464. An Evening with a Ghost: The E.H. Taylor, Jr. Story

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. All right, listeners, welcome to another episode of The Bourbon Road. I have traveled back in time today, or maybe I brought him to the future. But today, I have none other than E.H. Taylor, Jr. at the Frankfurt Bourbon Society Corner Rick House. E.H. Taylor, welcome, welcome.

What a pleasure it is to be here. I have a permanent residence up on the hill. Frankfort Cemetery, but on occasion I have the opportunity to get away for a few hours and come to town. and meet with folks like you and hang out, tell my story, have a little fun, you know? But I always have to be careful about getting back to the cemetery on time or Miss Fanny might think I'm up to something, you know? So it's good to get back. It's good to get back. Frankfurt, Frankfurt was not my birthplace, but it was my home. It was my home. I was here since I was a teenager. I died here. I owned two mansions here, one I bought, one I built, but Frankfurt was good to me. I helped build Frankfurt. I'm one of the reasons that Frankfurt is still the capital of Kentucky when others wanted to move it. I fought for it. I invested in it. bourbon and cash.

Right. And I think, you know, like you were saying, like the last time we met was actually at your son.

You came to see me at the cemetery. Yeah, we hung out a little bit. I believe we had a little toast if I'm not mistaken.

We did. And we'll talk a little bit about that on down the way. There we go. So what kind of brought you, give us a little bit about your background. Like you said, you came to Frankfurt as a teenager. What did you kind of do before that and what brought you here? All right.

Let's go back a little further. I was a child, a little beady child, I lived in far western Kentucky, on the banks of the Mississippi. And my father, unfortunately, died on his way back home from from Southern Mississippi. He was on a riverboat coming home, and he contracted pneumonia and died before he got home. I was five. I was five years old. I didn't know him well. Didn't know him well. But I know my mom, bless her heart, and she was a good woman. But she was left with a handful of kids, What was she gonna do? Right.

How many brothers did you have?

There were five of us, four others. Well, she made the decision, as tough as I'm sure it was for her, to ship me off. To ship me off to a fella that is often described incorrectly as my uncle. He was not my uncle, but he saw to my upbringing. I went to New Orleans to live with him. He put me in the finest schools, finest schools that money could buy, educated me well. I lived in high surroundings. And as he went on to a great political future that would soon lead him to the White House, I was adopted. I was adopted by an uncle who lived here in Freyford, Kentucky. My uncle. And interestingly enough, my uncle is where I came into being a junior.

Yes, because same name, correct? Right.

Right. My dad was John. That was his name, John Taylor. So how is his son? It's hilarious. When I got to Frankfurt, I was adopted by and went to work for my uncle of the same name. He was Edmund Haynes Taylor, not far from here, just across the river, National Branch Bank of Kentucky. He was a banker. He also saw to my continuing education at the BB Sayre Academy. Now, a lot of people haven't heard of the BB Sayre Academy, right downtown, right downtown over here, downtown Frankfort, Kentucky. He was your stereotypical, what would you call him? The school guy with the whip. He rose to fame as a professor at the Kentucky Military Institute. B.V. Sayre. He was an educator. And if we're going to tell the story correctly, let's say he ran a private school for rich, white, young men. White young men of means. And he was a hard, a hard professor. Ran a tough school. His curriculum was extraordinary, so much farther beyond what most young men would learn in school or in a typical college. In addition to the regular courses that you would expect a young fellow to take, you had to learn and demonstrate a proficiency in Greek chemistry, accounting, and that's all on top of read, write, and arithmetic. And you never graduated. You got a certificate when you completed the Sayer curriculum. And few people know this, but at one time, there were seven United States senators seated on the floor of the US Senate simultaneously, who had come through the BB Sayer Academy right here in Frankfurt, Kentucky. You got an education. I mean, you got an education in business and accounting, chemistry helped me a lot along the way. But Uncle Edmund, back to that story, he's the one that gave me the junior, okay? Because when I got out of the school in the afternoon, I walked down the street about half a block and went to work at the bank for him. And people would come in and our names would get confused. EH Taylor here.

Everybody would, you both say, yep.

Which one you want. So he assigned me junior. And that's where that came from. Not from my dad, John, but from my uncle who looked after me, who looked after my education and taught me the banking business, Todd. He taught me the business and truth being known, I was pretty good at it. I picked up on it. I was pretty good at it. I opened up branch banks across Kentucky on his behalf. I opened up one in Harrisburg, Kentucky. There's one in Paducah, one in Versailles, which I actually operated for a time, one in Lexington. But I would travel to these places where the national branch wanted to get established and I'd get them open and get them up and up and running and go open another one somewhere. Now, as you know, that helped. lead me in to the bourbon business. And that's another story.

Right. So yeah, through banking, you helped open or finance a lot of distilleries during that time. I mean, especially, I would assume even like you said, like Paducah, there were small private owned distilleries and you were helping those guys. Exactly. You kind of learn the business of what distilling was like through being their banker though, right? That's exactly right, Todd.

I learned the business before I learned distilling. Distilling came later. I learned the business first by being privy to the books of those who were in the business. I could see their profit and loss statements. I could see what they were doing. I could see the revenue. I could see the income. And I could recognize failure and I could recognize success. And that's that. That opened up some doors for me. I said, Oh, I see opportunity. I was way more interested in profits, dollars and cents than I was in bourbon. Bourbon was just a good way to get there.

Especially in this town.

Yeah.

Good point. Right. So W.A. Gaines, probably your first kind of partner in that venture.

When I, when I decided Let's back up just a little bit. I was operating the Pepper Distillery in Millville. James was a distiller. I was his mother's chosen business manager.

And that's his father Oscar had passed? Oscar had passed.

He had passed away and we were dear friends. We were Sunday dinner friends. And when he passed, the distillery went to Mrs. Pepper and James. It became theirs. Yeah.

And let me interject real quick. Go ahead. Just jump into the future. The Oscar Pepper Distillery now is Woodford Reserve. Yeah, that's right.

So continue. It has been a number of places, a number of distilleries over the years, over the years. And that too is an interesting story. You could do a show on that one day if you wanted to. The Pepper Distillery, when it closed, sat empty. for decades. Empty, deteriorating, shingles falling off, boards falling off. They did for many years. There was a night watchman that would cruise through there just to make sure that not a lot of vandalism going on. Then along comes Foreman out of Lowell. Foreman bought it, bought the pepper distillery. Their plan originally was to create a venue where companies could come for corporate outings, corporate events. Hey, if you're bringing all your salespeople and management people in here from all over the country, Let's have a place to take them. We'll take them down here to the old pepper distillery. And we might want to make enough whiskey just to show them how it's done. Along the way, let me explain, along the way before it closed, there was another owner that operated it for a while until their family passed on, Leopold, LeBrow, LeBrow and James. And Graham, yeah. LeBrow and Graham, excuse me. James Graham. Right. And the history is a little foggy. Some people say they acquired it for a negotiated price. Some people say they acquired it at auction. I don't really know how they got it. But I do know that shortly thereafter, there was a buyout. Leopold Le Bro lived about two blocks over that way. Yeah. Yeah. He's a Frankfurt guy. Leopold Le Bro was a Frenchman who had come to this country in hopes of making his fortune in the wine business. Unfortunately, on the great frontier, wine wasn't near as popular as that bottle of corn. Right. So he went belly up and wound up being partners in Le Bro and Graham. Yeah. Until their family started dying off. And when their family started dying off, that went kaput.

Yeah, his grave site's not too far from yours. I've seen that one. Doesn't have the pomp and circumstance yours does, but he was a player. Yeah.

But history, forgets LeBrow and Graham, and they go straight to Woodford Reserve, one of the premier distilleries in the world. Right.

And that was, like you said, you know, they had LeBrow and Graham on the label for quite some time. And I guess, you know, marketing guys thought, well, let's tweak it a little bit because marketing guys got to market.

And you should well know that because you were quite the marketer. That's my claim to fame. I wasn't a great distiller or nothing. I could sell. I could sell bourbon to just about anybody. But I was not a great distiller. I was a PT Barnum of the bourbon business. I love that. Anyway, they decided to set up a little distilling operation, just enough to show visitors how it was done. And they bottled some bourbon. they won some awards. Lo and behold, they won some ribbons for this bourbon, and they were inspired to see if maybe they could take it to the next level. Now, I can attest to this. At one time, when Woodford Reserve was in its infancy, they had one short staff, that did all the work. In other words, if we're stirring the pot today, Now, tomorrow, you guys report over to the bottling house. We're going to bottle tomorrow. Same work crew show up and bottle. Same work crew put it in the cases, seal it up. Same work crew put it up. But they have one little crew, one little crew as they weren't making that much bourbon, just enough for show. And we kind of know where that went. It had a really, really, really good end. They make a quality product. I like to say that they make it the way I would have done. I like to say that they make it top shelf, no cutting corners, no cutting corners, no Band-Aids, no cheap ingredients. Let's do it the way James C. Crowe would have done it. James C. Crowe worked here. He worked here.

And you met him at the Pepper Distillery? I never met him. Oh, you never met him. Okay.

I never actually met him. By the time my association with Pepper began, he had left.

Okay.

I did become privy to his notes. He was a meticulous record keeper. Notes. He was one of these, we always say Crow was the guy that brought science to distilling. He was a white coat guy. He was a lab guy. you know, and everything. He took notes on everything, whether it was cloudy or overcast or what the temperature was, the pH readings. Hell, I didn't know a pH reading from a man in the mood. But this is what he did, you see. And then when I got a hold of his notes and begun to study those, I began to read through there. And I said, folks, Right here are the keys to the kingdom. Right here are the keys to the kingdom, because not only that he mastered the formula, but he mastered the consistency. He mastered the method necessary to be consistent barrel after barrel after bottle after bottle. You got the same product every time. And I said, whoa, now you want to skip forward to W.A. games? Sure. I had actually met W.A. Gaines during the Civil War. Gaines was a commodities broker out of New York who had expressed to me an interest in the bourbon industry. He had another partner, associate, name of Barry, and they had some money and they wanted to get into the business. So when I'm holding this James Crow material in my hand, I approached them and I said, hey, we've got an opportunity. We've got an opportunity. If you want to form a little company, maybe we can make some great bourbon. Maybe we can make a lot of money. Money's good. We like money. Right. And they formed a partnership. They formed a Gainsberry and company. Gainsberry and company. I was a junior partner. I was not the major investor, but I was boots on the ground.

Yeah. But how old were you at this time?

Oh, my goodness. You're going to go back. It's probably 40. OK. Thereabouts. Long time ago, Todd. I don't remember how old I was yesterday. But anywho, we had a plan, not only for the pepper distillery, but for future growth. We had a plan for growth. It's important to interject while we're on the subject of Crow. Pepper Distillery was making O'Crow. That was Dr. Crow's brand, but he was gone. They were making O'Crow. They were modeling it, selling it. O'Crow became the number one selling bourbon in the USA. the number one seller of all the bourbons, New York, Atlanta, Cincinnati, especially New Orleans, huge in New Orleans. To this day, and you've probably been there, Todd, you can walk into some of those waterfront bars down there and see an old crow sign on the wall. But it was the number one seller. So part of the plan of Gainsberry and Company was to build an Old Crow distillery solely for the purpose of making and bottling Old Crow. It's still down there. Old Crow is still there. We know it now as the Glen's Creek distillery. But that's all they did. They distilled, bottled, and shipped Old Crow. That was part of the plan. All right. So we brought this little company together. The first thing that they decided to do, and I agreed to it, they shipped me off overseas to the old country where I spent about a year and a half. Some people say two years. I don't think I was there that long. I don't remember, but they shipped me off over there to learn how distilling was done in the old world. How these people that have been doing it for centuries, how do they do it? How do they do it? What are their methods? What can we learn from them that will make our company what we want it to be? And I learned, and we learned. Just as an example, climate-controlled warehousing, That came from the old country. That had never happened here. To this day, you can see the E. H. Taylor warehouse down at Buffalo Trace, climate controlled. That was huge in Kentucky, where temperatures can fluctuate 60 or 70 degrees in a given day. 30 degrees when you get up in the morning, 80 degrees when you go home in the afternoon. Am I right?

Right.

Temperature controlled warehousing. That's just one of the things that they learned. Copper piping, all the copper pipe. You didn't see anything but copper in those old distilleries. But that's why I was there. I traveled from distillery to distillery to distillery to learn. to learn what I could that would make Gainsberry and company successful. We never had any goal less than wanting to make the best bourbon that money could buy. And we knew that people would pay for it. They would pay for it. You'd pay for it.

Right, definitely.

But anyway, that was our first endeavor. We had a plan, and when I got back, we set out to build the distillery that would be known as the Hermitage. The Hermitage distilleries, what, three blocks from where we're sitting now, four? Three or four, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

State of the art. State of the art. No distillery like it. in the world. I was boots on the ground. Hiram Berry was the president. I was the operator. I oversaw the construction.

Now you sat across from Spring Hill, correct? Across from Spring Hill. Do you know if it was already established? No. We built it.

We built it from the ground up. And sadly enough, Not a brick is left, not a board, not a brick, not a piece of warehouse, nothing.

Now there's that old wall there near on the other side of Paul Sawyer Drive. Is that not something that's a remnant? Is that about the only remnant of the hermitage? It's kind of a stone wall.

I'm not sure what wall you're talking about. I know there's a wall over there on Snow Hill that you can see from the river when you go up the river. There's a wall there.

I'm not sure what wall. It's just like a short wall between the second, like you have Sawyer Drive, Paul Sawyer Drive. one side's a river. And then behind the other side, there's like that rock wall that's, there's like a little alley there. And I forget what it's called, but I was, I don't know if that was part of hermetic or not.

I don't remember. I like to think it is just because I feel like, uh, cause like you said, there's nothing left.

I mean, you know, it turned into a, I believe a chair factory. There's about the fifties or so.

You're right. Well, When Prohibition shut down the Hermitage, it became a wood factory. They made their own barrels on site. which was a little bit unusual, but they had a guy. One of Frankfurt's first millionaires was the guy that made the barrels and he made the furniture. He made the furniture after prohibition. They made rocking chairs and all kinds of wooden furniture because they already had the equipment. They had the men, they had the expertise and the timber was coming from Eastern Kentucky down the river right there. They had everything they needed to shift gears and get into the furniture business. That didn't last forever, but it kept them up and floating for a while, I guess.

I think one of the really interesting things that you told me one other time was, if you're going down Capitol Avenue, the widest road crossing 4th Street. 4th Street. And that's for all the, I guess, all the horses and that kind of thing.

That was the in and out to Hermitage. For the Hermitage, right. Now, as you can imagine, when they built one of the largest distilleries in the country, there was a lot of little businesses that sprung up around it. A lot of little businesses that sprung up around the Hermitage. Shoemakers, pipe fitters, That was Frankfurt's first, we call it, first industrial park. Fourth Street is so wide because of the traffic in, traffic out. Traffic in, traffic out. It's got to be so big. Makes sense. Makes sense.

Yeah, you're exactly right. Yeah, if folks go by there, they'll notice it's almost three times as wide as any other road. In South Frankfort. Yeah, on this side of the river.

South Frankfort is an old, old, old community. Yeah. And the streets are mainly Tulane.

Tulane with parking, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But this is... But that's, that's why. And most people in Frankfort don't even know that.

Right, right.

But there's a, there's a reason. And it's interesting. It's, it's part of our history. And when you stand down there at the end of 4th Street and you look up on the hill, most people don't know this, but you're looking at the graves of Daniel and Rebecca Boone, and you're looking at the graves of E. H. Taylor and Miss Fanny. know in my heart that they put me there so I could keep an eye on the Hermitage.

That's awesome.

And I still check on it every night. That's right. It's not what it used to be, but it's special to me. It's the first distillery that I ever actually built. And it put the company on the map. Let me back up again, just a second. Sure. When I got back from overseas, We were still operating as Gaines, Berry, and Company. The company restructured. In today's world, I think you all call it, we had a reorg. We had a reorg. Gaines brought in three new investors from New York, recapitalized. That was in anticipation of the Hermitage. But now, at the same time, they dropped the name Barry. And now it was just W.A. Gaines & Company. Okay. Barry was still president. He was still active in the company. It's just that his name was not on the letterhead for whatever reason.

Right. My name wasn't on the letterhead. I know why. I was just a little guy.

But yeah, they reorganized his games and company and recapitalized and the rest, as they say, is history. Every now and then, Todd, I get the opportunity just by pure dumb luck to walk with some visitors through downtown Frankfurt and talk a little bit about the way it used to be. And when we hit that 200 block of main, I always stop and I'll say, cast your eyes toward the skies. What does it say on top of that building? Cast your eyes up. What do you see? W.A. Gaines. W.A. Gaines & Company. W.A. Gaines. And if you've ever been there, maybe you have.

I've not been inside, but I've walked by them many times, of course.

If you've ever been, and this is interesting, if you've ever been inside, what you will find are floor timbers, about four inches thick. You'll find timber in posts, about 16 inches solid timber. Building was constructed to hold 3,000 barrels of bourbon. Now, when you think about that, back in those days, barrel size is different now, but back in those days, a barrel of bourbon weighed about 500 pounds. 500 pounds times 3,000 barrels. That building had to support some weight, and it was built to do just that. And it did. And it did. And Todd, another thing, I know you're aware. Notice that that building, W.A. Gaines Warehouse, opens up on a little alley. Opens up on a little alley. Where does that alley go? Alley goes down to the river. Where did WA Games and Company ship their whiskey from? The river. That was the interstate highway of the day. That was the interstate highway. And my warehouse, I later built a warehouse a little next block over when I got into it on my own, but I built a warehouse, same deal. It's on Catfish Alley. Okay. Where does Catfish Alley go? To the river. To the river. Where'd my bourbon go? To the river. That's how it got where it was going, you know? And if you want to get deep into Frankfurt history, that's why Frankfurt is here, is because of the river and the shipping capability. The shipping capability. That's the only reason we're here. And it worked well for the bourbon industry and a lot of other businesses. So yeah, a lot of those old places, All right, let's talk about this. At one time, there were 11 different distilleries in Frankfurt at one time. Where were they all built?

On the river. Except for the baker.

The baker, yeah, he don't count.

But he was out of the creek. Yeah, he had a creek.

You know, you got me wondering now, I wonder if they could float barrels down that creek to the river because the creek empties into the river.

It would have taken a while, it seems like, because let's see. It might have. It could go out all the way out to like almost the Owen County line there, right? Yeah, yeah. Unless they maybe.

But I wonder if they did that or if they hauled their if they haul their product by wagons or something.

I don't know. If you see him up in heaven, you ought to ask him.

I ain't going to speak to old fart.

OK, so, you know, you kind of got your start in the whiskey biz at Pepper, moved to the Hermanage. What was next on your agenda? I mean, and you were kind of starting, I guess, went Spring Hill or where did we go to next or what was kind of your You kept dipping your toes in a lot of waters.

That's exactly right. And my partners, Gaines and Berry, became tremendously concerned about how many waters I was dipping my toes in. They were not happy because at that time I was developing another distillery, small little operation that I had purchased from a local associate down here on the site where Buffalo Trace is today. And I was splitting time. I was splitting time. I was building a distillery that would be mine. It would not be owned and operated by a partnership. It would be mine. And I was ready to do that. And I took all the things that I had learned and I invested heavily in that tiny distillery. I invested heavily in copper pipes. I invested heavily in sanitation. I invested heavily in paint because my plan was to invite people in. That's what I did best. I sold to the people that could come see what it was that we did, you see. So when I set about redeveloping that little Kentucky River distillery,

Which at that point was the Lee's Town distillery, is that what it was called?

Yeah. I think it had originally been named Kentucky River and became Lee's Town. All those little, they had a dozen names. Every time somebody got in the game. More owners and Buffalo Trace.

There's a great book by Chester Zoller that tries to give the best history it can for all these places.

And a lot of that runs together in my brain. When you're 200 years old, things start to slip. But that's what I was doing. And Gaines and Berry said, hey, it's time to cut you loose. Let us buy you out and you go on about your merry way. Okay. So I left the Hermitage, I left Gaines and Berry and I went down there and built a distillery. I actually built two distilleries down there. was doing, doing pretty good down there.

So you took Lee's town and pretty much revamped it, right? Cause I'm sure it was at that point, was it a fairly small operation?

Tiny, tiny, dirty, dingy. And, but it had potential, had potential.

And as we've been talking, it had that riverfront property too. There you go. Yeah. You're exactly right.

You're exactly right. And it was an opportunity for me to establish myself as a distiller. Now, there was a fella out of Richmond that worked for a company out of Chicago. They were spirits distributors. That's what they did. They bought and sold spirits. A rep that called on me was a guy named George Stagg. And George Stagg was my biggest customer. He bought more from my little distillery down there than you can imagine. He was my biggest source of revenue. And then comes the sad part. I came upon, without getting too, I came upon some difficult financial times. The debits and credits weren't always adding up as I would have liked. I had some unfortunate occurrences. I had built a second distillery on the same site, Carlisle. I built Carlisle next door, same site, and it burned. That cost me a ton of money. I was already in the hock a little bit, but that cost me a bunch of money. I had some uncollectible debts. I ran into financial problems. And without going too far, Stag said, Colonel, Let me help you out. Let me help you out. How about if I buy your debt? You put up shares in your distillery as collateral. I'll buy your debt, clear you." I said, well, that might work. That might work. So, We did too much on handshake and not enough on paper. Happened a lot back in those days. Long story short, I became his employee. Stag took over the operation of the distillery. I was his employee. And that didn't suit me really, because we had different approaches to how to run a business. We had different approaches to how to run a distillery. George, bless his heart, he was a cost cutter. He was a corner cutter. And when we had a leaky pipe, He wanted to wrap a rag around it and put a bucket under it. I wanted to replace the pipe. We finally came to a parting of the ways. For his end, he had agreed to pay off my debt, some of which he did, some of which he did not. He was one to pay portions of a debt if you would agree to forgive the debt. That $100,000 that I owe you, how about $20,000? I'll give you $20,000 and you call it even. So while he was paying off my debt, a lot of my debtors who were friends got stung. They came looking for me. I'm the one that owed them. George Stag didn't owe them a dime. I owed them, and I couldn't pay them. There's a lot of stories surrounding what happened next, and I'll leave that to you. There's a lot of good books out there you can read. Some of them are true, actually. Some of them are not. But they say that I took off and went into hiding, to hide from my creditors. I will contest that. and they were hid for anybody. I did back off and for a while I was a little bit hard to find. But I was around and I would tell a modern history that I was out on the farm. I had one of the world-class Hereford Farms. It was actually in Woodford County, it went in Franklin County. But I had a world-class Herford operation. Prince King Philip of England said I'd give anything to own his herfords. I had one bull. I had one bull for which I paid $12,000 back then. One bull. His name was Old Woodford. Old Woodford was a big old bull. He's a monster. And he was one romantic son of a gun. And these people, these Herford owners would ship their brood stock in from all over the world to socialize with old Woodford for a day or two or three and see what happened. Old Woodford blessing for his stamina kind of helped get me back on my feet. Cause it costs a lot of money to hang out with old Woodford and got me going. He got me going again. He recapitalized me. He died. He died in a, in a, in a barn fire. But anyway, the next chapter after that is Castle in Key.

So when you started Castle & Key, were you mayor or did you become mayor after it was built? I was mayor twice. I'd like to think of you as the father of bourbon tourism. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Through your political means, what I understand is you got the railroad to go out there and to make it Kind of like a showcase for Bourbon, for distilling.

That was exactly what the old Taylor distillery, now Castle & Key, but the old Taylor distillery, and God love them, they still have the original sign on the front of the building. And those people have done a wonderful job. Let me say that. But I built that as a showcase to attract people. That's what I did. I had people that knew how to make bourbon, and they knew how to make it my way. They knew how to make it James Crow's way. My job was to sell it. We built that railroad. We built that garden. We partied hardy. Each Saturday, we ran that train back and forth and we brought families and their children out to the distillery to spend a Saturday. And it was a lot of fun. There were burgoo pots all over and barbecue fires going on. And there was music all over the place and exotic animals all over the place. And people came and they had a good time. And that was important to me. Everyone got a little sample of the recipe, you know. We had to hand out a few samples and maybe make a few connections along the way. But that's how we did it. And that's the only reason. Old Taylor was built. And to this day, it's still the same. It's a showcase. It's unlike any other distillery that you'll ever see. And I hope that the people listening will someday have a chance to get there and go inside and see what these people have done. They put it back the way it was, the way it should have been. Right. In spite of floods and adversity and oh, gosh. But man, they I get teared up sometimes when I look at it.

I still say it's one of the best places to walk the grounds. I mean, your place, Buffalo Trace, is gorgeous now, but there's something about Taylor.

It's like walking back in time. You're exactly right. I couldn't have said it better, and I'm glad you said it.

Yeah. There's no car horns, sirens. No.

It's out in the country. Six miles from the front steps of the Kentucky State Capitol, if you're counting. But it's something that I'm very proud of. And I've had the good opportunity to meet the people that bought the property. When they bought it, it was falling down. They were selling building materials for scrap to tearing down warehouses and selling the bricks. But they brought it back. They invested heavily. And they could have brought it back cheap if they wanted to. But they didn't. They had a vision, Todd. They had a vision of what they wanted it to be. And they had the wherewithal. And I can only suppose they had the capital and the investors that they were necessary to do that. And to this day, and to this day, I've had the opportunity Todd to get by there a few times. Sometimes when they have an exceptionally busy day scheduled for tourists coming by, I get to go down there, not far from the cemetery, I get to go down there and meet people And it's my job to kind of stall them while they wait for the next tour guide to be available. So I chat with them and talk to them and answer some questions until their tour guide hooks up with them and takes them on one of the best urban tours you'll ever be on. Right.

Well, you know, I'd love to dive into your bottom of the bond act, but we've actually covered it pretty well on this show. We had devoted an entire show to that, but we probably need to take a short break. And I, and actually we're going to talk to a friend of yours, I think on the second half of the show, but I surely appreciate you being here. Thank you for taking time out of your spiritual spiritual time and coming and hanging out here.

What a pleasure, Todd. It has been for me to be with you and the Frankfurt Bourbon Society. But as I said earlier, I got to be getting back for Miss Fanny thinks I'm up to something. And we'll see you again.

All right. Anytime I'm up there, I usually kind of give a salute to you every time I'm at the cemetery.

It's a great place to walk.

Means a lot to me.

You bet.

All right. We'll be back for the second half and we'll have another guest and we'll be right back. All right, listeners, welcome back to the second half of the show. We had E.H. Taylor, of all people, on the first half. And now I'm joined by Mr. Russ Kennedy, the portrayer of E.H. Taylor. So you've probably seen, some of you have probably seen him on the Frankfurt, the Heart of Bourbon documentary put together by our good friend, Bo Cumberland, an outstanding job. He did. Welcome to the second half of the show. Thank you. Appreciate you being here. Thank you.

Thanks for talking to your friend and bringing him along too. No problem. He's a ham.

Yeah. Yeah. So I guess my first question is, you know, you've been very involved with like Frankfurt's history. You really kind of. There's just a few of you, like Russ Hatter is another one, which people won't know him, but I mean, that are the true historians of Frankfurt. You really go out of your way to share your love and history of Frankfurt. And so what kind of got you into that?

I spent my career as an employee of the Commonwealth of Kentucky for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife. And when that career came to an end, I had the opportunity to help out for a few days over at the Kentucky State Capitol when they were running a little short of tour guides. And Ms. Linda Stevens, who to this day still runs the tour desk, she said, can you help us out for a few days until we can hire somebody? So I went over there and stayed for a few years. Let me say, I was always, throughout my life, the world's worst history student. You'll never meet a worse history student than me. But when I got over there to the Capitol, Linda gives me this script, you know, kind of learned this, this is what we do. I did that. And then when they were short, I went over to the governor's mansion and the tour got over there for several years, up until the time that COVID hit. up until the time of COVID, and that was one of the coolest jobs I read. Along the way, the Parks and Recreation Department came up with this idea of a walking tour downtown and on the riverfront that would be conducted by Stephen Frank. Now, who in the world is Stephen Frank? Stephen Frank is the fellow for whom Frankfurt is named.

Think of Franks Ford, Franks Ford.

So for a couple of years, I put on my tricorn hat and my post-revolutionary war outfit and carry my musket. And I'm walking around taking tourists around town. That's a lot of fun. A lot of my history training came from a fellow that you just mentioned, Russ Hatter. and a fellow who was a curator at that time of the museum by the name of Nikki Hughes. And they kind of schooled me. And there for a while during the winter months when nothing much was happening, I would go to Russ Hatter's office at the Capital City Museum on Thursday afternoons and we'd have history class. And we started out him teaching me the way he did the local history tourists. And I learned a lot. And the more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. This wasn't history. This was Frankfurt history. Names I knew, streets I knew, buildings I recognized. I was really interested in that. And the more he taught me, the more I tried to learn. I became a master at pointing and clicking and pointing and clicking and looking stuff up. And as we got ready for him to step away, I said, now that we've done history class in your office, let's do a walking tour. You do the tour the way you do it, because I want to learn to talk to the visitors the way you do. I mean, I can learn the history. I can look that up and learn it. But you have a way of making your tour guests captive. They're locked on your every word. I want to learn how to do that. So tell me the story the way you tell it, and I'll read the rest.

Yeah. And just as you do, Russ would actually kind of go in character sometimes as well. Oh, yeah.

He would play General James Wilkinson. He would dress up like Wilkinson. And he was good at it, had such a way with people, such a way of telling a story. And if you want to, if you want to convey history to people, do it like a story.

Right.

If you do it like a textbook, you lose them. Right. They doze off. Hell, I doze off.

A PowerPoint tip. Yeah.

Yeah. Tell the story. Right. Tell the story. And I tried to learn that from him. That was fun for a while. Now, on to the E.H. Taylor thing, Todd. There was a lady up around the Dayton area who actually operated tours here in town for a short period. You may have seen her bus. She was called Rolling Barrel, Rolling Barrel Tours out of Ohio. And she made a partnership with the Ohio Bourbon Society, the purpose of which was to bring Ohio bourbon lovers to the heart of the bourbon industry. She'd load them up 16 at a time, bring them down here to spend the day. That was her new gig. And she contacted Robin Antonucci, who was the director at the Frankfurt Tourism Commission. And she said, Robin, who do you know that could portray E.H. Taylor? She said, well, let me think. Let me think. They know someone. So Robin got up with me and said, what would you think about being Well, why should I be interested? Anyway, I got interested. I met with this lady a few times. I had to learn about E.H. Taylor. And at that time, she had contracted with a professional researcher out of Woodford County to research the history of Taylor. And she and I met about once a week. Okay. And I'm trying to learn this stuff and all and skip ahead a few chapters. I acquired a suit outfit that I thought looked like Taylor, top hat and the holy smear. About this time that we're getting this rolling barrel tour thing up and running, what do you think happened? COVID. COVID. And COVID shut down the tourism industry. Shut it down. So here's O.E.H. Taylor. What do they say? All dressed up and no place to go. And then that was me. So one night, One evening, I'll say, first of all, Robin, I had to do see the director of the tourism commission. It's my next door neighbor, Jim Parrish, who's a longtime former director of the Frankfurt Parks Department and the museum. They're sitting over there on her front porch. I'm sitting on my front porch. We got an idea. Why don't we take all this work and research that you've been doing for these rolling barrel tours and whoop it into a walking tour? Ain't gonna be no rolling barrel, but we might can make the walking tours work. I might work. That's how that came to be. Awesome. That's how it came to be.

I think one of the cool things about that walking tour is there are now some QR codes in downtown Frankfurt.

That's me.

Yeah. You can take your phone and click the QR code and you will hear your voice.

My voice, Joanna Hay. She did most of the writing and all of the production. And just saying that, it's professionally done. All I did was what she told me to do. And she's gifted.

And there are six of those? Six of those.

We have six stops downtown that you can do at your own pace. Like you said, do the QR code with your phone and we'll tell the story. from that perspective, each stop has something to do with that location.

Right.

And it's pretty cool.

It is really neat.

And the great thing is for tourists, they can do it on their time.

Right.

You know, if you want to do it six o'clock in the evening, four o'clock in the morning, it doesn't matter.

We may have to get together and put the addresses and we'll share that with our listeners, I think. So they do come to town. So What do you think E.H. Taylor would think of Frankfurt now? There was a big boom, obviously. You've brought up COVID a few times. So everybody was at home, so everybody's buying bottles. So now we're getting a little slow down, but like tourism here is still, you know as well as I do, like getting over to Buffalo Trace, if you hear- By word. Yeah, by word. And yes, if you want to get a tour there, you pretty much got to book it. But like, what do you think? I mean, he probably would have loved this time. Don't you think?

I think so, Todd. I think he would be very, very proud of the hand he had in developing what's here today. A lot of this city, in more ways than bourbon, was built on E. H. Taylor and his contemporaries. back before Frankfurt ever had a city treasury. You know, there was E.H. Taylor and the local movers and shakers who would get together around the table with a bottle of Old Taylor and fund a street project. There wasn't no taxes, wasn't no city treasury. If you wanted to dump a load of gravel down Miss Annie's alley, you know, about two good shots of bourbon, well, let's dump some gravel over there tomorrow, take care of her. But I think he would be proud not only of Frankfurt, but what his industry has become and what has been built around his industry. He was always proud of his distilling operations for what they did for people. He was a really good employer. He took care of his people. There's a story about E.H. Taylor says he always kept no less than a hundred tailored suits in his closet. No less than a hundred. Wow. And all the great clothing manufacturers in New York and Chicago knew what he liked. Every time they had something that they thought he'd like, they sent it to him.

Yeah.

And he loved it. He would never wear a suit more than a couple of times. That'd be about it. And an offshoot of that story, if he had an employee, maybe whose daughter was getting married or something like that, and he needed a suit, he'd bring him a suit. And he'd say, now, now you take it over here. You take it over here to Miss Betty. Tell her to tailor it so it fits you and just put it on my bill. But that's kind of guy that he was. You know, he cared for his people. If you worked for EH Taylor, you had a good job. You had a good job. Lee's Town, Thornhill sprung up from Taylor's employees, but he was a good man. There are tales about him. There are tales about you and me. But at heart, he was a good man that took care of people. And if he could see what his distilleries even to this day are doing for people. I think he would be really proud. He would say, you know, some people don't like bourbon. Some people think it's the devil's brew. But I'll tell you what, it's put a lot of shoes on kids feet, put a lot of food on the table and send a lot of kids to college. And that was important to him.

And I think, you know, he probably had the opportunity to go elsewhere to, you know, he could have gone to Louisville and things like that, but I don't know. I guess he just kind of like you fell in love with this town. He did.

He did. And that's important when you tell the story of how hard he worked to keep, to keep the state Capitol from being relocated to another city. There were times in history when the previous Capitol buildings would be burned down. The first two burned to the ground.

Right.

And this rumble would come from people who wanted to move. They wanted to get out of Mayberry. Let's go to Lexington. Let's go to Louisville. Let's go to Covington. And he fought. He fought to keep it here. He invested to keep it here. As did his contemporaries, all of whom had a business interest here, family interest here, and they fought and they invested. E.H. Taylor himself put in $12,000 cash toward the construction of the new Capitol building. He didn't have to do that, but it was important to keep Frankfort, Kentucky as the Capitol. And up until a few years ago, it's not that way anymore, but up until a few years ago, a 60% vote of the General Assembly could move it. 60% vote could relocate the state Capitol. But that has been changed. That chair had a constitutional amendment and it will be in Frankfurt forever and ever till death do we part. But Taylor liked this neck of the woods. And it was his. It was home. Everybody likes home. I think he'd been

Very happy to see something happen to the Ashbrook as well. That's a whole nother show. Yeah, it is a whole nother show, but you want to tell the folks kind of what's there now?

Okay. There's a beautiful, beautiful building at the corner of Main and Washington Street. That was the first, I'll say, mansion of E.H. Taylor. First mansion. He bought it, didn't build it. It was built by the brother of Kentucky's first senator, Senator Brown. His brother, who was a physician, built it. He sold it to Philip Swigert. Swigert and Taylor were big friends. Matter of fact, Taylor named one of his sons after Swigert. But Taylor bought it from him. Swigert is actually the one that did all what we see today, because originally it was a little box building on the same floor plan as the old governor's mansion. It was he that added the rear part. It was he that added the front part on Washington. The front door used to be on Nain. It's that little thing right across from Johnny Bachman's office. That was the front door. He added this elegant front. He added the third floor. All right, let's skip to the heart of the matter. Well, as retirement approached, Taylor built his own mansion, unlike anything you've ever seen. I'm going to hold the picture up right next to the microphone, and you all will love this. But he built a mansion up on top of Louisville Hill that's gone. Why the Kentucky Historical Society didn't buy that, I will never know. But the old property fell out of need, fell out of use. For a time, it was rented to various state offices who would have government facilities in there. For a time, it was just empty and falling apart. Right after COVID, there was a company, I think they're based in Louisville, but one of their movers and shakers, a young guy, I've met him two or three times in names of skate games, but he's from Nashville. They bought it. They bought the Taylor House. And they have converted it to an unbelievable restaurant and boutique hotel. I've been there a few times and I've already met people from all over the world that some of them don't even speak really good English, but they come there. The restaurant is a top shelf restaurant.

I recommend the salmon by the way.

I recommend the Saturday morning brunch and that French toast with the bourbon glaze. But their menu is not like what you might think you'll see in Fryford, Kentucky. It's original and it's good. The help is first class. To see what they've done with the building is unreal.

All right, so you don't do like regular tours anymore, but folks can sign up to do an EH Taylor tour, walk around.

Yeah, Todd, the years have kind of caught up with me a little bit as is the natural order of things. And we used to do tours on a regularly scheduled basis, but I've had to step back a little bit. I've had to cut back. So what we're trying to do now is by appointment only. That way we can better schedule our time and it honestly doesn't happen as frequently. But if somebody's coming to Frankfurt, if you're coming here to spend a few days maybe on the Bourbon Trail, contact the Frankfurt Tourism Commission, okay? The Frankfurt Tourism Commission. Tammy Braden, T-A-M-I, B-R-A-B-E-N, Tammy Braden. And what she'll do, she'll get your information and then she'll call me. And she'll say, hey, Russ, we've got some people coming. Can you do a tour maybe Friday, one o'clock, something like that? And if it can, it will. If it can, it will.

Right. And you make a special appearances as E.H. Taylor. That's fun. Here and there. Like you said, you've popped in at Castle & Key. I do. That's fun. You came to the...

I'm a ham, Todd.

The first showing of the Frankfurt Bourbon documentary in character.

I got an ego the size of Texas, and I like to do the photos with the people and let them hold my cane or maybe wear my top hat. I want those people, when they come to Frankfurt, Kentucky, to have a memorable experience. I want them to never forget the time that they came to Frankfurt, hooked up with Taylor. Saw a good video about the history of Bourbon. I want people to remember us, not me, us. This cool little town.

Yeah.

And they say that a lot of my tourists. One of the things that I hear most when I'm out on a tour, whether it be a bus tour or walking tour or whatever, people will say to me, I can't wait to come back here. I can't wait to come back here. Because usually on a tour like that, they're on a limited schedule. I can't wait to come back to Frankfurt.

Yeah. And speaking of that documentary, I've obviously watched it quite a few times with friends and family. And so I have my favorite parts. And one of my favorite parts is when you quote Chris Christopherson.

Best of all possible worlds.

And Frankfurt is.

I've always believed that throughout my life. It's the best of all possible worlds. It's everything. It's everything that Bayberry is.

I think you said the best of the big and the best of the small.

We're a hop, skip, and a jump from Louisville and Cincinnati and Lexington and whatever it is you want to find. You want to hear a symphony orchestra, you can go hear one, be home in an hour. But you always get the chance to see Cincinnati and Louisville in your rear view mirror. come to home. And Frankfurt is home for a lot of people. It's my home. It'll always be my home. I'll tell you something weird. Not long ago, I had the opportunity to go to the Frankfurt Cemetery and look at my headstone already set in place with my name on it. That's a weird feeling. That's a weird feeling. I'm hoping I got a few more years. But But yeah, this is my home. Always has been. Born and raised here. Always. I'll die here. I don't know where my plot is paid for. But Todd, every place I've ever been, and it hadn't been too many, but every place I've ever been, I was always anxious to get home.

Yeah.

There's no place like home. No place like home. Right.

Well, Russ, it's been a pleasure to have you on. You know, I see you everywhere because, you know, as you said, it's a small town, so I'll see your little Toyota go by or you'll see my little Toyota go by. And, you know, one of the other great things you also do is you are. Father Christmas during the holiday. So that's fun. It's quite funny. My kids will be like, there goes Santa Claus. And they do miss your red truck. You downsize a little bit, but he had a big red truck.

So that was my sleigh. Todd, that's the Santa beard that I have, a natural white beard, came from E.H. Taylor because I started growing it to play that character. And then when that fell apart, I just let her go.

But again, thank you for being on. Thank you for everything you've done for Frankfurt from here. And like you said, until you can't do it no more.

Until I can't do it no more.

But I truly appreciate it. And it's, like I said, I always look forward to seeing you. It's always good to see you. You're a good guy. It was a lot of fun working with you on the documentary. And yeah, cheers.

And I was... blown away by your personal talent and level of professionalism.

I was kind of surprised myself. Well, you've got a great voice. Thank you.

If I had your voice, I'd have made a million dollars at broadcasting. But you got a good delivery, good voice, good brain. You did a great job. Thank you, sir. And I've never done anything like that with you.

Yeah. Well, thank you. So folks, thanks for joining us. As always, we drop an episode every Wednesday. Sometimes it'll be with a distillery. Sometimes it'll be a ghost.

Today is the first time we've had a ghost, as far as I know.

We've had a lot of spirits on here, but that's our first true ghost. But yeah, if you want to Keep in contact with us. You can follow us on the Facebook, on the Bourbon Roadies page. We also have another page called the Bourbon Road. The Bourbon Roadies is dedicated to basically our fans. It's a place where you can get on there and talk about what you're having, what you're celebrating. You know, it's just a bunch of good people who love bourbon, who, you know, quite a few of them will be coming to Frankfurt this coming, well, we're recording this pre-Bourbon on the bank, so it'll be coming down this way in about a week. Well, that's got huge. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah. So always check us out. The best way not to miss an episode is to scroll up to the top of that app you're on, be it iTunes, Spotify, what have you. Hit that subscribe button, we appreciate it. You can also support us by going to the Bourbon Road. We have hats and shirts and all kinds of things that helps us get on down the road a little bit. But whatever you do, with your headset on to get you through the work day, through your Saturday or your Sunday. We hope you're listening to us. And as always, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

you