157. Thomas S. Moore Straight Bourbon Finished in Port Casks

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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Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyatt.

And this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we are sitting down for another craft distillery Monday. We've got a pretty nice bourbon to try today. This is a finished bourbon though. Yeah, and it's not a craft distillery. No, it's actually, you know, pretty, I mean, they really got some capacity there, don't they?

It's a, I mean, it's right downtown barstown, Kentucky. It is the Barton distillery or 1792, whatever you want to call it. Barton Springs.

Yeah. Barton, the Barton 1792 distillery.

It's a beautiful distillery. Nice black is everywhere.

Yeah. So they're the ones that experienced the big, uh, warehouse collapse a few years back that gained popularity across country in the news for just the total devastation and the number of barrels that just crushed and became part of the local aquifer crushed crushed people's souls.

Those were some well-aged barrels that went down. So this is the Thomas S more.

extended cask finish, finished in pork cask. Right. So this, this is a Finnish whiskey out of Barton and they're starting to do a lot of new stuff out of Barton. It's kind of, it's kind of neat to see this going on. You know, Barton owned by Sazerac located in Bardstown, Kentucky, an old distillery with a lot of history. Thomas S. Moore was the man who actually built that distillery, right? What year did he build it in? 1889.

Wow, so it's really, it is an old distillery.

It is an old distillery. It's been around a long time and, you know, it's been, it's been through a number of hands over the years. But the distillery, I don't know if, you know, we've done a couple of picks there. And we've obviously been there for a number of tours when we did our picks. But the 1792 distillery is well respected. They've got a lot of good expressions that come out of there. And they produce some pretty darn good stuff.

Well, this is coming in at 98.9 proof, Jim. So a little higher, super dark juice, really tall bottle, almost like a liqueur bottle or something.

Liqueur cognac bottle or a grappa bottle or something. Sort of looks like a bottle you might expect them to pull out for an after dinner sip, right?

I would call this maybe the angel envy killer bottle right here. Are they trying to compete with angel over the stuff?

Well, I mean, a port, a port finished bourbon is definitely right up there with. Angel's envy. Um, you know, the guys at 1792, uh, we already know they produce some pretty darn good stuff. They see it on the market all the time. They're 12, they're 13 year old bourbons. A lot of really good sourced bourbons come out of, come out of Barton.

Yeah, most definitely. Now, this is a $70 MSRP bottle, so we stepped it up from last week. We did Jim Beam. We're stepping it up a notch. Really nice bottle. I'm looking forward to it. You know, I'm really into the finished bourbons. I like them. I think you can introduce people to whiskey very easily with this. If they have an open mind, if they like dark red wines, this will get them into it.

All right, so a premium expression from Barton 1792. Let's check it out. Yeah. I'm getting those port notes that rich, deep, um, tawny port, almost a tawny port, right? Sort of a deeper, richer, more dark kind of port wine finish on that, but they haven't overdone it. And this is just the nose people. We haven't tasted it yet.

You get some dark cherries on that.

Yeah, I think, uh, that's a fantastic nose. Sometimes when you, um, sometimes when you nose a port wine finished bourbon, you think, ah, man, that wine's really taken over, but not here. Right. I don't think so.

I think you get a little bit of leather on this.

That bourbon's kind of shining through. Uh, but you can't miss the port.

That it's just a distinctive nose of like rich leather and, uh, The oak is still there. But the, but the, but the wine comes through as a dark fruit. Like those dried grapes, almost like a dried grape, not the, have you ever been in a winery and watch them make wine? You get that scent of just grape juice.

But this is more the, the darkness that comes from a raisin rather than a grape, right?

Yep. Yep.

All right, let's taste it. Cheers. Cheers. Yeah, I call that a thick and heavy bourbon. The port's coming through more on the palate than it did on the nose for me.

It's almost, uh, I can't explain it. It's almost like it's chilled a little bit. And this has been setting with all the other stuff. So it's not that cold.

It's a, it's a little more dense. So you're saying cool dense, sort of a, a thicker kind of it's, it's thicker.

It just is like, uh, almost like having a lifesaver mint.

I'm definitely getting the sentiment off of it, but I'm picking up a little bit of an earthy note, kind of a, I don't want to say mushroom cause it'll, it'll sound bad, but I'm getting that sort of that earthy kind of note to it. That, that like a truffle truffle. Maybe that's there you go, Mike, probably a truffle. You know, I'm so sophisticated. I'm going to say white truffle or white truffle.

Now you, we, I think we both had, um, meals down in Mexico that had truffle, some kind of a truffle on it.

Yeah, I mean, I love truffles when they're used correctly by a qualified chef. I personally probably couldn't get away with it, but I would spend a hundred dollars on an ounce of truffles and just destroy it. Just destroy it. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I would say the earthy note on this is very pleasing. It's very welcome for me. It kind of offsets that, that sort of that rich port note that you have there, uh, in sort of attributes to the sort of the age and the depth that this has been finished to.

I think it's, it's great tasting. Um, little bit of Kentucky hug there, not a whole lot. Um, a little bit of, I guess, figs in there I would get.

Figs. So that's that, that's that thicker sweetness that you're getting out of it, right? Sort of that, uh, super dark fruit and a little bit of clove. Yeah, I think so too. There's, there's, I think we could go on for a long time, Mike, calling out notes to this as we, as we sip on it, as it develops. Uh, I would like to let a glass sit here for 10 or 15 minutes and come back and revisit it. We can't do that right now, but I think we would find that this stuff really kind of explodes. The aromas on the nose. Go back and nose it now. And that earthy note from the palace starts to come across on the nose a little bit. I'm going to say truffle. I think you got it. I think you nailed it. I said mushroom at first, but that kind of has a negative connotation to it. I think truffles are much better.

Yeah. I'd rather say a truffle than, um, some people don't even know where truffles come from. So, um, I do know how there's hogs trained to, uh, or pigs trained to find them.

Um, you know, this definitely competes directly with the angels envy port finished expressions. Um, I'm not going to sit here and say it's better or worse one way or the other. I will say that. In my opinion for $70, if you want to, if you're a fan of port finished whiskies, this is probably one you don't want to miss.

It's definitely a buy for me. I was excited to get it. James up at Paradise pulled this out for me. He obviously didn't have it sitting on the shelf. It's for his, what would I call us? His preferred customers.

Yeah. People who spend more than the average amount of money at his store. Yeah.

He doesn't have a point system or anything. He's just a good customer that comes in there loyal to his store. offered me up the bottle. I said, I'll take it. I was excited about it. He knew I liked finished bourbons. So I would say this would be great with some Italian meal gym.

Yeah, I would say, Mike, that this could definitely hold a place on your bar of respect. You put this bottle, it's a beautiful bottle, great presentation. Put it on your bar, let it show. When somebody asks, what's that? Say, oh, let me tell you about this one. This is a Finnish bourbon out of Barton 1792. It's a little under 100 proof, but it's very tasty. And let it sit in your glass just a little bit, because I think it'll develop for you and you'll really enjoy it. This might be a good cigar whiskey.

I think so. You know, the other thing about this is if it said Angel Zimby on this would be about $150 bottle. Yeah.

Now, this is a little bit lower proof than what you would expect out of a $150 range we'll say. But the flavor's there.

And the complexities there. So when we talk about that, you said it opened up. And it has definitely, as we've sat here and talked about it, it's definitely opened up. It's getting thicker and thicker and thicker. That port wine's coming out, just drawing those dark fruits out, like I said, like fig, that earthiness of the truffle. I don't see how you can go wrong with this bottle.

Yeah, I'll be worried. I tell you what, you're going to have this on your shelf. I'll be reaching for it every now and then when I come over here. Cause that's a, that's a good bottle. Uh, well done Barton. I think you have, uh, you have, uh, I won't say hit a home run, but you have definitely hit a triple here.

I would call it for them for Barton. I would call it cause it's their first dip in the toe of finished whiskey. That to me, that's home run.

Well, they, they expect to release more from the Thomas S more line on a recurring basis. Sure.

something you could get. And they have some other expressions out. He had two that day. This is the one I picked. Um, do I think I would buy it again? I would most definitely would. And it'll take me a long time to finish this bottle, even if you come over and drink on it or other friends come over here and drink on it. I'm going to definitely introduce people to it.

Now $70 is not a little bit of money, but in today's market, $70 is pretty respectable price for something like this, right?

I'll tell you this, Jim, people are paying more than $70 for blends. Yeah. A $50, $60 bottle of bourbon they're paying sometimes $200 for. So I respect the heck out of it. I'm glad that they took a chance and did us some finished bourbons because Buffalo Trace hasn't had a finished bourbon yet. Right. maybe some experimental stuff out there, but not something that's regular on the shelf. Hopefully people will see this, buy it when it comes out. Look for it. Beautiful bottle. For me, it's a buy Jim.

Yeah, and you know, anytime you can get something that has kind of a nice, well-crafted secondary finish to it, it's got, the bourbon could still shine through and you get that extra long finish where you can sit there and sip on it after dinner. So you have some guests over, they come over, you have a great dinner together, you drink a few glasses of wine with dinner. And then after dinner, you go out and sit on the patio and you have a pour or something like this. Maybe you have a cigar, maybe you don't. But you sip on it and that finish just lingers and lingers and lingers as you sit on the patio and talk. It just creates that special moment with that whiskey that you don't forget. And I think the length of this finish is such that it's not one you're gonna soon forget.

No, I think you're right. Nice long finish to it. Like you said, probably perfect with a cigar, share it with friends over a good Italian meal, maybe before the dinner or after dinner. Usabuco is one of my favorite meals to make. Oh man. This would fit perfectly with that. If you're trying to pair your whiskey with your meals and stuff, this would be great. Because it is a port finish, it'd be great with that diet.

So it kind of transitions from that wine, that red wine at dinner, the bold red wine at dinner, right? With Usabuco. Yep. And then you transition to sitting on the deck afterwards, talking with your friends, sipping on something like this. Just goes right there. It's just perfect. Perfect.

All right, so Mike, where can people find us? So you can find us on social media at TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We also have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. Got to answer three easy questions to get into that. Are you 21? Do you drink bourbon and do you agree to play dice because we don't tolerate any what, Jim?

No rudeness. Everybody's family in the bourbon roadies. We get along, we treat each other right. It doesn't matter what you're drinking. As long as you're drinking bourbon, you're raising the whole industry up, right? You raise everybody up when you drink bourbon. We don't want to see another 1970s, 1980s where clear liquors take over, right? Unless you're in the Valentine Imperial pool, then clear liquors kind of take you over. Yeah. Okay. So if you're on vacation and you're laying on the beach, kind of hard to drink bourbon, but you know what? Teach his own. All right, Mike. Well, you know, we do two shows a week. We do a short episode like this every Monday where you can hear us review a single bottle where we'll go into a little bit of detail on it and tell you what we think about it. On Wednesdays, we do a long version where we go into a little more depth, we talk about one or more expressions, or we have a guest on. We'd love to have you listen to both shows every week. Mike, how can people reach out to us?

You can hit our website, the bourbon road.com. You can leave comment on there where people have reached out to us on there.

Pretty common for that to happen anymore. We get a lot of emails from people saying, love the show. Um, I've tasted that whiskey. This is what I thought about it. A lot of times that happens where people reach out to us and say, Hey, It's kind of neat that you reviewed that distillery. They're 10 minutes from my house and we really enjoyed it or not my thing. Sometimes it's not their thing. Sure. You know, that's what it's all about.

Well, if you're on our website and you're reading the blogs, you're reading our reviews, reading the articles, you're buying some gear, stop by and leave us a comment on there. You can also find us on social media. Best way to do that is you can find me at One Big Chief.

I'm JayShannon63. And we'll see you on 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 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.