267. Protect Your Bourbon

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 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. I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. Today, Mike, we've got a long episode.

Yeah.

We've got a good topic. We've got two very nice bottles. Yeah, I'd say these are highly sought after bottles.

Yeah. But the topic is... Well, how long does bourbon last on the shelf? My little brother sent me a text and he's starting to get into whiskey now.

Yeah.

And he had a whole bunch of questions for us like, how long does it last on the shelf, you know, once it's up there?

And it's a little bit of a gray area. So, I mean, it's not an absolute, right? It depends on a lot of things.

Yeah, I think where you have it sitting at on the bar, you know, how many windows, like this great room has a wall of windows. There's all kinds of windows in here, but it's our north-facing wall, so it doesn't get, I was telling you, it doesn't get a lot of light at all times and stuff. It's lit up in here now because I got a bunch of lights on, but usually it's not that light. Unlike yours, though, you turn the lights off and your stuff is just in darkness. That's right. Well, let's talk first about what our first whiskey is. Well, this don't get pulled off the shelf very much, because there's not a lot left in this bottle anymore. But I have a couple reserves hidden. They're in complete darkness. But this is Weller 12.

Yeah. So typically, I would say for most folks, There are better bottles, the ones that they really enjoy, usually only get pulled out on occasions. So they're going to be the ones that sit on the shelf the longest. Usually. Yeah. Some for years. Years. And everybody wants to know, do I need to drink it? Should I go ahead and get rid of it? Is it going to go bad? Well, you know, we've got a couple of bottles here. The first one is probably about two years on the shelf. Yeah, a year and a half, two years. About two years on the shelf. And this is about a half full bottle. So it's got a pretty good amount of air space in it. So this bottle is not a really old bottle because some of the older bottles had raised glass on them, the wheat. They were fat too. They were fatter. But this does have a screw top on it. This is a Weller 12. It's about half full. Got a good amount of oxygen space in there. Been sitting in a pretty bright room for a couple of years, year and a half to two years. So, and being a Weller 12 aficionado, being the Weed of King of Kentucky, you're going to be able to tell if there's anything wrong with this Weller 12.

Yeah, I don't think there is. Because it probably hasn't been that long since you tasted it, right? Yeah. Every once in a while I'll go up there and grab a bottle, you know, and taste off of them a little bit, you know, and, um, if I want a special pour, if I've had a bad day at work, you could probably guarantee I'm going to go for one of those Weller bottles up on the shelf.

Yeah.

Um, It's just a, and that, that's why I have other ones hidden away. Um, if I get a chance to get one at MSRP, then I'm going to grab it.

Yeah. Well, Mike, let's tip it up. We're not going to do a review of this, but we are going to taste it and relish it. Right. That's the only 90 proof.

Man, that's good stuff. Don't taste bad to me. Nothing wrong with that. You think it went bad?

No, I don't think any of that sunlight in your room has gotten to it a bit. It's not ready for the infinity bottle yet.

I'll say that. No, I think if you walk into a bar, Jim, and you, they have a window behind their bar. You know, you've seen them before, especially in Louisville and sunlight is pouring directly onto the bottle. Like it's coming through the window into the room, right onto the glass. Um, for some of them higher bottles that nobody ever touches, that's where I'd probably get concerned if the sunlight was peering straight, but these are on a shelf to the wall. So I think that protects them a little bit.

Yeah. And you know, honestly, this bottle still is half full. If it were an inch, if it were down to about an inch or a half an inch, I might say, go ahead and add it to your infinity bottle. It wouldn't be up there.

I would have done, poured it in that infinity bottle. I just did that. You notice up on the wall there, there's an empty rebel tenure. There is. I just noticed that. It's the little, I don't know, there was like two, not probably half inch in there. I just poured an affinity bottle.

How's that infinity bottle doing, by the way? And take a minute and explain to the new listeners what an infinity bottle is.

So infinity bottles, when you have, and people do it differently. And the way I did it was I took and filled it up about three quarters with weeded bourbons, a whole bunch of different weeded bourbons. There's no bad bourbon inside there, I guarantee you that. But I took a little bit from each bottle and filled it up three quarters of the way. Because people that say, hey, I'm going to make an affinity bottle. I'm going to pour this inch into this bottle. It's just still going to be an inch.

You got to start with some whiskey.

So you need to build your infinity bottle out and get that air out of there. And then as you drink from it and make sure you drink from it and you drink from your other bottles, you get down to about that inch or two inches, pour it in that infinity bottle and keep it. It keeps filling itself up somehow. I don't know. I'll come out here and there's bourbon in there. That's the way it works. It's just, it's magic.

Yeah, I do the same thing. I go between three quarters and a quarter. So if it gets down to a quarter full, I'll stop drinking on my affinity bottle and I'll start adding to it again. And I'll add to it until it hits three quarters again. And once it hits three quarters, I'll start drinking on it again. The idea there is that you don't leave half an inch of bourbon in a bottle for a long time where it's going to oxidize on you.

Yeah. And that might be more important to know that than where it's sitting in sunlight and stuff. Now the rule of thumb is one to two years. Yeah. I don't know if that's, it can be true because where you're bourbon sitting at in the complete darkness. Um, and you do got a lot of full bottles. It'll last forever. Yeah.

And we've had dusties that are, you know, 30, 40, 50, 80 years old. Yeah. And they still drink well.

We've talked about those older bourbons stuff that has that, especially if they had that screw top on them and they had that little waxy cap. Inside there, you know when you screw it off and I'll have like a little seal on there that waxy cap I believe dissolves a little bit or deteriorates and it gets inside that bourbon. It gives it a funky taste to it. Yeah Does it mean the bourbon is not good? Heck, I don't know. I probably drink worse stuff than that in my life. So why not try it out?

Well, Mike, I had no idea today when I came over to Jep the bin farm here to do a, do an episode that we're going to be sipping on a couple of fine bourbons like we are today. Weller 12 is always good, always nice to have. And, uh, I'm awful glad that this one didn't go bad on your shelf.

Yeah, I don't think, you know, I try to replenish stuff. There's actually a well or special reserve up there. I probably need to either go ahead and finish it up or put another bottle up there or dump it, dump it, or do something with it. It's been up there for a little bit longer than this well or 12 has been. So I'll be time to move on. There's a foolproof up there too. Uh, you actually went on that pick, uh, a Kraken bottle. Oh yeah. Um, we actually drank some of that last night though. We did.

And so we were, yeah, we were at a party and, and there was a fellow there who was talking about his foolproof bottle. So he was talking about the one that he relished the most that he hadn't opened yet called the Kraken. He said, do you know anything about that? I said, well, I know a little bit about it.

I picked it.

He goes, you did?

Yeah, we sure did.

Yeah. You know, my older brother would ask, when should people start thinking about moving on from a bottle? Well, build yourself that infinity bottle, and that way you can move on and create shelf space. But you can do your infinity bottle however you want to do it. But that's the way I do mine. You got to start somewhere. So fill it up with a couple of bourbons. Leave enough space in there for that next bottle that you're about to MP and do with that. You can go online and buy an affinity bottle. You can make one out of a really nice whiskey bottle. Just wash the stuff off there or take it to an engraver and get it engraved. Mine is engraved with an infinity symbol with an anchor in it. And it has our latitude and longitude on there. It says Big Chiefs Blend on there, which you'd probably guess there's no rye bourbon in there. So it's all wheat.

Mine, I just took an old Stagg Junior bottle and a Sharpie Mark owner and drew an infinity symbol on it. You're not bougie. I'm not bougie like that.

I'm surprised though. I would have thought you would eventually go get one and get it in the grave.

Now I might just do that, but you know, my decanter that I've got is a bourbon road decanter and that's proudly displayed front and center on my bar. And it's got a 1980 wild turkey on it that I got from a good friend. Full of the 1980 wild turkey I got from a good friend. It filled it up. It did fill it up.

There was that much in that bottle. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Wow. I didn't think.

Yeah, there was, you know, it was a 750, it was a 750 ceramic wild turkey from 1980 and it probably had 700 of the 750 mils in it.

Wow. I didn't think there was any that much left in that bottle. Um, And was there any chunks or anything? No, no, it poured clean.

Really? It poured clean. But as you know, the cork was disintegrated. Yeah. And, you know, possibly a little bit of oxygen had gotten to it over the years. That's all right.

It's still a neat whiskey to drink and say, hey, here's the story behind this. Super nice looking decanter if you're into wild turkey, which you are. And I like to see those things. You have that decanter. I've got an empty Ezra Brooks decanter that's a Native American chief. One of my favorite decanters of all time. And I've got a couple of different weird decanters. up on our shelves and stuff. But my little brother had found that one for me and he was like, do you want this? Yeah, I want that thing. I can't want it and stuff. But that was Mitch's question to us. you know, how long does whiskey last on the shelf? When should we start moving on? Does the sunlight break down the sugars in there? He'd ask that.

Yeah. Sunlight is not a friend to your whiskey and that's a fact. So, um, the best thing you can do is make sure that your whiskey is not exposed on a daily basis to excessive sunlight.

We share with friends, have people over to your house and, uh, get those special bottles and say, Hey, here you go. You know, um, I got this bottle. I want you to try it like this. Well, or 12 there's been several people. I could see where they're staring at when they walk in here. Oh yeah. It just like mesmerized me like, Oh my, look at that bottle you got there. I have some. Yeah, go ahead, man.

I had a good old Randy at the house again here about a week ago. Randy, you know, from the bourbon road, first episode one through 19, I guess, or one through 20. He was over at the house the other day and he goes, can I have a little bit of that Weller 12? I said, absolutely. Of course you could have a little bit of that Weller 12. That's the first thing.

I can see Randy saying that.

Yeah. That's the first thing he went for. Was the Weller 12. Was the Weller 12.

Out of all the bottles you have up there.

Yeah.

He lives in a, he lives in a bourbon desert.

So is that what he calls it on top of a mountain? Well, I mean, it's a desert for everything there. He desert for cell phone service, desert for grocery shopping. There's a couple of apple orchards near there. He'd get an apple. Yeah. He probably could get an apple. They can get the fish for some trout in the river, but that's about it. That's it. Yeah.

They're out in the middle of nowhere. Was he looking like he was parched? Yeah. He was ready for a bourbon. He's ready for a bourbon. Yeah. Well, listeners, that is our take on what you should be doing on the second half. We'll have a different kind of topic for our second half. But that's where you should be dealing with your bourbon. Either get an affinity bottle, keep it out of the sunlight as much as possible. You don't want that much oxygen in your bottles. Meaning if at, you know, this one or 12, it's going to get drank. I'm positive. I don't think the sunlight, I got too, so much sunlight in here. Um, just kind of the way our house sets, if it was on the, on the, uh, South side or the South or the East side of our house, I think we would be in trouble.

Yeah. And another thing you can do, I mean, if, if you're, if you've got some bottles that have been around a while. Um, and you'd like to, I'd have, you know, share them. That's one way is to share them with as many friends as possible.

Let's get them drunk. Right.

Yeah. The other thing is to put them in, if you don't want to mix them into an infinity bottle and some people are against that and that's okay. You can put them into sample bottles, smaller bottles that are full and you can store those away for another day and they'll be fine. And send them out. Send them out, share them with somebody else. Keep a one or two for yourself. Yeah. I mean, you know, you can get Mike, you're known for your four and eight ounce sample bottles. Yeah. Yeah. Now there's roughly three eight ounce sample bottles in a bottle, right? I think there's four,

I got to think about this.

25.2 ounces, I think. Right. Yeah. Is that correct? So that would be just a little over three, four. Yep. So there's some ideas, folks share it. Infinity bottle sample bottles.

Drake it. So Jim, kind of moving on from that, we've got a couple big events going on this year that we're going to be doing, right? We're going to be at USA Cares. Great event for veterans. When is that? July 23rd. We're going to be dressed to the nines.

Um, at the galt house, which is, uh, a big hotel complex in Louisville, Kentucky on the river. Yeah. You can't get no better than that. So if you had, had it in the back of your mind that you wanted to come to Louisville and visit the bourbon trail this year, if, uh, you're kind of hoping maybe you could meet Mike and I and hang out with us a little bit. If you wanted to hit a few distilleries while you're here, if you wanted to go to a big bourbon event, that would be a good time to plan your trip.

Yeah, the tickets now, I'm hopefully I don't shock anybody when I say this. It is a black tie affair, right? $300 a ticket. You can go on USA Cares website. That's usacares.org. Look for events, go to their gala, check that out. Now there's going to be a bourbon pool there. We're trying to get bottles for that. Our goal is to get 300 bottles. We're working towards that goal. And we've got some pretty nice, really nice bottles. Oh, yeah. Some of the people I'd want to mention would be Michter's, Wilderness Trail, Bernie Lubbers from Heaven Hills promised me a whole bunch of bottles. I'm just excited to see what he has to send to us. All the distilleries down in Texas, they all ponied up for some bottles. Castle and Key, they gave us Coke bottles. Just the bottles are flowing in. A couple listeners out there sent bottles in. Friends of the show? Friends of the show, you know. Scott up in Ohio, Justin, he sent a bottle of 117. Really, really nice bottle from Old Forster. Wow, that's a big bottle. Yeah. Check that stuff out. Go on there. Buy some tickets. If you want to send us some bottles, reach out to me personally. You can send it to me. I'll make sure it gets in the hands of USA Cares. It won't go into my bourbon collection. I actually pulled a bunch of bottles from my collection and gave to USA Cares because it really means that much to Jim and I that we help USA Cares. raise as much money as possible that night. That's what this event's really about. But if you do want to come hang out with us, I'll guarantee you, you're going to have a great time.

Yeah, you can come hang out with us. You can buy yourself a ticket and attend, wear your black tux. If you've been so blessed, get a whole table and invite your friends.

Yeah, that'd be a big event right there. Well, on the second half, Jim, like I said, we'll have another topic and we'll talk about our other big event that we have coming up. Absolutely. 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 Stalemstein 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 of 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 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. 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 in 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, do a good work. Yeah. Gotta love it. Well, make sure you check out his site. Like Jim said, seldom seen maple.com. Pick up a bottle today.

All right. Now we are back and in this half, Mike, we're drinking another bourbon. that's been in the sunlight on your wall since 2018. Yeah. So this is now pretty much four years of direct sunlight, not direct, indirect sunlight.

Yeah. You know, like right now it is shining in. It's gotta be the perfect, the sun's gotta be just right to shine in here.

I mean, it's, it's a, it's a bright room. Yeah. It's a bright room. Now, just because the bottle is not getting direct beams of light running through it, it's still pretty bright room. Sure. So it's, it gets exposed to the light 365 days a year. Pretty much. And this bottle is not full. It's not half full. It's about a three quarter full.

That's cause this is a weeded bourbon house. And this is not a weeded bourbon. This is for my ride friends out there.

Yeah. So we've got wild Turkey decades, which was released, uh, February, 2017, but you got your hands on it in 2018, about a year later.

Yeah.

And, uh, I think I brought it back from Colorado for you.

Yeah, I think you went out there and you said, do you want the diamonds or do you want decades? And I said, I don't take the decades. I probably said, just get them both. Just get them both.

So here's another fine example. And you know, the first half was kind of dedicated to, you know, how bourbons fare over time being stored in the light and You know, exposed to oxygen and we kind of exposed that situation and kind of came up with, you know, what we said, which is, uh, protect your burdens from light the best you can, uh, drink them, share them, uh, repackage them, either put them in your infinity bottle or put them into a sample bottle. Yes, sir. Uh, but don't leave them in a largely empty bottle for very long.

Yeah, I think that's the biggest rule right there to me. It, that's what works and stuff. Well, let's see if this thing, how it's, how it's fair. I know I'm going to like this decades.

No decades was that's delicious. Mike, by the way, it's very good. It didn't go bad. There's nothing wrong with that thing wrong with it. So, uh, yeah, this decades is, uh, is a masterpiece created by Eddie Russell.

Yeah.

And, you know, he took some of the finest barrels in the Wild Turkey warehouses and crafted this whiskey and he did a fine job. This is really good stuff. And it's not available today. You're not going to find, well, you might still find it, a dusty bottle. But chances are slim. You're going to pay a lot of money. Yeah. You're going to pay a little bit of money for it. But, uh, yeah, what a nice bottle hasn't, hasn't fallen to time or sunlight, Mike, at your place.

Well, let's, let's get into our discussion for the second half. Um, and this bottle might show up at a festival we're going to be at, which is bourbon on the banks, which is in Frankfurt, Kentucky on October 1st. There's a VIP event the night before. Um, but the two events before that, um, they're on the same weekend, Jim.

Yeah. So the September 16th through the 18th. This is Bourbon Heritage Month in Kentucky. It's when most people plan their pilgrimage to Kentucky to enjoy all things bourbon. But that weekend in particular, there's two big events happening. One is the Kentucky Bourbon Festival that takes place in Bardstown, Kentucky. To many, the capital of Bourbon, right? Some people would argue that, but people in Bardstown stand by it firmly. Yeah. Louisville likes to argue and so does Frankfurt. Yeah.

Right. So there's a festival going on up in Louisville, same time, the 15th through the 18th of September. It's Barbara, to be honest, come back this year. Um, it's more of a, if you're a music lover, um, you want to probably go to that festival.

Yeah, it's kind of a good mix of bourbon and music. And they have some great artists there.

Oh my goodness. They, the lineup that they have this year is a music lover's dream. I think, um, Thursday night they got Jack White playing, you know, some, a lot of people might know him from the white stripes. Um, Alanis Morissette is playing.

Uh huh.

Yeah. Uh, Friday night Kings of Leon and then Brandy Carlisle is playing a Saturday night Pearl Jam.

Wow.

That's a big, big, huge, huge, right? Uh, Ellie King, she's a, a really good artist that's, that's coming up in the world. Um, Greta Van Fleet's playing. And then on Saturday night, you got the great Chris Stapleton coming back to his home state to play. He just sold out Kroger Field over in Lexington, played a great show. The Doobie brothers are playing, though, on Saturday night. Wow.

Wow. Chris Stapleton and the Doobie brothers. You couldn't ask for better than that. Now that's just a few of the artists. There's what? Is there probably 40 artists more? Three stages. Might be a hundred of them.

I don't know. It's, uh, it is lined up.

I mean, I don't remember exactly, but then, you know, there's three stages typically, and there's probably at least 20 bourbon bars.

Yeah, I mean, it is quite the event and stuff. You could actually get a camping ticket to camp there and stuff. You can get a weekend four day general admission pass. You can get a weekend four day VIP pass. That's obviously going to cost you more. You can get the four day beyond VIP top shelf where you get to go into certain tents and stuff. Now, here's the difference this year from last year for all these events. We talked about on our last show that House Bill 500 had passed in Kentucky. You'll be able to buy a bourbon at these events this year. And walk away with a bottle. Yeah. Or several bottles. Yeah. Won't be able to open them up at the event. No, there'll be bourbon there for you to drink though. Yeah. Don't worry about that. So our discussion will be like, how do you decide which one you want to do?

Yeah, it's always a tough decision when you have two events on the same weekend. So first of all, let's talk about how far it is between. So just in case we got that person that wants to try and straddle both events.

So you're talking with traffic, you're talking 35 to 45 minutes between the two events. Right. It is a long drive to be able to do both events. And if you haven't got your lodging set up, I advise you right now, just put us on pause, go ahead and get lodging set up. We'll be here when you get back. Yeah, we'll be here. We'll be waiting for you. But you could do both. Maybe two days down in barstown and two days up at bourbon.

Well, you could pick, you could pick your one night at bourbon and beyond. Yeah. You know, for example, Saturday night, you want to be there Saturday night and then pick another time to be at the Kentucky bourbon festival, but it won't be an easy thing to do.

Yeah. It'd be a tough, uh, a tough thing. You know, you could buy a Saturday night ticket, I think for $129, um, and still try to go down to barstown by VIP pass down there. Now, what do they have at barstown? They're going to have music down there. Um, I don't know what the headliners they're having right now. Um, but they'll have music. They'll have some craft stuff, but not a lot of craft stuff, not a lot, but it's all bourbon bourbon craft stuff.

It's not like, uh, non-related stuff.

Yeah, both of our sponsors are always there. Cruise Customs Flags and Seldom Seen Farms, they're always there. So you'll be able to meet Chris Cruise. You'll be able to meet Kevin from Seldom Seen Farms. You'll get to try both their products. You'll get to see Chris's art in person. Just two fine, great guys and stuff. So you'll get, if you want to, you're in the crafts, um, you're into just drinking bourbon, there'll be a lot of the master distillers there. Um, I don't know how these guys are going to split their time between the two events.

So if we had to kind of summarize it, I would say that bourbon and beyond is, um, a little more heavy into the music, a little less into the bourbon, but, A lot of respect is given to bourbon there. A lot larger crowd too. A lot larger crowd. So huge, uh, attendance.

Yeah, I would say probably a hundred thousand people. Yeah, it's a big deal.

It's a big deal. So a lot of people, very crowded, very busy, a lot going on, a lot of great music. Uh, if, if music is your thing, if music is your main reason, Then I think Bourbon and Beyond is probably a better choice. Bourbon and Beyond is going to have plenty of bourbon there. There's going to be some exclusive bourbon bars. The VIP experience there is second to none. If you can afford to indulge yourself to the VIP experience there at Bourbon and Beyond, I highly suggest you do it. In fact, for both events, The VIP experience is highly recommended.

I really do think the VIP part is worth the money at either event. You get to skip the lines, you get some top shelf whiskey, especially at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. The VIP experience there is on the third floor of the Gats Museum. You can go up to any, uh, cocktail cocktail bar there and get a drink if you want it.

Yeah. And honestly, I mean, if, if, if buying the VIP experience tickets is, is, is beyond your capability, you're still going to have a great time at either event. It's not, it's not like you have to do it. We're just saying in our opinion, it's well worth the extra money to get the VIP experience.

Yeah, I mean, it's like, do you pay for good parking right near the event or do you walk six miles? Yeah. You know, I'm beyond them days of walking. I'll pay for parking right next to the event. You know that for a fact, don't you?

Yeah, absolutely.

I do not care. But if that's not within your means, it's still both events are well doable. You can still do both of them. Yes. Are you going to have to, Um, drive a little bit, maybe find some lodging in between. Like I said, if you haven't got your reservations right now, make sure you get them.

Um, it's may the events are in September. You're running out of time. I hate to say that, you know, but it's, it's four months away plus four plus months away. If you don't start right now making your preparations, you hazard. Uh, being left out in the cold or you'll drive a long ways from, um, there to, to have logic. So Mike, have you decided where you're going to attend this year?

I still don't know. I don't know how we're going to do this. Uh, I'd like to do both events, maybe a day, do a day of bourbon and beyond. Thursday or Friday. And then the main day for us would be Saturday, right? Down at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. I like to see people down there. There's a lot of our friends that go there, other podcasts, other YouTube channels. I enjoy seeing those guys and gals. I enjoy seeing all the master distillers there and stuff. That would be another thing I'd tell you that if you don't know who the master distiller is for each distillery, go ahead before you go to one of those events and know who they are and what they look like.

Cause there's a good chance they'll be pouring you bourbons. More than likely. Yeah.

Last, last year I know Andrea and Dan from Michter's stayed there several hours, Pat Heiss from Wilderness Trail. You'll get to meet the nose there. This is your chance to get to meet the man or the woman that's making the whiskey.

It's a great thing. So yeah, Mike, we'll figure it out one way or another. We'll attend both events. We'll attend where we can. But we highly encourage all of our listeners to plan on one of those events or both.

Yeah. The other thing I would suggest you do is make sure you have a designated driver for that event. If you have a big group, please drink responsibly. You know, I know you're all adults out there, all of our listeners, but that's super important. Don't take that chance, especially going back and forth. Um, you know, last year I thought I was going to have a designated driver. Um, Vivian decided she would like to consume a little whiskey.

There went your designated driver. I had to be responsible. So Mike, where can people find out more about bourbon and beyond?

So you can go to bourbonandbeyond.com, go to their website. You can also go to bourbon.frontgatetickets.com. That's where you can buy tickets at. It'll tell you all that information. And what about the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, Jim?

So you can go to kentuckybourbonfestival.com for all the information about the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. And it just so happens that today, the day that this show releases is the day that tickets go on sale for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. So you want to make sure you get on there. There's some special events. There's some special tiers. There's some things that won't last very long. So you want to make sure you get there and get registered for everything you want to do while you're at the Kentucky bourbon festival. It is in Bardstown, Kentucky. It's about, uh, like Mike said, about 30 minutes or so, 40 minutes or so, uh, south, south of Louisville.

Yeah, if you like craft festivals, if you don't drink bourbon or your spouse doesn't drink bourbon, they're going to have wine there, they'll have beer there, they got food there. Barstown is a super quaint little town. You can go to the Founder's Breakfast there. Okay, so Mimosas. Yeah, bourbon mimosas. You know how we like to roll, right? Yeah. And then you could head up for one of the shows at maybe hit Saturday night at the Bourbon and Beyond event. You know, both of those are great events. You can't miss out.

You can't miss out. So if you miss these two events, you know, Bourbon and Beyond and the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, if that Weekend doesn't work out for you. You've got some work commitment or you've got a family vacation that'll be going on at that time. Uh, you just can't make it during that weekend. Two weeks later, Frankfurt, Kentucky, the other urban capital of the world is bourbon on the banks.

Yeah, you don't want to miss that show right there. Really, there's going to be 40 to 50 distilleries there. There'll be beer, there'll be wine, there'll be some crafts. A lot going on. It's right on the banks of the Kentucky River. It doesn't get any better than that. Then there'll be a Bourbon Road Lounge. The Bourbon Road Lounge will have a bar with a sponsor. We're going to release that in the next couple of weeks. We'll tell you who's going to be our sponsor. but we'll also have for our bourbon roadies, a giant table full of whiskey. Um, called the roadie bar.

You gotta be a roadie. There'll be a lot of people licking their lips, but they won't be able to partake.

And you'll get to meet some of the people that, that we always talk about on the show. I know Adam's planning to come up. Awesome. I know Drew's already got tickets bought. You can meet Obby, Rob Carter. He's going to be there. We're going to have so many listeners and guests there at one time. Heck, our tent's going to be overflowing. It'll be the party. You need to come to our tent, the Bourbon Road Lounge.

Last year it was the place to be.

Once again, this year, you know how we do it. We're going to do it right and stuff. We love our roadies. We really love to share our whiskey with them stuff. So three great events, two on the same weekend. But if you can't make that October 1st, come up and see us at Bourbon on the Banks. Go ahead and get your tickets now. We're actually going to have some giveaway tickets to that in the next couple of weeks. So make sure you're paying attention to the show. These giveaways, we work hard on putting them together, working with great people in the past, and we want to keep trying to do that. The only way we can keep doing that is for you. If you win a giveaway is to post it up, tag us, tag who helped us out with that. Give us a little love for that giveaway. It's not that much to ask, right, Jim?

So are we giving something away today, Mike? Yeah. Don't you think we probably should? We should. Cause it seems like we've got kind of, we're kind of on a roll.

We are on a roll. I want to try to keep these giveaways going. So our two sponsors, Chris Cruz. and Kevin Holly from Seldom Seen Farms. They both ponied up some products. Chris is giving away one of his flags. What's it called? The Lieutenant. $75.

Yeah, I've got one on my bar and you've got one on your bar. a great addition to any bar or just put it on the wall of your house, right?

Made out of a bourbon barrel and stuff. Kevin is going to give you a whole package of stuff from him. I'm sure he'll stick some maple syrup in there, some of his new barbecue sauce. in there.

Oh my gosh, if you're making some old fashions, you've got to have some of that maple syrup. Yeah.

And I haven't had the barbecue sauce yet. I haven't either. I'm kind of looking forward to it. Supposedly it's coming. It's coming, from what I understand. But just so you know that we are vested in our show and to our listeners and stuff, last week we gave away a bottle, a JTS Brown bottle and bod, right Jim? What's another one of those bottle and bods that people don't know about? JW Dant.

Oh, JW Dant. I'm pretty excited about that. That's a great bottle. Yeah.

Not high priced, but it's not a bottle to turn your head away from. So pretty good giveaway right there. What we're going to do from the time we post in the morning on our social media until 10 o'clock that night, you know how we do it. Just go ahead and follow us, follow sell them seen farms and follow Chris Cruz and Cruz customs flags.

And then post in that Instagram post for that day show that you've followed all them people. Yeah, that's it. And then we'll put you into the randomizer and pick your name. Maybe that's pretty easy. Yeah. Pretty easy. And there's been a lot of winners. If you, if you have won in the last 90 days, you can't win again.

You know, people, these giveaways, they will keep coming and stuff, but we do need your support on those. If you win, please make a post about it and tag us. You know, it's nice to see winners get excited when they get those packages. Oh, yeah. They always get excited.

Yeah. All right, Mike.

Where can people find us on the internet? Well, you can find us at our website, the bourbonroad.com. We've got our articles, we've got our reviews on there. We have our swag that we would love for you to purchase. That's what gets us down to Bourbon Road. We've got our Bourbon Bullshitter t-shirt in there.

Which we're still selling a lot of.

It's in demand. Our Bourbon Road t-shirt, we just saw somebody wearing one of those the other day. Yeah. It was nice to see that. It was. Our flask in there, our decanter, our glasses. Go in there and buy some more swag. It helps us get down a bourbon road, read articles, read the reviews, leave some comments in there. But you can also find us on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. Heck, I don't even know where else, man. We're just all over the place. We brought up the bourbon roadies a couple times. You gotta be 21, you gotta agree to play nice, and you gotta love bourbon. That's all you gotta do to join that group. Join us. You never can tell. You get some angel shares brought to your house. It's a pretty nice feeling when your fellow roadies help you out.

Yeah, and if you're gonna be at Bourbon on the Banks, that's your one-way ticket to the roadie bar.

So don't miss out. Heck yeah. Well, you know what we always say, Jim? They need to scroll on up the top, hit that check sign, that plus sign, that subscribe sign. Get your app to tell you that we have a show released. Then you want to scroll on down, hit that five star review, leave some comments. You know it'll happen if you don't. That guy, the big bad booty daddy will come to your house. He'll bring some of this well or 12 years, some of this decades. Guaranteed by the end of the night, you'll leave us that five star review and some comments. But seriously, those comments, those reviews help open up doors to distilleries, get great guests on our show, get great bottles in our hands like this well or 12 years, decades. We'd really appreciate it. Now, Jim had brought something up earlier about the Big Bad Booty Daddy. Maybe we got a listener out there that can design us a t-shirt with that dude on it riding a buffalo, dragging some bourbon behind him or something. That'd be pretty cool. Let's see if we got a listener out there that wants to do that. If you do that, the person that we pick from that, I'll send you some sample of this 12 year and a sample of this decades. That'd be pretty awesome.

Yeah. And you'll get the first t-shirt. First t-shirt, yeah. Here it is. All right. Well, we'd love to hear from you. We love listener feedback. We'd like to hear from you. If you've got an idea for a bottle or a guest for the show, please let us know. You can hop onto our website, thebourbonroad.com, contact us page, let Mike and I know what you're thinking. You can also send us an email. I'm Jim at thebourbonroad.com. He's Mike at thebourbonroad.com. But like we always say, probably the best way, hit up our DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down. The Bourbon Road.