331. Old Carter Whiskey Co. - How Do They Do It?

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 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. 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 dot 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 CellroomSceneMaple.com. Kevin and his staff will take care of you. Hello listeners and welcome back once again. This is The Bourbon Road and I'm your host Jim Shannon. Today we have a Brian Hyder co-host with us and we're out on the road today. We're in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Brian, are you excited to be out on the road? Yeah, I'm very excited to be here. I know, it's pretty awesome. We are actually in Old Carter Distillery. This is the headquarters, right? It is world headquarters. World headquarters. Central world headquarters, downtown Louisville, Kentucky, right on Market Street, right in the heart of things. Right next door to Justin's house of bourbon, just down the street from any number of other distilleries. This is kind of where, this is where the heartbeat of bourbon is. And we're glad to have you guys back on the show again. So excited. Mark and Sherry Carter, welcome again to the Bourbon Road.

Jim, thank you for having us on your show.

It's so nice to see you again. Yeah, you too.

We've always had such a great time. I think we were talking about this before the show. I think you're only our second guest now that has actually been on the show. with all three of our co-hosts. We had such a great time at the Seelbach with Randy. That was a wonderful, that's 2017 or something like that, wasn't it?

Yeah. 2018 maybe? 18. 18. Absolutely.

And then we had to join again with Mike and COVID was just rough, right? I mean, it was just a tough thing for everybody, but you guys managed to squeak by and do a lot of great things. And we're going to talk about that today. So.

Excellent.

And we're all on the other side of COVID, at least we like to think we are, right? Yes. And some awesome things are happening at Old Carter. But we want to drink some whiskey today. And we usually like to get right to it. So I'm going to ask one of you to introduce what we're drinking in our first class today. Sure, you want to go ahead?

Sure. If I could see the bottle, I'd be happy to. Yeah. Okay, and I'm not wearing my glasses, but I do believe that we have in our Glen Carons today. First of all, cheers, you guys. Cheers. Cheers.

It's a great Monday. Even though this will come out on a Wednesday, folks, we are at a Monday sitting upstairs at Old Carter. What a great place.

Good way to kick the week off. So what we've got rolling here first is this is a single barrel Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. Aged 14 years, it's got an age statement on it. And this is barrel number one, believe it or not. We're drinking a bottle number 14 of 121. Mark, you've got your glasses on. Can you check me on that?

Yeah, it's 121 proof. No. Oh no, it's actually.

It's 121 bottles. What's that little number in the bottom right? 117.6.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That's pretty close to 121. They're almost interchangeable. I was hoping it was going to be 121.

Me too.

All right. Well, I'm excited to try this. This is typical of your Bourbons, at least in the proof range, right? But the age is, this is pretty elevated.

It is elevated. Yeah, this is one of the, we bought a hundred barrels back when we first got started in 18, actually 17 we bought these barrels. And, uh, we've held onto them and, uh, we release a few of these every year. And so it's been real fun. It has been fun. All right. Well, let's check it out. Cheers. Cheers.

Well, I fully expected to get woke up in my, in my nose, but it doesn't bite at all. It's still just nice and kind of a creamy caramel nose to it. Let's have a smokiness to it that you would expect out of a 14 year old bourbon.

Jim, I would agree with all of that. I'd be in 117. I thought there would have been a little more ethanol, a little more burn. I just don't get that. And that that's exciting.

That's good. We don't like that. We don't like that, Brian.

So, you know, being the master blenders that you are, when you have a single barrel whiskey, it's kind of tough to take one barrel and say, that's the jam, right? But it does happen.

It is tough, actually. And so we've got great barrels, but do they taste like what we like blending? And this really does.

It does. So we have our checkboxes for our single barrels, which really we want that whiskey to taste like a blend with nuances and complexities that you'd find in a multiple barrel.

So you're drinking through these barrels, and you guys have a tremendous whiskey library that spans many years of age, I'm sure. But when you're drinking through these, I guess you come across one and you go, I wouldn't touch it. Yeah. I wouldn't do anything to it.

Yeah.

That's a single barrel.

That's a single barrel.

Wow. I'm ready to taste it, guys.

Oh, we, we were supposed to wait for that.

Well, I'm usually, I usually spend so much time talking and nosing that I forget to taste. Oh, wow. That's really good. It translates very nicely to the front of the palate, I think. For me, that creaminess is there still. It's very viscous. It's nice. It's got a nice sweetness to it, but the spices showing up on the back. Nice balance. Yeah.

Good balance.

Good depth. And kind of what's the mash bill on this one?

We don't know.

You don't know? No. It's got a little rye in it, though.

I think so. We believe so.

Yeah. Yeah, it's got a nice spiciness. Sometimes you can mix up that spiciness from the barrel with that of the rye. Absolutely.

It's unbelievable. We have some mash bills that are like 99% corn, but we get a lot of spice from the barrel because we do do a lot of double oaking and have been since the beginning.

Absolutely.

It's a little dry on the back end, but kind of in a give me a cigar kind of way, right?

It's starting to show that age, that wonderful age that you can only get when it's been sitting around for a while. Yeah.

So what, I know you guys did some ultra-aged bourbons in the past, or at least American whiskey. American whiskey. American whiskey. What was that top age you managed to get into a bottle?

First of all, we are very, very, very fortunate to be able to work with these barrels that we got our hands on. That was also an 18, wasn't it, Mark?

Yeah. And I think that we got 25 barrels. Or was it 20?

I think 20. It was 20. And when we bought it, it was 27 years old. Yes. And we've now arrested all of the barrels. Um, and the oldest one that we've put into a bottle is actually 29 years. 29 years. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. So all the barrels are now emptied, so that counter stops, that aging date stops once they exit that barrel.

Well, the yields were so low, as you could imagine, it just made sense for us to take those out of wood.

Did you get to shake those barrels at all before you bought them, or did you have to buy them sight unseen?

Hell no. No way. They don't let you do that.

No. One of the barrels had like 15 bottles in it.

Oh, wow. Yes. We kept that one for ourselves.

Did you?

Yeah. So your private collection is something that's to behold, right? Our library. Yeah, your house.

Our house, poor.

Poor, yeah. Now you guys have a place here in Kentucky. You still have a place out west?

Yes.

You get back and forth a little bit? Absolutely. So there's been, the weather's been kind of rough out there lately. Have you been going back and forth a lot or spending a lot of your time here?

Mostly the time is spent here. Yeah. You know, I think lucky if I, 10% of the time is out in California. I still have a hotel and restaurant and the winery there. So.

So as, as your winery kind of on autopilot more or less, except for the management oversight that you give.

I'm very fortunate. I got a great team out there and Dan Blaine is the GM there and we've got a new winemaker there, Russell Bevin. And so they're pretty much in charge. I got to go by and, you know, see what's going on a little bit. And I like, I like going out there right now. Our real focus here is on whiskey and Louisville.

That's awesome. You know, Brian, as I sip on this, I'm thinking this is my first bourbon of the day. And a lot of times for me, and this may not be the same for everybody, but for me, that first bourbon of the day has always got that little bit of a bitter note to it because I haven't warmed my palate up yet. I'm not getting it and it just might be the proof. It might be just the, the, the deep, rich flavor that's in this. Um, but I'm enjoying it.

Yeah. I think that's probably the same for most folks. I, uh, I don't get that either. I don't really pick up the bitterness. Uh, I do love the creaminess on the front and I love how it starts to dry off a little bit on the finish. I enjoy that quite a bit.

I know what you mean though. Your first pour usually can, you do have to warm your palate up.

Yeah. Or just that the bitterness you get, you got to say, okay, that's why I'm getting that.

You got to come back.

Yeah. Come back.

But I don't get that here.

No, not at all. Lovely. I love the nose on it too. Just as the glass is more emptied, it just keeps aerating into my nose. I love it.

I like that as the glass is more emptied.

Yeah.

The more I drink is also translated.

I'm kind of like you, Mark. My favorite nose of a bourbon is after I've emptied the glass and going back to the empty glass. You can really smell it.

Yes, you can.

I will say the first little bit that I had on my nose, I was blown away. I mean, it really is a beautiful flavor. For the first one of the day, you do expect it to be a little bit different. It really impressed me quite a bit.

Good. Mission accomplished. I'm happy we started with the Kentucky bourbon, which is the 14-year-old, because it's softer. We're going to work our way up to American whiskey.

It's funny to say, we're starting at 117. We're going to work our way up, right?

Yes.

But this is great. So let's talk a little bit about how you guys navigated that tough period of time we had since the last time we were on the show.

Well, as we chatted about before we got going, you know, we've we've accomplished a heck of a lot in the last few years here and. We. We had the luxury of being able to continue to do our work actually while everything was shut down. So we were hunkered down right here in Kentucky.

We actually got the shop opened up during COVID. The end of COVID really kind of around Thanksgiving of 2020, we opened it downstairs up. And we worked all that year. And that worked out, I think, real well for us. We were fortunate to be able to do something during COVID. Absolutely. And keep going. Absolutely. And blending.

And we made a focused effort on increasing our social reach at that time. We were very, very much embraced that era, if you will, to connect with people as we all did. obviously, but we, you know, it was actually, we had a lot of fun. We did a lot of crazy interviews, YouTube stuff, lots of Zooms, obviously everybody did, but I feel like the whiskey community really was reinforced, right, during that time and all the bottle shares that people partake in and everything. And we absolutely love that part of the industry is the people.

Community is great. I think the industry as a whole had to kind of change the way they operated, just a little bit. But they didn't stop what they were doing. They just changed the way they did it. You know, for us, we're the Bourbon Road. We're always out on the road. That's our whole stick, right? We get out there and we visit people. We couldn't do much of that. So we had to rely on Zoom a little bit. And personally, for me, I felt like I lost that connection a little bit. But man, I tell you what, when you're even on zoom, when you're sipping on a whiskey and you're talking with somebody that. some interesting conversation, you can still make that connection. I think the whiskey and the common topic just makes it, it comes right back. So not my preferred way of doing things, but certainly may do. Yeah, it's great to be able to be together again. Yeah. With each other. Of course. It truly is. Well, tell us a little bit about this place we're in here. So this is, what's your address here, first of all?

Well, it's an undisclosed location in downtown Louisville.

You got to know the password and knock three times.

It really is open by appointment, but.

So it is at 105 West Market, is our location of Old Carter Whiskey Company. We are not open to the public. We are a production facility. We do have a couple other things happening here, but this is where we bottle. This is where we get the whiskey, we blend the whiskey, we distill here, and then it goes out to distributorship.

Old Carter Labs, right?

Exactly. We do our blending here, yes.

So you've got this nice area upstairs where we're at right now. So this is the second floor of your building and it's quite impressive. What do you use this for?

So this is the Old Carter Social Club. As we were chatting about earlier, we have been very busy since we saw you last. And one of the things that we sought to do was to increase production slowly. We've always said, you know, we're going to make whiskey with integrity as we see fit, and we're not going to expand quicker than the whiskey will let us, right? But we've come up with some ways to get some more bottles into the market, right, Mark?

Absolutely.

So one cool thing that we're doing here now that we're downstairs is our production facility and literally it's the seat of the DSP so we're able to sell bottles out of that front room downstairs. So we've done I don't know how many

We'll do some pop-ups about every two months. We'll do a pop-up and we'll do a single barrel or something like that or very small batch. We did a Derby release last year. And so people can come and we give a little bit of notice. Sherry starts posting on Monday and on Saturday we'll do the pop-up and people come and are able to buy a bottle.

And that's been a blast. Those have been fun.

One of the things were so small, you know, it used to be just Sherry and me doing everything. And then we were so fortunate to get Jay Matthews and Brian Booth on board this last year. So now we have crew. That's why we were never able to actually still have a bottle shop or just sell out the front door or do tastings to the public.

Yes. We tried to clone each other, but it didn't work. So yes. And so the social club is yet another channel that we release an entirely different lineup of products. So the social club locker program is such that you can have your locker and you get an email and we have special releases just for you as a, as a locker member, social club member.

So how does it work? I mean, do they, do you, do you, do they make the purchase and you walk the bottle up to their locker? Absolutely. That's pretty cool.

Yes. Yes. And then you come and you pick up your bottles and, and take them with you.

Right now we have folks that actually have their lockers full and they haven't come to town to pick them up yet. But we have other lockers that are empty because the folks have come and picked them up. We promised at least six releases a year. I think we actually did a little bit more than that last year.

And it's been really fun to watch, first of all, to meet a lot of these folks because we've known them often like on Instagram or through social channels, but have not met them. And so they come here and pick their bottles up. A member can bring up to five guests. And we pour, we do tastings for the groups free of charge. So that's a perk of being a member. And it's been really neat to see the groups meet each other.

Sometimes there are two groups in here at the same time. And they know each other because of their Instagram handles or whatever, but they've never met together, face to face, and either have we sometimes. So it's really fun to finally, like you say, after COVID, get to see each other and actually even give each other a hug. Yeah.

That is pretty awesome. So they, they join your club and then they can purchase these bottles on release and have them delivered to the locker. And then by appointment, they can come in and pull from the locker and have us tasting here and you guys will come join them.

Now, the interesting thing is you don't get to open a bottle that's in your locker here. You take it home, but we will open a bottle of what's in your locker and port for you. So you get to taste what it was. deal. It's too good to be true. Yeah. That's great. Cool.

So when someone wants to join the social club, what is the process for that? Do they just reach out and send an email? Do they?

Yeah, they can email. The boys will love it.

They're going to love this one.

You can email Jay, J-A-Y at oldcarterwhiskeyco.com or Booth, B-O-O-T-H Brian Booth at oldcarterwhiskeyco.com.

Right now there is a wait list, so it may take a while. We're working on more lockers so that that will actually happen.

This floor is spoken for.

That's great. So you're telling me, I mean, this is a huge wall of lockers. These are all spoken for.

Yes, and we have a hundred and, I don't know, 50 people on the wait list. Oh my goodness. Wow. So we have to get busy again. Is there another floor? Yes, there is.

And when that one's full, we can go next door.

Okay. So you guys, this building is not just vertically from your shop downstairs. This is also, you move out to the corner, right? So you own this entire corner of.

That was the visionary right here, for sure. When we looked at the building, it was like the fourth or fifth building we looked at that day and I thought, oh, there's no way we're going to, this is not the building. No way. And Mark said, we'll take it.

I looked around and said, I couldn't get a better neighborhood. Look at who's around this week.

No, it's a great, great location.

We got Omni, we got Distilled, we got all these hotels. This is a great little neighborhood.

And that was what year did we get it? 19?

Yeah.

Yes. Well, I guess that's good because you had this big project you had to do and you had all that time to do it.

Exactly. It actually worked out very well.

Yeah. We're blessed. We're very blessed. Very blessed. Well, I want to keep talking.

Oh, we got to pour something.

But I also want to drink.

I can't see past this microphone. I didn't know you were out.

You can push it out of your way. Go ahead.

Oh, good pop there.

Nice little pop. All these have such great color, such great. I'm sitting here looking at four different bottles. We've only tried the one so far, but they all have this just deep, rich, mahogany color to them.

Well, I'm glad that you noticed that because everything we do is barrel strength. And we've talked about that before on your program. And I think that that alone obviously gives us that deep, deep color, but we also do a lot of, as Mark mentioned, the double barreling, which gives it that beautiful color too.

So this, what we're drinking now is actually the first batch of OC. This is the very small batch that went upstairs here to the locker club members. And this was probably a three barrel blend.

Yes, that was another fun project that we did. Since we've seen you last, we started doing these very small batches. So our normal small batches gets a little confusing. So try to follow along.

VSB versus SB, right? Correct. You got it.

So the VSBs are, the first go round were three barrel blends. And I think, well, The goal was to create these very small batches so that each of our distribution channels could receive the entire small batch or very small batch for them for their market. So we're in seven states.

We have seven distributors, but we're in 12 states now. Okay.

So we did these VSBs and it was very cool because we sent samples out to the distributors of ones that they could select from. They didn't do the blending. We did the blends, sent them sample blends.

We sent three different blends out to them. To each one. And then they would pick one. And then we'd get the other two back and we'd make another one and send you know, three more out to the next. It really kind of, you know, slowed things down a little bit, you know, for the first one, but it was fun. Sure. And we got to figure out what they liked. The next time around, we just kind of blended for them and said, here is your batch, your very small batch. That was like odds and otherwise we had been took forever.

It was a lot of fun and it was interesting to see which distribution channels actually selected those flavor profiles. So it was a great project and we've now increased our VSBs to

Five barrels this year to get a few more bottles out to market. That's great. Well, we have a problem sometimes because even our small batches may only be 10 to 12 barrels. And to divide that up seven ways, the distributors ends up starting getting like 200 bottles. And that's not really fair or enough to take care of anybody. So by doing these very small batches, you're starting to talk about almost 900 to 1,000 bottles.

But that's focused on a distributor.

You bring up something I forgot about, but we did have a challenge during COVID with supply chain stuff, and that ended up a series of events occurred that really dug into one of our productions before we were in-house. So when we were producing off-site, we had a big kind of setback. Remember that? Was that in 20 or 21?

um 21 yeah 21 we we really rolled back um it's hard sometimes uh when you have to rely on somebody else you know a spot to do the bottling and that became a real problem because you have to kind of get your dates uh almost a year in advance to be on the bottling line so the big and we're a creative small live team here. Moving, moving team.

Yes, we can't.

You're moving quickly.

Yes, we're moving quickly. We're agile. But we aren't moving quickly until we're moving, right? So how do we know in a year what's going to be, you know, what's going to be going on with what we want to bottle?

So when we came in house, we finally started last year. It's almost been a year now that we've been blending here and bottling here. And it's really made it so each we can do it on demand. It's wonderful. as soon as we think the blend is ready and we pull from lots of barrels, then we can bottle.

For us, I think that's one of the most exciting things that's happened. Now we can really paint whenever we want, right?

Are you still filling out all these labels?

I am doing a lot of them. Actually, one of the reasons we brought Jay on board was because... His handwriting was good. It's perfect.

It looks just like Sherry's.

So you can still claim it, right?

We have had to have some help a few times when we get a big run all at once because as you can, the way it goes is we don't know what the proof is. We don't know how many bottles are in the batch or VSB until we actually blend it all.

Sure. And then. The fun part is when they call me in and actually have me write. And I want to write. I'm going to write my labels again. If you ever see really bad handwriting on a bottle, I did that.

I have the worst handwriting. Actually, the Bourbon 14, that was the last big run we did, right? Jay and I divided and conquered. Yours truly had had a few samples, let's just say. So Mark, if those ones are out there, they're not yours, they're mine.

I think you just need your own font.

I do too. I love that.

You just need your own font and then nobody will know. Exactly. But you'll lose that connection with the bottle.

No, I really do get in the zone writing the labels. I design the, we've talked about the design and stuff like that, but no, it's nice. I send each little heavy horse out on her way to go out, make friends, enjoy the ride.

Well, let's talk about this blend. And Sherry, on this one, I think I'd like to hear yours and Mark's tasting notes on it.

Okay. I'm going to actually, this is like 117.6 on this, and there was 507 bottles made. This is bottle 39.

And a little bit about how you craft a blend. What goes into crafting a blend?

a lot of time.

And, um, well, well, we, we get, uh, actually, uh, we've decided we're going to do bourbon and we bring over how, how many bottles we're going to do. And we can only do at this point, uh, a certain size. Um, you know, we can maybe do 700 gallons. So you figure out how many barrels that's going to be. And for us, we try to hedge our bets and we'll go and get two and a half times that many barrels.

Can you see the table in the other room?

I can see that. A lot of samples.

Those are samples we get.

And then we taste through all of those. It might be 50 barrels for a 12 barrel blender. So we'll taste and we'll select the ones we love. And then from there we'll start blending. Trial blends. Trial blends.

So is there kind of a method to it? I mean, do you say, okay, we need to find the base bourbon. Let's find the base. No, we don't do that.

Not really. I mean, I think that just when you think you get it figured out, you don't know anything. Right? Your formula kind of goes, ah.

Yeah, we'll try. We know what we did last time. So we'll look at those notes and we'll figure out maybe also we'll get these barrels and these barrels and different charts and all these different things. And you start blending it together and say, well, that really didn't work. We'll pull some of those out and put something else in. Because you'll taste it and say, well, for us, it may be too big or too small or not sweet enough. Unbalanced. It's not balanced.

Something comes forward that, yeah, throws it off.

It's such a craft. It's such a skill that you guys have. I mean, we've played with it. We've had shows before. We've had blending contests. And have our listeners join in. And we'll have a master distiller come in and join the tasting panel to grade them. It's hard. Everybody thinks they've got this plan. I'm going to take this one, and this is going to be kind of my core, and then I'm going to get this one to give it some spice, and then I'm going to bring this one in to tone it down and add some sweetness. It doesn't work that way.

No, it doesn't, Joe. It doesn't.

But, but it's fun, but we can all try.

And it's a lot of trial and error. It really is.

It's just, I mean, we, we did 23, you know, different blends on these, some of these very small batches and we're only doing three of these. So we're up to 23 already that we tried before we decided.

I think we even got to 24, but that one didn't.

Didn't make the cut.

Yup. We get to 24.

So we'll, we'll just keep working at it until it's what we like.

We've gotten up to like 50 ridiculous amounts.

and sometimes still blending on the way to actually the bottling plant, you know? Say, do we put this one barrel in or not? Or we'll pull that one out. Is this a little better than this?

You know?

I'm going to throw a crazy tasting note at you, and it's going to make me sound like a total fool, but I'm going to explain why I'm getting that. Okay, because I've got one for you too. I'm getting like carrot cake. But I don't think it's because of the carrot cake. I think it's because of the vanilla cream frosting. The cream cheese frosting.

Well, that's interesting because I was going to throw out unfrosted strawberry Pop-Tart.

We're a total different...

But it's still in that bakery goods kind of thing.

Help me out here, Mark. Yeah.

Well, I got the cinnamon roll with frosting on it, no. Yeah, because I'm going to hit the herd with the master blenders.

Which Pop-Tart though, for real? Yeah, I like cinnamon on it. Well, I just recently found out that Pop-Tarts originated in Ohio, in Cleveland, and I'm from Ohio, so I was a bit of That's what I- A bit of pop trivia.

That was my breakfast a lot of times when I was growing up. Exactly.

You know, I didn't know that. I'm from Ohio too, but I'm from Southwestern Ohio.

Okay.

But you're from North Eastern Ohio, right?

Eastern Ohio, yes. Yes. It's a pretty cute website. Yeah. Literally Googled that the other day.

When y'all are looking to do your blends, like Sherry, what is your go-to? Like, what are you looking for? Probably... It's very simple, isn't it? Yeah.

It just has to be delicious. Delicious. I mean, if you're trying to... That's a really good question, first of all. And I think that it goes all the way back to, you know, what is old Carter? Old Carter is never going to be the same thing twice.

We knew that when we started because we're very small. And when you do these very small batches, you can't, you know, just if you had a lot of barrels and you dump them all together, you know, you're going to get the same thing a lot of times.

Or like brands have profiles, right? And a consumer comes to that brand because they want that consistent profile. They want it to be the same every time they like that about it. We aren't going to ever be that, but what we better be is really good every time. Does that answer?

Just a strong focus on quality. You want to make sure everything that's going out. Complexity.

There's balance. There's balance. There's complexity. There's depth. There's richness. There's sweetness in there. You have to have that viscosity. We love that thickness. And that's why everything we've made is at least seven years old or older. You know, because it really helps.

And sometimes when we are blending, we'll do a blend and it'll be so interesting and unique. And we'll think, OK, that's really like out there. Do we go with it or do we go with something that may be a little more?

Yeah, it can be a little more. Let's push it a little bit this way. You know, um, we know some people will like this, but, you know, uh, we're really liking this and it's, you know, maybe a little bit more, more wood influenced a little.

you know darker sometimes and some are a little bit more lifted and variety is a spice of life isn't it it really is it is that's like jim said i mean it's just it's impressive that that you all have the skills to be able to continue to to pick these and to blend them and put out just amazing bottles we like making impressive we do we like making stuff and

We really try to make really good stuff every time. We really do. We won't turn something out if we're not really proud of it. We stand behind what we do.

Yes, we do.

So you guys have been doing this now for six years or so, along the whiskey side of things, right?

Well, you got to go all the way back to the first one, which is 14. 14. Which went by 11. We started with the first brand. Okay. So we've been, we've been cutting our teeth for a long time, blending, and then we go back to blending wine. And Sherry had, you know, her brand, which was Ruby Courant, and she blended her wines. And I've been blending wine and we just, we, we, we are blenders is what we really truly are.

So who's the old Carter customer? You guys have got? 200 and some people who come up here.

I like to say people with impeccable taste.

Yeah. I say people. I say everybody's our customer.

I am just kidding. I think it's, well, that's a really good question. I think it's folks who really appreciate the quality of maybe the smallness of the brand or the thoughtfulness was a word I think you used. I mean, They're all our friends. I'll tell you that right now. But, you know, it's where we're enjoying what we're doing. And it's like I said, the club has been a neat way to meet those folks. I feel like our locker members are the most passionate kind of core collectors there. It's been really fun.

So they connect in as much with the brand as they do with the whiskey itself, right? I mean, Kind of a little bit of both.

And with each other.

Yeah, and with each other.

And I think we all have that in common. And I think they give us so much by telling us what they like that we do. It keeps our passion going.

Yes. Yes, absolutely.

That's an awesome way to end the half. Thank you guys. So we're going to take a short break and finish off what we're sipping on. And when we come back, we've got two more Oak Harder Expressions. Folks, we definitely encourage you to check out seldomseenmaple.com. That's seldomseenfarms. Kevin and his staff there are doing a fantastic job. And like we said at the beginning of the show, they've got a 5,000 maple tap operation. They're a first-generation farmer with a 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 their barrel-aged coffee. They provide quality at a very affordable price. 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 seldom seen maple.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 Riger, so many more to come. Kevin and his staff there 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.com. Get yourself. All right. So we're back. We, we managed to make it through the half and drink off the last of that previous pour. That was some amazing whiskey. What do you think, Brian?

It was, it was amazing. Absolutely.

And we're excited to try these next two you have in store for us. They're all just as deep and dark as the first two and. What do we have in our glass now, Mark?

Well, this is the batch 14, which just was released in Kentucky and picked up by all of our distributors this last week. And so this is bourbon and it comes in almost the same as a lot of our stuff at 117 that is for a small batch. Never cut, never filtered, barrel strength. There's 3,046 bottles of this that we produce.

This is actually the largest small batch we've ever done.

3,046 labels, Sheri. Yes.

Wow. That's correct.

All handwritten. That's amazing. I'm just surprised that you guys are able to hang on to that handwriting of labels for so long.

But as mentioned, I've definitely got help now. I am not doing them all by myself.

That's pretty amazing.

But I do love doing it.

And what's the, uh, what's the MSRP on this way?

We've never, uh, really truly raised the price in our, uh, everything should always be. If you can find it on a shelf and it was like 200 bucks or one 99 or one 95, uh, in some states, they actually I've seen it in Baltimore and places like that at one 79 are released price, unless it's a single barrel or something with a really old age statement on it. Yes.

Well, I mean, as it should be considered, it's a premium whiskey. It's something that people seek out and they want to find on the shelf. You don't always find it on the shelf. I know we've got a number of spots that we've toured around with you going into liquor stores before, and you're always hoping to see that bottle of old Connor on the shelf. But sometimes, you know, it gets snapped up. Pete, there's a lot of people waiting for your releases. And now 3000 bottles, I can remember when it was 1100, 900, 1200. Now you've upped the game just a little bit.

A little bit, a little bit. And I think our small batches will continue to stay in that range. We like to do, I mean, how much was in that rye batch? Do you remember the last rye?

Rye 10.

Yes.

I think I was around 24. Yeah.

Ish.

Yeah.

Give or take. So I think we're up a little bit, but we're never going to be.

Well, we are working on a space where we can store our own barrels. And the next step is really being able to actually sample them as when we need to and see when they're ready and start blending. But we'll also have maybe a bigger bottling line. We're doing everything by hand downstairs. It takes actually eight people. If we have eight people, we can move along pretty fast. And we have a lot of friends. Yeah. And they come over and help. Thank goodness.

Yes.

So another building altogether you're thinking about.

Yeah. We're working on it right now.

Will it be in the Louisville area? Yes. So you want to be able to walk down the street?

It's not quite walk down the street. It's within 10 miles. Ride your electric scooter, right? Yeah.

I see these things all over the street down here. I love those. I haven't tried one though. Please don't. I think they're dangerous.

I think they are.

I've tried it one time.

I said not for me.

I'm half tempted, but I get injured real easy nowadays. The older you get, the easier it is to hurt yourself and the harder it is to recover from it. That's great advice, Jim. The only interaction I've had with one of those scooters is I was talking and walking and tripped over one. You didn't even have to get on it to get hurt by it.

I didn't even have to get on it, I got hurt. That sounds like something I would do.

All right, well, let's check out this whiskey, guys. Cheers. Cheers. Yeah, that's really nice. I mentioned toffee and caramel and actually more of a butterscotch.

Yep. So what's really fun about this, this is that 14. Yep. This is our latest bourbon release as Mark mentioned, and this is a 100% double-oaked.

Okay. So tell us about that.

Well, we're very traditional with our barrel program, but we do like to add a second barrel to the life of the whiskey, and we think it does a lot of wonderful things for it. In this particular blend, we had gone through several versions of it, and many did not have all double-oaked, but this one did.

That was fun.

And it's a fun throwback.

Tell them about it, Mark. A couple of things. So all of our first brand, which was Kentucky Owl, they were all double-oaked completely. And then when we started Old Carter, we said we were going to bring a lot of that with us. And we said, well, maybe Sometimes they may be too much maybe it's not and so we're very fortunate when we discovered we're going to make rye one day and we brought all the samples in but we should house at house at the bourbon we did you know we double oak that stuff all of it. You know, it's coming up on a few years and let's, let's, let's try that. And so we tried the rye and we looked at each other and we said, Oh my God, we can't put this in the bottle. We can't blend this. We can't do anything with this yet. It's not ready, but let's try the bourbon. And we both look at each other after we tried the bourbon and we go, Oh my God, this is amazing. And we were able to blend that, and that was all 100% re-barreled, double-oaked. And that was batch five, and we just fell in love with it. And when we started working with this bourbon a few months ago, we go, oh my goodness, this is amazing.

It reminds us of something.

It reminds us of that batch five. And so we tried some stuff, and we even had some that wasn't re-barreled that we put in the mix. We said, well, I don't think it's good. And we pulled it out and we said, we can say this, you know, cause we've never told people a lot of the stuff we do, you know, that this was double oaked again, a hundred percent. And this one is, and we can tell people this right up front, that this is 100% double up barrels with toasted heads, which we don't say a lot about either. Not because we want to keep things secret, but we're just making stuff that we love.

Well, you can drown people in details, right? Yeah, I think so. But let's talk a little bit about what that second barrel does. So what does that second barrel do to an older, well-aged whiskey?

Well, I think it makes it magically delicious. I mean, it can do a lot of different things. Sometimes it's too much tannin. I mean, it's all over the place. Barrels are barrels. And just when you think you know what they're going to do, they surprise you. They do surprise you. They do surprise you. But I don't know, Mark. I never thought about it in that specific way. I think it brings a lot of depth to it. It brings richness.

When we did the first brand, the only thing we could say, we thought that it would actually add a lot to the stuff we had at that time was pretty young. So we said, well, we'll throw new oak at it. And this is back in 2011. Nobody had actually really done that. We did the research and Woodford Reserve did it at the same time. Now they only kept theirs in the barrel for a little time. We kept it in a lot longer. So they came out with a double oak before we did. And we never even told people what a double oak was.

And I think that came from our wine background. It did. And really knowing the nuances of barrels, what that imparts in a wine. So it was a natural thing for us to do.

So these are all American oak barrels. Yes. You're not doing anything with exotic oaks or anything.

We're very traditional at this point. And we just love American oak. And we're trying different things, experimenting. But we just love this profile. You know?

All right. Well, I'm ready to drink it. I guess you guys have already sipped on it. Yes. No, not me. I cheated a little. I did have a little sip.

No one reminded Jim to drink. You gotta remind me. Drink, Jim. Cheers.

Love you.

Oh, I like it. That's, um, That's got a lot more in the middle for me. Um, not still not, it's not going to be sweet upfront for me too much, but in the middle, I'm getting a little bit of that Necco candy. We just talked about sweetness. Yeah, it's sweet, but it's, um, It's got sort of that, uh, I don't even know what you say about Neckos, but it's kind of. Which color Neckos? Are they, are they different flavors? Yes, they are. Kind of a little bit, right? But they're subtly different.

Well, you can get two different ones. They got the colored ones and then they got just kind of the dark ones.

I'm a flavor chaser, Jim.

Yeah. I guess you're right. I just sort of eat them in groups. So you two or three at a time. So the flavors kind of blend.

Hold on, hold on. You mix your knuckles.

I mix my knuckles. I just found some of those the other day. Oh, another one's pop rocks, by the way. And I'm getting a little bit of pop rocks here.

Okay.

It sizzles just a little bit, but that's it. What is it? A hundred and eighteen proof? Ish. 117. 117. Okay. 117.

I just love the wood profile on this.

Yeah, it's very nice. And again, this is some of the double-oaked whiskies in particular, like the Woodford and like the one from Old Forester. They kind of get in that dessert range, right? They can get a little bit more chocolate marshmallow-y kind of. I'm getting a little bit of that, but not too much. This is more Rich.

This could be the bill on this one.

Yeah.

Because this is high corn.

Yeah. Is it? All corn, yeah. Yeah. So. We love that too. This is a little bit more rich, middle of pallet kind of. It's just, it's full of flavor, very full.

We thought so too.

Yeah.

Yeah. We thought it was big enough and then we said, you know, let's go with it.

Usually our final, um, final discernment comes when we're really down to it. And then Mark, I will have Mark hand. glasses to me blind and then I'll do that for him too. So at the very end we literally do it blind if we're trying to spoil hairs.

So how do your palates differ? That's a good question. How do your preferences differ? Let me ask you that first.

I don't know if they really do. Because we ended up with this, it was unanimous, the two of us.

I remember a time, though, you would have Sherry's batch and Mark's batch.

That was only with the Rye.

Yeah, with the Rye.

Even, you know, batch 10 Rye was, again, us together. Uh, I would always, I, I felt, uh, rely on Sherry's, you know, um, you know, her nose now on her aromatics. Uh, cause I think women, you know, a lot of times have better, you know, sense on, you know, when, with smells. And so I'd say, what, what do you think on, on the nose? And, um, I'm all there. I love nose, but I do love mouth feel. So I'm really heavy on mouth feel, but I'm sure he is too. So I think, you know, we're closer than we always ever thought.

I think so too. And, and I think that, um, Again, it comes down to a quality level. And you want all of those things to come into play. And I feel like we've done this for enough time where we can really make sure that all the band members showed up for band practice that day.

You know, it's, it's fun too. When we taste, you know, through those 50 barrels, when we're doing a, you know, you know, 15 barrel blend or something, you know, we do the tasting notes. I'll let you lead one and I'll lead one and our tasting notes are the same.

But it's funny because when we get, when you taste through the barrels, we do it totally quiet. So we're just listening to music and we don't talk and we just nose and then taste and take notes. And then we say, okay, let's talk about it. So then we talk about it. And as Mark said, it's, it's really, we, we nailed like, you know, barrels are like in camps for me.

Okay. So you're saying they're like in camps for you. So that means they fit in a certain like slot and you kind of set them aside for that slot.

Well, they just are. I don't know about setting anything, but they fall into camps for me.

And do those camps have a purpose? Like you say, okay, I need something from that camp in this particular blend. I know I'm going back to the same question again.

I love it, but you can put it on paper and think, okay, this is a sweet barrel. This is a savory barrel. This is an exotic barrel. This is a woodsy barrel.

Yeah.

And then you can say, well, we need the Woodsy now, we need this now. And then you put them together and they're like, well, that sucks.

I'm just two sweet barrels, two of the best barrels you got. You put them together and they cancel each other out.

I'm just thinking of the listener out there that's like, how do they do this? I would really love to know how to do this.

How do they do it? People will pay us a lot of money to come and learn to blend with us and we're not going to do it.

I don't know about that, but paying us a lot of money.

But you'll take a lot of money if they offer it. I'm just throwing it at them.

Oh dear. Oh dear.

All right.

It is Monday Motivation. I guess Mark's on it there. It's a lot of fun.

This is great. It's a new week.

I love this. I really do. I'm sorry to say. I guess I've had a couple tastes now, but I'm really very happy. And also, it's the newest release, so it's exciting.

We're always excited about the new baby in the house.

Well, it's the one we haven't had much of, right? So it's just brand new.

So this is something that is different from the other two altogether. Very much so. In its own way. Most of your whiskeys, and I think the first three, are all in that camp. is that they all have a good medium to long to... In the case of this one, I'd definitely say it's a long finish on it. It definitely keeps calling, beckoning you to come back.

Yes. That's our... Oh dear. That's our...

The little hair stands up on your head.

Mark's in the zone. Mark is in the zone. That's our LF, long finish. That's our code LF.

Yeah. That's important because that's what keeps people drinking the whiskey, right?

I mean, we like it.

Yeah. It actually solvates you. It's important. It's important for us. And that keeps it going. Yeah.

Well, they're not sessionable whiskeys. They're not porch whiskeys. These are things that are just, you've got to, you've got to visit and drink and enjoy and appreciate and put back on the shelf and come back and visit again. Absolutely.

They evolve actually, you know.

Unless it's batch three American whiskey and you... And it's COVID and you drink six cases yourself.

Oh my God.

I would know about that from experience.

Oh my goodness.

I mean, it took a long time.

Yeah, but even then it could probably burn your palate out just a little bit, right? No.

No, not even a little bit? I am one with the American whiskey now.

I didn't tell her to slow down a little bit. I said, we can sell that stuff.

Stop drinking finished goods.

Drink the samples. Make your own blend. We got tons of samples in the closet here.

I would think they've got like shelves and shelves.

That was during the, that was literally during the lockdown.

Yeah. So. All right. So three down, three soldiers. Well, we won't say soldiers down cause there's still quite a bit of whiskey in those bottles, but we've, we've managed to taste through three of your whiskies and, and now we're onto number four. And this is the, the famed and spoken about American whiskey. We've had to kind of work our way up to this one. This is Sherry's favorite. Well, favorite, not expression, favorite category.

No, it's not necessarily my favorite.

No, you just got COVID with it. Yeah, I got her through COVID.

I just had a fling during COVID with it, yeah.

You had a fling.

Yeah. No, I love our American whiskey. We've had a lot of fun with that category. Oh my gosh.

I just nosed it, by the way. That's what that oh my gosh was all about.

Uh-huh.

Wow. Totally different. There she is. There she is. There she blows.

Yes. And I think these Americans do have a special place in my heart because the very old Carters that we were able to get our hands on.

And these are pretty old too, the blends in these are real old. There's as much as 16 year old in this, but there is also eight year old in here.

And let's talk a minute. Again, we're always trying to educate the listeners just a little bit and let them know the differences between different categories of whiskeys. This is an American. Yes. And it's an American because? You know, there's a couple of reasons.

It's usually entered into the barrel over 125 proof, and it goes into a used barrel. Either one of those things makes it or both. Right. Makes it not bourbon. Yeah, makes it a whiskey.

Because bourbon has these little rules that make it bourbon. And if you break any of those rules, you have to call it an American whiskey.

Exactly. Light whiskey, American whiskey, yeah.

Kentucky whiskey.

Yeah. We have a Kentucky whiskey. So yeah, those things are interesting.

Pioneer whiskey. Wait, what was that one? Yeah. Yeah. Something.

Uh, actually frontier whiskey is bullet.

Yeah. Frontier whiskey. Yeah. But, but those aren't true. Um, you know, categories, you know, legal category.

No, they're more fanciful. Yeah. Once you cross the line and you know, don't do this couple of things, it's all whiskey and everything's whiskey. Anyway, even bourbon is whiskey.

Well, I've always been a big fan of American whiskeys. I've been a very big fan of your American whiskeys, particularly since starting to drink them about five, four years ago. Is that about right? When did you introduce your first American batch one? When was that?

We did that at...

I think it was in the 18.

18. I think in the fall of 18. Yeah. We did, I think. It was definitely fall.

Yeah, I can remember it was a little bit cooler outside. You guys came over.

Did we have it at the sail back?

You had it at my place at my house. And I remember you came over and we recorded a show. We had a grand time. It was such a wonderful day, such a wonderful evening. We had such a great time. And then, you know, it was over. It's time to go home. And then Mark comes back to the house again, knocks on the door and he's got a bottle of American number one and hands it to me and says, you need to have this.

And it was so sweet. Well, you guys did such a great job. Every time we went out there, you'd give us food and conversation and friendship.

Yeah. So we've had a couple of great evenings together, whether it be at a restaurant or at the house doing a recording. But it's always fun to hang out with you guys. We always have a good time. about the relationship, right? It's about that time you spend with other people. Whiskey is important and it's that connection that we have. And great whiskey or good whiskey or great whiskey either way is amplifies that connection and makes it all the much better. We've always had a great time with you guys, always had a lot of fun and I know you get around. You guys are traveling about and meeting people and having tastings and people are coming to your wonderful social club here and what a wonderful life. Congratulations on putting together probably one of the best gigs people have ever had.

Yeah. We like to keep it interesting.

Yeah. I love actually American whiskey because it's 99% corn. Ours is anyway. Yeah.

Yeah. So what's the other 1%?

Uh, malted barley.

It's got to be malted barley, right? Yeah.

Yeah. We, we do that the Kentucky whiskey too, which, you know, again, didn't go into a new barrel, but

So Kentucky Whiskey is what? Define Kentucky Whiskey for me.

It's whiskey made in Kentucky. Exactly.

Any whiskey made in Kentucky.

Not a particular match bill or anything like that.

Ours is. Ours is. I think we came up with that crazy category. I don't know about that, but we named it. Nobody would name theirs Kentucky Whiskey.

Well, the reason we did, and it was a choice.

Yes, it was.

As you can see, the tax stamps on these bottles are different colors, right? So we've got the blue for whiskey, red for special releases and kind of club releases, black for bourbon and green for rye. And the reason we went to that was because our original tax stamp was, they were all the same. And it became very difficult to tell the difference on a back bar. Right. And so this was fun, but blue was designated for whiskey. Okay. American whiskey was the only whiskey we had when we made that stylistic choice.

And that was high proof.

Yes.

Very high proof. This stuff. Usually always over 130.

Yeah. And then we had this lot of Kentucky whiskey. Now it fell into the whiskey category. But it certainly was not the profile of our American.

Our first batch was like around 117 or less. Very soft. It wasn't high proof. No, and a completely different profile. So we came up with a decision together that if we put American on there, people would be disappointed.

Yeah, they'll be like, this is completely different from the last American whiskey that we got from them. So it happened to be from Kentucky. So it made sense for it to be Kentucky whiskey.

Awesome. The crazy part now is though, our Kentucky whiskeys at 130 and above now too, which we're happy about, but, and it's, it's, it's fun because, you know, it's a different profile. They are different match bills. Yes.

That's so great. All right, so let's talk a little bit about this place we're in again. I want to go back a little bit. So you're doing your bottling here. You're thinking about kind of moving that out to another location so that you can increase capacity, get more bottles out to your fans.

It's really hard and thank God for J Matthews downstairs. That guy is like, you know, he fits every little pallet into every little crevice you can possibly get into. We can't do any more here. That's impossible.

He's the production ninja, but he's working with what he's got.

Cheers to Jay Matthews. And upstairs here, it's all about Brian Booth.

Brian heads up the social club. And he's heading up the social club. And Brian, we did get a chance to meet him downstairs. I hadn't met him before. But he brings kind of a great asset to what you guys do. Absolutely. Great team. Yeah. It gives you guys a little bit of time to think about what's next, right?

Well, we've been able to focus a lot more on blending, frankly. And being able to, our production schedule is clipping along.

So everybody knows that you purchase barrels, you go out and you source prime barrels from the market, but you also have a still. Yes. Can we talk a little bit about your still? Let's talk a little bit about your still and why you are distilling here.

Well, I enjoy distilling. I think it's really fun. It's a very small still. We made a choice a long time ago not to build a distillery. We have friends that have really great distilleries.

You could put our still in your eye and not feel a thing.

But that's okay. But it gives you guys that hands-on kind of knowledge.

No, it's part of having a distillery. You have to have your still. You have to have it. It's a requirement.

We have a true DSP here and have had it for a year or two now. But we do have other friends that we've been putting up our distillate since 17. And they have big stills. And they have the space to store them.

And wonderful people to run them.

Yeah. And we can still tell them what we would like as a match bill.

Yes.

So that's fun.

So you obviously prefer to do contract distilling. Of course. Well, you love finding those wonderful gym of barrels sitting in rick houses and places. That's always great. Yes. But when it comes to having... How many barrels have you had produced in, say, the last six years or so?

We're probably at 400 produce for ourselves. And you haven't really tapped those yet. No, because they're, you know, we really love about seven year old and this is only six years old now, coming up on six years. So we got one more year and then we'll start doing our own. uh, distill it, but you know, uh, as Sherry, um, and myself, we both love, you know, purchasing great barrels and thank you for even asking it. Cause the first thing I always say, if I ever meet anybody that has a distillery and has barrels for sale, you know, uh, give me a call.

And sometimes they do.

Yeah. We probably have a few of them on the show that do. A lot of even the small craft stores are having trouble keeping up with demand. I mean, they do. That's true. But some of them, and some of them do have excess capacity and when they do, hey, reach out to Mark and Sherry. They'll be happy to talk to you. Please pass that along. We love new friends. But Mark, I'm going to tell you right now, I want you to invite me down when you're tasting your white dog out of your still.

Okay.

Because, you know, it may not be going into the old Carter bottle right now, but I'd sure love to taste some of it. It is fun. I will. He enjoys it. Yeah. I will save you a little bit.

And I think that was a surprise. You didn't know how much fun you were going to have doing that.

Yeah. It was day and night getting our 600 gallons produced. You're a regular popcorn sudden, right?

And when you're going through that.

And he didn't blow anything up.

When you're going through that, how often are you tasting? I know some folks are constantly checking and keeping up with it.

Once you get the temperature up and everything, you're there. It's at the beginning and the end really truly when you're tasting it, if it's changed.

No, you're tasting it all the way through. It was a very casual activity, I'll just say that.

That's fun, though. That's just fun. I think it's so awesome you guys did that. I really do. I think that's important. I think you had to do it. Like you said, the rules kind of changed, and you were directed to do that. But nevertheless, that's kind of cool that you get to.

Yes, it is. And I thought, I think that it still tastes really actually very sweet and good. I like it. I'll make American whiskey is what I'm making.

I ain't making bourbon. You have a set of coveralls or anything?

I have several.

I'm going to buy myself. Actually, my grandfather used to have a really great kind of coverall.

Oshkosh?

I don't think so. I think it was Big Mac or something like that.

I like the Duluth Trading Company. I'll shout out to them. I collect their overalls.

Well, guys, I'll be honest with you. I don't have a favorite tonight. I will say that the blend, the one OC blend was special, very special. I love the American Always. It's such a great pour, but they're all great. I wish we'd had a rye today. I wish we did too. I wanted to show you that. Maybe somewhere down the road. We'll get another rye from you. We'll be doing rye again.

We're really proud about that batch 10 rye. Yes.

So what's on the shelves right now? Now, obviously, sometimes these bottle shops will have, you know, holdovers from previous releases, but I mean, what can people expect to see on the shelves right now? More than likely.

that bourbon 14 just went out.

American 10 is there too. I saw a bunch of it go out, especially here, right here in Kentucky. I saw the, you know, where everything went and a lot of people got some, you know, 14 and American 10 and nine, because 10 and nine went out together.

And next will be the very small batches in each of the separate distribution.

So how often do you have, uh, releases going out. Is it every month or two, every couple of months?

Well, it's, um, I think, you know, we're looking, trying to do something every month, almost every, every month or two.

At least every six weeks. We're pretty, going forward.

And they can follow you on social media. They can follow your website. Do you have announcements on the website? Is that pretty much just your shopping?

No, it's mostly through social. So we're Instagram, Old Carter Whiskey Co, Facebook, same thing. Pretty easy to find out there.

I've seen, I've seen your website though. It's, it's all your old Carter gear. Yes.

You guys have a little merch shop.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, uh, you've got quite a following. So I'm sure that stuff flies off the shelves anyway.

Jay's another, uh, that's the other thing.

You know, we, we don't even have time to keep up with the merchandise, you know, and Jay's and Brian, Brian's starting to take that over.

We do sell merch when we do our pop-ups. Okay. So bottles and merchandise, which is fun.

But they can buy it on the website.

Yeah.

All right, Mark Sherry, thank you so much for being on the show. We appreciate it. As always, we had such a great time with you guys drinking your whiskey, which is phenomenal. Listeners, if you have a chance to pick up a bottle of old Carter, let me just ask you real quick, who can rattle off the states?

Well, I can get pretty close. Okay.

Let's do it.

Okay. So we got, uh, we'll, we'll start with first Kentucky, then DC, which has Maryland and, uh, Virginia. And then we went to California and then after California, uh, we were lucky enough to go down to Louisiana, New York, New Jersey. Then we, uh, picked up, uh, tennis, uh, Atlanta, uh, Georgia, and then, uh, Tennessee.

And are we available online anywhere? We don't know. We don't know. I'm sure there are.

I'm sure people are selling us stuff online somewhere. We don't sell online.

Right. OK. I didn't know if Sealbox had you or somebody else.

Wait, maybe? I don't know.

Yeah. Probably so. At some point, if somebody wants to get one online, they probably can find it, right?

Yeah. All right.

Well, anyway, great. Wonderful to have you guys on the show. We appreciate it. Thank you for having us in your house. I hate that it's been so long since we had a show together. You're here now. I'm here now. I just need to put that behind me, right?

Yes. We just love you guys. And this has been fabulous. And Bourbon Road is the best that we go so far back.

Yeah, we do. That's unbelievable. Well, Brian, where can people find us on the internet?

So you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and even YouTube.

Yeah. We are doing TikTok now, thanks to Tyler, the man, the myth, the legend, the fellow who knows how to make TikTok just happen. We're glad to have him because now we're rocking TikTok and we've actually had some pretty good posts on there. So check out our TikTok, check out our Facebook. We've got a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies, about 3000 plus listeners that love to hang out and drink whiskey and talk about it. There's no bourbon selling on there, no whiskey seller. But you can share it. We encourage you to share it. Share whiskey with your friends and have a good time.

And Jim, we're going to ask them three questions when they want to join.

That's right. You definitely have to be 21. That's right. We think you ought to like bourbon. I hope so. You definitely need to play nice because we don't accept any rudeness in the group. If you come into that group and you chop somebody off at the knees for what they're drinking, you're probably not going to last a day. That's why we're only 3,000 members and not 30,000 members because quite a few people come in there and misbehave. We'd love to have you come in and join us, hang out with us. We do a show every single week, every Wednesday. We'll put out an episode. We'll have guests on like Mark and Sherry. Sometimes it's just Brian and I sipping on a bottle or a couple of expressions. Sometimes we'll have a country music artist on or a chef or an author. It's always a fun time. We hope you check us out every single week. Brian, what do they have to do to make sure they don't miss one?

So you can go to any of the streaming sources, whether that's Spotify, YouTube, Apple, and you're gonna look for the subscribe button. You're gonna click on that button and it will notify you each time that we're releasing a new podcast.

Well, we'd love to have you listen to every episode. Make sure you reach out to Brian and I. You can always find us at team at the bourbonroad.com or just head to the bourbonroad.com and hit that contact us page. If you've got an idea for a show, an idea for a guest, if your hometown has that little distillery that's just doing it right, it's stepping out of the box, we'd love to shine a little light on them. Let us know about it. We'll follow it from there. Until then, we'd love to see you all down the Bourbon Road.

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