49. Dads Drinking Bourbon

And I wanted to make a shirt that said bourbon bullshitter on it. So if, if you're a listener out there and you think that's a good idea, I want you to shoot Jim a email, Jim at the bourbon road.com or tag big chief and bourbon bullshitter.

It sounds like my show where it's like, yeah, Zeke has an idea. And he's like, I'm reach out to John because I'm not going to look at the social media, but

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Find out more about their fine rustic furniture at logheadshomecenter.com. Well, hello, I'm Jim Shannon.

I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, where are we? We're down here in Brentwood, Tennessee, and we got Big John. John Edwards from a dad's drinking bourbon.

Hey, guys.

Hey, it's good to have you.

I can't believe I got to come up to your room so soon in our relationship. This is great.

We actually laughed about that a little bit. We're like, this Tennessee boy is going to come up into the room with a big old Texan and a Kentuckian.

And then he's thinking, he's thinking deliverance, you know, the banjo they're playing.

I'm a Kentucky grad. I don't know why anybody, you know, like, here's the thing is I get hell from all the folks in Tennessee, because I graduated from Kentucky, all the distilleries on the trail, all those folks, they go, oh, you're just a Kentucky boy. And then all the people up in Kentucky that don't know just think I'm a Tennessee boy. So I'm kinda like, I'm both.

Your roots in Kentucky, but you claim Tennessee now, right?

I claim Tennessee now. I love Tennessee, but you know, I bleed blue. Yeah. You know why Tennessee fans wear orange, right? Why is that? So they can go to the game on Saturday, go hunting on Sunday and pick up trash on the side of the road on Monday.

Oh man.

I mean, I love Tennessee, but there goes 10 fans right there.

Go cats. We've been looking forward to having you on for a while now. We're sorry that Zeke couldn't make it today, but you make sure to tell Zeke. We'll catch him on the next time.

Oh, you're not the first person to say that. So you think Zeke would have been a little intimidated by this room?

No, no.

Maybe my Southern accent's better than his.

Your Southern accent is better than his, but what I will say is you're not the first organization to doubt Zeke's existence. And the Tennessee Whiskey Trail actually has a running joke because we have done so much as Dad's Drinking Bourbon with the Tennessee Whiskey Trail. But they've actually never met Zeke. So grains and grits, I went solo. There's so many things that I've done with the trail. Every time I go to East Tennessee, I've gone to Old Forge, did something at Little Arrow Resort with about four distilleries. Zeke has never been there.

But so they think you're you're doing his voice.

Yes, okay They asked me if I do it in post and then when I post a picture of Zeke and I they actually said well you could hire actors They don't believe.

That's just a little fellow you hire. Yeah. All right, Mike. Well, I'm getting that itch. You know, we don't like to waste a whole lot of time before we get to that first bourbon.

So if you looked over here, I was already sipping on this stuff. I know you were, but we didn't tell our listeners what you're sipping on. So John, I brought something pretty special today. It's near and dear to me and Jim's heart with this company. It's a horse soldier. We brought their barrel strength bourbon whiskey for you. 117 proof. If a lot of people don't know this story about these guys, they went to war right after the 9 11 over to Afghanistan and actually fought on horses in modern age. That's a weird thing, right? And then the bottle mold is from metal from the world trade center, which you see on their website and stuff.

Oh, so the mold that they formed the glass with? Yes.

Okay, cool. Not the metal on the front of the bottle, but the bottle mold itself. So I think that's something pretty cool.

That's super cool.

Yeah. Well, great story. And we were talking earlier that they're going to be building a distillery. They're down in Florida right now, but they're going to be building a distillery up in Somerset, Kentucky for our fans that Don't know where that's at. Our listeners don't know where that's at. That's down there by Lake Cumberland.

Yeah, that's summer vacation land down there.

I-75. That's really where Colonel Sanders, right near there, started the first Kentucky Fried Chicken. Over in Corbin, right? Yeah, not too far from Corbin.

So one of the things you need to do before you leave here, because I know you're only here for a few days. So you have to check out Leatherwood Distillery in Pleasant View. So it's about 20 minutes northwest of Nashville. And the distiller and owner of Leatherwood, he was a Green Beret. And he actually makes this thing called Sweet Feed. And it's more of a moonshine, but he was a green beret over in Afghanistan and he shipped over a six foot column still to Afghanistan.

Wow.

So he made it out there. So the, the way that they're making it, it's not corn and it's the feed that you would feed the horses and the animals. And he distilled some, now he has a nice bourbon and a nice rye and he makes other moonshines, but this sweet feed. I don't know how much you guys cuss on this show, so I'll keep it clean. I always just say on our show, Zeke, don't say the F word, but everything else, if it's on cable TV, I'll let him say it. But this stuff, it's like being in a barn. It's the smell of being in a barn without the crap.

Well, I'm kind of familiar with sweet feet because I have a couple of horses and they get sweet feet every now and then. I didn't know that they made moonshine out of it, but I can see where it would work.

It's just this one place.

It's molasses in it. It's like a binder for all the feed together and stuff. I use that to feed deer with.

But it's a little, little place in Pleasant View, Tennessee. And he was special forces and everything about their, their bottles and what's on there is an ode to special forces. But he made this sweet feed stuff. And I go, you know, I said to him, how the hell did you get a column still over to Afghanistan? He's like, well, you know, they let the special forces boys do things a little differently.

I had a buddy that was a private pilot and he was a contractor and I had a buddy that was over in Afghanistan in the army and he had called me and me and him were talking and I was like, how you doing over there, John? And he's like, wow, man, it's really tough. We're up at this remote base and. I haven't had nothing in like six months. And I was like, I might know a fella. So I called my buddy Larry that lives up and he's actually one of our roadies. Larry was like, I can fly some stuff into him. I can get to that base. And he flew in, he, Larry, this, he's awesome guy. He just got all kinds of stuff for their entire company there, flew it there and landed at their base and they're best friends now.

That's awesome. Yeah, so that Air America thing, right? Yeah.

Back when Mel Gibson was still okay to watch.

Yeah, that's right. Those days are over, I guess. Well anyway, so Mike, let's get back to the whiskey here for a minute. So you said it was 100 and what proof?

This bottle is 117. Okay. So a little hot for me probably. And hey, I brought a rye Jim. This is a rye. 65% corn, 30% rye and 5% malted.

So it's a high rye bourbon.

Yeah. I'd say that's a high rye bourbon. Yeah. It's got a little punch to it. What's the age? I want to say this is four years old. It's, it's, it's dark. I can tell you that it's got some color to it. I think the ages went up in the last couple of years on these. It doesn't say on a bottle, but I know their site says over two years.

Doesn't say straight on it. Does it?

No, it's just barrel strength.

Okay.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm kind of with labels. I kind of wonder anymore. I know, I know you should be able to say if it says straight and it's not age stated, it's four years old, but that's not always true anymore. You know, there's a, there's a, it's kind of a wild, wild west out there a little bit.

There's minimum of minimum of two years. So, you know, it could have some three year juice in their four year juice. I say cheers though. Cheers though. Cheers.

Well, you know, the nose on it is, it's, it's soft, it's sweet, it's spicy. Um, but I'm surprised that it's as soft as it is for me.

Now they only got three bottles of this at that shop and I tried to get Jim to get a bottle and he wouldn't get a bottle. So.

Well, I just bought a bottle of that angel's envy. That was, that was, I dropped a few dollars for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wish I had a bottle of the other angels envy to let you guys have a sip of, but Zeke has that one, the cast-strength unicorn rye. One day I'll hook you guys up if I can steal it from Zeke.

Well, Mike, I like this. Did I have this at your place already? I don't remember if I did or not. I don't think you did. I had to only open this bottle.

I don't know if you tried it or not. Cause I had the two buddies over and they, they opened up everything. This is one of the bottles they open. They were like, Hey, we want to try that too.

I find it interesting that the nose and the palette, you know, I agree there, there are similarities between the two, but the nose is very soft compared to how the taste is.

Right.

But the heat is the right heat. It's not a proof heat for being 117 proof. It's, you know, I get that spice. it stays in the mouth it doesn't come down and give you that hug so it kudos to them for making a whiskey that is 117 proof, but doesn't knock you on your butt. You know, I think Mike, you could actually deal with this being 117 proof.

It's really, to me, it's a fruity bourbon. It's, it's got that sweetness that I still like, and it's not overpowering. You know, it's that super pepper, um, wild turkey pepper. It's not bad.

No, no, no, no. It is like, it is rye spice all the way tingles.

I kind of call this a white, that white pepper maybe for cooking, you know, just a little bit of that.

Yeah. You know, it does, it does have a peppery, a little bit of a peppery finish on it. Now you're right. I think that the hug isn't very prevalent. It's a little bit there, but not much, but the spice that sits in the back of your mouth on the size of your tongue is.

It's like pop rocks.

Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty good.

These guys, this is what gets me about them is their marketing. You know, they just didn't rush out there and pick any bottle. They come up with their own bottle design. You got a bad ass story, right? I mean, that's how much more kick ass than that is. Can you get, Hey, I wrote, into battle on a horse.

I didn't realize they did that anymore. So we have soldiers who ride horses into battle.

No, well that, no, that's not true. No, these guys were special forces and the only way they could cross the mountains, uh, with the Afghanis was on horses and those Afghanis road horses. So there's actually a movie out about this. I think it was released in 2013 or 14, um, called horse soldiers. Um, really good movie done, done good. And, um, I think it went up against, uh, lone survivor and, and those movies and maybe not as did as well, but,

So we have soldiers who are trained to ride a horse, basically. No, they had to learn for that.

I think some of them, they ask them who has ridden a horse before, and a couple guys rose their hand, and a couple of them had, and they just did it.

I mean, knowing the military, And I didn't serve. I wish I did. Uh, but knowing those guys, it wasn't probably who knows how to ride. It's you guys are getting on those horses.

It was an order. It wasn't like if they didn't know how to do it before, they just got real fast. Yeah. Uh, that's, that's how they portrayed it in the movie. And I think they, you know, they were not part of it. I think a couple of them were in the movie and stuff. Yeah. But that's how they portrayed it. They just, hey, who could ride a horse? And a couple of them raised their hands, a couple couldn't get on a horse anyways, get across the mountain, get in contact with this general and help him out.

So Mike, what's the cost of this bottle?

I think this bottle at the shop I got it at was $89. I think 79 to 80 bucks.

Okay. So, you know, the bottle is gone. It puts some money in that bottle, especially in that metal label that's on the front of it. It's probably not a cheap thing to produce, right?

No, I, like I said, I mean, even to make a mold, we've talked about that before. What a bottle cost to make, um, the design of it. I really like it. I mean, it's got a spear and a hatchet on the front of it. Um, the metal piece there is really nice. Um, just not a normal bottle. You see it, it stands out to me.

Well, that's still a lot of money for a bottle though.

Yeah, it is. It is, but I, it's going to some good guys.

What are, what are they doing with it? Is any of it going to charity or is it just going, I mean, it's going to some good guys. What's going on in their pockets.

I'm pretty sure I would rather see somebody like them get it, you know, than some giant corporation. That's how I feel.

Well, I'd rather see them get it, but get about $25 less a bottle. You know, I think that that's still enough that it would give them some good money, but I just don't think that's a $90 bottle. I love the story. I think. Probably as a distillery though, you don't hear the story enough.

Yeah.

And this is something that I think is prevalent with a lot of brands is that they need y'all to get the word out, but they also need to make sure that like through social media, other stuff that horse soldier and the stuff behind it, is really driven home. I mean, I know a brand that I thought it was marketed to a completely different sect of people. And then when I talked to them, it's like, Oh, actually you're marketing to me, but I didn't know it. And, and that's kind of, I think, One of the things that is killing bourbon is they spend a lot of time to do all this stuff on the front, but they don't explain it. So people might walk by it and say, okay, horse soldier. I don't get it. I'm going to go get this MGP thing that's off the shelf because I get that.

Sure. We talked about that last night a little bit about how a brand can go wrong and stuff. And Maybe these guys are doing right. This shop, uh, it's the bourbon seller to there in Shelbyville, Kentucky, where I live and Julie, she treats me. She, she treats me great. Um, they have a connection with horse soldier bourbon and she's 10 to 15% over sometimes on some bottles, I think. But we talked about it for us to drive into Louisville to buy a bottle and drive back. That's 30 minutes there, 30 minutes back. And you know, so that's an hour of our time. And then you go into the shop and that's some more time. So what's my hour and a half worth? You know, if I'm making $50 an hour, then Hey, right. I'll pay for that.

Well, those are our local shops, so we try to take care of the local guy a little bit.

Yeah, so it's going into their pocket. Right. It's not going into the soldiers pocket.

But I think it's a bottle.

I think it's a bottle that, you know, 60 to 70 bucks is probably more in line of where I could see that. But it doesn't take away from what they did for our country. So thanks, guys.

There's another straight bourbon, which has a more of a bronze front on it. It's forty five dollars a bottle.

See, that's more, that's more in line, right?

And I think that's like 87 proof.

87. So there's sub 90 on that, huh?

Yeah. They got three different expressions and I, you know, I think that's a pretty good thing to have.

So John, I kind of changed the focus of our discussions here a little bit away from the verb and a little bit more on you and you and Zeke and the dads.

Well, now I found it online. Sorry.

Okay.

I know you're trying to change it and I'm messing with you. It's all right. 65 bucks online.

Oh, for this one. Yes. Okay. That's so it's right where you thought it should be. A hundred percent.

I had 65 for 65. Yeah. You're getting screwed.

No, I pay her all day long. She's actually giving us a cup of free bottles and she's a good girl.

I'm just messing with you. He's defending her.

Julie, we're coming for you.

Oh, man. All right, so let me try that again here. So John, you know, the reason we have you here today is we want to learn a little bit more about you guys and what you're doing. And so my first question to you is why a podcast?

So funny enough, we actually started as a blog. and I couldn't get Zeke to write. So I was the only one doing the writing. So then we moved to Instagram Live video. Well, we started actually, my daughter was super colicky and I was sitting in a gliding chair rocking her to bed every night and I needed something to do. So I really just was going on Instagram, taking a picture of whiskey and messing around with it while I rocked her for an hour or two. And, um, And then I said, well, you know, we should start a blog. So Zeke and I were going to start a blog, but then he would never write. And then Instagram was just starting to do Instagram live. So we started doing Instagram live videos every Sunday night at nine. That was fun. And then for a while, people started saying that. You know, hey, I can't watch your video and do something else at the same time. If somebody is texting me, if I want to just be surfing the web, I can't do that and watch your video. So we knew we had to go to podcast eventually. The Instagram Live allowed us to kind of figure out who we were and what we wanted to say and figure out the voice behind our show. And then I also needed to buy a whole bunch of equipment, as you know. Right. And it wasn't something that is cheap. So I went out and did all that and then finally came back and said, OK, Zeke, we're ready to do a podcast because he wanted to just put a microphone in the middle of the table and have us both speak to it. As you know, Jim is a little paranoid about his audio as I am. Having a microphone in the middle of the table was not going to do anybody any good.

But to those podcasts out there that are starting that way, the answer is just get started, right? Just start doing it. No, don't start doing no.

I, I love helping out other podcasts. My biggest advice is figure out. I mean, if you want to try that way, if you want to do some test shows that way, but I listened to the first shows that we put out and I wait, I wish we didn't put them out.

Oh really? Okay.

Because I hear them I hear the way the audio was and it kind of cringes me, you know, the podcast is like an email It's gonna be permanent. It's always gonna be out there. So I would encourage podcast To go do a podcast but find another podcast and say hey, can I borrow your stuff? Yeah before I pay for just because if somebody goes back to and listens to your first show. So think about that first show. That's the way you're presenting yourself to the world.

And they do go back.

Yes. So I would encourage them that if they only have one microphone, it's in the middle of the table. Wait, wait, wait, because that's how you're introducing yourself to everyone. And there's going to be plenty of people that are going to listen to that first show and have an opinion on you. Right. And, and if your audio quality is bad, I would say that people don't get down to whether or not you are bad as a podcast or good. Not to be negative, but they're going to look at that audio quality first and foremost and say, I can't even listen to this show to understand what they're saying.

One hand on the steering wheel, one hand on the volume knob, right? Yeah. We talk about that all the time.

I really didn't get in podcasts until I met Jim and then I started listening to him and then I'll hear podcasts where they're either interviewing somebody, a guest over the phone and I'm sitting there having to play with that knob the whole time. And I'm like, I just, I just, yeah, I do play with my knob all the time. I just tune it out and I'm like, well, I'm not going to listen to any more of their shows and you know, I'll unsubscribe for this in a heartbeat just because I don't have time for that. There's hundreds of other podcasts out there to listen to where guys are doing it right. I mean, I could listen to Joe Rogan. I mean, he, he's clear as a bell.

Dax Shepard, Joe Rogan, any of the other stuff that Mike Rowe has great podcast. I love, uh, I got really deep into Dolly Parton to America. I got really deep into it and it was really philosophical and kind of socio-economical. It was very, I didn't agree with all of the takes that they had on Dolly, but I found it very, very interesting. I'm always looking for new podcasts. We watch on demand TV podcasts or on demand radio. And as a guy who used to do radio very much is into radio. I think it is very convenient and I love the portability of it.

And you never hear a, you never hear a radio show where the audio is bad.

No.

Yeah.

Except on AM. Yeah.

I tell you what, the hardest thing about what we do and what you do is not recording from the home studio, but going out on the road because the environment changes so much. We talked a little bit about this before the show. I'm kind of crazy about it. I think it has to be perfectly silent. And you're telling me, not so much. Take that environment and use it to your benefit.

I'm so glad you said that. Maybe it's because we're old dads now and we want people to still think that we're cool. So I like having that ambience so that they know that we are in the middle of something. I think that having clean audio like you're in a studio. So I take even Dax Shepard, an armchair expert. He's in the studio. When he's in the studio, he's super clean. When he's on the road, you hear the crowd. He has done stuff at TPAC and you hear the crowd. You hear what's going on. It's part of the experience to actually being out and on the road.

Well, Mike, I have to admit that takes a little pressure off me there. Thank you, Jesus.

You know, it does, it does make Jim nervous. I think when we have that and people are talking around us and, um, I don't even get nervous. I kind of lost it last night. We had a rowdy group of girls, and I just kind of blended that in. I was like, oh, they're about to get out of control behind us.

And that's fun. And people are kind of like, oh, wow, look at what's going on. I think if you always want clean audio. So it's funny. It's like I'm going back and forth, but it's really the same premise. the audio should always be good. Your mics can be good. You can have stuff going on around you. Now I will say that your type of microphone will change what you pick up and don't pick up. So if there are microphones that are, and I'm not going to dork out and have everybody talk about different types of microphone and, and, you know, where the pattern will actually pick up sound, but If there are studio mics that are very much designated for a studio and you go use those live, you're going to get everything and your audio is going to be awful. Right. Been there.

Yeah.

But then if you get the mics that you have and Audio Technica makes some great ones, you get these mics and then you go out and you're live and it's only going omnidirectional. Right. You're good. but I'm, I'm really losing listeners for it.

It's fine. No, we just, we just, uh, probably gained a peak of interest from those who are thought about maybe starting a podcast. So they're probably listening and going, Oh, I'm writing this down.

So, well, I am more than happy. It's something that I do and, and I didn't do it. I was telling Mike about this when we were talking on the phone, I always try to make myself, available to other podcasts because I feel like you know rising tides raise all ships at the same time you know it's the way that the bourbon community is when heaven hill had a fire everybody was there to help heaven hill it was never a I hate when people say they're competing podcasts

Cause I mean we're not dividing market share here. No, by any means. You know, somebody's going to find, uh, you know, for example, somebody's going to find the bourbon road. They're going to listen to us and they're going to listen to all of our episodes and then they're going to be out of episodes and there's going to be a whole nother week till another one comes out and they're going to go search and they're going to find the dads. They're going to find bourbon lens and they're going to find, you know, bourbon pursuit and whoever else out there.

This is my bourbon podcast or bourbon and blondes or, you know, blue collar bourbon. There's four podcasts here in Nashville between the podcast, blue collar bourbon, dad's drinking bourbon. You know, like there are. There's so many different podcasts out there, but we can all help each other out. And I don't feel, I hate when people say that like, Oh, this is a competing pocket. It's, you know, find the one that you like, find multiples that you like. go sit and listen to them. None of us are going to make enough money to quit our day job doing a bourbon podcast. Right. We might retire from our day job and just keep doing podcasts.

Or that age.

I'm jealous.

Well, you know, you get to a certain age and you can say, you know, I'm done working. Yeah.

But I do think we have to talk about this for a minute. Jim has the best voice. in the bourbon podcast game and welcome to the bourbon road now i don't know if it's something that is going to um you know i think my thing coming from sports radio is i always smile when i'm talking because i know that i can talk like this and nobody's really going to get amped for that. I mean, you want if there's a noticeable difference that if I talk like that and then I talk like this. So you'll find that I've been trained to talk that way. You kind of have that like, yeah, it's three o'clock in the morning. I got my kvassia cognac and I'm ready to answer all your romantic queries.

Oh, my goodness. You know, this boy, this Birkenstock's on.

You know, the funny thing is, as we joke about this sometimes, you know, Mike joined the show after about 18 or 20 episodes. I don't remember how many it was. And after he came on, we noticed a significant jump in our female viewership, in our female demographic. They love the big chief. And that's it. He said they love that deep voice.

I don't even think it, but Mike also has, when you talk to Mike, and I know I'm pulling the curtain back, but your listeners are going to like this. Mike's personality is crazier. You're too subdued. I listened to you guys. You're too subdued. You gotta let the big chief eat. Yeah. I'll tell you what, I'm telling you, you gotta take the leash off and, and you guys are going to kick it up to a whole new level. If the big chief just is the big chief. Yeah. The problem with that is a lot of people can't hang with a big chief.

But it's funny cause it's like, you know, you, you talk to you on the phone and you go away from here and you're very, and I feel like you're very reserved, you know, not in a reserve, but you know, I'm just a dirty old sailor that sometimes you have to kind of morph to your atmosphere. You know, you have to, whoever you're with, you have to be like them somewhat reserved a little bit. If I took you down, I brought a buddy down here to Nashville back a couple of months ago. It was about this time last year we brought him down here and my wife said, don't drink what Mike's drinks do not. And his wife said, don't drink with Mike drinks because you will not last with him. And they're like, he's like, I can, I can drink with him all day long. I can drink with him all day long. And I said, Hey, I'm fine with that. You drink what you want to drink.

How, how quickly did you carry him home?

Um, we rode home in a Tesla Uber Tesla and he was like, I think I'm gonna throw up. I was like, please don't throw up in this Tesla is on my Uber account. So please don't.

Oh God.

And then we got back to the hotel and we're staying in a right down in the Vandy area. So not a long ride, not a long ride, but he tastes and starts picking up these big giant bowls and stuff in the hotel lobby. And it was about to smash them and stuff. I was like, Oh man, I've never seen him like this. And he did try to drink with me in most of the night. And he was like, I can, I can hang with you. And I was like, Hmm, you know, I'm six, three, 300 pounds. I mean, you know how that feels.

I'm six, three, 300 pounds too.

You put it away all day long. I'm good to go.

Um, but I do have a different level, don't I, Jim? You do. So, you know, whenever we go out and somehow another John, you've turned this into being about the bourbon road rather than,

I like this. You know, I mean, it's okay. We, I, I deflect talking about me because I think for us, it's, you know, for us, it's more of a thing. We enjoy what we do. We love what we do, but it's kind of, uh,

It's not, it's just a bourbon podcast. Right. I see. I don't see that from you guys. I see that, you know, you're two good friends, right? You and Zeke are great friends.

Not really. No, I mean, we are, we are. I think part of, I think one of the things that makes us a little bit different is we give each other more hell than I think other podcasts do. And I know we don't get political, neither one of the shows, neither one of our shows really likes to get political. But when you talk about locker room talk, I think locker room talk to me is just crapping on each other. You know, it's, it's like everybody giving each other hell. That's what I'm used to playing football. That's especially what Zeke is used to.

So I'd say that's, that's, that's what I'm used to. I'm, I, you know, we had Lee Kennedy on from a leapers fork. We did those and I, I didn't know if to say it. I had all this stuff in my mind to say, and I kind of let loose. When you listen to that episode, you're going to be like, man, Michael, let loose a little bit on that. Cause best looking guy in bourbon right there they were telling me april said you know he was in khakis clean cut no beard and everything and then i was like man you embrace billy ray cyrus man you you are the living image of him right now and oh no when he had the ponytail when he had the ponytail him and his wife are the two best looking people in bourbon i gotta tell you And then they have a Matt down there that works for them. They said he was super clean kit. And I was like, man, you look like forest grump dump after that run. And they were like, man, he's going to get one of those t-shirts now. Guarantee is going to get one of those t-shirts. Um, April's awesome too. I love Weller bourbon. Everybody knows that. Um, and for her to be a Weller is to me was an honor and to see they had old Weller sign down there. Just great people, but cutting up on people like that, like you and Zeke do, I think that, that tells people you're real people. I don't, you know, I mean, Jim talked about this other podcast. I don't necessarily want to tune into two guys that sound like they're sitting in their dorm room drinking bourbon.

Or their mom's basement.

Their mom's basement in an underwear. Yeah, I don't want to listen to that. I want to listen to people, like-minded people like me that just are, like I say it all the time, I am not a bourbon expert. I'm a bourbon drinker. As you can tell, me and Jim brought like 20 bottles to Tennessee with us.

I believe, I believe without a doubt we have more bourbon in this hotel room than they have at the bar downstairs. Yeah. And the name of the bar downstairs is Bourbon.

And it's birb bun It's not birb bun. It's birb bun like a hamburger bun It's funny though when Zeke and I started so We're going back to what we said before when you talk about the Instagram live show and finding out our voice and what we wanted to be We wanted to be honest. Mm-hmm. So we said It's not so much about money for us. Are there great partnerships that we have been able to have through whiskey? Absolutely. Hundred percent. but it's not necessarily about making a whole bunch of money. We want to survive and pay for our hobby. But we know that as dads, especially with young kids, your whole life is changing and your income is changing, you know, the way that you spend your income. You're not going out and buying whatever bottle you want. You're thinking about a whole family and then you're thinking about college and you're thinking about all these other expenses. So 50 bucks may mean more to you than it did before you had the kid. So we know that people go to a liquor store. They're going to see all these bottles on the wall. They don't know how to read a label. They don't know how. That's what it ultimately started with, was how are we going to be absolutely honest about the whiskey that we drank? And plenty of people, as you know, having a podcast now will send you stuff. We flat out say, we are going to be honest. You sending us something means nothing. Thank you for sending it to us. But if you're sending it to us thinking that we are going to go a certain way because you sent it to us, we'd rather just go out and buy it.

And I think you're, I think your listener base knows that. I think the people who routinely follow you and listen to your episodes know that they can trust you're not being persuaded by a distillery or a sales rep or somebody like that. That they know what you're saying about that whiskey is your true thoughts on it.

And if you're sitting in the room with someone and say, you know, Hey, I see some good notes here, but it's young. That's being honest, but you can say that you don't love the whiskey in a nice way. You're never going to sit there and be like, Hey, you know, thank you very much for making this whiskey. It's a drain pour. And I think that there are ways you still have to be cognizant of the fact that somebody made that somebody is very proud of the fact that they made that. So it's understanding what are the positives. It's like when you bring someone in and, you know, I'm a manager. You have somebody coming in that reports to you. You don't want to sit there and be like, oh, you're awful. I'm going to start off with what are the positive things about you. Right. I'm going to talk about some of the negative things about you. Where is the room for improvement? And I think one of the things that we always do is we don't want the discussion to be quick. I think too many times when somebody's like, Hey, I like this. I don't like this. And some people really get off on shorter reviews and whiskey. Sure. I think it deserves a discussion.

Deserves that time and that effort.

And you're saying, what are they thinking about here? Maybe what were they doing when they, when they made this mash bill or aged at this and you're talking about hypothetical, well, what if they did this or what if they did that? And it's also showing to them. If you do send us something, we're going to be thoughtful about it. We're not going to just dismiss it and say, this isn't good, move on. But you and your buddies, when you guys are sitting here, you talk whiskey. And you're, it's not a one second conversation. It's always longer. And that's what we try to bring too, is like, we want people to feel that guest or no guest, they're sitting at the table with us having a pour.

And I think they do. There's two, just two guys. How'd you, how'd you and Zeke meet? Kickball. Bullshit.

No, 100% kickball.

I'll tell you what guys, why don't we do this? Why don't we take a short break here?

Did I talk about me enough? I still wanted to talk about you guys. Cause I feel like I'm sitting on the couch, but I kind of feel like, can we not, how long have we been recording?

Well, we've been going 36, 38 minutes now.

So, okay. We don't have to take a break. Cause I feel like we are just sitting on the couch.

Well, let's get another pour cause I'm already empty over here.

I brought something for you guys. I thought this is how we do.

I mean, I'll tell you what, this is, this is so much fun. We normally, what we do is we just take a break.

Let's not even take a break. Just jump up, Jim and pour me and John. This is real.

This is, this is the bourbon Rhodes new format where we just fly by the seat of our pants.

I'm totally messing with Jim and I feel bad.

That's all right. So now, so what did you bring for us?

So I brought three things.

Yep.

I brought, I brought Bell Meads black bell, which I've been looking forward to trying that go ahead and put that in your glass. I brought a Jack Daniel's barrel proof. I actually want Mike to have a sip of that at some point today because For someone who doesn't like high proof, I'm interested in what, man, you did, you have listened to our podcast a little bit. And then I also brought a pin hook rye. So the, the Jack Daniel's barrel proof was one that Zeke and I picked along with flight club. It was, we split the, the pick and then the pin hook. I was on that pick as well with Zeke. We did it with a whole bunch of people. It's called breaking the bread.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Log Heads Home Center, nestled in the hills of Kentucky, is an industry leader in building handcrafted rustic furniture. Family owned and operated, they take pride in offering only the very best for their customers. The Log Heads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled wood crafters who are passionate about creating rustic furniture for people who appreciate the beauty of natural wood. Owners Tommy and Gwen don't just sell the rustic lifestyle, they live it. And you can be sure that Loghead's furniture will always be handcrafted in Kentucky by artisans who embrace the simple way of life. Loghead's rustic furniture is made from northern white cedar, a sustainable wood that's naturally rotten termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warmth to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com. And while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at LogHeadsHomeCenter.

John, tell our listeners, when did you first drink a glass of bourbon? I mean, truthfully, I think it was seventh grade. Not truthfully, I'll say freshmen in college. But it was I was actually playing football in college and I got hurt. And my best friend was born in Louisville and he had moved up where I was from. And then I went down to visit him at UK for college and I had a pin in my thumb and a big old cast on, and I drank a whole bunch of bourbon, walked up the floor of Rupp Arena, and I go, what the hell am I doing in New England? I'm transferring to Kentucky. And subsequently, they actually, I got a note in my mailbox that said, your scholarship will not be renewed. So when that happened, I said, all right, well, I'm going to go to Kentucky. And I'm going to, there's only so many times in your life that you can get up and move a thousand miles away and see a different part of the country. Lucky enough for me, women better look in there and rubbery or something. I think there are, you know, between the women, the horse racing, the basketball and no snow and the bourbon bourbon. And, you know, the no snow was great, but I get told all the time that, you know, people are always like, son, you know, you're a Northern good old boy. You know, I just belong here. It's you feel that right being in the south. I I really do I fit in here Well, I'd like to wear boots. I drive a truck.

There's another well your big guy like me. Yeah truck truck is comfortable I'm never going back. I'm never going back from having the truck the food. So you're from the Boston area the food there though downtown Boston on Hanover Street

Well, so here's my little trick for you, by the way.

I know a little bit about Boston.

All right. So I'm going to tell you my trick. Ricardo's Ristorante. So it's across the street from Paul Revere's house. So if you're on Hanover Street, it's not on Hanover Street. It's kind of down to the right.

I've been inside there. There's right next to Paul Revere's house is a house called the Mariner's house.

Yeah.

And me and my wife and our family, mariners can go and stay there in Coast Guard and Navy, some Army sailors. If you are a merchant Marine, you can go stay in that house right next door to Paul Revere's house. It's like a bed and breakfast is the most awesome thing ever for like 50 bucks.

I'm telling you, Ricardo's though, there's no line, there's no weight. I've been there. Drank wine in there.

Isn't it great? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That's my local tip. And I remember I took my wife to Boston. We went to a Red Sox game. She left very expensive sunglasses at the Caskin Flagon. Um, but we went to a Red Sox game and I took her to Ricardo's after and she was in the bathroom. By the time she sat back down, I had caprese, prosciutto and wine waiting for her. And she wasn't, she wasn't in there very long, but that's how good they are.

Ricardo's most any places in that North end area is just a beautiful thing. So we'll get back to the bourbon. So you go to Kentucky and you start feeling that love for bourbon.

Heck yeah.

How can you not?

I think it's learning the most daunting thing. And I think anybody that goes to Kentucky, you know what? Pass me along some of that black bell. I'll drink it with you.

Now, I got to say this black bell is quite the squizz. Is that the word I want to use?

It's a exquisite.

Yeah, this is a that sounds like something chiefs would say. It's a damn gentleman's whiskey right here.

Well, and it's funny talking about gentleman's whiskey. I think that's half the problem with people figuring out how to drink bourbon is figuring out how to drink it neat. And that is always a very daunting task. I know, you know, just from when I started drinking bourbon and I told my parents, you know, that I was drinking bourbon, my dad drinks scotch, but you're like, oh yeah, I'm going to have a bourbon neat. And at first it was always like, oh, well that's a, That's a big man's drink. When you're in college, if you think about all the people at colleges in Kentucky, you should be drinking Natty and Keystone Light and doing all that kind of stuff. And there are people in Kentucky that are drinking Maker's Neat. They're not affording all of the higher end stuff, but they might be drinking Jim Bead neat, they might be drinking Makers neat, or they might be putting in a splash of water. I remember a lot of times in college, you're like, hey, it's a good day, I'm springing for a Woodford.

Oh yeah.

You know when you're poor and you're in college and meanwhile on the shelf at the Kroger was like Elmer T. Lee, E. H. Taylor, Tornado, all this crazy stuff like you and Pappy anywhere you wanted it. And you're like, why didn't I buy that when it was cheap in college? Oh yeah. Cause I was poor.

I don't know. I didn't go to college like that. I went to the university of the military and thank you for your service. You know, it was a military special. It was a gosh dang, I'm fixing to say some nasty whiskies. Just some bottom shelf stuff that, you know, only 10 high. We drank a lot. I had a friend from North Carolina and that's all he drank. He's like, you need to try this. It's good. Beam eight star. Yeah. Oh yeah. Just stuff that we could afford. Just like a college kid, I guess. Kentucky Tavern was a great one. I just found that for whiskey, I get more out of my money than out of beer. And then beer for a big guy, I feel like I'm bloated or something. You know, you just, your pants don't fit right. You're like, God dang, I don't feel good. And you get some whiskey, you sit back and relax, drink it, get on top of that wave. I always talk about, right, right. That wave, you know, that's my drinking style is I get up on top of a crest of a wave and I stay there. I'm the perfect drinking surfer. I'll tell you that. Um, any day, all day, I could do it.

You guys need to get shirts. I mean, I got a great marketing plan for you right now, which is like hang 10 with the big chief on a.

Oh, you know, you know, when big chiefs on the wave. So we were, we were actually down, uh, downtown last night on Broadway. Yeah. Where did we end up on top of it? Blake Shelton's Blake Shelton's place. And you know, whenever you go to a bar and Mike's finally got up on that wave and he's surfing it, you know, and he's, he's right at that optimum height on the wave. We go into a bar within five minutes, he's got 40 people around him and he's in the center talking and they're all cutting up and laughing and we're all sitting over here just enjoying our drinks and Mike's the center of the show.

Yeah, my wife was getting, I think she was getting a little mad last night because I had had a couple and I was feeling pretty good. And I was throwing back beer last night when we went out. I could run up a quick bar tab.

This is all so funny to me because I know I'm sitting on the couch, but I kind of wanted to I kind of want to make it about you guys for a second. This is, this is your show, but you know, so Jim, I'm a little bit more like you and I think every show kind of gravitates to one person is more of the host and one person is more of the analyst. The way that I describe dad's drinking bourbon to people is I did sports radio. I'm a play by play guy. Zeke is the analyst and my job with the show is to make him look better than me. That's essentially what it is. If people like Zeke and hate me doing my job, people all the time hate Joe Buck. They hate Jim Mance. They hate all those people.

What's, what's Tony Romo?

Tony Romo is an analyst. You think so you would be the Tony Romo.

Yeah. Tony Romo to me is going to be the best in TV ever.

I think he is extremely good. I also think I'm gonna blow your mind here a little bit I think is he so good because it's like soccer, right? Yeah American soccer would win every single gold medal Oh, I say that all the time if the top athletes would go play soccer Well, Tony Romo is just the best shitty quarterback to win a championship. Peyton Manning is never going to go be an analyst. Tom Brady is never going to go be an analyst. Drew Brees when he retires is not going to be an analyst. Aaron Rogers, it's not going to be an analyst.

I could see Aaron Rogers being an analyst because he's no, you don't think so? No, he's got so many dang commercials out there.

He, he's just a quiet person. I mean, there's a difference between being commercially marketable. And then there's a difference between actually, you know, sitting behind the booth and the amount of time that goes into being an analyst.

And that was ever proven with Jason Whitten when he tried and he just, it bombed and that killed me. Cause Jason Whitten is such a great guy. And I've talked too much about football, but Tony Romo, that his play by play is just, Amazing. He's saying stuff that I'm thinking and I'm like, wow, this guy knows that he understands it. To me, he probably could win a Super Bowl as a coach.

He's great. And think about that, right? Think about who was coaching. You have Mike Vrabel, who was a great linebacker, now coach of the Titans. You have Wes Welker, that was a great wide receiver, who was a coach on the San Francisco 49ers. So you have these people The good people with those minds are not going into the booth. So Tony Romo is the only dumbass that wanted to. And he's not a dumbass. That's a that's a bad way of putting it. He's about to get a big paycheck. He is going to get a big paycheck. But good for him. You know, I also think he's going to go down as the best, but there's always going to be a what if.

So if he wins at that, I think there's always a, what if, if he wouldn't have got hurt is the biggest, what if, if he had never gotten hurt, how good of he would he have really been? I don't know. I think he had been great. I'm a Cowboys fan though.

So you think that chemistry, that chemistry on a podcast actually works that having that, that duality between the two? I mean, we see it with you guys.

I think it's absolutely right here.

Will and the Grease, right? Will and the Grease. A very similar situation.

I think Mike and Mike on ESPN had that.

Although Will and the Grease, you know, anybody, it's tough with them because Grease is actually very, very, very intelligent. And that's the tough thing. I love those guys. They're two of my very good friends. I think it's always when you know how smart somebody is. I love, I love Matt. Matt is, you know, he's got a successful business on his own. Does wedding videos. It's a super smart guy. Um, I love them both dearly. The, uh, the, I derailed you. No, I'm saying for you guys though, I, what I was going to say is I think that Jim, we have similar personalities in the sense that we want things the way that we want them. We want to control. I think that play by play guy wants to control the situation recording and, um, Oh, I'll push Jim on those limits every day.

Well, I mean, there's a word phrase called narcissism, right?

What for us? Yeah, I don't think it's necessarily narcissistic. I think for me, it comes out of a utilitarian desire to I want to control because I know I'm going to be putting in the work after to get the finished product.

It's not because you're best at it. It's because you have to put the work in.

Yeah, and Zeke just doesn't know how to do it. I think that there's things that I do that are very, very good. And I've been trained to do that through radio and trained to do that in a quick amount of time. But I'm sure there's plenty of people that are better than me. But I find it funny because you are the wild card, Mike. That's what I'm saying about all that. That's your role, your job. I don't want to kind of poke the bear and antagonize your show, but your job is to poke him.

And I think we do. We try to do that. You know, we try to make sure you're too nice.

You are too subdued. Just let the big chief out.

Oh, I'm in trouble now. I'm telling you, because like I tell you that in private, You know, I do let it out sometimes and I'll be like, Hey, just relax. Uh, we'll drink some bourbon and everything. You'll be fine. You know, it's going to come. Everything's going to come. We, we did recordings. He's like, man, it's loud here. And I'm like, just, we got this. We got this on a daily basis. Yeah, but you're a lot bigger than him. So you probably just snatch him up and say, come here, little fella.

He, no, he, he's six, four or six, five.

Like a little fella.

Oh no. He's a big guy. He's just a beanie fella. He's tall and beanie. Uh, he played ball. He used to be a little bit huskier. If he would have showed up today, I'd have known these things.

I know. I probably would have been shocked.

And you're still thinking that I'm like making him up like Bo Jackson.

I still think he's like five foot five, you know, 115 pounds, just with a deep accent.

He runs and that's how he stays skinny. But I'm telling you, you gotta, you gotta let the big chief up. So why are you holding the big chief back?

I don't, I don't think I want to hold the big cheese bag. I think it just, it's me. I'm just, I try to be reserved and stuff. And sometimes I think because of my real job, um, I have to be reserved a little bit because there are people listening and that I think in the back of my mind, it could affect my, my position.

Have you said what your real job is or? Oh yeah.

They, and they listen, they, them guys at work, they, they've used it to their advantage, which, Hey, good to them. You know, they were like, you, you have connections in the bourbon world and we have somebody coming in. Could you help us out? And I'm like, yeah, of course I can. I'll do anything I can do for the, I love, I love the U S coast guard. They're a family. They've that's why I'm at where I'm at today is because of the U S coast guard. And, uh, You know, but I don't need it. I can't say political stuff, religion stuff. Um, I'm not sexist or anything, so I'm not going to go that route. You know, it just, I believe in what I believe in. And, um, I probably dropped the bomb about a hundred times last night, you know, maybe two or 300 times. I don't know.

And that was a question I had is like, where's the coast in Tennessee or in Kentucky?

There's coast right down here in Tennessee. There's Cumberland river. Where do you think all that corn for whiskey comes from?

Well, is that technically the coast?

It's a navigational waterway, US navigational waterway. And sometimes it's historically navigable. So you have the Ohio river. It's like 893, 993 miles long. Then you got the Cumberland river, the Tennessee river and their tributaries. And then you got the Mississippi river. Do you ever feel like you got the shaft cause you didn't get the ocean? I've been stationed. I was up stationed up in Maine and I was in the army for 10 years and I've circumnavigated the world three times. I've been all over the world. I had that, but when I was a little kid, my grandfather lived in Arkansas and he used to take us over to the Mississippi river. And I remember being a little bitty kid. vivid memory of this, and he'd show us those tugboats, and I was like, one day I'm gonna work on that river. And he's like, boy, you'll never work on that river. And I think in my mind, I was like, well, I can do that. So I ended up just being on the rivers. He's like, you want to go to Cincinnati, Ohio? And I was like, yeah, let's, let's do it. I'll go anywhere. So I went to Cincinnati, worked on the Hile, and then I went over to St. Louis and worked on a Mississippi, and I got to go all over the United States, Midwest of the United States, the flyover states as the East and West Coast would call us. And I got to visit towns like Nashville, Tennessee and experience culture and the good people go over to St. Louis and the beer community there. When I was in Cincinnati, we'd come down to Louisville all the time and Just the culture here people are good-hearted. I've never been here to Nashville Maybe yesterday But I didn't get treated bad my wife.

She had a little run-in with a bartender I think Defending my my city now. I think part of that comes from it's so touristy and it's not a situation where somebody wants to come out and say I You are bad. Like it's not anybody. The bartender doesn't have anything again. They're just so conditioned that there are people that are flying in and come in so quick and then leave, but they're so rude. It's not native Nashvilleans that are rude. It's native Nashvilleian stay away from Broadway.

I would doubt that we weren't even on Broadway. Um, and I'm not going to say where we were. He just, he didn't have a smile on his face and he wasn't being polite. or nice to our wives. And my wife, that will strike a nerve with her because she is a, she's a Southern woman. She expects- She's paying for service.

She wants service. She wants a smile on your face.

And she's a nurse. So she's doing, you know, customer service all the time. And she's like, if I can put a smile on my face when I'm cleaning up shit, then use a bartender. You know, we're old school, I guess.

I was, I was a server. I was a server at Logan's Roadhouse and Hamburg Place in Lexington, Kentucky for four and a half years. And I served a bartended and did a whole bunch of stuff.

I've got more tips with a smile.

Yeah, but I also got no tips cause I worked at Logan's roadhouse. But the, um, the other thing is that I would get in trouble all the time. You know, you want to talk about northerner verse southerner. I would go down and I hate the word Yankee cause I'm a Red Sox. I'm not a Yankee Yankees, but, um, you know, I would say you guys can come this way and they'd be like, uh, they'd be like, son, uh, We're women. And I'm like, yes, I know that you guys can come this way. So then I think I have developed this kind of hybrid accent because I say y'all way too much now. And I even found it. I just was home. My mom was sick and I was home up in Boston. And I was at a restaurant and I was like, y'all, like I said, y'all something. And they're like, excuse me, what? And I'm like, yeah, I grew up right down the street. They're like, bullshit, you did. But it's definitely one of those things where I said the South just fits me more. It is the politeness. It is the hospitality. It's just the way of talking. You know, I was late coming up here because I was talking to the people in the lobby for 10 minutes, you know, behind the counter as I got in a conversation with them. And that's just one of the things that I think for me, I fit in.

That's what happens to me most of the time. I'm always late because I'm talking, I'm talking to somebody. I, I've just, I want to talk to people. I want to know what they're thinking. And I'm that one bartender, trust me, didn't put a blind on Nashville for me. I love Nashville. I love the people down here. You guys got some great whiskey going on now.

What do you think of this black belt? I've derailed. I wanted to get into the psychology behind the bourbon road.

You know, this is the first time I've been a guest on my own show, but that's,

I wanted to get into the psychology of the bourbon show, but Jim didn't really want to go there. He was staying away from it.

No, you had a vision and you went with it. And I think it turned out pretty good actually.

I'm going to hand the reins back over.

He became the host of the bourbon show today.

No, it's all right. The black bell. So this is, can you tell me a little bit about the black bell? So I don't really know anything about it.

So the funny thing is there's actually a brewery that's right down the street from Nelson's Greenbrier called Blackstone and they come out with this stout every year called the Black Bell and basically how that works is they age Black Bell in an old Bell-Kneed bourbon barrel. And so it's kind of like their version of the bourbon county stout What then nelson's does is they age belving bourbon in one of those barrels after it's done And that becomes black bell. So there were two barrels Out of this last year's version that came out. So this one is 4169 It is 48.25 percent abv So it is 116.5 when all is said and done. I just can't do, I can't do math.

You can't do proof math right now.

I can't do proof math right now.

I can see he's the same as us. Sometimes you don't do notes.

I know I always do notes beforehand. I have a notebook and that's my problem is I always kind of like research and do the notebook first.

So this is a special release from Bell Mead.

Well, no, so it's forty eight point two five percent ABV. It is ninety six point five proof. So this is bottle number one fifty two out of cask forty one sixty nine. But, you know, it's just going to be regular bell meat bourbon. So it's going to be four to six years and it's going to then be put in the black bell barrel. And it's just the finish on it to me is crazy.

Yeah. So this is a special release and it is something that is largely available in the greater Nashville area.

Not largely available. So it's only distillery.

Only distillery.

So it's going to be a distillery only release. It's going to be at Nelson's Greenbrier. There are two barrels. It's one of the Craftsman casks. So Nelson's puts out four times a year. They have the Honey and the Black Bell. And then there's a more verdure. There's other things. There's a, uh, Tanette that have come out. There's been, they play a little bit more with the other two, but honey and black bell are always the mainstays.

So those are the ones where the line goes down the block, right?

Yep. And honey is going to be coming out March 7th. Yeah. They told us that yesterday. They're also the other ones where I find it funny. And this is just a side note. You guys don't really talk about secondary on your show. Uh, but when you talk about the secondary market and MGP, I find it funny that there's all these other distilleries that have blown up in a secondary valuation, but the only things that blow up for Bellmead are going to be the black bell and the honey when their regular single barrels are the same things that these other distilleries that are going for over a thousand dollars. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's just, I don't know.

I get bell meat while you can is what I'm trying to say is that you guys could stock up.

I told him yesterday, we shouldn't leave without a bottle of that.

And, um, I got, I got mad because they wanted to charge me $65 for that wooden crate. That made me mad. I left.

Oh, that, that, uh, the, um, green prior one. Yeah.

I was like, I'm going to put that in my house. And then I was like, not for $65 a month.

Now the good thing is if you find a liquor store in Nashville, if you buy a case, they'll throw in the crate.

Well, and that's what they said at green bar. I just didn't want to pay that much. And maybe we'll get you to tell us some, some honey holes off air that way. Nobody goes and raids them.

I don't know. I mean, there's no honey holes in Nashville. The market is so rough for allocations that all you're really saying is where are good stores to get picks?

Barrels and Brews?

No. Justin and James have left Barrels and Brews. Oh, they have. So that was as of last week. They still do have some picks there that Justin and James were a part of, but they're not in that store right now. Elixir, Radnor, Grand Cru, you're going to have Main Street. The big stores, the two big stores that are always bound to have some pick are going to be Corkdorks and Frugal McDougal. Corkdorks. you know, but a lot of the stuff I would really just say the ones that are the mom and pop that everybody goes and supports are going to be more the elixir spirits, the radners, the main streets, the, the grand cruise, sinkers out in East Nashville always has some good stuff. Here's something enough.

seen today and me and Jim was talking about it before he showed up. Um, that was almost shameful to me about Tennessee whiskey is I saw a bottle old hickory up on the shelf and I was like, man, I'm, I'm gonna buy that. So I pulled it down and I looked at it and you know, I guess a whiskey nerd up of me come out and I started reading and I was like, Oh, look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this. I got down to the bottom. It says bottled in Tennessee, but then it says distilled in Indiana.

Yeah.

So you took a Tennessee legend. Bell meat is an almost story. I guess he's Andrew Jackson. You know, you're trying to say old Hickory, which there's old Hickory locks and the hermitage and stuff. This dishonored the man by putting Indiana bourbon in it. Well, you could put some Tennessee whiskey in that bottle.

Well, Mike, they were they were very transparent.

Maybe they were transparent. I'll give them that. It's just you know, I love history.

The other thing is that same Houston is the same way.

Yeah, but they're they put straight Kentucky whiskey on the front of that bottle and it's 12 years and it's very good.

What about the Duke? The Duke isn't made in Texas.

Well, he's not from Texas anyways, but I know, but you kind of associate, but yeah. And we've talked about that. We've talked about those name brands and stuff. I'd like to see them, even Sam Houston, if it had Texas or Tennessee on there.

So you think of Balcony's stock was inside a Sam Houston or Dickle juice was in the old Hickory. You'd feel better about it.

I feel I'd be like, they honored the man. They, they put that state's whiskey in that bottle. Well, so if you're listening to Sam Houston or, or old Hickory to change it because the big chief said so.

Well, what about James T. Kirk whiskey? Are they supposed to go make that in the space?

No, but he lives in Kentucky. He has a farm over there in Kentucky. I know, but he has a farm in Kentucky and he owns a rate. He owns race horses.

Yeah. So him and Bobby play big in the industry.

He's like 800 years old, but. Yeah, Mike did reach out to him to come on the show. We'll see what happens.

You know, Patino owned horses, but they always kind of petered out after 15 seconds.

Speaking of that, do you, and I brought this up yesterday. Do you know the names of those horses on that bottle? Yeah. Let's hear them. You want to say it. So you got Bonnie's got, which is this, we're talking about the bell meat bottle here, bell meat bottle and the two horses on the front of any bell meat bottle, any bell meat bottle. There's two beautiful horses on there and they got great lineage or at least one of them did one, like 60, his lineage one, like 60 Kentucky derbies. Yeah. And then you got the old Brown Dick on there with his a Kentucky waterfall off his main

Oh, it is he, Brown Richard.

Brown Richard.

I refer to him as Brown Richard.

You don't say Dick, huh?

And you know, back in the 1890s, 1880s, Dick was just a name. Yeah, it was just a name. It all changed.

Charlie over there and Andy probably made the right decision by taking those names off the bottle.

Well, because they do people like, oh, Big Chief, we're out there.

I got to tell you that, you know, so there was a, uh, I used to do the horse race and radio network and there was a horse racing in Keyland and it's a, it was referring to top gun and the horse's name was hard deck. And so I went to Kurt Becker, the track announcer before we're up in the booth and I'm like, you know, Kurt, don't mess up on this one.

You know, you don't need to be like, and hard Dick surges to the winter.

You know, you can't, there was going to be something, you know, and then hard deck comes on the outside, hard deck coming down the end and hard dig searches. And he's pushing through.

I have a kid that worked for me and his name was Richard. And he was like, my name's rich chief. And that's, that's what I like to be called. It's all right. You don't want to call Richard. Nope. I said, all right. So first day he comes into work after that. I said, what's up, Dick? Can you, you can't call me that. Not everybody likes that word. I was like, I like it. I think it's great word.

So, so back, you know, we know what the horse and teams are. Right. And, uh, I think big chief, there are so many things that you guys could do from a merge standpoint with big chief. He is just,

He's just begging to be used. I did bring up a merchandise thing and Jim's like, I don't know. I don't think that'll sell. And we mean him shot like merchandise stuff back and forth and we don't know if it's the it's worth the effort or not. But I think our fans, our listeners, they love it. They want that stuff. And I wanted to make a shirt that said, bourbon bullshitter on it. So if, if you're a listener out there and you think that's a good idea, I want you to shoot Jim a email, Jim at the bourbon road.com or tag big chief and bourbon bullshitter.

It sounds like my show where it's like, yeah, Zeke has an idea. And he's like, I'm reach out to John because I'm not going to look at the social media.

But that's another thing about podcasts. Do you ever feel like your email or your podcast messages like Instagram is just gets buried sometimes?

Yeah, I had to turn off notifications finally after three years. So we're at our fourth year. Last year I finally had to turn off notifications. I couldn't take it.

After after twenty four years in the military, I was like, I'm done with a cell phone. Nobody's going to call me at work no more from work in the middle of the night. No text messages, no nothing. And then during the bourbon road and it's like a slot machine goes off in the middle of the night.

Well, Jim, what do you think about black bell before?

I tell you what, I think the black bill is really good. I can definitely taste that I don't know. It's kind of a, almost a savory note to it for me. Yeah. Yeah. You, for you too.

It's a lot of chocolate stout. Yeah. You know, I really, really get that stout on the finish. So it's like, regardless of whatever is there on the nose and the taste, it's like, you know, that, I think the most prevalent thing that always keeps me going back is the finish just lingers and lingers and lingers.

Yeah, mine's gone. I really enjoyed that. And, you know, it's always nice to have a bottle that, you know, you get to try something anyway that, you know, is hard to get your hands on and get to experience. I've heard a lot about the black bell.

Well, I'm glad you got it.

Well, thank you so much for sharing it with us. And that's my favorite thing about being on the podcast and being part of the bourbon culture is everybody's always open arms to us. And hey, I want to share my whiskey with you, my bourbon with you. And that's what this is about, right? Absolutely.

I would have liked to have taken a little bit deeper of a dive into the dads a little bit. Maybe when we come on your show,

What else do you want to know? I feel like I told him everything.

Yeah, you're an open butt. No doubt about it. I'm gonna dig deep.

There's nothing else to dig deep on. Zeke's an asshole. I'm trying to do the show. We are incredibly honest.

I'm gonna bring some coconut oil with me next time.

If I show you, I'm going to show you what my back wall looks like right now. After we, we take a little break here and you're going to want to come down. I'm sorry. I didn't get you to the house. I knew that with my three year old, we wouldn't have got anything done.

Well, maybe someday we'll get down there and then we'll be able to hang out for a little bit. That'd be fun.

Yeah, that's the no microphone and we cook up something on the grill and we all hang out and have a good time.

Right. Well, John, why don't you take a minute and let our listeners know where they can find you guys and how they can listen to what you got going on.

All right, so thank you very, very much both of you for having me on the show. I've had a blast and let the big chief eat, but free hashtag free big chief. Please put that on the bourbon road everywhere you go. Hashtag free big chief. My name is John Edwards along with Zeke Baker. We host dad's drinking bourbon. You can find us on Facebook at dad's drinking bourbon, Twitter at bourbon dad's Instagram at dad's drinking bourbon. Find us wherever you download your podcasts. And that's pretty much it.

Well, it was a pleasure to have you on today. Um, you know, it's, it's a lot of fun. Thank you. I've never not been in control before, but it's kind of, uh, I don't know, freeing.

I do that. I'm sorry. It's totally me and it's, I need to know my role sometimes. Just took his pants off.

Mike, won't you take us out? So, uh, thanks for listening today, everybody. You know, John, thanks for being here. Zeke, you suck for not showing up. Hell yeah. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, on our, on our webpage, the bourbonroad.com. You can find me at one big chief on Instagram.

I'm Jay Shannon 63.

Um, go into our private Facebook group, the roadies asked to join three questions. Pretty easy. Do you drink bourbon? Do you, uh, agree to play nice and are you 21? Are you 21? Right. Come in there and talk to us. We've got some master distillers in there. Uh, we got some industry folks. Uh, we got some other podcasters in there. Um, some great friends, you know, great conversation. Come in there and talk to us.

All right. Well, show went a little long today, but I hope everybody had a good time and you could cut out about 45 minutes. It's all good. We're going to have a good time being on your show sometime. So, all right, fellas, ready to call it quits. All right. See you on down the road. We do appreciate all of our listeners, and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate it if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions. And if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.