364. KBF 2023 Highlights and Wrap-up

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 is a new sponsor for the bourbon road podcast. In fact, this podcast is 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. Hello listeners, and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon, and Brian Hyatt is with us today, your co-host. We've had quite the weekend, haven't we, Brian?

We sure did. We had a blast.

So we just wrapped up the 2023 Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown, Kentucky. Three to four days of just intense bourbon immersion, I would have to say. Lots of fun, great town, great people. Big event, biggest, I would say the biggest so far. Almost too big even, but we'll get to that here in just a little bit. We've got a couple of whiskies with us today that were stars of the show, I would say. And then of course, we're going to talk to everyone about some of the real standouts that we don't necessarily have samples of, but things that kind of stuck in our craw just a little bit. Talk a little bit about the show, what we can expect for next year. And just our general look back on the weekend and what we thought about it. So, ready to get to it? Let's do it. I'm excited. All right. Well, the first whiskey up today is from Filmland Spirits. And Filmland Spirits made a great showing this year over in the craft distillery section. They had quite a number of their offerings there. In fact, they had all their offerings there, but they were also releasing two new products. But the one we were particularly interested in drinking and talking about on this show is the Moonlight Mayhem Extended Cut. And this is a cast-strength straight bourbon whiskey. And it is an MGP whiskey, but the bottle is just knock your socks off beautiful. And if you haven't seen Filmland Spirits bottles and labels, it's a real treat. You should go to their website, filmlandspirits.com and check them out. Everything is kind of movie related, but this particular whiskey is the 21% rye mash bill out of MGP, and that's 75% corn, 21% rye, and 4% malted barley. A cast-trink version is sitting, this one is coming in at 115.1 proof, and like I said, this is a single-barrel selection. from The Blind Pig, which is also a liquor store in Bardstown. Filmland has their offices in Kentucky, but this is an Indiana whiskey, and they're perfectly transparent about it, and everything's on the label. So why don't we get right into trying this? Brian, you don't have a sample of this today. We're actually drinking different things. You're drinking something altogether different, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes. But I want to talk a little bit about this one. I'll start out by saying that 115 proof, This has a really nice nose on it. Brian, do you remember those hand pies, those cherry hand pies when we were kids?

I do, and I still look for those. Can you find them? They have knockoff versions. Yeah. I don't think what we used to buy, but they definitely have some out there. I grab them every chance I get.

Do you? Well, I always used to grab the apple. I wasn't a big fan of the cherry. It's not that I didn't like it. I just preferred the apple pies. But this reminds me of that kind of buttery crust and cherry cream note that you got on those pies. Just really nice nose, very sweet, creamy and delicious. Has a under 100 proof nose on it for something that's 115 proof. So that's kind of cool. They've managed to subdue that ethanol burn just a little bit on the nose. And this is a double gold winner at San Francisco. Cheers. I'm going to try it.

Cheers.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the cherry on the palette as well. But I'm starting to pick up a little bit of a chocolate note. A little bit drier. On the back side, I'm getting kind of a deep oak, leathery kind of flavor to it. It's well aged, has a nice aged oak flavor to it. Nice finish. I would say it's a medium finish. Still sweet, hangs around on the mid palate for a while. I'm pretty impressed with it. This is so excellent, excellent sipping whiskey. Now this one is Castreth bourbon for 79.99 a bottle. I think we paid right at 85 for this bottle because it was a single barrel selection. So you usually pay a few dollars more for a single barrel selection. But this is really good stuff. I mean, it's really delicious. And to win gold at San Francisco is always an honor. They've got a number of the whiskeys that have won gold. And we'll talk about a few more of the whiskeys here in a minute. I just need to take another sip. Yeah, this is quality stuff. I think I could drink on this Filmland cast-strength whiskey for the better part of an evening. Definitely like to joy it out by a fire. Got a nice finish on it. A little bit of chocolate coming through now. Very nice. So, Brian, what did you think about the event this year? What did you think about what they did for media this year?

Well, I really don't have anything to compare it against as far as the bourbon festival goes, but I thought it was really good. I enjoyed it. The media attempt was nice. We were able to hydrate pretty regularly. The food was good and we had a lot of good conversations. in the media tent. So I felt like they treated us right. They set it up. You know, it was it was solid. They had a nice little gift bag for us with some swag in it and all that good stuff. It made us feel special and had a pretty good little collection of different whiskeys that we could taste there in the tent. So that was a lot of fun. And I thought they did a good job.

Now, the Northern Kentucky Bee Line, which is kind of like Northern Kentucky's bourbon trail, kind of, right? I mean, it's their little collection of bars, restaurants, distilleries and such that focus on bourbon. They kind of sponsored that tent this year. So, they had Northern Kentucky distilleries there, like New Riff. Boone County and some of the others. All those distilleries put out all their whiskey for us to drink in there. After drinking whiskey all day long out in the event with all the distilleries, we were able to come back to the media tent and have some more whiskey.

It was pretty cool to see the different distilleries that they had. you know, in the media tent and all that good stuff. I mean, we got to taste several things that we probably would not have had just because they're newer and all that good stuff. So it was nice to go through and taste some of those and see where they're at.

Well, this was definitely different than last year. Last year, media received VIP passes. So we would spend our time talking to distilleries and whatnot in the VIP tent last year. It was kind of hard because it was crowded and very busy. This year, we were able to take our guests back to the media tent and sit down and talk to them if we wanted to. The only thing I think we were missing this time was like a green room or somewhere quiet where we could record. There was just no way we were going to be able to record an interview there. It was too noisy, too much going on. A lot of people having fun, loud voices, but there's plenty of room, plenty of places to sit down. It's just too noisy to record. I agree. We did Friday and Saturday of the event. There were some things on Thursday as well and Sunday, but we kind of just focused on more or less two full days there. And that was hotter than fire out there a couple of days. I mean, it was a little bit warm, I think, but it wasn't as hot as last year. And I tell you what, drinking bourbon doesn't give you any relief from the heat.

No, it doesn't. But where they had the craft distilleries, a lot more shade over in that area, which was really, really nice to have an opportunity to sit in the shade, talk in the shade.

We got to see a lot of our colleagues out there, other podcasts. Definitely, I would say for the most part, everybody was represented, at least the big seven or eight big podcasts, big YouTube channels, big Instagram channels, TikTok channels. They were all there, so out in force. It was nice to see all our colleagues out there having a good time and got a chance to chit chat with them. The number of distilleries this year were more or less equal to the number last year, I would say. I don't know the exact number, but it looked about the same. But for me, and I know you weren't there last year, Brian, but for me, it was, uh, I think there were just a few too many guests with tickets this year. Um, I know they're trying to maximize and give it, you know, give as many people access to it as possible, but I felt like, uh, at least on Friday anyway, There were, there was just too many people in the event. It was too crowded. What did you think?

Um, I definitely thought so in some areas, you know, you would expect for the craft distilleries to, to be a spot where the lines wouldn't be, you know, as long as having Hill or Buffalo Trace, some of the other ones. Uh, but there were definitely times that they were longer. And I think that that. It speaks to a couple things. One, the craft distilleries are really growing and becoming more and more popular, so you could expect the lines to be a little bit longer for that reason. But there was a good crowd. I mean, no doubt about it.

Yeah. How long would you say that line was going into the Heaven Hill tent?

Oh, goodness. A couple hundred. A couple hundred people. A couple hundred folks.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm not sure what they were handing out there, but it must've been really good.

I think Friday, you know, Friday we did see that a lot of the bigger distilleries did have pretty long lines. They were jam-packed, slammed. It wasn't until Saturday that we saw a little bit, you know, some longer lines for the craft distilleries. And Jim, you'll have to remind me which one it was that we saw that had the very long line.

Oh, that would have been three cord.

Three cord. That's right. So we were thinking that there was somebody famous over there or something, and they just had a long line.

Yeah. Three Court is actually owned by Neil Girodllo, who is married to Pat Benatar. So I was thinking, maybe they're in there. Maybe they made an appearance today because that line wrapped all the way around the trees in that section. But we got up there and no, I think they were just giving away Weeglin and Karens, right? With the neck strap.

I think so.

People love free stuff. Oh yeah. What did you think about the, uh, craft section? Not, not the craft whiskey section, but like the craft goods. Like, uh, I think you had a, like a sweet potato pie, didn't you?

sweet potato pie, which was cheesecake. It was worth every bit of the $6 that I spent on it. Definitely not very big, but it was really, really good. I thought that it was put together well. There was a lot of really cool crafts or stores that were selling different things that would appeal to folks that love bourbon, whether it was the purses or the carrying cases. There was even the toothpicks that you, I guess, marinate in whatever your favorite whiskey or bourbon is. So, you know, there was a lot going on there, uh, but I thought it was cool. You know, it definitely was not a huge portion of the, uh, craft distillery section back there, but it did take up, I don't know, maybe a third of it. Um, but they had some really good offerings.

They absolutely did. Well, Brian, what are you sipping on today? Let's talk about what you brought.

So I'm just going to go a big distillery, something that we've talked about many times, something that I still love, and I just have Buffalo Trace. And the reason why I chose Buffalo Trace for this show was I was very, very impressed Saturday when we had a minute to walk past Buffalo Trace to see that they had Eagle Rare, They had Buffalo Trace sitting out. They had Arnold Taylor. What else did they have, Jim?

They had Weller Special Reserve. They had Thomas Moore. They had 1792 Sweet Wheat. So it wasn't just the Buffalo Trace things. They also had some Sazerac products in there too, from Barton Distillery. And, uh, I think there was a couple more that we didn't see and we did not walk past it. Brian, let's get this straight. We walked into it.

We, yeah, the line was not long. And I think the first thing that I said to you, I just, I have to applaud them for having that selection out there when, you know, there's, there's probably a decent amount of folks that, that were there that it, this can be, these offerings can be very difficult to get. They can't just walk into a store and buy a Colonel Taylor. They can't just walk in and buy Eagle Rare, any of those things. So I was very impressed that they made sure that those things were available for people to taste. You know, for us, we've had a lot of these things and we have bottles of them, fortunately. So I didn't want to have too much or drink too many things while we were in there. We just had one little taste each and kind of made our way out. But I was very impressed that they did that. And, and I was happy that they chose to do it that way.

Well, we haven't had Buffalo Traces mainline product on the show for awhile. So why don't you take us through it?

Yeah. So this is, uh, I think the last time actually, Jim, we had a store pick, uh, and it, it has been a little while.

So, Oh, is that the one that was something to do with, uh, Walker, Texas Ranger guy or something?

Um, yeah. So, so I've still actually, I have that bottle, uh, little, little small bottle and, uh, Chuck Morris's tears was the name of that. That's a pretty cool name. Absolutely. I love the store pick names when people get very creative with them. So, but you know, this, this is a bourbon that, you know, it's pretty light in color and, you know, probably what a, a I don't know. I think it's like compared to a lot of the things that we have on the show. But it is it's a very pleasant, easy drinking bourbon that is going to have brown sugar and, you know, some mint, vanilla, molasses, things like that. A little bit of a little bit of oak to it. But but it's an easy, very easy drinker. and it's 90 proof. You know, again, it's just a very, very pleasant bourbon to drink. So I'm going to go ahead and jump into this and see if for some reason I pick up something a little bit different, but I think it's going to hit all the notes that we're so used to.

This happens to be one that people can actually put their hands on from time to time. Of all the Buffalo Trace products, this is probably the one that's most available, other than Benchmark, of course. But one that you can find in the stores about 50% of the time.

Yeah. And it's affordable. It's not going to be super expensive. It just really depends on where you pick it up at. You know, you can see it as low as the high 20s on occasion. If you buy it online, you know, you may pay a little bit more than that, but you can. I love the fact that you can still walk into a store and find this every now and then. So yeah, this is everything that I expected it to be. Definitely get the brown sugar all that good stuff, you know, and it's a good one to start with. You know, I've got something here in a minute that's gonna be more of a, what'd we call it the other day, Jim, a big boy bourbon, one that's gonna really bring the heat, bring the punch to the game. So this is a good starter.

Now that's not the one you chose when both of us went into the Buffalo Trace tent this time. Let's just say it, Buffalo Trace doesn't attend all the festivals. You won't find them at all the events. They don't spend a lot of time really promoting their products. They honestly don't need to. Their products kind of self-promote. They're part of the big wave, the big You know, Bourbon Wave, and although they are interested in their brand and in supporting their brand out in the market, they don't necessarily feel the need to show up for everything. But in this particular case, they did. They showed up with bells on and put everything out there. I think they had four separate bars pouring in their tent. But we walked up to the Thomas Moore bar, didn't we? That's right. And what did you think about it?

I thought it was good. It's something that honestly I have not had before. I think it was one of those ones that I do think that you liked it a little bit more than I did, but it's definitely good.

I've always been a Barton fan. I've always loved the older Barton products. They're everywhere in the market. The older Barton juice, 10 to 15 year old Barton juice is just out there. I mean, it's out there in quantity. But I've always liked the profile of it. I've always enjoyed it. And the Thomas More is kind of based on that. It is a finished whiskey. I don't remember which one in particular we had, but I do like it. I think it definitely had a very fruity, rich, deep kind of jam flavor to it. I don't think that's your profile. That's not something that you're really after. You do like the sweeter whiskeys, but I don't know that you're so much into the deep, dark, finished things, right?

Yeah, I think that's pretty.

All right. Well, we had a couple of places we stopped at where we were really surprised by the products. We got to try something new that we hadn't had before. Something got pulled out from behind the curtain. We got invited back behind the stage, you know, whatever it is. We got to try some things that were maybe not available to the general public, but up and coming things, things that hadn't been released yet. And a couple of those stuck in my brain, and I definitely want to talk about them. But I think, Brian, first we ought to take a break. We'll finish off the whiskeys we're sipping on now. When we come back, we'll talk about kind of our best of show for you and me. They may not be the same. They may be the same. Got a couple more whiskeys to drink in the second half. Folks, stick around. We'll be right back. Looking for a unique gift? Blanton's bourbon shop has got you covered. All of their handcrafted wood products are made in their in-house wood shop with authentic bourbon barrels. Specializing in barrel-age potent treats, they use Blanton's barrels to age their own maple syrup, honey, and coffee. Find the most unique gift ideas for your golf lover, cigar connoisseur, avid coffee drinker, and Blanton's fan. Want to win an authentic Blanton's barrel head? Make sure you sign up for the giveaway on the home page of their website. Blanton'sBourbonShop.com is your home for all Blanton's gifts. As we mentioned earlier in the show, we hope you'll join us this fall on October 6th and 7th for Bourbon on the Banks. The festival itself is from 2 to 6 p.m. on October 7th, and you can pick those tickets up at bourbononthebanks.org for $65. They also have an early access ticket for $75. It'll get you in an hour early and definitely get you access to some special pores. But if you always like that VIP access, this year they're bringing in the VIP access tickets. They'll give you access to their VIP tent and all the great things that go along with that for $175. Be sure to check out bourbononthebanks.org. You'll get all the details on this year's event. All right, listeners, welcome back. Brian and I spent the break there finishing off those two whiskeys we had. He was drinking on a little bit of Buffalo Trace. I was drinking on the Moonlight Mayhem Extended Cut from Filmland Spirits. Just kind of chit-chatting about the second half and what's getting ready to come up for you guys. We've got a real treat for you. We've got two more whiskeys that we're going to talk about and we're going to sort of Kind of come up with what we consider our best in show, do a little name dropping of some people we ran into and talk a little bit about what we're looking forward to in 2024 at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. And of course, our upcoming 2023 Bourbon on the Banks event. So I guess I'll start out, Brian, since you just went over the Buffalo Trace. So what I have in my glass now is from Lucky 7. And today I'm drinking the Jokester. It is a six-year-old Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. And I will say that what we had at the event, we didn't actually drink the Jokester at the event. We drank the Workhorse. It's a little bit older than the traditional Workhorse. I think we had a nine-year Workhorse. Is that right?

I believe so.

Yeah, so we've had the workhorse at the event. And honestly, folks, when you're at a whiskey event, especially something the size of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, the first thing you have to accept is you're not going to get to try everything. It's impossible. And even those you do try, you can't finish them all. So you're going to be dumping some whiskey out and it's not a sin. It's just an absolute necessity that there's no way you're going to get through a hundred whiskeys in a day. Uh, if you try to finish off what they pour you, the first thing you do is you ask them to pour you light. You say, Hey, just, just the smallest amount, just enough for me to make an opinion on it, you know, because Uh, I don't like porn it out any more than the next guy, but it is a necessity, right?

That was a challenge for me. And I think I said that to you, that it's, it's so hard because, you know, first off for me, I never want anyone to feel like I don't like what I'm tasting. So I don't want it to be something that they're like, Oh, they. poured out my whiskey. So that's first and foremost that I think about. But then second, you know, I just, I really do enjoy it when you have something that you like, you want to finish it off, but you know, when you're in something like this, you just can't do it. You have to be mindful of you're going to be there for hours upon hours each day and you need to take it slow and make sure you're responsible and all that good stuff.

Yeah, I mean, there were two or three whiskeys that really, really stood out for me, at least for my palate, things that were a little bit special for me. And I didn't finish them. I had to pour them out because there's no way I would have made it through the day. And there's certainly no way I could have driven home at the end of the day had I consumed all that whiskey. But let's get back to what's in my glass right now. I am drinking the Lucky 7 Jokester. Lucky Seven is a distillery that has just put out, always put out really fantastic products, all super high quality. They're definitely showpieces of your bar. The bottles are beautiful. They've got a really neat concept to them. The naming's great. The story's great. They all have a little bit of film that goes with them. Kind of similar to Moonlight Mayhem. Lucky Seven's kind of based in the film industry as well. And they got that little movie ticket on the front. You peel it back. It's just a fun brand. Hats off to Ashley Barnes, our good friend who is the master distiller slash taster slash blender for Lucky 7. She does such a fantastic job. I was really delighted to taste the workhorse this year. I had not had the workhorse before, but I did not pick up a new bottle of it. Hopefully I can get my hands on that new workhorse. What did you think about it, Brian?

I thought it was really, really good. And, you know, like you said, uh, be able to have a minute to talk to Ashley and she, you know, she really spent time with us and all that good stuff. But, uh, I think I had maybe two whores from those guys and, uh, it's just, it's always good. I feel like they, they put a lot of effort into it, making sure that it's going to be good and high quality.

Yeah, so I'm drinking the jokester tonight. This is a six-year-old Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. It is 95 proof. It has won all kinds of awards. It is absolutely a well-balanced Powerful and delicious whiskey. It scored 90 on Whiskey Advocate. It's got gold medals all over the place. Beautiful bottle. Great story. Excellent master distiller. They really do a superb job. Their whiskies are all very close to top shelf stuff, right? I mean, you're not paying top shelf prices for them. They are at a small premium because they are a limited craft distillery that can't put out too much volume, but they're just really, really good. And Lucky 7 is, the Lucky 7 Jokester, anyway, the one I'm drinking, is priced right around the mid-80s. Very similar to Moonlight Mayhem, which I think was right at $80. The one I'm drinking, Moonlight Mayhem's, a store pick, is a few dollars more. We're talking about whiskeys that are produced in lower quantities with a high level of focus and effort and craftsmanship that go into these. They're going to be a little bit more expensive than high volume whiskeys coming out of the big boys. You're going to pay a little bit more for them, but the bottle is absolutely gorgeous. I'm sitting here looking at the Lucky 7. and the moonlight mayhem side by side and saying, oh my goodness, these guys really know how to market their products because they're absolutely gorgeous. Just beautiful, beautiful bottles. The whiskey is delicious, smooth. It's actually very viscous and thick, has a nice nutty flavor to it. By the same token, it's kind of sweet and caramel with a little bit of butter on it. Just a nice straight bourbon whiskey, 95 proof. You know, I might even say that I would think this will be a little bit higher because it feels more viscous and like it's, you know, heavier and thicker. It's just a great whiskey, just all around good. I'd love to get my hands on the workhorse and have it on the show here the next couple of months. I think we'll shoot an email out to Ashley and see if we can't make that happen. Now Ashley wasn't just at Lucky 7, she was also over at EJ Carly as well. That's another one of her babies, I would say, right?

Oh yeah. And we didn't get to spend as much time over there.

That's right. We kind of had to pick and choose a little bit. And I would say that a lot of the picking and choosing happened based on the length of the lines, right? I was just being honest about it. If a line was longer, we probably said, we'll come back. You know, we'll get back around to this one. And sometimes when we came back around, that line was still long and E.J. Carley was kind of like that. They were doing really well there.

It was, and we have the privilege of being able to have a lot of these different whiskies and bourbons and all that good stuff. So for us to stop into a tent, more or less a lot of times it has to do with us saying hey to someone and catching up with them a little bit that we haven't had on the show for a while or just spending time with some old friends for a minute.

Yeah, and sometimes when they're really busy, you feel kind of like you're interrupting their customer flow if you go in there and spend too much time. But usually they're very welcoming and they'll invite us into the back of their tent and we'll go back there and hang out for a little bit. But honestly, they can't afford much time to us. I mean, they need to take care of the people that are bellying up to their little bar there.

And sometimes it does get a little, the heat picks up a little bit when you go back in those tents. Few minutes here and there is good, but you don't want to stand back there for too long.

Well, let's see. Some of the people we ran into, big shout out to Scott from the Bourbon Lens. We did get to hang out with him at lunch one day and just have a bite to eat with him and chit chat about the general business of podcasting. And that was a lot of fun. Great guy. Really great guy. Wonderful, wonderful podcast. If you haven't listened to the bourbon lens podcast, I highly recommend you guys give them a listen. But my guess is most of you have probably listened to them already anyway. And you know, without me saying it, that they're a quality bunch of guys and they really know their whiskey. So hopefully here in the next month or so, we'll be able to do a collab with them and sit down in a room and just drink a bunch of whiskey and have a good laugh and time. It sounds like fun. We did it once before.

Yeah, I would love to do that. I obviously was not here for that, but just getting to spend a little bit of time with him, I think we'd have a great time.

Let's see, who else will we run into? We ran into Chris Blattner.

Yeah, we ran into a new guy too, that I kind of wanted to give a little shout out to because just really nice fella came over, introduced himself and I may butcher his last name, hopefully I say it correctly, but David Levine from Whiskey Ring Productions. a good guy and just took a few minutes to come over and talk to us. I just wanted to talk about him for just a second.

Well, I haven't listened to his podcast, but from the conversation we had, he seems to be kind of new in the business, just getting started. And I guess he's a longtime listener of the Bourbon Road and wanted to come over and say hey to us. let us know he appreciated us and give us a card so we could listen to him sometime. And that's always nice to do. It's always nice to hear or watch or listen to a new channel.

Yeah. And I think that's something to talk about as well. There's a lot of new podcasts that come out and all that good stuff. And so you never know who you're going to bump into and everything. But I like David.

Yeah, it was pretty good. We also ran into Chris Blattner for Urban Bourbonist. He was hanging out in the tent there. My goodness, just so many people around. We did see the Bourbon Life podcast in the tent one day for lunch. They were hanging out.

Saw some TikTok stars walking around. That one dude Ryan was hanging out. Yeah, it was good. That one dude Ryan. Yeah.

Lots of fun. So if you haven't been to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival and you love your podcasts and you love your YouTube channels, you love your TikTok and Instagram and Twitter and all that kind of stuff, and you want to meet the people you follow, that's a great place to do it. It's definitely a place to hang out and everybody's just down to earth. Nobody is filled with themselves. Nobody thinks they're some kind of movie star or anything. We're just regular guys that like to drink whiskey like everybody else. and we love meeting people that listen to our show. It just makes us feel good to shake somebody's hand and know that they actually got something out of the work we do, doesn't it?

That's right. No, it's definitely a blessing to walk around and talk to folks and share in something that we all love.

All right, so I'm going to make a call out for a whiskey. I know I'm drinking Lucky 7 right now, and Lucky 7, you make a fantastic drink. But there were some whiskies we had at the event that we're not going to have on the show today. And one of them I'd like to call out is the weeded whiskey from Broken Barrel. You had a taste of that, didn't you, Brian?

Loved it. Absolutely loved it.

It was, so Seth saw us walking by his tent. He reached out and hollered at us. We came over. He invited us back into the broken barrel tent for two reasons. One, he wanted to be closer to us, but two, he needed to keep the area in front of the tent open so he could continue to serve his guests. And then he treated us to a bottle of this wheat whiskey that was just over the top amazing. I mean, it was, I'm just going to say it, Brian. It was my best to show, I think you might feel the same way. I don't know.

Yeah. It comes down to two for me, but that, uh, you know, and I think that was one of the first ones that we had too. So my memory gets a little, uh, little off there trying to remember all the way back to the very first poor that we had of the, or maybe one of the first three pores that we had of the day on Friday. So, but it was, it was very, very good. And Seth always does an amazing job, uh, with everything that he puts out, but this one was, I felt like just, uh, just a little bit better than the others and the others are very good.

And a number of whiskeys there, uh, to try. And this is the one he pointed us to. This is one he was especially proud of and he had a limited amount of available. So, it was nice to get to try that. And I have to say, if there's more of that available, Seth, and you're listening to this podcast, I know you listen to the Bourbon Road. If there's any more of that available, the next time you're in Louisville, I'd love to sit down and drink that with you. And Brian and I would both like to and just savor it and talk to you about the notes on it. We didn't have much chance to really hang out there just a few minutes, but that is one damn fine whiskey. No doubt about it. But sure.

So well, I'll bring up one that I really enjoyed. And I'll be honest that I don't remember everything about it, because we were just walking through pretty fast. And our friend Barry Brinniger from RD1 said, I've got something here that I just save for my friends. And he pulled it out, ordered it for us. And it was really good. Jim, do you remember much about that one?

It was kind of a mystery bottle. It's not something that he was selling or had an offering of at the show. It was a mystery bottle. But I'm hoping it's something that he puts in a bottle pretty soon because it was really darn good.

It was really good. I'll go back to where you started with the Moonlight Mayhem and some of the stuff that they had. The Moonlight Mayhem was really good, but I also really did like the Rise of the Robots extended cut. I thought that was very, very good as well. So I would, you know, I'd put all three of those up pretty high on my list. And I wish I knew what Barry gave us because I could put a name to it. Unfortunately, I don't. And hopefully that will be something that will have in bottles and readily available for everybody. Uh, that would probably take my number one best, you know, best in show. Uh, but the other two, very, very good.

Brian, I noticed there were two ryes at the event that you were like blown away by. And this is really, this is you coming into your own on rye whiskeys. I'm loving it. So. Rise of the Robot, Extended Cut, you know, that's a cast strength rye, 95.5 rye out of Filmland Spirits. And you really loved that. You really liked it a lot. And I was over there sipping at the town at the end of tomorrow, nine year release that they had. And you were just booing and on about that rye. But there was one other rye during the show you had, and I can't remember what it was, but you, You really loved it a lot. Do you remember what that other one was?

You know, I don't off the top of my mind. I'm sure that I'll remember it. Was it Hemingway? Well, yeah, the Hemingway. And then anybody that's listened recently knows that I've, I've been a big fan of Hemingway. We just had them on. I believe last week we went through one of their, uh, One of the selections they sent us was that, that was a riot, wasn't it?

It was, it absolutely was a riot. Yeah, that's what they're doing right now, a riot. Yeah, so just riot on those.

But yeah, they're good. They do a great job.

We'll definitely be looking out for the two new releases from Filmland. One of them, Ryan just talked about, which is the Rise of the Robots Extended Cut. That's their 95.5 rye whiskey cast strength. Pre-orders were shipping like the day that the event opened up, I guess, actually today. No, wait.

The pre-orders... No, it's next week, September 25th.

That's the full release, but the pre-order shipped today, I think. Anybody who ordered it online to pre-order, I think it shipped out today. So yeah, they'll get it around the 25th. So you'll be able to find it at your favorite liquor store as of the 25th. The other one is Town at the End of Tomorrow, which is an absolutely new release from them. This is a nine-year-old bourbon. And it's, it's 109, it's $110 bottle. So, but it's, it's an exceptional bourbon and I think you'll really enjoy it.

And I mean, the website, they just have great stories, great presentation. You got to check it out. If you haven't been there, filmlandspirits.com. It's, it's just a totally different take for the bourbon industry. And it's a lot of fun to read through. Absolutely. I would recommend that everybody just go check it out.

All right, Brian. Well, what do you have for your next whiskey? And this is something. Let me just give a caveat here. This is not something that was at available at the event, right? That's correct. All right. Tell us what you have.

Yeah, so there's a nice little store down in Bartstown, and it is called The Blind Pig. And we just happened to go by there for a minute. I told Jim I wanted to stop in, check it out, and we went through. They had some pretty cool little store picks and everything, and I noticed this bottle up front. It was a Jay Mattingly bottle, and it said, Big Bad Wolf of Bardstown. And I was like, well, that's a pretty cool name. Picked it up, looked at it, set it down, walked around the store a little bit more. Thankfully, they do offer tastes that you can purchase for a very small price. And so we were able to taste through a few things. just kind of make some decisions. I really went back and forth on several. And then when we tasted this, you know, I think Jim, you said this, this is a big boy.

Definitely a big boy drink.

So I kind of settled in on it. Again, this is a Jay Mattingly. This is not something that, you know, you're going to see anywhere else. You're only going to get the blind pig and it's a 118 proof. And it is pretty phenomenal. So I'm going to go ahead and get my nose on this and drink it here in a second.

Awesome. Well, Jay Mattingly and bourbon 30, we had them on the show about a month ago and we had a number of their whiskies on the show. But one of the things they don't do is ever repeat anything twice. So one thing for sure, when you pick that bottle up, Brian, it was something that you can get once and you'll never see it again.

Wow, that's good. And I will say their bottles are really cool. I love the handwritten label on there with the store pick, you know, with the Big Bad Wolf of Bardstown. They had several others that were kind of along the same line as the Big Bad Wolf. So they had, what was it, Jim? They had the straw and the house.

They had a series of three that were all named alike, but they were different.

That's right. They were all named alike based off of the big bad wolf and the other ones were in smaller bottles. I think I picked up each one of those probably five or six times before I finally made my decision.

Well, that's a bottle you could share with folks when they come over to your house. It'll be, like I said, it's a big boy whiskey. Ladies don't seem to have any problem with the high-proof whiskies. They can tolerate it a little bit better than us guys for some reason. Who knows why, but they're just able to. So I shouldn't just say big boy whiskey. I should say big boy or, uh, I won't say big girl. They don't like to hear that. Do they?

No, no, definitely not. Grown woman whiskey.

How's that?

Grown woman. This is something my great grandmother would probably take a sip of and really enjoy.

Well, one thing's for sure when you come to town for a bourbon festival, whether it be in Bardstown or Frankfurt or Louisville, wherever it might be, You can be certain of one thing that the liquor stores will have stopped to the gills with everything possible to make sure that there's plenty available for everybody that walks into their store. The blind pig was so busy. He said he did $4,000 the first hour of opening in the morning. That's Saturday morning.

So, you know, you think about those stores foot traffic's not that great all the time, you know, on weekends and different things, but during the week it's not a, not a normal thing. So yeah, that's a. And they do a great job. What'd you think about the blind pig?

I thought it was a great little store. They didn't have like a huge number of bottles, but they had a huge variety, three or four bottles each. So, you know, they, they weren't real deep in their inventory. Well, I guess maybe he has maybe a back room that's filled with cases and cases, but out front you'll just see a lot of bottles, but two to three, four bottles deep. And then that's it.

So, and it's all good stuff. When I was up there, I saw somebody hit the jackpot. What was the jackpot for them? I was kind of waiting my turn and letting everybody take it all in and the guy and his wife walk up. He felt the guy was a little nervous. He didn't want to ask for anything, didn't want to ask if there was anything in the back or under the counter. And of course his wife, It's a little more assertive, kind of how my wife and I am. I won't walk into stores and say, hey, what do you have behind the counter? But my wife will absolutely do it. And he said, you know what? I've got a bottle of Eagle Rare back here for you. It's my last one. And he was like, I don't do this for everybody. I'm going to take care of you guys." And that guy, his face lit up, big smile, and he even said, I wasn't going to ask, but I knew she would. And he was like, no, I'm here to take this. Have a great time. And so I thought that was really special, you know, when you get to see that happen. It's happened to me many times. So I thought they, you know, the guy running the blind pig, he just, he did a good job. He understood what it was, what it meant to different people to come in there and have an experience.

We had a store full of customers and he took the time to sit down and just talk with us and take you through some tastings so that you could enjoy a few different bottles. Here's an example of a bottle that was not available at the event, but was available just outside the doors of the event at a local liquor store. We also had a brewery while we were down there. We just had a great time. We just had a wonderful time. Scouting Scholar. I would definitely say plan for next year, right?

Oh yeah, for sure. So one thing I'll say about Scouting Scholar, they did one of my friends a really good solid. We were there about a month and a half ago and my buddy accidentally left a bottle of Peerless that he picked from the blind pig underneath the table. We went over there, had a few drinks before we were going to head off to the next distillery. And they saved that bottle for him until Jim and I walked in there and said, Hey, we're here to pick up this bottle that my buddy from North Carolina left. And so we got it right here waiting on you. So shout out to those guys for, uh, you know, saving that bottle and, and doing something that meant a lot to somebody that was hopeful they would find that bottle that went missing on their trip.

Small town folks.

That's right.

All right, Brian, I've got another honorable mention, another whiskey that I thought stood out to me, Bardstown Bourbon Company Discovery Nine. It's another one that I felt terrible about having to pour the remainder of out as I was walking around, but it was a wonderful whiskey. It was absolutely delicious. They do such a great job there. Um, it's, it's notable, it's available and it's new. And if you haven't had discovery nine, I would highly suggest you give it a shot. Brian, there was another one at Bardstown that you tried.

Yeah, that was the four square that I had. And that is a collaboration that they did with the four square rum distillery. And so it, you know, it was, it was good and you know, I like rum every Every chance I get, I'm going to try some rum or pick up something that was finished in rum barrels and give it a shot. So that one was solid as well.

Awesome. One more shout out. Barrelcraft Spirits had a 10-year special pour there that was only bottled for the event. You cannot buy it, so we won't go into too much detail on it. I'll just say that Barrelcraft does a great job of putting together some pretty phenomenal spirits. I love their dovetail. Always have. But this particular 10-year-old whiskey that they poured from their bar was just out of this world. And a couple of roadies popped in. We were over at the Buffalo Trace 10, a couple of roadies popped in and patted us on the back and said, you need to go over to BarrelCraft to try their tenure. It's phenomenal. And that's what we did. And I have to say, it was really, really good. And you know what? You get to try it and it's never going to be available again. But hey, I got that experience. So it was awesome.

We loved it. It was a great tip. I really appreciate that.

All right. Well, another great year. Barstown bourbon festival did sell out this year. Uh, my guess is, uh, it's going to sell out again next year, but the website's up. Brian, you actually worked on that and, uh, and their tickets are on sale now for next year. I highly suggest, uh, don't. Waste any time. Just go ahead and get your tickets now. I actually bought tickets to a Luke Bryan concert eight months before the concert. Almost forgot about it. And boy, but when the time came and it was here, it was awful nice that I already had those, because I could have got those VIP tickets right before the show. Anyway, definitely get your tickets to Bartstown Bourbon Festival for 2024. Get them now. Go ahead and make your hotel reservations. Just be proactive and get it done in advance. Make sure that you don't wait till the last minute and miss out. So many people missed out this year because tickets sold out and they couldn't get in.

Yeah, that's never a good time when he miss out. So, you know, and the great thing, I think we talked about this on the last show, if you purchase tickets and something comes up and you can't make it, there's always going to be someone that's going to want to take those off your hands and will happily pay you for them for what you paid. So don't, don't be afraid to make that purchase. And if something happens, you know, you can always pass them off to someone else.

All right. Another great show, Brian. I appreciate your time tonight. It was great to drink whiskey with you and wrap up the 2023 Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Just a couple more weeks here and we'll be at Bourbon on the Banks. In the meantime, there's a bourbon festival in Ohio and Cincinnati coming up. There's one in Bowling Green coming up here in another week or so. So if you missed the big one here, get out to one of these smaller events and enjoy it. And there's still tickets available for bourbon on the banks and in Frankfurt on October the 7th. So you can still go there as well. If you see us out in town or out and about, make sure you come up and walk up to us and introduce yourself, shake our hands, share a pour with us. We'd love to meet you. But you can find us on all social media outlets. You can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, threads, Twitter. You find us everywhere. Make sure you follow us on all those social media platforms, or at least the ones you're active on so that you can know what's coming down the pike. We do a show every single week on Wednesday. We put out an episode and it's always, you know, we've always got somebody on who's fun to talk with, sit, chit chat with. It's a master distiller or a chef or an author or a musician or somebody who just loves their bourbon and loves to sit down and chit chat with us. But Brian, every week, how can somebody find out that a new show's coming out and make sure they don't miss one?

Yeah, so you just want to click on that subscribe button or whatever it may be. And you can find us on YouTube and Spotify and Apple podcast, pretty much everywhere. And anytime that a episode is released, you're going to get a notification that's going to let you know that it's available. And we do always appreciate you listening.

Absolutely. We also like to hear from our listeners. So if you've got an idea for a show, if you've got an idea for a bottle or a distillery in your hometown, if you'd like to shine a little light on somebody who's doing it right, make sure you let us know about it. You can hop on our website, TheBurbanRoad.com, We've got a contact us page there where you can go in and write us a quick note and let us know what you're thinking. We'll be sure to get back with you. You can also send us an email team at the bourbon road.com Brian or I will get it and we'll respond back. But while you're on our website, might as well shop around a little bit. We got our Glen Karen glasses, our t-shirts. Got our bourbon road shirt and our bourbonista shirt. We've got a new a hundred percent American bourbon shirt coming out. All these things are going to be available on our website. They're also available at our events. So if you come out to bourbon on the banks, you'll definitely see them. We hope to see you. We hope to meet you. We hope you enjoy our show. Give us a thumbs up. Give us a review. We love reviews, but until the next time we'll see you down the bourbon road.

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