75. Bourbon and Coke Challenge

We went and had a beer and you were driving. You were a designated driver for the night. And I got the biggest laugh. Everybody got the biggest laugh. Mel was, Mel, I thought she was going to fall over laughing, but I watched your super granddad moves the other night. You sprung into action. And, uh, when I think it was Mel that got out that side and I was Vivian, she kicked a teddy bear into the street. And you jump, you like, you were like, is that our teddy bear? Give me my teddy bear. Well, it went right into the gutter, man. Portable thing. Yeah. You got to protect the teddy bear, right? That was some granddad action right there. I was like, man, is that going to be me right there? I'm going to be springing into action.

You will save and stuff. It's amazing how those skills come naturally. So yeah, snatch that sucker up.

You dusted it off and you were like, dang, teddy bear got dirty.

I laughed so hard, my dang teddy bear, is it my teddy bear?

I was like, man, is that going to be me one day right there?

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 everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, once again, at Jephthah Ben Farrell.

We are. It's hotter than hell outside right now.

It is. I'm glad we're in here with old Woodrow. We've got a great show ahead of us.

Yeah, I mean, I think... Finally, it's hot outside, so we're going to have some ice in our drinks today.

We are a little bit different than we've done in the past.

Yeah, we're going to we're going to sip on six bourbons or some whisk six whiskies, I guess, because one of them is not a bourbon, but we're going to try some Coke with it, though.

So the goal here is to find out which of these six makes Coke taste the best.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if you could go wrong, but you think about being a young man when he went to the bar and you didn't know what to order. And I know every one of our listeners have been there. You're like, man, all these guys are ordering all these fancy drinks and you would go up to the bar and you I'll take a whiskey and Coke or a Jack and Coke or a beam and Coke or Whatever your flavor was, but that's what you knew to order, right?

Well, we've talked before about what gateway bourbons are right? Yeah, but that's kind of the really the gateway into bourbon, isn't it?

Yeah, I think so You know, like I said, you you didn't know what to order when you were younger Nobody ever taught you to say hey go to the bar and order an old-fashioned or a Tom Collins or a dirty Manhattan or I don't know what's up some other cocktails.

Yeah, I don't know, but I can tell you this much big college drink, right? Oh yeah. Bourbon Coke, whiskey, Coke, whatever. And, uh, you know, there are people out there that don't like Coke. I know that there's Pepsi people.

RC Cola.

An RC Cola. You can't even buy RC Cola anymore. I absolutely don't know, Mike. You might be giving away your age a little bit there.

Well, I've never seen anybody go to the bar and be like, I'll get a Dr. Pepper and Coke, or a Dr. Pepper and then whiskey. No, not normally used as a mixer, is it? No, I don't. Put peanuts in it like we had talked about before.

Well, I was talking about, you know, some people may not like Coke, but they probably haven't had bourbon in it before, right? So we're trying to find out, does bourbon make Coke taste even better than it already is?

Yeah. So we got a regular glass of Coke and then you don't know what's in our glass right now. So I'm going to pour them all for you. You're doing it blind. I'll know what's in there. And so I'll have an idea of it tastes better. I don't know if, you know, drinking this many by the end, the last one's probably going to taste pretty damn good.

Right. And we're not, we're not, we're not pulling any tricks here, right? You're I'm blind. You're not, but you're not trying to trick me really. You're just feeding me, feed them to me one at a time. That's a, that's a different show where I try to trick you.

Well, let's do this first one and then we'll chat a bit, I guess.

All right. Straight to the bourbon and Coke. Well, you know, that's how we get it. All right. So I'm going to take a sip of Coke first. All right. Let's do that. And I'm not going to give any notes on it. All right. It's just Coke.

Yeah. Everybody knows what the Coke tastes like. I bet everybody's had a sip of Coke. Now your dad used to work for Coca-Cola.

My dad did work for Coca-Cola for a lot of years and he worked his way up from all the way from warehouse to driver to manager to plant manager to vice president of Coca-Cola enterprises.

Did you always have Coke at your house?

We did. So I probably told it on a podcast or two in the past, but My father was a firm believer in, don't bite the hand that feeds you. So we drank Coke.

So you never had any Pepsi at your house? We never had Pepsi at our house. No RC Cola? Nope. No Moxie?

No, from time to time we'd have Dr. Pepper because, you know, sometimes Dr. Pepper was distributed by Coke Cola. Yeah. So, but yeah, no, none of that other stuff. We could have Welches or, you know, Mellow Yellow and all that kind of stuff. But,

They even make Mellow Yellow anymore. Heck yeah they do. They make Sun Drop, Mellow Yellow, and I was trying to think the other one. Sun Drop's like that in the Missouri region.

So let's talk a little bit about this, the way, the way you're making these up. This looks to me to be about a four to six ounce glass of a Coke ice and what a full jigger bourbon full jigger bourbon. Okay. So you didn't hold back.

I did not hold back. All right. Let's cheers. Cheers. No nosing this, right? Yeah, we're not going to, we're not going to do that.

Well, pretty good. I don't know how to give notes on this. To be honest, I'm kind of taken aback. I'm, I'm, I'm a little unsure of what to say. You know, it tastes a little like Coke and tastes a little like bourbon and Coke. This one seems to me like maybe the bourbon is not playing a big role in it though. You know what I mean? I'll tell you this.

A lot of this bourbon has been poured in Coke before. Yeah. Like lots of it.

Well, I guess my note on this one would be is that you can definitely tell it's a bourbon and Coke whiskey and Coke, but the bourbon doesn't really shine in this one for me.

Yeah. I don't, I get the bourbon just a little bit in there and maybe I poured too much Coke in there, but you know, I was, I was kind of going for that bar thing whenever you go to the bar and how much they would put in there. And that's not that I'm a bartender or anything, but that's what I would expect to get at a bar is about that much right there. Yeah. I don't jigger with that much Coke and just about that much ice.

Well, as long as you make them all the same, it's fair, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, it definitely tastes better than the Coke by itself, but I was kind of hoping that the bourbon would, uh, stand out a little bit more. And, uh, in this case, not so much.

So Jim, man, uh, I wanted to bring this up because we were out the other night and we were all drinking. We'd went out and had dinner and then we went to, uh, we wouldn't have a beer and you were driving, you were a designated driver for the night. And I got the biggest laugh. I thought everybody got the biggest laugh. Mel was, Mel, I thought she was going to fall over laughing, but I watched your super granddad moves the other night. You sprung into action. And, uh, when I think it was Mel that got out that side and I was Vivian, she kicked a teddy bear into the street. And you jump, you like, you were like, is that our teddy bear? Give me, get my teddy bear. Well, it went right into the gutter, man.

Portable thing. Yeah. You got to protect the teddy bear, right?

That was some granddad action right there. I was like, man, is that going to be me right there? I'm going to be springing into action, saving stuff.

It's amazing how those skills come naturally.

So you snatch that sucker up, you dusted it off and you were like, dang, teddy bear got dirty. I laughed so hard. My dang teddy bear. Is it my teddy bear? I was like, man, is that going to be me one day right there? Um, I hope it is. You know, I'm, I'm, I guess I'm glad to join that club and I can't, I told them to bring them over to the farm when he's five years old. That's about the age I could deal with right there. I think about five. Well, they're, they can use the bathroom on themselves or on their own. I'm not editing that on their own, but I think that's the, it'd be a fun age right there where they can hold a fishing pole and you can teach them about nature and say, Hey, there's a frog right there. What kind of frogs that kind of trees that that's a real teachable age.

So it's safe to assume that that's the age at which there's no chance that Michael will be changing diapers.

That's a pretty safe assumption right there. There you go. I'm done with those years. I've given up my parenting skills. That's a parenting skill right there, changing a diaper. Absolutely. I think in an emergency I might, but you know, I don't think there's enough bourbon right now for me to change a diaper.

Well, they holler at you from the bathroom and they say, come wipe my, no, no. And you say, do it yourself. And they say, I can't, my arms are too short.

Well, guess what's going to happen over at Jeff, the Ben farm. There's a garden hose outside. Let's go outside and spray that thing down.

All right. Well, I'm not going to drink this whole one, Mike, but I'd say it's, it's, it's a good one. crunch on a little bit of ice there.

It's a hot day. It is. It's been almost a hundred degrees every day and I was glad to be inside. I finished up mowing today. I did some other stuff, installing some surround sound speakers, which is a quite the project I found out because they're hardwired and not Bluetooth. So that's quite the project to wire everything up and I'm off to work for four days. So there you go. Well, let's, let me make the next one. We'll pause for a minute.

Sounds good. And then we're going to reveal after the first half, right? So we're going to do the same as we always do. We're going to do six of these, three in the first half, three in the second half. And then after we do a round of three, you'll say what all three were. Yeah. All right. So we're back and you've got another one mixed up for us and it looks the same to me, but I'm going to take a little sip of Coke to reset my palate. Reset your palate.

I made Vivian a drink the other night and she said, Hey, pour a little bit more in there, pour a little bit more in there, pour a little bit more in there. And then she's, she's like, that's too strong. I'm like, you said, you said poor more.

You never, you never make a bourbon and Coke for a lady. And you also never put cream in a lady's coffee because you'll never get it right. Cause they can't tell you how much they put in. They just go for that color. So if they just, they try to explain the color to you, you'll never get it. Right.

I don't even know if we were over at your house or we were over here. She said, make me a drink. And I made her one. Um, lately we've been drinking rattlers a lot. They're like, uh, it's a great fruit drink and they're just refreshing and light. Yeah. Um, good for hot day. Great Friday. I was like, we were a friend's house to the pool party. That's where she said, make her drink. And I made her, um, the Jack Daniel's fruit punch.

And then I put more bourbon Jack Daniel's country cocktails. This is not an advertisement for them, but it's pretty darn good.

And it wasn't frozen, but it had plenty of ice in there. We're in a pool and music's playing and we're just jamming out. A second when I made her, she, she drank that. She didn't complain about that one, but I think she was feeling pretty good. Yeah. Now I was a DD that day, so I had to behave myself.

Yeah. So what's DD mean for you? That means one an hour, one properly mixed cocktail once an hour or, you know, that's why I'll drink those grapefruit drinks.

They're 2.5%. Yeah. I caught one hour for me. That was good. It's kind of sipping on that. And, um, No, one hour for me would probably be decent.

That's kind of my normal pace anyway. You know, if I, if I just don't pay any attention, if I just grab a drink, it's usually an hour in between anyway.

So it's not hard for me to be DD. Now I did when we went out the other night, I was supposed to be the DD and you were like, well, I'm going to drive. And I thought we were going to go back to your house and pick up our truck, but The wheels kind of came off at the restaurant.

Well, we went to barn eight. Yeah. Great place.

Oh man. If, if you're in Louisville and you want to go up to an upscale kind of rule setting, um, barn eight, it's 15, 20 minutes outside of Louisville, Kentucky, and a nice drive out there in prospect Goshen area. Great bourbon bar, bourbon steward. I gotta say they're bourbon bar for as young as a bar, they are as they are young as a restaurant. They've built a really nice bar. They got several pigs. They got a gift shop in there where you can buy bottles. You can buy country ham in there. You can buy all kinds of stuff.

Yeah. I was real impressed with it and their food is top notch, top notch. And it's a great place to wander around on the property afterwards and just look around.

It's, it's beautiful. Now you had something that's a little bit different than most people didn't know. They probably would not know they could eat.

Yeah. So I had the, uh, Asian carp, they called it Kentucky carp, but I guess it is out of the Kentucky lake, but it's a, the Asian carp, which is that fish that is infesting all the rivers and lakes in the U S here.

Well, it's an invasive species that it did come from like Louisiana and they were bringing them in there to thought they were going to eat algae and stuff and clear out a bunch of, uh, I forgot what kind of like. algae it was supposed to clean up, but it kind of got out of control and it's, it's made its way all the way up to Minnesota and it's making its way up to Ohio and it's making its way up to Tennessee.

So these are the, when you see the videos on the internet, these are the videos where the guy is driving the boat down the river and the fish are just jumping in the air everywhere, right?

Redneck fishing tournament right there.

Yeah.

And they just jumping in the boat, jumping in the boat and people catching them with nets and I've seen those up in Illinois. I have one on the Illinois river and it's quite the thing to see.

All right, so we got our second glass here and my palette's all ready to start again.

I think it's a little bit sweeter.

Oh yeah. Yeah, that's got a little bit of a Ah, man, almost like a cherry note to it. Like cherry Coke. You think so? A little bit. Sweet.

That's more sweeter. I don't know if you can say it. It definitely is. The sweetness has come through. I like that.

I like that. So I've never done this before. I've never said, you know, try different things and see which one makes it better. This has gotten new territory for me, but I'm surprised at the difference between the first one and this one. I think there's quite a bit of difference there. Yeah, this one's definitely sweeter. Got a little bit of spice to it. But it's kind of got that cherry note, a little bit of a cherry note to it.

I could get that just a hair out of there. I don't know if it's the Coke or if it's the whiskey. I'm not positive. Have you picked up any bottles lately?

Yeah, I've got a couple. I picked up a Russell's pick the other day out of John O's. Where's John O's at? It's down south towards Bowling Green. My son-in-law lives down there and he's a bourbon nerd too. So he usually will see a bottle on a shelf somewhere and he'll give me a call or send me a pick and say you want one in this case. It was a Russell's pick and I love Russell's picks. So I picked this one up. I actually haven't even analyzed the label yet to see what Rick House or anything yet. It's got a nice sticker on it. I can't remember what it's called though, but anyway, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I brought it over today.

That movie was called Up.

Oh, that picture was on?

Yeah, pretty positive. Little boy with the balloons. He's like a boy scout or something. I love it. I think that's a great cartoon. Did you know I'm a big cartoon guy? No, I didn't. Vivian makes fun of me because I used to like Kung Fu Panda was my jam.

So you like the full length feature cartoons like Kung Fu Panda and

You know, I mean, you grew up in that same era where he sat down and our 13 inch TV we had sometimes black and white or, you know, I can remember when we get our first color TV of the seventies and I was all excited. But, you know, we watched time and Jerry and. The Road Runner, Yosemite Sam, and cartoons like that that were just good, wholesome cartoons, and you don't always get to see that anymore.

You think that, but also think about how violent they were. There's no doubt that Road Runner and Coyote were just as violent as, like on, what is it, SpongeBob SquarePants? Yeah, that's pretty violent. I mean, it was pretty violent.

You know, the, the county cartoons that I would watch was the ones with Sam, the sheepdog, um, big old, you know, he's a great pair of knees and they would clock in together and they'd talk to each other and they're like a locker room and stuff. And they were like, have a good day, Sam. clocking in, clocking out. Yeah.

And then the one that would, what was the one with the dog with the little barrel around his neck? Remember that the rescue dog or whatever it was? Big St. Bernard.

I don't remember that one. Yeah.

You remember deputy dog?

I do remember old deputy dog though. Yeah. Yeah.

I just draw McGraw.

I thought cartoons were just great. And I just still today, I, if a good cartoon comes out, I've been to it. Uh, we w I watched one the other day, I just lay down on the couch and at nighttime and watched it and Vivian come in there. She's laughing herself. I heard you like frozen. Yeah, I did. Hey, that's frozen. It's a good, good show. Hey, you grandkids, you better get used to it. That's true. Get them in a car truck. Now you can, ride down the road and your kid, your grandkids can watch cartoons and be preoccupied while you take that long drive. So what do you think, Jim?

Yeah. So this is definitely a super step up from the last one, a big step up for me, a little almost too sweet.

Not, not enough whiskey for me. too much sweetness. That's funny coming from me.

Yeah. I mean, you know, Coke's sweet already. So you're saying that the bourbon is adding a lot of sweetness to it. And I think you're right. It does. Uh, I, what I like about it is that last one was kind of subdued a little bit that we'll call it the number one sample was a little subdued. The bourbon didn't shine or the whiskey, whatever it was, didn't shine. And, uh, you know, I wasn't real impressed with it. I would have certainly sat there and sipped on the rest until it was gone. This one, I'm afraid I might sip till it's gone before we get to the next one.

Yeah, you're hitting it pretty hard. Well, I don't have to drive anymore today. So I'm almost done with my projects for today. I got that project and I got another little project I got to do, but I might skip that. I might push it off till the next day. You start pushing one project off and then it just snowballs on you. Especially if you have a farm. There's something, you know that, right? With barn and horses.

Oh yeah. And I told you about what we did the other day, right? A little Mr. Oreo. Oh man, that poor fellow. So, you know, we've got a couple of goats. Yeah. Well, you know the story. We've got two goats, Oreo and Peanut. Boy and girl twins. They're American pygmy goats. Absolutely darling, you know. But, you know, Mr. Oreo is getting to the age now where he likes to be on top of Miss Peanut all the time. He's feeling his oats. He's feeling his oats. So we called the vet up and said, you know, it's time. And he came out and You know, with his sharp knife and dropped them to the ground.

So poor little fella, poor little guy. He just looks at me now like I have just sinned against him. Something serious. Poor fella. Those goats, you definitely, and I've talked about this before, you built them the Taj Mahal goat houses. They got a rope bridge to run across and live in there with the chickens and they're just, There's a bench in there. Have you replaced the bench yet?

No, but I'm going to. I've got one my dad built. I'm going to put it in there.

Yeah. Cause that, them goats get their head in that bench and that's not going to be a pretty sight. Right. Oreo is already having a bad day.

You don't want to make it worse. You know, I think that he'll probably, they said it'll take a day or two for him to come around, but yeah, it's rough. It's rough. Cause you know, they, you know, a lot of times they'll band them when they're younger and then they just walk around with it until it falls off. But when they get a little bit older, you can't do that. You can't ban them anymore because it has a negative effect on a goat. And they say don't ban them after three or four months old.

Some people might think that's cruel, but that's farm life right there for you. There's nothing shy about it. I grew up with that. It's just part of life on a farm or a ranch.

All right. You ready to move on to the next one, Mike? Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. All right. So you've put together the third one for me here. Yup. I've already tasted my plain Coke, so I'm ready to go.

Let me get a sip of that plain Coke, just to see what it... I figured out that a can of Coke will make four drinks.

Four drinks. So three. Oh yeah. So about a four to five ounce drink, right? So can't, so that would be three ounces of Coke and an ounce of how half a bourbon. Yeah. Yeah. Four and a half out there. Plus the ice you're at. Yeah. Some bartender out there will tell us we're wrong, but I'm sure now this one here definitely has less sweetness. I'm not getting any cherry notes on it.

It does stand out a little bit, but it's almost like it's got a little bit more of a licorice kind of. I'm getting a caramel out of that that brings that caramel out of that Coke a little bit.

That's pretty good. I can taste that bourbon. Yeah, I can taste the bourbon. It's not overly sweet. So this one would be more of a, I think it's more complimentary. It doesn't like overpower your sweetness. I don't know if it's better than number two. It's just different. I think I'd be happy to drink this one. What about number one? Number one for me was just a little, the bourbon just didn't shine enough for me.

Really?

No. I mean, it was okay. It was fine. I mean, I would have been happy in a hot day out of the pool or something and cutting grass to have it. I mean, it's kind of hard to drink straight bourbon while you're on a tractor cutting grass.

Well, I'll tell you what, I have a commercial zero turn. And if you can drink and operate that thing at the same time, you're some magician. Cause I can't do it. I've tried and I've tried to drink a beer one time, but when you're in your tractor, you can on the tractor.

I could, I could do it.

I gotta be a little bit more careful. Cause I got this thing called a flail mower and it's kind of like a rototiller. It's got these 54 blades of sling around. And if you were not careful with that thing, you can, It just, you could lower it too low and it'll just chew up the dirt. Sure. It'll kill your grass. So you gotta be careful. It's, it's more between a finished mower and a bush hog. Do you got a finished mower on your tractor?

I've got a belly mower on my truck. And it does a, it does a fine job. Not quite a zero turn and a little more maneuvering to do to get around a tree, but it works.

Well, your, your place is flat.

Yeah, my place is flat, but the reason I don't have a zero turn, we did when we moved in, we had a zero turn. And the reason I got rid of the zero turn and went to the Bellymore on the tractor was because the horses leave enough divots out in the pasture. You will flat out beat yourself to death on a zero turn. It's just the tires are just too. whether that, you know, when the tire is three foot tall, four foot tall, whatever our tractor tires are, you don't feel the bumps. Sure. Plus you're sitting on a seat. It's all, you know, shock absorbered and well, that's what I got on my zero turn.

It's, it's commercial, so it's, it's made for rough and tumble, but you, you see how the, jump to Ben Farms laid out. It's a lot of hills. Yeah. Yeah.

The thing does it's fair share of climbing hills. It definitely is.

Uh, it's, it's, it saved me a lot of time and a lot of effort cutting with that thing. Cause you just go so fast, spin around and come back up the hill and down the hill. And I don't let Vivian drive it around that. She's, I tried to, she just doing wheelies the whole time. Yeah, I like this in here.

Yeah, it's pretty good. This one backs off that sweetness a little bit, gives you a little bit more solid bourbon flavor that's not so sweet. It does bring out the caramel. I get a little bit of licorice in there, a little bit of anise. I don't know, maybe it's just something in the bourbon that's coming out. But you know, we, we typically drink bourbon straight on the show. I mean, that's the way you and I prefer it. You get it in the heat of summer time. Sometimes it's good to have a mule. Sometimes it's good to have a mixed drink, a bourbon and Coke. There's nothing wrong with it. Got a lot of people that drink those.

And I drank, uh, out there at bar and eight, I drank a Kentucky meal and then I drank, I call it Kentucky punch. They made one up for me.

What did she use in there? What'd she say?

She, uh, raspberry juice, raspberry juice. I couldn't taste the raspberry. I don't like raspberries either, but, uh, it tasted pretty, maybe it's cause I was already feeling pretty good. Cause we'd had a drink before we came to your house. And then I think, did we have a drink at your house? I think we did. Yeah, we did. Cause we did some reviews and then we got there and had three or four drinks and then went to the barrel room and had some more drinks and I was feeling pretty good by the end of the night.

Well, Mike, I'm ready to wrap up this round. What do you think? I've got my choices. So since I'm the one blind, I should probably list them, right? Let's hear it. All right. So I'm going to go three, two, one, but I will, I will make this note. Number two would be preferable in certain situations where I might want a sweeter drink. Three's your number one?

Three's my top one right now so far. This one we're drinking right now. Amazing.

Simply amazing. Is it? Well, you know, it's blind. I've never done a blind with Coke before.

So, okay, let's do this reveal. So what is your favorite bourbon? What's your go-to bourbon? Wild Turkey 101. Man. So number three is larceny. Wow. Okay. So number two was Wild Turkey. No. Number one. Forster Rye. Oh, it was. That sweetness. That was amazing. Yeah. And then Wild Turkey 101 was last place.

Hey, you know what? I like Wild Turkey 101. Obviously it's not my favorite thing to put in Coke.

Yeah, I just, I was surprised by that. I was actually surprised by the taste of it. And I've had that in a bar before, cause that's sometimes you go to a bar and that's all they got on the shelf for a bourbon is they'll have Jim beam or wild turkey or yeah.

So this is larceny in our glass right now of the three. It's the best number two, the full Forrester rye also very good, but surprisingly sweet with a cherry note.

It was super sweet. I thought I was,

Yeah.

Almost too sweet for me. Um, but I don't, I try not to drink Coke anymore. I just, I just don't, um, nothing with sugar in it.

So I wonder for those people who drink diet Cokes, maybe the old Forrester rye would be exceptional in a diet Coke where the sweetness is not as much.

Well, a lot of people are not drinking the diet Coke anymore. They're drinking Coke zero. Coke zero. And I, I, you know, if you drink a diet Coke and a Coke zero, they do taste totally different. They are different. Yeah. So I don't, I don't know. You know, I, I, I'm with you on the, I would be a three, one and a two. Okay.

Cause it was too sweet for you on number two. Yeah.

Okay. Fair enough. This, you know, right up my alley is larceny. I think it's a great bourbon. I think it gets overlooked and beat up because I think when people drink just let's say Kentucky bourbon, right? It's not a wheat. It's just a rye bourbon. That's what they're used to. And they try to go something new and they're like, Oh, I'm going to try this larceny out. They don't know. Some people don't even know it's a weeded bourbon, right? So then they try and they're like, I don't like this. I don't like this profile. Um, and I've heard that said about some other whiskies from other States are like, Oh, that's not my profile. And I, I just don't think they've drank it before. So they don't understand that taste. They're getting, um, it's something new to them. It's, it's different. So it's like eating a new food. You know, you might need to eat it a couple of times. First time I ate Indian food, I was like, Hmm, I don't know if I like this or not today, but now I love it. I've eaten enough of it.

Well, Mike, you definitely surprised me on this one, no doubt about it, but you know, larceny and coke is a good mix. I think it won this round. I'm ready to get into round two.

Oh man. There's we got three, three good, um, whiskies up there in the, I point out that. except for one of them, you can get these almost anywhere.

Okay. For all six, all six of them.

Right. Yeah. I think you'd be able to pick it up on the shelf. One of them, you're going to have to hunt for, but it's available in all 50 states. It is. You just really have to hunt. Right.

So nothing we're drinking today is available, including Coke is available, you know, in certain states, you can get it in all 50 states.

Most definitely. All right. Well, let's take a short break.

When we come back, we've got three more to try. All right. 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 Logheads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled woodcrafters 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 rot and 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 LogHeads Home Center. And we're back and ready for round two of what whiskey makes Coke taste better.

Yeah. So we got a last round. We had some, uh, wild turkey. We had some old phone 101, 101, just standard. No one and all this stuff we've each one of us has in our bar. Um, so we had wild turkey, 101. We had oh, four for sure. I, UFO as most people around here would say. And then we had Larseny, just their standard, not the barrel proof. 94 proof. Yeah. 94 proof. So Larseny won first round. First round. Yeah. Surprising.

It was. Well for you, for you, you know, cause you know, I'm a Wild Turkey 101 fan.

Love it. I was actually kind of surprised that I thought myself, I was like, man, this is, I'm going to like, the wild turkey one-on-one better in this just because it's, it's stronger, a little bit more alcohol, a little bit more spice to it. Yeah. Yeah. But it just didn't shine, did it? I mean, it was better to me than the rice. So, so this one right here, let's, let's taste this joker. You got me going now. I'm primed up, Jim.

All right. So again, reset our pallets with straight old Coke and, uh, Now we're tasting.

You ever ride around in a Coke truck, go to the Coke plant and see how they make it. Absolutely.

So more times than I can remember, I went out in the truck with my dad. Oh, he would work sometimes on a Saturday or something and I'd go out with him. I can remember he was delivering to the prison once and I sat out in a truck while he went into the prison and they're getting Coke at the prison. Well, yeah, of course. They live well.

Oh my gosh.

Well, they don't live well. They're locked up, but yeah, they get Coke. Let's try this one right here.

All right. That's a bourbon and Coke right there.

I'm chewing on the ice. Sorry for the mic noise, everybody. I can't help it. That ice is right there and it's, it's a good hot day. I would have to say that that's a solid bourbon and Coke.

Yeah, that's a little better on the back end though. Yeah, I could see that with that little brand. Uh, but yeah, it's good. This is what I've expected a bar right here.

Yeah. Yeah. I would not, uh, I would not complain if I was served this one.

And it's all the, we're using a, we're using a standard jigger that we get me and Vivian have it here at our house. I haven't ever seen a,

Hmm.

I was trying to think if I seen a bartender use the jigger before and I guess I have.

Well, they most of them free pour, right? Yeah. No. And then they, or they got those poor tops that kind of, I don't know. I don't know if it meters it out or gives them a, like a one, two count or something. I don't know.

You know, Mike, the other day it was kind of funny.

We were, we were, we were talking earlier how we were out driving around. We went to dinner, we went out and had drinks, all that kind of stuff. I was the designated driver. I got pulled over. So I got pulled over and of course I'm not worried at all because I've been a good designated driver. I've been sticking to the rules. But anyway, so the officer comes up to the wind and he says, sir, did you know your tags are expired? Now, keep this in mind. This is, you know, early July, right? Yeah, it is probably like midnight, right? It is probably midnight. You probably saw four people driving down the road near midnight in the car wondering what the heck they're doing. But anyway, he pulled us over because I had expired tags. My tags expired in April and now it's July. So April, May, June, July, three or four months later. Right. And he was just warning me and letting me know. And he says with COVID and everything, you know, we understand people aren't necessarily getting in to get things read, you know, renewed basically just get it done by September.

How cool. So it was a warning. Yeah. But you also got a warning from the wife that night to get it done. It's her car. But then you were like, uh, the other day you were like, eh, I might push it off a little bit. I was like, man, you're really pushing it. Yeah. I probably made a mistake there. Yeah. I was feeling pretty good by the time you got pulled over. I'll tell you what. We were drinking bourbon slushies at the barrel room and I was,

telling me what I ought to tell the officer and Vivian was like, Mike, shut up. I was like, heck, I'm sure glad I'm not a destination driver.

I was happy, you know, I was feeling good drinking them bourbon slushies. They had a peach, a peach slushy. Yep. And it is Ben's just ridiculously hot here. And for me to mow our grass takes me about five hours of weed eating and mowing, maybe six hours, depending on the day. And my hill to weed eat is just, it's a terrifying event. It's a workout. If you want to come to the gym, you come over to my house, I'll give you a weed eater and you have at it.

See, I would not do that. I would not weed eat that hill. I would go down to the local jail and say, hey, I've got a place where if you want to send some prisoners out and really teach them a lesson.

Well, we've, we've hired some kids to do it and stuff. And most of them will last a time or two. And then they're like, Nope, that's a, that's, that's a grown man's work right there.

It is, it is a full job, but it has been so hot lately.

And the other day I just felt like I was, I couldn't cool down enough. You know, we're, me and you were wearing, I was wearing like a fishing shirt, you know, that light material and a pair of shorts. And I just, I couldn't get cool enough that day. I got to the barrel room and started drinking those bourbon slushies. I got cooled down real fast. I don't know how many of those I had. I had probably six, seven of them. I was feeling good.

Yeah. You know the difference between, you know, tasting a bourbon and how it opens up over time and tasting a bourbon and Coke and what happens to it over time? It waters down because the ice melts.

Yeah. Yeah.

You don't want to waste a whole lot of time drinking your bourbon and Coke or it will get watered down.

Is that telling me I'm talking too much now? No. We've been really having a great time lately. We did our trip up to Boone County and me and you went out and had dinner at a place there. 1883 kitchen, 1883. Yeah. And it's a new chain that's going to be attached to all the Kroger's and that's one of the test ones to see how it's doing. And we were, I think we were both taking a back at how good the food was there.

Food was really good. So hats off to the chef. I mean, uh, yeah, it's, it's simple, fair. I mean, it's nothing, you know, but, but their, uh, their greens were really, really good. Their fish was just. I, you know, here's what I can say about fish. Easy to mess up. Fish is very easy to mess up. Oh, most definitely. If you overcook it and it's just, it's a piece of rubber. That's right. And they had it just right.

I mean, it was nice and flaky and we both had the same dish and, um, we didn't both have the same dish out there at bar and eight. I had a bison steak. Yeah. And man, tell you what, it was delicious. I loved it. You know, as I feel right in my moment right there, I was like, I'm, I'm representing my people right here.

Yeah. Well see for me, when I go out, I'm always leaning towards fish, always leaning towards fish. Cause I can't have it at home. Melody doesn't like fish. I mean, I respect that, but she also doesn't like the smell of fish in the house. So that makes it kind of rough. I can't even cook fish for myself if she's home.

I must've been feeling really good by the end of that trip because by the time we left barn eight, I'd saw some bison or buffalo down the farm. They're one of their farms. They own their barn eight does. I said, Jim, just pull this, uh, Why don't you pull this car over right here and I'm going to go grab one of those buffaloes. I got over here and I ride it.

Yeah, I remember that. We kept rolling. All right. You ready to get on to the next one? Let's do it. All right. Oh, by the way, some final notes on this one. I think it's pretty solid. I think it's well rounded. It seems to have an equal amount of spice and sweetness to it. The caramel does pop a little bit in it. This is just kind of the quintessential bourbon and Coke, I think. Yeah, I think this is what you'd expect in a bar. Yeah, this is kind of what you'd expect.

All right, let's get on to the next one. Next one.

All right, we're moving on to bourbon and Coke or whiskey and Coke number five, because only you know what they are. I don't know which one's which. This is a true blind for Jim and Mike's pouring the drinks.

I'm still shocked at some of them and stuff that shows you how much bourbon and Coke I drink.

I'm drinking Coke here too, to get my palate reset again and good solid sweet Coke. Just, I think the reason to do that is to sort of level out where the sweetness is on just Coke alone and see if the bourbon adds to it or not. Okay. I don't know about that one. Uh, okay. So let me, I think, um, it surprised me a little bit because it's a little kind of, uh, I don't know, bitter. Yeah. Kind of bittersweet on the front of the palette. Yeah, I get that. I get that. It's got kind of an off flavor to it. bad. It's not that it's bad, it's just a little shocking compared to what we have been drinking in the first one of the second half. I know a lot of people will drink this with Coke.

A lot of people out there would all day long.

Yeah. So this would, uh, I would say on this one that, um, if I got served it up, I wouldn't, I would be fine. I'd be fine with it. It'd be okay. But having it in line with others that you can taste side by side, this would not be at the top of my list. This one's a little bit upfront and especially after take, take a sip of, go ahead and take another sip, Mike, of your plain Coke and then sip that again. Cause I think that makes that kind of tells the tail there. Cause this is all about what makes Coke better, right?

Well, I'd tell you, this is, it makes it, like you said, better. Like a. I don't know. You ever, have you ever tasted, tasted like sap off a tree, like a cedar sap or anything like that? I don't think I have, but it has that bitterness to it. And this almost has that not sappy taste and stuff. Uh, you know, if you ever tasted a sap out of a maple tree, it's not really sugary. It's very bitter before they boil it down.

Yep. Well, we're five drinks in now, Mike. Good thing we haven't been drinking the whole glass, right?

Well, if I, if I drink a whole glasses, I'd get you drive me over and I'm rest me one of those Bison's down ride that sucker. What do you think people would have thought if they had a road pass or do you see me wrangling one of them suckers down?

So what do you think the percentage is of listeners out there who drink bourbon and cokes?

I don't know, probably 50% of our listeners. Have they drank it in their life or is that their everyday thing?

No, no, I still drink it today. So yeah, so still drink it today. I think a lot of people have certainly come through that phase.

You know, I think it just, they probably 75 or 80% of people still would grab one today. You know, even me and you, if it's a hot summer day and we're somewhere and that's, let's say we went to a private event, right? And that's the only thing they have to mix is ginger ale or a Coke.

You know, I'm typically going to grab the ginger ale. Yeah. And that's the way I am. Or unless I'm just in that Coke mood or if I'm lucky ginger beer, right? Yeah.

Yeah. But if that's all they got there, some events, that's all they have. Or some events don't, if you're outside of state of Kentucky, they don't even have ginger ale. They'll have sprite. Um, so I'd say 75% of our listeners, I could be wrong, but most people would probably still say today, yeah, every, every blue moon, I might grab one.

Yeah. Well, there's a stigma around mixing bourbon and Coke, right?

Kind of a, Hey, you're bourbon your wife, you're buying it. You buy me a bourbon and you say, I'm going to buy you a bourbon and Coke. I'm, Hey, I'll drink it that way.

Well, that's one thing about our channel, right? We don't, we don't draw any lines in the sand. I mean, however you like to drink it, however you like to drink it.

However it gets you to drink it neat, you know, everybody starts on their own bourbon road, their own bourbon path on bourbon trail. They start on it at their level. It'll mean you graduated to the, top of the hill, probably we are. We're there where we can drink and eat all day long and we love it like that. We can pick up notes. Now me and you pick up different notes than most people probably pick up because that's kind of what we do, right? Um, but our notes are different than most reviewers or anything. We're picking up cotton candy and sweet tarts and just crack them and sugar smack them.

Yeah.

We're cedar trees and stuff like that. We're just picking up different stuff, and I think that's what our listeners respect about us. They love that.

Sure. Well, Mike, I think that this one is okay. I certainly wouldn't turn it down. Having this in a line of other bourbon and cokes, this would definitely be lower on my list.

I thought you were going to ask me, what's the percentages of our listeners that would pay to see you ride a Buffalo. That's what I thought you were going to ask me.

Oh, what do you think that percentage is? How many people would pay to see that? How many, how many people would buy a barrel pick from the bourbon road and had a picker picture of big chief riding a Buffalo. That's a good Buffalo trace pick. Right.

That's see, there we go. There we go. Talking about that earlier. Well, let's move on to the next one.

Let's do it. All right. So we've got the sixth and final bourbon bourbon and Coke or whiskey and Coke in our glass here. Whiskey and Coke. Whiskey and Coke.

But what's the old saying? All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskies are bourbon. That's right.

What was that the other day? I heard about the all cognacs or brandy, but not all brandies or cognac. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. That's a very true right there. Cause I gotta be finished in a new French Oak barrel, I guess. Cognac does or the brandy. That's what makes Cognac and it comes from the Cognac region. I wrote that in my blog. Yes, you did. I read your blog. You're probably thinking, man, this joker's talking about damn cognac. It all tied into the story. So that's pretty solid. A little better on the backend though. Not a, not my favorite one. Yeah. But to be fair, we've, we've, uh, this might be different. Now I'm getting a little bit different taste from it. Maybe a little bit of a, her own baby.

prune prune. Yeah. Yeah. That would not be a positive note for me. I'll tell you what, if you ever had some issues and you need some prunes and it's definitely a, it's definitely something you'll be searching out in your life. If you get a little older. No, remind me of the one we just had. The one we just had was kind of a better, better taste. Yeah. Kind of better, but it was better upfront. It was kind of weird. This one's a, it's kind of growing a little cherry unit. Maybe, you know, for me it's, it's, it's okay. It's a little better for me on the backend, but, um, I think it's kind of solid.

I'm going to take another taste. I'm sucking the sucker down. I'm feeling pretty good right now. I'm feeling like I could go ride that Buffalo. I'm probably could do it.

Yeah. Okay. So there's, there's a little bit of an off note here, but, um, I would say for me, number four was kind of, uh, number four was just kind of a solid bourbon and Coke for me. I mean, it's kind of what you expect. Uh, the last one we had number five had that bitter upfront kind of a little bit to it and would kind of rank kind of low on my list.

I think this one on the other hand is a little bit higher, but there's something there.

There's some kind of flavor there. You called it prune. I don't know. There's something going on.

Now that I drink a little bit more, maybe a little bit more ice gets in there a little bit more water. It's going from that prune to that maybe just dark fruit, you know, a cherry,

It is plum prune plum. I get it. I did get it, man. I'm getting it now. The power of suggestion. It's amazing. Isn't it? It is.

So you, you ready to know all these? I'm ready, but let me, let me read it first before you tell me, because I don't want that affect my.

So on the second round, on the second round, I'm going to rate it. four, six, five. So number four, the first one we taste in this round, I liked the best. Then this one comes up number second with the, with the prune and then, uh, number five is dead last for me. I think out of all six probably, cause it's kind of got that bitterness upfront. I can deal with a little bitterness on the backend, but when it's upfront like that, it kind of, it's almost like a alum.

So does number three on the last one win or number four on this one?

Um, pretty darn close. I might have to taste them again, but I'm not going to put us through that. But, um, if I had to, if I had to go to the best of my memory, I'd probably go to number three on the first round and then number four.

Yeah, that's probably how I'd go. So, so this is what we had. We had Jim being, Jim being single barrel was number one of these. Okay. The number four, the first one, the second round. Okay. The fourth one or fifth one would be four roses, yellow label. This is their standard four roses. Okay. So that one scored the lowest for me. Bitter bitterness. And then, uh, man, this is hurt. This hurts me a little bit.

Well, our special reserve. Okay. Well, there's something going on in this. I don't know what it is, but. Weller's Weller's special reserves, a fine bourbon.

This is not something normally out putting coke though.

Uh, yeah, I wouldn't do that, but we didn't know. I mean, I wouldn't do it even if it was $10 a bottle because it doesn't taste as good as, I mean, the Jim beam and the larceny shine. And I think the larceny just edged out the Jim beam.

And you can get all those on a, on a shelf. Um, the, the nice thing is, is whenever we say Larshley is a gateway bourbon for people. We truly mean it because you could pour it in Coke and it's going to taste good. And we both agreed on that.

Yeah. It's really good in Coke.

No doubt about it. I think a lot of people should give it a try.

Yeah. I think after we finish up recording here, Mike, I'm going to go take a pour of the larceny and the Jim Beam and actually do them side by side and see which one I like the best. But I tend to think that that larceny is going to edge it out just a little bit. I'm going to get your driver to be over there and I'm going to ride that damn Buffalo.

All right, Mike. So tell everybody where they can find us. So you can find us on social media at the bourbon road, on Instagram, Facebook, um, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter and YouTube. I always forget YouTube to Twitter and YouTube. You can find us on those. Um, you can listen to the podcast on anything. You can download a podcast on Spotify, our heart radio, uh, Apple podcast. You can even say, yeah, Alexa play the bourbon road podcast. And here it goes.

Oh no. Did she hear me?

She did. Oh, I seen her turn blue. No, she, I don't think she heard it good enough. I'm too far away. Yeah. So you can find us on any of those, those sources where you can play a podcast. Um, we have a Facebook group too.

We do the bourbon roadies. So it is a private group, but we do accept all people who come and want to join. We just ask you a couple of questions. We want to make sure, you know, you're getting yourself into a bourbon group and that you're old enough to drink. And then you're going to play nice because we are a bunch of nice people in there. We do hang out and we have a common interest. That's bourbon. We like to talk about bourbon, take pictures of bourbon, share bourbon, trade bourbon. We do not sell it, but you know what? We do give it away.

I don't, please don't go in there and try to sell bourbon to anybody. It's just, it's a bad thing for us. It's a bad thing for you. Um, you know, that's, that's what I'll say about that.

Yeah, but it's a good group of great people. We rarely, if ever have any issues with any trolls, I guess is what you'd call them. People who like to, um, I don't know what you call it. What is it? Naysayers, negative people.

Yeah. We just, we just don't do it. We were, we're all positive. And if you want to have an avenue for, for negativity, there's, there's other places for that. But in the bourbon roadies, we're a family in there. Um, we got distillers in there. We got. Plenders in there. We got somebody from throughout the bourbon culture, the bourbon industry that'll come in there and talk to us, talk to you, um, join the group. We're at about 650 right now, Jim and growing and growing every day. Absolutely.

Uh, on our website, you can find her Glen carrying glasses. We do sell those. Uh, you know, they are, um, available in ones, twos and fours, I think. And, uh, pretty good price on those pretty standard.

I got beat up last night about asking about hats and shirts.

So we'll get them going. We'll get them going and, and the picks, we're going to get the picks going too. We get pinged on all the time, but we're working on it guys. It's a lot to do when it's not your full-time job.

Yeah, that's, that's definitely true. We both got full-time jobs where we're trying just be patient with us. We'll get this thing rolling. Um, If you liked the podcast. leave us a review. Those reviews help us out. It helps us get into places, opens doors for us. And it's nice to read it. You know, I got a big head, so it don't need to be any bigger, but it definitely boosts my ego and makes me more courageous to go out there and ask more people, hey, can we come in and do an interview with you? So hopefully you like what we're doing.

Absolutely. So drink bourbon, share bourbon, give it away, and we'll see you down the 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 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.