258. R6 Distillery Single Malt Whiskey Review

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

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?

It's 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. Heck. 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 Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we're back at Jeff the Bin Farm. We've been on the road for a while now. We have been, but it's a, that car's on the road all day today, Jim.

So you're on the road again today.

What I say when you drove up, it's been a busy whiskey day. Been a busy whiskey day. Well, It's a rainy day, but we're inside. We got Woodrow at our feet again. He knows exactly what the drill is. He ain't chewing on no carpets or nothing. No, but he knows exactly what to do. Doesn't he? We get down in these chairs, we get our microphones up, and he lays at our feet, falls asleep.

Yeah, yeah. He's ready for us to drink some whiskeys, is what his deal is. He's like, where's the fire at?

Well, no fire today, but you know what? We're sort of leaving that fire season a little bit. Next fires will be out at the bonfire pit. Yeah, most definitely. Down by the creek.

Yeah. Well, hopefully this year we could actually do an episode down there. We've talked about it and talked about it and talked about it. I know the listeners are like, when are you guys going to do this? I promise you this year, listeners, we are going to do this. But only if you leave us a review though. We do need some reviews, don't we? We do. We need some of those five-star reviews because you know what will happen if you don't, that old big bad booty daddy of bourbon is going to come over to your house and bring some whiskey with him and you'll leave some five-star reviews after that's all said and done.

Well, we do have some whiskey in the house today. This is a whiskey, this is a distillery we're going to have on the show a little bit later in the month. Yeah. And tell us who it is.

We got R6 Distillery, Jim. They're out of California. Where at in California? El Segundo. Yeah, yeah. This is actually a single mall, Jim. We've been seeing single malls on the let's say internet, social media, places like Balcony makes a really good single mall. Westward Whiskey, where I visited out in Oregon, they make a beautiful one. Besides them too, I just named the Balconies and Westward, there's several other people out there trying to make these single marts.

I think the American single mart is definitely on the rise. You can tell that they're starting to get a bigger adoption and people are starting to drink it. Because it piques the interest of our Scotch drinkers, right?

Yeah, I think it's that you're kind of dipping into bourbon a little bit, but you're not dipping into bourbon. Aged in American chard oak barrels, usually a new one. This 86 proof gem is aged at least two years. I'm very interested in this. Now this distiller was started in 2014. Rob Rubin, he's their head distiller. He kind of left the corporate world, but he's also a veteran.

So this is a veteran owned distillery. Yeah. Awesome.

You gotta, we gotta love that. Right? Absolutely. Um, you know, they, they started their distillery. Like you said, we're going to have them on later in a month, but I thought a single malt would be something nice for me and you to sip on today.

I feel like about a third of our shows, maybe a quarter of our shows, are rye whiskeys. About two-thirds of our shows are bourbons. I think it's nice to have American Single Malts on from time to time to show that there is another category of American whiskey that is on the way up the chain. I enjoy it. I know you enjoy it. It's always nice to have a bottle on the show.

Now this has an undisclosed mash bill, but it says European grain. So I would think that is malted barley.

It would have to be, you know, a malt is going to be a barley typically. And single malt doesn't necessarily mean, and we've talked about this before, single malt doesn't necessarily mean it's made from a single malt. It means it's a malted whiskey made at a single distillery.

Mm-hmm. Well, I will tell you now they put a little twist on this for you Yeah, and before we started talking you said chocolate whisper which is from Woodford Reserve But this actually has some peated malt in it. It has some distillers malt. It has some chocolate malt and some coffee malt

Uh huh. Okay. So that would tend to affect the nose just a little bit because we haven't tasted this yet, but when we poured it in the glass, I did get a whiff of it. I was like, Whoa, that reminds me of that chocolate whisper. Well, let's do this thing. Let's check it out. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's now it's all malt though. It's all malt, a hundred percent malt, just different variations of toasting on it.

Yeah. I have you ever had a powdered peanut butter before?

PB2. Yeah.

Yeah. I've had it. I get a little bit of that.

I'm just getting that. I'm just getting that chocolate. I mean, it's, it's a, it's very prominent for me on the nose, but I'm also getting just a light medicinal note to it. A little bit of a twinge there. a little bit of coffee.

I'm getting the, uh, that, you know, you ever had a chocolate malted like drink before? Um, I'm getting that at this and maybe that is cause the chocolate in there or that it's not chocolate, right? It's the way they toasted them. Correct. Um, but I'm getting that note of chocolate in here.

Yeah, you can definitely tell. I mean, it's got that, that, that sort of a kind of a hay, a little bit of a hay note to it, a little bit of a chocolate note to it. It's just, you get that little tinge of a medicinal to it, but it's just barely there for me.

Yeah, I like it. That, that peanut butter note is sticking with me for some reason. And I haven't handed you that in a long time, but I know the smell of that though. Maybe almost a little bit of vanilla powder too. I can, I can get that. Yeah. I know that's weird to say a powder, but maybe a protein drink powder. There you go.

Yeah. Actually a chocolate protein drink or vanilla protein drink muscle milk, like a muscle milk kind of thing. Yeah. I get that. Let's taste it. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that's nice.

Now it's a little more coffee. Coffee, chocolate, just a hint of chocolate on there, but coffee is there. Yeah, man. This is super different.

Yeah. I, I really like it. I mean, it's smoky, a little smoky. I didn't pick up a whole lot of smoke on the, on the nose, but on the palate, it's smoky, chocolatey coffee.

You know those California wildfires that they're always talking about and stuff? The smokiness makes me think of that in the air. I don't know if you've ever been around forest fires. It is a sad thing to see that happen to anybody. Like right now, down in Texas, there's big fires and stuff, wildfires. But out in California, they have these fires all the time and stuff. And it's almost like that fire that smoke went into the barrels or something. It is a nice toasty taste to it. Um, and that coffee is just ever present. A little bit of a hug there.

It's, it's wonderful that they were able to create this from crafty toasting of malts. I mean, that's what they did. They mixed, they blended their malts together, uh, various levels of toast and they were able to generate this flavor and it's just, It's unmistakably chocolate and coffee. And if that's something that you like, if you would love to try a whiskey, if the. The chocolate malted rye from Woodford Reserve was something that got your attention. If the chocolate whisper that they put out got your attention, I would say give this one a shot.

I think if you're a Scotch drinker and you want to try American made whiskey, this is it right here. If you want to go ahead and buy American, R6 is the first illegal distillery, as far as we know, in California. They're the first to produce there. That's pretty awesome. We got one of the first bottles here, Jim. I love it.

And R6 stands for the Six Brothers. The six Rubens brothers.

Yeah. Yeah. They were in the roaring twenties, I guess. Um, and uh, in film industry, right? Yep. Yep. Kind of cool that he kept that, that lineage, you know, history of the family, um, with his brand. I like it. This is a small, short squatty bottle. Um, not so much like wilderness trail. Um, And not like Yomurti Lee, but something like that.

Like a few spirits bottle.

Yeah. Yeah. I like it. You know, it's got long enough neck to pour. I didn't spill any out or you poured it. I spilled it.

I spilled just a little bit.

Oh man, Jim. Once again, this is 86 proof. It's two years old. It's out of California. This is this one. They all have different color labels. This one's the yellow label or oranges label. Um, maybe looking at them wildfires color, you know?

Um, it's got a nice color to it. It's a definitely a straw colored. It's very light, nice straw colored and a really great profile. Now the finish is not real long on it and it's got just the teeniest amount of a hug. How'd you feel about that?

Yeah, it, not an overpowering hug. Um, and I, I think you're spot on on that medium finish, short to medium, really short, you know, still beautiful. Um, it gets you in trouble real quick, I think. Yeah. You know what it is? It's, it feels cool when you first drink it and it's not cool in here. It's room temperature, but it feels, it feels like it's got ice cube in on almost. Um, I don't know if you get that same,

Yeah, I think it's a refreshing, it's kind of thirst quenching a little bit.

Yeah, that's where it would get you in trouble. So if you're not in California, you could get this online for about $39.99 from a keg and bottle out in California. They ship nationwide. Yes, they do. from what I understand is a pretty damn good store.

Yeah. I mean, they definitely are kind of masters of the single barrel, right?

Yeah. Yeah. But for $39 for a single malt, man, I paid a lot more money than that for a Scotch out of Scotland. Yeah. It looked the same color too, Jim, except for it was like 20 years old.

Yeah. They don't continue to get darker and darker very much, do they?

No, no. Well, it takes a little bit longer in Scotland than it does in California, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Now where's Elsa Gundo at?

Uh, it's, uh, it's, if I remember correctly, a little south, it's an LA area, a little south of downtown along the coast.

So what's down there then? Yeah. El Segundo beach. There's a beach. I've never been, I've been out there, but I don't think I've ever been to El Segundo. Um, and I hope we're pronouncing that right. We are. But. I say it's a Biagym. You know how I like these single balls. They are really inviting to me. Like I said, they're a whiskey that I could sit down and drink this thing. I know that might surprise some people, but if we were just sitting around.

It wouldn't take no time at all for this bottle to disappear.

It's very light, aromatic. I like it. I like it. Well, Jim, hey, I got to say thanks to R6 for sending us this bottle right here. What we always say about our reviews, if it shows up on our show, we probably like it. Yeah. So make sure you check this bottle out. It's at R6. Distillery.com? Yeah.

Well, awesome, Mike. Another great show, another great bottle. I really look forward to getting the rest of R6's expressions here on the show. I think it's going to happen real soon. We're going to have their distiller on. I think we're probably looking at this sometime in middle to late April, right?

April, the first weeks of May, you know, we've got a lot of stuff to do in the next couple of weeks. a lot of whiskeys to taste, a lot of people to visit with. We got some great shows coming up for people. While everybody's listening to this, I'll be on a beach in Dominican Republic though.

We'll raise a glass to you, mate. I'll be down there suffering. You forget about us though. You just have a good time.

Well, Jim, where can people find us on the social media?

Well, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. You can find us on TikTok. In all those places, we're at The Bourbon Road. We also have a private Facebook group called The Bourbon Roadies, where all our good friends like to hang out. A whole bunch of them. We have a great time in there. We talk about whiskey. We share whiskey. We share stories. We share pictures. We share life events. And there's three questions to get in, right, Mike?

Yeah. Are you 21 or do you like bourbon? Yeah. Maybe we should change that. Do you like bourbon or do you like whiskey? Yeah. Cause we are, there's a bunch of roadies that like just whiskey too, right? Like this single malt probably. And do you agree to play nice because whether you drink from the bottom of the shelf, like I started out with 10 high whiskey or the very, the top of the shelf, like Jim started out with Pappy Van Winkle. No, I don't think so. I wish. Wherever you drink on the shelf, we want you to come in that group and enjoy yourselves, be part of our family, share your stories, share your retirement, share birthdays, births, even deaths. We want to celebrate that life of your family member and raise a glass to them.

Absolutely. We do two shows every week. Every Monday we'll do a craft distillery episode. And today, We've got the R6 single malt on. Sometimes it's a big boy. Usually it's a craft distillery, but you know, we mix it up a little bit, but that's every Monday. Every Wednesday we do a full length episode. We'll go to 20 to 30 minute halves. We'll get you to work and get you home. We'll have a guest on. We'll have several bottles. We'll talk about a subject in depth. You make sure you want to get both those shows every week. Mike, how can they be sure not to miss one?

Well, you want to scroll on up and hit that check sign, that plus sign, that subscribe sign. That app will tell you, hey, these guys got a show that just came out. It'll let you know. That's what you want. You got that little notification that pops up to irritate you. That'll be us. We'll irritate you a little bit, but you can come on and listen to us. Next thing we need to do is, like I said before at the beginning of the show, scroll on down, hit that five star review, leave us some comments. That's what gets the doors open for us. But if you don't, you know what will happen? The big bad booty daddy of bourbon. Well, this week he's going to come bringing this single malt whiskey with him from R6 Distillery. Drink it all night long, probably half the night with this bottle and then you'll leave us that five star review. Like I said, it gets us in distilleries, it gets the doors open, gets great whiskey in our hands like this R6. We really appreciate it. Don't miss this next week's episode. We're going to have limestone distillery on, right, Jim? Absolutely. Big, big giveaway in that deal. I want to talk about those giveaways for a minute, Jim. Let's do it. I want to thank everybody out there that has participated with us. We've kept this thing rolling and I think we can keep it rolling too, Jim, right?

It seems to me that we've always got a little bit of whiskey to give away, doesn't it?

Yeah. Whether it's just us sitting down too, we've partnered with some great friends like The Barrel Room here in Shelbyville, Kentucky, Torrey Smith Realty, which has Saddlebread Suites here, a VRPO place you want to check out if you're coming to the Bourbon Trail. We plan to part with other businesses here on the Bourbon Trail. to get great whiskey in your hands if you participate in our giveaways. Tell your friends about us. You can only win every three months, and we're going to change the rules on you people out there just a hair. One win every three months for a single household. Hey, we appreciate an entire household listening to us. I really do. But we want to be fair across the nation. Other people are watching us. Our friends that help us out with these whiskey giveaways are watching us. So we want to be really fair about this. And we want everybody to experience what we're getting to experience. Jim, we got some big events coming up too, man.

We do. We've got some this summer, don't we?

Yeah, we got the Bourbon Gala. It's not really a Bourbon Gala. It's USA Cares Gala, if you want to check that out, usacares.org. It's a veteran organization for veterans and service members. They gave out $17 million since they started, Jim. It started right here in Louisville, Kentucky. I love that. They help out veterans that need a handout. Mortgage, rent, bills that creep up on people, medications that they might not be able to afford. There's a lot of stuff that veterans need. They get a downtime in their life. their services bother them. They might need a hand and that's what USA Cares does. The gala is $300 a ticket. That's a big price and you get to dress up.

You get to dress up. So go to usacares.org click on the events calendar. Check out the big gala here in Louisville, Kentucky at the Galt House. Buy a ticket, come join Mike and I.

You can buy, there's a $50,000 ticket on there.

Yeah, you can buy the $50,000 ticket. We'd appreciate it, of course. We would. But just show up, wear your tux, drink some whiskey with us. There's going to be somewhere around probably 300 bottles.

The bourbon draw, we're trying to curate that collection of bourbon. So if you've got some, Unopened whiskey bottles in your house that you're probably not going to drink or you want to give away reach out to Jim or I And we'll help you out with those. We'll give them that. We'll help raise some money for veterans that night. If you got some really nice allocated stuff, if you want to donate it. We've had some really nice allocated bourbons already donated, Jim. We had a really nice bottle of Willard 107 donated to us. Awesome. Castle and Key has ponied up with a bottle of batch two, which you know, that's just starting to be released. 100 bottles at a time over there at the distillery. They have a restoration rye, single barrel they donated. Barstown bourbon company, they ponied up three big bottles. One for the bourbon pool and then two for the limited auction. And then Woodinville whiskey company gave me three bottles. Ariel Yar, a good friend there, she ponied up three amazing bottles, distillery picks. But you know how good those are, right? Absolutely. So good. Ashley Barnes, she's going to donate a tasting with Leapers Fork using their whiskies. She'll come to your location and do a tasting with you of that. That's pretty amazing. That's pretty amazing to get. She is a master blender. Rhett up in Northern Kentucky that makes bourbon furniture. You can check him out. We've tagged him a couple of times. He's donated a amazing rocking chair made out of a bourbon barrel. And our good friend right down the road here, Greg Robinson, he is building some, he makes these amazing lamps, Jim. He's made one of those and he's going to donate that also. We'll have, as time goes on, we're going to have more amazing things and I'll run out of time to talk about all these things, but you can go on their website, see it, bid on the stuff, buy tickets to come hang out with us. For Bourbon on the Banks, Jim, I challenge everybody, and I know you're going to like this, go ahead and buy your Bourbon Bullshitter t-shirt right now. buy that bourbon road t-shirt, come wearing it to the bourbon event. Cause if you do, there'll be a special bottle for you to drink out of. Cause we'll know you're a roadie. That's right. That's your sign.

Well, I mean, let's face it. Everybody who's a roadie is going to get to drink from the roadie bar. But you come wearing one of those shirts and there's going to be another bottle there. Yeah, we could do that.

We could do that.

We could probably put a pretty amazing bottle out. I guess, I guess you could go over to the table and buy one, put it on, then come over. Yeah, that might work too. Where are your bourbon bullshitter t-shirt? Where are your bourbon road t-shirt? Yeah. And there'll be a special bottle for you to drink from.

Yeah, they're for sale on our website, $25 each. We'd like everybody. Let's also help us get down to Bourbon Road. Help us get some new equipment because we're in need of some right now.

You were doing repairs on it today. Yeah. All right. Well, Mike, it's been a great show. I really enjoyed this R6 whiskey. I look forward to some more single malt whiskeys, American single malts here on the show. as we look forward on down the line. People, if you want to reach out to Mike and I, if you've got an idea for a show or a guest or you've got a distillery in your hometown you want to tell us about, make sure you hop on the website, hit that contact us page, let us know. You can always send us an email. I'm Jim at TheBurbanRoad.com. He's Mike at TheBurbanRoad.com. Like we always say, probably the best way. Hit us up on our DMs. I'm jshannon63. I'm BigBerberG. And we'll see you down in the Berber Room.