115. Green River Distilling First Look

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 today, Mike, we are sampling a distillery that has been more or less raised from the ashes. Is that not true?

Yeah. Green River Distillery down in Owensboro, Kentucky.

So Green River Distillery, actually better known to many people as the OZ Tyler Distillery, was basically brought back from rubble in 2014 and began distilling in 2016 as OZ Tyler. Just recently, they have partnered up with a descendant of the original Green River Distilling Company's founder, J.W. McCullough, and are bringing back Green River bourbon. We've got a sample today.

So yeah, they were kind enough to bring it all the way up here to Simpsonville, tell you right, and deliver it straight to your door, Jim. That's pretty dang awesome.

Yeah, that was really nice.

Yeah, usually it's not a whiskey person coming to your door. Now we have had that in the past.

So back in the 1800s, I think it was what, 1885, Mike, when the Green River Distilling Company started?

Yeah, so if people don't really know where the Green River is, it's actually on the Green River down there in Owensboro, Kentucky. The Green River flows into the Ohio, goes up through the Kentucky. Beautiful country down there. 1885, like you said, Jim J.W. McCulloch, he began Green River Whiskey down there, and they've been making whiskey for a long time now. They'd won a lot of awards back then. And then by that 1918, they had a giant fire that destroyed the entire distillery there. It was kind of a final blow for Prohibition and they're trying to rebuild it for Prohibition. And then Prohibition comes and they're not done yet. So after Prohibition, it was sold off.

Yeah, I guess the, the owner didn't live to see prohibition repealed. So we never saw green river come back. And I guess the story itself, the building and everything passed hands a number of times. So there's a, there's a tremendous amount of history there. The original green river, uh, whiskey was, uh, well-acclaimed and one, uh, best in show at the Paris exposition. Uh, it had one awards, uh, in Belgium as well. And, you know, was at one time touted as the most expensive whiskey in the world because they had once traded 20 barrels of this whiskey for a Colorado gold mine.

Can you imagine that trading your entire, like 20 barrels for entire gold mine and how much gold would probably come out of that gold mine back then? Just buttloads of gold.

Well, Mike, let's get, let's get to this whiskey and see what it's all about. Now this is a three year, eight month, 117 proof. It is a pot stilled whiskey. The mash bill on it is 70% corn, 21% rye and 9% malted barley. And again, this is actually out of the distillery, the green river distillery in Owensboro, Kentucky, DSP KY 10.

Yeah, that's definitely a high rye that mashbills 70% Kentucky corn at 21% rye, which I know you're going to love. And then 9% malted barley. That definitely puts it in that high rye category. Um, should be right up your alley, Jim.

Absolutely. And Jacob calls the master distiller there. And, uh, Mike, let's check out and see what Jacob's made for us here. Let's do it.

A little bit of youth on that nose.

A little bit for three or eight months. You know, it's more kind of a, a little bit of a hay or grassy kind of nose to it, I think. Uh, but it's got a lot of, uh, future behind that nose. I think I can smell that. There's a lot of good things going on there.

I could kind of smell that malted barley starting to work its magic in this mashbill, bringing out some of those sugars. There's a little bit of burnt caramel in there. I think I'm getting out of this, but I agree with you, Jim. Kind of that grassy note that I usually don't get. Earthiness is what I'm getting. It's just, there's a special aroma there. A little bit musty for me, but...

Sometimes I like musty, you know? I like the, you know, not the corn must, but that warehouse must that, that sort of old toolbox smell, you know? Yeah. Antique shop, but it's got a rich nose. There's a little bit of caramel there and the color's nice at 117 proof. I'm looking forward to tasting it. Well, let's do it. All right.

Cheers. Cheers. Now, I kind of like that.

I'm definitely getting the caramel on the palate as well. Not so much of the sweetness, a little bit drier.

Yeah, it's got that bitter, almost a little bit of It's not sweet tardiness to it. Kind of like a green apple. You know, it's not super sweet. It's got that bite, little bit of bite to it on your tongue. I'm starting to feel that Kentucky hug go down though. That rise hitting home, Jim.

Yeah, this has got a lot of body to it and texture as well. So obviously at 117 proof, I doubt very much we're, we're dealing with a, a whiskey that's been filtered. It's very viscous. Uh, the legs on the glass kind of stand out. It's, it's what you might call a thick whiskey.

Most of that caramel on that second sip is starting to come out. Um, that, uh, I always say that kettle corn and these younger whiskeys like this, I'm definitely getting that kettle corn coming out. That beautiful note, maybe a little bit of peanut with that, not so much, but just a tad bit.

Yeah, I'm getting a little bit of nuttiness from it too, Mike. And I was going to say, um, you know, those, those little really inexpensive, uh, breakfast swirls, they call them pecan swirls. You ever buy those for like a dollar for a whole box of them? It kind of reminds me a little bit of one of those.

Heck yeah, I do. Every time I go to the grocery store in the morning before I'd go on a hunting trip, I'd get a couple of those and eat them. So yeah, I know what you're talking about. Not a bad whiskey for three and a half years old. It's got that sweetness on that second. That bitterness kind of went away for me. That heat is there, but it's 117 proof. So what do you expect? I'd rather have it like that than watered down and there's nothing to it. beautiful expression. Um, I gotta say cheers to him. I wasn't expecting that from the nose to the palette. They definitely don't match three and a half years old. Now, Jim, do you know what the price on this is going to be?

Well, Mike, we don't really have the price on this yet. This is something that's going to be released in 2021. Um, it is, uh, it has been a limited release, uh, for tasting purposes to a few outlets like ourselves. So we could get an early look at it. We did get a nice certificate that entitles us to a bottle on release date. So I'm looking forward to that, but, uh, I think everybody needs to keep their eyes and their ears open and watch for the green river release. It's coming in 2021. I would hope that it would be in the spring.

So by then it'll be a four year old and hopefully they can do a bottled and bond. I think it's a beautiful expression for as young it is. It's a, it's not a bad little whiskey and stuff. I'm just hoping they don't out price themselves or out kick that coverage. You know, I would think somewhere in that $50 range would be a good price on this at a four year old. I wouldn't mind paying that.

Yeah. I, I like the palette wide a bit more than the nose, but as I revisit the nose now, after I've been tasting it, I have to say that, um, I'm starting to find similarities and that, that green note or grassy note that I was getting is kind of subdued a little bit now. So I guess, you know, first nose on that whiskey after opening it up, not a whole lot of time to, to become accustomed to it, but as I sip on it, It's got a great palette for me. I really liked that. It's very spicy. Got a nice hug to it.

Well, you know what I like out of this? Cause I got that sweet tooth. I liked it. You know, you hit it nail on the head, those little, uh, pecan swirl rolls, um, the sweetness on this, it gets sweeter as you drink it. Some people not going to like that, but also like it's got that spiciness. So this is something both we could drink. If you're a Weider guy or Rye guy, um, you're looking for this. Uh, it's going to be a whiskey for almost everybody. I think, um, who knows? Um, we're just two guys talking about whiskey though. So what do we really know, Jim, you know, um, Hey, how was your Thanksgiving?

That was really good. We had a great time. Uh, we did have some family and we great smoked Turkey this year. Man, did it really turn out.

Now you're on that smoking bug. You got that pellet smoker. Um, you're loving it now. I know that, uh, cause we smoked a Turkey. It turned out great. Me and Vivian had to do ours on actually, um, Friday because we both worked on Thanksgiving day for 12 hour shifts. Um, but I got to give her a big shout out. She's a nurse. She went to work on the holiday, plenty of patients, plenty of sick people right now, but without nurses and doctors like her, um, we wouldn't be here today. So hats off to Vivian. So Jim, besides this, this green river, which I would call a, I'd say it has a medium finish right now. It's, it's not, it's not there yet, but I think like you said, it has a lot of promise and I think people need to keep their eye open on this thing and not shy away from it.

I would definitely call it a recommend. I would highly suggest that, um, if there's any chance that possible, that you could end up at that distillery on the release date next year, that you should show up and get yourself a bottle. Cause I think there's a great story there. I think the marketing that they put together for it and the backstory is really good. They've got a family member involved now reviving this. This old and well-respected distillery. And I love to see that. Yeah. The nose for me was a little bit on the, on the youthful side, but three years, eight months, maybe that'll disappear in a couple of months, you know? Uh, but the palette was knock your socks off good, as far as I'm concerned. Uh, this is definitely a sipper for me. I think with the story behind it and especially getting an early release of a, of a new brand might even turn out to be a gift bottle.

Yeah, I definitely agree with you on all those points. So, you know this, we've been talking about our first pick forever now, forever we've been talking about it. And finally we got our pick, right? And I was the first person to open that bottle up, even though we had tasted it already at the pick. I went up and grabbed a bottle from James at Paradise Spirits and Wine, the liquor store that we partnered with. Picked up a bottle last night. We posted it up on our roadies group. I actually cracked that bottle open and did a tasting on it. And Jim, you had to wait till today to get a bottle of it. I don't know how he did that. I should have got you a bottle yesterday, but... What a special bottle. I'd already put my tasting notes up on our Facebook page and on our Instagram page. But Jim, only to be fair, what's your tasting notes on this bottle? What are the roadies? What are our listeners? What do they need to know about this bottle?

Well, I think your notes were spot on, Mike. I, uh, I did read them before tasting the ball. Nobody's going to drink this bottle and not think butterscotch bomb because I definitely think we've got a butterscotch bourbon here. And not only is it a butterscotch bourbon, I think it's got a little bit of that, uh, antique butterscotch flavor to it, which I really, really like. You picked up some chocolate on it. I'm getting those cocoa nibs on the back end, the nose on it matches the palette. I mean, they're one-on-one as far as I'm concerned. And, uh, you said it had a medium to long finish. I'm feeling like it's a long finish for me and it may just be the way it's hitting me and a little bit of hug. Kind of funny, you know, with that sweet mash, not supposed to get all that hug, but I'm definitely getting a hug on this one, but at 120 proof. Hey.

Well, I definitely got, as it grew on me and after I wrote my tasting notes, I would say now it's a long finish because I drank a second glass last night of it while we were by the fire. It is a beautiful expression. I think, Jim, I say applause to you. We did our bourbon art on here, the Bourbon Road to Paradise, kind of a homage to James at Paradise Spirits and Wine. wilderness trail and kind of us, there's a little selling shipping back for two old sailors back there, kind of trapped on an island and we found some whiskey. You can't get much better than that. So people are going to want to pick this up, right? Because it says road pick number one. So our next pick is going to be road pick number two. And heck, maybe one of these days we'll be road pick 1000.

You know how they say on those infomercials, don't miss out. You'll want to get the whole set.

Yeah. So we're going to have different art every time. We're not going to be those guys that just stick a sticker on there to the same old bourbon road sticker every time. It'll always be a different piece of art that me and Jim have come up with that we collaborated with artists and I don't think it gets much better than this. We're going to sign every one of these bottles. I don't think we're going to do that for every one of all the picks, but for this bottle, we think it's very special. So me and Jim will do a sign it. We got a release party up at Paradise Spirits and Wine on the 5th of December from 12 to 2. We'll be up there. You can talk with us, grab your bottle. We're going to store these bottles for one year. So you can able to get into Kentucky. Everybody needs to come to the Kentucky bourbon trail. So you might as well see us while you're here.

So December the 5th, Saturday, 12 to two at paradise lickers in Shelbyville, Kentucky. That's about halfway between Frankfurt and Louisville on I 64. Uh, we're going to do a release there. Uh, if you want to get in on this bottles are still available. They're moving pretty quick though. So you want to get it on as soon as you can. And, uh, if you can't make it to the pic, Mike, we're going to store bottles for people. Are we?

Yeah, I'll store them up for a year. We'll make arrangements to where you can pick them up from the liquor store. If you're coming into town, just get with me. You can get the bottle off our website or at the Bourbon Roadies Facebook group. Either place you can get this bottle. but that's the only place you can get. You can't go into the store and buy it right now. So you have to go to the bourbon roadies and sign up or go to our, you got to go to our website and you can get it there. Jim's put a nice pretty link on there that says our picks. Just click on that link right there. The Jim set up and it'll take care of you.

All right. So if you've got any questions, you can always reach out to Mike or I were Jim at the bourbon road.com Mike at the bourbon road.com, or you can reach us as a team at team at the bourbon road.com. We're always available over social media. We have accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at the bourbon road, but our private Facebook group, Mike, that's where people tend to congregate in it.

Yeah. We're almost at 1300 members in there. You got to answer three questions to get in. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Of course. Everybody likes bourbon, right? And do you agree to play nice? Cause we don't tolerate any rudeness in there. Meaning that you're bourbon your way. You want to post up a picture of Jim beam and say, that's the best bourbon in the world. Go ahead and post it up. You want to post up a craft distillery and say, that's the best bourbon in the world. Post it up. Nobody's going to get onto you for that. We want everybody to play along nice. There's sharing a whiskey in there. No selling a whiskey except for buying our bottle, our bottle pick. Come on now, you want to get this bottle. Great group of people. There are master distillers in there. There's industry folks. chefs, authors, you name it. We have a great group of roadies, our family. We love them. If you have questions like Jim said, ask us. We'll be glad to answer them.

Yeah. And I've seen several questions being posted in social media. How do I get my hands on that bottle? How do I get that bottle? How do I get this wilderness trail pick? The answer is always the same, the bourbon road.com or our Facebook group, the roadies. And in both those places, you'll find either a link or a pinned comment on how to do that. So Mike. Pretty excited. This one's flying off the shelf already.

Yeah. What I'd tell our listeners tell roadies, uh, please bear with us. This is our first pick to do me and Jim haven't done this before. So there are some lessons learned. There's some things we're learning on the spot on the move. Um, we're doing our best just hanging there with us. We're going to get through this. I promise you don't stress out. There's plenty of whiskey. I'll get you some more whiskey if we need it. We want to do a second pick. So we want to sell this thing out. I think it's going to sell out a great price, $66. That's pretty good. And now, Jim, I wanted to compare that to something else. So recently Booker's, pigskin released, right? That Booker's pigskin is going anywhere from $79 to $99. It's around the same proof as this. They're both kind of cast. They're both cast strength, right? But ours is cheaper and I think it's better.

Yeah, this is a fine barrel. Now, Mike, we've got some good friends over at wilderness trail and they, they pulled out some pretty special barrels for us to try there during our pick. And I have to say we did, we did get the pick of the litter. No doubt about it. We got a really good barrel.

Yeah. I, when we did this, there was five of us there. Um, we all put our notes up and stuff. This wasn't my number one, but I'll tell you what, if I'd have tasted that day and guarantee it had been that number one, everybody was like, Oh, we know it's barrel. Big chief's going to pick. They were all spot on what I liked. Cause I love that butterscotch bomb, um, that sweetness to it. But this has got something to be in Jim both like it's got the spice. It's got the sweetness. It's got just that long legs on it. I'd say this is one sexy bottle.

Absolutely. Everybody out there wants to get ahold of me on Instagram. I'm Jay Shannon 63.

I'm one big chief and we will see you down the bourbon road.

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