423. Borchetta Bourbon - Big Machine Distillery

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.

Todd and I are proud to have Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars as a sponsor of this episode and as the official cigar of the Bourbon Road Podcast. Our hosts and listeners alike enjoy the ultimate experience of premium cigars. Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Find out more during the halftime break and at Smokey's Lifestyle Cigar dot com. The Surgeon General warns that cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease and is not a safe alternative to cigarettes. The Hill House Bed and Breakfast, located in Loretto, Kentucky, is ready to be your bourbon country home away from home. Located less than three miles from Maker's Mark, the Hill House is convenient to Bardstown and the rest of the Bourbon Trail. The next time you visit bourbon country, choose comfort and convenience. Choose the Hill House Bed and Breakfast. Listen in at the break for more details or visit their website at thehillhousekentucky.com. All right, well, welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. We're happy to have a number of guests on the show today, but it's me and Todd. We're in the house. And Todd, who do we have on the show today?

So today from Borchetta, Bourbon, we've got Mark Borchetta and Kylie Judge. They're both out of Tennessee and yeah, very excited to have them on. Welcome to the show, guys.

Hey, thanks, Todd and Jim. It's cool to be here. And just for the record, yes, I'm Mark Borqueta, but we go by Borchetta Bourbon because that's the family pronunciation. So that's what you'll hear in the market. That's also from my brother who acquired this distillery in 2015, and he's Scott Borchetta. So he gets the honors for the naming of the bourbon that Kylie and I painstakingly create, but he bankrolls.

So let's get right to it. One of the first things we'd like to do is get into the first pour you guys sent us. You want to tell us a little bit about this small batch?

Sure. I have a tendency to like to tell you how to make a watch when you ask the time it is. I'll try to keep it somewhat brief here. But this is our second iteration of how we're releasing bourbon to the market. We started with our Cast Strength single barrel race car series, which I know you guys are going to be enjoying a little bit later in the podcast. But What we then decided to do after a few years is people are saying, hey, can we have something that's not quite so elite because we love your stuff. You're winning a lot of awards. But we want something that's a little more, you know, everyday drinker. And so Kylie and I got together. And we said, let's do something where we can really service the market a little bit differently. And we decide we're going to do a small batch and then a small batch reserve. And then we have a barrel pick, single barrel program that we're doing. And then of course we have our race car series. But to the small batch, I'm our master blender. I don't distill, but I choose everything that does go into the bottles. And Kylie is my backbone there because she's bringing the barrels up for me to taste. And she's really the coordination and, you know, kind of my rock behind there. She's my VP of production, so to speak. So with this, we said, let's take our heirloom corn that we grow five to six miles from our distillery down in Linville. And we're going to choose between our red, white and blue varietals that we use. And we're going to blend three to six, seven barrels. And we're going to release that out at an 80 proof. at a $40 price point and let people start to experience the craft juice that we make that goes straight from the cornfield. We do not mill our own corn, but they grind it right there for us, drive it down the road. And we add our wheat. We are weeded on everything that's in the market at the moment and our malted barley. And we blend and put it through. And right as we were doing this, we said, you know what? I love our Jimmy Red corn. And that's something that I wanted to keep for our reserve, which is going to be released February, March of 25. And that's going to be our red corn reserve. And so right now this is everything you're going to be drinking in the small batch is our white corn, blue corn mix. And I find it to be a really approachable, very smooth, still it's a bit smoky, but you're going to find You get some caramel notes in there. You get a hint of fruit subtleties and a bit of fall spice.

I'm kind of picking up on some of the things Mark said there. For us, our slogan, our message is true craft. We're in this industry. We're in the bourbon game because we love it. We have a passion for what we do. Every step of the process is the long road, as we like to say. We like to do things for the journey, for the experience of what we're creating, from the heirloom grains that we grow and they're grown less than five miles from our distillery to the way we barrel age and blend everything. So this expression here is actually one of the most fun expressions. We've been doing a lot of single barrels, which single barrels are straightforward, classic, delightful. But this is our first time where we actually got to play around with some of our different barrels and blend them to create some really unique expressions. And truly, this is the most body, the most flavor, the best mouthfeel. You'll get in an 80 proof whiskey, especially for the price point we've got out in the market. So I think it's a treat.

It's interesting that you're bringing together the red, the blue, and the white corn. And if I remember correctly, the white corn kind of brings more of a softer touch to the whiskey. The red brings a little bit more of an earthy note. But what, remind me what the blue brings. Is it more of a nutty character or?

So I will address that, that I blind taste everything. Um, Kylie knows she's never allowed to tell me what I'm tasting and whether that's in house or out of house. And, um, I'm sidestepping a bit to qualify why I'm going to give you my observation of the three different corns. Um, and, um, So what I find is that the white to your point is that nice soft mouth feel. But I find with the red is that I get it's kind of a corn and I don't want to diminish it better like a breakfast cereal corn that comes through. And I get it whether it's on the coming out of the still. or whether it's been in for six months, two years, four years, six years, that red corn gets a, I call it a bit of a sweetness that comes through and a bit malty. And I am a huge fan, which is why I kept it for the reserve. It's just going to be a blend of red corns. And then with the blue, I get a little bit more of an austere, sophisticated note. It's a little more complex, but subtle. and say you don't get as sweet and I can usually pick out the blue and definitely the white and I can always pick out the red 99 out of 100 times and to just to brag for a moment I always love when you know tasting with Kylie and she gives me something and I think the other day her line was I hate you Because you tasted this three months ago and you said almost verbatim what you tasted and I'm grateful for that since I'm in this doing this as a master blender. I learned 40 years ago when I was a wine steward at one of the top restaurants in Hollywood that I had a consistent palette at least, and I could describe what I'm tasting. And of course, what you like or other people like or don't like is subjective. But purely from an objective standpoint, I can describe what I'm tasting and pretty darn consistent with what I taste over the years. So that's what I get.

clarify which corn you're drinking. If you look on the back of the bottle, we've got a lot code. So that will tell you, depending on what it says, what blends of corn we use, because we blind taste everything. So the small badge. Okay, so you've got 005W. So this is all white corn and you've got three, it's a three barrel blend and they're all 53 gallons. I'm drinking our 011W, which is a 53 and a 15. And this is also a white blend. So that's a little bit, you'll know. So if it's just white corn, it'll have the W. If it's white and red, WR, white, red and blue will have a B at the end. So for us, this again, the small batch is a way to really play around with all of the different variety of barrels that we've got laid down to find the perfect blend.

And now you see why Kylie is with me. She's got all that detail.

So just to clarify, you're not doing any kind of mash bill where the red, white, blue, your weeded component and your malted barley are all in one barrel. You're taking a red malted barley and wheat and a blue and kind of blend in those as you will.

Correct. So our mash bill is a high corn. We use a 76% corn mash bill with 11.5% of wheat and then the remainder is that malted barley. Each barrel will have its own corn. We'll do some white corn barrels, some red corn barrels, some blue corn barrels. Then after the fact, depending on what yeast we use, the size of the barrels, the age, will blend them to create different unique experiences with the small batch mainly focusing on the white corn. It's one of my favorites. I think the red corn brings a lot of flavor and character at the higher proof, which is why we're releasing it as the red corn reserve coming up hopefully around Valentine's Day. So right now, this small batch is really about how soft and sweet you can get from that white corn, Jim, as you mentioned. And it really lets that wheat be complimented. I know you guys talk a lot about rye. I was reading through some of your rye reviews, but we're big wheat fans. We love how much it hits the mid palate, how soft, smooth and sophisticated it can get with a lot of that multi nuttiness. It's like an elevated classic. It's one of my favorites. It's what we do.

So Mark, before we got on air, you were talking about how you kind of came from a producer, director kind of background. So you now find yourself in the distilling and whiskey biz. I mean, how does one get to that point?

Yeah, Convoluted Path, I forgot we had spoken about that. But yeah, I got into production very early in life, at a young age, in my early 20s, producing, directing. And I was at USC film school. And the job I had while I was doing that was at one of the top restaurants in Hollywood, the Patina Group. And I was their wine steward there for a hot minute there. That's when I found out that I had a palette, and so went on to full-time producing, directing, and marketing for years. And fast forward to 2015, and my brother, who started in Nashville in the music business in the 80s, decided to do a record label in 2005, saw a lot of success. And in 2015, he called me up, very excited. He said, I bought a distillery. And I wanted to say, you've reached a recording. Leave a message after the toad. But he was really excited about that. And he said, you know, with your with your background, you know, would you be interested in being involved? And so again, my background just meant that I had a palette that he was aware of. And within a couple of years, we decided, hey, I'll come on back and run this. I was looking to do something new in life. And so when I got here, we'd found that the original distiller, Clay Cutler, he had started the distillery in 2011 with his brother-in-law. My brother acquired it in 15. And they were making some good juice. And it was an interesting path to get to. I knew enough to know that I didn't know the business, but I was a preacher of fine spirits and wines. And I had remembered getting into the small batches in the early 90s when it was, you know, your Knob Creek and your Basil Hadens and those. And I had been a fan, but I was mostly a single malt drinker throughout those years in Grappa, for whatever reason, along with my fine wines. And so when I started tasting through the things that Clay was making, not to spoil one of your questions later, I think, but you wanted to know why we're not making a Tennessee whiskey, that was actually their first release into the market was Tennessee whiskey. And then they started to play with bourbons about a couple years before I got here, or a year before I got here. And so when I started putting the LCP next to the non-LCP, it showed that along with some of the fine Tennessee whiskey we were making, that I think we had a pretty good future in the bourbon. of what we were doing and what he was laying down. And he was into the red, white and blue corn. I don't know if it was a patriotic thing, but you know, it was just because Jeremy down the road was growing those varietals and they've been growing that corn for a hundred years on their farm. It's really true craft what we're doing. And so I found myself now running a distillery for the past seven years. We've We've acquired some awards. We've gotten a lot of accolades. And it's been quite a journey. Not sure if that answered your question fully.

No, that was awesome. So, Kylie, how did you get involved with Mark?

I joined the Big Machine team back in 2018. So I've been with the company over six years now. I've been in the spirits industry a little longer than that. Before this, I was at Maker's Mark. So definitely a love for weeded whiskies in my heart. And spirits industry has been near and dear to my heart for longer than that. For me, I love the blend of art and science. I know it sounds nerdy, but something about getting to make a beverage that brings people joy and happiness that you can get a scientific and nitty gritty on anything from the yeast strains to the times the temperatures. all the way over to the art of tasting it as it comes off the stilts, the blending of it. To me, it comes together and it's the best industry to work in. So happy to be here six years later. Really happy that we're finally getting our bourbon program up and running. It's been a long time coming that we've been building it. And for us, again, it's our team is a team who's passionate. This wasn't something that we were forced to do to keep the lights on. It's something we wanted to do because we all loved every aspect of it from partnering with a century farm and seeing them and helping them hand select the varietals of corn that we want to use all the way up to watching them restore stone mills from the 1950s. so that we can have that as part of our history and our legacy that we're milling our corn on restored 1950s stone mills to copper pot distilling everything we do. Like we've got the nerdiest awesome people on our team who are creating I think some of the most unique whiskey to come out of Tennessee right now.

And I like to add to her story because I don't even think I hired Kylie. We have a tasting room down on Third Avenue where we have a 250 gallon pot still. So it's literally 50 yards off of lower Broadway in Nashville. So I built up that tasting room for my brother. And Kylie was early hired on bottling vodka for us. And she came to me and said, Can I build a touring program? And I kind of looked around and I said, you realize you work here in this space, which is about, I don't know, 1500 square feet or something. It's not very big on the bottom floor. And she said, yeah, I could do a tour. And I said, is it going to be three minutes or five minutes long? And she said, no, I think I could do a 40 minute tour. And I love teasing her about this because I said, are you going to provide cots for them to sleep for like 40 minutes of this? And she said, no, she goes, you don't know my background, but I did work with the touring program up at Makers. And I'm like, OK. And so she put a deck together for me and and I looked at it and I said, well, I don't know, I guess so. And she said, well, it's going to be free. I said, the heck it is. I said, you know, we've got overhead to have tour guides and stuff. And what you built here looks, you know, surprisingly convincing that it would be good. And I think we launched it $15, a 45-minute tour or something, and you get to taste like nine to 10 of our spirits. And dang, if we didn't do over 2000 tours in the first five months or something like that.

Wow. Wow. Congratulations. Yeah, that's great.

So I quickly saw that this young lady bottling vodka for me needed to be a little bit more prominent in my organization. And so I made her manager of that facility and then a vice president of production. And I can't, I don't know, 10,000, 15,000 tours later up there. And, um, And we started working with another entity recently and they looked and they said, do you guys realize the ratings on your tours? Of course we do. That's why we do them. You know, she built an amazing program and she's hired up the people underneath it. And we've got a five star, not 4.5 star or anything else review of our tours. I don't even know how many reviews, but a lot of reviews and they're five star. Fantastic.

Once again, I like to tell that story probably for the reason you guys are on episode number 423 is we've got people who love bourbon and the most passionate people it makes coming to work to coming to work every day. Just truly a joy.

All right. So let's, let's focus on this whiskey just a little bit here. So Todd, I'd like to bring out a few, a few notes on it. Yeah, same. And, uh, yeah. So. I, I, first I'd like to find out if you've got an age range on, on what's goes into this particular batch.

So you said you had five zero zero five w. So this is a blend of four year old whiskey right there. So these are three 53s and they are all, uh, are white corn bourbon. Okay.

Yeah, I would have guessed it right around the four-year range. What about you, Todd?

Yeah. I'm getting those orchard fruits Mark talked about, like a lot of like green apple and caramel. It's almost like a, yeah, caramel apple type vibe to me with just that despite it's 80 proof, there's just this little hint of spice on the tail end, which is nice.

I was drinking a lot.

I tend to feel like it's very floral. It's got kind of a fresh spring note to it. It's very light and airy. Honeysuckle. It's almost like it's springtime and you're walking through this orchard you're talking about, Todd. grassy fields and orchard and, um, just light breeze, flowers, just it's, it's, it's light and fresh and just, uh, can we call this a picnic?

I think that's against that because again, as I stated earlier, you know, we hit the market with our single barrel cask strength stuff. And this was to, you know, go to that less aficionado, shall we say, you know, drinker, although we're finding that some of those aficionados are going, hey, man, this is what I'm loving on this, which is great. But again, 80 proof. Um, easy drink and yeah, I, I, I'm not offended by that. I kind of like that. That's what you say because we go around and we introduce people to this and they're loving on it. Say, oh my gosh, this is the best bourbon of the show right now. Again, they're not, um, the single cask, uh, you know, drinkers.

Yeah. I think a couple of, uh, I think a couple of experienced bourbon drinkers could sit out on the patio with a bottle of this. And before you know it, the bottle's empty. It's just one of those sessionable bourbons.

So our distiller, who we adore, her name is Devon Walden, and she was six years at Woodford. And we snapped her up here. And she's been with us the last two years, Kylie. And she took it over to the bourbon house here and said, hey, go talk to those guys, see what they think of this. And they sat around. I don't know. It was probably 45 minutes an hour later and it was empty. And they said, we have on this. They said, this is a great, easy drink. And that was the goal. That was 100% the goal is to have it a nice, easy drink.

And I'll say something about the process here too. I think one of the reasons it's got so much body and so much flavor and that depth and complexity you don't normally get in a Navy proof whiskey is we don't chill filter. We actually spent a couple months developing a filtration process that would remove the flock but retain as much possible character and flavor as possible because we wanted it to be something that's easy to drink because it kind of coats the palate so well. It's got all that mid body to it. It's a different, not just flavor profile, but I think drinking experience than most low-proof bourbons out there. But you guys tell us, you're drinking more bourbons than we are, and you're reviewing them live on these podcasts.

I think it's also got that softer mouth feel to that copper pot still. I mean, that's just great.

Oh, wait. Hold on, guys. OK. This is my brother, Scott Borchetta. He's never made an appearance on a podcast. So we got him. I just did this to him live. He doesn't know. I knew he would call me for some reason. Jim and Todd were on a podcast live. Don't worry. It's not on camera.

Don't take this call.

All right, Scott. Welcome to the bourbon road.

Hey, how you guys doing?

Doing great. Thank you. Pretty good.

Yeah, we're drinking the small batch volumes, a little low from your end, but we can barely hear you, but it's very nice to have a chance to talk to you and meet you and enjoy your whiskey.

Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it. We're really proud of it. And, uh, Mark's done an incredible job sourcing it and picking out just the perfect girls for it.

So it's, it's a big source of pride for us.

It's maybe the first time someone on a phone's been on right, Jim. You dial in for the Bourbon Road.

Yeah. We like to break barriers at Big Machine.

Absolutely.

All right. Well, Scott, I'll call you back later.

Good deal. Thank you.

Yeah, I like it. You know, at 80 proof, I'm kind of wondering, you said that you filter it, but you don't chill filter it. So you've got a filtration process that limits the flocking, but it doesn't actually filter through chilling and filtering. So kind of interesting.

Yes. Yeah, because from the start of our process, we wanted a high oil. We wanted high flavor. So we pick, first of all, the grains, the corn that's much higher, sweeter sugar content, corns, the white, red and blue all are and partly picked for that very reason. The stone milling instead of hammer milling for the consistency that we get out, the times and temperatures and the yeast varietals that we use. It's all focused on bringing through as much flavor as possible, especially the copper pot distillation. We've got a 500 gallon copper pot still and a 250 gallon copper pot still. So our focus from start to finish is how do we bring the flavor? How do we bring complexity and body and bold notes? So we also spent a good deal of time figuring out how we wanted to filter it so that we could retain as much of that flavor as possible while still appealing to most consumers. You know, some bourbon aficionados like us, the block, great, means more flavor. But to most of the average consumers when they see it on the shelves, it's a bit scary. So we definitely had to work pretty hard on that process to make that, I think, fine balance of flavor and beauty.

Wow. Kylie, you learned a few things in Loretto.

Yes. Yes, indeed.

I keep Kylie close. Yeah. My background, again, wine and fine spirits from an appreciator side and as a connoisseur. But from that craft side, Kylie has been there with me.

This is my passion. So I've visited over 80 distilleries across five different countries, more than 10 states. Wow. One of the reasons that I love being in the bourbon world is the community, the bourbon community from just the other distilleries, the podcasts, the guilds. Everybody is collaborative, inspirational and doing some really cool things out there. So this is what I love to do. So if you want to get into the nitty gritties, you better hold tight because I'll go as nitty gritty as you possibly want.

Other than not knowing how to turn on the still and use it, she's got she's got the chops.

Yeah.

All right, guys. Well, I think we're right at about a halfway point here. We're going to take a short break. We'll continue sipping on this Borsetta small batch bourbons and we'll chit chat a little bit on the break. When we come back, folks, we got another expression for you and a lot more from Mark and Kylie. Stick around. Few things pair better together than a fine whiskey and a premium cigar. And Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Their exclusive collection is meticulously hand-rolled from aged tobacco sourced from the Dominican Republic. Revel in the artistry that only decades of experience can bring. The owner, with over 10 years of cigar mastery, curates blends that capture the essence of family tradition and innovation. Embrace the journey and indulge in a harmonious symphony of Smoky's Lifestyle Cigars, an experience truly beyond compare. Find out more at Smoky's Lifestyle Cigar dot com. When you're traveling the Bourbon Trail, location and comfort is everything. That's why I recommend making the Hill House Bed and Breakfast your home away from home. Located in the heart of Bourbon Country, the Hill House Bed and Breakfast is less than 5 minutes from the Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, Kentucky. giving you easy access to the Bardstown distilleries and all points of the Bourbon Trail. The owners, Cheryl and Jim, offer four comfortable and cozy rooms along with a gourmet hot plated breakfast every single morning. And, when you return from a long day of fun, it's time to enjoy a bit of the Bourbon Trail nightlife. Relax on the large outdoor patio complete with a blazing chiminea and solo stove, Or, curl up on the sofa and chairs, put a record on the turntable and relax with snacks and fruit in front of the gas fireplace. An evening at the Hill House is a perfect time to raise an urban glass full of cheer in the company of family and friends. We know you'll enjoy your stay at the Hill House Bed and Breakfast as much as we did. Find out more at thehillhousekontucky.com.

All right, roadies, welcome back to the second half of the show. We're here with Mark Borchetta and Kylie Judge of Borchetta Bourbon. And yeah, we've been learning about red, white, and blue corn. I think it's great to see these heirloom grains coming back. Not just these guys, but there's a lot of other smaller distilleries out there that are bringing these back. But we've got our second pour here. Mark, Kylie, one of you guys want to? Tell the folks what we're getting ready to sip on here.

Yeah, I think it's a moment where we'll share the introduction of Borchetta bourbon into the market. You know, I mentioned earlier, my brother bought the distillery in 2015, asked me to come get involved in 2017. And the first years were, you know, focusing on the Big Machine Platinum Filtered Premium Vodka, the Clayton James Tennessee Whiskey, and then some of our popular vodka juice pouches, spiked coolers. And racing had been trying to come to Nashville for about 10 years with Indy cars. And my brother and I are lifelong racers. We started going to races and like five, six years old at an Ontario Motor Speedway, which Jim, I understood, understand you actually were able to make some money there running a lap, a pit board there. but in the day with Mario Andretti and Paul Newman. That's super cool. So with the race coming to town, with my brother's success with Big Machine Label Group, he's quite a staple here in Nashville. And so it made sense with our love of racing, the success of Big Machine and the spirits, that we said, hey, let's be the title sponsor of the race. And Kylie had been trying to get me to do the Borsetta Brothers bourbon for a couple of years or for a year. And my brother goes, well, maybe let's use this as our excuse to launch the bourbon. I'm like, all right. It's like, now we got to figure out how to launch a product that, you know, I've been tasting the juice and loving it. And I said, let's figure out what we're going to do with this bottle. And if you look on this label here, you see old race cars. Well, these race cars, this photo is from 1911 here at the Nashville Fairgrounds. And it's actually Tennessee state fairgrounds, but here in Nashville, where my brother had raced and was a three time champion in his NASCAR truck. And I had done pretty well there myself in some racing. And, uh, he said, wow, Indy cars were here in 1911, right after the very first Indy 500 in 1911. What are we going to do? And I didn't have a vision and went to my designer, said, David, don't hold back. We've got to do something really cool for this bottle. We're going to do the Borsetta Bourbon. And of course, he borrowed a page right out of Blanton's. And he put on our first bottle is the car that won the Indy 500 in 1911. And so we tied in our love of racing, our love of spirits and our Nashville business roots. We didn't grow up in Nashville, but the business was established here, the big machine label. And so you said, this has to be our best stuff. Let's not do an 80 proof or a 90 proof or you know, a bottle and bond, let's just give these people what we've been slaving over for 11, for 10 years. We had some barrels that were seven, eight years old. And I started tasting these with Kylie and making notes. And we put what I feel are very, our very best barrels into these bottles this first year and let people see that we don't buy juice. We make everything ourselves and let's show them what we're about. And it was super cool, the accolades that we got, the awards that we've won. And it's been a rewarding experience, a lot of work. It's a lot of effort to do something that craft. But I think one of the crowning achievements for us was this past year with our 2023 release, which Kylie mentioned earlier was a Mario and Dredi release. And on top of these, these aren't just like, hey, let's make a car. This is an exact replica, right here, what got in my hand of the AJ Foyt 87 Lola. The Mario Andretti is the exact replica, trunking down of his 85 Lola. And so we put our story of we know these drivers, which we do, you know, our history of these drivers, but to the crowning achievement that I was talking about a few minutes ago is I get a call going last about six months ago, five months ago, whenever it was, He said, um, Ascot Awards, you guys kind of hit the scales here all of a sudden. I'm like, oh, okay. Well, that's kind of cool. What's going on there? And he said, uh, well, we can't let you know just yet, but we really need to know who you guys are because unknown distilleries haven't made a stink with us. And you guys have made a stink with us. So they brought her over to Pelson's Greenbrier, beautiful facility over there. Those guys are so cool. And I was up on stage with these guys talking about how our Borsetta bourbon won a double platinum at the Ascot Awards. And Fred Minn called me like, hey man, your stuff is good. What is this all about? He goes, I want to do a barrel pick with you. I'm like, wow. So we've got, We got our barrel pick Fred Minnick right here that he did with us. Again, he's with my palate. He loves the red corn. But as you guys know, I asked him, I said, blind taste for your judges, right? He goes, yeah. I said, how many judges? He goes, 52. Are you kidding me? Half of them are industry, half of them are media. He goes, in the notes on your product, he goes, you were out of 1200 entries. You guys were a top 25 with this barely 21 Mario Andretti. He goes, you almost won best of show. And I'm like, thanks for the pressure. Now what are we going to do with the top 20? So that was very rewarding. And again, you know, we've got a lot of double golds and Platinum's with this. And that's really rewarding. Because for us to come out and for Kylie and I to really be the driving forces behind this. And, you know, that she, you hear her depth of knowledge and she lives this. Uh, she respects me because I do have a palette, you know, and that palette's been noted, you know, by others out there and, uh, that's kind of cool.

All right. Well, for those who are listening, we are tasting barrel number 461. This is a seven year old cast strength, bourbon whiskey, Borchetta bourbon. This is the AJ Foit or an homage to AJ Foit. Bottle number 68 is what we have. I think you guys have, obviously have a different bottle, but 127.47 proof. So this is, this is up there. This is, uh, this has got some, uh, NASCAR fuel in it or, or, or. That's right. And I'm looking at the color of this stuff and I'm going to say chocolate, chocolate brown.

What do you think?

Yeah. And wow, I love this. I previewed this when I got this because I'd heard so much about it. So I was like, I got to try this. And yeah, I just love this. It's like a chocolate candy bar. There's like, you know, that rich caramel still there.

I say brown sugar and cherries. Excuse me, brown sugar and caramel. And then I do get cherries after it's been in the glass for a bit and the sugars dry up a little bit.

Super rich. Super rich.

Yeah. I'm definitely getting chocolate covered cherries on the nose. Yeah.

Some of these, you guys do 53 gallon barrels and some are 15 gallon barrels. Is that correct? So Kali, is this, do you happen to know if this is a larger or smaller barrels for this one?

This one here is a 53. I'll just emphasize something we talked a little bit about earlier is that we do everything to taste. Every single barrel that is selected is blind tasted. You're going to get age ranges, barrel sizes, different mash bills because for us, it's that premium quality. It's the long road. It's the journey to finding great flavor. and throwing out things that don't matter. So sometimes I think age statements and barrel sizes can get in the way of getting people the best possible product. So while we do that and we note and record everything we do, at the end of the day, it's what we think you guys are going to enjoy the most. So our, especially the Borsetta Bourbon race car series, It's the best of the best. It's when we're tasting through for all of our other products and we say, we can't do a damn thing to this. It's perfect. We want to put this right in a glass, preferably right in my glass right here. And we can't stand to blend it, filter it, do anything to it. And we want people to be able to experience that depth of flavor that comes from the heirloom corn, that comes from it being a weeded whiskey. that comes from the way we warehouse and age it. Every step of the process, especially the copper pot distillation, it truly brings that new level to it.

This has a tremendous depth of flavor to it. It's very bold and rich. It has a chocolate nuttiness to it with a nice cherry note. It's almost like you haven't told us anything about your barrels yet, but it's almost like it's got a little bit of French oak there, which I, it probably doesn't, but it just seems like it might. It has that wonderful almond nutty note to it.

I've written those things down specifically in my previous notes or to you what things you're talking about, the almond, the cherry. Strangely enough, I get different woods from our oak barrels, but I get a touch of mahogany in this as well. It's just a richer, rounder. I always see mahogany as kind of a chocolatey wood anyway. I used to do woodworking and I get that.

I could see this in a side-by-side blind tasting. with King of Kentucky.

It really is kind of along that same. Richness. I mean, it just radiates. Richness and depth of flavor. Yeah, absolutely. Hats off to you guys for real. I mean.

Wow. Thank you.

Really good. You're talking to some Kentucky boys.

That's right. We can end now.

That's right. Fred loves you and we love you. You can drop the mic.

Yay.

I remember one of the first public things that I did was down at the Whiskey House here. I just told him, I said, our one hope was that you guys would appreciate what we do. Because we've put a lot into the box and the history and everything. Yeah, obviously, it's not inexpensive. But we were, I was courageous enough the night before the release to say, you know, this is the value. One thing we haven't spoken about, the limited allocation, 306 packs a year. That's it. Wow. Never more than that. And when we did the Mario Andretti release, my brother said, should we consider more than, you know, increasing the output? And I said, we've established a value with this in part because of the limited availability of these bottles. So while the barrels, you know, each year we have to do between 12 and 16 barrels to get that amount of juice. We only make a certain amount of these cars, a certain amount of the boxes and the story. And these are the collector's items. And this is what it's about. We're going to live a while, our plan is. We don't want to be out of these in six years, eight years, 10 years. So we wanted to price it in a way that goes, this is how we feel about us and what we do and who we are. and we have racing aficionados and we have the bourbon aficionados. I knew the racers would be, you guys are badass, way to go. Scared to death of what you guys would say, you know? And yeah. So your compliment right there means as much to me as the double platinum from Ascot. So thank you, Todd.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing this with us. It's something special.

And I'll say too, a little bit on kind of that, the long road and the true craft approach. We take that to the race car series too. So when Mark says, and it's an exact replica, it's us crawling around with tape measures, making sure that it is the exact scale model of each car. It's, you know, meticulously sourcing and choosing each photo and interviewing the drivers and making sure we're, we're bringing that value to every step of the process. And when we talk passionate people, I mean, we're passionate about distilling. We've got some of the most creative people on our team. But same with racing. There's photos of Mark and Scott on that box from when they were kids. Like this is a lifelong passion and enthusiasm. So it's a little bit of the best of both worlds. I mean, we got fast cars, great bourbon and live music. What better combination is there? Maybe not all at once, but what better combination is there out there?

And be careful which order we drink and drive. I don't have that box with me, but like she's referring to, you know, the 2022 was the Unser family. And since you guys know Foyt and Andretti, you know the Unser's 9,8500 wins. And Bobby became a good friend. The one thing we haven't talked about is, oh, there you go. So that's me with, that's our next to Bobby Unser and Alan's signature at Ontario Motor Speedway, Jim. Yeah. Back when I had hair and at eight years old, nine years old. But here's what we haven't spoken about yet. Other than the Marmon Wasp, the first year that won the Indy 500 in 1911, we own every one of these cars. Well, my brother does. These cars are in his private collection.

Oh, wow. Wow. That's amazing.

This is real stuff. And I think you asked earlier, and I hope I'm not jumping the gun, you talk about, do we have tours and stuff that people can do? Yeah. And things that they learn about is, right in our car collection, my brother's car collection, You've got these race cars full size right there in his garage, you know, and at the race shop over by our tavern in Berry Hill.

Fantastic. Todd, we need to make a road trip. I know.

Come visit guys. So Mark, what is the MSRP on this? It is 2.99. 2.99. Yeah.

So going for five bucks, $5.

The bottle is beautiful. It's definitely a showpiece. The whiskey inside the bottle is exceptional. And I'm just going to tell our listeners right now, if you find yourself at a friend's bar or at a bar in town and you look up on the shelf and you see a bottle that says Borchetta that has a race car on top, That's the one you wanna taste. That's the one you wanna get a pour of. So this is really good stuff. This is really delicious.

Thank you guys.

Cheers, thank you.

Yeah, we're very grateful that Kylie and I worked together to do this and to have our family name on this. Cause other stuff that we do is all big machine branded. Cause that's the record label brand that my brother started. And there's a lot of big machine philanthropy and music and the spirits and everything. But this is this is critical to us, you know, with our name on it. We want it to be the best we can do. And again, part of again, when you look at the limited allocation, the craft, the packaging and also just this is again what we painstakingly create ourselves. No purchased juice. So we take every one of these awards, every one of your compliments, really to heart.

And it's about the passion, the community, the craft. I mean, the local grains, copper pot distilling. We haven't talked much about even the barrels of the process, but we try and play around with it to honor heritage, but also to find the most innovative ways to get unique flavor profiles. So one thing I will say is depending on what barrel you pick up, you can have I think the same experience, but very different flavor profiles. So you're drinking one of our white corn barrels here, but the Borchetta race car series is where you can get your hands on the red corn that we've been talking about in the blue corn. And it's a treat. You won't taste anything like this anywhere else. We're the only ones that I know of that are using this mash bill with this combination of heirloom grains and wheat. copper pot distilling it. So it is truly a unique experience. You can't get anywhere else. And we're just so excited to be able to add that to the bourbon community, especially with everything that's out there these days.

So is there a certain time when this is released each year or?

Each year, we've released it in conjunction with the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix IndyCar race here in Nashville. This year, we are switching gears. And my brother and I, when I drive up to Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it's home away from home. We've been going there for 40 years. And so that's another important market for us. And we're at the Indy 500 a lot. We've got several Indy 500 winning rings as sponsors. And this year, we're going to be releasing our 2025 on a different weekend. And I can probably share that it's probably going to be on a special weekend up in Indianapolis with a unique partnership that is a little bit different than something we've done, and we're so excited about it. It's a memorial day. You might be seeing something drop. That's going to be super cool to release in Indy at the 500 with some great partnership up there that we have. Uh, it's going to be quite a, quite a release party.

Well, we'd like to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about, you know, what's going on in the world. some of the other things that big machine does in addition to the Bourbons. Uh, can you, can you give us like, uh, uh, just over an overview of, of the other products that are available?

100%. Um, but before we do that, I want to back up for a moment. We're talking about our release. Um, so they say we're going to have quite a release party up here at Indy or up there in Indy last year. Mario and Dready came to our distillery for our launch of that 2023. It was so cool. So this year we're going to try to top that if we can, which is pretty hard to do. It's Mario. But yeah, now I can skip ahead. Yeah, the Big Machine brand is something my brother started in 2005 when he decided to start his record label. And made some pretty significant strides, shall we say, with the record label. Some of the biggest artists in the world, including the biggest artist in the world. that he signed as a young lady in Taylor Swift and they did their rise together and he built quite an empire. rosters, everybody from, you know, it does include or has included everybody from Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks to Reba, Sheryl Crow. You know, the list is huge. Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Motley Crue. So it's been quite an epic, you know, venture that he did there on Music Row. And then a lot of Yeah, a lot of philanthropy as well. Tied to that is a charity called Music Has Value, where there's a lot of support for children in music or up and coming music. There is a lot of just a lot of holdings, you know, business holdings. And of course, the racing. My brother and I both started racing by the time we were 10 years old. And to this day, well, I don't think either one of us has raced in about a year now, which is some really getting the itch, but we've raced our whole lives in real cars. And yeah, so motorsports, philanthropy, spirits, music.

I'll grab it from the distillery side. So from distillery product wise, you guys got to try our small batch Borchetta bourbon, which is I think that what did we call it? The picnic one, the picnic.

So that's that's long for bourbon.

Our picnic bourbon, then we've got our Burcetta bourbon race car series. So only 2,000 pieces are released every year. Once they're gone, they're gone. We're never making more of that specific topper, that story, that box. So those are our two flagships for the bourbon. We also have our big machine platinum filtered premium vodka. So if you want to experience the world's smoothest tasting vodka, you've got to try some of our vodka. We filter it through real platinum to create the smoothest mouthfeel. And you don't have to just believe us. We've won best domestic vodka in blind taste competitions. And then we've also got, near and dear to my heart, our spiked coolers. So these are pouched cocktails, they're nostalgic, they're fun, they're something you don't see anywhere else. So we've got an array of different flavors and types in our Spike cocktail series. So just about anyone who likes to drink can come and have a fun time with us across the portfolio of products we've got available. And if they want to experience them, we have three different tasting rooms. So we've got our original distillery down in Linville, Tennessee. It's about an hour-ish south of Nashville. When we talk that picturesque long road, it's a long road to that distillery, but it is beautiful. You drive by the cornfields where the heirloom corn is grown, you get to see us copper pot distill Monday through Friday, all of our whiskey there. We've got our downtown distillery on Third Avenue. So if you or your friends are in town for some fun, some Nashville, really Nashville life experiences, we're a block off Broadway, so that's perfect for you. And then if you guys are brunch people, we have the best brunch in Nashville at Big Machine Tavern over in Berry Hill. And you can also try all of our spirits and cocktails there. And we're just launching a dinner menu there that is spectacular. Um, so whatever you're in the mood for family friendly or late night friendly, we've kind of got you covered there. Um, so you definitely have to come by, check us out. You guys have to come. I will take you personally to all of our locations. It'll be a lot of fun.

Fantastic. And you guys have a website and social media accounts.

Yeah, for the bourbon, it's the borsetta bourbon.com. And then for our other products, you can find us at big machine distillery.com. That'll get you where you need to go. And then follow us on socials at borsetta bourbon and at big machine distillery.

That's fantastic.

Well, I definitely want to take you up on a visit down there.

That's for sure. Please. One other thing our listeners might like to know is where can they find you guys out? I mean, what states are you distributed to or other avenues of, you know?

My favorite question, where can you buy us?

That's right.

The Borsetta Bourbon race car series is extremely limited edition with only 2000 pieces a year being made. So my best advice to you is check the product finder and call ahead. Unfortunately, we sell out pretty quickly. So you don't want to have to drive somewhere in case they don't have it. So call ahead and check the product finder. We're mainly distributed for that product in Tennessee and Indiana. But sometimes states will get lucky like Texas, Illinois or Florida and sometimes California. So that website product finder there. Small Batch is also pretty hard to get your hands on.

That's because we're just relaunching it.

Yeah. Well, we copper pot to still everything too. So we can only make so many barrels a year. So definitely check the website, the product finder all over Nashville, Texas and Florida, a little bit in Michigan there. But that website is going to be the best bet to finding us.

And Indiana coming after the first of the year. If you're into the pouches, that's in about 12 different states. And once again, to Kylie's point, checking the product finder on our website is the best thing to do. Go type your zip code in, call your liquor store and go, you better have this because I'm on my way.

Well, Mark and Kylie, this has been an absolutely fantastic time with you guys. Thank you for sharing your whiskey with us. How do I always appreciate it? It's always fun to meet new friends and taste new whiskey. And I have to say, I'm really impressed with both your bottles, but this race car bottle has just, it's got me, my brain just sort of thinking like, you know, how did they do this in seven years? How did they get this flavor in only seven years? This is really good. Yeah.

We may have to take turns keeping that bottle until it's gone. Yeah, we'll pass it.

Very quickly here, Jim. Give me that.

It's that 30 minute drive.

It's worth the drive, I'll tell you that.

Todd is a valued member of the Bourbon Road team.

If he wants this bottle, it's all his. We'll probably do something on our Facebook group, the Bourbon Roadies. What we like to do is when you guys share with us, we like to share with them. We'll probably have some sort of contest and send them a couple ounce pours of each of your products.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, love that. Well, and if they're into swag stuff, we can say I've also I've got hats.

So we'll give away. Yeah, we'll give away two sets of pores and two hats. I have two hats to give away too. So thank you for that.

I think I think I'd like to I'd like to come down sometime maybe in the spring and take some pictures and do some interviews and maybe put together a really nice web article. on you guys.

The spring is the perfect time too. We can walk you through the corn as it's growing, show you those restored hammer mills. That family farm actually just opened up a restaurant. So not only can you drink what they're making and growing, we can also eat it. They recently did a red corn cornbread that I can say truthfully is the best thing that I've ever had in my whole life. And drinking that, picture drinking the red corn single barrel race car bourbon while enjoying the freshest most delicious red corn cornbread and all of their accoutrements and then coming over to the distillery and you get to taste it fresh off the copper pot still. When I say we have fun at Big Machine, I truly mean it. You've got to come and visit.

Oh my goodness. I'm hooked. I'm ready. I may bring the whole fam. Yeah. Yeah. Let's plan it, Todd. Let's do it. This sounds like fun. Yeah.

We'd love to have you guys. We have a great brunch over at the Tavern and, or a great dinner at the Tavern. And yeah, be good times. We can party down on lower Broadway.

Perfect. Well, Mark, Kylie, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. We hope you'll grace us again with your presence and let us know when there are some new releases in the future. We'd love to bring you back on and let our listeners know what's going on at Big Machine and Borsetta.

Well, on occasion, there's still no direct flight from our little airport here. Um, up to Indy. So usually my wife and I drive up that way and Kylie will drive up that way as well. So maybe, um, there might be a little occasion, uh, around Memorial day to drive up and maybe see you guys and talk about it.

That would be fantastic. We are always arms open, ready to welcome guests. So let us know. Yeah.

All right, guys, what a treat it's been really. And, uh, Kyle and I have truly enjoyed it. And, uh, thanks so much for the time.

Thank you guys.

Well, you can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You can find us on the Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook threads. Yeah. All of those every Wednesday, we put out an episode of the bourbon road podcast. Uh, you'll, you'll hear us, uh, bringing on guests like, uh, Kylie. and Mark and Borsetta. Sometimes we'll have a music artist on, sometimes an author or another distillery and a master distiller or somebody in the industry, but always we're drinking bourbon and having a great time. You don't want to miss it. The best way is to make sure you scroll up to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way every week you get a notification that Jim and Todd have dropped another episode. That way you don't miss one. You're sure to be up to date with us. We hope you'll check us out on our Bourbon Roadies account on Facebook. It's kind of our fan group, our followers, our listeners. There's a lot going on in there, a lot of posts and fun and sharing and talking about the shows and sharing what we're drinking. It's a lot of fun. We hope you'll pop onto Facebook and search out the Bourbon Roadies and join in, about 3,500 of us, all having fun, all enjoying our bourbon and our listening at the Bourbon Road podcast. We also have a website, thebourbonroad.com. You'll find our swag on there and our episodes and all good things. We're always having fun. We hope you join us, but until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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