327. New Years Blind Whiskey Bottle Share

Welcome to another great episode of the Bourbon Road with your host, Jim and Brian, where they talk bourbon and of course, drink bourbon. Grab yourself a pour, kick back, and enjoy another trip down the Bourbon Road.

We are excited to have back once again for 2023 our sponsor Seldom Seen Farms with their bourbon barrel aged maple syrup. Kevin and his staff there do a wonderful job. We're excited to have them sign on again this year to support the bourbon road and we love their product. We hope our listeners will visit seldomseemaple.com and check out all they have to offer. A lot of great gifts there. Bourbon aged maple syrup, bourbon barrel aged coffee, Rick house reserved barbecue sauce. You can buy it by the bottle. You can buy it by the case. You can even get bourbon maple candle and they even have maple cotton candy. Definitely, definitely check out. Seldom Seen Maple dot com. Support our sponsors. Support Kevin and his family there. They have a 5,000 maple tap operation in Ohio and they're doing it right. You know, they don't just produce maple syrup. They're also urban enthusiasts and we love them to death. Again, go check out Seldom Seen Maple dot com. Kevin and his staff will take care of you. Hello listeners and welcome back again to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon, and we're back in the Bourbon Road barn. Got our co-host in-house, Brian Hyde. Brian, welcome back. Thank you, Jim. Looking forward to tonight. Yeah. Got a couple more guests with us too. We got Tyler, Tyler Wilson. Welcome back to the Bourbon Road. Thank you for having me. Very excited to be here. And we've got somebody who's made multiple appearances on the show.

Hasn't been on for a little bit, but Rob, I think this is your third time. I believe so. Ready to make this a regular appearance.

Yeah, Rob Carter, welcome back to the Bourbon Road. Thank you, thank you. Well, tonight listeners, we've got a great show for you. It is kind of our annual thing. We have done this every year since we started, and it's always seemed to happen right around the Christmas season, right at that time between Christmas and New Year's or shortly after the first of the year. I think we did this once even on New Year's Eve at a New Year's Eve party. But this is our annual blind bottle challenge. And for those listeners who haven't heard one of these episodes yet, the idea is that each of us have brought a bottle that met certain criteria, and we brought it disguised in a paper sack or plastic bag or something so that nobody else knows what it is. And it was left upstairs on the upstairs bar. And we had one of our roadies, Zach Tank, work the upstairs for us. and he poured these bottles into glasses. Everything's marked one, two, three, and four. So everything's been poured out. None of us know what is in our four glasses, but we're all drinking the same thing at the same time. And we all have in our glass right now, the pour marked number one. So somewhere upstairs, there's a bottle sitting on top of a number one card, and that's the one we're drinking. And we won't reveal that till the end of the show. The rules for this were quite simple. You had to bring a bottle that was an American-produced whiskey. It could be bourbon, it could be rye, it could be single malt, it could be American whiskey. Any of those would qualify. American light whiskey would even qualify. But it needed to be cast-strength, full-proof, barrel-strength, whatever you want to call it. It had to be a full-strength whiskey. with the option that you can bring finished whiskey. So if you wanna up your game a little bit by having a finished whiskey, that's perfectly okay. You didn't have to, but that was your choice if you chose to or not. So what we'll do is we'll go through these one at a time and we'll taste them amongst ourselves and we'll talk about them a little bit. We'll rank them, score them in our own way. Each of us doing it the way we wanna score it, it's up to you. And at the end, we'll all compare our votes and we'll all pick a number one, two, three, and four. And then we'll see who won. And if it happens to end in a tie, Zach, our volunteer for the night who poured these has already tasted through all of them. And even though he knows what they were, he's already cast the tie breaking vote. Sound good. Awesome. Sounds great. So Brian, you were on one of these. back in episode like 18 or so, or 21 or somewhere in that timeframe.

I was, and it was, if I can remember correctly, I believe we had to be under $30 or $35. So that was a budget. That was a budget blind and I brought in the old overhauled.

I I'm trying to remember who won that one.

Wasn't the, I believe it was Randy.

It was Randy. Okay. And then, Rob, you have been on one of these. Actually, you've been on two of these.

Two, but one of the cast strength blind challenge.

Right. One blind challenge, but that was a cast strength. It was. And neither you nor I won on that. We did not. I was quite disappointed because I brought E.H. Taylor Barrelproof. and I lost to Horse Soldier. That's a shock to me. I know.

It was phenomenal. I voted for Horse Soldier, actually.

I didn't even vote for my own. But you know, blinds are the great equalizer, right? You think you know your bourbon and then you drink a blind and you get to find out how little you really know. You know what you're like, but the rest of it goes out the window. What do you say, guys, we get straight to that whiskey? Let's do it. I like it. All right, so this is pour number one, and it's a pretty light color, kind of a light amber for a barrel-strength whiskey.

It's definitely a light whiskey, and honestly, I get a little bit of ethanol on it just on the nose.

I don't know about you all, but... I would expect a little bit on these because they're all full strength whiskeys, right?

I'm not one to often check the legs on this thing, but I saw you over there, Brian, and man, this thing. turn it up and back down and it just lays there, just trickles back down the glass. And for some reason that's becoming intriguing for me. I enjoy that. There's something that kind of coats your throat as it goes down.

I'm getting kind of a nuttiness to it, a little bit of a nut. So there's a bit of oak, you know, it's spent some time in the barrel. I don't know how long, but enough time to get that mature oak nose to it and add, add that nutty kind of a, almost like a walnut shell.

I won't say it's a great nose. I'm going to tell you my thoughts because I don't often. detect a real strong element, I guess you'd say. And I'm going to revert to my childhood growing up on a farm because I'm getting a little bit of molasses and a little bit like The old silo, the silage that was fermenting. Oh yeah. Not the greatest smell in the world. Not the greatest. No, but it sure brought it back a memory.

So when you sniff a whiskey and you get silage and you know what silage is, you're like, really?

But I always liked that. But that's a bit of that ethanol that we're getting too, probably.

Yeah. I love getting those kind of deep memories that come back. Like you smell like an old tool shed or, you know, or I've heard many people say grandma's closet, grandma's basement.

I usually sit back and end up just saying I taste like bourbon, you know? So that's kind of unique for me that I got that particular.

Yeah. I think as soon as you said farm, um, started to jump out at me a little bit, the farm. I grew up around a farm, farms, spent some time on them. So I definitely agree with that. I don't know for me, if there may be a little bit of, almost like a wet hay.

I hear you guys speak of earthiness at times. Maybe that's another piece to this.

Yeah, I mean, earthiness can go a couple of different directions. It can go truffle mushroom kind of direction. It's just good for some people, but not for everybody.

I get a little bit of that wet hay. I mean, I definitely smell some, that oak I pick up. And when I spin it around the glass, those legs are, I mean, it's kind of amazing that it just kind of trickles down there. For me, I think the pallet is great and it's really smooth, but it just doesn't, there's not much of a finish. It's just kind of short.

Yeah, I agree with that. I'd say the finish is not super long and I'm getting a little cherry on the pallet too. But that nuttiness is there. It's got a, it's got a pretty good hug, right? We just got to end our, we all warmed up on a 93 or a 94 proof pour of brush Creek, just to sort of level the playing field before we started. So this is, this is probably a big jump. I'm not going to guess the proof on it, but it's probably in the 110 to 120 range. I'm picking up a little bit of that nut, maybe a hazelnut almost. Yeah. What do you think about that finish, Brian?

Let me go one more time. Cause I agree with Tyler.

I think there's not a lot to it, but it does kind of stop after the swallow. Yeah. It's a little drying on the back.

I would agree with that. I do think it, it just falls off. A good hug. I agree with that. There's a good hug on it. It's definitely a little more heat.

So yeah, to me, it's, it's, it's sweet. Like right when it hits my mouth and my lips, it's almost like a cherry or picking up a little bit of that nuttiness, some Oak. And then it's got a nice heat to it. Almost like a spice, but like hot, but then the finish is just, just like falls right off. So do you think this is a finished bourbon?

I don't think so. I don't think so either.

I think the nose has grown on me a little bit too.

Yeah. This is one that, um, I think you could probably grow to really appreciate after you sit down with it for awhile. You know, you don't always need that long finish, right? What would this pair well with? I think this one might go good with a little bit of, uh, chocolate covered cherries or some kind of cherry and chocolate or cream, cream, chocolate, cream filled chocolates, something like that.

A cream brulee that doesn't have any cherries on it, does it? There's just some chocolate.

I mean, creme brulee is just like it's a custard with sugar burnt on top. With the burnt sugar, yeah. Yeah, you do get that burnt sugar flavor from it.

I think that would go well with it, the burnt sugar. Yeah, probably would.

All right guys, have you got your numbers down on this one?

Critiquing as I go.

Now, you know, you can save your glass and come back and revisit it, but you got to keep track of which one it is. Whoops.

Man, I hit a really different nose to it. Now that my glass is empty.

I feel like the more I was stepping on it, uh, the longer it got, the nose changed, or maybe I just grew to like it more. I don't know.

Well, let me ask you guys how you're scoring yours, just so we can talk, because we're all doing it differently, because all we're each going to do is basically pick our bourbon and then we might have to do a tiebreaker, right? If we get two and two, right? Then we'll have to do a tiebreaker. Um, how are you scoring it, Brian?

I was going one to five.

One to five. Tyler? Uh, I've got one to five, but also the nose palette finish. So each has five and then I did nose palette finish. So 15 aggregate basically.

All right.

And Rob?

One to five, low to high.

I'm doing one to 10 nose palette and finish. So it doesn't matter how you do it as long as you come to your number. But I'll change that to five. If you guys want to be able to add our numbers up in the end, I don't think that's necessary.

Well, I think it's okay. We just double ours or cut yours in half. There you go. That's right.

That's easy enough done.

All right.

Was everybody ready to move on to the next one?

I'm ready. All right. All right, we've got number two in front of us here and just, you know, kind of looking at the color. It does look very similar to number one. You get a light amber, sort of almost like a lighter kind of caramel color. When I spin it personally, I don't see as many of like the legs. You do get a little bit of the sticking to the sides of the cup, the glass. What do you think, Jim? I mean,

Yeah, I think, well, I think this one has just the slightest amount of more color, not much. But the last one kind of sheeted on the glass more than this one. This one forms legs faster. The last one kind of sheeted on the glass a little bit more and then formed legs. This one kind of forms them pretty quick.

So to me, the nose at least is a little bit lighter. I get less ethanol, more, almost more spice there. What do you think, Brian? What are you smelling?

I would agree. It's definitely lighter on the nose, not as much ethanol.

It's almost like the nose is subdued. It's like very, almost not there, right? Or very light, like you guys are saying.

It is. It's interesting to me because It smells nice. I don't know how to explain it. When you drink it, you've got the nice finish in the back of your mouth, down your throat, but when I smell it, I don't get the, almost like the finish of the smell.

You know when you're smelling flowers, you get some flowers that are full of aroma, but you smell a rose, and a rose has very little. It's very subtle, the smell of a rose. This kind of reminds me of that a little bit. I think that's a great analogy. All right, I'm gonna taste it. All right, just to recap, folks, we finished tasting our number one pour. We're on our number two pour now. I think we're all finding it's a little lighter. Rob, what did you think about that nose?

I have to agree with you there. It was very evident as soon as we, as soon as we took the nose on it, it was, it was lighter, not as much there, smooth flavor.

I like the finish on this one a little bit more than the number one, at least it seems a little bit sticking with me a little bit, a little bit further.

I'm going to ask you to score this one, obviously, because this is private, but how different is this than the first person?

I feel like there's quite a bit of difference with it from the nose to the pallet to the finish. I feel like it's all a little bit different. The nose is light. When you first take a sip, it's definitely not as overpowering. It doesn't feel like the proof is as high as the last one. And it has a little bit more of a finish.

Yeah, I would say the nose is so light, it was hard to really pick a lot up there. For me, the palette is very present. It has a nice bold flavor to it. There is something on the back that I can't identify. It's a bit unusual in flavor. Anybody picking up something they can name on that?

Would we guess that this is probably a finished whiskey here?

Compared to the first one, it definitely seems more fuller on the finish. I would, I would, I would agree with that assessment. I think so.

Sometimes some of these like this are frustrating to me because If you want to brag about a finish, I'd like to detect it a little bit better. Not just me, but if that's all you get, I wouldn't be too proud of it. Probably the one I brought.

Well, there are two things to a finish, right? One is how pleasing the finish is and flavor, right? And then the other thing is how long it lasts. So there's really two things here. And I think this does have a longer finish to it, but is it pleasing? Is it what you want in a finish? Does it grab a hold of you and say, get another pour?

I'm sure not detecting anything unique, you know, Maybe it's a unique stave finish. I don't taste a port wine or rum or anything like that. Maybe a little more oaky. Exactly. Maybe that's what we're looking at.

I think you hit it right on the head there. I don't pick up anything that would be like, you know, wine finished or some of that extra that like angels envy or some others have. But I don't know what it is, honestly. I don't know. I'm having a hard time picking it up.

watch, we'll get to the end and this will be something finished in like peach brandy barrels or something. We didn't even pick up beaches in it. I personally, I don't know what it is. I like it. I kind of like it too. I from, and we can say, I mean, I know this is a, everybody got their numbers written down kind of sorta. Yeah. I, I do like this one better than the first one. I think it's got, more interesting notes to it. There's a lot more on the palette on this one. Not so much on the nose, but the palette's pretty good. The finish is lengthy, but they're right. I'm trying to pick up what wonderful thing is happening on the finish and there's not some wonderful thing other than the fact that it sticks around a while.

Well, the unique thing for me, like I said, the reason I chimed in the first time is because I often don't get an overabundance of flavors. I feel like a dummy. I taste vanilla, caramel, and bourbon most of the time. And while that first one resonated with me, I do like this one better. There's something about the flavor.

Well, I think a lot of listeners can, can relate to that. I mean, not everybody is able to call out notes, prominent notes, prominent notes are ones that we, we might agree on. Right. And then there's those subtle notes where everybody disagrees on the subtle notes. But you said something like I get bourbon, you know, I mean, a lot of people should feel okay with saying that, you know, absolutely. I think it's got a long finish on it. It's not my jam, but I taste bourbon. Right. Sometimes you just say, I really like it. I really like it. That's smooth.

Why not? That's right. Well, what, what always seems to help me because I struggle with like, I don't know if it's forgetting what I like, or I have a hard time trying to pick it up is when I have another one to compare it to, it almost always makes me, you know, go back to the first one or appreciate what I'm drinking side by side.

Yeah, I always like going out with Rob. He doesn't really pay attention to what people think. Rob's his own man, right? So when he goes to the bar, if he wants a pour of Old Crow, he'll have a pour of Old Crow. And he's still searching for the meaning of life in Old Crow. Have you found it yet? The meaning of life? Not yet. Still searching. You think it's in that bottle somewhere?

It could be. Down there in the bottom.

You like those Chessmen? Those old crow chessmen? Oh yeah. Yeah, I've got another old crow chessman over there in my sample box. Oh do you? I do, but it's labeled A, B, C, D, or E. I don't know what it is because I lost the three by five card that goes with it.

That's terrible when that happens.

But I know there are five really good dusty bourbons in there. I just don't know which ones are which. So one day we'll sit down and enjoy them and see if we can guess. Not that anybody can tell us right where right or wrong.

Well, you know, and as we talk about going through bourbons and not being able to detect flavors and so forth, you know, I've mentioned to you before, Jim, I go through my bar and often I'll just have a one ounce pour anymore and never drink it again for another month. I just want to try different things. So over the course of a night, I may have six different ones and maybe never hit those again for three, four, five weeks or whatever.

Now you've got a pretty good bar and we almost held this at your place this time. Uh, but that it's a little further out and I just thought, well, these guys are coming in on a work night. Let's make it as close to, close to home as possible. But Rob has a fantastic bourbon bar and, uh, quite, quite a man cave. Eclectic. Very eclectic. His bar is the front of an Indian bus.

Tata, Tata brand.

That's awesome. That is awesome. Yeah. He's got so much going on down there. I mean, you could just spend hours just looking at the things that he's put up and he's got American flags from the 1800s originals with how many stars?

I go back to 30. 30 stars? Pre-Civil War stuff.

He's got all these secret stashes of bourbon. Like there'll be like a chest over under the TV and he'll go over and open it up. There'll be like 20 bottles of well or 10 bottles of Eagle Rare there.

That's not my house. You're that guy. I buy stuff to keep it off of the secondary market. There you go. I don't buy off the secondary market.

One thing I know is for sure is you share your whiskey with an awful lot of people and you don't often leave Rob's house without a bottle in your hand. So he's a good man.

Yeah, it's fun. That's what it's all about. We crossed paths with people on the bourbon trail at Barrel Room weekly. And it wasn't a month ago that I had a dozen people from all different states show up at the house drinking bourbon. That's so cool. Didn't know them from Adam. Met them, met them one, one group at Kroger, one group at Barrel Room. And they all, I gave them one shot. I said, I don't know you. You don't know me. I got a lot of bourbon. I'm going to go drink it in 15 minutes. If you want some be there. They all showed up.

Well, now, now all the serial killers in the world know that, uh, to wait, wait, wait for you at the barrel room.

My address is 551.

I definitely think that, uh, that's what bourbon's all about.

When you really get down to it, I mean, it's so fun to go and chase and find some cool things in a store, get to taste different things, but really the community and just being able to share and share the experience. It's all about the cool experiences.

You were saying on a, I think it was an episode, a couple of episodes ago, Brian, where, boy, you wish you could get your hands on a bottle of WB SAFL. And of course, Rob heard about your need. He had two. So you ended up with one, right?

He delivered. That's right. Greatly appreciated it.

All right then. So we're going to take a short break. And when we come back, we've got two more pores for you. Pores three and four. And we'll definitely have a tally at them. We'll let you know who won and we'll, we'll do the big reveal. Sounds good guys. Sounds great. Awesome. Folks, we definitely encourage you to check out seldomseenmaple.com. That's seldomseenfarms. Kevin and his staff there are doing a fantastic job. Like we said at the beginning of the show, they've got a 5,000 maple tap operation. They're a first-generation farmer with a passion to produce the very best maple products available. They've won so many awards and they have a very special unique aging method for their syrup and for their barrel-aged coffee. They provide quality at a very affordable price. They're not a maple factory or a co-packer. Kevin and his staff there are farmers with a passion for maple. Like I said before, Kevin is a bourbon enthusiast. He's not just a paid sponsor. He's a friend of the show. He's a roadie and he loves helping roadies get down the bourbon road. Make sure you check out seldom seen maple.com. You know, they're constantly producing great. bourbon aged maple syrups using barrels from the very best distilleries. They also return those barrels to the distilleries afterwards. Distilleries like New Riff, Leapers Fork, Treaty Oak Distilling, The Bar Distillery, Pine Bluffs Distilling, Mystic Farm and Distillery, Jay Riger, so many more to come. Kevin and his staff there just spreading the love, spreading the maple syrup, making it happen. And you know, at the end of the day, those barrels that age that maple syrup get refilled with some wonderful bourbon and make some great maple finished bourbon whiskey. How awesome is that? Definitely check out seldom seen maple dot com. Get you some.

All right, Jim, we're back here for the second half. And just to recap a little bit, we've been through the first two pours here. The first one was light, and we all definitely enjoyed that. The second one, there was no nose on the second one, very little nose at all. A little more pallet, a longer finish, and now we're moving on to number three. First thing that jumps out to all of us is this one is definitely much darker in color.

So the first one was kind of a, like a light amber, right? And then the second one had just a little more color to it, but it was still in that light amber range. This one's, this is kind of red ale or mahogany or whatever you want to call it. Would you say red ale?

Yeah, I would. Red L definitely. I agree with that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's dark and beautiful. I mean, I like it.

Legs look to be a little more similar, uh, to the first one. Would you all agree with that?

Yeah, it's definitely sheeting up and then forming legs that are kind of just sticking and staying there. So I'm going to expect this one to be, uh, quite viscous.

Yeah. What's the technology behind that viscosity? I don't get that.

Well, it's the fatty acids. So is that a non-chill filter then? I would say most of these probably are. I think, I don't know for a fact that they are, but usually when you reach, when you get more than 95, 96, 98 proof, there's a specific number that you don't have flocking anymore because there's enough proof there to prevent that. So I would say it's probably not chill filtered because that's an extra cost you don't have to have.

I don't know if it's Oak I'm picking up, but something's very strong, very familiar.

This has got a kind of a real sweet nose to it. It's, uh, it's got a richness that is kind of sugary richness. I'm not going to say it's anything like, uh, butterscotch or caramel. I mean, yeah, it's got a little caramel on it, but.

It reminds me a lot above of Elijah Craig toasted. The nose does. Even the color a little bit. I don't know if it's going to taste like it, but I get that at least on the nose. That may be what I'm picking up there.

It's got a little honey on the nose. There's a bit of rye shining through, like a rye muffin. Watch this be a weeded whiskey.

I thought I was picking up a little bit more fruit than I had on the last one, but.

So is the fruit, is it a lighter fruit? Is it like a cherry or a, or is it a pear or peach, or is it more of a darker, like a raisin or a plum or? It's more floral to me.

Almost like a four roses, like four roses, single barrel.

It's got a bit of spice on it though. Tell you, I get fooled by a barrel spice all the time with weeded whiskies.

I'm like, it's got rye in it. I would agree though. I do think there's some good spice in here. So. There could definitely be, definitely be leaning towards a rye.

It's got a very interesting taste to it. Flavor, um, and nice finish. I like the finish, the flavor. I don't know what that is, but it's, I don't like, I don't hate it.

That is a bold in your face. Boom pow on the pallet, right? Lots of flavor. Very syrupy candy like.

Definitely a longer finish for me.

Yeah. But I'm getting a little bit of like an ease on the, on the back end of it. I'm going to say I'm definitely really leaning towards a Rye bourbon here.

I agree with that. I don't know. I felt like it's a little, a little more oaky, even, even more so than the last one. I felt like I picked up some decent Oak on the last one, but I feel like there's the Oak is a little more present for me.

It's got a little bit of butteriness to it. Um, it does have a more viscosity than the last pour. I think I'm trying to think back to the first port. I think the first port was a little lighter on the palette too, as far as viscosity goes. I would say this is the thickest whiskey we've had so far. It has the deepest color. Uh, the nose for me was, um, actually quite nice. The palette is a big surprise.

I think that comes from the finish. I don't know that for sure. It seems to me like it's a, I don't know. It's definitely very bold flavored. It just almost is confusing when it hits my mouth. I don't know if that's the best way to describe it, but I don't know. It's different.

Yeah. Well, some things I call an explosion of flavors that can be confusing because there's a lot going on, I think.

Do we feel like we're moving more towards the high 120s, the low 130s on this?

I mean, it could be deceiving. I would say this could be that high. I wouldn't peg it there. I would probably say 115.

I was going to say similar. If it's 125, 130, it's smooth for that high. I mean, at least to me, this is very smooth.

I think this is a finished whiskey for sure. I'm just trying to figure out what the heck it is it's finished in. Rob needs to tell us cause he's the one picking up the fruits.

No, well, you mentioned light. I mean, I do think it's a light. I don't think I'm getting, you know, like a deep cherry. I'm getting, you know, what would be a, maybe a pear as you mentioned, or, or like a peach brandy barrel. Yeah, exactly.

I could, I could see that I'm not getting the page, but I'm not getting any like dark, you know, like whiny kind of flavors like.

Yeah, to me it's okay. And, and. I don't know. The nose is just so different than, than the, the, the palette of it to me. I don't know. I'm, it's almost confusing. I know.

I feel like this one's definitely thrown us for a loop here.

A little bit of a curve ball. I know exactly what this is, but actually, you know, the bottle that I brought, I've never tasted. I didn't bring something that I was familiar with. I brought something that I was not familiar with.

Well, I had only tasted mine once.

Okay.

Very, very small pour. Probably a month ago.

Yeah.

And what about you, Tyler? I had tasted the one I brought. Um, I had a couple pours of it. It, I don't want to reveal too much.

It's not, it's not one of your favorites though. It's not on your, it's not my top 10.

No, I was actually kind of surprised with, with it to be fair.

Well, I found, I found out a while back on one of these shows, don't bring your, uh, each Taylor barrel proof cause it'll get beat. What do you think, Rob?

I recently had the Basil Hayden in the wine cask, so I'm definitely not detecting any of that. But yeah, it's good, flavorful.

Did you bring something you were familiar with or something you were unfamiliar with?

It depends which one got open. Okay. The one that I, that I wanted to introduce had been open, but I probably had one pour of it six months ago. So very unfamiliar. I wouldn't recognize it. So don't have that kind of brain.

All right. Well, I'm kind of sad to see this glass go empty. This is, this is a pretty decent pour. I'm trying to, I'm trying to nail the finish here. The finish on this is a little drying. It's sort of sweet up front, but dry on the back end, right? It's just that oak. This has got a little more time in oak, I think, and the oak has made a bigger impression on it. Are you getting any new oak, or is this all like mature oak?

I feel like I'm getting a little new oak.

Are you? So this could be a toasted barrel finish, huh?

I think it is. To me, this is a toasted barrel. I'm gonna go ahead and make that prediction.

Okay.

Number three.

So the finish on this is medium to long. I think that's a fair assessment. Mine's more medium. I don't get it a little bit. My lips, you know, as I kind of, you know, smack them, but I'm getting a little bit of leather on the back end.

It is a little drying. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm not getting like deep tobaccos or anything like that, but I do get a little bit of like a leathery note. There's a little bit of that rye that kind of that, that rye spice that makes it to the back end that anise or whatever it is. So I don't know. I think the finish on this is reasonably good.

I just had another sip of it and it's so sweet right when I put it in my mouth. And then the finish kind of builds up to a few seconds later. And I'm like, man, that kind of, my gums are kind of stinging.

When you go back to the nose, it's just sweet, just sweet, just nice and sweet honey.

I would agree with you, Jim. The finishes is kind of a medium, but Tyler, you're right. It does build.

Was anybody leaving anything in their glass? No, all three empty so far. All three empty. Now, Zach, bless his heart, gave us some pretty decent pours, didn't he? Like we said earlier, you know, Zach has already graded these and written down his ranking upstairs. So we'll find out if we need to use that or not. Is everybody ready to move on to the next one? I'm ready. All right. Grab your next glasses.

I'm ready to go. Let's do it. on the number four, the last pour of the day. It's kind of sad to hit that last pour, isn't it? It is. It is. Although the day doesn't have to end. That's true. That's true. We could keep going. Not a requirement. Yeah. We, uh, we've had three good pours. Um, first one, I think we all thought was, um, a little bit light, good, good flavor. We'd, we'd probably drink it all night if it was the only one. Number two, um, Maybe a little better flavor. Most of us liked it a little better. Number three had some crazy color. It was pretty gorgeous just to look at. And then now we're onto number four and wow, it may be the high qualifier for our original intention of a finished

Yeah. I'm kind of anxious to try it. The color is lightened up again a little bit. So this isn't quite, number three is by far of the four, the darkest one, right?

Yeah. If you poured those four out and said, pick one, I'm going for number three. Right. Just cause the color.

This one's a little more golden, almost like a, almost like a Pilsner, right?

Almost like a Bud Light, like a Miller Light, same color.

The legs don't seem as, Oh, you get it a little bit, but maybe closer to like maybe number one.

And you guys had mellow corn. What is it? Yeah, no corn. Yeah. The a hundred per a hundred percent corn. Yeah. Yeah. This is, this is a little better color than that, but it's pretty light though.

You can't slam the mellow corn though. $12 a bottle and it's bottled in bond and corn whiskey, but.

We had the metal corn challenge at my house last time.

Wow. This one here is, uh, going back to being a little bit lighter on the nose, but the palette is like this. This, uh, what's that, what's that commercial for that candy where the big wave comes in of like the big rainbow wave starburst wave. It's like the big starburst wave rolling in that palette is kind of really good. It's kind of rich and it doesn't match the color at all. Does it?

Not at all. It's like the most refined of the four.

Yeah. And I go back to the nose and the nose is just kind of really nice. It's a delicate nose, but it's a, it really aligns well with the palette. I think I was saying it was a light nose, but boy, you hit that palette and go back to the nose.

You know, honestly, I didn't, I didn't love it as much on the first drink, but that second drink, Oh man, this is really good. This is really good. This might be, I don't know, this might be my favorite of the bunch.

I think it's the best nose.

Yeah, it is. And, and I think number three kind of, and that's the thing, the, the, the whiskey we drink prior to this one has some effect on us, even though we got crackers and we got water and we got all this stuff to try and minimize that effect. Each bourbon, when it follows another one is going to be affected a little bit by that one. Right. I think that last one, that number three was very, it was a flavor explosion. And I think it left a little bit of memory on the palette, right? So when you get this one, for this to impress the palette the way it does, it's saying a lot.

Is this just really good whiskey? I'm a big fan of this. I don't know what this number four is, but I'm gonna have to look into this one. Have you looked at the legs on that?

Yeah, cheating, forming legs slowly. And they're just staying there.

After you take a sip and you just watch it slowly trickle down.

Pretty impressive. I almost wish it was a little more viscous, um, a little more thicker in the mouth. I mean, it, it's, it's so nice on the nose and the finish is so nice, but I wish it was more, I don't know, stickier in my mouth.

Yeah, I can see that. The finish for me is very, very pleasant. This has a nice, it's not the starburst on the finish. It's a little bit more of a sort of a buttery honey finish to it. But it, but it carries back to the back of the palette. There's no drying effect to it. And it just hangs out there for a while. This is a pretty lengthy finish on it. But the oak is not overpowering. This is not a really old mature whiskey by any means.

I don't think we had any that were overpowering in that department.

True. So true. Now that last one, was it the last one or number two that had a lot of oak on the back end?

I got a lot of oak on three.

On three. Yeah.

Three. Yeah. Add a little bit on two, but not as much as three.

So what do you guys think about kind of the state of Finnish whiskies, where we are today? I mean, I can remember when we started this podcast, it's been three or four years ago, but you know, Finnish whiskies were kind of out of bounds, right? It was one of those things that you don't play with my bourbon. Don't play with my bourbon. My bourbon is bourbon and it's always going to be bourbon. And of course angels envy came on the scene and they sort of turned everything upside down. And it took a while, but they started to gain some acceptance. Right. And then, uh, more and more people started finishing the whiskies and now it seems like everybody is finishing their whiskies. And a lot of the articles and a lot of the podcast episodes and a lot of the YouTube videos and a lot of golds and platinum's and silvers and big awards are going out to finished whiskies. Do you think the masses have finally accepted it? And spoken. And spoken. With their wallet, right? Absolutely. Go on Sealbox. What do you see?

Oh yeah. I agree. I do. I think it's really taken off. People are enjoying it. When we just look at some of the things that we've tasted recently, I mean, there's some pretty special whiskeys out there.

Yes. Last week we had broken barrel on and, uh, Seth introduced us to a number of expressions of his, the new ones that are just, they're just phenomenal, but you know, he does them all the time. I mean, it's all the time. These young distilleries, these craft people are just thinking out of the box and doing crazy stuff.

Well, you know, right, right when we were talking before, I think, I think the Finnish whiskey opens up the market because you know, Whiskey, you take a shot of it, it's hot, it hurts, it burns. But as more people began to appreciate it, they started sipping on it more and more. But I poured my wife some Midwinter's Night Stram and she really liked it. And I think when you start finishing the whiskey and the bourbon, it opens up your market to more and more people. And if it works and they're selling more and they're getting more revenue, then that's where we're going to see it keep going.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we can thank Wes Henderson, his father and his sons for everything they've done for the Finnish whiskey world, right? Cause they kind of blazed the trail there and that had to be a hard thing to do at that time.

Yeah, I mean, we were just talking in between breaks here about Angel's Embi-Rai and how unique it is and how you can put that in front of people. And it really does give them a different experience, something that they haven't had before, totally different look on what whiskey is. And you can really bring people in that maybe would not have done it previously. Yeah.

So I know we were talking about the finishing whiskeys and port wine and things like that, but I was talking with somebody the other day and they were talking about finishing whiskeys in IPAs and APAs beer. And I never thought to finish whisky and beer. I didn't know that was a thing, but apparently it's out there and I'm going to have to try it now.

I think Goodwood's doing a bit of that, right? So they've got a whiskey brand now, and they obviously have had beer for some time. So they're doing that whole whiskey barrel to beer aging, then back to the whiskey again, right? I've had some pretty good pours down there. Yeah.

And I know our friends at Interstave, they're also providing breweries with some of their product.

Yeah.

So maybe we'll see more of that in the future, more finished whiskies and beer. I don't know.

And then individuals can now finish their own whiskies with the interstate product. So we just had a whiff at the beginning of the show of that bottle we did four or five episodes ago.

What'd you think, Rob?

Yeah. Shocking.

Yeah.

But as soon as I opened it, I knew exactly what had happened. Cause you, we were talking about the other day, but man, that, that knocked me down. That maple, the old sly devil.

The nose is a little deceiving. Cause it, you, when you take, when you get that nose at like, whoa, maple syrup, right? You get the palette. It's subtle. Well, it was subtle. I don't know about now. We'll find out.

Yeah. You know, you guys talked about this whole finishing concept and kind of being old school myself growing up here in central Kentucky and knowing all the old time master distillers who They were the old school guys that didn't believe in that stuff. Most of them are still around, but they're sort of relinquishing control to younger people, and then the new distilleries are coming on. And all these young guys are coming up with great new fresh ideas. And so I was influenced by the older people who said, this is not apropos. And now all these new distillers and distilleries are coming in saying, this is the way of the future and it's becoming acceptable. And, and, you know, and so now I just kind of have to, soften, you know, my brain and heart and say, you know what, I was just listening to the old guys. You know, now the new guys are saying something different and, and the old guys are saying, you know, Hey, it's, it's okay too. And we're all catching on.

They've all seen what's happened in the craft beer world. Right. Right. Do you think it's just going to follow that same trend? Because I mean, craft beers is bonkers, right? I mean, you can get anything.

And the resurgence is all by virtue of all the nuances of all this. So, you know, if you want to make money, you want to survive, you go with the flow, basically.

I think a lot of the old guard, they're wise. You know, Jimmy Russell, for example, and Fred know, you know, they're wise. They know that the younger generation is in touch with their consumers and they know what their consumers want. And you know, it's different today than it was 20 years ago. So having an eighth generation master distiller down there, Freddie know, you know, that's an important thing, right? Because he's in touch with his customers. He knows what they want and they want. more rice, they want Finnish whiskeys, they want lots of crazy off the wall experimental stuff, just the way that the craft beer world wants their, you know, single cans on the shelf so they can go try 20 different things, right?

Yeah. And for the collector, I mean, it's a heyday, you know, I, a few years back, as I got into this whole bourbon collecting thing, I literally said to my brain, I'd like to have every Kentucky bourbon that there is. That was my goal. I mean, I thought there might be 50 or a hundred. I didn't know. And lo and behold, you know, I've got 200 bourbons right now or better. Not even close. I just gave up. I don't even understand it anymore.

Guys, are we there? Are we ready to call out our number one? Is everybody tallied their cards?

I have mine. I actually had a three way tie for second. Wow. And one soul winner.

Well, I mean, I have tie breakers, but you know, I've got, uh, uh, yeah, I've got, I've got one that was close to being the winner and then one that's clear. That's the winner. So the other two fell a little bit short, but I have to say this. I think any one of these whiskies. I'd be perfectly happy to sit down in a room with you guys and drink till it's gone. They're all good.

Absolutely.

I agree a hundred percent.

Yeah.

Absolutely. All right. Let's go. Let's, let's work our way around the room. We'll start with Mike number one. That's me. I'm just going to go by who's plugged into the number one slot on the mic. There you go. All right. I chose number four. Interesting. Brian, you're Mike number two.

I chose number four.

Oh my goodness. Oh boy. And you are Mike number three, Rob. Number three coming in here.

You know, I chose number three.

I could have went three. I almost could have went three. It was that close.

It was close. It was. I just felt like, um, that one was a little spicier and all the little things that, that I liked the most.

Yeah. And Tyler, you're number four, Mike. I also chose number four is my favorite. Number four. So we don't need the tiebreaker today, do we? I'm interested to know what Zach did choose though.

And number three was my second. So I almost went three and we almost had to split it up.

We all use different scales to score on, but how close was three to four for you guys?

That was either way for me too. So one point. One point on mine.

So I scored on a 10 scale. So mine was two points. So it's really one point, right? Because you guys did five point scale. One point difference between the two.

The palette on four won it for me. I just liked the palette more.

It was more enjoyable for me. All right. Are we all ready for the big reveal? All right. So we all walked upstairs. We grabbed the bottles. We've seen the results. I think everybody that's listening wants to know, what do you think?

I think so.

I agree.

There's a tear in my beer.

All right. So, uh, poor number one didn't make the list, didn't make the cut. And it was.

Tyler? That was the bottle that I brought. It was a Weller full-proof store pick, the Silver Dollar number 10. A bit disappointing, huh?

Yeah, honestly. I mean, it was a great pour of whiskey, but I mean, compared to the others we had.

Yeah, comparatively. And that was a tough lineup, so it is hard to compare. But yeah, I was surprised that it didn't stand up.

And your notes on that were that it was a bit ethanol-y on the nose. I did pick that up.

And I was a little suspicious when I first smelt it because I was a little suspicious it may have been the bottle that I brought. Yeah.

And then pour number two was Red Line Whiskey. It was their Barbados Rum Cask Finish. Red Line is a distillery out of Paducah, Kentucky. Of course, they sourced their whiskey from MGP. Uh, and it was a ride bourbon finished in Barbados from casks. And I think we all thought it was okay. Uh, the nose on it was, eh, and, uh, the palette was better. The finish was a little bit longer than number one. It definitely outperformed the waterfall proof on the finish, but it didn't quite make the top two.

No, I would say it was better, but not like superiorly better. It was marginally better.

And I think Redline will be happy to know that they beat out Weller foolproof. Right.

Absolutely. Especially, you know, uh, at silver dollar, they, they do great picks. So to beat them is, yeah, it's something to say.

All right. Anybody have any other tidbits of wisdom on those two barrels?

Unbelievable. I'll just say.

Yeah.

For all you out there clamoring to buy something. Cause you think you're, you know, have that fear of missing out. It's just crazy. There's a lot of good bourbons out there.

I mean, we can get out, out my front door here, hop in the car, drive across the interstate here by mile away to Simpsonville Liquors, Liquor World. They've got waterproof, foolproof in there for $2.99 a bottle. If you want one, it's there sitting on the shelf.

I bet we could do this blind taste next Tuesday and come up with a different order. It could possibly be.

That's right. I'd like to say the first two bottles, both were fantastic. Even though the Weller foolproof did not pull out in front, it's still a fantastic drink.

Yeah. All right. Pour number three was from 291 Distillery. It was their single barrel offering. It's got awards and medals all over it, right? All over the place. And that was yours, Brian.

That's right. I picked that up at Westport Wine and Whiskey. That is a pick from those guys over there. And it was the darker of the three and definitely had all of us scratching our heads just a little bit.

Yeah, so that one's finished with Aspen Staves. And Aspen is a tree that sort of just grows, is the only tree that grows above the tree line, right, or up near the tree line in the high altitudes of the Rocky Mountains. Well, anywhere that has high altitudes, the Aspen trees sort of survive up there. Chocolate Dark, kind of mahogany, I think I said mahogany, right? Definitely had a bold flavor, a decent nose, actually pretty decent nose, I think. And, uh, had a lot of things going for it. It scored pretty high, like almost tied the winner.

And from a flavor, I don't, I don't know if any of them came close to the flavor. I think that one was definitely the most flavorful, the most bold of the four.

I think the, uh, what separated it for me a little bit was just probably the nose.

So the winner was number four poor and, uh, That was voted on. Tyler voted for number four. I voted for four. Brian, you voted for number four.

That's right.

I voted for number four. Rob, you did not vote for number four. I did not. But it just so happens that was the bottle you brought. Exactly. And what was it?

Barrel. It was the dovetail, right? Dovetail, yeah.

The barrel dovetail. Wow. That's our winner today. It's amazing that that's yours. You brought it, but you're the only one that didn't vote for it.

Well, Jim, it's like this, you know, I didn't want to show you guys up by bringing that in here and winning the thing. You were just throwing us off, right? Throwing you off.

You knew we three would vote for it. So you were just like.

Exactly.

All right folks. Well, if you don't have a bottle of that barrel dovetail, and I might say even a bottle of that 291 single barrel, I'd run out and get them. The other two were fine whiskeys. They did great, but they just didn't.

I just didn't match up with the winners. Tonight.

Tonight, after we had some salami and cheeses and crackers and all the things that I brought that I thought would pair good with my whiskey to help it to win. It didn't help, did it? Exactly. I ended up in third place.

Yeah.

And Tyler, you brought the full proof? I did.

I picked that up a few months ago, cracked it open, drank it, and it's good. It's, it's nothing special. It's, it's okay.

All right. I don't know. A lot of people disagree with you, but just didn't win tonight.

Some people I'm sure would like it a lot more than I would. You know, I'm sure there's stuff I like more than they will. And you know, whatever you like, it's what you like.

Exactly. And people are paying 2.99 off the shelf and thousand in secondary and came in fourth. Go figure.

Where did, uh, where did Zach land on this or tiebreaker?

So Zach was the tiebreaker, but he, we didn't need a tiebreaker because we were three to one on the vote, but, uh, Zach had voted, voted his number one was the 291 and his number two was the red line. So had we finished in a two, two tie between number three and number four, Zach would have picked number three and that would have tipped the scales and 291 would have won. So that's how close it really was. I think we were all fairly close on the 291 and the dovetail.

Definitely.

But I don't think you could go wrong with either one, honestly. They're different.

Yeah. I have to say that 291 has improved dramatically since their early offerings. I've got a couple of early-release 291s over there. And they're great whiskeys, but they're nothing like the one that Brian brought today. And how long have you had that one?

I've had that one for about three weeks.

About three weeks. So this is really their latest and greatest, right?

Yeah. Yep. That's pretty awesome. And they told you not to buy that one, huh? Surprisingly enough, they did. They said, uh, that's not a good one.

Oh my goodness. They obviously haven't tasted it in a blind. That's right.

I mean, it really was good. I mean, it, nothing wrong with it at all.

All right. Well, we're going to finish up the show here in a second, but I want to talk about what's in our glass right now. A few episodes back. Three or four episodes back, we had Interstave on and we used their product, the CasCubes, to apply a secondary finish to a bottle of Evan Williams Bottle and Bond. And we use their, I think these were French oak maple cubes, right? They were. And we added them to the Evan Williams. We had it on the show there. It was amazing, the impact on the nose, but the palette hadn't really been impacted a great deal yet, right? He said, give it some time. So let's take a taste of this and a nose of this and see if it's really happened over time. It's been about a month and a half now.

Yeah. It's been, I think it's been right at a month since we tasted the first time. So about a month and a half since the cubes were put in there. Okay.

Let's check it out. Well, the nose is still like very prominent maple syrup, right?

And it's actually going to gone down a little bit since we poured it from the bottle. I don't know if that's getting a little bit of air to it, but it's still very strong.

Yeah. I think it needs a little time in the glass to let that initial aroma come off of it. I agree with that.

I agree. I think the flavor has really elevated since we tasted last time.

And it almost seems like it's a bit higher proof now too. It does.

It does. Yeah.

I'm getting that, that real like nuttiness to the, that French oak nuttiness in the wood. Oh my gosh. That stuff is amazing.

Isn't it incredible how the, like, so a month ago, the finish was still kind of, you know, very much there.

And now it's like, I think we ought to do a blending contest with our roadies and have them get some of these cubes and submit their blends. Now you can still blend whiskies together, but you can finish it with these. I would never expect that.

Was there a suggested, uh, proof or type of bourbon in which

You should put these, uh, these not really, you know, I mean, we chose a pretty solid starting bourbon, which is a bottled and bond Evan Williams bourbon. It's nothing extraordinary, but it's a good solid base bourbon. You know, they, they say that in 200, I think it's in a 200 gallon finishing tank to add 15 pounds of these cubes. We added six cubes to a 750 mil bottle. And I think it might've been too much. Maybe everything is just right. What do you think?

You know, I don't know if it, maybe it was too much time. Um, I know the recommendation was like seven to 14 days, somewhere in there. And I don't know if that is enough time, but I don't know if maybe a month and a half is too much time.

I think initially it felt like it was too much. But now I would think that it probably was not too much. Okay. I think it's changed. And so actually I took some home. I added them to, uh, all smoky whiskey and I have to go back and look at what cubes I dropped in. But I have to say it, it's pretty good. It's pretty good right now. All right.

I'm about a month. Yeah. You know, to me, Jim, real quickly. We almost created a Angel's Envy-esque bourbon because we have the flavor and the aroma of the maple, but it's not like we've got maple syrup in there that would be super sweet and overpower the bourbon. It's kind of like the Angel's Envy concept.

I think the palette and the finish are phenomenal on this right now. I think it's great. I think it could stand up honestly at a hundred proof to some of the castrinks we just had.

I agree. A hundred percent. I think, I think also considering that they're not barreling in it to flavor, it's just, you know, cubes or saves. I'm really impressed with what it did.

Well, this show is not the Interstave show, but I just wanted to finish up with that. I thought it would be kind of neat to come and revisit this. We told listeners we would. We'd come back and revisit this and give them a report on it. And so if you are interested in getting your hands on some of these, keep an eye on the Interstave website. They're called Cast Cubes, and you can buy them and you can add them to your bottles. And it will blow you away.

The effect you get, it's so amazing.

You become your own finishing, finishing bourbon guy, right? Or gal.

All right. It's been a blast. I had some fun. Everybody have fun today. Had a lot of fun, Rob. Thank you so much for coming on, joining us tonight. We had a great time.

Thank you. I appreciate you guys having me and I enjoy listening to you guys every week. So thank you so much.

All right, Tyler, it's always a pleasure to have you on. We're going to get you on as often as we can. We know you're behind the scenes sort of charting and burning, making things happen. And we appreciate everything you do, but you've got a great mind for whiskey and we love having you on the show.

Well, I'm absolutely happy to be here and I'm glad me and Rob can sit here together on the couch and share some pores together.

All right. Well, Brian, where can everybody find us on social media?

You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter even. Is there anything else I left out, Tyler?

Well, the roadies as well, right? Well, yeah, the roadies is a very important part of what we do. So that's our private Facebook group. We're about 3000 members strong and that's where our That's where our good friends hang out and chit chat about whiskey and share pictures and share life experiences. You have to answer three questions to join the group. Just go onto Facebook and search for the bourbon roadies. When it comes up, click the join button. You'll get presented with three questions. We just want to know three things. Do you like bourbon? Are you 21? And once you're in the group, do you agree to play nice? Because we don't allow any rudeness in there. Our moderators will boot you pretty quick if you start tearing somebody down for what they're drinking. So it's just a fun place. We just want people to have a good time. We do an episode every single Wednesday on Wednesdays. We'll have a guest on. Sometimes we'll deep dive a few bottles. Sometimes we'll do something like this, you know, get some friends together and have a blind bottle share. It's always fun. You always want to join in. And there's one way that you can make sure you don't miss a single episode. And how is that Brian?

You can subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify. YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.

And when they do, they're going to get that bell notification when a new podcast comes out, new episode comes out and they'll get that ding and they'll get that notification that they need to tune in because we two guys are just kicking it. We're putting out an episode every week. You don't want to miss a show. It's a lot of fun. We always have fun. We always drink whiskey. In fact, guess what guys, we were the 2022 food and drink magazine, whiskey drinking podcast of the year for all of the USA.

Oh my gosh. That's awesome. Yeah, it's amazing.

So we did really good this year. It was a lot of fun and 2023 is going to be a blast. Actually, this episode is coming out a few days after New Year's Day. So I hope everybody had a great New Year's, had a great Christmas. When this is playing, I'll be on a beach in the Dominican Republic.

And, and stay tuned because we may be going live very soon.

Yeah. We're going to have a live episode, we think on Facebook and that'll be a hosted by Brian and Tyler. And I'm sure Rob will be on there too. If he, if he does Facebook, I don't know if the Rob, you even do Facebook.

Yeah. I've been on there once, once or twice.

Yeah. All right, we hope you guys listen to us every single week. You can also reach out to us if you've got an idea for an episode, or you've got an idea for a guest, or even a topic for an episode. Yeah, just let us know. We'd love to hear from you. You can go to our website. We've got a Contact Us page there. You can fill it out. Click Send. The three of us will get it. One of us will get back to you and let you know that we heard what you said and we'll make it happen one way or another. I mean, if you've got a local distillery that's doing it right, they've got some great whiskey and you want us to know about it, you want the world to know about it, just let us know. Reach out to us. You can also send us an email at team at the bourbonroad.com. We're very responsive. We will get back to you. And who knows, that little distillery in your hometown might just make it to an episode. That'd be kind of awesome, wouldn't it? All right, well, until the next time, we will see you down the bourbon road.