61. Big Chief Hits the Road - Old 55 Distillery

Uh, my wife, she was a military brat and we always go home to her mom and dad and stuff. And they have a super nice growler from like the forties or fifties. It's got the big pewter handle on it. It's got all kinds of engravings, all of it. Just awesome, awesome looking bottom. The beer is still in there from like the, from like 1960 is still in there. So they were like, you guys want this thing? They were like, we'll clean it out. And she was like, no, don't clean it out. We'll take care of it. And so me and her are out in a parking lot in Baltimore, Maryland. And we're like, dang, we got to clean this thing out before we take it on the plane. And she was like, open it up. I'm going to drink it. Let's drink it.

I was like, I'm not drinking it. I got to be honest. I like your wife more and more. Like this is amazing. I love it.

She cracks that sucker open and takes a big swig of it.

It's disgusting, wasn't it? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Oh, so I couldn't imagine, you know, when something's that old.

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

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

Hey, this is Big Chief from the Bourbon Road, and I'm up here in Newtown, Indiana, about 45 miles northwest of Indianapolis. And I'm at Old 55 Distillery and I got Jason Fruits, one of the founders and owners of this distillery. Jason, welcome to the Bourbon Road, man. Hey, thanks for having us, man. This is awesome. Man, I'll tell you what, we're driving up here and you get off 74. And there's nothing but corn. I was like children were going to just come walking. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Corn and soybeans like nonstop from here to Iowa, nonstop.

That speaks to my age. Children in the core. I love it. I love it. So you got some whiskeys for us to taste. We did a tour of your facility. We're going to get into all that and stuff, but you know, most of our listeners know big chiefs likes to, uh, get straight to the whiskey. I'm pretty serious about that. So what'd you, what's our first pour?

Heck yeah, so this is kind of what we're world famous for. So we make the only 100% sweet corn bourbon on the planet. So this is corn on the cob sweet corn, just like what you eat all summer long, 100% corn mashmallow on this. The difference is, once again, that corn, like what we mess with out on the production floor, is corn on the cob. So we actually eat this. I jokingly say my nine year old does everything he can to eat the 14 acres by himself every year. He never even makes a dent in it. But it is, it's super interesting, super unique. So this is, I call this dessert bourbon or corn brandy. It reminds me more of brandy than it really does bourbon. super unique. Once again, kind of the big difference there meets all the requirements to be bourbon, uh, just is using that different commodity and a hundred percent corn mash bill. Number three charged barrels, uh, aged for, uh, we're up over three, three and a half years now. Um, really thinking about bonding this product. The problem is I, I sell this out in like weeks when we release it. So, so this is 80 proof, 80 proof. on purpose because I don't have enough of it, and so I need to put as much water in this. People always ask me, we actually do have a bottle, a barrel that Big Red is coming out with here in Indiana, barrel strengthers. We released this as a barrel strength product about two years ago, and it sold out in about two hours for 200 bucks a bottle. And this is, it's going to be pretty close to that with Big Red. And they talked me into selling them a whole barrel at Cast Strength, so we're just waiting on labels. that will be, uh, that will be out here in the coming months. But this is, this is probably our most unique, interesting, like, like I said, what's, what makes this world famous, you know?

So big red is not the chewing gum or the big red soda.

That's a big red liquor store. Sorry. Uh, big red liquor is the largest liquor chain in Indiana. They're monstrosity.

So let's get to this. Nose it very corn forward. Oh yeah.

I'll get, I'll get a lot of ester-y magic marker on the nose.

Say that. Not magic marker, but like that dry, I guess magic marker, dry erase marker. Yeah. I don't know if that's, is that a good thing that you get?

I don't, I don't like it at first. I'll be honest with you. Get a little bit on your palate, take a sip of this and then re-nose it. And you will just get, um, it is bubblicious bubble gum, man, just through and through and through. So the front of this gives me kind of, I'll get this cracker jacks in the middle. I get this buttery oily popcorn. And then at the end is, uh, It's just this, like when you pull open, I mean, everybody's done this. You remember playing baseball when you were a kid, you open that wrapper of Bubblicious and the powdered sugar and that smell, that is the finish on this. And it's just super unique. It's awesome.

So when people argue and say it's not bourbon, it's bourbon has only got to be 51% corn.

Yes. So this is, there's no argument that this is bourbon. This, this is absolutely bourbon. It's just to me, taste profile wise, I mean, I'm a, I'm a bourbon lover. I love bourbon. Um, but this doesn't necessarily hit my, I want to say my bourbon spots, you know what I mean? But it's something totally different. It's just a super smooth, like I said, a corn brandy is if I had to, what we jokingly call this are, um, a spotted unicorn. It is, it's just kind of taste unlike anything else and it's delicious and people just kind of go crazy about it. So I would, uh, I would say this is like Aunt Jemima syrup, almost a syrupy.

Um, I'm trying to think of something else in my mind when I'm, Kind of burnt syrup. I don't get burnt. And it's got very light in color than most Bourbons would be and stuff like a more traditional, like Irish whiskey color to it. And that's the 80 proof too. There's just, there's a lot more water in this. So I always say, you know, if the, if Irishman drank American whiskey at 130, 140 proof, could you imagine?

Yeah, it would be a, yeah. Yeah, not good.

So Jason, so when was old 55 started? When did you guys found out?

So Corporation 2013 started distilling in 2014.

All right. Now how'd that come about? So you're a Purdue graduate.

Purdue graduate. We're about 30 minutes from campus right here. My mom went to Purdue. just always wanted her kids to go to Purdue. My little sister Ashley that you just met, she went to Purdue too. And man, I wanted to go to engineering school. I was a pretty good athlete in high school. And where am I going to go? You know, my mom's black and gold. Why are we not going to be Boilermakers and I think I about gave her a heart attack wanting to go somewhere else, but if you would have told me in my late teens, early twenties that I would be back in Newtown making whiskey, back in Newtown for any reason, I would punch you in the mouth, but here we find ourselves. Newtown is about 90 people and dying is what I say. It is a tiny town. It's a tiny little town, but it is, uh, kind of left and, uh, um, did a bunch of interesting things. I was a casino manager and, uh, loved that ended up getting married, had kids. And I credit, uh, that guy that just walked in my dad with, uh, kind of seeing in me, I think I will, my boss at the time and dad both, I think they saw me getting a little antsy in my pantsies. And, uh, you know, I really kind of wanted to do something for myself and, you know, dad, dad was bugging me to want to, uh, to diversify the business back here. And I'm kind of the idiot savant of the family, more of the concentration on the idiot part of it. And he was pushing me to kind of think of something to do. And I just, you know, I'm like, pops, I'd do anything for you, but I have no interest in coming back to Newtown and my actually Ashley's twin. So I have a little brother that's their twins and he, he gets all the credit for getting me started on all this. Cause he's like, well, we've had this family joke. My dad, he doesn't drink. He's never had a sip of beer or liquor in his life. And so my little brother says, well, let's do the distillery. And I was like, well, that's sexy. You know what I mean? Like who doesn't want to make bourbon? That sounds amazing. So we started dragging Aaron, dad, and I started going around the country to all these craft distillers just, and I'm a bull in a China shop, you know, asking quite, I mean, I'm very much like your partner. I'm scientists nerdy. You know what I mean? Like I'm just soaking everything in, taking every bit. Hey, what are your fermentation temperatures? What are you using? All these things. And people are like, Oh, well, I don't know if we could answer that. I'm like, well, you don't have to tell me, but I'm not going to steal anything. I just want to, you know, and distillers are great people. You know, I mean, most of them like that bourbon culture. Everybody wants to share. Yeah, sure. You know what I mean? And here's the great thing about bourbon is, you know, we could set you guys up in Louisville and you guys could follow my exact recipe and the bourbon would be totally different because we age in a different spot and there's different atmospheres and the water's different and all these things. So yeah, just still kind of a pipe dream. And then dad said, bring me a, bring me a business plan. We brought it to him and he said, let's do this. And me and my little brother, you know, after we picked our jaws up off the floor, we're like, excuse me. And he's like, yeah, let's try it. So here we are now. So six, almost seven years later, we're cranking away. So cranking away.

So the building we're in, your mom actually went to school here.

Yep. Yep. So this is the old Richland township school. So we renovated in 2009, once again, with no, Like this wasn't even a pipe drain. I mean, I didn't even think about it. So dad was using it for a little bit of warehousing and we basically, you know, so the front half of it where the production space is in is where the old two-story gorgeous brick building used to be. And then on the back half that was added on in 1942 as a WPA work project from World War II. Uh, both my grandpa's played high school basketball in there. It's super cool. You guys saw it. Um, that is, um, we saved that.

So the gymnasiums there, we use that as a warehouse and just empty barrels, empty barrels, empty glass, all kinds of stuff.

And then underneath that, what's cool is, uh, we age all of our spirits underground.

So now what's the temperature inside that basement?

So ground temperature about 56. So if it's negative 20 outside, it'll get it to about 50 degrees down there. That's all the, that's all the colder it will get. And then, um, if it's 110 outside, it'll get up to about 66 is the warmest I've ever seen. And that's it. 16 degrees is about all it sways back and forth. So you might.

You might actually have something like Scotland where you don't have that range and temperatures and stuff.

Most of the experts that we've brought in, that's the best way that they've explained it. If you think about that, but here's the difference too, and this is why it's so unique is we're not on the same parallel, so it's a totally different, they're way farther north than us. So it's still different there. It is just a super unique environment to do it in. I mean, we're getting, um, perfect examples. What I told you when we walked up, uh, you know, 99% of our barrels are overproofing. I would have never, if you would have told me seven years ago, I'd have an overproof barrel. I've been like, There's no way we're not, there's not enough movement, temperature, differentiation, you know. Um, and that's what's happening. The reason for that is, is very, there's a lot of moisture down there. Humidity is actually, uh, moving more spirit down there and we're, yeah, it's very just, just very cool.

You're not playing music to it or anything like that.

No reggae music or anything like that. Nothing crazy. So, yeah.

So your angel shares, um, and I'm sure our listeners would be fascinated with this. What, what's your angel share?

So very almost it's a, almost so it, it's just a tiny bit different than kind of like the industry standard. Does that make sense? Like what we're all kind of used to. So it's a little bit less than that. And I do, I do think that's because there's a, um, There's, I thought we would lose less. Does that make sense? Like I thought our angel share would be maybe half or less or maybe a third. Uh, we're pretty close to what, you know, most people anticipate losing like Texas has a 30% huge, cause they monster people are like, why does a bourbon cause more down there? Well, they, you know, when you lose half of it every year because it's 140 degrees in your barrel. And what, what is it garrisons? They had the problems with barrels exploding, right? Did they ever tell it?

We didn't talk about that. We actually had them on last week. We didn't talk about barrels exploding. I should ask.

I thought I heard a story from my distributor that, that, that sells them as well, that they had originally, they had to get special barrels and I could be just talking out my bum right now, but we actually buy their same barrels from where you buy your Yes, exactly. That's what I was going to say. I thought, okay, so perfect. So they made them a super thick stave, smaller barrel. They use a smaller barrel than, than we do. But, um, yeah, very cool.

Very interesting to, to be stronger because the temperatures gets on 30 gallon barrels.

They're up to thirties now.

So originally this is a little bit of everything they've used 15 and you guys look, I see some smaller barrels around here. You've obviously used some smaller barrels at some point.

Um, so remember when we came to the top of the stairs, you know, those two, 10 gallons. Yep. Those are the only two that actually have any spirits in them whatsoever. These are decoration. really expensive bourbon decoration. Cause those barrels could still be used to this day. That's why they have the red bungs on them. They're still, they're still good to go.

I'll have to get my wife off. I'll tuck one of those up underneath my arm and take it home and make some whiskey myself.

Perfect. Perfect. So, uh, the, those two, 10 gallons were, uh, lightning storms that I had distillation get cut short. And I was like, Oh, we'll just put them in there. And they've been in there like for four years. They're so gross. I think I'm going to make some, um, bitters with him. I think. So there's a sweet corn barrel there and there's a regular bourbon and the sweet corn one is like almost five years old in that little 10 gallon. I mean, I, I don't know the math off the top of my head, but that's like 80 years or something. I mean, it's gross. I tried it like when it would have been in there in a year and it was like, well, but yeah.

Uh, my wife, she was a military brat and we always go home to her mom and dad and stuff. And they have a super nice growler from like the forties or fifties. It's got the big pewter handle on it's got all kinds of engravings, all of it. Just awesome. Awesome looking bottom. The beer is still in there from like the, from like 1960 is still in there. So they were like, you guys want this thing? They were like, we'll clean it out. And she was like, no, don't clean it out. We'll take care of it. And so me and her are out in a parking lot in Baltimore, Maryland. And we're like, dang, we got to clean this thing out before we take it on the plane. And she was like, open it up.

I'm going to drink it. Let's drink it. I was like, I'm not drinking it. I got to be honest. I like your wife more and more. Like this is amazing. I love it.

She cracks that sucker open and takes a big swig of it.

It was disgusting, wasn't it? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I can imagine, you know, when something's that old. My buddy, my buddies and I, we got into trying to find these antique bottles and you know, there's different levels of evaporation and we just quit because it is literally you are chasing you're chasing a unicorn. Like it's not going to happen. You can find two bottles the same year, same distillation period, and they will taste totally different because somebody had one up in their window. So all the, you know, it's just evaporated and then like, Oh, and the other one's the best thing you've ever had. And we just, we stopped cause we were just, it was like, there's just, you just couldn't find, you know, I mean, it was just garbage. It was a great place for those to go check them out.

They won't let you drink them. I wish they would let you drink them. But the Oscar gets museum down in Barstown, Kentucky, You know, it's bourbon capital of the world. So people just had all these old bottles down in their basements and stuff and are shipping them to them. And they've got like this entire storage room full of Dusty's. I was like, you guys need to have like this stuff in a safe. Cause it's probably, I would expect up in the millions of dollars.

Well, that's what we did. We would go to a state sales, you know what I mean? And find somebody and we'd, you know, we'd get them for nothing. And then somebody figure out what we were doing. And then they'd be like, Oh, these guys would pay us some money if we won. Then we paid some stupid money for some bottles that were the worst thing you've ever had in your entire life. You know, I mean, it's just, yeah, it's funny. They're doing that now, right? Justin's house of bourbon is exactly as famous for that.

Finding these old dusties and stuff. Well, let's get back to your whiskey though.

So besides the two you're going to let me try today, what else do you guys make? So bourbon is always the concentration. That's 99% of what we do. We do have two other whiskies that are aged in our bourbon barrels. We have a single malt that is aged in the sweet corn barrels that we're drinking right now, which is kind of like a Scotch-esque, peated, all Indiana ingredients, all from us. with Sugar Creek Malting Company here in Indiana. It's just awesome. And that's been super popular. That's been out since December. It just spent just over, just under, excuse me, four years in one of our sweet corn barrels. And then we have the millet sorghum whiskey that we talked about, that wall bash cannonball, which is pretty cool.

So I saw, I saw a bottle of that. Now I saw it. There's something else over there too. I saw, is that just old bottles and stuff? It's got a woman's face on it.

Oh yeah, those are just mixers.

Just mixers. You guys make those here too?

No, we don't. That's another Indiana company, Wilkes and Wilson. So it's just syrups and gums and things like that for cocktails. Yeah. So the two whiskies and then the bourbon. So our single barrels, which are a weeded mash bill, which is what we're going to get into next, which is, which we just released last week in our bottled and bond, which is super awesome. And then the sweet corn.

So man, he, I'll tell you what, I just, he lost me. It weeded mash bill. You know, I, I'm the professed weedy king of Kentucky. I love anything. I want to have every expression on my shelf. I could possibly have, if it's out there in the world, if you're listening to you have one, just send it to my house and I'll try to me. I love it.

I'm the same way. I'm the same way. I told you this when we were out on the production floor. Uh, the great thing about, uh, owning a distiller with your dad and, uh, um, and him not drinking is you get to make everything you like. And I'm the same way. I love readers, man. That's, that's my wheelhouse. So, uh, that is our barrel strength, which you bought, you found a bottle of that liquor barn, right? or two or one down in Kentucky. And, um, that is my favorite thing we make. It is our barrel strength. And I, I don't, I have no idea what that we sell.

They had, I don't even remember, but they were very proud of it because at that liquor barn, which is off of a Shelbyville road out on the two 65, a loop, They actually have a glass case, big bourbon room with glass case back in there, and it was locked up. And I said, hey, I don't want to get a bottle of that. What is that?

What is that right there? That's awesome. That's incredible.

I got on my phone and started looking. I'd like to do as much research. I did as much research as I could real fast. And I was like, all right, this is a weeded one. I want to try this out. I'm going to try it and stuff. Coming up here, though, I loved when we get to go on a distillery. Um, and take a tour and we get that tour that other people don't get, right? Um, we get the inside scoop.

Yeah. I mean, okay. So you did, you got to see the basement. We don't take people on that OSHA, non-approved OSHA steps to the basement. And like, we don't do that. We don't go into the gymnasium. Other than that, we're pretty open, man. I mean, I always tell people, I'm like, my, my, Yeast company. You know, if you're paying half attention, I'll tell you anything you want to know. You know what I mean? Cause you're welcome to try to copy it. I, I good luck. You know, I mean, we're, but you're, you're pretty much farm to steal really.

It's as old school as you can get.

Absolutely. So we, um, have 184 acres. All that comes from my grandpa. That's my grandpa's he bought in 92. Um, we got some new ground coming off. We got some new grain coming off our, um, old, uh, family estate ground that's been in the family for, We just got our centennial 100-year farming certificate last year from the state of Indiana. My family does grain elevators. We're the middle man, so we don't actually farm that. We have custom croppers that do us for us that are super close to the family. Some of them actually are family, like a distant family, and it's pretty cool. So you're growing your sweet corn, you're growing blue corn.

Yep. You're growing wheat. Wheat. Yep. What kind of wheat are you growing? So it's a soft red winter wheat. Just pretty much the industry standard there, right?

Yeah. Yeah. You can do a hard, um, the, there's just not as much starch and you know, as a distiller, I'm always looking for starch. So, um, the hard is going to store a little bit better, you know what I mean? But, uh, won't have as much of that germ in the middle that I'm looking for that I want to convert to, you know, that sweet delicious caramel chocolatey-ness that we all love. And what about rye? So no rye. The closest we have to a rye product and this is it all comes back to once again my dad not drinking so Rye whiskies are delicious. The problem is, is there just, man, I don't want to say this because a lot of people listen to your stuff. So I'm just not, I'm not a fan of most rye whiskies. Does that make sense? Everybody has their taste.

I used to be that way, but the more distilleries I go to, the more I taste. Exactly. Rye's are sweet.

Rye's can be delicious. I just think that from a distiller's perspective, um, You know, uh, Michael Veach will say this night and I agreed with him completely. So he will, a lot of people say there's spice in rye and I don't think it's spicy at all. There's no, I can show you, I can distill things that are spicy and you'll be like, Oh, that's spicy. And I'll be like, exactly. That's not what rye tastes like. Rye is sharp. Does that make sense? It adds that sharpness to it. That's what him and I will always agree to. Um, I, I don't, um, so I think there's two different kinds of spices.

There's a barrel spice. Yep. Um, and which is more heat and there's a green spice. Yep. Yep. The, the kind of spice where I will give me is it's on your tongue. The kind of good barrel spice is in your chest kind of heat.

And, and so I agree with you a hundred percent. And the, the, but I would say it's two things. So that heat in your chest is a distillation. That's from pure distillation. The spice on your tongue, what your thing is. I say it's sharp on my tongue. Does that make sense? It's got that, sharp like I like I when I say that and that's what Michael and I'll say and we'll talk about this and we'll get on our soap boxes and agree with each other is like it's not spicy it's sharp and that's not good it's a good taste factor don't get me wrong rye bourbons high rye bourbons or or rye whiskeys done well are delicious I just think that it's very easy to make a poor rye whiskey and then blame it on that poor rye and say, Oh, it's hot. And I'm like, no, no, this is just, this is hot. You know what I mean? Like it's just a bad distillate. You know what I mean? This is just bad whiskey. Like in your trip, you're blaming on the rye rye done right. Delicious. So we've never done it cause I just didn't want to, but we have a whiskey that's aged on a bourbon barrels. There's just an American whiskey that's called the Wabash Cannonball and that is a millet sorghum. So I say sorghum is like if corn and whiskey had a baby, It would taste like sorghum, so it's sweet, but it's got that sharpness, that spice that you associate with rye.

And what the hell's a Wabash?

Okay, so Wabash Cannonball is a train. It is actually, most people know it for, it's famous for being this old folk song that Johnny Cash made famous. Guys listen to it on the way back. It's a great song. So the Wabash Cannonball was a train, like I said, that ran from St. Louis to Detroit direct. And it's kind of all things my childhood. So the Wabash river is, I don't know, three miles away here. which is what the train was named after. Wabash college is in Crawfordsville. It's a huge deal. The Purdue Boilermakers were, you know, a lot of people think that Purdue Pete is our mascot and that's not true. We have the largest mascot in the world. It's the Boilermaker special. It's a train. So it's a big train. That's the, that's the mascot. Purdue Pete is just like a, he's not even actually an official mascot. It's just something that you drive a big train. around the football field. Exactly. You just run people. Exactly. So, uh, the, um, that is kind of all things childhood and local, right? Is the Wabash Cannonball. So you named a whiskey after it. I named it. Yep. Exactly.

So in that whiskey is that millet sorghum, uh, just super unique, fun, um, delicious. Now explain to our listeners what sorghum is.

So sorghum is basically, um, so if you are, um, is a bushy head grain, so they grow a lot in the south, um, great for make a lot of molasses out of it because there's a lot of great starch content and you can grow it on ground that, um, So in agriculture, we're always looking for efficiency. So, uh, on all this flat dark earth that you came up to when you came, when you drove this way and saw all of this, they're going to grow corn cause we can grow more corn than anything else in Southern Indiana, uh, through the Hills where it's a little harder to grow corn, 10 foot tall corn on. you will see sorghum is a lot more grown down towards Kentucky. So you can use it for a silage feed crop. A lot of them, like I said, a lot of them make molasses out of it. So they'll convert it to straight sugar. So you could make a lot of, a lot of people make sorghum rums because it's the molasses from straight from the molasses. So, delicious stuff and like I said I say sorghum is like if a rye and corn kind of baby so it's sweet it's very sweet but it has this nice spice sharpness to it that you associate with that and now millet is the little balls and bird seed and so it's a weed anywhere else we buy this from North Dakota is where it comes from and it is it's actually very rummish so I say if you took like a OBSV, uh, four roses barrel and you've rum finished it and like a rum, agricultural, uh, rum. That's kind of what this Wabash cannonball tastes like. And it's very interesting when we thiefed it, everybody was like, what's wrong? This is delicious. And I was like, it just, it just tastes like high ride bourbon. I wanted it to be like super unique and fun. And the, and the, the millet on the end does add something to it that is definitely not bourbon, you know what I mean? But the front end of it is like high ride bourbon delicious. It's good. So you're doing some mad science up here. Uh, something definitely mad. I don't know about science. Yeah.

Well, that's to me, that's, you know, you've got your burbs, you get your standard stuff. Um, you never sourced from anywhere else. No, never sourced. Everything's been here.

Everything's been here and we've never OEM either. So we've been asked a bunch to make for other people. Um, it's just not something I guess, um, I should never say never, you know what I mean? Cause I, I have no plans on making whiskey for anybody else or ever buying whiskey from anybody else. But you know, I get, I've learned in seven years now just to kind of, you know, like, Oh, I said, I'd never do that. And now we're doing that. And you know, it's just fun. It's interesting where everything leads you. It's kind of crazy.

So. your steel, how many, how many barrels are you putting out a week?

Uh, so 10 plus barrels a week is what we're doing. So Monday through Friday, um, we have a lot more production. We're at about probably less than a third of production of what we could, if we were just hammering out a nonstop 24 hours a day, which we could, um, with this new expansion I showed you, we can, we can really start to, um, hammer out lots if we want to, but it's, it's more about, um, You know, it's just me. I'm the district around five to 600 a year right now. Yeah, that's probably, that's probably pretty close.

And that's 30 gallon barrels. Yep. So yeah, still a craft distillery at heart artists and distilleries. Michael Leach likes to call it artist. That's, that's pretty awesome stuff. Well, Jason, we're right up against our break here and stuff. Um, we're going to, I'll finish up this corn whiskey here yet before me. There's corn, sweet corn bourbon as you call it. Um, and, uh, we'll come back on the second half and we'll get into that second pour and I'm looking forward to it. Perfect. All right.

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

All right, we're back for our second half, our second pour. We're up here at old 55 Distillery in Newtown, Indiana. Like I said, about 45 minutes northwest of Indianapolis. Jason, what's our second pour here for you?

This is our just released bottled and bond single barrel bourbon. We just released this a week ago. So this is our weeded bourbon, 80% corn, 20% soft red winter wheat, all from the family farm. As far as I know, this might be the first ever estate grown bottled and bond bourbon ever made. So pretty cool. Wow. So it's a hundred proof, a hundred proof. Yep. Uh, four years and about three months in a barrel is what this, this particular one is. And, uh, it is, uh, it's, it's just kind of what I've been waiting for almost seven years to release is I was always pushing towards bottled and bond. I wanted to do, you know, there was, if we could have afforded it, I would have waited and not released anything until bottled and bond. But that's,

that doesn't keep the, you know, definitely has that color of bourbon. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There's no doubt to know that it's bad.

And like the, the barrel strength bottle that you found at a liquor barn. I mean, those are, I call them darkest sin. Like they are, they're dark bourbons. You know what I mean? But that's, that's going to be in the one tens to one twenties is where the proofs are going to be on those barrels and they vary all over the place. Just depending on whatever that barrel, um,

Now what's your entry proof on that?

So, okay. Most of our barrels go in at about, uh, one 12 and a half 56.25. Um, that's where I used to shoot early. Um, to be honest that the real answer to that anymore is across the war. So we have some that I put in this in at 62, five, 125, the legal limit. And I have some that I run down and people like, well, what's the sweet spot? And the answer to that is we're so young that like, I don't, I don't have an answer yet. And if I had to, if you said you have to give me an answer on where you think the sweet spot is, I, my answer to that is I don't think there is one. I think they're all good and different in their own ways. Does that make sense? But that the differences of the barrel proof lettuce go so I already have these are already very sweet whiskey so usually you'll see like you know I think peerless and a couple of the young guys now are going in at 107 that's kind of like the industry standard for these young guys which and there's nothing wrong so lower barrel entry proof sweeter whiskies already crazy sweet you know I mean so I'm not going to say I put some sweet corn down that it'll be out in 2024 this past year and it was at like you know, like right around a hundred proof cause it's going to get cut to 80. You know what I mean? So, but I'm like, let's see what it does. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. This'll be fun. So yeah, very interesting.

The nose on this, the nose on this is a lot different.

Oh man. That sweet corn is, is it, like I said, it's like a spotted unicorn. This is, so this is like, this is a caramel vanilla bomb, man. It is just awesome. So I can get that.

I still, so this is still made with sweet corn though.

No, this is regular field corn, 80% regular field corn and a dent, you know, just a 60 pound, you know, plus a state corn. And like I said, 20% soft red winter wheat. And then it is, it's pretty awesome. So you said 80, 20, no barley in this at all? None at all.

Nope. All right. Yeah, I get that. It's definitely sweet. A sweeter wheat than most, I would think. And maybe that's because it doesn't have that barley in it. Yeah. Or higher corn content.

I think it's the higher corn content. Does that make sense? Well, it is actually is high corn and high wheat, but because there's no barley in there, you know what I mean? And the barley to me is as a distiller is interesting in that, you know, a lot of people aren't even putting malted barley in anymore. It's just barley. Well, it's totally different than the reason we used to put malted barley. And, you know, I mean, for those, for those amylases, you know, I mean, to break that, to break our mash bill down as we heated it up. So a lot of people are cheapening in that. And I just, we use, we use enzymes anyway. So why, you know, I mean, in my first two grains that we had a state grown, we were growing the barley in the beginning were, if I needed to switch to that, we were going to do that. But I really liked this mash bill and it was my stuff. And it's the first stuff we laid down and I've stuck with it since, cause I just, I love the product. I think it's awesome. Speaks for itself.

Super sweet. It's got a, like you said, that toasted marshmallow. Um, I was trying to think that, that there's a little bit of spice to it, just a tad bit or sharpness as you call it. Um, I think when I think sharp, I think cheese, which I guess talking about bourbon, bourbons of food. So that's the category to be in. So, I could get being sharp, but I get that spice a little bit, just a tad bit of spice on the tongue with it and stuff. I don't know what that spice is. Maybe a little bit of cinnamon. Yeah.

All spice, a little bit of cinnamon, and then this like nice chocolatey. Like I say, there's a lot of corn in the front. You get all that sweetness, corn, vanilla, you know, those caramels. And then that nice little bit of chocolatey finish on the end is that wheat that just pops at the end, which is nice.

maybe a white chocolate.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, some chocolates, um, you get that little bit of bitterness with it, but this is more of that smooth white chocolate taste.

I like that. I like that. That's actually a great description too. Cause and I think that's actually more, once again, is, is the distillation is that that heart cut that we talked about, like just being so smooth and such a clean, you know, distill it in and of itself that that is going to, Then more towards your white chocolate description, like you just gave it.

Maybe a little bit of cereal in there. I'd get a little bit of that, uh, you know, taking, going back to being a kid. Um, we got some listeners that'll crack up with this, but honeycomb cereal. Um, I could get a little bit of that in there. I'm just like that, not the honey so much, but that just, that tastes up honeycomb cereal with the milk and stuff. But that white chocolate is definitely coming through at the end. I think this is a great bourbon and it's a bottle and bond. So four years old, are you going to take it older each year or what are you going to do?

So with the basement and just our kind of very proprietary way of aging anyway, I really like where we're at. This is, this drinks a lot older than four years. And I think this is our staple product. I don't know. You know, I'll just give my honest answer. Like I'm not even going to, I don't know. I don't know. Like, I mean, we have some that's older than this right now. Um, uh, we do all single barrels. That's the other thing too. Like people need to understand, um, I don't blend whiskeys. I never have every whiskey that we've released, whether it's a bourbon or a whiskey has been single barreled. Um, I love, to give the clearest iteration or the clearest view of the whiskies that I'm making. So like you'll see on all of our social media, like we'll tag, where's your bourbon from? Like this is, we can go on Google maps, man. I can show you the 14. I can show you the 14 acres of sweet corn. You can see it on from the satellite. You know what I mean? I can show you where everything is. And I love that iteration down to the end of single barreling. So anytime you take a sip of anything from old 55, you are going to, you know, that came from one barrel. That's one iteration. That's one part of my family that you're trying, you know, I mean that you're getting to try. And I think that's, it's, I mean, I always joke, it's just, it's like the, it's like the fruits family motto. You know, we do everything the hardest way possible and then throw more, you know, power equipment at it until one of us almost dies. It's basically like, that's how we do everything. So why not just single barrel everything and make it hard and, but you'll get all of these You know, I always said they're kind of like all your different children, right? You know, every single barrel is a little bit. I always say they're, they're 95% the same, but the magic is in that last 5%. And that last 5% is the difference in seasonal distillations, uh, barrel entry proofs, where they set in the basement. Like, you know, I mean, there's all these things that I'm always looking at these variables, like one whole one, what changed this one? And I can't even say that I like one more, like this one's spicier. This one's, you know, I mean, you're like, well, it's delicious. You know, it's just delicious in a different way. So I think the answer to kind of like what we were talking about with the barrel entry proof is I don't think there isn't it. I think you should enjoy all the, you know, I mean, like just, you know, I tell, but we weren't, we have, uh, you know, customers here in, uh, Indiana that are on multiple barrel picks. And they're doing the exact op, like, so they picked a super high 120 plus proof one. And now like the last one they picked was the lowest one we had that we tasted them on. You know what I mean? Cause they're like, we want to get a totally different cause they're both frigging delicious. You know what I mean? But we want to, you know, we want to try and see, you know, now we've had both. And I always tell people like, you know, when you get down to that last, like poor come by another bottle of barrel strength. go find one because I, you should pour them both and sit and be like, Oh man, I get, you know, I get that vanilla through and I get the, the white chocolate, but there's these little differences and what's the, okay, the proof on this one is this. It's just fun. You know what I mean?

It's a lot of fun as I'm drinking this and we're not drinking out of Glencairns today. So it's kind of hard to nose nose and stuff, but I, and the finish is sitting there and stuff. Back when I was a kid, they had the toothpicks, cinnamon toothpicks, and you'd suck on those and chew on them. And I chewed mine until a nub. So I get that cinnamon stick out of it. Jim would probably think that's funny. But a good sipping whiskey. So I got a name for both of your sides right here. So the first one, you know, when you think about Indiana and you think about music, and I usually name them country singers, but I'm going to go with two, probably a eighties pop guy from Indiana, pop rock, I guess. Who would that be? Mellon camp. So that corn is like sweet corn. Nice. I like it. Corn guy and stuff. I did the melon camp. Now the second one, um, man, It's got a little bit of spice to it, but it's still sweet. Um, a little bit refined, um, more age to it. I'm gonna go with Stevie Nicks on this. I like it. Yeah. I like it. That witchy woman. Beautiful. Yeah. I think both of those, uh, both of them are fine expressions. Both could be after dinner, whiskies and stuff. You could definitely set by a fire and drink them all day long.

Well, we try, you know, when you sip anything from us, we want it to, um, you know, from the family, we want you to taste the quality and the time that's been put into it. And, you know, and I think that's one thing we've done a really good job of is whenever you try anything from old 55 year, you know, you can tell there's been a lot of care put into it, you know,

So whenever somebody comes up to Newtown and they come to the distillery, what can they expect from you guys?

So we do tours, tastings, cocktails. It's always a sibling here. It's usually me. So you'll probably see me. We'd love to have people come up and do tours and tastings. This is just the clearest way to meet the family and see what we're doing and see what we're doing differently. You know, because I just kind of like what I want. When we showed you guys around, I like to explain what we do. We're not doing anything revolutionary. Does that make sense? Like there's nothing at the end of the world. We're not the We're not the first to make sweet corn bourbon. You know what I mean? There are other famous distillers that I'm not going to name drop that call me crazy for doing this because they know. I would say the redneckery that goes into that sweet corn bourbon is obscene, but we're not doing anything revolutionary. We're just doing it our way. You know what I mean? A little bit different and in a way that we can do because we're vertically integrated. So was there a charge for your guys's tour? Oh yeah. So 15 bucks. You get to try pretty much everything that we're making at the time. Tours can last any, I tell people all the time, man, we can do five minutes or you can have an hour long tour. Like we'll nerd out. I, I like, I think education is what we can do that is different. So we like to explain, I like to explain what, um, like I said, what we do differently. And then also like, um, if you want to nerd out and you know, we like, we let you try, we almost always try to have raw distillate on the floor so you can try like, we got that tour today. So we, we, you know, it's, it's just, we want to show off what we're doing. And it's, you know, I think, I think what we really do a great job of is it's me or one of my brothers is going to give you a tour. If you get a tour for my dad that walked in a bit ago, that's like the best one. Cause it's hilarious. And we all drink. He doesn't drink, but like, you know, uh, we all kind of give a different tour. I give the dorky one cause I'm the distiller. So, and I'm, like I said, Purdue grad, all kinds of nerds. So, But my brothers tell stories and it's great and they can tell you everything that's going on. And my sister will be in here. Maddie dog is running around in here somewhere. You know what I mean? Like it's just a family business. You know what I mean? And we very welcome me and we appreciated it. We are kind of out in the middle of nowhere and we always appreciate you making the trip out to see us.

But you're out here.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. And it's worth the drive. We're busy. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I think it's worth it. We're busier than we need to be every weekend. So we're definitely, I guess we are worth the drive.

So what else is out here for people to see if they're like, let's say people, they say, I want to make a day of it covered bridges.

Yeah. So if you go just south of here is park County, which is like a Turkey run state park shades, which are. Shades is, in my opinion, one of the coolest state parks, like hidden jewels that it's just super cool. And that's about a half an hour from here. Covered Bridge is everywhere. That's where the Covered Bridge Festival is, is Park County. So that's 30 minutes from here. Great, Lafayette, West Lafayette, so where Purdue University is about 30 minutes away. So there's everything there. But as far as right here, I mean, we really are in the middle of nowhere. So we're trying to make it more of a destination so we can, so to your exact point, when you come here, you know, everything, you know, there's entertainment, all the above and we're, we're working towards that. But, um, you know, the investment right now and the investment is more about our time. Cause I can only work so many hours a day is, um, is on bourbon. That's what I want to do.

Is there a restaurant in town for people to eat at? There's not, there's not the closest eating establishment.

Closest from here is like, Oh, probably like 10, 15 minutes away. And we have some good eateries and we steer them to business and we do catering and stuff here, but there, there are some stuff, but you're going to drive 15, 20 minutes away to get to anything that, you know, like that we would recommend that isn't just a hole in the wall dive.

You know, Hey, some of those, some of them places are best, best places you can get food. Well, exactly.

But the best ones are 15, 20 minutes away. You don't want to go to the ones that's five minutes away.

I get your hint there. So you got your tours and stuff or you guys have any special events throughout the year that you're going to do?

We do. We're, we're upping those as we go. Probably what the biggest event we have is on August 29th, we have a big barbecue festival. So that is we have multiple people cook brisket. We do cocktails. It's just a fun event. We bring people in chefs from across the country that come in. It's just a blast. And we've got some cool stuff planned. So we'll have 300 plus people. We've got Corey Cox, who's like a local. So like I told you, we're kind of like the the Newtown mafia. So my dad, we're doing the town celebration that day. So we have Corey Cox is like a country music artist here in Indiana and has written a bunch of songs that some of the big guys have saying and he's coming in and performing like, you know, it's just a fun. Any big pit masters coming in for that? Um, so we're, this might be the first year we have some guys that are, uh, uh, pretty famous. We, we got to go down in February right before all this COVID craziness to a Baton Rouge and to, um, John Fultz's, uh, to the, to the Boucherie. I mean, you know what the Boucherie, I've never heard of that before. It is a, it's pretty cool. So it's a, basically a big hog cook-off and they had some of the biggest chefs and John Fulse's, I mean, he, he's just incredible. And so we met a lot of guys that are like, we want to come to the barbecue fest. I'm like, dude, you can come anytime. That'd be amazing. So we're going to invite some of those guys up and so should have some good names and some, some pretty cool people that are, that are out and about and pretty. pretty famous. We're just, nothing's in, well, everything's on hold right with COVID. So we're kind of fun, fun, right? Different world.

So what's the future look like? What's any, any new expressions that, and I kind of picked your brain about finished, finished bourbons and stuff. And we've talked a little bit about everything, but anything in your mind that you're going to think, Oh, I'm going to do this next.

Man, I think the purity is in the process and the purity and the simplicity is in, you know, the clearest expressions. I love bottled and bond. You know, I mean, we just got that out, possibly going to bonded with the, and our barrel strength expressions are, I mean, I think our barrel strength of this bonded Bourbon is is is my favorite thing that I make. It's it's incredible. And it stands on its own two feet. It's as good as anything on the planet. And the the sweet corn is just expanding those things and getting more and more and growing organically. You know, like I told you, we don't we don't really. We don't, we don't at all. We don't do marketing. It's all word of mouth and we want people and we're thankful and just extremely grateful for our customers and that we have the customer base that we do because it's, they create it for us thankfully. And you know, you're here and we appreciate it. And it's awesome, man.

They're actually feeding a family when they buy from you. Oh, absolutely. You feed your family.

You know, literally the only people that work here is my siblings, you know, and I, so yeah, it's pretty crazy. And nephews and grandchildren. Yeah. When bottling happens, it's, it's usually, uh, you know, my mom and dad are signing bottles. We sign all of our bottles and, um, you know, grandkids are riding bikes and it's concrete floor. So somebody gets hurt always happens. You know, I mean, there's no way getting around it. And, scuffle there and then back to bottling. And it's all fun. That's great.

I think you had the biggest hot wheel racetrack I've ever seen in my life.

Yeah. Yeah. Run that right into those barrels that were stored over there.

Yeah. It had to be like 30 foot long. It's actual, it's humongous. I'd never seen nothing like that before.

Welcome to new town, man. There's survival of the fittest, right? Well, no video.

That's a good thing. So where can our listeners find you at?

So distribution-wise, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, we aren't in Chicago proper, but that's going to happen probably this summer. Like I said, it's the nice thing about being in control of everything is we can organically grow. And I don't want to kind of throw up everywhere and then not be able to, you know what I mean? I want to grow and be able to meet the needs.

You don't want to out-kick your coverage.

Amen. You got it, man. the, you know, statewide in Kentucky. We've done, it's been, it's been really crazy. It's kind of fun to sell Indiana bourbon in Kentucky and be, and sell as quickly and as well as we have, which is incredible. Online for your listeners, sealbacks.com. and the states that they provide to you, which I think is up to like 32 states now. You can order direct from online from them, almost all of our products. And yeah, that's pretty much it. Come and see us, come and visit. We'd love to have you. Where can our listeners find you on social media? So old 55 distillery is everything. So Facebook, Instagram, if you guys have questions or you need anything, a DMS or send us a message on there. I honestly answer 99.9% of them. We appreciate it. We try to keep stuff up on there as far as what's going on here and new releases and where we're at and where I'm going to be at for tastings. But I love to answer questions. So yeah, we'd love to have you guys like us on there and follow us and see what we're doing.

So you can find me or the bourbon road on the bourbon road on Instagram on Facebook. You find me at one big chief. You can find Jim at Jay Shannon 63 on Instagram. Come in and join our Facebook roadies group. It's a private group. You'll get to talk to distillers. You'll talk to bourbon, the entire board, bourbon culture artists. Um, you'll get to talk to chefs. You'll get to talk to authors, all kinds of people.

And Jason, you're actually one of our roadies. Absolutely.

It's awesome. Talk to Jason about it. And if you have questions about his burden, I'm sure he'd be glad to answer inside there. Come in there and join. We're doing giveaways now. We're doing all kinds of great things. We're about to release some swag. That announcement will be coming out here in an episode or two. So be looking for that stuff. Be looking for that next big giveaway. We just did one that did great for us. Three great winners and stuff, but Jason, thanks for having us up here at old 55 distillery. We appreciate your hospitality. You sharing your bourbon with us and we look forward to see what the future looks like for you.

Hey, heck yeah. Thanks for making the drive up here and spending some time with me. I loved it. Yeah. Anytime I can drive through a cornfield feels great.

Heck yeah. I'll see you on down a bourbon road.

We do appreciate all of our listeners, and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions, and if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.