117. Frey Ranch Barrel Proof Single Barrel 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.

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Yeah. So we got some fray ranch single barrel, pretty much barrel strength, right? Um, you know, sometimes people prove stuff down a little bit from a single barrel, but this is not proof down. The bottle they sent us is 126.38 proof. It's a four grain whiskey. they're out of Fallon, Nevada. We had him on, on a show before Colby was kind enough to send us a bottle of this. He, man of his promise, right? He promised us we would get a bottle of this, Jim. He did. And sure enough he did. So five years old, Jim.

Five year bourbon. 126 proof craft distillery and nothing in here is under five years old. This single barrel, these are five year old plus bourbons.

Yeah. So they, the special thing about fray ranch out there is they grow, they distill it, they mature, they bottle it, they do it. Everything is there from them. Um, pretty special when they're doing everything. I find that unique in the bourbon world. I don't think you'll find any major distilleries doing that right now. I can't even imagine what Buffalo Traces farm would look like if they had to have a farm to support their distillery.

Yeah. One of the things they say is they slow grow their grain. So they're using a winter wheat in this. Uh, they're using a winter rye in this, you know, those things do tend to grow a little bit slower in the winter months. Uh, they're using some, uh, non GMO corn and a two row barley, but anyway, you know, they're growing their grains. They're paying real close attention to, to making sure that these things have the maximum amount of contribution to the flavor of the whiskey by doing the right thing at the farm.

Yeah. I mean, what else could you ask for from a place? And they also design their own bottles and stuff. I think it is one of the most beautiful bottles in the whiskey game right now. Super heavy bottom on it. So, you know, it's not going to tip over on you or anything. Some of the colors you'll see yellow on there, that John Deere yellow. When you kind of think of John Deere, you think green and yellow, right? Well, it's got that yellow on there. The top looks like a big nut off a tractor. Um, and then in the design of their free ranch, you'll see a barn in there too, in a silo. So I just dig it. Um, very classy bottle, very heavy. Um, when you pick it up, you think you're a great whiskey drinker. Makes you a great whiskey drinker.

Well, let's nose this thing, Jim. Let's do it. Oh yeah. So, uh, very, very powerful nose, I would say.

I'd agree with you. It's a, it's got a little kick to it.

It's got a deep rich nose to it. I would say, uh, this one leans a little bit more towards the, uh, the caramels and butterscotches than it does towards the fruit for me. I get a little hint of fruit there. If so, it's a little bit of a sort of a dark, darker fruit. Maybe, um, maybe a plum.

Yeah, I could get that some raisin in there, some plum, um, something that's dark of caramels though, that sugar is, is coming through that. I don't know. I keep always going back to that kettle corn. I get a little bit of that kettle corn in there.

A little bit of, uh, rich caramel that's on a, that's on a can that's on an apple, you know, at a fair with the nuts on it.

Oh, I know what you're talking about. You chew into it and your teeth stick to the apple. You can't even get them off there at my age. I'm starting to worry about pulling a tooth out when you bite into one of those.

I get, I get the rye on this too. Um, It's, it doesn't have that softness upfront that you might expect from a weeded whiskey, but this is just a four grain. So, and I'm not sure about the contribution of the wheat here, but it's not softening the front end at all. I think it's a, and this is on my, on the nose I'm talking about. Sure. Um, I think, uh, it's well balanced, but I think for me, it's a little bit more caramel butterscotch that fair apple with the caramel dripping over it. Well, I say, let's taste this thing, Jim. Let's do it.

Cheers. Cheers.

Yeah. That's a big boys whiskey right there.

And that's like John Wayne just punched me in the tongue.

Yeah. So now I'm getting the now it does hit you with that a little bit of sweetness upfront. That caramel, that butterscotch, that, uh, that nut coated caramel Apple, as it moves back on the palette, I start to get a little more leather and Oak. It's got, I think the leather and Oak play a bigger part on this, particularly on the back of the palette.

It's got a complexity of flavors in it. You got the caramel there. You got the oak is coming out a little bit of that rich leather. Kind of maybe if you walked into a leather shop a little bit, I'm not saying like chewing on a leather glove or a saddle or anything, but just that, I don't know that aroma you get, kind of get that in your taste a little bit. Man, it is, it's powerful.

It's a little bit dry on the back. Um, but you know, with that leather and that Oak back there, and it just, the absence of sweetness on the back of the palette, that, that hug is there and that, that finish is just, just sticking around and it's just hanging in there.

You don't want to back end, Jim.

I get a little bit of pop rocks, a little fizzle sizzle.

little bit of firework going off in there. Um, the sweetness of a pot rock and that, you know, just like you said, the fizzle of it, that's great.

Um, I'm getting more of the Oak and the leather. I think that's because the finish is just hanging on so long. That's made such an impression on my palette that it, when I go back to take another nose on it, it's just, it's just not quite there. Um, the, the palette just overpowers the nose. Uh, it's very, very flavorful. Um, it's very, uh, uh, impressive on the back of the palette. I think, uh, this is, uh, this is what you would call a flavor bomb. It's also what I think you would call a discovery whiskey. Um, the more you sit here, the more I think it lets you taste different things.

I'll tell you what the sucker has worked down, Jim, and it gave me a big old Kentucky hug. I'm getting a little bit of sweet tart on this. You get the sweetness, that dryness, that chalkiness you've talked about before. Um, a little bit of power in the mouth with a sweet tart. Um, I'm not saying this is overly sour or anything like that. It's definitely not sour, but that sweetness, that candy flavor you get, um, a sweet tart, man, if you can get a bottle of this, Jim, what's the price on this thing?

Uh, so this one retails at 84 99. It's an $85 bottle. So it's a little bit more pricey. Uh, but it is, it is, I think at the top of their heap, right.

Yeah, this is their big boy whiskey. This is your grown woman whiskey. If you want a whiskey that it's going to surprise you at every corner, this is it right here. You won't be disappointed in this one. This would get a buy from me every day of every hour. I would say go out and get it while you can get it. They call it the Stillers Reserve too. This is something you'd be proud to have on your shelf. I would put this right up there with, um, Elijah Craig barrel proof.

I tend to agree with you on that, Mike. I think that this one, uh, would tend to go knuckle to knuckle with a lot of the, uh, higher proof. This will go knuckle to knuckle with a stag junior. This would go knuckle to knuckle with a. Uh, Elijah Craig barrel proof, particularly because of the flavor bomb aspects of it for the Elijah Craig. I mean, it's got so much going on there. Now it's kind of funny. You mentioned the big boy whiskey, right? The other day we were out and I said, yeah, it's a big girl whiskey too. Right. You said, Jim, that's not something you want to say. That's a grown woman whiskey. I got myself in trouble. Insert foot and mouth.

You also never want to say to a woman, this will put hair on your chest.

Yeah. What do you say? What's the, what's the alternative saying to puts hair on your chest? You say this will strip the hair off your husband's back. Well, this is definitely a powerful whiskey for me. It's absolutely a sipper. Um, I want a bottle of this for my bar. No doubt about it. I've come to find out that fray ranch puts out some pretty tasty juice and I would be very happy to add this one to my bar.

Yeah. Right now is it's around Christmas time. Um, you know, we just did our barrel pig, Jim, um, still a bunch of those bottles left. I think there's right around 40 bottles right now that people can get. Just go to our webpage, go to our bourbon group and you can get them. I'd put our bottle right up against this guy right here. But pretty special bottle right here. I would gift it to somebody. It gets a thumbs up from both of us. Very long finish on this, very complex. Like I said before, you're not going to be disappointed in any aspect of this. The nose was didn't match the palette so much, but you know, if we did that, we would have cheated ourselves out of a lot of whiskey.

I have to say that once you take a sip of this, you can forget about the nose anyway, because you're not going back to smell it. The roadies, if you can get your hands on this, I'd say, go do it. No doubt about it. This is a good, this is a good single barrel and being a single barrel, you know, the next one's going to be a little different. So I imagine there's some variety out there and I'd love to explore a few of those.

So Jim, you know, we got a bourbon recipes going on right now. We've asked our roadies to send some in. I got one from Ryan Sadler. You know what he sent me? I don't know why it's middle of winter and he sends me a chocolate bourbon ice cream recipe, but heck, why not make it? So Ryan, we're going to post this up on Thursday for you with all the recipe itself. Listeners, if you want to get this recipe, that's where you're going to have to get it from. You get it from our Instagram, our Facebook. a couple of years, maybe me and Jim will be able to put out a cookbook. Remember if you're sending your recipe to us, you're pretty much saying we're going to use it. So, uh, we're going to tag you in that, give you credit. If we ever make a cookbook, we'll be able to put your name down there at the bottom of the recipe.

Well, I guess if, uh, if you're going to eat ice cream in the middle of winter, it's got to have some bourbon in it.

Yeah, most definitely warm me up. I mean, he's, he's got a great recipe. I love to see different recipes like that and stuff. Um, if you want to get your recipe on the show, make sure you send me your recipe at Mike at the bourbon road. Um, we'll put it up on our craft distillery Mondays and you'll see it on Instagram and Facebook.

All right. Well, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Now we don't do videos on YouTube or audio only, but Hey, you know, sometimes that's just the app to use on all the social media is you'll find us at the bourbon road. We also have a website called the bourbon road.com and on the bourbon road.com, we have a weekly blog. where we talked about, Mike talks about usually, the episode that we just put out, our long version episode on Wednesdays. We also do a short version on Mondays. That's what this is. It's called our craft distillery Monday, where we take a look at a craft distillery expression. Mike, they can get some of our stuff on the website, right?

Yeah. So you, right now you can get our glasses on there. You can get our barrel pick that we did. Um, our next barrel pick, we're making plans for it. So make sure you check that out. You know, if you want to still get a bottle, check our, check our website out. We'll have some swag on there. Hopefully by the end of the year, end of the beginning of the year, it takes a lot for us to get going. Um, I would say, that you're going to want to look out for that bourbon bullshitter t-shirt that I'm always wearing. It's going to be on our website. We're going to do one big run of it. We'll see how it goes. I'm pretty excited about it. Jim's excited about it. You want to wear what I'm wearing. Come on. I'm the fashion model, right?

Absolutely. I try to follow you, Mike. I mean, I try to keep up with you. It's tough. Sometimes you are, You are out there on the edge though.

I know I'm wearing a camouflage shirt right now and a pair of Carhartt, uh, duck pants, I guess is what I call them. And a pair of old ASIC tennis shoes that were around a farm. So yeah, I'm just a fashionista.

Well, if you've got an idea for a show or somebody we ought to talk to, we'd love to hear from you could always reach me on Instagram at jshannon63.

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.