246. Loggerhead Bourbon Whiskey

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.

Well, you know who likes to give back to their community is one of our sponsors, Jim. Chris Cruz from Cruz Customs Flags. He does custom flags out of bourbon barrels. Not only does that, he do that, but he's also using veterans to build those flags with. I've got one right behind me, Jim. I know you got one on your bar. Beautifully handcrafted, repurposing a bourbon barrel, not throwing it away, not making it into smoking chips, making a piece of Americana, right?

It's something that'll last probably quite a few years longer than a bourbon barrel would, right?

Not only that, but he's using veterans to build those pieces of art with, you know, you got to love that. But he's also giving back to his community at all times, helping veterans out like ourselves. He is really in tune to that. Go check his site out. Uh, cruise customs flags.com. You can buy his flags on their key holders. Heck. Jim's got some, uh, these neat little cups that are chart inside made out of oak that you can put a cocktail in.

They call those the whiskey grail, don't they?

Yeah, that is, it kind of reminds you, you know, when you think of a grail, but truly a whiskey grail right there. Go check those out at Cruz Customs Flags, purchased from this guy, veteran owned, veteran operated, making a veteran built product.

Hello everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyatt. This is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, it's another craft distillery Monday. We've got a bottle here. from Florida. That's, that's a rare thing.

It's a rare thing.

Now I have to be honest, when you go to Florida, you got to search just a little bit to find local bourbons down there with all the water they got down there. It's a dang desert. You think there would be such a problem, but there is no problem to find rum, no problem to find tequila. Boy, you get down to the keys. There's all kinds of rum.

Maybe it's all the guys that, our age that are escaping reality in their home states and they go down to Florida and they're buying up all that bourbon down there. That's the problem.

It must be. Well, you go to the liquor stores down there and they'll have a few bourbons on the shelves, the well-known ones, but there won't be a huge selection. But you can always find a bourbon in Florida, but our challenge is always finding a local bourbon, right?

Yeah, that's what we love to do. We love to find that little craft of celery that's producing it themselves. they're bringing something together. You know, we get plenty of Kentucky bourbon. Oh yeah. Anywhere you go, you can get Kentucky bourbon, but it's nice to find that small little distillery that's doing something special. And man, I seen that this had a little bit of wheat in it. Yeah, it is just a little bit of wheat. Good Lord. You know, I love that. I love some wheat. So I'm looking forward to this one. And looking at the bottle, it's nice and dark. Um, but the listeners probably want to know what bourbon we're talking about.

Yeah. So this is from Sanford, Florida. Uh, this is a loggerhead bourbon whiskey. And, uh, I don't know if you know listeners, if you know where Sanford is, but there's two airports that serve Orlando. One of them is the, uh, the MCO, you know, the big Orlando international airport. Then about 20 minutes up the road or so there's Sanford Orlando commuter airplanes, probably. Like, um, you know, the smaller, there's a lot of, there's a lot of jet service in and out of there, but, um, that's where our Legion airlines flies in and out of.

Yeah. Smaller commercial airlines. And then you got your jet services where people with a little bit of money might have a jet. And then you got some, probably a lot of prop planes that go in and out of their small airports. And. To me, it'd be like Love Field in Dallas.

Yeah, exactly. It's exactly what it reminds me of. It's a pretty good size airport. It's decent. It's not, it's not MCO, it's not Atlanta, it's not Cincinnati, but it's a decent size airport.

I'd rather fly out of an airport like that.

Yeah.

It's easy to get in and out, isn't it? I do not like flying out of like a mega airport, you know, like Dallas, Fort Worth or Chicago or Atlanta. It's a city.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're going to go on vacation. That season's coming. People are getting out. I'm telling you what, I'm just, I'm just, I'm sensing it. I'm sensing like, you know, the beaches are going to be full. The theme parks are going to be full. People are itching to get out and go on little vacations and just put all this craziness behind them. So if you're going to Florida, you're going to be in Orlando. We already did one on the keys. Now we already told you where to find a bourbon down there, but if you're going to go to Orlando and a lot of people do that and you're just itching, like sometimes you just got to go find that distillery and take a tour.

Well, there's one in Sanford, Florida. Well, we'll tell us about this, this bourbon right here.

they're producing their own bourbon and they do purchase a bourbon as well. And they blend the two together. So like a lot of younger distilleries, they're kind of working their way into full production on their own.

Yeah, so listeners, what Jim's talking about is some distilleries, they'll start with a source product. They start making their own. Once their whiskey gets about a year, they start blending their own in and they start kind of weaning you off of that source whiskey until they can finally make a full bottle of their own bourbon. And there's nothing wrong with that. Somebody's got to do it. You got to start somewhere. It's either do that or sell vodka or sell gin or, and that I noticed on their website, they do do all that, but it's nice to see them making an offering of whiskey.

Yeah, they do. And it's a small place. Now they have a single malt there. Uh, they're getting ready to produce. Well, you know, let's, let's talk all about that here in a minute. Let's get straight to this whiskey. What do you say? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So Mike, what are we looking at here? What's the proof on this bottle?

So this is an 80 proof, uh, bourbon. It's a blended bourbon whiskey is what it says. It's distilled from corn, barley and wheat. So this is aged in a charred, uh, American oak barrel, no less than one year in that hot Florida heat. It gets hot down there. It does get hot. So I'm imagining that is moving in and out of the barrel and For people that don't know, Florida does get some cooler temperatures, so the maturation probably does stop at some point in the season. This is blended, aged, and bottled by them, Loggerhead Distillery in Sanford, like Jim said. It's distilled in Florida and South Carolina. We just talked about that. South Carolina, up there near Hilton Head, I would imagine it could be somewhere, but it could be anywhere. I'm not positive on where it's from, but Um, you know, at least they were honest and told everybody on their label, we like that transparency listeners. You should like that too. Make sure you always look on the back of the bottle if you're not sure where something's from. And, um, it, they'll pretty much tell you where it's from and you can take a good, good guess of what some, I mean, a little bit of, a little bit of a Sherlock Holmes work on the bottle there and you can usually figure things out. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, Mike, I'd say let's take a, let's take a nose on this. What do you say? Cheers.

Little woody. Um, you know, the young wood I'd say hasn't been in a barrel that long. Um, sweet corn.

Yeah. It's got a corn sweetness to it. Got a little bit of spice there. Kind of a, kind of a little bit of creamy caramel.

I was actually going to say if you've ever opened up cream corn, um, I like cream corn as a kid. I liked it. It has that aroma to it. It's kind of sweet candy ish.

So this is definitely sweet on the nose. And it's got a little bit of a little sweet caramel, a little bit of a licorice on there. Not much, just a hint of it.

It's got a little bit of youth to it. Not a bunch of alcohol. Maybe that's a 80 proof that's getting to me. Um, but yeah, not a bad young whiskey and stuff. Yeah, let's taste it. Cheers.

Yeah, it's real easy on the palate. Not a lot going on there.

Got to get that cream corn again. Yeah. A little bit buttery, like you said, a little bit of caramel, not a whole lot of oak in that though. I thought it would be more drying and stuff. It hasn't been in the barrel that long. So it's 80 proof. Now what's the price point on these, Jim?

This is about $35. Like I mentioned, they've got a single malt that they sell as well. They just happened to be out of their single malt on the day that I was there. Darn, I wanted to get a bottle of that, but I didn't. They have green bags stacked to the ceiling down there. They're getting ready for big things. They had a whole pile of this black Florida rye. Really? Florida black rye. They said, nobody, nobody's making any whiskey out of that yet. I think they're going to be the first. They're going to make a Florida black rye whiskey.

Sounds kind of interesting. It does sound interesting. I like when people experiment and give me something new. I get a little bit of toffee with this. Well, maybe like a Heath bar toffee. Just that little bit of chocolatey on it. And then some toasted marshmallows. That sweetness from that.

I kind of like that. Yeah, I'd say it's a little soft up front. It's got a little bit of spice on the back end, a little drying, not too bad. It's so easy on the pallet. Mike, I have to tell you this. They gave me a tour while I was there and they've got an eight inch column still there. Pretty bad ass, let me tell you. they build it themselves. Really? Like they built their own column still. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Now how tall was it? Well, to the roof. It's like two floors tall. Really? Yeah. So pretty, pretty good size. I don't think I can do that. They've got two stills there, but they've got a 150 gallon hybrid and then they got that eight inch, you know, the eight inch column. Pretty amazing. They're running 250 gallon fermenters. So hearing that, you know, this is not a big operation. They're making a lot of whiskey there, but they are making whiskey.

Well, I think on an 18 inch column, you could probably make somewhere around, I would imagine if you pushed it eight barrels a day, if you was running a column still, I would imagine out 250 gallon fermenter. I'm not sure how much whiskey. Yeah.

They'll run out of fermenter space pretty quick, but I think it's cool to see people like, uh, doing things like that. I remember out at 291 distillery out in Colorado, see that he built his own still, you know, it's just cool. It's just really cool when people do stuff like that.

Well, that's kind of taking it back to, you know, just taking what you have and you want to put something together. You don't have three, four, five, eight hundred thousand, a million dollars for the steel some of these companies are putting in. You got to make what you have work. And it sounds like Loggerheads did that.

Yeah. So, I mean, I'm going to say if you're in Florida, you're in Orlando and you're itching to get out much the way that sometimes we're itching to go out and find some, uh, some good, uh, craft breweries. We like to find distilleries as well. If that's something you like to do when you're on vacation, there you go. There's one in Sanford.

Well, I'd say this has, it does have a, um, very, Slow finish, I guess. Yeah. Um, you know, there's, it's not there. It's very light. Um, that would be my only knockoff on it. The liquid's dark and I can imagine in Florida, it's kind of like Texas heat. You're going to be able to age bourbon a little bit faster there. Um, it might be onto its own. So man, how, how's this going to taste in another year, three years? You can play with something pretty special. $35. It's not bad to take a chance on to visit a local distillery down there and see that, um, $35, you know, I wasted that on beer and left the hotel rooms.

Absolutely. Well, Colby and Chris now Colby and Chris and Chris is the actual distiller there, but the two of those guys, that's kind of their operation and they were, they opened their arms, they welcomed us in and Melanie and I were on vacation down there. We stopped in and they treated us real good. They've also treated our listeners really good. Yeah. What are they going to do? Well, they want to do a giveaway. You know, we're back on the giveaways train here and on a Monday review, a giveaway. How about that? Is that kind of cool? Yeah. This was the first two.

We haven't did a giveaway on a Monday before. Yeah. This is good. So it pays to listen to the Monday episodes. Yeah. It always pays to listen to us. Whether you're getting a giveaway or getting some knowledge, we're going to give you something. Yeah. So probably been asking yourself, why the heck do they call themselves loggerhead? Well, I was thinking Florida turtles, maybe. Yeah.

The loggerhead turtle, right? That's that big turtle that swims in the ocean, right?

Yeah. Well, I was thinking loggerhead, you know, I'm thinking of a logger up here, but I can't imagine there's too many trees down in Florida that are getting harvested. So yeah, loggerhead turtle. All right.

So to win our giveaway, to win their giveaway, they're going to mail this out to you fellas. They're going to mail you a bottle of, They're bourbon that we're drinking on the show today. They're going to send you a hat and a sticker. How's that? That sounds pretty amazing. A free bottle of bourbon. Come on out listeners. You can't beat that. Yeah. All right. So to win, you have to tell us about their philanthropy. What do they do? Well, they're, they're loggerhead distillery. They, they support that loggerhead turtle and they give $1 from every bottle. that they sell goes to the Ponce Inlet Marine Science Center and to the Brevard Zoo for the rehabilitation of injured sea turtles.

So what time does our listeners have to tell us that? Noon on the day of release. On Instagram, people.

On Instagram. Yeah. We'll make a post, Michael make a post about the loggerhead review and you hop on there at noon, not a minute before.

not a minute after because you're probably missed out if you're a minute after.

You got to tell us what they do with that. You know what they do for loggerhead turtles. What's their mission and who does the money go to? What's it for? So that's a great giveaway right there.

I think so too. I really do. Now where can people find them on the, like social media and on the website. Yeah.

So just, you know, loggerhead distillery is pretty straightforward. They've got an Instagram and they have a website.

So I mean that, that's just awesome. Well, Jim, we got another thing that's come up in our lives. We're always being asked to do stuff and we're both veterans. We feel deeply about being veterans and we like to help other veterans out. Both of us have been asked to help curate The bourbon gala for USA cares. That's a big deal. It is a big deal. It's at the gall house here in Louisville, Kentucky. If you haven't been to the gall house, it is like a Mecca of a place to go to right on the river, right on the river. We feel very proud to be part of USA Cares and help them out and do this and stuff. But listeners, if you want to know how to help us out with that, hit me up on my DM. We're going to be trying to curate bourbon to raise money for veterans. And what USA Cares does is they give a handout or hand up to a veteran that have maybe be short on rent or electric bill. a security deposit or something like that. So to find USA Cares, check out their website, find out more about them. You can go to usacares.org. I'm just proud to be partnering with them that they even ask us, Jim, to help veterans out across America. I think I've seen a number, they give out $17 million over the course of their history. It's awesome. And it's not just to veterans, it's to service members still in the service too. So me and Jim will be working on that. Yeah. You might even hear old Big Chief on one of their podcasts. So check them out. I'm very proud to work with them. We got some other stuff. We got Bourbon on the Banks coming up October 1st. I know that's some time away, but if you haven't got your hotel reservation now, you haven't bought some tickets. We learned the hard way, didn't we? Yes, we did. Yes, we did. Make sure you go ahead and get your stuff now for that. You're definitely going to come see me and Jim at Bourbon on the Banks. We might just have a little bit of Bourbon with us. Yes, we'll have another bourbon company with us. It'll be a great time.

I think it'll be a lot of fun. Yeah. So listeners, make sure you check that stuff out. Jim, where can our listeners find us at? So they can find us on Facebook. They can find us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, can even find us on TikTok. Mike's a dancing on TikTok these days. Yeah, I don't know about that.

I think the next video everybody will see is Jim on there.

I think that's pretty cool. You can always find us on our website, TheBurbanRoad.com. On our website, you can listen to our episodes. If you don't have a podcast player of choice, you can always just go to the website and hit play and listen to the latest episodes. You can also read our articles on there. You can find our swag. You buy a little bit of our swag. It helps Mike and I get up and down the road. And there's some nice stuff on there. There's t-shirts and hats and glassware and other barware. A lot of great stuff. Check it out. There's also a contact us page on there Mike, right?

Yeah, you won't leave us comments on how We're doing or also if you have a hometown distillery in your town You want us to visit or write a review about their whiskey? Get them to get a hold of us. We'll definitely try to get them on the show or Review their whiskey. We we love doing that. That's a great way for us to get whiskey in our hands and We're about to have some reviews come up where listeners have had their hometown distillery reach out to us. We really love that stuff.

That's pretty cool. We do two shows a week, Mike, and how can everybody be sure they will not miss one?

Well, you want to scroll on up top of your app, whatever that app is, hit that check sign, plus sign, subscribe. Whatever you got to do, it'll tell you we have two shows coming out that week. Also, scroll on down to make sure that you can leave us that five star review with some comments, because you know what will happen. The big bad booty daddy of bourbon will come over to your house, dragging some of this loggerhead distillery bourbon with him, drink all night long. By the end of that night, you'll give us that five star review and some comments. But seriously, those comments help us get into distilleries that get great bottles of whiskey in our hands for reviews to help you out to decide what you're going to put on your shelf. We would appreciate it.

So make sure you reach out to Mike and I. You can always reach us on email. You can reach me at jim at the bourbon road dot com. He's Mike at the bourbon road dot com. Like we always say, probably the best way.

Hit up our DMS on Instagram. I'm Jay Shannon, 63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. We'll see you down.