103. My Old Kentucky Home Straight Kentucky Bourbon

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

We would like to thank our friends at Premium Bar Products for sponsoring this episode. If you're ready to step up your game at your home bar, check out premiumbarproducts.com to choose from their wide selection of glassware, all of which can be custom engraved with your personal message or logo. And there's no minimum order. So after the episode, head over to premiumbarproducts.com and check out everything they have to offer. Now let's get on with the show. Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And Mike, today we are doing another Craft Distillery Monday. We are at Studio 2A in the basement of Jephthaben Farm. And you've got a great bottle for us today that was handed to you by Brent Gooden. from Boundary Oak Distillery.

Yeah, that was actually my first, like, real episode as the co-host, because episode 21, you guys introduced me as a co-host, Brandy was still there, and we drank some, some, uh, bourbons to kind of a Texas bourbon, a Virginia bourbon, because he was moving around, and we drink a Kentucky bourbon, so, and I had selected all those for you guys.

Yeah. So that was like episode 21. And then episode 22 was the first episode where you and I, we went out together. We were the hosts of the bourbon road. That was your first full blown cohost episode.

Yeah. You drove down there. I remember you driving down there. And, uh, so, I drank a whole bunch of whiskey and I couldn't remember if Abraham Lincoln chopped down a cherry tree or George Washington chopped down a cherry tree.

We did drink a lot of whiskey that day. It's one thing about boundary oak distillery is they have a lot of expressions there for you to try, but This particular one we've got today, Brent, who is the master distiller there, he's the owner of the company, he and his boys kind of run the distillery, he was talking about this one as something that was going to come out soon. but wasn't out yet. So here we are. We, this was episode 22. Here we are episode, I don't know, maybe 102, 102, something like that. 102, 103. Yeah, something like that. And anyway, so 80 episodes later, we finally get our hands on a bottle of this. You were down at the distillery and you had an opportunity to pick up a bottle for a friend, right?

Well, They got a bottle of the 82nd Airborne bottle. 82nd Airborne is a division of the United States Army. Very famous. They parachute into combat and stuff. They made a beautiful bottle. It's slender. It looks like a parachute opening up. And the blue actually looks like a canopy. of that. So me and Vivian were down there. I had to go down to Fort Knox. I had a doctor's appointment down near Fort Knox, and then me and Vivian wanted to go to Fort Knox to stop by the liquor store there, which is a class six, which we've talked about several times. And we went to the exchange, did our thing. You know how veterans do it. We just go to Fort Knox, which is about an hour drive from here. So I was like, Hey, Viv, we're right here. You mind if I stopped by the distillery and say hi to Brent? Cause I knew he was there. And so I stopped by and he actually gave me a bottle of 82nd airborne and I was in the army for 10 years and I wasn't 82nd airborne. So it still meant a lot to me to get that bottle. And then he said, Hey, would you guys mind doing a review on this, this bottle right here? So he gave me a bottle of mild Kentucky home. It's got a horse on there. It's got a, drawing of their tree. It's actually a single barrel bottle. So it's 100 proof. Nice looking bottle. It's a, it's a kind of throwback square whiskey bottle, right?

Right. Exactly. So my old Kentucky home for anybody who hasn't been to Bardstown, my old Kentucky home, there's a state park there. It's called my old Kentucky's home state park. Uh, the sort of the state song is my old Kentucky home. They do performances down there, Stephen Foster story. And I think what Brent's doing here is paying homage to my old Kentucky home. A beautiful bottle, got a horse on the front, got the boundary oak tree on the front that the distillery is named after. Absolutely. A gorgeous bottle, kind of a throw throwback label. Like you said, this is something that you and I have been kind of waiting for to come out. And he just gave you a bottle and said, let's get this thing reviewed. Right? Yeah. It's a straight Kentucky whiskey.

It's aged two years. I know where it's from. Can't tell you everybody.

Well, most of the times when distillers source some bourbon or some whiskey, they're not at liberty to say where it's from. They have to sign a contract when they buy the barrels that they can't disclose the source distillery. But we do know it is in fact a Kentucky distillery. So this is Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. It is. Got a nice color to it. It's a hundred proof in a nice square bottle. Brent, great job on the packaging. I think the juice looks very inviting because of the color. I'm looking forward to trying it.

I'll tell you what, you won't meet a nicer guy than Brent. You know, he took time out of his day. I just walked into his distillery and, you know, I thought he was going to give me a big hug, but he wanted to show me everything that they had going on. talking about future episodes for us with him. And, you know, everybody knows that me and Jim are both veterans and veterans are near and dear to his heart. He's so close to the Fort Knox air stuff. So I really appreciated him taking time out of his day to to just kind of show me around what he had going on and even to share his whiskey with us. That was pretty nice.

It's a nice distillery. It's a little bit off I-65, not very far from the Claremont exit. I think he's off exit 102. The Claremont exit's a little bit further down, I think. Not far from the exit to get off to the Jim Beam distillery. So he's in that general area. Yeah. He's just a little south of there. Yeah. So a very nice, uh, little distillery they have there. Very nice building, a nice room that sort of tells their story. They have a tasting bar. Uh, they've got glass windows that look in on their stills. It's, it's a great little stop. If you're out on the bourbon trail, I highly suggest, um, taking that little jot down, uh, down to Radcliffe, Kentucky, and taking a peek at the Boundary Oak to story. Great place to go to. And you know, you'll find a nice restaurant or two over there too, while you're out. It's a nice little town. Sleepy town, right?

Sleepy.

But a lot of armed services people in that area.

There is. Well, let's drink some whiskey. Let's nose it.

Oh, okay. So, um, yeah, I, I, I'm definitely getting a, like a caramel vanilla, but a little bit of mineral to it too. Kind of a minerally, but in a good way. Is that just that youngness you think? No, I don't think so. I don't think it's, it's not coming across as too young on the nose. I'm just getting a little bit of, um, I don't know. I get it. Sometimes I get that, that kind of, I get that nose. Sometimes when I'm nosing a dickle, it's got that kind of mineral vitamins. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. But, um, so it reminds me of that, but we know this is not dickle because it is a Kentucky straight bourbon. So this is not out of Tennessee. This is out of Kentucky.

I'll guarantee everybody that it's definitely a Kentucky bourbon.

It's got a sweet nose. It's kind of, uh, like I said, it's got that little bit of a mineral. It could be the water. It could be the, I don't know where that's coming from, but it's, uh, it's nice. I like that.

Uh, I'm getting that same thing that just a little bit of not flat stove vitamins, but some of that right there, maybe, uh, that chalkiness, getting a little bit of Oak out of it, still some youngness. So there is some, some ethanol coming off of it, I think.

Yeah. It doesn't have that great amount of like that corny youth to it that, you know, that you get that, that real corn sweetness out of it. I'm not getting a lot of that. Let's taste this thing.

All right.

Now there's that sweetness. Okay. So I'm definitely getting a little bit of corn sweetness on the palate, but there's that mineral kind of. Almost, boy, I wish I could name that flavor I'm getting. Sometimes your library in your brain, you just can't pull that word out or that reference out that it's telling you what you're tasting. But that's the thing about drinking more whiskey and more whiskey and trying to do your own tasting notes is eventually you'll build up that library of knowledge, that library of flavors. This is something that I don't think I've had before, but I like it.

I'm still getting that corn. That corn sweetness is coming forward, right? A little bit of vanilla on there. Not any chocolates in there, but. What's that? Maybe it is just that burnt caramel.

You know, I'm getting a little bit of a, like a copper, like a copper, like a penny, maybe.

Maybe it's that, uh, kettle corn cooked in a copper pot.

Yeah. It could be, it could be the contribution of like a copper pot still giving you that little bit of that copper. um, but I, you know, again, I kind of like that. This is unusual. It's different. It's making me really dig for what I'm tasting and it's not off putting in any way. So I'm not drinking this and saying, Hey, I don't like this part of that part of it. What I'm saying is I like this and I like this, but I don't know what it is. So I love that searching. This is like a Sherlock Holmes on a treasure hunt, you know, The more I sip on it, I start to, I start to pick up a little bit more of the youth to it. So I think we are probably in the, maybe the three year range.

Get a little bit of, uh, like sour cherries on this, maybe a little bit, not so much sweet, but that, that bitterness that was sour a little bit on this.

Yeah. So it's not a sweet fruit. It's more of an unripe fruit, right? Yep. I'm getting the same thing, Mike. This is something that I could sit and analyze for quite a while. It keeps developing. It's changing pretty quickly as I sip on it. It's not changing. What's changing is my palate. My palate is adjusting and recalibrating to what I'm tasting.

Well, it's also opening up in your glass as it sits here for a little bit. a whole lot of legs on this. So I think you're right about that three year age. I probably would like to see this stay in the barrel for another year or two. Get around that four to five year mark. And then it would probably open up a little bit.

Yeah, I think it's a respectable whiskey. I think it was okay to release the whiskey at this age. I think it's maybe some of these things we're getting from it that I call interesting and unusual and different would disappear in another year or two. So, you know, I'm kind of struggling with sometimes I just be honest with you. Sometimes with a younger whiskey, you experience some flavors and some aromas that are different and they just won't survive another two years in a barrel. So you do get a lot of better things that you like in a well-aged whiskey, but you also lose some of those notes from a younger whiskey that sort of set things apart. So I think this has some interesting notes to it. I definitely would suggest people to give it a try simply because it's a new experience. This is not a run of the mill bourbon.

Well, I think if you're a Kentuckian, right? And you truly believe in the state song and being a Kentuckian, I don't know how you couldn't have this on your bar.

Yeah. If you're going to go to the distillery, I would, I would highly recommend you walk out with a bottle of this. If you're there to explore the distillery and experience the distillery and maybe we'll pick a bottle or two from the distillery to walk out with. Um, this would be one that I would choose simply because for me it was an exploration in flavor. It did give me, it got me thinking, got me really thinking and analyzing. I couldn't put my finger on what I was tasting. Sometimes I just had to approximate what I thought I was tasting. So, you know, sometimes with bourbons, I can hit it right off the nose. I'm getting this, this, this, and this. And other times, man, I recognize the flavor, but I can't speak it. I don't know what to say. Well, Kentucky home, it's sort of a Bardstown tradition. You know, it is the Kentucky state song. Uh, this bottle sort of represents that. I would say if you get a chance to go to the store at the very least, try a sample of it and make up your own mind. Yeah, and you can get this at Liquor Barn. So if you're in the general area of the Bourbon Trail, there's Liquor Barns everywhere and Liquor Barn carries this particular product. So it's available on the shelf there. Again, also available at the distillery. They really do treat you like family when you show up at the distillery. It's a great place to go. It's not a long visit, not a big building, but they do take you on a nice little tour and they get a great tasting bar. And I love the story about the Boundary Oak. Oh, no doubt about it.

You know, he's got a great story is him and his sons and, um, just a nice, it'll break your, break your tour up there doing tours right now. So in tastings, um, it'll definitely break your day up. If you were trying to move between Louisville and barstown or, Um, barge town and Lexington, if you're not taking a bluegrass parkway, it'll break your day up.

Yeah. You never know. Pop in a boundary Oak. You might see Mike Ryan there anyway. Right?

You might just lose like two miles from that place.

Well, Mike, where can they find us on, on the internet?

So you can find us at Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook at the bourbon road. Um, we also have a private Facebook group called the bourbon roadies answer free questions to become a member of it.

Yeah. So we want to make sure you're 21. We want to make sure that you realize you're getting yourself into a bourbon group and we want to make sure, you know, we expect you to play nice when you're in there. We will not tolerate any rudeness. Yeah.

Just a nice group with bourbon industry people, master distillers are in there. Just go folks like me and Jim. Laid back people sharing their whiskey. Don't sell no whiskey in there. So don't try it. Our moderators, Jason and Adam will get all over you really quick.

Yeah, but if you want to come in and do a bourbon review and talk about that bottle you picked up, take a picture of it, If you want to do an honest review, we don't care if you say you like it or don't like it. Just do an honest review. Nobody will jump on you. They shouldn't. If they do, they will get scolded seriously for it. Your taste buds, your palate is your palate and nobody else's. It's hard to disagree with somebody. on what they like and what they don't like.

That's just being straight up and honest, right? Absolutely. If you taste lemons in it, you taste lemons. That's right. As long as you make lemonade out of it.

We just don't need anybody telling them how stupid they think they are because they got this or they got that. So yeah, come in, play nice. That's one thing that we absolutely enforce there. But the great thing about it is good people, very welcoming, almost like a family. just a good time and you can always come in there. It's like a safe place to talk about your whiskey experience.

That's what we talk about. Just whiskey. Absolutely.

Well, Mike, we also have a website called the bourbonroad.com on the bourbonroad.com. You can find our weekly episodes. We do two episodes a week. We do a short format episode on Monday like this one called our craft distillery Monday. We also do an episode on Wednesday.

That's our full show format where we'll either have a guest on from a distillery or just like today, reviewing, sometimes we'll review whiskey on there or we'll just sit down and shoot the crap. Just me and you, Jim.

That's right. Sometimes we have a guest, sometimes we don't. Usually a guest though, usually a distiller or A personality, somebody that wants to sit down and drink whiskey with us, sometimes a musician or a chef or an author. Uh, but we always have a good time. We always have a great time. Two shows a week. We hope you pick up both of those on the website. You will also find our blog. Mike writes a blog every week. It is not a recap of the show. So I'm going to encourage you to go check out the blog. And the reason I'm going to do that is because it's not simply Mike saying what happened in the episode. It's Mike's take on something. interesting related to the episode. So pretty good. A lot of fun, usually pretty short, quick read, right Mike?

Yeah. I'm not trying to ride a novel on there or be witty or anything. It just, what comes to mind for that day, you know, me and Jim have discussed something while we're on the road or something hit me hard or I don't know. I had to talk about all kinds of stuff on there and I kind of love doing that. It lets me express myself a little bit. I would say, Jim, let's give away a little whiskey today. What do you say? I say let's give away a little whiskey, Mike. So Brent was good enough to give me a bottle of that 82nd Airborne. Okay.

What's coming up here?

So I wasn't an 82nd Airborne. You know, I feel like somebody that was in the 82nd airborne, a veteran needs to have that bottle of whiskey. Wouldn't you agree?

Oh yeah. I see what you're getting at here.

So if you're a roadie, you gotta be a roadie to get this. If you were in the 82nd airborne, the first person to post a photo of yourself, and show that you were an 82nd Airborne, I'll give you that whiskey.

So I guess in uniform would be the best. That'd be the best. But I guess anything else that gives proof. But we need to see their face.

Yeah. Show me something. Send me a private message, but show me something in the roadies that shows that you were

I don't think it should be a message, Mike. I'm going to, I'm going to push back on it a little bit. This needs to be a public post because you should be proud of yourself in your uniform. Oh, I agree with you.

So send me something, send, send, put it, you got to post it saying you were an 82nd airborne, the first person to do that. I'm going to give you that bottle of whiskey and I'll tell you the MSRP on that is $99. So, you know, it's a beautiful bottle. It's got the 82nd airborne associations on there. The whiskey, I haven't tasted it cause I didn't open it. It's a full bottle. Beautiful.

They can tell us.

They can tell us how it is. So I think that's mean you proof to pudding that we love to share our whiskey.

Absolutely. Bottles go out from here all the time. Yes, they do. All right, Mike. Well, I'm Jay Shannon 63. I'm one big chief and we will see you down the bourbon road. We do appreciate all of our listeners and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the bourbon road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions, and if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.