311. Clay Risen - Bourbon: The Story of Kentucky Whiskey

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. Hey, this is Mike Hyatt, and you're listening to the Bourbon Road. So, fans, we got a famous writer on. He is a New York Times writer, and I bet you're thinking, why are you having a New York Times writer on? Well, he writes about bourbon, he writes about whiskey, and he's got a new book out called Bourbon, The Story of Kentucky Whiskey. Mr. Clay Rising. Clay, welcome to the Bourbon Road.

Hey, man, thanks for having me.

Yeah. So you are a, you know, you grew up in kind of whiskey land, right? You know, not far from Kentucky, just, just over into the Tennessee territory there, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in Nashville and, uh, my dad's side is all from sort of north central Kentucky. Uh, but they moved down to Nashville. Uh, my dad was born there and then I grew up there. But, uh, when I was growing up whiskey, you know, I mean, it was a thing that people drank, but it wasn't a thing that people talked about like they do now. And, you know, it was, uh, it was kind of Jack and Jim and that was about it.

So yeah, back, back in the, I probably grew up in the same era where that's all there really was. You'd go into a liquor store and then, you know, Jack Daniel's, there was only one color of Jack Daniel's bottle and one color of Jim Beam bottle. There wasn't all these extra, bottles out there. You see early times or something like that. Or people would drink, you know, I grew up in Texas and a lot of people drink SoCo and they'd call that whiskey. But today I wouldn't consider that whiskey. I'd be like, what are you drinking? But yeah, you grew up in Nashville. So how did you get from Nashville, Tennessee to writing for the New York Times? I have no idea, man.

I don't know. I mean, I've been a journalist. That's my career. And I was in DC for a while, working for some publications down there. And one day I got a call. I used to be more of an editor professionally. And so I got hired by the Times to come up and be an editor. And I did that for a while and then started I'd already been doing some freelance writing about whiskey. And so I started writing for the Times about whiskey. And no one else was doing it. So that was a big opportunity. And then that led to some book opportunities and speaking gigs. And it just took off from there. But I've managed to hold my position. I haven't gotten fired yet from the Times. And now I'm a writer instead of an editor. So I don't know. I think I always wanted to be a writer. I can't really do anything else. I tried to be a teacher for a while. That failed miserably. My brother's a teacher and I hold teachers in very high esteem because that is a tough thing to do. But I enjoy writing and I've just been lucky to be able to do the thing that I love.

Yeah, I tell you what, I got to meet you last year at the Kentucky Book Festival and Steve Coombs said, Hey, would you like to be on stage and talk about what it is to write about whiskey and talk about whiskey? And I said, yeah. And I said, well, who else is going to be up there? And he started listing off names and yours was one of the ones that I was like, Oh my God, I can't believe, you know, this whole country boy is going to be on stage with a New York Times writer and somebody that's written books and stuff. The most I've ever written was a blog for our podcast on our website. So, um, I was super honored to set up there and just kind of shoot the bull about whiskey, right?

Yeah, that was a great panel. I had a lot of fun there. That was great times.

Yeah. Uh, and then I get, we get your book in the mail and I'm, I read it from cover to cover, took notes and some people might shame me for doing this, but I actually highlighted the areas in your book. Uh, what I thought were important to me and, um, some things I wanted to ask you, cause I want to be prepared for an interview. Right? So I was like, man, I'm going to, I'll make sure I'm going to do this justice and stuff. But reading about you and stuff, I read about your first time kind of getting to taste whiskey. And I was super fascinated by that because you almost started in your whiskey journey like everybody else, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, now it's kind of, I'm almost embarrassed to say, well, not embarrassed, but, um, so my, uh, my, my first whiskey was my first really good whiskey was Blanton's and, uh, but the story is, so my grandfather, was from Mississippi. He was not a whiskey guy. He wasn't... I don't know if they still exist, but for a long time, there was this kind of middle-class guy in Nashville, certainly in Nashville, who they inspired to something finer. So they didn't like country. They didn't like necessarily Southern food. My grandfather had an accent. He was a country boy from Mississippi. But he just He was a martini guy, didn't really like whiskey. But one day, he and I were playing golf and we came back and to his house and he's like, you know, I got this. I found this whiskey. I was at the store and they sold me on this bottle a little more expensive than what I would pay. But I tried it. It was fantastic. You should try it. He pulls it out and blends. and a very distinctive bottle and all that. And then I was blown away because the only thing I'd had was Jim Beam and Jack and down the ladder from that. And Blanton's was just something totally different. The idea that you could make make a premium bourbon was not something I had ever really thought about. Here I am in my mid-20s and mostly thinking about fine liquor is cognac and scotch. That's it. So that kind of set me on a course. My brother lived in Nashville at the time. so i would come home and we would take trips up into kentucky you know two hours to makers mark basically and you know we visit distilleries and back then most distilleries didn't have visitor centers and the ones we're kind of kind of you just walk up and Say hi and they take you on tour. That's what we did at MakersMart. Now I see the KDA is saying, well, wherever you go, you should make a reservation ahead of time. That's their standing recommendation. And that's great. I'm glad to see things going that way. But I remember back when You know, most places were just happy to see you. You know, if you walked in the door, wow, tourists, this is awesome. Even at Woodford, you know, which you think of as made for tourists. They were just sitting there waiting. And it was great because you could meet people and you could really, really spend some time at the distillery and see what was going on. I learned so much through that. And then from there, I just, you know, look, I mean, as a journalist, I'm lucky enough to get to write about things I like, the things that interest me. And so I could just kind of use that as a reason to explore what was otherwise a hobby for me. And that's how it's always been. This is really kind of my hobby. And I'm lucky that I get to have this outlet to talk about it you know kind of like you i mean you you you i assume you know you love whiskey and uh you get to talk about it on your show and that's a thing you get to do and you get to legitimize it in a certain way i certainly get to legitimize it with my wife and tell her wow you know i gotta work this work honey This is not just me getting a drink. I need to sit and try these whiskeys tonight. Yeah. And you know, it's great. I mean, I couldn't ask for anything more.

Well, speaking of working, and I'm sure our listeners like, let's get to the whiskey, which you guys are drinking tonight, because we do drink whiskey on our podcast. What are you drinking, Clay?

I'm drinking the new Toaster Barrel from Victor's.

There's so many people probably jealous right now of that. That is delicious.

It is delicious. And I gotta say the last couple of days, I've been drinking some really high proof stuff. And then last night I was drinking some pretty peaty scotch. And this is, I've got to adjust my palate a little even a day later. This is very relatively mild, relatively smooth. I like it a lot. But like, oh, wow, this is what this is what regular proof whiskey tastes like. It's good. It's really it's nice and velvety and creamy and they do a great job. I really love this series.

Oh, Dan and Andrea there and their whole team at Michter's is they do a phenomenal job. You know, talk about some nice people right there. Oh, yeah. And their whiskey every from the very lowest their expressions all the way up to the 20 year is just blow your doors off.

Oh, man, it's fantastic. And I've known Joe, because Joe Magliocco, he lives here in New York part time, you know, and so I've known him for a long time. And, you know, so we've got, you know, we get together in New York, sometimes I've interviewed him for stuff, and he's good people. But he also say the thing that he did right was hire the right folks, you know, I mean, Dan and Andrea are a crack team.

Yeah, they got any better there, I don't think. Well, listeners, what I'm drinking on is some castle and key small batch. They're a 2022 batch four. It's, it's pretty nice. It's 97 proof. It's not overpowering or anything. Just spot on for a nice afternoon sip of whiskey, which I really love. When I'm reading through your book here, I noticed you said that you believe that we're in perhaps the golden age of whiskey right now. And I was wondering, do you think that the golden age of whiskey or has blending and finishing bourbon entered a golden age right now too?

Yeah, I think what makes me want to say that, and I think that, you know, look, I recognize that there have been previous golden ages. So, you know, certainly the 60s and maybe the early 70s up through that, back to the turn of the century, there was some, you know, allegedly, I've not had a lot of pre-prohibition whiskey, some, but not a lot to say. I think right now we are in that period and part of it is precisely that reason that what's happening now is there's a lot of skill out there. I think that we talked about Dan and Andrea, and there are a lot of other people like them who are doing great work. You know, Castle & Key, I mean, there's some just new distilleries, as well as places that continue to fire on all cylinders after Generations of the same leadership. I mean, wild turkey is one of my favorite distilleries and it's been run by the same two guys forever. But I think you add on to that a lot of innovation and a lot of innovation in terms of stuff like finishing. Finishing was always... It was never something that was around back then. That was not something people talked about in previous golden ages, so to speak. But it's now such a part of the toolkit. And I think has a lot more to offer. But then you look at something like blending that has always been there as a skill set, but has now become, rightly so, really moved to the forefront. folks like Freddie and Freddie Ngo and others who are not afraid to say, look, I'm a blender. I take barrels and I blend them together and I make cool whiskey. That I think is just opening the door to all kinds of stuff coming down the road. So yeah, I mean, not only do I think we're in the golden age, but I think things are going to get better over the next 10 years. I think we're going to see increasingly better whiskey even when we have now.

that takes me to another point. You know, we're starting to see people dig in the history of bourbon and whiskey, right? Really big. And you did a really fine job of digging into that history, especially with enslaved distillers in your book, which I was super interested about. And I just went to Nashville, to your hometown there, and we went to the Hermitage for the first time. I don't know why it's the first time I ever went there. But what I was fascinated by was that there was a distillery on the Hermitage, but they don't talk about it a whole lot. It's like they're shameful of it or something.

That's interesting. I haven't been there since I was a kid, to be honest. But yeah, you know, one of the things that, you know, there's sort of one of the, you talk about enslaved people and distilling, you know, one of the famous documents in that, or artifacts in that history is an ad that Andrew Jackson ran just before he became president. You know, one of his, uh, one of his distiller, his main distiller, uh, ran away, you know, escaped and, uh, he ran ads as far as, I mean, at least as far as Lexington, cause there's a, we know from a Lexington newspaper, there's the ad and it says, you know, escape. such and such, this guy, my best distiller. And that was his statement of not only is this guy a distiller, but he's my best. This is something of value to me. And the record is so thin on what role exactly enslaved people played in whiskey making. I think it's very hard to say definitively, but there are so many anecdotal examples. You talk about Nearest Green. You talk about Andrew Jackson's. You look at other ads similar to that. And then clearly, there was a role played by enslaved people. I think there's a lot of work to be done. in that world to figure that out. And there's some interest. I mean, I've said in a different life, maybe I'd be working on a PhD. And that would be what I do is just get some money and go dig through archives and county courthouses and just try to figure that out. So I think that's a great project for somebody.

Yeah, that would be a monster project. You know, talking about even more history, just the detail that you went into digging into history of not only that, but you also went in there and talked about changes and some of the history that's coming back today. The three chambered pot still, I saw in your book, uh, Leopold brothers, we just tasted some of his, uh, their whiskey out there and it, it'll blow your mind of it. It's, it can be a low proof for us, um, being 90 proof or a hundred proof, but at the same time being so viscous and so oily, just buttery, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Um, if you had a chance to try the, the blend they did with George tickle, I haven't had that yet. I, if you ever get a chance to try that, cause that actually, I mean, I think, I think Leopold brother's stuff is really cool. Uh, what I found was when they blended that three chamber stuff, what I, this is just my opinion, but when they blended it was the column still stuff that they're making it tickle. it was the perfect match. I mean, it, you know, it just, it balances all the, you know, because you, the column still, like you said, that's an oily viscous, heavy and good whiskey. But it is in that register and you balance it with some sort of higher notes and some, you know, lighter rye notes coming off the column still. And they knocked that out of the park. Really, really fun. But I give hats off to Leopold Brothers and Todd for going through the effort to just to do something like that. To say, hey, let's spend the money to build a still that no one has used in a hundred years and, you know, see what happens. That's cool.

That was digging, digging through that history, right? Trying to figure that out is amazing.

You're out what it is. I mean, what's a three chamber still? Well, you know, there are some weird schematics and people talking about them way back in the day, but it's not like you just go online and find the, find the detailed blueprints and then you build it. They really had to figure out what that was going to look like and how you would make one in the 21st century, one that really was safe and reliable. So that was cool. And I guess to your point, I think you look at people committing that kind of effort to mining the past and coming up with cool ideas from that, you think, man, this is an exciting time to be in whiskey.

Yeah. You know, I just read a story about Catherine Carpenter and a lot of people probably don't know who she is. A lot of people think that Jane Crow was the inventor of Sour Mash, right? But it's actually a woman that the first person they figured that wrote it down. But the interesting fact that I found was that it was William Crow that was a caretaker of Catherine's children. And I wondered if Uh, if somehow William Crow and James Crow were related, somehow has those two crow names. And then, uh, you know, you talk about James Crow, did he learn that from Catherine somehow? Cause the years are right close and they were, it would have been right down the road for him.

Yeah, I mean, the thing, you know, a friend of mine, Reid Mittenbuehler, you know, he made the analogy that, you know, that Crowe is kind of like the Steve Jobs of whiskeys. He didn't actually invent a lot of things. In fact, he's not really credited with a lot of with anything significant. What he did was to recognize the value of a lot of innovations out there and to put them together into a commercial enterprise. And so he was able to say, hey, here's this technology. Here's this scientific technique over here. And here's this thing that I hear someone's doing over here. And what if we brought them together and we figured out how they work to make a whiskey that we can then make in enough volume to sell? And kind of like Steve Jobs going, well, he didn't invent the personal computer, but he kind of figured out how to make a personal computer that worked and that people want to buy at a good price. And it looked cool. And that's a lot of what Crow did. So I mean, credit to him because I think that's often the hardest thing to do is to figure out, well, okay, here's this cool idea, but how do we make it work? commercial.

Well, you think anybody will ever bring his brand back to to be in a relevant brand? You think Jim Beam will say, hey, we need to go ahead and fix this and make this ship right. And I wish we just had talked to Freddie. No, not too long ago. And I wish I would have pounded him on that a little bit today, man. You know, I think the man deserves a little credit here in the world.

Yeah. You know, I mean, I agree. I agree. I think that'd be super cool. And I think it would be a cool thing for Beam to do, you know, whether they will or not. I mean, that stuff kind of for them, I mean, I assume it fits a certain niche that they're trying to sell, you know, some cheap stuff. So if they were going to elevate that, then they've got to come up with something else to make cheap stuff. But I got to say, I mean, that's a good brand. And it's got great history and, uh, you know, so much, you know, it was, you know, you had Ulysses S. Grant's favorite whiskey and, uh, you know, they say the whiskey that won the civil war.

So yeah, they, they, they do say that they didn't, they say Lincoln said, Hey, what kind of whiskey does Ulysses S. Grant drink? And he's like, well, get me, I need a barrel of that to send to them.

Yeah, exactly. That'd be good. That'd be good marketing.

Yeah. Oh yeah. I think it would be, uh, you're talking, just brought up a president, but in your book, you, you actually talk a lot, uh, or you brought up about, uh, Theodore Roosevelt, but you also brought up Taft and his importance and whiskey and whiskey blending. And I just was so, so fascinated by that. I didn't realize that there was a whole trial from that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so weird. It's, um, You know, I mean, it goes back to, um, you know, everybody's favorite EH Taylor and, uh, you know, Taylor among other things have been, uh, He was a big motivating force, really a lobbyist behind the Pure Food and Drug Act. And we think of that as being about meat safety and things like that. But one of the things he made sure was included was a rule about whiskey and what you could call whiskey. Because at the time, most whiskey on the market was not what we would consider whiskey today. pure grain alcohol with doctored to look and kind of taste like whiskey. And so he said, well, you know, and about 10% was what we would actually call whiskey and or bourbon. And he said, you know, look, we need rules about this. So the Pure Food and Drug Act said, all right, whiskey is going to be made this way. Basically, according to the way bourbon was made. kind of basically the way we think of it today. And everything else has to be all imitation whiskey. And so they, you know, Theodore Roosevelt signed Pure Food and Drug Act. That became a big big point of contention. And when Taft came to office, you know, and Taft's an Ohio guy, and Ohio is more of the, Ohio is a center for the, let's say more of the big whiskey at the time, this kind of imitation whiskey. And so he was being lobbied from the other side. And so he, he, you know, in Taft always, Taft didn't want to be president or he was fine being president. He wanted to be a judge. He wanted to be a Supreme Court. And so he was, he was happy to say, let's have a trial. And it's not a real trial, but it's basically him sitting there listening to the two sides. And so E.H. Taylor's there, and the Secretary of the Treasury, Carlisle, was there, and then lawyers on the other side. And they presented their cases for why the Pure Food and Drug Act was right versus why imitation whiskey should be called whiskey. And so Taft, being a judicious guy, although I think it's kind of ridiculous, he said, OK, we're going to get rid of the imitation thing. We're going to call one, there's going to be whiskey and there's going to be blended whiskey. And that's going to be it. But basically, it's all whiskey. And that's how it was for about 10 years and then Prohibition hit and everything got wiped out. But so for the 1910s, there was this kind of anything goes, we're going to call it blended whiskey, who knows what blended whiskey is. But yeah, it's fascinating, fascinating that that's kind of how it played out. And to think about if we hadn't had Prohibition, what that would have looked like. Because after Prohibition, of course, rules got changed and we ended up with what we have now.

Yeah. To me, your book, it's, it's so spot on, um, for the, the historian part of it. You cover all facets in this book though. You talk about how whiskey is made. And, um, one of the things I highlighted in here, you said corn is cheap and flavorful, but today in the last, let's say the last year or two years, corn's doubled in price. Um, and, I think that's important to mention because whiskey drinkers are always like, Hey, I don't want to pay, you know, Jack Daniels or Jim beam or even these smaller guys. Um, cause the corn's going to cost them more than a giant like Jim beam is doubled in price for them too. So, you know, your whiskey is going to cost more. It's just a matter of economics, right?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, whiskey is an agricultural product. And its price and its value rise and falls in part based on those underlying commodity inputs. So if your grain price is double, You can't really control for that. You can cut a few corners maybe, but you don't want to do too much. Barrel prices are going to be what they are. There are a lot of really expensive inputs in making whiskey. barrels are really expensive. And aging whiskey takes a long time and that is expensive. And that's not even talking about the labor that goes into all that. So yeah, it's... I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out long term. Commodity prices also go down sometimes. So we'll see.

Yeah, I'd like to see them do go, go down, but you know, people are still going to buy whiskey. It doesn't matter if it doubles in price or not. They're going to buy it. I think, and you know that you probably pay double sometimes what we have to pay here in Kentucky because you live in New York city, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty pricey here.

Another thing I noticed in your book about, you know, I'd say about a quarter of the way in, you wrote a chapter in here, how to drink your whiskey and what stuck out to me. So prevalent, as you said, I have a few words of advice for people looking to examine their whiskey up close. there may be no right way to drink it. Um, but there are several tricks to make it easier, uh, to tease out nuances of smell and flavor. What I loved about that was you said there's no right way to drink your whiskey on that show that you're not too serious about your whiskey still, uh, even as a, as a expert, I would call you, you still are like, Hey, drink it however you want to drink it.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, I don't I feel like, look, first of all, you paid for it. So it's your thing, right? So whom no one no one can tell you what you should do with it. If you want to do it as a shot, you want to drink it on the rocks, you want to mix it. I mean, there's some whiskies I would not do that with. But that's me. You want to do that? What? Who am I to tell you? Like, I can't tell you what to do. So I think it's always and I do this with my when I do a tasting to I'm like, look, I'm not telling you how to do anything. I'm just giving you suggestions for certain things, you know, and how I'm going to tell you how I do it. But if you don't want to do it that way, that's fine with me. You know, but I do. All that said i do think there are certain ways you know if you're if you really want to sit and smell whiskey and pull out certain notes and really you know that kind of appreciation many kinds of appreciation but that kind. There are certain things i recommend. But I think it's really important to preface it with all that because I don't want to come across as that guy. But I also think it's important not to make people feel that they have to be that way in order to enjoy whiskey because that's just ridiculous and goes against the whole idea of what whiskey is.

Yeah. You, I mean, you really broke it down about snacking, whether you're, when you're drinking whiskey. Uh, one of the things I was going to ask you is if you're going to put a water drop in there, what kind of water do you use? You use New York city tap water or they use, you know, I'll be honest.

I think New York city tap water is pretty awesome. So yeah. So yeah, I will now. If I'm at a competition or if I'm really trying to drill down, I might go get some distilled water or not distilled water, I'll get some filtered water, something that really is as pure as I can get. At the end of the day, I think the qualities of the whiskey are going to come out. And I don't think that this or that tiny impurity is going to change it too much. I'm not precious in that way. That's my palette. Now, if someone else wants to be all up about that and say, wow, you've got to do this and this and this, or this is how I do it, that's fine. That's how they do it. But for me, you know, I mean, I think it's I'm not a wine taster. I'm not a wine expert. But I do think that if you're doing wine, wine is much more delicate wine. It's a lower alcohol percentage. It's you know, it may be that a lot of other factors come in. But with whiskey, I just you know, it's such a big, you know, even a basic 80 proof whiskey is a big spirit. And so, you know, What what is in that, you know, little micrograms in that water? I just it's not just it's just not going to make a big difference to me. Sure. I mean, maybe a scientist could prove me wrong, but I don't. Yeah.

The only thing I would think was when if you're drinking whiskey and you fill your glass up with ice and. Oh, yeah. You got bad pipes in your house or something like that. Old pipes or you live in a 1930s house and that's what your ice maker is going off of.

Sure. I mean, if you've got brown water coming out of your tap, That's a different thing. I mean, I think ice... Look, I love ice on a hot day. I'll put ice with my whiskey. Sometimes if I've got a high proof whiskey, I'll put an ice cube in there because it's cool to watch it change. As the ice melts, the flavor changes. But I do think ice detracts from some of the nuances in the flavor. I mean, it's I learned this for a long time. I was doing whiskey classes at a cheese shop and so we would pair whiskey with cheese and it worked. It was great, I'll tell you. They brought out some really big powerful cheeses that worked really well. And I love cheese. So this is cool. And I love stinky big cheeses. So it's really cool to pair that with whiskey. But one of the things they taught me that I learned was you should always serve cheese at room temperature. It tastes so much better. You just lose a lot of the flavor when it's cold. Room temperature is always best. That's true with whiskey too, in terms of tasting. You know, obviously, again, on a hot day, you don't want to do that. But in terms of tasting, it is the optimal flavor at room temperature.

Yeah, I'd have to agree with my wife. I'd be loving what you're saying about cheese, too, because she's she's a half German and she likes everything at room temperature. It is everything.

Well, everything I'm going to be. Hey, I. Yeah. Beer. I'm that way with beer, too. Like I like a cold beer. Don't get me wrong. The beer room. I guess I'm European like that. I like a beer. I like a room temperature beer.

There's nothing that's wrong with that, I don't think. You know, you talk about entertaining in here and I highlighted one of the things that just stood out to me as the last line about entertaining. It says, get creative and have some fun instead of simply cinnamon, try red hots or atomic fireballs. And I said, spot on. That's spot on about how we talk about our whiskey wheel. It's not It's not somebody else's whiskey wheel. It's our whiskey wheel. It's how we want it to be. It's those nuances you talked about with, you know, if I had a snickerdoodle when I was a kid and when I'm closing my eyes and sipping on that whiskey and I get a snickerdoodle, I'm going to say snickerdoodle.

So I used to run a tasting panel, or I still do, but one of the members of my tasting panel was this guy, a friend of mine. He grew up in Thailand. He had a fantastic palate. But one of the things about his palate was he He had all these sense, these taste memories from growing up in Thailand and he had access to all of these. He would go, Oh, this is like the lemongrass that grew in this part of Thailand that my grandmother used to make this soup. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't even I mean, we're tasting the same whiskey. Maybe. I mean, I believe him. But what was cool was there's so much culture and there's so much personal experience built into that. And I think it's the same thing we talk about, you know, whiskey here in America. And, you know, if I say this tastes more like red hots, or this tastes more like, you know, cinnamon, you know, big red, people will know generally what that means. Oh, yeah, that is more like red hots or that is more like cinnamon tea. Right. We just have a cultural palette, cultural sort of memory, taste memory that's different. And, you know, I think that's great because then you can have that conversation. And, you know, if you get a group of people together and they're coming from different backgrounds, oh, this tastes like this thing. I did a book earlier, a couple of years ago about single malt scotch. And one of the things I tried to do there was what my contribution was to give tasting notes from an American vernacular. So I didn't talk about treacle and Turkish delight in sultanas, because that's a British thing. Those are British things. I don't know what those taste like, I guess. most Americans are not going to know what those things are. And so I was trying to say, well, no, it's more like raisins and it's more like rum cakes and these things that we know. And I think that that's so fun. That's such a... When I do a tasting just with friends. That's what I'm always trying to get people to talk about. What's your background? What's your experience here? Because I want to hear what you think it tastes like from your perspective. Because it's not a test. It's not like, okay, there are five things here that this tastes like, and you've got to figure out what they are. It's total opposite. It's whatever you think. That's the answer.

Yeah, we have a friend, Rep Baird. He makes bourbon furniture out of bourbon barrels. And he actually, his website, everybody listening, it's Rep Baird Bourbon Barrel Furniture. If you want to check him out, he's on Facebook and stuff, but he's making us a tasting wheel. He went back and listened to every podcast we did and got every tasting note from us. And he's trying to make a tasting wheel for us. That's awesome. Which I think that was pretty bad ass. Cause we always say, we sometimes we'll say something tastes like a whore hound and people are like, what is a whore hound? Well, that's me and me and Jim are a certain age where, you know, when we went to a drug store, there was whore hounds in there. Um, so yeah, I thought that was pretty, pretty cool that he's doing that. And the tasty notes, the way you say to do that, that's what we try to tell our listeners. So to finish up this first half, um, so I'm through your book here is. Really, I think three parts, right? You got the, uh, the history of whiskey. Then you got, um, part two is the old guard you call it. And then part three, I think is the, the newer distilleries in, in, um, in Kentucky, but right at the end of part one, you actually talk about Tennessee whiskey in here. And you said, technically Tennessee whiskey is a subcategory of bourbon. And I, and I wrote, damn, you said it. Uh, cause a lot of, a lot of, uh, whiskey experts out there, a lot of bourbon talkers, a lot of, a lot of people in Tennessee get upset when you say that there are a lot of people won't say that. Right. And I was so glad that you said that in there.

I mean, it is, it is, you know, I mean, what you call it is, uh, you know, you can make Tennessee whiskey in Kentucky and call it bourbon and no one's going to, no one's going to say anything, but there's nothing in the rules about bourbon that say you cannot filter it through maple charcoal. Uh, so you can do that and you can call it bourbon. You can in Kentucky, if you do that, and you don't want to run a foul of Tennesseans, you might call it a Tennessee style whiskey. You know, you can make it in Tennessee and call it bourbon. You don't have to call it Tennessee whiskey. If you do call it Tennessee whiskey, you obviously have to follow those rules. But I think, I mean, there's just no arguing that is a sub category, uh, and a self-identified one. Now I love Tennessee style whiskey and I respect it. I grew up with it. I think it's a cool thing and it is its own thing, but you know, it is not parallel with urban in, if you're going to come up with some scientific order to it.

Yeah, I'm actually holding a bottle of bourbon whiskey here, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey in my hand. And they're pretty famous for Jack Daniel's synonym. But right on the top of the label, it says charcoal mellowed, which is Ezra Brooks. A lot of people know that, but some people don't know that. So that just proved a point that some bourbons are charcoal mellowed. Yeah. Tennessee bourbon down there.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, Johnny drum, I think is also charcoal melon. Um, you know, and, and, and there are some who are charcoal melon. They don't even talk about it. And that's fine. I mean, I don't know. It's, it's, uh, you know, I think the charcoal, the maple charcoal thing is more, I mean, it's more than a gimmick. I think it makes a huge difference. Uh, you know, but at the end of the day, I don't know. Um, I, I don't put too much stock in those distinctions.

Yeah, I'm with you. I'm just like, it's whiskey, it's bourbon whiskey. Somebody the other day said, well, whiskey that's made in Kentucky is not whiskey, it's bourbon. I was like, all right, you're like a mule. There's no point in arguing with you.

I know. I often just kind of... let that stuff just slide off, you know?

Yep. Yep. And the girl actually told me, she was like, well, where are you from? And I was like, well, I'm from Texas. And she was like, well, you don't know anything about bourbon anyways. I'm sorry. All right. You know, I didn't say, hey, we got a podcast and we probably drink a little over a thousand bottles from a thousand bottles a year. We try to try to know a little bit, but I didn't say no, that is okay. I'm going to go finish my whiskey here.

Well, Clay, we're at the end of the first half right here.

And listeners, we'll get back. We're going to get into Clay's second half book and his new book that will be coming out and you need to get. And I'm just going to let you listeners know, you got to stick with us to the very end because Clay actually sent us five of these books and we're going to give away three of them. So stick with us very and we're going to let you know how to get one of those books. We'll be right back. 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 onion powder, garlic powder, those kind 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. Um, 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. Uh, that's saying something.

So Statham seemed 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 seldom seen maple.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. 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 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, appreciate it. I know he loves people. You're supporting a local farmer, a local product, a small family. This is no factory place that's putting out maple syrup, right, Jim? This is a good man doing good work. Yeah, gotta love it. Well, make sure you check out his site. Like Jim said, seldom see maple.com. Pick up a block today. All right, listeners, we are back and we got clay rise on. He is a New York times writer and he's really famous for writing obituaries. But what else he writes about as whiskey or we probably wouldn't be having him on show because I don't want to talk about dead people. I really don't. But Clay, what do you got in your glass for the second half?

I'm drinking batch two of American Highway Reserve. This is This is Brad Paisley's whiskey. And one of the things I do like about this, I mean, it's a celebrity whiskey, but I think they put a little bit more work into it than some of the other ones out there. And the cool thing about Batch 2 is it's made I mean, it's all produced at Bardstown Bourbon Company, but this is a big portion of it is sourced from, I think they got 600 barrels of corn whiskey from Georgia, from the funk distillery down there. So, you know, I think that's going out on a limb. It's kind of cool. I also think it tastes really good. I've had this before and You know, it just gives it that corn. I love corn whiskey. You know, Mellow Corn is one of my go-tos. And I think they did a really nice job of bringing that into, you know, what otherwise would be a pretty conventional bourbon palette, bourbon profile. It just gives it kind of a unique flavor.

Yeah, the corn whiskies are phenomenal. Actually, you just had somebody talk to me about corn whiskey out of Dennis in Texas, Iron Root.

Yeah, Iron Root. Oh my God. Sorry, man. I know you're good. No, they're corn. Whiskey's so good. They're this blew me away.

This cat was like, he was like, man, because I was like, I was like, where are you guys from? And they're like, oh, Dallas. I said, have you ever been up to Denison before and visited iron route? And they were like, yes, disgusting whiskey. And I was like, Yeah. I don't know. I think we're talking about the same place. I was like, Oh, you know, it's like drinking scotch and drinking bourbon. It's two different things. Really? It's a subcategory of bourbon. It's Texas whiskey. It's different. I was like, you need to, but you need to go back and visit and check it out.

And yeah, I think iron route is those guys are. brilliant, really good distillers and they had, I tasted a barrel strength corn whiskey that someone else bottled for them. maybe a year or two ago. And it was one of the best. And this was in 2021. It was one of the best whiskeys I had all year.

It is. They are simply amazing. What I got my glass though is from the old, old man whiskey himself from, uh, well, from him and his son. I got some masters. Keep toasted Oak finish right here. 101 proof. Jimmy and Eddie, man, they, they can lay down some whiskey. If you see this bottle on a shelf, you better grab it up. I, you know, Jim always says, Hey, you're a weeded guy. And I am a weeded guy. But, uh, and Jim loves it while Turkey, but the masters keep, uh, especially this bottle right here. I've, I've been savoring a little bit, but I was like, man, I got a special guest on. We're going to drink a special whiskey. Uh, so yeah, that's what I got in my glass.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As good stuff, man. Cheers.

One of those magical bottles that shows up at our house. Well, going through your second half of your book, really, it, you laid out what every kind of, when the distilleries were founded, how much whiskey they're laying down, who they're owned by, um, their leading brand and their master distiller, which some of them have changed in the last six months. a lot. Um, which I know that you're probably like, God dang it. Uh, I just wrote that book and now I'm going to have to go back and write another book. Um, which is nice, but listeners, what I'd say, uh, in clay is make sure you purchase this book. And before you come on your pilgrimage to Kentucky, I just think you were spot on on everything in here. I didn't have a whole lot of notes for the second half of your book because you were just to the T credit. You really did your research. I loved it seeing that. It's nice when you see somebody put good work into something like this.

Well, it was fun to do. I mean, it was a little tough because I started working on the book in 2019 and made some trips out. But I really planned on 2020 being the time when I would come out and spend a lot of time in Kentucky. And of course, the pandemic hit. places shut down. And all of a sudden, it was difficult to get out there and there was nowhere to go. So I ended up coming out a couple of times, making a few trips. But I really had to draw on a lot of institutional knowledge I already had. And then doing some phone interviews. And then adding to that as much as possible with with on the ground visits. So that that kind of complicated everything a little bit, but I think it worked out. I mean, it was, you know, we had a really great photographer with the book. And one of the things I'm really proud of I had nothing to do with, which is photography. Luke Sharrett, who is a Louisville-based photographer. I knew him through the New York Times. He had done some work for us. And so I suggested him. I said, that guy nails it. And so we talked a few times. And then I gave him a list of places to go because we didn't really have a chance to meet up. And it's like I might as well have just given him my brain because he knew exactly not just the shots to get, but the vibe to get. So one of the things I really like about the book is that the photographs really go with, I think, really go with the tone and the vibe I was trying to get with my words. And also, I think, just generally, they really speak to, what is it like, in an ideal sense, to go to some of these distilleries? There are some really great morning shots that he got. There are some mist coming out over the over the rec houses and some great personal sheet, a great shot of Eddie. He's got uh, you know, uh, you know, some other folks that he just got really nice, really captured the, the, the personality of the figures. And so I think that makes the book.

Yeah. I think, uh, the Kelvin Cooperage, uh, in Vindome photos are really nice. Uh, you know, the Kelvin Cooperage is just the fire coming out of the barrels and stuff. I've seen plenty of those photos before, even photos of the corn and the farmer of Albert Peterson standing near his corn.

Yeah, that was really cool. I went, I did get to meet him in person and then got to check out his farm. They're not that far from Acres Mark. And that was fun. One of the things I really enjoyed, I went to ISC for a while. And I'd been into some of their other facilities, but went to their Lebanon facility. And that was really cool. That's a fantastic spot. And they do public tours. So I'm always telling people, if you're up in a urban country and you're trying to figure out what's the next place you want to go to, go to go to Lebanon and go to ISC because you'll learn something about barrel making. And that's important to whiskey. I mean, the I was taking a tour and they Uh, they pointed out, you know, how, you know, we're walking past all these stave yards or walking through the stave yard and looking at the pile of staves and there are all these mushrooms growing on the states. And I, you know, I, what did I know? I said, Oh, you know, what do you, what do you do with those mushrooms? You gotta get rid of the mushrooms. And, uh, I said, no, no, man, the mushrooms are good. We want the mushrooms. because the mushrooms break down some of the chemical structure of the wood and they impart chemicals and all of that is part of the process. You've got to have these microflora in there and these fungi doing their work. And that was something I had no idea about. I had never thought, I just thought Stave Yard was just where they dried the wood. But actually, there's all this other stuff going on. And that was the idea that the mushrooms are really important to whiskey making to bourbon making was blew my mind.

I see that's the backstories you hear about writers and the stories you get to hear and just that behind the scenes stuff that's just so fascinating about whiskey and bourbon and the still really life, you know, is a whole thing. In your book, listeners, I would say that this book is, if you're not educated on whiskey, Clay, you went in here and your glossary and you wrote pretty much everything about whiskey making, every little thing from Esther to what NAS is, which is no age statement, what a mash bill really is, what malt is. what a Rick house is, you know, because whenever I say Rick house, somebody black, what's a Rick house? What a thumper is. You went and really gave a definition for every little thing in here and your book. And then you went into it and made a directory for people that not only of every distillery, but their phone number and their website. I just, your attention to detail in this book is phenomenal.

Yeah. I just wanted, yeah. I just wanted people to be able to use it as a one-stop shop. You know, um, the idea really is, uh, you know, if you're looking to go to Kentucky, you can use this book is very useful, uh, at all. visually, it'll whet your appetite, but also it'll give you the information you need to plan a trip. I don't have hotel recommendations, but otherwise, as far as the distilleries go, you can plan it out there. But then also, if you've been there and done that, hopefully, I'm away and go, I remember I saw that or, or I didn't get to that distillery next time I'm going to go there. You know, that's really, that's really kind of the hope with it, you know, and it and it looks good, I think, which is no, I didn't design it. So

You put a second part to your book in here and it's like all these blueprints and a map of all the pre prohibition distilleries. You put some old labels and some old postcards and stuff that I just, I'm just loving it, man. It's just the history that went into this.

Yeah, I was really happy that, um, Yeah, some of the distilleries were really helpful in terms of just getting some old history. Amir Pei, the guy who owns Lexington, he owns the old Pepper distillery. He's a big collector of old stuff, pepper and not pepper. And so he was very helpful with that. The Buffalo Trace folks have an amazing archive. It's not part of the tour. But it's actually in the Buffalo Trace facility, on their grounds. I guess you have to know somebody to get there. It's awesome. Their archive is so cool. It's posters and it's bottles and it's anything that's ever been affiliated with any of Buffalo Trace, but previous iterations of Buffalo Trace, various names. They've got all that. We have the warehouse C schematic is in there. They have all this actual distillery schematics. It's so cool. If you ever have a chance to go, definitely go to the archive. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. And then we made our own map or we someone at Penguin 10 Speed, they made the map. And so there's a nice kind of fold out map of all the distilleries in Kentucky that we talked about in the book and gives a nice kind of flavor of what geographically we're talking about.

Yeah. It was nice to see that you put that extra effort in or, you know, your publisher did. And, uh, you know, is it a nice package? Um, I love seeing that stuff. This make a great gift for, you know, if you have a spouse or somebody you're looking for a Christmas gift or something like that, where can our listeners purchase this book though? Uh, is it on Amazon?

It is on Amazon. Uh, you can buy it there and. If you do, leave a comment, leave a review. But a lot of bookstores carry it. I tend to look when I'm in a bookstore and they have it. A lot of distilleries carry it too. So if you're in Kentucky, I know they carry it at Buffalo Trace, for example, they have it. You know, some other, uh, other places around, uh, yeah, you know, and, um, if, uh, if I'm ever in the area and someone, someone knows them around, I'm happy to drop by and give us, you know, sign a book for you.

Well, we brought up that you were writing a new book. What's your new book about?

So the new book. I've got finished copy right here. So this is American Rye. And if people have seen some of my other books, they know it's sort of the same design, same idea. I did a book on, back when you can do a book on all American whiskey, one book. I did a book on American whiskey. I did a book on single malt scotch and now rye. And so the front part is history, is some of the same stuff we talked about in terms of drinking and enjoying whiskey. But then the bulk of it is profiles and reviews. I think we have 228 expressions in here. you know, everything from wheel horse whiskey, you know, Rough Rider, River Set, Reservoir, Rabbit Hole, Old Carter, Old Elk, you know, the gamut. And I did all this with a tasting panel and we tasted everything blind. So, you know, this is... There's no bias here, hopefully. You know, everything was tasted. just for the whiskey itself. And I've got some great folks who sit on the whiskey tasting panel with me. And this is also available on Amazon. I actually just, as we were talking, I got a little note, a little text from my publisher that the ship that the book was on... And this is what publishing is like these days, folks. The ship just docked in Long Beach. So which means that hopefully we will... We have been saying November 8th is the pub date. And hopefully that means we've got a month that we will meet that pub date. But these days, book publishing is... It's an insane business because you say It's gonna be here on this date. All books are printed in China or Asia, generally. This book was printed in South Korea, but it has to get on a boat and it has to be unloaded. And you don't know how long that's gonna take. So with the book we were talking about with with bourbon. That was delayed by a month last year because it couldn't be unloaded in California. So it's kind of crazy. But anyway, so it'll be here well before Christmas. Hopefully, people will look for it as a Christmas gift. It was a lot of fun to do. I generally think that rye whiskey... I love bourbon. It's my first love. But rye whiskey is an amazing category right now. There's so much going on. Rye is such a flexible spirit. There's so much range in terms of young rye, old rye. so much character that a good distiller can pull out from any of those age ranges. It mixes well. I mean, I just, I can't say enough great things about rye these days. So, and I say that not because I have a book coming out, but because I love it.

Well, I mean, you got to sell. You definitely got to sell.

I got always be selling, man.

Yeah. Trust me. Everybody's like, can't you stop talking about whiskey? And I'm like, nah, it's, it's, it's in my blood now. I gotta do it.

Yeah. It's kind of never not in my blood these days.

Well, Clay, uh, so we do have, like I said, uh, three of your bourbon, the story of Kentucky whiskey to give away. Um, Where can our listeners find you at?

So I'm, I'm on Twitter, uh, at just at rise and see, and that's spelled like risen, like, uh, R I S E N C. Uh, I'm on Instagram with the same handle. I'm kind of all the, I'm kind of everywhere at that handle. Uh, And also that handle at gmail.com. So rise and see. That's me. I'm also... You can reach me through my website, clayrising.com. I've got a form there. So if you forget everything else, go there. You can email me. I respond. I promise.

Awesome. Awesome. So listeners, this is how we're going to do this. We got three different books here that are all the same, but we got three of them and I want to make sure clay gets hit on three different social media platforms. This is how we're going to do this. Uh, we're going to post this on tech talk. Uh, I'll do a little video with his book. Um, we're going to post this on Instagram and we're going to post this in our private Facebook group, the roadies, you'll have to tag three people for us. I'm not sure if you can do that on TikTok or not. But if you're a TikToker, you'll know how to do it. Tag three people. And you also have to hit a hashtag rise and see for us. Make sure you also tag clay in your post or on the comments in the post. So we'll give away one on, like I said, on Facebook. We're going to give one away on Instagram and one away on TikTok. And I'm going to kind of stagger those. So starting at 10 o'clock tonight, we'll go ahead and. decide who wins. It's just a randomizer. So make sure you go on to each one of those if you wanted to try to win all three books. But I'm going to make sure that three different people get to win. That way we spread the love and we get the word out about Clay's books. Read his stuff. Go check his website out. I'll leave you some comments. Clay, we really appreciate you being on the show.

Oh, man, this is great. I had so much fun. I've wanted to come on your show for a long time.

I can't believe that, man.

No, no. I mean, I knew about you before we met at the Bourbon Festival. But then after that, I was like, man, that guy's cool. He's a cool guy. I want to want to go chat on his website on his podcast. So this has been a real joy. I really, really love him, man.

You told us where listeners can find you, find your books. I can't say thank you enough of coming on here, supporting us, taking some time out of your day to help us out and stuff. So thanks for being part of the Bourbon Road family now. We'll have to make sure we get you a t-shirt. You can rock it there in New York City, Clay. Uh, we'll send you two t-shirts hack. We'll send you the bourbon bullshitter t-shirt and the bourbon road shirt. That way you can walk around there and be like, wow, check that guy out. He must, he must really like some.

I tell you, whenever I wear my, my whiskey related t-shirts in New York, I always get compliments. People always had damn. So yeah, send it. I will wear it. I'll be free advertising. No problem.

You look like a whiskey drinker to me. Uh, you know, you got a nice thick beard and some good, good head of hair on yourself. And yeah, I can see a big rocks glass and some leather chair. Um, yeah, I can see that. I see that.

Yeah. Yeah, man.

All right, listeners, you know where you can find us at. You can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. The main place you can find us is on Facebook, on our private Facebook group, the Bourbon Roadies. You got to be 21. You got to love bourbon. You got to play nice because we don't tolerate any rudeness. That means we don't talk about politics in there. We don't talk about religion in there. We talk about whiskey. You want to celebrate life. You want to celebrate a birth or retirement. Even if you have a loved one that passes away will raise a glass of that family member and say cheers to that life lived in that love of whiskey. So come in there and join that group. We do two shows a week. We do a bourbon review or whiskey review on Monday, sometimes of a craft distillery, but we'll give you a great review of it and let you know whether you should have it on your shelf or not. Then on Wednesdays, we do a long format show. It'll be an hour long and it'll get you to work and back home, hopefully. Like today, we had Clay Rising on where there's an amazing book, Bourbon, The Story of Kentucky Whiskey. We hope you listen to those. The way you want to make sure you can listen to it and get reminded of that, you want to scroll up to the top of that app you're listening on, hit that check sign, that plus sign, that subscribe sign. that'll let you know, Hey, these two jokers got to show out today and you need to listen to it. Then we want you to scroll on down, hit that five star review, leave us some comments because you know what's going to happen if you don't the big bad booty daddy of bourbon is going to come dragging his bourbon wagon to your house. He's going to have some of this wild turkey and some of this castle key in that wagon. You'll drink it all night long. By the end of the night, you're going to give us that five star review. Leave us some comments. We guarantee. But seriously, those comments, those reviews, they get great whiskey in our hand. They also get great guests on our show like Mr. Clay rising here. We really appreciate it. Also, you can check out our website, the bourbonroad.com. You can go on there and purchase off our swag. We also have some articles on there, our reviews. We'd appreciate you if you go on there and check that out. You can contact us on there. You can reach Jim at jim at the bourbon road. You can reach me and Mike at the bourbon road, but probably the best way to reach out to us is on our Instagrams, DM us. He's jshanna63. I'm big bourbon chief and we'll see you on down the bourbon road.

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