39. Michael Veach - Bourbon Historian and Author

Yeah. So then he posts on there, he says, uh, post a picture of the bottle and his pour. And he says, I found this on the floor of Mike's bathroom. And I said, okay, in my defense, you know, it's only because we're, it's not like I plan on keeping bottles on the floor of the bathroom all the time.

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Find out more about their fine rustic furniture at logheadshomecenter.com. We've got a great episode for you today as we interview Michael Veach. A real treat for both Mike and I to sit down with him and I hope you all enjoy it. But before we get to that, I just wanted to say Happy New Year to everyone. Thank you for sticking with us. Welcome to 2020. We've got a lot of great things planned for this year. We've been listening to some of the comments and feedback from our listeners and one of the things that's been asked for is for us to do more of the third pour episode. So we've got a number of those planned this year and we certainly look forward to recording those and maybe even having a few listeners on from time to time. So that'll be fun. We are also going to do a few bourbon reviews, but we'll continue with the interviews. We've got a lot of those already scheduled for this year. It's pretty exciting, you know, in April we will be a year old and we will have recorded our 52nd episode. So we really look forward to that. That's going to be a big celebration for Mike and I. But, you know, if you were paying attention to our Instagram, you noticed that Mike and I announced our bourbon of the year this year. It was the old Forester 1910. Now, we limited our choices to those bourbons that we actually drank. during episodes on the show. It just so happened that 1910 was featured in a couple of episodes. But as most of our listeners know, Mike kind of likes the sweeter bourbons and I like the more spicy bourbons. So we had to agree on one. And as we went through our list and we did a tasting, we kind of came down to agreement that we both felt that 1910 was our best choice of the year. Now there were some other honorable mentions. The old Carter bourbon number two, Woodford's Chocolate Malted Rye, the Henry McKenna Bottled and Bond Tenure, and Woodlands Trails Weeded Bottled and Bond Bourbon. Those were all, again, bourbons that we tasted on the show that made the top of our list. And real quick, before we move on, I want to make another invitation to our listeners to pop into our closed Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies. Join in the conversation there. Join the group. We'll get you admitted as quick as possible. Some great conversations, some good people. It's a lot of fun. We have a blast in there. We, we definitely invite you to join us. So without any more delay, let's get on to our interview with Michael Veach. Hello everyone, I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyde. And this is The Bourbon Road. And Mike, where are we today? We're down almost downtown Louisville with Michael Veach. Michael Veach, bourbon historian and author. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It's good to have you here. The man, the myth, the legend, right? That's right. So we don't usually spend a whole lot of time in the beginning talking. We like to get straight to the first pour. And I'm sure you won't argue with that, will you? No, I never argue for pour. Mike, what do we have for them today?

So today, I'm a sweet wheat guy. So I brought some Maker's Mark Private Select. It's 109.7 proof. It's called Shut the Box Edition. Shut the Box Edition. Where'd you pick that up at? I got this out at Paradise Spirits and Wine out there in Shelbyville. You know, my good friends out there, the veterans, I like to stop in there and support that small store.

Yeah. And what do they say about the staves on the back on this one?

So it's got a baked American pure two and seared French. I can't even say that, man. I'm just curvy. So eight of those and then eight of the first, first one and two of the second one. I was going to say curvy.

I just, you know, Hey, Michael, you've done a few picks of these average. I have done several. Yeah. So what, uh, what's a, uh, a good explanation of the curvy.

Well, you know, they have five different types of staves that they use. The only one that is American oak is the very first one, the baked American oak, which gives you a lot of caramel, sweet flavors and everything. And then the French curve, it's a French oak, but the staves have been kind of grooved.

Get more surface area.

Get a little more surface area. And they've been treated in such a way that they bring out a little bit of spice. Not a whole lot. It adds an interesting flavor to the, to the whiskey. Well, let's check it out.

Yeah.

Yeah. Cheers guys.

Cheers. It's got a little bit of a unique spice on the nose there, I think. Yeah.

That sweetness sure comes through on the nose though.

You get a lot of that kind of a butterscotch sweetness with a little bit of a, for me, it's like a citrus orange zest with a little clove, cinnamon, baking spices type.

Absolutely. Yeah, I definitely, definitely get that. So it's, it's definitely a little bit of a spicy nose there.

But it is, is it citrusy? Well, I already sipped on it. Yeah. Ooh, it's got some spice in it. Well, you picked a good one then for me. Well, I think at 109 proof, you're going to get that little bit of bite to it, right? Right.

Well, it's a very enjoyable nose. I'm going to go ahead and take a sip. Cheers guys.

I've already, I've left you behind. Mike and me, man, this is two mics get together. At least you start drinking left Jim in the dust. I mean, you poured it for me. I thought it was supposed to be drinking. That's right.

Wow, that is, there's a lot of flavor in that. There's a lot of flavor in that. It's very nice. Butterscotch translates from the nose to the palate, I think. Definitely.

You know, the finish is, it starts kind of sweet and it just kind of dries out just a little with a little oak and a little spice. That baking spice kind of lingers on your tongue.

This is a beautiful bourbon right here.

It is really good. They've done a lot of good things with this. I think this has been a really good, um, expression for them.

Yeah. Uh, I think it's the most unique tasting or bottle selection, uh, program out there. Uh, it's just really good. You know, my hats off to Jane and all the others that have put that together.

Well, let's, let's keep sipping on this. Michael. Are you originally from the Louisville area? Born and raised here.

Um, spent my life, uh, here, uh, got out of high school in 1976 and then proceeded to waste about 12 years, uh, having fun and, uh, working dead end jobs and decided to go back to college. Um, went to UofL with the idea of getting a degree in history and eventually going on to get a doctorate degree in history, medieval history, with a secondary field of public history and did an internship out at the Filson Historical Society. And then I always tell people I'm the luckiest student to come out of the University of Louisville's history department. In 1991, Nick Morgan from what was then United Distillers, Diageo now, contacted the university and said they were going to put together an archive at the old Fitzgerald Distillery and was looking for a graduate student to help them put it together. It'd be six weeks during the summer, 35 hours a week and $9 an hour, and I hadn't worked full time for a while. So I said, yeah, I can do that. I don't have classes this summer. I can do it.

So at that time it kind of began for you. Right. But what was your kind of, I mean, were you, were you involved at all with drinking bourbon or in the spirits?

I'm a Kentucky and I've always drank bourbon. Yeah. I never really learned to appreciate it until I got this job at United Distillers.

So you say you're a Kentucky boy and you always enjoyed, what was your first bourbon?

Oh gosh. Can you remember back then? Probably a Evan Williams and Coke that I stole from, well, didn't steal. I talked my parents into letting me have a sip when I was like six years old while they were playing cards one night.

Did you already have the Kentucky goatee at that time? No.

Yeah. So what, what about when, when you actually got to choose the bottle, what was your first bottle that you chose? I mean, what was kind of your, your drinker as a young man?

Oh, I don't know, it was usually whatever was on sale that we could get, you know, fairly cheap. I remember buying some Maker's Mark one time. I can remember buying some Jack Daniel's one time, but usually it was something, you know, Kentucky Gentleman or something, whatever it was, you know, right. But once I got started at United Distillers, I learned to appreciate Bourbon quite a bit. I was very fortunate in that after a year of doing this job with them, that six weeks turned into a year of part-time work while I finished my classwork at UofL. Then they hired me full-time in 92. They had a program going on at the distillery where they were testing, quality control testing, every barrel in the warehouse and they had a trailer set up. I mean, they were about two thirds of the way through with it when I started there, but still every day I got to go into this trailer. They'd have about 12 samples set up and you were supposed to go through nose taste and find the ones that were bad. But by doing this, I was able to learn from Mike Wright, the head of quality control, and Ed Foote, the master distiller at the time, and Chris Morris, what to look for in bourbons, and what's good, what's bad. And you do that every day for, I think it took them about another year and a half before they finished the program. You learn to appreciate good bourbon.

So did you have some kind of formal sensory training at all before you did that or did they just throw you to the wolves?

Well, everybody at the story was invited to come in and do this because the idea was that the more people that tasted it, the more likely they're going to find the bad stuff because some people are more sensitive to the bad stuff than others. Okay. you know, the must and the acetone and other things. And that's what they were looking for. They weren't looking for good bourbons. They were looking for bad bourbons because those were the bourbons that they were basically going to end up in your gas tank one day.

Got it. Got it. So Mike, you've, uh, you've written a couple of books.

I've written one by myself and two with Susan Riegler.

What are the, what are those, those books right there?

Well, my first book was Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey and American Heritage. The University Press came out in 2013. It's a very good, solid history of the bourbon industry, but when they asked me to write it, um, they weren't looking for a huge in depth history, you know, 500 pages with 200 of that pages being footnotes and such. They were looking for something that would be approachable to people that would sell well in the gift shops. Almost like a coffee table book. Sort of. Yeah. And for our listeners, who Susan Regler, Susan Riegler used to be the food critic for the Courier Journal, has also written quite a bit about whiskey in the bourbon industry. I'm most proud of her for the fact that back in the 1990s she wrote an article about the best whiskey bar in America, and it was Delilah's. And that opened the eyes here in Louisville that, hey, why isn't the best bourbon bar in America in Louisville? And you started seeing more and more bars adding bourbons and increasing the bourbon presence and their bourbon education and such. And I think that article that she wrote changed the Louisville drinking scene forever.

Yeah, and it has changed quite a bit. I mean, I can remember the older days here when, you know, it was hard to find a really good bourbon bar.

Yeah, you'd go in there and they'd have four or five bourbons and that'd be about it, you know, and that would be a big selection. Usually you'd go into some bars and there'd be, you know, the well bourbon and Jim Beam and Maker's Mark on the back shelf or something, you know, and that'd be about it.

always looking like Max magazine or some magazine or even online now and yet you see these lists of best bourbon bars in America and I always think it's shameful that Louisville only have one or two bourbon bars on there and now after Susan's deal. There's so many great bars here that have great selections. Even restaurants, you know, like Josh's restaurant, they have a great, great bar there.

Oh yeah, Valarie has a great one. Bourbon's Bistro across the street from Valarie has a great one. You know, they're kind of the original bourbon restaurant, Bourbon's Bistro is. Uh, down the road, uh, from both of them is silver dollar. Fantastic collection. Uh, go down into main street, you know, the Brown hotel, the seal Bach have great selections, uh, proof on main. Yeah.

You go on and on with it.

Well, you look at those, then I look at that list and I say, well, who, who wrote this article? You know, I look at some of those things online. I'm like, who, who wrote this? And it looks like an 18 year old kid wrote it to me. Somebody that's in New York or out on the East coast or West coast.

Well, you know, DC is well represented. I think Chicago is well represented. Oh yeah.

I love Delilah's. I love Jack Rose in DC. Yeah. Yeah, there's some great bourbon bars, you know, the Century Bar up in Dayton, Ohio for Control State. Joe Head has done a fantastic job of creating a bourbon bar there.

I haven't been there, no. That's in Dayton? Dayton. Okay.

You really should talk to Joe. Joe is a fantastic bourbon connoisseur, bar owner, great person.

I might have to do that. I grew up not too far from there.

That's your home area there.

It's been a while, but yeah.

It's been a while. I tell you what, as I'm sipping on this bourbon while everybody's talking here, it's opened up a little bit.

Yeah, it's opened up. It's not quite as citrusy or spicy. A lot more of that butterscotch.

It is a little drying on the back of the palate. I mean, not too much, but just enough to, you can recognize that. Is that that French oak doing that?

Probably the American oak. 80% of the staves are American oak.

So Mike, you were inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2006. Is that a pretty big honor to you?

I am very pleased with that. It's nice to know that I got the respect of the industry as a whole. to do that. I mean, I was kind of like one of the first non-industry people to be inducted. You know, they recognized my work as a historian and, you know, I helped out a lot of the distilleries as they were putting together their visitor centers. Or if they had consumer questions, you know, about a history of an old bottle or something, they'd give them my phone number at the Philson.

I'll tell you what, we're up here in your office and as we were walking up here and stuff, you can see your love, your true love for bourbon and the bourbon history, I think. All these old photos and memorabilia, old decanters, a great whiskey collection.

Yeah, there's a few bottles in there.

Just a few. Just a few.

But yeah, this is a nice place to relax to, to come up and sit back and have a cigar, as you do, and pick a fine bourbon to sit down with. I imagine you sit here a lot with some good friends of yours.

Yeah, we have friends up here. Not a whole lot. It's not a huge office, but you know, I'll have two or three, four people up here or something. It was really funny. Marty Duffy. who is the American representative for Glen Cairnglass, been a friend of mine for years, was here for the Bourbon and Beyond, and he invited a bunch of his friends to get together and everything, and they all came over here. And at that time, we were actually working on the whiskey storage room there, trying to get the walls painted and some shelves put up and everything. And I had bottles everywhere. I mean, you could hardly walk in here, you know, including in the bathroom. And one of the guys walked in there and he saw a bottle of the Red Hook Rye that I had a little bit left. And he goes, wow, I've never had this. Can you mind if I have a pour of this? I said, sure, help yourself. You know, so then he posts on there, he says, uh, post a picture of the bottle and his poor. And he says, I found this on the floor of Mike's bathroom. And I said, okay, in my defense, you know, it's only because we're. like I plan on keeping bottles on the floor in the bathroom all the time.

Well, today I saw you had decanters or not decanters, but, uh, glasses in there.

Yeah. I'm like, he's, he's ready for us today. Yeah. I mean, it looks well organized now. It looks like you've got a nice, uh, display here.

Um, and a little behind on my filing, as you can see from my desk.

Yeah. You don't want to see my office. It's a, it's a shambles, but, uh,

I'm sitting here, I look across and I see your award back there behind Jim. And then I see that old crow, I'm guessing it's just a paperweight or something.

They're little figurines that they use as bar displays.

Yeah, so I just love the old history and stuff. There's a little bitty antique store over in Bloomfield, Kentucky, and me and my wife went in there and we're going to go in there and see if they have any nice antiques or anything. And I'm walking around the side there and I'm like, Hey, they got some old crow stuff here. So I was like, Hey, is this for sale? No, no, no, that's not for sale. I'll walk on now. Oh, this old crow thing. Oh, is that for sale? No, that's not for sale. I was like, was there anything in here for sale? Not a whole lot. Most of it, it should be just a museum there in Bloomfield.

Yeah. Old Crow reminds me of that clock over at the Pearl German town. Oh yeah. Yeah. They got that old Crow clock in there.

Which is a great, great bar here.

Yeah. And Old Crow is a brand with such great history. In the 19th century, it was the bourbon that all good bourbon was judged by. Yeah, President Grant loved it, right? Yeah. Henry Clay took barrels of it to DC to help grease the legislation. And it was just a great bourbon. Even up into the 60s and everything, it was still a really good bourbon that all good bourbon was judged by. If you ever find no bottle of Old Crow from the 60s, buy it.

Do you ever wonder why distilleries don't bring those brands back to their glory days?

Well, we know why Jim Beam did. Jim Beam bought national distillers who owned the Old Crow. And at that time, Old Crow was the biggest competitor to Jim Beam White. So you'd seen what happened to Old Crow. But you know, now Jim Beam has its prominent position and everything. They really should come out with like an eight year old bonded old crow just to bring back the glory of old crow.

What's the, um, the decanters from the sixties? Uh, yeah, the Chessman.

Yeah.

I've got a little bit of old crow 69 Chessman that hasn't touched my lips yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Yeah.

Yeah, I'd like to see, I think you hit it on the head. I'd like to see a old crow bottle and bond eight year, 10 year that man, that'd be a beautiful bourbon.

Eight year, because you know, up until 1964 or 1958, eight years was the maximum you could bond something. And, uh, you know, that would reflect the heritage of old crow. And that's why we came to talk to you. You're the man.

So is that where the the old kind of came from? The word like when you're talking about an old whiskey?

Yeah, like very old Barton was originally eight years old. You know, very old Fitzgerald was eight years old. That was the idea because that was as long as they could put it into the warehouse. and age it before they had to pay the taxes. So once you paid the taxes, you wanted to bottle and sell the whiskey.

So the idea there is, just to make sure I understand, is that while this bourbon is in the barrel and it's aging, you're not paying taxes on it.

You're not paying a federal tax.

You're not paying a federal tax on it. You're not paying any tax on what will be soon evaporated. Right. So you hit eight years, you're going to have something less than 53 gallons. Right. Maybe more like 35, right?

Right.

I guess. I don't know what the...

It depends on where it is in the warehouse.

Yeah, it depends on where it is.

How many leaks it had and whatever.

But at that time, that's what you're going to pay on. They're going to weigh the barrel. They're going to say there's this much in it. You're going to pay tax on that much.

Well, sort of. What they would do is they would dump the barrel and they have a gauger's manual that would say, this is how much whiskey that should be in that barrel. If there's more whiskey than what the gauger's manual says, you had to pay the tax on an extra whiskey as well. But if there was less, you had to pay the tax on that minimum. Oh, the minimum. Wow. So it was a win-win situation for the government.

Right. Taxes seem like they did. It's always a topic of discussion, even today, right? Yeah. And that's been a big thing in the news here in the last couple of weeks is taxes on spirits and stuff. And it looked like that they got something done on it this week on taxes. It was going to go up 400%. For small distilleries.

Now, the big distilleries are still, you know, That tax, they've cut the taxes a couple, three, four years ago, exactly when they did it, for production under a certain level. I think it's a hundred thousand gallons, right? Proof gallons. Something like that. And if you made over that, you paid the full federal $13.50 tax. But if you made under that, even if you were made over that, that first 100,000 gallons of tax was at that level or whatever. And it helped the small distilleries out a whole lot. And let's hope that they eventually make that permanent.

So what'd they do, just extend it for a year? I think they did.

I think that's what I read yesterday, was it's just a one-year extension, and it still hasn't made it through the Senate. So hopefully they'll...

They've got a lot of craft distilleries wiping sweat off their forehead right now. They've at least got a year reprieve on it.

Yeah. So I don't know about my trip. I just took a lot of guys. They brought that up and they were sweating it. They were like, Oh, this is going to put hurting on us.

Yeah. I actually prefer the term artisan distiller artisan. Yeah. Because, you know, for, for small disorders, because all distilleries are craft, they have craft, you know, you can't tell me that Jim beam that, you know, makes you know, over a thousand barrels a day still isn't doing it using craft. I mean, it is a craft and to me size has nothing to do with quality. It's, you know, that's why I prefer artisan distillery for the small distilleries.

What do you consider a small distillery?

You know, any, anybody that's making under 20 barrels a day. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, so that's still a lot of liquor.

Yeah, I'd say 20 barrels a day. That's a lot of whiskey coming out of there.

There's a lot of artisan distilleries that are working their tail off to produce a barrel or two a day, even.

What do you think about all these new distilleries that are popping up? The six I went to, all of them, they're pretty new since 2013.

There's a lot of really good ones out there. There's a lot of them that are making crap, but there's a lot of them that are really, really good. I've been highly impressed with a lot of them. I just came back from doing a charity event in North Carolina in Charlotte, and my host took me up to visit the Southern Distilling Company and the Southern Grace Distilling Company up there. Two very different distilleries. You can read more about them on my blog on Monday. But neither one of them are making a whole lot of barrels. I think Southern Distilling is making about 20 barrels a day and Southern Grace is making like one or two barrels a day. And both of them are making really, really good product. You know, Susan and I, of course, have tasted whiskey from all over the United States. Every bottle we could find for the bourbon tasting notebook and the American whiskey tasting notebook. And there are some of them you have to wonder, you know. are they going to be around in a couple of years? Cause their whiskey just isn't good.

Yeah. You know, you, you get to taste a lot of, a lot of young whiskey cause a lot of the companies are there's nothing wrong with young.

You can have really good young whiskey. Uh, but there's a lot of them that have things like, you know, lots of musty flavors, a lot of acetone. They're not making their cuts right. Uh, they're probably putting it in the barrel at 125 proof and using small barrels. Uh, Small barrels can make good whiskey, but it's not as easy. They had half barrels back in the 19th century. If it was made good whiskey, we'd still have them today.

We've had good whiskey and we've had not so good whiskey. Yeah, we've had a lot of young whiskeys that, I mean, you can see through the youth, right? I mean, I totally agree on that.

You know, I think I've been to places that they're using small barrels and they've got that, that art of it, the artisan distillery, they got that figured out. And then I've been to places that are using small barrels and they definitely haven't figured it out at all.

Well, one of the big problems, I think that the people that are using small barrels is they overcharge the barrels. They put a number four char in it. Well, when you're making a barrel, part of that making of the barrels involves toasting the wood as you bend the staves and such, and sometimes you add a little extra toast. Well, on a small barrel, you don't have to heat it as much to bend those staves, so you don't get as much of that toast unless you go to the next level of toast. And then when you put a number four char on it, you just burn that toast away completely.

Now that toast contains the caramelized sugars of the wood, right?

Well, the toast breaks down the lignans in the wood and gives you those really nice vanillas. It turns it into vanillin, which gives you that really nice vanilla flavor. All the char does is give you the tannins. It gives you the red color and that really dry kind of bitter wood flavor. And you get that caramelized sugar when you char it. when you add that heat and you're really caramelizing the sugar.

That's where you get that sort of burnt marshmallow kind of from it, right?

Right. But when you have a small barrel and you put a number four char on it, you're burning that toast away completely. All you're getting is that bitter wood. and a little bit of that caramel, you know, if you're going to use a small barrel, use the number one or number two char.

Yeah. Much better whiskey doing that way. It seems like lately that's what I've been seeing is people will stick with that one or two. Very few will go to that three or the four, but

Yeah. So yeah, I think that it's, it's a very, I think the effect of the barrel is amplified on a small barrel. It happens a lot faster. I think it can happen a lot faster. I think it may be the idea why they choose the smaller barrels is to try and maybe encourage that process to happen a little bit quicker than normal.

Well, you know, one of my favorite quotes from Lincoln Henderson has always been, you get a lot of flavor from that barrel in the first six months and you spend the next three and a half years trying to get rid of it. Uh, the flavors that first come out of the barrel aren't all that pleasant. But as tines, as it sits there and oxidizes and breaks down into different chemicals, those bad flavors turn into good flavors.

Well, on that note, gentlemen, Why don't we continue drinking on our makers here a little bit? Take a break. Sorry. I finished mine already.

Oh my goodness.

I'm sitting here with a little bit.

You're the only one left. Yeah, that's all right. I'm always following from behind. I did pour you a heavy pour.

Let me keep sipping on this. We'll take a short break and when we come back, we'll see what you've got to pour for us, Michael. All right. We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Loghead's Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Loghead's Home Center, nestled in the hills of Kentucky, is an industry leader in building handcrafted rustic furniture. Family-owned and operated, they take pride in offering only the very best for their customers. The Logheads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled woodcrafters who are passionate about creating rustic furniture for people who appreciate the beauty of natural wood. Owners Tommy and Gwen don't just sell the rustic lifestyle, they live it. And you can be sure that Loghead's furniture will always be handcrafted in Kentucky by artisans who embrace the simple way of life. Loghead's rustic furniture is made from northern white cedar, a sustainable wood that's naturally rotten termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warmth to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com. And while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at LogHeads Home Center.

Okay, I have for you here the Nelson's Greenbrier Tennessee Whiskey. All right. I was down there visiting the distillery a couple of weeks ago, Saturday after Thanksgiving, and picked up some bottles of it. I've known Charlie and Andy Nelson for several years. It was really funny. Charlie contacted me wanting to know about his history because, you know, They had no idea that their family was in Distilling until they happened to be in Robertson County and saw the old warehouse with the historical marker out there. And their dad said, yeah, your great-grandfather was... They've brought the brand back and they had contacted me and wanted to know if I had any history. Well, I actually had a whole bunch of files from the old United Disorders archive because Shin Lee owned the Greenbrier Kentucky bourbon label here. And they had kept files on the Nelson Greenbrier, which was actually the biggest Tennessee whiskey out there until 1910 when prohibition shut down the Tennessee distilleries.

I was going to ask that. So I had always thought that Nelson Greenbrier was quite a big operation.

It was a huge operation. And they've brought this brand back and they've actually found a reference to the old mashbill. And what makes it really interesting is that it's a weeded mashbill. Corn, wheat and malted barley. Man, I'm going to like this.

Mike popped up there. I did. I got all excited. I'm like, man.

Yeah. So they started aging it. Uh, uh, the whiskey in this, according to Charlie, uh, is some five and six year old whiskey made at their Nelson Green bar, uh, distillery there in Nashville and their hybrid still. But in order to get a lot more production than they were capable of, they actually contract distilled with another small artisan distillery that had a column still. So it's got some four-year-old column stilled Tennessee whiskey made to their specifications. As a matter of fact, their distiller went to the contract distiller and oversaw everything that they did to make sure they were doing it the way that Nelson Greenberg wanted it done. So it's got some four-year-old column still Tennessee whiskey in there as well as their hybrid still stuff from from Nashville. But it is a weeded Tennessee whiskey made with corn, wheat and malted barley. Aged in 53 gallon barrels and just a really, really good, basically four-year-old Tennessee whiskey.

By calling it a Tennessee whiskey, we all understand.

It has that charcoal mellowing, but their charcoal mellowing is different from what they do at Jack Daniel's or George Dickle. Instead of having a big 20-foot column packed with charcoal, they basically have a 53-gallon barrel packed with charcoal, which is really the original charcoal mellowing process. The Filson actually has papers from the Beale Booth family collection from about 1800, with a drawing and a description on how to build your charcoal mellowing process to improve your whiskey.

And so what they did was they took sugar maple charcoal and then they packed it in a barrel and then they filtered their whiskey through it. That would be the white dog.

the unaged whiskey and then they put it in the barrel. And what that does is it kind of jumpstarts the aging process, plus it helps clean out some of the less desirable flavors that you can get in the distilling process. And, you know, technically it changes the pH, makes it less acidic, literally sweetening it up a little.

Well, I'm excited. Let's try it.

Man, I'm kicking myself right now. Are you? Yeah. We were down there for my birthday and, uh, back in October, me and Jim took our wives down to Nashville and we walked in there and I walked out and didn't even buy a bottle. Now I gotta go back. Well, I'm not sure it was out in October.

This has only been out. Uh, it was sometime, I think maybe late October when they,

I think, I think they were just putting it out on the shelves, Mike, but it was, it was a mad house in that place. It was, you know, Nashville can get that way from time to time. Yeah. You know, it was just so packed. I think we just wanted to be on our way. I feel better now.

Another reason for me to go back to Nashville. Me and my wife love it down there. So let's cheers. Cheers.

A lot of vanilla, a lot of fruit. The fruit kind of reminds me more of like ripe apple or pear.

Definitely pear, a lighter fruit.

There's a little bit of spice, a little bit of its baking spices, kind of a nutmeg maybe. Now what was the malt content on this? Yeah, I'm not sure what their mash bill is. There's a little bit in there. Yeah, they use some malt.

Definitely good. Man, I'm happy you picked this. I love some wheat whiskey.

This is just a really good Tennessee whiskey. I think they've got a hit. You can only get it in Nashville and some of the surrounding counties right now because they just don't have the distribution out there right now. They don't have the whiskey to supply it.

They've made a beautiful distillery there. It's a great place to take a tour.

And they're looking to build a new one in Robertson County, the county where the original distillery was. They want to build a column still so that they can actually make enough to fill their demand. And when they do, the Nashville distillery is going to be more of their experimental small batch type stuff, one-offs and things like that. And then they'll be making this Nelson Greenbrier up in Robertson County.

I think the label on this bottle is just, that's an excellent looking label.

Well, that whole bottle, what they did is they took a historic Nelson Greenbrier bottle, had it laser scanned, had a bottle made. to look like the original one. Of course, it's changed a little bit because this is metric instead of, you know, four fifth quart. It's a 750. And then they did the label is basically as close as they could get to the original label and still get it approved by the. government. And what I like about it is if you look at it on the bottom.

I saw that had the Tennessee DSP-5 on there.

Yeah, it's got their little DSP-5 and it's just a really nice pay attention to detail.

Now, did you say this was non-age dated?

Non-age dated.

I just know it's a good drinker.

I think it's a good balance for you, too. It's got a lot of sweetness, but there's a little bit of spice there. Yeah.

As it's opened up a little bit, that spiciness kind of, to me, it's gone away a little bit. Yeah. That first sip of it, I can taste that spice.

Well, you know, for me, the spice has changed a little as it's opened up from that nutmeg baking spices to a little bit almost like a white pepper, you know, kind of a floral.

Yeah, there's definitely a pepper kind of yeah, it's got a it's got that fruity note up front But on the back you get a little bit of that in I think white pepper is probably a good way to say it It's not got that bite of a black pepper, but I get more.

Yeah a little more floral little different

Well, that's a good whiskey. I think we need to get back down to Nashville. Maybe even stop it and talk to these fellas. What do you think, Mike?

I think Tennessee is actually coming back, besides just having one or two giant distillers there. Now they've got these artisan distillers there that are producing some great stuff. And Nashville's putting itself on a map as, hey, we got some whiskey here in Nashville.

Well, you know, I was really impressed with what I saw a couple of years ago when I was down there at the Leapers Fork distillery. They've done a really good job. We were down in Chattanooga not too long ago, you know, and you have two distilleries and they're both putting out a fairly decent The Gate 11 is all sourced whiskey, but the Chattanooga is distilling some of their own. They've got some really nice stuff that they've distilled. I can't complain about the Gate 11. What they've sourced has been very good whiskey. their distiller or owner or whoever is picking these barrels is doing a good job.

Yeah, I got a chance to go to the Southern Whiskey Society event down there in Franklin, Tennessee. And Chattanooga Whiskey was there and they had their offerings and I was really impressed. Really impressed with that. Now, Mike, you were just in Memphis.

Yeah.

Old Dominic.

Yeah.

They brought an old, well, not old, they brought a young Kentucky girl down there and she was the, uh, she worked for Wild Turkey before she went down there. Yeah. She's right out there from where me and Jim live at and she's from Baghdad and she worked at Wild Turkey and, um, she definitely knows what she's doing.

I was impressed when I visited the old Dominic down in Memphis.

That's a beautiful, they have a beautiful facility there and they got good fried chicken right across the road. Right.

Tennessee's got it going on. No doubt about it.

Tennessee has a rich heritage. It's about time that they start taking advantage of it. You know, Jack Daniels and George Dickle were the only games in town for a long time. My only worry is that, you know, here in Kentucky, at least, I don't know how true this is in other states, but for the most part, You know, they realize that, you know, you either hang together or you hang separately and you never hear anybody in Kentucky talking bad about any other distillery. Right. But when I was in Chattanooga, you know, both those distilleries had negative things to say about the, each other, you know, and Rosemary and I just ignored, you know, the comments, but it kind of bothered us both, you know, because that's not good for either one of the distilleries and it's not good for Tennessee whiskey if they start bad mouthing each other.

You have to realize that a rising tide raises all ships, right Mike?

That is definitely true. And I think, you know, me and Jim always like, if there's a controversy at a distillery, if we know about that, or there's some word out there on something, I think we kind of tend to stay, we try to stay away from that. Or if there's any negativity, we don't want to bring that up on our show. We want to tell a good points and the good notes of what they're trying to do. And, um, and that's the shame they did that.

Yeah, I was really disappointed. I'm hoping that they grow out of that.

That sometimes younger, I think younger businesses or maybe jealousy, you know?

Well, the fact they're practically across the street from each other probably doesn't help that.

I mean, business in general is tough, and it's hard to build a successful business. But usually, we've noticed in this industry that these companies tend to stick together. They tend to support each other, talk well about each other. They may not promote the other guy's brand, but they're not going to say anything bad about it. Exactly.

That's the thing. Just don't say anything bad about anyone else. In Kentucky, they all work together, frankly, because half of them are related to each other. They've been in business for such a long time, the big companies. But I've heard several of the big distilleries say, If you're a small distillery and you have a problem, come to us. We will help you because the worst thing that can happen is if you start putting a bad whiskey out there that soils the reputation of bourbon. We want you to make a good bourbon because we want bourbon's reputation to be really good and stay that way.

And a lot of the distilleries that weathered the storm of the eighties, you know, weather that storm. worked together through the 90s and the early 2000s to bring the industry back. They were all out there beating the street, traveling, talking about bourbon, doing whatever they could to bring that brown spirit back to life. It almost died for a while there. Where are we now with bourbon as far as production quantities compared to what they were in the past?

We're just now getting back and surpassing what we were doing in the 70s. You know, uh, bourbon went down so much in the sixties and seventies and eighties that it's really that, you know, this so-called bourbon boom is really kind of artificial because we're just really getting back to where we belong. You know, the market share that we had back in the forties and fifties. I don't see any other big spirit coming out and doing the same thing. This phenomenon came about for several reasons. In the 60s, first of all, you had a generation that said, don't trust anyone over 30, and we're not going to drink what our parents are drinking, which is whiskey. You throw in there that you start having the growth of two products that were virtually unknown in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, vodka and tequila. Every year Liberty National Bank put out a report on distilled spirits and how much was being made, what was their market share and everything. Vodka and tequila never made it on that report until 1970 because there was so little made and sold. in the United States.

You think that's because, you know, to me, those two are more of a fast paced person's drink. And to me, bourbon is something somebody sits down and drinks together and has a conversation. And we're getting back to that in America where we're sitting down together and having conversations. Well, you know, I think a lot of it has to do with youth.

You know, vodka and tequila lend themselves better to what I call lollipop drinks. Heavy fruit, sweetie, sweet, you know, something that you can taste that reminds you of licking a lollipop. You know, bourbon is a more mature flavor. You have to learn, you know, sit down, learn to appreciate it. There is sweetness in there, but it's subtle sweetness compared to your tequila sunrise or your vodka and orange juice.

The sixties and the seventies were a time when the youth of America was really rebelling against you know, anybody in control. And if the establishment was drinking bourbon. Not just bourbon, all whiskey. All whiskeys. Then they weren't going to drink it. You know, if you were doing this or you're doing that, they were against it. You know, it was a big change in the mentality.

And then you had to compound matters. You had the industry that shot themselves in the foot. Shin Lee had overproduced in the 50s, so they had huge amounts of whiskey in the warehouse. As a matter of fact, that's why the bonding period was changed from eight years to 20 years in 1958. Because if Shin Lee hadn't gotten behind and got the government to change that, they'd have gone bankrupt just paying the taxes on all the whiskey that they produced in the early 50s. So they were artificially keeping the price of whiskey lower than it should be, which cheapened the reputation. And of course, the other distillers, the only answer was, we'll lower our price too. And it just cheapened the reputation as a whole. So you got all these things going on together that was hurting the industry. And it really took into the late seventies when single malt scotch was reintroduced in the United States in force. You know, there'd been some single malt scotch here, but nobody really knew the difference. You know, they'd really weren't talking about why Glenn Fittick was different from Johnny Walker. But they started talking about single malt scotches and doing things like holding tastings where you would taste your scotch with cigars or you would taste it with cheese or you would taste it with other foods and show that whiskey could be enjoyed for its flavor. It wasn't just something you shot back to get drunk on. Right. And once they started doing that, the bourbon industry eventually caught on to this idea and started introducing the single barrels and the small batches and things like that.

So, you know, if you look back, I guess, would you say the mid 60s to the late 60s was kind of the peak, then it started to drop off after that? Oh, I'd say it started dropping off in the mid 60s. Now, what about the volumes from the late 1800s? I mean, I've heard, like when you go to the museum tour down there in Bartstown, they talk about sheer volumes from the 1800s, like the average adult male, adult being 15 years or older, drank 18 gallons a year of whiskey. That's a lot. And if you go out to the New Castle and Key Distillery, which used to be the old Taylor Distillery, you see the size of that stuff there. It's just enormous, huge. I mean, what kind of volumes were they doing back then?

I don't have the figures off the top of my head, but, uh, you know, they were doing a lot more and there were a lot more distilleries at that time. You know, there were 50 or 60 distilleries in Kentucky alone in, you know, before prohibition. And even after prohibition, you still had, you know, 20 or 30 here in Kentucky and over, you know, they started consolidating down, going down, starting in the fifties after Shinley overproduced. Um, you know, first thing they did is they shut down like eight of their distilleries here in Kentucky. And, uh, as they kept the price low during the sixties, that forced a lot of the small distilleries out of business because they just couldn't compete. They were, you know,

couldn't make a profit. Mike, have you been over to Buffalo Trace and they call it the Pompeii of distillers? Oh yeah. And what do you think about that?

Oh, it's very impressive. I'm so glad that they decided to preserve that. That is part of the heritage area of something that E. H. Taylor built when he was there.

And how much do you think they were producing out of that place?

You know, I don't remember the exact figures off the top of my head, but you gotta remember, under E.H. Taylor, for the most part, they were a pot still distillery. They were using huge pot stills instead of a column still. It wasn't until the 1880s that they put in their first column still there. So, you know, by today's standards, they'd be more along the lines of a Michter's and not a Jim Beam.

Yeah. So a couple of hundred barrels a day or a hundred barrels a day versus, yeah.

Yeah. Versus, you know, a thousand and fifteen hundred.

A thousand to fifteen. I think Heaven Hills at about thirteen hundred a day. What's Jim Beam at?

I mean, I don't know.

I think they're well over a thousand a day, right? Yeah.

Now are they going to open that up to the public over there?

Oh yeah. They have a tour that takes us Back there. Yeah, you can do the Bourbon Pompeii tour.

Man, to me, I just love that. They're uncovering all this history that nobody knew was there. Somebody filled in with dirt. That's a shame that it was filled in with dirt.

So you had an article recently where you kind of tried to answer the question, is rum the next spirit, big spirit? Yeah. And I thought it was a very interesting article. You kind of knocked that down. You want to, you want to kind of talk about that a little bit?

Like I was saying, you know, we're having a bourbon boom now because bourbon went so low. We're really just getting back to normal balance. I don't think we're ever going to see that type of imbalance again. I don't think that there's going to be any spirit out there that's going to hit America like vodka and tequila did in the seventies. You know, when you had two spirits at. boom, like they did, you know, sales has to come from somewhere. I don't see that happening. I see all spirits growing, you know, as markets expand, as you get, you know, more and more people in the world, fewer, fewer dry counties, fewer dry counties. You're going to see a growth in the industry, but I don't see, you know, another next big spirit, so to speak. as they're thinking, you know, the, the phenomenal growth that bourbon has had over the last couple of decades. But like I said, that growth is kind of artificial because really all that growth is, is bringing them back to where they were in the forties and fifties as far as market share and such.

And a lot of this growth is international.

And a lot of this growth is international. So what do you think the next big, the next big thing is?

Well, I expect that, you know, that rye whiskey is going to continue to gain back its market share that it lost back in the forties, basically, you know, Pennsylvania really screwed up in my opinion when they basically started forcing distilleries out of business up there through taxation and legislation and such. And as they did that, that hurt the rye whiskey market. Now, when you go up in the 90s or such, when you went up to New England and talked about rye whiskey, they were talking about Canadian whiskey. you know, whereas in the thirties or even back in the teens, uh, they talk about rye whiskey. They were talking about Pennsylvania and Maryland rise, Maryland rise.

Yeah.

And, uh, I think rye whiskey will, will continue to grow its, uh, uh, share back to where it was.

Do you feel like rye is going to come home a little bit to Kentucky?

Well, rye has always been here in Kentucky. Even in the 19th century, a lot of Kentucky distillers were making rye whiskey.

But the rye crops are really just now starting to return to Kentucky. Yeah.

Well, you know, there's a problem with rye in Kentucky, you know, and barley. I remember my grandfather raised barley one time at his farm in Scottsburg, Indiana. And the problem was, is that he couldn't get a good quality price for it because there was too many wild onion seeds in it. Oh. What that'll add some space to, and, uh, you're going to get that in, you know, Southern Indiana, Kentucky and such, you know, wild onions are going to grow. When you go further North, they aren't as prevalent, you know, and you get cleaner flavors and such. You know, maybe they've worked this out with herbicides and everything where they can kill the onions off before they plant it. And, you know, but, uh, I don't really expect rye to be the next cash crop in Kentucky.

I know there's some distilleries working on it. Yeah. You know, we've talked to a few, we talked to Elizabeth McCall over at Woodford reserve and she's talking about it. Yeah. So everybody's playing with it a little bit. They'd like to see that local rye come back. Personally, I'm a big fan. I'm a big rye guy. Mike likes to.

You mess with me a little bit on it. I think wheat whiskey is, to me, is it. But I'm excited to see where the industry goes. I was down south, and one of the sellers down there, he's excited about rice whiskey. And that kind of surprised me a little bit. I've been over to Japan, and in Korea, rice whiskey's a big thing. So I wondered if he had something there, because there's growers

Well, you know, that reminds me of a quote from Ova Haney from one of my master distiller seminars. Someone asked him about why bourbon is made from corn. And he goes, that's because of what they grew in Kentucky. If they grew rice, it had been made out of rice. Well, the further south you go, more rice production there is. And, you know, South Carolina and New Orleans and Louisiana and such, where you got more favorable conditions for growing rice, you're going to get more. I mean, that's the Caribbean with rum, right? That's what they make down there.

They grow sugar canes, so they make rum. I thought there had been more rum in Louisiana than there was, but it's coming on down there. They're coming on down there with that. But I'm wondering if rice whiskey will be a flavor somebody would like here in America.

I don't know. It'll be interesting, but we'll see. But yeah, rum has, back to your question, You know, rum's going to continue to grow. You know, I have no doubt about it. You know, is it going to be the next big thing in the way that is it going to grow like bourbon has in the last few years? No, I don't think it will. But there will be people that will drink. I love a good aged rum. I wouldn't give you a dime for any of the white stuff out there, but I like a good aged rum.

And there's a lot of companies playing with a lot of the Solera aging and some of the other aging techniques on rums. And there's some interesting stuff coming out. A lot of good blending.

Yeah, a lot of good blending. There's a lot of good things coming out of the rum. It'll continue to grow. Don't get me wrong. But I don't think it's going to be 20% growth or anything like that. But yeah, I suspect that they'll continue to grow their market. They may even grow a little bit of their market share if it does. That means that something else is going to lose share. Personally, I suspect it's going to be the white spirits. That's what has hurt most through the bourbon boom. There's been the sales of vodka and things like that.

Yeah, I mean, personally, I mean, I love a good rum. I enjoy some, I grab a bottle every now and then I like to try it out at a plantation or a Papa's Pilar or something like that. And I'll try them. And I know there's a lot less regulation in rum. So there's some things going on there that, you know, not as regulated or strict as bourbon is, but you know.

Bourbon's got some of the strictest regulations out there.

Absolutely. But I, you know, personally, I like a tequila. I'm a big fan of gin, but there's very few gins out there that get my attention. And one of them is out at the Castle and Keys.

Castle and Keys? Yeah, absolutely. Talking about gin, we were in DC and there's a small distillery there that actually started as a gin distillery, but they also do a rye whiskey called Green Hat Distillery. And they have a gin that I thought was like,

Really good. How is it a London dry or an American gin?

Probably closer to a London dry than anything, but but it was really really good I mean we bought a bottle and then every now and then we'll pour gin and tonic just because it's you know, yeah sounds good

I think, you know, me and my wife got a couple bottles like that every once in a while. My wife loves a good sipping tequila. She don't like to shoot it or anything. She likes to sip on it. And every once in a while we'll pull those bottles out and sit back on the back deck and sip on some tequila or even some great rums. I got some rum from Haiti that I really love. It's never sometimes bottles are good to visit.

Yes extra neo Asian good bourbon barrels, right?

Michael what do you what do you got coming out? You know in the future here

My book that I'm working on right now is called Spirited Lives. It's going to be short biographies of 19th century distillers. I've gotten biographies written for W. L. Weller, Isaac Wolf Burnham, George Garvin Brown, E.H. Taylor, and I'm working on Paul Jones, but I'm also wanting to do James Thompson and James E. Pepper. And who knows, I might find another one or two that I might want to throw in there as well.

Well, that'd be a book I could definitely get into personally. Wow. So where can our listeners find you on social media?

Uh, bourbonveitch.com, uh, follow my blog, uh, come out with basically three blogs a week on Monday. I just do random, a lot of history, different subjects, whatever floats my eye. And then on Wednesday I do, uh, tastings. And then on Friday, I'm rotating between different things. I just started a new thing I call Flashback Friday, where I'm doing Tasty Notes on old bottles that I have here. I like to do a thing I call Images of the Past, where I take an old photograph or something and talk about it. I'm also going to start doing some cocktail stuff. I've got one coming out tomorrow on Egg Dog. And then I also do book reviews.

Right. I've really enjoyed reading your blog. I like the way that when you review a whiskey that you try to pair it with a cigar, you don't always get, you don't really give the bottles that you review a number score.

No, I think ratings are bullshit. Amen to that.

You give your tasting notes and then you pair it with cigar. I think that's a great thing.

Well, and I also pair it with cranberries and pecans because something I learned from Aweeta Michael out at Woodford, she's put together this flavor wheel of different fruits that you try with the Woodford Reserve and see what flavors it brings out. And I picked the cranberries, dried cranberries, and pecans because the dried fruit, dried cranberries, gives you a little bit of tartness, but it also gives you a little bit of that sugar. I want to see what that brings out on a whiskey. And then the pecan, because it's nuts are tannic. And I want to see what extra tannins does to it. Other good things that you should try with them are like chocolate, fresh fruit. Got a great story. I was doing a tasting once. This may not make the air, but. Go for it. But I was doing a tasting once for a charity event and this lady, you know, what I do is I auction off, you know, this is for like Assumption High School, I think it was, as a fundraiser. They auctioned off a tasting for six people where I'll bring, you know, five bottles of whiskey. We'll taste them and they get to keep the bottles. And this woman had put together this great spread of fresh fruit. This was like, you know, in early June or something, I guess, and fresh peaches were just out and everything. And we were talking about old foresters. One of the, I always try to put in there because old foresters kind of Louisville's bourbon. It's, you know, for many years, it was the only bourbon made, aged and bottled here in Louisville. Of course, that's changed here in the last couple of decades, but it's still Louisville bourbon, one of my sentimental favorites. And I was talking about how different foods will affect the flavor and everything. And I was like, you know, like I bet you this peach would go really well with old Forester. So I picked up a slice, fresh peach, took a bite and took a sip of the old Forester. And it was really, really good. If you haven't tried that, you really should. And the woman says, oh, I'm gonna have to try this. So she picks up a bite of peach and takes a bite and takes a sip of the old Forester. And she goes, oh my God, that's orgasmic. And her husband looks over and he goes, well, I'm going out and buying a case of peaches in a bottle of old Forester.

All right.

That's great. Well, Michael, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show today. We really enjoyed sitting down with you, especially in this great place you have upstairs in your home.

Well, thank you all for coming. We appreciate you sharing your whiskey with us too.

It's been a blast. All right. All of our listeners out there, make sure you go to bourbonvich.com and check out Michael's blog. And Michael, I guess you don't really sell your books online, but they're on Amazon, right?

They're on Amazon.

They're on Amazon. So check out Michael's books and hope we can do this again someday. It's been a lot of fun.

Well, just let me know when you want to come back.

We'll do it.

All right.

We do appreciate all of our listeners and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions, and if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.