469. Bourbon on the Banks 2025: The Official Wrap-Up

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

We've got a great show for you today, so grab your favorite four and join us.

All right, listeners, welcome back. It is our annual Bourbon on the Banks wrap-up show. It's nice for us to sit down after a great event and sort of wrap up the event and talk about what was great. what happened, what we, what Todd and I missed, actually.

It's usually what the case is, right?

We had a great time, obviously, Todd. We had a wonderful event there and we had a lot of listeners show up and it was a great time, but we do not get to really enjoy the event ourselves, do we?

No. The way we did it this year, we poured a lot of the single-barrel picks that were specifically chosen for Bourbon on the Banks, which was a lot of fun. I think a lot of folks stopped in there. The guys that came down that volunteered to come down for about an hour had a blast doing it. But yeah, I think I'm still just recovering from Bourbon on the Banks. It's a long day, but it goes fast, but it is tiring. But who we got with us today?

All right. We got a couple of guests with us today and they're longtime listeners. They're roadies and they've also been on the show. I don't know how many times, probably four or five?

I think this is seven for me, I'm pretty sure.

Is it seven? I think so. That's why I was thinking, because she's probably seen it in the second half before. I do know that. Okay, great.

But Renee, you know how many you've been on?

At least three, maybe four.

Yeah, probably four. Probably closer to four, I would think. But anyway, we've got Diane Strong and Renee True, both of them here to represent Bourbon on the banks and talk a little bit about the The numbers we all like to hear. How did it go? That's what it's all about today. We're going to sip through some whiskeys. Todd, what do we have first?

The first one we have, myself, Diane, and Renee, and that was a big pick crew. There were Bo, AMC was there. We had about eight or so. This is the Pursuit United pick. 108 proof. And we actually, you know, with Pursuit, they do some different like stave finishes in their regular product. And this was a tobacco stave is what I think we chose. Wow. Which, yeah, really, it was a, we had pretty, a pretty good debate because I mean, I think it came down to three originally. We had some really good options that day.

There wasn't anything bad.

Right. So it was, came down to, I think we were like, what would the crowd like most? kind of what it boiled down to. And this is what we settled on. I will say this, I did, you know, Kenny and Ryan are good friends of mine. So they do have a few cases there still at their gift shop.

So, yeah, I may actually get up there and grab another bottle. All right. Well, let's check out this whiskey. That's what we're all about, and we need to make sure that we get to that first pour pretty quick, and then we'll start talking about the post-mortem on bourbon on the banks, right? That's right. Is that a good word, post-mortem?

It implies that it's dead.

Dead till next October.

2025 is dead, right? 2026 is yet to be born. It's in our heart, though.

It does. We will have a resurrection in 2026. All right. Stay tuned.

Okay. That tobacco state gives it like a little bit of like sweet tobacco. I mean, yeah, it does. I mean, it's, um, and I know you wanted to be on this pick, but I don't remember what you were into.

I mean, I could only do so many. I mean, we had, I mean, 12 picks this year, 11 picks.

Well, 12, 11. And then the one we'll have in the second half was a, ended up being kind of a bonus pick, I guess you carry over from last year.

We'll talk about that when we get to that. All right. that does have a lot of sweet taste. It has a sweet aftertaste. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it was the sweet thing that got us because folks like sweet.

So do you think there's more folks like sweet or folks like spicy? Do you think it's down the middle or do you think it's mostly sweet?

For the folks that come to Bourbon on the Banks, I would say folks like sweet. Yeah. I mean.

And smooth.

Yeah. Literally the word smooth.

I think smooth is boring.

Yeah. You know you've become a true connoisseur when you say smooth as boring, Diane. So congratulations. You're a true bourbon snob now.

We won't say why, but this is our third pursuit of the day.

Yeah, right. It's just good. It's rich. It's really good. It's sweet. A lot of caramel. A lot of that sweet, almost like pipe tobacco a little bit.

Yeah. My first sip had a chocolatey taste to it.

Oh yeah?

I still am getting that a little bit.

Okay. Yeah, it's very candy-like. It's candy, syrupy, chocolatey.

Lots of legs. Speaking of, since we're talking about this pick, what was the feedback on the guys that did the picks this year? Were they pleased? Like I said, Percy had a couple cases left. I recall the guy from Chickencock, he said they sold out. But the pepper, yeah, it's hard to check with everybody because I was literally like running to pick people to like, hey, come down here and pour it our tent for a little while. So I was, I think I got like 26,000 steps that day.

An average day for me. While she walked from her house over here, I'm sure.

She was dressed like an Eskimo too.

I'm trying to find the survey, but in general, I think we heard from six or seven of them and it was overwhelming. They were very positive about it. I think some of them had some bottles left and they, you know, but that's a lot of bottles to sell at this event.

Yeah. I think if you can get in that, like, 150 range of bottles. That's probably about the cap you want on something. Right. I don't know. I mean, if you got something outstanding, of course, it's going to sell in a word of mouth. And that's kind of what we try to do is give another venue for people to try those things. And I think hopefully that worked for everybody.

Yeah, I think it was it was really great to have the signs up this year.

Yeah, I appreciate the signs and all the mentions, the videos. You know, they got a lot of they got a lot of marketing for it. And I think next year deciding if we're going to allow for a repeat, like if they sign up or if we want to try to. What are your guys' thoughts on that? Should we allow them to come back?

I already had a few approach me about wanting to do it next year, like the bluegrass guys were definitely interested in.

Because they sold out. I mean, we only, we limited it and we, it sold out. We kept opening it up for a couple more, but trying to decide, do we want to have more than 12 next year? Do we, do we want to open it?

I think that's the question. You don't want to like,

I hate to say flood the market. Well, you also have to remember that somebody has to do all those picks. That's a chore we can try to manage. That's a job we'll put up with it. We'll take one for the team. We'll figure it out.

The worst part is having to miss some. I think it's the worst part. Well, I mean, the thing about it is that any time you have a single barrel pick, whether it's done by one of the liquor stores or done for bourbon on the banks, that's the only time they're going to get a chance to buy that. Right. So I think we might look at adding a couple, but we don't want to do, we don't want to have 25. We don't want to have it to where it's so diluted. I think 16 is a good number. 16 is a good number. That's an answer. 2026. Let's do 26 of them. But there is a logistical factor. AMSE, he leads that for us and he does have a life outside of bourbon, although we're not sure what that is. He's in Indiana today. He wanted to be here.

I mean, what is the downtime for Bourbon on the Banks? I mean, we all know that it happens kind of the first Saturday in October and leading up to that, you work crazy hours trying to get things ready. How much downtime do you get in between the two?

There's the wrap-up and stuff, but then we start calculating and figuring out the money situation, the budget, and how much we can give away, and then volunteer party, and then it's the beneficiary event. The beneficiary event starts in January, and then that's when the invitations to the distilleries go out. It's not Crazy all the time. It's, you know, a lot of that you can schedule. So if I did want to go on vacation or something, I can, you know, but.

So if you wanted to go on vacation, it would be what November or would it be February?

In the past, I've gone in November. I've gone in October, but to me, it was too fast.

You didn't have time to wind down. You need to catch your breath. Right.

I felt like I left too many things dangling. But I think November is fine. And the holidays, nothing gets done because the distilleries, nobody responds through Thanksgiving and Christmas and the New Year. So that whole section is just like, that's when I update paperwork and do all that fun stuff.

Well, you also have family things during that time. We had some time to decorate. Special releases too from the distillery, so they're busy with that.

I just want to say, I've left the Sunday after to go on vacation two years in a row, I think now. So I like that. It's kind of like therapy for the liver and the mind and the soul.

I pretty much leave right afterwards. But I don't do the day to day, Diane does. And I know that she gets these surveys out immediately to the vendors, to the guests that attended, sponsors, and then she's immediately accumulating that feedback to give to the board. And then the board actually gets kind of busy in November and December because that's when we have actually the funnest part of the entire year. which is figuring out how much money we have left over after we set aside some money for operations, because we get all our money pretty much on one day. We get sponsorships throughout the year, but the ticket sales all come in a week after the event through the platform that we use. But November, December, we decide which charities we're going to help. We're going through that phase and then you end the budget process for the next calendar year. I don't really think Diane gets a lot of downtime. She's just got to figure it out. She's got to figure it out.

It's nice, though. I mean, it's I love this job because I can I can schedule everything around, you know, like I take my phone calls in the morning when I'm out doing my walk and people think I'm crazy because I look like I'm talking to myself.

Yeah, I've had to shout her every time like, Diane. She's walking by and I'm like, oh, she must be having her little earbuds in chatting and listening.

And you can schedule your, you know, meetings. It's I mean, I it's fun. It's it's not a burden.

So we talked a little bit about the barrel picks. I think overall it was a grand success potential that next year it could expand a little bit, but you're going to talk about that. You'll figure it out. But I think it was well done. As far as the consumer goes, I saw an awful lot of bags of bottles going around the place. I mean, there were a lot of people buying bottles of whiskey. And that's good. It's good for the distilleries. It helps pay for their day. Yeah. And also, you know, people love that. People love getting special bottles.

And there were a lot of distilleries that brought special bottles, you know, that weren't one of ours, but obviously they had special releases and stuff. And so there was definitely some unique stuff you could find there.

Yeah. So what were the, like the big successes? I mean, what were the things to you that really stood out this year as wow, we really got it right this year?

Well, last year, Bourbon Street on Broadway had, it was lackluster. I feel like that had spent such a good consistent event and maybe I let my guard down or maybe, you know, I don't know what happened, but we had some no shows. We had musicians or not musicians, performers that were no shows and some vendors that were no shows. And it left an awkward gap. And even though we had you know, the same amount of people, it just didn't feel right. And I'm, I wanted to focus heavily on that event and the VIP. Um, I mean, the survey was really well last year, but I did get a lot of feedback about making sure the distilleries had good pores and the distillery numbers were low last year. And, um, and that we had a couple of no shows last year as well at the VIP. And so we really tried to focus on that event, brought in DFI and, and, you know, really nail it this year. And I feel like both of those events this year were, I felt really confident about those. We did have a couple of no shows at the VIP, but there was two and they were just a miscommunication. So it wasn't a big deal. We still had more distilleries this year, two more than we did last year.

Fantastic.

And the auction? It was great. I mean, the auction was fun. As always, I think we did $39,700 in total receipts. The sponsorships that we get, Bourbon on the Banks, helps pay for the event. And then the rest of the money goes to local charities. So we raised over $22,000 for local charities. The rest of that money was the sponsorships that paid for the event, paid for the catering, the band, the sound, whatever went on, rental of the facility. We don't know how much money we netted as Bourbon on the Banks. You'll know that after November.

I do. I didn't bring my spreadsheet, but we did pretty good on the VIP, better than we ever have before because we had more items in the auction. In the past, we've just limited it to our barrel pick, but we kind of opened it up to a couple more things that we had in there, so we did well. The attendance was higher than it has been since, I think, 2020. Everybody was ready to do it, come back after.

So what changed? I mean, what made the VIP stand out this year a little bit more? There must have been a couple of little things that you did. The more exclusive pores?

Yeah, I think that was helpful. We were celebrating the Women of Bourbon, and we just had a great lineup of women that were there. I wish we would have announced them, or at least introduced them. The run of show, we were trying to figure out where that would have fit in. And looking back, that's one regret that I have, that we didn't just point them out to people. Because not everybody knows who they are. They've got name tags and stuff.

I was kind of wondering how you I guess showed them off kind of. Right.

Well, they're in the program. There's a headshot and bio in the program and then they're on the website and then they bring their product. So they had like little tables there? Yeah, if they wanted to bring their... If they came from a distillery, yeah, they all brought their distillery with them and they didn't have to pour, but their product was there that they represent.

We're always looking to improve. I know in the past, one thing about the VIP is it's spread out because you've got the indoor part where the auction happens, and the food's in there too, but then you have the outdoor part in the garden area where all the distilleries are at, and you're trying to figure out, okay, how do we manage that without making the event too long? and dragged out too long to where people get complacent about the event. But we recognize that if we're going to invite, and we will invite guest stars, that we need to recognize them probably in a little bit different fashion.

work on the entrance. There was a couple issues with the entrance, just clogging up and stuff. But that's an easy fix. It was just something that it wasn't anticipated. You come in, you get your program, you get your glass. And then there was the table where you sign up for your paddle and you sign up to get a raffle. And they should have just been set back so people could just go in if they wanted to go in. But Easy fix. We're going to move the entrance next year, I think, too.

And remind folks how many VIP tickets you sell?

There's 200 this year is what we sold. I think we have room to sell up to 250 if we really wanted to. I don't know. I mean, it was pretty comfortable the way it was. I would hate to sell too many more.

Yeah, because you've got to add all the volunteers and the catering staff.

And the distillery staff.

And the distillery staff.

Yeah, when you incorporate that, you're looking at 250, probably.

Yeah, sure. Now, that's Friday night. Let's go back to Thursday night. That was the Whiskey Thief kickoff.

I've got great feedback from that.

You weren't there, but Renee was there. I was there. I was there in spirit.

There in spirit and more than spirits? It was a great event. It's been great every year, actually. They always have a good band this year. They had a bluegrass band. They have a nice fire pit out there. They're out there burning the barrels. It was cool. And the weather was great. I think last year, maybe it rained, it kind of hurt. No, I don't think so. It was a year before. It was two years. The rain kind of hit them, but weather was perfect. And of course, their pores are outstanding. And so, I mean, I did not see anybody giving any negative feedback or anybody saying, well, I wish they'd done this. The only thing they could have done better maybe is have more paid parking because we've... I was going to say, I got there a little late and it was...

I actually got lucky. I guess someone had left one of those prime spots, but it's like people were parking in the corn.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, we had a great time there. We really enjoyed it. The band was good. The pores were great and the fire, the ambiance. I mean, it's just a wonderful place to go.

Yeah. A lot of roadies were there.

A lot of Bourbon Society members were there.

It's a great photo that I guess I might have to Photoshop in because I was late of all the Bourbon Society.

Oh, I saw that.

Yeah.

We posted that too.

So I'm going to put myself as the sun or something behind it. Kind of like, what's the Teletubbies, the smiling sun? I'm going to do that. I think actually, Andy's already done that.

They're so creepy. Cute and creepy. The shoe fits.

All right. Well, what do you guys say we take a short break here and we'll reconvene here after the half. Then we'll deep dive into the other aspects of the event. You got another pour for us, right Todd?

Yes, sir. All right. Stick around folks. We will be right back. All right. Welcome back to the second half of the show. We've been talking with Rene True and Diane Strong of the Bourbon on the Banks Festival. They're not only our guests, but good friends and Frankfurt Bourbon Society members as well. And yeah, we've had a great first half, but we're going to dive into this second pour. Jim, what's in our glasses tonight?

All right. So we are drinking the Dark Arts. pick for Bourbon on the Banks.

2024?

Yeah, the 2024. Oddly enough, yeah, this is an odd case where- This is a funny tale. Last year's pick- It wasn't funny when it happened. No. Gotta be careful saying last year. So the 2024 Bourbon on the Banks Festival, there was a pick for Dark Hearts, and that pick, I guess it was a screw up with

The distributor brought the wrong bottles.

So these sat in the warehouse while the wrong bottles made it to the event. So this year, the actual bottles from 2024 made it to the 2025 event, which is fantastic.

And three of us, once again, we're on that pick, you, myself and Renee. And that was a fun day. Smells like candy.

This is a seven and a half year straight bourbon whiskey finished in Tokai wine casks.

Oh, Amzie was talking about that. Yeah. He, Amzie really likes this one.

I don't think I've had a Tokai finished whiskey that I haven't been over the moon for yet. It's very interesting. Yeah. It's a sweeter Hungarian style. But let me see the proof on this. This is a 56.62%. So 113.24. Bourbon road math. Yeah. Bourbon road math. 112 to 113. There we go. And beautiful bottle. Beautiful label. These guys do it great.

I was going to say they were like, you know, I did get to like look around when I was walking around to like, Hey, can you come down and pour? Cause I would like, if they weren't running on time, I'd go get them and like, Hey, come down and pour your single barrel for us. And like dark arts was one of those that was slammed like all day. And I mean, it shows like, I mean, you know, I follow a lot of the bourbon social media and they are definitely one of the hot ones. Pursuit United is kind of a hot one right now. So that was cool to see. They had, Sarah, all grim porn for them. She's their brand ambassador, I believe. Yeah, from It's Bourbon Night. Yeah.

So I mean, they probably had a half a dozen expressions there. And they were all selling well.

I was going to say, Macaulay brought a lot. Yeah. He doesn't go small. No.

No.

But he's an awesome guy.

Well, fantastic. Let's check it out.

Yeah. Oh, that nose is just like dessert in a glass.

A little bit of fig, sweet caramel.

Yeah.

Deep, rich oak.

Yep. I don't recall, it doesn't usually tell you how long it was sitting in those secondary barrels. I mean, that's kind of his jam, but.

Yeah. I don't think whenever he sees it fit, I guess it's probably the best answer. I remember asking him, we went to their facility over off Manchester street, that's still redistricting Lexington. And as I recall, they would say something like three or four months, maybe six, something like that.

Oh, that's right. Well, yeah, we got to go to a little pre-opening, didn't we? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Well, I went another time after that.

Okay. He's always good to the Frankfort Bourbon Society, which is a lot of fun. We were actually probably one of the first places he ever did a tasting because I don't... This is off the record, but I don't even think he had his license to do that yet, but he was like, I'll come.

McAuley is a savant. I mean, he really is. I mean, when you do a tasting with him, when you do a pick with him, you know, we've been on picks with McAuley, not just at Dark Arts, but where we go other places to pick with him and he's on the team. It's just phenomenal. His palate and his nose are so in tune with whiskey. He really knows what he's doing. And, you know, I just feel like, I think with the time we were at down in Louisville, at Peerless, and then they had him identify what was wrong with a particular whiskey and he nailed it in like a minute, not even a minute. He knew exactly what was wrong with it.

Well, that's something to mention about the barrel picks is that the teams that go, a lot of times we have master distillers or master blenders or whatever from different distilleries go to another distillery and sometimes more than one on that pick.

Yeah. I know Walter's been with us before. Yeah, Walter's. We've had Hunter Coffee, he was a distiller at Whiskey Thief.

Hunter went to the one out at Jeff The Creed this year, I think. We had Matt King from The Blending House. That was the first time I got him to come out to Whiskey Thief, great guy, a long time roadie.

There's no doubt that the picking teams for these barrel picks for bourbon on the banks, they're rock stars. I mean, they really know their whiskey, right? I mean, they really know what they're doing. Not only the industry people that go, but the non-professionals as well. I mean, they're deeply invested in the bourbon. business, they know their whiskey, they know what they're tasting, and they're really good at what they do.

Yeah, a lot of that was video by Beau Cumberland.

Yeah, he put out a video for all of them. He does such a great job. I can't say enough about Beau. He's so fun, and he did so many great videos for us this year, and he's got tons of fun ideas for next year. I'm excited to see what comes out of it.

He's even made me more famous than I already am. I am the voice of a documentary, something that was not on my bingo card. I keep tabs on that. It's up to like 10,000 views, which I think is pretty cool.

I think that the City Museum is playing it as well. I think it's being played at the museum.

Oh, that's funny. Cause I had reached out to her to do that and I hadn't heard it was going on. So that's cool. Yeah. Cause she wanted to have like a special showing, but I thought that's what they told me.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, I'll discuss. Well, that's exactly where it should be. I mean, it should be being played somewhere like that because it's a, it's a fantastic thing.

Well, I think they were going to run it. There's a loop with Freddie and his talking about his dad and things too. So we don't want to overshadow Freddie. So maybe like we're like part two, you know.

I love Freddie.

I do too. So let's talk about the different ticket types you had this year and how that all worked out.

It's the same as last year where we have the special access ticket which gets you access. You get in at one o'clock and then you have access to the catered tent. You have private bathrooms that are air conditioned and heated. We didn't need heat this year. And there were special pours from Buffalo Trace this year, which is good. I think they ran out of the really good stuff at some point, and they came in with some Eagle Rare. But I think they had a, was it a Weller 12?

Or maybe Antique. I can't remember.

Oh, it was the Antique. Yes. Yeah. So anyway, super happy about. Buffalo Trace stepped up a lot this year. They were involved in so many of our events. The after party, the festival, they're involved in the VIP. So we're really excited. that. But yeah, so anyway, that's that ticket. And then we had the early access, you also get in at one o'clock, general access at two, and the twilight at four. And we're thinking about starting earlier next year.

Okay, okay.

Not a lot of people know this, but before this year, we shared that parking lot where we stage it and do the ticketing with the farmers market. They have a brand new pavilion. It's on the other side of town. This is the first year we didn't have to wait for the farmers market to be over before we could set up. I can't even explain how stressful that is. We were able to start setting up on Wednesday and doing all of that stuff. Now that we have been through it with one year without the farmers market there, I think we really can. Eric is pretty confident that we can start at noon. Trying to decide Do we just have special access coming at noon or special access and 1pm and extend the whole event for everybody? We're still kind of playing around with that. But that is one thing on the survey we asked, you know, do we want to make this a two day event or what is your How do you see this as being? Should we just leave it as it is? Should we extend the hours? Should we have, you know, a wave of like a early one and a late festival or two days, whatever. And a lot of people said that it's it's really spot on or just a little bit longer. And so many responses just, you know, add started at noon, you know, or have it go an hour later. The only problem with going an hour later is it gets dark.

Yeah.

And that is something we could remedy. We could rent some lights. We could work with that. So these are all things we're thinking about. But I do think it's going to be at least an hour longer next year.

Well, that would be good. I think so. And how did the ticket sales go this year as far as like how early the VIP sold out and how long did it take for the early access tickets to go and that kind of thing?

The only one I paid attention to was the general admission, which sold out a full month early and we actually released them almost a month later. So they sold out much faster. The special access were sold out within less than two weeks.

After you went online. Yeah.

Yeah. And then early access, Oh, I don't know, maybe a month. So it was all, it was much faster than the year before.

So are you going to play with those numbers at all?

Well, if we are able to, if the event is lengthened, I think we can expand slightly. Like if we say, for instance, if we were to open up at noon just for special access, that number could be a little bit bigger. And that would mean since you're not overlapping special access with early access, the early access could be a little bit bigger. And then you'd keep general admission the same and then Twilight, I think. But it just depends on how we do it.

And how was your feedback from the Twilight ticket holders? Did you get any?

You know, there were a couple of people that said, you know, that sold out, all we could get was the Twilight, but that was plenty of time.

Yeah. Okay. That's good.

I don't see people traveling from Texas for two hours. But I mean, if you're not coming from very far, two hours is a lot.

I mean, it's... Do you think it's primarily the procrastinators, the ones that didn't get their tickets in time?

You know, I'm not sure.

I think for many years it's been some of the locals. I think it's the locals that get shut out. Can't get a ticket.

Oh, you're asking who buys them? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah. And, and some folks, it's a lower price point.

Catch it in the lull a little bit, you know, but I felt like this year, you know, in years past, like when you got towards that last, like when Twilight was to come in, it seemed to be a few of the ones that came in the first dash that were gone. But this time, and it, it felt like it stayed full the whole time.

Yeah, and that was the goal. I think the numbers are spot on because what we did actually this year, we shrunk down the early access and special access say the same, but we shrunk down early access and expanded general admission and just a little bit. And then we expanded Twilight considerably because we knew that it was safe to do that. And so I think it worked out really well.

Now, was there any folks that said the linear? Obviously, along the river is very linear. That's about the only way you can do it down there. Those folks that you come in on one side and only that one side. When I was on the board, I was like, is there any way we can get to come in on the other end kind of thing? Is there any feedback on that or were they like, no, everything was fine?

You know that as far as the distilleries go?

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, no, the distilleries were overwhelmingly happy with the event. The continued complaint is load out, which is always difficult. Because we're linear, people can't just all drive in at once and get a car or get their stuff and go. Now this year, they had access from two points. So it did improve for sure.

It was much, much better this year. Yeah, we were out. But what we did was like, I brought the cart. We hand carried a little bit.

Yeah.

So and yeah, we were out of there a lot quicker than last time.

One of the I know one of the issues that some of the distilleries had was parking, because what we discovered, you know, when you have so many distilleries and vendors, we allow them to park on one end at the parking lot for the for the river access and then at the Bar Association. But even then, there's only enough for one vehicle per distillery. So we were having them go to our the one that we are that we have access to, which is the Mayo Underwood parking. And that's a long walk for them.

Yeah.

And I told Eric, I'm like, that just is unacceptable. These guys have got to get in. I mean, they need to be able to park their car and just get back in to set up and stuff. And so we've got a plan for that, too. I mean, we that was a couple of things we tackled right away after the event.

Yeah.

We've got a closer location. We're going to reserve a whole section at the city. transit building, I think.

Well, the good thing is Frankfurt, the design of downtown Frankfurt is such a way that I know you said it's a long walk for them and it is when you're working.

Right.

Well, it really isn't a long walk in Frankfurt. No, it's not that long.

The new farmer's market is like across town. Well, I'm pretty sure she could walk there in like seven minutes.

Yeah, it's not hard.

That's the great thing about bourbon on the banks. No matter where you stay in town, no matter where you choose to overnight at, you're probably going to be walking distance from any of it.

Right. Well, as long as you're downtown.

As long as you're downtown, yeah. You're out by the interstate. If you're out by the interstate, that's a different story. But yeah, I mean, it's a wonderful walking town. It's tremendous. The accommodations have grown in the last year significantly. We stayed at Colonel Taylor's house this year, which was fantastic. The Ashcroft. Oh, the Ashcroft. Nice.

Yeah, it was really nice. We really enjoyed that a lot. So the Delicate and Ashbrook, they're one of our sponsors this year, right?

Yep. They had the Saturday brunch.

Fantastic. And you guys have, like you have your own units that you ran out during Bourbon on the Banks.

I do. I rented them out to a couple of friends this year. And unfortunately, next year I've already rented one of them out long-term to somebody, but I still have one unit left. And you know, I might take that unit myself.

Well, we're still trying to figure out next year. We'll see what happens. It was a blast. We had such a great time again this year. The downtown atmosphere after the close of the event was just phenomenal. It was really good this year. I mean, it always is. But there was a great vibe. The crowds were respectful. There were children. It was just a good mix of people out there.

The downtown really got involved this year. We actually, I don't know, I think they're realizing the benefit that they get out of having Bourbon on the Banks there and they participate in a lot of stuff. The pub stroll, and kudos to Eric for this because Eric was really helping making sure that each restaurant and bar was participating to the fullest level and reminding them that, you know, when you get those photos to us and we put those on there, it's giving market, you know, it's sending people to your way. I got more passports this year back than ever. Like it's a huge stack where, you know, in the past people participated, but so it was, it was great.

Yeah.

Pubs roll, the after party.

How was the after party?

It was great. It was great.

I had to pack, sorry.

Yeah, that was fun. Well attended?

It was very well attended. As I was leaving, there were a lot of folks bringing in chairs and things, so that was cool.

Yeah, we had a lot of advertisement. Of course, we had the bigger name with Noah Thompson being there. And what's interesting is because we had two bands, then the actual band started at five. In the past, they started at 530 and we just had piped music in there for that first 30 minutes. So as people were leaving, they were much more likely to go. So we captured a lot more festival goers this year, which was interesting because in the past they're like, eh, you know, got to go get something to eat, got to leave. But I bet you half of the festival goers actually went there for a short period of time. Plus we had food over there. and drinks to buy, and it was laid out well. So I'm excited. We're going to continue to bring in bigger names.

Let's shoot for the moon. Let's get Chris Staple to name him. He's got the Traveler Whiskey right down the way.

And Buffalo Trades sponsored it.

I'm sure he's got nothing to do. That's a big ticket item.

That's not going to be cheap.

No, that's true. Anyway, maybe they'll just do out of the kindness of their heart and for Frankfurt.

Yeah. Can you imagine that being a free event? I think it would disrupt ticketing. That would be my concern.

It would disrupt a lot of things.

I don't want to upset my attendees.

It sounds really good, but you're not sure.

Well, we were already a little concerned about Noah.

If nothing's built behind the Plaza Hotel, we could just take that over. That's a good point.

Now you're talking. Yeah, so it was good.

It's a good dream, right?

Yeah. You never know where this thing's going to go.

So you guys are kind of hitting your stride now, it seems like. You're really tweaking things and you're figuring out what works. There's always a few changes every year, but you guys are really narrowing it down.

I've got great feedback this year. I've got all kinds of fun notes that I took for the event. And none of them are super difficult. A lot of people want the lanyard for their glass, which I think is a great idea. Although I did learn that our glass does not work in the lanyard. I haven't tested it.

I know the size. The Whiskey Thief glass, the one you get out there when you do the tasting, it's a little smaller. I think that's the one that works well in those.

Okay, well, I like that idea. A lot of people were saying it would just be nice to not, you know, I guess they want to double fist the bottles or something.

I don't know. Well, there were people selling lanyards there. Was there? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so there were lanyards.

Well, somebody had suggested it be a sponsorship, which is a great idea. I mean, I don't think that'd be a problem at all. The map, we had people, it's like, you know, I used to have a map. I hear that every year. We've had maps for like four years now. An app?

An app. An app. Well... I know, yeah. We've talked about that, but maybe somewhere... It would cost money to do upfront, but I feel like if you got a good one, you could have your map, like you said.

On your phone.

If you had like special events. Yeah, I mean... It's the way of the world.

I think a map is real simple. It's just one straight line that says whiskey.

We have maps. We've had maps for years and we hand them out and we have them on display at the event. My daughter suggested having a QR code on those maps. Some people can put it on their phone, but yeah, maybe we need to consider that.

You do have a plaque across from our booth there that had all the distilleries on it.

Which was helpful for me.

Yeah, we went over and looked at that from time to time.

And this year I sent out the map beforehand to all the attendees so that they could, cause I had had that request in the past so they could study it. But evidently the format that I sent is not printable. So that's lessons learned next year. It will be PDF. It's going to be a PDF next year.

I thought one of the cool things you did this year was invite a bunch of social media and YouTubers. Yes. None of the big ones, but you had some like whiskey weather, SLB drinks, and numerous others.

Yes.

And what they all kind of did was after, you know, they kind of video their experience there and put out a video afterwards. And I recommend all our roadies to go out there. If you've never been to Bourbon on the Banks to check some of those out. And we'll get Diane to send us like links to all those and we'll post them on the Bourbon Road page.

deserves a lot of credit for that. You know, we've always invited social media to the event and we've had social media there all the time, but he made a special effort, I think, working with LF Heritage. He works with them and he really wanted to bring light to the event. You know, he's a big fan of the event and he invited all these guys and sent them my way to get media passes. And yeah, so we had more YouTubers than ever before. It was really interesting.

Well, I don't know about that. A few years ago, we had a bunch. It was just very unofficial.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Like we didn't know they were there. Right. But watching those videos afterwards, and I know I was talking about this earlier, but I'm in ticketing the last two years. I haven't been able to make it back there. So it's really nice to watch from their viewpoint, going booth to booth and their experience. I was able to see what distilleries use plastic when they weren't supposed to. And I took notes on that.

Oh, great.

There was one. There's one. Oh my God.

Dan's going to slap some knuckles next year.

So it sounds like it'll be polite. But I'm just I'm like the plastic Nazi. But anyway, so there's there's one guy that came up with in the middle of the interview. I don't know if you guys saw this one. It's just some guy. He's from Frankfurt and he's carrying a bottle. and it's something that he finished.

Oh, that guy.

He brought it from home and he had his own plastic cups and he was sampling it. And I'm like, oh, that's not legal on so many levels. Yeah, yeah. I cannot believe that.

I mean, why do you need to bring more?

I know, but it's just to have a civilian sampling.

He gave me a sample of that and I politely like said thank you and yeah.

I did run into one lady that was, she says, come over here, look at this video. This is this distillery we're doing it and I can't remember where it was. And I was standing next to a booth and I said, are you with this booth here? She says, no. I said, do you all have a booth here? She said, no. What? Yeah. I said, what are you doing? And I was like, okay, I'll see you later. And she was like advertising for somebody that wasn't even at the festival. It was weird. At an empty booth or something? Yeah, just next to it. And she had all these pictures on it. It takes all kinds.

You never know what you're going to run into. Yeah.

All right. Well, I think as a whole, it was a very successful event. We had such a great time there. We're always very appreciative of it. Now, the Bourbon Road has always been extremely gracious. Well, I'd just say thankful for the opportunity to be a part of it.

Well, we are very thankful to you guys because you help us so much every year. It's for sure. I mean, and the roadies.

She's just saying that because I volunteer too, so she makes me volunteer as well.

You all have been there from the beginning, so we do appreciate it. Are you winding up a little bit here, Jim? Am I feeling that?

I'm starting to wind up a little bit. Yeah, I'm thinking that we've had two whiskeys. We don't have a third.

I just want to make sure that we mention a couple of our sponsors. Benson Valley Bourbon was our overall title sponsor for the VIP Lerkin Bourbon Company. Lawrenceburg, that was our sponsor. Exprey Credit Union did the Bourbon Street on Broadway. You mentioned the pub stroll that was Four Roses.

Mixology was Ingram. The Ingram Distillery.

Whiskey Thief Kickoff. And Whiskey Thief. Stave is the rave. That was LF Heritage. Provided the whiskey for that, was the sponsor for that. And there's several other sponsors. Those are the main ones.

Buffalo Trace sponsored the after party as well as Benson Valley.

And Goodwood. It was the Goodwood after party. Oh, of course. Yeah, Goodwood.

It's the Goodwood after party.

Yeah. So have you got any commitments early for sponsorship next year? Is it already starting to line up? Yeah. Fantastic. That's good news.

Yep, yep, yep. Very happy about that.

And what day in October is it? Do you know?

It's the first Saturday in October. It's the third.

The third. Oh, the third. Okay. I'm looking forward to it already. I put it in my calendar.

I put it on the calendar today.

Well, we appreciate you both sitting down with us. It's always nice to sort of deconstruct the event and sit down and talk about it. I think there were some great successes this year. We had such a wonderful time. The whiskeys were, I think, better than ever. The number of distilleries there, more than ever. The number of attendees, again, a new record for you, maybe?

Oh, yeah. Definitely. We sold out and that's more than, it was about 300 more than last year.

It consumed a little more ground this year too, right?

We did.

Yeah.

Just a little bit more. Yeah. I don't think we want to go too much bigger. It just makes it too big of a footprint.

I know Kentucky River is hundreds of miles long. That's true.

That's a good point. It could be like the 127 yards.

Take it all the way to Buffalo Traces doors, right? Yeah.

All right. Well, it's been a blast having you on again. It's always nice to have both of you on. You've been longtime attendees of the show and have always contributed and we definitely appreciate it. We look forward to next year's event and people should start looking for information to start on the website. What? Maybe early spring? Tomorrow?

Yeah. Well, last year the tickets went on sale in March. Of course, we're going to give warning and everybody who's attended in the past will get an email notification of when they'll be on sale. And if you subscribe, you'll get notification as well.

So go to the website, subscribe, make sure you get your email list on the list so that you get that early notification.

Yeah. Make sure that we do not go to your junk mail. Marcus is safe.

All right. Well, thanks again. We appreciate it. It's always a blast. Lots of fun. Always lots of fun. My favorite event, hands down, no doubt.

Agreed. It was kind of funny. I watched a lot of those videos the social media guys did, and they were like, it's a different ball game than KBF. I think they truly mentioned like, it kind of highlights the lesser knowns a little bit. And I think that's awesome. I mean, those are the guys, you know, Whiskey sales might be down, but the smaller guys are the ones that need the love the most because, well, the heritage have survived these plunges and dives and ups and downs for years and years and years. They'll be just fine. But it's cool to see the smaller guys get some love. this festival really shines a light on those guys. So props to you guys. All right.

Well, make sure you check out birdmanonthebanks.org. Go on there, sign up for the subscribe so that you get the notifications on as soon as the information comes out. You can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, threads. We do all those things. Every single Wednesday, Todd and I will put out a show. Sometimes we'll have guests on like Renee and Diane. Sometimes it's just Todd and I. We're always having fun. We're always drinking whiskey. We hope you'll take a few moments and check out the Bourbon Roadies page on Facebook. It's a great group of people that love to drink whiskey, love to share their fun with others. Make sure you check that out. Also the bourbonroad.com, that's our webpage on the internet. You can find our swag on there, our blog articles. Certainly you can find our podcasts on there. You do find our podcasts on every platform, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, everywhere. We're out there. Make sure you check us out. If you're listening to us on our podcast app, scroll to the top, hit that subscribe button. That way next time you'll get that notification and let you know that we just released a new episode. But until the next time we'll see you down the Bourbon road.

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