379. Pints and Barrels

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 hanging out at the Bourbon Road Bar. We've got a few bottles off the bar and a few bottles recently purchased. We've got a guest on the show today. Very important guest, very good friend of the show. Somebody we always get excited to hang out with. Today we've got Stanton Holder with us. Stanton, welcome to the Bourbon Road.

Thank you, Jim, and thank you for having me at the Bourbon Road Bar. There's no lack of bottles to go through.

That's right. You're staying with us for a couple of days here, and you're up in our neck of the woods to explore a little bit of bourbon and have a good time. And I think you're sourcing some barrelwood as well.

Right. I'll go see Mark Miller over in Lexington, pick up some barrelwood and take it back to Florida.

And while you're here, we invited you to stay at our house and hang out at the Bourbon Road Bar a little bit. And today we were actually out on the road. headed out to a couple of distilleries and hit some liquor stores and just had a generally good bourbon day. A lot of fun.

Got to meet with Bo from Wild Turkey. He was very nice to talk to. Get a little history of the area. A lot of fun.

Yeah. So in the course of our wanderings today, we decided, hey, we're going to pick up a couple of bottles while we're out. We'll have those on our show today. And then we chose a couple of bottles off the bar. Right. The things on the bar that grabbed your attention. Sure.

Two of them I selected and the two we also bought. Correct.

So it's going to be a good show. We're going to have four whiskies on the show today. But the main reason for our show today is introduce our guest to Stanton Holder. Stanton is the proprietor of Pints and Barrels Company. And as you know from listening to episodes of the past, folks, he is a sponsor of the Bourbon Road. Longtime friend of the show. We have spent many nights out enjoying Bourbon and having a grand old time in Frankfurt, done a couple of events together. You've been a longtime Bourbon roadie, longtime listener of the show. You also do our apparel for us. lot of involvement with the bourbon road.

Yeah. Well, thank you. A lot of history. It's always a lot of fun with you and we'll get into that. I'm sure in the second half about bourbon on the banks and some of our good times. Yeah, absolutely.

But today we're going to have four whiskeys and the first whiskey that we have is going to be one that has been on the show before. It has been a minute, and it certainly is different from the last time we had it on the show. So this is the Early Times Bottle and Bond. This is a four-year-old, 100-proof bottle and bond whiskey that a lot of people remember as a Brown and Form product. The liquid that goes into the past version of it was the same liquid that went into the early times bottom shelf spirit, right? It also went into eventually grew up and became King of Kentucky in its later years. Early times, Bottle & Bond was always a well-respected Bottle & Bond whiskey, always very delicious, kind of a dark horse a little bit, I would say, and definitely one that you could buy for a very fair price, usually in the $20 range, always delivered in a one liter bottle, and always on my bar.

Oh, yeah. It's always on my bar. I'm actually lucky enough to have a couple bottles left over from Brown Foreman. Yeah. This is the first time having the Sazerac version. And it just came to Florida recently. Yeah. So everybody down there will be able to enjoy a very value-priced bourbon and a very good bourbon, because we just got in Florida. No, I would drive all the way up here. Yeah. Every time I do an event, I'd pick up JTS Brown early times. and even some very old Barton just to have on the shelf. Some T.W. Samuels maybe. No, not that one. I'm just sort of going through all the- I'll have to get some of that though. That would be on our stop tomorrow.

Yeah. So T.W. Samuels is a good one and you can usually pick that up at Total Wine in a full handle size for a pretty darn good price. Okay.

I'll definitely get that for mine.

Comes in a plastic jug. Okay.

Put it next to my plastic J.W. Dan.

Which is another good Bottle & Bond. Well, the first thing you notice, well, the first thing you do when you pick up a bottle of the early times Bottle & Bond, it has the same distinctive blue label that it's always had. But the first thing you do is you grab the bottle and you flip it around, you look on the back and you see who distributed it. Right? Right. And this particular bottle says Sazerac on it. I didn't realize the much easier way to identify it, which is, Stanton?

Is to look at the bottle top. screw on, Sazerac, old cork is Brown Foreman. Yep.

So is that correct? That's correct. So if you're going to the store and you're looking for this one, make sure that you identify whether or not it's a screw top or a cork top. So if it's cork top, grab that baby.

Right. Jim was in the store doing some gymnastics and trying to reach up in behind and look at some of the old bottles, see if you could find some. The gentleman said, all you have to do is look at the top, if they're screw tops.

So, I got to learn today and now I'm passing that knowledge on to everyone.

Everybody else. That's how we learned that today.

And most everybody probably already knows it but me. Or me.

So, now when I go back to Florida, I'll look at the top versus trying to look at every bottle because Sazerac is not very big on the back. Yeah.

Well, I'm trying to dig into my memory here and think about the brown Foreman version. You've probably had it more recently than I have. I don't have a bottle on my shelf still. Those kind of bottles tend to find their way up the stairs and into the pantry more often because they're lower cost, easier to access bottles. And I don't have any more of the brown Foreman around. You'll probably have a better memory of that than I do, but I seem to remember more of a darker, a little bit more chocolate note to it. A really good bourbon, by the way. Oh, yes. A little bit darker. And we're sitting here looking at the Sazerac in the glass. And I will say that it has a nice amber, kind of an amber hue to it. A little past golden. As I say, a little bit more. Yeah, amber. But I don't think it's as dark as what we remember from the Brown Forman.

That would be hard for me to remember.

But I seem to think I remember it being a bit darker. But anyway, let's check it out. Cheers. Wow. The nose is definitely not reminding me of the Brown Forman version of it. This has a little bit more of like a little fruity note to it.

Yeah, actually, peanuts and butter and put them in the oven. Yeah. For about 350 for a while. That's what I would get out of this.

I was just getting ready to say it's got sort of a nutty note to it as well.

Peanuts and butter together. Buttered peanuts. Buttered peanuts in the oven. If you let that butter get almost like to a burnt.

Yeah. But I am getting that like a little bit of a cherry note to it. It makes me wonder if this particular stuff might come out of Barton. I don't know.

See, I wouldn't know.

Not that it's important, but let's at least tell everybody what we think about it. Cheers. Take a taste. That's good.

It is a little warm.

It's got a little bit of a singe factor to it, but it's got a great flavor. I still get that hot buttered peanuts. Hot buttered peanuts. It is nutty though, no doubt about it, but it still has that lingering cherry note for me.

Still very good.

Yeah, still a bottle and bond whiskey. We can always expect the highest of quality from a bottle and bond. It doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be great flavor, but it's gonna be good quality. So, 100 proof, four years old, single distiller, single distilling season, bonded warehouse, This is actually pretty, and the legs on the glass are very impressive.

So. Isn't the Bottled Bond Act was the very first food protection act passed? We cared more about our alcohol than our food back then.

We did, yeah. Amen. I mean, it is really interesting that at that point in time, people had, they had their priorities straight.

They were onto the bourbon road.

There's a little bit of a, just a light mineral note to it. It's got great oak character, a little bit of caramel coming through. The vanilla's a little bit absent for me, but I do get that nutty, kind of that nutty character from it, and I don't seem to remember that from the round form.

I carry these bottles with me when camping. Do you? Cigar, campfire, early times. It seems to go well together.

So do you like the regular early times at all? I don't think I've ever had it. You never had it? Yeah. Before I should have got one, it was like $8. I think it's good for cooking. Probably great for making garbage cans full of fruit juice and bourbon for big parties. I don't want to say anything wrong. I haven't had the early times in a while myself. No. And we were kind of talking about this. The big brother to the early times is actually King of Kentucky, but the King of Kentucky brand did not go with The early times brand from brown former to Sazraq when it's old. Okay, so King of Kentucky is still gonna carry the same Well, they've got a lot of years now to continue to age what they had in stock right to allow it to become King of Kentucky, I guess sure I'm not do you remember the age of King Kentucky. Is it something like 15 years or 16 years?

Did he say 15 at the store 15 or 16 something like that now I wonder if Brown Foreman got to keep their old stock, so that will just move on. Yeah. And then Sazrack has to restart. Yeah, I think they probably just sold the brand. OK. That's my guess. That would make more sense logistics-wise. I think so.

Let's talk a little bit about Stanton Holder and your journey into the bourbon world. Today, you're an owner of a bourbon-related company. You deal in bourbon products. You attend a great number of events around the country. on a regular basis, presenting your products. But what got you to bourbon in the first place? What brought you down the bourbon trail or bourbon road or whatever you want to call it? Right.

So, 18, I'd say, 2018, so I'm new to the bourbon. I used to go out by myself on a Friday, hit the same three spots, and I'd go to the same place for dinner. I met the bartender and there was a bunch of bourbon behind the bar and I just said, you know, let me have one. Then he started talking about it. He went straight Kentucky, Kentucky straight, straight. All this blew my mind that there's so much in bourbon. So I started learning from him. what everything was, and I even, I guess you'd call it manic mania, started reading his books and learning more and more. Manic mania. I haven't heard that before. Did you coin that term? I just came up with it, I guess. Yeah, okay. So you got manic mania. Ended up with manic mania and had to read all his books and then started getting one bourbon after the other. Donald had said, oh, store picks. He couldn't make it. asked me if I'd go to this liquor store and get him one Elijah Craig. And that got me down the store pick, rabbit hole, I guess you could say. This is all still 2018? Yeah. Yeah. So one bottle became two, two became eight and so forth. Came back to him and I said, hey, after reading these books, understanding bourbon, talking to more people, I said, do you think a bourbon clothing company would take off. And he says, absolutely. So I started with making some bourbon shirts that help supported bourbon itself or the fact it is the American traditional spirit. And that moved into food-related items. I wanted to make bourbon a food group. and many other items that I try to incorporate and just all around help sustain the bourbon category through clothing and merch.

Now, 2018, were you listening to the Bourbon Road yet?

Not yet. This is very end of 2018. Beginning of 2019, I had everything set up. I was ready to roll. I did one event and then we sat. As you know, something happened in 2019 and I found t-shirts do not raise in value by sitting for nine months, but everything sat in the storage unit waiting for events. So at that point is when I started. reading more, drinking more, like a few people. But 2020 opened up with events and I was able to introduce, I guess, the world to Pints and Barrels Company and go from there.

Fantastic. So there really is like two areas of your business. Well, actually three areas of your business, right? I mean, you do apparel. Right. That's where you started. And then you have food items and we could talk about some of those, but you also have woodworking items as well.

Right. I started that later in the journey of the pints and barrels as I started, you know, mainly I started, as you know, I have a printing promotions business that I've run for over 15 years now. So I use that as my startup or my seed or launch of knowing the business to help, uh, start with the, you know, the apparel. That's why I started apparel first, of course. And, um, that's where the rabbit hole kind of went from there. I'm doing, you know, close to 47 events a weekend, every weekend traveling. Not a weekend per week, 47 weekends a year. Just about. I try to do as many as I can. So you take off Superbowl. Right, because you're coming to see me.

You take off Super Bowl and you... But other than that, you try to keep... I mean, that just leaves four or five weeks a year, right? Five weeks a year? That's kind of your vacation time.

Yeah, kind of. I guess you could say, well, I feel like the events are my vacation time too. Yeah. When you're going hanging out with people, talking bourbon and selling some bourbon merchandise, it's kind of a vacation.

Well, we definitely appreciate bringing you on this year as our newest sponsor. It's always nice to have a sponsor on the show to sit down and talk about what they do, especially one who loves to drink bourbon as much as you do. How many bottles do you have in your home collection now?

I mean, it's only like 190, but I don't have like, I wouldn't say super unicorns, but like I said, I'll buy anywhere from very old Barton all the way to Booker's and try to keep a little bit of everything. Yeah. But yeah, it's become a passion.

Now, you're from St. Petersburg, Florida, not exactly the heart of Bourbon country. I get asked a lot of times, are you from Kentucky?

I said no, from good old southern Missouri.

But you have managed to travel up into southern US a lot and you do find Bourbons along the way.

Yeah, six to 13 hours one way just about every weekend.

Wow.

And to talk to other people and hopefully introduce bourbon to maybe some people or regain some lost bourbon drinkers and just help spread the word of what bourbon is all about. You're on a mission. Sport America, drink more bourbon. That is my premise. That is so awesome. Yeah, you're helping farmers to bourbon employees, distillery employees, master distillers, just people who grow the oak. It's just all supporting everybody. It's a big industry. It's a huge industry.

Huge industry. And bourbon is not just Kentucky. Obviously, you drive through, probably Georgia is the number two state you drive through, right? Absolutely. You got to start in Florida, but you probably have to go through Georgia most of the time.

Oh, absolutely. Yes.

All right. Well, I'm kind of finished with my early times. How are you doing on it? There's nothing right here. I'm ready to move on to the next one. And this is one that you mentioned earlier in the show. We stopped at Wild Turkey today. And so in our in our pilgrimage today to have just kind of a big bourbon day, the first stop was at Wild Turkey to go to the gift shop there and see if Bo was in town. And he was.

Yeah. And like I said, I listen, I get caught up on episodes as I drive being, as we talked about six to 13 hours. And I was just listening to your Turkey episode. With Todd Ritter. With Todd Ritter. Yeah. And I remembered you saying, I need to be taking this rare breed upstairs and putting it in my cupboard. So I was excited. And what did I do when I first pulled in? You looked at my cupboard. No, but I asked you, hey, I hope you don't mind, but my first thing I'd like to try is rare breed. And as you explained, oh, we drank that already.

That is the hazard of moving a bottle from the bar to the pantry. When you take it from the downstairs bar, the Bourbon Road bar, and you move it upstairs to the normal living level of the house where it goes in the pantry, it's very accessible. Every time somebody wants a drink or you have somebody over to the house, it's the bottle you grab. They don't last very long. And we just went through kind of a holiday season and yeah, it kind of disappeared. So, I was out of rare breed and boy, you could see it in your eyes. You were seriously disappointed.

Well, we made up for it today. We went to Wild Turkey and we each got a pour of it. And you probably saw it in my eyes again when I lit up. Yeah.

It's good stuff. It was nice to see Bo. Bo's been a guest on the show several times. You got to meet him and talk with him a little bit. Such a great guy. Wealth of knowledge when it comes to Lawrenceburg, Kentucky history and Wild Turkey history. He's definitely a super brand ambassador for Wild Turkey. He's somebody who has a great social media following, who loves the brand, and who shouts it from the rooftops every day. It was nice to sit down and talk with him a little bit today and hang out. We didn't get to see Jimmy. That would have been nice, but Jimmy doesn't make it every day. Right.

I think I saw his chair sitting there.

Yeah. But we did get to shop in the gift shop a little bit, have a drink at the bar. And you picked up a few items at the gift shop. Sure. I think you got some wild turkey signage. And you picked up the book from David Jennings. And so, yeah, nice haul. We did not buy the whiskey there, though.

No, we did not, but I did enjoy it very much there.

We did pick up a bottle later on as we got closer to home and that's what we have in our glass now. So, we have Wild Turkey rare breed, 116.8 proof. We're all crossing our fingers and hoping they're going to run out of the 1.16.8 proof soon so we can get to try a new batch. But it's been, this has been the batch on the shelves now for almost five years. And it's about time I'm ready.

Yeah. Well, now that I have been introduced to it, I might help get through that 116. Help us knock it out real quick so we can get on to the next one. It's my new number five.

I mean, I'm thinking I'd like to see it go down and improve just a little bit back to around 112 maybe. That would be good, but I think others might want it to go up higher and improve. I'd be happy with either way. Cheers. Wow. What a great nose.

Reverie is such a good pour whiskey.

It's definitely an elevated version of Wild Turkey 101. Obviously, it's a higher proof point. It is definitely a more full-bodied pour. It has a really nice texture to it. You can notice the viscosity difference right away. Oh, yes. And the legs on the glass are, they go sheet to long legs pretty quick. Very nice. It's dark. It's a little bit darker than the early times, but not by much. I was kind of surprised. Yeah. So this year we got to meet up again at Bourbon on the Banks and you had a tent. We had a tent. We weren't too far down the road from each other. I think we both did okay. We had a good trip there. But we got to actually sell our shirts this year that you produced for us.

Bourbon East to V-neck was the top selling shirt in the whole festival.

It absolutely was. And the Bourbon is the flag shirt. The Bourbon is 100% American shirt. So those were, for us, the top two sellers of the show. And your new shirts. And our new shirts. Absolutely. So thank you so much for producing those shirts. Probably the best quality we've had yet. Well, thank you. And we got them turned around in time. You needed them real fast. My goodness. Unreal. Actually, when I placed an order with you, I had transposed the quantities for extra large and 2X or something like that. I called you up frantic and said, oh no, I made a mistake. You said, oh what? What did I do?

I said, I've got 2Xs coming out of my ears.

I need extra larges or something. I don't remember what it was. I think in, you produce those in two days, put them in your truck and drove them to Kentucky for me or something like that. Some crazy turn around.

I brought some, but the first batch you ordered, we fed X and you had them within four days.

Four days, unreal. I can remember waiting weeks to get shirts before and I never could have done a turnaround like that on short notice and at a better price and a higher quality shirt. Bell Canvas, I think, right?

Yes, you like the Bella canvas. Yeah, that's kind of the, I'm able to give good quality shirts at a great price with fast turnarounds. And yeah, I enjoy doing that for people.

Yeah. Well, I was really happy with it. We definitely have found a new partner. to do our shirts for us. And we were happy with our previous shirt supplier, but I think it's nice to have this fast turnaround. Somebody who's actually in the bourbon business, certainly somebody who's our sponsor. That's a great thing. Right. And the quality is high. The price is super awesome. And the turnaround is lickety split. So we're pretty happy with it. We're going to have to restock some of those bourbonista shirts because we completely sold out of those.

Oh, you did. OK. Yeah.

Yeah. We have some of the crewnecks we had from before, but we sold out of the v-necks Definitely good sellers for us and we're going to need to reorder some of those. Thank you so much for doing that.

You're welcome. You'll need more of those shirts because you're going to start doing more events with me. I would love to do that.

I would love to do that. My problem is you sell shirts too.

When I sell shirts next to you, we're not friends anymore.

Totally different. Yeah. We're just selling them to our followers.

Well, what do you think? What do you think about this? I love it. Like I said, this has become one of my new probably top five.

Yeah. Well, rare breed is is a an expression from on Turkey that you don't actually find on every. liquor store shelf. You'll always find the Wild Turkey. You'll always find the 101. You'll almost always find a Russell's, but sometimes the American Spirit and the rare breed don't always make it to the shelf. That might be one of the reasons why the 116.8 proof batch hasn't hasn't sold out yet. It's just, they move a little bit slower, I think, but they're one of the better whiskies on the shelf.

I mean, for an everyday drinker, complex, it's fantastic and the price will not hurt you.

Yeah.

So what do we pay for this bottle? $59? $59.99. Yeah.

That's about right. Yeah. I think that's about right for a barrel-proof whiskey. that is made by a big boy that's got just a great profile. I highly recommend if you're a fan of Wild Turkey at all, if you like Russells, if you like Wild Turkey 101, and you haven't tried a rare breed, definitely give it a shot. It's really, really good.

Well, even if you're not a fan of just Wild Turkey brand itself. Yeah. real good bourbon that would impress your friends and you're not going to kill the bank, I would have a rare breed on my bar.

Awesome. Well, we're going to take a short break, folks. We're going to finish drinking off this little bit of rare breed we have left in our glass. And when we come back, we got more from Stanton and two more. Two more whiskeys to drink in the second half. Don't go away. Looking for a unique gift? Blanton's bourbon shop has got you covered. All of their hand-crafted wood products are made in their in-house wood shop with authentic bourbon barrels. Specializing in barrel-age potent treats, they use Blanton's barrels to age their own maple syrup, honey, and coffee. Find the most unique gift ideas for your golf lover, cigar connoisseur, avid coffee drinker, and Blanton's fan. Want to win an authentic Blanton's barrel head? Make sure you sign up for the giveaway on the home page of their website. Blanton'sBourbonShop.com is your home for all Blanton's gifts. If you're a bourbon drinker, and I bet you are if you're listening to this podcast, you need to head over to pintsandbarrels.com and check out the ultimate online store for bourbon lovers. Pints and Barrels Company was started by bourbon lovers for bourbon lovers. From spices to t-shirts, you'll find the perfect bourbon gift. Pints and Barrels proudly supports the bourbon road and invites you to visit pintsandbarrels.com. You need a custom apparel or swag for your bar, distillery, maybe even your bourbon society. They can do that too. As a matter of fact, they print our apparel. We're so happy with the quality and fast turnaround, pintsandbarrels.com, the ultimate bourbon lovers gift shop and branding specialist. All right folks, so we are back and during the break, Stanton and I had a chance to finish off our our rare breed and talk a little bit more about it. And, you know, one of the things that is always interesting when you're tasting whiskeys is to once you finish one off and you walk away from it for a few minutes, if you come back to that empty glass and you nose it, it's just amazing. It's like this this refreshing, this thing that brings back the memories of when you were drinking it, right? It's like, what did you sense when you came back and... Well, I do get that from you.

I believe I've heard you mentioned that on the Bourbon Road before, so maybe that's a little bit of a Bourbon Roadism, but you're right. Don't just take your glass and immediately rinse it out with water. Let it sit there. I think with the early times, I even said, well, you're pouring. I said, oh, Jim, I'm getting boiled peanuts, which is big in the South. I'm sorry. Some other people may think a boiled peanut, who would do that? In the South, I get that. And with even there, the wild turkey, the rare breed, I really get a good cornbread like with maple syrup on top and baked. And that's what I get out of it. I'm hungry, actually. That sounds pretty good.

Well, that's a nice recap on the first half for two whiskeys we had in the first half. Sometimes people listen to the show and they'll break at the half point and go eat dinner and come back maybe the next day and listen to the second half. And it's nice to have this little refresher to remind them what we had in the first half. But actually, that's so true that an empty glass of bourbon can really give you insight into the true flavors and aromas of that whiskey and don't ever discard that empty glass without coming back to revisit it one more time. It's always a good idea. And it has to be dried out, right? It needs to dry out. You get that. It's amazing. So in the second half, we've got two more whiskies that we're going to drink. And both of these whiskies were chosen by you from the Bourbon Road Bar. One of these is one that's been on the bar for a bit, but I think What triggered you to pick this one was a conversation you were having with Bo today.

Yes. He had mentioned this fantastic bourbon. I've liked this brand for a while, but I've never had this expression.

Yeah. So for those who've listened to episodes with Bo on it before. He is, in addition to being a wonderful ambassador for Wild Turkey, he's also a very good friend of Fred No. They've been friends for many years. So he has a great respect for Jim Beam whiskies. Since he was nine? Since he was nine, that's what he said, okay. He's known him for a while. I don't think he's been... You know, shooting whiskey, but nevertheless, um, he has some great things to say about knob Creek. One of his favorite expressions that are not from wild Turkey. And he was talking particularly about, you know, the, the knob Creek 12, the knob Creek 15 and the knob Creek 18, all of which are elevated versions of the normal hundred proof, uh, knob Creek bourbon. And we kind of all agreed on all the points, because we've had these whiskeys before. But Knob Creek 12 was like a home run, right? They hit a home run. I mean, they really just hit such a great, perfect expression of Knob Creek. And it was well received by the community. It was delicious. And we're going to drink that one today. And then they came out with Knob Creek 15. which was kind of an Oak bomb, right? It was a little bit disappointing for me. I was not a big fan and I don't think I didn't get the sense that Bo was a big fan of Knob Creek 15 either.

I think you talked more about this 12 being a fantastic bourbon.

Yeah.

And that's what kind of piqued my interest when we were looking at the bourbon bar. And I said, let's get the 12 because we had talked about it before. So it kind of correlates with what we did earlier. And I do think bourbon's that way.

Yeah.

Everything correlates or everything relates to something you did or something you had before.

Yeah.

I think that's some of the reasons why I like some of my brands. My favorites is because you relate with whatever it be. Like when I drink Yellowstone, I think of Stephen Fonte. Great guy. Great guy. Yeah. OH Ingram, I think of Hank, Scott, and Steve. But when you're sipping on bourbon, it's not just what you drink. It's not just the liquid. Yeah. It's memories or relationships that you have with that bourbon or with that liquid.

Yeah. Well, you've, you made a great memory today with, with Bo. So hopefully Bo, that memory of Bo and the drinking rare breed will be something that'll stick with you for a very long time. Got to get you to 114, Jim. I got to help you out.

Yep.

Absolutely. All right. So what's in our glass? It's the knob Creek 12. And, uh, not Creek 12 is, um, a special release, uh, that is, uh, age 12 years is the knob Creek. straight bourbon whiskey, 100 proof, just a good solid whiskey, but let's check it out. Cheers.

So you may heard me laugh in the mic, but I was thinking Jim, I'm going to make you hungry again. Uh-huh. Uh-oh.

You were nosing it while I was talking and you're like, oh gosh, I'm going to get him here.

But that is a straight grandma's toffee that she makes around Christmas.

Oh my goodness. It's always about food with you, isn't it? Cornbread and maple syrup and these coffee and oh these curves were not made by exercise Wow, it does have a wonderful nose on it little buttery to a little butter. Yeah.

Yeah, so if you make that's coffee butter. Yeah. Yeah, so so toffee is butter and caramel and You put the chocolate on top and let it melt, and then you can sprinkle your- Oh, that's English toffee, right? Isn't it? Yeah, the chocolate and then the- Yeah, when I do it, I take butter, sugar, mix it, you bake that, and you put your chocolate on top and you're, you know, you cool it, or no, your chocolate on top while it's hot, your peanuts, and then you cool it and break it up and- Right. We'll rate that as toffee, but- I think we're gonna post your recipe. I'm sure we can have all the listeners send us all their new recipes of Maple syrup, cornbread, toffee recipes.

Oh my goodness. Knob Creek 12. Honestly, it's been a minute since I put my hands on this bottle, so I don't remember exactly the price. I did see it on the shelf today for around $75, $85.

Was it $89.99?

Maybe it was $89, but that would have been a little bit higher than normal because that particular store normally has a little bit higher prices. But yeah, you can pick this bottle up for a fair price and it's at 12 years old. It's a well-aged, well-matured whiskey. And let's give it some notes.

Yeah, if you can get an age-stated bourbon at that price range, you see all these new bourbons coming out, age-stated that are excess of a hundred. This is a good deal, whether it be 90, 80 for a 12 year. That's a good price.

Now you have one of these on your bar as well. I will.

We're not going to waste any time here.

Yeah, it's really good. Knob Creek 12, an excellent pick. Now, as it goes with Knob Creek, we were talking about the Knob Creek 12, 15, and 18. The 12 was, like I said, a home run. 15 was like a single. It kind of disappointed a little bit. It was a little too oaky. And then when the 18 came out, everybody's thinking, oh my goodness, if the 15 was oaky, the 18 is going to be undrinkable, right? No, they fixed that problem. The 18 was wonderful. It was just another home run. Maybe we'll call the 18 a grand slam. I don't know. I still think I like the 12 better than the 18, but they're both far superior to the 15.

So don't get wooed into buying the 15. May actually have selected the 18 off the Bourbon Road bar.

Yeah. Well, anyway, folks, the 18 is good. The 12 is just wonderful. And it's achievable. You can go get it for a fair price. So what do you think about that? Some notes on it? For me, it does have a nice oak component, right? You said toffee. I definitely second that. I think all of the caramel notes sort of lead to toffee on this one. A little bit of leather, not too much.

As soon as you get older, bourbon, don't you get a lot more leather, toffee? Tobacco. Tobacco. You start losing some of the typical vanilla brown sugar. Sure. Right? You start getting some more, I wouldn't say complexities, but definitely some common things you would know. Yeah.

It does tend to dry out a little bit more, so it gets a little bit like as the sweetness goes away, you get a little bit drier on the back end.

I actually noticed it didn't linger as long as the rare breed. Yeah. Not that that's bad.

Well, there's two components to a finish. One is length and another one is flavor. So, you know, sometimes you can have a finish that's a little bit shorter but has a better flavor component and you can enjoy it more. So it really depends. Sometimes you have a finish that's not very flavorful. In fact, it might have an off note and it sticks around too long. You have to pay attention to both components of the finish. So I guess this short leather tobacco finish you should be happy with. The finish is not super long on this. Definitely leather and tobaccoy. Yeah, it definitely is. Very nice, but not too much oak, not too much leather, not too much tobacco. Just for Knob Creek, I think it's like the right amount. This is a very flavorful whiskey that sort of takes you on a journey from the sip all the way to the finish. It's just a very solid, respectable, well-aged bourbon pour.

Go back to the nose. As it opens up, the nose is just really pleasant.

Yeah, it's good. I could actually sit and nose this bourbon for a long time.

I need to make room incense that way.

Yeah. This is a porch whiskey.

Yes.

No doubt.

Yeah, Bath & Body Works, they need to make bourbon plugins. There you go. I think every guy would be lined up to go get those in their bourbon bar.

Well, Stan, let's talk a little bit about some of the other products you sell. Now, you have, in addition to running around and doing all these events and promoting your products and promoting bourbon across the Southeastern U.S., you also have a website. Pintsandbarrels.com. Pintsandbarrels.com. So all of your products are available there. People can find them on there. So anything we talk about on the show today is also going to be available on the website. Yes. So you do t-shirts and other printed apparel for bars, restaurants, distilleries, different organizations and such.

They work from attorneys too, but yeah, professional. My main thing is helping businesses make retail programs. Got it. I'm trying to help them find a revenue source based on the different apparel or different items, promotional items with their name on it. So pins, cups, glassware.

If your name is on it, we'd like to help you get it to your door. Got it. Okay. So that's a major component of what you do. And you did a great job for the Bourbon Road. We really appreciate that. But in addition to that, you also have items that you produce for yourself. Correct. For your own website. And some of those are apparel items. You have a bunch of bourbon shirts and some other things like that. You also have some food items. Can you talk a little bit about those?

wanted to expand my product line because my goal is to be the ultimate online bourbon shop. So I started introducing some bourbon foods because bourbon can be a food group. As you've heard me talk already a couple of times.

I've always heard, my whole life I've been told beer is food, but you're saying bourbon is food too. Bourbon can be food too. Okay.

I mean, it is the best vegetable juice out there. If corn juice is your favorite vegetable juice, I think it's healthy. There you go. Who needs a V8 when you can have bourbon?

And wine is fruit juice, right? Wine can be fruit juice. There you go.

So what I did is I started with a bourbon molasses seasoning blend, because everybody needs a seasoning blend in their cupboard. And this one's great on chicken, pork, ribs, salmon, by far amazing. And that started going off really well. Actually, it's my number one product. So I started kind of thinking, what else can I do with bourbon? So now we have bourbon pecan coffee. which makes amazing ice cream. And I've actually made creme brulee with that. So with the grind? I actually take a little bit of yesterday's coffee. Got it. And add that to the ice cream. OK. And it makes amazing ice cream.

I was thinking you were going to tell me you mix the actual coffee grounds in the ice cream, but no.

That would get kind of gritty, wouldn't it? Right. Yeah. OK. We used yesterday's coffee with that. I can't remember it's online, but my cream brulee. But then I started getting into a bourbon bacon mustard, a bourbon bacon jam, peach bourbon or peach maple bourbon hot sauce. And we started with a beer. We made a bourbon beer. Jesus. We added a beer bourbon barbecue sauce and a cherry apple bourbon butter this last year. Oh, so this is like apple butter. Apple butter, but it's cherry apple bourbon butter. Oh my gosh, I love that. So pair that with your barrel pick winner from your last episode and you're onto something. Oh, the Traverse City single barrel. The single barrel. Yeah. Cause I always, I always feel like Traverse City has had a little bit of a cherry note. Yep. So, and then we have a black tea that I made with a, it's a peach, peach bourbon black tea. Now that, and I always make amazing hot tea. It makes great summer tea with a splash of adult juice. Meaning, put a little bourbon in there.

Yeah. I bet you could do like a cocktail with that, you make that black tea and make the tea and then use that to make a cocktail.

You can do that too. Or if I would have been here for your little Christmas episode, but you could take simple sugar, which is your normal one part, one part, but add some of your peach black tea to the end and let it steep and now you've got a peach bourbon tea, simple sugar makes a great old fashioned.

Oh my goodness. So do you have some of these recipes on your website? I will get there. Oh, you need to do that. That would be so cool. So applications of these things are just phenomenal. I'm sitting here thinking about, okay, so I love, one of the things I really love is with bourbon. Like we're talking about pairing foods with bourbon, right? One of the things I love is biscuits with country ham, salty country ham. But man, when you put a little bit of apple butter on that biscuit, when you put the salty country ham on there, it's so wonderful. I can't imagine that cherry apple butter. You're making me hungry now, Jim. Yeah. And then, yeah, I think that would go good with a Knob Creek.

Just a regular 100-proof, nine-year Knob Creek. That would be really good. I think we talked earlier about even maybe doing a cheese pairing with bourbon. Yeah. But yeah, pairing bourbon with your foods. Don't be afraid to go down that bourbon road as well.

When it comes to apparel, you obviously print shirts. What other kind of things can you print as far as apparel goes?

We also do embroidery.

Embroidery?

You can also do hats, jackets. I mean, the gamut's out there of what apparel you would need.

What do we got a listener on the show that's planning a girl's trip? and they want six shirts. Are they gonna call you? Let's just clear the air.

Probably not. Okay. We're more for gift shops, retail shops. Our main focus is retail programs. Okay. Now we can do as little as 12 shirts.

But where does the price break really come at? About 50?

50 more in the 144 range, but sometimes we try to adjust our quantities to what makes sense for the retail part of it.

Got it. So you're not really making custom apparel for individuals or small groups. You're really making it for larger groups, like the Bourbon Road.

Right. Because I want to help the bourbon community, I would, more than happy to help some of the bourbon societies print their shirts. I met a couple of guys at the bourbon KBF. Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Right, Kentucky Bourbon Festival. And they needed some shirts for their society. And I said, hey, I can help you. And they only wanted like 25. It was smaller. OK. But I want to help them because they're helping bourbon. Sure. Awesome.

So tell me a little bit more about your coffee.

What is our number two seller? I love it. I think it's a great everyday coffee. It's actually roasted for me out of Illinois. It is, I would say, medium roast. And we keep it quite fresh because I sell out every couple of weeks. This is probably I would say my number one item online for online sales. Seasoning is number one in-person sales. This is number two. But online, once people have it, they're ordering two to three bags at a time, and I'm shipping that all over.

Okay. So when it comes to your food items and your pre-printed shirts, And you've got a bunch of bourbon shirts, all kinds of stuff. I've seen some of them were hilarious. But these are for individuals. These are for people that are just browsing the web and want to make a one-time purchase of one shirt or five shirts or one bottle of seasoning or one bottle of hot sauce or one bottle of whatever it might be.

Right. We can also work with some people. I had one of our shirts, it's actually a rum shirt, but it says, I can't walk on water, but I can stagger on rum. And I actually had a gentleman want to buy his son shirts for their trip, their cruise. And so on the back, we were able to print the name of his friends and their whole thing. So he bought 12 at a time. And we worked a deal where we were able to print the back for him. Well, that's pretty cool. We can do some custom stuff. I mean, I'm not saying you don't buy 12 from me, but we can work with you on many quantities.

So when they get to the website, and I'm about ready to drink this other bourbon by the way, this other whiskey by the way. But when they come to the website, is there an opportunity for them to ask you questions? Is there like a contact list?

There's an email. You can do also pintsandbarrels at gmail.com. OK. That's the easiest way to get a hold of me.

All right, well tell us what you picked next for us here. And why did you pick it? And I'll talk in detail about what it is, but why did you pick this next, Whiskey?

So I picked this because between listening to the episodes, hearing Jim talk today, so again, it all relates to everything we did today, all the four bourbons we had, he is on the new single malt whiskey for America. That's his new soap box, I guess you could say, but he understands it's gonna be a new category and it is growing. It makes a lot of sense for the current producers to jump on it. And Jim, oh, and this was amazing, this brand, but who is this?

So this is from Cedar Ridge and they were on the show month or two ago, and we had a great episode with them. Murphy Quint, the master blender there, is very, I would say very excited about the future of American single malts. So much so, they got me very excited about the future of single malts in America. And there's a number of reasons why that is something that I've kind of jumped on board. I love bourbon. Bourbon is the greatest thing on the planet to me. And I'm grounded in bourbon, right? No doubt about it. But I understand the importance of American whiskey in general. And I know that Scotch whiskey still plays a big role in whiskey consumption in the US. And scotch can only be made in Scotland. Bottom line, that's all there is to it. That's the rule. Just like bourbon can only be made here, scotch can only be made in Scotland. So for us to compete with that, we have to produce an American single malt, which is along the same lines. And there's a number of distilleries that are stepping out in front and driving this in preparation for American single malt to be its own category and fully supported here in the U.S. So I'm excited to say that, you know, one of the whiskies that I got to try was just something that just totally blew me away, was a special cask finished single malt from Murphy over Cedar Ridge. And that's what we're having today. And you actually chose this one off the bar because they provided us with a number of their bottles to taste and review and promote if needed, or not if needed, if they warrant it.

And I'd asked you more about the single malt category, and so you wanted to introduce me to this. And I think that's why we made this the fourth, instead of doing all bourbon. Introduce us to that category. Yeah, and I thank you Jim for that. Yeah. Well keep an open mind folks single malts or something that I Think have a future you make up your own mind.

You're still supporting America. You are it's an American product. No doubt about it. So this is the Cedar Ridge American single malt whiskey. It's called the quintessential Quintessential is a single cask series from Cedar Ridge in Iowa. This particular one is the Tokaji cask finished version. And this particular one is cask number MQ 2022-02. It's 117.8 proof. And bam, product of Swisher, Iowa. I've had this, you've tasted it last night, I think, but we're going to taste it again for the folks at home. Cheers. Oh, that nose is just a very nice and light, but at the same time it's got that nice, um, stewed fruit sweetness to it.

We need more plugins in this flavor. I could nose this all day long.

Yeah, you like it? I mean, it definitely grows on you as far as if you're a bourbon drinker and that's what you've been drinking all the time and you haven't really drank, you're not really a scotch person, you haven't had a lot of single balts. Give it a moment, have a few, let it grow on you a little bit. The nose is definitely, it's honey-like, a little bit of stone fruit, almost like a I would say almost a peach, kind of a little bit of a peach there. But it's like a compote or like a cooked fruit. It's just very nice.

Do you get a little icing on a birthday cake?

Yeah, I definitely get the icing. It's very sweet, kind of a sweet cream icing.

Nice and soft. It is. I think what I've noticed from these that you've introduced me to are a little bit softer.

They are definitely lighter, airier, more fruity, a little more fruity and sweet. Not overly sweet, but definitely it doesn't have that significant oak impact. You get the note of oak there just a little bit, but it's not overwhelming. And I tell you, yeah. Isn't that really nice? Isn't that wonderful? So we just took a sip folks and I feel like I just had a kind of a little bit of your, um, sweet cream icing mixed with like, uh, A fruit juice maybe, just nice and like a pear juice maybe.

I'm seeing this after a nice rich steak. Yeah. You've put everything to a side and you want a little dessert. This is what you pull out.

It has a wonderful, now this is 117.8 proof. I'm telling you right now. You normally don't drink Scotch whiskeys at that proof range. You normally don't drink American single malts at that proof range. This does not drink like 118 proof whiskey. No. It definitely drinks like it's in the high nineties. Could easily go up against another whiskey in the nineties, but guess what it carries with it? All that richness and depth that comes with a undiluted whiskey, right? Just wonderful.

So Jim, do you know what the retail on this bottle would be?

Well, I know that we just had the episode at Cedar Ridge and I think at the Cedar Ridge gift shop, it was $69.99, $70 for a bottle of this. Oh my gosh.

And that's something. Could you buy me a case?

It's pretty good. It's funny that we talked about the grapes from this. One of the things that, like the Tokaji, I think that the whole, the wine that's based around the Tokaji is very interesting because it was like this story about these grapes that stayed on the vine too long and they kind of shrilled up a little bit and they were harvested too late. But at the end of the day, it turned out to be some beautiful mistake that made this wonderful wine. So it was one of those things, you've heard about it in the past, where somebody makes a mistake and it turns into this new thing, right? So instead of throwing the grapes away and saying, we're not gonna make wine, they made it and they marketed it as this amazing new thing, which it was. So great. So this is, again, just to repeat for everybody, this is the Cedar Ridge American single malt whiskey. Comes out of Iowa, out of Swisher, Iowa, this quintessential single cask clear series. This is a Tokaji cask finished single malt at 117.8 proof, roughly a $70 bottle. Hopefully you can still get it. It's not sold out if it is. Hopefully they'll reintroduce it, you can get it again soon. This is a pretty amazing pour.

It's absolutely amazing.

Yeah.

When you were telling your story about the grapes, I feel like me being described to my parents. He may have been a little bit of a mistake, but he blossomed into something.

He turned out after all.

Well, Jim, I just want to really say thank you for sharing all these bourbons with me, inviting me to your house, being a friend. We've had some great times the last two years on the banks and to many more bourbon pours.

Absolutely. To many more, absolutely. Well, Stan, I really appreciate you coming on the show today. We have got the hang out all day today, so we've been drinking since, well, it's been a while. Yeah. We've been drinking for a while now.

But lightly.

Lightly. We've been respecting the spirit. How's that? There you go. Anyway, it was great to have you on. I loved having an opportunity to let you sort of go into detail with our listeners about why you love bourbon, why you're excited about the bourbon road, and all the things you do sort of on a weekly basis to promote bourbon while selling your products. I think it's amazing. One more time, how can people reach out to you? How can they find your products online if they want to send you a note, a message? How do they reach out to you?

Our products are available on pintsandbarrels.com. Easiest way to get ahold of me would be pintsandbarrels.gmail.com. We do have Instagram. It's not as up-to-date as it should be, but it is pintsandbarrelsco. and check us out. I think you'll like a lot of the products, and if you like bourbon, or you know someone who likes bourbon, check us out for your premier online gift shop.

Fantastic. Thanks again so much. You can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. You can find us on threads. You can find us on TikTok. You can always find us on our website, the bourbonroad.com, where we have our blog articles, we have our episodes, we have our products, some of which come from Stanton. He produces them. You can find our glassware and our shirts and our hats and all that good stuff. We hope you'll take time to jump on the website and check out our products. Sales of those items helps get us down the road. If you've got an idea for an episode, a bottle, a distillery that needs to be focused on, let us know. Up on their website, TheBurmanRoad.com, go to the Contact Us page. Send us a quick note. We'll be happy to get back with you. You can always email us at team at TheBurmanRoad.com. Every single week we put out an episode, just like today with Stanton. We'll have a guest on the show. We'll have a distillery on the show. We'll drink through some whiskeys. We're always having a good time. We hope you don't miss a show in the future. Every Wednesday, guaranteed, we'll be there. But to make sure you don't miss one, just hop to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way you'll get a notification each week when a new episode comes out. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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