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The Bourbon Episode: Buffalo Trails, Wild Whiskey, Moonshine Memories and Family Traditions · Family Tree Food Stories

• 0:01
  Hey Sylvia, we're up for a rather thirsty show today, aren't we?
• 0:06
  Do you have your bottle ready?
• 0:09
  We're going to talk about.
• 0:12
  I love it.
• 0:14
  Hey, I thought though that we would be skin to begin a discussion of bourbon and spirits and we'll talk a little bit about what that is by exploring the idea because our listeners
• 0:24
  might be wondering family tree food and stories.
• 0:27
  What does bourbon have to do with that?
• 0:29
  Well, we'll find out later in the show that bourbon actually is now.
• 0:34
  put on all kinds of food.
• 0:35
  It's one of the essential ingredients in lot of foods, particularly in central Kentucky, which is the land of bourbon.
• 0:41
  But what is food, Nancy?
• 0:43
  What do we mean when we talk about food?
• 0:46
  Well, you I guess it depends whether it's liquid or solid.
• 0:49
  And you mentioned spirits and I said, may the spirit move me this morning as we're this show.
• 0:55
  But I think there's a big question.
• 0:57
  and you you talk about family tree food and stories.
• 1:00
  Well, there's a lot of spirits, we'll call them, you know, alcoholic spirits that's always seems to get into a family story somewhere, right?
• 1:10
  You've got your grandma's rum cake story.
• 1:12
  There's always a rum cake story somewhere.
• 1:15
  There's something's loaded in the, around the Christmas time.
• 1:19
  You've got the, God, I'm drawing a blank on it, brain cramp.
• 1:23
  Maybe I need some more of those spirits to keep me going, right?
• 1:27
  But the fruitcake, right?
• 1:28
  The fruitcake is always soaked in something.
• 1:30
  I've got my grandma's rhubarb wine.
• 1:32
  We also had, growing up, my folks' peach brandy.
• 1:37
  Peach brandy, like where you bury the peaches.
• 1:40
  I guess the question is whether you remember to dig up the peaches.
• 1:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:46
  Yeah.
• 1:47
  Yeah, so, and actually in foods, this is kind of interesting too.
• 1:51
  We should just say before we get into actually the spirits part of it, but they're really great in marinades, like in beef and they break down the proteins and make the meat
• 2:02
  tender.
• 2:03
  So that's really cool.
• 2:05
  Is it marinade or marinate?
• 2:07
  Marinade.
• 2:08
  I said marinate.
• 2:11
  that's true.
• 2:13
  herbs, or herbs?
• 2:15
  Darling.
• 2:16
  I was showing my Eastern Kentucky roots at marinade.
• 2:23
  she can do anything she wants.
• 2:24
  That's right.
• 2:27
  Anyway, know, and my rum cake idea that came out in our book where we talked about that where we tricked my grandmother who was a teetotaler into eating rum cake.
• 2:37
  So it was the best thing she'd ever eaten and she had no idea it had rum in it.
• 2:41
  grandma.
• 2:42
  There you go, grandma.
• 2:44
  But why don't we just dive right into bourbon and spirits?
• 2:48
  We're not talking about, yeah?
• 2:53
  Yeah, yeah, just imagine those.
• 2:56
  Have you ever been in a distillery?
• 2:57
  Those huge vats that contain all of the ingredients that make up bourbon, can either be, in Kentucky's has to be 51 % corn, which makes bourbon sweeter.
• 3:11
  than most spirits, but then you can experiment with the other part of the ingredients, and that's 51 % in Kentucky.
• 3:21
  Yeah.
• 3:22
  So you say bourbon is 51 % corn.
• 3:27
  What else would you make bourbon with?
• 3:28
  Wheat or rye?
• 3:29
  Or is that, that's whiskey instead, right?
• 3:31
  no you the other half can be all kinds of other things that go into the mash and It can be rye can boot weight.
• 3:39
  I was reading something about wheat That that's one of the things I mean you mentioned buffalo trace that some of the really fine bourbons have wheat in them and beyond Yeah
• 3:51
  that I'm not a bourbon aficionado, but I'm learning from the Kentucky girl herself.
• 3:56
  So you could have to fill me in on this one.
• 3:58
  it's crazy.
• 3:59
  It known you know, Kentucky was kind of the place where it could be happening.
• 4:03
  And I'd say that for two reasons.
• 4:05
  One, corn, or as corn state, fertile land and limestone water, which is also by the way, good for horses.
• 4:14
  So think about it makes good strength and good.
• 4:18
  Well, you know, that's kind of interesting, because I'm not known for my strong bones.
• 4:22
  but I drink the water here.
• 4:24
  But here's the other part of the story, moonshiners.
• 4:27
  Now, I'm going to say it because this is my heritage.
• 4:30
  I came from the Irish and the Irish came over here and the potato famine and frankly, Nancy, I think there were probably some outlaws in the bunch, right?
• 4:40
  So they went from the coast and they kept going over the mountain range, over the mountain range and they arrive in Kentucky.
• 4:47
  And what did they do?
• 4:48
  They set up illegal stills.
• 4:51
  all over the place.
• 4:52
  And even to this day, moonshiners, and it got kind of a mystique about it.
• 4:57
  It was the revenuers versus the IRS versus the moonshiners.
• 5:03
  And then there's all kinds of elaborate stories, including one that I just love to hear, one of my upstanding political citizens that I worked for at one time, just a dear guy.
• 5:13
  And he was like, my vantage, but he would talk about as a child in Northern Kentucky, which is known as a den of sin anyway.
• 5:21
  They would have the gambling machines and the stills and all that kind of stuff going on.
• 5:26
  And they would just make it almost portable and push it to the back room when the feds came along to kind of cut.
• 5:34
  So yeah, cops.
• 5:35
  And he grew up with that.
• 5:37
  It's like, you know, sort of people who are kind of illegal by choice.
• 5:42
  And that's how.
• 5:46
  Do you have a moonshine story?
• 5:47
  I do have a moonshine story.
• 5:50
  honestly, didn't really, I was a, I wouldn't say a teetotaller as a kid, but I didn't really drink.
• 5:56
  mean, kids in high school drank where I grew up.
• 6:00
  I think most, you you'll smoke a cigarette behind the barn.
• 6:04
  I have a beer behind the barn, whatever that is behind the barn.
• 6:07
  won't go there, but I was in the barn with the horses.
• 6:10
  That was me.
• 6:11
  I could care less about anything else.
• 6:13
  But when I went to college, of course, I was thrown in that den of thieves.
• 6:22
  Well, no, I have to admit my first experience was helping a senior, woman take her trunk, her steamer trunk up four flights of stairs.
• 6:32
  And she said, you're going to help me?
• 6:34
  And I said, yeah, got nothing else to do.
• 6:35
  Why not?
• 6:36
  So she offered to buy me a beer that evening at the local, well, it's the pub in the basement of the main hall of the school.
• 6:43
  And I thought, can I do this?
• 6:45
  So after like a couple of sips of beer, thought I was drunk.
• 6:50
  But later on, all right, I could, I could drink a little bit more of the beer.
• 6:54
  The guys would do moonshine chasers with that were lit.
• 6:59
  So they had the fire on the top and they like lit.
• 7:02
  I never did that.
• 7:02
  I never did that, but I was like, okay, you guys can do that.
• 7:06
  And garbage pail parties.
• 7:08
  You want a garbage pail party is.
• 7:10
  I've heard of that, but tell me more so I can avoid it.
• 7:14
  whatever kind of garbage they can possibly, know, a mad dog 2020, if anybody remembers that.
• 7:19
  my God, don't even go there.
• 7:21
  So I'm going to sound like a total non-teatotaller to this show, but I'm beginning to wonder.
• 7:27
  Yeah, my coffee is, my coffee is a virgin coffee right now.
• 7:32
  And you throw all sorts of garbage, literally garbage you can put in the garbage can and Kool-Aid and you name it.
• 7:40
  And it always tasted like Kool-Aid.
• 7:42
  So guess what?
• 7:43
  Garbage can parties.
• 7:44
  A lot of stuff went in there.
• 7:47
  And you can drink too much because it's like Kool-Aid, right?
• 7:50
  Well, yeah, yeah, was the next morning that I learned what a hangover was in college too.
• 7:55
  So I don't do that anymore.
• 8:00
  No, no, no, Hey, my moonshine story is moonshine is made all over the world, by the way.
• 8:06
  People make illegal liquor.
• 8:08
  Now, it can be very dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.
• 8:11
  But in Romania, I went I did a trip, a mission, not a mission trip, but like a business trip to Romania.
• 8:18
  And I took a group with me and they treated us like royalty.
• 8:21
  And they would put
• 8:22
  their moonshine in Coke bottles.
• 8:24
  They would empty the Coke bottles and they had their moonshine in plastic Coke bottles.
• 8:29
  And when we were leaving, they insisted that we take some of their moonshine with us in the Coke bottles.
• 8:36
  And we're like, well, you know, I don't we don't know.
• 8:40
  Well, here's what happened.
• 8:42
  We packed it away, you know, tightly packed it away in our luggage.
• 8:46
  And it gets to Cincinnati's airport, which is a big airport and
• 8:51
  We get our luggage off the thing, the whatever they call it, and we get the luggage off and here come the dogs.
• 9:00
  Here come some authorities with dogs and we're just, there's about five of us, kind of people that don't want our names in the newspaper for, you know, transporting illegal,
• 9:09
  yeah, smuggling in alcohol.
• 9:10
  And we were holding our breath as a beagle walked up to our luggage and begin, you know, doing the sniff and then walked away.
• 9:20
  Yahoo!
• 9:23
  Obviously a dog with a bad sniffer.
• 9:26
  That's as close to illegal as I've gotten.
• 9:28
  So there you go.
• 9:29
  I'm pretty boring.
• 9:32
  You know, it really didn't and I didn't think it was that good.
• 9:36
  It was just real strong.
• 9:37
  I'm not a big, my husband is a bourbon aficionado.
• 9:41
  I'm really not.
• 9:43
  Now it's sweeter than a lot of bourbons, you know, that have been a lot of whiskeys and things like that.
• 9:50
  because bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskies are bourbon because bourbon, 95 % of it made in Kentucky.
• 9:57
  And it has to have that ratio, a certain ratio of ingredients in order to be called bourbon.
• 10:05
  Well, that's kind of interesting, but I always thought that in order to be called bourbon, it had to be made in Kentucky, not anywhere else.
• 10:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:14
  Well, 95 % of it, I think, you know, I mean, who can like stop it is what I wonder.
• 10:21
  I don't know, does Kentucky, I don't know, you know, when you think about it, does Kentucky have the right to stop it?
• 10:26
  Other than Kentucky bourbon and being 95 % has that mystique about it, has the story behind it.
• 10:34
  As you were mentioning, the Buffalo Trace story, which is a phenomenal story and
• 10:40
  bit about Buffalo Trace because I just heard about this over the weekend when I was at the, the 50 over 50 podcast awards, which way we're winners.
• 10:49
  Yay.
• 10:50
  I guess we'll have to have a bourbon, but, but I didn't know about it and was sitting in the after party.
• 10:58
  They had the after party in this kind of interesting, great little place.
• 11:02
  And it's, had, was, well, they sold alcohol there.
• 11:05
  So.
• 11:06
  I'm looking at this bottle and thought that's kind of interesting.
• 11:09
  And I pick it up and said, it's from Kentucky.
• 11:11
  And there was a fellow there who said, yes, that's a very well-known particular brand of bourbon.
• 11:16
  And he explained that it was, I guess there's a Buffalo trail that goes through, I don't think of Buffalo's in Kentucky.
• 11:23
  yes, buffaloes.
• 11:25
  That's what the settlers first saw when they arrived, Daniel Boone, all the mystique surrounding Daniel Boone.
• 11:31
  But what the buffalo trace was the Kentucky River runs through our state capital, Frankfort, Kentucky, which is about 45 minutes from Lexington.
• 11:40
  And the trail is where the lowest point of the Kentucky River, which runs right through Frankfort, it floods all the time.
• 11:48
  And the buffalo would go right through where the
• 11:51
  plant now is, the manufacturing facility, the storied buildings of Buffalo Trace.
• 11:58
  I can't wait to show it to you.
• 12:00
  mean, it's really quite a beautiful setting.
• 12:03
  And the history in the 1700s, and then it's changed hands several times.
• 12:07
  It was family oriented, as so many distilleries are.
• 12:11
  It's like a family thing to...
• 12:14
  guess it adds a new twist to the term, you've been buffaloed, right?
• 12:21
  Yeah.
• 12:22
  yeah.
• 12:23
  I mean, really, seriously.
• 12:25
  But out of that came probably the most famous bourbon of all the most expensive is Pappy's.
• 12:31
  Pappy Van Winkle.
• 12:34
  well, just just to say it is and I don't want our listeners like to think all we're doing is giving them a super history of bourbon.
• 12:41
  But let's give them a super history of bourbon.
• 12:43
  Pappy's.
• 12:44
  Pappy Van Winkle invented this bourbon.
• 12:48
  But what made it most famous?
• 12:50
  is it's old.
• 12:52
  And at one time, they would throw the bourbon away when it got to be a certain age.
• 12:58
  Then they found out people actually liked it and it became even smoother and in suing years that it would be stored.
• 13:06
  now, now they there was this great video on the website that talks where they the successors, the family, the Van Winkle's, but but think about the Van Winkle legend.
• 13:18
  I mean, for a person to be born,
• 13:20
  asleep.
• 13:21
  Winkle and Rip Van Winkle slept for 20 years after drinking a bottle of Hooch.
• 13:26
  I don't know what it was.
• 13:31
  Yeah, for 20 years, I don't know.
• 13:33
  But but it does have that sort of wonderful kind of feel to it.
• 13:37
  You know, if you can afford a $30,000 bottle of bourbon.
• 13:43
  Typically, typically, I mean, people line up in lotteries to get this stuff.
• 13:48
  I can think of other things to do with $30,000.
• 13:51
  I'm sorry, Pappies.
• 13:55
  Yeah.
• 13:56
  it, you know we went through prohibition and that was the 18th Amendment and it was passed in 1919 and that was the big movement.
• 14:05
  There was a lot of stuff going on, the Temperance League, the Christian Ladies Society, all of those things made that happen.
• 14:12
  But Buffalo Trace was able and allowed to manufacture medicinal bourbon.
• 14:22
  wait a second, wait a second.
• 14:23
  I'm going to stop you there.
• 14:25
  So COVID, not too long ago, right?
• 14:28
  And all the medicinal moonshine that was used to wash your hands and stuff.
• 14:33
  okay.
• 14:34
  So it was, it was really basically, it was alcohol.
• 14:37
  And yeah, it's, I wonder how many people drank that instead versus going to the store.
• 14:44
  Pretty clever, isn't it, to be able to manufacture.
• 14:47
  So they were one of the, I think there were four distilleries that were able to, like when the amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933, they were one of the few that
• 14:59
  survived.
• 15:00
  I think there were four distilleries after all of that.
• 15:03
  So anyway, just a brief, brief history.
• 15:05
  well, let's take a little break on that history because we're going to come back with a lot more because, after all, there is family history to Moonshine and Bourbon.
• 15:18
  Hang tight.
• 15:19
  We'll be right back.
• 15:35
  So Sylvia, we've been talking a little bit, a lot about bourbon and well, I don't know how much you drink, but well, we won't go there.
• 15:44
  I'm a wino.
• 15:45
  I will establish right here and now I'm a wino.
• 15:48
  I love my wine.
• 15:49
  Yeah.
• 15:51
  the note of wine, you know they actually mix wine and bourbon and then you've got a lot of wine now that's being aged in bourbon barrels.
• 15:59
  So I like that.
• 16:01
  It's really good.
• 16:03
  Yes.
• 16:05
  And the more you drink, the more stories you have.
• 16:06
  So hence family tree food and stories.
• 16:08
  does loosen up the stories when you think about it.
• 16:12
  You know, you think about spirits and technically and scientifically what spirits are is the vapor that rises in the distilling process and the fermentation process.
• 16:22
  But what I love, the better definition that I love is spirits is that
• 16:27
  Drinking that bourbon or that whiskey kind of unleashes your spirit.
• 16:32
  Think about it.
• 16:35
  You you get a little, you know, stories flow, right?
• 16:40
  Just like good liquor.
• 16:43
  Right, instead of saying, the spirits or let the stars be with you, let the stars be aligned, we'll just let the bourbon be with you, right?
• 16:52
  I love that.
• 16:53
  Spirits, and it's named that for a purpose.
• 16:55
  And I prefer the magical part as opposed to the spirits.
• 16:59
  Well, there's a lot of magic, but in bourbon is really got a very interesting follow around the world too.
• 17:06
  Now in Japan, there's like crazy, like, well, sorry if anybody who's Japanese and listen to this, but I think some of the traditions and things that they do over Japan are a
• 17:15
  little wackadoo, but maybe that's for more state.
• 17:20
  Well, it depends on whether we're more state or not Americans, but they are crazy over bourbon, right?
• 17:26
  I mean, it's quite an import of Kentucky bourbon.
• 17:30
  I mean, it's just amazing.
• 17:32
  And the most popular one, what do you think, Nancy?
• 17:34
  What's the most popular bourbon sold nearly everywhere bourbon is sold?
• 17:39
  Well, I'm going to say maker's mark because it's it's so obvious that you've got that plastic was not even plastic.
• 17:45
  It's wax on the top and every dip is a little different.
• 17:49
  And, know, I've got a story on that one that people may not know, but it is the wife of the original founder.
• 17:56
  Well, well, let's see if she's actually called the founder or not.
• 17:59
  Is it what's her name again?
• 18:02
  Sam yells.
• 18:03
  Well, I think it was I don't remember her first name.
• 18:06
  named Samuels among them.
• 18:08
  So, Ms.
• 18:09
  Samuels.
• 18:11
  Yeah, southern lady.
• 18:13
  Right, right.
• 18:15
  But anyway, she was the one who came up with the wax on the top.
• 18:19
  And in 1958, it was a marketing ploy to make them stand out.
• 18:23
  So my husband actually calls because I started my career in advertising at J.
• 18:28
  Walter Thompson.
• 18:30
  And so he refers to me as marketing slime.
• 18:34
  So Ms.
• 18:35
  Samuels was marketing slime.
• 18:39
  Well, we'll call her a slimeette.
• 18:41
  We'll call her a slimeette, right?
• 18:45
  But yeah, was to make it stand out and make it look more upscale than it might have actually been at the time.
• 18:51
  so I guess Maker's Mark is an illusion of expense.
• 18:57
  And so they just put a price tag on everything.
• 18:59
  It's rather interesting, I think.
• 19:01
  Bernie is, my husband is a bourbon snob.
• 19:05
  So he goes places and he loves to interrogate the barkeepers about what kind of bourbons do you have?
• 19:11
  And of course outside of Kentucky, not that many, but it's quite a fascinating industry.
• 19:19
  One of the things when you said advertising, the bottles are beautiful.
• 19:24
  They may not have the red top, but they're gorgeous.
• 19:27
  I mean, that's
• 19:28
  A lot goes into designing those bottles.
• 19:30
  It's marketing.
• 19:31
  really is truly not well, the craft of the product, obviously, but there's a lot more going into the craft of the product as well.
• 19:39
  So what else is going on?
• 19:41
  Because bourbon goes back a long, long time and you've got a few more factoids like Jack Daniels.
• 19:49
  yeah, Jack Daniels, Nathan Green, a slave, taught Jack Daniels how to make whiskey.
• 19:55
  And therefore he became the master distiller.
• 19:57
  That's a big deal profession, by the way.
• 20:00
  Lots of
• 20:01
  bourbon and whiskey?
• 20:02
  Because there is a distinction, correct?
• 20:04
  There is all whiskey or spirits.
• 20:07
  Bourbon is whiskey, but not all bourbon whiskey is bourbon.
• 20:11
  Now, beyond, I don't know super technical stuff, but I do know that bourbon has to be 51 % at least corn.
• 20:20
  And then the rest can be creative around.
• 20:23
  You know, one of the interesting things when I drive into Frankfurt at certain times of the year, you can smell a smell that smells like
• 20:32
  green beans that have cooked for too long.
• 20:35
  Yeah.
• 20:36
  And it's the smell of the mash that is kind of consists as wheat, rye, lots of other kinds of ingredients.
• 20:47
  It's pretty interesting.
• 20:51
  And then you have a few of the myths that's right in some of the traditions.
• 20:58
  And one of those is you
• 21:00
  bury a bottle of bourbon upside down at the side of a wedding, dig it up on the wedding day and serve it to the guests.
• 21:07
  So there's a new tradition.
• 21:10
  You know, I don't know.
• 21:12
  We can we could speculate.
• 21:14
  Maybe so it pours out more quickly.
• 21:16
  I don't know.
• 21:17
  Because people want it right.
• 21:19
  That's a that's a strange one, right?
• 21:22
  Wow.
• 21:24
  They do a lot of other things, but everything was geared towards fertility in the day and age.
• 21:28
  But speaking of smelling, so it's interesting that it smells like green beans.
• 21:32
  I think that would actually turn me off.
• 21:34
  Although I do like green beans.
• 21:36
  But I never thought about like smelling.
• 21:39
  I don't I don't I don't sniff green beans.
• 21:42
  is over.
• 21:44
  And then, because in Kentucky, we also have the Bourbon Trail.
• 21:48
  And you can go to several different trails, depending on the part of the state you're in.
• 21:53
  And you'll go and you'll visit these various locations.
• 21:57
  Woodford Reserve, for instance, is another popular one.
• 22:01
  And remember our guest, Weta Michael, the chef.
• 22:05
  She is actually their chef.
• 22:07
  She conducts of the Woodford Reserve.
• 22:10
  These are usually located in very beautiful places in Kentucky.
• 22:15
  Off the beaten path, two lane, barely two lane roads leading to them.
• 22:21
  And it's just, to come here and do the trails is pretty awesome.
• 22:27
  And then you get led to restaurants that serve bourbon type marinades and.
• 22:33
  I wouldn't be able to find the road out.
• 22:36
  I know, that's the thing, that's the thing.
• 22:40
  So that is going on and the drinks, people wonder what kind of drinks are made with bourbon.
• 22:49
  How about the old fashioned?
• 22:51
  Okay.
• 22:52
  my dad used to be an old-fashioned drinker.
• 22:54
  Yep.
• 22:55
  Old-fashioned in Manhattan's.
• 22:56
  I don't know.
• 22:56
  Do they put bourbon in Manhattan's?
• 22:58
  I don't know.
• 22:58
  don't know.
• 23:00
  Mint juleps and then a growing trend.
• 23:04
  Yeah, mint juleps.
• 23:05
  A growing trend is to have bottles personalized and given as gifts.
• 23:09
  I've gotten several over the years.
• 23:11
  You know, you get your maker's mark with your name on it.
• 23:13
  It's really cool.
• 23:14
  It's another marketing thing.
• 23:16
  I know that's true.
• 23:17
  I was unearthing old things in my closet and one of my moves and found an old bottle.
• 23:22
  Now I think about that Pappy's though it might have been very
• 23:26
  good.
• 23:26
  It might have been very expensive if it sat in my closet for 30 years.
• 23:34
  Now, women are increasingly drinking bourbon, right?
• 23:39
  Well, I mean, we have, we have our entrees into lots of things.
• 23:44
  And let's face it, guys, we really do rule the world.
• 23:47
  And whether you realize it or not, we just let you think you have more control than you do.
• 23:53
  But yeah, although I don't think of bourbon and women in general, I think of bourbon and the, you know, sort of the staunchy Southern, Southern gentlemen, sort of from Kentucky,
• 24:06
  Virginia.
• 24:07
  Yeah, know, sitting around.
• 24:09
  Yeah.
• 24:10
  fascinating man in the world.
• 24:12
  I think we have to go the most fascinating and brilliant and intellectually stimulating woman in the world.
• 24:18
  We have to do them one or two up, I think.
• 24:21
  but women are forming society, bourbon societies, very popular around here.
• 24:26
  There are about 100 distilleries in this state and there was a big growth industry and they're usually very tiny but hoping to get very large and sell their bourbons.
• 24:39
  There's still a world of market out there for bourbon.
• 24:43
  there was a distillery or there is a distillery up in Litchfield, Connecticut, not too far from where we moved and called Litchfield distilleries.
• 24:52
  And the interesting thing is that it took them a long time before they could actually sell their first batch because I guess it has to sit there and mature for a while.
• 25:02
  And then getting the oak barrels, very difficult to do.
• 25:07
  Yeah.
• 25:08
  can only use them once and then they turn them into other things like you see in restaurants those the lids up on the
• 25:16
  now maturing wine in them.
• 25:17
  So you've got the bourbon barrel, you know, yeah, matured wine.
• 25:22
  whole industry just around bourbon and the tradition of bourbon.
• 25:28
  You've got the, I think it's Mystique.
• 25:32
  I think it's probably Mystique and it makes it more, well, they turn them into other things.
• 25:37
  They turn them into other things.
• 25:39
  They use the wood.
• 25:40
  England roots.
• 25:41
  Don't we know waste not want not, you know, don't use the barrel once.
• 25:44
  How long can you look?
• 25:45
  like how many times can you wear your socks?
• 25:49
  At least twice you turn them inside out.
• 25:52
  So anyway, there's a world of bourbon and whiskey and all of those things that go into a trend and a growing industry and family oriented to family traditions, you know, started
• 26:06
  some of them started in the 1700s and some of them are later, but they're usually very, very small and family oriented and
• 26:16
  So, you know, it's an interesting industry that hopefully we can get more into as we take a look at our family traditions and get them because they're family kind of business.
• 26:28
  related stories, excuse me, come about through small production, whether it starts in the kitchen or starts out behind the barn with a still, right?
• 26:41
  It's those home routes where everything kind of begins.
• 26:46
  And hence that's what we're all about.
• 26:48
  But I love the fact that there is a story with so much of about the things that we're talking about here in these shows.
• 26:55
  And it's not so much that we're hawking this, but well, maybe a little bit.
• 27:03
  I think that's okay.
• 27:05
  But the stories make our life so much more rich in more ways than one.
• 27:09
  And just remembering where it is that thing that you were drinking perhaps came from makes it just a little bit more special, right?
• 27:19
  let me tell you one more story about Kentucky, where all these industries are about liquor, right?
• 27:26
  And creating whiskey and bourbon.
• 27:30
  Until very recently, more counties than not were dry.
• 27:35
  You couldn't get a drink in Kentucky, except in the big cities.
• 27:39
  That's changed a lot, and I worked a lot on that personally.
• 27:43
  In fact, I'd get invited in to promote liquor by the drink in small towns.
• 27:48
  because the churches would go after the politicians.
• 27:51
  So they would bring me in to be the advocate for it.
• 27:55
  Yeah, so anyway, all of that happened.
• 27:57
  But one of the funny things until recently, okay, Bourbon County, Bourbon County is adjacent to Fayette County, which is where I am in Lexington.
• 28:06
  Beautiful little town, horsey town, Bourbon town.
• 28:10
  You couldn't get a drink in Bourbon County, but you could in Christian County.
• 28:16
  Don't you love that?
• 28:17
  Yeah.
• 28:18
  County versus Bourbon County.
• 28:21
  Anyway, that's all changed.
• 28:22
  You can now in Bourbon County, but it was.
• 28:24
  it's big business.
• 28:25
  And I think it makes sometimes sometimes it makes family parties a little bit more palatable too.
• 28:31
  Right.
• 28:32
  yeah, maybe not as bad as Rip Van Winkle where you didn't have you don't have to go to sleep for 20 years to get away from your family.
• 28:38
  no.
• 28:39
  Well, on that note, every story has, well, on that meal, well, wait a second, I'm gonna say it's a blooper.
• 28:49
  On that note, every meal has a story and every story is a feast.
• 28:54
  And I think we need to come up with every drink and every glass has a story and every story maybe has a spirit along the way or two.
• 29:02
  than food because they loosen you up and you start thinking about all those stories you know about.
• 29:09
  And myths, you just kind of blow everything out of proportion.
• 29:12
  That's okay.
• 29:13
  Yeah, give yourself a little chin wag or two as they say in the UK.
• 29:18
  Take care, we'll see you soon and drink up.
• 29:21
  Bye bye.
• 29:25
  You what I want to do too?
• 29:27
  I want to do a little section at the end.
• 29:29
  Hey, if you like this show, we're going to ask you, hey, if you like this show, please subscribe, share it with your friends and tell a story or two on why you actually like
• 29:43
  this show, because we'd like to hear from you too.
• 29:45
  And we'd love to hear your stories.
• 29:47
  So don't forget, listen to Family Tree Food and Stories and share it, like it and subscribe.
• 29:52
  We'll see you soon.
• 29:53
  Bye bye.