199. Cody Road Single Barrel Bourbon Whiskey 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.

Did you get a frog in your hiccup there?

I did. I got a little frog in my hiccup. We've had a couple of whiskeys, so. Yeah. But today we've got a bottle out of Iowa. Yeah? We get an Iowa whiskey on here every now and then. Every once in a while. These guys are just in Iowa, so just on the river there in LeClaire. It's the Mississippi River Distilling Company.

Now that's the home of, on the History Channel's American Pickers.

Exactly. So American Pickers have a location in Nashville as well. People are probably more familiar with that one. But look, Claire, Iowa, that's where they're from. That's the main shop there. Now it's not called American Pickers. That's right. They do. It's like in an old gas station right there in Leclerc called Antique Archaeology.

Yeah, I stopped through there and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be out in the middle of the country. Yeah. And it's right there across the street from the river pretty much. And there's a little marathon gas station right there. Like I might even post an old photo of that.

It's a great little town, I think, to get a lot of people stopping in there because of that, because of American Pickers. They get people stopping in there also because it's the hometown of Bill Cody, Buffalo Bill.

Buffalo Bill Cody. That's where he's from, huh?

Yeah, that's where he's from. There's a museum there and there's a lot of information there about his life. One of the things that made the West popular back in the turn of the century, late 1800s, early 1900s, was Cowboys, Wild West, Indians. I mean, it was a popular story. And Buffalo Bill traveled around the country and sort of introduced the world to that lifestyle.

Now nosing on this thing, Jim, smells a little sweet. Yeah, it's a little sweet. Do I smell a little wheat in there?

Yeah, here I am right now. I spy with my little eye.

What's the mash bill on this thing?

All right, well first the name. This is Cody Road. Cody, C-O-D-Y. That's Buffalo Bill's last name, Bill Cody. It is a straight bourbon whiskey out of LeClaire, Iowa. It's 105 proof. And you're absolutely right, Mike. It's a weeder. Oh, yeah. It's 70 corn, 20 wheat, and 10 barley. Nice. Now, this is labeled as a straight, so we know it's at least two years old. But looking at the bottle only, right, you would say, well, this has got to be a four-year whiskey. And the reason we have to say that is why there's no date on it anywhere, is it? There's no age anywhere on the bottle.

And what does this thing cost?

So it's around $34, $35. Now, my wife picked it up for me at the gift shop. She was visiting, well, she was actually at her high school reunion. That's where she's from. She actually went to school with the sister of Mike from the show, American Pickers. And so that's a small town area there. It's called the Quad Cities of Iowa. LaClaire's just to the north on the river there. But anyway, so I was out fishing in Colorado. She went into the Mississippi River Distilling Company and picked us up a bottle so we could review it on the show. So about $35, which I think is a fair price these days.

Yeah, that's not overly pricey for a craft distillery. Well, heckless knows this thing, Jim.

All right, let's do it. Okay. So yeah, it's, it's, it's sweet.

Little young.

It's got that high kind of high corn to it. Uh, the sweetness is there, but it does have that, that youngness to it that I can smell. Not a lot of oak in there. Um, little floral notes. I mean, it's a, it's a nice nose. I'd give that a dandelions is what I would give it. Dandelions.

Well, you know, the bottle is absolutely gorgeous. It looks to me like they really spared no expense in their bottle mold. They've got a beautiful bottle that they've created here. Their label is very thick. In fact, you thought it was leather, didn't you?

I did. When I first grabbed it, it's just got that texture on the label. And it has that. It's not the label that's thick. The bottle is kind of made like that, where it's got a thicker part on it in the center, which made it feel like a piece of leather. Well, back to this nose. I, I'm not sure what I'm getting off of that.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting, um, floral kind of, uh, I don't want to say dandelions because now that you mentioned it, I'm thinking about dandelions here, but, um, it definitely has a flowery nose to it. Uh, but it's also sweet. It's got that corn, uh, sweetness coming out. Um, no real spice to it. No real amount of oak. There's not, there's not a lot of well-aged oak smell coming off of it. Yeah. Well, heck let's taste this.

Cheers. That's a sweet bourbon.

Just a tad bit of spice on there. Not a whole lot. It just kind of rolled back on the tongue. Very light. I thought for 105, it would be more viscous.

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a nice proof for this though. I think they chose well. I think if this would have been, I think this been down in the nineties, it would have been a little bit more watery. Oh yeah, sure. I'm going to say it before you do. Boy, I sure like to see this thing get over four years, but it's good.

Well, I always say I'd like to see it a higher proof. I think that proof is perfect for it. Um, but I think you're spot on about it to like to see it four or five years old to see, get that more maturity. Cause there's not the oak in there. I get a lot of corn in this. Which I would expect from Iowa, right? Cause I've been told many times that that's pretty much the corn capital of America.

It's not the hog capital of the world.

I always, I don't know why I think it's a hog capital of the world. I don't know why I think there's lots of hogs in Iowa, maybe because they have so much corn they can feed them hogs. That could be. But this, it does have that corn, kind of a roasted corn, which you would roast on the summertime.

Yeah. So I, you know, I keep telling our roadies or keep telling our listeners in general that, um, you know, bottle labeling is important because when you go into a store, you haven't heard of a bourbon before, uh, what's on the label. It's got to be the source of truth, right? And lack of information. So not having an age statement on the bottle is okay, but it's only okay. when it's not required to have it. So in the case of this bottle, it's required to have an age on the bottle because on the website they say it's two years old. It's a straight, but if it's not four, You know, they've got to put it on the bottle. They should put it on the bottle. And a lot of places aren't doing that now, and it's confusing to the consumer.

Yeah, we've seen plenty of places that do write the months on there, right? You know, they put 24 months or 32 months. I can name off several distilleries. Texas distilleries do that a lot. They'll put months on there instead of years. And I think they're just, they're trying to be transparent. Even the bigger companies like Four Roses is super transparent. You know, what went into their blend, the years, the recipe, there was no secrets there at all. So I guess that's one of the knocks on this right here is their marketing. And that could have been something that was just missed very easily, but it's something that can be fixed. Another note on this is I was getting it and I was trying to think of what that sweetness is. I was getting a little bit of raspberry in this. That sweetness I was looking for, kind of, raspberries are somewhat a little bit, not tart, but they have a little tartiness to them. Pairs nicely with that corn, a little bit of sweetness. No finish at all though, very not even a medium.

The finish is pretty short on this, but it's got a little bit of a hug. 105 is helping in that respect. I would say overall, it's a pretty darn decent young bourbon. I think that if you get a chance to stop in LeClaire, Iowa, I mean, it's right there off the bridge as soon as you cross the Mississippi. I think it's I-80, right? I think it's the I-80 bridge. Yeah. So as soon as you cross over into Iowa, get off of that first exit right there at the river and you'll be in LeClaire.

Well, a lot of people are traveling at this time of year. Hunting season just started, right? You traveling out there to hunt out west anywhere? Stop there? You know what else started today, Jim? Football season. Football season. That's right. So, you know, heck, if you're traveling out there for a football game, I hear Iowa's got some pretty good football teams out there. Heck, you're traveling out there to Iowa for some football. Why not stop by in there and pick up some suburban support? Small business, small distillery, 35 bucks. Heck, this will even make a nice little, uh, mixer at that hundred five proof.

I think, I think so too. You know, this, this, the town of Leclerc, I just can't say enough about how. how nice of a stop it is. So if you do get a chance, it's not just the distillery and it's not just getting into the American pickers there at Antique Archaeology. I mean, they're right next door to Mississippi River Distilling Company is a brewery or just next door, a wonderful brewery that brew right there on site. Got a young master brewer. Very, very good at IPAs. So if you're a beer fan, you like your IPAs, I think you'll enjoy that. A couple of nice places to eat, sit and overlook the Mississippi River. A lot of craft shops. so you can spend the afternoon there just shopping. So, Leclerc is a good place to pop into.

Heck yeah. Well, my final thoughts on this is a $35 Weeder, two years old. That would be my hit on it. As we both said, we'd like to see a little bit older, but with age comes money. They'd probably put it in that $50 range, maybe. I'm not sure, but I'd say 45, 10 more bucks. Why not? But for that, I still buy this and drink it, just because the Weedy King of Kentucky has to taste all the wheat in the world, right? Yeah. Hey, so if you are distillery out there and you're making some weeded bourbon, some weeded whiskey, I don't know, weeded single malt, weeded Japanese, weeded whatever, Heck, you want to even send us some weed beer. Send me that weeded beer. Send me with your wheat. I will, I will taste it. I'll take Jim along on that weeded journey with me. We'd love doing it.

I have to be honest when we were talking about the price, you know, you and I, that's a web price. My wife purchased this at the gift shop and I didn't bother to ask her what she paid for it. So I don't know what the gift shop price is. Probably a couple bucks more. Could be a couple bucks more. And so, but anyway, I think that, you know, they've got a lot of expressions there. They have, they obviously have this bourbon rye and a single barrel version of the rye. They've also got a honey and some other things. So they've got probably, I would say six or eight whiskey expressions there. And then of course they make a gin and a vodka and other things as well. But pretty good set of expressions.

example of their younger whiskey, it'd be nice to see what their older whiskey turns into. And if it's as good as this or better than, hey, why not take a chance on it? Can't go wrong there.

Yeah. I like to think that I can see through the youth of a young whiskey and I can see what it can be. And in this case, I think this can be a very, very good bourbon. Yeah. So it's actually very nice now, but I think it can be very good later. Sure.

Well, Jim, where can people find us on social media?

Well, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, all those places. We also have a private Facebook group called The Bourbon Roadies.

On The Bourbon Roadies, we've got about 2,300 members now, Mike. Is that right? Yeah. 2,300 members in there. Like-minded people. Three rules you got to answer. Are you 21? Because you got to be old enough to drink, right? Do you like bourbon? Hell yes. Everybody likes bourbon. And do you agree to play nice? Because we don't tolerate any rudeness. We also don't talk about religion or politics in there. So we just like to keep it about the whiskey. Keep it about the celebrations in there. Keep it about our retirements in there. Whatever you want to talk about, we want you to talk about it. We just want everybody to get along nice though So you also might be able to find us out there in the public because we're gonna have two big events coming out We will be at the bourbon festival down in barstown, Kentucky on 18th. You find me down there roaming around You never can tell how what I'll have in a backpack with me. So Try to come and find me Maybe you'll win something Get on the podcast with me. You never can tell. And then we'll be at Duck Duck Bourbon here in Shelbyville, Kentucky at Stone's Throw Farm on the 25th. You want to check out Habitat for Humanity, Shelby County. We'll be there, Jim. I'll be the emcee. You'll be drinking bourbon.

I will be drinking bourbon and buying ducks.

buying ducks. Heck, we might even have shirts there to sell. You never can tell. Come out and see us. We always have something. And then our big event for the year, Jim, we will be at Bourbon on the banks on October 23rd. We'll be there the 22nd at a VIP auction. You can buy a ticket for that for a hundred bucks. A bunch of master distillers will be in the room with us. We'll be dressed up to the nine. Well, pretty nice.

We'll be out here on 23rd too, but we're going to sleep in until checkout. Yeah.

On the 23rd is the main event from three to six.

No, the 24th. I'm sorry. What did I say?

The 24th we're going to sleep in. Yeah. We'll be definitely sleeping in because we'll be at the after party too. Come hang out with us at the Bourbon Road Lounge sponsored by Woodinville Whiskey Company. Come drink their whiskey with us. We'll have some other models with us that you can sample. Get on a podcast. We'll cut an episode that day. It's going to be a great time. Nice Kentucky weather that time of year.

We'll have our swag there too. So if you've been looking at trying to save shipping charges on Bourbon Road swag, it'd be a good way to do it.

It would be a great way to come and get some for sure. Heck, we'll probably have some swag on ourselves, right, Jim? That's right. Absolutely. Hey, on our website, we got some new swag on there, right?

Yeah, we got some new swag. We got a new coffee mug just for those people that might have bourbon in it. I don't know. We've got a new decanter, our new crystal decanter. That's pretty nice. It is pretty sharp. It definitely is pretty sharp. And then our hip flask. black and silver. Just classic. Classic. Yeah.

Really nice. Every time I look at our logo and our shirts and stuff, I always think of ACDC back in the black. That's, that's what it reminds me of. It's that, that is classic timeless. Yeah. And that's what I think of our gear is timeless. It's classy. You're going to want to pick those up. You can check out the website, um, grab some of that gear. You read my articles, my blogs on there. You read our reviews on here, like this one right here. Adam helps us out with those. Adam's a great guy that does all kinds of great things for us. He does. He gives us both bourbon advice. helps us find some special models every now and then. Yeah. So check that out. Yeah, Jim, another great episode, man.

Really good. We do two shows a week. We do a short episode like today's where we just sort of dive into a single expression like Cody Road bourbon. You know, next week, who knows what it's going to be, but every week we'll give you a new bourbon that you may or may not have heard of. But also on every Wednesday, we give you a full-length episode, an hour long, half an hour to work, half an hour home, get you both ways. And we hope you listen to both episodes.

Well, you know how you do listen to both episodes, Jim, is they got to scroll up there and hit that subscribe button. Once they do that, they can just scroll on down, hit that five star review. Cause what happens if you don't, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon is going to come visit you. Heck, I'll bring some of that Cody Rhodes with me right here. We'll have a great time like that old Buffalo Bill did. It'll be like a rodeo.

I guarantee you that.

We'll drink that bottle.

You'll ride that Buffalo.

You will, by the end of the night, you'll definitely leave us a five-star review. So help us open those doors, help us get great guests on the show. We really do appreciate those five stars.

You can always reach out to Mike and I. You can reach out to us on email. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. But probably the best way, like we always say, is to hit our DM on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we'll see you down. The bourbon road.

so