Terry Bradshaw

The conversation opens with a recent trout trip, described as the speaker's fourth year at the spot. The method sits between conventional and fly fishing: a fly rod rigged with a "flybobber" (described as basically a big moth that holds the line up) and a fly so small "you can't even see it." The approach is to find the pools where the fish are waiting. Rainbow and brown trout both come up, and there is a plan to return in July for true fly fishing. The other side of the table calls fly fishing "very skillful."

The comparison point is a July trip the year before, when the group "didn't catch hardly anything," maybe five or six fish a day. This year one speaker had a small baby Jesus figure in a pocket and set it on the cooler facing himself.

I carry a baby Jesus with me.

In the story, six large rainbows followed in a row. A son-in-law in the back of the boat asked for the figure to be turned toward him, and six more came in, for a total of 12 rainbows estimated at 15 to 20 inches. The guide was unsettled by it, and the response was a joke: "man, you get the power of Jesus in here." The figure stayed out all day and was given to the guide, who said he would use it every day. That gets light pushback: it should be saved "for special trips," not used daily. The fisherman agrees in a self-deprecating way, saying help is needed for trout but not for bass fishing, and he doesn't want to "push it."

Someone named Jeff sends his regards, and there is a reference to two years of "better late than never" with him. The talk then turns to the whiskey on the table. One speaker says they quit drinking for eight months for health reasons, not because of a problem, and then started again. The bourbon is the speaker's own brand, on the market for about seven years. The bottle being poured is described as a 12-year expression that "just won all the Golden Awards" in spirits and is now 13 years old.

Buffalo Trace comes up as a comparison. There's a joke about not knocking it "unless they're a sponsor," and respect for a company said in the conversation to be older than the country, with a start date given as 1773. The bourbon-history thread continues with a claim that Elijah Craig, described as a preacher who made whiskey, was the father of bourbon. The research reportedly doesn't go back far enough to say so for certain. These are claims made in conversation, and the transcript gives no sourcing for them.

Three expressions are described. The original was a two-year bourbon, and the speaker says a particular yeast made it taste like four to six years, though that is no longer done. There is a six-year and the award-winning 12-year. The proof figures are hard to follow in the transcript. The numbers 145, 108, 103.8 and 149 are all mentioned, and a later remark says one pour is "135 proof." One explanation is clear: the stronger, older product is a single-barrel bourbon bottled the way it came out of the barrel, and it could be diluted with water. The speaker relates 103.8 proof to 51.9 percent alcohol.

Asked why the older whiskey has more alcohol, the conversation points to the aging process and the single-barrel bottling, but it does not explain the mechanism further. On identity, one view is that bourbon is uniquely American, with a further suggestion that it is only bourbon if it is made in Kentucky, a view said to be widely shared by Kentuckians.

Bourbon is only bourbon if it's in America.

There is a side exchange about the tattoos in the building and a joke deal with Jamie, who has no tattoos, to tattoo each other's faces on their backs. Then a Squarespace ad read runs (a free trial at Squarespace.com/Rogan and 10% off with code Rogan). After it, the 12-year is described as a limited edition with roughly 15 cases left, so new products will need to follow.

The origin story of the spirits business starts with family history. The speaker's paternal grandfather was an alcoholic. Before his father died, the speaker asked him what he would think of a move into spirits. The father's answer was blunt, and the idea was dropped.

And he says, absolutely not.

The father died about 12 years ago and the mother two years ago. A few years after the father's death, the speaker remembered a conversation with William Cohen, who is named in the transcript as "Secretary of State." Cohen asked what the speaker did for a living. The answers piled up: broadcaster on Fox, breeder of registered cattle, breeder and trainer of quarter horses, and corporate speaker. Cohen's point, as recounted, was that the speaker should build a brand around himself and stop traveling so much. The speaker says they traveled 250 days the previous year, with their wife along.

The speaker took stock and saw a narrow skill set: football, making people laugh, building speeches for major corporations, and choosing and showing horses and knowing cattle bloodlines. Day-to-day training and breeding are now handled by hired people. The advice stuck, and on a rainy day at home it turned into the question of what to do next.

An older episode shows the same restlessness. About 30 years ago, uneasy about not having a normal job, the speaker asked the owner of a cosmetics company for work that would teach him the industry. The pay was $5,000 a month. It meant wearing a coat and tie because the speaker "wanted to be like everybody." Before that, life had been golf between speaking engagements that might be a week or two apart.

I wanted to see how America works.

The motive is described as guilt, and the speaker calls it "stupid." The image was of people who kiss their families goodbye and leave for work. The office turned out to be across the road from the speaker's golf club, with a view of friends playing the fairway. The job lasted some number of months (the transcript drops the figure). The speaker admits "I couldn't stand it," and the reply is that most people can't. The thought trails off into the common view that athletes have "all this money," but it isn't finished.

Cigars come out, and the talk turns to what spouses allow at home. One speaker says his wife lets him smoke in the house. The other says he cannot, and that the studio's elk heads, artwork and Jimi Hendrix items are there because his wife decorates the house. Left to himself, he says, his house would look "like a 16-year-old boy won the lottery," with racing simulators and fake werewolves. His compromise is a pool room out in the barn where he smokes. Both note that many supposedly Cuban cigars are counterfeit. The cigar being smoked is identified as Foundation Cigars' "tabernacle," from Nicaragua, supplied by a friend of the show.

The longest story in this section is about a friend who built the speaker's house. The friend killed a huge seven-by-seven bull elk with a bow in New Mexico and made a European mount of the antlers. He hung it as the centerpiece between two mounts on either side of his fireplace and sat back to admire the balance. Then his wife walked in: "I want that out of here." The mount now hangs in the garage. The teller offered to hang it in his own living room, since his wife "doesn't care."

A DraftKings ad follows, with a sign-up offer, state-specific gambling-help numbers and terms. After it, the other speaker says he keeps only one mount in his house, the first animal he ever killed.

The hunting discussion stresses effort. Getting close enough to an elk with a bow is "a lot of work" and "not easy," and trips run about a week at a time. New Mexico's Gila Mountains are named as top elk country, along with Arizona, parts of Utah and California, and Montana. One participant who doesn't hunt explains that on his one elk trip he gave his tag to his horse trainer and followed along. The trainer shot a large six-by-six.

That participant draws a personal line. He doesn't like to shoot things and even has a hard time killing a mouse, yet he would kill a snake "in a heartbeat" and crush centipedes. He says this despite coming from a family of hunters: his brother, his father and all his uncles hunted. The other side doesn't argue: "You don't have to do it. It's not necessary." The tangent ends with a photo of a foot-long Hawaiian giant centipede caught on the Big Island.

Then comes a mild argument about killing animals: the alternative to being hunted is not a peaceful death.

if you don't kill them they get killed by something it's usually either winter or mountain lions

The non-hunter's own animals show the point in a different way. He and his wife raised 27 mallard ducks for fun, alongside chickens and guinea fowl. Only five are left, because the ducks keep walking from the lake across a field and onto the road, where cars hit them. Duck eggs come up too. They are described as having a darker yolk, coating the mouth, and "apparently" being very high in protein, which is offered as hearsay rather than a sourced claim.

This is the clearest disagreement in the segment. One household has a rule against wild game: an elk steak from the trainer's hunt sits uncooked because the wife won't allow it in the house. That speaker also dislikes deer, likes buffalo, and found a home-cooked duck "horrible." The other side argues that the problem is preparation. People have "a bad misconception" that wild game smells or tastes bad, and well-prepared deer would change minds. The duck skeptic partly agrees, citing Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills (transcribed as "Mr. Chowell's") as serving some of the best duck he's had, and allowing that professional chefs "probably do a better job of preparing it."

The evidence on the preparation side is a recalled Anthony Bourdain segment. On a duck hunt where his hosts complained about the taste, Bourdain cooked the birds and they called the result fantastic. As retold, his objection was:

It's not that duck doesn't taste good.