195. First Look - 2021 Four Roses LE 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.

Hello everybody I'm Jim Shannon and I'm Mike Hyatt and this is the Bourbon Road and today Mike it's another craft distillery Monday. Not really a craft distillery today. In fact, this is kind of a preview for Wednesday's episode, right?

Well, yeah. This is, I guess, what do you call it? A prequel?

Like before the story, right?

Yeah.

This is like the trailer to the movie.

Yeah, it's definitely not a craft distillery. some pretty special bourbon that we're fixing to review here. We are some of the first that has it. I'm not bragging to listeners. We're not saying, hey, right place, right time. Yeah, yeah, certainly. I just all worked out to start my bourbon heritage month out. And so we got this in the bottle. So what we're talking about, what we're about to sip on here. And I've already sipped on this gym.

Yeah, no, I haven't though. So this is a total surprise for me.

This is the 2021 four roses limited edition small batch. Yeah. Yeah. Poured from the man himself, Brent Elliott, their master distiller. Yeah. So he filled your bottle. Yeah. He's, he was nice enough to say, Hey, I'd like you guys to do a review on this. And, um, I felt pretty honored. You know, anytime the master distiller, He says, hey, I'd like to hear what you guys have to say. And listeners, you'll hear him on the episode say that, hey, let's hear what you have to say.

Now, historically, to get your hands on an Ellie bottle, these come out every year. So historically, to get your hands on an Ellie bottle, you've got to get up mighty darn early in the morning. No more. I know it's changing, but I'm just talking about history, right?

Limited release from, let's say, Old Forester just happened with the birthday bourbon. People sat out there for two or three days in the rain and some of them didn't get it. Yeah. So what they got was a ticket. I don't know. I'm not sure what that ticket was for. Was it for another birthday bourbon or was it for a future release? I'm not sure, but the stories usually I'll try to hook them up. But what Four Roses has done now is to take in, do a lottery system online. You got to go in there and sign up for it. It's pretty easy, simple. We'll give you the link to that in the post about this. It's on their website. If you go to that limited edition, I'll say enjoy first and you should go and sign up for it. And it's got some things, rules to getting in that lottery though. So from August 31st until September 12th, you enter it. Like I said, it couldn't be any simpler. Both of us have we entered it, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

And then you got between September 18th and 30th, if you get selected to pick it up at the distillery, but you have to pick it up. So, and you have to, it has to be the person.

So you can't run for somebody else's bottle. Yep. So even though, you know, a lot of people are from out of town, you know, they're just going to have to make the trip because you're going to have to show your ID, right? Yeah.

You'd have to show your ID. You'd have to say, Hey, this is me. This is me. Um, I feel lucky. Like you said about this though, it was the right time, right place.

This has happened to us before. I mean, we've been fortunate on a number of occasions. And again, it's kind of luck, right place, right time. We got to try the 2020 birthday bourbon. We were one of the first five people in the world to taste it. There's been other times as well, on some recent shows even, where we've had bottles that hadn't released yet. It's nice to do that. It's nice to get that opportunity, but it's also nice to be able to get the word out to everybody. What's coming down the road? What can they look forward to?

Well, everybody, you do have the chance to get a bottle of this.

Yeah.

Go in. find their whiskeys, go to that limited releases, hit on the 2021 and where it says enjoy it first, click on that link and fill out. If you really think you can get into Kentucky in those days, they said no proxies. And I hold them to their word that there's not going to be any proxies.

So you're not going to be able to call your buddy who lives in Kentucky to pick it up for you. You're going to have to get in your own car. I don't know an airline flight, depending on where you are.

However, if you want to swim up the Ohio river to the salt river, right there to the distiller, if that's how you got to get there, you know, you could get there that way. Yeah, you could do it that way. That'd be a hard way to get.

Well, Mike, I'm kind of looking forward to trying this. So what do you say we, uh, well, let me tell you about it first. Let me break this thing down. My mouth is watering here.

We'll make you look at it. It's sitting right there for me. I see you're fidgeting. So what we have here, this is a non chill filtered. It's bottled at 114.2 proof. The limited edition small batch features a 16 year old bourbon from the OBSV recipe, a 14 year old from the OBSQ, a 12 year from the OESK and a 16 year old OESV.

So the youngest bourbon in this is 12. Yep. And the oldest is 16?

Yep. So the recipe makeups, if you know the numbers, right? So four different recipes and they'll have it on there as the one, the four, the six and the seven. Pretty dang special. Yeah.

Yeah. There's a, there's a lot of Four Roses, uh, fishinados out there that know their recipes. They know their yeast strains. They know their L.E. additions and they're probably just chomping at the bit like I am right now.

So this has been sitting in the glass. I poured it, um, just to let it air out a little bit. It's been sitting in there for about 10 or 15 minutes. So let's pick this thing up and nose it Jim. All right.

All right, so that's a very rich and complex nose. It's got a lot going on, but at first I'm getting a little bit of leather, good amount of spice, caramel, not too much vanilla. The fruit is kind of, it's not fresh, it's more stewed, kind of a stewed fruit, but it doesn't smell overly sweet. but I'm getting this idea that it might be tasting a little sweet, but it doesn't, it doesn't know it's too sweet for me.

No, I'm getting a ripe floral note, almost like some dried rose petals. I do get that oak out of it. Maybe you know, it's going to have that oak smell to it, right? A little bit of that leather. And I'm also getting some like almost dark ripened fruit. Yeah.

Uh, there's a, just a little bit of minty freshness to it. I'm ready to taste it though.

Cheers. Let's taste it. And that's like velvet. Very mouth coating, right?

Yeah. All right. I'm not going to talk about the first sip.

I'm going to hit it for number two here.

Wow, that is a fantastic bourbon. The nose and the palate are a match in my mind. It is a little sweeter on the palate than it was on the nose. I kind of thought it might be, but It does have a little bit of spiciness to it. It's more on the sides of the tongue than the back. I am getting that. I mean, I said stewed fruit. You said ripened fruit. Yeah. It's not a fresh fruit. A little bit more of a, of a deep sweetness, sort of a, I don't know, a jam kind of a fruity sweetness. It's got a little bit of spice to it though.

And the hugs coming just a tad bit of a hug. I think it was that first sip really, um, very, like you said, oily, but almost cream like, um, a lot of vanilla, a lot of caramel on there. Some dark chocolates. I mean, super dark chocolate.

Yeah. There's some chocolate coming through on it now. So the leather is here as well. It's not very dry though. I have to say well balanced, very nice balance across the palette. The finish is lengthy and pleasurable.

Yeah. This is like one of the longest finished bourbons I've ever had before. And I was telling Brent, this might be one of the best bourbons I've ever had in my life. It is that good.

Have you had the 130th that I have at the house?

I think I did have a sample of that. This right here is so complex. Every time you take a sip of it, you're getting something different.

Now when I go back to the nose, I get more, I get that floral that you were talking about a little bit more. Yeah. Sometimes when you revisit the nose after taking your first and second steps, the nose can really be amped up a little bit at that point. And yeah, I think I'm getting, I'm definitely getting those floral notes.

So the MSRP on this is going to be $150. There are only 14,500 bottles of this. Now a lot of people might think that's a lot of bottles, but it's really not.

So they've changed up the program this year. Things are different. We talked about that a little bit. So it's not going to be a gift shop only release though. These are going to be sent out through the distributors to stores are going to get bottles.

It says that they're going to distribute. It doesn't say how they're going to go about it. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, that's a lot of bottles to be gift shop only, but I didn't know, you know, with them changing the rules this year, who knew, who knew what they were going to do?

So I'm sure some will go out and we didn't really get into that of what they're distributing and what's going to be sold at the distillery and, um, Still, I think it's a fair across the board that everybody can put in for it. And, you know, if you get lucky, you get lucky. A lot of people will say that people in Kentucky are lucky because we're right here, but I'm sure people will come down from Ohio and people come up from Tennessee and the neighboring states, Indiana. Sure. Or make that drive easy or somebody might just happen to be in town. Those dates.

Well, you know, if my memory serves me right, you know, at least all of the LEs that I've had the pleasure of trying have all been wonderful. They've all been good. They've all been a little different from each other, but they've always been something special. This is no exception. This is a fantastic bourbon. Well done, Brent and team. I think they did a great job blending this one again this year. And hopefully I'll be one of those 14,000. I couldn't get my hands on a bottle of this stuff.

Yeah, we would hope one of us would get a bottle, right? So we'd have it to drink. It definitely wouldn't be one of those bottles that would sit on a shelf. Yeah. So listeners, I hope you, uh, this is kind of the prequel to the, the big episode. Um, so the cats out of the bag now is that I'm going to be sitting down with Brent Elliott on Wednesday. You'll hear that interview actually had a roadie in the room with me. He got to kind of come along. He's a four roses nut. And, He knows all the recipes and knows what he really likes and a special treat for him. He kind of had a bourbon day with me. It's good to be a roadie. Yeah. Yeah. So you want to pay attention. We're also going to be doing a giveaway gym tomorrow. You want to make sure you pay attention to this giveaway. two special glasses with a neat base that you can take and put in your freezer, chill out, and then pull it out, put it on a coaster. You put the glass on top of that so you don't have to stick ice in your glass and it chills your bourbon for you. I'm going to pair that with a single barrel four roses bottle that I have under the counter. So you want to check that out. Great giveaway from us here at the Bourbon Road to you listeners. for being great. All you got to do is do a couple of things, right?

You need to jump over just a couple of little hurdles and stuff.

So make sure you're checking that giveaway out and then listen to Wednesday's episode. You never can tell what I'm going to say in there. You never can tell what Brent's going to let out of the bag. So yeah, another great whiskey. Not a craft distillery, but it's nice every once in a while to drink from the top and drink from the bottom.

Yeah. You know, in September it comes around bourbon heritage month and you know, Mike, you and I live right in the heart of bourbon country. So we're going to get caught up in the moment just like everybody else. And you know, there's some great bottles. that are releasing some bourbons that you can get your hands on, either actually getting the bottle yourself or maybe a friend you know has gotten a bottle and he'll share a pour with you. But this is the time of year when you get to try some special things. So what a way to start off September.

Yeah, almost definitely. You know, I got to go out to Fort Roses. We got to drink this. It is just going to be one hell of a month for us. Now, you're going to Puerto Rico on vacation, but I'm going to be down at the Bourbon Festival. Yeah, you are. Yeah. So roadies, if you want to meet up with me, send me a message. We'll be down there on that Saturday. You want to meet up, have a drink with me, have a pour. I will be going around trying to get a couple interviews done and stuff, but I'm sure we can make time. My wife will be with me. We'll be wearing some black bourbon road gear. I might even have some bourbon bullshitter t-shirts and a backpack with me. So if you can stop by and find me and I'm not hard to miss. You might get yourself a free t-shirt. I don't know if I can carry a whole bunch of Glen Carons around with me. So if you are going to the Bourbon Festival, they did release some news, Jim, that you either have to show a vaccination card or you have to show a recent negative test. So make sure that you go to their website, check that out, check out the rules because they're changing all the time.

And this is the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown. The day you're going to be there is what, the 18th? The 18th. The 18th. It's a Saturday. And it is a sold out event, but there are, there seems to be some tickets available through Facebook and other things. Craigslist. Craigslist, stuff like that.

There are tickets available. People can pick up where people were having to change plans and sell their tickets. Still a worthwhile event to go to. You never can tell who you're going to bump into there. We're going to have a bunch of different podcasts will be there. Um, if you listen to those, the bourbon lens guys, I think they're going to have a booth there. Uh, Scotchy bourbon boys, they'll be there. Um, you never can tell who's going to be at the bourbon festival. So make sure you go out to that September 25th. We'll be at a stone's throw farm here in Shelbyville, Kentucky for duck, duck bourbon supporting a Shelby County habitat for humanity. You want to come out there and see me and Jim, we'll be telling you about the bourbon, right? That's right. Big, big event.

You'll be the MC. MC. You'll be MCing it. I'll just be wandering around and drinking bourbon. Yeah. Well, but the good thing about this event is, is that, you know, they're, if you participate, in the duck-duck bourbon part of it, and you purchase a bottle, right? Everybody leaves with one, right? Everybody leaves with a bottle. You just don't know what it's going to be.

Yeah. You're going to get some bourbon if you buy a duck. And there's going to be a heavy hors d'oeuvres there that comes with your ticket that you buy. You know, great people there. It supports a great cause. It'll support locals in the community getting themselves a house. They might not have ever had a house before. So, I think it's a worthwhile cause. They also built some veteran houses last year. I just, I love Habitat. The money does go back to building houses. So we're going to try to raise a little money that night. You never can tell what's going to happen there. Who knows? Who knows? It'd be a good fit to show up to.

Yeah.

And then we have in October, we're going to have bourbon on the banks. October 22nd, 23rd. The 22nd that night, there is a VIP bourbon auction that you want to go to. Me and Jim will be at that. Ambassador Distiller's there. Brunelia will be there that night. I think Shane Baker from Wilderness Trail, some other folks will be there. Great chance to maybe get your hands on some super limited bottles. I don't know if there's going to be some Pappy bottles there. what all is going to be there, but I do know there is some limited bottles for sure. There's always some high-end bottles there. Oh yeah. And then there's after party after that. And then on the 23rd is the big event, bourbon on the banks from 3 to 6 PM. $65 a ticket. We just gave away a set of tickets and a bottle of whiskey from our sponsor, Woodinville whiskey. Um, we're going to have the bourbon road and lounge there. So if you want to come hang out with us, get on a recording, sit down with us, talk a little whiskey.

The whiskey will be flowing in our lounge. It will definitely be flowing in our lounge. We're going to have all our gear there. You can come on in and hang out with us. We'll be recording. It'll be a fun time.

It will be a great time to come see us. And then afterward, there's a Goodwood brewing after party. There's a big block party put on by Jim Beam. You want to come out there and have a great time. Frankfurt is a nice, quaint capital. You won't see another capital like that right on the banks of the Kentucky River. I love it there.

Well, Mike, one last word about this and then we'll go into closing out. But, you know, I think that the sweetness is growing on me a little bit as I continue to sip it and now it's gone. I'm out. It's okay. We'll revisit that later. But I think that the sweetness does build a little bit over time. It's just a fantastic bourbon. It changed the whole time. I kept uncovering things the whole time I was sipping on it. Pretty great. So where can people find us?

So you can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, all over the place. You can find us out and about. You might even bump into us at a liquor store. You never can tell.

You might even run into us at West Six Farm, right?

Yeah, you never can tell where we're going to be at. So check us out on social media. You can also join our private Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies. 2300 and growing every day. Like minded people in there. There's, master distillers in there. There's authors, there's chefs, you name it. Uh, if it's bourbon, they're in there. We got three rules. What are they, Jim?

Yeah. You gotta be nice, right? You cannot, you cannot tear other people down with your comments. We won't allow it. You gotta be 21. You gotta like bourbon. That's it. Pretty, pretty simple, right?

Well, we, we got some semi other rules that we don't post on there, but we don't do religion. We don't do politics. Um, We just talk about whiskey.

Yeah, because, you know, there's enough of that going on. People kind of get tired of it after a while, you know, talking about social issues and talking about politics and religion. And, you know, we're just, the Roadies is kind of safe haven away from that. It's just about whiskey and friendship.

If you want to celebrate somebody's life that had just passed away and raise a glass to them, you want to celebrate a wedding, a retirement, a birth, whatever you're doing in life. You just caught the biggest fish of your life while fly fishing. Hey, we want you to celebrate that in there. Celebrate somebody entering the military. I've seen a couple of people lately that have celebrated that. I always love to see that. That's near and dear to our hearts, right? Absolutely.

Well, we do two shows a week. We do one like today's short episode, 15-20 minutes in length, where we dive into a single expression. Today it was the 2021 LE from Four Roses. Next Monday it'll be something altogether different. Every Monday you can look forward to that. And we do a long episode every week also. Now this week we've already let the cat out of the bag. Wednesday our long episode is going to be Mike sitting down. with Brent Elliott. Cannot wait to hear that episode. Really looking forward to it. And you want to set that on their calendar. How do they make sure they know it's coming up?

Well, if you go ahead and just scroll on up there, right, you'll hit that subscribe button. That way you'll know. It'll tell you, hey, You got an episode in the queue. These guys have done record another episode. So make sure you do that. Then what you want to do is you want to scroll on down. You want to hit that five star review. We'd love you to do that. If you don't, you know what's going to happen. You're going to get that visit from the big bad booty daddy of bourbon. I'll bring a bottle of some four roses with me.

Not the Ellie.

Not the Ellie. Okay. Cause we only have a little bit left. We'll bring some four roses with us. We'll drink it. We'll make sure we get that five star review by the end of the night. We're going to have one hell of a time with you. But just please leave that five star review. That's what gets us opening doors to distilleries to great guests. It gets us on down the bourbon road.

All right, Mike. Well, we always say we want to hear what people have to have to say about us. Is it good or bad? And that's what those comments are all about. But you can also reach out to Mike and I directly. You can always send us an email. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. But as we always say, it's probably best just to hit us with a DM on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we'll see you down.

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