46. Leiper's Fork Distillery - Spirit of Tennessee

Matt, I hate to tell you this, but if our listeners, you can see Matt, he kind of looks like Forrest Gump at the end of his run across America.

When I started working here, I had a shaved head and clean shaved every day. The wine world is totally different from the whiskey world. I'm embracing it.

You definitely look like you work at a whiskey distillery.

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.

Hey, this is Big Chief, and you're listening to The Bourbon Road. And I'm out at Leapers Fork Distillery in Leapers Fork, Tennessee. And I got Lee Kennedy, the founder and owner, April Weller Cantrell, and Matt King with me today. How you guys doing?

Doing well, Mike. Thanks for being here. We're good. Glad you're here. Doing great. Thank you for being here.

Yeah. So I'm out here at this just an awesome distillery. We're driving out here today and it kind of reminded me of the hills of Kentucky down here in Tennessee. And we're driving along on our back little narrow roads and stuff, little creeks and farms. And she's like, take some photos, take some photos. And then we drive up to the stiller. You got an old, old pickup that's sitting out there. And when I drive up to a dog run cabin or dog trot cabin that you guys have in your tasting room. Absolutely. That's traditionally what a distiller would have lived back in the 1800s, right?

Yeah, absolutely. We were trying to hearken back to the traditions of whiskey making in Tennessee. There are a lot of similarities going back to their settlement between Kentucky and Tennessee. We used to have a very vibrant distilling industry here that got carried on by George and Jack. I'm sure we'll get into that. This old cabin was originally built in 1820. A lot of the early distilleries that were farm distilleries that turned into bigger distilleries in Tennessee, and I'm sure it's the same way in Kentucky as well, that you would have a farm distillery going on that started in a residence with a little distillery in the back, usually centered around a spring or something like that. So, As we were getting into what we wanted to do here and trying to represent those traditions, this old cabin we found down the road and moved log by log, it's a neat story and it's a neat building.

I told my wife when we were driving up, I said, Viv, if we get up there and there's a coon dog on a porch and some barefooted kids and some pregnant woman walks out with a shotgun, we got to go. I was like, but I think we're at the right place.

30 years ago here. You might've seen that.

I'm sure if you just keep driving, you might still see it. That's true. Yeah.

Yeah.

But this, this area has been known for whiskey for a long time, right?

Sure. Since its early foundings, I'm a big history guy and April is too. We'd like to study old pre-prohibition distilling history. In 1850, Williamson County actually had 10 distilleries in it, according to its industrial census. Initially, it was these farm distillers and things like that. Our county historian told us that at some point every spring on this side of Williamson County had a still on it at one point, especially during the prohibition area and things like that.

That's because the farmers didn't want their grain to go to waste. You can only make so much bread and eat it. You've got to have something to drink that bread with, right?

Yeah, no doubt. I didn't see a lot of grapes growing around here. We can't grow a mature wine grape, but we can make some whiskey.

That's a good thing, I think. The old boy that used to own this place, Colonel Hunter, he made some whiskey too, right?

Yeah, he did. He was actually the second owner of this property before the Native Americans, actually. They had it before all of us. He was the second owner and he moved to Tennessee like most of our early settlers did from North Carolina. Back in those days, Tennessee was an extension of North Carolina, the same way Kentucky was an extension of Virginia. He moved here and settled on about, actually went down to war of 1812, went to New Orleans with Andrew Jackson, fought the British, moved back to this area and purchased about this whole, I mean, about a thousand acres in this, down this old South Hall road. And so he had a distillery over on old 96 around the corners called the distillery tract. So, you know, he's our, he's a true Tennessee volunteer and kind of, we would like to honor him to one of our brands here.

I'm wondering if, I'd be interested, I'm going to have to take a look back and see what those soldiers, Tennessee volunteers that went down and fought in the world war of 1812, if they were granted any land and maybe Because a thousand acres back then really to the settlers really wasn't that much, but a lot of times the government would grant them lands for fighting. That'd be some history I'd like to try to dig up about Colonel Hunter.

That's pretty cool. And April has some, a lot of our Revolutionary War soldiers were granted property in Tennessee and Kentucky.

Yeah. In fact, with the second owner of this, he owned it until Hunter bought it because he wasn't a very good farmer. So he must have not been making whiskey or something.

So what's the first expression you got for me today?

So as a new distillery, we don't make vodka or gin here. We're a traditional whiskey house. That's what our forefathers made here in Tennessee. So we went and selected a good 10-year-old Tennessee bourbon and brought back a pre-prohibition label, which is Colonel Hunter here. So we named it Colonel Hunter Select Barrel. So this is a 10-year-old Tennessee bourbon. The grain bill on it is 84% corn, 8% rye, and 8% malted barley. It's a typical soft corn bourbon. Like I said, it's 10 years old, but it's really nice. It's a very approachable, drinkable bourbon. So this has been helping us pay the bills for the last three and a half years. You know, we just released some of our rye whiskey back in November. We got to pay for that beautiful distillery, right?

Probably for me, you know, you took me through a tour of the distillery out there and let me put a bung in a barrel. Probably one of the most beautiful distilleries I've ever been to.

Well, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. You know, that just that barn style, I think is like I said before, you're not going to get no more traditional in this unless, you know, somebody's back in them woods. Sure. Back there making some whiskey.

Try to keep it very traditional. This is the first product we had here, beside our white whiskeys, which we tell a different story with those. As far as the tasting notes on it, I'm going to let Matt walk you through some of those.

Yeah, so that first one there on your left, Big Chief, we know you like your heavy pour there, so we got you a flight today. But like he said, this is a very approachable whiskey, but it's got some complexity too. There's caramels and vanillas and butterscotch, brown sugar, you know, there's a little gram of Marsala, but this is what a typical, you know, we wanted approachable bourbon for people to try for one of the first things we're producing, but, or not producing, but to put on the shelves.

And I'm getting a little bit of, little bit of toasted marshmallow on that from a campfire. Like we're down in the creek just having some marshmallows.

And I'm like, that's a 90 proof. This is 90 proof. And that's a, it's a, it's really a marriage and go ahead and try it, but it's really a marriage of 30 barrels. So we go into a barrel house in Tennessee and they let us select, go through that house and then select barrels out of it. So it's, it's a true small batch.

It's got a little bit of pepper on the back end, just like I think I would expect. A great expression. It's got some, I think John from Dad's Drinking Bourbon last year said it's got some beautiful legs on it. Watch it run.

We won some awards on this whiskey out at the ADI conference two years in a row. We got best of class last year, so it's been good for us.

So you had to keep the lights on somehow. You had to pay for everything, and that's what you put out. You kept your heritage and stuff. I think that's a pretty traditional looking whiskey bottle too.

Yeah. And our standard label will be close to that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. I love the expression.

Isn't that nice?

Now who went and did the barrel picks?

So initially that was, we mentioned a man named Dave Shurick. Our first barrel pick was me and April and Dave Shurick. I did that.

He's on his boondocks now.

That's right, yes. He actually brought back a Tennessee whiskey a few years ago. Actually, I think it's more like five or six, called Jailers. Did really well. They outkicked their coverage on it, but it was a really well-done whiskey. Initially, with that, he taught us the ropes. Since then, it's just been our group.

Well, you definitely picked a guy that really knows what he's doing, right? Yes, it was very good. All the time with Brown Gorman helped build Woodford Reserve and bring that brand back. I mean, that's who you helped. Who else in the whiskey industry has really, you know, as a young distillery has helped you out?

We're down here in Tennessee, but we rely on Kentucky for a lot of resources. After Prohibition, Tennessee, because of various reasons, didn't open their state back up. Kentucky obviously did. The places I've been in the world, Scotland and Kentucky, the general population knows about. about making whiskey. Everybody has a brother or a dad or an aunt or a mom that worked in a distillery. So, Pat and Shane up at Wilderness Trail helped us out a lot, Firm Solutions. That's how actually how we met Mr. Shurick. So, we rely on a lot of folks. Uh, yeah. So Pat and Shane, they're there. We call them our science consultants. You know, those guys are the whiskey wizards. They're definitely that.

They got a good deal. And you pick the right, I think the right guys to work with. And, you know, I think there's several people that you could have went with, but most genuine fellows you'll ever meet. Kentucky gentlemen.

Yes, for sure. They're great guys and making a great whiskey.

Now, from what I hear, there were hellraisers in college though. Just two good guys though. For sure. For sure. So let's talk about, go back a little bit and talk about how you, how Lee Kennedy say, yeah, I want to make a little bit of whiskey.

We were talking a little bit about this earlier. What initially drew me to whiskey and the production of it was from a cultural heritage standpoint. I'm a Scotch-Irish guy. There's a direct link to the southeastern United States and bourbon production all the way back to Scotland and Ireland. When I was about 16 years old, I had a copy of the Foxfire book and an uncle who drew still on a napkin. And so my mom's basement when I was about 16, I made, I had a five gallon pressure cooker and copper condensing line running through a five gallon bucket was my condenser and got some old archaic recipes out of the Fox fire book. And you know, their internet was not, I'm old. I'm not, I hope I'm not that old. I had to drive like 110 miles in Texas to a place called pretty Texas to get booze.

So, I wish I had that idea to make me some homemade steel.

We didn't make anybody blind, and I learned just enough to be dangerous. Fast forward to graduating college, moved back to Tennessee, bought a 30-gallon steel. The statute of limitations, I think, have run out now, but I was bar and distiller for quite a long time. There's only one way to learn it, and that's to do it. By then, the internet had come along. From about 2002 to the inception or really 2009, I was doing some experimenting and poured everything I had into learning the craft and just really fell in love with it from a science standpoint at that time. It's always boggled my mind since I was a teenager that you could take three inert ingredients and a contraption and turn something and it's flammable, consumable.

You really don't need a whole lot, right? The farmers back then, you need some oak, you need some grains, and you need some good water.

Really, boiled down to its essence, I think Pat and Shane would back me up on this. Water, sugar, and yeast in a still, that's what you need to make alcohol. Of course, that's simplified with the sugar. There's more to it than that. That's always boggled my mind that people figured this out 500 years ago, going back to Scotland and Ireland. And here we are sitting here today with the technology is different, but the science is the same.

Then he picked up Matt. He's like a shaggy dog over there. He's like my adopted son.

Where did you pick Matt up at? We talked a little bit about history. Tennessee had 322 distilleries in the state in 1895. Our centennial was in 1896. Ahead of that centennial, they did an industrial census. I actually have it in the office over there. We had 322 distilleries. So when I was going through that, then that went to two after prohibition ended. So we had a law actually against distillation in our county. Our state legislature changed the law in 2009 to allow distilleries back in the state. So really you had a manufacturer's prohibition almost for a hundred years. And we actually had prohibition in 1910 in Tennessee instead of 1920 when it was federally adopted. So I went through a really arduous process of convincing our local officials to let me do what I wanted to do. So part of that process, I had 30 acres out here in Leapers Fort for a long time, knew my neighbors, sat on their couches. So I went to some of the community leaders here and ended up sitting down with April and share with her my vision and what I wanted to do. And so from day one, you know, with my family and her, we kind of fought the good fight and went through four public hearings and took us three and a half years to get local approval.

Was he really just hitting on her? April, you come from, you got some lineage with that name Willer, right?

I do. I think that probably makes the funny story between me and Lee because I was working up in Leapers Fork and I was doing all the tourism for Leapers Fork up there. When Lee came in, I loved what he was telling me, but I was a little haughty about my Kentucky upbringing. He said he went to McBurban and I looked at him and said, You cannot do that. And then he and might I add that he looked so much differently back then, like his hair was so short. He had no beard. I come in with khakis and a button down on and he hands me this business plan to go home and look at, you know, and I looked at it and I called him back and I said, I'm so sorry.

I was so wrong to have been so haughty.

I said, clearly you can make bourbon in all the states.

Are you the one that forced him to look like Billy Ray Cyrus?

Well, no. I think that that was something that Lee wanted to do, but I will say I did probably encourage it because my husband had hair up until about, what, six months ago that was passed. Just waste on that.

I'm just messing with Lee.

I'll take Billy Ray.

What's the second expression we got?

The story of the second two or the second and the third kind of go hand in hand. Being a barn distiller, I was making Tennessee whiskey and bourbon in my barn. I had some preconceived notions of what I wanted to do, what kind of style, what my grain bills would be, that kind of thing. I expressly decided to make a rye whiskey. The first thing we ever distilled here were 30 barrels of rye whiskey. We really did that. I love the history and the tradition behind rye, but from another standpoint, I knew I was going to release a rye whiskey in year three before four years old. A lot of that was business plan kind of stuff. And then also the market, consumers are a little more forgiving on a young rye whiskey. There's a lot of younger ryes on the market. And ryes right now is an up and coming thing in America. Sure, yeah. I mean, it's the grand old grain. It was the first whiskey we distilled in the United States.

I wouldn't agree with that. I'd say we, but that's just me.

I agree with you. I didn't know what I wanted to do as far as the recipes. my grain bill. So we went through an experimental phase of seven different rye recipes before we decided on one. So as a result, that kind of resulted in 13 snowflake barrels. Matt makes fun of me for saying that, but you know, they're all different recipes. Matt doesn't look like a snowflake. We call him John Snow. So the first one you're trying is a barrel nine. So it's actually 55% rye, 30% corn, 15 malted barley. And the proof on it is 104.6. And it's a single barrel cash strength. And I tell people, and they also make fun of me saying this too, but To me, single barrel castrants are kind of scary, especially with a young whiskey. It's like standing up in front of people naked with no makeup on. We literally dump that whiskey out of the barrel, run it through a filter, and bottle it. We don't chill filter here. With when you're marrying whiskey, you can select barrels with certain profiles and use by using proofing water You can shape that whiskey more so into what you want to do. So these single-barreled castor ants, you know, they are what they are So the first the first one is a 55% corn and then the barrel number five, which is a third That one is 85% rye So that was the highest rye grain bill we did and it's that and it's actually only in 15% multi-barley We use 15% barley malt, everything. And Matt can kind of walk you through some of the profiles. Let's try that.

You know, and I think one of the things that I've had this conversation with Lee and April several times in our industry, we use the word age and maturity kind of interchangeably. And, you know, Really, they're two totally different definitions. We know that rye, at least here we believe, matures a little bit quicker than corn. It doesn't necessarily age any faster. It goes back to these, do we use a smaller barrel or do we use a 53 gallon barrel? I think that was one of the things that, coming from the wine world over to the whiskey world, with Lee here and walking me through that, it really changed my perspective on what we were doing with our rye whiskey and why we selected the seven different recipes that we did, more experimental, but also why we went with the 55 rye, 30 corn, 15 barley. He says, being in the South, we all gravitate towards a sweeter palate. And so that's why we wanted to have that higher corn.

That sweet tea. That's right. Exactly. You know, I tasted this and it almost has that super sweet taste to it.

We went with for our standard rye grain bill. So after barrel 13, everything had 55% rye in it. We went with that lower content of rye. We call it a southern style rye. I've heard you in the past talk about this. We use actually a farmer out of Kentucky. He farms 3,000 acres in Williamson County for us, so the corn is grown on our property up the road. But we don't grow rye that well down here. They're starting to develop some southern strains of rye, and we're looking into that as well. So it's always kind of piqued my interest of I guess things were different back in the day, but how did rye become the dominant small grain in bourbon? We don't grow it that well down here. Neither short, cool summers. Because of things like that, we went with the lower rye content of 55% for our standard grain bill going forward.

That could have been because of history and there's those, I don't know if antique or what would you call them, grains that were grown back in 1800s. And that's what farmers had was rye. And that art in the thirties and the great depression, the president came out in the Tennessee Valley, especially in Kentucky, the government come in and kind of told farmers, Hey, we're going to have to change how you farm and kind of re-taught them how to plant because they were eroding away. They would farm up a hill instead of sideways on a hill and said, Hey, here's the grains that we're going to do to replant the soil. And, and maybe Rye was harsh on us. Well, I think it could be a little bit wrong with that, but I'm pretty, pretty positive I'm right. So in the thirties and forties, when they damned all the rivers around here and stuff, they teach these farmers about erosion. took away those ancient grains like rye away from Kentucky. It's not that they can't be grown here, and there's a time people forget about it and they buy their rye somewhere else.

That's very interesting you say that. Florida State's actually doing a project right now with what they're calling black wheat. We used to grow a strain of this, the ancient grain of wheat in the South that was grown. We get our malt out of Riverbend Malthouse out of Asheville, North Carolina. It's the Maltz grown up in Kentucky by Walnut Grove. I think some of the guys up in Kentucky use Walnut Grove as well. The Holcomb family is awesome up there. Anyway, I think they're spearheading some of the southern strains of rye coming out. There's actually a local rye producer here about 20 miles from us in Grinderswitch who's growing local rye. We use as local as we can. You know, our corn and our wheat's coming out of Williamson County, corn's off my farm. Our rye's out of Southern Kentucky and our barley's out of Kentucky, but we send it to North Carolina, the mall.

I got this thought in my mind. I've been having this for a while and I've been wanting to ask a distillery about this. Indiana's really big into making popcorn. A lot of states do in the Midwest and I kind of wondered if anybody could make whiskey out of it.

I mean, as long as it's got starch in it, you can make whiskey out of, Oh, well it's, it's a grain that has starch.

I just thought it'd be cool to do. And that, you know, maybe you own something.

Yeah.

And kettle corn in the glass.

True popcorn whiskey out there. Yeah. I just, I thought that for a while. And I've, you know, I was like, man, next time I go to a still room, I ask them that and see what they, they think about that. Cause it's, I guess that's really an ancient grain too, as popcorn is.

I think after being around Pat and Shane, you find out that you can make whiskey out of almost any grain because they simplify the most intense science that you could possibly.

There's quinoa whiskeys on the market somewhere.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, rice is good for whiskey forever. Actually, in America, rice whiskey is going to be coming back. There's a place called 7-3 distillery down in New Orleans, and they're going to be making some rice whiskey. I thought that was pretty neat. So a question for you, April and Matt. He told me he couldn't find no juice to drink as a kid, so he's like, I just make my own. That's, you're pretty thirsty. April, what was your first drink of bourbon? You remember? Oh man, bad girl.

Well, I mean, I grew up, I grew up, my family's. from originally Nelson County. I think that they put it in your bottle just to keep you to shut up, which isn't a bad thing, I guess.

Which they call a toothache, right?

Right, exactly. It was a toothache. It's all medicinal. Weller was my first bourbon that I drank. You know, it's funny because it was always the bourbon that I loved the most. And I always complained because I say I've probably boasted about it too much and now everybody likes it. But I mean, that's what gave me my start. But I found out that I like a lot of bourbons. And Lee, honestly, is the one who taught me to like Rye. And when he first met me, I was completely against Rye. I was like, I do not like rye. I know I don't like rye. And he was like, I don't know about that. So he has taught me a whole lot about some of the industry and obviously, but even on my flavor profiles. And I will say this, I find that the women that come in here really, really like these ryes because I find that women like a more robust flavor. And even though these are on the sweeter side, there's, you know, that peppery flavor, and they really like that. And that's what I like about it.

Women have a better palate than men do.

Well, I agree with you on that. But I mean, just in general, being a part of bourbon women, just knowing all those and meeting all those different women, I found that so many of them tend to lean toward a rye or a high rye, you know, bourbon. And I get it now. It's a really robust flavor. I like it.

Now, so let's fast forward to today. Besides leapers for whiskey and bourbon, what's your go-to bourbon on the shelf?

Go-to bourbon on my shelf would be three. Maybe four, but Weller would be one. And that's always there.

Amen sister.

Yeah. Four roses. And that's being small batch. I really liked their small batch that not to, I like the single barrel too, but the small batch is a really good one. Old Forrester really like old Forrester. Cause I like some of the flavor profiles on that it leaves on your palette. And then my last one's probably going to surprise people is I really am digging old granddad.

Old granddad.

On the, yeah, the, the proof in the hunter proof and bottled and bond. I really like it. It's, and it's, to me, it's a very, um, sneaky whiskey. People that would pass it on the shelf because it's not the high priced whiskey.

You just told everybody you're a penny pitcher.

Penny pitcher. If I drink well, I don't think so. That's what I tried.

Matt, what about you, man? When was your first?

You know, one of the things I remember growing up and like I mentioned earlier, group kind of around wine a lot. My parents were winos. They were, my dad's putting in a wine cellar in his house right now. So, but, you know, one of the things that I would always remember is they would, they would hand me a glass of something and they would say, okay, you know, is this red or white? obviously that was an easy question growing up. And then, okay, smell this. You've smelled something like this before. And eventually grew to taste this. You've had something that tastes like this before. What is it? And so I think that helped to build my palate, but I think my brother wrecked it when we went to Michigan State and he started pulling out whatever bottom shelf whiskey he could buy. But I think growing up, I do remember sitting down one time with my father and he pulled out a bottle of Gentleman Jack Daniels and set it down. He said, if you want to have a drink with me, you're more welcome to stay at the house tonight and have a drink, but you're not going out. And I think that was one of the best memories I had because it was one of the best conversations growing up with my parents who was teaching me to appreciate what was in my glass. But Michigan State kind of wrecked that for me too.

That's probably a lot of people's first whiskey. I think that might have been one of my really first whiskeys. My stepdad had a bottle of Jack Daniels and we'd drink that. I went out one night with a bunch of buddies in high school. I came home about four in the morning and about four 30, my bed got kicked and said, get up. And I had to go scoop out a corn, a silo that had the top blown off and it rained and filled it up about four foot deep and had to scoop that out. And in a hot Texas sun in the summertime, it,

probably some fermentation won't forget that.

It almost ruined me. And then, you know, it took me a while to really appreciate the whiskey. And then I kind of moved to, to 10 high was a whiskey for awhile, but I drank him in military special being in the military. And then I just kind of graduated from there. And what do you, besides Lieber's fork, obviously, you know, I'm sure you do get to drink a lot of that. What do you, what do you,

Yeah. I think that as Lee says too, we can really find something to appreciate in every whiskey here. I love old Forster single barrel. Big fan of that right now. Just finished a bottle of Buffalo Trace that I really enjoyed. I had a buddy give me a blind sample of very old Barton Hunter proof that blew me away not too long ago. Surprisingly, I had no idea what was in the glass. When he told me, I was like, man, I can appreciate this. But I think Old Forester and Buffalo Tracer are my two go-tos on a daily, but other than ours, obviously.

Well, I'll tell you what, I've been sipping on this as we've been talking, this rye whiskey, and I'm not a rye whiskey guy, but I always think I'll be a weeded whiskey guy, but ryes have grown on me in the past six, seven months is the more I drink and the more places we visit and the great expressions of stuff. This has such a caramely, I still go back to that sweet tea, you almost worry you could put a spoon in it and stir it. Sure. You know, the spoon to stand up. Let's keep sitting on this and we'll take a quick break and then when we come back we'll try the other two expressions you got for us.

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 hand-crafted 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 woodcrafters 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 rotten 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 LogHeadsHomeCenter.

We're back here. We're still at Leapers Fork. Lee, what's the third expression you got for us to sample?

The third is another rye whiskey. Going back to that story, we had seven different of those initial rye grain bills that were experimental. They ranged from a 55% rye up to 85%. You're seeing both ends of the spectrum here. The first one you tried was that 55% southern-style rye with that 30% corn. This third one, is just two grains. It's 85% rye and 15% malted barley. It's typical of a high rye, more of a northeastern style of rye. We want to show you both ends of those spectrums. To me, it's really interesting because you can really see what that grain contributes. I gravitate towards the lower rye content, hence the reason we carried on from barrel 13 onward with the 55% rye. Uh, in that one, the, the proof on, on that is 106.8.

This is jingle barrel. Is it made at Christmas time?

That was so all of those labels are handwritten and it's supposed to say single barrel.

That actually isn't as from one of the people who wrote that.

Oh, I see. We had a table of about five ladies for two weeks handwriting labels and they were actually were hand applied. So it was in that, you know, we during Christmas time, we released a seven series box set that you see on the table here. So each, each bottle represents one of the seven different grain bills.

That's a, that's a grown man's Christmas present. Definitely grown man. I gotta say, you know, I'm sitting here and I'm usually can pick out like, like I said, Hey Billy Ray Cyrus and stuff, Matt, I hate to tell you this, man, but if our listeners, you can see Matt, uh, he kind of looks like Forrest Gump at the end of his run across America.

When I started working here, I had a shaved head and clean shaved every day. The wine world is totally different from the whiskey world, so I'm embracing it.

You definitely look like you're working on a whiskey distiller now.

I'll appreciate that. I don't know about the four scope, but I'll appreciate that. We're going to carry that a long way. Thanks, Mike. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mike.

You get a muddy t-shirt, man.

You're all good. I know my Halloween costume this year.

If you end up in life with as much money as Tom Hanks has, that'd be a compliment. There you go.

No doubt.

This is some great rite. This is super high rite. It's got a definitely a kick to it.

Yeah, it does.

But not as peppery, I don't think as you might think it would be. To me, on the front end with the nose and even the flavor, Um, it has a peppery, but it tastes like a green apple to me. I have a lot of green apple on it that I get it on the nose and even when I first get it hits the tongue. Um, but yeah, it's not, it's a surprising, all of these to me are seven bucks set as well as the other, the other rise that we bottled. None of them to me drink as high as the proofs seem.

I'm going to tell you what I think the taste of this is. If I took some Twizzlers and set up them on my dash in the hot summer sun and I ate one of them, that's what I think of it like a cherry Twizzler.

It's funny you say that. Matt has used that tasting note as well. And really for us, the way our stills set up as well, our exit proof off the stills is about 137. We use a different style of malted barley. We're actually using a six-row brewer's malt that's toasted before we get it. Even on our rye, we have a naturally sweeter profile. That's just because my palate gravitates towards sweet. Obviously, you're going to make the kind of whiskey you want to drink. you know, everything you do in a stiller has a reason, but everything is kind of sets up towards a, towards a sweeter style profile.

That's kind of how I, uh, I think, you know, I think me and Jim both have different opinions on stuff and that's good for our podcast. And I saw you had some water on the table for us to put in there, but I'm kind of like John from, uh, dad's drinking bourbon. Um, I'd hear listen to his episode with you guys and he had said that, He believes that you should drink whiskey the way that the distiller put it in a bottle. And I, I'm kind of that same way. I like to drink it neat. No water, no ice, no nothing. I want a tea to mirror. That's a purity. That's that Baker's whenever you have a cake from somebody, you don't say, well, you know what I do? I'll get me some sprinkles and put on that.

I have that philosophy too. Especially my initial approach to the whiskey, I'm always going to try it neat. Even some of the crazy cash rents that are up there over $125, what they went in the barrel at, I'm always going to try it neat. But to me, my favorite proof points tend to be between $95 and nothing really over $110. Um, you know, after that, you know, but I can drink, I'll drink a neat whiskey up to about 110.

Well, I think a neat whiskey, you're drinking over 110, you're drinking a batch proof or a, you know, barrel cast strength, whatever you want to call it, foolproof. When you're drinking that, you can only drink so many of those. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

You're not going to walk straight. Right. Small sips. But.

Irish whiskey or Scotch. What's the proof on those usually?

80 on Irish and Scotch. Traditionally, that's what it's been. We actually make an Irish-style whiskey here. We can't call it Irish whiskey. A traditional Jameson grainbill, 40% malted barley, 60% unmalted. One month a year, we play around here and we do alternative grainbills. I love, like Matt was saying earlier, I appreciate all kinds of whiskeys, Irish whiskey, Scotch whiskey. I mean, some of the Laphroaig's are hard to choke down, but pretty much in general, I can find something to appreciate in any whiskey, kind of like a person. I try to find something to appreciate.

Could you imagine a bunch of leprechauns running around drinking 138 proofs whiskey?

So, you know, back to that Irish is 80 proof and it's triple distilled. So, you know, it's a lighter whiskey to begin with. So, we take 40% malted wheat from our county, 60% unmalted, and we triple distill it in the Irish tradition. And it comes off very characteristic of an Irish whiskey. So, we've got it sitting in barrels and used in ex bourbon barrels right now. It's nice. It needs some time.

So do you like that Irish whiskey, April?

I do. I mean, that's kind of what Marvin came from, right? Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, the processes, but I mean, I do like the weeded out. I'm kind of like both of them. I can find something to like and most of, I wish I could find something I didn't like.

I mean, I got this theory about weeded whiskey and Weller and for people that don't know Weller is, he is the father of weeded whiskey. He, if you drink any other weeded whiskey, he's the first man that, that we know put weed in it. But I think the man got sold a bunch of wheat and he had an extra and he's like, I gotta get rid of this.

Well, I will neither confirm nor deny that I know anything about that.

You know, it's funny how history, there's probably a lot of that goes on in history that nobody knows about, you know, just little bitty circumstances that turn into myths and legends and that kind of thing.

Yeah, there is a lot of lore. People say facts, but you know, Elijah Craig being the father of Bourbon and that's pretty disproven today, but he's more than likely not the father of Bourbon. But I love new craft stories like you guys. You're building your own history. There's no, there's no story behind you. You're building your own story. Now you got Colonel Hunter here and you're using his legacy, but there's no, there's no backstory. It's, it's you. The Lee that got in his barn and was making some hooch. That's the start of a week or four.

My opinion on that is all of our backstories, anybody that's making Tennessee whiskey or bourbon, that tradition of those whiskeys is our backstory. I don't make vodka and gin here. I appreciate those products. I love the cultural heritage of our state, same way in Kentucky. Going back to that history, it's so convoluted. It was more of a cultural movement. Those guys from Scotland and Ireland came over here. They didn't have barley at their disposal, but they could grow the hell out of Native American corn. And they realized they could, they could absolutely. So, you know, you distilled what you had at your fingertips and, you know, that was the birth of bourbon. You can't to tie it to one single person is a lot of the bourbon industry.

A lot of people don't know that is, is German, um, that German heritage to the Germans were making whiskey. And if you told them, I think if you told Germans that today, They'd be like, no way. We had my wife's families from Germany and they came over here this summer and they don't like whiskey at all. I know.

Is that not bizarre?

They like that beer though. But they like Budweiser. I used to be a big beer drinker, but I think I gravitated towards bourbon because I'm a big guy. If I drink, it takes a lot of beer. Get me out of the dance floor if my wife would say. They don't take too much whiskey. They get you there quicker. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Leapers Fork, if our listeners are coming down here and stuff, there's not a whole lot of signs on interstate for you guys.

No, there's not. No. You know, really we're Leapers Fork until, you know, we stake our claim in the ground being Leapers Fork. You know, it's been its own entity going back to 1801, but it's really kind of an extension of Franklin. So we, if I'm out and about, you know, somewhere else in the country and they ask where we're from, first answer is Nashville. But then we say really Franklin, you know, that kind of thing.

And how far are we from Nashville right here is the crow flies.

We're about, uh, depending on what time of day, but you can get from, from downtown Nashville to here in about 35 minutes or 40 minutes.

And then Leapers Fork. So you used to, April used to work for Leapers Fork, right? They got a pretty famous little grocery store here.

They've got Puckets here.

What's Puckets for our listeners?

But Puckets for our listeners is a, now it is not a grocery store. It's a, it's kind of a bar grill eatery. Great place to be. They have a lot of music there, but it started out as a grocery store.

A small.

A very small grocery store. Actually, when it started out, Miss Mary, who owned it, was making and how it became into a partial eatery. is she was making hamburgers and fried bologna sandwiches on a flat top.

There's nothing wrong with that right there.

They were great. No, no, no. Nothing wrong with it. And they specialize in live music now. They've got live music every night except Monday. Imagine that. We're in Tennessee now.

Tonight is actually the open mic night.

Are you going to go up there and sing Apple?

Uh, no. She could.

I could. What about Forrest over there? No, I'm not going to run up there.

I got to run, run back down. Forrest over here is a really good singer.

Yeah. You don't want to hear me sing. So is there a plan to put some signs up on the interstate and say, Hey, here's this craft distillery. Yeah.

You know, right now the story of our distillery is we're very, yeah, we will. The short answer is yes. And we've been talking to the state about that and we do have some signage closer into Franklin. The only marketing we do right now is on social media. We're very internally focused. We're a small distillery. We make 500 barrels a year. It's about 25,000 gallons. Our big brother down the road making 125,000 gallons a day.

For all of our listeners, this is definitely not an industrial process. How many barrels per day, you said?

We're making about two and a half per day and a half per day.

And then, you know, I, I, your, your buddies up there in Kentucky, pat chain, I think this past summer, and I'm sure they're surpass that, but they were pushing out about 212 per day. They got it going on. Um, You're, you're the true American dream, you know? Um, and you did it right. And I'm sure it, it wasn't easy to get to this point.

No, and we're not there yet. You know, I mean, right now we've got a lot of, well, when I say a lot of, we think it's a lot of whiskey laying on wood right now.

Um, but so liquid assets.

Yeah. I'm whiskey rich and cash poor right now. But yes, we're getting there. This year we saw close to 17,000 paid tours, which helps us tread water while we're aging whiskey. We're internally focused right now. When we start releasing whiskey in what we consider bulk, our focus will shift externally. I'll probably have Matt on the road doing some brand ambassador stuff. We want to be a small, regional brand that will always be allocated. If I do grow, we run a 500-gallon pot still. I love pot stills. It's a tradition until column stills were initially invented for the gin market in London. in the late 1800s. Up until then, every drop of whiskey made on a pot still. I love the tradition and the history behind pot stills. I think the flavor is more robust coming off of them. Of course, hey man, everybody's making great whiskey. I love to gravitate towards pot stills. If we do anything different, I'll drop in a thousand gallon pot still and double our production. If we move off site to a larger area or production area, I think I'll still have a pot still. That's one of the beliefs I have with the way we make whiskey.

you know, get off the beaten trail. Don't go to the big distilleries, you know, absolutely those big distilleries. But if you want to put your money somewhere, um, put it in Leapers Fork at a craft distillery where it's actually going to go to some people. It's going back into Leapers Fork into a community that, What else is here? It's not an industrial complex. Sure.

America's built by small business people at its heart. On the inverse of that, what we're trying to do here is, at its core, emulate big boy whiskey. I say what we do here to our folks is, We're trying to make a big boy style bourbon Tennessee whiskey at the small level using our local resources, using traditional techniques. They are our benchmark. Even in our Tennessee Distillers Guild, Jack and George sit on there. They're the most un-corporate entities that I know of. They help you out too. Oh, absolutely. They offer lab services. Y'all use the term, rising tide floats all ships. That's what we see at our guild meetings. We sit next to Nicole Austin from George Dickel, Jeff Arnett at Jack. They extend the hand to the little guys. They're proponents of us, so that's good.

What states are you guys in right now besides Tennessee?

We're only in pretty much Davidson and Williamson County, which is central, middle Tennessee. Alabama. Oh yeah, we're down in Alabama. On the coast. My mom's side of the family is from this area since about 1805, but my dad's side of the family is from the Gulf Coast. Dirty south down there. Absolutely, deep south. Too much iron in the water back in the day to make whiskey down there But anyway, so we've got a little whiskey down on the Gulf Coast right now But there's no plans to make some put apple peels in your whiskey, you know, not right now, but I'm up to trying anything That's a that's an Alabama thing, right?

Is it really Clyde May's it? Yeah Clyde May Yeah I just think it's amazing.

Are we going to see you in Kentucky? Oh, absolutely. Kentucky is kind of the 65 quarter for sure.

If he doesn't take it to Kentucky, I'm going to have to have a heart attack or something.

I don't know. April's right. Our next extension will be all of our surrounding states. Right now, we've only released 13 barrels of our own whiskey. Starting in November, we'll release another 16 barrels of our own rye whiskey in March. In November of this year, we'll release about 60 barrels of Tennessee whiskey, which we're going to try next. Tennessee will be over four years old. I'm trying to put at least five years on my bourbon, which is a weeder. Going back to that, it needs a little more time in the barrel.

Matt might've promised a little bit of that. You never know. So we can make that happen.

The whiskey you got for me next, your Tennessee whiskey. And I'm looking at that bottle and it is, I'd say it's almost as double in the color. It is.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Rich. Amber. That amber goodness, as I call it.

Liquid gold. It is nice. It's a richer color. Just for clarity, that's actually Matt and I pulling some samples out with Greg yesterday out of barrels. Sitting around wanted to show you and also to clarify you're the first person out of this organization to try that Tennessee whiskey

To me, that's definitely a Tennessee whiskey right there.

It's a grain bill on that 70% corn, 15 rye, 15 mountain barley.

When they say smooth, it's Tennessee whiskey. Some people in the whiskey business, they don't like that word. Irish, they don't like to say smooth whiskey. You know, I'm, I'm six, three and I'll say smooth.

And that's barrel proof too. That's 105.2 on that one. So I don't know.

I think it drinks like a 90 proof it, you know, it's. Maybe I could see it go in and stay in the barrel a little bit longer. Oh, absolutely. I think you're definitely on the right track to where, that's what I think of a Tennessee whiskey. That's definitely a Tennessee whiskey. And I think you can compete with the big boys with that stuff right there.

Well, thank you. I'm happy where it's at right now. The 60 barrels of that we made in year one will start, all of that will start, we'll be over four years old starting the fall of this year. So, eventually, I want our standard bottlings to be about seven years old. Of course, as a new distillery, you've got to fill that pipeline. So, we're holding stock back as we're releasing. We're keeping that in mind. But it's a struggle with cash flow. You walk a balance between, nobody ever wants to fast-forward time. But in the case of whiskey, it's like, man, I wish that was seven years old, but you can't think like that.

That Rick house that you want to be able to build itself, right? And somebody's got to fund it. Somebody's got to build it. You know, I think everybody realizes that. I've heard people say, Oh, I'm not going to pay 50 or $60 for that bottle of whiskey because. You know, it's not worth that. I can go buy this or this or this. And I'm like, you don't know what they have in that bottle whiskey. And it's not for sure liquid in there. It's their distillery. It's their employees. Yeah. It's the love they put into it. They might be handling label. And like you said, they might be putting a bottles or filling the barrels themselves. Yeah. There's a lot of work that goes into that. No doubt. And I think you got to realize that what's your what's your mind? It's not just a whiskey, but you're buying that company. You're buying their love and their passion for their product. And sometimes I think people will be shocked that what they can truly get out of this will compete against anything a big company will put out. I'm not saying we'll buy your standard Jack Daniels bottle, but I think George and Jack would be proud of you today with something like this right here.

Yeah. I told you before the show, I spent a lot of time in Kentucky, and I'm a bourbon guy. I love Tennessee whiskey, too. When I started the project, we weren't going to do a Tennessee whiskey. We were going to do a Tennessee bourbon. Some friends in Kentucky said, man, you've got to do a Tennessee whiskey. You'd be doing yourself a disservice. I'm a contrarian. I'm not going to do it. Not a lot of people making bourbon here right now. I love the tradition behind Tennessee whiskey. I love the tradition behind bourbon in both of them. The federal government doesn't make a distinction between the two. In essence, Tennessee whiskey is bourbon. That's been an argument going back forever.

By law.

Exactly. The federal government says, y'all going to have that argument down south. We don't care. It's bourbon to us.

But Tennessee made that law themselves saying they'd be called Tennessee whiskey.

And really what that is, is you make bourbon in the state of Tennessee, and before it goes into a barrel, you run it through sugar maple charcoal. That is the difference, sugar maple charcoal.

It gives that mellow herb flavor to it.

You can think of it as a Brita filter for whiskey a little bit, those fusil oils that are carrying over in the distillate. That charcoal is capturing some of those heavier oils, smoothing that whiskey out. What the bourbon people say you're doing is stripping out a little flavor. There's probably truth to both of those statements. Tennessee whiskey tends to be a little lighter, a little smoother because of that filtration, maybe have a different mouth feel. I heard Michael Veach on one of your podcasts talk about it adds a little alkalinity, for sure. We really spend some time testing that whiskey before it goes through that Lincoln, before it goes through it, and then after the after effect.

So before it went through the process, through the filtering process, did you guys taste that? Yeah. And look at the color in it. Was it lighter in color or darker in color?

Well, the color is always going to be clear. Coming off that steel, it's white dog. There's two schools of thought. You take your white dog off the steel, run it through at exit proof off the steel, and then do your proofing on the back end. We're actually playing with two techniques right now. We go in the barrel 110. for various reasons. We proofed that whiskey down about 112, and then run it through the filter, and then add a little bit of proofing water before we put it in the barrel. But we're playing with both of those. There's different techniques with the Lincoln County process. And so we're kind of playing with those as well, but we go through about three and a half. We don't do as much of a jack. We just go through about three and a half feet of charcoal. It takes us about 36 hours.

So Matt and April, every day, let's say, how much bourbon are you sampling on a daily basis? Not enough.

I can agree with that answer.

Well, I mean, we're just now coming into our own really with releasing some of these and, you know, I feel like I have to straddle the fence because in my job role here, I do part of operations, I do part of marketing, I help our CFO with that things, you know, that part of it. So I'm like, no, no, no, tap it, don't tap it. Tap it, tap it, tap it. It's kind of a, you know, Pish and pull.

That's a that's a tricky mindset. Oh, yeah. Let's let's empty that barrel or not empty it. And I remember Pat Shane up in there in Kentucky. They were like, well, they were going to wait another year. Oh, yeah. And I think David, I don't know if it was David or not that said, hey, you need to bottle this is get this out there. It's ready. It is ready.

It's a lot.

And that's a scary. I think that for a business owner, it's probably a scary thing to wait or not wait. Does it taste right right now? Is it going to taste right in a year?

You only get one chance to make a first impression. That's scary. My CFO is my uncle. We're all family-owned here, small family-owned business.

They always say don't do business.

We haven't killed each other yet. It's a trade-off. He's a widget guy, so he wants some cash flow, and I want a damn good whiskey. We debated on whether to operate for about four and a half, five years with no sign on the door, no tourism, just behind the scenes making whiskey. And we decided that there's obviously value in branding. So for the last three and a half, four years, we've been kind of building our brand our way, so to speak. But even now, it's scary for me to release that three and a half year old rye. But I do think educated consumers see through youth. And I'm extremely happy with the way everything is progressing. Like I said, I don't want to fast forward time, but I can see where that's going. And for us, we're laughing like April talking about tapping barrels. A lot of big distilleries, they don't start checking barrels until about year three. And by year three, they kind of know which direction it's going. We started tapping barrels. When I say tap, trying them, not dumping them.

we were trying after, you know, three months for our listeners, that's pulling a bung out and you're putting them a whiskey thief down in there and taking a sample and, and a couple of people try it and see what their thoughts are. Cause if you just went off with one guy, um, sure. No, your, your tastes is different. Everybody else's, uh, you know, me and Jim always say you're whiskey your way. Um, your tastes is different to my tastes. That's why sometimes I might taste a, A hot Twizzler. Somebody else might taste something different.

And I trust these guys' palates. We do a lot of blind taste tests here. I love blinds. I think they're great. They strip all the bull crap away. So we do a lot of things here with our products and other folks and just trying to educate ourselves on the industry from a consumer standpoint. And these guys, I'd put their palates up against anybody.

Now, Matt, are you excited about being a whiskey ambassador outside of the state of Tennessee?

I'm very excited about it. I got to spend a little time working for actually our distributor. So before I came over working here, I worked for Athens Distributing and then went over to a local vineyard and then it made my way in this direction. So I'm excited to jump outside of Tennessee and to see this brand grow. I trust Lee. I trust April. I love what they're doing. To me, it's not about how many people come through that door. It's about leaving here as friends and family, but also growing that family outside of Tennessee. And, you know, that's one thing that we're really trying to build this brand around is that, you know, we are friends and family and it's friends and family that do this. And so we want to grow that outside of what we're just doing here in Leapers Fork and then into Franklin and Nashville and even further.

So I think you'd see whiskey drinkers open arms to anybody is going to put some whiskey out there and promise. Hey, try this good stuff right here.

Sure.

Fine folks. Let's try my, try my whiskey. And I think that's good. So we've got a couple of minutes left. In the future, what are you putting out? Are you going to do any finished whiskeys?

Right now, yes, the short answer is, yeah, I'd like to do that. Play around finishes. That for us, I think, is probably, man, we've got some time to do that. With that goal of having my standard age statement, about seven years, we've got a while before we do that. Right now, I'm concentrating on the whiskey that we're laying down right now, making it the best we can. We're scratching that itch with alternative-type stuff. We're keeping ourselves engaged by doing experimental whiskeys once a year. But man, I love what's going on with the finishes on Whiskey. Charlie and Andy up at Nelson, you're going to see them tomorrow. They're doing some great things with barrel finishing. I think that's a big feature of the industry. Consumers' pallets are getting More complex and they're wanting to see new things within the boundaries of bourbon and Tennessee whiskey So man the the sky's the limit on what you can you know do with finishing and so yeah short answers We'd love to do stuff like that down down the road, but we got some things to do first So tell me where we can find you guys on social media at

Yeah, so you'll find us at LF Distillery. So that'll be Instagram, Facebook, leapersforkdistillery.com. That's L-E-I-P-E-R-S-F-O-R-K, distillery.com. So that's our website. If you're coming into Nashville and want to book a tour, the best way to do it is through that website. And check us out on our Instagram and our Facebook as well.

So if you're headed from Kentucky and you're headed down to the dirty south, the Gulf Coast down there, you know, this is right on your stop.

Absolutely. We're only 15, about 15 minutes off the interstate.

Go to Puckett's, get some lunch, come over here, grab a couple of bottle of whiskey so you can enjoy them on a beach. And, you know, I'd say you guys are, you're kicking on all cylinders. Well, thank you.

And they drink very well on the beach, man.

There's nothing wrong with that. Well, Lee, April, Matt, I really appreciate you guys letting a Bourbon Road come on down here to Tennessee, Kentucky boys or myself, a Texas boy, coming down here and drinking some Tennessee whiskey, drinking some rye. We always appreciate when people open their doors to us and we try to make the most of it. So I thank you.

Hey, we're honored to have you. Thank you so much.

So once again, this is The Bourbon Road. You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, on Facebook, The Bourbon Road. You can find us, our web page is TheBourbonRoad.com. You can find me on Instagram at OneBigChief. Leave us comments. If you like podcasts like this, episodes with craft distilleries or distilleries or just anybody about the bourbon culture, Leave us a five-star review. Tell us what you think. Send us an email. Let us know. And we'll see you down at Bourbon Road.

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