297. A Whiskey Day in the Basement Rickhouse

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

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

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. This is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, once again, we're on the road, one of our favorite cities.

Yeah. Favorite little city, I guess, is Little City. It's a city. It's a city. Is it? Yeah, it's a city. There ain't no skyscrapers. It's the capital of Kentucky. It is. It is. They got some bourbon here too. That's what my favorite thing about Frankfurt is. Besides the Becker-Ruth candies and the place we're sitting in right now. Yeah. So where are we? So there's this couple here in Frankfurt and they love bourbon so much. that they turn their basement into a, it's a gigantic bar, and they're called Basement Rick House, and they have a little TikTok channel, right? A little bitty one. A little bitty one, but they're on there. Logan and Mack, and they invited us to come over to their house.

All right. Yeah, cheers, guys. Welcome to the show. Yeah, welcome to our home. Oh, thanks.

Happy y'all are here.

It's really beautiful down here. Now, I had no clue that there were houses with, Basements, because this is a basement rick house, right? Basement rick house. With basements with, what are these, 16 foot ceilings?

12. Yeah, 12 foot. Sounds really cool, but it just means we have a really steep hill to mow, is really what it means. That's true.

We have, Logan has.

Very true. But the good thing about that is, is you were able to set up ricks of barrels in your basement, so it really looks like a rick house here. That was the goal. That was the goal.

And you got just a few bottles of bourbon. One or two. Yeah.

One or two. Very beautiful. We love it here. This is a, this is, I think this is, this is what every bourbon lover wants their basement to look like.

Yeah, I would think, I think so. I think he, I'm looking over there. I'm trying to count barrels.

Uh, there's 15 barrels over there somewhere about 14, 14, 14 of them. Yeah.

I'd had to take my shoes off to end the finished count there, but.

Well, anyway, so we're sitting in the basement rick house today with our new friends. We've known each other for a while now, but. Right.

Yeah, we've been trying to put this together for a while.

But this is the first time we've been able to sit together in the rick house and enjoy some bourbon together. Or in the case of this first half, a little bit of rye, right? Yeah.

What'd you guys pour for us?

Yeah, so this is our Castle & Key Restoration Rye Single Barrel Pick that we did. Had a barrel release party, I don't know, a month or so ago, I guess now. And just fell in love with this barrel. I think ryes are one of those things that people love them or they hate them. And one of our favorite things to do outside of drinking with good people is to convince people that they like what they said they don't like. Never fail, somebody will come to the bar and they'll say, well, I hate X brand. And so we'll do a blind tasting with them. And my goal is always to get them to go, man, I really like this. And I get to reveal, oh, yeah, that's X brand, right? And so same thing with Rye's. People that don't like Rye's, we wanted to find something that we call a Bridge Rye. something that a rye drinker could go, yeah, this is really good, but a bourbon drinker that doesn't really like rye could also taste it and go, man, this is a rye, really? So that was the goal for this pick. So Restoration Rye, it's a five-year, one of their few five years that they've done. It was barrel number 260, I think. Yep, 260. So it was one of the first. So this would have been Mary Ann's pride and joy when she was there.

Yeah. And so this was rolled in there pretty early on, um, when there was not very much of their own product there in their, in their Rick houses. And so that was pretty exciting to be able to find one that was so, you know, early on in the days. Um, and then be able to find that it's still really, really good.

Now, where does Rice sit on sort of your preferred profiles, each of you guys?

Yeah, I mean, once we started hanging out, when Cats 1 Key started releasing their rye, I think I jumped in with both feet and kind of created my own little rye corner of the bar where it's like, here's all of Max Rye's over here and got really into the different single barrels. I think that's one of the things that I really love is that you can have some name brand, but all these single barrels could be so very different. And so I'm just collecting them all and trying to find the different flavor profiles. This is one that, like Logan said, it's not on any kind of edge. It is something that I think most people can try and find some real enjoyment in. A lot of different flavors in this one is pretty complex.

Yeah, and I love rye. I mean, I think it's robust in flavor. Everybody equates rye to spicy. And I don't think it's spicy. They're spicy in the sense of like Frank's hot sauce spicy. It's not that. It's spicy in that you get a lot of baking spices from it. So it's not necessarily always hot. And I think this rye is tried and true proof of that. It's not a spicy Frank's hot sauce spicy rye. It's just robust.

Well, I'm excited, Mike. We haven't had this one yet. Well, you have. I have already had it.

Well, I got to go to that bare release. Thanks again for the invite. Of course. You're so very welcome. It's always awesome to go over to Castle & Key to a private event. And when you walk in there, I'm sure you guys feel this. Everybody knows you. I saw so many friends over there that either I knew who they are or they knew who I was, was people that never met me before. They're like, you're here. And I'm like, yeah, they were like, you know them. And I was like, of course I know them.

It's like cheers.

Yeah. But what a great picket was a great event you guys put on. You're saying it's not Frank's red hot, but red hot candies. Now that I get that spice in this. Oh, those little round ones, the little round. I don't know what those things are. They're a little long, look like a peel.

Oh, you mean hot tamales? Maybe that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Hot tamales are kind of shaped like a good and plenty kind of. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We know our candy pretty good. Well, heck, let's drink some of this thing. Cheers. Cheers.

Cheers.

Still good. Oh yeah. It hasn't turned bad yet, right? It hasn't. No, no. So you guys, when did basement Rick house really start? Where'd the concept start at?

By accident is really how it started. Um, You know, I was a builder in Western Kentucky. I was a home builder. And we moved to central Kentucky and I started designing kitchens. And so I've always had that skill set and loved, loved bourbon. Love the history of it. When we moved to central Kentucky, you know, you've got two options. You've got horses and you've got bourbon and you know, our HOA wouldn't allow for a horse.

And I wouldn't either.

Yeah, so we went the bourbon route and just started collecting and, you know, falling in love with mainly the stories. You know, the stories of bourbon are just so captivating that that's what we latched onto. And of course, we enjoyed it. I mean, you know, her dad grew up drinking Makers and, you know, coming into the family. If you didn't drink bourbon, you didn't drink. It was kind of the way the family introduction went. We've always had that appreciation for the taste, but the stories is what really brought us in. I had the opportunity, a friend of mine worked at Buffalo Trace. We're within 10 minutes of Buffalo Trace here. And he said, hey, you ought to come give tours. Because one of those things, we had gone on enough distillery tours and heard enough of the stories. And when people would come and visit us from out of town, we would take them on those same tours. And we'd be that group in the back going, yeah, but they didn't tell you this story. I'm like, this is the best story. And so we became that person that every tour guide hates. So sorry if that was ever us. Buddy and I knew that we did that, knew that we loved the stories. And he said, you should come and work at Buffalo Trace with me and give tours. Had a full-time job, so it would have just been a hobby. So I went to go volunteer at Buffalo Trace and they said, oh no, we'll pay you. I said, no. even better, right? So started telling stories a couple Saturdays a month. And after about a year of doing that, they said, you know, we've got this thing called a tasting panel. It's like, say more, you know, you had me at tasting. And so they said, you should come try out. And so started, you know, going and it's a testing program, takes about six months, very similar to what a sommelier goes through. They take it very, very serious. And it's like survival. If you don't pass a test, you're voted off the island, right? And so this was a job I was willing to take home with me, you know, if I had the opportunity to train at home. And so we did that. Lots of homework, huh? Yeah. And so she helped me train.

Yeah, so I was able to help Logan, you know, do his homework. I'm a very good wife and very supportive of those things. But then I also got to kind of get trained along the way as well. So Logan would learn about these different testing techniques and come home and we talk him over. And then he'd kind of turn it right back around on me and let me start kind of getting through some of the things and figuring out what my palate was all about and what I was more sensitive to and what I was, you know, enjoyed more than others. And so I got to kind of do along with them. And then we got so into all these different, different flavors that you could get. So one of his birthday parties, we just did a big old blind tasting. And so we had a bunch of friends over and I pulled out a couple of different bottles. Went and got a couple others with different tasting profiles, put together different snacks and treats and things like that that were supposed to either pull out flavors or hide some flavors and we just went for and we had this huge event where we were just having all these blind tastings. And that's when I was like, I like this part. I like this, this, you know, pulling all these different pieces together. And the best part is we had friends surrounding us and having a really good time and went back to those storytelling. And that's that's what kind of got us into it on our own. And then that's where we really wanted to bring other people in. And so that's kind of this very deep history of Basement Earth House and why we kind of pulled this name together in addition to the location that we're in now.

Yeah, so we, you know, got into the tasting, doing those things. And then, you know, from there, I worked at Buffalo Trace for about six years and COVID hit. And, you know, what I loved was being able to tell the stories, you know, have a group of 35 to 45 people and be able to see their reactions when they hear something that they had never heard before. It was a blast. And then COVID happened, and of course we took several months off. But then when it came back, it was a group of six to eight people, which is great. It's very intimate, but it just lost some of its luster. And at that time, we had started building this bar in our basement. And as I was doing it, I was posting pictures on a bourbon Facebook group. And everybody on there is like, you got to start a TikTok. You got to start an Instagram. We got to see it. And I'm like, listen, I'm not a dancing teenager. I have no idea how to do that. So no, I'm not going to do it. But got it done. And Matt knew when we bought the house, you know, we walked down. we saw this big open canvas and she knew that that we wanted a bar was going to build a bar. And so I had drawn out, this is what this is going to look like. But she didn't know about the Rick house side.

That was strategically left off of the drawing that he showed me.

Yeah. Yeah. That that's true. So, you know, built the bar, started building the Rick house, got it finished. And then we were hosting a mixology class down here for friends, hired a mixologist to come in. Everybody paid the mixologist and had dinner and all kinds of stuff. And so it looked really cool down here. and figured out how to film one video, just walking down the stairs, pan the bar, didn't say anything in it. It wasn't in it personally, couldn't see us. It was just panning the bar, figured out how to upload it to TikTok. And I didn't even tell her about it that night. Woke up the next morning and I was like, Hey, guess what? We're on TikTok. She's like, no, yeah, we're on TikTok. And so I'm figuring out how to pull it up and, you know, where to find this video that we had posted and had a hundred thousand hits on it. And I was like, well, that was fun. And at that point, I'd already left Buffalo Trace. And so we said, well, let's see what we can do. The endorphins had kicked in. And so I started telling these one to three minute stories. Paul Harvey was always a hero of mine growing up. And so I loved the rest of the story. And so I just started kind of still in that format of storytelling and brought whiskey and bourbon to it. And it took off and then Matt got into it as well.

Yeah. So on the storytelling part of it, I really wanted to take that time to bring in the other points of view, right? The names that aren't celebrated as much or weren't known as much, especially at that point. So I really wanted to do women in whiskey and kind of start elevating and telling their stories, which was really important to me. And I loved the opportunity to connect with some of the women that are the front runners. We interviewed Marianne Eves and Jackie Zykan. And it was just amazing to hear these women who were jumping into this male-dominated world and having a really good time of it and actually being able to do what they wanted. I got to talk to Peggy No Stevens and I think she's just so welcoming to everyone that comes into the industry and even us. I'm like, hey, I'm just on social media, no big deal. And she's like, yes, yes, let's do it. And running into her at a couple of different events since then, she's so sweet and just so welcoming. So I love that. And I just liked being able to tell her story and share those pieces. And then when we were like, hey, you know, we're loving the social media side, but we want to do more than that, then that's really where we started bringing the people back in. If you'll notice most of our stories, you know, and our videos that we do, we want to keep bourbon and whiskey approachable. Right. Because so many people got turned off because if you weren't doing the highbrow way, then you weren't really a part of it. This was, you know, some sophisticated thing. And and that's that's just not welcoming. And that turns so many people off, especially of the younger generations. And so, you know, you don't you don't just go and hang out in someone's basement that you're not friends with. Right. Like so when people are in the basement at the basement, Rick House, it's it's comfortable and it's cozy and it's friends and family. And it's something that you can ask questions, right? You can like, well, why is it like this? Why is it that happening? Or, okay, I don't really get that flavor out of it. How am I supposed to do that? And so it really helps people kind of take down their walls and feel comfortable. And that's one of the things that I love about what we're doing, whether it's the stories that we're telling or when we bring in guests either here or when we go out to places, we're always trying to help people feel comfortable, be able to ask those questions so they can explore. and get into this wonderful drink and this wonderful industry that's been really welcoming and enjoyable for us to be in.

Yeah, our motto and you'll see it on our website and other places is it's not about what you're drinking.

It's about who you're drinking with their dog, Jim Blanton over there. He makes us, he warms the basement right up. He does. He does.

Yeah. We've had everyone who's come in here pretty much, you know, Blanton will just come up and start jumping at their ankles. And then it was like, okay, you want me to hold your dog? And then they're like, oh, now, now we belong.

So he does have to jump to hit the ankle.

He does, yeah, yeah. He's a little three pound mini Yorkie.

For people that don't know, just pretend he's a Great Dane or something, please.

No, no. Blanton is a big name, but a small dog.

He is a three pound teacup Yorkie. I wanted a lab. We compromised. I lost, so.

No, we compromised. I got the dog and you got the name.

I would tell you that. I have a yellow lab and a name Woodrow. Nice. Nice. Good name. And you probably made a wise decision in Blanton because of the size he is, number one. Oh, yeah. Number two, labs come with lots and lots of hair. Yeah. Yes, they do. Like vacuum cleaners every day full of hair. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. Great, great dog. I wouldn't trade him for the world, but Blanton, I would love to see a video or a photo of him cut a Blanton's bottle down and fit him inside there. That would be a good photo of him. He could do it. So I hope to see that from you guys. We'll work on it. I almost bet he would fit in Blanton's bottle. Oh yeah, especially when he was a puppy.

He could fit in the palm of your hand. What's people, people make fun of us like, Oh, you named your dog Blanton. Like he's 11. So it was Blanton before Blanton's is what it, before people were lined up and you could find dusty Blanton's sitting on a shelf. Yeah.

It sure doesn't look 11. He looks like he looks like a baby.

He does. He looks like a little puppy. Yeah, and he's he's got his own following on TikTok. He doesn't have his own channel or anything like that or his own account. But the people that were have been with us on our lives for a while, Blanton will just, you know, start barking and want some attention. And so then, you know, we're holding them and then everyone, you know, when a dog is on camera, you're like, oh, I want to see the puppy. I want to see the dog. And so so we've got a lot of our friends on TikTok that whenever we're going live and I'm not holding Blanton or he's not holding Blanton. Where's Blanton? And so we have to like pan the bar and show him he's still alive.

He's still here.

Yeah. He's on his blanket.

How long did it take you guys to finish the bar part of the basement off?

Yeah, we did it in phases. So, um, when we moved here in 2019, we had, you know, we had a bourbon collection then, um, and we wanted to get those boxes of bourbon off of the shelf, uh, cause we've got two kids and we don't want them into it. So we actually built the wall itself first. Um, and then once the wall was done, that took, I don't know, three weeks or so to build. Um, and that's working. nights after the kids go to sleep and, you know, trying your best to hammer quietly, which isn't a thing.

No, definitely not a thing.

And then we built a bar in another phase and that took probably, I don't know, a month, six weeks, something like that.

Yeah.

And then, and then did the, the Rick house itself as the last phase. So overall, it was about a year from start to finish with some long breaks in between.

Yeah.

I mean, your bar is

as big as Applebee's bar. I mean, it's, I mean, I mean, how many chairs are around it? Uh, 10, 10, 10 chairs around it. Yeah. Pretty, pretty nice. I mean, it's fancy like Applebee's.

Fancy like, oh yeah. Hashtag not sponsored.

Well, I'm sure you would take them as a sponsor. Of course.

Yeah. We'll put an Applebee's neon sign in here.

Sure.

For the right price. That's right. Yeah. I would too. Or the right bourbon. Stock it for us. That's right.

There you go.

So, you know, there's an awful lot of people in the world posting to TikTok, but there's not a lot of people out there doing it to the level you guys do. And what does it take to go from I mean, what's the gathering of knowledge that it takes and the amount of time that it takes to run a channel the size of yours?

It helps being full of crap, really, is what.

That'll backlog the stories. It's very helpful.

No, I think that was the biggest thing is having that experience at Buffalo Trace and all of those stories and that experience of here's how to taste and all of that. Having that certainly helped. And then just being a fan. One of the things that we love the most is we're not just telling Buffalo Trace stories. I mean, we're getting into all the distilleries and the lesser known parts of those distilleries. You can see around our basement we've got a lot of bourbon books and we'll read old newspaper articles and things like that from Prohibition to see what we can find and all of that.

And we've made some pretty good friends that like to help us tell the story. So we've made friends with someone who worked at the Frasier History Museum back when they were putting everything together for the Bourbon area, the Bourbon floor. And so she was like, oh yeah, here's, you know, so here's some really great stories. And so she kind of passed along some things and then we'll go to a Bourbon society and they're like, yeah, I really liked your story about this, but what about, why haven't you done a story on this? Like, because we don't know that one yet, tell us or give us the give us the resources and we'll go research it. And so that's also been really helpful that now, you know, other other historians and history buffs and just bourbon fans will, you know, start bringing us that. Why haven't you done this yet? Give us give us three days.

And that's what takes the longest, is the research. Oh, yeah. we'll figure out a really, really good story. And we'll have it, you know, crafted of, you know, Paul Harvey would look at it and go, man, that's a really, really good story, right? And then we'll try to break it, right? You always try to figure out what's a lie, what's not true, and then we'll figure out, dad gum it, it's not true. And so we'll have to approach it a different way. And so that's, we try to be as factual as possible. And if it's about a distillery today, we try to run it by that distillery and say, Hey, here's, we're getting ready to do this story. What do you, what do you think about that? And so it's helped to build some good relationships with distilleries and, and, you know, be true to the story and to the distillery. Cause we're not trying to make anybody mad.

You guys told a story not too long ago about sour mash and who truly come out with sour mash, the sour mass technique and stuff. Right. And good Lord, did you guys cause me some headache? Cause It took me down this rabbit hole.

You're welcome.

Um, and not only did I, I researched the hell out of it really, uh, cause you guys told the story of the woman, not the man that created the process. Um, so I was like, I want to find out more about her. Um, and then I, the further I dug, the more I found out about her.

We try to break existing stories, too. Stories that people have told for years and years and years of, well, Jim Crow, he's the one that came up with Sourmash. Yeah, but is he really? Yes, he put the science behind it, but is he the one that wrote it down first? And trying to figure those stories out is a blast.

Yeah.

Yeah. The neat thing I found out about, uh, and what was her name?

Catherine Carpenter.

Catherine Carpenter is that she was illiterate. Um, so they don't know that she wrote it down, the recipe down herself, cause she could only sign her name with an X.

Right.

But they think it was her daughter, one of her daughters that more than likely wrote the recipe down or the process down. Right.

And they hired some lawyers to make sure that it was in everything that they needed.

But actually one of her, the, the man they called the kind of the keeper of her children. What do you think his last name was? Crow. Crow. Yeah. So you guys did do your research. I was like, man, how much research did you guys have to do for that one story for that three minutes?

That's often the challenging part because we don't have a YouTube channel. We've talked about posting some of our videos on YouTube, but the longest video that we've ever made is three minutes. We don't do anything longer than that. If you don't have ADD, you will have it by the time you make it through our videos because it's just one right after another, just little quick videos. Um, and you know, the research that goes into one three minute video is, is ours, you know, and it's hours of editing and, and, you know, we try to make it as professional looking as possible.

I gotta say hats off to you cause you're doing everything by phone, right? And then. I know, because I did the research myself to see what you put into it. And I was like, they had to research to get this piece in that video. They had to go down the same rabbit hole I did, see the same literature that I saw, the same pieces of history, her recipe. And there was plenty out there about her and her family. And I was just simply amazed.

Widow of Nine. Yeah. Husband was a Revolutionary War soldier. Her second husband died, and he was really the one that was the distiller and had built it up. She had the option of staying in the kitchen, as society would have preferred, or take on the business. Legally, at that time, if you had children, you had to have a man be the figurehead of the household. So she had that. She was the one pulling the strings for the distillery and actually grew it to be bigger than what it was.

And that's really not that far from where we're sitting at today, really. So it's just amazing. And you were talking about all these women in the business now that are changing the dynamics of bourbon with bringing more women to the business. But there were a lot of women back then that were doing the same stuff, that same story. I can think of four other distilleries that have that same story at it. Nelson Greenbrier is one of them, of one of those stories. A lot of people don't know how much Makers Mark, a woman had influence in that distillery.

Oh yeah. I mean, they were the first ones doing bourbon tourism because Miss Marge wanted to build a distillery that people wanted to visit.

Yeah.

Yeah. She was the first one. She was like, oh, no, there's going to be a future where people will be coming here. This is, you know, this is not a factory. This is a destination.

Which Makers Mark is a destination, but it's hard to get to that destination. It is. It is.

It's a journey.

As many are. I mean, they didn't plan for these places to be, you know, tourist destinations. They were factories. So you bought the land that was available and it was cheap and had good transportation to get there, but you know, many of them are out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, but now we know.

that you can get in the canoe and you can go there by boat down Hardin's Creek, right?

Well, I don't know about that.

Hardin's Creek is a little bit...

I think you'd probably get ankle deep water anyway. I definitely... I'm not getting in the canoe because my canoe is set on the bottom. Maybe you guys all set in the canoe and be fine, but you know, I'd be hitting the gravel bottom just banging along.

All right, Mike. Well, my glass is empty. We're up against a break. Why don't we take a few minutes, let the rest of you finish your drinks and we'll get back to it.

Yeah. Listen, stay with us. Um, you know, you're going to have, uh, you gotta get on their tick tock. You gotta get on there and maybe in the break, you get on their tick tock real fast and check it out, become a follower. And if you're not a follower, Um, and you want to meet Logan and Mac, we're going to be at a pretty, pretty amazing event. October 1st with them. Bourbon on the banks, bourbon on the banks. They'll be there. Uh, a lot of their TikTok videos are about bourbon on the banks, giving free tickets away all the time. Um, so it's a fun event. Yeah. Hang with us. Man, Jim, you know what I've really been enjoying lately? Oh, you're going to tell me some of that seldom seen farms, maple syrup that's been aged in bourbon barrels. It is absolutely delicious. Not only in a cocktail, but you can cook with it, right?

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

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

So 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 today.

All right. So we are back. We're in the basement Rick house. We got Logan and Mack in their house.

Actually.

Yeah. We're in the house actually. That's right. Yeah. And, uh, we had a great first half. I had a little bit of rye from Castle and Key. Your pick. Yep. Uh, what are we having our glass for this half?

So this is the most unique whiskey that I've ever had in my entire life. This is another one of our picks. This was done through Starlight, which is a suburb of Kentucky, but it's actually in Indiana. It's just the other side of Louisville. And it's a four-grain bourbon, and it's finished in Brazilian Ambarano. Which is a Brazilian oak and it provides just the absolute most unique flavor Like I say of any whiskey that that I've ever had So it's pretty fair to say before we get to this that we've not had anything like it I mean, that's what you're saying if if you had I would be shocked Unless you'd already had this pick.

I haven't had this pick

Yeah. And Starlight is such a cool distillery if you've never been to Starlight. A lot of distilleries are doing this farm to table or farm to glass process. They're not doing it like Starlight's doing it. And that's not a knock on any other distillery. But they're keeping the bees that pollinate the grains that goes into your glass. And so they're controlling it all the way down to the pollination level. So pollinator to glass. It's nuts. Absolutely nuts.

So this one, this one's unique. This thing has this just very unique nose on it.

Yeah. I mean, you got the nose before you even got it to your face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like a second ago, I don't know, like a breeze went through and I was like, oh, yeah, there it is.

Well, Logan first handed me the bottle and he's like, smell this. And I was like, OK. So I nosed it. And I got a little bit. But once you pour it into a glass and it opens up a little bit, you're just like, it's just like, bam. It's like a cinnamon snickerdoodle cookie.

That's exactly what it is. Oh my gosh. That is snickerdoodle all day long.

That's a, that's a great tasting note right there. It knows, you have to add that to your will.

But it's got snickerdoodle with just a, like a hint of tobacco in the background.

Which is, is, you know, their, their goal wasn't for it to taste like a cigar. Their goal was that, that sensation you get when you open up that cedar humidor, you know, that, that nose and that immediate tobacco smell that you get, they wanted a touch of that.

I could just sit and nose this for just a little bit. I mean, that's, that's pretty amazing. You, you're absolutely on the spot. I mean, I have not had anything like this. I'm going to taste it. Cheers. Cheers.

It's not bad, is it? It's actually really good.

But it's very unique. And I would say that for that reason, it's probably not for everybody. This is probably not something that everybody's gonna say, that's my jam.

This is your last glass of the night because you're not gonna taste anything after this. It's a palate killer in a good way.

Yeah. It went from being like, it's going to sound weird, but super wet on the lips, um, cross the palette, uh, all the way to the back. And it, it just kind of dried the palette as it went back with, with lots and lots of spice, little sweetness at the front. Um, that snickerdoodle cookie, uh, all the way to the back with some nice cinnamon spice, um, some nutmeg on there.

And I don't think it drinks its proof. It's 114.6 proof.

It definitely does not.

Yeah.

Definitely does not. That's both impressive and anytime that I'm able to have something that is just totally different than anything I've had before, you're kind of excited.

And this is one of those things that, you know, again, it's not about what you're drinking, it's about who you're drinking with. So there were some other TikTok creators and influencers that went with us and did this pick in Indiana. And, you know, such a fun time being able to drink with those guys and try something completely different. This is one of their, you know, only products like this that they pushed out to, you know, any one of, I guess, our category of social media marketing. that kind of thing. This is one that they hold pretty tight to the vest that this is the product that people camp out to get. It's probably their most sought after whiskey that they make.

I think you would have to be almost a whiskey enthusiast to really appreciate this. I think a new whiskey drinker, this would scare them to death. If I could buy a candle of it though, a hundred percent I would buy a candle.

I mean, it's really good. I mean, are there any left? We literally, this bottle that you guys are drinking and one that we, up above our bar, we keep the first bottle of all of our picks. So we've got that one and this one and that's it.

Well, Mike, if we're ever fortunate enough to be invited back to the basement Rick house, we'll know what to ask. That's right. Yeah, we always, people want to ask us, you know, they're, I think a little, most people are intimidated if we come to their bar or their house and they're like, uh, what do you guys want to drink? And, uh, you know, I see almost a lot of things I've had multiple times, but I'm not looking for that. I'm perusing for what I haven't had in my life. And this is something right here, like you said, the only thing I can think that comes close to this is a Joseph Magnuson.

And, and so this is called a cigar batch. And I forget what theirs is called a cigar blend. I think it was. And there's been nothing, it's Joseph Magnus. They've, they've got a fantastic product, but this in head to head competitions has won nine times out of 10. I bet it has. Yeah.

I've had the cigar blend. It's been a minute. Actually, I had it with some roadies when we went down to third turn.

Yeah. Yeah. Watching the Derby, I think. Yep. Yeah.

Nice.

So you guys got another pick that's coming up though.

Yeah, we do.

We do. And we haven't announced it yet. So I guess this will be our, our announcement, but we're actually gonna fly out to Colorado and do a pick with Old Elk.

Well, that'll be good.

Yeah.

So in case any of your followers aren't, um, you know, a lot of people are like, wait, hold on. You're leaving Kentucky to do a bourbon pick. Are you, who are you? Are you crazy? And at first I, I was a little kind of nose in the air earlier on in my bourbon days of like, you can't, yes, you can get bourbon. anywhere in the United States. You can make it anywhere in the United States, but it's only going to be good if it's from Kentucky. And that's, that's kind of my issues. And so even when we found old elk and I was like, sorry, I was like, it's okay. Their grandmother's from Scott County, Kentucky.

So they're really Kentucky at heart.

And so that's, you know, a little bit of my, I don't know, prejudices, but it is a really, really good distillery and some great, great juice.

We hope we've properly educated our listeners on bourbons from outside of Kentucky.

I'm pretty positive that our listeners know that bourbon can come from anywhere in the United States.

And really good bourbon. And territories now as well. They clarified that a couple of years ago.

I guess if you wanted to make bourbon in Guam, you could do it. I don't know how that would taste.

Be interesting. They did an experiment, Independent Stave Company, which is one of the largest barrel manufacturers, if you don't know who they are, in the United States. They did an experiment where they took the same exact mash recipe and they aged it in Kentucky, same exact distillate, put it in Texas, and then sent one to Scotland. and they compared the aging to it and how Texas aged so much faster and had so much more spice as opposed to Scotland, which took twice as long to get it to that age. So I don't know what Guam would be. That'd be pretty interesting.

Guam's just hot, hot all the time, isn't it?

Yeah, I think more humid and hot, but I was going to say Logan, man, I just love you for saying that because I've said that to so many people about not just about Texas, but Scotland and in Kentucky and that are, it drives me insane when people are like, well, you know, you know, bourbons gotta, it's gotta take eight years and it takes eight years in Kentucky. Right. It might take 18 years in Scott. It was pretty cool study, but Texas is something that's like pushing 32 months of Texas somewhere in that.

Yeah, they did the same exact char level. They even tried to pull wood from the same tree. Um, that's how precise they got. So independence Dave company does some really, really cool experiments.

I'm glad you brought that up. I just, man, I told me and Jim have tried to tell people that about, um, whiskeys in different regions. Colorado is its own animal, right? You can have different regions in Colorado. The high desert compared to the plains. Definitely.

When the altitude and barometric pressure plays a huge role in the aging, and it's just drastically different there.

Have you done an episode on that yet? We have not, no. There you go.

It'd be hard to fit that into three minutes though. That's right. That's one of the other things. It's like, oh, this is a really good story. Can we do it in three minutes and give it like, give it everything it needs? It's like, okay, we'll just write that on there. Maybe one day we'll be on YouTube list.

I can't tell you how many people have come over to our house and I'll pull out a Texas whiskey for them. And the first thing they go for is just, well, how old is that? I was like, don't worry about that. Just don't, just pour it in your mouth and let's see how it tastes first. Then I'll tell you how old it is. And I'm about to blow your mind.

That's what we'll do a lot of times when we lead tastings is we won't even tell somebody what it is. We do a sip and swap occasionally where everybody will bring a bottle, we'll pour it for the group and then you rank it from your most favorite to your least favorite and then everybody draws a number and they get to pick which one is their favorite and take that bottle home. So you don't leave with the same bottle that you came with.

You might.

You could, you could, but we tell people the blind tasting is where the hype train goes to die, good or bad.

Oh yeah.

And I don't care how experienced you are, you can get surprised. Oh, absolutely. You can get put in your place pretty quick.

Absolutely. Now you, you guys have been doing this tick tock thing and you got a pretty good year, 50 or 60,000 now followers on there. Yep. And do you run into other, you said you did some people went on this pick right here, but what are some other big bourbon tick tock accounts for our listeners that are like, okay, I'm going to get on there and I'm going to watch your guys' video, but I need some other videos to watch.

Yeah, there's, there's a lot out there. There's a 62nd bourbon review. Steve, he's out of Louisville and he does reviews. Whiskey Diz is another one, just hilarious content. Dad's Brown Water, another, another funny one. So there's, there's a ton of bourbon comedy out there on TikTok that is just hilarious. That, you know, they'll come up with, they'll hear a song and relate it to bourbon somehow. And it's just, it's, it's hilarious.

Yeah. You can go down a different, definitely rabbit hole on bourbon TikTok. There's a guy named bourbon bibs bourbon.

Yeah. Yeah. He's hilarious.

Uh, he's, he's always on there and he's easily makes fun of people with other bibs is what he's on there with on the algorithm.

in TikTok is so fine-tuned that if you just watch a bourbon video for longer than eight seconds, it goes, oh, you must like bourbon. And so it will just start playing bourbon videos on repeat for you. So it's scary, but TikTok gets to know you pretty well and knows what you like. So that's why this pic and what kind of bourbon is, it's called bourbon TikTok. which it's not a separate app that you can't go to the app store and search bourbon TikTok. It's TikTok, but after you engage with it for so long, all you see is bourbon stuff.

And now you guys do lives on there a lot too, right? Yeah. Yeah. And what do you got to have? How many followers do you have to do to do a live? A thousand. A thousand people on there. And then how long can you go live for? Oh, hours. Oh, gosh. Days.

How long do you think our longest been? I think we did four hour one once.

Yeah.

It was pretty rough by the end.

I'll peek in there real fast. It's hard for me to sit there and devote an hour or something to watch a whole show. So I always peek in there, say hi real fast. And I got to say, you guys are amazing at trying to reach back out to people and say, Hey, Hey, big G for Burma road guys. Thanks for, thanks for popping in and stuff. I always liked to show that we're trying to support our fellow, um, bourbon social media people, right? I just love it. Um, so in your guys's content is, is always spot on, you know, there's some other stuff out there that I don't enjoy. I don't enjoy people doing bottle chugs and stuff like that.

I don't like any of the shock stuff. I tell you what I like about yours is that you start telling a story and immediately I'm saying to myself, I know what he's going to say. Like, I know what this is about. I already know this. But if you just sit there for a minute, you're like, oh, wait, I didn't know that. Right. I didn't know that. Oh, this is pretty cool. Yeah. So, I mean, that's really what I love about it.

Yeah, that's it. That's what I think about it. Yeah, we don't. care for the shock stuff or the controversial stuff. As PG is you can keep bourbon, we try to keep it pretty PG. Again, as Mac said earlier, keeping it approachable. There's people that just get turned off by so much that we try to keep it something for everybody. Something that if you're new to bourbon, you can get on it and go, oh, that's really cool. If you don't even like bourbon, you can get on and go, man, that's a story. Whiskey shaped so much of the world that we live in today that if we can relate it back to that, if you don't like bourbon, that's okay. Or if you're an expert, if you've been doing the bourbon stuff for 30 years and you go, I literally know everything, you can watch us and hopefully you'll go, that's really neat. I wasn't aware of that small component of it.

And bourbon can be used, as you guys well know from where you're from, can be used for, for good. Yeah, absolutely. The tornadoes that hit central or Western Kentucky, you guys are from right there, right?

Yeah.

So that hits home to you.

A hundred percent.

And you saw that bourbon, uh, the bourbon community, the bourbon world came together to support your, your families, your hometown. And they're doing it again this year. Yeah. Right. You know, Eastern Kentucky is sadly it has to happen, but yeah.

Yeah.

But you can see that whiskey in Kentucky, especially you can be used for good. And Eastern Kentucky has been hit by these, these flash floods, flooding and stuff. I think that death tolls up to like 37 or something like that. But Bourbon's doing it again. Right. Mr. Fred Minnick is, you know, he's stepping up his game and hopefully they raise the same amount of money as they raised for the tornadoes victims for these flood victims out there.

Well, that's what makes this so neat is this is a brown drink that you could go to the liquor store and pick anything off the glass and have a similar experience with it. But when you dive into the people behind it, the stories behind it, and just the camaraderie behind it, what you can do with it. I mean, we had a blast raising money for Western Kentucky. We'll get involved in Eastern Kentucky. Humane Society here in Frankfort, you know, had a humane society that's in the floodplain that would flood every six or seven years. And so we did, I don't know, seven, eight videos. And Bourbon TikTok stepped up and we raised $280,000 because of some stupid videos. So you just never know what you can do with the power of the internet. We tell people all the time, the internet is insane.

It is definitely who you can reach to across the world.

And what they grab hold of.

You never know what they're gonna just latch onto. Mack, I like that you had said that, you know, bourbon, you're learning that bourbon, or you've learned that bourbon is not like a snobs drink, right?

Oh yeah.

When I think of scotch, I think of 007, I think of tuxes. But when I think of bourbon, bourbon was started out by poor farmers trying to figure out a way to use their corn. Right. So it didn't spoil. Not lose money. Yeah. Right.

Save the farm.

Now farmers, as we know, they're not the wealthiest people on earth. They're just down to earth.

Yeah.

And that's what bourbon is just about. And I love that you guys show that. When you get your blue collar drink.

Yeah, blue jeans, boots and flannel.

I mean, it's the PBR of whiskey.

You know, it's it's for anybody.

Yeah, it is. And we we've definitely had so many people who they're like, I'm really sorry for asking this. I know I should probably know this, but It's like, no, no, this, this, the basement Rick house is where you are more than welcome to ask all those questions. Please ask the questions. And in our lives, we get people all the time. All right. You know, we're not my so-and-so is not into bourbon. What should they start with? And I was like, okay, that's fine. Like, let's jump into it. Or, you know, I'm just now new to bourbon, you know, I was really bored during COVID, so I started drinking bourbon. And then they just like ask all these questions and it just makes people feel so comfortable and connected. We have somebody who took one of our classes not too long ago as a veteran and has only been back from being deployed for not very long. He said, you know, you know, being able to be in this community has made all the difference in the world. It's really tough to come back from a deployment and reconnect with community. But you guys made it easy and I really appreciate it. And I was like, dude, we're just we're just telling stories and we're just here. But it's that's, you know, I think that's one of the things that is is what we're our goal is we want everyone to feel comfortable to be at the table and to ask the questions and to just be part of community.

I've heard a lot of veterans actually say that about bourbon. Um, and it hits home from both Jim and I, because we're both veterans ourselves, but you're looking for that comradery that you had in the military. And there's so much comradery in bourbon. Absolutely. Between the, not just social media, media, but the bourbon drinkers themselves. And most people wouldn't see this until you go to a festival or something amongst the distilleries with like social media and media. And I consider some of those, those bourbon distilleries, the master distilleries, they're like family members or good friends. You know, you just get to build this, this friendship with them.

Yeah, and you don't see that around the clear liquors, right? There's something about what it takes to continually pour into this drink, this brown drink that takes years to create, somehow just creates connection on so many different levels. the fact that you're not just, you know, when you're drinking this, like you have to sip it. You can't just like walk in and throw this back like you have to sit. And if you're going to sit there, you can pull out your phone or you can talk to the person next to you. And so I think it creates something that allows community to happen more than other beverages or other options. And so I think that there's just something innate in this that is community that is really, really interesting and something that we've really got to enjoy.

Now, how often do you guys hold events down here, like bringing friends and stuff in or classes?

We do a class probably once a quarter. We do virtual classes, and then we'll do an in-person class in here. So virtual classes, it's a certified bourbon steward class. So it's Stave and Thief, Moonshine University. It's their content, but then we put our spin on it. So we dive a little bit deeper into certain things. tell the rest of the story on certain things. We do that once a quarter. Selfish plug here, basementrickhouse.com. If you want to sign up, there's a schedule on there of all of our upcoming classes. It's a ton of fun, it's a great way for people to meet and build that camaraderie.

Let's talk about that for a minute because we've probably got a lot of our listeners who have heard about that certification and just are wondering if they should take that next step.

We've had people that know absolutely nothing about bourbon, that can't even drink it yet. Our number one question is, hey, I'm new to bourbon. I don't like it. What's a good starter bourbon? And we say, a cocktail. You're not going to find a bourbon day one that you absolutely just fall in love with if you've never had a whiskey before. So start off with a cocktail, right? And so we've had those people in our class. And then we've had literally people that have bought into distilleries and are in the industry take the class. in the same class.

Oh yeah, that was fun.

And everybody walks away with something, you know, because it gets into history, it gets into distillation, it gets into misconceptions, and it also gets into the, you're now an ambassador for this industry. You know, you have to take that seriously, because if you put that pin on, you know, that you're saying, hey, I know something about bourbon, and you have a choice to make at that point, you can raise your nose in the air and you can become the snooty I know more than you do, or you can go, hey, let's talk about this. Let's, you know, maybe you can teach me something, or maybe I can teach you something. You know, it's that approachability. And so we focus a lot about, you know, that in our classes as well. So it covers a wide array of various topics in the whiskey industry. It's goal initially was for people in the industry, either bartenders or liquor store employees that could speak intelligently on the product of, yes, this is different than Scotch or Irish whiskey or Canadian whiskey. But I don't know what it is that makes it different. You know, so it dives into Scotch. It dives into Irish whiskey, Canadian whiskeys, and allows you to speak intelligently on not only why it tastes different, but what in the process makes it taste different? What are the legal requirements that make this a different product?

You know, Mike, I've thought many times about taking this course and getting certified, but I'm a little worried that we wouldn't be bourbon bullshitters anymore.

Who says that bourbon is the PBR whiskey? Matt keeps bringing up Paul Harvey and I just think I could hear Paul Harvey myself. And God made bourbon.

There you go.

I could hear him saying that. Yeah. I don't, I don't know why we haven't taken it. It's just for us. I think it's a time thing. You know, some people are like, Hey, you guys, great. You guys got this great job and stuff of having a bourbon podcast and, um, it must be really fun. And 90% of the time it's really, really fun.

I'm not going to do it.

But there's, I don't think people realize how much work goes to putting on a show. And I know YouTube, I truly understand. It takes a lot of work and try to pull away and get something else done besides our day jobs and having both of us have hobby farms. So that's a whole nother dynamic by itself. I was giggling why you said you have hills to mow here. Oh yeah. You have the heel. I've got the heel. Like a five acre heel. But it's just so much work and it's something we need to do. We just need to bite off on it.

That's why we started offering the class the way you do. So, you know, through moonshine university, you can just do a self study. And I did that at first. I did the self study because I, you know, Logan Logan was this master taster. And I was like, well, I want I want something to put behind my name. And so I just did it. And then we're like, oh, no, we're doing this together. So we did the executive bourbon steward class, which is an in-person. It is it is a big time commitment. But then after that, we the reason we're offering online is because, you know, people are busy. And so and everyone got used to, you know, oh, I can communicate and I can do things via Zoom. So that's why we started offering the online and then we do the in-person in-person. It's like a four hour. four to five hour in-person experience and then the online it's just two nights of two hours and we get through it.

So we go through the whole book in the span of four to five hours. Now where do they find your classes at that you're putting on? Yep basementrickhouse.com under events you click on it there you can register it includes the book includes the pin that you get which the pin gets you free drinks

It does not get you free drinks. We had, it does not. Okay.

It should get you free drinks. We got some drama here, Jim.

Oh my gosh. So Logan started saying this and I'm like, hun, they're going to not let us teach this class anymore. If you keep saying this, he's like, okay, should. And then, then one of the people in our class, um, was in Chicago wearing his pin and he got free drinks at the bar.

So it does get you free drinks.

So then he jumped in our life and told us. And so he and Logan have been rising me like it does get you free drinks.

Jim, it might be cheaper than having a podcast.

Just get a pin, get certified. So the difference between bourbon steward and executive bourbon steward.

Very similar content. Executive bourbon steward, which they just came out with a virtual option, but the executive has to go through Moonshine University. We teach the certified bourbon steward class, but it's the same exact book. The difference is the executive, you actually go to the location and you make whiskey. So you get to dive in a little bit deeper, a little bit more hands-on with the distillation. You get a nosing kit. And also the difference is about $400.

So it's expensive. It is.

You know, that thing is only like probably four blocks from where I work at. Yeah. I've actually catered a catered event back in 2018 or 2017 there. Um, and we've been offered to take a free class there. So we probably should just, It's, it's about the time, you know, it's about the time, but yeah. We just like being bourbon bullshitters and our t-shirt. I noticed you guys got t-shirts, you guys got your t-shirts on your website. We do. Yeah. And what, what t-shirts do you offer?

So we've got the one that I'm wearing, which is, we call it the bourbon journey, which it's shows corn, a still, a barrel and a glass. So it's just the process of bourbon. Our best seller though is, it's a political shirt, which it's Blanton and Van Winkle 2024, bringing spirits to America. So that's our best seller. We've got several others. We've got, you know, Megapint from the Johnny Depp trials. We've got the definition of what Megapint is, if it were bourbon. So we got all kinds of stuff on there.

Some really fun stuff. T-shirt, long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt.

Glasses. Oh yeah.

Yep. We got glasses.

And you'll have all your merch at the bourbon on the banks. We'll have some of it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. We'll bring the bourbon journey there for sure. Maybe the political shirt. Yep. This year.

Well, Bourbon on Banks listeners, if you don't know about it, October 1st, you can buy your tickets today. Um, go on there, buy some tickets. Um, I know they will appreciate it. There's 80, over 80 distilleries right now, I think. Yeah. It's huge.

So in other words, there's no way, I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're big chief, you're not going to sample all 80. It's not going to happen.

We've seen people try.

You can try, but you will be that silly guy off in the trees.

If I can't do it, I'll guarantee you nobody else can do it. That's right.

So that's one of the most interesting things is, you know, I don't care what other town claims anything. Frankfurt is the heart of Bourbon country. It is the birthplace. Maybe not the birthplace, but it is the heart. And so Bourbon on the banks is right there along the banks of the Kentucky River.

Sorry, Bardstown.

Yeah.

You know how true that is? The two don't like that. So, oh, we did a show on benchmark. Yep. Yep. The McPhee brothers, right? And they were some of the first people in Kentucky They walked right up the Kentucky River. They found this little thing called the Buffalo Trace and then they took that Buffalo Trace so they didn't have to walk through the wilderness to the banks of the back to the banks of the Kentucky River. Took like 15 miles off their trip because as I know the Kentucky River is just this windy snake looking thing. And so they walked across that and one of the benchmarks they laid down for surveying land for these rich guys in Virginia was right here in Frankfort. So the birthplace of bourbon, eh, maybe.

Well, I mean, it definitely is the birthplace of good bourbon, right?

All right.

I mean, which sounds like I'm throwing jabs and smacking people in the face. But I mean, you look at what Colonel Taylor did to this industry. There's a reason he's called the father of modern bourbon. And there's so many misconceptions. Listen, I love Buffalo Trace. I worked there for six years. I modeled our basement after it. You know, the reason that there's copper everywhere in our bar is because it was old fired copper, right? I mean, Buffalo Trace is in my blood, but they do a really good job of claiming Colonel Taylor. His role at OFC was so minuscule there, he wasn't there very long. Yes, he built it to what it was, but bottled and bond. 1897, he stepped in. He did that at what is now Castle & Key. That bottled and bond was the first consumer protection law. Not milk, not tobacco, not medicine. Not meat. Whiskey was the first consumer protection law. First truth in advertising law. You know, again, whiskey shaped the world. And Colonel Taylor had his hand in at least seven distilleries. And there's a good case to be made for even more. But Woodford Reserve, Castle & Keeb, Buffalo Trace, The Hermitage, Old Pepper Distillery, I mean, you name it, you can run through. And Colonel Taylor is Frankfurt, true and true.

There's another small distillery here in Frankfurt that a lot of people don't realize is here, right? Yeah, his old granddad. A lot of people don't know that that's there. You can't go visit it, but there's an old spillway there, an old dam. It's pretty amazing to see. For me, I'm a water guy, river guy, so to me that kind of stuff is just amazing and to see what that was and how old that place is. I wish we talked with Freddie know about this. I wish they would open it up.

Oh, yeah. It'd be huge. It'd be huge. Well, I mean, and what he did, we talked about Crow earlier in the show, right? You know, you wouldn't have Colonel Taylor if you didn't have Crow. You know, Crow was not the founder of Sour Mash Whiskey, but He figured it out, right? He was the scientist behind sour mash whiskey. And Colonel Taylor hired Kroll's protégé to teach him whiskey. Taylor was a banker, and so he hired Kroll's protégé to teach him the modern technology and the modern science of whiskey. And then Taylor wasn't satisfied, so he actually went to Scotland and Ireland for three years, and Germany to learn fermentation of beer. and brought that back. And that's why he's the father of, of modern bourbon.

Is it, do you think this is weird? This is kind of getting off topic. Sorry. Jim's probably going to kill me for this, but I don't know why we didn't bring up this up with Freddie because he probably got mad at us, but why have Crow as a bottom shell for today?

Yeah. It's a shame to me. It's, I mean, Crow was, um, the Duke's favorite bourbon, you know, I mean, that was, that was what he went to. Um, yeah, Crow was, Crow was the top shelf, best of the best for, for a long time. And then Colonel Taylor came in and then his product became synonymous with quality. No, we had some 61 old Crow.

Remember that? Was it 61? Yeah, I think it was 61. That was some fantastic bourbon. Really good. We had some 16 was a 69 was the Chessman.

Um, I think somewhere in there, you know, he, you think back to those older bottles and stuff and you taste them and you're like, man, why are they keeping it down there? You know, this, this grand old brand that could be at the top of the shelf. Um, it's, it's a shame. And it's funny how these brands will keep, they'll pop their rear, their head back up.

You know, I would say you're probably going to see it again. You can probably see it rising up the shelf.

Oh, what Prohibition did to so many stories. I mean, you hate Prohibition because it limited the production of whiskey, and they hated it back then, but what it did to change the narrative of today's stories is incredible. I mean, look at the Colonel Taylor that Buffalo Trace makes now, the yellow label, and it's got a picture of OFC on the side of it. Originally, that bottle never had that picture of OFC on it. It had the castle from Castle & Key, right? But Prohibition went through different hands. So trademarking, because of Prohibition, has changed the narrative. And that's one of the things that we try to do is, what was the original narrative? What was the, what was the, the, the rest of the story initially?

So would you have ever thought that prohibition ending in 1933 would still have repercussions in 2022? It's just amazing, isn't it? It's crazy.

almost, almost a hundred years later, we're, we, it still affects us to this day. Yep. Yeah. Kind of what we drank and the laws that have come out, the standards that came from prohibition, you know? Right. Mainly because the government wanted to get their taxes. Oh yeah.

That's all I think it's interesting to see all of these brands that are coming back or, you know, some version of an old brand coming back, I think is really interesting. So, you know, you see all of these, new ish brands trying to go back to their heritage and get their old DSPs, right? Like, oh, well, you know, back in the day, my, you know, my uncle, grandfather, whatever had, you know, owned DSP, whatever number, and it's a low number. So I think that's really interesting. But it's also giving opportunities like. Midway distilling. Another one right down the street from us, there was Midway, Kentucky, which no one's ever heard of, was a really big distilling capital in this area. They had multiple different distilleries that got destroyed by prohibition and fire. And so, but now people are able to come back and start kind of revitalizing that distilling history in Midway. And so Bluegrass Distillers is over there kind of revitalizing the Midway distilling brand and bringing that back to life. And so that's another thing that Prohibition did that's now providing new life. So yes, there's, you know, there's some negatives and there's some things that we do one way or the other, but there's also some new life happening, you know, now almost a hundred years later because of it, which is pretty interesting.

So how it doesn't sound like you guys are going to run out of content anytime soon. No, no, I don't think so. Nah, look, I've hear some stories going to pop up.

I think, yeah, there's some that have popped up today that now we have to go in and figure out how to. Talk about barometric pressure and under three minutes.

Challenge accepted. Challenge accepted. Well, I'm looking forward to those three minute videos. I'm looking forward to get your guys' content. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys at Bourbon on the Banks. We might not be able to step out of the Bourbon Road Lounge. Hopefully we will.

It'd be nice if we could this year.

We'll see. I know last year you guys popped into the Bourbon Road Lounge. Right. Yeah, it was great. You know, listeners, if you are going to be at Bourbon on Banks, make sure you stop in there. You can sit in our beautiful furniture we're going to have in there in the lounge part made by a good friend, Rhett. He makes bourbon furniture. You can check him out at Rhett Baird Bourbon Barrel Furniture. Some of the most beautiful furniture out there.

Yeah. I mean, the definitely the sturdiest, the sturdiest. You need two people to carry a chair away. Yeah.

We'll have a couple, which were the name like big chief. You need sturdy furniture. You do. I got a big, big bottom that I had to set it in.

So, um, Make sure you stop by there. We'll have plenty of bottles. We're going to have Leapers Fort Distillery in there pouring whiskey for us from their distillery.

We'll have the Bourbon Road Bar will be attended this year. So if you're a roadie or you want to become a roadie. Make sure you belly up to the burger.

And then make sure you go down to the basement Rick house tent, see Logan and man buy some other shirts, um, check them out live and in person. Are you guys doing a class there this year?

We'll be doing bourbon trivia. So just a little quick, you know, five minute, everybody does a trivia winner gets to taste something special. Um, so we'll be doing that. We'll be doing, doing some just different little workshops, a little five minute, not take up all day, uh, having some fun. That'll be fun.

Now I was going to say, where do we, you told us, where do you buy your shirts at again?

Yeah. Basementrickhouse.com. Uh, and then, uh, you can find us on TikTok basement underscore Rick house, Instagram, same basement underscore Rick house, Facebook, uh, all the major, all the major places.

Yeah. Well, I mean, what a great, great discussion we've had here today.

Jim really have one last question. You guys have done all this research. You've really dug into the backstories and a lot of the stuff you do. Is there one tidbit that just blew you away? One little thing you found out that just stands out above everything else. You would never would have guessed. Something exciting.

I've got mine. Um, I think it's the greatest story in bourbon history. Uh, and it is the greatest heist in bourbon history, um, that not many people know about. So, you know, Netflix did the, the heist, the Pappy gate thing that happened at Buffalo Trace. Right. Uh, great story. A lot of it was crap, but it's a good story. Um, the, the greatest heist to ever take place in bourbon history happened the night before prohibition. It's George Garvin Brown, so Brown Foreman, his son, along with some other small distilleries, banded together to get a ship. Prohibition happened. You had some options. You could break your barrels and discard the product. You could ship your barrels or you could pay heavy fines on those barrels, which that was the number one. You paid fines or you discarded them. They had a provision in there where you could keep literally some in your basement, so that's why we like that provision. For small gatherings, that was allowed, but it was a small amount that you were allowed to do. But the night before Prohibition happens, George Garvin Brown Jr. and some others band together and find this ship, and they load 20,000 barrels of bourbon onto this ship and ship it to Europe the night before Prohibition happens. And so they took barrels from themselves and shipped them over and sold it there. And it became so sought after, everybody wanted this Kentucky whiskey that it was next to impossible to find. Wow, what a great story. What about you, Mac?

Is that the same story?

No, I think my favorite is, uh, Madam Mary Dowling. Oh yeah. I think she's my favorite story that we've found so far. So, um, so, you know, now that bourbon has to be an American product. Well, it wasn't always that role. I'd like to think that one of the reasons that is a rule is because of Mary Dowling. And so again, prohibition story, Mary Dowling was over in Lawrenceburg. She was also a widow and she was taking the family business as far as it could go, bringing up her children into the family business. Then prohibition happens. She applied to get medicinal whiskey license and she was denied because it was very political. Her friend Pappy did have that happy van Winkle happy van Winkle and so at his distillery So he bought some of her barrels from her so that that product could still get sold here And then she put the rest of it in her basement because of the provision that said if you have it in your basement you can use it for personal use and you know those kinds of things and so They bootlegged out of her basement for a while, which was phenomenal. Unfortunately, they got raided by, I don't know, everybody that could, I guess. And so they put her on trial. You know, she broke the law. She was going to get put on trial. She was going to get put in prison for everything that she did. While she was on the stand, it was just, oh, so much for this poor woman that she became ill, passed out. So they had to suspend the trial because, you know, this woman who was running this family business and had all of her family relying on her simply couldn't handle sitting on the stand. So anyways, so they were ready to call court back into session. And all of a sudden they realized that the court reporter had mysteriously died between the time that court was suspended and court was coming back and no one could read his writing. So she got off.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So she got off, which is really great. And that's a really great thing that happened. And then continuing on from there, she she realized that the feds were following her and watching her and her family. So she couldn't continue to do that. So she shipped what she could down to Mexico with the help of Jim beam, Jim beam, the Jim beam family, um, and started her Mexican distillery. So they were making bourbon in Mexico. Um, Mexican, what was the, what was the label?

Uh, Mexican Dowling distillery.

Yeah, something like that. And so they were producing and she was producing such great whiskey and somehow getting it back into the United States that everyone wanted her Mexican distillate that didn't want the American. So Pappy Van Winkle wrote her letter saying, hey, I know what you're doing is great, but I can't sell your stuff here anymore because your Mexican product is saturating the market. So her product that she continued to do.

Her bootlegged product that was coming into the United States.

Yeah, was so good that Pappy couldn't sell his stuff. He couldn't sell her original stuff because of what was going on there. So unfortunately, she died before the end of Prohibition and before being able to come back to the United States. But she's one of my favorite stories.

So many distilleries at that time after Prohibition ended because of what she had done. They thought, well, maybe it's something to do with Mexico and the temperature there because they had figured out that temperature played a key component in the aging of whiskey. that they said, well, it needs to be made in America. And it took them 30 some odd years, but in 1964, they were finally successful in making whiskey or making bourbon, a distinct product of the United States. And so we like to think that Mary Dowling may have had a role in that. I had two awesome stories.

Great stories, great stories.

So you can watch more of those on our Instagram or on our TikTok.

Well, Logan Mack, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show and thank you so much for inviting us into the basement Rick house, giving us an opportunity to experience this great space. Thank you guys for being here. You, uh, you really have something here. I tell you, you probably have the bar. Like I said earlier that everybody wishes they had in their basement. Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Most certainly.

Well, thank you. It was, it was definitely something fun that we were able to do together, which has been one of the best things about this. I think being able to do this whole adventure together.

Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, that's cool. Mike, where can people find us on the Internet?

Well, you can find us on TikTok too. We don't have as many followers on there, but if you want to follow us, go ahead on there. We're definitely not on there dancing. We're on YouTube or on Twitter or on Instagram and Facebook. Our main place you can find us is on Facebook. We've got a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies, a bunch of like minded whiskey drinkers. You gotta be 21 to enter. You gotta like bourbon. Hell, who don't like bourbon? You also gotta agree to play nice because we don't tolerate rudeness in there. Meaning if you drink from the very bottom of the shelf, which is old crow right now, all the way to the top, which is maybe some of that E.H. Taylor that you like so much, Jim. Um, we want you to come in there, be able to celebrate life, celebrate whiskey, um, whether you're retiring, having a birthday, having a baby, having a grandchild, even if you have somebody pass away, they were a whiskey drinker and you want to raise a glass to them. We want you to be able to do that, drink your kind of whiskey without somebody being rude to you.

Yeah. So we do two shows every week. Every Monday we do a craft distillery episode. Mike and I'll sit down with a single expression. We'll taste it. We'll talk about it. We'll let you know whether we think you ought to add it to your bar or not. Remember now we're just a couple of butter and bullshitters, but we have drank just a few whiskeys.

Haven't we Mike? Just a little bit.

Every Wednesday we'll do a full length episode. We'll have a guest on like Logan and Mac. We'll deep dive a subject. We'll have several expressions every week. You can expect that Wednesday episode to last about an hour to 30 minute hassle. Get you to work. We'll get you home. We hope you listen to both episodes every week, but Mike, what do they have to do to make sure they don't miss one?

Well, which you know what I'm about to say, Jim, you go to the very top of that app, hit that check sign, that plus sign, the subscribe sign and let you know, Hey, these two jokers have an episode coming out today. Um, And then we want you to scroll onto the very bottom of that app, hit that five star review, leave us some comments on there. You know what's going to happen if you don't, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon is going to come to your house, dragging some, maybe some old crow with him. You drink it all night long, maybe cook some chili, eat it up by the end of the night. You can leave us that five star review, some comments, but seriously, those comments, those reviews open up doors to distilleries. It opens up the basement rick house to us, gets us invited over here to drink whiskey with Logan and Mack, provide great content to you. We really do appreciate it.

Now, Mack and I are very approachable. If you see us in a liquor store, you see us at a show. If you see us wandering around a bourbon event, make sure you come up to us and say, hey, we'd love to shake your hand, have a drink with you. Find out a little bit more about your bourbon story. If you want to reach out to us, if you've got an idea for a show or a guest on the show, make sure you do. Get on our website. We've got a contact us page there. We'll be sure to get back with you. You can always send us an email. I'm Jim at The Bourbon Road. He's Mike at The Bourbon Road. But like we always say, probably the best way. Slip into our DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down. The Bourbon Road.