479. The Narrator, The Historian and The Guide

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.

Hello there, this is Drew Hanisch of Whiskey Lore and I'm so happy that the Bourbon Road guys are going to let me promote a little bit about my new book coming out called Experiencing American Whiskey. It is a travel guide to whiskey distilleries in the entire United States. Lots of details in this book to help the traveler along the way and I'll tell you more about it at the break.

Hello again, friends, and welcome to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. This is Todd today, and I am flying without Jim today. He's doing a dry January and, you know, sometimes everyone needs a little reset in their life. And I usually pick the shorter month. I'll usually do February because it's only 28 days, but that's just me. But I did bring on a couple of guests with me tonight and we're going to taste through a few things and we're going to talk about touring different distilleries and things like that. And then we've also, yeah, we've got a few bourbons and Tennessee whiskey to talk about. And so I've got Drew from Whiskey Lore. He's back on. I drug him in since I wanted to co-host an old hat at this. And I've also got Jerry Daniels from Stone Fences Tour. Jerry, welcome to the show. Well, thank you, Todd. You bet. Jerry's a longtime friend of mine, Andrew's, and yeah, we get together and get all bourbon history nerdy quite often. But one of the first things we like to do is get straight to this first board and then we'll dive into Jerry's history and why we drug him on this show. So the first thing we have is a pretty new release. And I don't know if you guys have noticed, there's a lot more of these 700 milliliter bottles coming out. And this is one of those scenarios. And I'm going to show you guys what it looks like. It's a very interesting bottle and I'll be sure to post it on the Bourbon Roadies page. But this is the McLo collection and it's a Kentucky straight bourbon. Um, so this lady named Julie Macklow, she's a, she was a hedge fund manager and entrepreneur, and she kind of got into doing these like upper scale whiskey collection releases. And most of her stuff was like high, high end scotches. Like I looked at their website and there's like some thousand dollar scotches on there and things like that. But this is kind of their first dive into, um, into bourbon. And here's kind of the info on it. It's a high corn recipe consisting of 75% corn, 21% rye and 4% malted barley, aged for at least four years, followed a 90 proof, 92 proof, excuse me. And well, without telling us who it is, they tell us who it is because it does say it's distilled in Damble, Kentucky. So Oh, okay. Interesting. So these are produced in small batches. It says around usually about 10, 10 barrels and the price is $70 for, like I said, a 700 milliliter.

All right. See the government changed the rule on that for, for overseas whiskeys.

And so Jack Daniels has been doing that for awhile. Yeah. Jack Daniels and then Jim Beam just started releasing some 700 milliliter. Yeah. They don't cut the price. Do they? No.

Say his name. Very, uh, it's like a lot of caramel and herbaliness. Yeah.

There's a, there's a big sweet note, like almost confectionary sugar. Yeah. Honey.

Honey. Definitely. Bit of honey. Yes. That's a bit of honey candy. That's a great shout.

Yeah. So for those that didn't catch our, uh, I guess our drift when we said this was distilled in Danville. Well, there's only one distiller in Danville and that would be wilderness trail. Yep.

I know, but my mind went right to wheat and then I was thinking, no, this is the right recipe. Yep.

I'm ready to sip. Cheers guys.

Cheers.

Hmm. Very candied too, but I get like cinnamon toast crunch.

Okay. Not quite Amber Rana esque though, right?

Just more like, no, no, it's a, but it's a, yeah, it's subtle. Yeah. But it's there. It's like that little cinnamon bite comes in. There's a little citrus zing to it as well.

You guys getting that?

Yeah.

Yeah. I can, I can, I can get that cinnamon about that Drew's talking about.

Yeah. It's got a nice mouthfeel to it. Almost like a lemon drop.

Most products from that distillery have pretty good math feel.

Yeah. But you're right. Very soft, very sweet.

Yeah, the corn is doing its job.

So I'll remind you guys, we're gonna kind of rank these three pores today and we'll do that at the end. And you know, there's no losers here usually. So, but Jerry, like I said, I want you to introduce yourself. You are the owner and proprietor or one of the owner and proprietors of the Stone Fences Tours. So kind of give us an idea of what that's about and when you started and that kind of thing.

Thank you, Todd. I think the last time we were drinking together, it was at a graveyard.

I was going to say, yes, I think that's older stuff.

Not older, but produced a lot longer ago. So we, my wife and I started our tour company back in 2018, but We actually researched four years before that. So we actually started in 2014, just researching. Uh, we're both history geeks. We both graduated from Orange State with political poli-sci degrees. She actually uses hers and teaches, uh, history. Uh, but when we got into doing this, uh, we would actually go ourselves, spend like 10, 11 days and do historical sites like Charleston, Savannah. I'm a big Civil War geek. So I think we've seen 70 some Civil War battlefields and all. We've probably seen 40 or 50 other historical sites in our three or four years of doing that. But we wanted to bring history to Kentucky because there's so many different topics of history in Kentucky. There's so many things. I'm from Eastern Kentucky, the feuds. A lot of people know Hatfield McCoys. They don't know the other 20 feuds that went on down there. We're next to the Ohio River, so there's a lot of underground railroad activity and history there. We were a border state during the Civil War, so there's a lot of Civil War history here with the families that was very divided on both sides. So we love that kind of history. We're the horse capital of the world here in Waxington. A lot of thoroughbred history. But we knew we had to do bourbon, so I wanted to kind of research history. And unlike Drew, I'm not a master of anything, but I can BS my way through a lot of stuff.

Which is good in the bourbon world.

Yes. Yes. I can get through a wide range of topics, you know, different families. I don't delve as deep as Drew does, but I can, I can get my way through some families and bourbon history. And we love that. So when we started our company, We wanted, we knew we had to do bourbon. You can't do tours in Kentucky without doing bourbon. We just wanted to do it with a little history slant to it. And our goal was that we wanted people to know who put that distillery there, when it was put there, why it was put there, and maybe take a little piece of Kentucky back home with them when they left.

That's great. That's great. So, but on your website, it also says you still do the brewery tours and

I can't handle doing the same tour all the time.

Okay.

I mean, I love Buffalo Trace. I love Woodford. I love Four Roses. I've done that tour a lot. And I love it, but I do love it when somebody wants to do a horse farm or wants to go to a brewery or a vineyard or historical side, or, you know, a small craft distillery that a lot of people haven't heard of. So, um, I do like variety. in our tours. We do offer a variety in our tours. So that's, you know, we, that's something we've always done and always will do.

Yeah. I should let folks know that Jerry is a Frankfurt Bourbon Society member, which is awesome. And he's actually driven. We acquired his services for a day and went up to Northern Kentucky and had a great time up there. Not too long ago. I guess that was back in the, Fall, I guess, wasn't it?

We went up to Augusta and we went to... One of my favorite towns in Northern Kentucky. I love Augusta.

Revival, vintage spirits, which was a lot of fun. Went there too, yeah.

Yeah.

So Jerry, how did you meet Drew?

Oh, how did we meet Drew? You were coming in. I know I was doing tours. How we found each other. I don't even remember now.

I don't remember either.

I know you were coming in for some reason. I kind of showed you around at some of the distilleries, but I don't know how you found me. If it was through our tour company or if it was through the bourbon sessions that we co-host. That's a refurbished.

Wow. That's it's really funny to think about that. As soon as he asked that question, I went. You know, it's just like we, we've known each other forever.

Like some sort of epic Batman and Robin kind of thing.

But I remember was sitting out at bourbon 30, the wild west of the trail.

But you had bought me a ticket that same day to go to Buffalo trace. So we already knew each other at that point.

The Colonel Taylor tour. Yeah. We did the Colonel Taylor tour together, but I remember sitting out there at the bourbon 30 with Jeff and he was enjoying some bourbons with us. I don't remember that, but yeah, I don't know how we got in touch with each other.

Okay. Yeah. That's strange. We must've just bumped into each other somewhere and got to talking and just don't, don't remember.

Okay. And you might've been a few bourbons involved too.

So that could be very, very much so. Yeah.

So Drew, about. How many tours are you up to now that you've done? And I know they've kind of changed the game on you since you are basically writing a book about all the tours and as many distilled as you can cover. But what are you up to now, if I might ask?

I know I'm over 410 now at this point. Yeah. Yeah. And that's both sides of the Atlantic. And I had to go through and actually make up a spreadsheet for myself because I kept going, Emma, is that right? It can't be. I've been to that many. Now, what I will say is 410, uh, 410 visits. So once I started doing the counting, I went, oh, you know what? You're counting the two times you've been to Maker's Mark as individual visits. So it's less than 400, but it's still well over 350, I would say, that I've been to. So yeah. It's a, I'm not tired of it yet. Still, still love going into every distillery I go into. I find something else that grabs me. It's very rare that I go into a distillery and walk out and go, uh, yeah, okay. Well, I don't know if I'll be back there again. Um, you know, so that's just, and seeing them across the country this year doing the great 48 tour and trying to get to as many as I could get to, I got the 36. And seeing them all around the country, again, lent a whole different perspective to what's going on in the industry right now and what is out there and kind of getting you. It's funny to talk to people that are far outside of Kentucky because they have Kentucky opinions. But they're far from Kentucky. And so they kind of tell you what's going on in Kentucky, but they're often, you know, uh, Oregon or they're often, uh, Arizona or wherever. And, um, and you're, and you're like, I've spent so much time in Kentucky and then I hear them saying these things and I'm like, you need to go to Kentucky. You gotta, you gotta see what it is like. Cause it's, uh, it's not everything everybody always talks about. There is diversity within the state of Kentucky. It's not just one, uh, they're, they're not all just bourbon distilleries now. I think that's a big change for me from the first time I showed up was that I could write a book called experiencing Kentucky bourbon and only write about bourbon. But Kentucky is starting to edge out there and doing other styles of whiskey and rye has picked up a lot more than it was before. And now American single malts are showing up and the rest. So, uh, it's been interesting to watch it.

So what I wanted to ask you guys, since you are tour professionals, we'll say, um, Drew, we'll start with you. Like, Outside of Kentucky, what are some of those places that you've been to and after, you know, like I said, you get Drew tours now, but it is what it is. But what, what are some of those places you've been like after it was over? You're like, wow, that was just top-notch, just really cool.

Yeah. Well, one of my favorites to always mention is Minden Mill in Nevada, which is just right down the hill from Lake Tahoe. It's a short drive, beautiful. You're basically in the high desert. You can go there and you can check out what I call the land of Oz. They have this beautiful setup in their bourbon distillery, but then they have two Scottish pot stills in their visitor center. So you feel like you're going to, um, Scotland and looking in and they're actually old McCallan stills. So that's they were stills that were meant for McCallan and they ended up here in Nevada. And then you can go right down the road to Frey Ranch. It's not that far. It's probably a 35, 40 minute drive. Not bad. Maybe an hour. Yeah. Um, but still, and, and so, and both of them are state distilleries. So that's, that's cool to do that. And there's other distilleries around Reno and Carson city. And it's, so it's all in that one little area. I haven't been to the other ones, but, um, Um, but there's some diversity there. Um, you know, Denver would be great place to go to cause you have a ton of distilleries. That's one of the things on my map of Colorado. It's like, there's this huge clump of pins around, uh, Denver, but as you go through there's 60, I have 63 distilleries for Colorado in the book. So there's, you know, Denver's a good central spot, the Midwest. There's a bunch of good places to go to. Um, Traverse City, Michigan. You got, you know, Ironfish is there. Grand Traverse is there. Ethanology is there. Traverse City. Whiskey Company is there. You know, Texas. I have not been to Austin yet. I need to go. There's a distillery called copper shot that is not in Austin, but it's kind of to the east of Austin, uh, where he's doing all sorts of interesting experiments. He's, he actually has a, is it a pecan tree outside of the distillery and he has open top fermenters. And he said he can taste the, uh, the difference when that trees in bloom. Oh wow. With his, with his whiskies. Yeah. So I mean, he's paying that much attention. And then right down the road, you got still Austin, Trinity Oak, uh, you know, I mean, my lemon green. bunch of stuff all just in that one little area. And, um, you know, then there were some, one of the ones that, uh, I think a lot of people don't know about yet is Missouri. And I, I'm thinking about doing an I 70 tour this year where I start out in St. Louis. There's a couple of distilleries in St. Louis. I want to go see, uh, still six 30 where he's got like a library of all of these, uh, uh, whiskeys in there that he's collected samples of, uh, that they use for doing their testing and stuff like that. And then, uh, switchgrass spirits is there and then wood hat is on the way West. And then once you get West, In Kansas City, you got Jay Rieger, Holiday is north of there. You got West Bottoms, which is doing rectifying, which I think is cool that somebody is brave enough to want to bring rectifying and that story back to to whiskey and Tomstown and Union Horses right across the state line. There's a ton to do there. I think that's what I would advise people if they're wanting to go explore someplace Pick a place like Pittsburgh. There's three distilleries easily within a very short period. Well, actually four, cause you could do Liberty pole wiggle, um, uh, what's that? Well, they're on the other side of the state. Um, about mid state actually, you could do it. You gotta get on I 76, which, uh, the turnpike, which I, I try to avoid like the plague. Um, And then you've got, uh, McLaughlin is North. That's a really interesting distillery. And then, uh, iron city and they're three chambers still, right? So you get a little revolutionary war or a whiskey rebellion, um, some off the wall kind of stuff, and then move over to, uh, see the three chambers still on top of it. So I think there's, there's plenty of those pots. And when you look at the book and you see, um, you know, clumps in certain areas, you can go, oh, I could probably visit there. And, you know, you got plenty of options in many different areas throughout the country. Right.

Okay, Jerry, your turn. I wanted you to focus like what are a few of your favorite Kentucky tours and distilleries?

Okay, we'll see. We have 60 some distilleries too. We do make a little bit of product here. So if we kind of looked at like the big distillery, so if you're if you're a history nut, like I am, and you just want to get a lot of history, beautiful sites, beautiful grounds, castle key can be, you know, I love Woodford. I wish they went a little more in depth on their history, but you walk in and you see those six gorgeous pot stills and all those cypress fermenters and all that history they have there. Definitely, definitely worth checking out. I know we probably all love Maker's Mark. I mean, the grounds there are gorgeous. Jim Beam. It's so funny that we don't get a lot of people ask for Jim Beam. Like when people are coming to Bartstown, it's always Maker's, Heaven Hill. A lot of people have heard about Barstown Bourbon Company. But Jim Beam, I mean, the history is there. They actually do a great tour. We'll see how that changes this year with the closing of production at the facility. But they were one of the early ones like Willett that kind of transitioned into a progressive tour. Before most distilleries, pretty much you had two options. You could either do the full tour with the tasting, or you could do the tasting. We find out that groups coming in now, they don't want three of those down today. They don't want to do three tours and a tasting. I love going on tours and seeing everything, but they're looking for different experiences. So we always try to get people to just go to like Woodford where you get forecast on key, where you get like a full production tour. So if you have guests in your group that haven't seen bourbon being produced, you will see it all there. You know, we all love Buffalo Trays, but you're not going to see everything in production. Everything's made at Buffalo Trays. You see bits and pieces. My favorite tour there is the Colonel Taylor Tour. It's just a historical tour. But I said the Progressive Tour, I love Willet. They were really the first one to kind of come out in Kentucky with a Progressive Tour. So that's where you get your, they give you a glass, they give you a pour and you start and you pretty much have stations along the way where you can get refills. And you are drinking all along the way, so you don't have to wait for an hour at the end of the tour to try their product. I think that was a cool way to go about it. I mean, you're seeing all these different kinds of experiences. Most of us know Berry at RD1. They've got the new location of Lexington. They've got a cool, it's called a barrel tasting, but unlike Whiskey Thief, which is cool itself, you're not thieving directly from a barrel. You're actually tasting products out of barrels that they have set up in another room. But the wood they use is experimental wood. So you could get, I'm trying to think what all, we had a Sassafras barrel.

Yeah, I was going to say, the time I was there, they had French oak, Mizunara, maybe a Colombian oak or something, maybe?

Yeah, it's all these varieties of wood, you know, that they're using to finish in or, you know, that are, and it's just, it's cool to try something that you never would have thought. Why would you put that in a barrel? And you never know. I mean, there was, there was one that we liked. I can't remember. It was a smoky. It was almost like a scotch that they put in a barrel. I can't remember exactly which barrel it was. But the cool thing about it is you can go in the next room and you can see your bottle full, a 375 if you want, of that product that you'll never see again. So that's cool. Dark Arts. We all know Dark Arts. We know Macaulay from, you know, Wilma's Trail. But Dark Arts has this, well, it's called Alchemy. So if you're, it's a cool, like, sensory tour. Sarah from It's Verbal Night leads you through the tour. She does a great job of leading you through that. So it's kind of got, you go in there, it's almost got like a Harry Potter vibe to the place. So very different. That is very cool. Like I said, I mentioned Whiskey Thief. I call it the Eastern Kentucky Farm Party distillery. We get a lot of people that go and finish there. You get whiskey straight from the barrel, usually between 115 and 120 proof. They also have bar set up, they have a food truck set up. A lot of times they have live music. You can go out back and sit by the fire. It's a great way to kind of end your day. If you're in Kentucky and you're trying to figure out how to end the day, you've done a couple of distillers and you want something just relaxing to end your day. That is definitely a great stop. If you're a science geek, I think you can't beat Wellness Trail. They actually have a science tour. You can actually take a tour in their lab now. And you get to look at the microscope at some of their mash and all this and kind of see what they're what they're looking at when they're, you know, doing this for their distilleries. I thought that was very cool.

I actually got to do that tour. It's awesome. Well, you get to, you get to walk up to the fermenters, dip in yourself, take out your sample, go down. And then they basically describe the whole process of what they go through to check that yeast and make sure that it's, uh, doing what it's supposed to be doing. And so if you're, um, I mean, if you were a science geek, that is definitely the tour you need to, and they've always shown through in terms of talking science, but now you actually physically can, uh, see science in action. So it's, it's, it's cool.

Yes. Yeah, they do. They, they do a great job with that. Uh, you know, there's some, you know, I'm, we're located around Lexington. Uh, you know, we, so we go travel around this area mostly with their grapes or barks down a lot, uh, Louisville. There's something about craft distilleries. I love Peerless. I just love the story of Peerless. I love their product. I love going there and doing their tour there. There's some great distilleries downtown. I call them the boutique distilleries. They do some good jobs, great jobs. But there's, you know, Western Kentucky has so many distilleries. Northern Kentucky, I know Drew and I went up to Augusta. It's just a cool place. We got a little private tour there. Did we get a private tour there?

Yeah, we got the private tour. Well, we had some people come along with us. I think it was supposed to be a private tour, so it was fun.

Cool setting. I mean, sometimes the area, the place where it's at, I mean, Augusta is just a cool town. to go and sit at the beehive and grab you about to eat and sit there outside if you want and just looking at the river. So, I mean, there's a lot, you know, there's 67 distilleries. You have to do it by region. If you're going to do it, we suggest, you know, if you want to do a day in Central Kentucky, do that. If you want to do a day in Barstown, do that. So if you paint it on your own or if you don't, if you try to do it yourself, just keep in mind that Woodford Reserve and Maker's Mark are not close. You don't want to do those together in a day. So, but, you know, definitely plan that out. There's a lot of different things now with experiences. People are just wanting different experiences with it. And we're starting to see a lot of food pairings, cocktail classes. We're getting some that are doing cigar pairings. So some cool alternative things that you can do and still the normal distillery tour and tasting.

I've got two to add and I'm going to go one out of state and I'm going to go one in state. The one I'm going to go out of state is the hard truth and that's the ATV tour. Now we just took the ride but they told us what the tour is like because I was up there for a barrel pick and they basically take you to ATV Four Wheeling back, it's a great space anyway, and they have this great distillery. They've got an amphitheater for music, a brewery on site, but they take you on this ATV and their little station set up where you stop and they kind of give you, yeah, like a little information about fermentation and you have a pour there and you move to the next station. Very, very unique. And then the second one, and you guys probably need to keep tabs on if you get down this way. And it's a Buffalo Trace, but it was, um, it was a tour with Nicolai Quinte, the Bourbon archeologist. And we literally got to walk down in Pompeii. We were down in the rock area. Oh, wow. And we went to some places. I felt like I'd been all over Buffalo Trace because it was a lot more lax back in the day. And I had friends that took me places, but we went to some places that, yeah, I didn't even know existed. It was really cool. And, you know, Nick's a Bourbon Society member as well and a great historian. And we actually found a label in one place and he was like, oh, cool. And he grabbed it and said, put it in his little book and said, that'll go in the archives. So that was pretty cool. But he said he's just trying to do them back once a month. I mean, obviously, you guys probably have his information and see him on occasion or you could contact him. But yeah, that was a lot of fun. It was myself and Amzie Winning, David Salin from the House of Commons bar. But we had a great time. Well, as much as I want to dive into this second pour, I think we'll have to go to the second half because I knew we could chat about a lot. As Jerry said, we can BS our way through anything. So we'll be back for the second half and we've got two more pours to go through and we'll talk a little bit more about, yeah, bourbon and geekdom and all that fun stuff. So sit right back and we'll be back just shortly.

Hello there, Drew Hanisch, Whiskey Lore, and I am excited to announce that I have a brand new book coming out called Experiencing American Whiskey. Now, if you have checked out my travel guide to Experiencing Kentucky Bourbon, you'll know that I go deep into the details of Kentucky Bourbon. Well, imagine that I've spread this out across the entire United States now, and I'm covering a thousand distilleries coast to coast, and even Alaska and Hawaii. I have 227 detailed profiles in there from the distilleries that I've had firsthand contact with. I give you all the details that you need to know like when they have tours, if they do tastings, cocktails, and everything is in a state-by-state format so that you can Roll through, find your particular state that you're traveling to and have all that information at your fingertips. On top of that, I have a website resource where you can bookmark and actually create a wish list of the distilleries that you'd like to visit. I cover state regulations so you know how many bottles of whiskey you can walk out with from a store, from a distillery and so on. So it is an exciting book. It is the biggest thing that I've put together to this point. And right now it is going to be going on sale on January the 13th, but it is actually available for pre-order right now at whiskylore.org slash shop. That's Whiskey Lore's travel guide to experiencing American whiskey. Hello roadies. Welcome back for the second half of our episode. I feel like I'm doing a sports announcement here. Uh, it's interesting doing the, uh, welcome on the other end for, uh, uh, for someone else, but, um, we're here with, uh, Jerry Daniels and, uh, Todd is, is here along with us and, uh, we are doing some tastings of whiskey and we are also talking about distillery travel. And so in the first half, we kind of went through and talked a bit about, um, You know what Kentucky experiences are like and what's going on some places you can travel across the United States with my new book that's coming out and then we also tasted some whiskey. We had the Macklow collection a 92 proof. uh, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. And we are about to try something else. So I'm going to, uh, hand it back to the host, uh, the host with the most, right?

That's right. That's right. Thank you for doing that. It's your fifth episode and that's our thing. If you are on five episodes, you have to bring us in the second half. So you are an elite company.

I mean, it's now they get a jacket after five times.

Wow. Okay. Yes.

Yeah.

We let him do an ad for his book. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, that works. That's probably more important than the jacket to him, I'd say.

It is.

It is. All right. So we're going to dive into our second pour and I'm very excited about this one. This is the Jack Daniels single barrel, heritage barrel, and it's toasted. And this was a special release, I guess back in 23 maybe. And now of course, you know, since it did so well and it's becoming a year round product. This one Jack Daniel's are toasted for about 12 minutes before being charred. So, but this one, Oh, that was the original toasted version. Now it's the barrels are toasted for 24 minutes, double the usual time at a lower temperature. This creates a deep toasted layer in the wood before a very light flash char is added. These, um, the distillate went in here at a hundred proof rather than their typical 125 proof. And these barrels are aged at the very top of the highest barrel houses in Lynchburg, like the famous Coy Hill, Tanyard Hill, where, uh, they sit for about seven or eight years. That's what it said. So I'm, uh, this is getting a lot of acclaim. This was actually, um, Oh, so somebody at one, somebody's about ward like bourbon in the year. Uh, I'll think of it a minute, but let's dive into the nose. Okay.

Of course banana nut bread is definitely there.

I was going to say it's kind of like a banana pudding. And then there's like, instead of whipped cream, it's like a marshmallow cream on top.

Yeah, there's definitely a marshmallow. There's a little carob actually for me, kind of like a dry chocolate note in there.

Now these are single barrel. So everybody's experience is going to be a little different with these.

But it's funny. I put it to my nose and it's like coming home.

I checked that familiar Jack Daniel's note. Poor Jim doesn't get the banana on things too. Does he not? Okay. I used to not get vanilla. It's like it's kryptonite. Yeah.

Interesting.

Do you guys have a kryptonite? Is there something you don't pick up well when you hear like a lot of people say, oh, there's that on that?

It was, it was vanilla for a long time. And I still do have a little problem with that. And sometimes, uh, butterscotch because I, I think of what butterscotch is like, and then I'm just never really, for some reason, looking for it. Or, you know, it's, I think that's part of it is getting the catalog in your mind to spin around through all the options. And it's like, I know I know this, but what is it?

Oh, breaking bourbon. That's, this was their whiskey of the year. Every single barrel is going to give you a little different experience. Jerry, you've got a nose like anything that you can't pick up. You'll hear people rattle off.

Well, usually my kryptonite is someone wanting me to stop talking. I keep on talking.

Now, see, I said, I used to not be able to taste vanilla. I'm getting a ton of vanilla on this, on the palate. It's on the palate. And then it's kind of like that char. Yeah, the char is on, it's got a nuttiness and it's like the char is on that.

So it's a medium toast there for like 20, 27 minutes then. Must consider medium in it.

Yeah, maybe a lot of brownie.

Yeah. Chocolate, almost like a bittersweet chocolate a little bit. The banana kind of turned into almost like a, like a little greener banana almost to me though. I'm still getting in on the palette a little. I don't know if I said this is a hundred proof and this retails for about 80 bucks, which, you know, seven, eight years, that's $10 a year. That's not a bad price. It is a 700 milliliter again.

It's one you might actually find on the shelf. Um, rather, rather than those 10, the 14 year ones that, uh, good luck finding disappear.

Right. Uh, yeah. From what I've seen, I've seen, there must be a lot of, they must have released a lot of single rails. I actually, you know, Kentucky's where we don't, I don't know if I'm sure they do bring in the 10 and 12 and 14s, but it's a Tennessee thing. So like we don't. I don't know. I feel like they don't bring as much Jack Daniels in as other States, just because it's south of the border, you know? So actually a friend of mine in Rhode Island picked this up for me. He was like, Hey, so shout out to my friend Durell Stewart.

Do you think they may intentionally not put as much in Kentucky?

It could, it could be, you know, there's that whole, you know, Tennessee whiskey bourbon battle type thing.

Well, I know Kevin Smith, you know, the company distilling said that Kentucky would probably be one of the last states they would put their product in.

Uh, it is, it is kind of like going in the belly of the beast. I mean, if you're, you know, um, but you would, you wouldn't think that Jack Daniels who's owned by Brown Foreman would have an issue. But, um, I know it's funny as much as you can say about bourbon, I was going through some old historical articles today and I was reading about Glen Dronach and its history. And I found the article in the newspaper in 2016 when they bought, when Brown Foreman bought Glen Dronach in Scotland. And the article says, Jack buys scotch. And I went, That's funny. It's Brown Foreman, which is in Kentucky. Yeah, they own Jack Daniels, but the first thing they think of as writers over there is that it's, uh, they think of Jack Daniels. They don't think of old forest or they don't think of Woodford reserve, um, because they don't see it as much over there as they see Jack Daniels.

What is the Nashville Todd on the, on the Jack? Oh, I should know that by heart.

Yeah, probably they're traditional. Uh, yeah, it's just there. What is it? It's a 12% malted barley, 8% rye, and then the rest, uh, 80% corn.

I think that's it.

I don't know.

That does seem a little high in the corn, but, uh, it could be, I think it is pretty high. I remember the ride was like eight. It's less than the malted barley. Okay.

I was just wondering that I've never really thought about this. How close it was to, you know, we know old Forester and and Woodford are the same exact match bill. Yeah. How close it was to either one of them.

This is another, another one that's got a nut. That's, I mean, the McLo had a great mouth feel. This one's, there's a lot of intense flavors for that soft velvety mouth feel too, I think. Which makes me think they probably didn't have to, well, if they put it in the upper, upper tiers, it probably did proof up quite a bit. So they probably did have to cut it a little quite a bit then.

If you, if you think about Coy Hill and how high that gets, And, um, I got to actually on one of my trips to Jack Daniel's, I got to go up in that warehouse and go up with Chris Fletcher to the top floor. Um, it was not overly hot that particular day, but, um, it is, it's at the top of a hill and it's a Rick house. That's, it's probably one of the only ones that's completely exposed to the air around it. Cause it's at the, at the top of the hill like that. So, um, But the fact that they put it in at 100, I think is really interesting because it's kind of like that combination of, uh, you know, yes, you're getting intense, uh, in terms of, of heat, but you're also talking about a lighter char and also, um, the lower proof. So that it's like, they were ready to not let this do a Coyhill kind of a, you know, top of the charts proof.

Right. That's some of those hazmat one forties come from. Yeah. So absolutely. So, um, You guys have obviously had a lot of distillery, you know, you've been to a lot of distilleries, you know, and there's a lot of gloom and doom about, obviously sales are a little slower and there's places closing and, you know. A lot of people say it's a correctional market, but like out there when you're doing tours, Jerry, like, and Drew, when you're visiting these places, is there still like, I mean, I'm sure it depends on when you go, but is there still a nice amount of people, you know, when you take a, take a tour bus or when you stop in at these places in state and out of state? You go first.

Yeah, with us, we were way up this year. And just looking at the distilleries, I mean, I know production has drawn back. Sales may be a little bit down. But I don't think it's curbing the interest of people to come and see the distilleries. We'll find out more. We have our KDA meeting here in the next few weeks. And we'll get those totals from last year compared to the previous year. I know I've talked to some people at certain distilleries, though, and they've seen an increase year over year, some of the big distilleries. So I don't think it's hurt tourism at all. I still think it's on an upper trajectory. People are still interested in it. And, you know, we know that maybe younger people, their tastes are changing, you know, white clothes and all that stuff and some CBD stuff, drinks and all that. I think the older generation who, you know, even in your 40s, 50s, 60s, these people are still coming out in droves. This is still what they drink daily. So, and, you know, you can never have a bad day on the bourbon trail. I think it's impossible. You can have a bad day at Disneyland or Disney World, but not on the Bourbon Trail. But yeah, from what I've seen though, I don't think it's her tourism at all.

Yeah. Nationally, I mean, Of course, I don't always go to distilleries at times when everybody else is going, so it's a little hard to gauge, but you can sort of gauge in talking to people. Also, one of the interesting things about this book, in putting this book together, is I get Google alerts now set up so that I can keep my lists up to date as to what distilleries are opening and closing and the rest. And so I get daily alerts and I get an alert and it says such and such is closed. And then I'll hear about that for like two weeks, that one distillery over and over. It will keep telling me somebody else is reporting that this one particular distillery is shut down. I still get alerts about Garrett County shutting down and that shut it down almost a year ago. So, and I think, I think the mood that I am picking up across the country is sort of this feeling of uncertainty because of the news always talking about these things. I think it's put concern into people's heads and they're looking and they're going and you're seeing a lot of these distilleries are starting to turn 10 years old or older. And what's interesting is I had a conversation with, uh, the head distiller at, at feather Karen in Scotland. And while we were chatting, he was something saying something about 200 years, uh, that, you know, they're planting a tree and that maybe 200 years from now, that tree will be used for making a barrel for making their whiskey. And I'm like, this is not the way American distilleries think, you know, these small craft distilleries are like, are we going to make it 10 years? Or because they're small distilleries, what I'm seeing is some of the ones that are shutting down are shutting down just because the owners have been in this for 10 years and they're done. They did it, they had fun while they were doing it, but they're kind of ready to get out of it and try something else. Um, so when you see distilleries closing, it doesn't always mean that it's a financial thing. And sometimes it's people going, I mean, there's one I saw the other day that was a, gosh, where was that? Um, Anyway, the, the thing they said was that, um, you know, financially they just stretch themselves as far as they possibly could stretch themselves. And they finally had to say, we got to own up to this. We, we can't keep going this particular way. And not that they were going to close down completely, but they were just closing their tasting room down. Um, but what really encouraged me was while I was talking and I talked to over 200 distilleries in putting the book together, um, was that when I was talking to them about the fact that I was going to put a book out that basically was going to show where every distillery in the United States is, they were getting very excited about that because they're like, this is the one thing we have the hardest time with. If you're in an, in a state, uh, that doesn't, that doesn't have the benefits of Kentucky or Tennessee that, you know, they have a really strong, uh, distillers association or distillers guild. then you're going to have problems getting people to know where the other distilleries are. And a lot of these distilleries will tag team and sort of say, Hey, you know, there's another distillery over such and such, and you can go over here. Um, but to have a resource where people can pick it up and go, Hey, I'm going to this place. And yes, there are, wow, there's a lot of the distilleries where I'm going to, and there's, you know, a chance to go visit a few of them and see what they're about. Um, I think that, My hope is, is that this is the year where those distilleries finally get an opportunity to get discovered because I think that's what a lot of them are having to kind of fight through. And you can try to work on social media and get your message out and the rest. And some people are really good at that. And some of them are too busy making whiskey to be on social media all day, trying to promote and get people to come out. And I get that. So, um, So it'd be really interesting to watch and see how things progress with that. But, you know, it's mixed. And I think... I try my best not to throw too much bad news out there or be a downer on this. I think if you look at the trend, the trend went way, the curve went way too fast, up too fast over a period of time. And as you look at it, it seems like it's coming back down to normal. Um, which tells me that people who like whiskey, I tell people, you know, there's never going to be a vodka trail. Because nobody cares about the history. I mean, you can learn about the history of vodka and be done, you know, the flavors, what flavors you putting in it. Whiskey's got tradition. It's got history. It's got, uh, it's got a lot of meat on the bone and, um, there's a lot of people doing some very interesting things. And if you get bored with one style of whiskey, you can always evolve into another style of whiskey and go into that. So that's part of the reason I look at the, you know, the hemp direction of things and I go,

Yeah, but it's, uh, it's not got the, it's not got the history.

It's not got the, what is going to keep you in that you're flavoring these things you're doing, you know, what, what, what keeps you in that and where's the craft in that. And I think that's the thing that whiskey's got, um, that, that will always keep it, keep it relevant.

Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. And I totally agree with that. I mean, I don't know, we love that, you know, the sky is falling approach, I guess, is sometimes and, you know, I go out to Whiskey Thief, you know, on occasion, I will go to Buffalo Trace and get in those lines to try to get something. It's at least in Kentucky from, you know, what I've seen. There's always a lot of people there. Whiskey Thief has always got a great crowd. Buffalo Traces. Buffalo Traces is like a weird anomaly. It's like all unto itself anyway. It's like the hype machine that it is, but yeah. All right. So we got one more pour to get through and I don't, I may have wrote down the wrong one for you guys, but it is what I know what it's in it. Do I have the Penelope 10 year select or did I write nine year on there? Uh, it's 10 year.

Yup.

Okay. Here's the Penelope 10 year straight bourbon private select. This is the part of the estate collection. So they do have a nine. I've also seen the 13 and they've also released. a couple of single barrels of various years. And I think the Penelope guys is a great story. I mean, they basically started as, you know, a couple of guys just wanted to buy some barrels and start a little small whiskey company. And they started with MGP and they went and looked at some barrels and they were like, yeah, we'd like to buy like three barrels. And they were like, well, that's not too quite the way it works. But, you know, suddenly they became like, I don't know, I think they just really blew up through social media. I mean, they, they were on there a lot. They were on Instagram. You'd see them everywhere. And you know, the funny thing is MGP has turned around and bought them back basically as a way. Yeah, there you go. And so with this one though, this has actually got some, this is a blend of MGP and Kentucky straight bourbon, which it doesn't, It doesn't give the source of that, but proof is 106.8. The mash bill, and I'm guessing this is because it's blended and they did the averages and things, 74 corn, 20 rye, 5% malted barley, and 1% wheat.

I think that's called a tickle of wheat. I was going to say, what is that 1% a week going to do to this?

Non-chilled yogurt, of course. Number four, char barrels. But yeah. And this one also retails for about 80 bucks.

This one is much more like that citrus lemon drop kind of thing. But it's also floral. I don't know of very many bourbons that I've had that have a floral nose to them.

Of the three, this may have the quietest nose to me though. It is very loud on the nose compared to the other two. Yes.

Yeah. It's interesting. Cause the first time I put my nose to it, I couldn't get anything out of it. And now it's like, Oh yeah. No, I'm picking all sorts of stuff up.

All right. I'm ready to sip. Cheers guys. Cheers.

That's a lot stronger on the, on the palate.

That's a lot of honey on that. Yeah. Some classic notes there though. Again, another great viscosity. Yeah. Like mouth feel to it. That's like three excellent mouth fills on these.

Grain kind of comes through at the end. The rye is there. Yes. It's nice.

Oak flavor, oak note, oak spice.

Yeah.

It's not peppery. A lot of times when I get MGP, I get like that ginger snap cookie kind of thing sometimes. And like you said, some citrus, but that ginger snap is kind of toned down.

Yeah. That one's winning me over a little bit more than the first time I tried it. I did a sample ahead of time and I was like, okay, that's, I was getting a lot of leather and tobacco out of it. And I'm not necessarily getting that so much this time. I wonder if it's just time in the glass and let it breathe a little bit. This is a nice pour.

I like this. What do you think Jerry?

Definitely got the longest finish out of three.

Yeah. It's, uh, that spice is just tingling the tongue like pop rocks. All right. So I've got one more question for you guys. And just kind of, well, I know this is probably like the third episode of 2026 for us, but you guys want to make a few predictions about what you think is going to happen with bourbon and whiskey this year? Any predictions or?

I've got one good prediction. You're going to be able to find great product at a good price.

I'm with you. I'm already seeing people taking pictures of boxes of Weller. When was the last time you saw boxes of Weller out on the store floor? Yeah.

I think you're, I mean, Buffalo Trace went from never having antique 107 to having it three or four days now. And it's there all day when they have it.

Yeah.

And it's 60 bucks. Yep. So yeah, you're going to definitely find some great product that you don't normally ever see. I'm, I'm seeing stag on the shelf for 60 bucks. You know, not even just a Buffalo Trace, your local Kroger.

Be sure to text me the places you're shopping at. Cause I haven't seen them.

I've been able to buy some stag, I've bought some Weller 12, Weller foolproof, birthday bourbon, all at retail prices.

Very nice. What do you think? What's a good prediction you got for 2026?

I've had my head down in this book project for so long that the only prediction I can make at this point is that with people knowing there are more distilleries out there to go travel to, that there's going to be a lot more distilleries off the beaten path, getting some people knocking on the door. I see it already in my web stats because all those distilleries are on my website and I've been looking at the numbers and I was surprised today. Cause I mean, when I put those up there, there were, you know, 150, 200 hits was pretty standard. And now all of a sudden we're into thousands of hits on some of these. So, uh, in places that you wouldn't expect. And so that's, that's encouraging to me. And I want to see a lot more of that because I mean, What's great is if you, even if you are planning a trip to Kentucky, you know, do some, uh, wherever you live, do a little prep work, you know, get used to doing distillery tastings, get used to, um, you know, what the process is so that when you get to Kentucky, you'll be like, okay, I'm a veteran. Now I can kind of see what's going on. And I'm seeing all the extra stuff that I wouldn't have seen if I was just overwhelmed by Kentucky. you know, on that first trip, cause that was kind of my thing. First time I went to Kentucky, I didn't really taste anything because you know, 19 distillery tours here and you've never tasted whiskey before. And all of a sudden you're like, you know, that part of the trip was wasted for me because I really wasn't prepared, um, for the onslaught of samples that I was going to be, uh, taking in during that time. So practice, practice, practice.

If you're coming in plan, uh, if you're coming to Kentucky plan, don't, don't think you're just going to show up and walk into a distillery and get a tour. Uh, that's, that's the thing. Uh, especially certain times of the year, if you're coming April, May, if you're coming September through November, plan. I mean, give yourself a good three plus months. These distilleries like Woodford Reserve and Four Roses and Castle & Key, all of them are releasing their schedules three months out. And if it's a weekend, a Friday, Saturday, during those times of year, they're usually gone the day they release them or very quickly. Uh, so we, we always tell people plan. So you, you know, even if you're not using us, if you're just doing it yourself, you ever, you know, do this, get, you know, get yourself ready with the drinking and also get your reservations early so that you can make sure you get in and enjoy this dealers. You do want to see, but they're like Bruce said, craft distilleries, a lot of great craft distilleries that nobody asked for that are doing awesome experiences. Agreed. Yeah.

All right. So we're at that time. We're going to, we've got to rank them. I'm going to go through them one more time. Our first pour was the Macklow American collection, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. That was a four year Kentucky. We followed that up with the Jack Daniels single barrel heritage barrel, Tennessee whiskey that was toasted. And then lastly was the Penelope 10 year private select estate collection bourbon, which is a blend of MGP and Kentucky. So Jerry, I'll start with you. What, what do you think's your number three bourbon for the night? What was your, uh, show hoard? Okay.

So the lowest on the total, uh, would be the, the Macklow.

Okay. Jerry drew. So this is, what's funny is mine have reversed from when I came into this, I had tasted all three and I had them in an order and now they're coming in the opposite order after the, after the, they're all good. I mean, all three of them are, are getting the wrong way. Yeah. Um, yeah.

Uh, the Macklow was my number three. I'm going to continue that trend. That's going to be my number three as well. Okay. All right, Drew, we'll start with you on the second place. So what was your, uh, place horse, if you will.

I could probably tie first and second, but the reason why I moved this one to second is because, uh, I mean, I've had so much Jack Daniels in my life that, uh, you know, it never disappoints, but it also doesn't always stretch me that much. And so this, this is really good. Uh, but I don't know if it overly stretches me like the Penelope where I was, you know, at first going, this is one thing. And now I've had it and I'm going, no, it's something completely different. So.

So the Jack Daniels is your second. Okay.

How about you? Yeah, same thing. I enjoyed it. Uh, but, uh, I mean, I'll give my thoughts on my number one. Okay.

I'm going to stay with you guys. My number two tonight is the, uh, the Jack Daniels as well. So, We were lock, stock, and barrel tonight. Our number one was the Penelope Tenure Private Select. Retails for about 80 bucks, and I have seen them out on the shelf, so they should be available. And that's one of those that's probably spread probably darn near 50 states, I would assume. But what stood out for you guys on that one?

It just seemed to evolve. It's, you know, like say from the first sip I had of it, where I was like, I don't, I'm not getting anything to all of a sudden. Wow. Okay. I'm getting, you know, there's some older notes in there, the leather and tobacco, but then there's these really fresh and interesting flavors. Like I say, I got a floral note and I cannot think of a bourbon that I've had that has it, that I've gone, Oh, floral. That's usually something I think of when I think of Scotches. So.

Jerry, about you. I mean, when I first got the nose on this, I was like, well, that's probably going to be number three. Same.

That's exactly what I did. Yep.

But I mean, I've still got the finish going on on the back of my throat back here. I mean, I was just surprised. The nose and the finish. They're just extremes. Which is cool when you find that.

Maybe they did that on purpose to be like, eh, the nose isn't much. And then it's like, boom, flavor. Maybe that's one of them. Well, I want to give you each a chance to tell the folks where they can find you on the Internet and all that fun stuff. And Drew, we'll start with you.

All right. Uh, everything's at whiskey lore.org. Um, and I would say that if you want to go buy my new book, whiskey lore's travel guide to experiencing American whiskey or Kentucky bourbon or Irish whiskey, uh, all of those are available on Amazon. That's the easiest way to get them, but they're also on other online book sellers. Actually, I've already seen it on a Walmart. has it and some other places have it as well. So hopefully it will be in distilleries across the country as well. Jerry, what about you?

So you can find us at StoneFencesTours.com. That's our website where you can actually go in and book tours, like scheduled tours that we have out there. We usually have a scheduled tour pretty much every Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We do custom tours also. So if you really want to do that, stonefencestours.yahoo.com to get in touch with us if you want to do something that's private, custom. We just tell people, groups of four or more to do that. Uh, we can set up anything for you, including horses or anything else. Uh, and you can also, uh, you can also see us if you want, if you want to come out to the Ripley mansion in Lawrenceburg, uh, the TB, TB Ripley house, uh, TB Ripley house events. Uh, it's something we've been, we've been doing since 2019 and you come out and who knows, you may get to see Freddie No or Freddie Johnson or, you know, Drew Hannish or, you know, People like that see them in person and get to talk to them in person. And it's very intimate. And all the proceeds go back to the respiration of a bourbon mansion. It's my big, the only bourbon mansion in Kentucky. You can come and sit and enjoy bourbon and, and friends and fun. And, and, uh, we, we love doing it. So we want to see you on the tour, but we'd love to see you at the house also.

Highly recommended. Yes. Agreed. So Jerry, just real quick, what's the max amount of people you can take on your tours?

Well, we've done anywhere from two to 56. Wow. Wow. Yeah. We, I mean, we run the 12 and 15 passenger vans.

Okay.

Uh, we have worked with bluegrass tours here in Lexington. If we have like a large group, uh, they have the big 56 passenger vans and our buses. So we can do that too. We've worked with them to do transportation and let's do that. But, but normally. you know, we have the 12 and 15 passenger van. So most of our groups are in the eight to 10 or six to 10 range. But we'll take, take whoever wants to come out here and learn some urban history and see some beautiful sites.

Herding cats. That's all I think when I see 56 people getting off a bus.

Buffalo trays.

wandering the campus. Where did they go? We don't do a lot of those.

We don't do a lot of those. That six to 10 range is like perfect.

I want to thank you both for popping on the show with me. I truly appreciate it. And, you know, Drew, he's really easy to get on. I'm like, Drew, you want to talk? And he's like, sure. And, uh, but very thanks for joining us as well. Uh, and I'm sure I'll see you around soon. But, uh, once again, cheers to you both. And, uh, I appreciate you. Cheers.

Thank you so much.

You bet. Well, folks, you can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, all of those things. We do a show every single week on Wednesdays. Sometimes we'll have guests like our friends here, Drew Hanisch and Jerry Daniels. Sometimes we'll have a distillery. Sometimes you never, yeah, we'll just taste through some things. But the main thing is we have a lot of fun every week. We put out a show and it always revolves around whiskey and having a good time. The best way not to miss an episode is to scroll up to that top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way every single week, your podcast app will let you know that. that we have dropped another episode of the Bourbon Road and we'll help you get on down your drive to work, cutting grass, sweeping the house, whatever it is you do when you listen to your podcasts. We'd also love it if you got on those podcast apps and gave us a review because that helps us find more listeners, which is what we're all about. If you want to dive deeper into the rabbit hole that is the Bourbon Road, I highly recommend you join the Bourbon Roadies Facebook page where we have over 3,000 members come together to talk about Bourbons, celebrate anniversaries, birthdays, all kinds of things. I know some places talk about their tours and we have another reviewer called Whiskeyfellow who pops up on there sometimes. But you can also check out the bourbonroad.com where you can check out our merchandise, which helps us get on down the road. But if you're ever going to be in Frankfurt, this area, hey, give us a shout. You never know. You might be able to meet up with Jerry Daniels and myself and we'll meet you for a pour or meet you at a tour. And yeah, we'd just like to have a good time. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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