63. Heaven Hill Bottled In Bond Showdown

So the only animal on earth I know that can do that's a billy goat and Jim, you fit that, you got your old goatee going there and stuff. And that's a, you're like the master of that yard. You better stay out of Jim's yard. He's that Billy goat. Now he wanted me to call him the goat.

I think that's it. It's going to be the goat. We can't do that.

Everybody, Jim's the Billy goat from now on. So it's, it's big G for the Billy goat and big chief, um, running down the bourbon road. Uh, if you're a cartoonist and you can draw that, send that to us, uh, we'd love it.

I appreciate that, Mike. Thank you so much.

Just as long as it's not a big chief riding a billy goat, we'll be fine.

I know a few artists. You're in trouble.

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. Hello everyone. I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we're broadcasting from Studio One in Simpsonville, Kentucky and Studio Two in Shelbyville, Kentucky. I wanted to say Studio 1A like, what is it? Like in Rockefeller Center, you know?

What was the, what was the radio station up in Cincinnati?

Oh, WKRP. There you go. Oh my God. KRP. 95% of our listeners have no idea what you're talking about. Just the old farts, right?

Yeah. Yeah. We, we, we might be the two oldest guys and, uh, spirit podcasting. I don't know. We were right up there.

I don't know. Old man, Steve Ackley. He's probably up there, right? Yeah. I don't know. You might have him beat. Oh, Mike, what are we drinking today?

So we're going to go ahead. Uh, we had a, one of our listeners, one of our moderators in our group, um, Adam, Adam, uh, he, uh, sent us a bottle of the new seven year heaven hill bottled and bond. Um, so we're going to go ahead and everybody's done this, right? Everybody's compared the two, but we haven't, you know, we were in Kentucky and it was hard to get your hands on the heaven and hill seven year. So we're going to compare the two, um, not blind, but we're going to go ahead and taste them. So the first one we're going to do is that bottled and bond six year, the older one. Um, we both have different bottles though.

So you bought yours in like 2016, 2017 when was that? Yeah, somewhere in there.

And I've kind of figured out in this bottle how you could figure that out. I don't think there's a way.

There's probably a date code on it somewhere, but I'm not familiar enough with. I'm sitting here looking at mine and I don't see a date code anywhere. And the bottom of my bottle stamped with a 17.

Well bottom of my bottle stamped with a seven, a 42, a CPA and some symbol. I don't know what that is. Well anyway, one of our listeners is going to call us out though. Watch.

Well, that's all right. So I, uh, I bought a couple of cases of this, A couple years ago, I'm a big fan of it. I love it a lot. I've had, I've probably had it on my bar for as long as I can remember. And when I heard it was going away, I didn't want to see it go away for a while for me. So I put a couple cases downstairs and I still have probably, I don't know, 15 bottles of it. Cause there are 12, 12 bottle cases.

So that's a, that's a lot of bourbon.

It's a lot of bourbon, but you know what? I drink it. I don't, I don't show it off. I don't have it in a shrine. I just grab a bottle when I need a bottle and it's good stuff down there and they old Billy Billy goat bunker.

That's what I'm going to start calling that place, the Billy goat bunker. So how much was in your bottle, Mike? I'm about, I don't know, I think a little over halfway through that. And it's, that's not a bourbon I pull out too often. It's, it's pushed back and it's not up on a shelf. I just pull it out whenever I want to, you know, enjoy life a little bit.

Well, let's talk a little bit about, let's talk a little bit about the Heavenhill mash bill. So Heavenhill's a high corn mash bill. It's a 78% corn mash bill with 10% rye and 12% malted barley. That's their classic mash bill. They use it across the board pretty much. It's got that corn sweetness to it. Corn forward. It does. It's got a corn sweetness to it, but it's a kind of a roasted corn.

Like Mexican street corn?

Well, there's a little bit of pepper to it. Yeah. You get the pepper on the nose.

Yeah, I get a little bit of that. I thought I was smelling lavender earlier, but I'm not getting lavender anymore.

It's that candle Vivian had burning in there, right?

One of those plug in oil things, you know, everybody, everybody has those things these days.

So I've always thought that this is a, this is a solid bourbon. We had this on a show. Let me think. We had this on with Brian para, um, author of bourbon justice. Uh, he's on the, the bourbon round table.

Yeah. They were talking about a new riff selling off. Okay. I, and who's going to own it and what the bourbons age is going to be. And, um, they just had a long discussion about that, whether it was going to be successful as successful as new riff was with it. Um, and then how much they debated on how much it got sold for. Some people said 25,000 and I think the number went up to like 250,000. Oh yeah. I don't know what something like that would go for. I have no clue. Cause you're not buying any physical stock, right? Or physical.

Buying a brand.

Urban, you're buying the brand. So what does that, what's a brand worth? If you're one of our, if you're one of our listeners out there and you know that answer, shoot us a, shoot us an email and let us know. So let's get to this whiskey, man. I'm, I've been talking too much. I'm parched.

So solid nose, traditional bourbon. It's got, uh, And it's definitely got, you got that corn sweetness on the nose, a little bit of pepper. Um, I get a little bit of like, it's kind of little peanutty kind of those to it. You get a little bit of like the dried peanut shell, dried peanut shell, dried. Well, all peanut shells are dry. Well, not boiled peanuts, but you know, like ballpark peanut shells.

Like when you go to Five Guys and eat peanuts there. Don't they have peanuts there at Five Guys? Yeah. Or that Logan's Steakhouse. I think they went out of business. But yeah, they have dried peanuts. You shell it. I could get that, a toasted, toasted peanuts out of it a little bit. I get the sweetness out of it. A little pepper on the back end. Almost a black pepper on this one. This is to me, this is what in my mind, bourbon is and always was something like this right here.

It's a good solid bourbon. It is well rounded. You know, that's one of the things Brian said when he was on the show. He said, you know, it's kind of whenever he drinks a bourbon, he thinks about how it might compare back to this one. Cause this is kind of his standard of a solid, you know, entry level bourbon. Bottle and Bond, 100 proof.

Yeah. I think it's a great representation of, of the state of Kentucky and, and what a bird is supposed to be. And it's, it's delicious for sure. And that's why I've kind of savored this bottle. But I, I know this fella, I know this fella that, that has the billy goat bunker.

You know a guy. I'll tell you what, I keep going in there and grabbing bottles. I grabbed another one tonight for doing this with you and, uh, and it'll just get, it'll get sipped away until it's gone. And I'll grab another one and eventually I'll run out and I'll just have to. Wipe a tear and move on.

Well, you did a giveaway. You gave one of the bottles away, um, on a giveaway. And then, uh, Randy, um, for everybody that don't know who Randy, if you haven't, you just started listening or, or you're just a couple episodes in and you haven't went back and listened to the old episodes. Randy was actually Jim's cohost and he took off to Virginia to be a mountain man with his wife and ride horses. And I don't know, look off into mountain vistas and stuff. Is that what he's doing up there?

Yeah. He said he was going to write his book and write some music and picking his guitar, picking his guitar.

Yeah. So he brought this on us on this first show I was on as a guest and cheated, cheated me, cheated me out of the wind. I was like, dang it. I know we could do that. I'd have brought a couple of different bottles.

That's called a ringer, right?

Yeah, it's definitely a ringer. He's like, well, he's like, well, it was $15 back in 1980.

Yeah. Let's talk about the price. So this, this bottle could be had anywhere between about 11 and $15 for the longest time, depending on where you bought it. Yeah. And then as it started, as the word got out that it was going to be discontinued, it started to get bought up. And I'll be honest with you, I was part of that problem, but it started to get bought up and the price started to climb a little bit, but it never got really got real expensive. I think it just went up to around 20, $25. And then when it was gone off the shelves, then you started seeing it on the secondary for 50 bucks a bottle.

So what's it go for now? If you, you're looking for a bottle, what do you think?

I have no clue. I haven't looked at the secondary market and prices on stuff like that for the longest time. So I don't, I don't really know what the price would be, but I would imagine it's just as rare as it was a year ago. And if people want it or if it's still got any fanfare behind it, and I would imagine it's probably going to command at least what the new one does, which is right at $40, right?

Well, it was 45 or 50 in some places, what I'm hearing and stuff. People are saying it's triple the price, which would be $45, I guess. You know, is it worth that? Some people say it's better than another one. We're going to find out tonight. I would, I would tell you the bottle setting aside each other. It's hard because they're different bottles all together, right? The labeling is different. But I think that seven years just got a tent. It's a tent darker to me.

It is. It is. I'm sitting here looking at it and you know, there, there's not much difference between them. It looks to me to be about a year. Yeah. Yeah. Years difference. That makes sense, right?

Yeah. So Jim, what are we, what do we got going on right now in the, in the bourbon road? We, we just did something big for us, right? We took a major leap for me and you. What was that?

You mean we put our products on the website?

We did. So we got a new sponsor. Well, kind of two sponsors in one, really. They're distillery products and premium bar products. Distillery products produces and provides glasses and barware for distilleries, bourbon groups. restaurants, bars, whoever out there in the industry needs large orders. You could go to distillery products and they're the wholesaler. They're the wholesaler.

So if you need a case of Glen Karens with, uh, with your logo on it, they're the guys to go to.

They are. And they do great work and they're beating people out by almost half. Um, I don't know, I'm not going to quote that exactly, but they're, they're, They're getting a good product out there for a great price. So if you're looking for a glass provider for your bar, for your group, for your club, your society, whatever you want to call it, give them a call there and say, Hey, the bourbon road, we heard about, heard about you on the bourbon road and they'll hook you up. Now, if you're just a listener, you don't have a group or you want something for your bar, then you can go to premium bar products and you can order just for yourself, a glass or two. You could put a Bob's basement bar on there and they'll, they'll laser engrave it and ship it out to you. Like the next day they're pretty quick with their products.

Or happy birthday dad or whatever the heck you want to put on it, right?

Yeah. Father's day is coming up, so it's a perfect time to order from them too. Right. So the only place you can get the bourbon road glasses is on the bourbon road website. Um, it'll get shipped out. I think that's the next day. That's the only place in the world. You're going to be able to find that glass, right?

Or, or, or, or to giveaway, right? Or to giveaway.

You know, if you're, you see us out and about and we have some on us and, and you're one of our listeners, you might walk up to us. We might have some of the car or truck with us.

So, uh, And if you're a member of the roadies, you know, we give away some glasses in there every now and then and ship them out to people.

So, yeah, just to ship two out today to two guys that, uh, ask a question. And so the first person that can answer this, um, I'll ship you a glass and one guy came in there and he, he answered it, um, partial. So I was like, you know, I ship you a glass anyways. Um, then the second guy answered it correctly and I shipped him a glass. So, Um, we're very generous with what we're doing with our glasses. Um, I think we got a great price on there. Go and check it out.

Yeah. So good quality stuff. Uh, we've got Glen Karen's up now. I don't want to spend too much time on this mic, but we've got some Glen Karen's up there now, but we're going to have some flasks and some two glasses. We'll have some, uh, some rocks glasses and some other things. So it'll be, it'll be, there'll be a lot more stuff on there as we add things, as we add more and more. But thanks to Janie and the crew at Premium Bar Products and Distillery Products, Carson did a great job helping us out. You know, we really look forward to our future working with these guys and we hope that our listeners will check them out.

Yeah. So, you know, we were talking about being out in public and people seeing you and stuff. And me and you went to the Village Anchor in Louisville and had dinner the other night with Vivian in the mail. And, uh, who you think sat next to us, right in the table next to us is Peggy, no Stevens.

Yeah.

And we kind of noticed each other and she came over and we started chatting a little bit and she introduced us to her husband and she was like, Hey, these two guys are famous. And I was blown away. I was like, yeah, we're definitely not, we're not famous at all. She's definitely the famous one. Uh, And she surprised Mel and Viv with, she went out to her car and came back and surprised them two with a signed copy of her new book. that you can find on Amazon. What's the title, Jim?

Which fork do I use with my bourbon? I think that's it. I hope that's it. Peggy, sorry if we got it wrong.

So you can find her book on Amazon. She's signed under the Queen of Bourbon. That's what I always call her. You will not meet a more classy lady And she, to me, she's the epitome of Southern charm. So, you know, check out her website, check out her new book and stuff. It's not just about what you can eat with bourbon. It's how to entertain with bourbon. And she wrote that with Susan Regler.

Yeah. And, and, you know, talk about a classy lady who were sitting there and drink showed up at her table and she just, she wasn't wearing a hat, but she kind of tipped her hat and said, enjoy guys. Of course those drinks are bourbon.

You know, I didn't have a bourbon the other night there. I, uh, I did have a bourbon, but I drank a Kentucky meal. I'd been mowing grass all day and it's hot here in Kentucky that day. And then, you know what? I just said, you know what? I might have a Kentucky meal. It's nice and cold and kind of cooled me down. I was wearing a pair of shorts and, um, it ended up being a pretty dang good night for us, didn't it?

Well, I, you know, I think it's the first night where I've actually felt human since this whole COVID-19 thing, you know, started, uh, there was an opportunity for us to actually sit down at a restaurant at a table, be waited on. You know, still you've got your space between everybody and the waiters wearing, you know, mask and, but, you know, it was, uh, it was almost normal. I almost felt normal for an hour or two while we sat there and, uh, man, I miss that. I really miss that.

Yeah, the nice thing about that place is they don't make you wear a mask there. And we were sitting outdoors anyways, kind of an outdoor seating area they have there. And if you're in Louisville area and you want me and Jim both had the same dish, we both had their fried chicken and it is delicious over mashed potatoes. And I think it came with some asparagus is delicious. And then the drinks, Jim, you're drinking old fashioned, right?

I was drinking a, yeah, it was a, uh, old Forester, um, Brown sugar, old fashioned. It was good.

And that's, that's what we had in our, uh, in our, uh, Kentucky meals. Vivian was drinking Kentucky meals with me. Um, I've, I've got her on that bourbon roll now. So she, uh, she's drinking those and what a great night. And it was a surprise to see Peggy out and then that she recognized this and came over and talked to us about some future stuff. And, uh, And that just made my night right there. Not to, I was having dinner with great friends and then we already having a good night, but that's kind of like the cherry on top of the cake right there. You know, when you get to see her.

Yeah, that was, that was really, that was really special, Mike. So let's, let's talk about a couple of last notes on this, uh, on the six year before we, uh, move on.

I think I dropped a tear in my glass cause I'm going to miss this one. It's all gone. I really am. Um, it is to me, it's, it's a great bourbon. It's, uh, now I'm starting to take, pick up that Oak a little bit, a little bit of not made new leather, you know, when you first get that baseball glove before it's, before you start working it.

Yeah. I mean, I, I still, even, even now, after been sipping on it a while, I get, I really get that roasted corn. I get that roasted corn. It's a little dry. It's a little dry. There's not a lot of residual sweetness in it, but I do get like a little bit of a little fruit. But for me, mostly like that peanut shell and a caramel. Just it's a great, it's a great bourbon. I really enjoy it. Not a lot of baking spice in this one for me.

Well, I'm going to make all of our listeners happy out there.

I'm getting a little crackerjack in this.

Are you? For our listeners out there, I hate popcorn. I hate's a strong word and I hate popcorn. Just buttered popcorn. I can't eat it at all. It comes back to a childhood memory to where my mother would make me eat popcorn with powdered milk. And we were super poor at the time and she was doing her best, but Now I can't eat popcorn. I just don't do it. But, but you know, you give me some, some cracker jacks with some peanuts in there, man, I will tear that up. There you go.

So, well, that's a good one. Yep. So you've related it to a childhood memory and a flavor from your, from your. bank of, of, of food memories. That's awesome. That's, that's what it's all about. Right, Mike?

To me, it is. It's not that flavor wheel, you know, and me, you don't really do that at all. We, we go off our childhood memories or a memory you had as young adult. Um, that's just us, man. What do we say? We're not bourbon experts, but we're bourbon bullshitters. That's right. That's right.

So for you, a little bit of a cracker jacks for me, a little bit of ballpark peanut drizzled in a caramel and some black pepper on the back end.

So spicy cracker jacks, spicy cracker jacks. All right. So we'll see. Uh, we're going to come back in a second half and we'll go ahead and try this seven year out. All right. Sounds good, Mike.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Loghead's Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Loghead's 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 Loghead's home center dot com. And while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at Loghead's home center. All right. We are back, Mike. And you know, I really enjoyed that heaven hill six year bottle and bond. Yeah.

As I just go ahead and cry in that bottle one is empty and fill it back up.

Don't cry. Just call me up. I'll bring you a bottle. But now the second half is here and we get to try something else. And, uh, thanks to Adam Boothby, we both have a bottle of heaven Hill bottling bond seven year.

Yeah. He, he knew what us some, uh, some bourbon up here. kind of our whiskey runner from Chattanooga, Tennessee. How does he get it down in Chattanooga? I think he went over to Georgia and got it for us, but he muled it up here. So if you're one of our listeners and you wonder why we give Adam a little bit more love than everybody else, because Adam's our boy, he hooked us up. You want to send us some samples and do a blind challenge with me and Jim. We're up for it.

So we're going to record a blind, we're going to do a blind episode in July and, uh, we're going to taste some samples from listeners and then we're going to, um, we need two samples. So, right. We need two things that we can taste side by side and sort of rank one better than the other. Right.

Yeah, I'd say so. You know, kind of like I did a couple of episodes ago where I tried to get to that the color almost matched perfect.

Or you tried to, you tried to trick me up.

Yeah, I remember that. I did. I did. Hey, but I will tell you, I'm going to tell this story to everybody, Jim, cause, cause it's funny, right? Um, and then we'll get to the our bourbon. But so I go over to Jim's house other night and we did an episode and whenever we get a bottle from somebody, one of us will pour a sample for the other one, if we only get one bottle. And I had went over to Jim's house and brought two bottles and I poured the bottles and I poured one into like a little plastic bottle for you. And another one, he had an old decanter and I said, let's fill that sucker about halfway up. And so I poured about half that bottle in there.

But you couldn't write on the decanter because it has like a textured surface on it.

So, so I walk in the house and everybody, all the guys and they're like, man, Mike, this bourbon, this bourbon tastes weird. This is, this is not good bourbon. What is this? And we're sitting there trying to figure out what we poured in it. Cause it had been a while. And, uh, I said, uh, I started looking through my phone and post and I was like, man, and somebody had said what I'd brought over there. And, uh, I think Mel did. So she's like, Oh, you brought that over here. And I was like, Oh, that's brandy.

We won't say whose it was, but anyway, it turned out to be Apple brandy, right? But it was finished in bourbon barrels, so it had a real bourbon profile to it, but it tasted a little weird for bourbon.

It definitely made my night. I'll tell you what, I laughed about that all night. So yeah, if you want to send us something, you want to play along with us, we'll do that in July. Send us a couple samples and then in a sealed envelope, put what they are, a one and a two or something like that, or a one through four, whatever you're going to send us in a sealed envelope. And then we'll open it up after we taste it and then we'll see how close we are.

Yeah. And here's, here's kind of an example. So you would send us, for example, you would send us a Buffalo trace and benchmark. That would be like an example. Send us a Buffalo trace and a benchmark. And you would say, taste these guys. Tell us what you think. Or you would send somebody or you'd send us a, uh, you know, a finished bourbon and maybe one that's not finished and have us try them and see what we like better. Anyway, sealed, sealed paper with it that we opened up after the tasting and it tells us what they are. Right, Mike?

Yeah, I think it'll be fun. It'll be fun for our listeners. Uh, and you'll see that we're truly just bourbon bullshit. At least I am.

I plan on being totally embarrassed by whatever sent in. So. It'll be fun. We'll have a good time. But, um, yeah, it sort of is levels of playing field with our listeners, right? They get to know that we're not anything special here.

Yeah. Cause we're just two, two dudes drinking bourbon, two old dudes drinking bourbon broke down. So, so let's, let's taste this sucker. So this was released last year, right? And it wasn't released in Kentucky. Um, it's got to add a deer to it. They changed the label on it. They changed the bottle. They changed everything. It's actually got a cork cork top in it. Um, it's just totally different. Still a hundred proof though. Still bottled and bond.

Three times the price. Three times the price. Yeah.

A lot of people have said that they, they do not like that. And maybe it was just time to time to do that.

Okay. So on the nose, it's, it's getting me with a little more ethanol.

I know it's still a hundred proof, but I'm getting a little more ethanol in the nose, kind of a drying already knows that I, I got kind of got that, but you know, me, Jim, everybody knows that old big chief likes to already start sucking on his glass, like a big old baby.

You know, I still get the peanut shell, but it's more like, uh, A little more dusty, kind of dryer, dustier. I haven't tasted it yet, Mike. I'm still talking about the nose here, but it's, you could tell it's the same bourbon, but it's a little drier, a little more dusty.

Man. You know what I get out of this? I, you know, I was talking about Cracker Jacks and Cracker Jacks, depending on how you get them off the shelf or what, I wouldn't say it's stale, but it's been there a while. It's been in that package a while, but this is like. going straight up to the like Cabela's or Bass Pro shop or one of those places are a fair and they got that caramel or a kettle corn out there cooking. Yeah. Put peanuts in it fresh.

Okay. So this one's a little more savory. It's got a little bit more like, um, a little more tobacco to it. I think a little more, it's got a little more. You can definitely tell more age. I would say not a lot, but a little more.

I get a come some dark fruit in this too. and some better chocolate. Like you ever, you ever, your mom ever cook cooked with chocolate before baking chocolate. Oh yeah. And then you took a, you were sneaking there and take a bite of it. Yeah. Well, I was that kind of kid. You know, I just, I just take a big old bite off it and just leave my teeth marks and everything in there. I wouldn't crack it off. I just bought it and stick it back in there.

I still get the black pepper in this one, but I'm getting a little bit of toffee too. Maybe that toffee is that chocolate. No, toffee is not really chocolate. It's, I like English toffees are one of my favorite candies. So I kind of, my brain kind of puts the two together, chocolate and toffee.

Like that worth it or original, like, uh, that's a little more caramel. Well, they got a tough, they got a toffee. What I'm trying to think what that thing is called. It's not worth an original, original. It's a, some kind of coffee candy.

But I'm getting a little more vanilla in this one than I did in the last one. That's surprising because I, you know, Heath bar. Yeah. Heath bar. Definitely Heath bar. I remember I said the bottle, I remember I said the six year was a little dry. This was definitely a little bit drier. So the more time this spends in the barrel, the drier it gets. It's still got a little bit of that, that fruit, that fruit to it that you mentioned, you said a dark fruit for me, a little more red fruit, but I, I think I prefer this one a little bit over to the other one.

Yeah. I, I think it's a great bourbon steel. Um, I don't know about the $45 price range. I think they maybe shot for the stars on that one or you know, what, how do they figure that out? I don't know, you know, but people were buying it. Um, I don't think it stays on the shelf too, too long now.

Well, I'll tell you this. So here's, here's real world for me. If somebody said, Hey, I've got a bottle of seven year bottle and bomb. Would you trade me a bottle of six year for it? I would say yes. You would in a minute. Yeah. Not, not well, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that I've got a few bottles of the six year, but, um, I think it's, uh, I think it brings something different to the table. I think it's, uh, The six year is solid and it's, it stands on its own as a, as an icon in whiskey. I think the seven years good. I think that extra year did it justice. And, uh, yeah, I would trade a bottle.

Well, you know, who else is coming out with a six year?

Yeah.

Tell me about it. So wilderness trail on June 8th, they're opening back up their, uh, gift shop and stuff. And, uh, they did a hundred bottles and Pat Heist has said they're going to do more than that, but they went through a hundred bottles already. Everybody they're gone. Uh, you had to sign up on their website that day. Um, and I think the bourbon roadies got, uh, their fair share of bottles. I at least know with three bottles, um, I got a bottle, Adam got a bottle and he got an extra bottle thinking that I wouldn't be able to get over there and get a bottle or I wouldn't get online fast enough. Um, and I think a couple other roadies got bottles too. So, um, the bourbon road did pretty good there with the wilderness trail.

Well, it seems like in the roadies group, it seems like wilderness trail is the topic of conversation on a regular basis.

I think maybe that is because we've, I wouldn't say we've pushed them, but you know, it was just the way when we went out there and they treated us, I think. And you know, when you're treated that nicely by somebody, you want to show them love and their bourbon is good. Now I've had people say their bourbon is not good. Hey, I'll sit there and argue with him all day, but hey, you're bourbon your way. I had said this about them. They, somebody said they were too young. And I said, well, at one point, Jim beam was young. One point, heaven hill was young. One point while Turkey was young. Was there bourbon good at that time? Probably was. Um, and I think don't sell somebody out just because they're young. They're making good bourbon out there and it's aged. I mean, they're releasing a six year, right?

Yeah. Six year, good stuff, right? I mean, we're, I'm looking forward to it.

This six years right here is an icon, um, in, in bourbon and people will miss it. So I think wilderness shells doing good things and people are showing love and they're, they're picking up traction. Um, they're like a freight train.

Well, you drink what you like and you know what, uh, everybody out there, whether you have a sophisticated palette and a large library of sensory memories that you can call out notes on a bourbon or not. The bottom line is regardless of all of that, you know, what you like, you know, if you like something when you taste it, right. And some people like something and other people don't. And it surprises me sometimes. There was a bourbon we were talking about the other day and I won't mention what it was, but you know, I drank it and I was like, you know what? That's not for me. And then somebody else said, wow, that's delicious. And that's just the way it works. Right.

I think that all the time, you know, everybody has their different tastes. Uh, I mean, you definitely have different tastes when it comes to bourbon and that's what makes us good as a team. Um, you're a right guy. I'm a weeded guy and I'm never going to try to pull you over to the weeded side, you know, wheats. to me or, or that's just what I like. I got that sweet tooth is that we've said before, and you like that spice and there's nothing wrong with that. People are going to drink what they're going to drink. And you know, you shouldn't bash them for what they're going to drink. And we're going to all going to have, was there, how many people are on earth?

Seven billion.

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And earth, you know, if there's seven billion, there are seven different billion tastes there, you know, pallets. So people are going to drink what they're going to drink and, Hey, I keep, I keep feeding you a ride though. Now here's the thing is if I drink a raw whiskey, uh, is different than a Kentucky bourbon, right? Or, you know, it's totally different. They're sweeter. Um, you get that 95% match bill now. I guess that low, what do they call it? A Kentucky, right? It's only like 51 or six up to 60% bribe, bribe urban, the right whiskey. But I find some of those very pleasing that they taste very good. There's nothing wrong with that. And you know, I, and I try because we are on a podcast, I'm trying to open my eyes to different whiskeys, different expressions, Scotch, Irish whiskey, American whiskey, American whiskey. We're fixing single malts, single malts. Yeah. So the other thing we're going to be doing, and it'll already be out by then, Jim, we talked about how do we engage our listeners more? How do we get ourselves out there more? How do we grow our podcast? And the thing me and Jim came up with was we're going to start doing, which we'll already have an episode by now. is a craft distillery Monday for us. And me and Jim will either drink a craft distillery product and talk about it, just like we're doing right now with these two, or we'll bring them on for about 15 or 20 minutes and let them push their product and we'll taste it.

And we're not going to hold any punches, right? I mean, we're going to talk about what we like and what we don't like. And, you know, here's the thing. Somebody needs to make mixing whiskeys. That's a fact. Right.

Most definitely. And. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. And we're going to have some of those. Somebody has made a mixing whiskey and they've sent it to us. And they're very proud that it's a mixing whiskey, so much so that they sent us a recipe cards for cocktails. And we'll probably try to make one or two of those cocktails on that show with them and drink that. And I'm excited about that episode. And you, you tasted that whiskey the other night.

Did you think, Hey, it's a mix of whiskey or is it just a, I mean, I actually, I didn't mind sipping on it. I thought it was actually a decent sipper. Uh, it wouldn't be something I re I would reach for every day, but I wasn't taken back by it. And so, no, I mean, I, yeah, I would prefer to see it in a high ball or, in a mule or an old fashioned, but, um, yeah, it was good. Zap. It was really good. And, but you know, the volume out there, the businesses out there for somebody who makes a good bar product, right? Something that gets put into, you know, high balls and, and mixed drinks, uh, that's, that's a big market. And, uh, the sippers out there, you know, you and I, Mike, we're sippers. We like to sip on our whiskey, but, um, we're, we're in the minority, I think. Do you think we are? I mean, as far as the 7 billion people on the planet. Oh, yeah.

I think we are minority because here's the deal is when somebody goes to a bar, most people don't pull up to the bar and they're kind of going to get a pour of bourbon unless you're going to a bourbon bar. But if you're going to a nightclub or something, you're not going to say, Hey, let me give me a, Let me get more of bourbon out of that plastic cup.

Somebody's saying whiskey sour. Somebody's saying, give me a bourbon, you know, whatever you'll bourbon and Coke.

There's definitely nothing wrong with that. Now. So I, I went to take some photos the other day for our, for our Instagram posts or our Facebook post and I met a new neighbor and he actually is a sub mariner. And he's a chief also.

Is it Submariner or Submariner? He said he's a bubblehead. Yeah, bubblehead. Yeah, absolutely.

But I took him on a deal and he made a really good post and tagged us in it and stuff. Use a couple of big words in there that I still can't pronounce them right. I had to get Vivian to look it up. And he's like, pretty much said I was a pharmacist dropping his medicine off. Well, I'll tell you, Jim the other day, I saw everybody a little backstory about me and Jim. As Jim said, Hey Mike, I need a rototiller. Cause Mel wants me to put these.

You're not going to tell this story. Yeah. Let's tell everybody.

So Jim says, Hey man, I need a rototiller to put these flower beds in. So she wants to plant sunflowers. And I was like, all right, well, let me tell me how much of space you need. And I have a small rototiller, but my neighbor has this probably the largest rotor tiller that you could walk behind without riding on it. And so we loaded, I loaded it up and I brought it over to Jim and we, Jim was like, Hey, can I do it? And I was like, Hey, have at it, man.

It's like, it's got like a 300 horse Cummins diesel engine on it.

So, so Jim proceeds to push the throttle completely down and pulls the lever and away he goes or across the yard. It almost drug you across yard, but it just is, it was a great site for me. I, I had a good laugh.

I still don't understand what that forward gear is for because there's, I mean, you even tried it, right? Mike, you tried to till in the forward gear and you can't do it.

You can't do it. Well, I knew better. You can't heal. What you're supposed to do is till reverse, get your soil tilled up and not the soil that you have at your house. Cause you have straight up clay and it's wet clay right now. Cause it's been raining in Kentucky for like 30 days. I'm over here building the arc right now. So, um, yeah, it drug you across the yard and I tried it. I couldn't do it myself. So we, we put it in reverse and got your stuff tilled up and, uh, And I guarantee you were sore that night. You're like, I was a little bit of whiskey.

My arms were about three inches longer. And I'm so glad you didn't have your like video rolling on your, on your phone. That would have been so, so good.

You know, I've, I've had a really good, uh, this past week's been really good for me and stuff. Uh, people that really, really know me know that I love wildlife and, uh, we live out here on a farm and stuff. And I was driving home the other day. I think that was the same day. Um, and I saw a baby deer laying in the road and uh, I honked my horn thinking it would get up and run. And that little sucker, he couldn't even get up, Jim. He just, he was born right there in the road. I saw his mom like ran off. And so I got out there being big chief and picked that little sucker up and walked him over and put him in the woods. And I walked back and got in my truck and I waited there for a little bit. And here comes mom. She laid down beside him, started looking at him. So you saved him, saved, saved a deer. Now in four years, four years from now, that deer is going to be up on my wall.

not going to save him. He gets no reprieve. I'm going to save him from other hunters. What I'm going to do. All right. So let's get, let's get back to this one. My final thoughts. What do you think?

Well, my final thoughts, this is so good. I poured a second glass of it. You know, this is some, it's good. And now that, that popcorn, that, that caramel corn, that, uh, uh, kettle corn, it's coming out a little bit more. I can get a little bit more of that. Maybe dried cherries, you think? Yeah. That dried dark fruit or red fruit or something.

Yeah. I think cherries are red fruit, right? Yeah.

So if I see this on the shelf, I'm going to buy another bottle of it.

I think what I like about the seven year is the, it's got a little more tobacco kind of earthiness to it. A little more savory is a little more savory. It's got that dry oak. It's a little drier. It shows its age a little bit more than the six year. And you know, I, I said earlier about the color being about a year different, but I think the taste probably seems a little bit more than a year different.

Yeah, maybe, maybe it was a hot summer, you know, that here in Kentucky for that year, who knows, who knows that dry summer we did. I think actually this, if it, if I'm thinking right at last, if it was bottled, it was poured this past summer or past fall and then bottled, right? Is that correct? That's correct. Last year here was a drought. We have a pond here and that thing, it dried up so much that I could take my tractor down inside the pond and start digging it out. That's, that's dry. Um, so maybe that led to that, you know, that dry, hot summer, um, pulling some of that oak out of the barrel and it's got a little bit more spice to it too.

It does. There's, there's definitely for me, um, a little less sweetness in the seven year than in the six year, uh, little dryer, little, uh, little more leather and oak, but you know, that's, that's the kind of stuff I like. So for me, that's singing my song and, uh, yeah. So heaven hill, it's time to bring this back to Kentucky. Uh, in the meantime, Adam, you can keep sending us bottles. I'm joking.

You don't need to set us anymore, but you know, you know, he would, let's, let's talk about Adam and Jason, our, our two moderators. And, uh, I just want to put a big shout out to, to the two guys. Um, they're doing great things and they're actually doing a giveaway of their own on, on bourbon roadies. That is the only place you're going to see it is to join our private Facebook group. Go in there, sign up. You got to listen to some episodes. If you're already listening and you're not on Facebook, just join Facebook to join the roadies. And that's it. And we're good with that. Get in roadies. Look at their giveaway. They're giving away a bottle of E.H. Taylor Small Batch and actually a bottle of this Heaven Hill Bottle and Bond 7 Year. You know, play along with them. That's two good guys right there.

Two good guys. And, uh, definitely team players and definitely part of the bourbon road family. So Mike, I've really enjoyed tonight.

Yeah. I think, uh, man, we'll have to do this again, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Once again, next week, I think we'll do this every week. What do you think?

Yeah, I'm down for that. Anytime I can sit around and just bullshit about bourbon and, you know, just talk and have a good time and talk about our week and give some people's laugh. I would like to mention, I want you to cut this out now, Jim. Uh, everybody, I have given Jim a new nickname and, uh, Oh, you better be careful here. So Jim's new nickname, cause a billy goat will eat anything and drink anything. And Jim, I'm going to tell you, man, I've seen Jim drink some whiskey that I can barely touch. Um, and not make a bad eye. Um, and he's like, this is good. This is good juice. And then I've seen him eat some spicy food and I will have heartburn. I'll be dying the next day. And Jim's like, I'm fine. So the only animal on earth I know that can do that's a billy goat and Jim, you fit that. You got your old goatee going there and stuff. And that's a, you're like the master of that yard. You better stay out of Jim's yard. He's that Billy goat. Now he wanted me to call him the goat.

I think that's it. It's going to be the goat. We can't do that. Everybody, Jim's the Billy goat from now on.

So it's, it's big G for the Billy goat and big chief, um, running down the bourbon road. Uh, if you're a cartoonist and you can draw that, send that to us. Uh, we'd love it.

I appreciate that, Mike. Thank you so much.

Just as long as it's not a big chief riding a billy goat.

I know a few artists, you're in trouble. All right. So Mike, why don't you take us out, buddy?

So you can find us on Instagram, on Facebook, at the Bourbon Road. You can find me at one big chief on Instagram. I'm jshan63. Hey, and we appreciate it. We'll see you on down to Bourbon Road.

Good. Cheers, y'all. We do appreciate all of our listeners, and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate it if you'd subscribe and rate us a five-star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop in 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.