109. J.W. Kelly - Melrose Rye Whiskey

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.

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I am so glad. This is so cool. Jim, when are we going to get to drink some weeded whiskey?

Yeah. Next.

Oh man.

Next. I promise it'll be next. You just got to find us a good bottle of weeded whiskey, right? I'm waiting for you to bring it. I know it's about my turn, isn't it? All right, so today, what do we have, Mike?

Well, we've had these guys on before. It's J.W. Kelly and company at a Chattanooga, Tennessee. That's a good friends down at Chattanooga, don't we? We do have some good friends at Chattanooga. Adam and Sarah lives down there, some of our roadies. He's our moderator. love them to death. But, uh, JW Kelly was kind enough to send us this bottle of review. Now I've had this one to the counter for a while. I know you've been jonesing for it. I'm ready for it.

No doubt about it. I remember the last time we had JW Kelly on the show. Um, I'm very, very good stuff. I remember it was great, but the one thing I do remember is laying on my belly in Uh, Bowling Green, Kentucky at some old iron bridge in a railroad track and taking a picture of that bottle. I hope I'm right. Am I right, Mike?

Yeah, I think it was awesome photo. It, it fit. Cause when you think of Chattanooga, I think of Chattanooga.

Yeah. So we were visiting some family in Bowling Green and, uh, My son-in-law said, there's this great bridge over here. It'd make a great shot. Let's go do it. So we did. And, uh, yeah, turned out to be pretty good. So I've got fond memories of J.W. Kelly. I'm a great fan of rye whiskey and I'm glad to have this bottle here today. You've poured me a pretty good pour here, Mike. What's the proof on this bottle, by the way?

So it's 92 proof. Beautiful old school bottle. Kind of like that old Forrester bottle. I guess what you'd think is a old school whiskey bottle, baby.

And this is a, this has got a name though, right? It is. It's the Melrose. And now this is not a finished or is it a finished bride?

So this is a double barreled. Okay. And it's, God dang, why you gotta make me say this?

I'll do it. Hand it here. Let's check it out. I'm going to get myself in trouble here. Okay. So this is JW Kelly's Melrose rye whiskey. It's double barreled in an Amarone cask. I don't know if it's Amarone or Amarone or whatever, but, um, yeah. So it is a secondary finished rye, 94 proof.

And what do you know about old JW Kelly? You know, he was born in Ireland.

Yeah, I think we went over the history a little bit there. So there is some family history there. Yeah.

He used to have a whole crap ton of whiskey and stuff, but weird thing about him is that he got to Chattanooga right between Nashville and Chattanooga right in the civil war, which was a weird thing. And that's the thing I'd like to know about their history about him is what do you do in that time period? How do you get from. He was born in 1844 over in Waterford, Ireland. Did I say that right? Waterford, Ireland. Now what's Waterford known for? Nepoag. I thought it was Waterford Crystal.

Waterford Crystal. Isn't the Nepoag Irish whiskey from there too?

Well, our friend there, he's, he's a Tony. He's from Waterford.

Okay.

Yeah. But yeah, pretty, pretty close to there. But yeah, he got there in Chattanooga in 1865 and, um, They reestablish this brand and I'm glad they sent it to us, but let's get to this whiskey. I'm ready.

Very light on the nose.

I'm getting a little bit of mint and, um, licorice. Yeah, I could see licorice on this. It's got that, that typical rye whiskey nose on it. Clove. But a little bit of freshness to it.

Like a Irish spring air, like Irish spring, like a Northwestern spring, like a, yeah, like a day in the pine forest or something. Very nice nose, nothing there that would send me running. It just has this nice welcoming nose to it, but it's, it's light. It's not overpowering. Get a little bit of a ginger on this. Yeah, I think you're right. I'd never would have picked that up on my own, but now that you mentioned it, Mike.

So do you believe this Amarone, which is a dry red wine, do you think that character is coming out in this?

Yeah, I think so a little bit. I don't think it's overpowering. I don't think it's spent too much time in the secondary cask, but I think it's, it's definitely given it this nice softness and sweetness. Uh, and this, this kind of a unique, Um, a little bit of a fruity note it has, but it's kind of, it's taken a back seat, I think to the standard rye notes that I'm getting on it. So it's a subtle finish.

Hmm. I, you know, being a sailor and you're over here sipping on this thing already, but I'm going to say this and I don't know if you'll get this in the nose or not, but I'm almost picking up a little bit of salt air in this.

Yeah, I'm not getting it, but I believe you are. I think probably I did, I did tip my glass a little bit early there.

You know, if you're a sailor live by the sea, then you'd know what I'm talking about. When that sea spray comes up and that kind of has its own distinct nose to it. You know, you, the smell of it. Um, I always say whenever we go to the coast or we go to the, by the ocean and that sea spray comes up in a wave, I just think to myself, man, I really miss the, the sea.

And you know, I would call this Mike, I would call this a nice, um, gateway rye for somebody who hasn't really tried rice before. Maybe they're not a spicy whiskey kind of person. but they'd like to try a rye. I think the proof is lower enough on this and that that cask finish has kind of softened it enough and given a little bit of that fruity note that, um, yeah, even the nose is kind of light on it.

Very light on the palette. Very, very light. Um, not a lot of viscous in it, a little bit of honey, just a tad bit.

Yeah. It's not overly sweet, but it's, it's, you know, honey brings that, that nice rounded sweetness. That's not too overly sweet.

Yeah. I'm getting a little bit of honey and a little bit of citrus with it too. Just a tad bit of orange on it for me. Very light. Like you said, entry-proof or you've talked about summer sippers before, man, could this be a summer sipper?

You have somebody over to your house and you say, Hey, have you ever had a ride before? And they're like, no, I just started drinking bourbon about a month ago and I'm just enjoying some Buffalo trace or something, you know, you know, 90 proof or so. And you want to introduce them to a ride. This would be a good choice. I think this would be something that wouldn't take them by surprise and it might give them a good impression of what a ride can be. I think you're spot on there, Jim.

I mean, this is not a overpowering ride. It's not because of the proof at 92 proof. I think it would be perfect for a new whiskey drinker. Somebody just got into bourbon and they want to try a ride stuff. Um, getting a little bit as this sets in my palette, a little bit of nutmeg, some clove in there, just a tad bit.

Yeah, this, this is definitely, um, it definitely is a rye. There would be no mistaking that this is a rye, but that secondary finish has softened it. And I'll say this again, added that little bit of fruity sweetness to it. I think, I think it's, it's a fine job done in secondary finishes on a rye. I think it was a nice rye to start with. I think they improved it with the secondary finish.

Yeah, I could, I could see that, that, you know, putting into that wine barrel. which before this neither one of us knew what that was. Um, which is kind of funny cause both of us are, I would say we're both well versed in, in wines or, um, and many different spirits. I never heard that. Now I might go and look for that red wine somewhere. You know, I love drinking dry red wine with a steak. It's one of my favorite things. Or if I'm eating an Italian meal and you've seen me tear up some Italian food and tear up some red wine before, um, nothing wrong with that. I've heard, had people say, Oh, you're a wine drinker. I know I'm a beer drinker, a wine drinker, a whiskey drinker. It depends on the meal, I guess.

So yeah, I think this whiskey would go well with a steak. I think it would. I think it'd go well with some veal. I think it'd go really good with some veal. Some venison. And some venison. Yeah, there's a good choice. Absolutely. By the way, Mike, I loved your venison breakfast sausage the other day. Absolutely delicious. You should sit me home with a little bit. After I had it for breakfast, I took some home. And I just enjoyed it for a couple of days. Really nice.

It is good, isn't it? It is really good. It's a little bit, I cooked on my smoker actually outside because it makes less of a mess and you fried up sausage in your pan and it just splatters everywhere. So I just put it on smoker and cooked it. You know, we probably cook a little bit different than everybody else. We cook our bacon in the oven and we cook our sausage on the smoker. But, um, I don't know of a better breakfast sausage out there. I love it. I love making it. I love serving it to people and especially, you know, getting a compliment saying, hey, I made that with my own two hands. I killed the deer, processed the deer, and then I took it and ground it up myself and made a breakfast sausage. I do buy the packages of seasoning because that stuff can be very dangerous. You can get botulism from it. which nobody wants, right? But I'm very safe about it. I'm very clean. And then I get to serve it to friends and say, hey, only with special friends. Not everybody gets breakfast like you got over here. That was awesome.

It was an amazing breakfast. You did take some pictures. Now, did you post those? I didn't notice.

I did. We actually had seldom seen farms send us some maple syrup. finished in bourbon cask from Bluegrass Distillers and I thought that was pretty awesome. They sent us a bottle to try, you know, but I was glad to post that for them and talk about it and it was some good stuff. And then Vivian whipped up some blueberry pancakes for us. We had that breakfast sausage, fresh eggs from your farm. From all my chicky poos. Yep. So we had fresh eggs, fresh sauces. We made some bacon, had some biscuits.

Bojangles biscuits. Bojangles biscuits. And you got to know when to stop, right? You got to know when to just go buy something. I don't, I don't know. I can make a good beaten biscuit. But it'll take half my morning, you know?

Yeah. And Bojangles biscuits are so good.

You hear me, Grease?

You think that Grease would fit a whole biscuit, Bojangles biscuit in his mouth?

Oh, I think he can.

Grease, if you're listening to this, man, you have to post a photo with a Bojangles biscuit in your mouth. Um, I'm challenging you, man. He's a big Hardee's biscuit fan too. What's the best biscuit out there? Yeah. So finishing up on this, I would say this is a light to medium finish on the Shry whiskey. Um, just cause the proof and it doesn't have that. that will to it, I guess that viscosity, um, not very thick, but what a summer sipper, a nice entry level rye for somebody. $60 MSRP. Um, you know, it's craft still, it's craft still. People gotta remember that when you're buying craft stuff that it costs those little guys a lot more to make whiskey than it does some giant that's selling millions of bottles.

So if you're, if you're doing a little bit of traveling, you find yourself in Chattanooga, Tennessee. If you're traveling down to Florida or back from Florida or heading across Tennessee and you find yourself in Chattanooga, Tennessee, you get a chance to stop in at JW Kelly. I'd highly recommend picking up a bottle of their. One of their expressions anyway. Um, this one in particular, I think is a good choice. If you've got somebody, you know, somebody who, um, hasn't had a rye yet and you don't want to scare them away from rye. You want to give them one that just sorta a little bit soft up front, kind of nice and sweet, a little bit of a spice to it, but, uh, got that nice, uh, but honey bold finish on it. Yeah. I think it's good.

So it'd be a buy for both of us. Like I said, light to medium finish. It's good. I wouldn't gift it to anybody. But if you're looking to try to get somebody into a whiskey, into a rise, this is, like you said, perfect.

Why not be bad to have on your bar? Just in case that person shows up at your house for something and And you're talking about rise and they're like, yeah, no, I've never had a ride before.

Now, when people talk about rise, um, you know, I think this is great because if you have a wine drinker comes over and they're interested in whiskey, dry red wine will have that little bit of kick to it, that little bit of spice. And this, this has all that, just a tad bit of spice, not a bourbon spice, not a, you know, cast strength raw whiskey spice, but It has a spice to it. So yeah. So there we go. So you can find us at Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube at the bourbon road, which you have a private Facebook group called the bourbon roadies. Check it out. Answer three questions. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? And do you agree to play nice? Which means what's Jim?

We don't tolerate any rudeness. So if you're coming into our group, we just want you to play nice and get along with everybody. We want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to review whiskeys and post their findings and post their pictures and just not get jumped on by everybody else. You know, just have a nice time. And we do want you to tell the truth about what you feel about a whiskey you've tasted. So if you've had a whiskey, you'd like to give an honest review of it and you didn't like it. Well, by all means tell everybody you didn't like it because that's honesty, right? But just don't jump on somebody else's decision on what they like and what they don't like.

Yeah, I think that's there. There's whiskies that I don't like. Um, but that's not our job here is to tell people what we don't like. What our job is, I guess, or hobby, or whatever you want to call it, is to be honest about it, taste a whiskey. I'm not a big rye guy, Jim. You know that. Everybody knows that, that listens to us. I'm working on you. But I can appreciate a rye for what it is. And we want you to do the same thing out there. Just remember that if you do a review, Not everybody's going to love it. Um, and the same thing is respect that person that they took the time actually tasted some whiskey. They were honest about it. Let them post it. Um, especially those new whiskey drinkers out there. Um, we want to see you on the bourbon roadies, review some whiskeys for us. Show us what you got. Let's see what your pal say compared to me and Jim.

Yeah, we do two shows a week. This one we're doing right now is our Craft Distillery Monday series. Usually a pretty short show, 15 minutes or so. We talk about a new whiskey that we've got, some craft whiskey. Sometimes it's a big boy, but usually a smaller craft distillery. Every Wednesday we do a longer format episode, up to an hour in length. Sometimes we have a guest, sometimes it's just Mike and I. drinking some whiskeys and talking about things. So we invite you to two shows a week with us. We'd love to have you. And if you really like what you hear.

So if you really like us, scroll on up, hit that subscribe button. What that'll do is you'll get a reminder saying, Hey, the bourbon road dudes recorded an episode. They released an episode and I get to listen to it. You really love us. Scroll on down and hit that review button. Give us a five star. Tell us what you loved about the episode or about our other episodes, about our show that opens doors for us. It allows me and Jim to get in there, have great guests, have great content for you. And we enjoy putting on something like that for you. If you don't, hey, love someone, fuck a star. But at the same time, tell us where we can improve. That's all the way the show gets better, Jim, is if people are honest with us, just like we're honest with them about the whiskey we're drinking.

Absolutely. We would love for you to check us out online, check out our website, read our blogs, um, purchase a Glen Karen that says the bourbon road on it. Take a picture with your favorite bottle, post it online. We'd love to see that. 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 in 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.