234. Top Four Affordable Rye Whiskeys

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

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we actually are on the road, aren't we? Yeah. The show's got to go on.

That's right. But we're on the road. We're coming to visit some distilleries. We did a little day drinking today. We had some mimosas, some Bloody Marys, some great breakfast, right? In Owensboro, Kentucky at the famous Bistro.

Yeah.

A brunch. A great place to go. Oh, man. Bottom mimosas, bottomless Bloody Marys.

And you can switch back and forth if you want to. Yeah. So we're actually sitting in the lobby. Yeah.

So you're going to hear some people walking past us and stuff. But like I said, the show's kind of got to go on. Me and you, we got busy lives, regular jobs, regular farms. We've got a lot of stuff going on. It's supposed to snow tomorrow, right? Dallas Cowboys are playing tomorrow in the playoffs. Hopefully by the everybody hears this, the Cowboys have won. Well, we certainly hope so. I hope so. I hope so. I'm praying. I'm praying. But, you know, we were talking about, we got a lot of time to talk because when we're on a road like this, we have a lot of different conversations and stuff. I mean, you were talking about four of the most affordable rise. And what are the top four affordable rise out there?

Yeah, I mean, it's it's kind of hard to narrow it down exactly. I think we had to choose four, but I'm not so sure that this had to be the four. There could have been a couple others in the mix.

There's most certainly is, you know, there's some that they're not going to be on show today, like Wild Turkey 101 Rye. But that's just because we had it on recently. Yeah. Jack Daniels has a rye whiskey.

Jim Beam has a rye whiskey. Everybody has one today. And our definition of affordable is under $30. Yeah.

We kind of looked at it and said, okay, here's what we want. And we went for these four for our reasons, right? So, yeah, our top four rye whiskies under $30 are going to be Redemption Rye. We're going to drink some of that. We got Old Forrester Rye.

100 Proof.

100 Proofer. We got Rittenhouse Rye, which is a bottled in bond. 100 Proof. Right. We kind of say these two bottled bonds for last. And then the Old Overholt Bottled in Bond.

Right. 100 Proof. Now, Rittenhouse and Old Overholt, these are found a little bit lower on the shelves, wouldn't you say?

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people don't know about them. I'm excited to work our way through this.

We're starting with the redemption ride today. Yeah. So a lot of people do know redemption. They've had redemption whiskey before.

You just don't know it. It's a 95, five mashbills, 95% rye, 5% malted barley. This is out of MGP selected from them. Kind of neat though. I like it. You know, Redemption's website, if you check them out, RedemptionWhiskey.com, their website really takes you through about rye. Before Prohibition, rye whiskey is America's number one spirit.

Did you know that? I didn't know that, but I knew that it was kind of one of the original spirits from like George Washington made

Yeah, we had his whiskey on and it makes sense to me. You know, America did start on the East Coast and worked his way in. And back then, our whiskey was and the more I think about it, the more places, not just George Washington, but we actually got to go to our idea. You didn't get to go with me. It was up to Wiggle in Pennsylvania. And I think it was Vigal was his name. And George Washington was the one that kind of quelled the Risky Rebellion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of neat. So nearly lost for 100 years, you know, redemption kind of brought back rye whiskey for everybody. And you kind of think about it, all these brands that are coming out with it and stuff. This was one of the original ones and from a great distillery, right? MGP. Sure.

And everybody knows the fame of the 95.5 out of MGP. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. It's a great rye.

A lot of people, and it's different than a Kentucky rye. What makes a rye whiskey, though? We were talking about that to our wives, and we had a long conversation last night at dinner just about that, about the breakdown of whiskies and stuff. And it kind of opened our eyes a little bit about that, saying we need to talk more about it.

Yeah, I think so. It's important. A lot of our listeners understand the difference between a bourbon and a whiskey, right? We all know the old saying, every bourbon is a whiskey, but not every whiskey is a bourbon. Sure. Yeah. And ryes, you could say the same thing. Every rye is a whiskey, but not every whiskey is a rye. Yeah. So ryes and bourbons are two different flavors of whiskey, two different mash bills, so to speak. We all know that bourbons are made from 51% corn and ryes must have 51% rye grain in them.

Yeah, it's kind of that same makeup of bourbon just with just rye and then the secondary would be mostly corn, usually. In this case, there's not really a secondary grain. Malted barley is the secondary grain.

And that's used primarily, not so much for flavoring, but for enzymes. Those sugars, right? It breaks up those sugars out of the carbohydrates. Yeah. And it's a very, it's actually a very hard whiskey to make because it's so sticky.

Yeah. We just talked to a master distiller and he was talking about that, of how, about how sticky it is. He said, it's almost like super glue sometimes. But I see a nose in it, Jim, and we're not reviewing these whiskeys. We're just talking about rye whiskey and the history of it and these four whiskeys that you can pick up for under $30 at almost any whiskey store or any liquor store, right?

Absolutely. Well, let's taste the redemption whiskey and then we'll talk a little bit about how rye whiskies are used. All right. Cheers. Cheers.

This definitely has that nose of a nice rye.

It does. It does. It has that sort of minty, peppery little bit of like a pine forest, like a pine forest.

I like it. We'll say cheers, Jim. Let's cheers. Nice sweetness, sweetness, pepper, that peppery cinnamon. We always talk about that cinnamon. I mean, you love that taste so much.

And that's one of the things I really like about the 95.5s is they get a little bit of that immediate spice, but then you get that sort of candy sweetness underneath. I really like that. And well, for a rye you pay $27 for.

Yeah, you can't beat it, right? And this is just a 92 proofer. The other three we have is 100 proof. We're going to talk about that a little bit, but this drinks like 100 proof, I would say. Yeah, it's got a bit of sizzle. Well, this is right up your alley.

Yeah. So what makes rye such an important spirit?

Well, I'd say farmers like to make rye, especially in the northern climates. You get above that, what would be called the Mason-Dixon line in Maryland. You cut over to Pennsylvania. Govert, Ohio, you keep going. Rye's are easily grown up there in that rocky soil. But the thing we like about rye so much is it's great in a cocktail.

Really good in a cocktail. And that's because the spicy flavors of a rye whiskey shine through, right? They punch through those mixers that you're making the cocktail from and they let the whiskey actually show up.

Yeah, I mean, this right here, you'd like to make that old-fashioned, right? And a lot of people in Kentucky will make old-fashioned with a bourbon, but truthfully, it probably needs to be made with a rye whiskey. Some of the better old-fashions are made with rye whiskeys, absolutely. And you actually like to use our sponsor, Seldom Scene Farms, his

bourbon age maple syrup in your old fashioned. I do actually, you know, I would, I would, I would love to go ahead and try to make one with this redemption. I think it would be really good. Let's do it.

Heck yeah. I mean, seldom seen farms. If you don't know who we're talking about, he's one of our sponsors, Kevin up there. It is maple season for him to harvest. He's tapping in those trees. We had a long conversation about that with our wives too, on the road, talking about how,

um that sap it's kind of like a simple syrup that comes out of the tree with a little bitterness right a little bit and it's uh kind of more watery right it's uh you would never you would never taste it and think maple syrup right yeah until they do what with it well well first he's got to get it out of the tree and most people in their minds what maple syrup

harvest looks like is just buckets everywhere. But that's not quite how Kevin does it. Kevin taps into the tree and hooks it to a hose, these blue hoses, and they're all connected and goes into a big feeder tank. So he, I don't think he can do 20 trees at one time, feeds into one tank. So he's got these things all out in the forest and stuff, but then they kind of boil it down and

which means it's a lot of work. You gotta heat this stuff up, you gotta boil it down, you gotta reduce it down to a much smaller quantity than you started with. Well, that's kinda like whiskey, right?

Yeah. It sort of is. Yeah. But the nice thing about his is he ages six to nine months in used bourbon barrels, in used rye barrels, makes some beautiful, beautiful maple syrup, handcrafted by Kevin. puts it in distilleries, you can find it on shelves at stores and stuff. You can go on his website, which is which?

Which is seldomseenmaple.com and they've got a very easy to use and well laid out store online and you can buy it by the bottle, you can buy it by the case, you can buy it as part of a gift set. I definitely suggest you get online and check it out.

I love this redemption rye. I think it's spicy sweetness. For a weeded whiskey guy, weeded bourbon guy like myself, this is soft enough still for me to drink with that peppery spice that I like. Yeah. You know, and we could pair this with some great food too, right?

Yeah, this would go great with chili. It would go great with Indian food or Chinese, I think. By the same token, you know, a little bit of Little bit of cheese, hot pepper jelly.

Oh yeah. There you go. A charcuterie tray. Yeah. It would pair great with anything like that. If you're having a cocktail party, you're making an old fashioned Manhattan's, whatever you're making. We recently did a breakfast brunch over at Jeff the Ben farm, and I don't think this is good for a breakfast cocktail at all.

Probably not. We did have a rye that we were using when we were doing our biscuit challenge, remember that? And I think that probably the drinks made with the old granddad were a little bit better than those made with the rye whiskey.

Is that why our wives' cocktails were better than ours? I think so. They cheated on us.

They did.

Well, heck, Jim, I think that's a great, great whiskey to start with. So we got the Old Forsher Rye 100 Proof. You know the match bill on this one?

Yeah, this is a 65% rye, 20% malted barley, and 15% corn. It's based off a Normandy rye, which was from the 1940s. Brown Foreman bought it. So this is a kind of a high malt rye. Only 15% corn. So we can't call this one a Kentucky rye, right? Yeah, that'd be hard. I mean, it's got a little corn in it. But 65 rye, 20% malted barley. There's a lot of malt in this. Well, this is our kind of hometown rye too, right? It is. And you know, our good friend Jackie Zichen, her and Chris Morris kind of designed this one together. And what they were going for is a good 100 proof well rye. You know, something that the bars can pull right from the well and make cocktails from.

Great price on this. You can't go wrong with it. It's got that. It's a little fatter to me bottle than a regular old Forester stuff. But and it's got a screw top on it.

It does have a screw top.

I think we're I think we're at about twenty to twenty two dollars here. Yeah. Something like that. That's a pretty damn good price.

Really good price. And it's a quality ride, but I'm ready to taste it. It's been a minute since I've been in it. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. So brown sugar, a little bit of a high spices in there.

Yeah.

But you can get that, you get that rye in there, you get that little bit of mint and zest coming from the back on it.

I got a little bit of black pepper tickling my nose hairs a little bit. But I like that, that zest.

Maybe a real, a good orange.

You ever had an orange peel and it gets in your face a little bit, tickles your nose? Yeah. Well, heck, let's cheers. Cheers.

Now, these whiskeys were sitting out in your truck. They're a little chilled. They're a little chilled. So I have to be honest in saying that when whiskeys cold like this, the nose is a little harder to discern, right? That's definitely true, I think. A little harder. So they're a lot better when you have them at room temperature, if you're going to be nosing them.

If you're going to nose it, I think, like if we're just sitting back drinking like we are right now down in the lobby while our wives are taking naps, So we got kicked out of the room. We did. They said we're taking naps. I want you guys to go drink some whiskey. I think it's good like this. I like it chilled down like that. You don't have to add ice to it, right? Right. It's still really great and stuff. Everybody's probably wondering, why did you, what'd you guys get on the road and where are you at and stuff? We're actually Owensboro, Kentucky. We recorded a couple episodes down here, but you know, we're at another bourbon road trip we took down in Franklin, Tennessee. And we, me and you and Mel and Viv, we went into a little, it was a house and watched some bands play and this guy bumped into me and spilled beer all over me. What did his wife say? She was like, why did you pick the biggest man in this bar to bump into at Spill Beer on? Why? He's not a little, little guy, but he was, I'd say five, five, five, six. I'm six, three. And he spilled beer and he was like, hey, I'm awful sorry. He was like, I'm good, man. I'm all good. No big deal. It was really tight in there. It was a whole house converted into a bar. And he bought me a beer. And I bought him a beer and we started talking. You know how I am. Never met a stranger and never will, I don't think. So we started talking and it turned out he is the piano player and harmonica player for the 90s band, country band Lone Star. Big, big band from the 90s. Yeah, yeah. I mean, mega band. Right. And they're still on the road playing today and stuff. Some great songs.

I mean, the Memphis is walking to Memphis. Amazed. Mr. Mom. Yeah. Great stuff. Great songs out there.

Right. So he reached out to us and even then he said, hey, you know, we're going to be up in Kentucky. Why don't you guys come see me play? We're like, why not? Let's do it. And he offered tickets and stuff. He said your tickets will be at will call. So tonight our wives are getting to go to see Lone Star with us.

And it's pretty cool for my wife because in the 90s she had she had the Lone Star CD on on constant repeat. Constant repeat. Yeah, she loved it because every time the Amaze song would come on, her little boy would come running across the room, want to dance with her.

So it brings back good memories for her. So I guess lesson to everybody out there is, you know, don't get in a hurry in life and somebody bumps and spills beer on you. You know, you can turn it into a good situation.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So we'll enjoy that concert tonight and we're getting primed for it now. We are. We're going to drink this whiskey. We're going to go to Old Hickory tonight and eat some barbecue. Yeah, now you've been talking about this whole hickory. I keep hearing you talking about two different barbecue joints here in town and how you don't go to one, but you go to the other. What's the deal with that? Well, you know, we here's another conversation we had was about

We talked just about buffets and stuff. I'm not a big, I'm a big dude, right? Everybody probably thinks I eat a lot. I can't eat. I put it away, but I don't like buffets. You know, that was before COVID. I just, I just don't do buffets. I'm not big on it. And Moonlight is a buffet style barbecue joint going there and they got it in hot plates and stuff. And, um, That's all right. This ain't my first road trip to Owensboro, Kentucky. I know most people say, why you go to Owensboro, Kentucky? Well, there's a Coast Guard Cutter here, the Coast Guard Cutter Osage River Tender. They put the buoys in the river. They maintain that buoy line for the barges to go up and stuff. So back when I was on active duty, I'd come down here for them and visit them and stuff. But now, you know, we come down here for whiskey. Yeah. And this is going to be a booming whiskey town.

I think this is going to be a huge whiskey town. So there's two really big distilleries here right now. I mean, one is a monster and the other one is getting to be really big.

So we got Green River Distillery and you'll hear about them. You want to listen in February, don't they? Yeah, absolutely. Don't miss that episode. February 10th is when it's going to come out. It's a special episode. Um, make sure you listen to that. Um, we got a couple of nice episodes before that to reviews of whiskeys that we've picked up on this road trip and stuff. Um, but that's what we're going to do. We're going to eat some barbecue and then old hickories. We're going to go, like I said, it's either by the slice. It's by the, uh, sandwich. If you want to get a sandwich and stuff by ribs by the bone. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. So owns barrels quickly. I don't know how you would say it, revitalizing their whiskey scene here, right? Green River Distillery, fourth largest distillery in the United States. Monster, monster. 95,000 barrels, I think, is what they're doing a year here. And then you got the Sazerac Glenmore Distillery. And we know some of those brands, right?

Yeah, all of these are the lesser brands, right? The bottom shelfers. But honestly, they're probably the biggest sellers.

Yeah, affordable. Affordable what people could buy, what people could drink and stuff. You know, this is a town to come to and there's distilleries, little bitty distilleries here and there. So you want to make sure you check those out stuff. You're going to hear about one of those on our review. You got a dusty barn distillery over near Evansville, Indiana, but we'll be doing a review on one of their whiskies. You want to make sure you check that out. Back to this old Forester gym.

Yeah. So like I said, on the nose, you know, it's got that zest to it. It's got a little bit of a sort of pie spice and that sweetness. But on the palate, it gives you a little bit of like a cocoa, a little cocoa, a little bit of a kind of a nutty of, you know, another thing you get with it is just like you do with a lot of the brown form and whiskeys is you get a little bit of that banana.

Yeah, I'd agree with you on that. Well, two great rye whiskies to start with. I know some people are shaking their heads and saying, but it's me and you. It's us. This is how we do it. This is how we roll. Jim, a great two whiskies to start the podcast episode out with. Two affordable ryes that you could pick up under $30. Great for cocktails.

Yeah. I think it's great. You're going to find them on the bars. You're going to find them across the country. These are very available, very affordable, very much the choice of bartenders across the country.

Yeah. Don't turn us off listeners. When we come back, we're going to have Rittenhouse and Old Over Hope to just smashing whiskeys from the bottom shelf. Yeah, man. We'll be right back. Man, Jim, you know what I've been enjoying on my pancakes, my waffles, my chicken and waffles lately? Something sweet. Something sweet from our friends up at seldom seen farms in Ohio. We got some bourbon aged maple syrup.

Yeah. And Mike, well, you're eating them pancakes. I'm having a good cocktail. I'm going to have a good old fashioned. I love it. You only need a half an ounce of that maple syrup, a half an ounce and two ounces of bourbon, a splash of bitters. And you've got an old fashioned that will blow your mind. So good.

Well, with my pancakes, I like my cold brew, Big Chief's cold brew. Put a little bourbon in there, a little bit of that maple syrup, some cold brew. some cream. That's it. That's it, Jim. Like you said, a half an ounce of that bourbon age maple syrup, six to nine months on a bourbon barrel. You can't get no better than that. That's farm life. Kevin up there is doing it right. He's working for his money. If you want to go check them out, where can they see them at, Jim?

You can get them at seldomseenmaple.com. Great website, great products. Buy them by the single, buy them by the case, buy them in the gift set. Get you some.

You're going to support a farmer. You're going to support a family. Check out that website. Like Jim said, you'll see that they are a true farm operation, a post and beam bar. They're I guess I don't even know what you'd call that. Not a steel house. Maple house.

Well, I don't know. They're a bar. They're boiling it down and there's something they're cooking in there. Boiled cookhouse. Yeah, cookhouse cookhouse.

Maple Maple cookhouse fans. Check them out today. We appreciate it.

All right, listeners, we are back and this is our Affordable Rye Whiskeys episode. In the first half, we had Redemption Rye and we had Old Forester's Hunter Proof Bonded Rye. Both great whiskeys, Mike, I think both stand on their own as good ryes and affordable ryes. And that's what we're talking about tonight. Affordable Ryes. And what's next on the list? Well, it's got a bad name lately, Jim.

Rittenhouse, it comes out of Heaven Hill Distillery, real, real old brand. Bottled and Bond, 100 proof. You know, that a lot of people, that's something on their label that they want to put, right? Is that Bottled and Bond, 100 proof out of Heaven Hill, super respectable distillery, right?

They've got like 17 bottled and bonds or something, don't they? Yeah.

Yeah. And a lot of people love this, this bourbon lately though, because of some news and somebody else with the same name or almost the same name, put some bad light on it, and they didn't want to be associated with that. No controversy there. They don't want it. But that shouldn't diminish the whiskey in the bottle, right? And those people that were using that to tie it to it were wrong, I think, anyways, but we're about the whiskey. And what's the price of a bottle of Rittenhouse? I want to say this right here, this bottle of Bond was $25 at Total Wine. I don't mind paying that for it. I think that's a good price for a cocktail whiskey. Some people might beat me and you up on that stuff and say, well, you're not good to your friends if you're not putting the very best out.

Yeah, I mean, it's really about the application of the whiskey. And in the case of cocktails, I think you're going to choose a whiskey that you feel will match best with it. Who cares what the price is?

Yeah. I mean, when it's you're talking about cocktails, this is like the perfect thing to make a cocktail with right here. And Heaven Hill does a really good job at making these bottles and vans. They only got an agent for four years. Right. Right. And rye is aged a little faster.

A four-year-old rye is well-aged. Yeah, sure. Yeah, no doubt. Well, heck, let's nose this up. Let's check it out.

Man, that's sweet, right? Yeah, it is. And what's the match bill on this one? 51% rye, 37% corn, and 12% malted barley.

So this is a Kentucky rye. This is what they call a barely legal rye, right? I mean, it just makes it in with that 51%.

Yeah, yeah. $25. I mean, I don't think you can go wrong with it and stuff.

Well, let's check her out.

Yep. I get the spice in the nose for sure.

Yeah, it's got this corn sweetness on it a little bit. Do you get any dried bananas on this?

You ever had dried bananas?

Yeah, dried bananas, like those banana chips. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.

Well, hey, cheers, Jim. Cheers. Little bit different, way different.

Yeah, very much so. Yeah, so this is kind of a sweeter, a little bit more, not so much candy as the first rise of redemption, a little bit more just corn sweetness, a little bit of spice. I want to say like just a head of chocolate, but not too much.

That malted barley to me does something totally different with this whiskey. You know, 12% is, that's a pretty high malted barley content in a whiskey anyways. Most people would just use that five or six percent. Where this being 12, some people might get a, they would call it funky or dusty taste to this. I mean, you've talked about that before. Know your match bills. Know what's in that whiskey. A couple of distilleries that have malted rye will be off putting to people because they haven't had it before. So you really got to educate yourself on whiskeys and not just say, I don't like that whiskey because it tastes different. It tastes different because it's got a what? Well, different mashbill.

It does have a different mashbill. And you know what? I have to say that Heaven Hill has just a little bit of experience in making whiskey and they know how to craft a good one. And in the case of Rittenhouse Rye, it's not an overwhelming whiskey. It's not something that's going to blow your socks off. It's got this earthy spice to it.

Maybe some spice that would be an Indian food to me a little bit. An earthy, like an earthy truffle, maybe.

Yeah, I can see that, Mike. I think, you know, Rittenhouse has always been a ride that I favored. It's always been one that kind of stands out a little bit. It's also been one that, you know, it's not... something overwhelming that's gonna blow you away, but it's good, solid rye at a good, solid price. And it doesn't taste like all the others. You know, it is that Kentucky rye. It is that Barren League rye. It's got that corn sweetness to it. It's got a little bit of, in this case, like you said, a little bit of that earthiness to it. That's nice. I'm picking up a little bit of cocoa on the edge of it. And I think it's a wonderful rye. You could actually sip on this. or better yet, have it in a cocktail.

I like it. If you're in Kentucky, if you see it on shelf, don't pass this bottle up because of the price. If this is in your wheelhouse right here, $25, you're not going to beat it and stuff. I really like it. We're on the old Overholt. I just want to remind everybody we are in a hotel lobby. We had a lot of people walking past. People coming over to us and asking us what we're doing because we got headphones on. We got mics on. So we are on the road. So bear with us on the sound. It's not our normal speakers. We got lavalier mics on.

So a lot of curious folk around.

Yeah, part of doing a podcast. There's basketball teams here from Lexington. They'll be playing for the 2A state championship tomorrow, Jim. Pretty cool as a kid to get to do that.

And during our break, you were just talking to the father of the 6'11 kid on Lexington Catholic? Yeah.

Congratulations to the parents to get your kids to do that to the state championship of Kentucky 2A. They'll be playing tomorrow at it. Hey, even the kids that lost and stuff, we talked to their coaches and stuff earlier in the hotel and they're out of Mason County up there by Maysville. And hey, still, congratulations even to make it to the tournament. That's a big thing for a kid. Big thing?

Well, you know what's even bigger, Mike? Old Overholt. Old Overholt. We're hitting our fourth whiskey of the show here. This is Old Overholt. It's also the Old Overholt bottled in Bond whiskey. So this is also 100 proof four-year-old rye whiskey. Old Overholt is a very historic brand. Been around a long time and I have to say that Old Overholt Actually, you know, after Prohibition lifted, it became the only, you know, right after the war, after World War II, the nation shifted a little bit more to clear spirits, and the Old Overholt hit a little bit tougher of a time. But it managed to stay on as the only nationally distributed rye whiskey throughout that period of time.

Really?

Yeah. And, you know, the Beam Distillery picked it up in the 90s. And now it's there. It's part of their old line with old granddad and old overhaul, you know. Now, this would be a more of a

kind of Pennsylvania rye whiskey, right?

Yeah, this is a Pennsylvania rye, and this is an undisclosed mashbill. So we can't really tell you what the mashbill is on it, but we can tell you by tasting it what we think about it. But just to remember, this is a whiskey that originally appeared on the scene in 1810. 1810. That's old whiskey. This is an old brand. Been around a long time. Been in a lot of hands, right? A lot of companies have owned this. It's part of Jim Beam now, like I said, and it has a very respected place in the well on many bars. You gotta wonder, take that out, Jim. You gotta wonder how close is this to Jim Beam's rye whiskey? Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean, I think maybe their rye is not a four-year, but maybe it is. You know, it could be.

Well, what you're getting with this is $25.99. Yep. Right? Maybe up to $28, depending on where you shop at and stuff. Me and you like to go to smaller stores sometimes. We'll pay that 10% extra just to help out that small fella, right? Me and you went to a distillery today, and a lot of people give us whiskey, right? Yeah. He, the distiller was like, you know, I'm going to have to charge you guys for the bottle. And we didn't blink an eye.

No, we're going to pay for it because we understand he wouldn't be asking this if he didn't need it.

And we knew he needed it. Looking at the distillery and one of the best whiskey tours we've ever been on. We were on a timeline because I knew what we had to do and what a great tour we had and stuff. Spent a lot of time in there, drank a little bit of brandy, but Yeah. $25. I wouldn't mind paying that all day long for this.

Yeah. It's a good whiskey. Well, let's check it out, Mike. Cheers. Cheers. Nice right nose on it. Minty floral. Everything you're looking for in a ride, right? A little sweet. Let's taste it.

That's got some spice to it.

That's the spice to it. It's almost like this truly is whorehound for me a little bit. Definitely has that cough drop candy flavor to it. Not a lot of menthol, but a little more mint, maybe.

That's a note that we haven't talked about in a while is whorehound listeners, if you're new to us and you haven't listened to us before. Whorehound is a candy, you get it like Tractor Supply, Ruel King, places like that. It's just that old-fashioned candy.

Kind of a medicinal sassafras root beer candy, right?

Yeah, yeah. Great, great, great, great. I really like this, that spice to it. You know, it's pretty beautiful.

Yeah, Old Overholt, like I said, has been on the shelves for a while. There's a lot of Dusty's out there available in the secondary market, you know, the vintage market. You can find some Old Overholt from the 40s and 50s. Like I said, it was one of the last ryes. It was the only rye that was nationally distributed after the war. It's been able to maintain a successful distribution except for during prohibition since 1810.

That's pretty amazing. This has got a little bit drying effect on it and stuff. I think this would hold up better than a cocktail. All these will be great in a cocktail and stuff. And these are four bottles, like I said, it's just our take on it. Not, we say top four affordable, you know, you go under $30 and you got to be careful what you're picking up off the shelf. These are four worth saying, hey, you're not going to hurt yourself. And I think My first episode, somebody brought Old Overholt on the show.

I remember it. It was in the mix. That was a blind bottle share. Brian Hyatt. And Brian Hyatt brought Old Overholt bonded. Yeah. And I think it fared pretty well. It did.

It fared really well. Great, great. Great whiskeys here. You can't go wrong with them. If you're going to make cocktails, I would suggest you don't go with a $50, $100 bottle for cocktails.

Pick up one of these right here. Let's just say it. If you've got a hundred dollar bill in your pocket, you can own all four of these. Yeah. If you're stocking them, stocking them shelf, why not? Right? I mean, if you've got a bar with a lot of bourbons on it, you just don't have a selection of rise. This show is a good example of four you should go out and get. Now you really like rye, right? I do.

Yeah. And so I sent you home with a bottle of that rye, Wild Turkey 101 rye. Yeah. It was actually your bottle. You'd bought it for one of our shows and left it at the house. came back off that show and I'll say, Hey, just take this home with you. And there were still plenty in there. And I said, we're talking about the idea for this show. And yeah. And you're like, Oh, Walter, you want to one, but I only got, you said six ounces. I think I got six ounces, about three inches in the box, three inches in the bottle. So you, you've been making some cocktails or just drinking it or just drinking it.

Cause I can, I love to sip on a nice rye.

There is nothing wrong with that. You know, we are a bourbon podcast, of course, but we love our whiskeys. We love all kinds of whiskeys from across the nation and stuff from around the world. We've we've talked about that plenty of times. Top four affordable rye whiskies. Look for them. So we got Redemption Rye, Old Forester, Rittenhouse and Old Overhold.

They're all good in their own ways. They're all good in different situations. I was really surprised by the Redemption. Yeah, it's really good. It's really good.

And that's the only bottle that's totally different out of these two. The Rittenhouse and the Old Overholt, pretty cheap bottle screw tops. The Old Forester, I'm surprised they haven't put a cork in that thing yet.

Well, they're trying to keep it a well bottle. That's a well bottle. They want it in the bar making cocktails. Price point, right?

Sure. Price point. Sure. The redemption. probably out of these, that would be the top one. It's got cork in it. Beautiful bottle.

If I had to choose a winner tonight, that would be the winner. Well, I'm partial to a 95.5. I mean, yeah, I'm there with you.

You know, I love that 95.5 gives me that sweetness is a, is a weeder guy. Um, but I like all four of them, Jim. Um, great episode. Thanks for sticking with us with the noise, everybody. Um, It's still fun in here to record this episode.

Well, we've had, during this entire episode, and if you haven't noticed, listeners, there have been a lot of background noises, but there have been a lot of, we've had a gallery in here. People wanted to come over and see what the heck we're up to. A lot of fun. We were even pouring drinks for some of them. Yeah, he got to try a

One of the rise, he tried for some redemption and, you know, me and you always have a bag of whiskey with us. Inside my bag, I had some TX cast strength from Texas. And why do we have this with us? Why do we carry it with us? I like to fool some people. He was looking at the bottle. He's like, that's really, really dark. He said it's four roses.

Yeah.

That's high price. Yeah, it is. But this is TX Cast Drinking. It's a weeded bourbon, 127.2 proof. Cause he's saying the whole time before we told him what it was and what the proof was. He was like, I can't drink those high proof whiskeys. And he's like, Oh, that's really good. He had no clue. Yeah. Um, so there's another thing for you listeners, uh, do buy some for your friends that will say, Hey, I only drink this or I don't like that. I don't like high proofers. It is the great equalizer. It sure is. We've both, both of us been fooled by it before. Plenty of times.

Well, Mike, where can everybody find us on the internet? Well, you could find us on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook.

And we're all over the place, just dancing around, dancing around, having a good time on the road, having a great trip. But our main places on Facebook, the bourbon roadies get pretty strong in there with some strong numbers. Three things you got to answer to get in there. Are you a 21? Do you love bourbon? And do you agree to play nice? Because we don't tolerate any rudeness. If you're drinking from the very bottom of the shelf, Jim, to the very top of the shelf, And then you cover it all, right? That's right. We do. We are equally respected. We were we were talking about some high dollar whiskey tonight, but what we want the people to do is go in there and be able to drink their whiskey their way, whether it's from the bottom shelf or the top of the shelf. We want you to be able to experience that without any hatred, any rudeness or anything like that.

Absolutely. We do two shows a week. We do a short episode every Monday. We do a craft distillery episode where we highlight a single distillery, a single expression, about 15, 20 minutes in length. We just want to let you know what we're drinking and whether or not you should add it to your bar. Every Wednesday, we'll do a longer episode like today's. Most of the time, Mike and I have a guest on. We'll go through a number of expressions, but sometimes we do a show like today where we've got a topic. Today's topic was four affordable rye whiskeys, and we've gone through four of them for you today. We hope you enjoyed that show. We hope you listen to us every week. Mike, how do they be sure to not miss out on a single episode?

Go up on that app, hit the check sign plus sign, subscribe sign. They'll tell you we got a show coming out. Then scroll on down, hit that five star review. You know what will happen if you don't. I'm going to bring the big bad booty daddy a been over to your house with me a big old bag of rye whiskies we're gonna drink all night it might take two nights to do it but after we're done we're gonna get that five-star review out of you I guarantee no seriously those five-star reviews those write-ups those comments about us and stuff those get us into distilleries that'll give us great guests gets great whiskey in our hands you know

like these four rides. Absolutely. Well, we we'd love to hear what our listeners think about us. Mike just told you how to give us a review. We'd also like to know if you have an idea for a show. You can go to our website, the bourbon road dot com. We have a contact us page on there. You can fill out that page and ask us any questions you like. We'll be happy to respond. But while you're on our website, we also have our articles we write, our blogs we write for every show. Our reviews are on there. We also have all our episodes. You can listen to them on there as well. So make sure you check that out. You can also reach Mike and I by email. I'm jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's mike at the bourbonroad.com. But probably the best way, like we always say, is to hit up our DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down the bourbon road.