181. Kirkland Small Batch Bourbon Review

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. I'm Mike Hyde. This is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, it's another craft distillery Monday. And, you know, this is not exactly a craft whiskey, but It comes out of a pretty famous distillery. Yeah. And it's sold at an even more famous door, right?

Well, it's from Costco.

Yeah.

So a lot of people have Costco's near them. And the nice thing about Costco is you don't have to have a Costco membership in Kentucky anyways, to go in the liquor store.

Right. Yeah. In Kentucky, I think we're kind of a special place because, uh, They're not allowed to force you to be a member to buy liquor because that's sort of setting a bar for alcohol purchase and you can't do that in Kentucky.

But most places like Yoda, Missouri, or I think Kansas also, you could walk into the Costco and the liquor is inside the Costco. So you'd have to have a membership to get in to buy it. Yeah. So a little bit different, but what we're drinking here, we're going to review is this Kirkland signature small batch Barton 1792 master distillers, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. That's a mouthful right there.

It is. Now this is probably the most transparent label I've ever seen in my life by transparent. I mean, They're basically telling you who's making it, where it's coming from. They even put a picture of their Barton Rick house on there.

It says it's made in Louisville though, so assuming it's Sazerac's warehouses, right?

Yeah. I mean, Sazerac owns the greater brand 1792, right? Yeah. Yeah. There's so much back and forth that goes on between the You know, the sibling brands under SAS rec, I'm sure who knows exactly. Uh, but it's, you know, this comes from the Spartan 1792 distillery. It does say Louisville, but maybe that's just their official registration address, right?

Yeah. Another thing we talked about this Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey has it's non age stated, but we know for a fact that if it's under four years old, it has to state the age on there.

It does over two. It's a straight. But if it's a straight and it's not at least four, like you said, they have to say the number of months, you know, 36 months, 24 months, three years.

You actually see a lot of Texas bourbons with that months on there, like 32 months, 36 months. That's because they can kind of rapidly age their whiskey there. Right. So you'll see months on there. It'll still say Texas straight bourbon whiskey, but it'll say the months on there. So if you see that on there, that's not a bad thing. That's say nudge, age stated. Sometimes it's a blend. Now this is a small batch. I would imagine the batches are pretty large.

Yeah, no, Barton, their daily production is just phenomenal. It's huge. They make a lot of whiskey there. Um, but you know, we're talking about a distillery that's been making whiskey for an awful lot of years, uh, that does some contract distilling and contract production like this. Um, that is very well known and has the capacity to service somebody like nationwide, like Costco.

Yeah, I think it gets that into more people's hands. Now, what was the price on this, Jim?

This was an $18 bottle and it's not just a 750. It's a one liter. Yeah.

You pulled it out and I was like, man, that's a big old bottle.

Big old bottle. Yeah. It looks like kind of like the Eagle rare bottle a little bit. Yeah, I could see that. Eagle rare bottle. But this is a one liter. And 92 proof, Barton 1792 liquid inside the bottle, can be had at Costco for $18 nationwide. And we'll talk a little bit more about this, but there's two more expressions that are in this family of whiskeys that have been released by Kirkland. And some people already have them, some people don't, they're not everywhere, but we'll talk a little bit about those. But let's get to tasting this, what do you say? Let's do it. Oh, I'm getting cinnamon on the nose.

It smells like bourbon, Jim.

It does smell like bourbon. Must be bourbon in this bottle. There's bourbon in that bottle. So $18 can buy you some bourbon here, right?

I get the cinnamon for sure. I get a little bit of a nuts on this. Yeah.

It's a little, it's got a little bit of corn, but you can get the rice spice too. I'm getting the rice spice and the cinnamon on the nose. Those are my two top prevalent, you know, notes that I'm picking up on the nose.

I get that peanut brittle of getting, uh, just a little bit of that sweet ride. You were talking about a little bit of butter.

Not, not much, but just a tad of butter, salted butter, salted butter. Yeah. All right. Well, let's go from the nose to the palate. Let's taste it. Cheers. It's spicy.

Which you think from Barton, you'd get a little bit of spies.

Yeah, I kind of expected that. I kind of expected, you know, with their, I don't have the mash bill right off the tip of my tongue here, but it's somewhere in the range of 75, 15 and 10, I think. So there's a good amount of rye in this.

Well, this doesn't, it's non-disclosed mash bill on this. So we don't know exactly what it is. We tried to look it up, tried to see what the hint, but you expect something like that out of Barton, right?

Absolutely. Not a lot going on there. Um, it's, it's good. Um, you know, it's, um, little, little plain.

Well, for 18 bucks, you've kind of expect that I get a little bit of that cinnamon you were talking about a little bit of peanuts, a little bit of that peanut brittle sweetness, but not a, not a whole lot. And it kind of washes away on the back end. Um, with a little bit of bitterness.

Yeah, a little bit. It's a, it's along with that spice though. It's got a little, it's got that peppery back in that spicy back into it. Um, I'm getting the hug and, uh, actually, you know, the finish on this, although it's not a fantastic finish, it sticks around for a while.

That's a medium finish on this. Now the second sip, I get a little bit more of that sweetness, a little bit of that oat coming through.

I go back to the nose on it after I've had that sip and the oak is really coming out on the nose now. And I'm going to take a second sip.

I'm getting a little bit of saltwater vanilla taffy on this.

Yeah, it's actually got a decent balance to it. It's not too sweet upfront, but the sweetness that it does have carries to the back. So it's kind of across, you get that sweetness everywhere. Kind of a little bit of, On the back though, it's kind of countered a little bit with that bitterness. Not overly dry or dry. Do you think?

No, it's just that. it's just bitter, not drying. It's just, it had a little bit of bite to it on the very back end. It was like, but it still coats your mouth kind of nice. It's not a bad bourbon. This would be good for a large party to pour into decanter. You know, if you had a hundred people or so and you know, you were on a budget, this might be perfect for something like that.

Yeah, I think it's a reasonably well balanced bourbon that doesn't have a lot going on. There's not a lot of notes. We're not going to sit here and pick it apart. It's not offending in any way. It doesn't have any problems with it that I can tell. Um, it's just underwhelming, but, um, solid.

I guarantee you this will hang right with, uh, anything from Jim beam, standard expression. Um, you know, even some of the bottled bonds. It'll, it'll hang with those.

Yeah. I would say any, any bottles out there in the 15 to $20 range, this is, uh, this can stand toe to toe with them. And some are better than others. Some have profiles that appeal to certain people. You know, some appeal to others, but I would say that this bottle probably stands toe to toe with its peers in the same price range. And you're getting a liter instead of a 750, so you get a little bit more liquid. I would buy this before I'd buy Old Tub. Uh, I would do all day long. I'd say, Hey, they're similarly, well, similarly priced.

Yeah. I think one's $22, same kind of price range, 18, 19 bucks for this. Um, but you get the leader, you know? And like I said, for a large party, um, I'd seen other people beat up on it because they said it didn't have a backstory to it. I think it does have that backstory. It still has the Barton name on there. It still, uh, has the 1792, people, some people don't know what 1792, what's the, what is the meaning of that? Well, that's the birth of Kentucky. That's right.

That's the, when, when Kentucky was, uh, added to the union in 1792.

So to me, it's got the backstory on there. We know where it's coming from. It's, it's their bourbon. Um, Costco just wanted to have a nice bourbon to put out there and I think it's fine job. Now the other two expressions, Man, you got to wonder about those, right? The bottle and bond is 100 proof. And then they got the single barrel.

Right. Yeah. So three bottles, a single barrel, a bottle and bond and the small batch. And they're all, available at Costco, varying release dates. So you may or may not have all or even one of these in your area now, but look for them because they're coming.

Now you found this at Costco over on Brownsboro Road. Is that where you went? Yeah. Yeah. The North East side a little. By Norton Commons. Yep. Yeah. And they had other two expressions in there?

They didn't. I didn't see them. So no, this is the only one I saw. And I know we had a show not too long ago where we were doing store brands and we wanted to introduce a Costco whiskey, but we didn't have it in Kentucky yet. So, and that was only a month and a half ago or so, right? Wasn't that long ago? Yeah.

I think this stands up with those other ones. I don't think it's all that bad. You know, you would hope that, you know, it gets more bourbon in more people's hands, you know, puts more of Kentucky bourbon out there. And maybe some people that are drinking wine, they're like, Hey, I'm gonna pick up a bottle that tried out for that price. I mean, how can you beat it?

Yeah, it's a grab. It's definitely a grab. If you're going to have a party, uh, you need a, you need a well bourbon or a house bourbon that, um, is not going to break your bank. Uh, you can't go wrong with this. It's, it's good. It's fine.

I mean, you could pour it in a nice decanter and, um, nobody's going to know.

Yeah. Yeah. They will know that it is, um, nothing special. Yeah. But, but they won't, they won't think anything bad about it.

No, they would just, they'd be like, Oh, well what's that? It was bourbon. They pour some bourbon in a drink, probably a mixed drink, you know.

Which bourbon is it? It's B-O-U-R-B-O-N bourbon.

Well, it's free bourbon.

Yeah, that's right. Quit asking questions and drink. Yeah.

So it, it stand good up and I'll guarantee you a Coke. You know, a lot of people drink it with a Coke or some ginger ale or, you know, a seltzer, if that's what they want to drink it with, or ginger beer.

$18 a liter. You can cook with it. Right. Yeah. I mean, why not?

Heck, we got something cooking out on the smoker right now. What is it? We got a fresh peaches. Our neighbor has an orchard and got some fresh peaches, right? So we, we quartered them up. I put them in a Dutch oven, some stick of butter, some cinnamon, some nutmeg, pour a little bourbon on top. You got to have bourbon, right? A yellow cake mix. I put it on the smoker and let it roll.

That'll be good. That's like one of them campfire coppers, right? Oh yeah. You got it in a Dutch oven. Yep.

That just must not cook out there. It doesn't heat the house up cause it's outside. Um, what that's nice thing about having one of those pellet smokers. If you have a pellet smoker is you can just stick it out there and let it roll and don't worry about cooking or cooking yourself out of the house. I'm excited to taste it. Hopefully it'll be done before you guys leave. That'd be good. Yeah. Well, Jim, another great review. I think, um, to me, this would be a buy cause it's 18, 19 bucks. Um, you're getting a leader of it. It's a sipper, you know? Um, I obviously liked it cause I emptied my glass.

Yeah, I, it's a buy for me too. Uh, you, you can't go wrong with this purchase $18, add it to your bar, use it for, um, everyday things, you know, um, it's not going to be something you're gonna, uh, wow your friends with, but it is solid and it is, it does show you. uh, what a budget four year old bourbon could taste like. It can taste good and it can taste good at $18 a liter, which is not bad.

Yeah. I mean, I don't see how anybody would beat this up and say, yeah, there's no backstory or it's not costly. Um, you know, and good on Kirkland for doing that, you know? Um, they went ahead and before they had some Tennessee bourbon and we thought that was probably from Dickle was who we thought it was from. And, um, now there would go into this and I think they've made a wise decision.

This, in my opinion, is the way to do it. This is how a store brand ought to do it. They ought to just lay it on the line as transparent as possible, put it on the label, who's making it for them, you know, everything you can tell somebody about it. Because at that point it's a win for you, right? Because if you, if you're Costco and you're, and you've got 17 Barton, 1792 in your bottle, that's a win for you. It's a big deal.

Yeah. And how many Costcos are out there, you know? Yeah. I would imagine in several hundreds, 200 or 300 stores nationwide, maybe more than that for all I know. Um, that's, that's a win for both Barton and it's a win for Costco. So cheers to them on, on doing this. I like it. Um, yeah.

All right. Well, Mike, where can everybody find us on the internet?

I was about to take another drink of this. I just made my second pour, but you can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Um, man, YouTube, you find us everywhere. Um, we also have a website.

We do the bourbonroad.com and on that website, uh, you will find our store where you can buy our swag. We've got hats and shirts and, uh, you know, glasses and all, all the stuff you'd expect a, a bourbon podcast to have. We'd love to have you go check it out and, and get yourself one of those bourbon bullshit or t-shirts. Right, Mike.

Well, you had a special person, actually two people come by and buy some swag. If you're local here in Kentucky and in our region, you can get it locally.

Absolutely. Yeah, you can do a local pickup and you know, if we are available and have the time, we'd love to have a drink with you. You know, in this case, I did have the time. We sat at my bar, we talked for a while. They picked up their Glencairn. Another fellow picked up his bourbon bullshitter t-shirt.

Who was that guy?

Oh, that was Randy. Big bad Randy Minick.

He came from the mountains of Virginia to just get that t-shirt.

Yeah. He looks like a hippie now. He's growing his hair halfway down his back. Oh man. Yeah. He's, he said he's about ready to put the earring in. Was he, was he braiding it yet? No, not yet.

I'm sad. I missed eating this stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. He's just in and out. He's actually doing the wedding today and then he's popping back out of town. So we're going to go see him in the fall sometime probably.

So we also have a Facebook group called the bourbon roadies. There's 2200 stronger there and growing every day. You gotta answer three questions to become a roadie. Are you 21? Do you drink bourbon? Yeah, everybody drinks bourbon. Come on now. And do you agree to play nice? Cause we don't tolerate any rudeness in there. We want everybody to just get along, you know, raise everybody up, raise a glass to whatever you're celebrating, whether it be a birth or retirement, a promotion, um, saying cheers and raising a glass to us, somebody passing away into their life, a celebration of life. We want to do those kinds of celebrations in there. We want to raise people up. You want to put a bottle of Kirkland signature small batch on there or we're going to, we're going to talk about it. We're going to have a good time.

Absolutely. You only won't be anybody chopping you off at the knees cause you're posting a store brand. So. And one more thing we want to remind people of Mike is we've got that contest coming up, right?

Yeah. We got a bourbon blending contest where we want you to blend a bourbon and send that sample into us. Now, how do you find out how to, where to send it to, what to send? Well, you look on that episode on our website, the bourbonroad.com, check out that episode, look inside there and you'll find my address and that's where you ship it to.

Yep. So there's a blog on the website, right? You remember the name of that episode was the bourbon blending episode, right? Yeah. Yeah. People will find it's only been a few weeks back from this one.

So you'll see our bottles on there. It's Jim's old hoot and my big chief's bourbon blend. Find that photo and that's that episode. Perfect.

Perfect.

And deadline's coming up. Yeah. August 1st. We got two more weeks.

Postmarked by August 1st? Yeah. Got to be postmarked by August 1st. Well, not postmarked. You're not going to send it US mail. Well, Mike, you know, we do two shows a week. We do this short episode every Monday. We also do a long episode every Wednesday where we Can i get into a little more detail we dive deeper we have guests on sometimes you know spend almost an hour on wednesdays we'd love to have everybody listen to both shows every week we'd also like to know what you think about the show you know if you. If you like it. We'd certainly like to have you subscribe. And how do they do that, Mike?

Well, you want to scroll up on hit that subscribe button or whatever app you're using. And then you want to scroll on down and give us that five star review because you know what's going to happen, Jim? If they don't. The big bad booty daddy of bourbon is going to come find you with his bottle. We're going to empty that bottle. You never can tell what's going to happen in that night, but we're going to have a great time. So give us that five star. It helps open those doors. Lifts us up. It makes us want to do better reviews and we really appreciate it.

Yeah. And you can reach out to us. Mike and I are very available. We love to hear from our listeners. You know, we always say it's easiest to reach us on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm OneBigChief. 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 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.