139. Knob Creek 12 Year Cask Strength Kentucky 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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Well, you got goats out there and you got chickens and those chickens produce eggs because we get eggs from you all the time. That's true. I need to do that whole tax write-off thing.

We don't though. Horses, cats, dogs, goats, chickens. Your livestocks are producing eggs. That's right. Anyway, fun farm, but we're down here in the basement today and we've got, well, Mike, we've finally got you a cast drink bourbon. The bourbon gods were listening.

Yeah, I guess I do always say, Hey, I wonder how this would taste in And on episode 57, it was kind of our birthday show, our first annual birthday show. We're going to have a second annual birthday show coming up pretty soon here. But on that show, we drank through like Knob Creek Expressions, six of them to be exact. And one of them was the 12 year old that we had drank. And I kind of wondered, it was 100 proof, and I was wondering, hey, how would this taste in cast rank? You know, I always say that. So, you know, was Jim Beam listening? Were they saying, hey?

It's funny how about four months later this came out, right?

Yeah. It says it's limited release, but you can find it all over the place now. I picked this up in Kroger for $99.99.

So at 120.5 proof, it sounds like it might be a single barrel, but we know it's probably not, right?

Yeah, it's a small batch, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, aged 12 years. Small batch for Knob Creek, what would that be, you think? 100 barrels, 200 barrels?

Maybe more, maybe less. But not a single barrel, even though it's a 0.5. So I guess what happened here is they dumped a bunch of barrels together, pre-selected barrels together to make a batch. And that ending proof was 120.5, because they call this a cast-strain condition.

Sure. I think that'd be a, you know, probably a beautiful expression for us. I'm excited to taste it. If you haven't had some knob Creek and you haven't wanted to dip your toes in that water, I suggest you do. We've had them on a show a couple of times. I didn't notice when I was opening this, you know, I always complain about that wax on the top too. And they did something different because it opened right up and didn't crumble up on me and get all over the place.

It's still not as soft as the Booker's wax.

No, it's not. It's not like a rubbery. This one's still a hard wax on there.

Well, you know, I'm kind of anxious to see this. You know, 12 years is a well-aged bourbon and you know, Knob Creek always brings home the oak. There's no doubt about it. I'm kind of looking forward to see how this cast rink does. Well, let's nose this thing. Man, I get some brown sugar out of this. Very, very dark. Probably, you know, if you're making caramel, this is early in the process. Sorghum molasses. Very sweet, very rich, very much oak vanilla caramel but concentrated, very concentrated. A little bit of fruit in there. I can't say much about it. I want to say it's going to probably lean towards the dark side just a little bit.

Maybe some dark cherries. Yeah. Wow. It's got a great nose on it. I actually get a little bit of a baked cherry pie with that, with that buttery crust on there. I say that sometimes. That's kind of what I'm getting out of this. And that barrel was just a hint of that barrel while it's coming out of there.

Yeah, I think I didn't say a little bit of walnut, maybe. Well, let's taste this thing.

Cheers. Cheers. Whoa.

That is... That is a very bold whiskey. Now, Mike, what do you like to say? Big boys whiskey. This is growing woman's whiskey. Definitely take the hair off my back. 120.5 probably drinks like it's 120.5.

Yeah, this is definitely got some spice to it. It's definitely delicious. It's got that brown sugar right on the front sweetness. That oak comes out, that spice rolls back. It's hot. It's got that Kentucky hug, but not a big Kentucky hug for this.

No, for me, it's staying mid-palate and up front pretty much. It does have that spice to it. The back of my palate is kind of feeling a little bit dry. The front of the palate is on fire. It's good and hot. I think that's a combination of the proof and the spice, but the oak is ever prevalent in this one, no doubt. Starting to get those nuts though now. Wallets, wallet shells, black wallet shells.

I'm getting a little bit of pecan pie on this actually. You know, you get that when you bake a pecan pie, you got to use so much of corn syrup to cook it with. It's just, it's everything there. And then you get that nice, good pecan on there, especially if you use hard shell pecans, not those big long ones that are soft, but the hard shell ones that seem like they're a little tougher to chew through. Now the match bill on this is 77% corn, 13% rye and 10% malted barley.

Well, 13% is still a respectable amount of rye. I wouldn't call it a super high rye. We've had some recently that are in the 25 to 30% range. But the rye is still present on the palate here. But this one is definitely hanging out mid-palate and forward for me. I think that the proof is playing a big part in what I'm tasting. But it does have a nice amount of sweetness. I won't call this a balanced whiskey. I'll call it a bold whiskey that kind of stays upfront for me.

I'd say if you're going to spend $100 on a bottle and you're looking for something bold, something that's just going to wow people, this right here is going to be it. I get a little bit of tobacco on there, that smoking tobacco. just have that memory of my grandfather smoking a pipe and when I'm drinking this, I get a little bit of that.

Yeah. I mean, if you want to have something on your bar, if you're having friends over and maybe they're a little bourbon curious and you're sort of taking them through some tastings and One of the things you want to show them is what extra age does to a bourbon, what it's like to spend 12 years in a barrel. This would be a good example. You could pour for everybody. $100 is not just a little amount of money. It's still a good amount of money to spend, but it's not like you're buying a 15-year or something real expensive. With 12 years knob creek, it's going to show that extra oak, that extra age that you get. At this proof, it's not diluted at all. You're getting the full effect. If you want to teach somebody what it's like to drink a big boy's bourbon, this is a good choice to pull off the bar.

It is. Nob Creek bottles, they're beautiful and they don't take up a lot of space. They are wide, but they're real skinny, nice to grab and stuff. They got a beautiful label on there. It's not overdone. You don't have to really search for what you're looking for, what it is. It tells you, hey, I'm 12 years old. I'm a Kentucky straight bourbon. I'm cast-strength. I'm 120.5 proof. Something that you want to have on your bar. You want to have a big boy, grown woman whiskey on your bar for people to taste. I would say this well worth the money right here.

How do you think this differs from a Booker's?

Booker's has that more of a spice to it where this has more of those honey notes, That brown sugar's coming out, that shorter molasses.

Not as much oak in this one as a Booker's, but they're hard to compete with each other too. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, Booker's are typically bourbons that are pulled in the six to eight year range, and they're presented at cast strength. But they're taken from certain places in the rick house that tend to concentrate the barrels just a little bit. This is probably pulled out of the middle a little bit more. It's allowed to age 12 years. They probably did pull some barrels from different places to get that right mix. Um, I, I like it.

Yeah, I think it's good. You gotta be a real traditional bourbon drinker. I think, uh, to drink this, um, it's not going to be for everybody. If you're just starting out in bourbon, I probably stay away from this for a little while. Not your gateway bourbon. Definitely not.

Yeah.

Have you ever been down to Knob Creek Jim? I have been to Knob Creek. So one of the great things about Knob Creek down in the area is the Knob Creek gun range. If you're a gun nut, if you like to shoot guns and stuff, you can rent just about anything down there and go down there and shoot. They might even have a tank down there to shoot. I don't know.

They got everything. When they have the machine gun days down there, it's just crazy.

Yeah, so if you're visiting Kentucky, you're looking something to fill your day, you don't want to do distilleries the whole time you're here in Kentucky and you like to shoot guns, check guns out, make sure you go by Nob Creek gun range, check them out, be a fun time for you. And then go over to the distillery and check out the distillery in that order. Go to the gun range first and then the store. Yeah, definitely. Because I don't even think that lets you in the door. Nob could gun range if you've been drinking. So just something to break up your day. People are looking for something else to do and stuff. There's some other nice things down there in Claremont to do. Not that far from Barstown. It's not in Louisville, really. It's really Claremont is more in Shepherdsville area.

Yeah, so it's kind of in between kind of Louisville and Shepherdsville and Bardstown kind of in that triangle right on I-65. You know, there are a couple of distilleries around there. Obviously, you can head into Bardstown and hit quite a few, but you can also go west out the boundary oak. They're out there. And yeah, it's a great time. They have been pretty much shut down, though, through the whole COVID experience.

They have. And hopefully this summer, everything's going to open back up. Everybody's getting their COVID shots. We're hoping to see more things open up. We're hoping to be at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival this year too. Hopefully we'll be there. We can do a live podcast there. If you're roadie and you're going to be in town for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, make sure you tell us and stuff. We're definitely going to be down there. Hopefully we'll get some rooms down there. That way we can enjoy ourselves this year down there and stay a couple of days down in Bardstown. It's not going to be the same. It's not going to be the same Kentucky Bourbon Festival that we're used to in the past. Heck no, in the past it's been more of a craft fair, bourbon fair, some music there, not sure what is happening, it's trying to grow. This year, They cut everything away, rebuilt. It's 21 and over. It's an adult event. It will most certainly be. Some great artists. I heard who they're going to try to have as a grand marshal. I'm not going to let the cat out of the bag. But if you're a true bourbon purist, you're going to want to go this year. You're going to want to be there. There's plenty of hotels down there now for everybody to stay at.

And Bardstown has a heart. It has a heart for bourbon. And when you're in Bardstown, you feel that, right? Oh, yeah. People down there love bourbon. I'm not saying that Frankfurt doesn't, but we're talking about Bardstown right now. And in Bardstown, when you go there, you just get the feel that the whole community depends on bourbon. I mean, the whole economy is based on bourbon down there. And the people get pretty excited at Bourbon Fest.

Yeah, I think another thing they're doing with that festival is they're getting rid of the salesman so much. Maybe some of the craft stuff, bourbon stuff will still be there, but your AT&T and your DirecTV insurance companies trying to push product in front of your face, that's not going to be there no more. They're going to get rid of that. You got to have some sponsors, but I think the sponsors are going to be the distilleries, which will be nice.

So, Rody's plan on coming to the Bourbon Festival this year, I think it's going to be a great event. It's certainly a reason to come. to the Louisville, Lexington, Frankfurt, Bardstown area and visit some distilleries. Oh, sir. Tie it all together.

Yeah. Great time to come to Kentucky summertime. It's a beautiful year. When everything's green and lush, the horses are out running around the pastures and stuff. Who knows, me and Jim might even throw a little something together for everybody. Something, something. A little something, something. So yeah. So Jim, what do you think the finish on this is?

It's hanging around a pretty long time, but it's not hanging around in the back for me so much. It's just sitting right there. Got a little bit of a hug, but not what I would have expected, you know, for 120.5 proof. It's really mid-palate, but for me, I love the high-proof stuff. I love the spiciness of it. I love the oak in it. I love the fact that it's a 12-year-old bourbon. It's making me want to pour another glass.

I think it's a medium to long finish. It's right there with everything you said. Not too much of a hug for me. It's something that I want to have on my shelf. So I'd say if you're looking for that big boy bourbon, as we said before, go out there and buy this bottle right here. It's gives a thumb up a buy from us. It's not, I wouldn't gift this to anybody. It's probably over that range. But you can, you could probably get this just about anywhere, right? Anywhere in limited supply, in limited supply. Yeah. So. So you can find us at Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook at The Bourbon Robe. We also have on our Facebook, we have a private Facebook group called The Bourbon Roadies. 1,500 people and growing.

You got to answer three questions to get in it. Yeah. We want to make sure you're 21. We want to make sure you know you're getting yourself into a bourbon group. and that you're going to read the rules, you're going to find it pretty quick that we expect you to play nice. We don't want you hopping on there and jumping on somebody's choice of bourbon. If somebody chooses to drink a Jim Beam white label, That's suburban. Leave them alone. Let them do it.

Yeah. I mean, if that's what they like to drink, maybe they can drink their whole life. They've been drinking that their whole life. You know, that's just how our group is. We have everybody in there from industry folks such as Dr. Pat Heist, Matt King from Leapers Fork. You name it across the board. We have them in there. You want to ask them questions of those people. Lisa Wicker from Widow Jane. I could keep going on down the road. Chances are if they've been on a show, they're a roadie. Yeah. So go in there, check it out, make some posts and stuff. Our moderators are always welcome, everybody. Great group of guys and gals in there that are just posting all kinds of phenomenal stuff. We love to see that stuff. If you'd like these shows we're doing. So we do two shows a week. We do a review. It's our short show and then later in a week we do a long show that we usually have a guest on or sometimes me and Jim like to sit down and shoot the shit together and drink some bourbon. Go on up and hit that subscribe button. It'll let you know, hey, Mike and Jim just put out another show. And if you do that, you can also go down and give us a five-star review, whatever platform you're on. Leave us a review, five-star or even a one-star. If you do leave that one-star though, please tell us how we can fix things. That's the only way we get better.

Well, you know, we're not thinking that we're pleasing everybody. There's got to be one or two people out there that are unhappy with something we do. I mean, we do have some pretty crazy tasting notes. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with those though. So yeah, check us out. All right. Well, we'd love to hear what you think about the show. Like Mike said, we'd also like to know if you've got some ideas on who should be on in the future, whether it be a bottle or a person. If you've got an idea, we'd love to hear about it. You can always reach out to us. I'm jshannon63 on Instagram. I'm OneBigChief. And we will see you 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.