178. Bourbon Blending Challenge 2021

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.

And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road in Today, Mike. We got the mic set up. We're sitting in your living room. We're at Jep the Bend Farm. We have some pretty big announcements to make today.

Yeah. We're going to have a little bit of fun in here tonight, talk about our challenge that we're laying out. But we've got a guest on today. We do. And he's a returning guest. He's a fan favorite. We got Mr. Rob Carter, Mr. Shelbyville himself.

Thank you for having me.

The great Kentuckian. It's Fourth of July, guys.

Oh, Fourth of July, my time of year. You know I'm a vexologist.

What's a vexologist? Is that a flag, a curator of flags?

It is, it is. I'm an American flag collector. I have flags that date back to pre-Civil War, all period, correct, and different star counts. So just something I do.

And you're wearing the Constitution.

Wearing the Constitution. Today. Yeah.

You got your 13 colony flag on, and you're an American Eagle, and you're We the People. You got stars, stars on your socks. We the people hat. We the people hat. Dressed to the nine. I'm ready. Ready to drink some bourbon today, Rob? I am. Well, tell us what we got in our glass, Jim. All right, so this is, and we've had this on an episode, at least we've talked about it before. No, I think we drank some before. Did we? Yeah. Okay. So this is my personal blend, and this is a blend that I do occasionally, maybe once a year or so. Actually, it's been a little bit more than a year since I did it the last time. This is a blend that I do to make bottles to give away as gifts. So, um, and you have one. Yeah. Um, so, uh, I usually make them six to 10 bottles at a time and, uh, it's three components. I won't tell you what the three components are because that's what makes it so special is that I don't divulge what it is and everybody gets to kind of guess at it, but I'll never tell. Um, three components, it's a blend and it's kind of my blend. It's my profile. It's what I like. If I were to have, my own perfect whiskey, this would kind of be it. And I think when you drink it and you taste it, it'll kind of make sense to you a little bit. But the name of this one is called Old Hoot. Like an owl. Like an owl. But that was actually my grandfather's moniker. That's what everybody called him, all his friends. They called him Hoot. Isn't a moniker that little eyeglass? That's a monocle. Monocle. Monocure is like a name. Good catch though. These big words you guys throw it out on me. I'm getting edumacated. But he was a Kentucky man. He lived in the hollers of Kentucky and he grew up here his whole life. He did drink just a little bit of bourbon, but he didn't have his own distillery. He didn't have his own brand. you know, do anything related to whiskey, but, um, it was my grandfather. So I just named a name, kind of named a bourbon after him. Yeah, that's special. Did you look like him? I don't think I look like him. Um, or, or, or, you know, we're a little bit further apart. I think I looked a little bit more like my dad probably. He's from my mom's side.

So when I think of old hood, I think of the owl on, uh, That lollipop commercial. How long does it? Yeah. Two, three. Yeah. How long does it take to get to the center of what is it? Lollipop? Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's, let's taste this thing. I'm guessing why you guys are sipping on it. I'm just guessing this is a high rye somewhere in there. At least rye. There can't be no wheat in here.

Well, I'll tell you this much. There are some right bourbons in there. All right. So, but I won't tell you whether or not there's not a wheat in there. I'm just guessing. You said your profile. So it's my profile.

So, yeah. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers guys.

So I'm going to hold back my notes to hear what you guys say first.

Well, I got on the nose. I got some, some nuts or peanuts in there. I think I can smell some peanuts.

You know, this is the part that I suck at guys. A little chocolate.

I got just a chocolate note, maybe just a cacao bean or something.

Let me keep sipping. Maybe it'll come to me.

So Mike, I do also get the chocolate on it. That's kind of one of the things I was after. I wanted a little bit of that chocolate in there. I wanted the rye to be apparent on the nose.

I get a little bit of the rye, but more of that peanut that's coming out of that. And I think on ryes you do get that peanut nutty feel. So I would think there's a little bit of heaven hill juice in here from there, whether it be Elijah Craig or one of their other products.

And that's a great thing about blending your own whiskeys is because you can do something that nobody else can do, right? You can take something from, for example, Elijah Craig and something from Wild Turkey and put them together. That'll never happen in the real world, right? Well, at least we don't think so, but you never can tell, you know? But that gives you a little bit more latitude to do some good blending stuff is take already good whiskeys. Just because you take good whisky A and put it together with good whisky B doesn't always mean you're going to get great whisky C or even good whisky C. It could be bad whisky C.

Now this thing's got, it's oily for sure. Cause the legs are just running down the glass. Well, let me taste this thing. I said, cheers.

Cheers. Yeah, that's a, so, so I like the peppery-ness and I get a little bit of that and yeah, it's just a great flavor. You did a good job.

A whole lot of sweetness, just a little bit. Maybe like a fig that's not overly sweet rolls back on a tongue. Kind of that spice just kind of rolls back too with you. And that Kentucky hub, boy, that sucker hits home, doesn't it Rob?

It does. That's what I like.

And I get, I get a little bit of chocolate covered cherries on the back end. You know, that chocolate comes out and you get a little bit of that cherry in there too. Covered in hot sauce, maybe.

A little bit of hot sauce. I guess not hot sauce.

More of a cayenne spice to it. Actually, that's kinda, I'll be honest with you, that's what I was after. I was after chocolate, cherries, and hot pepper. If I could get the three of those to happen all at the same time, and I was surprised to find out. that I get all three of those into the finish, which is tremendous for me. I kind of like that.

I'm still getting a little bit of peanut taste on it. So maybe a chocolate covered cherry with some, I don't know, a nut in there or something. I'm not sure, but with that spicy, like you said, cayenne pepper. be really good.

I, uh, whatever little sweetness I'm getting, it feels like a little bit of floral something. I don't know what, you know, kind of go back to that honeysuckle thing. A lot of times from my childhood, that's, that's kind of what I'm picking up on the, uh,

This is three components. And let's just say we took three different bottles and mix them together. They weren't equal amounts. Okay. Um, but the average cost, my cost to produce a bottle of this is right at $30. So there's nothing in there that's really super expensive.

Well, this is intriguing. You taught me something already. 100 proof.

And it's real easy to come up with the proof. I mean, you just, you look at the individual components you're putting in, the proof that they are, and then how much of the total, you know, volume they take up. And it's some pretty, pretty simple math. I mean, the easiest is you take two bottles and put them together, right? One of them's 110 proof, one of them's 100 proof. Put them together, same volumes, could be 105.

So when we talk about blenders, there's master blenders and there's master distillers, right? And they could be both the same thing, but technically, usually they're a different person for distilleries. The master distiller is the guy that's cooking the grain and stuff, right? making the whiskey, but the blender is the person that goes in and picks the barrels out and says, I'm going to put these together in a certain order. A little bit of this barrel, a little bit of that barrel, and this is how we're going to proof it down and gets that right blend correct.

Right. And that's a pretty big job. It requires a lot of samples and a lot of drinking, right? Mm-hmm. I think in their case, it's drinking and spitting, though, right?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Most definitely. You know, that phrase, master blender, hasn't been around as long as people probably think it is. William Sanderson and Andrew Usher are credited with making one of the first whiskey blends in the 1860s. OK. And I think it was a Scotch is what they blended. So that term blender hasn't been around that long really. When you think about history of the world and how long whiskey's been made.

So when I see a bottle that says blended whiskey on it, am I seeing what someone has blended from one distillery, I presume?

Well, I think a batch is a blend, right? Really.

Yeah. I mean, if you take anything above a small batch, so to speak.

Sure. I mean, if you take a rye, you know, regular rye and you take a regular bourbon and you mix the two of them together, you neither have a rye nor a bourbon anymore. What you have is a blended whiskey. So it still qualifies as a blended whiskey. It just can no longer be called either a rye or a bourbon. But when you see blended bourbon, which you do, in the case of Old Hoot, this is a blended bourbon. All three components are bourbons. And you can do the same thing with ryes. I mean, you can blend three ryes together. You have a blended rye. It's still a rye.

So here's my perception. Again, you've taught me something because when I still see those bottles on the shelf, I thought, okay, they took all their leftover crap and threw it all together. And that's for, you know, guys that don't know what they're tasting. But now you've shown me. the whole different concept of this and that I didn't even, I mean, I never even thought about. So not only was I wrong, I've learned something and whatever you did here is really good.

Well, thank you.

I'm glad to hear that. I think the blender is also making sure that that consistency on those distilleries are still meeting that same consistency in their whiskey. They want it to taste the same, right? So they have those just wonderful palettes that they really do know what they're doing. And they're more celebrated today, I think, than ever. We've had some great master blenders on our show with Jackie's I Can and Ashley Barnes being two big names out there in the industry. Well, Jim, this is pretty dang good. It's, I, you know, I had it up on the shelf for a little bit and then I visit and then I changed the bottles out and put some other bottles up on the shelf. And, um, I kind of had a hit down there. Um, I'm glad we pulled it back out because it tastes pretty dang good.

Yeah, I would say this bottle has been waiting for you to get to the point where you can appreciate it, I would say.

Yeah. I mean, it's probably these days, but I put it under the counter, which is pitch black under there and nice cool spot. So it's not going to tear it up or nothing. You know, it's not going to overage or anything like that, but.

And of course, Jim, you and I probably have a more similar palette than, than he and I, or he and you. So, so yeah, you, you kind of, next time I need something, I'll just tell you to make me something.

Just make you a bottle. I'll see if I can't make sure you get a bottle of this next time I make a batch.

I appreciate it.

So this was actually batch 5A. And A just lets me know that it's my original blend recipe. Batch five is actually the fifth time I've made it, so by that same A recipe. So if I ever adjust that recipe a little bit, I'll call it B, and then maybe if I adjust it a little bit for the next time, it'll be six B, which would be the second recipe, but the six batch altogether of Old Hoot.

Well, we're actually here to talk about our bourbon challenge, our bourbon blending challenge for the roadies. And we laid out some rules for that. And we said we were going to have an episode just on that. And that's what it really is. The first half, we're going to drink the old hoot that you blended up. And then the second half, we're going to drink from my infinity bottle that I have, which is not a blend really. That thing probably has

It's a blend. It's a blend. It's just not something that you can define. You can't say what the recipe and the proof is without using a proofing.

I'd have to proof it and then I'd have to write down every time I think I would.

I was going to say, nor could you repeat it.

Yeah, it's not. It's definitely an affinity bottle and I've kept pretty true on that, an affinity bottle. To get it started, I did it different. I filled it up with weeded bourbons from, I think I put six or seven in there and then we went from there.

Is that the most common concept? You guys have taught me a little bit about the whole infinity thing too. Would a guy typically keep his weededs together and maybe his ryes together and so forth? I don't think so. No rules there either.

I think you do what you want. Mike and I do our infinity bottles differently. He does the weeded infinity bottle. But that's easy for him because most like 90% of what he drinks other than you know doing reviews right there are gonna be waders For me, I don't really care what it is that goes in there It just needs to be a bottle Down around about an inch left in the bottom. Okay, and I don't want to preserve it any longer I want to get it off the bar. Yeah, I'll get that bottle in the trash can and and and I just add it to the bottle. So I fill up my infinity bottle with the small amounts that are left in each bottle until my infinity bottle gets to about three quarters full, maybe higher. And then I don't add anything to it until I drink it down to half again. And then once it hits a half, I'll start adding to it.

Change the complexity again.

And I don't keep track of what I put in it. I just don't put anything I don't like in it. I only put stuff I like. If it's a bourbon, it's not my thing. And there's not a lot of bourbons I don't like, but if it's bourbon, it's not my profile, it won't go on my agenda.

Well, if you've already got it all the way down to like a half inch in the bottle, didn't you like it? That's true. Or somebody come over to the house and drink it all, one or the other, yeah.

What this no like you talk about.

So here's my thing. It was starting an infinity bottle. If, you know, some people say just pour that, what you have, that inch in there that you have, But then you're just really pouring whiskey from one bottle to the other bottle, and you're still going to have that half inch in there. So my thought process is I'll fill it up halfway and get a bottle started. That way, that whiskey's not really going bad. It's pressing more air out of there. And I kind of do what Jim does. And then I'll have a weeder that I've drank down pretty close, and I'll pour the rest of that in there. And it is all wheat, and it's usually I don't know. I was trying to guess the proof on that thing. It's probably between 120 and 130. Oh yeah. Nice. Yeah.

If you allow your infinity bottle to go below a half full, then you're kind of defeating the purpose of it, right? The purpose of it is to protect those small amounts that are remaining from oxidation. Yeah. And the way you do that is put them in a bottle where there's a smaller amount of oxygen.

I see.

Interesting. So what's the, we got the challenge coming up and we want any roadie that wants to send it in, right? Send in two, two ounce pours.

That's correct. Well, we're going to need to have at least four ounces to do the judging, because we're going to have four judges. And each judge needs to have at least an ounce to make a good estimation of what they think about it.

Yeah.

Don't you think?

Oh, I totally agree on that. If you want to send more than that, or you want to send four two ounce pours, that way we can get a good guesstimate of what you got. Take an envelope, write on a piece of paper what you put in there. On the outside, you want to put your name, correct?

No, on the outside put the name that you're calling this bourbon. On the inside, hidden from everybody, is your name and your recipe.

So we don't want to know what the recipe is until we judge everything. Or who the roadie is. Yeah.

I mean, we'll know because we unpacked the box, but once we get a few samples in, they'll all get mixed together. We won't know. We'll just know that the bottle's got a name on it and it matches that piece of paper.

Yeah. Make sure you stick your name on the bottle, the name of the bourbon on the bottle, because we need to match that up. If you just send us empty bottles, there's a plethora of empty bottles or blank bottles. I don't know what you'd call them. Naked bottles that we both have of sample bottles.

Yeah, I mean, if you call your bourbon exterminator, for example. Put a label on the sample bottles that says exterminator. Put a piece of paper, write exterminator on it. And on the inside of that piece of paper, what's folded and taped or whatever you do, on the inside, put the recipe and your name. Just put the two together, put them in a box. We'll give you an address to ship them to. And then we'll do the testing. And the idea here is that, you know, no preferences. We don't know whose it is. We don't know what the components are that go into it. And we're just going to pick the one that we like the best as a group before. So Mike and I will be judging and then we're going to have two guest judges as well.

And I think it'll be a fair competition across the board that way. There's no fan favorites out there. There's no favorite in me and Jim's eyes. It's what tastes the best. We'll probably use the same sheet that we use for our blind tasting, I would think, that we've did in the past. That makes it fair. Good score. And we'll take those scores and see who wins out.

Yeah. All right. Well, in the second half today, we're going to talk about what the specific rules are for the contest. We'll talk about, you know, what percentages, what blends, how many components, you know, what the rules are, when you have to have it to us by. And I guess what else, Mike? Maybe a little bit about what the grand price might be.

Yeah. What have you been drinking lately, Rob? Have you been drinking anything special?

Been hitting a little bit of old Forester rye, bullet rye, kind of in a rye period of my life, go back and forth, but doing a little bit of that. And I hit four roses every now and then. I get a little sweetness there that appeals to me until I can't take the sweetness anymore. And then I just keep moving around.

What about you, Jim? You got any new bottles?

Anything new. You know, I've kind of been over the past couple of weeks, I have been kind of settling into the warmer weather a little bit. I have picked my summer house rye, like Rob, mine's old Forrester rye. Can't beat the price, right? Yeah, exactly. Can't beat the price, can't beat the proof. It's a well-done Kentucky rye. I think it sits well in the summertime. It's a great mixing rye. If you've got to have an ice cold meal, it's great for that. If you just want to sip on a little bit of rye, that works too. It's not overly powerful. It's not going to heat you up. So that's one. Other than that, Mike, we're drinking at least two to three bourbons a week in reviews and so forth. So we get our fair share of bourbon without having a, I don't know, personal house bottle.

I've been actually drinking some shine lately. Last night we drank a little bit of shine, different kinds of shine too. I had some limoncello shine. somebody brought. And then I had Donnie and Teresa's, still had some of that fruit punch that Teresa made. That was pretty good. And then I had some of the regular shine, but then Sugarlands, I got a bottle of their butterscotch last time we went down to Tennessee and we cracked that open and had it. I served it over, you know, poured, put it in an ice chest and got it cold. And then I had some old smoky cherries and we had a whole bunch of them last night. And then those new cans of Jim Beams, highball classics, the ginger and bourbon, those are actually pretty dang good. What's the other flavor? They got the highball classic is the, uh, it's just a seltzer water and bourbon. And then the ginger and bourbon is the other one they have. It's more like a mule. Yeah. Man. Somebody, when I first posted about those, gave me crap about it and said, Hey, I can't believe you're drinking those. But I'll tell you, if you work long shift or you come home after a long day, you've been outside for a long day, you, sometimes you don't want to make a drink for yourself. You're just like, God dang, I don't want to do nothing. And those are easy to just crack open, pour in glass, and it's made for you. Quick and easy. It tastes good, you know. It's not too overpowering. It's cold. That's, you know.

Refreshing.

It's been 100 degrees lately. Yeah, yeah.

So the last couple days have been nice. And then we had a fire the other night. So there was all kinds of stuff being passed around. Got a few roadies gathering here the other night, and some of your neighbors. But yeah, had quite a few roadies here.

Yeah, we had Abby and we had Greg. Rob, you came out. James Hubbard came out. James' husband. I was trying to think who else came out here. Jordan Riley came out. So we had quite a few.

roadie show. There was probably, if you added everybody in there that was a roadie, we probably had eight to 10 roadies here that night.

Yeah. I mean, that was a good gathering. Served some pulled pork, had a couple bottles of bourbon down there. Some bourbons that people, I don't think you'd seen or had before, but. Had that rebel. Yeah. I had to put a Weider out there, right? Yeah. And I actually had another bottle from Lux Row down there. You pointed out Davies County. And I've been sipping on that bottle a lot. Yeah, we could tell. It was just about gone. It's a bourbon I like. We get so many different bourbons and that question probably gets asked us more often than not, what's your favorite bourbon? I always say free bourbon is the best bourbon.

Yeah, mine's one I haven't had. I get really excited. I've told this story before, we went to the bar and the bar owner offered us anything off his shelf and he had some great bottles. I mean, some awesome bottles in the place. We could have had just about anything we wanted. King of Kentucky. He said, I'll crack it open for you. Yeah. And, but then I looked over and I saw Casey Jones. I'd never had it before. Now this is not a top shelf whiskey. This is just an average, um, craft distillery. And, uh, Hey, I enjoyed it. I was glad to taste it. Glad to try it for the first time. And now I know all about Casey Jones.

So roadies stick with us on my second half. We're going to be drinking big chiefs, my infinity bottle, and we're going to talk about the rest of the rules for this challenge. And we're going to talk about the prize and where to send your bottles to. Don't go away.

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So you go on Facebook, you can go on our Facebook page, the bourbon road. Scroll down just a little bit. There's a link in there, the bourbon roadies, or you could search the bourbon roadies and they'll pop up. It's a private group, 2200 strong in there. master blenders in there, master distillers, distillery owners, you name it. Good people though. Yeah. Great people. Three rules. You gotta be 21, right? To be in that group. Cause we'd like to drink whiskey. You gotta like bourbon. Cause who doesn't like bourbon? And you gotta agree to play nice. Cause we don't tolerate any rudeness.

We just don't want any scuffles. We don't want any, uh, abrasion. We want everybody to get along and have a good time. Uh, you know, if, if what you're going to say in that group is going to tear somebody else down, just keep it to yourself.

We don't do politics in there. We don't do religion. We don't do social issues. We just talk about whiskey. That's plain and simple. So we try to lift people up in that respect and celebrate birthdays, holidays. Whatever you want to celebrate, we'll celebrate it with you. We'll raise a glass to you and say, cheers.

So later on, as we talk a little bit more about this contest, just realize that you need to be a roadie to be in the contest. And we want everybody to be in the contest. Right, Mike?

Yeah. If we get 22 packages, 22 hundred packages in the mail, then that's a contest right there. We had to hire some help.

Let me say, so I've been content to just listen to your podcasts, enjoy a few outings, meet some new people and stuff, but I will say it's been incredible what I've witnessed when I've been around you guys and just some of the roadies. who truly trade out whiskey bourbon with one another. It's really cool when I witness it. I don't know why I haven't been playing along because guys will walk up with a two ounce pour of something they've never had in their life and never had, can't find a bottle of it, and a daggone rodeo share with him. I mean, that's I don't know. That's fun to me. I need to get involved with that because I think that's community, dude. That's just fun right there.

It is a community of like-minded people that love whiskey and they like to share the whiskey. People always ask me, what do you do with all that extra whiskey that you guys get? you know, it'd be hard to drink everything we got, right? It'd be extremely tough to drink all that and the rest of our lives, probably, Jim, I don't know. So we'd like to share that with people and get them to have that same experience with some of these bottles that we're getting that are just phenomenal. They might not get, they might get, you know, some of the stuff you have to travel to certain states for if you're on business or you're visiting for vacation, but people were going there and buying that stuff, but we want other people to experience that. And that's why we do, do share as much as we do share.

Yeah. I mean, at your cookout the other night, Mike, we, we had, like I said, about 10 roadies there and there were bottles being passed back and forth the whole night. I mean, everybody brought samples.

Every time I show up and just so nobody will steal my thunder here, guys are giving me some great ideas on this blending thing here. And I got a, so nobody will steal my, my name. I've got a, bottle of old Carter, some horse, what's the horse? Horse soldier? Horse soldier. And some George Dickle I was going to put together. I think my name is going to be Carter's horse Dickle. So please, please don't use that on anybody. That's reserved for me.

That's funny right there. I think that was all yours. Well, the second whiskey we got we're drinking today is Big Chiefs Blend. It's my infinity bottle. It is all wheat. It's all just, it's a love in a bottle.

Yeah, and after you poured these drinks for us here, I'm noticing you're below half full now. Yeah, I'm going to have to put some more in there. Yeah, it's time to refill.

Well, you guys know, tell me what you drink.

Yeah, that's good.

That's got a real rich nose to it. Man, there's a lot of depth to it. Now there's a lot of higher proof bourbons in here. Oh yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's got a lot of cherry on it. A lot of cherry, a lot of, a lot of other, it's, it's very fruity, very fruity. A lot of floral notes on there. Yeah. And you know, the, the oak's coming through too. So there's some stuff in here that's got a little bit of age to it. You haven't just put the young stuff in, you've put some older stuff in too. Well, there's probably a little Texas bourbon in there too. That's probably, that's probably where we're getting that from.

Well, there's some older, some old, old Kentucky bourbon in there too. Um, probably in the 15 year range somewhere in there, but you can guarantee it's weeded. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to this taste.

Well, cheers guys. Sorry. I'm already into it. Are you? Yeah. No, that's smooth.

Oh, and that's still soft though. That is still soft. I would almost, yeah, if I got this in a bottle, I would probably guess weeded bourbon.

Yeah, it's I don't see any other way to do it. I mean, that's that's what I love. And I implore you, if that's what you love, if you love weeded bourbons or if you love all rise, you know, make something like you said, Jim, that you're absolutely want to drink out of. I try to put the highest quality stuff that mean you get in there. Other bourbons, I just drink or mix or you know, if it's not something I truly love, but the bottles that I truly love and I've got a little bit left, I'll pour them in there and it's okay.

So would you say you were at a slightly higher price point than Jim's? at 30.

Extremely high. I'd have no clue what some of those bottles.

But generally speaking, yeah, we'll just say higher, higher than lower.

So, you know, I bet there's bottles all the way from 22. You're not going to get much cheaper than 22 on a weeded bourbon. like a larceny or something, or maybe a well or special reserve. But then, weeded bourbons typically start getting pretty expensive in that $50 range and way up. You can talk about some old fits that are pretty expensive, right? Yeah. Now there's no Pappy in there at all. Right. There's just Pappy hasn't seen this household yet. I don't know why I don't want to come visit. You know, I just, I'm just not that lucky. Maybe one of these days, but I'm not going to chase it. Yeah.

There you go. Maybe. But we've both had it at a bar.

Yeah. Oh, I've had every expression of Pappy in a bar at one point or another, even their rive like, Hey, I'll, I'm going to try that tonight. Cause I want to try it, but not at the same night I did.

the heck a shot of that cost you?

Um, I think I've paid $80 for the 23 year old one time. I think at a Butchertown groceries where I drink that at, you know, it just depends. Vivian's bought me a shot for my birthday before, you know, and I think Jim and them bought me a pour of it somewhere. We were out and somebody else will buy me a pour of it.

Damn.

But when Ralph gets his bottle, he's going to call us out.

Heck yeah, I will. You got better friends than I got, brother.

You've got some good friends. You've got a plethora of friends.

I know. Exactly. They all went in together and bought me a shot of Ankenage the other day.

Well, ain't nothing wrong with that, right?

It's not costing them a dime apiece, all 20 of my friends.

That's really just buttons, right? Well, I mean, it's younger juice, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Oddly enough, that's what I drink at Barrel Room all the time. Ancient, ancient. Yeah, I actually like it. It's good, smooth.

It is good whiskey.

The 80 proof. Yeah.

It's fine. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about the rest of the rules for this, Jim. You got it wrote down over there. Let's go over the proof range.

Yeah. 95 to 105. Why did we pick that range? It's really a bit arbitrary, but it helps keep the price down a little bit, the cost. It also helps us to narrow the samples down so that we're not judging from a wide proof range. We're judging from a narrow proof range. I feel, in general, because you and I drink a lot of high proof whiskies, that we would tend to side with the higher proof whiskies during judging.

We probably would because of the, you know, how the viscosity of them that are oily, they're so complex, they'd probably blow the doors off most stuff. So that is fair to keep it from 95 to 105 is a fair rage.

And don't think that you need to be closer to 105 to win the game. I think that you can probably, you know, the old hoot we drank earlier, I thought, you know, personally, I think is a good overall whiskey. It's right at 100 proof. It's right in the middle of that range. So if I were you, I'd try to target that 100 proof range and then adjust up or down as you need to to get the flavor where you want it. So if you know which components you want to use and when you put them together, they kind of come out to around 100. Now you can, you got room to play, right? You can say, no, I want to add just a little bit more of that old granddad one one four or something. We'll say that's one of the components. You add a little bit more of that one one four to bring it up a little bit if you want, if that's going to help your profile. So I think it's good. Shoot for a hundred and then tweak it just to be in that range somewhere.

So just to be clear, are there different categories and will there be a point system to the grading or just straight up personal preference by the judges? Here's my logic. Will somebody with a clever name get an extra point added or is it all about the bourbon?

I think it's all about the bourbon. I think it's, you know, I, I'm looking forward to some of the names. I can't wait to hear some of the names. Let's keep them on the clean side because we want to put them on the air.

I'll tell you this, Jim, the, the best name or the best name to make this fair. The person with the best name will send you out a sample. of Old Hoot and some of my bottle.

Okay, there you go. There you go.

That's for the best name.

That's not the winner. Yeah, that solves the dilemma. See, I'm just looking to invoke some fun into this.

Now, our grading sheet comes from the Kentucky Distillers Association. They have a judging sheet on there. That's what we used for our blind bottle challenges. It's a fair grading system we've used every time. It works perfectly, right, Jim? Nose palate and finish. Yep. Um, so there's nearly not our preferences. It's, it's a blind challenge. We don't know what's in that deal. So we'll taste it. We'll take our notes down. We'll tally up the votes or the points points for it. And then we'll see who wins. Okay.

So rule number two. All right. So rule number one is 95 to a hundred proof. Rule number two, bourbons only. So you can only put bourbons in your blend. You can't put a rye in there. You can't put an American whiskey in there. You can't add any scotch in. You can't add any moonshine in there. All your components have to be bourbons. They don't have to be straight bourbons. They don't have to be Kentucky bourbons. They just have to qualify as a bourbon.

I think that's fair across the board right there, people. I mean, that's what we are as a bourbon podcast.

Maybe we'll do a rye challenge down the road. or maybe an American whiskey challenge where you can put whatever you want in it. Whatever you want. But right now this is just going to be a bourbon. So what do we got next on our list? The next, the next on the list is you have to have three components in the recipe, three different whiskies in the recipe. So, Let's just say that no one component can be less than 1%. Right? I mean, you could make it there, you know, 50%, you know, wild Turkey 101, 49% old granddad 114. Oh, you couldn't do that because he'd be over 105, but you get the idea that last 1% has got to be something else. So they could prove it down. If they,

If you can proof it down, if you can proof it down, proof it down. I don't know if you want to be mixing well or special reserve and wild turkey one-on-one together.

I will say in order to get, in order to get old hoot to 100 proof, I had to put some water in. So I didn't just combine the, you know, the components to get old hoot. And that happened to be 100. I actually proved it down to 100 after that. So water is, can be your fourth component, but three of your components have to be bourbons.

How long does it take to, did it take to kind of meld that in? I mean, when you throw that water in, shake it up, is it, I mean, is it

Yeah. You can't just taste it right. You will taste it right away, but it will change. I would say 24 hours before you make a decision on it. Um, and then even then, uh, it'll continue to change as it sits in the bottle and marries up. So very important. Good point to bring that up, Rod. That was, that was because when you first blend those whiskies together, um, just shaking the bottle a little bit, it's not going to do it. They have to spend time together.

Yeah. What else we got?

So we got, let me go back over them again. 195 to 105 proof, bourbons only. You have to have at least three bourbons in there. You have to have three components minimum. Bourbon, bourbon, bourbon. If you want the fourth component to be water, that's fine. If you want to add more bourbons in there, four or five, six different bourbons to get it, that's okay. Three minimum. You have to have a name. You have to come up with a creative name. And Mike's already let the cat out of the bag here. There's a special prize for the person with the best name.

The best name, you'll get a sample of Old Hoot and you'll get a sample. And those will be four ounce pours, a sample of Old Hoot and a sample of Big Chief's Blend from my Infinity Bottle. I think they're two great whiskeys. You won't go wrong with them.

And what about adding in a Bourbon Road Glencairn? We could do that if we have any left.

Now that you said it. Good Lord, Rob. Trying to give all of our merchandise away.

No, but you know what? I'm kind of proud of my Bourbon Road Glencairn. I like to drink out of that at night. You know, thank all the community. It's just good stuff.

It is good stuff. Well, just remember it's important that you have a good name on this whiskey because that's how it's going to be referred to throughout the entire judging process. So when you listen to the judging episode, when we judge this, you know, we'll be talking about. exterminator or whatever the heck the name is you come up with your bourbon that's how it'll be referred to throughout the show and at the end is when we'll open up that piece of paper and it will reveal your name you're the the guy who made exterminator and your recipe that went into making it and then of course uh we'll publish at the very minimum let's say the top three finishers will publish their recipes on a blog and And maybe even more. Yeah. Maybe even more.

And Jim, since Michael is such a cheap ass, I'll pay for the Glen Caron that we... Fair enough.

Rob is underwriting the Glen Caron giveaway. I'll tell you what Rob, we'll just, we'll just, we'll just give you the samples and you ship them out with your Glencairn. How's that?

I don't know the whole complexity of this thing, but can I say cheap ass on the? Yeah, you could say cheap ass.

I said cheap ass. Is that going to be the name of your bourbon too? I'd probably watch that probably sell. So what else we got on our list? That's pretty much it. I think we hit all the points. Now, the next thing is, when do they have to arrive to us by and where do they ship them to? And I'll leave that to you, Mike.

So it's July 4th today. We're going to give you to August 1st to get us to your samples to us. It gives you one month to come up with your samples to us, one entire month. If you can't get it in a month and get it shipped to us, that means it has to be at my house by August 1st. That's an entire month, people. I know we can do this. I know we can get it done. So the way we'll get the whiskey to us is I'll write my address in the blog. You can check it out on our website, www.theburbanroad.com. Go into articles. You'll see it in this article for this post right here. I'll probably talk a little bit about blending. We'll write our rules in there and then we'll put my address down at the bottom. ship it here by August 1st. And then somewhere in the month of August, we'll do a episode and we'll, uh, we'll judge away.

Yeah.

So a prize for this gym, I think we'll do a laser cut barrel head. Sounds good. The bourbon road, um, it'll be signed by, um, me and you and the guest judges.

It'll, it'll, it'll say first place blending challenge 2021.

Yup. Um, we'll also throw in a bourbon bullshitter t-shirt, a bourbon road shirt, and one of our Glencairns and a ball cap for you. Wow. The whole, the whole shebang. You're getting a whole shebang one kit. You're getting it all.

Holy shit. You paying for that, Hyatt? I didn't know if I needed to chip in for that too.

No, we, we got a little bit of money. I think we do. There's still a little bit left.

We got a little bit of cash left. Good deal.

We haven't been out there buying any big bourbons. So if we get some people to buy these Glencairns in our t-shirts and we'll have, we'll be flush.

Put me in for one of each. I'm in.

I think that's a pretty good challenge right there. I mean, in a great package put together with it and stuff, that's a pretty fair. And on top of that, for all those, that whole entire gift set will actually give you some four ounce pours of our Big Cheese Blended and Old Hoot with that.

Yeah. And everybody who enters, everybody who enters will be put in a drawing and we'll draw out of a hat for all the entries, whether you win or not. And when we draw your name, we'll have some nice gifts for you.

You never can tell what you get in the mail from the Bourbon Road. That's right. I mean, that's pretty good.

Mike, I'm loving this blend. I tell you what, it's got a finish that is, wow. I mean, really long, really long.

Yeah, it's a, it's sometimes we discount the whole weeded thing, right? Because we, we kind of. vacillate to another side of the spectrum.

There's another one might vacillate. You guys had that too.

What's that mean? You know, kind of lean call, call it lean. I'm gonna have to look at it. I don't know. Look it up. Check me out. Check me on that.

Mike's like monocles and vacillate. I don't know.

But yeah, no, this, it was really, I'll say past tense. It was really good.

You know, not a lot of people reach for that bottle. when they come over here, I don't think they realize how special the bottle really is. It's always put out too. Yeah, it's up there. It's for people to grab and I want people to enjoy it. It's not like it's the shameful bottle that people, sometimes people put that shameful bottle out and say, hey, you can drink from that if you lose or something. But I want people to, hey, can I taste that your blend? Yeah.

But very few people reach for it. I think as roadies, man, again, you guys have taught me a little bit here tonight and I'm going to rethink some stuff because You know, a lot of the bottles that we drink were, you know, they're, they're fairly consistent. I mean, I get it, you know, single barrels, a small batch. Those can be different, but quite frankly, most of the time they're not a big difference. But when you guys, you know, do these blends, I mean, you got me thinking I'm going to, I'm going to rethink the whole thing. And, and, you know, I'm, I don't want one infinity bottle. I'm, I'm thinking. three minimum and start to be a little more creative. I mean, seriously, this is, this has opened my eyes to some things, to some different flavors. And man, hell, I'm glad I was here today.

Yeah. I'd say if you're going to get an affinity to bottle, you know, if you can get it laser engraved with your, you know, if you want something nice to look on your bar and stuff. And I was, my son and my daughter-in-law is the one that gifted me this to me for Christmas one year. And I'm glad they did. It's got my latitude and longitude of Jeff the Big Farm on it. It's got an anchor in there in the affinity symbol. So that kind of nautical theme at our house for the Coast Guard. So, you know, why not put some great whiskey in it and keep it up on the shelf?

Impressed. All right, Michael. This has been a great show. I think we've laid it all out there We've had a couple of great whiskeys today really enjoyed your your infinity bottle I appreciate that if you come to Mike's if you're visiting Jeff the bin farm and Mike puts out his his array of bottles I came over to your house the other night too. You had quite a few bottles laid out there. It was nice.

Sort of forgot about that.

When somebody puts out their bottle spread, when Mike puts out his bottle spread, if you see that infinity bottle, I highly recommend you reach for it. It's quite the juice.

Listeners, we do two shows a week, right Jim? Absolutely. We do a Monday review of a craft distillery. It'll be 15-20 minutes long where we kind of tear apart a bourbon or a whiskey. Not always a craft distillery. Sometimes we're throwing a big boy. We'll review it, tell you about it, how much it cost. Then on Wednesdays, we put out our hour long show where we'll have a guest like the fine Rob Carter on with us. Thank you. We'll talk about whiskey, what's going on in the whiskey world, come up with some cool ideas like our blending challenge. Yeah. So if you like these episodes, make sure you scroll on up top, hit that subscribe button and then scroll on down and give us that five star review. You're going to give us that five star review or I'm going to summon up that big demon, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon and I'm going to send him to your house. So make sure you give us that five star review. Please help us out.

And if I could say one thing, thank you guys for having me. And this is probably old news, but you know, if you drink a fifth, it is the fourth of July, right? God bless America. If you drink a fifth on the fourth, you may not be able to go fourth on the fifth, so be careful.

There you have it, folks. The fine Rob Carter. Right. Well, you will find us on all social media platforms. You'll find us on Facebook. You'll find us on Twitter. You'll find us on Instagram. You'll find us on TikTok. You'll find us on the web. You'll find us everywhere at The Bourbon Road. On the website, it's thebourbonroad.com. Mike, we have... all of our swag on there, all of your articles on there, all of Adam's reviews are on there as well. You're going to find this episode's blog, which is going to have the entire rule set and all the instructions laid out for entering this blending contest. So make sure you check out the blog for this episode, the bourbonroad.com, go to our articles, you'll see it there at the top. Like Mike said, we do two shows a week. We'd love to have you listen to both of them. We also like to know what you think. If you've got an individual or you've got a bottle or an expression or a distillery you'd like us to review, we'd love to know about it. If you're from some small town in the USA that's got your own local distillery and you think they're really great and they haven't kind of shined the light yet, shine the light on them. Let us know about them. We'll reach out. We'll get a hold of them. We'll see if we can't get them on the show, right, Mike? Yep, most definitely. All right. Well, Mike, where can they reach us? So you can find me at One Big Chief. I'm JayShannon63. And we'll see you on down the Bourbon Road.