504. Black Corn, Witch's Brew, and the First West Lineup from 15 Stars

It's been a week of Mondays but the weekend's here Dust on my boots and a smile with my beard Neons humming low where the nose our name Same old bar stools but it never feels the same We raise a glass to the miles we've made To the stories told and the dues we've paid Amber light in a crystal glow A little burning Where the good times roll Passing bottles like a piece of soul Every pore's a memory, every sip a spark Lighting up the night in the Kentucky dirt Ain't no mail, just the ties we've sewn On the long winding bird

Alright listeners, welcome to another episode of the Bourbon Road. This is Todd. I'm flying solo today, but not solo because I've got some old friends on the show with me tonight. I've got Rick and Ricky Johnson from 15 Stars and we are going to dive into their, I guess their revamped version of First West, their First West line. So welcome back to the show guys.

Glad to be here. Thanks for having us again. We always love it.

Yep. It'll be fun.

OK. You guys have been on episode, you were on episode 345 and 428. This will probably be, I think, like 503. So you're hitting about every, what, 60, 70 episodes or something. So that's pretty good. Sounds about right. Sounds like we're on a good cadence here. That's right. I like the rhythm. So, I would definitely tell our listeners to go back and listen to those episodes because, I mean, your 15 stars is one of our favorite things. When we get a bottle from you guys to sample, it's always a hitter. So, I would recommend folks go back and listen to those. But just give us a little brief recap about how you guys got started into, you know, how you dove into the liquor biz.

Yeah, I'll tell you, our story will, it's good because it's coming right back around tonight. We got started with a little black corn that we grow for popcorn and a really unique popcorn that we own the strain of corn and we grow red, blue, white, black, but the black was the most unique we thought and never been distilled. And so that's really what got us started A little over six years ago, Ricky, as time flies. But that corn now is in one of the bottles that we're going to talk about tonight. So that's from start to right now is kind of full circle. So six years, that's about right to kind of make that first turn. So we are at that point. And But we started off, as you know, when you start in the bourbon business, you're starting fresh in a long-term game, at least if you're going to do it right. I mean, at least from our perspective, we believe in fully mature whiskeys and bourbon. When we got started, we knew it would be a while. We thought about, oh, should we rush something? Can you do a toasted finish that rushes it or pushes a little? Do you put it in a smaller barrel to push it along a little bit? We tested a lot of things. We tasted a lot of things. We said, we really don't know of anything that tastes better than just doing it the old-fashioned way, doing it the long way, taking the time, being patient, letting it mature on its own. And so we avoided all that and started sourcing some really aged bourbons. And our first bourbon was a blend of 14 and 15 year old. So we started, you know, kind of on those super aged notes. We started with blending, which is has become our motto. We believe we can really do something very, very special with that. And as you said, those 15 stars bottles. So we started knowing that we'd start with this brand named 15 stars off of Kentucky being the 15th state. 1792, Kentucky became a state. 1795, recognized on the second US flag, 15 stars, 15 stripes. And so we source those bourbons and rives. We put some bourbon and rye out and some other whiskeys, American whiskeys, that really focus on super high-aged blending and really aiming for top-of-the-top kind of bourbons. And we compare those against the very best bourbons that the long-standing distillers put out. fortunate enough to have won 33 awards as we started that are best in class or finalist for best in class at the major competitions. And so, you know, there's there is magic in kind of doing it the old way, paying a lot of attention and nuance and really credit to Ricky because he kind of leads the blending. But that's that's why I got us started was a little black corn. And then we figured it's going to be forever until we put that in a bottle. So how do we get keep moving between, you know, then and now? And I don't know, Ricky, maybe talk about blending for flavor proof and kind of what's instilled everything we do right now, but started from that very first bottle.

Yes, so obviously, like my dad said that our our philosophy is blending and its ability to create additional complexity, a more interesting product. So in that, you know, we we've. built a really great inventory of aged product that that we get to utilize a very wide inventory with a lot of mash bills at our disposal. And so, yeah, we were fortunate to be able to take those different mash bills and make a lot of unique products and in that, you know, We approach blending a little differently, I think, than than other groups do. We don't necessarily search for in flavors. We don't have a target in mind for flavor. It's more so we think that there's in a group of whiskies. If you're okay, let's say we have two whiskies we're blending. there's a best flavor. There's a best option in that. And it's kind of our job to find that best option. And so it's finding where those bourbons, ryes, American whiskeys, whatever we're blending with, work the best together where they're the most balanced, where the great flavors from each really shine. And part of that, like my dad also mentioned, is flavor-proofing. So something that we really believe in And that's being intentional in our proofing. So as we're blending, you know, once we start getting down to and we have a direction of the blend that we like, we'll start proofing way up and down the proof range, trying a lot of different options to then find a proof and blend combination that create the best flavor. Because as you know, adding water to bourbon can pull different flavors out. You have bourbon on a big rock, we call it the journey, whereas the rock melts, you get a development of flavor in the glass, it changes. And so with that, we use proofing to kind of adjust the flavor of the blends and create a better flavor profile.

I was just gonna say, as you can tell, we're happy to talk about it.

As well as you should be. And I think you guys are like, like you said, you're proof. I think there's this big hazmat, like everybody loves and goes crazy about hazmat, but I don't know, I sometimes feel like, somebody some folks correlate 140 proved as a flavor where it's just more like a burn. Whereas I'm you know, I've you know, I've been up there that range and there's some great bourbons in that range or even lower but like I've come in my I guess bourbon journey to come down to that like 105, 115 is this really nice spot for me. It's like, and things like that. I think you guys really know those proofs in that area with your 15 stars products.

Yeah, with 15 stars in particular, I guess we have been as low as 95 with our Platinum. With Founders Reserve. Yeah, Platinum's 98, right? Yeah, so we have gotten below 100 a couple of times with some gorgeous, gorgeous bourbons, bourbon and rye. That platinum is, it's kind of a family favorite. We just did an event and let's see, where was it last night? One of our guys was in Oklahoma and he said he had a couple of people come up to him afterwards that were just saying that that platinum is a that I'm typically an eye-proof guy, but that Platinum is the best bourbon I've ever had. And our Founders Reserve Rye at that 95 proof is just a beautiful, beautiful whiskey, no matter what. I know a lot of people are bourbon fans, not necessarily rye fans, but it really doesn't matter what kind of whiskey you like. It's a beautiful thing. Probably that 103, I would say, to 115 is our highest proof, actually. Our sherry cask we finished, which was celebrated, won so many awards, and kind of put us on the map early on. It was at 115. And proof is one of the things, and there are others, but one of the things that contributes to mouthfeel. Right. And so we don't feel, obviously, we don't feel like Cast Proof is interesting because it does tell you kind of what the components were like when you started for us from a Blender's perspective. But we have yet to taste something at cast proof that we think is the very best flavor that we can get at. To some degree, alcohol can be an inhibitor to really catching flavor. But I know it's a fan, in fact, and I know people love it. And I get it. We've had one as high as I think it was like 152 or something. I mean, a crazy proof, right? But was it the best thing I ever had to drink? Well, no. You know, it wasn't. But really that mouth feel may be something that doesn't get some of the discussion that it deserves sometimes as a component of a beautiful bourbon. And certainly proof is one of those things where you can get it down to a proof level where you just don't pick up that richness and that viscosity and that coating of your mouth that a beautiful whiskey bourbon will give you. And certainly, That's an important thing. Filtering is another component of that. How you filter it, people, the common thing is non-chill filtered. You hear that all the time. Of course, that is critically important. But to just be non-chill filtered doesn't mean you haven't still filtered the crap out of it, to be honest. There are plenty of ways to filter that are not chill filtered that really take that richness and that viscosity out of that. And so the filtration is something we basically, our filtration that we're committed to is basically to make sure that they're not a chunk of barrel. in that in that bottle. So we try and keep the we keep the char out of it. But that's all we keep out of it. And so and we've gone through it a couple of times, you know, we try to try to get some ready and, and boy, you've got it all you got that flavor in your mouth, you know, you're looking for and then you see somebody run it through something and it's just not That viscosity is a huge part of a beautiful bourbon experience.

Agreed.

Maybe you guys talk about it a lot. I'm not sure, but we think about it a lot. Yes.

So this might be the lungs we've ever gone into a show where we haven't had our first pour. So Ricky, you want to introduce this first pour to everyone?

Yeah, let's kick it off. So the first pour of the first West line, also our newest, about two months old now, is our first West Explorer, a really monumental release for us. It was mentioned earlier, but uses the first mash bill that we ever distilled, the one we started with, which was our black corn mash bill. That is a 70% corn. 18% wheat, 12% malted barley. So we did bourbon mashbill and that is blended with a regular yellow corn mashbill that is 70% corn, 18% rye, 12% malted barley. So same percentages, just switch the wheat for rye and the combination of those two has made a really nice bourbon that is a, I'll say five and six years old, that black corn, six, six years and the yellow corn mash bill five at 95 proof.

Okay yeah somewhere the white corn was an addition as well so it's actually you're blending barrels of the white corn in with your own black corn or white corn is in two of the other products we're going to go through right which combine red white and blue corns together

Yeah, so this is a black and yellow.

Okay, the white corn is your own mash bill as well on your own map?

Yeah, we distill black, red, white and blue corns and those corns are proprietary to us. We're the only person distilling them. So it's not your red corn isn't your Jimmy Red or your Bloody Butcher. It's something completely different.

So did you guys actually get to see the fermentation for this black corn? Cause I had a big question because my bourbon society, we have a local distillery here. They allow us to come out and distill our own. So we always come up with some crazy mash bills and we do like two runs and it's usually like four or five barrels and it's whiskey thief by the way. And they're just awesome people and they allow us to do it. So we used Amanda Palmer, which is kind of a rainbow corn. And when it was fermenting, it was purple. So I'm curious to know if the black corn was kind of an odd color when it was fermenting or anything like that.

Yeah, the black corn was literally black. Oh, wow. The craziest thing to see was when it was dumped into the fermenter, when all of the mash was just getting poured in the fermenter and it was just black flying in there and it was what we call a witch's brew.

Okay, what was it gonna say? Is it like non see-through kind of? Most definitely. Oh, wow. That's really interesting.

It really in the most literal sense.

Yeah, it really it really looked like something you wouldn't want to drink. You know, it was literally a witch's brew. And again, coming, you know, coming out of the. Out of there, it's being pumped in that fermentation tank, just this blackish liquid, thick-looking. And it does go through a little metamorphosis, right? It will. As that cap is on the top, it'll be black for a while. you know, as it's fermenting, you see, you know, those big bubbles that are coming up in that, right, those big masses of grain sometimes, right, where it creates an air bubble underneath in the grain, right, and then that kind of comes up to the top. That's black. It'll go a little purplish for a while, and so it kind of, that cap will go through a bit of a metamorphosis in there, but I wish we had a picture here we could just put up, but I don't know if you can get a hold of one. Lay it against a traditional yellow corn like what else is in here that we also distilled. This is the first bourbon that has 100% of the juice that we planned, that we had distilled.

Oh, you got one? Okay. I can't even hardly see. You'll have to send me a photo.

Oh yeah, that's being pumped. That's pumped into the fermentation tank. Can you see that?

You'll have to send me that and I'll put it on our Facebook page.

But yeah, it's unbelievable. I mean, unbelievable. And it really, well, as you can taste this, you know, Ricky, you want to talk about the flavors? I was going to say, I'm picking up this nice apple.

Yeah, so the Explorer, kind of the way I think of it is sweet forward. My favorite note out of it is meringue, so like a sugary dessert sweetness. Kind of that vanilla, you could also say like vanilla wafer sort of flavor. But yeah, so that sweetness coming from that black corn and when we when we talked about viscosity i'll say that black corn is kind of a viscosity monster in a way it's even as white dog it was really really rich almost buttery Definitely buttery. And so the main flavors that we got out of that are still getting as it ages are buttery peppermint flavor, which with that viscosity lends itself to be a very flavor dominant bourbon. So something to consider when blending, but a really great blending component.

And it's 9.85 proof, right? Yes, Explorers 95. And retails for about 40, I think when I read 49.99 or so? Correct.

Okay.

And so, you know, you guys with the 15 stars, you had released some first West releases. So I guess, you decided to kind of take that and start a different line. Is that correct? What was kind of the thinking behind that?

So today, right, initially we had, we started with 15 stars. And then, you know, this bottle we're tasting right now and four that we're going to go through is First West. right, explore, buy 15 stars. And so you're right, we did have a couple of bottles. We had a rye and we had a bourbon. The bourbon, I believe now, I believe as of this week, there may be a few bottles at Lib Dib that are available on our website that we're running through. So there's a few on our website, but basically that's gone. So there's, it was a gorgeous whiskey bourbon, right? That was, what was that, 15, nine and seven year old blended together. Uh, and, um, again, there's, there's maybe a couple of cases of it sitting left on our website. It was a finalist for best bourbon, uh, at, uh, the New York wine experience competition. One of two that were candidates for best bourbon. Unfortunately, we didn't take the top spot, but hey, we're in that. We're in that area we thought where we're trying to be, right, is in that very finalist area. And then our first West Rye, which we still have a little bit of that too, not much, but that first West Rye won at the New York Wine and Spirits Competition best rye whiskey. and then went on to win best of show whiskey, best of every whiskey they had there. And then at the LA Spirits Awards, same thing, best dry whiskey, best of show whiskey. So a couple of beautiful things, but just to talk about our brands. So now we're kind of a brand family, right? Not just 15 stars. We wanted to create a new alignment. As our juice got old enough, we could start blending it in and blending with it, right? that we could be more price approachable because those 15 stars bourbons were really a $99 version that we have Kentucky only, I'll call Kentucky stars. But outside of Kentucky, it's $149 to $279. Those are not regular bottles for everybody, right? I mean, they're special occasion bottles, but we wanted to get into that. So first, we celebrate the the culture and character and craft of the early Kentucky and early American artisans. And so 15 stars, hearkens to that 1795 15 stars flag. First West has on the front of the bottle, Daniel Boone coming through the Cumberland Gap. to settle Kentucky, which was America's first west. And then we've got Kentucky County, which we can just talk about a little later maybe, but that talks about the first naming of Kentucky as a county of Virginia in 1776. And each of these bottles holds iconography and on the outside that celebrates those moments and on the inside we're trying to craft these with the same same care and expertise and you know like you're making it for your neighbors and your friends like those early craftsmen did and our bottle for First West is modeled after this bottle which is the first bottle ever made in Kentucky and used for bourbon.

Okay, you literally took that question right out of my hands. Yeah.

Because I was wondering where that came from. I think we skinned it up a little bit. Did we use today's methodology? Did we make it fit on the shelf a little better and hold hand a little better? Yes, we did. But it's inspired with those ribs and the shape and the blue color from this very first bottle ever in Kentucky by the Louisville Glassworks. That's really cool. So a really cool bottle. We own about a dozen of these old bottles and made this special bottle off of it. I will tell you, I won't reveal what it is, but I will reveal there is something coming out at the end of this year that's going to be in a bottle very like this bottle in my hand, the original. So we've got something else special coming out. This is the first reveal. I can't give you everything here. but something super, super special. I'll just say that we haven't done anything as old as what will be in that bottle. And we've done a lot of old bourbon, so it'll be special. Maybe off air? Yeah, you bet. So those really special moments that shaped our country, the state of Kentucky, and bourbon. Those were all born in the same moments of the same culture, of the same ethos. And we're trying to dig back into that and produce things that will stand the test of time. And we put a lot of our own personal, we put a lot of care in it. It takes a long time. We don't sit around and blend these things in an afternoon.

It's a concerted effort of craftsmanship and artisanship.

So yeah, that's the long story on the name, First West. So we did transition it to create a line. And we're really happy to have taken a couple of bourbons that were originally 15 stars First West, that were superior, great award winners, and then try and bring us out in a And an approachable price, so the ones we're talking about tonight are $49 to $79, so much more, still a premium bourbon, right? Still a beautiful thing. Still our blending, still flavor-proofed to a good range, but much more approachable. Then Kentucky County, even a little more approachable.

So I'm also getting like some, it's like caramel corn a little bit.

Yeah. That buttery peppermint certainly in that black. The other, the yellow corn, a pretty traditional Mash Bill. I don't think we talked about it, but we call this a five grain bourbon.

Yeah, I saw that because you've got the two different corns, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And the two corns, I would say the two corns are every bit as different as rye and wheat. Every bit is different.

Now, what would you say the... I'm assuming you've tried, obviously, tried the black corn just on its own out of the barrel. Absolutely. What kind of flavors is it imparting on its own, I guess? What would you say, Ricky?

Yeah, it's that butter that I was mentioning earlier. How I would explain the sweetness of it, it is very sweet forward, but also a bit peppery. So a pepperiness and that viscous sweet note that you get in the Explorer.

Okay.

Yeah, I think some of that peppery stuff you're getting in this glass comes from that black corn.

All right. Well, it's great. I love it. It's really, like I said, for a sweet palate, people are going to love it for sure. So shall we move on to the toasted? Yes.

We've got to do small batch, Ricky. We've got to try that one. Oh, I'm sorry.

They all tie in.

Too small batch.

Small batch? I already poured it in my glass. Okay, sure. Sorry.

I got confused. You had to drink that, Todd, didn't you? Yes, I did. Get out of the way.

Yeah, so our small batch was technically, I mean, we released the first west at the same time. But at the time of release, the small batch was our kind of base, the starting point in the first west line. And that was our first release to use any of our heirloom corns. But that took the form of our red, white, and blue mashbill. So, yeah, red, white and blue corns that were mashed together and distilled together, aged together and blended with two different regular yellow corn bourbon mash bills. And for us, you know, it's called small batch. We know that that can be a fairly ambiguous German whiskey. But we've set up definition for it, and ours is a maximum of 25 barrels per batch. So keeping it a true small batch, not your 250 barrels, small batch enough that you can really get a bit of a difference in flavor. You get, it doesn't, it hasn't all reverted back to the mean. You get some character in it.

It's probably a little low in some cases, 250.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt.

And you can tell on this one, you're not picking up that same pepperiness that comes with that black corn.

Right.

Some classic notes here.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And on the sweetness of it, a little more fruit forward rather than dessert sweet.

And for this one, we've upped the proof to, I believe, 100.

We're sitting at 102. 102, that's right. Sorry.

Yeah. Yeah, and you know, we haven't said this before, Ricky, but I guess if you take our green philosophy, because the red corn, the black corn, we've talked about a lot, right? The red corn is is a rich, earthy, again, nothing like Bloody Butcher, nothing like Jimmy Red, or nothing like any of the traditional reds. It's a very different thing, but a really rich, earthy flavor. The blue, kind of similar in earthiness, but very, very different than that. And the white is like, pure as pure as pure could be. I mean, the white corn that we use there just really doesn't. What it really is is a beautiful palette. It's not pushing anything. It's not much push from the corn side. It's really kind of letting barrel flavors come through. And then a yellow. So four corns, rye and malted barley. I think you could call it a sixth grain for sure.

There's a lot going on with this. It's like citrus note. Getting like a cherry pie, like a dark cherry pie. Rich caramel. Now, if I'm not mistaken, you guys go into the barrels at a fairly low entry proof, correct?

Yeah, we're at different proofs. Depending on the corn? But the red, white, and blue, we distilled together.

OK.

Right? So we also distilled them separately. But for what goes in here, we distilled them together. And really interesting, when you distill them together, and then if you distill them separately and blend them later, two different things. Oh, wow. Yeah, but this was distilled together, and we put that red, white, and blue in the barrel at 103 proof.

Okay.

We put it in really low. Now, we've kept that at 103. Initially, we put others in the barrels, a couple of different proofs below 110. But what we also found out is if they end up in a rick house, and we want our bourbons to go the long run here, right? If you're going to bottle them at four, five, six years old and pull them out, which we will do some, not at four, but at five. part of one of the things here is a five so but basically we like six and seven is where we want to start but we really want to let some of those go the long run and so you got to be careful putting them in at a really low proof initially because you can get some of those barrels if they're you know if they're in that warehouse location where you're going to lose proof you don't want to lose a lot of proof from there on the long haul right this is delicious we are sticking with 103 on that red white and blue But we think it's a very smooth compared to what we just had with that pepperyness. This feels a little more easy drinker.

Agreed, despite the higher proof. And this one retails for about $59.99 or so? $59.99. Yeah.

So a couple of really, we try and do some different things, right? And even from those very first things we did with 15 stars, part of our blending, I mean, honestly, the thing that motivated us to the blending was just that we could pull some better flavors out of it, right? But what we also loved as a benefit of that is we're not fond of You know, the idea of sourcing whiskey, somebody else's whiskey in particular, right? And putting it in a bottle, right? That just doesn't seem right to us. And boy, with that blending, you can really craft, it's magic. It's the magic that's led us to those 33 awards is that we get to, we get, Instead of just distilling and putting it in a barrel like almost everybody does or in a bottle, we get that opportunity to turn it and twist it and refine it right before it goes in that bottle. And that's kind of a secret weapon. And we use it here too.

Now, you guys, obviously, I'm assuming you have these at Bardstown. Do you have them on different floors or are they, do you guys kind of like central, mid or lower?

You know, we can't always pick. Obviously we kind of like those center. We like that center spot, you know, cause it kind of, it just kind of, it'll, it'll, it'll keep it as close as it can be to the same. You get those, you get those top hot floors and, uh, you know, you're, uh, you know, you, you, it can do some real as a blender. it can give you some flavors that are really wonderful. But if you go 15 years on that top floor, it's going to be a beast. When you get done, you're going to need to blend it. Then on those low floors, those low cooler floors inside, they'll just nurture bourbon along. It's an easy ride over those years. It is. The warehouse location is really, really important.

My cousin-in-law is the master blender for Fourgate and they house their barrels there. So, you know, I don't know if it was kind of like airplane seating, like, you know, obviously, Bardstown says, we've got all these and then they send you like, and you guys can have whatever's left kind of thing.

I tell you, the partnership with those guys is so good. I mean, we love our relationship there. But I will say, we don't pick all the spots in the warehouse and get it. The relationship is great. It's as good as it can be. But honestly, if it was our own warehouse, right? We got to fill the whole thing.

That's true.

And so it wouldn't matter if it was our own warehouse. It'd be the same, right? You get barrels a little bit everywhere. And so yeah, we may when we really think we have a few things that we need a preference for. We do ask for that, and we get it. But it's most of the time, it just loads the way it loads, and we work with that. And that's, again, where the blending comes in, where we can grab some barrels from some different spots. And our blending helps us there. And everybody kind of does it, right? Even the big guys, right? When they're pulling something together, they're getting a selection that comes into a middle ground, and they're tasting it to make sure they cut their flavor profile. And we aren't shooting for a particular flavor profile. We're shooting for best that these can come out to be. And they will vary a little bit in percentage as we do. We haven't yet. I mean, we've been not in this line, just one year in this line. And First West Explorer, of course, you know, two months old. But we've kept everything the same. But as time goes on, you know, those blend percentages will change to help us keep that flavor profile in there. It's typical.

All right. Well, this has been Excellent first half. Let's take a little short break and we'll come back. We've got two more expressions to dive into and we'll be right back. So hang on.

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Hi listeners, welcome back to the second half of the show. I'm here with Rick and Ricky Johnson of 15 Stars. We've been diving into their fairly new line of products and it's called First West. We had the Explorer and then we followed it up with a small batch and I mean you guys just doing the Lord's work. You're doing some great stuff. I've been sending actually funny enough. I've been sending pores out to some of my friends that do like have like the whiskey Tube channels and things like that So they've been doing some reviews of your product unbeknownst to you. I should probably let you guys know but We appreciate it, but I'm a big fan and I know Jim is but so Ricky. What's uh, what's our next poor buddy?

Yeah first West toasted oak very similar to the small batch, including that red, white, and blue corn mashbill. But as is in the name, it is finished in toasted oak barrels. So for us, as blenders in our eternal curiosity and liking a toy with things, we didn't just pick one toasted barrel to finish it in. We actually have two different toasted profiles that the product is finished in. So one of them a little more on the oak side of things and the other that is a slight majority 60% on the sweeter side of things think like caramel and maple sweetness. So the blend of those two together creating a little bit of extra complexity in the toast but the overall blend that we finished in those toasted barrels being very similar not quite identical but very similar to that First West small batch. Yeah so those toasted barrels I will say not finished consecutively in the Tozer Barrel. We create the blend, split it into it, 60% of it was finished in the sweeter profile, 40% finished in the oakier profile, and then combined back together.

Oh, okay. That's really interesting.

Kind of double blended, right? So we blended the bourbons the way we thought they, you know, they were the best, and then we Again, as Ricky said, did it the hard way, right? Nothing easy. We checked out some different cash profiles and we found two that we loved that we thought blended together. We did trials on this. Take the blended juice, put it in the barrels, 60-40 in those barrels, blend those barrels back together. And you get, it's a pretty similar blend to the small batch, but you pick up those, you know, those toasted barrels do what they do, right? You get that toasty oak flavor, you get a little depth in there, it brings some richness to it. It's a nice, for those that like a little extra, a little toastness, it brings something into that, brings another dimension to what we're doing.

Yeah. I was going to say the first thing I noticed is sometimes when you smell a toasted bourbon, it's all toasted bourbon. Whereas I'm getting a nice layer of it, but I'm also getting that small batch nose a little bit too.

Yeah, and I think that's characteristic of all our finishes. We use finishes to accent the bourbons and some people, and there are people that use a really young, that's one of the methods that people use, right, to take a bourbon that's really too young. right, and toast it and try and maybe cover something up, right, or to give it a maturity that it doesn't have. But these are fully mature bourbons and so we always use either a toast or if it happens to be finished in a, you know, whatever kind of barrel, right, those beautiful European barrels or potentially some American thing, but we always use the finishing cask as a layer in it, not to overpower, not to overpower. So we're putting in it bourbon that we love individually and then just trying to accent it. So I think that comes through in this.

Yeah, this is a fantastic nose. Like I said, a nice mix of the toastiness, but you're still getting everything from that original brand.

I don't think we've ever walked through all four of these on a podcast before, or any kind of online, you know, we haven't done a show with all four of them. So it's kind of fun to do.

Well, like I said, your PR person was kind enough to send all four, and I was like, who better you have to taste these with than you guys, so. Hey, we appreciate that.

What are you pulling out of this one, Ricky? Oh, that was me. Yeah, that was Ricky that sent all four. That can't hurt her.

You never get all the kids at then, right?

Oh, it was at her request, so you were right.

She does great. But physically, you know. Oh, this is delicious. And the proof and price on this one?

The proof on it is $98, price $69.99. Yeah, that's delicious. All the First Wests hovering around that $100 proof spot.

Yeah, I do. You know, it is. I'm just going to go back to that That small batch. And that's beautiful. But it's also beautiful to have that toasted layer in there. And it does bring, it brings a little bit of richness and depth that it's kind of nice. They're both great.

It's like a curveball.

Very different.

I said it's like a curveball. It kind of throws something different. Yeah. And I don't know what it is, but just toasted bourbons, the nose on them, I could just like, somebody needs to candle a toasted bourbon or something.

That's a good idea. I hadn't heard anybody say it that way, but it really is. In some of these, you do just sit there and we've got a new version of First West that will come out at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. It's a cigar blend that we're going to do for the first time. That's exciting. I was nosing that a couple of nights ago. I couldn't get my nose out of that thing. It's actually going to be an 11, the oldest thing we've ever done, it's going to be very limited, an 11 and 15 year old bourbon. Oh. Oldest, first west, really. Yeah, first west, yeah. So, 11 and 15 year old in Sherry, Cognac, and Port. A really special thing, 79 bucks. Holy cow. Limited, pretty limited, right? I mean, the stores will get a case of it, you know, maybe a couple of cases here or there.

All right, Morgan, if you're listening, you don't have to send a bottle, but I at least need to have a sample of that. We could probably get a bottle your way.

We know where there's a couple of those stored.

Awesome. Now, we talked about what you thought the black corn brought to the party. What do you guys think the red, white, and blue corn kind of, what's that bring to the party, I guess?

Yeah, the red, white, and blue, a little less dominating than the black, but carries a really kind of a soft, earthy flavor. And I would say that's its main characteristic, but Yeah, kind of an earthy background to the product.

Oh, this is so good.

I was actually nice enough to give Jim the bottles of these, so I've got some very healthy four-ounce bottles.

Yeah, well, good for him.

So you guys pretty much started this business about I guess in 2019, first release was like 2022 ish, I think.

Yeah, I think spring at 22 is our first release.

So what have you you know, it's 2020. We're halfway through 2026. What are what are some things you've learned about the biz and just That kind of thing in general, anything that really stands out or every day is a new day kind of thing, I guess.

We didn't know anything. So we've learned a whole lot, right? We have a list, we're putting together something that we will feature on our website. We have this collection, right, of all these historic things on our website that are those artisan artifacts from Kentucky and early America celebrating Kentucky as the 15th state and the first west in Kentucky County. And we got some cool stuff on there, but we're also gonna add some things on there that really is kind of what we've learned. over the six years so far, and we're not sure exactly what we're gonna call that. Rick and I are still talking about that.

It's gonna be a coffee table book kind of thing?

Well, it'll be online, but we do have a coffee table book in the works. There you go. That we will bring out at some point. So you are the little forward thinker there, right? There you go. But yeah, we think at some point a coffee table book of those historical artifacts that inspire us, that inspired early Kentucky, part of the culture that really brought bourbon, brought excellence in craftsmanship in Kentucky and America. We think that's important to bring forward and our philosophy of how we blend. And we're always learning and we're always exploring. We're always trying different things. You see these different corners, you see these blending of finishing barrels, we're always exploring something different. But trying to do that, I think what we've really learned is, when we say we're kind of doing it the old way, we're not trying to mimic what somebody else did. But what we're saying is we want to mimic those processes. We want to mimic the craftsmanship that went into early Kentucky things that have stood the test of time. And that means exploring a lot and learning a lot, but never, never taken a shortcut. I think we've, you know, we committed to that early on. We've never really veered never veered from that. But there, you couldn't even, our pages are, we've got pages in length right now of kind of our learnings, but it's every little, I use the phrase, everything looks easy, but nothing really is, you know? I mean, it looks like it's a no brainer, but there's a lot of complexity in this. There's a lot, which is interesting and fun. So we've, I don't know, how would you answer it, Ricky? I didn't give a good answer, other than to say it's a lot of stuff.

You're making it sound really rosy, I gotta say that, because I listen to the Bourbon Pursuit guys talk about their Travelles and things like that, so they talk about headaches. You're being very nice, Rick.

Yeah. I'm sure there's a few bumps in the road. I mean, we bump our head all the time, right?

Right.

But honestly, it's kind of fun.

Yeah.

It's kind of fun. It's how you move forward, right? And we make, you know, we make, when we try and put a blend together, do we, do they all kind of work? No, most of them don't work, you know? And so they never see a bottle. But we have a lot of fun doing it. It gets a little frustrating sometimes when we're trying to get that little refinement in there, you know, we're thinking, dog, gonna, you know, it's not quite, we're going, Ricky came, you were, it was, it wasn't today, right? Was it today or yesterday? You just came back just to kind of do another finishing touch. on that cigar blend, right? The approach is different, right? The day is different. What we had prior to the meal, what we had before is different. It's a new approach to it, and that will bring up something fresh. And so Ricky came back and said, hey, let me take another little shot at it. Let's see if we can refine it a little more. That's kind of, if anything, that's maybe one of the biggest things we've learned is keep refining. Keep refining. Ricky, sorry.

Ricky, has your blending technique changed at all since you started? I mean, you're obviously dealing with, you know, you were really working with some different distillates from different producers and now you're kind of playing with your own stuff. So it probably has to have changed a little bit, but.

Yeah, I mean, there's a little bit of a different approach for each component you bring to the party, but all in all the. the idea behind it hasn't really changed. And it's really just about exploration and trying different options and finding a direction that you like. And I think it works pretty consistently and has worked pretty consistently. So if I would say one thing hasn't changed much, it's the blending technique. But obviously, the things that we're working with are changing vastly. And like you said, working going from working with 14 and 15 year old bourbons to five, six and seven year old bourbons is two completely different animals and then needs to be treated a little bit differently. But all in all, the philosophy of it has remained fairly same, pretty much the same.

Yeah. And I think, you know, when we, Ricky said it early on, we're not trying, we're not pushing toward a result when we do that. You know, it is an art of balance. It's about it's the art of letting each each whiskey each bourbon kind of give what they have to give and not cover up, you know, what what another one's giving and so it's really it's really about letting them release what they have to give. And I don't think everybody approaches it that way. I think one thing we've learned too, and not that we had it wrong at the start, but we feel equally as more confident in it is don't try too hard, don't push it too hard. Something can get overworked. A work of art can be overworked, and these bourbons are overworked. If it's not really working, we just kind of quit with that mix of things and just we're not trying to push it. We're not trying to make it work. If it doesn't seem to work, we just back up and we go at it again with a different group of different group of urbanists. They don't all blend well together. They don't all play well together. They don't all produce something beautiful. And so you have to back up and try again.

I would say cigar blend that we were talking about a pretty good example of that. The The switch we ended up making was a major component in it. And it wasn't like we didn't just change percentages. We swapped mash bills, took a pretty completely different approach after coming back to it.

Yeah, that's exactly right. It kind of took the main base component to it and just tossed it out and tried something else. We got into a reasonable spot, but it wasn't really where we wanted it to be.

I was going to say for my thing I've learned it's that everything takes longer than you think. And so we're frankly getting close to deadlines and stuff. I'm getting labels made and creating marketing materials and all that fun stuff for cigar blend. So where we want to get a blend done, but we're not willing to, you know, sacrifice flavor in. in doing these, you know, different activities where we'll take that re-approach, come look at it from a different angle, change the blend, do whatever we have to to get the juice we want because that is obviously the most important part.

You know, one of the very best things that happened to us in this journey was right at the start. Right at the start, we backed up from something. That blend of 14 and 15-year-old that we started with, with 15 stars, was going to be a 15-year-old alone. We thought 15 stars, we ought to start with a 15-year-old bourbon, right? We had all the labels made, and then we were just playing around. We had this 14-year-old. We blended it with it and we blended it a couple of ratios and we thought, God dang it, that's better. That's just a lot better than that 15 year old on its own. And so we had the labels all made, we got rid of them, we stopped our process, we remade labels, we threw those in the trash. We went with the best whiskey from the very start and then with it, winning that we didn't win best permit at the san francisco world spirits competition with the very first bourbon we were one of four finalists for best bourbon of the year and so i mean when we first got that call ricky got an email and i said that's bullshit there's no way we're a finalist for best bourbon i remember this our first release it's impossible right and uh... But then we found out, we read in Forbes magazine about three weeks later that we were one of the finalists for best bourbon of the year at the, you know, San Francisco World Spirits Competition. So we said, okay, we're going, right? And we went out there, we didn't win, but just being a finalist for that, totally changed our idea of what we thought might be possible that we could do. I mean, who would think that on your first thing out there, you know, that you'd be in that spot? And so it did change our mentality, and it made us do exactly what Ricky just talked about that's going to be on our next release is, hey, it was really good, but it wasn't quite there. And so we backed up and went again. And that's kind of where Ricky says it hadn't really changed, right? We're down the same old path. All right.

We've got one more to nose and sample here. Tell me about this one, Ricky.

Last in the lineup is the extra aged. And so The main difference is that it is the only one of the four that does not have our heirloom corns in it. It's the name extra age. It's a minimum of eight years old. And unfortunately, we haven't been in the game quite that long. So sooner rather than later, we'll have our own juice to use an extra age. But for now, it is a blend of three different higher age, eight and nine year old actually in this batch. bourbons, and a unique blend. So it doesn't have heirloom corns in it, but it is our only use of a high-malted barley mashbill, which I think is a really interesting thing to blend with on its own, has a bunch of really strong dark fruit flavor in the multi-barley mashbill. And so when I say really strong, I mean that. So it's not something you want to make 50 to 75% of your blend, but in this, it's 10% of the blend, just a little accent in there that creates a really nice background of full bodiedness to it and pushes that subtle fruit flavor forward that I think really makes a really big difference in the final product.

Yeah. And really with this one, I just took a sip of it. And what it really does, those eight year plus, right, that extra couple of years in those barrels, eight and nine years, those are years that give you something special, right? You do get something for those years. And I picked that up in there. It's just a, you pick up an elegance and a softness. As a bourbon in those barrels gets older, right? You're losing graininess, right? From the white dog, right? It starts a pretty grainy flavor. And over time, what you're doing is losing the graininess that's in that original distilled mash, and you're picking up richer barrel flavors. And so I think those are the two things that really happen as it ages in the barrel. And that's evident here, right? The graininess is subdued, and some of those rich, nice barrel flavors because of that, because of the extra time can really come into it.

Yeah, this is a nose on this one. A lot of, like you said, darker fruits.

There's like plum going on here. Yep. Really rich fruits, I always think.

And people Jim would call these stewed fruits, I think is what he likes to say, stewed fruits.

yeah yeah i think orange marmalade yeah a little bit of citrus in there but that jammy richness to it um it's it's been said once actually, but I thought it was fairly true that, you know, we've been asked about, do you have a distillery characteristic of sorts? And, you know, we're working with a lot of source material, so we tend to pick up other people's distillery characteristics. But if we had a blending characteristic, if there was a way that my palette went towards and my preferences, I would say it's citrus. And that I think shows up in a lot, you know, when I'm doing tasting notes for the product to put on our website and such, I keep writing down the, you know, orange rind, orange marmalade, orange, whatever. Am I just, do I just taste orange all the time or am I, is it really orange in like everything I'm doing here? You just want an old fashioned.

I really just want an old fashioned.

Well, not to talk about another brand, but I always get on a really good Russell's Reserve pick, like a little orange peel, orange zest kind of thing. And I love citrus, and I think it adds, I don't know, just a nice little different zing. So this is delicious.

Yeah, and it batches in pretty well with those kind of stewed fruits. Jim will love that, by the way. And that's one of the benefits of using you know, such distinctive things. When we started sourcing, right, you get those, as Ricky was saying, some of the distinctiveness of different distilleries to actually be able to bring those together, right, and get some of the complexity in a single bottle that that offers. Or for us in First West, where we start introducing our unique corns, that also brings something when you can bring different mash bills together with different characteristics, that gives you, it doesn't always work like we said, but it gives you an opportunity to bring more depth and more complexity into that glass. And without it, you know, we haven't found one yet that we couldn't blend and believe we'd improved it. And it just brings that, it brings that opportunity for getting more, right? A more balance, a more, you know, a single mash is what it is, right? And it's going to be a little bit one-sided, you could say, because it is a thing. And if you can bring two of those things together or three of those things, we don't believe in seven or eight. I think that's overworked. That blends to a median that you lose the edge, the excellence, the something special that it brings. And so that's one of the things about the blend is how do you make it beautiful? but let it still stand on its own, that you don't blend it, you don't put too much in it, or you don't blend, you don't, we want to blend in, not blend out, right? To let people pick up the excellence of flavors that the different bourbons bring, and if you put too many in there, you start to blend them out.

Right. Well, before we let you talk about where folks can find you, I wanted you guys to talk about your 250th anniversary release, the Kentucky County. Like I said, we tried those on a kind of an anniversary, 250th anniversary tasting, and we're very impressed. I mean, we talked offline that I tend to like a little higher proof on my things, but I mean, those were well priced, you know, age statement, which bourbon lovers love now. So kind of tell us the thinking behind you guys going that route rather than some of the other 250th anniversary releases from other places. Sure.

Well, and we had this name idea and we were going to wait until 2027, but we found out something special about this name. So the name Kentucky County, and we got two versions of it. We got a six-year bourbon. and a 12-year American whiskey. And a couple of beautiful things that we're happy to bring to market. The six-year just won 96-point gold at IWSC, International Wine Experience Competition. So a six-year age-stated bourbon, $37.99 suggested retail price, so a great price. Two great Bourbons blended together. So Kentucky County, Kentucky County with an E at the end. We didn't screw up and misspell it. And so Kentucky was from its first, the first place we know that it's printed is Lewis Evans map of the middle British colonies in America from 1755 identifies the Kentucky River with Kentucky with an E. And when Kentucky County, was a county of Virginia that was established, the first naming of the geography known as Kentucky. And that was in 1776. So we thought 2026, 1776, we got to do it this year. And so we released it, I think it was May. But but kind of a really special way to celebrate the 250th. We will have this forever, so it's not going away. It isn't just for this year, but we do have a special 250th anniversary banner underneath it. The other piece of iconography that's pretty cool on this, because again, we put things on our bottle that help signify what's in it, but the border design on this bottle is the border of the land warrants. that were issued by the state of Virginia to claim the first ground in Kentucky with an E, Kentucky County, Virginia. So in Kentucky, so the first land warrants have this, and we have three of the original land warrants that are examples of that, one of which was issued to Daniel Boone in 17 So we actually got a Boone signed land warrant from 1784 with a border on it. So really we try and put that cool kind of, these were craftsmen that were in the area at the time, right? These craft elements that that we try and put in these whiskies. And then the 12-year-old, and let Ricky talk about the flavors in them. But the 12-year-old, Ricky, why don't you just talk about what's in this 12-year-old, a very, very special thing. And we love this guy.

Yeah, pretty fun blend. An American whiskey, not a bourbon, but almost a bourbon. So 50% of it is 12-year-old straight bourbon whiskey, and the other half is everything that a bourbon is except for starting in a new barrel so distilled to a bourbon mashbill began its aging in a used barrel until it was seven years old and then we acquired it put it in new barrels for the remaining five years and you know the earlier years in the barrel or where you really pick up that fast flavor so it you know gained a lot of that age profile and honestly you couldn't tell you blind taste with someone and give them that and a bourbon to somebody they couldn't tell you which was bourbon which was American whiskey it gained so much character in those five years from that barrel. And so those two blended together, creating a 12-year American whiskey that is really bold in flavor at a really great price of $57.99. So we think a great value proposition.

Awesome. Yeah. Like I said, we had those on a different show and yeah, both were really enjoyable and like, once again, great prices.

Yeah, we're excited about bringing those. You know, we didn't get the 96 gold on the 12. I don't know which is my favorite. See, that's funny because I was a 12 fan. I'm a 12th fan. I'll just say it. I'm a 12th fan. But I say that to some of our guys and they say, oh no, that's the six. It's the six. But I really love those extra aged flavors, right? A 12 year old is, it brings you something again that I like really mature whiskey. That's just it. Which is your favorite, Ricky?

It's a hard pick for me. I'm going to ride the fence and not go either way. Depends on the day.

And as far as our sales, it's still real early to say, but I think the 12, I mean a 12 year old for $57.99, that's just, that's hard to find. And so I think it's outselling the 6 a little, or it was, but then when the 6 got that 96 points, it started to zing and lately off our website, it's beaten the 12. And again, $37.99. If you want to step out of those, the major bourbon guys produce some wonderful things. But there are a lot of people who want to step out of that norm. They don't want a bourbon that's just like everybody else's. They want something crap. They want something special. They want something unique. And so for $37.99 to be able to step into a really crafted, blended, high award winning Urban that's that's a heck of a deal. So they're both great prices. They're both great great great in the glass But I'd probably pick the 12 all right, well I appreciate you guys joining me on this

this taste through outstanding products. I'm like, you know, you guys don't put out bad stuff, so there was no harm in that. But I want to give you guys a chance to tell the folks where they can find you and what stores and things like that.

Yeah, so we're distributed in retailers in pretty much all, most of the eastern United States, a little bit on the western side, about 20 states in total. And as far as where you can stay up to date with us is one, our social media is 15 stars bourbon on Facebook and Instagram. Or if you want the inside scoop, you know, the announcements a little early, special releases, some of the fun stuff, sign up for our newsletter. I write all the newsletters myself, so it's coming straight from the horse's mouth. And you can also buy all of our releases online, and we ship to 43 out of 50 states. So it's very available in terms of the states we can reach.

Now I was, you guys, you can find you at the Bardstown distillery, right? Do they have your stuff on the, they used to have it on the shelves.

They have a couple of products. Okay.

A couple of offerings in Bardstown, but you know, all the major retailers, certainly in Kentucky, for all of us in Kentucky, you know, we should be easy to find. Obviously, Ricky said 20 states we're in. We really appreciate the retailers and distributors there that support us. They do a great job. And so we always say for them first, buy it there. Don't pay the shipping, right? But if you can't get it, if you can't find the one you want, and you're in one of those states we're not in, 15stars.com. And we'd love to help you out.

Yeah, there was one Ricky brought to the Frankfurt Bourbon Society that I couldn't find anywhere so I ordered one from there. from the website, so I appreciate that.

But once again, I appreciate you guys coming on with me.

I know Jim wishes he could be here. Like I said, his dad was having some type of surgery, so he was just gonna be with him as sometimes priorities. He made the right choice. That's right. Good call. Hate to miss him. Tell him we said hello. I will. So you can find the Bourbon Road on all the apps out there, all the places you can listen to podcasts. You can also find us on all the social medias. We have 3,100 people in our Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies, but we are also trying to push people to join our website, thebourbonroad.com, where there's like-minded folks just like the Bourbon Road, and you can do reviews, show what you're drinking, just like Facebook, but without all the ads, without all the... I don't know. I like to call it the silliness, but Jim's done a great job setting up that website. It's amazing. You can find past reviews on Rick and Ricky's products. It's a 15 stars, but just by doing a search on the podcast episodes and you can literally go straight to that, to any review we've done of a, you know, I think over 1,300 reviews of whiskey. You know, I've only been here over a year and a half now, but it's pretty amazing. But we appreciate you guys tuning in. We'd love you to go into your favorite app and Scroll up to that top and subscribe. Subscribe to our podcast. And we'd also love if you'd love to review. The more reviews we get, the more listeners we can get. Until the next time, we'll see you down the rubber road.

On the bourbon road, where the good times roll. Passing bottles like a piece of soul. Every pour's a memory, every sip a spark. Lighten up the night in the Kentucky dark. Yeah, we laugh too. Let the worries go, find a little truth in the afterglow Ain't no man, just the ties we've sewn On the long winding bourbon road Here's to the nights that turned into dawn To the friends who stayed when the rest moved on To the clink of glass and the stories spun And the quiet peace when the night is done On a bourbon road we ain't alone Every mile's marked by the love we've known From barrel to bottle to the hearts we hold there's a fire that never gets old so pour it up let the moment slow a little bit of life in every glow yeah forever we'll call this home on the long winding