277. All Things Wild Turkey With Bruce Russell

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

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Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we're once again at Jephthah Bend Farm. Yeah. Hotter than hell out there. Habitat hits 100 degrees today.

Man, my glasses, as soon as I walk outside, they fogged up.

Woodrow is not going outside today except when he has to.

He wants to, but it's not good for him. He got on a side-by-side and went down to the creek real fast and he wanted to go. He was like crying at the door wanting to get on that side-by-side, but just can't let him today.

Well, one of my favorite brands, we get to talk about it today, one that kind of started me down the bourbon road. Yeah. And we've got a great guest on the show today. Came all the way out here to visit us and hang out and drink a little bit of whiskey, eat some charcuterie. Yeah.

We got a, we wrangled a turkey. Yeah. Can you wrangle a turkey? No, but we got Mr. Bruce Russell, the grandson of Mr. Wild Turkey himself, Jimmy Russell, the son of Eddie Russell. If most folks don't know who that is, if you look at the Russell's reserve bottle and who signed that, that's his dad and his grandfather. Bruce, welcome to the bourbon road. Thanks. How's it going, guys?

It's going great. Great to have you here and great to drink a little bit of Wild Turkey today. Mike, it's always a good day when I get a sip on a little bit of Wild Turkey. I've told the story a million times and I'll probably tell it again sometime during the show, but it was my first legal purchase of bourbon.

Oh, nice.

Yeah. So back when the drinking age was 18.

It probably was mine. Growing up I drank a lot of that six-year-old bottle to bond heaven heel to though because it's a little cheaper on me Yeah, I imagine it was yeah Well Mike, what do you say we let everybody know what we have in the glass?

Yeah, we got some Russell's Reserve 10 year, which is a beautiful expression. It's actually Vivian's, her favorite whiskey, by the way. She thinks it tastes like cherry juice. Not many people say that, but she thinks it does. So that's what matters.

Well, that's what's real to her. So maybe what we can do is taste this a little bit and you can sort of talk about the expression and sort of fill us in a little bit.

So Russell's 10 has been around since right around 2000, 2001. It actually came out for kind of a fake retirement party for Jimmy. We were owned by Pernod Ricard at the time. And this was before my dad was a distiller. He was just kind of a warehouse guy over our maturation there. And they had tasked him with making something for Jimmy's 45th anniversary. They're going to have this big party, you know, have the governor come in, a bunch of master distillers. And they gave Jimmy a Rolex watch for his retirement. And he just came back to work on Monday. But we kept the bottle and we kept him. And it's still kind of the same thing that it was back then. It's a small batch, 10, 11 and 12 year old blend, small batch for wild turkeys, about 150 barrels blended together. And it's in my In my opinion, probably the most Eddie Russell whiskey we have. It's completely different to the Jimmy stuff.

So most of dad's whiskies are a little bit softer up front, a little bit more fruit forward.

So you heard cherry juice there. Dad picks up a lot of on his whiskies. I think there's some citrus. There's some what a lot of people for many years are calling stone fruit, but we just caught pear. And then it picks up a spice on the mid-pal like all wild turkeys and has a super long lingering finish. Kind of opposite of, I think a lot of, I call him Mimi instead of Jimmy. Opposite of a lot of Mimi's whiskies, which are pretty aggressive up front and then smooth out towards the back end. Dad's kind of peaks on the middle there. It's my dad's favorite whiskey. You know, Jimmy likes rare breed. Dad likes Russell's 10. This is what he's taking sips on. If we're at the house or when he's out there at the golf course, cause he doesn't drink beer. So when all his buddies are drinking beer when they're playing golf, he got a little Russell's 10, you know.

And all these whiskeys are featuring the same mash bill. Yep. 75, 13, 12. Yep. Yep. So the magic happens in the Rick House, obviously. The magic happens in the barrel selection and the barrel blending. But how hard is it to maintain a profile like this over time?

It gets pretty tough because most people think that, especially with this private barrel program now, everybody becomes warehouse experts. You know, I like warehouse B and I like to tell people you won't in two years because it'll completely change. That's the problem. Even our best warehouses aren't super consistent. They are for a few years at a time, basically. What's helped us with with Russell's though is we're taking stuff only with them off the middle floors. So you lose a little bit of the more unique kind of off the wall flavors that you get from the extreme temperatures from the top or the bottom. And then we do select usually from a handful of Rick houses, typically at our Tyrone site, which is where the distilleries that just seems to have more of that kind of Russell's flavor profile. That's like sweet cream, honey and vanilla up front and has that fruit. that spice on the mid palette and then lasts a long time. But yeah, it's pretty tough. And the smaller the batch is, the tougher it gets. People think, you know, it must be tough blending a hundred or 1500 or 2000 barrels. Or, you know, if you're somebody like Beamer, Jack Daniels, it's a huge distillery, way more than that. That's actually much easier.

So you can hide some barrels in there.

When you're blending thousands of barrels together, you're just getting the overall average. And when you're getting down there to just a couple hundred, if you've got a couple of barrels that aren't up to snuff, you can tell it right away.

Wow. Do you remember your first time running through the warehouses and stuff where your little kid got to visit?

I probably don't remember my first time because I've been there my whole life. Born in Lexington, but come home that same day to Lawrenceburg and lived there for the next almost 25 years of my life. I made a big impact on Jimmy right away, he says, because the day I come home, he Broke his finger in the garage door at my parents house and his fingers still messed up. You can see it And I've been going to the distillery ever since then the first time I really remember being there besides just general memories. I was probably about 12 years old. My brother's about nine. And my dad had brought us out there. My dad's pretty quiet at home, to be honest. Jimmy's pretty quiet at home. And dad took, you know, half an hour out of his day to talk to me and my brother about this whiskey he was really proud of. And he was a maturation supervisor. And I still remember that day, because me and my brother were looking at each other like, oh my God, dad's talking to us this long. This is pretty, you know, this is pretty special. Um, but I love going to my dad's work. My mom was an accountant and so obviously dad's work was more fun, but I loved dad's office. He, they actually, uh, moved out like an old broom closet basically and put a little computer chair. He could barely fit in there. He's not a small guy, but he was right next to the union break room because he was a union supervisor and, uh, That was where the vending machines were. So when I was a kid, I thought he had the coolest job in the world because he'd give me a dollar, you know, and I could get me some Doritos and a Yoo-hoo. Uh, but I remember running around there. Yeah. He had a guy that worked for him named Keith James, a big old guy that I'd run around with or, um, you know, Steve Higgins or, uh, Jacob Farmer's dad, Adam. These are people that I'd grown up, grown up either around their kids or just around them going to church or them just being in Lawrenceburg. You know, we got. Back then it was probably 100 and something union employees. Now it's closer to 200 and something, but I know every single one of them because they're all from home.

Yeah, I can see where, you know, a young fellow would think about, am I going to the accounting office or am I going to the distillery? Let's see. That's tough right there, right?

Yeah, I just knew to stay away from Jimmy. He was always very serious at work. He's gotten less serious over the years, but he's very serious when he was work. He took his job very seriously. He used to wear a suit every day. Even if he had to work like in the steel house or in the Rick house, he'd wear a suit. Yeah, he thought that was very important. And so I stayed away from him. I didn't want to make him mad. I wasn't as scared of dad as I was Jimmy.

You could imagine they, you know, when you said they were quiet at home and stuff. you probably can imagine that everybody wants to talk to him all day long. And when you get home, you're just tired of talking.

Yeah. And people ask all the time, you know, did I always want to do this for a living? And to be honest, no. Because until I was probably in high school, both dad and Mimi told me, don't get into this. It's not good business. And they were right at that time, probably. Because it had been, dad started in 81. So 90% of his career, nobody wanted him, Bourbon. And Jimmy had seen kind of the downfall of it in the 80s and 90s. And they didn't want me, you know, I thought they in their mind thought, you know, go on, go do your own thing, get out of Lawrenceburg, that kind of stuff. But then I started when I was 21 on a summer job and back two or three months in, dads took a whole day one time. He said, well, you're going to learn this. I want to teach you the real stuff. So we did like a whole day. He had me bring a notebook. I wrote like half of a whole notebook full of just notes that day. And probably the most we'd ever talked until that point, we're actually pretty close now, same kind of thing happened with Jimmy. And so for me, what probably got me to start working is I kind of got to meet dad and Jimmy for the first time, like who they really were, because who they are is who they, you know, it's part of who they are at home, but they really do open up at work, the passion, and they really love it in a way that I'd never seen them care about anything except for You know, my mom and grandma or me and my brother played real good at ball. You know, that'd make them pretty happy, but they were different at the distillery. And so that's probably why I stuck around.

So Lawrenceburg, great place to raise a family, huh?

Absolutely. Yeah. I love growing up here. It's, uh, I mean, it's like where we're at now. Although when I was a kid, I was spit on the ground. If you would've said anything about Shelby counting says our big rival, you know, uh, you know, the Rockets versus the Bearcats, but now it's, it's different. There's multiple high schools and stuff here. Um, we usually got beat back then anyway, cause they had a little bit more talent than we did, but. I loved growing up in Anderson County. I went, but it's a small town. I grew up in this, uh, same exact places that Jimmy and dad grew up, had some of the same high school teachers. I went to the same high school that Jimmy went to. Um, and I loved it. Uh, even though I don't live there now, cause you know, if you grew up in a place like that, you're kind of raised by everybody. And so growing up, I didn't actually know until I was in high school that what Jimmy did was a big deal. Cause everybody worked at the distillery, you know, in Lawrenceburg, everybody either works at, uh, Four Roses or Wild Turkey, or you work up the road at Sazerac or maybe up at Woodford. All of those are within about a 15 mile drive. And Lawrenceburg is not very big. When I was growing up, it was only about 5,000 people. I think it's like 10,000 now maybe. So yeah, it just wasn't a big deal. So did you play sports? I know Jimmy was big into sports. I did. We all did. My uncle was a real good pitcher. Um, he could throw in the nineties back in the seventies before anybody was throwing that hard. Um, dad played division one football as a lineman. My brother played a football and baseball at the university of Kentucky for awhile. Jimmy was a big time athlete. We all played sports. Yeah. I mean, you're in a small town, not much else to do, you know, drink whiskey and play sports. That's right. Yeah.

That's right. So, When you're in school there, you know, you grow it up and you get in high school and you kind of figure out, Hey, my grandfather is really big deal. Um, especially in Lawrence bird, probably everybody know around knows who he is. Right. Uh, did your, all your high school buddies like, Hey man, you get us some of that whiskey.

Uh, well, Not to get us all into trouble, but we usually didn't ask permission. We were asking forgiveness. But I will say, I think that growing up in a family like that, it made me have a pretty healthy relationship with alcohol because it was never hidden. It was very out and open and honest about what they did and how to be responsible. That's something that I take a lot of pride in. I've been on the road with Jimmy and Dad a lot, especially Dad now. I don't know if I've ever seen I've seen them both have a good time, but I don't know if I've ever seen them drunk, you know like It was always, here's how you handle yourself. Here's what to do. Whiskey is for tasting. It's for sipping. It's for enjoying. I was lucky enough to have a family that didn't hide away or whatever. I think that really helped me. Jimmy's way more known, though, back home for his sports and being like a deacon at a church. I mean, you know how small towns are. They couldn't care less. that he worked at Asturian unless they had a son that needed a job or something like that.

I remember seeing that picture in David Jennings book with Jamie and Russell the Muscle they called him.

Yeah, he's palming them basketballs. He used to hold, I don't know if he still does, he used to hold the single game scoring record in our high school. It was like 40 something or 50 something points. Back when the scores used to be like two to four, he was the real deal.

So at some point they said, hey, we're going to send you out into the world. And they sent you down to Texas.

Yeah. I was about 25. I was a professional student, you know? So I went to school. I actually spent a year at Louisville, was on academic scholarship. I made pretty good grades, but I tested real well. So I had a real high ACT score. Went and lived there for a year and the buddy I was living with moved to Georgetown. We had a little bit too much fun in Louisville for both of us. So he thought going to a smaller school would help him out. And so I moved back home and bopped around, went to BCTC and then eventually graduated at Kentucky. Um, but had too much fun there. And then there was a guy at Campari, his name is Robin Cooper. He's still with us. but he was the brand manager for Russell's at the time. And he had come to me and said, and I was actually starting to work under Jimmy and dad and apprentice and some trying to learn. And he said, would you have any interest being a brand ambassador? And I said, I don't think so. You know, I kind of liked my job. And he said, I don't think you really understand what that means. You know, and he told me, you know, I'd get to have a company card and hang out in bars and restaurants and build relationships with people that own them and try to sell them product and do some education. And I'd get to move. to a big city and the Campari would help take care of it. And I said, well, that doesn't even sound like a job. Sign me up, you know? And then they went to a couple of people in the company and asked where they thought I should move. And there's a guy still with us named Duffy. Duffy Sida, and Duffy was the state manager of Texas, and he suggested I move down there, and then he suggested to them I move to Austin. He said, you know, it's kind of in the middle of the state, so it's easy to get to Dallas and Houston, San Antonio, and a lot of young people live in there, and I was just, you know, kind of fresh out of college, and he thought it would be a perfect fit, and it was. I lived there for about five years, and I'd still live there if I wasn't in whiskey. I loved it down there.

Now Austin's really got it going on, doesn't it? Oh yeah.

Yeah.

There's kind of a big wave of activity in breweries, distilleries, wineries, all of that. Music. Music. Yeah. Yeah.

So what's the thing you miss the most about my home state?

I mean, the food is something else down there, especially in Austin, because you got a little bit of everything. You've got like, you know, kind of Michelin star or James Beard level restaurants down there, but you're not too far away from Lockhart. So you get that good down home barbecue. And I love Kentucky style barbecue, but I like brisket more than mutton. So I was in love down there. Crazy good Mexican food. I mean, Tex-Mex is good. But, uh, right across the street from me, there's a little food truck named Rosita's Al Pastor. Uh, and it was just in this parking lot. And sometimes you'd be waiting there for 45 minutes in a line to get it. When I was walking home about 2 AM in the morning and I miss that place, but, uh, I miss some of the local. You know, I grew up in a small town. So even though we go to these fancy bars, I really like like neighborhood dives and stuff like that. And there was a bar there called The Grackle and it's still my, it's still open. And it's still my favorite bar in the world. I miss going in there at about, you know, four or 5 p.m. I'm kind of done doing the day stuff. I'm going to wait a couple hours before I go out at night. I'd sit in there and there was the biggest wild turkey fan in the world. A guy named Big Chris, big old dude with a slick back ponytail. does manual labor for a living. He'd come in there in the afternoon and every single day he'd get about three or four pours of turkey and a couple own star tall boys. He'd play darts and sit there and talk to me. And I miss that kind of stuff, being a part of a community where You know, up here in Kentucky, I mean, it's not the worst thing because there's a lot of benefits, but I can't really be anonymous up here. If I'm in a bar, there's going to be somebody in there that knows me just because of the whiskey stuff. Um, and there's so much industry that happens here. You know, they just are expecting you to come in and in Austin, there's so much going on. I could kind of be anonymous a little bit. I miss that. It was cool. Just being somebody's buddy. Uh, just being Bruce, I didn't really care what I did for a living sitting in a bar drinking two or $3, uh, PBRs or home stars and a $4 shot of whiskey is pretty good. Yeah.

I'd say it, it's gotta be tough, uh, being you, right? Or it being your dad or Jimmy and you know, you go into a bar and you sit down here like in Louisville, somebody's probably going to recognize you.

Yeah. Uh, I would say that the, Now, we're not digging ditches or, you know, building fences or my granddad had a cattle farm when I was growing up and I'd work on it. Like it's not that kind of work. So I'm not really complaining, but having to be on, because I probably more so than most are just kind of, I try to just be myself at all times. It's got me in trouble a few times, but even then you're kind of on in a way you're not normally. And it does get exhausting. And, you know, everybody will say that. I remember being in Austin and when he was still the master steward at Heaven Hill, Denny Potter had come down to do a little talk for some things. And he had his brand ambassador reach out to me because we were buddies. And he knew that I liked Denny a lot. Denny and Dad get along real well. And I've always really liked Denny. And we met for dinner. And, you know, there's just we both looked at each other and we was just around one guy that was he was cool, you know, and we were just like, All right. We finally shut this shit off for me, you know, and kick it back and drink whiskey and, you know, uh, talk about people and talk about stuff that we want to talk about. And there is always that thing, which is it's almost, uh, you look for those other people. I look for other master distillers or brand ambassadors. Cause at the end of the night, if I can get with them, they know what it's like. And I know that. It just becomes way more casual and friendly. And there's, if, if we catch each other talking about work or education, we'll tell each other to shut up, you know, like, I'm just trying to sit here and drink my beer. I want to know like how your kids are doing in little league or we, did you watch the reds game and you watched the cats play Louisville or you know, whatever, something like that. Let your guard down. Have a little fun. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. I was sitting with Denny Potter the other day in Jane Bowie and they did bring you up. And, uh, cause they asked me who else you're going to have on here in the near future. And I said, well, we're going to have Bruce Russell on for my Turkey and Denny just his face lit up like he's his best friend or something. Uh,

I love old Denny. We I recently actually got to do a barrel pick at Makers and I thought I was going to get to see them, but it was during the Beam Institute and so they were out teaching that class and I was actually doing the barrel pick with Wild Turkey super fan David Jennings, Rare Bird 101. He invited me along to his Makers pick and we went and I think we picked an awesome barrel. I'm hoping to get a bottle of it and they took you know they treated us well and got us lunch and whatnot and I had to leave a little early to do some stuff for work. But then next day they were doing a a wild turkey pick. And, you know, David called me up that morning and he said, hey, because we do limit it to six when we do our barrel picks. He said, hey, man, I hate to do this. I know you're always getting on me for asking stuff, but can we bring two more people along? And I said, Well, you already bring in six, ain't you? And he said, yeah, but it's it's Denny and Jane from Makers. And I said, well, you know, I guess they could come and giving him a hard time still. And David, you know, I think he's. Yeah, he's a pretty serious cat when he's picking the whiskey. And he, I think he was expecting them to come along and, you know, also be real serious. And I know them, you know, we were all, you know, we were tasting and having a good time and cutting up the whole time. The whiskey was good. You know, that's all we cared about. I don't know that those two can be serious. No, me neither.

Uh, they just, uh, dig at each other all the time.

They love life.

You know, that's that, that. That's what's great about him. I think that showed their personality. And I'd say me and Jim kind of know how you feel a little bit because, you know, we'll walk into it, especially if I go into Louisville, a liquor bar and our total wine in there. And as soon as I get if and I'll go in there to buy wine, but, you know, my curiosity kills me and I got to stop by the bourbon aisle. And the next thing you know, somebody's like, hey, man, don't you have a bourbon podcast? I'm like, yup, that's, that's me. What would you recommend? And then I'm in there for an hour and I'm like, yeah, man, I, I, this is what gets me in trouble.

Sometimes you like to just go and get your stuff and get out. I do.

I just want to, I'll go to the wine aisle and I run back out real fast.

But if you're listening to the show right now and you see Mike in a store, you make sure you go over and say hi to them.

When I think about my favorite people and really the people that dad and Jimmy get along with real well in the, in the business, Denny and Jane are two of them or you know Fred and Freddie over at Jim Beam. Jimmy was in their family photos when they opened up that distillery the other day or you know Bernie over at Heaven Hill or you know there's a million other people. But it's always people that aren't taking themselves too seriously that are that really know when it comes down to it. This industry is for sharing something that tastes good with your friends. That's really what this is all about. We can argue up and down which whiskey is better or what I like versus what you like, but it's just sitting around and drinking a good pour and sharing it with your buddies and having a good time. Something that Jimmy has really instilled in me is at the end of the day, you know, if, if people are drinking your whiskey and having a good time, then we're doing a good job.

And he don't care how you drink it, right?

Lord, no. I mean, he, he, uh, Jimmy is a very particular guy. He only drinks like three or four things total. He doesn't even like rye whiskey. So Jimmy drinks bourbon. He drinks iced tea, unsweetened with sweet and low. He drinks one cup of black coffee like every Saturday morning. That's the only time he drinks coffee, really, is when my family every Saturday goes and eats breakfast together and he'll get a coffee and then he'll drink a Diet Coke if he's at a ball game. And that's all he does. So he's a creature of habit. But no, he don't care. And I think that that's one thing that people get caught up on. They'll ask me, how do you how should I drink whiskey? Well, however you want. Now, I know if they're asking like somebody that's new, they want to learn really how to smell and taste. And I tell people, just do it a lot and you'll figure it out. Cause that's what it is. It's a muscle. You got to kind of work it before you, before you really realize what you're tasting. But if you like drinking it with ginger ale or Coke or, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to judge anybody. In my high school growing up, we always drank it with Mountain Dew. Like the go-to drink when I was growing up, they would call it Irk and Jerk and Mountain Dew. It was E&J Brandy. Which I ain't drinking anymore, let me tell you. But I had one buddy, shout out to Clay Cox. He's a nurse in Louisville. Good buddy of mine. We grew up together, graduated together. And we was all drinking stuff like the Kuiper's Peach Schnapps and, you know, Mad Dog or ENJ Brandy. He knew though right away. He was like, nah, this rare breed is what we like. He knew before any of us, like how good dad stuff and, and, uh, him and dad always got along. So maybe that's why Clay had a little bit better palette than the rest of us back in.

I mean, everybody has a different point in their life where they like, Hey, um, I'm going to graduate from drinking strawberry hill or Boone's farm or whatever you drink when you were growing up to where you finally learn, okay, I'm going to graduate to the more finer things in life. Um, I think it was when I met my second wife and she said, hey, let's go to a winery or hey, I'm going to buy it. She bought me a bottle of whiskey and a really nice bottle. And I was like, yeah, let me sit down.

It's 10 high. Let's go.

Yeah, I agree.

And I was even drinking our product and not really thinking that way because like every bar in Kentucky's got one on one. So I'd get a shot in a beer. That's still what I drink normally when I show up at a bar at first. But I think there is a point in everybody's life If it happens, and really it's when you just start to think about what you're drinking. And then when you start thinking about it, you realize, well, you know, I'm probably only gonna drink four drinks tonight. I better not waste it on. some swill. I paid two more dollars a pour and get me something pretty good. Um, and when I was growing up, you know, the first few good things I drank, uh, were probably rare when I, and I think one on one's awesome, but graduating from just baseline stuff like that. Um, it was probably rare breed. Um, I remember getting a bottle of Bookers and thinking it was like the coolest thing in the world. A buddy of mine got me a bottle and then, uh, I had some like Blanton's and Elmer T. Lee. that's kind of what I knew. Jimmy's best friends growing up were Booker and Elmer and Parker and all them. And so I knew those brands. And so that's kind of what I went for. And then it was probably around the time I moved to Austin that I met a few people down there that kind of took whiskey seriously. There's a bar down there called Moonshine and a couple of guys, one runs it, Larry and Joe. I'd known about whiskey, but I remember that Larry asked me to come to his house one time for this whiskey dinner. Me and a buddy of mine, Travis, went over there. First time I'd ever seen somebody that had a whiskey collection. Cause we've all seen him. He, I mean, he had a whole guest house just full of whiskey and all the bottles were open. That was the coolest thing. And he was telling me about all this stuff and it's stuff that I'd never seen before unless it was in Jimmy's basement, you know, old, old granddad's or old Fitzgerald bottles on the rocker or, you know, stuff like that. And I started to get so excited because of how excited they all got. And ever since then it's been, You know, I've taken a deep dive into that side of the world too. Uh, I don't keep my bottles though. I'm a bad collector. I end up drinking them all.

That's what they're for. I just drink. When was the first time you, they said, Hey, you're going to come back to Kentucky. Do you remember that?

I do. Um, dad gave me a call. This is usually how it works, which is funny how it works. They don't ever tell us anything. straight, they'll talk to dad and then dad will tell me, you know, that's how it worked. He gave me a call and he said, hey, I think the company is wanting to move you back. I think it'd be a good idea, blah, blah, blah. And then Comply came to me and they kind of let me know, you know, there's really two paths to take. You can keep doing what you're doing forever. Basically, if you want to, you can stay, be at a brand ambassador. We'd figure it out or you can come back to the distillery and and learn a little bit here. And I did. I moved back and worked under a bunch of different people at the distillery and under some different departments. And I'm still working at the distillery. I run our private barrel program. But the thing that really interests me is working hand in hand with our product development team. the guy that leads that's named Norm Mattella. And if, you know, if you look at all the whiskies we've got over here, except for one on one, because it's been around forever. Norm's been as influential, impactful, whatever you'd want to call it on these whiskies as anybody, including dad or Jimmy. He's the he's the man. He really helps us do what we do and getting to work with him and learning how to like blend whiskey together and how to develop products and how to do proper tasting notes and how to do secondary aging and all that stuff. That's the stuff I'm super interested in is the back half.

Is it a bit overwhelming? Is there a lot to it? I mean, is it like, oh my gosh, I've got to learn all this? Yes and no. Cause a lot of it is, Oh, I learned how to do this from Jimmy. He just called it something different.

Or, oh yeah, Dad and Jimmy say this all the time. It's just their answers would be, we do that because I say so, or we do it because it tastes good, boy. Where Norm has actually given me chemistry or reasoning, or okay, there are real reasons why we do this, besides just it tastes good, and here's why. Um, and that really helps. And, um, it's been great because he's been very open about, you know, do you have any ideas of what you'd like to do? Let's write them down on paper and let's see if we can't make them happen. And some of those things are happening. So it's pretty cool. Well, Mike, my glasses empty.

You too. I got to catch up. Well, I think we're up against the break here. Yeah. It's been a great first half. I really enjoyed drinking that Russell's tenure. I always enjoy drinking Russell's tenure. Such a great pour. I didn't quite get the cherry juice, but you know, teach, teach their own. Yeah. It's a little bit of fruit in there though.

As soon as he said pear though, I got pear. Yeah. As soon as you said it that.

Yeah. It's one of the most common notes in our whiskeys when we're doing our tasting at the, at the lab.

All right. Well, we'll, uh, we'll fill our glasses back up with something new and we'll be back in a second.

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. 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 into Garrison Brothers and pick up a bottle from them also. Kevin appreciated 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 see maple.com. Pick up a bottle from him.

All right, so we were back. The first half we had some Russell's tenure, had some great conversation. The second half, Mike, what do we have in our glass?

We got the Masters Keep one. I just cracked this bottle open today. Fresh cracked. It was hiding under the cabinet there and I was like... Man, we got bourbon royalty up on Jephthah Bend farm up here on the hill.

Who would you hide a bottle of wild turkey from? It wouldn't be me, would it? I don't know.

Woodrow maybe? Woodrow.

You can tell how interested he is right now.

Oh yeah.

He just wants to be by my feet. That's it. But yeah, we cracked this open. I figured Bruce was here. It's pretty special visitor, right?

Yeah. So maybe you can walk us through the thinking behind the one.

Yeah, sure thing. So, uh, this is actually the second master's keep that I'd ever had any kind of like influence over in the first one. I just kind of originally came up with the idea with dad, which was cornerstone, but I got to do a little bit of tasting on that, but I didn't really get to prove any of the blends or I wasn't really involved in the full product development of that. But one, I was actually in the lab the entire time working with dad and his team, Norm and them. Um, and, uh, One is kind of our and in my estimation, it might be the last of these kind of products because it involved kind of a Jimmy style whiskey blended with bad style whiskey. So if you've heard Jimmy or Mimi talk about whiskey, he'll say, I like six or 12 year old whiskey. And then you'll always have a guy in the back or a girl in the back raise their hand. Well, my favorite's a 17. What'd you think about that? And he'll stare at them and say, I didn't stutter. I like six to 12 real whiskey. And dad does, dad likes older whiskey. I mean, dad really, I think likes like 10 to 15, 16 year old whiskey, even older if he can baby it. And so this is kind of a blend of those two styles. So you've got some younger stuff that's that's more it was a little bit more aggressive up front had a little bit more of that that Jimmy flavor profile that to me is kind of like sweet tobacco and black pepper like. molasses. It's like dark sweetness. And then you've got dad's style of whiskeys, which are a little bit older. They've got a little bit more oak to them, but they're also a little bit lighter. So like vanillas and honeys and sweet creams and fruit. And then we blended two of those aged whiskeys together and then we put it in a toasted barrel. You know, we're right on trend. We're only 10 years behind with the secondary on the toast. But it's actually something we never really fooled around with before. And so when we went, I know Norm had reached out to a couple different barrel companies and we found somebody that was able to produce the highest vanilla count. So literally what it sounds like, it's just the chemical compound that produces vanilla-like flavors. And we toasted that barrel and did a secondary aging. For one, and so it is unlike anything else we've done. To be honest, this is the first Master's Keep that I was a little bit scared of because in the beginning we were struggling to find the blend we needed and we were struggling to find the flavor profile we needed. And this is kind of the opposite as it normally happens. Normally we luck into or we find something really good in the beginning and then really focusing on it. And this one, I think that we were treading water for a while. And then it was probably about two months before we were actually going to do the final dump and had put a few more barrels in there and then finally found like the perfect age range. And it's shown through. And I think. I think that this whiskey is an, I think it's an awesome Master's Keep. And I think that if it wouldn't have come out around the same time as Russell's 13 and then we had Rare Breed Rye right before, and both of those won a lot of accolades and awards and had a lot of hype, I think this product would be right up there with some of our other most hyped Master's Keeps. And when you look at the grade on this, when people were actually reviewing it, everybody seemed to really love it. So we're super proud with the way this turned out, even though Compared to most others, it was a, it was a rocky ride until it got into the bottle for sure.

Well, it sounds like from your description of how it came together, it sounds like it's going to be a very complicated whiskey. It's going to have a lot of layers, a lot going on. Uh, but you know, there's one way to tell for sure.

Yeah, let's do it. Let's check it out. I've already been sipping on it.

I must say this is one on one, you know, it's wild Turkey.

So, yeah, I think this is probably my favorite wild Turkey of all time right here. I like it.

Wow. The nose is actually just really kind of, uh, kind of not all over the place. It's really kind of focused and clean.

And it's such an easy sipper at over 100 proof. That's really what surprised me. And that was that way the whole time. And what we were scared of until we really nailed that secondary aging is it tasted like a low proof, even though it wasn't. That can be a good thing for certain brands, but we have a very particular type of consumer that likes our products. Anytime something either is low proof or tastes low proof, doesn't have that big kind of wild turkey spice, we get a lot of people complaining. And we were a little bit concerned with this one, but I think it turned out awesome. I love this whiskey.

I'm ready to taste it.

You're already there, Mike. I know. I'm sipping away. I might even get a second pour. It's that good. If listeners, if you didn't get a bottle of this and you see a bottle, do not pass it up. Got this bottle. directly from bow at the gift shop. Oh, nice. Yeah. Um, I don't think we were over there. My in-laws were in town and we drove by there, uh, for something. And I was like, I got to stop in there. And, uh, of course my in-laws like, man, you stop at every whiskey place there is. Yeah. But I know somebody here. So I went in there and asked Bo, Hey, does there, do you have anything back there? Cause I know they keep those underneath the counter.

So, uh, I think y'all said he's been on here twice, but shouts out to Bo Garrett. He's a tour guide slash. They call him something else, brand champion or something like that. But basically, he's a brand ambassador for us as well. Bo is the man. If there are certain people, I think, on the Bourbon Trail, if you ever get a chance to get Freddie Johnson to take you around Sazrek, that's a treat. And if you ever get a chance to have Bo Garrett take you around Wild Turkey, I think, cut from the same cloth, might as well call him brand ambassadors because the history that he knows and the relationships he's built up with me, dad and Jimmy, and he's just the man.

And he's from that area and he's lived there pretty much his whole life.

Yeah, lived around there his whole life from up the road. He was the guitarist for Montgomery Gentry for a real long time. He's like very unassuming because he's just like the most polite, you know, down home kind of guy. And then I'll see him and I'll be like, what you been doing? He was like, well, you know, I played the national anthem on my electric guitar for the UK football game this weekend. You know, like he gets to do all kinds of cool stuff. But yeah, both the man, he's helped us more than just about anybody kind of promote our brand, especially locally.

Yeah, I got to see him. He was over at Jim Beam. He brought your, I'm guessing it was your grandmother and Jimmy over there for their relaunching and stuff.

Yeah, he's real close with Fred too.

And it was good to see that your grandfather was still out and it was hot that day, man.

Jimmy still comes to work every day and he'd been to work just about every day of his life until the pandemic happened. Knock on wood, him and my grandma never did get COVID during the peak, even though obviously it's still going on somewhat. But when it was real bad and you know, everybody really didn't know what to expect and there weren't vaccines and stuff out. They didn't want Jimmy coming to work. They told him, you know, don't come in. And he was a little wary himself. So they'd get my grandma's van, him and my granny, granny Joe is what we call her. Um, him and Joe would drive around in her van about three 30 every afternoon, just to make sure everybody showed up to work and make sure the plant was going on. So even though he wasn't supposed to be coming in, he still showed up every day. He loves it, you know? That's a heck of a work ethic, you know? It is, and you know, he's got this, Jimmy's got a million quotes and all of them are half true, just like every other story from Kentucky, you know? But he says, you know, I'll retire the first day I feel like I'm coming to work. And I know he's had hard times in his career, but he means that in a way that I'm not sure anybody else has ever meant that. You know, when it comes to my dad, I'm not number one, because my brother's had two kids recently. And so now he's got grandkids and Naomi and Cyrus are one and two in some order. But when it comes to Jimmy, I think that distillery is his favorite child. You know, it's he started when he was 19. That's what he's known his whole life. And he went from I mean, I'm riding coattails is kind of how I feel because Jimmy lived in a small house. Him and my grandmother both grew up, you know, I don't want to speak for him, but poor families by anybody's definition and had made something of himself with that distillery. And I think that he feels very lucky and blessed. And that's something that he really has instilled me and my dad is we're right place at the right time away from being barrel rollers. You know, that's what his dad did. His dad was a bottom run guy in a distillery. He worked at the distillery before Jimmy did. My grandmother was a secretary at our distillery right before Jimmy got hired. He started when he was 19 and it's just pure luck. He actually fell into a pretty good relationship with the master distiller back when he started a guy named Bill Hughes who made our whiskey actually before prohibition. This is crazy. It's 2021. We've been open since 1860s. Dad's only the fourth master distiller we've ever had. So every single one of these guys worked there for 50 plus years. Jimmy still says dad's the new guy and he's been there since 81. And, you know, he just kind of fell into favor with this guy who by all other accounts, he was not a very nice guy. He's very serious. And then Bill passed away of old age. Uh, he lived right across street from the story, basically on distillery grounds. Um, and then Jimmy kind of knew all his tricks and the trade secrets and the recipes and stuff. So they got stuck. Jimmy would only been around 30 years old, probably when he was massive distiller for the first time. And back then you were massive distiller, plant manager. Uh, you know, head HR, you did it all.

Now, how many, how many people do you think have become a master distiller because of Jimmy and knowing Jimmy and working for Jimmy?

I'd say quite a few. I mean, when I run around the people, there are, there are a handful of people like this in the industry, um, who not only have been very influential because of who they are, but because they're willing to give time. And it used to always be like that, but I would say there'd be a lot because it doesn't matter who you are. If you come in the distillery and you want to talk whiskey, Jimmy will sit there and talk to you. He'll tell you the trade secrets. He'll walk you around the distillery and show you how everything works. That's just kind of how we've always been. And it was that way when I started, I remember having a. I want to say it was called like Herman Marshall. It's a little Texas distillery outside of Dallas. I don't know if they're still around, but hopefully they are. They come to the distillery and Jimmy's like, take them. Like I was like, yeah, I'm going to take them on tour. He's like, no, no, no, no. Show them everything. They won't see anything. Take them behind. Let them see the computers. Let them see recipes. You know, if they're distillery folk, let's be honest with them, you know, teach them. Um, cause it's going to help them and that's kind of how he always was.

I know it happens a lot with us. We're, we're interviewing to stay and we get, we get around a bit. We've over 200, almost 280 episodes. Now we've been, we've had an awful lot of distilleries on and I can't count how many times we've had a master distiller on who said they came through while Turkey at one point, right? That they, uh, spent some time there, you know, but I think that certainly if you've been a master distiller at wild Turkey for that many years, you've probably had a number of proteges that have made it through.

I think Alex Castle is probably the one that sticks out the most down at old Dominic and stuff. And she speaks nothing of praise of her time at Wild Turkey. And I mean, she's a local girl to here to Baghdad. So no surprise there. And I wonder if she one day comes back, but you got to feel just pride that you're part of that. You know, there's always coaching trees, but there's a master distiller tree and you're going to be part of that one day.

Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, I run into Alex every now and then. I would say that the two young people that have worked on their like kind of around dad and Jimmy that I think like are real good at what they do would be her. And then there's Cam and Tally that works over at Rabbit Hole right now. Now, rabbit holes look different. I don't think they want to name. They've told me that they don't want to name anybody a master or anything, because it's a collaborative effort. So you name whatever people, whatever you want. But cameras are extremely important to the making of their whiskey. Um, I just saw him the other day. We were doing a tour. He didn't see me, but he was in the lab tasting when I was leading some people through that tour. Cause that story is so pretty. I wanted to take them. And those are the two people, him and Alex that I think are kind of they're young. Uh, they really, really got a good, um, They've just got good opinions on whiskey. You know, the stuff that they're making is interesting. They've got their own way of doing things. I think that's what's important. And there's a third one. And I don't want to miss her. There's Shailen Gammon, who I think just switched over to Blue Run, who had worked under Norm as a product development person, not a distiller, but more of a blender. But that Russell's 13, she had a lot of say in rare breed rye, which is kind of the first thing that I helped out in in the lab. She was the one in the lab with is doing it. And she's been very, very impactful on our whiskies. And I think those three are three like Eddie slash Jimmy coaching trees, whatever you want to call them, stealing trees that I think have like crazy cool futures. And I think it would be cool if one of them ended up coming back one day, you know, and helping out because They were all great at our distillery and I think that there would only be a benefit to us. Cause that's the thing I think that we've struggled with over the years is Jimmy's so stuck in his ways and that really did help our distillery for a long time. But now we're in a completely different world where people want all kinds of different unique one-off things. You can't make something too strange for the consumer base right now, right? And so I think that it would benefit us if we had somebody come back and help us out like that, to be honest.

You kind of lean a little bit more towards the spicy world of whiskeys, right? I mean, Rye's are something that you're particularly interested in. The Cornerstone was something that you were involved in. Did that come around as a result of you liking the spicier whiskeys?

Yeah, so the cornerstone is probably the first thing that I ever had any say in. And that's because I kind of came up with the idea with dad. So when I first started, right around the time I moved to Austin, dad had, first thing that he did, it's kind of the first thing that Jimmy did, although him and Jimmy did in the lab, dad took me into warehouse A. So it talks a lot about who they are as distillers. Jimmy really likes distilling. He really likes things that are consistent, that make sense every single day. That's who he is. He's a creature of habit. Dad likes, fooling around with stuff. He likes playing around, experimenting. So he likes maturation. So where Jimmy set him in a lab and had him trying lab samples, dad took me into warehouse A and he was just like, all right, we're gonna drink some whiskey out of the barrel and you're gonna write notes and I'm gonna see how you taste. Not to teach me, but just to see, you know, what I would do. And we ran into some young rye whiskies at that time, young, quote unquote. They were mature, but we set some aside and Now they're fourteen years old, but at the time they're in cornerstone, which is three years ago, they're eleven, twelve years old right around there. And they were sister barrels. So those barrels we set aside back then, and that's kind of cornered the spark for cornerstone is we ran into this lot of rye barrels that were just awesome and then decided to make a masters keep. And I have always been drawn to rye whiskey. Rare Breed Rye was the first thing that I ever set in. It's a permanent addition to the line that I set in from the beginning and got to write notes on all the blends and actually got to see it, you know, blended up for the first time and couldn't be more proud of how that whiskey turned out. And then we've got the Masters Keep coming out this year, which is a bourbon and rye blend, you know, a high-end boo rye or forgiven, whatever you want to call it. I don't know if I love the name because it's unforgotten. which it was forgiven. So I don't really know how forgotten got into it. It's whatever. Um, we couldn't, we, we should call it, um, unforgiven, but Clint Eastwood like owns the right style as movie named or something like that. So you can't name anything and unforgiven is like old movie he's in.

And Boorah is kind of taken too, isn't it?

It is. Yeah. High West got that, but for whatever reason, and this is how, you know, you're doing a good job when people just start calling a category after your brand.

Yeah.

Cause everybody's like, Oh, it's like a bull ride. And I'm like, yeah, we can't call it that, but you know, it is what it is. Um, and it's going to be higher and stuff, you know, old raw whiskies and old bourbons blended together. And, um, we've done some secondary aging in the used dry barrels to impart a little bit more of that raw character. And, uh, and it is awesome.

So how is Ryde doing as a general category now?

It's doing real well and actually the pandemic hurt it. We saw, at least on our side, and I mean, we get access to all the Nielsen numbers. If you don't know, it's a little industry secret. Nielsen does stuff on everything. It's not just TV. You know, the TV rating people, they also do a bunch of consumer stuff.

So they know what you're watching? and they know what you're drinking while you're watching. Absolutely. Yeah.

So I've seen the numbers from, from people like that and rye whiskey did stall during the pandemic. I mean, we had our two biggest years of wild turkeys history, basically, uh, during the pandemic years. Cause a lot of people were going to what they knew to tried and true brands and, um, big volume. So we saw a lot of uptick in like leaders and one, seven, five handles and stuff like it. And a lot of people were going away from blends and rise and secondary aging is just a normal straight bourbon. And so it did take a little bit, but it's coming back pretty strong. But I think it's in a really good place because you don't have to age it as long as bourbon for it to be good. And so it's a little bit easier in some ways. It's not easier to make, which is why a lot of people buy. But in some ways, it's easier than bourbon, because a four-year-old rye whiskey can be pretty darn good. Most four-year-old bourbons just meh to me. So when I'm looking at some of these new craft distilleries, my favorite is probably Wilderness Trail, the ones around here, that their rye whiskey I think is awesome. But there's a lot of these new craft stories that have an emphasis on the rye, and so I think that category is going to continue to blow up.

Yeah, and the palates are evolving as well of consumers in general, I would think, right? The more they get exposed to whiskeys and higher proof whiskeys, that spice kind of can draw them in a little bit. I even think Mike is growing a little bit on rice, right? A little bit, a little bit. He likes that weeded bourbon, but you know, everybody's got faults.

Let's talk about weeded bourbon. Do you ever see a point where wild turkey, will come out with a weeded bourbon.

If you would have asked me when I started, I would have laughed at you. But at this point and the way that the industry is going, I wouldn't say no to anything. I do think that in the next decade or so from us, you might see a different recipe. You might see a weeder or a four grain or a different yeast strain or different malts. We're just at a point in our category where you're, you're able to do experimental stuff and it's going to work out if you, if you take the time to do it the right way. And that used to not be the case. Everybody just wanted tried and true, you know, I want one-on-one rare breed of Kentucky spirit. It's what we had.

Well, yeah, I think that we will. Let's look into the future, right? Let's say 10 years from now, um, they say, Bruce, we're going to name you a master distiller here at Wild Turkey. And they say, you can make anything you can want to make. What would you make anything?

Uh, don't say beer now. No, I wouldn't. No, I don't know enough about beer. And people ask me, they're like, Oh, you must be a beer nerd. I'm like, well, if drinking Miller lied or core banquet makes me a nerd, then yeah. Um, I would want to do a series, if I got to do anything I wanted. I think that Wild Turkey Kentucky Legend Donut is the most interesting thing that Jimmy's ever done. It was a series, if you don't know, it was a series of single barrel barrel proof bourbons. I've seen as low as like 106 or seven and as high as 114. Every single one of them tastes different. I think it would be so cool to do something like that, but age stamped for bourbon and rye and do a series like that. So that's what I'd like to do. And my age range is kind of in between Jimmy and Dad's. I don't like his oldest dad, but I don't like as young as Jimmy. So, you know, he says six to 12. Dad might say 10 or 12 to maybe 15 to 18. I really like like eight to 14 or 15. So just some single barrel, barrel proof rise and bourbons. And then I'll tell you something that we've done in the past that I thought was super interesting that didn't work out. We had an experimental thing one time in our lab where we got some stout barrels back from some beer companies that had aged our whiskey in it. We introduced whiskey into those barrels. And let me tell you, that's one of the tastiest things I've ever had. It imparted a little bit of that dark nutty kind of stout flavor. Along with that bourbon, it was very bourbon forward, but God, it was good. So those were some well-aged bourbons you put in there. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Now, Alex must've been at Wild Turkey at that time.

That might've been around the same time. Yeah. Towards the end of her career. Old Dominic has done that. I know. But the thing that I would want to do and the thing that nobody's done yet, cause you know, you got cask mates and you got a lot of that stuff here in, in newer, your American whiskey, like independence. Nobody's put some really old stuff. We didn't either at that time. I mean, it was well-aged, but it wasn't like a master's key page or anything. I think it would be cool if we put some 12 or 15, like age stamped, like a cask mates type of. of bourbon whiskey. I think that'd be super neat because that stuff was delicious. Yeah.

I think the extra aged bourbons in a stout barrel, it just, it's got my mind racing right now. I'm just thinking that would be amazing. It really would. I don't know that I've had any like that.

I've not seen one out now. I've seen a lot of it at four, six years old, something around there, you know?

Yeah. We might have to see if we've rustled something up.

That's right. Yeah. There you go.

out of my cabinets. Well, my glass is empty, Jim. I know it's yours, Anthony. Bruce here, he's milking it over there.

That's right, yeah.

He's milking it. Yeah. Responsible drinker. So what are we thinking in our next pour here? Well, I know. I saw you carry something in. And actually, you asked me if I wanted to buy this bottle because you were out and caught right up before. And I turned it down and got something else. Uh, but what'd you carry in with you? I brought the diamond.

Well, let's, let's his second retirement, right? His second unofficial second or third fake retirement or whatever you want to call it.

Well, let's take another short break and we'll get a pour. And while we're doing that pour, I'll tell everybody about a great charity we're working with in July. All right. Sounds good. Cool. Listeners, me and Jim are going to be at the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky on July 23rd for USA Cares Gala. Now, USA Cares is a charity organization that raises funds for needy veterans and service members. And we're going to have a bourbon pool that night. And you want to come check that out. Great event. If you want to donate bourbon to that cause for that bourbon pool, Go ahead and reach out to me. You can reach out to me on my email or on Instagram at Big Bourbon Chief or on the Bourbon Road. We really appreciate your help with this great cause.

All right, Michael, that's a great event. We're all looking forward to it. I can't wait to put on my tux.

I'm not looking forward to that part. You're not looking forward to that part.

You're just going to get a black tux, right? You're not going crazy with any kind of like, like, High school graduation tux or anything, are you?

I'm just coming there with a... Texas tux. With a burnt orange tux.

There you go. Like some Dumb and Dumber stuff? Yeah, yeah.

No, I'm just going to wear a black tux. I will have cowboy boots on. You could pretty much bet that.

Yeah, but you've got to have a real tie. You can't put on that... The bolo tie? The bolo texel. Oh, come on now.

That's fancier in a real tie. I don't know if I can... It'll be a clip-on, I think. Yeah. Bow tie. I don't know. All right.

You have to do what I do where you do the YouTube video of how to tie a tie every time. Oh, I did that several times.

Several times. All right. So we're back, and we took that little break and talked about USA Cares so we can pour a little bit of this next bottle. So this is the diamond. We kind of let the cat out of the bag a little bit before we took the break. And I did want to talk about how I came across these. It was pretty interesting. So folks, listen in. If you're out and about, It never hurts to pop in to that local liquor store in whatever town you're in and just check. I went into this place and they had about five cases each out on the floor of both decades and diamond. And this was about two years ago, two years ago. So these bottles had been out for a little while. but still available. And my guess is they're still out there and you can still find them. So, uh, if you're hearing us talk about these wonderful bottles we're drinking on, it's not like you can't possibly get your hands on one. Don't go paying secretary prices, but, um, keep your eye open.

Yeah. If, uh, if you get a chance, I'd recommend anybody grab one of these diamond bottles cause they're, they're kind of unique, but you can still find them. So this was before, um, As a parent company, Campari had really nailed in how they wanted to do their LTOs. I think we do a great job now with the number we put out of each of them. But there were way too many diamond bottles put out to really be an LTO, which it almost was as big as a permanent release whenever we put it out. So you can still find some of them out there, but this was for Jimmy's 60th anniversary. A little bit lower proof in 91. It's 13 to 16 year old whiskey, which always cracks me up because, you know, Jimmy didn't make it. It was made for him by dad. Jimmy likes this whiskey, but it's not his favorite because of that extra age. But I think it's an absolutely delicious whiskey. And again, It does trend a little bit towards dad's flavor profile. It's a little lighter. It's a little fruitier. It's a little softer up front. It's got that good oak on it. And I don't know too many wild turkey whiskies that, you know, average age 14, 15 years old that you can find readily available on the market, especially stuff that's considered quote unquote vintage because it's not in the book anymore. You know, it's not normally for distribution. And you can still find these diamonds.

Yeah. So this was Eddie's retirement present to his dad.

Second or third. I was at this one because they had this party at the same time as the grand opening of our visitor center. And the governor came in. which I believe was Andy Beshear's dad. I think it was Steve that came in and did the talk that day. And all the current master distillers that were around came in. I think Craig Beam was there. He was still working and Harlan and Fred, you know, everybody comes in. They came into the visitor center and everybody was crying and hugging because Jimmy might leave, you know.

I bet dad retires before Jimmy does, believe it or not.

Yeah. Jimmy's not going anywhere. My grandma says he's immortal. He's well pickled.

He's well pickled. Yeah. So do you think there's going to be another whiskey that comes out like for his 70th?

I'm not going to do another one until he passes away. So in like 50 years, maybe. No, I hope they do one for his 70th. I do think that we missed out as a company. This is one thing I'll complain about. We have a lot of turnover. You know, you always do. So there was somebody that didn't, there was a one-on-one anniversary combined where him and Jimmy both at the same time, they met some kind of anniversary. We should have done something cool with that. But that is a weird thing. But yeah, hopefully we do something for his 70th. He started in 54, so we're only two years away. But when this came out on his 60th, they declared, and we think this to be true, It'd be hard to prove otherwise because they didn't keep records back in ancient times. But we think he's the longest tenured master distiller ever in the history of spirits. Because according to my grandma, most people have enough sense to retire, pass away. Jimmy's done neither. And yeah, if I think at 60, he was the longest ever. And now, you know, he's just continuing on. It's quite an accomplishment. It really is.

Now, does he still go into the distillery itself and do some work?

Mmm, it depends what you mean by work. He he still supervises kind of so He likes to still come in. He does what me and my brother call the Russell shuffle Because he's got a bad knee. So he kind of he shuffles around Until you got a good pour whiskey or there's somebody listen to a story then all of a sudden his knees better but he likes to come in and still look at the fermenters and check how fast the stills run in and go over and maybe smell the dry house to make sure everything's going well and you know, stuff like that. But there's not a time in his life that he don't have a big child of a red man chewing it back in his mouth. So he's not doing much tasting anymore. He's still doing some drinking. Um, but it'll crack me up because he'll go to his office and he'll sit. He'll answer. He does. He answers emails. Like he, he still does work. So he'll answer emails and he'll give opinions on things and he's, he still does some stuff. Then he kind of gets bored. And so he'll watch some reds baseball, but he's so old, he can't hear it. So it'll be turned up to a million volume. And so I'll have to go and close the door because the whole office is getting annoyed, you know, cause it's reds baseball or judge Judy or prices, right? Whatever's going on in the middle of the day that he wanted to watch on his computer.

Well, I'll tell you what, following on the one, this is a little bit drier. It's definitely got a lot more, uh, a lot more oak influence on it.

They hate that we call anything tannic. That's just like not a term that people like to use in whiskey. Kind of like, uh, we don't like saying blend it either because that's a Scotch term, but it is, it's almost tannic in nature. It's, and I don't think it's a bad thing. It's got a little bitterness to it. It's got a little bit of oak to it. Um, we call that a lot of times like mature wood or mature oak.

But it is a little bit lighter, you know, viscosity wise, and it's kind of a little soft.

It's probably chill filtered. That's the difference.

Yeah.

So I think that's a thing that a lot of American whiskey consumers know about now, but wasn't always the case. Chill filtration, in my opinion, matters way more than proof. You get a lot of people, I like hot proof. I only drink hot proof. Well, I think you're a fool. It doesn't matter how high proof it is. To me, it matters what the difference is between what's in that bottle and what came out of the barrel, right? So like you look at our very first Masters keep, it was 88 proof or something like that. It was barrel proof. Well, you know, that's got a better mouthfeel than a hundred plus proof stuff. because we didn't add much water to it, if any. And what matters more to me than the proof, a lot of times. Now, if you got 140 proof barrel proof and you're proofing it down to 80, of course, that's not gonna be the same. But it's chill filtration, because when you do that, you strip away the best things in bourbon, which are fat. Fats, proteins, and acids that'll be stripped away. That's a lot of what the mouthfeel is, and a little bit of the flavor. And so, yeah, this is almost, even though this is delicious whiskey, Compared to that one, it's almost thin.

Yeah, it does have a little bit, but it's a wonderful whiskey. I mean, it's got a great flavor and you can taste the age in it. And I would say it's all grown up.

Well, I think I made the right choice because this is not my favorite. Um, I'm, I'm probably like Jimmy where I liked that eight to 12 year. I liked that mouth feel. I like, I like the fatty esters in a whiskey. I want that taste. Um, I don't want that. If I'm going to get, drink something dry, I'll buy a bottle of red wine and drink it with some, some beef or some spaghetti.

Yeah, it's not for everybody. And I think that's one of the reasons why you can still find it sometimes. But yeah, you're talking about kind of sharing some things with Jimmy. There's a quote that I've heard from a bunch of people. I've heard some people say it. Jimmy said it. Some say Booker said it. I don't know, but one of them at one point told somebody at one of these whiskey fest or whatever. I want my whiskey to knock your teeth in a little bit, which we have a marketing team now that doesn't let us say that. And they shouldn't. That might scare off your normal consumer. But I get what they mean when they mean like full force barrel proof, nonchal filtered whiskey. It's aggressively flavorful up front. There's a lot of it going on. And it's thick. Jimmy calls it the chew. He likes a chewy whiskey, a Kentucky Chews, what he says. It's a whiskey that's in it. I would say it's silky on the palate because I've been media trained. You know, I've gone through the marketing stuff. There are better ways to say things, but yeah, there is like a viscosity to nonchal filtered whiskey or. If you're a whiskey fan, come hang out. Hit me up. You know, you can find these guys or find me online. I'm pretty, pretty easy to find. Drink some stuff out of a barrel with me. I know y'all have got to do that. When you pick barrels or somebody brings you a little lab sample, you're talking about some, I'm not going to say exactly where we got it or what it was, but some old barrel proof corn whiskey that we've all tried. Um, there is, there's something special to that almost like chewy whiskey that you get.

You know, you're saying you're going to a bar and you'll get a shot and a beer. And, um, I was watching this lady the other day, she's learning how to drink her husband's bourbon and that's she's doing that on tech talk and. she just shoots it right back. And I'm like, man, and I've seen a lot of people do that. And I hate to tell people, Hey, how to drink your whiskey. But to me, that's the absolutely worst way to drink a pour of whiskey. Cause all you're going to do is get that burn, that dried villain. Oh, absolutely. But if you let it sit on your palate for a second, sip on it and you get that, like you said, that chew. And I know that marketing doesn't like that because it sounds like chewing tobacco, right? Uh, but that hold your mouth and you get that silky taste, you'll enjoy your whiskey way better.

Yeah. I always tell people if you get a chance to, Try your whiskey over time. I think that really matters. So I'm not a believer that water helps bourbon. We're not scotch. It's a different type of thing. So I don't necessarily think that water opens up bourbon. What it will do, cause we do this at the distillery, it will reveal faults. If you add a lot of water to whiskey, you'll pick up mustiness or over oak stuff or sire or bitter notes easier. But what I think helps is oxygen. So to be honest, what I'm taking shots of when I'm drinking is normally one-on-one rye and a cheap beer. So I drank enough one-on-one rye to kill us all in my lifetime. So I know exactly what it tastes like. And I'm just kind of set myself up for the night. But if I'm sitting and actually trying to think over a pour, I was recently at a place right there on Main Street in Louisville and they have a a 90s eight-year-old age-stamped 101. It's a Greek export. It's my favorite pour in Louisville right now because it tastes like tiramisu. I'm a big coffee drinker. And it's got kind of this weird mocha note to it that I've never had in a wild turkey. So it's my favorite pour in Louisville. And when I'm sitting in this, I suggest anybody else tries a whiskey that they're not sure about it. They're really trying to think on is sit there and give it a second to breathe, move it around that glass and smell it. Really think about what you're smelling and take a small sip. And then let it sit there for awhile. Yeah, it can change. Um, and then do the same thing again. And in my estimation, if you're really sitting, that whiskey should take you a while. It should take you 10 or 15 minutes. Why, at least why are you sitting in there and thinking and, and. To be thoughtful on a poor, I think is the most important thing, especially when you're trying something that is unique or special or something that you're really into. I agree, because a lot of people will shoot whiskey back in the back. Man, this is harsh. It's like, well, yeah, a lot of times you'll get people that will poop who went on one because they'll say, Well, I remember in college, because it's a lot of what we used to hear in my dad's generation and above, because it's kind of like what one-on-one was known for, for my dad's generation is, Oh, I remember trying that when I was young and I drank so much of it, blah, blah, blah. It was, it's like, well, yeah, if you take 10 shots of anything, it's going to be real rough. But if you sit and you're, you're thoughtful about the whiskey and You take the time to really figure out what's going on in those whiskies. I think that people will realize there's a lot of awesome whiskey at 20, 30, $40. You don't have to spend, to be honest, I think a lot of the worst whiskies are at 80 to $150. A lot of your best whiskies are at about 35 to 50.

That is so true. I mean, that is very true. I mean, you're speaking the truth there. One thing's for sure, regardless of where you choose to drink your Wild Turkey product, whether it be more at the entry level or at the upper level, they're all good pours. I mean, they're all good solid whiskies. What's the age statement? Well, there is no age statement. What's the general age of Wild Turkey 101?

So Wild Turkey, our average age on all of our products is right around seven to eight years. So, and one-on-one is right in that same vein. So one-on-one and 81 are actually different blends. Most people just think they're different proofs. 81 is actually a little younger. One-on-one is generally a blend of six, seven, eight, nine year old whiskeys, average age being around seven, seven and a half years old. That does change. Um, we've had as we've had as old that I know of as 12 and 13 blended in there.

Um, and we do notice when that happens, I'm just letting you know.

You can't keep anything from the bourbon nerds, man. Uh, it's almost, I mean, people think Russell's 13 is like, it's crazy cool whiskey and it is like, let me tell you, but. It wasn't a purposeful product. It actually came about. We have a maturation supervisor. I don't actually know what his title is. Inventory guy. He keeps all our inventory in check. Guy named James Toby works at our distillery. And James, actually, I was in the meeting. He came to a guy that worked for us named Dom. who's went on to to now run John Bon Jovi's Sparklin, whatever is president of that company now. But he came to Dom when he was our brand manager and said, hey, we've got a bunch of old stuff. We're blending into stuff like one on one. Russell's 10 rare breed and the whiskey nerds are getting wind of it. So every time there's a little 15 and rare breed, everybody goes crazy or 13 and rare breed. We should start doing something with it. And then that eventually was the the You know, kind of the light bulb above everybody said of, hey, we should do a new Russell's thing. And then that ended up being Russell's 13. And at first it wanted to be 13 to 15. And again, this just stuff just happens. Hey, we've got an age stamped premium whiskey. We've got some old liquid we need to do. Not a very well kept industry. There's never been anything such as a secret or. I don't want to say the term I want to say because there's a brand name named after it, but there's no lost whiskey because we pay tax on it. So if you lost it, you're breaking the law. But a lot of times it'll be old whiskey that we just don't do anything with and we'll have it left over, but there's not enough to do a masters keep on. And so the very first one, it had, you know, 35 barrels of 19 year old liquid in there. Well, the one that's coming out this year, it's got even older whiskey in it. And that wouldn't have happened if that one guy wouldn't have just said and realized, Hey, a lot of these bourbon nerds, they're going crazy for the, this exact thing of one on one or this exact thing, a rare breed or whatever it is. Cause you can't hide anything anymore from y'all. It's easy. Jimmy said, you can't lie about anything.

That's a stroke of genius. I'm telling you the Russell's 13 is a stroke of genius. As far as I'm concerned, it works for you guys. But it also works for us. It really does.

I just think that every company should offer something like it. It's a dad said it was the nerds, whiskey nerds, you know, wet dream. Essentially it's small batch, non-chill filtered barrel proof, uh, H stamped. Like you couldn't ask for anything more.

And on everybody's short list. at least as far as podcasts and YouTube channels are concerned on everybody's short list for bourbon of the year. Yeah. Quite honestly.

And for something like that, it cracks me up because sometimes we spend years at a time as far as like ideation and then product development on some of these master keeps and to have something that was just a And when it first came out, a $69.99 MSRP permanent addition to the line that we just thought was going to be, you know, cool, this will help elevate the Russell's line a little bit. And then to see it do what it did, it, uh, we knew it was going to be well received. We didn't know what it was going to do, what it did.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, man, what a great conversation we've had here today. I think so. And three great whiskeys. I mean. Oh yeah. I mean, that's, that's been pretty, pretty bad ass.

So did we get, did we get those? Uh, you say we were going to talk a little bit about what's coming down the pike. Were those kind of the things you, you mentioned here in the last, uh, 30 minutes or so?

Yeah. So talked about the new Russell's blends. Going to have some older whiskey in it. Cause it's something from the same age as this year. So there'll be some 20 year old whiskey in this one. All right around there. We've got that high end bourbon and rye, forgiven, boo rye, whatever you want to call it. And then I would say keep an eye out. There is something we didn't touch on. It's called the Rick House series. It'll only be available in select markets. So like most other things that we come out with that are limited, I'll have to call my buddy and that works at a secondary store and get him to get me one, but it's called Russell's Rick house series, Camp Nelson C. It'll be coming out this year. So we're going to start doing a series under the Russell's line where everything's coming out of just one individual Rick house. So the first one's Camp Nelson C. In my estimation, I mean, I've only been working there only. I've been working there for about 12 years now, and I've had a chance to try everything we've come out with since that time. It's probably the sweetest whiskey we've come out with. When you look at the tasting notes, and this is how, in my opinion, you know it's good, is we've got a guy that works at our store named Mike, and he normally has very dry tasting notes. And even he was putting down like creme brulee and chess pie. If you're not from Kentucky, chess pie is like pecan pie with no pecans in it. It's like buttermilk pie. It's like double sweetness kind of stuff. Yeah.

It's almost shameful because in Texas they know how to make pecan pie.

Oh yeah. And we've got, we've got good pecan pie here too. Derby pie is just pecan pie with chocolate in it. But it's like that stuff without the pecans. So it's just the sugar part, you know? It is sinful. And it is that sweet and decadent and it's delicious. So I can't wait for that to come out. And that's coming out this year.

Well, I know your donut idea had my attention. So if that ever happens, we want to know. All right. I'll bring y'all a bottle. All right.

Sounds great. Well, speaking of bringing bottles and stuff, we talked about doing a giveaway with you guys and you said you're gracious enough to do some kind of giveaway. What do you got for our listeners?

Well, I'll grab some stuff from our visitor center. I'll get down with our buddy Bo, our mutual buddy Bo, and I'll get us some cool stuff. We actually have, I think they're the coolest things are going. They've got these really cool, they're like modern takes on old work shirts. So when I was growing up, dad used to wear, I'll just call them Bowen shirts, you know, buttons up and then they got the little, it's say like Big Ed or whatever on the thing. And they got our DSP number on there, DSP67. It's old Wild Turkey work shirt. We'll throw something like that in there, maybe a hat or two. And then I'd like to give away a bottle of my favorite thing we make, because it's the first thing that I helped with, which is rare breed rye. Awesome.

Yeah. Wow.

Might get that signed by Dad and Jimmy, too.

That's a hell of a giveaway right there. That would be amazing. So listeners, you know what you got to do. On Instagram, pretty much today, go on the comments on there, and I want you to do a couple things for me. I want you to follow Wild Turkey, obviously. I want you to follow this guy named Russell Ryguy on Instagram. That'd be Bruce Russell, the guy that's with us right now. And I also want you to hashtag in the comments, Wild Turkey and hashtag Russell's Reserve. Perfect.

And then you'll be keeping track of those all day on the day of the release of this episode. And then come 10 o'clock at night, you'll nine o'clock. I'm sorry, Mike. Yeah, nine o'clock. I got my bed time. Come nine o'clock the evening of the day of release of this show. You'll, you'll tally the results. You'll throw them into a randomizer and one lucky winner will get the whole package.

Yeah, let me bring something up about that. We have a lot of listeners in Louisville and Lexington and the Kentucky area. Somebody had said, well, notice last couple listeners or winners are from Kentucky. Well, when we have pretty much half of our listeners from Kentucky, that's, that's bound to happen. So I'm sorry about that. The only way you can win is to go ahead and get in there and get in that randomizer. Trust me, I'm very fair about it.

I guess that means y'all got to move here. Yeah. You know, my family always talks about if you're a come here for a from here. So you got to come here.

But we've, we, we've sent a lot of stuff out across, across America. Now you gotta be 21 to win. Uh, you gotta reside in the United States cause we won't ship anything overseas. Um, but, um, we'll make sure that we hook up with Bruce and get you that whoever wins that we'll get that, that package from Bruce.

All right. Sounds great. Well, Bruce, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show today. We want to make sure that you get an opportunity to call out where people can find you guys on the internet, where they can find you on social media, the Instagram, Facebook. Are you doing YouTube? I don't know. I don't even do Facebook. But you're dancing on TikTok. They need to check that out.

That's right.

You know, Instagram's about the only one that I use for any company stuff, and that is at RussellsRotGuy. But if you need to reach out to me there, you can DM me there, or all our Comparty emails are pretty easy, because it's our first, then a period, and then our last name. So bruce.russle. at Compart.com, reach out via email or Instagram. If you're just a fan and you want to come to the distillery, reach out. I'm probably there. If not, Jimmy's definitely there. Dad might be there. But please come see us or come hang out with me in Louisville. I welcome friends that want to talk shop and I'll convince you that a one-on-one rise, the best shot with a beer.

Well, Mike work, people find us on the internet.

Well, you know, you find us all those great places. Tick tock, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. Heck, I don't know what else you got us on, Jim.

Well, we're on Twitter. On Twitter. Awesome.

I'm on Twitter.

So we're on those great places. We also have a private Facebook group called the bourbon roadies. It's a great place you come into and not be judged by the kind of whiskey you're drinking. like Jim mission before that old tin high that I used to drink when I was a young soldier all the way to the top of the shelf. You know, Jim likes to drink. Wild Turkey 101. Wild Turkey 101 or, or the stag, George T. Stag.

George T. Stag. I do like that.

But whatever you drink. We want you to come in there and have a good time. Three easy rules. Are you a 21? Do you agree to play nice? Because we don't tolerate any rudeness in there. And do you like bourbon? Hell, everybody likes bourbon. Or at least we hope you do if you come to join us. So come in there, have a good time with us. Celebrate life, retirements, birthdays, even deaths.

Raise a glass to that fine friend you had that's no longer with us. Yeah. All right. Well, we do two shows every week. Every Monday, we'll do a craft distillery episode. Well, Mike and I will focus in on one expression from a craft distillery. Sometimes it's a big boy like wild turkey. We'll take a look at that expression. We'll taste it. We'll do some notes on it. We'll let you know whether or not we think you should add it to your bar. Of course, we're just a couple of bourbon bullshitters, so you just got to take what we say with a grain of salt. You like what you like, right, Mike? Yeah. You're a bourbon your way.

I hope you all try my buddy's new stuff I saw coming out. You know, Freddie Jr, we're the same age over at Bean. And I saw they're coming out with that. I think Hardin's Creek, is that what it's called?

Yeah.

Yeah. He's got that coming up. I saw the TTB label, you know, I troll that stuff just like y'all do.

We might have a couple of samples of that coming.

Yeah, you know, you know.

We might have some of that coming. Uh, but Bruce, we got two shirts for you and your girlfriend, the bourbon bullshitter t-shirts. Uh, we know we can't wait to see you on Instagram and those, uh, listeners. If you want to buy one of those, where can they find those at you?

You can find those on our website, the bourbon road.com. Come on there and check it out. Buy some swag from us. It helps Mike and I get down the road, gets us onto the next interview. It helps to buy some whiskeys when we don't get sponsored. And well, it always helps out to see, you know, one of our listeners wearing our gear.

Yeah, I love when I walk into distillery and somebody's wearing one of those t-shirts, I just get a good big old smile on the face. Yeah.

All right. So we do a full length show every Wednesday. We'll do about an hour, about 30 minutes each half. Like today's episode, we'll deep dive on a subject, have a couple of expressions, have a guest on the show. Make sure you check out both episodes every week. We'd hate to see you miss one. Mike, what do they have to do to make sure they don't miss a single episode?

Well, you want to scroll up the top of that app, hit that check sign, that plus sign, that subscribe sign, whatever on that app. That Apple is going to let you know, hey, these two jokers have an episode that's out today. You go ahead and take that drive into work and go ahead, hit play on as long episodes like today. We'll get you to working back easily.

They're probably halfway back again. That's how I do it.

You know what I'm going to say after that, Jim. You need to scroll on down to the bottom of that app. Hit that five star review. You know you want to leave that for us. Leave us some comments because you know what's going to happen if you don't. The big bad booty daddy of bourbons is going to come over to your house. dragging a wagon full of Wild Turkey Russell's Reserve. We'll drink that all night long. By the end of the night, we'll probably lay it on the floor with smiles, but you'll still hit that five star review and give us some comments. But seriously, those comments, those reviews open up doors to distilleries like Wild Turkey. Great guest on our show like Bruce Russell and lets us do some reviews here and there.

So we're always got our ears open. Mike and I like to listen to our listeners. If you've got an idea for a show, you've got an idea for a guest. If your hometown has a small distillery that's doing it right and you want to shine a little light on them, hop on our website, hit our contact us page that Mike and I know about it. We'll do the work from there. You can always send us an email. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. But like we always say, probably the best way.

Yep, our DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63.

I'm Big Bourbon Chief. I will see you down the bourbon road.