Podcast appearances and mentions of elmer t lee

Send us a textTiny explores Rabbit Hole's Hiegold Single Barrel Cask Strength bourbon while discussing the brand's artistic approach to bottle design and distillery architecture. We take a deep dive into the complex nature of bourbon blending, aging conditions, and how whiskey changes over time.• Rabbit Hole Distillery founded by Kaveh Zamanian creates bourbon that captures the essence of what you smell in actual rickhouses• Kentucky exclusive Hiegold features special label designs by Mark Gagnon celebrating Ohio's aviation history• The Louisville distillery offers a modern architectural experience culminating in a sixth-floor bar with city views• Rabbit Hole's lineup includes Cave Hill (standard bourbon), Hiegold (high rye), DARERINGER (sherry finished), and Boxergrail (rye)• Discussion of how bourbon consistency was the industry standard until about 10 years ago when batch variation became desirable• Experiment mixing Cave Hill and Hiegold together created a distinct gingerbread cookie flavor not present in either bourbon alone• Environmental factors affecting bourbon from production through transportation and shelf storage significantly impact flavor• Upcoming podcast featuring Greg Schneider and his new Four Branches Distillery's 9-year Kentucky straight bourbonPlease support our sponsors: Middle West Spirits (check out their new purchase of Old Elk), Whiskey Thief Distillery, Spirit of French Lick, Rosewood Bourbons and Ryes, and Alan Bishop's One Piece at a Time Distilling Institute.Bourbon enthusiasts know that every bottle tells a story, but Rabbit Hole takes this concept to artistic heights with their intricately designed single barrel releases. Tiny explores their Hiegold expression – a bourbon featuring German rye that captures the authentic essence of what you smell walking through a Kentucky rickhouse rather than the caramel-sweet profiles dominating today's market.The episode peels back the layers on Rabbit Hole's Louisville distillery, a modern architectural marvel where visitors spiral alongside the still, culminating at a sixth-floor bar overlooking the city. Unlike traditional Kentucky distilleries that lean heavily on heritage, founder Kaveh Zamanian has created a contemporary bourbon experience that honors tradition through flavor rather than façade.What truly captivates is Tiny's deep dive into bourbon's evolution over the past decade. Where consistency once reigned supreme, today's market celebrates batch variation – a marketing revolution pioneered by legends like Elmer T. Lee, Jimmy Russell, and Booker Noe who transformed "inconsistency" into exclusivity. Similarly, finished whiskeys once derided by purists are now embraced as innovative expressions of the distiller's craft.The most fascinating segment comes when Tiny experiments with mixing bourbons, discovering how Cave Hill and Hiegold together create a distinct gingerbread cookie note absent in either bourbon independently. This sparks a broader discussion about how bourbon's chemical composition continuously evolves through production, transportation, storage conditions, and even how it settles on your shelf at home.Whether you're a bourbon novice or connoisseur, this episode offers valuable insights into how environmental factors shape what's in your glass, why modern distilleries are embracing batch variation, and why the seemingly simple act of If You Have Gohsts voice over Whiskey ThiefSupport the showhttps://www.scotchybourbonboys.com The Scotchy bourbon Boys are #3 in Feedspots Top 60 whiskey podcasts in the world https://podcast.feedspot.com/whiskey_podcasts/

Welcome back to the Drinks and a Movie Podcast! In this seventh episode of my James Bond series, I'm diving into Diamonds Are Forever (1971), which marks Sean Connery's return as Bond after a break from the role. This film, while classic in its own right, is also notable for its place in the Bond franchise's continuity—or lack thereof. Diamonds Are Forever, along with On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice, deviates from the correct order of Ian Fleming's novels. The correct sequence is Thunderball, followed by On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and then You Only Live Twice. This shift is significant because it disrupts the emotional and narrative through-line, especially when it comes to Bond's relationship with Tracy and the aftermath of her death, which was central to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. By skipping over the emotional weight that should have followed, Diamonds Are Forever somewhat lightens the thematic stakes of Bond's character arc, leaning into a more campy, adventurous tone instead of the emotional depth seen in Fleming's books.To pair with this film, I'm sipping on Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel Sour Mash Bourbon, crafted from Buffalo Trace's Mash Bill #2. Elmer T. Lee, a legendary figure in the bourbon world. He was became a master distiller at Buffalo Trace and was instrumental in the creation of Blanton's Bourbon. His single barrel sour mash bourbon is known for its smooth, rich profile, making it the perfect companion for a Bond film that balances high stakes with a lighter, more fun tone. Join me as I discuss how Diamonds Are Forever shifts the tone of the Bond saga, why the change in the novel order matters thematically, and why Elmer T. Lee's bourbon is an ideal drink to accompany this spirited, yet somewhat disjointed, chapter in Bond's story.

The Krewe get's kind of rowdy this week with Fr. Joe back in the TSPL to try and keep us Catholic and Christian?  Does he succeed?We'll explore the question of who we serve and who we should serve.Whiskey this week is a Special Pick for Nunu's Markets from Knob Creek, and topics include pattern recognition with regards to law fare, Henry Ford's hiring practices, and the shocking news about the survival of Adolf Hitler!Finally, we'll give away that precious bottle of Elmer T. Lee!Don't miss this week's episode of Implicit Bias!

Elmer T. Lee - EP131-74: Molly's presents the Pitboss Podcast #podcast #duckhunting #pitbosswaterfowl #gundog #seaduckhunting #dogtrianing #whiskey https://www.mymollys.com https://www.crabstogo.com https://www.duckblindbistro.com https://deemaxx.com https://www.duckwaterboats..com https://www.gunnerkennels.com https://www.turtlebox.com https://www.huntproof.app https://www.pitbosswaterfowl.com https://www.patreon.com/jeffcoats https://www.instagram.com/pitbosswaterfowl Email: jeff@pitbosswaterfowl.com Text Jeff: 410-937-4034 Text Karen: 410-459-9567 Thank you for Watching & Listening!! Jeff & Karen Coats

Send us a textThe legacy of Elmer T. Lee lives on through his namesake single barrel bourbon, where we compare the newest 2025 release with a 2019 bottle to explore how this iconic whiskey maintains its high standards over time.• Elmer T. Lee was Buffalo Trace's fourth master distiller who revolutionized bourbon by launching Blanton's in 1984 as the first modern single barrel bourbon• The 2025 Elmer T. Lee delivers exceptional nose with caramel, vanilla, and oak notes, scoring 15/18 in our barrel bottle breakdown• Comparing 2019 vs 2025 releases shows the newer bottle has more pronounced flavors while the older release has mellowed into an easier-drinking experience• Elmer sought bourbon with vanilla notes, smooth taste, and no harsh aftertaste – qualities still present in today's releases• At 90 proof, Elmer T. Lee drinks well above its proof point with excellent viscosity and flavor complexity• Both releases showcase classic bourbon characteristics with the 2025 bringing more vibrant, attention-commanding flavorsJoin us on our Kentucky distillery tour as we visit Maker's Mark and Jack Daniel's in the coming days, with live updates planned throughout the journey.The enduring legacy of bourbon pioneer Elmer T. Lee takes center stage as we crack open the new 2025 release of his namesake single barrel bourbon. This exploration celebrates the man who revolutionized the industry by introducing Blanton's in 1984 as the first modern single barrel bourbon brand.The 2025 Elmer T. Lee immediately impresses with an exceptional nose that evokes vintage, dusty bourbons—rich caramel, perfect vanilla balance, and just the right amount of oak with zero ethanol burn. At 90 proof, this bourbon drinks well above its strength, offering remarkable complexity and a viscosity that creates beautiful, long-lasting legs in the glass. The flavor profile delivers everything Elmer himself sought when selecting barrels: pronounced vanilla-forward notes, smooth mouthfeel, and a balanced finish without harsh burn.What makes this tasting particularly fascinating is the side-by-side comparison with a 2019 bottle. While both expressions showcase the classic Elmer T. Lee character, the 2025 release presents more vibrant, attention-commanding flavors, while the 2019 has mellowed into an exceptionally smooth, approachable pour. This comparison highlights the subtle variations between single barrels selected years apart, while confirming the consistent quality standards established by the master distiller himself.Through rare interview footage, we hear Elmer describe his selection process in his own words, providing invaluable context for appreciating his bourbon legacy. For anyone fortunate enough to secure a bottle at its retail price of approximately $80, this expression delivers exceptional value and a direct connection to bourbon history. Whether you're new to bourbon or a seasoned enthusiast, Elmer T. Lee continues to represent everything special about Kentucky's native spirit.voice over Whiskey Thief If You Have Gohsts Add for SOFLSupport the showhttps://www.scotchybourbonboys.com

Send us a textThis episode dives into everything March means for bourbon lovers, exploring the unique dynamics between whiskey releases and the excitement of basketball season, dubbed "March Madness." We also touch on the anticipation within the Ohio whiskey community around recent drops and the impact of Irish whiskey during the festive season.  • Discussing why March is such a pivotal month for whiskey enthusiasts  • Overview of major bourbon releases and anticipated drops  • Celebrating the vibrant bourbon community in Ohio  • Exploring the crossover between whiskey and Irish spirits  • Tasting reviews of Fercullen 15 and Augusta bourbons  • Engaging discussions on the idyllic world of whiskey camaraderie  As March kicks off, it's a thrilling time for bourbon enthusiasts and whiskey lovers alike. This month signifies not just the excitement of basketball tournaments but the unveiling of new whiskey releases that elevate the spirits community's experience. Picture this: long-awaited bottles like Elmer T. Lee and Weller 12 suddenly becoming available on the shelves. Each purchase is a little victory, a shared celebration among fellow bourbon enthusiasts, and a reflection of the thriving community spirit. In this episode, we delve deep into the essence of March Madness within the whiskey world. We highlight the excitement surrounding the newest releases, with some of the most sought-after bourbons dropping as we enter this dynamic month. But it's not just bourbon that gets a spotlight; Irish whiskey is also making its presence known with the upcoming St. Patrick's Day festivities. Through the exploration of flavors, tasting notes, and personal experiences, we invite listeners to appreciate the artistry of both whiskey categories and the stories they carry.Join us as we share insights into notable tasting experiences of the Fercullen 15 and Augusta bourbons and their unique backgrounds. You'll hear their tasting profiles, along with our thoughts and recommendations regarding these exquisite selections. Plus, we discuss how March is increasingly becoming synonymous not only with basketball madness but also with endless bourbon delights, fostering connections and friendship among the whiskey community.Ultimately, we encourage listeners to engage actively. We invite bourbon lovers to share their thoughts, experiences, and favorite pours for this lively month. Let's celebrate the joys of great whiskey and the bonds that come with it! Ready to sip and enjoy? Listen in and raise a glass with us!voice over Whiskey Thief If You Have Gohsts Add for SOFLSupport the showhttps://www.scotchybourbonboys.com

  I've never quite bought into the "ocean" aged concept that Jefferson's has touted for many years, mainly because I could never really tell the difference between ocean aged and regular, but I will say over time I have tasted a few gems, especially their single barrels. This is a wheated single barrel, ocean aged at 90 proof bottled for Bourbon World. The MGP wheated recipe has also been hit or miss over the years. I've tasted ones that I thought were maybe the best wheated bourbon I've ever had, including Weller, and I've tasted others that were lost, flabby, just so-so. Which brings us to this particular barrel. Over priced at the $90 SRP, so we've lowered it to $69.99, which I can say with a straight face is a HUGE DEAL! Pillow soft cinnamon spice with layers of caramel throughout. The fruit is subdued, the oak is subdued but the barrel sugars are amazing. Maybe you're like me and getting older and need a little something less than barrel strength sometimes. Don't sleep on 90 proof. Elmer T Lee, Eagle Rare, Weller Special Reserve, all 90 proof. Grab a bottle at any Bourbon World store. You won't regret it.  

Send us a textWhat if you could combine the thrilling world of football with the rich traditions of bourbon? This episode takes you on an unforgettable journey that begins at the Whiskey Thief Distilling Company, where farm-to-glass adventures await in Frankfort, Kentucky, and New Luton. Relive the excitement of a Packers game at Lambeau Field, where the struggle of finding the perfect jersey was overshadowed by the electric game-day atmosphere and the warmth of good friends. As the holiday season approaches, we highlight the joy of crafting bourbon balls and celebrating Thanksgiving with family, blending the passion for football and bourbon in a heartwarming tale of camaraderie.Celebrate the legends who transformed the bourbon industry, from Elmer T. Lee to Booker Noe and the iconic Jimmy Russell. Discover the rich history and deep bonds that have defined this community, as we explore the latest Booker's Batch 24.04, affectionately known as Jimmy's Batch. Personal stories of mentorship and friendship, like the one between Fred Noe and Jimmy Russell, illustrate the spirit of cooperation and trust that fuels the industry's success. Join us as we honor Jimmy Russell's enduring contributions and the heartfelt connections that keep the bourbon world thriving.Raise a glass in tribute with us as we savor the unique flavors of Booker's Bourbon, from its rich amber hue to the distinct taste of sour apple and brown spices. We remember a dear friend with a toast, underscoring bourbon's role in both celebration and solace. Exciting updates await as we announce upcoming events, including our third annual Wild Turkey podcast. Get ready for a night of tasting and discussion dedicated to the Jimmy Russell 70th anniversary wild turkey bottle. Embrace the spirit of adventure and camaraderie that defines the world of bourbon, and remember to enjoy responsibly. ad for Rosewood bourbonSupport the showhttps://www.scotchybourbonboys.com

It's Manscaped Mouth Experience Monday!!  Dude, Tyler, and Brett do another blind for mouth experience monday, and this time it's the hard to find, Elmer T. Lee.  Find out what we thought… on this episode of, The Bourbon Hunters. Also, kill two birds with one stone by supporting our podcast and keeping those testes nice and clean.  Go to www.manscaped.com and get 20% off your order plus free shipping using the promo code BOURBONHUNTERS.  We are pretty excited about this partnership and cannot wait for you to start thinking about us as your are naked and manscaping.  Do you like buying bourbon gear?  Check out our website at https://www.bourbonhunters.com where you can do both with our latest bourbon shirts and our Bourbon Hunter Kenzie Drams. --Tags-- #punkrockandcocktails #thebourbonenthusiast #bourbonhunters #bourbonlover #breakingbourbon #bourbondrinkers #bourbonporn #kentuckystraightbourbon #kentuckybourbon #thebourbonalliance #bourbon #bourbonlife #bourbonlifestyle #bourbonenthusiast #bourbonwhiskey  #bourboncountry #deckpour #bourbongram #instabourbon #yourbourbonyourway #yourbourbonroad #blantons #pappyvanwinkle #vodkasucks #bourbonpodcast #columbuspodcast #bourbonneat #smokewagonbourbon #woodinvillewhiskey   -- Tags -- the bourbon enthusiast  bourbon hunters  bourbon lover  breaking bourbon  bourbon drinkers  bourbon porn  kentucky straight bourbon  kentucky bourbon  the bourbon alliance  bourbon  bourbon life  bourbon lifestyle  bourbon enthusiast

Episode 111.1: The Bobber, Cat Delete, Counterfeit Bill Pube Test, When Parents Die, San Diego Zoo, Gum Gangs, and Elmer T Lee Bourbon

It's is Bubble Watch Season! Which Big East Teams are going in?! Did Wake punch its ticket? Teams to watch: St. Johns! Kentucky! Tennessee! Creighton! It's all about parity this year, which makes March Super Mad!Rushing the court takes center stage! College fun tradition? Or danger to the players? Should it be stopped?Formula 1 Preview! Can anyone challenge Max? Watch the battle for second: Mercedes! Aston Martin! McLaren! Ferrari! Which drivers have the most to prove? Checo? Carlos? Albon? Daniel Ric? Bourbon Review! Elmer T. Lee and Jefferson's Tropic!PFOTW! What the heck is going on with the MLB uniforms!Lasso! Tom Thibodeau's Hair? The Henrico Hornets Repeat!Buzzer Beaters!

  We are always looking for the most under the radar brands that offer a great value, and Evan Williams 1783 fits the bill perfectly. It's not a fancy bottle, but at 90 proof with a more than 4yr minimum mature age profile, I'd put this one right up against Elmer T Lee in a blind decanter test. Elegant nose of butterscotch, mint, wild honey, and lemon. On the palate, perfectly portioned delivery of sweet oak along with space, and more butterscotch to finish. Never pass up a $20 bourbon that no one is drinking, because THAT'S the next hard to get!

On this episode, Butch and lance enjoy a pour at the BGB Speakeasy and discuss if Elmer T. Lee is really Worth The Hype.

On this episode I'm joined by two friends who are early in their bourbon journey's.  Scott Davis and Jim Press join me to taste through four iconic bourbons and pick a favorite. Contact Rob:www.foodwinewhiskey.comrob@foodwinewhiskey.com@foodwhiskey on X@food_wine_whiskey on IG

Jim sits down with Dominic Guglielmi, author of "Warehouse H, The Story of Blanton's Bourbon". Jim and Dom sip on various expressions of Blanton's while exploring the book and talking about the amazing history of this brand. Dominic is a true Blanton's "Superfan" and has an huge amount of information to share about the brand and its history. Thank you to our sponsors, Blanton's Bourbon Shop and Pints and Barrels. Be sure to check out our private Facebook group, "The Bourbon Roadies" for a great group of bourbon loving people. You will be welcomed with open arms!

This week on The Whiskey Trip Podcast , Big Chief discusses one of his favorite pastimes, hunting, with Ben Cole from Rooted TV on Carbon Network. The air has started to cool and it's early October and the changes have these two big men ready for the excitement of the season. They talk about sharing pours of whiskey with fellow hunters at camp and the experience of sharing one's knowledge of the outdoors with the young and old. They reminisce about their first pours of bourbon and their first hunts. They also dive into Ben's new show, Rooted TV, and wild game cooking with passion. Big Chief and Ben sip on Kentucky Vintage from Willett to start the show and then in the second half Big Chief introduces Ben to Elmer T. Lee from Buffalo Trace Distillery. Just like hunting, whiskey is meant to be shared. This ride on The Whiskey Trip gives you a peak into Big Chief's life outside of Whiskey. Cheers!!

It's the bourbon everyone loves or everyone loves to eye-roll at. Blanton's has developed quite the reputation in this current market, with some calling it overrated and some prizing the bottles and paying large amounts for them. Today, we're going to dive into the history of the brand going back to Elmer T. Lee and to the origins of what is now the Buffalo Trace Distillery. Get the ins and outs and learn from a super fan and collector Dominic who has a new  book out called Warehouse H: The Story of Blanton's Bourbon.

  The latest from the Coors Whiskey Company, Barmen 1873 is a blend of straight bourbon whiskies, a 5yr MGP wheated and a much loved 5yr Bardstown Four Grain bourbon. Bottled at 92 proof, the result is a surprisingly REALLY delicious bourbon blend. I put this on par with Elmer T Lee in terms of proof, drinkability, approachability, and finish. Soft malt notes on the nose with a little fruit and some oak. On the palate, pillowy soft fruit, followed by cinnamon spice, caramel, vanilla, and a deep base of malt. It's just really darn drinkable but with a surprising complexity.

It's become a mission of mine to hit all the Sazerac/Buffalo Trace products this year and Hancock's Reserve Single Barrel Bourbon is on that list. Which raises the question…what better time than now?The bottle (like Henry Mckenna 10 year and EH Taylor Small Batch) used to be seen on the shelves of my local Total Wine almost all the time. Now, you are lucky if you can find it.I don't know how this one ended up on the allocated list, but I assume it is because it's distilled at Buffalo Trace Distillery. It is also Mashbill 2, so it's compared to Blanton's, Elmer T Lee, and Rock Hill Farms.Let's take a look at the bottle before I see if it is worthy of being mentioned with those names.Call or Text the show at 941-301-8503!Get your official Whiskey Straight Up Merchandise: https://whiskeystraightup.com/shop/View all our videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUfOZSqSw1U2HGAy7Jz_uSgOur website: https://whiskeystraightup.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whiskeystraightupInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/whiskeystraightup/#whiskey #podcast #podtube #podlife #watchme #beginners #newbie #history #bourbon #bourbontube #whiskey #jackdaniels #tennesseewhiskey #bourbontube #review #jack #tennessee #new

Andy and Jon discuss everything Elmer T Lee!

The bros are traveling in episode 10 of season two, as Steve recaps his journey to Ecuador. He details the whiskey scene in South America, discussing wiske and all its glory. Gary recaps his trip to New Orleans, where the whiskey scene was much, much better, to say the least. Whiskey is 60 is next with Elmer T Lee being review by Gary and Steve reviews Redemption wheated bourbon. A HUGE surprise here when it comes to the ETL!! Tune in to find out if we will recommend buying, shortlisting or avoiding these two whiskies. Give us a listen and follow! Twitter @realbourbonbrosInstagram therealbourbonbrosYouTube TheRealBourbonBrosFacebook Bourbon Bro Gary SteveTic Tok @therealbourbonbrosThank you for listening and all the support, spread the word! We would love any feedback as well!-The Real Bourbon Bros.

Every now and then, we have to review a rare or allocated bottle  Right?  Well, this one is a big one!  Elmer T Lee Single Barrel Bourbon is revered within the whiskey community.  Many pay up to $300 for this whiskey.  I just don't think it is worth THAT.  I have my reasons why this GOOD whiskey is not worth secondary pricing!Feel free to reach out to me in the comments with any questions you might have! Cheers!Call or Text the show at 941-301-8503!Get your official Whiskey Straight Up Merchandise: https://whiskeystraightup.com/shop/Get better help with BetterHelp! For 10% off your first month: https://betterhelp.com/whiskeystraightupFor 15% off AND FREE SHIPPING, use code "WHISKEYSTRAIGHTUP" @ http://www.liquid-iv.comView all our videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUfOZSqSw1U2HGAy7Jz_uSgApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whiskey-straight-up/id1634977533Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1ZOacL3PuxXxzoTnqxHYRjGoogle Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8yMDE2Nzk1LnJzcwiHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-whiskey-straight-up-99517397/Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/39a0119f-da42-469f-a47c-b754105c3698/whiskey-straight-up?refMarker=null&Our website: https://whiskeystraightup.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whiskeystraightupInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/whiskeystraightup/#whiskey #podcast#podtube #podlife #watchme #beginners #newbie #history #bourbon #bourbontube #whiskey #bottledinbond #bourbon #bourbontube review #greenriver #wheated #new

Ken, Iggy, and Michael sample of 2017's Elmer T. Lee, a highly sought-after bottle from Buffalo Trace. What will their impressions be of this nearly impossible-to-find bourbon? ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/holladay-happy-hour/id1641581320⁠ Email us at - thewhiskeyfriends@gmail.com Music by Adam Whitehead - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/adamwhiteheadmusic⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ #Whiskey Friends #Bourbon Real Talk #Elmer T. Lee #Buffalo Trace #2017 Vintage #Whiskey Tasting #Secondary Market Prices #whiskey enthusiasts #whiskey review A Sip of Elmer T. Lee - A Journey with Whiskey Friends Introduction: We recently had the pleasure of delving into the world of bourbon with a diverse group of whiskey enthusiasts, known as the Whiskey Friends. These fine folks came together to sample a generous donation of bourbon, courtesy of an anonymous benefactor. We kicked off our journey with a bottle of Elmer T. Lee, a 2017 vintage, and what a journey it was. Appearance: Elmer T. Lee 2017 arrived in our glasses with a friendly 90 proof, setting the stage for an approachable, yet exciting bourbon experience. The color was a lovely amber, teasing our senses with the promise of flavors to come. Nose: With a collective nose for this bourbon, we discovered an enticing blend of scents. There were the familiar sweet bourbon notes, akin to unrolled saltine crackers, accompanied by hints of rosewater and a subtle touch of Nilla wafers. The cherry wood aroma was unmistakable, providing a delicate, fruity overtone. Palate: Sipping this bourbon brought a delightful mix of flavors to the forefront. The cherry wood we detected on the nose blossomed into a luscious cherry profile on the palate. A touch of apricot added an unexpected, yet delightful twist, resulting in a harmonious blend of fruitiness and depth. The mouthfeel was thick, like honeycomb, with minimal heat, allowing us to savor the experience. Finish: As we continued to savor Elmer T. Lee, the finish revealed more layers of flavor. It offered a subtle spiciness, akin to tobacco with a sprinkling of almonds. The hint of age was there, adding to the complexity of the experience. Conclusion: Elmer T. Lee 2017 was a true delight to explore. Its balance of fruity notes, the elegance of cherry wood, and the gentle heat of a 90 proof bourbon made for a well-rounded experience. Though its retail price of $40 was reasonable, the secondary market prices of $200 to $400 demonstrated the high demand for this particular vintage. As it often goes in the world of whiskey, treasures like this one become increasingly sought after with time. This bourbon transported us to a place where we could appreciate the craftsmanship and artistry behind the spirit. A big thank you to our generous donor for allowing us to embark on this wonderful journey. Our Whiskey Friends are now eagerly looking forward to the next adventure in the world of whiskey. Cheers!

There is no wrong way to drink whiskey. That being said, we certainly have our opinions and are happy to share them. We take fan submitted whiskey mixers and we give them a try in this episode of the "Drinking It Your Way" series.Pours of the Day!Elmer T. Lee w/ Sprite (Elmer's preferred method of consumption

Jesse Kelly is a former Marine, candidate for Congress, and currently hosts the nationally syndicated "The Jesse Kelly Show". Jesse stopped by the virtual bar to discuss the return of Brittney Griner, the decline of Western leaders values, and the reminder that we are not entitled to live in the same country as our predecessors. Grab a glass! There Will Be Bourbon. For me: Elmer T. Lee. For Jesse: TX Bourbon.

Buffalo Trace is home to the original, first ever single barrel bourbons released to the American market.  Being part of their #2 Mashbill recipe, we dive into some history of the brand, the single barrel story, and two of their most coveted hunted bottles: Elmer T. Lee and Blanton's Original Single Barrel. Thanks for dropping by!  Please leave a review and subscribe!

In this episode, Matt tastes Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel. 

On this episode of Sundays' Sip Sonja is taking through the taste notes of Elmer T Lee. This single barrel straight Kentucky bourbon expression from the mash bill two of Buffalo Trace Distillery packs some interesting flavors. To more about ELMER T LEE and all their expressions visit https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com. Be sure to follow Sonja on her Instagram @so_dramgood. Looking for a new glass to try your whiskey? Check out WHISDOM GLASS (https://whiskeywhisdom.com/?via=hoodsommelier ) Use code TTIBP to get 10% of your first purchase. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/hoodsom/support

Who doesn't love a revival story? It's been a while since we've shared a bourbon pour and it was great to be back together in a new studio no less. Shoutout to Blake and his buddies planning their Bourbon Trail visit – we want to hear about your adventure!   Back to the podcast, reviving the Bourbon Boys podcast doesn't hold a candle to the Jimmy Red Corn story.  News flash - since we were last together, Kurt's texting has miraculously improved… unfortunately his bladder has shrunk.   The line up was two High Wire Distilling New Southern Revival pours and Elmer T Lee.  A couple of them were solid….one may be wildly over-valued on the secondary market. @highwirechs @buffalotracedistillery #SouthernRevival #HighWireDistilling #ElmerTLee #BuffaloTrace #BourbonOn #BourbonTrail

Today we'll be reviewing Elmer T. Lee Bourbon If you have any questions or comments, or simply want to reach out, contact me at bourbonstuff@gmail.com. You can also check me out on Instagram under the username Bourbon_and_Stuff. Any donations (https://anchor.fm/bourbonstuff/support) to the channel will be put towards improved equipment, new bourbon and stuff, and even the ability to give back to you, our amazing listeners! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bourbonstuff/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bourbonstuff/support

Listen in as Jim and Mike host Taylor Hughes, an energetic country artist who loves that brown water. Taylor sips on Elmer T, Weller and Knob Creek 12 while belting out a few of her favorites. She has been described as having a voice as "rich chocolate cake with soul" and is said to be "country music's answer to Adele". Don't miss this episode. https://www.taylorhughesmusic.com/ Be sure to check out our private Facebook group, "The Bourbon Roadies" for a great group of bourbon loving people. You will be welcomed with open arms!

The guys completed a Buffalo Trace Tournament a few months ago and there was a pretty large upset. Buffalo Trace Bourbon knocked off Elmer T. Lee in a shocking and convincing blind win. But, was it the right decision? Tonight, we review Elmer T. Lee with friend of the show, Joe Decadence! We'll rate it based on its nose, taste, cohesiveness/complexity, and value!

We chat about our tour of Buffalo Trace, Beam, Bardstown, Starlight and others. 

TJ and Brendan (with a special pop in from Ben) are back for the 2nd half of round 2 of Buffalo Madness! You don't want to miss Buffalo Trace vs Elmer T Lee & Blanton's vs Hancock's!

Listen in as Jim and Mike taste through the mashbills of Buffalo Trace Distillery. You might be suprised to learn some of the closely held secrets. Stay till the end for a great give-away. Check out https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/ Be sure to check out our private Facebook group, "The Bourbon Roadies" for a great group of bourbon loving people. You will be welcomed with open arms!

We are back for 2022! Covid rules have changed things are getting a little sketchy. We bring in the new year with four bourbons: Elmer T Lee, Blue Run Holiday Batch, Old Forester Barrel Strength Apple Butter, and Joseph Magnus Cigar Blend. Denny got poison ivy everywhere somehow. Antonio Brown and other NFL news and our picks for the Super bowl bound teams. Spider-Man spoilers we will warn you don't worry. One in three Americans can't even wipe their butt right. We review the Queen's Pearls by William Ventura. Finally, we give our top 5 cigars for 2021.Reach out to us with your thoughts, questions, concerns, or comments at: Cigarheadzpodcast@gmail.comFollow us:Cigarheadz- Facebook, TwitterDenny- InstagramMarc- Instagram

It's a blind battle of mash bill #2 from Buffalo Trace, and the #2 singles from Sinatra's discography. Who will win between Elmer T. Lee and Blanton's?

The Scotchy Bourbon Boys welcome Harlen Wheatly master distiller for buffalo trace distillery. Harlen is the 5th master distiller in a amazing distilling line.  Cornel EH Taylor, Gorge T Stagg, Cornel Albert Blanton, & Elmer T Lee have laid down an amazing history of whiskey.  Not only is Harlen laying down a rich amazing history of his own, he fully understand the history he is in charge of protecting. Tiny and Harlen get in to details in this exciting podcast of The Scotchy Bourbon boysSupport the show

This week had a lot of twist, turns and an unexpected in studio visit from a certain degenerate gambler. The Sam's chat about the great matches on Sunday Chelsea big win over Spurs, Man U escaping with a late penalty save against West Ham and Leicester are left scratching their heads over bad calls that favored Brighton. Big Sam has his first shot of Malort for the season as Producer Mel's Villa trounced the toffees. The Sam's enjoy some Elmer T Lee bourbon as the show goes off the rails because Vacation Graham.   Games Covered: Chelsea 3 - Tottenham 0 Man U 2 - West Ham 1  Brighton 2 - Leicester 1 Arsenal 1 - Burnley 0 Aston Villa 3 - Everton 0 Leeds 1 - Newcastle 1 Brentford 2 - Wolverhampton 0 Man City 0 - Southampton 0 Liverpool 3 - Palace 0 Watford 3 - Norwich 1   Like what you hear?  Leave us a review and tell a friend.  Love what you hear?  Then support the show:   Buy a shirt  https://www.teepublic.com/user/du-football-show  https://www.patreon.com/dufootballshow www.Dufootballshow.com   Get involved: Send your questions to DUfootballshow@gmail.com   Facebook @DUfootballshow Instagram @DUfootballshow Twitter @DUfootballshow

Brad and Bob look back on 2000's Best Picture winner, Ridley Scott's Gladiator. Much like the '95 winner, Braveheart, the guys wonder aloud how this one holds up after a couple decades of cultural relevance. It carries an 8.5 average on IMDb, but critics like Roger Ebert awarded it only 2 stars. Why is it so reviled by critics but beloved by the general public? Meanwhile, they revisit the Buffalo Trace distillery for Elmer T. Lee, a lower-proof single barrel offering that is just as hard-to-acquire as all of their other whiskies. Will the bourbon itself be worth the hassle of buying it? Film & Whiskey Podcast. New episodes every Monday. Film & Whiskey Instagram Film & Whiskey Facebook Film & Whiskey Twitter Call-in Line: (216) 800-5923 Email us! Join our Discord channel! Theme music: "New Shoes" by Blue Wednesday Transition music: Ophiucus by NK Music --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/filmwhiskey/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/filmwhiskey/support

On this episode Hound Dog and Slo Ride have a special guest;  Shine Man. Shine Man is  a moonshiner from a land far far away and joins the guys to talk about of all things, moonshine.  Yes, moonshine on the bourbon show; crazier things have happened.  Elmer T Lee is the bourbon of choice and  as always gets rated to the normal standards of the show.  So pour our favorite drink and  let Shine Man shine.   

One of the most renowned contributors to Whiskey - Elmer T. Lee's 100 Year Tribute bourbon!

Tiny  looks at the relationship Hype plays in the whiskey industry is it worth it or not?  come join tiny and help him work for starting and finishing technical difficulties in this weeks bourbon and whiskey podcast of The Scotchy Bourbon BoysSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/scotchybourbonboys)

On this episode of The Last Drop, JB & Khody end Daft Madness with Daft Punks final album "Random Access Memories." Khody sips on some Smoke Wagon Uncut Unfiltered Bourbon & JB pours a few glasses (before breaking one) of Elmer T. Lee. As always, sit back, turn your headphones up, don't stop, keep pouring & Daft Punk Forever. 

Whiskey comes in many forms, but bourbon is America's spirit The origins of bourbon are both known and debated.  We know early settlers in Virginia and Kentucky made use of the abundance of corn to distill their whiskey, but there are a variety of stories on who was first to put it in a new, charred oak barrel and to actually call it bourbon.  No matter the exact origins of bourbon we now have a spirit that is all American to enjoy.  Congress declared so in 1964 stating that bourbon is a "distinctive product of the United States."  Score one for America. We're joined this week by Bruce Tierney, all around aficionado and spirit consultant to Dekalb Bottle House.  Tierney shares with us the history of bourbon, let's us know what it takes to call a whiskey bourbon, and offers some suggestions on affordable options to test the waters as well as some of the rarer bourbons to seek out.  We also discuss what flavors to look for when tasting as well as common off flavors, and a quick course on how to taste your bourbon. There's much more information on bourbon than we could cover in this show so we've included additional information and resources here.  Side note, if you're used to sampling beer in 4 oz pours know that 4-5 1 oz pours of bourbon kick harder than you think.  Proceed with caution. Copper pot stills at ASW Distillery in Atlanta, GA (Photo: Thechadwix, CC BY-SA 4.0) What makes a whiskey bourbon? Must be produced in the United States Many people mistakenly believe bourbon must be made in Kentucky but it can be made anywhere in the US.  Several other countries support the American origin, but some do not.  Be careful when purchasing overseas. Must be made from at least 51% corn Has to be aged in new, charred oak barrels Can be distilled to no more than 160 proof.  Higher proof distillation begins to strip flavors. Has to be entered into the barrel for aging at no more than 125 proof Must be bottled at 80 proof or more There is no minimum age requirement for bourbon as long as it meets the above guidelines Outside of these requirements there are several variations allowed such as wheated and "high rye" bourbons, bottled-in-bond, straight bourbon and blended bourbons. How to begin your bourbon experience Tierney has offered up his very detailed advice on how to get started with bourbon including notes for selecting a bourbon, glassware and tasting. My first recommendation for someone new to bourbon is to start your experience by tasting standard bourbons from the major producers first before deciding if you want to branch out and try other brands. I recommend brands that tend to be between 90-100 proof. Yes, that may seem a bit hotter at first but they also tend to be more flavorful. The minimum permitted proof is 80 proof and at that point you are drinking a good bit more water than bourbon anyway! If it seems intimidating to shell out the money to buy a bunch of different bourbons you are right! Although all of the major bourbon producers have a brand that costs in the $20-35 range it can still be a lot of money. Pick a couple that are of interest or are readily available in your area and start with those first. Don't try too many different brands to start with. Or if you are fortunate enough to live near a bar with a good bourbon selection start by tasting different bourbons a glass at a time if you don't want to commit to buying a full bottle. Any bourbon bar worth its name will have many if not all of the standard brands from the major distilleries. If they don't then you are in the wrong place! Try to learn a bit about the different bourbons you have selected. The internet can be your friend here. I can personally recommend straightbourbon.com as a good source for information about bourbon and many other types of spirits. Remember all bourbon is made from at least 51% corn but what is the rest of recipe of grains, known as the mashbill, that makes up the bourbon? Most bourbon use either rye or wheat as the "flavoring grain" in addition to the corn and a little bit of malted barley when you are buying brands from the major distilleries. Many people think of rye as making bourbon a bit spicier although to meet it seems a bit earthier than spicier. Is it mostly corn with a little bit of rye? Buffalo Trace falls into this category. Or does it have a lot of rye? Four Roses Single Barrel is one of the higher rye content bourbons. Maybe make those two your first choices and see which you like better! Most other brands tend to fall somewhere in between. Or is it a bourbon with wheat as the flavoring grain? This type is a bit less common but still readily available. Basic options include Maker's Mark, Larceny and Weller. Perhaps start your journey with a rye bourbon and a wheated bourbon. After you have tried your choices several times you can decide which one you prefer and then try something more similar to see what appeals to you. Try tasting the bourbon without adding anything at first. That means no ice, no water. Once you find a few you like you can then drink them however you like. But learning how to taste Bourbon is different from drinking Bourbon. Try to acquire a glass made for tasting bourbon and other spirits. A typical rocks glass works fine for drinking but to appreciate the aroma as well as the flavor a glass like a Glencairn that narrows a bit at the top helps hold in the aroma. A small tapered white wine glass can also work well but just be careful how much you pour! What looks like a small pour in a wine glass can be quite large. Have some water available. Water is useful to cleanse your palate between tastes in addition to keeping you well hydrated! It is also useful if you want to add a drop or two to your bourbon but only after first trying it without any water. An eye dropper is useful for adding water a drop or two at a time rather than just trying to pour a small amount in. You can always add more drops but you can't take water back out if you pour too much in. Try to think about what you taste and smell as you drink the bourbon. It is very useful when first starting out to take notes about each bourbon you try. Consider getting a small notebook to take those notes and be able to look at the notes from bourbons you may have tried earlier. Bourbon drinkers tend to refer to the flavors they appreciate when tasting by a variety of names. Does it have caramel or vanilla flavors? Fruity or herbal flavors? Woody or buttery flavors? If you are struggle to come up with descriptions don't panic! Instead, perhaps try looking up a Bourbon Flavor Wheel on line to help you try to determine what you are tasting. Four broad categories to think about when trying a bourbon include Appearance, Aroma, Taste, and Finish. Try not to look at reviews by somebody else before you taste. That will tend to put certain flavors and characteristics in your head. Instead do your own review first and then see what others said afterwards. Also, everyone's palate is different and your own palate can change over time depending on what you have eaten or been doing recently so what somebody else describes may not be what you taste. You may also want to taste the same bourbon several times over a period of days before making a decision on whether you like it or not. Note the color of the bourbon by holding it up to a light or placing a clean white sheet of paper behind the glass. Is it light and amber or dark brown? Is there a reddish hint to the color? Swirl it gently and see how quickly it and slides back down in the glass. The streaks or “legs” that appear may quickly drip down or it may happen a bit slower suggesting a more thick or viscous whiskey. Check the smell or "nose" of the bourbon. Open your mouth slightly and give it a gentle sniff by putting your nose practically in the opening of the glass. Do so gently because initially you make pick up strong scent of alcohol before you get the aroma of the bourbon itself. Don't gulp the bourbon down in a single quick swallow! Instead take a moderate sip and then let the liquid move across your mouth and tongue. Yes, it may burn a bit initially but you will eventually adapt to that. You will pick up different flavors on different parts of your tongue and mouth that you will otherwise miss out on. You can even “chew” on the bourbon gently to let it coat your mouth. Take your time before you swallow! Finally swallow the bourbon and try to appreciate the finish of the bourbon before reaching for the water! Does the taste linger awhile or disappear quickly? Did the flavor change by getting more sweet or bitter or fruity in nature? Pulling barrel samples at the Buffalo Trace Distillery (Photo: Buffalo Trace Distillery) The ten major bourbon distilleries Barton 1792 Distillery Sazerac owned Barton's primary brand is known these days simply as 1792. In the past they made an excellent budget bourbon called Very Old Barton 100 proof, a six-year-old bourbon that delivered great flavor for less than $20. But it was not not widely available and the six-year age statement was eliminated a few years ago. Barton doesn't really have a special limited release but has recently moved to expand their line of whiskeys with several new brands. But for someone new to bourbon the 1792 brand is the place to start. Brown Forman This distillery is primarily known for the brand Old Forester although the also make a brand called Early Times. Old Forrester 100 proof is readily available at a decent price and the recent release of Early Times Bottled in Bond is also well priced if sometimes less readily available. Brown-Forman has an ongoing release of other specialty bourbons and one annual allocated release known as Birthday Bourbon that celebrates the birthday of the founder, George Garvin Brown. It used to be more readily available and decently priced but has more than tripled in price over the last 8 or so years and is as hard to get as any of the special releases. The best place for the new bourbon drinker start is the standard Old Forester 100 proof. Buffalo Trace Buffalo Trace is a distillery with many brands that is owned by the Sazerac company. It has of course become the darling of the bourbon world primarily because of one name and that name, of course, is Pappy Van Winkle.  But Pappy is the brand of another company run by the descendants of Pappy Van Winkle. They currently source all of their bourbon from Buffalo Trace using the same mashbill as the Weller line of what is known as “wheated bourbon”. It is different from bourbon made under the various Buffalo Trace brand names because the Van Winkle family chooses bourbon that fits a particular flavor profile that they feel best represents their products.  Among the different Buffalo Trace brands that you may be familiar with are Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, EH Taylor and the Weller line of bourbons. Also from Buffalo Trace are several sought after but currently hard to find brands like Blanton's and Elmer T. Lee. The big annual special release from Buffalo Trace is known as the Antique Collection which includes George T Stagg, William Larue Weller and Eagle Rare 17 year-old bourbons along with Thomas H. Handy and Sazerac 18 year-old rye.  These have become extremely difficult to find and are usually marked up well above the suggested retail price much like Pappy Van Winkle bourbons. Four Roses There are four standard bottlings - Yellow Label (Which now has a beige label but is still often referred to as yellow label), Small Batch, Small Batch Select and Single Barrel. Yellow label is the lowest proof and least expensive but both small batch and single barrel are excellent bourbons well worth considering when starting your bourbon journey. Heaven Hill This distillery produces several bourbon brands that you may not even know are from Heaven Hill. They include Evan Williams, Elijah Craig, Henry McKenna, Fighting Cock and Larceny. Old Fitzgerald and Parker's Heritage Collection are currently two of the primary annual special and allocated releases and periodically they release Elijah Craig 12 and Elijah Craig 18 barrel proof bottlings. Jim Beam Jim Beam is a well know and long-standing bourbon producer of many different brand names. The classic Jim Beam "White label" can be found almost anywhere in the country. Other brands from Beam include, Bookers, Bakers and Knob Creek which tend to be a bit more expensive although Knob Creek can still be a decent value. In addition, Beam makes a second mashbill or style of bourbon that include Basil Hayden's and Old Grandad which has long been regarded as an excellent budget bourbon. It comes in several proofs at 80, 100 and 114. The 114 may be a little strong for the novice bourbon fan but consider the 100-proof version or a Knob Creek 100 proof as examples of Beam bourbon. Maker's Mark Once an independent distillery making a wheated style of bourbon exclusively. It is now part of the Beam family (officially known as Beam-Suntory after they were purchased by the Suntory company of Japan). Maker's Mark used to make only one bourbon for domestic consumption now they have three, having expanded first with Maker's 46, which many think is a bit better than the standard, and the cask strength Maker's Mark bourbon. They don't really do a particular special release each year but have been doing variations on Maker's 46 lately. Midwest Grain Products / MGP MGP is unique in that it was the only major whiskey distillery not located in Kentucky. Instead, it is located just across the Ohio river in Indiana. They are also unusual in that they don't sell their own whiskey save for a few very limited exceptions. They do now have their own brand called Rossville Union which is a rye whiskey but to my knowledge they don't routinely sell their own Bourbon. Instead, they distill and age whiskey for other companies to buy and sell under their own label. As a result, there is tons of it on the market. The best way to tell if you have an MGP whiskey is to look at the label and see if it says "Distilled in Indiana". This most likely means the company either doesn't distill bourbon themselves or have only recently started distilling and need time for their own Bourbon to mature. And while bourbon enthusiasts sometimes make fun of the fakers and schemers who carelessly bottle MGP as if it were their own whiskey, it is important not to forget the great MGP bourbon and rye that has gone into various bottlings of excellent whiskey from places like High West, Smooth Ambler, Willett and others. Wild Turkey Wild Turkey has long had a large and loyal following and is often a spirit that bourbon enthusiasts look for old and rare bottlings from.  Brands include the basic Wild Turkey bourbon at both 80 proof and 101 proof along with Russel's Reserve, Rare Breed and Kentucky spirit. They have also started a premium line called Master's Keep which is a unique and different style of whiskey every year. This is a case where I would suggest the Wild Turkey 101 bourbon over the standard 80 proof version as the best place to start. Woodford Reserve Woodford is owned by Brown Forman but made it its own separate distillery. Well sort of! It is unique for being made by using pot stills rather than the more common column style still other major distilleries use. Some people, find the Woodford has a bit of a coppery or metallic component to the taste. In any case, typical Woodford whiskey is reportedly blended with whiskey from Old Forester to create a more balanced flavor. The basic Woodford Reserve is my recommendation to try if you want to compare it to other brands. (Tierney notes this is not one of his favorites.) Newer Distilleries Here are a few new up and coming Kentucky distilleries to look for after you have had time to develop your bourbon preferences: New Riff, Wilderness Trail, Bardstown Bourbon Company, Luxrow Distillery (recently purchased by MGP), Angel's Envy (Port finished Bourbon) Drink Local!In addition to these well-known distilleries many areas have local options for Bourbon.  Check and see what's available near you. Still want to learn more?  If you've got Hulu check out Neat: The Story of Bourbon, a great documentary featuring many of the master distillers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJHBLEaNZ3c The Beer Bourbon List Elijah Craig Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Four Roses Small Batch Georgia T. Stagg (Buffalo Trace Antique Collection) Old Forester 1910 Old Forester 1920 William Larue Weller (Buffalo Trace Antique Collection) Craft Beer News Hop Growers of American Have Released Their Annual Report For 2020 ABInBev Is Moving Production of Stella Artois To The US By The End of The Year Draft Sales Were Down 46% Nation-Wid During the Super Bowl Check out these other episodes... Beer & Bourbon & BBQ at The Nest | Ep. 254 Kombucha and Fermentation Fun with Cultured South | Ep. 236 Sake Primer with the Taps @ Ph’East | Ep. 214

Dan Garrison joins the guys from Black and Brown and talks about hanging out with Elmer T. Lee. Based in Hye, Texas, Garrison Brothers Distillery holds the distinction of being the first legal Texas whiskey distillery. They are a force in the bourbon industry with an enthusiastic following. We talk barrels, bottles and how Garrison Brothers is moving towards the future of bourbon distilling. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dablackandbrownpodcast/support

On our special one year anniversary episode we conduct another blind tasting and rating of six whiskeys featured throughout our past year while discussing the future of DrepandStone.  Whiskeys featured in this episode: Pikesville Rye , Elmer T. Lee  ,Wild Turkey 101, Heaven Hill BiB , Michter's 10 Year, and from our very first episode, Redemption Wheated. Help Support the podcast and Buy Us a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/drepandstone Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or DrepandStone.com Don't forget to subscribe! Music by @joakimkarudmusic

Dutch keeps Debbie Downing while Jules zombie preps and Dillon sleeps through earthquakes. In this podcast, we talk 'what's trending' in social media and current events.Check us out on Instagram @curiosity_publichttps://www.instagram.com/curiosity_public/Watch us on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcplnOSfcnOh5paIL2LdaAwStay curious!All claims made here about alcohol, whether in this podcast, in this description, or on our Youtube channel, are solely our opinions and intended only for those of legal drinking age.  All links provided here should only be accessed by those of legal drinking age.

On this week's episode we sample Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey    while discussing education, teaching, and the quote "Those Who Can, Do. Those Who Can't, Teach." We'd love to hear from you! Email us your comments and questions: DrepandStone@gmail.com and connect with us via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or DrepandStone.com Don't forget to subscribe! Music by @joakimkarudmusic

Buffalo Trace is one of the most recognized bourbon distilleries in the world both in terms of age and quality of products. Hancock Lee and his brother Willis Lee followed the ancient buffalo crossings along the banks of the Kentucky River in Franklin County, and through these Buffalo Traces, found the limestone rich water that would form the cornerstone of the distilling site where it stands today. Guys, this distillery produces some of the heavy hitters we all know and love, everything from that classic Green Label Buffalo Trace to the now coveted Blanton's single barrel and even the rare and celebrated Pappy Van Winkle line. On this show we got to taste Old Charter, E.H. Taylor Single Barrel, Eagle Rare, two different Wellers, Antique 107 and Weller 12, Hancock's Reserve, Elmer T. Lee, Rock Hill Farms, and the extremely rare and coveted George T. Stagg.   If it sounds like a staggering lineup, it was: 9 whiskeys in total; so we had to bring in a few guests with the knowledge and palette to handle it all. First we had Katy O'Donnell from Bond & Royal, a subsidiary of Sazerac who owns and distributes Buffalo Trace. The Sazerac Company purchased the distillery in 1992 and has been a huge part of continuing to keep the spirit of tradition and future innovation alive. Her historic knowledge contributed so much color to each bottle we drank. Also, we brought in Wen Yeh, the owner of local Los Angeles whiskey bar Neat, and head bartender Arash Farzaneh. They opened Neat with an educational spirits experience that offers whiskey flights as well as converting customers to take their great whiskey...ahem...neat.   This is Part 2 of 2, so if you haven't listened to Part 1, go back an episode!   Click on any of the following links to purchase the spirits. Here is a full list of what we drank: Old Charter https://bit.ly/OldCharterB5   E.H. Taylor Single Barrel https://bit.ly/ColonelEHTaylorSB   Eagle Rare  https://bit.ly/EagleRareTen   Weller Antique 107  https://bit.ly/WellerAntique107   Weller 12 Year https://bit.ly/Weller12YR   Hancock's Reserve https://bit.ly/HancocksReserveSB   Elmer T. Lee https://bit.ly/ElmerTlee   Rock Hill Farms https://bit.ly/RockHillFarms   George T. Stagg https://bit.ly/GeorgeTStagg19   Check out everything from Bond & Royal here: http://bondandroyal.com/   Check out Neat here in Los Angeles: https://www.neat.la/   You can always find us at www.CartelHour.com for additional information on the podcast, and of course, you can visit www.CaskCartel.com for America's largest online premium spirits marketplace.   Follow us on social media @CartelHour where you can find information about upcoming episodes, and live tastings at The Infusery.   And speaking of those live tastings, for those living in or visiting the Los Angeles area that truly are intrigued, if you're interested in drinking along with us, we would love to have you to come enjoy an evening at the Infusery to drink through a carefully selected assortment of spirits. We offer custom flights and have a robust library of over 750+ spirits to choose from. And you get to drink with Seth and I, pick our brains, learn a ton, and generally have a blast. Visit www.cartelhour.com/join for more information.   And, if you're a spirits brand that would like to be featured on the podcast, please visit https://www.cartelhour.com/submissions   Thank you everyone for listening and remember to drink responsibly, and in good company.

Buffalo Trace is one of the most recognized bourbon distilleries in the world both in terms of age and quality of products. Hancock Lee and his brother Willis Lee followed the ancient buffalo crossings along the banks of the Kentucky River in Franklin County, and through these Buffalo Traces, found the limestone rich water that would form the cornerstone of the distilling site where it stands today. Guys, this distillery produces some of the heavy hitters we all know and love, everything from that classic Green Label Buffalo Trace to the now coveted Blanton's single barrel and even the rare and celebrated Pappy Van Winkle line. On this show we got to taste Old Charter, E.H. Taylor Single Barrel, Eagle Rare, two different Wellers, Antique 107 and Weller 12, Hancock's Reserve, Elmer T. Lee, Rock Hill Farms, and the extremely rare and coveted George T. Stagg.   If it sounds like a staggering lineup, it was: 9 whiskeys in total; so we had to bring in a few guests with the knowledge and palette to handle it all. First we had Katy O'Donnell from Bond & Royal, a subsidiary of Sazerac who owns and distributes Buffalo Trace. The Sazerac Company purchased the distillery in 1992 and has been a huge part of continuing to keep the spirit of tradition and future innovation alive. Her historic knowledge contributed so much color to each bottle we drank. Also, we brought in Wen Yeh, the owner of local Los Angeles whiskey bar Neat, and head bartender Arash Farzaneh. They opened Neat with an educational spirits experience that offers whiskey flights as well as converting customers to take their great whiskey...ahem...neat.   Click on any of the following links to purchase the spirits. Here is a full list of what we drank: Old Charter https://bit.ly/OldCharterB5   E.H. Taylor Single Barrel https://bit.ly/ColonelEHTaylorSB   Eagle Rare  https://bit.ly/EagleRareTen   Weller Antique 107  https://bit.ly/WellerAntique107   Weller 12 Year https://bit.ly/Weller12YR   Hancock's Reserve https://bit.ly/HancocksReserveSB   Elmer T. Lee https://bit.ly/ElmerTlee   Rock Hill Farms https://bit.ly/RockHillFarms   George T. Stagg https://bit.ly/GeorgeTStagg19   Check out everything from Bond & Royal here: http://bondandroyal.com/   Check out Neat here in Los Angeles: https://www.neat.la/   You can always find us at www.CartelHour.com for additional information on the podcast, and of course, you can visit www.CaskCartel.com for America's largest online premium spirits marketplace.   Follow us on social media @CartelHour where you can find information about upcoming episodes, and live tastings at The Infusery.   And speaking of those live tastings, for those living in or visiting the Los Angeles area that truly are intrigued, if you're interested in drinking along with us, we would love to have you to come enjoy an evening at the Infusery to drink through a carefully selected assortment of spirits. We offer custom flights and have a robust library of over 750+ spirits to choose from. And you get to drink with Seth and I, pick our brains, learn a ton, and generally have a blast. Visit www.cartelhour.com/join for more information.   And, if you're a spirits brand that would like to be featured on the podcast, please visit https://www.cartelhour.com/submissions   Thank you everyone for listening and remember to drink responsibly, and in good company.

Derrick and I have had a bit of a hiatus. The world got a little topsy-turvy in spring 2020 and like everyone else, our lives were turned a little upside down. Enough is enough though, and COVID-19 or not, we've still been drinking and talking, but we weren't doing enough recording. We've put that to an end and broken out the recording equipment again while cracking open and sharing a fun new bottle for us - Elmer T Lee. Sit back and enjoy and listen to us discuss this fine 90 proof drinker, sip another few pours , and as usual laugh and share some old family stories. This time, revolving around cars and driving lessons. Have fun, be safe, drink responsibly. it's Two Pours! Pull up a chair.

Brief reading about Elmer T. Lee from 1986. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/bourbonandbranch/support

On this episode, we discuss two topics that are top of mind. First, is the Coronavirus and how it's impacting the bourbon industry. Then we take a look at the hype and hysteria that surrounds Blanton's. We dive into the recent news of Blanton's Gold making its way to the US and if we think $120 SRP is a deal you should jump on. You will hear a new voice for a few minutes and that is Aaron Goldfarb. You may have seen his work on various publications around the web. He wasn’t able to stay on due to some technical difficulties, but we hope to have him on again soon. Show Partners: The University of Louisville has an online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry. Learn more at uofl.me/bourbonpursuit. Barrell Craft Spirits has a national single barrel program. Ask your local retailer or bourbon club about selecting your own private barrel. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: Barrel Shortage: https://www.thedailybeast.com/is-there-a-bourbon-barrel-shortage-on-the-horizon This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about taxes. What are distilleries doing for coronavirus? History of Blanton's. How did Blanton's become so popular? Will limiting the purchases of allocated items work? Why don't distilleries use technology to manage this problem? Blanton's Gold coming to the US. Is it because of tariffs? Are they taking away from the European allocation? How can you make more product with only one warehouse? Will quality suffer with increased production? What other companies have a similar strategy to Blanton's? What do you think of the price point? Will Straight from the Barrel ever come to the U.S.? Thanks to Blake from bourbonr.com, Jordan from BreakingBourbon.com , Brian from sippncorn.com, and Aaron Goldfarb for joining. 0:00 Have you ever thought about a career in the whiskey industry? I'm not talking about being the next master distiller. But if you want a leg up on the competition, you need to take a look at the distilled spirits business certificate from the University of Louisville. This six course program will prepare you for the business side of the spirits industry like finance, marketing and operations. This is 100% online, meaning that you can access the classes at anytime, anywhere. So what are you waiting for? all that's required is a bachelor's degree, go to U of l.me. Slash bourbon pursuit. 0:35 So if you think back in the 1980s it was a bleak period for bourbon. 0:39 Thanks, thanks, Ryan. 0:43 Is poppin bottles they don't their shit what's going on around here? I'm listening really. I thought it was a good timing. 1:01 This is Episode 245 of bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your hosts Kenny. We've got a lot of news to cover. So let's hit it. Cova 19 are the corona virus is hitting everyone extremely hard. Now, I'm not sure why people are stocking up on toilet paper like they don't plan on leaving the bathroom anytime soon. But I'm sure most of us have enough bourbon to get us through this time. At this point, every major distillery has shut down tours. So if you had plans to visit the bourbon trail, please make sure you do your research before coming to see what is and what is not open. likely it's going to be nothing because even at this time, all bars and restaurants in the city of Louisville are admitted to shut down in person patrons. And in more coronavirus news. We've talked about this before about one of the benefits of having a state run liquor is that the product is always sold at SRP. Well, who could have predicted this but Pennsylvania one of those states where all spirits are government sanctioned and controlled have closed 2:00 All liquor stores in the state in definitely on Tuesday this past week. This also includes all online orders. So that means the entire state of Pennsylvania has literally zero access to bourbon. I guess after all this time we call them bourbon bunkers for a reason. 2:17 In a shocking vote, a bill is passed by the House licensing and occupations committee that allows Kentucky residents to get alcohol shipped to their door, but get this directly from the producer and wait for it without going through a distributor or retailer. This is a huge modernization and reform that could lead to a larger domino effect across the nation. Now this bill would require alcohol shipments meet very clearly labeled and an ID check and signature upon delivery. The producer would still have to pay the excise tax on all inbound shipments coming to Kentucky. However, retailers testified in front of the committee to express concerns about how the bill would negatively impact their businesses because people would be able to 3:00 for alcohol from their homes, and have it shipped to their door instead of going to the local retailer. In my head, I'm thinking, Well, yeah, that's kind of the whole point, right? However, that didn't matter. And now this amended House Bill 415 is going to the full house. We're going to keep you updated as this progresses. Is there a barrel shortage on the horizon? Well, Lou Bryson over the Daily Beast wrote an article where he interviews everyone from Cooper's to loggers and Miller's themselves. The loggers fear a shortage of white oak while the Cooper's really don't. Wood scientists see wetter conditions now than they have in previous years. And the increased deer populations actually eating acorns, which means less trees, and at this time, there's no plan to actually manage oak populations so it could lead to more maple and pure white oaks. However, independent Steve company says that they are coming off to rainy years where prices for logs were high, but now they see plenty of oak across 20 different states. Brown Forman cooperage says that they see more white oak now. 4:00 They have in the past 40 years, and the industry is doing better sustainability by harvesting oak at the right time to allow newer growth to form loosens up the pose talking about the coop urges only using about 2% of the hardwood industry. But he reflected upon his time spent with the logger. And he said that there is a lot of oak out there, but it's actually impossible to mill it because there's no Mills around and it's hard to get it out of the forest as well. So bourbon is gonna continue to be produced, but we'll have to see what the future entails. For the barrels themselves. You can read this story over the daily beast with the link in our show notes. Can bourbon be made in US territories like Puerto Rico and Guam? Well, Josh Peters over at the whiskey jug took this question to the TTB regulations division to see if it actually still would be legally called bourbon. Sure enough, they confirmed it that bourbon whiskey can be produced in Puerto Rico and Guam with reference to 27 CFR five dot 11 where the USA is defined 5:00 As the United States, the several states and territories and the District of Columbia, and the term state includes a territory and the District of Columbia, and the term territory means the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. So there you have it. 5:15 Booker's bourbon batch 2020 dash one also known as Granny's batch will be released at 63.2% ABV or 126.4 proof. It is named after the sixth generation master distiller Booker knows mom, Margaret beam note. Although she never worked in the bourbon business herself, she certainly played an important role in keeping the bourbon family tradition alive, carrying the legacy on from the fifth to the sixth generation. She was very close with her oldest son Booker, who was instrumental in getting him his first job at the distillery where he would eventually go to become the master distiller. This bourbon is be released at six years, four months and 21 days in age. It would be available sometime around this month for around $90 for real 6:00 is setting aside six barrels to be chosen for and exclusively sold to the four roses mellow moments members. mellow moments is a special club organized by four roses that allows members of the general public to be a part of special gatherings, tastings. And you can stay up to date on for roses news. Plus get some cool trinkets sent in the mail every once in a while. new members can apply at select times during the year when the window opens, and the window to join when that membership does open is only for a handful of minutes so you better at quick. You can see their website for more details at mellow moments club.com. Now some pursuit series news episodes 22 and 23 are now available on sale box comm so if you're looking to get some killer bourbon shipped to your door during this time, head on over there and get stocked up. Episode 23 I'm super excited about because it's our oldest release ever at 15 years old. 6:57 Now today's show, we talk about two things 7:00 Things that are top of mind. First, it's that Corona virus, we had to talk about it. But we decided to change topics up a little bit because you've been hearing all about it on the news. So we got to kind of break away from it. And what are the bourbon is out there that can be just as argumentative. It's got to be bland. So we take the whole entire episode and talk about it. We take a look at the hype and the hysteria that surrounds it. we dive into the recent news of Blanton's gold making its way to the US and it do we think of $120 SRP, there's a deal that you should be jumping on. You're also going to hear a new voice for a few minutes when we start this. And that's Aaron Goldfarb. Now, you may have seen his work on various publications around the web, but due to some technical difficulties, he wasn't able to stay on for the entire podcast, but we hope to have him on again once in the future. All right, it's show time. Here's Joe from barrel bourbon. And then you've got Fred minich, with above the char, and remember, Go wash your hands. 7:58 Hey everyone, Joe here again. 8:00 I know I talk a lot about blending here. But we also have a national single barrel program, ask you a local retailer or bourbon club about selecting your own private barrel. Find out more at barrel bourbon calm. 8:12 I'm Fred MiniK. And this is above the char, death and taxes. So those are the two things that we are guaranteed in life to have to do taxes. April 15 comes around and every year I'm like son of beep, beep beep, had a night not remember to put all this together. And every year from a business perspective, I tell myself, I'm going to do a better job of keeping my books. And I never do. I never do I just focus on what I do. And then toward the end of the year, I rush and do all my books and well, I'm a procrastinator, if you will when it comes to the accounting side of my world. I need to get better at it. I will. But you know what, at least I don't have to pay 60 to 80% 9:00 Have taxes on everything that I do. And that, my friends is what Kentucky distillers have to pay about 60% of every bottle of bourbon that you buy, if you tally up all of the 60% of that goes to taxes. What's interesting about this is that Kentucky bourbon gets taxed six to six different times off the still in the barrel in the case in the bottom, and then the consumers pay a sales tax and in Kentucky, they have to pay a wholesale tax as well. So you have all these different taxes that they have to pay, that leads to leads to basically more more and more money that has to go to the government just for them to produce whiskey. Now, here's what's messed really, really messed up is that the distillers don't mind paying the taxes necessarily. They actually look at it as like hey, you know what? 10:00 This is not necessarily a bad thing. All that money a lot of that money gets earmarked to go to roads and schools of Kentucky. So like in Anderson County, you drive through there, and you see the nice roads and schools. Those were basically built by wild turkey and for roses, which puts a lot of money into that government infrastructure. Also Kentucky bourbon, the taxes are specifically earmarked for education. I think a couple years ago, when when things started, you know riling up with the teachers here, it became public that bourbon pumped $30 million into the education system. So I've always said like, if you want to, if you want to improve the Kentucky education system, buy more Kentucky bourbon. In fact, when you buy Kentucky bourbon no matter where you are, you are actually helping the roads, the schools, the children, the teachers, you're helping our entire state. So thank you 11:00 Because we have pretty nice roads out in the rural areas because people buy a lot of bourbon. But here's another fun fact, it wasn't until 2011 that the distillers were even allowed to write off their, the fact that they were paying these taxes, they would have to wait too until they bottled it and put it in the market before they could write off the expense of the the out of alarm tax that they were facing. So American whiskey has all these weird, awkward tax laws, that every time I start complaining about having to do taxes or do my books, I kind of look at myself in the mirror and say, Well, at least I'm not a distiller. So remember that this year, as you're going to put your taxes together, however you do it. At least you're not having to do 60 to 80% on the taxes and you get to write everything off when it's time to write it off. And that's this week's above 12:00 The char Hey, if you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, until next week, cheers 12:11 Welcome back to another episode of bourbon pursuit the official podcast of bourbon Kinney and Fred here tonight people's champ isn't able to make it because of Corona virus things that are happening. So we'll go ahead and, you know, we'll send our best wishes to Ryan, he doesn't have a Corona virus. I don't want to make that make that clear. The way I said that probably sounded like really dire. No, he's actually trying to do some things for his for his job and set up daycare because we've got a lot of things happening where schools can be shut down for the next few weeks here in Kentucky. So he's got to make sure that he's taking care of his employees tonight. So we're gonna miss Ryan tonight, but we will go on without him. So before we kind of introduce everybody here, I kind of want to talk to Fred Are you are you Doomsday prepared? You guys got enough bourbon and toilet paper to get you through for the next month? Well, you know, 13:00 Like today was you know, I wasn't supposed to be on today because I'm supposed to be in San Francisco for the competition but last minute 13:08 you know we had a scare ourselves and my wife she's the on the committee for like getting the Louisville VA hospital prepared for the coronavirus. So we've been getting prepared I think for the last three months in fact, we we thought there's a tornado coming. Yeah, there might be a tornado coming. So we had a little tornado drill with a family. We all went down to the basement and I was really proud. We brought chips and toilet paper and you know, the baby had something to play with. So we got this. You Baby could play with toilet paper too. Well, he went he went down there and he went straight for the bourbon. I'm like, this is my kid. 13:48 It's in the DNA. Yeah. Alright, so let's go ahead. Let's go around the horn real quick. And but first before we hit some of our regulars, I want to introduce somebody that's new to the podcast and we have a special 14:00 And tonight so Aaron Goldfarb, who you will have probably seen from a lot of articles out there online. So Aaron, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me even though I don't know how to use a computer apparently so 14:14 it's okay. Well let it slide this time. We'll we'll do some tech support next time when you do calling a pinch hitter here. Absolutely. So just kind of give everybody a quick recap or kind of summary of like, who you are, where you write and everything like that. Yeah, I'm a, you know, accidentally fell into becoming a blues writer. I write a lot of whiskey articles, but I write cocktail articles, beer articles and food articles for places like Esquire punch, fine pair whiskey advocate, bourbon, plus my favorite place to write. 14:48 I've written a few books to hacking whiskey, most notably for your audience. Gather around cocktails was my most recent book and 14:57 just learned that my kid has been 15:00 next two weeks off school. So I think this is the end of my writing career for a while, at least. 15:05 We're all trying to set up some sort of daycares at home or, I don't know, maybe we should just like go out and like, buy the like 5000 piece puzzles off of Amazon and be like, here you go. This is your next two weeks. Exactly. 15:18 Alright, so, Blake, how you doing tonight? Doing well? Yeah, always good to be back. Just straight into my intro. I feel like we're kind of changing things up. So, you know, do I give the regular Hey, I'm Blake from bourbon or do I just talk about coronavirus or, I mean, you can talk about what's happened in your area. I mean, it's ya know, our craziness happening. No, it's well, I had the flu last week. So I feel like I was out and wasn't the corona virus was just the flu. So we're not we're not born. Yeah, yeah, I got tested. I got tested. I tested positive for the flu. So I decided, I guess I didn't test negative for Corona. But there's been no cases in Florida that I'm aware of. But no, it's just it's crazy. I mean, 16:00 The TPC, that's a huge thing in this area. And so they actually announced today that they're suspending all all fans from the tournament. And you know, this golf tournament will bring in over 100,000 people to come and watch it. So it was pretty disappointing. You know, I was supposed to be 16:21 I was supposed to be going out to a tournament with my son tomorrow. So that's a little disappointing. And it's spring break for us. And as you can see, my daughter's like in the background. So they're talking about extending spring break here as well. 16:39 But yeah, yeah, this should be interesting. I don't know. I'm, I'm one who, I just think you've got like a 1% chance of actually hitting and being devastated. So I'm like, I'll just be unprepared and 99% of the time, I'd be correct. So it's just that 1% gets me But no, so 17:00 lost interest for the longest episode we're about to get into. 17:04 You're right on point there. So So Jordan, what's happening? You're part of the world. Well, the Quran hasn't been declared so Western Eastern pa right. There's a bunch of cases nothing in Pittsburgh. So Pittsburgh's I wouldn't say naive, but like right around today was the first time a little bit of unease and unsettledness kind of kicked in. Right? And now that the NHL canceled the penguins, right, people are super upset. But I'm sure we'll be seeing cases pop up super soon. I don't really even know if they're testing or if they have test kits here in Pittsburgh yet so I'm sure there's cases that we don't know about. So I don't know. Thankfully, it's a state run liquor system. So there's tons of tons of bottles still on the shelves. I think people want to buy that one. But it's there slowly. And Brian in our part of the world Yeah, you're part of the world. Thanks for having me again, Brian with sipping corn Find me a bourbon justice calm. And I my only effect so far is tonight. Instead of doing this, I was going to be 18:00 Drinking an Evan Williams 23 year old old fish Gen 15 in the in the 101 12 year Evan Williams with a client and client had travel restrictions and wasn't supposed to go anywhere and so got my thing cancelled so now it's personal because it kept me from ever. But other than that, it's it's hasn't really affected me. I've got my daughter home from Dayton. They kick them out early. They won't be going back 18:28 to just I've got my bourbon Splott I'll be alright. And at one point for Aaron Aaron, I have to tell you this before I forget I tried to do from hacking whiskey the the bacon infused bourbon. It was probably the biggest flop that I have ever created in my life. I will need to talk offline. I need to know the secret because theoretically, everything about that I should just love and I ruined both urban and bacon doing. That's funny. I always tell people it sounds harder to do. 19:00 Fat washing that it is and it's almost impossible to screw up. But I guess 19:06 I've actually had a very similar experience, Brian, so I have a few minutes. You don't you want to slowly render the bacon made the mistake of like, crispy and I think just the brightness came through so that's what I yeah, yeah. Can't get black. Yeah, absolutely no Okay, good bacon pursuit come and say, 19:29 Hey, I'd go for I'd listen to that it sounds delicious peppercorn all over. So Fred, you've been kind of close to this, because I know at least with the corona stuff, you've been actually reaching out for distilleries kind of give us the latest on what's been happening with what the Steelers are doing for preparing for this? Well, I mean, you ask them personally, a lot of them will say it's all bullshit. And then when it comes to like a corporate message, they'll come out and say, 19:56 well, we're closing visitations starting 20:00 Monday so beam has closed visitations for you know Maker's Mark and the other properties. Starting on Monday, 20:11 brown Forman announced the closures of their Kentucky facilities for visitations on Sunday. And jack daniels on Monday. New rep has made similar announcements I have not heard yet back from heaven Hill. I've reached out to them a couple times. I've not heard back from them yet. Interestingly, places like the smaller distillers seem to be the ones that are kind of like, you know what, we're still doing tours like NB Rolen 20:40 in Western Kentucky was very proud to say that, you know what, we're still doing this. And, you know, so a lot of them have these kinds of plans in place, or for the visitor side, and they're all continuing production. I think production is like I think that's one of the 21:00 The hardest questions answers like what if one of the workers gets test test positive? what's what's the protocol? They're like? I mean, I really don't know what the manufacturing protocol is for when you have a pandemic and someone tests positive for something that gets out into the market. You know, do you have a recall? I mean, 21:19 I mean, those are the kinds of questions that they have to be taking. But at the same time, the Kentucky distillers association is meeting with the governor's office who has been meeting with the vice president. So I mean, we're like three degrees away from, you know, the highest office in the land here, when it comes to what can affect the Kentucky distilleries. So I'm not a I'm not an expert. And I'm not going to claim to be but from what I understand is that this is all basically through respiratory and oral is kind of how it gets transferred really easily. So unless people were like spitting in the mash tubs, I'm not too sure exactly. Even that it's probably because he's in a hallway. Yeah, and so I'm not too sure. Honestly, if even if 22:00 worker does, you know, come in and it actually is affected. I think the only thing that it might actually affect is just the production. Probably just send everybody home do shut down production for X amount of days, come back, do a deep clean, you know, go back, go back to work. Yeah, but there is this whole thing where you have to 22:19 the government's issue, like, where people had it, what would what they touched where they went, you know, I was, you know, I was somewhere and got it in and someone was there the day after me and I got an email about it. And, you know, that was kind of one of the personal scare for me, but, you know, I don't know, like, if somebody works in a factory, you know, does the government then require the that factory to issue a statement to its consumers, and I just don't know it. There's not really a precedent for any of this. 22:54 It's very, very scary. And I think it's more so right as much as they might want to keep many 23:00 fracturing right there just one part of the manufacturing puzzle. So if a farmer who distills the grains and drops them off, right not to sales, I'm sorry for the farmer harvests the grains and drops them off for the trucking company, he drops them off, or they can't drop them off because they have the colonel virus. Got any random ash, you're not doing much, right? Same with barrel, stuff like that. So I think it goes the whole or friends point, maybe you don't have to notify consumers, but then you got to notify your whole manufacturing chain, right. And maybe folks then don't want to drop off supplies because they're afraid that they're going to catch it for their employees. So I think it's just not as simple as you know, the virus doesn't survive much longer. You know, once it's out of somebody's system in the air wasn't just something for more than a few hours. So consumers should be safe, but it's more How does it impact everyone they interact with up and down the whole supply chain? Yeah, I think probably the biggest issue that's really is facing right now is the tourism aspect, which has been really it's been what the industry has been hanging his hat on, you know, with the with the rise of these like, the trade wars, you know, 24:00 This was the one thing that everyone said, Well, we still got like, domestic growth and we got tourism. And so you know, this is you take out the more than 2 million people coming here to visit Kentucky distilleries. I mean, my god there, there are talks in town about impacting the derby. I mean, I can't even imagine not having the derby. Brian, can you? I mean, I just can't I can't, I can't envision it. Now. I heard that today, too. They're talking about maybe postponing and it's, you know, they're still looking at it. No decisions made yet but that's, it's just crazy talk. I mean, let's face it, Churchill. I mean, there'll be like, I just bet from home. Oh, 24:44 yeah. Where's that from all right, no, fancy sign up for twin spires club and they'll give you you know, $50 free or whatever, and they'll be laughing all the way to the bank. 24:56 The other the other component of this, that 25:00 should be getting Blake excited, actually because a sale box is that this is going to be one of the moments where we see an enormous increase of shipments and people don't want to get out of their house. So they're not going to go to a liquor store. What are they gonna do? They're gonna buy, like, going to visit seal box calm or wherever. And 25:25 go Fred. Yeah. 25:29 It's 40 like 40 25:33 but uh, you know, that's that's what's going to happen. Is there going to get deliveries? I mean, we're all right. We're getting deliveries from, from Whole Foods and Kroger right now. So it's crazy. Yeah, I think there was somebody had actually talked about on our discord chat a little bit earlier through Patreon. And they were saying, Well, what happens if Corona gets spread into Amazon into these delivery services? And it was like, yeah, it's 26:00 It's a true concern. The other part of this is thank god they're heavily automated, right? There's robots that basically pack those boxes for everybody. But when someone sneezes on a robot, 26:11 what 26:14 are they ended to? Whatever this was all just a way for the robots to take control, actually run a virus. I'm with you on that. Now. I mean, everyone's talking about walking dead. But what if this is really Terminator about to happen? 26:29 They planted the seed. 26:32 conspiracies, Fred. What? 26:35 Surprise now pushing back in conspiracies speaking of vodka conspiracy, Jordan was today's email like a backhanded compliment to 26:44 Tito's yesterday What are we taught Hey, hold on. Let's let's set the stage here because I have no idea what 26:51 newsletter right for whiskey Wednesday, I went out and it was a PSA on how to make your own hand sanitizer. So he did give Tito's the nod and the fact that they are 27:00 aggressively letting consumers know whenever they tweet or interact with them on social media that no you cannot use Tito's for hand sanitizer because it's not 60% alcohol right so we did harm we do give them credit on that one right but I mean, let's be real if you're going to use hand sanitizer and you must use bourbon we prefer you drink it, but at least use 120 proof bourbon to do something right. But there's a comment in there too. Tito's about like, well, at least they're clearing some of the facts up and 27:27 crafted you know, made in Texas kinda 27:31 just made sure wasn't reading into it. But once again vodka fails. I mean, you look at it it's like everyone's like starting to champion it for something that it can make me be valuable for and again even do handsome. 27:46 That's that's a perfect way to end this. I don't really talk about coronavirus anymore, do you? Oh, yeah. No, no, no, that was much hysteria. Yeah, that was a nine. All right, good. So let's move on to the kind of the meat of the show here. Let's Shall we 28:00 Wait for Blake to open his bottle here because we can all hear it all that loud. 28:06 He had the mute control to hear it immediately. It's like gay. There we go. I'll mute him. Alright, perfect. 28:15 before the show started, you know, Aaron, you would think 42 times into this he would have figured it out. 28:23 But this is this is just like it's everything about get sanctioned. Yeah, it's it's either that his Wi Fi dies. I mean, it's, it keeps going. So, Alright, so let's kind of get into the meat of the show. Because the one thing that we've all kind of seen is just the hysteria that is surrounded Blanton's. And to kind of just give a little bit of background and context there is a great article that was posted by Chuck Cowdery back in 2013. And he gave a history of bland so I'm just gonna go ahead and just take like a minute or two just to read this just so everybody kind of gets up to speed on it because I know we've had people requests 29:00 Like, Hey, why don't you do an episode on the history of blends? Come to find out. There's probably not a whole lot that we could do a whole episode about. So this is gonna be it right here. So if you think back in the 1980s it was a bleak period for bourbon. thankthank Ryan 29:18 is poppin bottles they don't. They're shit what's going on around here? I'm listening Really? I thought it was a good timing. See, Aaron? This is what I'm talking about. Nobody, nobody's learned the proper or how to pour their PR, or I've got my mute button. I'll use camera but I pre poured everything and sure your next go. I've already popped a bottle or two on the show. So I think we're good. All right. I think everybody's got their bottle pops out of the way. Alright, so in the 90 or sorry, in the 80s. sales were down. inventories were high profits were under intense pressure and whiskey assets were changing hands. Most large producers were no longer independent. Instead they were part of conglomerates and with a portfolio of a household names back then. 30:00 Back then F Ross Johnson was the powerful CEO of Nabisco. Nabisco had a subsidiary called standard brands that included fleshman distilling. 30 Falk was the CEO of Fleischmanns and Bob Brandt and this guest Moran discuss my I'm gonna screw that up was the president. In 1983, Johnson decided to sell standard brands to Grand Metropolitan. A few years later, green Metro Metropolitan merged with Guinness to form biagio. Green Metropolitan already had a thriving drinks business that included JMP scotch and Smirnoff vodka, assuming they would be replaced after the sale folk and burnt Miranda's kiss. I know that's bad, resigned and started to start their own company. fulke was previously an executive with schenley. So he approached Muslim reckless, whose conglomerate own schenley about selling some assets Falk and Baranski has originally tried to acquire old charter, but reckless always needed money, so he agreed to sell ancient age bourbon brand and the distillery that produced 31:00 It then it was called the Albert B Blanton distillery. Today's Buffalo Trace folk and Baranski is called the new company h International. As the name suggests, they believe Bourbons future was outside of the US. One of the first moves was to enlist the master distiller at the time Elmer T. Lee with the creation of Blanton's single barrel bourbon to appeal to the Japanese market, but with multiple extensions in Japan and the US in 1991, fulke and Burns has sold 22 and a half percent interest in Asia international to Japan's to current shoes a with the right of first refusal to purchase the remaining shares in 1992, Fulk and Burns has sold their shares to Tucker for $20 million to car immediately sold the distillery to Sazerac but retain the corporate entity and brand trademark. Today Sazerac still owns Buffalo Trace and Buffalo Trace still produces all the whiskey for agent age, Blanton's and other age international products and brands using Nashville number two, which is also being used for Bourbons like Rock Hill farms as well. 32:00 Well, Chris Phalke commented on the article, and he said that that was his father ferdie had passed away from cancer in 2000. But Blanton's was the original super premium brand. And he said he can remember watching him draw the packaging idea on a napkin back in 1983. So follow all of that. Very. So. Yeah, I'd like to add, I'd like to add to that, because this is something that gets really lost in the history of that brand. And I would argue we could have a whole show on the history of it. 32:31 But in the 90s, basically, when the Albert Blanton was was head of the distillery he used to, 32:42 he used to take people out, and he used to pick barrels for him. And then he would actually put that into the Kentucky retail market, effectively making it like a single barrel asset, but they weren't really calling him single barrels back then. And so people you know, Sazerac were always you to use 33:00 It in their marketing that it was the first commercially available single barrel that often got pushback by people. But indeed, it was, but that brand had a huge impact on the world. You know, in my book bourbon I wrote about like how important it was for Japan and how it kind of opened that market up. Another thing that Blanton's did that was really important is it pissed off Maker's Mark and it started making fun of Maker's Mark and advertisements for the saying like, Oh, you have to talk about your wax because your whiskey isn't any good. So they kind of like you know, played with Maker's Mark in their own game and they went back and fourth. And so they had like this state, but blends created this statewide tasting competition, in which they selected tasers and Lexington and Louisville to to have a taste up between makers and blends. Blanton's one Lexington and makers one Louisville so plans is a really really important brand. 34:00 The return of bourbon and this Return of the the introduction of the gold. Blanton's is like For God's sake, it's about time. You know, it's about I want to want to get to that, because that's a that's a big part of today's show. But what I want to do is I kind of want to just trace this back about two years. And I want anybody that has a theory on why the hell did Blanton's just skyrocket in popularity? I know that we've seen it on some TV shows and everything like that, but was there was there something that happened that I missed that all of a sudden this round bottle the horse on top just just went crazy? I have a theory. So I want to jump in, but I guess I will. So I think it's and I wish I had notes because I talked to Chris Comstock about this the other day about 35:00 There's supply the supplies, not 35:04 the supplies, basically, I think it's like five x of what it was a few years ago, is what they're producing now. So it's not nearly as bad as people think. But in my opinion, what started to happen was a lot of these distributors in the store started seeing what was happening with Pappy and you know, the antique collection. And so they started allocating on the distribution side. So then instead of stores just like yeah, or whenever you want, they'd say, Oh, we can only give you two bottles. Well, then the stores start telling the customers Hey, look, I'm only getting two bottles of this. It's at that price point that makes it you know, the high end the bottles cool, it's it's, it tastes good. And so then as you know, that started building, you go into a store and see two bottles, you grab them and then there's an empty shelf. So then the I think the hype just started building and scarcity sells. So now every time people see it on the 36:00 shelf, it's like, oh, I've got to grab as many bottles as I can find or as I can get, because who knows when I'll see it again. 36:07 And that all seems to be happening happening over the last two to three years. I tell the story of that blanes was actually the first barrel pick I ever did for bourbon er, and that was back in 2015. And I remember the the retailer marked it up to I think it was $64. And I lost, you know, so many people saying that they're not going to work with a retailer that was trying to gouge like, I bought five cases, I had a few friends buy a bunch of cases. And now if I got a Blaine's barrel, you know, it'll be gone in a day and you could probably sell for 100 bucks a bottle or something crazy like that. But I still think it's all kind of like a an artificial demand or artificial shortage created by that middle tier. But that's just my opinion. I think it also has to do with the fact that right, so around that time, and don't get me wrong. We've been fans of Blanton's I think back in 2014 we caught 37:00 Call it out on the site that we weren't sure why people were overlooking up. But then is Buffalo Trace in general, right? So all their Bourbons started becoming more known to folks people started realizing Oh, pet Van Winkle comes from Buffalo Trace. Oh BTC What's that? Okay. And then Elmer got really big, right? And then others started getting big. So especially if they wanted a single barrel, right, they go in Hey, can I get an armor? Oh, you can't get an armor. But look at this cool bottle. You get this little horse top or his little wax on little bags, and I'm just finding the box. Why don't you go for that instead? Right? And it was just one of the it's just one of those things where people just want the next thing right so all right, so I can't get any other Buffalo Trace product. What else you got? You got plans, you can get that pretty easy. I'll take one of those. Right and then people start doing a little research, especially if people are really into bourbon. They realize that there's Blanton's gold, there's plans straight from the barrel, which used to be again, easy to find. So two years ago, it was what around two years ago I think master mouth stop shipping right and a lot of store shop stopped shipping from over in Europe. And it was just that snowball effect, right? There's no rhyme or reason to a lot of stuff. It's just people like to hoard people like to know what's cool. 38:00 Blanton's cannon right? Everyone, I'm sure has friends who asks, What should I buy in the store used to be really simple to say, Oh, just pick up a bottle of blends. It's great bourbon, reasonably priced. Just go for it. Right. I still say that. And then I catch myself going, except you're not gonna be able to find anymore, which stinks. But I think a lot of it is just that snowball effect that took place with consumers, especially around Buffalo Trace products. You brought up something very important. Jordan, as you brought up, Elmer T. Lee, and I've been thinking about this a lot since Kenny posed the question to us before the show about why did planes take off and I remember specifically after Elmer died, you could not find a martini you could not find it. And the one bottle that everybody recommended after that, because it was accessible was Blanton's, you know, it was a Rock Hill farms. It was always Blanton's was the was the bourbon that people recommended after Elmer T. Lee passed away. There couldn't be a more fitting bourbon to recommend since that was the 39:00 One that he brought, you know, he brought to life. And, you know, Elmer kinda gets forgotten. You know, Elmer doesn't get talked about as much as you know, some of the other deceased distillers like Booker know and Parker beam. And it's a real shame because he was a Titan of a distiller and I think that he would be, you know, smiling quite happily to know that his stuff was being It was very difficult to get he wouldn't be very happy with the price gouging. But I do believe that that is when it all started was in the in the quest to find Elmer. They got Blanton's and liked it. Fred, I kind of remember a little there was a at least a couple year time period where to me it was the opposite of that. People wanted Blanton's and and Elmer was aged couple of years more than Blanton's and I couldn't figure out why people wanted Blanton's instead of Elmer. I mean they're 40:00 is a time period where it over took Elmer. And I don't know anything about the production. I don't know anything about what's being withheld. But it it to Blake's point, it sure looks that way. So there's another thing that's sort of happening right now. And that is Buffalo Trace and heaven Hill are implementing new systems where you can only purchase allocated items that haven't healed sometimes it's once a month. And in the case of Blanton's at Buffalo Trace, they're now doing this once every three months of actually scanning your driver's license and turning people away. And this is because if anybody is unaware, the line that has been growing for Blanton's at the distillery has just gotten chaotic. I'm talking like two to 300 people that are waiting at six o'clock in the morning to get a bottle of regular Blanton's at the distillery. And so, you know, Aaron, kinda want to pose this question to you and get you get you involved here. Do you think this new system has a chance to actually succeed and work 41:00 Well, I was gonna 41:03 Aaron, you're cutting out, buddy. I think we lost him. Yeah, he and Blake or Sharon schleifer. 41:10 Want to bring them on camera? Yeah. 41:15 Yeah. Try to try to drop and come back on and come back if you can like maybe plug in or something. I'm not too sure. We'll, we'll get you. We'll get you in here. 41:26 All right, so so we'll take that in a different direction. So, Blake, do you think that has an actual chance to succeed with this particular kind of system? So what's the actual system again, sorry, I was typing whatever you know. 41:43 Loud they're only allowed how many bottles like one a month or something? It's this is what happens when like the teacher calls in you and you weren't paying attention. 41:53 Helen has placed they've had an in place for like two years they haven't held where they scan your license when you buy. Like buffalo grease implemented the same 42:00 Yeah, I mean you know you think about will it did that for a while and then they had their their do not sell to lists and everything, it'll, it'll definitely slow things down but I don't know. I mean, I think that's good because 42:15 ultimately you want some bottles at the distillery whenever people come and visit you. I had this experience a few weeks ago and we're up there and a friend of mines like, man, none of these, you know, these distilleries have any bottles like I thought it'd be able to get something cool. You know, heaven Hill, at least had. I remember what we got. I think that William heaven hill there. So at least there was something but that's the hard part is you don't want just the locals to come grab everything that is available. Turn around and throw it up on Craigslist or wherever people are selling these days. We don't do that in Kentucky man. Yeah, it's never happened. Right? Yeah. But you know, so you kind of want to spread it out a little bit. So I think that'll help. Um, but you know, it's 43:00 Like anything else, people are going to do what they want to do, they're going to send their sister they're going to send their cousin they're going to send, if they really want it that bad, but overall, hopefully it kind of spreads the allocation a little bit further. And I'll say, since I'm not located in Kentucky, right, I, at least from heaven Hill standpoint, I actually appreciate that they do that now, because it seems more often than not, whenever I go down to Heaven, Hell, and I always stop by when I'm in town, these tend to have a few bottles, right? That's, I think, based on the fact that they're helping to limit people from buying them. So from that standpoint, I think it's fantastic, right, especially being somebody who's visiting Kentucky and wanting to go I make sure to stop by the distilleries and buy stuff, but now they have stuff to buy, which I'm super appreciative. Yeah, and that's actually part of the reason this was actually implemented was Freddy Johnson was on the stage with Fred at legend series recently, and he talked exactly about this that this is all because of just trying to counteract the flipping game. And if you can limit of what people can get, then you can do that. And plus, they want to 44:00 Word people that are traveling from all around the country to go and visit the distillery and they want to get something unique while they're there. And this is an opportunity to actually make that happen. It's you know, they could release a lot more bottles to 44:15 we'll get to that option. Yeah. It's a difficult it's difficult, you know, I look at it, I look at it from the perspective of like, every time, you know, they, they, the distillers, like, wish for something and then they get it. And then like, five years later, they're like, Oh, shit. Yeah, like net. Like, I remember when they were lobbying for this. They were like, begging to have special bottles. They were begging to have this attention and this FaceTime with the consumers. And now you hear them and they're like, crap, what are we going to do? You know, like now they're facing some of the same problems at their retailer partners have so a lot more headaches for them for sure. 45:00 him personally, you know, three months is, I think a little bit generous. I would have rather seen a year. Because if there's two to 300 people lining up to do this, and they're bringing their brothers, their sisters, their cousins or aunts and their uncles to get a bottle of Blanton's. Like, let's just nip this, like it's Blanton's after all right, like it is it's good whiskey. But let's let's try to let's try to curb this because I don't see a reason why people should be going this nuts over and if they have a bottle of bourbon. And I think I remember seeing a lot of comments when people announced that this system is getting put in place. They're like, Oh, like why are you gonna hurt your you know, your biggest consumers and your cheerleaders and I'm like, they make a lot of different whiskey. There's a lot of different bourbon out there on the market. Like don't pin yourself into just like that one bottle. You know like that Nashville makes a lot of different stuff, right? So like you don't you don't need to be pigeon holing yourself and it just one particular kind of whiskey for everything. 46:00 You drink? Yeah, I was at a store one time and a guy was asking the clerk for it he's like you guys got any Blanton's as a total wine and and so everyone having plantains and I was like hey man like actually they've got a Hancock single barrel pick that they've done and it was like I think seven years old or something 46:20 the exact same mash bill you know, maybe it wasn't in warehouse H or whatever it is, but pretty much the exact same thing is like I don't want that crap. I'm like, Okay, nevermind. No, I mean why bother? No, you bring up a really good point though Brian right? The whole point the whole reason they had the horse in the first place right and way back when wanted spelled lens which is cool, but to entice people to keep buying it. So then you do find people who actually you know, for multitude of reasons right and I'm not judging whatsoever who once they find something and they do want to collect it just for that purpose. I realized you can buy the stopper from Buffalo Trace itself right? But they actually didn't want to start collecting the bottles just to get the topper so not only do they like up and other like corn 47:00 I need to get all the rest of them. Right. So now their demand is well, I just don't need one or two. Now I got to find all I got to the letters, I got to fill it out. Exactly. Right. So it's it's, they've kind of created a little bit of a headache in that sense for themselves. If there was no letters on the bottle, that would definitely eliminate a little bit of that from some well, and a lot of people in the comments have said that the dump date being on every bottle, you know, how many posts have you seen, you know, oh, my kid was born or you know, oh, I'm looking for this dump date. Yeah, work on whatever they want. Yeah, whatever it is, they they want that data on there. I mean, it's it's marketing genius is what it is. It's a product of success. You know, I think Fred alluded to this a little bit of they worked really hard to make these things popular and, you know, get special releases out of the distillery. And then I don't want to say it backfire, but I think it caused them more headaches, and they probably they were thinking it would but it's a product of success. So at the end of the day, I don't think they mind it. 48:00 No no no one thing that none of these companies are doing is they're not utilizing technology you know and Kenny I'd like to get your your thoughts on this because you're the tech guy but How hard would it be for them to like create like an order and hold or some some kind of system for online to connect with a point of sale where someone could plan their trip and then come pick up a bottle I just I just feel like there's so many opportunities to alleviate these problems that they never seem to explore they they're stuck in these inundated antiquated stand in line look at an ID kind of crap. I think it's just simple ecommerce is that a lot of and I think we've touched on a lot of times, even just retailers and everybody else in general, like this type of market is is behind the curve of what we see in every other type of industry. And so if they don't take the initiative to try to figure out like, how do we get our hands in the how do we get our product into the hands of consumers faster, easier, and less friction and make them 49:00 A happy consumer. If you don't take that into account, then they're not gonna do anything about it. You know, the other thing is, is that if you look at what the SAS rack is building with blends and Buffalo Trace and everything, like, they don't really, I mean, they're gonna sell out no matter what. So do they need to go through all that extra effort to invest in an e commerce platform to invest in something where like, I don't know whether they have their own online, put your email in a database and come and pick your bottle up on this date kind of thing? I don't know if they really need to. So it kind of like I said, there's there's, it's a double edged sword from there. And you do actually so Fred, I mean, that's a great point that you make both Kenny and Fred but you do see some distilleries doing that, right. So look at new ref. Look at angels MD with their main club, right? They both do that when they have special releases come out, you can pre buy and they give you a 30 days to pick them up or X number of days to pick up. I think that's it's great. And it's also great for again, if somebody is out in town to be like, Alright, I got a month to go pick this up. I'll plant quickly. 50:00 trip around this or something like that, right? And it drives people there. And then I'm sure once they're there, they're like, Well, shit, I'm here by some other stuff, whether it's from that distillery or local store around there, whatever. But it's just great for the local economy in general. And I wish more distilleries did that. He was envies absolutely crushing their special bottles. People make events out of that. And I have never talked to one unhappy person out of there. I mean, I hear I hear so many unhappy people coming out of heaven Hill, there's so many people, unhappy people coming out of out of SAS, right. Really no one from being but I don't think anyone's necessarily going there for special releases. But the key distilleries that have special releases of all them angels envy is crushing it by far that program that they have people love it. Yep. And plus, it's an easy way for you to kind of like allocate these things online. And not only that is you basically sell it before anybody actually picks it up. So it's, it's, it's instead of like putting it out there and hoping people come like, it's all online if you make it easy and frictionless 51:00 Then you're gonna have a much better way to you don't have that kind of like cash flow in that pipeline coming into man. What if they did like bourbon futures where you could like, you know, buy like a case of Blanton's five years from now. So technically that's kind of what Bardstown bourbon company is doing. So they their barrel pick now is you pay $1,000 deposit to get it, and then which I guess not technically futures, but then you let it age as long as you want. And essentially you just pay the same price for whatever the standard bottling is whether you let it go to 10 years or you let it go six months. 51:39 Yeah, yeah, I'm familiar with that. It's just not it's not proven, but like Blanton not nearly as exciting to Yeah, I mean, that it is it is a concept for sure. But like, I mean, imagine like if you could, if you could buy a futures, Pappy 23 right now when your child is born, 52:00 or something like that. You do it in a heartbeat. Yeah. Now, right now I would nobody would want to track that accountant. Somebody put in the or Aaron put in the chats about basically that's how Bordeaux works and yeah, you know the it's not like a Pappy 23 where you're waiting 23 years but there is some time there and it is interesting to see how that whole market works and I mean, it's pretty crazy. We may get there one day, the ghosts Yes, that's the one thing that we don't that we don't have that the wine world has is like these really high level business people call negotiators who basically broker every single thing. And I think that's why angels envy so successful with that program as West Henderson is kind of like a hybrid, you know, in this world. He's such a business forward leaning mind and you know, it has his dad's DNA. Anyway. All right, I want to shift topic a little bit because this is still gonna be Blanton's, but the biggest news 53:00 That happened last week or was it two weeks ago whatever it was was the idea and the announcement of Blanton's gold coming to the US 53:11 What do you get if you mix Seattle craft, Texas heritage and Scottish know how that's to bar spirits to bar spirits traces its roots to a ranch in rural Texas run by the founder, Nathan kaisers family for six generations. Nathan grew up on the ranch with stories of relatives bootlegging moonshine, and after moving into Seattle, he wanted to keep the family tradition alive any open to bar spirits in 2012. They're very traditional distillery making everything from scratch and each day starts by milling 1000 pounds of grain. Their entire product lineup consists of only two whiskies, their moonshine, and the only bourbon made in Seattle. Both bottles are being featured in rack house whiskey clubs. Next box, rack house whiskey club is a whiskey of the Month Club. And they're on a mission to uncover the best flavors and stories that craft distilleries across the US. 54:00 Have to offer rack house ships out to have the feature distilleries finest bottles, along with some cool merchandise in a box delivered to your door every two months. Go to a rack house whiskey club comm to check it out and try some to bar for yourself. Use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. 54:21 The biggest news that happened last week or was it two weeks ago, whatever it was, was the idea and the announcement of Blanton's gold coming to the US. And for anybody that has been a bottle chaser or you've been into bourbon for a little bit. We've all known that. Blanton's gold and Blanton straight from the barrel are something that we gravitate towards because you like oh, it's higher proof and, and now we're all like oh, and it's got a shiny gold horse. So of course I want all these. As Ryan said earlier, I want the I want the ski with all the gold letters on it now. So the there's a few questions that arise with this and the first one. I'm going to 55:00 Come to his tariffs, because one thing that we've seen is that tariffs are being it's being catastrophic to the whiskey industry in regards of just it's both sides of the coin here. Now, there is the idea that people are saying, Okay, well, if we are going to have to pay tariffs, then let's go ahead and hold more whiskey back that we know that we can sell to our existing consumer base here in the US. Do you all think that this is a reaction to that? Or do you think this was planned out a little bit further in advance? And they said, You know what, we're going to just do this because we're, let's go ahead and make some more headlines. I'll go first, right. I think 100% has to do with tariffs, right? I think they are looking in real time and how to react. I think they saw a business opportunity. And they're going for it right. They don't want to have products sitting there, or they don't want to overcharge consumers, 55:55 to needlessly sell to no one in Europe, if no one's gonna be paying that price. 56:00 They saw Hey, Blanton's is hot, let's make it happen. And 100% that played into it, whether there's a little pre work behind the scenes going into it potentially. But don't get me wrong, that current tariff situation 100% played into this. I also want to mention that in the press release, they also said that this is going to be an SRP of $120 for this particular bottle too. So don't forget that. 56:21 I like to say that at the top of Buffalo Trace is probably the single smartest person in the entire spirits industry, Mark Brown. That man had this plan probably five years ago and had a rollout leading up to it. And this year is probably going to be like, like some additional Weller products, maybe a single barrel or something like that. I mean, you're going to start seeing like Buffalo Trace, kind of like, take their super premiums and dice them up into more limited edition releases. And it's it's all about getting another skew getting another press release at another company. 57:01 They they own a lot of the conversation market, they own a lot of the store they own almost all the skews that all the retailers want. And if they every time they add one, they've got another one. So they have another reason to have a meeting with a retailer they have another meeting to have a meeting. Another reason to have a meeting with a an on premise person plans goal, in my opinion, is probably just one of the actually well they're foolproof last year was the beginning of the rollout of seeing the kind of evolution of what Buffalo Trace is planning to do with their premium product. They're dicing them up gradually raising those price raising the prices up a little bit more and making them even more valuable. Yeah, and I don't know that's a it's looking at it from a marketing standpoint. Genius. Yeah. 57:57 I don't know there's there's a lot better 58:00 Values out there in my book and I just I I try to resist so much of the hype and I I like the ancient age products probably better than than their other mash bill and and other than some Weller 12 or the the B tech, William LaRue Weller the ancient age math is my favorite Mossville. 58:25 But the marketing just it rubs me the wrong way. I get it. And I wish Aaron was able to stay on because he could speak very highly to this with his experience at Esquire and some of the other more industry facing publications. I'm just telling you, man, you could just throw you could you could dangle any Weller Blanton's, even Buffalo Trace, you know outside of a Manhattan window and you'll have like 50 bro dudes chasing it down. It's the stuff is crazy. And it's genius. And congratulations to them for doing it. It's absolute genius. 59:00 But there's so much for roses and wild turkey out there that that in other brands that are so much better and so much more of a value, I just don't get it personally. So so then that then that then that that's not really a knock on them. That's basically that's our job to say, hey guys can't get this, you know, try this and i and i think Jordan does a great job of that. I think Blake does a great job of that. Kenny, you really just drink it all. So 59:30 Equal Opportunity drinker. That's right. 59:33 And so Fred, I kind of want to like take a counter argument to kind of what you said a little bit, because there was something that came up in the chat by Dave Preston. And he had mentioned that, you know, he thinks that this has to do with like, increased stock that's resulting from ramped up production. However, I kind of look at it and think like, well, maybe they're just taking and to take Jordan's side of this. Maybe they're taking away from the European allocation now and just shifting to the United States, because we've all been 1:00:00 on tours here, right. And we all know we've been in the Blanton's bottling Hall, every day you're in there. They were bottling plants, and they're doing it around the clock every single day. And it doesn't seem that they can keep up with the demand. So where is all this extra inventory coming from? If you don't think it's just like taking away from European allocation and from tariffs, if, like how to keep pumping out more product. So again, this is my opinion, this is all been planned. These are not knee jerk business people. These are very smart strategic, especially when it comes to marketing, and they happen to have great whiskey. And I just think this was a part of it. Did they change their European allocation? Hey, maybe they did, but I think this product was always planned. Maybe Maybe it got bumped up a little bit for for anticipation of more terrorists or continued tariffs. But I think this has always been in, in creation. And I think we're going to see a lot more 1:01:00 from, from that distillery with new products coming out of their heavyweight prop brands like Weller and Blanton's, and, you know, I don't think we'll see anything added to the Buffalo Trace antique collection. But I think you'll start seeing more limited releases. I got to push back just a little bit on that too, though, Fred. So I think, don't get me wrong. I think it's super smart if they were planning this for a few years, right. But I think I would categorize them just as smart for being a very smart businessman. If they read the current situation. They read the current landscape, the current tariffs and said, Alright, how can we capitalize this? Right? How can we turn this around and make it so that it works in our favor? Right, I'd say that'd be a just a smart individual and just a smart move. So while it may be planned, right, I got to give them I hope I'd give them credit for reading the current landscape and saying, what can we do to make this work in our favor? And hey, maybe both are Right, exactly. You know, so like, what I know is I'm not running a billion dollars. 1:01:56 I'm sitting here. So I am, this isn't 1:02:00 Confirm, but it was basically like kind of backdoor confirmed of Buffalo Trace production. So they were producing about 12,000 barrels a year in 95 by 2010, that was around 100,000 barrels. And by 2018, it was 250,000 barrels. 1:02:17 So may not be exact, but gives you an idea of the ramp up. They've been doing over the last, you know, two decades. So when you talk about they may not have had to steal from the European allocation. That's where I think there is more barrels that are going around now whether or not it's just a you know if it's really because of tariffs or is just because, you know, take advantage of the US market a little more. I think it could be a little bit of both, maybe it turned out to be good timing. But at the end of the day, I think they love the new press releases, they love the new brand extensions. You know, what was it 1:02:54 is it benchmark that's getting the next redo You know, we've seen them do it with well are now the 17 1:03:00 to benchmark and I think well, you know, they've kind of evolved the H Taylor brand to have a new release every year. I think we'll just like Fred said, we'll just keep seeing new bit several new releases each year because they want to be able to go back to t

In this episode, we sip Rock Hill Farms and Elmer T. Lee while Tony Lucca and I discuss his history in the music business. We cover how his experience with Adam Levine made Tony contemplate quitting music, how Tony lived in JC Chasez's mansion, how the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction derailed Tony's rise to fame, how he wowed Wesley Snipes with a Stevie Wonder song, and much more. His story is amazing, fans will be delighted, and those who are unfamiliar will be entertained. #rockhillfarms #elmertlee #rhf #etl #tonylucca #mickeymouseclub #mmc #mmc30 #alwaysintheclub #thevoice #teamadam #chaserzers #jcchasez #teamchasez #adamlevine #wesleysnipes   Please subscribe and leave a review!

In this episode we sip Rock Hill Farms and Elmer T. Lee while Tony Lucca walks us down memory lane. Tony has been on the Mickey Mouse Club, Malibu Shores, has been signed to two different record labels, came in 3rd on the TV show The Voice (team Adam), and has been recording and releasing original music for over 20 years. His story is amazing, fans will be delighted, and those who are unfamiliar will be entertained.   Please subscribe and leave a review!

This week on the podcast, Dan Garrison of Garrison Brothers Whiskey stopped by the studio on a recent trip to Southern California to tell me about how his Texas Bourbon brand was an idea born out the of pain and frustration of watching his years of dedication to another industry vanish overnight. But after buying one of Elmer T Lee’s old stills on a whim and shipping it to Blanco County Texas where the summer thermometer rarely drops below 94 degrees, the differences between the Bluegrass State and the Lone Star State would have deterred most people. But not Dan Garrison, who takes daily inspiration from the lyrics to an old Guy Clark song: “He's one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faith, Spread your arms and hold your breath, always trust your cape”. Plus, Gina Ruccione is a food and beverage industry alum as well as the host of a popular podcast called “A Series of Unfortunate Dates”. She hosted me for a one-sided Old Fashioned Conversation, which will make sense after you listen to the segment, and we chatted about her experiences in the industry and how her crazy idea for a podcast came to be and took off.

Sour Mash #2 Rock Hill Farms Vs Elmer T. Lee. Let's fight!!! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stu-swenson/support

A quick bourbon hunt to Chattanooga turns into a lovely trip for two.  Plus a visit to several liquor stores and a local distillery.  The clink it or sink it featuring Elmer T. Lee Kentucky Straight Bourbon. Proves to be quite yummy.

This is your Beer, Liquor and other beverage news for the week of August 10, 2019… Ab Inbev is back to their old tricks only in Ohio now, In other AB news, Breckenridge looks to be moving, Elmer T Lee turns 100, so drink instead of sniffing glue, how many times was this vodka distilled so I don’t grow a 3rd arm? All this and more on Have A Drink News.

It’s a dawn of a new day. The secondary market is scrambling to find a new home and we look at the impact this has on bourbon growth. MGP stock prices took a major hit after reports came out that aged stock hasn’t been selling and we look at new competitors in the bulk contract game. Missouri is putting itself on the map having a legally designated bourbon, but are there ulterior motives? With Knob Creek re-instating the 9 year age statement, does it make it one of the best values in bourbon? With all of these coming together, how are brands being perceived? All this on Bourbon Community Roundtable #35 Show Partners: The University of Louisville now has an online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry. Learn more at business.louisville.edu/onlinespirits. Barrell Craft Spirits enjoys finding and identifying barrels that contain distinctive traits and characteristics. They then bottle at cask strength to retain their authentic qualities. Learn more at BarrellBourbon.com. Check out Bourbon on the Banks in Frankfort, KY on August 24th. Visit BourbonontheBanks.org. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: Reddit AMA with the Russell’s https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cme0nf/hey_reddit_im_wild_turkey_master_distiller_eddie/ This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about drinking bourbon how you want. Let's discuss the fallout of the secondary market on Facebook. How do you think the secondary groups will shift? What do you think of the MGP stock plummeting? https://www.barrons.com/articles/mgp-ingredients-stock-aged-whiskey-sales-earnings-51564610232 Is MPG now competing with new distillate like Willet? Do they still have higher age bourbon stock? Let's talk about the new Missouri rules for bourbon. http://whiskyadvocate.com/missouri-bourbon-whiskey-style/ Do you think this will happen in other states? What do you think of Knob Creek restoring their 9-Year Age Statement? http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2019/06/knob-creek-to-restore-9-year-age.html Are Knob Creek picks the best value in bourbon? Is the market oversaturated with Knob Creek picks? Have you seen variances in Knob Creek single barrel picks? How do you perceive brands when they raise prices? Thanks to Blake from bourbonr.com, Jordan from breakingbourbon.com, and Sara from barbelleblog.com for joining. 0:00 Have you held a bottle of bourbon in your hand and wondered how that was made? Sure there is the grains and the barrels and all the science that goes into it. But what about the packages on glass manufacturing, shipping logistics, or purchase orders for thousands of cork stoppers. These are only a handful of things you need to know. But with the University of Global's new online distilled spirits business certificate, you're only a few clicks away learning from industry experts. all that's required is a bachelor's degree. Go to business.louisville.edu slash online spirits. We got the four of us tonight so we're going to like I said a little bit of a skeleton crew but that's okay. Also, just the four of us know Ryan either know Ryan either he's, he's not feeling too We. 0:45 We had it we had a pretty good week. Hey, everyone, 1:00 it's Episode 213 1:01 of bourbon pursuit. And this is a Community Roundtable recording. So we've only got just a little bit of news that we didn't talk about in the podcast. And the first one is there was a Reddit AMA or an asking anything with Bruce and Eddie Russell. There was a lot of talk about the cornerstone rye, which is part of their newest release. But there was one question that came up on the subject of dusty that I found pretty interesting. And talked about if there's any plans to release some older age dated bottles that have a similar makeup or construct a some of the dust sees that they've had before. Obviously, some of the thrill them is that they're no longer produced. And, you know, we've all had a taste of probably try some mid 80s, Wild Turkey, cheesy gold foil and the likes of that. And of course, many of us would like to think that hell that it's never going to happen. No one can replicate dusty, but here's what Eddie said in response to that. He said that there is some stuff development that's as close to cheesy gold foil. As we've gotten since that release. The taste is very similar. Well, that's quite the cliffhanger and that's about the juiciest detail I could find. If you want to read the entire Reddit AMA. You can get the link in our show notes. Today's episode was recorded back on Monday, August 5, which would have been Elmer T. Lee's 100th birthday. We talked a little bit on the show because Jordan gave us a reminder, but what we didn't expect was to see Buffalo Trace distillery, releasing a commemorative bottle in honor of his hundredth birthday. Here's a little information on Elmer that you may have never heard before. On August 5 1919 Elmer t Lee was born on a tobacco farm near peaks mill in Franklin County, Kentucky. Elmer served as a radar Bombardier on the 29 flights with the US Army Air Force in World War Two. After flying Michigan's Japan through 1945 Elmer was honorably discharged in 1940 six. He then earned an engineering degree from the University of Kentucky and graduated with honors in 1949. Upon graduation, he started work at the distillery which back then was known as the George t stag distillery, where he eventually was named General Manager. He worked at the distillery and kind of marking a milestone in his career, he created the first ever single barrel bourbon that was called Blanton's in 1984. He then retired in 1985. Elmer continued to serve as an ambassador for Buffalo Trace distillery, and the whiskey world up until his death in 2013. In honor what would have been almost 100 birthday Buffalo Trace distillery has announced they are releasing a 100 proof commemorative bottling of Elmer t leap, this 100 year tribute single barrel bourbon proceeds from the bottle of this sales will go towards the Frankfurt VFW post 4075 where else 4:00 was a former member. This is once again as you'd think a limited edition one time only release with the same age and Nashville as a standard routinely. But this whiskey is bottled at 100 proof and the suggested retail prices $100. Now, this Roundtable, it goes through a lot of topics where we start from the secondary market Fallout to deciding if bourbon brands care about their market perception. It's it really goes in a lot of different directions and I really hope you enjoy it. But for now, you're done listening to me. So let's go hear from my friend Joe over a barrell bourbon, and then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char. I'm Joe Beatrice, founder of barrell craft spirits, we enjoy finding and identifying barrels that contain distinctive traits and characteristics. We then bottle them a cast rank to retain their authentic qualities for the whiskey enthusiast. Find out more at barrell bourbon.com. 4:54 I'm Fred Minnick, and this is above the char. This morning I made myself a big ol plate spaghetti for breakfast. That's right. I love eating weird things for breakfast sandwiches, steaks, spaghetti, random hot dogs, and so forth. I'm not a guy who typically follows the breakfast train of thought he have to have eggs and sausage. Although if I biscuits and gravy on the menu, it's over. I'm definitely ordering that. And I do like omelets. And you know, I like to play around. But I'm not someone who kind of follows the traditions of various meals. Sometimes I'll want eggs at dinner for example. And the only reason why I tell you this is because I feel like people in bourbon often want permission to drink bourbon a certain way or drink bourbon in the morning, you know before you go out fishing or at lunch when you're out with your colleagues. Bottom line is you drink bourbon how you want to and there are some rules that you should follow like I wouldn't if you spent 1500 dollars on a bottle of bourbon. I wouldn't mix it with coke if you paid $9 for one I would suggest like seeing if you really like it neat in you know, maybe use that as your cocktail mixing bourbon. But there really are no rules you drink bourbon how you want to. I will say that I've also stepped out of my comfort zone with bourbon in the last few years by making bourbon slushies. I think bourbon slushies are so wonderful and they tend to be the kind of wonderful introduction. It's a great way to introduce bourbon to someone who does not necessarily like bourbon or want to drink it neat. So if you have a little bit of time, go check out my bourbon slushy recipe, you'll be able to find it on bourbon plus.com here pretty soon. The irony of course is of just a few years ago, I was making fun of bourbon slushies. So let that be a warning to all of you. Be careful who you make fun of with what they drink is one day, you might find yourself pouring a little bit bourbon with a bunch of ice and lemon juice and sugar and making a slushy yourself. Also try spaghetti in the morning. It's pretty good. And that's this week's above the char. Hey, if you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Twitter or Instagram. That's at Fred Minnick again at Fred Minnick. Cheers. 7:22 Welcome back to another episode of bourbon pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon. This is the 35th recording of the bourbon Community Roundtable. This is something where we get some of the best bloggers and best writers on the scene to come and just talk about what's happening in bourbon culture. And we are chock full with all kinds of things that have been happening in the past three weeks. This is something that we do every three weeks to kind of get caught up on really what's happening with bourbon news. And, you know, we're not going to talk too much about kind of what's on the horizon. Everybody knows that. It's fall season, Fall season means release season. So we might say that one for the next round table after this. But there's a new face of the Round Table tonight. So I want you to Sarah to everybody. So Sarah, welcome to the show. 8:09 Thank you. Thanks. I've been writing a little evil spirits for about, I guess, 20 years now. So I wrote for 15 years at Leo is the barbell and then now I'm over at a inserted level until Wednesday as the culture editor, and that's actually shutting down Wednesday. So if there's anybody in town or outside of town that needs bourbon content, let me know. 8:36 Yeah, she's she's being very, very modest about it. So Sarah havens was like, she was like the bourbon beat writer for Louisville. Like anytime there was a new release a distillery opening or anything like that it by far had the biggest traction that you saw of any sort of local publication. So she did a fantastic job and all her write ups and being able to come with a very journalistic perspective as well. So thank you. Yeah, you're giving yourself not a lot of credit, Terry, you need a little bit more. And so with that, let's go ahead and there's two more familiar faces in here. So you know, Blake, we're going to have you go last because you're you're always 9:18 Jordan, you're up, buddy. 9:19 Sure. This is Jordan, one of the three guys from breaking bourbon. You can find us at breaking bourbon and all the socials. Check out the website breaking bourbon, calm for your latest release calendar and reviews and articles. 9:33 Cheers. Awesome. Fall release seasons coming up. He's going to be a busy man. Very much so but not as busy as this man with his Microsoft paint job. 9:43 Hey, we upgraded they now make a WordPress app for filling in states on a map. So 9:51 they really they do. They've been alive. It's like 9:54 they made it just for you. I know in like a few years ago, I was trying to pay somebody a couple hundred bucks to do. Lo and behold, I found it for free. Even better, because you're in paint on me. So it really, really hurts the release maps. Am I up? Oh, you're up. Okay. I am Blake from bourbon or you can find me usually here every three to four weeks. I'm also bourbon or calm. BOURBO or burbonr.com. All the social medias as well as seal box calm. And we did get cool new seal box hats in. So yeah, I kind of testing out the new logo. And yeah, so maybe I'll give one away by the end or something. Since we're not allowed to do alcohol giveaways on or just we're not on Facebook or Instagram. So 10:47 what? So again right now. 10:50 So check it out. Thanks. 10:52 And I guess that kind of leads us into the first topic tonight is kind of that was the big news. You know, it was actually it was too too roundtables. Beta been three roundtables ago, when we had Craig, one of the admins from the bourbon secondary market, which was the largest Facebook group that was out there had around 50,000 people in it, and they got really kind of the first notice that, hey, things are going to start changing. They tried to change it, they tried to say, okay, we're not going to make this a selling form and try to change the rules. That lasted like three days. And then, about a week and a half ago, there was the the kind of basically the CNN article that went out, broke the news and said, Hey, everything that deals with cigarettes with guns with liquor, everything's gone. And I don't know about you all, but at least in the span of like, 72 hours, like half the groups I belong to, or just disappeared, 11:51 for sure. 11:52 Yeah. And so I guess I kind of work let's talk about the Fallout and kind of what we're seeing in regards of where everybody's going moving to in sort of where everything is, gravitating towards. And since Blake, you have by far probably now one of the largest Facebook groups out there that for bourbon. Is anybody come knock on your door yet? Or is it still kind of like a? I'm still in the clear? 12:17 Yeah, no, we've we've always tried to keep away from that from bourbon or, or with the bourbon or group just because I felt like there were other groups doing it and doing it well. And I there was always that thought in the back of Hey, what if Facebook did decide to care about this stuff. And that's what I think we're seeing now. So we haven't had any issues. But pretty much everyone knows, you know, it's not for buying, selling and trading will still get the occasional post of somebody, you know, they're doing a little fishing. But overall, we keep all that off. So I haven't seen any issues from it. I think it's interesting that, you know, Facebook's deciding to crack down. Buffalo Trace seems to be pretty, pretty outspoken about it as well. You know, but it's just whether you love it or hate it, that's a big part of kind of the enthusiast culture is, you know, even if you weren't buying, selling, or trading, you were still probably in those groups, just watching prices watching what goes on. So that's a big part of the group. And I think we'll get into that a little bit later on some of the MGP stuff. But 13:25 I know that's, that's actual stock markets. 13:29 Sorry, I read that wrong. But no, it is kind of a part of the culture. So it'll be interesting to see where that goes. For me. It's disappointing because you know, whether you had the money or not to buy, it's still cool to see all these old rare bottles in your newsfeed. So 13:48 yeah, I think you're right about that. I think the culture there in just the way that the secondary market have been built around, it is going to take a little bit of a hit. I mean, this is where even people that weren't really into bourbon, they got into it and they see stuff and they become wild and actually kind of almost accelerated the bourbon culture a little bit. 14:05 It's crazy for me why Buffalo Trace hate hates it so much. Because I mean, let's be honest with Pappy Van Winkle really be Pappy Van Winkle if there wasn't a lot of these guys. I mean, it's still be very popular. But how many guys got into it? Because it's like, oh, man, now I could turn around and sell this for profit. And then it just hyped it up even more. And now every article is like, oh, here's the bottle that sells for 20 $300. Well, it wasn't stores, increasing those prices, it was these Facebook groups that were increasing the market perception of it. So 14:41 I think that's going to be interesting too, is even if people didn't trade and they were in those groups, I think they used it to justify buying a lot more bourbon and in their entry into the hobby, quote, unquote, if you want to call it that, I mean, I know a ton of people who have massive collections, they would never sell it. But they always like saying, Oh, my collections worth 20, grand, 30 grand, right? And I'm like, Well, if you're never going to sell it, it's really not worth anything. Right. But I think they were able to justify that because they kept seeing all the all the bottles move on Facebook. So be interesting to see if those folks, you know, go to another platform, find different sites, or if they kind of shrug their shoulders now they go out all right on to the next thing. And I think that's, you know, that's going to be something that's going to take an unexpected, but a bigger see the overall picture of what's going on. 15:30 Sarah, where do you see kind of like how things have shifted, you know, I've seen groups completely changed, like, there's no more buying, selling, there's new, basically, they try to change the name of all the group names. Like that's gonna do it. Like Facebook algorithms are so smart, you know, like, like Blake folded with one or 15:50 Yeah. 15:52 totally missed it, Adam. 15:55 Like, like, Where have you seen people start gravitating towards? 15:58 Oh, I mean, I've been on a lot of those groups, just because I love it reminds me of like collecting and trading baseball cards back in the day. And sometimes you can't always get that bottle that he wants, but you have like, four other bottles that people want. So, you know, I would just kind of use it to trade and stuff. But so I mean, I've seen people flocking to the movie platform. But I do notice that like, it's like probably cut in half. I mean that people might put something up there and there's no comments whatsoever. Whereas on Facebook, you would get instant comments immediately. And it would probably be only up there if it was a good bottle for like five or 10 minutes. 16:37 Even 10 minutes is probably a stretch. I get him a bottle. Yeah, I mean, I'm on the me, we thing now too. And I had to it was just like everything else. I literally had to turn off notifications after like, an hour because like every single new post and I was like, Well, I'm never going to check this now because I go I go to Facebook for my newsfeed, right, I'll go to the Facebook group, I'll go whatever, I'll kind of see what's knew. And that was always one thing that Okay, cool. I'll just see what kind of bottles for sale, but now I gotta go to a whole different thing to do it. So it's, it's going to be tough. You know, I think the I think Sarah kind of you're right there that trying to bring a new crowd over to another platform is, it's always gonna be an uphill battle. And so it's gonna be interesting to kind of see what's going to happen. And at this point, I think people started renaming the groups of things that don't have the word 17:28 bourbon, or liquid or trading or group. 17:34 I think it's, it's interesting to see people's creativity and how to try and get around it. definitely been a week or two. So we'll see if that keeps up. But I do give folks credit, you know, a few different groups that really focus on you know, posting different items. First bourbon, I won't mention what ones, I give them credit for their, for their creativity, that's for sure. 17:55 I think I saw one earlier that said, like, I've got to brown bears for saying that. 18:02 1212 cousins name Weller, 18:06 60 fishes, it'll be go to any of us. It's just like, at some point, you're like, Okay, let's give up on this a little bit. But I mean, there's, I mean, the other thing is, there's there's other platforms, there's me, we, if you really want to do it, there's bottle spot. There's, there's other places that that, you know, you can find stuff, even bottle blue book, you know, we know that people behind their like, nobody will buy your bottles from you. So there's, there's always going to be a market, it's just not going to be as centralized as it once was. Oh, 18:38 yeah. And that's what I was talking to somebody about it, and just, you know, I put this in the chat too, but just the accountability you had, because it was connected to people's Facebook. You know, there weren't a lot of fake accounts. So if something went wrong, you could probably track the guy down and you know, kind of the bourbon mob would be able to take care of a lot of issues that popped up. And you don't have that on the site. Like me, we are bottle spot, which are a little more anonymous. And, you know, you lose a little bit of the trust factor when it goes off of Facebook, which is the disappointing part. Because I mean, you think of how many times how many bottles you see that went or were sold or traded on a daily basis. And how many actual horror stories you heard from people who got scammed or something. It was very small, small percentage. And that's what I think it just opens it up for more of that when you don't have the Facebook accountability. 19:35 Yep. And there was, there was one comment in here. I believe, I can't scroll up and find it now. But there was somebody that said that they didn't really know too much about bourbon until they were introduced into the secondary groups. And that kind of what introduces you to all these other bottles that are out there in the market. That was kind of my first introduction to a lot of this too, is I remember the first time that I was joining this group that I'm not gonna say any names, but when I was into it, I remember seeing like the first bottle of like, will it family state? And I'm like, Oh my god, what is this? Like? How can I get my hands on it? I mean, I went around forever going to try to find it. And I didn't even know the entire time I just had to drive 45 minutes down the road to Barcelona go pick it up. Like it was there was always in the gift shop. So you know, there's there's definitely like there was an educational factor of what this brought to a bourbon consumer. But I think On the flip side, there's also this kind of piece where it says people become a little bit immune to other everyday bottles, because all these see are unicorns and that's all I think are really good. So there is there is a there is a downside to that as well. So, as we kind of like shift focus here, you know, one of the big things that also happened last week was in GPI anybody that is following bourbon is probably listening. This podcast is knowing that it is a huge contract distiller that's out there, and their stock just plummet. This past week, it went from a pretty, pretty good sizable investment, if you're into it about five or six years ago to something where you're like, Okay, probably should think about selling at some point. But whatever it goes, I mean, we're also kind of like in a downturn right now. It maybe if anything, now's a good time to buy. But what happened was is Baron Baron calm, wrote an article and talked about the sales of age whiskey actually fell in the past quarter, at in GPI. And it actually sent the stock down about 26%. Back on Wednesday, July 31. And historically, in GPI has been a big game spirits outfit, like the ALGEO and they decided a long time ago to bet their popularity on building up some aged inventory. In MTP at some points, they were actually getting the the price that they wanted for it nearly three times of their actual cost. But the volumes just weren't there as I'd hoped. And the way this article kind of summed it up was that some customers were having trouble raising the funds to make these large purchases, while others were waiting to see NGP would drop its price. Now, Blake, I'm going to hand this over to you because I know me and you we've seen the MGB priceless before. Do you think this as this is kind of valid, that they really were kind of trying to make it really out of out of the world here that nobody's gonna buy it, if you have the, if you if you don't have the wherewithal to spend that kind of cash? Well, I mean, 22:29 I have no doubt that it's slowed down based on the price list. I mean, looking back, so we bought, it was it was 12 barrels of just under 10 years. So it's nine years. And it was I want to say it was around $3,000 a barrel. Right now the priceless I'm seeing $3,000 a barrel probably gets you like a two year old product. From MVP, maybe, maybe four year old five year old if, if you find the right broker, that kind of stuff. So I have no doubt that people were slowing down on on their buying. And, you know, because you look at the amount of cash that it would take to do because you know, MTP only sells in really big lots, you know, you can't buy five or 10 barrels from MVP, it's got to be, you know, probably a half million dollar buy to buy from them. And so, you know, I just think the appetite for MVP selling probably got a little bit ahead of them and with what people were willing to spend, because then people are doing the math, it's like, all right, how many hundred dollar bottles Can we put on the shelf, because, you know, if we're having to buy at this price, that means our cost is x and we got a retail at at YN. So I imagine there was a slow down. And, you know, who knows? Maybe it is people trying to negotiate or? Yeah, I mean, it is interesting to see that play out on unlike a big scale of a publicly traded company, and, you know, their stock market taking that big of a hit, and one day just from that, but I'm not too shocked at all that there was a little bit of a slow down in there. But overall, I don't think that'll slow down the market, you know, all they have to do is reduce their costs or reduce their price, probably 10 to 15%. And it'll probably pick right back up. And there will still make way more money than they were 510 years ago. So I don't think it's anything but a small bump in the road at this point. 24:36 It Sarah, I'll ask you a question real quick. Because David Jennings of a rare bird one on one just said that in GPS now competing with some good new distillate like will it new riff? Like you kind of agree with that, that the days of you know, thinking that you can just get seven year MVP at a lower price point is is kind of done? 24:56 Yeah, I mean, I mean, we've got like Bardstown bourbon company coming on, I mean, I don't know, that's more for one level up from a consumer or you know, just one dude trying to start a business. But I think more and more competition is coming on the scene. Now, obviously, they're not they're distillate and it isn't as old as MGPS. But if people are willing to wait for the price to come down a little bit, I think I think they should think about that. And like it said, the article said, I think maybe it's talking about it, you know, it's kind of driven people away. So maybe we should just, you know, I thought that was funny. 25:38 shouldn't put all of our secrets out there. 25:41 Thinks what's what's interesting is, if you look at right MGPI stock price, I mean, this really resets, it basically resets all the gains that they made to us. 19, right, because there was a huge, they were building up pretty good in 2018. And then there's a big dip towards the second half of 2018 going into 19, that there's a huge run, and just looks like the markets running figure out what to do with them. Right. I think that a pretty consistent gain up through mid 18. But from here on out, I'm just like in the stock chart, it's it's kind of all over the place, up and down, up and down. Um, so I think the markets trying to figure out what to do with them. I think Sarah's right, there's a lot of new players coming online, right? I don't think they're going to be going anywhere, I think the markets probably trying to see what happens with overseas markets, because that really is the next big area to really put a lot of the source bourbon into. So it's just, it's just buying time and filling it out. But I don't think there's any crisis for them to really worry about per se, if anything, it's probably a good time to buy. 26:36 Thank you. I remember looking at the price list and stuff like that maybe Blake just he's got bigger pockets. And they gave him a better list or something like that. But I remember when I was looking at it, even the stuff that you could get your hands on, like their high right Nashville and stuff like that. It was they only had like, two to three year old age stock like that was really it. Nobody, there was nothing that said, Hey, here's our seven to 10 years stuff like I never saw it. Now, when you want to get into higher ages, they definitely had like corn whiskey, and they had some other stuff, but not just some other regular bourbon mash bill. Blake, did you ever see some of those things of higher ages of just the bourbon stock that they had? That not within the last three years? I haven't. 27:22 And that's what I don't know where it all went? Because obviously they had some 27:29 somebody had some of it. 27:31 But yeah, I haven't seen anything over probably five years. in quite some time. And yeah, so I don't know if they just sold out of it. Or maybe it's the same thing. They're just holding out for that higher price. And you know, I'm it's getting cut a couple times before, you know makes us priceless down to me. So I'm not seeing those prices. But no, it seemed like that all evaporated about two to three years ago and most of the aged in MTP bourbon was gone. So yeah, it is interesting to to kind of see how that plays out. And somebody made another good point in the chat is, you know who they're the distilleries and brands that are buying this. A lot of them were doing it while their own distillery gets ready. You know, somebody like a Traverse City. Let's say new riff there. You know, there's countless others their stuffs ready now? Yes. Smooth Ambler like, so they're no longer relying on it. Now. That's not to say that there's 10 more in line right behind those guys. But you know, eventually you would think it and then you get like a Bardstown bourbon company that's coming on. And they're pumping out a ton of barrels right now castle and keys doing a lot of contract distilling. So so there's a lot of other players in the game. But ultimately, just, you know, how strong is the demand side to pull all that through. 29:06 So but even with all those new players, it's still going to take time for it to come to, you know, to come of age. So it'll be interesting if MGPI actually has more reserved that they're just not showing their hand on and I mean, right now everyone's going right, if you want high age 14, you're going after decal, right? You're going after Tennessee whiskey. And again, there's there's not an unlimited supply of that either. there's a there's a finite amount that everyone can go after so and that dries up either, you know, MGPI has stocks to go for. Or at that point, you're looking at trying to get Kentucky Kentucky distillery to give you some niche stock, but if not, the markets going to be if you have any barrels sitting around, it's gonna be right for the picking. Yeah, 29:44 sir. I'll make you kind of looking at the magic eight ball here because I start thinking about this and I see I see kind of what everything that goes around comes around sort of thing. And so when you look at what happened to the market, where mean if it just not even like go three four years ago, like nobody gave a crap about MZPI everybody used to look at it go in GPI I don't want it and then whatever happened in the past year, six months, whatever it is, like complete one at every single bash it over it. And and now since we have all these new players coming on, yeah, you're going to have this kind of like bulk source market that is Kentucky. It's got that Kentucky name to it. So where do you kind of see like, if anybody's laying down today, and we fast forward five years from now six years from now is MTP is really gonna be able to compete with all these brands are laying down stuff that now says Kentucky on it. 30:40 Right I mean, that's a good question because it's all about marketing. If you think about it, I mean, sure, MTP had knows how to do it makes good juice. But if you want to market your you know, bourbon a Kentucky made product Kentucky bourbon, there's a lot behind that, you know, that MVP can't give you so I think I know it's gonna be interesting necessarily to watch. I think 31:07 that's one thing to think about, you know, think about all the controversy some brands have had because they mislabeled their product because it didn't still didn't Indiana, you know, like the Templeton's and others were kinda adds a little more ambiguity to some source products because of it just says distilled in Kentucky. Who knows where I came from. 31:31 That's interesting. 31:32 Absolutely. And Jordan, we gotta give you a shout out real quick if you just like we come into like a huge batch of Elmer TV because 31:39 it would have been Helmers 100th birthday today. 31:41 Oh, is that what it is? 31:42 Okay, what a turn 100 say so little tribute little shares to Elmer 31:47 Yeah, there we go. Shout out to that. I, I saw him I saw him drinking it. He's got like a case in his background. I was just kind of curious. What was 31:53 this Hello. 31:56 At that if I could get the phone phone call from your local and your 32:00 this is the round tables turning into the secondary market. This is now where it's no 32:06 natural auction. 32:09 Just Just hold up a sign in front of your camera like right now. 32:14 There's a trained auctioneer she's going to tell you 32:20 so so as we kind of like tail off on that last comment talking about like, Where could end up being a few years versus where can talk to me for years, all this other kind of stuff that's coming on the market. You know, there was also something that came out in whiskey advocate this past week that talks about Missouri, is now joining the ranks of Kentucky and Tennessee and actually putting in new legal rules, I guess you could say, to actually have its own silo whiskey, and in this case, bourbon. So according to House Bill 266, that was signed back on Thursday, July 11. Any whiskey labeled as Missouri bourbon must not only meet the federal standards for bourbon, but also must be mashed, fermented, distilled aged and by and the state agent oak barrels manufactured in the state. And beginning in January 1 of 2020. Made with corn exclusively grown in the state. So this law goes into effect on August 28. Now, Sarah, I'll kind of point this one over to you a little bit. Do you see this like as a foreshadowing the effect of we could see other states coming online? I know, we kind of saw this with the Empire right thing before and stuff like that, too. 33:29 I think I mean, right now, every state actually does make a bourbon. Now, Missouri is doing their stricter laws, like kind of like we do, and Tennessee does. I think it's only a good thing to be transparent. And especially they're trying to keep everything within the state. And that on that note helps the agriculture part it helps the they said in the article there was they grow a lot of oak trees so that, you know, their barrels are the best they say, we can decide, agree with that. But they want to make it anything more transparent. I think it's a good thing. 34:07 What about you, Jordan? Kind of get your thoughts on 34:09 this. Oh, this is interesting, right? I think that's a bold move for them to do, mainly because I'm sure I'm sure you can even play. She asked the same question. Countless times a week. Well, if people reach out and say I thought bourbon can only be from Kentucky, right? So I appreciate them trying to trying to, you know, move things forward a little bit. But at the same time, I can't imagine that's going to help anyone by labeling up Missouri, bourbon, because people are just gonna say, Wait a second. No, no, it's not bourbon lessons from Kentucky. Right. So it's great. They want to be state centric. Cool. You know, but no offense, I don't really think that's going to really help anyone. I mean, the good. You know, the good news is local distilleries don't need to choose to label it. Missouri bourbon. But on the flip side, I'm sure eventually there'll be a lot of state grants tied to making Missouri bourbon just making whiskey in the state. 35:00 I mean, you could you could also see this as a as a push for tourism, right? A Missouri trail or whatever it is, like they want to do something that gives a little bit of state pride into into whatever they're doing to 35:14 I think I mean, I think Yeah, exactly. So and I don't think that's a bad thing. Right. Pennsylvania, they recently just launched the the rye rebellion trail, right, the Whiskey Rebellion trail. I mean, so and that's great for Pennsylvania and Scripps in Baltimore a little bit too, but that has a lot of history behind it, like legit history of the whole Whiskey Rebellion, everything else. So it's a little it's a little hard to fathom what type of history they might attach that That being said, if a distillery can come up with some crazy story about the grandfather's recipe, and everything else, I'm sure a steak can come off the story about Wine Trail. 35:49 Yeah, so there was there was a pretty good quote here in the chat. So it came from Blake, first thing he said soon as he started talking about, he said, Oh, I Missouri resident here, I got some thoughts on this. I said, Okay, let's hear it. He goes, the rules do nothing to actually improve the product and the barrel. So I know maybe this is this is this is also just going back to the craft versus everybody else argument. Whereas everything that is coming from the big boys like they've have, they've had time, and they've had stock. And not only that is you've got economies of scale that make it super cheap. So this could be like I said, it might have to be a long play for Missouri to get there. But you know, this is funny when when I talked to Ryan all the time, and somebody says, Oh, you gotta go check out this distillery. It's so awesome. Like, they do this and this, and we're like, yeah, sure, I bet you they ferment some grain of wheat, some corn, and then they probably throw it in a mash tun. And they probably just still throw in a barrel yet, like the process hasn't changed in 20 years. Like we quit giving a shit A long time ago. And so it's it's kind of like, there's there, there's got to be something somewhere where a lot of these states can find that new. I just find find that that angle that is starting to make them. 37:08 Gotta differentiate yourself somehow 37:10 get on the map, somehow just get on the map. I don't know what it is. But maybe this is part of it. I don't know. I mean, Blake, you introduced me to Empire. I like you kind of see this as a move forward for a lot of people in different states. 37:23 Yeah, I mean, but you think how quickly can we burn out on it? You know, we got 50 states that we can everyone can have their own their own bourbon. 37:35 I'm waiting for the Hawaii one to come around. Because I'm going to the barrel pick. Okay. 37:39 I'm heading for that press trip if it comes up? 37:44 Yeah, I mean, it is interesting to see I think it is cool. The Missouri one, I think they've got a little bit with, you know, Cooper edge and everything like that the Empire I, they've done a really great job and making a product. There is some historical aspects best, especially with like, you know, Maryland style rise, Pennsylvania style rise. So it's cool that they designated it brings some more attention to it, and in a little more information, because while we do get a whole lot less of the question, it's still I mean, it popped up for me, like two weeks ago in a comment section of this post I had on seal box. And I was like, Well, you know, bourbon could only may be made in Bourbon County, Kentucky. Like, that's just not right. Like 38:34 that. We're past that. But a lot of 38:35 I mean, the average consumer, a lot of people still think that. Yeah, I go so far as the majority still think about it. I hope 38:43 not the majority, but you're probably right. 38:46 You know, so it is cool. It does kind of give a little more credibility to some of these distilleries. Like Jordan said, I wish there was something that improved the product or 38:57 Yeah, thanks, Jordan. Who said that or no, Clint and Blake, there's another there's another Blake in there. 39:04 Likes always have the most insightful comments. 39:08 But no, I mean, I wish there was something like like a straight days designation estate would do something like that, that says, okay, it's or bottled in bond, you know, something that that has a year state your age statement on it. That really does improve the product where it's cool to say, Yeah, all the the grains, the oak, and everything's from this state, but you know, could still be pretty bad, bad bourbon in those bottles. But it all in all, it's all about marketing. So it gets the name out there more gets more people drinking bourbon. I'm for it. 39:47 I mean, I just think they they took it almost a little few steps too far. I mean, it was literally mash fermented, distilled aged bottled right, Asian oak barrels that were manufactured the state greens grown there. 40:00 Are they gonna do you know, to make it Missouri? You know, I mean, 40:06 well, like I said, I think the part that we're probably ticket, it took it over the edge was like, had to be aged and oak barrels that were manufactured in Missouri, right. Like, there's, we all know that like, 40:16 straight bourbon doesn't Aqua sponsoring that bill? 40:20 Don't talk to trees. OC that Jordan might have something that might be independent state that could have been behind that, right? Because they've got a huge Missouri 40:27 presence. I mean, who really benefits from that, right? So it's going to be it's going to be the barrel manufacturers in Missouri, the people selling trees, Missouri, it's going to be the people growing the grains. It's really meant to benefit the local economy. 40:39 And this is where we get into our hypothesis of things. 40:44 What moves the political? 40:46 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, but like I said, I think, you know, Jordan, you made a really good point there that, you know, it really could be ISC behind that, that really says, like, Oh, this should be a part of it. Because, you know, until I really see getting into this, I didn't really know how many Cooper's we even had really here in Kentucky. And so perhaps there are a few more Missouri that we are kind of not shining the light on. But it's definitely a very valid point that you raise. Yeah, when it comes to it. So as we start moving on here, you know, Blake said something in the last segment really talking about well, if they're going to do something like bring it make it be bottle and bond, but sort of age statement, you got to do something that really kind of Willie wants to make the consumer started gravitating towards it. And this is one thing that is sort of relatively recent that was just announced that it's something that we've been all accustomed to, in the past two years now of basically every label out there losing its age statement. And this is because of the popularity of bourbon and just not being able to keep up with stocks. Nobody could forecast this to ever be where it was, however, beam Suntory came out with a press release saying that knob Creek is going UB restoring its nine year age statement on its on its bourbon. So I'll kind of Jordan like, do you really think that all of a sudden they're like hey, we got stocks. Do you love bourbon? How about festivals? course you do. So join bourbon pursuit in Frankfort, Kentucky on August 24. For bourbon on the banks. It's the Commonwealth premier bourbon tasting and awards festival. You will get to taste from over 60 different bourbon spirits, wine and beer vendors plus 20 food vendors all happening with live music. 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The barrels come from Tennessee get filled with Dragon's milk beer twice, the mature bourbon is finished and those very same barrels. rackhouse whiskey club is a whiskey the Month Club on a mission to uncover the best flavors and stories from craft distillers across the US. Along with two bottles of hard to find whiskey rackhouse boxes are full of cool merchandise that they ship out every two months to members and over 40 states. Go to rock house whiskey club com to check it out. And try a bottle of beer barrel bourbon and beer barrel rye. Use code pursue for $25 off your first box. 44:03 Jordan like Do you really think that all of a sudden they're like, Hey, we got stocks? It's only been like a year like was this like a like a like a safe face sort of thing was this like, 44:14 is interesting. So we just did a one of our newsletters contained a topic piece on this a few weeks back. So you know you're seeing age statements returned in a number of ways, right? So I think the knob Creek might be a little rare in the fact that it may actually return and may kind of stay the same price for the most part. But what you're seeing as we're noticing is age statements coming back with the price increase or age statements coming back on a limited basis. I'll use limited loose quotes right. So the thing about a heaven Hill took off the six year right it's coming back as a seven year as a higher price point. Right Bazell Hayden last very standard A while back all of a sudden is coming out as a 10 year limited release will see more often. right we're seeing this 1780 more and more. And we're seeing those age statements come back and I'm still waiting for the big one. I know this is just speculation on my part. But I'm still waiting to see Elijah Craig just the standard version come back in more premium looking Bothwell bottles in place that are more premium price point, right, because I can't imagine that heaven hills not thinking about that. Right. But I think we're seeing that it's not the fact that age sucks, you know, appeared out of nowhere. It's a business right and I'm the majority of the bourbon distilleries calculated and play this out really well. Because now people do associate age statements and bottles as being higher, higher quality, more premium, and customers are willing to pay for it. So when those demons do come back, they're excited for right and love it or hate it. It's the reality at least people who are bemoaning the loss of age statements have that option, but it's going to cost a little bit more. I mean, they could have just as easily said hey, we're going to come out with a second 45:47 product line that is nine years at an extra like $15 a bottle and just kept doing there. You know NAS seven right here whatever stuff and just kind of had two variations of knob Creek there. So I guess go ahead Jordan. 46:03 I was gonna say you kind of saw that with a heaven hill with the white label bottled in bond right? I mean, you you had my guess it wasn't bottle and bond the one other one but you had the white label and then you had the aged white label and whatever on talk about a lot. So it's kind of like Well, what's the point of doing the non aged you know, the non HD version? So I think people just if there's two options, people are always going to go for the HTML right? It's it's just economics on that one. 46:26 Yes, sir. I kinda want to get your your kind of take on this. I mean, because we look at the market look at what it is I mean, we had Bernie lovers on the show when right 12 lost it and you know, everybody went ape shit and then you kind of talks about like, you know, this is you know, the bourbon is a bird business not bourbon charity business. And you talked about like, well, would you rather just take it off the shelf completely? Or, you know, just bring it back to whatever it is however there you know, I don't know what beam did to try to sit there and try to find these stocks that did this. But they did it without a price increase. So So kind of talk about your you know, kind of your feelings on this one. 47:08 You know, I think people are tiptoeing around idea of the bourbon bubble and if it's gonna burst or what's going to happen so i think i mean it it's probably a way for them to be you know, more transparent it seemed it seems to be my theme but I mean, it's a it's kind of like a an outreach to their fans to saying hey, you know, maybe we were short on this year but now we were back you know, or it could just be like don't leave us you know, there's so much more on the market we you know, we value you here's your age statement back and I don't know that might be kind of naive thinking but I'm glad they didn't raise the price because I like that 47:53 Yeah, well that's what I mean I think one of the things in the press release was talking about how Fred know said when some he wants to order you know, you're at a bar you want to order a knob Creek you expect it to be nine years now I don't know if that's really what is me it's just that it could just be a blanket statement that was given in sent out of course but that was one part of it. Now one thing that was kind of coming up in the chat was people were saying that knob Creek packs knob Creek pics are the best value in bourbon. Blake I kind of want to get your your ID on that because you know most of them are 10 to 15 years old like is is it really the best value in bourbon you're seeing right now. 48:34 Um, so knob Creek pics for me are a little hit and miss at times I've had some that man I'd almost put them up there with like the Booker's 25th release or something like that and then I've had others it's like wow, this is just like knob Creek off the shelf. So as far as price improve go, I can't think of anyone else that would be better. You're talking about essentially barrel proof 14 years old and 45 $50 a bottle whatever they are, I can't think of one that would be better in my mind. But yeah, I mean all in all, I think the more aged options we have out there the better so that's it's nice to see they brought the the age statement back. I'm actually not going to talk about bakers because I just don't want anyone messing with bakers we're just going to stop dabbling with the design and making payroll and leave it I want the nice Devon Black Wax top sitting on the shelf every time I go in so but no I mean to the original question aside from four roses three to four years ago not Craig's probably barrel pics that is not Greeks probably the best value there is right now. Four barrel pics that 50:02 you know it's funny we look at we look at barrel pics we always talk about barrel pics as being one of the things that you know you don't want to go chase after everything barrel pics is where you want to be. However it seems like this is always one of the ones that are so over saturated in the market and Jordan Did you kind of see that as one of those things that were like there's just so many of them out there like it's hard to just barrel fix knob Creek fix you know it's not one of those things that people go crazy for it's not a seven I say 50:32 that Yeah, I agree and I say that with us having a knob Creek barrel pick out there right now for folks for single girl club right 34 through a partner and it's true people I think people have a lot more readily available knob Creek pics at their fingertips than they then they realized in them they want because most stores will have a knob Creek single barrel out there, but they're pretty easy to get. They may not always be like a 1415 year old but they're pretty they're pretty well established is an easy pick for stores to do. Right and for the most part, it's one of the ones that you just get used to knowing that Yeah, for the most part a few times here I'll be able to go to knob Creek where I'll pick right so the excitement factor I think isn't there as it might be for some of the other barrel pics that people do. I'm sure you guys have seen the same thing with your barrel club pics to that you've done them and Blake the same thing Sarah I'm sure if you have a favorite liquor store that you go into often a little knob Creek barrel pics, they're just one of those things that's not sure if it's oversaturation or so much they're just readily available. Even if it's just one or two, you know, a year or two or three year it's more available than you might see some of the other brands out there that stores are doing similar things for 51:45 it, I'll kind of toss it out to the group too. Because 51:50 I don't think I've ever had a knob Creek single barrel pic that is like blown me away. But I've also like when we've done that I pre barrel pics like you go there or you get the sample shipped to you and your tastes of them. There's not a huge very difference between them like they just seem like they seem very they're all the same as me. I mean, I haven't really found like some that are just like crazy off profile like you have some that are like with Buffalo Trace that are just like you never would expect to this be Buffalo Trace versus some that are very sweet. And you can say that about a lot of different brands out there even new riff being one where you get a bunch of different flavors out of these barrels and stuff like that. I'll kind of toss it out to you all like have you seen like a lot of variants in your in your knob Creek single barrel pics. 52:37 So to me, the beam, kind of that funky beam, pod wet cardboard note always shines through. 52:48 Nothing that's a cell point like that, that Yeah, 52:50 no. Bad. That's why I lead with peanuts. 52:57 But I have had a few that I'm like, wow, this is really good. So you know, I wouldn't say they're all the same. 53:07 But you know you think about other Well, I guess pretty much everyone is using the same Nashville same everything. So beam definitely has a lot more to choose from. So if they're going for a profile, they've got plenty of barrels to pick from to find to put into the single barrel program that are all pretty similar. So but you know, I'll defend them a little bit there and say I've had some that are definitely better than others and some I thought were standouts, but I think if you put really anything beam in a lineup and you knows down the line, you're going to pick that pick that out immediately. So I think that plays a role as well. 53:49 Does anybody else get a little like turned off? Sometimes when they only roll out three barrels for you to 53:55 try travesty? It's a 53:57 Yeah. You're like, come on, I'm better at this like that. That's where you bring your own drill and just start walking. 54:06 Because they love that. Yeah, you if you want to get arrested and never invited back again, that's that's the recipe. 54:16 Alright, so let's go ahead, we'll kind of shift it to maybe one of the last topics for tonight as we start winding this down. But it's, it really plays into really well of that last topic, because, you know, Jim Beam is has done a very, very good job at looking at the market looking at its consumers, and saying, like, hey, let's restore this age statement, we're not gonna raise the price, we're not gonna do anything like that. You know, and there's other brands out there that are handling this in the same exact way. So let's talk about the impact of what brand perception really is. So you've got Buffalo Trace, you know, they stated that they will never raise their prices. You've got heaven Hill who did the exact opposite and raise their prices? I'm kind of curious on on. In Sir, I'll kind of let you kind of go first here like, what do you think is the the brand perception people will have when you have, like, that was an example like that, where somebody is raising prices? somebody saying I'm going to keep them steady? I feel like we're running get into like political debates, like, yeah, like, I'm gonna raise taxes like no, you know, it's, it's kind of like that. So kind of kind of talk about, like, how do you see brands in a certain light when they when they do this sort of thing? 55:35 I'm, I think, at the end of the day, people like what they like, and they're loyal. 55:41 I think I mean, the heaven Hill thing, you know, taking it off the market, and then raising it a year. And putting, you know, raising the price on it. That was a little like, you know, like, come on, you know, I'm brand loyal to you. But at the end of the day, like you guys were saying it's a it's a business. And if people are willing to pay it, then then why not? But I think I still think at the end of day you have your favorite and that's what you're going to go to, if you can find it. 56:11 And I have to kind of correct myself a little bit because makki sick in the chat said, well, BT just raised the prices on OWA. And I was like, Okay, okay, they did do that. Some other kind of lower end brands. Yes. They're I shouldn't say lower end but they're some are more everyday consumer brands. Yes. However, sir, more their premium items. Pretty much thing level field, there there be tax in the package in the world, they're really kind of stay in there for at least as least as far as we know. We'll see when the press release comes out in this fall. 56:40 Yeah, I'd be shocked if they raise those prices more than it'll be up. $10 it'll be what are we at now? They're like, 56:46 9999 Yeah, 56:48 yeah, it'll be up. $10. And, you know, I, it is a It's funny how short our memory is on all this stuff. Because, you know, I feel like we pick on heaven Hill a little bit because they've seemed to have done the most with, you know, Elijah Craig 18. Going away, coming back at $110. More, you know, no, we're not dropping the age statement of Elijah Craig. Oh, there goes the age statement. So we're going to pick on somebody else. So like, Buffalo Trace, they raise OWA prices, higher than well, or 12. There's all this you know, if you look at what the what's going on behind the scenes with a lot of the what these stores have to do to get, you know, Sazerac and Buffalo Trace products in that's to me is almost even worse than some of the other people but everyone has a short memory. Am I going to not buy a bottle of George t stag tomorrow? Because my retailer went in debt buying, you know, weekly vodka so he could get that one bottle? No, I'm gonna buy that bottle. So, you know, it's the whole consumer. Not to say that a lot of these distillers are bulletproof. But there's so many new people coming in, who just don't care or will never know, like, the details of stuff that goes on. I think, you know, the brands and distillers feel that a little bit and they just keep moving forward, they increase profits, they increase expansion, whatever it is. I just want to drink good bourbon. And you know, I can't think of one distillery that's done anything that's like a you know, I will never drink them again because of it. I mean, shoot, I tried Templeton a few months back after swore them off because of all their flavoring and no, we don't flavor and all this stuff. And I was like, as not as bad as I, you know, I was thinking it was terrible, but it's not that bad. So um, yeah, I mean, I think there's just a lot of room for for distilleries to move right now, especially with so many new people coming in. 58:57 I think it's a it's on the flip side, it's a fine line, right. So I appreciate what Buffalo Trace is doing by artificially keeping prices low on some of their products, because you have to remember the world we plan, right? We drink a lot of their spirits. But we'll go back to bourbon most often. But the average consumer you're competing not just for for what they buy in the shelves in the bourbon section. But if you piss them off enough, and they start going to discover other spirits, right? Take a bourbon iOS, and he's really into rum. Or he's really into Armagnac, or he's really into mezcal or anything else. Right? They may not return to the bourbon section anymore. And yeah, you may have actually pissed off that person enough that once they found another spirit at a valuable price, they might just be done with bourbon. So it's that fine line that you have to play of capturing the consumers are entering into the to the bourbon world and are willing to spend money, but also those longtime drinkers who are willing and able to switch spirit categories and don't have the discretionary income to just buy everything everywhere. 1:00:01 I'll buy everything everywhere. 1:00:02 Wow. I mean, we might buy everything everywhere. But you know what I mean? 1:00:06 Is if travel takes the right place, you see the right bottle? Yeah, well, of course. Oh, for sure. 1:00:12 Yeah, go ahead, like whole new market. Because there there was the guys who were just completely rien loyal, where they needed bourbon, they walked in and grabbed a bottle of Maker's Mark, and there was nothing else. And now I think it's a little more people are exploring. So I think brand loyalty that's being built and, you know, kind of the goodwill will mean a lot in the coming years. 1:00:37 I think everybody brings a very valid point to this, because when you look at how brands are handling this, they're all doing it different ways. And I think the one thing that people are the brands have to understand is that this is a long game. If you're if you're trying to go out for the short game, you're only going to succeed in the short game. And if you are trying to make a lasting impression that's going to last for decades, you know, making sure that you know, trying to raise prices trying to do this. Who knows it could backfire. You know, we've talked about on the roundtable before, and I think Blake brought it up that we could just be now experiencing the very beginning of what could be a super super super premium market where there will be a need to have $1,000 bottles of bourbon, like regularly on the shelves. As as we try to compete with scotch and stuff like that. So seeing is how it I don't know. And I look at it from two different angles now that I'm kind of saying and I'm kind of flip flopping on myself. It's kind of like yeah, maybe they should be raising prices. And then the other side of me saying like those bastards, why they're raising prices. But I mean, that's that's that's sort of like the, you know, we're in a very transformative time, I think for bourbon, where we see this massive growth, this massive opportunity. And it's either like, what kind of game you're going to play and in where can you either increase profits a little bit that makes makes you have a little more longevity? versus Where are you just basically taking advantage of the market and saying, I've got a 12 year old NGP bottle, and I'm selling it for $250 a bottle. Yeah. Right. Like that's, that's short term thinking. And so we'll kind of see exactly what how that sort of plays out in the the upcoming upcoming pieces here. But, you know, I think that's going to kind of round out a lot of the questions that we had for the night really looking at exactly the market where it is. I mean, we covered we covered a lot tonight. 1:02:36 knockout topics from there's only four people here. 1:02:41 Say I was like we were bam, bam, bam, bam 1:02:45 GP stock prices, Missouri bourbon knob Creek. I mean, 1:02:51 so it was it was awesome to have everybody on here and even huge thanks to everybody that joined in the chat. I know some people were sitting there saying that, you know, you know, Blake it talks about like, yeah, buy a bunch of boxes, so I can buy that and everybody's like, Hey, 1:03:06 I love I love Wheatley vodka. Like anybody's like this is a safe space. Fred's not here. We could talk about vodka. 1:03:15 We can mention it now that 1:03:17 don't save just remember that. 1:03:21 Absolutely. So as we sort of start closing this out, want to give everybody a chance to say, you know, kind of where they're where they're from, where they blog, everything like that. So Jordan, I'll let you go first. 1:03:31 Yeah, this

Peggy Noe Stevens is an encyclopedia of great information about many bourbon brands. You may not know it, but she's one of the biggest influencers behind many of the great distillery experiences while on the bourbon trail and outside of the state too. Peggy is a pioneer in driving diversity with her leadership behind the Bourbon Women organization and involvement with women-led panels. Peggy is an incredibly talented person that has shaped the industry from being in front of people leading them at bourbon tastings and crafting one of kind experiences behind the scenes. Show Partners: At Barrell Craft Spirits, every release is intentionally unique, and can’t be duplicated. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. Receive $25 off your first order with code "Pursuit" at RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Use code "BOB2019" for discounted tickets to Bourbon on the Banks in Frankfort, KY on August 24th. Visit BourbonontheBanks.org. (Offer good through 6/30.) Show Notes: This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about Wikipedia. What is an experiential expert? Who have you consulted for these experiences? What value do you bring to these experiences? What was it like working at Woodford Reserve? How do you elevate the experience? How do balance the history with modern day innovation? Explain the difference between someone coming up the ranks in the bourbon industry vs. someone just taking it. What was it like when you were named the first female master taster? Do you feel like the media is better today that back then? What about diversity in the whiskey industry? Was Lincoln Henderson your Mr. Miyagi? What are you doing today with this master taster role? Let's discuss Bourbon Women. What was your inspiration for Bourbon Women? Tell us about the growth of Bourbon Women. How do you market the organization? What type of members do you have? What are visitors looking for in a distillery experience? How do you deal with a difficult person in the hospitality industry? How did you help pioneer the Bourbon Trail? 0:00 Did you actually consult him and say you should wear an ascot? 0:03 No, no, he he came. I want to make clear to all the audience that the Ascot was his idea. Are you suggesting I shouldn't 0:15 move forward with it? 0:27 This is Episode 204. of bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your hosts Kenny Coleman and per usual we have to go through a little bit of news on June 22. peerless distilling is releasing their four year bourbon. If you caught the Live podcast with Corky Taylor then you may have heard about it, if not no worries as it will be released at a later date. We are very excited for Corky Caleb and the entire peerless team for having the will to hold back sales until this product reached four years old. When we get a chance to try it. We're going to let you know what we think to Buffalo Trace to Hillary is now releasing their next installment in the old charter oak series called French oak. The old charter oak collection is designed to explore honor and celebrate the role of oak in making great whiskey. The oak tree is used in this brand vary from country of origin species, US date and even age there's century barrels that are being used from Oak trees that are 100 203 hundred years old. For this newest release Buffalo Trace contained a small number of barrels from France in 2007 and filled them with Nashville number one. This is the same Nashville used for standard Buffalo Trace Eagle were amongst a few others. The old charter oak is now been bottled and will be available for retail in late June. Last week, we ventured out to Barton for another 1792 foolproof selection, that they started out a little bit different than most because it was raining and there were storms in the area. That meant we had to do our barrel selection inside at the tasting bar at the gift shop instead of the red house because they don't allow people there during the chances of lightning. We made the best of it. And we had six barrels to choose from we narrowed it down to three. And that's I guess fortunate that we ran out of samples there with inside the gift shop. But wouldn't you know the skies parted and we got the sample our barrels inside the house to come away with a winner. After selecting it, we found out that it was barreled on to 29 which of course was a leap year. We were also joined by Father Matt, a fellow Patreon supporter and Catholic priests from northern Ohio, who blessed our bourbon for us to mean how often Can you say something like that happens, it was truly a memorable experience. If you want to join us on barrel pics, go ahead and sign up and be a part of our Patreon community@patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit. If you follow us on social media, you would have seen Ryan and I at will at this past Saturday. We've got big news to share. So you're gonna have to wait to hear more about that one. Let's just say we through 11 barrels and came away with two. That's enough for the teasers for now. For today's show, we have to just talk about Peggy because we love Peggy Noe Stevens, she's an encyclopedia of great information about mini bourbon brands. She was featured back on episode 198 talking about would influence along with bourbon and food pairings with the state as the rave. But this time we get to hear her complete story. You may not know it, but she's one of the biggest influencers behind many of the great distillery experiences that you get to see on the bourbon trail as well as outside of the state to Peggy is a major player when it comes to diversity in the bourbon world. She's a pioneer because she played a big role behind the bourbon women organization that we've also featured on the show previously. Peggy is an incredibly talented person that has shaped the industry from being in front of people leading them bourbon tastings to crafting those one of a kind experiences behind the scenes. Now with that, let's hear from our good friend Joe over a barrel burger. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char. 4:04 Hi, this is Joe Beatrice from Bell craft spirits. Every release is intentionally unique and can't be duplicated. Once it's gone. It's gone. Find out more at barrel bourbon calm. 4:16 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char. When I was a little boy. One day, a man came to our house. He wore a suit, nice leather shoes, had a suitcase. He took my father to the table and pulled out a suitcase and dropped five nice leather bound books. He flipped him open. The pages were silky smooth to the touch. And he pointed at me. And he said, Sir, your son can learn the world through Britannica encyclopedia is my father very interested in my education. But the encyclopedias I just sat there for pretty much my entire life. I don't think I ever really looked Adam. Well, I might have pulled him out for a report here and there. But the encyclopedia man always struck me as like one of the greatest salesman in the world. And today, the encyclopedia is gone. So where do we go for information these days? Well, obviously, it's the internet. But there's one source in particular that seems to drive the conversation with most people. And that's Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a site that I'm actually particularly fond of, because it crowd sources information. And a lot of the information is wrong to include people winning awards, you see a lot of political efforts there to kind of try to change people's Wikipedia pages. I have a Wikipedia page and you know, people go in there and tinker with that all the time. That's great. That is what it is. So side note, I was the most important Ascot where once upon a time someone else took that spot. But the fact is, is Wikipedia is where we go for information today as a society. Now go on there and look for Jimmy Russell, Jim Rutledge, Elmer T. Lee, Jeff Barnett, you name them any kind of prominent person and the American whiskey scene, and you won't find him. I don't know if it's the brand's fault for not trying to make sure that their iconic people are on Wikipedia pages. Or if it's simply that American whiskey hasn't really crossed over into the pop culture of the internet yet. But I think we really should change that. So if you have the abilities, get on Wikipedia today and add a master distiller go add somebody who's important to American whiskey. Because for a lot of people, if you're not on Wikipedia, you don't exist. And that's this week's above the char, hey, this idea came to me from a follower on Twitter, if you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Twitter or Instagram. That's at Fred Minnick again. That's at Fred Minnick. Until next week, cheers. 7:05 Welcome back to the episode of bourbon pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon, Kinney and Fred recording on site at one of our guests place. So we're actually honored to be on site again together doing this. But today that I had the opportunity of meeting Peggy few times, probably probably probably a few years ago was the first time and then the last time which I don't know if that's going to go out and recording depending on how this release counter is going to go but had the opportunity to record her at the higher proof Expo doing some stuff with bourbon and food and chocolate pairings and tasting and stuff like that. And so that was kind of like my really first time really meeting her and kind of knowing some of the the depth of knowledge that that she really had to offer. But, Fred, you've got even a more personal connection to our guest today. 7:54 Yeah. So Peggy, and I go way back and if it wasn't for her, hi would never have written the book whiskey women. And we've become friends. I would say, you know, I don't have a sister. She's the closest thing to a sister I have. And she's the godmother to my son Julian. So, so we are very close. And you know, when we talk about when we talk about bourbon coming back, you know, this woman has done as much for bourbon as anybody. She basically was a founder of the Kentucky bourbon trail. I mean, it was essentially her idea. She It was her idea to create the launch pad of the Kentucky bourbon trail at the Frazier museum. And she founded a little organization called bourbon women. And oh, by the way, she was the first female master taster. worked with a lot of iconic brands and like Woodford Reserve so she's very influential in this world of bourbon. And to me personally, just one of my best friends. Well, I think 8:56 I think we put up on a pedestal and padded that ego enough, we should probably go go ahead and introduce her. So today on the show, we have Peggy know Stevens, Peggy is the master taster and also an experiential expert. So Peggy, welcome to the show. 9:09 Thank you. I was thrilled to be on this, especially with you two guests 9:13 are you know, you you made it? All right, we're 100 and whatever episodes and we finally got you, and you 9:17 waited this long for me know if that's a compliment. I don't know why. 9:22 There was all these rejections because you know, Kenny and Ryan were just, they weren't, they weren't ready for you know, right 9:28 away. Yeah, we had to me to build our build our confidence is kind 9:32 of how it works. Actually, it's very true. They're, they're very sensitive to our various 9:38 crush your ego pretty quickly, there you 9:40 go. They'll look at the text messages. And you'll know exactly like how bad we can, we can really like hate ourselves. But anyway, I want you to first talk about what is an experiential expert, I have something I'm just going to guess that it has to do something with these these tasting pairing things that you do as well as a little bit. 9:57 I mean, that's part of it. Experience ensure, and a lot of people don't understand that word fully. But it's about the experience, someone has been interactive, hands on, you know, engaging a consumer touching them emotionally. It's all of those things. So for years and years in the beverage industry and managed visitor centers, and distillery operations for the consumer. And so through all of that, I learned how to really engage the consumer, whether it be on a tour or teaching or educating or food pairing. And so when I started my company 11 years ago, I decided that that's where I would put a big part of my focus. So I work with kind of the big boy brands and I work with craft distilleries all over creating experiences for consumers on a tour path. 10:47 And so give us an idea of who you've you've actually consulted for so when somebody goes in here, they're going to be like, Oh, I know that Peggy's had something to do with this place. Right? 10:56 Well, recent, most recent, I guess is the Luxe row distillery in Bardstown if you visited there worked with the Luxe family. And the Gosh, I guess that project was almost a two year project very enjoyable. And then the American steel house for Jim Beam. That was my very first project actually, when I started my company, and then that led to the urban still house, which we helped design, and also their Global Innovation Center, which we helped design the interior and what a distributor or retail would experience, you know if they went on tour there, so that was one of them. peerless distillery comes to mind which I have a little peerless today for you. after this is over, or during whatever you want. 11:40 A quarter we'll see what happens 11:42 a little bit on the victors project. And then of course, I go beyond the borders of Kentucky. So a couple Tennessee distilleries like old forge distillery, Thunderbird distillery, and have one up and coming, then it's going to be announced, I think very shortly, 11:58 will awesome. So I guess, one of those things that if somebody is trying to open up a visitor experience, you know, it kind of seems that there's, there's almost like a formula nowadays, you know, you have a little bit of history, get a little bit of retail, but what do you kind of bring to this table that they couldn't just go and say, well, I'll just go visit four or five places write down what I can find, and then we'll go build it ourselves, we need you to justify your job. 12:26 Well, I mean, technically, it is a process because I think that you have to design a visitor center and distilleries in phases, you know, from what is your story? You know, that's where I try to keep people grounded. Where's your authenticity? What do you want the consumer to care about? I call that the takeaway. You know, if you've ever gone on vacation, and you've had a great time, and you get back in your car, your airplane and you're headed home, you say, Wow, that was just a great experience, because you always have a takeaway. And that's what I try to get all of the visitor centers that I work with, to put their anchor in the ground and say, This is what we stand for. This Is Our Story, whether it be history related, or innovation related, or family related, you know, it just has to be true to them. You know, from that, we start to what I call three dimensional eyes it how do you bring that story to life, whether it be through exhibits, whether it be through the production process, or the engagement of the tour guide. And then once we design the exhibits, we work with architects and construction companies to help fabricate it. And after that point, you know, usually we're writing the script. So we'll help with script writing the product profile how we deliver a tasting 13:40 now, when you say script writing, this is like what when you say exactly like your word as much as I can. 13:46 That's right. We we are pretty granular in our business that we even teach the tour guides, how to tell a story, how to train and customer service, how to deal with difficult people on a tour. So 13:58 how to deal with Kenny, you're saying, Yeah, he one 14:00 that actually we teach how to throw out loud now? Yeah, but it's really no more. It's really soup to nuts. And that's what makes a great experience when you thread all of the things together that I just mentioned, because that's when you can say I had a surround sound experience. And so that's what we try to capture with consumer 14:19 DNA. When you had said like, you know, anybody can just open like a visitor center. To me, that's a little bit like, I've had a lot of people come to me and say, Oh, I can write a book on write a book. You know, that sort of thing. A lot of people think they can write a book. But then when they get down to writing a book, you know, they realize they can't do it at visitor centers are actually very complicated AR and and the United Kingdom, go around to the scotch whiskey whiskey distilleries, and you'll see how, how far ahead American whiskey visitor centers are from from those facilities. And actually, you kind of cut your teeth on probably what is considered one of the hallmarks of the bourbon trail and Woodford Reserve What was I did, what were those days like? 15:03 Well, I'll tell you I look back at my Woodford days is probably one of the best times of my life. 15:09 We're talking mid 90s. 15:10 Yeah, mid 90s and 1994 to be exact, and it was a two year renovation, give or take a few months. It was the brainchild truly allows Lee Brown, who I think was probably one of the most intelligent men that I've ever worked for, and worked with. And it was when the bourbon industry was having its resurgence that you know, we were seeing a difference in how we market and the consumer going back to kind of some of the retro cocktails. So it was perfect timing to create this vision for the distillery and so the beauty of it is the team that I worked with people like Kevin Curtis, Dave Sherrick, you probably heard those names. They were right alongside with me on the production level. And we were almost like a small entrepreneurial spirit ticket that Woodford Reserve to where it is the first year we opened. We were so thrilled we had 9000 people and we thought tremendous. And now it's well over probably 150,000 16:10 like in probably two weeks now. 16:12 That's right. But I was really fortunate. Because brown Forman gave me a really great pedigree. I was able to travel around with Woodford Reserve and see other experiences you just meant mentioned the scotch whiskey trail. I went to Ireland, Mexico, one of my fondest memories and one of the best still today for me, as far as an experience goes as a visitor centers choir vo literally we literally went out in the field with a machete and they taught you how to hack with the machete the A gob a plant in your in the dirt and it's hot and sweaty and gritty. That's an experience. You know. So those are some of the the small things that we learned, you know, to try to create Woodford and then I went on eventually to manage the jack daniels visitor experience and all the brand destinations, 17:03 I got an idea for you. So tell me you can bring it to bourbon now. Now you can say okay, we got to go out to the cornfield, you got to go get six Huff's of corn and you got to come back and you've got to get all the kernels off, and I'm going to give you a pest immortal and you gotta get what happened. Yeah, you gotta chop all these up, we're going to make your bourbon in one day. And that's 17:19 experience. That's it. I mean, that's experiential. Because see, I think the consumer these days are so well educated. They want to be entertained, they're dying to be entertained. And so all they want to do is participate with you. And I think that when the industry realizes that and they allow them to play a little bit at the distillery, it's much more memorable, 17:41 too much free labor to its its tracks, 17:43 it will put all the consumers on the bottling line. 17:46 Oddly enough, they'd be like, I'd love to exactly. But another question that kind of goes, I do want to ask you one more while we're on this topic, because you had talked about scripts earlier? Do you still? Are you trying to find people that are like, let's get away from the whole? bourbon 51% corn? Like, is this the same thing? You kind of hear repetitive over and over again? Now? Do you come through and say like, it's just part of like what it is you have to cater to the everyday person that might not know this? Or do you say like, well, maybe we can create an elevated experience that we can slide that in there. But let's not focus on like the basics for a lot of these people? 18:19 Well, actually, it's a little of all of that, I believe in tears of tours. And in other words, there's something for everyone. There's kind of your bourbon one on one tour, where you do learn some of the production methods, but then give the tourists an opportunity to go to that next level, maybe more of an intermediate tour where they dig a little deeper in the production process and the history and heritage. And then for the advanced lover, and true bourbon enthusiasts, you might have private classes or cocktail classes or so I really believe in those tears. It's just a matter of convincing, you know, the distillery that one size doesn't fit all, you know, that you really have to offer because our consumers today, I think it's more demanding than ever, don't you, Fred? I 19:03 do. And they also like to call things out more so than ever, and I certainly more avenues for them to do that. And you got Yelp, you know, you've got Google reviews, and then you certainly have the podcasts and the bloggers and that's right. And one of the things that typically comes up from these, some of these smaller groups that come out, they kind of create, they create a story, and then they talk about it on on their tour. Let's take Boone County, for example. They They told 19:30 us one of my clients actually, 19:31 yeah, that's right. I knew that and they use that heritage. And you know, some people, they're just like, just talk about the whiskey, we don't care about the heritage, we don't feel like it's, you know, genuine to buy this brand or anything. So do you do you ever? How do you balance that, that effort to, you know, to bring out like a cool story. And, you know, staying with, you know, the contemporary desire to not create false back stories. 20:01 I agree. And and I think it's what we all do or try to do is we have to respect our history, because even though it might not have been history of the whiskey, it was history of their culture, and their surrounding area. And that's what Boone was, you know, they talk about their culture of their backyard. And then they tied in, you know, to the whiskey, and so, respecting the history, but then also have any appreciation for the modern day and innovation. You know, where are we going today? So I think it's what I call a balance, kind of a juxtaposition between between past and present. And that's what you have to bring together. 20:37 Okay, we see a lot of these brands that, you know, talk about, like my grand Pappy carried the yeast back on this toes from the Atlantic. And that's not balanced. You know, that's, that's, that's too far. And so like, if you're, if you're in the boardrooms, and you're saying, guys, you can't do that, then God bless you. That's right. You know, because we, we've gotten tired of that over the years, and we still see it, but it's not as prevalent as it was, I'd say 10 years ago. 21:04 And I think because of all the craft distilleries, you know that I work with and for, I try so hard to say it's okay, if you're sourcing whiskey, just say so, you know, tell them where you're getting it, why you chose the barrel stock that you did, how long it's going to be before your product comes out. Because I think authenticity is really important. And that's another reason why I think the tourists don't want to go to distillery after distillery and say, 51% corn, because everybody's going to say the same thing. And it's just dinner in a movie. 21:37 Let's jump on that authenticity thing for sure. Get some of that. Some just hit me, Kenny. You know, we're in this. We're in this day and age where anybody can come in and say they're an expert, a bourbon. You actually became a master taster at Brown Forman. Explain to us what the difference between someone coming up the ranks in the industry and earning that title and and then someone just taking it? 22:07 Sure. Well, I think that in our industry, what so many people don't understand is that we didn't have a formal definition of for example, if you wanted to be a CMO, yea, then you do all the credentials associated with that you take all the tests and you become a summer. Yeah. You know, in our industry, it's kind of truly up to each and every distillery to decide titles of vocabulary credentials, and master distiller is very different than master taster. Master taster is very different than master blender. But each distillery is going to set the guidelines and training, you know, to advance an employee to become in that position. So again, I think I was in the right place at the right time. Lincoln Henderson was the master distiller at Woodford at the time. And I believe it was about 2001, where the general manager of Woodford Lincoln, they thought I had a really good palate, I kind of have a bit of a culinary background. So I think in food terms, and I think that helps so much and identifying and descriptive whiskey. So I had written the tour understood production, I have a bit of a science mind. So they asked me if I would formally trained with him to become a master taster at the time and my naivete. I think I didn't realize that there were no women master tasters in the industry, if you can believe it. So of course I was eager, you know, to learn love doing tastings really respected Lincoln, in his knowledge and years of experience. So we would do you know, sensory training, we would you know, drill barrels and, you know, pulled from it, and he would teach me the different aspects of that, I had to do quite a quite a few things in the production area. And it's kind of like the whiskey, you know, you're not ready till the master distiller says you're ready. And after a certain period of time, that's when they gave me my certificate. You know, it was putting the newspaper and that's when I first found out when it hit the newspaper, it hit the AP. Oh, wow. And went across. And it is big news, that a woman has become a master taster. In a male predominant, you know, predominant world. And the that's when it hit me that this was really something more special than I ever dreamed than ever thought. And I'm happy to say now there's many master tasters, Master distillers master blenders that are female, I just happened to be, I think, in the right place at the right time that that happened. 24:37 Share with us the 24:40 when that news broke the DJ who called you? 24:45 Well, when I mentioned AP, right, hit the AP, so 120 newspapers it hit. And of course, there was so much interest from radio stations, TV stations. And it was something I wasn't, I don't think I was quite mentally ready for in the fact that there was a particular radio station kind of a shock jock that wanted me to come and do a series or not a series but an interview rather. And they were kind of getting a kick out of the whole piece of the newspaper article that said, she doesn't swallow. You know, she swirls and spits. And they kind of wanted to play on that a little bit. And I remember that, that's when it hit me that I was going to be different. I was not going to go along, just get go along to get along. And I said no to the interview. Because I didn't think that that was going to ever be my persona. And that's not what I wanted to be known for. I wasn't going to joke along with it. I wanted women to be taken seriously. And in a way like men would be, you know, and I don't think there'd be too many radio stations that would ask a man to do that. So I said no to the interview. And, you know, it wasn't very favorably received. But so Obama stood by my values on that. 26:06 Do you think we're better today than we were? From a media perspective? 26:12 I think not really, from a media perspective you ask? So I don't think so. But I guess I want to expand that not just to whiskey. I think on a media level, there are plenty of reality TV shows that, you know, try to get the worst of you the angle to make you not look great. I think there are plenty, you know, of Facebook video, you know, you see this all the time in social media that someone's captured at a certain moment, YouTube video, all of those things. And so No, I don't think media is better about it. But it goes beyond whiskey. 26:54 Yeah. What about the whiskey industry? Is it obviously we've seen growth of diversity. But you still, I still get the sense from from from women, that it's not where they want it to be. In terms of the diversity, 27:12 right, I think we are on a great trajectory right now, I think there's never been a better time for women to be in our industry. The amount of executives and vice presidents CMOS presidents of the different distillery or spirits companies, it's really enlightening, and I'm so glad to see it. So there I think putting women in better positions has certainly improved. Look at the production side of things, we have more master distillers that are women. All of that's wonderful. My question, I think, to the industry is really, once you're out in the field, and when I say out in the field, as far as sales representatives go that are female, you know, marketing representatives who do kind of the day to day job of beating the streets and going to bars and restaurants and it's more of how are they treated these days? You know, that's that's the question mark for me. But I know, you know, internally, it has definitely improved as far as positions go. 28:15 Yeah, I can kind of see that. I can kind of see what you're saying. Because you're still going in to even probably the more male dominated culture of liquor store owners and retailers and bars and stuff that yeah, these people have to go and they have to sell their product. I have to probably put up with some shit every once in a while to I'm sure that's probably not far from the case of what you're what you're what you're hinting at here. You know, one thing I kind of rewind a little bit about that you had talked about going up and becoming the master taster with inside of just Woodford or brown Forman in general what was 28:48 Woodford Reserve decision with Woodford Reserve specifically, 28:51 kind of talk about what those that individual process means are like how was how was Wes? Like, your your Miyagi, if you will? How does he mean like in Lincoln? You mean like it? Oh, sorry. Sorry. How was Lincoln? I'm sorry, I apologize. How was Lincoln kind of like your Miyagi here and your Daniel son, if you will. So the wax on wax off sort of scenario, 29:10 he got so caught up on that scenario, that Miyagi? I know, I forgot. 29:16 It was like, it's like from The Karate Kid, you know, you gotta have you know, and you're maybe maybe a Yoda, if you will. Yeah. 29:24 Well, again, Lincoln to me was was so refreshing every time he came to Woodford Reserve because he wanted to be as much a part of it as anybody who worked there. And he was the master distiller, of course, but you know, had to go back and forth to Louisville, he traveled around the world, you know, worked a lot in Japan, etc. And every time he came in, we would have great conversation, he was a foodie. So we always had that culinary tag that we appreciate a good food, good whiskey. And I have to say he was so well liked by the tour guides, and in the management, because he always had just as calm demeanor. And the reason why I tell you all that is because I think that really helped me when I was learning because he took the time to explain things, the very first time that we met formally to train, this was my first lesson, he had a box of toothpicks, and a glass of water. And then he had all these empty glasses, and I thought, oh, we're just going to taste a lot. And he, as he was talking, he was breaking up the toothpicks and putting them in water. And it's the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. And I just didn't understand it. And he goes, he goes, I'm gonna let this sit for a minute, okay. And I said, Sure, you know, go ahead, no problem. And then he came back to it about, you know, 10 minutes later, and he goes, smell this playing glass of water. I noticed it. And then he goes, nose, nose, the one with the the toothpicks in it, and I noticed and he goes, do you see the difference would can make? And it was just this? Was he trying to mess with 30:51 me as he means? Well, 30:52 I mean, it was just, it was just his way of teaching and Little things like holding a Glencairn glass, you know, in the small disk that goes on top to keep the aroma, and he would teach me how to move it back and forth, so that I could look, you know, like an expert, you know, tasting it and turn it off. And then putting it back on very quickly 31:14 reminds me of like somebody at the poker table, they're just roll the chip in their in their hands or something. But 31:18 but exactly, that's exactly where the basic so I guess what I'm saying is, I really honored the fact that he brought me to the basics. And then little by little, you know, we advanced her way into the distillery where I was drilling barrels and pulling samples and tasting. And so it was it was really a progression, I guess, is the best way to answer that question. And, again, it wasn't ready till he said, she's ready to conduct the tastings and send around and do tastings. 31:46 What are you still doing today? In regards of a master taster role? Are you actually helping with other distilleries in this sort of thing like trying to dial it in of what they should be releasing or what their barrel should be at? 31:57 I absolutely do several different levels for some spirits judge for the American distilling Institute. So every year, I go and taste product, you know, from craft distillers and rate it and sometimes identify if it's, you know, has been in the barrel too long or still was dirty, or the grains were mold, you know, so we have to give a lot of feedback. And that's kind of tricky. 32:20 That is, that is tricky. I gotta say that that job is that particular competition and that style of competition. God bless you don't do that running. 32:32 But I also think before we get too far from there, I also want you to kind of explain when you just said, How can you tell if something if the if there's something moldy in the still like, how can you How can you get that from the distillate, or I think everybody knows that it hasn't been in the barrel long enough, 32:48 it's a taste. For example, if this still isn't clean, you know, really clean, I can taste kind of wet corn husk that tastes kind of moldy. To me, there's a rubbery taste, you know, and that's, that means something else. So it's all in what you have memorized in your sensory, you know, as a good or not so great taste. And that helps guide me, any anybody who is interested in knowing how to taste, I try to break it down and say it's really pretty easy. It's about food memory, if you know food flavors, you know, like what burnt tastes like? Or what real great savory, juicy steak tastes like, you know, you can equate food flavors to whiskey tasting. And so the American distilling Institute, which we have tons of fun, you know, we have about 70 judges, I think now that come. So that's one area and then for my clients, I do tasting profile. So if it's a new product, I will actually dissect the flavors and come up with the vocabulary to describe it. And then teach the tour guides, you know how to deliver tasting. So that's a job that I do. And then of course, doing food programs, food and bourbon programs, food and spirits programs. food pairings are kind of my specialty. And that's probably what I enjoy the most. When I'm doing tastings. 34:15 Well, there's one other thing that she applies for tastings. Joe went out, tell me she writes for bourbon plus, yeah, well, 34:21 how can I possibly get 34:23 she does tasting notes for the magazine? Yes, 34:26 I do tasting notes for the magazine and do ratings at times when I'm asked but I really have enjoyed that. Fred's taken a very different way of approaching descriptions of food pairings and bourbon pairings. And so I've, I have really latched on to that, because that's, that's my joy. That's what I really enjoy is describing flavors and whiskey. 34:49 So talk about a typical thing that when you are trying to do a food and a whiskey pairing, or food and bourbon pairing, I mean, is it like, okay, on your left, we've got shrimp and grits next goes well with bullet or we've got this and that, but kind of kind of just walk through what's around on a plate here and how you would share? 35:06 Well, the first thing that I tried to have people do is just dissect the whiskey flavors in general. Because if you don't know what you're dealing with, there's no way you could possibly decide on what food that it's going to go with. And then I created something a long time ago called balance, counterbalance, and explosion. And the balance side is simply when you take the whiskey and you taste a particular flavor of the whiskey that's, you know, pretty predominant. And then you match that flavor. Let's say it's Apple, you match that flavor to the food and so it let's say it's Apple, you know, so a slice of Apple, you taste apple in the bourbon. So it's a balance nothing's overshadowing anything. Then counterbalance is when you take a food flavor or descriptor from the whiskey and you try to do something completely opposite. Very similar to if you were drinking a Riesling wine and eating occasion pecan. You know the reasoning is so sugary sweet that it takes over the spice of the Cajun pecan kind of dousing it. You can do the same with bourbon, with really heavy caramel notes and vanilla notes. I could take an Asian dish and have my bourbon with Asian food because it's actually going to that caramels going to wrap around that spice and it's lovely. And then a explosion is when I want to really do surround sound tasting and I might take a great for example, you know I've got a bottle of peerless here I'm I take a great chocolate note out of peerless rye, and then I'll have a really chocolatey, you know, truffle or majestic to go with it because it's almost like too much of a good thing. You know, you're trying to create a flavor that you can't even believe it's taken over your mouth. And that's explosion. 36:54 Fred, did you know that you can pair bourbon with egg rolls? Because apparently you can. 36:59 The only thing I have now I've been able to successfully pair bourbon with has been like fishier styles of sushi. Like I compare bourbon really well with salmon but like, like, let's say a spicy tuna roll. I've not been successful and fine. I've been able to pair a scotch with that, but not a spicy 37:19 scotch is so easy with seafood because it 37:21 really is. Yeah, but there's not. When it when it comes to some of those more flashy or tunas. When you hear those spices, they're hard to pair to. 37:33 I mean, most of our listeners, they would say well of course you want to go at Jefferson's ocean and because apparently it's supposed to bring in this briny, salty taste to it what would what would be your response to that? 37:43 Me? Well, I or or Yeah, I think Jefferson's ocean is 37:50 sometimes it has brightness to it. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't always get it. 37:54 Well, I remember I was very skeptical. The first time I heard you know valve and putting it on the sea, all of this and I thought you know what, I'm going to taste this thing. And surprisingly, salt is not a descriptor that I use ever when I'm doing whiskey profiles. And I will tell you, I really do get a little bit of that sea salt taste 38:16 as I did in the later batches, I it's been inconsistent for me. 38:20 So what I try to do if I'm if I'm pairing with Jefferson's is not to overdo the salt. You know not to have a real savory dish to pair it with because I think it can overtake 38:34 so go ahead. I you know, we're I don't want to get too caught up in all the tasting side of things because we really want to talk about you know, bourbon women. 38:49 Do you love bourbon? How about festivals? Of course you do. So join bourbon pursuit in Frankfort, Kentucky on August 24. For bourbon on the banks. It's the country wells premier bourbon tasting and awards festival. You will get to taste from over 60 different bourbon spirits, wine and beer vendors plus 20 food vendors all happening with live music. Learn more about bourbon from the master distillers themselves that you've heard on the show and enjoy food from award winning chefs. 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And, you know, your company was a consulting company you've you've been a you know, personal consultant. Yes. image consultant. By the way, She's the reason why I have a beard. 41:14 I told you I've been trying I've been trying with 41:16 Fred This is this when he was baby face when he had the goatee and you're like, you gotta you gotta grow it out some more. Or is it actually 41:21 it was it started with the goatee was the other It started with a goatee. And I said fill it in and fill it in. But yeah, that's one of I am an Image and Etiquette expert. And, and believe it or not, that's come in very handy because I work in the hospitality industry. And so it's about the look and feel of your employees and professionals. So Fred's 41:43 con wrote a book on it. 41:45 I wrote a book called professional presence. And I teach on that still, you know, too many organizations and corporations, but 41:53 when she's with bourbon groups, she just throws it all out the window. 41:56 Do I Do I dress down? No, I'm just so last thing is I 42:03 usually wear a coat and tie to see me today. 42:05 I did not Yeah, but I also usually wouldn't know which one of the nine spoons I'm supposed to use that are in front of me sometimes at a nice dinner as well. 42:12 Well, and you know, it's funny that you say that because that's where the bourbon industry is just been great because it's so approachable. And even though I'm an etiquette expert, and I had a woman at bourbon and beyond from California came up and she goes, Peggy, you're the Emily post of bourbon. And I kind of got a kick out of that, because I wasn't trying to take that she was no, you're really teaching us. You know how to do things and use things. But one thing lesson I've learned from all these master distillers who I really admire is to make it approachable, you know, teaching people what they can do and how to enjoy it, but not making it intimidating for them to enjoy it. Because we don't want to make it untouchable. 42:51 Scott's dictating 42:54 to listen, and he says his way or the highway. 42:57 So the inspiration for bourbon women? Yes. What was that? 43:01 Well, I think bourbon women, for me personally, my inspiration was when I was still working for Woodford, because I would travel around the world. And when I would conduct tastings, nine times out of 10 predominantly male, which was fine that there'd always be like a little trickle of women in the back. And they would only come up to me, after the tasting was over to ask questions, you know, or ask what I do for a living or, or expand a little bit more on my career. And I always found that very odd that they wouldn't raise their hand when a lot of the men would be flooding me with questions, you know, during the seminar. And then I attended a women's weekend and Kiawah Island. And again, this is back in the 90s, early 2000s. And it was a women's weekend not about whiskey. It was just a women's weekend where the hotel was doing different things, excursions etc, shopping, the normal thing, and they asked me to come in and do a bourbon tasting. And when I got there said how many women It was probably 100 women in this room. How many women enjoy bourbon? No one raised their hand. Nobody, no. Time is over. But then I said, Well, how many of you drink margaritas? They all raise their hand? Oh, yeah. Now we're talking Now we're talking. And I said, I'm going to teach you something now that I think you'll appreciate. You know, when you have a shot of tequila in front of you, you're probably less likely to drink that than you are to have a margarita. I said so we're going to start slow and I'm gonna teach you how to taste bourbon, and what cocktails you can put in bourbon. And then maybe you'll decide, you know, the Bourbons okay for you. And by the end of the night we were singing New York, New York and doing the cancan. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was wildly successful. The women had son, they loved it. And so I think that was part of my inspiration. Also, another event that I did, when I was at Woodford, I have a picture of it actually with Lincoln. We did a women's group, cigar and shopping night. And women came from all over Kentucky to attended Lincoln gave the tasting. We had a cigar aficionado there, you know, showing you how to smoke a cigar and then we shopped and it was wildly successful. So in marketing, because I was in marketing for so long, we'd be waving the flag saying there are all kinds of women out there that want to be part of our franchise, but marketing dollars or marketing dollars, and the demographic skewed always to the mail. And it was just really never took off. So when I started my own company, and there's a long way of explaining it, but when I started my own company, I said I'm gonna start my own damn thing. And so with bourbon women, I did focus groups across Kentucky, and I grabbed some really great friends and then in over Manhattan's, we said, you know, let's, let's test the market. Let's test these women. Let's see if they'd be enthusiastic about creating a platform a conversation. So we did the focus groups, I got all my research together, and I went to go see the one man in this industry who would tell me the truth. And that was Bill Samuels, and I sat down with Bill Samuels, and I said, Bill, I have an idea. And he was always great about listening to me, he truly was, even though I worked for Woodford for years, I was in my own company. He didn't have time, you know, to talk to people like me. But I sat and I showed him all the things that we did with focus groups, and he was like, You know what, I think you've got something here. He was the one I used the word earlier conversation. He was the one that said, Peggy, you're starting a conversation. That's what you gotta do, you're gonna start a conversation with these women. So that gave me all the power I needed to know that it must be something there. So we did an inaugural event at the governor's mansion. Fred was in attendance and you should tell that story actually. 46:53 Speech 46:53 Well, when when we gave the speech and in the catalysts for wisdom women. Okay, so 47:00 yeah. So when she, when she had came up with this, this idea to do bourbon women, she one of the things that she would talk about was like women were some of the early distillers and they were always a part of the industry. And kinda you know, how it is when, you know, kind of my calling card, especially at that time, was to find, you know, kind of call people out a little bit. And I was looking into that. It's like, when I saw that when she told me that all right, I'd saw it. I said, That's not true. You know that, you know, no one's ever written about this. There's never been any, any ads. Like I was like, surely if there's this is true, then brands would be all over you, we'd have all kinds of brands named after women. And I started looking at she was right. And not only was he right, I found women that the brands didn't even know about. And so I said, not only is this awesome, I have a book here. And so that was kind of the catalyst for what became whiskey women. And really at that book more than anything propelled my career to where I am now. But it all We joking, I 48:06 just want to say I haven't made a dime off that book. I don't have commission I don't have I don't have title. I don't have anything. movie rights. I don't have anything maybe 48:16 maybe Oscar Oh, like playing the NBA or something. 48:20 Oscars Fred son, by the way, it's my godmother. It's probably gonna be five, six. 48:24 Yeah. Likely, let's see can dribble Really? 48:26 Yeah. Well, the anomaly. 48:29 Beauty of that whole story, though, is that Fred was unlocking something that he couldn't believe no one had. And so I was unlocking something that I knew needed to be unlocked. Yeah. 48:40 And no, that was in that moment, that that's like, you know, you look back on life. And you know, there's probably a dozen moments where you're like, that will always stand out. And that was one of them. And to be honest with you, if you did not run with that, you know, I because now what Berber women was the first but now they're probably we 30 women centric whiskey groups. Sure. 49:03 National. Absolutely. 49:05 And it started with you. 49:07 Thank you. I appreciate that. We're really proud of the fact we were the first female consumer group to talk to the industry. And now we're in six cities formally. We have thousands of women across the United States that attend we've done over 200 events, if you can believe. And then we have our annual what we call sip podium, si p symposium 200. Women came in from 23 states this year to Kentucky to go on excursions, learn about whiskey, bourbon, the culture and heritage that surrounds our great state. And it's been I don't know how else to say it. It's more than networking. It's more than educating, which is what we stand about. But it's empowering. And these women come together from all over they've never met each other and the camaraderie and that's why I always say, bourbon brings us together. Yeah, it's a universal welcome. And bourbon women's not a demographic. We're a psychographic. You know, it's these women are love soft adventure. They're curious. They have bravado, confidence, a lot of them are really just professional women who want to have a little bit of an escape, you know, from the normal business life. It's been probably I would say one of the best things I've ever done in my career. 50:26 One of the things to Kenny that she's that they're doing is that they are getting data from their, from their members and what they released some data recently about where they like to go well, on the bourbon trail, right. And that was stunning to me. He was like, 50:43 Yeah, what do you think about that? I was 50:45 shocked. It was it will. So it was Maker's Mark and Buffalo Trace, they were kind of neck and neck. Those are the two that I always recommend. But then after that was like, who wasn't on there that shocked me like we didn't see us. That's a Weller. You know, we do didn't really see any of the craft brands. Woodford had a small pie, small piece of the pie. It was it was very stunning to me, like what was appealing to bourbon women. From a tourist perspective? Well, 51:12 I'm glad you brought that up. Because one of the things we do do is pride ourselves on some of our research. And what we're trying to do is kind of debunk the myth to the industry. This is part of our mission that you have to pink, a whiskey for a woman to like it. And so what we found universally, whenever we do tastings with the women, or whenever we're at an event, and we're doing surveys or blind tastings, they undoubtedly choose the spicier, more robust, and higher proof bourbon is a 51:45 memory serves. Booker's almost always wins these things. Yes, 51:49 yes. And also, heaven Hill did one more the Elijah Craig, barrel strength, oneness. So that's part that's really that's information that helps the industry because again, you don't have to dumb it down for women. They like it like you like it. 52:05 So as long as Jim Beam and Heaven, Hell are listening, you figured out a new target for these brands, you know, 52:09 our cohorts coming 52:11 along? We're seeing more, 52:14 or any our co host Ryan, you know, he like he's not here, but he he secretly likes flavored whiskey. So I don't think he would want the brands to listen to that part. 52:25 The other question I kind of wanted to roll with this as well is, you know, we've talked to groups about how they start. bourbon societies and stuff like that talk about what the the growth was here. And was it? Was it small growth at first, did you plateau? In the past six months? Have you seen a hockey stick? Kind of what did this look for 52:47 bourbon women? Yes, I would say we shot off like a rocket when we first began. And then just like when you're selling whiskey, it's easy to get into distribution. But then you need pull through or retention, you know, you need that second order. And because we were in Kentucky, I mean, it shot up. But until we went outside the borders of Kentucky we plateaued a little bit. And then once Indianapolis came on, you know, Tennessee, DC, Chicago, in these other cities wanted to be part of this. And that was the unexpected. I never designed bourbon women to be something that we make $1 off of. I never designed bourbon women to really be a national organization. It was it really wasn't there for me at that time. The women spoke to us, the women demanded it. And we listened. And we we stepped up and we said, okay, we're going beyond the borders of Kentucky. And that's when we really took off. 53:48 How are you marketing it nowadays? 53:51 Well, nowadays, of course, largely through the internet, largely through our website, invitations. We have branch ambassadors in each of those cities that I mentioned that are creating events for women and excursions that they can go on. So that's a big piece of it 54:06 are using like meetup com or something. 54:08 We we do event bright we do. You know, it might be what we call meet needs, which are just real simple meet at a bar and have some cocktails together just to enjoy camaraderie. Or it might be a really formal event. You know, 54:21 you said camaraderie, they're looking to make new friends in a new city. So So kind of what is that? What is that profile nationality is 54:28 the the freshest information I have is just us coming off a symposium in August. And it really took me back because the women I were meeting, they'd been to the last five symposiums and they keep coming back and coming back. But this time, for example, we had a woman that brought her five nieces, you know, all female nieces that were 21. And over. And they made an excursion of it. You know, there was an aunt, or I'm sorry, a mother, who brought her her mother and grandmother to this event. We have a mother that it brings the daughter who just turned 21 we have women's weekends, where a bunch of girlfriends are getting together, and they want to go away. And we're the tickets. So we're seeing all kinds single married, Grandma, you know, young 21, who just got her her, you know, driver's licenses says she can drink now. So all of those things, all of those things, it's a combination. 55:24 So it was there. Is there one that kind of fits more the bill than the other? Or is it just 55:29 say that, but we're all across the board. We are all across the board in age, we're all across the board. geographically. We're all across the board from mother, grandmother daughter. And, and I love it. I think that's that to me, said, this is how women come together. 55:48 Are you trying to do something that's that's unique as well just for just for an all female audience versus something that would just be for a general bourbon meetup? 55:56 Well, what's so interesting to me is more and more we're seeing and more men come to our events, because they think we do very buttoned up events and a very deep in the education, which is part of what we do, and we're proud of. So we're seeing more and more men, so men can come to it. But as far as the camaraderie of the women who are coming, it's the it's what they want it they get as much as they want, how they want it. 56:24 So I kind of want also rewind a little bit to some of the had some questions that were lined up from some of our listeners about distillery experiences and stuff like that some things that that they kind of wanted to know. Sure. And in one of them was kind of thinking about, what do you really feel that visitors are looking to get away from an experience there? Like you mentioned earlier, that they want to come away with some some vivid memory? Like, what, what else? Is there something that is? Maybe it's physical, maybe it is intangible? What else do you think is missing there? 56:57 Well, I you know, I've been in hospitality for 30 years. And when you really boil down hospitality, it all goes back to human needs. You know, everyone wants to be heard or listen to or feel appreciated or feel special. Those are human needs. And so to your question, you know, I think aside from saying I had a great experience, when they meet a tour guide that treated them a little bit differently. That's a great memory, 57:25 or they Eddie Johnson's the best ready 57:26 Johnson is magic. I mean, he's magic. That's what he does. So well, I don't care what level of person he meets, where they're from, what they look like Freddy Johnson's gonna make you feel like you're the only person in the world? 57:41 Do you think he could probably just go out and start consulting? 57:44 I don't think you can. I don't think he can teach what he has. 57:48 It's really an art. Yeah, it really is as much as we do customer service training at different distilleries, and it's an art. And I can almost tell the people who have it or don't after doing it this long, but to me, it's about human need, and making you feel like you're the only person in the room. And that's really what so many of our master distillers have done over there like Jim or Jimmy Russell, to me, I call him the gentleman distiller. He was always in Fred and I just did bourbon and beyond, you're on stage with us for the Jimmy Russell tribute. And that's what I quoted was, he had that magic about him, that there'd be 1000 people in the room. But he was only about you at that moment. So when you ask that question, what's the consumer looking for? What's the tourists looking for? They're looking for a special moment where they were recognized, or they had fun with you and being part of somebody's memory, their entire memory of all the vacations they've gone on? You know, that's a real honor. So that's my philosophy of hospitality is to never forget your part as you're part of a family's memory for the rest of their life. 58:55 I think that's accurate for probably 99.9% of them. But then there's the crowd the old bourbon geeks, 59:03 yeah, 59:04 there are. They're out there. What are you? How do you? How do you prepare your staffs for, for the guy who knows everything and won't hear it otherwise? 59:14 Well, the only way that you can deal with what I call a difficult person, and I see the sometimes in the tastings, I do, I'm sure you do. And you do. There's always one in the crowd. 59:26 There, they're always old ladies, for me, like I always have an old lady, lady bourbon has to be from Kentucky. 59:37 Well, first of all, my advice always to defuse the situation. Because usually when you have a difficult person, they love being in the spotlight. And they want to draw attention to themselves. So you have to kind of diffuse that person, like pull them aside and say, oh, let's have this conversation over here and get them away from the crowd. You know, or Oh, great question. Do you mind if when we're on break, you know, we we asked, we all answer that in just a little bit. Because when you defuse it and pull it away and kind of steal the thunder, it definitely helps. definitely helps. 1:00:09 One thing I don't think we did touch on that we need to before we wrap it up is about the the kind of how you pioneered the the bourbon trail as well. Oh, okay. Right. Yes, we definitely need to kind of talk about that be what the original process was the idea? Who did you say something to I heard it first, it was just a brochure like, 1:00:29 Oh, it was definitely just a brochure. But what's really a funny story, and it was more out of I think, trying to do our job, then it was great marketing, creative minds. There were two women in the industry. That one worked at Maker's Mark door, our, let's see, Don anally. And then Doris Calhoun worked at Jim Beam. And we were all visitors, center directors, I was at Woodford, and we were friends because and that's a great thing about our industry to even though we were competitors, we were also friends, we really enjoyed each other's company, we would travel to tourism shows, and we would drink each other's bourbon, you know, and taste each other's bourbon, and we just had fun together. But we were all in the same boat, we had to bring people to the visitor center. And so we start talking about it. And we said, you know, people are going to see you and they're going to see you and they're going to see me wonder if we did some kind of, you know, cross marketing, that these visitors could come to all of our facility and we mark it all together, you know, in a way that it's kind of a road trip. So that being said, So Daniel, who I don't know if you know that name or not Katie, he was the Eric Gregory of Katie a at the time. And we took it to him and said, Hey, why don't we bring all the distilleries together and put it in a brochure and market it so that, you know people have a choice to go everywhere. And maybe we'd save some money on marketing, and maybe we would get more traffic. And so over a million stops later, as reported, this past year, a million over a million stops on the on the bourbon trail. And I'm very, very proud of that. And Eric Gregory, in my opinion, when he came on board really brought the bourbon trail to life, and put it in a marketing, highlight and importance and priority. So that our infrastructure that all of our distilleries are investing in would pay off. And it's worked. And it's worked. So yeah, so I can't take credit, there was me that it was a small team of women. 1:02:33 How cool is that to say like, you were part of the team that spearheaded the bourbon trail, what is now probably the the most successful tourist 1:02:42 strategy in Kentucky. 1:02:44 Oh, easily. I mean, it's it goes hand in hand with with wine country. Yeah. 1:02:49 And again, I will say, I have not gotten a commission, or anything. we debated back to something's happening here. We'll get you a plaque. Oh, no, thanks, Kevin. I'm 1:03:00 getting something out of these visitor experiences. 1:03:04 People should have taken a penny from every transaction at every distillery and then you would be retired forever. It was, you know, 1:03:09 really, at the end of the day, when I think of the industry and how great it's been to me and the legacy that I want to leave. You know, these are the types of stories that I hope people will say, you know, and I hope I'm not finished. I think there's more to come. I got more 1:03:25 in me where we're starting to see the next wave of Peggy know, Stevens, and that's the writer. She's she wrote me some time ago and said, I'm going to be your best rider before it's all over. And competitive. I said, I said, All right. And her stories have been fantastic. Well, fantastic. 1:03:47 I appreciate that. I do have one more question about this bourbon trail map. How many were there on there when the first one was released? I believe seven. 1:03:54 And what do we have now? 23. Plus, 1:03:57 was Buffalo Trace on 1:03:59 he was called ancient age. Also agent at Buffalo Trace was on there. They were called ancient age 1:

Its time to celebrate some of Brandt and Scott's favorite whiskeys, Elmer T. Lee and Dalmore 15.  Hear what makes these so special in our hearts and what sets them apart from all the others. Since this is a "What's your Pleasure" episode, we discuss our next member of the Disney S.E.A. Merriweather Adam Pleasure...founder of Pleasure Island. “If you came here to learn, drink what you have learned.  If you came here to share, share what you drink. If you came here a stranger, may you exit as a friend; and if you came here for and adventure, drink up!” Facebook Group The B-S.E.A. Whiskey Glass    

We all know wood influences bourbon, but to what degree? This episode explores both natural and human impact to understand the chemical breakdown of what happens in the barrel. Peggy rounds this out by pairing it with food so you know how to train your palate. Peggy Noe Stevens is renowned for her ability to combine all of your senses into a memorable experience when you are drinking any bourbon. This session took place at the 2018 Kentucky Bourbon Affair and you can buy tickets to remaining 2019 events at kybourbonaffair.com. Show Partners: Batch 016 was a project that took Barrell Craft Spirits over a year. They selected 9 to 15 year old barrels with similar profiles from different distilleries. It’s deeply concentrated, but not too oaky and finishes with a toasted orange note. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. Receive $25 off your first order with code "Pursuit" at RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: Behind the Scenes of Four Roses Small Batch Select - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my9YR-fr95s Kenny’s Big Batch Mint Julep Recipe - https://www.patreon.com/posts/26331151 This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about who you would like to go out drinking with. All the magic of bourbon happens in the barrel. Overview of barrel making and charring barrels. Innovation with barrels. As much as we try to control barrels and warehouses, mother nature still controls a lot of variables. Barrels provide 6 basic food flavors: sweet, spice, wood, smoke, fruit, and floral. Understanding aroma and flavors. Tricks to neutralize your olfactory sense. What decisions affect the flavor of bourbon? What flavor does toasting a barrel provide? What flavor does charring a barrel provide? The chemistry behind bourbon. Importance of oxygen and water. Exploring the texture of bourbon. Where do the barrel notes hit the tongue? When is it over oaked? The Chew Down: bourbon and food pairing. 0:00 You know how we always talk about the angel share the evaporation of the whiskey going up. But I have to tell you that sometimes that evaporation takes on some of the off notes of a product. So you wonder if those angels out there are going too much tannin. Too much acid. 0:30 Hello, everybody and welcome to Episode 198 of bourbon pursuit. I'm Kenny, one of your hosts. And let's run through just a little bit of the news. Four roses small batch select has hit in five markets across the United States. You've got Of course Kentucky. You've also got New York, Texas, California and Georgia. We did a behind the scenes video with Master distiller Brett Elliot during the media day for this particular release. Brent shares a lot of the information on the mash bail breakdown. 1:00 which particular versions he wanted to go into this blend, and why even chose to do certain yeast strain runs years ago in anticipation for this, you can catch that video in our show notes as it was previously aired on YouTube and Facebook. Now the other kind of fun thing about this release is a full on as money. You've got to remember this is a product extension a line extension of four roses, that means it's going to be widely available, but the first bottle hits secondary in sold for around $200. And now that we know that the bottles just keep popping up that there's a lot of groups that are doing cost plus shipping. Plus, there's a myriad of retailers out there that are able to get this to your doorstep just through online purchases. So just a humble word of advice, don't overpay if you don't need to. The retail cost is somewhere between $55 and $65 depending on your region. Derby season is finally upon us and that means I get to make my annual big batch of money. 2:00 juleps and take to Ryan's Derby party. I use 100 proof bourbon and a 1.75 liter handle, mix my own simple syrup, marinate some mint leaves in there. And really this simplifies the whole process because instead of actually having to create individual drinks now I can just pour directly from the bottle and I promise you, it's a lot better than any pre mix that you're going to find out there on the market. Ryan likes to call it a derby party in a bottle. I've posted that recipe for anybody to access on our Patreon page. It's public, so go and check it out. patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit. And today's show is all about bourbon food and knowing how to really train your palate. It's a session that took place at the 2018 Kentucky bourbon affair. Now you're going to get to know Peggy know Stevens a lot more in a few weeks with an upcoming episode. But she has some real pedigree when it comes to bourbon, its history and her connections within the industry. If you're interested in know more about the events that are taking place at the bourbon affair, you can 3:00 See what Tickets are available at ky bourbon affair.com. on our end, we've got some new barrel selections that are coming up for sale really soon. Get to four roses barrels of Buffalo Trace barrel and an Elijah Craig barrel. It's a lot of bourbon, and you can get your chance by signing up and supporting us@patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit. And this is all possible thanks to our retail partner, keg and bottle out of the SoCal area. If you want to visit them online, you can do that keg the letter in bottle.com. Now let's hear from our good friend Joe over a barrel bourbon. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the jar. 3:38 Hi, this is Joe from Barrell Bourbon. Batch 16 was a project that took over a year, we selected nine to 15 year old barrels with similar profiles from different distilleries. It's deeply concentrated, but not too oaky and finishes with a toasted orange note. Find out more at barrellbourbon com. 3:56 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char Bourbons filled with 4:00 Some of the greatest characters of all time. There are so many that it's almost impossible to pick just one you'd like to go out drinking with. Whether it's on a golf course fishing pond or a watering hole, there are so many unique individuals, it would be tough to choose. That became obvious when I put this question out on Twitter. Who would you like to most go out drinking with and bourbon? While flattered many suggested me, I really am. Jim Beam spread No. Buffalo Trace is Freddy Johnson and wild turkeys Jimmy Russell were the leaders in the clubhouse. Then after all the obvious names were taken. Folks started expressing their desire to drink with deceased urban icons such as Elmer T. Lee Booker know and the Jim Beam. Perhaps the most touching came from Kyle Henderson of angel's envy, saying he'd give anything to have one more drink with his grandfather and master distiller Lincoln Henderson, who passed away in 2013. That thread got me to thinking 4:59 Who would I 5:00 Like the most go out drinking with first when I go out I mean really go out to have a good time. I don't want to stuffy turd who will complain about the bill being $5 too expensive. Nothing worse than the guy who complains about everything. No. I want a jovial laughing rip roaring. Good time fella. And my answer may surprise you, but I'd love to go out drinking with former 1800s era distilling great Cyrus Noble. Today Cyrus noble is an NDP owned bourbon that is owned by the same company that owned it in the 1800s the Hoss brothers, Cyrus noble was a savant distiller whose whiskey was so good that somebody actually traded a gold mine for it. That's right. a gold mine that later yielded $250,000 and high grade gold or here's the catch though with drinking was Cyrus. He was a big drunk at 300 pounds. He likes 6:00 Whiskey and was known to drink so much that he would fall over in the mash. And people would pull him out as he was swimming in his own fermented liquid. 6:11 But even if I had to pick up the drunken distiller, I'd love to hang out with the guy whose whiskey equaled a gold mine, wouldn't you? And that's this week's above the char. Let me know who you'd like to go out drinking with on Instagram or Twitter. You can find me at Fred Minnick. That's at Fred Minnick. Until next week, cheers. 6:36 For those of you who might know me or don't know me, I'm Peggy know Stevens, and I'm the founder of the bourbon women Association. And that's who is actually going to sponsor this today as well. But first of all, as people were coming in the door, I was curious. How many of you were here last year with me in my food pairing seminar? Yeah. Okay. And then how many of you this is the first time you've heard me speak 7:00 I've done a food pairing. Wonderful. Good. 7:03 I'm glad I got a few fans in the back of the room. Well, let me tell you that whether you have been through a food pairing with me, or not a food pairing with me, or if sipped bourbon and tasted bourbon with me, I've got some good news. I'm gonna put you on an even playing field today. Let me see a show of hands for those of you who like to drink bourbon. 7:24 Now, tell me if you really like to drink robust bourbon. Even better, even better. Heck, yeah. How many of you like food 7:33 and that means you like to eat. Right? So we're going to have a good day. We're gonna have a real good day. But I gotta tell you, I had a lot of fun with this topic today. That's why it's called the stave is the rave because I don't think our barrel gets enough credit. And I wanted to make sure that was very energetic today. I wanted to make sure that I had quite a bit of rest for you today. So I only drank Baker's 107 last night, because I knew we were going to do some big, bold bear 8:00 Strength Bourbons today, and we're going to pair it with food. So we're going to appreciate that because you know what the staves arrived today. So if you have any takeaway at all, for me personally, this is my little quote for today. grains are the recipe. Yeast may be the sole, but all the magic of bourbon happens in the barrel. And I'll tell you who taught me that all the magic of bourbon happens in the barrel is Lincoln Henderson. And when I was becoming a formal master taster, he taught me that, and I didn't quite believe him, because I knew there were so many variables to creating a great whiskey, right. But at the same time, I have to show you today all the secrets behind it. And the reason why I want to do that is because you see connoisseurs all the time. You see, experts like me all the time. We stand in the front of the room, and we go, Oh, it's got such lovely barrel notes. Oh, I just love the barrel notes. But we really don't explain what we mean. So what does that mean? We just smell wood. 9:00 know we have a lot of flavor and a lot of spirit, if you will, in the barrel. So with that, let's first of all show a little respect for the barrel. Because in the 1800s of course, the reason why the barrel even came into play is because it was kind of the UPS cargo of the day, right? That's how our whiskey or good Kentucky whiskey was transported down the Ohio River. I called that the superhighway of the 1800s. But it was transported down the river, because they would use the barrels and sometimes those barrels Believe it or not, they transported fish, apples, or whatever else they needed, and that's where charring kind of came into play. Because before they put whiskey in it, they needed to get out those other flavors of the barrel that they use apples, fish, etc. For so they char the inside of it. And little did they realized they were making something very special for Kentucky. And if you think about it, even our 10:00 Definition of bourbon, which was an act of Congress in 1964, requires actually for a barrel, new, charred, and white oak, we can never use a barrel a second time. But what I can say is that all of these pieces of the barrel are used. And I'm going to show you that in a little bit too. So let's have a little bit of respect and see what I left for you. This is a stage. 10:30 Do you feel the weight of this stave? Yeah, I want you to think of these as large blocks of sugar. Okay, large blocks of sugar because it has some things in it, some properties in it. And this is how I ended up pairing some of the products that you all have today. I noticed some of you are nosing it which is lovely, I love it. That's great you're supposed to but can you believe that 28 to 31 of these staves are used to make a barrel. You feel heavy and stiff. This is 11:00 Right, this is a barrel heads Dave. And what they do, it's a handcrafted method. This wood is bent best steam, okay to form the barrel so this solid wood is formed 28 to 31 and no wood glue, no nails. Okay, it's handcrafted, the hoops are put on. And that's what you have the barrel 100 pounds empty, almost 500 pounds full to roll that barrel. Okay, so that's just a little bit of that handcrafted Enos. But even more so what's happening in our industry today is a lot of innovation with barrels. And that's why I was saying I don't think that we pay homage as much as we should think about this. This is an actual barrel with some stave inserts. So in other words, after you age, the barrel, some distilleries are actually putting inserts in the barrel to add to the flavor, so they might season it for another five months or four months. call that the finish. 12:00 Another thing that's happening in the industry and innovation is infusion bags. Think about infusion bags. Everybody likes a tea bag every now and then steeping your tea. And infusion bag is a tea bag with bits and particles of wood. And they're steeped into the whiskey of the barrel. So you can see how creative we're getting brands like Devil's cut, that you've heard, they're actually soaking used barrels to get the best of that whiskey out of the barrel. And if you don't believe me, I brought a sample as a matter of fact, and hopefully I'll pass this around for you just don't hitting by in the head with it as you're passing. But this is how deeply the whiskey will soak into the wood. This is called the red line, the red line. That's how deep the whiskey when you empty it soaks into the wood pulling those flavors and karma so I'll kind of pass it around so you can see it. 12:56 But I'll tell you as much as we try to innovate 13:00 As much as we tried to control, you know, the situation with the barrel in the warehouse of the barrel, Mother Nature kind of has its way with us. All right, we can't fight Mother Nature. And let me explain what I mean by that. There are certain variables that Mother Nature controls, and sometimes it's temperature related for a barrel. Other times, you know, it might be weather related. And the beauty of it and this is what people don't know sometimes what happens inside the barrel inside the barrel. If you think of a big Mount Everest, which I have that first picture of Mount Everest. A lot of the whiskey has its main activity in the first two to four years if you can believe it, in the first two to four years now, I will tell you, if you have whiskey less than two years, I call that headache whiskey. All right, and you might say it's really sharp or a little too spirited. If it's too long in the barrel. 14:00 You leave that whiskey too long in the barrel and it tastes kind of a stringent etc. I call that overlooked. We call that long in the tooth and Kentucky. Okay. So think about climbing Mount Everest, all this work, it's really hard. But that's what's happening Mother Nature's making it happen inside the barrel, then we kind of go to the Rocky Mountains, the Rocky Mountains kind of not as hard to climb, but you're still working inside the barrel and you're still making that maturation of the whiskey. But it's kind of mellowing out a little bit. And then finally is the Appalachian, the Appalachian Mountains, you know, we're just over the years, you're not going to have a big climb at all, it's going to be a whole lot easier, but it just kind of gets complexity and color and those types of things that benefit. So those are the things that Mother Nature sometimes can bring to us. But you should know to more on a scientific basis. You know, there are a lot of compounds in this barrel. Okay, and this is where Mother Nature meets 15:00 There's a lot of compounds in this barrel that affect the flavors. And if you think about it, alcohol has a real affinity to wood. It likes wood. In fact, you know what it allows it to do alcohol in the wood allows us and again, Mother Nature helps us with this. But through evaporation, it sometimes sends out. Sorry about that. 15:25 Evaporation kind of sends out some of the not so great notes. All right in the whiskey, and then what happens what we want in the whiskey is it actually brings flavor notes inside the barrel. Okay, so that's a good thing for whiskey it actually helps churn it but the more sugar and the more tannins are in wine because of low barrel entry proof 15% barrel entry. So you know what I say to you one folks, 15:56 your sissies 15% 16:00 Come on now, really, you know when we're having 125 proof, whiskeys and barrel strength whiskies and you know, we're not scared and Kentucky, because we know that's going to bring complexity over time. We know that's going to bring depth over time. So I kind of get a kick that it's 15% entry proof on some of the ones that are put in. Also, when you think of a barrel proper, and let's just think about a barrel like it was a menu. If I never added any whiskey whatsoever to that barrel, and I just said to on that would chew on that word and tell me what you think what you're going to get is sweet 16:42 spice. would sometimes from the wood, you're going to get some nutty notes. Okay, and then smoke, fruit and floral. Now, do you see a little flavor and aroma grid to your right. Do you see that we're going to follow that pretty closely because 17:00 It's my job today to kind of break down in some of the flavors of this wood and its natural state, and in its toasted in charge state, because if I can dissect it down for you, you're going to really understand your prize at the end. And the prize at the end is we've paired in order with it, you're going to see how we build these up. Because by the end of this, there are three words I want you to use after drinking this whiskey that I've poured. And notice I didn't put the names of the whiskey, because I'm gonna see how good you are in guessing some of these right? But I want you to say their plush. Hello, Chrissy. I want you to say they're engaging. And I want you to say they're downright seductive. All right, because we're playing with the big boy Bourbons today. Alright, so let's get started. Here's how we're going to use this aroma and flavor grid. We're going to talk about food flavors first. Look at this little piece in front of you with an A on it. Okay, that is vanilla. That is 18:00 Want you to open that up, take a little note of it, dip your finger in it if you like. And also do me a favor. Once you're finished put the lid back on so we don't dissipate all of the aromas in the room 18:14 that knows that a little bit. That is a very important flavor or food flavor in the wood because there's what's called Van Allen in the wood. Literally there is vanilla waiting to be part of our whiskey. So Van Allen in the wood helps the extraction process and that's why you taste sometimes the first note of a bourbon can be vanilla. Now the second one I want you to kind of hold on to your seats here because it's intense. And this is close. I just want you to knows it. There's nothing to taste. This is the aroma sensory but your olfactory senses, frankly are sharper than your taste buds. Now the reason why I want you to think of that close even though it is intense 19:00 If you know what clove is, it's a spice, right? But it's a flower from a tree. And it's very intense. It could be warm, it can be bitter. You know it can be flavorful. So when you think of variations that happen with spice, you can think of other types of spices that come along the way like all spice, peppers, etc. But if I were to have my straight barrel, clove would be the first one to lead the process. Okay, now let's go to the next one here. How about oak? I know that some of you picked up your stage that's in front of you the Glen pick it up again if you didn't earlier and knows that one of my first training guidelines that I learned from Lincoln Henderson, when you want it to impress upon me, the presence of wood and whiskey is he had me knows a glass of water. So you have a glass of water in front of you so knows that glass of water. 19:59 We're lucky and 20:00 We have pure tap, right? We have great water. Not much there though, right? You don't want to smell much from a glass of water, and then smell the wood, the wood in front of you, because what he did was he took a bunch of toothpicks, there's a true story, took a bunch of toothpicks, and he put the toothpicks in water and let them soak and he said, Peggy, smell the water. 20:20 Now smell the water with the toothpicks in it. We've only been sitting here 15 minutes. Now can you imagine over the course of five to eight years with that alcohol sitting in the wood, what a different set presence is going to make right? So I was pretty impressed by that. Now how about we trash See, this is floral notes that come out from the wood. So what we did is we put a little bit of rose water because that's a pretty prominent floral note that you might find. And then other floral can come from that. You know you might have had viscous. You know you might have a little bit of honeysuckle but other florals along the 21:00 Way over maturation will happen. But I wanted you to heighten your senses. Because it's a very sensory exercise. I wanted you to heighten your senses on the actual floral notes. And then in front of you on a little plate or some dried cherries, I want you to understand the fruit note. So pick up a couple dried cherries, pop them in your mouth, chew on it a little bit and see what you think. Because would can bring out some cherry notes. Again, over time those cherry notes turn into other fruit notes. You know, fruit notes like apricots. You know, fruit notes like apple. You know, those are two very basic ones that would come out but I want you to have that baseline before we move in. Make sense? All right, good. So if you're not too full after eating two cherries, we're going to go ahead and move to the other ones smoke, the smokiness which also can turn very quickly to savory but I'm going to give you an example of 22:00 Your tongue lighter of what savory really means. So the smokiness of bacon made sense to me. So if you'll try a little piece of the bacon strip, if you don't care for bacon, that's just fine. But I want you to gain an understanding of what that does to your tongue that smokiness it's a little heavier, right, little heavier little bit more texture to your tongue. But we have a good understanding of that. 22:28 And as we move each one, just to let you know, you might want to take a bit of a rinse of your water if some of the nosing just to let you know if some of the nosing like the clove gets a strong sense for you. A little trick we use is to smell the back of your hand. It will neutralize your olfactory senses just smelling the back of your hand and that allows you to go to the next area. Okay. 22:59 So you can 23:00 See, as we follow along this flavor grid and aroma grid, the master distiller has a hell of a lot of decisions to make. There's so many variables to the barrel. In other words, when he decides to toast it and char it, which we're going to talk about and taste those flavors, how deep does he want to go? So this represents the coloring. This also represents does he want to start spicy, and go all the way to butterscotch? How much chocolate notes does he want or she want. So think about dialing up or dialing down what happens inside the barrel. Over the years, the master distiller needs to make that decision, and they need to make a lot of other decisions about what goes inside the barrel. And we're going to talk about that. So let's talk now about inside the barrel. In the second column of your flavor grid. We're going to talk about what I call interior flavors into 24:00 flavors are certainly the toasting and charring. Okay? But as far as the toast goes, many people think, Oh, well, once you toast the wood, you get more of the caramel notes. And I'm not saying I don't disagree with you. But many times when I do tastings, I talk about after tasting, I'll say it has it really. It's framed with toast, or it has a toasted framework. And the reason why I say toasted framework is because that toasting of the criminalisation is all working together for me. Okay, so it just has a light toast. Remember that when we start talking about our appetizers, so take a bite of the Cristini that's on your small plate. 24:44 Just take a little bite of that plain simple, but need you to identify that toast flavor and then there is a Carmel 24:56 on your plate. Go ahead and unwrap that into 25:00 A little bite of the Carmel now notice, I did not and it was purposeful. I did not do a dark Carmel. I did a light Carmel. You know, frankly, it's craft karma that you probably remember dipping apples in right to make candy apples, very light, very airy, you know nothing that's going to make it too heavy for you. But what we're doing when I told you that those staves are large blocks of sugar, we are criminalizing the wood sugar of the barrel. We're taking a flame to the wood, and just simply karma. So anybody like Kimberly in here, okay. It's like the topping of timber lay light and airy but not burnt, not smoked, dislike Mary. And so that's what we're going for with toasting. And as I mentioned, it certainly does move to the Carmel but it's not a heavy Carmel. And that's important to note. Now are you ready to kind of go into the fun part the 26:00 fun part is moving into the charming. The charming is taking a very intense flame to the wood and we're blistering the wood. You know why we're doing that? We want to open up the pores of the wood so that great whiskey soaks in and out and in and out of that would also attribute charring to that beautiful rich amber color. That depth of color we have in whiskey also contribute to that camp fire smokiness that we have in whiskey. That's so wonderful. So with charring, you're going to get many things. Okay, we're kind of moving from that Carmel that you just took a bite of to a little bit deeper karma and the best example I could possibly give you and you were probably wondering when you were looking at everything that I have for you to eat in one hour. That piece of chocolate that's in the white cup. Let me share with this is this has 27:00 special meaning to me because this is called a majestic. majestic is considered Louisville's candy. And my father This is what I grew up on frankly in Kentucky or majestic is my father. It was one of his absolute favorite candies. And now I know why because you could drink it with his bourbon. So what you're going to have here is dark chocolate. Marshmallow. All right. And then Carmel. So you're going to get the Triple Crown. All right of charming flavors. This is identical to charming flavors. So take a big bite but save half of it for later because I had a bit of it explosion Pres. At the end of this for your mouth, I promise. So save half of it for later. What do you think of that? You get that you get that chocolate caramel marshmallow wonderful combination. So that's what happens with charming it's like a little campfire. Like a small almost 28:00 I feel at this point, you've had a nice little preamble for your mouth. All right, you've learned a few flavors along the way. We're going to do a couple more. But at the same time, I have to turn because my inner geek turns out a little bit. during the session, I said toasting. I said charming. I said white oak wood, which is all extremely important. But there's a lot of chemistry that happens. And so this is where my inner geek comes out. So I want to share a couple things with you. This is just wood notes. And believe me, not all barrels are created equally. Alright, so when you go to a Cooper bridge, and you see sometimes the barrel staves outside, they're being seasoned, and they're outside and they're drying out, because what that does, when you season the wood, it actually lessens the density of that hard block that you just touched. All right, it lessens the density, so that air flows through 29:00 Whiskey throws flows through it a lot easier. Alright, so that's part of it. And also we're trying to bring out the esters. esters are just a fancy word for stay in flavors. We want wood sugars, and we want tannins, we want the best of wood sugar, we want the best of tannins. And then this is a sample of a woodblock, up close, and all those little dots and all those little veins, if you would, this is called tableau. See, Tableau see is very important. And the only way I can describe it to you of what happens in the barrel is almost like capillaries. All right. If I were to hold a handful of straws in my hand, very loosely, and I poured water over those straws, what would happen? water would go straight through, right? Well, what it does for us is if I were to hold those straws in, squeeze it a little bit, some are open, some are not open, you know 30:00 I might have a little bit of water fall through once I pour. That's what Tyler OC does, it lets the team and soak in a little slower. So it's not rushed. So that's what it helps us do. And that's a very important piece to helping with the flavor components and bringing out the right things that we want for our whiskey. So the next thing that's a variable to think about, and this is the hardest thing, oxygenation, or just plain oxygen and airflow to make it easy. This is the hardest thing for Cooper ej to really get their hands on. And I go back to Mother Nature helping us along a little bit. But oxygenation is really important, because the more air that's flowing through the more fruit notes, floral notes. Also what what we want to happen is oxidation. When people say well, what the heck is oxidation I have no idea what that is. Think of an apple if it were sitting on a table and you left it there a couple days. 31:00 It might brown a little bit and it actually gets sweeter as it goes sometimes. That's what happens within the barrel oxidation with the the Van Allen and the wood sugar is going to kind of oxidize and that actually mellows and brings more flavors. So you want oxidation inside the barrel. So that happens as well and it can also bring some earthy notes. Now once you to taste there's a little sliver of mushroom because I want you to understand what earthy notes bring in your palate. So take a little bite of the mushroom. 31:36 Everybody identify the mushroom, it almost looks like a brownie. 31:40 They saw it for me right? So it's good but take a little bite that is an earthy note. 31:48 That is an earthy note and you can get earthy notes from this and also from the next thing that I want to talk about and that's water. Water is key. You know the first point of 32:00 Water that we're going to experience with a barrel is what anybody know? 32:05 Anybody know the first time that we experience water with a barrel? 32:10 How about barrel entry? Now in Kentucky, of course, we can go up to 125. But some distilleries really debate what the barrel entry of their whiskey is going to be, you know, as low as 103. With Victor's, you know, 110 I think makers and Woodford Reserve us but you can go up from there. So think about when water goes with the whiskey inside the barrel for the first time, it's a bit of a marriage, right? It's a bit of marriage, they have to react together. So the more water that you put in the barrel for the first time, over time, evaporation is going to happen. And that's also a water feature, if you will, evaporation happens and when evaporation happens, the alcohol proof actually goes up because of the big 33:00 Operation Has anybody in here heard of the term Angel share. And you know how we always talk about the angel share the evaporation of the whiskey going up and we can lose 28 to 30%. So it's no joke that there's evaporation. But I have to tell you that sometimes that evaporation takes on some of the off notes of a product. So you wonder if those angels out there are going too much tannin. Too much acid. You know, we joke about it like it's a great thing. Yes. Okay. So, back to this. Another thing that is important is humidity. Think of the humidity that you have humidity actually slows the interaction within the barrel slows the interaction within the barrel, and then the water that you actually put when you pour a glass of whiskey, and you put some water with a splash that actually opens up the fruit notes of a whiskey so you can really focus on the 34:00 Fruit now to the whiskey 34:02 bourbon pursuit wouldn't be possible without the support of our Patreon community and with help of our following partners. 34:10 Now, I've never been inside a prison before, but that's exactly what the folks at Rock house whiskey club did. When they recently took a trip to North Carolina, behind cellblocks, east and west, they found barrels of bourbon being aged and it's entirely legal. Rock house whiskey clubs stumbled upon whiskey prison. It's the home to Southern grace distilleries at Mount Pleasant prison. The prison opened in 1929 during the height of prohibition, and as many as 140 prisoners caught at home until it closed in 2011. In 2016, a new operation moved in and this secure facility houses more than 14,000 gallons of aging whiskey conviction small batch bourbon is the first bourbon ever to be legally aged behind bars is the prison you'd probably want to break into. Rock house whiskey club is a whiskey of the Month Club and they're on a mission 35:00 to uncover the best flavors and stories that craft distilleries across the US have to offer rock house ships out to the feature distilleries finest bottles, along with some cool merchandise in a box to your door every two months. Go to rock house whiskey club. com to check it out and try a bottle of conviction today. Use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. 35:26 Now, before we get into texture, and I know you had that beautiful, majestic, right, take a sip of water, and I want you to taste one more thing before we go into the actual pairing. When you taste de de is what's called liquid smoke. Okay, liquid smoke also happens in the charring. But what else happens in my opinion is it aids in the texture of the whiskey, that smokiness now just take a little fingertip because 36:00 You don't need much. Believe me, not anything you want to drink. Just a little test on the tongue get that savory smoky almost wish to share. And go ahead and put your cat back on. 36:13 So dead and dead in your senses. Would you think of that? 36:18 Yeah, it's intense, right? It's really intense. And that's what I want you to know that it can go from that sweet chocolate marshmallow to that really intense smoke. And it will affect a little bit of that texture that we will now when I talk about texture, I'm talking about the structure of a whiskey. So dip your finger in your water glass, put it in your hand and slide it Okay, it's wet, right? But it doesn't slide super easy. It's just wet. If you were to take oil or corn oil, it would glide correct. same example of texture on your tongue. Water has a certain texture 37:00 oil has a certain texture. licorice has a certain texture. So you can see in the row of texture. There can be a soft texture, a sharp texture like licorice, you know that kind of leaves a readiness on your tongue. And when I call viscosity, so there's a little bit of jello because most people don't really understand the viscosity standpoint. viscosity is how heavy it is. So waters thin, right? Coke, if I were to drink a Coke is a little thicker, but then jello would be the thickest. So there's a little piece of jello in a glass there. Do you see that on that little plate and a spoon if you want to just get a feel for heavy viscosity? Why is this important? Because the barrel strength products that we're going to taste have a lot of texture. And I want you to be able to do this, just to balance is it no texture, wet TechStars 38:00 Dry moist rough, smooth, you know oily thin, because it really plays a role. 38:08 The barrel notes that we're getting ready to taste as well should have kind of a heavy sweet feel on your mouth. Now there's always those basic flavors, you know bitter, salty, etc. So we're going for big, we're going for bold, we're going for robust, and so I want surround sound. I want kind of a heavy mouth feel. So when we taste these whiskeys, you can tell me what you think about that. 38:32 And then the other side of the fence from all the great things that we're talking about, is how to identify a bourbon that might be a little overload. Now I want to make it clear there is no bad whiskey out there. There's no bad bourbon, but at the same time, sometimes things can get a little overlooked. So in that one column on your flavor grid, it can go from Gosh, astringent, kind of causes you to pucker. So after you drink a 39:00 Whiskey if it kind of pulls your self in with your cheeks heat, too much warmth kind of burnt cinnamon flavor. So if I taste something that's too heavy and cinnamon, you know, I walk away from it. Cool. A little bit of mint is a good thing. If you feel like you squirted some Colgate in your mouth, not a good thing. Okay, so something can be too minty. So those are just three little variables that you can look for, to judge some of the over openness, which is very rare to find. But sometimes when I'm doing I'm also a spirits judge. So I taste a lot of whiskies and so sad, very sad. Sometimes I can taste the difference of something that's overlooked, versus one that maybe is too sharp hasn't been in the barrel long enough. All right. So with that, are you ready to eat eat? We have tested your tongue. We have it's like calisthenics, right? We've built you'd like an athlete right now. 40:00 We've trained you. So now we're going to put it all together and so closest to you knows the whiskey. The first one closest to you and tell me what you think. What do you think it is? This is cask strength, if that gives you a hint. 40:20 This is Maker's Mark cask strength. 40:23 And let me tell you, this is an engaging whiskey for me. I think it's very exciting to drink because it truly took on this whole other element by doing a cask strength. So again, credit where credit's due to the barrel, right? When you knows it. 40:43 Sure, it has some elements for me, like makers that I'm used to those elements being honey notes, really nice honey notes, some citrus notes. I normally get that with Maker's Mark Of course, and have a nice body of work. 41:00 Meet with Maker's Mark. But with this cask strength, I have to tell you, I get maple syrup. I get big spice bigger than makers normally has in a spice Would you agree? I also get some walnut and some pecan, little bit of nutty note 41:19 in some of this barrel note, tell me what you get in the nose, anybody. 41:25 And again, feel free to neutralize 41:28 clothes, absolutely see clothes are kind of that baseline, and then things come out from there. So I would definitely agree with that. 41:38 Little bit of that roasted marshmallow 41:42 that we talked about. 41:44 Alright, so now we're going to taste it and for those of you just to let you know this is between one and 114. So if the proof level seems to overpower you, I'm going to show you a little trick that you can do anytime and I 42:00 specifically do this when I'm pairing food because it helps really bring out the flavors. I would not suggest that you do this at a bar when you're trying to pick someone up. All right, but let me show you this one. 42:15 I take a little taste of it 42:18 and then I blow out. It releases some of the alcohol. And when you start talking after that, you'll really be able to taste it. So do a little taste, save some for your food. Just take a little tiny taste of it. But save the other half for the food pairing that we have done with it. That I immediately get that marshmallow. I mean just absolutely get little cinnamon from it. 42:44 Little maple syrup. I even get a tad bit of mint, 42:49 tad bit of mint, that that maple syrup really comes out for me. And that's why I just want to tell you what we paired today. Again, starting on your left to right we have a smoked duck 43:00 With a citrus sorghum on a corn waffle. Now, let me let me break down the layers. Here's why we did what we did. The smoke duck brought to me these wonderful earthy notes that we've been describing. For the last hour. The citrus notes when I was nosing this and tasting this, I get always get citrus from makers, always. So I wanted to add a little splash to that. That was important to me. And then the sorghum. I said, I get maple syrup. So we wanted to add a syrupy note to it. And that's the sorghum put it on a corn waffle. Because that helps with a little bit of that sweet toasted framework from the barrel. And so take a really big bite of that. It's a duck. Again, smoked duck even more important with citrus sorghum, take a bite of that and then take a sip of that whiskey and tell me what you think. 43:59 What 44:00 I was going for just to let you know normally when I train for food pairings in anybody who was with me last year, do you remember this chart that I showed? I go for either balance, counterbalance or what I call explosion. And I'm going to I'm going to tell you about that. Balance is when I'm trying to match flavors. I'm trying to create what I call harmony between the food and the whiskey. I'm trying to complement the flavors that are already taste in the whiskey. counter balance is when I might go the opposite direction. For example, like taking a Cajun pecan and drinking it with a white Riesling or Riesling wine rather, you know, it's it's sweet, too hot. We're not doing counterbalanced today simply because these are barrel proof. All right, barrel strength. explosion is when it's almost too much of a good thing. It's dramatically rich. It's surrounded 45:00 sound in your mouth, it's it's, it's just almost takes your head off. And we've got one example of that today, which is going to be our last one. All the lines simply mean the level of intensity. And so as we're talking and as we're tasting you know if I say gosh, I get honey notes or cinnamon notes, you could say gosh, what level you know, just small cinnamon notes are really really robust cinnamon note, because that's how you can manage the balance of your food and your whiskey. So that being said, let's go to the second one. They might want to guess what the second one is. 45:35 This one is plush. I promise you. 45:39 I'll give you a little hint. It has a very Admiral, admirable texture to it. 45:45 Big texture to it. Very elegant nose. Do you agree? 45:51 Very elegant nose. I immediately have to say I get on the spice data get all spice fruit notes. 46:00 Get from Apple to blackberry on these fruit notes Would you agree? Four roses. Excellent. This is four roses hundred proof, single barrel. 46:12 One of my favorites. So easy to pair with, because you have these big all spice cinnamon ginger notes to me, you know, whenever you have a lot of spice to play with. You can make anything taste good, I promise. But I do get some light chocolate notes. Vanilla caramel, 46:33 take a sip of it, and that's when the heat will hit the back of your throat but I get an earthy note along with it. So taste it and see what you think. Chocolate for sure. Absolutely you do. They might get the BlackBerry that referred to once you tasted that. Isn't that interesting? And what about the texture? Remember, I said admirably textured. What's your tongue doing right now? 47:01 Nice, heavy, wet, not too oily. It's a long sweet dry finish, which I like in a whiskey. 47:11 It's just impeccably balanced. So here's what we did on number two, and it's your middle, the middle appetizer in front of you. It is all spicy braised pork 47:26 with a barrel aged maple. Okay. 47:30 So try that. That pork. Again capturing the earthy note. But notice I said all spice because truly with four roses, I get a whole lot of all spice nutmeg, cinnamon, little clove, and I knew it would balance okay. You like that one? 47:52 Which one did you like better? The first one or the second one? 47:57 Second one. Okay. 48:00 Did you get the all spice balance the harmony of all that. 48:05 And again, four roses is 100 proof. So we didn't have to work too hard, you know to pair with a food and let the food flavors come through which is nice. Now take a little sip of water. Because the next one I dial that up a bit. I definitely doubt it up event. Does everybody remember me asking you to hang on to the other half of your MMA, Jessica? Okay, good. I'm glad you did. Because 48:35 I want you to knows that third glass and tell me what you think it is. 48:42 I mean, it is it's really dramatic. Dramatic knows, I have to say. 48:48 I was at a bourbon women function. It was called Heaslip she sips and we had blind tastings all over the room. And this barrel strength whiskey 49:00 was the favorite among women, which should not surprise me. You know, I'm in seven cities with bourbon women. We have thousands of members across the United States. And we always go for the more robust, heavier whiskies. It's very interesting to me. 49:16 But isn't that knows incredible? Do you get immediate kind of smoky Carmel? Pardon me? Yes, allows your Craig barrel string Very good. Very good. And I have been so impressed because it's just lavishly built. This whiskey is just lavish. 49:38 So I get the smoky notes, of course, I get the heavy Carmel notes. I also of course, get a little vanilla and believe it or not on the spice side of things, a touch of paprika. 49:55 And I get a little touch of paprika you know, not too strong, not too harsh. 50:00 very subtly balanced in that not like the four roses where I get more of the spice notes if you will. So what I decided to do with this because where you're going to, frankly just almost freak out is the texture of this whiskey. When you taste it, let it sit, swallow and let it come back to you. I think you're going to be impressed with the texture and then I'll tell you what I paired it with. Take a little sip. Do you see how that fills your entire mouth with texture from the tongue to the upper roof of your mouth, the cheeks, everything in its surround sound. 50:45 I get dark brown sugar. 50:48 And this is barrel strength. And how subtle 50:53 how subtle but dark brown sugar for sure. Huge vanilla. 51:00 Huge Carmel. 51:03 And the chocolate notes just screamed at me. Did they scream at you? 51:08 And that's why I couldn't help myself. Take that much Jessica, pop that thing in your mouth. Take a sip of this, but leave a little bit for the dessert that I came up with. This truly my husband and I were sampling the majestic is with this. It was the best sugar buzz I've had in quite some time. 51:26 Promise. What do you think of that? Now again, this is between 128 to 140 proof what I decided to pair with this because on the fruit note side, I certainly got Apple, but also got a lot of heavy red pair. So what we decided to do was a poached pair with dark chocolate and toasted marshmallow. 51:52 So it's almost like eating a Jessica cake. So when you get a chance for that don't even rent Don't waste your time. 52:01 Just go for that poached pair cake. It's the last one there. And take that last bit of Alaska with you. 52:11 Good. 52:13 And that crazy good as not as good as crazy good. 52:17 Now I am confident that you have a ton of questions for me and I'm happy to answer them. We covered so much track in an hour. I can't even believe how much we ate in an hour. I don't think since the moment you sat down, you've stopped chewing actually. Which is kind of a good thing with a food pairing. Right? Do you feel like we've identified some real flavors of the barrel? Does anybody have a new respect for barrel notes? That when somebody says, Oh, I get a barrel note, now you can be descriptive and say Oh, are you getting a little clove? Are you getting a little floral? What are you getting? And even more important, you can actually pair food with your barrel strength. 53:00 bourbon, or it doesn't even have to be barrel string, it could be a bourbon, just find out the age of the whiskey. And you'll know what kind of barrel notes because remember, you know, short barrel notes, probably two to four years, you know beyond four years, you're going to get more complexity, more barrel notes, which I'm not saying that every whiskey has to be old and aged. We're not like those scotch folks, that it has to be a 20 year whiskey. We like to drink our whiskey, you know, while we're still alive. So that's important. All right. And you probably are wondering 53:36 why the heck did she put out a little packet a Mentos say my wondering what we're gonna do with that. 53:43 Because by the time I've had you all eat all that you've eaten in the last hour, if you go talk to somebody outside, you're gonna need this. 53:51 Alright, so we will make sure that you take your Mentos so they don't blame it on me. All right. Any questions? y'all been such a great group today? Okay, that's 54:00 A good question he was asking, you know, between your bites of Food Sampling pairing going to the next one kind of what's the timing? What's the timing of it? And I will tell you, yeah, yeah, you just start chewing and then take a big swig of the Spirit. That's important. The other thing I purposely did that I probably should have told you, I paid attention to the flavors of the appetizers. And I went from light to heavy. And I tried to do that also with what you tasted on the plate when we were talking about, you know, dried cherries to bacon. Notice I had you eat a Jessica first before we went to liquid smoke. Because I want you to gradually build your taste buds. I want you to gradually think about how to, you know build flavors. absolutely wonderful. I hope you've enjoyed it and enjoy the rest of the Kentucky bourbon affair. And we'll talk soon. Thank you very much. Thank you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

In this episode we open with a review of Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. We took some listener requests and the conversation landed on stories of our first/worst use of elicit drugs. Check out the show notes at: beardedidiots.com Support us on Patreon! patreon.com/beardedidiots Intro/outro music is provided by ampletunes.com go check them out, send them some love and tell them we sent you! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/beardedidiots/support

The Boys open the show with some timely Good Times talk. Buffets are basically chow lines you pay for. Is Fresh Choice still a thing? For some reason there is a whole lot of shellfish talk. Do you say Crawdad or Crawfish? Are they shellfish? Listen and find out! Oh, and there is whiskey tasting! Elmer T. Lee Sour Mash Kentucky Straight Bourbon is on the menu today. The history of Buffalo Trace Distillery is discussed as well as their Antique Collection, Allocations, and of course pancakes. Throwback names for hipsters! If you don't stay until the end when The Fugitive is re-cast and dissected, then you clearly hate yourself. Grab an Enchirito from Taco Bell and strap in!   Streets are uneven, when you're down! Website = http://www.barrelproofcomedy.com/ Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/barrelproofcomedy   Email = barrelproofcomedy@gmail.com Twitter = @barrelproofpod Instagram= @barrelproofpod iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/barrel-proof-comedy-podcast/id1029674204?mt=2

This week we're light on nonesense but heavy on the bourbon as guest Doug Boyd from the University of Kentucky's Louie B. Nunn Center joins us to talk about his work on Kentucky Bourbon Tales, an oral history project to document bourbon (nunncenter.org/bourbon).  As we discuss all things bourbon we sip on Repeal Edition Jim Beam (86 proof), Old Tub BIB (100 proof), Jim Beam Sgnature Craft High Rye 11yr. (90 proof) and Doug Generously brought along some Elmer T. Lee (90 proof).  We cover a few topics including the bourbon lotteries we've recently attended, dressing in Santa Onseies, "high end" sneakers and we recap the Dutch man who sued to become 20 years younger.  However, the highlight of the show (from the library side) was Doug explaining how he was responsible for getting the bourbon subject heading recognized by the Library of Congress.  As always thanks for listening we hope you enjoyed the show!!!

Lets face it. We go over to a buddy's house so we can try bourbon we don't have or because their collection is better than ours. How did they get their hands on it? Why are they so cool about sharing it? Michael St. Pierre and Aaron Stine are familiar names in the Facebook bourbon community. You've probably seen them buying, selling, or trading bottles but what's their end game? Learn how these seasoned vets have transformed their bourbon bunkers into what many would call, a bourbon candy land. This show was made possible by listeners like you supported through Patreon Show Notes: Get your copy of Bourbon Justice Subscribe to Bourbon+ for only $30 a year This week's Above The Char with Fred Minnick tries to define "What's a bourbon asshole?" Michael and Aaron, talk about how you got introduced to bourbon When did the itch hit you to start getting high end bourbons? Talk about your collection so we can baseline Talk about how you amass to the point where you have these crazy bottles in your collections Do you see Van Winkle bottles as being the ace in your pocket? You don't think the new Van Winkles are worth their weight now, so do you look at it as trade bait? Is there a shelf bourbon you even go to anymore? Do you waste your time getting Elijah Craig Barrel Proof or Elmer T Lee for for trading up? Have any of those open bottles turned into sample swaps? Given the expense of the rarities, what is your price limit for a bottle? What's your white whale? Do you have one more piece of advice for transforming your bunker?  

This week we are trying Elmer T Lee Sour Mash Single Barrel Bourbon. Afterwards we discovered some weird and unusual world records out there and decide to share them with each other. Thanks for listening and we hope you tune in next week. This week your hosts are Jason, Maleek, Marissa, and Mike. Music by The Passion HiFi Additional show notes can be found at caskmatespodcast.com/elmer-t-lee-single-barrel

First, Will and the Greeze talk about endless shrimp coming in the next few months. Then Greeze brings over some alleged Elmer T. Lee at Barrel Strength, but it was in a mason jar and Will doesn't necessarily believe him. Then they try a blind sample from Brandon Rice, and Will sort of guesses it. Then, after the 15, Will and the Greeze drink some 2017 Birthday Bourbon for in honor of his daughter's birthday.  Cheers! Last chance to get tickets to Aug. 25, 2018 SOUTHERN WHISKEY SOCIETY -- www.SOUTHERNWHISKEYSOCIETY.com

When we say open door policy, we mean open door policy. On this episode, the Dads are joined by our new friend Will @chitownbourbonguy and his fiancee, who just happened to be spending a weekend in Nashville, for a blind tasting of Buffalo Trace products under $40. Zeke has previously spoken out against Elmer T. Lee, will his opinion stay true when it gets put to the test in a blind? You'll just have to listen to find out. Intro/Outro: springtide "fall asleep under the millions of stars"

In this cast I review Rock Hill Farms Single Barrel Bourbon from Buffalo Trace! This bourbon utilizes mash bill number 2 from Buffalo Trace just like Blanton's and Elmer T Lee. How does this bourbon compare to Blanton's? Let's take a taste! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stu-swenson/support

Join me in trying a bottle of Elmer T Lee Kentucky Straight Bourbon Single Barrel. This honoring the master distiller Elmer T Lee from Buffalo Trace , a very drinkable very delightful very smooth Bourbon. Pick up a bottle of yours at your local liquor store! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stu-swenson/support

Join me in trying this delicious bourbon from Buffalo Trace. Blanton's Single Barrel aged in Warehouse H, a metal rickhouse. A creation by Elmer T Lee! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stu-swenson/support

Dino and director John Whitney talk about the trials and tribulations in making their new film "The Street Where We Live". The two proudly talk about their project and finish off a few pours of Elmer T. Lee.

Steve, Seth and Evan discuss Greedo from Star Wars and the life and times of Elmer T. Lee.  Seth and Steve enjoy a glass of ETL as well as a sample of 1992 Elmer T. Lee while Evan drinks a Perrin Lil' Griz.

Will and the Greeze tackle the age old question of what happens to your whiskey once the bottle is opened. Does it go bad? They try to figure it out. Then, after the 15, they discuss Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel with Dillon "Spillin' Beers" Spears.  Check out our new friend @therobcompany on instagram and see the really cool lamps he makes. He is currently making an awesome custom lamp out of a vintage decanter bottle for our studio. You're going to love his work. 

Greg Davis, Master Distiller at Maker’s Mark, talks about how is continuing the tradition that has been set and more about day to day operations. Read Show Notes Below - Today. we go on-site to Loretto to Maker’s Mark Distillery- Breaking News: Users claim there is a bad batch of 2015 Elmer T. Lee. Barrels 256, 264, 266 and 267 are the “defective” barrels but Buffalo Trace has already responded.- Tell us about your story- What was your background before coming to Maker’s Mark?- What are some of the key things you remember from your mentorship?- Can you talk about your wheated mash bill and how it came to be?- Talk about the difference between Makers and Makers 46- Why go with French Oak?- Are there other kinds of experimentation going on?- Talk about the motivation behind the Cask Strength offering- Talk about what you are doing different with your barrels compared to others- How do you pick the barrels that are going into the batch?- Do you sample every barrel?- How many rick houses do you have and do you take barrels from different places?- Are you able to go to different warehouses and taste the difference?- How do you detect “must”?- Can you explain what still you have and why you prefer it?- What is the average bottle count that comes out of Makers?  

Products of the Mind Bonus Episode 3: Michael Skubic, Founder of Old Harbor Distilling Welcome to Bonus Episode #3 of Products of the Mind. On this episode, I speak with Michael Skubic of Old Harbor Distilling. Michael Skubic From Bio-Chem to business admin, Michael tells us about his start at Hess Brewing after college and eventually founding Old Harbor Distilling. Want to know how to distinguish real craft spirits from the fake stuff? Michael gets into this and illuminates us on how to be creative in a highly regulated industry. Old Harbor’s website: http://oldharbordistilling.com/ Twitter: @Old_Harbor Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oldharbordistilling/ Click here to find out more about Old Harbor’s Indiegogo campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/old-harbor-bar-barrels-campaign#/ Other things mentioned in this episode: Elmer T. Lee Bourbon: https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/brands/elmer-t-lee-single-barrel Taphunter: http://www.taphunter.com/ Lucero: http://luceromusic.com/site/ St. George Distilling: http://www.stgeorgespirits.com/ Koval Distilling: http://www.koval-distillery.com/newsite/ Thanks for Checking Out Products of the Mind! If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the top and bottom of this page. Also, please consider taking the few seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes. They’re very helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and I read every one. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live. Here are instructions on how to subscribe, rate, and review the show in iTunes. The Credits As always, the music for this episode was provided by Le Chateau. The track name is “Bury You.” Go buy it on Soundcloud! This episode and these show notes © 2015 David Lizerbram

Ger Buckley is the fifth-generation cooper at Ireland's Midleton Distillery, but had no one to pass the torch to. In fact, there hadn't been an apprentice cooper at any Irish distillery for nearly four decades...but Ger was able to convince Irish Distillers that the tradition needed to be kept alive for another generation. 21-year-old Killian O'Mahony has just signed on for a four-year apprenticeship...he and Ger join us for this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, we pay tribute to the late Lincoln Henderson, Buffalo Trace plans to keep honoring the late Elmer T. Lee, and the latest on this year's Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. This week's tasting notes include Wild Turkey's new Forgiven...an accidental blend of Rye and Bourbon. 

The whisky world lost one of the legends this week with the passing of Buffalo Trace Master Distiller Emeritus Elmer T. Lee. Not only was he responsible for making Single Barrel Bourbons popular when he came up with the idea for Blanton's, but two years later, he had a Single Barrel Bourbon named after him following his retirement in 1985. Elmer kept selecting the barrels for his bourbon right up until shortly before his death, and his whiskey is as good as the man himself. We'll remember Elmer T. Lee on this week's episode, with a look back at his life and legacy. In the news, Kentucky's distillers join forces to help Parker Beam raise money for ALS research, Balcones breaks ground on a new distillery in Waco, Texas, and the latest on nearly two dozen single cask Scotch whiskies released this week.

This week on Bottoms Up we take a closer look at a single barrel bourbon named after a living legend. Elmer T. Lee. Named after Master Distiller Emeritus Elmer T. Lee, this 90 proof bourbon put out by the Buffalo Trace Distillery is a balanced, rich bourbon good for sipping or in a cocktail. And use it in a cocktail we did, as Ginny gives her muddler a workout and makes a Blackberry Bourbon Fizz.  This one is guaranteed to make you thirsty.

Today marks the birthday of a legend in the bourbon business. Buffalo Trace Master Distiller Emeritus Elmer T. Lee turns 90 today, and his friends marked the milestone with a party at the distillery. I had the chance to interview Elmer in the fall of 2006, and he'll share some of his stories with us in that interview. In the news, Buffalo Trace unveils this year's Antique Collection, Chris Morris tells us about this year's Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, The Whisky Exchange unveils a new line of single cask bottlings, and the Laing Brothers put Macallan and Laphroaig together.

There are only two living bourbon distillers with whiskies named after them, and you'll hear from one of them in this episode of WhiskyCast. Elmer T. Lee is the Master Distiller Emeritus at Buffalo Trace, and at 87 years of age, is still selecting the casks that make up the bourbon that carries his name. In the news, a really rare Glenfiddich goes on sale in Calgary, John Glaser of Compass Box has a new innovation in vatted malts, and you can help decide the winners of the Drammie Awards.