142. Woodford Reserve Master's Collection

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 Mike, we're now at your place. It's been a few weeks. Yeah, we're like jumping back and forth between farms, right? Yeah. And we've actually been out on the road a couple of times. It's kind of broke the ice a little bit. Yeah, we need to take a little break, take a breath.

And then tomorrow afternoon, we hit the road like full speed ahead, like I'm gonna be on the road for a little bit. I think COVID's just about in the rear view mirror here.

I'm feeling like it. I hope it is. I'm hoping it is. I'm ready to get back to life as normal.

Yeah, the snow's all gone now. It's almost gone. We've got a little snow left and stuff. But this next week, we're almost out of winter. We're almost out of COVID. We're getting back out on the Bourbon Road. Cancun is a calling. It is a calling. Yeah, I'm ready for some Mexico for sure. I need a cold drink in my hand and a warm pool.

Yeah, sounds good to me. But we took your recommendation, we bought our floats. Just the ones you said, dude. And I'm pretty excited about that.

Well, you don't want to have floats. Somebody else in the resort we're going to got rid of all their floats because of the COVID and the cleaning. And those guys down there, you know, I watched a news article on all inclusive resorts in Mexico and how clean those places really are. So the staffs are keeping up. So, and we're going to be there just by ourselves really at the resort. It's not, we're going to go out on town or anything. So we'll be safe.

I plan on attending court in the pool every day with Mayor Mike.

We'll see. We'll see what we can do down there. See if we can do a special show for our listeners out there and stuff. I thought we'd celebrate a little bit of some Woodford reserve today. And they've come out with their master's collection this year. They've come out with a little bit different style this year. So they're up to 16 in their series of this master's collection.

So if you had the entire collection right now, you'd have 16 of these beautiful bottles lined up on your bar.

I was trying to figure that out of the master's collection because the batch proof doesn't have a batch number on there. So that might be an extra one, I guess. but you might have more than that. If they have batch proofs, then that adds to it. So you might have four, four or five extra bottles.

And I think, I think hasn't there been some like special releases in there too? Like the, there was one, didn't they have one that was in cognac barrels that was, um, um, released only at the airport international.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Now what they changed this year, they changed the dang bottle style though. Um, God dang it. I had a nice pretty collection going and they had to go and mess it up.

So their old style bottle, we'll call it the old style cause there's a new one now. The old style bottles kind of shaped like a still.

Yeah, big old pot steel and it's got that nice long neck on it and stuff. Beautiful bottle, right?

Yeah. So we're going to drink through five Woodford Reserve whiskeys during this show. Yeah. Woodford is one of my all time favorite places to go. They have a beautiful campus there.

Yeah, old school distillery. They've updated it. Nice, beautiful tasting room, gift shop, you name it. One of my favorite places to go. Nice parking there and stuff. It doesn't get much better than that. So, you know, do I like these? The only drawback on these is it's at 90.4. And what I would tell all of our listeners out there, don't try this at home, kids.

Well, you know We've got a tie back to Woodford, you know Woodford with it. They've been on the show before we've had both Elizabeth McCall and and Chris Morris on the show and Had a great time there great hosts Gave us a wonderful tour. We got to taste some pretty unique stuff Elizabeth took us out to the to the Rick house and we drilled into barrels and searched around for special stuff. And that's kind of neat. But so I'm kind of looking forward to sort of working our way through the master's collection. I've always been a fan of Woodford.

I think it's always it's always a safe choice if you go to a bar, right? Yeah, you could. It's a good pour. It's not high priced. I got several other bottles here of Woodford. I got the standard Woodford. I got the Woodford cherry or the Woodford weeded. I mean, I say it tastes like cherries. I got the Woodford double double. I got the Woodford double. I can just go down the line and keep saying, I got this, I got that. I got this a Woodford. Obviously I like it. It's a good solid Kentucky bourbon. Absolutely.

All right. So what's first on the list today?

So this is the unpopular one. It was series 13. It is the Woodford Reserve, oat grain bourbon. Oat grain. Yeah, like oats, you feed your horse. Right. Like I can't do it. I was going to do a horse noise. I can't do it.

Probably better if you don't. So this one is 66% corn, 18% oats. 12% malt and 4% rye. So they've used those oats as a flavoring grain to reduce the rye content. So what can we expect from this? probably something a little bit softer.

Probably softer and probably a little sweeter, I would think. Okay. Than the other ones. I, we just opened this bottle today. Um, these typically go for 134.99 out there. Seen bottles as high as $699 on cast cartel. Um, that's a big old trouble.

If you gotta have it, you gotta have it, right?

I guess if you have to have it, you have to have it. I don't know. I don't have to have it that bad.

Well, still, even at retail, they're pretty pricey.

$134. So we'd probably have $600 worth of bourbon sitting here. We're fixing a sample.

And they're all just about full or full?

Yeah, I haven't. I think the one that has least in it is the chocolate rye. Okay. But a lot of bad reviews on this one right here. A lot of people didn't like it, probably because people like their typical bourbon. Right. Where I mean you, um, we both can appreciate a different kind of whiskey. And we do from time to time. Let's nose this thing. Let's do it.

Oh, that smells like an Irish. Yeah.

Once you said that I could, I could get this, be an Irish.

Well, it's got a higher malt content. And doesn't, don't Irish whiskey sometimes use oats as a flavoring grain? Yeah, I don't know. I thought they use a lot of barley. I think it was like almost entirely barley, right? Barley, yeah. Well, I could be wrong about that. not the expert on Irish whiskey. I am Irish, but not the expert on the whiskey. Jim, you're just bourbon bullshitter, man. That's just the bourbon bullshitter. Yeah.

I just thought we talked about somebody about that today. Uh, you know, that people say, and they're right about stuff. And he said, that's why I like you too. Cause you'll admit when you don't know something, you just sit drinking whiskey. So,

Yeah, this is, I know what I like. And the nose on this is pretty good. I like that nose.

Yeah. It's got a funky aroma to it to me.

Uh, yeah, I probably wouldn't nose this and pick it out as a bourbon. I would probably say this was a, maybe an older Irish. But it does have that sweet oak flavor too. So I don't know.

Yeah, like sweet oats you get from you're feeding your horses or something.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like, well, those little packets you empty out, you know, and you put them in hot water and they got the maple and apples or apple cinnamon, the Quaker instant oatmeal.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, heck, let's, let's put this thing to rest. I don't know. It's kind of weird. Can get flat Coca-Cola on this. Coca-Cola. I'm just feeling like it's empty in the middle. I'll explain that. It felt a little watery as it washed across my palate. It was nice up front. It's sitting on the back of my palate right now. It's a little bitter, not too bad, but it feels like it's just empty in the middle, just kind of washed right by.

I guess that's what I was saying. That, that flat Coca-Cola just, you know, it's not, Coca-Cola can taste good. A lot of people, hit on it pretty good, but you know, it's a hot summer day. You've been outside, you drink, you haven't had a Coke in a long time and it hits your mouth. You're like, wow, that's pretty damn good.

Well, you know, this is a, this is a distillers, um, sort of the master's collection or what, let's go back and what do they call this?

This is a master's class.

So this is a distillers or a master's collection. So this is a chance for Chris and his staff to play around a little bit, to experiment, to try some new things, put some things in some barrels that maybe will uncover a new profile, some new flavoring techniques, things that they can do in the future. I guess they're not all meant to be one-off home runs.

Yeah, it's, it's his profile. He probably wanted to experiment a little bit. I put some barrels up and, uh, you know, I gotta say, Hey, it's a good whiskey. It's just, it is a different profile. You gotta appreciate for what it is. Um, you know, they're taking a chance over there. They're not just putting out standard bourbon after bourbon after bourbon after bourbon. That's the same mash bill. They're trying some different stuff.

Well, I would say for this one, Mike, the nose is, uh, right up there at the top for me. I really liked the nose on this. I liked it a lot. I do think it kind of, it didn't scream bourbon by any means. The pallets kind of did a little disappointing for me. This was, you said 90.4 proof on this.

Yeah.

Um, I personally would like a little more bite to it. It is soft. Uh, it's kind of hollow empty in the middle. Like I said, um, yeah, I mean, I would, I wouldn't go buy a second bottle of this.

No, it's nice. Once it's gone, it's gone. And you know, I'm not going to go, go to cast cartel and spend $699 on another bottle of it because this ain't my jam. Um, you know, it's good whiskey still, but it doesn't even compare to a Weider. I would think, um, it's just their, their take on this. I don't know what to say about this. I could see why people didn't like it though.

Yeah. Yeah, I think it's just a little too different, a little bit too outside of the standard bourbon profile. So if you're a bourbon lover, if you're a bourbon bullshitter, if you're used to drinking good solid bourbons every day, this one's going to surprise you a little bit. It's a little bit not a bourbon.

Now they do get beat up about that 90.4 proof at this price point, you know, $132, $134 for a 90.4 proof. You know, high proof guys, high proof guys, they're looking to spend that below a hundred bucks on a nice bottle, you know, and it's 120 proof or something. And I kind of agree with them, but, You know, I can appreciate these bottles for what they are.

Absolutely. Well, I'm glad I tried it. I don't know that I'll be reaching for it too often when I come over here, Mike, but it's a beautiful bottle. It's got great color to it. It looks good on the shelf and it's not going bad anytime soon.

No, I haven't let anybody touch these in a while. As a matter of fact, you're probably the first person. I let some people try the chocolate rye, but I won't let anybody have any of this in a while. So maybe I'll pull them out and when people come over, I'll let them try it and it tastes for themselves. You know, that's the best way to let people experience whiskey with you is let them try your bourbon you have.

Absolutely. Well, I'm ready to move on to the next one about you. All right, let's do it. All right.

So I got the second one, pour jam for us. Um, we are drinking micro pours. So we're drinking a little bit less than we would usually drink. Um, the second one I got is series 14. Um, it is the select American Oak. So what's that mean to you select American Oak?

Well, it tells me that Woodford Reserve has got their eye on what they consider to be the number one trees to make barrels out of. And they have probably chosen a certain select cut and a certain aging and a certain air drying and char and all the things that go along with that to age these and I think this I've heard that this is a nine-year-old bourbon in here this is the traditional Woodford Reserve bourbon and it's been aged for nine years and select oak barrels is that correct yeah their sourced oak barrels come from the Ozarks so I guess a lot of a lot of the oak barrels come from the Ozarks though don't they Mike?

Yeah, either here in Kentucky or the Ozarks there in Missouri. Um, you know, the hardwoods down there, big trees, um, big lumber and people wouldn't think that. I wouldn't even think of lumber when you think of the Ozarks, but a lot of hardwoods coming out of there.

So I'm expecting probably in comparison to what we just tried. I'm expecting this to probably be a little bit more traditional Woodford. It's a little extra aged. It's a nine-year-old bourbon. It's a little bit darker, I think, than the oat was. And spent a lot of time in a quality barrel. I'm ready to give it a shot. Let's nose this thing. All right, let's do it.

A lot sweeter nose on this one.

Definitely a lot sweeter. A little more traditional bourbon.

Yeah, that brown sugar you're always looking for, some vanilla and caramel in there.

Yeah, I'm getting a little bit of a little bit of fruit here. Probably for me, a little bit of the sort of the plums, cherries, a little bit darker might expect that from a little bit older bourbon. But the, the, the impact of the oak, the time in the oak barrel has definitely made a difference here. It speaks Woodford. I mean, this is kind of Woodford. This is what I think of.

Is this their standard mashbill on this?

Yeah, this is the standard Woodford recipe. And the only real difference here is that it's been placed in select oak barrels from the Ozark forest, aged for nine years.

Get a little peanut butter on that nose.

Yeah, I'm not getting any nuts on it. I'm still getting those fruits, the kind of plum cherry. You ever gotten cherry on drinking Woodford or is it more of the chocolatey on the wood?

I think more chocolates and Woodford and stuff when I'm drinking them. Now on their weeded whiskey, they put out, I got cherries on that big time, but usually on their, just the Woodford standard stuff, I get that chocolates. Like their double oak is just chocolatey goodness.

Well, I have to say that I like the nose on the oat a little bit better, but this is a more traditional bourbon nose and I kind of like it. I mean, this is solid. This is solid bourbon right here. Well, I say cheers. Let's let's taste this. Cheers. Yeah, that's got a bit of oak in it.

Oh yeah. It's got a good hug on it. I feel it hitting right home and stuff. And to be honest with everybody out there listening, we drank a cast drink before we even started today.

We did.

A craft distillery cast drink. It's just amazing. And it's got a kick to it. It does. But it was a good way to start out, I think. Yeah. This is kind of stepping it down a notch from that. This is more watery. I hate to say that. Um, I'm getting to that, starting to get to that point where when I drink a 90 proofer, I'm like, man.

Well, you know what that means, Mike, we need to, we need to step it back just a little bit. We need to spend more time in that 90 to 110 range, you know, to appreciate those and stuff. Cause you can, I mean, you can actually burn yourself out. You can burn that pallet out, but you know, Woodford's always done the 90.4 thing. That's kind of there. It's sort of a signature for them.

Now this has a little bit more spice to it, maybe from that barrel. I still get that chocolate, chocolatey goodness on this. Maybe that baking, baking chocolates that are a little bit bitter.

Yeah, for me, this has not got an abundance of sweetness to it. It's a little bit drying on the backend for me, a little bit, well, a lot more oak influence on it. I think this would have been, probably an amazing 120 proof whiskey. That's usually you that are the one that's saying that. Uh, but I think that the fact that it's at 90.4 does, does feel a bit watered down. Uh, but it does have a lot of flavor to it. And is it balanced? Yeah, I think it is balanced.

Well, I think this is a good bourbon and stuff and it has that nice spice to it. It's, uh, it's everything you'd, you'd want out of a bourbon. Um, is it, 94.4. You know what I say about that? I think you're right. Spot on. If it was 110 to 120 proof, this thing would be just, uh, you know, would it be that $200 range though at that.

Yeah. I wouldn't turn anybody away from this bottle. I would say, go give it a shot. It's not scoring super high for me.

It's still going to be hard to find bottle. They're out there. They are out there. They're at Total Wine. They're at the Cabarn. They're online. You can buy it at Cas Cartel. You can buy it at several different places. You're going to have to pay for it though.

But these bottles always make a good gift.

Yeah. Because they're beautiful. If you want to give somebody a super nice gift, your father, your son, anybody. This is definitely a beautiful bottle and it looks like a pot steel. How can you go wrong with that?

And don't get us wrong. I mean, we're not scoring this thing super high. I'm not scoring this thing super high right now, but that doesn't mean it's not a good whiskey. It just means my expectations are a little bit higher. You know, I'm kind of thinking, looking at this bottle and thinking about the price tag and I'm going, You know, I could, I could get a little bit more out of this.

I think I would like to get a little bit more out of this. Yeah. And that's probably why we need to change it up again and go back down and proof down a little bit. I thought the same thing with a double double this year. They sold out of that thing in six hours and it was at 90.4 proof. Yeah. $4.55 I think for that little, uh, 375 bottle. Um, you know that I bought bottles last year of it. Um, but this year I didn't get into the craze. I could have, I could have went over there and sat overnight and waited. Um, but then I started thinking, I was like, it's just 90.4 proof.

You know, here's, here's what I'm going to say about this one. If you, if you like less sweet, more Oakey bourbons, bourbons that are a little bit drier on the back end. They don't have too much proof on them. They're not going to set you on fire. Um, and Woodford's kind of in your wheelhouse, I'd say this is a good choice.

Yeah. If Woodford's your jam and you haven't pulled the trigger on one of these yet and you like, and I love Woodford, I love the double oak. I love what they do there. I love that distillery and Hey, You know, you want to build your collection or your whiskey bar up and you are not limited by budget. Not everybody's going to be able to go out and buy one of these. I'd say go out and go out and hunt them.

Yeah. But if you line these soldiers up on your bar, they're going to look real good, aren't they?

Yeah.

I mean, I mean, you know, I do have them lined up. I can't wait to see this shot for your Instagram. I bet it's going to be good. All right. So we have something else we're going to try here. So we're kind of switching it up here. So we have series 13 through 16 here. Plus we have the batch proof, but we're going to switch it up a little bit. For our third pour, we're going to go ahead and go to Series 16. This is this year's or 2020's late. It came out in late 2020, right? Still $132. I've seen it for a lot more out there. I saw it for yesterday for $189 a bottle. I actually got this from our good friend over there, James at Paradise Spirits and Wine here in Shelbyville, Kentucky, right off exit 35. Stop in and see James telling the bourbon road sent you help a veteran out, help a small store out, you know, but he sold to me for $132. This is their limited edition series 16. This is their very fine, rare bourbon. Now, how does this Mike? It says it includes a barrels that are at least 17 years old.

Okay.

Um, so what'd they put in there? You think a bunch of old stuff that's in this, this bottle.

Now this, this, this particular release was, um, kind of a celebration release, right? I mean, they changed the bottle.

Yup.

Uh, they even said, you know, that starting in 2020, that all future Masters collections releases will focus on modern innovations by the distillers there. Now currently that's Chris Morris and Elizabeth McCall. So they're really going to focus on their innovations in the future. This bottle kind of pays homage to the 1812 site of the Woodford Reserve Distillery, right?

Which is, what's the name of that? LeBrot and Graham? Is that right? Man, don't give me line.

Now this mash bill is 72% corn, 18% rye and 10% malted barley. Very traditional mash bill for them. It's kind of a medium amber, maybe even leaning on a dark amber, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, you know, I got it sitting up along the other bottles and it's, it's right there with that, um, different bottle. So the light's going to be different on it and stuff. Um, what I got to do say about this bottle though is still a gorgeous bottle. Um, it's got a super thick, uh, base on it. So it's not to tip over anything next, not too long. Um, I liked the bottle on it and it's got bourbon in there at 17 years old. How can you not like that?

Well, that tells me right now we're going to get some oaky flavors in this, aren't we? Now this is still 90.4 proof.

Um, but, um, you know, if you gotta have it, you gotta have it, I guess.

All right, let's check it out. Oh, that's, that's nice. It's got a beautiful nose. It does have a nice nose.

Now, as you can tell, I've been sipping on this bottle a little bit, shared with some friends. Uh, as soon as I got it, I cracked it open and I'd heard so much good stuff about it. I wanted to have it.

Oh man.

That's, that's like got, um, that's like walking into a leather shop, that oak, that leather, um, you know, if you, you've never been into a leather shop that they're actually tooling like belts and stuff in or a boot store that you just smell all that brand new leather and stuff. Um, it's a beautiful smell.

Yeah. And it's like the, it's like the true clean leather smell. It's not the cow hide leather smell. This doesn't smell like a cowboy's boots. This smells more like a, they're making belts in there and saddles. Yeah. You don't want to smell my boots. It's a, it's definitely nice. Got a little bit of spice. I almost would say a little bit of cinnamon too. I get that still.

I still get some chocolate on this. Yeah.

I think you always do with these guys. Don't you? Yeah. Let's, let's taste this thing. Cheers. Cheers. Yeah, this is really good. This is, um, definitely speaking older bourbon to me. It's got that, that well-aged now it's kind of drying on the back end a little bit.

What you expect out of an older bourbon. We we've tasted a lot of 15, 17 year old bourbons. Um, in the past couple of months, you know, we had, uh, wild turkeys bottled bond, 17 year old, right? Um, and it was, had that drying effect on the back end. You know, does the, are you leaving in there too long? Does it suck them sugars out? Do the sugars go away? I'm not positive, but that's what we get.

Yeah, I would, I would say overall, um, my first impression on this is I like it. I like it a lot. Uh, I guess that's probably, uh, one of the reasons why your bottle, your newest bottle has the least amount of liquid in it.

Um, I just, I dig this. Uh, I let two other bourbon drinkers drink it and they just thought it was spectacular. Um, I didn't tell them what I paid for it. They didn't really know. I just said, I want to pour these, you guys to pour this and let you see what you say. And both of them just were like, man, this is really good. And this was the lowest proof bourbon we drank that night. Everything else we drank that night, every bottle we, I took to a friend's house was right around 120 proof. And then this 90.4 proofer I bring out and they both were like, man, this is pretty damn good bourbon.

I think you could drink big on this on a warmer night, you know, where you might not be able to do that with a higher proof whiskey. Here you can drink in a much older tasting. We don't know the true age of this because we think it has, uh, barrels in it as old as 17 years. That doesn't mean we know the percentages and we doesn't, it doesn't mean that we know, you know, what the youngest barrels are either. But for me, this, this has a character of a bourbon that's well aged. It has a, there there's almost no sweetness upfront for me.

Yeah, it's that dark baking chocolate. You know, we keep saying chocolate, but if you ever rated your mother's kitchen and you get those, that brick of chocolate, it's just hard as a rock. And you break off a piece of it and you bite into it and you're like, man, this don't taste like no damn candy bar. That's not Hershey's. That's what I'm talking about. just, it still has that chocolate note to, to me. Or did your mom ever use that cocoa powder? Oh yeah. You know, and you ever thought I'm going to have me a spoonful of that and see what that tastes like?

Well, I've never done that. Well, I'll tell you what, it's not a good experience. Yeah, I actually make my own brownies, Mike, from scratch. I always have. Do you put anything special in them? I mean, I know I can get a box for 69 cents and I don't have to do all the work, but I just, yeah, I just,

I've always done my own brownies from scratch. Are you talking about making magical brownies that make you feel good?

No, no, no. This is just plain old, you know, cocoa flour, sugar, butter, just the basics, you know, they still make you feel good, right? Yeah, they do make you feel good, but it's a different kind of good. It's a, it's not that, uh, the herbal herbal good. Yeah. Well, Mike, I tell you what, of the three we've had so far, so first we had the oat grain, then we had the American oak, and now we're having, I don't even, what's the name of this one? This is the Very Fine Rare Bourbon. Very Fine Rare Bourbon. I will say, uh, I don't know how rare it is, but I would say it's very fine. I would say that's a good way to name it. Now, have you seen how I've lined these up?

Yeah. Um, how we're going. So we still have two to go. Um, um, we're going to drink on this and in the break, um, we come back, we'll discuss this a little bit more, um, where you can find a dad and, uh, if you should get it or not. Um, and then we're going to move on to those other two bourbons. All right. Sounds good.

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Yeah, I mean, it was a good expression of stuff. I'd say if you are looking to have something on your bar, you want something really nice that's an older bourbon. There's no shame in buying that at all. 130 bucks out of a lot of people's price range. I think some people would say, I don't even want to spend $30. You have a bottle of that. You've been looking for a bottle. And I've been looking for a bottle of that. You know, if I thought about it yesterday, I thought about it about you yesterday when I stopped by shopping, I saw a bottle, but I was like, not for $189. If I'd seen it for 130, I'd have been like, texted you and said, hey, you want a bottle of this? Well, you got the company card, just buy it. I haven't, I can't bring myself to do it. I did buy some bottles.

Well, I mean, let's, let's, let's look at it this way. If there's a bottle we got to have for a show and that's the only way you're going to get it, get it. Other than that, we'll save those for traveling. Yeah. Traveling is a good thing.

So this, uh, fourth bottle we got here to start the second half with though is, uh, it's been a star on our show a couple of times.

It has a way back when, I mean, we actually, you know, I think way back to episode 10, episode 10, we had, uh, some, some YouTubers on, And we had a blind bottle share. But part of that day wasn't just recording an episode. It was also doing some distillery tours. And I'd gotten a hold of Elizabeth McCall. And she said she would give us a great tour of the facility out there. And they fed us lunch. We had a great day. She took us into the Rick house. And we were drilling barrels. And one of the barrels that she drilled put out this just amazing chocolate wonder. I'd never had anything like it before. And, uh, it was just, it was just something to remember. I look forward to the day when it was released.

That's it. I mean, it's always an exciting thing that you get to try something before it's released and, um, before it's out to the general public. Kind of like we did with Jackie's as I can and, uh, birthday bourbon, you know, getting to try that before everybody else tries it. And, So this has been on the show a couple of times. I've posted several photos of it. A lot of people get confused by the chocolate malted rye on this. This is a bourbon people. This is a 100% American bourbon, right? Or a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. Still 90.4 proof, but it is a bourbon. Don't get confused by that chocolate malted rye.

And what does that mean exactly though? So that's that's the mash bill on this.

The mash bill 70% corn, 15% chocolate malted rye, and 15% distillers malt. Now when they're talking about that chocolate malted rye, they're toasted that that rye, right, until it gets to a certain chocolatey good as the sugar start coming out of that, out of that rye and stuff.

So that's where the flavor comes from, right? Rye is the flavoring ingredient. And what they've done is they've toasted it to the point where it just, it puts out, in addition to the, the rye notes, you also get those chocolate notes from the deep toast. Yeah, there's no chocolate in this. Like they're not flavoring it with chocolate Hershey bars.

But when you taste it, it's hard to believe it's not, right? Yeah. I mean, it's a, great bottle. If you, you still get this total wine for $130 people. Um, you want to buy a great bottle of whiskey? It's there's reasons it's been on show several times. Um, that's a special port of me. Uh, you told me about it and he's like, Mike, you got to get a bottle of this. And I, I was like, And I, okay, Jim says I'm going to get a, need to get a bottle of this. Probably do really do need to get a bottle.

Yeah. So go back and listen to episode 10. Listen to also episode 17 where we had Elizabeth and the call on, and she's the one that actually drilled the barrels and let us taste this stuff early. Um, Jason glory from the mash and drum. He was with us and. And we had just a fantastic time that day tasting something that was extra special, unusual, different from anything else out there. Absolutely amazing.

Yeah. Great. Uh, great pour. So let's give it a nose.

All right. Yeah. When you smell that, you smell tootsie roll. Is there a song to that?

You smell tootsie rolls? No, it's not smell your tootsie rolls. I know some people are going to crack up. Let me see your tootsie roll. That's how that song goes.

Okay. We're going to hear requests all the time for Mike to sing that, that for me is absolutely. And Mike, it's been a minute since I had this. It's probably been a year since I tasted this. That's tootsie roll all day long on the nose. Yeah, most definitely.

I'm going to taste it.

Let's do it. Absolutely phenomenal. Um, out of the box, crazy blow your mind. It's not okay. It is bourbon. We know it's bourbon. It's legally bourbon and they haven't done anything. They haven't added any Hershey's syrup to it or anything. But if you want to try something that will absolutely take you by surprise and blow you away by what they can do with toasting of the grains. This is just, it's right there.

Some things I get off of this right here. Uh, this drinks about 110 proof. Um, and it doesn't give you a deep Kentucky hug. It just kind of moves from the front, nice and slow, almost at a gentleman's pace, just slips on back. I'll let you know, Hey, I'm a good bourbon. Here's a little chocolate love. Oh, let's do some bourbon drinking.

Yeah. I would not call this a dessert bourbon, even though it's got chocolate to it. I wouldn't. There's not a lot of sweetness there.

Nope, not at all.

It is an experience in itself. If you have not had, well, I mean, they're doing a lot of this kind of stuff in beers too, right?

Yeah, everybody's trying all kinds of different stuff because people don't want the same thing day after day after day after day. I got a guy I work with and he eats chicken and rice and broccoli every day and he eats like five times a day. Kid looks like he's chiseled out of marble. Man, I was like, don't you want a little flavor in life? Don't you want to try something a little different? Chicken, rice, and broccoli. Chicken, rice, and broccoli. Chicken, rice, and broccoli. You want something a little different? You want to step out of the box a little bit? This is it right here.

I tell you what, there's no doubt in my mind that this is probably one of the most surprising flavors in bourbon whiskey in a long time. Something that takes you by surprise. It makes you step back and go, wow, they did that and they did that without adding, without breaking any of the bourbon rules.

How many times you've been able to say that though, in the past six months after we, we started doing a bunch of different craft distilleries and mean, you'll be like, wow, they tried something different. They added a fourth grain. They, they did this to it and they stayed to the rules of bourbon and, uh, they just produce some magical and they had to sit on that magical bourbon for several years waiting for it to be ready. They didn't rush it. They didn't, they didn't, uh, you know, try to make money off of it before it was ready. They said, I'm going to wait on this a little bit. And when it's ready, I'm going to shock the world.

So can you imagine being in the, the big stone Rick house at Woodford reserve? crawling through the different levels of the, of the Rick house with Elizabeth McCall. And she goes, Oh, there's a barrel over here. I'd like you to try. She breaks out that battery powered, the Walt, she drills a hole in there, puts her finger over the hole and says, lift up your glass and you get a whiff of this. That's a pretty bad ass experience.

And you get, that was cast strength, right?

It was cast strength. Absolutely. So that was even more magical.

What, what is this?

This is not Woodford reserve, you know, That's the amazing thing. These guys are doing some crazy stuff in the distilleries and they're getting to experiment and play and try some new things and sometimes it works and you know probably sometimes it doesn't, Mike.

Probably more times than not, but we will never know. You never know what you don't know unless you hang out with somebody like Ashley Barnes, that's a blender and stuff. She's like, ah, that didn't work. This is how I made it work. Turn that in vodka. Yeah. But what a great expression. I was glad you introduced it to me and said, hey, Mike, you need to try this. I'm glad I got a bottle. Obviously, I only pull it out for special occasions. I like to shock some people sometimes and be like, Hey, try this 90.4 proofer and tell me what you think.

Did they all get chocolate right off the bat? Yeah, they're all like, Hey, it's unmistakable.

Yeah. I mean, most people still, even when I give it to them, they're like, Oh, that's a rye whiskey. I don't like rye whiskeys. I was like, eh, it's a bourbon. Try it. It's right on the bottle. It says, uh, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. Absolutely.

So what do we have next on the list here?

So we saved the big boy for last. This is their batch proof, 2020 batch proof. They did a couple of those. So this one comes in at 123.6 proof, Jim.

And that's 100% Woodford Reserve standard issue. This is it right here. Big boy bourbon right here. All right. Let's check it out. We better make sure we get all that chocolate out of our glass though.

If I had some milk to put in here, I'd probably would make some chocolate milk. Could you, could you do that? All right. All right. All right. So I pulled us, poured us up some batch proof here. 123.6 proof. This was the, uh, release date was February, 2020. It's a match bill of 72% corn, 18% rye and 10% malted barley.

Now that's the standard Woodford mash bill.

Yup. I mean, how can you, uh, how can you go wrong with that? That's a, it's pretty high bri to 18%. Yeah. Well, let's know this thing.

Oh, it's definitely, uh, kind of gives me a little bit of a wake up on the nose there. Yeah. It's, uh, we've, we've stepped it up a notch a little bit.

I'm getting baking spices. Baking spices. You get a little bit of steel, get that chocolate on there. Yep. But not like that chocolate malted rye. Nope. Um, this would be a little bit different. You're going to get some stone fruit on this and dark cherries or plums. You're going to get that brown sugar.

You know, the, the, the, the malt is definitely showing through on this one. Definitely showing through on this.

A little bit of Sorghum molasses maybe on there.

Yeah. Brown sugar and, uh, and baking spice. Definitely getting that, uh, that malt showing through though. I mean, it's, it's, it's taking a peek through. I normally don't pick that up on a Woodford.

I'm actually getting a little bit of a ginger snap cookies on this. That's a great nose. Yeah. I like that. Well heck, let's drink this thing. Let's not, let's not waste any time. Cheers, Mike. Cheers. And that is all bourbon right there all day long. It's like smack daggity good right there.

Yeah. I'm really, really liking that. The chocolate's coming through on the palette. I didn't get it so much on the nose. not a lot of that malt coming through on the palette, but I'm still getting the, the baking spice, you know, a little bit of cinnamon, a lot of brown sugar and caramel, not super sweet, a little bit.

A little bit sweet.

Yeah. A little bit, but not super sweet. You know, this thing is super viscous too.

Yeah. Thick. Just, uh, you can almost pour this on pancakes.

No bitterness at all for me.

Nope. This is a, it's got a very long finish on it. Um, not bitter at all. That sweetness is there for me. Um, as I take a second sip of it. It's almost, uh, you know, you'd said earlier about Hershey's chocolate syrup and, uh, you know, I got a sweet tooth. So I liked chocolate milk a little bit. And, uh, so Vivian, that's like a special treat for me to her by that chocolate milk syrup.

This is probably one of the more balanced. barrel proof, batch proof, cast strength, whiskies I've had in a long time. Very level and balanced across the palate, upfront in the middle, in the back. It just very nice.

So you hadn't had this before, had you? No, I haven't had this. I had this hiding down in the basement for a reason. I would put this right up against Elijah Craig barrel proof any day. A little bit more expensive at $130. It's in a beautiful bottle though.

Yeah. This one drinks a little bit more like the daddy of Elijah Craig Battleproof. Kind of like a little bit more grown up, a little bit more oak influence for me. I don't know what the age of this bottle is. And I know Elijah Craig Battleproof is around 12 years typically, right? This has got a lot more oak to it, but the balance between the caramel and baking spice and the oak on the back end and a little bit of cinnamon, a little bit of chocolate on the back end, it's such a level experience. It's such a bold and level experience. Really good.

Yeah, I love this. Uh, another bourbon I would put this right up against is some stag junior barrels, uh, right there with it. You know, that, that dark rich complex, there's so many layers of this bourbon right here that just, you could drink it for a while and say, Oh, I got this note or get that note. It's going to change is it sits in your glass. Yeah. There's some hug here though. It's hugging me. I'm getting hugged. I'm getting a little kick in the chest.

I think this is a Kentucky boa constrictor.

So this is a Woodford Reserve lineup that I did tonight. One of the reasons why I wanted to do Woodford Reserve is because for the last couple of weeks on our articles blogs, so last week or two weeks ago, I did Louisville, big chiefs, top three places to drink, eat, stay, what bars to go out, what, what restaurants to go to. Um, and then last week I did barstown and told people, Hey, this is where I think you should go or stay at. And this week will be, um, Lexington, Frankfort area, which includes Woodford Reserve. Yeah, Lawrenceburg, Frankfort, Lexington. That whole area. It's hard to lump all those together because it is a big area. You could write really a couple articles on it, but we narrowed it down to three articles. So this fits perfect with that and stuff. So make sure you look for that article, go to our website, check that article out and stuff. If you're looking to make a pilgrimage to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, you definitely want to check out our website.

Absolutely. Well, Mike, I'm so glad we did Mike reporters tonight because otherwise I would be in pretty sad shape.

Well, we give Vivian to drive you home. We'll get you.

We'll get you. We'll get, we got to eat at night. All right. Well, Mike, where can everybody find us on the internet?

So you can find us on social media at the bourbon road, on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and now TikTok. Um, We also have a bourbon website called the bourbon road.com. You can find our swag on their glasses, some t-shirts, that bourbon bullshitter t-shirt you're going to want to have. Um, look for that shirt on there. Look for our caps on there. Hopefully we'll have some, a bourbon road shirt come out. I know I've been promising that for a couple of weeks now, but we should have it on there. Um, articles on their blogs, not always about the, the, what we're drinking on, but like write an article, where to stay and stuff, but a great website. We're trying to make it better all the time. We're trying to improve. So check, check that out. Absolutely. Check it out.

You know, Adam helps us out there. He helps make sure our reviews get online and people can read them. I mean, when you read one of our articles, you're always going to find out something good to taste, something good to eat, someplace good to go. There's always something good there. And you know, we've all been stuck inside. We've all been stuck in our hometowns, in our house for a long time, about time to stretch our wings and get the heck out of the house. And you know what? No better place to go than the Bourbon trail.

That's definitely right. Another thing is, is you can check out our Facebook group. Our private Facebook group is the bourbon roadies and stuff. If you're coming to Kentucky, you might find other bourbon roadies here that might want to meet up for a drink. They might share some bourbon with you. Who knows, but you want to go on that Facebook group, join it. Three questions, right, Jim? That's right.

Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? You know, you're getting yourself into a bourbon group, right? And will you play nice because We will not tolerate any rudeness in our group. We want to make sure that, you know, nobody walks away, tail between their legs, upset because somebody bashed them for drinking Jim Beam.

Yeah, there's, there's some, a couple of things we don't do in there and we don't talk about politics. We don't talk about religion. We don't talk about social issues. We talk about whiskey in that group. So if you're looking to get out of other groups that are talking about that stuff, um, just straight down to the whiskey in our group, there's some funny stuff in there.

If you're not chasing the unicorns all day long. Now, if you are chasing the unicorns, we'd love to see them on our, on our supposed pictures. But if you're not chasing the unicorns every day, if you're just looking for good, solid bourbon to drink and you want to talk to other people about it, the bourbon roadies.

Across the country, across the world, we got roadies from everywhere in there. They're posting up pictures. One of our James down in Australia, he's always posting stuff up there. One of the things I didn't like he posted the other day was a dang snake on there. Yeah, they got some snakes on the street. I don't like snakes, Jim. I don't care if he said it's friendly little python. I don't know. It looked like a snake to me as a serpent. It's the devil.

Well, we do two shows a week. We do a short episode every Monday where we review a craft distillery. You know, sometimes it's a big boy, but usually it's a young craft distillery. Well, not always young. Usually it's a craft distillery, though. that is stepping out of the box, doing crazy good stuff, trying to put out good whiskey to everybody to try. And we want to make sure we showcase those guys and let them get the word out to everybody. We'll give you the scoop on it though. We'll tell you what's true. That's their, we're their marketing budget.

That's right. We're it.

But anyway, we do two shows a week. We do that short episode every Monday. We do a long episode every Wednesday, like this one here. Today, Mike and I are just chit chatting and drinking through a few bottles. Sometimes we'll have a guest on. We've got some great guests coming up next couple of weeks, don't we, Mike? Oh, we got Bernie Lubbers from Heaven Hill.

We're going to be down at the Evan Williams Experience on the Urban Bourbon Trail in Louisville. You don't want to miss that. We're going to have a special guest on there. Um, so check that out. Um, we're also going to be a peerless, um, again, um, but we're going to be talking about somebody different there. Uh, be some funny stuff.

You're going to have a great time, Mike. I wish I could be there with you on this one. I can't this time, but you're going to have a great time.

And we're just making more and more and more plans to go to different distilleries. Log Steel distillery, the Dant family is opening up. Wally Dant, yeah. We're going to be there checking them out. Kind of try to get over to Woodford, go down and make your mark. We're just going to try to hit it all and stuff. So check those things out and stuff.

Absolutely. So we, uh, we want to know what you think. We want to know who it is you would like to hear on the show, what bottles it is that you would like to hear us review. Make sure you reach out to us. You can get me on Instagram at jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we will see you down.

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