185. Russell's Reserve 13 Year 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. And I'm Mike Hyatt. This is The Bourbon Road. And today Mike, it's another Craft Distillery Monday.

Yeah, but we don't have no craft distillery today.

No, we got a big boy, right? We got one of the Grand Pepe's. Well, not only is it a big boy distillery, grandpappy distillery, whatever you want to call it, but it's also a big boy bottle.

Yeah. This is the new Russell Reserve 13 year old.

Now when we say new, it's been out about a month and a half.

Yeah. I mean, I've been sitting on this bottle for a minute.

Yeah. Yeah. But it, it hit shelves or. not quite hit shelves, right? Well, it's hit shelves.

You're not going to find it. You'd be hard pressed to find it. Maybe if you show up at the distillery super early in the morning or you're good friends with your liquor store manager or owner, or you just happen up on a bottle. They're very rare. Obviously it's 13 years old, right? I've had to slap your hand four or five times off this thing. You're just like, Hey, let's open it now. Let's just drink it, Mike.

Cause you know, you know, it's going to be good cause cause And all these releases from Wild Turkey, they're great bourbons and they all differ a little bit. But in this case, this is one of those that the secondary market got it in their mind before it hit the shelf that this was going to be an important bottle.

Yeah. And then there's a guys that are reviewing it. I'd say all of them to a T have said that this is going to be 2021 bourbon of the year. Really? But this is early in the year.

Yeah. It's early. There's a lot of releases yet to come. I mean, I get it. It gets a little bit of fanfare. It's a, it's a pretty cool bottle. It's a pretty cool brand. Uh, 13 years, great age.

Yeah. And it comes from one of the greatest master distillers of all time. Jimmy Russell, right? And his son, it says that legacy continues on the bottle. Yeah. Does that mean we can expect something new from them down the line? Um, there, you know, I think they, I don't know if people have seen that or not yet, but I noticed it.

Yeah, I don't know what to read into that. Um, but you know, I do, uh, look forward to tasting what's in that bottle. Absolutely. Now, Mike, let's talk a little bit about price here.

This is a mid sixties bottle. 68.95 is what I got for MSRP is $70. You probably pay for a little bit more at the distillery for it. I would expect 75 to 80 at the distillery. It is what it is. It's 13 year old bourbon. That's a pretty good price.

And on the secondary, it's going from anywhere between two and 400. Right.

Yeah. Okay. So this is the standard mash bill from, from wild Turkey also, right? On that mash bill that you like, they call it a high ride. I mean, you don't call it a high ride. 75% corn. 13% rye and 12% malted barley. Right.

Yeah. Well, it's the original high rye bourbon, right? Yeah. But there's a lot of distilleries putting out higher rye contents now. So let's get straight to those.

Let's do it.

Let's do it. Man, that's a, that's got a turkey nose to it and there's no doubt about it. Definitely a waft of a toffee.

I got some dark fruits on this, like dark pitted cherries.

Yeah. I mean, I'm getting a little bit of cherry on that, right?

Maybe a little bit of plum.

Uh, yeah. I, you know, the plum and raisin kind of go together sometimes.

Yeah.

but definitely a good portion of vanilla in that. And, uh, a little bit of cocoa. I'm not, I'm not getting that. I am getting like a honey tea though. I could get the honey tea on that.

Ready to taste it. Let's do it. Cheers. Cheers.

Wow. That's, um, that's full of flavor, very much a mid palette bourbon, uh, definitely, um, get the caramel getting a little bit of actually getting quite a bit of spice out of it.

That sweetness rolled in on me almost like a Hershey chocolate bar with a cinnamon spice to it. That spice is kicking home now. That Kentucky hug has found its home right there in the center of my chest. Yeah. Um,

Yeah, it's, it definitely packs a punch. It's, uh, man, it's just very, very, I'm getting the deep Oak on it. A little bit of smokiness. Um, I'm definitely getting like, um, a different kind of spice on it more like, uh, I don't know.

With that clove. Yeah. I mean, it's got baking spices all over those gumdrops.

You used to get a long time ago that had the crystal sugar on the outside of them.

You get some cinnamon ones there, the orange spice ones.

They got all kinds of whatever those things were.

I got gumdrops. Is that what they were? Yeah. So I'm kind of getting that. My, uh, my in-laws still put those on the candy dish for me. You know, I'm not supposed to have those. Um, they know I like them and they still put them out for me. This thing's got 114.8 proof on it. So you're going to expect a little bit of spice from that proof, but the spice I'm getting is not from that. It's not overwhelming. Man, are these guys, they, everybody that's reviewed it has said, you know, 2021 bourbon of the year. This is pretty special. I, man,

It's got a very long finish on it. Very lengthy finish. Now the finish is a little bit dry and it is spicy, but it's bold and it's inviting and it makes you want to keep sipping on it, but it just keeps hanging around. I mean, it really does have a long finish.

I don't think it's drying. I still, it's making my mouth water a little bit. Um, it's got a long finish on it. Definitely very complex, several layers of complexity on it. To me, it's not drying at all. I love it. Probably this might be go down as one of my favorite wild turkey expressions right here.

It's pretty good. They've got some great masters keep bottles out there and it's kind of hard to think of them all at once and whether this one tops any of them. You know, one of the things about a well-blended bourbon is that it's not always about barrel proof, right? It's not always about, what is this, 114.8 proof? I just wonder, a little bit of water, how might this open up? It might just explode with layers.

But it's already doing that for me. I mean, it is just layer after layer of goodness. I get some caramel in this, get a little bit of leather. You know, the oak? There's not so much there for me though.

Yeah. Well, I'm getting it. I'm getting it on the back end quite a bit actually for me. And when I said drying, I just mean, I'm not getting any sweetness in the back. I mean, it's kind of. I get a little bit of that sizzle going on that, that, that rice spice and that barrel spice combined back there. I'm still getting that tea though.

Kind of a honey tea. I could get that if sometimes I'll pour too much honey in a tea in the middle of the winter. Yeah. And it'll be super sweet. I think this thing is, it's, it's definitely the sweetest bourbon coming out of wild turkey for me.

Yeah.

You think so? Oh, most certainly it is. It's like taking the tenure and just punching it in the throat and say, get out of my way. Here I come. It is, uh, I love this. Oh, awesome. That's saying a lot for me too.

Yeah. Well you're, you're starting to really appreciate a little bit more of the, the rye bourbons.

I appreciate them. I respect them. I still would go back to my weeded bourbon all the time, but this has that sweetness of a weeded bourbon where I, you know, I dig in it. It's a, maybe that 13 year is a sweet spot right there. Who knows? It could be, it could be rough, right? Proof point 114.8. It's not so high at 130 where it blows your socks off, right? I mean, you drank 128.3 proof for the other day with some friends, right? Um, everybody will have to guess what that is, but it was almost too spicy.

Yeah, it was, it was, it was pretty, uh, Hot. Hot's a good word.

It's a hot bourbon.

I'm going to put just a little bit of water in this, just a tad. Let it marry up just a little bit.

Now, this last sip I just took, it had a little bit of oak on there. And for anybody that's, you've turned us off and you had to turn us back on, we are drinking the Russell's Reserve 13 year old Kentucky straight bourbon.

Kind of a limited release, um, limited in the, by, by the fact that it's limited, limited sightings. It's hard to find.

Well, it'd be hard to find cause it just came out, but. Is this going to be as popular? Is it going to be out there as much? What's the word I'm looking for? Is it going to be distributed as much as the 10 year old, as the Russell's reserve single barrels? You know, is this going to go right along with that? Are we going to see this a lot on the shelves or is this going to be very scarce? I got a feeling that this will be a haunted bottle.

Yeah, I think so. And you know, at that price, think about it guys. Barrel-proof wild turkey whiskey, traditional bash bill from wild turkey, 13 years old, $69.

Yeah, that's blowing those socks off of a lot of people out there that are sourcing their bourbon and putting it in bottles and charging $200 for it, for the same age bourbon.

Yeah. And the great thing about this is, is guys, let's just face it, we all know how many barrels wild turkey has. that thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of barrels. I'm not going to say they're all 13 years old, but their aging stocks are up there. Oh yeah. So. I'd be surprised how many bottles they could put out.

Well, Jim, I think another great bourbon. This is definitely a buy for me. I mean, I obviously bought this sucker. Um, I got a text from a friend, a big friend. Um, shout out to your brother. I know you're listening said, Hey, I got a bottle for you. So I gotta say cheers to him for thinking about me whenever he got this bottle in. So I really appreciate it. So it was a buy for me all day long. It's worth the money. Is it the bourbon of the year? Remains to be seen.

Yeah. I'm, I'm a wild turkey nut. You know that I love wild turkey. Um, so I'm pretty excited to be able to try this. I will say this. It's very, very good. I mean, it's, it's, it's a great bourbon. Is it the best? wild turkey expression I've had in the past three or four months? Probably not. I've had some pretty good stuff, Mike. You have a few of those bottles yourself. So I'm not going to name any out there. I'm just going to say that, you know, this is a great bourbon. There's a little bit of fanfare and hoopla around it, probably a little more than it deserves. But it's a great bourbon. But I'll tell you this right now, it doesn't take water well. So it got kind of bitter on me. Well, I'm glad I didn't put water to it. I put a little water in it to try and see what would happen. And I let it sit for a few minutes. And the sweetness kind of dissipated. And it's kind of a little more bitter now. And it could have been the amount of water I put in it. I did a few drops. But yeah, it's probably better the way the Master Distiller Put it in the bottle.

Man, we've said that before, right? That's right. Well, Jim, where can people find us on social media?

All right. Well, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, all the social medias. You can find us under the name at The Bourbon Road. We've also got a website, right, Mike?

Yeah, thebourbonroad.com. You can find our articles. You can find our reviews on there. You can find our swag on there. You can reach us on there. You can leave us comments on there about what you want to see in the show. a great website. You want to check that out. We have our good buddy Adam Boothby helping us with those reviews. You'll see some of his reviews in there. Some of my reviews, me and Jim's reviews. Check those reviews out. Let us know. Go on there and shop. Buy our gear. That's how we fund this podcast. That's how we get on down the Bourbon Road and open those doors. While you're doing that, you might as well hit subscribe right now, right?

That way they get to hear a little bell ding every time we put out an episode.

Yeah. And then you want to scroll on down. You want to hit that five star review because you'll know what will happen. I'll show up with my alter ego, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon. I'll bring a bottle with us. It will be a long night. Jim, we had one of those nights last night.

We had a long night last night. We threw some axes. We did. Drank some beer and threw some axes.

Yeah, we had a good time yesterday. It was a long day. Yeah, it was a long day. And they finished it up listening to Dustin Collins. Yeah, our good buddy Dustin's Collins. He's playing downtown Shelbyville, lighten up the street, drink some beer, some whiskey at our favorite water and hole, the barrel room. If you're coming on a bourbon trail, you need a water hole to go to, come there. There's some great Airbnbs here in Shelbyville. Bullets right down the road. We did that the other night. It's been a bourbon weekend.

It has been. It has been a bourbon weekend. And here we are yet again, recording, drinking a fantastic bourbon, the Russell's 13 year. If you can get your hands on it, my recommendation is don't hesitate because it's 69 bucks for a bottle, 70 bucks for a bottle. That's a big win if you put that on your bar.

Yeah. No doubt about it. Well, if you really want to find out what's happening with the bourbon road podcast, you also want to join our Facebook group, the bourbon roadies. You got to answer three questions to get in there. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Damn, Jim, do you like bourbon? I love bourbon. And do you agree to play nice? Cause we don't tolerate any rudeness. Um, come in there, celebrate life, celebrate retirements, uh, birthdays, celebrate somebody's life when they pass away by raising a glass to them and saying, cheers, we want to see you in there. Come and join us. We're in there all the time, do some great giveaways in there. So yeah, that's what we're doing.

All right. Well, we do two shows a week. We do a short episode like today's episode where we review a single bourbon, usually a craft distillery, but like today, you know, it's a wild turkey product. We'll do that review on Mondays. It's called Craft Distillery Monday. On Wednesdays, we'll do a deeper dive episode. We'll have guests on sometimes. We may do more than one bottle. We'll go into a little bit more detail, explore a subject exhaustively for an hour. And you can hear both those episodes every week, especially if you subscribe, you won't miss one. And we also want to know if you've got an idea for a show, if you're from small town USA, you've got a local distillery that's killing it. You want us to know about it. Let us know. We'd love to shine a light on them. Let the world hear about them. Taste their whiskey. We'll get out. We'll get in touch with them. You just tell us who they are.

So you can find me at one big chief on Instagram.

I'm jshannon63.

And we'll see you on down the bourbon road.

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