383. An Ohio Whiskey Roadies Trip

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

We're very excited to have Blanton's bourbon shop.com as a new sponsor for the bourbon road podcast. In fact, this podcast 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 lovers. Hello listeners and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon, and today we're once again on the road. Mellie and I hopped in the car. We loaded up our gear. We headed north out of Kentucky. We made our way into Northwestern Ohio, actually about an hour and a half to an hour to an hour and a half northwest of Columbus. And we've got a table full of roadies here today, all great friends, listeners of the podcast, bourbon lovers. And today we're going to kind of go through some Ohio bourbons. And not, I should say Ohio whiskeys today, because they're not all bourbons, but I think there's one or two outliers here. But before we get started, let's go ahead and take a minute and sort of go around the table and have each of our roadie friends introduce themselves and we'll get moving. So who do we have first?

Jim, pleasure to have you and Melody here with us in Northwest Ohio. Mark Ratliff from Upper Sandusky, Ohio. My wife, Amy, is joining us tonight. We have one son, Jordan, and a granddaughter, McKenna. I work for Kimmel Corporation in Upper Sandusky and customer service manager.

Awesome. Great to have you here. You and Amy are both friends of the show. We've certainly run into each other on many occasions.

Glad to have you here. Thank you. I'm Rhett Francis. I'm from around the Upper Sandusky area. country guy. I'm kind of newer on the scene if you will as far as the years that I've been into the Bourbons. It's probably about three, four years, probably. You're an old hat. Four years. That's good experience. Is that what it is? I didn't know where the line was. But he's bonded now. Yeah, that's right. And I am joined by my lovely wife Kelly in the gallery also, and it's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate it. It's awesome to meet you, Rhett.

And I'm Doug Keller, and I'm top-hand on Turd Ranch at Upperson Dusky at the wastewater plant. I've been drinking bourbon since probably about when Jim started with Wild Turkey. I'm joined by my lovely wife, Laura, who's in the gallery and been a fan of the show forever. It's nice being on. Well, it's great to be up here. And thank you for hosting us in your home. Absolutely.

So awesome. All right, so the name of the game tonight is drink through some Ohio whiskeys. Most of them are bourbons, like I said, but not all of them are. Each of us brought a different bottle. And then we've got a bonus pour in the first half and a bonus pour in the second half. So when you add all that up, We're going to be drinking six whiskeys tonight. So I guess we better get the ball rolling, get it straight to that first pour, right? There you go. So who brought the first pour?

That would be me, Jim. It's a Echo Spirits barrel proof. It comes in at a 112 proof or so. The distillery is located in Columbus, Ohio. Fairly new place. I believe the inception was around 2019 or so. The mash bill is, I'm not sure the exact numbers, but it is a blended mash bill of corn and a high rye.

Okay. So it's a corn and rye mash bill and it is at least two years old. So it's a straight bourbon. Yes, that's correct. Awesome. That's correct. Well, great. I haven't had an echo. Have any of you guys had Echo before?

I have. Amy and I did a tasting. A local restaurant does an occasional bourbon tasting, and it was one that they brought in for one of the events that night when they first kind of released the bourbon. So are you a little nervous, Rhett, that you haven't had this one before?

I am a little bit nervous, yes.

We'll all try it together.

We'll all try it together. So cheers, guys. Cheers. It's got a nice floral nose on it. I do pick up a little bit of the kind of the, it's more like two or two to three years old, I think. So it's a younger bird, 2019. You said they started their distillery. I believe so. And this is batch. number one. But there are some wonderful aromatic notes there. It's got kind of like a little bit of a like a sweet honey and but a tea, like a tea.

Yeah, that's what I was kind of thinking. Like I'm a big tea fan myself and you get that. I remember after the tasting, I think it was the next day I went and purchased a bottle of it. I really kind of enjoyed it. Yeah. Good flavor to it.

Well, I can say from the nose alone that I think this, this distillery probably has a pretty bright future ahead of them as their, as their product continues to age and get a little bit older. But I think we should taste it though. Cheers. Wow. That packs a punch. What was the proof on that again?

Uh, 112. Yeah.

You can feel that kind of all the way through it.

It's like, uh, I feel like it drinks right around 112. A little spicy on the palate.

It does have some right to it, doesn't it?

Yes, it does. And it kind of sticks with you.

It does have a very long finish to it.

It seems like it does. I'm kind of getting like a fruity kind of taste of some type.

Yeah, it's almost like a spiced pear. Have you ever had those? Oh, they called those, uh, the spiced apple rings or the spice pair rings. Oh yeah. So I think that's kind of similar. Reminded me of that a little bit. So it is, it's got a nice, and man, the hug is setting in.

Boy, it is. I was feeling that too.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So what's the distillery like? Do you know?

I have not visited it. I kind of looked it up. We just haven't made the trip down to see it.

Oh, maybe that's a stop for us at some point. We need to get back down to Columbus again and make another stop or two and visit some other places.

Watersheds down in Columbus? Watersheds down there.

Middle West is down there. Echo's there.

And I'm sure I'm missing one or two. There's probably some other smaller ones. And there's been a real resurgence in that Columbus area for that between the breweries and the distilleries down there.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool stuff.

So what made you pick this one? Well, I really don't know in particular. It just kind of, I've heard about it and, uh, People had a lot of pretty good things to say about this particular bottle here. So I thought it might be a nice one just to try and to share and see what we thought.

So it was a recommendation then? Yes.

Awesome.

So what's it like? So a lot of listeners are not in control states like you guys. What's it like to try to find good bourbons in a control state?

A lot of luck and a lot of line waiting. Yeah. Ohio takes most of their really good allocated bottles and they'll do a lottery drawing for the right to purchase them. Those go about four or five times a year.

Yeah, typically right in there.

Yeah, you would know the best, Mark, because your wife wins all of them.

She has been pretty fortunate over the past three or four years. lotteries.

Yeah. And that's how you get the really allocated stuff like the William Rue Weller was one recently and they had some very Very rare, Eagle Rare, or whatever that is. Yeah, they got a 17-year-old Eagle Rare.

I'm not sure how many bottles they ended up... It never kind of releases how many they actually have. But if you look at like... Because they'll release the winners, kind of a winner list. And if you print it off, sometimes it's 15, 16 pages long. So there's a fair amount of winners and a lot of good bottles coming to Ohio. We kind of never really have to battle the secondary market. You just have to be fortunate enough to you know, to win, you know, in the lottery, you know, along that line. But we still, I mean, on occasion, we see some EH Taylor and some different items that will come to the stores that if you, like Doug said, you want to go stand in line. get there early.

Some of the little mom and pop shops, like we have a very small liquor store. I've went in there and picked up a bottle of Stagg Junior recently, just sitting on the shelf. I've also done that with the Blanton's in there before.

Well, see, everybody in Kentucky thinks that Ohio is weller country. This is where you come to get your wellers, right? Is that true?

Well, I mean, on a regular occasion, you can pretty much find the Greenwell or the Special Reserve. Antique makes its appearance now and then, almost in runs. We'll see, I got mine, I think the last in Marion, Ohio. But they would get it for three or four weeks straight, and if you got there early enough, you could get it. But that's typically, usually the red and the green are somewhat available.

Sazerac Rye has been sitting on the shelf about all the liquor stores around recently. Yeah.

So the Sazerac, this is my understanding, and we don't want to get too off topic here, but the Sazerac Rye and the Buffalo Trace, you know, actual Buffalo Trace bottle, there's a huge amount of product available now. So literally if you go to the distillery now, you can walk out with a case of Buffalo Trace. Wow. Yeah.

I had recently seen the story along that line.

Yeah.

Now, was that direct reflection to the additional Rick houses now being built? Is that why we're seeing more of that product available?

Yeah, I think it has to do with product availability and plus, you know, they've got a new distributor now and things that are a little bit better for the consumer. All right, so I'm ready to move on. What is in our second glass? Oh, by the way, what did everybody think of this? Just general.

I really enjoyed it, actually. Yeah.

It's a spicy one, but it's very good. Yeah.

Like I said, from the first time that I had it, I just really enjoyed it.

Yeah, I think it's got a good profile to it. It tastes really good. Now, it does have a little bit of a youthful note to it, but it's not a bad thing. Sometimes, and I've talked about this on the show before, sometimes those youthful notes, the good ones, disappear in older bourbons and you can't get them. So sometimes it's nice to get to experience those because a lot of us aren't reaching for the two-year-old bottles, right? Right. Not typically. Yeah, not typically. So it's nice to get to experience that from time to time.

All right. So what do we have in this glass? This one is courtesy of a good friend of mine, John Cleveland. He heard we were going to shoot the podcast, and he wanted to have his near local distillery represented. So he went to Indian Creek Distillery. It's a little north and a little west of Dayton. And this is their American Bond House, number one, bourbon whiskey. And it is 120.

One proof. Oh my goodness. We're climbing a proof. Now that's a bond house.

It is not a bonded whiskey. They call it a bond house because the government forced them to get bonded in insurance back in the early, early 1900s, late 1800s. And this was the way that the owners Thumbner knows that the government, they called it a bond house whiskey because they had to bond the house that it was in. Oh my goodness. 120, which is it, 121? 120 proof. 120 proof. Yep. It is a 95% corn, 5% molded barley.

This is corn liquor. There you go.

And it is made in a still that is from 1820. And then they run it through a second one. It's 160 gallon stills, each one of them. So it's a double pot stilled whiskey.

It's Indian River, Indian Creek Distillery.

They go back almost 200 years in family. It sat idle for 91 years and they're making this whiskey. It's a two-year-old.

Well, cheers to the resurrection of Indian Creek. Yeah, that's checking the boxes for me.

It is.

But man, it is not 120 proof on the nose. No, no.

It's almost deceiving. It is very deceiving. Yeah. And then you get that real warmth and flavor and a little sweetness at the beginning.

Now it definitely drinks a little bit hotter than it noses for sure. Yes. But yeah, that's, that's a, that's kind of a, Very check the box bourbon for me. I think it does check all the boxes for me. It's very balanced, I think. It is.

It's got a nice sweetness to it. It does. A lot of corn.

I would agree with the sweetness. Yeah. Yeah. You get that right away. But it doesn't have this like caramel corny kind of flavor or what do they call it? Cracker Jacks or anything like that.

No, I'm getting more of a vanilla than anything. Yeah.

I got like a, almost like a fruit sweetness, that kind of flavor from the beginning.

I like it. I like it. And this is another whiskey that's in the two to three year old range.

Correct. So the only place you can get Indian whiskey right now is at the distillery. And this is a $75 bottle. A lot of their expressions are 50. They do a lot of different stuff there. Pretty interesting place.

Well, we are doing a show on Ohio. So the idea here is people want to experience Ohio whiskeys. In some of these cases, you might actually come to Ohio to experience them. Not all the whiskies we're drinking tonight are distributed widely, but some of them are. And some of them are available only at the, at the distillery or in Ohio or in just a few states around. So awesome. I really liked that. I think that, um, now when you go north and west of Ohio, is that of Dayton, is that kind of I 70 corridor there?

Mark knows this direction better than I. Yeah, because I actually looked this up. I'd seen a story based on them and we look at it and every time we come to Kentucky, it's always, you know, you always have that thought on the way home, we're going to stop there. But then we have so much fun in Kentucky. We're usually ready to get home and relax and we kind of, but yeah, it's right in that corridor. I want to say that it was, is it actually east of 75?

I don't know, it's New Carlisle, Ohio is where it's at. New Carlisle, okay. And the road that they're on is Staley Road, and that's the family that traces their lineage back through the distillery.

Well, I have to be honest in saying even though I grew up in Ohio, I don't know where New Carlisle is.

I do not either. Must be a small town? That would be my guess.

I think it is fairly small, yes. Well, I could definitely sip on this one. I think both of the whiskies that we've had first on the show so far are both, they're very nice for their age. I think they both are going to blossom as they get older for sure. For me, I think this one drinks a little less young than the previous one. What are the prices on the bottles? What's the price on the American?

This one is $75.

Okay. So the Indian Creek is $75.

The Echo comes in around $50. Around $50. Okay.

So we're dealing with the craft whiskeys that are in the $50 to $75 range so far. Correct. Excellent.

Jim, I took a quick look. Yeah. So New Carlisle is just kind of north a little bit and east of Dayton. So it wouldn't be too far off of 75 if you're coming north. Got it.

Okay. So Dayton is just a little bit south of I-70, right? I-70.

Yeah. I-70 kind of goes right through there, right through that Dayton area. Through the Dayton area. Okay. Yeah, but that's really good. I believe that's going to be a bottle that I'm going to seek out for sure.

We are definitely going to go down and tour the distillery this summer. Yeah.

All right. Fantastic. I would say so far for me, definitely a thumbs up on the Echo. And this is one that, you know, if you find yourself in Columbus or traveling through Ohio and you want to, you want to try a rather young distillery that's just getting their legs under them, but they've had a number of years to get a straight whiskey out. I think it's pretty decent to try. I would love to visit the distillery at $50. Why not? The Indian Creek American Bond House bourbon, it packs a wallop in proof.

It really does. It does, but it could be dangerous. I think you could drink a little more than that and not realize that proof.

Yeah. I think you're right on that. And it really, it very deceiving on the nose.

It is.

Unreal. Yeah. So, but what do you think about the finish on that?

Very long, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It kind of settles in for a good long hug there. Yeah.

An Ohio hug. It has medicinal purposes. There you go.

Yeah. It has just what ails you in the wintertime, right? It takes care of what ails you in the wintertime.

So we have a bonus pour for this first half. What do we have Doug? We have a watershed bottled in bond. It is a $50 bottle and it's at least a four-year bourbon. It is from watershed distillery in Columbus, Ohio. It is sent out to six states currently and they do have some mail order available if you go to some of those. And I do not know what the match bill is. I tried to find it. I can't. So I know it's at least 51% corn, since it's a bonded bourbon. It's non-disclosed.

There you go. But that's all right. Watershed Distiller. Yeah, I'm very familiar with their emails. I get one probably every day from Watershed. And that just tells me that they're very active and very busy promoting their product. And I see that they have a lot of events there. They've got a restaurant. I think. And they've got a great location that people come to for cocktails, for food, obviously for their whiskey. And I think we need to get up there at some point and get them on the show. But for the moment, they haven't been on the show yet. And I've never had it before. I have not either. But I do get through emails. Lots of them. There you go. Good marketing team. Absolutely. So we're up to four years now. That's a good thing.

Yes.

Awesome. Well, let's check it out. Yeah, so see, you notice the difference on this, that kind of that, well, you had a little bit of like that youthful floral note in the first two, that what you're going to get in the two to three-year-old range.

Yeah, a little more softness in it. Yeah, this is kind of taking that edge off a little bit.

This doesn't have like a super like, again, this is kind of light on the nose. Yeah, not a real strong... Yeah. Almost a honey to me. Yeah. Honey light, very light, not super floral. It doesn't have a lot going on. And I mean, I'm really putting my nose down in the glass too. And I'm just not getting a lot from it.

Not a lot of nose there. Very clean though. What'd you say the proof on that was Doug? It's a bottled in bond. So it's a hundred.

It's a hundred proof.

Okay.

But it's got a nice texture on the palette. 100 proof. It's got a nice texture for 100 proof.

It does.

Yeah. I'm assuming it's non-chilled filtered.

It is non-chilled filtered.

Yeah.

That does change the mouth feel quite a bit, doesn't it?

It does. It absolutely does. So this kind of spreads across the whole tongue. It kind of gets you a little bit on the sides, a little bit on the middle. It kind of sits in the middle though. It doesn't really present like spicy on the back, does it? No.

There's not a lot of spice to it at all.

No, but it just kind of hangs there a little bit, like you can feel it.

I'm always wrong when I try to guess these things, but I wouldn't be surprised if this had some weed in it.

I wouldn't be surprised either.

It's a little softer up front. It doesn't kick you in the back real spicy, but four years old. It's a little bit lighter in color too.

It is. Which is kind of surprising. It's almost lighter than the two-year-old that we had last. Yeah. Any increase, a little dark. And those are in 30 gallon barrels, so maybe that has something to do with it with the

I think it does. I would say so. Rhett, what do you think about this one?

I really like it. This is one that I have had before. Yeah. I have actually visited the distillery. I was down there to purchase a bottle that I won in a lottery.

Oh, so Amy's not the only lottery winner.

Well, this was a lottery through watershed.

Okay.

We did not tour the place, but I saw the restaurant there. It looks fabulous. Very nice. The distillery itself is kind of just off a little side street, but when you get out in the parking lot, you're like staring right at the downtown skyline of Columbus. So a very nice place, very friendly people. They actually gave me vouchers for a couple of free tours that I never got around to using, unfortunately. But yeah, it seems like a really good operation they got going down there. They're whiskey I really enjoy. Um, and like I said, the staff down there was, they're great, great people.

I'm going back to this. I'm getting a little bit of sentiment on the nose. Yeah, I'd really like to get to watershed. I think we'll try and do that sometime soon. I can appreciate this whiskey. I really can. And I'm not sure how long watershed's been around, but- I don't know off the top of my head. We know it's at least four years.

Yeah, we know it's at least four years. They're making good juice there. And what was the price point on that? That was a $50 bottle.

That was a $50 bottle.

Pretty typical for craft distilleries, putting out something in that range. I mean, it might be just slightly on the high side, but I think it's within acceptable parameters. What do you think? Is it worth a two hour drive?

Oh, for sure.

Visit the distillery, have dinner.

Yeah, absolutely. You could definitely probably burn an afternoon up there. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic.

And like I said, what's the view of the skyline? Might be a nice evening type thing. Have dinner.

For sure. You know, a couple of cocktails and enjoy it. Yeah. Well, I'm really enjoying this one. So. I'm not going to, I'm not going to rank them, but I am going to say that this one is a little bit more of a, kind of a, a well-aged bourbon, right? This one's sort of hitting that.

And that's what bonded's all about, right?

Bob and Bond's all about hitting that four year point where we know certain things have taken place in the bear also.

I'm a bonded guy. I like the, it seems like you're playing on a level of playing field when you drink bonded whiskeys.

Absolutely. Well. What do you think?

I like it. Yeah, I really do. And like Doug says, I think a lot of us tend to gear towards that bottle and bond, whether it's, you know, the way it's structured, the way you get kind of a consistency with it, the things that, you know, so when you walk into a store and you see that, like, I think I'm going to try that. And I think me personally, I would tend to, if I was going to try something different, I might migrate, you know, to a bottle and bond just because you know those parameters and the age and what it took to make that bourbon.

And when you're in Kentucky, are there any bonded whiskeys you go after while you're down there?

Not really. I mean, not kind of, you know, Amy and I just enjoy just the whole idea of it. I think it comes from, you know, I think it was 2021. We did the, if you want to say the Bourbon Trail, started tackling it, broke it up into four trips. It broadened our experience. I was a Jim Beam guy since the time I could legally drink. I know that's not for everybody, but I'm just an old Jim Beam guy. I kept him in business for a number of years. We just enjoy the whole atmosphere. The people are genuine. The distilleries are beautiful. Did you complete the trail? We did. We got our little book and we went to the Fraser Museum and got it all checked in and got our little glass and all that.

Well, congratulations. Not everybody finishes that task. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was, I think the people that know me know how I operate. So that's something that I'm going to do. But no, we just enjoyed it. And it's exactly where we met you guys and so many great people connected to the bourbon industry. And so we just enjoy it. But we're technically out of a Buffalo Trace jail. And so we're trying to plan another trip.

So Mark, I was wondering, Kelly and I, we've been to four distilleries on the trail. Okay. Are we almost done? You're close.

Not really. But that's a good start because four will turn into 10 and 20 and 40.

Yeah, we can't wait. We're looking forward to going back. There's the craft trail. That's a whole other. Yeah, we haven't tackled that one.

We did the traditional bourbon trail, the 17 distilleries.

But yeah, great time for sure. When you say you're getting out of Buffalo Trace Jail, that means that your 90 days are up? And that's per product though, right? Yeah. Per allocated product. So if you get an Eagle rare today, you can't get another Eagle rare for 90 days, but you can still get an EH Taylor tomorrow.

Yeah. And it's tend to why we like to spend a weekend or a long weekend because we get three or four opportunities to get a nice bottle to bring back to Ohio to enjoy.

Fantastic. And you heard Rob's clues on what to do, right? Did you hear Rob Carter? No, I must have missed that one. So, Tuesday through Thursday between 10 and 11 a.m. Okay. Just walk right in.

Walk right in. Well, just walk right in. Okay.

You shouldn't be telling this, Jim. Now there's another guy in line in front of me. That's okay.

That's all right. Rob shared it openly knowing that all the roadies were going to benefit from it. Absolutely. So Rob works just right there by the distillery. He's in Lawrenceburg. That's where he works.

Oh, that's right. He did tell me that.

So he'll just get in the car and drive over at 10 to 11 in the morning. Yeah. Yeah.

Lunch hour or whatever. Early lunch. Early lunch or whatever. Sounds like a liquid lunch. Speaking of great guys, a shout out to Rob Carter. What a genuinely wonderful guy. He was one of the other guys that we met going down there and Doug got to meet him this past year.

Yes, he's spectacular.

He's a real good dude. So shout out to Rob. We say hello from Ohio.

And I think that the fact that we had pizza tonight had something to do with our episode with Rob.

Absolutely. Rob and Jim were talking about the different kinds of pizzas. So tonight we each brought a pizza from a different restaurant here in Wyandotte County. So what did you think of them, Jim?

I loved it because, you know, honestly, I used to live in Lima, so not too awful far from here, I guess. Not even an hour from here. Not quite an hour. Not quite an hour from here. But putting green olives on a pizza was just what you had to do. And for me to get another pizza with green olives on it, that was fantastic. I loved the taco pizza too. That was fantastic. They were all three great. They were all good. And they were all good examples of Northern Ohio pizza. Absolutely.

Just to give a little shout out to the three pizza joints, we had Don Tomasso, I can't say it.

Don Tomasso.

Thank you. And Susie's from Upper, and then we had Spanky's from Kerry here tonight. Yeah. And yeah, they were all very good.

Spanky and Don Tomasso sound like a couple of guys you don't want to get in trouble with. Yeah.

Tom Smith and Don Tomasso. He's a good Pittsburgh boy, bourbon lover. I always kid him, I always try to find a bottle of bad Tom Smith for him. Yeah. Yeah.

All right folks, we're gonna take a short break and when we come back, more fun, three more bottles, three more Ohio bottles. Stick around. As a gift, Blanton's bourbon shop has got you covered. All of their handcrafted wood products are made in their in-house wood shop with authentic bourbon barrels. Specializing in barrel-age potent treats, they use Blanton's barrels to age their own maple syrup, honey and coffee. Find the most unique gift ideas for your golf lover, cigar connoisseur, avid coffee drinker and Blanton's fan. Want to win an authentic Blanton's barrel head? Make sure you sign up for the giveaway on the home page of their website. Blanton's bourbon shop dot 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 to 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, heightsandbarrels.com, the ultimate bourbon lovers gift shop and branding specialist. All right, folks, welcome back. We are at the table once again. We each have three different whiskies in front of us. This time, Mark, you and I get to play a little bit. Absolutely. We had to be spectators the first time. We did. We did. We didn't get to bring any of the whiskies. Yeah. Yeah.

But we did get pizza too, so that's good.

We did get pizza. Yeah.

And hey, with the pizza, we do need to do a shout out to my sister, who owns Suzy's and Upper, that I wasn't allowed to bring because I'm a carryite.

Oh, is that what it is?

Yeah.

The drawbridge wasn't down or what?

No, the drawbridge. Yeah. Okay. Rhett called me out on it and he got to bring that.

Okay. Thanks Rhett, we appreciate it. Well, I didn't realize it was family at the time. Oh, didn't you? Okay. I felt kind of bad, but not that bad. Okay.

So when you introduced yourself in the first half of it, you said I'm country. Yeah. What'd you mean by that?

Like you're country folk or you like country music? I like pretty much country everything. Yeah. We live out in the country and I'm a hunter, like a hunter, fisher, you know, all that stuff. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Do you hunt deer? I do. And you go fishing, do you like to fly fish or just? You know, fly fishing looks fascinating. I've never, never tried it. I would love to try it sometime, but most generally we do fishing at ponds. My son and I, we love fishing the river. We are fortunate enough to live less than a half mile to the Sandusky river. So we jump on the four wheelers and grab the fishing gear a lot in the summertime and head down there and we just have a great time.

What about steelhead? Do you go after the steelhead? Well, I don't think we have any around here.

We had to get closer to the lake, right? That's not that far up to the lake. I need to get down to Kentucky and hit some of them stripers you guys got. Yeah, we do have some stripers. Yeah. Cumberland, correct? Yeah.

If you actually go below the Wolf Creek Dam at Cumberland Lake, we actually have trout too. Do you? Believe it or not, we have fantastic trout fishing below the lake dam.

Well, maybe next time we're down there hitting the trail, Kelly will let me bring my rod. I don't know. Bring the fish and tackle.

Well, if you go to Lake Cumberland, you should stop at Somerset. What a great town. Amy and I visited this past year and we had a wonderful time in Somerset.

Making way on their new place down there. Oh, nice. Yeah.

Another reason to go visit. Another reason to go, for sure.

Okay, well, without further ado, let's get to that first pour of the second half. What do we have?

Well, Jim, I decided to go with Minglewood Distilling, a very beautiful kind of old distillery, if you want to say, in Worcester, Ohio. So it's probably Worcester, because it can be mispronounced, but the people of that fine town pronounce it Worcester.

W-O-O-S-T-E-R. If you're saying it like Worcester, you're doing it wrong.

You're doing it wrong, and they will correct you. But Minglewood Distilling, Amy and I visited this past summer. It was an old ice house. that sat empty for a number of years. A father's son by the name of Mark and Andrew Morrison decided to open it up. The beautiful part, I think, if you've been to the historic distilleries down in Kentucky, like if you go to Buffalo Trace or you go to 1792 and you see things that from the time bourbon started. They're still there. This gives you that same feeling because it's that old ice plant. They've redone it beautifully. The old ice house part of it is now the production site and the barrel room. Then they had a storage area that they just opened last year that's an event center. They have wedding events. They have a huge patio. It's just an absolute stunning place to go see. State Route 30, which runs across there, it's about three minutes when you get off the highway. It's right downtown, a lot of great restaurants and things around the area too. But what I brought was I have not tried this, so this is a first time. It's a 100 proof bottled in bond, five-year-old. You can only get this in the distillery. They have their standard bourbon, which is available in Ohio. And, um, it's a 86 proof. This is a hundred proof that we're trying tonight. It's a mash bill of 70% yellow corn, 25% winter rye and 5% soft winter wheat. So we finally get a detailed mash bill. Yeah. Very nice. They put it right on there for me.

So I couldn't even mess it up. So, well, let's check it out. Cheers. Cheers. Man, I tell you what, the light noses. Very light nose. Yeah.

It is a very light nose. Yeah.

What was the proof again? 100. 100 proof. Yep. Five-year-old. Sometimes I answer my own questions. Yeah. How about that? It's very efficient to answer your own question. It is.

I've never been wrong when I answer my own. Ask Amy. Excellent point. Yeah. You know, I kind of get the same, uh, from the previous one, uh, with that soft, you get some of those, uh, sweeter notes like a vanilla or a honey. Uh, I think just in the softness.

Yeah. I think this has got like that vanilla cream nose to it. You know, it's, it's definitely vanilla forward. And you said this is five years old, so they put a bonus year on this one. They did. I like that. Yeah. Fantastic. I'm ready to taste it.

Wow. That's really good. Yeah. For a hundred proof too, it's not, I mean, some people may shy away, you know, the higher the proof, but like that, it's a real solid, um, just kind of across the board.

Yeah. This has got that, uh, a little bit of good and plenty in it. You know, I like that it's, uh, It's almost a little dry too.

Yeah. Kind of on the back end, you get that dryness. Yeah. Yeah. Is there a little rye in this one? Yeah. So this was a 25% rye.

So there's a little spice to it. I'm picking out.

Yep. It's definitely, but it's, it's kind of nice and refreshing on the back end too. You get that kind of that minty rye. It's not really the mint flavor, but you get that nice refreshing feel that cooling effect.

Yeah.

At the same time, you're getting that a little bit of spice burn from it. So, yeah.

This one does hit back farther on the tongue than the last one did.

This is the first one we've had so far that's really presented heavy on the back of the palate. It's just a little bit more age, a little bit more mature eddy on it.

Probably that extra year on it.

This is a little more northeastern Ohio. This is not quite Cleveland, but

Yeah, but south of Cleveland, you're probably 60 miles south of Cleveland. But definitely worth a visit if listeners are in the area. It'd be a nice visit to go there, then maybe go up and see Kevin Holey up and get some maple syrup. There you go. Yeah.

I don't get a lot of barrel on this one though. I'm not getting much oak.

I'm going back to the nose and it is light on the oak, but it's not light on color. It's got to bring a color to it.

It's very good.

I think in the distillery, it's about a $65 bottle.

It looks like we're solidly in that $50 to $75 range tonight with most of the bottles we're having.

They also do make a kind of a wide collection of flavored whiskeys too, apple whiskey and cinnamon whiskey and different things. Like if you check out their website, yeah, a lot of different, they make a pickle whiskey, which is, you see that occasionally around, but a lot of- We've had that before.

They call it pickle back or something? Yeah, pickle back.

Pickle whiskey.

Haven't you really?

I have not. So have you had it? I've had theirs and I've had a couple others. It's a unique flavor. It's an acquired taste, I think, for most of those things. But yeah, I mean, some of it you get like peppery notes and stuff like that. You can kind of a spicy flavor with most of those.

I think you could probably get kind of used to it if you drank it a lot.

I think so. Yeah.

I mean, I've had it at parties before, you know, drinking a little bit of pickle back, I think, but we've had it before and I like it.

And I think a number of those products, it's like, it's the nightcap. It's just, you're not going to maybe, have two or three of them. You're just going to finish with one and it's a different complexion. You're done. Because your palate's shot after that. Yeah. After that, like you've overwhelmed it. Yeah. I think so. I would have to believe so. Or that's my feelings anyways, but yeah.

I think I'm going to go without on the pickles.

Yeah. Do you like olives? I do like olives. So you're a martini guy? Oh yeah.

Dirty, extra dirty martini? Extra dirty martini.

You eat green olives on your pizza, but you won't eat a pickle?

I eat pickles.

Okay. Won't drink a pickle. I don't think I want to drink a pickle. You like olives on your hamburgers too? Oh, absolutely. You have to have a Kewpie's burger with everything and olives. Well, fantastic. I really appreciate that. One more time, what did we just have?

So that's Minglewood 100 and proof bourbon whiskey bottled in Bond.

Five years old. Five years old. And it's a high rye mash bill, 25% rye. 25% rye, correct. It's a pretty good amount of rye to it.

If I recall right, and I may be wrong, when Amy and I took the tour, where they came up with the Minglewood name, the guys that started the ice company previous to that were in the logging business. And I think they each harvested different logs. And there was a discussion one time or something like that whose wood got mixed with whose wood, and they didn't want it to mingle together. So that's where they came up with the Minglewood name. Doug, you're in the logging business.

I am.

It's a completely different kind of log. You don't let it mingle? We don't let it mingle and nobody wants to touch them.

I couldn't help myself.

That's all good clean fun until it gets flushed.

Denny Potter will laugh at that one.

Denny Potter would laugh at that one.

All right, so are we ready to move on, folks? Let's do it. All right, so this is what I brought today. And so this is not a bourbon. So I am kind of the rye guy. So I brought a rye today, but I did bring a rye I've never actually had. I did bring a bottle that was gifted to me. And this is the Middle West Spirits Straight Rye Whiskey. This is their Dark Pumpernickel Rye. And this bottle was given to me by Jason Calori from the Mashin Drum. And I don't remember why he gave it to me. Maybe it was just he wanted me to try it or we swapped bottles or something, but it's been sitting on the Bourbon Road bar for a while now and I just hadn't cracked it because I don't know, dark pumper nickel rye.

I wasn't really sure what to think about that.

So today we're going to drink this. This is actually a 96 proof rye whiskey. I can't tell you what the mash bill is. This is another undisclosed mash bill. They do tell you what's in the mash. They just don't tell you the percentages. So this is actually a four grain. So this has pumpernickel rye, the soft winter wheat that we were talking about. It's got yellow corn and it's got a malted barley. So it's four grains. It is a rye though. So it's at least 51% of the pumpernickel rye. And Midwest prides themselves on using Ohio ground grains. And, uh, we did actually visit the distillery there today and we'll talk a little bit about that after we get a chance to taste it. But has anybody here had the pumpernickel ride before?

I have not had any dark rice. Nope, not traditionally.

So let's check it out. All right. Cheers. Wow. That is an interesting note on it.

It does. I really can't place it.

You know, it's no, neither can I. It's, and this is on the nose. This is not something that I've, I don't think I've ever smelled that before.

I would agree.

Which is interesting. Cause like the four grains, it seems like that's becoming more predominant. Like you're seeing more of the four grain products out there. Yeah.

It's almost like a truffle. I mean, I almost get a cedar shavings off of it. Have you ever seen anybody when they're cutting fire, cutting the, uh, doing the, uh, chainsaw carving that kind of in the air, like fresh cut cedar shavings.

I mean, it does. There's a freshness to it.

Like you can tell it has a freshness, but it has an earthy note at the same time. So it's kind of interesting. It's almost like a. a pine forest floor.

There you go.

Because you're getting the earthy notes and you're getting the pine notes or the cedar notes. Yeah. Forest floor. Yeah.

It's certainly nothing I've ever smelled in a whiskey before.

I tell you what I was fully expecting and we haven't tasted it yet, but this is just on the nose. I was fully expecting this Rye muffin kind of bready cereal note on it. That's what I was thinking. All I could think was a Reuben sandwich when you started saying Pipernickel Rye. There you go. It's not that. It's not that at all. That's the sauerkraut. Yeah. I'm ready to taste. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Wow. Sweet. Full bodied. A big wash of flavor.

Yeah. Like not as much rice spice as I thought it would be.

Definitely not. Very good. And maybe not like right at the beginning, but then all of a sudden you just get all that flavor.

Yeah. It's like an explosion of flavor. Once it moves back on the palate, it kind of releases itself. It's almost like a time release capsule. I would say this is the most flavorful one we've had tonight.

I think across the board. Yeah. There's a lot kind of going on in it.

Yeah. I don't even know if I can dissect it because there's so much. It's like a rainbow of flavors happening all at once in there. So it skittles?

So it skittles.

It skittles. Jelly bellies. You just took a whole handful of jelly bellies.

But then it almost changes as you go through it. Hard to pinpoint just one.

That's a very interesting flavor.

Very interesting taste for sure.

That's one you could spend some time with just trying to dissect.

Yeah, I'm still going to stick with kind of, even on the palette, a little bit of the forest floor kind of effect on it. It's got a nice dark color to it. Now, I will say this, this is batch 017, so I don't know where Midwest is on their batches right now. uh, pumpernickel rye, but, uh, I would imagine this is seven batch 17s early on. So this has been on the shelf a while and the flavor profile may have migrated over time. It may be more mature now. I don't know. I do have a more recent sample that middle west gave me, uh, but I haven't opened it yet. So I'm kind of looking forward to trying that.

Yeah.

But yeah, so Melody and I visited Middle West today, and for those who are in the Columbus area or planning to visit the Columbus area, they have two locations. One location is under construction, and we'll talk about that in a second, but they're open locations. So they've basically been in operation since 2009, so they've been around a while. They're kind of Ohio's Oldest new distillery, I guess is kind of the way they said it. You know, they've been around a while. Um, they have a great location downtown. It's a, it's a, it's a great place to visit. They do distill on site there. Uh, and it's actually a pretty good size operation. And they did some contract distilling for some other people. They actually make their own, but because they didn't want to be in a position where they were dependent on another company to make their whiskey, they grew beyond their own needs and started doing contract distilling. think about horse soldier that comes out of Middle West. So there you go. There's a good example of a fine bourbon whiskey, right? Yeah, absolutely. It comes out of Middle West on contract distilling. They have a number of clients, a large number of clients. So they have built another facility off Allen Creek and it's not open to the public yet, but we did get to walk through their production facility today and it's unbelievably large. Basically they told us that they had a daily run of 600 barrels there. It'll do that every day, but in one day they did 600 barrels. So a semi truck of barrels is 288 barrels. They did three semi trucks full of barrels in one day.

Kind of impressive. I mean, cause I think we all relate to Kentucky, the bourbon industry and what that is, but to see an Ohio distillery, kind of elevating to a larger distillery like that.

And they do it quietly behind the curtains without announcing themselves and telling the world. And that's kind of the difference here. You know, you think about Bartstown Bourbon Company, they're out there, right? They're constantly promoting their client brands. They're constantly in the news. They're in the middle West is just sitting here quietly becoming a giant. And I'll tell you when, when that place does finally open fully, now they're full production there facility, but they're not open to the public. So.

I think that was one of the things that Amy and I found a really interesting, uh, going through that, uh, Jim, like you talked like barstown and seeing the three chord product that they do. And then, uh, you know, we went to, to green river and, and seeing, you know, just the, the mass amount of, uh, of contracted, uh, product that they're doing.

And, uh, trail too with Luca Mariano and others.

I mean, it's just, yeah, like, yeah. Not all distilleries, but it seems like that's another avenue. Everybody kind of wants in the bourbon industry. Yeah.

I mean, we've got, I don't know how many brands that we have in the US now, but let's just say 3,000 or 4,000, right?

Yeah.

Of course, not everybody's making their own stuff. A lot of them are non-distilling producers.

Yeah.

But they've got great companies out there like Middle West and Barsdown Bourbon Company and Lorden's Trail and MGP and others who are able to kind of hold their hand and walk through that process for a small startup distillery. Who will eventually buy a still and make their own stuff? Probably, yeah. But not on day one. No, no. Some of them do. It's a tough road to hoe, right? It's a very tough road to hoe.

That's really good. That's very interesting.

Wow. I mean, you Ohio folks should be very proud of this whiskey right here. That's really good stuff.

It's impressive just to see the collection of the different ones and the subtle differences in each and yet everybody kind of doing their own product and their own thing. I think we just scratched the surface on Ohio distilleries, right?

Oh yeah. Any idea, any guess on how many functioning distilleries there are in Ohio? I don't know. I have no clue.

The one that I thought about when we first maybe talked about this, there's another one in Northeast Ohio called Red Eagle Distillery. Amy and I visited there before and they have a really, really nice setup. It's kind of an old red barn. Uh, really neat and their product is really good too. I enjoy theirs. Uh, but, but you have to go to the distillery to get it. And it's, uh, from our house, it's a, it's a good two and a half hour drive. So, so it's a concentrated, uh, and this time of year, you don't want to be in Northeast Ohio for too long.

So, right. And, and Ohio is a four hour state of driving no matter which direction you go, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Wow. I'm super impressed. I mean, I'm kind of excited to find out more about what's happening in Ohio and maybe learn about some new distilleries here. So if you guys run across one, definitely let me know. But we do have a bonus board, don't we?

We do. We do.

This is a palette buster though, isn't it?

It is. This is kind of a nice finishing touch, if you want to say. Dessert. Yeah, dessert. So, as I mentioned before, Minglewood does a lot of flavored type whiskeys, some different type things, but they recently started in October with a newer product, and this is a root beer whisky. The young lady, when we got it at the distillery, she said that, like I said, it started in October. They were really shooting for the old root beer barrel candy.

The little brown hard candies. Yep, that we all enjoyed as a kid.

We did try it that day, so I have tried it before. Sometimes you get those flavored whiskeys that are just so overpowering with the flavor, you kind of lose some of that whiskey flavor. I didn't get that with this. I thought it was really well done. It's kind of a nice, you get that whiskey flavor, but you get that finish of the root beer barrel and that really nice.

Yeah. I think I've called out that candy before in a show at some point. I don't remember now what whiskey it was that we were drinking, but

There have been numerous things you've called out that are very interesting.

You're probably like, that guy's crazy. Oh, that's crazy. He's not getting that.

Well, I always enjoy, certainly my palate's not as refined as a lot of people, but it's always enjoyable to hear those, like what people get. And everybody's palate's different too. So it's always enjoyable to hear.

And we were kind of talking about that tonight earlier about tasting whiskeys and calling out notes. It's not really that you're getting that flavor. What you're getting is a memory that's getting pulled out from something before. So there's a, there's a little something in what you're picking up that's pulling a memory out of something you've had before. So does it really taste like the little root beer barrels? I don't know. Or the spicy gumdrops or whatever it is. Now this one may very well taste just like them.

I think you'll get a good finish of that when you try this.

So what's the proof on this one? I believe it's 70 proof. Okay, so that's pretty typical for like flavored whiskies, right? Like honey whiskey and all the other ones that are coming around.

Yeah, a little lighter. It's Doc Schmickle's Small Batch Root Beer Whiskey. The whiskey with natural flavoring in it, made by Minglewood Distilling.

Fantastic. Let's check it out. All right. Oh my gosh.

I think I smell a little root beer.

Do you have any ice cream?

I'm just asking.

We may have to make an ice cream run. Okay. I would do that. I would mix this with a little ice cream. Can you imagine what kind of float that would be? Oh my. That would knock you on your behind.

After trying five of their whiskeys, it might be something. What are you getting on this, Rhett?

A little hint of root beer.

A little hint, like a sledgehammer.

Right. If you think you smell it, wait till you taste it. Oh, absolutely.

Wow.

I feel like I'm sitting at an A&W drive-in having a big mug of root beer. Yeah.

And it just doesn't go away. It's that flavor. Wow. They nailed this. They did. Oh, it's absolutely.

You can definitely, though, I get the whiskey in it. It does. You still get the whiskey. And then on the finish there, like you're almost sucking on one of those root beer barrels. Yeah. Absolutely.

Because we've had some like the apple stuff in that, and it just, it's so strong of apple or whatever flavor that they're trying that it kind of takes away, I think, from the product that they're trying to create. Where here they've created, I think just, a really spot on.

And it doesn't have the smack in your mouth sweetness.

It has a nice... Could you imagine mixing this with like buffalo cream? Oh man. Something like that.

I have some of that in the refrigerator. We'll try that after the show.

That's your root beer float, right? Oh, absolutely. Oh my goodness.

Yeah, good thing we drank this last. Yeah, that's what I thought would be a nice finisher when They were kind enough as we were picking it up. I'd seen it on the shelf and I'm like, I've not seen that before. They have a whole tasting bar there, so if you walk up to the counter and you'd like to try any of their products, they have little tasters right there. You can just taste it before you buy it. Uh, I think it took maybe about 14, 15 seconds after Amy and I tasted it. Like we'll take one of those. Yeah. Yeah.

I think I would have probably followed suit. I would have done the same. So Doc Schmickle's root beer whiskey. So is Doc Schmickle's the name of all the flavored whiskeys? Doc Schmickle's?

No, the other ones are just a straight mingle wood kind of flavored. So they have, it's almost like two separate products. So like the original flavors were the apples and the cinnamons and some of those. This was the first, and she said they just released it in October. I believe there were a couple other expressions, but we just seen this one and kind of went with it and happy that we did.

So this is a Minglewood product.

It's available at the distillery.

It's a very new product. It's not something that you're going to find any information on the internet yet.

Nope. I believe it warrants a visit. It definitely does. Their products are exceptional and I would stop by and give it a whirl for sure.

Well, that's a fantastic bonus pour. I really enjoyed that. That was very fun. And again, when we're off air, we're going to try that mix in with the bourbon cream. What do you think? Absolutely. All right. Well, it's been a fun show. It's been a great show, guys. It's always fun to sit around with fellow roadies and drink through some whiskey and try, especially try some things we haven't had. And I think for the most part tonight, we were all drinking things we hadn't had before. Not in every case, but for the most part. So it was really good. We got to experience some great Ohio distilleries, some products that we'd never had before. There were some surprises here. It's always a lot of fun to hang out with roadies and share whiskey. That's kind of what the group's all about. Absolutely. And Doug, you recently have kind of taken on a new hobby, haven't you?

Yeah. I actually went all legitimate and now I have a business. Country Acres Art. So I'm doing paintings now and doing a lot of commission pieces.

And that's one of the reasons we came up here was to pick up our commission pieces from you. There you go. And they're fantastic.

They were a lot of fun to do.

So you basically memorialized all of our animals from our farm.

I did. So now I have to wait for more fur babies to show up so I can do more paintings.

Well, we definitely appreciate talent, and I really look forward to some of your Rick House work that you're doing now.

Thank you so much. If people want to reach out to you. I can be reached. I'm always on the bourbon roadies. You can message me on Facebook, or you can look up countryacresart at yahoo.com.

And on Facebook, you're just Doug Keller.

Yep.

Fantastic. Rick, how can people find out, how can they reach out to you? Bourbon roadies, right?

Yeah, bourbon roadies. I lay pretty low. I'm in stealth mode. Are you?

But you're active on the roadies. I'm on Facebook.

And I do watch the podcast. And I just want to say, like everybody in this room knows, Doug does amazing, amazing artwork. He just finished a piece for me. Uh, of a Rick house and just, just mind blowing surprise in there for you though, didn't he? He does. You know, I should have known there was something up cause he wanted to know if I wanted a kitty in there.

And I'm upset now in all fairness, Rhett said he wanted an authentic. old style rec house and he wanted lanterns in it. And I said, under no conditions would they have an open flame in a building made of wood filled full of alcohol. And I said, so hey, a lot of rec houses did have cats. Do you want a cat in it?

And I said no.

And then I asked him if he was sure because I said you do get rodent problems if you don't have cats.

So I received my painting, which was absolutely fabulous. And Doug asked me, well, did you see the mouse in there? I said, no, I'm going to have to go look. He goes, well, if you don't have a cat in there, you're always going to have a mouse. That's called artistic license. There you go. Absolutely. No, fabulous, fabulous work though. You know, he kind of just picked my brain what I wanted, you know, and I told him and it couldn't have been more spot on. Great work.

Mark, what about you? How can people reach out to you? You're on the roadies, of course.

On the roadies, of course. Social media, for a number of years, I did a lot of volunteer work in the Elks organization. I'm a social media guy, if you want to say. Amy and I just enjoy the ability now to travel and do the things we want to do. We get a lot of comments that keep posting everywhere you go, the places you find, the things you do, because we live vicariously through you. So we just, we always take the opportunity. You can reach out to us anytime. We're happy to share experiences or things we've done, friends we've made, travels. we've taken. I think everybody in this room, we share the affinity for Doug Keller's artwork. I have the last original piece that doesn't have a mouse in it. There you go. He didn't have a rodent problem. I didn't have a rodent problem at the time. But nope, it sets up on my, if you want to say, my bourbon cabinet. I'm not a collector, but I enjoy looking for bottles and as our good friend Freddie says, they're made to be shared with friends and family. And so they set up there and anytime anybody stops at the house and they'd like to open a bottle, they're more than welcome to share one with us.

Well, Doug, Laura, thank you so much for hosting tonight. It's been fantastic. We've all had just the best time ever. I can't think of a better weekend for Melian and I than to travel out somewhere on the trail and meet up with some good roadies and just have a generally good time. This is about a four hour drive for us. Worth every minute of that drive. No doubt about it. Thank you guys so much. You're such great hosts. We really appreciate it.

Well, thanks for coming up.

Thank you. All right. So you can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok threads. All that stuff. We do a show every single week. Every Wednesday we put out an episode about an hour in length and we'll have some great people on like we did tonight. We'll always be drinking whiskey. We'll always be laughing and having a good time. Sometimes it's a distillery. Sometimes it's the industry folks. Sometimes it's just good old roadies. And what a fun night we had tonight. We hope you listen to us every single week. To make sure you don't miss an episode, scroll to the top of the app you're on, hit that subscribe button. You will get a notification every single week when we put out an episode. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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