519. Introducing The Whiskey Six: Does Kentucky Need More Whiskey?

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 pour'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 bourbon

Alright listeners, welcome back to another episode of The Barman Road. I'm your host Todd Ritter and with me as always is my co-host Jim Shannon. And we've got something a little different tonight Jim, what do we got going on?

Well, we're pretty excited about this. This has been something in the works for a while now, and it's really exciting to see it come to fruition and become a thing. And so today, in conjunction with our release of this episode, is also the co-release of the actual episode of The Whiskey Six. Todd, tell us a little bit about The Whiskey Six.

The Whiskey Six is Jim and I and four other friends that you know from our show. The first being Amzie Wenning. He's a board member for the Bourbon on the Banks Festival and the president of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society. Drew Hanisch from Whiskey Lore podcast. Our friend Jerry Daniels from Stone Fences Tour. And the mastermind of all of this, Bo Cumberland, who probably doesn't have enough on this plate, but he's at my journey through American spirits and also the creator of the wonderful documentary, Frankfurt, the Heart of Bourbon and the Lawrence Bourbon documentary that he did. So, yeah. So, kind of tell the folks what the ideas behind that, Jim.

Well, we're taking, you know, six fellows, the six of us that you just mentioned, and we're taking our perspectives on the industry. Uh, what's going on on a, on a sort of a monthly basis in the world of bourbon and whiskey. And we're sort of getting our take on it sort of. I don't want to call it a round table. It's more like a, just a, an insights group that looks at what's happening in whiskey, what's happening in bourbon, what's happening in Kentucky. and really around the world. And we take each of our individual perspectives on it, and we do a deep dive on a particular subject. And this first subject was really great. I won't bait the show for everybody. We'll let them just sort of watch it and see what's going on. But this is a little bit different. You know, the Bourbon Road has always been an audio podcast, but the Whiskey Six is a video podcast, so it's a little bit different. You'll find it on YouTube, but we will co-air the episodes on the Bourbon Road as bonus episodes in the future. This time, we've actually dedicated our weekly episode, or Wednesday episode, to the first and sort of the pilot show. We've let it become the premiere, yeah. So, uh, in this show, you'll get to hear the whiskey six on their premiere show, talking about, uh, some, some really interesting subjects in the whiskey biz. And then, uh, every month Todd and I will inject a bonus episode of the whiskey six when it comes out. Cause they only put out an episode once every month. Our episodes will be audio only, but you can certainly check them out on YouTube for the full video podcast. And I'm super excited about this. I think it's going to be fun. It's going to be insightful. We're going to really dig into some controversial issues and talk about some great things.

So a lot of fun. Yeah, and I think this is a good one for our listeners. If they've got some topics that they'd like to discuss, this is a great opportunity for them to email either you or I or some of the other members of the Whiskey Six and let us know what they want to know about. So it should be a great time. I mean, it's a great bunch of guys that you've heard on the show before.

They've all been on the show before. Absolutely. So Todd and I are going to cut our jibber-jabbers short here and we're going to invite you to listen to the first episode of the whiskey six.

Embarrassing confession, I still have not been to Bardstown Bourbon Company. I need to stop there sometime. Ever? Yeah. Ever? I must have lunch there.

That was the first time I went to Bluegrass Parkway. Come on, Amzie.

All right.

I see it all the time.

We're going to kidnap Amzie and take him to Bardstown.

So welcome everybody to the first episode of the Whiskey Six. I want to talk a little bit about what the Whiskey Six is and what it's going to be. It's basically the six of us coming from different parts of the whiskey industry. And so we're going to be talking about different topics from the whiskey industry. We don't all have to agree. We're not here to just agree with each other, but we're just here to bring different perspectives to the to the different parts of the whiskey industry. So what I'm gonna do is let everybody kind of talk about where they come from, what their part of the whiskey industry is, and maybe talk a little bit about what you're drinking tonight. So I'll start with Todd, we can start with you, and then I'll let you all jump in and then I'll go last.

All right, I'm Todd Ritter. I am co-host of the Bourbon Road podcast and also the vice president of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society. And tonight, I'm sitting on some Pursuit United. It's their double oak. That's a pick we did for Bourbon on the Banks in 2025. All right, Amzie.

Yeah, I'm Amzie Wenning. I'm the president of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, also a board member for Bourbon on the Banks Festival. And tonight I am sipping on a chicken cock single barrel pick from Bourbon on the Banks a couple of years ago. This is distilled, it was contract distilled at Bardstown Bourbon Company.

All right, Jerry.

So yes, I'm Jerry Daniels, co-owner of Snow Fences Tours and co-host of the Bourbon Sessions at the Ripley Mansion, also part of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society. And I am drinking Jackson's Purchase, number one. So their first release of their product at Jackson's Purchase in far Western Kentucky.

All right, Drew, how about you?

I am Drew Hanisch. I am the host of the Whiskey Lore podcast and also author of several books based around whiskey history and whiskey travel. And today I am sipping on All Nations from the ill-fated Garrett County Distillery, which is now again owned, but I got a chance to be there and I guess Jim and Todd also got a chance to visit. Jerry, did you get to visit also?

They had a special like soft opening that we got to go and get a tour.

Okay. So I mean, just about everybody that went to the Garrett County distillery while it was open is on the podcast. So anyway, here's some of their juice. And so I will be enjoying that during our podcast. All right, Jim, how about you?

Yeah, so I'm Jim Shannon. I'm the other half of the Bourbon Road podcast. Humble servant to roadies everywhere. And I am sipping on the Frankfurt Bourbon Society's very own barrel of Castle & Key. It's a little out of focus, but it's a great barrel, a great bottle, and I've been enjoying it now for a couple of weeks. Really good.

All right. And I'm Bo Cumberland. I run the YouTube channel, My Journey Through the American Spirits. Very short name, but big impact. And tonight I am, today I'm sipping on a Remus barrel pick that I was able to pick with a buddy of mine, Steve Akeley, and a group that we went into. Ross and Squibb, MGP, whatever you call it. And we were able to pick a barrel from there. So it's a pretty neat experience. I got to film there and it was a pretty cool experience. So before we get into our main topic for tonight, what I want to do at the beginning of all these episodes is to take just a minute or two each and kind of give an update on what we're kind of seeing from our side of the industry, what we delve in into the industry. So Todd, we'll start with you. So just kind of give an update on what you're seeing, something of interest that the viewers might be interested in.

One of the things that, well Jim and I have been doing a lot of reviews and obviously interviews on our show, but we just kind of survived the Bourbon on the Banks Festival here in Frankfort, Kentucky. A lot of fun. I was unable to attend Saturday's event, but I did. We actually had a big meetup with the bourbon roadies. I say we probably had 40, 50 people come through that evening. We just had a big share, kind of a evening where we shared all the bottles that we received for reviews. And yeah, we had a great time. But after that, I went to Florida and got run out by a hurricane, but that's okay. But that's been kind of my week, I guess.

I wanna say I wish you guys would do that at a different time, because at the time that y'all do your bottle share, I'm filming for Diane somewhere else, so I can never make it, but maybe one year I'll get to make it. We drank one for you, Bo. I'm glad you did, Jerry. We're two. All right, Amzie.

Yeah, so same thing for me. Probably biggest thing is Bourbon on the Banks. I was at every event I think this year. So what I'll touch on, I think, is probably Saturday. I think it was a great event. We sold out every available ticket, all types of tickets that we had this year. And from Diane, actually I got some numbers. 70, let me see, 72% of attendees were from outside of Kentucky this year. We had 42 states, two Canadian provinces, two Mexican states, New Zealand, Croatia and England represented this year. And really from the distilleries I talked to, I think their sales were great as well. A few places sold out. Maybe had to run and get a few more bottles. So, great event.

So, I was actually at the Bourbon on the Banks. We had this table set up. It was awesome. It's our favorite bourbon festival of the year. I think it tends to lend itself more to the crafters' deliveries than like KBA. But, uh, I just finished my sixth day of doing tumors. So it's wonder I'm awake right now. I'm not snoozing. Uh, so it's, it's, it's been a, it's been a fun way. You know, this is October. This is, uh, if you're in Kentucky, this is, if you're coming to Kentucky in October, please plan it out months ahead. Uh, because this is the busiest time of the year. So, so I've been out, like I said, the last six days, I get tomorrow off and then I go back into it for, another week and make it through sometime in November should be okay. And we do have, I showed Jackson Purchase earlier is what I'm drinking. We do have Craig Bean coming to the house on the last Thursday of this month for our bourbon sessions at the Ruby Mansion. And speaking of tourism, just the numbers. So I mean, we know sales are down a little bit, but the amount of people that are coming in 2024 was 2.7 million for the distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. 2025, it was 2.7 million. So the people aren't going away. They're still coming. I know we're way up this year. How the distilleries are, I've been kind of checking with them. They seem to be doing pretty well, so we'll see at the end of the year exactly what the numbers are. But I don't see urban tourism slowing down.

Good. Good to know. Drew, what do you have for us? I know you're not going to talk about bourbon on the banks.

I am not. I didn't get a chance to go unfortunately this year, but now sometimes what I want to do with this is kind of take kind of a hot topic of the day and look at it from a historical standpoint. And I was actually recently doing an episode on Hiram Walker, the famed Canadian distiller. And the research that I was doing was fascinating because I was digging through these old 18 80s and 1890s newspapers looking for information. And come to find out this Canadian trade war that we have going on right now, and I'll just say right up front, I always speak from a historical standpoint and I don't necessarily like judging things that are going on currently because we're not going to really know the impacts until down the road. Interesting to note that as I was doing a research on this, I found ties to the Bottled and Bond Act in a previous dispute that we had over this. Now, what's interesting about this research is that Hiram Walker was actually an American who, born in Massachusetts, he moved to Detroit. And he was a failed grocer for many years, decided to start making vinegar, distilling vinegar, and then got into distilling whiskey just as Michigan went into prohibition. So he decided to go across the river and start making whiskey in Canada, in Windsor. And it was perfect timing because at that point, the first trade agreement was made between the British empire and the American nation in regards to Canada. And it was a free trade agreement that basically was for agricultural products, which was great for Hiram Walker. And it kicked off his business because he was able to send livestock and grain across the border without any problems. The Michigan farmers didn't necessarily like it, but it was great for his business and helped him start his empire in then the Civil War came and that kind of upended everything because the Canadians were sort of playing on the side of the Confederates and the Union didn't necessarily like that and so all of a sudden the free trade was gone after that and for 20 years they were trying to get this free trade back. Finally what happened was in 1887 they came up with the first um aging rules saying that to be Canadian whiskey a whiskey had to be aged for at least two years this was not to retaliate against anybody except moonshiners the idea was that they were trying to get the illicit distillers out so Canadian whiskey always had to have color basically and they also passed a bottling act at the same time which allowed distillers to be able to bottle their whiskey and all of these rules came into effect in 1890, and 1890 is also the year that the McKinley Tariff Act came about, and we got into a trade war with Canada, and the interesting thing about that particular situation versus maybe what we're seeing now, is that rather than retaliating, what Canada did was they just went all in on this bottled whiskey and really selling Canadian whiskey as being something extra special. And because it was bottled and because American whiskey was still being shipped around in barrels, and because there were rectifiers who were making high wines into kind of pseudo bourbon, then the reputation just went through the roof for Canadian whiskey. And they just were so dominating internationally that it came down to a situation where the head of the Internal Revenue said, we've got to do something to compete with Canadian club. And the answer was the Bottled and Bond Act of 1897. And so It's funny, so many different things I'm finding in there. The Secretary of State actually came out in 1890 and said, we're trying to squeeze Canada so that they'll just become part of the Union. And this has been something that's been going on since the War of 1812 and even before, that there's always been kind of this maybe fear on the Canadian side that someday the United States is going to come in and annex them. And it was really interesting reading that, you know, we actually had a secretariat state at that time actively saying, you know what, we don't want a reciprocity treaty right now because we kind of like to put the squeeze on them. Maybe they'll peacefully come in as part of the union. The more things change, the more they stay the same. History repeats all that sort of fun stuff. So that was all just kind of side stuff I didn't share in my particular episode about Hiram Walker that I just, it's been sitting in my head and I've been wanting to talk about it.

Awesome. That's some interesting stuff for sure. Jim, what do you got?

Well, I'm just thinking about, I don't want to go deep into Bourbon on the banks, but I do want to talk about one thing, and that was the large number of distilleries that Todd and I have yet to talk to. And there was a huge number of distilleries there that I was unfamiliar with. I would say probably 20 or more that I've never even tried their product. So I think that's a good sign. I think, you know, because we've managed to get around pretty good. So when we can find that many distilleries at one event that we haven't tried, that's interesting. I think I don't want to make a conclusion here, but I do want to say that We had a great run there for about 10 years where we built up this huge tribe of bourbon drinkers worldwide and it just exploded and it was something like we've never seen before. And of course that slowed down now, but those are all, that tribe still exists. You know, and I think that we see that in tourism, we see that in bourbon on the banks, we see that in the small regional, small local distilleries that are still able to make money by, you know, selling their craft and pulling back from more of a large distribution to more local or regional distribution, I think they're able to survive. I mean, a few years will show what happens, but I think my 2200 forward site is telling me that things are going to be good regionally. They're going to struggle nationally a little bit, particularly those companies that are somewhere in the middle between the big boys, the grand dads of bourbon, and then the small 10 employee distilleries that are just, you know, making great stuff. So the people that are in the middle that try to stretch beyond their walls a little too much are going to struggle, I think. But I was happy to see it. It was a great turnout for Bourbon on the Banks, a lot of great distilleries, and I got to try some whiskey that just blew me away.

I tell Diane every year, I don't know how she does it, but it seems like every year it gets better and better. And this year was no exception. I'm not going to talk about bourbon on the banks because you all did. But I'm just going to kind of tease a little bit about a project that I'm working on. I am currently working on a project about one of my favorite personalities in the whiskey slash bourbon. I guess you could call it the whiskey or bourbon industry, but George Remus. And I know whenever I mentioned George Remus, I either get people like chastise me and say that people like that deserve no, you know, we shouldn't put those people up and honor those people. And it's not necessarily about that as much as it is about the fact that his story, whether you like him or not, whether, I mean, he was a kind of a menace and a diabolical person, but his story is amazing. And it blows my mind that Hollywood has not picked up the rights to this story. And they don't even have to Hollywood it up. They could just tell the story as it is, and it would be a blockbuster hit, I think. So anyway, I've been wanting to do something on George Remus for quite a while. And I was in between projects. So my last project was Lawrenceburg. And then I'm going to be working with you, Drew, on something next year. And so I had a little bit of time. And so I kind of wanted this to be a smaller project, but it's turning out to be a bigger project. But it's still, it's a good thing. So I'm working with Jerry on this as well. Be on the lookout for that. I get to go into Cincinnati quite a bit over the past couple of weeks. Cincinnati is just an interesting city with a lot of interesting history.

Tell them about what you found at the Del High Historical Society.

The other day I was at the Del High Historical Society. If you know the Remus story, you know that in 2021 leading into the New Year's Eve, 2021 leading into 2022 is when he had his big 1921. Yeah, 1921 to 1922 is when he had his big New Year's Eve party where he ended up giving away watches to all the men and and and then ended up at the end of the night, they gave Buick cars to all the women that were in attendance. So it was this big showpiece event. Anyway, we actually found an invitation to that event. So I got to actually touch with my hands and hold an invitation to that event, which I think is like, that's probably one of the coolest things I think that's ever happened. But it was just kind of neat to see it, hold it and, and just know that that That really existed. I mean, that is pretty cool.

Well, I got a question for you, though. You mentioned something about Hollywood should make the movie. If they did, who would play Remus?

That's a good question.

It's got to be kind of a dastardly kind of guy, right?

Yeah. Kurt Russell. I think Russell Crowe would be great.

Yeah, Russell Crowe would be a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Not based on looks per se, but I think George Clooney might be a good one. And just that kind of aura about him.

Kind of a persona that he has. Yeah.

All right, so if you guys are ready, we can jump into our topic. And so what I'm going to do is I've been kind of stumbling through leading this first episode. But what I'm going to do is introduce the topic and kind of get us into it. And then I'm going to just turn it over and it's just going to kind of be a free for all. We can just jump in wherever you want and kind of. you know, offer whatever perspective you want. But the overall umbrella question tonight is does Kentucky need more whiskey? And the underlying event we're going to talk about or the underlying topic we're going to talk about is news of the new Eastern Light Distilling Company as a contract distiller. So we can talk about whatever you want to talk about. I'm not really interested in us deciding whether it's a good or bad idea for Eastern Light, even though it might be part of the discussion. But I really wanted to just kind of talk about the different sides of the coin, because whereas we might could pitch the pros of this being that You know, maybe we do need more contract distilling, maybe contract distilling is, is kind of taking off or. Maybe not. I mean, we look at, you know, NGPs already here, and I know they've kind of turned into Ross & Squibb, and they have their own product line, which is a story in and of itself, you know. But my question is, I guess, overall question is, do we need more whiskey? Because there's part of the industry that we're hearing stories of and being told that you know, there's overproduction. You look at, you know, the Jim Beam has shut down production, which I don't think it's solely because of an overproduction. I think they already kind of had in place that they were going to change out some of their equipment and that kind of thing. But you hear from some of these big guys that these big distilleries that there is overproduction. And so what does it mean for for you know, Eastern Light Distilling that's coming up. And so I wanted to give some quick facts. So if you don't know anything about Eastern Light Distilling, some facts about what Eastern Light Distilling is, it's 230 acre campus, roughly 50,000 square foot production facility. They're going to have a 54 inch column still. They can exceed 125,000 barrels annually. They have warehousing plan, bottling plan, that kind of stuff. More than $60 million in financing for their current phase. And so I guess I just want to leave it right there and maybe start the discussion. But what do you guys think about this and where do you think this is headed?

It's been a really interesting week because I just got off a call earlier this week where they were talking about distillery numbers and what's going on in the industry. And basically this being the first year that there are more distilleries shutting down rather than opening up. That's an interesting, I mean, when I first heard the Eastern light news, I was kind of amazed that the bank would even finance because at this point, when you look at what places like Uncle Nearest are going through, Garrett County, you go, wait a second, is this really a good investment? But then you look at someplace like Midway, Bluegrass Distilling, they're on solid ground and they've got financing behind them because they've built that up over a period of time. They're doing it the smart way. Maybe a bank could look at it and say, here we have some people who are planning on doing this the right way. But it's so funny, I've been avoiding the neat documentary for eight years and I finally watched it this week. And there's a quote from Jimmy Russell and he says, we're making all this whiskey here. And I sure hope it's popular eight years from now, because, you know, somebody's going to have to drink this stuff. And I just laughed because now it's eight years later, here he is, you know, kind of, um, this is that bend in the road. And you say. Okay. Wait a second. You know, now me as a brand ambassador for a whiskey brand, I'm going in and talking to liquor shops and they're, they're saying, you know, well, whiskey isn't the thing right now. Tequila is the thing. But then you go, is that a seasonal thing? You know, or is that a, uh, because we're coming out of the summer. Maybe, you know, this is traditional bourbon weather and people are just going to kind of flow back to that or they're drinking alternate drinks and all this, the rest of this. Um, I think the biggest fear I have is that the industry is talking almost too much about it. And it was probably the one thing that I didn't necessarily want to get into talking down about what Eastern light is going through either, because, um, I think you can create a self-fulfilling prophecy by making it look like your spirit is out of trend. When we may just be going through, basically, yes, a lot of supply was created, a lot of distillers right now who got into this business. maybe for the wrong reasons. Maybe they thought they were going to turn a quick buck and turn it over and somebody was going to buy them out. That dream never happened. And now they're falling apart because they didn't have a long-term plan. I think there's complexity there.

Yeah, I think one of the things that I tend to agree with you on is the fact that it's kind of hard to imagine a bank in this environment funding a new startup of that magnitude. This tends to be kind of a special case. This particular distillery exists in Moorhead, Kentucky, which I don't know if all the listeners are familiar with, but it's a little more rural and remote. It's sort of away from any large cities by quite a ways. And so the USDA has come in and backed those loans to the bank. So they really don't have a whole lot of risk on the line right now for that venture because USDA has backed it for a rural community. Pretty cool stuff, not a grant, but loan guarantees, right? So I think... One of the ways to look at this situation is that we talk about, do we need another distillery of that magnitude doing contract distilling? One of the things it does bring to the table is access to more whiskey by startups, NDP startups, right? They can come in and they can maybe do some really interesting crafty stuff that they may not have had access to before because it's going to create more competition in the market. And I think that, you know, if somebody, if some small NDP can start up because of that and put something on the shelf to get somebody to double take and come back for another bottle, I think it's, you know, it's good. 125,000 barrels is capacity. It's not necessarily what their production is going to be, right? So, I don't know. There's so many ways to look at it. One thing's for sure, right now, barrels are cheap. Right now, grain is cheaper. Right now, those things, those companies that are building distilleries are bidding lower because they need the work. So, putting barrels in the rick house just got a lot cheaper. So if you want to take advantage of investing in a down market, not such a bad move. That's just another perspective on it.

So they're going to be contract only without a house brand. Are they going to have any type of a visitor experience at this distillery or no?

They are, which is kind of weird when you're not making your actual own brand. to have a visitor experience to try. When you come in, you're expected to try their products. So that's a little bit of a conundrum there. But the plan is to have a visitor experience. I think one of the things that helps them is two names, Caleb Kilburn and Cordell Lawrence. These are two well-known names in the industry that are going to be leading this distillery. But it is very odd to see a distillery that is contract distilling only. that is actually going to open up to a visitor experience.

I'd be surprised. I'd be surprised. I'm wondering, I don't think they'll go very long before they have something because you have to have a POC. You've got to have that in-house brand that you use to sell to clients, you know, and show them that you can do it. So I don't know.

Yeah. I'm a numbers guy. So just looking at the numbers, like we know these contractors still, we know MGP. Like quarter one, they were down 40% in contract distillation. Quarter two, of this year down 42%. Barstown Bourbon Company has went from a capacity of 289,000 barrels of contract distillation to this year to 48,000 barrels. That's a big difference there. So you see some of these ones that are kind of dropping like Whiskey House. They were doing 112,000 barrels annually. This year they expect to do 67,000 barrels. But then you have companies like, you know, Jackson Purchase, Western Kentucky Steeleries, where they're pushing forward and producing more. I know Jackson Purchase come out with their own brand. So you're starting to see this, which I think when you have a name like Craig Beam and Terry Ballard, it's probably a good idea to put your own name out there. And Western Kentucky Steeler, you know, Jacob Call just come out. We saw it at the Kentucky Burger Festival with Samuel Paul Whiskey. So you're seeing a lot of these facilities producing their own brand. But it is funny to see that some of these facilities that we know are cutting back on contracts installation, whereas some of these newer ones are pushing forward. But they're also bringing their own house brand. You know, I think when you've got that name behind you, why not? I mean, you have Caleb Kilburn and Cordell Lawrence. Why not bring a brand back? But, you know, we'll see.

I mean, if your initial business plan is to fill a few Rick houses with three or 400,000 barrels, and that's in your plan for the startup, you've got to get the whiskey aging because you're going to need it or not need it, but you're going to need it. It's part of your business plan. They can take the leap. They can take the leap of faith right now because they have the funding, they have the wherewithal, and they have the plan in place that says, we're going to make whiskey from day one. So I think buying barrels cheap and buying everything else cheap, it's an incentive to make whiskey now. So I don't know.

Well, and you've got Powder Jane too. So they'll be ramping up as well. And I mean, that's a great point that you've got to have some whiskey in barrels somewhere to be able to have something to make revenue off of six, seven, eight years from now, or if people are on the hunt right now for something. The question is how many people are on the hunt for this whiskey, you know, and what is the, we've got the names. The question is, you know, How do you sell on that name? How are these names competing against you? You've got Powder Jane, you've got Coborn, you've got Stephen Alley. There's a lot of good names out there. Craig Beam, again, lots of good names. So somebody coming into this market and going, OK, I do want contract distilling. What's going to be the differentiator that's going to send them from one place to another?

I think it has to be the final product, honestly, unless you're talking about who's going to go to them to be contract distilled. But an example would be what I have right now. the single barrel of chicken cock. When I went there, I really hadn't had any of their stuff, I'm not going to lie. And I didn't have the highest expectations. Turns out it was contract distilled there at Bardstown Bourbon Company, you know, their mash bill. And I think it's phenomenal. And So I think they've done a great job. If you try what they've done at Jackson Purchase, their own product right now at four and a half years old is phenomenal. So I guess on some of them, you're kind of going on reputation on these distillers. You don't know what that final product is going to be if it's your custom mash bill. So it is a little bit of a leap of faith and then people try it. So now I want to try other things contract distilled as a consumer that are distilled at Jackson Purchase, that are contract distilled with Custom Mesh Bills at Bardstown Bourbon Company. And so then ultimately, Eastern Light, I think a lot of people that are connoisseurs, I will want to try some stuff coming out of there. Yeah, I think you're approaching it from the other way with the question is, How do you pick who contract distills? Maybe a little bit at each one of them, you know?

Yeah, because there are a lot of choices.

It's kind of the time of the NDPs right now. You see these places like Rare Character, Copper & Cask, New Era, which just opened a tasting room up in Lexington. Nashville Barrel Company, which opened a place in Louisville called the Louisville Barrel Company kind of thing. What they are going after is, some of the big names are really dropping a lot of barrels out on the market. I've seen Jim Beam barrels, Wild Turkey barrels, Heaven Hill barrels. Barton, of course, has always been in the game. I'm curious. How many people, if they are going to start a company that wants to do something like that, are they going to go for something that's for sure, it's been made for a while, or are they going to go with something new, though?

I think probably price will dictate some of that. I was going to ask the question, it's kind of a two-part question, but when we think of At least I do. Whenever I think of contract distilling, I lump everything into contract distilling that an NDP does. If the six of us were going to start a distillery and we went out and we just bought barrels from Jim Beam and bought barrels from whoever is selling barrels, To me, there's a difference in that and going to a place and saying, Hey, we're going to start from the ground up. We're going to, we want to pick our own mash bill. We want to pick our own aging techniques. We want to pick our own, you know, so my, my, my question is, do you think Are you guys like me? Do you kind of throw everything into contract distilling like I do? Or is there merit to having, like MGP does this, of course, but is there more merit to having this company coming out where they're going to say, you know, we will contract distilled from the ground up? But then the part two to this question is, In the same way that you kind of hear talk around the industry that, you know, all these craft distilleries have opened up and now it's about time to see the fluff kind of fall off, are we going to see a rush of all these NDPs coming in if the option is, like Jim said earlier, it's going to be a cheaper option now to start your own Are we going to see a rush of that? And what is that going to do to the market? If anybody and their dad can start a new bourbon fairly cheaply, start a new bourbon brand, are we going to see that now?

I am actually seeing new distilleries still opening up. I guess it's not an overly big surprise. I just think from my own standpoint, I'm looking at the industry going, okay, it's time to take a breather. However, if you want to create something different, I think that's the I think that's part of it. Another part of it is if you want to create an experience. I just had SpyTrail on. They're telling the story of the Revolutionary War George Washington SpyTrail. So they have a story and they have what they call a cypher room, which is their cocktail bar, and they're building an experience for local people. And if you're coming from another area, great too. But they're not actually focusing so much on the distillery as they are focusing on the experience at the cypher room. So, you know, I think that there's different ways to approach this and that you will still have people coming online with a vision. And I think it's a great point to think also that Uh, what we see now is not what we're going to see eight years from now that the industry will again be shifting eight years from now. And that's the hard part for all these people is they have to figure out, you know, our THC drinks going to still be popular are, you know, these. They're complaining about the younger generation isn't drinking, but I'm sorry, I didn't drink anything but beer when I was younger. It took me a long time before I started warming up the whiskey. I think a lot of people are that way. We're anticipating a crowd to be drinking that probably isn't ready yet to step into that market. I think there's a lot of variables going on, but I do see for experiences especially, and then that question becomes, well, what kind of whiskey do you need if you're really focusing on the experience? Do you need something that has a story and how it was made locally, or do you just need a bourbon to sell that you can do something interesting with in your own local environment?

Yeah, I think, Beau, you mentioned two different ways of looking at contract distilling. And I think really there's probably one way to look at contract distilling. So, you know, if you're a young distillery and you've got a vision for a mash bill and you go into a distillery like Southern Distilling or you go into Middle West or some, or Bargetown Bourbon Company and you say, hey, I want to create this new mash bill. I want to make my own whiskey from day one. That's contract distilling. But most of these places, in fact, all of these places have their own match bills in stock in the rig houses. And that's kind of not necessarily contract distilling. That's sort of, you know, those are aged inventories that you're buying from. So, I mean, and some people get them from brokers. Some people get them directly from the distilleries. NDPs can get them from either place. But I think that's a different animal altogether. And it really, really lowers the bar, not the contract distilling, but warehoused barrels of fixed match bills lowers the bar for NDPs to get into the business very, very low. I mean, literally, right now, if you've got $25,000, You can be in the whiskey business and you can have yourself, you know 10 barrels and a license and you can operate and You know, that's just the way it works and you take those 10 barrels and you use those to fund your next 10 barrels and then it becomes 20 and that's you know That's what you can do, but you better be daggone good at marketing right because that Because it's one thing to get somebody to come into a liquor store and see your bottle on the shelf, get wowed by the label, maybe wowed by the story, and buy one. But the real question is, the next time they're at the store, are they going to buy that same one again or not? Is it going to create that second sale? A lot of times it doesn't. You know, for guys like us, Probably doesn't because we're we're dealing with so many whiskeys all the time But somebody that's just looking for a pantry whiskey, right? Somebody wants something they can visit on a regular basis They if they don't come back and grab that bottle the second time you're not gonna be around for a very long time. So Just my take

Yeah. And what I would say there too is for me, sourcing barrels and contract distilling are two separate things. Nothing wrong with either one, but they're just different to me.

Yeah.

And there's always going to be a need though for contract distillation. I mean, there always is. I know it may be a little bit on the the lower side right now, but I mean, there's always brands that are going to pop up, multiple brands that are going to pop up every year and they're going to look at it like, you know, fill in the distillery, maybe way out of my reach, but having somebody make the product that I want is affordable. So I think there's always going to be need for contract distilling. And just, I mean, just looking at, like I said, numbers, So like the whiskey sales in 2024, it was $5.2 billion domestic whiskey sales. 2025 was 5.1 billion. So not like a huge drop off, you know, a small decline. And we'll see at 2026 how that goes. But look at also numbers like 2025 production was down 28%. But RTDs, this year are up 31% year over year. So we, I mean, you do see that kind of change and it always happens where there's a little bit of a change and, you know, the new generations, what they're, what they're trying, what they're drinking. Uh, but it always seems to like bounce back up. I mean, our age, our generation, I think are still going to, you know, want to go and, and see the stillers and try their products and drink their products every night. Um, so I just think, You know, I think it's a small blip what we're seeing right now, but like I said, just from 5.2 to 5.1 B, it's not a huge jump off the cliff. So I think the whiskey industry is doing fine.

I think that's because they raised their prices on all the limited products they put out. Some of those have gotten pretty exorbitant.

The price mix is changing dramatically. So they're propping up sales by adjusting the price mix, and they're not able to take their price anymore. So things are happening. It's changing. But yeah, you're right. We haven't seen the drop off in total revenue, but the price mix is getting beat up pretty bad.

One other thing, what you might see is pursuit. They are taking barrels, albeit it's not their own mash bill, but what you might see is they're taking barrels from different places and blending and making it their own. Maybe you'll see something like that. There'll be some company that gets barrels from Jackson Purchase that gets barrels from you know, whoever, Barton just blends and makes something totally new out of three or four different distilleries products too.

It's so interesting to see the evolution of this industry just in the eight years that I've been around it because I remember a time when you did not see blended bourbon and the whole idea of blended bourbon was You know, you had to sell people on the whole concept and it really feels like that's what we're headed towards is a future where there's going to be quite a few blended whiskeys sitting on the shelf.

I know you can pour pineapple juice into a barrel now and it flies off the shelf.

Yeah, that was my black tea whiskey that I had. I was like, that's what it reminded me of was that pineapple Bardstown bourbon was that, you know, putting tea bags into a bourbon and then having to kind of sugar it down to get the astringent notes out of it. It starts tasting more like a liqueur than it does a whiskey. Right.

Some of those are pretty tasty though, I have to say.

Yeah. No, if you're a sweet tea fan, that one, I was tasting it going, yeah, no, this shouldn't be in Long Island. It should be in having South Carolina.

And it's not just the, it's not just the little small shops that are doing that to try and gain an edge. I mean, you're seeing that stuff come out of Bardstown. You're seeing that stuff come out of, uh, Green River, right? I mean, the honey, the pineapple, whatever that pineapple one was, I was joking about it, but yeah, they really did do it. Templeton with their midnight rye, whatever that was. I mean, it's all tasty, but it just feels wrong.

You're supporting the industry.

It feels so dirty when I drink it.

No, it's that same feeling I got when I, uh, it's funny when I went to old smokey for the first time and was talking to the, uh, to the owners and we're sitting there. Um, chatting about whiskey. And I said, you know, the thing is, is that I pass by the old smoky sign all the time. But when I see it, I'm thinking, yeah, but it's just moonshine. And I'm wondering how many whiskey people go, oh, it's just moonshine, you know, because you're adding a flavor to it. We don't think of that as a technique. And that, you know, that apple pie flavor that so brings memories to my mind when I drink it is an art in and of itself. And same with putting whiskey into a pineapple, you know, who would have thought of putting those two things together?

You know, I wonder if, if part of it too, let's say if we do talk about a slow down. I think maybe it makes business sense to try to make something that appeals to everyone. You've got the purists that just want whiskey, but then you want somebody or you have somebody that wants a bourbon finished with pineapple. Sometimes there's overlap, but that may be two different people or a group of friends. You want to go somewhere and somebody wants something that's a little fruity or more cocktail-like versus the pure spirit. And maybe that's where also blending tourism into your distillery experience is important as well, because that's going to help pay the bills a little bit during the lean times.

I was going to say, one of the things I think bourbon is following in the footsteps of craft beer. We have some craft beer guys here. You're starting to see that envelope push. When craft beer got really hard, you had your IPAs, your porters, your stouts. Look at it now. You've got your hazy IPAs, you've got coffee stouts, you've got everything. every flavor you can imagine, milkshake IPAs and all that kind of stuff. I think bourbon is almost following the footsteps a little bit and trying to push that envelope in what, quote, bourbon can be, I guess, it seems like to me.

You know, Todd, there was also that time when craft beer first became popular that new breweries were opening up everywhere and it's like you couldn't go wrong. And I think we kind of went through that with distilleries and maybe there were some that opened that shouldn't have. And what we've seen is just a little bit of a I don't want to say a correction in the market, maybe more of a return to normal, you know, a normal trajectory, but kind of separating the wheat from the chaff a little bit there.

And the cool thing, not cool, but I mean, one of the things about it is like, you know, Gare County Distilling, Luca, Arianna, these are being bought by other brands that are still going to use these facilities. Hopefully, they like the jobs because this is a large employment sector. When you talk about it still, it brings a lot of jobs to these local economies. I'm excited that these are actually being brought back and they're not just sitting there empty, not producing anything for anybody. I do like the fact that Sazerac is by in Garrett County Distilling. They're just going to provide jobs for people in that local community. So we do love seeing that.

So is Stone Fences going to start taking tours to Moorhead?

Well, I graduated from Moorhead State, Jim, so I know that area well. Yeah. So I know the drive down there, but it's not too far.

We just need to get a chain of distilleries going up through that area up to Bourbon County and through that direction.

Well, if you feel like there is a moonshine trail and if you follow that, you can get your way to Moorhead pretty easily. Okay. Yeah.

I was going to say it's on a main highway. So, I mean, it's not like it's out. Yeah, it's right on 64. Yeah. Not like you have to drive, you know, miles and miles, miles of back roads to get to it.

That's what I was going to say, Drew. I looked it up earlier just to see where the location is on a map. And it's right off Interstate 64, a major thoroughfare. And anybody coming from the East Coast to visit urban country is going to drive, it looks like within just a mile or two of their location. And so I would imagine they would get a lot of people that would just want to, here's a stop along the way to try what they have. And so I think they could do very well with tourism, with bourbon tourism.

If you're heading to the coast going that way, you can stop by Smooth Ambler on the way. And they've survived out there without having bourbon country so close to them.

Tell me this, though. So you guys go visit distilleries all over the country. Are you going to stop at a distillery that doesn't have its own brand name?

That's a good question. It depends on the experience. I enjoyed going through Garrett County. Now, Garrett County did have the All Nations brand, but it wasn't the selling point to me. I think seeing what they were doing and the scale of what they were doing. And let's say you can't make it to Bardstown. You're on that side of Kentucky around Lexington. And I think, you know, it's a little out of the way, but it's not terribly far out of the way. And it's a different experience from everything else that's around it.

Everywhere I go, I look for distilleries in the area and I look for distilleries along the way. If they are sampling a product they're making and I can buy it there, I will stop there.

Yeah, same. I will say when I first moved to Kentucky, I live probably, I don't know what the exact, probably 50 miles from Kentucky Artisan Distillery. And when I first started going to Kentucky Artisan, they were just contract. Of course, their biggest contract was Jefferson's, but at the time they didn't have their own product at all. And that's how I got to know Jade and got to become friends with him. But they didn't have anything of their own at the time. Now they have their own line of stuff. But I mean, to your point, I went there a couple of times before I even knew their story of how they got started and whatever.

Well, and think of how many people have gone on the Bourbon Trail. And yes, there are still new distilleries opening up, but sometimes you want to make something in you haven't done before. And that, I think, leads to opportunity for these new distilleries opening up. even if they don't have a brand that necessarily people know. I mean, when I went to Bartstown Bourbon Company the first time, I didn't really associate a bottle of Bartstown Bourbon Company's whiskey on the shelf. But when I went in, they had a display case that had all of the brands. And that was where I first saw Chicken Cock was, you know, coming back because they had it in a glass case up there. So there is a curiosity about that and going back in the back and seeing all those barrels and realizing that those barrels are not just going into one you know, name brand, they're going to be maybe something that ends up in your backyard.

Embarrassing confession. I still have not been to Bardstown Bourbon Company. Wow. Ever? Yeah. Ever? Ever just have lunch there.

That was the first time I went to Bluegrass Parkway. Come on, Amzie.

All right.

I see it all the time.

We're going to kidnap Amzie and take him to Bardstown.

How are you the president? How are you the president of the Frankfurt Mervin Society? What?

I'm not the president. You've not ever been to Mervin Society? I've not been to Mervin Society. You've never been to Mervin Society? Todd, wow. OK. I've been by there.

Revelations. You've been by there? What was you doing down there to be by there? Work. There's nothing there. Work.

It was lost. Yeah, kind of.

I feel like on our next episode, there's going to be six new people that have been to distilleries before. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I think it's required. All right. So in the, in the, um, in trying to keep with time and not have this be a three hour episode, um, is there anything else that you guys want to say that you didn't get to say that kind of brings a point that you want to bring about this home?

I think when you hear numbers like 16 million barrels, it sounds grand and overwhelming, and what are we going to do with all those? But if you were to have insight into what those barrels are, What contracts are against them? Who owns them? What's the average age? What's the distribution of age on those barrels? What commitments against those barrels exist? You just don't know. You have no clue. So 16 million barrels, just throwing a term out on its own doesn't mean a whole lot. You hear people say how many barrels each Kentucky citizen has, basically. Was it three or five barrels or something like that? I don't know. Do we have enough whiskey? Yes. Do we have enough whiskies? No. I think we can always use more variety. We can always use choices. We can always look forward to, and it happens to us all the time, Todd. We taste something, we're like, oh my God, I've never had that profile, that flavor, excitement on my palate before. It happens a lot. And those are the moments that make people reach for that new bottle, you know, make you want to go for it. And more power to the new distilleries, the new contract distilling companies that are coming up, you know, just because they can make 125,000 barrels a year doesn't mean they will. Maybe they're perfectly fine at 25,000 barrels a year and they could be profitable. with the capacity to expand later. I don't know. That's my take.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of people who are particular types of bourbon drinkers and maybe that will evolve over time. And we're going to see, I mean, right now it's interesting to watch in the market and see people's eyes light up when they walk in and they see like a big case filled with Weller. They're like, we've never seen that before. Right. But then what's going to happen? Well, because it's all around the market now. It's going to become common. It's going to create a situation where people are going to be going, all right, well, you know, we've been on that bandwagon for a really long time. And maybe it's time for us to kind of branch out and start seeing what else is out there besides the same old names that we've been, you know, trying to collect for all of these years. And maybe people will get back to some of those people will get back to drinking whiskey instead of just putting it in the, on a shelf. So. in the back and hiding it, preserving it for profit.

I just think we're going to be lucky because we're going to get some great whiskey at a decent price. We're going to be able to find good whiskey on the shelf at a decent price. And like I said, maybe it's, you know, the secondary market. I think that is dead, which to me is a good thing. I think whiskey should be bought, shared, and you know, enjoyed, not profited off of. So I think it's what we, you know, want to do on this, especially this podcast is, you know, promote whiskey and, you know, promote the times that we have together sharing the whiskey. You know, we go to Frankfurt Bourbon Society and, you know, Ames has got all of his different whiskies or Todd's got all of his different whiskies up there. They're sharing those. So that's what it's all about. That's what Freddie Johnson says, you know, Make memories with it. Don't put it on your shelf and forget about it.

Did the boom in whiskey come from, you get people to come in, oh, I like it. They're trying all of these different products they like. And then because of the boom, have distilleries priced a lot of those people. out of their hobby. I mean, there are things that were $20 10 years ago that are $60 now. That's not inflation. That's something else. And maybe it was supply and demand, but I think supply has caught up with that. And I really wonder if we see the price come back down if overall revenues may actually go back to where they were. You know, economic times have been challenging and some people, it's, hey, I have to eat instead of getting that $80 bottle, $100 bottle, whatever.

I think the one thing the industry can't let happen is let the whiskey get so cheap that it becomes devalued, which is kind of what happened in the 70s and 80s. It just became all bottom shelf after a while. We're not seeing a whole lot of decanters yet, so. No.

We're not turning our brown whiskey white either, so that's good.

Jones I was going to agree with Jim. He says we get to try a lot of fun things. Actually, I just poured a second pour, and it's probably one of my favorite things from this year. It's a seven-year blue corn single barrel that Bluegrass Distilling put out. It's fantastic. If you poured that for other folks, they would probably think it comes from one of the big boys. It's that good. And I enjoy, like Jim said, these new flavors that you just get from. I'm kind of excited. Six or seven years, if we're still doing this show, hopefully we'll be sipping on some of their product and we'll be like, oh, we were totally wrong.

All right. So we'll thank you guys for a great conversation. So before we get out of here, I'm going to start with you, Todd, and tell people where they can find you on social media and where they can look you up.

You can find our podcast on all podcast platforms. That's called The Bourbon Road. You can also email us at team at thebourbonroad.com. That's pretty much it. If you're in Frankfurt, give us a shout. You can always meet us at the Frankfurt Bourbon Society Building.

You can just find me on my personal social media mostly. I'm also on Frankford Bourbon Society, you know, social media as well.

Jerry? You can find us on stormfencestours.com. You'll see our email and phone number there. And we also will share like the events going on to Ripley Mansion and all the things we kind of do.

Awesome.

Drew? You can find find me on socials usually Instagram with slash whiskey lore is the main one and then patreon.com slash whiskey lore Where I do a lot of my posting I'm gonna be to posting a whole lot more of my research stuff out there here in the future.

So Awesome, Jim I'll just sort of ditto what Todd said You can find the bourbon road podcast on all social media outlets and and all podcast platforms But we'd really love you to come to the bourbon road comm belly up to the Bourbon Road Bar, hang out with us online, and be a roadie. So we look forward to seeing you. And we hope you're enjoying the Whiskey Six. Yeah.

And I am on YouTube, Facebook, under My Journey Through the American Spirit. Check me out there. And as Todd lets me know all the time, it's the perfect length for a title.

I do like the acronym version now, though. It fills up the whole screen.

Well, I appreciate it, guys, and thank you for the conversation we've had. So cheers.

Cheers, fellas. Cheers. Catch you next time. All right, folks, well, we hope you enjoyed that first episode of the Whiskey Six with the whole gang. We hope you tune in once a month, both here on the Bourbon Road as we put out our bonus episodes of the Whiskey Six and on YouTube at my journey through The American spirits and checking out the whiskey, the whiskey six there. It's always going to be insightful. It's always going to be a deep dive on a particular subject. We're going to give you six different views of what we feel about a subject. So it's always fun. Always great to tune in. But you can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You can also find us on our website, the bourbon road.com. That's where our listeners hang out. That's where our roadies are. That's where all the fun happens. Make sure you check out the bourbon road.com. Come in, sign up, join in. It's free. It doesn't cost you anything. Get your ID card, get your membership, come in, uh, sign up for giveaways. We're having on a regular basis, sign up for events that we're having that you can attend. There's lots of whiskey to be had, lots of fun to be had, lots of great friendships to be had as well. So we hope you'll join us on the bourbonroad.com. The best way you don't miss an episode of the Bourbon Road podcast is to scroll to the top of that app here and hit that subscribe button. Make sure that you get that notification once a week when Todd and I drop that episode and once a month when we drop that bonus episode of the Whiskey Sex. You don't want to miss out on that. We hope you'll join us every single time. We'd love to have you. It's always fun. But until the next time, we'll see you then.

Too loud, 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 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