237 - Wheel Horse Straight Bourbon Whiskey Review

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

You know what's made out of American oak Jim? You're going to tell me. Well, bourbon barrels. But what happens that bourbon barrel after they're done with it? After the distilleries are pouring whiskey out, that bourbon barrel doesn't make the grade to get shipped overseas, to be used to something else, to wineries. Our good friend at Cruise Customs Flags is turning that barrel into American art. Something that you can be proud to hang on your shelf. You got one, Jim. I got one.

Yeah, I mean, he's a patriot at heart, right? I mean, he makes these wonderful American flags out of bourbon barrels that are repurposed, an absolute centerpiece for your bar. And if you've got a conference room, if you're a company and you want to show off your love for bourbon, your love for bourbon barrels, what would be better than a patriotic bourbon barrel flag in your conference room over the conference table? That would be awesome.

Yes, what you want to do is go on over to CruzCustomsFlags.com, check him out on social media. He's at Cruz Customs Flags on Instagram, on Facebook. He's got all kinds of stuff. He even has a USA wood magnet key holder for your keys. pretty nice. He sells easels to display those on, these American flags on. Me and Jim have each of those. He also has, for those beer drinkers out there, he has the bottle breacher, a 50 caliber bullet bottle opener. Pretty neat, right Jim? Absolutely. Yeah, I got one of those myself.

You can't go wrong with Chris and Cruz custom flags. Uh, you know, he's repurposing these bourbon barrels into something that we can all can appreciate. The other thing he's doing is he's using combat vets to do the work. I mean, he's putting these guys to work. He's giving them a job. You know, they're creating these wonderful pieces of artwork. What an amazing guy.

Yeah. Veteran owned and operated true to the word. Go check them out today.

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. This is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, it's another craft distillery Monday. We've got a whiskey on today that we haven't seen before.

Well, we've seen it in the news, right? We have seen it in the news. Whiskey advocate named it one of the top 20 whiskies, not just bourbons. but whiskeys throughout the world. Sure. It got our attention. Yeah. How many, how can you not, uh, get it, get your attention with that right there? I think it was a number 19 is what it came in at a whiskey advocate, but that's, that's pretty high praise, uh, from a good publication like that, that, uh, is honest about their whiskey and stuff.

So like we do on our craft distillery Mondays, we're going to check out this bottle. We're going to taste it for our listeners. We're going to tell them what we think about it and we're going to let them know whether or not they need to add it to the bar.

Yeah. So this is a contract to steal down in Owensboro, Kentucky by Green River Distilling Company. Our good friends. Yeah, we're going to be down there for some special news about them, Jim. Uh, they got some special announcements. You want to make sure you, uh, pay attention to that episode, right? And it's going to be a special episode. It's going to come out on February 10th, which is a Thursday. Um, we'll have something.

We don't do Thursday releases. Yeah, I know it. I mean, I've got my system. You're messing me up here, Mike.

But we'll have a Wednesday episode to get you to work. Probably a 30 minute episode, something like a review or some history me and Jim want to talk about. So, but make sure you pay attention to that Thursday episode. There'll also be a giveaway in that episode, Jim, I think. So that week, we always do two episodes a week. That week we got three. The bonus episode. But this wheel horse bourbon right here that was named in top 20 whiskies of the world for Whiskey Advocate, it's a 101 proof gym.

That's a good number. I like 101.

You know I like 101, Mike. Well, that's that perfect, right? That perfect proof that opens yourself up to mix some cocktails. Great for whiskey drinkers like me and you. Like that little bit oomph to a little bit of spice to the whiskey.

Like something that shines through a little bit. Yeah.

So this does have a great mash bill on it. 70% corn, 21% rye, and 9% malted barley. Aged for three years, Jim. Um, it's got that mahogany color to it. Red. I don't know. Maybe is it, would you call it mahogany?

Yeah, I would say it's a, well, yeah.

Dark amber, dark amber. Yeah. Oh, beautiful color. Beautiful bottle. I like that old, old school bottle. Now what people might not realize is what, what is wheel horse? What is a wheel horse? Uh, so I'm going to, obviously I'm gonna tell you growing up on a farm, you know, you gotta know these kinds of things, right? You got a couple of horses. I do. I don't have a wheel horse though. You don't have a wheel horse. You couldn't get them to pull a wagon. No, no. I could see you out there hooking them up.

They would look at me like I'm something stupid.

So a wheel horse is that horse that was harnessing the closest to the wheels, to the front wheels of a wagon and stuff. And he uses, that's the guy that can most maneuver the wagon around and stuff. So that's what a wheel horse is.

I remember my dad telling me a story when I was younger. He would tell me a story about when he used to bale hay when he was a young fella. And they had a couple of draft horses. Those draft horses would pull the wagon and they'd load the hay on the wagon behind the horses. And they said nobody was in the wagon. The horses just looked back over their eyes. They would look back and see that he had just loaded the last bale on the wagon and the horses would automatically move up to the next bale.

Yeah, they don't have to go at a high speed when you're loading those bales like that, right? But he didn't have to tell them what to do.

They automatically knew that that last bail went on the wagon. So they'd automatically walk up to the next row. The next bell that had to be loaded and they would stop and he would load that on. They'd see that nobody was driving the wagon. I thought those horses are smart.

I had a Dodge pickup like that one time. You just put it, remember those old granny gear Dodge one ton pickups. You just put it in granny gear and you could jump out of the driver's seat. And I know people were thinking, Oh shit, it's probably like, I'm going to come find this guy. But this is back in the eighties. Uh, you'd put it in granny gear. You jump out and you'd be pulling a gooseneck trailer and then you would just run along there. My brother would be on the trailer. I'd be running and throwing bells. And then you'd run back up there and jump back in and stop your truck. I know these people are saying, will you please drink the whiskey? Yeah. Another thing about wheelhorses, there was a, lawnmower company, a little tractor company called wheel horse and they were painted red and this one has a red label. So, um, just, just a little fact finding stuff for people. They're a wheel horse. I'm not sure what they named it after. It's got a couple of hammers on here. Um, I liked the bottle. It's at old school. Got the tool neck.

Yeah, it's going to, it's going to pour nice.

Yeah. So heckless knows it. Just check it out.

That's nice. A little caramel. Typical, typical bourbon notes there. Caramel, vanilla. Oak and leather. Well, yeah, a little bit of leather. Um, new leather though.

Dried turkey figs. Yeah, I do get a little bit of dried fig on this or maybe a little bit of a date. You know how I like those charcuterie trays.

Yeah, that's, it's a, it's a welcoming nose. I hope that the palette matches. I really do. Yeah. Well, let's try it. Let's check it out. Cheers.

Oh, that's good. I can see why it was top 20. Yeah, that's good whiskey. And I'm talking about those dates and those figs, right? That sweetness to this. Yeah. You know, and it's got that, a fig sometimes will have a little bit of, I wouldn't say like a white pepper. This kind of has that white pepper taste.

No, it does have, it does have a white pepper to it. You're exactly right. Yeah, this has got that, and it's not dark. It's not as dark as raisin. So I think figs were a good choice there. I think it is a kind of a white, do you say a white fig? I think a brown turkey fig. Yeah, okay.

I like that. White pepper, turkey fig, that little bit of spice to it. This thing is super creamy, mouth coating. For a three year old, man.

Yeah, I don't think this has been chill filtered.

Yeah, you're right, Jim. It's non-chill filtered. It's a sour mash. Does it actually say that on the label? I don't see it on there, but... I would say... I might know a guy that knows a guy. That's always important, right? Yeah, it is. So what's the price on this? So Jim, you could pick this up at like our, one of our favorite places, liquor bar and a total wine for around 32 to $35. Not a bad price, right? Yeah. That's that price that gets people to kind of take a look, take a chance. Well, I'm telling you, you should take a chance on this. It's got that medium finish on it. Another two years and I would say long. There would be no doubt for me.

You don't need to wait. I think you can buy this bottle right now and you will not be disappointed.

You know, I love the sweetness of this. I really do just like this bottle right here. It's, uh, man, I can't just talk about that creaminess. Can I just, can you just say creamy? It is. It's buttery creamy. Um, man, I like it.

Well, you know, if you're, if your whiskey's coming out of Owensboro, there's a pretty good chance it's going to be good.

Yeah, I heard the guy down there.

Yeah.

I heard he knows what he's doing.

Yeah.

We'll find out on February 10th.

Yeah.

If his whiskey is going to be that good, but this is as whiskey too. So if it's as good as this, that's another bye.

All right. Well, I say, you know, Mike, for me, I say wheel horse, get you some. Yeah. You think?

Well, you got to steer that wagon somehow. And this is the perfect whiskey to steer it with. Um, make sure you go out there and pick up a bottle of this. You're going to find us on our shelves. I believe Jim.

Yeah. Well, Mike, working people find us on the internet.

So you can find us on tick tock, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, all those places on social media. Um, probably the best place is in our private Facebook group. What's that all about?

It's called the bourbon roadies. It's a private Facebook group. We've got a whole bunch of people in there. We've got a lot of good friends in there. That's where our, uh, our family live. You know, they love to talk about bourbon. They love to take pictures of bourbon, share bourbon. We actually share bourbon. We don't sell it.

And there, there's listeners in there from around the world. We've got a good, uh, friend down in Australia, James Ewan, um, really great guy. James, I wish you'd get some of this in your hand over there in Australia, Owensboro, Kentucky. I know that you'd love to come here and visit because you mentioned you'd like to eat some of the barbecued mutton. We'll save it a little for you. Do they eat mutton in Australia? Yeah, they do.

There's a lot of sheep in Australia.

Well, so two shows a week, Jim, the way people can find those is make sure you scroll on up, hit that check sign, a plus sign, subscribe sign, whatever you have to do on your app, that place that you listen to our podcast to let it tell you that, Hey, they just released an episode. Then you scroll on down, hit that five star review. You know, it'll happen if you don't. I'm going to get my big bad booty daddy, a bourbon buddy to come along with me, bring some of this wheelhouse bourbon with him. We'll drink it all night long. By the end of the night, we're going to get that five star review out of you. Otherwise, he's going to pick you up, squeeze it out of you. But seriously, that five star review opens those doors to distilleries like Will Horse gets great bottles of bourbon. We get to drink it, tell you about it. So please give us that five star review.

Yeah, so we do two shows a week. Every Monday we do a craft distillery episode like today's episode, where today we're focusing on wheel horse. We're kind of letting you know what we think about this expression, whether or not you ought to add it to your bar. Every Monday we'll do that. Make sure you tune in, like Mike said. Every Wednesday we'll do a full-length episode, about an hour long. 30 minutes each half. We'll get you to work, we'll get you home. On that episode, we'll usually have a guest on. Sometimes it's just Mike and I chewing the fat, but it's always a great show. You definitely want to make sure you check out both every week.

You saying chewing on fat like ham?

Children on ham fat.

Yeah. So Jim, the best place people could reach us as obviously you can reach out to us on our emails, right Jim? You're Jim at the Bourbon Road. I might get the Bourbon Road, but probably the best place you can reach us is on our DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63.

I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

you