203. Walker's Cay Straight Bourbon Review

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, it's another Craft Distillery Monday. Yeah. And today, surprise, surprise, no big boy. No, no big boy. We're going to try not to have any big boys for a little bit. That's kind of hard to accomplish during the month of September. But I think we're going to succeed. I think our next couple of Monday episodes will be on a little more crafty.

I've got some stashed away that I need to pull out and we need to go ahead and do some reviews on, but I also have some big boy stuff that I'd like to review and give our thoughts on it because it's always nice for people to look on a shelf and say, man, should I buy that or not? You know, if they don't have a review to go from, if nobody's reviewed it, then how do you buy it? Do you just take that chance, especially on some big dollar bottles?

Yeah, it's nice when you're out there exploring whiskey if you can, before grabbing the bottle off the shelf. Sometimes the label will just get you and you got to have it. Sure. But it's always nice to be able to pop on and check out and see what some people you trust have said about it. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes they'll drive you away from it. Sometimes they'll just confirm that that's the right one to grab.

Well, we've got some people that trust us, right? Yeah. It's a proven fact now that we know people posting photos. Hey, I went and got this on your recommendation and you were 100% spot on. thoroughly enjoying this. I think the other day we told somebody to go back and get a bottle of Old Elk they passed on. They went back and said it was amazing. So good on them. But today we got Walker's K. It is a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. So what do we know about that age? There's no age statement on it.

Well, if there's no age statement and it's a straight, then it has to be at least two years old. But because there's no age statement, it has to be at least four, or they're kind of skirting the rules a little bit. So it should be four years old, according to the label, with no age statement.

We're hoping that it is four years old. This is not a proof. This is finished with sherry cast staves. I would imagine they're doing something like maker's mark is doing is my kind of thought process.

So adding staves to the barrel. Sure.

Either that or they poured a tank and add the staves. I don't know which way they do it. Sure. The smash bill on here is 70% Kentucky corn. They had to say Kentucky corn on there. Kentucky corn is good corn. Yeah. 21% winter rye and 9% malted barley.

Okay.

I like that they're telling you where the corn came from, what type of rye, because most people just think rye or just wheat. There are several different types of wheat and rye. Sure. There's different types of corn too.

And they all carry their own flavor profile. So they all play a little bit of a difference. So it's good to have that on the bottle label.

Yeah, I like that. They're telling you a lot. Now, this is aged in Missouri oak barrels. You know, everything about this bottle, even the label, it looks like the fathom lines on a nautical chart. Yeah. For me and you, that's pretty important. It's kind of a really a clean label. Not a lot.

It's not real busy. It's very simple. Was that a billfish on there, right? Is that a big marlin on there? Yep. Yep. And yeah, kind of simple. Getting the point across that this is a fisherman's whiskey, right? Yeah.

It says, like its name, say, the Bohemian Island, Walker's Cay represents a touchstone of the fisherman's lifestyle. Sophisticated yet humble, our passion for saltwater fishing inspired us to capture the essence of the island lifestyle in every bottle. Pretty cool. Yeah, that is me. You were sitting here talking beforehand and what comes to mind when we think of Walker's K in the fisherman's lifestyle. I said Ernest Hemingway, Old Man in the Sea. you know, him smoking a cigarette, maybe probably drinking scotch, not bourbon, but I think a whiskey, right? I think a sophistication gentleman, they've just been out fishing all day, come back, smoke a cigar, probably a Cuban cigar, and drink a little whiskey.

Yeah, absolutely. It means a little something to me because I'm a fly fisherman and Walker's Cay is a phenomenal place. I used to watch a show. Actually, I still do from time to time, a show called Walker's Cay Chronicles. It's a fly fishing show and the host is Flip Palat. He's kind of a legendary fly fisherman. When I heard about Walker's Cay, the bottle, the first thing that came to my mind was Walker's Cay Chronicles television show. Pretty cool.

Now, we do know where this is distilled at. It's distilled down at Owensboro, Kentucky, which is Green River Distillery. That's nice. They put that on there. They didn't say it was at the Green River Stillery. They say produced and bottled by King Spirit LLC, Owensboro, Kentucky, which we know the only distillery there is. Yeah. Green River. Yeah. So a lot of truth on this bottle right here. And a lot of great stuff coming out of Green River. Yeah. Most certainly our good friend Seth over at Broken Barrel, he gets his juice out of there. ages it down there, puts his broken barrel together. It's nice to see good bourbon that's coming out and good whiskeys coming out of there and stuff. $35 for this bottle?

In general, I would say that's the nice price range to be in, right? Yeah. Well, we've told everybody about it.

The one more thing I'd like to say about Walker's Cay, about King Spirits, is in every small batch like this right here, money does go back to the islands for those communities down there. Some of which are pretty poor. Yeah. Most people probably don't think that. They probably think they're very wealthy, but most Caribbean islands, the people that live on there, the locals or natives are Like you said, pretty poor. Yeah. Well, let's, let's go ahead and nose this thing after I went Debbie Downer on us.

Cheers, Mike. Cheers. I can say cheers after that.

A little bit of youthfulness in that.

There's some corn sweetness on it. A little bit of youthfulness. I get a little bit of banana oil. A little menthol. The alcohol is, this is 90 proof, right? 90, am I correct? Yep. Okay, 90 proof, I guess. It's not very high, but I am getting a little bit of ethanol off of it. It's a little bright. It's not an offensive dose. It's kind of nice actually.

I'm thinking that really fresh banana, banana oil. little bit of oak on there and I don't know if that's that sherry casks that I'm getting and I'll pick it up.

It does have that underlying sweetness that's coming from somewhere and you said it was sherry and what was the other? That's it. It's not finished. It's aged in Missouri oak barrels. But it has the sherry staves. Staves, yeah. Okay.

Little fruitiness on there still. That banana is just kicking through for me. I don't know if I have banana on a mine or not, but

But it's more of the... It's not like a real fresh banana. It's more like one of those banana candies, right? Yeah. Like a banana Starburst. Or taffy. Or taffy, yeah. All right. Well, cheers. Let's taste it. Cheers. It's got an interesting spiciness to it. It's light on the spice, but it's nice. It really doesn't present on the front of the palate very much. It's not real sweet up front. Kind of sits in the middle a little bit.

I actually got, maybe it's because we said taffy, but I actually got a little bit of saltwater taffy on the tongue. Not a whole lot of sweetness, but that saltwater taffy I got.

Wow, this is refreshing. This is a refreshing sip. I would have to say if I'm fly fishing in the Bahamas and I've had a nice hot day and the sun's setting a little bit and I'm done and I've got my sandals on and I'm kicking back on the porch, this would be refreshing. This would be nice. This would be a nice way to finish the day.

It's like 87 out here in Kentucky today, outside doing yard work most of the day. hit the spot right on, I can get a little bit of that sherry in this. And sometimes sherry can be dry, right? So if it's not cream sherry, cream sherry would be a sweeter sherry, but most sherrys would be a dry sherry. And maybe this does have that drying effect on the back of the Powell just a little bit.

For me, it kind of presents more in the middle, not a whole lot of sweetness up front. It's nice and light, kind of washes through. The youth is there, but it's not offensive. It's got this spice arrangement in it that's kind of different than anything I've had before. A little bit of that Artificial banana, I guess. A little bit of maybe a light white pepper. Yeah. But generally, fairly pleasing, light, easy to drink.

It does that smooth hugs coming on now. Just ever so slightly. We had a pour before this. Kind of warm our palates up a little bit, I think. And that had a nice Kentucky hug, but it kind of went away a little bit. And that was not this, by the way. That was a warm-up bourbon. A warm-up bourbon, yeah. There you go. It's like, you know, you just don't go out as a pitcher to the mound and start throwing strikes. Spend a lot of time to bullpen for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So this is, this is not going to blow you away. This is not some kind of a crazy new, fantastic whiskey. It doesn't have a lot of layers to it. But what it does have is solid, ever so light. If you like a sweet syrupy bourbon, this isn't it. This is a little more light and airy.

Like you said, you could drink this down on the coast where you have that ocean breeze blowing in and you know, it's not too humid or anything. You have had a beautiful day fishing. You come in, you want to relax. There's that nice breeze blowing in because most places down there don't have AC. This would be good right here. Perfect.

I'm not thinking this is going to be great in cocktails because it doesn't really have that punch to drive through, to stand out in the cocktail. But for what it is, I think it would be fine straight. It would be fine over ice. You'd want to drink it a little quick so it didn't water down too much more. But I think it's just a solid younger whiskey. Yeah.

I think if you're looking to spend your money on a good company that's also giving back, you want to put your money in the right place, I think you're spot on there. Probably make yourself a three finger pour, put a little ice in there. sit back on your deck and relax a little bit. You feel like your money's going to some good whiskey and to a good cause.

And this would taste real good with a little bit of Jimmy Buffett playing in the background, I think.

That's that saltwater lifestyle, right? Maybe even old Kenny Chesney. Kenny Chesney loves that saltwater livestock. I can see Kenny Chesney drinking this. Shout out to old Kenny Chesney and his music and stuff and Jimmy Buffett. Classic. I don't even know, he's not really classic rock though. He's just classic.

Yeah. That's what got me thinking now. My boy and I are trying to figure out where we're going to fly fish down in the Florida coast this winter. It wouldn't be that big of a leap just to head out to Walker's Cay.

Yeah, you could probably do it in a nice boat. The keys anywhere down there in that area, it's super beautiful. I think this has... It's right between a short and medium finish. It's not overwhelming me or anything like that.

This is not after dinner with a cigar. No. But this is definitely first sitting down on the porch after a long day, want to sort of settle in and relax a little bit and watch the sun go down. This is a good one. That's right before maybe even before dinner whiskey right here. Yeah. Be perfect. I think so.

Yeah. I would say it's a buy all day long. You know, $35 isn't hard to punch out of your pocket. If you have it, you're a fisherman. You know, you like Kenny Chesney, you're like Jimmy Buffett. Oh, you know a fisherman. You know a fisherman. You like reading Ernest Hemingway. This is it right here.

Let's get you home all day long. Well, Jim, where can people find us on social media? Well, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Did I forget one? Of course I did. Twitter. You can find us on all those places. We post regularly. On Facebook, actually, we have a private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. About 2,300 plus members, all family, all friends, and they're chit-chatting about whiskey, posting our bottles, posting our family and life events. Just generally a good place to be, right, Mike? Yeah.

You want to talk about a great group of people. You got to answer three questions to get in. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Yeah, we love some bourbon. And do you agree to play nice? Cause we don't tolerate any rudeness in there. Our moderators, Jason, Drew and Adam will take care of it. If you are rude in there.

Yeah. They'll cut you right off at the knees. Won't they?

Yeah, they're. They're brutal, brutal, but they keep us safe. They keep, make sure that our group can stay up and running. There's no complaints from anybody. We don't talk about politics or religion in there. Kind of that, probably that'll win Ernest Hemingway saying right there, right? Yeah.

You said in a bar, those are the things you shouldn't talk about. That's right. Stay away from that stuff and social issues. Yeah.

Yeah. See, that's what we got going on. If you want to figure out when we're releasing a show, what we needed for you to do is scroll on up and hit that subscribe button, check mark, plus mark, whatever you have to do to make sure you can hear us on your app. You want to do that? That ding notification. Yeah. Yeah. And then you will scroll on down and hit that five star review because you know it will happen. I'll bring my big buddy, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon. We'll bring some of this Walker's K right here. We'll sip on it all night long. By the end of that night, there's going to be some lies told, a lot of laughter, but you're going to leave that five star review. That opens doors for Jim and I to get into distilleries. to get great guests on, to get bottles of bourbon like this sent to us. We got to thank Walker's Cave for sending this, King Spirits. Thank you for sending us this bottle. Give us opportunity to be truthful about your bourbon.

All right. We do two shows a week. We do a short episode every Monday, like today's episode. It's our craft distillery Monday episode. It's usually 15 to 20 minutes long. Just a nice dive into a single expression, trying to shine a light on somebody who's trying to get people to know about them and you know we drink it we have a drink their whiskey and we'll tell you what we think every Wednesday we have a longer episode about an hour long with two halves two 30 minute halves which are perfect it's a perfect match for the drive to work and the drive home get rid of that nasty boring drive and just spend the time thinking about whiskey. Right, Mike?

Yeah. You'll, you might even on that drive, stop off wherever your liquor store is and say, Hey, do you got this bourbon right here? That's whiskey. Right.

Exactly.

Yeah. You want to get it. Well, Jim, man, people can see us out in public. We just got finished doing duck, duck bourbon for a great cause here in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

Um, we personally handed out 120 bottles of bourbon. Yeah.

craziness. I was almost hoarse by the end of the night. Because you tried to tell a story on every single bottle and that gets hard. Well, it's hard when people are not paying attention. They're excited about getting their bourbon. They're hollering and yipping. But if you really do want to hear us talk and you want to hear us what we think about bourbon and we're going to actually talk about the bourbon boom coming up at an event, come see us at the Rippe Mansion in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky on the 21st of October at 630. You can buy your tickets at the tvrippehome.com. Tickets are $35. You get hors d'oeuvres there. Heavy hors d'oeuvres, right? Heavy hors d'oeuvres. a few bourbons to sit on. There's gonna be some few bourbons. A few bourbons. A few. Now, the Rippy house or the Rippy mansion is actually gonna lay out a couple of bourbons that me and Jim really love. Wild Turkey 101 for you, Jim. There you go. Some Weller for me.

Yep.

And then a distillery we've really feel passionate about is a wilderness trail over in Danville, Kentucky. They're going to have their products. They're going to have their high ride and they're going to have their weed, of course. Oh, fantastic.

So come join us. Thirty five dollars. The money doesn't go to me and Jim. We don't get it.

Yeah. It goes to support this national landmark. The Rippey Mansion was built by T.B. Rippey. It's eleven thousand square foot mansion. T.B. Rippey was really the guy that built Wild Turkey.

The original company that became Wild Turkey.

Yes. I think there was another distillery there beforehand, but he's the one that innovated everything and brought it into Lawrenceburg. Lawrenceburg. Come check us out there. We'll be speaking there. Then you could either come to the VIP auction for bourbon on the banks on the 22nd. We'll be there roaming around talking to one from one to the other.

Yeah, that's Thursday one than the other on Friday and Friday.

And then on Saturday, you know, we're going to be at bourbon on the banks. It'll be in the Bourbon Road Lounge, the Bourbon Road Lounge sponsored by Woodinville Whiskey. You want to come check us out? We'll be pouring whiskey there. We'll have some nice chairs for you to sit in. They're going to be made out of bourbon barrels. a bar a bar there we're gonna have all kinds of whiskeys flowing at the bar yeah you can meet our wives will be there helping us out bobby probably have some roadies if you're a roadie that wants to help us out reach out to me and let me know that you can help me and i'll get you under the Festival, you'll be part of the Bourbon Road crew helping us out in our tent. You got to promise to help out for a little bit. It's a short event, four hours long. There's an after party too though. So come hang out with us at one of these events. The Rippy Mansion is a great cause. We're storing on a national landmark and then Bourbon on the banks of Frankfort, Kentucky on the 23rd. I mean that- Can you imagine spending four hours

walking around the riverbanks right next to Buffalo Trace on the Kentucky River in Frankfort, Kentucky, with 40 plus distilleries pouring whiskey. The Bourbon Road Lounge. Come out in there, have a seat. Probably the only one with carpet, right? Carpet lights, probably all kinds of stuff going on in there.

Yeah. Yeah.

We might even have a little bit of swag there.

We probably will have just a tad bit of swag. I think we're going to have some swag give out from Woodinville whiskey company. Um, make sure you come check us out. We will really appreciate it.

So if you were planning a trip to bourbon country this fall and you didn't make it, or maybe you did make it to the bourbon festival in barge town, it's time to come back.

Yeah, what a great weekend. You could get a three or four day experience with us almost. You can come watch us talk at the Rippy house. You can come to the VIP auction for Berber on the banks.

Maybe get you a bottle of Pappy, right? Maybe. Or some Buffalo Trace BTAC is going to be there, I hope. There's going to be some big bottles there. Yeah.

And then you come hang out with us at the Bourbon on the Banks Festival. And then, heck, you might even be able to go to breakfast with us.

So it's tbrippyhouse.com. And that's for the event on Thursday, the 21st of October. Then for Friday and Saturday, right after that, the 22nd and 23rd, all those details you can find on bourbononthebanks.org. Make sure you pop in there, check it out, get your tickets. or reach out to Mike if you're a roadie and you want a working weekend. We could probably make that happen. Yeah. Well, we're always open to suggestions. We want to know what you think, good or bad. If you like an episode, if you don't like an episode, if you've got an idea for an episode, we want to hear about it. You can always write us an email. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. But probably the best way is to hit up our DM on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm one big chief. And we'll see you down the bourbon road.

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