131. Booker's 2020-03 "Pigskin Batch" Bourbon Review

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, it's another craft distillery Monday. This time we got a little bit of a big boy, right? What do we mean by big boy?

I think it's important every once in a while we do do a big boy from one of the big boy distilleries. But what we've talked about, we'll never do a unicorn. This definitely isn't a unicorn. People can get that. They can get their hands on it, but it's a pricey bourbon. It's still to me a big boy whiskey though, and it's named after a big boy himself. The legendary master distiller from Jim Beam, Booker No. 2020 was the 30th anniversary of Booker's bourbon. So I brought over a bottle. I purchased this from Kroger there in Shelbyville. Paid $75 for it. MSRP on it though is $90. So I felt like I got to steal. So this is the Booker's Pigskin and the story they tell what Fred No tells on the bourbon itself. His dad was six foot four and three hundred pounds. So he is definitely a big boy. So this is true big boy whiskey right here. So Fred tells in his write-up of this that his dad, being that big of a guy, had an infinite love for football, and that's why they named this Pigskin. His whole family is. It's almost the end of the football season, and we got two more weeks really of it left. We've got the conference playoffs coming up, and then we have the Super Bowl. So what are you rooting for? Well, we got four teams left, right? You got the Green Bay Packers versus Tampa Bay. Both of those guys have won Super Bowls before. You got Tom Brady, the greatest of all time quarterback. Does he really need another Super Bowl? And then you got Aaron Rodgers up in Green Bay. Does he really need another Super Bowl? I don't know. I wouldn't root for either one of those guys really. And then you got the Kansas city chiefs with Patrick Mahomes, a young man that he'd won his first Superbowl last year because he needed another Superbowl. They're taking on the Buffalo Bills. Remember back in the nineties, they just took a shellac from the NFC and it was horrible. but the Buffalo Bills haven't won a Super Bowl. They need to win one. So that's who I'm rooting for. Even though I'm a Cowboys fan and we put it to them back in the nineties for those two Super Bowls, we played them. That's who I'm rooting for.

All right. Well, if they're not a Bills fan, you'll still drink bourbon with them, right? Yeah. You want to drink some bourbon with me. Hey, you see me out.

You see me at a bar or restaurant. You buy me a drink. I'm going to drink it. Absolutely.

All right. So Booker No. Booker's Bourbon, it is very carefully selected from prime locations in multiple warehouses, right?

Yeah, this one came from five different warehouses to be exact. And then they blend that together or they put a percentage of each of those in there. I'm assuming it's a humongous batch, though, being Jim Beam.

Pretty good batch, I would say. And they always mentioned what the youngest barrel was, though.

So this one, which is funny to me because they even put days on there. This is six years, seven months, and seven days. So a respectable age on it. It's 127.3 proof. That's stepping it up a notch right there.

Absolutely. Well, Bookers have always been high in the proof game. There's no doubt about it. Booker's fan for a lot of years and, you know, everybody has their favorites. It's kind of a little bit collectible. Everybody kind of has their release that they care about. Like this has a number associated with it. What's the number on this one?

So this one's the 2020 03, which is the third release. And that was this was the final one for 2020.

So for me, I've had a number of these, like I said, usually Costco has really good prices on these. And I usually pick up a bottle of Bookers at Costco's. But my favorite so far has been the 1704, 2017-04, which was called Sip-A-Wild. And I like that one so much that I bought several bottles. I have one remaining. Not open yet.

Not open yet.

But, you know, it's it's going to be soon because it's been a while since I've tasted simple while.

What I don't get about this. So I opened this. This was freshly opened today. And so Jim Beam owns Knob Creek, too. Yep. And. why they can't put the same dang wax on these bottles, I don't understand. Because the Nob Creek wax is like railroad tar or something. It is tough as nails.

And it shatters kind of. Yeah.

This one came off nice and beautiful, nice and soft enough to Pliable enough to get it off. So I don't know if they could change one thing. Let's get that changed. Fix that knob Creek waxer. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, Mike. Well, let's get into it. We like to say we get straight to the bourbon today. We have not quite got straight to the bourbon, but let's do it.

Good morning, Vietnam. So this has some, you can get the barrel char on there, heavy on the char, that brown sugar molasses.

Oh yeah. You know what I'm getting?

Sugar daddies. Sugar daddies.

Are sugar daddies the ones with chocolate over caramel? Yeah, I think so. Sugar babies, sugar daddies. It's been a while.

Well, I'm gonna have to go buy some now. Yeah. Or you think those are as hard as fine as Pop Rocks?

We always have a candy or a cereal. I don't know. I think it's sugar daddy's though. And these have that chocolate covered caramel kind of nose. Now the palette may be totally different. But I'm also getting a dark fruit kind of, now it's raisinettes. So raisinettes are the raisins covered by chocolate, right?

Yeah, those are good. I'm getting some vanilla on this. If you thought, hey, this is what a bourbon smells like, this is definitely what I think of.

Yeah, this is a bad day bourbon. I've had a really bad day.

I need some bookers. The color on this is dark amber in the bottle. Super, super beautiful.

Yeah, Bookers has kind of been all over the place on price. I mean, I remember when Bookers was in the $50 range and it went up to like 69 or 70 and then it dropped back down because there was an uproar about it and then it went back up again and now it's up to 90. I mean, they just need to pace themselves in the market, right?

Yeah. I mean, they're obviously selling bourbon. You know, I think Jim Beam at Standard gets a pretty beat up, but it's still probably the one of the best known bourbons in the world. If you go into a bar, you're going to see some Jim Beam, but you won't see a whole lot of bookers out there. I like how bookers, it almost has little, they give themselves a little ward on the front of it, you know, on the front of the bottle inside the wax. They get a B. They get a B, or what's that stand for?

That's a great A, B, I don't know.

For bourbon bullshit right there.

All right, Mike, let's check it out. Let's do it. I'll say it again. Good morning, Vietnam. That is, that is some good stuff right there. That's some great bourbon.

That is a straight up hits your tongue with a sweetness. It rolls back on your tongue and just enters through that spice of life.

I'm getting nuts on it though this time. I don't know that I always get nuts on bookers. I think I have before. I don't remember the expression or the release, but I think at this time I'm definitely getting really dark roasted peanuts.

You think that's because of the mash bill on this? So this mash bill is 77% corn, 13% rye, and 10% malted barley. You know, it seems like more corn they put into it, you get more of that nutty taste to it.

Yeah, I think it probably has something to do with it. But this is peanuts that... are really roasted beyond where you should. They're a little further roasted than you should roast a peanut.

One of those, uh, peanut carts you see on the streets with little guys has been roasting them too long.

To the end of the day, he's been roasting them all day and there's a few left in there and you get the, you're the last guy of the day.

Yeah, there's ain't nothing wrong with that. It's still good.

Syrupy, nice thick mouth feel, a lot of body to that. I would say that this is, uh, This is in the top shelf of high-proof bourbons, no doubt about it, especially because it's so available.

What I like about this though is it's got that, it has a Kentucky hug, but it's not burning me up. I think that's beautiful on this where they probably kept that mash bill down at that 13% on the rye. Just not so spicy and stuff. I've heard other people say this is a spice bomb. I don't get that in this. It's got some spice, but it's got that, I still get a lot of oak in this, that vanilla, that brown sugar that I love so much.

But it's not very sweet. No, it's not. This is a dry, kind of a dry bourbon. Like a dry red wine almost. Yeah, this is bold. This is dry. This is thick and viscous. It's got a lot going on, a lot of notes there. I think if we sat with this bottle for a little bit longer than we do for a short episode, we'd probably come up with quite a few notes that we're picking up.

We'll probably come up walking funny as we come up, Jim.

I think so. As far as a Booker's release goes, this does not disappoint. And if you're looking to get a recent Booker's and add it to your collection, I would say the Pigskin release is probably something you would definitely want to be grabbing.

Yeah, I almost wish I had bought two of these now because it's that good. I'd say this is a buy for me all day long. If you can find it on that sale, if you can find it at Costco or something like that, but if you can find it at your local liquor store around that $90 price, I wouldn't pay over a hundred dollars for it. Great buy. Definitely a slipper. You wanted to gift this to somebody. This is a really nice gift. I don't like their box all that much. It's got that giant bookers painted on the side of it. It's kind of cheesy looking. That would be the only downfall.

It reminds me of Dukes of Hazzard.

Yeah, just a little bit cheesy. I know some of the bourbon purists out there like it. What it does make though, if you want to make yourself a little smoker out of it.

Yeah.

and make yourself a smoked bourbon. I've seen a lot of people do that with this box.

But if you're a collector and you like to line your bar up with some great looking bottles and boxes, this is a good one to add to it. No doubt, Bookers is something to have on hand. Now, we're hoping there's no bourbon snobs in your life, but if they are, and if they come to your house, You can pour them with bookers and that ought to quiet them down.

Oh, I would think so. You know, I've had some bourbon snobs come over to my house before and they would see photos of my bourbon collection and they were, well, you don't have this or you don't have that. And that's because I'm not a bourbon snob. I'm a bourbon drinker, you know, and there's a lot of open bottles on there that Um, are great bourbons. So, you know, if you've got one of those guys in your life, I think Jim's right. Um, pop this joker out right here and, uh, we can't go wrong with the bookers. No, I don't think so.

Anyway, you can get it anywhere. Grocery store, liquor store, a wholesale club. They've all got it.

Yeah. Nice, beautiful bottle. Um, yeah. Buy all day long. I think it was a good one to review, Jim. If you see the pigskin out there, it's a buy for both of us. Long finish on this. Yeah, it's hanging in there. No doubt about it. That's a great one to drink before we go out to dinner tonight.

All right. Well, Mike, people can find us on all the social medias at The Bourbon Road. We're on Facebook. We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. We're on YouTube. We're even on TikTok. Don't have any content yet. We're going to fix that real soon, I think. Yeah. I don't know how to use it. I got to figure that out. But anyway, we also have a website called the bourbonroad.com and on the bourbonroad.com you will find Mike's articles on our big shows. You will also find bourbon reviews now. Yeah.

So we got Adam Boothby. He's one of our moderators for our Facebook group, the Bourbon Roadies. He puts our reviews up there. He'll make sure that the price is on there for you. It's got our tasting notes, whether it's me and Jim's tasting notes or if Adam writes a review, our notes will be up there. So check it out. We're hoping you use our website. We also have our bourbon swag on there. We have our Bourbon Road t-shirt that'll be up there. It'll be up there for a month. You'll be able to put your order in. We'll stack all those orders up. We'll put one large order in. And then we'll ship those things out. We got our bourbon bullshitter t-shirt up there. You know, a lot of people are loving it. We're seeing people, distillery owners and master stillers are wearing that thing now.

Absolutely. Well, let's just say it struck a core with like distillers, right?

Yeah. If you're a guy that doesn't take us or a gal that doesn't take herself seriously, you just love bourbon. You like talking about it. You probably need to be wearing that shirt. You know, we want to see those photos. You can put those photos up in our bourbon group we have on Facebook called the Bourbon Roadies.

That's right. Bourbon Roadies, 1,400 members, growing strong. We're adding about 100 a month. We're just really cranking in there. It's good people, good times talking about bourbon. We don't sell it. We don't slam each other. We're just nice people enjoying each other's company, sharing reviews, sharing whiskey, just having a good time.

Yeah, I think it's a great group of people growing with the right kind of people that we want in there. People like me and Jim that just like to bullshit about bourbon, like to talk about bourbon, like take photos of bourbon, put it out there. You know, you buy a shirt from us or one of our Glenn Karens off our website. Make sure you take some photos of that stuff and post them on there. We like to see you at distilleries. We like to see you out at bars with our with our swag on and stuff. I think that's that's the greatest form of flattery, I think, for me.

Absolutely. And we you know, Mike and I drink. every show out of our Bourbon Road Glencairns. And we get those Glencairns from who?

Well, we get ours from Distillery Products. So if you're a big group, you're a podcast, you're a new distillery out there, you're a Facebook group, you got a bourbon club, bourbon society, give us a call, give us a shout. I'll pass you Janie's personal phone number there at Distillery Products and she'll hook you up. Now, if you're a listener, you don't have a giant group or anything. You just want two glasses with Fred's bar or Fred's bourbon collection. Happy birthday, mom. Whatever you want to put on there. You want to visit premium bar products. That's the same company. It's for private people, though. You're going to get a great price on your glasses. So give them a visit. Tell them the Bourbon Road sent you.

We'd appreciate it. Absolutely. So we do two shows a week. Every week we do a Monday craft distillery review like tonight. It's a big boy tonight, but that's okay. Every Monday we do a bottle review. We sit down and we talk for about 15 minutes and we let you know what we think about a particular expression. And then on every Wednesday we do a full length episode. Most of the time we've got a guest, we interview somebody, we dive in deep and try to get that that good details out of them. But sometimes, you know, it's just Mike and I chilling, relaxing, drinking bourbon. Sometimes we have a bottle challenge. But we'd love to have you listen to both shows every week. If you have an idea for a show, somebody you'd like us to have on, a bourbon you'd like reviewed, reach out to us. You can reach me at JayShannon63. I'm One Big Chief. And we will see you down the bourbon. But 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 are for the absolute finest trending and handmade classes 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.