202. Old Elk Bourbon With Melinda Maddox

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, we are once again in Stream Yard.

So we got a special guest on today, Jim, from a distillery that I really love because they make a lot of weeded bourbon. From Fort Collins, Colorado, we have Mel Maddox, the distillery production manager and beverage director at Old Elk.

All right, Mel. Well, welcome to the show. We're so glad to have you here.

Thank you guys. It's a pleasure to be joining y'all.

Colorado, what I wouldn't do to be back in Colorado again right now, Mike, I bet the weather's beautiful out there. Got a little bit of time left before it starts to turn cold, right?

It's a gorgeous fall day out here. Yeah, we're in the middle of the leaves turning and really crisp mornings and nights and warm afternoons, which makes for some delicious aging of our bourbon.

Well, we do love Colorado. It's a place near and dear to our heart and there's a lot of wonderful distilleries out there. Colorado is basically, it's got it going on when it comes to whiskey and Old Elk is leading the charge.

Well, thank you.

Well, Mel, why don't you, before we dive into this first glass of whiskey, which our listeners probably saying, why haven't you already started drinking it? Why don't you go ahead and tell us about the brand itself and kind of where it came from and how it got to Fort Collins, Colorado?

Sure. Well, Old Elk Distillery, if you haven't tried us, number one, you should try us. Two, we are located in Fort Collins, Colorado. We're about an hour north of Denver and about an hour south of Wyoming. This puts us in a really unique location, as I said, with our weather to allow for some extreme weather conditions that make for some really tasty whiskey. And Also, you know, where we're located is a cute little town of a population of about 160,000 people. And we are surrounded by a ton of distilleries and breweries. So we've kind of found our little our little niche home in here. But we started out pretty small in 2013, as a sort of an idea of Kurt Richardson, who is an entrepreneur here in town. And you might have heard of him, he owns Otterbox Company, as well as a couple other businesses that have done some amazing things in the world. And he's a bourbon lover. So he decided to set out and do what a lot of people say they're going to do but don't always get to do. And that was to find and make the best whiskey. And to do that, we actually brought in Greg Metz, was a distiller with MGP and Seagram's distilling for about 40 years. He was their master distiller for half of that. And we went to him in 2013 and said, we're interested in making whiskey, you know, what can you help us with? And Greg, obviously, if you haven't heard of him, I would like to just talk about him for a minute because he is really, he is the heart and soul and the butter of our bourbon. So he, you know, as I said, he spent 40 years working for Seagrams and MGP. He's produced, you know, over half of what you see on most shelves out there. And he's a very humble, but talented, you know, distiller and man. And so Kurt went to him and he said, I'd like to make a whiskey. And Greg said, okay. Well, here's, you know, here's the mash bills that we usually work with. And Kurt said, well, no, I actually don't want any of those because everybody else already has them. I know what they taste like. I want you to make our own mash bill. I want you to come up with something that's custom for us, that's proprietary, that nobody else has. And I also want you to do this with no restraints. So, you know, Greg, think about him as like the man behind the curtain, the Wizard of Oz. In his time, he really was making all these wonderful whiskeys and making some of those that we've tried. But he never had the full creative outlet, I guess, or allowance to go and make what he wanted to make. And so between him and Kurt, they came up with this mash bill of ours, which is our flagship mash build. The 51% corn, 34% barley, and 15% rye. And we're going to try that one first, I think. It's one of my favorites. It's an 88 proof bourbon. So it is a lower proof when you're thinking about single barrels or cast strength. But what that does and one of the reasons that Greg chose that proof is that it allows a lot of the flavors to really just shine through. And it's also, as I said, it's our flagship bourbon. So this is the one that we wanted everybody to fall in love with. And then from there, um, we were able to kind of build on that flagship custom bash bill and create a bunch of different expressions, which we're going to, we're going to talk about and try.

Well, let's get into this whiskey, Jim. I'm ready. So just to be sure we're talking about the blended straight bourbon whiskey, and this is 88 proof. And this is your flagship bottle, right?

This is our flagship bottle, yes. So in 2013, we came up with a mash bill. What Kurt did was he asked Greg to put up about 18,000 barrels of this at the time. So a little unheard of in the craft distilling. you typically are working with your white dog or vodka or gin to keep those cogs running, keep some money coming in. But because of Kurt's entrepreneurship and the businesses that he has run, he knew that he wanted to have something that would be a lot further reaching. And so we really didn't get into market until 2016 is when we did our first release of our bourbon. And so we're now sitting on five-year and six-year bourbon. Some of that's starting to hit shelves. All of it's five-year, but there is some six-year being blended in as well, too. It's a little secret. Don't tell everybody. You can.

Just a hundred thousand of them.

It's got a very sweet nose and some very traditional notes there, you know, as you would expect. But they're very prominent, which is I think the vanilla is probably most prominent here with a little bit of caramel and some maple, right? Like some maple syrup.

I always get that vanilla first.

I get a little bit of floral in this. Uh, and maybe it's that, maybe it's that maple or that I'm thinking honey honeysuckle, maybe a little bit of honey tea too. It's getting in the fall weather. So time for some tea with some honey and maybe a little bit of bourbon in there. Yeah.

I can definitely tell that this has got a pretty good compliment of a barley in it. I almost want to say it's got a little, like a little bit of a, like that honey peach or honey pear kind of note to it.

Like a little, almost like stone fruit, but not apple or sour apple. It's more, like you said, sweeter.

Well, let's taste this thing. Yeah, let's taste it. Cheers.

Well, you know what I think about it.

Well, I get that. I still get that honey coming across my palate. Um, you know, almost, I still get that tea with it. Honey tea. Um, that's nice. Maybe with a little bit of citrus on that to me.

This is probably one of the creamiest 88 proof bourbons I've had.

Well, that's from a barley.

Is it? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that's from the barley. And I think that tea quality that you're getting is, that's the wood coming through. That's, you know, those are those wood notes, those oak notes that you're tasting.

A nice spice on that. Like a juniper, Jim. And that creaminess you're talking about, that viscosity on this, you're right. I don't think I've had another 88 proof bourbon that is this oily.

If you think about what the barley does, if you're a Scotch drinker, a lot of those same qualities are gonna come through, which is that, we call it smoothness, but smoothness is a funny term to use for flavor. It does talk about how it feels in your mouth, but there is that kind of like soft honey and then sweetness that comes through. And that's the barley talking to you.

Yeah. And I think, I think smoothness is okay. I think it's just another way of saying no sharp edges, right? Sure.

I think people that like to say that, that you can't say smooth, take themselves too seriously. They think they're experts and some of them probably not. They're like us. We're just two bourbon bullshitters that love some whiskey. They don't take ourselves serious. So we say smooth all the time.

Yeah. I mean, I don't want to drink anything that's not smooth.

We say juice. I mean, who doesn't say that?

Yep. No, this is some tasty juice.

Yeah, I would say, I would say that this is a very easy drinking whiskey. This is probably ideal for, uh, for your flagship, you know, bottle, something I would expect, uh, to be getting broke out at the bar year round, not any particular season. This, this would be good. And this would be good the dead of summer too. I think Mike, it's not too heavy. It's kind of, kind of a little bit refreshing. You said with that little bit of that juniper in the background kind of lightens it up. Yeah.

Now, Mel, you cut your teeth in bartending and mixology, right? You're known for that. What would you make with this? What kind of cocktail would you make with this?

Oh, an old fashioned, a Manhattan, a whiskey sour. Yeah. The tried and true classics. This is really. A great bourbon for that, you know, I know that some people will say, well, your bourbon, your old fashioned should be made with fry, but this does this with a little bit of honey as an old fashioned and Angostura bitters and a little bit of orange zest is just beautiful. And if you're somebody who likes to add a little extra fruit, like cherry or anything like that, I'm not going to tell you, you can't do that. It's not how I drink my old fashioned, but I do think that this, this, our whiskey works equally as well in that. And the sweetness and those like fruit flavors that we're talking about come out really nicely.

Do you like a cocktail in its basic elements, not a flowered up at all, just kind of very basic and.

No, I mean, I think that maybe. I am a snob when it comes to cocktails, more than I am a snob of a lot of things. I just don't. I don't want a cocktail for the sake of having a cocktail. And somebody just like puts a bunch of stuff in there and calls it a cocktail. You know, I'm still looking for balance. I'm still looking for flavor. I'm still looking for inspiration. And I think like inspiration in the sense of like, what inspired them? Can you tell that they felt creative when they made the drink? Are they excited about it? Are they telling the story? And I think that's one of the cool things about Old Elk is it all of our expressions, no matter whether it's the wheat or the wheat a bourbon or the rye or one of our single barrels or the flagship. You taste that inspiration and it shows and it's been consistent, which I think is really hard to do in a small small distillery like ours. You know, doing it at the scale that we're doing it at, we're moving at a fast speed to make sure that we can keep up with demand while still being like innovative about it and still staying true to what inspired Old Elk originally. So yeah, sorry, put me on a tangent there. Don't make me a Fufu cocktail if it's not any of those things.

Well, a lot of us, you know, try our hand at making cocktails at home and we just do our best. Sometimes it's better to just follow the directions. I try to follow the directions when I'm making an old fashioned and the directions I have say bitters, a little bit of orange peel and some sugar and bourbon. I mean, that's it. There's nothing else. Yeah.

Perfect. That's all I need. And if you're mixing with a good bourbon or a good whiskey, that's what's supposed to be showcased anyways. So yeah, when it comes to whiskey, I don't want a whole lot of. stuff around it, unless I'm trying to tell a story, you know, getting creative with it. It's for the purpose of being on a cocktail menu somewhere or to showcase the base spirit, you know, our bourbon. But again, just like throwing a bunch of stuff at it doesn't always work. So that's why I tend to steer towards the more classic stuff when I go out, just because I want to, I want to taste what's in there.

Now, Mel, you said you cut your roots in Boston. Now, Boston to Fort Collins, how does that happen?

Well, so yeah, I was in Boston for seven years. Previous to that, I was in Maine, actually a Florida baby. So kind of have family spread out all over and really started in culinary. I was in the hospitality industries starting at 14 years old. I've been in the business for over 20 years at this point. And really just learned a lot about flavor techniques and applied that to cocktails and kind of the booze world. While I was living in Boston, I was lucky to work at some really great places with some great mentors and be involved in a lot of diverse bigger projects there and work with different brands. And Old Elk approached me. Back in 2018, kind of had an inkling that they might be interested in us moving out there. So took a trip out here, spent 24 hours in Fort Collins and said, yeah, I can live here. And three months later, made that change, moved out here. And then found myself quickly wearing many hats within the company, but I love it. I really get to do all the things that I've learned through the years. I get to apply. my palate, I guess, to a lot of what we do. And the production distillery manager role is something that's been new in the last few months. So now I get to work even more closely with Greg Metz, our master distiller and doing our blending and cutting and managing of the story here.

How's that getting to work with like a I'd say industry legend. Sure.

I feel really lucky. I mean, every day, every day it's, you know, you have this moment where you're like, wait a minute, I'm working with who? That's my boss. That's my mentor. But he's, he's extremely humble. Everybody who works for Old Elk is, is humble. It's not really, you know, we've got a lot of young people who are very talented. And Greg is, he likes to call himself the old goat. And, you know, he leads by example. And he also, he's a good teacher. He kind of lets you find your own footing, but still gives good direction. And obviously, at the end of the day, understanding and knowing like, what he has applied to the world of spirits is just, you can't get that in a textbook.

It's really great hearing about somebody's journey. It's always nice to hear how they found their way to where they are today and the choices that they made in their life that drove them in that direction. I always love hearing those stories. I do want to go back to the whiskey for just a minute and just say that, Mike, if you revisit that nose real quick, see what you think about the way that it's developed. I mean, it's very much sort of a caramel

butterscotch maple bomb on the nose once you've had a few sips of it it's well that's going to be hard to do jim because i uh i don't drink all that and i already filled my glass up with the straight wheat whiskey all right then i'll say a final final few words about it uh the finish on this mic is um

I won't call it lengthy, but I'll say it's definitely longer than I expected. I think it's a medium to long finish on it. It kind of hangs with you. It's got a good flavor to it. It's very pleasing. Not much hug. Just all the way around, just a good sipping whiskey. Not a big bar to cross to drink this whiskey. If you're new to whiskey, I think this would be an easy one for you to pick up.

Yeah, I'm there with you on that. Obviously, I had a couple bottles at the house already. I only have about a quarter of that bottle left. So I obviously like it. It's actually on my shelf is something I want to introduce people to saying, hey, here are some whiskeys from other states. that you should be trying and old elk's one of those. I actually was saying that on the, uh, at the barstown or Kentucky bourbon festival on the main stage. They said, Hey, what's some stuff you would like to taste out there? And old duck was one of those distillers. I said, Hey, if you're not tasting this, you're missing out. So a great, um, I guess would be for this would be a great whiskey right here.

Mike, that's great to hear. Thanks for the shout out, especially in a, You know, Kentucky, there's a, you can almost get pitchforked for some of that.

And Mel, what would be the price point of this bottle? I know it varies across the country, but what's the.

Yep. Um, the average price is 54.99. Okay. On shelf. Yep. So, you know, not inexpensive, but not out of, out of the question or out of the range for a lot of people. And like you said, this is a great everyday sipper. The 88 proof means that you can have a glass or two in the evening and not wake up the next day feeling like you've had a little too much.

All right, so we've just finished up with the 88 proof blended bourbon whiskey. Mel, what do we have next?

We're going to drink our wheat whiskey. So this is a 95% wheat, 5% barley, 100 proof. Um, there aren't a lot of these out there. This is one of my, my favorites, cause it's just a very unique style of whiskey and there aren't a lot of bottles sitting on the shelves with this, the same Nashville.

Okay. Well let's check it out. I will say the color's a little bit lighter on this one, I think, or maybe about the same as the blended, but yeah, I'm getting that too. Yeah. But the proof's up there a little bit, so. I'm getting a little more spice on the nose on this one. Not as sweet as what we just had. I think I'm going to get surprised by the palette though.

I'm getting that same spice and maybe that's just the bite of the alcohol at a hundred proof. Um, I, I do get a little bit of sweetness on that. Not a whole lot of floral, which I would have expected getting more like date and stuff off this. Maybe some figs.

Do a little experiment with you guys with our wheat whiskey, if it's okay. So this one I find, um, So that 60% of the time that I get that pineapple, it's not until I take my second sip and kind of breathe out through my mouth and do that whole sensory experience that I get that pineapple coming through. So if you guys want to try it with me.

Let's do it. Cheers. Cheers.

I can get that. What's that cake that you have that has like the little slices of pineapple on top of it? Pineapple upside down cake. Got the cherries in the middle of the pineapples? Yeah. That's what it made me think of. Yeah.

Nice. Yeah, it's a fun. I love doing this with people at our tasting room, taking them through it and seeing if they get it. And it wasn't until I joined the production team that I realized why that pineapple is not always there. I used to think it was just my palate. But then I realized that because of the small batch blending that we're doing, there is going to be a minor variation between all of them. And I think that the pineapple is one of those nodes that just doesn't always come through. But what that tells me is it's probably the barreling that is where we're getting that flavor from.

That thing's got a little bit of a, some spice on it, Jim, on the back of the palate. It's biting hold and stuff. It's almost like Kentucky Wildcats trying to get out of that whiskey.

It does have just a little bit of sizzle to it. Yeah. But I think for me, I think the cherry is a little bit more prominent than the pineapple, but I do get the pineapple and that's kind of neat that I got that picture in my head of that, that pineapple upside down cake, but.

I think once you said pineapple, I already had it in my mind that I was going to taste pineapple and then I sipped on it. And sure enough, there's that pineapple. Then Jim has to say pineapple upside down cake. And I'm getting off that creaminess. If you just put a little bit of spice in there, maybe a little bit of pepper jelly or something. That's got it right there.

Yeah. Well, we'll kick at the end almost.

Did you say dates just a little while ago? I did. Yeah, I'm getting that too. What are those light colored dates that you put out on your table sometimes? Oh, I'm not sure.

I do have white colored dates, but I have a white figs that I put out. That's probably what it is. That's probably what it is. Yeah. I like to put out a nice charcuterie board, which covers our entire kitchen island. Whenever we have guests over.

That sounds amazing. I love the description of white fig too.

It's awesome. Yeah. What a beautiful expression here. Uh, still some floral notes on their light floral, like the dandy line or something like that. Um, but that spice is super beautiful, a little bit more peppery than I thought it was going to be. Um, like you said, that pineapple upside down cake, uh, sweetness is coming through. I like it. That hundred proof drinks more like about 105 to 110 though.

Typically, yes, I think the wheat does taste out at a feeling like it's a little higher proof. But I think that that's probably just because it's such a dense kind of compact ball of flavor. And so you feel that burn a little bit more.

Yeah. You don't see a lot of 95% wheat, 5% malted barley out there in the, in the weeded whiskeys. And actually you don't see a whole lot of, uh, weeded whiskies out there. There's just a couple of distilleries that are producing them. And I like to see that you guys are producing this. It is on the shelf here in Kentucky. Um, thought it was relatively easy to find. So I was glad, uh, glad to get a bottle.

Now this is different than the other wheat whiskeys that I've had recently. Mike, you've got a couple over on your bar and we've had them out. You've put them out a couple of times recently when we were over and this is different. I mean, this is a little bit different. This one's not as sweet and not as, um, cherry. It's got some cherry, but not as cherry as some of the ones I've had. So when you guys said you do stuff a little bit differently, I have to agree.

Well, you might be tasting a proprietary slow cut method there. You know, what that does is we basically proof our whiskeys down over a much longer period, about four to five times longer than the average normal span. And the reason for that is that we're trying to preserve as much of the flavor of the whiskey versus burning it off as we proof it down. And that does it. That's why you're getting a little more of that flavor bomb of the cherry and the oak and the spice.

So, during the proofing process, is it fair to say that most distilleries are careful with that process, but you take it even further because of the heat generation during the addition of the water to the alcohol, right?

Yep. Yep. So it's a exothermic reaction. So, you know, big fancy word for basically talking about spoiling off flavor. We're not adding, you know, hot water to the to the spirit. But when you do that, it creates it raises the temperature of it. So you're cooking, cooking your whiskey. You don't really want to do that. You've already cooked it before you put it into the barrel. I think it's, you know, totally fair to say like, that's definitely a process that a lot of different distilleries I'm sure are very careful with but we're extra cautious and that is something that, you know, Greg had a big hand in making sure that this is the process that we use for the very reason of let's make something that's innovative and unique and tasty and do something that sets us apart.

So it's not so much the overall temperature of the liquid, but even at a molecular level, right? I mean, when it's happening, those localized temperatures get very high internally without, and that's what you have to worry about. What happens at the very small level within your liquid, right?

And we're, you know, we're producing this on a small batch level. So any kind of, any kind of change like that can really affect the flavor. Um, It's pretty cool. You can actually see this process. If you have a high proof whiskey at home, you can add some cold water to it and you'll actually see your glass steam up a little bit and you can feel the temperature change.

And what kind of cocktail would you make with this right here?

With our wheat whiskey?

Yep.

Um, I think probably a Manhattan, I think of something with a vermouth and like a nice little bitter, maybe like a clove or spice element to it would be really nice with the, with the wheat whiskey. And that's such a simple recipe, you know, two parts, two parts of the wheat whiskey and one part vermouth and you've got a delicious cocktail.

Yeah, it's pretty, pretty easy that, but it's also, I've seen people mess them up before. You're like, Oh, it's too sweet or too much alcohol in it.

Like they might've had their vermouth on the counter for three years. Yeah.

Some people just need to stick to their recipes sometimes. Jim, we're coming up on the end of the first half. What do you got to say about this wheat, this wheat whiskey?

I like it. I like it because it's new to me. I haven't had anything like it before. It's not as sweet. And you know what I like, Mike. I like those spicier, less sweet whiskies. And for me, this one kind of fits a little bit closer into that range. So as far as wheat whiskies go, this is kind of in my lane. I like that little bit of pineapple cherry. We got this nice mouthfeel to it, this nice texture. It's a good sipping whiskey, but I think it'll make a great Manhattan. I'd look forward to trying it sometime.

I hope I can make you one.

Yeah.

I don't know, Jim likes to go out to, uh, to Colorado and go fly fishing in the mountains. Um, so you never can tell, don't tell him you'd like to make it because you show up at your house and next thing you know, drinking all your whiskey, it's your house.

My house is all about the story. So, Hey, come on over.

They work your heart. They work your heart there. You sleep at the story.

Uh, I won't show you. No, there's no con, but when you love something, it doesn't feel like work. You know?

That's most certainly true. Well, listeners, stay with us. We'll be right back. All right listeners, we are back and we are with Mel from Old Elk Distillery. She is a mixologist. Genius is what we've got told. But we just finished up drinking Old Elk straight wheat whiskey. It's 95% wheat, 5% malted barley. This thing is like an upside down pineapple cake. It has Creamy vanilla, allspice, that pineapple we're talking about. Hints of figs, some little bit of leather in there, a little bit of oak. This is a great sipping whiskey, Mel. But you also said that you could make a good Manhattan out of it too.

I think I'd make it very good Manhattan.

Yeah, I like it. So what's the price point on that weeded whiskey?

Our weed whiskey retails for around $64.99.

not a bad price for a hundred proofer from a craft distillery. We'd love to see something like that.

Thank you.

All right. So what is, what's next on our list today? I'm kind of excited. I'm real excited about this next one actually.

Jimmy said you tend to like spicy or sweeter.

I do. I've been waiting for this. Uh, so we, we, uh, we just cracked the bottle on this. So either one of us have tried this yet, right? Mike, you haven't snuck one behind me. Have you? I haven't, I haven't tried it.

Perfect. Well, I think you're going to love it. It's each of our rise that we released has been just phenomenal in my opinion. You get a ton. Well, I'm not going to tell you what you're going to taste. We're going to taste it together. You can tell me.

Well, first, tell us about the mash bill and the proof.

So this is a 95% rye, 5% barley, 100 proof. Typically we're doing a small, small blend with these. So anywhere from 20 to 30 barrels will get blended for each batch that we release. We don't do this one quite as often. It's just a little, so I tend to think it's a little harder to find, but I don't know how easy it was for you guys to find it. I think it is very much a testament to Greg Metz's, you know, his lineage in whiskey. He's done pretty much all of the 95.5 rise out there. And it's definitely the best one on the shelf in my opinion.

Well, this was pretty easy for us to find like probably two or three miles down the road from Jim's house is where I found it out. So very easy to find for us.

Yeah.

And I knew Jim would love this. I almost left this bottle over at his house because I know he loves Rye's so much, but he's always over here at my house anyway. So it's nice to have a good friend to share your whiskey with. So listeners, I would say that if you do have a bottle of whiskey that you don't like so much, don't pour it down the drain. Go ahead and just share it with your friends. They might love it.

That's good advice.

So this is aged five years now.

This is aged five years coming up on six now.

Well, awesome. Let's check it out. I've seen if I could get Jim from delayed from, from drinking the bourbon as much as I possibly could or drinking this rye whiskey as much as possible. Every time he's about to nose or drink it, I've been interrupting.

Yeah. I started tapping my foot. Like I was starting to get itchy, a little bit itchy.

Just drawing out the, drawing out the experience.

You get those Georgia peaches in this. I'm not getting the peaches, but I'm, I'm definitely getting a 95 five, right? This is very traditional. This is exactly what I would expect. This is, uh, it's well-crafted. It doesn't have a lot of, um, I don't know. I don't want to say green spice. It doesn't have a lot of like, uh, conifer, cedar, juniper. It's got a little bit, but not a lot.

I'm getting peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream double dollar. Since you were talking about baking before, Jim, I might as well go there, right? Some of grandma's peach cobbler with some ice cream on top would be perfect for this.

That sounds so good.

I'm getting like cinnamon bears, you know, those little, those little red cinnamon bears.

Like around Christmas time, the little candies.

Little gummy cinnamon bears. Yeah.

Mel, can you tell that Jim has some grandkids?

This has got some candy notes to it though. Yeah, I'm ready to taste it. Cheers. Cheers.

Cheers guys.

Oh my gosh. That's wonderful. That has got that candy sweetness, that syrup sweetness. It's like a liquid cinnamon bear to me.

That's exciting.

You're spot on, spot on on that candy, Jim. I think the cinnamon bears, that creaminess, you know how you'll beat one of those little gummy bears and it just turns into velvet in your mouth and stuff, especially that cinnamon part. This has all that, that allspice is coming forward. I love it. Now I noticed that your guys' notes on your website said that this is slightly drying, but I don't get any of that at all in this.

Well, I will say every batch is a little, you know, it's going to have some differences. What I'm tasting right now is a little more floral. Um, and I, I am getting a little bit of that kind of drying pulls out the long finish, but that those spices, those candy flavors, those are still in there.

Yeah. I'm getting like a, a buttery right toast, like a, almost like a, But yeah, like a right toast or a rye muffin, but very buttery, very rich.

I'm going to say a rye muffin that you don't have to eat, but that you want to eat.

I'm actually getting a little bit of fruit roll up on this. If they made a cinnamon fruit roll up, this might be it right here. So much sweetness on this. I'm very shocked at the sweetness on this. Not as much spices. I thought it would be a nice light cinnamon to it. Sugary. Those peaches are still coming through.

Yeah, as you continue to sip on it, so the very first sip really kind of overwhelms you with that sweetness and that candied goodness. And then as you continue to sip on it, it kind of, that mellows out a little bit and it's not so overpowering on the front end. It starts to be more of a balanced and it starts to present itself a little bit more on the back of the palate. This one's given me a little bit more of a hug that I've gotten on anything else, but it's a good hug. I like it. I like hugs.

I can hear that hug in your voice.

Just the smallest amount of that piney note, just a little bit in the background, but a lot less than I've experienced before on some 95.5s, but everybody takes it a different direction with their aging and their process. This was taken in a correct direction as far as I'm concerned. This is a very good rye.

So Mel, what kind of cocktail would you mix up for this right here?

Well, you kind of nailed it on the head with the peach cobbler description. So I would make a peach cobbler julep or a smash and muddle up some fresh peaches, maybe add a little honey and some sherry. and mix that all together, give it a little shake so it's nice and cold, get a little abrasiveness from the coldness. And then that would kind of bring out the rye flavors that we're getting here and give you a big old mouthful of fruit and spice.

So you went through that kind of quick and I was trying to follow, but can we do a step-by-step on that cocktail? That'd be great. I'd love to hear it.

Well, if we were making one right now, we would get a really ripe peach almost towards the end of being overripe. And then we would cut that up, throw those chunks minus the seed into the bottom of a cup. And I'd go with a pretty big cup because we're going to add a lot of ice and give it kind of a long, heavy, hard shake. So you want to make sure that you have room for all the ingredients. So I'd muddle those. You can use a spoon or a muddler. And then I would add probably about I don't know, maybe like a half an ounce of honey syrup. So honey syrup, I make that with one part honey and one part hot water so that it mixes up or maple syrup. would be really nice too. And then add some fresh mint in there. Add maybe like an ounce of sherry. And then I would do probably about 2 ounces of the rye. So it'd be pretty boozy. But you kind of want that when you have a cobbler or a julep. And then I would add my ice and give that a really, again, like a vigorous shake just so it's like super frothy and cold. And there you go. And you could do this without the sherry, but I think that would be a nice balance to the proof on the rye.

And you would strain that out over a glass of fresh ice.

Uh, if I was serving it in a bar, yeah. If this was you and I's backyard and it's a nice warm fall day or, you know, then I would probably just leave it all in there. Cause with this, the rye, as you kind of talked about, the flavors are so intense that I think leaving the peach in there is going to kind of marinate and the mint's not gonna get too bitter or, uh, you know, adding those kind of like green experimenting notes to it because the Rye is just going to be the showcase in this one.

Now, can our listeners find those recipes like the one you just mentioned? Could they find those on your website?

No, that one's special for you guys.

Well, you're going to have to write that down and send it to us so we can put it in our article. I can do that.

Definitely. But yes, we do have lots of recipes on our old oak.com website and our social media. We typically feature recipe, you know, recipe features, I'd say a couple of times a month.

I think that's awesome that you guys are offering all those recipes and that they did hire a mixologist at their distillery to offer that to people. I think more people drink whiskey and cocktails than they do just straight up like we're doing. We're just the one percenters that whiskey nerds out there that are drinking whiskey like this, right? But if somebody went to the Kentucky bourbon festival this past week, they would have saw that Almost everybody had a cocktail in their hands. It was like 95 degrees out there. It's hot, sweaty, and nothing's better than that cold cocktail to drink. I didn't see a whole bunch of people sipping on glasses of whiskey out there. Sure.

Well, I mean, that's just it, right? you can there are some of us who can drink quite a bit of whiskey on a hot summer day and be okay and still stand but you know making it into a cocktail form makes it more approachable for people it's more refreshing you can have three or four cocktails spaced out through the day versus you know eight or twelve ounces of whiskey just straight you're going to drink that a lot quicker um and i think also that in general although you know they recognize that Cocktails are very much an important part of what consumers and people are doing. There's a ton of people like you mentioned at home who are at home bartenders. And getting into cocktails, just make sure you're drinking more enjoyable. It's just like what we're doing. Talking about the recipe, talking about maybe the history of a recipe, or creating together like that. that brings a certain kind of fun to the drinking. And it becomes more than just, oh, I'm just drinking right now. I'm talking about what's in it. I've added elements to it to make it delicious. And also, I mean, this past year in the pandemic, I think a lot of people were trying their hand at at-home bartending. So we want to make sure those recipes are out there and people are using our spirits to the best of their ability and bringing out the best in ours.

I know that's for sure. Cause Jim in that room he's in right now, um, I would go over there around four o'clock, four 30 every day. Cause Jim works at home and he's in that room hanging out. And I was like, what's, what's going on in here? He's like, it's cocktail hour.

He's smiling away. We definitely do happy hour here a couple of days a week. It's awful nice. But it's great to have a cocktail that you have discovered, whether it be going to a bar or somebody else has introduced it to you or you've run across the recipe in a magazine you write, to have that cocktail and have some people come over and be able to introduce them to something and make it there at the house and have it turn out good. And everybody's like, wow, that's really good. And you're like, yeah. I mean, I really liked that a lot. I have, I have a lot of fun. So I guess I love to cook. I've always loved to cook. I've got that kind of bug and, and for me, the cocktails kind of fit into that a little bit. And, uh, it's a lot of fun. So. Listeners, if you like to make a cocktail, be looking for this week's blog. I think there'll be a good recipe in there for you.

Just a couple. So Mel, to finish this up, we are drinking the straight rye whiskey, 95% rye, 5% malted barley. Each five years, it's 100 proof. What do these cost on the shelf?

This one goes for around $89.99 on shelf. And I think that that's a great price for As you said earlier, the juice in the bottle.

Yeah. It's a craft whiskey, right? It took a lot of love. It's a beautiful bottle too. We didn't really talk about that. I liked this bottle. It fits on the shelf perfectly. It'll set a bar perfectly. You've got a little well at your bar, home bar. So it's in there perfectly. And you can actually buy a topper for these little oak topper. If you're into that kind of stuff, they're kind of famous out there. Thank you. Yeah. You guys have a, a little box kit with that, right?

We do. Yeah. So usually around the holidays, around this time of the year, you can start to find some extra box sets. Basically, it's our bourbon, our flagship bourbon with the 51% corn, 34% barley and 15% rye. So our standard bourbon and then it's included in that with a elk head pour. And this year, we have a new one that's going to be gold. So if you see those, they're going to be super coveted. I'm sure people are going to fight over them. Um, and yeah, you know, they almost kind of take on those like collectors.

Well, hopefully big chief will get one of those in the middle. Jim, Jim probably wants one too. I was going to show you this photo real fast. Uh, this is somebody that can't drink his whiskey very well. poor fellow. That was one of our listeners that had been looking for me all day long. Um, him and his buddy had came to the bourbon festival to meet me and lo and behold, he was passed out and his buddy got a photo with me and he said, my friend is just a big fan and he's going to be so upset that, uh, that he missed you. And I said, well, I'll take a photo with him.

That is hilarious. Yeah. He's still got his photo up with you.

Yeah, he got it. His wife was like, can you stick around? I was like, I got to go.

Like, I don't want to see him when he wakes up.

No.

All right guys. So we have one more to go.

We're going to do the weeded bourbon single barrel selection.

Weeder Mike, Weeder.

Yeah. Yeah. You know all about this bottle right here though, Jim, right? I do.

This is one that you guys have near you, right?

Yeah, down the road in Nashville, the Nashville bourbon social club. They picked a barrel of your weeded bourbon. It's a barrel 505. It came in at 116.2 proof. They have their own little label on it. It was called old elk van weeded. It's a five year. I think this was somewhere in 2019 before COVID. And they sent me this bottle. They gifted it to me. I was so great to have it. And I have, this is like one of my most coveted bottles right here of whiskey on my shelf. I love it.

Well, Mike, you mentioned a secondary label on the single barrel. And that's something that if you guys don't mind, I'd love to just touch on a little bit because it's, it makes each single barrel that we offer special. So, you know, you can, Basically, when you select your barrel, you're able to choose if you want to put a secondary label on there. So if you wanted to do the Bourbon Road bottle, you could get your own label and have that on there kind of thing. And it's why some people might say, wait a minute, this is different looking than the other bottles of Old Elk. Why is that? And it just makes it a little more special for people when they've selected their own stuff. Well, let's check it out.

Wow. That's a little bit of punch to that on the nose. Yeah. I'm, I'm getting a lot of, uh, a lot of caramel on that, Mike, an awful lot of caramel. Oak.

It's definitely a little, a little more a punch in the nose at first than the other ones we've tried.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Super beautiful, uh, floral notes on this. I'm getting, um, sugar smack them cereal. You name it. It is in this it's layer after layer. You can notice that every time and get something different off of this. And it's probably at that 116.2 proof. You're going to get that. It's got great legs on the glass. Um, you know, I've drinking, I've drank this so many times. I'm just hold onto this bottle. There's a little bit of this in my infinity bottle.

Oh, nice. Cheers guys.

Cheers.

Well, that's a lot different, huh?

Yeah.

That mouth feel.

Definitely. And there's a lot more depth to this. This has got a little bit more earthy of some earthy notes to it. But it's, it's got a lot of depth. There seems to be like a lot of flavors coming to the surface in here. Mike, you said sugar smack.

I mean, there's smack of cereal. It's got the frog on there.

Yeah, that's right. The frog. I was trying to remember.

Um, do you get any, any leather at all? Oh yeah. Hints of that on the finish.

Yeah, definitely. Oak and leather. This has a little bit, now you said this is a 2019, so this is about a five-year-old. Would that be about right? Okay, this would be about a five-year-old. It definitely drinks like it's a little bit older with that oak and that leather. A little dark too, a little bit darker than the others we've been drinking.

It's a layered with caramel to me, that leather is in there, but the oak is ever so present, probably because of the proof. A little bit of spice, no Kentucky hug on this at all. I don't get that burn to you, Jim.

I don't, but it would be a Colorado hug in this case.

Yes. Well, yeah, a Colorado hug. Might be a little more hippie than a... Like a rocky mountain falling up on top of your chest. I think this is a beautiful bottle. One of the things that I get to do now with Greg is taste through all of our single barrels. And I can tell you that this is an exceptional one.

Yeah, for me, this has got a little bit more earth to it, a little bit more, it's a little more grounded. I'm having a hard time picking out what it is, but it's definitely not any kind of a grassy note or anything like that. It's more like a, I don't know. Sometimes when I have an earthy note, it's hard for me to come up with what that is.

So Mel, the match bill on this would be a 51% corn, a 45% wheat and a 4% malted barley. Am I correct on that?

That is correct. Yes.

That's got to be one of the highest weeded bourbons in the nation.

I think that it probably is. If not, yes. Yeah, definitely. I mean, this is just one of the things that we do, that Old Up does. We're not going to cut corners. And we're going to stay true to our mission to provide something that's delicious, that's unique, and that is a testament to Greg Metz, our master distiller. I mean, I can't say it enough. He really has done so much to make sure that this is kind of his legacy.

Most certainly. Jim, I think that earthy tone you might be getting is toasted almonds.

Yeah, I mean it could be.

People, if you're listening to us right now and you can find one of these single barrels out there of their weeded bourbon, you need to go grab it like right now. Don't hesitate. Don't tell your wife you're buying it. Don't tell your husband you're buying it. Just keep it quiet. Don't show the bottle to your friends. Hide it from them. If you want to bring it over to my house, the Weedy King of Kentucky always loves to drink some Weedy Bourbon. So bring it on over, we'll sip on it together.

Good advice. I like the ether in the wives too, you know, women love whiskey.

I think that earthy note I'm getting actually, Mike, is a little bit more like tobacco. I think that's a little bit more about what I'm getting there. It's kind of a light tobacco.

Yeah, I could get that out of this proof. You know, I definitely, I can get that out of there. That tobacco, especially here in Kentucky, it's tobacco season. People are harvesting it right now. You can kind of smell it when they're drying it out and stuff. It's kind of a neat thing to see or be around. You'll see the tobacco staves and stuff. Now you were talking about wives and women drinking whiskey and stuff. And one of the neat groups out there right now are they're called bourbon virgins. It's a group of women. They're out there showing that whiskey is for women too. And they're drinking it straight up neat. They hang with anybody. I just wanted to give a shout out to those women. They're awesome. If you see them out there wearing their BV shirts, check them out.

I'm going to check them out. That's great.

Mike, any final notes on the single barrel? Good Lord, Jim, you know what I think on this thing.

I know what you think. Yeah. It's super creamy. Um, it's got that toffee, the vanilla, um, little bit of clove in there. That's that spice I'm getting there. I think, um, it's everything. Like I said, sugar smack them cereal. Um, you know, you put that sugar smack them there, you eat the cereal and then you drink the milk. Um, that sweetness is there. You could not go wrong with this. I love this bottle this much. Um, and I want to be sad when this bottle is gone. You can guarantee that I'm going to go find another bottle and drink on that.

Cheers to that.

Cheers. So Mel, tell us a little bit about what's going on now today. You know, uh, I assume you guys are, your operations probably opened up a little bit more than it has been over the last year. Uh, got some new things going on, maybe some new releases, some new products that might be coming out, new states you're in.

Uh, we are in all 50 states now. Yeah. So no excuses not to try us. Mike you mentioned an infinity bottle on your on your shelf. That's something that is around the corner for old elk so we are currently in the process of releasing a infinity blend and Greg basically chose a very small allotment of different barrels. Some are 12 years old, some are 11 years old. And then our base six-year-old elk bourbon is making an infinity blend with that. And we'll have that probably hitting markets, very limited release, I'd say in the next month or so.

I don't think I've seen anybody else out there do that. Can you think of anybody, Jim?

No, I haven't. This is the first.

Yay. I'm excited for it. It's kind of a pet project for us. And these barrels have been sort of sitting in the treasury of barrels that we have. And so the three of them coming together into this blend, I think people are going to be really, really excited. It's basically at Castproof. It's being released at 114.99%. And I think it's going to you know, for those out there who maybe have, uh, hold off on old elk or have only had the 88 proof and thought, man, I'm not really excited about anything else right now. I think this is going to make them turn around and have a sip.

I was going to say, so is this something that is distillery only? Is this something that is a limited release to all 50 States? Is this something you can mail order?

Not at this time. Uh, we do, we do have a new relationship with, um, Thirsty, I believe it is. And so you can order some of our products through them. At this time, I don't think that we'll be doing infinity. It's kind of a lot of the release. So I don't think that we'll have enough to do it online. But you never know. I could be wrong. We will have some available at our Taster in Fort Collins. And I think that you'll find sort of those places where you can find a single barrel, they're going to be the ones who are pulling this in to sell.

Now, Mel, do you also have a bar there called The Reserve, right? Do you ever go in there and mix up some cocktails?

Yes, that is the other half of my role with Old Elk. So I do all of the cocktail creation for us in our tasting room, manage our staff there in our program. And honestly, it's great to be able to see the product in its beginning and then see it in a finished way in a cocktail in somebody's hands. And the tasting room is so cool because you get to come face to face with fans and people who love us and are trying it for the first time or maybe the 100th time. But it's a great little spot.

Awesome.

So there's one more experimental project that we've been working on. We did a cask release recently of a cognac finished bourbon, a sherry finished bourbon, our tawny port, and then a armagnac. And those are even more of a micro scale. So we started with anywheres from 14 to 20 barrels that had been previously cognac barrels or arm neck barrels or sherry or port. And then we took our flagship, our 51% corn, 34% barley and 15% rye blend. and put that in there. And then we let that sit for 6 months. And I will say that it's a lot of fun to taste what happens with that mash bill when you add those sort of like oak finished specialty products. So if you guys haven't tried it, hopefully you'll get a chance to try that as well.

Well, Mel, we can't thank you enough for coming on with us today and letting us try all your products and stuff. I would like to point out again, if you haven't tried Old Elk, especially the one that you're going to be able to find on the shelves out there is their blended straight bourbon whiskey. It's actually a high malt. It's going to be a little bit different. And maybe that's why you said it gives it that creaminess to it. It's 51% corn, 34% malted barley, and on a 15% rye. So check that out. Don't skip over those bottles and stuff. You heard it here first today that that is a great bourbon to pick up off the shelf if you're looking for something different. Where can our listeners find Old Elk on social media?

Sure. We are Old Elk Bourbon on Instagram, Facebook. We are also Old Elk Bourbon. And then of course, online, you can find us at www.oldelkbourbon.com. If you're also interested in cocktail recipes, we do, like I said, we do those a few times a month on the Old Elk Bourbon channels, but on our reserve tasting room, which is the reserve by Old Elk, we have lots of cocktail features on there.

And on your website, do you have a place where people can enter their email address and get, uh, you know, updates and newsletters and that sort of thing?

Only if you want to, but I, you know, it's where you're going to find out about the infinity, about the cast release. Um, you know, it's where you're going to find out if Greg's going to be in town or visiting somewhere as close to you. So definitely urge, uh, signing up for it. And I think you'll be interested in that news.

All right. Well, we, we thank you so much for being on the show today. We thank you for sharing your whiskies with us. We've had a wonderful time and we've got to taste a four very impressive expressions from you guys. And, uh, we'd love to do this again when we get a chance. And if I'm ever, or Mike's ever in Fort Collins, we'd love to stop in and pay you a visit and, uh, get a personal tour. It'd be kind of fun.

Well, we would love that and you know where to find me. And yeah, hopefully you'll get to hear from us again. We'd love to do this with you again.

Right. Thank you. Well, Mike, where can people find us?

You know, you can find us on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. We also have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. 2,300 people strong. Maybe Mel will join us in there and be one of our roadies. She can put some great recipes out there, great cocktails, but there are master distillers in there, distillery owners, just whiskey drinkers. We got three rules to follow though. They actually got a couple more rules too. You gotta be 21 to enter. You gotta love bourbon. Hell, who doesn't like bourbon, Jim? And then we don't tolerate any rudeness in there. You gotta be nice to each other. We also have that old bar rule that your grandpa told you. We don't talk about politics or religion while we're drinking that dang whiskey. So come on in there, join us. We don't beat each other up there. You drink whiskey. Whether it's from the bottom shelf to the top shelf, whether it's old elk or your infinity bottle, we want you to show it off in there. So come on in there. Join us. We put a lot of news in there about the whiskey world, so we'd hope you'd join today.

And we do two shows a week. Every Monday we'll do a craft distillery episode where we'll kind of take a spotlight and put it on a craft distillery doing something new, something out of the box. We'll take a look at one of their expressions and we'll highlight it. Then every Wednesday we'll do a longer episode like today's. where we dive in a little bit deeper and we taste a few expressions. We have a guest on like Mel and we give you kind of the inside look and what's going on at Old Elk or whoever we have on the show. We'd love to have you listen to both episodes every week. Remember, it's Mondays and Wednesdays, but Mike, how do they know when a show's coming out?

So you got to scroll on up to the top of your app there. You'll either hit a check mark, a plus sign, or subscribe. That app will tell you, hey, these two jokers got an episode coming out today. That'll get you to work and back from work. That 30 minute commute that you dread will make it joyful for you. We'll be talking about whiskey by the time you get home. You're going to want to grab a glass of whiskey and join in. The other thing we need you to do, so we get great guests on like mail here, is you want to scroll on down. You want to hit that five star review because you know what will happen. The big bad booty daddy of bourbon will come to your house. I'll bring all four bottles of this old elk whiskey with me. We're going to have one hell of a night, but by that next morning, you're going to give us that five star review. I guarantee you.

All right. Like we said, we do two shows a week. We'd love to have you listen to both. We always want to hear what you have to say. If you've got a small distillery in your hometown, you've got somebody trying to step up and be found. Let us know about them. We'd love to have them on the show. Well, Mike, I'd say we're very approachable. You can reach us by email. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. But probably the best way is to hit us up on our DM on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm One Big Chief, and we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.