228. The 2021 Bourbon of The Year and Craft Distillery of the Year

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 the last episode of the year.

Yeah. 2021 has come and gone, right? Absolutely.

We had a great year, a lot of distilleries, an awful lot of bourbons rise and American whiskeys.

Yeah, I was trying to think if we had some scotch or iris this year, and I don't know if we did any scotch or iris this year, but we did, I'm sure, cover some American whiskeys across the board.

Yeah. I didn't do a bottle count for this year, but just going by the numbers, we did about 104 episodes and out of 104 episodes, uh, we're going to average anywhere between one and three bottles an episode. Sometimes a lot more, sometimes more, but let's say, let's just, let's just round it. Let's just say it's two to three bottles an episode. You know, we're talking about, um, 200 to 300 bottles of whiskey got talked about on air this year on air, on air. out to what we didn't talk about. Cause we drink a lot of whiskies that don't make it on air too.

Yeah. If we see something, you know, we'll taste it and we just, it just doesn't make it to air or we don't feel like it's ready yet. We just don't want to bash on anybody. So it just doesn't make it. Um, but we did have two spectacular whiskies this year. We had a craft distillery that is our favorite, that's our thing, is we name a craft distillery every year. And then we have our bourbon of the year, because we are a bourbon podcast. That's right. So we did name a bourbon of the year, and we got our craft distillery of the year. Last year, it was Woodinville whiskey out in Washington state was our craft distillery of the year. And how we determined that was how well they treating everybody in the whiskey community. How do they reach out to people? How do they treat us? What's our experience with them? That's how we went with it, right? It'll give you that good feeling.

What's that distillery gives you that good feeling? You like working with them. You could tell that their customers love them. They've got a great following. Uh, the reps are, uh, personable and nice. And, uh, you know, I'm not saying there's a whole lot of not nice people out there. There certainly isn't, but some people just sort of stand out a little bit. Right. And, uh, you know, it's, it's this again, both the awards we give out this year are kind of your and my take on things. So people may disagree with us, but it's however we have been able to come to an agreement.

That's our bourbon our way, right? And our bourbon last year was Makers Marks Cast Strength. A lot of people, they gave us hard time about it, but that was ours. That's our award to give out. It's me and your award to give out. It's the bourbon that we felt was, you can get it. It was really, really, really, really good. And we've went through some bottles of that this year. We did. And I, Once I run out of another bottle, I just go pick another bottle up. It was the 46 cast strength was the one we picked, not maker smart cast strength. Um, but that's how we come about our two awards. Um, so yeah, our last show of the year, I tried to start the day out good, Jim. Can you guess what I ate today?

So I'm trying to think of what you might've ate today.

I don't know. I started out with some pancakes. Oh, okay. And you can guess what I poured on those.

A bourbon barrel aged maple syrup on it, right?

Yeah, that's a great way to start our last show of the year was to eat some pancakes with some syrup. Made from our sponsor seldom seen farms up in Ohio actually solid Kevin was out in the woods with the sun today tapping trees. So he could extract the syrup out of there on the sap to make it into that syrup and then he's going to take it and put it in the bourbon barrels and age at six to nine months listeners if you haven't tried it yet if you don't have a bottle yet. You gotta get a bottle. It's better served in a glass, though, I think.

I think so. I really think. I'm a big fan of old fashions, and so are you, Mike. And for ages, I've made my old fashions using demerara sugar, simple syrup. And when I don't have that, just regular bar syrup. I rarely use the sugar cubes, you know, where you break them up a teaspoon of sugar. Do they still make those? Yeah. But you know, it's just too much work. But man, I made an old fashioned use of maple syrup as my sugar instead. And it was unreal. It was so good. Pretty simple. You take a bottle of this bourbon barrel aged maple syrup from seldom seen. You put a half an ounce of that. in your glass. You add in two ounces of bourbon, a couple of shakes of bitters, stir it up real good, garnish it with a orange peel, add your rice, and man, you've got a great old fashioned. You cannot mess it up. It is so good.

Yeah, you're right. I do love some old fashions. I love some cocktails. Any cocktail that you need to serve in and you want that smoky flavor, that bourbon flavor to it, you want to give that extra little kick. that maple syrup from seldom seen farms will hit the spot age six to nine months in a bourbon barrel it tastes so good it's good on pancakes chicken and biscuits chicken and waffles whatever you need to use it for you can get some he's got all kinds of great items on there he's actually got a cotton candy that he spins out of that maple syrup. Wow. I mean, he's doing it right up there on his farm in Ohio. So check up, check them out. Jim, where can they find them at?

You can find, you can find seldom seen maple syrup and all their other products at seldom seen maple.com.

Well, back to our episode, Jim. We do got whiskey, everybody. We're not going to tell everybody we got in our glass until the very end of this first half, because this is our craft distillery of the years, one of their expressions, but it is dark in the glass.

It is. And I'm enjoying it because, you know, last night you and I went out to dinner. You and Vivian took Bill and I out to dinner and I chose to have a mule, but I had a Holland mule, which is made with gin. So I didn't get any bourbon yesterday.

Really? I, I guess I did know that you, you told me what you were ordering stuff and I ordered a front tiersman cocktail. And then they didn't have the bourbon. It was weird.

Cause we were in a bourbon restaurant, bourbon bar with like, like every possible bottle on the shelf.

Except for the one that is on the menu that I ordered, which was uncle nearest. I was like, well, maybe people are drinking and they may, that's a good thing. But I did get this giant, ribeye bone in ribeye last night. It was spectacular.

Yeah. They brought it to you without the bone and that was their mistake because you ordered it with the bone. You liked that flavor of the bone in the meat. So they brought you out a fresh steak and it was on the house.

Yeah, they did it on the house. Uh, if you wonder where we're talking about, it's Malone's steak house in the paddocks in Louisville. Um, you can't meet, miss it. Go in there, uh, tell the manager of the bourbon road sent you a great place to eat. If you're a veteran, if you're in the military, 25% off.

They do it right. So Malone's is, uh, they've got locations in Lexington and in Louisville now. They started in Lexington, right? Yep. I think so. And they also own Drake's. Is that correct? Yep. And Harry's and Harry's. Okay.

So 25% off there, if you're a veteran, great food. I don't think any one of us, each of us had something different. Everybody said their stuff was great.

It was all good.

Cocktails were great. We had a great night and stuff. Yeah. So Jim, talking about our craft distilleries of the year, we did get to go into a couple different distilleries this year.

Yeah, I mean, we visited a lot of distilleries and, you know, some other distilleries we weren't able to visit because we are still in the middle of a pandemic and everybody has to deal with that in their own way. Some distilleries are open and some are still kind of limiting access a little bit. So we just dealt with each distillery on a one-by-one basis. So we had a lot of great visits. I think, Mike, one of the ones that you and I talked about earlier today was Pennington down in Nashville, Tennessee, right?

Yeah, Pennington distillery right there in the downtown area of Nashville, right on the outskirts, I guess. They have Davidson's Reserve. We went in there and they treated us like two kings in there. Just opened the doors to us, took us around. We'd both been in there before. It just was a different experience for us. just so open-armed to us and showing us every little technique they did, showing us some of their private stock of whiskey they have, treated our wives. That's a big thing when we're on the road because if we're taking our wives with us, how they get treated too is important to us. We want them to be happy and they were extremely happy by the time we got back to them because they had been pouring whiskey into them.

actually worked out pretty good, didn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. Pennington was a great place. Uh, some of the other places that opened their arms to us, I got to go out on Oregon to fishing and, um, I stopped into Westward whiskey. I brought my brother with me on that trip and, uh, they opened their doors. Me and him left there feeling really good. We just did a review of their whiskey. I hadn't tasted anything bad from there. I wish I'd make their beer also, their pale ale, cause it's so good that I got to taste. And most people don't get to do that. You know, most people, they don't turn on the tap for you in the back room for you, but me and you get that experience quite often.

So yeah, that's kind of a special experience to taste that beer. That is, uh, right before it gets boiled down, right?

Yeah. I was thinking of some other distilleries that went into this year. I got to go to old Dominic again and have her on the show. Alex Castle, she's a Kentucky girl from right here in Shelby County from Baghdad. She's got that lineage from working at Wild Turkey. Just amazing how they got treated. Their owner found her. He was in there working the receptionist desk. just as nice as could be. Never said, hey, I'm the owner. You know, he never said any of that.

Well, how often do we interview owners or CEOs of whiskey companies and they talk about sweeping the floors, right?

Yeah. You got to start somewhere or you got to like that, a craft distillery. Everybody's got to pitch in. Everybody's got to do their part. And sure enough, he was there doing that. And I think that's super neat that, you know, guys are still humble enough to do that kind of thing.

Well, just in case you're not quite following on with what's going on here, we're going to talk about the distilleries that sort of stood out to us this year. The ones that we feel like they went above and beyond. They created that real warming welcome for us. They're making some great products. Their customers really respect them. They've got a great following. It's funny how a lot of them are from Tennessee, right?

Yeah. You know what that is? We've named two of them from Tennessee already that, that have opened their arms to us. And it's just kind of Tennessee knows how to do that hospitality thing. Kind of like Kentucky, these two States, there's just friendly people at them. It's just super friendly and stuff.

Well, let's not forget Georgia though. So, uh, you know, one of the, one of the companies that we really have a lot of respect for. uh, is legends out of Georgia. They make some tremendous whiskey down there. They've been doing it for a while now and they've been doing it right.

Yeah. They got their own process too. That was, I want to keep calling it quantum physics, but it's not quantum physics, quantum.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know enough about it or how it works to really speak on it, but their own filtering process is really what it is that filters that. I guess it's, Monday morning without the Monday morning is what they say or the Sunday morning, something like that. I keep thinking of that Chris Christopherson song, Sunday morning coming down. Yeah. But it's not that it's whiskey without that Sunday morning filled.

Well, they're weeded whiskey. They're barrel-proof weeded whiskey, right? Really, really got our attention.

Yeah, we almost got in a fight about that one bottle right there. It was that good. I was lucky enough to get another bottle. You kept a bottle at your house. It was that good of a whiskey where we both thought, wow, this is pretty special. And then other people jumped on suit. You know, Fred Minnick followed suit after us and said, Hey, this is one of the best weeded whiskeys out there. We did bourbon. So, but then that said a lot.

And I wouldn't be surprised to see this highly marked on a list from a lot of other YouTube channels and podcasts and bloggers and what's so much. Cause it's, they make some great whiskey there.

Yeah, I was thinking some other distilleries that we got to go into. I got to go into a little tiny distillery, Ironclad, in Virginia, and they just earned my respect for the way they did it. The brother and sister and father treated me really well. just open their doors, little bitty place. And it kind of went back to our military history with those two, with that brand. And I really loved it. It was super beautiful, some really good whiskey.

Had a great story, kind of nautical theme a little bit. You know, we're both nautical men. Yeah.

It's, uh, those distilleries like that are just, just amazing that what they can do, but how they treat us, that's it. We keep coming back to how do we get treated at the end of the day? You know, how do we, uh, How do we feel about that distillery?

When you go to a restaurant, you remember the food, but you also remember your waitress. That's service, right? It's that service. For us, it's the same thing. The whiskey makes an impression on us, but so do the staff. You know, Mike, I'm going to go on and say that here in Kentucky, we had a number of distilleries that really, um, continue to just get our attention all the time. You know, one of the great visits that we had was at Evan Williams in downtown Louisville.

Yeah. And I even forgot about that visit and stuff.

Yeah, Bernie Lubbers spent a little time with us, played a few tunes for us. We got to sit down in the old Speakeasy there on Main Street in Louisville. And that was an experience to remember, right? We had the master distiller there. We had Bernie Lubbers there. We went through a number of expressions in that old downstairs Speakeasy.

Yeah, super tight kind of shotgun row filling, you know, whiskey row filling and stuff. Another place downtown that we got to go this year again, we went back in there to talk to the owner of the founder, Corky from Peerless. You didn't get to go on that trip, but a great experience for me that trip was to get take a really good friend of mine with me. And he kind of watched and got that experience. And usually it wouldn't mean you leave a distillery, right? Yeah. We've leave with lots of bottles in our hands. It just, we're not asking for whiskey.

We don't say, we don't, we don't ever ask.

No, they just say here, here's a bunch of whiskey. And they made sure Steve, my buddy, you've met him before, he left with four bottles himself. And I said, well, I'll pay for his. And they were like, no, we got, we have his stuff. We, we've got his, his bottles. And I was really grateful for that. Steve is the biggest bourbon nut and he, he got to experience that. And I, I thought the world of peerless for that, you know, um, another place that did the same thing, another trip that you didn't get to go on. Uh, cause you switched jobs this year, right? Uh, a lot of people don't know that, but you switched jobs or took on a working for somebody else, I guess. Um, so that kind of changed our schedule, our paths, but I got to go over to four roses and try to bring Elliot and Steve is the biggest four roses done ever. I mean, he's just, he loves it.

He lucked out twice this year.

Yeah. Yeah. I said, it's not going to happen all the time, but Brent gave him a signed bottle of, um, a single barrel. And then also give him a nice big sample of the four roses, limited edition, which we both know is some pretty amazing whiskey. We might have to mention that one a little bit later in the show. I don't know. Maybe. Yeah. But that experience, that open armness as we keep talking about, that love for us as podcasters, as modern media outlet was pretty dang nice. And you kind of get choked up when you start thinking about how you get treated. I mean, heck, you got to go to Jim Beam this year to their new restaurant, right?

Yeah, I mean, it felt like royalty. I mean, they just treated it as like gold. I mean, it was an absolutely amazing experience. And you know, they're opening a new restaurant there. And if you haven't listened to that episode, it's a few episodes back from this one, but I highly recommend that if you're traveling down I-65 or up I-65 in Kentucky, and you have an opportunity to pull off there in Claremont and go to the Jim Beam distillery. They've been closed for a very long time during COVID, but they're open now. And they took advantage of that time during the shutdown to totally rebuild and rework their visitor experience. And it's something new to see. If you've been there in the past couple of years, you haven't seen what they have now. And that restaurant they have there is just amazing. It's definitely worth a visit.

Remember us going into a Nashville barrel company. Oh yeah. To their house. That was great. What a great night we have. And pretty much both of us left that place just stumbling.

Um, I mean those guys can pour some, some whiskey. Well, not just whiskey. They're pouring us this 150 proof rum too. Whoa.

Yeah, it was a great night. Um, I just could go on and on all these distilleries that we got to go into this year and, um, some, some great times, a little place that's trying to start up or trying to, uh, they're going to be making their own whiskey and stuff is good times whiskey, good times bourbon and stuff. Everybody's seen their stuff out there. Kind of a media darling right now on the scene. We're doing a lot of finished bourbons and stuff. They'd send us some bottles. Um, I don't know. I just could keep going on four gate whiskey. We haven't had them on the show. We haven't had their bourbon or their whiskey on the show, but we were invited to their Christmas party this year and that was, that was pretty nice. It was, it was.

And we've got a number of standing invitations out for companies to get us out into their towns to interview them and spend some time with them. I know Colorado wants to get us out there to travel their trail and talk to their people. So we're looking forward to that next year.

Yeah, it seems like we just didn't have enough time this year. A lot of stuff went on this year. We did do a lot of travel, a lot of personal travel, went to Mexico together, did two bourbon festivals. We did the Kentucky Bourbon Festival and then we did Bourbon on the Banks, which was a really big festival for us. Met just so many fans there of the Bourbon Road. Um, one that stood out was the little jockey that like ran up to us and, uh, he was so excited about getting a shirt and getting to meet us and stuff. And I just, I just was like, that's the weirdest thing to me, but I don't know why you'd want to meet us, but yeah, let's do it.

Another, another distillery that really kind of went above and beyond for us was Leapers Fork out of Franklin, Tennessee.

Yeah, I'd say they've made the show several times this year. I believe last year we actually drank their whiskey when we were announcing the stories of the year. We had old Rob Carter on that night with us. He was in the room when we were recording. We kind of started our year with them, but we spent a lot of time with them too, recording with them. They opened their distillery to us for an entire weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

So we could record our still house sessions. Yeah.

And not only that, but we drank other people's whiskey in their distillery.

Now that's, that says a lot, right? That says a lot. That, that talks, that speaks to their character a little bit. Yeah. It also speaks to their confidence in their own product.

Yeah, they didn't, they didn't. Give two craps. Lee Kennedy met us and he was excited to have us there that day. And even though he wasn't going to be there the full time, he said, Hey, the distilleries is yours. You know, whatever you need. We're not no huge fuel film company. We're not a large production or anything. And they have that there all the time. Cause it is a beautiful distillery. But they let us set up in their steel house and just laid it out for us. And then they surprised us. At the end of all that, they were like, hey, let's fill a barrel with your guy's podcast painted on the lid or the head of the barrel. So we filled it up with weeded bourbon and hopefully five years from now, boy.

We have to start planning that day now.

Yeah. Make sure it's on the books and stuff. So I would say that our craft distillery of the year would be Leapers Fork.

And we've talked about this and I completely agree with you because they showed the greatest amount of support, but also I'm going to bring, I'm going to say it again, character. They had a great deal of character, allowing us to bring other distilleries, whiskeys in there and record in their Rick house with their customers around, right? Oh yeah. I mean, they had tours going on and so, you know, that just, that just goes to show you that they're a, their distillery that supports the industry as a whole.

Yeah. I just, I couldn't even believe it that they did that much for us. Not only that, they had a barbecue for us while we were there over at, uh, April Weller Cantrell's house with her family opened up their, her house to us. Uh, Matt King, you know, what a great guy down there. He just had a baby. Uh, yeah.

Congratulations, Matt. You guys just had a baby girl, right?

Yeah. Isla. Um, Beautiful six pound baby girl down there. I'm sure him and Kim are just bursting with joy. Poor Isla though, she's gonna be a Christmas baby. I always feel bad for those babies.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. But you know, I think parents do what they can to make sure it's still a special thing for their birthday.

At least I hope they do. Yeah, so Leapers Fork, Lee Kennedy, April, Matt, your entire team down there, Kendra. I actually had her on a bourbon of women this year. Your entire staff down there, congratulations. You are our craft distillery of the year.

Yeah, congratulations guys. I'm sure that we'll have something coming your way that you can put up on the wall and you can celebrate with your visitors as they come through. And again, thank you so much. And we look forward to the next time we can come down and hang out with you guys.

Yeah. So if everybody's wondering what's in our glass, Jim's glass is empty.

Yeah.

This was a bottle kill of their rye whiskey. I had just enough for two pours for me and you of it.

Yeah, I would like more, but there's no more.

We both had several bottle kills with this, this bottle. Um, I'm, this is a bottle that I like to tell people you want to really taste a craft whiskey, something that's great in cocktails too. And they don't care whether you put it in a cocktail or not. Super delicious. Very, very good. Obviously if I have a bottle kill at my house, which is hard to do, um, it's a good whiskey.

Definitely a good whiskey. They're bottled in Bond, Tennessee. Whiskey is fantastic. Their bourbon is very, very good. And all of their whiskies have sort of a signature note to them, I think. If you haven't had a Leapers Fort whiskey, I highly suggest that you give them a try. If you're in the Nashville area, and a lot of people go to Nashville, it's like a, it's a draw, right? If you're in Nashville area, take the time to drive out to Leapers Fort. just outside of Franklin, about 30, 40 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. Outside of the downtown Nashville, visit the distillery, tell them we sent you. They'll treat you right. You'll have a good time there. Make sure you walk away with a bottle.

Yeah.

All right, folks, will you stick around for the second half when Mike and I come back, we'll start our countdown to the bourbon of the year 2021.

Well, Jim, you know what would grow great with this craft of celery whiskey? What's that? You making one of your old fashions. Yeah. With that bourbon aged maple syrup seldom seen farms.

Yeah, absolutely. Guys, you got to do it. Get yourself some bourbon aged maple syrup. Get yourself some barrel aged maple syrup from Settlement Seed Farms. It just takes a half ounce of that in a glass, two ounces of bourbon, couple of shakes of bitters. You can garnish it with an orange peel if you want, but absolutely it's not necessary. Little bit of ice in there and man, it is an old fashioned, you will not forget. It is so good.

And one of the episodes we're going to do this year is going to be for this next year. We've talked about it, talked about it, talked about it is where can you get the best biscuits at? We might even have to, where can you get the best chicken biscuit at to pour that maple syrup on?

And I'm thinking I want some, I want some of that. barrel aged maple syrup from seldom seen. I want three or four biscuits from the best places around. And then I want some Benton ham in there too. I want to throw that in there. Yeah. A little bit of Benton ham. I bet that's going to be good.

Yeah. So get your maple syrup today. Check out his other products. You know, he's got a regular one. If you don't want your kids to have the barrel aged one, But that is six to nine months in that bourbon barrel. So it does take on those flavors, those characteristics of that bourbon into that syrup. You can't beat it, but he's got that regular maple syrup. Like I said, if you don't want your kids to have that, if you don't want your wife to have it, significant other, check him out. Where can you find them at, Jim?

You can find them at seldomseenmaple.com, and we keep talking about their maple syrup. You can buy it by the bottle. You can buy it by the case. You can also buy it in part of gift sets. They have some gift sets with different items along with it, so if you want to gift somebody a bottle, it'll make a real nice gift. Yes, sir.

All right, listeners, we're back and you know what we're about to do, Jim. Yeah, man. We're about to name our 2021 bourbon of the year. Remember everybody, it's our bourbon of the year. It's Jim and mine. It's our pick. It's what we loved. Not to say we didn't love some bourbons out there just as much.

So I think maybe I had some bourbons I liked more and I think you had some bourbons you liked more. Yeah. It was a close tie. Yeah. But this is the one that was the highest average on both our lists. Yeah. It was, it's hard to beat this one out too.

It's really, really hard. And we're talking about, uh, just by the smallest amounts, right? Yeah. The thing about this, this bottle is you can find it. across the United States.

Which is a requirement for us.

Yeah. We don't want one that's just, and that makes it hard for craft distilleries to be our bourbon of the year. And that's why we had came up with our award of craft distillery of the year. So this allows kind of the big boys, you know, people that can be distributed across the United States to have a Bourbon of the Year, and our craft distilleries to still be a craft distillery of the year for us.

Yeah, and we'll continue to do that. And as the craft distilleries are able to reach more and more states, as they hit that 50 state mark or whatever, people get them everywhere, they'll kind of be a little bit more in the running for this award here. Yeah. So let's recap a little bit, Mike. Let's go back to 2019 for our first Bourbon of the Year award, and that was the Old Forrest from 1910.

Yeah, we actually dressed up for it and took a photo of us in kind of prohibition style outfits and stuff. Um, and we told Jackie, we had Jackie on show and we, we had told her, um, yeah, what a great whiskey that is.

It is. And that's the first time that you and I had to sit down and, uh, sort of go through all the whiskies we had on the show during the year and determine, uh, you know, which one was going to be our whiskey of the year. So, so, you know, let's talk a little bit about what it takes to be a bourbon road whiskey of the year. One, you have to be on the show. The whiskey has to appear on the show and be either in a review or during a guest shot or something. Right? Yeah. Second thing is it needs to be relatively affordable at retail price and accessible throughout the U S you got to be able to find it on a lot of shows. I mean, that's a lot of shows. Now it doesn't mean it can't be a special release or a seasonal release, but it has to be distributed in such a way that people have a pretty good chance of getting it if they want it.

Yeah.

Uh, and it has to be something that both you and I like. It has to be near the top of our list, but it won't necessarily be our favorite bourbon individually, but combined together, it's our favorite bourbon.

Yeah. We really do put a lot of time and effort into that too, a talking and having discussions about that. I remember when you brought up this year's bourbon of the year, you actually, cause I said, Hey, you go ahead and tell me what you thought. And you went through some whiskies and you said, but I think this is this one. And I was like, God dang, that's exactly what I was thinking. Cause I went through mine and I said, but I think this one stood out a little bit further than everybody else and stuff. But I would say some honorable missions out there. We should bring those up first before we,

We are drinking our bourbon of the year right now, but we're not going to tell people what it is.

I tell you this, it is candy delicious and it's got some spice. Little bit of pop rocks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So some bourbons that we got to drink this year, we got to drink wild turkeys or Russell reserve 13 year old. And that was a great whiskey and could have could have fought for that first place. A lot of people out there was like, this is going to be bourbon of the year. They were, everybody was kind of on board with that. I mean, you were like, we still got a lot of time left in the. Exactly. We had a lot of time left. We thought something else might come out. We had a, we had a feeling that there might be something else come out and sure enough, something else did come out really good. Um, but man, is Eddie and Jimmy still producing great stuff out there? 13 years ago, they laid down those barrels, released them this year. They obviously have some magic, something going on over there on top of that hill up there.

Yeah. And the great thing about this is, um, you know, that this is something that's going to be released next year as well. So we'll see another 13 year release next year. At least we hope we do. That's the plan anyways. I would hope we could get a bottle of that. Absolutely.

Yeah, that was a super amazing bottle. Um, one that wasn't, you know, that 13 year was hard to get. Um, but another bottle that was hard to get was old Forester releasing their, uh, one 17 series.

Yeah. So that, that was some pretty fantastic whiskey, Mike. I have to say, I still have, I still have about three ounces of that.

You do? I do. I actually had some in a bottle and I took and gifted it to Ariel Yon and Kyle Yon. They were going to the Railbird Festival and I said, would you guys like some of this to take with you? It was hot that day too. It might've been a hundred degrees. Yeah. Kyle was like, here, hold on. So Kyle took it and I asked him, I said, what'd you guys do with that? And he's like, it was gone before we even got over to the Railbird Festival. So truth to power there, share your whiskey with great people, like the yawns. I'd like to say congratulations to those two too. They treated us super nice. Oh yeah.

Definitely some good friends of the show. Great friends of the show, right?

Yeah. So, uh, Ariel, Kyle, congratulations on your first house purchase this year. Um, well-deserved. You put the work in for it. Uh, it's nice to see young couples purchase their first house and that excitement they get in their life. Um, so congratulations. Legends 115 was another bourbon that stood out for us, you know, 115 proof we did, you know,

just not quite in my pain, just not quite accessible enough across the US.

Yeah, that was a, that's a hard one to do when you start talking about that kind of stuff. Cause you know, does it show up? Does it, does it get that fanfare? Um,

Well, you know, if I'm a listener of a show and people are talking about bourbons all the time, bourbons, I can't get my hands on. Uh, eventually it gets kind of old. So you want to make sure that, um, that at the same time that you're shining a light on some young distilleries as they're trying to really step out and get noticed, you've got to make sure that you, uh, you review whiskeys that are generally acceptable across the U S so.

Yeah. I mean, that's, that's just kind of a balancing act for us, right? Another bourbon that we got to taste, uh, I got to taste a couple of times. You got to help me review it was four roses, limited edition.

Could have very easily rivaled the one we're drinking right now as the bourbon of the year, um, probably would have been nose and nose, right?

That would have been a very tough choice. The only problem with that, once again, is it's super limited. That's a rare bottle to get. I actually got a bottle this year. I haven't cracked it open because we got to taste it. I don't know if I'll ever open that bottle. I'll open it at some point. Maybe 15, 20 years down the road, we'll crack that sucker open and stuff.

Open the damn bottle, Mike.

Yeah, you're the one saying, I open that thing up so you can drink it. Um, we just got so many great whiskeys to drink right now. Um, rebel Yale, their distillers collection to me that some of the really good bourbon out there and stuff is showing that people can do that. We got to taste a couple bottles of that this year. Um, super beautiful. Obviously Elijah Craig barrel proof. Yeah. Pretty damn good whiskey.

That's always in the running, Mike. It's always in the running, right? It all depends on that particular release we take a look at.

Yeah, that one was super, super complex, uh, super beautiful. Um, one of the ones you brought up, you know, somebody that we haven't talked about is our good friend Ashley Barnes, and she has been a guest on the show several times. Um, She's like that Saturday night live host that you get, right?

She hasn't, she hasn't hit that. Um, what is it? A four, four or five timer? What's the big deal on Saturday night? Like, is it five times? Five times, I think.

Yeah. But I would imagine at some point she'll get there. She'll get there. She is just a great friend to us. Treats us so well. She brought her son over and he got to play with Woodrow and he went down to the Creek and waited in Creek.

That's when she helped judge the blending challenge. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Um, but. Her lucky seven, the brand she works with, man, that's some great stuff.

I mean across the board, right? They're jokester. They're a holdout. What's the Christmas one? I can't remember the name of it. Oh man. Um, holiday, holiday, something or another, but now they got that new single bear of the proprietor.

Yeah.

Hopefully we'll get our hands on.

I hope I can get my hands on a bottle of that because I've heard it's really, really good. It's pretty tasty. Another bourbon menu both liked it's out of Midwest distillers in Ohio, but it has different brand name on it. Talking about the horse soldier barrel proof.

Fantastic. Now that one, our challenge, our bottle challenge.

Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, and it beat out our bourbon of the year last year, which was makers 46 cast strength. We didn't talk about that last year, 2020, the bourbon of the year was makers Mark 46 cast strength. And then a few shows after we named that uh, our property here, it got beat, believe it or not, or soldier cast rate.

Yeah. Yeah. I, that was, it was amazing bottle of whiskey. Uh, it just was that good to us. We both loved it. Uh, obviously the other two guys, the challenge loved it. Jordan and Rob, some spectacular whiskey across the board.

And we actually took that to the Bourbon on the Banks and that bottle disappeared so quick.

Every bottle seemed to disappear.

Every bottle disappeared. There were some thirsty people there.

I came back with nothing. I was like, uh, I actually had, uh, and Reno, one of my favorite bottles is to drink from is iron route one 15, the harbinger and I got a full bottle up there. I think it's up there. I have to look. Yeah, there's a bottle up there. It's, it's open already. I was thinking it wasn't, it wasn't open, but I've opened it. except on it, but, uh, some spectacular, spectacular bourbon this year's birthday bourbon, um, really, really good. It could have been bourbon in the year easily. The problem super limited again. Yeah.

Yeah. So again, just to reiterate, I mean, it's so important that our listeners understand that when we pick up bourbon in the year, one of the great scores it has to get is availability. So if it's not available and all our listeners can't, and we're kind of hoping that when we announce this year's bourbon of the year, that people can still go out and find it on the shelf. Under 60 bucks.

I saw it today, Jim. Yeah. So I would expect there's still bottles left. Um, so you still could get your hands on a bottle. I think you, are you going to leave here? Pick up a bottle. Uh, it's readily available. Um, I was looking at some other bourbons we get. I think I've named everything that we thought just me really just love this year. Um, I was going to say Woodinville's barrel strength.

Um, anytime you can get up your hands on one of those good stuff, you know, a new, a new honorable mention this year, Luca Mariano. Yeah. Now that's being made at wilderness trail, right? But if some fantastic whiskey, six year old whiskey, but just superb.

I mean, you were just shocked at how good that was. We were, we were totally kind of blown away at the complexity of that. We just both were like, wow. And broken barrel.

Yeah. Some of the, I mean, that's craft. I mean, that's craft science at its, at its best. Those guys out there and Seth, you know, they're just doing an amazing job with their barrel finishes and just hats off to them.

Yeah, he actually made it show a couple of times. We we actually drank his whiskey and we we got to. sit down with him and learn all about his heritage and his background and stuff. It's spectacular, spectacular whiskeys he's producing. Um, I would, and he did a, he did a kind of a marketing change. What's that thing you'd told me, Hey, don't change your, your logo.

Don't change your, what people don't rebrand, don't rebrand unless it's an absolute necessity.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I would say his rebranding, I don't know if it was a necessity, but Man, he nice bottles. Yeah. Nice bottles. He did. Um, yeah, across the board of me and you got to drink some pretty damn nice whiskey this year, Jim.

Yeah. I need to do a bottle tally to see where we are now after. Um, so we're, so in April, no, in March, it will be three years for us. Wow. Three years. And I think we're somewhere around 800 bottles. Or so. Yeah. I don't even, I couldn't even guess where we're at or how far we've gotten this year. So when somebody says, do you remember this one? I remember a general feeling about it, but I don't remember the flavor profiles a lot of times.

That's hard to do unless one just stands out, you know, something super special, super. you know, easy to get for you. Um, those bottles that are hard to get, you know, sometimes they could be a total letdown. Yeah. Um, real easy. You'll, you'll be like, I put all this effort into getting this thing and now I'll drink it and it's just bourbon. This really is just bourbon. Uh, the angels won't be flying out of it. I'll tell you that. Yeah. The bottle this year though, it did have some things fly out of it.

It did. This year's bottle is, there's definitely a little bit more than bourbon in there. Well, should we tell everybody what it is, Jim? I think we should because I think they're waiting for it. I think they want to hear it. I think they want to hear it as soon as possible so they can go out and buy a bottle of it if they haven't already. If they listen to the episode where we had this bottle on, they probably already own it.

Hopefully they do. Hopefully they went out there and got it. Um, I'm telling you, it's sipping on it right now. It just reminds me of how good it is, why we're naming it bourbon of the year for us. Um, let's talk a little bit about tasting notes before we tell them what it is. Okay. So texture.

I mean, it's like velvet, Mike. It's like velvet on the tongue. It's so, um, It's not thick, but it's, it's got that velvety texture, that viscousness.

The only thing I get in my mind when you say velvety, I just picture you licking a Elvis velvet pitcher out of a hotel room or something.

It tastes a little bit like velvet Elvis, huh?

No, you're right. It is super oily, super viscous. A velvet is the exact word you should use for something. Yes.

Creamy. Sometimes people say creamy. Yeah. Um, it's got that spice though. It does. So throughout the course of the year, there's a couple of, um, there's a couple of tasting notes. We use a lot. All right. Um, sugar smack homes for you. Yup. That's a big one for you. Pop rocks is one. Um, whore hound is another. Uh, but this one for me was a big time pop rocks because it does have that spicy sizzle to it when it hits the tongue.

We use pop rocks so much that I went and tried to buy pop rocks and it was like one of the hardest things to go find. Um, that's a hard candy to find these days. Does that mean we're getting older?

It was hard to find. You know, I found it at a, uh, went down to show you market and they got these little craft vendors in there. You know, you go upstairs from the bar and there's good. And one of them, one of the craft vendors there had a big bowl out with pop rocks of it and they were free for the taken. I was like, Oh my gosh, I haven't seen those in forever. So I took free, free, free pop rocks.

So this is what I mean. You said about it. This was our review of it. Our nose, we had a floral, a deep rose, fruits, spice and chocolate, almost a cocoa, crisp cereal, some orange zest peeking through on the palette. We said very thick, almost velvet was some, Pop Rocks kicked it up. That leaves you with that sizzle. Hence of white Baker's chocolate, oak and dark cherries. Yeah.

Chocolate, cherries, Pop Rocks, oak, man. And it probably need two hands to list all the notes that you can pull out of this, right?

You could just keep going and stuff. And one of our very few bourbons of the year that we said had a long finish. We rarely, rarely say something has a long finish.

It's usually medium to long or medium or little under medium. You know, it's not often we get a super short finish, but we do get a few, but longs are very rare. Uh, and it's not always because of proof, right? It shouldn't always be because of proof, but this had a big hug and it had a great finish.

Yeah. So, so Jim, why don't you announce to everybody what this is?

Okay. Well, it's, it, I tell you this much. It's two fairies in a bottle.

So what Jim's referring to is this is maker's mark 2021 limited release F A E TAC 02. What's F E stand for Jim?

fatty acid ester. So it's a little scientific, you know, but any, any bourbon geek is going to know what a fatty acid ester is. So that's what's given us that velvety mouth feel. That's what's given us that thick, creamy texture that we're getting off of it. And this is an experiment that they were doing right with their wood finishing series.

So it is their wood finishing series. This comes in at 109.1 proof. Um, it was 10 virgin toasted French oak staves. you know, is that reasonable? He loved it so much. It wasn't because it was a weed. It wasn't cause it's them toasted oak staves. It was just an overall experience with this bourbon. Um, it can, it, you could get it at like $65 I think was the original price. I saw it today for $54 at Kroger's still somewhere on the shelf. I rushed and told Jim said, Hey man, he's still got this stuff.

So there'll be another bottle in my bar tonight.

But yeah, and you've still got three quarters of a bottle. Yeah. You know, my maker's shelf surprisingly is kind of sets back and there's bourbon bottles in front of it. And it's not that I don't forget them because you see that pretty red wax setting up there. Right. Um, but a lot of people beat up on makers, but there's no reason to beat it up. If you, if all you're trying is a regular makers, Try one of their wood finishing series and you'll be totally shocked. Something like this that's higher proof.

I truly believe that if somebody out there, now everybody's entitled to their own palate and I'm not going to, I'm not going to say they're not telling the truth about what they taste and what they like. But I would say that if they're shouting from the mountain tops, that makers market FAU two O two is a no good. It's because it doesn't have enough dollar value on it because it's a good whiskey. It's probably this rivals any whiskey out there. Uh, as a good solid, it's got texture. It's got finish. It's got, it's got the fruitiness to it. Not a lot of nuttiness, a little bit of nuttiness, but not very much, mostly fruit, pop rocks, a little bit of spice, man. It's got everything you want in a bourbon and it's got it at 60 bucks. And it's from a distillery that everybody respects, right?

Yeah. If you haven't been on the maker's mark, you're missing out. If you're taking your pilgrimage to Kentucky, um, two of the places I tell you, you almost have to stop to is at Buffalo trace. Obviously, um, it's just an amazing distillery and go down to the out of your way drive, but it's a nice country drive to maker's mark. Um, you'll get a different experience.

Yep. And when you're watching this year's end of year episodes by podcasters and by YouTubers and blogs by people who write blogs, uh, I think you're going to find that several of the whiskies that we've mentioned in the second half are going to be on those lists.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them on there.

And I wouldn't be surprised to see this one ranked highly on all of them.

Yeah. I got to thank Drew Allen, one of our moderators, great friend, comes up here all the time with his wife, Heather. He's the one that went out there and got us a bottle before anybody else got a bottle, we got a bottle. And I got to thank him for that.

By the way, that is our, highest rated blog article in the history of the Bourbon Road. Wow. So, you know, we get an awful lot of visits to our website, but that particular page, Mike, that particular article had 125,000 readers this year. If that means anything to you, job well done writing that article.

Well, you know, when we talk about notes and stuff, People ask me, and they ask you the same thing, how do you two drink bourbon and give notes? People ask me all that because they're like, I don't get the stuff that you get. Other podcasters have said that. And I say, we're just two guys that really do love bourbon. We literally love whiskey. We not trying to take a bourbon wheel and use it. That's just not us. We don't do it. We never have that in here. We don't have show notes. We're just sitting down, having fun. Got Woodrow sleeping in our feet. It's just, that's what it's about is that bourbon.

I mean, when you use the bourbon wheel and I'm not saying that's not the right way to do it, but when you use a bourbon wheel, it's kind of, uh, that's kind of boring. You know, it's a, you know, wood, cereal, floral. Uh, pretty much done. We're giving everybody that stuff. We're giving those notes. With more specific memories.

Yeah. Life memories. And if you don't think that we have those memories, we definitely do. You know, anything that we've eaten.

I've heard you slammed on your cereal stuff, man. You're just coming up with cereals, Mike. No. You're just picking them off the shelf, buddy.

I actually, uh, I actually went to the store before, before the show today and I was in the cereal aisle like looking around and, I was wondering, I looked around to see if anybody was watching me, because it was quite a long time, but I was looking for one cereal, and I couldn't find it. I was like, where is that thing at? So I'm looking around, and I was trying to get Raisin Bran. Well, yeah, it's the start of the year, so I'd, you know, some people would not think Raisin Bran's a healthy cereal, but that might be something I want to eat. So I was looking for raisin, but I couldn't find it. Uh, but I was wondering that I was looking around.

I was like, so did you end up with some grape nuts?

Uh, I have some great nuts here to pour in yogurt. Yeah. Uh, but I, we have like a plethora of grape nuts actually. Um, but I was looking for raisin brand today, but I'm sure somebody, if somebody caught me in that cereal or they're black, you're just in here writing flavor notes down.

Yeah. Candy bars or candies, hard candies and cereals. So those, those make up a lot of our notes and, and that's just how we do it, you know? And there's a lot of podcasts out there, folk. There's a lot of, uh, YouTube channels and you're welcome to listen to who you like. Hopefully you like what we do and you, and you, uh, like the way we, we represent our whiskies. I'm kind of hoping that some of the notes that we give ring true with somebody, you know, they hear it and they go, Oh, really? Sugar smack. Isn't that the frog? Is that the frog, right? That's the frog. I think I remember that cereal. Let me go get that bourbon and see if it really does taste like sugar smackers.

Well, Jim, I'd like to give some thank yous to some people that have helped us out this year. They've been great friends to show. I think we got to start out with our moderators from our private Facebook group, the bourbon roadies. Drew and Jason have been two great people to help us out. Talking about Drew Allen and Jason Waller, they have kept that group to what it's supposed to be. The third guy in that team, he's almost like family. Adam. Yeah, Adam Boothby. Just an amazing guy in the whiskey community. I can't think of anybody else that represents what the bourbon community is supposed to be about than Adam. He is a salt of the earth kind of fella. Adam, hats off to you from me and Jim. We love you, man.

We couldn't do a lot of this without you. We, we appreciate your help and, and the same to the other two as well. I mean, uh, you know, the three of you guys really do help us tackle the great load that it is to run a bourbon podcast.

Yeah. A lot of people say, oh, you just. fun to drink whiskey to guys. And it is, it is fun.

I mean, it's, it's a great thing to be able to, you know, to sample and talk about so many whiskies and, and to get to meet the people that we get to meet and to visit the distilleries and all that. I'm not going to try and play it down. It's a, It's nice. Yeah. But by the same token, it is a lot of work. And these three help us get the job done.

Yeah. Ashley Barnes, we brought her up before. She has been a great promoter of ours. Matt King, we brought him up before. Great guy. Ariel Yan. Um, Randy still reaches out to us, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Great. Uh, I mean, he, he's a, he's a core of what the bourbon road is. And, uh, you know, just great to have.

I'm just thinking about all those great friends out there, but there's two special people that we really couldn't do this without. And that would be Mel and Vivian.

Yeah. I mean, uh, and, and, you know, they, they just, they always show up and they always support. And when, uh, doing a recording of a podcast is not the exact thing they want us to do, they're still supporting.

Yeah, yeah.

They're like, oh no, not another one tonight. We wanted to go out, but you know, we got to do what we got to do. We got to schedule.

Yeah, we try to make it up to them, but without those two, they truly have supported us 150%. They go on trips with us and I'm sure sometimes their minds like, good Lord, not another distillery. Why can't we go drink some beers and wine? But we still have a bourbon podcast to produce and without those two, it'd almost be impossible.

Absolutely. Really looking forward to next year, Mike. We got a lot of things planned, a lot of great things coming. We have not had a bourbon bottle challenge recently, so we're due for another one. We are due for another one. So we're going to have, they're always fan favorites. So we're sure that we assure you folks that there's another one coming. and we'll do it. We do plan on getting out to a few more distilleries this year and visiting some people. We've got some invitations to Bourbon Trails other than the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, so we're going to get out and visit some of those places. We know we want to get out west a little bit. We want to get into the middle of the country, out into Iowa probably. and some other things. So a lot of great stuff coming up next year. Definitely listen and subscribe.

Subscribe. Yeah. A barrel pick. We got to do a barrel pick in 2022. We didn't do one this year. It just didn't work out. But I promise you, we're going to try to do a barrel pick this year. It'll be a little bit different than our last one. It'll be more accessible, I think.

Yeah, a little bit easier than having to find your way into Shelbyville, Kentucky to pick up from a store, right? Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, like Jim was saying, the only way this happens is if you subscribe. So what we need you to do is scroll on up. hit that check mark that plus sign that subscribe and go ahead and subscribe to our podcast. That way you get to listen to us. Uh, we do two shows a week, a review show where we'll pick a craft distillery, sometimes a big boy, and we'll pick that bourbon apart, that whiskey apart and tell you what we think about it. Like we did this past week with the Westward American single malt whiskey. Um, and then we'll do a show like tonight. Sometimes we just sit down with each other and we kind of shoot the bull and, uh, And we'll have a great guest on, but the only way we get that is subscribers. And then what we really need you to do is scroll on down, hit that five-star review, because you know what's going to happen if you don't. I'm going to bring my friend, the big, bad booty daddy of bourbon. We're going to bring this Makersmark FAEO2 and some Liepard Forks whiskey with me and him. Drink all night. We'll get that five-star review out of you But really folks at the end of the day those five-star reviews help us open those doors to distilleries bring great guests on a show Bring you great content for to get you to work and home

We'd love to hear from you folks. We'd love to hear what you think about the show. We always love your comments. Mike and I are very accessible. You know, you can reach out to us. There's several ways to reach out to us. You can go on our website. We've got a contact us page right next to where you go to buy our stuff. You can also click on the contact us page and write us a note. Let us know what you think. Thank us for a show. Tell us. The screw off. You didn't like the show, whatever it is. We're happy to hear both. Um, we'd like to hear good comments, but we'll take the negative ones. Well, they make us better. They do. Uh, you can also reach us on email. I'm Jim at the bourbon road.com. He's Mike at the bourbon road.com. Probably the best way, as we always say, is to hit up our DMS on Instagram. I'm Jay Shannon 63. I'm big bourbon chief. And we'll see you down.