411. Kentucky Bourbon Festival 2024 Wrap-up

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.

All right, friends, we'd like to welcome you back again. It's Todd and I today, and we are doing the 2024 Kentucky Bourbon Festival wrap up. It's been a heck of a weekend and, um, my goodness, a lot of great whiskeys, a lot of fun times. Todd, you weren't able to join us this week. No, not this time, but you were doing something just as fun.

Yeah, I was in Savannah for about four days and it was a lot of great food. Obviously it was for a work conference, so a little bit of work, but a little bit of fun and time to go out with some of my coworkers and enjoy the food and just the Savannah atmosphere, which was amazing. Yeah. Highly recommend you stop in there if you ever get a chance. It's a beautiful town.

Yeah. Melody will have me in Savannah probably before this time next year, I think.

My only regret, or I guess the bad part was on the way home, I got stuck in the airport for about four hours on a delay. Our stewardess, stewardess for our plane ex, I guess she got sick and didn't report it until a little later. So yeah, next thing we know there was no backup and yeah, I was at the airport for an extra four hours, but it's the way it goes in these days.

Well, I managed to find a substitute for you and I found somebody to attend the the Kentucky Bourbon Festival with me and he's an old friend of the show, used to be a sponsor. And so I didn't have to go alone. Although, you know, we have so many friends down there anyway, I think I'd have been, I think I'd have been okay.

Yeah. I was going to say, I'm pretty sure you could have put an APB and probably had like a handful of folks be like, yeah, I'd love to go.

Uh, but Stanton Holder, uh, with, uh, Smokey's lifestyle cigars and, uh, pints and barrels, uh, was there with me all weekend. In fact, he came in from St. Petersburg, Florida and hung out here at the house all weekend. And we just bounced back and forth between the bourbon festival and, and here. And well, we had a grand old time. It was, it was a lot of fun, but the, the, the idea of the show today is, is we're gonna, we're gonna sort of talk a little bit about how Sort of looking back on the festival and kind of what we thought about it, both in terms of who showed up and what whiskeys were there to taste, as well as just some general feelings about the festival itself.

Yeah, because I've never been and it's like one of those things on the list, but just, you know. I felt like it was a really busy time and I didn't want to leave the missus home with both kids for like a whole week. So it was just bad timing, I guess.

Well, you know, in a nutshell, I wanted to come up with sort of three whiskies that I felt Kind of stood out a little bit at the show. Uh, whiskeys that had a flavor profile that was, um, captivated me or it really got my attention, uh, that the price was in the reasonable range, you know, kind of in the reasonable range. Uh, and you know, they had to be bottles that could be. uh, sourced at the event itself. So, um, you know, there were several whiskeys there that were just phenomenal, but you couldn't get them at the event. You had to actually go back to the distillery, wherever that distillery might be and go to their gift shop to get it. Or one of those examples was like, uh, limestone branch, you know, they had a really good whiskey there, but you had to go back to their distillery to get it because they, they didn't sell it at the event. You could taste it there, but you couldn't get a bottle of it.

That's interesting because it seems like a lot of those distilleries now usually tend to have like a special release for that event.

That was really a big thing this year was the fact that so many distilleries had, um, had picked specifically for this year's Kentucky bourbon festival. So, uh, and I think we're going to have at least one of those today, or we are going to have one of those today. The other two are normal releases, but we have one that was specifically for the event.

But I think we should get right to the whiskey. I'm with you. Are you, are you with me? Okay. So cheating nose in this one a little bit.

First, first on the list is from a whiskey company that I'm sure none of our listeners knows about. Right. Unless they were actually at this event. Right.

They do, but they don't kind of thing.

They do, but they don't. It was kind of a, a big announcement. It was part of a, like a one week or two week lead up to the event where you were getting teased with these emails.

A lot of suspense building.

A lot of suspense building. And, uh, but, but it was, you know, at 1230 on day one, on Friday at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, uh, Greg and Katie Keeley, you know, the owners of Lawrenceburg Bourbon Company announced their new whiskey company, actually a rebranding of their existing whiskey company to Leriken. Leriken is, I guess it's Leriken Bourbon Company, Kentucky. And Leriken is a kind of an Aussie term for

Somebody who doesn't follow all the rules sort of steps out of the box, bucks the system.

I mean, there's a lot of ways to say it, but of a rebel, a rebel, a bit of a rebel has a, you know, goes by their own plan. I mean, I could, I could read the definition and, but I think it's just better to kind of summarize it and say, it's just, it's just hilarious. Somebody who's just, they're on their own path.

Yeah. And it's, I think it's really cool that Greg's kind of doing this. You know, he's an Australian and when you meet him, he's very exuberant. So, and it's kind of nice. He's, you know, paying a little honor to his homeland in this way. So I'm very excited. I'm very excited to try this new bourbon that they've dropped. And yeah, they're, Yeah. I'm just very excited for them as a whole.

Oh, they went big. I mean, when you went to their tent, just outside their tent, they had like this 30 foot inflated kangaroo, just giant, colorful kangaroo just outside their tent with Lerkin across it.

And I was like, okay. Who is that?

I was like, I haven't heard of that one over there. And who was it talking to people?

It was Greg Keighley.

Yeah. But yeah, so what we have is their new release of the Lerkin Bottled and Bond. It's an eight-year-old Bottled and Bond. I know, that's exciting. So doubling their standard. Berman, so obviously 100 proof. uh, four years old minimum. This one's eight, which is great. Yes. Love that. Yup. Good spot. Um, but you know, all the rules follow single distilling season, single master distiller, all the barrels that go into the, into the batch have to be, have to meet those criteria. And then of course it has to be held and controlled within a bonded warehouse for the term of its production until it exits the barrel. And there's a lot of paperwork and things that go into that, but let's just say that Greg's kind of the master of paperwork. So I'm sure he did all, he dotted all his eyes and crossed all his T's on this. Let's check it out.

All right. I'm excited. Yeah. Cheers.

Oh yeah. Yeah. It's got a nice nose on it. And we'll talk a little bit about the sourcing of this.

I was going to say they're very upfront about it in this time. I mean, the Lawrence Berg brands were a little. Kind of a guessing game kind of thing in a lot of cases. I mean, you could figure some things out.

That was a great nose, a little bit of a kind of a cherry note in the back. Cherry banana. I've always, which is a clue to me to where it came from. I've always told that my nose just doesn't pick a banana very well.

It's like this sweet over ripe banana to me.

But it has this nice, uh, intense, okay. Kind of, uh, I'm not going to say, uh, yeah, extra aged a little extra age, right?

A lot of vanilla brown sugar.

Yeah. It's got a sweet note on it. It finishes. It does have a little bit of Ryan there.

It does knows really sweet.

It does. Yeah. I'm excited. I think it's a good proof for this, at least on the nose. Yeah. All right. Cheers. Cheers. Yeah. Now the upfront sweetness, you think you were going to get more of that, didn't you?

Yeah. It's actually, I get like the banana has gone from a sweet nose to a little bit. Um, you might not be getting on the palate, but it's like a little greener, a little unripened banana.

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, so getting a little bit of that cherry.

Nice. Um, I'm starting to get a little dripping. It's a, it's tightening up my pal a little bit. I can feel it like kind of tighten up my palate and, uh, sort of squeeze out the saliva.

Yeah. Really sits mid palette on me.

Has a nice texture to it. For a hundred proof, it's got a fair amount of texture. It does.

And it's got just a little hint of heat right there in the middle, which, you know, you'd think a hundred proof and an older bourbon might tone it down a little bit, but it lets you know it's there. Yeah, this is really enjoyable. Now, was this the only release they dropped with the Lerkin brand there that you saw? Yeah.

So let me, let me just say that there were a lot of people at this event and the lines to even the most obscure. Brands were deep. So you didn't get a lot of time once you got up to the. So deep 20, 30, uh, 20 to 30 and in many cases, let's say typically no less than 10. Uh, so you felt bad if you got up there and chatted with people for too long or tried to sample too many of their expressions that they had out. Right. So I was pretty considerate of others. I kind of picked out which one I wanted to try before I got up bellied up and got up there. Um, so, and I only visited typically one time. So, I mean, there were, let's say 70 distilleries there and over 200, I mean, almost 300 whiskey expressions. Wow. So there's no way you're going to try them all. Right. I think your best bet is to try and get a sampling of each distillery if you can. And even then, unless you're pouring them out, you're going to have a rough day.

Yeah. And I would even say like kind of maybe do your homework before you go to a festival. You know, take a look at the company's website if you're, you know, unknown, you know, do some homework, check some reviews like YouTube reviews or, you know, just website reviews and get an idea of where you want to, you know, focus your attention, you know, kind of have like a mental plan. Now with this big of a festival, it's probably a little more difficult. So if you're going to go after the big boys, you're going to probably stand what?

Let's just take Angel's Envy, for example. I think the line was probably 50 or 60 people long the whole time I was there. So I never went to Angel's Envy, just because it was just too much. And usually that meant there was something special to be had once you got up inside. Uh, heaven hill is another one, huge, huge line. Um, but, but you know, I would say everybody headlines. So the numbers, let's talk a little bit about the numbers. So this was probably the largest event yet. It was fully sold out.

Uh, the daily attendance numbers were some around 6,500, but that's probably including vendors and.

Uh, you know, I don't know how they break that down, but yeah, you can imagine, you know, it's, you're going to have some lines. Yeah.

So tell me about the space. Like I said, I've never been, so I'm probably like a lot of other folks. What's the space like? I mean, you know, I'm very familiar with the bourbon on the banks festival, which runs along the river. So where does this take place?

This is kind of, this is kind of not far off the center of Bars. So, you know, if anybody's familiar with Bars town, Bars town has a. a large traffic circle in the middle of town with a, I don't know what building that is.

It's usually a city hall. They always call them the square or something.

The square, yeah. This is probably two blocks off that. It's where the Getz Museum is. They've got a big lawn there. There's some parking lots and they're able to basically fence all that in around the Getz Museum and Pretty, pretty good size space.

Okay. I was going to say with 70 distilleries and knowing what that looks like on the river. Yeah.

I could see a nice square footage. I would say the space available at Kentucky bourbon festival is a different shape obviously than bourbon on the banks, but I would say it's more acres. Then then available at the other one. It's just, they're laid out differently. They're two totally different shows. And we can talk about that a little bit here too, as well. Um, you know, they had, uh, a VIP area, they had, um, a media area they had this year, they had the vendors of things other than whiskey off in a separate section. So separated out away from the whiskies. Now, now at one point they had like craft and like the big boys kind of mixed in between separated as well. So yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, let's take last year, for example, last year you had most of the big boys in the larger tents were in one area. Uh, and then maybe a 10 acre area or five acre area off to the side. They had all the craft distilleries intermingled with the, um, NDPs and such. Yeah, the, well, no, the, the people selling, you know, bourbon barrel furniture and candles and all the bourbon related items, right? Uh, kind of intermingled with the whiskey. So people are drinking and shopping at the same time. Gotcha. And the craft distilleries were all kind of in a shady area, whereas the big boys were out in the sun. I think maybe there was some feedback from the big boys saying it's pretty tough being out in that sun all day. Uh, so I think they did some changes this year, so quite a bit different. Um, but the vendors now were completely separated and out on a parking lot area kind of, and, um, and kind of a shopping area, like a mall sort more or less. So they were all together. So if you, you had to literally decide you wanted to shop for things and go over there. Okay. Um, my guess is we're probably going to hear some complaints from those people, right? Cause people are there to drink whiskey. They're going to hang next to the whiskey tents all the time. They may or may not choose to go shopping.

Right. And then for a September day, the temperature was.

It was nice. Uh, so Friday, um, let's get back to this whiskey real quick. And then we'll talk a little bit more about, about the event. I just, I don't want to disregard the.

I've just been sipping and enjoying it.

This is really good. I think this is an exceptional bonded whiskey. I love the eight year, I've always loved the older bonded whiskeys, the eight and 10 year bonded whiskeys.

And I think eights where stuff really can start to shine. I mean, some of those whiskey thieves get really, really good at eight.

So MSRP on this is about, uh, this is right at $89. So you, you always say $10 a year.

That's pretty close. Uh, pretty close. Yeah. Pretty close.

Now they are still a small operation, relatively small operation. So, you know, they have to, they can't produce in the quantities to get the price down, but they're able to give you a pretty good bottle here for $89. Yeah.

And it's, it's a fun place to visit. They have a new place, not too far from wild Turkey. My bourbon society got to go to a special private event and we got to try some fun stuff. And yeah, it's, you know, you're coming from Turkey, hop in there. There's probably no one more excited about what they do than those two. I mean, they just live it, breathe it, love it.

I think we've, we've had them on the show once or twice and they are. total bourbon fans, big time bourbon fans.

I mean, I talk about bottling the energy of my kids, but I could get it from either of those two. I'm like, yeah, just put it in a power drink or something. But this is fantastic.

But I'm going to say Todd, that you and I will probably do the very first ever Larracan barrel pick on Tuesday.

Oh, that's right.

We are. You forgot all about that, didn't you?

Well, I didn't realize that. I was like, I think we're just doing, you know, I was thinking Lawrenceburg, but yeah, I'm like, oh yeah, that's right. We're doing this.

So this is the, this is the barrel pick from Larrikin, uh, that will be, um, part of bourbon on the banks.

Yeah. So what they're kind of doing, what we've been kind of doing, we've been helping quite a bit. You recently did a peerless pick. I recently did a dark arts pick. And so we're teaming up with different distilleries, kind of doing a pick and that pick will be sold by each distillery, I believe. At the event. At the event. And then anything they have leftover, they'll be selling at their own space and things like that. But the dark arts pick was a lot of fun. Yeah. A great guy to hang out with and we got an outstanding pick. We had like eight ones to choose from. Um, and then you want to talk about the peerless a little bit?

Oh, I thought it was great. Peerless was really good. Um, John was, uh, tremendous and, uh, he, he, there were no limit to the number of barrels we could try. And McCauley was actually at that pick as well. So what a, what a tremendous palette that guy has. Um, but we, uh, I think we tasted through 10 or 11 barrels and not that we couldn't have picked from the first four or five, I think it would have been, we could have picked a winner from the first four or five, but they had a cabinet in the corner with other barrels in it and McCauley spotted it. and started pulling samples out. And they were just, they were, they were perfect hosts. They started serving up those and added them to it. And we started doing blinds and eventually arrived at a really fantastic barrel.

So I'm definitely looking forward to. this week and checking out to see what Greg's got in store for us.

Yeah. So that'll be great. We'll be doing a pick there and we've got a couple more picks this week too. And you're going to do a pick that's not part of that, but still you're going to be doing three picks this week, Todd.

I know. Craziness. I'm a very lucky man this week.

Very understanding spouse.

Yeah.

It's true to the day. She's at work. I love this. Let's talk a little bit about this Lerkin bonded and where it's sourced from. One of the great things about Greg and his operation there, now called Lerkin, is that they're extremely transparent with information on what they're putting in their bottles. This one says distilled in age by Barton 1792 distillery in barstown, Kentucky. It was the DSP number and says bottled by Lerkin bourbon company in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky with their DSP number. Uh, and there is a definition on here. If you get a bottle of this, it'll define Lerkin and, uh, it basically is somebody who disregards convention, right? They're just, they're not going to tow the line. Right. It's pretty cool. And I think that's Greg, right?

Yeah.

Although I think he follows the rules, but he expresses himself outside the lines. Right. That fair to say. Yeah, I'd say so. And this is the first time I've seen a bottle with a, um, NFC tag on it.

I didn't even notice that. Yeah.

It's a brand new thing. So this, this bottle actually has a name of C tag on it. So you can hold your phone up to it and it will immediately fill your phone up with all the info on the bottle. That's really cool. Pretty cool stuff.

And it's a totally different bottle, new bottle shape compared to the Lawrenceburg bottles too. Am I dad?

Yep.

It's got like kind of a rounded neck and it's a little taller, thinner.

But I like that it has the, I forget what they call that on the neck, a bulb neck or something. It's like the Weller bottles. They pour really nice. Yeah.

Big departure from their original.

And their, their mascot or their logo is a kangaroo with boxing gloves on.

Yeah. I kind of wonder if I have like a, um, I guess a collector's item t-shirt now it's cause it says Lawrenceburg bourbon company and all that. And it's got the kangaroo, which I actually love. And it's kind of got the looking like it's boxing and thing. It's a, I get a lot of comments on that shirt.

So good deal. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Well done. All right, so next in our class is from Beryl Bourbon. And Beryl Bourbon usually brings six or eight different expressions. So they have a pretty wide selection to choose from. And again, I kind of followed the same rule. I was kind of waiting in line. And the way that Beryl did it was they would have five or six people lined up at the bar. So they could serve basically five or six lines at one time. So the lines were only two or three deep. So that was really super nice. So it definitely helped out your hesitation to join a line.

Right. And it just moved people along and just a little bit quicker than some of the, you know, where there were two people pouring or something like that, I'm sure.

Now they had their, the big draw there obviously was their 20 year whiskey, the bourbon. They had a 20 year bourbon there and they did the same thing last year. Uh, and that kind of draws people in, but I spotted this bottle here and I was like, I want to try that first and I'll come back for the 20 year.

Okay.

And, uh, and this is their, uh, barrel bourbon cask finish series. This is their ice wine finished bourbon.

Okay. I'm excited. Cause I've never had an ice wine finished bourbon.

And it is, uh, edition zero zero one. So this is the first of the first, although we do know they've done some ice wine picks in the past.

Yes, we did.

Uh, this is, this is their first like general release to the public, I think. And this is a five-year-old bourbon. It is, uh, 106. six point five ish. Five two, I think. Five two, I think. Yeah, you did the math on that. One of six point five two proof.

Yeah, they're one of those that like to add that extra digit at the end. So it's always fun to do the math on those.

And as we know, barrel craft spirits really puts out some quality stuff. I mean, all their bottles, their dovetail, their other cast finishing sea grass. I mean, they're all just really good whiskeys. And you know, the prices on some of their bottles are higher. It just depends. They have a wide variety, but their cask finishing series is usually, in fact, this one was $73, $74. Oh wow. Yeah. So again, remember I, my goal was to try to get things that were trying to pick three whiskies from the show that I just really stood out to me. And we're in that kind of affordable range. Right.

Less than a hundred kind of thing.

Yeah. So again, five year old ice wine finished. 106.52 proof, $73 and 99 cents. Let's check it out. All right.

I don't, I do know that ice wine is one of those where they do, they like will actually freeze the grapes, which kind of condenses the sugars in those.

They allow the grapes to freeze on the vine and then they pick them like the morning before the sun thaws them out or something like that. Yeah.

Along those lines, but it's super, super sweet. It condenses the sugar.

And the note on this is like a fresh breeze.

Yeah. Like it's like like spring when like, yeah. I mean, you could just imagine the Magnolias are blooming or something.

Like a cool morning with a dew on the ground and, you know, dew dripping off the flower petals kind of, you know, just a springy kind of smell.

Maybe this is like what Augusta smells like on the first day of the masters or something.

Oh, there you go.

For all you golfers out there.

But, but it doesn't nose like a, um, it's nosing like something you're going to expect to be very delicate. Yeah. Very delicate, very light. Yeah. Yeah. Just, just, um, fragile almost. I'm going to taste it. Cheers. Cheers. Anything but fragile, right?

Yeah. Doesn't come off as sweet as I thought it would be either. It doesn't know. So that's a surprise.

But it's a mid and rear pallet bourbon. And it's, um, it has a, uh, an oak influence on the back that is just, it's, it's, it's a heavy, it's a heavy foot on the back, but it's rich.

Yeah. There's like this really funky note. I can't describe. Maybe it's like umami type thing. Come in for that barrel. I don't know. It's really interesting.

Yeah. It has a super, yeah. Savory mid palette note to it. Yeah, exactly. It's for some reason when I hear a mommy, I think salty, but this, this is not salty. No, not at all. This is just, um, it wakes up your palate. Yeah. So the nose is like this thief in the night. It's just light and airy and just, I'm going to be really soft. Yeah. And then you take a drink of it and it hits the front of the palate and it kind of kind of goes right past a little bit. Right. But man, it lands on the mid and the back and it really gets your glands going. When I tasted this, I knew immediately. This was one for your shelf, one for the shelf. Yep.

Yeah, that's excellent.

Now I'm going to find that. Yeah. Have you ever had anything with that profile and effect?

Maybe something close, but now that's very, that's very unique.

Very unique. Bravo on that one. Yeah. Yeah. It was a good one. I'm, I'm, and their other whiskies are great there. I don't want to knock the other things they had brought there because I drink a dovetail all day long.

And seagrass is one of the most unique, speaking of unique, it is very, very unique. You know, the apricot brandy finish and it's got Canadian, uh, rye in it. So it's. It's just, they do some really wild stuff.

I think now in the finish on this, it kind of morphs a little bit. Um, it's, it's got kind of a long finish on it. Yeah. I'd say medium to long. Yeah. But it does kind of change as it reaches the end of the finish and you get kind of, um, I don't know, uh,

I was waiting to see what you say.

Cause I was hoping I would agree. Kind of a green note, but it's a, I'm going to come up with it. Cause I know I've got it like right on the tip of my brain here. Kind of a black walnut green, green kind of a whole of a not like a green one.

Like you said, you didn't get the banana. I'm getting a walnut. It's like this, I'm getting like this, like almost like overwrite peach kind of thing going on.

It's, it's not nutty. It's like green. It's like a green nut. Oh, I know what it is. It's, um, pumpkin seeds. Pumpkin seeds.

I think you're just in the mood for fall.

No, it's like that green, green pumpkin seed. That's what it is. Okay. I was thinking like green Wallace. Do they even have green Wallace? It just sounds right. But no, it's, it's those damn pumpkins, which are fun to toast, by the way, as a snack.

All right, Jim, you're two for two, buddy.

You like them so far.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, so, you know, you talked about Greg's 30 foot kangaroo, like, or the, any other exhibitors there or distilleries that kind of went really all out on some of their, you know, their tents or anything like that, or anything that caught your eye.

I really liked the way that, um, while Turkey set up their tent, uh, it was really interesting, uh, that you could kind of walk through it like, uh, Like going through a cave kind of, that was kind of neat. That didn't look like a cave, but the way they set it up was, is that you would come up and you could enter in and then you would pass through the like wall, inside walls of the tent. And then you would exit out the other side.

I was like, did they have kind of like a history on those walls or what?

Yeah, they had things up on the walls. It was really, it was really nice. I didn't take any pictures. I wish I had taken more pictures during the day. Um, But it was, uh, that was a good experience. Um, and well, let me interject real quick and speaking of history at wild Turkey.

Jimmy Russell just hit 70 years of master distilling, I guess. I don't think it's master distiller, but 70 years.

And we just thought that that eight year Turkey was going to be there.

Yeah. It did drop at their gift shop and hopefully it'll start flitting out here and there, but I know he's very excited. It's at his favorite proof, which he's a big one-on-one guy, but it's eight years. And yeah, I'm very excited about that. So hopefully, hopefully we can round a bottle and maybe. Yeah. Share it with some folks.

Yeah. Um, let's see beam. The thing with the beam tent was is that they had some really great stuff for sale there, but you couldn't taste them. So like, for example, the little book eight. Okay. wasn't available for tasting, but you could buy a bottle. Okay. So not good and bad, right? I mean, it was good that those bottles were there and available for purchase because a lot of people were happy to find that they could pick up a little book. Right.

And the reserves, were the Booker reserves there?

Oh my goodness. The Baker's was there. Baker's 13. Baker's 13 was there. And they had several other expressions there. Uh, but you know, again, when you're standing in those lines, you feel this obligation to those behind you to move quickly. So we didn't spend a lot of time chatting with people, unlike. bourbon on the banks where you can literally hang out typically with the distilleries and talk for a while. The lines are shorter.

Yeah. It's a little more intimate. Cozy. I was going to say a cozier event.

More cozier, intimate event, but they both have their place. You know, both events, you know, the Barstown bourbon festival is kind of the king of bourbon festivals, right? It's the big one. Right. Right. And a lot of people want to go to that. I think You know, one of the things we're going to talk about in the second half is why the numbers were what they were. Why were the numbers so huge this year? Why were the crowds so big? Why was the event such a blowout? Why was it so huge? You know, and that's some of the stuff we can talk about in the second half. I think that you and I need to really, really sit and sip and think on this, um, this ice wine finish barrel and come back and just some final notes on it. We come back from the half.

That sounds good. Yeah. Uh, it keeps, it's one of those evolving ports, which I always enjoy.

I think we need a few more minutes with it. I think so. All right, folks stick around. We'll talk to you again after the half.

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 gonna join her for the fun, and you're gonna be tasting some Buffalo Trice. 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 gonna have a great time here in historic downtown Frankfort, Kentucky. Bourbon on the Banks Festival brought to you by Limestone Farms.

Welcome back to the second half of the episode. We're going to take another deep dive into what Jim experienced at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.

I do want to talk a little bit before we get into it much more about this ice wine finish barrel. Um, my notes were, um, included pumpkin seeds in the last half. And as I sip on it, and I think I said to you during the half, I said, you know, it might be pine nuts, but then I just think it's in that family of non you know, like traditional nuts, seeds, because pine nuts taste nothing or taste nothing or smell like nothing like pines and pumpkin seeds are really, they're not nuts or seeds, but, but at the end of the day, they both have very mild flavors, but they have a kind of a little bit of a green flavor to them. Yep. And I think that's what I was getting at there. So whether it's one or the other or neither one, it's sort of in that realm. And that's kind of what I was trying to get at. I like it. But let me just say, and you and I kind of talked about this during the half during the break, this is definitely one for your shelf.

Yeah, I think so too.

This is one you want to definitely have on your shelf that you can, uh, You can sample with friends and it's different enough.

Yeah. And you know, ice wines, typically a dessert wine. This would be like a dessert pour. Sure. Yeah.

Really good.

Yeah. Good pickup, Jim.

Yeah. So we were talking about, um, and I just finished mine. So I'm drinking all the whiskey today. Cause we're actually in the bourbon road bar. Yep. I'm home. I'm I'm wore out.

I was going to say, when we talked about where we're going to do this episode, either studio A or studio B, I was like, I know you're a wore out, you know, I've, I've overcome my fatigue from being at the airport extra, but I knew you'd be wore out. So I was like, I'll come to you this time.

Definitely one for the bar. So, um, let's, let's move on to poor number three, Todd. What do you say?

Let's go.

All right. So, um, we've got a bottle in Todd's hand and, uh, Todd's going to tell us a little bit about, about this one. I did choose this bottle and bring it back from the event because in my opinion, it was one of the top three pores at the event.

Yeah, this is such a unique, new expression that's out there. I was very lucky. Some Bourbon Society members and I, I kind of helped set up the event. We went to this place and it's Pursuit United. So we went there to experience Like they're tasting and like we got to basically like kind of blend our own. You could take different barrels and blend them, or you could do just straight from one barrel and call it your own. And you know, we put the label on and did all that fun stuff, but this is the Pursuit United double Oak bourbon. This is for the distillery row series. So this is a single barrel. It's 108 proof. So 54% alcohol by volume. And I think it's one of the. Most interesting pores, one of my favorite pores are probably 2024. If you talk to Ryan and Kenny, Ryan's kind of like their blender. He's the palette. Yeah, he's the palette. Whereas Kenny's like the business know-how and all this. And they are the longest running bourbon podcast out there. No chance of us catching them unless we start dropping episodes every day for a while. But they do a great job. uh doing that they kind of started out with single barrels and sourcing things like that and decided to you know kind of go all in and it's been really fun to listen to their stories their trials and travails and so like i'm saying we were there and they dropped this double oak bourbon the day we were there so everyone tried it and i'm pretty sure there were like 13 or 14 of us and we all bought a bottle it is Delicious.

Delicious. Delicious. And this specific bottle is a pick specifically for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. So, this is a single-barrel pick for the festival itself.

Yeah. It says the Distiller's Rose Series, so I guess it's maybe something similar to what's going to happen at the Bourbon on the Banks Festival. Some bottles went there, and maybe they kept some in the house just to have a view for some folks that may have dropped in. Because the funny thing is, I obviously have been in Frankfurt, knew the Bourbon Festival was going on, saw a lot of folks. And some folks were right across the street. There's an Airbnb at a house right across the street. They weren't in for the festival, but they were just in for Bourbon. And I knew them. You can just kind of tell those folks, well, it's definitely a big clue when they all have Buffalo Trace bags and that kind of thing and what for things.

Yeah, I know. Buffalo Trace released EH Taylor on Friday and then on Saturday it was Blanton's.

So there's a lot of happy people. Yes. And they were going to go one more. I actually introduced myself to them and actually went and shared some pores with them because I try to be an ambassador for Frankfurt and Bourbon and Kentucky, just in general. I shared some stag with them and shared a little Russells 13 with them and they were overjoyed and they were thanking me so much. They were going to go back one more time and they were hoping for Eagle Rare today. Well, I hope they get it. Yeah.

And I didn't look to see what today's right.

Well, there was like, you know, there's this website or Facebook page and it kind of gives you the odds. So it was kind of like really close between Weller special reserve and Eagle rare. So it was like 46 to 44 kind of thing.

And then, but, so this is a $79 bottle.

Yes. Um, and. It, this is straight from the label. They tried to, um, it's a very small batch blend of rye and weeded bourbons that were aged to perfection and intensify with heavily charred oak staves. Now they use staves rather than putting in another barrel, that kind of thing. Um, and you can learn about a lot of that process and some of their behind the pursuit, uh, episodes, which is, I mean, those guys put out three different podcasts. So bravo to them. So, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm very excited about trying this, this, I've only had like the original first batch and it's, I love it.

I will tell you this. It was not hard to find three standouts. It really wasn't. I mean, cause it was, as I was going through and tasting whiskeys and, and, you know, I had this wrap up show in mind. Right. And I'm thinking, I need to find three whiskeys that just stand out and really stand out and, and kept capturing my attention. I didn't have to deliberate with myself. I mean, it was clear when I tasted them what three they were going to be. So pretty, pretty, pretty awesome. Now I will say this, Pursuit United had both a, a double oaked bourbon and a double oaked rye. And a lot of people were saying that the rye was better than the bourbon. I tried them both. My opinion was the bourbon was better. Yeah.

Was the rye also exclusively for the event as well?

They had a single barrel pick of that as well. And, and for me, you know, I think, you know, and I'm a rye person, I love ryes, but, but the bourbon was, the bourbon was better in my opinion. And that's why we're drinking the bourbon today. Not because it was the best whiskey, but it was the best one that I liked.

It's gonna say no rise on there.

No, no rise. How about that? I know.

All right. Let's check it out. Maybe your palates change.

I doubt it. It's getting older, weaker.

Oh, that's just like sweet caramel.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And it's got a little bit of like, uh, uh, toffee or butterscotch. Butterscotch. I was going to say maple, but not so much maple, more just butterscotch. toffee, brocks, uh, caramel. Yeah. The soft ones. No, the, the brocks are the hard ones.

What, who made like the, they make the soft ones too. Yeah.

Maybe they do. Cheers. Cheers. Man, that is all flavor. Oh, wow. Intense concentrated, um, speaking of the Brock's caramel, that is chewy. Yeah. This is the only thing I'll say about it is it is one of those creamy caramels, the soft caramels, but it's been taken a little bit further and cooked a little bit more until it's almost got a little bit of a.

burnt note to it, just a more dark caramel. And the vanilla note is very prominent as well. Like vanilla extract.

Now this is a sweet bourbon, which is normally not my thing, but there was so much flavor in this. Holy cow. That I just, I was just like, Oh my gosh. Where's that? Where's that cash register at? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we were wowed when we tried that, like there wasn't a single barrel. It was like their first batch release. And I mean, it was just Florida. It's got like this, you know, I won't say this is dusty tasting, but if you've ever had like seventies eighties, Oh granddad. And that's, if you ask Ryan, that's kind of what he was going for some of that.

I mean, he, he achieved it. This is a phenomenal whiskey. I think that, uh, those guys have really knocked it out of the park and the fact that they were able to, um, present this to, um, event attendees as a unique acquisition at a show. How many absolutely they sold out and they had to come back with another the next day. So I'm not going to say they're all the same barrel, obviously, but they're all crafted by. Ryan, I'm going to say Kenny's probably involved somewhat as well, but I think Ryan's their palette, right? More or less. He's their blender.

Yeah. I mean, he's the one that plays with the oak. I know he's done extensive tests with like, I know they use it like independent stave, I would believe. And like, he's tried like four, you know, he talks about just trying all kinds of things and seeing what sticks and then. Yeah. Bravo to him.

Do they use interstave too, or is it just independent?

I thought it was independent. I could be wrong.

I mean, I didn't know if they were using the, the, the barrel finishing products from interstate or not.

Yeah, I think it's independent.

It's really good though. This is delicious whiskey. And again, that just sits.

I mean, I feel like I had like a Werther's. And it's gone now, but it, the flavor is just, I mean, yeah, it's not going away.

This has a long finish. Wow. This is really good. Has great texture to it. It's dark. It's probably the darkest of the three.

Yeah. Mike, the barrel might give a run, but yeah, it's probably a hair darker.

It's, uh, yeah, I think it's pretty close. That's right. The barrels in a very narrow glass. So when you're looking at it, if you turn it sideways, Good stuff. Yeah.

Almost got like a, like a caramel pie, like a, like a little bit of the crust and wow.

So we were kind of worried, uh, at the event. So on, I don't know if you guys remember the, the Gulf coast just got hit with a hurricane and then the hurricanes that come up through the Gulf tend to rise up through. Alabama, Louisiana, they make their way up into Tennessee and then the bands of rain make it into Kentucky. So we don't usually get the winds and I think Tennessee got a lot of the winds still. Yeah. But you know, once it hits about the, the Kentucky, Tennessee border normally bumps into the jet stream. So it kind of stalls it out a little bit. Right. And then the rain bands tend to fan out across Louisville and, uh, Frankfurt and Lexington.

Yeah.

So we were fully expecting to get rained out on Friday and Saturday, uh, at the event. And, uh, in fact, when we got up Friday morning, uh, to go to the Kentucky, we'll have to get ready for the Kentucky bourbon festival. Um, you know, we had to go get some breakfast and it's pouring the rain.

Yeah, it was pretty steady all day.

Pretty steady. Until? Until 1230. The vent opened at 12. Yeah. At 1230, we were getting there a little bit late because we had some other things to take care of. Right. But yeah, we arrived at 1230, the rain stopped, the sun came out. The angels sang. The angels sang. Now we were walking on soggy ground with hot sun bearing down on it. So it was kind of humid.

Okay. Okay. It seemed like, cause I thought about you guys, I was like, Oh, that's not hope this in soon. Cause it's going to be a really rough first day.

It was amazing. But the good thing is, is that, uh, we were there on media passes and, uh, well, Stanton paid for his own, but I had a media pass and he was my guest. So we went into the media tent. air condition, private bathrooms, food, and obviously every half hour we had, they changed out the master distiller that came in and talked to us. So we had very intimate times with, you know, Danny from Bardstown and Elizabeth McCall and, you know, just Chris Morris was there, Andrea from Michter's and just, Uh, you know, Greg Keeley was in there and, uh, from Leriken. Yeah. A good friend. Walter's house was in there. So the, the media tent was a great place for the media folks who were there to cover the event. Uh, we were one of them to, um, hang out, be refreshed. There's a bourbon bar in there with a lot of great picks on it. They always had sandwiches and fruit and things for us to eat, bottled water, air conditioning. We had our own bathrooms. And there were two recording areas in there where you could record podcasts. But I have to be honest, it was just too loud. We would have never gotten away with it. But some people tried, we'll wait and see how that turns out for some of the other folks. Right. But it was nice to get to hang out with, uh, the YouTube channel guys and the tick tock people and the, um, the other podcasts. Yeah.

I saw a lot were represented, uh, the Scotchie bourbon boys were there. Bourbon life crew was there. Um, I think you saw Chad and Sarah were there from his bourbon night and, uh, you know, all the,

All the TikTok folks were there and yeah, I mean, it was just, it was a fun time. It was, it was like hanging out with that fraternity of people that, that always sort of congregate and talk about the business of doing media on bourbon. So it was pretty good. Lots of fun. But yeah, it was, uh, it was great. So we did two days, uh, Friday and Saturday or our wristbands or tickets were good for three days.

It's hard. So extends, does it go into Sunday?

It goes through Sunday. Um, the, um, The Sunday was just, I think after two days we were done. We had talked to everybody. We had done everything. We had driven back and forth to Bardstown two days in a row. Of course, we came back here in the evenings and drank bourbon until we went to sleep.

Now, did they have that kind of separate area for the distillery folks, the actual folks that work in the store where they have like the barrel rolling contest? Is that somewhere near?

They had the barrel rolling contest, but it was out in the middle. And they had a VIP area for people with VIP ticket holders with a big, the whiskey house sort of sponsored the area in there. Uh, I didn't go in the VIP area over there. I got, I don't even know if I can with a media pass. Maybe I could have, I didn't try. Uh, you know, I, it was nice to get into the media tent and, uh, regroup and plan and figure out what the next trip down through the aisles of. Yeah. Yeah.

It was just, it's kind of funny how it's evolved because originally it was for like lots of folks that worked in the distilleries. Cause I have friends that, you know, work at Buffalo trace and. Things like, and Jim Beam in Frankfurt and you know, that was their thing. They would go to the Bourbon Festival where it was just like, kind of like a place for all those distillery workers to kind of let their hair down. And they had the barrel rolling contest and other things like that. So it's been really interesting to see it evolve into what it is today.

Yeah. Any, any guesses on the source of this material?

I know they have some barrels at Bardstown. I know they also get some from an undisclosed distillery in Tennessee. That's not two of the big ones. They also get from Sagamore out of Maryland, but that's kind of like, that's one of the ride sources. And Finger Lakes out of New York. But I don't know what combo he did with this one, but it's good stuff. It's magical.

Yeah. It's really good. Yeah. So that's another one to pick up folks. So I would highly suggest that you strongly consider. One, two, or all three of these bottles we brought back, not that they were the best of show, but they were the best of what I tasted. Cause I didn't taste all 300 expressions. I just didn't do it. And let's talk a little bit about etiquette because I was with Stanton. Um, and you know, he was, he was going around with me and I'm, I'm kind of the. I don't know the experienced bourbon event.

Had he not been before?

He's been to bourbon events. I thought so. Yeah, he's been to bourbon events. I knew he'd bourbon on the banks. But I think he, he would get pours and he felt like he had to drink everything he got. Right. Cause he would pour it out and say, I'm sorry to the guy that poured it for him. And I said, you got to pour that out, Stan. You can't drink all these. You can't do it. Take a sip, make your decision, get rid of it. Move on to the next. You'll never make it through the day. And he, every time he would pour it out, he would look at him and say, I'm sorry. Well, not really. He did it like once or twice, but there's no reason to apologize. That's what you do. That's what you have to do to make it through the day. Is, uh, you know, you want to taste a lot of bourbons. You need to pour out a lot of liquid cause some of them pour heavy. Yeah. A little heavy handed for sure. A little heavy handed. And I'm like, Oh my goodness. I just need just the smallest smidgen of whiskey in there to make a decision. Right.

And I'm one of those, I just kind of tend to look, you know, there's obviously always going to be the things you've had. So, you know, I talked about kind of planning ahead when you go to a festival. So what I usually do is kind of like. look for the things I've never tried. And that's kind of what I focus on.

I'm trying to think of some other things that were really cool about this year's event. I think they've gotten really good at taking care of people's needs with respect to bathrooms, water stations, placement of those things, gates to get in and out. They actually moved the food trucks outside onto the road in front of the event this year, which was a superb idea. What a great idea. Get those food trucks outside the gates where people exit the event, go out and eat, and then they come back into the event.

Okay.

Uh, everybody gets a wristband with a, um, NFC tag or RFID tag or whatever that's called in it. So you just, you can go in and out at will. It's real easy. Um, you know, everybody got a glass when they went in this year, uh, there were maps available of where all the distilleries were. That's kind of cool. They're really getting good at doing what they do.

Yeah. And it's probably always a learning process. It is.

And I think they experiment a little bit every year. I think they're going to find that moving the vendors of things other than bourbon, bourbon related products out to their own area is probably going to be a trouble spot. Okay. Because I think it will drastically impact the amount of business that those vendors do. And they're going to hear from people and people won't want to come back or That's my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just, I just looked when we went over there, we probably went over to that area a half a dozen times or more because that's where the media tent was. And I just looked at the number of people that were over there versus the number of people that were over where the whiskey places were. 10 to one, 10 to one ratio.

But if you think about it, people are there for the bourbon, but maybe that's where bourbon on the banks works because it's all kind of intermingled. It's intermingled. Yeah. So, you know.

Yeah. And I'll go back to saying that, you know, bourbon on the banks and Kentucky bourbon festival, two totally different types of events. I mean, very different. Um, the bourbon, Kentucky bourbon festival is over the top, big in your face. Lots of stuff going on. Lots of people. Music. Uh, yeah, they had music. They had, uh, in fact, Dustin Collins was there, one of our guests on the show. He played and I was talking to him for a little bit, but, uh, yeah, they have, they have music playing. They've got a barrel building event, you know, that they always have there. They had, uh, um, they had a stage where you could go listen to interviews of distillers and so forth with a lot of chairs and a lot of people attend those. Overall, a good show. Yeah. Just the only thing I have to say is I think it's getting a little too crowded. I was going to say, it's kind of like the Disney world. Yeah.

Whereas Bourbon on the Banks is kind of like Kings Island. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think that makes sense.

Um, it's, it's crowded. Do you have fun when you go to Disney or do you have a blast? But do you kind of talk about how long the lines were and how many people were there? Yeah, it was a lot of people. And that's, and that's the Kentucky bourbon festival. It's a big deal. You need to go. It's a fun thing to do, but be prepared to stand in line to try your favorite whiskeys. Uh, be in a very kind of crowded, busy at loud atmosphere with a lot going on. And, uh, just make the most of it. Yeah. When you go to a bourbon on the banks, it's going to be. more peaceful, quiet, strolling around. There's still 2,500 people there, but it's a little more intimate. There's still 70 distilleries there. 70 plus. 70 plus. Still a lot of distilleries, still a lot of whiskeys there. Probably the same number or about the same as the Kentucky bourbon festival, but less attendees. So a little more intimate. And a lot more stuff going on in town away from the event afterwards.

Right. So a lot of other auxiliary events.

Yeah. So do one, do both, but definitely don't miss bourbon on the banks.

Yeah. I think Kentucky, I mean, I'm going to definitely plan on going next year, but I think like, it's like, it's almost like the Derby, Kentucky Derby, bourbon festivals. Like it's something you got to do once if you're a bourbon aficionado.

So there were some, uh, some whiskies there during the event that I thought were, it's important to mention them. We did get a chance to try them. One of which was the most recent to, um, batch proof releases from Woodford reserve. Right. And, uh, we had an opportunity, uh, where Chris Morris and Elizabeth McCall. We're hanging out in the media tent and they were pouring those and we were hanging out. I mean, literally one on one, one on two, just a few of us together and got to taste through those. And although they weren't available at the event, absolutely amazing. I mean, really, really good. I mean, the concentration of flavor is on par with this Pursuit United. but at a higher proof, I think. This, this proof was 108. I think they're a little bit higher. 121, 124 range. Yeah.

I've seen, I've got like the 116.4, I think, but yeah, people have been clamoring for those for quite some time. And so they've kind of like, kind of listened and finally started dropping those in different batches. Yeah.

It's so, so good. And, and I drank and they had the 124 and the 121 and I don't know what the point was 121.4 or something 124.8. I don't, the most recent two releases. concentrated, rich, mouthwatering, full of flavor, thinkers whiskies. I mean, just got so many notes that you can pull out of them. You could literally sit with a couple of pours of that over several hours and just keep pulling stuff out. Yeah. Now those are a little higher end though. They are. They probably wouldn't have made this show if we, if we could have gotten them. They, we couldn't get them at their show, but, um, They probably wouldn't have made the show. Cause my goal was to bring back things that were in the affordable range. Um, but definitely an honorable mention, uh, limestone branch had a select, uh, series there that was just a really, really good, but another one you couldn't get.

At the event by select, you mean like a barrel pick they had done or is it their new limited edition? It was a limited edition. Okay.

Have you had it?

I have not. I'm trying to remember what the finish is on the new one.

I can't remember. Honestly, I taste it. Uh, Stephen Fonte was there. Uh, what a, what a character. Yes. What a great guy. Always good to see that guy had a. That is dog with him. Oh yes. Hanging out. But, um, and Stephen beam was there actually at the booth talking with guests. So it was nice. That's great. A really good poor pricey one 50 ish. Was it moved up a little bit?

I was thinking like, I was thinking 110, 100. Maybe it's, maybe it's just a little over a hundred. Climbed up a little bit.

Yeah. A little bit higher, but not available at the event. You had to go to the distillery to get it. So, um, trying to think of what else was really, uh, you know, make sure this was pouring their toasted toasted bourbon. Uh, definitely good.

Try anything new that you hadn't heard of or anything like that.

Who else did I try there? Redline had a couple of pores that were good. Redline was there. Redline was there and they were good. Uh, Jeff, the cruise point, their bloody butcher. Now I'm personally not a huge fan of the bloody butcher corn as a, as a, as a grain only because it tends to be a little bit of a. Um, an earthy, I was going to say earthy notes is very earthy grained. Uh, I think their whiskies are, are, are heads and tails above what they were much better. And, and I think the bloody butcher as a flavoring grain is tremendous, but as the core grain, as the main grain. Maybe a little too much.

Yeah. I could be, I can see it being polarizing for sure.

Yeah. Uh, but their whiskies are, are really good now. Um, who else? Um, Fourgate, my, my cousin, I call him my cousin.

I didn't see Fourgate there. I meant to text him while just to see. I'm not saying they weren't there.

I just didn't see him. I think we visited every every place that we could like get to without like standing in line for a half an hour. Right.

Right.

Um, you know, I didn't see a film and spirits out of this year. I didn't see broken barrel there this year. So these are some people that didn't make it in. I don't think, unless I missed them somehow. Right. Um, 1792 had a tent. Wow. Is that crazy? You can't visit the distillery, but they'll come to you now. How about that?

That's all right.

Wow. This pursuit United is just phenomenal. It was phenomenal. Mine is gone. All right. So I'm going to ask you a question, Todd. Sure. Of the three that we brought tonight, let's do a, between the two of us, let's do a. Third place, a second place, the first place. I knew you were going to do this. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Cause I like to narrow it down for people. Cause not everybody can get all three bottles, but you know.

I'm going to preface it with there are no losers though.

There are no losers though. These are. And again, let's talk about the prices. So people know, uh, the Lerkin is 89, the barrel. I swine is 73 and the pursuit is double Oak is 79. So they're all between 70 call it 74 and 90 in that range. Yeah. Okay. Let's do this. Are you ready? You want to go first? Uh, third, third place.

Ooh, I said I was ready and now I'm like, third place. I'm going to go with the Lerkin.

I'm going to agree with you on the Lerkin. I love it. It it's really good. And, and let's, let's talk about maybe why it's in third. It's, it's in third because it's a hundred proof and the other two are more concentrated flavors at 106 and 108 proof. Yes. That would, yes. And I think it's, I think it's about the proof there. As far as flavor goes, it's, it's at the top of its game.

Yes. I'm going to get a bottle of this. It's nearby. So that's a no brainer.

Yeah. So these are all really close together. So we're nitpicking folks, but yeah, I think that the reason it's probably. Uh, coming in third place and come, listen, coming in third place of 300 whiskies or however many I was able to, however many I was able to taste. Right. Right. So I, I, I went through, who knows how many whiskies at the event and I narrowed it down to the three that stood out the most to me. So it's already a winner. And of those winners, it's in third place. Yeah. Not, not a bad place to be.

I'm going to bottle that.

Yeah, it's really good.

Probably. I guess when I do the pick, surely we'll have some of those. All right.

All right. Now you second place second place. Now I have to say that the, the reason for my choice here is because I'm going for uniqueness. All right. So I'm picking the Pursuit United double Oak as my second place.

Okay. I'm going to beer from you. I'm going to go with the barrel. Okay. That's my second. All right. I think it's a great poor. but that double-oaked pursuit, that hits my happy spot.

And another for me is, you know, I'm not a real sweet kind of bourbon person, but this pursuit's kind of sweet. So I don't know.

I just think that, and they're not far off each other. No, I mean, like we're talking, My new day. And like, I mean, there's, like I said, there are no losers in these three bottles.

So that leaves that, I mean, you can deduce from that. So Jim's number one pick is going to be the, uh, the barrel ice wine and you're going to choose the pursuit. Yeah. So all these, all three of these whiskies are fantastic. Yeah.

Hats off to all those guys.

Folks, if you, Wanted to go to the Kentucky bourbon festival this year and you just couldn't quite make it. Let me give you a little tidbit of information. They did sell out and they sell out. Well, they sell out well before the event begins. So, um, next year, start planning now, plan ahead, plan your visit, plan your stay, where are you going to be? Um, come in early, do some tours coming early.

Yeah.

And this year in particular, I think one of the things I mentioned was why were the numbers so high this year? Well, last year, uh, bourbon and beyond festival was the same weekend as the bourbon festival and the headliners playing on Friday night were super big, right? Yeah. I mean, it was a big deal.

There's some A-listers on when the show.

So people have to choose when they're coming to town. Are they going to go to bourbon and beyond or they're going to go to the Kentucky bourbon festival? And, uh, you know, the rock and rollers are going to choose bourbon and beyond and the non rock and roller is going to choose the Kentucky bourbon festival. Some people bought tickets for both and chose to go back and forth.

But on Friday night, God bless those guys.

But on Friday night, the first night of the events, uh, probably most people went to bourbon and beyond because of the headliners that were playing there. Yeah. So the attendance at the Kentucky bourbon festival was low on Friday. It was so nice to be there. Cause I went to the Kentucky bourbon festival. It was so nice to be there with just no lines and walk around, talk to everybody, hang out and chit chat with the distillers. And, uh, this year you couldn't do that. So, uh, there may be some people complaining about how busy it was this year. There's a reason for that. Next weekend is bourbon and beyond. Yeah. Some people came in and said, I'm going to buy tickets for the Kentucky burden festival this weekend. Brevin would be on next weekend. I'm going to stay in hotels in Louisville the weekend between and hit all the distilleries. There's the vacation of the millennia.

You could just do three weeks in Kentucky and like you could get that and then go around the banks. You planned it right.

Absolutely. Wow. This pursuit United is fantastic. You can't go wrong with your, with your first pick. I mean, it's really good.

It's nice.

We finally disagreed though. I know, but when we disagree, it's usually just a flip flop at one place. Yeah. All right. Well, I thought this would be a short show, but it is not a short show. Well, we can get to jabbering a lot. It's real easy. I don't think it sounds like you had a great time.

So I had a really good time.

We enjoyed it. Uh, Stanton is a, well, you folks know him. He's been on the show before, but, um, you know, he is a, uh, he's a, um, a trooper. He's a trooper. He, um, He sponsored us for an entire, almost entire year. He sponsored the show and he's now representing Smokey's lifestyle cigars. And we did get a chance to go sit at the cigar lounge together and hang out. And I did smoke a couple of cigars this week. I had not smoked cigars for 10 years. I said I wouldn't do it because I kind of got out of control the last time, but I think, I think I've matured a little bit. I think I can.

You're aging like a fine bourbon.

I'm aging. Like, I think I can, I think I could smoke cigars and then have a good period of days in between where I don't smoke cigars. And that's the key. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I would definitely say check out, uh, pints and barrels.com and smokies, lifestyle cigars.com. Stan's a great guy. He'll do you right. They got all kinds of good stuff. And if you're a cigar smoker, These, uh, these cigars are, or something else.

Yeah. Like I said, I'm not a big one, but just every once in a while, just kind of a when in Rome kind of thing, I guess. Absolutely.

Lots of fun time. Had a great time. Well, Todd, you and I were pulling the Bourbons today. They're going to be in, uh, Frankfurt on October 5th at the bourbon on the banks festival. Let's move on down the road a little bit here. Let's go. Uh, and we have it. Some pretty darn good bourbons. They're going to be on the bourbon road bar.

Yeah, we had to tweak a little, just to make sure we are in kind of like compliance, if you will. And that's what we want to do. So yeah, there's going to be some fun stuff and some, some hardest, hard to find stuff. I'm bringing a few things out that we've tasted along the way.

Might be a dusty or two. Might even. Might even. Wouldn't that be great. Have a dusty or two on the bar. We can manage that. Yeah, we'll manage it. All right. Well, uh, we definitely look forward to seeing everyone here in Frankfurt, Kentucky here in a couple of weeks, October 5th on Saturday. I hope you already have your tickets. If you don't, you know, plan for next year. It's sold out. That's what happens at bourbon festivals. They sell out. But that doesn't mean you can't come to Frankfurt and hang out and enjoy the parties outside of the event. There's a lot going on that way. And, uh, you know, one of the things we'll be doing is Saturday night is, uh, partying in town with all the bourbon folks and there's no tickets required for that. So if you come on down, come on down, hit Buffalo trace party with us Saturday night. Uh, enjoy a few distilleries around town and go get yourself a good meal.

I wouldn't be surprised if the corner Rick house has opened just for kind of like a after, after, after party, right? Yeah.

All right. Well, you can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, tick tock threads, all of those. Uh, you can also find us at the bourbon road.com our website. We have all of our episodes on there. We have our articles on there. We have our swag, t-shirts, glasses, all kinds of good stuff. Whenever you purchase something on the bourbon road.com, uh, that money goes to help Todd and I get on down the road and do the next interview and helps pay for things like bourbon on the banks and. All the wonderful events we attend throughout the year and it's always nice to see one of our t-shirts being worn at an event or out in town or in a liquor store. We love to see it. We put on an episode every single week on Wednesday. You don't want to miss it. In fact, if you're listening to us right now, you're on a podcast app, scroll up to the top of that app, subscribe to the bourbon road podcast. That way every single week you'll get a notification, letting you know that we've put out a new episode and you won't miss it. So we're at 410, 411 episodes now moving on. Moving towards that 500. Yeah, that's cool. Uh, it's exciting. We'd love to have you guys with us every single week. We enjoy it. We have fun doing what we do. We do it because we love it. We definitely don't do it because it's our job. It's our passion. It's our hobby. Uh, join us every week. We'd love to meet you in person. If you're ever in town or an event, make sure you stop us. Don't be hesitant to walk up to us in a liquor store and say, Hey guys, what should I buy? We'd be happy to help you out. But until the next time, we'll see you down to the Bourbon Road.

you