399. McBrayer Legacy Spirits

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

We're very excited to have Blanton'sBurbanShop.com as a new sponsor for the Bourbon Road podcast. In fact, this podcast is brought to you by Blanton's Burban Shop. Blanton'sBurbanShop.com is the only official merchandiser for Blanton's original single barrel. Looking for a unique gift? Blanton's Burban Shop has got you covered. Blanton'sBurbanShop.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. So today on the show, we have Bill McBrayer. Hi, Jim. Hey. And we've got Bill McBrayer Sr. Hello, Jim. Great to have you fellas on the show. And you guys represent McBrayer Legacy Spirits. And you've brought some whiskeys today that I'm pretty excited to try. Like I said, we've had a couple of years in the past, but I haven't had all of them. And even though the ones that we don't get to try on the show today, we'll probably get a chance to talk about.

That'd be great. Awesome. So what do we have in our first class? Sure. The first one is our WH McBrayer. This is our batch for release. We created this smash build. This is unique to us. It was. resurrected from a letter that we found in some of our research from William Harris McBrayer to E.H. Taylor from 1870. It was down at the Filson Historical Center. Michael Veach talked about it on a blog post back in 2005 with Chuck Crowdery. And on the back of that letter, it had his mash bill that he was selling his whiskey to E.H. Taylor of. And it's an 88% corn mash bill. Six percent rye, six percent malted barley. in this particular release or this particular Distill it. We went in the barrel at 105 proof, as they talked about on the blog post, these historians wanting to resurrect a whiskey like they did in 1800s. So we took this letter to some distillers. We wanted to use some heirloom corn in this mash bill. So this is a Bloody Butcher red corn. We went in the barrel at 105. This is a barrel of strength at 106 and just came out about a month ago.

Well, fantastic. So that was pretty typical back then, right? To go into the barrel about 105 to 108 in that range. Right. Well, let's check it out. All right. I want to say the color on it is kind of a nice medium dark amber. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, what you have here is a blend of seven and five-year-old whiskey.

Okay. So both well-aged, because, you know, we like to talk about whiskeys in terms of mature, which is around four years, and then well-aged to be anywhere in that six to eight-year range, right? Five to eight-year range. Extra-aged being anything past eight years. So this sits right in that saddle, right? Right in that wonderful spot right in the middle.

Now, is it equal parts of the two, or is it little? No, we did 12 barrels in this blend. Two were seven years, and 10 were five years old. OK, cool.

Well, it's got a nice nose. It's really a, it has a core bourbon nose to it. It really does. It has a kind of a nice light, kind of a light butterscotch, but the oak has got it, it's very present and back. I bet that's two barrels of seven years bringing that oak to the table. Right. But you're still getting a little bit of that, uh, that, that sweetness from the wood, I think, which is nice. Right.

Now where are these heavily charred barrels? It was a number four char. Okay. And, uh, we used a premium barrel, so it was the extra aged barrels.

Now were they toasted and charred? No, just, just charred. Okay. Well, we'll find out. Let's take a sip. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Wow, that's got a nice, sweet presentation. That's that five year, right? That's that five year coming through. That's really nice. It kind of balances out the two.

We really like the viscosity to it, the barrel strength, but only at 106, it's not too hot for you.

Yeah. I mean, 106 is a good number for me. I like it a lot. I mean, you guys do obviously a full range of whiskeys that present across the whole proof range, I would imagine.

We have our three expressions. We have the WH, which is our legacy mash bill using heirloom corn. We have our old McBrayer, which is a traditional bourbon. And then we have our cedar brook, which is a weed bourbon.

Wow. This is. Well, now the old McBrayer that is a bottle and bond. It's a, so it's a hunter proof. And then the cedar brook is coming in at.

Hunter proof as well. Hunter proof. Okay. Well, that's good. You don't have anything that's really sub 100 then.

No, nothing over or under 100.

Well, this is a nice sweet bourbon. It has kind of a little bit of a fruity caramel to it. Tell me guys, what were you shooting for on this?

For me, I get a little bit of nuttiness on it, and it's got a nice little finish to it. That's 106. It's sneaky. It hangs around a little bit. It's a good sipper. It's got some little bit of nuttiness, and on the finish, I get a little bit of a savory note, almost a tobacco note back there.

I'm actually getting the tobacco note, but it is kind of sweet. kind of a red man, kind of, I don't know, like, you know, like a red man chewing the back of sweetness. I don't know.

It's, it's nice. But it's unique. It wasn't a, you know, just a regular bourbon like most of them. We wanted to do something unique to reintroduce William Harrison, the judge to, uh, to the bourbon community.

Speaking of William Harrison, uh, McBrayer, you mentioned that E.H. Taylor got some whiskey from him and some recipes were written down and there's some documentation there. But Judge McBrayer really predates E.H. Taylor.

Absolutely. He started, they established their distillery in 1847 in Lawrenceburg. That bill, that letter was from 1870 and that's about when E.H. Taylor started. So he was, many tell us that he was E.H. Taylor before E.H. Taylor.

Got it. Yeah, there's some names from Lawrenceburg that really stand out from the past and certainly McBrayer is one of them.

Well, they all worked for him.

Yeah, I guess they all did. So the Rippies and all of that. Okay. And let's see, who else was out there? We had TB Rippey.

He worked for McBrayer in the 1860s. He helped him buy his first distillery. After a year, TB bought him out, but he helped him get started. W.B. Sapple was his master distiller for 25 years before he helped him start his distillery in the 1880s. You also had Bond and Lillard down there. You had Mary Dowling from Lawrenceburg, and they all lived on the same street, like across the street from each other.

It's amazing, right? I mean, you go to Lawrenceburg today and you look around. Of course, you've got wild turkey out there and that great distillery, but you would never guess that it used to be the capital of Bourbon. I mean, that really was at the time.

They say that WH, he influenced all of them, right? And that was the pre-prohibition capital of the war, for sure.

I continue to sip on this and this is a, uh, you know, even at 106 proof, this is something that you can enjoy year round, I think. Uh, and you mentioned that it's not too overpowering. I think that's a big plus point for this whiskey that it drinks, um, a little lower than it's proof, which is good thing for a higher proof whiskey, right? It'll sneak up on you. Yeah. Well, I can feel the hug coming. There's no doubt about it. It's settling in a little bit there. It keeps drawing me in for another sip, which is always a good thing. And so tell us a little bit about this bottle. This particular bottle, I can see that it comes in a beautiful box. Can you tell us a little bit about the packaging and why you went this direction?

Well, we wanted to make it a special release, and we decided that we needed to have a presentation with the box. And we went on a research and found a place up in Cleveland to make it for us. And we told a little bit about the story on the inside cover. And we just think that if we're going to sell a premium product that we wanted the presentation to look nice and put it in a box. Yeah.

And the box opens up. It's sort of a presentation box. So you can open up the box. You can actually put the box on your bar with the bottle in it and open the box up as a presentation.

It has a little bit of the story right here on the inside cover.

They're all serial numbered. Yeah. So, and we wanted to do this to honor him, right? And if we're going to reintroduce him to the bourbon community, we wanted something in a way to honor him. So where's bottle one? That is at my house. Yeah, I kind of thought it might be. Bottle two is at mine. Well, there you go.

And you guys are saving those for a very, very special occasion, I'm sure. Yes. It'll come along one day. Yeah. Or not. I don't know. Maybe you'll pass it down and one of your heirs will have that special day.

We're holding back one barrel as well. Oh, yeah? Yeah. So, it's up to, what, eight years now.

Almost eight years.

Wow. So, one left.

Well, in the second half, we're going to talk a little bit about the future. We can talk what your plans are for that barrel. This is a fantastic whiskey. So let me go back and recap a little bit. I think you said this is 88 corn, six and six on the rye and the malted barley. It's 106 proof. It's a batch made of 12 barrels, two of which were seven year and 10 of which were five year old barrels. Okay, folks. Well, it made a very nice balanced whiskey. It does have that nuttiness, that oakiness that comes through a little bit of the tobacco note from the older seven year. For me, it's not so much like a pipe tobacco. It's a little bit more like a chewing tobacco, like a red man kind of note, which I like it a lot. But it's got a great wash of sweetness that comes across, and it kind of presents a little bit less than its proof. And it's got a freshness to it, I think, that allows you to drink this year round, which is really nice. I wouldn't be mixing this for me. This would be a sipper for me. Yeah, especially because of the proof and you haven't told us the price yet, but I would like to know and our listeners would love to know what this box shelves at. Sure.

So we released this to our legacy club. You know, once we come out with it, we have a few hundred bottles left. You can get it on our website. We have a shipper from DC can ship it. There are a couple select retailers around Kentucky that has it. This retails for a hundred dollars.

Okay. Well, with the box, with the bottle, at that proof, the great story that's behind it, the fact that it's still available on the shelf, well, by order, I think some people should definitely check it out. $100 is... It's a lot of money, don't get me wrong, but in today's whiskey world, $100 bottle is not the top of the heap, is it? I mean, by any means. No, it's something unique. There's only a couple thousand of these that were produced. All right, so this expression that we're tasting now in the fine box, in the fine bottle, the WH McBrayer, this is obviously a limited release. You said you had like a couple hundred bottles left.

Yeah, we have a few hundred bottles left. There was 2,000 produced in this batch, batch four. This is an annual release for us, so this is Every year we make a little bit more. We have about 450 barrels of it aging now. So we should be able to expand that in the future in Baltimore and we plan on making more of it. We really like the uniqueness of it and plan on continuing to produce it.

And you tweak the blend a little bit, you change it out just a little bit each time.

Every time the barrels, the way they get blended together, they're a little bit different. Sure. And they're a little older typically, and it's not every year is going to be something unique.

And somebody who wanted to sort of follow this series, it's not something that's going to set them back $100 a year or thereabouts. We won't promise them that the price will stay the same forever. Certainly, it's a hundred dollar bottle today and they could expect it to be somewhere near that next year, I would imagine. It's something nice to follow if you really enjoy this whiskey. It's a great looking box. I could see these lined up on a shelf, you know, and just with each bottle being a little bit lower than the next one, right? Until you end up with like a full bottle that just came in. Absolutely. That's fantastic. Tell me a little bit about, okay, so McBrayer started well before E.H. Taylor, in fact supplied him some whiskey, but that business eventually bumped up against prohibition, I'm sure.

Yeah. W.H., he passed away in the 1880s, about 1888, I believe it was. And then his son-in-law took over the distillery. It was D.L. Moore. He willed it to his grandchildren. D.L. Miller kept the distillery running for another 10 years before the Whiskey Trust bought it. And so Julius Kessler and the Whiskey Trust owned the Cedarbrook brand. you know, they shut the distillery down during Prohibition. However, the brands, Cedarbrook as well as Old McBrayer, both continued through Prohibition. So the McBrayer brands were part of Kentucky Bourbon for over 130 years. Wow. When they were last owned by National Distillers producing it, once National Distillers sold to Jim Beam, Jim Beam let our trademarks expire. And then About 12 years ago, I learned this story and became obsessed with it and decided to resurrect our family legacy.

That's fantastic. You know, I assume they allow trademarks to expire because they just become obsolete. The name is no longer known by the generation that's buying whiskey, and they don't see the need to keep it going. But it's really nice when a future descendant of the family can run across that. And when did you guys run across it?

Yeah. It's kind of a long story, but we'll tell the best we can. So you want to tell them when you used to give old McBrayer away?

Well, back in, I guess, in the 70s and 80s, I was had a construction equipment business and rental sales and rental business. And I would give it out to my customers, which was basically in the construction type guys were drinking bourbon and whatever that type of thing. But they were. And I would, so I ran across it one day in a liquor store and I said, Oh, that's McBrayer, but it was down on the bottom shelf. It was down there on the bottom shelf. And of course it was distilled right there in Cincinnati. And, and I thought, well, I, I'll buy some of this and give it to my customers. And so I said, Oh, it's got my name on it and everybody liked it. Then the next year I'd go around and, They'd say, Bill, that was really generous of you, but my guys really don't like that. He said, you know, they're Jack Daniels and old granddad and that type of thing back in those days in the 70s and 80s. And so I come to find out it was mostly natural grain spirits at that time or 50%. And so Everybody had a bottle because it had our name on it, but that was about it. There's a lot of them around that are not opened, especially in the McBrayer clan around the country. So that was the end of that story. Then when they sold it and moved out and I guess it ended up over in Indiana.

So it was about 12 years ago, I was looking for colleges for my daughter. And we were talking about Center College here in Danville. And I was telling him about it. He said, well, you know, the McBrayers gave some money to that college. And I was like, who are you talking about? He said, it was the McBrayer and the whiskey business. And I just remember the story from being a kid that old McBrayer was rock good nasty whiskey from the 70s and no way I drank it. So I was looking for the McBrayer scholarship at Center College and didn't find one. happened to Google McBrayer whiskey and Jack Sullivan on pre pro.com had written a blog post about WH McBrayer, the judge of good whiskey. And I read the story and I got obsessed with who he was and the brands and probably didn't work for six weeks and got pretty obsessed with resurrecting the family brand.

I got a call from, uh, from his wife and said, we need to do an intervention. He's obsessing with this, with this, uh, bourbon history and, uh, and the McBrayers and, and he's being excessive compulsive about it.

So call all the family members together. We got a job to do here. Exactly. Sounds like you won over everybody.

I did. I told my wife, I said, honey, I think I'm going to get in the bourbon business. And she said, really? And I said, yeah, I don't know anything about it. So I'm just going to drink a bunch of it and figure it out. And that's how I got in the bourbon business.

Fantastic story. That is so great. All right. Well, I've got just a little bit more of this in my glass. We're going to continue sipping through the break. And when we come back, you've got another expression for us. And a lot more about Book Breher, Legacy Spirits. Thank you, Jim. 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, so we're back. We had a nice little break there. We've got to continue sipping on that WH McBrayer. 106 proof whiskey. Fantastic. I mean, again, it drinks lighter than 106. It definitely does, but it's got a nice wash of sweetness, a great nutty. You brought up the nuttiness of it. The yolk is definitely coming through from the seven year, a little bit of tobacco note. You know, for 106 proofer, I think it's wonderful. And for $100 and a great presentation box like that, I think it's a good deal. People ought to check it out. But you've got another whiskey for us here in the second half. So what do you have for us?

Yeah, this is our Cedar Brook release. We release this one in the fall every year. This is last year's expression. You folks had Old MacBrayer on here just a couple of weeks ago, so we thought we'd talk a little bit about Cedar Brook in the second half and this particular whiskey.

And let's just refresh everybody about the Old McBrayer. That is the Bottled and Bond.

That's our Bottled and Bond. That one is also currently available on our website. We call that our movie bourbon. That one's been in movie Untouchables and Deadwood and several different movies. We were able to resurrect that. that particular label from the early 1900s. That was actually started by J.H. McBrayer, John McBrayer over in New Market, Kentucky. William Harrison later bought the distillery, sold it to his distributor, which was WW Johnson out of Cincinnati, who later sold it to E.H. Taylor. Old McBrayer was actually made here in Frankfort in the early 1900s at Castle & Key. Oh, fantastic. But we're drinking the Cedarbrook now. This one's going to be our Cedarbrook today.

OK. So tell me the specifics on the cedar brook.

So this is a weeded mash bill. We sourced this one. It's a 21% wheat, 9% barley. It was only five barrels that we put together just to reintroduce the brand to our legacy club. It sold out in three hours. It is at 100 proof. Wow.

Three hours, three hours.

I have a lot of upset legacy club members. I guess so.

What are you getting on that one? A little bit, a little bit more floral. I think it's got kind of a little bit of a minty note to it.

Yeah. Maybe a, um, uh, we get, I get a little bit of an apple note, maybe green apple. Yeah, sure. Green apple. Green apple. Sure. Right. A little bit of pepper.

I'm not getting it on the nose, but I might get that on the palate. Yeah. I have a hard time picking the peppery notes up on my nose. I don't know. I'm getting older guys. It's just, it's rough. Cheers. Yeah. Cheers. Oh, that is really nice. It presents sweet at first, but it's got kind of a drying effect on the palette a little bit. As it goes back across the palette, you get kind of a little bit of tannin.

Yeah, it's pretty fun. When we have the opportunity for everybody to try all three, a lot of people like WH the best, a lot of people like Old McBrayer best, but a lot of people like the Cedarbrook as well.

I actually do like this. I like the contrast between the sweetness up front and the drying effect towards the back of the palate.

Do you prefer wheat over rye?

No, I usually prefer rye bourbons. I love rye whiskies, but when it comes to bourbon, I normally prefer rye bourbons. Now, why am I preferring a weeded bourbon right now? I don't know. This is just really good. It's not giving me that peppery note, though. I'm not really getting it. Uh, definitely, definitely getting the vanilla notes. There's the traditional bourbon notes are here. Um, but it is, this is more of a fresher, uh, more floral whiskey. Uh, what you said, this was a hundred proof and I'm assuming this is in the four year range. Yes. Okay. And this is non age stated because it is four year. Correct. Got it. And yeah, the great thing about whiskey companies that take their labels seriously, and I can tell that you guys really take your label seriously, is that you can read the label on a bottle and you can come to a pretty close conclusion on what you're getting ready to drink. You're not fooled by anything. And we've got a lot of distilleries out there that put out their whiskey and their labels make it through TTB. Shame on TTB. But you know, they're two and a half year old whiskey. They're straights, but they don't have an age statement on them.

Well, Cedar Brook was actually advertised by Julius Kessler as the most famous brand in the world in the early 1900s. So we only did so much that first release because we want it to get older and better before we really take it to the public. The Legacy Club loves it, but we're hoping that eight years, this becomes even better.

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about this Legacy Club. These are kind of your core fans, your core followers. This is something that people join. It's a repeat kind of business. Can you explain that to us?

Oh, well, we was looking at how we want to go to market being small. And so we decided that there's a lot of McBrayers around the country. And, you know, when we first started, it was a whopping 10 barrels we did. We didn't know where it was going to go. We didn't know what it was going to taste like or where it was going to go. But we decided that we would put it out there and basically... Sell one bottle to every McBrayer in the country, huh? Exactly, exactly. We sold our friends and family, if nothing else, and tried to build that legacy for the McBrayers. And then we, I guess we got the bug and we didn't want to put out anything less than four years. So we're trying to do the play the game the way it was supposed to be played, low and slow like barbecue, you know, so we put away 10 barrels and then the next year we put some more away and then the next year and the next year and of course we're contracting that to our own corn and so we were learning as we went and so we started building up a just join our club, and we've built it up now. I think we've got a pretty good following now. We're over 4,000 people in our club and growing every day. Whoa. That's serious. Yeah. And so that's building up a nice little customer base and growing from that. And we've talked about it. Will people continue to pay 20 bucks to have a bottle delivered? And we were having that discussion here not too long ago. And I said, well, you know, people are paying 10 bucks to have a hamburger. So, yeah, I think from delivery right to your door and you don't have to go find something you like and just have it delivered right to your door. I think you're OK.

I think it'd be fine, especially with 4,000 members. That's kind of validation right there.

Yeah, and it's growing every month. I mean, our membership is growing word of mouth and we're trying to, we're looking at our marketing, how we're going to be marketing and trying to grow that side of the business as well as eventually, you know, we're going to have to get into that retail space eventually. But every time I walk into the, to the liquor store that spaces keeps getting smaller, bigger and bigger and smaller and smaller at the same time.

Well, you're the first distillery we've had on the show whose brands are available through a very limited uh, method, which is, uh, join our club, uh, get something shipped to you or buy through our online retailer. You guys don't appear on shelves. You don't distribute through, um, multi multiple States. You're not, you're not out in the market yet. Is that in your future?

Yeah. I mean, the goal is to continue to grow. This is our hobby. Now we have 1300 barrels aging in our hobby. We recently purchased the land next to the old distillery site in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. We now have 130 acres to play with. And The goal is to continue to get, you know, get, get bigger, become sustainable, be a real business someday. And, but, uh, it's a slow process.

It sounds like it's working and I can just hear these echoes of Shark Tank. You know, these guys at Shark Tank saying, why would you ever build a building? What you're doing works. Right. But it's, it, you really want to get back to where McBrayer was before. And I understand that, but it's amazing that you've been able to build this business around, um,

you know, around sort of a, uh, an online business where we have a cult following and, um, it's a tough business, right? Learning this business, understanding how to have Barrow bourbon mate, how to blend it, how to get a bottle, how to take it to market, how to. put it in a, in a, in a box, you know? Um, but we've gotten better every year. We grow every year and, uh, you know, what started out as a hobby 12 years ago, I said, Hey, hurry up and retire. We're going to figure out how to make bourbon. And, uh, you know, now I want it to be my retirement gig. So I got to figure out how to make enough that I can at least have a retirement.

Yeah. And your children, are you think they're going to be in the business?

Oh, I have a 27 year old daughter. I have a son that's almost 24 and it's a pretty funny story, you know. They were pretty embarrassed when I was telling bourbon stories when they were teenagers, right? Oh my God, dad's talking about bourbon again. We need to put a muzzle on him, right? But what started out some crazy idea in my chair, you know, 10 years later, they get to see that it's real. And that's really cool. That's probably one of the most rewarding things that I think I've got so far from this business is my kids got to see something become real from an idea and you just keep working at it every day, right? And then you just keep getting better every day.

And that's a lesson in life and for kids to be able to watch their parents and grandparents create something, you know, create something from scratch and make it rid of something that's accepted and people, 4,000 people sign up for, it's tremendous.

Well, if our kids, if my kids, if they want to be in the business someday, they'll have that opportunity, but this is not for their burden. If they want to be in it, it's great, but they can go make their own way in life and when I'm ready to have some help, if they want to help, great. If they don't want to, that's okay.

there'll always be a bottle out of that barrel one waiting for him, right? Well, that's up to him.

That's up to you. You know, when we started this and I said, well, if we're going to do it, we have to do it right. Anybody can sell one bottle. it's selling the second and the third bottle. And that's the approach that we've taken that we're not going to cut corners and we're going to do it right. And we're going to learn as we go and try to seek out the best advice we can from the best people in the industry. And I have to say that we've had a lot of good help along the way and some good mentors that have helped teach us the business as well.

Well, you've certainly done something different than other people. You're out of the box just a little bit here. Like I said, we're almost 400 episodes and I've never had a distillery guest on before who operated their business the way you do. And it's just a testament to thinking out of the box, doing it a different way. You'll probably still end up in a traditional distillery at some point down the road and, but wow, what a beginning.

Well, it would be wonderful to be making McBrayer bourbon back in Lawrenceburg someday.

And that would be the hope. Yeah. And where was that? I mean, where in Lawrenceburg was that original?

Yeah. So, um, A couple things about McBrayer. He was the first judge in Anderson County, thus known as a judge. He was a state senator. He also put the railroad through Lawrenceburg in the early 1800s, 1880s. On this particular piece of property, it's just off of downtown Lawrenceburg, is the railroad line. And it's already been funded by the city to be a Rails to Trails project. So that trail is going to start at the future McBrayer Distillery. It goes about a mile over the Cedar Brook Viaduct Bridge looking down at the old distillery site and it's going to end at Wild Turkey. Fantastic. And so it's real close to his distillery site was real close to where the current Wild Turkey is.

I can really see that. That would be such a wonderful thing to take that walk from one distillery to the other down that rails to trails. Hopefully, it'll be an open carry. Do you hope so? Yeah, you could just carry a glass with you and when you get down to the other end, they'll fill it up for you. That's fantastic. So, this is really good. Let's get down to the specifics on the cedar brook again. This is 100 proof. You did go over the match bill?

Yes. It's 70 corn, 21 wheat, 9% barley.

It's a four-year-old whiskey, and this bottle is available for what price?

When this bottle comes out in the fall, because we're out of, we sold out last year, it's a $65 box. Okay. All right. Yeah.

So, so you got 4,000 people waiting for the fall release. Yes. Yeah. Well, by fall, we hope that's 5,000. Yeah. You need to get busy. My goodness. So, so you don't have any problem selling your stocks. You have a problem keeping up with demand.

We're typically sold out, yes. We are starting to have a little bit available on our website now, which is great. So when new people get to hear about us, we have something available for them.

So let's talk about the WH McBrayer versions that have preceded this one. So you've had, how many releases have you had of this? Oh, right now we're at the release number four.

Our first release was basically three years ago.

OK. And you've got another one coming out? Well, this one usually comes out in the spring for us. It's a spring release.

Yeah, once a year. Each release comes out once a year.

So you got 200 bottles of this left. People can still get it. It's probably going to be gone before the spring release comes out. So they shouldn't waste a whole lot of time. That's right. But they can't get the cedar brook until fall, until September.

Correct. That'll be our next release this fall.

And what about your old?

Old McBrayer is still available. We have a few Hunter bottles of that one left. We typically do that one around the holidays.

Okay. Well, good deal. So there's something on the website for them to get to now. Can you tell us where that website is? Sure.

You can get to us at McBrayerLegacySpirits.com. If you look at the spirits page, you'll see where you can order bourbon from there. Okay.

And you guys are on social media as well.

Yeah. We're also on Instagram and Facebook and, uh, you get to see some of the pictures of, um, some of our bottles, some of the different things we've done over the years and, uh, make sure you get out there and like us.

Yeah, definitely. And will you guys be doing any events this summer and fall?

Yeah, we'll be doing the Bourbon on the Banks here in Frankfurt in October, I think that is.

Yeah, that'll be our second year doing that one. Fantastic. We'll see you there for sure.

Yeah, we do Boots and Bourbon in Lawrenceburg a couple of weeks later. And right now, those are the only two we have on the books.

Awesome. Well, you're going to have to let me know when you start breaking ground out in, uh, in Lawrenceburg, that'll be a neat, that'll be a really neat thing. What, what do they have planned for the rails to trails? When's that going to happen? So that trail, the first phase just opened up a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah. And I was talking to some folks down there, uh, last week and they said the parking lot is full. Yeah, I can imagine everyone's enjoying it. And, uh, they put, they did a really nice job in that first mile out. to you get to the trestle. So that's where they, uh, the trestle is 800 feet long. So now the next phase is to raise enough money to, uh, redo the trestle so you can get over to wild dirty.

Well, fantastic. Well, gentlemen, I really appreciate you sharing your whiskey with me today. Sharing your story with our listeners. What a great business you've got going here. So unique. Your whiskeys are exceptional. But your sales plan, your marketing plan is absolutely unique, right? I mean, I hope people go to your website and sign up. And is this like a... a recurring thing, or they just go on, join the club, and then they can buy at will? Is that how it kind of works?

When they join the club, when we have a release, we send them a link with a password with the opportunity to buy first.

Got it. So if it's going to sell out, the ones on your list are going to get it first. They get first priority.

Fantastic. And for our West Coast customers, we hold back for them. We got in trouble one year. When they woke up, it was already gone.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, that's not good.

That's not good.

Well, I think it's great. And is there a cost to join that club or is it just like a newsletter kind of newsletter?

Yeah. Got it. So, and that's the thing that, uh, one of the things that we're going to be working on is get more content, get more, uh, information and more, keep telling the story and getting more, uh, uh, information out to them on a more regular basis. That's something we're going to be working on.

Awesome. Well, thanks again, gentlemen. It's been a blast. Jim, thanks for having us. Thanks, Jim. All right. Well, you can find The Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok. threads, all those places. Check us out, follow us. The best thing for you to do though is, you're listening to us right now, you're on some podcast app, scroll up to the top of that app, hit that subscribe button, that way every single week when an episode comes out, you'll get that little notification on your phone or on your computer to tell you that... Jim and the Bourbon Road has dropped another episode. You don't want to miss one. Every week we're having somebody great on like Bill and Bill Sr. and talking about their wonderful whiskey and drinking together and having a good time, having a few laughs. Sometimes we've got on non-whiskey people. We'll have musicians on and, you know, authors, all kinds of great stuff. Check us out every single week. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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