373. Thanksgiving Turkey Special with Todd Ritter

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. The Bourbon Road is excited to have pintsandbarrels.com as a sponsor of this episode as well as our official custom apparel provider. Be sure to check out pintsandbarrels.com and browse their ultimate online store for bourbon loggers. Hello listeners and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm your host Jim Shannon and today Today we're on the road again. We're in Frankfurt, Kentucky. It seems like we're getting to Frankfurt a little more often these days, but always a great place to visit. Happy to be here. Today we are in the Corner Rick House, just across the river from downtown Frankfurt. I guess this is still downtown Frankfurt, but this is just across the bridge on St. Clair. They're across the street from what used to be Rick's White Light Diner. And this is the headquarters of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, and today we've got a guest on the show. Been a friend of the podcast for a very long time, a friend of mine for a very long time. We've had a lot of opportunities to drink whiskey together in the past. Seems like we bump into each other all the time. Todd Ritter, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, Jim. I appreciate it. It's really, really good to have you on today. I'm really excited for what you have in store for me. This is a big deal for me. I'm a big turkey fan. You know that. Right. And today, well, let's say this. Not too long ago, you held an event with the Frankfurt Bourbon Society where you opened up your bottles, some rare, some not so rare, turkey bottles for the club, the society, and I wasn't able to make it. But you're such a great guy. You're going to include me today.

Yeah. I was really hoping you'd make that event. There were a couple bottles that didn't survive that event. They got drank completely. But I brought a few more things today to the show and looking forward to trying them with you and comparing some different years.

So you've got four for us today, and then you have a bonus pour at the end, which we'll reveal a little bit later on. But we're going to drink, we'll kind of get straight to that whiskey here. That sounds good. We'll get to that first pour, one of my favorites, in my pantry upstairs. I've talked about this many times. This is always in my pantry. I have a bourbon bar, the Bourbon Road Bar in my basement where we host a lot of our shows. And then there's some wild turkey down there too. But upstairs in the pantry is where I keep the stuff I need to reach for every day. And that Wild Turkey 101 is definitely one of them. So today, we're going to lead off for you. We're going to actually be doing a comparison. So tell us about what we're doing in the first half.

So like you said, the first pour we'll have is just kind of a modern day wild turkey, 101. Purchased earlier this year, I believe. To me, it's a classic. It's got a little proof to it. You can drink it. mixed or neat or on the rocks. It plays well with just about anything. To me, it's just a classic pour. Secondly, is a Wild Turkey eight-year from 2002. That means everything in that bottle is either eight years or older. If you could Obviously, this is an audio podcast, so you can't really see the difference in color, but it's almost night and day a little bit. They say it says age stated eight years, so there's probably older 10, 12, 14, maybe even higher than that age barrels in this bottle.

That still happens today sometimes. We've seen it in recent releases where they've had to put some older barrels in to manage their inventories. But I can tell by looking at these two bottles right now that there's some difference between the two. But they're both 101 proof. They're both wild turkey. In 2002, were there some differences in barrel entry proofs?

2004 is when they changed from 107 to 110 barrel entry proof. Later on, I believe in 2015 is when they went to 115, or no, yes, 115 barrel-winter.

Got it. Okay.

Well, let's get straight to this whiskey.

People are saying drink, drink, drink, so let's drink. Cheers, Jim. It's good to see you, buddy. You too. I still got a little bit of funk on that. Maybe it's just sitting next to that. Yeah.

They're blending in the air. Blending in the air. It's fantastic, though. Just classic cherry, little orange slice.

I can still get a little bit of smoke on it. Yeah. That rice spice is just wonderful on the nose. It's light, but it's there. It used to be that wild turkey was considered that, and it's still called the high rye bourbon, right? Correct. But these days, not so high, right? Compared today, no, not at all. Cheers.

Maybe in the middle of the road.

Oh, that's just always good.

Always great.

Always. Now this is the contemporary Wild Turkey 101 is anywhere between six and eight year typically, right? Correct. But from time to time, like we were saying a minute ago, dealing with barrel management issues, sometimes they have to put some older whiskey in it and you can tell.

Right.

And so it's not always the same. It's close, but every now and then. Yeah.

Rarebird101, he is the know-it-all to Wild Turkey. He's pretty keen on when that batch changes. I think his palate is so attuned to Wild Turkey that he instantly knows when that batch has changed in a bottle.

It's pretty amazing. He'll call out some bottle codes out and stuff, but honestly, he always keeps it David always keeps it very real, right? He's like, come on, guys. Don't go out and fill your pantries with this stuff just because they've got a few extra barrels of 10-year in there. But nevertheless, there is a difference in it. This is never going to grow old for me. I've been drinking this since 1981. Folks, you can do some math. Nah, I'm going to save you the math. I turned 60 this year, so. Cheers to that. Cheers. But in 1981, I was in Ohio and in Ohio, 18 was the drinking age. Right. Even though we were supposed to only drink 3.2% beer. Once you got it in the bar.

I remember those days. I'm not too far behind you, but by the time I had to turn 21 to get to that drinking age, I'll be 55 in April.

Double nickel. Double nickel. All right. Well, this is a great whiskey. It's always good. Folks, if you're new to the show, if you've been around a while, I've been singing praises for Wild Turkey 101 Forever. $25 a bottle, 68-year-old bourbon. Jimmy's thumb of approval on it, guaranteed. Just great. A little bit spicy, not too spicy, but it has that wonderful extra added turkey something. It's like a little bit of antiqueness to it, right?

They call it the funk. They call it the funk, but when you say funk, people are like, and if they're new to the show, they're like, funk, I don't want to drink something with funk in it. Start thinking of like blue cheese or something.

It's just something, it's something that reminds you of an old woodworking shop or A little bit of Rick house smell, but more of a kind of a dusty.

It just takes me to like walking in a Rick house and like, you know, they don't go through there sweeping the floor very often. So it's just got that Rick house aroma. I mean, there's no true describing it. It's like bourbon wood, charred oak. metal barrel staves. It's kind of a combination of a lot of things.

Well, every year we do a turkey episode right at Thanksgiving. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Gobble, gobble. Gobble, gobble. And we're actually, how far are we from the Wild Turkey Distillery here? I think it's about a 25-minute drive. Yeah. Yeah. Just curious, do you think their sales peak at Thanksgiving? I've never really thought about that, but I wonder. Yeah.

It's got to spike a little bit just because it's turkey. It's turkey. Maybe not necessarily the 101 proof.

You've got the 81 proof and the honey. If you're going to a friend's giving or something like that and you want to bring a bottle, this would be the appropriate bottle to bring. Correct. Wow. So how long have you, when did you have your first Wild Turkey 101?

Pre 21 years old, I'm pretty sure. Probably, you know, I was one of those, the old bourbon and Coke, and I'm pretty sure, I think my first was probably ancient age, because, you know, I'm a Frankfurt boy. But I would say Wild Turkey 101 probably may have been in my cup, yeah, 17, 18 or something.

It never gets old. I don't know of any podcaster, YouTuber, distiller, or other whiskey bourbon lover who doesn't have a great deal of respect for wild turkey. I would agree with that statement. There's a lot of whiskeys in this world that are polarizing a little bit. Some people like them, some people don't. Based on their profiles, but there's this sort of this general love for wild turkey. I think because it's been so consistent over the years. in the family has kind of been running the show for a very long time.

Right, for a very long time. Plus, I mean, talk about keeping it simple. You've got two Mash Bills there. That's it.

Yeah.

You know, a lot of the other places, not a whole lot more, but still, all turkeys got a rye and they've got a bourbon.

Yeah. And that's one thing I'm kind of thankful for. I'll just start out with that here. One thing I'm really thankful for This Thanksgiving is Jimmy, Eddie, and Bruce keeping it real. I'll second that. Continuing to make the good stuff all these years and keeping it in the family. So awesome. I mean, they are owned from outside.

Yeah, they would say it's changed a little bit on their end, I'm sure. It has. They're still there. I mean, if they weren't loving it, they probably would not be there, you know?

Yeah, absolutely. Cheers to them. Cheers to them. Cheers, Jimmy, Eddie, Bruce, the next generation. Yeah, no complaints there. Good stuff. So now you are, you know, you just recently got added to the board of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, right?

It's been about a year and a half now, I guess. Yeah. Actually, I was thinking, you know, I've appeared on here one other, well, appeared on here kind of twice. I'll explain. The first time was episode 150. To celebrate hitting 150 episodes, I shared a old Forrester 150th anniversary with you guys. And then my second unofficial was I entered a blend into your blend contest that you guys judged with. Ashley Barnes, and I came in second in the overall, but first in the name.

You've had some pretty good success with these blending contests, haven't you?

Yeah. I've entered a few times. Last year, not so lucky, but I guess 2021, I entered Jason Calori, mashing drum. I entered his. There were about, I think, 24 contestants, and I won that. I won a whole lot of cool little, you know, glasswares and t-shirts. I've got a shirt that says my blend is better than yours.

So, yeah.

So he calls it blend again. Yes, blend again. And so, and then some, you know, some notoriety, I guess, amongst the whiskey tube and just whiskey fans in general.

So you get on a few shows here and there, don't you?

Yeah. I've been appearing on some friends of mine, the Hello Again Whiskey Friends, their YouTube channel quite a bit. In fact, later tonight we'll be doing a rye craft single barrel challenge where I sent them some craft ryes and they've been blinding them and they've gone through 12 different expressions and we're down to a final four. I'm trying to open their eyes to not just mainstream because Some of these whiskey tubers tend to focus on that, I think, a lot. I'm trying to open their eyes up to that there's other stuff out there if you can't find those unicorns or can't find those allocated things. Right. I think we learned that a long time ago.

It does work when it's about the numbers, when it's about viewership and downloads and views. or whatever you're counting to see how successful your particular media is being. Having a Pappy episode or having a Weller episode or having a Blanton's episode or something like that is always gonna draw the numbers. But you gotta get out there. You gotta step outside the box and do some craft stuff because it is absolutely amazing. Agreed. But you guys, I wish you luck with that. Unfortunately, this show will come out after that event, so.

Yeah, tonight's will be a live event, so. So they can check that anyway. No filters.

Yeah, so how do they find them again?

They are on YouTube. You can look up Hello Again Whiskey Friends. Hello Again Whiskey Friends. Yeah, they're three friends I made, I guess, a couple years ago. We just kind of met through chat, live YouTube chats, and kind of hit it off, and we met for a couple of tours in Bardstown. I guess that's been about a couple of years ago now or a year and a half ago. They actually came into Bourbon on the Banks. I'm considered their unofficial executive producer. There you go. I'm an idea man.

Don't producers normally pay for things?

Yeah. I'm sending them free whiskey to try. We keep UPS pretty busy. They send me some stuff. Actually, tonight, our first pour is actually going to be a Booker's Rye Pour. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Speaking of unicorns, that's- Oh, yeah. Definitely.

I'm very excited about that. All right. I'm ready to move on. This is In my class now is a lot darker than what we had. Yeah. I'd say it's like double iced tea or tea. Like good Southern tea.

For those of you not in the South, it's just tea.

Yeah. Good, nice dark color to it. It looks like it's definitely going to be a good pour. Let's go back over the specifics on this again.

This one's from 2002, and like I said, it's an eight-year. It's an age-stated eight years. Yeah. It's a, it's a big difference than today's because, uh, like I said, there's probably some older barrels in this. I mean, like you said, like back then it was a little, you know, sales were a little slower than they are today. So they were dumping what they needed to, to get it out the door.

Barrel entry proof makes tons of difference. So cheers.

Yeah. I would say this probably wasn't even cut that much back in the day, I would say. Cheers. Cheers. The nose is a lot darker fruits to me, like black cherry rather than like the cherry.

Oh, this is deeper, richer. Raisin. Definitely raisin, cherry. Yeah. A lot more cherry on this. I went straight for the palette though. Yeah.

It just does kind of make you say, oh, I need to drink that. Yeah. Lovely.

There's a lot more going on in this one here. It's a lot more, a little bit, well, a lot more complex, but the notes are more pronounced in it than on the contemporary 101.

And you said it probably didn't need much water added. I mean, that's, it doesn't taste thin. Like, you know, like the typical 101, you can kind of get that, well, this has been cut a little bit. And if you've seen some of their products out that are coming out barrel proof, they tend to run in that, 112 to 118 area. So I'm thinking with this lower barrel entry proof back in the day that, I mean, probably didn't take a whole lot of water to cut that to 101.

Well, if I remember correctly, The reason it was Wild Turkey 101 is because that's typically the proof that it came out of the barrel at back then. I heard a story about it, some interview with Jimmy or something, and the question is, why Wild Turkey 101? Why 101? Well, back in the day, With the lower entry proofs, some of the barrels would go up in proof, some would go down, but at the end of the day, I guess the grand average was it would drop in proof, and you would end up with 101 proof. Right. Well, they would still proof it to 101 to be consistent, but very little water had to be added.

Yeah. It's just rich. Yeah.

It's got a little extra measure of that funk, just a little bit more, I think. Yeah.

Totally dusty like some of those 90s and 80s bottles. Exactly. It almost feels like it'll get there if it's sat in that bottle maybe five more years or something.

I don't think I've got that much cherry on a wild turkey before. But it's cherry and tobacco. Yes. Like a cherry tobacco.

Like a cherry. Like pipe, almost like cherry pipe tobacco. Like a pipe tobacco. Yep.

Yep, exactly. How your mouth tastes after you draw from a cherry pipe tobacco into your mouth and you just taste it. That's exactly on the money.

Little leather. Yep. It's chewy. Wow.

That is so, so good. Yep. So year and a half on the board of the Frankfurt Bird Society, how many members do you guys have?

Last count, I think it was 224, including yourself. And you're an honorary member. And then we have some other honorary members like Freddie, of course, and Brent Elliott. And yeah. So it kind of fluctuates. People drop in and out occasionally. Yeah.

But what about out of state?

We have a few, honestly, because we have some folks that will come into town at certain periods. We do some barrel picks here. Right now, I think we've been working on an inventory a little bit. Right now, we just got a couple from Spirits of French Lick, a Wilderness Trail Rye, and a three-cord, actually. We sell those to our members. When those folks come in, they may stock up on a few of those and try them or come to a couple of events. On a slow month, at least three events a month, but a good month anywhere from seven, eight, nine. We've had some fundraisers with Freddie and the Kentucky Black Bourbon Guild recently. We raised some money for colon cancer recently.

We're always doing something. It's fantastic. So, if there's another club listening today and they're like, how do they do that? How do they have their own little place, you know, and how do they do barrel picks and sell to their members? How does that all work? What's the system you guys have in place that makes this whole thing just function?

A lot of it's our relationships with our members, because honestly, one of our members owns this building. Yeah, exactly. Our other building was more of a, yeah, just kind of a come and pick up your bottle place. And when we had events, we would use the ballroom at a bank here in downtown, the Whitaker Bank. So very sizable, very nice. And we have an event probably over 50, 60 people, then that's usually when we'll ask if we can use that because, you know, this is a, it's a nice cozy spot, but when it gets, like our holiday party will be pretty full, I imagine. Maybe we'll take it to the road, you know?

Yeah, because it kind of begs the question, you know, you guys are 200 and some members strong and, You've got a facility here that's just amazing. Really nice. Thanks. So what's the membership fees?

Because my goodness. It's $100 a year, although we've been running a deal. Say if you brought Brian to an event and he wanted to join, it'd be 50 bucks for him first time around. That's fantastic.

Yeah, I was going to say that those dues hardly pay for what you get back, right?

It's amazing. If we don't have some type of meal, we catered meal, we'll have charcuterie boards and people bring stuff. Just this past Monday, we had a bourbon ball contest, no prizes or anything, but there were probably, oh, wow, I don't know, 15 different types of bourbon balls. Wow.

It's a very active group.

Yeah. And with all things, there's a nucleus that does more things than the others, I guess. But that's true everywhere. Yeah. I mean, that's normal. I mean, the same thing with your Facebook page. There are those that chime in and comment. And it's just like that everywhere. Some of these people don't come out until we do a Buffalo Trace Pick in our membership, which I understand. I'm not faulting them for that. But the things have changed since when Bourbon Society started in 2017, so it was a little easier to get those bourbon barrel picks from Buffalo Trice back then. Now, it's like winning the lottery.

Yeah, it's tough. Well, a lot of their product is starting to show up on the shelves though because of the recent distributor shakeup, right? Right. And I've walked into more than one liquor store and found good amounts of the full line on the shelves. That's nice. And you say, how did this happen? They say, well, you used to get two bottles, now we get two cases. Ever since they had to reacquire that $20 million in inventory and redistribute it, now everybody's getting bottles. So hey, something's gotten better there.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah. So you guys find more bottles available in the local market here in Frankfurt? Cause you got the whole world descending on you to buy Buffalo Trace.

You know, it's funny, Jim, I'm going to be telling myself, I don't honestly look for it that often. I've kind of moved on to other things. I'm really big into single barrel picks and craft stuff. So, I mean, sure, if I were to see an antique collection flying about at MSRP, I'd probably grab it. Probably. Yeah.

Maybe.

Aw shucks. Okay. And then I guess probably the last thing I grabbed was probably one of the stag, formerly the juniors. So I think, but yeah, I just leave it for everybody else. I'm trying to help everybody else get one. And I've actually procured a few bottles to send to folks that, you know, I can't find it. Like I've sent Eagle rares, you know, stuff like that.

Yeah, I have to buy Eagle Rare whenever I send it because my wife likes it. Well, I like it too. Don't get me wrong. But I mean, she really likes it. Right. And she wants a bottle available at all times. So hard to beat a 10-year. It's hard to beat a 10-year. At that price. It's good stuff.

Absolutely.

Well, I've really enjoyed that. That was a fine pour. That was definitely something that contrasts significantly to what we're getting on the shelf today. Correct. Am I happy with what we have today? No, I'm super happy with what we have today. I'm glad. And there's two more to go.

And a bonus.

But if that was next to it, I'd probably pick that one up. All right. We're going to take a short break. And when we come back, we've got two more bottles and more Turkey Talk. More Turkey Talk.

Cheers.

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So kind of keeping with our theme on the first pour, I've got a modern day rare breed, which clocks in at about 116.8 proof. And then I've got a couple older ones, but for that event recently, I opened, this one's from 2015 and it came in at 112.8 proof. Looking at the bottles, oddly enough, you would think the older one might be a little darker, but in this case, not this time.

Not this time. Interesting. It doesn't follow the suit with the first port. With the Wild Turkey 101.

So the older rare breed has a little lighter color this time. So rare breed. Let's talk a little bit about what rare breed is. Rare breed is? Rare breed is Wild Turkey's answer to Bookers, basically. Bookers was one of the, I guess, Well, you could go way back when they were dropping stuff at cash proof or 100 proof bottled and bonds and such, but the true barrel proofs didn't really come out until Booker No dropped the Bookers. It ranged anywhere from those high 120s. So, Bob Turkey kind of followed suit and this was kind of their answer.

Jimmy and Booker were kind of close.

Right, right. And like I said, this came out in 91. It's gone through a lot of iterations. It used to be kind of an annual release and different proofs. And I think the version we're seeing on the shelves now, obviously, I'm sure again, batches, they all can be a little different, but that 160, 116.8 proof has been going since about 2016, I believe.

Yeah, it's been around for a long time.

You kind of wonder if... Kind of holding to that? Yeah, or something may change anytime soon, you know, just for fun and just to keep us whiskey fans on our toes or something.

Well, they don't change things very often. That's true. They're very traditional at Wild Turkey. Things tend to hold the same. There's a big uproar when they change a bottle or something, you know, or a label. Honestly, I like the new labels.

Yeah, I mean, it's got a bigger turkey on it compared to the 2015 one we're looking at. It does. And I guess maybe they didn't do it because they also came out with the chill-filtered version, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So maybe they're like, here, we'll do this. And then maybe on down the line, maybe they'll come out with something a little... A rye, a rye version. That's true, and the rye version. All right. Well, cheers. Cheers.

I'll tell you what, I'm not getting one 16.8 on the nose. It's good though.

More barrel character, I think.

Yeah.

And this is one of those I've, uh, they say six, eight and 12 year old bourbon. Six, eight and 12.

I think you're right. Yep. So it's getting a little bit of that, uh, extra aged bourbon oak character to it. But yeah, it's got a nice deep, deep dark color to it. Cheers. Cheers. Oh yeah. And it's nice spicy bump to that. I really, really, I need to get back to drinking, uh, rare breed a little more often. I don't give it as much attention as I should. It, um, it's on my bar, but it's not upstairs. I'm just wondering if I ought to pull a bottle up there just that when I want something a little more punch. Right.

When it's a little colder outside. A little colder out. Yeah. Winter is coming. Winter is coming. That's right. It's pretty chilly today. Wow. There's like a richer caramel on this, I think, than obviously compared to that 101.

Yeah, almost a toffee, like a toffee flavor to it. A little bit of a burnt note. I think it comes from those older whiskies in there. A little more char exposure.

And I've seen the MSRP climb. It's been climbing a little on those, but still it's a... I think about a $65, $70 bottle.

Yeah. Speaking of MSRPs, my goodness, what about the special releases? It's getting out of control. Oh, yeah. It's something. I just kind of shake my head and say somebody else can have it. I can remember paying $75 for a diamond, maybe $75, $80 for a decades. I don't remember exactly, but somewhere in that, does that sound about right?

That does. I think I got a Unforgotten at the distillery that are at least there and that was 200-ish, I believe. It's been a while so, but that one's gone, but that was good. That was at Booray.

And then Cornerstone and some of the others, and this year Generations came out. And I have to say I haven't tasted it yet. I have not either. I'm going to get a pour somewhere.

I figure if I really want to try it and the price is right at hopefully one of my local bars or something, that's where I'll give it a whirl. Is Bo pouring it down at the gift shop? Do you know? I don't know. Funny enough, I keep in touch with him quite often. I actually invited him to our Wild Turkey event recently, but he was on vacation. When I'm out in that neck of the woods, I pop in and say hi. I've actually taken him. It was like a 2006 bottle of Wild Turkey and just said, hey, thanks for what you do. He lets folks know when certain things drop, which is a good thing and probably a bad thing because sometimes I don't go chasing too much. He let folks know on Instagram that a Russell's 13 was in the gift shop and that's my honey. I like all those Russell's 13.

They are pretty darn good. It's just otherworldly. They're just dropping them in the gift shop once in a while. They're sprinkling them out like pepper. I'm kind of the same as you. We were at 375 episodes or so, and I don't know the exact count, but that's a lot of whiskey. That's a lot of bottles. There was a period of time there where we were chasing bottles. And rightly so, because at the time, you know, the excitement was there. You get caught up in the excitement of it all. But as you explore and you get out there and you start to visit some of these craft distilleries that are coming into their own, you start to realize that there is some amazing whiskey. Right at your fingertips. Right there. Not just Kentucky.

It's all over the place now.

Yeah. The different areas you go to, their whiskeys bring something special to the table. They call it terroir, that special something that comes from a local area. Some different grain use. Recently, we've been to Texas, we've been to Colorado, we've been to Iowa, we've been to Washington State. We've tried all these different areas and the whiskeys are all fantastic. Now, we've got American single waltz coming. I mean, oh my goodness. What do you think about that?

I haven't really dove deep into the single moths. I did find one I really like out of Pennsylvania, I believe, old line. Yeah. But it's a different beast than the other. I always typically get some of the Westlands and Stranahan. There's this fruit biscuit and that kind of thing. But I don't know what this old line did. But it's just rich and dark. Like, yeah, it's dark chocolate, coffee. Yeah, it's a different kind of- I'm going to try some of that. It sounds really good. This was a single barrel, so it was a friend shared, and I was like, that was an amazing port, you know? Yeah. But that's what it's about.

Well, this rare breed is phenomenal. It's so good. Like I said, I think I'm going to carry my bottle upstairs for the winter months. It won't last very long, but I've got a lot of people. I've got 20 some people coming in for Thanksgiving. So we're actually doing it on Saturday this year.

Probably a little less traffic.

People get to have Thanksgiving with their own families and come together for another gathering.

If I'm not mistaken, there's a pretty big football game Saturday too.

There's a big game on Saturday. There's a couple of big games on Saturday.

I'm thinking of the one. The one for us, right? Yeah, the one for us. What do you think about that? Do you have a prediction? Oddity, I am a Louisville fan. I've been for years, although last year's basketball team was just something to miss. But, you know, they've looked really, really good. So, I mean, if I'm going to make a prediction, I'm going to say the Cardinals by 14 or something. Well, there you go. You're outside the spread on. Yeah, I think it's like four and a half or something. Seven. Okay, it's going up a little.

Yeah, Kentucky has a way of, for those who are not from Kentucky and are listening, what the hell are they talking about? OK, Kentucky and Louisville, it's an age-old rivalry. Every state has one. But the one here is... They actually play for the barrel, correct? They play. I honestly don't know what they play for.

Yeah, like there's a trophy that whatever team wins takes. I'm pretty sure it's a bourbon barrel or something like that.

Oh my goodness. No, I didn't know that. I probably heard it in the past and it just didn't click. So Kentucky and Louisville are playing, I think Kentucky is somewhere around six and four, six and five, something like that. Louisville is 10 and one. They're ranked nine. in the NCAA right now. I believe so. And, yeah, they're doing really good this year. New coach, Jeff Braum. New coach, yeah, and doing the Lord's work. And I don't have a favorite team. I mean, you're a professed Louisville fan. I was at a Kentucky basketball game a couple weeks ago. Yeah. And, you know, I'm going to watch the Louisville game. I'm going to cheer for Louisville because I want to get behind a team that's got a chance, right? Yeah, yeah. But you know, Kentucky's pulled it off in the past.

Yeah, that's true.

Louisville's been ranked pretty high before, and Kentucky's come in and just wiped them. So I mean, it can happen. That's why they play the game.

That's why they play the game.

I guess another game is Ohio State, Michigan, right? Oh, that's right. That's a big game. That northern one. Northern one, yeah. I'm originally from Ohio, so I remember that one. Oh my goodness, rare breed is just, I'm just getting a little bit of, you know those little swirl cakes? You get them, the little breakfast swirls? Yeah. I'm getting that. Okay. They're cheap. They're like 99 cents for a little plastic tin of those.

You can look at a little honey drizzle.

Yeah. It's really good whiskey. It's so good. It's so good. Folks, it's right there. What's the price on this?

I want to say that's probably, I think 60 is a good spot for that now.

You can tell it has been a while since I bought a bottle of rare breed. Yeah. My goodness. Well, while turkey is thankfully still $25 to $27. Yes.

Well, still. But still, for that, I'll pay 60 for that all day. That's a great whiskey.

That's a really, really, really good bourbon. Fantastic.

I might even add that you often, sometimes people ask you if you can only drink one distillery from one distillery, I would say, well, Turkey would probably be that one I could live on for the rest of my days, I guess.

I would have to join you in that camp. If I had to choose one like you, I think I would choose wild turkey. Well, you don't, you could choose all their expressions, right?

I was going to say, well, the caveat that they just send me one whenever I want it.

Fantastic.

If I'm going to dream, I want to dream big.

I mean, they could literally sponsor the Bourbon Road and wouldn't have to give me any money. They'd just send me whiskey, right? I think we'd be all right with that. Bo hand deliver it. I'd be all right. Bo could hand deliver it and have him on a show, play his gobble box once in a while. Yeah, the gobble box. My goodness. Fantastic whiskey. So you are not only on the board of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, but you were just recently inducted into the board of the Bourbon on the Banks.

Bourbon on the Banks Festival. Since I was at this last year's Bourbon on the Banks, I did my due diligence and started asking some of the vendors. What can we do to improve? As a Frankfurt Urban Society member, we've always had, I think you've heard some of our other members talk. We have really close ties. There's obviously board members on both. It's kind of a hand-in-hand kind of process. It's not a big leap. I guess I'll just have maybe bring them some fresh ideas, I hope, and that kind of thing. I'm looking forward to it.

fantastic. I mean, they've always done such a great job. And in fact, I know for a fact that the Kentucky Bourbon Festival has watched bourbon on the banks to get ideas about how to change things up and do things differently. So they have been doing it right for, since the beginning, growing each year. Kind of at capacity now though, aren't they? Yeah, they, they reached their cap this past year.

And I mean, you could tell it was, but it was perfect. I mean, the weather, I mean, obviously the weather's always a coin toss at that time, but it was a beautiful day, a little cool sweatshirts, but people just music. I mean, it was, It was awesome.

Now, did you go to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival as well?

I did not. Sadly, I've never ever been to that one.

Well, I can tell you this. It used to be a different show there. It used to be more of like a craft festival, right? And it had a good number of attendees, but it wasn't like it is today. And they have morphed that into something altogether different and very bourbon-focused now. And it has grown in the two or three years since they made that change to the point now where I think it might be too many people. And that's my opinion. I mean, that's just me. Some people said it was wonderful. Obviously, the distilleries love it, having that many people there. I'm not going to disagree with them, because they had lines. 20, 30, 40 people long waiting to taste their whiskeys. They love that, right? Yeah, which not the case here at Burbank on the banks.

Right, exactly.

But when you're an attendee, you're like, I don't want to wait in another line. I just want to try their stuff.

I don't want to be at Disney World. I want to drink some whisky. Exactly. There's a big difference there for sure.

I'm glad to hear you're on the board. I'm glad to hear you're going to bring some new fresh ideas. You're very focused on the vendors and what their experience was and how to make things better. I can't imagine it. how they would be able to make it any bigger because they're just out of land, right?

Yeah. It wouldn't be burning on the banks anymore if they expanded into town. Maybe we could go to the other side of the river and take over that bank, too, and maybe have some sort of ferry across.

Oh, one of those ones where you stand and pull on the road.

Like the old school?

We can get a couple of old timers.

Get some mules to do it or something? I don't know. There we go. Got an idea.

I'm actually going to get that land on the other side pretty cheap. This is the side that costs the money, right?

I don't know anything about that, but probably.

Fantastic. So how long have you been a bourbon roadie?

Oh, I can't quite say from the beginning because, um, I came on after a few episodes, probably after Randy left, because I actually got to meet him for the first time at this past bourbon on the Banks Festival, which was nice.

As soon as I heard him talk, I was like, you're Randy, that kind of thing. I also heard Brian talk, and I'm like, you're Brian. That's funny. That was really cool.

Right after Mike joined.

Yeah, probably.

I can't even remember how I found you guys. You get on your bourbon journey. I travel some for my job, so I listen to podcasts. I'm like, okay, let's see what's out there in bourbon podcasts. I found you guys.

and Whiskey Lore and Bourbon Pursuit. I have my few.

You guys get me through the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and the plains and the hills of the rest of Central.

I like YouTube channels. I have a few that I follow. Jason and The Mashing Drum is one. Scott, My Bourbon Journey is another. long-time fans of both of those. For me though, I like to be hands-off, eyes-off. Yeah. So, you know, I want to, like you drive. I got a farm, I cut grass. But I like to listen. I've actually gotten to the point now where I can work and listen. Yeah. I used to not be able to do that. My brain wouldn't let me. But I've trained myself.

Yeah, I've kind of trained myself. So, if I'm not driving for work, like, yeah, today I'd listen to I do like a catch up and then sometimes when I catch up, I'll listen to like a book or something, but.

So if you're listening to a podcast and you're working, let's say you're on the computer working and you're listening, do you ever do that?

Oh yeah.

Okay. So you're on the computer working. Obviously one or the other has to get tuned out a little bit, right? I would say the podcast. The podcast gets tuned out because you have to focus on your work and I do too. I'm a software developer, so I'm very intently focusing on what I'm doing. But I still remember the show. I still remember what they talked about. I still remember everything. But I'm not actively listening. It's just background.

Yeah. It's like walking into a grocery store and hearing the music going on. But you're like, oh, I know that song kind of thing, I guess. If you gave me 20 questions about the episode, I think I could pass.

I've got a few podcasts I listen to, but they're not all bourbon podcasts.

Do you have podcasts other than bourbon?

I do.

I'm a Premier League soccer guy, so I follow a team. There's a couple of those. Heavy metal one that I used to listen to, but he's no longer uploading episodes because I was always a big heavy metal guy way back when. No more head banging for me. I'm too old. That's fantastic.

Well, I tell you what, I've got this new one in my glass here. This is, no, I shouldn't say the new one. I've got the old one in my glass here.

The new old one, yeah. Tell us a little bit about this. OK, so this one's from 2015. And it came in at 112.8 proof. This one, I believe, I want to say the range of the years that you could find this was like 2014 to 2016, I guess. And these are still on the shelves. You can find them. Maybe. Yeah, across the seas.

I mean, they're out there probably in a few places. But I mean, you get into the older liquor stores and the small towns. I mean, 2015 is not that old, right?

I don't know. You've talked to Dusty Dan and I'm a big fan and friend of his too. I think he'd tell you too. It's kind of harder to find, especially around in the United States. There might be some really po-dunky towns that might have something magical, but usually estate sales and auction sites and that kind of thing is kind of where you find these. There are Facebook groups out there.

Well, you know, you can always hope. You can always go looking for the Dustys on the shelves. I just thought that, I mean, if it was being only seven or eight years old, it might still be a few that, because they keep stocking the front of the shelves, they keep pushing others to the back, but I don't know. It's a little more floral. It is. It definitely is. It's kind of lighter too, a little bit. I know it's lighter in color, but it's lighter on the nose as well.

You know as well as I do that there's a lot of bars opening up that are finding these things too. There's Neat, there's our local place which I love, House of Commons here. Silver dollar saloon has a few other things.

One of the best places to have some old pirate bottles of Elijah Craig barrel proofs. $30 a pour. And actually, all the places you mentioned, it's a lot less expensive than you might think.

It's not too bad. I mean, most of them offer half ounce pours. Which is all you need to make a decision, right? No, depending on what it is, won't put too much of a damper on your wallet. Cheers. Cheers.

It's a little bit drier. A little bit of an ease.

Yeah. Yep. Which is really interesting because we hadn't had that at all and I get that totally.

It's amazing. You know, you're dealing with these things where the profile is not supposed to drift a whole lot, but it does. Still got a nice spicy kick on the end there. I like that. Cinnamon. Yeah, definitely.

Like those little red candies a little bit, just a little. Not a big mouthful, like three or four or something.

Wow. I prefer this one. Do you? I do. And the newer one, I... I liked it a lot. Might make a great blend too. It could. I wouldn't do it. Don't do it. Just enjoy them for what they are. I mean, you're pretty good at your blends. When you do make a blend, do you have kind of a method to your madness?

I've got a nice collection of bottles and I don't know, I usually just kind of come up with an idea. Did I choose a base bourbon and then you do things to it? For your guys, I just got kind of an idea. I'm obviously into kind of older bourbons, so I was like, let's call something dust in the wind. That's what I was named. And then yeah, I just kind of look and what do I have a whole lot of? Yours was kind of like my first go at it. So that was kind of fun. And then I did like infinity bottle kind of thing. But I was very particular about what I put in there. So it wasn't everything. I tried to keep the profile kind of similar. Not reproducible, though. No, no. And then with Jason, yeah, I just kind of, again, I had an idea. But I actually started that one really early and had some different variants. And then I let them sit for a couple months and then went back to it. I think I had three different versions, went back to it, tried them. I was like, okay, this is my favorite. And then I just can't say mass produced, but I made like about, I don't know, two pints of it or a pint or something like that. So it's just kind of...

Yeah. I mean, I highly recommend a listener, if this has piqued your interest at all, take a shot at it.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes you get a bottle that you're not crazy about. That's probably one of the best things to try to blend with because there's an off note to you.

Try a little something in it, then see what works. It's not always true that if you take a good bourbon and a good bourbon and you mix them together, you get a good bourbon. This is true.

I won in 2021 and 2022, I was out first round.

You think we're bringing some ringers to the show, but not so much, huh? Oh, well. Well, this is really good. This has been a blast. I've had such a great time today going through these. You know, it is Thanksgiving and I need to ask you, Todd, what are you truly thankful for this year? I mean, what are some things that mean more to you than whiskey?

That's pretty, you know, obvious family. I've got a couple of young kids. I'm late to the kid game. I've got a four and six year old. So, I mean, they mean the world to me. I didn't say I was a smart man, Tim. I am a brave man though, most times, or at least when having kids. But, you know, if there was a silver lining to COVID, it was, I got to spend, you know, a lot of time for better or worse with them. So it was amazing. It's been kind of a rough year. I've lost a lot of family members on my dad's side of the family. So we literally lost like six people in my family. Some were due to illness. And then I had an older uncle who actually worked at Jim Beam here in Frankfurt. Saw him at a funeral for a cousin, an older cousin. And then I think it was about four or five days later, he had a heart attack.

Oh, sorry to hear that. Yeah.

Then, I'm thankful for the board. They've allowed me to be the decor guy here at the Frankfurt Bourbon Society Corner Rick House. I invite any and all your bourbon roadies, if they're ever in Frankfurt, to hit me up. You'll see me pop up on the Facebook thread every once in a while. I actually just posted kind of a neat little craft idea I've been doing with some corks. I put it in a shadow box. I saw that. Nice. So yeah, I've met Doug Keller and a lot of others. And when they come in town, I'm like, hey, give me a shout. And well, I'll try to meet and at least have a pour. I'll give you a little tour and show you around the corner Rick house. Absolutely. I'm thankful for whiskey friends. It's always good to get together and have a few pours and just kick back and talk about what comes to mind. Solid.

Yeah, I'm pretty thankful. I'm thankful for being able to be here for 60 years. I mean, 60 years is a blessing. I hope to be here for many, many more. I'm certainly thankful for my family. I'm thankful that my family is growing tremendously. Eight grandchildren now and one on the way. Amazing, love family. My children are a little bit older than yours. My oldest is, my wife and I together have five children. The oldest is 40, the youngest is 28, I think. So that's a bit older than...

I'll be in a wheelchair when I get there.

Definitely thankful for that. I know things are crazy in the United States now. A lot of weird stuff going on. But we're still the beacon of hope for a lot of people. The United States is still a destination for people around the world. Everybody wants to be here. because this is a place of hope and future and unlimited capabilities. And so even with all the nastiness and craziness that we see on a daily basis here, it's still a wonderful country and a great place to be. So I'm always thankful that I was born and raised in the United States of America. So great. Awesome. Well, I want to give you a moment just to tell everybody one more time how they can find the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, how they can find you online.

Online, I do have an Instagram account where I'll just kind of share pictures of sometimes what I'm drinking or like I said, some crafts and just oddities like that. And it's the dripping barrel on Instagram. And I got that name from an old liquor store that used to be here in Frankfurt. It used to have a really cool neon sign that kind of did like the motion thing of a barrel that dripped like bourbon out of it. And yeah, so paid a little homage to that. And then on Facebook, I'm just good old Todd Ritter. I said, sometimes you can catch me live on the Hello Again Whiskey Friends YouTube channel. Yeah, so.

And frankfortbourbonsociety.org. Yes.

And then also we have a nice, we have a couple of Facebook pages for the Frankfurt Bourbon Society too. So yeah.

And bourbononthebanks.org. And bourbononthebanks. Well, you're touching all things. I am. You're a busy guy.

I know. I'm like, what am I doing here?

Well, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. It's always great to have a roadie on the show. Certainly somebody who's been a friend for a very long time. Thank you so much for sharing your whiskey with us today. My pleasure. This will be a memorable Turkey Day show, for sure. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Well, you can find The Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, threads. Yeah, we're not posting as often as we should, but we still post, and just check us out. We do a show every single Wednesday. We do an hour-long show. You can be sure of it. This week, we're a little late getting this one out. We apologize, folks, but hey, you know, it is almost Turkey Day. A lot going on. We'd love to have you listen to every single episode, and the best way to do that is to go up to the top of that app you're listening to us on. Hit that subscribe button. That way you'll get a notification letting you know that The Bourbon Road has just put out a new episode. If you want to reach out to us, go to our website, thebourbonroad.com. We've got our swag on there. But most importantly, we have a contact us page where you can write us and tell us what you're thinking. If you've got a distillery in your hometown that's doing it right, let us know about it. We'd love to reach out to them. You can always reach us by email at team at thebourbonroad.com. But until the next time, we'll see you down at The Bourbon Road.

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