332. Toe Tappin and Whiskey Sippin with Firebird Bo Garrett

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 sponsor. Support Kevin and his family there. They have a five thousand maple tap operation. in Ohio, and they're doing it right. You know, they don't just produce maple syrup. They're also bourbon enthusiasts, and we love them to death. Again, go check out Selvam Seed Maple dot com. Kevin and his staff will take care of you. Hello listeners and welcome back to another episode of The Bourbon Road. We're once again in The Bourbon Road's bar. Got our co-host with us, Brian. Welcome, Brian. Thank you, Jim. Happy to be back. Yeah, it's always good to sit down here and grab a few Bourbons. We've got four of them lined up tonight. We've got a special guest in who has been on The Bourbon Road once before. I think you've even been on a live event once on Facebook or something, maybe. I think you did a little bit of a gobble box riff on a Facebook live event or something at one time. I think I did. Yes, I did. But you're back again. And just to introduce you, we've got Bo Garrett in the house. Tell us a little bit about what you do today, Bo.

The actual title that I have is called Executive Brand Builder, a wild turkey distillery. Brand builder could mean anything from leading a VIP tour to wiping down the bar once the day is closed, but I really enjoy it. I was listening to your episode when you had Bruce on and he couldn't remember the title. He's like, I'm not sure what they call him. He's like, I think it was brand champion or something. Next time I see him, I want one of those WWE bell sprues. He's a brand champion. But yeah, that's what I'm doing now. I'll be running the bar one day. As a matter of fact, I saw you recently when I was running the bar, but I'll take care of VIP events, lead tastings, lead tours, whether it's a VIP tour or your standard tour.

Not only have you been at Wild Turkey.

I think five years. Obviously, I've been around the business a lot longer than that, but about five years that I've actually been employed by Wild Turkey.

Well, we're going to get straight to the whiskey here. Like I said, we've got four Wild Turkey products we're going to drink through tonight. We've got some good ones. We've had some ones that have been on the show before, but we're going to drink through them with you. And you helped us choose these before the show. I don't think there's any bad choices.

Well, there's never a bad choice of Wild Turkey. That's kind of what I was thinking.

I don't think I've ever had something from Wild Turkey that I was unhappy with. Now, there are some that are better than others, but I never had one that I was disappointed in, and I've been drinking Wild Turkey since 1981.

I've had some that blew me away.

Yeah.

Like, holy cow, I didn't see that coming. That's great.

Well, this is our warm-up tonight, and I think our listeners might know what's coming down the pike. I warm up with this bourbon on a regular basis and it doesn't matter what I'm having on the show. I always like to go into a show already having had a pour. Primarily because if I don't, I get that first bitter note of the day from whatever I'm drinking and I don't think that's fair to the bottle I'm reviewing. So it's always nice to have that warm up bourbon. What do you warm up with, Brian?

Well, a lot of times I will warm up with the JTS Brown.

Yeah.

We all know I like that one quite a bit. So that's usually a good one to go to, but I do agree. This, this is a nice warm up.

This is definitely a nice warm up. And what about you Poe? Do you warm up at all or you just go straight for it?

I do like my one on one. Yeah. It's just a good all around bourbon.

It is. It absolutely is. Well, cheers fellas. Let's warm up. Cheers. Wow. It's always good. It's always got that nice spice to wake up the palate and it's not too strong, not too hot. It won't overpower whatever you're going to have next, but it's not, it's not wimpy either. It's kind of a little bit of a bite to it. So good every time. I think it's probably, for me, the most versatile bourbon out there.

Yeah. I said it's, in just my opinion, of course, but I think it might be the most underestimated bourbon that there is. Yeah. Because people have applied some kind of stigma to 101. Like, oh, I was in college. And I started telling people, man, because I'm flying the 101 flag every day. I want people to realize, no, you're missing out.

Yeah.

When people start talking about their college days and one-on-one, I'm always like, one-on-one wasn't the problem. I think you were.

Before the show started, I was telling you, we had a Wild Turkey tasting about a month ago. There's probably 100 plus people there taking the tasting, and a few of them were from Wild Turkey. They work at the distillery there, and of course, they didn't announce themselves until afterwards. But, you know, our tasting was called, why not wild turkey? And the reason we did that was because it still has that stigma, like you said, like a lot of people think, oh, wait a minute, isn't that that college whiskey? Isn't that that biker whiskey? Isn't that that bad boy whiskey? And everybody, you know, from the eighties and the nineties has, we have those memories of those nights that we probably shouldn't have been part of.

Oh yeah. Everybody that you talk to when they, I always, when I lead a tasting and one-on-one's part of it, I'll hold the bottle up. And before I say anything, I can look at that crowd and you'll see at least two or three people. They get that look on their faces and I'm like, I've never made some bad life choices right there. Cause you're not going to win a fight with it if you try to fight with it, but that's not what you're supposed to do with it to begin with.

That's absolutely correct. So I, you know, it fared very well that night. All the wild turkey expressions we had fared very well that night and they, we, you know, we took it, we took votes at the end. Which one did you like the best? And you know, that's a matter of preference, right? Absolutely. And, uh, I will say that wild turkey one-on-one got its fair share of votes. So. And that's because it sits right in that saddle around a hundred proof. It's not too hot. It's not too weak. It's kind of right there in the right spot.

I agree.

So Bo, what, what was the reason 101 is at 101? Why did it end up at 101 proof?

Well, what I was told by Jimmy Russell is, you know, I get questions all the time, but where did the name come from? That was, as I think everybody's pretty well aware at this point, it was actually a wild turkey hunting trip. And the way it was explained to me was that there was a gentleman who was working for Austin Nichols. They were going on a hunting trip in the Carolinas. And even Jimmy said, I don't know which one of the Carolinas it was, but I know they were in the Carolinas. And he just pulled some stuff out of the barrel. And the way Jimmy explained it to me, he was pulling it out of an eight-year-old barrel. that happened to be 101 proof. And that's how that name came about, you know, people asking him. And I totally believe this part because, you know, being here in Kentucky, my whole life, it's been that thing. If you don't have a name for something and you brought something that I love, the next time I saw you, I'd be like, hey, you got any more of that wild turkey stuff with you? Because that's what we were doing. We had it. And I think that's probably very true about how the name came about. But yeah, supposedly it was a eight year old barrel that just happened to be 101 proof when they pulled it out of the barrel.

And I think I had heard something along those lines. Now, you know, you hear a lot of fables in the whiskey world. But I had always heard that 101 kind of was at one time kind of the barrel proof. You know, that's kind of what it came out of the barrel at.

I could see that because they were going in typically at 107. Yeah.

And it tends to lose a little bit of proof. Well, depending on the floors, right? Yeah, where it's at. So if it's up on the higher levels, you're going up. Going up in proof. And it's down in the basement, not the basement, but the ground floor. It's going to go down in proof. Right.

It's like if you see like, say a Booker's, it's 128 proof. you can't legally go into the barrel and 128 proven to be bourbon. Right. So you're looking at something that, you know, some people say ages faster or whatever, but your evaporation is mainly water and it happens up top.

Yes. How hot does it get up in the top of the, you've been up in the top of the brick houses in the summertime.

I have, and it's horrible. Um, I don't know the exact temperature. I want to say Jimmy told me one time that he measured the temp and it was well over 120 up top.

Now, are there fellows or gals, are there workers at Wild Turkey that have to go up there in the heat and work on those barrels if they need a little tending?

Six or seven people I think it is. Six or seven maybe. Maybe even eight on a barrel team when they go into those warehouses.

Yeah.

And their job is to inspect the barrels and see which ones need a little bit of... Well, those people generally go in just taking them in and putting them out. Okay. That kind of thing. That's usually what those people are doing.

So they're not... If you got one that's leaking and it's just going to leak, is that the way it goes or...? It shouldn't. It should get reported.

It should get reported. I've seen barrels in there before, like I don't think anybody's told them about this one yet. Go back and just, Eddie just shake his head like, let's tell us that.

I think I'd always heard that, you know, barrels require a little bit of maintenance over their lifetime.

Yeah.

Yeah. And they can spring a leak and you need to do something with them. Now I don't know what that something is, but.

I know that. Kentucky Cooperage was kind enough to bring us over and let us see them do the entire process of building barrels. It was kind of cool to me to see toward the end there. They check them to see if they're leaking or whatever and have you. And the guy was like, do you know if we got a leak between these things, what we do? He said, cattails. Cattails. Because it has to be organic. You can't use anything. You can't use glue or any kind of sealant. And he said, yeah, a male cattail. They'll slide it in there. And when it gets wet, it'll expand. close that gap between those two states.

Is it like the stock of the cattail? That's the blade.

The blade. Oh, yeah. I didn't know which one was male and female. Didn't even know there was a male and female cattail. He said it's the one with the corn dog on it.

Got it. Yeah. And that's what I think about when I think of a cattail is that corn dog.

I didn't know there was two different ones. That's the only thing I knew was the one that had the corn dog on the end. Evidently there's another one too. I swear. I learned something new every single show. Did you know that Brian?

I did not. That is so cool.

Wow. It was bizarre, but yeah, they would seal up leaks like that because it makes sense because you can't do anything organic. I would imagine now if you got a leak in the middle of the stave, they've always got those little, looks like golf tees.

Yeah.

You could put a little hole and seal that back up.

Yeah. Well, that's something else. So I was down at Wild Turkey the other day, and like you mentioned when we first got on air here, going through the gift shop. And the gift shop's not currently at its main location. It is not. You're at the temporary location, which used to be the old gift shop, right?

Yeah, it was the original first visitor center that Wild Turkey ever had. If anybody's listening, it came to that little yellow house back in the day and saw Jimmy sitting over in that living room on the couch. That's where we're back at now. He told me it opened in 1988 as Wild Turkey's visitor center back then. Originally built for the train master is what it was for. So the house is one of the oldest houses in Lawrenceburg. Yeah, it still looks great. Looks great.

We've done a little bit of work on it.

Yeah, a little bit of work got done to it before we moved into it, so yeah.

Well, it's nice to see you there. It was kind of a surprise. I came around the corner to the bar and you were pouring some great drinks. Not only pours of bourbon, but you're also making some cocktails there.

Yeah, doing a little bit of everything back there.

I did get my leather wild turkey hat while I was there, Brian. I've been wanting one of those.

And it worked. You wore it well. Yeah. It worked. One of my favorite Jimmy stories, when you saw me back there at that bar, I don't know if you noticed, but behind me there's a doorway pass through going into the kitchen.

Okay.

Jimmy, when he visits, loves to give me a hard time. If I see Jimmy 99% of the time, as soon as he lays eyes on me, the first thing he does is look at me and go, well, who woke you up? And I was parking the bar back there one day. And I saw people across the bar looking at me, talking to me about what drink they were going to get. Started to laugh. I'm like, what in the world are they laughing about? This is serious business. I felt something hit me in the back of the head. And I turned around and looked in the kitchen and Jimmy was in the kitchen with that cane poking me in the back of the head.

He's got that sense of humor, doesn't he? I love him. Yeah. How often does he get down to the gift shop there? Or you call that the visitor center, I should say.

Yeah. Because that's all we have right now as a visitor center. I love to be in there and talk with people. And I still tell the stories and that kind of thing with them. So I love that part of it. Yeah, I still call it that. But hopefully, we're hoping to get back up as soon as possible into that big one.

So what kind of renovation are they doing up there? Just a once over on it, or are they completely redoing it?

Very much the same when you pull up to it on the outside. It did have to have a new roof put on because we had some tornadoes that went through Louisville back last summer. And my manager went in and she said she found the corner of the roof laying over in the yard. So that had to be done. But now the inside is going to get a redesign. Imagine if you would.

I didn't know that. The tornado that came through and lift the roof off my barn. went down to Wild Turkey and did a little damage. How about that?

We just got the straight line stuff, but still it was strong enough to take the corner of the roof off.

Yeah, I don't think we actually got the tornado here, but yeah, my barn roof actually lifted off. It pulled every nail out of my roof, lifted the roof up in the air and then set it back down on top of the barn.

Well, I guess that helped a little.

Well, it was nice that I still had a roof on my barn, but they had to take it all off and put a new one on.

So this was a perfect square that it took off over there and just, she said it just laid it over in the yard. When people come back to visit though, that big glass into the building will still be there. And hopefully that part of the building will be utilized in an even better way for guests because they love that view of the river, man.

Yeah. Yeah, that's really something there. It's not cliffs, but it's just an overlook on the river there.

It's not a bad way to come to work every morning and see that sun coming up over the river behind that bridge. That's a pretty cool view every morning.

Now, do you live on this side of the river? On the Turkey side of the river? I live on the Turkey side, yeah.

You live in Lawrenceburg? I do. It takes me about eight minutes with traffic to get to work. Oh, tell me about that traffic in Lawrenceburg. I said something one day, the manager, she lives closer than I do. And somebody said, how far do you live? I said, I can get here in about six minutes. She goes, six minutes? She said, how do you get here in six minutes? We're not talking about how, I just said I can get here in six minutes.

All right, well, let's check out what we got in our next glass. And you actually picked it out, right, Beau? I did. Picked it right off my shelf. I think your eye went straight to it. You did say that you haven't really had an opportunity to spend any time with this one, right?

No, this is actually the first time I've had a chance to try it.

All right. Well, this is the Wild Turkey Diamond, and this was a tribute to Jimmy Russell for his 60th anniversary at Wild Turkey as master distiller. I don't know what he's at now. 68? 68 years.

In the business.

So if we want to date this bottle, it's about eight years ago, right? Oh yeah, 60 years at Wild Turkey, not as master distiller. Right, he became master distiller in 67. Okay, so we're coming up on that would be 40, 50s. It will be 60 years as a master distiller in 2027.

And the way he's going, he'll be there. He'll be there.

Just come on down on a Saturday and say, hey, Jimmy.

Now, a lot of people don't realize that when he became the master distiller over there, it was J.T.S. Brown at that point. It was a different distillery. It sure was. Because he got there in 54. And in 54, that was Anderson County Distilling. And then he was only there for a year and it became JTS Brown, which is why when you hear people say the McBrayer Rick Houses over across from Four Roses, those were Rick Houses that belonged to us. Right. When you hear people say the McBrayer Rick Houses, a lot of people think that that is in relation to Judge McBrayer, had nothing to do with his distillery. That location was referred to as McBrayer. Yeah.

That was JTS Brown Rick Houses. So how many different Rick House locations does Wild Turkey have? Three. Three. Well, I mean, I count the Tyrone as one big footprint. So that's the main distillery site.

Yeah. That's both sides of the road. Over by the distillery and on the other side of the road, I count all of that as one. Then you've got over across from Four Rows, this is what was J.T.S. Brown there. And then, of course, the legendary Camp Nelson rick houses.

Camp Nelson. Nicholasville.

That's Nicholasville, right? Close to Garrett County heading out that way.

Yeah, it's right across from the cemetery there.

Is that right after you cross over the Kentucky River again? It's like right there? It's right before. Right before.

Yeah, if you're going toward the water from there, you're right before. Because that was, those rick houses belong to, believe it or not, Canada Dry Distilling Company.

Oh really?

The old Curly distillery used to sit down there, you know, where the bridge crosses the Kentucky river and the old EJ Curly one was down there right on the river. Uh, but Canada dry was making Kentucky bourbon.

EJ Curly has been resurrected. That's what I heard. Yeah. Yeah. Well guys, I'm ready to, I haven't, I haven't had the diamond in probably more than a year and I'm ready to try it again. So this is a 91 proof. And for me, it's kind of really gentle on the nose. It is. Nice and soft. Still tell it's Turkey though. Oh yeah. It's definitely Turkey.

I can tell. Just, yeah.

So a fine tribute to Jimmy on his 60th anniversary. And there's still, I mean, I think I bought this bottle two or three years ago on the shelf. So you can still find this kind of stuff in the wild if you have your eyes open.

That's good.

Punches above its weight just a little bit. It does.

Nice spice on that. I like that.

Yeah. It does have a little bit more of a sort of a backend bite to it, doesn't it? It's kind of soft up front though, a little bit. Wow.

I was going to say that a little soft on the front, but Finish hangs around first. This is good. Yeah, very good.

I should have done my research. I didn't really have the time to research this bottle and get back up to date on it from the time you picked it off the shelf until we drank it. But I would imagine that it's got some eight to 12 year old whiskey in it because that's what Jimmy loves.

That's his window, yeah. He'll say that he thinks eight to 12 is about the right spot. Yeah. Whereas a lot of people would say, well, had some of the stuff coming out there recently.

Well, I like this 17 new bottle of Bond.

13 is not a bad number either when it comes to wild turkey products.

I think 13 is a real good number. So where do the three palettes sit? I'm talking about Jimmy, Eddie, and Bruce. Where do their palettes sit individually?

Jimmy is big on consistency and he wants it to be consistent from bottle to bottle to bottle. That's his thing. He'll talk about it being clean, basically meaning what we love about non-shield filtration is what he doesn't love about non-shield filtration. He wants a nice clean finish, likes the sweetness. I think Eddie prefers it a little spicier.

Yeah.

And you know, I know Eddie's the son, but he's, he's got a true love of the old school way of doing it. Uh, like if it was up to Eddie, I think it would all be non-chill filtered and barrel proof and like that's the way it was made. So the Russell's single barrels more Eddie's. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and like, even if you, um, If you have a Russell single barrel beside a rare breed, rare breeds Jimmy's baby, right? You'll notice the viscosity is different and that Russells, even though the rare breeds at 116, some of those Russells, man, they're like, here I am. Eddie likes that. Oh yeah. Bruce is a rye person. He loves his rye whiskey.

He does. He does. Like you said, he was on the show not too long ago and we drank through some rye.

Eddie gives him credit for, Eddie gives Bruce credit for kind of pulling him into doing more rye stuff and getting more into rye whiskeys.

And there's been some tasty ones that have come out and we've got one for the show today. And I think it'll probably be the last one we drink towards the end. Is that it? I don't remember the proof on it, but it's going to be 104. Was it 104? You sold me that bottle.

And I'm telling you, it's one of those if you can just get people and I'm, don't get me wrong. I'm not like the biggest rye whiskey fan in the world. I would be more likely to. lean Jimmy's direction, you know, or what have you with that kind of thing. But when I tried that one the first time, I was like, Holy smoke, this is fantastic.

Yeah. Is there one ride that sticks out to you more than others? Is that the one that kind of takes first place from Turkey products? Yeah.

I think so. I think it is. When I think about all the other products, don't get me wrong, like you and I were talking for the show, as far as a good versatile rye whiskey, you can't, it's hard to beat one-on-one rye.

What about the Cornerstone?

I loved it. That one was powerful to me. That one lets you know you were drinking rye whiskey when you touch that one. I told Eddie one day, I said, I loved it. I said, love the taste of it, but I was ready to quit tasting it before it was ready for me to. And I finished for days on that thing.

Yeah. Well, you know, we're sipping on this diamond. I'd like to start chit chatting a little bit about your life before Turkey. And, uh, you just happened to play for Montgomery Gentry for awhile. You were the guitarist there, lead guitarist, right? Right. How many years did you do that?

We were on the road as MG for I think 20, 21 years, something like that. Um, as far as having played music with Eddie and Troy well before that back in the bars in Lexington. So that was, Oh, good grief. That was, well, I met Troy right after I moved to Lexington and he and I started hanging out and became buddies right after I got down to Lexington, which is like 30 years ago. Yeah. So maybe more than that now at this point in time.

I keep forgetting how old I am. You guys were playing bars in Lexington 30 years ago, so that would have been early 90s?

Absolutely. Because 99 was when the first single came out. That was Hillbilly Shoes, of course. That was the first one.

Maybe we'll get you to play a little bit of that.

I don't know if I can do it on that thing or not.

No, that's got a riff in it that I think you need your electric for.

You know what's funny is that riff when that came to us as a demo, that was a bluegrass song.

Yeah.

So that riff was on a banjo. I can see that. Yeah. It was on a banjo and they were like, can you play that? I was like, not like that. I can play a guitar riff to it, but I can't do that.

Well darn, we probably should have had you bring your electric with you too. That's all right. Next time we'll have you on again.

I'm kind of interested to know. What were some of the bars that you played in Lexington?

Oh, wow. Be sure to say which ones we didn't. The Congress was one that we called the Dungeon. It was one of those bars like if you didn't have a knife when you came in, they'd give you one. So we played there. New Circleland was one that I played. I feel like Eddie said that he played that before I got there. Austin City is the obvious. Gosh, there was two or three more over there. Continental Inn, played there. Just a bunch of them. All of them, felt like.

Yeah. So what was your music life like before you met Troy? You guys were hanging out for a while.

Before I moved to Lexington, I'd been playing in a country band for a little while, but during the 80s era there, I was in a heavy metal hair band. You were? Yeah, I had all kinds of hair. Um, wore the spandex and nothing that we're proud of, but things happen.

We're in a hat now, so we can't tell. There's nothing left. It's gone.

Uh, had all this long black hair. Yeah. I played in a heavy metal hair band for a while when that was the big thing.

Well, you know, all of those things contribute to the end result, right? They're all part of your life. They're all part of your journey. And I'm sure you gained some knowledge and experience and whatnot playing in that hair band.

Yeah. I think being in a rock band helped. When Eddie and Troy decided to do the Montgomery Gentry thing, and I was lucky enough to be tagged along with them there, They, they both grew up with rock too. So being in a rock band helped for the live performances as far as Montgomery gentry. Cause it was not a, if you've ever seen MG live, it wasn't to just stand there in one spot and sing to you kind of show. That's not what MG was about.

Now, were you a single guy back then? Single fella. When I met them guys.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I guess is, is I was again after I met them too. I was going to say. I was going to say, it's probably, probably a good thing to hang out with Troy, wasn't it? I mean, the girls were probably around.

You say good, there's plenty of girls around, but if Troy's in the room, they're not looking at you. He said, Hey, that was the best look at me I've ever seen.

Well, I don't know. I think, I think it's like, we always say, rise and tide raises all ships. I think if you're Troy Gentry, it kind of, it ups your odds a little bit. Oh yeah. Yeah, there's that too.

Yeah. I said that Troy was like, uh, you know, he was talented, but it was, it didn't hurt to have eye candy there for the girls because with Eddie, Eddie, the guys loved Eddie. Let me tell you in that whole. Just tossed her on. He's a brute. And Southern rockers loved Eddie. But then we were able to bridge both those gaps because we had Troy there too, who could sing and who looked like that. So then the young ladies wanted to come see Montgomery Gentry because they got to look at Troy Gentry while he was singing. So if you're looking at something that was like the total package having those two guys up front, man, You covered the spectrum, but they let you step out front every now and then, didn't they? Oh yeah. Yeah. They were like, they gave me free reign. That was as far as that goes. It's just, you know, if you've, we played together for so long. I knew, okay, my turn.

Yeah.

That kind of thing.

Yeah. I mean, you've, you've posted, no, you've got a great, some great social media accounts and you get back and you post, post some of them.

Yeah, they pop up occasionally. It's kind of cool.

The great fun picks of your time with the band. And I have to say, they bring back some memories. And I can tell that you're living the dream right then. You're living the dream. Absolutely.

And I don't know that we were fully aware of that. Yeah. But it was so much fun that I don't think we took time to take it in, if that makes any sense. We got to play New Year's Eve at Rupp Arena. That was like for us, that was a dream come true for us. Stomp around every bar in Lexington. Now we're going to headline a New Year's Eve show at Rupp Arena. That was awesome. And. Several years later, my wife and I were at a basketball game over there, and she had gone to get ice cream. It was taking forever, obviously. I was getting worried. He was going to be like, oh my God, the game's going to restart back after halftime. Where's she at? Why's she been going so long? she got stuck in line and happened to be looking at the wall where they were selling the ice cream. And there's a picture of me and Eddie and Troy on the, on the wall at Rupp Arena. And she came back, she says, you're not going to believe this. And then after the game, she walked me out there and I was like, are you kidding me? This is the coolest thing I've ever seen. It's like being in a hall of fame for a Kentucky boy.

That's pretty awesome. Yeah, absolutely.

And we all know the ice cream's legendary. So you don't, you get in line, you don't get out of line.

And that's the thing is when I found out she was there for the ice cream, I was like, oh yeah, okay. I know why you were going so long now, you know.

Oh, this is some great conversation. I'm out of whiskey. How about you, Bryant? Now you're doing all right.

I've got a little bit left.

Oh man, I feel guilty. I'm kind of, I'm on full steam here.

So Jim, can I ask you what your favorite Montgomery Gentry song was?

Yeah. I've never been a favorites guy. You know, I don't have a favorite band. I don't have a favorite song. I don't have a favorite TV show. I don't have a favorite book. I just kind of consume things. You know, I don't have a favorite football, basketball or baseball team. It's kind of just, I'm just one of those guys that have never like picked a side.

You just, you just appreciate what's in front of you. I do. I might be a little, I'll tell you what mine is. Yeah. Long line of losers.

Oh my gosh, dude. We had so much fun with that song. Loved it.

It's, I think that is, of course there's so many that, that everybody know, you know, they all know real well, but that's the one that's my go-to.

There was a point in time on stage when we get to the end of it where you know, because at the end of it, it was kind of like a guitar solo. So I'd be standing up there beside of them, all three of us, we'd stand up there and we'd all do the L thing on the forehead until it was pointed out, oh, big Louisville fans, are you? We're like, oh. That's upside down. Yeah, gotta turn those upside down to do that. No, that was a fun song to play.

Yeah. You know, I think that we've had such a great first half here. We've had a couple of great pours and we've got two more ahead of us. I'm really looking forward to those. I think that I feel kind of guilty that I've sipped on this so quick and it's gone. You guys are way behind me. I am home already, so I guess I can drink a little bit faster than you guys. All right, we come back. A lot more of both Garrett and Wild Turkey. We're going to have a great time tonight. Stick with us. 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 dot com. Get yourself. All right, we are back. We had a nice little break there. We got to finish our diamond. We got to sip on that diamond. And I don't think a drop was wasted, was it, Beau? No, mine wasn't. Yeah, Brian?

Not a drop wasted.

That's a nice whiskey. I would say that it's pretty rare to find one of those out in the wild again. I got lucky when I found that one. And if you do run across one, I'd highly suggest you pick it up as long as you're not paying too much crazy dollars for it. But we had a couple other little tastes during the break there. We've had a few bites of something to eat. We're back now. We're re-energized and ready to go. And we have something new in our glass. We've had this on the show recently. We had this, uh, probably about a month and a half ago. We had it on the show, but, um, I think it's appropriate to bring it back now. Those here and, uh, we're going to have the, uh, the wild turkey 12 year one-on-one export 20, 23 or 22. What is it? 22. Yeah. Would be the 22 version.

And you've had this, you've got a bottle. Yep, well, I've got some left in the bottle.

Yeah, it doesn't last long, does it? Oh my gosh. We've got a hashtag here, it's called OTDB. I don't know if you saw that or not, OTDB. Got a ball cap up there. Oh, oh yeah, I did see that, yeah, yeah. Open the damn bottle. Yeah, I love it, love it. We figure most distilleries probably agree with us that you should open your damn bottle. But more importantly, they believe you should do what you want with your whiskey, right?

I've heard Jimmy tell people to open the bottle and then drink it and then fill it back up with iced tea if you want to save that bottle.

Yeah.

He'll tell people, I'm never going to open this when he's signing a bottle. He'll say, why not? I'm writing on the outside of the bottle. Exactly.

Drink it. Fill it back up with iced tea. You need to drink that whiskey because, you know, that's where you get the enjoyment from, right? Oh, absolutely. And that story, now there's, and we've talked about this before, there are reasons to save a bottle. Somebody's going to be 18 in 10 years, you want to have a bottle ready for them, or 21 I should say. Somebody's going to be 21, you want to have a bottle for them on the 21st, or you got an anniversary you're going to celebrate, or you got a friend that's coming in from overseas and you want to save the bottle for them. Whatever the reason, those are all great reasons. But if the reason is you don't want it to be gone, that's probably not a good reason.

It's just my opinion on this one, but if it's never enjoyed, and I think that's like with those guys heard the same thing from Fred and O. These guys put a lot of time and effort into this. They want you to drink it. They'd much rather you come back in and say, you know, if Jimmy's sitting in there and you walk in and Jimmy's sitting there and say, I found me a bottle of the Russell's 13. We opened that with the family around the table. That's some of the best bourbon I've ever had. That makes him feel a lot. But it makes him happier than if you walk in there and you say, I found me a bottle of Russell's 13. It's up on my shelf. I ain't opening that. That's really not his in his wheelhouse. Same with Eddie. They like, you know.

Yeah, I've always said that I think that the great thing about bourbon is it gives you an opportunity to share with folks and create stories and memories. And so that's what's really special for me is when I have somebody come over and they have an opportunity to taste something that they wouldn't normally have, or, you know, they just see something cool and they're like, Hey, can I have that? You have some cool stories that come out and you get to share. They, most people would taste things that. that they would probably never taste otherwise. And it opens the rise up.

I don't think I've ever had the joy in opening a bottle here at the house and drinking it by myself that I've had with opening it and sharing it with somebody else. It's just, there's a whole new level, right? You get to see the look on their face. They get to try that because I get some nice bottles every now and then, you know, not everybody can get those and it's always fun to share. And it's always great for conversation. And, uh, Yeah. If you got 300 bottles on your bar, you don't need them all open, but you should be on that, you should be on that, that action of trying to treat that whiskey.

You're in goal.

All right. So this is the Wild Turkey 101 12 year export. This is available in, let me see if I get this right. This is available in Japan, Korea, and Australia.

That's right. And that's it. And if you're not one of those places...

It was originally South Korea first, got it first. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they're shipping any to North Korea. No.

Might make them a little easier to get along with.

But anyway, so the fact that we've got a bottle and you've got a bottle means that there's some gracious folks in the world that have made sure some bottles have made it back this direction so that we can share it.

Absolutely. A guy that helped me get mine knows who he is.

He knows I appreciate it. So if you're traveling to Japan or Korea or Australia, just remember Jim, Brian, and Beau. Exactly. We'd be happy to reimburse you for your expenses. No doubt. But this is 12 years, it's a 101. It's, uh, it's something that, um, has received great acclaim this year, certainly by the people who know wild Turkey. Um, and I think we should enjoy it. Cheers. Cheers.

Wow.

That's just, that's de facto Turkey right there. That's just so good. Did you get to share a little bit with Jimmy?

Of this one? Yeah.

No. No. I'm just wondering what his opinion on it would be.

I think this would be reading Jimmy's will house. I think based on what he's told me he likes and what I've seen that he does like, I think he'd say, yeah, that's pretty good work.

Well, we had David Rarebird on the show and we sipped on this one. And, and I think if I remember correctly, he said this had a fair chance to be in his bourbon of the year 2022. Yep.

No argument for me on that.

I'm going to be sad to see it go, but I am so damn glad I opened it. And I've got to share it with quite a few people already.

I've not heard anybody who had a chance to taste that bottle, not have like that. Wow. That's been, everybody I've talked to that's tried has been like, holy cow, there's been nobody I've, yeah, it was pretty good. It's usually way more than that.

Now, I don't know that you have the details on this particular batch, but when it says 12-year, that means the youngest whiskey in it is 12. Exactly. But that doesn't mean that there aren't older whiskeys in it. Right. Do you know anything more than we know? I don't. Okay. Well, I just thought I'd ask.

We know how hard it is to get. Yeah, that's one that I don't have a lot of info on because, you know, I didn't think I was ever going to see it because I'm in Kentucky. So yeah, that one wasn't one that I knew a whole lot about.

So Bo, what do you do for fun? What do you do when you're not working at Wild Turkey? What's your leisure time look like?

Honestly, I spend a lot of time reading and studying like a lot of Bourbon history.

Oh yeah?

That's, that's one of the things I love to do. Um, especially regarding Lawrenceburg and Anderson County. I love to try to find out, you know, what was happening back then, how it all went down.

So do you, uh, do you collect things from that period? Are you just an information gatherer? Do you like stories? Do you, do you write anything down?

I do write a lot of stuff down. I got notebooks full of stuff like that. When I find something I really, oh, wow, that's cool info. Not so much collect stuff. I'm more, like you said, information gathering and sharing that information. See, that gives me a lot of pleasure to share the information there of that property and the surrounding properties with people when they come in. Because one thing I've noticed about people who visit the Bourbon Trail now They're a lot more knowledgeable about the process of making bourbon than they've ever been. So when I start getting questions regarding the pH level, what works best for our yeast, and stuff like that, I'm like, all right, well, you're not going to be interested in my jokes right now, are you? But you get those questions. So for me, those folks now, they want to know the history behind that bourbon. And we've got two legends. right there on property. So they want to know their history as well. And I am blessed to say that both those guys are friends and are willing to share their story with me so I can share it with other people. And I don't have to say, well, somebody told me Jimmy Russell did this. We're like, Jimmy Russell told me that he did this. That kind of thing.

Now I heard Jimmy was quite the football player back in the day.

There was a guy came in the other day, just like last week, he was looking for Jimmy. It just so happened it wasn't the day Jimmy was in there. Went to high school with him. And I made some kind of remark similar to that. I was like, yeah, Jimmy's a pretty good athlete when you guys were in school. And this guy was like, he might've been the best athlete in the state of Kentucky. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. So I was like, really? Holy cow. Yeah. And Jimmy was sitting with him at one point. He held a whole lot of records in Anderson County. A lot of them were his athletic records. Yeah. And we were sitting there talking, he's talking about, he still had the record for the hundred yard dash from Anderson County High School. I was like, still to this day? He goes, still my record. And he was like, you know why, don't you? I said, no. He said, they changed it to the hundred meter. I was like, that's beautiful. But Jimmy can honestly tell that story and it's for real. He's like, you know why he still owns it, don't you?

Is there anything that, and I'm sure this list would be very long, but is there anything that's really just surprised you digging through all that history that has just been kind of mind blowing to the point of who would have thought.

Couple things. One is the amount of bourbon that was being made within just a couple of miles of where wild turkey sits today. I was like, when I started digging and found out there was a distillery right here, there's one right here, and they're all like within five miles of each other at that point in time, pre-prohibition. And the fact that Cliff Springs, which is the one that T.B. Rippey owned, right there where that rock quarry sits now is where that one was sitting, that was the biggest distillery in the country before prohibition.

Oh, wow.

And it sat right there in Tyrone. So yeah, those kind of things. And another one that is just so intrigued me on so many levels, and all credit goes to Eddie Russell for turning me on to this story, was the story of Mary Dowling and how she kind of outsmarted Prohibition on her own. I thought that was pretty impressive myself.

So she's the one that went to Mexico with her stocks, right? She sure did.

She got arrested for bootlegging down there on Main Street. A couple of the guys that were running booze for her squealed on her, so they come busting her. And she's like, well, I'll just move it to Mexico and keep moving it. So those kinds of stories are so cool to me to hear that.

That whole area, Lawrenceburg and Tyrone, right? And then across the highway there in Frankfurt, that whole area there, just at Glens Creek, right? All the way down Glens Creek. I mean, they were just producing such huge amounts of whiskey there back in the day. I think I watched that documentary called Neat. They said that at that point in time, I think it was the 1890s, in that area, they were producing all the whiskey because the average 15-year-old in the United States was consuming 18 gallons of whiskey a year. Now, they say average 15-year-old because I think back in those days, if you were 15, you were working like a man, right? Oh, or even younger. Even younger, yes.

I think my dad said he had to go to work when he was like 13.

Yeah. So, I mean, you were working with the men and you were drinking with the men at that time. And the average 15-year-old adult male was consuming 18 gallons of whiskey a year. Now, I'm not sure what I'm drinking. but I don't think it's 18 gallons. I mean that would be... I feel confident it's probably not. It's definitely not. I hope not anyway. But if you walk into one of the older distilleries, and I'm just going to use the castle and the old Taylor distillery there. If you walk in there and you see the old boilers, you're just like, Oh my goodness. And the amount of barrels that were being put out there. I think about the fact that a lot of those distilleries were doing six to 800 barrels a day. And if you look at the behemoth in wild turkey, how many barrels a day are they doing on a wild turkey? On average, about 560 a day. So we've got distilleries in the late 1800s that were matching wild turkey's production, and there were many of those.

Jimmy said when he got to that distillery, he was 19 when he started there. He said when he got there, they were doing 56 to 60 barrels a day at Anderson County when he got there. So that's about what they were filling up. Now it's 560 on average. And one of the guys that works in the cistern room told me that the They've got the capability of 600, but you really got to push it to make that happen.

Yeah.

That's what he was telling me. Wow.

Just amazing. Yeah. Just amazing.

It's really cool. And another thing too that I've noticed or learned about while they were all in that spot. Like if you started floating, let's say you got on the river at Nicholsville, like we were talking about up there where the Curly Distillery and all those were. If you started floating, you'd float by Wild Turkey. You would have floated by Cliff Springs, you'd have floated by Clover Bottom. Keep on floating, you're gonna float by Buffalo Trace. The Kentucky River, and I was studying this, and I hate to say that being born and raised in Kentucky, I didn't know this until a few months ago, but Kentucky has more navigable waterways than any state in the continental United States. Really? Right. I didn't know that. Now, I just told you how many are sitting on the Kentucky River, right? Mm-hmm. OK. The Kentucky River flows north. One of the few rivers in the world that does that. Hooks up with the Ohio and takes off down south. Then it's going to hook up with the Mississippi. Basically, what I'm saying is, if you walk over across from Wild Turkey with a raft and jumped onto the Kentucky River and started floating, you'd eventually dump out into the Gulf of Mexico. They could get that to Louisiana off that Kentucky river really easy and really quick compared to what, you know, there were no trucks and all that stuff back at that point in time, no highways and interstates. That was the fastest way to get it to Louisiana.

And, and Louisiana or New Orleans was known for bourbon. They were the biggest buyer in the country at that point in time. Because that was a port of shipping it out to the world, right? Exactly. So everybody knew that New Orleans bourbon, right? But it was really Kentucky bourbon that was coming down.

There's still a bourbon street down there for a reason. Yeah, absolutely. But actually what they were doing was they were taking it down on flatboats. So a lot of those old, old places in New Orleans were being built with the wood that came from the flatboats. They'd sell those by a horse and come back.

So let me ask you this. If you go, if you get outside of the river there, you go down Glens Creek. Now Glens Creek is another tributary into the Kentucky river. Yep. I know exactly where that's at. How did they get? the whiskey from Glenn's Creek, which would be Lebron and Graham distillery and the old Crow distillery and the other distilleries. How did they get that to the Kentucky river?

I'm going to have to figure that one out too. You haven't done it yet. No, I've got that far yet.

Now, Colonel Taylor had. Rail yard. Right. Brought it right into the distillery. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But the other folks, I don't, they weren't, they weren't putting it on Glenn's Creek because that's just a... No, it wouldn't have taken you where you wanted to go. Babbling Brook, right? Yeah. Right. Uh, so yeah. And the fact that, you know, how much bourbon was coming out of Old Crow at that point in time, that was a lot of whiskey coming out of there. Was that, I don't know, was that later on that they became such a prominent and big distillery? That's, that's some more. See, that's what's cool is cause there's always something else for me to dig in on.

Well, David Jennings has done a good job with the Wild Turkey history, right? You're kidding. Man, I mean, he's really done a good job of that from Rippey to Russell, I think is the story there, right? But there's a lot more. There's a lot more of Lawrenceburg and Frankfurt distilling history that hasn't been told yet.

Yeah, all those, I think it's cool. I'll point out to people, like, if they go down Main Street and turn left, you're gonna go buy all those old mansions that were built by all those stillers. And Jimmy said they were all like... Well, you build that house that big, I'll build one bigger. And that was kind of what was going on. You know, you've got the, like, you and I were talking earlier about the WB Seifel. Seifel home still sits there, just like it looked on the label of that bottle back then. Right beside of it, which is now the Gash funeral home, was where I think it was the Lillard's. Yeah, the Lillard's lived there from Bond and Lillard. Mary's was John Dowling, they lived in the big white one on the left. That's where she actually got popped, which was right there on the left side of the street.

Wow. Yeah. I know Mike and I had the great honor of speaking at the Rippey House one night. And that's just an amazing place too.

Yeah. Oh yeah. That one. You've still got that one too. And there was a lady came in a couple of weeks ago. This is another great thing about it. When we get the locals in there, some of those folks have been around for a while and they'll tell you stories about what was going on back then in that point in time. And she was telling me that the saffle, the caves, you know, everybody talks about the legendary saffle caves that are supposed to exist. She said they did because when she was a kid, she played them in that basement. Or it's all bricked up now where you would go into those caves. So she said it did exist. So somebody needs to figure that out. Right. And Eddie Russell tells me while they were building his house, he was living in the saffle house for awhile. I'm like, how did you leave that part out of this story? That's fantastic. So that is so awesome.

Well, we have one more whiskey on our list tonight and, uh, we've got it in the glass. So let's check it out. And this is our last class of the night guys. Good way to finish. I walked in there and they had a number of bottles on the shelf. This is at the, you know, the wild Turkey visitor center. And I hadn't been around back corner yet to see if that was there or not. But, and I was toying with, should I get the single barrel bourbon or should I get the single barrel rye? No, I want to buy a bottle while I'm here. And I spotted that hat over on the shelf, that leather.

Oh yeah.

The old Jimmy hat, the old Jimmy hat. And I told my wife, I'm going to get that hat. But let's walk back and have a cocktail or let's go back and have a porn and we did I think I came back there and you said Something about the rye the rye is extra special I think Yeah, hard to find.

Yeah number one hard to find and I've never had anybody not take a sip of that rye and go, holy cow, this is really good.

So you, you basically pointed, you, you suggested the rye and I tried it and I think my mind was made up before I tasted it. When I had the nose, I think my mind was already made up. And this is our fourth pour of the night. And I have to say that, you know, wild turkey is not necessarily super well known for its rise. but, um, they've had some rise that are exceptional.

Probably most well known for the cornerstone and more recently the rare breed rye.

Yeah.

That rare breed rye, I think it was like a top five whiskey of the year when it came out.

Yeah. And this is the Russell's single barrel rye. Yep. This is a 2022 vintage? 2022?

Well, this is, yeah, this was bottled this year. The one you bought was. Oh, this is a 23 vintage. Oh, I'm sorry. You're 22, you're right.

22 vintage. Okay. This is a 20. What's the proof on this?

I keep forgetting we're in 2023.

I know. The changeover takes a while, right?

Of course, didn't act like 2020 didn't exist at all.

I'm usually about, you know, Kentucky Derby time and I'm like, oh yeah, it's the next year. Yeah. Um, so this is a 2022 single single barrel rise, 104 for proof. And it's obviously barreled under the Russell's label, single barrel.

Be somewhere around seven years when the barrel gets chosen for this?

Seven year rye is pretty respectable. Ryes tend to age a little bit faster than bourbons. They come to maturation a little bit sooner, right? And I have no clue why that is, but it just happens.

I don't know either because like we were talking about having cornerstone, that was some pretty old rye. the Rye's that went into the most recent Masters keep, the Unforgotten. It was nine and 11 year old Rye whiskey that went into that. It did not come across harsh. None of those things you think are going to happen, happened. I think Walt Turkey's match bill for Rye does really well to age a little longer.

You know, whiskey as an American thing. So our forefathers started on the East Coast, right? They started up in New England, whether it be Plymouth or New York or, you know, Boston or, you know, wherever it is, they started on the East Coast and it took a while for them to migrate west to where the corn was growing. So until they did, they made all their whiskey out of rye.

Yeah, you got to think, a lot of those guys, those families coming over, Scotland, Ireland, they've been making rye whiskeys, what they've been doing, it grows better there. Corn didn't grow very well over there. I think the Indians have produced them to the corn, right? That's my impression, too, is that the corn came. As they started to migrate west, they started to realize that rye does not grow that well in those areas, but corn will. And then, of course, somebody figured out they could still make good liquor with corn. Here we are.

I know if you go to Mount Vernon, George Washington's homestead, that you're going to get rye whiskey there.

That's what he was making.

That's right.

Did you know that he was at one point the biggest to still hurt in the country?

I heard that right before the whiskey rebellion.

As old as Washington was. From what I've read and have learned and come to understand, he only had the one still. And I can't remember. I want to say that The gentleman who was making his whiskey was Irish or he was managing the farm. I think he was Irish. And he was the one that told George Washington's basically like, look, if you turn this into liquor, people will buy a lot of it. And next thing you know, he's like putting new steals in. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think a lot of the I saw something the other day on social media is the greatest thing, right? You get all this information like flooding into you all day, every day, and you don't know how much of it to believe. Right. There was this one post I saw that said the Continental Congress and what they drank after they signed the constitution, they had a party, right? Right. Whatever it was. And it was like, I mean, there was only like 60 of them there, but they drank like 120 gallons of stuff. There's some serious drinking going on.

I have a feeling that a lot of the foundation of this country was actually came to fruition around alcohol. It was those guys up there in the Northeast that were doing it. I got a funny feeling that a lot of those big conversations happened around alcohol.

Well, let's have a conversation around this single barrel rye from Russell's. What do you think? Wow.

Nose is fantastic. Yeah.

It really is a great, great nose on this whiskey. And like I said, I think I had already decided this is the bottle I wanted before I ever tasted it. Cause that nose just captivated me.

Yep.

It's, uh, it does have a little bit of a bite. If you take a big enough whiff, you'll get that little bite at the end, that little sizzle on your nose, but it's, uh, it's got that freshness to it. That that's sort of that, um, you know, that rye pine freshness that you get. Um, but you can just, you can see that there's an underlying like candy green kind of a rock.

You don't expect the sweetness you get from it.

Yeah. It's really good. I want to taste it. Cheers guys. Cheers.

Wow. That is just, I don't think it's as peppery as you expect it to be either. No, no, not at all.

No, but it is flavor packed. I mean, it is just so full of flavor. It's like super concentrated. Yep.

Great mouth feel.

Yeah. Great mouth feel. But it's got a wonderful rye sort of a freshness and lightness to it.

There's that bright thing that comes from like rye. Yeah. It's there.

But it's got a nice candy sweetness to it. There's a little bit of that sort of like buttered rye bread, kind of rye muffin kind of stuff. But I would say it's more aromatic than it is sort of earthy.

Oh, absolutely. Totally agree with that. What you've got is a recipe there from a master distiller who's not the biggest rye fan in the world. Jimmy's not really a big rye guy as far as that goes. So when people are asking about the recipe, I don't give those out, number one, because I don't want Jimmy to take me out of his will.

So you get the scooter.

I want the scooter. That's what I want. No, I'm kidding. Obviously kidding there. But he made a rye whiskey for a bourbon drinker. I make jokes all the time to people. I say, it's barely legal. Yeah.

And I would kind of expect that. And I think we kind of already know that. I mean, as a bourbon drinking public, we know the rice coming out of wild turkey are Kentucky rice.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's now called Kentucky rye for a reason. Sure. Yeah.

Well, it's extremely tasty. It's, um, it's one that I think definitely a bourbon, like you said, a bourbon drinker could appreciate this.

It blew me away. I've never been that much of a rye fan. Like I said earlier, my palate has tended through the years to lean more what I eventually learned was Jimmy's palate. But when I tried this, I was like, holy cow. When Bruce was on here, did he tell you the story about when he first started there about the rye thing and Jimmy not liking rye whiskies?

I'm sure he probably did. I don't recall, but we had just a few whiskies that day.

Well, you know, those things happen. So I want to say, I want to say it was Eddie that actually told me the story. It might've been Bruce, but I think it was Eddie. Bruce had started there and Bruce loves rye whiskey. Him and all of his friends were drinking rye. And they were at lunch. And Bruce had basically, he had tried, I guess, I think he said it was the Russell six-year rye that he had tried and just loved it. And I guess him and Eddie and Jimmy were at lunch and Bruce looked across the table and said, Mimi, I think that six-year Russell's rye might be some of the best stuff you're making right now. And he said, Jimmy looked across the table and went, you're fired. I thought that was awesome. It was Eddie because Eddie said later, he said, told him not to worry about it. He's fired me eight times.

Well, Jimmy definitely knows what he likes. His palate is even, you know, even at his age, his palate is, uh, unsurpassable. Right. I mean, he knows I've heard stories about how you can taste a honey and tell you what county it comes out of or, uh, how he'll taste a tea and he'll know which leaves are in it, you know, all that kind of stuff. He's just got a great palate.

I know he did a, was it a bourbon ball or a brownie or some kind of candy or something that was, a lady brought it in and told him that she did it with one-on-one. He tasted it. He said, that's good, but that ain't one-on-one. That's Jim Beam.

Well, you gotta be good to do that. No doubt about it.

I'd agree that, you know, if, uh, but like you said, if, if you're a bourbon guy or gal and you don't really like rye, you should give this a shot. I think you'll be very, very pleased with what you do there.

I've been telling people that when they come to the bar, like on the days I'm running the bar back there and I'll be like, do you like rye at all? Well, I'm kind of getting into my rise, you know, cause it is growing the, the love for rye whiskey is growing every day. If you like rye at all, let me turn you on to this one right here. Because it is harder to locate. We don't do as much of that particular rye. You know, because like rare breed rye took top five whiskey of the year. So you're going to make a lot more of that one. Sure. Right. So it's the way that works out. I know when I found out that the delivery truck had a delivery of single barrel rye on it, one of the other guys there, Tyler, the other guy that works with me there, we were like ready to dance together. Like, oh my gosh, we finally got it again.

I'm half tempted to go get another bottle. I really am because it's, it's, it's darn fine. So listeners, if, if, if you're hearing this and, uh, and I can pretty much guarantee them that this is going to be on the shelf when the show pops here in a couple of days, right? They're going to have it on the shelf.

Yes, as far as I know, we are.

If you can make your way to the Wild Turkey Distillery Visitor Center, chances are very, very good that you can get your hands on a single barrel rye. And it's, I'd say, exceptional. I agree. Well above others that I've had any time recently. Really good.

I absolutely agree. And I'm kind of in that window like with Eddie Russell. It's supposed to be non-shell filtered.

Yeah.

That's the way they originally made it. And they made it that way for a reason when you taste it.

And what's a bottle going to cost somebody at the shop there?

I want to say that one is right around the $60 window.

I think you're right.

I think that's what it was.

I think you're right. Yeah, I didn't get any discount that day. You charged me full price.

I was at the bar. All right.

Yeah. I have to say that, you know, if, if your experience with rye whiskies as a 95, five Indiana rye, uh, I love them personally. I like them a lot, but they're more candy sweet. You know, they're, they don't have this sort of, uh, the sort of rye toast kind of. full bodied effect that this rye has. This has still got that little bit of candy sweetness to it. Yes, it does. But it's very aromatic and it's also got that kind of rye muffin, a little bit of rye muffin. So you get a little bit more of the grain, I think, in this, which is nice.

I'm a big fan.

Yeah, big fan. Well, Beau, I know you brought one of your instruments with you today, and it's one that is pretty familiar from across the room. We've seen it before. And why don't you tell us a little bit about this little guitar you brought.

So I started calling this thing, it's a box guitar, but it's not a cigar box guitar. It is a, as you can see, a Russell's 2003 box. that was turned into a guitar for me. If anybody is interested, if you're on Instagram, if you go to Mike's Bourbon and Guitars on Instagram, you'll see his work. So he brings this in as a... an unbelievable gift to me one day and I started playing around with it and it just, it's fun. Now most people, we talked about this a little earlier, most people will look at this thing and think, cigar box guitar, you're supposed to play that with a slide. I'm from the Hills of Eastern Kentucky. I'm a real hillbilly. So the first thing I thought of was a banjo. So I don't use a slide on it, but it's fantastic. It's awesome. Jimmy signed it too. Jimmy happened to be there that day and I've got a really cool picture of Jimmy holding it like he's actually playing it and being a rock star. It's kind of cool.

Yeah. Oh, I'd love to see that picture. So Russell's 2003.

They said they drank the bottle just so they could have the box to make the guitar with. So those are my kind of people right there. They didn't share any of that 2003 with you? No, they just brought me the guitar.

But you've had the 2003 before. I have. It was good. And yeah, it's a pretty fine whiskey. It is. One that you won't forget in your lifetime when you've had it. much like this 2022 export, it's kind of exceptional. Every now and then we get one of those, right?

Yeah. You got to know somebody, but yeah.

Or this rye.

I know the people who make that. You can get that one.

You can get that one. Yeah. So on the single barrel ryes, do you think that this is more of an exception to the rule or are they pretty good all the time?

They're always good.

They're always good. Is this one exceptionally good?

I don't know because they had been gone for so long until we got this delivery in. Um, I think we had like an 18 month, was it? Yeah. It was like an 18 month window of being without it before we could get it again.

Yeah. It's got just a little bit of juicy fruit gum in it, man. I mean, wow. Just amazing. It's for real. All right. I tell you what, I'm so excited, Bo. I mean, you rocked the stage for so many years with Montgomery Gentry and And you know, you've brought this wonderful gobble.

You call it your gobble box because I couldn't think of anything else to call it.

So signed by Jimmy Russell. It is, you got it plugged in. I'd love to hear you do a little riff on it. Sure.

So that's it. Oh yeah, that was pretty awesome. So.

Do you ever slap on the box at all?

I've tried it. I'm just not, I'm not that guy. I'm so concentrated on the strings and it's just like, yeah, if I start doing that, I'm going to screw that up. But I have, uh, I have thought about that and done it before.

Yeah.

Tried to do it before.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing what you can do with three strings. So how, how difficult is it? Three less I have to worry about. So how hard is it to make that transition from six to three?

It's tough because there's obviously there's a tuning change that goes on there to do three strings versus the six. You really need to remember where that top string is tuned to, or otherwise you're gonna go for one thing and get something totally different out of it. Now, the strings farther apart or? They are. Yeah. Much farther apart. I play a strat a lot now. Yeah. Most of my life on the road, I played a firebird, Gibson. Gibson necks are a little wider than a Fender neck, plus they're thicker. So those Fender necks, man, I love them because they're small, they're easy to wrap your fingers around. This is kind of like a fender neck with that Gibson spacing. So it's kind of like, Oh, wow. That didn't confuse me at all. Yeah.

Yeah. So firebird that has something to do with your like Instagram hand a little bit, right? Firebird bow.

Yeah. Yeah, when we started out as MG, we were all huge Southern rock fans. Lynyrd Skynyrd was our band, man. That was what we wanted to be. We wanted to be like Lynyrd Skynyrd. The guy that played with Lynyrd Skynyrd that was my personal hero's name was Alan Collins. He always played an old firebird. And I wanted to play a firebird. Of course you had people like Johnny Winter who played a firebird, another legendary hero to me. And I wanted to play an old firebird. Once I did, I just kind of stuck with it, and nobody in country music was playing the Firebird. It was rock and roll. Oh, that's the devil's guitar. But I was like, I really don't care. That's what I love. So that's what I'm playing. And it kind of stuck with me is that people expected to see me playing that guitar. And when I play something different, they would be like, where's the Firebird? That really started happening. And my favorite experience with the Firebird guitar was that we were playing the Grand Ole Opry during CMA Fest. And I'm standing on the side of the stage, getting ready to go out for our thing, you know. In my left ear, over my shoulder, I hear this voice. And the voice sounded exactly like this. It was like, that's a mighty nice sax you're playing now, my brother. turned around as fricking Billy Gibbons.

Oh my goodness. Oh wow.

Yeah. I was like, holy cow, dude. And so, you know, it just kind of became a thing. We did shows with them later on and you know, they had that song, the bird is the word.

So for those who don't know who Billy Gibbons is.

ZZ Top.

Yeah, ZZ Top.

Yeah. Saw him backstage. They were on the golf court going by the back of the stage one time. I just looked over and kind of waved. He goes, the bird's the word, man.

I was like, dang, that's cool. So you lead guitars. You guys are, you're kind of like this elite club of guitar players out there who've rocked the stage around the world. So is there a bit of camaraderie when you see each other out?

Among guitarists? Yeah. Many times, yes. But there are, you have, like anything else, you have certain guitar players who look at it as competition, like I'm better than you, or I can play faster than you, or this thing, or that thing, or whatever. But for the most part, We're all kind of like, hey, man, I like what you're doing. That's cool. Best example I could possibly give you that. I feel like I'm being a name dropper here, but I had the opportunity to meet a lot of folks. Sure. We went on this thing, Brooks and Dunn tour, and it's called the Neon Circus Tour, which was basically like boys night out every weekend. It was us, Toby Keith, Keith Urban, and Brooks and Dunn. It was a pretty good show. And we had just gotten started. I was a big Keith Urban fan because I had heard him with a band called The Ranch. So I knew what this cat could do with a guitar before he ever became famous.

I just saw him like a month ago and he was, he killed it on stage.

He was fantastic.

Yeah.

So I already knew that before he became a star and I can't remember what song it was that he had out at that point in time. That was a big hit. He was starting to really shoot up the ladder. And I loved it. So I'm playing that riff. We're getting ready to do our sound check. And I'm at my amp and I'm playing that riff from his big song he had out. I turn around and there he stood with his arms crossed, looking at me. And I'm like, oh crap, what'd I do here? So I just looked at him and said, just get used to it. I'm still in every riff you've got while we're out here. And he came to me later out of catering and he threw me one of his baseball caps. He said, if you're going to steal my riffs, you might as well wear my merchandise. And still to this day, if I see him, He will call me by name, he will hug me. We did the opera with him one night. My wife is a huge Keith Urban fan and she was like, God, you guys are not really friends. I'm like, I'm telling you, we're buddies. And he came in the dressing room to see me and I put him on the phone with my wife. I said, would you do me a favor? Would you speak to my wife and let her know that we actually know each other? He said, what's her name? I said, Jeannie. And he did that really ultra cool Australian, hello Jeannie.

Oh my gosh. So he's like the greatest showman, right? He is such a great, great showman. He's a good human being. He's a good human being. And I, and I, yeah, he's, he really loves to incorporate, uh, the audience in a show and really reaches out and embraces those in the audience who are, uh, may have special needs and, you know, and it just needs a little bit of lifting up.

I think it's great. Dude's like five foot tall, but he's got a heart the size of a pickup truck. He's a good man. I will always go to bat for Keith anytime he needs me.

That's awesome.

Not that he'll ever need me with the money he's making, but remember me buddy?

When you're heading out on that boat, give me a call.

Jim, I'd like to jump back just real quick if we, if you don't mind and, and just ask what that experience is at the grand old Opry. Cause you know, I mean, it's the, it's the mecca like that, that's it for country music. So what was that feeling the first time that you walked out and you had the opportunity to be there?

Nervous, very nervous because you've been, I grew up, I'm old, I'm telling my age now for sure. Friday nights, the Grand Ole Opry was what my dad would put on the radio. I grew up with the Grand Ole Opry. So in my mind, the Grand Ole Opry was like this pinnacle of success that as a musician that you needed, if you reached the Opry, you really had made it, you know? So that first time to walk out there and you see that circle, you know, it's like, Hank Senior stood there. That's the kind of thing you start thinking. It's like, holy cow, this is amazing. I got really nervous because the last thing I wanted to do was screw up, hit him with his shoes on the Grand Ole Opry. But we wound up playing it multiple times after that with so many different artists. Like I said, the whole Billy Gibbons story. We got to meet some of the guys that we grew up listen to like little Jimmy Dickens and you get to know them and they know who you are when you walk in. Little Jimmy was, he was a character man. He was awesome. He told us a story one time backstage. He said, I went to the doctor. He said, I couldn't hear nothing out of this ear over here. He said, I went to the doctor and he said, Doc, I can't hear a thing out of this ear right here. And he said, well, let me look at you, Jimmy, see what's going on. He said, doctor looked at my ear and he said, well, I know why you can't hear nothing out of your ear. He said, you've got a suppository stuck back in your ear. Jimmy said, thank you doc. Now I know what I did with that hearing aid.

So having it, having to hit like hillbilly shoes, that, that kind of puts you guys on the map and, and, uh, what did it feel like? during that breakout time. I mean, did it happen all at once? Was it gradual?

I think both. I think it happened all at once, but it felt gradual to us, if that makes any sense whatsoever. We were having a party, man. It's like, holy cow, we're not in a bar. We don't have to fight our way out of this place every night. People setting your gear up for you?

Not initially. Not initially, but you got there eventually. Eventually, yeah.

Of course, I'd always give Eddie Montgomery a hard time about that. He said, got that in? Yeah, I wish I was a singer, so all I had to do was walk in with a microphone. But it didn't dawn on us, honestly. I can't say it did. We were still relatively young. And it was truly a busload of guys who were already friends. We didn't have to get to know each other. We already knew each other. We were already buddies, all of us, the entire band and Eddie and Troy.

Looking out for each other.

Yeah. If you didn't, if you, honestly, you hear it all the time. If you mess with one, you mess with everybody. That was kind of how we were. Not that we got in trouble for anything like that, but It was just a camaraderie that was there and we just couldn't believe, holy cow, this is awesome.

That's amazing. Great memories.

Yes, sir. more blessed than I ever deserve to be. There's no doubt about that.

Well, you know, we all have seasons to our life. We all have those times we go through where we do one thing and then we move on to something else. And you've had a couple of great things in your life, including family, right?

Yep, no doubt.

Tell us a little bit about your family life and, you know, where you live and what you do.

Living over in Lawrenceburg, about eight minutes from that distillery. Got the wife and the dogs, and that's kind of my life now, man, which is really cool. I told her just the other day, actually, we were sitting there watching TV and one of the dogs was laying on her on the couch and the other one was laying across my feet when I'm sitting in my chair and I said, if you had ever told me that being here with you and these dogs would be the ultimate spot for me to think I wanted to be. I would have never believed you because It was always New York City, LA, Canada, Australia, wherever, you know.

There's a lot to be said for being content with where you are in your life.

Oh, no doubt. But I will say this about our kids, though. You hear people tell you all the time about that emptiness thing, oh, love them when they're there, because when they're gone, you're going to miss them. That's a lie.

Yeah. That's a lie. We're glad they're gone. I remember a commercial on TV like years ago where the mom and dad were like feigning tears in their eyes because their child, their one and only child was getting in the car to drive off to college and they're acting all sad and everything. The kid pulls away.

They start high fiving each other.

They go inside and turn his room into a jacuzzi room.

Exactly. Well, now I've got my studio room upstairs where I can play music or record video, whatever, which used to be a bedroom.

Yeah. I mean, you love your kids, but you want them to get on with their life, right?

Best thing you can do as a parent is prepare them for what's next.

That's right. Absolutely.

That doesn't mean always be best friends, but...

Well, Beau, we've had such an amazing time with you tonight. We always do, but it's been great. Brian and I really appreciate you coming out, visiting with us tonight, drinking a little bit of whiskey with us and sharing some stories, sharing a little bit of music. And we'd love to give you the opportunity to let our listeners know where they can follow you and hear those great stories, those history stories, those pictures, those things that you have going on through social media. And once you share for them, Where they can find you.

Easiest way to find me is through Instagram or Twitter. And it goes back to what you were saying with the firebird earlier. If you at firebird Bo, all one word, that's going to show up. And Bo is B-O. B-O. Yeah, I ain't French. It's B-O.

It's not B-A-U or anything like that. I'm a hillbilly.

It's B-O.

And they can always find you.

If the doors are open at Wild Turkey, you can find me there. You're there.

They could find you leading the tour. They could find you pouring cocktails at the bar at the visitor center.

Might be behind the counter, like checking you out at the register, telling stories, whatever. But that is my favorite thing I do right now is talk to people about Wild Turkey and Jimmy and Eddie.

Well, I think we really had a great time today, Bo. We drank some great whiskeys, we had some good conversation, and we always look forward to having you on again. Brian, where can people find us on the internet?

Well, guys, you can find us on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram. We also do a little bit of TikTok here and there.

You can also find us on our private Facebook group, the Bourbon Roadies. Well over 3000 members, just good people, you know, good friends sharing whiskey, sharing stories, sharing pictures, just having a good time. Beau, I think you're a bourbon roadie. You've been one for quite a long time. We love to have conversation with our roadies. We, we would love to have you become one. If you're thinking, what does, what does it take to become a bourbon roadie? It's really quite simple. You just go onto Facebook and search the bourbon roadies. And when it comes up, it'll ask you to join and you can answer three quick questions. We just want to make sure you're 21. You like bourbon because we want to make sure you know, you're getting into a bourbon group and that you agree to play nice because we just don't accept any rudeness in the group. If you're going to chop somebody off at the knees for what they're drinking. If you're going to tell somebody they shouldn't be drinking that 10 high whiskey or that old crow whiskey or whatever it is, that Kessler on the bottom shelf. You know, just let them be, let them drink what they want to drink and enjoy what they're drinking. Uh, just make sure that they're drinking their whiskey and not storing it up in a, in a room somewhere that it's never going to get open.

That's right.

Absolutely. Yeah.

As always, we don't like it when people come on and try to sell their bourbon.

Yeah. We don't allow any of that because you know what? We'd like to have this group, the bourbon roadies on Facebook. If you come on and try to sell whiskey, they're going to shut us down. So we don't want anything to do with that. You know, just go make, make a friend at your local liquor store, revisit them, buy some bourbon from them, talk to them when you're there. Don't make sure you get a good bottle every now and then.

I got one last social media question for you. Yeah. Are you guys doing those tick tock dances? I'd subscribe.

If I could dance, I would. Well, I would say this, uh, with the right amount of whiskey, maybe. Yeah. But it would be the right amount to get me there.

Maybe, maybe if you'll come on and dance with that box. I got a bad hip and a bad shoulder. Oh man, but we have such a great time. We definitely want to hear from you roadies reach out to us. Uh, you can reach Brian and I, you can reach Tyler all at the same email addresses team at the bourbon road.com. You send an email to team at the bourbon road.com and we'll all three get it. We're very responsive. We'd love to hear from you. If you've got an idea for a show, if you've got an idea for a bottle, if you've got a distillery in your hometown that's really doing it right, that's kicking it, and you want to shine a little light on them, let us know. We'll reach out to them. We'll get them on the show. We'll do an interview. We'll review their whiskey. We'll try to help them any way we can. You can always go to our website, the bourbonroad.com. We've got a store on there. You can buy our swag. You can read our articles. Brian's been writing some articles lately. A lot of great stuff going on. We'd love to have you listen to every single show that comes out every single week. And the way to do that, Brian, what do they have to do?

So you can go to Spotify, YouTube, Apple. You can also go to our website. You can see all those good places that we, uh, that we post can hit the subscribe button and it will notify you every time we have a new podcast coming out.

All right. And until then folks, we will see you down the bourbon road.

So... so