295. Southern Whiskey Society Event

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

Hey this is Big Chief and you're listening to the Bourbon Road. You know what I love to pour in my old fashions? Is a little maple syrup. Can't be just any maple syrup. It has to be from seldom seen farms up in Ohio. He takes bourbon barrels to whores his syrup in there and ages it for six to nine months making for some delicious just some delicious syrup that you could pour on pancakes you can pour it on waffles chicken waffles like this fat guy likes but seriously you want to make a delicious cocktail with some maple syrup and not that old simple syrup check out seldom see maple.com pick up some stuff from there today we'd appreciate it

Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. This is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we are in Franklin, Tennessee. Yes, sir. On stage. Yes, sir. At the Southern Whiskey Society event hosted by Made South. Yeah. Pretty excited. This has been a great day so far. You and I have had a chance to taste a few things. And who do we have on the show first?

Well, we're starting out with some royalty here in Nashville. So we got everybody calls him BMO, but he's Brian Morris from a famous little chicken place here in Nashville called Hattie B's. You know how I love that hot chicken, right?

You love some Hattie B's for sure. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Thanks for the kind words boys great to be here Yeah, so we've been sipping on a little bit of bourbon today Yeah, yeah, we you know tasting this and tasting that we did get a chance to stop by and taste What you had on the on the table there? Why don't you tell us a little bit about it?

Yeah. So for things like this, we like to have fun with it and do something a little whimsical, something you're not going to find on the menu, but that delivers the things you expect from Hattie B's, which is fresh, crispy, crunchy, spicy, super tender, juicy chicken. And so we've got all those things in our dish tonight. So it's basically like the Lord's skewer or the Lord's hot chicken corn dog, or Jesus's favorite bite, however you want to say it. I mean, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but so we've got really amazing dark meat chicken and what we do is run it through a cuber about four times so it's just practically falling apart and then we we put it around a skewer and let it set overnight and then we dip that in a brioche batter that's kind of eggy and sweet buttery really good and fry that. It's almost like a hot chicken funnel cake. And then we'll top that off with our Nashville comeback sauce, some crispy, crunchy kosher dill pickles. I mean, it's kind of all the flavors of Hattie B's in one, but different, you know, something special for the Southern whiskey society. You can't just bring out, you know, old hat at the Southern whiskey society. Well, you could.

Well, I mean, but you know, we don't want to just play the hits. There would be no complaints if you did.

But you know there's four awesome Hattie Bees you can go to in Nashville today. Ten Hattie Bees around the country you can go to and get that stuff. If you want what we do so well, you can go get that anywhere at any Hattie Bees tonight. But only here at Southern Whiskey Society at the factory in Franklin can you get the Lord's Skewer. The Lord's Skewer.

I'll tell you what, I ate some. That's a fat man's dream, Jim. It is. It absolutely is. And so you've been sipping on a little bit of bourbon tonight? Yeah. Maybe just a little bit.

Just a little sampling.

We're right next to Bardstown, so great way to start. So you've been able to reach over there and grab a little something to go along with your dish.

We have, yeah. Our dish has got a little bit of sweetness, a little savoriness, a little bready kind of notes, and so I think it's a great pairing with a weeded bourbon. Something that's got a little more butterscotch-y, a little more of that bread sugar. maybe not as good of a pairing with something that's a little peppery or more rye, but man, anything down that weeded bourbon side, I think would be just fantastic. Yeah, so he's a weeder guy too, Mike. What do you think about that?

Yeah, that sounds good to me.

Well, you know, I think for the pairing of the dish, it's what it wants. Now, listen, I'm not going to turn my nose up to anything.

No, I think it's important to know which whiskey with which bite. I really believe that.

You know, I had Buffalo Trace in mind when we put this bite together.

Did you?

Yeah. I mean, something like that. It's got a lot of butterscotch, a lot of wood sugar. To me, that really goes well with this.

Well, what do you say? We've got a pretty good crowd of people here. They seem to be really engaged, spending a little time at each table. What do you think about the Southern Whiskey Society event in general?

I mean, it's great. I mean, anytime we can get folks together to help, you know, do some little thing to mitigate food insecurity, try to bring some food security in. I mean, what a great way to do that here. Tasting great bourbons, eating great food. I mean, there's what a great collection of chefs from around middle Tennessee here tonight. I mean, myself, the least of which. Yeah, so I mean, it's so neat for us to be here tonight. We love giving. Hattie B's all about giving. And this event is a big give. But, you know, a lot of fun in the meantime, right? So to be able to contribute a lot of money tonight, you know, to one generation away, a lot of great attendees who showed up and dug deep for big tickets tonight. I can't wait to see what this event can do to contribute to that great charity.

Well, BMO, what's your what's your go-to bourbon?

Man, honestly, my everyday is Buffalo Trace. I mean, I say every day. It's not every day anymore, but my sort of weekday bourbon is Buffalo Trace, probably.

There's no shame in that right there, is there, Jim? That's some good stuff.

I grew up on Maker's Mark, I would say. That was the one we were younger that we all... So maybe that's why I stuck in the weeded side.

How long have you been a chef there at Hattie B's?

I've been at Hattie B's since 2014, so coming up on eight years now. Came on right after we opened store number two. So I'm a lucky guy. I got a great job, work with incredible people. Can't imagine doing anything else at this point.

I've always wondered, how much chicken in a day?

In a day?

Yeah, in Hattie B's, you know, in all the Hattie B's.

What do you think? Take a guess. Well, this year in 2022, we'll probably do something like six or seven million pounds in total. Oh my gosh. You might be better at quick math than me right now. This is a bourbon event after all.

You're talking that much chicken.

If you've got an abacus, I'll take a shot at it.

I'm out of fingers at those numbers. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. You don't need math when you get that high. That's enough.

But you know it's neat. We work with great family farmers here in the Southeast to provide our chicken. We try to work with as many family businesses as we can. That's a big important thing for us as we grow, making sure that whether it's our pickles, our breading, our chicken, our waffles, we work with as many great family businesses as we can. We're a family business and so that's kind of at the epicenter of our motivations.

Well, Brian, we appreciate you coming on the Bourbon Road. Hey, my pleasure. Serving us up some great grub over there. Yeah, buddy. All right. You can expect us to always be at Hattie B's when we come to Nashville.

We do. We don't miss a lick every chance we get.

Well, you know, we're growing bigger than Nashville now. So you can find us in Atlanta. You can find us in Dallas. You can find us in Vegas, Birmingham, Memphis, coming next year to Houston, Austin, and all over the place. You just haven't went north to Kentucky. Not yet, but give me a second. We'll be there. We'll be there soon. Oh yeah, it is. We love Kentucky. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it. We'll see you on down to Bourbon Road. All right.

So Jim, man, when we did this episode with Chris Thomas and we talked about Southern Whiskey Society, he did a pretty damn good giveaway for some tickets to this event. And a guy named Thomas Reed, the third, right? The second. The second. The second. Not a third yet. No, not yet. Not yet. Thomas won those tickets. Thomas showed up here tonight with his sister. He's here and got him on show. So you're a roadie.

Of course.

Absolutely.

Because that's a prerequisite to win those tickets. For sure. Were you pretty surprised when your name was called out?

100%. Yeah. Because I never win anything. You know, you're in the bourbon game and you do all these, you know, tag this and share this and like this page and you never win anything. But this one? When you tagged me on Instagram, I was like, ho, hot dog, we got it. I was so, I was just blown away because, you know, I don't, how long has this thing been going on? A couple of years now, I've never even been.

Yeah, we're three and a half years almost.

Yeah.

Oh, the Southern whiskey side is about three years old too.

And I don't live but 30 minutes north of here. So, whiskey, bourbon, you, when did it all start? So in 2019, I purchased my first home and my realtor got me a bottle of a Jefferson's very fine and rare. OK, so that started this. I was like, OK, well, this is good stuff. And because before it was like, you know, taking shots at the bar or doing doing something like that. But so then I started going to liquor stores and find something new, find something new. And all of a sudden, One of the guys on TikTok, Steve Higdon, had started a bourbon club online and so I joined that and it's been, I'm not really downhill, it's uphill.

So how's that bottle collection going? It's stupid, man.

So, you know, being single and having single man money, I purchased

bottle all the time really yeah well I poured you a pretty nice more you did I'm looking forward to that I've seen that old elk and I'm like oh sugar that's about a hundred dollar bottle right here yes an old elk double wheat Jim now sadly they're not here tonight they're not but maybe next year they'll come back maybe next year maybe we can get him a bourbon road up here yeah there we go that'd be fun yeah we we might have an event like this coming up

Just maybe. Just maybe. Just maybe. Just maybe. Uh-huh.

Keep listening. We want to tease our listeners out there, but we wanted to make sure, hey, the Weedy King of Kentucky has always got some weeded bourbon in hand. He sure does. And sure enough, I pulled some out of a magic bag I carry with me, right, Jim?

That's right. You did. You've got, you've always got a magic bag of bourbon in it. There was a magic bag. He says, hey, come on over here. Oh, yeah.

Okay, old Big Mike's going to do it.

Well, for those who are entering our contests and wondering why they haven't won, well, you just got to keep at it. Is that true? Absolutely.

Just keep at it. Continue to share, like those posts, give the reviews, engage. That's the thing I think is most important.

So, sorry, the bourbon caught me off guard.

But yeah, the engagement part, right? Because then you're active on all those posts all the time, all the time, and that's where the randomizers will pick you right up.

Now, this event tonight is not just about bourbon. It's also about food. Yes. What have you found so far that you really like?

So the number one thing was the little baby tacos back there. I had plenty of those, number one. Now look, y'all are big boys, I'm a big boy. And I had plenty of them little baby tacos.

Now that was from Keeneland. Yes.

And those were the pork jowl tacos, right? Yes, the beef, yes. Oh my goodness. Absolutely. And then the so the pork belly Nashville hot chicken over here from Hattie B's. Now that was a delicious bite. It was fantastic.

I bet they'd love to hear that because we just had old BMO their executive chef come on and talk about that. Like I said, it was a fat man's dream. 100%. Yeah. Well, Thomas, I'm glad that you guys, Nick, you and your sister got to come here, enjoy this episode with us, celebrate whiskey, celebrate a great charity one generation away. But this is helping out. We don't want to see anybody going hungry. I'm not going to go hungry. You're not going to go hungry. But we don't want to see any children out there around Nashville go hungry either. And that's what this whole thing is really about. Besides whiskey and some great chefs is about families. But they're only one generation away from poverty. And that's what that charity helps out.

Well, I appreciate everything you guys are doing, not only for the charity, but also on the roadies, on the podcast and Instagram. One of the things I like most about you guys is the realness, you know, and that's one thing that is I was telling somebody down there about being pretentious when I when I smell and nose whiskies and stuff like that But like you guys are 100% and I really appreciate the opportunity to even win a contest, right? That's really cool.

I'm sure we're glad to have you as part of the roadies and we hope you see it We see you at many of our fence down the roads and maybe even up in Frankfurt here Yeah months, right in a little while, right?

Yeah. Yeah

Yeah, we got another event in Frankfurt, Kentucky, a little bitty whiskey event called Bourbon on the Banks. There's like 80 distilleries there, some great food, great music, and there'll be us two jokers there just shooting the shit in our Bourbon Road lounge. So it'll be a great event. We hope to see your sister and you up there in Kentucky. We really appreciate your support. We'll let you get back to the food and the whiskey and keep that glass filled out. We're trying to get your sister on here. She said she's a little shy.

She's scaredy cat. Scaredy cat. Yeah. She's on headphones, just not on microphone. That's right.

That's right. All right, Thomas, we'll see you down at Barber Road, brother.

All right, thank you. Thank you. So Mike, you just made another round. We had a break while the band was off. Yeah. And now the band's back, so you can hear them in the background here. Three pieces, right? Yeah. They sound pretty damn good. I kinda like it. I'm wondering if this is gonna turn out okay, but you know what? I'm guessing it will.

We'll be alright. Yeah. Well Viv was telling this amazing story about, oh she's gonna talk, she's got the mic in front of her. mic's not on. So she was talking about this guy was walking around he had a brown bag and he's taking his glass and pouring inside the brown bag so she was curious to see what he was doing why he's pouring his whiskey in the bag but he had a mason jar in that bag and he's going to every distillery here the 30 something 30 plus distilleries, and he's making himself a Southern Whiskey Society Infinity Bottle. Now, how brave and how smart is that at the same time? Well, yeah, it is brave, but it's also pretty damn cool. And I don't know if you'd call it an infinity bottle, the Southern Whiskey Society Blend.

Yeah, it's the blend.

There's a lot of whiskey here. How many distilleries do we have? 30 plus, and some of them have, I don't know, four or five expressions. Four or five expressions, yeah.

Yeah.

Pretty pretty neat that he would be doing something like that and what kind of playing you would get out of it. I don't know Yeah, I don't know.

I think it'd be fine. I think it'd be good. What's your favorite food so far here? I have to say it would be It's it's a toss-up for me Husk is between the brisket from husk and then the Stuffed beignet from Hardee's and it's got like bacon and gruyere cheese sauce, a little bit of whiskey sauce under it.

Now you know the listener is going to be like, Hardee's does not have a beignet at it. You know they're going to say that.

Yeah. I guess they just take their biscuit dough, they deep fry it and they got a beignet, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty good. I'd have to say Husk is probably, you know, I love some brisket and they got that Sous Vide over there. That's how they're doing it. I thought you'd be pretty interested in that, but it was pretty delicious and stuff. There's also these little chocolates over there filled up with a liqueur from Old Dominic. Oh my goodness, and they're gonna come out a little bit later. Surprise and bite. You bite and you get a surprise, right? Oh yeah, it's so delicious. I mean, this is just a wonderful event. Oh, listeners that we're getting to be at. Our beautiful wives are here with us. We tried to get them on air tonight with us. They're not liquored up enough.

Well, you know, Chris Thomas knows how to throw a party. Made South knows how to put up an event. We're having a real good time here tonight. We got lots of whiskey flowing. We got a lot of people having a great time. We got great food, great music. I'm sure you can hear it. Mike, two more pieces of food I want to talk about. Okay. The duck sausage.

You like that? I like that. You like it? It's alright. It's a little messy. The bread was a little much for me. Probably a smaller portion of bread because you know you've got to be able to fit it in your mouth. I haven't had enough food yet because I've noticed my turkey, what do you call it, turkey timer, that little red thing that pops out. What's that thing called? Yeah, turkey timer. My belly button will start popping out if I eat too much more. I'm waiting for the thing to pop out, so we'll do a couple more rounds here, get some more whiskey. We got some whiskey that the stories have given us. We're sipping on a little bit of this old elk double wheat. It's actually two different barrels is what it is. It's not been double-barreled, the two different barrels that were put together.

Needless to say that we haven't been talking a great deal about the bourbons, but we have been drinking a great deal of bourbons, heavily.

Oh my lord. Just some great stuff. This event is supporting One Generation Away. You know, they're a great charity. They provide meals. In 2021, they distributed 3.5 million meals. That's feeding a lot of people right there.

That's feeding an awful lot of people.

They did 4.2 million pounds of food acquired in 2021.

In all the restaurants that have shown up here tonight, all of the distilleries that have shown up here tonight, as well as the ticket holders are doing their part to try and help this charity.

Yeah, you know, if you really think about it, one in eight middle Tennesseans experience food insecurity, meaning they don't have food for their house. And you want to see something like that just get wiped off the face of the earth. And that's what one generation's about. One generation away, Chris Thomas putting on a great event like this Southern Whiskey Society. And I'd just like to point out that whiskey can be used for good. It absolutely can. We've seen it help veterans. We've seen it help tornado victims and we've seen it help flood victims of lately in eastern Kentucky. It's helped help them beat hunger. It just you know All four of us, our wives and us, we don't like to see that kind of stuff, but we love to support great causes like that. And this is definitely one of those times right here.

Let me take a minute, because we've talked a lot so far about the food. We've been ranting and raving over this bite and that bite. But let's start to rattle off a few distilleries that have come to support this event and to pour their whiskeys for people. And I'll just start with a couple, a new riff. Redline.

Let's see. We got Garrison Brothers here from Texas. Garrison Brothers here. You don't just got Garrison Brothers here. You got Dan Garrison and his wife are here all the way from Texas. That shows that they really do care.

Absolutely. So who else do we got? We've got Angel's Envy is here. We've got Uncle Nearest.

Uncle Nearest, you've got Woodford Reserve, you've got Evan Williams. Willett. Willett. I mean there's a bunch of great Kentucky distilleries down here in Tennessee right now. You've got Jack Daniels is here. You got our neighbors, right? Bullet is here. Bullet's here. In-house. Company, the new company distillery. Barchtown Bourbon Company. I don't know, but this band, look at my foot, Jim. My boot is just, something's happening to it. I don't know. This music right here, it's just jammin'. I love it. I love it. Yeah, these distilleries, man, they're putting on a great show for these whiskey enthusiasts who are here and stuff. I think we might be selling a couple bourbon bullshitter t-shirts today because everybody walking around with one on, everybody's like, hey, where do I get that shirt at? Luckily, we have our wives with us that both have business cards and they're like flinging them at people. Here you go. So we'll be back with another guest, Jim, I think. Sounds good. Let's do it. Let's do it. Man, Jim, you know what I've really been enjoying lately? Oh, you're going to tell me. Some of that seldom seen farms, maple syrup that's been aged in bourbon barrels. It is absolutely delicious. Not only in a cocktail, but you can cook with it, right?

You can, you absolutely can. Now, Mike, Kevin just sent me a new shipment. So I got a little bit more and I've been making some beef jerky lately. Really? Yeah. Now I know you're the meat master, but I tried my hand at it. I said, you know, I want to make some beef jerky and I've got a pretty decent beef jerky recipe and it's got a little bit of soy sauce, a little bit of Worcestershire, a little bit of, you know, onion powder, garlic powder, those kinds of things. But I always put brown sugar in it. Well, this time Kevin sent me a bottle of his granulated maple sugar.

Wow.

And I decided that I was going to substitute the maple sugar for the brown sugar. Oh, game changer. Let me tell you. Total game changer. Total game changer. Some of the best beef jerky you've ever had. So I'm going to make another batch here in about a week and I'll be sure to get you some.

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

So Salem Seam Farms. grand champion of the 2021 Maple Syrup Festival.

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

You can go to seldomseenmaple.com and Kevin and his crew, they've got a great website, very easy to navigate. They've got all their products on there. You can buy their maple syrup by the bottle. You can buy it by the case. You can buy that 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 a syrup down there aged in their barrels. Trudy Oak down in Dripping Springs, Texas. I was just out there. His syrup's going to be there. Awesome. And at Garrison Brothers in Texas, if you think you love some maple syrup, make sure you go to Garrison Brothers and pick up a bottle from them also. Kevin appreciated. I know he loves people. You're supporting a local farmer, a local product, a small family. This is no factory place that's putting out maple syrup, right, Jim? This is a good man doing good work. Yeah, gotta love it. Well, make sure you check out his site. Like Jim said, seldom see maple.com. Pick up a bottle of maple.

Yeah, we're just here jamming. Can I, uh, you guys have any plans up here? I don't have any clean plans. Oh, no. Actually, there you go. Wouldn't mind, uh, here. You ever had this before? Um, I've had Old Elf before.

Well, I wish we had a little rare character right now. It would go with the story, wouldn't it? It would. It would.

Thank you. So this is Old Elf Double Wheat. Oh, cool. Just newly on the market. Well Jim, I'm out there roaming around and you were talking about that beignet again and this guy's like, man get that last one, I'm about to grab a beignet from the Hardee's booth over there. This guy went over there and snatched it up and I was like, well if it wasn't that, he was like, well I'll share it with you. And I was like, do I look like I share anything in life? I'll share whiskey. I'll share whiskey. That's true. You do share whiskey. But a beignet, that's not getting shared with anybody. Not even my wife. I just eat myself. But I drug Owen over here. Owen Klein from Hardee's. Owen, what's your job at Hardee's?

I head up innovation for Hardee's and Carl's Jr. So I run the team that makes all the new menu items for both brands. So the next great thing, right? Yeah. That's you. Next great thing.

So I was here a couple of years ago. More than a couple, 2019 I think. And you had a small bite that was duck fried duck on a Hardee's biscuit.

Duck fried duck on a Hardee's biscuit with a bacon pudding on the side. Oh my god, that's to die for. It was so good. And this year you kind of stepped it up a notch. Tell us about your dish this time. Yeah, so this year we're serving a Hardee's Biscuit Beignet, which is essentially the Hardee's Biscuit Dough deep-fried this time. And we stuffed it with a bacon gruyere cheese sauce and put it on top of a whiskey caramel infused career character. Wow, career character is a whiskey brand. Yep. And you're actually neighbors out here on the floor. absolutely I think I think they set it up that way so so so so we can be a one-stop shop but we're using we're using the barrel pick from Southern Whiskey Society in our caramel and it's freaking fantastic so so amazing So how often do you get to do these creative events like this? Were you going to try something out of the box? Not as often as I'd like. These things are fun, especially when it's for a charitable cause, like One Generational Way, where we can get some of the creative juices out. Instead of the day-to-day minutiae that we all deal with in our day jobs, you guys Might not know what's up with that, but yeah. Corporate America can be a little dull sometimes, so events like these are freaking amazing. Yeah, absolutely.

So Mike, we had a little event, a four-person event where we did some biscuit challenges, didn't we?

Yeah, what we did was we took kind of four fast food biscuits, And we pair each one of those with a Kentucky band. Oh, that's cool. From across Kentucky. We actually had a Hardee's Biscuit there. I think we did McDonald Biscuits. See, the other ones were just so unforgettable. Bojangles. Bojangles, yeah.

You do a Chick-fil-A biscuit? No, there's not a Chick-fil-A in our little town, so. Well, they suck anyway, so it's all good.

Well, we had four different biscuits.

four different country hams yeah and then four different cocktails right yep that's cool and and hearty biscuits paired with mitchfield ham one the day yeah with a mel's Mel's bourbon mimosa. Yeah, it was really good. Bourbon mimosa? Yeah. Well, it was our Jim's wife's melody. She picked, her cocktail was mimosa, and it was her take on a mimosa with bourbon in it. And we kind of started that at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival a couple years ago. And then we came down to Nashville and I said, Jim's like, Mac, I'm going to drive, and you're just going to drink the whole time I'm driving. And so we're driving down the road and they filled the entire Yeti thermos up and I think that thing's like 48 ounces full of bourbon and orange juice and a little bit of champagne in there. Sounds like breakfast. Man most of it. Yeah, manmosa. It's just become a thing amongst our little crew. The Bourbon Road, we love them for breakfast.

A different take on mimosas for us. Yeah, I want to try it now. That sounds good. I'm telling you, you're missing out if you have it. I've been insanely into a new cocktail, or new for me. Have you guys had paper flans before? I haven't, no. So it's bourbon, Amaro, Capari, and Lemon Juice. And it is the best bourbon summer cocktail of all time. Like, we make pictures of it at home. It's phenomenal. You get a kind of drinker, you know, like the ancient age or something like that. And it is amazing. The lemon really brightens it up. It's kind of like a Linsburg lemonade, but not nearly as sweet. That's a lot more bitter on it.

Wow, when you said bourbon tomorrow and you're drinking black Manhattan kind of.

Yeah, so same kind of hit to your palate right away, but you can drink them all day.

Yeah, awesome. Yeah, that sounds great. Well Owen, so awesome to have you on the show. So awesome to have you here at Southern Whiskey Society this year. Thanks for having me guys. How's that bourbon in your hand?

Oh, this is great. So you said this is Old Elk Double Wheat?

double or double weeded. It's a blend of two different weeded bourbons. One is a six year old. The other one is six, seven, eight year old. It is a 71.5% wheat. So it's a weeded whiskey, which is

Amazing. Yeah. This is really tasty. You know, on the nose, I got a ton of ethanol. I thought it was going to blow me up. But on the palate, this is phenomenal. I could drink this for a long time. I wish an old Elf would have made it here today.

But I'm sure we'll see in the future events. Once they hear this podcast, they'll be like, what the hell? What are we doing? Why did we miss that? Where's my marketing team? Well Owen, man, we look forward to talking to you again. We appreciate you coming over here and shooting with us for a little bit. Absolutely. Thanks guys. Yeah. Cheers. Appreciate it. Well, Jim, I went down to the crowd. I'm drinking some whiskey. They got this brand that caught my eye. It's called Redline. Yeah, I had a little bit of Redline.

Did you? Yeah. And what'd you think? Well, I had their rye. They've got a toasted rye. And yeah, I really liked that a lot. It was very tasty. Now, you know, it's kind of hard. We've got 40 distilleries here. I don't know how many distilleries are here, but they all have three or four or five expressions. So you've got to be kind of careful about Consumption. Consumption.

Well, you know, you got to be responsible. When people died back in the day and they say they died from consumption, is that what they died from? Overconsumption? I don't know. I don't think that's what they were talking about. But I went over there and I grabbed Taylor, the owner, the founder of Redline. I drug him up here on stage with him and got him on the Bourbon Road. Taylor, welcome to the Bourbon Road, man.

Hey, thank you guys for having me.

Well, tell us a little bit about Redline. Tell our listeners about Redline.

Yeah, so actually we started Redline last year. We launched in November with a kind of a pre-release. First distribution was Tennessee, which we're here in Tennessee now. And since then, it's kind of been a whirlwind. just hit our 15th state and we're also launching into Canada next month so we kind of started it as a you know I'm a bourbon enthusiast myself so we started as kind of a hey let's see how this goes and my family's been in the liquor industry for 30 years now so got a little bit of background in wine and other things like that but first time doing a bourbon and it It's been very well received and we're excited.

So you guys are currently out of Paducah, Kentucky. Yes. Down on the old Mississippi. Yep. But you've got a move in mind, right?

Correct. Yeah. So when we started, we did a private bottling contract with a good friend of ours, Silent Brigade. They do moonshine. So they had a lot of space that they didn't need. as you can imagine and we have quickly filled that up and we are opening our facility here in Nashville beginning of 2023.

Now what will you be doing in that facility specifically?

So we're going to be doing some storage mostly rectifying as our barrels are produced at MGP currently. We're going to be doing all the bottling finishing processes there so

That's always a young company like that. We'd always love to embrace those young companies, those young brands that need some love and introduction to whiskey drinkers out there. Jim, I drank some of the rum finished. It's Rum Cast from Barbados, right?

Yes. Yep. That's our brand new product.

Man, I'm telling you what, if honey butter could be a whiskey. Honey butter. That's what it would be right there. I mean, it just coated my mouth. And I can't wait to get those two whiskies on the show and do a review of them. Yeah, that'd be great.

You know, I was going to say, Mike, I could eat a piece of cardboard with honey butter on it.

What do you think about that, Taylor?

The honey butter or the Barbados rum?

The Barbados rum.

Yeah, so it's been a very exciting one for me, obviously. I love rum. There's been some other companies that have come out with some really good rum cast finish. Angel's Envy did that rye back in the day. the unicorn blend. Yeah. Yeah. It was a brown cast finish that now, you know, it's some absorbent amount of money to find legendary. Yeah. So I am just truly You know, I'm grateful for how it turned out doing cast finish, you know, experimental series. They can either come out great or they can come out really bad. What do you do with those really bad ones? You're just like, ah, I gotta eat it. Well, we haven't had one yet. No? No? All right. All right. We haven't had one yet. But we do go everything off taste. So if something's just not ready in the bourbon industry, just let it sit.

So you do small blends at a small scale.

So actually, everything's single barrel.

Oh, okay.

Got it. So all the current Redline whiskey products are single barrel and cast strength. We do have some small batch proof down versions coming out end of this year, beginning of next year. But currently everything on the shelf, toasted, toasted rye, our straight six year and all of our experimentals are single barrel.

Let me make sure I understand this correctly. So you're procuring barrels and each one of those is in fact a single barrel and then you're taking that one single barrel and putting it into another single barrel without blending. Correct. And then so it's truly a single barrel all the way through. Correct. So some people, you know, they kind of play with that a little bit, you know, they'll batch their first barrels and then they'll release their second set of single barrels, right? Correct, yeah. Not really the case, is it?

No, so yeah, most brands or you know, most people, it's a little bit easier to do a big batch if you're going to release it to the nation, you know, depending on how many states you are in. you know, to get a more consistent product that's going to be on the shelf. We like to kind of play outside those lines and make sure that every barrel is kind of unique, different, fun. Everything's taste tested.

So, yeah. So, I mean, that's that's great. That's awesome. It's also a little scary sometimes, right? You never know what you're going to get when you buy those barrels, do you?

No, you don't. You absolutely do not.

And I see you guys are drinking a little bit of that old elk. Old elk, yeah. Yes, we are.

Some weed whiskey at that, yeah. They're not here, but we wish they were. And I hope to see them next year at this event. Taylor, I absolutely love your whiskey. Thank you. We can't wait to have it on the show. And we appreciate you coming over here, taking all the time. I know your booth was, it's bumping over there. That's a good sign, right?

Yes, it's a great sign.

Your booth is almost, is got a long line like Willard over there. Now that's saying something.

Cause they got three purple tops sitting out there. One's 19 years old.

Yeah. I know. Yes. I have, uh, you know, hidden my logo and made my rounds over there. All right. Well, Taylor, we appreciate it, man.

Yes.

Thank you guys for having me.

Cheers. Cheers. Well, Jim, I'm walking out there and they have these Tennessee Whiskey Trail has these little goo goo clusters. I had one. Oh, my God. It's an explosion, isn't it? Yeah, it's just amazing. I love it. It's hard to explain what it is, but what I did do was I grabbed the director of marketing for the Tennessee Whiskey Trail, Charity Toomes, and I brought her up here with us.

Hello.

Charity, welcome to the Bourbon Road. Thanks for having me. And welcome to the Southern Whiskey Society event. What a great show this has been so far.

It has been. It's been a great event.

A lot of great people here. A lot of great Tennessee businesses here as well. I agree. But people from outside as well.

Yes, very many.

Yeah. So, Jerity, what is that thing?

So it is the Tennessee Whiskey Trail's collaboration with Goo Goo Chocolate. It is a nine-spirit collection that we have done that is a great way of tasting the trail. So each Tennessee Whiskey that's a part of the collection is paired to chocolate that complements that spirit.

So is that one just one of the little chocolates?

It is. It's one of the nine that we have currently. We released that with Goo Goo in May for International Tennessee Whiskey Day.

So for people that aren't from Tennessee, what is Goo Goo?

It was actually the first combination candy bar. And it's a great location and stop while you're here in Nashville to stop into Goo Goo. You can actually create your own cluster. And then the Bon Bons are actually a new product line. And what a great way to debut it with another Tennessee original, which is the Whiskey Trail.

Yeah. What, what whiskeys inside of those right there?

So the collection itself includes Corsair, Tennessee Legend, Chattanooga Whiskey, Old Smoky, Old Dominic, George Dickel, Sugarlands, Jack Daniels, and Nelson's Greenbriar.

Wow.

Well, that's a couple humongous distilleries right there. Absolutely. And when you bite down on that thing, it's quite a surprise.

It is. And I think they did a great job of really tasting the whiskey and then building a profile that really accentuates that and each bonbon itself is very unique and you know each of them are one of them they just get better and better as they roll out.

What is it like it? 10th of an ounce in there. Yeah, absolutely. Really small amount.

It's a perfect way to just really kind of get that sample, but really taste that each distinct flavor.

And in bourbon and whiskey in general, but bourbon in particular has always gone well with chocolate. It's always been a great pairing.

Yes.

You mean you're not going to die from over consumption? No, you're not going to die from consumption. I'm worried about that. I'm worried about dying from consumption.

Actually, if you notice, I have been drinking bourbon with you all night and you've been holding your own. But I had to take a break for a little bit. I'm drinking a little bit of this Mountain Valley Spring Water because I read your article on hydration.

Very important. Eat and drink, folks. Eat and drink. Well, Charity, so the Tennessee Whiskey Trail is broken up into three segments, right? You've got the East, the Middle, and the West.

Yes.

How many distilleries total are in Tennessee?

There's 28 distilleries that are on the trail and little over 30 plus stops. So it's a great way to really kind of see the many offerings of Tennessee while you explore the beauty of the state.

A lot more than just Jack Daniels here in Tennessee.

There is, you know, everything from craft to your legacy brands like Jack and George.

And I heard you say a moonshine. Got a little bit of moonshine here in Tennessee.

We all need that, right? You need, you know, diverse offerings for diverse audiences.

Yeah, you gotta be careful on that moonshine though. That stuff will make you dance around a campfire. It can sneak up on you. You never know what's gonna happen, right?

And moonshine is a big draw for Tennessee. It's a big skew in Tennessee, I guess is the best way to say it. There's a heck of a lot more moonshine taken than there is regular whiskey, isn't there?

Yeah, I think Old Smoky sells the most and they have the most visitors. for any distillery in the world.

That's correct. A little over five million visitors last year.

So that's more than the entire visitor count to the Kentucky Barber Trail.

Yes.

To one distillery.

Yes.

Wow. Pretty amazing, huh? Right. Absolutely.

So Moonshine, integral part of Tennessee's history.

It is whiskey in a way. It's what whiskey starts out as anyway.

Now, folks have missed the Southern Whiskey Society if they're not here tonight. You guys have any other events coming up that they could go check out?

Absolutely, so the Tennessee Whiskey Trail, we host signature events all across the state and we end our season November 5th in Townsend, Tennessee, right at the foothills of the Smoky Mountains for our Grains and Grits event.

I think we might. Yeah, I know two guys that might be there.

I think you guys should absolutely stop in. It's a perfect time to see the fall foliage as well as one of our newest stops is their company distilling. Just open their new tasting room right at the foothills.

Jeff Arnett, right? Absolutely. Yeah, who doesn't know Jeff Arnett?

Yeah, he used to work for this little company.

Tiny.

The initials JD, but now he's working for a company distilling, making some great whiskey out there. And we're excited about that event. Folks, make sure you come see the Bourbon Road at Grains and Grits in town in Tennessee on November 5th.

It's a great day. It's my birthday.

I think we're going to be there with our big old friend, John Edwards. Big John Edwards. Big John Edwards from Dad's Drinking Bourbon. Hopefully we'll see Charity there for the last time.

We'll certainly raise a glass to you on that day for your birthday.

Wish me happy birthday. It's going to be a great day.

Well, Charity, thanks for coming on to Bourbon Road.

Thanks for having me.

Cheers.

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