260. Hard Truth Indiana Straight Rye 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. 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. Purchase from this guy, veteran owned, veteran operated, making a veteran built product.

Hello everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyatt. This is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we've got a rye on the show. Yeah. Yeah. Whiskey dog Woodrow at our feet. Uh, we're kicking back. We've had a couple of glasses of whiskey already today, but it's nice to switch it over to a rye right now.

And, uh, what do we got? Well, we got a bottle that I passed up on. I've saw it and saw it, saw it, saw it Kroger. Um, but I was like, I'm pulled trigger today. This is from hard truth distillery up in Brown County, Indiana. Nashville, Nashville, Indiana.

That's right. Nashville, Indiana. Great place. One of my favorite places on earth to go. Wonderful little town. Great place to visit.

Yeah. Is it, it's almost like going to like a Christmas bill or something. A lot of shops and stuff.

A lot of shops. They've got some great B and B's there. They've got a great brewery in town. Now they've got a distillery.

Yeah. They're kicking out some whiskey too.

Yeah. And there's a great park there, Brown County Park. So a lot to do in that area. I highly suggest if you get a chance to visit Brown County, Indiana and the Nashville area, you do that. It's worth going, no doubt about it. And now you've got a whiskey you can try when you get there.

Yeah. Well, they got a couple of whiskies. They got a couple of different spirits. If you don't like whiskey, if you've got a spouse that doesn't like whiskey, They got some other stuff to try. So don't pass it up. Um, you know, there's plenty of other things that got a bourbon cream too. Oh, that sounds good. Yeah.

But what do we, what do we got today though? So we've got an Indiana straight rye whiskey, four years old, barreled in new char oak barrels. Man. And it follows, and they've got this plainly printed on the bottle. It follows Indiana house bill 1396 chapter 28, which specifically outlines what is an Indiana rye whiskey, straight rye whiskey. Well, that's nice, right?

I think it's great. So it's gotta be, the grains gotta be grown on Indiana. It's gotta be fermented in Indiana. It's got to be cooked in Indiana, distilled in Indiana, aged, aged in Indiana, bottled, bottled in Indiana. And then it's an Indiana rye whiskey. Doesn't have to be just drinking.

So it's got 51% rye in it and it meets all the other requirements, the national requirements of a rye whiskey.

Yeah. Uh, this bottle was $42 to him, which is fair.

It's a hundred proofer. Yeah. So, and it's got some good color to it.

Yeah, I'd say that's that dark honey. I like it so far. I haven't nosed it. We popped the cork on it, poured it on glass and we're ready to roll. Let's check it out. I better get rid of this water that's in my hand though.

Wow. First, first thing that comes to mind is almonds. A little bit of a Christmas potpourri.

You get Christmas potpourri. See, I was thinking fresh spring, like dandelions.

Okay. Yeah, could be. Dandelions? If you ever picked any out of the... It does have a little bit of a green, a little bit, kind of a green note to it, like a, could be a dandelion, a chicory note or something like that.

That's that, that spring time's coming on. I mean, that's just cause it's spring out and it's starting to turn green here in Kentucky.

Yeah, it's not, it doesn't bowl you over with too much ethanol in the nose. I think it's just the right amount. Um, you could definitely tell it's a rye. Don't know what the mash bill is. We don't know what the mash bill is. Yeah.

We know it at least has 51%. Right. Um, and you would assume there's some malted barley in here. Um, and some corn probably. Well, maybe a little bit of corn.

It does have a little bit of sweetness to it. Um, not so much a candied sweetness more, more along the lines of like a dry sweetness.

I'm ready to taste it. I actually was getting a little bit of a Skittle note on that. Yeah. Which one? Which color? I don't know. When you open the bag up, it's just that sugary sweetness of them. Yeah. But cheers. Cheers. Now that's sweet. Yeah. What kind of sweetness is it for you, Jim?

I'm getting almonds still. I'm getting really sweet, uh, candied almonds, but man, I'm getting something, something, uh, a bit green. I'm kind of a green flavor too. I'm actually getting a little sweet tea with some lemonade.

Green tea. Nah, I just get a regular old blacks, you know, like lifting.

I'm trying to go green here, Mike. You're not up with me. Yeah, I know.

I'm getting sweet tea with lemonade on Arnold Palmer almost on this.

Yeah. I like it. It's very much upfront and that's it. That's interesting for a rye. There's not a whole lot going on in the back end just yet. Maybe that second sip will do it.

The second sip for me had just a tad bit of spice, not a whole bunch. A sweet spice though, like a sweet chili.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting a lot on the side of my tongue. This has got a nice deep sweetness to it. A little tartness, not too much. Almost that sweet tart. Almost that sweet tart. We tasted that recently, haven't we?

Yeah. I don't know why we're both getting that. This is a sweeter whiskey. I'd say this isn't a bourbon drinker's whiskey right here. This might be a little bit too sweet for a bourbon drinker. Almost a dessert whiskey right here.

Yeah. This is very, very sweet. When I said a deep sweetness, what I mean is it just, it gives me sweetness deep in my palate. So not just up front, but on the sides towards the back a little bit, I get that real nice big dripping sweetness off of it.

Have you ever taken a fresh corn cob, peel that sucker back and just chewed into it. I think I have at one point or another. I have plenty of times, uh, you know, you just get that, that burst of sweetness out of that corner. And I get that. I know this is a ride, but that's what I get from that.

So this is a hard truth distillery in Brown County, Indiana. This is their a hundred proof Indiana rye whiskey, straight rye whiskey. It's four years old. It's a hundred proof. It meets all the requirements of an Indiana rye. And it's pretty tasty.

Yeah. I'd say this has a medium finish on it, Jim. It does hug the sides of your mouth and your hugs, your tongue, but no chest hug on a sucker at all. Zero.

Yeah, not too much. I think it's, it's kind of skips past the front a little bit. It kind of just saturates the center of your palate. Mike, I like it. I like it. I like it for what it is. It's a very sweet rye. If you're looking for a very sweet rye, this is it.

Yeah, this would be a nice, nice, nice spring sipper, summer sipper, early fall. You're trying to beat that heat with a whiskey. This would be it right here all day long for me.

Yeah. This would be a rye that you could actually put In my opinion, you could actually put this into a breakfast cocktail, like a mimosa or something like that. A lot of times, ryes don't work well with mimosas, but I think this one might.

That would probably work really well with it. I mean, we are the experts of breakfast mimosas with whiskey in it, so at least I say we are now. We've drank up a couple of them. Well, Jim, I think, you know, for me, it's a buy. I bet this bottle will find its way down to the campfire this summer. I'm sure it will. What was the price again? $42 at Kroger.

$42. So this, you can find this in Kroger stores. You can find this distributed well. If you happen to find yourself in Brown County, Indiana, visit the distillery. I'm sure they've got a gift shop there. Yeah. You're not going to miss out on this right here.

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

Well, you can find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. You can also find us on TikTok. We also have a private Facebook group called The Bourbon Roadies. Quite a few members, very good friends, always having a good time in there, sharing stories, sharing pictures, sharing whiskey. Just good people. Ask to join, you'll get three questions. Well, we want to know, are you 21? Are you of legal drinking age? Do you realize you're getting yourself into a bourbon group? And do you agree to play nice because we will not accept any rudeness in there. We won't allow you to tear somebody down for what they're drinking. Wyatt Earp's in there. He's got a big pistol in his hand and he'll hit you with the butt of it. If you start doing it, kick you out of the group. There's three of those guys. Three, three Wyatt Earp's.

Yeah. There's Adam, Jason and Drew.

Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and what's the other one? I don't know. Wild Bill Hillcock. Oh wait, didn't Wild Bill Hickok get a bullet in his head? Well, anyway, they're tough. They're tough at what they do. They won't let you get away with it. They just want you to be nice. Have a good time in there. We do two shows a week, every week. We do an episode like today's. We call it the craft distillery Monday episode where we take a single expression. We tell you whether or not we think you ought to add it to your bar. Today, hard truth, Indiana straight rye whiskey. If you like a sweet rye, put this one on your bar. It's priced well.

Yeah.

Every Wednesday, we'll do a full-length episode, about an hour in length. We'll go into deep on a subject. We'll have a guest on. We'll drink a couple of expressions. Mike, how do they make sure they don't miss a single episode every week?

Well, you want to hit that check sign, that plus sign, that subscribe sign at the top of your app. That app will let you know, hey, these two jokers got an episode coming out. It'll pop up on your phone with a little notification. You don't even have to search for it. You can listen to us, like Jim said, on the way to work, on the way home, if you listen to that long episode. The next thing we want you to do is scroll on down, hit that five star review, leave some comments, because you know what will happen if you don't. The big bad booty daddy of bourbons is going to come over to your house. lay down some hard truth on you. By the end of the night, you give us that five star review and those comments, I guarantee. But seriously, those comments, those five star reviews, open up doors to distilleries, get great whiskey in our hands, get great guests on our show. We would really appreciate it. I know you'll enjoy listening to us.

Well, we hope you'll visit our website. We've got a shop on there where we sell our t-shirts and our glassware and various other items. Anytime you buy one of those items, you help out the show. You help us get on down the road to that next distillery. You pay for some gas. You pay for some meals on the road. You help Mike and I stay out on the road, do a little bit more. Yeah. While you're on there, Check out our podcast player. We just put a new podcast player online. Very easy to use. You can listen to the podcast there. You can read Mike's articles. You can also leave us a comment on our Contact Us page. Let us know what you think. If you've got a comment for us or you've got a request for a show or a guest, let us know. You can always send us an email though. 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 DMs on Instagram. I'm jshannon63. I'm Big Bourbon Chief. And we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.