338. A Rock and Roll Whiskey Night with Rob Robinson

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.

You know friends, it's never too early to start planning your trip to the Bourbon Trail for 2023. We hope you'll join the Bourbon Road crews as we pull out all the stops this year at Bourbon on the Banks. So mark your calendars for October 6th and 7th and we'll plan on seeing you in Frankfort, Kentucky. Be sure to listen in during the halftime break for all the details on Bourbon on the Banks. We're back in Orlando now and we're meeting with some friends, some good friends, Rob Robinson and Nicole. And guys, it's a pleasure to have you come hang out with us for an evening here in Orlando. Thank you for inviting us. So you're big fans of Universal Studios. We're pass holders. pass holders. Now, what does that mean? That means you just get to go whenever you want. Any day of the week.

In fact, I don't think we have blackouts, do we?

No, we're not blacked out. Anytime you want. I think I think we went there maybe a year or two ago. It's been a while. But so we're not doing the park thing this time, but we've been doing a lot of breweries. So we like we love beer, too. So it's not just whiskey on our schedule.

You did beer?

All right, so we've got our wives in the house tonight. They're at the gallery. They're going to sit in the background and giggle at us as we get silly on air. We're both got a little bit of a pour of whiskey here. Actually, you've got a lot of a pour, Rob. That's a good four ounce pour. Yeah, you have a good bartender.

That's a Latino pour.

All right. So before we do introductions here, let's take a minute. They already know you're our friends. You've come to visit us up here in Orlando. You're also going to take in a little bit of part-time while you're here. We actually visit with you in Louisville too. You do. You visit in Louisville as well. And you're coming up again for Derby. We like the ponies. Yeah.

Yeah.

But this time we're going to drink a little whiskey together and you're going to play a little music for us and we'll make the introduction.

But first, I think our listeners are probably wondering what's in your glass.

So let's talk a little bit about what's in our glass today.

I don't know. Oh, this is the Blackened?

This is the Blackened. So this is the Blackened X. They call it Wes Henderson. It's the Masters in Collaboration series that came out from Blackened. Now Blackened is a project of Metallica, the band Metallica.

I've heard of them.

You've heard of them, just a little bit. Well, there's been a few artists that have come out with whiskies. There's been some TV stars that have come out with whiskies. There's been all kinds of them. Oh, yeah. I mean, a lot of people come out with whiskies, but not all of them are great. Some of them are good, some of them are really good, and some of them are not so good.

Can you say some of them are a hack job?

Yeah, I think some of them just try to, yeah, they just try to build off the notoriety of the individual that's behind it. And the whiskey is not that great. But in the case of the two we have on the show today, the first of which is Blackened, these are going to be good whiskeys, really good whiskeys. This is good stuff. So we have the Blackened X Wes Henderson in our glass, and this is a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, and this is a project that was a collaboration between Metallica and Wes Henderson. Are you familiar with the Angels Envy Distillery? Oh yeah. Okay. So Wes Henderson and his father Lincoln Henderson started Angels Envy Distillery in Louisville. And he retired last year and he's spending more time with family. He's at that age where he wants to spend more time with family, but he does taking on some projects and this is one of them. So he kind of paired up with the Metallica team and the Blackin team and this helped them to put out a new whiskey. And this is a port finished whiskey, much like Angel's Envy is a port finished whiskey.

Yeah. So, this is a Kentucky whiskey.

This is 116.2 proof. That's what's going on.

I wondered what was going on.

But we're going to sip on this a little bit. I know you like it because you're on your, I think, third pour already. I don't know, but- Yeah, it's good stuff. You don't want me to leave. Now, I had some notes on this earlier because we had been sipping it on a while, folks, but Uh, this is, uh, kind of one of those whiskies that the nose, when you smell it, it's like, there's not much there. It's unbelievably so. 116 proof. You'd think you'd get some alcohol and it'd burn your nose a little bit. It really doesn't. There's not much there. It's real soft. But when you drink it, that pepper and spice, it's got a lot, doesn't it? It's got a bite to it. Yeah.

Is that what they call the backend?

Yeah, the backend or the finish, right? Oh boy. It's got a spicy backend. It does. I like spice. Well, anyway, this is a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. So it's produced in Kentucky, but it's an unnamed distillery. So we don't know exactly where it comes from. I'm guessing Bardstown. I would say Bardstown or Frankfurt or Louisville. One of the three problems. Nicole's mom lives in Bardstown. Yeah.

Doesn't touch the stuff, but it's there. Yeah, it's close by. 20 something distilleries.

Oh yeah. There's a lot of distilleries in Bardstown. I hadn't had the actual blackened American whiskey. This is, this is a bourbon. This is a special project. 116 proof. You know, I kind of like it. I do think it's a bit disjointed. It's kind of, uh, you expect something to have like a little bit more punch on the front. If it's going to punch you in the back a little bit. So you want that punch in both places. This is where you're going to be really picky.

And that's good. I mean, I'm a little picky, but I don't even really do wine, but I took Nicole and I, we went through wine country in California for our honeymoon. I don't know anything about wine.

Does Nicole know wine?

Yeah, enough. She knows enough. I have zero. I just go, that's good or no.

Well, for me, this is kind of like, and I'm going to get a little more picky here because the listeners want to know what I'm getting on this whiskey. So I'm getting a little bit of raisins and little like raisins and pears, but it's all pepper on the back. So it's all like spice and pepper. That part I get.

Yeah.

Yeah. And the nose is almost non-existent. It's very light. So it's, it's pretty kind of unbalanced.

Which is kind of funny because it hit my nose. Did it? Yes, it did. It did. Yeah. That's funny. It's about a 32nd bourbon. Yeah, it takes you got the front end and the back end.

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about Metallica just for a second. I mean, band started in 1981. They currently have four members, all still around. They did lose somebody along the way, I think, but they have 11 out, their 11th album's coming out this year.

Well, Dave Mustaine was actually original. Yeah. And he left over creative differences and started Megadeth. That's right. who we just, Nicole and I actually, when we went to Sweden this past summer, Megadeth was the headliner on our night that we actually played. Oh cool. So awesome. So they're still actually playing.

I mean, 1981 to 2023, 42 years. Yeah, sounds right. 42 years, 11 albums, 58 million records sold. Not bad. The Rolling Stone named Metallica as number 61 on the top 100 bands of all times.

Yeah. I don't know if I buy into that. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because I love it when they put out top bands or specifically for me, I love it when they put out top songs. Yeah. But my favorite thing is the top worst songs of all time. That's my favorite thing in the whole world.

Yeah.

Because what's funny about it is that you can go, let's say, top 20 on down to number one. You can sit in a room with a bunch of people and go, you know, that song, oh, that's terrible. And everybody in the room agrees. And as you go down 19, oh, that's terrible. Pretty soon you get to number five, it says. Barry Manilow, Mandy, and somebody goes, oh wait, I like that. That's what's funny about bad songs. The more that you, the closer that you get to number one. And Rolling Stone had named, I want to say that number one worst song of all time was, it was either Muskrat Love or It was Muskrat Love, or what was the other one? It was, I'll think of it in a second, but you're gonna get somebody to argue with you. That's what's funny about worst songs. Oh, it was Bobby Goldsboro, Honey. I don't know if you know that song. I remember got Bobby Goldsboro, but I don't remember. Yeah, it's a horrible song. It's about his wife dies. He comes home from work and she's dead. And then he's singing to her and he's going, well, you know, the trees doing pretty well since you left. And it's just and you sit there going, oh, no, honey died. So, and Muskrat Love. And the funny thing about Captain and Tenille doing Muskrat Love was it wasn't even their song, it was a cover. It had already been done by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Oh my goodness. I didn't know that. I am so full of useless information. I thought it was theirs, of course. No, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who was also, by the way, if you ever saw Steve Martin do King Tut on Saturday Night Live, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was his backup band. Oh, they were? Yes.

Now, I love that King Tut. What do you call that? Skit? It's a skit, right? It was actually what they call a novelty song.

Yeah. It's kind of what the classification is.

Yeah. But it was a real band. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and they did Mr. Bojangles. That was their big song.

Yeah, definitely.

They were a legit band.

So back to Metallica, did you listen to Metallica a lot?

Only when the Black album came out. I didn't really care for all of the very original stuff. The early stuff, the 80s stuff. And I've heard it. I was playing in bands in the 80s.

never really got into it, but if you did, you were pretty far into it. So do you have a song that is like, okay, that Metallica song that you say, I can listen to that, I like that?

I don't know. I would say everybody. I think we're about done with Sandman. I think even they're done with Sandman, but they would go out and play it every single night because it has put a lot of kids through college and a lot of houses.

unforgiven okay yeah I mean I've kind of migrated through my life through a number of genres of music I haven't always stuck with the same thing I don't know I've kind of been this this music hobo and I just go from one thing to the next but Sandman was one of mine that I liked and you know I remember Metallica in probably my senior year of high school, 81, 82, before they really made it. Their music was known in the big cities, but nobody knew about them in the nowhere places.

In my world, it was very well recorded and produced. And the producer on that record was a guy named Bob Rock who ended up, he produced Motley Crue, Theater of Pain. He ended up, he's a pretty big producer.

Well, that's kind of a great segue into who you are and what you do. So people are like, who's this Rob guy? You brought him on your show, what does he do?

Well, for 20 plus years, I was a recording engineer producer. I'm from Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was all Motown, all of my childhood until 1976. And then in 1976, I heard rock and roll on the radio. I changed everything. But I grew up in Ann Arbor and there was a music store called Al Nally Music in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And that was where, as a kid, that's where you went and bought all of your guitar picks and strings and all that stuff, and you hung out there. But the cool thing about that music store was it was famous enough that people like Stevie Wonder, Prince, Ted Nugent, they were in that store. They were hanging out. There were tour buses in front of that store. So as a kid, you were just kind of glued to it. So it would be years later, about 1989, after I knew everybody in that place, And I met Al Nally. This is very long story short, but I get introduced to Al Nally. He had a recording studio in not the basement, but the sub-basement. It was two floors below the surface of the streets. And his bands that he had at the time, he had, do you remember Brownsville Station? I do, yeah. So that was his first band that he got going and they had smoking in the boys room and it was a big deal and then he actually he managed Brownsville station for their entire career and then he managed a band called Blackfoot. I remember Blackfoot. Now this is where I come in so about 1989 Blackfoot doesn't have really a lot going on but I was introduced, came down into the studio and a guy named Ricky Medlock, who's the lead singer, guitar player from Blackfoot. I get introduced to him and they said, you know, what do you want to do? And I said, I want to make, I want to do what you guys do. And so there were, you know, gold and platinum records on the wall. And that's what I wanted to do. So they gave me the keys and said, here, here's your first artist. And my first artist was a guy named Michael Caton. He's a blues guitar player, by the way. Still the greatest guitar player I've ever worked with. And I've worked with a lot, a ton. He was amazing. In fact, I thought they were all going to be that good, but they're not. But it was a blues guy. And he had a record deal over in Europe. And they said, here, here's the keys. He's a 35 year old every day drinking alcoholic and he's yours. He's all yours.

And so there was a couple of times I thought I was going to die.

Yeah. I locked myself in the control room. They were having fistfights and knife fights and it was crazy. Oh my goodness. We would come back the next day and he'd go, what happened? And I go, you happened. Oh my God. Um, it was the craziest time. So you were the adult in the room. Yeah. And then, um, so that was, uh, 89 and then I, it was so scary. And I mean, I feared for my life. And, uh, so I quit on him. I said, I'm not, I'm not doing this. And I remember it. So, He called me. It was Labor Day, or not Labor Day, Memorial Day of 1990. And he goes, all right, I quit drinking. Let's go finish this album. I said, you serious? And he's still clean to this day. But he wouldn't finish the album without me because he knew it wasn't going to get finished. So we finished the album. We did really well. And he put it out over in Europe. And I think we went up to number five over in Europe. And he was just a blues guy. And he's amazing. I mean, the most intense guitar player. And so after that, I started working with Ricky a little bit, Medlock, because he was there in the studio. And we started working on a band called Warp Drive out of Milwaukee together. And we did a whole entire album together. And Al had another artist named Liz Lahren on Atlantic Records. And he says, do you want to do this? He goes, I got this girl. Nobody will work with her. She's a total bitch. And I said, OK. Sure. And they had all kinds of A-list players that they had brought in. And every one of them had walked out. And they said, you know what? And her first album had stiffed over and it was terrible. They spent a ton of money on it. And they said, you know what? We'll give it to you. You can't do any worse than the last guy. And the last guy was a guy named Rupert Hine, who was like the president of the producers union. So I did it and we were working on it for nine months and we were coming along and they said, hey, it's getting cold. Do you want to go mix it in Fort Myers, Florida? And I said, yeah, sure, let's go. So we went down to Fort Myers in Cape Coral, actually, and we rented a studio for three months and we finished the overdubs and mixing. And I didn't want to leave. That was it. So that's where you live now. That's where I live since. You and Nicole live down there.

Yeah. And the weather is always nice. Well, except for when water comes ashore. But that was in September.

Yeah. And you know what? After my first hurricane, which was Charlie in 2004, my mom calls me and she goes, are you ready to come back to Michigan? I go, hell no. I'll take them one day a year.

I'll take it. So that, I mean, you have to accept that. I mean, you have to decide that. It's part of what we do. It's part of what you do, yeah.

But Nicole and I have a house that we bought in 2018, which is up to code, and it just withstood 155 mile an hour winds.

And you guys aren't right on the water, are you? No, we're on freshwater. We're on a canal. OK, you're on a canal. So how far inland from the main water, the ocean, do you have to get before it's fresh, before it switches over from Bree in?

You're the expert.

Not very far.

Four miles? Three? A mile. Yeah, not even a mile. Wow, that's amazing. I would have thought the tides would travel in further, but I guess not.

They do.

But they consider it brackish water, right? They do. I don't even know what that means. Half and half. Half salt water.

Salt water, but it's like low sodium soy sauce.

I don't know what the difference is. Well, Melody drinks these half and half, half cut iced teas. So it's like half sweet tea, half unsweet tea.

So it's kind of brackish.

You drink brackish tea? All right, well, you're welcome to continue sipping on that whiskey because you have got a massive glass of it over there. Wow. Melody is pouring big pours tonight. Big pour. It's good, though.

116 proof.

Oh, get ready because we always start our shows with the low proof whiskey, lower proof whiskey, and then we move up from there. So our next one's going to be north of 116. I'm just warning you. Good Lord. You guys have an extra room? The couch pulls out. Oh, good. I'm really liking this, even though I've got a problem with it. So this whiskey is actually, so the Black and West X Wes Henderson's, it's a hundred dollar bottle of whiskey. It's not cheap, but it is, it's kind of a special bottle. You're not going to find it everywhere. It's a little limited in release. but it's got this this kind of imbalance to it for me this is it's very light up front very okay out of five oh out of five what do i give it yeah three and a half oh jeez three and a half Why? What do you give it? I think it's a, it's a solid four. Well, I mean, that's, we are different people. We taste things differently. So you, I applaud your four. You're probably closer to the reality than I am.

I can actually sip it without a mixer.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's like that's exactly what it is.

It's Makers 101.

So Nicole said, because she's not on mic, but she said that she could sip it without a mixer so she could sip it straight. And I think the reason for that is that It's very, very light and, and upfront, you don't get like this huge alcohol, like burn upfront. You don't get a lot of pepper upfront. You get that on the back, but by then you've already swallowed it. So as Tommy Chong says, it grabs you by the boo boo. So true. So Rob, you're a record producer, you're a sound engineer, you've worked with some pretty fantastic bands. You also play the guitar yourself.

Yeah, I do.

You've got a little something for us that you'd like to play.

Well, I'm going to tell you, you just said, hey, do you have something to have yours? Ricky Medlock and I did an album. We did a movie, a movie soundtrack for William Shatner back in 2002. We did this movie, it's called Groom Lake. He calls it a film, I call it a movie. And it is a, it's of all things, it's about aliens. And Ricky was in the movie and it was, they were filming it out in, I want to say in New Mag, Roswell, that area. And it's, Groom Lake is actually this place where there's supposed to be a lot of alien activity. So. We ended up getting a phone call and saying, hey, we need some music for the movie. So we did it. And they were sending me dailies, which is what they shoot during the day and then they don't edit it. They sent it out. I'm looking at them in the studio and I'm like going, I called out there to New Mexico and I go, I said, I don't mean to be offensive, but this looks a lot like Mexican soap opera. Not real good. And they go, oh, no, no, no, don't worry about that. We're going to fix it in post. I said, no, I'm literally, I'm looking at a cart that rolls over and it's going down the hill. And I can see the cable pulling it down the hill. Yeah, we're going to erase that. Well, they never did.

Yeah, I like to think a lot of times when a podcast is not going great that, and sometimes we have a lot of background noise. We have a band that fires up at the other end of the auditorium and we're recording over here. We're in the green room, but the green room's not really soundproof. And I'm like, I can fix that later. No, you can't. I've usually been able to pull it out. You can do your best. Do your best. I've only literally lost one episode that I could not save.

So they tell you when you're doing a movie, they go, well, this one is going to be on a jukebox in a diner. And this one's going to be on the car while you're driving on the road. And this one's going to be, they actually give you, they tell you what the purpose is. But remember, these songs that you do are three and a half, four minutes long. And they're using about six or eight seconds of it. And so you go through all the trouble to record a song and everything. But I'll do this one that I ended up, I wrote this song and it was going to be in a Jeep. Well, it turned out it wasn't a Jeep. It was a Suzuki Samurai. Oh, yeah, I remember those. But it was, so it was on the radio while they're going down the road and they're having a conversation. So this would be in the background. So I'll just do, I won't do all of it, okay? I'll just do, I'll give you a little bit of it. You play as much as you like.

There's a fire on the mountain, better get your gun. Yeah, they keep the fire burning all the day, but that ain't the one That's the signal fire that's called a war I bet the DEA got a man everywhere in the name of school But again, sure, maybe it's up off the floor Cause it won't be long till they're at our door Yeah, they want to take from you and take from me. They want to take us. Use those badges like a shield. They want to break us. Everywhere in I know there's a fire on the mountain. There's a glow up in the sky. There's a fire on the mountain. Eight miles high

That was on a Suzuki Samurai radio driving down the road.

That was pretty good. I enjoyed that a lot. Now, what would you call that? Would you call that kind of just a good time song or a ballad?

I would call it country rock, I guess. Country rock? OK. Which I was never into. I mean, I was a Motown kid. So I didn't know anything about Southern rock at all. Nothing. And then I met Ricky with Blackfoot. I had a cousin who had told me about Leonard Skinner. This was in probably the early 80s. She said something about Leonard Skinner and I said, I have no idea who that is. There was, we used to go to the music store and this building would just be pumping, just be pulsating music. And it was, Blackfoot was downstairs rehearsing. And then it would be a couple of years after that, that I'd actually be going down there, meeting everybody and working on music with them. But I had no idea there was a genre of Southern rock at all, nothing.

Probably one of the most famous Southern rock bands of all times.

Well, Blackfoot, well, yeah, I'd say, you know, you got to put Skinner pretty much at the top. Skinner's at the top. I'd say you got to put the Allman Brothers. Allman Brothers. Right there. And then after that, you got your 38 Specials and you got your... Molly Hatchet? Hatchet and you got Blackfoot and you got the Outlaws.

Yeah.

and the outlaws were even a little bit before Blackfoot. They were actually, and so... I was a huge outlaws fan. Really? Yeah. Okay, so I knew Huey Thomason very well. Oh, did you? Yeah, because Huey was in Leonard Skinner when I started working with Leonard Skinner in 96. So when I, so I was on the road with Blackfoot from 90 to 96 and in the studio. And in 96, my partner Al calls me and he goes, you better, and I was in Chicago. He says, get a rent a car, get to the airport and get down here to Fort Myers. He goes, I just put Ricky back in Leonard Skinnerd and they're going to be here in 10 days. Wow. So I did. And I flew. I remember I was so exhausted. I remember I got to Chicago O'Hare and I was the first one there at the gate. I was the first one there. I'm like, oh, I guess I could take a nap. And the next thing I remember, I got a newspaper over my head and I hear last call. Oh my gosh. And so I flew down to Fort Myers and we had we had carpenters and plumbers and electricians and everything. And we were turning our building into rehearsal, recording everything. And it was 10 days later and Skinner pulled in and there was Gary Rossington and there was Leon Wilkerson, Billy Powell, Huey Thomason and Ricky was in it. And then Johnny Van Zandt. And we started working that day, like, you know, getting the band rehearsed and ready to go. And then 10 days after that, I kind of got nostalgic last night, just pulled out some itineraries and it was, it was that, that, that, went right from Fort Myers right over to Coral Sky Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Florida and started with it. It started a tour with the Doobie Brothers and it was just boom.

Yeah.

And so at that point, I worked with Skinnerd for the next 12 years, working on rehearsals, recording and albums. And I got to be very intimate with everything. That's so awesome.

That's an experience that not many people get. No, and I didn't ask for it.

But you earned it. Yeah, so at that point I stopped going on the road because with Blackfoot we were doing, at one point in August of 1996, when Nicole and I moved into a new house, I was throwing stuff away and I found an old calendar. from Blackfoot in 96 and we were doing 20,000 miles a month.

Oh my goodness.

That'll wear on you just a little bit. Well, it's the reason my body's not right.

Yeah.

You know, for sure. And so we were actually traveling from Yuma, Arizona to upstate New York in the same month. That's what was happening with Blackfoot. Wow. And so we did. And one day, I remember in the middle of August of 96, we did a double. We actually did a double at we did a place called Sun Tan Lake in New Jersey. And then we that night we drove up to upstate New York and played a gig up there.

Wow.

So and with Blackfoot, I started the very 1990, I started with Blackfoot doing merchandise, selling t shirts. I mean, it was that was it. You know, it was just I did the whole merchandise thing. And so during the course of Blackfoot, I worked my way from t-shirts and hats and can koozies to tuning guitars to oh crap we got a guy that can't sing so now i'm singing behind the marshall stacks to eventually eventually i'm on stage playing bass so it goes all the way from Selling t-shirts to playing bass and singing.

Well, I mean, our listeners just heard you regale a little song there, and I think they probably know you can sing already. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. You can either sing or you don't. Yeah, I don't. And so we were at that point when it was time that Ricky went with Leonard Skinner. So it was time to put Blackfoot to bed. Actually, with Ricky going into Lynyrd Skynyrd, you see, it made Blackfoot actually more valuable. So while Ricky was on the road with Lynyrd Skynyrd, we were in the studio redoing Blackfoot songs so that they could be licensed for two commercials. One of them was a Toyota Tundra pickup commercial. And one of them was Tom Brady selling. He did a clone for a while. I forget what it was. Do you remember what it was? So we would actually, we were redoing Blackfoot songs and my partner Al was licensing them for, you know. So Ricky's out on the road doing Blackfoot, I mean, doing Skinnerd and we're back in the studio because all of a sudden Blackfoot's worth more money. So, and then, and then Ricky got inducted into the what's called the Native American Hall of Fame. And that was in 2000. nine and we went up to the Seneca gaming casino in Niagara Falls, New York side, not the Canadian side. And we played at the Seneca gaming casino and what a crazy night that was because Blackfoot was the headliner, but I'm walking around backstage and I was playing and singing with him and I'm walking around backstage and I go, an army guy, and a cop, and it's the village people. And so Felipe Rose, the guy, Felipe Rose the Indian, and I have a picture with him. He walks up to me and he's a great guy. He's funny, but he comes up and he goes, you are bad. And so it's funny because my old buddy, Eric, who you met a while ago, he goes, I just remember the village people knocking on your door at two in the morning going, hey, are you coming out here? No, I'm never coming out. So Village People was on it, and who else was on it? A band called Taste of Honey. They had it. They were one hit wonder in the 80s. They had a song called Boogie Oogie Oogie. Yeah, I remember that. I do remember. I hate to say it. I remember that. Janice was a bass player, and she was in there. There's a lot of people in the Native American Hall of Fame. Jackson Brown, Cher, Wayne Newton, all of these people have done this and played this gig. And so I got to play that gig. It was fantastic. Yeah, it was great.

All right. Well, we're going to take a short break and we're going to finish off this two ounces of whiskey that you have there. Actually, you can pour a little bit of my glass if that's too much, because we got some big drinking to do in the second half. Good Lord. You think? Nobody told me. So you were getting ready to say something.

Oh, she's going to say when I played at the Seneca gaming casino. Yeah. That's when I discovered Canadian whiskey. Yeah. I remember that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, let's, let's try to get our glasses empty. And when we come back folks, we've got another great whiskey and more, uh, more with Rob Robinson. Thank you. As we mentioned earlier in the show, we hope you'll join us this fall on October 6th and 7th for Bourbon on the Banks. The festival itself is from 2 to 6 PM on October the 7th, and you can pick those tickets up at bourbononthebanks.org for $65. They also have an early access ticket for $75. It'll get you in an hour early and definitely get you access to some special pours. But if you always like that VIP access this year, they're bringing in the VIP access tickets. We'll give you access to their VIP tent and all the great things that go along with that for $175. Be sure to check out bourbononthebanks.org. They'll get all the details on this year's event. Listen, so we are back. It's a great episode today with Rob Robinson, and we're going to be drinking another whiskey today. Rob, I think you were able to finish that Blakken that you had poured up for him. Well, you didn't pour it. Melody poured it. Yeah. Does she do you a solid on this one? Yeah.

We're going to be using your pullout couch. Yeah. All right. Oh, but that was awesome. That blackened one was fantastic. I thought it was really good. I gave it a four. You gave it a three, five.

I give it a three five because it's kind of a nerdy kind of thing, right? So I gave it a three five because it was it was all like fireworks on the back end, but on the front it was kind of light and soft. It talks its way through the front door. But there you go.

There you go. But then it destroys your living room. The destroyer. Yeah, that's what happens. So it talks its way.

Hi, do you have a restroom? Oh, yeah, sure. Come on in.

And then just an explosion.

Well, I'm going to say this. If listeners, if you have an opportunity to pick up a bottle of the blackened X, Wes Henderson, the special release. Yeah. A hundred bucks. Yeah. I mean, if that's in your wallet, if you're able to do that, I say get it. That's worth it. Yeah. You think so?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Awesome.

Well, we're moving on. We've got another whiskey now and we are opening heaven's door. Yeah. We've been knocking on it. Knocking on heaven's door.

That's right.

No, now Bob Dylan is now opening heaven's door. We've got a Heaven's Door release here. It is a single barrel release selected by Total Wine. We picked this up in Florida. There are 154 bottles in this particular keg. Yeah. And I'm sure they spread it amongst their stores here in Florida, but It is 125.4 proof.

It doesn't just knock on heaven's door. It kicks it in. It actually makes an announcement, hey, we're coming in.

It kicks it in. We both have a pretty generous pour of this, but you've got a really generous pour of this. The girls are taking care of you tonight, Rob.

Don't forget to tip your waitresses and bartenders. Hey, remember, these girls work for tips and tips alone. All right, well, let's check out this whiskey.

Cheers, Rob. Salute. I'm glad it's on ice. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's kind of a bold whiskey from the start, right? Like, as soon as it hits your mouth, it's like taking over. Yeah. It is a pal right in the kisser.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like it.

Yeah. So Bob Dylan has a whiskey. What do you think about that?

Well, I'm not sure that he drinks it.

I'm sure he drinks it. You think so? I think so. I think Bob Dylan toured the world for, I mean, since the 60s, right? Yeah. And he probably drank whiskies in every single major city in the world. But in the 60s, they were shitty.

You think so? I think they were lousy whiskies, yes.

I think the whiskies today are definitely better than what they were back then.

Well, everyone's paying attention.

Yeah. They weren't back then. Yeah.

I mean, as you go around the world several times like he has, you just acquire a taste for something a little bit better.

Well, tell me what you know about Bob Dylan. Just just in a nutshell. I mean, you know, he's got some great songs that are that are like timeless, right?

What I know is he started off acoustic. Yeah. And when he went to electric, He lost about half of his fan base because they thought that he had sort of sold out. Yeah. But he has written a lot of songs for a lot of people that have had a great deal of success. And he's still doing it. He was actually in the super group, The Traveling Wilburys. The Traveling Wilburys. Yes, which had Jeff Lin and George Harrison and Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. And who else was in it? Roy Orbison. Yeah. And then a drummer that nobody really knows of, but his name is Jim Keltner. And Jim Keltner played on virtually every piece of vinyl recorded in the 1970s. So how many people in that group are still living? Let's see. Patty's gone. Roy's gone. George is gone. Bob Dylan is alive. And Jeff Lin's alive, so two people.

Well, you know, one of the things, and did you know that Bob Dylan was an artist? I mean, in addition to music, did you know he was into other forms of art?

It doesn't shock me in the least. I mean, it's just another avenue. It's what these guys do. Lou Reed is the same sort of stuff.

Yeah. So Bob Dylan was a painter. Yeah. He was also a sculptor and he does metal work. Like, you know. Well, so does Metallica. Yeah. They do metal work.

That's true.

Yeah. But that's not a big deal. He literally takes things he finds around the countryside, like small pieces of iron here and there, and he builds gates out of them. And he makes these beautiful ornate metal gates. And one of which is, you can see on the front of the bottle there. And every bottle of Heaven's Door that comes out has a different gate that Bob Dylan has built in his shop. And he's he's he's something else when it comes. I mean, some of his artwork is tremendous. I don't know if you've ever had a chance to see his paintings, but not really. He he always I mean, a lot of people when they when they toured, you know, they were busy partying, right? It was part of the job.

It was part of the job.

Well, Bob Dylan would recluse himself, and he would paint. He would paint, and he would work on it.

I think he was buddies with Andy Warhol back in the day. Yes, of course. He may very well have been. I didn't know that. New York Greenwich Village kind of thing. Did you know that Bob Dylan was in a bad motorcycle accident? I didn't. Yes, he was. And that actually put his career on hold for a moment. And that's just one of those things. But I would assume that he was friends with Moore Hall and was in that group. And I know he was part of the whole Greenwich Village thing in New York at the time. There were a lot of organic sort of acoustic acts. The mamas and the papas were in that group at the time. They were in what was called a jug band. Oh, yeah, with the jugs, right? Yeah. And it was called the Mug Wumps. Mug Wumps.

Man, that sounds awful familiar.

Why do I know that? I don't know. And they never did anything. They did anything. But they were all, everybody knew each other at the time. Believe it or not, so was Steven Stills and so was Peter Tork of the Monkeys. Oh, wow. Everybody knew each other and it was...

They're all 22 years old.

If you could look and go, hey, at 22, Steven Stills, you're gonna be one of the best. You're gonna be in Crosby, Stills, and Nash. You're gonna be in one of the best. People like Steven Stills are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was in the Buffalo Springfield, which is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was in Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Let's see, Graham Nash. is also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was in the Hollies and he was in Crosby, Steele, and Nash. And Neil Young? Neil Young was in Crosby, Steele, and Nash and Young. At least twice, right? He was in as Neil Young. Yes. He might be in three times.

Yeah. I mean, that was a great time, wasn't it? A great era of music.

These guys are all 21, two, three years old. You don't bet at the time, you know, that guy's gonna be huge, he's gonna be huge, they're all gonna be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they're all gonna be massive stars. But they are.

Well, folks, if you've been seeing these special whiskeys come out, these whiskeys that are sponsored by notable figures, sometimes you're not sure if the whiskey is going to be good or not. Let me just tell you that the two we've had on the show tonight, the Blackened, the Wes Henderson edition of this is really good. I say four. You said a four. I said a three and a half, but for me, a three and a half is go get it, right? I'm like, you need to have this. You said, if you have $120 in your pocket, go get it. Go get it. That's right. And then this Heaven Store, this one is actually a total wine store pick. It's at 125.4 proof. It is a single barrel. But, you know, the other day I had a single barrel version of this at a bar in Orlando here called The Whiskey.

You know where that is?

And I really enjoyed that as well. I think we posted that on our group, so go back and check out our previous post on that. And then we had another listener. Who was it, Melody, that posted? Amy Ratliff posted. She recently picked up a bottle of Heaven's Door and posted something online about it. So this is definitely a whiskey that you need to pay attention to, I think. Is it a bourbon? This is a straight bourbon whiskey. Now, this particular whiskey is not a Kentucky bourbon. This is a Tennessee bourbon. you know, a lot of music happens in and around Nashville or Memphis. And this is a Nashville whiskey. But definitely pay attention to it. This is about $75 for a bottle. So not quite as expensive as the special release blackened, but this is a barrel pick. So I think if you pick up the standard Heaven's Door bottle, it's around $45. So not too much, right?

I would say that the blackened one was pretty good.

I like it better than I liked it. This one is a little bit more like it immediately attacks you. It's like drinking fire ants. I get it. I understand completely.

Yeah, this is that a term that you use? I've never used fire ants before, but at first it's a it's like drinking fire ants and then the back end is just nice and smooth. No, it doesn't work like that.

Yeah, this one's pretty bitey. Yeah, this is a bold whiskey. This is a very bold. I like that bold. It's bold. It's high proof. It is in your face. It is loud. How's that? Loud? You like that? Yeah, that's loud. That bourbon is loud.

Yeah. And you know what else is loud? Limburger cheese. That's loud. That's what that burger is. Definitely loud. You ever had that?

That's pretty loud. But I don't know. I think that this is something that you might want to try out. If you get a single barrel of Heaven's Door at Barrel Proof, you can always put it on ice. Right, Rob?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, actually, you can do what Nicole does. Throw it on some Diet Coke and with a lime, you're in good shape. Yeah. But it's real fire forward. It's going to burn you right out of the gate.

So do you have a Bob Dylan song that's like that one that?

There's only one.

There's only one. Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man.

Yeah, actually, The Birds did it in 65. Yeah, they did. They did. And David Crosby just passed away about a month ago and he was on that song. But I would say that Heaven's Door, Nicole's version is Guns N' Roses. Oh yeah, of course.

So you know the quality of the song is how many times it's been covered or redone, right?

Mama, take this badge from me I can't use it anymore It's getting dark, too dark to see I feel like I'm knocking on heavy stone Knock, knock, knocking on his door Knock, knock, knocking on his door Knock, knock, knocking on his door Knock, knock, knocking on his door

That's what you get right there. I love it. I love it. That is timeless. It is great. Yeah. So how old is Bob Dylan now? I mean, if you had to guess. 80. 80. Yeah. I'm going to guess. Is he, is he still in public? Yeah, I think he's out there. Yeah.

I don't know if he's doing gigs or anything, but I think he's out there making appearances. Well, he's going to promote his bourbon. That's true. He does.

I wonder if he's still in there like welding up gates. I mean, he's so every bottle that they put out every single and I'll show you after the show. He does a different. He does a different gate. He'll weld a gate out of just scrap, right? You've seen those people that take scrap and they weld them into art, right? And that's what he does. So I think while he was traveling and gigging and doing all that stuff, he was doing more painting and now he's doing more like sculpting, metal sculpting. It's pretty cool. He's very artistic guy. Are you looking it up? How old is he? What? 81 81 I was off Yeah, pretty pretty pretty good though. Yeah, so many so many names from that era are are passing on And we're at that point here at that point. We're not there yet you and me

We're still living the dream, right Rob? Yeah. So that's the only way that Ricky Medlock and I stay in touch is when somebody dies. So we get a text message and it'll just be somebody's name. And that's it. And it might say, James Brown. That's it. We're at that kind of point where people are just kind of checking out. But that's life. I mean, life is birth.

live as much as you can and then you die. And then you hope you leave a little bit of legacy behind. Yeah.

And taxes. Yeah, we are. I, you know what? That's exactly right. We are living the dream. And now like I talk to people that I haven't talked to in forever, you know, and I'll go, Hey man, how you doing? And they go, Oh, you know, living the dream. And I go, you are. You really are. Because I know we are. I know Nicole and I are.

I mean, there is life after rock and roll, right?

If you can get out, you know, it's there. Jim Morrison had a there was a book on Jim Morrison's called Nobody Gets Out of Here Alive. But you kind of do if you can make it. There's a few of us. And I did. And it was in 2009. And I had been working with all of these bands for many, many years. And I realized in one day that I still, and this is true today, right now, I still haven't done a line of cocaine in my life. I didn't ever mess around on my My wife at the time and and I certainly wouldn't now. I mean Nicole is my wife and I Didn't smoke weed. I hate it and I didn't really drink now. I enjoy a bourbon now doing it all around you so everybody And when you're in it, everybody does all of it, every single bit of it. And I realized in one day that one of those things, just if you did one, if I did cocaine, one of those things can take you down. And I realized everybody around me was doing all of it. But it's not something that you actually, it's not something that happens overnight. So you just look out one day and you look around the room and you go, you know, I'm the only one in here. I'm the only one here that has a normal life. Like I actually have values and morals.

Well, I won't mention any names. We've had guests on the show who have talked about, and you can go back and listen to prior episodes if you like folks, but we've had guests on that have talked about that. that life that comes along with being on the road, right? I mean, it's tough. And I'm saying, hey, can you recount any notes on this whiskey? And they're like, my nose took its toll in the 80s.

Sorry, I can't do it. So my business partner, he has no nose. It's all gone. He says, I did my cocaine and I did your cocaine. But I never did. I was pretty lucky. And it was more than luck. Well, you were smart about it. I was. And then there was one day I just walked away from all of it. And I love everybody to death. And I had great relationships. And I have incredible stories. And I have a lot of them that can't come out even after people die.

That's all right. And it's sad. So you've had an opportunity to travel a little bit.

Yes. With what you do, right? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I still do. Yeah. So now I'm more of a hired gun. Yeah. You take Nicole with you. That's the only deal. As a matter of fact, last year they said, hey, a real good friend of mine, his drummer called me up and he goes, hey, I want you to come and do this gig. And I said, where is it? And he says, it's Sweden. I said, no. And they said, okay. And they called me two weeks later and they go, we really need you to come and do this gig. What's it going to take? And I said, well, first of all, you got to take my wife. And they said, done. And I said, oh, great. Now what do I got to do? So I learned an hour's worth of a set and we went and we, we went to Sweden and we played a, it's a big show and it's, it's in Sweden. And I remember back in the early nineties, it was only two days and now it's four and it's huge. It's 55,000 people a day. And so we went and we actually played the first day. I was a hired gun for a guy named what's his name? John Beauvoir. And John was actually the bass player. John Beauvoir was a bass player in a 70s punk band called the Plasmatics. I've heard of the Plasmatics. Yeah, Wendell Williams, right? Yeah, yeah. So he's still, John is huge in Sweden. Yeah. Nothing over in Bonita Springs, Florida, but he's huge. And so we went over there and it was huge. And we played a gig and we signed autographs for two hours and it was awesome.

My goodness, the plasmatics.

Yeah. But he actually lived over there for about, I want to say lived over 10 or 12 years. Yeah. So he's very well known in Sweden. I think that's a great gig. I think that if you can be known for something somewhere that's away from your home and you can still have your life, that's a really awesome thing. You can escape it. You can escape it to home. It's awesome. Because I always could live in anonymity and I love it and I get to do whatever I want to do and I get to go wherever I want to go. But I remember in about 1990 Five, anyways, I did live at Ricky Medlock's house because we were bringing in some guys to audition for the band. And so they said, well, you give them your apartment and then you'll go live with Ricky. So I lived at Ricky's house with my dog. my little Pomeranian dog named Shadow, and we lived at Ricky's house. And so we would do normal things like go to Winn-Dixie and go to the produce section. It was just hilarious. And I just thought this was normal in my world, but people coming up to somebody that you're with and going, oh my God, I saw you in Greensboro in 77. And you don't really get to escape that, and I do.

Yeah. It's good to be able to escape that, because some people can't. And I've talked to Melody before. I mean, that's not something that I don't want to be that guy. Oh, no.

I want a life. In fact, not only do I want a life, I want our life. Our life is awesome. And we get to go and do whatever we want. We're in Orlando. We could go to the theme park whenever we want. Do you know what our typical day at the theme park is? We walk in, and we walk. all the way back to Finnegan's Pub and we sit in our regular seats and our regular bartender comes up and says, hey, how you guys doing? You want your normal doubles? And we go, yeah, and we do. And we drink our doubles and then we pull out the app and we go, well, let's see what the rides look like. Looks like a little long. Two more doubles. And if we ride a ride a day, it's a good day. Yeah. But that's our life. We have the best life. That's awesome. So we get to go to Orlando, maybe ride a ride. Who cares if we do?

And then we go back home.

So I enjoy the anonymity. And then if I get to, if I want to go and play a gig or go out and back somebody up in a band, I can do that.

So our listeners are like this guy, Rob, he's, he's like really cool. I would, I would love to meet him sometime. So how do they, how do they meet you, Rob? How do they find you? I mean, you're playing gigs from time to time.

We don't even know when, I mean, sometimes it's a day or two before the gig.

So do you have any social media accounts?

Yeah, I mean, it's Rob Robinson in Cape Coral, Florida, on Facebook. But I don't have a calendar. No? No, not at all. You just, when it's time, you'll play. Yep, that's exactly right. Matter of fact, I was telling you earlier, we played a gig next to our pool. It was two weeks ago this weekend. That was either going to be a gig out or we just Nicole. Nicole's had trouble sleeping lately, so she woke up and she wakes up in the middle of the night. One morning I woke up and she goes, we're having a Mardi Gras party. You're playing it. That was true. You said, yes, ma'am. And I do. And we had the best. She threw the best party in the world. So I don't I don't go out and play a whole lot anymore. I probably, sure, but you gotta talk to my manager. Your barn party? That sounds like it's right up my alley.

All right, Rob, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show today. We had such fun. Is it over? I mean, can you believe it? I mean, we've been going for an hour now. It goes so fast, doesn't it? I know, I'm a talker. No, it's cool. It's so cool. We hope you'll play an outro for us, though.

This is one of Nicole's favorites.

Mama told me

Come sit beside me, my only son And listen closely, oh baby, to what I say And if you do this, it'll help you some sunny day Oh, take your time Don't live too fast Trouble will come And they will pass I'll find a woman, oh baby And you'll find love Don't forget, son, there's someone up above. And be a simple kind of man. And be something you love and understand. Oh, won't you do this all me son, if you came all the way.

Love it.

Love it. So awesome.

All right, folks, well, you can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. You can also find us on TikTok. Believe it or not, we don't dance. But we do post some videos. So definitely check us out every week on a Wednesday. We'll put out an episode. Make sure you subscribe on your favorite podcast outlet. We are on Apple podcasts. We're on Spotify. We're on Amazon music. You can find us on Google podcasts. Basically anywhere you can find your podcast, you'll find the bourbon road. Make sure you subscribe to us so that you'll get that notification that a new show has come out every single week. We'd love to have you listen to us. If you've got an idea for a show, if you've got an idea for a guest, a bottle, if you've got a distillery in your hometown is doing it right. Make sure you let us know. All you need to do is go onto the bourbon road.com. We have a contact us page there, go in there and fill that out. Let us know what you're thinking. We'll get on it right away. You can always send us an email. You can send an email to me or Brian or Tyler at team at the bourbon road.com. We'll get on it right away. We hope you listen to us every single week. We hope you enjoyed this show. Rob's fantastic. We'd love to have him back someday. In the meantime, make sure you're listening and we'll see you down the bourbon road.

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