127. Sugar House Distillery Bourbon 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.

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. I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. And once again, we are at Chep the Bend Farms. We're down in Mike's basement. We do not have a fire going today. I wish we did. I should have made a fire. It's chilly down here. It's a little chilly, no doubt about it. A little bit of, I think it was just a little bit of that cool air creeping in under the windowsills. But the good thing is we've got some good bourbon whiskey, don't we?

We do. We got a new craft distillery to us. A friend of mine, John, out in Salt Lake City, Utah, he sent me a bottle of Sugar House Distillery Bourbon Whiskey.

Okay, so this is local to Salt Lake City. Yeah. It's a distillery that produces everything that goes in their bottle, right? Local grains, local production.

Yeah, I think they grain the glass is what they're doing out there.

Right. And so this is a bourbon whiskey. We're not sure about the age, but we do know the mash bill, right?

So it's 92 proof, 75% corn, 20% rye and 5% malted barley.

So that sounds good to me. That's a great mash bill as far as I'm concerned. It's got enough rye to sort of pique my interest anyway. Oh Jesus.

It's as close to a rye as you can get, right? Well, I mean, 70, you know, that's a lot of corn.

It is, but that would be considered a high ride. That would be considered a high ride. No doubt about it.

Now we had a bourbon event other night and people were like, Oh, ducky bourbon, but we had to correct them on that and say bourbon can be made anywhere in the United States.

Absolutely. Bourbon can be made in any of the 50 states of the United States. It cannot be made in Europe. It cannot be made in China. It cannot be made in South America. It has to be made in the US of A. That's why it's America's native spirit right there. That's right. But it doesn't have to be made in Kentucky. A lot of people think it does. Now, let's be honest, some of the best bourbon in the world is made in Kentucky. In fact, many of the greatest bourbons in the world are made in Kentucky.

No doubt about that, right? It's been proven and over and over and over. But as these craft instilleries, they're inching their way up. They're learning a little bit. They're figuring stuff out what makes it good in their state and their region and their climate. They're getting crafty.

Yeah. So Salt Lake City, Utah. So what do we know about Salt Lake City, Utah? I don't know the high West, the desert, right? Yeah.

They, uh, mountain desert, I guess out there, old volcanoes and stuff like that. The winter Olympics were out there. So they got a little bit of snow. They got that snow runoff.

They got some mountains out there. They got, uh, they got the salt flats. Not a lot of distilleries out in Salt Lake City, right?

Well, there's a couple. You said high west. So you got high west out there. But no, I wouldn't say Utah is known for its liquor.

Yeah. So we got Park City, Utah, right? Beautiful out there.

Yeah. I'd say this bottle, it's kind of that baker's bottle. Not super fat and round, but it's not that traditional whiskey bottle. About a three inch neck on it. Nice black and white label. You know, we kind of like that black and white.

We do. Bourbon road has an affinity towards the black and white labels.

Yeah. Kind of one of my favorite bands of all time is ACDC, that back in black album. I guess today, if I told some young kids that they'd be like, that's classic rock. I'm like, what are you talking about? That's not classic.

That's, that's, that's rock and roll right there. So when you hear sugar house, you think, okay, this is going to be sweet, right? Yeah. So I I'm kind of looking forward to nosiness and taste in this, Mike. We both have a little bit in our glass. I'm looking at the bottle now. I'm thinking medium to dark amber, right? It is. Yeah. We don't know the age of this one. We know the mash bill. So we know this is a bourbon whiskey produced in Salt Lake City, Utah, and it's got some pretty decent color to it. It's got a little bit over 70% corn in it, a little bit of rye, a lot of rye actually.

I'm kind of looking forward to it. Let's, let's, let's know as a sucker. Let's do it. I'm getting a little bit of a racer on that. Are you? It could be all that Ryan there to be.

Yeah. So I'm getting a little bit of a sweet spicy, sweet nose on it. I get the spice in it. Yeah.

Not a lot of floral on this one.

Not a lot of fruit. I'm getting mostly caramel.

Are you picking up that oak on there though?

Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely getting a little bit of the oak. Kind of a new oak though.

And I think whenever I say dry eraser, I don't mean dry eraser. I think that that dry eraser I'm getting is that new new-ish oak I'm getting out of this. If I had to put a word on that, it would be that oak coming out of this. Not a whole lot of sugars on this though.

This does have a caramel note to it, a little bit of vanilla, but I would say that the spice is starting to come through a little bit for me. I get that 20% rye. I definitely see that 20% rye coming through on the nose.

What kind of spice would you call that besides rye?

Yeah, it's hard for me to say. I would say it's kind of a rye bread for me. Rye bread.

I could get that. What about pumpernickel? Is pumpernickel a different kind of spice?

Yeah, pumpernickel is a rye and it's a very dark rye. I don't know that this one quite leans towards pumpernickel for me, but This is a little bit more like, um, Reuben, you know, that right, that's world, right? You get on a Reuben.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, Jim, I'll tell you, I, I tried to nose is too much and a little bit of it went into my mustache and it lit, it leaked down onto my lip. And, uh, it's got some spice to it.

I'm ready to taste this because this, this sounds to me like something that's right in my whole part. I think we're both going to enjoy this.

So I'll say cheers. Let's try this. Cheers. A little bit of bitterness on that.

little bit, but the caramel is coming through. It's a spicy caramel. It kind of drips that rye spice for me. I would say that this one definitely is true to this 20% rye. A little bit of a licorice note coming through.

It's got some sweetness when it first hits your tongue. all the way back to you through your palate. That spice is not giving me as much Kentucky hug as I would traditionally think of a bourbon. Kind of missing that. You know, I'm not big into that anyways. I don't like to feel that burn too much because I like the sweet mash, but still a nice sweet. You said licorice and I think you hit it on the head with that. But I'm trying to think if that's really a black licorice, you know?

Yeah, no, I wouldn't say this is like a strong black licorice. This is more of a, almost like a licorice Twizzler. You know, just a light licorice.

I get a little bit of cherry in this and that's where I was thinking was cherry Twizzlers. Twizzler.

Yeah. You know, I think that's what, I think that's probably where my mind went on Twizzler there. Cause I'm, I'm a, Huge fan of Twizzlers. Every Christmas, my wife gets me Twizzlers. There, I can guarantee you, there will be Twizzlers in my stocking at Christmas time. Every year. Do you get the stringy ones or just the regular old traditional Twizzlers? Not all the stringy ones. I mean, I definitely am a huge fan of that.

Are they still chewy? Does it even make it to where it gets hard? Are they gone like in a couple of days?

No, they're gone. I mean, they probably don't last two weeks after Christmas. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I had, I think this to me, it has a medium finish. It's not very long. It's kind of light, but it's not too proof. So I wouldn't expect it to have a very long finish on this. I still have that little bit of sweetness on there. The spice kind of just drizzles off though.

Yeah.

Um, but not bad.

Yeah, I think it's good. I think it's got, for me, this is probably a bourbon that I could sip on. This is a fall bourbon for me.

Really?

Yeah, I think so.

I would have said it's more of a spring and a summer bourbon to me because it's 92 proof and it doesn't have that burn to it. I could probably, as long as the bottle was cool, Not to where, if it's sitting inside your house and you get your house at 68 degrees, it's cool enough to where I can sip on it. And it doesn't give me that burn. Where if you had a big old Kentucky bourbon that has that Kentucky hug, maybe at a cash strength, that's a winter bourbon.

Yeah, no, we're not sure about the distribution on this bottle. We did a little bit of research before the show and we weren't able to really determine where all that are distributed.

I do know you can get it in anywhere in Utah. John was able to get it there in, you know, obviously he lives in Salt Lake City. Um, and the John I'm talking about, I was telling you guys before, but I'll tell listeners about John. Um, I went out hunting to Utah, right? And, uh, John's, I'd say he's all a five foot two. And I'm six, three, John probably weighs 125 pounds. I'm pushing 300 and uh, we go pushing.

You're not quite there.

Sometimes pushings over 300. Yeah. And it could be under, it just depends on the day. I'm, I'm hoping that in 2021, I stay under 300 pounds, um, leaner, meaner fighting, drinking bourbon machine that I want to be, um, still be the big chief though. I'm never going to be a little bitty fella, but big John took me hunting up in the mountains there and, uh, we're camping at about 7,000 feet and he takes me hunting every day up to 10,000 feet. And, uh, we, we come back down every day to eat lunch. So three days we do this up and back down lunch and then back up and then back down. Fourth day, I was like, John, this boy, big boy right here, I'll eat lunch on the top of that mountain if I have to, but I can't come back down at lunchtime.

We're not walking down in the night.

It's not happening because if I walk down, I'm not making it back up. And luckily enough that morning I shot a deer and I didn't, we walked down and stuff, but I can't thank John enough for sending us this bottle. John, if you're listening, a great bourbon you picked out. I think they're doing fine stuff out there in Utah with whiskey. As we said, bourbon and whiskey just don't come from Kentucky. It comes from all over the world. Sometimes you got to take that side roads and experience something new. And I tell you listeners, if you're not doing that, if you're stuck on one thing, one region, you are missing out on life because there's a lot of whiskeys out there.

There's a little something special about this one, I think. It's a little bit different than what you might get elsewhere. And you know, I think that anybody who's listening to this show right now has probably had a High West product, whether it be Midwinter Night's Dram or their double rye or, you know, they've campfire. You know, they're doing some great things in Utah and there's some good whiskey companies out there. And, uh, if you get a chance to get out there, visit them all.

Yeah. John actually sent me another bottle of, uh, high West too, cause I'd sent him a couple of bottles and. He returned a favor. A couple bottles, they can't find the stuff that we have here. And I don't think I'd have ever seen this bottle before. So he sent me a bottle of this and a bottle of High West, which we can see High West. Sure. But this was a nice surprise. I'm glad we opened this up tonight, Jim, and tried it. Sugarhouse, if you're listening, you want to send us some other bottles of Cast Strength or something? Mike's always reaching for that Cast Strength, isn't he? Well, you're a big man, you know? You gotta have big man whiskey.

That's right.

All right, Michael, people can find us on all the social medias at the bourbonroad.com.

You can also find us on our website at the bourbonroad.com or you can find our blogs, you can find our swag on there, our glasses that we're drinking out of tonight. You can find our t-shirts on there. We're going. 2021 is our year, Jim.

Yeah, so we're constantly busy trying to reach out to as many folks as we can. We have a great private bourbon group on Facebook called The Bourbon Roadies.

Got to answer three questions, get in. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Duh. And do you agree to play nice? That means no, what Jim?

No rudeness. You know, we just want people to get along, have a good time. We don't want, uh, you know, we don't want somebody coming into the group and saying, Hey, I just had some Jack Daniels today and it was fantastic. We don't want a bunch of people jumping on them for that.

No, if that's what somebody can buy, that's what they're getting started into from the person that's 21 years old, or if you're 75 years old and you're buying your first whiskey, we want you to feel comfortable coming there and talk about that whiskey. Nobody's going to bash you or anything. We got some great moderators in there that will take care of that kind of stuff for us. We got Adam, we got Jason, and we got Drew now. They take care of that kind of stuff for us. If you got ideas for the show, It's a good place to hit me and Jim up, send us a private message, give us your ideas. Most of the time, me and Jim talk about it and we're like, that's a good idea. Let's have a show about it.

That's a good idea. Let's do a show. Absolutely. We do two shows a week. We do a short episode every Monday. We do a longer episode, full-length episode every Wednesday. We love to have you listen to both episodes every week. In the meantime, if you have an idea for a show or you think you know what whiskey we need to be reviewing, or if you're a distillery, and you've got a bottle out there and you don't think we've talked about it yet. Reach out to us. Let us know. You can reach me on Instagram at jshannon63. I'm one big chief and we will see you down the bourbon road. You know, you can't drink whiskey without glassware and Mike and I are extremely pleased to have a sponsor like premium bar products. Premium Bar Products offers direct to consumer the finest whiskey glasses, cocktail glasses, and bar tools with your own personal engraving. I mean, you can write anything you want on these glasses, anything from a company logo to a personal statement, and there are no minimum orders. Their direct consumer platform offers you the opportunity to purchase small quantities of your favorite glass shapes that enhance the pleasure of enjoyment and drinking a whiskey and make it all very positive. They offer the absolute finest trending and handmade glasses as well as a comprehensive range of styles. And all of their items have been designed with purpose, practicality, and longevity in mind. So if you're a bourbon or whiskey group and you need custom logos, you need to reach out to Premium Bar Products. If you're an individual, you just want a few for your bar to impress your friends, to give out as gifts, you need to call Premium Bar Products. They need to be your one and only source for custom glassware. I can tell you right now, the Bourbon Road, that's who we use. Janie and Carson and the team there at Premium Bar Products will take care of you. They'll treat you like family and they'll take care of you with every order.