The Scotchy Bourbon Boys
The Scotchy Bourbon Boys love Whiskey and every thing about the industry! Martin "Super Nash", Jeff "Tiny", Rachel "Roxy" Karl "Whisky" and Chris "CT" all make up The Scotchy Bourbon Boys! Join us in talking everything and anything Whiskey, with the innovators, and distillers around the globe. Go behind the scenes of making great whiskey and learn how some of the best in the whiskey industry make their product! Remember good whiskey means great friends and good times! Go out and Live Your Life Dangerously!
The Scotchy Bourbon Boys
Ashley Barnes explains how refurbished French oak, rapid Amburana cycles, and patient blending create luxury profiles without losing Kentucky bourbon’s soul
Ashley Barnes walks us through the craft behind Lucky Seven’s luxe finishes and Curley’s everyday versatility while we trade festival stories, hotel speakeasy tips, and single-barrel wins. From refurbished French oak to five-day Amburana cycles, we dig into how consistency, balance, and smart lab design keep each pour true.
• Lucky Seven’s luxury profile, cigar-lounge vibe, and age statements
• Refurbished French oak on The Frenchman for layered depth
• Amburana strategy on The New Yorker with rapid, repeated cycles
• Finishing to profile and pulling barrels at readiness
• Single-barrel identification during blend building
• Blending lab design for speed, control, and consistency
• Curley’s heritage revival, D.J. Curley’s bluegrass legacy
• Curley as a versatile, citrus-friendly house bourbon at $39.99
• Festival community, bottle signings, and bourbon-minded hospitality
Lucky Seven Small Batch available here at Kentucky Bourbon Festival
Ever wonder how a master blender keeps luxury bourbon silky, expressive, and consistent without sanding off its soul? We sit down with Ashley Barnes to unpack the real work behind Lucky Seven’s hallmark finishes and the revival of Curley, a heritage Kentucky name with bluegrass roots and modern bar-cart value. Ashley opens the doors to her process—why refurbished French oak gives The Frenchman more depth than new wood, how five-to-seven-day Amburana cycles capture pastry-shop spice without burying the bourbon, and the way “finish to profile” timing creates batches that feel both reliable and alive.
We dig into the nuts and bolts of selection—how single barrels are discovered during blend building, why outliers become treasured releases, and how consistency comes from decisions, not luck. Ashley also shares the physical side of craft: a purpose-built blending lab with custom cabinetry and clean workflow that protects sensory focus, speeds iteration, and keeps notes tight over months of tasting. The result is a portfolio that hits an old-Hollywood, cigar-lounge mood for Lucky Seven while staying unmistakably Kentucky.
Then we time-travel with Curley, honoring D.J. Curley’s early 1900s ambition and reintroducing a house bourbon designed for real life—neat, rocks, or citrus-forward cocktails—at a price that invites it into weekly rotation. Add Kentucky Bourbon Festival stories, friendly chaos in signing lines, and a hotel speakeasy built for bourbon-minded conversation, and you’ve got an episode that blends technique, history, and community in equal parts. If you love learning how great whiskey is truly made—and why some bottles keep tasting great—hit play, subscribe, and tell us your favorite finish or cocktail. Your pour might just inspire the next blend.
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I am here to tell you about Whiskey Distilling Company on their open TikTok. Whether you are up for a fireclass distilling experience on the Three Boys Farm in Frankfurt, Kentucky, or an out-of-the-world TikTok experience on the disappointment. At both locations, their barrel picks all day, every day are like none of them. Each location stacked up with five barrels. Once the barrels have your own bottle. A day at which with their friendly staff and ownership will ensure you many good times with good friends and family. Remember to always drink responsibly, never drink and drive, and live your life uncut and unfiltered Facebook Live, and then also on the podcast.
SPEAKER_03:We've already so I Ashley Barnes is with us from Curly. I always want to call you Amanda. I just have this mixed up. But also it's not just Curly. No, Lucky Seven. Lucky Seven, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Lucky Seven and Curly from both brands. Now uh they're they're half siblings.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, definitely. But it what it's different whiskey, right? Thanks.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's different profiles, different kind of vibe.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so same sources, but different mash mill type stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Similar mash bills, but it's blended and curated so that it fits a different, a different vibe. Lucky seven's more luxurious. It's sit down, have a cigar, smoke, you know, uh more age statement too. Some of the statements on Lucky Seven, um, you know, kind of hang out in the cocktail bar. You know, old Hollywood vibe. Yeah. And it's really fun. And I get to do a lot of finishes with Lucky Seven. We've got some that have become quite popular, our holiday toast, uh, which is a double oak.
SPEAKER_05:And it's phenomenal. If you like double oak and you don't have a holiday toast, you are missing out. Gotta get one.
SPEAKER_00:And it makes great barbecue, I hear, from some ladies in Kansas City. So if you if you're not scared, I'm not scared. Oh, yeah. I mean, these ladies knew barbecue, and they were like adamant.
SPEAKER_05:So they added it to their barbecue sauce? Oh, I understand.
SPEAKER_00:I think they smoked some brisket with it, but wow.
SPEAKER_03:So have you been with them from the start?
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so that makes sense. So, and then my uh when you're talking Lucky Seven, uh the Frenchman, I mean that's my you when you start getting into oak like that, I've never ever had tasted there, I've tasted a lot of different batches, but your consistency is pretty much straight across the board.
SPEAKER_00:And that that is intentional. I so with the Frenchman, we used refurbished French oak cast. And I actually tried using unfit unrefurbished, just new oak French oak cast, and I didn't get the same depth and complexities on the finish. Another thing that I do across the board is I finished a profile. So the Frenchman Small Batch, Holiday Toast Small Batch, or the New Yorker small batch, I finished, I pull it out of the barrel when it's ready. So that batch might have barrels that are three months finished or 12 months finished. It depends when that barrel is ready. Now, the New Yorker, which is our Embarana hask, that starts, I start tasting those barrels in five days. Typically between five to seven days, I'll pull it out and I'll put more liquid in those barrels. And I will reuse that barrel five times or so, however much I feel is needed, or when the flavors start mixing. So I'm blending going in and I'm blending coming out to achieve that balance and consistency and depth in the flavor.
SPEAKER_03:So you're just you're you put it into the holding, so you'll then you'll put another batch in and wait till that's and put it in with the so that the final batch is consistently the way you want the right. And I suppose you if you're tasting the holding tank and you think it needs a little bit more, you can let the other one in a little bit longer, that type of thing.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm blending it, I'm creating what liquid I feel like is needed to go in that that final batch to adjust and maintain, and also just reusing those casts, you're getting different flavors by pulling it out when that batch is ready. This first batch might bring out that sweet cinnamon. The next one, and I'm blending going in to highlight those flavors, so it's usually those later rounds where I'm pulling out more of the creaminess from the Braziliano, and you know, I know that's coming, and so I'm building up that blend, I'm layering those flavors to create that depth and complexity.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, amazing! Wow, and and you've got a lot because you with Lucky 7 alone, I mean, from proprietor down the line to just a small batch, which today you've got a ton of stuff to, and then you throw in single barrels, which obviously that's infinite.
SPEAKER_00:And then the way I do single barrels, so in my process, I look at every barrel. So to do a blend, I'm looking at all those barrels. Inevitably, I'm gonna find barrels that stand out in that process, and I'll set them aside, come back the next day to reevaluate, and those are our single barrels.
SPEAKER_05:And those are here today at KBF because you can buy a single barrel from Curly and six-year proprietor for Lucky Seven, and then and I was standing in line just a minute ago with people, and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna get a pour. I haven't had it since it since we picked it. Yeah, and so I haven't had it, and the people in line, it was funny. They were like, Oh, that blue one is amazing, that single barrel, because it's got that blue strip. And I'm like, Yes, and so Mike is standing there, and Mike's like, oh yeah, Chris was on the pick team, and they were like, This is awesome!
SPEAKER_00:And I'm like, I remember no way there was some attention on the final two barrels.
SPEAKER_03:Like, yes, wasn't that Stacy's birthday too? It was, yeah.
SPEAKER_05:I'm watching now, and I was like, ah we might have been persuaded by birthday cake.
SPEAKER_00:I'm just saying, it could have been we may have had a little party at the blending house, and everybody had our hats on.
SPEAKER_04:There's video, there's video out there to prove it, but that's I think there was also some still shot pictures that were taken from that desk with those party hats on. For sure. Yeah, I think I saw some.
SPEAKER_05:But that is like a uh that's what you get here at KBF. You not only do you get to meet you and and what you do, Ashley. No, I mean, but it is. It's like, but that is, it's like people get to meet Ashley. It's like you are such a big thing in this world, in the bourbon world, and people can come up, and just like as I've been talking to her, people coming up, sign this bottle, sign this bottle, sign this bottle. That's amazing. Like, that's so good.
SPEAKER_03:But even even talking about the New York, she's she brought up the New Yorker, and you're talking about Amberana. That that's been one of their signature batches from the start. So you were doing Amberana before anybody was, right?
SPEAKER_00:No, it actually kind of the hype around Amberana was peaking, and I'm gonna tell off a little bit here. Um, so Michael Lahanelli he called me. I was like, hey, I've got a couple Amberana barrels coming in. I had never had Amberana finished anything. I had two kids that live under a rock. And so I was like, okay, but the way I do things is I research and I learn, and I knew that as far as what was out on the market, people were kind of starting to get burned out because everybody was doing it. Yeah, but I never had one, so I researched it. I learned that Avon is a strong flavor, I learned that it finishes quickly, and then I applied, you know, I'll chemistry is a tool that I use, it supports the art and craft of blending. And so I applied that to the process that I use to create the New Yorker, so you get the nice, it's an oatmeal raisin cookie, you know, a little Debbie oatmeal raisin cookie a box of oatmeal raisin cookies. But you and you still get the bourbon, you get a nice creamy vanilla cone, like that is a Kentucky bourbon, and a little Debbie oatmeal cream pie, and it's just a lovely afternoon at grandma's house.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I I would say when it comes to I I didn't ever realize it, but we were in we were on a pick at uh wherever, and they had just delivered four Amarano cereals and to the Rick House, okay? So we walk into the Rick House, basically it destroyed the smell of the Rick. All you smell was the Amaron and that that French show the pick card because that's all you could get out of your nose. Yeah, yeah. So um right. So if so, when you work with that, do you kind of have to just isolate on that? I mean, honestly, with your your taste buds and you know your ability to taste, we talked about that before. It has to be able to in one day destroy anything for the rest of the day.
SPEAKER_00:So one of the wonderful things, uh, when we built the blending house in Shelbyville, I have my my blending lab. Uh well, it's my working blending lab, phase two. I have the nice fancy one. Hopefully. And so, you know, I I've got an entry neutral in there, and the barrels, when we bring them in, will be in the processing area. But it'll also be kind of time so that I'm not doing anything super intense, so that I don't risk influencing that that work. But like I said, we're finishing five to seven days, pulling it out, putting it back in, so we're utilizing it very efficiently and quickly as well.
SPEAKER_03:So I imagine your processing area like an airlock to a star cruiser.
SPEAKER_05:I would love it to be even more secure, but you know what I what I find amazing, and going on the pick, we got to to talk about different things with Curly, Lucky Seven, who I've been a fan of.
SPEAKER_03:He was at the blending house, right?
SPEAKER_05:Yes, yes, yes, and and I've been a fan of Lucky Seven for a long time. Mike and JP are probably two of the people that I got introduced early on with the group that brought me in and were like, hey, you I I felt like holy crap, like how how do I know these guys in the way I do because they were just so welcoming and their product I love. They still are, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Two of the nicest guys you've got to be able to do. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I remember that first year that you were part just not part of us, but part of us, and you were over there, and it and you were like, You gotta give Mike a JP, you gotta bring some over. But I mean, he was spending all his time over there.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I've noticed that. Oh, yeah, everybody comes, if they always stop by, and then as things start dwindling down, everybody comes and just hangs out in our kid, and I would not change it. It's like everybody's family.
SPEAKER_05:But but when we did the pick, the thing that I was gonna say that I thought was so cool is like so Ashley has her own woodwork in the barrel house. So she has some some nice, like holy crap, it's like these are cabinets designed to hold tasting from her house. Like, she brought them and incorporated them so that she knew they hold a certain amount of tasting bottles that she could do, and she has her own lab.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's so it's like so it's like a movie set. You just took your kitchen and your home where you had been working for a while and just transferred it right into a building.
SPEAKER_00:Kind of so when I moved to Harritzburg in 2020, um, I had a formal sitting room, and I'm like, who needs this? So one of the first big investment Monica and I did for the Spirits Group was converting my formal living room into a blending lab. Yeah and I worked with a carpenter and designed these, and they are on the frame of a standard, like just cabinets. They look like a cabinet cabinet, but then the internal structure is built so it will hold uh I think 250, 200mm glass models of bourbon completely filled, and each one has two. And they slide out, so they pull out, you can look down, identify what you need, pull and go.
SPEAKER_03:Now more like a it's like uh really um the front face is covered to not look like a blender, uh a sterile uh but it's a lab lab. But then as soon as you pull it out, now you have your lab filling.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And we've actually moved them out of the bottom lab since then. Remember the big bar? Oh, yeah. So they're actually behind there with the butcher block countertop, uh behind the big table.
SPEAKER_05:The portable bar is not there.
SPEAKER_00:Well, the portable bar is sitting in our tent right now. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05:We broke it down and brought it to you.
SPEAKER_00:But we it will go back there for the workspace for people coming in, Michael and JP, and then you take conference calls, whatever they need to do, but they also now have um my very sentimental cabinets because they won't fit in my city.
SPEAKER_03:Now, Mike and JP live in so Mike is in California.
SPEAKER_00:One's in LA, one's in Chicago.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, but then they meet up here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So they probably should live here.
SPEAKER_00:That I won't that's never gonna happen.
SPEAKER_04:If they lived here, we'd all be in trouble.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I remember that. That's what I was gonna say. The very first time you introduced us to them. We literally hung out with them all day long. Oh, all that evening. Yeah, I mean, dinner and then drinks. There's like the Bullstead, Mr. Tubbs. It wasn't called Mr. Tubbs at the time.
SPEAKER_00:Are you guys coming to the L7 pole?
SPEAKER_05:I will be at the pool party. I am not bringing JP anything other than just sitting by the pool.
SPEAKER_03:We'll we'll make an up, we'll probably make an appearance.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Now where are you guys? You guys aren't staying at the trailer.
SPEAKER_00:Actually, I am.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, then he just mentioned that to us this morning when we were. That is such a nice hotel.
SPEAKER_03:And the pool is very cool. I mean, that's the place to have a party.
SPEAKER_05:So yesterday we did a podcast from the speakeasy. And you gotta go into speakeasy. So we we were there and trying drinks, and it that place is awesome. It's it does not feel like you're in a holiday inn.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, it's it's very nice. And I last night I was so tired, and everybody's like, oh, come have a drink. Well, look, I got all weekend. This is night one. I'm gonna try to get some sleep.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and his name was JP.
SPEAKER_00:I don't even know.
SPEAKER_05:John, he has a different gear, I'm telling you. There is nobody that can do it.
SPEAKER_03:So the beds are so comfortable. That's one thing that we stayed, uh, we came up here and stayed a couple nights, uh, about a month and a half ago, just to see and find out, and then and got to meet Maul, their uh beverage director, and it's been nothing, there's just been nothing but great hospitality. It's it's it is finally a hotel in Barstown that just uh gets bourbon, and it's just wants everybody like if you know you guys, if you ever just you've ever stayed in and you couldn't book a room, you to talk to Mal, and he he goes, We have rooms for people like you.
SPEAKER_00:You know, and that's I did notice that last night when I went in. I was like, there's so many spaces where you can sit and have a glance and enjoy. Yes, and that's something that I think is needed.
SPEAKER_03:Were you in the speakeasy?
SPEAKER_00:I was not. I I will probably venture out. Well, we've got the full party tonight, and then I've got tomorrow night. So I'll venture out more.
SPEAKER_04:It definitely is. He he talked about that when we did the podcast, was that he designed several different areas around the place so that you could do that with little groups of people or by yourself to sit back and relax and enjoy and take in the moment by yourself or with other people and all, and then not have to be worried about anybody else and just enjoy the time there.
SPEAKER_00:And that's that's the best thing because then you can still get your drinks, go to the bar, get your craft cocktail, yeah, and enjoy it without like, oh, I gotta go, it's time for a drink, but I don't want to go stand at the bar and wait an hour.
SPEAKER_05:And you're with like-minded people. Yes, that's the other thing. Like you go to friends. Exactly. Like you go, you go to a lot of hotels, and you may go to the bar and get a drink, and they're drinking other things completely different. But at that hotel, it's like everybody is bourbon-minded somewhat, so you you make a lot of friends easily. Yeah, okay. Okay, we know she's gotta go. We gotta talk curly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just we do need to talk curly.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, which tell tell us a little bit. You only had 15 minutes, okay? I'm sorry. So you're gonna have to talk about this, and then we'll go. And we'll we'll yes, we'll take it and we'll be done in a minute. Real quick, 10 seconds, Lucky Seven Small Batch available here at Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Thank you. Right.
SPEAKER_00:We'll get Michael and JP to come in and they can talk about it all.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, that I just remember later. Yes. My favorite thing was when you guys introduced it at the festival. Nobody really knew much. Uh and it became your drink, your your beverage, you had a specific cocktail, and that was really refreshing. And it became like the whole talk of the festival that you can sell, yeah, yeah. And so that was that was pretty cool. So to talk about how you got to be associated.
SPEAKER_00:So Pearlie came across uh my desk as I was a consultant coming in. Um, it was an opportunity to revive a heritage brand. And as a native Kentuckian, that it's I never thought I would have that opportunity. When I left Four Roses, you know, I was like, I may never get to work for a heritage anything again. Well, DJ Curley was an Irishman who came over during the Civil War. He was distilling, you know, 1867, and at the same time as E.H. Taylor, and in the same volume, if not more, even. So he was the first person to coin the term bluegrass in marketing. And I'm like, dude, we're the bluegrass state. This guy was moving, shaking, doing stuff ahead of his time, and he kind of got lost in history. He even uh clocked a sale of 8,600 barrels in I think 1907. No one was moving those that volume of barrels in 1907. You know, he was amazing and forward-thinking. And I think when uh he passed, he was like in Monte Carlo, like he sold everything off and lived his happy little rich life. And I'm like, cheers to him. I get to pay homage to him to honor his legacy and memory and what he created, the multiple distilleries he had, the multiple brands, and and highlight that. And so I was like, I want to make a bourbon that would be a house bourbon that it's versatile, it's solid, neat, you can put an ice cube in it, and it's still gonna hold its complexity, but also you gotta be able to do cocktails with it too. Yeah, and we I love doing citrus type stuff with it, but it also does well in so many other flavor profiles. Uh Lexington Bourbon Week, we were we were did that last year, the year before, and man, this is such a flexible pour, and at$39.99 on the shelf.
SPEAKER_04:There's always always a bottle on my show. So we gotta cheers to that. Yeah, cheers to that.
SPEAKER_05:Cheers to Curly for bringing us a brand that I mean at this price point is amazing. So and wonderful flavor, too.
SPEAKER_03:All right, guys. Uh there's the first uh we did a Friday podcast finally from the festival. Usually we get going on Saturday and Sunday, but we we have we got it going, we're organized, right? Although I how organized, I think it was, hey, at uh it was what 20 to 3? Hey, can you do or 20 to 2? Can you do a three o'clock podcast?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, as he's like getting it between between people bottles.
SPEAKER_05:You're signing, I'm like, you're not gonna get you're not getting and all of a sudden he's like sitting there signing bottles, and I'm just kind of like hanging out, like, hey, uh, you wanna come on? He's like, you know what? She wanted to tell me. You know what it was?
SPEAKER_00:You know how when it's time to feed the dog and it just sits there and stares at you? It made me feel like I was at home.
SPEAKER_03:So, in other words, you had to feed the puppy.
SPEAKER_05:I am totally going. I'm going down to the other end of this festival and I'm gonna hide for the rest of the time.
SPEAKER_00:It was a good thing because I'm as my boys and I miss our dog.
SPEAKER_03:This is uh plus sometimes the rest of this festival, when you see him, you gotta ask him about yesterday when he saved a woman from uh car crash.
SPEAKER_05:No, don't don't ask him about that.
SPEAKER_03:He was he was he was CT was a true hero. There you go. No, that is a four-party conversation. It had a good outcome and everything, but what he did was amazing. Yeah, what it was.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, but no, yeah, but I need the story, but it's a four-party conversation.
SPEAKER_04:But uh we're not getting into the story even better. But cheers again, so much actually for your time and just have to say history too.
SPEAKER_05:Two years ago, I want you two fools to know that I didn't know Ashley that well, but they had a E.J. Curly embossed Yeti tumbler that you could buy that was 20 bucks. You remember those? They were like a blue colored one. I remember yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had her go and I said, I'll I'll buy one, but you have to sign it the way I want it signed. And she's like, yo, however, you want it signed. I'm like, to my favorite Scotchy bourbon boy. That bottle, that bottle is on my shelf. I will not use it. And you too can suck it.
SPEAKER_03:All right, everybody. Uh till the next podcast.
SPEAKER_01:All right.
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