298. Red Line Single Barrel Toasted Barrel Finished Bourbon 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.

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Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Iatt. This is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, it's another Craft Distillery Monday. We're hanging out in Studio 1A. Jim's basement. My basement. We've got a bourbon in the house that we haven't had on our bar before.

No, it's a new one. One of those non-producing distillers out there that everybody might be wondering about when they see the bottle, right? Yep. So we have had this, but we had a taste. We did just have a taste and I think we tasted a bunch of their stuff that day. So we did. And we were tasting a bunch of whiskeys. So it was, that can be confusing to the palette.

Sure. It's kind of tough when you go to a place where you've got an opportunity to taste from multiple distilleries, multiple expressions from each distillery. After a while, how it gets a little fatigued.

Yeah. And that probably was on the last side of our. kind of tour of the room. So but the distillery we're talking about or the bourbon we're talking about is red line. You're going to see it on the shelves in several states. Very, very comparable, I would say, to like foregate. Yeah, very similar. Finished, finished lines and stuff. This one's actually they're toasted bourbon.

So this is the red line. single barrel toasted straight bourbon whiskey. Yeah. And this particular bourbon is six years old before it goes into the secondary finishing barrel, which is from which Coopridge? Kelvin Coopridge. And this is just a straight oak barrel, right? Charred oak barrel they're going into. This isn't a barrel that's had wine or port or cognac or something else in it before. This is just a straight, a new, another new oak charred barrel that's been toasted to give it that extra sweetness.

Yeah.

So this particular expression, the red line hand selected single barrel is at 118 proof. It's bottle 213 out of barrel 79. Yeah. And honestly, I don't know if we've had this one. We had some bottle out of some barrel. And we were impressed enough to have the fellow on the show.

Yeah. I was, I was blown away and they have another expression that's going to be coming out that we'll do a review on. We have a bottle of it. It's just not released to the public yet. So we felt we'd kind of keep it out in reserves, but it kind of fits to me and you. But this one right here, like Jim's, like you said, six years old. finished in that toasted oak barrel for 90 to 120 days. It is out of Indiana, so we know it's MGP, right? We do know the match bill on this is 75% corn, 21% rye, and 4% malted barley.

Now, when you have a whiskey that's finished in a secondary barrel and you call it a single barrel, The correct way to handle that from start to finish is you take a single barrel of bourbon, you dump it into another single barrel, not mixing it with other barrels, and then you age it for that, whatever that period of time is to get that toast effect on it, then you dump it. So in effect, it's been a single barrel since its birth.

Yeah, from what I understand, that's what this is right here. It's just a regular old single barrel. This is in aged in warehouses that aren't temperature controlled or climate controlled. That to me matters. Down there in Paducah, it's More south of Louisville. Right on the Mississippi. Actually, Paducah is on the Ohio River. That's right. Still probably 60, 70 miles down to the Mississippi. Until they come together. Yep, until the confluence is right there. Actually, one of the widest places on the Ohio River right there. I think it's about a mile and a half wide. Wow. It's pretty, pretty big river down there. So you can find this in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, New York, Georgia, Texas, California. And our listeners up there in Canada, you can find this in Alberta. Awesome.

Well, I have to say I'm ready to start drinking a little bit of whiskey. Would you call that like a toffee color? Yeah, it's it's darker than a straw color. It's not quite a deep amber. It's kind of a toffee or a golden amber. Yeah. Toffee is probably fine with me. Toffees are typically pretty dark though, aren't they?

Yeah. Well, I'd have to say, raise our glass to Taylor Morley. He's the one of the founders there at Redline. He's the one to hand us this bottle to review. Taylor, cheers. Cheers, Taylor.

Oh man. It's a different nose. Yeah. You know, I, Mike, I went straight from the nose. It was so enticing. I poured it a little bit. Oh, sipped a little bit. Very, very nice sweetness on it. It's got a bit of an ethanol waft to it, right?

Yeah, it's got some power to it. This is not what I would have thought from a toasted, not getting a whole lot of sweetness. I'm getting a lot of spice in there.

Yeah, very spicy. There's a bit of a darker fruit to it. You said six years old, so we're not quite into the tobacco, you know, leather. But I am getting a bit of oak.

I'm always talking about those spiced apple rings that you can get sliced up. I'm getting a little bit of those. You said dark fruit, so that would definitely be that. With that spice.

I'm ready for a second sip. You ready for your first? Let's do it. Let's do it. Cheers. That's really good. That is a full bodied whiskey. Got a lot of body to it. Kind of tingles on the tongue a little bit.

A little bit of pop rocks there. It's very aggressive. Yep. Whiskey. That sweetness is there. That toast is there. But it's a different type of toasted. Toasted marshmallow. You know, that toasted marshmallow is a lot different than you would get like a toasted nut or something.

Yeah. So it's, it's reminiscent of like a 1910, right? But not quite as deep and dark as a 1910. This one's a little lighter in color than a 1910. I think it's a little lighter in flavor than a 1910. But it's also very nice. What I like about it, it's not overly sweet. And sometimes you get that with a toasted barrel finish.

Maybe allspice is what I'm getting on this.

Like a Christmassy. Yeah. Just a hint of licorice there. Black licorice right there. I am getting those Necco candies again though. Are you? My goodness. Yeah. I like it. I like this bourbon. I have to say that these companies that are basing their blends or their finishing series on an MGP, a solid MGP bourbon of six years in age, they got a great product to start with.

Yeah, I mean, you can't go wrong with that. Then you take and put it in a toasted barrel and let it age down there in that heat. That's how you end up with an atomic fireball on this thing. Yeah. It's got so much spice that it's almost that makes my lips a little bit numb.

Now we met Taylor at the Southern Whiskey Society in Franklin, Tennessee. He had quite a line hanging out at his booth there, tasting his whiskies. He had four or five different, maybe four different expressions there.

Yeah, they had a great line. I'd say they were right up there. as many people in line as it will it, but he definitely had a following there in the Nashville area.

And they're going to be moving and end up moving to Nashville eventually.

And him and his father, actually, this isn't their first dabble into spirits. They were winemakers. They had some tequila. So they kind of know what they're doing. And this shows right here, right? Yeah. I mean, this is really good.

So, you know, but we've already agreed that the base liquid is pretty solid to start with. So, and then they're taking that and putting their spin on it. I love the single barrel concept. I think it's great. I think it's hard to maintain because you're literally having to barrel, unbarrel and barrel in a single barrel. So you come up with one that's a little short, you've just spent double the barrel money on another barrel that you may only get to fill half full.

Well, and I guess you could set your price with those barrels too, right? Well, shorter barrels you can sell for a lot more. I don't know how many bottles this barrel had in it right here. Well, at least 213. At least 200. That's a lot of bottles. That's pretty good. Especially after you've re-barreled it again. I like this. It's got a nice, beautiful hug. It's not too aggressive where it's like overpowering me. I don't mind the price for this, Jim. What's the proof on this? This is $118. For $118? For $79? Yep. I could do that. Six years old?

So normally the price is about $10 per year of aging. This is six year plus the aging time in the toasted barrel. They're asking $79 for it. Might be a hair on the high side. Yeah. But for 118 proof barrel proof, you got to pay a little bit of a premium to get that barrel proof whiskey. And then just a little bit more to get to a single barrel.

Yeah. If you think about Elijah Craig toasted, right? Is that the standard for toasted barrels or mickters toasted? What's a mickters toasted? Oh my gosh. Forget it. You can't find it. Yeah. And then what's a Elijah Craig toast is going to run you at $69 somewhere. So, you know, for 10 more dollars, even a single barrel, you get a single barrel. You're getting 118 proof. They're not all going to be 118 proof, but that was just the barrel that we got. But still. A mighty fine whiskey right here. Um, I like it. Great finish on it. Now I'm starting to feel that Kentucky hug. Yeah, it's going in now.

I have to say that the, the, the finish on the flavor is just about a medium, but that hug is pretty strong.

Yeah. I agree with you. Um, sweetness to it. Get a little bit of, um, maybe a vivid bought me these, uh, dried tangerines. I like some dried fruit and I get a little bit of that dry tangerine in here.

I wouldn't have any problem pointing to somebody towards a bottle of Redline on the shelf. I think that it's probably a safe choice. Now, it is a $79 bottle. A lot of times we're saying it's easier to make a decision on a 30 to $50 bottle. Yep. 79 is a little bit tougher choice to make.

We got listeners out there. I think that's an easy choice to make if they had to look at a $200 bottle in this bottle and you're looking at a couple of different toasted ones out there.

This might be something for you to remember this. So, you know, a brand spanking new toasted barrel out of Kelvin Cooperage is going to run you about 400 bucks. Well, lately they said around 500 closer to 500. So you're taking it. Something has already aged for six years that you had to purchase from MGP. You're going to put the labor in it to dump it from that barrel, put it into this new $500 barrel. And then age it or another period of time and then dump it again and bottle it a little bit of expense there, a little bit more than what you would expect to pay for something that, you know, you got to sell, you got to sell six bottles of this just to pay for that secondary barrel.

Yeah. I mean that, you know, when you start putting the bottles into it, they're probably, you know, they're going through some money to get it, it gives us out to people. Um, bottle, you know, the bottle is just that standard I call that a wine bottle almost, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. This is, this is typical. This has got the same sort of shape as a, like a Booker's bottle.

Yeah. It doesn't have that tulip neck on it. And you can see what happened there on that label. When I poured this, some of the bourbon ran out down the label and stuff. Still, you know, for me, Jim, I've seen these in the store before and I passed on it. Cause it was like sundown, we're down the line. Oh, we're going to get to taste this and then I can make a decision. But now that we've tasted it, I would be willing to take a chance on one of these. Absolutely. And they say limited edition on the bottle.

Now I think this is a pretty much a standard offering for them. It is maybe, maybe when the label was created, it was first introduced. It was kind of the kind of a limited edition, but this is kind of their. Standard offering now.

Yes, some of their standard offerings they have out there. They have a honey cask, which is super popular. Now, folks remember these are single barrels now. These are pretty high. They only do single barrels. Yeah. They have an orange Curacao, which, you know, I like that one. Oh my God. It's so good. It's toasted right here and they're cast strength straight bourbon. Um, they have a toasted barrel finish rye, which I know you really, really loved you. Yeah. It was really good. I enjoyed that. And then they have a cast strength, just their straight rye whiskey. So look for those out there. Like I said, I talked to Taylor today. He was super excited. We were trying his whiskey once again. So Jim, what do you know about the name Redline?

I don't really know anything about it. I know it says on the bottle that this Redline is a caramelized layer of sugars that develops just beneath the char, but I don't know what that means.

Yeah, thank you. When you do look at that barrel and you would cut it open, you know, if you've looked at some staves, you'll see that little red line in there.

Ah, yeah, I've seen that. Yeah.

I bet we probably could look at a stave in here in your bar somewhere and see that little red line in there.

So that's why they're similar to when you're smoking meat, you get that smoke ring, right?

Yeah, yeah. There you go. So I think that's cool. The attributed dent back there, they said there's a signature red line on the bottle, on every bottle. I think that's pretty cool. You know, I like it.

Well, you can certainly find more about Redline on the internet at www.redlineburban.com. It is bottled by the Silent Brigade Distillery in Paducah, Kentucky. We do know, after talking with Taylor, that they are planning to move. from Paducah and become a Tennessee distillery. Yes, sir. Very soon. And well, hopefully they'll keep the same quality and the same. Well, pretty much everything, the same concept, because I love I love the concept of only single barrels.

Yeah, I think that's a great concept and stuff. You know, can you keep to that? Like you said, it's a lot of work. Yeah. But hats off to you, Taylor. Mighty fine expression. I really, really like this right here. I'm looking forward to drinking that next one. Absolutely. Well, Mike, where can people find us on the internet? Well, you can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. I saw those places. Our main place is on Facebook, our private Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies. Come in there. Join us. Three easy questions to get in. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? And do you agree to play nice? Cause we don't tolerate any rudeness in there, right?

Yeah, we got three moderators in there. Three versions of wider that'll, that'll take you down. If you start getting out of hand, if you start chopping anybody off at the knees for, for what they're drinking, we just want everybody to have a good time in there. Drink what you want, share what you want. Enjoy a good time. It's always fun in the bourbon roadies.

We do two shows every single week.

Every Monday we do a craft distillery episode where we'll investigate a single expression from a single distillery, usually a craft distillery. We'll taste it. We'll talk about it. We'll analyze it. We'll decide whether or not we think it's something you ought to add to your bar. And every Wednesday we'll do a full-length episode. about an hour in length, 30 minutes going in, 30 minutes coming out. We'll get you two working back. We'll usually have a guest on the show. We'll have several expressions. We'll deep dive a topic. It's a great show. Two shows every single week. Mike, what do they have to do not to miss a single one?

Well, you need to scroll on up, hit that check sign, that plus sign, that subscribe sign. Make sure that app is telling you that, hey, these two jokers have a show that's out today and you need to listen. Second thing you need to do is scroll on down, hit that five star review, leave us some comments. Those are very important to us, but you know what's going to happen if you don't. The big bad booty daddy of bourbon is going to bring this toasted bourbon with him from Redline, gonna drink it all night long. Next thing you know, by the end of the night, the bottle's gonna be gone. You're gonna love it, you're gonna wanna buy some more, but you're gonna leave us those five star reviews with those comments. But seriously, those reviews, those comments get great whiskey in our hands, like this Redline. It opens up doors, distilleries, gets great guests on our show. We'd really appreciate it.

Mike and I are very approachable. You see us in town at a liquor store. You see us at a bourbon gathering. You see us at an event. Make sure you walk up to us and say hi. We'd love to meet you. Tell us your bourbon story. We'd love to hear it. If you've got an idea for a show, if you've got an idea for a guest or a bottle you think needs to be on our podcast, make sure you let us know. You can always hop on our website. TheBurbinRoad.com, pop into that contact us page, leave us a message. And also send us an email anytime. I'm Jim at TheBurbinRoad.com. He's Mike at TheBurbinRoad.com. But like we always say, probably the best way. Hit up our DMs on Instagram. I'm Jay Shannon, 63. I'm Big Burbin Chief. And we'll see you down. The Burbin Road.