133. Kings County Barrel Strength 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 Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn, New York. They were kind enough to send us some bottles to try. The one we're going to try tonight is their straight bourbon whiskey barrel strength. So this is 127.4 proof. It's definitely a what we call a big boy whiskey or a grown woman whiskey. This is going to have some spice of life into it, I think.

Yeah, it's got a nice dark color to it. We've got what, a 200ml bottle?

We do have a 200ml bottle. These run about $30. They're on a high end, but you got to remember this is a craft distillery. So you get the $375 for $55 and you get the $750 for right around $90. But as thin a bottle this is, you would expect it to be lighter in color. Yeah, that's dark whiskey.

If that was in a full round wine bottle, that would be close to black.

Oh yeah. The other thing I like about this is everything's from New York. Their corn and their malted barley is from their region and stuff. They're the oldest distillery in New York. A lot of people don't think Brooklyn, New York. I don't think whiskey. But there's probably been whiskey there a lot longer than anywhere else.

Yeah. So, King's County, I have had King's County before as we've made our rounds over the years. We've had an opportunity to try some of these distilleries as they have grown up. I've had some of their early stuff. That was good. I mean, nothing wrong with it.

But I'm really looking for some different results today. Well, this is three to six years old. Yeah. So I would expect with this proof. This is our third drink for today for both of us. And this one is probably a little bit darker.

I wonder if listeners know we record these in batches.

then I just open up the curtains on us and stuff.

I don't know, but you could probably tell, if you listen to our show, you could probably tell when we're on the third show of the day.

We're both laughing a little bit with the mixture. So we just reviewed the Booker's Pigskin and we're onto this one right here. This one is a little bit darker. The way we review is we go on proof. So we started out with a Hunter Proofer. Booker's was just a little bit under this one. Not a lot, but just a little bit under this one. So yeah. Well, let's get to this whiskey. Let's know this thing.

Let's get to it. Cheers. Oh, that's, that's dark. That's rich. That's, um, wow.

That's a brown sugar right there. That's some brown sugar. No doubt about it. That's kettle corn all day long for me. Um, a little bit of barrel in there, a little bit of oak, I think.

Yep. I'm getting some raisin. I'm getting some, uh, some caramel and, and, and vanilla and raisin kind of a mix. It's definitely got that ethanol punch to it when you, when you knows it, you know, there's some, you know, there's some proof there.

Yeah. I actually get a little bit of like baked banana bread in there too, with those nuts in it.

Maybe walnuts. I want to get, I want to get to the palate. Well, let's do it. Cheers. Cheers. Yeah, that pallet just kind of falls right in tune with the nose. There's a lot going on there. The oak's light, but the spice is heavy. Surprising because I think this is a corn and malt mash bill, right? Yeah. Wow. Very interesting. Barrels have played a, the barrel has played a big part in putting spice into this whiskey.

This is almost, um, You ever ran out of marshmallows at a campfire and all you got left is the chocolate and some graham crackers. I get that all day long.

Speaking of marshmallows, I'm getting lucky charms. You know those those real sweet sugary candy marshmallows that come in lucky charms? I could get that out of this. Wow.

I guess dark cherries inside there. Some other dark stone fruits like that. Maybe some... You ever had grilled peaches before? I have. I get a little bit of grilled peaches on this.

Yeah, Kings County. Wow. You guys are killing it. This is pretty impressive.

Now, like I said, the prices are up there anywhere from $30 for this little 200 milliliter bottle all the way up to $90 for the 750. I'll tell you what, I buy that all day long.

Yeah. There's some good blending going on here because you said that the top age on these bottles.

It's like 5.7, almost six years.

A little under six years, but some stuff in there is a little over three years, right? Yeah. So it's kind of a mix of that. So somebody is doing some magic in the blending room.

I'll tell you what, this is special bourbon right here. You wanna give somebody a really nice bottle. Now, they don't splurge on their bottles. They don't splurge on their labeling. It is just typed out. Looks almost like I'm a tight old typewriter. It's what's inside though. It is what's inside. They're letting the whiskey speak for itself. I can't say enough good stuff, good things about this bourbon in general. I even like that it's just a type cast on there. It's just plain bottle. You really got to look at it and you got to appreciate it for what it is.

It's got a pretty good New York hug to it though, doesn't it? Yeah. Like a kick in the chest. Yeah. This one definitely. Okay. So the finish on this is medium to long and the hug is absolutely present. It gives you a nice warm feeling. I tell you what, cold winter day, this will warm you right up.

No doubt about it. Yeah, I'd say if we probably sit here long enough with this and drink some more, I would say the finish is probably going to move into that long on it and stuff. It doesn't lay on the tongue like a chocolatey barred stuff. You know, you eat some chocolate and it kind of fills your mouth up and you're like, man, I might need a glass of milk with this. Well, you're not going to need any milk with this sucker and it's going to stay there with you though.

I want to stand firm on the Lucky Charms on this one. I think this is all about those hard marshmallow, crunchy marshmallows that come in Lucky Charms. Sweet, got that marshmallow-y kind of a little bit burnt though. Not too much, but just a little bit.

When I was a young man, my grandmother, she'd make desserts and she'd cut an apple in half. She'd core it out. And she put nuts and raisins inside there and then pour some brown sugar on there and stick it in the oven and bake those. And that will be a dessert for us. I'm kind of getting that whole package right there. You know, those nuts and those raisins and the brown sugar baked apple. Wow.

I can tell you this much. I have prior experience with Kings County and although when I tasted their whiskies the last time, I thought, you know what? These are really good. I can't wait to see what they taste like as they mature a little bit more. This is what you can expect. Fellas, girls, roadies, if you're listening to this episode and there's a particular whiskey that you feel that you've tried that has not quite cut it, make sure you go back and revisit. Don't write them off.

Yeah. Everybody goes through growing pains, I think. Especially distilleries are trying to figure out that. It's like baking a cake when you're a kid. Probably not going to have a perfect cake, right? Even if it's out of a box. But as you get older, you learn how to bake, you learn how to cook. Cake can be something super beautiful if you do it right.

I think there's an art in whiskey tasting where you can taste a young whiskey, a whiskey that's not quite spent enough time in the barrel, hasn't quite matured long enough, where you can taste that whiskey and you can see its future. And not everybody has that. I'm included.

Sometimes I can't quite see the future in a bourbon.

But I think that I'm getting surprised every day as we come back and revisit distilleries that have allowed their stocks to age a little bit further, have done some expert blending, because that's so important, right, Mike?

I think it is. I think some people say that's more important than a master distiller itself as the blender stuff. Now, while people say, hey, you put bad whiskey into a barrel, that barrel is not going to make it better and the blender can't make it better. Bad whiskey is going to be bad whiskey, right? Some whiskies, you know, you might have a couple barrels that are just kind of off and you could add another barrel to it and you blend it right. And we know a master blender like that. She's very magical when it comes to that. Witchy woman, Ashley Barnes. I think that master blender is very important to distilleries today.

I've always said that younger whiskeys bring something to the table that's very important. And a lot of times, those notes that you get, that experience that you get with a younger whisky is lost as it ages in the barrel. So when you can take the best of both worlds, when you can take a younger whisky, a three-year whisky, and you can marry it with a six-year whisky, and the two, you get the best of both worlds, that's magic. That's absolute magic.

They've definitely done it on this one. I'd say this is a buy all day long, Jim.

Absolutely. Sipping whiskey, I would sip on this all day long, every day. If I'm in New York, I'm going to search them out. They're not just in New York though.

They're out there, right? Yeah. You can buy it online. You can go on their website and buy it and get a ship to you here in Kentucky.

Now we can. Kentucky is now a shipping state. Finally. I'm getting all these emails now from wineries and other places saying, welcome Kentucky to the shipping world. Well, Jim, you can find us on social media where you can find us on all social medias, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and. Take talk.

Hopefully by this time we'll have a couple of little videos up there. I guess that's what they are as little videos or something.

One minute or less. We are at the bourbon road at the bourbon road. That's who we are. We also have a website called the bourbon road.com.

You can find our blogs on there. You can find our reviews like the one we did today. That'll be up there. Um, you can find our swag on there. Is that swag? Swag, swag, swag. How do you say that? I would say swag. I don't know how else to say it. Swag. Goodies. Goodies are bourbon gear, whatever you want to call it. It's on there. We got our glasses. We got our caps and we have two t-shirts on there. The bourbon road t-shirt though is a limited edition. It'll be up there for a month. Order it. Once that month's over, we'll compile all of our lists. We'll get those t-shirts made and we'll send them out.

All right. Well, Mike, we also do two shows a week. Every Monday, a show like this, Craft Distillery Review. In this case, it was Kings County. Next week, who knows? Some distillery in your neighborhood.

You never can tell what's going to pop up. If you want us to review your whiskey, if your distillery, contact us. You can contact us on Instagram. You can contact us on Facebook. You can contact us through our website. Our phone numbers are on there. Look us up. Send us some whiskey. We'll dang sure try it. We'll sit down with it. We'll enjoy it. We'll let everybody know what we think.

The best way to plug into the Bourbon Road is to join the Bourbon Roadies group though.

Yeah. So we got 1400 members in there, master distillers in there, authors, writers, songwriters, musicians, chefs, you name it. Got all kinds of people in there. People like me and Jim just like to sit down and bullshit about bourbon. Three rules to get into there. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Do you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any rudeness? That's just the way we are. We want everybody in there to be able to post something and nobody bashing for it. All right.

So come to our Facebook page. Look at our groups. You'll find the bourbon roadies. Join up. Answer your questions. Come on in the group. Announce yourself. If you don't ask yourself, we're still going to welcome you in every now and then. We have a big list of new members and we always welcome you in. But we'd love to have you come to the Bourbon Roadies. We also want to know what you think about who we should have on the show, what bourbons or whiskeys or rice that we should review. And the best way to get a hold of us, Mike? Well, you can reach me at One Big Chief. I'm JayShannon63. You can see us on down the Bourbon Road. 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 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.