247. Milam and Greene 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.

Hey this is Big Chief and welcome to the Bourbon Road. You know what I love to make cocktails with? Some bourbon aged maple syrup. From seldom seen farms up in Ohio, he's taking bourbon barrels. He pours his farm made maple syrup into that barrel for six to nine months. He ages it, pulls it back out. Bottles it up sends it out for cocktails like an old-fashioned or a Manhattan instead of using that nasty old simple syrup Or using that delicious bourbon age maple syrup for that check them out at seldom seen maple comm Yeah So the Bourbon Road is still on that Texas journey. Traveling down Highway 281, what I used to know as the Milk Road, Texas Whiskey Trail. And we got down here to Blanco, Texas. That sounds like it would be a gunfight street in Blanco. It's just one of those kinds of towns down the road. And I got two special guests with us. I got some bourbon royalty up here. We stopped at Milam and Green Distillery here in Blanco, Texas. And I got Marlene Holmes. She is the wicked woman of whiskey. She's got some lineage She brought down here to Texas some whiskey knowledge Marlene welcome to the Bourbon Road.

Thank you Mike.

Glad to be with you And I got miss Blair from whiskey women on here She actually has her own podcast too and but she is their PR Woman their social media woman. She set everything up for us Blair. Welcome to the Bourbon Road. Oh

I am so happy. This is actually once my first time as a guest of a whiskey podcast. So here we go.

Yeah. So we're setting in a Rick house and I just, this is a working distillery. There's no doubt to me. There's, you know, I was walking through the steel house and some beautiful steels with that, that big old swan neck on it from Vindome. Just amazing. But you can see some, some corn milled on the, on the, steel house floor in there and the steels. You got a lot of construction going on right now. You got a big old giant slop tank being put in, but I appreciate you taking some time out of your day because it is crazy out here. You even put us to work. You're like, get your brother up there and get him to get that barrel out of this rick house for us. So we were glad to help out and we're glad you brought us in. Yeah, but we got some whiskey in front of us and that's what we are here for, right, to talk about. So what's the first whiskey we got in our glass?

Oh, yeah. So yeah, this is this will be your single barrel. This is in my mind. This is how you really should begin the journey here. First of all, because it is our lower proof whiskey, we proof it down to 86 proof. And but it's just it's this is some of the best of our barrels. So I like like starting off on a high note. And I know Marlene, any any fun?

Fun facts about the single barrel that you like? Well, it's special because it is a single barrel. And they're always a little bit different. So that's a great thing about a single barrel. I love it.

We'll get into the whiskey, we'll nose it real fast, taste it, and then we're going to get into Marlene's, her story. And man, just walking around with you, Marlene, and some of the stories you've been telling, I just, I sit, feel so privileged to get to hear those stories, but we're going to let our listeners hear some of those stories. But first to this whiskey right here, I say cheers.

Cheers.

This is actually got that dried nectarine on it. Yeah. I like to eat on those a little bit. Whenever you put us a cutery tray, put some of those dried nectarines on there, some other dry fruits, maybe some dried dates, some sugariness on there.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, I like that. I like the idea of the smell when you open the bag of cranberries.

I did get a little bit of a little bit of those raisins, maybe because you said that, but raisin bran, that cereal, and it's just got a tad bit of raisin bran. It's got this tad bit of sugar on it. And I get that in this very beautiful nose on this. Let's taste this thing. that sweetness rolls right over the tongue. And that nectarine is there for me. Probably because I said it, right? But that nectarine is there. A nectarine is not overly sweet. The dried ones aren't. It's not sugary like most dried fruit. So I like that. I like it. You're going to hear dogs barking. We're all right with that. Very great whiskey, Marlene. Now was that, is this a sourced barrel or is this something you guys distilled on site?

This is a sourced, yes. Sourced? Yes.

And where'd you guys source this one from?

This one comes out of Tennessee.

Out of Tennessee? Yes. Okay, yeah. I like it. You know, I still think people are like, Oh, it's sourced whiskey. Um, it still takes a craftsman or craftswoman, I guess, to go into a distillery and pick out great barrels. I think, um, not anybody can just do it and say, I'll just take those 10 barrels right there. I'm sure that's not what you guys are doing. You're going there and trying to hand select the best of the best that you get your hands on.

We do. We taste everything before we dump. And yeah, because each barrel is a little different. And so yeah, that's a great part of the job is on a daily basis, pulling a few samples and see what we've got available to dump.

God dang, somebody's got to do it though, right?

That's right. It's a tough job.

Somebody's got to drink whiskey for a living. That's right.

Well, and I like to think of sourcing has become this word for a problem we don't actually have, right? The whiskey tradition of Scotland was independent bottling and was master distillers traveling between distilleries. you know, pubs pulling different barrels from different distilleries and making a bottle out of that barrel and you didn't know where necessarily where it came from, maybe down the road, maybe three cities over or three towns over, but whiskey traveling and coming to the consumer and that's what whiskey should be doing. So we're just able to find the best whiskeys we can and put them in bottles and let's do that.

Yeah. Marlene. So your lineage really, you're, you're Kentucky girl, right?

That's right.

Born and raised.

Yeah, absolutely.

Where were you born at in Kentucky?

Central Kentucky, a little town called Campbellsville.

Oh, everybody knows where that's at, right?

Yeah, Campbellsville University, absolutely.

They were just actually, a couple tornadoes hit down there. They did, yes. Our prayers go out there for the families, and they're still recovering from that. So if you need to help them out, there's plenty of stuff online about that, especially KentuckyTornadoRelief.com. Go check that out. But you made your way a little bit north and at some point you said, I'm going to start making some whiskey or get into the whiskey business. Or have you always been in a whiskey business?

No, I actually come into it a little bit, what I call late in life because a lot of the folks I worked with there in Kentucky, you know, started at the distilleries right out of high school. And so, yeah, I was a few years finding exactly what I wanted to do. And so early 30s got into the business and hadn't looked back. It's been great.

Now you worked for one of the greats in whiskey, right?

I did. The world's finest. Booker No.

Yeah, he liked his whiskey a little bit.

He loved it.

We were sitting around talking about that. So you worked 27 years there at Jim Beam?

I did.

And what did you do there?

I did a variety of things actually. Started out, the first job I had was, you know, when you empty a barrel, it's, you know, a lot of people may not know this, some do, but you've either got a select barrel or you've got a cold barrel. And so you've got to do something with those empty barrels. And so that's the first 10 months I was with Jim Beam. My job along with another person would be to cull, to select, and put those barrels in boxcars. And so that's what I did for 10 months to start with was lift empty barrels. And I kept telling myself, what in the world are you doing? Because, you know, it was pretty physical work. The barrels weighed more than I did. But, you know, there was just something about the culture that, you know, I hung in there and stayed with it. And after about 10 months, then went to the distillery and started making whiskey on night shift, what we call third shift, graveyard shift, and did that for 10 years. and then moved in, did a variety of things. Bottling was a whiskey cutter, red whiskey, white whiskey, loading export tankers, so did a little bit of everything.

So you just kind of went from the very bottom all the way at the top and you're, then you're hanging out with Booker now.

I know. Yeah.

I bet that was like, just, you know, you go to work every day and I'm getting to work with a legend here. Um, it's gotta be kind of mesmerizing. So you, at some point you were like, okay, I'm going to head to Texas. What happened there?

Well, there was a guy that I worked with that knew Marsha Malam. Marsha's our founder. And so just through a mutual acquaintance that I worked with, and she had met in the consulting business, she was looking for a distiller. I had been there at that time almost 27 years, was just looking to do something a little different. And so Marcia and I met and I come down, I spent the weekend and come out to the distillery here in Blanco, met the folks here, tasted the whiskey and just fell in love with Alston Hill Country and the folks, the members of the team at that time. And yeah, I decided to take that chance and come down.

It's hard not to fall in love with the countryside here. We were talking yesterday and driving in on today. We kind of drove some back roads coming in, just not down Highway 281, but we had to cut across some back roads, some old back roads we used to run all the time. If you just kind of close your eyes and you know you're in Texas, you'd think you're either in southern Oklahoma or even northern Mexico driving down a road. It's so beautiful down here. All that cleachy dust down here.

We've got a lot of it. But, you know, I had never been to Hill Country prior to that. I'd been to Dallas, North Texas. So that was my idea of what Texas, Amarillo, Dallas area. And then when I come into Alston, you know, it kind of reminded me a little bit of the rolling hills of Kentucky. And I was pleasantly surprised. But it's beautiful.

It's a little greener up there.

It is a little greener, but the, you know, the oak trees here and what, what have you didn't expect it.

So it's super beautiful down here. So they brought you in, you looked at it and you're just like, this is going to be home. I'm going to do this. I'm going to pull the trigger.

Right, right. Yeah, I made the decision actually pretty quick. I did. You know, I read what I could about the distillery at the time and Marsha as well. And like I said, I was looking to do something a little different. I had thought for a year or two there, the last couple of years at Beam, that I'd like to get in with a craft distillery. and just kind of get back in, get my hands back in, more of a hands-on type operation. And so, yeah, I took that leap and it's been great.

Now, Mylon and Green, it used to be Ben Mylon, and you guys went through a branding change and stuff, right? But tell me about the startup of Mylon Green

Oh, well, I can speak a little bit to that because that's actually how I got interested in this brand was hearing about how, first of all, there's this distillery, Ben Milam, which our founder, Marsha Milam, named after her third cousin, I believe, a Texas history revolutionary war hero. But it turns out revolutionary war heroes are not great branding pieces outside of Texas. So one of the things that Marsha did was she had read Heather Green's, our master blender and our CEO, read her book, Whiskey Distilled, and was just like, I got to talk to this woman. And Heather is actually was my whiskey mentor. by book only at the time, but now in person. But she, they, they had a conversation and I think Heather was, was just supposed to consult for Ben Milam just to figure out like, okay, how do we, how do you, how do you create longevity in this brand and how do you get this brand to go national? And then through, I think just, yeah, similar, just Heather's from New York. So she also fell in love with the Hill Country. We have a spell here. down in Texas. Don't come to visit. You will stay. And so Heather and Marcia created just, I mean, I think Marcia just was like, hey, come down here. We'll make whiskey with me. And she had already had Marlene. I think Marlene, you were definitely also a selling point for Heather. But just, yeah, let's create a brand that is not just about sort of these Texas icons, but is really something about creating moments with whiskey and creating really delicious whiskey. And so like that's what My Lemon Green Whiskey as a name should be. We hope our is going to be because synonymous is just really tasty whiskey.

I have a whiskey friend that's really into whiskey education or bourbon education. I was looking at your guys' website and I was so shocked that there's so much whiskey education for free on your guys' website. I told him about it and him and his future wife were like, oh my God, I just love that they're doing that for the people out there making money off it. You guys aren't trying to make money. You're trying to educate the public and help people out understand whiskey. I gotta say thank you so much for giving the whiskey community, the bourbon community, that education for free. To me, that's just amazing.

I mean, that's one of the things that really drew me to Heather as a beginning whiskey connoisseur myself was just authenticity and transparency on packaging and just knowing what your label says, learning and then learning how to appreciate your whiskey even more. There's only benefits that can come from that. And so even if we're teaching you how to enjoy other people's whiskey, that's fine. As long as there's just a deeper understanding of what's in that bottle and what you're tasting.

Let's grab that second pour we're going to drink. Yeah. And we'll talk about the bottle, because I really want to kind of get into the bottle itself and the labeling. So what's the second whiskey you want to drink?

Well, let's grab the Triple Cask. I also like this as part of the second step after the single barrel, because the Triple Cask has, it does have our Texas distillate in it, but it also has Tennessee distillate. depending on the bottle and depending on the month, it could even have Kentucky distillate now. Triple cask could have a triple state meaning to it at some point, but we can't necessarily commit to what barrels will be in there because the idea of the triple cask program is to really marry three different casks of different ages of whiskey from different states. It will always have multiple states in it, but three different ages. We start off with that two-year Texas whiskey, which Marlene, you should really talk about. I love it when you describe the Triple Cast because you give each of them a little personality. So you should take that.

Well, this was the first project to go back to what Blair was talking about earlier, Heather come down the first summer I was here to do some consulting. This was the first blending class that we had with her. This is where this product evolved from that class that day that she spent with us. It's three different aged The two-year-old is our whiskey we make here in our pot still, and it's the one I kind of label as the juvenile of the bunch, the teenager. It's a little sassy, a little bit of show-off. It kind of pops in your mouth when you take a taste. And then it moves on into that four-year-old, five-year-old whiskey that's there, where you pick up a lot of those great sweet notes, the vanillas, the caramels, and what have you. and then finishes off with a nice 12-year-old whiskey that's in there, and some of the maybe tobacco tannins, leathery notes, woody, oaky type notes. This is just fabulous, though, because to me, when you taste it, you can taste all three of those different aged whiskeys that's in there.

If I didn't know any better and I knew I wasn't in a distillery, I would almost think this is some agave nectar right here. It's almost like a honey that other people use. It's just, it's awesome. But that nose on here is that right there. It's super sweet to me. Yeah, maybe a little salted caramel on there. That smells so delicious.

And that's a testament to Heather's, you know, blending. That lady's amazing with her blending abilities and her nose is fabulous how she can take you know, different products, ages, and blend them together to come up with something that is just really fabulous.

I get a little bit of that new boot leather. You know, you walk into a Texas boot store and you do get that little whiff of leather there. Yeah. But more of that agave is just amazing on the nose. I say cheers.

Cheers.

Oh, yeah.

This is a 94 proof. Does well just to sip it or in a cocktail. Player's got a cocktail.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, this is actually my favorite thing. I'm still a bartender in downtown Houston. And whenever somebody, they ask for an old fashioned, but they don't specify the whiskey. I mean, this is what I'm using.

Now, wait a minute. You're driving from Houston to here like every day?

Oh, no, not every day.

How far is Houston?

Houston's three hours. That is a fact. It is a three hour journey. But, you know, look, if you love a job and this is where the distillery is and that's where one of the largest whiskey markets in Texas is, you know, that's where you're going to make the drive. It's very easy to be motivated to wake up early to drive to the distillery. I'm not going to lie.

Let's talk about this bottle right here. Was this original packaging right here, the bottle itself? That is, yes. It's like a bulged out Stag Junior bottle. I mean, it's big.

For me, it's fine, right?

Yeah. I got gigantic hands. For me, I love it. But to me, I don't want to offend anybody here, but it's got a very feminine shape to it.

It's got a little bit of a heart shape, perhaps perfume bottle shape to it.

I was going to say it's got hips.

Oh, I love that. It's got hips on it.

I like it. Very beautiful. The thing that sticks out to me besides the bottle itself is the label, though. I love that this one almost have that I'm holding as the triple cast bottle and it's almost like this old blueprints of a building or something. It's just, it's beautiful. That's all I can say about it really. Simple to read. There's no flash on there. There you guys have won some awards, but I don't see those award stickers over there. That's a big bothersome to me when people put those stickers all over the bottle and they cover up the beautiful bottle itself. The bottle should speak for itself, like you said, in the label. And really what matters is inside of this is that whiskey and listeners. I'm going to tell you, this is just the first sip. That agave was there for me too on the sip of it. That sweetness, just that little hint of pepper on the back end. Just a tad hint, but I'm not getting any Kentucky hug on there. So I'm assuming you guys are sweet mash right now.

Uh, actually, uh, it, it, it is a sweet mash. Yes, we do a sweet mash. Yeah. But those other barrels you brought in like some sour mashed in. It is. Yeah. But now we malt or rye, uh, so that's, you know, I think that, that, uh, kind of shines a bit there. Uh, the malted rye, a lot of people don't do that. It's a little more expensive, uh, production wise to do that, but we, we elect to do it for their flavor. So that, uh, that shines through.

And then it'll almost give you that truffle taste when you, I think when you, that's what I would tone it to is a truffle. Somebody would say earthiness, but I would, when I taste malted or I get that truffle, nice, nice truffle, which a lot of people have never tasted a truffle before, but I've been lucky in life. But I, the sweetness on here is what I like. You know, I tell Marlene that I was a weeded bourbon guy and, always pull that sweet side of bourbon and, you know, I can pick those notes up a lot faster. Um, this still has that leather to it, that oak, the vanilla everybody's looking for, but it has that sweetness of that agave I was talking about.

So, I mean, it's interesting you're pulling that, you're pulling that particular flavor because, uh, I, I've, I've recently become a mescal, uh, madam, as I call it, like whiskey women by day, mescal madam by night. And, uh, Yeah, there's I'm now now I'm like, oh yeah, that is because I've been pulled more and more towards the triple cask as one of my favorites of of our brand. Yeah.

Yeah, I wouldn't be saying, I'm talking about there's an agave. It's like agave honey. Okay. That taste I'm tasting. My daughter's big into agave honey. I always try to get it for her and she doesn't like nuts.

Oh, the sugar. Oh, okay. All right. More of that. Yeah.

Does that make sense to you?

It does. Yeah. Especially as a texture, I would say, because yeah, it definitely has like a lighter, more viscous.

It's very mouth coating. Some, I mean, in the bottle itself, it's super dark, and maybe that's that 12-year coming through. But you also got some Texas whiskey in here. So Texas whiskey, if you put a three-year-old in here, sometimes could look like a 12-year-old Kentucky bourbon or Tennessee whiskey, right?

That's right. Picks that color up pretty quick.

We'll talk about that for a second. You know, there's a lot of misconceptions in the world out there of what a whiskey should be. And I've talked about this several times throughout the couple of years, but especially on this trip, because we're in Texas and that people, you know, Scotch drinkers will be like, everything needs to be 18 to 30 years old, right? And maybe even older, but that's because they're using used bourbon barrels and it's taken forever because their climate is so much different over there. And then in the bourbon world, everybody's like, ah, bourbon should be, 8 to 12 years old, you know, and they really geek out if something's older than that, right? But to me, that's not true. Bourbon's an American spirit. It's made up from different regions in America, very large. You know, I think you could probably fit a couple of Scotlands, just a couple, in Texas. In Texas, no doubt.

Maybe three or four.

The Texas is itself, I always say is a category to its own and Texas whiskey cause you could age whiskey so much. I'm not saying you're rapidly aging it. It just is a different aging process down here. The heat can be so intense. Um, but people that think it doesn't get cold in Texas, I'm telling you, we were driving the other day and I think it was 12 degrees or something. in this. It was cold. So you get those cold, damp nights. Sometimes you get down here in the hill country, cold, dry nights. And I'm sure that affects these barrels. Sure.

It's that big fluctuation you have. You know, it can be 25 to 30 degree difference from night to day here. So it's a big fluctuation in temperature.

Yeah, I think we woke up this morning. It was 32 and this is winter time 32, but I think it's supposed to be a high 70 today. Um, I think in Kentucky, it's supposed to be 35 of a high and a low of like 27. So there's not a fluctuation. Do you know where that, that kind of it stops? There's a temperature where the liquid stops flowing in and out of the barrel itself.

I do not. We're still experimenting with different things here. As far as we have whiskey aging in Kentucky, we have whiskey aging down here. Whiskey that we made in Kentucky that we're aging here, so we're comparing that. It definitely moves it along quicker down here, but I don't know what that temperature break might be.

I think, uh, I don't know if it was Pat Hiass or Ashley Barnes that said it was like 42 degrees or 43 where it stops going out of the barrel. That maturation stops. But here, if you got 32 and then you're back up to 70, that process is not going to stop at all. Right?

Right. Yeah. No, that's one thing that Heather talks about a lot is like, she'll, she'll be up in the morning brushing her teeth and be like, Oh, it's so cold outside. Good. The barrels are sleeping today. But it is true that in Texas, there's not a consistency of seasons. Like winter is just a suggestion of what you might want to have in your closet. But you need to be prepared to strip down to a tank top and you need to be prepared to put on your parka for maybe three days in a row. You just got to be flexible and our barrels reflect that.

Yeah, I remember when I was in high school, it was Christmas break, and we, me and my brother grew up, we scoot up highway 281 here north, probably 110 miles, there's a little town called Event, that's where we grew up. up on a ranch, and there was a big rattlesnake at Christmas time laying on some rocks. I mean, I'm 6'3", and he was every bit taller than I, you know, and I'm holding him up. And I killed him, but it was December. They were like, well, these snakes are supposed to be denned up right now. But he was out sunning. I think it was like 90 degrees that day or something. And our parents were freaking out, though. They were like, why'd you go back there? I was like, I don't know. because we knew where the rattlesnake dens were.

That's one thing I love about Texas is the climate, the weather down here. I love this warm weather. Folks told me when I moved down, they said, don't put your shorts up until Christmas.

And even then, I don't know, maybe Valentine's Day. We get some warm days in January too.

Well, Marlene, let's talk about you. You had this, you've got semis coming in and out of here today. Deliveries are going on. People are picking up bottles and stuff. But what I did notice was showing up. Semi pulls up here and there's gigantic tank on there. It's got giant legs on it. It's probably, I don't know, maybe it's three stories tall, probably 30 or 40 foot tall, right?

Right.

And that's a big new slop tank for you guys.

That's our slop tank. Yeah. Yeah.

For listeners that don't know what slop is, what is that?

Yeah, so that's our spent stillage that's left over. You know, you've got your beer that goes into your pot still, and once you pull the alcohol off of that beer, basically you've got water and grain left. And so we don't dry it. We're not equipped to dry our grain. to separate the grain and the water. We've got ranchers that come in, local ranchers here, that come and pick up that spent stillage up. They feed it to their cattle, hogs, pigs, some exotic animals here in the area. But that's a very important piece of equipment. If you don't have a means of getting rid of that spent stillage, then you can't move on and progress to your next batch of distillate. So it's very important to have a tank like that so that you can continue to run your operation.

In a lot of distilleries, it's been around since the beginning of time. I mean, you were talking a lot of distillery plans. You'll see your drawings. You'll see cattle pins on distilleries, and then they'll be taking and pushing that slot through this pipe down to their stockyard, really, on the older distilleries and stuff. But you had to talk ranchers into taking it here. They were a little skeptical of it.

We did. some of the folks were a little skeptical. I had a guy come in, you know, with a couple of five gallon buckets and he's like, you know, I'll try it and see how the cattle like it. And I thought, you know, I didn't say anything, but I thought he'll be back. And he was, he come back the next trip back wouldn't with two five gallon buckets. It was with a 250 gallon tote that he had on the back of his back of his truck, so we don't have any trouble getting rid of our spent stillage here. Happy cows.

They were afraid they were going to have a bunch of drunk cows. That's right.

I think so.

Or maybe a drunk bull.

Yeah.

That might be a bad thing. You're just stumbling down Highway 281 here.

Pretty sure that's the name of some dive bars I've seen, the drunken bull.

You were telling me a really cool story about Booker No and the spent stillage and stuff.

Yeah. So, you know, Booker, there's two distilleries, Jim Beam distilleries in Kentucky. They have, well, they have a bottling facility that's separate in Frankfurt. But as far as distilleries, there's one in Claremont, there's one in Boston, Kentucky. I was at the Boston plant. Well, that's where Booker, now that's known as the Booker No plant. But yeah, years ago, they had a feed lot there. and for cattle and what have you to get rid of that spent stillage. They also had some hogs on property too. But yeah, Booker was always experimenting with different things. He had the maintenance guys rig up this wire mesh netting for him. They would slaughter hogs literally there on property in the old boiler house. He would take one of the hams from that hog and would drop it over in. We had what we called thick slop and thin slop. He would drop that over into the thick slop tank and just let it hang. That thick slop goes in at 200 degrees or better. temperature wise and would let it hang in there for about 24 hours. And it was made for a really nice tasty ham.

Man, whiskey and ham. Who would have thought? Well, we're going to end this first half on that right here. A great story. And on the second half, I heard you guys got this little amazing barbecue joint right down the road here.

We love them. Yes. I consider them our partners.

So we're gonna drink a rye whiskey on the second half and then we're gonna eat some barbecue and they got a cocktail you ladies have made. We'll pair some barbecue with that. Stick with us listeners, we'll be right back. Listeners, you know what we love? We love some seldom seen farms from up in Ohio. Aged in bourbon barrels for six to nine months. Kevin Holly and his family, they've got 2500 maple trees where they're taking that sap and they're boiling it down and making beautiful maple syrup. But what they really do special is they take used bourbon barrels. They put that maple syrup in there. They age it six to nine months, like I said. and ship it out for you to taste in a cocktail, to taste on pancakes, waffles, whatever you want to use. It only takes about a half an ounce for a cocktail though and you replace that simple syrup with that. It's very beautiful. You can buy it by the case. You can buy it by a single bottle. They got the regular old maple syrup for you to use for your children. But, that bourbon barrel aged maple syrup is simply delicious. You want to check out seldom see maple dot com. Go ahead and purchase some today. You will not regret it. They have some candles on there. They've got maple cotton candy for those kids in your house. We'd appreciate it if you'd check them out. All right, listeners, we are back and we're still at Milam and Green Distillery in Boinko, Texas. I thought I heard some gunshots in the background. I don't know. This is the Wild Wild West out here and we got the wicked woman of whiskey Marlene Holmes with us. Marlene, you got another whiskey in front of us, but this isn't a bourbon.

This is our port rye. Yeah, it's a rye whiskey. It's a three to three and a half year old rye whiskey. And we bring it in. You know, I tell folks when it comes through the gate, it's rye whiskey. When it goes out the gate, it's Mylamin Green rye finished in a port barrel. So we put our own, our signature personality to this label, actually. But we get tawny port barrels in from Portugal. And just to give you a little bit of an idea of how things move a little quicker, you know, a lot of times people have to finish out a whiskey or a bourbon in a different cast for maybe a year, year and a half, or two years. Depending on how fresh these barrels are, it can move and our product is ready in about three months.

Nice.

Yeah. So this is one's really lovely. We bottle it at 94 proof and it's just fabulous.

Let's know this thing. Cheers. Oh, it's definitely got that rye feel to it. But that tawny port has did something to this. It gives that little extra rose to it to me. I know that sounds weird, but that's what it is. I used to think, I don't want to offend the ladies, but I used to think tawny meat dirty woman is what I thought tawny meant. I didn't know it was a, I didn't know it was a wine or a port. Somebody told me that and I was like, I feel bad now. But,

I mean, Todri, I can see where you might get there with like an extra letter, but, uh, country boy.

So, you know, some, some of those big words escape me sometimes kind of like Kentucky guys. I can, some of those big words are hard for us. She's got that old simple education.

I mean, like, it's definitely, yeah, it's a New York Times, so like, yeah, yeah. I like it because it sounds to me like feathers, you know, like the, like a tawny sort of bird.

But you know, Mike, this one, this one, we're proud of all of our, all of our labels. This one's really special to us. This one was just named best in show. this past summer at the American Craft Spirits Association. Best in class, best in show. And so that was quite an honor for us to pick up. Oh yeah.

I mean, anytime you're competing against lots and lots and lots of whiskeys, right?

That's our peers.

Everybody's bringing something to the table. That's right. Well, congratulations on that. That's an excellent award. That's right up in our backyard there. is where it was held and stuff. You guys didn't come and see us then. So shame on shame on you. But I had to drive all the way to Texas to come meet you. But it was well worth my trip down here to come and sip on this. So I'll taste this. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that's kind of a sweet dish right there.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's Hill Country Tea right there.

Oh, it's great. It's fabulous. I get a little bit of chocolate, a little fig maybe there.

Yeah.

Very nice.

I mean, I just love that it changes how I think about rye because that is to me not how rye usually behaves on my palate. So it was really the whiskey that drew me to the brand overall because it's like, how did you make a rye that I actually want a whole bottle of?

Now the back end, it's also got a little bit of Uh, they would call that cowboy candy. Um, so a little bit of hollow candy, jalapenos, I don't know back in that spice. Um, I like that sweet tea and, and cowboy candy right there.

Um,

I mean, definitely, yeah, the spice. I mean, the rye is not gone. The spice is definitely always going to be there. Yeah.

Well, some ryes aren't overly spicy. A lot of people think if you got a 95.5, there'd barely be any spice in it at all. And some of that spice from a rye would come from, especially in that 95.5. come from the barrel itself, but you get a Kentucky rye that's 65. That rye is the spicy ones right there. I don't know why that is. Maybe Marlene knows that.

I think that is a testament to the distiller, maybe. Their taste buds. I had a rye whiskey that came out of Virginia. that I tried about a month ago and I'm like, you know, how is this really rye? It was fabulous. But I think that has to do with, you know, the personality of the person that is making that product and where they make their cuts.

You're going to have to tell me where that rise from. So I guess we're going to drink a cocktail and eat some barbecue. Now you guys got a barbecue joint right down the road. It's right on highway 281. What's it called?

All 300. They are fantastic. Uh, just, I mean, we're just, we're really blessed that they're actually one of the closest places to eat period here in Blanco, but they are, yeah, but they're the best barbecue in the area in my opinion.

Now, what's their, they got a, instead of a master distiller, they got a pit master. What's his name?

They got a pit master, Lad. Lad, I said his name a while ago. Lad Pepper, that's it. They do fabulous, yeah.

That's a name straight out of the old.

He was born a pit master.

Yeah, that's definitely a name. That's almost out of like a lonesome dove or something. Lad Pepper, you get out in that street and we'll have a little gun fight. If you win, you have some of my brisket. We actually ate the brisket. I couldn't wait. My brother was over there gnawing on it already, so I had to get a plate. That brisket is some of the best brisket I've had in a long time. And that's saying a lot come from me, because I grew up eating that. When brisket wasn't that big in Texas back in the 70s, early 80s, my stepdad would make brisket for us, and he had his own way of making it. He'd coat it with yellow mustard, salt and pepper, dice up a couple of onions and jalapenos and smoke it just like that. And then he would wrap it after, I think, about 12 hours on a stick burner with pecan wood.

Dang, yeah. Nice.

And I'm assuming down here they're probably using live oak or post oak is what he's probably using down here at old 300. Yeah, I think so. What about, have you ever said, hey, could you smoke some brisket with our bourbon barrels?

We're talking about that. Yeah, we've discussed that. A couple of the guys that work there, they're the ranchers that come in to pick our spent stillage or our slop up. And so yeah, hoping to do something with those guys as far as the barbecue sauce or the brisket at some point pretty soon.

Yeah. Everything there, their brisket was amazing. And I always say meat needs to speak for itself. Right. Um, and for brisket, brisket don't need a whole bunch of barbecue sauce on it. Whenever you go somewhere and just barbecue sauce poured all over it to me, uh, something's wrong with a barbecue. I'm worried. I'm like, what are you trying to hide under that barbecue sauce? Uh, that brisket has its own flavor, but you guys made a cocktail to pair with that. What cocktail did you guys make?

So just another shout out to Brenda, our tasting room manager. She actually envisioned this. It's our pork caskry with a little bit of vanilla syrup and black walnut bitters. And then she ages it in a tiny barrel for at least a week, I think, and then before serving it, and with an orange peel and a cherry.

Man, I got to say, just like brisket, you're in a whiskey game, you're going to drink some old fashions in your life, right? Yeah. Everybody, every bartender I've met, they're like, oh, he got a bourbon podcast. Let me make you my specialty old fashion. And I'm like, let's do it. Let's see what you got.

Every Tuesday, I have the privilege of being Brenda's taster. She'll come to me with a cocktail. And it's like, OK, what do you think? She does fabulous.

I saw a couch in there. Is that the couch where you curl up, take a nap after that?

If you need to, if you need to, right?

Yeah. What a job that is. I mean, it's, to me, it's amazing that you came down here, you took that chance, but, um, that you're putting out a great whiskey and you put together an amazing team. I say nothing, but you got bottling going on, labeling going on right now, and there's ladies in there. They're just working away, bottling whiskey and labeling and stuff. But they're smiling in there. It's not like a regular factory. I don't know if your guys are feeding these cocktails to them beforehand.

Brisket. Brisket. There it is.

I didn't see no crooked labels or anything. No.

No, you'll see this crew here, if the label's not right, they're peeling it off because they know that's their work that goes on that shelf. And they're kind of the crew behind the scenes. A lot of times they go unseen, but they do a fabulous job. The crew here at the distillery is just fabulous.

Now, what I didn't see running around here was any men.

Yeah, right now.

I don't know if that's by design or nothing.

No, no. I mean, we would welcome a male employee if we can find one who wants...

I didn't know if it was the whiskey making them smile or I brought my little brother and all the ladies were looking at him or not. It still seems like, to me, a beautiful place to work with Whiskey, a great team, no matter whether it's a woman or a man. And that's testament to your team that you've helped design. That says everything about a distillery when you come in a place and everybody's smiling and greets you nicely, whether they are a podcast or just a customer coming in. I saw some people when we first got here, had some cocktails, they're sitting down on some lawn chairs under the live oak trees and smiles from ear to ear. They seemed like happy customers. I saw a couple bottles there, so they obviously loved what they got. And there's wineries around here too. We were like, wow, all these wineries here.

Well, this has happened in the last like five to 10 years. I mean, I remember growing up in Texas, even in being in college, like this would never have been a destination for a bachelorette party or anything like that. But that's we have so many wineries and distilleries and breweries all on the same road. You can hire you can get a car hire and just hit up five. or more in a day, depending on what you want to be doing. But really, it's a fun time out here now.

Yeah. You're really not that far from Austin, right? How many miles to Austin?

Oh, what, like?

About 40 minutes, 45 minutes. Austin or San Antonio, we're about right in the middle. Right in the middle, right? Yeah. You can stay in either, and it's the same distance.

And there's another cool little town down here called New Bronzeville, right? Yeah. That's right. How far is that?

Yeah, it's about the same. About 25 minutes. Yeah, 25 minutes. Yeah. Or Wimberley.

I mean, there's just, or Fredericksburg.

I mean, there's just so many little towns you can hit up as, and you will be driving past so many distilleries and breweries on your way.

Yeah. They got the Guadalupe River down in New Bronzeville, right? In San Marcos. And you can go down there. You can float the river. Yeah. They got one of the most awesome water parks in the world called the Slitterbond.

Yeah.

Marlene's like, you know about that place? I know all about it, just because as a kid it's been there forever. But so many great things for people to do. I would say listeners, if you're coming to Austin, if you're coming to San Antonio, even if you're flying in Dallas or in Fort Worth, take that trip down 281. Make sure you stop in Blanco, Texas. It's not just where gunfights happen. It's where whiskey is made. There is something magical happen right here at this craft distillery with some beautiful women. They got one wicked woman out from Texas though, so she's what the magical part about it, right? Putting that magic in the barrels. It takes that, that love, that compassion for the barrel, the whiskey and stuff, and really believing in what you are doing. And Marlene, I can see that in your face and that love for the passion for whiskey as we were walking around. Um, you've lived a great life in getting to do this. It's a, it's, that's pretty amazing. And the stories you just have it to me is, uh, it's heartwarming to get to hear those stories and stuff and to share those with not just the America and the whiskey triggers here, but around the world, you know, we got, guys in India and Japan and Australia.

Oh yeah. South Korea wants our whiskey. Yeah, I get an email a week about that.

I'm always surprised I have a new whiskey drinker that reaches out to us and says, hey, I'm from here and I want to listen to your show and I'm trying to find this or find that. And I'm like, wow, somebody thousands and thousands of miles away from me. If your whiskey's good, it's kind of that old saying from a movie, oh heck, with Kevin Costner in it where he's built a baseball field. You build it, they will come, right? You built a distillery in Blanco, Texas in the Hill Country and people are going to come.

Yeah. It was meant, I think bourbon and whiskey was meant to be shared, you know, with family and friends and to enjoy.

Yeah, I'd say you're right on. Spectacular cocktail, spectacular brisket, spectacular whiskey. Where can we find you on social media?

Well, Mileman Green Whiskey will get you pretty much everywhere on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, whether you just plug it into that search thing. Mileman Green Whiskey, we are the only one, fortunately. And you can also find our website, I think is probably where you'll find all of our whiskey schools on YouTube and all that stuff.

Yeah, that whiskey school is just amazing and stuff. What's coming down the pike for Milam and Green? Is there anything special that's going to be coming out of some of these barrels?

Yeah, we've got here in a couple of months, actually, we've got another batch two of our Castle Hill series that'll be dumped. It's beautiful. And then we've got our distillery addition, number three, that'll come out this fall. And then we've got it's got another project that'll come out later. September, October that we're working on. That'll be a pot-steel special here out of the distillery.

I heard there's something that the old way to King of Kentucky is going to like, so I'm looking forward to that. Listeners look forward to that in the future from this Beautiful little craft distillery. I think it's pretty awesome. Well, ladies, from the bottom of my heart, I know my brother thanks you too, treating us like royalty coming in here. Thank you very much.

Of course, thanks for coming and driving out. Anytime, you guys. Yeah, stop on by.

You don't say that because we'll come in here and move barrels around for you.

That's literally why we're saying stop on by.

We'll teach Eddie to forklift.

I'm big enough. I don't need a forklift. Well, listeners, you know where you could find us at. You can find us on Instagram. You can find us on TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. The best place to find us is on our private Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies. Three questions you got to answer. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Yeah, everybody likes bourbon, right? And then do you agree to play nice? Because we don't tolerate any rudeness in that group. That means if you drink from the bottom of the shelf all the way to the top shelf where this Malin and Green is. That's what we want you to do. Support each other, love each other, celebrate life, celebrate retirements, celebrate whiskey the way it's meant to be celebrated, sharing with each other. That's what we want to do. Come in and check that out. We get all kinds of great people in there. You might also find that we give away just a little bit of whiskey. So with that being said I might be taking a bottle of mulling green to give away From them through us to give away to you what you got to do as at noontime of this Release right here of this podcast. What you got to do is tell me what What Marlene did at Jim Beam is her first job. Tell me that on our Instagram post for this. The first person to do that at noon of that show, they'll get a bottle of the Malaman green whiskey. We'd really love to see you in that. So what I need to do next is go ahead and scrolling up the app, hit that check sign, that plus sign, a subscribe sign. What that'll do is tell you we got two shows coming out that week. One is a craft distillery review. Heck, you might even see some Miley mcgream on that. Our second show is an hour long, 30 minutes on the first half, 30 minutes on the second half. We got great guests on there or it just might be me and Jim talking on there. Then what I need you to do is scroll on down to the bottom of your app down there. You'll see where you can give us that five star review. Leave us some comments. You know what'll happen if you don't. I'm gonna come over to your house, my big old buddy, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon. He'll be dragging his big bad booty daddy wagon full. of Malam and Green Whiskey. We'll drink that all night long. By the end of the night, you're going to give us that five-star review, I guarantee. But seriously, those reviews, those comments, they help us open up doors to the stories like this. It gets great whiskey in our hands to tell you about, and we'd really appreciate it. We also want you to check out our website, theburbanroad.com, where we read, write articles. We have our reviews on there. Check out our whiskey swag, the bourbon bullshitter t-shirt. We got some flask on there, all kinds of stuff that you can purchase. It helps our veteran-owned and operated business get on down to Bourbon Road. So we really appreciate that. You can leave comments on there also. If you have a distillery in your backyard that you want us to talk to, leave us a comment. If you have a whiskey you want to get in our hands, Leave us a comment. We'd really appreciate that. You can always reach us on our emails. He's Jim at the Bourbon Road. I'm Mike at the Bourbon Road. But probably the best way to reach us is on our Instagram accounts. You DM us on there. He's jshan63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief and we'll see you on down the Bourbon Road.