111. Calumet Farm 14 Year Old Single Rack Black 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. Yo everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road and we are at Mike's house in the basement, but we've got a special guest.

That baby crying in the background. Yeah, we usually don't have babies in our house. That's all right. So who we got, Jim?

We got your son Jake. He's, he's all the way up here from Louisiana. He's come up to drink a little bourbon with us. Well, he's actually come up to visit with his parents, but he's going to drink a little bourbon with us tonight.

Got to be a COVID free for the air force. So that's what we drink some bourbon.

Yeah. It will, it will kill the virus, I think. Yes, sir. Well, I haven't had the virus yet. Neither has Mike. I think it has something to do with the bourbon we drink. Yeah.

I think it does. But Jim, you brought a pretty special bottle from our good friend over there, James. You stopped by and saw him on your way over here. What'd you bring? So I brought some Calumet. I brought a 14 year old straight Kentucky bourbon whiskey. So it's Calumet farm, Calumet farms name for the famous Lexington farm founded in 1924. Famous for their, for the race horses over there. They had world away and citation was there to triple count runners. And they also had eight Kentucky Derby winners. So they, they produced some, some race horses.

So from about 1940 until about 1980, they were like killing it. Oh yeah.

Now they haven't had any recent winners. No, but still a beautiful farm in Kentucky. If you can go by there and check it out. Um, obviously they got into the bourbon business. And this is a, now they changed the bottle on us.

Yeah. So Calumet has been on the shelves for a while. They're standard release and you know, people have probably seen it from time to time on the shelf and not too hard to find. I know it's readily available anywhere in the general area of the Midwest, but yeah, this is a different bottle. This is more like a, I don't know, what would you say?

Kind of a pappy kind of bottle? Yeah. It's almost to me, it's a wine bottle. Wine bottle. Yeah. Still a beautiful bottle. The labels on here are spectacular though. They do a great job. They got a picture of Calumet farm on there. This one stepped it up a little bit. I think the standard is eight year and then they got their 12 year and then this is a 14. It's a 14. And I tell you what, when something says 14 years on it, it's got my attention. Oh yeah. Most definitely.

Now this bottle is about $115. I think it was exactly what I paid for it with James. James is usually right on market price. Yeah. And, uh, I mean, you, you're going to be able to find this at a number of places. It's not going to be, um, it's not going to be a unicorn.

It's not, but they only had 19 barrels of it. That's right.

So 19 barrels of a 14 year old whiskey, let's just say it's going to produce somewhere around 2,500 bottles. Fair enough.

That's some quick math. That's what I do, man. I couldn't do it that fast.

Back me up, Jake. Is that about right? Yeah, I'm not good at math either.

Well, I was just trying to figure out how many bottles are in a barrel and then you take it times 19 barrels. A little bit of spillage. I was never the math guy, so that's all you guys.

Jake, let's, let's, let's talk a little bit about, about you. You're, you're in the air force. You've been active duty for how long now?

I'd say so for about three years. Um, been at Barksdale for coming up on two years, November 17th.

All right. But you, um, you love your bourbon, don't you? I do. You do.

You're a big Blanton's fan, I think. Yes, sir. That's what we did last time when they came to visit. Mike brought down some blends and we tried and sampled some of that.

Alright, so have you ever had a bourbon that was 14 years old? I do not believe so. Okay, well tonight's the night.

Especially not $115.

Well, you know, some, sometimes you gotta just lay down a few more bills. That's what I say. All right. Well, we don't want to waste a whole lot of time here, Mike. I want to get right to the nose on this.

Let's do it.

Jake, you ready? Ready when you are. Yes, sir.

All right. So what's the proof on this, Jim?

I think it's a 92.

Am I right? Let me go back. So Jim, just to get you the proof on this for everybody, this is 96.2 proof. A little bit higher than 90. So yeah, let's get to that nose. I'm ready.

Oh yeah. So, um, right off the bat, I mean, I've got a, my nose can like zero in on cherry pie. This is cherry pie for me with like the bake crust or just the cherries.

I just, yeah, like really rich, deep, dark cherries. I get a little bit of tobacco, a little bit of leather and a little bit of oak on that. I know those are standard notes. We usually don't do those standard notes, but it's a 14 year old bourbon people. I mean, you're going to get those notes off this.

A little bit of rice spice. I think it's, uh, you know, the nose is not, um, it's not, there's not too much ethanol there. I think 96 proof is probably just about right for this one. It's definitely rich and deep. It definitely shows a little bit of that Oakey age to it. Cherry pie, a little bit of rice spice. Um, maybe even a little ginger. Jake, what are you getting out of this?

As soon as you mentioned cherries, I picked up right on that. Maybe not the cherry pie, but I'm thinking of like almost maybe a maraschino or I think that's how you say it. Maraschino cherry, those nuclear cherries, something like that. They're so red that they gotta be fake, right?

Oh yeah, I'm sure they are fake.

You turn the light off, they're glowing and dark for sure. That's what I'm picking up.

Yeah. So when you get a group of guys together and you, and you knows, a knows a bourbon and everybody's getting that cherry, you know, the cherry is the prominent note there. I think for, for me anyway, it does have, I mean, it does have a little bit of an older kind of, um, a buttery butterscotch kind of note to it. That's sort of behind the cherry.

I don't know. It's, it's a beautiful nose on it for sure. I could get that maybe a butter crust. So you get that buttered crust of that cherry pie and put in those, you know, those dark cherries in there. I'm getting that. I'm also getting a little bit of cherry wood on there. Like you're used to smoke with, um, that's wet and you smell that wet wood. Um, beautiful.

Now the match bill on this is 74% corn, 18% rye, pretty good rye content and 8% barley.

Now first we thought heaven heel, right? But that doesn't match up.

Normally their match bill is 78% corn and this is 74% corn. So a little bit of disparity there. So I don't know. I, you know, in this one, Mike, I'm not going to try and guess. I'm just going to, we know it's source. We know Calumet does not actually make their own bourbon, but this is a source bourbon. But in any case, I just want to, I just want to dive into it, enjoy it, analyze it. Let's see what we think. Let's do it.

Cheers guys. Not sweet.

Not for me.

That's got a punch in the mouth right there.

It does. It does. Yeah. For 96 point whatever proof, um, it's definitely,

Again, this is my first bourbon today. Yeah, that's my first one too. Okay.

So let's give it a, let's give it a pass. Let's not talk about it on the first sip. Let's take another one because we all know that that first sip of bourbon in the day is going to be a little bit better. It's going to attack you a little bit more than, you know, almost need a warmup, right? That thing's like Kung Fu fighter in there, that first pass. That second one wasn't so bad. Yeah, a little bit better. Um, it's dry. I think not so sweet. They sort of go together, right? Dry, not so sweet.

Yes. It doesn't have a whole lot of sweetness on it. It is a little bit bitterness drying on it, but you would expect that out of the 14 year old, um, you know, that Oak coming through, you know, those tannins, like a dry red wine almost. Jake, what are you getting? Come on now.

I'm just enjoying it.

You don't, you don't taste anything.

I don't know. I'm not really sure about. What I taste on this one.

Sometimes it's hard to, you know, to distinguish what that might be. The longer you drink bourbon, the more bourbons you drink, the more variety you drink, the bigger library you build of knowledge and taste in your brain. And it just takes a while to put those together. I would say half the time, Mike, I can't put my finger on it.

Yeah. Well, sometimes it will struggle with those, those notes and stuff, but we both get to try so many different bourbons that, you know, we both have that. I wouldn't say we both have great pallets. We just like our bourbon, but I call this one, Jacob, I get a little bit of ginger bite on there. And you know, if you took a fresh piece of ginger when you're eating sushi to clean your palette with, and it has just that little tinge of bite to it. Now it's starting to open up a little bit in the glass. That first drink was, uh, like I said, Kung Fu fighter right there. But as it's opened up a little bit, that cinnamon ginger is coming through.

So that first one I still think was great right off the bat.

Yeah. I would say, you know, for the, for me, the nose, it was all about cherries. Really was all about cherries, but on the palate, it's more ginger and cinnamon.

Yeah. See the nose, I could pick some stuff up, but, uh, the, uh, as soon as I started tasting it, it, I just got stumped. Yeah. Stumped from right there. It's, it's, the nose should have like changed a little bit. It did a little bit.

Yeah.

Not, not picking up some of the same stuff as when I first noticed it.

Mike, I'm starting to get that leather a little bit on the nose, a little bit of that more of that ginger, a little less cherry on the nose. Now, now the pallets playing a bigger part, I think now that, now that Bruce Lee went in there and kicked your tongue. Yeah. Yeah. This for a 96 prover, this has got a bit of a bit of a punch to it.

Yeah, I was totally sure. I was not expecting that for 96, you know, and, um, We recently just drank 120 proofer together. which didn't taste like 120 proof. It was one of the best bourbons I'd ever tasted before. Wednesday show, you know, we had Woodinville on there and they had a 120 and I didn't expect that to be as good as it was at 120. I thought it'd be just a spice bomb and just burn me up with that 120, right? Being hot. But, Yeah, true craftsman, right? Yeah, that thing is by far, it stands up there with any bourbons I've ever drank before. I loved it. I said it is one of my top bourbons of all time. This kind of surprised me a little bit. I'm not disappointed in any means by this. This is a great bourbon. Um, great bourbon. I was just surprised at how spicy it was.

Yeah. So this, this is a little more, um, like I said, once it hits your palate, it's a little more ginger, a little more cinnamon. It's dry, not very sweet at that leather and oak from the 14 year old age. This is more of a dry, bold, Well aged bourbon, not so much in the sweetness range.

I'm getting, as it's opened up a little bit, I get a little bit of sweetness, but just a tad bit on there. I'm trying to pick that up. A little bit of honey in there, but not that much.

You know, you think a 74% corn, you know, you think there'd be a little bit of lingering sweetness there 14 years, but not too much. Yeah. But that rise coming through. You like it spice Jake? Yes, sir.

Yeah. I'd say this. What do you say on the finish on this gym?

Um, yeah, so probably medium finish for me. Um, it's a little bit more of a mid palette bourbon for me. Not so much, not a great deal of hug. Not a lot of lingering finish on the back end of my palette. More on the mid. I think the, you know, probably the long, The longest lingering taste that I've got is probably that ginger cinnamon.

Yeah, I'm still getting that every time I take a sip of this. I'm almost done with this glass, but I agree with you on that, that hug. It goes down in about the neck level. You know, it doesn't get down in your chest and you don't feel that punch down there and stuff. It is a medium finish and also I'm getting this a little bit of bitterness and that cinnamon's kind of sticking around a little bit of ginger and that's it. Yeah.

Yeah, I think the rye plays a big part in this. I think it's got some nice spice to it. Again, if I had to say on the nose, mostly cherries on the nose, not so much on the palate, but on the palate, it's ginger and cinnamon, dry, not sweet. But it definitely gives you that impression that it's an older bourbon.

yeah so overall for me this would still be a buy and it'll be an awesome christmas gift to somebody if you got a dad that drinks bourbon or a brother that drinks bourbon or a husband or a wife that drinks bourbon you want to buy them a really nice bottle $115, that's a nice bottle of bourbon.

It's a beautiful bottle. It's got great history behind it, the Calumet farm. It's hard to go anywhere in Kentucky and mention the word Calumet farms and not have somebody go, yeah, I know who they are. You know, they have put up some major thoroughbred horses, some big winners. Yeah. And I got to give them props.

They didn't go outside of Kentucky and get some whiskey. They, this is Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. I beat people up on that before, you know, Sam Houston, Texas legend. They got some, I think it's Indiana juice. I'm pretty sure, you know, you got Andrew Jackson, Tennessee guy. I think they got some Kentucky stuff in there. You know, a legend probably should have that whiskey from where they're at. So, you know, that's just my thoughts on it. Hats off to Calumet Farm for sticking with Kentucky.

So I'm pretty glad I've got a bottle of this. I'm happy to have bought a bottle from James. He definitely gave it a thumbs up and said he'd heard some good things about it. And it's always nice when you go into your local bottle shop, you're talking to the owner there, uh, to just give them an ask, say, Hey, you know, what are people saying? What are your customers saying about this particular bottle? Are they happy with it? Is it flying off the shelves? Is it slow mover in this particular case? He said his customers were very well pleased with it. They thought it was a good drinker. And, uh, yeah, I kind of lean in that direction. I would say that this is probably not, this is not going to score at the top of my list. Nah, I couldn't see that, but I think it's respectable for a 14 year old bourbon. I think it's an interesting pour. I think it's something that, um, if you've got it on your bar and you've got some people coming over. This would be something to spur a conversation to, you know, have a couple of sips of and try something a little bit older. Um, and like you said, Mike, you want to gift a bottle to somebody got a great story behind it.

Yeah. Beautiful bottle to put on somebody's shelf too, with a label and the story just all together. And I'm sure they would appreciate it. So Jim, some of our listeners and some of our roadies were asking if we could put some recipes up when we're talking about cooking. Because we do talk about cooking every once in a while, right? We do eat. Yeah, we do. We love to eat. So what I did is I asked the roadies, I said, hey, if you'll start sending me recipes on our craft review show, we'll post one every show. We'll talk about it. Call people that I post that tonight and people send it in already. So the first person that sent one in with Scott Burscher, he is a coast guard. chief warrant officer and he sent in, cause he's from the main area, he sent in a Guinness whoopee pie with Buffalo Trace buttercream. Okay, tell me about that. Now whoopee pie, if you haven't had one, it's like two pieces of cake with some, I call it fluff and nutter, some cream in the center, like a giant soft Oreo cookie. Um, Jake, you had those up in Maine.

Yes, I have like kind of like a moon pie. Yeah, but it's just a little bit different. Maybe like, uh, I'd say, uh, one of those, uh, uh, sweet Swiss rolls. Yeah. Almost. Um, it's a, a main, I don't know about new England, but it's a main, it's a main specialty. Everybody knows what they are.

If you go up there and any little side store will have them homemade. Somebody will have a basket of them there to get, um, I love them.

How in the heck did I miss that? I lived in Kittery for a while and I just missed it. Well, that ain't Maine down there really. Really?

You got to drive up and pass Portland to get to Maine, right Jake?

Kittery is practically New Hampshire.

So for this, for the cookie, you're going to take one cup of Guinness beer, one cup of butter, three quarter cup of unsweetened cocoa powder, two and a half cups of all purpose flour, one and a half cups of sugar, one and a half tablespoons of baking soda, half tablespoon of salt, two eggs, and two third cups of sour cream. For the bourbon cream filling, you're going to get eight ounces of butter at room temperature, three cups of powdered sugar, sifted it says between one a quarter and a half a cup of Buffalo Trace bourbon cream. I'd go overboard on that a little bit. Yeah, I'd probably go a cup. I don't know. You can always condense it down. So for the rest of this recipe, if you really want it, we'll post it on our Facebook page and we'll post it in the bourbon roadies. Thanks, Scott, for sending this in. If you want a recipe, Uh, read out on here, talk about it, send it to me, Mike at the bourbon road.com. Well, I'll pick one every week. We'll read it out. We'll post it up and Hey, maybe after a year or two, maybe we'll have a cookbook.

The bourbon road cookbook.

Yeah. Cooking with bourbon. Can I cook Jake?

Oh yes. You can cook. Yeah. All right, Mike. Well, where can everybody find us?

So you can find us on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook at the Bourbon Road. You can go on our website, www dot the bourbon road dot com. We got all kinds of stuff on there. I write some blogs, not always about the show. It's usually about just what I'm thinking about today. Sometimes I'll go back into the show and divulge a little bit and talk about it just a tiny bit, but not always. Sometimes just what I'm thinking. Sometimes some weird thoughts come out. You never can tell. So we also have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies.

On the bourbon roadies, we are a group of about 1,200 bourbon lovers, like-minded folks who love bourbon, love to take pictures of bourbon, love to drink bourbon, talk about bourbon, review bourbon, Yeah. You know, everything you can imagine in that group, good people, loving bourbon, loving that community.

And, uh, you know, we, um, we don't tolerate any rudeness in there though, do we Mike? Nope. Um, just, we just, we just won't deal with it. So, but what I would say is we do have distillery owners and we have master distillers in their, uh, industry folks, even this week. past week. We had Pat Heist and Jonathan Licorice from Iron Root. Pat Heist is from Wilderness Trail. Somebody asked a question in there about barrel aging. Both of them chimed in with great answers. And that's what we love about our group so much that we have those guys and those guys that can help us out answer those questions and all our other roadies. We got from experts to the beginner that is just starting out that'll ask that question. You want to come in there and ask a question. You could post a picture of some Jim Beam and say, this is my first bottle ever. And nobody's going to beat you up over it. You go into other groups, that'll happen to you. Not in this group. Um, they're all going to love you. It's a family. We are at 1200 people.

We are. We did hit that number. We did.

It's growing faster than we ever thought. I never thought we'd have 1200 people that want to get together and talk about bourbon. So, and we give away bourbon. So yeah. Jake? Yes. Where can we find you at?

You find me at Barksdale Air Force Base. Working on the B-52, keeping that thing going for another 30 years.

Yeah. So Jake, do you do any social media at all?

So I have a Facebook, um, no Instagram. Mike keeps telling me to get Instagram. I think just maybe when I come back from leave, I might get Instagram so I can try to win a full bottle.

So if somebody wants to reach out to you on Facebook and say, Jake, tell me more, what do you like? I'm Jake Garrett on Facebook. All right. Well, I'm jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we will see you on 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.