Long Branch!

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Welcome to the Whiskey Chasers, where we talk about our passion for whiskey and its history, either amongst ourselves or while interviewing distilleries. All while enjoying a glass. I'm Steve. I'm Nick. And I'm Chris. Please enjoy responsibly while enjoying this week's episode of The Whiskey Chasers.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

I know you should just leave it running the whole time. Because we there's a lot of good stuff that gets into it.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Okay, so we're we're looking at Wild Turkey Long Branch, which is Texas Mesquite Wood charcoal filtered. And Chris just said it doesn't impart that much of a flavor. We're talking wild turkey, my friend. I'm just trying to walk.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

I'm trying to defend it because I love this.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I'm not so I'm not trying to bash it, but it it changes wild turkey to something that is it makes you go, wild turkey could be something as an intro for someone. Because wild turkey's high rye. I mean it's got that rye spice, that rye bite, but this is like this could be this could actually do something for like an intro bottle.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Well, but I think wild turkey in general is an intro bottle, like especially wild turkey, like 80 per year, and then one-on-one, like it's a good starting point for anybody. But you don't think it's too uh rye forward? I mean, yeah, wild wild turkey punches you. It does, but the people that are new that are reaching for wild turkey are like, I'm a man. I'm gonna, you know what I mean? Like they're they're already not gonna be able to do that. So they tell everyone by drinking it. You're not gonna be like, I'm gonna drink wild turkey because I'm a wuss. You know what I mean? Like you're gonna be like, Oh, I'm gonna, I want wild turkey. You want to show everyone you're showing. You should show everybody you're a tough guy. So I think if anything, this takes wild turkey and kind of refines it in a way that's kind of like, ooh, wild turkey can be different. Because what I love about wild turkey is the fact that it is kind of standard or or it's very uniform. And I like that about it. Like there's not a whole, you're not going off the reservation with any of their bottles. This takes that and kind of tweaks it. It's got a good wild turkey base, but it tweaks it up. And I like the mesquite, I like mesquite in general. But for those listening, we're talking about Long Branch. We're talking, we just jumped in because we had a whole long conversation about this.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Nick was like, we gotta start. We gotta start listening.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

It is Matthew McConaughey's bottle. Did you find out if he signs it or not? He did, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:28

He signs it. It was part of the deal. So he became their creative director in 2016. He is the highest paid ad person in the country. Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Sorry, so he he became their creative director. I thought that he was just like hired on as like a spokesperson.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

He's definitely not like a celebrity. He was hired on in 2016 as their celebrity spokesperson, as their creative director. He wrote and starred in all the commercials, and as part of it, they had to come out with something to have her put his name on.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

But he's not just like the other celebrity guys used to be.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

So because he's from Texas and they wanted to reach an arm out, that was the kind of their big, their big thing on this, is that you're you're reaching out to people. They wanted to incorporate something with Texas, and they landed on mesquite. So this is charcoal filtered, charcoal refined according to the bottle. Charcoal refined, that's what it says in the bottle there.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

First through oak and then through mesquite mesquite charcoal, but it's still a bourbon.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

Yes, yep, yeah. Charcoal filtering does not negate that that cat.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

For anybody listening and wondering. So that that does count. Yep. I used to drink the crap when I first started drinking this, I drank so much of it, and I was kind of embarrassed about it. I was drinking it one time, and Nick's like, oh, Matthew McConnell haze. And I was like, What? What I had no idea. So then I found out, oh, right, all right, all right. You know, and I was like kind of like embarrassed by how much I was drinking it after finding that out. But I still love it. I I love it. There's something about it. It's very, very, we'll get into it, but it's very friendly, it's very smooth, but it's got some nice unique notes that kind of punch you a little bit. But talking about it as a campfire whiskey, or not campfire, camp camping whiskey around the campfire, maybe this thing I think checks the box, it nails it, right? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

I've never had this before, so this is my first time having it. And I've only had like your basic wild turkey stuff. I haven't I've never been like a big wild turkey guy. So I've had just like regular wild turkey 101, probably a rare breed once or twice, but that's it. This is incredibly friendly for a wild turkey, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:41

That's what I'm saying. It tones it down to a point where this is could be an intro bottle to wild turkey. Yeah. Because let's be honest, Wild Turkey does not have a great intro bottle before this. It is one of those, like, if I want to put hair on my chest, I'm gonna go to wild turkey.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

This is like yeah, because it's a high rye, it's a high-rise mash bill. It kind of punches you, even the 80 proof stuff. What are we popping? Is that Hyde Park? No, Seersucker. Oh, Seersucker, nice. You ever had this?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

I don't believe so. I've heard of it, but I don't think I've ever had it. When this first came out back in 2017, I guess. I just got it because it at the time I was getting everything new from Cornell and Deal. And so they came out with it. Uh, I think it's still being produced. I bought a couple tins of it and I threw it in the cellar and I haven't touched it. So I do remember at the time thinking that it looked interesting. I completely forgot what it is now. And then I'm looking at like, I'm just it just looked like it might be a good one because it's got so it's from their cellar series, which is kind of New Orleans-esque vibes. And I just thought that might actually go good with gamping and with this bottle. But all it's saying on there is enough to get you talking about seersuckers, which really have nothing to do with it. The suit, the clothing, the cotton.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, seersucker is a suit?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah, it was it's a type of clothing. But all it says is a spicy blend of cigar leaf and other choice tobaccos. And that's all they talk about it. So I don't know. So we're gonna find out. But I saw a cigar and I thought, yeah, this would work with camping. So and it's this has been aging since 2017.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

So it's another one that's five, six, seven, eight years on it. Seven or eight years.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

I'm curious about the the smell, and you can feel it. It's oh dude, this has got some, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

That's uh how dark that is, dude. That's flake. Is that that's is this flake? Yeah, it's a well, it's a it's a crumble cake. But it's like, dude, that's like dry old old fruit in there. Yeah, it's definitely got some good age going on. Yeah, it's like dark. This is gonna be something quite extraordinary, Steve. And it's cra it's got the crystals. Look at that. That's all the age, the plume. I feel like I could just eat that like a brownie right now. Oh, yeah, it looks like a brownie.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

I don't know that I recommend it. It does look like I could just eat it like a brownie.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

I'm going to put this in a corncob and watch how I'm gonna do this today. Okay, I'm watching. You're gonna fold this up. No, I'm just gonna stick the brownie in. I've never done that. We're gonna find out how that goes. Just burn it right from the top, it's gonna what's gonna be something interesting, I can tell you that. Oh man, that just it just tore right apart. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Well, it just sucked.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

It was a perfect fit. Yeah, that's what, yeah, absolutely. Just seer suckered right in there.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

So McGonagay is from Texas. He likes his Kentucky bourbon, though, his whiskey. He does. He has a he has a bourbon guy. He reminds me of uh uh I feel like the reason I bring this up is this uh tobacco reminds me of something that he would probably be into because this is like New Orleans kind of feel, and I feel like he fits right in with that Texas, Kentucky, New Orleans kind of mentality.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Yeah, I could see that for sure. He he gives off a very New Orleans vibe to me.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

A very laid-back New Orleans, like there was an interview that I saw with him uh since Ron McConaughey. Uh he's big in rom coms, and maybe this is why you felt like maybe I shouldn't be drinking as many bottles. But he said his deal like when he first got into movies was rom coms. And he was like, I gotta be done with those because I there's no way out of that. Yeah, like once I'm into that, that's all I can do. Yeah, yeah. That's all I can do. Yep. And so he's tried his hardest to steer clear of those and start getting into more other roles. Because it when he first started, it was very like rom-com, and that's all he appeared in. He did well enough.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

Yeah, but it is kind of I can see how if you're an actor and you're like serious about acting, you probably don't like acting, you probably want to do some serious roles, you know. And he definitely did like, I mean, true detective was an amazing series, and like he did really well in that.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

His first role was Days and Confused, Days and Confused. And high school girls, uh, high school girls stay the same age, I just keep or something like that, or I get older, but they stay the same age. It's like what a creep, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

I mean, nowadays you're like, uh, but back then you didn't think that was creepy, but now you're kind of like, uh, what were you doing hanging around all those high schoolers, dude?

SPEAKER_02 9:30

So what uh so you we we've all talked about this. Sorry, we you, me, and Steve, Chris. We talked about camping. We want camping bottles. This this idea of a series we went from flavorings to then okay, let's get a little bit more serious. We're we're done on the lakes, kind of feel. We're now going to camp. Why this bottle? Like, what what made you go long branch is a bottle that we need for camping.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

I think at least part of it, it didn't come up right away when we were like Nick, you and I talked about this first, and this didn't pop up. But as soon as we mentioned it to you, Chris, you came up with it right away. And you were right, it's because of the mesquite. You think of barbecue, you think of being outdoors, it just fits. I've never had it before, so I couldn't say, but the m m mesquite itself is a good, a good indicator.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, I'd say that for those reasons. Um again, it kind of goes along with the theme that it's got really good flavor, but it's not overpowering. It's got a good finish, but it's not too long.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Uh it's a wild turkey product, which you think goes along with all those kind of I feel like w wild turkey is kind of like one of those for the active guy kind of a thing. You know what I mean? Like you like to camp, you like to hike, you like to hunt, you like to fish, you like to fight, you like to box, you like to, you know what I mean? You like motorcycles. It goes along with the activity. It's an activity brand. You don't have a whole lot of like businessmen coming home that do nothing but crunch numbers all day, then don't have any hobbies drinking wild turkey. You know what I mean? Uh it's more of like the active guys sort of brand, you know what I mean? Uh so along with I think that that goes along with camping, wild turkey it's specifically, but then this bottle, it's also got the price and it's got the look. I mean, you could easily throw that in a in a backpack. And actually, it's kind of a squat bottle. I just see that around the fireplace or the campfire, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 11:35

You brought up I don't know why this made me think of this, but the idea of like wild turkey being like active, right? Like the name.

unknown 11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Other than Eagle Rare and Buffalo Trace, can you think of any other brands that are animal named? I know that sounds weird.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Like big brands?

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Yeah, or any brands. Normally they're like named after like people are who characters. Yeah. But like most of them are like people names or like uh company names.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

You would imagine there would be a wolf out there sometimes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

There's there's one that's like Bearface is a company name. Yeah, Bearfight. Yeah, Bearfight.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Maybe there's more than we're not thinking of either, but what I'm trying to think of what's that one that's got like the elk on it? Or there's like elk something.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

Old elk old elk. There's old elk, yeah. Yeah, there's a there's a few of them. There's a few of them. I feel like a lot of whiskey brands are named after places, uh, and they could be named after landmarks, like like Stran Hair. Oh no, that's a guy. Um, but like Pikes Peak, right? I think like that stuff has like they're like landmark play Yellowstone, like named after locations.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

Do you think wild turkey was named after like the idea of hunting? It was. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I don't know anything about wild turkeys, so you should let us know.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

I don't know anything about pull out my notes here. Being such a wild turkey guy, I don't know what that is. So the brand is like it was hard. I uh I have like a uh a table of information that I always want to get, and all in there is like the founders, the when it was started, all that kind of stuff. Having a starting founding date and people for this brand is like impossible. It's been around it's been around for a while. The brand that kind of took it for a while started in 1855. Uh, and so like it's been around a super duper long time, but the name Wild Turkey started in 1971, or nope, sorry, it's before that. Uh 1942, 1942, a brand exec for Austin Nichols, which was a dis distribution company.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

I've always wondered where Nichols came from, like the name Austin Nichols.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Yep, it's it was just a distribution company, and so they were around forever. Didn't they also have a department store?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

I believe may have. I think Nichols department store.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

Yeah, yeah. Um, they ended up buying uh it from the Rippy family. So the Rippy family would be the Ripley, not Ripley, okay R-I-P-Y, Rippy family, would be like the true starters of what would become this brand. They didn't call themselves that, they had a few other names. Austin Nichols eventually bought them. Austin Nichols was just a distribution company, so they were doing that. They decided they wanted to get into distilling, so this is one of the brands they bought from the Rippy family. That was a good idea that they did. In 1942, one of the executives was going on a uh wild turkey hunt with some buddies, and this was one of the bottles that they took with them.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

So, question the dumb question here what's the difference between like a turkey hunt and a wild turkey hunt? It's oh they're the same thing, okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

All right, yeah, all right, depends on what you wanted to say. There's just there's domesticated turkeys and then there's wild turkeys, but the domesticated ones you don't go shoot, no, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Not generally, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

I mean, if you were gonna go shoot wild chickens, you'd you would want to say that they're wild chickens.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Who goes shoot wild chickens?

SPEAKER_01 15:10

What if you did other places?

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Hawaii, probably.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

Yeah, there's probably some wild turkeys. Hey, I want to go on a chicken hunt today. You want to come walk? Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

I'm not gonna just say I'm going on a turkey hunt. I'm going on a wild turkey hunt. Wild turkey hunt. Uh so they went on this hunt, and then after the hunt was over, his buddies and stuff kept asking him, Hey, do you have any of that wild turkey stuff? Because that was what they took on that hunt. So that was what they related to it. That I can appreciate. Yeah. So in 1971, they bought the Boulevard Distilling Company, which is the people that made this stuff and named it Wild Turkey after that.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

That I appreciate. Like Buffalo Trace is like, oh, this is where the Buffaloes walk, you know, or like Eagle Rare has something to do with rare eagles. Here it's like a bunch of buddies got together on like a golf trip or a camping trip. It was like, hey, you have got that that camping whiskey? Yeah, you got that wild turkey whiskey? Like, I don't know what it was called, but you have it. Whatever.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

Because they were distributing the income.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Right. That makes grabbed the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

It just makes more of a story, like a name, reason for a name than most things. Right. I liked it.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

And it makes sense as a name.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Like it's it doesn't feel made up. It feels like, oh, that that makes perfect sense. And wild turkey's a good name for a whiskey. So that's what I named it after. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

I was wondering because we've got like Wild Turkey as a brand, and then you got Russell's that's along with Wild Turkey. And I'm like, Russell's doesn't really work with Wild Turkey. Like well, that's just named after the people. Right. That's what I was like. The names seem odd. If you're like family, if it's a family story, why would you go from Wild Turkey to Russell's? Like as a name. That seems weird. Yeah, no. But this makes more sense. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

Yeah. Russell's they didn't own it. They're just Jimmy Russell is the master distiller and has been for 70 years. He still is, uh, along with his son Eddie. And so Eddie and him both do it now. But this is the 70th anniversary for Jimmy Russell this year. And so that's a newer thing for them. But Eddie Russell, his son, is also a master distiller. There, they're kind of co-co-master distillers. Uh, but Eddie and Matthew McConaughey are the two that signed this bottle. Oh, Eddie did. Yeah, okay. So this is the only bottle that Wild Turkey has that is signed by somebody other than Eddie or Jimmy. And so that's a unique thing for that one. But yeah, that's how all that started. And then Pranad Ritchie bought him in the 80s. And then from there, Kampari. I was gonna say Kumbari now on some. Okay, yep, yep. Kampari bought him in 2009. But in 2000, did you hear about what happened to the distillery in 2000 there? It burned. So they they lost uh one of the Turkey did, yeah. One of the rake houses in 2000 on May 9th of 2000. This was crazy.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

I don't remember getting this.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

So I mean it's from 2000. So it's all dude. That's 25 years ago, right? Exactly. Yeah, that's 2000. I didn't give a shit. So I wasn't all drink, yeah. Uh a warehouse holding 17,000 barrels burned. And when that happened, all those barrels busted open and flowed out. And so now you have whiskey flowing through catching the woods on fire because it's all on fire, because it's all it's it's all it's yeah, it's it hasn't been aged down, so this is all in the barrel still. So it's on fire, catching the woods on fire as it goes down to the river.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

So, how many turkeys did they give her?

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Right, it flowed into the river, and there was enough alcohol that went into the river. Was the river on fire? The river parts of it were there just at the very beginning of it. But it destroyed the habitat in the water. Imagine all the drunk animals. There was like 66 miles of river right there that during this the oxygen level dropped so low in the water that it killed off all the fish.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Well, they just need to learn to drink their whiskey correctly.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

They stopped it before it got to the water treatment facility, but the water treatment facility couldn't treat it because it was too it's too strong for like a normal thing to deal with.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Wait, I'm sorry. You're saying the water treatment facility that treats all of our shit can't treat alcohol out of it.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

Not that much.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

That's too much at a time.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Like it would be.

SPEAKER_03 19:29

I'm sorry, they're made to beautify, they're not made to like like decontaminate, like the chemicals that they're using in a normal water treatment facility could handle that, yeah. But you can strip the crap out of it. Like, well, sure, those are that's solid. That's solid particles, that's easy. And there's not that much of it.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Probably not taking all of it out anyhow.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

How many people are pooping?

SPEAKER_03 19:54

Come on, let's let's be honest here. You can't strip all of it, most of it's in the mud along the sides. But no, so uh army reserves and stuff came in to like get the re uh re uh aerate the water out barges and everything to take care of that.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Did we bottle any of this?

SPEAKER_03 20:12

I know I did we bottle it? We got river river whiskey at that point. Uh, but um they killed off about 228,000 fish in the end throughout all this. Uh they pay the well wild turkey had to pay Kentucky Fish and Wildlife $256,000 to help with fish repopulation. Getting taxed on top of your losing your product. They had double screw they barely got a dollar a fish for for it. They killed off 228,000 fish, they paid them 256,000.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

What do goldfish cost?

SPEAKER_03 20:47

So to me, that number seems low, but but that's just for fishery population. But yeah, so that was that's what happened in 2000, and then so through that, the distillery wasn't fully rebuilt till 2011.

unknown 21:01

Really?

SPEAKER_03 21:01

So yeah, they rebuilt the distillery there in 2011, and then in 2013, they added a bottling facility there. Up and up until 2013, they were shipping their stuff to either Indiana or Arkansas to be bottled to bottling facilities there. Now it's being bottled there, along with Skyvodka, is also being bottled there. Because it's owned by Kampari around that time.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

I think so. Were they Kampari at that time or Pernard Ritchie?

SPEAKER_03 21:31

Nope. Uh 2009 is when they became Kampari and the bottling facility was built in 13.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Okay, because I was gonna say before that, I believe that Bernard Ritchie owned MGP. Well, well, I mean Lawrenceburg, they owned it at that point, which makes sense if they were shipping up there, but you're not you're saying they weren't owned by Bernard Ritchie at that point.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Uh no, so they were owned by Per by Bernard Ritchie in 2000 when all this happened.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Oh, so it makes sense they were shipping up there. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

So they started it. It said that they were shipped to Indiana and then Arkansas. My guess is they were shipped to Indiana until 2009 when Kampari bought them. And then it was shipped to someplace in Arkansas for some reason to be bottled down there, some other distillery down there. Now they built their own bottling facility there. So now they're bottling it all in-house again.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Why is it that we don't have an issue with shipping stuff to be bottled somewhere else? But we gawk at distilling somewhere else.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

Because the work is done.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

The work that's that's all it is, just work is done.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

Yeah, it's just a bottle. Yeah, it's all glass. There's no there's no flavor being uh fair. Yeah, just packaging. They've got more of a history than what I thought they did. Yeah. And I glossed over a lot in terms of like their early history because a lot of it is just it's a lot of buying and selling of a whole bunch of people and a bunch of families that did it. And when you go back that far, it's no longer it's it's all a bunch of distributing companies. How did the Russell's get involved? They were just they hired Jimmy Russell to be their master distiller. That's how that started.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Because I feel like people now see it as Russell's, but well, because Russell's is so big, they see Russell's as being the name for Wild Turkey that started Wild Turkey.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Well, and one could say that his influence on Wild Turkey has been such an impact that it has made Wild Turkey better than what it was. That's fair because it was very much kind of like a ho-hum kind of a brand.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

And now, like there's things that compete with Jim Beam. You know what I mean? And you're talking about Jim Beam being a family path, and and the Russell's are starting to get that way where they're starting to do that.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

It's very family, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:44

It's not the same like Jim Beam was like family forever. Wild Turkey that's just you know, they hired these guys.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

And so it never was that. So now their family, they're the what when they try to market themselves, they're marketing more around the Russell family than they are any of their own history. I almost appreciate Wild Turkey more now than I did prior, and more than I do Sazraq.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Because it's almost like a Sazrak story of we bought up a company because we could do something with it, but then the Russell's came in like meh, we're gonna make this more than just something. Yeah, we're gonna make it a legacy almost.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Yeah, yeah. You have that master distiller part of it, and so you know, when you think of Jim Beam, the Beam family that owns it is also the distillers, and so it's all one thing. The owner and the distiller are one and the same. With Wild Turkey, the owner is Kampari, they're whatever, just some large company that uh owns a bunch of brands, but they're allowing the Russell family to take control of these bottles and letting them be the artist that put to put their name on it.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Can you imagine what Diageo would be if they did the same thing? Like they could succeed far more than what they are if they allowed the same thing, the comparisons for wild territory.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Right. I mean, we'll we'll talk about some other Diageo products during this series, but something that I think more of these big conglomerates should pay attention to is that the master distiller is the artist, right? And you should let them put their name on stuff. You're just the canvas, like let the artist. And let them like I think the master distiller should be a bigger name than they are. Like, I think I the fact that we don't know who the master distiller is on most bottles, if it's not a beam product or a wild turkey product, I oh there's a lot of the other ones we don't really know who they are, other than maybe some like small craft distilleries and stuff. But the bigger names, we don't really know who those master distillers are overall because their name isn't on it. They're what they're marketing for the brand versus like I said, the artist, right? And I think they're missing out on that because you're probably paying that guy a lot of money. You should let him like do their own. I'm lighting those playful.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Did it light it on fire? No, no, we're good.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

I'm really surprised if you said you're just sitting there, you're just sitting there on fire.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

Golly, really impressive apart over here, having a hard time over there. Speaking of, what do you think about this tobacco? I love this tobacco, it's a very nice smoke. I'm having a hard time keeping it lit because it's that pack, and I don't think I packed it right. But I also saw Chris use a cigar line.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

I was gonna say, so what what I did was um just shoved it in there. I shoved it in there and it didn't work out, so I pulled it all back out and I actually like rubbed it out because it is kind of like that crumble cake. I rubbed it out and I stuffed it again, and then I lit it really good, and now it's going really really good. Now it's going really good. Well, I had to I had to pull it out, and you almost have to expand that tobacco a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

Yeah, because it's a crumble cake, so it's all kind of pressed together.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

So I did look it up there if you're curious, because it's actually way more intense than I realized.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

I didn't realize how uh like what the tobacco is?

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Yeah, so like it just as far as the components go. So there's Virginia, dark-fired Kentucky, Burley, Oriental Cigar Leaf, and Black Cavendish. All in this, all in this.

unknown 27:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

I had no idea it was gonna be that complex. It's a lot of different things going on. Yeah, that's a lot going on there. They're calling it a plug, but maybe it was the age on that thing. Normally, plugs are really hard. You can't like pull them apart like that. And it was almost like a crumble. What's a plug? It's like a cut of tobacco. It's like an it's in like in a cube, and the only way to really like you have to use a knife to like break it up, usually. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:54

I I'll be honest with you, Chris. I gave you a lot of shit for this bottle when you first got it. And now it's changing your opinion, isn't it? You want to know why it's changing my opinion? So when you first got it, I was not into smoking, did nothing with smoking, right? I saw charcoal filter and I saw Mankanahey, and I was like, you got a Jack Daniels wild turkey version of Jack Daniels on your hand. Mesquite wood is one of my favorite woods to smoke with. A lot of people hate it. It's too intense. Unless you're from Texas, they're like tone it down. I mean, it is a hard wood to burn in the sense that it takes a long time to burn, and there's so much smoke that comes off of it with flavor and the intensity off of it. This guy's not sweet. This is I I when we were trying to figure out what what how we would do this, right? How we would divide this out, which episode for which, I thought this is gonna be sweet. This is not the same sweet that I thought or remember from when I when this all first started, and when you first started on your your long branch multiple bottle journey.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

That's what I thought was odd when you kept seeing how sweet it was. And I was like, I mean, it's sweet like wild turkey sweet, because wild turkey is kind of sweet.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

But this is not like I think like Jack Daniels sweet. No, it's not that's what I thought of of like this is Jack Daniels sweet, maybe gentleman Jack sweet, like it's not like extreme, but it's still there. This is not that. This is not what I what I had preconceived ideas of. No, it's just wild turkey with a with a spin.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

It is a little more on the smoky side, like it has some smokiness to it. Yeah, I really enjoy it. Me too. And um, you can see why I'd go and then I'm kind of surprised about the price, it's under $40.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can start going in some kind of therapy on the rear for now.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Yeah, you can go through this a lot.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

I mean, it's good. I really could because this is so this is the logovillant for American whiskey for me. This has got that like that barbecue kind of feel without being too intense. This is like I could sit at a campfire and I could drink this and I can enjoy this, but it's not gonna light my world on fire with proof or with heat. It's gonna be back in the the background. It's got a long finish, and I know what I have is is good. It's gonna take me a while to like sit through this kind of feel.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

This doesn't have a very long finish, which is very nice, but it's kind of like the Leather and Oak in the last one. It has some it has good flavors, but a short finish, which I think is kind of what we're looking for in more of a camping world kind of thing, because you don't want it to overpower. What drew you to this when you you first started drinking the long branch?

SPEAKER_01 30:40

If I remember right, you know, I was always into wild turkey. Yeah, and when we first started really getting into bourbon, I was into wild turkey. I think it was just a natural progression. I just think that's all it was. I remember I was going there, I was getting bottles like three, four times a week. I remember getting like wild turkey. I got wild turkey one on one. And at the time I was like, ooh, this is hot. You know what I mean? Like, so I liked it. Uh, I wouldn't drink it all the time. But I was coming home from work and I'd have like a glass of wild turkey or something. It was kind of like my thing. And then I remember getting some Russell's, different Russell's that would had just come out. Russell stuff had just come out. And uh I started buying up different wild turkey stuff. I got the long branch because it was on the shelf, and I was like, out of all of it, it was like the thing that I liked the most, and I would go through the most often. And then, you know, like rare breed came out, I dabbled into that. Eventually, I went to the wild turkey distillery and did the tour, and that's where I got like Kentucky Spirit and things like that. Started getting a little bit more into the different things that Wild Turkey offers. But if I remember right, going back to that, it was very much like basic offering plus, right? Which at the time, that's what I was into very much. Like, okay, everybody, you know, because if you remember back then, people weren't really drinking bourbon like they are now. And a lot of people, if they did drink every day, they were drinking like the basic stuff, like they were drinkers, you know what I mean? Like we're like wild turkey, wild turkey one on one, you know what I mean? So I was kind of into the whole, this is that plus, right? The like what's one level up from like what everybody's doing? You know what I mean? Now that's like people are way beyond that, you know what I mean? But I always liked the idea of like this is like what this company puts out this is specialty with a twist. Yeah, the specialty before specialty was a thing. Before, like, like I was really kind of before like single barrel things were a thing, you know what I mean? It was all about small batch, was the word back then.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

This was even before like Master Skeep.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Yeah, this was this was before Masters Keep.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Yeah, I mean, this was this was this was probably when this was fairly new, you know what I mean? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

This is 2018, 2018 is when this came out.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Then yeah, I remember this was brand new when I got it.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

This was brand new when I was working at the boat. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

So I was drinking like well into drinking bourbon before this even came out. So the fact that I never realized this was Matthew McConaughey's. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Joe's cracking it up, and it still does because I'm I'm still trying to process through like you got this weird thing happening in like 2018 of like select so like I have to endorse it's a celebrity endorsement for alcohol, and McConaughey was not wild turkey, it was this. It wasn't like I'm all about everything, it's just this one. And then you had uh uh who is it me Mila Mila Cunes? Yeah, Mia Kunas, yep, she does beam, yeah. Um, and she started coming out with that, like beam started putting that out, which was okay. But then you had like a few other like celebrities of like, oh, check this out, oh check this out, and it was like the entire brand. Whereas MacGonaghey was like, No, this is mine, like this this specific one, and he doesn't push it as hard as you'd like he used to, he really when it first started, he would push it. I remember seeing like advertisements for him within the first year, like 2018, maybe a little to 2019, but after that, you don't see anything.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

Yeah, I'm curious. I don't know if he's still I'm I'm assuming he still works for Wild Tarky, but he's really become a good brand guy, like in terms of that. Like he did the Lincoln commercials, he had really well with those. Now he does all the Salesforce commercials and does a lot of Salesforce stuff.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Him and uh who's the other guy? Uh his buddy Zombieland. He played in Zombie Land. Oh uh yeah, yeah. Woody Heroes. Uh, Woody, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

Him and Woody are like childhood friends, yeah. Yeah, so they're doing some stuff for Salesforce together, but yeah, so like he's just he he kind of and I'm curious if he is like writing those commercials and stuff, because that was his deal with Wild Turkey. Was he was the creative director, he it was his job to write the commercials, to star in the commercials, do all the stuff, and so I don't know if he's still doing that as much with the other ones, right? But he he does a good job of that part of it, like being being the face of a of a brand like that.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

I could be going out on a limb here with McConaughey. Do you guys ever feel like McConaughey's voice and and what he says is gonna be the um just spaced on his name. Crap. Uh Morgan Freeman. He's gonna be the white Morgan Freeman. Yeah, because of his voice. Yeah, he has a good voice. He has a good voice from our voice, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

And he's slower, he likes to slow it down. Yep. He does a lot of like inspirational stuff and all that too. He has a voice that would be really good for AI. Like if they were like if they were gonna start doing all that stuff, like he would be like uh imagine like your stuff and Matthew kind of Google Maps, like take a left turn, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

It's got a little bit of that Tennessee whistle going on when he speaks then take a left turn up ahead. You're gonna want to make a left here.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Yeah, that's uh it's yeah, uh, he's he's a good actor. Uh as he's getting older, he's getting a little weird. Hollywood does that to people, but if you think of some of his older stuff, uh when he was in the heart of it, like frailty, such a good movie. Um, or I just I did watch a movie with him recently. Uh that was a few years ago that was really good called Serenity. Oh, yeah. Did you ever watch that? Where he's on the island and he's yeah, that was quite a bit quite interesting. Yeah, I mean, I kind of figured it out like probably earlier than I should have, but even still watching it was wow, it was a good movie. Yeah. And he is a good actor. He is a really good actor. You end up feeling kind of like what he's going through, which that's all that you needed in an actor.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

Like I feel like he's not very much of a like a method actor, he's more like emotional. He's an emotional actor. Yeah, he is an emotional actor.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Like you can see it all over his face. Like that's exactly what you would be feeling in that situation. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

And uh, I think you're talking at the beginning that he was kind of being typecast in the rom com sort of world. And like he did good at that. It was because of his start, like days confused and all that stuff. So he had that start, but like he got into more serious action failure to launch and things that he did do so.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Fool's gold. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

Yeah, false gold. There was a great movie that he was in. Sahara. Sahara? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Freaking love Sahara. So do I. It's such a good movie.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Those movies are they don't make them anymore, but they're they're like the romance adventure romancing the stone. You ever watch that one? Those kinds of movies where it's like there is like the Indiana Jones with a little bit more poured on for the romance. That's what it is. It's the adventure romance. I don't even know if there's a category for that because there's rom-coms, but like it's the adventure romance. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

Mel Brooks, Mel Brooks did a lot of those early on. Like Bird on a Wire was a great one. Yeah, so there's a lot of those. And like Indiana Jones kind of did it with the Temple of Doom one. I think there's a little bit more romance going on than that one.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Not not uh not to that extent. No, like romancing the stone where you feel good, but also like there's a good adventure going on. Crocodile Dundee is another one that's kind of like that. Yeah, the adventure romance, like this could be a book kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

Yeah, which Sahara is a book. Oh, it is, yeah. So I didn't know that. Yeah, Dirk Pitt, which was his name, in that turns out there's a whole series of books called Dirk Pitt novels written by this guy. And um, Clive Custer. Clive Custer, Clive Cussler is his name. It's one of those books, it's all the paperbacks if you look in Lake a Walmart or whatever. Dime store. Yeah, it's he's one of those authors. But he has a whole series called Dirk Pitt novels, and it's all that. Like I and I've never read one. Um, I I've I've picked up the Sahara one just because I want to read it, and I I read like three chapters, and I was like, this is very loosely based. This is these are very different books, but uh, but it was good though, like that little bit I read. But the mummy, that's another one.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, things like that. Yeah, yeah. Good movies, good movies, good actor. I like the whiskey. I think it's great for camping, though. I thought we were talking about so this was actually later than I realized when I was, I thought I was talking about like 2015. Oh no, this is this is 2017. So, what's interesting is this tobacco came out and was sold before that that uh bottle ever hit the ever was a thing. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, yeah. This was introduced in early of 20 uh 2017 to the end of 2016. And that's what that bottom of that thing says 2017 when I bought it. So, and this didn't come out to 2018. That's nuts.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

Here's what I can say I feel like this is great for camping, but this is also great for barbecue. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is a barbecue. Whatever you're smoking right now, I feel like it's like in last time it was like there was that peppery, but this peppery goes great with a mesquite where it's like I feel like I'm drinking like a pulled pork or like a brisket.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Somehow I paired this without even realizing.

SPEAKER_03 40:04

Yeah, this is a very, very good tobacco, very good bottle and a great pairing.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

It's a good pairing, yeah. It's that dark fired Kentucky that's really kind of like if we go camping, we can skip the food, we'll just have the bottle and you guys can smoke the tobacco.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

And I'll be like, this is a great meal right now.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

I think this would go with really good with grilled smoked wings. Yeah, and uh, you know, I'm not a big barbecue guy, I do like that quite a bit. There's certain barbecue I love and there's certain barbecue I don't, right? But grilled smoke wings, absolutely almost even like not with the sauce on, maybe the sauce on the side.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

Like a dry rubber kind of oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

This is good.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

This is uh, but I've always liked it. So let me ask you this. I didn't ask last episode for camping. What kind of camping food would you have this guy with? Would you be like, I'm excited to have this with this?

SPEAKER_01 40:53

This, you know, this would go good with asada. That might not be a camping food, but like you could, like a you know what I'm talking about, a steak, yeah, asada on in a frying pan on a campfire, which I think is totally like in Mexican cowboy, like cowboy beans, yeah, yeah. Cowboy beans and some freaking Mexican steak. Something more hearty, yeah, yeah. Because it's kind of like that Mexican, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's more Texas, you know what I mean? This is yeah, cattle beef, yeah. But I like the uh the spices that you get with the asada. So it's basically just steak, you know what I mean? Like a thin thin cut of flank steak or something, and then with the different chili seasonings and whatnot on it. I think that would go good with some cowboy beans. You don't talk about cowboy beans, yeah. That would be it. Maybe a couple of eggs, why the hell not? You know, fried eggs?

SPEAKER_00 41:40

Yeah, fried eggs.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

No, pretty, I think it's a steak, and then whenever I have a steak camping, I also make a foil pack. So it's like uh it's just a foil thing with potatoes and and veggies all in there and just kind of steamed or cooked on over the fire like that. And the two of those things together go really good. Yeah, it's like just like fried potatoes.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah, onions, yeah, kind of like hash browns, but you cook them in a foil packet, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Yeah, when I so anytime I've usually when I'm camping, I'm camping with other people, so it's usually either my wife or with my dad. And when I was with my dad, it was always very bland because my dad hated spice. Anything above salt and pepper, maybe a touch of garlic powder, and that that seasoned salt was about as high as he went. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

So I know my limits.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

Yeah, so our foil packs with dad was just basically potatoes, maybe a bell pepper. Like that was pretty much pretty much a little bit too spicy, yeah. Yeah, so and now with my wife, it's the same thing, but she likes the spices where we can add some stuff to it, but not like spicy, not jalapenos. Right. It would be very good. And so the next time we go, which is in just a couple weeks, I'll I'm gonna take a jalapeno and make myself like a sliced jalapeno, make a separate one.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

I think sliced jalapeno is in there with some onions and potatoes.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

I always did onions, potatoes, maybe carrots or some bell pepper. I don't like some zucchini or yellow. Zucchini is good, yeah. In there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Yeah, yeah. I like bell peppers though. I like the green ones. Yep. I think they're all the same, but I don't like yellow and I don't like red that much. They're the same, they're different levels of duneness.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

So yell green is uh less ripe. And so they're just not if you leave it for a while, they'll turn red. If they were if they were still in the vine. They're the same thing, they're the exact same thing, even the orange ones, yeah, yeah. They're just different, different stages of duness. It's how slowly I had no idea. It's how quickly they take them off the vine.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

So there's a reason for liking green over the other ones because it's a certain level of doneness.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

Over the other ones. So, like yellow, orange, and red are all the same are are they're That's just like a type of seed or whatever. They're all the same thing. But all of those were at one point a green. Which is why green is so much different than the other ones. Green has a little bit more of a bite to it than the other ones do because it's not quite as done. It's not spice, but more of a yeah, just like a little bit of like a bitterness or a bite to it.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

I just I'm kind of prejudiced against the other ones, to be honest with you. I just when I see them, I'm like, I don't know. It's not appealing to me. No, I just give me the green. I don't know what it is. Like which works out because the green's usually cheaper. So oh, that's fair. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Green is usually a cheaper one. So works out.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Now it makes sense. All this talk about camping and camp food, though, it really makes me kind of want to go.

SPEAKER_03 44:41

Right. Right. Yeah. My dad and I did a trip every year together. And so it was always like a trip for just the two of us. And he just recently passed uh a few weeks ago. So I was thinking about next year on how to how to go about doing that. Like, what do I want to do? Do I want to take a solo trip? Do I want to just invite what do I want to do with that? And so um, actually, I think I've at least a little bit decided. I'm gonna do something. I'm gonna go on a trip. I don't know if I'll be by myself or if I'll take friends or what exactly I'll do there. But continuing on that tradition and going more, my wife and I already camp all the time. So we have lots of trips planned already for this summer, and we'll do more next year too. But going on more of those solo trips or uh, I think I'm gonna do a backpacking trip next year, is I think how I'm gonna do that. Okay, yeah. That sounds fun so, but yeah, and so I'll need a definitely need a bottle to to take on those. There you go. So or two. It sounds like it might be multiple, you know.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Yeah, we'll so we'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Yeah, I think a winter camping trip is a cool idea too. I've never done winter camping. I think it'd be fun. I would love to go ice fishing, like an ice fishing fishing trip.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

That'd be kind of cool. Winter camping is my favorite because one, I don't mind the cold. I don't I don't mind cold weather, but there's no bugs and there's no people, yeah. So it's it's just the best.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

As long as you dress right, you can buy really like warm stuff nowadays. Absolutely, yeah. You have a fire going all the time, you have insulated tents. I I would be cool for it. I'd be down for it. Yeah, it'd be something to think about, especially ice fishing camping. Yeah, that'd be kind of cool. It would be cool. Do both can we cut a hole in the tent and fish while we they do they and they make that, they make like things that you put over the hole.

SPEAKER_03 46:22

Ice shanties keep you warm, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

And the ice is so thick you have like a heater. You can have a fire or a heater or whatever on the uh on the lake, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

Oh, it'd be perfect. Yeah, yeah. Just wake up and uh yeah, I don't know. It's becoming harder and harder to do just because yeah, because it doesn't get as cold in the winter time around here anymore. All right, we'd have to go. So yeah, uh you can still do it up on Lake Erie a little bit Michigan area, right? Um but yeah, you really have to go up to like Lake Superior or Lake Michigan to really be able to do it for any to like make sure you can do it. Lake Erie, there's like maybe a week every year that you can do it.

SPEAKER_01 46:56

So Long Branch is a winner.

SPEAKER_03 46:59

Long branch is a camping winner, kind of a winner in general.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

I really liked it. Yeah, it's good. It's it's a you'll be surprised how much you go through it. Nick knows because it is a very easy drinker.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

It is, it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:11

It's not again, it's not as sweet as what I it's one that like there's been many nights I've been on the couch with that thing, and you put you know, you bring the bottle with you, and then you just you're pouring and drinking and watching and pouring and drinking, and then the next thing you know it's empty, and you're like, Oh, I gotta buy another one of these. Many times that has happened.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Nick's like, what do you pop more?

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Kind of upset, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we worry. I'm surprised you uh I always thought it was sweet. Did you never try it? I did, and I remember being like sweeter in my head. I remember being sweeter than what it is. Now you know. I'm good. Now you know you've been missing out this whole time. Yeah, I've been duped. All right, all right, all right.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

All right, all right. Till next time. Till next time.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

We'll continue the camping with you.

SPEAKER_03 47:51

Yes. Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you want more great content and other perks, be sure to support the show by clicking the link in the show notes. We can be reached on our website, whiskeychasterspumad.com, with any ideas for the show. Thanks again.