bit of citrus on there. A little bit of mint. Great job.

Yeah, definitely a little bit of mint.

Yeah, that's a great ride.

I think that's a wonderful ride. And, um, so it's a four year old now to be a five year old when you're.

Yeah.

Yeah. It can only get better.

Where do you see it going? Like changing in the taste profile?

Yeah. I mean, it'll just get richer, a little more depth to it. Um, I think your base notes will stay the same, but you'll just get more wood and more depth over time.

Yeah. I always liked that. Probably get a little darker too. I would imagine. So. We were about to talk about it before, but we're walking around and you guys got what, 27 fermenters?

We do. Yeah. So 27 fermenters. 2000 gallons each. No, the fermenters are 15,000 gallons. 15,000 gallons each.

What was 2000? Some of those 2000 gallons. I don't know. That's me not paying attention.

I wasn't paying much attention. I was like, man, you got 27 of these things in here and they're all filled up and they're rocking and rolling here. So innovation, coming out with new stuff. We're just drinking this right here that nobody else has had yet, right? Nobody else has got to taste that except for you and the staff here. Yes. Yeah. Man, Jim.

Mike, we're living the dream, my friend.

Yeah. I mean, for whiskey drinkers, this is like the holy grail of getting to see behind the scenes. And we did get to see behind the scenes. We walked not only in your cook house, right, your steel house, but we got to see You walked in your Rick houses, which are pretty dang amazing. Got clay brick.

Yeah. So, you know, brick Rick houses are, um,

They're not a common thing, right?

Yeah. Most brick houses you find as you travel around Kentucky are metal sided. And you know, these here are brick and clay, clay interior, huh? Yeah. Hollow clay tile. Hollow clay tile.

It's not brick really, just tile. It's pocketed. So you'll get a lot of heating and cooling that way. We do have some metal sited also. We're up to here on site. We've got six, six Rick houses and then offsite we've got another 14 and we're actually building a new Rick house every 90 days to keep up with our production.

My goodness. Now what would it cost to build one of those clay tile Rick houses?

You're looking, you know, those prices seem to change every day in this world we live in, but you know, you're about 4 million bucks. Wow. Yeah.

20,000 barrels inside there?

Yes, yeah.

It was pretty neat to walk in there. We've both been in numerous rick houses and I guess it's called a rick because their barrels are in a rick, right?

Yes, you know, some people call them rack houses, but I think rick house, I go with rick house, sounds better.

What does to me, that's that Kentucky thing. So anything else we could expect out of Green River Distillery in the coming future?

We're really focused right now on this Green River brand launch. We've held back some of our other projects to do this right. You only get one chance to launch a flagship brand like this. I think it's pretty rare that a historic brand like this has been brought back at its original home where it all started from. There's been heritage brands brought back, peerless brands like that, but I did some research and I can't really recall a brand like this that's been brought back at its original place where it all started. So that's been our focus. And we'll have some other expressions, I'm sure, of Green River. Eventually we'll have single barrels and bottled and bonds and rise and things like that. But we want to come out of the gate, focus heavily on Green River, get it out, launched in the market. Then we'll come with Yellow Banks. And we've got several innovation projects we're working on. We've got all the barrel finish stuff and some unique things too, that maybe people haven't thought of yet, I hope, that we're working on. And we'll probably do some exclusive stuff later on with that too.

We've had plenty of your whiskey on our show though before, right? Cause your contract distiller too.

Yeah, we are. Yeah. So, like I mentioned, we do a variety of things here. We do contract distillation. We do a big tanker business where we ship 6,000 gallon tankers all over the world. We do private label bottling, private brand bottling. We do Terry Bradshaw's, Burman, Wheel Horse is a brand we do, Walker's K, which is the Bush family, we do their stuff. So yeah, we do a lot of different things that a lot of people might not realize.

Yeah, we've had a lot of these on the show. I particularly remember Walker's K, and we had the bourbon out of Key West on, and we've had Broken Barrel. Broken Barrel, yeah. Broken Barrel, yeah. Seth.

Yeah, what a guy. Do you make his rise as well? We do, we make the bourbon and rye and then he does his thing with his broken barrel staves and all his finishes.

He's quite a craftsman in his own right.

Yeah, he's got a very good imagination for different things.

His rye is something that, uh, I always think about, I always think about, I need to go down and get another pour of that rye from him because he's done that, that state profile that he's used on that rye was really something else, I think.

So, yeah, I don't, are you selective who comes in here and who you work with and stuff?

We're getting a little bit more selective as we grow up and become a big boy distillery with our brand launches. At some point, we back off of what we sell to other people and start saving back more for us and some of our key partners.

Sure. So as you start to expand your brands, particularly your Green River brand to more states, that'll put more demand on your stocks. Absolutely. Well, you've got to take care of the home first, right? That's right.

Well, Jim, they put another whiskey in front of us. Can we talk about that?

Yeah. So I think we brought out the, uh, Kentucky tin weeded product. Um, and this is a, uh, 70 corn, 21 wheat, nine malted barley. So we just flopped the ride with the wheat. Um, this is about a two and a half year old.

Mike, he had to twist their arm because the weeded king of Kentucky had to have a wheat bourbon. You didn't see my head spinning around down there.

As soon as he said weed, I like perked up a little bit. I was like, man, they got some wheat whiskey here, weeded bourbon, a beautiful nose on this side. Just one whiff up, even at that young age still is those floral notes are coming out.

Now what was the age? It's about two and a half years old.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. And wheat takes a little, weeded bourbons take a little longer than rye bourbons.

You know, it's, it's, it's light and grassy and, you know, I always think of, of wheat as more kind of entry level, uh, type product, easy to drink, no burn. Um, but, uh, yeah, we get some pretty good, uh, compliments on our wheat. Yeah.

All right. Let's check it out, Mike.

Check it out. Nice and floral. I just, that honeysuckle road, you know, coming, you know, you're down here in Owensboro, Kentucky. It's in the country. Listen, maybe some bluegrass on a back country road and smell that, smell that honeysuckle.

It is a Kentucky wheat as well.

Oh, it is. Wow.

Okay.

So is that a, is that a winter wheat? Yeah. Red winter. Red winter wheat. And that's a, they call it red hard winter wheat. We call it red winter. Red winter.

That's a, most people would just use it as a cover crop with farmers and stuff. When I was growing up on a farm, that's what we would use as a cover crop is red winter wheat and stuff. And, um, you know, you hopefully get a good yield out of it and stuff, but what you're trying to do before the depression, um, People wouldn't plant a cover crop and big winds would come in and pick their topsoil up and take it off. That's kind of how the dust bowl stopped. But the government came in and said, okay, you're going to need to plant another crop, a cover crop, to protect your topsoil. you're pretty much going to kill your farm.

Yeah. So I'm, I'm getting a little bit of like, uh, cause I've already tasted it. I took an O's on it. Then I taste a, a little bit of hot buttered popcorn, hot buttered popcorn. Why can't I say cheers, Jacob?

Cheers.

Little sweet up front. Nice and soft.

I don't get to popcorn. You know I don't eat popcorn.

I say popcorn. I'm getting a little bit of a, what do they call it? Just a hint of diacetyl. Is that right?

Yep. I don't even know what that is. It comes off from fermentation.

Is it? Yeah. I love it in white dog. I love that flavor in white dog. When I'm tasting white dog, I love to get that hot butter popcorn.

Now I'm going to tell you this. Tell me like tastes like crackerjacks. Now people are listeners are going to say, well, these kettle corn and crackerjacks the same thing and it's not, and it's not the same as popcorn.

Well, Cracker Jacks have peanuts in them too, right? Yeah. I get a little bit of sweeter.

It's also that hard kind of caramel. But that Cracker Jack to me is what I'm getting out of this right here. That sweetness.

As long as that's good, that's fine. You like crackerjacks? Yeah.

I mean, I'm not, I don't think I'm supposed to eat crackerjacks. Who doesn't like crackerjacks? Even grown men will go in there. You know, you could go into the store and see people buy that. Yeah. Um, somebody that doesn't like crackerjacks or kettle corn. They're not human. You can't trust them.

You can't trust them.

If you don't like really whiskey, you can't trust, can't trust you. I'm just saying.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this one. What do you think? Time frame?

Yeah. I don't know. Kentucky 10 is out there in the market now, kind of limited. We've got some people that really want that. So we'll see, you know, uh, I leave some of that up to the sales and marketing guys. Um, you know, I make the bourbon and they figure out how to move it all. I'd be willing to wait for eight year of this right here.

Well, I mean, I'm certain that you've got plans for extra aged products.

Oh, sure. Yeah. We've held back things for, for older stock down the road.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I've, I've enjoyed everything we've tasted today, Mike. I think it's all got a character, um, that the green river in particular is layered with, uh, something a little bit different than we tasted before. I think it's, it's not, it's not, I won't say it's not typical, but I would say there's nothing else exactly like it.

Well, you would expect that, right? Coming to a different kind of a region of Kentucky, a little bit flatter down here. I'm not going to call it swampy, but the central part of Kentucky is a little bit flatter than where we live even in Lowellville area, there's a little bit more rolling hills. Down here it's a little flatter, more corn, more cropland, big hardwoods. So you're going to get that little bit different climate than where we're at. A little bit south too of Lowellville. So I would expect something. And we've got a different master distiller. He's got a different way to cook his whiskey, his recipe. You're the cook, right?

Yeah, I mean, every distillery is a little bit different just from their distillation system to their yeast strain to their... their mash spills, there's a hundred different little things that make every distillery a little bit different. With Green River, what I really wanted to do is I really wanted to make a solid, traditional, everyday, good bourbon whiskey that everybody in Owensboro and Kentucky can be proud of.

Now everybody says that the barrels and the maturation form 60% of the flavor profile. Do you, do you agree with that? Yeah, you know, it's probably 50 to 60%. Sure.

Yeah.

And then beyond that, what do you think is the next big contributor?

I'd say the yeast strain has a lot to do with a lot of fermentation, your temperatures, your time in fermentation, cleanliness of your facility, your grains. We inspect all of our grain trucks that come in. Even the screen size, how you grind your grains, all of those things make a difference.

Yeah. Yeah, we've, we've, we taste a lot of whiskey. We get around just a little bit and you know, we've seen, uh, examples of, oh, we've seen examples of failure to maintain cleanliness. But when you taste a bourbon that is, uh, or rye whiskey that is, uh, You can just tell it's exceptionally done. You can tell that it's been, the process has been very carefully adhered to. Thank you. Yeah. I think it's a testament to good solid work and preparation and good equipment and good people. And the whiskeys we've tasted today are representative of a great operation. And I think they're going to just, I think it's going to fly off the shelves.

At that price point, I'd say to me, I would have thought $50 on that. And I'm glad to see that you guys kept it a lower price point. Not only that, but the whole story behind giving back to farmers with the yellow banks, watching farmers pull in here and seeing that, that warms my heart right there that you guys are doing it right. You really care about everybody in the chain, all the way from where it's grown, the farmer, to even the whiskey drinker.

Yeah, one thing we didn't talk about, but Green River itself, we partnered with 1% for the planet. So part of our sales will go back to that and we get to pick our charity of choice and it's the river keepers, the Ohio River Keepers. So Green River is a natural fit for us to give back to the Green River and the Ohio River and the river keepers to make sure we got good water.

I've worked with them before. They go up and down the Ohio River and they really I can't even tell you how much trash they pick up out of this river. It's kind of sad look at and stuff. What gets thrown in the river and stuff. And then I don't think people realize how much this river means to our nation and what it gives to the nation. I don't know what goes up and down it. Man, you just keep pouring it on.

So let's talk a little bit about visitors. You've got a gift shop here. You've got a tour. Uh, tell us a little bit about, you know, what a visitor could expect when they come down.

So, uh, you know, we're open six days a week. Um, we, uh, we do, uh, tours several times a day. Um, and our tour is more of, as you guys saw as a more of a behind the scenes kind of hard hat tour, you might get dirty on our tour or we might put you to work on our tour. Uh, pretty much that the tour you all went on is the tour that the public gets. Wow. Really? Yeah. That's so, uh, It's a behind the scenes tour. We have our gift shop. We do events, all sorts of weddings, corporate events. We were recently just named the fourth best tour on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail by big publications. So we work really hard. We've got some great tour guides here that make sure everybody has a good time on our tour.

Well, we got a really good tour guide today.

I don't know if I'm the best tour guide, but I wing it pretty good.

Does everybody get Jacob called? No, normally not. Well, Jacob, man, I can't thank you enough for coming on the Bourbon Road and letting us come into your house and showing me and Jim and our wives around. I'm sure they had a great time. They both got smiles over there.

They've had a few cocktails I think. Yeah, thanks guys. I really appreciate you guys making the trip down and you know we've got a great story to tell and you know we just appreciate people like you guys helping us tell that story.

Yeah, well I mean if you're traveling the Bourbon Trail and you're in Kentucky and you want to see what Kentucky has to offer for distilleries, Owensboro is Well, it's a jaunt from Louisville, but it's a nice drive. And, you know, the town itself has a lot to offer. I think it's worth an overnight here.

Yeah, it's a great overnight getaway trip.

Yeah. So if you're traveling through the area and you want to check out something and get a little bit outside of the Louisville, Frankfurt, Bradstown, Owensboro is a great stop.

barbecue, bluegrass. You guys got the bluegrass hall of fame here. And then, uh, now bourbon brought bourbon back to the, to the fray. I mean, that's the three B's. That's all you need in life. I think I don't know what else you need.

Really good whiskey and a good food. Jacob, we'd like to give you guys an opportunity to let our listeners know where they can find you on social media, on the web, where's your website, those kind of things.

Sure. It's www.greenriverdistilling.com, Instagram, Facebook, all that sort of thing.

Awesome. So, listeners, check them out. Schedule a visit to the distillery. I think you definitely won't be Uh, disappointed. Make sure you look for green river, Kentucky straight permanent whiskey on the shelf. $34 and 95 cents. Is that right? Uh, you can't beat it. Pick up a bottle. Uh, definitely going to be pleased when you try it. Mike, where can they find us?

So you can find us on social media. You can find us on tick tock. We've got some videos out there now. You see me spinning around in a whiskey store here or there walking down a Rick house aisle. You might say tick tock star now. I don't know about that.

Let's not go that crazy.

But you can also find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. We also have a private Facebook group called The Bourbon Roadies. You want to check that out. 2,500 people in there that love to drink whiskey. You got to be 21. You got to agree to be like bourbon. Hell, I don't know. Our number one main rule in there, our number one main rule is no rudeness. We just don't tolerate it. Meaning that if you want to drink from the very bottom of the shelf, what I started out with was 10 high whiskey all the way to the top shelf. If you're drinking Pappy's, if you can find it. Or if you're drinking this Green River right here, if you got a bottle of that or you're going to get a bottle because today is the first day you can get a bottle, you're listening. I know you're all going to rush out. to those states and grab a bottle today because we told you to. But if you drink that, that's what we want you to drink. We don't want nobody to be shamed in there. It's a celebration, a whiskey celebration of life, Jim. Absolutely. Babies, births, retirements, celebrations. That's what our Facebook group is about. So come in and join us and stuff. We do some giveaways in there. Jacob, you said you guys are willing to give away a bottle of this Green River signed by you. Absolutely. Yep. What they'll end up with is an empty bottle with your signature on it, hopefully. If it was me and Jim, that's what you would end up with. But Jim, what do they got to do to get that giveaway?

Well, let's say that they need to be the first people, when we make the post that this episode is released, they need to be the first one to hop on Instagram and comment on the post. what year the original Green River Distilling Company was founded.

Yeah, that is perfect right there. I think that's well worth it. Make sure you give us a follow on Instagram and make sure that you give Green River Distillery a follow on Instagram. Build their numbers up for them and stuff for that great gift. a bottle of this, shipped to your house. Man, what a great giveaway. Awesome.

Yeah. So we do two shows a week. Every Monday we'll do a craft distillery episode. We'll kind of focus on a single expression from a craft distillery. We kind of, our goal here is to lift them up, shine a little light on a smaller distillery that's trying to get the word out. Mike and I will review their whiskey. We'll let you know whether you should add it to your bar. Every Wednesday we do a longer episode, one hour in length usually, where we'll have a guest on, like Jacob Call, like Green River Distilling. We'll work our way through a few expressions. We'll let you know a little bit of what they have going on and sometimes, you know, it's just Mike and I, but usually we have a guest on, right Mike?

We try, we try. It's hard to get on the road these days, busy schedules and stuff, but what you want to do to make sure that you don't miss One of these shows right here with great guests like Jacob call from Green River distillery You want to go on? Scroll on up to your app hit that check sign that plus sign that subscribe sign that'll let you know We got a show coming out these two jokers. They're having a great time on the bourbon road Then we need you to scroll on down and hit that five-star review because you know what's gonna happen if you don't oh, you're gonna tell them Oh, man I'm gonna grab a bottle of this Green River bourbon right here. I'm gonna bring my friend the big bad booty daddy a bourbon is gonna come with me. We're gonna drink that whole bottle of bourbon through the night. By the end of the night, we'll get that five-star review out of you, I guarantee. But seriously, those five-star reviews gets us in the doors of distilleries like Green River, bringing you great whiskey across the nation, across the world. So we appreciate it.

Yeah. So Mike and I are very approachable. We definitely want to hear what you have to say, what you think about what we do. Mike already told you how to give us a review, but if you want to reach out to us, if you've got an idea for an episode, if you have an idea for a guest, come to our website, come to our website, theburbanroad.com. There's a contact us page on there. You can reach out to us there. We're very approachable. Like I said, we'll get back with you. If you've got a hometown distillery that's sort of really impressing you, let us know who they are. We'll reach out to them. We'll get the bourbon on the show. We'll make a review of it and we'll let you know what we think about it. You can also reach out to us on email. I'm Jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's Mike at the bourbonroad.com. But like we always say, probably the best way is to hit up our DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down the bourbon road.