253. Michter's Distillery

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.

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Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we are once again out on the road. Yeah, we're in kind of the heart of bourbon country here.

Yeah, you know, there's this little town over here, kind of southwest of Louisville. Just a little bit of bourbon has been made here in Chaveley, Kentucky. National distilleries, the old distilleries right behind us. It's giant steel when we're driving in, just laying on the ground. I don't know how big that thing is, probably 36 inch column steel. Not too far from, you know, my favorite, Stitts Weller, one of my favorites anyways.

So much history there.

Early times, right to our back over here, Brown Foreman. Singham's plant, where he used to work over there near the Singham's plant back in the day.

It used to be Blue Edible Oils, I think, at one time was over there. But we're here at Michter's today.

The heart of it all. The heart of it all. You know how much I love their whiskey. Everybody's probably scratching their head wondering about that because it's not weeded. We're not going to get into that today, but they got their toasted. You know how much I love toasted. I don't think we're going to drink that today. I think we're drinking everything else besides that, but I'm good with that. I still love their whiskies. The reason I love them, I think so much, is because our two guests we have today.

Jim, who do we have on as our guest today? We've got Andrea Wilson and Dan McKee. We're going to let them tell us what they do. Okay. Well, let's do it.

Well, I'm Andrea Wilson. I am a chief operating officer for Michter's Distillery, but I am also master of maturation. So I look after the whole aging side of the business in partnership with my colleague, Dan McKee, who is our master distiller.

Well, welcome to the Bourbon Road, you two. Thank you. We got the two biggest people in this company, I think.

They're top of the heap, top of the heap. Almost the top of the heap, right? There's a cherry on top somewhere.

There's the family.

This is where the whiskey passes through and makes sure that it's right going out. And man, you guys have laid it out for us today. There's all kinds of bottles on this table, four glasses. So we're going to drink some whiskey. So I say let's get straight to the whiskey though, Jim. All right, our listeners kind of expect that. Yeah. So what's the first whiskey we're going to be drinking?

Well, I thought today we'd jump right in and actually go with our Michter's Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon. I love this bourbon to me. It's a very nice classic bourbon. It's very smooth, rich, still that nice complexity and, you know, well balanced. And, you know, there's nothing better than just pouring a neat glass of it and sipping on it.

I really like these toppers you have on the Glencairns. That's kind of neat.

I think it's beautiful because it does help trap a lot of the aromatics so that when you remove it, you get more of that opportunity, whereas everybody knows if your glass is just sitting there. the whiskey is evaporating. It's changing as it's sitting in the glass without that top on there. So I think it does create a nice opportunity. They are hard to find, though. They're very difficult to find. We have a lot of people ask us about them.

They're in a gift shop? No. They're not. It should be, right?

It's hard to always have enough of these.

Yeah. That little topper, I think it kept that rich tobacco in there. Uh, and I know people are saying tobacco and bourbon, but that smell of tobacco, that smell of rich leather on this is just, uh, with that caramel mixed in, it is one of the most beautiful smells you could, you could have.

Yeah. No, a hundred percent. I mean, not to spend more time on the topper, but it is, it is a lot of fun and it's great experience when you take it off, kind of, you know, move the whiskey around, and all those aromas just come up and hit you that first time. There's a lot to talk about.

Well, I say cheers. Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers to you all I drank without you.

Well, you know, the nose was very inviting. And I did pick up that sort of that toasted tobacco richness in there. Kind of a little bit of a, like a raisin or, or plum a little bit.

Actually, uh, I like rice pudding and you get that cinnamon with some raisins in there. I get a little bit of that. I know that might sound weird, but, um, that's what I get in that cinnamon rice pudding with, with raisins. Sure.

No, it's always enjoyable to hear what people are experiencing. So, you know, one of the special things about when you see small batch on a michter's bottle, it's the equivalent of 20 full barrels. So truly small. So as there's no legal definition of what small batch is, you know, it's not, hey, we do a thousand barrels per batch and then we're doing 900 for a smaller batch. Our equipment's truly sized for the equivalent of 20, 20 barrels. You have to have very high quality, consistent barrels, day in, day out. And, you know, it's a testament to the quality we have here at Victor's. And, you know, also, you know, we aged a taste profile, not an age statement. So if it's not ready, it's not being released. And, you know, it goes back to, you know, us being a privately held company owned by a family, you know, This is their legacy. It's our legacy. We want to have the best, highest quality whiskey. So, you know, it's as a person that's, you know, working with the team to produce this and to be able to operate under those standards. And it's not a pressure. Hey, you have to have this four years, one day in the bottle. We don't have to operate like that. And I think, you know, it speaks for itself.

Well, it's awesome as an employee when you want to produce quality and the company's got your back because they want quality as well. So that's a pretty great feeling. In some cases, people deal with just the opposite of that. They get pushed to produce things that are less than perfect and they're not proud of them.

So I have never and I think I speak for all of us, but we don't feel pressured. Now you still have to answer for what went wrong, but there's not a pressure here. I mean, it is very important. Our president, Joe Melioca, will always say, you know, our goal here, whether we're doing it or not, is to make the highest quality American whiskey. You can't do that if you're just forcing things. And I think that's a testament, again, back to the quality that we'll talk about all day here.

Now Andrea, you're the master of maturation, which means you have ultimate responsibility for the barrel aging process. So Dan just told us that there's no real age statement on what goes in the bottle. There's a profile that he's looking for, you're looking for. Does that really exist across a wide range of ages or is it really kind of a very narrow band?

No, it's a wide band. So for the bourbon that you're tasting, or rye, or sour mash, American, for example, those are kind of our core four that we make here at Michter's. Those are going to be anywhere between five to seven years old. And we afford ourselves that luxury of that space so that You know it's it's easy for us to do selections so many people always kind of ask the question well how do you plan how does the whiskey planning process work are you actually taking stuff maybe at a younger age and you're putting it in the lane for tenure bourbon or. in the lane for twenty year bourbon we lay down our whiskey is and every year or every time we're ready to produce we're looking at the catalog of what we have we're examining it and we're picking what we think best exemplifies you know victors in that moment in time so you know even when you get to the point of doing something like a twenty year product it's what we have. In the portfolio at that moment in time some of it sure might be twenty years old some of it might be twenty two years old twenty four years old you know but whatever we think best represents that release that's what we're gonna do in that moment and the same way with our ten year. I know sometimes people ask Dan, why don't you do a 15-year product? And it's like, well, we do. It's called 10. And that's because we have that luxury to be able to choose what we think is absolutely exceptional in that moment in time that we decide we're going to do a release. And I think that's a pretty special thing. So to your point about You know this this company's foundation is on quality and you know a tremendous amount of work by just an exceptional team of individuals here who work really hard. to ensure the quality of our product before it goes into market. Most people probably don't even realize that the same thing we're doing here to enjoy this whiskey, it gets tasted before it gets bottled. So in many cases, our team, they're like chefs, you know, this this artistry that's being brought to life before they present it to a consumer. They want to taste it and make sure that it's good to go. And I think that that comes from There's a lot of people here who are working from a place of passion and a place of commitment and hard work. This isn't a place of, let's make the best quality at the lowest cost. We're really a company that has been driven by a family who desires for all of us to try our best to make the best American whiskey and they're willing to invest behind it.

Let's talk about that family and the history of Mikters for a second. Where did Mikters, where did the name come from? I know that answer, but I don't think some of our listeners really realize that and when Mikters was founded.

Yep. So, Mikters was founded in 1753. It started in Shafferstown, Pennsylvania with a gentleman, John Schenck. He was a Swiss Mennonite farmer. He was making rye whiskey. Rye was a very plentiful crop in Pennsylvania. So, he was taking his rye grain and making rye whiskey. He ultimately sold to Abraham Bomberger in 1861. He continued to transition with clothes during US Prohibition, reopened in 1934, and then in the 50s, it was picked up by a gentleman, Lou Foreman. Lou Foreman renamed the brand after his two sons, Michael and Peter. It was the merger of their two names that made the name McDirs. carried forward and ultimately closed in 1989 and the brand was seemingly lost to history. The Malioco family had ties to the distribution side of the business and they were familiar with Michters. Joe Malioco specifically wanted the opportunity to resurrect the brand Michters. and he was being mentored by a gentleman, Richard Dick Newman. Now, Richard Newman, some of your listeners may know, he knew a thing or two about whiskey here in Kentucky because he ultimately ran Old Taylor, Old Crow, but he also you know, became president and CEO of Austin Nichols Wild Turkey at the time. And so, you know, he was mentoring Joe and the very first decision that Joe had to make in his family was whether or not to resurrect the brand in Pennsylvania, which would be seem like the logical, that's where the original distillery had stood for many, many years. Or could, should he consider relocating the brand to Kentucky? The reason Richard was encouraging Joe to consider Kentucky was because you not just have to think about having a great distiller or somebody who understands maturing or somebody who knows how to liquid process. You really need to understand that this is a heavily taxed industry. It is a heavily regulated industry and you need to surround yourself with people who really understand how this business operates in order for you to be successful. And so he said, you need to surround yourself with people. You don't have to know everything, but you need to surround yourself with people who do know all the ins and outs of this business. So they decided to resurrect the brand in Kentucky. We've been through three phases of operation, and I'm going to let Dan kind of speak to the different phases that we've been through as a brand.

Sure. So in the 1990s, when the family went through the process of acquiring all the labels, trademarks, so forth, and the brand decided to come to resurrect in Kentucky here, they went to other distilleries here in Kentucky. Unfortunately, at that time, the American whiskey industry was really struggling. It was at an all-time low. But they were able to go around to those other distilleries and really purchase some very high-quality matured spirits that they wanted to emulate. Because at that point, again, we didn't have the capital to build our own distillery. And that's what you'll see in what we say phase one, but those upper marks, like our 20-year bourbon, 25-year bourbon, and so forth. That went well. And actually, if you go back into the 1990s, our first releases for Michters were A 10 year old kentucky straight bourbon and a 10 year old kentucky straight ride in fact they wanted to just release the ride but at that time like the distributors and so forth where no you need a bourbon to go with that because obviously right was kind of a non-existent category at that time so. So we released both and it's just, you know, Rye has been a big success for us and very proud to be a part of that resurgence also. So I think that's something, you know, truly special. Of course, we'll try Rye here in a little bit. But so that was phase one. We entered into early 2000. We were able to go to, again, still not having the resources to have our own distillery. We went to another distillery here in Kentucky with our mash bill, proprietary yeast specifications, and so forth. They were under capacity, so they produced for us. Like Joe will say, it was like a chef using another chef's kitchen. And that's what we call phase two. So we had phase one in the 90s, early 2000s started phase two. And then here in Shively is where we entered into phase three. In 2012, we purchased what now is all the land in the building for our distillery. The first two departments were the processing and bottling departments. And then construction began on the distillery by 2014 and came online in 2015. So we've been producing here since then, and it's been very exciting.

That's awesome to get that kind of detail and story behind everything. I love hearing it. You know another reason I love hearing it? Because that kind of story gets told even today by newer companies that are starting up in the business. They're starting out by first having to source and purchase bourbon while they build their distillery. And then maybe at some point they decide to go to contract distilling with their recipe to try and match what they've been selling because they don't have the expertise. And then a few years down the line, they're able to actually start producing their own and introducing it. So that story predates kind of this big surge of craft distilleries that's hitting the market today. You guys were kind of blazing the trail for those people.

Yeah, it's very exciting. I mean, you have your Pennsylvania history and now we're building that Kentucky history. And I speak for Andrea, but it's very exciting to be a part of it.

I think for me, one of the things that's not lost on me is just the amount of passion that this family has. You know, there's a lot of people who own companies and they're sort of hands off. They hire a bunch of people and they run it and whatever. But this is really a passion project for this family. And you know we all have to remember like you said if somebody comes now and says oh i want to build a distillery i want to be the newest hottest greatest bourbon or rye you know of late everybody goes oh okay another one you know because the american whiskey is booming right now. But, you know, back in the 90s and even before that, it wasn't booming. It was not a hot time for whiskey. You know, we all kind of forget that things have really changed. You know, there's value put on single barrel products now. We're getting ready to talk about one here in just a second. You know, there's a big value put on that. There's value put on aged whiskeys. You know, all of these things have changed. really within the last 15 years or so dramatically, and American whiskey is now booming. Whereas to have the perseverance to build in a category that is not booming is something really special, and it's something that I'm proud to work for this family and produce great whiskey.

Yeah, Joe always likes to tell a story back in the 90s. They sold, I think it was 50 three-pack cases of the 10-year product, and they threw an office party. That's how excited they were. I mean, it's 150 bottles.

I mean, it is. It's a big leap of faith to take a down market like that and invest in it with just You know, you call it foresight, faith, providence, whatever it is, it's really worked out for you guys. And I think it's a testament to your leadership. It's definitely a testament to your quality and a booming bourbon market does help, no doubt.

Well, I say let's move on with that quality because she brought up that we're fixing to drink something different and it's killing me. You know what? Big man likes, I call this big man whiskey right here, the barrel strength. And I got to wonder, I'm sitting here thinking about, because you talked about It was a Swiss farmer, um, immigrant really in Pennsylvania. And I don't think I've ever heard of anybody's like lineage going from the Swiss German we've heard of, right? Definitely heard of some Irish and some Scotch and some English, but I don't think I've ever heard anybody saying, okay, the lineage started from, um, Swiss. I don't think I, I guess I, maybe I missed that on the tour the last time we were here. Um, but I, what I'm wondering is, and I don't know why I just thought this, I haven't thought this on any other episode we've done, Jim, but whenever they barreled it back in 1753 and they served it in a tavern or a road house or anything like that, what was the strength of the whiskey back then? Was it 90 proof, 80 proof, or was it at barrel strength?

Well, that's a great question. You'd probably have to ask a historian about that. We might know a person to do that. I know some whiskey history, but I don't know that I'm the best person to advise on how they drank it, tavern style. I suspect they just took it right out of the cask. However, I think about that and I think, eh, maybe they reduced it because they wanted to make it go further, you know, so they could get more.

I'm sure there was a little bit of that going on.

Because, you know, there's also just, you know, back at that time today, we have sophisticated technology for determining proof, et cetera. But, you know, the whole reason that the proof term exists was it was a way to determine historically, you know, a whiskey that was good, meaning if you could, you know, sprinkle some gunpowder on it and ignite it, It was good. If it didn't, you know, it wasn't, and it was too watered down. So I would suspect if I had to take a guess at it, I would say that it was probably served at greater than a hundred proof, but I don't know that it was barrel strength.

What's your next TikTok video, Mike?

Lighten whiskey on fire. That's a waste of whiskey. Shame on people doing that.

I don't think it's a great idea. I've never thought that was a great idea, but that's the way it used to be done.

I let my tongue do the tasting, and we'll figure out what proof it is. So we got barrel strength in front of us.

So hold on, though. Before we go to barrel strength, I think we need to do the single barrel rye. So we were going to do the bourbon and rye.

OK. She's teasing me.

And then we're going to move to do some barrel strength products. Yeah. So just for me, it's about tasting at lower proof and then kind of ratcheting up to higher proof. But the michter single barrel rye is the second expression. So this is a Kentucky style rye. And what we mean by that is we're going to stay closer to the 51% rye grain requirement to be a rye whiskey than we are something that is going to be higher in rye content.

That Maryland rye, that East Coast rye.

That's what I was going to say. A lot of the historical ryes are that higher rye content. And if you have the palate for it, it can be beautiful. Really flavorful, really lovely whiskeys. But I think for us, what we were trying to do is create something that's approachable for everyone. Everyone knows that person that's like, I don't drink rye. We don't want that experience. We want people to say, no, I love your rye. It's delicious. A lot of the high rye whiskies out there can be polarizing for some people. I always tell people it's like drinking a peaty scotch. Either you like it or you don't. We want to create something that bridges for those people to really understand what a rye whiskey is and the beautiful floral and spicy Baking spice characteristics that a rye can bring forward. Um, and instead of just the bolder profiles that come with a, a higher rye content whiskey.

Yeah. And I'll just add that, you know, this is a, this is a rye whiskey that you can drink all day, every day. You know, it's, I truly enjoy it and. Now that I've had the opportunity for a few years to really engage with whiskey lovers and first time whiskey lovers, I can't tell you how many times I've done tastings where someone walked away or at the end, they'll like, hey, that rye, that was my favorite. Never had it before. Or they remember that first high rye experience. There's a lot of nice high ryes, don't get me wrong, but it's a different experience. And I think someone for their first time, you know, that sweetness, you know, ours is so well balanced, that corn, that rye. So, you know, fair amount of sweetness, fair amount of spice. And then, you know, keeping up with Michter's tradition, it's a very smooth whiskey.

So I always kind of wonder, you know, Like you said, I think most high rise either a hundred percent or that 95, five have a pungent nose to it. And it can be offsetting. And I hear that all the time. It's like, I don't like her eyes. And then I'll be like, well, I want you to try this right here. And it's a Kentucky rye and they're like, it's bourbon. I don't know. It's not a bourbon. It's a, it's a rye whiskey. It's just, you got to know the, the mash bills and stuff like that. And you get the, Come to drink it. And they're like, Oh, that's so amazing. It's different than bourbon, but it's different than those high rise. And, and I, I, I love it. You know, a lot of people would be surprised, right? Yeah.

One of the things I feel, I feel strongly about this is, is a rye is kind of that next logical step. Once you've tasted a bourbon, you need to go taste a rye because it's going to introduce something to you that you haven't had before. It's going to introduce that real, that aromatic spice, that aroma, those lighter, more airy notes, but they're spicy a little bit. Sometimes it's a menthol, sometimes it's a cedar, sometimes it's a little bit of a honeysuckle. honeysuckle. But, um, as you're developing your palate, as you're learning to taste and appreciate whiskies, ryes play a big important role in that because they're, they're, they're all together different, but at the same time they're wonderful in their own right.

So this rye right here has got that, not just honeysuckle, it's got that floral shop. You know, you go into a shop to get roses or flowers for your sniffkin other and you walk in there and that, that, All that scent is coming out of those flowers, and it just smells beautiful, like on a hot summer day or something. I don't know, as a man, I like that smell. I like to smell that stuff, and it's kind of like my wife's perfume. I know her scent when I smell it. She wears the same perfume she's been wearing forever, and it makes me smile when I smell that smell. If I pick up some of her clothing or something off the floor, I smell that and I'm like, wow, I love that smell. Same thing with this rye whiskey right here. That nose is so familiar to me. That candy sweetness.

A lot of times when we're drinking a rye, you and I are able to think about it in terms of what season of the year we think it might be appropriate for. This one's kind of an all-around, kind of good in the spring, good in the fall, good in the summer and winter. I think I could drink this any time of the year. It doesn't have that flavor. It kind of reserves itself. Oh, this would be a deep winter rye, you know, something I need to cuddle up with when I'm chilly.

Probably drink more rye. I get asked, you know, what's your favorite expression? That's hard to say. What's your favorite expression? But I know it's more of a, you know, a daily drinker. And yeah, year round, I, you know, I typically drink my whiskey's neat. So whether it's 95 out or not to me, this rye still goes very well with anything.

Yeah. I always say that. People ask me how I drink, why I drink this whiskey neat, or why I drink it like I drink it. And I like to drink it the way you two pulled it out of the barrel, or you proved it down to where you thought it was good. And I'm like, I want to see what that artist is doing. I want to experience what they got to experience. And that's the only way to do that. Once you stick some water in there or some ice cube, you've went away from your artistry. And that's just my thoughts, big chief's thoughts right there, deep thoughts, big chief. But that's just my thought. I want to see what was in your mind at that time. And I try to sit there and imagine, hey, what was you thinking? When you were trying to get this out of the barrel at the right time, you proved it down to where you wanted to prove it down to that taste. And that's the magic you two have.

Well, I was just going to say, I think that's one of the things with whiskey that, you know, there's so many beautiful whiskeys out there, but I would just say, and a lot of people say this, you know, it's nothing new, but. Try it first, neat, or there's just a little bit, and then enjoy it the way you enjoy it. I love a good cocktail, but I let the professionals make the cocktail. And I think that's one of the things. But I truly enjoy it neat. Never add ice to it. And I agree. That's a way for me to enjoy it. But at the end of the day, people need to enjoy it the way they're going to. But I think you do miss out if you don't try it neat that very first time to actually see what we were aiming for, what we wanted to represent as mickters, whether it's a small batch bourbon or single barrel rye.

I will let you guys know, we've got a small place that Mike and I like to, when we want to get away from things and have a few drinks and just chit chat with our wives and just have a night out and down. We've got a place that we call our little home spot we go to. And they asked us to design a flight for them. So we designed a flight for the bar and the Michter's Rye is number three on that flight.

Amazing. Thank you so much.

So we already like it.

as close as that.

Yeah, that's to clue us in because we have spouses too. We like to go out.

It is out in Shelbyville. So it's out of, it has a piece out there. We live in Shelby County. So the barrel room is owned by old Lowell Bury. And me and Jim have been lucky enough to help them with kind of curating their bourbon in that bar. And they said, Hey, we would like you guys to come up with your own bourbon road flight. And it's nice to go in there and look on the menu and you'll see the bourbon road flight on there. So it was two weeded bourbons and, or yeah, two weeded bourbons and a rye and a rye bourbon. Right. Yeah. Obviously we both got our, our go-to's mine is weller cause it's a wheat and you know, how could you not go with weller? Right. And then Jim was a wild Turkey guy. So a wild Turkey bourbon and then a maker's mark cast strength. And then the mickters, right? So for super respected whiskeys on our flight. Um, and we, we chose it for that reason. That was our reason. Some people were like, why would you choose those ones? And we're like, that's us. That's us. That's how we'd like to drink whiskey.

That's amazing. That's really great. And shout out to the barrel room. So we'll have to pay them a visit personally and thank them for that. That's really great. I'm enchanted by this rye. I think that it's beautiful in classic cocktails. I think it's beautiful, neat. I think it has a lot of flavor. It has very nice nose for the proof that it's drinking at. This is you know an eighty four point eight proof whiskey but it it drinks just lovely and you know if i could take this opportunity one of the most special things about me that. I would just call out is our low entry proof. So we enter all of our whiskey into wood at 103 entry proof. So when we come out of wood, we're going to come out much lower than if we had gone into wood at 125 proof, meaning we went in 125, we'd come out over 135 proof or higher. Going in at 103, we come out maybe around 110 on average, and then we're not having to add as much water. So just as an example for the bourbon that we were doing, We had over 25% less water at bottle, or excuse me, 50% less water at bottling. So when you think about that, we're 75% whiskey in the barrel, we're 25% water. And people might say, well, what's the benefit of adding all that water up front? that water is a powerful hydrolyzer. So when you talk about wood sugar, you talk about all the advantages of the compounds that we're deriving from that wood, we want to take advantage of all of that. And the water affords us the opportunity to do that and marry with the whiskey over time. Whereas if you're adding water at the end, It's it's really just dilution at that point you're not getting the same advantage might get more cases. But you know it's really not giving you as much advantage so coming out the lower proof we believe creates that smoother richer easier drinking. whiskey that is akin to some of the old, you know, whiskeys, sort of the dusty bottle era, if you will, where people talk about those beautiful caramels and sweetness and butter characters and things like that that give a richness, which I think is what's really special about this rye. You drink it and it's not necessarily what you would necessarily expect as a rye. It's a beautiful, there's a lot of caramel and vanilla, but there's also the traditional baking spice, but it all marries together very well.

Yeah. But there's a cost to achieve that. Sure. You know, adding more water up front costs, you know, more barrels. Um, but it's well worth it. And that just, again, We have this kind of cost-be-dam approach here at Michter's. And if it shows results, we have a fun exercise where we've taken some of the distillate. And when we're reducing it and proof for barrel entry, we'll stop at the 125 just for this exercise and then lower it to 103, enter it into the barrels, fully age them next to each other. And then you can come back out and do a side-by-side. And you'll see the difference. You know, we always say we didn't try it to make bad whiskey. It's still a good whiskey, but it's not the profile we were looking for.

So is it subtle or is it night and day?

I think it depends on the individual. I think for me, it's dramatically different. I think it's dramatically different on the nose. I think it's different on the palate. And I think it's different in the terms of a stringency that you experience and also just the weight of the whiskey. I think the 103 is exceptional. There's actually some records on file here locally at the Filson Historical Society that actually Some of the old distillers testified in 1888 to the federal Congress that the gold standard for entry proof of whiskey was between 102 and 105. Wow. And I think there's a lot of heritage around these lower entry proof whiskies. The proof entry changed in the 60s. It's now 125 entry proof is the maximum. It used to be 110. And then it changed because again, there was a downtime in the whiskey community and distillers were trying to figure out ways to manage their costs. And if you can increase the proof, you lessen the amount of barrels you need and you lessen the amount of barrel spaces that you need. So it was a measure to manage cost, you know, during the, you know, starting in the mid sixties when the industry was not really not doing well.

And we do this for all of our whiskies. It's not like, Hey, we have a special release. Let's just do it for that. You know, as, as a cost savings measure, it's all our whiskies are going in at that low barrel entry proof.

Well, heck, let's, let's try this thing.

Oh, I just love getting into all the detail that I mean, I love sipping on whiskey while listening to the, you know, sort of the science behind what's going on here. It's just great.

Oh, I didn't realize anybody wasn't drink wasn't hadn't drink theirs. I was already over here sipping on. I felt bad. I was like, man, I'm over here just drinking this and say anything to anybody.

Yeah, we're kind of empty. We are, aren't we? I think we're up on a break. You know, we've had a couple of amazing whiskeys for the first half. I think we've got some barrel-proof whiskeys in our future here. Why don't we take a short break? When we come back, we'll talk a little bit more about what Michter's has going on, and we'll taste those barrel-strength whiskeys.

Great.

Sounds good. We'll be right back.

Hey listeners, you know something really great we got going on? July 23rd, USA Cares, they are a charity for veterans. Me and Jim are both veterans. It's something really dear near to our heart. We've been asked to help curate their bourbon gala where they're giving away bottles at the gala. You buy a $50 ticket at the gala. You get a chance to get any one of those bottles. But we're trying to help curate that collection of bourbon. So if you want to reach out to me on my email, Mike at The Bourbon Road or Jim at The Bourbon Road or one of our DMs online, go to our Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies, reach out to us. If you want to donate a bottle of that, if you're a distillery out there, if you got a large collection, you got some Dusty sitting around, you want to help us out, help veterans out. We would really appreciate that. You can look up usacares.org and check out the gala. It really does help veterans out. They gave away about $17 million to not only veterans, but service members that need a hand up. It helps pay rent. It helps pay electric bills. It might help put a wheelchair ramp in for a disabled veteran. It does a lot of good for us. We really appreciate that. But sir, you know what we love? We love some seldom seen farms. I'm 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've 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. We're over here in Shively, Kentucky. I know you're wondering where Shively's at, but all the bourbon is made over here. So that's why we're here. We're at Michter's today. We were with Andrea and Dan. We're drinking a little whiskey. I'm having some fun. Jim, are you having fun? I'm having a great time. Are you kidding me? This is like dreamland here. Yes. Well, to me, it's kind of like going home, you know, and it's nice to work with two great professionals. I sent Andrea an email and said, how easy you made this whole process for us. And I can't say thank you enough. It makes our job a little bit easier. That set up time of a podcast takes a while, right? To get four people's schedule matched up. And we're lucky to have Dan in here too. Dan came back to work today, taking some time off, relaxing.

Yeah, just for this. Just for us, I feel pretty special. I heard there was free whiskey, so.

Was it really free though? You got to, nothing's free in life.

I've donated some loss of hair up here.

Yeah. Well, I think, you know, one of the things that we can say is that we're going to amp it up just a little bit this half, because in the first half we were drinking your standard expressions of both your bourbon and your rye. They were delightful. Both of them were wonderful. I think Mike and I were already big fans before we came. And now we're going to get to try something with a little more proof to it.

Yeah, this is very exciting. This is well worth coming into work today. Something that we're going to share today is our Victor's Limited Release Barrel Strength Kentucky Straight Bourbon. Now, this is a Kentucky-only release, so it truly is very limited. Now, unfortunately, as all our whiskies are allocated, it is something that we have to deal with. We have to be very thoughtful on our allocations when we do limited releases because you know here we are a barrel strength now you're taking away from that you know our small batch us one kentucky straight bourbon but it's such a beautiful i'm glad that we do Release this Andrea spoke about that you know our barrel entry proof is very low at a hundred and three proof so typically you know we mentioned that you know taste profile nine age statement so usually comes out of the barrel somewhere around a hundred and ten but it can be a little lower your night. around 112. Well today it's 114.4 for this expression that we're going to enjoy here and love for you guys to try it and see what you guys think.

So that's the upper end of it.

Yeah it is on the upper end.

Is it a little rare to get that high or is it just sort of that end of the band?

I think it's more just at that end, but that, you know, again, one 10, one, you know, one 12, it's kind of that one.

I would always say it's like a bell curve, right? So you're going to get, you know, some of that maybe are a little lower than one 10. Then you're going to get a whole bunch between one 10, one 12. And then you're going to get a few that kind of, you know, tail off.

Let's, let's talk about that real fast before you sip on this. And I'm worried. I gotta go quick. Cause Jim's over here. He's got the glass in his hand. Thanks Mike.

It's very close to his mouth.

The difference between a foolproof and a barrel strength. Can you tell our listeners what that is?

So barrel strength means that it's not cut by water. So we're going to take it directly out of the barrel. And we're going to custom chill filter it because all of our whiskeys go through custom chill filtration. But that's it. Then it'll go to be bottled. And we do that barrel for barrel. So this particular barrel was released at, what was it again? 114.4.

So you guys hand write your labels or are they printed on the, the, the proofs?

Some, some labels are handwritten. Um, the barrel strength is not handwritten. We started that way, but then it, it just, it became too much to try to do it.

So now get that hand cramp.

You know, it is modeled. It is modeled off an actual person's handwriting that the way it's written. Um, and so, um, yeah, but it's, it's a printed label now.

Can I, can I do it now?

I know it's killing you.

Wow. Yeah, you can definitely tell. It's a little bit deeper, a little bit more richness to it. Now, this is the same as the other, but this is just at barrel strength. So really no difference in age. You hand select barrels a little differently for this.

Now, and it's interesting because a lot of people talk about, you know, the honey holes in a warehouse. We don't really operate on that methodology. Our warehouses are four floors. So if you go to our Shively facility here, we have one on-site warehouse. that has three floors, just because our height is an issue here in proximity to the airport. But our new warehouses that we're building in Springfield, Kentucky, where we have another campus, those warehouses are four floors high. We also lease some warehouses that we've retrofitted for our heat cycling. methodology that are also four floors high so four floors for us we're trying to get continuity of a warehouse we're not trying to have the seventh floor aging differently than the first floor and trying to we want the warehouse to age uniformly because we do so much single barrel product and because our batches are so small. We can't afford to have all of that deviation and variation. So it's a really important part of our philosophy as it relates to our warehouses that we want to have consistent aging within our warehouses.

I wanted to ask, and I probably should have asked this on the first half, because it has to do with water. You know, and you go outside of Kentucky or you're in Kentucky and people are like, oh, Bourbon's only from Kentucky because of the limestone water. And I'm like, there's limestone deposits all over the United States, especially in my home state of Texas. There's limestone county, there's limestone everywhere. A lot of caves there in Texas, like there are caves here in Kentucky because of that limestone, right? The water you get here isn't coming out of a limestone cave anywhere. But I do know you guys have something special here with limestone, if I remember right, taking the tour.

Yeah, so we actually here in Shively, we actually have a tank that all of our water comes in and it's fitted with limestone. So it's giving us additional exposure to limestone. before we use it in our process. Kentucky is important. Like you said, there are other locations, but one of the advantages of being in Kentucky with regard to water is you get the beautiful filtration through the aquifer here, which filters out iron, manganese, other things that are not great for for making whiskey, and we get all of that by natural benefit. We don't have to do anything to treat the water. We can use the water directly coming in. Now, I agree with you. Water is very important, and water quality is very important. So one of the foundational ingredients to making whiskey is water. If you do not have good water quality, you're not going to have great whiskey. So it is a very, very important element of making great quality whiskey. I also think depending on the different regions of the country, the water can influence the profile of the spirit too. I know right now we're talking about bourbon and rye, but for example, if you took a tour and traveled around Scotland and you taste the water, and you taste the whiskey as you travel around, you can see the similarities between the whiskey and the water because regionally it is so different.

I think it has to any spirit or, you know, beer. Um, you know, one of my favorite beers to drink when I'm out at a bar, if I'm gonna drink a beer instead of a whiskey is a just old Coors banquet, right? So you sent me to drink a couple of those.

Not single-handed.

I always have too, it seems like. But that, to me, that Coors beer has that mineral taste because of the water they're using. And I think that's so important, just as limestone water is. And I always thought that's so neat. Every time I think about mixtures, I think of those giant slabs of limestone inside that tank. And I just, I was so fascinated by that when we came on that tour. Everybody else is walking on, I'm down there seeing how you bolted them in. how they're in the tank. And I'm asking all kinds of questions. And I think Dan was, both of you guys were walking us around on that tour. And I was like, Hey, come here for a second. Let me ask you questions. Cause I'm, they're, they're probably wondering about the whiskey. Let's get back to the whiskey that everybody else on the tour. But I was so fascinated with, Hey, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that? And asking questions like that. Like, where's that? Where's the big hopper for the weed at? That's what I was thinking. Right.

But it just it goes back and just shows you how every little element of the process can change the overall profile of that whiskey. I mean, starting at the beginning, you know, we're using, you know, corn, rye, malted barley, all US grade number one, non GMO. So to us, starting out with the highest quality grains, you know, we do the sour mash process in our whiskey. So all of our whiskeys are of the sour match process. You know, we do the mashing, fermentation, and then we've got a wonderful distillation system, you know, handcrafted by Vendome, 100% copper. It's a 46 foot tall, 32 inch diameter, continuous column still to a doubler pot still, again, all copper, just making a nice, beautiful, clean distillate that's still very flavorful. It's exceptional. So just starting that with what yeast you use, the recipe and your mash bills, of course. And then at that point you know we we we produce that beautiful distillate and then we send it off to the warehouse and you know as Andrea mentioned we we we reduce it down to 103 proof but you know the barrels the wood that you choose is extremely impactful. Different changes and I'll let Andrea talk a little farther, but just going into the very beginning, the wood for our barrels are air dried, seasoned for a minimum of 18 months all the way to 60 months. And again, that goes back to that's for all of our products. It's, you know, it's very expensive to have someone near dry the wood for at least 18 months, even longer.

And what are those barrels coming out of for pictures?

So we typically source the wood from the Ozark region. We may have some specialty products where we're sourcing it. For example, we did Shinx in, I think, 2018. We used some French oak for that product. We may source from Kentucky or Virginia for some things such as Jinkapin oak. But predominantly we're sourcing from the Ozark region because we feel like we get a finer, tighter grain of wood out of that region, which is a big source of flavor. And what we're trying to do is extract as much as we can from the wood. So that lends itself to, you know, when Dan talks about natural seizing and air drying, A lot of folks will say just, you know, I want to get my barrels, I want to get them charred, and I want to get them as soon as possible. And that's fine. A lot of great bourbons and rye are produced that way. We want to invest behind the natural seasoning and air drying because we don't want to just physically change the wood. We want to chemically and microbiologically change the wood. So, you know, most people don't realize, but, you know, when you naturally season and air dry and you set your wood outside all year long, every year, for a long period of time, it's starting to break down the wood. It's starting to change the profile of the wood. It's getting rid of bitter astringent green characters. It's giving way to more aromatic characters. but it's also starting to grow fungi. And those fungi will ultimately metabolize wood compounds that give you access to other profiles in the wood. So I think it's an amazing process that really, again, it's about the decisions that you make will ultimately influence the final outcome of the product. And then we're going to toast the barrels before we char them. So everybody knows charring, the ignition of the wood, it's beautiful. You see the barrel go up in flames and you're somewhere between a flash char and maybe up to a minute or a minute, a few seconds. but the toasting is the art of slow heating the wood over time so you know toasting may take hours i'm trying only take seconds toasting is going to break down different compounds that you can then extract into your whiskey charring will help you kind of a lighter char is gonna give you more access to your. fruit esters and your spice characteristics, whereas darker chars are going to give you more of the wood and darker components in the whiskey, the mocha characters, the tobacco, the smoke, all of those things. So it really is, while there's a finite amount of science here that is employed when you make whiskey, there's a tremendous amount of artistry and trying to define what you want that final product to look like.

You think those. So for people that don't know where the Ozarks are, it's southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, little bit of Oklahoma right there. The oldest mountain ranges in the world. For what everybody knows, they're really mountains there no more. They're just worn down. It's more of a plateau, but. You know, people that are buying their wood up here in Kentucky or Minnesota or anywhere else you can get wood at. I'm wondering if there's more sugar in that wood in Missouri, Arkansas, because the sap isn't pushed out so much in the wintertime like you would have in a northern region where sap is just pouring out of those trees where those southern climates, you don't get that much.

I think there could be something to that. I mean, I think that the wood that we are using has a high amount of wood sugar associated with it. I've personally not done the comparison to other parts of the country, but I think that would be a great project to do some work on.

Once again, deep thoughts with big chief. This is what I said.

You know, it's kind of neat because we've, we've, we've learned a lot about barrels and the construction of barrels and toasting and charring and all the things that go into, you know, uh, crafting a barrel, but I'd never heard about the fungi before and their contribution to it all. So that's interesting to hear that. That's, that's something.

What's both of your backgrounds? Let's get into that a little bit, because we really don't know your backgrounds. I'm sure some listeners do, but not everybody does.

I am a master of chemical engineering by trade. I spent a lot of time in consulting. I did a lot of manufacturing work. I did everything from cookies to oil. and then ultimately wanted to be in the spirits industry. That was my goal. Went to work for Diageo for many years, had a great career with them, ultimately ran their North American distilling and maturing business. So oversaw products like Bullitt and Dickel, George Dickel, Crown Royal and Seagrams and other things that they did. and then ultimately left there and came to Michter's to be a part of building something really special. And I've always just been enchanted by the philosophy of quality and building something from the ground up with a quality philosophy as something really special. And I'm really glad to be a part of it.

What about you, Dan?

Yeah, mine was a little different into the industry. You know, I have some degree in criminal justice and management and so forth, but I come from a construction background. But 16 years ago, I had the opportunity to I come into the industry as a distillery operator for Jim beam at the Claremont distillery. And then about two years into it I had the opportunity to promote up to distillery supervisor at the Boston distillery the book or no distillery and. You know i at that point i had the opportunity to work with a lot of great people that had so much knowledge i mean cuz you know as they are a large operation you also see a lot of things a lot of moving parts and you know people with ten twenty thirty forty years experience. You know that was very impactful to my career and and at that point at the book or no distillery I worked under Pam Howman who is our master distiller of merit us. So I worked with her all over 10 years and gained a lot of experience. And then a little over seven years ago, I had the opportunity to join mixers when phase three was in place and it was the construction of the distillery was ongoing. I joined them as a distillery manager. And, you know, again, the opportunities to work with people in the industry that, you know, Give so much and so much knowledge, you know, working with Andrea, Pam Howman, Willie Pratt, our first master distiller, you know, again, with our president, Joe Melioca, he's been in the industry for a long time. So there's just a lot. And then, you know, here we are, you know, Willie retired, Pam moved up. And then, you know, a few years later, she retired. And, you know, I was you know, promoted to master distiller. I'm very honored. I'm very humble about it. Very thankful that, you know, the Michter's family thinks enough to, you know, allow me to have this position and work side by side with Andrea. And we have a great team, whether it's, you know, Kyle Lloyd or Vice President of Research and Matt Bell are Vice President of Production and Distiller. It's just a great team all the way through. It's pretty impressive. And that's the other thing here. I mentioned a few people there, but there's so many others. We have chemists on staff, chemical engineers. We have a person working in the warehouse with over 20 years experience bringing that knowledge here. So it's pretty exciting. And I always tell my son as he's getting older, surround yourself with successful people. You'll be successful. And that's been kind of the model here. It's pretty impressive.

Something that sticks in my mind that before we started the episode, I mean, we're talking and stuff and we were talking about somebody you'd worked with before that had been on our podcast, Marlene Holmes, and something that's super impressive to me about you that I take notice of as a leader, you said, you know what? She gave me so much knowledge, even though I was her boss, I still would seek her out for knowledge and what works. And that's what a true leader does is seeks out those people that have that knowledge and tries to make a true team out of it, not just saying, hey, I'm at the top and not everything I say goes. You were trying to educate yourself and who else better to get education from with somebody like her?

Oh, most definitely. I mean, Marlene, great person, great operator at the time when we worked at Jim Beam. Yeah, I was distillery supervisor, but you have an operator with all those years of experience. They've seen a lot. They understand it. And those are, you know, Without those opportunities you can't just jump and then come to mickters and then be expected to start up a distillery and you know understand I mean that that's been one of my biggest successes you know hard work but also seeing the different moving parts it's not just. the chemistry and seeing the disclet come to the tail boxes but you gotta you know whether it's receiving grain understanding how to run the greenery the the boilers all the support systems the understanding the mashing milling mashing fermentation and distilling and you know so. my education didn't just come from the textbook. It came from on the job training, learning from everybody. And there's the highest amount of respect. And, you know, again, that's why I mentioned, you know, working with Pam and Willie and Andrea just right there, you know, there's many years of experience there. I mean, Willie had over 40 years experience and, you know, 100% you take from that. And that's,

Helps you grow so you worked for Pam before but Andrea who decided say let's bring you Um, Dan is our master. Let's hire this man right here. Was you, were you part of that process?

So Pam, Pam was an integral part of that because, you know, when she came over to McDirs under no uncertain terms, she told Joe that, you know, Dan was an amazing individual. And I will stand by that. I mean, you know, what Dan's not telling you is that, you know, we, we aren't, um, We may be faces that people know, but we actually are worker bees. We actually do real work. We work with the team. We are constantly building this, and it's part of what we do, and we're super passionate about it. There's not one thing here that you know, oh, sorry, we don't do that. You know, we're involved in a lot of things. And I think Dan is being very humble about, you know, the role that he plays here. But I think, you know, Pam played an instrumental role in bringing him in. And I think as a team, as a company, we're grateful for dan and all of the knowledge that he is imparted here in his experiences but i think it's also exciting to see the team i mean you know one of i think the greatest honors is to work with people and see them come into their own and see them bring their ideas and their you know. we're developing the future. We will go on at some point and, you know, our legacy will be here. But a new generation is coming forward. And I think that's very exciting for for McDirs and for the industry.

I will tell our listeners how in the weed you to get and how humble you really are. Um, and I'm a very observant person when I'm at an event, I am seeing what other distilleries are doing. I like to watch and see how they're interacting with people. And we're walking around at this past year's, uh, Kentucky bourbon festival and these two gym, they're not out front. Um, like doing nothing. They're behind the bar, pouring drinks, making drinks. And to me, that says so much because very few industry leaders are back behind that bar doing that. And you two were back there just, and it was hot that day. I mean, it was, It was hot. It was hot. It was super hot. But you back there, you know, most distilleries will bring in a sales team and to do that stuff or they'll hire part-time people. But you two were there. You were pouring the drinks and putting in the work and stuff. And I would tell people, they were like, who's, who do you see out here? And I'm like, you'd go over to Mickers, the master stiller, the master of maturation. They're both over there pouring drinks and get them to pour you a drink of the bourbon that they made. And just to have a couple words with them is a pretty amazing experience.

We try to always be a part of it. We have a great team that participates in those events also. But yeah, I mean, we're usually always there. It's got to be a reason why we want to be a part of some of it and not just like speaking engagements for sure. you know, that's one of the biggest successes and says something about Michter's again, we're still that small medium sized distillery and we're trying to grow, but it's through friendships that you do this, whether it's the bartender, the restaurant, you know, who knows, but if you're not out there engaging and making impactful, and I think most people, when they walk away, they can see it was legitimate, and you know, I appreciate you saying those kind words, but, Um, you know, this is my livelihood, our livelihood. And, and if you don't take it serious and there's a lot of pride behind it.

That's, that's marketing 101 right there. Believing in what you're doing and love what you're doing and stuff. It's just like this podcast of, you know, if we're not putting love into it, then probably shouldn't be doing it. But that's what we try to do. I know Jim's over here looking at this next row.

I did want to make a final comment on the one we just finished. And I think everybody's pretty much finished. I've got one drop left in my, in my glass. This is the barrel strength bourbon. And, uh, I have to say that it's rich to the point of decadence. I think it's, it's just, it's got this just amazing, wonderful richness to it. I'm sitting across here looking at the bottle and the bottles, you know, six feet across the table from me, but it's so dark and it's just got that wonderful, um, deep dark. chocolatey, mahogany brown to it, right? What do you think, Mike? I love it. But that's, you know, that's just a testament to the work you've done here. Your barrel strength is not something that's going to set your mouth on fire. It's well balanced, it's rich, it's creamy, but it's got wonderful notes. You can pick a bunch of them out. If we want to sit here and pick out notes, we can probably pick them out all day long. But wonderful, beautiful, beautiful whiskey. I look forward to the rye.

Thank you. You know, that's again, going back, that's what I love. A hundred, you know, this one happened to be 114.4, but it was still smooth. I feel no need to kind of chase it with water or anything like that. And again, I, you know, it's a testament of Nick, there's whiskies and, and again, you're right. The color it's beautiful.

Well, we got one more barrel strength whiskey in front of us.

Andrea, you want to? Yeah.

I'm excited about this. I know. So we're going to do our barrel strength rye, which is a highly regarded whiskey all over the world. I mean, a lot of Michter's whiskies have tremendous accolades, but this is one that has a special following all over the globe. Everyone loves our barrel strength rye. What we're drinking today is 114.4 proof and it's a delightful whiskey. So you'll remember, you know, we spoke earlier just about the beauty and elegance of the rye. This is now at cast strength and it is spectacular whiskey.

got a great nose on it. That honeysuckle is just there pulling me in, you know, that deep rich honey that you get on that hot summer day and you're walking down that road and that honeysuckle just popping.

I know people are probably wondering, where do you see all this honeysuckle at? You just probably saw it once in your lifetime, just stuck with you.

No, I've had to clean some honeysuckle out of some fence rows before. It's not a pleasant job. It smells good. It's just not pleasant when it grows in there and kind of weaves itself in.

I just noticed in all these that we're drinking, including this one, and we're just on the nose of the barrel strength right now, but the barrel is so ever-present in all of these. It stands out. I'm not saying it's woody. I'm not saying there's too much oak in it. It's well-balanced, but the barrel is very present. It's a prominent note.

Before we sip on this, your warehouses are temperature controlled. You're not letting them get down below freezing or what is it, 42 degrees that the maturation stops. Am I wrong on that?

No, that's right. Typically for us, we won't go below 50.

So that maturation process is still happening throughout the day, throughout the year at all times. You're getting that wood to work for you, which has got to be a little bit costly, right?

Yeah, so during the winter months, we also heat cycles. So we're going to increase the temperature in the warehouse, which in turn increases the pressure inside the barrel, forces the whiskey into the capillaries of the wood. Then we hold for a period of time, turn off the heat, cool down. whiskey will flow back to the center of the cask, pulling all the richness from the wood, which is what we want. So during the winter, that heat cycling process increases the interaction between the wood and the whiskey, which in turn is gonna increase the maturing quality of the final product. So we can't put this kind of stuff on the label, but we just know by doing it and running the analysis on it that something that we do the natural way versus doing this increased heat cycling, the maturing quality does increase. It increases the profile of the spirit, it increases the texture of the spirit, it increases the experience for the consumer, and so we always say for Every year that we heat cycle, we could get about an additional six months of maturing quality. So if we said the product was six years old, we'd be expecting the experience to land somewhere eight to nine years old for the consumer comparatively. So it's a really, really special, another one of our things that we do. I always tell people we have six core philosophies here that we employ to make our whiskies. Other companies may do one or two of those, but you will not find any that are doing all six of them because in many cases it's incredibly expensive to do many of these things.

Well, it must've been good because Dan over there, he's done. He's done.

Dan loves, loves, loves our barrel string fry.

Dan's like, if you're just talking, I'm going to go ahead and just take it. Yeah, it's no secret. Well, cheers. Cheers. I'm well into it, by the way. Now that is viscous right there. More than any other thing else I've drank today. Super buttery. Yeah. Honey butter, honey butter right there. That's what I'm getting out of that.

Um, yeah, but it's aromatic. It's got a little bit of citrus, not too much, but just a little bit of citrus to it. But those, uh, those baking spices are just prominent. The barrel shows up. It's present. I love it, Mike. It's very, very rich. I'm trying to think now because, you know, I'm a big rye lover. I love ryes, but I was bowled over by that bourbon. It was so good. The barrel strength, well, both purposes, but the barrel strength is what I had most recently. This might take the cake. Yeah. I can see why Dan was over there drinking away on it.

He's a happy man right now.

Yeah, no, I just truly enjoy it.

I see why Andrea kept those bottles over there for her though. Yeah, she knows me. I would have been over there pouring a second drink. I'd be like, you know what, these guys didn't notice this. Just let me get a second sip of this.

Yeah, I could definitely sit and analyze this for just a minute. Yeah, yeah.

You were talking about your team and stuff and building that next generation, right? Is there somebody on staff now that you're thinking, man, this is the next person right here that we want to see rise up? And I'm sure there's several people like that. Um,

Well, there are several and you know, I'll just, you know, speak from the distillery. Something that's very exciting for me is, you know, our distillery senior supervisor, Ariel, you know, he started out as one of our very first distillery operator. And he came from, just like me, a different career. And he was very intelligent, hardworking, and he's been there from the beginning. I mean, since the first day, he helped also with the construction and helping out through that process. But also, again, us being those first ones to turn the valves and send beer to the beer still. And he's just picked up on it. Again, hard worker. Very intelligent and and to watch him promote up is very special but yeah he's just one of many on the team.

I would also say, I don't want to forget our Fort Nelson distillery, because we have another distillery in downtown Louisville, which has our old pot stills from Pennsylvania, which is super cool, you know, in terms of sort of mickters kind of coming full circle now, or the new modern mickters now, but having those old pot stills is also affording us an opportunity to do some really interesting things for future using some of our grains from our Springfield farm where we're growing a state-grown grains now. But we have a talented team down there as well. Joey Bender is our distillery supervisor down there. And so, you know, it's fascinating, you know, when they come to you and they ask you things and you're like, wow, that's interesting, I hadn't even thought about that. Because we all do it. When you're kind of new in your career, and you're trying to advance, and you're learning, and you're taking your knowledge, and you're applying it, and you're learning more things, and you're modifying, and you're changing, and you're growing, it's a very exciting thing. And it's a very exciting time for mickters. And I think that's part of, you know, when you think about all the things on the list of exciting things that we can do in a day, certainly, you know, barrel strength whiskeys is high on the list, you know, regular whiskeys are wonderful too. I mean, it's just, it's something that we adore. But I would also say for myself, and I don't want to speak for you, Dan, but I know we've talked about it. it's exciting to have people come to you and say, what do you think about? And how, what do you think about using this type of wood on this style of whiskey? And I was doing this reading and you're like, wow, this is amazing. It's exciting. Um, and that's one of the things that makes me sort of, you know, enthusiastic about, you know, being in this business is, is the next generation and how whiskey, how transformative whiskey will be, you know, into that next generation.

And seeing their energy too. I mean, because they come at you, you know, the team comes to you like this idea, this idea. And, you know, it's, and we're doing some of them and it's exciting to see. And, you know, with our distillate on the distillation side of things, We would, you know, we have a good idea, you know, at year one, year two and how it's progressing. We've had things where like, okay, let's stop, but we have many things that are, you know, that really have an opportunity to be, you know, something great here in a few years and, and that's input from the team. And, um, yeah, so it's, it's pretty exciting.

Now we're at your Shirely location and this is not where you entertain guests. You mentioned your Fort Nelson distillery in downtown Louisville. That's your operation where guests are welcome to come and visit. Learn more about Michter's. Visit the distillery there and learn a lot about your products. We all expect, and I think it's already happening, that tourism is picking up in Louisville so people are hitting the Bourbon Trail this year. I think this could be a banner year for the Bourbon Trail. I really do.

I 100% agree with you. It is phenomenal the amount of guests that we're already seeing and we're not three months into the year. It's just amazing.

I was going to say Fort Nelson, your staff there should be commended. Somebody I work with was advancing to chief petty officer and he wanted to have his advancement. He's a very big bourbon drinker. He wanted to have his advancement to chief petty officer there at Fort Nelson and your staff there took care of him. They had their advancement there. And they let him fill a bottle of barrel strength over there. Um, I'm sure that he was just over the moon and how he was treated. And they came back to me and they were like, Hey, uh, big chief, man, they told me all about it and the experience they had. And that wore my heart. Cause I knew how military was getting treated there. Um, so there's a lot to your staff there.

Yeah. No, we appreciate you, you saying that. I mean, it's very important to us. And, you know, we spoke about this a little bit earlier, but every person matters, every relationship matters. And, you know, I think, you know, my father was military, your father was military. We have a lot of team members are military. Um, and it's important. It's important. And, um, that's not lost on us.

So when somebody visits the distillery downtown, what can they expect? I mean, what's, what's a distillery experience like today?

So we have a couple of different tour levels. So we have a discovery tour where you'll learn about the distillery, you'll learn about the history of Michter's, a little bit about the historic building. You'll do a wonderful sensory experience and tasting. And then if you choose to visit the bar at Fort Nelson on the second floor, that is open and available. You can book reservations separately. through resi.com. You do not have to actually go on a bourbon tour to visit the bar at Fort Nelson. You can experience flights there and cocktails and all kinds of things. The founders tour is every Friday. You can book a founders tour. And that tour actually gives you exposure to our distillery operators. So you get to interact with them a little bit, maybe ask a different level of questions, things you've always wanted to know, a little more into the detail of how pot still distillation works. And then there's the legacy tour. Uh, the legacy tour is the highest level tour we offer there. It is done by one of our senior team members. So either myself or Dan or Matt Bell, who's our vice president of production and distiller or, um, Kyle Lloyd, who is our vice president of research and development. One of the four of us will do that tour takes about two hours and we really go into detail and you get some. you know, with both the Founders Tour and the Legacy Tour, you get a different level of expressions to experience. And, you know, we spend more time, you know, with the guests to allow them to really be, you know, an intrinsic part of what we're doing.

And at the gift shop there, you have, you know, various mixtures, items like shirts and hats and things like that and glassware, but you can also fill a bottle there, right?

Correct. You can fill a bottle of Barrel Strength Rye, which we just tasted, which is a really special experience. People who get a wonderful, beautiful box that it comes in that you get to customize either for yourself or as a gift to someone else. The same with the bottle. You get to customize it for yourself or someone else. And you can't not smile when you fill a bottle. You just cannot. We have learned by demonstration that no one cannot smile when they fill a bottle. Everyone smiles. It's a wonderful thing. It's a very fun experience. People videotape, take pictures. It's a big celebration and it's something that I think is really special.

And, and you know, just on the distillery side of things, it's, it is a fully operational distillery. Um, you know, as Andrea mentioned, the equipment has a. Beautiful history coming from the mickters in Schafferstown, Pennsylvania, you know, but we have those three, you know, guests will be able to go up on a little platform and look into the three open top Cypress wood fermenters actually seeing fermentation in different stages. And, um, you know, and then, uh, you know, we'll transfer them to the stills pot stills and. And you know we also follow those same quality standards over there just because it was our you know quote unquote visitor experience center. It's still you know that's one of the things that's exciting whether it's you know grain coming off our springfield farm trying different mash bills different yeast. You know, different barrels, you know, it's set up also for innovation. So it's not like we're just trying to mimic the same recipe, but using pot stills down there. So, you know, who knows what the future has in hold for us for there, but, you know, still 103 barrel entry proof, same, you know, barrels, same qualities. And so pretty exciting.

So people can find the mixture's products there, you know, on the shelf. And of course, from time to time, I would imagine there's a more allocated bottle available when supplies allow it.

Yes. Um, the Fort Nelson distillery gift shop gets an allocation, um, just like, you know, other folks here in Kentucky. And so how they manage it, I can't say, you know, so I think what they do is they put out bottles from time to time. And if you're lucky enough to be there when they do that, you can scoop up a special release.

How much more fair can you get than that?

I truly do stay out of it that way when I'm asked. I'm like, I really don't know.

Which should I show up, right? We get that a lot, you know, but they kind of do a great job there of managing all of that.

Well, Dan, Andrea, what a great conversation we've had today with you two. Um, uh, just some amazing knowledge that got poured out here today to our listeners. I'm sure all of them will be grateful.

Me and Jim, I think we both learned something every, every time I sit down and learn something new today, it's been two or three things. So yeah, pretty good.

Definitely got an education today. Um, but we can't thank you enough, uh, for coming on the bourbon road, um, kind of taking us down that trip.

Yeah, my pleasure. I'm appreciate it.

We appreciate it very much.

So we talked about doing a giveaway. You guys would partner with us, a hat and a bottle. If our listeners at, let's say four o'clock, Jim, on an Instagram post that we're going to do for this podcast.

On the day that this podcast releases 4 PM in the afternoon Eastern standard time. Yep.

On Instagram, on Instagram, you got to make sure you're following. Um, Michter's obviously you gotta follow these two right here because you both have Instagram accounts. I know that for a fact.

So listen, listen closely people. Cause we do check these facts. Yeah. We know who you follow. You don't follow. Well, it's pretty easy.

So Dan, what's your Instagram handle?

It's at michter's master distiller and Andrea at michter's master of maturation.

So you got to follow those three accounts. We know you're already following us if you're listening to us, but if you're not, go ahead and follow us too. But what I want to know at 4 PM Eastern standard time on the day of this episode, So what I want to know is who was the original founder of Michter's and where did he come from? Meaning what country did he come from? That's what we want to know. We just need a last name, right?

Yeah. Last name and country of origin.

Yeah. So what, what kind of bottle will those listeners get from Michter's?

We are going to give you a bottle of our brand new Barrel Strength Rye just released for 2022.

Man, now listeners, that is a big giveaway. I think that's the biggest giveaway of the year. Highly sought after.

Am I allowed to enter? No, Jim.

No. And just so it's fair, I have to say this again. If you've won something in the past three months, you're not eligible to win this bottle. That allows other listeners to go ahead and win a bottle. I know who you are. I got a little list. Checking it twice. So pretty easy giveaway. We really thank you two for, like I said, coming on, supporting our podcast, Veteran-Owned and Operated. I just, you know, what do you say, Jim?

I say it's been a day to remember. Thank you two so much. We had such a great time here. You're very welcoming. This is your whiskey is just out of this world. I mean, I just love it. I really do. And anytime I can spend an afternoon at Mectors and drink a little bit of whiskey and hang out with these two, sign me up. Sign me up.

Well, Jim, where can you find the Bourbon Road at?

Well, you can find The Bourbon Road on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. You can find us on TikTok. Believe it or not, we do appear on TikTok. We don't dance. No dancing. No dancing. You can also find us on our private Facebook group called The Bourbon Roadies. A whole bunch of people on there. Getting to be a whole lot of people. Like-minded, good friends, good people, sharing whiskey, sharing stories, sharing pictures, just a fun place to be. You only have to answer three questions, Mike.

Yeah. Are you 21? That's what we want you to be, right? Got to be. Legal drinking age in America. Do you like bourbon? Man, everybody likes bourbon. You just got to talk with us a little bit and we'll get you to like it. And do you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any rudeness in that group. We also don't talk about politics, religion, any social issues. What we try to stick to in that group is whiskey. Whether you're drinking from the very bottom of the shelf or whether you're grabbing for that mixture's bottle on that top shelf, that's what we want you to do is showcase your love for America's native spirit. Any other whiskies across the world with that, whether you're drinking Irish whiskey, If you're drinking Australian whiskey, anything you're drinking, we just want to showcase the love for that and build that community. So we really appreciate that.

You can be sure. I mean, if you get out of hand in there, if you're not a nice person, if you chop anybody off at the knees for what they're drinking, you can be sure that old Wyatt Earp will cut you down.

Most definitely, most definitely. So we get two shows a week, Jim, and people got to scroll on up and hit that check sign, that plus sign, that subscribe sign to make sure that they hear our show, one of those two shows, right? What's that first show we always do?

Every Monday we do a craft distillery review. We call it a craft distillery Monday episode. It's about 15 or 20 minutes. Well, Mike and I will choose a bottle from an up and coming distillery, maybe one of the big boys, and we'll do a review of it. We'll tell you whether or not we think you should add it to your bar. But every Wednesday we do a full episode, usually at least an hour in length. We will sit down with some guests like Andrew and Dan here. We will have a great conversation. We'll drink some good whiskey. We'll have a great time. We want you to check out both those shows every week.

Yeah, most certainly. Then we want you to scroll on down, hit that five-star review on that app, add some comments. We really like those comments. The distilleries like to see those comments too, showing that we're putting out great content. You know it'll happen if you don't. The big bad booty daddy of bourbon will come pulling his booty daddy wagon full of mickters bourbon. We'll drink it all night long. By the end of the night, we're all going to be laughing, having a good time. but you'll give us that five star review and some comments. But seriously, those comments, those reviews of our podcast open up the doors to distilleries. It gets great guests on our show, great whiskey in our hands to review. We would really appreciate it.

So Mike and I are real approachable. You can send us an email. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. Probably the best way, we always say this, is hit up our DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down the bourbon road.