44. It's The Bourbon Life

Kentucky is blue blood. Yeah. Horse racing. Oh yeah. Bourbon. Yep. Great basketball. Not just Kentucky UK, but there's another basketball team over there. I don't know who you're referring to. There's only one basketball team in Kentucky. Bluegrass music. Bill Monroe. There's, there's so many great things that come out of the state of Kentucky.

Billy Ray. Oh wait, I can't see. He's from Flatwoods. I grew up, he was like five or six years older than me, but we're from the same home. Loretta Lynn. Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky music highway over there. Ricky Skaggs, Loretta Lynn. They're still producing great music out of here. Tyler Childers, Chris Stapleton. There's some big names coming out. Dustin Collins. Dustin Collins. Dustin is a great guy. Absolutely love him.

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

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Find out more about their fine rustic furniture at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com Hello, everyone. I'm Jim Shannon.

And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, where are we? We're in Lexington, Kentucky. Yeah, and who are we talking to? We're talking to Mark Herucker. Mark? He's from The Bourbon Life? Yeah, The Bourbon Life. Yeah, and it's that Instagram page?

Instagram page, yes. Pretty big following? Yeah, so far we're doing really well, almost to 30,000 followers. It's taken off like gangbusters for us. Well, welcome to the show, Mark. Thank you guys. Happy to be here. Appreciate you guys coming over.

We're having you on because the bourbon life is about the bourbon culture, right?

It is. It's all about the bourbon culture. I'm a born and raised Kentuckian. So growing up with bourbon was just a way of life. So for me, it's a passion to be able to share my enjoyment and love of bourbon and the entire community, everything that goes into it. And of course the state of Kentucky, which I love very much as well, but the opportunity to share that with as many people as I can. So I'm very passionate about that.

And me and Jim can attest that he's got a great whiskey collection. He does. Cause we're kind of crashing your bar today. Yeah. Hey, that's great. You know what? That's what it's for. We went down there and you let us raid your bar. Two old sailors would always do it, get off their boat and raid.

Well, I'm getting that itch, so I think we need to get to the whiskey. What do you think, Mike? Oh, what? I'm drinking it right now. Yeah, we normally don't waste a whole lot of time up front. We like to get to the bourbon and then we talk.

Yeah, he's on his third glass. What are you talking about?

All right. Well, today we have brought for you Wyoming whiskey, single barrel. And this is 88 proof single barrel bourbon whiskey out of Kirby, Wyoming. It's got, it's got a pretty light color to it. I say, but you know, you might expect that from a, you know, an 88 proof whiskey, maybe a little bit lighter, but Mike, this came out of your collection. Won't you tell us a little bit about Wyoming whiskey?

Well, you know, they pick or used to be their, their distiller, they mentored them, got them started and stuff. And you can't find it on the shelf here a whole lot. It's a, you know, I don't think you see any single barrels. Maybe you've too seen it.

I actually have never seen it before.

And I have a friend that lives out in Utah and he goes up there sometimes to hunt and stuff and he knows that I can get certain barrels or certain bottles and it's nice to have a person to trade some stuff on that I can't get or we'll meet each other halfway somewhere. You know, me and Vivian went to Kansas City last year. I brought him, I bet I brought 10 bottles to him and

You said he goes hunting. Is he hunting for bourbon or is he hunting for animals? No, he's not for animals. He's quite the hunter actually.

But they go up there. Salt Lake's not that far from Idaho and stuff and he was good enough to send me a bottle of that and I'm very gracious. Yeah. Very nice. My thing to send back to him as a bottle of, you two are probably going to make a face about this, but I'm sending him a bottle of a Woodford reserve double double.

Oh, are you?

I thought that was something he can't get out there. Maybe us Kentuckians can get right or not. We're not going to say now. Yeah, it's gone. But I, you know, he can't get that stuff out there at all. And I say that to Jim often about other podcasts or Instagram or stuff like that, that I think we should be giving love to everybody from the bottom of the shelf, top of the shelf, any state out there that's making bourbon or whiskey or, um, they deserve some love too, right? Absolutely. Not everybody can get a limited edition for roses or, um, some people can't, they've never even heard of VH Taylor before.

Yeah. Well, I'm all for, you know, showing love to everybody. Well, except for Tennessee, but no.

Well, I think we might be going down there pretty soon, so we gotta be kind, right?

That just goes back to the sports rivalry from growing up a Kentucky fan.

So let's go ahead and take a look at it. Again, it's a lighter color. The legs on it are kind of thin. They don't stick around too long.

It's got that, that nose on us. You know, I always get that bitter persimmons out of something that's malted heavy for some reason.

So yeah, I think you nailed it there, Mike. I think this, this definitely has a strong malt character to it. You know, I don't know. This is, I don't know what the match bill is on this. Honestly, I don't think they put, they certainly didn't put it on the bottle. They don't put it on the website. It's not on the website either. But I would say that there's a pretty good malt content here. It might even have, you know, it might even have a little bit more than usual.

You can always go back to that, the two bourbons that, or two whiskeys that I've smelled that are high in malted content, which is Old Maysville and then Sagamore. Yeah. Both of them have that just, I don't know what that smell is. I call it bitter persimmons, I guess.

You know what, to me, it almost, I don't know if you guys ever drink green tea, just plain green, like unsweetened green tea, but it almost reminds me of a, of almost like a green tea flavor too, which is kind of strange, but I've never picked up a, a tea kind of a note on a, on a whiskey before, but almost pick up, picking up almost like a green tea kind of nose to it.

I think Peerless has that, one of their whiskeys has that tea flavor or tea note to it. Gotcha. And they actually put it on their label.

Oh, did it?

Okay. But I think that's a rye, isn't it Jim?

Yeah, the rye. Yeah, they even call it out on there. They have that tea note in it. But you know, the old Maysville, just to go back to that for a minute, that's a malted rye. So that's a rye whiskey that's malted or the rye has been malted. So I don't know if this, this has, have you tasted it yet? Yeah, several times.

I haven't tasted it yet.

Now that's pleasant. It's a little thin, but it's got a little bit of creaminess for a thinner whiskey, a lighter whiskey.

I think their tasting notes say figs and I get maybe a dried fig out of it. Maybe a Fig Newton cookie.

And I still, I'm still, and I don't know if it's just because the nose is sticking around, but I'm still getting almost a tea kind of flavor on the, on the palette as well. That's kind of surprising, but almost like a, not a green tea, but almost like a black, almost like a black tea, unsweetened black tea.

You know, that's, that's fairly enjoyable. I kind of like that. I mean, I typically don't go down below 90, but you know, I am getting like a Fig Newton on it.

Not a finish on it's a little bit different too. It's, you know, you say it, it drinks creaminess and it'll coat your mouth, but on the very finish of it, it's kind of drying after you've let it sit there for a while.

And it's 88 proof. 88 proof. Okay.

You get a little bit of spice on that.

Just a little bit. Yeah, I do. A little spice on that. It drinks just a little bit hotter than a, than 88. Kind of surprising that it's. I wonder if this is pot still.

Yeah, I'm not sure about them. They had a pot still there.

That's, I mean, that's good.

Yeah. I think it's pretty good. I'm impressed with it. And I think the reason we chose this is something that people could pick up, um, our listeners across the United States. It's not easy to find, but I think they're getting into more States.

So do you know what the retail price is on this bottle? Mike?

I don't know. I have no idea. I think he probably paid around $44 for it somewhere in there. I would imagine. Sounds like a fair trade. Yeah. Yeah. Um, You know, it's just nice to trade some stuff. I can't, if I can't find it here, you know, I want to try something. He's actually a Firefly. What was it? Dry fly. He actually got me a bottle of that too. That's not an easy bottle to find. You can't get it here. Nope. So it's nice to have friends in different states. You know, there's a wiggle out of Pennsylvania and I still haven't got my hands on a bottle of that. We did. We did a bourbon. They have really want a bottle of that. So yeah, I listen to wiggle, you know, send it on. Yeah.

Well, I have to say that, yeah, I'm pretty happy to have tasted that. I think it's a respectable whiskey. I think it's good. And I'd like to see a little more proof on it, but it does drink a little hotter than it is.

Yeah, it does. Did it have an age statement on that? No age statement.

It's not even listing as a straight whiskey, but I would say it probably is four years.

Yeah. It's yeah, the color is really, it's a light color. There's no question about that.

So whatever they're doing, they're doing a pretty good job.

I think they're trying out there and they got some respect in the community for Wyoming. It's a little Northern than you would think of a bourbon. I think Wyoming, but yeah, you know. As long as they're trying, that's what I care about. And the mash, we didn't know what the mash bill was. I think that, you know, at one point I read they had a weeded mash bill, but I'm not positive anymore. And I think that's originally why I wanted it. I was like, I need to have a bottle of that weeded whiskey. That doesn't drink like a weeder though.

No, no, I don't think so. Well, Wyoming Whiskey, if you're listening to this episode, you need to give us some details. Let us know. We'd like to know. We'll get the word out.

So Mark, how long have you been doing the Instagram page?

It's actually just been a little over a year now. Really? Yep. Started back in December of 2018. Wow. Yeah. I'm an attorney by trade and I've been very passionate about bourbon. I mean, I grew up, you know, that's one of the things you drink as a kid. No, not kid, but when you're younger in college, you know, go to the football games. I went to UK and that was one of the things we always did. Of course, back then it was just whatever cheap bourbon we could buy and take a pint.

And what was that cheap bourbon?

Well, a lot of times I remember drinking Jim Beam. I hate to say that's cheap bourbon, but at the time to buy a pint of Jim Beam was pretty affordable for a college kid. Buying Maker's Mark was a little more expensive, so we go with Heaven Hill. was another budget bourbon that we could afford.

With the Evan Williams black, right? I didn't have that one.

Now, Heaven Hill and Jim Beam were two of the ones that I remember drinking quite a bit of for football. With UK football, you've got to drink something, unfortunately. So you grew up in Kentucky.

I did. Did you grow up here in Lexington?

Eastern Kentucky. Eastern Kentucky. Yep. Kind of in the mountains then. Yeah, I was born and raised in Northeastern in a little town called Flatwoods, which is outside of Ashland. So it's in Northeastern Kentucky. My parents were born and raised down in Pike County. So it's been a lot of time. That's down in, I mean, that's down in the mountains. Grandparents were coal miners, grandfathers, both of them were.

That's Halfield-McCoy territory, isn't it? That is.

It's on the border of Virginia, Pike County. Actually, my grandparents' house was just about, probably less than a mile from the Virginia border, just the mountain behind their house. If you climbed over it, you would have been in Virginia.

Yeah. That's where Bo Garrett's from, Lee Guitars for Montgomery Gentry's from that area. Oh, okay.

Yeah.

We've had him on before. So, when would you think your first drink of bourbon would have been? Can you remember that?

Gosh, that's terrible to say. I'm going to say it, well, it was in high school. I know it was in high school. I had a good friend. I was on the academic team, believe it or not, when I was in high school. And we used to have practices at different members' houses. And one of the guys that was on the team, very, very intelligent, his father was a big bourbon whiskey drinker and had a nice stock bar. So when we'd have practice, at his house, I would always go over and raid. Rebel Yale was probably the first bourbon that I ever drank because his dad was a big Rebel Yale drinker. So I would go over and of course, back then it was, I would mix it with Coke. But yeah, that's probably the first bourbon I remember drinking was raiding my good friend's dad's liquor cabinet and taking his Rebel Yale.

I did a bunch of research last week about Weller and learned that that was one of their first brands from Weller, Stitz Weller was Rebel Yell. And that's kind of everything to me derives from Weller when it's weeded.

Yeah.

I guess the grandfather of, could you call him the grandfather of weed?

I would say that he's the, maybe the father of weeded whiskey, right? Yeah. And then, yeah, grandfather, I guess it would work as well. But I guess, yeah, if you look down that lineage of weeded whiskies, they all come kind of sprout from that. that tree, right?

Him and Pappy just took it a step further. And I think he probably fine tuned his little bit, but everything stems from Weller, but Cabin Steel and Rebel Yell was a weeded bourbons. And I didn't know that, but that brand kind of got sold off several times. Yeah.

And now LuxRos putting it out, I think, right?

Yeah. And it definitely has brought it back. The Rebel Yell 10 is,

Got a bottle downstairs if we're going to hit that later.

How do you drink that with Coke?

No, you know what? I'm a neat drinker now. I very seldom, if I'm mixing up something, at most I'll drink an old fashioned, but I usually don't like to mix my bourbon or rye with anything. I'll just drink it neat. Don't even use ice cubes or water anymore. I say amen to that. To me, there's no wrong way to drink it. I don't criticize people for how they enjoy it. If they want to mix it with stuff, that's their prerogative. They want to put ice or water in it. Sometimes people tell me, well, you're missing out because Your bourbon's not going to open up if you don't put a few drops of water in it. And you wouldn't imagine how good Coke can taste with a little bourbon in it.

So you've got to look at it from the other direction, right? It's not that you're ruining the bourbon, you're just making the Coke so much better. Making the Coca-Cola better, I tell you.

I drank a lot. I enjoyed it. I was an alternate for the high-Q team, so I never actually got to play in the live events, but I got to sit around and drink my friend's dad's bourbon. There you go. There you go. I hope my parents aren't listening to this, by the way.

You are an attorney by trade. I am. Yep. You graduated from? UK. UK. All right. We won't talk about dates here. So your day job is dealing in real estate.

Yeah, handling real estate deals. I work for a national company that writes title insurance for loans. And my job is to help the attorneys that we work with to clear title so they can close the loans and get people into new houses. So I feel like I've done foreclosure work before, which is miserable work. And it takes a toll on you mentally to do that. And after doing that for five or six years, I just had to get out of it. So now I feel like I'm playing for the good guys again, helping people close loans, getting houses, and it feels much better than what I was doing before.

So you kind of split your time between Louisville and Lexington? I do.

Yeah, I'm very fortunate with this job because I get to work. We have an office in Louisville. So I'm over there two or three days a week, and then I get to work from home. And then I go out and visit clients. I call them clients. They're our agents, our attorneys that write title insurance through us. So it's great.

Well, for those listeners who don't know kind of the geography of Kentucky, so we're kind of on the eastern side of the bourbon world here at your home, here in Lexington. And Louisville's kind of on the western end, or well, sort of. I mean, there's some stuff in Lauren Owensboro, Dad in Bowling Green. And on your trip back and forth, you pass right through Frankfurt. Yes. Which is home to Buffalo Trace and Lawrenceburg, you know, while Turkey and... Yep.

So I bet it's not uncommon for you to pull off the exit there, is it? You know, it's not uncommon at all. It was great a couple of weeks ago when Woodford released that double-double-oaked. And that was one of the first ones to fortunately find out about it. Stopped in on Thursday afternoon and picked up a couple of bottles of that. But I mean, it's great. And, you know, I guess growing up in Kentucky, just take it for granted where you are. And then when you see the impact that it has, now my wife was reading something to me this morning, as a matter of fact, from the Kentucky Distillers Association and the economic impact of the bourbon trade and tourism in Kentucky, I think last year was $8 billion. Wow. It's just insane. You know, what bourbon and the whiskey industry has done and is doing for Kentucky. And of course, you know, now we've surpassed it. Was it like 9 million barrels or something like that? That's under roof here in Kentucky. So there's more than two barrels per person. Two barrels per person in the state of Kentucky. That's a lot of whiskey. 106 gallons, my name out there somewhere. But I just wonder if I get to, do I get to choose where, where I get to get those barrels from? That's the, that's the kicker.

So if you got to choose where you got those barrels from, where would you choose?

Man, that's a tough question.

A four year old barrel. No, no, let's do that. A six year old barrel from any distillery in Kentucky and you get to go in and pick it out.

Man, that's tough. You know, I just did my first barrel pick at, at Jim Beam. We did a Knob Creek pick and I was, I tell you, man, it was quite an experience. Knob Creek is not something that I generally say, that's what I want to drink. But after going on the barrel pick and having that experience and getting it straight from the barrel, that's some seriously good bourbon. I'm super impressed with that. I'm a Wheater guy too. I mean, I love Rye's. I love Rye.

Oh, I'm outnumbered here.

But I'd probably lean towards something that's a Wheater. I'm a big fan of the Antique 107. I love drinking that. Um, so I don't know. I mean, I guess that's probably a little older than a seven year old.

It is a seven year old usually. So yeah. So I just did a pick and that's what we had on a show episode ago or two. Yep. We, uh, we went on a Weller foolproof pick. Oh, nice. So you're basically, I think you're picking the same barrels. You're just, they're just proofing it down differently. Right. Right. So, yeah. But, um, Yeah, seven years old and bottled at 114, which you know because you have several bottles of your own.

Yeah, the foolproof is it's good stuff, you know, and I've been fortunate to try five different barrel picks of it now. So I've got a favorite. I'll keep it to myself.

So that's your answer then. Any distillery in the state of Kentucky, you get to go pick a barrel for yourself.

I really enjoy it. It's a good drinker. I like the proof level. Don't get me wrong, Elijah Craig barrel proof is probably one of my favorites and I don't care which batch it is. you know, the last year's batches were like 136 down to 122 or something like that. Quite a variance in them. Yeah, there was. And I've got the B, the B519, which I really enjoy. Um, but you know, I enjoy a higher even up into the 130s.

I don't think you can sit down and drink that all night long though.

No, no, it's, I mean, that's something I'll pour, you know, I'll pour an ounce and a half, two ounces of that and I'll sip on that for... But that Weller 107, you could sit down and drink that all night. Yeah, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. I was fortunate enough to get a taste of the... OBC kitchen here in town. They do a lot of barrel picks and they did an Eagle Rare pick and they just got that in. And I was fortunate enough to get a taste of that. And you know, it's not any proof, but my goodness. I mean, seriously, I think you could probably sit down and drink half that bottle because it was so smooth. It was just a great flavor. And I mean, Eagle Rare is a good bourbon. It's not something I'm going to go to necessarily on a daily basis, but some of these store picks and that OBC kitchen pick is just, it's, It's dynamite.

Yeah, so OBC Kitchen, for those who don't know, is a restaurant slash sports slash bourbon dinner house, whatever. Yeah, kind of a...

It's Old Bourbon County, OBC is what it stands for, Old Bourbon County Kitchen.

They've got a great bourbon bar in there. They have an excellent menu. And if you're in Lexington and you have an opportunity to pop in there, I would highly recommend it. Don't be surprised if you can't get a seat. Yeah, exactly right.

And it's frequented by

several coaches from the University of Kentucky, so don't be surprised if you go in sometime. It's usually blue in there, right?

There's a lot of blue in that place. There definitely is.

Mark, what, so far, listeners, if they're coming to Lexington, they're going to stay in Lexington for the Bourbon Trail. We do have some listeners that are coming in March, and they're going to stay in Lexington. What would you recommend for restaurants to eat at?

Well, OBC Kitchen is great. I love that place. Uh, every Friday they have a happy hour as well. Like tonight they're doing their, their Eagle rare pick versus just a normal Eagle rare, but the pores, I think are five bucks each. So every Friday, generally they'll have a four to six happy hour. So that's a great place to go and get some good pricing. Um, the, uh, just as a bourbon bar, bluegrass tavern downtown, they've got. They had a post on Instagram, I think it was last week, and I'm pretty sure they said over 900 bottles. So they are one of the largest, if not the largest, bourbon bar in the country. And they have a ton of stuff down there. No food. So if you want to try something you've never had, one of the first times I went down there, I met up with one of the guys from Four Roses. and he had him pour me something special. He wouldn't tell me what it was. And I tasted it and it was not quite that special, but it turned out to be military special. Have you guys ever heard of? Heck yeah, I've heard of it.

I lived off that stuff for a long time.

I'd never had it before. That was a, that was like, wow. So that was a, that was kind of a shock, but I mean, they seriously, man, they have tons of stuff down there. So that's a great place to try out as well. The bartenders are super knowledgeable. Just like OBC Kitchen, those guys know their stuff. So it's a great place to go. But for eating OBC Kitchen for sure, there's a little place downtown called Renata's. Oh yeah, I've heard of Renata's. It's a great place as well. It's a really, really neat little place. Renata Riley owns it and she's the head chef down there. She's very passionate about what she does. and not a huge bourbon bar type of place, but really, really good food. And then I'll tell you, one of my other favorite places, not in Lexington, but speaking of stopping off in Frankfurt is the Stave. I don't know if you guys have been to the Stave or not, but Rebecca Burnsworth and her husband, they own that and they are great people and they've got a really nice bourbon selection and you can buy bottles there. That's right. So, and you can buy bottles at OBC kitchen too.

And when you're at the stave, you're right there in the middle of the big distilleries.

You're halfway between Castle Key and Woodford Reserve and Millville.

You're in Millville. You're not that far from Buffalo Trace. Um, yeah, castle and keys right there. Um, what's the other, what was old crow was down there. Yeah. So it's, it's a great place and you know, they've got a, the dining area inside is pretty small, but they've got that wraparound porch and now they built this whole new outdoor deck out there by the, by the stream. So I'm looking forward to getting out there in the spring. But yeah, my wife and I go there probably once a month or something.

We'll have to meet you over there for lunch or something.

Yeah. And Jonathan Sanning, the chef, he's fantastic. I mean, the stuff that he comes up with, it's a It's a real deal. So yeah, those are some great places to eat and they're not, you know, obviously they're not chain restaurants. They're local. I think that's what our listeners are looking for is off the beaten path.

And we've talked about the state before. I think the first time I came on the show, I talked about that. What about the distillery district?

Yeah, and I just forgot, not even thinking about that, but Old Pepper down there, the Pepper Distillery District, there's some good places down there. Obviously we have quite a few breweries here in town as well. If you're into the craft beer scene, there's quite a few places to check out. But the Pepper Distillery, that's a cool place. Middle Fork Restaurant is down there as well. What's that pizza place there, Jim?

I can't remember the name of that place, but yeah, Goodfellas.

Goodfellas Pizza.

Goodfellas Pizza.

There's an Axe though in place right there. Yep. They have the new Axe place. They've got a cider meal. Yeah. And they've got crank and boom ice cream with bourbon in it.

Oh my God. Yeah.

Oh, Tal Green and her husband own that and she's such a sweetheart and they do so much. The cool thing about a lot of these businesses, you know, I talked about the breweries like West 6th and Sam and those guys down at Bluegrass Distillers. So many of these guys are doing so much for our community and so much in terms of charity and Tal and the people at Crank and Boom do the same thing. I mean, it's so cool how much how much these small businesses that are local, how much they care about the community and how much they give back to it. So I'm always, you know, always going to support, support these local guys like that.

And right across the road from the distiller district is a place called the burl. Um, it's a music venue. It's got arcade and stuff. The burl. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. The burl. They've got a, they used to be, um, downtown and then moved out there, but that placement, they get so much live music. out there every night, just about. I think it is.

I think me and Jim are going to be over there March 13th. Yeah. Who are we going to see? Brent Cobb is going to be there playing and we're going to go see him and he'll be on the show. Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah, that'd be good.

We like to get a musical artist on every now and then to kind of break things up a little bit.

Well, now I play bass guitar, so you know, you've got a musical.

Yeah, there you go. Well, we'll have to get you to break that out in the second half. Well, speaking of the second half, gentlemen, why don't we go ahead and finish off our Wyoming whiskey here, the Single Barrel, and take a little break. Yeah. And when we come back, you've got something for us, right?

Yeah, something a little special out of that special Urban Life collection. All right. Let's do it.

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

Well, it's a little surprise, something that I worked very hard to obtain. It's the E.H. Taylor Amherst, the grain of the gods. Mike, it's a special night for us. Wow. Thanks for pulling us out for us. You're welcome. That's the thing about bourbon. It's meant to be shared with people, so it's not going to do you any good sitting on the shelf with the cork in it.

Now, there's not a lot of people out there that are able to actually get their hands on this bottle. It was kind of a very limited release, right? Yeah. And then when it did come out, secondary prices kind of went through the roof, didn't they?

They went crazy. I know it was as high as up to about $800 or $900. It came down just a little bit off of that, but I think it's still probably in the $600 to $700 range on the secondary.

But you didn't pay that.

No, no, no. I paid retail.

Yeah. So what'd you have to do to get your hands on a bottle of this?

I had to spend the night outside for two nights. So it's kind of crazy, but it was a bottle and I knew that they're going to be releasing it. And it was just one of those bottles that I wanted to have in my collection. So I was willing to pay the price and put in the time and it worked out. So I was number three in line here. The Liquor Barn here locally, they do a lot of really good releases. So I was the third person in line. They had six bottles. So.

I mean, that's a long time to wait in line, but I imagine you had some fun.

We did. We really did. The first night, there was only three of us out there. So it wasn't that much fun. But the second night, the second Friday, because they released it on a Saturday morning, about nine o'clock. So I was actually out there by Thursday night around 8, 8.30. So the first night, kind of boring. I'm equipped. I've got a duck blind space heater. I've got a propane space heater. It worked out all right. But Friday, people started showing up and we're hanging out. The liquor barn is open during the day, so we all went inside and had some drinks. This liquor barn here in Hamburg is great. They've got like 20 beers on tap. They've got probably 30 or 40 open bottles that you can buy pours out of. So we went inside and, you know, sit down and had drinks and can eat lunch. They have a deli you can buy and they make hot sandwiches. So we weren't, we weren't hurting by any stretch of the imagination. And then Friday night, it was kind of, it was on. So it was fun. I think it goes without saying you did earn this Bob. You paid retail for it, but you earned it. Yeah. I spent a lot, 30, I think it was 39 hours or something like that to get it. So yeah, a lot of time invested, but like I said, you know, it's, you know, and people, people kind of poke fun or, or, I don't know. They're like, I can't believe you do that. Why would you waste your time? And to me, it's not a waste of time because it's something I wanted. It's something I can break it out with friends and new friends and share it. And it's something that a lot of people, like you said, aren't going to be able to get.

And you're not doing releases and lotteries every weekend. You just once in a while when there's something you really want.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it's something I can You know, it's not something I'm going to do every weekend to go spend two nights outside to get a bottle of bourbon, but this was something that was special and, you know, it's never going to come out again. I mean, it's a one-time release and once it's gone, unless you're going to pay $600 or $700 and, you know, I'm an attorney, but I can't justify spending $600 or $700 for a bottle of bourbon.

In keeping with tradition of E.H. Taylor, this is also a bottle to bond, right? So this is a hundred proof. Yep. A hundred proof.

A minimum four years, obviously, but I guess, you know, bottled and bond can be older than four years. Four years at a minimum. So I'm not sure what the age on this actually is.

So this is a bourbon, even though it has amaranth in it, which is they call the green of the gods. The green of the gods.

Was that because it's Egyptian grain or?

I don't know if it's an ancient grain. So I guess in my mind, I automatically just

And I think grain of the gods, you know, you think Egyptians and they thought themselves of gods, the pharaohs. So probably that's why they got grain of the gods.

I think so. And I kind of just, maybe I just kind of came up with that interpretation myself.

Is it a gluten-free grain?

Well, it is a gluten-free grain. As a matter of fact, it's in my gluten-free crackers that I have. So there you go. So they still use amaranth, not just for a flavoring grain for bourbons, but they actually use it in... Well, you were talking, Jim.

I was over here sipping and I'll tell you this stuff. It drinks a little bit hotter than 100, I think.

Does it? Well, I think we need to walk our way through it here. What do you, what do you say? Yeah, it sounds good to me. All right. And it does have a, a very, um, crisp and rich nose, but there's something else going on there. There's something else in that nose that I'm not, it's kind of a little earthy.

Yeah. And I think that carries over to the palette. Yeah, for me it did. I don't want to say musty because even you say musty, it kind of conjures up a weird image, but it has a kind of an earthy tone.

It does have that. Not that Joe Dirt kind of earthy tone. It's not Joe Dirt. Yeah, it's definitely got something you might get from an old dusty bottle a little bit on the palate because I just tasted it for the first time.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to persuade you in any way, shape or form. No, it's good. You talked about the legs on the first one and this one's definitely got some.

Yeah. So this is definitely got a little bit more color than that. Wyoming whiskey. It's a little bit darker. It's 10 proof points higher. Right. 12 points higher.

It's got a like, I get that dried fruit, like dried raisins or dried dates. I guess Palm dates would kind of go with that Egyptian theme, right? Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a little dry on the finish. It kind of reminds me in a sense, almost like a wine to an extent. There's a little bit of a dryness on that finish. Yeah, you know, and it's crazy. I think it's good. It's very unique. Like I said, it's not something you're going to be able to find. a lot of places, or if you do, you're going to, you're going to pay dearly to, to taste it. Um, but. So is this something that Buffalo Trace is going to put out next year? No, it's the, you know, each tailor they'll do like they did the four grain or they did the season, um, whatever they do, all the different special releases. Uh, so this was their special release. This was it. This is it. So the only way you're going to find it in a lifetime is somebody, your buddy's house or. Yeah, yeah, there you go. So it's going to be one of those things at a bar.

You know, this stuff here, it doesn't really present itself a lot on the back of the palette. It kind of sits on the mid palette. And the finish is there, but more as a Kentucky hug, you don't really get that lingering on the back of your palette with spice. Right. So it's different, definitely different.

I definitely got that Kentucky hug going on.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know if it's this big leather chair and I'm a big, I'm a big man.

So, you know, it's the, it's the portrait of the, of the horses. Hey, we're in Lexington behind you. That's right. That's right. You guys got a famous racetrack here too, right? We do. Yeah. That's a great place. If it's, if you're here in April or October, that is definitely a place to go. And we've got the Kentucky Horse Park too, and that's open year round.

So if you're coming here to the Bourbon Trail and you're staying in Lexington and it's that April, September, October timeframe and Keeneland's open, it's a great place to go to, right?

It's absolutely amazing. We go at least once a meet. I mean, I'm not a big gambler, but As a matter of fact, we went out in October and my wife and I and a couple of friends and we tailgate like a football game. We go out before and we set up a tailgate and this year we actually never made it into the race.

We stayed in the parking lot and tailgated from probably 1130 in the morning until six o'clock. They're famous for having the world's largest horse auction there too. I don't know if... Richest, I guess. Yeah.

Well, Keeneland does it. And then also Fasig Tipton is another big horse. But yeah, Keeneland sales are amazing. They're crazy.

I took my wife Vivian in there with some friends and they're big in horse racing. They've actually owned a couple of horses. They live out in St. Louis and we went over there with them and they were so excited to see the auction. And my wife's in there just going crazy and her hands are flinging everywhere. And I was like, I went in there and I said, put your hands down.

Somebody's going to think you're bidding from the $5 million horse.

Don't put your hands up because you definitely can't afford that $5 million horse.

And they've got a restaurant out there too. So you can actually go out there and have breakfast at the track. And you know, the, the training, the jockeys will go out there sometimes. And it's really, I haven't done that in years. But it's a really neat little place. You can go out there and have breakfast at Keelan before the track opens.

Yeah. We were talking during the break. You had mentioned Chad and Sarah at It's Bourbon Night. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I had actually gone to a tailgating meetup with them out there.

Oh, yeah.

Not soon after they first started. So I kind of liked their channel. I followed them a lot and I still do. But they had a tailgate meet and they had a lot of users come in. It was kind of fun. We had a great day out there. It's a fun time at the track. Oh yeah, it really is.

So if you're here and it's usually three weeks in April and then in October.

And it's a different track than Churchill Downs. Churchill Downs is in the middle of the city. It's very urban, houses all around it, just a giant parking lot around it. Whereas Keeneland, it is definitely park-like.

Yeah, it's off for sales. It's right across from the airport, which is kind of strange, but you don't really notice it that much. It's right beside Claverin Farm. So it's a beautiful location. You know, that's the cool thing about Lexington. I've been here since, well, longer than I care to admit, I guess, but been here a long time. But the coolest thing about Lexington is it's a city and it feels smaller than it probably is. But within 10 minutes, you know, you're in the country and being from Eastern Kentucky, I mean, I grew up, you know, in kind of a country environment. So for me, it's always been cool to be able to get out and drive down Paris bike or drive down Versailles road or or drive out Richmond Road and be amongst the horse farms, you know, and just kind of be out away from everything.

That allows you to get some great Instagram photos too, right?

Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, you gotta get those IG pics.

So what's it take every day to run that Instagram site?

You know, when I first started it, it was a lot of work. I mean, I was putting six to eight hours a day into it. First thing I did when I got up, And I would make spreadsheets and, you know, keep track of all my followers and I would keep track of, you know, I made a list of all the people that I wanted to make sure that I commented on their stuff every day just to interact with them. And, you know, I picked the people that, that I felt were. very active in the bourbon whiskey community and followed them and then commented on their stuff and shared their stuff. But then even people that would comment on my pictures, I would go back and comment on their stuff and follow them and talk to them and was able to develop some really good relationships out of that. And it's a huge surprise to me how much has taken off. I did it because it was something that was something I thought would be really enjoyable. And it is, I enjoy taking pictures, you know, as an attorney, it's a very, very dry type of job and there's not a lot of creativity that goes into real estate law. But for me to be able to do photography, it's something my father's done for 50 plus years as an amateur photographer, but he's very talented at it. And I've just seen how much joy it brings him. And I've always had a passion for doing that. So for me, Instagram is just, it's great because it's a creative outlet for me that it allows me to share my creativity in my own way. and escape the real estate law practice.

So I looked at a lot of your photos and your posts and stuff. And I, I think getting that perfect photo to me, sometimes it's the right, you get the right second. It takes that right eye to get that perfect photo. You know, you might be shooting a sunset with a bottle, but out of that sunset might last for 30 minutes, but there might only be one or two shots in that entire sunset of that photo, right?

Oh yeah. And I take a ton of pictures and I'm very critical about the pictures I take and I'm always wanting to try to figure out ways to improve it or make it better. But you know, going back to starting it, a lot of it was the engagement, the interaction. I'm not as active in terms of that anymore because the site's almost taken on a life of its own, which is great. And it continues to grow on a daily basis. I'm very fortunate for that. I still want to interact and engage with people. I mean, to me, this is, it's why I started it. I mean, I wanted to be able to share my passion. Like I said earlier, you know, I'm very passionate about being a Kentuckian. You know, growing up in Eastern Kentucky, and I think I may have mentioned this to you, email or something. You know, in Eastern Kentucky, people perceive you when I was younger. I felt like I was perceived as uneducated. You know, we're all unhealthy people. We're uneducated people. We're poor people. So there wasn't a lot of things that we felt a sense of pride about. But you know, Kentucky basketball was one of the, and I think that's the reason Kentucky basketball is so big because it's always been so successful. And it's something that gives a lot of Kentuckians a sense of pride that we don't get from other things. But for me now as an adult, the bourbon industry is that way. I mean, it's something that we are, I mean, we're the best in the world. I think what we do and making bourbon, we're the best in the world. And people come here from all over the world to see and experience that. And to me, it's a sense of pride that I can say, yeah, I'm from Kentucky and I'm damn proud to be from Kentucky. And I'm proud of what people have worked hard to build here. And for me, it's an opportunity to share that passion and the pride of being a Kentuckian and say, look, look what we do, you know?

I think when people, uh, when you're growing up and you have a concept in your mind of what something is, kind of like when we were talking about earlier, you might have in your mind what a person looks like before you meet them or what somebody's wife or spouse looks like. I was ignorant to the fact of what Kentucky was too. And in my mind, I always thought, Kentucky hillbillies or something like that. Sure. Um, yeah. And then I was got older. I realized Kentucky is blue blood. Yeah. Horse racing. Oh yeah. Bourbon. Yep. Um, great basketball, not just Kentucky UK, but there's another basketball team over there. I don't know who you're, I don't know who you're referring to. There's only one basketball team in Kentucky, but bluegrass music, bill Monroe, there's, there's so many great things that come out of the state of Kentucky Billy racer.

Oh wait, I can't see. He's from Flatwoods. I grew up, he was like five or six years older than me, but we're from the same home. Loretta Lynn. Loretta Lynn, the Kentucky music highway over there. Ricky Skaggs, Loretta Lynn.

They're still producing great music out of here.

Tyler Childers, Chris Stapleton. Yeah, crazy. You know, there's some big names coming up. Dustin Collins. Dustin Collins. Yeah. Dustin, man, I love, Dustin is a great guy. Absolutely love Dustin, man. And he, I tell you what, man, he, I've known musicians and he is probably the hardest working musician that I have ever met and that guy busts his butt every day. I follow him on Facebook and Instagram and I've met him probably three or four years ago for the first time. I love his music, Cold Dead Hands.

Well, you should listen to the episode he came on. So he had three acoustic songs he performed on her episode. Oh, great.

He had one of his older hands, which was Cold Dead Hands. He had one on his current album and then one he's about to release. And I just sat up in Baxter's over in Louisville and up in their VIP room and did an episode with him. And we sat and drank. He likes Maker's Mark. He's a Barstown boy, so I'd expect that out of him. And then we drank some Stag Junior. Oh yeah. I think it was a little hot. He's like, that's hot. Oh man.

See, that's another one. I'm a big fan of that Stag, the Stag Junior and the, and that Elijah Gregg barrel riff. I mean, when they get up in their 120s, 130s, But yeah, Dustin, man, he's a great guy, great musician, and he's doing it the right way. He's not somebody that's going to sell out to anybody. He's going to play his music. He's going to do it the way he wants to do it, and he's going to work his butt off to get there. you know, he's having a lot of success and I hope it continues for him. And I hope, I hope he really just absolutely takes off. So I'd like to have him back on again.

Uh, you know, he makes it big and say, Hey man, you know, you started here, you're a bourbon boy, um, barstown boy. Let's get you back on and let's hear some of that rocking songs.

You guys do that and bring me back to cause I want to, I want to sit around and drink bourbon with Dustin. He's a good guy.

One night we need to have a, we need to have bourbon night out of my farm. Yeah. Big fire and just bring a bunch of bourbon people out there. That'd be great. No mics or anything. We'll just sit out there and try to get, maybe try to get one of those guys to come out there and play some music for us. That'd be great.

Yeah. I'd enjoy that. Definitely.

Yeah. Beau would come out too, huh? Beau Garrett from, you know, he's a, he's from Lawrenceburg area. Beau Garrett. And he, he's actually a tour guide over at Wild Turkey.

Oh, is he really? Yeah. So he's a lead guitarist for Montgomery Gentry.

Oh, okay. I got you.

When Troy passed away, he needed something to fill his time while Montgomery Gentry was trying to figure out what they were going to do. Yeah. And his wife said, Hey, you need to get out of the house. Yeah. They got a tour guide position over at Wild Turkey. Why don't you see about that? And he told us, he said he went over there and checked it out and He loves it.

So his last name was Garrett. Is that right? Is it Garrett? Okay. Cause there was a guy, was it Bauer? The Bauer brothers that used to play when Montgomery Gentry first started. I was a bartender years ago. Oh, were you? Yeah. Downtown at a bar called Breedings in the brewery. Larry Redmond. I don't know if you guys know Larry, but he's a country singer. But anyway, the bad guys were a rock band and they used to play there all the time. And then when Montgomery Gentry came out, the, uh, there were three brothers, Andy, Bo and Bart that were in the bad guys. And they were actually the band that they were with, uh, Montgomery Gentry.

And I don't know how long they played with those guys for, but yeah, it's kind of fun to watch the video and be like, Oh, yeah, he's probably not the same guy because I think Bo's been with, uh, Montgomery Gentry since before they started. So I mean, so from the beginning, but in any case, um, great guy loves wild Turkey. He's, he's, he's brand loyal, isn't he? Firebird bow. Well, let's get back to you. Okay. Let's get back to you. So, um, you get the 25, 30,000 followers on Instagram. That's a pretty major accomplishment. Uh, it kind of affords you, it opens some doors for you. It does. Right. Yeah.

So kind of.

Let our users know a little bit what it's like to sort of be at the helm of a 30,000 follower account and on Instagram and what kind of things you're able to do. Well, it's a lot of pressure and I have to drink daily.

No, it's great. You know, like I said, when I started this, I did it because it was a passion. It was something I wanted to have fun with, an opportunity to be creative. And it has grown just like gangbusters. And it wasn't, I did not anticipate that it was going to happen. It's a learning experience for me every day, how to, how to deal with this. I spend time trying to understand what the capabilities are and you know, what even the responsibilities are. I want to engage the people that follow me and I want to be interactive with them. And I get, you know, I get email or direct messages mostly because I'm only on Instagram. That's really all I do. But I get direct messages every day. People will come into town. People looking for bourbon, you know, sometimes people trying to sell me bourbon or wanting to buy and I'm like, you know, that's not what I do. I appreciate it, but it's not, you know, don't have any interest in doing that. But people that message me about, hey, I need to buy a bourbon for somebody or we're going to come to town or where should we go? What should we do? And to me, it's almost like I get the opportunity to be an ambassador for Kentucky and for the bourbon industry. and direct people, let them know what they can do, where they can go, where they can see things and experience things they might not otherwise get the opportunity to experience. And for me as well, it's been an amazing opportunity to get to experience things that I didn't think I'd ever have the opportunity to experience.

So some doors get open for you. I mean, we actually, you and I were at Angel's Envy the other day for a big event and we can't talk about it yet. but I think by the time this episode airs, it will already have been released. But that's all right. But in any case, you and I were there. So we were part of a very small group of media people that were able to gain access to an early release of knowledge. And we got to spend some time with Wes and his boys at Angel's Envy. And those kind of things, Now you can take that information, that experience, and you get to relay it to your followers. So they get kind of the benefit of those open doors.

Sure. Yeah, it's fun. And I feel like that's part of the responsibility that I feel is to share things with people to let them know things that are coming up, things that are going on. And, you know, they can't be there with us, but I want to try to make them as involved as possible. And that's why when I was there, you know, I've got my camera out and taking pictures. I'm doing stories. You know, I can't say exactly what's going on, but I want people to get the feeling that they're there. You know, earlier in the summer, I got to do the Bourbon and Beyond Festival over in Louisville, which was great. I just wish it hadn't been so Damn hot.

So you were invited by the team of Bourbon Beyond team to come out and be a part of that.

Yeah, they were really good to us. They gave us some tickets, some VIP tickets to give away to people, and they gave us a pair of VIP tickets as well to attend the three-day event. So I mean, that was something, you know, I don't know that I personally would have spent the money on. It was a great festival, but that would have been a lot of money.

same thing to the Kentucky barbecue festival too, right? You, you got a VIP ticket for that.

Oh, down at the one down at Danville. Yeah. Yeah. So I got that. So yeah, I mean, just the opportunity to do things and, you know, and speaking of that, you know, the Danville event, we got to go down there and, um, and met up with some guys, Bill Bender, who's on Instagram as well. He's getting ready to do his TV show, Bender Stash, and a guy, Mike Hines from Nashville, some guys from Barrels and Brew, the liquor store down in Nashville, they were up. And we got to go into the warehouse with Shane and Pat from Wilderness Trail and got to tap into a couple barrels in the warehouse. And it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I didn't know I was going to get that experience. When I showed up, I was just going down to meet up with Bill and his girlfriend and Emily and meet up with some other people and eat some barbecue and have some fun. And it turned out to be something that was absolutely amazing.

Yeah, Mike was down there. I guess the two of you didn't actually meet up that day.

No, no.

I went the Saturday, which it was hot that day.

Yeah, I was down there. I think it was Saturday afternoon. I was down there, but yeah, it was, it was just miserable. It was a great barbecue there. Oh yeah. And well, and Pat is, uh, is a lead singer in a band, which I didn't know. He's actually a really good lead, he's a good singer. But now they're playing, and it's my kind of music because I love the 90s, early 2000s, heavy alternative rock music. And Pat was up there singing away, man, doing a great job. So it was, it was really cool. But to go in the warehouse and, you know, what Shane had his drill and, you know, drilling into the barrel and just

I have to say this about Wilderness Trail, Pat and Shane and the whole team down there. They're very down to earth, very welcoming. They've got a huge operation. They're making 220 plus barrels a day of whiskey. But when you walk in there, you're just one of the guys. You're just one of the friends. Good people.

They're a yeast business. I had no idea. They're the third largest producer of yeast in the world. They provide yeast. I mean, to everybody for fuel production, for whiskey production. You know, so those guys, I mean, they did it the right way. They got to experience, they got to go into all these different distilleries and sell their yeast product and see what everybody was doing and see what works for people, what didn't work. And they've been able to use that at Wilderness Trail. Man, and the stuff they're putting out. It's, it's fantastic.

Well, they kind of got the bat phone there, right? I mean, when a distillery out there in the world runs into trouble, they're ringing up the bat phone and calling up Pat and Shane and saying, what can we do?

Not, not many people have, you know, not many people don't know them in the distillery business. That's the neat thing about them and the culture of bourbon is everybody's willing to help everybody out.

It's kind of like us.

Having you on is such a great help to us so we can learn and build our podcast and build our following. I think that's something that's still our business.

Yeah, I appreciate you guys having me on. Yeah, it's a blast. I don't just share this with you.

We got to raise your bar. We got to taste your amaranth. There you go. But you know, if we got a listener out there that's thinking, You know, I kind of would like to go down that road of becoming an influencer or building up my personal brand on Instagram. Are there some tips of what to do and maybe what not to do you might share with them?

Yeah, I mean, number one is Well, I would say number one thing is don't, don't try to buy your way into things. Um, because I know there are a lot of people out there that have done that and it shows, um, and you can tell, you can tell when accounts are buying likes or buying followers or buying because their engagement numbers are, are terrible. They don't get any interaction. Um, or they, or they could put up a post and within, And I'm not going to say there's one specific account that's, that's a bourbon brand that they'll put up a post and sometimes within 15 minutes to have, you know, 1500 likes. Um, and it's, it's apparent, it's obvious what, what they're doing. So that's, that's not the way to go about it because in the end it's going to, it's going to backfire.

But you're about building a community of people that follow you, people that are like wake up in the morning and they want to know what you have to say.

Yeah, that's it. I mean, for me, it's about the engagement. It's about being able to meet people. You know, we talked earlier about Eric from Bourbon in Time and Scotch in Time and Watches in Time and whatever other times he's got together. But, you know, Eric's a great guy and I wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet him but through what I'm doing and his event, Bourbon in Time, that he put on last year. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it. But Eric's opened a lot of doors for me. And he's just a great guy. And he's introduced me to a lot of people through the Bourbon in Time community that he's put together. So it's been a lot of fun. But that's one thing I would say is be authentic. Don't try to buy your way into things. There are brands out there that are doing that. And they're not gonna last. And you'll see that. The second thing is be prepared to work. Like I said, when I first started it, it was probably six to eight hours a day.

And this is six to eight hours a day of interacting with other accounts on Instagram. So you're going in and you're reading posts and you're commenting on their posts and you're liking their posts and you're finding out what people out there have similar interests to you and you're following them or liking them or commenting on their stuff. So it's a churn.

It's a lot of work. It is. It's a lot of work. You know, it's the first thing I do when I get up in the morning. I'd go downstairs and get on my computer and spend probably two hours just going through my feed, going through who's liked my stuff, going to their pages, liking their stuff, sharing information with them. So it was a lot of work. And now, you know, it's kind of taken on a life of its own.

I'd say there's not as many internet trolls on Instagram as there is like on Facebook.

That's true. Yeah. I don't, I don't get that. I mean, there are, there are a few people. So, so there's one guy that occasionally he'll hop on and every, every comment he puts on my pictures, it's a negative and it's not every picture and it may just be once a month, you know, you just never know. but he will, he will nonetheless always hop on and just say something negative and then leave. And you know, and I won't see him again for another two or three weeks.

What's the best way do you think to deal with that?

I kill people with kindness.

Sometimes if you ignore them, they're just going to keep poking and poking and poking and poking.

And yeah, sometimes I think I say, Hey, thanks for the, thanks for the kind words or, and that was a great comment. Yeah. Now I'll tell you, um, I actually do some public speaking as well. A few years ago, I wrote a book. Back in 2011, actually, I weighed almost 400 pounds. I was a big guy. So just lifestyle choices, not eating well, drinking a lot of beer, and just kind of let myself go. And last time I got on a scale was I weighed 385 pounds and just stopped getting on a scale because I didn't want to know how much I weighed. And then I decided to change my life. So I took my time and made some small changes. And in 2013, I lost 130 pounds plus and ended up doing the Ironman competition over in Louisville. Good for you. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. So I ended up writing a book about that. And I shared my story with a lot of people. And CNN actually shared my story on their website and talked about trolls. I mean, people just came out of the woodworks. 95% of the people were positive and supportive and encouraging. But man, there's 5% of the people out there that were just nasty, just absolutely nasty. And my response was, you know, I changed my life. Anybody can do it. And that's the message I want to get out to anybody. So if you want to be nasty about that, that's your choice. You can do it. And I ended up doing a Facebook live event with CNN for about an hour and still had people that tried to troll me about the way I still looked, that I'm still fat or whatever. And I just didn't let it bother me.

So going back to the people who are thinking maybe about putting themselves out there, getting on Instagram, maybe trying to build a following. You're going to get some of that. Oh, yeah. You're going to get that. And the best way to handle that is with kindness. To me, it is. I mean, you know, yeah. Thank you very much for your opinion.

Yeah.

But thank you.

I disagree. But, you know, thanks for your thoughts and let them have their voice. And then, you know, I found if you confront people, the more you confront people, especially a keyboard warrior, you know, cause they're just going to come right back at you and it's just going to escalate. So the fastest way to diffuse them is to take away their power. And the only power they have is the negativity. And if you feed it back with positivity, they can't, it doesn't fuel them.

Oh, good for you. Definitely. I agree with that. Mike, we get a little bit of that. It's not too much, but we get some here and there. And honestly, the best way to handle that is just to move on down the road, right?

Well, you know, or kick them down the road. Yeah, that's sometimes I want to do that, but that's not the right way to do things, I think. And I tell anybody that's trying to build something, you know, build a company, build a story. And if you with your inspiration, you've got an inspirational story. If you changed one person's life with your story on CNN, Facebook, with your Instagram accounts, with bourbon, If you affected one person's life and made it more positive, took away their depression, took away their sorrows, or helped them lose weight, or helped them learn about bourbon, you changed that one life. It made it all worth it.

I agree. I agree 100%, man.

So the bourbon life is kind of your motto. It's your name. It's kind of your schtick, right? It is. It's all about living that bourbon life. It is.

It's about sharing drinks with friends. It's about camaraderie. It's about friendship. It's about sharing the passion, the bourbon industry, what I love about the state of Kentucky and obviously other places, but mostly Kentucky for me. Sharing my love of bourbon with as many people as I can, it's what it's about. Yeah, it's a lifestyle. I mean, it's more than just sitting around drinking. It's an attitude. It's an entire lifestyle.

Well, we definitely appreciate you sharing your whiskey tonight. I mean, we got to raid your bar, but you got to pick the whiskey you shared with us. But we did try a few other things while we were here as well.

I'm always happy to share with friends, man. So new and old.

Well, it's good to make a new friend. It's good to hang out with you tonight. I'm going to let you go ahead and tell our listeners how to find you. I know it's Instagram only, but I'll let you say it. Sure.

It's The Bourbon Life on Instagram. It's the underscore bourbon underscore life. But I do have an email address. I mean, and you can contact me through Instagram, but the email address is just theburbanlife at gmail.com. I do have a Facebook site, but I don't use it. I just saved it so nobody else would take it. And I have a website, but there's nothing on the website.

So it's all about Instagram for you?

It's just all about Instagram at this point.

Yeah, that's everything. I think that's awesome. Your story's awesome. I love it that you're dedicated to what you're doing. You work full time and you're doing this and you're doing it for the good of Kentucky. I love it. So if you're out there on Facebook or on Instagram, follow The Bourbon Life. If you're listening to this and you haven't followed us on Instagram, we're The Bourbon Road on Instagram. The Bourbon Road on Facebook and on Twitter. The Bourbon Road. The Bourbon Road. You can find me and Jim. Jim, where do you find you on Instagram?

I'm jshannon63.

And you can find me at onebigchief.com. Instagram and Michael James Hyatt on Facebook. We do have a Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. We're often in there chatting with people. We'll put photos up of stuff that will along our Bourbon Road that people might not get to see or do. Me and Jim will do it and put it out there for you so you can see if You want to come to Kentucky and check this stuff out.

It's going pretty good. We're north of a hundred users now in there. So listeners or followers or whatever you want to call them. So it's a good time in there. A lot of people posting and sharing and talking about stuff and it's a good place to be.

And I think if you're listening to this episode and you like what you hear, you love what you hear, Enjoy us talking about bourbon and bourbon culture and interviewing people like Mark. Leave us a review on Spotify, on Apple iTunes. We really appreciate it.

All right. Thanks again, Mark. We appreciate it. Thank you, guys. And we are going to get together by a bonfire. Excellent. All right. We do appreciate all of our listeners, and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate it if you'd subscribe and rate us a 5-star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions. And if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.