35. Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History

It's delicious. It's very, very good. You need to give the recipe out.

Yeah, I will give the recipe out. No, no, no, no. You need to sell the recipe. Sellers. That's great. I'll sell it to Heaven Hills. They may be interested.

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Find out more about their fine rustic furniture at logheadshomescenter.com. Hello, I'm Jim Shannon. This is the Bourbon Road, and today we are in Bardstown, Kentucky, and we are at the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History. And Mike's not with us today. Mike is on a road trip in the South. He's visiting craft distilleries. But today I'm flying solo, and I've got with me two folks. First of all, I've got Linda McCloskey. Is that correct? Yes, it is. from the Oscar Getz Museum here. She's the executive director. And I also have Bill Wren with me. And Bill is the lead bourbon host at Heaven Hill. Now, Heaven Hill was nice enough to send somebody over to the podcast to sit down with us and to show their support of the museum. I think that's a great thing. Glad to be here.

They are great community supporters of us, yes.

Well, welcome to the show, both of you. So what we like to do on the show is get straight to the first tasting. And today we've got something special. So I've brought something for you. And since it's so close to Christmas and we're sitting in a museum, it's all decorated up with its trees and stockings and all the lights and everything, I thought, what's better than a couple of Christmassy kind of drinks? So today I've brought two things. First of all, I brought some egg dog. Tis the season, right?

Absolutely. Merry Christmas.

Before we get to the second drink, let's go ahead and try that eggnog. This is the Evan Williams Original Southern Eggnog. This is available... All across the United States.

Though it's everywhere.

That's everywhere. That's a big production for you guys. Huge. Huge. It's a 30 proof drink. It's a little bit lower as you would expect with this type of drink. It's made with Evan Williams bourbon. And well, let's get right to it. What do you think? Absolutely. All right.

Very delicious. I like it. Oh my goodness.

It's killer. I don't drink eggnog very often, but I tell you what, when I do, I really enjoy it. It's kind of one of those things you break out once a year, right?

And you can only get this during Christmas season. It is a seasonal drink. So if you try to get it in June, it's not available. So you need to stock up.

Because in June is when we're making it. Yeah. And it's one of the top sellers. It's just, it's so good.

Oh my goodness. It is delicious. So Bill, what kind of production quantity are we talking here? Can you even tell me? Is it like,

I can't tell you any numbers, but I can tell you all of our bottling lines, except the smaller bottles, are running nothing but eggnog in June. And when you see it stack the ceiling for a couple of acres, it's pretty overwhelming how much of it's actually solid. Wow. Are you cracking eggs there?

It is delicious. I love it. I love to put it in hot chocolate. I love to put it in coffee. You can sip it just by itself. It's a really light, sweeter, creamier taste that a lot of females like. I love it. Different people that I've served it to in my home. Here at the museum, people just rave and love it. And Heaven Hill has been nice enough that when it's on our home tour, we have little tiny candy canes that we put with it and people just rave about it. It's delicious.

I think the problem is when somebody gives you one of those little tasting glasses, you know, they're about a half an ounce in size. when somebody gives you one of those with some eggnog in it, it's gone pretty quick. And you've got that taste of eggnog just sitting in your mouth. It just, where's my next one? You want another one, right? Exactly. That's really good. I would like to start asking a few questions about the museum here, if we can get onto that. You know, for our listeners who might not be familiar with the Getz Museum, can you kind of tell us kind of what your mission is here?

Our mission here at the Getz Museum is to give you a completely different experience than what you get at the different distilleries. We try to educate and to promote the history of Bourbon, as well as to highlight the different people in Bourbon's history that have been very significant in promoting it. And there's a lot of funny stories that we can talk about with Cary Nation and Charles Remus. There are so many different people that are out there that people absolutely love to hear the stories and to see the old bottles. We love to educate people as to how many old bottles that we have that are pre-prohibition and prohibition. And everything that we have here in the museum is real. We do not have any tea or colored water. All of our bourbon is the real deal. It's the real thing.

So, the mission in a nutshell is education.

Absolutely. I have a lot of classrooms that even come in. Oh, okay. Different schools. I invite them in and try to educate them because Bourbon is what runs Bargetown. And so, even elementary kids are interested in the history of it.

You know, I never would have thought of that. And, you know, to some people it might seem like, wait a minute, you're taking elementary kids to a... It is your history. It's history, yes.

And it's not only a history for the recent past, it's been here a very long time. Most people do not understand that the United States of America probably would not exist without whiskey. From the very beginning, it's been our tax base. One of the largest producers of rye whiskey in the United States was our first president, George. And that's been left out of the history books a lot. But when George was elected president of the United States, Congress gave him the choice of being paid a salary or being paid for the whiskey the soldiers drank at Valley Forge. And he said, pay me for the whiskey. But they gave him a salary. But I don't know, I really understand why they left it out of the history books because George was actually just trying to keep the troops alive. They wouldn't give him money for food, so he was bringing in his own rye whiskey for him. And if you go to Mount Vernon right now, they've got his distillery up and running. I mean, it's a little family type thing.

We also here at the Oscar Guts have what we believe to be one of George Washington's original stills that we have. We do not have the paperwork to back it up, but it was located near his Mount Vernon home and it matched all of his other stills that he had. And so Ms. Emma, whenever we started our museum here, she felt in her heart of hearts and that Mr. Oscar Guts thought in his heart of hearts that this was absolutely George Washington's still. We just don't have the paperwork.

That brings up a good question. So Oscar Getz, the museum's named after him. Yes, sir. Who was Oscar Getz?

Oscar Gatz started his bourbon distillery and industry in 1944. He came down here after the repeal of the 18th Amendment. Him and his brother-in-law, they started out from Chicago and they came down and they had a big family meeting and decided that Louisville in Kentucky was going to be their location. And so he drove around and came up on Bargetown and loved it, bought the old-time Moore distillery. and renamed it Barton's. And so we have the Oscar Guest Whiskey Museum because of him.

Wow. That's a great story. So can you tell us a little bit about the building we're in?

This building is iconic to Bargetown. It has had so many different functions and so many different hats that it has worn through the history. It was originally built in 1826 as a college and a seminary. It's a huge four-story building that was actually housed for the classrooms as well as dormitories for the priests and the different people that were here going to the college.

So, this is probably one of the larger buildings in Bartstown, isn't it? Absolutely, yes it is. I mean, aside from the distilleries.

Exactly, aside from the distilleries, it is the largest building here. Oh, it is the largest. I think so, yes.

Wow, okay.

And then after, during the Civil War, the Sisters of Charity turned this building into a hospital. And for the first three years, it was a Confederate hospital. But the Sisters knew that the Union was winning, and so they moved 200 of the 250 patients out. 50 were so critical that they could not be moved. And so when the Union came through, they put their sick and wounded in here. So for the last year of the Civil War, we had Union and Confederate soldiers that were in here. And needless to say, they did not like each other very well. So there was a lot of conflict that was going on during that time. And I'm sure the sisters had a very difficult time trying to keep peace and harmony that they always wanted during the hospital stay. So they had a lot of confusion going on. After the Civil War was over, the sisters turned this building into an orphanage, We had a lot of orphans that were as a result of the Civil War, and it stayed an orphanage until 1911. In 1911, it turned into St. Joe Prep, which was a very distinguished high school for Catholic boys. It was even an international school. We had students that were here from Europe and from different countries that came over here. and it stayed a high school from 1911 until 1968. 1968, the school closed down and the building was vacant for several years. And then Mr. Oscar Goetz, who owned Barton's distillery, he passed away in 83. And his wife, Miss Emma, was going to sell the distillery, but she did not want to sell his private collection. When he came down here to find his location for his bourbon industry, it was after the repeal of the 18th Amendment And there were many, many different distilleries that did not survive the prohibition. So when he would see vacant warehouses and vacant distilleries, he would just stop his car and would go in and would pick up bottles and different signs and all sorts of paraphernalia from the bourbon and whiskey industry.

So he was a collector of bourbon artifacts, you know, a long time ago.

Yes, before it was a popular thing. So he saved our history for us. And so he had this huge museum in his that he had on display at Martin's distillery.

Okay, so when you went to the distillery back then, I guess they were entertaining people or he just had it for his for his own pleasure.

Everybody got to see it. That was part of the experience when you went to Barton's that you would go through and you would see his museum. And when he passed away, Ms. Emma was sort of overwhelmed with the distillery business and she was going to sell it, but she did not want to sell his private collection.

Because he loved it so much, right?

He loved it so much. So what she did was she paid for having one of our halls renovated in order to house his museum. And that is the reason why it is now called the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History, because it started out as just Mr. Oscar Getz private collection that he had.

So when was that, that time in which the collection came to this building?

1983.

So that was the start of the Oscar Getz Museum.

Yes, absolutely, yes.

And so who's behind the Getz Museum now? I mean, what's the organization behind the Getz Museum now?

Well, we have a board that consists of 10 different people. They are different business leaders and historians that are here in Bartstown. I am the director and we have three other people that work here as well. We have to abide by this as an historic building. So we have to abide by the rules of the historic organization that we have here, the HRB Board. The Historic Review Board has to okay everything that I do here on the outside of the building. I have freedom to be able to do different stuff on the inside, but the outside is dictated by the HRB Board and City Council as well. They have to approve everything.

So what's your day like here? I mean, you're kind of in charge of the whole museum, right?

I do. I do tours. We do guided tours every day. Lots of different people come in. We try to have four main guided tours during our tourism season. We do one at 1030, and we do one at 12, and then we do one at 130, and then another one at 230. But during the slower times of the year, anyone that comes in, I will go ahead and give them a tour. And if they want a complete detailed tour, it takes about an hour to go through here and to learn all the history. And we have even added to our museum collection in our chapel, we have a Bargetown Historical Museum that is just history of Bargetown.

I'm going to go back to this eggnog for just a minute.

All right. It's delicious.

And I found myself nosing it. It's just out of habit. There's no nose to it. There's tremendous flavor. But yeah, I thought when I poured this, I might be pouring too much, but I don't think I'm going to have any left. It's good. Mine's already gone. Yeah, it is really good. So as you walk through the museum, there's a long hallway that runs from the south end to the north end and there's rooms off of both sides. So you've got a number of rooms here and each one, I don't know how many rooms you have, but each one seems to have a theme.

Does, yes sir.

So what's the room we're in right now? What's this room?

This is the room where I'm showcasing the area, different distilleries that are here in Bargetown, and the surrounding areas I have from Louisville, from Frankfurt, from Lawrenceburg to Lexington. I have the different distilleries. They all give me their bourbon that they would like for me to display, which I have on display. I have barrel heads from each of the distilleries. They have their decorative barrel heads, and they're all very wonderful on giving me those. I am now in the process of collecting pictures, framed pictures from each of the distilleries. So when out of town guests and even our local tourists come in, I can bring them in this room and say, this is what you can get. You can have an experience right here in Kentucky. This is the bourbon that you can get. These are the barrel heads. These are the pictures. And so I actually try to promote and send people right here. You don't need to go anywhere else. You can have an experience right here in Kentucky of all the bourbon that you need to and experience, especially Heaven Hill.

This building right here is the heart of the bourbon area. It's the heart. You're sitting in the bourbon capital of the world, And right in the middle of the bourbon capital world is the heart of bourbon. And it's not any specific brand, it's just to the industry itself. It's an education just sitting in this room. I've been sitting here looking at all these different labels and different ages and it's just, it's amazing how huge a contribution bourbon has made to the United States and especially this area around here. Yeah, I can spend 15 minutes in this room alone. Oh, yeah. I like to say, but if you want the whole experience without even going to a distillery about the history of bourbon, this is where it happens right here.

You know, I'm looking over here at this model of a rick house. And I'm saying, that's the one in Dietzville. That's the design in Dietzville, isn't it? That's exactly right. So they're kind of unique. Those rick houses in Dietzville were a bit unique. And that's where the old T.W. Samuels. T.W. Samuels.

We have six different styles of rick houses, and that's over in Dietzville, and right now it's producing some of our best bourbon. Yeah. Some of the Parker's heritage comes out of there, doesn't it? Yeah. This year's Parker heritage came out of our main site, though, in a rick house that Parker helped build.

Sure.

Wow.

So there was a lot of family history there also. Yeah, that's great. That's great. OK, so we've got some other rooms here. Now, I remember one down the hall that has a bar in it. So what is that kind? Is that like the speakeasy kind of history?

It is, and we also have two huge cases full of different bottles and containers that people use to hide and disguise their alcohol and their whiskey during the prohibition, because it wasn't illegal to drink it, but it was illegal to make it and sell it. But a lot of people wanted to disguise the fact that they were drinking.

They didn't want to be called out by their friends as somebody who's against the law, kind of. Exactly.

Yeah, sure. We have two cases, as I said. Mysteries at the museum were here and actually did a taping on those different containers that we had. They chose three. One of them was a pretzel. And you fill it up. It's what you can actually drink out of. Women liked that because they could put that in their purse. It was small. And if people saw it, they wouldn't realize that they had a flask that they could drink out of. Another one is a hammer. And I'm a farm girl and I think that is the most authentic looking one and you fill it up from the bottom and all of the farmers had it and they all had those loops on their pants on their coveralls and overalls. So they had their hammer with them all the time. And this is not historically correct that I can find, but I believe and I tell people when my tourists come through that that's probably where the term let's get hammered comes from. And then there's another book that looks like a Bible, but it's not a Bible. And it's hollow on the inside. And you can put your flask down in that. And I tell my visitors that you can be very mellow for your sermon on Sunday morning. You can have your little drink. So there are several different containers that are in there. We have two cabinets full. And the Mysteries at the Museum did an entire show on that.

You were actually telling me about the origin of the term bootleggers.

Yes. We have a plaque in one of the rooms. It's a boot with a bottle sticking out of it. Where the term bootleggers came from, the stagecoach drivers knew just where to go in the hills of Kentucky and fill up their flask. It was very rough terrain. Instead of them taking a chance on dropping their bottle or them falling down and breaking their bottle, they just started sticking it in the top of their boots. And so bootleggers, they were called and it just sort of stuck. So that's where our term bootleggers comes from.

Yeah. And you also told me where that word booze came from.

Yes. E.G. booze was one of our early distillers that came down from Pennsylvania in 1840. And a young and old alike would just say, let's go drink some booze. And so they just sort of shortened it and that became our byword for alcohol. So that's where our term booze comes from.

So that was a word in use when he was making his product.

I guess he felt very fortunate that it... Well, they called it booze because it was EG Booze. So they just said, let's go drink some booze. And so that's just everybody just started calling it. So now it's the term for all liquor. Let's go drink some booze.

I wonder how many people actually know that. I didn't know that. I didn't even know that. That's really neat. So those are the kind of things you can find out here.

fun, fun, fun things, fun facts. I try to tell people different fun stories behind why we have bootleggers and why we have the term booze. We talk about Kerry Nation, and I have a life-size model of her, and all of the different containers that people, like we talked about, that they would use to hide their liquor during prohibition. There's just a lot of fun facts here that people enjoy hearing.

So, we're going to move on. We're actually going to have a second half to our first pour. Is that okay with you guys?

Okay, that's wonderful.

So, in addition to the eggnog, tis the season, right? Yes. I made some homemade bourbon cream last night and I used a little bit of the Heaven Hill Bottle and Bond, the white label, which we can't get anymore, unfortunately, but the new version, the seven-year, is available. But not in Kentucky. So we're just going to have to wait for it here. So I have a few bottles of it left over, so I thought I would make some bourbon cream with that last night. And I made kind of a Christmas spice bourbon cream. So what you have in front of you here is a coffee flavored with some Heaven Hill bourbon cream. Well, homemade Heaven Hill bourbon cream.

How many?

It's delicious. It's very, very good. You need to give the recipe out.

Yeah, I will give the recipe out. No, no, no, no, no. You need to sell the recipe. Sellers. That's great. I'll sell it to Heaven Hills. They may be interested. Yes.

But this particular bourbon cream is 50 proof. So it's a half a bottle of Heaven Hill and then the cream ingredients in it. So it's a little higher in proof. So in my opinion, it's probably a little too strong for a bourbon cream to be drank by itself. Some people might like it that way. The coffee just really. Coffee's right there. That's right where it needs to be. So a little bit of bourbon, a little bit of cream, a little bit of coffee. Great Christmas drink. What do you think? Excellent.

And I would also put it in hot chocolate. I think we'll be great with hot chocolate in front of a fireplace, Christmas tree lights. I think it's delicious.

I've actually had bourbon cream and root beer before. Have you had that?

I have had that. Have you? Yes, I have had that. Yes, it's very good. Yes.

I like the hot drink though.

I do too. I like the hot drinks.

So additionally, as you go down the hall here, you've got a bottling line, an actual bottling line. Yes. So can you tell me a little bit about that room?

In that room we have a lot of old pictures and we have people that were actually in a distillery that's actually putting the labels on on a bottling line. People love to look at that. In front of that we have one of the old books to where people actually had to hand write all of the transactions that took place. It's like a four inch thick book and someone had to sit down all day long and hand write and put in every transaction that the distillery had. Also housed in that room we have the history of where our cork comes from. A lot of people don't realize that all of our cork came from Portugal or from the Mediterranean. And I have a picture of a tree, but I also have an actual log from one of those trees that I let people actually lift to see how lightweight the cork is. The bark is harvested from the tree. It does not kill the tree. It will regenerate and it will grow back. It just takes a lot of trees. You have to have a huge inventory of trees to give it time for the bark to regenerate. And once they cut out the huge squares and rectangles out of the bark, then they cut it into the different size corks that they have. And now, we do not use as much cork as what we have in the past because a lot of the different distilleries are using the metal caps and the twist-off caps that we have.

And the synthetic cork.

And the synthetic, yes. But there is still one alcoholic beverage that is required by law to use a cork. Would you have any idea what that is?

I have no clue. What is that? Me neither.

Champagne. You've got to have that pop. They want you to have that pop, so it is required that you have a cork in that. I let people look at that. We have a lot of old, old pictures that we have blown up that are different people working in distilleries and actually kind of get a feel of what it was like to be a worker back 100 years ago.

And something I think a lot of our listeners will be really interested in is just the sheer number of antique bottles that you have here. And they're mostly not empty. They're mostly full bottles.

Yes, absolutely.

But I've seen bottles in here from the late 1800s.

Absolutely, yes.

Or earlier?

Yes, earlier. We have pre-prohibition and prohibition bottles.

So some of the bottles I saw like 1880 or 1899, that's just when they started to put bourbon and bottles put labels on it, right? Yes. The very beginning. Yes. And as you walk down the halls here, the halls are lined with showcases of what bourbon aficionados like to call dusty bottles. They're everywhere.

They are.

So do you have any clue as to the value of your collection?

Oh my goodness.

You don't want to say it on air.

No.

I pay a lot of insurance.

We have a tremendous amount. It will be priceless. If anything happened to this, there would be no way to recoup it.

How many bottles do you think you have?

We probably have, and I don't have them all out. I have different archive rooms upstairs as I am given different cases from different distilleries, I am bringing more and more down, but we probably have out, I would say seven or 800 bottles here.

On display.

On display, yes.

And I think you said something to me earlier, you have multiples of most of them.

A lot of them I do, not all of them, but I do have multiples of some of them, yes.

We get a phone call at least once a week. Someone has found an old bottle, you know, and granddad's upstairs, et cetera, et cetera. So we always tell them to call Oscar Gads in case they don't have one. Yeah. And they normally donate them. That's what I think is really nice.

We do have people that bring different old pictures in, different collections that they find, like you said, in their grandfather's closet. And most of the people donate them because we don't have the money to buy a lot. So people donate.

We've been here on a number of occasions. We've actually recorded a podcast here before, and I visited the museum a number of times, and I just get mesmerized by the bottles. I just think of the history when I'm standing at one of those display cases, looking at that bottle, and you had one that even had a handwritten label on it, it's so old.

Yes, it was a wedding gift that was never opened and it still had the here's your wedding gift from 1898. Yes, that was never opened.

Just amazing. I think about the history in that bottle. Yeah, I'd like to drink it, but I think it's sitting on a shelf.

I have it behind an alarm system, so I have to have everything. We also have one of the bottles back there that's handwritten labels. Can you imagine having the job of handwriting all the labels?

I saw that was a Rippy bottle, an old Rippy bottle.

Yes, an old Rippy number 112, yes.

Wow, wow. Well, we're gonna keep sipping on our bourbon cream-laced coffee here, and we're gonna take a short break. And when we come back, Bill, I think you've brought something for us to taste. Henry McKenna. I'm looking forward to it. We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Loghead's Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Loghead's Home Center, nestled in the hills of Kentucky, is an industry leader in building handcrafted rustic furniture. Family owned and operated, they take pride in offering only the very best for their customers. The Logheads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled wood crafters who are passionate about creating rustic furniture for people who appreciate the beauty of natural wood. Owners Tommy and Gwen don't just sell the rustic lifestyle, they live it. And you can be sure that Loghead's furniture will always be handcrafted in Kentucky by artisans who embrace the simple way of life. Loghead's rustic furniture is made from northern white cedar, a sustainable wood that's naturally rot and termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warmth to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com and while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at LogHeadsHomeCenter. Okay, we're back and Bill, what do you have for us to taste here in the second half?

Today I have Henry McKenna, which has become a rising star in the bourbon industry. It is a 10-year-old single barrel, bottled in bond. And for a long period of time, it was one of the best price point products in the market, for sure. Just tremendous. In 2018, it won as the best bourbon in the world, and in 2019, it won as the best whiskey in the world, which has only happened twice in history. So even today, it's a great price point, bottled in bond.

So would you mind taking a minute for some of our listeners who might not know what Bald and Bond actually means? Can you sort of go over that real quick for us?

Well, Bald and Bond came about in 1897, and everyone around here in Bardstown at that point, all the farmers were making whiskey. A lot of people don't really think about that, but if you had a really good year in corn, the only way you could save your crop is to produce whiskey with it. but not everybody was making good whiskey. So in 1897, doctors petitioned Congress, Congress actually voting back then. Anyway, doctors petitioned Congress to pass the Baldwin-Bond Act because doctors were prescribing alcohol for a number of different problems. I like to point out sometimes, see, if you think this ancient history, in 1950 in the United States, if you had heart trouble, the only thing the doctor could prescribe for you would be whiskey, two shots in the morning, two shots in the afternoon. If you're still having heart palpitations, just put a nitroglycerin tablet under your tongue. I mean, that's all we could do. So a lot of people were dying from bad alcohol. So actually in 1897, the Baldwin-Bond Act is the first consumer protection law ever passed in the United States. We're pretty proud of that. And if your grandparents were drinking alcohol, if they were drinking anything that was not bottled in bond, they're literally taking their life in their own hands. So what it actually means is it's guaranteed to be at least four years old. It's guaranteed to be exactly 100 proof. It's made at one distillery during one season by one master distiller, and that is bottled under government supervision. Once it is produced, it's kept in a bonded warehouse. What that amounts to back in the old days was, of course, Heaven Hill wasn't around. I like the Frankfurt distillery now called Buffalo Trace. Once that was produced and put in their warehouse, no one in that company could enter that warehouse. Just like today, they had bars on the first floor windows and they were locked. The only person could go in that building was a treasury agent and it was his job to check proof and make sure that it wasn't going to kill anybody. That was pretty important because now they know who produced it, where it was produced and was kept under lock and key so nobody could mess with it before it was sold. Today it's still bottled under government supervision and it's still kept under in bonded warehouses. So we're looking at a whiskey that's won World Whiskey of the Year. World Whiskey of the Year and best bourbon in the world in 2018.

10 year old, 10 year old bottled and bond bourbon made by Heaven Hill.

It is 78% corn, 12% rye, a malted barley, I'm sorry, malted barley and 10% rye. That's your mash bill. Normally kept on about the fourth or fifth floor in our rick houses. Let's take a tiny little sip of this. Yeah, let's take. That's a tremendous bourbon actually. It's really good. We don't normally want to talk about what we're tasting because the power of suggestion is so strong, but we're on the radio on a podcast. So I'm really picking up caramels. Very sweet and a hundred proof. I'm not getting that absolute, that's setting my mouth on fire or anything. With rye bourbons, you do taste them on the back of your palate. We found women, younger drinkers, anybody that mixes tins prefer weeded bourbons. And on that one, we do have some really nice weeded ones also, but we make a lot more ryes. Now, if you're really wanting to get the full taste. We tell you it's your whiskey, you drink it the way you want to. But we always add a few drops of water. Now the reason we do that is actually we can do this little experiment while sitting here. Water molecules are six times smaller than alcohol. So if we add water or ice to our alcohol and let it sit, we normally say about two minutes, those little water molecules disperse through the alcohol and push the molecules farther apart. And that changes the aroma. And if you change the aroma, you change the taste. So let's just try a little bit of water and let it sit here for a couple of minutes. Just a few little drops. Now, for the ladies out there, a lot of times back in the past, I had a lot of time trying to convince women that bourbon wasn't hot. Obviously, if you've had 100 proof, you think it's hot. But the heat is from the alcohol. It has nothing to do with the taste. So if you're a husband or a friend of Sal, you're ruining it by adding water. No, you're not, because everybody has different anatomy, different taste buds. So our old master seller Parker would say, add just about enough water that you can feel it in your throat, but it's not bothering you at all. I mean, this is supposed to be a comfort food. Setting my hair on fire, if I had any, would not be my idea of a good time. So I add, I add water and Parker would have too. Let's smell it now and see if it hasn't changed. It's picked up a little sweetness. A little sweetness.

And also, you know, I noticed on the first taste I was getting, you know, a good portion of baking spices to include like cinnamon and nutmeg. That would be pretty typical of some of our... But once the water was added, I got this kind of, I don't know, you know, burst of pecans kind of on the back end a little bit. And it's getting sweeter on the front and a little more pecan on the back end.

And I think it's very good for females. It's a very sweet drink, I think.

A lot of people that aren't into bourbons, that are into scotches, say bourbon is too sweet. But again, it's everybody's. I mean, this one is the best bourbon in the world, but I actually have trouble saying that to people because everybody makes good bourbon. I mean, why would you make a product nobody wants to drink? We just happen to make some of the best.

Now, Henry McKenna, the 10-year bottle and Bond Henry McKenna, and Henry McKenna also has a lower proof version, but the one we're drinking here is the 10-year bottle and Bond, and it is a single barrel bourbon. Single barrel. So, what you taste from one barrel to the next? Is absolutely different.

Absolutely different. Apples and oranges. And I sell barrels also. And it always shocks people, even people who have been in the liquor business for years, how two barrels can sit next to each other for 10 years, apples and oranges.

Now, when you say you sell barrels, that means that you lead barrel tastings at the distillery for people who are... Yeah.

So today I had a liquor store from Georgia. Came down and we actually do this where the visitors can see the stores doing this. We bring out three barrels We like let them Thieve it and knock the bong out because that makes for great photos hanging above the bar But we this a big program huge so no matter where you live in the United States There's a restaurant a bar a liquor store that has their private barrel selection and nobody has that same taste as they do. Now some, most of our customers actually charge the same exact price, but you're getting a real unique product when that happens. Uh, it's not, there's no gimmick to it. When you see the guys actually pick a barrel today, it took them a long time because all three barrels were great. Uh, but some are looking for a standard Elijah Craig, a standard, uh, uh, larceny. Some are looking for something a little different. Actually had a Henry McKenna years ago, sold up in Chicago at, uh, Violet are guys actually famous in whiskey magazines and when we first started smelling it I couldn't really put my finger on it, but it actually smelled like bananas foster And I mean your regular customer would not want that But I thought he was gonna hug the barrel because he really wanted something different, you know And there it is right there bananas foster So it's it's a unique product this this bourbon can definitely stand up to some ice and some water I think I

I went a little heavy with my water addition, so I'm probably down around 40 proof right now. We all did. But that just brings out all those subtle hints of flavors that you couldn't pick up when the alcohol is kind of disguised in it.

We were some of the first people who actually started doing tastings with eye droppers. And now a lot of people have picked up on that. So our general rule on any of our products will put three drops of water in it. And if you're not used to tasting, drinking bourbon all the time, you would add a few more drops is all. But it really brings that flavor out.

Well, we'll keep sipping on it here. But there's one question I wanted to ask you, and it's kind of evident already with Bill being here, and that is, Tell us about your relationship with the distilleries because you obviously have them all represented here. What kind of a give and take relationship do you have with your distilleries?

All the distilleries have been wonderful. I am not from Bartstown, and so I did not know any of them whenever I first got this job. And all of them have embraced me. They have supported me. Heaven Hill being the forefront runners of those. Anytime I can call Heaven Hill, they are absolutely wonderful. They have given me their cleaning staff to come out and help me take cases down and clean. Their supervisors have come out and helped me paint rooms. They have given me their maintenance people who have helped me put some of our memorial bricks up. Anytime I have a master distillers auction, they are the first ones to donate. Their master distillers come out and give talks. Everyone, it's just a great community. Good neighbor, right? Yes, absolutely. A great community of Bourbon people. And, you know, Barton's, I have his history. He has been a great supporter. All of the people, Jim Beam, all of the different distilleries that are around here have been a great supporter. I cannot say enough good things about all of them.

How does the museum get its funding? It costs money to run this place. Absolutely. Where do you get your funding from?

As I told you earlier, it's a huge four-story building. We have a restaurant that rents from us in the bottom at the Rick House, an excellent five-star restaurant. Also rents different rooms out on our second floor. We have everyone from massage therapists to counselors to heart association that is on the second floor. And the third floor houses our bourbon festival. So we have all of that. So I have a rent. And I also have different distilleries have actually given me money. Jim Beam has given me money. Heaven Hill has been extremely supportive. I've also gotten just a lot of bourbon that I sell for my master distiller's auction. Everyone has donated to that, which is my main fundraiser for the years.

And we'll talk about your master distiller's auction and some of the other events you have a little bit later, but you don't get any revenue from the people visiting the museum.

No, we are nonprofit. And when Miss Emma came in to the distillery or to the building and put her husband's display and his museum in our building, she said that he never charged anyone to see his museum at his distillery. So she requested that we not charge anyone to see it. So we do not charge individual families that come in. It is free. We do ask for donations, but that is completely voluntary if they want to or not. If I have a tour bus that comes through, I actually charge them $5 a person. But for regular people, just families that come through, it's completely donations only.

Got it. Well, that's good to know. So listeners out there who are thinking about visiting the Bartstown area, grab a little lunch somewhere and stop in here at the museum and check you out. It doesn't cost them anything.

And most people really enjoy our experience here. As I said, I try to give you a history and tell you funny stories and different things behind that a lot of people don't realize. So you have a different experience here than what you did.

We've learned a lot today. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, you mentioned selling bottles, but that's not directly to the public. You sell bottles through events and fundraisers for the museum, correct?

Our master distiller's auction, yes.

And we're going to talk about that. I just want to make sure that we don't, you know, have a lot of people out there going, wait a minute, and I'm going to go down and I'm going to buy a bottle.

No, we don't sell our exhibits, no.

But you do have a gift store here.

We do have a gift store and we don't sell liquor out of it, but we do have a lot of bourbon products. And we have socks that's been a huge, with all sorts of bourbon sayings on them. That has been a big seller for us. We have different barbecue sauces and different Worcestershire sauces. We have different bourbon candies. We have different candles. We have all sorts. We got hot chocolate with bourbon. We're getting coffee with bourbon. So we have a lot of different, everything we have is related to bourbon. We don't have anything that's just out there. It all has to have a bourbon thing.

So you have an event coming up here in just a few days on the 14th. Yes. And can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yes, we are on the Barchtown Home Christmas Tour, which is organized by our music club here. All of the money, you buy a ticket and you will see usually six different buildings. This year we have the museum is on it for our second year. There's two churches and there's four homes. Different people go and see all the different decorations that people have in their homes. And the money that is raised from those ticket sales give scholarships. for music scholarships for students here in Bargetown and Nelson County. And we are lucky enough to host the refreshments that we have. So we have all homemade refreshments, and it gives us an opportunity to showcase our museum. I have the different distilleries that will come out, and they decorate their trees and the theme from their museum or from their distillery. And different people love to come in and see all the different trees and the different venues that have been here. just showcase Christmas and showcase distilleries and have homemade cookies and homemade cakes.

So in addition to that event, which is coming in just a few days, you also have some events throughout the year. Yes. What's your big event? What's the big event that you have every year that brings in a lot of your revenue, your funding?

Bourbon Festival is huge here and it is located on our lawn. There's other areas now. It's gotten so big that we have different buildings and different distilleries, have different events, but the main hub of it is here on Spalding Hall lawn. We have a lot of people that get to come through and give us donations as they see the exhibits that are here. We also have National Bourbon Day here. So we have a lot of people, a lot of our politicians will come, and we have gotten a decree from the governor that we are nationally recognized as National Bourbon Day. It's June 14th, so we have that every year. We also have our Arts and Crafts Festival here that's on the lawn and in our streets here, and it's the second week in October. Bourbon Festival is the third week in September always. As I said, this is our second year for being on the Barchetown Home Christmas Tour. We have different events that are in our chapel. We have weddings and we have showers. We have wedding showers and baby showers, and people rent our chapel for that. Different distilleries have come in. Heaven Hill has been here. Their master distiller, Connor, has been out here and given a tasting and has talked about it's been a private event. So we just have a lot of different activities that go. Anyone that wants to rent my chapel, they're more than welcome to. I've had the newspaper host their annual dinner here for their staff. We have had different class reunions. We've had family reunions. We've had UK board meetings here. So we've just had a lot of different events.

It's a great place for an event. So when you're not attending the event in the chapel, you can wander around the halls here. Yeah, that's great. So what about your master distiller's auction? That's kind of a really big deal, right?

I am very lucky, as I said, that the different distilleries have embraced me and been very kind to me. All of them will donate some of their really old bourbon that they have. I try to ask for bourbon that you can't just go into a liquor store and buy. I try to get old, old bourbon. Usually, almost every one of them have their master distiller sign it, and so then we auction it off. That is our main money raiser for the year.

Okay, so there's going to be some old ones there. There's also going to be some hard to get items and signed bottles and everything like that. And when is that event each year?

It is the third week in September is the Bourbon Festival and our auction is always at two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, the last day of the Bourbon Festival.

So if you're here for the Bourbon Festival, stop in for that one as well and get yourself a A prime bottle. And sometimes when you have doubles in your collection, or doubles, triples, whatever, you can sell some of those off at the auction as well.

Yes, I do sell some of the old pre-prohibition. And we also, I was lucky enough to, we have found a lot of the original prescriptions that when it was a medicinal whiskey that the doctors actually wrote prescriptions for. So we usually sell a couple of those each year. So we found a whole box of those.

Wow, that's neat. And old labels that are unapplied?

Yes, yes. You have some of those too? Yes, we did.

I know there's a lot of people that collect those old unapplied labels. There's collectors of old bottles as well, and barrel heads, and I mean there's so much, yeah. So what would somebody do? How would somebody donate to the museum? Let's say they just, you know, they got an extra five bucks and they want to send you some money. What do they do?

Well, I give out cards to everyone, plus we're always, we have our website and anybody that wants to can contact me through Facebook, can contact me through our website, can send me an email, and they are more than welcome. We take donations from anyone all the time. And I've been lucky enough, a lot of people have come through here. And as I said, they only, we only ask for donations and they'll give a donation. And then I've gotten cards from people multiple different times. People have sent me a handwritten card, which is very unusual these days. And they'll give me a hundred dollar donation and say, we just really enjoyed that. We talked about that on the way home and we thought, wow, we want to support the museum. So they have sent us a handwritten card and given us a hundred dollars. So we've been extremely excited about that.

So you guys have a presence on the social media as well?

Yes, we're on Facebook. We have our webpage. We have our internet. We also are on, I partner with KDA. They rent a room from me upstairs at Kentucky Distillers Association. And they have put us on the Bourbon Trail website. We're not on the Bourbon Trail, but we are on the website. So we're getting a lot of people see us on that website and come in. So we're very, very fortunate to start really having a lot of people from all over the world are coming in here.

So it's oscargetswhiskeymuseum.com. And you can just search oscargetswhiskeymuseumofwhiskeyhistory. Let me make sure I get that right. oscargetswhiskeymuseumofwhiskeyhistory. So if you search for that on the internet, all kinds of stuff comes up.

And Spalding Hall. The whole building was named Spalding Hall when it was very first built as a college and a seminary for Catholic priests. It's called Spalding Hall. We have several multiple names. We're also called the Bargetown Historic Development Corporation. There's a couple of different names.

So you're on 5th Street. I mean, you're just a couple of blocks from the center of town here and an easy in and out if you're here for the distilleries or if you're down here to shop for some antiques down on Main Street or whatever it is. And the restaurant downstairs has a bar.

Yes, has a bar.

They do.

Yes.

Wow, such a great deal you've got going on here, and we're really appreciative of you. You've allowed us to use your facility on a number of occasions to interview our guests, and we'd like to keep doing that.

I would love for you to, absolutely.

Well, it's so nice to have you on, Bill. Great to have you on as well. Thank you so much. Thank you for what you do for the museum here.

Well, we really, I mean, again, this is the heart of the history right here.

Yeah. It's been a pleasure to sit down with both of you and drink a little bit of good bourbon and some eggnog and Christmassy drinks. It's been delicious.

Yes, I love it. Very good.

So thanks again and we'll see you again soon.

Thank you very much and Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. We do appreciate all of our listeners and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions. And if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.