249. Still Austin Whiskey Company

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 you're listening to The Bourbon Road. You know what I love to pour in my old fashions? Is a little maple syrup. Can't be just any maple syrup. It has to be from seldom seen farms up in Ohio. He takes bourbon barrels. pours his syrup in there and ages it for six to nine months, making for some delicious, just some delicious syrup that you could pour on pancakes. You could pour it on waffles, chicken waffles like this fat guy likes. But seriously, you want to make a delicious cocktail with some maple syrup and not that old simple syrup. Check out seldom seen maple dot com. Pick up some stuff from there today. We'd appreciate it. So you know I'm on my Texas road trip, traveling down the country roads and stuff, and my truck brought me to Austin, Texas, one of my favorite cities of all times, and sure enough, I drove right into a distillery. I'm sitting down with Chris Seals from Steel Austin, one of their founding fathers. And I got a whole bunch of whiskey in front of me. He's a Texas boy himself, just like me. Chris, welcome to the Bourbon Road.

Thank you, Mike. I'm glad to be here. Thank you. I'm so glad that you came to visit Austin.

Yeah, this is a beautiful city. First, they got my favorite football team of all time, right? The Texas Longhorns. I know listeners, you don't like them, but I love them. I'm a Longhorn as well. One of the greatest streets in America to listen to live music, Sixth Street.

Yeah. There's a lot of great places around Austin now, too. It's spread out even beyond Sixth Street.

There used to be a show called Austin City Limits. Yeah, Austin City Limits is great. Great show. It's still going today. Yes. I think it was one of the longest running shows of all time.

We even have one of the biggest music festivals, Austin City Limits ACL Music Festival.

Yeah. And now it's becoming a mecca for whiskey because of you.

I don't know about that. We're trying to do our part, live up to some pretty incredible whiskeys around the United States right now.

There is. It's a boom and steal. It's not stopping. And fans, listeners out there, we are inside the distillery. We're in the tasting room today. There's just a wall of whisky behind Chris. We'll make sure we post some photos of that, but man. We got whiskey in front of us, but we also have something that Jim likes, and I know he's gonna be super jealous of this. It's a one-of-a-kind gin. So tell me about it.

Yeah, so like our gin is a little bit unusual. I mean, a lot of whiskey lovers are not gin drinkers, but almost every whiskey bar has to have a gin cocktail, because there's some gin drinker that comes in. And so one of the things that we did early on, we're very community based in everything we do. And our people are a big part of Still Austin. And we had a distiller, Allie Block, and she was basically working the night shift making bourbon. And she really She came to us and said, I would like to make a gin. And I was like, well, Ali actually were whiskey distillery. We don't we don't make gin. And she's like, well, what if I made a gin that whiskey lovers love? It's like, well, that's pretty good. That sounds pretty good. Let's give it a shot. And so that kind of ended up being sort of the inspiration for our gin. And what we did, everything that we make, we make it ourselves from grain to glass. And all of our grains are, not only are they all grown by family owned farms here in Texas, but they are Texas grain varieties. which is a slight difference. It's not just the terroir of like what it tastes like if it's grown in Texas, but it's like the white corn that we have here is the kind that's like in our corn chips and corn tortillas and kind of the backbone of like our Tex-Mex culture as compared to like the yellow corn that you have in the Ohio Valley that makes great Kentucky bourbon. But it has a little different taste because it's kind of our grain varieties. And here we grow a kind of rye called Elbon. That's kind of sweet and spicy. It's delicious. It's not the kind most distilleries that in the Kentucky area that I think primarily use a bruise is the variety of rye that they like and it grows really well kind of up in Canada and kind of up kind of more northern climates. But we've got Elbon down here and Elbon is, it's just a different, slightly different flavor. And so we distilled a rye whiskey that is the base of our gin. And so instead of putting juniper at the center of the botanicals, we let the rye shine. So I'll let you taste it here.

It still fooled me that the juniper is not in there.

Oh, there is. There is juniper in there for sure. Of course. I've cut down some cedar trees in my life. You can smell it. Yeah, to be called gin, it has to have juniper in it. But the botanicals are made to pair well with the rye. So like the rye is kind of like I said, it's sweet and spicy. So the sweetness is really balanced by three citruses. So we've got orange. Obviously, in Texas, we grow a lot of grapefruit and a little bit of lemon. So those those citruses kind of balance some of the sweetness. And we really wanted to accentuate the spice of the rye with some spices that are pretty common to our our food and beverage culture. And so a little bit of cinnamon, two types of cinnamon, actually, and Jamaican allspice. So I'll let you guys taste it here and see what yours.

When you said grapefruit, I get that grapefruit right there. That citrus, that really just sweet citrus from a grapefruit, that ruby red grapefruit that Texas is known for. That's right. Just delicious. Me and my brother actually had a long discussion about grapefruit cocktails and whiskey and how they pair great together. And absolutely. But I could, man, this would be great with some grapefruit juice, I think.

Yeah, no, it makes a great any of the like kind of classic like a bee's knees, which is just honey and lemon and gin or any of any other like a paloma. I was going to say that quite nice.

Jim's favorite drinks and that's something he would pour in there.

Yeah. the sorry, Jim, we're drinking without you, but we'll send some your way.

Yeah, he would appreciate that. He's a he's a big gin guy. He calls that his secondary whiskey. Yeah. His other go to is gin, where mine would probably be rum. But since I've been on the podcast, I've kind of snuck over to that gin a little bit and barrel-aged gins. My palate, you know, as you get older, your palate changes a lot, and you have a lot more appreciation, I think, for fine spirits like this right here. And you find out that there's a paloma out there that you could drink, or that's beeswax, or something like that. And it's beautiful gin. And a lot of stores will do that because they can put it in a bottle before anything else comes out, right?

Certainly, it does come out a little bit faster. It's about a week from the time that the farmer brings the grains here until the gin is ready to bottle. So it's a lot faster. But it's the same craft and everything being from grain to glass.

Now, we kind of walked through your distillery really fast. Well, I didn't walk up that stairwell very fast to see the steel and to taste some whiskey that's running.

Yeah, it's kind of steep going back there.

Yeah. But let's talk about your steel itself real fast before we get into the history of Steel Austin. Sure. What's that? What you name that steel, that big old thing you got in there?

So our stills name is Nancy and she's named after the lead character in the film, the attack of the 50 foot woman. And so I give you one guess how tall she is. She's a very tall lady. She's made. You know, we're we're we we have really embraced column distillation. Back when my dad and I were first starting the distillery, we had a vision that we were going to be a big pot still operation. And that's kind of I think I don't even know why. I just think that that's what we thought was the best. And we have we have a master distiller, Michael Delavante. He's a Jamaican white guy. Very funny. He's he opened Appleton rum. Really? I guess that was like the early 60s in their current facility, designed it. And he's worked at over 100 distilleries. He's a very, very knowledgeable guy. And to our knowledge, the oldest guy, oldest distiller working in North America today. Really? Yeah. Mike's a very, very, very, very interesting guy.

And they said he's working a night shift tonight.

Well, that... no he's a he's pretty well retired these days but he knows a little bit about making spirits and we asked him to help us with the design of a still that would be able to isolate and bring out the flavor from our Texas grain. That was really important to us. And Mike helped us to work with Forsythes in Scotland. Forsythes is a still manufacturer. We're a little different. Most of the column stills in the United States are made by Vindome. They've been doing it for a long time, a lot of tradition, a lot of focus on quality, and we like them a lot. and have a very high respect for Vindome. But we felt like Forsythes may be able to help us a little bit more. They're based in Scotland. They're a little older than Vindome. And they just have a reputation for being able to make a still that is able to first to just withstand the test of time, the quality in how it's made. And then also the precision in the design and our ability to be able to bring out some of the flavor, like I said, the flavor from our local grain, typically with With a typical column still, there's usually three or four rectification trays at the top. And those three or four trays different, they're a little warmer down below and a little cooler up above. And so different distillates will collect on those three or four trays. But rather than having three or four, Nancy has 12. And that gives us a lot more control over the quality of the spirit so we can really isolate and bring out the flavor from our Texas grain.

Nice, nice. Well, you've done poured a straight bourbon whiskey, a Texas straight bourbon whiskey at that, right? That is correct. Aged a little over two years. That's right. In the hot Texas sun. It is hot in the Texas sun, yes.

And so we call our Straight Bourbon, the musician, and there's a musician that's on the front of the label. The musician is actually painted by the Texas state artist or a person who's been the Texas state artist, Mark Burkhart, one of our local artists. We work entirely with local artists for all of our labels. And it's a great way of us being able to support our community and bring out like the things that they're really good at and kind of show off their work. I think he did a beautiful job with a musician on the front and obviously Austin, live music capital of the world and little music connection.

Now I see that bird on almost everything here. What's the bird?

You know, the bird is a very unusual bird. So you see that it's a technically a tanager and it's a red bird. You don't see it very often stands out, right? It's a very, it's very pretty. Almost everybody is drawn to that bird, but they don't know quite why. I think that that's kind of, um, It's a symbol that Mark painted into the musician and it ended up becoming the symbol of Still Austin. So we didn't say, hey, Mark, paint a bird. He painted a songbird so that you would know that the woman in the painting is singing. And it kind of became our symbol. And I think that it's kind of like a lot of things. You don't necessarily go on this journey of starting a authentic craft whiskey distillery. And you have some idea in your mind of where that's going to go. But if you're really if you are really focused on quality, And you really try with everything that you do to be very authentic and bring out not only the natural flavor that comes from your place, but also give a sense of who you are as people. you end up kind of undertaking something that's bigger than just making a spirit. You're you're telling a story of a people and our values and what we love. And and you depend on your own artists and they end up becoming part of of what becomes your, you know, your story and your brand. And so the Redbird is is different. It's like Austin, you know, our local slogan. Keep Austin weird. And we really value what makes you different. Sure. And you can kind of get a little sense of that, a hint of it on our label. So what's the mash bill on this right here? Yeah, it's 70% white corn. It's 25% Elbon rye and 5% malted barley. And the malted barley, if you can believe it, is grown in Brady, Texas, not far from where you grew up. Really? That's right. And it's malted in Dallas at Texmalt. So this is a little green from close to home for you. And we use, probably one other thing I'll say that probably really does make this a bit different is, We have a person on our team. We have two Nancy's. We don't just have one. We have our still Nancy. We also have Nancy Fraley and Nancy is she's our master nose and master blender. And she she's very absolutely incredible woman. She's master blended for a lot of the Kentucky distiller. She's won a lot of awards for whiskey and to our knowledge as a man as a as a ghost blender, she's won more awards than anybody we know of worldwide. She's also trained under a 10th generation cognac maker. And she's what's considered a musketeer of Armagnac. It's one of these 12 people in the world that can master blend the oldest age distilled spirit in the world, which is Armagnac with nearly a thousand years of tradition as compared to just 200 in Bourbon. It's a bit older. And she brought to us a lot of techniques from France. And one of those is a slow water reduction uh slow water reduction as part of the technique that's used in cognac um and what it is is where you know normally in bourbon making we we put the whiskey in the barrel put the barrel in the warehouse and just forget about it right we'll leave it there let it rest magic happens Six, eight years later, we take it out, we water it down a little bit and put it in a bottle. And that's it. And so that little step where you water it down a bit, we stretch that into years. And what we'll do is we'll open each barrel every month or two and add a little bit of water to the barrel. And what that does is it very slowly brings down the alcohol concentration while it's still maturing. When the alcohol concentration is high at the beginning of the maturation, you get more alcohol solubles coming out of the oak, like your oak tannin, say, for instance. But as you slowly bring that down and it moves to having more water than alcohol, then it tends to extract from the oak more water solubles, like the oak sugars. And by doing that, you know, little by little, very slowly and meticulously over time, every month or so we add a new layer of flavor to our bourbon. And it tends to make it very soft, very well rounded. It kind of takes you on a little journey from the nose all the way through to the finish. And it has this quality that we really like of finesse. And finesse is, I think, what every distiller aspires to create because it can kind of gently tell a little story in what you taste. So that's kind of what makes ours a little bit different.

Very soft nose on this bourbon right here. It's still got that carmely, you know, you can tell the corns in there. Very floral, though, on this bourbon. I'm kind of shocked by that, how much florals are in there and stuff. But hey, cheers.

Cheers. Cheers. Oh, and I've also learned recently, whenever you cheers, and this is something that you're all your viewers will need to know. Whenever you cheers, you must always do it with your left hand, never your right. And you must make eye contact when when you clink when you clink or it's seven years of bad sex. And I don't want that to happen to any of your listeners.

Nobody wants seven years of bad sex. That's right. Sure.

Our listeners want that. A little tip from Austin, Texas.

Well, a lot of people think great tasting bourbon right here, that rice spice. Jim, once again, you're missing out, man. The rice spice, he's the right guy. I'm a weed guy. So Jim, man, some gin and some whiskey. I promise I'm going to bring some back with me, though. Beautiful, beautiful bourbon. I can see why you guys are so hot right now. Everybody's wanting to get their hands on this throughout America. Very beautiful. Thank you.

I'm glad you enjoy it.

Before we finish up this first half, you know, when you're walking around, you said this almost didn't happen because your dad one is the one that wanted to start a distillery, right? Yeah, that's right. Want to talk him out of it. Why don't you run us through that?

Yeah. So it was really my dad's idea, this entire thing. And I like I told you, I'm an economist. I used to do risk management. How bad can things get? That's what I got paid to figure out. And so when my dad came to me and said he wanted to start a craft whiskey distillery. I mean, like it didn't take long for the wheels to start turning. And I was like, this is the worst idea that I've ever I got paid to do feasibility studies for a living. This was going to be the worst, the worst risk profile ever. And so. But my dad had recently retired. He was going through what I would consider to be a retirement crisis. He was very bored. And like I told you, he's driving my mom crazy and. Uh, so I, I could tell my dad wanted to spend time with me and I love my dad and I wanted to spend time with him too. Um, and so I thought it would be really smart and, uh, suggest that we do a feasibility study on whether or not Austin could, could support a craft whiskey distillery. And I actually already knew the answer was no, they cannot. Because I was so smart. And actually, because I've done so many of these, these, you know, feasibility studies over the years that, you know, this is this may come as a shock to you and to a lot of your listeners, but 99% of good ideas are actually bad ideas.

It's true. Well, it depends on how much passions behind that.

That's part of what shifts it.

So you can't factor that into it, right?

No, that can overcome a lot. And so I actually thought this was a bad idea. But I didn't see any reason to tell my dad that upfront. I was like, let's study this. We're going to need to do some market research. We're going to Kentucky.

We're going to everybody goes to Kentucky.

We're going to Scotland. We're going to visit a lot of distilleries and dad and I are going to drink a lot of whiskey together and we are going to have a really good time, you know, quote unquote studying this. And then once we've had that time, and my dad has settled into retirement, and he's no longer driving my mom crazy, we're gonna come to our senses and decide this is a terrible idea. And that's what I signed up for. And we did all that. And we had a great time doing it. And then state laws in Texas changed, and that made it more feasible to open a craft whiskey distillery. So all of a sudden, we were more lucky than smart. And it really kind of changed things for us. And we thought, well, we kind of started to understand what it takes to start something. And it's obviously a major undertaking. It's not just a liquid. It's like you're telling this incredible story. And we felt like, you know, why not us? So we threw some money in a hat and got started.

Yeah, I'm sure. That must have been a big old hat, for sure. As I look around here, right? Because I know what steals cost. You know what bottles cost. You know what grains cost, right? It takes a lot to get something like this. So do you feel like today, looking back at that, do you like, damn, I was wrong?

I'm very proud to say that I'm often wrong. In fact, any economist that ever tells you that their forecast is right has a 100% chance of being wrong. And so I was very wrong about how successful still Austin could be. And I couldn't be happier about that. And we've got to be totally disclosing We are community funded as well. It's all local business people that have helped to invest in and build a beautiful distillery that can represent Austin and our place in the future of American craft whiskey. And everybody who works at the distillery owns part of it. And so it's very as a result, we have the very best people because everybody, you know, looks at this business as their own because it is and they they have a stake in it as well.

That's nice to hear and stuff that you guys went down that path. And actually, you thought it out and just didn't jump into it, right? Because you do hear those stories, too, of, hey, I'm just going to do this. But just to hear you and your dad went down that deal, and you probably didn't believe in him. But maybe your dad and you were really that kid, a kind of college football here, football. There are some kids that just don't practice well. They don't show very well when they're doing practice or if they're trying to show their skills on the field until them lights come on. And then there's a, something magical happens. Same thing with some musicians, you know, you talk to them or you hear them play in a small room or in a private setting and you're like, I, you know, yeah, you're all right. But then they get up on that stage and it's like a switch flips or something and some magical, something happens and it just comes out perfectly. And I'm always amazed at that. I'm like, wow, I didn't see that coming. Absolutely. And now you guys, I'm telling you, Chris, that you are a hot commodity right now out there in the whiskey world.

You're blowing my mind with that, like, commodity. I don't even know what you're talking about.

I told so many people I was coming to Steele Austin, and they were like, man, you're so lucky. You're, you're, you got the best job ever.

You are all welcome to come to still Austin and we will take as good care of you as we do of Mike. A hundred percent. I have no doubt. Uh, well two great spirits, a gin.

Uh, I don't, that's not the naturalist, the naturalist because she's kind of naked on there.

Um, yeah, she's, uh, she's a naturalist and, uh, you know, there's a part of Austin actually that, uh, uh, a nude beach, uh, that you can, you can, you guys should visit while you're here.

What's that place called?

It's called hippie hollow.

Yeah. I might've been there before.

It's awesome. I was a long time ago. I'm not I'm not going to say a negative thing about it. But, you know, we got a very green culture here in Austin and with a green belt. And it's been one of the greenest cities for a long, long time. And I felt like with all the botanicals that are in the gin, they're all painted into the painting on the front of the label. And we felt like the naturalist was kind of an archetype that almost everybody could identify with.

And and, you know,

Who? Yeah, she might be naked, but she's she's very, very much enjoying her natural environment. Well, she got that old apple of sin in her hand.

It's an orange. That is an orange.

It is. It is orange. Yeah, I think so. I don't know. It's open for interpretation.

This could be a peach also. Who knows?

We don't have any peaches in the mash bill, so I'm pretty sure it's going to be an orange grapefruit or it doesn't quite look like a lemon.

Yeah, yeah. Well, listeners, stick with me. Chris will we'll be right back. We'll have some more laughs, drink some more whiskey. He's got two special whiskeys for the second half. I am a super excited. We'll be right back. Listeners, you know what we love? We love some seldom seen farms up in Ohio. Aged in bourbon barrels for six to nine months. Kevin Holley 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 I got Chris Seals with me from Steel Austin. He's got two great whiskies in here. I'm trying to get him out. He's he's trying to go eat lunch on me. Man, he should take big chief with him.

I think I'm hungry. We're going to a good place for lunch and we try to get you guys some barbecue. We've got a lot. Barbecue is like one of my favorites here in town, but just takes time. So you're going to come back. That way we can have barbecue together.

Well, Austin's one of my favorite places to visit, and I know my old brother is a favorite place to visit. But you poured us a whiskey for the second half. What do you got for us?

Well, I thought we might try two things. The first is the cask strength version of the musician. So like I mentioned before, with the musician, with our straight bourbon, we do this very slow, painstaking process of reducing the spirit. With the cask strength we skip that step. We basically just leave it at the original flavor and at the same strength as it comes out of the cask. And so if our regular musician is kind of an acoustic, this one's a little bit more like heavy metal. It's a little bit bolder in flavor. Everything kind of stands out a little bit more. It's not too much different in terms of the flavors, but the flavors really do stand out. But I'll be curious what you think. All right, let's taste it. All right. Cheers. Cheers. Yeah. Now we know how to do it.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, it can be a problem if you if you clink with your right hand.

Everything's better cast right. I always say it's a beautiful nose on there that that honey is coming out.

Yes.

There's another something else is there that it's dark pepper, like almost a black pepper spice in there.

I get a lot of baking spices as well as cherry, like a little dark cherry in there. I could get that.

Let's taste this thing. That's got that pop rocks on the tongue right there.

A little bit.

Yeah, a little bit of pop, right?

Yeah, well, obviously it's a 118 proof, so it's a bit higher proof.

Now I'm looking at your prices of everything. So The Naturalist is $32 for a bottle of gin. Correct. The Musician is $45. And we're drinking this Cast Strength at $60. Great price for a Cast Strength whiskey. Very, very beautiful price, I think, for that. That sets you right up if you looked at some of the Cast Strengths from, like, Maker's Mark or Knob Creek, because it's going to run you about $60. So you guys are right on par with those guys.

We want people to enjoy whiskey. We don't want them to overpay for it. And that's one of the beautiful things about the kind of the way that we way that we did things. We wanted still Austin be something that everyone can enjoy at home anytime with their friends, not just on a real special occasion. That's that's amazing.

I think. Thank you. I enjoy it. Very, very tasty whiskey for your Chris. I don't know how you could change that up any different spice that, like you said, those baking spices are there in that taste. A little bit of nutmeg in there, I think. Not as much of vanilla as I would have thought.

No, yeah, not quite as much. And then you do have like kind of a full range of baking spices, cinnamon, like you mentioned nutmeg, maybe a little bit of that clove in there. Yes. And also like kind of like brown butter and like there's a like, I kind of get, you know, like my grandmother her kitchen, what she would what she would bake. It always incorporated a lot of butter. We don't really eat that much butter today, but I have a lot of memories of it and I kind of get a little bit of that brown butter in the in the kind of some of the darker flavors in the cast strength.

And that's a tasty notes. We're always talking about is from a your childhood, right? Is you want that stuff very, very I'd rather look at that and hear people say that, hey, I had this memory from my grandmother cooking with butter and that's the taste I'm getting, than somebody looking at a wheel and be like, oh, let me figure out what I'm getting here.

You know, I've got a really interesting story about that. And I think your listeners would probably enjoy this too, if you don't mind me saying it real quick. But you know, I was back way back in the day, I taught English in the Philippines. I lived there for a summer. And while I was teaching there, my mom made chocolate chip cookies, and she sent them to me. And I mean, I've been eating, you know, Filipino food is primarily rice, a lot of bananas, different types. I mean, it's a tropical place, right? There hadn't been a lot of chocolate chip cookies in my in my diet since I've been there. And I was so excited. And so and she made enough that not only could I eat a bunch of them myself, but I could also share them with all my kids. And so what I did and the what happened is really, really helped me to understand whiskey. But what I did was on Friday of the week that they arrived, when the classes were finished, I set it out on the table where kids could come and get a chocolate chip cookie. And so and I told them about what it is. They had never seen chocolate chip cookies. And they're so excited, you know, like, OK, this is something from America. And they These kids like I was like, hey, give it a bite. And they put it in their mouth. And then I watched as about 80 high school students began spitting out chocolate chip cookies on the ground. They in the dirt, they could not stand them. They were like this to them was the most disgusting thing that they had ever tasted in their life. They had never tasted flour. They had never tasted refined sugar. Really? And they'd never tasted cocoa that goes into chocolate chips. They have Ute there, which is a little different. Why did they hate it? They'd never tasted it before. It's new to their palate, right? It's their palate. And, you know, one of the things Dad and I noticed, like we started to go visit all these distilleries, there are places that we visited and we were like, well, that's really interesting. Like that was an interesting whiskey. We liked it and we thought it was interesting. And then there were some places that we went and we were like, I love this. I love it. That is great. What makes the difference? Why is one interesting and one? I love it. I think it is the one that is. I love it. there's something in it that connects deeply to our memories, not conscious, but like those layers of memories from when we were a child that make a chocolate chip cookie taste so comforting to me and so foreign to someone who's never had it. And I think that that is what you get We're here in Texas, and we wanted people to love what we make. And by focusing on everything coming from our region, most often thing we hear I love this. It's because it's the same corn that's in our text mix. It's the same. It's the same things that show up in our that have been in our lives our whole life. And it makes for just like a really it's subconscious, but it really elevates how you enjoy things.

You brought up Tex-Mex and I was watching a video the other day or a documentary about Tex-Mex and how long it's been around. Really, a lot of people have a misconception about it as a modern thing. It's really not. And down in San Antonio, right outside the Alamo, these ladies used to set up these carts and they would serve tamales and charl beans. And really Tex-Mex, Chilis, Rhinos, just some great food, street tacos and stuff. And they were called the Chili Queens.

The Chili Queens.

And you could just imagine that food and that Tex-Mex back then. kind of pairs with this whiskey right here. Um, some great whiskey to drink with that, especially with this little kick of spice to it. Absolutely. Um, that chili, that sweet and spice poblano, right? Cause a poblano is everybody's like, when I eat a poblano, uh, a chiller, I know everybody's like, you're eating that giant pepper and it's spicy. And I was like, no, it's got a little spice to it, but it's got that sweetness of that stuff. And, uh, That memory right there made me think of that. You're talking about that in the Texas culture, Tex-Mex food that I grew up with as a kid.

You see it in our barbecue too. That's what I think part of what differentiates Texas barbecue from, you know, like North Carolina and other barbecue centers of the United States is that sweet spice, sweet and spicy. That's a flavor profile Texas love.

You know that brown sugar in there, get a little brown sugar love. Well, you got one more whiskey for us before you get a jet out on us. That's what you got.

All right. So we have at the distillery only a series that's called our distillery reserve series. And the distillery reserve series, we do two things with it. Two challenges, I would say. The first is we challenge our distillers. They make the best they the best possible every single day. But with the distillery reserve, they have carte blanche to really step it up a level. We also do the same thing with our brand and marketing team and all of our creatives that are part of our community. And with each label, we feature a different artist. So Zuzu is a local spray paint artist and this label, each individual label was spray painted individually by Zuzu. And it kind of is an unusual label that you don't expect.

I was trying to think about an old school artist that paints like that. And I was thinking Van Gogh. And maybe a little bit that that's what I'm looking at that label. And I'm like, man, that's some true art right there.

She's an amazing artist. And we've focused on many different artists through the Distillery Reserve series. But this particular release is a one hundred percent Elbon Rye whiskey. that has been further aged in a cognac cask that Nancy Fraley was able to source from one of the older Cognac producers in the town of Cognac. So it's I guess some dry red wine on that. Yeah, maybe. Let me see here. You know, you mentioned red wine, and that's kind of surprising me, and I can kind of smell it a bit as well. Cognac is actually a white grape, but the... Maybe that oak from that. Yeah, for sure. I like it. Well, hey, let's do this right this time. Look at each other left-handed. I'm good because I'm left-handed myself. That's good. That's probably been helping you all along. I got that smart brain.

Now, that's different. That's a different rye right there. Yes. That's got a, Mitch said, a drying effect to it. It is dry on the back of the palate. It's got a little spice, but no Kentucky hug there, no hug, no Texas hug. No, it's not hot. That is that black pepper I was talking about sitting on that back of the tongue right there. That spice is like, wake up, buddy. Yeah, that's nice.

The Kenyak kind of gives it a little bit of a brandy type of quality. It still has that softness. This really showcases the Elbon Rye. And later this year, we will release a new flagship product that is a straight 100% rye whiskey. There's a lot of rye whiskeys out there, not a lot that are 100% rye. And so it really does stand out.

They're starting, rye is starting to come into its own again when it was the king of American spirits. Yeah. I believe we're about to see a boom in rye whiskies where Americans are starting to enjoy it again. I wrote an article about that not too long ago about where rye started at in America in the 1640, 1650s, I think in Massachusetts by German immigrants. And then it's kind of rise and then it's fall. in American spirits as a whiskey. And now it's kind of coming back. It's people realizing, man, these things are really beautiful. And it's nice to see the different mash bills of that, either from a 95.5 or 100% rye. Or, you know, one of our favorites is a Kentucky rye where they use about 65% rye and the rest corn and some malted barley in there. Chris, Four beautiful, beautiful spirits here. Three great whiskeys, an amazing little gin right there that has a great price point on it, by the way. I'm glad to see that it's not $100 a bottle. Some great artwork on each label. Thanks to our artists. Yeah. And you've agreed to do a giveaway for us.

Absolutely.

Yes. A bottle of your Steel Austin straight bourbon whiskey. So a t-shirt and a glass for one of our listeners. What would we say we're going to do if at noon time on our Instagram posts, what do they got to tell us?

You need to know the swimming hole in Austin, Texas that is clothing optional.

Yeah, put that on our Instagram post on this. Let me know where that's at, the name of it. I think we'd really enjoy it and you'll get a bottle of this Steel Austin straight bourbon whiskey. That's an amazing giveaway. Chris, thanks for doing that for our listeners, for your fans out there. Like I said, you're a hot commodity right now.

Mike, it is an honor having you guys here. I've absolutely enjoyed it. And your personality has been the best part. I have to say you guys are awesome. I'm very, very happy that you came to visit me. And you guys are welcome back here any time. And anything we can do to support you guys, we support you 100%. Where can our fans find you guys at? stillaustin.com. If you're outside of Texas or Louisiana, that will probably be the fastest way to find a bottle of Still Austin. We can facilitate it getting to you, although we do not ship. Since that is technically illegal in Texas, we do have some partners that do. And so just check out StillAustin.com if you're in Texas or Louisiana. Any of your local liquor stores will be able to help you with getting a bottle of Still Austin. And of course, we love, love, love for people to come and visit us. And so whenever you're coming to Austin for South by Southwest or Austin Sea Limits or just coming here for fun, swing by Still Austin Whiskey. I think you have a really good time. We have a lovely tasting room and whiskey garden and our Our food trailer is the Bearded Baking Company. And it's two gay lumberjacks that love to bake. And they are really good at it. You will be surprised at how good they are at baking. And they make some really delicious brunch. So I'd highly recommend coming by for brunch on any Saturday, any Sunday.

Well, make sure you give Steel Austin a follow on Instagram, on Facebook. I don't know if you guys got a TikTok account now.

We don't have a TikTok, but we do have Instagram and Facebook, still underscore ATX or still ATX on Facebook. And you should be able to find all of our handles on our website.

I think you need to have a TikTok of you dancing and stuff. I don't know. I think that'd be pretty amazing.

I'm quite a terrible dancer, but I guess everybody is on TikTok, right?

Well, until you get some whiskey in you. That's true. That can help. Hopping along Texas. I don't know. Doing that step and a half, as we like to call it. Chris, man, thank you so much for letting us come in here, letting us kind of invade your home turf here in Austin, Texas. Two Texas boys walking in here drinking whiskey. That's what it's all about. This has been so much fun. I can't thank you enough. I know our listeners love a giveaway and they'll give you a big thanks and a big follow. And we look to seeing you on down the Bourbon Road. Sounds great. Thank you, Mike. So, listeners, you know where you can find us at. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all those social medias, Twitter, wherever you can find us. We are the Bourbon Road on all those platforms. Make sure you check us out on there. Also, you can check out our website, the bourbon road dot com. You can find our articles on there. Our reviews, our swag, the bourbon bullshitter t-shirt. You know you want to rock one of those out when you walk into a distillery. So make sure you check that out. You can actually go on our website and send us a message on there letting us know what distilleries you want us to visit, what whiskeys you want us to review. Make sure you do that. We'd appreciate it. The next thing I need you to do is go ahead and scroll on up, hit that check sign, that plus sign, that subscribe sign. That'll let you know we got two shows coming out. that week. The first show is always a review of a craft whiskey like Steel Austin or our long show, which I'll have a great guest on like Chris Seals here at Steel Austin. Making sure you get to work and back about 30 minutes each half. Make sure you do that. Then we need to scroll on down, hit that five star review, write some comments. You know what will happen if not, I'll bring my friend the big bad booty daddy of bourbon with me. We'll drink some still Austin all night by the end of the night You're gonna leave us that five-star review. I guarantee we really appreciate it But seriously those comments those five stars get us into distilleries like still Austin gets great whiskey in our hands to review. We would really appreciate it. You can always reach out to 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 out to us is on Instagram. You can DM us. He's JShannon63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief and we'll see you on down the Bourbon Road.