461. Hunting for Laughs with the Bourbon Hunters

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

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

Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival. We've got another amazing event coming your way this year. Be sure to join us at the half and I'll tell you a little bit more about the event taking place October 4th, 2025.

Todd and I are proud to have Smokies Lifestyle Cigars as the sponsor of this episode and as the official cigar of the Bourbon Road podcast. Our hosts and listeners alike enjoy the ultimate experience of premium cigars. Smoky's Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Find out more during the halftime break and at smokyslifestylecigar.com. The Surgeon General warns that cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease and is not a safe alternative to cigarettes.

All right, listeners, welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road. This is Todd today and I am without my co-host, Jim Shannon. He's on vacation, but I'm not the only podcaster here today. I've got Dude Pool and JD Fritches from the Bourbon Hunters podcast. Welcome to the show, guys. Thanks for having us. No problem. No problem. So one of the first things before we kind of dive into what your show is all about and all that, is we'd like to get to that first pour. So JD, you want to talk a little bit about what you sent me? And I think Dude's got the same. Without giving too much away.

Right. No, I'll kind of be brief on this one. This first sample that I sent you is our very first legacy distillery barrel pick as a podcast. And we went and we were minus Tyler, I believe, for that one, which is par for the course on a lot of episodes. We've changed our intro to and sometimes graced by the presence of Tyler Schaeffer.

I want to do a little deeper dive about what all who was on your show, because you guys do have a mobile cast, I think is a good word sometimes.

Rotating crew.

Yeah. But you know, you got to do what you got to do and everybody's life is busy. So I understand it. So yeah.

Is the sweet spot of this company as the four of us see it. Okay.

It's nice. Cherry like sweet.

I'm getting surprisingly good nosing out of my pine glass in my hotel room. Yeah.

This has got a great nose, guys.

I mean, it's less than two ounces. It's about an ounce and a half, I'd say.

So before we jump into your show a little bit, dude, you want to kind of tell the folks kind of what first got you into bourbon and what was that aha moment that hooked you into bourbon?

Sure. Yeah. I mean, I think if you've listened to my podcast, I've talked about it probably ad nauseum, but for me, I went through a rough patch health wise where I had gotten up to about 275, 280 pounds and I had psoriasis, which turned into psoriatic arthritis. And so they put me on a medication that I was not allowed to drink on. So I went for about six years on that medication, not really able to drink, which, you know, whatever, worse things happen to people. But they changed my medication after that time period so that it would renew the efficacy. first thing they told me was I was able to drink if I wanted to again. And I never really was a fan of beer, but I didn't really have, you know, I would go out to the bars and I would drink tequila to have a good time. I would have what I like to call piss beer, you know, like But I would do that when I was playing like sports or doing something that was like almost like a replacement for water on a hot day. Um, I never really sat around and just kind of enjoyed alcohol. Um, but a buddy of mine, he, uh, he, uh, he, uh, I brought over some bourbon one day, poured it with some ginger ale over ice, and that started it for me. We all had our Jack and Jim stories in college and some in high school, maybe some in middle school, I guess. For me, I think my aha moment was once I had it with ginger ale. I started recognizing some of those flavors that were always to me at that point, because they were shooters for me up to then. And so it kind of evolved over time to less ice, less ginger ale. And now I primarily drink it neat. I mean, every once in a while, I'll put it over like a large form ice cube or something when it's a hot day outside. But yeah, for the most part, I just drink it neat now. So it's about the only thing I'll do to drink at the end of an evening to just kind of slow down, um, just kind of relax and take in the day and then reflect on the day.

Yeah. What about you JD?

I go way back to pre-drinking age when I would steal it from my stepfather. He was a Jim Beam guy.

You borrowed it though, right?

What did I say? That's what I said. I would drink a little bit of like a Diet Coke can and then I'd pour it into the can and nobody ever saw anything different. But I started out, ironically enough, on Captain Morgan. That was my first introduction to spirits. And I felt like it was a little too sweet. And I felt like whiskey offered a very happy medium where you got sweetness with it, but it came with a lot different experience. And we use a term called mouth experience. I would mix it. I was Coke and Jim. I was never really a Jack fan. And all of a sudden, COVID hit and my boss at work He introduced me to the world of collecting and he was like, well, or this and he go rare that. And I had never seen any of that in my life. I never had an eye for anything like that. And on my way back from Tennessee, from seeing my brother, we stopped into a place called Justin's house of bourbon and I paid way too much for my first few bottles. And I picked up an Eagle Rare, an Angel's Envy Finished Rye, and a one liter of just regular Buffalo Trace. And I think I was at like $300. Which is absurd. Now, knowing now what I didn't know then. But I think the best part of it for me is the camaraderie when I would go out initially and stand in line waiting to see what was potentially there to grab. But, you know, like Dude said, I drink mine primarily neat. I'll put it over a nice cube from time to time, or I'll just make some old fashions out of some of my shelfers.

Yeah, nice. All right. So tell me how the show started, dude. And as we said, there are four of you on the show plus someone we all know named Jason Chloe pops in, I guess to annoy you guys and hang out sometimes.

So yeah, tell the folks a little bit. I figure if anyone's annoying anyone, it's us annoying him. Yeah, I think that's a good question. I mean, honestly, I would, I coach youth sports, I coach CrossFit, I own a CrossFit gym, I have a nine to five job, I have a t shirt business. And at one point, I was just kind of sitting there thinking, all these people are asking to go do stuff or you know, just wanting to hang out and I just never have time. And one of my buddies, Tyler, who's on the podcast occasionally, as JD will bring up, he and I would talk about bourbon all the time. So we planned a bourbon trip over his birthday, which just happened to also be repeal weekend from prohibition. And so we took a trip and I was like, you know what, funny enough, I was listening to the bourbon road all the time. And that was kind of my You know, you guys made it sound so easy that I was like, oh, anyone can do this. So I just decided to buy the gear. And if you know anything about me, I jump in headfirst into anything that I do. And so I went and bought all the equipment, bought a mobile kit so that he and I could record on the road. And our first three episodes are just him and I traveling along the Bourbon Trail. We had never done it before. And so it was kind of our experience. But what was funny, the big takeaway from that for us in our form and our format, I should say, is we talked about football, we talked about a whole bunch of stuff that just wasn't even bourbon. And, and the people that were starting to listen to it, which was surprisingly fast, actually, I couldn't believe how quickly it took off. But They seem to gravitate towards that there were a lot of people doing a great job Just talking bourbon like you guys like dad's drinking bourbon at the time You know places like that. We're doing a great job of just reviewing bourbon talking about just bourbon You know with the occasional guests and things like that and we were just wanting to do something a little bit different make it a little like not that yours wasn't entertaining, it is 100%, but entertaining from a different type of angle. We like to say we're almost like an entertainment podcast while drinking bourbon. But yeah, if you listen to us, we're all over the place. I mean, we do talk about bourbon. We talk about it a lot, but we talk about our lives and you'll get a glimpse into my wife and JD's wife and Tyler's wife and what we're doing on the weekends and stuff like that. So it's a little bit of a different approach.

Yeah. You guys discussed movies and things, you know, like older movies, which I mean, I feel like we're pretty close in age. So I'm like right there with you. I'm like, oh yeah, I remember that part. And, you know, like the goofy references and things like you were talking about Billy Madison or not Billy Madison, but Happy Gilmore, of course. And I have still not seen the new one. So don't spoiler.

So, on my flight this morning, the guy beside me was watching Happy Gilmore 2. Sitting right beside me in the seat beside me, he was sitting there watching it and I was looking over my shoulder because I'd already seen it. I was like, oh, where's he at now? Where's he at now? It's pretty funny.

Did you guys share an earpiece and listen to it together?

No, no. In fact, I was actually, I don't want to get into it on this one. I was watching, I was watching a show that I used to watch back in like 2005, 2015 range. And I just started watching it again. And I just, funny enough, I wasn't into bourbon at that point. And they talk about bourbon in that show all the time. It's how I met your mother. So I I started watching that again and it's interesting how much they're drinking like scotch and whiskey and bourbon in different episodes. So it's kind of things you don't notice when you're not into something.

So JD, when did you join the team, so to speak?

Um, the first time I met dude and the gang, Tyler invited me to their, I think it was your 150th episode or 150th, 150,000th episodes or a recording or something. Uh, download.

That's a lot of recordings. Yeah, it's a lot.

And it was at top golf. And Tyler knows that I was a golfer back once upon a time and, uh, So he invited me to come be a part of the top golf, uh, recording and, uh, dudes probably just thinking, uh, just another one of Tyler's yuppies, you know, he didn't really pay too much attention to me during that time. But I think, uh, over the course of, uh, um, you know, seeing each other periodically, I think I grew on him.

Yeah. Like a, like a mole that's changing color and getting a little bit bigger.

The running joke is I always forget something at dude's house. So I always have to come back.

Yeah. He's never been able, we've never been able to cut the tie. He's always left to leave behind.

Or he breaks something, right?

Yeah. So the funny thing is, is I thought he was a friend of Tyler's. The way he described it, Tyler, that is introducing them, you know, they're both from Michigan. They both really like golf and blah, blah, blah. I thought they were friends that kind of grew up in like the same city or neighboring cities or something. We did though. We just didn't know each other. You just didn't know each other. Right. So I come to find out later that this was just some guy, I think Tyler maybe met you one time before that or something.

Yeah, once at Tartan. Yeah. That's pretty funny.

That's funny. And then you guys have one other member that's a part of your team. The people schnoz. The people schnoz.

Yeah, Brett Brian. Brett Brian. So yeah, Tyler, JD, myself and Brett Brian. So it was originally just myself and Tyler. And then Tyler found out he was going to be a father. So he thought he was going to have to pull away and not be on as many episodes. I brought in Brett, who was actually a member of my gym. We talked about bourbon all the time. He came on an episode during COVID to do four roses, single barrels, the old hundred proofers. We did different batches so we could compare, just talk about differences in something that's a shelfer. he did a really good job on that episode. So I asked him if he wanted to start coming on a little more frequently. Tyler never took that backseat. So we ended up being a threesome. And then Tyler did actually start doing it when he had a second child. So JD came in and so we're usually three strong. But sometimes it's just myself and JD now.

So How would you say, dude, that like your podcast has evolved since the beginning till now? And how many episodes are you up to now?

I think we just published 350 this week.

Congrats.

Yeah. Thank you. But to be fair, some of those are cheater episodes, like little two minute episodes, or we do the mouth experience Monday, which are just little 10 minute episodes. But that really kind of bumped up. the frequency at which they were coming out. Evolution-wise, I think we were originally starting the podcast to be something a little bit more akin to what you guys do, just reviewing bourbon and having guests on and things like that. During COVID, it was actually very interesting. We started, I feel like, at just the right time. We started in the very end of 2019, right before COVID hit. When all these distilleries closed down, during COVID, they had to do something to kind of stay, you know, in people's eyes so that or in their ears or whatever, just stay fresh on their minds. And so they were we were getting people on our podcast that Greg Metz on very early on. He was one of our first, I think, three guests of that type of caliber. You know, we had Taconic on, I think they were our first guests like that. We also had Smoke Wagon. But yeah, we had different people that I just never would have guessed that we've gotten that we're a little bit higher up in the industry that kind of seemed out of reach. But because of COVID, I think everyone became within reach and they wanted to make sure they could get out to as many households and stay as relevant as possible during COVID. So that was kind of interesting. But I kind of segue. Your question was, how have we evolved? I think we found a little bit of a subtraction in just talking about our lives and letting people into our homes. I think that's the thing that separates us from a little, you know, being just our traditional bourbon podcast. And like you said, I think we talk about old movies, we talk about music festivals, we talk about a whole bunch of different things. And I think we're funny from time to time. So I think that adds to, you know, the people coming back and listening.

I think all four of us bring a unique characteristic to the group.

Yeah. And then I think when we add Jason to it, it's, it's almost like a family that, uh, hadn't seen each other for a couple of months. Like it's, you know, like when you come together for a Thanksgiving with like your brothers and sisters, you haven't seen in a couple of months and everyone's just kind of riffing off each other.

I was going to say like five frat brothers or something though, a little bit.

Yeah, that's probably not a bad analogy. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, like friends that grew up together that hadn't seen each other in a while. I mean, every time we get together, we're just right in on each other. I mean, it's pretty good. It's fun.

Well, I'm enjoying this first pour. I think dude kind of spoiled it before we started the recording. My saying is Forester, I do kind of get that Forester vibe. So I'm thinking it's probably that 100 proof single barrel, but that's a, that one's outstanding. And I, I say to this day, I've yet to have any of the higher proofer ones that can compete with some of these 100 proofs, if you get a really good one. The single barrel, oh Forester's at full proof are just, they always just drink a little hot to me.

They do. I agree with that. One of the things Jackie's ICANN used to always say was that the magic proof for Old Forrester was right around 100. When they decided doing the barrel strength, it was all completely due to high demand from the industry at that moment. The bourbon enthusiasts, everyone was doing cask strength, barrel strength, this and that. And I think, you know, when they, she, she was open about saying she didn't think that was the best place for old Forester. She thought a hundred proof was, you know, really where it was at. And I don't think she's wrong. I've had some really good barrel strengths, but I, it's very hard for me to find a 100 proof old Forester that I don't like. They're just, it's that sweet spot. I feel like. So,

JD, tell me how, like, has your palette changed since you started, like you said, about episode 150? Do you feel like your palettes evolved as the shows evolved?

Yeah, most certainly. I've been exposed to bottles that I had never seen before, tasted before, brands that I would probably would have never ventured to taste since being a part of the guys, my palate. I have this recall where when I'm tasting whiskey, I have a nostalgic reaction to remembering a place in time when you know, my grandma or my mom or somebody was baking something for me or I'm at a camp fairground and I'm remembering funnel cakes and confectioners sugars and the whiskey now as opposed to when I was early on and I felt like they all tasted very much the same and it was like hot. Now it's a nostalgic recall.

If you ever listen to the podcast, it's very funny. When JD is about to take you on a journey, he gets quiet, stops talking for a good two or three minutes, and we'll all be talking, and you won't hear a peep from him. In person, he's just sitting there lost in the bourbon. He'll be nose in, eyes closed. You can tell he's wherever he's about to tell you his memory took him. he is there at that moment and he just disappears and he'll come out of that. It's like when in old school, when Will Ferrell blacks out to give that answer about business, and then he kind of comes out of it and says, did I do good? JD will come out of it, ask a question of something we just talked about two seconds ago. And we're all looking at each other like, what? We were just like, that sentence is how we ended and you came in and then you just asked the same thing. And then he'll come out with this story about being eight years old under a table when his grandmother was cooking biscuits. And it's funny. He's in the zone. The recall reminds me a little bit like Fred Minnick or Big Chief or even Shannon whenever they're doing their stuff sometimes and they're talking about their recollections of things when they were growing up. I feel like people with really good palettes have really good palettes because they can recall back to those memories and those first experiences with things and JD's outstanding at that.

But I'm the only one who starts out with like Billy Madison, a puppy who lost his way. And like, we learned absolutely new things too. Yeah, I get that.

But I totally get like going silent. Sometimes, you know, some of those really good pours could just like, you know, the room gets quiet, you know, and you just kind of every, even if you're like sharing with other people, everybody gets a little quiet and you're just kind of in your own thought. So I totally get that.

So question for you, I know you're talking about everyone going quiet. When, when you're just doing an audio only, how often does that get into your head? When you, when you're sitting there listening, you're like, Oh my gosh, it's too quiet right now. Someone's got to say something.

Uh, you know, occasionally, and I think that's where Jim will do some magical editing, you know, and take out that like 10, 15 seconds. And then sometimes you'll just catch yourself doing it. So you'll comment about it just to kind of like, Oh, we were quiet for about five or 10 seconds. So you'll say something like that. But, uh,

I guess that's the one thing I don't, I won't edit it unless, unless someone in the podcast says something that is truly like, what were you thinking saying that I don't, I don't generally edit anything.

Yeah. Definitely not me.

Oh no, never, never.

So, uh, dude, tell me, what are some of your favorite episodes you guys have recorded kind of off top of your head?

Oh, man. I mean, for different reasons. No, no, I mean, we've had some clunkers, I'm sure. You know, that's how it is. But we've had some really good ones, like some of the best ones aren't even really because of the bourbon we're drinking there because of stories like Tyler telling us about how he broke his toilet while his mother-in-law was babysitting him, basically, after he's recovering from his leg surgery. He sat too hard on the toilet, broke it, and it's just leaking everywhere. Just stupid stuff like that. Or his short story, his Code Brown short story that he told with his son in the pool with swimming lessons. That's just one of the best stories ever. We even named one of our picks after that. This is called Code Brown. I don't know. For me, those are my favorite episodes where something just off the wall or insane is talked about that we're just like, what kind of story was that? It has nothing to do with the bourbon. To go back to one of your earlier questions, I think I wanted a reason to get together and hang out with my buddies and the podcast ended up being that spot for me. It's a placeholder every week where I get to just hang out, slow down, drink with my friends. My wife now accepts it as a day that I get to hang out with my guys every week. you know, I don't know that for me that's, it's hard to pick an episode because every time I get to hang out with my buddies, it just reminds me of time before the podcast when I was just, not that I'm not busy now, but you know, I didn't make time for myself and my friends then, and now I'm trying to, so it just kind of gives me that, you know, good feeling of just being around my buddies and knowing that I'm taking time out of a busy schedule to make sure that I'm hanging out with my friends.

That's awesome. JD, what are some of your favorites?

I happen to think that anytime all four of us and Jason can get together, we laugh near as hard any other time that just the wheels come off and we get unhinged. It's just a very organic and we're picking at each other kind of a night. To me, that's when I feel like we're the closest. Other than that, I really enjoyed the bottle kill episode from the trip before I came on my first one, when everybody started making impressions of Kermit the Frog and Jay-Z and everything else. And I was dying when I listened to that.

Yeah, the bottle kill episodes are a little... That's something we do every year on the trail. We'll buy a bottle or now that the trips gotten bigger, as far as more people, we'll buy two or three bottles, but we'll buy something on the trail and kill it. It's usually like one year we did Masters Keep One. We killed that in an episode. It was just me, Jeff, and Tyler that year. Brett couldn't make it and it was before JD. And so we, the three of us killed a bottle of that. And it broke up into two episodes. And the funniest part about that, and everyone who talks to me about it says the same thing, is the second episode. Like the first one starts off all polished. The beginning of the second one, you know, I'll do my introduction that I record after the fact. And then it goes immediately into slurring. We're already half in the bag, if not three-fourths of the way in the bag. It's funny to listen to because we're just talking out of our behinds.

Well guys, it's been a really fun first half. We're going to take a short break, but we're going to come back with the Bourbon Hunter crew and yeah, we're going to do some more deep dives and while they got into the crazy, fun bourbon podcasting life. So we'll be right back.

Hey, roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival again. We have another amazing event this year, but we want you to come early because we've got a lot of events leading up to the festival. Starting on Thursday, we've got another mixology with master mixologist Heather Wibbles on the Bourbon Bell and O.H. Ingram. Leading into Friday, we have got Peggy No Stevens. She's back with another bourbon pairing and a lesson called The Stave is the Rage. It's going to be amazing. Limestone Heritage Distilling is going to be bringing in three single barrels. You're going to learn a lot. We've got the VIP coming back and this year we are celebrating women in bourbon. This year, Bourbon on the Banks Festival promises to be even better than ever. We've already got more than 70 distilleries that are going to be there. More than anything, I need to encourage you to get your tickets as soon as possible. They're selling fast. Some of them are already sold out. If you want to come this year, please get your tickets. We don't want to miss you on October 4th in Frankfort, Kentucky on the banks of the amazing Kentucky River.

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All right. Welcome back to the second half of the show. I'm with JD Fritches and Dude Poole from the Bourbon Hunters podcast. We've been sipping on an outstanding old Forester pick that they did. Would you guys do this pick?

Oh, wow. It was in, I think, May of last year.

Oh, wow. Okay. So that was a fairly recent pick.

2024.

So where else high floor two?

Where else high floor two? And so one of the reasons you guys did this pick is because you guys went down the Patreon, I guess, road, if you will. And you guys want to talk a little bit about that jump into that side of things?

Sure. Yeah. I mean, this was actually pre-Patreon.

Okay.

And it was one of the things I think that maybe gave us the idea to possibly try to go that route. This was a pick we did through OHLQ and where JD works, the golf club up in Dublin was actually our sponsor in Ohio. You have to have a retail, like a sponsor to go through and buy the barrel. And so our club bought most of it and then Tartan bought the rest of it and served it from their bar. And then we also did an evening at Tartan Fields where they paired up some food and we came in and we had different bourbons from Old Forrester finishing with our single barrel. And one of the ambassadors in Ohio for Old Forrester came and led us through the tasting. It was really neat.

But it's cool. Now, are you guys part of any other like, sort of like a Columbus Bourbon Society or anything like that?

I'm in forums. I've never joined any, like there's the cows is a big one in central Ohio whiskey society. That's a big one in the Columbus area. I know some people in it and I've had some of their picks, but we're not, I'm not formally part of it. I don't know if JD is or not, but mostly I just hang out in a lot of the forums and, you know, kind of participate that way.

I get to hang out with a lot of the cows people because I'm friends with a few of them. We've stood in line together and I'm just kind of a personable, bubbly person and I get to talk to people. Can't keep my mouth shut. But it's also led to some pretty cool relationships. I actually have a bottle of Jack barrel proof from cows that my buddy left on my table when I had them over recently.

I'll say you are the most, yeah, exactly. You're definitely the most, I think organically friendly person of the bunch. Like you just, you're like a bartender. You just start talking to people and they just totally embrace it. You're really good at it.

Yeah. What's your process of coming up with episodes? Is it a team effort? I know you guys recently had Cave Zemanian on, which that book was outstanding. I was really surprised. I was expecting more of a historical bibliography type thing and it I was like, oh, this is not what this is. This is, you know, more kind of fiction. And it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And we had a great interview with him and I thought you guys did as well. You even brought up some great questions to him that I was like, oh man, why didn't I think of that, that kind of thing, you know?

I mean, I do the same thing when I hear other people have the same guest.

Are you guys getting hit up by PR folks kind of like we do? And yeah, just kind of how do you, how do you like, you know, cause we get a lot, like some are just like, that is not even close to being berber related.

Right. Oh yeah, Sam. I think I just get it put on whatever the parent PR company's mailing list is. And I'll get stuff or like books that have nothing to do with bourbon or whiskey or even that type of stuff. I'll get, you know, just a ton of stuff, just like you said. But as far as how we choose our episodes, there are days when we know we're recording that night, we haven't made a decision. And JD and I are texting at like 3pm that afternoon, Hey, what should we do? I mean, that's, that's really honestly how it is. We do plan a lot of them. Don't get me wrong. But I'd say a good portion of them are just kind of, you know, from the hip, just, we don't really know until maybe an hour before. If we also get, like you said, some of the PR stuff, people will come to us and ask if they can be on the podcast. But then we also get other ones. So like I'm part of a couple of Mashin Journey. So Jason Colori's private barrel club. And I'm also part of Bourbon Enthusiast, which is James Ashcraft from Jacksonville. He's he's the first one, well, them and breaking bourbon I did together. Um, but he's, uh, the, I've stuck with him since 2019. Uh, our pallets are aligned and, and, uh, I've been on a lot of picks with him. I've taken JD on some of those picks and through that we've met some people in the industry. Like that's how we met Steve Nowley and, um, and Sherpa. Bourbon Sherpa, Chris Morris. I mean, so that's how we get sometimes. And that's when JD takes over and he just, hey, you want to be on our podcast? And they're like, sure. And then he follows up and then they'll be on the podcast. So like our episode with Steve Nowley was 100% organic because of JD. So.

Well, now he might be a guest at our December barbecue.

Yeah, our meetup that we're going to do in Lexington. Sorry, in Louisville. Louisville, yeah.

Oh, that's right. Let's get into this is poor too. JD was kind enough to send four pours and a bonus pour to me. I had sent these guys a blind, I guess it's probably been a couple months ago. And they actually recorded the episode where you guys did that, which was a lot of fun. Thank you. And I hope you enjoyed that.

We always love blinds.

So, what can you say about this one that won't give it away, I guess? It's got a really rich, there's like a maple, dark fruits.

Oh, wow. Without giving it away. You got anything, dude?

This is not a legacy distillery, but it is a strong up and coming distillery that is making a lot of waves.

has a strong presence in the bourbon world.

Yes, that's an even better way to say it actually. Strong presence in the bourbon world.

Todd, I think that you were the one who inspired us to actually start grading on a better scale. We were a little tough on everything.

Oh, really? Yeah, that's true.

That's awesome. I inspired somebody. You just made my day.

We realized that we weren't giving out very good grades. I mean, nothing bad, but we just weren't giving out high marks to even good bourbon sometimes. And we were just, I think Jason Kalori probably spoiled us on that. I think because we were getting a lot of B tags and a lot of, you know, just crazy stuff. Like he'd bring over Russell's, you know, a single Rick house and 15 and 13 and whatever. We were getting all of that stuff all the time. And so, you know, when you're having those all the time, it's hard to kind of. you know, give a four out to some stuff that probably deserves a four, but that's just how, but you opened our eyes to that. So we started trying to be a little nicer.

Yeah. We kind of take a different approach when we do, cause we'll usually try to get like, we'll get four, five bottles together and know, we'll talk about them. We won't really give them a rating. We just kind of rank them the way we like them that day, that show. So it's been kind of a fun way to do that without like, you know, well, this is a, you know, a two, this is a four and so on and so on. So, you know, because

Yeah, it's tough because I feel like there's not very many bourbons that I don't like. And that's an honest thing. If it has traditional bourbon flavors to it, I'm generally going to like it. It has to really be something very youthful or something in it that I just don't like or care for before I'm going to really knock a bourbon. So that's the toughest part for me is everything will be over a three almost. But getting it to a four, that's tough. So that's been my mindset until you jarred something loose there and got me to start giving out a little bit higher marks.

Awesome. Awesome. So you guys do like, you're kind of like your, I guess your main show. And then you said the mouth experience Monday, but there's been also one other thing that you've kind of started recently where you're kind of doing like a quick dive into, I guess, like, what's a good word, like bourbon information, like something like that.

Yeah. Just to keep with our alliteration, we have mouth experience Monday. These are bourbon briefs.

Yeah, bourbon briefs.

And so I'm trying to keep them like in the two to three minute range. And it's just me and I'm throwing them onto YouTube too, but it's just me talking into a camera. I've got a little teleprompter and so I've written it out ahead of time. So I'm not, you know, stumbling through it. It's probably a little more robotic than you're used to from me. I'm trying to fix that, but I haven't done it yet. But it's mostly, like you said, informative, like quick hitters that are just something that I'm interested in right now. That's kind of how it's been so far. Like we talked about ABV and proof, like where did proof come from? We talked about, you know, the one I think coming out this weekend is medicinal licenses. And then I don't even remember what all we've talked about so far. I think there's been three so far, maybe four, but I've got some, we're doing those every other week and I've got a whole year's worth lined up.

Yeah, I was trying to remember. Didn't you talk about prohibition?

What it takes to be a bourbon. Yeah. What it takes to be a bourbon was the first one. Did I talk about- I'm trying to remember. Prohibition and medicinal licenses yet, or did I- No, like you said, that was a coming one.

ADV. Yeah. That was the latest one that I listened to.

Yeah.

Okay.

that's the most recent one too. But yeah, that's what they are though. They're just little informational blurbs, all the old fashioned cocktail.

That's right. Old fashioned. Yes. So, I think that's really cool that you're doing that because I mean, you know, you feel like when we record a show, you always like to think there's always somebody, there's always going to be a new listener. And that new listener might not, you know, not know what you guys like or what you're like. And, you know, you want to be informative for not only them, but also like the seasoned veteran. Do you guys feel like you do a good balance of that? Or do you feel like you're more of a true bourbon enthusiast?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For example, just this last week, we had a local celebrity from a radio morning show and he was new to bourbon. I mean, he'd had bourbon before, but new to kind of tasting and experiencing bourbon. So we treated that episode as a, hey, you've never had bourbon before. This is how you'd know it. This is how you taste it. And we gave some facts about bourbon here and there and just what it takes to be a bourbon. Little things like that intermingled in with our conversation. He told a short story in the middle of it. We always keep that entertainment value in our long form episode if we can. But we do try to weave in some information whenever we can. But yeah, you're right. It's real easy to just assume that everyone listening is knowledgeable about bourbon and knows what you know. So you almost have to be mindful of that when you're talking and you're going on your little tangents to say, Oh wait, you know what? This might need explained. I'm getting better at that, I think, but there's definitely been periods of time where we don't do that at all.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like sometimes, you know, I'm a bit of a bourbon history buff. So, like, I'll bring that up and then I'll bring it up again. I'm like, why did I bring that up again? Like on a following episode? But I'm like, well, maybe somebody else didn't know that. New listener. Yeah, new listener. You never know.

And that person who heard it for the first time, the one before is now hearing it for the second time and now they're going to remember it.

That's what you'd like to think so anyway.

I feel like usually so often we go back to an episode called back to the basics and we try to speak it just a little bit.

Yeah. And I think what brought up the bourbon breeze for me, what actually made me start doing that is I was at a 4th of July party with a buddy of mine that I go out to every year and his buddy is a huge bourbon fan. He collects it and drinks it and everything. And we're sitting there talking. He was arguing with me about Bourbon having to be from Kentucky. I'm like, oh my God, how do people still think that? But that is still a thing. I remember the very first time Tyler and I went on the Bourbon Trail ourselves, those first three episodes you'll listen to in our series of this podcast. we ran into a guy who wanted, he was from Kentucky and he was arguing with us that bourbon only can come from Kentucky. If it's not from Kentucky, it's not bourbon. And he wasn't saying it in a prideful way. Oh, like, Oh no, if it's not from, you know, if it's not from Kentucky, it's not real bourbon. He was saying it in a, I'm just mistaken way.

Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Usually the people that say it only can come from Kentucky are from Kentucky. I'm going to be honest, I'm a Kentucky and then I hear it all the time and I'm like, well, I hate to tell you this, but I've got like bourbon from like 20, 20 or 30 states now. So you're totally wrong.

So I just figured if there's someone that much in the bourbon who just doesn't know, then there's got to be a lot of people who aren't in the bourbon that don't know. So I just figured it might give us a chance to give some information in between big episodes and making them a small bites like that. Just I thought would make them more consumable and more You don't have to listen to an hour long episode to get three little tidbits about bourbon. You can listen to a two minute episode and get a decent amount of information. That was my thinking.

Are you going to let JD loose on some of this like bourbon wisdom episodes?

I don't know. Is the world ready for that? He's the guy I was arguing with about the Kentucky bourbon knobs.

I've always felt Jack Daniels is bourbon.

Okay. I'm loving this pour.

You guys are two for two. So bravo to that. So the clue was a big presence in the whiskey world. And we've referenced them already tonight.

Okay. It's really, it's very sweet, but in a good way. And like I said, I'm still getting that like maple, darker fruits. I want to say it's not real proofy to me. So like maybe 110 maybe.

It's super breakfasty on the nose. Very maple syrup and pancake. It's maple syrup. Yeah. It's delicious. You getting on your pint glass?

I am actually.

Thank you for asking.

This pint glass is surprisingly nosing well. I'm able to shove my nose all the way into the glass and it's focusing it into my nostrils, my nares, I should say.

But yeah, this is great. Okay, go ahead.

This is from Pursuit Spirits.

Oh, nice. So I have the bottle here. Okay.

And we named it. So there's, let me tell you.

I've actually seen that bottle before.

So, okay.

It was a Kentucky Derby lineup, I think, on Fred Minnick's

So I took his PR picture, Fred Minick, and we called this Minick's Muffins because it reminded us of vanilla muffins and it had like a breakfasty maple syrupy type of flavor to it as well. But after we made the pick, we found out from the Pursuit people is that this was actually a pick that he had made and had to give the barrel back. And so we're like, oh, no way. We've got to somehow name this after him somehow. Because we were only able to get that barrel because he had to give it back to them for their barrel program or something like that. I don't know the story as to why he had to give it back. But then he found out about it on one of their round tables or something like that.

Ryan Cecil made a comment, well, if we never took it back, then there wouldn't be a Minix Muffins. And he just looked perplexed. I can't remember that episode.

So yeah, that's awesome.

Jason Kalori ended up texting him and saying, hey, I can get you a bottle of that if you want. And so I sent him a bottle, Fred Minick, a bottle of that. I don't know if he's tasted it or if he's tried it or not, because I haven't really gotten anything back from him or anything, because he doesn't really know me. But Jason gave me his address and told me to send it off to him.

That's cool. That's cool. That's funny because for Bourbon on the Banks Festival, which is coming up the first Saturday of October here in Frankfurt, I got to be a part of a, I guess, five or six different barrel picks that will be featured there at the festival and they'll get a special flag. And we actually did, I would almost swear that our pick is very similar to this one because they use, you know, they partnered up with independent stave with the different staves and it's that toasted, maple-y. And yeah, we had a, that was a, I think Ryan does a great job with his blending and some of those staves are doing some magic on their stuff.

This is a great relay stave.

Yeah.

And I think we had five barrels to choose from and all five of them were outstanding. They were really good. And it was fun because we did this on our bourbon blitz trip last year in December. And so we had like 12 of us. I think Anthony from the mashup was with us. Jason from mash and drum was with us. And then all of us from our podcasts were there.

And then we also had... Our popcorn podcast.

which has like seven listeners, but, and I'm two of them accidentally.

Rest your family. That's okay.

Yeah. But no, it was a, it was a really, really fun time. We went there into their little warehouse and, and we're just drinking out of the barrels. And, um, it was a perfect start to our trip. That was our first stop on our bourbon blitz that year. And we just, we had a blast. Yeah. It was really fun.

I really love this pick, but I honestly liked the fifth barrel a little bit better at the time, but I can't remember what I liked about it more now. I'm just happy we have this one.

Yeah. There were two or three of you, I think there were a split on that. Yeah.

When you guys get to Louisville for your December blitz, you'll got to go check out the new place.

It looks great.

I haven't been able to make it because I think they were literally moving in the day we did the pick. They were moving in four days or like they were having like their grand opening like Thursday, but they invited me up. But I was just, you know, which will segue into my next question. How do you guys balance podcasting and, and life, I guess is a good question.

For me, uh, I think it made it easier that, so I talked about being 275 pounds. Um, at one point I had to make a priority of my fitness and my nutrition. And I really had to turn all that around. Um, And I was one of those people that worked out every once in a while, like once a week, sometimes twice a week. And then a really good week, I'd work out three times a week. You know, I had to make a priority and make it something that I that was part of my daily schedule. And so with this, I had to make it so every Tuesday, every Tuesday night, we record. My wife knows it. My kids know it. All of the podcasters on our podcast know it that that's the day with the exception of Tyler, who apparently forgets every week that we record on Tuesday. But it's known like, for example, this week, I'm in Tampa. It's currently Tuesday night. I'm podcasting with you. So that's good. But Tyler was like, Hey, what are we talking about this week? I'm like, Tyler, And we've been talking about how I'm in Tampa this week. Like the one time he can come, you know, he, he forgets that I'm not going to be right. Um, but like to answer your question, I think it just, I made it a priority. I sliced out a bit of time and I said, unless of course, like, you know, something horrible in your life's happening, this is what I'm doing on a Tuesday night. So we all just know we're recording on a Tuesday night. So it's just become a priority.

Yeah.

JD.

I am an extreme extrovert and my wife knows that if I don't have something, I'm going to get stir crazy. If I'm just in the house and working all the time, I get a little antsy and this podcast definitely helps me get into my natural environment where I get to hang out with who I probably consider my best friends. I'm a transplant here and didn't know a whole lot of people.

Are you on a second podcast you didn't tell us about?

No, no. Me, myself, and Irene. It was me and three different personalities. No, that's fair.

That's fair.

No, I mean dude, Brett, and Tyler, and I'll even include Jason. All of you guys, we don't get to hang out with him enough. He's incredibly busy, but you guys are probably my best friends here in Ohio, and I love the fact I get to see you guys every single week.

I make jokes, but I mean, that's what it's become for me as well. I mean, they're, they're the guys that I'm texting with every day. They're the guys that I'm, if I don't text with them throughout the day, I've shared 30 reels with them on Instagram. It's one, it's one of the other, if not both. So yeah, there's, I would say exactly the same thing.

That's funny. We actually typically record on like Sunday afternoons is kind of our jam. I mean, obviously if we're doing something like this, we'll do it in the evenings. Cause well, I hope you guys have kids. So I, that's what I was kind of going for was like, how do you juggle? Like I've, I've got a daughter in gymnastics. She's also in dance. I've got a son that's doing soccer practice twice a week and then soccer games. Yeah. So,

Mine are all grown. Okay. They're all over 18.

Oh, okay.

My youngest is 21. So I don't have to deal with that anymore. But, but when I first started this, I had two at home still.

Yeah.

So it was a juggling act 100%. Yeah.

JD, what about you? You've got, you've got kids, right?

Yeah, we're a blended family. She has four and I have two. My oldest still lives out near Chicago and don't get to see him nearly as much as I would like to, but he's doing his own thing. My younger son, Conrad, just moved in with us a year ago. and he's loving life here and I couldn't be happier to have him around more. But the other kids, Taylor, she's in college to become a paramedic and incredibly proud of her. And Alex just graduated high school. He's figuring stuff out. He wants to get into some kind of a techie job. And then Morgan plays golf on her high school team. And I get to come out occasionally and see that, which I'm a golfer myself. I played collegiately. I don't play nearly to that level anymore, but I can hit it OK. And then Gabe's eight. And I get to help to help him grow. Nice.

You like stretch them?

Yeah. Armstrong.

You get to help them grow. Where are you going with this? It's like grass. What do we drink it next?

I'm still sipping on this because I'm loving it. It's delicious. And well, JD sent a really nice sized sample. So I appreciate that. Thank you again.

I've still got tomorrow. So I've got half of mine left.

Todd, do you want to do number four? Do I want to do number four? Which doesn't help because you lettered them A through E. I do know what letter D is.

That was the biggest JD moment you're going to get on this podcast. We can get into D. Letter four.

That's right.

If he's not going to misquote a movie, that's the best thing you're going to get right there.

I knew where he was going.

Todd, if you open those where I stickered them shut, I wrote a whole snippet about each one. Hey, can you tell me what number four is? I'm going to take a guess here.

Oh my gosh. You even printed the labels of each pick. So that's pretty cool too. So speaking of balance, like I said, we kind of dove in a little bit, the Patreon thing, how do you balance this and then what you especially do for your Patreon members? I mean,

Yeah, I think what I had a tough time doing was asking people for money. Yeah. So it's something I just never felt comfortable with. I've had other people tell me, listen, you're, you're not asking people for money. You're basically driving value for what you're producing and what you're creating and you're putting money into this. If someone wants to help you out or pay you what they see as a value, then you should let them. And so I created a Patreon like four years ago and never did anything with it because I just, I just couldn't pull the trigger. And then the thing that finally got me over the hump with going the Patreon route and actually leaning into was this barrel club. When we did the barrel picks, I was putting in a ton of time. I was distributing all these, like, I don't want to say distributing because that's legally not what I was doing. I was getting them out to the people who would help put in the money to buy the barrel. So just to make sure anyone listening doesn't get confused with that. So, but that was taking a lot of my time. spinning gas or electricity, in my case, to get me to drop off these things to the people who put in money for the barrel. It was taking a lot of my time. I just felt like, okay, yeah, I could probably ask for some of that money back in some way. So I did it, but I finally decided that, okay, they're going to get something for it. Like we have glassware that we promote just like, you know, you guys and t-shirts and different things like that, like, you know, right here. I don't know. For me, I don't do a lot on the Patreon compared to what I think some other places do. I sync our podcast up with it. Once you've been a member for six months, I send you stuff. I do have to keep up with that and follow that. I do make posts on it. I try to do it weekly at a minimum. The main reason I did the Patreon was for people to get early access to our barrels. So as it grows, that's going to become more important. So as we get more members, you might not, my friends who aren't part of the Patreon may not get a bottle from a certain barrel because it might, you know, get sold out immediately through the Patreon. That's the hope is that it gets big enough for that to happen. Then that way we're not scrambling to make sure we have enough money to buy the barrel that we have to buy. But right now we're actually contemplating going out to actual retailers and letting them handle it and maybe doing like a collaboration type thing or release with them as opposed to us dealing with it. Because I just, I don't know, it's not worth that hassle on a daily basis. And we're doing them a lot more frequently now and it's becoming that for me. So the juggling is becoming tougher the more barrel picks we do.

And how many of you guys done for department hunters?

This year, six? We've done six this year. We had done four previous to that, I think.

Okay.

With Middle West and... Two from Middle West, Old Forrester, and then Minnix Muffins from Pursuit before the Patreon.

We kind of included that with this year since we didn't get it until February.

Well, but it was still not part of our six that we've done this year. So we've done close to 10.

Yeah.

Cause we have an old Forester barrel strength coming out in a couple of weeks.

Nice. That one's so good. That's where house high too.

It is so good. All right. So you guys have to prove me wrong. You have to send me a sample of that. Cause like I said, those always drink a little warm.

We will prove you wrong on that one's the best one I've had or just bring it December.

Cause I'm going to try to meet up with you guys for sure.

Oh yeah. You're awesome. Absolutely.

Great. So, What have some of your favorite pores been from this year? You know, like what are some standouts that you off the top of your head, like maybe your top three or four or five, something like that? JD, you want to go first?

Sure. I'll go first on this one. Definitely the Calumet 18. I thought it was outstanding. Not the price point, but outstanding.

It's always that price point that just gets you a lot of me anymore.

Yeah, I know. And if I'm playing price points and these two will go coincide, because we had them on the same night in compliments of Jason and Glory. But I feel like for the money, the Maker's Mark farm Uh, release that they did farm. Yes. Agreed. That might be one of my, that is much better than the climate 18, even though I think I like the profile on 18 better. Um, and then lastly, I hate to say it because I, I don't want to, but I really enjoyed the Eagle rare 12 year. I thought it was good.

Yeah, that was good. It's not secondary good.

It's kind of like where the Mandalorian gets like a piece of his armor fixed. It just made it look a little cooler. I mean, Ten's a great poor. if you get an MSRP, 12 just took it and made it a little fine tune, I guess. And that oak on it was a little nicer too. I thought that, which is kind of funny, you know, the 10 does not have a big oak presence to me, but I thought the 12 like really upgraded that even though it was only five proof points more.

I was trying to keep it batch variant and not single barrel because if I was using single barrels, I would probably say both the Augusta Buckners that you gave us in the blind and the one that dude picked up from Southern Spirits were definitely in that top tier this year.

Single barrels are always cheat codes though to me.

Sometimes they're not in the price variety, but it's true because that Augusta Buckner from that you that I had was $300. Yeah. Same.

Same. I ended up since we picked two, I got a bottle of each with Jason's group and then I even grabbed a third while we were up there. So yeah, that was an expensive trip. Yeah. And then actually my bourbon society just went up there for a tour kind of thing. And they had their 13 year, which I'm assuming is Barton. And I got one of those and it was a little less, but it was outstanding too. So dude, what are some of your favorites this year so far?

That's tough. Um, um, I'm going to go the single barrel route because I, like you said, I think it's the cheat code. I think so many people are missing the boat on single barrels nowadays. For one, if you're part of a club, you don't have to sit in line and wait for something good. Um, you just sit on online and, you know, wait for your tier to get released on. Um, but I'll say I've had, four buff turkeys this year that I honestly don't know that anything beats. I really feel like wild turkey missed the boat by selling these off and not doing some sort of special experimental release or something like that. Because what I'm tasting out of those are just phenomenal. Like they're exactly what I love in a bourbon and they're ultra-aged and they're just so good. I mean, that 15 years and you're getting it at cast strength a lot of times. I'm telling you, man, I've had... And I'm not one of those buff buffalo trace chasers or whatever you want to call it. I'm not a, but man, whatever they're, whatever they got rid of and someone else was able to pick up someone, someone has been able to benefit from that because it's just phenomenal. The stuff I've had from there has been great. Um, and it's, they've all been single barrels. So I don't, I don't know how to answer that question truthfully without including those.

I mean, honestly, you feel like somebody at wild Turkey should at least gone through some of them. Cause I mean, I did do the pick with Jason and there were a couple that we tried. They were, they were okay. Nothing to write home about, but like when he was like, and the one we actually chose, it was really good. And he was like, you got anything hidden behind the curtain? And that's when they brought out that, uh, Sweet 16. And that thing, that was like GTS all over. It was crazy. And that was like, well done, Jason. Cause we all sniffed it. And you know, it's like, I'm sure you guys have done this on a barrel pick, like where there's just that moment you're sniffing and you're like, Oh, this could be something special. And then you sip and you're like, Oh hell yeah. This is very special. You know?

Yeah. I feel like every barrel pick I've been on a wild Turkey has been that way. Like honestly, like I'll go there and I'm thinking, okay, this can't be better than the last time I went. And every time I feel like it is, they've been, I mean, you've been on what, two of those with me, JD or one to wild Turkey. One, one great experience.

It's a great, but it's also like, there's no like red carpet experience like you do. It's like, here's the Rick house, drink suburban and get the hell out.

I think that actually is what makes it a little more appealing is it feels more rustic. It feels less polished and it feels more like raw. Honestly, what I feel like a lot of people get attracted to bourbon is the rawness that, you know, that rustic like that's why the Japanese love bourbon was because it was that American rough and tumble, you know, that's why they embraced it in the 80s when everyone else was going away from it. And I think that that polished, refined red carpet experience kind of takes away from what you're getting when you go into a wild turkey rick house that's so old. And then you just you walk in and you're just taking it straight out of the barrel. No frills, just reusing the same, you know, Glen Karen every time and just, I don't know. And then you got Bruce there telling you a story about, you know, some experience he had somewhere, you know, in Korea, you know, peddling bourbon or whatever, whatever the story is, it's just always something unique and something that you're just going to always remember and take home with you. I mean, and not to say that the other ones you don't, but that raw just I don't want to, it's the uncut, unfiltered version of the barrel pick. And I think it's great.

Yeah. So I want to give you guys a chance to tell the folks where they can reach out and find you guys on the internet, on the podcast and Instagram, wherever you guys want to tell them about.

Yeah. JD's phone number is not He takes calls all throughout the day and night. We're the Bourbon Hunters on Instagram. We are www.bourbonhunters.com on the interwebs. Our podcast is available pretty much on every platform. I don't know of any that we're not on, but I'm sure there is. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it. And then we don't really do TikTok or anything. We probably should, but we've never really embraced it.

I know that sounds like that's just right for JD to do, take over the...

He probably should be our TikToker. That would actually make sense. I think you're right.

I have no experience.

I don't think you need any for TikTok. I think it just falls to the wall, so to speak. But hey guys, I truly appreciate you guys being on. Like I said, I was a podcast fan before I became a podcaster and you guys are one of those shows I've been listening to for quite some time. So I appreciate you guys. I'm a fan and yeah, thanks for being on the show.

We're honored.

Yeah, and that goes both ways. I mean, honestly, like I said, if it weren't for the Bourbon Road, I don't know that we would be even doing a podcast listening to you guys and just that laid back, you know, conversational style that just sucked you in and made you feel like you were part of the home that they were sitting in wherever they were. All the way back to, I can't even remember the first guy's name who moved to Virginia. Randy. Randy, yeah. You know, that's what got me into the podcasting world was listening to them. Them and Mike Rowe were the only two podcasts I used to listen to. And, uh, yeah. So, I mean, it's, it goes both ways. We're, we're a fan of your show as well. Um, we love doing stuff like this and collaborating and, uh, thanks for having us on.

Yeah, no problem. All right. Well, you can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You could find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, We're on TikTok quotation marks. I've never done anything for TikTok yet. That probably won't happen. Facebook threads and all those places. So just check us out every week on Wednesdays. If you want to follow us on Facebook, the best place to find us is there's the Bourbon Road page. And then you can also be a roadie. And that's our kind of our private group where we've got over 3000 members where people get on there and talk about their retirements, talk about what they're drinking, talk, you know, they, some folks post their reviews. And I mean, if you guys are on there, you could post your links to your podcast and such. But We like to mix it up. We have like folks that write books. We have folks that do podcasts and you know, we just like to have fun and we hope you enjoy coming on and listen to our show. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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