24. Collaboration - A Look Through The Bourbon Lens

You're the outlier here.

I guess but I'm not a ride drinker. So folks Don't don't listen to me when it comes this movie. We'll have if we have a weeded podcast Just don't weeders, you know, I don't know why people call weeders. It's like you're a sissy or something Texas guy coming right there's sissy I'd line up a hundred guys and they would all say, I'll drink a bottle of Pappy's over anything else. So I'll stick to that. You know, I'm no sissy.

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.

and we are back it's a new week we've got a great show for you and this is something we've been trying to work out for some time so we had the guys on from the bourbon lens podcast and we've been talking about getting together around a bonfire in the backyard and doing a joint podcast Well, the time finally came. We were able to get together. Now, we didn't do it by the fire. It was a hundred degrees outside and we decided to drink cast-drink whiskey. So we just felt like a combination of the two, not a good choice. So we moved inside and got down to business with these guys. Now Michael and Scott, their third member Jake, was out of town. These guys came over and they brought a few ryes themselves and we had a number of them here and we lined them all up on the table. We must have had about 12 castrink ryes on the table and we didn't necessarily pick what we thought were the best of the 12 we picked what we thought were the most interesting of the 12 so we passed over a handy and we passed over a few others but picked five really good ones and I think you guys are really going to enjoy the show A little bit about Michael and Scott and Jake. They're three friends who decided to kind of start a podcast, document their travels and their experiences and to connect with new people. And I guess this is one of the ways to do it. You know, get together, drink some bourbon and make sure you guys subscribe and check out their podcast, The Bourbon Lens. It's wherever podcasts can be listened to. You'll really enjoy it. I sure do. So I hope you guys all enjoy the show.

So Scott, cool experience that we're getting to do today sitting down with Jim and Mike from the Bourbon Road. I know we've been listening to their podcast now for quite some time since they started back in, was it April?

Yeah, we started in, actually our first episode came out just late April. We had our first real episode the first of May. Yeah.

Yeah. Both new podcasts here, so it's kind of interesting to see. Normally we have guests on that are either Instagram followers or people in the whiskey industry, so getting to sit down and talk with you all who are also in the podcast industry is really cool and I appreciate you all having us out here. Yeah, it's really great to have you here.

We're actually in Simpsonville, Kentucky today for anybody who's not familiar with the Bourbon Road. Mike and I both live kind of on a I don't know a little bit of land not too much you more than I but we live out in the country here it's a little bit out of Louisville you know and we kind of enjoy a little bit of the country life and drink a little bourbon.

Yeah well can't complain out here it's a beautiful beautiful home beautiful uh serene scenery out here in your backyard with the horses running around and notice you had a nice little sunset there in your backyard as well so. Oh darn, we should have went out and took a bourbon shot.

I'd like to say we live out on that bourbon road or the bourbon trail. You know, when you live out here in Shelby County, it's a little bit different. And then you get to see what Jim has out here on horse farm. He's got his horses out there running around and it is beautiful out here.

Yeah, absolutely. Definitely appreciate you guys having us out.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So, but tonight we're drinking bourbon, guys. Oh, no, actually we're drinking rye. Whiskey. Yep, we're drinking whiskey. All right.

Rye, rye whiskey at that.

So what do we have first?

I think we got some peerless rye.

Yeah, we do. We do. So this is a peerless three-year rye. Kind of what got, if you know, kind of got peerless kicked off. And, you know, if you listen to our most recent episode with Caleb Kilburn, the master distiller, he talked about how They didn't make a choice to go with rye. They just dictated what the barrels allowed. This was their first product and had a lot of accolades behind that. I think they were the only rye whiskey to ever get on Whiskey Advocates Top 20 list. I think they came in at 15. They're pretty proud about their product. This is a single barrel, and we haven't gotten to try it yet.

So they released their first riot two years, right?

They did. So they brought it out at 24 months. And then, as Caleb told us, that as they continue to age their barrels, they're going to figure out where their sweet spot is before they take that age statement off of there. They're not going to go back to that 24-month riot all. So what they're going to produce is whenever that year is until the year that they say, hey, this is this is our sweet spot. This is what it is. So right now we've got the three year in the class. We have the three year in the glass right here. It'll be my first sip of this barrel. We've had some others. We had the smoked latte, I believe it was, a few months back. It was pretty good. I think it ranked in the top five of our whiskey challenge that we did back in March. They make great products. I really like the brand. I like the story behind Caleb. I think you're going to get to go out and meet with him here in the next couple of weeks. I mean, what can you what can you say about that guy? He's 28 years old and. I know when I was 28 years old, I wasn't as grown up as him and mature as he is. And he was completely gracious to have us out there and talk to us about whiskey and his products.

He's an American success story, right? He grew up on a dairy farm. And how much more Americana can you get it than that? And now he's 28 years old and he's a master distiller at a great distillery. to me and they didn't rush their product out there for everybody they didn't say hey we got to rush this bourbon out here but we got to keep our lights on so we're gonna we're gonna put some rye whiskey out there for you now they don't they don't disclose their match bill right

That is correct. Yeah. And we tried to get it out of him. He just gave us some rough estimates, but you know, I listened to your episode.

I was like, those guys almost got him to tell his management.

I mean, he got so close. I was. So I asked the question to him. I asked him, I said, you all don't release the mash bill, correct? He said, that's correct. And I was going to ask him if, you know, right here on the bourbon lens podcast, if he would release it. But he did just kind of give up some information, you know, given rough estimates of what their mash bill is consisted of and. Yeah, I kind of looked at Scott, because Scott was sitting in the room with me, sitting across on the couch, and he wasn't able to speak on that episode, but I was looking at him like, are we going to be dropping some whiskey news right here?

Yeah, I mean, I think Breaking Brave might be referencing your podcast in the review for Nashville.

Yeah, that would be okay with us. Just tag us.

All right. So guys, what do you say we go ahead and see what this thing's all about? Sure.

So first of all, this is their Spiced Tea three-year that and that we've talked about this in links before with Peerless and we love that they name each single barrel, put their tasting notes on the side of the bottle. So for people that might not know what they want, they can go in there and look at the bottle and kind of see what this might taste like and kind of help them. I know we we say on our podcast all the time if you want whiskey reviews you need to go listen to another podcast. There's all kind of great podcasts out there that do that and so this kind of just helps pull out those flavor profiles if you don't know what you're looking for. Now I didn't take a look at the bottle so I don't have any clues as to... Should have brought that over.

No that's okay. No actually I prefer it that way so we'll see how close we are afterwards right?

So I get a, with peerless all peerless rise, I get a real deep, rich toffee on the nose, almost like butter, butterscotch, buttery caramel.

I get a buttery caramel that were there's candy. Yeah. But the soft ones, right? Not the hard ones. The real ones. They're the real ones. Yeah. It's a little floral, not too much. I mean, it's, it's definitely, I mean, you're getting the Oak on it. So I, yeah, I'm getting a lot of Oak right now, but the rice spices there on the nose a little bit. For sure.

Did you taste it yet?

I'm going for it now.

Cheers. No, you're fine. That mouth fill on that is outrageous for a three-year-old whiskey.

Yeah, this one really, I mean, it definitely goes everywhere at once. It hits the sides of your tongue and the back of your mouth all at once. Randy liked to call them racetrack bourbons. You're getting that pepper on the sides and on the back.

I like to call that a punch in the mouth right there.

That went everywhere for sure.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? To me, that's a great thing. This actually has a little bit of an orange to me, has a little bit of orange flavor to it. And whenever you said that spice tea, in the winter time, I love some spicy orange tea to drink with maybe a little bit of bourbon in there. But I can taste that orange in there a little bit.

Yeah, I've always said that this is kind of like Pop Rocks for your mouth. It just explodes in all aspects of your taste buds.

Yeah, I mean, that's a really good rye. I think it's kind of that top shelf of rye for me, especially at three years old. I mean, I would definitely have this with some of my better ryes. It's really good. Now, this is a single barrel. It is a single barrel. They do it all that way. And my understanding is, and I've got no experience with this, but I've heard that they're all very different. They can be very different.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, we've only had one other one in the smoked latte, and what's kind of crazy is that their tasting profiles seem to be pretty on what they have on the bottle. I know Mike just said he gets some citrus and some orange, which is the first thing on their tasting notes over there. And then that mixed in with that like summery tea, that spiced summer tea with some citrus.

And folks, I'm just telling you, I did not look at the bottle at all. I'm just, that's my taste. Cheater, cheater. Yeah.

Yeah, so we actually did the peerless tour several months back and we had a lineup of four or five different ones. I think we had five different and they all had some commonalities, especially with the mouth feel. They all had that that similar how it just coats the tongue, but they all had those nuances and I kept going back to like cherry and orange and I kept thinking of old fashioned and I think that that was the last one that they brought out. It was actually called Old-fashioned it's called a Manhattan The man they just came out with The one that they just came out with okay, so that was the one that they hadn't released yet, but he brought out from behind the bar No, I don't think so need to cut that part out of the that was not the Manhattan that we had back when we did it in February I'm 99.999% positive. It was called old fashioned.

We're going to have a podcast breakup on here.

No, but I have to go back and listen.

So you want that in the raw feed I send to you so you can decide if you want to cut it or not?

You can leave it. It might be a smack in the background too, but no. So they actually just had three flavor profiles down there today. They had a citrus and oak. This one the spice tea and then the Manhattan Which I my wallet couldn't afford all three of them they do they love their products and I think Peerless gets a bad rap for that, which I don't really understand because a lot of rise are two and three years old, four years old, and they just seem to age a little bit quicker than the bourbons do. They catch a bad rap for what they're putting out for their age statement. We asked Caleb directly, we said, what do you say to the naysayers that say we're not going to pay that type of money for such a young product? You know, he said, that's fine. I mean, they're, they're going to do things the way that they want to do them. And I think you all had mentioned that earlier is that. They feel that what they're doing is the right way to make whiskey, and they're not going to let anybody else dictate their pricing or what they do to their whiskey. They made the choice not to source anything. They're spending money hand over fist. They got a lot of expenses that are going on, and they think that the quality of the product that they're putting out is deserving of these $80 and $100 price tags that they have on their bourbon and their whiskeys.

Yeah, I think we kind of look at it from a more pragmatic view, sort of like that. A distiller has to determine where his price point is in order to be profitable because he has to stay in business. So whatever it costs him to make his juice, to bottle it, to market it, to get it out there. Of course, by the time they sell it, they're sending it out to a distributor and that distributor is then putting the price up for the retailer. $100 is the price tag on a shelf for a bottle. That probably means that peerless is probably getting $50, maybe. I don't know, but I'm just guessing.

We didn't ask. I don't know if you would tell us.

I kind of equated to, you know, some people go out there and spend $100 on a bottle of wine. How many glasses are in a bottle of wine? Well, there's probably four glasses in a bottle of wine. If you're sitting down with me, I probably have two glasses out of that bottle of wine, but that's just life. If you want a great bottle of wine, you spend $100, but how many pours are in that peerless bottle? 20 pours, right? If you went and bought it at the bar, how much is a pour going to cost you? Or you can sit and enjoy it at home and be responsible and drink it like we're drinking here today.

Yep, and I don't mind paying those prices to peerless because I like the story that they have I like the the underdog feel that they have the small distillery. They're the family-owned You know, I just like everything they're doing and you know, I think our Decisions on that are a little sway because we've gotten to meet Corky and meet Caleb and two fine human beings and you got a There's a little bit of brand loyalty there and you gotta back who you like.

So it's really up to the guy who walks into the liquor store, reaches for his wallet while he's looking at that bottle. He has to make the decision if he wants to pay $100 for it or not. Nobody knows, except him, what he had to do to earn that $100. So it's relative. So who are we to sit here and say it's worth it, it's not worth it? For Corky and for Caleb to put a price on a bottle, and for you and for I to decide what we want to spend on that bottle, it's kind of a personal thing. I mean, you know, a lot of people want to weigh in on it. I get that. But at the end of the day, I think they got to do what they got to do to stay in business. And we got to buy the bottles we can afford. Yeah, absolutely.

Don't go broke buying whiskey. There's a lot of great ones out there.

You know, I was just thinking a minute ago as I continued to sip on this, I started to pick up like a, have you guys ever had like a whorehound candy? You know what I'm talking about? Oh yes. I'm kind of just a, just a little bit of a hint of it in there. And I don't, I'm not sure what's in a whorehound, but it kind of reminded me of it. It's almost like a root beer, almost old fashioned root beer candy. Like a root, licorice root. Licorice root.

Yeah. I think it's kind of a licorice root. Man, I look like the person here that's spent the most time in the candy shop and I don't even know what you guys are talking about.

I like when you were talking with Caleb and you guys were talking about tasting notes. That was so classic. I love that.

I really liked how he his take on that. I mean, he just kind of likes to keep them simple. And I think if you ever listen to Jimmy Russell speak about his products, he's the same way. He's looking for a broad flavor profile and he doesn't have to narrow it in. And Caleb, I felt like he was the same way. He seemed like an interesting guy, somebody that doesn't drink very much, but knows a hell of a lot about whiskey and a lot about bourbon, a lot about tasting. He's just a simple guy.

simple tasting notes. He's not trying to pull a flavor out that he might've had, you know, one time ever in his life. Yeah.

It's like toasted honey peach. Who toasts peaches with honey on or whatever it was? I don't remember.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If it's, I guess like Jimmy Russell says, right, it's I'm going to speak simple to you and I'm going to tell you like it is in my opinion. It's how I taste it. And I guess when I write a review or if I taste something that's the way I like to think is or when I read a review somebody's writing or if I listen to on a podcast that somebody's Reviewing something I want to know the simple facts about it, you know That's that's I think that's the way to go.

Okay, Mike, so we're gonna break it down here simple facts What do you think about this perilous three-year?

Well, I'm not a big guy. So tonight's a it's pretty hard for me. I Shove some whiskey down my throat.

We got four bourbon guys trying to talk about Raz.

To me, I would still go with that Orner's Tea Spice. You know, Whorehound was spot on though, I'll tell you that. You know, he was like, where can you get Whorehounds at? You can get them at like Tractor Supply or you can get them at Rural King or somewhere like that. You usually don't find them in a- Country folk. Country folk. Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel, yeah. You can't find them in a regular old candy store.

But I think that'd be it. Uh, you know, pretty good, right? Yeah. I'm surprised at this point in my bourbon drinking or bourbon and rye drinking ventures that I haven't gotten to a peerless rye yet, but that's darn good. I mean, that's really good. Yeah. Delicious.

Yeah.

Whenever you guys went down there, Peerless is kind of, it's not a distillery that's out in the country and stuff. They got an expensive piece of real estate down there right on the waterfront, right? To me, that's probably why the bourbon costs, or their juice costs, what it costs, you know? They're down there on Whiskey Row, really, or down from Whiskey Row on the same road. And to me, that's they got to put that cost somewhere. It's got to go into the bottle, right?

Yeah, they're at 10th and Maine, just north of Maine, right on the river and a beautiful building inside to really did a good job. And if I remember the story correctly, which you guys will get, you know, when you're when you're visiting them, I'm pretty sure they made air conditioners there for quite a long period of time. So they pretty much gutted the whole place and installed a distillery. So it's not just, uh, it wasn't purpose built, right?

So, yeah. And I mean, not to go back to the Caleb thing, but I think that's how we got to start with peerless as he came in as an attorney. Uh, the place was in shambles. They had to do a major renovation project and, and he was there to kind of help direct everybody. And I think he was even, you know, telling people what they were doing wrong. And he's some, at the time, I'm sure probably 22 years old or something like that. And, uh, trying to tell all these construction workers how to do their job and they, they seem to love him. Smart guy. Worked out for him. Good.

Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Okay. So we have, uh, filled our glasses here and, uh, we've got Kentucky owl batch one rye. Have you guys had this before? That's two. That's two. Yeah.

We only had the second batch.

Mike never never had it before that's right you're not a rye guy so he's venturing into rye forcing me. I can remember standing in line at Total Wine in the dead of winter. It must have been five degrees outside, waiting on a lottery or whatever it was. And the guy next to us in line had batch one and batch two with him. And we were sitting in our lawn chairs just shivering. And he pulls out Kentucky out one and two. And he said, you guys ever have this? And we hadn't had it before. And that's where I got my introduction to it. Warmed me right up. Yeah, I imagine. So we've got Kentucky Al Rye batch one and batch one. I don't remember exactly when this was released, but batch one is 110.6 proof. And, uh, of course this is Dixon Deadman's actually Dixon Deadman. And, uh, at that time he was with the Carters, right? Uh, uh, Mark and Sherry Carter, they had kind of a collaboration on this and, uh, And they were on here too, right? Yeah. We had them on, it was early on, early episode five or six or something like that. Um, but, uh, yeah, actually Sherry Carter designed this label, beautiful label.

Yeah. Kind of looks like the, uh, EH Taylor bottle.

Yeah. Yeah. What's it, what's it say? The wise man's whiskey or wise man's rye.

The wise man's rye. There's some branding for you right there, right? Kentucky straight rye whiskey aged 11 years. It's a small batch hand blended by Dixon Deadman. And, uh, it says bottled in Bartstown, Kentucky. And, uh, I guess the Kentucky Al brand was established in 1879 back with his grandfather, great grandfather, somebody like that.

So trying to bring back a historic brand a lot like, uh, Kentucky peerless.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I ran out of batch one and I had to get me another bottle and we just opened this. So this is a fresh pour. This is the neck pour, but I'm sure it's going to be great guys. Why don't we try it?

Sure. Cheers.

Cheers. Cheers.

Man, it's got another, that's another one with a great mouth feel on it on the oiliness, but the, uh,

I get like this deep, deep rich caramel. I'm getting a lot more heat on this one.

Yeah, it's definitely hotter. Now this is, proof wise, I don't know if I mentioned this or not, 110.6. So what was the, what was the peerless at? I think it was around 110, 111. So about the same. Yeah.

I do get that spice on the back, but on the, on the front, I get that rich sweetness from, which is kind of weird.

Yeah, so I'm definitely getting a nice sweetness. It's got a, I want to say citrus, but not orange. I don't know. It's hard for me to nail down particular things like that, but it's more candy, I think. Yep.

I would agree with that. Almost like those sugar coated orange slices. You get a little bit of mocha in there.

I'm still over here mesmerized that I'm drinking rye whiskey tonight.

I was going to ask Mike, the weeded bourbon guy, what does he think about it?

Well, I think you're right spot on about that. When it first hit your mouth, it's still kind of oily and a little bit of cinnamon to it. But then bam, you get that on the back end, you get that pop, that spice, you know? So not bad.

So a little bit of clove, a little bit of Cedar or evergreen? I don't know.

I'm just sitting here to chew on some, some, some Cedar.

Mike's face when he said evergreen was, was great.

Evergreen gum, baby. Yeah. I'm just, you know, I, I'm a big man. I just take myself an ax and go chop myself down a Cedar tree and start chewing on it to get myself that raw whiskey.

I don't know. What do you, what do you think about this, Scott? You don't drink much rye either.

Especially at the cast strength, the 110, I think it's got a lot of alcohol for me. And it could be the spiciness, the peppery, peppery notes that I'm confusing with proof point. But I mean, overall, it's still got that sweetness as well. But it's still there. The spice is still there.

Did you guys notice the legs on the glass? I mean, it's just like straight.

It's still starting, still forming.

Yeah. So this is a viscous liquid.

Yeah.

It's beautiful.

I like it. Thank you. It's got a great color to it too, that dark amberness.

So let me ask you some questions, I guess. So what, you just recently started in podcasting. We kind of went through this road recently too. We're coming up on our one year as of September 28th. I think really starting to just now grow our channel, but what made you all want to start getting into this podcast world and the bourbon world? Where do you see yourself going with it?

I think probably what got me started was I have a really good friend. His name is Jason Colori. He runs the Mash and Drum Whiskey Room on YouTube. I had him down here on a visit and it just seemed like that's something I wanted to be involved in, but I didn't want to go through all the trouble of the video and having a set and all that kind of stuff. I just wanted to drink whiskey with people and talk about their story. And that's kind of what got me started. I knew that it was a different world and podcast than it is. I mean, YouTube's kind of a, it's a different animal, you know? I mean, what caused you guys to go podcast rather than video blogging?

Yeah, I don't know. I think from the beginning when Michael came to me, it was probably a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago, he said, we should start a podcast. And it was really when the podcasting thing was just ramping up. A lot of new podcasts were coming out and I had been listening to podcasts and I was like, well, I'll give it some thought. And then he came back to me three, four months later and was like, we should really do a podcast. Like it was the first time he had introduced me to the idea. And I was like, we talked about this. And then I kind of just wanted to challenge him and said, let's do it. And then we just. dove in and I was like, well, we got to start doing this. And we started planning and made lists and, um, really didn't even consider, I think video.

No, it, yeah, I don't, I don't really have a great answer as to why we didn't do video. I think, I think as well, like you said, having to create a video studio and put yourself out there. This was actually our first time really putting ourselves out there in the public. We've never done anything like this. We've never done podcasting or created a website or had social media pages. you know, put our stuff out there and that was kind of, you know, new for us. And I just wanted to, I was just, I was literally driving to work one day. I remember exactly where I was. I was driving to work, going across the East end bridge, listening to a podcast. I don't even think it was bourbon related, it was something about sports. And it was just a couple of guys sitting around talking about whatever they wanted to talk about sports. And I got to work and I'm no longer in this job anymore, but I really didn't like the job. And I was in a cubicle all day and working eight to five and just kind of started thinking. And I looked over at the guy sits in the cubicle next to me. I was like, I think I'm, I think I'm going to start a podcast. And he was like, about what? I was like, I don't really know, but I just want to get my friends together. And, you know, I was starting to get into whiskey. And I said, we'll call it the bourbon lens. We'll just sit around. We really didn't start out to be a bourbon specific podcast. We just wanted, or at least I just wanted to get with my friends and drink whiskey. And we'd talk about community events, bourbon, sports, politics. whatever. And then it just kind of kept morphing into this, well, let's learn some more about bourbon. Let's learn some more about the whiskey industry. And then really what kept us really going, at least for me, was the inclusiveness of the bourbon community. I know we get a lot of people that come in from out of town that reach out to us. Our biggest social media platform for us that we engage with is Instagram. And whenever people come in from out of town, they shoot us a message and they're like, hey, we're going to be in town in Louisville for the weekend or whatever. Do you all want to go meet up? We've done that, you know, several times now and gotten to meet really good people. I mean, we've never really met anybody that we haven't liked or anybody that's negative in the bourbon community. And I think that's just the beauty of it. And we had a guy who lives out in Utah. His name is Nick from Neaton Pete on Instagram. We had done a tour. It might've been the Peerless tour that we did. It was one of our first episodes. I think it was in the top five or the first five that we did. And he reached out to us and said, hey, I really liked the podcast because it gave me a glimpse into something that I'm not able to go and visit or see. So I kind of... kind of steered us more where we were going to get away from all the other stuff that we were doing because it really didn't make sense, kind of fit in and it was kind of awkward. So we really just started streamlining more on the bourbon and the whiskey industry. And, you know, we talked about this earlier, but we recently went and sat down with Peerless and that was really cool and kind of opened our eyes to we want to do more interviews with other people and hear their stories and learn from them. For me, and I don't know if Scott might have a different opinion on this, but learning and collecting all the bourbons and the whiskeys that I can really isn't my thing and what I really set out to do. It's more about the experience that you have with other people. Um, you know, we just had a couple that, uh, uh, husband and wife that came down and visited us, uh, a week or two ago and we went out and got drinks with them. And, you know, it was just fun just getting to sit down and share their, not even whiskey experiences, just life experiences. And, um. I don't know. It's just been really fun. It's been a learning curve and something that I've enjoyed along the way. And we're hitting our one year here in a couple of weeks. And I think we're really looking to change our channel and continue on.

That's good. Yeah, we really enjoy listening to your channel. Thank you. Yeah, you guys got a great show. And I think the format's good. And the fact that you're changing it up a little bit, you're just following your dream. You're just doing what you think is right. You know, we've got some changes, I think, that we want to do, but, you know, we are a little bit more about getting that story out of the person that we're talking to. So we try to do as many interviews as possible. They don't necessarily have to be bourbon people. In fact, in many cases they're chefs or comedians or whatever, musicians. We have a lot of different people on, but there's that underlying theme of bourbon there. They've got to be an enthusiast. They've got to like bourbon for one reason or another. And we're always trying to grab that story out of that person and get them to tell. That's what I like, sitting and talking about a story with somebody over a pour.

Man, I think there's nothing better than to hear somebody's life story or how they got into bourbon. I just like hearing that story. I could sit in the shop and talk to somebody. I talked to a lady down at the Blind Pig down in Barstown the other day and she was telling me the story about how her dad worked at T.W. Samuels and all the great stories that she had. I talked to my doctor the other day and her dad works at Baghdad Feed out here in Shelby County. And apparently back in the day, Baghdad Feed, they gave all the grain that a Wild Turkey needed. They were like Wild Turkey's number one distributor, I guess, for corn and stuff, a supplier. And her dad worked there and she was telling about these stories about how her dad would come home. Talked about how Jimmy Russell was pushing a broom around, um, out there at wild Turkey. That's a story that's going to be lost pretty soon here if, if we don't record it. And to me, that's what it's about is hearing that story and here to us, you know, on the bourbon road is seeing where other people's bourbon roads lead to. And it's like meeting you two guys and hearing your story and I think it's great. You know, I just love it. Whenever I found out, Jim asked me to be on the podcast and stuff. I'd never even heard of a podcast. My kids had said, Hey, Hey dad, listen to this podcast. And I'd say, Oh, I might listen to that. And it really was nothing I would be interested in because they're a lot younger and Then Jim was like, Hey, this is bourbon podcasts. And I just wanted to educate myself more on bourbon. You know, I had a somewhat good collection of bourbon and I said, I still have an all right bourbon collection. Nothing like Jim has. I don't think, um, I don't have any unicorns on my shelf or anything like that. Nothing I'm going to chase. Um, Every once in a while I ask, uh, I might find a unicorn in my mind, but it's, it's probably not a unicorn on anybody else's mind. Like finding a glass bottle of TW Samuels. Yeah. You know, is that anybody's unicorn except for Mike Hyatt's? Probably not. Or Jim went out to Denver lately and or to Colorado. And I said, Hey, I need you to stop by this 1350 distillery and pick me a bottle up of this guardian bourbon. And, um, sure enough, my brother there, he brought me back a bottle of bourbon.

Yeah, I couldn't believe it. I called up the distillery and they were closed, but they answered the phone. And I was like, oh man, I really need a bottle of your stuff. I got a buddy back in... you know, in Louisville that really wants your stuff. And he said, well, I'll open up for you. So they opened up the distillery and we got there and they showed us around. They gave us a free pour and gave me a bottle and he said, your buddy must be in the Coast Guard, right? I said, how did you know that? He said, because this bourbon is a Coast Guard bourbon.

You know, I actually ran into somebody, well, not ran into, I was at Wild Turkey on Labor Day. And me and my wife went up there before we went to my parents' house. I'm from Frankfurt. And we stopped in and had Bo doing the tour for us. I kind of let him do his tour or whatever for a while. And it was a packed tour. I mean, maximum capacity on that bus. I don't know how many that bus holds. But I said to him, I said, hey, are you Bo from Montgomery Gentry? And he looked at me and he said, how the hell do you know that? And I was like, I listened to the Bourbon Road podcast recently and you were just a guest on there. I loved the show. And he was like, wow. He's like, you're the first person to ever ask me that. But I guess the show was pretty new at the time. Yeah, I mean, just me making those. Can I sit and talk with him after our tour for a while? He's a great guy. Yeah. And those are the connections that I care more about and with whiskey and bourbon than, than, you know, anything else. Yeah, he's a great guy.

I mean, he's a great guy. I mean, you should have him on sometime. He's a, he's a, we love to, man.

It does. He has some stories just about wild turkey, but I mean, that guy's kind of got, double realm there, you know, he's, he's got wild Turkey stories with Jimmy Russell and stuff, but he also has, man, it's just some great stories. He told us about Montgomery Gentry and, uh, you know, you don't hear some of that inside stuff. Um, and setting room with him and just, he, he's a good old Kentucky boy lives right, right down the road from us. And, uh, I love that.

All right. So I'm getting kind of low on this Kentucky owl. Any last, uh, thoughts on this guy's, how old is that? It is 11 years, so I would assume since this is a batch that Dixon has blended, that that would be the youngest barrel. So there may be some older stuff in there.

It's a winner in my book. I like it. It's really good.

It's really good. If you're a rye fan, this is a good solid rye. Yeah, he did a good job with this one.

Now I've heard that now I've had batch one and batch two and personally I prefer one over two and this is this is one but I've heard from those that have had batch three that it's the best of the three so

The hunts on, right? The hunts on.

I really need to have all three in a row. Are you a hunter? Do you consider yourself a hunter? No. But if there's a particular bourbon I want, I'll see if I can find it. But yeah, I mean, my days of emptying my wallet on bourbon, it's kind of over. I mean, I've been there and done that. I've got a pretty good collection now. It's not huge. It's sub 100 bottles. I think if I see something I really want, I'll get it. Other than that, I'm pretty good about skipping stuff.

I think I'm at about a 70 right now is what I last count. And, uh, I mean, my wife thinks that that's ridiculous, but everybody's wife. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, when we got to, when we first met each other, she told me she was a, she was a bourbon lover and I was like, Oh man, she's awesome. She likes to hang out. She's funny. She likes to drink bourbon. It was a total lie. She, she, every time she drinks it now, she just, Yeah, she's not into it. But it's great to take her on the tours that we go on because she slides her glasses over to me.

What about your wife, Scott? She's a bourbon drinker.

She used to be a bourbon drinker, but it was always like bourbon and Coke and things like that. Nothing wrong with that. Now she still drinks the occasional bourbon and Coke, more or less wines. She's not drinking right now because she's actually pregnant. We're expecting later this year. So appreciate that. So, uh, she is abstaining from all alcohol, which probably makes this, uh, me talking about bourbon all the time, a little bit more difficult for her.

I know my wife, she's, she's not a bourbon drinker. Um, but the other day I saw her, she, she's swinging from a bottle of Weller's like champion. I was like, who's that woman?

Where'd you come from?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, my wife likes larceny and But she normally has it with coke or diet coke and but she likes to drink Eagle rare like a store pick Eagle rare particularly the The one from silver dollar. She's got a couple bottles over there Eagle rare neat so she likes that but she's been taking a little bit of a hiatus from bourbon lately. Cause you know, summertime it's beer time and she loves her, uh, cream ale and, and, uh, lining kugel.

Yeah.

She loves wheat beer. She really likes wheat beers a lot.

So Braxton Braxton brewery. Yeah.

There was some Braxton micro or tropical and what, what was it? Tropical something.

I want to say tropical thunder, but I don't think that's what it is.

Yeah, it was a good one. All right, guys. Well, I'm out. How about you? So we're up. Let's do it.

Let's do it.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Loghead's Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Loghead's Home Center, nestled in the hills of Kentucky, is an industry leader in building handcrafted rustic furniture. Family-owned and operated, they take pride in offering only the very best for their customers. The Logheads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled woodcrafters who are passionate about creating rustic furniture for people who appreciate the beauty of natural wood. Owners Tommy and Gwen don't just sell the rustic lifestyle, they live it. And you can be sure that Loghead's furniture will always be handcrafted in Kentucky by artisans who embrace the simple way of life. Log Heads rustic furniture is made from northern white cedar, a sustainable wood that's naturally rotten termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warmth to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at logheadshomescenter.com. And while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at Log Heads Home Center.

All right, so we've got our third rye whiskey of the night. And for this selection, we've got Willett, the family estate small batch rye from Willett Distillery in Barstown, Kentucky. This one's a four year. It's 111.8 proof. So as you can probably tell from the progression of the show, we are going up in proof with, you know, with each rye whiskey.

Isn't that kind of the way you're supposed to do a tasting? That's what they say, right? I mean, you know, you shouldn't go down in proof. I think it, well, these are not all that different though, are they?

Yeah, they're, they're pretty much, well, what did we say? They're all cast strengths. So I think they're all coming out 108 to 115, I think is what we're.

I think when we hit the end of the line there, it's something crazy, but 140 proof.

So what, what's it, it said Willard estate on there.

Yeah, so it's the the Willett family estate bottled small batch rye.

Man, once again, with that branding and stuff. But when you go out to Willett, you'll see it. It definitely looks like an estate. I don't even know what you'd call that house out there that that everything's in. I don't know if it's like a colonial house, but you almost get this this grand Louisiana feel down there of a plantation and stuff.

See, I always thought that Willett was a lot bigger than it is. Not very big at all out there, very small place. And I don't know if it's just me thinking that it was a Bardstown distillery or what, but I always thought it was this, you know, major player in the bourbon industry. And then probably the past six months, I've kind of found out it's kind of a newer distillery that's going through a rebirth with a new family.

Now these guys have some mad skills when it comes to selecting barrels. They've been putting out some estate bottles that are just, knock your socks off. And they've gained a lot of fame in the secondary market with some of their purple tops, I guess, right? Have you had any? I haven't had any. Honestly, I haven't had any of their very expensive, you know, highly, highly desirable stuff.

You've got some over there on the purple, purple tops on the shelf over there though.

But they're bourbons. They're not rise.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with bourbon.

We're changing our names.

The bourbon road and the bourbon lens, right? That's what it's all about is bourbon.

I did find it a little interesting. You asked, you wanted to do a rye episode.

Yeah. It was kind of funny because you guys made an Instagram post about, uh, what's your favorite? This, this bottle. Yeah. Yeah. What's your, would you say cast drinks rye or did you say just rye or?

I don't remember what I said. I think I said it's a, I enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it the times that I've had it. Like I said, that's my first bottle that I've owned. I've had a couple from some friends and I've always enjoyed it. But you know, like we were talking earlier, I don't drink a ton of rise and had to really dig. I don't think I had five cast strength rise sitting on the bar.

It was so funny because I went in and I was like, okay, I need to really tell Scott and Michael kind of what my idea is for the show. So I'll send them a quick message with my idea. My idea was just to kind of journey through some cast strength for eyes. So I sent you the message and then I went on to look at your feed or my feed and I see a post there from you on a cast strength for eye and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. He sort of think- Trolling, trolling.

Yeah, just, yeah.

So, Mike, are you going to be changing your opinions? Are you switching from wheats to rye?

Probably not. You know, that wheat. Wheats, you can drink with dessert. That's how good it is. And I bet you all three of you, if I put a bottle of Pappy's down in front of you and you had all those ryes to pick from, what are you going to drink first?

And we can see it?

Yeah.

We're going to go with the pappy.

That's exactly right. Yeah.

Blind?

I don't know.

No, I mean, I think it's a big jump from, from bourbons to ryes. I mean, just the spiciness that you're not, you're not prepared for in a lot of bourbons. Even high rye bourbons, I don't think have that much peppery spice to it. Oh yeah. Yeah. I find that high rye bourbons have a little bit more fruitiness, like cherry notes, things like that. Uh, but jumping over to a Roth, it can be a big jump.

I think I drink it and stuff. It's just, it's not my jam. You know, I have it, I have it in my house for a guest, I guess. And if I had somebody come over and they're like, Oh, I'm not a bourbon drinker. I want to have some other whiskies. If they're a whiskey drinker that they can drink and stuff. I've, I've got a couple of Canadian whiskies at home and, um, I've got some scotch hidden, hidden away. Um, but. I want to have something for everybody. And that's why I have a ride on the shelves so somebody can enjoy themselves or my house. It's an old overhaul. I wonder about all that. That's, that's Jim's jam.

That came in last place on our $20 bottles.

We got, we got cheated on that thing right there. I tell you that.

Did you all enjoy the $20 episode? I think we did one, almost, released one almost at the same time you guys did.

I think it was just a coincidence. You guys did one about the same time. We're usually a couple of weeks behind, you know? I don't know how many episodes you guys have pre-recorded. We're a couple. Yeah, it's usually a couple so you don't get into trouble. And yeah, it was really amazing. You guys released one, we released one. It was like, oh gee.

But we went two totally different opposite, you know, two totally different directions. I think because what we have Evan Williams, 1783 and Ezra Brooks.

Yeah. But our challenge was a little different than your all's. Ours had to be something that you hadn't had before. So we had to go and it couldn't be over $20 after tax. Had to be something you've never had before. It was tough.

It was tough for me. Well, I was guest on that one. So Jim's Jim and Randy had made up the rules and stuff. And I wish they would have said that you'd never had to have it before because Jim had already had his and Randy definitely had his underneath his counter. So for a long time, a long time. Yeah. So what? what me and Brian both brought, we didn't know a whole lot about it. I did a little bit of research about fighting cock and you know, what it was all about and stuff. And I don't think I'd ever thought about picking that bottle up because it kind of looks to me like a wine bottle. You know, like you're driving down the interstate and there's a winery off and your wife's like, Hey, stop at that one right there. And they got a funny little label and stuff on it. And the wine is just all right.

Yeah.

But now every time I go into a bar, I see that fighting cock up on the shelf though.

Did you like it?

I thought it was all right. It was all right.

I don't know if I'm allowed to tell this story on the podcast, but the only memory I have of fighting cock was in college and it wasn't even me drinking it. A guy drink fifth of it or whatever. And one of our fraternity brothers and he had another fraternity brother. He said, I can, my head can break this bottle. No problem. And sure enough, the guy hit him in the head with it and split his head wide open and had to go to the hospital. But that's, that's the only memory I have. It's a very sturdy bottle. Yeah.

I don't know if that's a great memory. You can cut that out. I don't know if Heaven Hill would, would, uh, I don't know if they'd like that story or not.

Head splitter bourbon, right? The quality department would love it. The model stands up. Well, I think it came out direct response to Wild Turkey 101.

It did. They were trying to, you know, compete with them, but I don't know if their label and everything competed with it.

You know, guys, I'll be honest with you, those clear plastic labels, they just don't hit home with me.

As little money that they spend on a lot of their other sub labels, seems like they could class that one up just a little bit.

Of course, Heaven Hill's all over the place with their graphic design. I mean, it's just like one product, they've got a lot of products. It's hard to keep up with other products. But there's no consistency at all in their designs.

But there's consistency in their mash bills, which I find interesting. Everything goes in the barrel at the same thing.

Maybe that they just know it's good juice in the bottle and they don't care what the bottle looks like. You know, whatever, how it's going to sell is how it's going to sell, you know?

Well, maybe that's how they have to sell it. Because, you know, if they're putting everything in with the same mash bill, maybe they need to have those variances in how they market the product.

Let's talk about this will it a little bit. What do you think? Let's get to it. I almost, I might need another pour.

Yeah.

It's pretty good. I mean, it's pretty darn good. Are you guys able to pick out a Willet when you taste it? I mean, like really?

To be honest, I don't drink a lot of Willet. Yeah.

You were at my bachelor party, right? Yeah. We did have some Willet Pot still at my bachelor party.

I remember that distinctive bottle. Yes, and I had a bottle and it sat there forever. I think I gave it away to somebody. It wasn't my thing.

He didn't hit you in the head with that bottle, did he?

I think it would have broke.

It's a pretty elegant looking bottle.

Yeah, we were at a bar one night. Mike said, I want you to go to the restroom. When you come back, I want to have a pour for you.

Remember that Mike? I do. I was like, man, this man's cheating me. He's cheating me. He picked out, I almost thought he could pick out the Rick, the Rick house it was in.

It was funny because they had like, I don't know, they had about six, what about 60 bourbons on the shelf? Yeah. And I came back and there was a pour on the bar and he said, I want you to see if you can figure out what this is. And I picked it up. I said, that's Willet. Are you a fan of Willet? Um, I mean, it's not my choice, but it's very distinct to me. I mean, I can pick it out very easily on the nose. I don't even have to taste it. So is it that mintiness that you get? Yeah, I think it's the mintiness. It's the brightness of the, of the rye. I just, I just get it right away. And I said, it's a hundred proof. I said, it's, um, it's probably four to six years old. I said.

I think it's at Bardstown apparently. Yeah. He had me spot on.

Yeah. It was, it was, yeah. But in order to choose it, I had to look up and see what they had first, you know? So I don't get full credit on choose. I'm picking out what it is. So it was the old Bardstown. The old Bardstown bottle and bomb. Yeah. Yep.

That one grew on me. The first time I ever had it, I think I got it probably about the same time we started the podcast recording. I think maybe I talked about it on a couple of early episodes that we did. Maybe some that we didn't record or didn't end up releasing. But first time I tried it really It was just too grassy for me. Yeah. But after that, it grew on me a little bit more.

I can see where somebody would drink that and maybe get another bottle and get another bottle and get another bottle and say, this is my bourbon. It's just not my thing. It's just not. I mean, I kind of like the Pure Kentucky. You ever had that one? The old vintage one. I've seen it on the shelves. I haven't had it. You know, I kind of like the

Oh, what is that?

The one that's got that peanut butter note to it.

Is it a Rowan's Creek or?

The other one. The other one, not Rowan's Creek. Noah's Mill? Noah's Mill. Yeah, Noah's Mill to me is like a, it's like a will it with a dash of peanut butter. Now that you say that, I do have that bottle sitting on my shelf. It's been there for a while. Not my jam, but everybody's got their thing. I tend to lean a little bit more towards some other bourbons.

What is your thing?

Well, my daily drinker. So my daily drinker, honestly, when I'm not trying to consume from my collection is Wild Turkey 101. My bottled and bond, my preferred bottled and bond is either JTS Brown or

Oh boy. Here we go. Might as well leave. He's the other guy that's buying all the bottles from Total Wine.

Yeah. I mean, I've got, I've got two cases of Heaven Hill six years sitting in the closet there and I just keep grabbing them from time to time. I love those. They're good. But I like the Evan Williams bottle and bond too. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. I would agree on that one. That's a good sub $20 bottle. Yeah. And, and I've got a case or so of the, Henry McKenna, Bottle and Bond. Every now and then you can find it for a decent price and when you do you should go and grab it up because it's good bourbon.

I think I got three right now and I find it weird with Henry McKenna. I can get some really good bottles and I get some really not okay bottles but I think the last one we opened was mediocre. Mediocre huh?

Yeah, I think I wrote a review on Instagram for a Henry McKenna bottle. I think it was barrel 4416, and it was just absolutely unreal. I mean, I've had some good ones and bad ones, like you say, and I had this one, 4416 barrel. And I said, you know what, with the Henry McKinnon bottle and bond, you get some that are good, you get some that are great, and you get some that'll just bring tears to your eyes. And that was it. It was absolutely amazing. And you know what, the funny thing is, is when you look at the picture of the bottle that took the San Francisco competition, the one, it was 44.12 or something. I had 44.16, so it's probably the same Richter or something like that. I don't know. Did you finish that one? I still got another bottle of 4416. Yeah, I haven't opened it yet.

So it was probably the same season for sure.

Definitely December of 20... whatever. I don't know.

December, what would that have been? 2017? 2016? 2017?

Yeah, I don't know, but yeah, I've got one more bottle and I will open it at some point. We'll have you guys over. That'll be fun. It's pretty amazing.

So Mike, what's yours?

Well, I like that Weller, you know, Weller special reserve. I'll drink it all day long, but lately I've been drinking on some Woodford weeded whiskey.

I saw that you all really enjoyed that one.

Oh, I, I think it's great. You know, I, I think almost anybody could drink some of that with dessert or, um, before dinner or even after dinner, anytime drinking for lunch. I mean, like anytime, I don't think that's wrong with it.

There was an article in, uh, Bloomberg, I think it came out today or yesterday. It said, here come the wheat whiskeys. So I don't know if that's going to be,

I think Woodford made that to kind of round out their line and that's going to be something they're going to carry from now on. Just because now they got a malted whiskey and so it'll be something they have. They got a ride. They got a little bit of something for everyone.

Yeah. They're coming out with a lot of, a lot of different products now. A lot of them are gift shopped only though, right?

Well, you go over there to gift shop and they've got it stocked. No, they, unlike some gift shops, I think they're gift shopped. They're always stocked up on, on almost everything.

I went out there one time for the double-double and they were like, yeah, come back next year. So are you going to get the Weller foolproof?

I'm going to try. I got my eye on two different places. Might have to drive a little bit to get one. I think it'll be worth it and stuff.

So I did a well or full proof pick. So we've got one coming in probably the next two weeks and it'll be coming in here in Simpsonville. So you guys keep your eyes open. But we just Jason, the guy from the mashing drum, he is designing the label for this one. So I did the label on the last couple of barrel picks we did, but he's doing the label on this one. So.

Jim, where is everybody going to be able to pick that up at? What's your story?

Well, they've got two stores in Louisville. Well, I don't say Louisville, but Louisville area. One is in Simpsonville, Kentucky, which is where we're at right now. There's a liquor outlet here. They've got that. And then the liquor outlet on Breckenridge down near Hikes Point, so in that general area. So they'll have some there. So I don't know how many bottles you get out of a barrel. A couple hundred, right? Full proof, maybe a little bit less. It's a seven-year-old barrel. It was really salty, kind of savory. It's going to be a good one. And yeah, so next couple of weeks, keep your eyes open.

I think we should cut this part out of the episode.

No, you think so? I don't know. These guys, I do a lot of barrel picks with them. So they kind of like the fact that I talk about them sometimes.

I don't think there's nothing wrong with that. If people are going to go down there, you got your chasers that are going to go chase it and stuff. And I think the nice thing now is that some liquor stores are saying, Hey, you're only going to get one of these. You know, that doesn't mean you can't bring in your friend or your, your wife or something and get two bottles. Um, I like to do that down there at old Buffalo trace for some platens.

What about, what about you, Michael? What's, what's you, what are you drinking on, on a daily basis?

Oh, that kind of like my personality kind of changes throughout what it is. Yeah. As Scott said to you earlier, I've been on a 101 kick as of late and told you earlier, we got to go to Wild Turkey and. Got to meet Jimmy Russell. That was a pretty cool experience. That guy, I'm sure you've met him before, but that was my first experience meeting him. And that guy is, he's something else. The memory on him is ridiculous. I was like, hey, Mr. Russell, can I get a picture with you? And he said, sure. And he said, hey, where are you from? And I said, Frankfurt. And he said, where's that? And I just kind of laughed at him. Buffalo Trace is there. He's just ribbing me. And he's like, no, seriously, where are you from? And I was like, West End of Frankfurt by Western Hills. He's like, who's your family? I gave him my dad's name, said he opened the high school there that I went to. I grew up right by the high school. He said, oh yeah, I know him. And he's like, your uncle, Gary, he lives right here in Lawrenceburg. I see him every other week. And I never knew that about my family. Never knew they knew him. And that was a cool experience. You can't beat, like you said earlier, you can't beat 101 for the price. Like I said earlier, we had a husband and his wife that came in town and they met us. We were out in downtown Louisville bars and the prices were all over the place. I didn't want to be that person to just say, hey, how much is this? How much is this? How much is this? I said, give me a drink of Wild Turkey 101. And it's pretty good.

Yeah. I mean, you want to be safe. You want to really be safe when you're out and not get slammed with $150 a pour drink. Just order the 101 solid every time. Exactly.

Other than that, Elijah Craig is one of my everyday go-tos. You'd like the barrel proof too? I do. I did not enjoy, I had a bottle of the C918. Yeah. I did not like that one. Yeah. And I had the B518, which was really good. I've tried his A19 and, or A119. Yeah. The Shears. I tried that one. That was pretty good. And I have another A. that Jake, our other member of the podcast who couldn't be here tonight, picked up for me when he was out of town last week. So I'm going to look forward to trying that one.

They're always interesting to try. You don't always get what you want. Some are better than others. Yeah, for sure.

Kind of the beauty about whiskey, and I know we were talking earlier about our origination into the whiskey industry and everything. And no, we're not going to open it tonight, but I brought a bottle of the Huber's Rye Whiskey. And it's probably three years ago at this point now. And we were sitting out at Huber's Winery in southern Indiana and hanging out. And Ted Huber comes out and he's like, hey, y'all want to go check out my whiskey. Sure. Yeah. Let's go check it out. Takes the thief around and pulls all these different barrels out. And that was my first experience getting to taste all the different barrels and all the different flavors and the profiles and how some barrels taste better than others. And that really kind of started my journey into whiskey. And then I just kind of started saying, doing YouTube videos and seeing what was good and what was out there and what could I could find.

So Scott, we know that you're drinking the JTS Brown, but there's gotta be others.

Yeah, there's not. There's really not. I took a picture of my bar the other night and somebody was ribbing me for, uh, I had what? Four bottles of JTS Brown sitting on the bar. It was just because I had just purchased them. So I put them up on the bar and then, uh, But yeah, I mean, a few years back, I would I would stock Benchmark from Buffalo Trace. I really enjoyed that. But it seems like when they started putting out all the Eh tailors and all the other stuff. And I don't know what it was, but it seemed like the quality just really dropped off on it. I mean, I know it's a budget bourbon, but that's my thing.

Some of those stocks, maybe the older stocks that went into that no longer went in.

Yeah. Yeah. So I stopped purchasing that and then I started picking up the green label, um, heaven hill, the six year.

Yeah.

And I have a sneaking suspicion that that will be disappearing very, very soon. So I'm slowly putting a few bottles of that back as we've kind of seen with Heaven Hill, which I love Heaven Hill across the board, but I don't like what they're doing with some of their some of their budget categories. Um, but yeah, JTS Brown is my go-to. Yeah.

It's good stuff. I think I got about a gallon and a half here at the house. So of course I got a party coming up tomorrow, but so I needed some bourbon for that.

But that's, that's your bourbon though. That's what you buy. And that's, there's nothing wrong with that, right? That's what you, you like to do. And you know, a couple of my buddies, they were like, I can't believe you have that on the shelf or you have that in your liquor cabinet. And I'm like, Yeah, that's my house. I'm I'm the one's body. Hey, you want to bring a bottle over to my house? Bring some pappies over to my house.

Yeah, big chief will I'll tank it down for you Well, I mean the thing is like most people are I think we've talked about this on a couple episodes. It's bottle shaming, right? It's oh, yeah It's it's pathetic that it exists But some people just put bottles out there just to show them off and it's like are you drinking that? No, you know, I drink JTS Brown. I know what it tastes like. I know it's good. I can put that in a blind tasting with anything, and I know it's going to stand up. Now, is it going to is it going to knock your socks off, you know, compared to a hundred and fifty, two hundred dollar bottle of bourbon? Probably not. But then again, it's probably half or a quarter of the age. But I know what to expect. It's a hundred proof. It's four years old, at least. It's got a good dark color and it doesn't taste a whole lot like, you know, young whiskey.

So you put it in a decanter, you're everybody's hero. You know, that's the way it works. Yeah.

And that's the thing is like, I used to, I used to keep a decanter of Benchmark then I switched to Heaven Hill six year and now. I just buy jugs of JTS Brown and just keep it in the jug. It's just easier. You're bourbon your way, my friend.

Yeah. That's what you all said on the very first episode. I believe Randy said, drink your bourbon your way and don't worry about what everybody else thinks. Exactly.

Yep. So we all done with Willard here.

I don't think we even talked about it a whole lot.

Well, you know what? We kind of got sidetracked, but I did drink it all. It's very, it is gone.

Yeah.

Except for mine. I mean, this is a rye.

So it's very floral though. I would agree with that.

Very floral.

Got a lot of, a lot of mint, a lot of, uh, Not grass, because I always equate grass to like Tennessee whiskeys.

Surprisingly, it's not so peppery on the back end as I thought it would be.

The two things that I picked up and you all might disagree, but was the floral note and then like some type of berry. Some type of fruit.

I know it's about to say juniper berry from the tree.

It's a boysenberry boys, boys and just slightly toasted.

Oh man. Laying on a cedar plank next to a salmon. You're about to say mermaid or something. All right, guys. You ready to move on to the next one? Let's do it. All right. All right. So we're back now with a new rye. And has anybody had this before, the Sagamore Spirit Rye? I have not. It's the only one for me. So this is a Maryland rye. But in full transparency, it says that it is distilled in Indiana, bottled in Maryland. So let's just assume for a moment that it's probably coming out of MGP. Uh, but this is a cask strength, right? It's called Sagamore spirit, right? And, uh, there's no age statement on it, but it is 111, 112.2 proof.

No, no, there's all of our listeners on both podcasts. Nowhere in MGP is that.

Uh, maybe not.

So it's in Lawrenceburg, Indiana there. It's, it's right down the street from Cincinnati, Ohio. It's right there on the Ohio river. Used to be the Seagrams distillery. Oh yeah.

Many years ago.

Mungus place. Right. A lot of, a lot of liquors coming out of there.

So NGP is producing, um, spirits on a regular basis in very high volumes and putting them in barrels and then marketing them to the world.

I had somebody tell me that no bourbon comes out of the Ohio river. And I was like, I beg different from you. I've been down there on the river and I've, I know where that water is coming from. It's coming straight from that Ohio river.

Well, I would venture to say that nobody's just pulling the water out of the river and put it in a bottle. It's probably getting reverse osmosis or something.

They always talk about the limestone, but it's really just the Ohio river.

All right, so this is our fourth rye of the night, and we have one more after this, and it's an ultra high proof. This is only 112 proof.

I feel like I'm on the Hot Wings take. You ever watch that? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

They go up in the... No, what's that called? What's the name of that show?

Hot ones. Hot ones. That's what it is. Yeah.

They have all kinds of famous people on there eating hot wings and some of them just can't.

He's trying to ask them normal questions while they're eating this like 5 million Scoville, you know, hot wing.

It's some, some of them are pretty, pretty hilarious. Some of those guys, some of those people, some of them are girls actually. Some of them are champions though. They really barrel through, don't they?

That's those are the non fun ones to watch yeah You always want to you always play the video and skip to them people that are struggling to get through pretty early on See them beads of sweat rolling off their head.

Yeah, that's that's Talking about podcast versus video.

Yeah, that's perfect for YouTube video Yeah, I think they're like million subscriber level right pretty bad imagine I

The nose on this right here to me, isn't very pleasant. Um, it's got like a bitter fruit to me. Smell. I don't, I don't even know what this call that.

I kind of feel like I'm being set up here and like Jim has part ownership in this, this whiskey. Actually, actually I'm going to agree with Mike. I don't think it's very pleasant.

No, I'm definitely getting a fruity nose on it. I was turned onto this by a Jason. Again, I bring up his name, Jason from the mashing drum. He said, you really got to try this.

Now the taste on this?

Now the taste is way better than the nose.

At all the rides we drank tonight, this has not a whole lot of pepper on the back end. It's very fruity. I don't know, like a nectarine almost.

Is this not the fruitiest rye you've ever had?

Wow. Yeah. That kind of tastes like a cross between a Twizzlers and like a cinnamon candy.

That taste lingers with you too, doesn't it?

Yeah. I don't know what the fruit is. It's fruit, but I can't like say this fruit or that fruit. It's just fruity, like juicy fruit kind of maybe.

It's, it's odd. Cause I'm not, that's not what I was expecting. I mean, I did get fruit on the nose, but it wasn't like Mike said, it's not super pleasant.

It was like a, like on the nose, I like said, bitter. It's almost like it's going to be bitter. And then you taste it and you're like, wow, man, you know, you guys are talking and I'm sitting over here drinking and I'm like, man, this is really good. I don't want to tell you that this is good.

Slowly converting to a wrap. No, no, no. I can do all that.

So where can you pick up this bottle?

I'm trying to think of where I bought it. I think I bought it at Total Wine. I think I got it at Total Wine here in Louisville. So I would imagine if it's not there, it's at one of the other stores. I think it's fairly available. I don't know what States they distribute in, but Kentucky is one of them. Yay. Yay. So, but this has lasted a while for me. I've had this bottle for probably eight or nine months. It's been a while. Should I tell you the fruit that Jason picks up on this? Or do you want me to let you keep going?

We're not going to pick it up.

I'm kind of hoping somebody else will get that because he keeps telling me he gets it. Don't I get it? I'm like, no, I don't get that. But I don't know. I'm out of it. He said he gets blueberry.

I don't know about that. I don't get no blueberry out of this. Yeah, I don't get blueberry either, but I don't get blueberry pancake, blueberry cereal. I don't get nothing blueberry.

I mean, I want to get blueberry because I want to say, yeah, Jason, you're right.

But that's, but that's all of our taste, taste. Right.

You know, I would maybe say like a peach, peach flavor.

Yeah, I think it's kind of sweeter than a peach. Is there something sweeter than a peach, like a peach that's kind of sweeter, like an apricot? Is that sweeter?

Maybe that's what I was thinking. Bitter apricot.

There's a bitter fruit out there. Is apricot bitter? I'm sorry.

I don't know if it's bitter or not, but who's had an apricot in the last 10 years?

Yeah, I'm not out buying stone fruit on a daily basis.

A plum maybe.

Well, I don't know, but I think it's a good, I think it's a good ride. I really enjoyed this. The nose does not match the palette at all.

I'll tell you what I really taste just now. I started thinking about it as a, as a fig Newton cookie.

Oh, I could, I could get behind that.

Come on, Jimmy, you know, you've eaten one in your life.

Cause it always has that weird little finish at the end that you just can't put your finger on.

I get a lot of cinnamon on this one.

Scott's just like, where's my JTS brand? What are we doing here? You guys taking me down this road. What's going on?

Wait, wait to the next one. He's going to be like, this is going to blow your socks off. I'm telling you.

I can't wait. I'm already not wearing socks.

So if any listeners are thinking about tuning out right now, okay guys, I'm going to get to work. Are they still with us? I don't know. They should just park in the parking lot and listen to the rest of this. Cause we're going to get into a really high proof one here in a bit.

Did we already say the proof on this?

Uh, one 12.2.

And it says, does it really say spring fed on there?

Yeah, I mean that really bothers me a lot because let me just give you the facts. This says it's a cask strength rye. Alright, straight whiskey. And then on the back it says...

So they're not cutting it down.

It's bottled in by Sagamore Spirit in Maryland, but it's distilled in Indiana.

But it's cast strength.

But it's cast strength. So that means that there is no water added because it's cast strength, right? But they say on here, spring-fed Maryland spirit.

How does that work? So six or eight years ago, they brought a truck full of spring fed water up to Lawrenceburg. They distilled a bunch of whiskey. waited six to eight more years, and this is what you get.

I was going to break it down a different way. All right, I'm going to give you a little bit of a little bit of coast guard here, right? A little bit of river man knowledge. So you got the Mongahela River and you got the Alleghetti River.

Pennsylvania, right?

Well, now the Mon starts, or the Alleghetti, let me think about which one's which. The Mawn starts up in Maryland really and that its headwaters could be spring, spring fed, which feeds into the Ohio river that runs down the river right by there. So it could be spring fed. That's a long way.

So you literally could pull water out of New Orleans and say it's spring fed from Maryland, right? Well, you could. That's a long way he's passed.

All right. I think it's about 470 miles from the confluence where the Ohio starts down there to Cincinnati.

Confluence. Them some big words, boy.

Yeah. Yeah. Who knew a old Texas boy would know all that stuff today?

pulling out that Coast Guard vocabulary over there.

Well, I tell you what, I have to say this much. If you, if you just boil it down and say what's in the bottle, is it good? What do you think?

I'm liking the taste way more than I thought I would based upon the nose.

I'd have to agree with you 100%. I'm quite surprised I like this. Like I said, out of the bourbons or the rye that we drank tonight, this is good juice. What do you think about the finish, Michael?

It's long. Yeah. It's real long.

Like crazy long, right?

But it just keeps it's almost like it just keeps getting richer after you already like the finish just keeps coming and coming and coming. And it's like it's getting richer and deeper. I don't know. It's that oak, that oakiness that you get towards the finish. And yeah, Mike's looking at me like I'm crazy.

And he's going to know I was going to say something we're going to really have to cut out.

I was thinking about Las Vegas and all kinds of different things. I knew I was setting myself up for when I said that.

I honestly believe that this bottle right here, you could take four guys and put them on a patio. with this bottle and it would disappear by the end of the night.

I think the nose is what hurts it. Probably people if they, if they were over a friend's house and they, Hey, let me smell that before I drink it. And then you smell it and you're like, I'm probably not going to drink that until you take a sip of it. And then you're like, man, that is some good whiskey right there.

This might be kind of pretentious, but put this in a different glass. Just put it in a rocks glass and just drink it. Yeah. Then you're not really. Yeah.

Yeah. So if you don't know it's a sourced whiskey and you're not sure about the proof and you don't know that it's this, that, or the other, and you just sip on it for a little bit, once that finish starts just hanging in there.

It does.

And you just want to keep sipping on it and sipping on it.

What would you say the finish is? I get a lot of wood and oak on the finish.

I do, but that fruit hangs around. I mean, that fruit comes in on the front end. I would say it comes on in the front and then it's wood and oak on the back. Yeah. A little bit on the back, but I still, I can still taste that fruit on the front of my palate, even when I'm enjoying the finish on the back.

So, so I always look at it as, does it dry out my mouth or does it make my mouth water? This one definitely makes the mouth water.

I'd agree with you there. It's, uh, you ever had of a cinnamon toothpick before I get that right there. None of you guys aren't that old.

We're not living right. I don't know.

I feel like I've, uh, my childhood has been, that was a, that was a flash in the pan back in like the seventies or eighties.

I know, but Corky from peerless, doesn't he have a story about the cinnamon toothpick or the, I was about to say the doobie brother.

He's about our age. Well, my age, not yours. You're younger than me.

I have heard the cinnamon toothpick story from Corky and that's, Yeah. I've never had a cinnamon toothpick, but you're not living.

I think the, I think the cinnamon toothpick used to buy them these little paper packs that you could open up and get a cinnamon toothpick out.

And you know, this was, I mean, it was probably the seventies. Mike, how old are you? I'm a, I'm 45 right now. Okay. So you, but I'm thinking of the eighties. That was a big thing.

And maybe it was the eighties. There's a lot of things in the eighties that were a big thing, but, uh, cinnamon toothpicks is probably the least harmful.

Yeah. I wore a whole pair of pants in the eighties with a whole bunch of zippers all over it.

So, I mean, man, I can remember eating a little food sticks. There's a little space food sticks from when the guys won in the moon in 1969. So I'm way out.

Freeze, freeze dried ice cream.

Yeah. All the stuff that the astronauts had when they went on the moonwalk, you know, I was probably eight years old at the time.

So maybe, maybe you do a food pairing with some whiskey and pull out some of that strawberry freeze dried ice cream. So we're going to move on to that next.

I think we should move on, but I'll tell you what my, my final note on the Sagamore rye is. that when my bottle is empty, I will search out another.

That's all there is to it. I agree with that. I will be coming over to Jim's house to seek it out.

Yep. Or help him finish this one.

And I hope on the next one that they're able to find something that where the nose and the palate aren't so disjointed, you know, because they are. I agree.

Yeah. All right. Let's move on. So here for our last pour, we got Jay Maddenley's single barrel straight rye whiskey. It's 129 proof.

So what was the last one we had?

It was like 112. 112. We're stepping it up a notch. That's a big jump. Yeah. It says they were founded in 1840, 45, 1845. And this is a pretty beautiful bottle. I like it. I like the label on there.

I'd say there's a pretty good chance that we'll have a picture of that on the post, on the blog. What do you think? I'd hope so. Maybe on the Instagram post too, right? Mike Scott, what do you guys say?

I think it's definitely worth an Instagram post or two.

Now I would tell everybody, it says one hell of a pick, um, on here. It says, uh, Jay Mattingly, 1845 fickle mistress, fickle mistress.

So this, that's the name of their pick, right? Fickle mistress. That's it. So this is, uh, this is the fellow that runs bourbon 30, uh, out there in Georgetown. Right. I think. Yep. And, uh, so, uh, this is a sourced liquid, no doubt. Right. That's what it says. Cause he called it a pick. So it must be a source.

It says distilled in Indiana and in bottle there. It is a bourbon 30 spirits in Georgetown. So aged four years, but it is some dark juice.

It is. I mean, this is the darkest whiskey I've ever seen, I think. But look at the legs on the, on the glass. I mean, it doesn't even form.

Wow. That really is something. I mean, that is chocolate dark. It's almost like stag. It looks like tea. Yeah. It looks like a stag junior. I agree with you. Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd say it's a little darker. Yeah. Probably just a, just a hair darker than a stag and the nose on this though.

It's not what you would expect with. What'd you say it was? 129, 129.

Yeah.

I don't get a lot of alcohol. How old is it?

It says four years. That's what's shocking to me. I would think this is something like 18 years or something. You know, I don't know.

It knows this. This is not a single barrel. This is a blend, right? It does say single barrel. So it is single barrel. So yeah, not a lot of alcohol in the nose, but I definitely get like cocoa powder on it.

He even says there's 120 bottles in that barrel.

Okay. So this is a fairly rare item. There's not a lot of people out there holding this bottle. I haven't seen it.

Have you? Well, obviously I saw it because I had one up. I tell you what, I got this at Paradise Liquors there in, uh, in Shelbyville. I walked in there and they're like, Hey, you, you, you need a bottle of this. And we talked about it for a little bit. And I think I actually texted Jim and said, Hey, what do you know about him? And, um, we talked about it for a little bit. Then I walked back in there and, and picked it up.

Yeah. So I don't, you know, honestly, there's been a lot of talk about Jay Mataly and bourbon 30 and everything. I don't want to get into all of that. I know there's been some controversy related to the distillery, but I don't have any firsthand knowledge in any of that. And a lot of times I just kind of fall back to what's in the bottle. You know, what's it taste like?

Well, looking at the bottle across the way, I can't see through it.

You wonder how a bourbon that's four years old can be that dark. I mean, honestly, that is, uh, yeah, you can't see through the bottle. Can you? I mean, you almost can't see through the Glen Karen, but it does.

Have you tried it yet?

No, I've just been smelling. Let's do it. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

I get like a syrup.

Yeah. I mean that is bold and rich and thick and syrupy. I mean, this reminds me a lot of an old Carter. An older old Carter like the 12 year or maybe even Older it's hot on that back end now. Yeah, I don't I don't think it's that hot Yeah, I'm you guys really picking up that like cocoa kind of

I'm just getting maple, like a rich maple syrup. Hershey's chocolate syrup mixed with a little bit of caramel. Slight.

Yeah. I mean, this is very rich and it's not savory, but it's, um, OK, it's OK. It's OK. It's it. It doesn't have a coffee flavor, but it reminds me of coffee for sure.

Scott's got the water out and get a fresh, fresh taste of this. So I'm wondering, really, we talked about how dark it is. I know we've talked a lot about barrel placement in a lot of our past episodes about where it is in the wreck house and things like that. So I'm wondering if this one Maybe aged a little bit more rapidly because it was at the top of her, you know, top of the warehouse. So that could be it. A lot of the water got pulled out of the barrel, especially for one hundred and twenty barrels or one hundred and twenty bottles for for a barrel. It seems like a short barrel.

Yeah, that would be short. Yeah. So so, Jim, what was the controversy behind him and his and his bourbon?

Well, you know, I don't have any first hand knowledge. I just know that there were some people who were concerned about his techniques used in the distillery related to moving liquids in trash cans or whatever. Whether or not flavorings were being used, those kind of things. Honestly, you know, I don't want to try the guy on the episode here. I think that, you know, um, he's been a guest on a couple of episodes where he's tried to defend his position and what he did.

You know, I have, uh, in my catering company, I use five gallon paint buckets from Lowe's because they're fruit. You can buy them. There's a food grade bucket, you know, they're, they're made by for that. So it even stays that on the label that you can use it for that. So I, I wouldn't begrudge the guy because he did that, you know, and I'd like to try to get him on here and talk to him and see what he, what his thoughts are.

I mean, I mean, if it's a single barrel, Is it really going to be spending that much time in a food grade plastic container anyway?

Was that ever confirmed though? I thought he denied those claims.

Well, I don't know that what he uses to move liquids around in his distillery. I'm not sure which podcast he was on. He was on another podcast where they asked him those questions and he was I think you might have denied that they were any kind of used containers, but they were new. The containers he used were new. I've been to many distilleries and seen those totes. They all store their liquids in those totes. That's pretty common. If you're sub 200 gallon, then you're going to be at something smaller than a tote. So I honestly, You know, if somebody has information that says he's been making additions to it using additives or flavorings, that's a different story. Yeah, it's a different story. But I can tell you this, when I taste this, it's bold, rich, thick, bourbon. I mean, it's just whiskey. Yeah. Whiskey. There's no doubt that's some whiskey. Yeah, that's not bourbon. That's right.

Well, hey, I mean, it got big Mike to, to buy it.

So the, the, the weeded guy, he brought out the big hit, the big hitter.

Well, they call me big G for reasons, you know, um, I, I like it. Me and Jim opened up over my house one night. I say, let's, let's, let's open this up and let's try it. Not the cheapest bottle to buy. I'll tell you that. Um, he's proud of his stuff. And I think rightly so, right?

Yeah.

He, uh, everybody has their, their jam. And, um, I bought it just so I could have a nice bottle of rye whiskey to give to friends and say, Hey, I want you to try something pretty special. Yeah. Um, so, you know, I need better friends.

Oh, Scott over there.

He, he's got that high class class to come over more often.

I got the, I got the high dollar stuff.

So here's a question for you guys off Jay Mattingly, but what's so far in your experience with doing podcasts and what's your favorite guest or episode that y'all have been able to do so far?

Oh my goodness. That's a, that's an excellent question. It's hard to say they're also different because we don't, you know, we do, uh, in addition to people in the industry, distillers, master distillers, um, brand ambassadors, people like that. We also interview musicians and authors and, and, you know, people who are outside the industry as well. Um, I probably have had the most fun. interviewing Elizabeth McCall from Woodford. I think that was the most fun because she was, I mean, she was such a great guest.

Yeah.

She had such a great story and, and she just, um, you know, that was, that was such a blast. We had a fun bow from Montgomery Gentry.

A lot of fun episode.

Yeah, that was fun. That was fun.

I'd have to say that. Pat and Shane out there at Wilderness Trail. And I wasn't on that episode, but I sat in the room with them and asked questions before, after, and then in the middle of it, talked to them. And those guys just were so transparent into what they were doing. And their story is a real story. There's no, There's no branding behind them. They just tell it like it is. And to me, they're very genuine in what they're doing out there. And then to see two friends over the years keep that friendship together and have a successful business. And I hear other people talk about how small they were when they first went out there. And you go out there today, and I don't know how many Rick Houses they have on site, but they're pumping out some juice, right? Uh, it was at 200 and some barrels a day or some hundred and 12. I think this is the number they're at. And I think they're going to even probably go up from that, but they're really transparent. And they'll tell you anything. If you ask them, they have nothing to hide. They don't want to hide anything. Um, And then they had some other cool little stories. You know, they, they're rockers. Pat's a bio medical. Did I say that right?

No, I mean, he's a medical microbiologist or something like that.

They, and you could see the whole time when I'm sitting there, Pat, he's not a big talker. Um, he sat there and you could just see him tearing apart his own product right in front of us. I could just see his mind working to me. That was super interesting for more of an outsider looking into them.

Yeah. So while Shane was answering our questions, Pat was sitting there analyzing his bourbon. He was definitely doing that.

Hey, he probably, was thinking about the other things he had to do on site that day, but they're busy guys and to sit down with us and be honored with that. And Bo, I sat in the room with Bo too. And you know, that guy's a super busy guy touring with a band and stuff. But, uh, to me, I think each one of them brings something different. You know, I got to sit down with a big mo case and from pit masters, um, And even his story was to me was remarkable and a guy that, um, hit that jackpot, you know, just hit the jack kind of like I did with this podcast. I think I hit the jackpot.

Yeah, you did. What about you guys, you know, think back on some past episodes, what, uh, what has been some of your high points and well, I'll let Scott answer that first.

Yeah, I don't know. I think we've come a long way since we first started this. I know we've kind of done a few pivots along the way. I think some of my favorites have been the ones where we actually go visit the distillery, see the sights and sounds and And all that that everybody can see and then kind of come back and just chat about it. Talk about the whiskey. Talk about the products that they're putting out. I think probably rabbit hole might be one of my. One of my favorites. I know that I've, I enjoy that from just a visual perspective. Cause I know I like, I'd like to take a lot of photographs and especially doing a lot of the social media on Instagram and things like that.

Um, you know, I particularly enjoy your episodes where you guys go out to the distillery and you do a tour and then you come back and kind of give a summary, you know, give a deconstruction of your day at the distillery and that's, You know, I think a lot of people can get enough information from that to make a decision. Do I want to go there? You know, do I want to take the tour?

Yeah. Yeah. And I think we, we try to avoid giving away all the spoilers to, um, cause everybody's going to experience something a little bit different on each tour and what they like about certain things, but just ex, you know, exposing some people to a little bit of the tidbits of what we enjoyed. I know Michter's was another another great one. Their tour is a really good tour. Their facility is amazing. They're kind of a sensory experience from top to bottom, which is great. Talking about that on audio podcast is very difficult, but we try to relay that enough to our listeners to where they can get that kind of appetite to go and visit the distilleries.

You're also showing everybody that on your social media accounts, too, right? You're showing them photos and saying, hey, this is what you can experience down here in Louisville, Kentucky, down here in the heart of Kentucky.

Yeah, absolutely. We try to sprinkle in a lot of the distillery picks. I know that I like to post a lot of those. You know, people like to see bottles, rare bottles of whiskey, rare bottles of bourbon, you know, fancy pictures of of nice decanters and glassware and things like that. But honestly, I I enjoy the architecture of of a lot of the distilleries. I know one of my favorite pieces of going to a distillery is just seeing a lot of the copper stills. I know Vendome Copper makes a lot of the a lot of the copper stills in most every distillery. I think across this, you know, across the U.S. That's one thing that I enjoy seeing, especially that it's made in Louisville.

Yeah. They like to keep it here at home. Barrels made here. The steel is made here. The whiskey is made here.

All right guys. So we have tried, um, five different rise all cast strength in a range of about 110 proof to 130 proof. Should we call out something that we think stands out? So our favorite of the five. Yeah, why not? I mean, they're all different, but is there one that stands out to you? Mike, I know you're going to be a little bit different because you're kind of the Weider guy and we're, we're talking right here, but I think that Maryland, right.

To me, the sweetness of it, you know, that was, that was pretty spot on.

So are you saying that the Sagamore cast strength Rye is your pick?

I'd pick that.

Yeah. And, and what's the one thing that makes that your, your choice for tonight?

That sweetness. I, you know, it's hard to say anything bad about this jade medically though. It's a chocolatey goodness. Yeah.

Michael? Yeah, so I actually haven't had anything that I didn't like, which I'm kind of surprised about. I already said this previously, but I don't drink a ton of Roz. This Jay Mattingly is definitely surprising in that I mean, I don't know, it's pretty enjoyable and I like it. It's, it's like you said, it's bold. It's got a rich, deep flavor to it and rich, deep color. But I think I'm going to go with, I think I'm still going to go with my peerless. I gotta go with peerless.

I like the brand.

I like the brand and I don't know, the brand loyalty still means something to me and I like what they're doing. And I think when you all go and meet them, you're going to, you're going to really love them. Caleb, listen up.

Scott, what about you, man?

Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to go with, I might have to go with the peerless. Just in terms of pure sweetness and mouthfeel, you know, I'm not a huge rye drinker, so I do appreciate the sweetness of bourbons and just whiskey in general. I think the peerless retains a lot of that. There's some good characteristics across the spectrum. But the peerless is most well rounded for me. I think out of all of them, surprisingly, the one I like the least was probably the Kentucky Owl. Yeah. And I think that that one was just a bit spicy for me and a little bit high on the ethanol alcohol taste.

And I agree with that. So for me, it's always hard when it's not blind because I'm a big fan of blind tastings. But I would say, you know, not being blind, I might lean towards the peer list. I really think that I agree with you, Scott. I think it was well-rounded. I think it had a little bit of citrus in there. It had that peppery spice. It had just a hint of conifer, evergreen. I like to get that in a rye. I really do. I didn't get much like dill, but I got a lot of that peppercorn. And I think I get that in the bourbon too, that peppery, real peppery finish. Sure. I love that stuff. I mean, that stuff really trips my trigger, I guess is the way to say it, but so I'm going to go, I'm going to go with the peerless. I think I am Mike. You're the outlier here.

I guess, but I'm not a ride drinker, so folks don't listen to me when it comes to smoke. If we have a weeded podcast, just on Weeders, I don't know why people call it Weeders. It's like you're a sissy or something.

That's such a Texas guy comment right there. Weeders, sissy.

I'd line up a hundred guys and they would all say, I'll drink a bottle of Pappy's over anything else. So I'll stick to that. You know, I'm no sissy.

Well, I think it's fair to say that, you know, tonight the peerless kind of takes the cake. Good job, Caleb.

Yeah, I think, I think it's been a solid pick for us all around. I know we kind of might seem like fanboys at times, but. it's always performed well, even in blind tastings for us.

I think, you know, we actually, as a group, we looked at probably, what, 12 cast strength ryes. I would agree. Before we started tonight, and then we picked the five that we would taste during the show. So there were a number of, let's say, seven or eight ryes that we didn't taste as part of the show tonight. I kind of like to think that the wilderness trail might have done alright. In my opinion, I mean that's a pretty amazing ride.

Yeah, I actually own a bottle. Um, it's actually, I don't even know if it's open, but it's probably still the next price, still full. I need to go back to that one. Cause you all have got me thinking wilderness trail is, is the next big thing.

Well, I mean, it could be their, um, product as it ages each year gets a little bit better. So we've got two rides here right now. One is around a hundred proof. And they kind of, on the episode, they kind of explained, you know, when we interviewed them, why their rye is sub 100, when it was barrel entry proof of 100. How could it go down? They talked about that. But we've got a bottle of 112 sitting here right now, which is pretty special. I mean, it's really good. So their, their ryes are, their rye is Pretty amazing. And, and they vary very much between barrel to barrel. So pretty good stuff. Who knows? I mean, well, let's see, they want to let their stock age to six to eight years. So.

No, I think they're, I mean, I clearly think they're doing things the right way. And I think they're going to be putting out great products, just, just like Peerless. There's a young brand. All right. Well, fellas, it's been a blast. Hasn't it? Absolutely. Absolutely. This is, uh, I appreciate you all having us on. This is, this is the type of thing that we got into podcasting for is just to, you know, outreach and meet new people and talk to people that have the same type of interest that we do. And it's been a pleasure meeting you guys. Yeah, it's been great.

You know, this is kind of what they call a bourbon night. You do, you just get together and you open a few bottles and you sit around and you talk about it. And it's a lot of fun. So guys, why don't we take a minute and go around the room and just talk about how people might find us. You know, you guys have got some listeners that might not know about us. We have some listeners that might not know about you. Why don't we just take a minute and go around, you know, talk about, you know, how to get ahold of us.

Yeah, so we're the Bourbon Lens. We are found on all social media at Bourbon Lens. We're also at bourbonlens.com. If you want to send us an email, we're at thebermanlens.gmail.com. We're made up of three guys. It's Michael, who generally hosts the podcast, Scott, myself, and Jake, who unfortunately couldn't be here tonight because he's traveling now. I believe he's in California right now. Jake's the one with all the bourbon, right? He's the opposite of me. So he's got the, you know, the opposite of JTS Brown, but, uh, Yeah. So hopefully this won't be the last time that we can get together and maybe next time Jake will be able to join us for the, for the next podcast.

Well, we, we kind of wanted to do a bonfire tonight. The idea was to sit around the bonfire and have some bourbon and talk about good times. And, uh, it was a hundred degrees out today.

Yeah, it's a little, little warm.

I don't think this ride would have set so well in, in the, in the campfire.

So castrate dry around a fire on a hundred degree day. I don't know.

Cool.

You write down air conditioning in the basement. That sounds perfect.

Mike, want to talk about how to get ahold of us?

So you find us on the, uh, bourbon road.com or on Instagram, the bourbon road at the bourbon road or on Facebook, uh, the bourbon road. We actually have a, uh, a closed group on there. The bourbon roadies are you finding myself at one big chief, one big chief.

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm Jay Shannon 63 and I didn't mean to whistle there, but good show. Great show. Yeah.

I appreciate you having us. Cheers. A lot of fun. Cheers.

We do appreciate all of our listeners and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop in all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions. And if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.