265. Inside the Kentucky Distillers Association

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. It can't be just any maple syrup. It has to be from seldom seen farms up in Ohio. He takes bourbon barrels, pours 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 can 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 see 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, once again, outside of Shelbyville, we're on the road.

We are. We drove over to Frankfurt, Kentucky. This is the capital of Kentucky. Really the heart of bourbon country, really. Right here. Yeah, it is. It is. And we are in a special place, a really beautiful, I would say a Victorian mansion from the 1800s, right near the Kentucky River. I mean, I could probably throw a stone to it right here, which is super special to me as a bourbon nut, right? But just a stone's throw from the Kentucky Capitol right up the hill here where Some laws have just been passed about bourbon that made me really happy. But this building we're setting in right here is home to the Kentucky Distillers Association. We got two beautiful ladies on with us today that make the KDA happen.

We are so glad you were able to join us today. We're excited. This is something we've been wanting to do for a while. And I'm so glad we get to do it, especially on a beautiful day in the capital of Kentucky. Ladies, why don't you take a minute and introduce yourselves to our listeners.

Sure. Thank you. I'm Colleen Thomas. I am the vice president of operations here at the Kentucky Distillers Association. And I think I'm going to add that tagline to my introduction from now on. I make the bourbon things happen.

Oh, that's a great one.

Well, I've always thought I had a perfect face for radio. So thank you for confirming that. My name is Mandy Ryan. I am the director of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

Awesome. Well, it's great to have both you ladies on the show today. I think we're going to get into some whiskey pretty quick here because that's what we do. But soon after we start tasting this whiskey, we're going to start diving into what you guys do and what you have done and all the great things about the KDA.

I thought we were going to get Maddie to sing to us, because I heard she's one great bluegrass singer.

I'd have to have a couple more glasses, I think.

She is. Get her upstairs, rearrange in the bottle room or alphabetize in all our member bottles. She'll just be singing away.

How do you play guitar, too? I should play the mandolin, because my real name is Amanda Lynn.

Wow.

Isn't that pretty? But I have zero ability to play an instrument.

Well, Mike, you've poured something on a glass.

I do. I, you know, you, the KDA has certain distilleries and we're both kind of from Louisville area, right? Colleen's from Louisville. We know that. So I brought a bottle of old Forester 1910 here, old fine whiskey. How could you not love something like this? Very beautiful expression. And it actually has a tie from what you ladies told me to this table right here.

Yeah. So if you've ever heard of longwood antiques, George Gatewood makes the best furniture in the state of Kentucky. I would put my own money on that statement. So this table he built just for us, the top is made out of old forest or he calls it his whiskey wood. So when old forest around Main Street had the fire came out of there. So as you can see in the middle, there's the big charred area. So that's where I sit so I can get closest to everything. And then the legs came out of Maker's Mark, one of the warehouses that came down there. And then the supporting beam came out of a horse farm where several Derby winners were studded.

Wow. A lot of history in this table. So this large charred burn mark in the table, that's actually from the fire.

Yeah.

Wow.

It's amazing history. So that was around 1920-ish?

the fire was?

I don't know that actually, do you? This wood, I think it's, I thought it was the fire from just several years ago. That's what I thought. When it was the actual, it wasn't old Forster yet. They were constructing and it caught fire down there on West Main Street in Louisville.

Oh, I was thinking it was from when the bottling line burned up.

Yeah, and that's where the 1910 came from when they had all the barrels. They had to move the whiskey out of the barrels and re-barrel it. And that's where the first double-barreled whiskey. You can see where my mind was going to.

Segway.

Well, heck, let's try some of those. All right.

Great.

Well, you have a personal connection to Brown Forman, don't you?

Well, I do. So my mom worked at Brown Forman. She was one of the first tour guides ever there. And she also worked under Lincoln Henderson. And she would set up his tastings in the lab for him, for his organoleptic tastings and things like that. So Yeah, she was there for a really long time. And it's funny, I tell her stories now. And these are all people she worked with so long ago. And she'll tell me like the real, the real story behind the characters, you know, and then my stepdad was also he was the CEO there for a very long time. So Old Forester was his go to every night he came home, Old Forester on the rocks every night. So

So you have that memory burnt into your mind of that old forester, that smell of bourbon that just is beautiful, right?

Yes, yes. My mom was very strict about this, but when I became 21, she finally told me, honey, I'm going to sit you down and teach you how to drink this whiskey. She just said, it's just, it was time. No more mixing it with this or just doing it this way. You're going to learn it. You're going to respect it. And I did. And I really, I mean, I have way more appreciation for it now with a few more years on me, but.

So you, so you had tasted it before then though.

I may have. There may have been some really unfortunate, but at the time, awesome college dorm situations, maybe a few parties.

I think we all have a story like that.

I don't think my kids are listening to this podcast right now, but who knows?

What about you, Mandy? Do you remember the first experiences of bourbon?

Well, I came from a teetotaling family, so there was no alcohol consumption for me until after I graduated college. Actually, I went to Asbury University and I had to sign the document that said I would not drink, so I did not. But I quickly learned to love bourbon as soon as I graduated. I met people, I mean, you live in Kentucky, it's hard not to fall in love with the heritage and everything about bourbon. So yeah, it was an easy transition.

That's all in.

You're all in. Well, it's just that's what's so beautiful about it. You think about how many hands touch bourbon in the production process. It's just it's so incredible. It's just such when people say crafted, I know that's an overused term. But I mean, so many hands touch this product and just to get it to the end and what it takes. I mean, really, it's an all natural product, right? There's only so many variables we can control. And we've tried everything, not we as a me, but I mean, this industry, we've tried everything to control as much as we can.

They still try.

They do. You know, we're doing things in the lab. We're doing things. There's just research and just all this. And there's a lot of progress, but at the end of the day, it's still up to mother nature. What's going to happen with this product? We can't add anything to it except itself or water. And, you know, I can buy this bottle of Old Forester here, and it has to taste the same as the bottle of Old Forester that I buy in two years from now in another state, in another country. And that's really, when you consider it, that's really pretty It's pretty magical, I think. It's pretty amazing. Yeah. And there's just, so there's just, I mean, not a lot of Haynes are touching vodka. You know, there's not a lot going on there. It's not a lot of, this just has such a culture and a history to it. And I think that's what really draws us in.

Now, Mike, I'm going to say the Old Forester 1910 was our whiskey of the year three years ago. It was. And you're right. It does taste exactly the same as I remember it anyway, right? I think that it's one of the things that Old Forrester does very well, is that consistency in production. I think a lot of the companies do that, but Old Forrester kind of, when I think about what Old Forrester does really well, it's holding to profile.

Yeah, I think they, you're right, they do do that. Her master taster there, Jackie's I can't has that, that palette for it too. And we know for a fact that she's not just a figurehead there. She actually gets in and gets dirty. Uh, she likes to taste a lot of whiskey in one day. Her clothes will be just, uh, looks like she robbed a Rick house, right? Yeah. which is cool to me that shows that the very top of the company is getting into the weeds there and making sure the product is good. I think that's good. You know, you're telling your story about your stepdad drinking Old Forester, you know, and that's the stuff I like to hear that he believed in his product. You know, he didn't go in and, oh, I'm going to make this, but you know, I got to have this to drink too.

I think that's, I think that's very true about a lot of brands. I mean, I'll tell you, even today, Chris Morris has a Woodford everywhere he goes. I mean, anytime I'm with them, it's just, it's just, they become, it's just so much a part of them. And I'll tell you, my stepdad passed several years ago and we, at his funeral, at his request, we all had a shot of Old Forester. It was the best bourbon for the value is what he always said. So.

You know, Mandy, you were talking about having to sign that teetotaler paper. I didn't know that.

Dancing, smoking, drinking, it was all forbidden.

I went to interview one time when I was in the army for a unit called the Old Guard. And the old guard is stationed at Arlington, Virginia, and they take care of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They do a lot there. They do burials at Arlington National Cemetery. But before you join that, you have to sign a piece of paper that said you wouldn't drink. I got through the whole thing and I really went there to take care of horses. Coming off a ranch, I knew about horses, I understood them, and that's why they wanted me to go up there and interview for the position. But as soon as we got to that part about, hey, you're going to have to give up drinking for four years, I was like, I don't think that's going to work. I don't love those horses that much.

Wow. What's the correlation there? Is it just a discipline?

I think it is to say you're going to commit your life for those four years or two years or how long you're at the old guard for to doing that. It takes a lot out of a person. You can't be hung over and the rain, the snow, the sleet, walking back and forth and stuff, burying people, you needed to be at your highest point at all times. And rightly so, right? Your iron are falling there. I look back on it, I wish I could have did it, you know, but I didn't. I got to taste some great whiskey in that four years though.

Let's take a minute and talk a little bit about the KDA and its beginnings. How long has the KDA been in existence?

The KDA actually began back in 1880 in Louisville, Kentucky when distillers got together down at the Gold House and realized they could get more done working together than by standing apart. Back then, they were fighting unfair taxation. Today, we're pretty much doing the same thing 142 years later. Not much has changed. A lot has changed, but back then, I think, and not up till quite recently, this was considered a sin industry. And we've done a lot of work in the past 10 years with our president, Eric Gregory, at the helm to change that conversation in Frankfurt, and frankly, in Washington DC as well, that we're now a signature industry of this state. And the lawmakers, they understand this is a $9 billion economic engine for the state. I mean, with the jobs that We've got a distillery in 40 of our counties. So this generating local and state taxes for those counties, we've got 22,500 good paying jobs. If you think about it, and here's what's so great about Kentucky, and here's why we will, until the day I die, hail Kentucky as the one true and authentic home for bourbon. Every major spirits company in the world has either a headquarters or a distillery here in order to have a Kentucky bourbon in their portfolio. And if you really stop to think about it, that's pretty impressive.

That is very impressive. So, 1880 until 2022, 142 years. I imagine there was a pause in the middle called prohibition.

Yeah, we like to pretend like that never even happened.

Yeah, we're the oldest trade association in the country. We're older than zippers in 13 states. And there's a whole long list that Eric could rattle off if he were here right now.

And the mission then and now is to passionately and responsibly protect, promote, and elevate the Kentucky Signature Bourbon and Distilled Beerspirit industry. And we do that by uniting the industry and uniting. We've got 50 members, which represent 73 Kentucky operations here in the state.

Wow. That's a pretty good size membership. Yeah, so some of those members have been members since the beginning.

Yes. Yeah. Well, and I'll say, you know, there were so many acquisitions and things when you look pre-prohibition, post-prohibition and things like that, but down the line and a lot of the actual operations, like the physical distilleries, which have may have changed hands several times are still the same physical distilleries.

So it's kind of transferable. They still pay their dues through prohibition, right?

Right. It's just so cool looking through all of our old minute books and seeing Shapira and Beam and Russell and just going back a hundred years. It's just awesome to see that that is still being perpetuated today. And they're the same names that you come here to see.

That's amazing. And so what, I mean, in a nutshell, in a sentence, I mean, what is the mission of the KDA, primary mission?

Well, you know, what pays the bills and what really moves the needle is our lobbying efforts. And I know lobbying isn't always a great word. But that's what we do. We fight for our industry. So we make sure we fight every day or we go up every day. We actually we don't fight. We work with our legislators to Really, we just try to overturn and update some of the archaic alcohol laws that are still on the books, and most of them affect spirits. So when we're in up at the Capitol and we are asking for a new law or a law to change, we're not asking for anything special. We're asking for parity with beer and wine. Things that beer and wine already have, we're just asking for the same thing. We don't want anything special. So I think that's really important to understand. A lot of these laws still hinder the growth of the industry. They hinder jobs. So we really work in the best interest of the alcohol industry, and specifically spirits.

Yeah, anything our members ask us to do, we do it.

Yeah, you guys always put out a lot of facts too. You're not just for the distilleries, you're for the consumer too, right? The people that are coming to do a bourbon pilgrimage to Kentucky. People come every year to Kentucky, but you want to let them know what the bourbon's made of, right? I'm looking at boars behind us that say, hey, this is what it takes to make just one barrel of bourbon, nine bushels of corn and three bushels of other corn. That starts at the farm land, right? I see.

I'm sorry. We have one of the biggest, this industry is one of the biggest spin-off factors in the state. So if you think about the industries that we affect, it's farming, manufacturing, construction. There are so, you know, you think about music construction, which is down in Bartstown. They build almost all of the rick houses you see across the state. Think of Vindome Copper and Brass down in Butchertown and Louisville. They are the biggest distilling equipment manufacturer in the country. The four generation company down there. So it just really has, and then the farmers, what is it, like 70% of the grain we use, the corn we use comes from Kentucky farms?

Yeah, 75 now.

Yeah. So I mean, they're trying to keep up, right? So there's a huge spinoff factor.

Yeah, a lot of industry there that goes into just making that one bottle of bourbon. A lot of people put into that. You wonder how many hands are in this one bottle right here.

That's what I told you. That's the best part of the story.

Pretty beautiful, right? And people that believe in that, starting from the farmer, most of them know, hey, that's where my grain's going. Right in Baghdad, Kentucky, right down the road from us, they're pretty proud that they're product goes to Wild Turkey. They're really, really proud of that. And the farmers we meet, you know, in a local bar we go to, they're like, oh, my corn, I grew corn for Wild Turkey or for Four Roses. That's where my corn goes to.

It's really kind of a badge of honor because we talk to a lot of farmers and we've got relationships with them. But yeah, it is a badge of honor. And then the spent grains on the other side that come out at the end go back to a lot of these farmers for the beef cattle industry. So

Yeah, so glad to see that. And then it seems everywhere we go, they're doing that. They've got a program in place to return the spent mash back to the farmers.

Yeah, so I'm even have it on the back of the trailer that hauls the grain. Feeding cattle since some time. Yeah. 1883. You know, it's that wagyu beef, I'd call it whiskey beef.

Oh, I like it.

See, yeah.

It's all tender and delicious and relaxed.

Yeah.

Happy.

So with a primary mission of rolling back some of the archaic laws, many of which, most of which came as a result of prohibition, a lot of those you're trying to roll back and return to a place, I guess in your words, parity with wine and beer. You want to at least be where they are and not be set aside as that one beverage that doesn't get equal shares.

Exactly. Yeah.

So what are some of the challenges you've had in the past, let's say 10 or 12 years that you've been able to have great success with?

Well, like I said, it's about 10 years ago, we were a sin industry. And they were looking to put another tax hike on the bourbon industry because that's what you do, right? Cigarettes, alcohol, spirits. And that's when I think our industry kind of woke up and said, wait a minute. This is going to just keep happening. We've got to do something. And we've got some work to do. But I'll tell you. Kentucky is the only place that taxes aging barrels. So we're drinking, I don't know how old this whole forester is, but six to eight years old. So those barrels, those eight-year-old barrels, those six-year-old barrels that have been sitting there are taxed every year. We're the only place in the world that still does this. It's a discriminatory tax, but it goes for good things. So it's super complicated. But we were able to get that tax to be partially refundable so long as it was reinvested back into the business. So that helped a lot. It was a big win at the time, but we'd like a bigger win now. But back in about 2016, we passed Senate Bill 11. And what we talked about, they need sexier names than the Senate Bill 11. So I want you to imagine going to Napa Valley or up to Hubers or something like that to a winery. And you can take the tour, you can learn about the wine, but you can't buy a glass of wine at that winery. You can buy a bottle and a t-shirt and you can go. Or you go downtown to a really cool craft brewery and you can learn all about it, but you can't buy a pint of beer or a hamburger for that matter. That's how it was at our distillery visitor centers. You could take your tour, you could learn everything, you get your little tasting of one ounce total. which was a lot of times what a quarter ounce pour of four different expressions. And if you think of a place like Jim Beam that makes an infinite amount of expressions, that was it. You get your t-shirt, you can buy some bottles and you were out the door.

This was just 2016.

This was before 2016. So Cinebill 11 allowed distilleries to start being able to sell buy the drink so they could sell cocktails. They could sell just the straight pours. They could have restaurants, but that meant they were also able to engage the consumer and teach them how to use this product and how they recommended to use this product. They could have cocktail classes. They changed the entire experience for someone coming to this distillery, someone from out of state or just a local to learn and just have fun and be able to take something home with them and learn a new skill or just something different that they could do at the home and with friends and things like that. It was huge. We actually had some distilleries that were in the middle of construction being built that changed their architectural plans to accommodate a bar or a cocktail area or something like that, because now it went from, oh, you're there for 90 minutes to I could spend an afternoon here. I mean, you think about a place like Jeff The Creed where you can go and they would have live music on Friday and Saturday nights. I mean, you could never do that before then. So it really changed the landscape of tourism in Kentucky. It really started revolutionizing and making bourbon tourism just one of the number one drivers of tourism here in Kentucky. When I do a slideshow on this, like when I do a presentation, like that slide is always like really sparkly because it's magical. I mean, it really changed the landscape of everything.

Well speaking of Jim Beam, we did bring a Jim Beam product with us. We brought a 15 year old knob creek to try. I might have poured Mandy a really big pour.

You've poured me a lot. And by the way, we are sipping this out of the official Kentucky Bourbon Trail tasting glass. And May, do you want to tell a little bit about why we use this glass and how it came to be?

Sure. So I think it was about eight years ago. We worked with our master distillers to design the perfect glass for tasting bourbon in particular. Everybody knows other glasses that are used commonly for, say, Irish whiskey or Scotch whiskey, but we thought that that glass was not perfect for every bourbon. So we developed this one. Libby produces it for us. It has a little base at the bottom and a flared lip, but the opening is wider than most whiskey glasses that you're familiar with. They're also more sturdy. They're stackable, which food service people really like. They tend not to break in the dishwasher. So yeah, we love this glass. You can put a cocktail in here. It's big enough for that. It's great for a rock or several rocks or neat. It's very versatile. We love it.

Kind of a stemless tulip glass, right?

It is. It's kind of bulbous. It's kind of fat and then kind of narrows just slightly at the top. Let me explain this R&D to make this glass because I was part of it. This is how bad our job is. It's terrible. We're sitting at these tables. The first time we went, because I think we had to do this like three different times, because you know you got to get it right. And we were at Woodford Reserve, and we're talking, I mean, Chris Morris was there, Jimmy Russell was there, Bill Samuels was there. I mean, everybody who's anybody in this industry was there. And we had nine different shapes of glasses, stem, stemless, does it need, you know, all different shapes and sizes that were just custom created. And we just tasted and nose bourbon out of them. until we narrowed it down, and then they took some of the suggestions everyone gave, and then we came back together and did it again. I think it was Jim Beam. It took about three times, and we finally decided on this.

In exact Jimmy Russell fashion, he was decisive. That one. Yes.

Just get it done.

It's so funny. So Jimmy and I were at a table, together and he and I liked, like you got to vote on your top three glasses. And he and I liked this one glass and no one else at our table liked this glass. And so we're writing it down. He's like, I don't understand why they don't like this glass. This is the one. And I ran into him. He came into moonshine university to teach a class and he pulled me aside in the kitchen. He was like, I just don't understand why they didn't like that glass. I know, Jimmy, I don't know what is happening. Very passionate.

This right here is from the No family. For people that don't know, listeners out there, the No family are the Beams. Fred No and Freddie No, the master distillers at Jim Beam right now. But this 15 year old would be some of the oldest bourbon in Kentucky.

And Knott Creek's known for being kind of an oaky, kind of bold, oaky bourbon.

It's not, it's not gentle on your palate. It's not going to be sugary either.

It is kind of a caramel sweetness, but not overly sugary, more of a, a bold in your face, true Kentucky bourbon, right?

It really is.

I always like to say that to make something like this in Scotland would take 30 plus years. Just to get it even this color. Might not even get this color. So that's something nice about this native spirit of America, right?

Well, I think there's a richness to it. You know, when you have the recipe, when you add that corn into the recipe, because Scotch, you're really working with a more one-dimensional kind of grain mash bill. And so it has its own beautiful attributes, but this, you bring in the corn, then you bring in the flavoring grain, you bring in the malt. I just feel like you just have so much more richness going on.

Before we get on to the second half, we're going to continue sipping on this, but I'd like to ask you about House Bill 400, which happened in 2018.

Is that right? The direct to shipping?

Yes.

Yes. So that was 2020 and 2021. They were both ironically named House Bill 400. Okay. One passed it and the next one kind of enhanced it. Yes.

Got it. Okay. Ask you a little bit about that and also the Vintage Spirits Act. What bill was that part of?

I believe that was... 2018. That would be my 415. We need better names.

Each one of these is chipping away. It's chipping away and allowing us some freedoms with spirits that we haven't had in the past. It would be great if you could just take a few minutes and walk us through those two so that our listeners can understand the kind of progress that's being made in Kentucky for their benefit.

Right. And it's not like we're really breaking ground here. I mean, vintage spirits are allowed in other states. Well, DC is a really good example of vintage spirits. But really, it just means a vintage spirit is something that is no longer currently in distribution. So technically, a single barrel of bourbon, a four roses single barrel, once it's all sold, is technically a vintage spirit because it's no longer in distribution. Well, the vintage spirit law that passed allows consumers to sell their unopened vintage product either back to a distillery for sale or to a bar restaurant for sale.

Package stores too, right?

Yes, and package stores. Now, It just puts them back in the system. Now, they don't have to go through the three-tier system because they've already gone through the three-tier system. They've already paid their taxes. The taxes have already been paid on those. So that just allows bars and restaurants to have these incredible whiskey libraries, the kinds that you see in New York, the kinds that you see in DC. We can have that here now, which is really pretty incredible.

And we do.

Yeah.

And we do because so many people took advantage of that. It was such an epic change. and what you could find on the shelf in a restaurant and in a bottle shop. It's just amazing. Until that time, it was all black market, shipping out of the state, you know. However, now those liquors are staying in the state and people are able to enjoy them on their visits to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

Of course. I mean, why go to a place like DC to, you know, it's all right here. So we should have something like that. So yeah, it is really incredible. And then you asked about direct-to-consumer. So those two bills passed and direct-to-consumer shipping is huge. It's also very tricky and a little complicated. The reason being is we can only ship spirits to other states that have reciprocal spirits laws. So California can ship wine, they can't ship spirits yet. So we can't ship spirits to California. There's only about a dozen states in DC that you can, that have reciprocal ship spirit shipping laws.

But even those states have all different rules and it's really difficult to navigate right now.

It really is. And there are companies that we work with and actually UPS has been great with the shipping that kind of helped navigate it because you have to ship to a wet territory. Well, UPS doesn't know a wet territory in Rhode Island. They don't know whether it is or not. So there's companies that are kind of real time figure that out at point of sale with their software, which is great. But this is one of our other big missions right now is shipping and helping the guilds and the legislators in other states understand how we wrote our law. and how it works so that they can pass similar laws in their states. And we're working really closely with California and New York right now. And when those two states open up, which we feel really strongly that they will, that's a huge game changer for everyone involved.

So if someone visits the Bourbon Trail and they go on a distillery tour, let's say they go on six distillery tours, and on each one of those distillery tours, they'd like to buy a bottle to represent that visit. What are their options?

They can take it with them. They can ship it home if they live in a place, wet territory, we're in a reciprocal state and everything lines up. That's why I said it's a little complicated. Let's say you live in Kentucky though, and you live in Bowling Green. and you come to Bardstown and you buy two bottles at every stop, and you can have those shipped in Kentucky. So you can have those shipped home and you're not carrying them around because you've got other places to go. That's just, you're guaranteed.

You can check bottles in your luggage too.

Up to so many though, right? Yes.

You can't carry them on the plane, but you can check them. And it has to be less than 140 proof, which is usually pretty safe.

Yep. Usually pretty good, except maybe that Elijah Craig down there at the end. I don't know.

I think I had eight bottles in one suitcase before. Did you?

Well, I really appreciate you taking time to kind of walk us through that. People always want to know when they come to the trail, you know, what can they do? Can they take whiskey home with them? Can they buy it at the distilleries? You know, in addition to having a drink poured for them, can they also buy a bottle and get it home somehow? It looks like there's options there. Well, there's options there for everybody, but certainly there are some very easy options there for some people.

Yes.

So on the second half, Jim, we'll talk about private barrel selections. We're going to talk about the KDA's field guide and what you get with that field guide, which is very important. We'll talk about the craft distillery tour, which is something new kind of KDA for people that haven't been here in a while. We'll drink a little bit more burger.

Sounds great.

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 Salem Seam 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 you know, that's something to be proud of. Hats off to you, Kevin. 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 by the case uh you can buy that 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. Some distilleries that I love and I know you love. He's going to be down Leapers Fork. You could find his syrup down there, aged in their barrels. Trudy Oak down in Dripping Springs, Texas. I was just out there. His syrup's going to be there. Awesome. And at Garrison Brothers in Texas. If you think you love some maple syrup, make sure you go to Garrison Brothers and pick up a bottle from them also. Kevin, I appreciate it. 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 seen maple.com. Pick up the bottom of the page. All right, listen, we are back and we're at the KDA. That's the Kentucky Distillers Association. And of course. We've got some more whiskey in your glass ladies. Um, this time I said I was pouring some angels envy, but this is a, um, store pick a barrel pick, um, which brings us up to that new law, right? Um, this is actually out of a Cox's evergreen. That's a big liquor store in Kentucky. Uh, they're all over the place.

They're everywhere.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, but this one actually is about, uh, 106.2 proof. So we're stepping it up a notch.

I don't think I've ever had there a barrel, a single barrel from there. I'm excited.

Yeah. You never had another barrel?

No.

Strength ones?

Cast Strength, yes. I've had that, but I've not had like a barrel pick before.

Well, this is one of my wife's favorite bottles right here. She's probably going to be mad that I opened this, but hey, let's drink it. Cheers. Cheers ladies.

Cheers. This is exciting.

You definitely get the sweetness from that port barrel. Oh yeah.

It's like syrup, candy sweetness.

This would make a super nice cocktail right here.

Yes. That is actually really delicious. Angels of Eve, they have such a great story. I do like everything about this brand.

You mentioned you had a tie back to Lincoln Henderson.

Well, yeah, so my mom, when she worked at Brown Forman, she used to work in the lab with Lincoln Henderson, and she would set up his organoleptic tastings, and then he would teach her about what he's doing, which I thought was really cool. And then I know Wes and his wife, Julie, because our kids went to school together. So we're all Hendersons all the time. Yeah, it's just one big family, you know, right here in Kentucky. I mean, we all know everybody.

Well, people from outside of Kentucky like to say one big family, don't they?

They do, but they really don't understand Kentucky until you come here and experience it. It's not a bunch of hillbillies here. You could never say that until you come here and truly take in what Kentucky is, the Kentucky bluegrass, the horse farms, the racing scene here, and bourbon itself.

Well, and I think there's such a diversity to Kentucky that maybe people don't get to see. I mean, A, we're all wearing shoes here, right? We have all our teeth. We have all our teeth. We're all wearing shoes. But there's a diversity that you don't always see. And when you come here, to see the distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail adventure. It's so different from distilleries in Louisville to distilleries in Bardstown to distilleries in Lexington to Western Kentucky and Owensboro and some of the smaller craft distilleries that are out in more rural areas. It is such a vast just spectrum of people and places and scenery. It's just, it's really incredible. There's really something for everyone and everyone, I mean, everyone older, younger, diverse backgrounds can find themselves here. See someone that looks like them here, which I think is, you know, a lot of people outside of Kentucky don't realize that.

Yeah, it's such a beautiful state all the way across. Um, and I like how you put it, you brought tied it all into it. Cause if you were into the city scene or urban scene, Louisville is for you with bourbon. They've got plenty of distilleries there. If you want the countryside, come to Frankfurt and Lexington and you're going to get the countryside. If you want that small town feel, middle America, fly over state, go to Bars Town.

Oh, yeah.

You get a little bit of everything. If you want super rule, go to some of the craft distilleries.

Oh, yeah.

There's a lot of them that are off the beaten path a little bit. And there's a couple of big ones that are off the beaten path, like Maker's Mark.

Oh, absolutely. I don't even know if they have cell service there. So bring your actual map because once you get there and you don't want to leave.

Yeah, Maker's Mark is just a beautiful location, kind of sunken down into a bowl there. I just, I love it. We're actually going out there on the 26th to visit Denny Potter and Jane Bowie, and I just can't wait.

Oh, wow. It'll be a great trip. Can we go with you? Yeah, what a fun time. And Jane loved Denny. But Jane, man, she's got some stories.

We're going to dig them out. We're going to dig them out.

She's got that nice husky voice. She's got that podcast voice. She's ready.

Well, in the first half, you kind of outlined the great work that you do in promoting Kentucky bourbon and moving laws to a more favorable position for people in bourbon and people who enjoy bourbon. One of the things we didn't get to in the first half was talking about most recent accomplishment and, apropos, that we're sitting here drinking a single barrel right now. Can we talk a little bit about House Bill 500 and what you were able to accomplish with that?

So this was really exciting for us this year. In this past session, we passed House Bill 500. And so those of you out there listening that have ever gone on a private barrel selection or have gone to your favorite store and purchased a bottle of a private barrel selection, they were technically illegal until April. And I will be honest with you, nobody knew that. It was something that the ABC kindly tapped us on the shoulder and said, you know, the way this is written, it's not exactly permissive for this practice that we know has been going on. Can you guys fix this in the next legislative session? So yeah, we're on that. But what we managed to accomplish in this past session is pass a bill that not only legalizes this very popular practice, it also kind of changed a few things. Without getting too far in the weeds, but I know that you have listeners that like to do private barrel selections for a consumer. And that is an unlicensed entity, so not a retailer or a bar or a restaurant. But for a consumer, distilleries are allowed to set aside 30% of their barrel picks for consumers. And those and where you had to go through the rigmarole of the three tier and you could only take this many and then you had to come back and you had to go get this many. You could take the whole, all the cases home with you that day. So depending on the program, you go there, you do your selection, you grab lunch, they bottle it for you, you got the labels on, pack them in your truck, you drive away with them. And that is a big deal. So that was part of the provision. Then there are a couple other really exciting pieces that were added into this bill. And this was a compromise among retailers, distributors, and distiller. So this was such a great bill that all three entities came together to pass this version of it. Satellite tasting rooms. So if you are a distillery with a visitor center, with tasting privileges. And if you have NQ2 privileges or cocktail privileges, you can sell cocktails. You can open one separate outside tasting room with the same privileges at another location. So let's say you are Green River Distillery in Owensboro, Kentucky. If you haven't tried Green River, it's delicious and it's beautiful there. They can open a tasting room that sells their bottles, sells their merchandise, serves their cocktails and their product by the drink in Louisville if they wanted to in downtown Louisville for people who can't maybe make it all the way to Owensboro that day. So that was super exciting. Same thing beer and wine can do, right? The couple other provisions in that bill, one, barrel-aged cocktails. So if you've ever been to a restaurant and on the menu is a barrel-aged Manhattan or something like that, those were technically not legal either because by law, alcohol had to be dispensed from its original container. So by putting in the barrel and then dispensing it after was not quite legal. So that's all cleaned up. And then the other really exciting piece of this legislation, which is great for tourism and festivals, that distilleries can go ahead, can be at festivals and not only sell by the drink at the festivals, but they can sell by the bottle at the festivals.

So listeners tune into that now because you got a couple of festivals coming up. We do have a couple of festivals coming up.

Hopefully that festival is working on that right now.

I believe that was one of the first calls we got were from a few festivals that said we can do this, right? Absolutely. Now, I want to be clear that I'm pretty sure it will be illegal and against festival rules to open those bottles on festival grounds. But yes, the distilleries will be able to sell bottles. That's super exciting.

Well, let's, let's talk about the, the KDA in the bourbon trail, Mandy, in how that's changed. When I first came on the bourbon trail, I think it was 2006, 2007.

You need to get back out there.

There's a few more. There's a few more distilleries on there.

Yeah. So yeah, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail was formed in 1999. And it started with, I think, around six distilleries. We have 18 on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail today. In 2012, we started the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Craft Tour. There's 23 of those today. So that is a tour of the smaller distilleries and it's kind of in line with our membership levels. We have heritage proof and craft members. So our craft members fall into that category for the craft tour. And they both have different experiences along the way. So for us, we have our passport program, which we've had from the beginning. When you visit the Kentucky Bourbon Trail now, and this is new as of two years ago. 2021. Oh, a year ago. When you go to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and here's a little ASMR for you. This is our new Bourbon Trail Passport and Field Guide, which just came out recently. It has all of your Kentucky Bourbon Trail and craft tour distilleries in one place. Convenient for you. You can get this stamped at each distillery that you visit. It's a 160-page book. It has cocktail recipes, tasting notes, trip planning materials. It's great. It's beautiful. The photography is amazing. And I'm not saying that because I'm in it.

Maybe always ends up in our photography.

It's called free talent. Yes.

So what does this cost somebody that comes on the trail?

Yeah. So at the distillery, it's going to be less than if you bought it third party or online because we didn't want those to compete with our distilleries. And what's the price at distilleries right now?

I think most distilleries are selling these for $9.99. And that's because they realize you've already come to our distillery. So it's kind of a perk. You're here, and we want you to have this book. So we're going to sell it to you for a special price for coming all the way out here. but it's also for sale at our online shop and at third-party distilleries. The MSRP on it is $14.95.

But there's so much you get in here. It's like one of those little books that you get from your school kids that come in and say, hey, I want to give you this coupon book for $25. But there's like thousands of dollars in that little coupon book.

Yeah. We were actually at Evan Williams a couple of weeks ago and we overheard a group talking from Michigan and they had their book and we interrupted them, obviously, because that's what we do. And they're like, oh man, look at this, I got it signed by Jimmy Russell and I have all my notes in here. And they said, we're going to keep this forever and we love it. So that makes my job worth every ounce of blood, sweat and tears that went into this book.

And tell them about the stamps.

Oh, yeah. So on the KBT, just having this book in your possession unlocks special access. So if you remember years ago, you used to get a t-shirt for completing the entire Kentucky Bourbon Trail. That is no longer but at each distillery it unlocks access to either buy a special bottle, take a special tour, get a freebie. Everybody does it differently. So that's a really fun change.

Sometimes they add a little something special to your tasting.

Yeah, that's super fun. On the craft tour, though, it is broken down into different regions, because if you could see it on a map, you could see the Kentucky Bourbon Trail distilleries are more located around the center of the state. So you've got Louisville, Barstown, and Lexington. That's kind of our triangle with Green River and Owensboro. But the craft tour is spread out across the state further. So we've got a western region, a northern region, a central region and a bluegrass region. And as you complete those regions, you get challenge coins, which are super fun. And then when you complete all of them, you get a stave tray that you can either put the coins in or use for your glasses when you're entertaining. So yeah, people love collecting those.

That's so much change from when I did it back then. Cause it was like this like six little page book with no bourbon education in there at all. And I'm looking through this and it has so much bourbon knowledge inside there just about, about bourbon.

And we come out with a new one each year because we, we generally have more distilleries joining each year. So you get every year is the new edition. Now it doesn't change much, but it'll add like for this, this past year, so 2021 and then for 2022, we added Castle and Key, Log Still, Copper and Kings and the Bard Distillery. So, I mean, it just keeps growing.

That's awesome. That's so great. So I mean, yeah, people can pick them up at the distilleries and they should, but they can also buy them online and use them to plan their trip.

Oh, absolutely. It actually has a little, you know, kind of gives you an idea of like, you know, how far this distillery is from that distillery, because it's hard to know if you're not, if you're not familiar with it, if you're not from Kentucky, if you don't work in Bourbon every day, it's really hard to know.

Yeah. We've had people ask if they can ride their horses to the distillery. if they can walk to each one of them.

You can walk to the urban ones.

Yeah. So Louisville, if you just hit Main Street, you can hit, what is it, four or five and a mile and a half. But yeah, for the most part, you need to either drive or book a car is our favorite.

You ain't walking to Maker's Mark. No.

No.

That one you could probably ride your horse to.

Yeah. The Ubers are covered wagons.

Let's talk. I see a big board over here and it talks about trail rules that somebody's coming here, some things they should do or expect on the trail. You don't make their experience better. What are those rules over there?

Yeah, so I think sometimes people don't realize how much whiskey they can have access to, not only at one distillery, but two, three, four, however many you're visiting that day. So it's really important to plan ahead, plan your rides, you know, bring your ID because all of our distilleries are going to check that. you know, drink slowly, add water, eat a decent meal. Eat throughout the day. Yeah, frequently. And just be, be kind and respectful to our distilleries who, you know, are going to work every day to welcome you in.

And I noticed on the very bottom there says leave room for what?

Bourbon balls.

So there's some history in this house right here, two bourbon balls.

Yeah, we have a very special connection. So in 1919, actually, Ruth Hanley Boo and Rebecca Gooch invented the bourbon ball in the kitchen in this house. Yeah, so if you look right across the street, Rebecca Ruth is still operating right over there selling their bourbon balls every day.

And this is actually, our headquarters is actually historically known as the Gooch House because it was Rebecca Gooch, Rebecca Gooch's family home. And Ruth Hanley Boo was her friend and they quit teaching and they came here and legend has it, it took them two years to perfect the recipe.

They're not easy to make.

I can't imagine that they are. They're super easy to eat. Let me tell you right now.

Jim makes them and I eat them. I won't say it's too difficult to make a bourbon ball. It is hard to start with, but it's hard to make a good looking one.

Right, right.

Especially after you eat a few. You're not going to look good at all. Ice cream scoop, right? That's the trick.

You know, I haven't really figured out the true Every time I make them, I get like 10 that are beautiful and the rest of them are all boo-boos. Let's talk about boo-boos for our listeners out there.

Listen, listeners, when you come to the Bourbon Trail, make sure when you go and wreck a Becker Ruth, if you're giving these away, go ahead and buy the box ones. That's fine. But if you're just going to eat them on the Bourbon Trail, they got these ones called boo-boo. It might be missing the pecan. half a can, have a little dent in it or who knows what happened. Buy those boo-boos and eat them. By the pound.

By the pound.

That's something I didn't know.

You didn't know they sold those there?

No. Yeah, you can get several different flavors from Jim Bean, Makers Mark, Old Forrester, Evan Williams.

That's awesome.

We always have them at our house for guests and they're like, what is this? It's a little chocolate treat for you to go with the bourbon that's up on the wall.

We also love Art Eatables and their bourbon truffles. Those are so good.

Bourbon truffles.

Yeah. Yeah. So they don't have the nuts. They're a nut free facility, but they do the truffle that's covered in the chocolate and they are boozy.

They are really good. They are delicious. Hey, Manny, just for people that don't know, since I'm taking over the podcast right now, just for people that don't know much about the Kentucky Bourbon Trail or touring a bourbon distillery or an experience, like how many could you do in a day? I mean, what's realistic here?

Yeah, I mean it depends on where you're focusing your attentions. Like we said in Louisville, if you're just wanting to stop into the gift shops and walk that experience, you could hit four or five maybe. Um, if you're doing full, full tours, I would say it's more like two or three.

Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, cause you really have to consider drive time and then how much time you're going to spend there. Cause if you go to Bardstown bourbon company and you do a tour, you do a cocktail class, you have a meal. I mean, that's, that's kind of an afternoon right there.

If you want to do it that way.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's talk about that for a second because listeners think that you just show up here and go ahead and get a tour. That's not the case right now. Right.

Especially on the weekends, yes, our distilleries are very busy right now. I think there's a little revenge tourism going on from this pandemic. So yes, if you are wanting to come to Kentucky for Bourbon, please book ahead. Book your hotel, book your tours, book any experience, book your restaurant reservations, anything you want to do, book it now.

People who have been to Napa Valley on a trip know that that's the way it's done anyway. If you try to go to Napa Valley and just show up, you're not going to get into any wineries. We need to be very conscious of that here and understand that there's a lot of people hitting the road. People are tired of being cooped up.

And these experiences are really, they're a lot of fun. They're very educational. They're very unique from distillery to distillery. And we always encourage, you know, go online or call and just find out what they've got going on. Hey, I'm going to be in town in a couple of weeks. Do you have anything available? What do you have available? Because it's different from distillery to distillery. And you might find that some of the smaller craft distilleries could take a walk in, but some place that gets a lot of traffic is going to be pretty booked out for a month or two. But Mandy does a really good job with the Kentucky Bourbon Trail website. You can go on there and see she's got itineraries on there. So I'm going to be in the Bardstown area. She'll put a little itinerary on. We'll eat here. You know, while you're not at a distillery, check out this place to shop or, you know, different things like that.

So you did the recon.

Oh, yeah. I told you, our jobs are hard, you guys.

Yeah, so let's go ahead and get another pour going, even though Mandy barely touched her Angel's Envy.

Hey, somebody had a heavy hand pouring my drink.

I think she drank half of it. You just can't. It's still a lot left, Mike. Yeah, it was a lot. Well, I brought a really special bottle. A lot of people's bourbon of the year for 2021. It wasn't our bourbon of the year for 2021. We picked Maker's Mark Fay 02. But a lot of people pick this right here as their Bourbon of the Year for last year. Now, this is a 13-year-old Russell's Reserve.

Nice. We just thought we'd have you guys over every Monday. Is that okay?

Yeah, let's do it.

They come bearing gifts.

I haven't thought about that. That's a pretty cool way to start your week, right? Yeah. Monday. Tea off the rest of the week with some bourbons.

Cheers to Monday.

Now, maybe you haven't had this before.

I have not. Have you had this yet? I've not had the 13. No. I'm excited.

Well, as you can tell by that bottle, I've had it before.

We did a review of this recently, didn't we?

So what do you guys tell me about your Tasty Notes on this one?

I'm trying to remember what my tasting notes were. That's not the way to do it though. The best way to do is just drink it again and give your new notes because they will change.

Isn't it funny how it changes? We've been at events in the morning where you have to do it. You don't have to, but they'll have a tasting at this event. It's groundbreaking or some sort of launch. And my palate is not ready in the morning. And maybe that sounds weird to some people, but it is just not ready. But the same bourbon will taste delicious, you know, 6.30 that evening.

Yeah, there's a couple of things that can really embarrass you. One is to review something for the second time, it'd be totally opposite, which happens. It happens to both of us. It happens to us all the time. The other thing is blind tastings, where you go, that's a wild turkey, and it turns out to be something altogether different. You're like, oh. That was my daily drinker, wild turkey, and I picked something else. It just happens.

Isn't that crazy? I have a story about a very well-known bourbon person, personality, that was at a blind tasting. of all of them chose the greatest one in there and it turned out to be Maker's Mark. And you know, no well-known bourbon personality is just going to say Maker's Mark is the greatest one.

Yeah. I mean, it just happens. It really does. Maker's Mark is fantastic bourbon. It's really good bourbon, but you put it into a blind and it usually fares Yeah.

So I have a question for you guys. When you're doing tasting notes on whiskeys, are there any words that you don't use? Noob words that you just don't use?

I don't like to use... Whiskey university is not, moonshine university is not gonna like this. I don't like the whiskey wheel. I really think it's overused. Notes should come from what's up in here, that memory when you were a child or a young adult and you ate something. You smelled something, you walked down a road and you smelled some honeysuckle. I always get some honeysuckle on stuff or roses that I might have bought my wife. And I always like to smell a rose. You know, if I'm giving them off roses, I don't want them to stink, so I'll smell them. But cereals is big with me, some kind of candy, something like that. I want that experience. Jim has cedar notes or Necco candy. We might from our childhood say whorehound candy. Yeah. Sorghum molasses. You know, I want to hear something. When somebody says something like that, or they said, I heard somebody the other days, they said ruts.

Oh, isn't that funny?

And they were like, it's artificial banana flavor. It's different from a real banana flavor.

Right. Was it for Old Forester? Because I get banana Laffy Taffy in Old Forester. I actually think it was from that. It is crazy.

And I've said banana Laffy Taffy before. But that's the kind of bourbon notes we would both prefer to hear somebody say, I would anyways. You're always going to get some oak and some vanilla. But to me, that's that person that went to that wheel and said, OK, these are going to I studied it. I understand it.

And this can be expressed usually like, I'm getting a lot of oak, or I'm getting a lot of grain, or I'm getting a lot of fruit, or I'm getting a lot of floral.

You know, those four things, we use those, but we don't dive deeper into those.

You know, it's usually, once we say that, We'll say, you know, and honey smackums or whatever, whatever it is.

But I think, I think that, you know, having a wheel or a list might help you if you're like, Oh, it's this, it's this. I can't think of what that, what is that I'm getting? It might help you like trigger that, but I'll tell you, we were, uh, at Maker's Mark doing a private selection with Chris Morris. Great day. And he went through one of the blends that they did, and he said he distinctly tasted Cocoa Puffs.

And I'm thinking, when's the last time you had Cocoa Puffs? Chris Morris.

And that's what he picked out, Chris Morris, Cocoa Puffs. And then I was talking to a bartender one time and she kept telling me she loves scotch and she was awfully young. So I thought, do you really love scotch? She said, oh, I love scotch because my grandfather used to keep a pouch of tobacco in his pocket, in his breast pocket. And I used to sit on his lap. And that's all I think of when I drink scotch. And I thought, that's what it is. That's exactly what you're saying.

In one way, you talk to people about bourbon. If we do an event at a house or out at Bourbon on the Banks and people ask us, what do you get in this? Or how do I taste like that? So I want you to close your eyes and take that smell of that bourbon, that nose. and think back what it smells like to you. Does it smell like toasted marshmallows in a campfire? Does it taste like that favorite cereal? I think one day, my wife loves corn flakes. She says, stay away from my corn flakes, don't eat them. But I bought her some and I poured them into one of those like cereal Tupperware things. And when I sniffed it and I was like, Oh, that smells like cornflakes. So me and him did a review probably two or three days later. And I was like, man, this smells like cornflakes. I had that memory stuck in my head. So I think that's the way I like to tell people to drink their bourbon is drink it like that. I enjoy it, you know, and try to open that up and stuff. My little brother recently got into bourbon and he sent me a picture of him holding a box of sugar smackums. Uh, cause he said, I finally got what you were talking about.

Um, I called him a honey smackums, didn't I? Honey nut Cheerios, sugar smackums.

I think it's sugar smacks.

Yeah. Uh, he calls them smackums.

That's what I'm going to call them from now on.

Yeah.

I'll tell you what Jim and I got on this, uh, Russell's RF 13 year when we did our review of it, um, was on the nose. We've said toffee, dark cherries, honey, tea, and vanilla. And there was hints of chocolate and an oak.

Hmm.

That's what we got on our nose. On the palate, we got spiced gumdrops, which is gonna usually come up with us. Honey tea with such an overwhelming sweetness to it. Maybe like that hot winter tea you're gonna get and you put honey into. Cinnamon with waves of chocolate, oak and caramel. We said it was very complex with layer after layer of new wonderful flavors. This is the kind of whiskey you could sit down with for hours and just talk about it and sip on it and really try to understand those layers of what Eddie and Jimmy were really getting at when they put it in a barrel.

Yeah, it keeps changing. Yeah, it does. And it is delicious. And I feel like this has more of Eddie than Jimmy, right? Because doesn't Jimmy think 10 years is the max?

I've been at private selections with Jimmy. And this is like, everybody's like, oh, I'm getting some cherry. Oh, I'm getting this. And he was like, I don't like it. What don't you like it about, Jimmy? I don't know. Just doesn't taste good. Okay, we'll try something else. I like number two. Well, what do you like about it? Just tastes good. I'm like, and, and that's just how it is. And I'm not arguing with this for sure. This is delicious.

So don't mess around with Jimmy.

He knows what he likes. This is something that you, and you're not going to find this bottle in Kentucky. If you're coming here for a bourbon pilgrimage, Don't expect to find these awesome, amazing bottles here. There's just too many people here trying to grab them and stuff. And don't get upset at the store owner or at the distillery when they don't have those bottles. If you want to get a bottle, and you both ladies probably know this, you better get to the distillery way before they open up.

You have to camp for it.

Bring your rain jacket, bring a chair, bring a book or your phone. Sometimes your phone won't work like down at Castle & Key. It's so far down in there. But you can't just show up and say, I'm going to get this. It's not going to happen. If a podcast like ours said that Castle & Key batch two might be the bourbon of the year. We did say that. We did. You better believe we do know what we're talking about and people are gonna line up to try to get that bottle as fast as possible Yeah, yeah now I do like to let people know especially if you're new to bourbon and even if you're not

You don't have to get these special crazy unicorn bottles, not that they all are, but you know, there's so much out there that is absolutely delicious. I designed a flight for a bar in Louisville and I did it all with just kind of your every days. Because we all have an everyday that you can get anytime you need it, anytime you want it, and you love working with it, and you love the taste. And I think that's also very, very important, too. These great bottles are just absolutely fantastic, but there's just so many really fantastic ones on the shelf.

Yeah, there's plenty to take home from here. There are Kentucky only releases as well. Things that can only be had in Kentucky. So when you come here, make sure you pick up some of those. All of our distilleries have some kind of a Kentucky only available release or a gift shop only release that you can pick up. There's also some small distilleries that are just knocking it out of the park. I mean, craziness.

Absolutely.

What are two distilleries right now that you think like craft distilleries that you just think are hitting it up? you know, batting hard.

So many. I know. And it's so hard to choose. I will tell you. It's so hard to, it's so hard. I mean, I would name them so many. You cannot go wrong with Kentucky Peerless. No matter what they do, on which day of the week, you cannot go wrong. Caleb Kilburn has wanted to be a distiller since, is the only thing he's ever wanted to be when he grew up. And he is unbelievable. And I think he is arguably, arguably was maybe the youngest distiller, head distiller in Kentucky.

I think it's between him and Royce Neely. Well, he was there first before, so maybe he was before Royce came on.

But I mean, he might be I don't know, but that kid is brilliant. I said that kid. How old am I? He's brilliant. He is just the best. He makes, oh, it's so delicious. And then, you know, I have not tried it yet. Bro Brothers just became the official bourbon of the Great Steamboat Race.

Really?

Kind of a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. And you want to talk about, From the ground up, that's three brothers that did this all on their own from the ground up. They're in the West End of Louisville.

New Riff up in Northern Kentucky.

Oh my gosh. New Riff. Wow. So special.

Yeah. So good.

They're putting out a few barrels. Just a few. Just a few.

I'll tell you what. They're all, here's the thing though. In my line of work, I've worked with so many entrepreneurs that have gotten into this business. And I know enough about getting into this business to know that I would never do it. This is one of the most highly regulated industries in the United States. Top three. It's red tape everywhere you turn. It's paperwork everywhere you turn. You take two steps forward trying to start this. You take three back. It is just, you're banging your head on the wall. You're not making any money for how many years. You're trying to get a product on the shelf. It's just... hard. It is hard, but they are doing it. And it's just when you get to cut a ribbon on a distillery or they put their first product on the shelf or they get an award or a review, you just got to think what went into that. And it is truly, truly so much heart that goes into these craft guys that are coming up, starting from scratch like that.

Well, ladies, we can't thank you enough for this conversation and letting our listeners know about the distillery trail. You know, it's important to us to get that story told, to get that information out there, to get it on our website, to get it on the podcast for listeners and stuff. But we really appreciate you coming on, inviting us into your house. Now, you guys, before we started, you guys have a gift basket sitting on the table, I noticed. What is that?

Yeah, so we should have mentioned earlier, the Frasier Museum in downtown Louisville is our official welcome center and starting point at the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. So we have four tickets to our exhibit there and the entire museum. We have four of our Bourbon Trail field guide and passports that we talked about earlier, a bag of grilling chips because grilling season is coming up soon, and a Turvis Tumbler for you guys.

Well, we're going to pair with that a bottle that you can only get here in Kentucky, Jim. And what would that be?

Well, there's a few, but I know what you're getting at here. This is going to be JTS Brown Bottling Bond.

Yeah. JTS Brown Bottled Bond, a hundred proofer, a super respectful bourbon that anybody should have on their shelf. But we want to make sure whoever gets that basket gets that bottle of bourbon too, to start their trip out here in Kentucky perfectly.

It's a great basket to put in your car and head this way. Bring three of your favorite people and enjoy the time here. I think that's pretty darn good value there. And there's a lot in that basket. And to have that bottle of JTS Brown to kick off your trip with, how's that? Yeah, perfect. Don't drive. Don't drive while you're doing it.

Plan your trip, plan your rides.

So listeners, so what you got to do to win this gift basket and bottle of bourbon is you got to be 21. You got to reside in the United States of America. You got to follow KDA. That's Kentucky Distillers Association on Instagram. I'm sure they would appreciate that follow.

Let's say Kentucky Bourbon Trail or KY Bourbon.

All right, let's do that. Either one. Follow those and then follow us if you would, if you would not already on Instagram. We'll pick one lucky winner at the end of the day. What we need you to do is go ahead and tell us, um, heck, just tell us shows you say, Hey, followed an end on this and we'll pick a winner at the end of the day at 10 o'clock at night on, uh, the day of this release, which was this Wednesday.

Okay. So we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll randomize something and we'll pick a winner out of the list. Awesome. Perfect. Well, I think some lucky winner will be happy to get this. No doubt about it.

I was going to give them some, I wanted to give them some history, but that first person kind of ruins that thing. You know, we only do that one person, but an all day event from the time we make our first post on Instagram until the very end on Instagram at 10 o'clock at night, I'll pick a winner and you'll get this great basket in the mail from us.

That's awesome. That's great. Well, ladies, I think we'd also like to make sure we get the information out there of how people can learn more about the KDA, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Kentucky Bourbon. Where do people need to go? What do they need to do to find out everything there is to know about the organization?

Yeah. So if you're interested in the KDA in general, our website, kyburbin.com, it's a great place to start. We have great resources for the consumer who wants to know more about bourbon and how to taste it and recipes. But we also have a lot of good industry information, economic impact info, membership information there as well. Or if you're looking to come and visit, kentuckyburbintrail.com is a great place to go. or visit our shop and gear up before you come.

Awesome. Well, Mike, where can people find us on the internet?

Well, you know you can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Man, I don't know where else. A lot of other places. YouTube. The Bourbon Road. It's pretty easy. Yeah. The Bourbon Road. The Bourbon Road. However you want to say it. Find us there give us a follow. We also have a private Facebook group called the bourbon roadies on Facebook 2600 people in there of like-minded bourbon drinkers We got three easy rules in there. Do you drink bourbon? Of course, everybody wants to drink bourbon. Are you 21? That's kind of the standard right and do you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate water there Jim

No rudeness, no rudeness. So everybody gets to drink what they want to drink, right? And if somebody comes in there and they're talking about that bottom shelf bottle they just had and how much they liked it, you leave them be. That's their whiskey. They chose to pay money for it and they get to enjoy it. And there's a lot of great, and we've shown people, there's a lot of great bottles on that bottom shelf.

Heck yeah.

And if you're drinking from the top of the shelf, same thing goes. Nobody needs to give you shame for popping the top on a $200 bottle, right? Nope. All right. Well, be nice in there. Lift each other up. If you don't, you won't last long. We've got three very aggressive moderators who will have you out of the group pretty quick. We'd love you to stay there though. It's always good friends, no doubt about it. We do two shows a week. Every Monday we do a craft distillery episode. We'll have a young aspiring craft distillery on trying to shine some light on them. Sometimes it's a big boy, but usually it's a small craft distillery that needs a leg up. We'll taste the bourbon. We'll tell you what we think about it. We'll let you know whether or not you ought to add that one to your bar. Every Wednesday, we'll do a long version show like today's. We'll have guests on. We'll drink through several bottles. We'll explore a deep topic like today. What a great show, ladies. We really had a wonderful time with you. But we'd love to have people listen to both shows every week. And Mike, how can you be sure not to miss a single show?

What you want to do, listener, is go ahead and scroll up to the top of that app. whatever app that is you're listed on apple amazon spotify hit that subscribe button that check sign that plus sign whatever it is so your app will tell you these two guys gotta show out right now then we want you to scroll on down hit that five star review leave us some comments you know what's gonna happen if you don't the big bad booty daddy a bourbon's gonna come to your house with these four bottles we're gonna drink all night long by the end of the night you're gonna give us that five star review and some comments i guarantee but no seriously those comments that five star review opens up doors to distilleries for us gets us in there gets great guests on the show gets great whiskey in our hands to review we would appreciate it

Now, Mike and I are very approachable. If you see us out in town, make sure you come up and give us a shout out. You can always send us a comment or suggestion on our website, on our Contact Us page. Send us an email. I'm Jim at TheBurbanRoad.com. He's Mike at TheBurbanRoad.com. Like we always say, probably the best way is to hit up our DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down.

The Bourbon Road.