366. Lawrenceburg Bourbon Barrel Pick

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 today we are on the road. We're in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. at one of our favorite places just down the road from Wild Turkey, but actually today we're in Lawrenceburg Burman Company. This is, let's just call it the old shop.

Right.

We got Greg Keely with us today, founder, owner, master distiller, floor sweeper, big kahuna.

Gardner.

Gardner.

I do everything.

Today, we're going to drink through some of your whiskeys, Greg. There's multiple reasons we have you on the show today. The big reason is this weekend is a big deal for both you and I. This is Bourbon on the Banks.

Very, very excited.

I'm very excited as well. We've got a couple of whiskeys here that are quite special. not only for that event, but for your business as well. I mean, you've got a new whiskey that has just been tasted kind of on a limited basis, but hasn't made it out to the public yet. And we're going to taste that today. And then we're going to talk about some other whiskies as the show goes on. And it's kind of a great time.

I am well, the good thing, Jim and hello everybody, but Monday when we're recording this is generally my no drinking day. So this is a bonus day for me.

You don't want to skip Mondays, huh?

Try to. It doesn't happen often, but I try to.

They call those blue Mondays, right?

Yes. They're very sad, whatever it is.

I know you cut grass all weekend, you work on the farm, and then the only thing you have to look forward to is that Monday stiff drink, right?

Right. But it's one of those things I try to pretend I have a little bit of willpower still.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's a good thing. Well, let's talk about this first bourbon in our glass. This is something new for you. Why don't you take us through it and tell us about it?

Of course. As we've talked about before, one of the main drivers behind Lawrenceburg Bourbon was single barrel car strength or a combination of those two. So we might have a five barrel car strength or a 10 barrel like we do with our rye. But my wife and others were like, I can't come in and drink 115, 120 proof every day. I don't want to drink that on the porch every day. I might want to have a ginger beer or ginger ale with my bourbon. So we started thinking about bringing out a lower proof product. And that's where our very small batch has come in. Now we're only recording this, but as you can tell, the label is bright orange. So if you ever see it out in the, in the wild, it's our standard bottle. But the label is bright orange.

And that's your, that's kind of your company colors.

Yes, orange and white. So this will be one of our mainstays now. We're sort of really, as we're working through it, narrowing down to having three mainstays, maybe four, and then we will have another visiting barrels or a lease just rolling. So that's the plan. Who knows if that'll happen or not, but that's the plan.

So particulars on this, proof, match bill, what are we looking at?

So this came out of the barrel at 139 to 140 proof. Wow. And it was hot. It was very spicy, even for me and probably for you. It was just one of those whiskies. But that was good, because if we were going to make a lower proof Basil Hayden kind of proof whiskey, I wanted it to taste like whiskey. That was the only thing it had to do. And by coming out of the barrel as warm as this did and as spicy as it did, I thought it would lend itself to tasting like whiskey, but letting you have a few instead of one. So we went through a process with this. The match bill on it is it's very high corn for us, which is unusual. We're generally high rye. This is an 86% corn, 10% rye and 4% molded barley. Now, as I say, it came out at 140, maybe a little over on a couple of the barrels. We cut it the first instance down to 100. I didn't think it, it just didn't work. We then cut it down to 86. And it was fine, but fine's not good enough, if you know what I mean. It just reminded me of every other mass-produced 86 proof bourbon, that are good bourbons, but that's not what we wanted. Then my wife was literally, we were drinking it, we were talking about it, should we go with the 86? I wasn't super happy with it. And Katie was like, why don't you basil Hayden it? I was like, it's not going to get any better if we cut it down to 80. Anyhow, we did and it did.

It did.

It just hit it out of the park once we did. It went against everything I thought would happen. but it worked and it was an eye opener for me. And so what we have in this is it's only five barrel. That's why we call it very small batch. Um, and the proof comes in right on 80 on the knocker. Uh, so yeah, I'd be interested to see what you think. All right. Well, let's check it out.

Well, the nose is very unassuming. It's got, it does have that corn sweetness to it, but I'm not picking up any residual from that one 40 ethanol that probably sends your nose hairs that back then.

It was flammable almost. It was hot. Like it was unusually hot. I thought for her, but I'm not used to having a high corn whiskey. And I, I kind of put it down to that.

It's nice. It is, it is a corn forward whiskey. It does have a nice caramel note to it. And a little bit of a nutty note too.

It does have it. Yep. I'm still, I'm very pleased with where the color came out.

Yeah, I'm surprised. It's much, much darker than I would have expected it to be at 80 proof.

Yes. And that was a big thing for us too, but I wanted it to look like whiskey. I wanted it to taste like whiskey.

Wow. This is, uh, yeah, this is, this is definitely, I got a nutty palette on it. Kind of a, I want to say like Harmony. And it sits on the roof of your mouth. Yeah. Oh, it's nice. It's really like 80 proof. Wow.

And that was what, you know, it's, I think a low proof whiskey that, or bourbon that tastes like bourbon is almost a Holy grail in many respects. And that's not that we were trying to make the greatest whiskey of all time, but it had to be whiskey. It had to taste like bourbon. for us to put in the bottle.

Now, for you to find some hazmat barrels, because those were basically hazmat barrels, and turn five of them into this wonderful, very small batch bourbon and 80 proof, are you going to be able to repeat that?

Oh, we've got a bunch of them. Oh, do you? Yeah, we'll be able to repeat this. That's why this will go into our portfolio as a long-term product. Got it. Got it. One thing that we do when we do source product is that we try and lock up if we can afford to do it, we try and lock up or at least put an option on everything that's around so it can be our product. And that's kind of important to us and it's part of our ethos and that's what we've done with this guy.

Wow, yeah, this is really good. This does remind me of like a cereal. What's that? Corn puffs. You know the corn puff cereal? I haven't had it since I was a kid, probably.

I had it at a hotel the other day. Did you? Yeah, I did.

This is really good. And folks, I keep saying corn, but it's not like a youthful corn. This is like a well-aged corn whiskey, a corn liquor. This is something that's got that really nice bourbon background on it. A lot of nut.

It has a little heat.

A little bit of heat on the back. But at the same time, you could really, one person could sit down and put a big dent in this bottle.

Right. And that's the, we were actually, oh, and by the way, this went into the bottle. It was about four years and eight months when, when we finally bottled it. But when we were at, um, Kentucky, uh, yeah, Kentucky bourbon festival a couple of weeks back, which we'll talk about later, we had a guy come up who had been there at the VIP event on the Friday and had, uh, he was a podcaster and so bought a bottle. Anyhow, he comes back in on Saturday on, yeah, Saturday afternoon. He goes, Oh, we played golf this morning at eight and we had all these bottles, but we cracked yours. And we, the four of us drank through the whole thing. And I was like, really? He goes, yeah, it was done by like 10 o'clock. And I was like, well, that's a good game of golf. And he's like, yeah, it wasn't particularly, you know, but he said, this is our breakfast bourbon.

Yeah. Breakfast bourbon. There you go.

So we're thinking we might rename it breakfast bourbon after the first batch.

Is there anybody that's done that? I don't think so.

I Googled it. Not that that means that much, but no. But that's what I like about it. And it stands up in a cocktail. Is it 80 proof? So in a bar, they can be serving this at 80 proof. It tastes as good as a lot of stronger whiskeys. know, you can, you can have a, that's, that's what Katie always says. She's like, I can have two of these. I can only have, you know, if she has a Bolvardia or something like that, I can only have one if I have the 10 by 10 or the one cast. But this way she can have, enjoy a couple of cocktails and.

Well, there are still those who, and I'm not going to say it's the ladies because it's not always the ladies. I mean, there are ladies that can slam down the barrel proof. But there are those who still prefer the lower proof whiskeys. And that's why Basil Hayden has reached its level of importance in the world and on the shelf. I mean, they sell through a lot of that stuff. That's exactly right. And there's a lot of whiskeys in the 80 proof range that do very, very well. I think bourbon drinkers, let's just say connoisseurs in general, have allowed their palates to climb that proof ladder. At some point, you need a reset.

I think you do. grouping because I've done exactly the same thing, sort of from the 86 to the hundreds, you know, the bottled in bond, et cetera, et cetera. And now I'm finding, you know, because all of our products, all the Lawrenceburg bourbon products are 115 plus. Sure. So I drink anything neat that's not, I'm like, oh gosh, this tastes like water. Well, it doesn't taste like water. It's just not what I'm used to. Yeah. And this has sort of to your point being a bit of a reset in that I'm like, okay, well, let's taste like whiskey. I can drink this with a Manhattan and be very happy. Or you put it on a big rock and just sip it on the porch while your dogs are running around.

So how long did it take you to go from concept to bottles on the shelf with this? Yeah.

Uh, a month, a month, month and a half.

See that's being small, nimble, quick on your feet, right?

That's it took us a, little, cause it took us a little bit to find exactly what we wanted, but even that wasn't a long time. That was a few weeks. Cause once we decide to do something, we're small and if we want to make it work, we have to do it and execute on it. And so, uh, I guess that's what 20 plus years in the military does. You, you know, you set your goals, set your target and you go after it. And that's what we've done with this. And we were very lucky. We, uh, um, our partners that we worked on with this couldn't have been more helpful. They were wonderful. And it just made everything go easy peasy. So we are so pleased with how our very small batch, AKA Breakfast Bourbon has come out. I'm very eager for folks to try it at Bourbon on the Banks this weekend, because apart from some podcasters like yourself, be the first people to try it. We've had it in store here in the tasting room, but it's not in distribution yet and it won't be for another two or three weeks.

All right. Well, we'll be looking forward for sure. And what will they find that bottle for on the shelves?

It'll sell between 65 and 70. Okay. We sell it at the tasting room for $70. But you know, we, with the retailers, you give them some leeway to, to do what they, to do retailer things. But it'll be around that mark.

You'll have plenty at the show this week.

Oh, yes. We'll have, see that big pile over there in the Alcove? That's this. So we'll have plenty for people to taste. And if they'd like to take some with us, we can sell directly from your tent, which is super fun.

That's fantastic. Any Kentucky distillery there can sell directly from their tasting platform. And we're happy to have that. It's not something we were able to do last year because our distillery we had in the booth with us was from Tennessee, so they couldn't qualify. But out of state distilleries can still ship their products to capital sellers and they'll sell a lot of it.

I think capital sellers, yeah, doing that for them. So that's terrific as well.

That is good. Well, we expect probably around 2,000 to 2,500 people somewhere in that range this week at the event. It's continuously grown every year. And I think Diane and Amzie and all those who are involved are just doing such a fantastic job at this event.

I got to tell you, they are so easy to work with. They answer all of our stupid questions. And I feel like we were here last year. Obviously, we didn't participate in the event. But I just feel like there's a tremendous amount of buzz around it this year that I didn't notice last year. Maybe it was there. I just didn't notice it. But I have a lot of people emailing us at the distillery or just when they come in saying, oh, you guys are bourbon on the banks next week. And we're like, yeah.

No, Greg, we'll see you there. Yeah. Well, it is a bit different. I think they've really embraced the social media platforms and their ability to get the word out. Also, I think past attendees have kind of figured it out that this is not just another bourbon event. This is not just another whiskey show. This one has a different personality. It just does. This is a city event. This is all about Frankfurt, downtown Frankfurt, and the whole town turns out for it, and it's an all weekend thing. So it'll start Friday in the evening, and the fun won't stop until you wake up and have breakfast on Sunday morning and find your way back home.

You could maybe have a breakfast bourbon.

Have a breakfast bourbon from Lawrenceburg, absolutely.

Well, they do have it down there at Siglusher Brewery. Siglusher were the very first people to put Lawrenceburg bourbon on their shelf in Frankfurt.

Yeah.

So we always give Tim and the team down there a shout out.

Great people, great beer. They have wonderful beer there. Absolutely. Okay. So I am ready to get onto the next one and the next one is near and dear to my heart. All right.

So when we were on the, when I was on the show a few months back, you know, we were talking about doing a barrel pick for bourbon on the banks and You came in and we did the barrel pick and I think we tried some pretty good barrels that day. Absolutely. And I remember when we were doing it, it was a toss up between the last two barrels. If I recall, it was barrel two and three. Yeah. And you plumped for this one. which I'd already bottled a couple of bottles of internally. Uh, and so we were going back and forward. Jim and I were going, Jim's like, well, you don't have to give it to us if you don't want. I'm like, Nope. I want the roadies to get the best stuff we have.

Yeah. And this, this, this was an outlier barrel. So this was a little bit different than all the, actually it was significantly different in flavor profile from the other three that we had on the table. And it was also kind of a short barrel. So it's a little bit less than you might expect out of a,

It wasn't as short as we initially thought. I thought we were going to get like 140, 150 out of it, but they're literally bottling it as we speak, or tomorrow morning they're going to be bottling it. And so it'll be fresh out of the barrel when it comes down to Frankfurt. But we're going to realize, I think, about 180, 185 from it.

Fantastic. So I'm so excited for that. And folks, definitely be prepared and get in line. I think with the word getting out that this will go pretty quick because it is such a phenomenal profile, something so much different than anything anybody's ever had before that I think once a few tastes get out there, people are just going to go crazy for it.

I hope so, and I think that'll happen. our standard mash bill. So it's 70-21-9, 21 cent rye, which leans back into our rye forward expressions. This went into the bottle at exactly four and a half years, and it landed at 116.5 proof. And for those folks that collect it, there's a little a sticker on the side, which will denote that it came from bourbon on the banks for roadies in particular. And I've hand signed them all. So, and once this bottle is gone, we won't have another one like it.

Yeah. I'll be sad to see it go, but I'll make sure there'll be a couple on my bar for sure.

Well, cheers. Well, cheers.

Oh yeah. I like that. It's got a little bit of a spicy nose. That is so good.

Oh my gosh. That's the first time I've had it since we did that barrel pick. And I have to tell the folks listening, we're actually drinking it out of the small little sample bottle that we pulled for Jim to do the tasting because the barrel was actually getting bottled as we speak.

I'm so glad you were able to come up with that for the show.

I found it like two minutes after you walked in the door.

That is so fantastic. That has that spicy, sweet spicy palette to it. But man, is it just, it's, it's got that candy spiciness to it.

Candy spicy. That's exactly what, okay. Now I can tell you something. I can't put a name to it.

And it's got a little bit of like, um, Like a root beer note to it, too. But it's got a candy spice in it.

Like praline, maybe? A little bit of praline to it.

It's like a candy sugar, burnt sugar.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely got a super spicy note to it. Yeah, I'm having trouble too. And that's why it was so hard for me to put my finger on this. It was like I've never really had that particular flavor before.

And this was a discussion we had just off-camera, off-microphone when you came and did the tasting. Yeah.

Exactly the same. And when you're doing a barrel pick, anybody can go to the store and get the standard items, right? Your things are on the shelf. They're wonderful. Every one of them is a little bit different. But when you pick something, when you're trying to pick something, you don't want to pick anything that matches what's on the shelf. You want to pick something that's an outlier, right? You want to pick something that's memorable and it has to be good.

Yeah, there's a lot of memorable stuff that isn't necessarily good.

But no, you want to pick something that's good, but you want to pick something that makes a statement. This was my pick. This was something that's different. Nobody else is ever going to get one like this. And this is by far different than anything I've had before. Roadies put a few dollars back for this one. Make sure that you get to the, the bourbon road lounge early at this event.

We'll be tasting it as well.

Yeah. And, and I'm sure we can put your name on the bottle and stick it behind or something. If we have to, we got plenty of room. So.

We can do that all. In fact, we did that in Louisville. If people wanted to come and buy it, we have a little signature orange bag. We just write their name and their last four digits of their phone number on the bag. We give them a coaster signed with their bag number and they just come and pick it up at five o'clock.

Now that's smart because people are hesitant. They want to carry something around all day, right?

Particularly if they pick it up at midday. But yeah, we did that. all weekend at Kentucky Bourbon Fest and people, the word got around.

Yeah.

And we started holding other people's bottles for them to come back and pick up. But that was okay. We had plenty of space.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're going to have even more space this time. We've got a 20 by 30 tent.

That's exciting.

30 feet of lounge space and we're going to have bourbon barrel furniture in there, big carpet hanging out. We're going to have all kinds of whiskey in there to drink. But You got to focus on this Lawrenceburg stuff because I tell you what, if you don't get these single barrel picks before they run out, that's going to be it.

Oh yeah. And we won't get close to this one again. Yeah. Like this is.

Yeah, this is it. That's fantastic.

I'm really glad you ended up picking this one because the barrel three was more typical of our, uh, one cast bourbon.

And they're all delicious. I mean, they're all good.

Oh no. Yeah. Thank you. But this is just a, A unicorn is like a terribly overused word, but it's just different. It's the pink flamingo. It's not the white swan.

Kind of an outlier. Kind of a little bit different than the others. Enough so that it definitely caught both yours and my attention.

Yeah, I'm very pleased you picked this. And this is actually... better than I was remembering it, to be honest. It was funny, I was in a bar in Indianapolis called Nowhere Special, it's a Speakeasy, last week and they had our product, one cast bourbon up there and I just asked for a neat one and I was talking to the barman and he poured it for me and it was cast seven of our inaugural release, of our inaugural batch and it was one of those moments where you really enjoy your job because I took a sip of it, I can't remember that barrel at all. I looked at the barman and I said, this is really bloody good. He's like, I know, the staff always have it after work. For me, it's one of those moments where you just go, this is why you do it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I probably didn't even try barrel seven before it went out. But apart from, you know, when we first take them out of the barrel to make sure they're single barrel worthy, I didn't know barrel seven from barrel one.

Right.

But yeah, so yeah, sorry for going off track.

It's kind of nice to run into your product in the wild, isn't it?

I wasn't even expecting it to be there. Yeah. Yeah. I won't tell this story now, but remind me one day to tell you the story about 21C and the people down there.

Absolutely. Well, I tell you, I was in Bowling Green yesterday and I was down at Chuck's Liquors and looked down on the shelf and there you sat.

At Chuck's?

Yep.

That's a great store.

Great store. Wonderful store. It really is.

Yep.

And it's kind of the first big stop inside the state of Kentucky when you're coming out of Tennessee.

That's a good story. In fact, I'll be in Bowling Green in a couple of weeks. I'll make sure I go and visit. Are you going out for another event? It's actually Kentucky Tourism Association. We're doing a presentation about making craft bourbon to the attendees. We'll be down there for a couple of days.

You stay pretty busy with this stuff? Are you out on the road all the time?

At the moment, yeah. I'm literally on the road three days a week, but that's good. If I'm not, that means people aren't buying it, trying it. When you're a small startup craft distillery like we are, we don't have a marketing budget, we don't have any of that stuff. And what I always say to these, to the folks like at Chuck's or wherever is like, I'll give you a bottle to put on your counter because if people try it, they'll buy it. And that's worked for us because, and then the, you know, Chuck or whoever is, you know, the guys up at Uncorked in Covington or wherever it might be, then they try it, they buy in because they like it. And you'll be shocked how often when we're doing a tasting in a store or something, and you're watching a counter all day, and you see people come up and ask advice on what whiskey to buy. Sure. I would say half the bourbon in those, like in Uncaulked in Covington, for instance, where we were a couple of weeks ago, I would guess half the bourbon that came off the off the side shelf where their premium products were, at least half of them were referred by the team at Uncorked, which really blew me away. We learned a lot from that experience, how important it is to engage with the people that are representing your product.

Absolutely. All right. Well, we're going to sit here in the old shop and finish off this pour of our single barrel pick for the bourbon road at Lawrenceburg Bourbon Company. We'll be back after the break, folks. When we come back, we'll talk about Greg's new facility and we're going to have a couple more whiskeys.

Be crazy not to. Yeah.

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And we'll keep it in the back.

Absolutely. All right, so we have two more whiskeys. I think this one's going to be a rye. You spread a little bit of Vegemite for us.

I did.

All right.

You're looking very nervous, Jim.

Nervous? Why? No, I'm not nervous about Vegemite. I like it. Okay. But you spread it very thin.

I did. I took yours. I scraped the top off yours and put it on mine. I can eat it off a spoon and I just love it. Yeah.

All right. Well, tell us what's in our glass, Greg.

All right. So this, you know, we were talking before, this is our 10 by 10 rye. It's an Alberta rye, 10 years, minimum 10 years old. There might be an 11 year old in there, but it's 10 year rye. And we blended 10 barrels at a time. And this was a bit of a mistake almost in that I was hoping we could do these barrels, single barrel, like we were doing everything else. But about two or three in 10 were just too spicy for the profile we wanted. They were still delicious, but they just didn't work for us. So I very unscientifically just got the first 10 barrels and put them in the vat. And this is what popped out. So it's 100% Alberta rye. It came out at 122.5 or 122.3. It's unfilled. It's a lighter color because that's what you get out of our friends from the North. 100% rye whiskey goes, I couldn't have been more pleased with how it turned out. This particular whiskey has got us into places that I never would have expected to get into. For instance, there's a very famous restaurant bar in New York where the one of their bar staff or restaurant staff were in here, apparently. I get a phone call from them. I didn't believe it was them. It was because I called them back.

Yeah.

And they said, you know, we don't have anything like that. It's 100% premium rye. We'd like to bring it in. And fortunately, Skernick, who's our distributor, in New York was their distributor for all their wine. So I was like, just give them a call. Fantastic. Yeah. So we were very, and that's been the case in a lot of high-end hotels and cocktail bars, speakeasy kind of bars, where this is something just a little bit different.

Yeah. So you would categorize this as a connoisseur's whiskey, a rye connoisseur's whiskey maybe?

Yeah. Okay. But it's also, you know, when we're at the Bourbon Festival, and I'm sure we'll see this too at Bourbon on the Banks, is that people, you know, you've heard it a hundred times, thousand times, people go, oh, I'm not a rye guy. Sure. I'm not a rye girl. and we almost get them in a headlock and say, just try it.

It's almost like a slap with a leather glove, right?

It's that kind of deal, right? Yeah, it's like the challenge and we'll fire pistols at 10 paces. But when they do, it might not be for them, but they're like, oh, that's really interesting. I like it, but I still don't like rye. But more often than not, they're like, I've never had a rye like that. And that's what we're going for.

So that'll definitely be here this weekend.

Oh, yeah. We've got enough of this ride to feed Russia. Fantastic. That's another story.

All right. Cheers.

Cheers.

Oh, man. It's just got that wonderful, fresh nose on it. I really love that. That is rye all day long.

I'm trying to think what the nose. I should know this by now, but it's got a very earthy nose, I think. Herbaceous nose, maybe.

I mean, it's kind of a forest smell.

Forest floor maybe, perhaps.

Yeah, but maybe one with pine needles on it.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Pine forest. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.

That is just so full of flavor.

I drink this at home.

Yeah. For me, it's, it almost goes straight to the back. You know, it, it spends a little time upfront and kind of washes over, but it really goes to the back and says, here I am. I'm a dammer. I, and I'm good. And it really is.

I mean, this is a hundred and 22 and a half proof. It doesn't drink like that. I don't think it doesn't.

It passes right over the front and mid palette and you don't, it's sneak, it sneaks up on the back.

and you get it at the very back of your tongue as it, before it goes down your throat though, it just sort of sits there for a bit.

Yeah. Super finish though, super long finish.

Like I can still taste that first sip.

Yeah, for sure.

But it, like I'll have, I wasn't really into rye until I started doing this. And now I'm like, you know, the person that quit smoking, I'm now all about rye.

Yeah.

So, and you'll see that in our bourbons and our whiskies is apart from our very small batch, everything is pretty rye forward because we like that spiciness and that sort of thing. And this is the whiskey that got me over that hump.

I would say your very small batch bourbon is darker than this.

Oh, no question it is. Yeah.

So we said it a couple times now. We're in the old shop. I'm looking around. I'm seeing you're kind of 60% of the way packed up. You're getting ready to say goodbye to the old building here. And what's over the horizon?

Well, it's all very exciting. And I have to give a shout out to my wife, Katie, who is literally packed the whole shop up so far. We just carry some stuff and she does everything else. But this will be our last week in the shop. So the 7th of October, I think will be our last day serving from our tasting room here on Main Street. It's been a super fun year and a half. It's achieved exactly what we wanted it to do. We wanted to introduce the brand, introduce our sort of profile, what we were trying to achieve, and tell the story for a year or so before we actually got ourselves sorted and up and running. So we're super excited. We're moving about a mile away. under the sales road 62. We're right next door to Wild Turkey on the same side of the road. If you're coming from Lawrenceburg, Lawrenceburg Bourbon Company distillery is on your left and you go down about 2,500 feet in the driveway for wild turkeys on your left. We can see their water tower and we can smell their cooking. Fantastic. And we're super excited. Work's going on right now. We will be opening the temporary gift shop and tasting room, which we kind of like this. Yeah. Same, it'll offer the same things. on about the 15th of October, so we'll have a week in between getting out of here and opening up there. And then we're hoping the work on the tasting room proper and the gift shop and the bar area and the you know, the actual distillery part of the building, which is separate but attached, if that makes sense, will be ready, certainly before Christmas, by December.

So how big of a step of is it? How many square feet versus here versus there?

Yeah, so here we're probably in, well, certainly in the tasting room section here, we're probably in, what? less than 1,000 square feet, I would think. The new place is about 1,000 square feet. It's an old farm machinery sales and repair place. So the ceilings are very high. It's all concrete floors. It's all steel and steel beams. It's very industrial looking. we're going to keep with that feel with the building. And the back part, which is about four and a half thousand square feet, is where the still and the tanks will go. Plus, we'll store our single barrel products in there that people can, like you've done with the one for the weekend, where people can come in and try single barrels and buy do a barrel pick if they choose to. We'll also have a VIP room where tour groups or bachelor parties or whatever come in, they can have their own private area where they can taste and talk and speak to me or whoever's there at the time. So we're trying to make it a bit of an experience where fire pits and Uh, you know, corn hole and all that sort of thing. Uh, I'm going to have my emus in the, uh, in the back.

Fantastic. You're going to have an outside bar in the back.

Yes. Outside bar. We'll have two, uh, outside areas, one on the front, uh, front of the building, which overlooks the sales road and the grass area and we'll have a little dog area. So you can bring your dogs, they can run around with a hundred percent dog friendly. Fantastic. And we'll have a run. So if you're inside doing a tasting, you can literally, you can bring your dog in and do the tasting. We don't care. Or you can put it out in the run and they'll be happy as clams just running around out there. Fantastic. And we've got a side fully covered outdoor area, which overlooks just green fields and and the Wild Turkey Water Tower, funnily enough. So we're super excited and it's a lot of work.

Yeah, I imagine it is. It's a lot of work. What about events and music on the weekends? Any of that going to happen?

We'll probably down the track do like just you know, someone playing acoustic guitars and stuff outside, particularly in the front area where it's a big grassed area, people will be able to, you know, we'll have some picnic tables and things like that. We'll have, you know, someone playing guitar or whatever in the spring and fall. And then, you know, we have the tasting bar or tasting area, which will, you know, hold, you know, 50 or 60 people, so if people had a small event or whatever, we could certainly do all that as well.

I think being right there on the road to and from Wild Turkey, you're going to get just a little bit of traffic. I mean, that's kind of a main thoroughfare to get to, well, and into Versailles as well, right?

Right. Well, if you're going to Woodford from this neck of the woods, you have to go past us. If you're going from that neck of the woods and coming to Four Roses and out to Buffalo Trace, you go past us. Yeah. So, We were very lucky. The people we bought the building off had been there for some time and were very gracious. And then you've got to go in and it's been a tractor repair shop for 20 years. So there's a lot of gunk you've got to clean out of the nooks and crannies, but that's all been done now and the HVAC's going in. It's a lot.

Now, you know, it's tradition when you come to the neighborhood, you got to walk across and meet your neighbors. So you need to make sure you go over and shake Jimmy's hand and see if he'll welcome you to the neighborhood.

See if he'll come on down for a dram.

I'm sure he will.

I'm sure we see him next door at the restaurant. Yeah. Twice a week at least.

Well, that's fantastic. And it's still Lawrenceburg. I mean, this is the namesake town of your company.

I was talking to one of the guys that's doing groundwork out at the new distillery just yesterday, as a matter of fact, last night. And he's like, how is it in the history of Bourbon in this city, in Lawrenceburg, there has never been a distillery called Lawrenceburg Distilling or Bourbon? Never, ever. Since like, year dot. there's been everything else, but not Lawrenceburg. And it, it was, it was interesting ass. I was like, I have no clue. Yeah. But, uh, never been.

Well, I think back in the day, it was all about naming the distillery after your family name, right?

So I think that's probably right.

And it has gotten away from that nowadays. I don't think a lot of that goes on. Some of it does, but not a great lot of that. Most of the time it's some city name or town name or regional name or

Right. No one's going to drink Greg Keely-Burbon for the love of God. Yeah.

Well, I mean, Keely-Burbon sounds okay. Yeah, I think that's- Not only Greg's, Greg's whiskey, maybe not.

Yeah, I don't think, maybe I'll call the bar Greg's.

Maybe you can have a special release.

I think it'd be more likely to be named after our dogs, Raylan Givens and Betsy Ross than named after me.

Raylan Givens, how about that? I'm trying to remember what that's from.

That's- Justified.

Justified, yeah.

About the US Marshal in Kentucky.

Yeah. That was a fantastic series.

It's probably, I think it's the best ending to a long running series, the last episode of any show I've ever watched.

Yeah, it's fantastic. And you know, I'm trying to remember his name, the fellow with the teeth.

Yeah.

He owns Mulholland Distilling. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah, he does. In fact, we were going to have him on the show. I'll come up with his name here in a little bit.

I know exactly what you mean. I can't remember your name.

So yeah, he owns Mulholland Distilling. I didn't know that. Wow. Absolutely. What a great show. Man, blast from the past.

Yeah, I love that. Well, my dog's running around every day, so I remember fondly.

All right. Well, we've got one more whiskey on the list and another special pour.

Yeah, so this one, Jim, is a world premiere for one of a better term for roadies. This is the first of what we're calling our empirical series of barrels. And the thinking behind this is, you know, we will keep as our core product, our one cast bourbon, we'll keep our very small batch or breakfast bourbon as it's soon to be called, I think, and we'll keep our high proof 10 by 10. And you know, we may, that may become a 15 year or who knows, but we'll always keep that 100% rye product. Sure. On the edge of that, where the empirical barrels will be, when we identify a product that might have 15, 20, 40 barrels and we can secure the entire lot, as long as it's really good, it has to be like, this is our our little crowning look at me product. This one, our very first one, which we will release when we officially open the new distillery up there on Versailles Road, is our very creatively named high wheat rye. It's seven years old. It's 119 proof. And this is the kicker. It is 65% rye and 35% wheat.

Wow. It's not a malted wheat. No. Something's kicking that process off.

I guess, yeah, enzyme here or there, I guess. But we stumbled across this. And locally, it's from actually not very far from here. And I tried it the first time. I'm like, no, I didn't actually want to try it because I'm like, who's ever heard of a high wheat rye, right? And I've of course tried it because who wouldn't. And I'm like, this is delicious. So I had to get other people to try it to just see if I was bought into it and didn't need to be. Everyone was blown away and we've taken this out when we've, you know, doing our calls with our Skernick, our distributor and our distributor in Arkansas. And everybody wants to do private barrel of it, like almost to an outlet. And we won't be able to do that because we only have 30 barrels. And so this will, this may be a product that you can only buy in Kentucky or at our distillery. We're going to wait to see how it pans out.

Just not quite enough there to go to white distribution.

No, there's not. I mean, if we took this Indiana and Ohio and Arkansas and we're moving into California in the next little bit, it'd be gone in a few weeks and we don't want to do that. We want to have that bottle that You just can't walk into Chuck's or wherever Covington party sauce and buy it. They might get an allocation of it. We don't know how it's going to play out yet, but it's just that unusual whiskey.

So what'd you call this?

Is it your empirical line? Empirical. Yeah. Fantastic. I was trying to think of some clever name and I weeded, weeded rye. I've not come across another one. Certainly like this.

Oh, that's a really nice nose on that.

Yeah. I love this nose. What do you get out of that?

Getting a little bit of a light cherry, some baking spices. The rye is under there. Rye toast is under there, you know, but not like- It's not overwhelming. It's not overwhelming rye.

I'm really getting the baking spice out of this. It's a delight, delicious color, I think. This is how I, this is the color I think whiskey should be.

Oh my goodness. It's like drinking velvet.

Can I quote you on that?

Liquid velvet, yes. Now all your whiskies have a nice body to them, a nice texture to them, but this one is very like- satiny smooth, velvety. That is so good.

I have to tell folks at home, this we poured out of a little tiny sample bottle and there's what, half an inch left in there. This is all that exists until we release it at the distillery when we open. We're so happy with it. Like if we had to release our very first in-house empirical bottle, this is a pretty good start. And it's 119 proof.

Yeah. I mean, it's just fantastic. That is, I mean, you really do have a knack for finding some pretty incredible barrels. Thank you. And that is, I love tasting. I mean, after, I mean, I think we've had over 900 whiskeys on this show. And after drinking 900 whiskies, it's just such a delight to get something that is just different. I mean, like the one we had, like the barrel pick we had just a little bit ago, and then this one here. It's just wonderful. It just blows me away. And there's been no finishing done on this. This is, this is just what it is. This is just a weeded ride coming out of a barrel at seven years old.

Yeah. And we've tried to not that I have anything against finishing at all. It's just not, and we'll probably do it as we've talked about, you know, off, off here, but, um, it's just not where we are at the moment. Um, I like to literally pull it out of the, and this is single barrel too. Um, cast strength, single barrel, uh, and they all vary a little bit, but I really like literally pumping it out of the barrel, sending it through the filter and putting it in the bottle. There's nothing cooler than that from my perspective to see it literally come out of the barrel and go into a bottle and then that barrel is finished and you go and get the next one. So, and that's, you know, Jim, that's one of the things we're trying to do is there's a lot of people make great whiskey. You know, we're going to be one of them, uh, you know, as we, uh, as we move forward. But if we're going to have anyone else's whiskey or bourbon, I don't want to just have. Everyone else is bourbon.

Yeah.

Right. I don't want it to be just a marketing exercise. I want to have stuff that I really enjoy. And, you know, we've done, you know, interviews and things in the past and folks are like, well, what's the profile you're going for? I don't know. Um, I just know what we like or I like. Yeah. And that's what we go for. I like stuff. That's a little bit different. You know, our one cask bourbon, you know, that's only four and a half years old going into the bottle and it's high proof and it's single barrel, but it's just a little bit different.

Yeah. It's kind of hard to have a target. I mean, really, I mean, maybe your target is just better than good, right?

Yep. As simple as that sounds.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

No, I think that's right. Yeah, I think that's right. And, and I want it to be, I mean, there's some really amazing bourbon or whiskey that is just a better version of the other thing on the shelf. Whereas what we're trying to do is get a better version of the regular thing on the shelf. That's a little bit different. I don't, nothing crazy. I don't want it to taste like eggplant or marshmallow or anything. I want it to taste like whiskey. And that's the same going right back to our start of our conversation, a very small batch. You know, that's not a remarkable whiskey in of itself, but as a, you know, it's, it's a good whiskey, very good bourbon, but at an 80 proof, it is kind of remarkable that it tastes like bourbon that much, if that makes sense. That kind of doesn't make sense even when I say it, but that's what we're trying to do.

I mean, it's got a tremendous amount of flavor for, the whiskey content, because there is water in there, right? So I mean, for the amount of whiskey content, you got a tremendous flavor there, so it's fantastic. This is just the creamiest Dagon stuff I think I've had in a long time. It's so silky smooth.

Have you ever heard of just a straight rye and wheat?

I've had ryes with malted wheat in them, but I don't think I've had anything with 35% wheat in it. That's a lot. It's probably out there somewhere.

We looked. And, you know, it's not scientific by any means. We haven't found one that is certainly not that combo, but even sort of close. Generally, they'll have a bit of something else in them, a bit of malt, you know, a bit of malt barley or something. This just doesn't.

It is exceptional. This is definitely something. I mean, this is going to be available. Now, are you having a grand opening celebration? We will. And that's going to be on or around the 15th of November?

Oh, no. So around the 15th of October, that'll just be a bit of a soft opening where we open our gift shop and tasting room. And that'll be just a temporary facility. It'd be very nice. They're working on it now. But I'm hoping What is that in October? After Thanksgiving, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we'll be able to have a grand opening and that's when we'll launch the high wheat rye. Fantastic.

I look forward to it.

You'll even get an invite.

Well, thank you.

That's right. I'm part of your, what's the name of your? The Commander's Bourbon Club.

Commander's Bourbon Club. I do get those notifications once in a while. Somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas very likely this particular bottle will release at your grand opening. Yep folks I'm telling you put it on your calendar I know we don't know an exact date yet, but definitely watching out Where can they find you guys and where should they be keeping an eye out for?

So our Instagram, everything is just LawrenceburgBurban. So our Facebook is at LawrenceburgBurban. Our Instagram is at LawrenceburgBurban. And if you want to email us, you can just email hq at LawrenceburgBurban.com. And that's our website too, just LawrenceburgBurban.com.

So if they go to LawrenceburgBurban.com, you must have like a newsletter signup thing.

Yeah, we do.

So they'll get a notification. They certainly will. So that's the best way to do it, right?

Yep. And we always post our updates and things like that on the site and on our Facebook page. So it's incredible how important social media is to a startup distillery like us. Absolutely. It's extraordinary. I think probably two thirds of the people that walk through that door have seen us on Google or Facebook or Instagram that walk in.

Yeah. The world is changing. It's extraordinary. Embrace it. And I think you have. You've embraced it. It's very important.

Really is. But we're super excited for Bourbon on the Banks.

We are too. We're looking forward to not only seeing all of our listeners and our friends out there who we get to see maybe once a year, but also hanging out with you and your team on Saturday. I hope you're going to be out on Friday night as well.

We are where we're participating. I think it's a VIP event. We'll be tasting probably our 10 by 10 and our new very small batch. at that event, we'll be pouring for all the hoi polloi. Yeah, the hoi polloi. Are you going to that?

I'll be there. Brian and I will both be there, and we'll definitely stop in and say hey.

So you'll be in your black tie and your chat.

I do wear a jacket just because I feel like the event calls for it, but you certainly don't have to. No. I mean, maybe I'll change my mind this year.

I don't know, last year? I was going to serve in a Speedo this year at that event, yeah. It looks like it's going to be a bit chillier.

Yeah, it's going to be chillier. Now Friday, I think it'll still be a little warm. Saturday is supposed to be 60.

I know. Isn't that crazy? Like it's 86 degrees here today in Lawrenceburg.

Yeah. So if you're trying to get your weather report from the Bourbon Road, I'm telling you, make sure you bring some pullover or something for your honey because it's okay if you get cold, but don't let her get cold.

Right. That's the last thing you want because then you leave early.

That's right. Then you got to go.

But we're super excited to actually, we get a lot of messages from roadies and stuff and they come into the tasting room and we're super excited for them to come up and visit. I'll be there the whole time. Katie, my co-founder, my wife will be there as well. And our ambassador at large, Kerry, will be there. And we'll be pouring everything apart from the high wheat rye that we've tasted today. We might even have a little special thing there too. We can't give too much way on that. Because I can't find it because we're packed.

And people can walk away with bottles.

They can buy them and we'll keep them for them and they can come and pick them up at five o'clock. And if they forget them, that's why we have their phone number.

Fantastic. Awesome.

We're so excited to be in your tent and just being part of that group and just hanging out.

Well, Greg, thank you so much for coming on again. I know it's been a few months. It's been probably six or eight months since you were on the last time, but this is kind of our little preview show to Bourbon on the Banks, and plus you had a great announcement today with the release of your bourbon, and got that barrel pick. I mean, it's just going to be a fantastic time. Thank you again for being on the show.

Jim, anytime. Very excited.

All right, well, you can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook. You can find us on threads even, believe it or not. We try to do them all. Our main home base is the bourbonroad.com. So if you can find your way there, we've got a Contact Us page there. You can let us know what you're thinking. If you like the show, if you've got a recommendation for a show, we'd love to hear from you. You can also find our swag on there, our glasses, our shirts. All the good stuff. Anytime you buy something from the bourbonroad.com, it helps us get down the road to visit that next distillery.

I love your new shirt, by the way.

Oh yeah.

So Bourbon is a hundred percent American. Yippee-ki-yay.

Yeah, it's a good one.

I love that shirt.

Yeah. I hope we sell a few of these. They're wonderful. It's new for this year. So we got this one and we got the Bourbonista shirt this year. So it's the lady shirt that says blame the bottle. But we're gonna have a blast. All right, so make sure you tune in every week on Wednesdays. We'll have a show for you every single Wednesday. We'll have a guest on the show like Greg, sometimes an artist, a musician, a chef. It's always fun. We're always drinking whiskey. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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