254. Castle & Key Small Batch #1 Bourbon

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.

Well, you know who likes to give back to their community is one of our sponsors, Jim. Chris Cruz from Cruz Customs Flags. He does custom flags out of bourbon barrels. Not only does that, he do that, but he's also using veterans to build those flags with. I've got one right behind me, Jim. I know you got one on your bar. Beautifully handcrafted, repurposing a bourbon barrel, not throwing it away, not making it into smoking chips, making a piece of Americana, right?

something that'll last probably quite a few years longer than a bourbon barrel would, right?

Not only that, but he's using veterans to build those pieces of art with. You know, you got to love that. But he's also giving back to his community at all times, helping veterans out like ourselves. He is really in tune to that. Go check his site out, uh, cruise customs, flags.com. You can buy his flags on their key holders. Jim's got some, uh, these neat little cups that are chart inside made out of oak that you can put a cocktail in.

They call those the whiskey grail, don't they?

Yeah, that is, it kind of reminds you, you know, when you think of a grail, but truly a whiskey grail right there. Go check those out at Cruz Customs Flags. Purchased from this guy, veteran owned, veteran operated, making a veteran built product.

Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mark Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we're at Jephthah Bend Farm. Yeah, it's been a minute. It has been a minute. It's a beautiful day, though.

I mean, it's gorgeous outside. It's cold. It's chilly. I think it was like 25 this morning.

It was very cold, but things are turning green and the sun's out. And, well, I cut grass for the first time.

It's mowing season. I know it. Gosh dang it.

I kind of enjoy it a little bit. It gives me some thinking time.

Yeah, yeah.

But we've got a great bottle today, something we've been waiting for for a very long time.

Everybody has been waiting for this. You know, it was a big deal for this to come out this year. You know, very anticipated bottle. Some people said it's most anticipated release ever. I don't know about that. You know, it kind of crunched my nose up a little bit when people say it's the most anticipated release ever. But it is out of Castle & Key. It's their first bourbon. Now they've had other bourbons come out of there.

They have. So they're, in addition to making their own spirits, they also contract produce for other distillers as well.

Yep. But this is their Castle & Key. It's a 40-year-old straight Kentucky bourbon, right?

Straight Kentucky bourbon. And I think you got the match bill on this, Dick.

I do. So the match bill for this, Jim, is 73% white corn, 10% rye, and 17% malted barley.

Oh, that, that sounds a little bit like a high malt. It does sound like a high malt, doesn't it? It does. This was 80 barrels Jim in this batch. Which is not a huge batch for, you know, a size of distillery like Castle and Key.

Yeah.

But it's a good size.

Now they're doing batches and each batch looks like it's going to be different. They're going to have batch number two will be another 80 barrels, but it'll come in at 99 proof.

Okay. So they're not holding the proof consistency between batches. That's interesting.

Yeah, maybe that's harder for them to do, or who knows, they just want to do it this way. I like when people put out batches like that, and it's a little bit different, a little bit flavorful. But the same Castle & Key bottle you see everything in, they have, very beautiful, right?

Yeah, it's a gorgeous bottle. It's well appointed. The label this time as like a slate blue color on it. Really nice.

I like it a lot. And the packaging they sent us this in was super nice. They sent us two glasses, some coasters on a little castle. If you haven't been out to Castle & Key, it does look like a castle, right?

Yeah. And I think we should talk about that just a few minutes, but I'll tell you what, I'd really like to taste this bourbon.

Let's, let's, let's taste this thing. Let's do it.

Ooh, the nose is definitely got a light fruit to it. Ah, that's that, that's that barley.

I'm getting a little raisin on this. Yeah. Um, definitely some honey, right?

Yeah, definitely honey. Maybe a little bit of tea.

Yeah. I, you're right on the tea.

It's got a sweetness to it, but at the same time it's got a little bit of a, um, kind of a tartness. This is the nose. We haven't tasted it yet. This is all about the nose right now, but it's kind of a sweet tart nose.

I think it's got a little bit of nutmeg in there or something that just tingles. Like you said, sweet tart, a sweet tart candy. Um, you're spot on man. You're getting it today, Jim. You definitely get it. Uh, yeah, I can't say enough good stuff about this. Now I get a little bit of a, Frosted flakes cereal on this. Okay, that's sugary sweet corn and maybe that's that white corn Maybe that's what I'm gonna be and I don't know what white white corn brings to the table You know, some people use yellow corn.

Some people use white corn. Some people use Bloody butcher bloody butcher corn blue corn blue corn. There's there's a lot of different corns out there.

Nobody's using popcorn

And there must be a reason.

There is, there is. There's a reason why they say there's not enough yield out of it. Okay. Um, so that Marsha, the mother of Texas whiskey down there at iron root, she is the one that told me that.

All right. Well, I'm ready to taste this. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that's got a little bit of sizzle to it. Very nice though. Not too sweet upfront. but it does have a little bit of that, that pop rock to it.

Yeah. I was thinking at first, it, it's very cool in the glass. Um, when you first hit your mouth and I thought it was going to be super watery, but it's not. Um, it's kind of, it's a weird, it's got weird mouth taste to it. Weird mouth feel, I guess.

Yeah. It's not, it's not super viscous. But it's, um, it's, it's gonna just a tad of tart bitterness to it. So, I mean, that's kind of carrying over. There's a little sweetness there. Uh, the, the light fruit, I'm going to say the stone fruit, a little bit of stone fruit and, uh, but not overly sweet. This is not a really sweet bourbon for me.

I think that bitterness I'm getting, it almost tastes like a little bit of persimmon. You know, those old world foods. You know, that persimmon's got a little bite to it. I'm getting a little bit of that persimmon in it. The baking spices are there. It hits you like that. You said that's pop rocks are coming out. Those baking spices, that nutmeg, that all clove, that very, very tasty.

Yeah, it's really good. Now, I have to be fair in saying that this is my first bourbon of the day, and we both know from tasting many, many bourbons that your first one of the day can typically have a little bit of bitterness to it. So, I'm going to report back after I take two more sips.

I think it's a really nice bourbon for them to come out this. it's sticking with my palate. So I'd say a medium finish on this, right?

And it's starting to be a little hug. Now I started to feel like it was going to drip down to my jawline and start, you know how sometimes the barbara don't get down around the, it didn't quite go there. It got to the sides of the tongue. I could feel it getting ready to go. That pop rocks was going off, but it didn't, it didn't drip to the, to the jawline. It's a, it's not entirely like anything I've had before.

Yeah, maybe that high malted barley is very different. We've had some other bourbons like that lately where people are putting that more not malted barley. I just got a bite on the tongue for sure. Now, our tasting notes are not even close to what they gave us. They said toffee, bread dough. dates, I don't get dates on this, baking spices. We did get baking spices and toasted almonds. They said the finish was cinnamon allspice. Now I could get that cinnamon.

Yeah, I would go with that. I'd say cinnamon allspice is a fair finish on this and it is medium in length. I agree with that. Yeah, our notes up front, Mike, are totally different than theirs, but you know, that's the way the game goes. Yeah.

Well, this thing was $50. They released it at the distillery yesterday. There was, like I said, a line of cars there and it looked like they had a pretty good system set up for people to get it. This is going to be available in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois. Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, my home state of Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. That's a plethora of states.

That's a pretty good distribution. But you know, it's getting to be that season when people are going to want to come and visit the Bourbon Trail. It's already that season.

Oh yeah.

And Castle & Key is a great place to go. I mean, what a wonderful experience to go to the distillery there. And you can take a tour or not. You can go to the gift shop or not. They have A lot to offer.

Yeah. They got a little, uh, I guess it would be a cocktail bar outside that you can still walk around the outside grounds if you didn't want to go on tour and then go on the gift shop and buy your stuff. Um, and still not go on tour, but you're missing out if you don't go on that tour and seeing the sunken botanical gardens there. Now the spring houses outside, right?

The spring house and the botanical gardens, you go on a walk. There's a nice walking trail through the gardens. They're very well maintained.

Yeah, I mean, it is a beautiful place and it's just getting better. You know, the renovating that place, it's taking some time. They started in 2014 by renovating it. You can see the old boilers, their stuff. It is quite amazing. You know, they got a good little restaurant right down the road called the Stave. You got to get in there fast because it's a small place.

Yeah, I would say definitely consider Castle & Key as a stop on your trip to the Bourbon Trail. You will not be sorry. Even if, you know, if you bring your wife along or you bring your spouse along, could be the wife is the bourbon drinker in your family. If that's the case, When you bring your spouse along, if they're not into all the distillery tours or their tower distillery tours, man, you can get a cocktail outside. You can walk through the gardens. You can go down and sit by the creek. Oh yeah. It's beautiful.

There's a little dam that has, I don't call it a waterfall because it's more of a manmade waterfall, right? Yeah. Water flowing over the dam there and stuff. We've both been there several times. Matter of fact, we're about to go back out there. Next week's episode will be out there. But on this week's episode, you're going to listen to me and Jim. We're going to talk about two bottles that I think everybody likes. We've got a ride. We've got a week we're going to talk about on Wednesday, right, Jim? That's right. But we're also going to be doing a giveaway. You don't want to miss out on that giveaway now. But we'll talk about what's going on this year in Bourbon. There's been some big news that's just happened. So we'll talk about that on that episode. Well, Jim is pretty dang good bourbon for 50 bucks. I would buy a bottle for 50 bucks.

Yeah. Yeah. I would say that this thing brings a, definitely a new experience to the table, something a little bit different than anything else you've had before. It's, it's not like any other bourbon. It doesn't remind me of anybody else's bourbon, I should say.

Yeah.

And, uh, and that's always a good thing. Always nice to try something that's, steps out of the box a little bit. It may take a little time for the bottles to sort of make their way out there, for everybody to be able to put their hands on them. But for me, I'm going to say definitely grab it when you can. Get to the distillery, get a bottle if you can, whichever way. I think it's a good choice.

I think if people listen, with our episode with Castle and Key, maybe we can squeeze a bottle out of them giveaway. It could be. Well, Jim, another great episode.

Absolutely. Well, Mike, where can people find us?

Well, you can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, all those social media sites. Just check us out at the Bourbon Road. Pretty easy. We actually have a private Facebook group called the bourbon roadies on Facebook. You want to make sure you get in there. Three easy rules. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon and you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any rudeness. Right, Jim?

That's right. We just, we just want everybody to get along. Just get along, get along and drink that whiskey.

Yeah, there's so many people and it pays to be a roadie. It really does pay. Uh, we just gave away a bottle to some roadies, actually two bottles and some swag. Um, check that stuff out. Sometimes, you know, we're both a little generous and we'll send some samples out. Just, uh, you've got bourbon to give away. We do lots of it.

Uh, we got, we got bourbon coming out of our ears. You just said my shelf was sagging over there. You need to lighten that up a little bit. We need to find some needy roadies. Needy roadies.

Yeah, check us out on there. We got two episodes a week, right, Jim?

Yep. Every week on Mondays, we'll do a craft distillery episode like today's, where we'll take a look at a single expression. We'll tell you whether or not we think you ought to add it to your shelf. Most of the time it's a craft distillery. Castle Key's a little big, but they're also kind of crafty too, so good fit for this week's episode. Every Wednesday, we do a full-length episode, about an hour in length. Man, last week's one an hour and a half. Well, it was a great conversation. It was. But we'll basically get you to work. We'll get you home on an hour show. We'll have some guests on. We'll explore several bottles. We'll talk about a specific topic. We'll go a little bit deeper than we do on Mondays. So we'd sure like to have you listen to both shows every week. Mike, how do they make sure they do not miss a single?

Well, you want to scroll on up, hit that subscribe sign, that check sign, that plus sign that'll get your app to tell you, Hey, these guys got an episode out, um, releases really early in the morning. So if you want to catch it on the way to work, like Jim said, or catch it on the way home or split that drive with an episode, go ahead and do that. Then we need you to scroll on down. You know what I'm about to say, right? Hit that five star review and leave us some comments. It's been a minute since we had any reviews, almost over a month. We really appreciate that, but you know what'll happen if you don't. I'm gonna bring my friend, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon. He'll be carrying a bottle of this Castle & Key bourbon with him. You guys can drink it all night long. You have a smile on your face in the night. Give us that five star review and leave some comments. But seriously, those comments, those reviews open up doors to distilleries for us to go in. It gets great bottles of bourbon in our hand like this castle and key right here for us to do a show for you. And hopefully you enjoy this entertainment.

Well, Mike and I are very approachable. We'd love to hear from you. If you've got any ideas for a show, if you've got a guest you'd like to see on, if you've got a bottle you'd like us to review, either one of those, please let us know. You can send us an email. You can go onto the website. You can head up the contact us page. I'm Jim at the bourbonroad.com. He's Mike at the bourbonroad.com. But like we always say, probably the best way is to hit up our DM on Instagram. I'm Jay Shannon, 63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down.