96. Bourbon Basics - Finished Bourbons

Yeah, so all the Hometown Rising and Bourbon and Beyond and all that stuff got canceled out. The, you know, the Bardstown Bourbon Festival now, the, you know, the rest of those events that happened around the other big events in Louisville are all canceled now. I don't know what's next, Mike. Well, Christmas, they're going to cancel Christmas on us, Jim. How can they cancel Christmas? I don't know. No shopping at the store.

Well, I would think there'd be, you'd still be able to shop, but what about Santa Claus for kids going to see Santa Claus? Did you ever go see Santa Claus as a kid? Santa Claus is banned due to COVID. I bet you money that's what's going to happen.

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. I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And Mike, once again, we are sitting at Jephthah Bend Farm in front of your fireplace. Where's Woodrow?

Yeah, he's a little hyped up today, so I had to put him in the laundry room. Oh, poor guy. He loves being on podcasts. He does, but he would be running around crazy today. Okay. Well, next time Woodrow. Woodrow had fun last night.

Yeah.

I had to pull the neighbor out of the creek. His side by side pretty much fell over on a cliff, but it was the back end of it was in the creek and the banks are so muddy from the rain that we've had the past couple of weeks that he couldn't get it out.

So it was just spinning, spinning tires, trying to get up the hill or? Well his is belt driving too, so that belt got wet and just had no power to it.

So I took my side by side over there at eight o'clock last night and hooked a bunch of, uh, toe straps to it. And then I took him, used a tree on the bank. And I ran up the tow rope around the tree, back to my side by side and pulled him up. There you go. It took a little bit. And he said, this isn't going to work. And I said, well, watch this country boy work.

Well, that's a good neighbor. No doubt about it.

Yeah. He's got two or four boys actually. They're all homeschooled. They run up and down Jephthah Creek here, or Jephthah Creek. And I just love them to death. They're just great boys. Super mannered, I guess would be the word for it.

Well-mannered. Well-mannered.

Yeah. You can't help but love a kid like that.

Yeah.

And the parents are great. So he called me and said, Hey Mike, can you come help me out? And you know, you know how I am. Sure. I've been over backwards for somebody. Absolutely.

Well, Mike, what's, what's kind of the story with today's show?

That's what we catch up. Talk about bourbon heritage month. Cause this is kind of the end of bourbon heritage month for us. And it's been a little weird, hasn't it?

It has been weird. I mean, I mean, we're still getting the releases, stuff's still hitting the shelves and that's good. But as far as gatherings, get togethers, celebrations, um, you know, events, things like that related to bourbon, just not happening. Yeah. And I think people were kind of little burnout on the whole.

social media thing where we're having virtual tastings, we're having these virtual events, people just kind of burn out on it, I guess.

Yeah. I mean, I am too. So I mean, I understand. So yeah, I mean, if there's an event, uh, there has to be a pretty good reason for me to want to attend it virtually right now. I hate to say that because a lot of what we do is on air, right? Sure. But, um, yeah, I'm just, you know, just getting kind of burnt out because my job on the other hand is remote. So I'm in those remote meetings all day, right? And then, uh, then if we do an event with our roadies or something on Facebook or something else like it, that's remote. And then the things that we enjoy to do, you know, they're remote. So, Yeah. I don't know. Kind of tired of it. Definitely tired of it.

Yeah. We both, you know, you're a web designer, I guess what you'd say programming and you're sitting in front of a computer all day. And then I sit in front of a computer all day doing search and rescue stuff. And people wouldn't mind. I think that, but in my office, there's screens everywhere.

It looks like, uh, what was that? War games.

War games. Yeah. A little mini war games. Yeah. So we're both just, living in front of a computer and we have a regular life to live too. So, and we want to go to those kinds of events that we're missing out on and everybody else is missing out on them too. So yeah, I just figure we sit down here and our last episode or two episodes ago, we talked about the basics of bourbon. And one of the things we kind of hit on a little bit was finished bourbon.

There wasn't enough time in the show to really go into all the different styles of bourbon, I guess, or styles of types of bourbon.

So we'd have to have like five or six shows, I think, to really touch on everything.

So we kind of just breezed right by finished bourbons.

Yeah. And so I mean, we've been talking about finished bourbons for a while. We mean, you have that discussion back and forth about what it really is. Is this a bourbon one? No, it's not a bourbon. It's, it is a bourbon, but it's not a bourbon. It's, it's a finished bourbon.

suburban finished in or by or through some other, some other method.

Yeah. So I have to, I think they're two great expressions and we really haven't had either one of them on the show. So I said, let me pull off these off the shelf and let's go ahead and drink some of it and talk about them.

Yeah. So not only have we not had these expressions, we haven't had these brands on the show yet.

No, we, you know, we both had these brands before. And I actually, you bought me a, a pour of one of them at a bar that third turn brewing with at the Derby. We were watching the Derby there with our wives. And I was like, man, I got to have a bottle of this right here. It was that good to me. Um, it is a big boy pour and that we're talking about that one on the second one, but the first one we, we need to get to the whiskey.

Don't let's get to the whiskey.

Yeah. So what's the first one we got?

Well, the first one we have is the Rabbit Hole Derringer, and it is a 93-proof finished whiskey. It's a weeder, Mike. You're going to love this one. This one's a weeder. And it has a secondary finish in Pedro Jimenez casks, PX Sherry casks. There's a number of expressions out there that use the PX casks for finishing. So, there's a lot of company on the shelf with people that are doing similar to this. But, you know, this is a beautiful bottle. It's got a great label on it. It's sitting at a decent proof of 93. It is a weeded whiskey. So, the match bill on this is 68 corn, 18 wheat, and 14 malted barley. Wow. It's got a decent wheat and a decent malted barley content to it. Still a 68% corn mash bill though. You think I'm going to love it? I think you might. It's made right here in Louisville, Kentucky.

Yeah. We've, I've been to rabbit hole before. Um, and I, I've, I've talked about that experience, but to be fair to rabbit hole, I had really bad acid reflux that day, like horrible acid reflux. And I was trying to do everything to get rid of it. And we'd already had the tour set up. So I went anyways, big mistake on my part because the whiskey didn't taste good. I don't know if you've ever had acid reflux Jim, but it's a terrible thing. Isn't it?

Well, I mean, if I've had it, I wouldn't be drinking whiskey.

But you know, you have an attack of it almost and it, it feels like your chest is just burning up and then it starts coming up a little bit and it's horrible.

All right. Well, Rabbit Hole, welcome to the Bourbon Road. This is your first appearance on the Bourbon Road, and you are a local distillery for us. We just haven't gotten around to you yet. Down there on the Urban Bourbon Trail. On the Urban Bourbon Trail, downtown Louisville. Well, let's nose this thing, Jim. All right. Well, while you're nosing it, Mike, I want to take a look at this color. I'm going to say that it's definitely got a reddish hue to it. It's a golden amber, but it does have kind of a reddish hue to it. Now, I don't know if that reddish hue comes from the wine cask. It very well may, but nice color to it.

Now this doesn't have an age statement on it, but we do know it says a straight, right? So we know it's more than two years old.

Yeah, it's a straight bourbon whiskey finished in PX sherry casks. And that's the best way to say it. So let's just get this out of the way right now. Whether you consider a finished bourbon a bourbon or not, the proper way to do it is the way rabbit hole has. by saying a straight bourbon whiskey finished in PX sherry casks. Fully describes what it is. There's nothing being hidden there. They're not pulling any punches. It is what it's labeled as.

Yeah. Same thing. Their neighbors down the road do exactly angels envy angels envy. They, they do the same thing. They, they're saying it the right way. So I, I appreciate that. We've talked about that, that transparency. Here's exactly what you're getting. So I, I love it. This has some raisin in it, some floral notes, maybe like fresh rose petals.

Yeah, it's definitely got a very sweet nose. Um, a, uh, a fruity kind of nose to it, but the caramel vanilla or front and center on it, but I'm picking up a little bit of, uh, like pear or peach as well. And that may be from the, from the barley. I don't know.

Well, that weed or that barley always gives you that floral, that, that ripen fruit taste. You know, I, it's a beautiful nose. I hope the taste matches. The palette matches the nose on this. I hope you don't beat me to it, Jim.

Well, you were very suggestive there. You said the palette matches the nose. It like caused my hand to bring it up to my lips. Yeah, the nose was really balanced on it. I think the palette's pretty balanced as well. It's got a nice upfront flavor to it. I'm getting a little bit more of the cask influence and a little bit of dryness on the back end. You know, these casks, they make their way all the way from Spain. So Sherry casks from Spain, you know, they actually start, the casks themselves start out in the U S the wood starts out in the U S makes its way to Spain made into a cask by Cooper. And then they're filled with Sherry and then they're aged. And then once empty, then they make their way back to the U S to be filled with bourbon.

So for listeners out there that are just whiskey drinkers that never picked up a bottle of Sherry before, what is Sherry?

Sherry is a wine, more or less, but it's a special type of wine. Like more syrupy, more... Yeah, so a sherry is a fortified wine, much the same as a port wine is a fortified wine. Now, port wines are, you know, from Portugal, but the sherry, this particular sherry is a white grape. I think by the time the barrels make their way back to rabbit hole, they're about four years old.

I think that's pretty neat that somebody took that time to think that process through and come up something like this. The power on this is beautiful. It's got a little bit of spice to it. I was surprised by it because that's not the, what weeders are known for is that spice. So maybe is that that barrel spice that I'm getting in this?

Yeah, I'm getting a baking spice from it. I mean, I feel like I've got a nice, you know, a nice fruity front end, a little bit sweet. And then I'm getting that baking spice on the mid palette. There's plenty of caramel and plenty of vanilla there that you would expect from a bourbon. But on the back end, Mike, it kind of just drops off for me. I mean, I'm not getting a big long finish on it. And it's a little dry back there too.

Yup. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's, you know, it's a good bottle of bourbon or finished bourbon. It's just, uh, like you said, it just drops off the cliff kind of, and there's nothing there. There's not, it's not oily.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean the legs on the glass are pretty decent. I mean it, but you know, it just in the palette, it doesn't really, doesn't really hang around with that flavor for very long. But what is there is fairly balanced and flavorful. I do like it. I think that this, if, if you're a person who likes finished bourbons, I'd say try it. I'd say give it a shot. So what's the MSRP on this? This is right around $70 to $80 range. I think it depends on where you get it from it.

That's not bad for a finished bourbon. If you went and got some angels envy, it's going to be a little bit cheaper. but a lot bigger distillery and then you'll see some other ones that are a lot more expensive. So that's, that's not a bad price for it. I don't think so. Um, but maybe that's not everybody's pocketbook. If, if you can't afford a bottle of it, you know, and you're a whiskey bar and you see it, it's probably a good, uh, Good thing to, hey, I'll take a pour of that, you know, special pour. Um, the name Derringer though, when we first said it, that reminds me of the Derringer pistol, you know, that just isn't Derringer pistols or one shot pistol. Yeah, exactly.

Really small, something you'd put in your boot or in your pocket. Sure. But something from days gone by, people don't carry derringers anymore. That's something that was probably fairly popular 50 years ago, 80 years ago, 100 years ago. Poker players had them. Yeah, yeah.

That little sucker under the table and you try to cheat me on cards, I'm gonna shoot you with my little derringer.

What was that show, Wild Wild West?

Yeah.

Remember the fella that he had the gun on that thing in his sleeve? He just popped out. Popped out on it.

It might've been a derringer, I don't know. That's a little bitty pistol. I don't, I don't know, but that's what I, in my mind, what Derringer is. And I'm not sure why they came up with that name Derringer for this whiskey. I'm hoping it's not like a, just a one or two shot at this and we're done. Okay.

Yeah, I don't know. Well, anyway, you know, Rabbit Hole has been pretty good about coming out with unique expressions on a timely basis. So you can always expect something to come on the shelf from Rabbit Hole that's new and different. I don't know how often they do it, but I would imagine I've seen probably three or four in the past couple of years that have grabbed my attention. They just haven't made it to the show yet. You know, we're busy guys. We've got a lot of expressions to look at. But this one, I'm glad we had it.

I'd say if you're a wine drinker, or let's say your spouse is not a bourbon drinker, and you want to try to introduce them to the bourbon world, this might be a good bourbon for them to try, just to get them into that tasting. I know Vivian loves this.

Yeah, particularly if they like a drier wine, I think. This might be something that they'll, because this does have kind of a drying effect to it, I think.

Yeah, as it sits on my palate a little bit, you know, it sits in the glass and I'm sipping on it. I'm getting a little bit more of that tobacco taste, that, you know, just that beach none, I guess, that smell to it where it's on your palate and just that rich, rich leathery. Um, but it's not, like you said, it just drops off though.

It does. But this has taken on a lot of influence from the barrels that it was in. There's no doubt about it. This has sucked up the goodness out of those barrels. And yeah, I think it's balanced. I think the nose and the palate are both fairly balanced. They are a little different, but they're complimentary of each other. I just think the finish is where it lacks a little bit, but you know what? We've seen that before in finished whiskeys, right? We've seen that where they, they, they, they're great up front. They're great on the nose, but the finish just doesn't quite hang. Yeah.

So I heard that you were hanging out with one of them. old Bourbon Road guys the other day.

Yeah, old Randy, original co-host to the Bourbon Road. He was, he visited yesterday, spent the night with us and we had a good old time. We drank a little Weller 12 and I'm trying to think of what else we had. Had a little old Carter. He was going for the big bottles. Of course he was. He lives in Virginia now where the whiskey isn't plentiful. But he's working on some music projects with some pretty big artists. And hopefully we're going to hear an album from him here in the next year or so. Pretty excited for him. He seems pretty excited about it. He's working with some pretty amazing people.

So he's just gallivanting around the country.

He is. going here, going there, laying down tracks, you know, hobnobbing with the music people. He's doing what he loves, you know? He's not working per se, like a full-time job anymore. He's semi-retired, I guess, on sabbatical is what he likes to call it. Sabbatical, huh?

Is that what happens?

That's what doctors do. You know, he's a PhD. That's what those PhDs do. They go on sabbatical.

It seems like we both lately, you guys had a retirement party over at your house. And a week ago, two weeks ago, a good friend of mine, he retired from the coast guard after 30 years. And it's weird how we're in that point of our lives where. It just seems like that's our point of our lives, I guess. People are retiring and some people are passing away. I had a good friend that passed away this past week and it affected me more than I thought it would. I wasn't depressed, but it put me in a funk. When somebody dies, she was young. She was only 49 years old. And, uh, not to get all sappy on here and stuff, but to watch somebody die at that age is not a good feeling. But I expect as I move on in life, that more and more of that's going to happen to me. Um, you know, it's just part of life.

It is dying as a part of life. We're all, we're all given birth with a death sentence. That's unfortunate to think of it that way, but that's the way it is. So every day you do get, you're blessed.

Yeah, you know that everybody always said you're going to, you're born, you pay taxes and you die. Well, I know a lot of people don't pay taxes, so you're born and you die. I guess onto another subject is we just went over A thousand people in roadies in our private Facebook group, a big accomplishment for both of us, a big accomplishment for Adam and Jason, our two moderators. They've been great at it. If you're roadie and you're listening to this, thank you very much for being a part of our family. You know that your reasons why we do this right here. Nate Smith, we've actually both met him before. Yeah. He lives over there in Danville and he works at the Copper and Oak over there, a place that we both love to eat at and drink at. His sister works there too. She's a manager. So. You know, Nate, thanks for being our thousandth listener or thousandth roadie, I guess. And I, I'm going to send him a couple of samples saying thanks for me and you, Jim.

That's great. Cause that's what it means to be a roadie, right? Share your whiskey.

Yeah. Matter of fact, I'm going to send him these two right here.

There you go. Awesome. Well, we haven't revealed what the number two is yet, so don't say it.

So, you know, I think that's, I guess the sky's the limit for our group. Do you think or?

Yeah, I mean, we're growing organically. We're growing by word of mouth. We're not out there purchasing ads and doing events to build the Roadies growth. We want the Roadies to grow by recommendation and by, well, obviously listeners. We talk about the Bourbon Roadies on our show. We figure if you're listening to our podcast, and you're liking it, you're definitely somebody we want in the roadies. And then of course, if a fellow roadie invite you, we pretty much trust their judgment.

Yeah, I just, I think it's great. I haven't seen any stuff we don't like on there lately. Um, everybody who's been playing nice and. sharing bourbon, sharing their stories, asking for advice. We had a guy today ask where he could stay at, what distillery, what's the one distillery he could go to, what's the best bang for his buck. And a lot of roadies chimed in and helped the guy out. And that's what it's all about. You know, I love seeing that.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Mike, I think we should probably go ahead and take a short break here and finish off our rabbit hole derringer. You done finished yours off. Yeah. I'm going to get a little bit more because I think it's decent. You know, let's, let's go ahead and, and, and just say it in my opinion, you know, this is another fine finished bourbon from the heart of bourbon country that I don't think is going to disappoint anybody. It's not going to blow you away. Uh, but I think it's solid. It's well rounded. Uh, it was crafted for sure. I mean, there was a lot of attention paid to making this and I think they did a good job. Beware of the finishes a little short.

Yeah, I'm there with you. Would I buy it again? I probably wouldn't, but I obviously bought it. You know, I'm, I'm a guy that would take a chance on a company. Now I'll buy more rabbit hole in the future. If they can keep coming out with stuff like this, I'll take another chance and stuff. And you know how I am about that. I think it's worth the buy. If you have $80 to spend, you know, go out there and get it. Or if you don't try to find it on the shelf or join the roadies, you might get a sample.

Absolutely. All right, Mike. Well, when we come back, we'll, we'll see what we have next on the list. 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 rotten termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warmth to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com. And while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at LogHeadsHomeCenter.

All right.

Well, we were back and Mike, we were ready for our second finished bourbon of the night.

This one was actually a triple cask, meaning it's triple finished, I guess, or double finished really. It's Joseph Magnus bourbon and it's been finished both in a Sherry and Cognac cask. Okay.

So this one Sherry finished as well. But then in addition to that, it's finished in a Cognac cask. Yep.

Yep.

All right.

So this is a hunter proof. We don't know the mash bill on this or the distillery, but we're assuming that it's from MGP. It says distilled in Indiana.

Well, chances are high that's what it is.

Not a total guarantee, but probably decent chance. Pretty, pretty good chance, I would think. Actually, it's been finished in two Sherys, so it is triple cask. So it's been finished in an Al Russo Shery, and then the Pedro Menes Shery cask, and then a Cognac cask.

So it's really been in four barrels. So it was aged as a bourbon in barrel number one. Then it was dumped and placed in a El Rosso sherry cask. And then it was dumped and placed in a Pedro Jimenez sherry cask. And then it was dumped and placed in a cognac cask. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work and a lot of loss too, right?

Yeah, I would think so. Um, So this bottle was right around $89. That's how much I paid for it. I wouldn't say that's a big boy bourbon, but I could see where that cost has to come from when you're doing that much right there.

Now, is this the one you chose that night? It wasn't. I couldn't find that.

That was just a cognac cask. I couldn't find that bottle anywhere. I looked for it and looked for it and looked for it. And I was like, well, I'm going to try this right here. I did looked up some reviews on it, looked at their website and I was like, you know what? I, I think I'll like that. Um, supposedly it's 12 years old. We don't know that exactly, but that's the rumored age of it. Um, it's got a lot of great reviews on it though. Right. Won a couple of wars, but everybody wins awards.

Yeah, but there are awards and there are awards. Which one did they win? Or which ones did they win?

The American Distilling Institute Craft Blend and Spirit Competition, San Francisco World Spirits Competition, best special barrel finish bourbon. And then they got double gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2019.

Okay. So these are not just small awards. These guys have done pretty good in the tasting challenges.

Yeah, they're, they're definitely doing something special. Now this is a DC brand that was reestablished. So it was originally established in 1892 and they were real established in 2015. Okay.

Well, Mike, let's get to it. What do you say? Let's do it. Wow. A big, big difference between that nose and the one we had in the first half. Well, I love that. Yeah. So this one has a lot more of, um, of a deep rich bourbon nose to it. You're getting that, uh, that heavier Oak, that, um, that more, and I'm going to say Serapy on the nose again. I do that sometimes that more Serapy nose that you get, that's much more rich. I'm getting a little bit of, uh,

citrusy, like real dark, like a tangerinish nose to it. Like a candied orange.

Yeah.

Yeah. I can see that. It's a marmalade.

Yeah. Definitely like more like a marmalade. I think that that's a good call out, Mike.

I'm still getting those floral notes in this as you should would probably with a finished bourbon.

12 year old, I don't think it's got too much of an oak influence. They haven't overdone it at all. You know, seeing four different barrels, you kind of wonder what might happen. And at least as far as the nose is concerned, it seems very pleasing. Let's taste this thing. Let's do it. Wow. That is really good. That's first and foremost, a rich bourbon, a well-aged bourbon.

That sweetness is coming through with all those finishes. I think just a hand of cherry on it.

Yeah. I'm getting a little bit more of the, the heavier oak tannins, a little bit of that leather and tobacco starting to come out on it, but I'm getting that, that, that fruitiness from the barrels. I'm getting a little bit of a, you said cherry, didn't you? A little bit of cherry. I'm not getting the orange marmalade so much on the palette.

No, it doesn't match up. per se, but it, it still has a beautiful, beautiful palette on it. A little bit of bitterness in it though.

A little mid palette bitterness. It seems fine on the back though.

More of a, you ever eat sweet tarts before? Oh yeah. It's not sour, but it's got that tartiness. This is what that, that tartiness I guess to it, almost like a green apple tart.

Yeah, this is an interesting pour. This would be, I would consider this one a fairly special experience. It's definitely worth, I mean, if you're not going to own a bottle, I would highly suggest that you go have a pour somewhere because I think it's worth experiencing.

Third turn brewing. Their bourbon room they have there has this on the shelf.

Now, is that the name of the place next door to the third turn brewing? It's owned by them, I think, right?

Actually, I've tried to tag them in it in a couple of Instagram posts we had a Facebook post and I couldn't find a name for that place. I just, it's third-term brewing's bourbon room.

Next door bourbon room. And they have a pretty darn good selection.

Yeah. I thought for as new as they are, me and you walked in there and both of us were kind of wowed by it. I was like, they've got a couple of bottles here.

Yeah. And the prices are reasonable. Yeah, I think so.

And they actually had a whiskey glass for you to drink from.

Yeah. This is Mike. Mike, this is really nice. Um, this is something that personally I would like to have in my bar.

I think what's out there, Jim.

I think I might have to go get some, no doubt about it.

This would, to me would be, we always talk about it in our reviews, whether it's a mixer, is it a sipper share with a friend or a gift. this would be a really nice gift for somebody that's retiring or on a special occasion.

Special gift. Oh yeah. Definitely a special gift at this price range. You know, if, if, if you're going to buy that gift for somebody and that, that gift can be in the a hundred dollar range, this wouldn't be a bad choice.

Yeah. I've tried to recommend this to a couple of people before they're like, Oh, that's a little bit of money. Um, to me, I'm, we're both at that point in our life or, We won't batter. I had a bottle like this. Um, I think it's a great bottle and stuff. I would like to bring up, um, somebody in our roadies called me out about my cereal tasting notes. They did. What'd they say? Well, they said I took a dart and I just throw it up at that poster of cereal boxes. And that's where I get my taste. Um, and I'd like to say that my tasting notes are mine. I didn't, I don't, I don't per se come from that tasting wheel that everybody else does. And I know you don't either. We kind of pride ourselves on that. And we take it from life's experiences and we try to tell others to do that same thing. Don't always go to that whiskey wheel all the time. Then because everybody's tasting notes or review sound exactly the same. Oh, it's caramel and it's oak and it's vanilla and it's leather and tobacco. There's nothing wrong with saying, man, I had a candy and it tasted like this candy. There's nothing wrong with that at all. I don't feel like there is.

And we kind of use both, right? I mean, we'll use both kinds of notes. We're talking about it. But a lot of times, if there's some memory of this just jerking that flavor out of that whiskey you're drinking and saying, hey, this is whorehound candy or whatever it is.

Yeah, you gotta speak it.

You gotta speak it, Mike.

I tried to speak the truth. I just thought it was funny. Somebody called me out on that and said I threw a dart at the cereal. I didn't know how to take it really. I was like, man, that stung a little bit. But hey, I welcome you to come hang out with me and see how we do it. Or see your cereal collection. Yeah, we don't have a, Vivian will kill me if we have cereal in this house. It's bad for me. It's what she says.

Well, then that means you're going off some definite old memories, huh?

Not that old memories and stuff. You know, we're not that far from not having kids in the house. And whenever you have a teenage boy in the house, they can go through boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of cereal. As in when I did the episode with my son, he even said he loves, loves cereal.

And the last one I remember was Count Chocula. Count Chocula. That's the one you talked about in one.

I don't remember which one it was though. It'll leave you that brown milk that you got to drink afterwards. It's good. Ain't nothing wrong with that. Yeah, I think this is a great bourbon. Great, great pour for both of us and stuff. you know, I, I was excited this year that I thought the barstown bourbon festival was going to happen. And we, I sit down with Steve Coombs and we had talked about that. And I've seen him since that episode and we, we talked about it and I said, do you still think it's going to happen? And he's like, I don't know if it's going to happen now, but now, you know, they, they're going to go to that virtual reality on that. And that was like the last big chance for there to be a, an actual, event in Kentucky.

Yeah. So all the hometown rising and bourbon and beyond and all that stuff got canceled out. The, you know, the Bardstown bourbon festival now, the, you know, the, the rest of the, those, those events that happened around the other big events in Louisville are all canceled now. I don't know what's next, Mike. Well, Christmas, they're going to cancel Christmas on us, Jim. How can they cancel Christmas? I don't know. No shopping at the store.

Well, I would think there'd be, you'd still be able to shop, but what about Santa Claus for kids going to see Santa Claus? Did you ever go see Santa Claus as a kid? Santa Claus is banned due to COVID. I bet you money that's what's going to happen. Or maybe not. Who knows? Maybe, maybe everything's, maybe there's a vaccine by then. I hope so. Cause you know, I feel like next year I would like to go to the new Orleans bourbon festival. if we can, and then get back on the road more and stuff. We're actually going to get on the road in a couple of episodes and we're going to go up and see our friends up at New Riff. Yeah, that'll be good. I said today when I was talking to them, I said, you know, you guys are the popular kid on the block right now. You see all these picks coming out from New Riff, so I'm excited to see what they have going on up there. Speaking of picks, won't be long, right? It shouldn't be long. Couple more weeks maybe. Probably right around the time this is coming out, maybe a week after that. you should see our pick coming out. Pretty excited about that. Heck yeah. We both are. Um, yeah, if you're just keep your nose into the roadies, if you, like we talked about before, you're listening to us, you probably want to join up and be part of the roadies. Um, and that's the only two places you can get it is on the roadies and at the, uh, paradise liquor and wine from James, our buddy over there. But that's our first pick, road pick number one, right?

Road pick number one. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, Mike, urban heritage month, 2020, kind of a big let down. really miss doing a lot of the things that we would have been doing as part of that celebration. You know, what we would have done in Bardstown, what we would have done in Louisville, Frankfurt, all around here. We would have had a lot of places to go, a lot of things to do, all been kind of canceled, all been relegated to online events. And you know what? I just hope I pray that next year, same time, same place, everything's back to normal.

Man, you'd hope so, right? Um, for the sake of the craft distilleries out there, especially they need that tourism money. The city of Louisville is just hurting for, for money right now. And that tourism money is, is definitely a big thing for them. You know, you think everybody comes to the bourbon trail. Most of them stay downtown Louisville.

Yeah.

and make that kind of their hub or they'll stay over in Lexington and make that their hub. But there are good things coming out of this. It gives the, I think the bourbon companies, it gives the towns that time. If you haven't been to the bourbon trail in a while and you go to Barstown now, there's three or four more hotels there to stay at.

Yeah.

People have had, there's more distilleries to go to. There's distilleries opening up over in Lexington. There's distilleries. The Dan family is going to open up their distillery. It might take a little bit. There's a distillery just, just north of us up in, uh, eminence. That'll be her pleasure. That'll be opening up. So a lot more distilleries will be here when you come back to the urban trail calendar.

Come on back. Yeah. Come back.

If you're a roadies, she just line say, Hey, I want to stop by and have a drink with you guys. Absolutely.

Well, Mike, you know, Even though things are different, things are not quite the way we expect, we're still getting those fall releases that are happening. So if you're getting some special bottles out there, things that you've been looking forward to all year, make sure you come in the roadies, pour a little bit in the bourbon road, Glenn and Karen, take a picture of it. Let us see what your prize has been this week or next. We'd love to see some of those bottles, wouldn't we?

Yeah, I think that's... Even now, both of us are getting some bottles that we both wanted or coveted, I guess. I've actually gotten a couple this year that I hadn't had before, and I was excited about that. Yeah, just share your love with everybody. Share your pictures and stuff. Share what you're getting. I think you'll see that the roadies, they dig that stuff.

Absolutely. Well, Mike, everybody can find us on the social medias at theburbanroad.com. That includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. Am I missing any? Our website. Our website, theburbanroad.com. You can come to the bourbonroad.com and you can listen to our podcast there. You can read the blog. Mike usually writes those. He does a fine job. We've probably got close to 100 articles in there, as well as some Glencairns. You can come by with The Bourbon Road on them. We'd love to see those picks in the roadies, don't we?

Yeah. So if you haven't noticed, we've been talking a lot about that this episode, but the Bourbon Roadies is our private Facebook group. You can just type that in that search bar. You can look up the bird roadies, ask, join three questions in there, answer those three questions. Only thing we don't do is we don't sell whiskey in there and we don't tolerate any rudeness. You know, that's just us. We like everybody played nice. So come in there and join us. Have a good time while you're at all that you're listening to this. And if you'd like that episode, this episode, then scroll up to the top, hit that subscribe button. It doesn't cost you anything. That's what our sponsors are for.

And boy, does it help us.

It definitely does. And then if you're going to go ahead and help us that way, just go on down and leave us that review. Now, if you're going to leave us a one-star review, tell us what we can do better to fix that and keep you as a listener. We definitely want to keep you as a listener. Right, Jim?

That's right. Absolutely.

But we'd hope you'd leave us a five-star review, but still tell us what we can do. Me and Jim will try to do it for you.

Absolutely, and we do two of these shows a week. You'll hear us on Mondays. We'll be reviewing some craft distilleries, sometimes a big boy. But that's our review day, and we do like a 15 minute review of a whiskey. Like I said, usually it's a craft whiskey, but not always. And then every Wednesday we release a full-length episode, one hour in length, where we either interview somebody, have somebody on the show of interest, or it's just Mike and I, like today, just chatting and talking about what's going on in the bourbon world. Uh, we'd love to have you listen to us a couple of times a week and tell your friends about us. And, uh, you know, you never know if you're out there, you turn those distilleries, you're hitting those bottle shops. You may just run into one of us. That's most definitely true.

So you can find me at one big chief on Instagram.

I'm jshannon63 and we'll see you on 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 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.