321. Jeptha Creed Red, White and Blue Kentucky Straight Bourbon

Welcome to another great episode of the Bourbon Road with your host, Jim and Brian, where they talk bourbon and of course, drink bourbon. Grab yourself a pour, kick back and enjoy another trip down the Bourbon Road.

We are excited to have back once again for 2023 our sponsor Seldom Seen Farms with their bourbon barrel aged maple syrup. Kevin and his staff there do a wonderful job. We're excited to have them sign on again this year to support the bourbon road and we love their product. And with it being Christmas season, we hope our listeners will visit seldomseenmaple.com and check out all they have to offer. A lot of great gifts there. bourbon aged maple syrup bourbon barrel aged coffee rick house reserved barbecue sauce you can buy it by the bottle you can buy it by the case you can even get bourbon maple candle and they even have maple cotton candy definitely definitely check out seldom seen maple.com support our sponsors, support Kevin and his family there. They have a 5,000 maple tap operation in Ohio, and they're doing it right. You know, they don't just produce maple syrup. They're also urban enthusiasts, and we love them to death. Again, go check out seldomseenmaple.com. Kevin and his staff will take care of you. Hello everyone and welcome again to another episode of The Bourbon Road. I'm your host Jim Shannon and I have with me today our new co-host Brian Hyatt. Brian, it's so glad to have you back on your second episode now as co-host.

How are you starting to fit in a little bit? Starting to fit in. Really loving the community on Facebook and social media. Love all the warm reception that I've had so far and looking forward to episode two here for me.

Well, we recorded the first episode at the Bourbon Road Bar, but this is your first road trip. It's not a long road trip. We didn't have to go too far. But we're in Shelby County, Kentucky. We're at the Jephthah Creed Distillery and we've got a couple of guests with us today. We've got Joyce Nethery and Autumn Nethery. And why don't you just take a minute and tell our listeners a little bit about the 10,000 foot view of what Jephthah Creed Distillery is.

Well, thank you so much for having us on. I really appreciate you coming out here and visiting with us. Jephthah Creed is a family run, family owned farm craft distillery where we grow all of the corn that we use in our Jephthah Creed products. And then we distill it. So my husband grows the corn. I distill it and Autumn gets it out the door. So it's a family event, a family business, and we grow our own corn.

So we're going to drink through a number of your expressions today. In fact, you know, one of the things that our listeners become very accustomed to is the fact that we like to get straight to the whiskey. And I'm just going to tell them right now, you guys have laid it out for us here. We've got a whole table full of whiskeys, and we're going to try and get through as many as we can on this episode. But there are standard releases here. There are special releases here. There's a cast strength, and then there's something that hasn't made it to a bottle yet, too, that you're going to, maybe, just maybe we'll get to.

Maybe. We'll see how far we get here.

We'll see how far we get. Well, we're pretty excited today.

And first, in our first class, what do you have for us?

Well, in our first glass is our first bourbon release, first Jephthah Creed bourbon release, which is our four grain. So this four grain is made with our bloody pitcher corn that we grow locally ourselves. It's all 100% estate grown corn. Then it is malted rye, malted wheat, and malted barley.

And the corn content is pretty high in this.

Yes, it is at 70%.

70%. So we can look for a little bit of that corn sweetness in there, I would imagine. And this is about four and a half.

This release that's in our glass right now is approaching four. We released it as a straight bourbon in 2019, just beyond two.

Okay.

And it has gotten to age up as we've aged up. So what is in our glass today is around 3.75 years, not quite four.

Okay. So this has, does have a weak component to it. This has that, which is kind of unusual. You have a little bit of malted rye in here. Not everybody's using malted rye as a flavoring grain.

Yes, it's malted rye and malted wheat.

And malted wheat.

So all the grains except for the corn are all malted.

And we're going to be able to tell for ourselves as we start to taste it. But what do you think that brings to the table? That malted grain?

Well, I think one of the things that we get with our bloody butcher corn is some beautiful earthiness. Um, we get a lot of fruit notes. Um, and we, we have a lot of beautiful earthy notes with our bloody butcher corn. And I think what the malted grains do is just blend with those earthy notes beautifully.

Okay. Well, let's check it out. What do you say, Brian? Let's do it.

The four grain is 98 proof.

Okay. So this is a 98 proof. Is that standard for your four grain bourbon? Yes. Yes it is.

That is what we released it at.

It does have a nice sweetness to it. Kind of a caramel, but an earthy caramel. And you say that's coming from the...

I think it comes from both the corn and the malted grains.

I think the malted grains really complement the earthiness in the corn. It's like they kind of just balance each other out and the notes really blend together really well.

I'm not getting a lot of spice out of it though. I get just a little bit that's probably coming from the barrel.

Yeah, there's a little bit of spice that we get from the malted rye. You kind of probably see it in the finish. We get a lot of pepper, some white pepper, and sometimes some cinnamon in the finish of it.

All right. Well, let's taste it. What do you say, Brian?

Let's taste it. I'm ready. I'm trying to pick out my answer. He's still nosing. Well, you go right ahead.

Now, it's been a minute since I had this one. I think it was my last time over here right before COVID.

Yeah, it must be. That'd be two years ago then. That's a while.

And it's definitely grown up just a little bit.

Yes, yes it has. So what you had before, before COVID would have been the younger expression right about two. So it's got almost two years on it now than what you tasted before.

Brian, what about you?

I really like it. It's easy. I feel like it's a really easy drink, very smooth. I like all the flavors that I'm getting on the sides of my tongue. And like Jim said, it's changed a lot.

It has, yeah, you're right, the spice does come through on the back of the palate now, and that's that rye kicking in a little bit, but a malted rye doesn't have the same spice profile as an unmalted rye, right?

No, I don't think it does at all. I think what the malting process does is kind of take those rye spices, and the spices are still there, but it's kind of smooths them out, and it becomes more of a a smoother experience than what you sometimes get with a rye bourbon or a rye whiskey where the rye is just so in your face. The malting process just smooths it out and gives you a longer, smoother experience.

Well, I'll tell you, this is kind of a story that's playing out across the country among a lot of the distillers that started up in the mid-20 teens, right? 2015, 2016, 2017, who introduced straight bourbons, straight whiskey, straight rice, whatever it might be. And we've had an opportunity as a community to kind of watch them grow and mature over time as they, you know, they first introduced their, their straight whiskeys and then those whiskeys get to grow up a little bit and they hit that four year mark and something starts to blossom. Something just starts to really change. And this is almost to that four year mark. And I'm, I'm kind of excited to see what happens. Are you going to allow it to age a little bit more?

Yes, it's going to continue to get to age up. One of the things that we did is you have to, with bourbon, you have to predict four and five, six years in advance, how much volume you're going to need. And that's like looking into a crystal ball and having no idea. what you're supposed to be doing from a volume standpoint. So as time has gone on, we've increased the volume of the four grain that we've made. So as we've gotten to age up, you know, as a distiller, because we opened in 2016, we opened to the public November 11th of 2016. And we did not source any bourbon since we use this bloody butcher corn. all of the bourbon that we release, we've distilled ourselves. So our bourbon can be no older than we are. And since we opened in 2016, we're only six years old. We just turned six. So exciting. But what that means is our bourbon can be no older than six. And so You say, well, why don't I have a six-year-old bourbon out? Well, it takes time. So this bourbon is getting to age up as we are. And next year in 2023, it will get to be an actual four-year release. And Autumn is excited about getting to change the label.

Yes, that's when I'll finally get to change the label and update it. Looking forward to that.

That's pretty exciting. This does have a weak component to it, and I think a lot of us understand that weak seems to prolong the aging process just a little bit, right? Or it tends to take a little bit longer to...

I think what I am finding with ours, because we have a weeded expression that we started distilling at the same time we did the four grain and the rye. So one of the very, very actually the very first bourbon I distilled once we got started is a weeded bourbon. And I've not released that weeded bourbon yet. I think the wheat versus the rye is a softer, smoother, sweeter grain. And I think it just seems to be taking more time to mature. I mean, it matures at the same rate as everything else. But for those flavor components to be where you want them to be to be released to the public, I'm giving the wheat a lot more time. So the wheat has not been released yet. But the rye, those flavors, those components, they seem to react in the barrel.

It's funny how that works. I hear that from time to time from distillers, that darn wheat's not ready. It just works out that way. And then you've got rye whiskies that are blossoming at two years. I mean, just straight ryes, right? That are just amazing.

Yeah. How does that work? It is. It's interesting. It's really cool how that works, that those differences in those grains and those differences in those flavor components and the chemicals that make up those components and the way they react in the barrel, that they can be so different. But they are.

So Joyce, really we kind of want to learn a little bit about like why did you choose to start distilling bourbon and why did you go down this road and what led you down this path?

Well, my background is in chemical engineering and I have a master's degree in chemical engineering from UofL Speed Scientific School. And I worked in industrial distillation as a process engineer for many years. And we were distilling methylmethacrylate, which is a founding monomer in lots of different plastics and plastics additives and paints and lots of different things. So I worked in that for many years. And my husband grew up as a dairy farmer, and we had a dairy of our own for a while. And when the dairy got It went funky. So we got out of the dairy business, but we kept the farm. We managed to keep the farm. And we wanted to build something for our children that they could use for their careers and their future incomes. And we wanted to incorporate both sets of skills, my husband's agricultural expertise with my engineering and ground to glass distillery is what we came up with.

Wow, that's pretty great. So you're building a legacy for your children.

Yes.

What do you think about that, Autumn?

I think it's really cool. A lot of people tend to ask me, they're like, how is it working with family? Do you enjoy it? I actually do. I really like working with my mom. We share an office. We're kind of close together there. We're kind of always close. But growing up on a family farm, it was kind of the same concept. You're just, you're always working with family. So it wasn't that much different.

I wonder, you know, if that might not be a reason why it works out so well as you farm together to start with, right? Because I mean, a lot of mothers and daughters or fathers and sons have difficulty working side by side together. I mean, that's just, how's it going for you, Brian?

Well, there's challenges at different points in time, but very thankful that I get to do those things.

So you're working with your son?

I actually work with my wife. So, you know, we have a lot of fun and we get to see each other. every day, all day long. And I really do feel blessed with that. My family definitely has a lot of farming history and mainly in Indiana. So I totally understand that perspective of things you do. You're a little bit more tight knit.

But a dairy farm, that's tough work.

It is tough work. No vacations for dairy farmers. 365 days a year, twice a day, every single day. It is tough. There's no taking a vacation or anything.

It's hard to call your neighbors up and say, hey, could you milk the cows while we're on vacation? They're just not going to do it.

Doesn't work that way. Doesn't work that way. But it's also really special and you get attached to the cows and you get attached to the routine and the outdoors and watching Mother Nature. You're very much attached to what the nature is doing when you have a business like a dairy farm. And it works for bourbon too, because since we grow our corn, you know, we're very attached to what Mother Nature is doing and watch it very closely. And this particular year is one of those years that we watched Mother Nature not rain. which is very stressful because you need rain for corn, which corn makes bourbon, so.

It needs sun, it needs rain, and it needs ground care, and you can't do a whole lot about the rain, can you? No, you can't. We know the sun's going to come up every day, but boy, that rain.

It's just whether or not it's covered with clouds.

So what have been some of the most exciting experiences that you've had so far from the concept of wanting to do this up to now? I'm sure tasting the first bourbon that's come out was exciting, but what are some other things that have just been really fun and for you guys to experience?

I guess one of the things for me that was real fun was actually designing our bourbon bottle. that was really a labor of love between all the family members. It's based off a design that my dad drew of what he imagined the bourbon bottle to look like before we even had a building. And as we continued to grow and we put our vodka and our moonshine first before we had bourbon and working in the sales world, trying to get the vodka and the moonshine sold, I noticed things about the bottle that If I could go back in time, I would change. So when it came to actually designing and doing a custom bottle for our bourbon, I took those learning experiences with the vodka and the moonshine and put them into our bourbon bottle, basing it off of the original design that my dad did.

So I mean, it's a striking bottle. I mean, not just the bottle, but the stopper, the label, The graphics for your logo. I mean, everything is just top of the line. It's absolutely beautiful.

I like to jokingly say that that bottle was a year and a half of my life.

Yeah. Well, I would, I would, I would say a year well spent, uh, because you know, that's going to be something that's going to be on every shelf in the country at some point. Yes. And, uh, and I think people are going to look at it and say, what's that? What's that one? You know, or they're visiting somebody's bar and they've got one on their bar at home and they say, what's, what's that beautiful? What's in that bottle there? You know, because it does catch your eye and your logo is phenomenal. It really is good.

We're super proud of it. Why don't you tell them a little bit about what the glass represents?

Yeah. So the glass, the actual drawing that my dad did was based off of the tree of life. So he really wanted to incorporate that into our bourbon bottle, tie in our Celtic heritage with our bourbon. So if you look at the bottle, it actually kind of is shaped like a tree. At the trunk, there is the roots, which tie you to the past. The middle, where the label actually is, represents the trunk of the tree, which is like our present. And then the branches at the top, which reach out over the shoulder up to the neck of the bottle, are our future, and the branches reaching out to the future. So it's very symbolic for us in that way. And then at the bottom of the bottle, if you pick it up and look at it, you'll actually see our family motto, which is naeublae, which is Scottish Gaelic for do not forget. And as my mother likes to say, it represents when you get to the bottom of the bottle, naeublae, do not forget to get your next bottle.

Well, I think it's I'll use Randy's word. Randy used to say apropos all the time. So it's apropos that that naively saying is right there at the roots, right? Don't forget your roots.

Yes, don't forget your roots.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's a family motto. It comes from my husband's side. Before the distillery, I did a lot of ancestry.com and traced his genealogy back to Scotland. And we found that the ancestor that came from Scotland to the US was fighting for the Jacobites in the first Jacobite uprising. And they lost and that ancestor got captured. But for some reason, he wasn't immediately killed. The king said, I'm going to put you on a ship and you're crossing the Atlantic and becoming an indentured servant in the colonies. So he did that. But under those circumstances, he couldn't go home and get the crest. The crest with the Naubles stayed in Scotland. Well, Autumn went to Harriet Watt University, her first year, well, not her first year of school, but we sent her to Harriet Watt University to study in their brewing and distilling program. And while she was over there, she found the family motto and crest and called home and told my husband about it. And my husband got literal goosebumps because he can remember his great grandfather saying, boy, don't you forget where you come from. So it was a family value that had come up through the generations, even though the crest was left back in Scotland. So we found that to be very powerful. And that is why it's on the bottom of our bourbon bottle. So we can ne uble and not forget to get your next bottle.

That's pretty awesome stuff. Very, very cool. So you went to school in Scotland.

I did. When we first started the distillery, the idea was that I would actually be the master distiller one day. At the time, I was 19 years old when I decided that this is the career path I wanted to take. And nobody in the US will teach you how to make alcohol if you can't actually drink it. So I found the program at Harriet Watt University. I went to Scotland, studied. solidified my love for the industry and also solidified the fact that I am horrible, like horrifically bad at chemistry. It just, I didn't inherit that from her, my mother. She's chemical engineering genius over there. I didn't get any of that. I was horrible at it.

I was lucky to be passing the class.

With that knowledge, came back to America, now 21, and as a family we discussed and Went back to marketing. Before I went over to Scotland, I was studying marketing at Western Kentucky University. And when I came back, we started construction on the distillery. So I transferred over to the University of Kentucky, finished up my degree in marketing, and now I'm our director of sales and marketing.

Well, that's good too. That's a necessary skill.

Still very important to the business. You know, actually selling what we make is very important. I think it's really, really important.

You know, Joyce, we sent her, we sent her kids off to university for enlightenment and she was enlightened. Unfortunately, it wasn't what you were expecting, but you had to pivot and deal with it. And now you've got her in a position she loves to do, which is probably more important for a parent than anything else.

You want your children to be doing what they love and what they're gifted for. So I think it's all worked out for the best.

Good deal.

Serendipitous.

You guys built this beautiful distillery here and the campus is phenomenal and anybody driving down Interstate 64 in Kentucky can't help but just jaw drop as they drive by. It's a pretty amazing place. And I would hope that our listeners, if they get to the Bourbon Trail in the next season, that they take an opportunity to come out here and visit you guys and take in this beautiful facility and all that you've done here. That's a lot of work. That's six years ago, you started this process and now you are to someplace different today than you were back then. It's kind of blossomed to become something. A couple of weeks ago, you had a big event here.

Yes.

And you guys, you love your veterans. Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about the event you had. I was here, by the way, but tell our listeners a little bit about the event you had.

Well, we're super excited. We opened to the public on November 11th of 2016, which was Veterans Day. At the time, we didn't realize that Veterans Day was always November 11th, so we were always going to share our anniversary with Veterans Day. But it actually works out really, really well because honoring our veterans is something that is a core value for us that everyone who has been involved in getting us the freedoms that we love and enjoy in our lives as Americans today is something that we honor. So honoring our veterans and everything that they've done and our active duty is something that's just core to us. So for our first anniversary, my husband had grown some blue heirloom corn in addition to our bloody butcher red. So I thought, well, this is cool. I've got red corn and I've got blue corn. I sourced some white heirloom corn and did a mash bill of red corn, white corn, blue corn. And that is what we call our red, white and blue bourbon. So that was for our first anniversary. And we put it in a barrel and have invited all veterans and active duty when they come through on tours to sign our red, white and blue barrels. Well, this anniversary was super special. It was our sixth anniversary. And since we started that red, white and blue bourbon with our first anniversary, we had at least four year old bourbon to release. So we had our red, white and blue bourbon release on November 11th of 2022.

That was a pretty awesome thing. We had such a grand spectacle here with all the vets that came in and they were so reverent and so proud. And they were really like, they bought in totally to that ceremony you had here. Cause it was, it was touching.

Oh, I think it was beautiful.

As a veteran, it was touching to watch the older vets, you know, honor the colors.

And I mean, it's just, yeah, it brought a tear to my eye. It was kind of a sap for that stuff, Brian.

I can't help it, but I just am. Uh, but it was really great. And you guys, you know, you brought out the red, white and blue bourbon on that day. You did an in-house release. We had people lining up for bottles. We got to taste it.

It was a beautiful day.

Yeah. It was really great. I loved it.

So we had the Marine Corps here with the colors, and they did a Marine Corps cheers. They actually did that first with the red, white, and blue bourbon. And we had a few speaking things. So it was pretty cool.

Yeah, it was really cool. But you have that bourbon here now. It's in our glass. Yes. And Brian and I both have had the opportunity to sample this and taste it. And I think we're pretty excited to drink it again.

I'm very excited to drink it again.

All right, so we've got your red, white, and blue bourbon in our glass now. And this has got just a little more color to it, I think. Maybe not. I'm looking at the bottles and they're close, but in the glass it looks a little darker. Maybe it's just a hair darker.

It might just have a hair more color. It is a smidgen older. The average in this is it's all at least four. It's a really averaging around 4.4 years old in this red, white and blue.

So not quite a year older than the four grain.

Okay. Now, there is a little Ryan, a little Barley in this as well. Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. But it's primarily, again, 70% corn.

It is 75% corn. 75. And it's split between the Bloody Butcher, the blue that I call my husband's name, Bruce's Blue, and an heirloom white, which was Hickory King White. that way that we put in there. So it's red corn, white corn, blue corn. Then it is malted rye and malted barley.

Awesome. Well, cheers to your husband, Bruce, for growing the corn that went into this whiskey. Cheers. Yes. Yeah, this has a very deep and rich, rich nose to it. I mean, a lot more Caramel, a little less of the earthiness, I think.

Yes, I think there is less of the Bloody Butcher in here. All the other corns are still heirloom corns, but the Bloody Butcher brings out a lot of earthiness that the white and the blue don't have as much of. So the earthiness part of it is toned down a little bit. And some of the smooth pieces of the white and the blue get to shine through with this.

Now, not a lot of people using white corn making whiskey, right? Most of the time it's yellow corn.

Most of the time it's yellow. There are a few using white. I think the white is considered to be a little bit more old, a little bit more old fashioned. We are now growing the white also. So future releases of the red, white and blue will be 100% estate grown corn.

Well, I think we'll give you a pass that first time going out and having to source that white corn because what you made was absolutely beautiful. You didn't have any on hand, but it was a great idea.

Oh, thank you. I love it.

Great idea. And the veterans that received the proceeds from your release, I'm sure they're very thankful. You went to a good cause and thank you for doing that for them.

I think so. We are very happy to be able to do this. A portion of the proceeds of each bottle of the red, white, and blue is being donated to veterans organizations. This year, they are being donated to the Veterans Club, which is founded and the CEO is Jeremy Harrell. and he is local also and works with lots of other veterans organizations to make sure that our veterans are taken care of and get the services and the help that they need. So we're very honored to be able to do that.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Brian, do you have any good notes for us on this?

You know, from the first time I tasted this, I was very impressed. I was really happy to share it with a couple of friends of mine. We just kind of went around and we shared what we thought about it. And it is a unique taste for me. And I feel like it's another one that you know, it really stands out because it's, it's very smooth for me and the finish is unique. And it's something that, you know, you continue, you want to go back and get a little bit more and you just want to sit and wait and you want to taste a little bit more. And every time you go back to it, you're like, yeah, like it was good. The first time it's better. The second time it's even better the third time. So I really do enjoy this quite a bit.

Thank you so much. I'm so glad you enjoy it.

Joyce, you had some tasting notes on your box. I'll be honest with you, I didn't read them, but you did have on the what?

Sorry, I'm just laughing. We put the tasting notes on the box. You're like, sorry, I just didn't even read it.

Didn't look at it. I'll be honest with you, if you're tasting bourbons as part of Your stick is what you do. You try not to read the tasting notes, right? Because you're trying to form your own opinions. And how easy is it to be influenced by somebody else's tasting notes? So I try not to read them. And that's kind of why I mentioned that. Not that people shouldn't read your tasting notes, but that I didn't because I was a little worried if I did. It might influence my opinion of it, but I am getting, here's my prominent note. Okay. My prominent note is those little sugar covered spice drops. You know what I'm talking about? They're like gum drops, but they have that, they're spicy and they have that sugar crystals on the outside. Kind of like those sour candies? No, they're not sour. Ginger ones? No, they're just spicy like gummy drops. It's an old candy. It's been around for 50 years, but it's nothing new.

It's going to be one of those things where you wake up at three in the morning and you're going to remember what it is and be really upset with yourself for not remembering it now.

Yeah, they're shaped like a little bell. And you always see them at people's candy dishes at Christmas time.

Oh, that sounds awesome. They're the green and the red colors. Yes. Yes. I know what you're talking about, but I don't know what candy it is.

They're called spice drops.

Spice drops, that's it.

That sounds like a good name to me.

Spice drops. I promise, I live a mile from here. I'm going to find those and I'm going to bring you some autumn, I promise.

You're going to come in on Friday and just hand me a box of candy and be like, here you go.

And your bartenders will be pairing those with pours of red, white, and blue to your customers.

Well, that's cool. I think that's a very neat analogy of what the flavor profile is kind of like. I guess we have found on the nose that obviously we have the vanilla and some of the caramels from the barrel, but we also have some fruit notes, some apple, some pear, and a little bit of very, very smooth and beautiful baking spice. And then I think we have on the palette some butteriness. Really, really beautiful that. So a buttery caramel and a little bit of pecan, a little bit of nuttiness going on with it.

Yeah, I think I can get the pears. I think if you were to grill some pears with some honey on them, that might be it. But it does have a spicy note to it. It's got a nice spicy kind of finish on it. And Brian, I like what you said. It does draw you to take another sip. It draws you for that next sip. We will have to move on eventually, but I'm going to try and finish one.

Very smooth.

Definitely the buttery caramel for sure. Like that. That's very strong for me. And that's probably why I really love it because that that's something I enjoy quite a bit. So.

It has a very complex flavor profile. Every time you take a sip, you find something new in the flavor that you didn't get before.

Did you find you had to select and blend barrels very carefully for this one?

This one because it's a once a year release and I kind of envision that if years were a little bit different because each one is going to have Bloody Butcher and Bruce's Blue corn that has been grown in a specific year so we can get some flavor differences. potentially with how the growing season was. I envision that this particular release might have slightly different flavor profiles each year. I'm kind of envisioning it being a release kind of like a wine that you might talk about the year that it was released or the year that was grown, that the growing season changes the grapes with wine. It changes the corn a little bit too. You don't taste it as, as strongly as with wine, because you go through an additional process to distill it, but that there's some of that flavor differences that's going to show up in this expression, I think.

Yeah, and I would think that the corn, this year's corn crop is going to be dramatically different in flavor because of the hardiness sort of the oil, not the hardiness, the drought that it had to to live through is going to do something. Yeah, I think it could.

It'll be one of the first times we get to distill something that's been stressed as hard as what this year's corn has been. So it'll be very interesting to see that. In some years when you grow vegetables and things, you can taste the flavor differences and things and how from an herbal, medicinal herbal thing that they actually talk about how you want the plant to get stressed because it brings out more of the medicinal characteristics that we might see that with the corn, that because the corn was stressed this growing year, this growing season, that maybe some of those, that earthy profile of the bloody butcher is even stronger. It'll be really interesting to see if we see that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're up on a break. We all have still have a little bit of bourbon in our glass. We're going to take a short break here and finish up what we have. And when we come back, we'll do another half. We'll talk a little bit about kind of what the future looks like. And you've got a couple more expressions for us to try. Yes. All right. Thank you. Kevin and his staff here are doing a fantastic job and like we said at the beginning of the show you know they've got a 5,000 maple tap operation. They're a first-generation farmer the passion to produce the very best maple products available. They've won so many awards and they have a very special unique aging method for their syrup and for the barrel aged coffee. They provide quality at a very affordable price. You know, they're not a maple factory or a co-packer. Kevin and his staff there are farmers with a passion for maple. Like I said before, Kevin is a bourbon enthusiast. He's not just a paid sponsor. He's a friend of the show. He's a roadie. and he loves helping roadies get down the bourbon road. Make sure you check out seldomseenmaple.com. You know, they're constantly producing great bourbon-aged maple syrups using barrels from the very best distilleries. They also return those barrels to the distilleries afterwards. Distilleries like New Riff, Leapers Fork, Treaty Oak Distilling, the Bard Distillery, Pine Bluffs Distilling, Mystic Farm and Distillery, Jay Ryger, So many more to come. Kevin and his staff there are just spreading the love, spreading the maple syrup, making it happen. And you know, at the end of the day, those barrels that age that maple syrup get refilled with some wonderful bourbon and make some great maple finished bourbon whiskey. How awesome is that? Definitely check out seldom seen maple dot com. All right, we are back and we spent that half break finishing off the red, white and blue. I have to say, Brian, so far, it's kind of my favorite. I mean, I really like it and I love the veteran aspect of it. Don't get me wrong, but the profile is just very inviting, very rich. I feel like it's got It's got a lot of complexity to it and a lot to offer. You could sit and sip on it and probably find something new every time you sit down with the bottle, which is kind of what I'm looking for in a bourbon. And I don't know if it's the red corn, the blue corn or the white corn. Now that doesn't have the malted rye in it.

It does have malted rye. So that is malted rye.

So, you know, it's got all those things going on and I think they all contribute a little bit, but the earthiness is kind of toned down a little bit on it. I just really like it. I really like it. How many cases of that made it out the door?

We made a thousand cases. So there's 600 bottles.

I mean, 6,000 bottles, 6,000 bottles. All right. So 6,000 bottles out there folks. Um, it's just now hitting the shelves.

Yes.

Just now hitting the shelves. So keep your eye out for it. Um, I probably, I'm going to guess it won't last long once people start to figure it out.

I don't think so. At this point, I can't predict how long it's going to last. We did make 6,000 bottles of it. It is here at the distillery. It is in Indiana at Select Stores, and it's going to be in Kentucky at Select Stores.

And the suggested retail price on it?

$74.99 is the suggested price. $74.99. All right.

Well, we're off to a new bourbon now.

Yes.

And this time you're about to pop us in the kisser, right? This is a stronger bourbon.

This one is stronger. What we've had before, the red, white and blue was at 100 proof and the four grain was at 98. This one that we have in our glass right now, this is a Bloody Butcher's Creed Master Distiller Select bottle. So this is a single barrel. And this is a single barrel of our rye bourbon. The rye is on the shelf. It is a bottle and bond rye bourbon. And so that's at 100 proof. This that we have in our glass is at 120 proof. It's cask strength.

All right, listeners dial back in those episodes a little bit. We had the, um, the bottled and bond Rye bourbon from Jeff, the creed on a little while back and you can get our notes on that there, but this is 120 proof. This is, so this is a batch proof of 120.

This is a cask strength of 120. Single barrel.

Single barrel. Single barrel. Got it.

Single barrel.

Awesome.

Yes. So this is 75% Bloody Butcher corn. It is 15%, I mean 20% of a malted rye and 5% of malted barley.

All right. Bloody Butcher's Creed. Now the Creed is just like the promise, right?

Yeah, that's where we get the creed and our name is a promise because we grow all of the corn that we use for our products on our flagship products. And then when it comes to our flavored vodkas and moonshines, we use all natural ingredients like our lemonade moonshine actually has real lemons in it. Like you can see the pulp in the bottle itself. So the creed is our promise to our customers to be upfront and honest about what's going into your bottle.

Cause you're growing it.

Yeah.

You're growing it. All right. Let's check it out. Wow. And a little bit more, uh, you got to take your time on that nose. It's got a little bit of a pop to it.

Yeah. The alcohol is a little bit stronger here and that rye spice is a good bit stronger here.

This is definitely in my wheelhouse. I like it hot. I like it really hot. Some like it hot. That's what they say. That's right.

And you're some. I'm some. I'm trying to think back. My memory on prior tastings gets a little blurred by the things that happen in between, but I do remember really liking your Baalman Bond Rye Bourbon. This one, seems to be a little bit more of like a fruit, kind of a dark stewed kind of plum raisin fruit.

See, I get black cherry.

Black cherry.

That's what I get from the rye mashmallows.

Not super sweet.

No. No, not like a sucrose sweet, like if you bit into a strawberry kind of sweet, you know, like it's not overpowering of sugar.

It totally depends. I get so many different expressions with a single barrel like this. This particular one, the nose, is not super sweet like you're talking about. But sometimes I have super sweet barrels that you nose it and taste it and say, oh, this is like dessert. This is a chocolate creme brulee that's just got that roasted, toasted sugar going on. This one does have more of the fruit, the fruit pieces in the nose. And to me, it's kind of a toasted fruit.

Now you've got three different categories that you like to break our single barrels into. Which category would you put this into? I'm going to put this one in Kentucky Homestead. In Kentucky Homestead?

Yeah. The three categories that I'm kind of splitting our single barrels into is Kentucky Homestead, in fields of the bluegrass and delectable desserts. So to me, this is Kentucky Homestead because this kind of makes me think of something that's coming out of the kitchen for not a super sweet dessert, but more of maybe a cobbler. You know, there's some things that's been in the oven that has the breading on top and the fruit's been toasted in the oven for a while. That's what this is making me think of. So this is Kentucky Homestead.

It's really nice to have a nose of that while you listen to the description. I mean, it really does. You can really start to pick out the flavor profile on that. You can really pick up on it, which is so unique when you're trying to taste on your own in your, you know, in your living room or with friends and you're talking about it. And then to have that expertise behind it to really tell us what's in this just brings it to life.

Well, it's all your nose and your taste profile. I mean, everybody tastes it a little bit different. But as I was tasting through barrels and thinking about our single barrel program, I guess I'm jumping ahead to future stuff. But we have a single barrel program coming out in 2023. And one of the pieces that we wanted to do is to categorize the flavor profile of these single barrels. And I've kind of come up with those three flavor categories. Because some of the barrels I do find are just beautiful chocolate rich dessert. And then some are that we've talked about the earthy notes that just make me think about fields of bluegrass and beautiful sunshine and blue sky.

Being out in nature.

Air, like I'm a happy place. And this is, you know, Kentucky Homestead where it's something that's in the yard, like the herbs and flowers and florals and things coming out of the kitchen, but it's not dessert.

Yeah.

You know, not necessarily a rich dessert.

Yeah, this just reminds me of like a semi-sweet kind of plum juice or something, maybe some kind of a jam before you add the sugar, right? Yeah. You cook down the fruit to make a jam, but you haven't added the sugar in it yet. It's just a very nice, deep and rich fruity flavor. And for me, that's what I'm getting off of it. Somebody else might get something altogether different, but not a huge amount of like a baking spice kind of things in this, more on the fruity end of things.

Yeah, we've just nosed it so far. So maybe once we taste it, it can bring something else up for us.

It's amazing sometimes when you're nosing a bourbon. You can get totally captured by it and totally get in and you haven't realized you haven't tasted it yet.

Yeah, I find myself doing that.

So let's taste it. Cheers.

Cheers.

That's a very intense flavor. Definitely. Whole palette like. It's not like coming across the front and giving me one thing, coming across the middle, give me another in the back. It's like all at once I'm getting this enveloping sense of tart fruit, but not bright at all.

No, it's deep.

Deep and dark and rich.

Deep and rich. Yeah. I like that, that analogy there. And I think the fruit is still there, but like on the finish, we get some more of the, you get into the spice, you get into some of that baking spice there with that finish and the pepper and some cinnamon. And I think even some, to me, a little touch of all spice.

I might even say just a hint of tobacco on the back. I mean, just kind of that, that, that little bit of a dry tobacco note.

I was going to go with the tobacco. Um, I love the heat. I really do. I love the heat a lot. Like I said, I like it hot and this is, this is perfect for me.

But is this like incredibly smooth for 120 proof? It is.

I really enjoy it.

I mean, it doesn't like burn. To me, you know, they talk about the Kentucky cuddle. This is definitely cuddling. Cuddling bourbon.

You have hot that can really overpower and it's too much. This is not that. This is hot. but it feels good and it's smooth and it doesn't overpower at all by any means.

Yeah. I'm really excited about where things are going. You know, I've had, a unique opportunity. Well, not unique. A lot of people have had this opportunity, but I've had an incredible opportunity to try your products from the time that they were introduced and then as they continued to age and then until now. And hopefully we'll revisit this again next year and we'll get to see how these things are maturing and growing and developing. And I think, Jephthah Creed is coming into its own in terms of having its own profile, something that is not like anything else out there. You know, it's not for everybody and no whiskey is, right? I mean, I don't care if you're Heaven Hill, unless you've got 20 expressions on the shelf, you're not going to have something for everybody. But it's something that you can't find anywhere else. And if you want this, you've got to come to Jephthah Creed to get it.

Absolutely.

And I've got other distilleries that are like that, that I feel the same way about. You know, I mentioned during the break, I mentioned Leapers Fork Distillery in Tennessee. They've kind of got that. that unique, it's only them, nobody else does that. I think you have the same thing and there's a number of places like that. I won't go throwing off a bunch of names, but I think it's really incredible when a young, and you guys are still young at six years, when a young distillery is able to make their mark in the world with a flavor profile that is their own and nobody else has it. And sometimes you do that with yeast. Sometimes you do that with grains. Sometimes you do that with process. Sometimes it's a combination of all three. So you guys really have something here.

Absolutely. I'm super excited about it. And we chose corn as our unique piece. I think that the heirloom varietals of corn, that the different varietals of corn do make a flavor difference. It is something that you can taste and use something you can tell the difference with. So we are super proud and excited to be part of the bourbon industry. And as we were going into this, you know, like I said before, we don't source any bourbon for Jeff the Creed, we grow it and distill it ourselves. And that we deliberately wanted to do that so that we would have a unique flavor profile. You know, we didn't want to be the me too, you know, we didn't want to be the Woodford Reserve copycat. We wanted to be our own unique flavor profile. We wanted to be our own unique Jeff the Creed. And I think having our own Bloody Butcher corn and the unique flavor profile we get with that, and obviously with the red, white, blue, with the other heirloom corns, that we are finding that, yes, it does make a flavor difference, the different corn varietal that you use, and that it is giving us a unique place on this shelf.

I'll talk to any chef who's worth his salt and he'll tell you that it's all about the ingredients, right? It's a hundred percent about the ingredients and those chefs that pay close attention and, and, and work with the ingredients are able to produce things that are amazing for your plate. And I think the same thing's true for, for whiskey.

I think so. I've got this philosophy that when it comes to different varietals of corn, because a lot of people don't realize that what you get in the grocery store is just one small varietal of the thousands of varietals of corn that are out there. I feel like corn in bourbon is similar to what wine, like grapes in wine. Different varietals of grapes give you different flavor profiles in your wine.

Sure.

Corn and bourbon does the exact same thing. And we're finally getting to a point where we've got enough different varietals of corns and bourbons that are coming of age that I can start to show that to people and prove it to them. We did this workshop for a bourbon festival and for a bourbon women's symposium where we actually walked people through different corn bourbons that were made with different varietals, same mash bill, same barrel warehouse, same age, same proof. The really only difference was the corn and they were vastly different flavor profiles and getting to show that and prove it to people and opening their eyes to how corn really does make a difference in bourbon and makes it can make it really unique is really cool.

Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty amazing. So in addition to making your own whiskey, as you said, you make 100% of what you put in your bottles. You also do, from time to time, a little contract distilling. You've got some customers out there, other distilleries, who have leaned on you for your expertise in distilling.

Yes.

Are you able to talk at all about that?

Well, just a little bit. We have done some contract distilling for several different people and it's really like as they're getting started, we'll do and take a contract and do a limited production volume for them.

Yeah. I did want to mention that we had another distillery on the show. It's been a while back, six to nine months ago, we had Burnt Church distilling on, and their Johnny Fever release, which both Mike and I thought was tremendously good. You guys produced that for them.

Yes, we did.

They were pretty proud to announce to us that they got it from you guys here.

Well, we loved working with them. They had some unique flavor profiles that they were doing and the Johnny Fever was one of them, their bourbon expression. They had some other ones that, like their Need of Choice, I guess I can talk about it, that they haven't, I don't know if they've released it yet or not. But it had, it was a complicated mash bill and had oats in it and Carolina rice, Carolina gold rice that we've done some work with and have it aging ourselves. But yeah, it was really unique and we learned a lot, learned a lot working with all those different grains.

You guys have got a state of the art distillery here. You've got some nice equipment, and I guess people, they come up here and they work side by side with you to help develop those things, or is it at a distance? Depends.

Well, they came up with their, yeah, depends. They came up, Burn Charge came up with their own mash bills and just needed to have it produced before they got their distillery up and running. And they needed some volume laid down to be able to open up with, and we were happy to do that with them.

Well, that's really amazing.

So as we look forward to 2023, is there anything exciting that we should be looking forward to, events or any releases, anything like that, that we can prepare for?

Yeah, so in 2023, we will be doing our second batch of Red, White and Blue in November. That will release November 11th of 2023. But we do have some stuff that's coming out in 2023 that will be just limited releases that are available here at the gift shop. That'll be under our Bloody Butchers Creed line. And what exactly those are, I can't quite say yet. You know, we got to keep some stuff close to the chest, but that will be very exciting to have those come out. And as far as events at the distillery go, in the summer we're going to have our Jaminet Jeptha back. We brought it back after COVID this year. We moved it to a once a month Saturday concert in the summer and we'll be doing that again next year. Some more details about that should be out in April.

I'm pretty excited about that because I'm a jammin' at Jeptha regular. I literally live a mile down the road here, so I have been here on a number of occasions. We've had some great music and fun and cocktails and all those great things. Cornhole. I love cornhole. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I love cornhole. But it's always a lot of fun here. You guys have some great events. And I would say that if you're spending that once a month weekend here in the Louisville area, in the Louisville, Lexington area, and you need a place to hang out and have a great evening jamming at Jeff, it's a blast. It's a lot of fun. A lot of people here.

Oh, that's great. We've gotten people that came as far as Bowling Green. you know, three hour drive, and they came just for Le Jamin Ejep the event. It's been fantastic. It's very much regional.

We have some great music events here, some great musicians and people here, so it's always been a good time. And you've got this, what is that, a 60-foot bar out there? I mean, how long?

Oh, it's a very long bar. You can get three bartenders back there.

It's a lot of fun. So when somebody comes to the distillery here just to visit, what can they expect in terms of like a tour, the gift shop, kind of the experience of coming to a distillery, what can they expect here?

Well, we've got three different experiences that they can choose from. We've got our spirit tasting, which is free on the hour. As long as we have availability, you can just walk on. We do suggest pre-booking ahead of time. But that one will just walk you through our most popular products, taste you through those. We've got our barrel tasting experience, which is forty five dollars a person. And we'll put you on a bus, take you back to our warehouse, sit you in some nice leather chairs like what we're sitting in right now. And we will thief it straight from the barrel right in front of you using a whiskey thief. And you get to taste cast strength bourbon that our master distiller picked out. And that experience is really cool. People really love that.

Not a lot of distilleries doing that.

Not a lot of distilleries do that now. So that one is an experience that a lot of people really like. And that one you have to pre-book. You can't just walk in and join that one.

And that should be true for just about everything on the Bourbon Trail anymore, because it's getting to be a lot like Napa here, right? I mean, you can't fly out to Napa Valley and just go to a winery anymore. You'll be sorely disappointed to find out that it's a three-day wait.

There's been a couple of people that have called the distillery asking for help with booking other things. You almost become a travel agent when you answer the phone for people sometimes. And I've been telling them, if you're wanting to go to the bigger distilleries on the Bourbon Trail, you need to plan two months in advance at least. The craft guys, some of them you can get away with a couple of weeks in advance, but really you need to be planning your trip ahead of time, like two months.

Don't show up and expect to get in on a tour. Especially not Buffalo Trace. I mean if you do get in, you're just one lucky person because it doesn't normally happen anymore.

It doesn't.

Yeah.

But then a third experience that we have here that we just added this past fall, we brought it back after COVID, is our cocktail making class. So we've got two different versions. We've got one where we'll teach you to make some vodka cocktails, and then we've got one where we'll teach you to make some bourbon cocktails. And that was really fun.

Wow.

That sounds like something I'd like to do.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Yeah, I would love that.

We've got all the tools you get to use. You get to use a shaker and everything. Yeah, we try to make sure that at least one of the cocktails is a shaking cocktail. So you get to do the mixing and everything.

We need to do that.

I could definitely use some lessons. There's no doubt about that. I usually just drink it neat.

All right. Well, we're getting to that point in the show. I've seen these bottles sitting over there. They got blue masking tape on them, some Sharpie marker written. I know they're not a standard thing. Is it possible, Joyce, that we might have a taste of something special here?

Well, I do have something extra sitting over here. It is very professionally labeled, like you just marked out with the blue painter's tape. But these are samples of the weeded bourbon that we have laid down. These are some of the very, very first barrels that we did lay down when we first opened up back in 2016. And these are not on the shelf. So this is like five and a half years old, almost six years old. And Yeah, we can have a little taste of something to come.

I'm excited to try it. Let's see if we can't get some of this in our glass. All right, folks, so we actually cut away for a moment so we could make all that noise and fill our glasses with this. These little blue bottles, little blue painters tape bottles with weeded whiskey and almost six years old, you say?

Almost six years old.

Yes. So we talked early in the show how wheat kind of takes its own sweet time to mature. And that's part of the reason why you haven't released these yet because you haven't put the check mark on them saying they're ready yet.

Right. I've been holding on to these. Wheat does seem to take a while to develop the flavors that you want in a bourbon that goes on the shelf. So I've been holding on to these and we're planning. We haven't set a specific date, but probably a 2024 or 2025 release. It's going to be in the spring, either 24 or 25.

So we're going to be talking about a seven to eight year old. Yes. We did bourbon at that time. At that time, yeah. And I hope you got a lot of it.

Well, we'll see.

Yeah, I hope you got enough of it. I can get a bottle.

We're talking about enough of a bottle for you. Yes, absolutely. We're talking about bourbon that we laid down back when we were only making like two barrels a day. Okay.

All right. Oh, since you mentioned how many barrels a day, you guys have a capacity to produce what? Let's say you're running around the clock. What can you make here?

Well, right now we're running around, we're talking cooks. We're doing two cooks a day. Each cook is a thousand gallons of mash. So with our two cooks a day, we can produce about five barrels a day.

Okay. All right. So, yeah.

So it adds up. It adds up.

It does add up.

So what we have in our glass right now is cask strength. We haven't actually tested the proof on this, but I'm going to say it's in that 115 to 120 proof range. This mash bill is 75% of the bloody butcher corn. It is 20% malted wheat and 5% malted barley.

Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. So these were thieved right out of your barrels.

These were thieved right out of the barrels about three weeks ago.

Okay.

So they've been sitting on my table for these three weeks.

Well, it's got a nice well aged color to it now. Deep, sort of a deep amber. Nice. It looks like it's got sticking to the sides of the glass just a little bit. So.

Yeah, so it's got that viscosity with it. It's got those legs looking very beautiful that way.

Yeah, when you hold it up to the light, it's really got this almost like amber crystal kind of quality to it.

Yeah, it's very nice. Very beautiful. Let's check it out. This is a special treat. Oh, wow. That's a... It's got kind of a sweet cream kind of nose to it. What do they call it? Creme brulee. Not quite so much brulee. That's the burnt part, right?

Yeah. That's the toasted sugar part.

It's not super toasted, but it does have that sweet cream kind of.

Like the custard. Yeah, custard. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Nice little bit of spice to it. Not too much.

It's a very smooth spice on the nose.

I'm not detecting a lot of fruit notes on it, but if I had to say anything, it might be just a hint of cherry. Not getting much citrus, but there is kind of a little bit of spice to it. That's about all I can get on the nose though.

You know, what I find is interesting too, it changes based on I'm a little bit more congested right now. So like the past week with the weather changes. So my nose is a little bit different right now than I feel like it was last week when I was tasting and doing all that good stuff. So there's a lot of, a lot of factors that can impact the way that you're smelling and tasting. It absolutely can.

Yeah, that makes it tough. Some days, some days you come in and you kind of congested like that and like everything tastes kind of funky and I'm like, how can everything taste so funky? And then I realized, oh yeah, it's not the bourbon. It's me.

I feel like I have a little vanilla. Um, maybe I'm off on that, but that that's what I'm picking up. I do pick up some.

I would say it would be very easy for me to say a vanilla cream, you know, vanilla cream pie.

I mean, 100% the cream. Yeah.

And I think you get some of the meringue.

Yeah.

Like you just have the vanilla cream pie with meringue on top.

A nice, sweet, nice, sweet, kind of soft and sweet nose on it.

I like it. Very gentle, not very overpowering or doesn't attack you at all. Let's taste it. What do you say? Cheers. Oh my goodness. That's like velvet. Very, very smooth and thick. Super smooth again. But it does have a tremendous, um, spicy note to it.

I do get a little spice. Um, I like the way that it coats my tongue. Yeah. I feel like there's a nice coating there to it. Uh, which, which helps with the smoothness.

Yeah. Yeah. I would say it's, it's definitely a buttercream and custard and all those things. That's the lightest note of cherry on there for me. But on the back, had a little bit of white pepper, not aggressively spicy, but.

Just a little bit of warming on the back, back of the throat. Like a little pinch. Little warming. Yeah.

not a lot of citrus, but I, you know, I think it's just, it's just a nice, smooth, soft, weeded bourbon. That's just, it's, it's like what you would expect from a, from a, I mean, I think it's ready to be honest with you. I know you say it's not and that's your call, but I would drink it.

Well, we've got the blessing here of having a single barrel to be able to release it. I need volume and I don't feel like I've got enough volume that's ready at this level.

Well, that's why you're the master distiller and I'm running a podcast.

So I'm going to hold onto this for a little bit, but yes, I think once we decide to release it, it's going to be absolutely beautiful.

Yeah, that's really nice. Again, it's totally different from your other expressions. This is unique in itself, but it's true to a weeded bourbon. This really has those notes you would expect from that soft and sweet profile that maybe has a little bit of kick on the back end. That's a great weeded bourbon.

And some of this kick could be from that cask strength also.

Yeah, sure. It's always good to drink a cask strength whiskey, but you have to keep it in perspective, right? What will this be at? What will you release it at? 90 or 100?

Well, we haven't even determined that yet.

No, it's still just...

It's still up in the air.

...conjecture at this point, yeah.

It's still yet to be determined. We haven't even finalized what age it's going to be yet.

All right. So we've had something now that is not on the shelf and won't be on the shelf for some time. And there's other things cooking in those brains of yours finishes.

Yes, we are looking at doing some actually we have already laid down some four grain bourbon in tequila, tequila barrels. So we're going to have a tequila finished four grain bourbon coming out and it'll be one of the releases of 2023 in the Bloody Butcher's Creed line. So we have a tequila finished bourbon laid down right now.

So is that a tequila that was finished in a bourbon barrel and then that bourbon barrel returned its way to bourbon again?

Yes.

Got it.

Yes. OK. So we got these barrels from Claus Azul. OK. So we tasted it a little bit ago. It's beautiful. Yeah. It's going to be really, really awesome. We are looking at some other barrels to do some other barrel finishing expressions. So that will be coming soon. We also have laid down a small amount of single malt that is getting to age up that we will probably be releasing as a Bloody Butcher's Creed release in the not so distant future.

Are you malting?

No, we didn't actually do the malting ourselves. This is actually a malt that was grown and malted in Scotland. So it's part of our family heritage piece and our connection to Scotland that we did. That's cool. So it's getting to age up. Yeah.

Yeah. It's some exciting stuff. You guys are staying quite busy here. Autumn, I've seen you out at the events. You got some events planned for the spring?

Yes, we've got some events planned for the spring, so if we've got barrel tastings or bourbon tastings going on out in Kentucky, Tennessee, or Indiana, there's a chance I might be there. Yeah, I haven't seen you around.

Come say hi. You do put some miles on that car of yours. Yes, I do. Or plane, I guess.

Plane.

You fly a little bit.

I actually haven't flown that much when it comes to Jeff The Creed. Only a couple at times. It's mostly driving. Mostly because I have to take a bunch of samples in the car with me. Usually my car is always pretty full whenever I have to go to any of these events.

Yeah. Well, guys, it's been a blast. We've had such a wonderful time here with you today.

This has been wonderful. I so appreciate having you out. Yeah, it's great.

Get a sort of a special x-ray view into Jephthah Creed and what you guys have going on. We've drank through a number of your expressions. We certainly haven't tried everything. probably twice as many expressions as we've tried. In addition to that, you've got clear liquors too. Yes, we do.

Our vodka and moonshines, we are continuing to produce. So we have those originals, clear spirits, and we have our flavors that we add to those naturally flavored flavors.

And if somebody is a veteran and they come to visit your facility, they do receive a discount?

Yes, absolutely. Awesome. Every day.

Yes. Pretty cool, huh, Brian?

Yeah, I think we all love the veterans discounts.

Well, guys, a great show, great time here. I hope you'll have us back again as things start to get older and better and you introduce new expressions. We'd love to come back and visit.

We'd love to have you.

Definitely want to come back for some jamming at Jephthah this summer when the weather gets a little bit warmer. I'm going to cuddle up with my blanket on my easy chair and drink a little bourbon this winter. When the spring comes, we may head over here and spend a Friday evening with you.

It'll be absolutely wonderful.

It's a lot of fun. Well, thanks a lot to Christian for organizing all this. We appreciate him and his efforts to make this all happen. It's been a blast to be here with you guys. We love you guys. We love your family. You are locals to us too. So it's always great to have a local distillery on the show and we wish you the best.

Well, thank you so much. We appreciate you. Yeah. Thank you for having us. We appreciate you both.

Thank you. All right. Well, you can find us on all the social medias. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. You can find us on YouTube. You can find us on our private Facebook group called The Bourbon Roadies. We're about 3000 strong there, just a bunch of bourbon loving folks that like to chit chat and share pictures and stories and definitely like to share a little bit of whiskey between us. We have get togethers every now and then. If you're not in the bourbon roadies, we certainly welcome you to come in and join. We do a show every single week where we'll focus on a distillery. We'll focus on somebody who is key to the bourbon industry. We might have an author on or a chef or somebody else doing great work. Today, we had Jeff the Creed on in this family. The Nethery family doing great work in producing wonderful bourbons in the industry. We hope you'll check out every single episode we put out. And one way to make sure you don't miss one is to make sure you scroll up to the top of that app you're listening to us on and you hit that check sign or that plus sign or that subscribe button or whatever it is. Make sure that your application will let you know the next time we have an episode come out and give you a little ding notification and you can come in and listen to us. Every single week, we love to explore bourbon. We love to have you listen to us. But more than that, we'd love to know what you think is important to you. If you want to reach out to us, send us an email. You can reach Brian and I at team at the bourbonroad.com. You can certainly come on our website. We have a contact us page. Hop on there and let us know what you're thinking. If you've got a bottle or a distillery, maybe your hometown has got a little distillery that's just doing it right and you want to shine a little light on, we'd love to talk with them. Reach out to us, let us know. We'll do the work from there. Make sure you're listening to us. I've got a lot of things going on. 2023 is going to be great. We got Brian on board now. We were pretty excited about the next year until then we'll see you down the Bourbon road.

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