A Delta amalgamation of bourbon fun and bloody mary business
Another trip to the beach just wasn’t in the cards for four Delta area friends. Philip McIntosh, Justin Braswell, Herbie Swain, and Scott Washington decided to forgo the sandy beaches and headed to the mountains of Kentucky for a bourbon tour. And that started a journey of bourbon fun and a Bloody Mary business that is slowly lifting off the ground into a delectable business venture.
“The girls were planning a beach trip,” said McIntosh. “We didn’t want to go to the beach. We’re like, ‘Let’s go to Kentucky and do the bourbon trail.’ So, we did. We thought we knew a little bit about bourbon but it was an eye-opening experience and we found out just how young baby bourbon drinkers we were.”
The “research” trip also benefited the crew, as a mash-up of their names was created to brand their business venture—Jurbie McSwash. The self-described quartet of “bourbon enthusiasts, speakeasy specialists, masters of mischief and some pretty good cooks” continue to work their day jobs while spending their off hours exploring their passions.
“We’re trying to tie it back to the Delta, but everything has been done before as far as Delta this or Delta that. It’s just way too common, way too cliche now to throw Delta in front of something. We’re sitting there looking at each other and I start mashing up names and I come up with Jurbie, which is Justin and Herbie and then McSwash, last name’s McIntosh in Washington. I’m like, ‘Guys, if we ever do anything, we’re going to call it Jurbie McSwash.’ They said, ‘Okay, it sounds stupid.’ But then it stuck and we really liked it.”
Then last year, the idea got a bit more refined when they decided to take the Bloody Mary creation that Herbie Swain had concocted over the years and get it down pat.
“Herbie makes the most fabulous Bloody Mary mix ever and we’ve been drinking his for years. But Herbie doesn’t have a recipe. It’s a little bit of this, a little bit of that. He says, ‘I can’t tell you how I make it,’” said McIntosh.
McIntosh gathered the needed ingredients and followed Herbie’s instructions and worked on perfecting the magic every weekend for half a year.
“I’d get in here and whip up a batch, and (wife) Jody and I would taste it, and we’d let the other guys taste it,” he said.
Finally, last January, the chemistry project was finished and the Bloody Mary mix was complete and ready for the public. They put out a post on Facebook and the public demand began. The quartet of friends created a Jurbie McSwash Facebook page replete with photos of their adventures and Bloody Mary Mix. They started making bourbon picks from their research also. With all of that knowledge, they put out barrel picks and with the help of John Paul Alford of Whole Cellars Package Store in Cleveland, the quartet’s bourbon picks came to town.
“We went down to Kiln, Mississippi to a small distillery down there called Crittenden’s, and picked our first two barrels. Honestly, it could take a month to turn around. It could take six months to turn around, depending on what distillery you’re dealing with, to get a barrel back,” he said. “As far as the bourbon goes, we do not manufacture anything. We do not create anything. We are representatives of John Paul and Whole Cellars. And we go to said distillery and, depending on what their policy is of how you pick, some of them you go straight up to the rick house and actually tap the barrels and taste from there. Other places you go, they will already have four barrels picked for you with blind samples of each.”
Those barrels are bottled and have a special sticker, but the bourbon connoisseurs have created a special label of their own – Harvest Batch 466. The label was created with the help of a local ag drone photographer Rob Van Namen.
“One of his pictures just caught my eyes and I reached out to him and said, ‘Hey how would you like your picture on a bottle of bourbon?’ He said, ‘Heck, yeah!’
That has led to a plan to offer a release of four bottles next year, one each quarter.
“We’re going to call it the Delta Series. All in all, we’re probably going to pick between 10 to 15 barrels next year,” he said.
While making their bourbon picks, the team has been selling their Bloody Mary Mix anywhere they can, including at festivals and farmer’s markets.
“That has really taken off,” said McIntosh. “Right now, I am shopping the Bloody Mary recipe with two different bottling facilities so that we can move out of the general world there into a product that can now go on a shelf and have a shelf life and stability. And from there we can get into restaurants and grocery stores. I already have so many people interested. We’ve shipped our stuff as far as Boise (Idaho) and Pennsylvania. We’re deep down into Florida. I’ve sent several cases down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. I guess you could say putting it out there for people to try marketing. at seeing what kind of a response we’re going to get so that we can pull the trigger and take it to the next step.”
With a year under their belt, Jurbie McSwash is continuing to grow and share their Bloody Mary Mix with the world.
“We launched the Jurbie McSwash Facebook page on January 17th of last year, so we’re fixing to come up on our one-year anniversary of that. That’s been fun. We’ll get out there and review different bottles, telling people what’s going on with barrel releases and the Bloody Mary Mix and such. It’s kind of just a smash-up free-fall of everything we do with pictures and trips and stuff like that, just kind of an online diary, I guess,” said McIntosh.
Working their day jobs – McIntosh at Fleming Lumber, Braswell at Robinson Electric, Washington at Air Repair and the retired Herbie – the quartet will continue their bourbon quest and bringing their Bloody Mary Mix to the world – all from Bolivar County.