219. Stagg Jr Bourbon Batch 16 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. I'm Mike Hyatt. This is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we are once again in Studio 1A in Simpsonville, Kentucky, a.k.a.

my basement. What do you got? It's a bar down here now.

Yeah. We got couches. We got plenty of bottles around. You know what you don't have down here? You don't have one of those faux fireplaces down here. No, I don't. I don't have Woodrow the Whiskey Dog either. No, he don't.

You got a steel cat over there. Steel cat. Looks like he's looking at me with big green eyes.

But this is my place. This is where I like to hang out. This is where all my whiskey is. This is where we record about, I don't know, a third of the time, maybe.

Yeah, yeah. Well, third at my house, third at your house, and then third on the road. Third on the road. Yeah. Well, Jim, you see I'm smiling.

Yeah. You brought a good bottle today. So this is not a craft distillery.

It once was, back way, way, way, way, way a long time ago.

but this is stag jr batch 16 130.9 proof 30.9 now that's that's kind of typical of a stag right a stag is the stag jr stag jr is usually in the 128 to 138 range yeah there's some definitely some high approved bourbons

And I've said this many times, so there's no shock to people. George T stag, the elder brother, the elder brother.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, I don't know that I like it that much, but this right here, this is some good stuff. Yeah.

Now this mash bill is it's undisclosed, right? Well, this is the Buffalo trace mash bill. Number one, which is their lower Rye mash bill where the right content somewhere below 10%.

Yeah. I was thinking of what the entire mash bill would be on this, but because it's undisclosed, it's got an undisclosed age on it. Um, so nobody really knows what's going on here, but I would think eight to 10 years, right?

Yeah, I mean, this shares, this shares a mash bill with the H Taylor benchmark, the Buffalo trace brand. Obviously the elder brother, George T stag, Eagle rare, old charter even. This is the number one mash bill for Buffalo trace. Now this is some dark juice. Yeah, man. That's uh, that's why I was saying, I, it's, I would say it's over 10 years old. Well, this is batch 16 and Buffalo trace batch numbers. They're stack junior releases and you know, we get some that are epic and we get some that are just so, so we're going to find out how good batch 16 is.

Now one more batch, batch 17 will be stag junior, but batch 18, it'll just be stag.

So they're dropping the junior off it. Now I wonder why that is. Do you think maybe they got rid of George T. Stag this year for a reason? I don't know. That's a good question. Just going to do away with it.

Well, I mean, they don't always tell the truth, do they? No. There's some kind of marketing thing where they can make more money. You can guarantee you that. But hey, price on this $49.95 is what I got it for retail. Got the old text message that said, come get a bottle.

It's in the worst bar bottle ever.

Yeah, it is. It is. And a lot of people use this bottle. Heck, if they were going to do away with a junior on there, she did away with a bottle itself.

Yeah. So if people don't know what we're talking about, it's a short squatty bottle. It's very wide. You have to have a big chief hand in order to pour this from the bar.

That fits in my hand. Good.

Yeah. But if you're, if you're just a regular person, you're going to have trouble grabbing onto this bottle, especially if you're trying to whip out some drinks on a bar or so. I mean, it's got like an inch of glass on the bottom of it too. It holds to the bar. It's a heavy bottle, but it's got them deer stags on it. And I know that that's one, that's one for your heart.

It is. I love the, the look of the, the logo and stuff. So, um, I'm looking forward to actually taking this photo right here. I, I, it is near dear to my heart. I wish my dear that I killed this year, was already back because his horns kind of look like that right there.

Yeah. No, no. This year you got a nine pointer. I did get a nine pointer, but he's big.

Now some people said the photo I took or got taken, um, they were like, that deer is not that big. He's not outside your shoulders. I'm like, that's a big deer if it's outside my shoulders.

Yeah. I mean, they can't reference to you. No, because the reference to a big fella.

Yeah. Regular folk, regular fellow holding that thing and being outside their shoulders. And it is a, is a giant, uh, biggest day I've killed. And you know, the excitement there really wasn't about, it's about the harvest too. It's about, um, Plenty of meals for me and Vivian and guests, you know. Sure. I'm sure you'll get to share in some of those meals. I'm looking forward to it. I love to harvest animals like that and eat that meat and especially with beef prices like they are right now. Heck, I don't think I'll be able to afford beef this year.

you know, we're almost at Thanksgiving. Actually, when this show releases, it'll probably be a little after Thanksgiving. But, um, you know, we're looking at alternatives to Turkey because Turkey is not our, I'll be honest with you, it's not our favorite meat. We like Turkey, we like ham, but we don't like it often. We like it every now and then. I think this year we're going to smoke a Turkey for sure. Cause we can't get through the holidays without a Turkey. but we're probably going to do standing rib roast or something like that. And man, the prices are crazy.

Yeah.

They're crazy. There's no joke. I wonder if it would be good to have a venison standing rib roast. That might be all right. I don't know if that's possible. Yeah. They don't have a whole lot of meat on those ribs, do they?

No, it'd be a little bitty thing. I mean, I've seen people do it and stuff. You'd have to kill a big buck to have that. And if you wouldn't try to buy that in a store, you think beef's expensive. Yeah. I've heard right now that deer meat's going, farm raised deer meat is going for around $55 a pound. That's for ground meat. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. So it's not cheap. really whenever we harvest deer, I look at all the stuff I bought over the years and it is an investment, right? Um, but by now it's paid for itself. I think, I mean, I don't try to buy much else, you know, or use the same grinder for 14 years now. And I try not to buy extra hunting gear or anything like that. Now, if somebody wants to send me a camouflage cap to wear with your logo on it,

Yeah.

Hey, I rock that thing. I look beautiful in it.

Real tree. Listen up. All right, Mike, well, let's get back to this whiskey. Yeah. So color, very dark, kind of a chocolatey look to it, doesn't it?

I was going to say ruby red, but dark chocolate ruby red color.

Yeah, it's got a little bit of red to it. I mean, the amber comes through in that, but it's a little bit darker than what you might expect from a typical bourbon. But, you know, at 130 proof, it's pretty concentrated. The less knows this thing. Man, that's, uh, that's heavy. You know, for 130 proof, 130.9, right? Not too much impact on the nose. It's not like burning me.

Kind of that chocolate you said then the color it's in there. Yeah. Um, not a lot of sweetness though.

Maybe Baker's chocolate. Get a little bit of cinnamon, a little bit of cherry. A little bit of chocolate, a little bit of cinnamon, cherry and chocolate. I think that's kind of rounds it out. I got chocolate covered cherry with cinnamon on top.

Those cheap ones. Yeah, this is, it is lovely. The oak is there for definitely, you know, those regular bourbon notes you're going to get out of this and stuff. But I do like that chocolate on this, that cinnamon on there. It's coming through. Well heck, let's taste this thing. Cheers.

Wow. Very, um, full bodied, rich, heavy. I think a good word is heavy. This is a heavy bourbon.

It is mouth coating. Um, like almost like a cream that just covers your mouth. That chocolate is there. A little bit of sweetness, not overpowering sweetness though.

It's a little hot. I mean at 130 proof, you're going to have some, you can't discount that. You're going to have a little bit of hotness, but less than I expected to be honest.

And it just kind of that second, the way it just fires you right up. You ever drink a whiskey and it makes your mouth water. That's what this is doing right here.

So this is a powerful whiskey with a lot of flavor. I'm having trouble picking out layers on it because it is, I mean, it is kind of overwhelming on the palette, but the Oak is ever present on it. I think the cinnamon and the cherry kind of take over a little bit, but more the sentiment than anything else. It's, it's got that hug is building. It's definitely getting a hold of my chest and starting to. You know, drill in the tendrils.

I'm actually getting a little bit of burnt toffee on this.

You are not going to give this whiskey to a new bourbon drinker. Oh no. Don't do it. If you've got Mr. Badass bourbon drinker that's coming over to your house and he thinks he's all that, pour him a glass of this.

That's always a fun thing to do too, right? Um, somebody that wants to out knowledge. Yeah. And, uh, oh yeah, I drink whiskey. I drink whiskey. And then you give them a bit and you can just see a bite into them. And they're like, are you sure? You sure you like whiskey? Cause, uh, this is for those grown folks right here. You know, you have those people that set at the small table and you got some people to set at the big table. This is one of those people that set the big table out here. The layers are just opening up with this.

The more you sip on it, the more you, the more you see, but I'll tell you what it does overpower the palette just a little bit. You think so? I think a little bit. Yeah.

I'm loving it. You call this hot gasoline?

No, no, no. This is a nice sipping whiskey. Um, it, I'll tell you what, it gives you a nice slow burn. It definitely gives you a hug. I've got a nice deep hug on my chest. The creaminess is there. The, the, the finish is medium to long, but probably more medium than long.

But the hug is serious. I would tell you about this whiskey. And I've said this before, you know, you get up there around that one 30 and this is made in Kentucky. So it's like one of those Kentucky wild. Yes. Grab your tongue and start chewing into it. It's a, it does have a bite to it. Um, which I like, you know, this thing will let you know, Hey, I'm a serious whiskey right here. Um, I'm glad I got it too.

Yeah. I think if you're going to drink a little bit of stag junior, if you, if your plan is to grab a bottle of stag junior and enjoy the evening, you shouldn't be planning on doing anything too, uh, mentally intensive, right? You should probably not be planning on chopping firewood. You shouldn't be planning on writing computer programming software or doing anything like that. You just need to sit in a chair and forget about life pretty much, right?

Probably shouldn't even start a fire.

Not on this.

The oak in here though, Jim, reminds me of our good friend, Chris Cruz at Cruz Customs Flags. He's taking bourbon barrels and he's rebuilding them into something that's a piece of art. Not only is he doing that, but he's employing combat veterans to build that. He's giving them a job. He's making sure they stay focused on that. And what comes out of it is something that you can display in your house, display on your wall, display in your conference room. Super beautiful. We both have one.

Yeah, it's absolutely amazing what he's able to do with these. Now he's got state of the art equipment. He's got one of the best production centers that I've seen for dealing with, you know, repurposing bourbon barrels. And he turns these bourbon barrels into patriotic displays of just excellence. And personally, I'm very proud to display the lieutenant. on my bar, you have one as well. Yep. And you know, these flags, they start at a very small flag and they go up to, I think the captain and the general, the colonel maybe. I mean.

Yep. The general is the one that you would want to buy for your business, your conference room, whatever you want. Um, if you got a large lodge or something like that, a hotel, uh, you want to show that people that you're proud of America. This is something that you'd want to have in your house. A craft piece of art from a veteran owned and operated business. It's a nice gift. It's right on holidays right now, right? Jim Christmas is coming up. It's still not too late to get that nice gift. Even if you have a whiskey drinker in your family, this is something that they would probably cherish right here.

Yeah. So if you're a, if you're a company that has established, you know, in Kentucky in or around the bourbon trail, what a great thing to put in your conference room. When you bring guests in from out of town, you know, I have a big bourbon barrel flag on the wall. What an amazing thing. If you're a distillery. And no matter where you are in the US, what a great thing to have in your distillery as your guests come through for tours. We highly suggest you check out Chris at Cruise Custom Flags. Check out his products.

The other thing about him is we always say he's a good guy and stuff, but how much he gives back to veterans, to his local community in here. You always see him, he's with USA Cares that deals with veterans. He's writing checks to hospitals and stuff. Um, he's given back. Um, and what a business to support, you know, we would hope you, uh, purchase your Christmas gifts for your, your guy, your gal out there. That's a whiskey drinker, your veteran, your firefighter, your EMT people that love America. This is a place to buy your gifts from.

As, as bourbon drinkers, we'd love to see the barrels get repurposed and reused for something important and substantial. But how awesome is it that the vets who served us get repurposed as well and get to work on a project like this?

Most definitely. Yeah. Well, Jim, final notes on this, uh, stag junior.

Batch 16 guys, I think you should go get it. I think it, uh, at 130 proof, it doesn't drink 130. I think it drinks more like a 115 probably. Is that fair to say Mike? Yeah. I think it's got a nice medium to long finish. Um, it is, uh, well endowed with Oak. It's got that well endowed oak flavor. Yeah. The nice creamy thickness of it. The oak influence, the sweetness is just a good representation of Buffalo Traces Mash Bill number one.

Well, let's talk about what a good price for this would be. So I picked it up for $49.95. If you built that relationship, that's a great price. And you always pay retail. I try every time. I don't like paying over retail. Um, I just skip on down the road. You know, if I have, I don't need it that bad, you know, but if it's at retail, I'm going to purchase it. If it's 10% over, I'd probably purchase it from a small liquor store. From one of your friends? From one of my friends, yeah. Sure. A store that I want to support, I'm going to do it. But I'm not going to pay $100 for this bottle. The most I would probably pay I put $75 on it. That would be my max on this bottle.

Yeah. I don't think I'd be mad paying 75 for this bottle. I think it's pretty good. I don't think it's something you're going to drink daily. I mean, this is a big boy whiskey. Yeah. No doubt about grown woman whiskey.

Most definitely.

You definitely don't want to drink this every day, but if you break it out for that bourbon lover, when they come to your house, I think they'll be duly impressed. And it's not something you want to sit and sip all your way through the bottle. Have a couple of pours, put it back on the shelf, go to something lower proof.

This is a bottle that I'm not going to give away. Jim, I'm going to, this is going to sit on my shelf. I'm going to drink it home. I I've given away a lot of stag in the past and this one right here is going to stick in my house and I'm going to enjoy it because it is winter time and my fireplace has been rolling. And I'll, like I said, you don't want to start a fire, but I'm going to start a fire. Well, Jim, you could find us on tick tock, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. We're all over the place. One of our main places you can find us, though, is on our private Facebook group, the Bourbon Roadies 2500 people strong. Three rules to join, right? Are you 21? Do you love bourbon? And do you agree to play nice? Cause we don't tolerate any rudeness in there. We got three friends in there that are moderators. Uh, they take care of business.

You probably heard them on our last episode and they made sure you understood during that episode that they're in charge.

They are sometimes they tell me, Hey, Mike, you can't wait. Don't say that.

But that's good because we like to have a nice tight rain on what goes on in the bourbon roadies because we want it to be a family. We want it to be a fun place. We want it to be a place you enjoy, a place you feel safe, a place where you can share all your bourbon experiences and not be able to feel threatened by, um, people who kind of want to tell you what you ought to drink. Right.

Yeah. If you want to drink from the bottom of the shelf, you want to drink 10 high, Jim beam, you want to drink Jack Daniel's, whatever you want to drink, drink it, celebrate it, celebrate whiskey itself. I don't care what you drink it with either. You want to put Coke sprite, uh, LA one, you want to put cranberry juice, you want to put orange juice and champagne together and make a band mimosa, um, go right ahead.

And one thing's for sure. That distillery is glad to hear it. They don't care. Yeah. Just, just drink their whiskey.

Heck, I was at a liquor store today, Jim, and you know what was in the middle of the aisle? A big old bottle of Coke sitting on a bourbon shelf. Jim, another great review. People, if you want to listen to us and you want to be reminded about our shows coming up, make sure you scroll on up, hit that plus sign, hit that check sign, subscribe button, whatever it is to make sure that you get to hear us, hear our review or hear our long show. Um, it'll get you to work for our review. It'll get you to working back for our long show. Um, we'd appreciate that. Then you want to scroll on down, hit that five star review. Um, cause you know what's going to happen if you don't be in my big friend, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon. I'm gonna bring a stag junior over your house. We're going to drink it besides your fire.

Not too close to the fire.

Not too close. We don't get burned. We don't get the old big bad booty daddy of bourbon burns. But we're going to drink it. You're going to make sure that you give us a five-star review at the end of the night. You'll be laughing with us. We'll have a great time. Those five-star reviews seriously open doors for us. It helps us build our podcast. It helps build our community. It gets us deeper into the bourbon culture. That's what we love to do.

Yeah, so we do two shows a week. Every Monday we do a craft distillery episode like today's. Now, stag, not exactly. Buffalo Trace, not exactly a craft distillery, but we like to explore a particular bottle on Mondays. We like to do a deep dive on one expression, tell you what we think about it, tell you whether or not we think you ought to go out and purchase it. In today's case, I would say if you can get your hands on a bottle of batch 16 stag at $49.99, you ought to do it. It's a buy. Yep. Every Wednesday we do a longer episode where we have a guest on, where we explore a topic we might have a couple of expressions on. We might even have four or five bottles. Sometimes we really go at it and we have several bottles of whiskey. We love to have you listen to both episodes every week. We'd also like to hear from you. We'd also like to know what you think we ought to have on the show. If you've got A local distillery that's making it happen in your local area. We'd like to know about it. If you've got a guest you think we ought to have on the show, let us know. You can always reach out to us on email. I'm Jim at the bourbon road.com. He's Mike at the bourbon road.com. But as we always say, the best way to reach out to us on Instagram, I'm Jay Shannon 63. I'm big bourbon chief and we'll see you down the bourbon.

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