149. Tahwahkaro Four Grain Single Barrel Cask 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.

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, we are kicked back at Jeff The Bin Farm. Woodrow, the podcast dog, is in the house. He is in the house. Yep. As soon as we set up the mics and sat down, he laid down at your feet. He knows what's going on. He knows we're about to drink some whiskey. Yeah. So it's craft distillery Monday.

Yeah.

We've got a great whiskey to sample for everybody today. You actually brought this back from a recent trip.

Yeah, I went out to Oklahoma to see my baby brother. Yeah. And this is a bourbon that I've looked for on a shelf. I've looked at it and looked at it and looked at it. And I wasn't sure. I was like, I don't know about this. I've did some research on it and stuff. And me and him drunk it on another show that was going to come out in the future. And that was a regular bourbon. This is the cast strength. And I was so impressed with that, the regular 90 proof that I went ahead and got a bottle of the cast strength. And I was like, we have to review this. I think it's that special.

So it's a special looking bottle. It's a name that's not easy to pronounce. Tawakaro. Tawakaro.

What does Tawakaro mean? It's the Cato Indians out of that region near Fort Worth, Texas grapevine area, but it means bend in the river. Bend in the river, okay. So kind of perfect for Jep the Bend farm, right? Yeah, bend in the creek. They were in Grapevine, Texas, and they've recently moved out to Palestine, Texas, and that's called the Piney region of Texas, East Texas, kind of rolling hill, humongous pine trees out there, beautiful area. I've been out there to another distillery and I'm kind of excited about this.

Yeah, me too. Now this is some absolutely dark liquid. I mean, it's, but you know, Texas whiskey is kind of what you come to expect, isn't it? Yeah. You better think that you're going to get some oak in that bottle. So this is bourbon. This is a cast strength single barrel. It's at 128.4 proof. Hot as a firecracker, I bet. We'll soon find out though.

Yeah, $61.99 is what I got it for. For a craft cast strength, I think that's about right on the money. I think that's fair money for it.

Now, we don't know the exact age of this. We do know that the rules for aging bourbons, they're different in Texas.

different region, you know, different, uh, heat plays big role down there. Kind of got to rope that sun in a little bit, you know, like a Texas twister and try to tame that heat a little bit.

Well, the barrel number on this begins with 18 dash. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to step out on a limb here and say, this is probably, uh, the 2018 distilling season, which would put it right around three years old. Sure. Let's nose this thing. Let's do it. I'll tell you what, for 120 proof, it's not jumping out and burning my nostrils.

No, I get a lot of chocolate on this. A lot of oak. You're going to think that oak, some of that, uh, alcohol, you know, I don't know what you, you always call that something. Uh, I guess the alcohol coming off of it. A little bit of ethanol, but not a whole lot.

Yeah, the oak. Like you said, the oak's right there. This is a typical nose you might get from a bourbon that spent some time in a barrel and been in and out of the wood just a few times. Chocolate, I get a hint of that.

A little bit of

Licorice? Kind of a licorice nose?

I could get that down. This is a four grain gem, so that's going to play into it too. It's a 65% corn, 11% wheat, 11% rye, and 13% malted barley. Okay.

So maybe it's going to be soft up front and spicy on the back. Well, we'll see. Cheers. Cheers. And it is soft up front and spicy in the back and spicy in the back. And boy, oh boy, does it got that hug coming. That's, that's got some, there's some fire down below in this stuff.

It's definitely got that spice at Kentucky hug or big Texas hug. You call it. That was chocolate notes. Yeah, definitely coming out. Definitely chocolate on this one. What's the chocolate cereal that everybody loves? Cocoa puffs, right? Cocoa puffs or what's the couch?

Count Chocula.

Yeah.

Do they still make Count Chocula? Heck yeah, they do. You got grandkids, you don't buy them Count Chocula yet? None of them want the Count Chocula. The only chocolate, sort of chocolate cereals I've bought recently are the, is like the Reese's, it has chocolate and peanut butter. So. Now what I'm getting off this is like a chocolate latte. Yeah, but that, you know, that, that, that licorice is rising up through the chocolate. It's just, it's not a lot. It's not a lot, but it's just enough to, to, to peek out from behind the chocolate and say, I'm here. But man, oh man, the finish on this very lengthy finish for me, kind of a lingering pepper.

yeah with roasted like caramel um you know i always go back to that kettle corn and uh you get out front of a fair or something you could smell it cooking you're just like man that smells good i'm gonna go straight for that yeah if you ever had the kettle corn

It's got like the drizzle chocolate on it. That's kind of this. That's good right there. But man, I'm going to go back to the finish. Long, hot, spicy, bold. Very enjoyable for me. Might not be for everybody. you know, not everybody likes that, you know, that, that big giant kick in the tongue.

I would tell you what I think this kind of tastes like. If you took Elijah Craig barrel proof and then put it in a toasted barrel, this is what that would be. Oh, it's got that toasted, um, caramel a little bit, buttery kind of buttery a little bit. Not getting the marshmallows on it though. No marshmallows, little smoke. Yeah. what you would expect out of a Texas Bourbon, right?

Yeah. So, uh, I'm, I'm pretty impressed. Now, how long has this distillery been around? Are they, are they kind of new to the game or?

They're kind of new to the game. Um, I don't know their exact age, but obviously they're putting out some great whiskey, right?

I know they're very visible on social media. They've got some great ambassadors, at least one that we know of, that's out there pushing the product.

Well, Shannon Hood, she's a friend of ours. She lives there in Texas. She helps them bottle and stuff. She's one of their ambassadors. She works for them. Great. I think it's a great distillery. If you're in North Texas, East Texas, you need to pick up a bottle of this. If you see it on the shelf, if you can't pronounce the name, they did shorten it down and it just says T-A-H, big T-H on the bottle. I like it. It's a funky little bottle too.

It looks like an Amaretto bottle. Is it Amaretto or Quavazie? Like it looks like a circular base that's kind of flat, almost like a clock face.

A little short neck on it. Black wax on there is almost a Knob Creek like. It was hard. I had to get a knife out to get it off. But still a nice looking bottle to have on the shelf, some great whiskey inside there. To me, this was a bi-gym.

Yeah, I'm going to say definitely a buy. Um, if you're, um, looking for something new, a little bit out of the box, a little bit, um, kind of, if you're, if you like that hot, you like that spicy, like the high proof bourbons, if you like something that, uh, introduces itself aggressively to your tongue, this is it. This is aggressive. It is. It is. But at the same time, I haven't had a lot of bourbons that are soft upfront. and aggressive and spicy on the back. So it's kind of a nice balancing act they've done here.

Yeah. How could you not like this? I mean, if you're a big dry drinker and you're looking into a four grain, it's a big good four grain to go to. I think it would too.

Single barrel, so we can't guarantee that what you get will taste like this. I think on the bottle, they talk a little bit about the wonderful variety they get out of their single barrels. So, you know, this may be representative, and then again, this may be an outlier. There's no way for us to really know that, but it is darn good.

Yeah, I'm happy with it. I would buy it all day long. If you get a chance to go out to the distillery, support those small distillers. These guys and gals are making their own whiskey there. I know Fred Minnick had just put out a whole thing about that, about sourced whiskey and how that sourced whiskey is sometimes becoming like $200 a bottle. people are just craving it and the market is just going higher and higher and higher when really you could go to a craft distillery and get something that they're making that's just as good, but people kind of stub their nose to craft a little bit.

Yeah. Well, uh, don't snub your nose at this one. It's a, it's a, it's a good pour. No doubt about it. And for the price, you can't beat it.

Yeah. They're the regular bourbons, uh, about half that, um, still great price to,

So we're going to repeat it here. So it's Tabakaro. It's out of Palestine, Texas now. Nice round shaped bottle, dark liquid. This is their single barrel cask proof. This particular single barrel bottle is right around $60. They're 90 proof versions, right around $30. $30. $30. And I'm not 100% sure where they're shipping to, I've seen it around. I've seen it here in Kentucky. Yeah. So it's getting out there.

Well, the other thing Palestine is famous for is that's where death row in Texas is. Okay. Why'd I know that? I just know it.

So if you're on death row in Texas, you got that last wish. Ask for some of this whiskey. Get some of this whiskey. Kill the pain.

All right, Mike, well, where can people find us? You find us on Twitter, TikTok, right? TikTok, yeah. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, whatever comes out next, you'll find us on there. Who knows? They're just coming out with all kinds of crazy stuff right now.

And we are at the Bourbon Road. We're not on Snapchat. Not yet. Is that still around? I don't know, but I don't think we can do much more. We've got a website, TheBurbanRoad.com. You want to go on there? What can you find on there, Jim? Hey, we've got our Glen Caron glasses. We've got our Bourbon Bullshitter t-shirt. We've got our ball cap, and we've got a new t-shirt coming, the Bourbon Road t-shirt. There's going to be some other stuff on there, too. But what you can also find on there is our articles. We write articles for every full-length episode. We write reviews for every Craft Distillery Monday episode. And those are put out for your pleasure. We'd love you to stop in and take a peek at those. and leave some comments. We've got a lot of people leaving comments now, so that's good. We do try to make sure we don't miss one, so there's usually always... Well, usually always. I missed one last week. We missed one.

First one ever, Mike. Well, I was sick, and that's the only reason I missed it. I got that second COVID shot, and I thought this bourbon would be the cure for everything. It whipped my ass. It was no joke. It was 48 hours. I slept 48 hours. And you know, I kind of live on five hours of sleep a night, but 48 straight hours, I just slept. All right.

Well, like we were saying earlier, we do two shows a week. We do one on Monday and another one on Wednesday. There are different kinds of shows, a full-length on Wednesday and a short show on Monday like today's show. We'd love to have you listen to both of them. We also have our ears open, folks. If there's something, somebody you would like to see or a bourbon you'd like to have reviewed, if you live in a small town and Wisconsin has got a distillery and you'd like everybody to know about your whiskey. Let us know. We'll search them out. We'll talk to the distillery.

We'll review it on the show. So the other place you can find us is on Facebook. We actually have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. It's our little family. 1600 strong, growing every day. Got three rules to be in there. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? You agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any rudeness as they would say to a lonesome dove. A great family, right Jim? It is. It's a good family.

Good people in there. They won't chop you off at the knees for talking about a bourbon they don't like. So come on in, join in the roadies, join in the conversation. Lots of fun. You can always reach out to Mike and I. We're very available and we're very receptive to conversations from our listeners. You can find me on Instagram at jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we will see you down the bourbon road. You know, you can't drink whiskey without glassware and Mike and I are extremely pleased to have a sponsor like premium bar products. Premium bar products offers direct to consumer, the finest whiskey glasses, cocktail glasses, and bar tools with your own personal engraving. I mean, you can write anything you want on these glasses, anything from a company logo to a personal statement. And there are no minimum orders. Their direct consumer platform offers you the opportunity to purchase small quantities of your favorite glass shapes that enhance the pleasure of enjoyment and drinking a whiskey and make it all very positive. They offer the absolute finest trending and handmade 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.