198. Buffalo Trace Benchmark Bourbon Collection 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. This is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, it's a fine day at Jephthah Bend Farm.

Yeah, it's Bourbon Heritage Month, as everybody knows. We're getting pretty near to episode 200.

We're right on the doorstep. And Woodrow's right at my feet.

Yeah, he's laying down there. He saw the whiskey bottles come out, I guess. He knows when we're gonna be recording. He loves to come here and hang out. He doesn't have much to say, but he does like to hang out. Yeah, he just likes to chill.

Well, it has been a minute since you and I sat down with six bottles of whiskey.

Yeah, we do have six bottles in front of us. And we're gonna drink them all on this show. We're gonna try to.

Well, we're not gonna drink all of the contents, but we're gonna drink a little bit of each one.

Well, two are... truth to power right i guess or um be honest with everybody we always said from the bottom of the shelf to the top of the shelf right and and we've got beat up for that for lately we have been drinking some pretty nice whiskies it's that time of year yeah i mean it's bourbon heritage month there's some nice releases coming out heck i did i got a really nice release today might be a birthday bourbon. Yeah. Really nice month, right? Sure. A lot of releases, but I thought it would be nice to go through a new release or rebranding of a expression from Buffalo Trace.

Yeah. So this is more than just rebranding. They've extended that line.

Quite a bit. Yeah. So we're talking about benchmark or McAfee benchmark, talking about the three brothers that crossed the mountains back in the 1700s. They were surveyors and what they would do is you ever seen those plates for a surveyor? Yeah. The old school ones. Well, they were putting those out. I don't know if it exactly those plates, but they were putting survey markers out called a benchmark. And that's what they did. They are really the ones that discovered Buffalo Trace.

So, Buffalo Trace being what it is, which is actually a place where the buffalo had a path to and from, you know, fields of grass during the season, right? They would cross the Kentucky River there. Yeah. And so that's why they call it Buffalo Trace. But this was back when the real buffalo were around.

Yeah. Now these guys weren't making bourbon. They didn't have nothing to do with bourbon, I don't think. And we'd have to probably visit our good friend, Michael Veach and ask him that or maybe go over to the Rippey House or down at the Getz Museum. If you're down at the Bourbon Festival, good place to to go check out. But what really came about was Seagrams in 1960 releases as a premium level bourbon is what they did. And then in 1989, everybody knows that Sazerac purchased Seagrams, right? Or they purchased this benchmark brand from Seagrams. And then, you know, they also own Buffalo Trace, right? So they got to have a place to distil it at. What some people might not know was this was made in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky at Florida Roses Distillery when Seagrams made it.

Really?

Yeah.

All right. Cool.

So a little bit of history there. We haven't talked a lot about history lately and we're known for that too. Yeah. I'm talking about history on our podcast. So a little history for you listeners benchmark. So the first bottle, Jim, you got in your hand is the standard, um, release.

And they got the old number eight on the front. Now call it deceptive, call it whatever you want, but it does look from a distance. Like it might be an eight year old whiskey, doesn't it?

Yeah. Now, what they do say is it's at least age 36 months.

Oh, there it is. It's on the neck. It is on the neck. Good job, Buffalo Trace. Stick it to the rules. I love it when it's done right. So yeah, we've talked about this rule many, many times in the past. If a bourbon is called astray, that's two years old. Up until the point where it's four years old, it's required to have an age on. After that, they don't have to age state it. But this one clearly says on the neck, aged at least 36 months.

Now you could find this almost anywhere. I mean, this bourbon is out there. You just got to look way down there on the shelf. I think 10.99 is what it runs for.

So this is a under $15 bottle no matter where you go.

No matter where you go. Well, you might go into some shops and they charge a lot more for it.

It depends if it starts to get rare and could be, but right now it's plentiful. Well, think after we do this podcast right here, it's going to become rare. I don't know. So we're starting at the lowest proof and we're going to work our way up. And these, and these go all the way up to 125 proof, right? They do. So at the end of the show, we're going to be hitting that peak 125 proof. Yeah. Well, we've been talking for a minute.

Let's, let's taste this thing. All right, let's do it. You're just going to drink straight from that bottle. That's got that kind of a younger nose to it. It does. Yeah. A little bit of corn for their sweetness.

Yeah. It's got a little bit of corn sweetness to it. I definitely could, you know, it's got that nose that says, Hey, this is a good bourbon, but this is a good bourbon. The head isn't quite hit. It's a, it's still juvenile.

This will be good for a Coke. Yeah.

But you know, it's, it's decent. It's not bad. Now that's on the nose.

Now this is 80 proof. 80 proof.

So in it, you know, it looks 80 proof when you look at it in the bottle, they've got that square bottle and it does look. Apple juice. Apple juicy. Yeah, there you go. That's a good way to put it. Kind of a light, light amber. And, uh, Good looking bottle, plastic cap on this one. We noticed that the others had a metal cap on them. That just must mean this come from an earlier stock or something. Maybe. Well, let's, let's taste this thing. Cheers. Cheers. Not a whole lot of sweetness there. There's a lot of corn sweetness on the nose. Get it on the palate. Not as much. A little bit of mid palate sizzle.

A little bit of bitterness on that back end. Yeah.

Yeah, I would say it's a little on the bitter side. It's definitely not a well-balanced bourbon. It doesn't have anything for you really upfront as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, I can see why this is $10.99.

So you could use this in cooking. You could use it in mixology. Go ahead and make up a few drinks. Probably wouldn't stand up real tall in like an old fashioned or something, but it might be fine for a bourbon and Coke or Even a mule, I wouldn't say. It wouldn't stand up against that ginger.

Well, you know what this would be good in, Jim, I think. This perfect time of year, starting to be football weather, starting to be fall, nice and cool in the evenings. Get in the 50s. This would be good with some apple cider, hot toddies at nighttime. You want to kind of take it easy by the fire. Don't do it too much. You could pour this in there and I think it would hold up just fine with it.

I think for being a $10 bottle, $11 bottle, let's just call it a sub-15 bottle, it's not offending in flavor at all. It's just nice and smooth. It's easy to drink. It just doesn't have anything going on. I mean, there's really no, I mean, it kind of hits you in the mid-pal a little bit, but by the time it hits the back, it's kind of gone. I'd say the finish doesn't even get started on it, does it?

No, I told you this was the first time I'd ever bought this bottle before. We got this at Westport Whiskey and Wine just because there was the single barrel there that I had to grab.

And they're giving you a bottle of a mixer with every one of these.

Yeah, an old fashioned mixer with it. It really kind of was a deal because that would have cost, I think $7.99 is what they sell that mixer for. So $10.99. I mean, yeah, not bad, right? That's right. I thought it was not a bad price at all.

Well, Mike, I would say let's move on to the next one. Yeah, let's do it. All right, so we both have a new pour in our glass here, and not really much darker, but it is noticeably darker than what we just had. Yeah, it is very dark.

It'd be like apple juice still. Now, this is called the top floor. It's 86 proof, so we stepped it up a little bit. Still not to 90. But we're getting there, right?

So top floor, any, any hint on why that's the name of this one?

So what they said was a bourbon that matures on the top warehouse floors tend to age faster as heat rises. Well, that's, that's definitely true, right? We do know that this top floor, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey is smooth and well rounded to be enjoyed straight with ice or in your favorite cocktail.

All right. So is there an age statement on this one?

I didn't find an age statement on this. There's not a lot out about these things, but I would assume this over three years old.

So Don H. stated, so we're going to assume Buffalo Trace is doing the right thing. And this is a four-year-old bourbon. More than likely. I mean, it's a Kentucky straight bourbon. So four years old. That would be nice. That would be nice. Yeah. So we know it's the least two, but assuming they're following the labeling rules, we're at four years with this one.

Yeah.

All right. Let's check it out. Cheers. Cheers. Now there is a little bit more to that on the nose, a little bit oakier. Let's still get that corn sweetness on it though. It's not as youthful on the nose. I think as the other one.

Yeah. I'm almost getting that, uh, like a crisp fruit on this one. Maybe even like a crisp fall apple. I was going to say a green apple, but yeah.

Yeah.

Let's taste it. Cheers.

There's a little more body to this. Not a lot, but a little bit more. Still not a lot of sweetness upfront.

Not a lot of sweetness, but on the mid it's got that sweetness. It's almost got that apple juice, apple coming through. It's that corn still biting in a little bit. A little bit more rounded, like you said. Not bad though.

Yeah, it's actually got a fairly decent start to a finish on it. I kind of like it on the back of the palette. It's not as bitter as the entry level benchmark. Got a little bit, it's a little more oak forward. Got a little bit of fruit on the mid palette towards the tail end though. It does pick up a little bit of body. I'm getting a little bit of finish. I'm starting to feel a little bit of hug. So there's definitely a difference between the two.

Oh yeah. I think this is a, not a bad bourbon at all. I just, I really don't, it's still, And we're going to find out what this bourbon does. I mean, they pull these off the top floor. So I'm assuming that all these bourbons are coming from different parts of the warehouse. It's still a little bit light.

I would say it's still, um, It's not going to be what you would call a bold bourbon. It's not something that's going to stand out heavy or be readily apparent in a mixed drink. I think this is something that starts to lean towards sippers a little bit, but it's still a little bit light and refreshing. It's got a little bit of that fruitiness to it. This is a little bit more in a range that I might be willing to sip. I wouldn't mind sipping on this. would be my first choice to reach for it, but it's a heck of a lot better in my mind than what we just had before it.

Now this still ain't breaking the bank right here. This is still $16.99. So now we're sub 20, but we're still not breaking that bank. And I think once people add up all these numbers, they might find that we're under a hundred dollars for six bottles. Wow. I mean, we'll be pretty close to it, I think. Yeah. So we're at like 26, $27 right now.

Yeah. So the finish on it is pretty short-lived, but at least in this case it has one. It does have a finish. It's pleasant, but it's very short. Very light. The hug though, it's there. So maybe as this thing comes up in proof a little bit and we start to taste a little bit higher proof, it's going to hang with us a little bit better.

Now these newer expressions are surely harder to find. You know, it wasn't easy to get an entire set of these. I had to had to chase just a little bit or hunt, you know, go on that bourbon heritage month. Other people were hunting down, you know, pappies and other big bottles that I'm hunting down benchmark.

You're doing a happy dance in the aisle cause you found a benchmark.

Yeah, well you were there with me when we found it and stuff. I was so excited that we got it. You picked up a bottle of it too. We were both like, Hey, this is good. And everybody else there is looking, Hey, where you got any Pappy? He's getting weller. You got any, um, you got any will at purple tops in here? I mean, you just kind of giggle and you know, um, it's just every old day for the bourbon road guys. We're just in there buying benchmark. Well, I mean, somebody's gotta tell a story.

Yeah. All right, Mike. Well, I tell you what, I see it. I see it heading in the right direction here. So, uh, the benchmark, uh, entry level brand was, um, nothing to speak of.

Yeah. It's just a 10 99 bourbon. If that's all you got in your pocket, that's all you can afford. It's probably going to work for you.

It's not going to poison you. It's not going to drive you to throw the rest of it away. You're probably still going to drink it, you know, but it's just nothing special. It's just sort of a light, So not even a good mixer, I think, unless maybe it's in something like you said, like a hot toddy or a Coke or something like that.

Something that's going to kind of hide that bitterness, I think, is what you need. That bitterness will stick with you a little bit.

This one, on the other hand, I think would be appropriate for a new bourbon drinker, somebody who hasn't maybe had something high proof. You want to give them something that's easy to drink, something that's not going to attack their palate. This would be fine. There's no sweetness to it though. If you're trying to give somebody something sweet, I don't think it's here, but it does have that sort of fruity note on the mid palette.

Yeah. I think this is a good entry level for somebody that has that mid mid fruit palette to it. You know, it's not going to overwhelm them with that. big Kentucky hug, which it didn't me, but we're both bourbon drinkers. So we're kind of used to that. So if it's not something with a giant hug, me and you're both just kind of giggling. But this would be fine for that to say, Hey, let me give you something that's still 86 proof. It's not going to overwhelm your tongue.

And I would say, just to be honest, I would say that, you know, anybody who's an experienced bourbon drinker is going to get ahold of this top floor and probably go, yeah, okay. Yep.

It's, it's, it's okay. Well, moving on, we're going to go up to the small batch 90 proof this time. Once again, that metal cap. Now, the nice thing is I put out six Glen Carons just to make sure our glasses are clean. We're being honest with everybody.

All right. So, so far we've had the 80 proof benchmark. We've had the 86 proof top floor. Now we're at 90 proof.

90 proof. We moved it up. Four proof more. We're getting there.

And this one's called what?

The small batch? The small batch.

Any kind of story on a small batch, Mike?

It says it's selected from their master distiller.

Isn't all bourbon selected by the master distiller more or less? Well, you'd think so.

He takes responsibility. It says the aroma of Vellanella oak gives way to delightful hands of caramel, leather, and honey. I'm hoping almost all bourbon have those nodes.

Yeah, normally we don't mention them even though they're there because it's pretty much expected.

Yeah. Well, I still think this is still a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. You would assume that this is still four years or older. I would hope it's in that four to six with a small batch. You're stepping it up in proof.

Well, I can already tell Mike that we're reaching a little bit deeper, darker color here. It's not dark by any means, but we have progressively gotten darker and more amber, I think, as we've gone up over these last two bottles and now this one. So, based on the increase in color and the increase in proof, I would hope for a little bit more richness and fullness to this, maybe a little more body to it.

You would assume so, especially with that higher proof. Now, this one's only going for $14.99.

All right, so we really haven't... So, this is a little bit cheaper than the top floor?

Yeah.

That's interesting.

I don't know why they did something like that. No, why they would do it.

Maybe they consider the top floor premium cause it's coming from a certain location in the Rick house. Maybe it costs a little bit more to produce bottles from a particular rather than blend them from across multiple floors.

They know their business, right? We're getting a better price. Well, cheers. Let's just know this thing.

all right so we're definitely going in the right direction here yeah they weren't kidding this thing's got a lot more caramel on it yeah all those notes are there right right right we're starting to smell a little bit more like like i don't want to say i don't say the wrong thing here we're starting to smell a little bit more like what i would expect a mid-range bourbon to smell like now this to me is uh you ever get those

They're like, what's the three-color ice cream? Neapolitan? Yeah, but there's a candy that's like that. There's three different colors.

Oh, I know what you're talking about. It's wrapped up. Uh-oh, this is going to tear us up. I don't think I'm going to come up with the name, Mike. Is it a Neapolitan candy?

I don't think it is. Cause it is chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. I mean, it could be. I don't remember. Yeah. But I'm kind of getting that, that kind of wrapped up candy in it. I'm definitely getting that dark caramel candy in it. Yeah.

I think, you know, the overwhelming corn sweetness is kind of gone now in the nose. I think it's a little bit more moved into that caramel. I'm going to, yeah, caramel vanilla range, a little bit more oak, even though this isn't the top floor, I'm getting the oak a little bit better on it. That fruitiness is subdued just a little bit, but I'm not getting any of the corn sweetness. Well, very little of it anyway. I'm getting a little bit of honey butter on this. Just a tad bit. This has actually got a decent nose on it. Yeah. Well, cheers. Let's taste this thing. little bit of spice there. Yeah. This one's got a little bit more spice. Still not very sweet upfront. These are all kind of void of that upfront sweetness. The nose, in my opinion, Still a bit light for a 90 proofer. Um, I think the nose outperforms the palette a little bit. It's still a little watery for me, but that's just me. You know, we drink some pretty heavy whiskies.

Yeah. I'm getting a little bit more pepper on the back end of this. Um, a little bit of warm, like peppered honey or something. Um, that drying effect is there though. Um, it's just, it's still sitting there, still drying my mouth out a little bit.

I like it. I like it. It's, um, it's a little bit more of a back of the mouth whiskey, not a whole lot of hug on this one. Maybe I'm just sort of getting used to it. This is our third glass already, but not overly bitter. Yeah.

It's not bad at all. It's still for 1499. Um, I put this in the league with, uh, Jim Beam wine label.

Yeah. I think it's fair to say. Yeah. I think this is a, for me, the nose on this one was actually the best of the three we've tried so far, but the pallet, I think I prefer the top floor a little bit more.

So far. Yeah. I think I'm with you. The top floor so far has been my favorite out of them. Now when we step up and proof, I like those higher proof whiskeys. So I'm excited to taste these things, Jim. Well, Jim, we're going to be at a, A couple of events coming up and one that's coming up real soon is the Bourbon Festival. You're listening to this right now. You're possibly going to see me down there at the Bourbon Festival. I'll have a bag full of shirts in a backpack with me.

So when they see this small fellow walking around with a backpack on and he's got a Bourbon Road shirt on.

That's probably Big Chief. It's not you.

You're the big guy.

I'm the four foot guy. So we'll be down there. I don't know if a lot of people would know this out there. I've learned in the last couple of days, there's a world t-shirt shortage that I didn't know about, really.

There's actually a shortage on everything you go to. I couldn't get a belt from my tractor, so I cut grass.

I mean, it's just rough. Yeah. So if you're listening to it, you're a listener, you're a roadie, you know, the t-shirt thing, It's bugging us. We try and try and try and try, but no fault on us. No fault on our, I guess, our teacher guy. Their ship's stuck in Los Angeles right now. They can't get into port. Just sitting there waiting. Because there's nobody to unload it. There's nobody on to load it. There's COVID restrictions. It is a whole pile of mess is what it is.

Yeah, it's pretty bad right now. I mean, it doesn't matter what you're talking about. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about, you know, computers or cars or tractors or boats, you know, anything that requires import into the US. And t-shirts is one of those things. You know what? I went to the store the other day and we wanted to get some beer and I wanted to get a case of Modelo. I like Modelo sometimes. So I went in to get a case of Modelo Especial, right? But I like the 32 ounce bottles because you can get two full glasses out of them. So when Melody and I are having a beer, I can pour us both from one bottle. It's perfect. Two 60 ounce pours. It's that, He said, you're lucky you're getting anything Modelo. He said, nothing's coming across the border. He said, it's just not happening. They were up to $10 for a six pack of Modelo bottles. That's a lot of money for a Modelo. It is. So that's just the nature of the way things are right now. So I understand. And I hope our listeners understand who are waiting on their t-shirts.

I think they do. And hopefully by the time you're listening to this, we already got your t-shirts out to you for the bourbon road shirt. Hopefully we'll have some bourbon bullshitter t-shirts. I'll have my backpack. I got some tucked away, um, for special occasions like this. So hopefully I'll have a backpack full of shirts. Um, If not, just come by and get a photo with me. Say hi. There's going to be some other bourbon roadies down there. I know for a fact there's going to be bourbon people from all over. Everybody's asking, hey, is Big Chief going to be at the Bourbon Festival? And I keep saying, yeah, we're going to be down there. Drew Allen and his wife are going to be down there. So that's going to be fun. Some other roadies will be down there. I just think it's going to be a great event. If you haven't got tickets on Sunday, Drew actually told me that him and his wife have to leave on Sunday. So Drew would like to give those tickets away to one of the other roadies. So if you're looking for tickets for Sunday to the bourbon festival, hit Drew Allen up on the bourbon roadies and he, I'm sure he'd be glad to take care of you.

Oh, that's a great guy right there. That's a true roadie response.

Yeah. That's just kind of how our bourbon group works, right? Our private Facebook group, the roadies, they share a lot of whiskey. They share all kinds of stuff. I just think it's awesome. They even stop on the side of the road when a roadie breaks down. Yeah.

Pretty awesome. Come help him out, right? He saw that bourbon bullshitter t-shirt. He's like, Oh, Brody in trouble.

The other, uh, the other event we're going to be out here in September is we're going to be at duck, duck bourbon. It's a, uh, charity event. Helps out habitat for manatee You want to check out that event you can find it on our website you can find it on their website What you do is you're gonna buy a ticket to the event that gets you into the event that gets you the heavy or Dervis of what you're calling it I'm out of stone throw farm a nice beautiful kind of a wedding venue out here in Shelbyville And then you buy a duck for 30 bucks. Now here's the cool thing. You know, usually when you play a lottery system, you don't get anything. You get a bottle, right? You got to hope you're guaranteed. You're guaranteed. If you buy a duck, you're going to get a bottle of bourbon. Now it could be some benchmark could be, it could be, or it could be something super nice out there. But I can tell you this, when I'm donating bottles to a good cause, I'm usually bringing the good stuff. Oh, most certainly. Most certainly.

So I would say, for the most part, those benefactors who are donating bottles to Duck Duck Bourbon, There may be a few benchmarks in there, but I'd say for the most part it's top-heavy.

I would assume that there's going to be some great bottles there. There might even be a barrel that's auctioned there. We'll find out if there's a barrel. You can buy a barrel there for your bar. It might come from Buffalo Trace. It might come from It might come from Four Roses. We don't know where the barrel's going to come from, but you could bid on that. I'm going to be the emcee there. I will guarantee you I'm going to make you laugh there that night. I'm sure you will. I'm going to try to tell a story about every bourbon. Talk about it a little bit. Talk about the way it'll make it feel or the taste on it or something. You will giggle just a little bit. And Jim will be there roaming around in crowds, shaking hands, shaking babies up, being kissing babies. Buying ducks. You're going to buy some ducks? Buy some ducks. Heck yeah. 30 bucks for a duck. I don't think I could personally buy a duck there, but I'll probably just donate some money.

I don't think you can because you're kind of, you're inside. You're the inside guy. You don't think that'd be fair? People would think that if you got the big bottle, you know, they might think you had something to do with it.

I'd have to put a little mark on the duck so I could see it swimming around.

That's my duck right there. That's my duck.

I have to keep my eye on it the whole time. Because you know you got a pond full of ducks. Now, supposedly I talked to Pam, the director for Habitat for Humanity, and she told me that one fellow bought $500 with the ducks. Wow. That's a lot of ducks. That's September 25th in Shelbyville, Kentucky. Come out, meet us, hang out with us. And we'll talk about on the second half when we come back at the end of that, about our October event that we're super excited about and how we're going to have another giveaway for that event. So hang with us listeners. All right.

All right, everybody, we are back. And if you were around for the first half, you heard us go through the first three expressions of benchmark. We had the entry level benchmark. We had what was called top floor. And then we had their small batch.

Yeah, I mean, it is nice to see Buffalo Trace kind of take a chance and introduce something different. And I kind of like that they stayed with that benchmark name, you know, named after men that kind of pioneered Kentucky. They forged their way forward for Kentucky. And, you know, I think I was thinking about this is Buffalo Trace Bourbon. the only bourbon from Buffalo Trace not named after a man. Think about that for a minute. I know, that's deep thoughts for Big Chief.

Yeah, deep thoughts, but you know, we've already had three bourbons. We're getting ready to have three more, so we don't want to dive too deep into our brain matter. All right, so we've worked our way up in proof. We started with an 80 proof, then an 86, and then a 90. And now we are at the single barrel, right?

Yeah. And what's the proof on this one? 95 proof. 95 proof.

Now we're approaching that fine range.

Yeah, really good range there. I think that 95 to 105 for us, we've always talked about that. That's that sweet spot, right? Now this bottle right here, $24.99. Okay.

So, and this is a true single barrel. So this is, you know, the master distiller is selecting barrels to go into this particular expression. And then they're filling bottles from one barrel until it's empty. And then they're filling bottles from another barrel until it's empty. So you can be guaranteed that every bottle is receiving liquid from a different barrel, which means you never know what you're going to get.

Yeah, I kind of, I kind of like that. You know, that if he's selected them right, then, then, you know, that you're going to probably get some super nice out of them.

Now, similar to Eagle Rare, and there's the Buffalo Trace bourbon that's not named after a man.

Bingo. It is a single barrel bourbon, but it's a single barrel continuous fill line, right?

Which means they dump a barrel and they fill bottles, and then they dump a barrel into the same tank, and they continue to fill bottles. And there is this expectation that what you're going to get is a different, potentially a different flavor with every bottle, but you're also going to have that crossover between barrels, right? As it switches from one barrel to the next. Yeah. This may be done the same way. We don't have any knowledge of that, but there's a possibility.

Now, supposedly these are aged 10 years. 10 years, really? That's the rumor out there. You know, Buffalo Trace usually don't put the years out, they don't put the match bill out.

Well, we know these are not age stated. Yeah. So they're required to be at least four. But how much over four?

$24.99, you know. Okay. If it's 10 years old, you would think if it was 10 years old, they would put that on there. Maybe there's some 10 year old barrels in there that didn't make the cut for something else.

Well, but you know, this is going to be single barrel. So this is all from one, right? Well, that'd be true. Gee, Wes, I'm ready to try it. You got me all excited now, Mike.

I said 10 years, you're like, Oh, let's go, man.

It sounds like Eagle rare to me.

Well, who, who, who says it's not? That's true.

Now there's a richness to it. Now it's starting to like, there's, there's definitely a richness to that nose. It's a lot more, um, syrupy.

Yeah, it definitely has a good nose on it. You're saying syrup. I'm thinking Sorghum molasses, dark rich.

So this is a big step up from what we just had, at least on the nose. We haven't tasted it yet, but I would say that this is, uh, This is an indication of good things to come. So I'm getting zero youth, zero corn sweetness. Definitely more of a butterscotch on this or a maple. Still getting that a little bit of that hint of spice.

I still think that crisp apples in there and that, that kind of that, like we said, that buttery honey butter is right there in the nose. Heck, let's drink this thing. Cheers.

Yeah, definitely better. Still void of sweetness upfront, but nice butterscotch-y caramel midsection on it. A little bit of, a little tinge of dryness on the back. Oak is prevalent, caramel butterscotch. Yeah, you said molasses, sorghum. I get that.

Little bit of fig. I, I tend to, I really like this, that fig you write on a spot on that fig. I mean, you always talk about those figs and not a fig that you would get in a fig Newton. We're talking about a real dried fig that you would put on a charcuterie board. Yeah.

It is, uh, it's, it's still dry on the backend. And I'm feeling that finish is starting to grow. This finish is lasting a little bit longer. That's about the third little sip for me. And I'm feeling that finish building up on it. It's a little bit more, it's less sweet, more dry, a little bit of sizzle, a little bit of spice. This stuff's starting to grow on me because it's wonderful to work your way up through uh, some expressions that are all built off the same idea, right? The same profile. And this is, uh, this is definitely a better whiskey.

Now listeners, we're not like drinking full glasses of this. I'm going to be honest with you. We're kind of drinking micro pores here cause we wanted to get through six of these. So we're kind of light on our pores more than usual. Usually, usually we're super heavy on our pores. If we're only drinking two, I mean, you'll be like, yeah, let's just do this. Yeah. Um, like the other day when we got to review the, uh, four roses, limited edition, we're pretty heavy on those pores. There wasn't much left in that little 200 milliliter bottle. Well, overall, Hey, this was the hardest to find out all the bottles. I did find this from Westport whiskey and wine. There were only two of these left there. Nobody else in Kentucky. I couldn't find them.

And Chris didn't hold one back for us. We just got lucky.

We got lucky. A roadie texted me and I do kind of have that super connection with bourbon. which is nice. I got a text and said, here's where one's at. Somebody looked for me. That'd be Todd Ritter, the dripping barrel on Instagram. If you want to give him a follow, kind of a thank you to him finding us a bottle of this. And I actually waited a couple of days before. I kind of followed up on it.

Two left, right? Or one left? Two left. Two left, yeah.

We went, me and you and our wives, we went to brunch yesterday and I said, hey, we're going to go buy Westport whiskey and wine. Now I could see their eyes starting to roll when we said, hey, we're going to go to a whiskey store.

And neither one of them wanted to get out of the truck. They both stayed in the truck. But let me give a shout out to Westport Whiskey & Wine. So Chris and his crew over there, they do a great job. They have such variety. And I know this for a fact. If something new is available, if something new is out there, if there's a chance that he can get it before anybody else. He's on it. I mean, he's on it fast.

And he always has some great picks in there. I wasn't going to buy another bottle while we were in there too. Um, I was like, yeah, that's kind of on the fence about it. I've been on the fence about it and who knows it might slip into my hand and might slip onto the show, but it was nice to see it there. a bottle of it because I don't get to see certain bottles sometimes. It's not like we get in liquor stores every day.

And they run specials there. So that day they were running a special on you buy any expression from the benchmark line and you got a bottle of old fashioned mixer with it.

Yeah. I haven't opened that up yet, but I, I'll take a chance on it. I mean, Hey, what do we got to lose? Absolutely.

Well, Mike, what do you think? What a nice chance to, to say your stuff about the single barrel?

Yeah, I'm kind of glad I bought it for that price. Not a bad price, right? If it is 10 years old, heck, that's a good price.

You know, it doesn't seem like it's a 10 year old bourbon to me, but there's always that potential that it is.

I would think it's probably got some 10 year. Yeah. It might have a 10 year barrel that sneaks in there that didn't make the cut for another bourbon. So in other words, there's a chance that you could get a single barrel bottle that might have a 10 year in it, but maybe they're not all 10 year. Yeah. Did it not make the profile for Eagle Rare? You know, usually they'll stamp Eagle Rare on the barrels though. Um, And I don't think this is from that same mash bill.

This is good whiskey.

It's not Eagle Rare. Yeah.

All right. So we're at number five now and we still have our wits about us.

Yeah.

Um, cause we're, we're like that. We're in control, right? A little bit, a little bit. So we have gone from 80 proof to 86 proof to 90 proof to 95 proof. We've had four different expressions so far. Now we are at 100 proof.

What do we got, Mike? So now we got the benchmark bonded. Meaning? Bottled and bond. Bottled and bond. same master distiller, same distilling season, spring or fall, right? Yep. Over four years old now, let's get real, a bottle and bond whiskey can be any age, right? At least four. At least four years older. In the case of wild turkeys, bottle and bond is 17 years old. not for the fan hearted. If you don't like oak, don't spend your money on it. But if you love older bourbons, finer things, buy it. Um, but this is a hundred proof. 1999. Wow. What a deal. What a deal.

Yeah, so this is the one I picked up. So you picked up the single barrel when we went to Westport Whiskey and Wine. I grabbed this one. I'm always a sucker for a bonded whiskey. And you know, 100 Proof is kind of my sweet spot. And we know this is four years old at least. It could be a little bit older. My guess it probably is. But it's wonderful to get a bonded whiskey out of Buffalo Trace. Now they've always had the EH Taylor line.

Yeah. This one was a little bit easier to find. I think this is the easiest one that I've seen bottles on at a couple of different stores. And that kind of makes sense to me. Yeah. Still for $19.99. It's hanging in there.

So Buffalo Trace has a bonded whiskey under $20 to go along with Evan Williams and some of the others that are out there.

So yeah, you got old tub, you got, Heaven Hills got several different ones, right? JTS Brown, J.W. Dan, T.W. Samuels. T.W. Samuels one is a, is a kind of a, what he called a sleeper cause it's in that big plastic jug. Nobody has a clue.

I'm not buying that. That looks, that don't look right.

Well, when I, we went into Westport whiskey and wine and then we found these folks in there and I started talking to him about bourbon, obviously. And, uh, he was like, we'll point out some bourbons, not from, that you can only get here in Kentucky. And I said, I saw a T.W. Samuel tucked up underneath there. Um, I was the last one on the shelf. They had, and I said, probably want to grab that down there. He's like, you serious? And I was like, yeah, you want to grab that. So he picked up a bottle. He picked up a bottle, JW Dan, a bottle of a JTS Brown away. He went.

Yeah. You know, you can't, you can't beat it. If you, if you happen to walk into a liquor store and Mike's in there giving directions, just listen, just get a shopping cart, fill it up.

We're going to go shopping. I'll help you out. I'll make sure you leave the state of Kentucky, um, Kentucky proud. All right.

Well, let's check out the newest bonded whiskey in Kentucky.

Oh, wow. That's nice. Little richer. Yeah.

Yeah.

A bit more caramel.

yeah it's sort of uh yeah like a swiz again here's the figs or dates you know along with a little bit of caramel a little bit of maybe even butterscotch not a lot of sweetness but boy this doesn't this doesn't nose like anything else i've had from buffalo trace now

It's possible that I'm missing something here, but now you've, you're super familiar with ancient age and blends, right? Sure. Both kind of the same, same one and one warehouse. Yeah. Yep. So, you know, you kind of wonder where this is coming from.

Well, we know what distillery it's coming from. We don't know what warehouse and what floor. It's coming from the monster on the river down there. This has got a great nose to it. And again, guys, we're talking about a $20 whiskey here. So when I say great, keep that in perspective. This is a great $20 whiskey, at least on the nose. Well heck, let's taste this thing. Cheers. Cheers.

There's that buttery right there.

It's right in the middle. This one's right in the middle. Again, no sweetness upfront. And I think that's kind of this profile.

There's not a lot of sweetness upfront on these, but this is a man, but when it hits the middle there, it like it, it sweetens right up, right? Yeah. Not a lot of spice on this at any of this.

No, just a little bit of hint of it. And this is, uh, this has got a little bit of body to it. It's a mid and rear palette whiskey. It's kind of, it's got that little bit of sizzle in the middle, not too much, but definitely butterscotch. The fruits are, uh, Palm fruits, no doubt.

Palm fruits. You know, it just, it shows that those bottling bonds at a hundred proof are just delicious. You know, there's the reason, you know, Blanton's at a hundred proof or, you know, not E.H. Taylor, but Elmer T. Lee, he loved his whiskey at a hundred proof, right? At least that's what everybody says. Same thing about E.H. Taylor. It just proves that it's good drinking whiskey.

Now we're at number five out of six. So I think it's fair to say at this point, I can sort of draw some conclusions about the line, you know, the entire line. And I'm going to say that my general impression on the benchmark line is that up front, they're a little bit void of sweetness. Not a lot of sweetness up front on these. Now, on the nose, you get corn sweetness on some of them. On these older ones or more higher proof ones, you don't get that. But they have that kind of palm fruit richness to them, a little bit of caramel. Now I'm getting a little bit of the drying effect on the rear end on all of them, right? Not too much spice though.

Yeah, not enough spice almost to me. I like to give that little bit more spiciness to them, but super, super beautiful whiskey right here in this bonded. I wouldn't be afraid to buy another bottle of this.

Yeah, I think it's a little bit different from the others that are out there. So this is kind of, I would say this is Buffalo Traces contribution to the budget line of bonded whiskeys. And it's going to be a little bit different than some of those you get from the other distilleries. It's worth a try. I think it would stand up fine in the cocktail. I think it would be fine. Uh, poured neat. Um, it's not going to blow you away, but it's a good solid bonded whiskey for a sub $20 whiskey.

You can't beat this. I just, I think that's a good price for a good whiskey. It's fair.

Um, I wouldn't shy away from it.

You see one on the shelf. You can't go wrong. Maybe we'll start a fad there. You can't tell. Hill... These will be going on the secondary market for $1,200.

Now this one does have, like I said, you know, I called out a few notes about this profile, you know, lacks the sweetness upfront, a little bit bitter on the back end. The middle is rich with palm fruits and a little bit of sizzle. But you know, it's different. It's different than what's out there.

I'm still getting that honey butter on this one, even rich honey butter with a biscuit. I mean, you had a, we had a, a dissertation on biscuits yesterday, didn't we?

We did. We talked about biscuits for a while. We didn't have to have a biscuit show or something.

Yeah, we just talked about all kinds of biscuits, from biscuits in a can to homemade biscuits to the best place you could buy a biscuit to grease stuffing an entire biscuit in its mouth. We talked about biscuits.

Vivian, she's the authority on biscuits, it seems to be. She knows her biscuits.

Yeah. She said you could have a bad biscuit. I don't believe that there's a bad biscuit on the face of the earth. Kind of like dogs. There's not a bad dog on the face of the earth. There might be bad biscuit makers, but you know what I told you was that you get some gravy, put on a biscuit, it'll fix that bad biscuit.

There's no bad biscuit.

You might get a dry biscuit.

You put a little gravy on it, it's not dry anymore.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we even talked about having gravy on white bread. You just, you know, it just, that's kind of a military background thing right there. You run out of biscuits, you run out of everything else. You probably have some sliced white bread or wheat bread and just tear it up and pour that gravy all over it. Well, Jim, we're on to our last pour.

No, at five down, one to go. I hope everybody's appreciating this. We're taking one on the chin.

This is the Olympics of bourbon drinking. If bourbon drinking was an Olympic sport, we would have some gold medals for sure.

And coming in at number six, we jump all the way from 100 proof

to? 125 proof.

Man, you know, we inched our way up to a hundred, right? 80, 86, 90, 95, a hundred. And then we got this big old giant ass jump up to 125 proof.

Now why they call it foolproof? Because they proved it to what it goes into the barrel at. So this went into the barrel at 125 proof. So that's where we're going to get it at. It unveils hints of chocolate, brown sugar, and spice. Sip and savor. You notice they don't say put this in a cocktail. Well, but you drink it your way.

It's your bourbon, right?

Yeah. Well, we usually try to drink it neat.

Now we'll say that all these bottles are the same glassware all the way through.

Yep. We drink them in our Glen Carons from distillery products out there, Jim.

Absolutely. Our favorite folks, Janie and Carson at Distillery Products.

Yeah. If you're looking for glassware, I'd say, Jim, you want to make sure that you hit them up, hit us up. I will give you a Janie's personal number up there. I will guarantee you, she's going to try to either beat somebody's price or she'll match their price on glassware. If you've got a bourbon podcast, if you're starting one up and you need glassware for it, if you're a new distillery, if your distillery is looking for better glassware, save a little money. If you're a bourbon group out there, distillery products is your place.

Absolutely. And you know what? quality is paramount in that end of the business. You want to make sure if you've seen our photos on the website and on the Instagram, you know that their etch work is just top notch.

Really good. Yeah, they definitely are. And she'll make you laugh all day long. And she truly cares about people. I think everybody knows last year Vivian got COVID and Janie still talks about that today. She knows Vivian's a nurse. She asks her how she's doing. She asked how I'm doing with my job. And to me, that means a lot when somebody cares that much that a year, a year and a half later, she still remembers those conversations. All right.

So definitely get your glassware at Distillery Products. I already took a nose on this, by the way.

Tell me what you're thinking.

What I'm thinking is this is a rich, dark bourbon. It's visibly in the bottle is definitely a lot darker than the other five. So, and I guess I kind of would expect that.

Yeah, you would think so. It's, it means if it was higher than 125 and they proved it down, they didn't, they didn't add a whole lot of limestone water to that.

But I'm guessing, you know, since we took such a big jump in proof that we probably took a big jump in price too.

Did we? No. No? $2199.

No way! No, I really didn't know that, folks. I'm absolutely blown away by that. $2199 for the foolproof benchmark. And that's from Total Wine.

So their prices are pretty spot on. on price wise. Now, can you go in there and find it? I don't know. I think as soon as it goes on the shelf, it probably disappears, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't go into, you know, the liquor store. You might pay more for pay a little less and stuff. I think I actually picked this up at Kroger for that price. Okay. So that's pretty fair price for 125 proof, 125 proof, full proof benchmark.

No age statement on this. No age statement. So we're going to say at least four years old. At least. Yeah.

All right. What do you think on that nose?

Rich, dark, deep, a little bit of fruit, mostly butterscotch, caramel.

I still, those, uh, palm fruits, you know, dates and figs. See, I'm still getting that crisp apple. I got that. I got apple and honey butter on them.

I'm not saying it's not there. I'm just talking about what's prominent. So for me, it's a little bit more of a sugary kind of dried fruit.

Now you say dates. Yeah. Sugared them dried dates. Majoule dates, right? All right. Cheers.

Cheers. Yes, sir.

Yeah. Well, world of difference, world of difference between this and the bonded.

That sucker's got some sweetness right up front and on the mid and on the end.

Yeah. This is all the way across. This starts in the front, delivers in the middle, delivers on the end. Still got hints of that, uh, bitterness, but it's so much less now.

Well, I think it's covered up with that sugary sweetness too. And that pepper's there too. Now it's like pop rocks on the side of your tongue and that could be the proof doing that.

Wow. If anybody told me they paid $21 for this bottle of whiskey, I would be absolutely blown away.

Not too bad for $21.99. Damn good for $21. I don't know that there's another bottle out there right now that I can't think of another bottle. $21.99 for 125 proof or that tastes like this. Wow.

Getting a little bit more of the, um, kind of a anise on the, on the end. Getting that Mike, a little bit kind of a, I was going to say whore hound or hound. Yeah. Okay.

Got root beer. Kind of a sassy frass, um, whore hound at that kind of a medicinal candy.

All right. So this is a sipping whiskey. You at $21, you can pour it into any cocktail you want and not feel bad about it. But you can also sip on this.

Hey, and it's got a good story for those people that love stories, Jim. I mean, who doesn't like a story about three brothers that crossed the mountains in 1773 and were setting benchmarks out?

I mean, there's a story. And they came upon a Kentucky River in that little valley of Frankfurt and heard Buffalo as far as they can see.

That's a story right there for you. And it's good whiskey.

I hope people can understand as they went through this journey with us, as we went through, we started at the very beginning of the Benchmark brand and we worked our way all the way through to the full proof that we didn't hold any punches. We kind of told it how it was all the way through. It was a clear progression in value and taste all the way through the expression line.

What I do like is that Buffalo Trays kept the prices down. Yeah. Cause I think they could probably get more than 50 bucks for this. Yeah. I mean, this is pretty, pretty darn good whiskey.

Now it has just that hint of that trying effect on the backend and bitterness, but at this proof, I don't mind it a bit.

Some people kind of like that.

Yeah.

You know, um, I don't think this drinks like 125 proof. I'd say 114 somewhere in there and butterscotch is prominent in this one. Now folks, I'll tell you, if you can find this bottle on the shelf, Do not, I repeat, do not pass it up. It's something to grab.

Grab a bottle of this, put it in your bourbon road decanter and then serve it up to your guests. They're going to be impressed.

Yeah. Did you just tell everybody we had a bourbon road decanter?

Oh, I let the cat out of the bag, didn't I?

We do have a bourbon road decanter. You want to check out our website. We have a coffee cup and we got a little flask for you. Yeah. Some nice things to add Jim since everybody's listened to us and I know our bourbon roadies are listening. I Know they're listening. We got our 200th show coming up If you can tell me roadies now you got a really no big chief You gotta really really know me and you know, I love football and it's football season so You gotta name me my mascots of my high school football team, my college football team, and my pro football team. The first person to do that is the mascot of the mascot. Okay. I mean, I guess you could name the team too, but you got to name the mascots of my favorite three teams, my high school football team, my college football team, and my pro football team. You name all three of those. I'm going to send you four ounce pours of each one of these benchmarks and you'll be able to taste along with us.

Oh, wow. That's a pretty good deal, Mike. So just to be clear, they need to go into the bourbon roadies. Yep. And if they're not a bourbon roadie, you got to join.

You got to join. And how do you join the bourbon roadie? That's three easy rules, right? So you get on Facebook. You can go to our main Facebook page right underneath there. Scroll down just a little bit. You'll see bourbon roadies. It's our private Facebook group. You get in there. You got to answer three questions to join. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Hell yes. Everybody loves bourbon. Come on. If you don't come talk to me for a little bit, I'll get you to love some bourbon. And do you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any what?

No rudeness allowed. Everybody is friends in here. Nobody cuts anybody else off at the knees. You don't make any comments in the bourbon roadies. It'll cause harm to somebody else.

That's right. So we also don't talk about politics or religion in there. We don't post about guns. We don't have any sexual pictures in there or anything like that. We celebrate births. We celebrate life when somebody dies. We celebrate retirements, we celebrate promotions, moves, you name it, it's a celebration.

So they come into the Bourbon Roadies, they join up, they get admitted right away because it happens within an hour or two, right? then they make a post in there that says, Hey Mike, I'm Joe. I'm your newest bourbon roadie. And I think your high school mascot was this. Your college mascot was this and your protein mascot is this. And I want my free pours.

Well, yeah, it's something like that. So you want to go on this episode right here under the photo of the benchmark in those comments, the first person that posts the correct answers. to that question. I will send you this stuff, guarantee you that.

So make sure you make your answer in your post as a comment in the benchmark post. Heck yeah. All right.

I think that's, that's a pretty nice giveaway and they're big chief pours too. So they're four ounces. That's a pretty good pour. That's almost a full bottle of bourbon right there.

It'll be gone. You had to go get some more. Yeah, I mean, I got to make sure I hide these from you, Jim, so you don't drink no more of these. So I have something to give away. I'm pretty impressed with that foolproof.

I have to say, Mike, well, Jim, we're going to be at Bourbon on the banks in October, right? We've been talking about this. We're excited about it. We're going to be at the VIP auction. on October 22nd. That's a hundred dollar ticket. That's a lot of money, but you're also going to get to hang out with us. You're going to get to hang out with Shane Baker from Wilderness Trail, Brent Elliott. from Four Roses. There'll be some other master distillers there, some other special guests. Great evening. Their list of bourbons are growing for that night. Some really nice bottles in there.

And they're really good friends with Buffalo Trace. Yeah. So I would expect just a few.

Really good bottles and the money goes to great causes. It goes to veterans. It goes to kids for sports and for like band. It goes to great causes across the Frankfurt community. So make sure you get tickets for that. If you want to want to go October 22nd and then on the 23rd, um, bourbon on the banks.

You can always come out a little early to help us set up the Bourbon Road Lounge.

Well, you can come sit down with us. You can come have some drinks with us. We are sponsored by Woodinville Whiskey. We'll have plenty of whiskey there from them. We're going to have their rye there. We're going to have their bourbon that's really good. We'll have some of their cask strength. We both know that that's some amazing whiskey right there. Pretty darn good stuff. We're going to have some of their port finish there. And Ariel promised me we'd have a couple of special bottles. Now, Ariel, everybody knows her. She's been on the show a couple of times. We love her to death. She's the one that got this deal done for us where Woodinville is going to come on board and help us out. Come see us. There's going to be 40 pours for that event, $65 each. Now two more people, we just gave away two tickets and a bottle of their whiskey. Um, we're going to be giving away another bottle of their rye whiskey, which you really love that.

I love it. It's great stuff.

They really do it right. No doubt about it. And two tickets to the festival, $65 each for those tickets. I'll be giving those away pretty easy. All you got to do is follow urban on the banks, follow Woodinville whiskey, follow us. Um, That's pretty much it. That's easy to do, right? That's click, click, click, click, click, click. And for an extra, for an extra entry, all you got to do is go on Apple podcast, leave us a review or whatever you listen to the podcast. If you can leave a review there, leave a review, take us a screenshot of that. Join the bourbon roadies. And on that giveaway in the comments, leave the photo of that screenshot. That's an extra entry to win that. Oh my goodness. So, I mean, that's pretty good deal.

That's a great deal. So we, Mike, you and I know that hotel accommodations, VRBO accommodations in Frankfurt are starting to get kind of slim for that weekend, but keep this in mind people. in order to get from Frankfurt to Lexington or Frankfurt to Louisville or Frankfurt to Shelbyville is not a big haul, right?

Yeah.

20 minutes. Yeah. So you want to make sure that you get your rooms reserved. You're going to spend that entire weekend up here. You're going to check out the bourbon trail. You're going to come to bourbon on the banks. You're going to meet Mike and I at the tent. We're going to have some good pours together. It's going to be a great weekend, but playing ahead. It's September now. This is in October. You got a month and a half.

The other nice thing is they're going to have an after party that night after the VIP auction. We already know that we're going to be downtown after the VIP auction that night. Our wives told us we would be. We're going to be out having a good time. So come out, hang out with us. They're going to have a downtown Frankfurt on Friday night set up like a carnival. And then on Saturday night, there's the Goodwood Brewing after party. We'll be at that too. And then Jim Beam's sponsoring a pub crawl. A pub crawl also.

I mean, how can you go wrong with this? That's like at a whole weekend of whiskey. And you know what?

It's 65 bucks to get in there, right? And it's nice and cool in October.

Yeah. It's a good deal. Definitely put it on your calendar. Make sure you join us that weekend. It's going to be a blast. Mike, where can people find us on the internet?

Well, we've talked about the bourbon roadies just a little bit, but you can also find us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook.

We're all over the place. Yeah, absolutely. We always want to hear what our listeners think about us. Mike, what can they do to make sure that they don't miss out on a single episode of The Bourbon Road?

Well, what you really want to do is scroll up to the top of your phone, the computer, wherever you listen to us and hit that subscribe button. It could be a little check mark. It could be a little cross. But you want to look for that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts. It's a plus sign at the top of your phone. Hit that subscribe button. It'll show you that, hey, we've got some episodes released. They're coming up. Get a little ding or something, right? Yeah. Notification. I mean, I get them about other podcasts all the time. And I'm like, man, them guys are kicking butt. Yeah. Guys like Daz drinking bourbon, some great friends of ours, great supporters of ours, bourbon lens, some great guys down the road from us. Absolutely. Yeah. Releasing great content. Then what you want to do is you want to scroll on down. You know what I'm about to ask you, right?

Oh my God.

We want you to give us a five star review because you know who's going to come find you. The big bad booty daddy of bourbon. He's going to come find you. We're going to bring some of this benchmark. I might bring all six bottles. Now, if we could get through six bottles in the night, I will guarantee you by the end of the night, you're going to leave us a five star review. It's a guarantee. Guaranteed. Who was the chef that said that? I guarantee you remember him as a Cajun guy back in the day. Yeah. Who was that? All right.

If you know that post it in the roadies.

If you could post that in the roadies, I'll share some Cajun whiskey with you.

All right. So we want to hear what you have to say. Like Mike said, we'd love to have your comments on podcasts and get your recommendations, but we'd also open it up to emails. You can send Mike and I an email. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. You can always reach out to us on Instagram. Hit us with a DM. I'm jshannon63. I'm one big chief and we'll see you down the bourbon road.

Bye!