406. Hello Again Whiskey Friends

Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon. And I'm your host, Todd Ritter.

We've got a great show for you today. So grab your favorite pour and join us.

Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival. We have got a great event planned for you this year. I can't wait to tell you all about it. Hang out for the half and I'll give you some more details. I hope to see you October 5th on the Banks in Frankfort, Kentucky.

So welcome back to the Bourbon Road Show. If you've listened to some of the recent episodes lately, you've heard me talk about these bunch of guys that I guess I met a few years back. I am their executive producer of their Whiskey Tube Show that you can find on YouTube. And so these guys are my good friends, the Hello Again Whiskey Friends YouTube channel. And thanks for coming on to the show. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us, buddy.

No problem.

No problem. So we'll go around the circle kind of, and you guys introduce yourself and let the good folks know where you're from.

I'll go first. I'm Kelsey Dime from Foresmith, Arkansas. So a little bit further Southwest than most of these guys and yourself.

Yeah. And then I'm Jeff Wack. I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio, originally from Dayton, Ohio. So, I've been a Midwestern here my entire life.

And to close it off, I'm Darrell Stewart, hailing from the littlest state in the Union over here in Rhode Island, guys. Nice, nice.

So, one of the first things we always do on the Bourbon Road is we have a pour. I chose four bottles tonight to sip with you guys and hopefully we'll get around to them. If not, well, there's always next time. The first thing I'm having tonight is a discovery from Bardstown and this particular discovery is a batch nine. What are you guys having?

Yep. So I pulled a change up on you. I kept it on the same theme, Todd, but I'm actually going to go with the 80 HD whiskey blend from Bardstown here. So I've still got a little bit of it left. I actually still owe you a sample of this, Todd, because I know you sampled a lot of years away, including a sample to me before I knew I was going to get a bottle. But that same day that Discovery 9 came out, Matt Porter was also at this at Bardstown doing this blend. So I felt that that was a proper setting as well.

Yeah, that's great.

Well, I just finished my ADHD when I had to pull out a disco six that I grabbed while at Bardstown. So I'll be sipping on that to start.

So Kelsey, we'll start with you and then we'll go around the circle again. So how did your bourbon journey kind of start?

It started with scotch, actually. I got into scotch and scotch got so quote unquote expensive that I could buy two to three bottles of bourbon for one bottle of scotch. And so From then, I just basically started to try different things and really fell in love with how bourbon came across and the differences in proof points, whereas scotch was pretty much, you know, pretty close at that. What was available to me was, you know, at that lower proof level. So I wanted to try something different. I tried Irish and scotch and then I went on to bourbon. So that's kind of where my bourbon journey started about four and a half years ago. OK, nice.

What about you, Darrell?

Oh, God, I'm kind of in a similar boat to you, to Kelsey, like started off with scotch in the beginning, probably around like 2019, 2020. Honestly, didn't know what bourbon was until like COVID hit. Like I walked into a local store. I used to buy a lot of scotches from. And he introduced me to Redemption 9 year barrel proof. That was my first barrel proof, first like true bourbon that actually said bourbon on the bottle. Cause I used to drink like Jack and Coke and all that stuff. But yeah, first true bourbon, 108 proof, burned my mouth, thought it was the hottest thing ever. You know, then just slowly, you know, built up a palette, started trying more things and You know, 108 proof now, you know, going back to that bottle, you know, isn't what it was. It's still really good. You know what it took? It took a few years. You know, but it's a fun journey, you know, seeing where you were when you first started drinking whiskey versus where you where you become, you know, where I'm at now. It's it's pretty nuts to think back. And it's only been a short four years. Do you sell that bottle? I literally just finished that bottle about less than two months ago, and it was, yeah, for probably four and a half years old. Wow. And my first.

For me, it's a little different road. I did start with Scotch. So I will say that. So that's a very similar origin story there. But I was a big beer guy. So I used to go around the country collecting beers, getting growlers of beers, all those type of things, wherever I could go. And all of a sudden I found myself weighing about 250 pounds and I was debating, what the heck did I do to make myself weigh 250 pounds? And I had one of those apps where you can scan a barcode and look at the calories or something. And there was one night where I was scanning the barcode of an IPA I was sipping on that was 300 calories. And I just kind of looked at myself like, crap, I just had three or four of those. That probably explains what's going on in this problem. So I ended up leaning into whiskey about, gosh, eight, nine years ago now. And Very strange to say that i leaned into whiskey for weight loss purposes but it didn't work for me now i didn't expect within that journey to like fall in love with whiskey for me it was just maybe it's just better to drink alcohol this way if i'm gonna keep drinking alcohol. But slowly but surely, bottle after bottle, I was like, wow, I'm falling in love with this. And I usually go a little too deep whenever I fall in love with something. And next thing you know, there's a bottle coming home every other day as I'm discovering different flavor profiles. So that's when I went off the deep end and haven't gotten off that diving board since.

Right, right. Your story is very similar to mine. I mean, craft beer was kind of my jam as well because But yeah, those calories, whoo. Yeah.

They start adding up. Yeah.

So how did you guys kind of meet?

Who wants to take this? Really through Facebook. We met through Bourbon Junkies Facebook page and then we started sending through COVID and COVID hit, we started sending each other flights for us to meet together and just hang out and have something to do outside of the house that we've been stuck in for so long. So that's kind of how we all met. And then we would do that once a month and we kept getting closer and closer. We kept doing it closer and closer together because we kept wanting to do more and more. And so we and another guy named Garrett, Um, just went through bourbon, then we did Scotch. We did, Jeff tried to kill me a couple of times through Pete with Pete and Scotch, uh, that I found out I was allergic to, but didn't know until I drank it. So that's kind of how we all, we all met. And, uh, that's really the origin of this channel is just basically, you know, wanting to share our love for whiskey and experience it together. and letting each other experience things that we haven't because not everybody can buy every bottle that they see. And so we just traded samples of things that we thought were cool and taste it together and go from there.

Yeah, because my favorite part of that, my favorite part of that period was when Kelsey first Facebooked me and then messaged me like, hey, let's hang out. Kelsey's Facebook picture is of him and his wife. And I didn't know which one was Kelsey per se. So I was flipping through like, oh, let's hang out. I mean, OK, we'll just go into this. We'll just dive in head deep. And then when Kelsey came on, I was like, OK, OK, we're fine.

Yeah, I get that a lot. They see my name. They're not quite sure if it's a girl or a guy, but it's definitely a guy that's... It was a lot of fun, though. A lot of fun.

Yeah. As we were having that conversation with Dana, like, Dana, I'm going to jump online, but I don't know what I'm walking into.

Yeah. A little scary first, then you learned it wasn't too bad.

Jeff, you want to tell the folks how like I guess I had gotten into the club, so to speak.

Yeah, I mean, there was something about that particular time. I mean, I don't know. There was something about that lockdown period where everybody kind of insulated, but then started reaching out to each other through this whiskey community. That was real interesting. You know, I think I went through a period where Gosh, even in my early thirties, like didn't even realize it at the time, but maybe I wasn't meeting new people. You know, I had my work friends, I had my family friends, I had my high school and college friends. I didn't think about it. And then when we fell into this group and started reaching out more and more and making these connections, it became almost addictive in itself, meeting new people. So when we had a trip down in Kentucky planned across the Bourbon Trail, we had someone in our party drop out last minute. So we had all of these extra tickets across some of our experiences. And when we were in Bardstown, I was reaching out to people like Jason C. Like, who should I invite? Who's in the area? I think you know. There was like three or four people that said, reach out to Todd Ritter, reach out to Todd Ritter. Now, we knew Todd anyway, because Todd won Blendageddon soon before that. and beat many of us in Blendageddon. So I knew the name Todd Ritter, but we'd yet to meet Todd Ritter. So we invited him to come with us to Bardstown, come with us on these different distillery experiences. And lo and behold, my entry memory of Todd will forever be him walking down the sidewalk at Bardstown and essentially ripping off his shirt Superman style to reveal his Blendageddon champion t-shirt. So that's going to be my origin story. I actually don't know now how much of that is embellished. That's just how it lives in my head. I'm pretty sure every piece of that is completely real.

Good times, man. It was my first trip to Kentucky, too. Well, not too, but first time for me. I know you've been there a bunch of times, but. It was something about that first trip, you know, meeting everybody and the experiences that we had, the tours that we did, just everything about that was just a really, really, really fun trip. You know, and got to meet Mr. Ritter over here for the first time, seeing that quarter for the first time over there, just walking by, blending whiskey like just a crazy and crazy weekend.

More importantly, Todd, why did you make it? Why did you take a chance on us?

Uh, you know, you get in those like live chats a lot. So, you know, I don't know, you seem like normal guys. He seemed friendly and you know, I mean, I know that sounds odd when you're just looking at text and you know, but I don't know. And then you guys had made a few appearances here and there.

So, took the chance.

Yeah. So, um, so, you know, like you said, we've all kind of met through the whiskey tube universe, if you will. But, um, so, you know, you guys are kind of, kind of like new boys on the block. I mean, you've been going a little over a year, correct? Coming up on two years.

Yeah. Two years in September.

Okay. So, um, what, Who had the idea to start the YouTube channel? And I mean, did you guys get encouragement or any guidance from any other YouTubers or anything like that?

That's a good one for Jeff. Well, I mean, it's a whole combination of things. First off, we were doing the Zooms every month anyway, as Kelsey already laid out. So we were already having conversations similar to this every single month. So at some point, You know one of the things that was real important to me I don't do well feels this way to Kelsey jumped on sometimes but it was to get to know more and more people in these late night pubs started popping on either with a live wire whiskey or with bourbon over on whiskey and censored. few other channels do it now too. But just getting to know people, it almost became like the basement and these Zoom calls became like a form of cheers. So that's kind of the origin. And then eventually, Darrell and I were like, ah, let's just do it on Instagram. So then we just took it over to Instagram. Then Kelsey's like, wait, I want in. So then Kelsey came on. And then just week after week after week, we were doing our Zoom calls instead on Instagram on a weekly basis. Now, a lot of people got really frustrated with the Instagram interface. You know, particularly Shayla over at Whiskey Central. And she was just like, I really don't want to watch you on Instagram anymore. Come over to YouTube. Just make the leap. So essentially, there was some point where she double dog dared me. I think there was a little pinky promise. And then the next week we were over on YouTube rather than Instagram.

Yeah, there's a it's kind of funny, like when I watch WhiskeyTube, it's kind of like it reminds me of like the Mike Myers, you know, when they're just doing.

Oh, shoot.

The show from Aurora, Illinois, you know, it's kind of like everybody's like Wayne's World in it kind of vibe. So I like it. So about how many subscribers are you guys up to now?

2300 ish, I think. OK. Right around that number.

So, Darrell, tell me, if somebody that's listened to the Bourbon Road, if they follow your channel, what can they expect to see during the weekend? Also, you guys can talk a little bit about your live show that you do on Wednesday nights.

Yeah, for sure. For us, it's a little different, I guess, than most of the regular channels that some people may watch. There's three of us, three different personalities, perspectives, and takes on whiskey. So throughout the week, there's daily videos and reviews and just discussion topics that we all go through. And every Wednesday, we like to hold a live. Our thing has always been collaboration. You know, so it was big for us to collaborate with the friends that we made already within the whiskey community. So kind of just follow suit like every Wednesday, if not collaborations, you know, we're just doing stuff amongst ourselves, which we always did. But we just try to incorporate everybody, you know, that has channels, some that don't have channels just to kind of keep that ball rolling, you know, and just stick to what We've done, you know, like for us, it's always just been hanging out, you know, amongst ourselves and just having fun. So we kind of just, you know, keep it fun. You know, for us, it's not the whole subscribers and the money made. It's just doing what we love doing, sharing whiskey amongst each other and amongst, you know, those who kind of really haven't had the chance to try certain things.

But do you guys know how many reviews you've done since you started your channel? Off the top of your head?

That I don't know off the top of my head. What about you, Jeff? You got an idea?

It depends how you define it. I would say that we have probably somewhere around 200 to 250 video reviews. We also keep a catalog behind the scenes where we review things essentially in a Google form. that I set up where we can fill out these different metrics and it gives us what our final score is on each whiskey. I think there's about 400 to 500 reviews there, which is some stuff that I plan to leverage later. And then, gosh, even further than that, you can find me even on Distiller back when I used to do reviews there. And there's probably like 500 on Distiller every now and then someone still follows me on Distiller. And it's like, I don't do that anymore. Stop following me.

Oh yeah, I was on that for a little while and I was like, I don't like this.

But we've logged quite a few at this point and we go over those scores, we compare the scores. Now that we're starting to like have about two years worth of history in that scoring system too, it's like, what did you do to batch one? What did you do to batch two? What did you do to batch three? It gets real interesting the more that we keep those things logged.

All right, I think I'm going to go in for my second pour. And this one is so special to me because this one I did with you and Darrell. Sadly, Kelsey wasn't there. It's the hard truth sweet mash rye pick who we did with the mash and journey. And that was such a fun day.

Not that I'm jealous at all that I was left out, but It is a fantastic bottle, by the way. I did get to taste it, so.

But let's be honest, you can I mean, you can tell the folks where you're at right now and tell them what you're going to do tomorrow. So talk about jealous.

I'm sitting in I'm sitting in Kentucky waiting to do a wild turkey pick tomorrow. So that's going to be lots of fun. And not just one. Right. Yeah, we're going to do two rustles. And also, I didn't know this, but we're going to get to be able to pick a rare breed dry pick.

So. Oh, shoot. I didn't even know they were doing single barrels of that.

Yeah. So speaking of jealousy, even though I just I did a pick there not too long ago. So but you're doing three. So it's kind of overload.

And that's super cool. I need to make that's one place I need to make it to one of these days. Like starting to dive down that turkey road myself. And that's been very recently. So. Got to make it out there one day for sure.

Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong again with Bourbon on the Banks Festival. Thanks for waiting to hear the details about our event this year. I'm so excited. I want you to come into Frankfort, Kentucky on October 5th. We're going to celebrate along the banks of the Kentucky River. We've got over 70 distilleries this year. You get your sample glass and you get to go to town. Here's a real quick rundown of the events we've got going on. Thursday, we've got Mixology on the River with O.H. Ingram and Heather Wibbles. After that event, you can head out to Whiskey Thief Distilling for our official kickoff party. Friday, you can indulge in a bourbon pairing with no other than Peggy No Stevens. Freddie Johnson's going to join her for the fun and you're going to be tasting some buffalo trace. Then get dressed up for our VIP reception and bourbon auction, courtesy of Whiskey Thief Distilling. You have a chance to bid on your very own barrel pick experience from both Whiskey Thief and Four Roses Distillery. And don't forget, if you're bringing your family, you need to head downtown on Friday night at about six o'clock because we have got an amazing free, family-friendly event brought to you by X-Free Credit Union. We've got fire performers, acrobats, street performers, music, food, tons of free activities for the kids. The main event, of course, is on Saturday, October 5th. This year we've got over 70 distilleries to sample from, which is included in your ticket price. We've got bourbon-themed merchants, live music, delectable food, and the event promises to be unforgettable. I want you to go to bourbononthebanks.org to get all the details for all the events we've got going on. Some are ticketed, some are free, but I guarantee you're going to have a great time here in historic downtown Frankfort, Kentucky. Bourbon on the Banks Festival brought to you by Limestone Farms.

So welcome back to the second half of our show. We're my good friends, the Hello Again Whiskey Friends crew. And so we're just having a few pours and talking about how they got into being a YouTube channel. So I'll go around. We'll go around the table again on this question. I was just kind of wondering, What, what do you guys think is the best part of whiskey tube?

Um, I guess the, yeah, I'll start. I think the best thing that I can say about whiskey tube is that you meet genuine people that love the same things that you love, but also can expand your palette, but also, um, while doing that, creating such a sense of community. and how they basically just are salt of the earth type of people. I mean, people like yourself and Scott and Jason from Mash and Journey, Whiskey Club, and all kinds of people from the YouTube community. It's just one big family. It's just like you meet new family members every time you hang out or every time you go to a different event, you find a new family member that you didn't know you had type of thing. Um, I think that's probably the thing that I enjoy the most is just the camaraderie and how the whiskey to channel, uh, channels come together and really, um, it's not a competition. It's everybody supports everybody else. It's just, it's a really big family.

What about you? Oh, I can take it. For me, it almost touches on the same the same points. It's always been. just the hangouts, the people. For me, I don't have people that really drink whiskey here. Now that it's been a few years, I found a couple people local to me that I can have a pour with. But outside of that, when I first got into this journey, it was just me. So like Jeff mentioned earlier, jumping on pubs and such. That's what got me drawn in. Being able to hang with somebody, have a pour, not feel that I'm drinking by myself at my house, and just enjoying having a good time with some super, super genuine people, man. This community is absolutely insane. Everybody's great. Can't really talk highly or more higher of it, man. It's just been a very good experience. You know, like I said, I just I love just meeting new people, old friends, new friends, new faces. You know, it's just a blast.

And for me, I guess it started out more as a means of education. So every night, you know, kind of circa 2017, 2018, 2019, whenever I would find a new bottle, I would Buy it over, pry at the party source over by me. Bring it home and Google search on YouTube who did reviews of it and walk through their tasting notes. Try to drink through it side by side with them. See if I could pick up the same notes. And there was a period there where I was just like, you know what? These guys are crazy. Like, what are they talking about? This doesn't taste like anything. It just tastes like burning. And there was some poor, I think it was circa 2018, where I was drinking a rare breed wild turkey at the time, listening to, I think, Scott over at my bourbon journey, going through the same thing. And there was just like this aha moment, like, oh, I got exactly what he was talking about. And then I got kind of addicted to it after then and that kind of set up my own mental dictionary as I slowly connected the dots between the flavor notes and what I was tasting and almost walking through reviews with Jason C, with the Bourbon Junkies, with Scott, so many. Scotch test dummies, I can't let those OGs go without being said because I washed off quite a bit of them. But those early years were really my foundation. And then, yeah, as Darrell said, then the pub started, getting to know people became a possibility. And then that all flowed into me into Whiskey Weekend Batch 3, where I got to see people in 3D for the first time. And I knew I wanted to know people before I went there. And it was a bit overwhelming at first, just walking in someplace where you never met people before, but knowing 100 people, 200 people. Yeah, this last event I went to for the bourbon junkies, it felt like I knew half the people there somehow. And then you're trying to recall everyone's names that you see, you know, a couple of times a year, you're typically drinking. So your mind's not recording those names too well. But getting to know all those people and that camaraderie around that is just absolutely amazing. I think it's like this perfect latter half of life adventure to get to know all these whiskey friends all around the country. I just think it's amazing.

Yeah, I think one of the real cool things that I've seen on WhiskeyTube is how that community can come together in times of need. Jason does his blend again and also ties that into a fundraiser and that kind of thing for St. Jude's. You know, and then, you know, even throughout you even had a little bit of a time where, you know, things got a little rough for you guys. And it seemed like, you know, once again, the whiskey tube community kind of rallied around you and, you know, showed you some love. Can you can you talk about that a little bit?

Yeah, certainly. Yeah, it's it's nuts even thinking of it, right? Like because we've been a part of so many different like You know events and just giveaways and just charity never honestly thought that I would be on a receiving end nor really even asking for help in that nature. But yeah, that community. left me and my family with a crazy, crazy charity event to help out with some medical costs for my daughter, Navia, at the time. This is last September that we're talking about. Yeah, just finding out some really, really bad news. Never really wanting to hear that your child's very sick at any point. know because it's it's tough like you sit there and normally you can just give medicine right or you know anything to really help them out but when you kind of left you know with your hands tied you know at the mercy of you know time and doctors and you know it's it's scary but um wasn't sure how I was going to be able to combat it, you know, work. Well, not working at the time my wife was working. Just it was a very, very expensive. I guess. Time for us, in a sense, right, because we didn't know how long we were going to be doing treatment for. But yeah, the community man came together, put on. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Todd.

I was just going to say, plus, you know, our listeners might not know you are the father of six.

I am the father of six on your on your table, so to speak. You have six little ones. Well, I guess not so little for some of them. But yeah, aging from 15 down to two, you know, and we found out the news about maybe as she was five at the time, six now. But. Yeah, like I said, that community man was just amazing. One one stream, you know, raised just about 50K. Actually, I want to say it eclipsed 50K. Then Jared over at Barrow King, you know, called me up one time talking about, hey, he wants to donate a barrel for the cause. And I'm like, wait, what? You know, I just kind of like dumbfounded at the generosity of some people and like a lot of these people that helped. They know who I am by name and maybe by face by hopping on a stream. But a lot of them I've never met in person, you know, and for somebody to really go out their way and to donate, you know, for somebody that they really don't know was just it was kind of mind boggling. Like, I know I've done it, but like just to be on that receiving end of, you know, God, it was over probably a thousand donations. And I would say maybe I knew what, 200 of them, maybe if that. You know, like, it's a tight-knit community for us. But yeah, just seeing, you know, the wealth of donations come in from just people that I've never heard of, you know, it's just absolutely crazy. Like, to touch on Jared, man, donating a whole barrel, you know, that raised an additional $40,000 to help us out with all these medical costs was just amazing. Amazing. Like he actually just reached out to me a couple of days ago just to check in and see how everything was going, man. But just a super, super genuine guy. You know, love their company, love their whiskey, love them. You know, just the community itself, man, I can't. Can't say how blessed I am to have each and every one of them, you know, because they came together for me at a very tough time and, you know, helped us kind of push through it. And, you know, now the little ones in remission as of May 17th, you know, with lots of help from from all you guys. So I appreciate everybody.

It's awesome. So, I mean, obviously you guys put a lot of time, money and effort into this venture. So one of those ways you offset a little bit of your cost is through Patreon. Could you guys, Jeff, could you talk a little bit about how your Patreon works?

Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate everyone helping us through the early days of building up this channel. I mean, we came into this without any equipment, just our knowledge and our enthusiasm for this category. And so many people supported us throughout the ways here. And, you know, we try to find ways to give back to them. You know, an example will be some whiskey friend coins that are just about to go out here, some challenge coins. That's just an example that say original whiskey friends on them. And they're going to be numbered, you know, for all time, you know, on who supported us in these early days. Before our Patreon, initially it was helping support the creators, build the content, and put the reviews out there and build up the channel. This second phase that we're now going to go through, which is really exciting, is getting into barrel picks. So even within probably the next week of this recording, we're going to have our first big release. It's going to be a backbone experience. And our Patreon is going to be the first ones to get those access to those bottles. And we have other ones in the queue as well with with Blue Note. with a holding station over there at Old Dominic. So that'll be a way that we can give back to those that supported us is to try to go out there, find great whiskey, bring it back to them. So that's going to be kind of our main mechanism there. And then we just find ways to do giveaways and find other ways to just keep sharing and having a good time throughout all this as well.

We kind of failed to mention where I think we're all sipping on some hard truth we all picked about. I guess it's been maybe last summer?

Yeah, it's been the last May.

Yeah. So we picked that with Jason and Scott of Mashin Journey. And yeah, so really killer pick. That was a lot of fun that day. We got to ride around on the four-wheelers out. out through the treacherous trails, I guess you could call those.

Yeah, that was that was a good time. I want to say that's probably my all time favorite experience in distillery that I've really been to. You know, just everything about that place was, you know, a one when we were there, man, the whiskey, the people, the grounds, the tour, just how they treat you. in general was just fantastic, man. It was a good pick and sipping on that now with you and forgot actually how good it was, to be honest.

It's tasty. Yeah. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

See, I cheated. I also poured the barrel can.

Okay, nice. Could do a little blend to get in there. What's been your like that now that you guys have started doing your own barrel picks, what's been like one of the experiences you guys have done that's really kind of like that was a lot of fun, like on your own barrel pick. Sure. Been a favorite.

In terms of experience, how many? Well, we haven't really done many to get together. I think the only ones all three of us did together were a juke joint in Holland station that we did recently. And backbone. Oh, shoot. Yeah, the backbone, too. What am I doing? I'm forgetting about backbone. What was my favorite? Trying to think you guys can touch base, too, if you have one off the top of your head. I mean, I can jump in.

I mean, backbone backbone was a bucket list pick for me anyway. I mean, I've been to I've been into M.G.P. for a very, very long time. You know, back when I was getting into bourbon in general, I just kept coming across sourced bottles. And every time I would buy one, I'd come back and be like, distilled in Indiana, distilled in Indiana, distilled in Indiana. I just had a knack for finding MGP and loving it. So backbone was always definitely bucket list for me. The one that sticks out, though, is really going to be this old Dominic. that we have as well. We are one of the last groups, one of the last four actually, that is going to have a single barrel of their 44% rye coming out of MGP. Now, what sticks out to me isn't just the fact that we went to that experience, they treated us like family, we got to see this amazing distillery in Memphis. Also as we went through all the mgp pics they introduced us to their own distillate and it's always interesting seeing any brand try to make that transition from sourcing to their own thing and. At first we were a little like. Oh, we're just really here for these hauling stations. But when they actually let us try their cast strength, old Dominic, we were loving that too. So we haven't done a pick for that yet. But darn, if that's not in the back of my head to go back to Memphis and hang out with old Dominic, because their own distillate, which is also 44% rye bourbon, is really, really good whiskey. And I think it's something that we should talk about even more so than the MGP.

Yeah, that cash run stuff that they're doing is... I was just going to touch base really quick on that. That was a really, really pleasant surprise when I was down there. I wasn't expecting their whiskey, their own distillate to taste as good as it was. So I got some high hopes and just curious where it takes them. It was, I think, six or seven years, the one that we tried. And it's just really, really, really good stuff. And I think they're only going to get older from what I remember. I think them saying, you know, so, yeah, really curious to see what that is in the next few years. But, you know, they got they got some really good stuff on their hands right now.

You guys touched a little bit on some of your. one of your favorite distilleries being MGP. What are some other distilleries out there that you're kind of excited about or that have come, you know, you said, Oh, Dominic really surprised you. Are there any other, any other distilleries out there that are kind of making, making waves? Obviously hard truth would be another one that's kind of really impressed you guys.

I would say Ben Holiday is one that's on my top list right now. Um, we just got our, bottles, or we'll be getting our bottles this week from Mashing Journey's picks of Ben Holiday. They did a bourbon, rye bourbon, and then a weeded bourbon. And so these are seven-year-old picks that are coming out in That was a really cool experience for me to get to do that. But also it was an eye-opening experience as far as how their distillate tastes just by itself, but also the process that they're going through, meeting their master distiller, tasting some of their older stuff that we got to taste that's even older than that as well. And it's only going to get older there. So that's one for me. would be that's newer on the horizon as well as JT Mellott out of Louisiana doing rice whiskey, which there's not very many people doing rice whiskey and there's definitely not anybody doing it that well. So those would be my two.

Thorell, my stuff.

For me, There's a couple different, I guess, categories we can talk about. But just heritage stuff for me, it's always been like Heaven Hill. I'm a sucker for them. And MGP as well. But outside of that, you hear us talk about hard truth a lot. For me, hard truth and what NBC got their hands on in terms of bourbon barrels, it's just crazy. But hard truth is probably my number one the distillery outside Heritage brands. Like I said, I love every single thing that they're doing over there. Minus one whiskey that's just okay for me. But outside of that, dude, everything they put out is just crazy good. Even their new make. When can you really say that about a brand like the new makes actually good? So I am very, very excited to see where this distillery is at in the next three or four years. I think they're in all honesty, I think they're going to be probably the best In my opinion, I think the best rye on the market in the next two or three years. I don't think anything is going to be really touching it, especially stuff that's going to be readily available for most consumers. This stuff is incredible right now at two years, three years old. And they said they're just going to keep pumping the age up, man. So five, six-year-old stuff from them, I think is just going to be absolutely stellar. And I can't wait.

Yeah, that's true.

Jeff or myself? You know, I think that's been one of the pleasures of this journey, at least in recent times, the last couple years. Watching some of these distilleries that probably started up right as I was getting into whiskey even. really mature and bring out great things that go toe to toe with some of those heritage brands. The ones that come to mind for me would be Driftless Glen, Middle West. I love everything coming out of Middle West. We keep talking about Hard Truth. We won't stop talking about Hard Truth. They got some amazing stuff. Gosh, even more. Oh, I'd be remiss to actually not talk about Still Austin. everything Nancy's doing over there. There's just been so many of those brands that I tend to find myself probably, gosh, 60-70% of the time I probably don't drink anything from the main heritage distillers. I drink things from all the brands that we're talking about and a lot of MGP too, but a lot of the smaller brands is what I get into and watching them grow. Oh, New Riff as well in my backyard. Gosh, I got to talk about New Riff. They've had one heck of a good year, but that's been the fun part is watching these brands grow from four year distillate, six year distillate, now eight year, 10 year distillate. It's just, it's amazing.

So we're about two thirds through 2024. be the, you know, for an eighth month. So, you know, you guys being reviewers, you guys tend to put out a kind of a top 10, top 25 list like most folks do. So I'm kind of wondering if there's any any bottles that have really stuck out to you guys this year that you've tried. And I know you guys do a lot of single barrels. So I did want you to exclude the single barrels because we all know single barrels can be mind blowing and pallet busting. So Kelsey, what do you got this year that you've been really excited to try?

For me, it's going to be a couple of different ones. One's a blend. K-Luke put out batch eight right now and it's probably one of the best blends I've tasted this year. And I also think it's a lot harder to do a blend than it is to select a single barrel. So that's been one of mine this particular year that's kind of stuck out. That's non-heritage distilleries. Even in the Heritage distilleries, there haven't been. I was talking to Scott tonight, even thinking this year is going to be a lot tougher not to come up with no single barrels and what releases we were impressed with. But that's probably been the one that stuck out the most to me this year, along with JT Melick's release of their Cast Strength small batch. Um, those would be the two I would go with this year.

So no Russell's 15, which you were kind enough to send me a porn.

I think Russell's 15 is a great, great release. Um, but I know we'll probably get some shade for putting it on. a list because people will say, well, that's great that you can get it, but I can't get it and can't taste it. So I'm trying to go with things that I feel like are more readily available that I was really impressed with.

I just introduced JT Melick to Jim last week and he was floored how good that was.

Yeah, it's a very surprising When you give that to somebody and ask them what they think it is and then you tell them that's rice whiskey, it just kind of floors a lot of people. It's got a really, really, really depth of flavor and a really good profile.

Darrell, what are some of your favorite pours from this year so far?

Ah, so if we're excluding single barrels, which are probably 90% of the top 10 whiskeys for me, I'm probably looking at, kind of mentioned it a second ago, the old dominant cash rent, their own distillate, that scored really, really high on our score sheet, man. That's a very, very good bottle and it's affordable. I think it's only 60 bucks or maybe $65. That's up there for me. What am I looking at? Fourgate, probably the Kelvin 6. The newest Kelvin from them, I think was a really, really good bottle. I can even put up, got the second batch of Camaro Malt from R-Truth. That was new for me. I grabbed that. They actually gave it to me when I was at the distillery back in, I think we were there in April, I believe it was. But that's another sleeper bottle. You know, the first one was really good. I think the second's even a little better. You know, and that says a lot for, you know, some very, very young whiskey to be up there. You know, but that that's a really, really good bottle. I know there's probably a few others that I'm missing in terms of non single barrels, but, you know, I can throw those three up there. What about you, Jeff?

Thanks. You know, a lot of those I agree with across the board, so I'll try to add two or three different ones that weren't talked about, but my number one so far is definitely the Bardstown Amroot. The Bardstown collaboration series for me, I stopped buying a few of them for a bit there, but man, there were so many great whiskeys just a few years ago, like the Chateau de Labade that really honed in on what Finnish whiskeys could be. Lately the prices and everything kinda kinda drew me off but then the am root came out and i got to sit that one and i fell in love with immediately i know that one is a bit more divisive especially the fact that it's a. Urban ride blend on top of the ride portion of it being finished in single mall barrels which can be a turn off for some people. But every time I drink that thing, I just get the 14 year turkey that just shines off of that and then all the other flavors from the single malt to the to the rye whiskey that's in there. It just takes me through all those layers. So I'm definitely going to highlight that one. And then the other one, I'll give props to a high bank over here in Columbus, Ohio. Each year, they've done a release called The Double Double, which is, again, actually interesting enough, a bourbon and rye blend. And those are both MGP components in that one. But then they finished them in New Oak twice. And then Adam over there does a blend of all those barrels to come up with the release. Absolutely adore that release. Came out in January. And I think you can still find it in places. Sometimes Sealbox still has that one. But don't sleep on some of those blends that High Bank does too. I think that though, kind of playing off of what Kelsey said, if you're going to take away the single barrel category in all of these lists, then I would instead pivot to all the amazing blending that's going out right now between the things that Nancy's doing. We talked about earlier. K. Luke is doing some amazing blending as well. High Bank. I mean, it almost feels like I'm starting to work up a list of masters stillers that I love and a list of blenders that I love as well, which isn't something you could say a few years ago.

Okay, that's a nice little list. And I got to agree on that Amroot. That really just blew my mind how good that was. It was a little apprehensive when I tried that. But man, it's like every time I sip that, there's something new there to me, it seems like. And that's the kind of pores I absolutely love.

So I appreciate you guys coming on the show with me.

You know, we've been good friends for a couple of years now and we get together on private chats a lot. And obviously you guys got to come down for last year's Bourbon on the Banks and man, that was a blast. But would you guys go ahead and let the folks out there know how they can follow you each and on the socials and all that good stuff and where they can find you on YouTube.

Find me at Kelsey Dime at Facebook and Instagram. And then you can always find us Hello Again Whiskey Friends on YouTube. Jeff? Yeah.

Also on Hello Again Whiskey Friends on Instagram. And Todd, thank you so, so much for having us on here tonight. You say that we we chat sometimes online, but, you know, we actually just chat daily with Todd. We love texting Todd just about everything.

Yeah, it's a whole lot of like, hey, guess what I found today? Yeah.

It's like my brother's. But as for myself, guys, the Whiskey Saints on IG, you know, a not collaborative whiskey channel. Hello again, whiskey friends. But can't thank you enough, Todd, like Jeff said. Now this is a blast. I know like we kind of do it pretty often on.

Yeah, my pleasure. Yeah, maybe a few years from now we can bring you back and you guys will have like, you know, 50,000 or 100,000 subscribers by then.

But take us some time to get there. But again, now we're having fun.

It was my pleasure. I've been talking about you guys since I kind of started hanging out in the show. It's easy to talk about, you know, the people you drink with and, you know, we might not be in the same room together, but On occasion, we'll meet up and private chats and have some pours. We're always sending pours back and forth to each other. I don't know if any of you guys have bought stock in UPS, but I feel like I probably need to.

Hand deliveries, Todd. Hand deliveries. Yeah, those are much nicer.

Well, you can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, threads, and sometimes even in the liquor store aisles. We do a show every single week that I usually drop on Wednesdays and sometimes we'll do reviews. Sometimes we'll talk to some folks from a distillery or sometimes we'll just call on some buddies like my good friends here and just chat about whiskey. So the one thing we're always doing though is having fun. So the best way not to miss an episode is to scroll up to the top of the app you're using and hit that subscribe button. That way every week you'll get that notification that another episode has dropped and you can join us on another adventure. So check us out every week, but until next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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