255. Those Forgotten Bourbons

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.

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, I got Woodrow up my feet. He's like snuggled up to my toes. He's laid out. He knows there's a podcast going on. We're drinking whiskey. It's a great day at Jephthah Bend Farm. We've got a full-length episode for everybody today. And the topic is kind of. get back into that shelf and figure out what you haven't touched in a while, right?

Yeah. I mean, everybody has that same thing, right? Especially me and you though, is you could have several hundred bourbons on your shelf or 50 or 25 or even 10.

I think even if you have 10, Mike, there's those couple of bottles you just don't touch for a while and you forget about them.

Yeah. You don't, you don't touch them. And we actually, the first one we're drinking today is one that I don't typically drink. I have it because guests come over. I have it because my son is a big fan of it.

And you're saving them all for him?

Well, I don't know that. I just, people come over and I was like, hey, they were like, can I try that? I've never seen one before. How do you afford all those? And I'm like, I just have them. But it's, I got the standard Blanton's 93 proof from Buffalo Trace.

And a beautiful round bottle with the, with the facets on it. Uh, the race horse, which, which, which race horse is this? That's the first in the first end, which is different than the second end, right? What's the second end have on it? I think the second end has like a, and I don't know why, but it's got like a colon after the end. Why would it have that? Cause it's like an apostrophe on the second end, right?

Yeah. But yeah, you'd think there'd be apostrophes with S. Right. But, but no, it's a colon. So for whatever reason, it could fit it on a bottle.

But the horses are different on the ends. The ends are different. So if you're collecting all the toppers for the Blanton's they, and for those who don't know what we're talking about, every Blanton's bottle has a race horse in stride. on the top made out of, what is that bronze?

Yeah, I think so.

Like a bronze, like an antique bronze. And every horse is in a different point in the gate, in its stride. Yeah. And every one of them has a letter on it that represents Blanton's B-L-A-N-T-O-N-S. Yeah.

To tell you how old this is, this is a, this was dumped on 61819.

Um, pre COVID and you could see there's a whole lot in there. That's, that's, you haven't really, I think about all that's missing is what we're drinking here.

Maybe somebody else would come over and got the first pour out of it and stuff. But like I said, I do not drink out of those bottles a lot. I think there's five bottles of Blanton's up on the shelf. Um, there's a gold, there's a straight from the barrel. There's a green that hasn't been open. It won't be open for. I would imagine for a little bit, because that's for my daughter whenever she has her first child. There's another bottle of Blanton's, the regular single barrel up there that's not open.

So for Blanton's bottles, what makes them so collectible is the different toppers and also the dumped on date. The date at which the bung came out of the barrel and the barrel was dumped and bottles were filled from it.

Yeah. I think the bottle itself, people like it too. It is a weird little bottle. Um, it's amazing that it's seven, 750 milliliters.

It doesn't seem like it would be, doesn't it? It seems a little.

Um, we're sitting here looking at it with a next to another bottle, another bottle of just.

So this is June 18th, 2019. Every Blanton's bottle comes out of warehouse H that's a guaranteed fact. Uh, that's the brick warehouse at Buffalo trace. it's just a bottle you should visit.

Now there's a lot of haters of this bottle.

Well, haters are people who can't get it and they want to just, like it's not worth it.

And you know, they're, what's it worth, Mike? What's it cost? What's the, what's the retail on it? $58 to $63. Somewhere in that range.

And if you can find it, a lot of times stores are marking it up significantly. And I can understand why people will get upset. They'd really like to have a bottle of Blanton's. They can't get a bottle of Blanton's and when they do see one, it's $150 or $200 for a bottle. They don't want to pay that. So they're upset.

Yeah, I would never pay that. I think that most I've ever paid it was cause I was trying to get my son a bottle of it for Christmas. I think I paid $75 for a bottle and I was like, eh, that's a little much. Um, but I paid for it anyways. But that doesn't make it bad bourbon. No, I don't think it's bad at all. I mean, we've, we've drank it before. Heck, let's drink some now. Let's check it out.

Cheers.

Cheers. That's pretty damn good to me.

That's really good bourbon. Yeah. It's definitely sort of caramelly, very, very Werther's caramel. Yeah. Baking spices.

I actually get a little bit of juicy fruit gum on this. Yeah. I don't know why that come to come to mind, but I do get some juicy fruit gum to this little sweetness, sugary, but still like 93 proof. This ain't a bad bottle of bourbon and it's a single barrel. That's right. You know what, how old are they? You know, it doesn't tell you the year, how old they are and stuff. But I, typically really like these. Not as much as my son likes it.

Yeah. Well, I like Blanton's. I've always, I'm always happy to sit down and have a, have a pour and enjoy a bottle of Blanton's. I've been drinking Blanton's for quite a few years. I wish I had some of the earlier bottles. Some of those older bottles really can get a good price, can't they?

Yeah, I think I know a couple people that have some 1986 bottles. I think that was the year they first released it, either 84 or 86. Those guys have some bottles of those, and I know they've been offered several thousand for those bottles. They can be collectible. It's what every person wants to pay for it. I guess I would stick in that range of 50 to $70. That's a good price for it. If you can get it to the distillery, get there early in the morning, you might be lucky enough to get a bottle. Or if you have a good enough store you go to and that guy really likes you, he sells it to you for retail. And then, you know, you're not paying that costly amount.

Now, one of the things that we talked about in a recent episode, and I think it's probably good to bring it up again, is everybody feels like blends as a Buffalo Trace product.

Yeah, but it's not. It's ancient age or... Age international. Yeah.

So H International is the company that owns the Blanton's brand. And in fact, if you go back and look at the history of it, they actually procured the distillery and the brands at the same time. to Carl Shuzo, the Japanese company procured them, but they didn't want a distillery. So they kept the brands and they sold the distillery to Sazerac, which then began Buffalo Trace Distillery. And of course, to Carl Shuzo, the owners of Age International, needed somebody to make their whiskey, so why not the same distillery that was making it before? Yeah, why not keep it there? Why not keep it there? Yeah. So although the brand is owned by Age International, it's marketed around the world by Age International, in the US, in the US, well, Buffalo Trace makes all of it, regardless of where it goes worldwide. They make all the plantains. But in the U S blends has distribution rights, but outside the U S it's H international. So kind of a tidbit of information for those that might've not picked up that earlier episode where we talked about it.

Yeah. Well, something else I wanted to talk about, Jim, was things to do this summer on the Bourbon Trail. There's a lot of big news going on right now. We just visited Michter's, right? Yeah. The day after we visited, they announced that they're not going to release their 10-year. It just felt like it wasn't ready.

After they poured it to some.

Yeah. I think that was last year's region.

It was, yeah.

So they didn't do that. Barstown Bourbon Company's master distiller, Steve Nalley, he just celebrated his 50th year in bourbon. That's something pretty amazing. He's been around the block. Been around the block a minute or two. He's made a few bottles of bourbon, no doubt. Bourbon Beyond is back this year. It'll be in Louisville, Kentucky, over there at the fairgrounds.

15th through the 18th of September, which just happens to coincide with the Kentucky bourbon festival down in barstown.

So we're going to be at the Kentucky bourbon festival. Unless there's tickets to a concert. So we might be at both. I don't know. We'll see. We'll figure it out.

I mean, it's tough and a lot of people are going to. Go be going through that. You know, what do I do? You know, that's a, it's an important week. It's a bourbon heritage month. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of things happening. Bourbon, the Kentucky bourbon festivals and barstown bourbon and beyonds in Louisville.

I mean, it's hard to make that choice. I would say this, as soon as tickets are ready, buy your tickets. Buy your tickets as soon as they're released. That way you won't have a problem to each event.

And not just the tickets to get into the Bourbon Festival. but the tickets for the individual things within the festival.

Yeah, there's extra tickets. You can get a VIP ticket or something like that if you wanted to go that route. I would tell you the VIP ticket down for the bourbon festival in Barstown is certainly worth what you're paying for it. You'll get to drink some very high-end bourbons and stuff. Especially if you're traveling in from out of town. Yeah. Make sure you get your hotels ready. You want to line all that stuff up. If you want to do other tours, you got to get it now. You got to get it scheduled. It's something you don't want to procrastinate on because if you think you're going to schedule everything the week before, you're wrong. You won't, you won't be able to do it.

So it may be March 30th, I mean, end of March. And we know these festivals and Bourbon and beyond is all happening in September. But folks, get it done now. Get your hotel, get your plans made, get your airplane flights. Don't wait till the last minute because you will be sorry.

Yeah, I think it's, me, you're already planning our stuff out that far. We know we have to get certain things done, right? We have to get our rooms ready and set up. We got to get our tickets brought to us. We want to make sure that we're ready. That way our wives have a good time. And we'll talk about another festival and another event on the second half. I don't want to get too much into this half right here and say, hey, we're going to give you everything this half. Going back to this blends right here, Jim, I think it's not a bottle to sleep on. I think if you can get one or if you have it on yourself and you don't visit very often like me, pull it back off the shelf.

Yeah, I think that's probably the case with many people. They have a bottle of blends. They've acquired one at one point or another and they've got it on their shelf. And it sits there and they open it once in a while, but they don't really revisit it very often because it's a special bottle. It's one that they, you know, so I'm going to tell you that's what Mike and I have done for this episode. We decided to go back in the cabinet, dig through some bottles and find a couple that we really like to have on the show. And that's what today's about. You know, explore those bottles on your bar.

Well, listeners, I'd say on the second half, stick with us. We're talking about two other events we're doing that you can get tickets to. We'll revisit a really, really good bourbon that I'm going to love, Jim. I'm looking at it. I'm like, oh yeah. And then if you keep listening at the very end, we might have some bourbon to give you, but you got to listen.

I know it. I mean, they've come to expect it, Mike.

Yeah. I think eight weeks now we've did this two months of giveaways. Um, I don't think anybody else is doing that out there. And they're all saying, Oh my God, they're drinking plans that are talking about a getaway.

Hmm. I don't know.

You have to wait and see. I have to wait to see. All right. Let's stay with us. Man, Jim, you know what I've really been enjoying lately? Oh, you're going to tell me. some of that seldom seen farms maple syrup that's been aged in bourbon barrels. It is absolutely delicious. Not only in a cocktail, but you can cook with it, right? You can. You absolutely can.

Now Mike, Kevin just sent me a new shipment. So I got a little bit more and I've been making some beef jerky lately. Really? Yeah. Now I know you're the meat master, but I tried my hand at it. I said, you know, I want to make some beef jerky and I've got a pretty decent beef jerky recipe and it's got a little bit of soy sauce, a little bit of Worcestershire, a little bit of, you know, onion powder, garlic powder, those kinds of things. But I always put brown sugar in it. Well, this time Kevin sent me a bottle of his granulated maple sugar. Wow. And I decided that I was going to substitute the maple sugar for the brown sugar. Oh, game changer. Let me tell you. Total game changer. Total game changer. Some of the best beef jerky you've ever had. So I'm going to make another batch here in about a week and I'll be sure to get you some.

Man, that sounds delicious. Vivian took and we just got an air fryer like most people got these days, right? And she took and soaked fresh pineapple in that maple syrup and then put it in the air fryer and it kind of crisp up a little bit. Oh, sounds good. It was just magically delicious. And people probably wonder why we love it so much. Kevin competed in the Maple Festival last year, 2021, and he was named grand champion. That's saying something.

So Statham seemed farms. grand champion of the 2021 Maple Syrup Festival.

Yeah. Wow. That's saying something. Yeah. You're going up against some heavy hitters in Maple Syrup. And I know we're talking about just the syrup, but that's something to be proud of. Hats off to you, Kevin, for winning that. Kevin's also competing in a couple other competitions. Make sure you check out his website. Check out his social media on Instagram and Facebook. You won't be disappointed. If you want to buy something, from him. Where can they go, Jim?

You can go to seldomseenmaple.com and Kevin and his crew, they've got a great website, very easy to navigate. They've got all their products on there. You can buy their maple syrup by the bottle. You can buy it by the case. You can buy that maple sugar.

oh my goodness mike that stuff is so good and they've got some other gift sets there too so you definitely want to check it out well he's also going to be in some distilleries pretty shortly here um some distilleries from that i love that i know you love he's going to be down leapers fork Um, you could find a syrup down there aged in their barrels treaty oak down in dripping spring, Texas. Um, I was just out there. His syrup is going to be there. Awesome. Um, and a garrison brothers in Texas, if you think, uh, you love some maple syrup, make sure you go to garrison brothers and pick up a bottle from them. Also, uh, Kevin appreciated. I know he loves people. You're supporting a local farmer, a local product, a small family. This is no factory place that's putting out maple syrup, right, Jim? This is a good man doing good work. Yeah, gotta love it. Well, make sure you check out his site. Like Jim said, seldom see maple.com. Pick up a bottle and pay.

All right. So we are back, Mike. What a great episode. This one's all about getting into those, your bar, getting into those shells, finding out those bottles that you haven't tasted in a while, pulling them out, giving them a shot. Yeah. Because it's real easy. real easy to overlook them and always drink the newer stuff, right?

Yeah, except for this bottle right here. As you can tell, I like to sip on this one a little bit. Yeah, so this is one of your favorites, right? Yeah, it's a Rebel Distillers collection. I actually have a under the cabinet, just a weeded section to keep all my weed at bourbon. And I don't know, there's 50 or 60 bottles under there. It's just wheat. And I had this tucked back. I was like, man, I don't even know if I have a bottle of this, but I looked under there and I'd hid this one for myself because I noticed I was drinking on it too much. I was like, man, I really liked this bottle. Now this is 113 proof.

Yeah. And this bottle that you have here was right about the time They started, they stopped calling themselves rebel yell and started calling themselves rebel on the label. Except for on the back label, you pointed out it still says rebel yell on the back. And that's typical with, with spirits, right? They usually, when they're trying to get rid of something, it'll move to the back label and then it'll disappear. So, Anytime you see something move from the front label to the back level, you know, it's, it's, it's not going to be around long.

Yeah. I would say it just disappears kind of slightly. Yeah. Um, now this is from Luxro, very beautiful distillery, old stone house up there. Um, if you're downtown. Barstown, it's out by Walmart, by Lowe's on your way to Barstown Bourbon Company. It's kind of across the interstate.

Definitely a place to stop at when you're down there.

Yeah. Yeah. Big old giant column steel they got going on there.

They're pumping it out. Great tour, great tasting area. Amazing gift shop. Good place to stop.

Yeah. And if you're a military veteran, they give the tour and the tasting for free for military veterans, as me and you well know and stuff. Absolutely. Um, we both got free tours down there. I've been down there several times. I need to get some chocolate at the end of the tour. That's pretty nice.

And it wasn't that long ago that, um, Luxro sold or was purchased by the behemoth in

Lawrenceburg, Indiana. I stopped down there the other day, Jim, and they told me that MGP is tightening up things down there a little bit. They're starting to come in and take control. Yeah, that could tell some things were changing down a little bit. So I'm wondering how it's going to be. Hopefully they won't get rid of Rebel altogether.

I mean, I've been a part of acquisitions in my past, and I've always noticed that it's something that's always true. Immediately following the acquisition, nothing changes. because it takes time for the analytics to take place, right? For everybody to figure out what is this company doing good and what is this company not doing good? Or what is this company doing the way we want them to do it? And what are they doing not the way we want them to do it?

I mean, I think that's even when you're a new boss coming into a job, you got a whole bunch of employees, it's good to sit there and kind of figure out what everybody's doing before you make any changes.

Um, cause there may be something going on that's groundbreaking and you can adopt that into your current business and be something great.

Yeah, a great whiskey right here. I was glad when they did this distiller's collection. This is about eight year old bourbon right here. Like I said, 113 proof. Um, that's a, that's a great proof on here. It's a Weider. It's a Weider all day long. Um, but it is a, like you said, pull it off your shelf, pull it out from underneath your bar. Um, grab it and drink from it. Now we both have, so many bottles of bourbon that we could do that with. Um, but I find myself every once in a while reaching for a rye or, uh, for a rye whiskey, um, for a Scotch and just to say, okay, I need to get away from that wheat just a little bit. And maybe that's why I did hide this. And so I'll visit other bottles.

You know, something, something that's kind of funny and, and people take this for what you think, but my BTAC bottles, for example, They almost never get revisited. Now, is that because it's not great bourbon? No, it's wonderful bourbon. Why don't I go back and visit it very often? Probably because in the back of my mind, I'm thinking I'm saving that for another time, right? That bottles, that's a great bottle of bourbon. That's a great bottle of rye. I'm going to hang onto it till the next time I have somebody over at the house. So a lot of times it just doesn't get visited. Same with my Willits, same with some other stuff. You know, you gotta, you gotta make the tour of your bar every now and then.

Yeah. Heck yeah. Well, this is, uh, I'm over here sipping on this already, Jim. But, uh, like I said, you, you'll see why it's one of my favorite bottles.

Boy, that nose is, uh, bright caramel, bright caramel, a little bit of, uh, red fruit, um, like dried fruit, some kind of dried sugary dried fruit. Like, uh, I'm not going to say apple. I'm going to say more like cherry.

Well, you know where a place people can taste some bourbon with us, Jim? Where's that? And revisit our bottles? Is it Bourbon on the Banks on October 1st? That's right.

And we will be taking just a couple of bottles with us.

Yeah, I think we're both going to go through our bars, probably both bringing about 20 to 30 bottles each. Everybody's like, God dang, that's a lot of bourbon, but we got it. And we want to bring it and we want to share it with our listeners. So, if you're a bourbon roadie, you're one of our Facebook group members, we want you to come to Bourbon on the Banks, and we want you to hang out with us for that day. We want you to drink from our collection of bourbons. There'll be some big boys up on the table. There will be. There'll be a whole bunch of craft distilleries that you haven't got to try. You'll get to try bourbons from across the United States with us.

And so what does it take to be able to belly up to the Bourbon Road Bar? Well, you've got to be a Bourbon Roadie first. You've got to be a roadie.

Yeah.

Now we still have our main bar at that event pouring something great.

And we're working on a really, really great sponsor right now for that that we're going to partner with, a really great distillery. So just keep listening to us. We'll tell you that sponsor we're going to have. I'm pretty excited.

So if you're a listener and you're not a bourbon roadie, well, you get to go to our main bar and drink, drink your fill, right? Oh yeah. But if you're a roadie, there's going to be this other bar, this special bar or this private bar. It's just for roadies and there's going to be. Let's just say 50 bottles over there.

25 each. We could do that.

25 each.

Yeah. I think, uh, you know, last year we had anywhere from about 30 to 40 people in our tent at a time. Um, and we went through several bottles from our sponsor, Woodinville whiskey last year. to the bottles that we brought. I think we went through 30 or 40 bottles of bourbon last year. So can we do that again this year? I think we can. We're going to get a lot more roadies coming this year. Bourbon on the Banks is in Frankfort, Kentucky, like I said, October 1st. That is an event you're not going to want to miss. If you want to come the night before, there's an auction at it and stuff. Jim and I both have hotel rooms or Airbnb's.

We're Airbnb-ing it. We hotel'd it last year.

This year we're Airbnb-ing it. And apparently my place I'm staying at, Jim, has a back deck on it. So what I would say, Roadies, I'd like to do somewhat of a little get together on that back deck back there with us. Let us know if you're coming into town. where you're staying at. You guys can Uber it down there on Friday night. We'll drink some bourbons on the back deck, listen to some music. Heck, we might even be able to get an artist to come and play for us. Who knows? I bet we can.

I bet we can.

I bet we know some people. We do. So a great event. And you'll get to sample bottles like this Rebel right here.

Speaking of this Rebel, Mike, this, This reminds me of why I like this bottle so much. I mean, it's really rich and creamy and it's got that wonderful baking spice, but also at the same time, a little bit of cherry soft up front, you know, that sweet kind of sugared fruit. I don't know what that fruit is, but it's, it's like, it's covered with like sugar crystals.

You know, here's my thing about weeded bourbon. A lot of people tell me, oh, I don't like weeded bourbons and stuff. And then they'll say, well, I'd love to have a bottle of Pappy's. I don't hunt down a bottle of Pappy's. You know, I'd love to have a bottle. It's not going to happen for me, probably ever. I've tasted it before, bars, I've had it at people's houses. It doesn't bother me because I know there's great bottles like this out there. that Dueling Grounds weeded bourbon we had. Oh my gosh. What a surprise that was. Yeah. I'll go buy a bottle of that in a heartbeat before I'll chase down a Pappy's or pay for a Pappy's because I know there's great weeders out there. You know, if I can find Weller Antique 107, which I can, or if I find a bottle of let's say Maker's Mark, uh, any other 46 cast strength, I'm going to buy a bottle of that. And I got plenty of bottles, but, and I like to revisit those bottles. Like we were saying, revisit your bottles.

Absolutely. Well, Mike, so when are we going to barstown again? I mean, I know we're going in September. Are we going to get down there between now and then?

I think we are. I think we're going to have barstown bourbon company on.

Yay. I'm excited about that. Yeah. There's been a little bit of change going on there.

Just, just a tad bit. They just sold. Um, and I can see it'll change a little bit, I think. And I hope they don't, um, tear it apart and sell it off. But Mark's still in charge. He's the man in charge. I just went down there and picked up three bottles. Um, that will be auctioned off, uh, two of them in a silent auction. And then one bottle in a, uh, it's not a duck, duck bourbon, but it's like duck, duck bourbon. Uh, you purchase a $50 ticket and then, uh, you get a chance at one of the bottles. It'll be up on, on the shelf. Um, and that event is USA cares gala at the galt house.

And I got the feeling that this year's. curated bourbon collection is going to be the best they've ever had.

I'm trying to make it that way. You know, we are putting a lot of work into that bourbon collection. They already got about 30 bottles that working on trying to go for the number 300. So if you're a roadie out there, your distillery, you want to help us out curating bourbon for a great cause for our fellow veterans, for service members. It really does help out. I think a lot of people think the service members make a lot of money, but they don't. Your E1 or E2 or E3, there's a lot of cost that goes into that. I was thinking about that the other day. After somebody pays, let's say the average rent for a two bedroom in Louisville, Kentucky is $1,300, right?

Yeah. And the other thing is, is, you know, um, military bases are not always in the least expensive parts of America, right?

They're not, uh, it's very costly. So members would get behind, you know, or there's just not enough money that goes around a new member has a baby and their wife has to stop working. Um, you know, they got two car payments, they got the rent, they got food that's gotta come in. Um, They need a little hand up sometimes. Same thing with veterans. Down on their luck or they're going through something, they need a hand up. A charity like USA Cares is important for that. And we're hoping to raise a whole buttload of money for them with this gala. So we do have three bottles of Barstown bourbon companies. This is bourbon over on my pub table right now. Two bottles, like I said, will be in a silent auction. And then one bottle will be in that kind of bourbon raffle. We also have, we know a friend of ours, Greg Robinson is going to build a lamp out of our first barrel pick, Jim, and then Rhett that builds our furniture. out of bourbon barrels. Some of the nicest bourbon furniture you'll ever see.

So if you were at Bourbon and Beyond last year, you came to our tent, you probably sat in some of it. Yeah. Pretty amazing stuff.

The best I've seen. I mean, hands down, there's no screws showing. anywhere that I could see very, very good, sturdy furniture. He donated one of the rocking chairs.

Awesome.

I think those rocking chairs are like nine to $1,200.

They're very expensive, but they're very nice at the same time.

This is a Rhett Baird bourbon barrel furniture. You check him out on Facebook or on Instagram. Like I said, some amazing furniture, but if you want to look at that chair for solid auction, you can go ahead. I've got some other stuff in the works, some pretty cool stuff. I've got a good friend of ours that's going to put something together with Leapers Fork. Um, she's a bourbon blender. Okay.

Hey, who do you think that is?

Jim?

Yeah, I know who that is. It's AB.

Ashley Barnes is actually going to donate her time and she's going to put a tasting together, um, with leapers out of leapers fork, um, with their bourbon and their whiskey, their rye whiskey, which is like. some amazing just rye whiskey, right? Sure it is. She's donating that. That'll be in that silent auction, but just a great event on July 23rd. You want to come see me and Jim and some tuxes dressed up?

I'll be honest with you. I'm not looking forward to that part of it. I haven't had a tux on in a very long time.

We're going to get dressed up. I'm going to go get my haircut. Heck, I might even trim my goatee for this thing. But we're going to be there with our beautiful wives, Mel and Viv. They'll be in some gowns. We're going to have a great time at night. But if you want to purchase tickets, you can go to usacares.org right now. You can look on their events. It's on the second page of it. The tickets are a little bit $300 each. What a great cause though.

Yes. Definitely a great cause, definitely worthwhile. It'll be a great bourbon evening. It'll be a wonderful, I mean, if you want to really take your wife to something special or wives, if you want to take your husband to something really special, this would be an event to do. This is something that will definitely stick in your mind for a lot of years to come. This will be a great event and it's a good cause.

If you haven't ever been to the Galt House, it's a beautiful hotel right on the Ohio River, overlooking the Ohio River. I think there's going to be about 2,000 tickets sold to this event. So come hang out with Jim and I and our wives, drink some bourbon. Heck no, who knows? I might even have a little hip flask on me or some weeded bourbon in the gym. It'd be a pretty good event.

All right. So Mike, back to the two bourbons for this show. We've got Blaine's in the first half. We've got Rebel Distiller's Collection in the second half.

I'm kind of guessing where you're going to lean, but what do you say? I, I, you know, I, the rebel beats out Blanton's all day long for me. Um, but Blanton's is still a great bourbon. It's still good bourbon to drink. Um, is it costly? Yeah, it is costly, but both these bottles were over 50 bucks. That's just what they are.

Yeah. I want to lean towards the rebel as well. I hate to say it, but that's some damn fine whiskey. Now the blends is great. It's awesome. I'll take it any day in a pour. I will never turn down blends. It's really good stuff.

But I have to say, that weed whiskey coming out of that rebel bottle is something else. It's pretty amazing if people haven't tried it. Don't pass it up if you see it on the shelf, I'd say. But Jim, you know what? Our listeners I think they want a bottle of these. I think we could give away a bottle of each. What do you say? Do we have an extra bottle of each? Well, our good friends at the barrel room in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

Our favorite spot to hang out.

Yeah, we love it there. Um, great beer, a bourbon bar that we helped work on. Um, they even have a flight of bourbon there.

They've got the bourbon road flight for whiskies on that flight. Great whiskies on that flight. Weller, wild Turkey, mickters makers, makers 46. Oh my gosh. $18 for a flight. You can't beat it.

You cannot beat that. So they ponied up and they gave me a bottle. Our good friend David there. That's the manager. He gave me a bottle of this rebel right here to do a giveaway. And then if you're coming to the bourbon trail and you need a place to stay, there's a little place called saddle bread sweets.

So it's literally two doors down from the barrel room, right on main street USA and Shelbyville, Kentucky. And we actually recorded an episode there with Peggy, no Stevens.

Yeah, just absolute beautiful place to stay. Uh, they got six, bedrooms, six bathrooms. I think you sleep 16 guests there. Average price is under $500 for all those rooms.

Altogether. All the suites combined, your whole team, your whole company, your whole family.

Bachelor party, bachelorette party. If you're coming to the Bourbon trail, you want to stay. That's the place you want to go.

Well, let me, let me kind of tell people kind of where the proximity is here. Yeah. So when you're in, when you're in Shelbyville, Kentucky, when you're on main street in Shelbyville, Kentucky, it is literally 25 minutes to Bardstown and maybe, yeah, you could do 25 minutes, 25 minutes to Frankfurt. Yep. 25 minutes to Louisville.

Yeah, you could do that too.

I think in all directions, there are bourbon distilleries about the same distance. This is right. This is the center of it all.

Yeah. I mean, you cannot be doing that. Plus you got a bourbon bar like right next to you. Um, you know, you can check out Saddlebread Suites on Airbnb, VRBO, check out their prices. Uh, it varies from when you're going to stay and stuff, but that's less than $500 a night for those six beds, six baths, um, 16 people. That's not a bad price.

16 people, probably six couples, right? Yeah. Probably six couples, so get your friends together, get your company together, bring all your best friends, come hang out in Shelbyville, Kentucky. I guarantee you, if there's, if there's six bedrooms full of roadies, Mike and I aren't going to show up. We're going to be at the barrel room to hang out with you.

Heck yeah. Why not? Now what Tori Smith, the owner of the Saddlebread Suites, what he ponied up was he ponied up a bottle of blends for you.

Oh my goodness. Now, I remember just a couple of weeks ago, we had a giveaway and you said that's the biggest bottle ever.

Yeah. So is this one close? Kind of a tie? I don't know. I think that makes your barrel strength rise still though. Yeah, but not by much. Not by much, not by much. Um, so listeners, just pay attention, pay attention to us. This is going to go to two different listeners, Jim, not to the same person, right?

So the first and second to respond.

Yep. First and second person to respond will do the rebel for the first person. The second person gets the blends.

Oh, that's kind of tricky, Mike. You don't want to be the first one to answer. You want to be, Oh, I don't know. It's kind of tough.

It's tough. That's tough. Um, but what do they got to tell us, Jim?

All right. So earlier in the show, in the first half, we were talking about the toppers on the Blanton's bottles. And if you spell out Blanton's B L A N T O N S, you know, there's two ends. And as we described in the first half, the two ends are not the same. They're different. you have to tell us very clearly how the second end differs from the first end. That's pretty good.

At 5 PM on the release of this show on Instagram, in the comments below the post, leave those the first two people that get that to me. And I'm going to tell you how I look at that. I'll go on Instagram. I go into the comments up above so I can see where people, the notifications are. And that's where I know this person did it before this person. There's a timestamp on it. Yep.

It's pretty clear. Yep. And no two have the same timestamp.

It's not what's in the comments, the first one on there.

And people kind of look at that and go, wait, I was first. That was first. But no, it's not.

It's when the notification comes in to us. Yep. So make sure you do that. So we're giving away a bottle of blends, a bottle of Rebel. There's a little over a hundred bucks worth of bourbon right there. What you need to do besides that, make sure you follow the barrel room. OLB barrel room. Yep. That's for old Louisville brewery. They're like a satellite brewery for old Louisville brewery, but the barrel room and then follow saddle bread sweets here in Shelbyville, Kentucky. If you're looking to make a trip to the bourbon trail, you couldn't find finer people. to stay with, I'm telling you, spectacular location, 25 minutes to everything. And you could set up to have like Kentucky bourbon boys or mint julep tours. There's Pegasus tours. They'll come pick you up right here in Shelbyville. They'll take you around. Yeah, I think a great giveaway.

And if you're lucky, you might show up here on a weekend when we're having a bonfire out by the Creek.

Yeah, that's, that's where you want to show that's when you want to show up to two great bottles, a great giveaway. Um, we're going to try to keep this rolling with businesses like the barrel room and saddle bread sweets in the future. Uh, get other great bottles for you. Uh, I just think these giveaways are a good way to say thank you to our listeners. Yeah, absolutely. I agree completely. Well, Mike, where can everybody find us on the internet? Well, as we just talked about, obviously Instagram, right? But TikTok, you can find us on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook. We have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. Three rules to get in there. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? And do you get a plate ice? Because we don't tolerate any rudeness. You drink from the very bottom of the shelf, the very top shelf. We want you to participate. No politics, no religion, no social issues.

That's right. Just come in and have a good time. Don't chop anybody off at the knees. If you do, old Wyatt Earp, he'll come in there. He'll slap you on the head with the butt of his gun. You'll be gone. And a heartbeat. It's guaranteed. All right. We do two shows a week. Every week we do a Monday episode where we talk about a single expression, usually something from a craft distillery. Sometimes it's a big boy, but we'll talk about that one expression of whiskey. We'll tell you whether or not. We think you ought to add it to your bar. Listen in every Monday. Be sure not to miss that. On every Wednesday, we'll do a longer episode, like today's, where we'll do multiple expressions. Like today, we did a rebel and a Blanton's, talked a little bit about revisiting your bar and digging into those old bottles you haven't tasted in a while. But sometimes we'll have a guest on, sometimes we'll have a distillery on, sometimes we'll be out on the road. It always varies. That Wednesday episode is usually about an hour in length. We'll get you to work. We'll get you home. Mike, how can they be sure without a doubt that they will not miss a single episode that comes out from the bourbon road?

What you want to do on that app is you want to scroll up. Usually at the top of the app on your phone, hit that subscribe button, that check sign, that plus sign. If you're on YouTube, hit the subscribe button on there. It'll let you know, Hey, these guys just released an episode. Um, and we want you to scroll down and hit that five star review if you would please. Leave us some comments when you're writing that review. But if you don't, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon's gonna come to your house with some blans and some rebel. Gonna drink all night long. Heck, he's gonna be dragging old Jim with him. By the end of the night, you're going to leave us that five-star review, I guarantee. But seriously, those reviews, those comments, they help us get into distilleries like Castle & Key, like Trudy Oak, like Garrison Brothers, like Green River. Get some great guests on. Gives you great content, so we'd appreciate it.

So Mike and I are very approachable. And if you've seen us in town, you know, that's true because when you come up to us, we chit chat with you. We walked down the bourbon aisle with you. We help you pick out bottles. We're pretty down to earth people. So make sure you reach out to us and let us know what we can do to make the show better. You can always reach out to me on. email. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. You can also hit up our website. We've got a contact us page. Fill it out. Let us know what you think. Let us know if we should interview a distillery in your hometown, if we should try a whiskey. If you think it's really fine, we'd love to try it out. But like we always say, probably the best way to reach out to us is on Instagram. I'm jshan63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down.