357. Bourbon 30 and J Mattingly 1845

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

We're very excited to have Blanton's bourbon shop.com as a new sponsor for the bourbon road podcast. In fact, this podcast was brought to you by Blanton's bourbon shop. Blanton's bourbon shop.com is the only official merchandiser for Blanton's original single barrel. Looking for a unique gift. Blanton's bourbon shop has got you covered. Blanton's bourbon shop.com is your home for all Blanton's gifts. You know friends, it's never too early. Start planning your trip to the Bourbon Trail for 2023. We hope you'll join the Bourbon Road crew 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. Well, hello listeners, and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I am your host, Jim Shannon, and today, today we're on the road again. We're not too far from home. We're about, oh, about 45 minutes from our hometown of Simpsonville, Kentucky. We're in Georgetown, Kentucky today. We got a guest on today, and our guest is Aaron Mullally from Urban 30. Aaron, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Jim. I appreciate it. Yeah, we're going to have a lot of fun today because you guys make some pretty exciting whiskeys. We're going to kind of get straight to that first whisky in the first half, give our listeners a little taste of what you're offering here. We'll talk a little bit about the history of the company and get into some details, but I have seen your products on the shelves for years now. It's a shame we haven't gotten out here before. We've been around. We've tasted whiskey distilleries around you, but we hadn't been here. And the same thing happened a couple of weeks ago with another distillery. It's just somebody nearby that we hadn't been to yet. There's an old saying about the cup maker drinks from a broken cup. The same sort of thing applies. You don't necessarily do things that are in your hometown, do you?

No, you don't. And it's more fun to travel.

Yeah.

And also, however though, I think the timing of this is perfect because, you know, as we'll talk about later, we are actually relocating our entire operation to Frankfurt, Kentucky down the road. So I think you couldn't have timed this any better in relation to that. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah.

We'll get to talk about that a little bit more in the second half. So what do we have in our first class today?

So what we have right here is our Bourbon 30 90-proof. So Bourbon 30, as you mentioned, is the flagship name of our organization and our company. And then our premium line of products is J-MAT in the 1845. Now, Bourbon 30 is a product we strive for consistency for. What you're about to taste here, Jim, with this 90-proof expression of ours is what you're going to get all the time with it. Versus our other line of products under G imagine they we actually strive for inconsistency with those blends, which we'll talk about later on today as well. So we want this, you know, our goal for this bourbon is to be a very just get home from work at the end of the day. You want to just, you know, have a glass and relax, you know, we kind of aim for a nice Chill drink and we kind of want a nice chill profile with this as well. So now, however, as we'll talk about later today to the barrels that we use to make our bourbon 3900 proof with also go through our color crafting process here as well to try to make our whiskey stand out even more than, you know, others as well. Okay, well we'll talk about that a little bit. Let's taste and smell the whiskey. And also full transparency, this is a 75% corn, 21% rye, 4% malted barley. And this whiskey we're about to try here is a source from MGP. Perfect. So let's talk about this, the flavor profile. In case you listeners are wondering, we are nosing this into Glenn. Yes. Very, very classical profiles, I would say. You get a nice kind of vanilla front. almost kind of like a little touch of smoky caramel out of that. What I like for this being a 90 proof expression is that it does have a nice little oak spice to it a little more than you might get out of some average 90 proofs, but nothing offensive by any stretch of the means.

It's a little nutty. Actually a little bit more than a little nutty. It's, it's, it's, it's a bit nutty. Yeah. Just like us. Well, I like the nose on that. Cheers. I think it cheers. Yeah, it's good.

Yeah, that's nice.

It really is a it's kind of a match to the nose a little bit. It doesn't like you don't taste single. Wow, that's that's nothing like what I just smelled. Yeah, so it's very consistent between the nose and the palate.

Exactly, very consistent balance. And just like you said, it is it is what you smell, you know. And one thing I like to about this, especially with that little bit of a mid palate nip in there, this is a really if you're a person who likes old fashions or Manhattans, this is a really nice bourbon for putting something together like that to So every now and then, I mean that I blend and taste whiskey on a daily basis. Sometimes I just get fried from doing it. Sure. And, you know, every now and then just a nice cocktail, you know, can go a long ways in terms of want to have a nightcap or something every now and then. And, you know, I'm going to sell like a bad Wisconsinite here. That's where I'm originally from. I'm not a fan of old fashions, but I love a good Manhattan and this is really good for that.

Well, good. We'll have to try that. I like it. I like the nuttiness of it. It transfers to the palate really well and that nuttiness carries across as well. It's not super sweet up front, but you do get that nice little bit of sweetness there. The rye comes in on the back kind of nice and delayed a little bit. It's like a nice little warming effect that's just like a bonus in the end.

And you notice it still kind of leaves a little dry and lingering in the tongue as well, which almost begs another sip. So it's kind of nice about that too.

That's good. And what's the price of this bottle?

Here in Kentucky, because obviously tax records vary from state to state there and this usually runs for around 40 to 42 bucks, depending on what store you're going to be getting it out of. That's fair.

And this is your flagship 90 proof bourbon. And this is what you would expect most of your customers to default to as their daily drinker. Absolutely. Yep. That's our aim with this. Correct. Excellent. Excellent. Yes. So let's talk a little bit about Aaron and what Aaron does for Burden 30.

Sure. I, as mentioned, I'm originally from, grew up in a little town in Northern Wisconsin and eventually used to teach prior to this and just kind of ping pong my way down here to Kentucky. And I got connected to here working in Chuck's Wine and Spirits in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where I used to teach at the college down there. And then, I was just at Chuck's the other day.

Were you really? I was just at Chuck's, yeah.

So the current store picks they have down there, they just recently got not too long ago. And what's kind of crazy is they're up to their ninth. This was their ninth store pick they've done now with us.

So does that explain why when I go to Chuck's, their glass cabinet's full of Jay Mattingly? Yes, yeah.

We have a lot to do with it. Yeah, exactly. Because I was a big believer in this in Bourbon 30. I'm adamantly well before I start working here. Because one thing that we'll talk about later is I love the uniqueness of what we do here and the against the grain mentality to try to just make the best whiskey possible. It's kind of how my head works. I'm very against the grain as well. And I just, like I said, I love what they were doing and sold the Daylights out before I started working there. And then That's how I transitioned my current role here. Now, my official title is a sales manager. And one of the things that I do a lot that I enjoy doing is I do quite a bit of whiskey blending here as well. And one of the things I'll do is make blends go in market to different states and stores can come to us and do picks. I'll bring blends to them and they'll do the picks and then we'll get everything bottled and customized and sent up to them. or down to them, depending if it's south or here, because I was just in Texas not too long ago, and back in Wisconsin earlier this year, Tennessee earlier this year prior to that. So kind of a bit of a road warrior for us. And then when I'm here in town, I Like I said, I spend a lot of time in the barrels, tasting through the barrels, taking notes. You see this legal pad I have right here in my hand. I have a pile of these at home just from taking notes and just creating blends and trying to make stuff up all the time. The cool thing about us being a smaller company as well is we all kind of have to get our hands dirty here too. You know, I mean, none of us are above, you know, bottling or corking or waxing or doing anything else here as well. So it's kind of neat that we all, we're, we're, we're a bit of a jack of all trades here, but we all kind of have our own little unique specialties that lend us to what we're doing. And for me, it's a sales and blending. So you're wearing multiple hats and most people here do. And then, you know, that's pretty.

pretty typical of, you know, smaller distilleries and people have to have to do multiple jobs. But you know what? That makes the day go by faster, right? Oh, not getting there. All right. So you mentioned that you were a teacher. What did you teach? Did you teach at Western Kentucky University?

No, I taught at the community college, SkyCTC. I taught human anatomy and physiology and pathophysiology for 14 years, a little 14 years actually before doing this. So.

Wow.

Yeah, got a master's degree in physiology and just jump right into teaching and never look back. Now here I am blending whiskey.

I would imagine just a little bit of that applies to maybe the palate.

Understanding the biology of taste and how the liver breaks down alcohol comes in quite handy. I would say so. It's great. So how long have you been with Barman 30? Actually, we're recording this August 1st. August 21st will be my two-year anniversary. Wow. Okay. And then I started doing store picks. Chuck started doing store picks before I was able to come up. I was able to join on the third pick in January 2021. And that's when I first met Jeff Mattingly himself and already started to learn a lot from him.

So two years, is this where you want to be now?

Are you living the dream? I'm loving it. I mean, how many people can say that was once a hobby is now a career?

Yeah.

I mean, I've always had a passion for whiskey and Scotch is my first love of whiskey. The first bottle of whiskey I ever bought was Jameson, your typical college stuff. But the first nice bottle I got for myself was when I just finished grad school and I found some cash on the ground and there was nobody around to claim it. So I bought a bottle of Glenn Levitt 14 year with it. And then shortly after that, I got my hands on a bottle of Beaumont 15 year. And that's what made me realize I love whiskey. And then just never look back from there.

Well, good deal. I'm always glad to hear that. You know, there's a, there's a country song, something about, uh, do something you love and call it work, right? Or something like that. You know? Yeah. The most important thing is to enjoy what you do every day.

Absolutely. And, uh, you know, like I said, well, I mean, this was just kind of a hobby that was just the, you know, with my, Science wired mind. I just always kind of geeked out on this really hard and just Studied it just because I just enjoyed it so much and all the science and history that went into it and then Like I said to now say that I to do what I do It's I'm pretty darn lucky to be able to say it say that's awesome Well now that our listeners know who we're hanging out with Let's talk a little bit about Jay Mattingly and kind of the history there.

Oh, yeah, absolutely Where did where did this all start?

So Bourbon, so let's go back to the history first with with Jay Mattingly himself. So John Graves Mattingly in 1845 actually had the second ever registered distillery in the state of Kentucky in the Fifth District in Louisville. Sorry, Kentuckians, I'm from Wisconsin. I don't say it properly, but But then eventually his two sons got involved in the industry as well and eventually the company morphed into Madeline Sons and then Madeline Moore and then eventually the Madeline Sons founders actually wound up having a daughter, Margie Madeline, who became Margie Samuels. And then also some of the companies that originated from the original 1845 wound up migrating into Bardstown and becoming what is now 1792. One of the properties that came from that umbrella of that became eventually called Four Roses. And yeah, so the Mattingly's in general have quite an extensive fingerprint in this industry, historically. I don't know the exact genealogy, that's why I'm trying to keep it a little ambiguous. But yeah, they have a very heavy influence on this industry. But that's where what we use is Jeff Jeff, Jeff Mattingly himself is a direct descendant. This is a great, great, great, great uncle. I believe John Graves Mattingly. And like I said, that's, hence that's why on the label it's a J. Mattingly 1845 is Jeff is paying homage to his ancestor.

And thankfully Jeff and John started with a J. So it worked out quite well. It worked out.

Yeah. And then, uh, however, though that's our premium line of product, uh, bourbon 30. is the actual company name. And Jeff came up with that because when he was a kid growing up in Breckenridge County, you know, whenever his dad was going into town to work or, you know, going to work on the farm, him and his brothers had this code. They would say, it's bourbon 30. Then they would go steal dad's whiskey and drink it. So, Um, so we're not encouraging the kids do that by the way, but, uh, but yeah, but that's, that's where the name bourbon 30 comes from. It's kind of harkening back to some, you know, his childhood and his younger, not childhood, but younger years. And, uh, that's where the name bourbon 30 came from. And then in 2014 was actually the first ever release of a bourbon 30. Um, and then 2016 is when J. Matt in the 1845 first was released into the market. So.

Well, I'm enjoying this. It's almost gone.

I'm looking forward to our next bottle, which is coming up here in just a minute.

But I did want to kind of talk about our exact location here, more or less, so people can understand where we are. We're in Georgetown, Kentucky. And not everybody knows where Georgetown is. In terms of the Bourbon Trail and the big cities, where are we located?

So we are, I would say we're here north of Lexington, about 10 minutes off of I-64. So if you're taking 64 East, get off the Georgetown exit and basically get off on the thing at 62, which takes you up to Georgetown Road and takes you right into South Water Street. Hang a right in South Water Street. You can't miss us.

So you're about 15 minutes from downtown Lexington. You're about 20 minutes from downtown Frankfurt. Yep. various other distilleries in the area are not far away. You're kind of centrally located, at least in this more eastern part of the trail.

Very much so. I mean, yeah, because as you know, like Four Roasted Distilling and Wild Turkey aren't terribly far away from here. Buffalo Traces, you know, being the Frankforts down the road from here. You know, Glens Creek, Castle & Key, you know, aren't far from here. Obviously, if you head towards Lexington, you have the James E. Pepper down the road. So yeah, there's definitely, as you mentioned, a very high concentration of, and I just listed a few. I'm just kind of spitballing what's coming into my mind right now. But there's, as you mentioned here in central Kentucky, a lot, a very high concentration of distilleries. And in addition to Bourbon 30, what else is Georgetown known for? I believe the Cincinnati Bengals have a practice arena here. There's also a, in terms of employment, a massive Toyota factory. That's right.

This is where the big Lexus plant is. Correct.

And which actually there's a connection with us to them because actually that's actually where Jeff worked before founding this company. You worked there for almost 30 years and in 2009, retired from there. decided he couldn't stay retired. And then believe it or not, Bourbon 30 started out as a merchandise and clothing company. So then- That's interesting. Yeah. So then he just had a huge passion for whiskey and just decided he wanted, you know, kind of that, as I mentioned earlier, that Bourbon 30 was so tied to his younger years. Yeah. He wanted to just focus on his passion for whiskey instead of, you know, working in the industry of, you know, making vehicles and- So it kind of all started with a t-shirt? Literally, yeah. Yeah, we were literally wearing the stars. It ends in a t-shirt. Like I said, we're against the grain. So he would make a bunch of t-shirts and merch and go to different festivals and started selling it. And then once he generated enough capital from that, then he started buying whiskey barrels. I like as mentioned 2014 and that was in so 2010 was when the company bourbon 30 itself started and then doing some subletting with Glens Creek in Frankfurt and then that's when the 2014 of bourbon 30 releases first came out and then a little bit before that we're doing a little bit of team. working in the same space with three boys and kind of the border of Shelby and Franklin County. And then in 2016, migrated where we're at now and we've been here ever since. Awesome. Well, we've got another whiskey to try here. So we just had your 90 proof and now we're going to up it about 10 points. Correct. We're going to have our bourbon 30 hunter proof and like our 90 proof. Remember when I mentioned earlier that we strive for consistency with this. Same thing with us. What you're about to taste here is what we aim for all the time with it. Okay, cool. Well, cheers. Cheers.

Oh, that is very different.

Definitely a little more on the more, I would say, luscious, robust nose than 90 proof.

A little bit of fruit coming through on it, though.

Now, here's something interesting that I want you to kind of pay attention to with this that we focus on here with this as well. There's an intent between what we do with the 90 and 100 proof. We like to show people just because there's a higher proof doesn't mean it's going to bite harder as well. Right. So, cause this, this, even though it's a hunter proof, it's got a bigger fruitier, creamier, um, kind of caramelly nose to it. It, remember when I was talking about that mid palette spices and 90 proof has this has a much more thicker coach, your palette kind of a profile. So I would say this actually has a little less, uh, spice and hit to it's in the 90 proof, even though it's higher proof.

Yeah.

So, so. Cheers.

Cheers. Yeah, very different, very different, but, um, very nice. I'm, I'm not getting that, that, that heavy nutty aspect to it, but I'm getting more of kind of a fruity, a little bit more of a sweeter wash up front when it first hits.

But, um, and you notice after you take it, after a few seconds, after you take a swallow, you almost get like this little kind of like nutty mocha kind of a kind of secondary to it.

Yeah, there's, it's a little, a little more drying on the back end and yeah, you get that kind of a, You called it a nutty mocha. Yeah, something.

Yeah. Cause the, cause to me, the reason why I say mocha, cause sometimes like I get these kind of like slightly a touch of bitter hints. They kind of come off like chocolate. Um, Sounds like a cacao mocha kind of a thing going on there.

Yeah, I really like that. I really like the difference between the two. Yeah.

I mean, they're the same starting whiskey. It's the same mash bill. Same mash bill.

Same mash, yep. And how you craft them after you... blend them and, and finish them in the barrels is where you get that additional.

Correct. Yep. Correct. Cause we put them, cause we put them into the barrels we craft for a 1900 proof are very specific for the 1900 proof. And then that's how we maintain the consistency for those. And then, uh, so we were very meticulous and careful with how we use the barrels for, for that. And also how we, uh, mess around with the entry proof and proofing and whatnot, because that's how we help drive them to develop these profiles. that create, even though they're the same Nashville and they're only 10 proof points apart, you can see the degrees of separation. And that's, like I said, that's how meticulous we are with our focus on how they, what they, what the way we craft the barrels that we use for them.

Yeah. Well, I like it. I like them both. If I had to pick a favorite for me, based on my preferences, I might go with the 90 proof only because I had a little bit fruitier notes on here. This is kind of a little bit Four Roses-esque to me a little bit. It's nice. There's nothing wrong with being like Four Roses, right?

Well, I mean, this industry, there's so many different products. You can't not compare to other people.

And if I ever own a whiskey distillery, I hope somebody compares me to some great distillery.

Exactly.

Yeah, I like this one as well. I think I could do a porch session with either one. They're both sessionable. I mean, you could definitely sit out and just make a bottle disappear with a good friend.

I'd say with the Hunter Proof, I would definitely smoke a nice little Maduro cigar with this. And the 90 Proof with a little extra spice in the mid, I would definitely like a little more of like a Sungrown or a Nicaraguan cigar with it.

There you go, your parent cigar. So we've got a few listeners that love their cigars. So there you go, folks.

I want to hear anybody's feedback on that, too. So if you give it a try and let us know what you think, please.

Absolutely.

And this bottle is priced at? Usually runs around 60 bucks. So depending on what store you go to, some may price it around $59.62, usually around that range. So I'd say the average price point retail would be $59.99. All right.

We're going to take a short break. And when we come back, We've got some more whiskeys and we're gonna start drinking on the Jay Mattingly line.

Yes, we are. Yeah, we're gonna move into some Jay Mattingly blends we've done specifically for our gift shop and then just talk about each one and just have some more banter. It's gonna be fun. All right. Be right back, folks.

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Exactly. Yeah, it's a fun, fun part about them. Yeah, excellent.

So this half we're going to dedicate to your premium wine. Yes. And this is the Jay Mattingly 1845. I'd really like to talk about kind of the concept.

Yeah. What's the concept? Sure. So the concept is with our J. Mattingly 18. So as I mentioned, when we were trying bourbon 3090 and 100 proof, what you're trying is what you're always going to get. We go for a consistent profile with those. With the J. Mattingly 1845 expressions that we do, those are, we just call them one-offs. They're one and done. So we could do a blend of, 30 bottles, we could do a blend of 300 bottles, you'll never see them again. So once we do that, once we do a blend, it's gone forever kind of a thing. So there's a couple reasons why we do that is one, we want to make everything very unique with that. And as a whiskey blender myself, I love that because that means I have to be creative every single time. Because you know, like most of the industry, and I'm not saying this to criticize the rest of the industry, because there's a boatload of products out there I love, again, this is what I like about our against the grain approach here, is blending is done to maintain consistency. You know, you batch barrels together, you put barrels in rick houses in certain places, you know, to try to get them to age a certain way, and then you put them together in large scale batches to maintain similar profiles all the time. We aim to have to create different unique profiles with every single expression that we do with our J. Madden 1845s.

So we're going to drink through three of these today, and they're all very different from each other. And when somebody visits here from out of town, they're going to see today, they're going to see these on the shelf. And then 30 days from now, if they return, they're not going to see these on the shelf.

They're going to see something altogether different.

And you get a lot of people coming in that are collecting and accumulating that like to say, what do we have now? What can I get that I don't already have?

Yeah, well, it's neat because we get all walks in here. We get people, as you just mentioned, people that have been fans of us for a while. They're collectors. And they're like, this is neat, unique, and cool. Let's grab this. Or we get some people in here where they're just learning whiskey. Or we get people who are really experienced with it. And sometimes, because we do a couple different offerings here, We do our bottle tour in the gift shop, where we'll take you through the flight samples that we blend for the gift shop. And again, to repeat this, the blends that are in the gift shop that we're trying right now are only in our gift shop. You know, whatever other ones that we have in market, whether they're store picks or whether they're ones for wholesalers for statewide distribution, that's all you'll see of those. So what we're trying here are specific just to our gift shop.

So if you're shipping to your distributor in Texas, there's going to be something there in Texas that nobody in Kentucky can get. Correct. They have to go to Texas to get it.

Let's go to Texas and get it, exactly.

Wow, that's kind of cool, actually. Yeah. It's very exclusive. It's very neat. And even if we go out in town here and go to a liquor store, they're not going to find these three. No, not at all.

No, what's neat though is, plus taking that even a step further, is people, like for example, you mentioned with Texas, for our wholesaler down there, for what we just sent down there, they picked what wax colors they wanted, what they wanted to call it. So we allow places to really customize these bottles to help them make what's best for them to sell. So we try to work with our people very well, whether it's a specific store pick or a wholesaler, or even honestly, we do a barrel experience where people can, if they don't want to do the bottle tour where they taste and we walk them around, they can actually come back and try some whiskey out of the barrels and walk out of here with their own custom small batch. And they will literally be the only person on planet earth walking out with that bottle. Cause there's only people that made that blend right then and there.

I mean, bourbon's a little different in Texas. I mean, the way it ages down there and the sort of the flavors that come forth and it's almost a category in itself. Are they trying to get whiskeys from you that are like that or like that are more appropriate for the Texas palate?

Yeah, one thing I've noticed about blending, because like, for example, like if I'm talking about my home state of Wisconsin, number one beer consuming state in America and brandy consuming state in America. So a lot of lighter, sweeter kind of profiles up there. Texas, on the other hand, think of their food culture, big barbecue, robust kind of flavors. Or, you know, if you had to Georgia, it's kind of like in between the two, you know, next door. So, yeah, so kind of understanding different parts of the country and palates and like what they strive for. There's a lot of variation. And that's something we have to be very conscious of when we're making blends to try to put in these markets is how is that going to how are those regional palates going to be best met by what we're trying to do? So you like spotted cow? Oh gosh, yes.

My wife loves spotted cow. Every time we go to, we're in Iowa from time to time, we always have to run up and get some spotted.

Head up to like the quad city area and grab some. Yeah. So pretty, pretty important. Oh yeah. Oh, it was very important. You got to have some spotted cow around. So what do we have in our very first class? Sure. So we're going to start out with a rye here. And this rye is called Funkadelic with kind of a funky wax job. The name from that came from the last couple of ryes that I blended for the gift shop. were what I like to call bourbon rye. Because I've noticed when it comes to rye, there's a couple of camps. People that really love bourbon want to get into rye, but they have a hard time getting into rye at the same time. So for that, I like to blend ryes that have these more upfront richer profiles, like your maples, your caramels, things a little less floral and herbaceous and stuff like that. and versus, or like your rye rye. And that's kind of what I wanted to focus on for this one, a more like fruit, spicy, expressive version of one. So literally when I was approaching Funkadelic, in my notes, I wrote two words, fruit and funk. Fruit and funk. Yep. So the fruit aspect of it, I would say it's very apple forward. And then when I say, now I want to, I need to translate this. So when I say funk, I'm thinking of, I'm standing in the middle of a rick house, taking a sip of whiskey, you know, cause you know, when you're in the Rick house, like a big, big old Rick house, you've got these all this mold and wood and whiskey and angels share. So that's when I say funk, that's what I mean. If I feel like I'm standing in a Rick house, then that's, that's what I kind of, that's what that means to me. And then, and then the finish has that just kind of nice spicy finish to it. Like you would get out of rye, but nothing that's going to, you know, punch you too hard either. So, and rye, I will say personally is my favorite whiskey to blend with as well.

Well, I kind of gravitate towards ryes myself. I always have. There are people that just love the spice. They love the richness of a rye.

They really get my attention. Well, what I love about the rye is the versatility of it. You can create so many unique flavor profiles with it if you just blend with it right. And it's just really neat. And plus, I like the history. I mean, it is the original whiskey of the country. It predates the Revolutionary War, got us through it, kept us going afterwards. And yeah, so I just like it. We wouldn't have bourbon if it wasn't for rye. All right, so this is Funkadelic.

What's the proof on it? 116. 116 proof. Cheers. Cheers. Yeah, the nose on it is, uh, it's kind of a little bit lighter.

Like I said, I was going for a little brighter, more expressive kind of a ride than a dark heavy.

It does have kind of a, a nice like a candy spice nose to it, but not, uh, not dill, not clove, not like heavy cedar kind of thing. More like a little bit of Christmas spice.

Yeah. Definitely see that like a light, light Christmas kind of spice. Yeah.

Cool. Well, cheers. Cheers. Oh yeah. So as subtle as it is on the nose, it definitely impresses you on the palate. It's got a nice spice wash to it. Yeah. And it is Christmasy a little bit.

It was funny because I remember the first time I ever came up here to do a store pick for my old store for Chuck's, I wanted to actually do rye, not bourbon. Because I spent so many years doing picks of bourbon, I wanted to try to show people that I just want to make a rye and show people there's more than bourbon out there. Nothing against bourbon, love it. And I remember I was working on a blend and I was really loving the flavor profile of it. And, but I had this idea of, well, I shouldn't be the one to say yay or nay, it's gotta be Jeff, you know? And I remember I was working on some blends and, you know, I'd have Jeff try, he'd give me feedback. And the light bulb moment for me that really influenced me a lot was I gave, I really thought I had this one locked in, you know? And I gave Jeff a sample, he took a sip and he kind of, ooh, he put his hat on my shoulder and said, okay, I like the flavors you have going here. but think about the texture. I was like, texture, what the heck? And then I took a sip of that and I was like. Oh, I see what he's saying. Cause like it had good flavors, but they didn't really kind of marry together. And it was kind of like dry. And he was, he basically, he was telling me thicken it up, you know? And then I went back into the barrels and I brought it back in and I was literally to try after that. And I handed him the cup and his eyes, you know, got rolled big and he said, stop here. I said, okay.

So that was a, that was literally the first whiskey I ever blended was. It's an art and it was less than one, huh?

Well, maybe not lesson one, but it was one of many lessons. It was a very important lesson to say the least. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I like this one a lot. I think that this is something that You can actually drink it year round, but I think I'd prefer it in the fall. I know whiskeys don't really have seasons, but we like to say that sometimes that they do, you know, though this is a summer sipper or this is a, oh, this is a winter warmer.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, it's like beer. I mean, you're not going to drink a barrel aged salad in the middle of summer. You know, you want that in the colder, darker months of the year. So, yeah.

Do you often blend batches that have kind of this profile or is this something really unique for you?

Well, like you mentioned, kind of thinking about the seasons, thinking about the regions. I'd say this is definitely a profile I think would work really well in the Midwest, like the upper Midwest. But in terms of this time of year, this late summer going into fall, I would definitely Christmas it up even heavier, going into the cooler months of the year, heading into Thanksgiving. Um, Christmas. Yeah. So are you guys distributing in, uh, up in the, like in Wisconsin and in, uh, Michigan and in the UP and, uh, yeah, we are in, uh, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Indiana, um, Georgia, Texas, Alaska, Nevada. Um, Don't want to miss anybody. Kansas. Uh, I know there's 11 different states that we distribute to. If I didn't hit 11, forgive me.

Did you say Kentucky?

Kentucky.

Yeah. I forget that was a default.

But yeah, so yeah, we distribute to multiple states and, uh, you know, as we move into our new location, we're going to expand that even more.

Yeah.

Um, even so.

Yeah. I had a friend once and this is sort of a side story. I had a friend once. He was, uh, He was an immigrant from China and he actually, and we worked together for a number of years, but he spoke Chinese. He just so happened he spoke Russian as well, you know, and we were working together and I didn't know that he had spoke Russian and he actually told me one day that he spoke four different languages. He said, oh, you speak four languages. He said, yeah, I speak four languages. I speak Chinese, I speak Russian, I speak French. And then he paused. He said, for the life of me, I can't think of the last one. I said, English?

He said, oh yeah, that one.

So you can definitely forget Kentucky when you're rolling through your states, right? Yeah, exactly. That's pretty cool. This is a great whiskey. I like this one a lot. And I like whiskeys that have a lot of craft to them. And this one seems to me like you really, I don't know, you kind of, can you repeat this? Or is this just, you don't want to, I understand, but could you?

No, a won't be allowed to but be let's say let's say you came back in a couple months. Let's say all the same barrels were still here. As you know these barrels are very sensitive to temperature barometric pressure humidity weather fluctuations. So, So even if we had all the same barrels here and you came back in two and a half, three months and we tried to use the exact same ratios, I probably wouldn't even be able to repeat it anyway if I tried. But also not what I can do though, because one thing I take a lot of mental notes on and just we do here in general is flavor profiles that we do create. So Uh, so if we know that there's a profile that work really well, um, cause you know, going back to Texas, there was a, there was a light whiskey we sent down there last year called Marfa lights. That just went called boom down there. And, um, it was a little bit different from light whiskeys that we'd normally been sending down there. Cause normally we've been sending kind of bigger, darker, heavier ones. This one was a really, that myself and Charles here worked on, was a very big, like a very bright, expressive, just, and we weren't expecting it to just take off like it did. So when they reached out to us and they, and you know, for feedback on the next light whiskey, they just said Marfa lights. So we're like, all right, I know at least have a frame of reference to work with. There you go.

There you go.

Yeah.

All right. Well, I'm ready to get on to the next one. This is exciting. Yeah. These are these are whiskeys that are kind of out of the box a little bit. Not like anything we've tried.

Yeah. That's what we want to hear. Yeah, so this next one here is an American light whiskey. How often, when you do interviews like this, do you guys run into American light whiskey?

We've had a few light whiskeys on. It's not often, but young, small distilleries are trying things all the time, and every now and then we'll come across a light whiskey.

I was just kind of curious because I know light whiskey, even though it's been around for a very long time, it just hasn't really gained market notoriety. So what would you say, roughly 2015, 2016? Because actually Bourbon 30 was one of the first companies to really start trying to get it out there because distilleries was a good way to make use of used barrels that they couldn't get rid of. And then after sitting on them for over 20 plus years, they're like, what do we do with these? start selling them around and getting them out. And like you said, is, you know, craft distilleries were the ones that were trying to, like you said, get their hands on, you know, just something different. Yeah.

The price of a barrel is, is not, you know, small. They're, they're very expensive. Oh yeah. So you need to get the maximum value out of it. Absolutely.

Yep. And that definitely, we could definitely, that alludes to our barrel crafting process as well, you know, cause you know, what we do, um, when we empty barrels as we deconstruct them into their staves, sand them down and then rechar them because into, you know, and cut them into some smaller pieces to rechar them. Because as I mentioned earlier, we get the majority of our whiskey from MGP. However, we are going to start distilling when we move into our new location, which I would like to talk about that a little bit a little more with you. But But what we do then is when we get new barrels in, we open them up and then we taste from them and see where they're at. So then because when you get a whiskey, it's already been aging and started developing its profile. Well, our philosophy is, well, how do we get that profile to develop as quickly as possible? And so then, you know, we'll taste it and then we'll take these different staves that we've charted differently, then figure out, OK, how can we apply these staves in certain amounts, which I'm not sharing that with you guys, sorry. And then how can we apply them to the inside of the barrel, let them sit for a while? Because where's most of the flavor coming from? The charred oak, right? Sure it is. But most of the whisky is only playing with the charred oak at the wall of the barrel, and we've got a lot of whisky that's not even touching it. Whisky, some of the whisky has never touched the outside of the barrel. Exactly. Which is just as effective as the inside. Correct. So therefore, by adding that increased service area of charred oak, that's more contact is being made and therefore we're making the maturation process, we're expediting that essentially.

Pretty cool stuff.

Yeah. Awesome. So this whiskey here, 99% corn, 1% malted barley. It's called Pineapple Sunrise? Pineapple Sunshine, I believe.

Pineapple Sunshine. I would imagine it's hard to keep up with all these names because you guys are pumping them out.

I don't know why, but this one I'm struggling with and our gift shop manager would pop me over the head right now if she heard me right now. Rightfully so. But yeah, but this one, the way the barrels were hidden when we made this, some of the light whiskey barrels were just giving a lot of fruit, a lot of fruit. And I was working on just a new blend for the, for the gift shop. And he's not here today, but Leroy was here and I was working on a blend and I had him try it. And he said, I like this, but I could tell by the look on his face, he wasn't sold. And I asked him, I said, what would you change about it? And he just said, more fruit. I'm like, all right. So went back in, was kind of messing around with the same barrels. Let's kind of see if I can tweak some ratios. But then I went into barrel 868 and gave that a try. And I just had this, spicy finish that I liked. And I'm thinking, how can I marry the spice and the fruit together? And by the time we got done putting it together, it really almost reminded us of like a, if you took like a dried pie, almost like a dried grilled pineapple and covered it with chili pepper. And yeah, and then just had kind of a soft oak and nutmeg finish to it. So cheers. Cheers. I believe this is a 128 or 129 proof. So kind of on the lower end of the spectrum for light whiskey, but yeah, well,

It's a small port. Thank you. You have to drive after this.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah.

That's so good.

That is a tropical summertime. Yeah, it does.

It does. It does have that sort of island flavor to it.

Well, and it's funny to say that because one thing I've noticed is a lot of times when I'm blending, I like to mirror other profiles. I tell you, if you're trying to mirror a rum profile, light whiskey lends itself so well to that.

It kind of, it kind of makes you think rum. I mean, it's definitely not rum, but I mean, it makes you think rum.

Yeah. Cause actually there's a blend. There's still some bottles on the shelf throughout the state of Kentucky called force multiplier. And what I literally did with that was brought in my favorite rum plantation XO. And one day I was like, how can I copy this? And then I made that happen and gave a sample of Kentucky Eagle. And they said, we want this. And they distributed, they bought a bunch of bottles and distributed throughout the state of Kentucky. And like I said, there's still some out there right now.

So this is really good. And it's even got like a, just a, Like it's got the pineapple, it's got that kind of rum base flavor to it, but there's a mace or nutmeg kind of, yeah.

So this goes back to earlier when we were talking before this started. One of the things, the philosophy that I take towards tasting, this is going to sound like a chondrum, because it is. I always advise people to be specifically ambiguous. If you can just narrow down a very, because like pineapple, it's obvious there's a pineapple taste to this. but we both have a little bit different interpretation of the finish. So for example, like if I'm making tasty notes and if I'm getting baking spice, but I can't quite pinpoint it, just say baking spice. You know, kind of leave it like art, leave it over for interpretation, you know?

You can always just say spice. Exactly. I'd get a little bit of spice. Yeah. No, it's baking spice. No, it's nutmeg. No, it's mace.

You start to get real specific. Yeah. Well, I never liked when I was doing store picks and I would, you know, get sample sent and you get like a paragraph and a half long explanation. And it's like, They're not tasting all that they just have a good imagination Yeah, when people do that and even if you look at master distillers some major distilleries describe their products. They keep it very Simple and to the point. Yeah, and like I said, let people leave it leave it for interpretation So yeah, I think a lot of times, you know whiskey reminds you of things.

Yeah a lot of times for me It's candies certain candies, you know whorehounds or whatever they might be and I always get that that reminder of that flavor.

See that happens to me all the time too when I'm blending. There's a lot of times if I can't pinpoint something that's I jump into that territories. What does this remind me of?

It reminds me of something.

Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a food. It could even be an experience.

Yeah.

Cause like, let's say I had like, is there ever like my grandfather really loved Werther's originals? And if I get any kind of sweet caramel, I just think of my grandpa all the time. And then, you know, cause he loved those or.

So cool though, right? Cigars are kind of the same way, right? Cigars and all that, all that stuff. It's the same thing. You know, your, your, uh, palette memories from your childhood. I mean, some of that, some of those memories, like good and plenty's and all those kinds of candies that I had as a kid. They're in there. I just have to dig them out.

Well, yeah. Well, I mean, and taste is so tied to our limbic system and emotions. And from an evolutionary perspective, we tie smells to memories, because that's basically where we're tapping into survival technique that we're using for our own pleasure now. Mr. Anatomy. Sorry, I had to throw a little snippet in there.

Absolutely. Well, this is really good. And it's, I mean, totally, totally different whiskey from what we had in the Funkadelic.

I mean, they have to be. I mean, 95.5 rye and 99.1 corn malted barley. I mean, when I say 95.5, 95.5 rye, 5% malted barley. But yeah, they're going to get a tail of two different whiskies. But that's the fun part.

When you're drinking a corn liquor, you'd never figure it tastes like this.

That's pretty darn good. As they say, varieties of spice of life, as long as it's not too spicy.

Absolutely. Well, we've got another one in front of us that we're going to try here. Yes, we do. And again, this was 129 proof. This is the Pineapple Sunrise. Sunrise or sunshine, yes. It's available in your gift shop now. And the price on these premium bottles? $119.99. $119.99.

So if you're outside of Kentucky listening to this, obviously the price point is going to vary a little bit because different states have different tax structures. But here in our gift shop, these will go for $119.99.

And these are highly crafted, one-off blends that are here for a while, and then they're gone. Correct. You know, treat yourself, treat yourself once a while. Please do something. Yeah.

Ending with bourbon. So this is the same mash bill as our bourbon 30, 90, and 100 proof, but at barrel proof. You know, obviously I think it's kind of appropriate to end on bourbon because, you know, rye is the original whiskey of the country. A lot of farmers around this area were, you know, farming corn and making whiskey to extend their crop as a result of it. Then after the whiskey rebellion, when a lot of people migrated over here and a lot of, you know, there was less rye, there was a lot of the rye and corn distilling techniques came together. and bourbon was born as a result of that. And so I think it's kind of appropriate to end with bourbon after the marriage of the two techniques. And also, you know, obviously bourbon, we wouldn't have American whiskey where it's at right now if it wasn't for bourbon letting it go kaboom again, you know, about 12, 13, 14 years ago.

Yeah, it has been a wild ride. We had an episode about a month ago, where we put the questions to AI and asked AI about the future of bourbon and all this stuff. And it was kind of interesting the answers we got back. But yeah, I think it's not going to end anytime soon.

No, and we've been very fortunate, because I mean, if you tried this idea 10 years ago, it never would have come off the ground. And now, because of when whiskeys were getting out, and the creativity that Jeff put into the process when he founded the organization. Right now we're sitting in 4,000 square feet worth of space and we're moving to a new location. So our entire operation grew out of 4,000 square feet. And especially with our Jay Mattingly and Bourbon 30 line of products. And then, you know, now we're migrating over to Frankfurt to almost to a nearly 24,000 square foot location and expanding our operation.

Stretch your legs a little bit, won't you?

We're looking forward to the elbow room. Yeah, I would say so. And also, you know, because as I mentioned earlier, we were rectifiers, we buy barrels and we blind with them. And like I said, we also put them through the crafting process. But now we're going to start distilling when we move to our new location. Oh, you are. Yes, we are still.

And are you guys shipping any product at all?

There are five states we can ship to. We can ship merch all over the country, but in terms of alcohol, we can only ship to five different states, Nevada, Nebraska, Washington, D.C., Alaska, and I believe North Dakota is the last one.

So listeners, if you're in any of those states, you definitely need to listen into how to get a hold of these guys a little bit later on in the show.

Yeah, actually I've got a neat story for you about our, our still that, that we're going to be using in our new location. So the still, so we're starting with about 105 gallons still. Um, it's a, so the pot is stainless steel. Oh wow. Yeah. It's a stainless pot, um, that has a gin basket on it and extending from the gym baskets, uh, from the condenser to the end of it, from the cap to the arm to condenser to the end of the worm. That's all copper. And it's going to yield about 16 gallons roughly. If you're looking at the alcohol yield out of the entire mash, that's roughly 13 to 16%. Now what's neat about the stainless steel pot that's on there, believe it or not, that actually came from the Eddyville Penitentiary. Really? Yes. So that was so, so it will show people we give tours and stuff on there that the original, um, the original manufacturer number from the German company that made that is still on there. And that was literally made in the Eddieville, uh, penitentiary bought that and made soup for prisoners out of that. You're kidding.

Yeah. That's a neat story. Yeah.

But then now that's in, that's in the integral core. That's the pot of our new still that's that we're going to be using. Yep. And then we're already thinking ahead even beyond Frankfurt. We're in the process of, uh, we're working our, uh, to get our hands on, uh, a couple of single pot, 500 gallon stills.

Now you can crank out a barrel a day. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

That's what we're aiming for right now, but we're, we're just, we're aiming for what we can work with right now in the space that we're getting soon. So this new still you're getting is kind of, uh,

It's experimental. It's for you to develop and to work on and to be part of your experience there.

Well, that and also just open transparency. That was redundant, sorry. Just for full transparency, we are actually going to be distilling brandy. Oh, yeah. And that's where the gin basket is going to come in really handy because therefore we can do a lot of experimental fusions with that. And we're still going to be distilling certain types of whiskeys as well. But yeah, by distilling brandy, like I said, that gin basket is going to allow us to try to infuse different flavors in that because gin baskets are where you hang herbs and stuff throughout there and the distiller runs by it and it imparts the herbaceous flavors out of there.

We're going to be doing that with the... Hey, if you want to, you can make a little gin too because gin is my other bourbon.

It's mine too, but the thing is with that gin is so overpowering. You need a whole separate still for that.

That's true. You gotta, you gotta really, it'd be a, it'd be a mess.

Yeah. Gin takes over quick. So, all right, so we're drinking your barrel proof.

Um, Rye bourbon here.

That's part of your gift shop release as well as called spirit of the bluegrass.

And you have crafted it differently.

Yep. Yep. This is also came from crafted barrels as well. And then again, a one-off blend just for the gift shop for this as well.

Cheers.

Cheers. And I want you to guess the proof on this on my head.

Let me guess this. I know this stuff tends to drink a little bit lower than it is. The malts really coming through on this for me.

That almost kind of reminds you of like a, like a, I'm not going to make that association. Very apparent. Give them more darkness out of that.

I don't know. One 15 to one 20. 108. 108. Wow. Yeah. I just guessed at it. I didn't, I don't know that I really based it on flavor.

Actually you would have been guessing in the right direction. That one just that bad time we were done blinding them with you. We didn't add water to it. It just got weird.

So that's really nice. It's got a little bit of butterscotch to it. And also again, a little drying, but very nice.

It's interesting how it can be both soft, kind of big and dark all at the same time.

Yeah.

Yeah, the barrel we use that was the majority barrel for this had a little bit of a lower, lower proof. So once we kind of put the other couple on there to mix it together, proof didn't really come up that much.

So how can people find you guys, like social media, internet?

Yeah. I mean, obviously we have a, just go to Google and type in Bourbon 30, we'll pop up right away. We are on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok as well, at Bourbon 30. And then we also have a separate, we have a Bourbon 30 handle and a J. Mattingly 1845 handle on each of our social medias. Um, uh, and Twitter as well. We're also on Twitter. Oh, fun. So you got, you got, so do you do that or? No, no. As a Savannah, she does, she runs our marketing here.

Um, that's a lot of work to double up on those handles.

Oh, you don't want me doing that anyway. Uh, but, uh, I'm not social media savvy, but, uh, yeah, she does a marvelous job with that. Uh, running that, uh, getting creative with the, with the ad campaigns she, she's doing on there. And every time we get something new out or some news going out to a new stage, she's on it right away, just getting it done.

So you guys do any kind of events? Do you get out and travel a little bit?

Yeah, we are actually going to be at Bourbon on the banks for a third year in a row this year in Frankfurt. And we go to some trade shows. We go to the, let's see, the prime trade show in Georgia, the Imperial trade show in Michigan when in the fall when that's run. I'm actually working on, By the end of this week, Preservation Tap Room in Bowling Green and I, we're going to partner up to do an actual whiskey blending class and tasting class down there. That'll be fun. Yeah, Mike Killen actually has a doctoral degree in physiology. And he's one of the co-owners of that Tap Room tasting room. So us two maniacs getting our heads together and running a class like that. I'm really looking forward to it. And preservation has been a very, very great supporter of us too. So we're happy to kind of, he just called me one day last week. He was like, Hey, do you want to do this? I said, yeah. So, so yeah, so we definitely get out and about and, and then we'll do some tastings. I remember I've been down to Elixir in Spring Hill, Tennessee to help, help Tarek do tastings down there before. Pogo is down in Dallas, Texas. Every time we're down there, we do a tasting. So yeah, we, we try to be as well traveled and, and then we're out in Nevada too. There's eight cigar lounge there's a lot of tasting duns out there so yeah so we're done out there sorry so yeah when we whenever we're on the road and we're trying to do more than just try to you know sell store picks and promote our brands we're trying to help our help our faithful buyers out as well we're not afraid of tastings and help them out so.

Well, that's great. Well, we'll definitely see you at Bourbon on the banks. Yeah. We usually have a big old 40 foot tent there and.

Oh, heck yeah.

Big Bourbon Road Lounge. We have a great time. And this year is going to be no different. So we're going to have a great time there. So we'll we'll definitely stop by and say hi and.

That'd be fantastic. Yeah.

You do the same. Well, it's been a pleasure to have you on today.

Thanks for having me.

Great to drink this whiskey. Thank you for sharing it with me.

Oh, absolutely. It's all on behalf of Urban 30. It's our pleasure.

Yeah. Well, thank you. I'm blown away by the variety of those bottles and how much they differ from each other. They're not similar at all. They're totally different. And that's great. Do you always try to keep the gift shop kind of with very opposing flavor profiles?

Oh yeah, absolutely. You know, plus we talked about earlier too, a little bit of that is going to be seasonal variations. Sometimes we could just be working on blend and just, we can be working on blend and let's say we're working on a certain profile, but we accidentally just put a couple of barrels together. Like, holy cow, we need to go this route, you know? So sometimes things just happen. And yeah, we definitely try to keep the variety up and make sure we don't want anything just to be tasting exactly the same every single time.

Absolutely great.

Well, Aaron, we hope we can come back again someday and sit down with you. Be happy to sit down and talk to you again, Jim. Thank you for having us.

It'd be a lot of fun. It's been a lot of fun today, and thank you very much for making time for us. Thank you as well.

We appreciate it.

All right. Well, you can find The Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok. You can find us on a private Facebook account, The Bourbon Roadies. You can also find us on threads now, believe it or not. I mean, we're trying to do them all. It's a big task, but just reach out to us. We're at The Bourbon Road at all of those. We also have a website, thebourbonroad.com. You'll find our swag on there, our gear, all of our podcasts are there, our blog articles. It's a great place to come and if you got a question for us, you got an idea for a show or you want to You want to reach out to us and suggest a bottle or a distillery in your hometown? Pop on to the bourbonroad.com. Go to that Contact Us page. Write us a note. We'll get back with you. We'll reach out to that distillery. We'll get that bottle. We'll talk to those people. We'll have a great show. It's always a lot of fun. It was great fun today at Bourbon 30. We hope you guys take an opportunity when you're on the Bourbon Trail to visit Bourbon 30 and take their tour and try some of their whiskeys here. You won't forget it. But until next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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