328. The Bourbon Road to Paradise - Sipping Whiskey in Punta Cana

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 Seeing 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. Selvamseenmaple.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 selvamseenmaple.com. Kevin and his staff will take care of you. Welcome back, listeners. This is Jim Shannon. I'm your host for the Bourbon Road. We're coming back again, but this time we're actually on the road. We're actually in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. We're coming to you from the Excellence Punta Cana Resort, and today we're going to, well, we've met a lot of new friends, and we're gonna have a great time today. We're gonna drink a little bourbon. First, we're gonna drink the bourbon of Punta Cana Excellence Resort. They only have one. But we'll drink that and then we've brought one and then we've had some listeners who are joining us here today and they brought some bourbons as well. So we're just going to have a good time and chit chat. I do want to say I've got a co-host with me today, a guest co-host, and you might know her. She's the voice of the bourbon road. It's Melody, my wife, my beautiful wife, and she normally gives the introduction to the show every time. and today she's going to have the second mic and she'll be co-hosting with me today and she'll be walking around the room and talking to people and we're just going to have a great time. Melody, welcome as a co-host of Bourbon Road.

Well thank you, Jim, my husband.

I do want to say that we've got, I don't know, we've got about ten people here with us today and we put the word out that we're going to be recording a podcast here at the resort. And we're going to talk a little bit about all-inclusive resorts and being in the Caribbean. That's a great topic. We're certainly going to talk and drink bourbon. We have a couple of great bourbons today. But first, why don't we go around the room before we get to the whiskey and sort of introduce all the guests that are with us. Sound good?

Sounds good. I'm Carolyn Ackerman. I'm from Bettendorf, Iowa.

I'm Jerry Doty. I'm from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

And Carrie Worla, also from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Wendy from Moline, Illinois.

Ed from Moline. Paul from Bettendorf, Iowa. I'm with Carolyn.

Rick from Springfield, Ohio. So we got a number of states represented today and we didn't get anybody from out of country but we are all out of country today and it's a great time to sit down and make new friends, have a little bit of bourbon. And all of us today have in our glass the only bourbon that you can get at Excellence Poodacana which is Jim Beam White Label. Some of us have it on ice, some of us have it knee. I think some of us might even have it with water, that's okay. We drink bourbon the way we like it, don't we folks? Absolutely. So I guess the idea here was to gather together with some friends all on vacation and have a couple of drinks of bourbon. We'll first start with the bourbon that's available here on the resort. I guess, Ed, you and Wendy have been to a number of these resorts, right?

Yes, we have.

And do you normally find that there's a wide selection of whiskeys and things, or is it pretty limited?

It's usually limited, but they do have a handful.

Yeah. And what's your whiskey? What do you like to drink normally? Jack. Jack Daniels?

Yes.

All right. Wendy, what about you?

Yeah, I'm not really a whiskey drinker too much. So what is it?

What do you drink?

Tequila.

Tequila. Okay, crazy lady. And what about you, Carolyn?

Well, last night was the first time I've ever tried a bourbon, and it was pretty good.

And what did you have? You had an Old Fashioned, right? I had an Old Fashioned. Made with Jim Beam. All right. You don't have a lot of choices here. All right, and then our guests from Michigan.

We've got quite a few good distilleries in Michigan and one of our favorites is where we got married three months ago. It's called Valentine and it's in the suburbs of Detroit.

Awesome. Well, congratulations on your recent marriage. And so you're both whiskey drinkers?

I'm also a bit of a gin drinker. A gin drinker?

Is gin your other bourbon?

Gin is my other bourbon.

Well, sort of like me. I'm the same way. So when I'm on vacation, I like to have gin. Not because gin is my favorite thing, but when I'm vacationing, I'm also vacationing from bourbon a little bit, to be honest with you, because I drink bourbon a lot. Like, well, it's the show, right? So I mean, we're drinking it several times a week, and it's always nice to break away and try something new. But I love gin. I think gin has a great variety, a good flavor, and gin and tonic is such a refreshing cocktail. Is that your thing?

Yeah. Actually, I love a good aviation.

What is it? An aviation. I need to learn about that one.

Oh, that's a great Prohibition-era drink. I'll give you the recipe later.

Okay. Well, we'll talk about it after the show. Sounds good. So Paul, what are you sipping on over there? You're having the...

I am sipping on the Jim Beam, but I am normally just a beer drinker. But I do like a bourbon sitting around a fire or just chumming around with friends after the golf course or something like that.

Yeah. But you're also a cigar smoker, right?

Once in a while, the same as bourbon. Once in a while around a fire or chumming around after the golf course day.

So do you think that bourbon and cigars go well together?

They do go well together, and friends.

And over here, we have another guest with us.

Rick, you're from Ohio. Yes, and I love bourbon and I love cigars, and they do go very well together. I think my favorite bourbon is probably Eagle Rare.

Oh, I think Melanie might like you a lot.

It's a phenomenal bourbon.

She's a big Eagle Rare drinker.

I collect a lot of bourbons.

Do you?

Yeah.

So how big is your collection?

Oh, probably only 30 bottles.

Okay. Well, that's pretty substantial.

So are they all open? No, no, no. There are a couple that I have not yet opened. I'm waiting for somebody special to come over and open them. Well, that's fair enough.

Yeah, one of the other guests said, what's your address? I'm coming over. All right. And it looks like you're sipping your bourbon meat.

Absolutely. The only time I have ice and bourbon if it's over 120 proof. Okay. And then just to water it down a little bit.

Yeah. So do you drink bourbon year round? Or do you like to drink it only in the winter months?

It's a rare day that I would not have a bourbon. Oh, so it's a daily. Yeah, I love bourbon. OK, so I got one more question. Yes.

So you're in a control state. Yes. So in other words, whiskey, rare whiskies are hard to come by. Yeah, absolutely. So what's that one rare whiskey that you would love to get in Ohio, but you have a hard time putting your hands on?

Well, I only have four of the Blanton bottle tops, so I'm searching for the others. So you're trying to spell out... I'm trying to spell out Blantons. And I also like the Eagle Rare 17, which is impossible to find.

And if you do find it, it's going to cost you an arm and a leg.

Depending. I live close enough to Kentucky.

Yeah.

If somebody finds it down there, I'll drive down.

Yeah, sure. Sure. So I'm going to ask you a kind of a trivia question here, all right? So if you're trying to spell out the word blends, you know there's two N's in the word blends, right? Yes. So what's the difference between the first N and the second N? Apostrophe. He knows his stuff. Yeah, you would think it'd be an apostrophe. Well, yeah, it's kind of an apostrophe, but it's got a little dot under it, so it looks like a semicolon. All right, folks. Well, let's drink our Jim Beam, and we'll talk about it in a little bit. So how many of you have been to a bourbon tasting before? Never. Never? You've been to a few? Okay. You've been to one or two? Never? So there's a couple of things we talk about when we do a bourbon tasting. One is the nose. So when you smell a bourbon, typically the right protocol is to keep your mouth open. So you're breathing through your nose and your mouth, but you put the bourbon up to your nose. The nose is much more acute to picking up aromas and tastes than your mouth is. Your mouth is kind of, you normally smell your food more than you eat it. But you always want to take a nose on it. And two typical notes on bourbon are caramel and vanilla. You will usually get a little bit of caramel. a little bit of vanilla, and then there's that oak, that nuttiness, that little bit of woody note that you get from it being in the barrel. Sometimes it comes across as a smoky flavor. If you're a Scotch drinker, you know that smoky flavor, right? That's that peat, kind of that smoked peat flavor. In bourbons, it's always just coming from the charred barrel. But you might get a little bit of that here. So Jim Beam White Label, there's nothing wrong with it. It's a good, basic, solid, you can get it anywhere bourbon. Usually runs about $17 or $18 for a bottle. Does that sound about right? And one thing for sure, like Ed with your Jack Daniels, one thing you know for sure, no matter where you go in this world, whether you be in Punta Cana or somewhere in the states or anywhere, you're going to find a bottle of Jack Daniels, right? And so when we're in Punta Cana and we're going to the bar and we know there's only one bourbon on our bar here, it's Jim Beam. They do have a Jack Daniels, which is a Tennessee whiskey as well. So everybody take a sip of your Jim Beam whiskey. You see any sweetness there? Little bit of sweetness. It's not going to be sugar sweetness. It's going to be what they call corn sweetness, right? It's a little bit more like a, you ever had corn syrup? Not really sweet, but it's got that hint of sweetness. That's kind of what you're getting here. You get a little bit of smokiness from it, from the barrel aging. One of the things that makes Jim Beam what it is is that water that comes from the limestone water that comes out of Kentucky. It's a very mineral-y kind of taste you get. So we talked about the nose. We talked about the taste. You get a little bit of that taste. It should have kind of coated your mouth a little bit. But on the back end of that taste, in the back of your mouth, you should get a little bit of spice. And then you get that, what they call the Kentucky hug. That little bit of that ethanol in the back end kind of warms you up. Yeah? Yeah, that little burn, yeah, that's what makes it nice. But that lingering flavor, you get a little bit of lingering flavor there from that whiskey. It won't last long, not what the Jim Beamer won't last very long. It'll be kind of what they call a short finish. You get a little bit of flavor. You get that moment where the whiskey is telling you to take another sip, but then it kind of disappears, right? Because this is a short finish. When you drink a fine whiskey, something they call a sipping whiskey, something that's really, really flavorful, That finish will last longer. It'll tug at you. It'll pull at you. It'll tell you, you really need to take another sip of me, right? And those are fine sipping whiskeys. Typically, they go great with cigars. Kind of lingers a little bit. And Paul, you like your cigars, right? Oh, absolutely. And I guess with your cigars, you like to have a whiskey that has a little bit of a long finish.

Oh, yes.

It kind of sticks around. And cigars can have a lingering taste as well.

Oh, yeah. Good cigar. Yeah.

So you've been down here in Punta Cana for a few days now. Have you had any cigars? I have had one cigar. Yes. And what cigar did you have while you were here?

It was a modello. Okay. Yeah, and it was it was a good it was a good cigar. Yeah But it was not my best cigar. Okay.

Now you've got another cigar you haven't lit up yet

I do, I don't have it with me, so I really can't tell you what it is.

Okay, so there are plenty of cigars down here.

There are.

You're rolling them in the shops for you if you want them. There is a big choice, yeah.

It is not on the thighs of a young Dominican girl, but it is rolled here in the Dominican.

Is that when they're best, when they're rolled on the thighs?

That is what I've heard.

That is what I've heard, yes.

My brother's an eight-year-old named Juan. You are right.

You are right. So has anybody hit up their Jim Beam for a second sip?

Yeah. Yeah, we have.

Not your thing. Ed, not your thing. No. I don't care for that at all. So how do you drink your whiskey?

Either with Coke or Dr. Pepper.

Now, I haven't had it with Dr. Pepper. How is that? Don't try it. You'll get hooked. You think so? Dr. Pepper is spicy by itself. Yes.

Yes.

That one, the whiskey really helps. OK. Well, we've always said, you know, one of the things about bourbon is we think you should drink it your way. So if your way is with Dr. Pepper and and well, and you're drinking Jack Daniels and Dr. Pepper typically, right? I think that's the way to go. You do you Ed, no doubt. Alright, does anybody like the Jim Beam?

Yes, I liked what I drank last night.

So you had an old-fashioned, you had one made proper. I did. So a proper old-fashioned is about two ounces of bourbon, a few shakes of bitters, a little bit of sugar, but you had about three ounces of bourbon in yours, didn't you?

They make them really big and strong here, yes.

Yeah, they do.

But it was very good.

I haven't seen anybody use a jigger here to measure the whiskey, have you?

I don't know what a jigger is.

What's a jigger? A little shot glass to measure it. Oh, like a little measuring thing. Yeah, a little measuring thing. They're pretty much free pouring here.

Yeah, I would say they just kind of dump it and let it run.

Yeah.

But it was it was very good. But I will say I had to drink it very slow, small sips and very warm going down. At first, I wasn't sure if I could swallow it. I thought it might be too potent for me. But after a few sips, it was pretty good.

So we made yours a little bit sweeter.

Thank you.

And you really like this. So would you order another old fashioned?

I would. I would order another one and it would probably take me an hour to drink it like I did last night, but it was a very slow sipping drink. But yeah, I would try it again.

So what do you normally drink, Carole, when you go out?

Well, usually I'm a beer drinker.

Yeah.

But if I drink any type of a mixed drink, it's usually like a... vodka and cranberry juice or something like that. I'm not a strong drinker at all.

Well, I mean, bourbon's on your radar now.

Yeah, I'm probably going to get hooked and it'll be your fault.

But that's OK. Well, that's OK.

It's a vacation drink. I've learned a new vacation drink for myself.

Yeah. So when you go on vacation, you might drink a little bourbon. When I go on vacation, I drink gin. So everybody does their own thing down there.

Everyone's happy, right?

Absolutely. All right, so we've just poured the bottle that we brought down with us, and this is the Wilderness Trail. It's a barrel pick. This is a six-year-old bourbon out of the Wilderness Trail distillery out of Danville, Kentucky. This particular bottle was a Bourbon Road barrel pick called Bourbon Road in Paradise. And the reason we chose to bring this one down with us is because, well, I mean, if you look at the label on the bottle, it's got palm trees and sand and it's all about being in paradise and enjoying some bourbon. And this is the first opportunity we've had since we bought that barrel and bottled about 200 bottles of it. to actually bring one of the bottles to paradise and enjoy it. So we're so glad that all of you could join us today and enjoy this whiskey. It's 120 proof. It is a rye bourbon whiskey, so it's got a little bit of rye in it. It's got corn, rye, and malted barley. 120 proof, that's pretty substantial. So some of you probably have ice, I see you do. It'll pack a wallop. It's pretty strong stuff. But the great thing about this is that you're going to get to compare it to what we just had, which is just a entry-level Jim Beam whiskey which is nothing wrong with it but this one is this is a little higher end this one will run you about 60 or 70 dollars so it's not an entry-level whiskey this is more of a sipping whiskey something that I think you all appreciate so we said we check it out let's do the nose palette and finish on it again remember to keep that mouth open when you're smelling it On this one, you should get a little more, a little more like caramel butterscotch. You getting that butterscotch? It should be a deeper, sweeter nose on it. I wanna say take a sip, but be ready. It's gonna be a little, it's gonna have a little burn to it, so. Cheers, y'all.

Cheers.

I heard a few oohs and ahs. This should have had a little bit more of like a syrupy kind of sweetness to it, a little bit more like a molasses. But there's some heat there, right, Carol?

It was hot.

Yeah, it's hot.

Yes, it was hot going all the way down.

So could you imagine something like this? And I'm going to go back to you again, Carol. Could you imagine something like this in like a maple syrup poured over pancakes?

No, I could imagine something like this in a good cup of coffee.

Yeah, it would probably go good with coffee.

I don't know if it's bourbon with coffee, but I could mix something like this in a good cup of coffee, I think.

Absolutely. Well, let's go around the room a little bit and talk to everyone who's had a chance to taste it.

Well, it's delicious for sure, but it's a bit warm, so I like a bit of ice in mine, and that's cooled it down nicely. It's got some delicious flavors, though, that's for sure. Yeah.

Yeah, it is delicious. I love that butterscotch that you pointed out. And yet it's surprisingly kind of sharp in the roof of the mouth at the end. It's nice.

Yeah.

It's very hot.

It is hot.

It burns for a while afterwards. That's kind of good.

Oh, it's good. You like that, huh? Yeah. So Ed, just a quick question for you. Do you like spicy food?

I like it, but sometimes it don't like me.

Yeah. Okay. So, so if you're going to drink whiskey like this for a bit, you might have a Prilosec or Tums afterwards, right?

So I try to avoid that.

Yeah. anything's got to be better than that mama wanna we have the other no i don't agree completely uh... just for differ reference folks mama wanna is like the national break of the dominican republic it's kind of a spiced rum i guess and uh... it's interesting not my thing

For me, this has a certain smoothness to it. I would describe it as a numbness in my mouth, but then a nice warm feeling going down your throat.

Paul, do you think that flavor kind of hangs with it a bit? It does, much longer. So the longer that flavor hangs in your mouth, now I'm not talking about the burn, The burn is something altogether separate. So that's that Kentucky hug we mentioned earlier. But that flavor, that flavor that just sort of sticks around, sticks around, sticks around and says, take another sip of me. Absolutely. Yes. That's the finish. So that finish is a bit lengthy. Yes, with this it is. Yes. And you almost, you don't have to take another sip for a bit because it just sort of sticks around.

You're right. Yes.

Yeah.

That's a fantastic taste. My first thought was like a really dark rum. It had the same texture, but there's a, you said maple, and I was thinking sorghum, but I think your maple is more flavor. But this would be really good with a Maduro cigar. Oh, yeah. Now, you and Paul are cigar guys. So what's your favorite cigar? Oh, my favorite? Good grief, I don't know. Probably something along the Drew Estate line I really like. The Elite League of Providas is the thing of those natures. Yeah I just thought it depends on the time of day and what I'm drinking.

So you had a few cigars while you were here in Dominican? Yeah. So do you walk down the end of the beach here and buy any?

No I brought several with me.

You brought some with you? Yes. So how are the like cigars that are available here?

Well the first time I came to Punta Cana I bought a box of cigars and it tasted fantastic on the beach and horrible when I got home.

Yeah.

So you're saying some of the better cigars are just

You know, yeah, I would not buy cigars in town. I've done that. And like I said, they're good here, but later they're not as good. And I think it's just the ambiance of the place. Yeah. So I would buy them from the duty free or something like that, where I know where I'm getting what I'm getting.

So I know when you walk towards the front gate of the facility here, there's a cigar shop. I've not been there. You haven't been there? No. I'm just wondering if they have some decent

I would assume here at the resort they would have decent cigars. Okay. Because they want you to come back. Yeah.

But the problem here is, is you can buy a good cigar, but you can't necessarily get a good pour of whiskey.

Well, that's true. And not only that, but you're buying a good cigar here for about three times the price of a cigar. Yeah.

All right. Well, I feel like this whiskey is kind of settling in right here, right? Right in the chest, right? Are you guys feeling it? That's that we call it a Kentucky hug, but it's just a whiskey hug. It's that warmness that you get from drinking a whiskey that just kind of warms your soul. And if, if you're from cold weather, you Iowa people or Illinois people, you're cold weather people, right? I mean, you've got some, what's the temperature up there, Ed, right now in, in Illinois? About eight degrees. Eight degrees. What's the temperature here? About 80?

82, 83. Yeah.

So it's good to be here, but if you're in a cold weather like that, you got an outdoor hot tub, don't you?

Correct.

Are you guys sipping on a little something when you're out there in the hot tub? Never, never.

No, you don't do it.

I love, I love this whiskey. The two fellows that started Wilderness Trail Distillery, let me take a minute and talk a little bit about the history of this distillery. So some years ago, two good friends played in a rock band, right? They had an old van and some guitars and drums and they traveled around and they played music at venues and they decided one day to sell all their equipment. and invest the money to start making whiskey. They became very successful. They actually formed a small company called Firm Solutions, which made yeast products for distilleries. So yeast distilleries that wanted to have yeast that are well controlled, they would buy it from these guys. And these guys decided to eventually start their own distillery. They're in Danville, Kentucky. They grew that distillery based on a cash model. In other words, they would make a little money, they would put the money back in, invest in the business, they would grow the distillery. Eventually, it got to the point where they just recently sold the distillery for $600 million. They took, let's say, a $400 million payout. And then 10 years from now, they'll get the other 200 million. But a couple of guys with a rock band sold their musical equipment and started a distillery. Down to earth guys, jeans, t-shirts, they just love the regular life. They make a great whiskey, don't they? You like this? You enjoy it? Will the whiskey continue with the buyout? The whiskey will continue. It'll be under a major brand now. And I won't talk about who that is, but yeah, so they'll, the reason the distillery came in and gave them 600 million total sale, they only paid them 400 million upfront. The other 200 million comes after 10 years, they got to stick around. So they wanted to maintain their involvement in the business for a number of years afterwards. Great distillery, great product. We all love to drink it.

So I think you said that this is a bottle that you were involved in putting together. Yeah. Could you tell us what that's about?

Yeah. So my co-host and I visited the distillery and we tasted through a number of barrels and decided on, I think at that day we decided on two separate barrels that we purchased. So we partnered with a liquor store to pick these barrels. And then we made the bottles available to our listeners. So our listeners could buy these bottles. And the liquor store, of course, took one of the barrels and made it available to their patrons as well. And yeah, so it was a private barrel pick. And barrel picks are becoming quite popular. I don't know if you've spent some time at the distilleries, but most of the time when you go into a distillery and you take a tour, there'll be a private barrel pick available at the distillery which is You know the people who are involved in the pick will taste through a number of barrels and they will select one barrel because barrels are very different. They will select one barrel they feel is excellent and they will bottle that barrel individually by itself and give it a number or a label or something and say this is barrel and in this particular case this is the road pick number one. which is the Bourbon Road in Paradise. So this is a special pick. You can only get it here. I think it was 196 bottles. I think the bottle says how many on it, but this is bottle number two of 193 bottles. If you look on the back there under the light.

You've already drank bottles three through 55 and you're bringing us the second one.

Well, we have, we have some listeners and of that group, the bottle sold out pretty quick. And yeah, so the bottles went out to our listeners and I would assume that most of them are probably very empty by now. Folks, we definitely encourage you to check out seldomseenmaple.com. That's seldomseenfarms. Kevin and his staff here 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 Bard 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.com. Get you some. Alright, so we all enjoyed that wonderful Wilderness Trail distillery whiskey. It was very powerful, very bold, very flavorful. It had a great butterscotch flavor. It had a lot of oak influence in it. It was really good. It's not for everybody. Not everybody can drink a hundred and twenty proof whiskey. But now we have a whiskey that was brought by one of our guests here today. And why don't you reintroduce yourself and talk a little bit about the whiskey you brought.

Great. We're Jerry and Kerry. We live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And what we brought is Traverse City's, Traverse City Whiskey Company's American Cherry Edition. So they do several different flavored whiskeys and bourbons. We brought the cherry edition because Traverse City is known for being in a cherry region.

Right, they have an annual cherry festival every year and cherries are huge in Traverse City, so we thought this would be the one to bring.

Right. So they'll have a two week long festival of carnival and bands playing and all kinds of things. So the cherry edition is what we brought. Not everybody likes bourbons that are flavored perhaps, but I like them because it offers a different kind of mouthfeel and a different kind of flavor overall. The one thing that maybe some people really like about having a flavored whiskey is it does cut back on the proof. It comes way back from where we just were. This is a 70 proof whiskey, a bourbon rather, and I think it's just going to be an interesting difference from the beautiful one that you brought us.

Awesome. So I know Traverse City Whiskey. We've had it on the show before. It's always a fan favorite. It's a great whiskey. And so the cherries from Michigan are always kind of a They're a little more tart than they are sweet. I think it's right. I mean, kind of the Michigan cherries are kind of a tart cherry.

And they make a delicious pie.

Yeah, they make a delicious pie. I would imagine they do. But I'm excited about this because as soon as you poured it, I took a nose. I was like, oh my goodness, the cherry is so evident in this and I'm pretty excited to try it. Thank you so much for bringing this today. And let's, let's just, let's, let's try it out. Let's start with the nose. Yeah, that is, that's got such a wonderful cherry nose to it. not overpowering, not overly sweet, just kind of the whiskey still shines through a little bit, right? Yeah. Well, let's go around the room and see what people think about it. Melody, what do you think?

So I think that was very good. It's very smooth, very light, and has a wonderful cherry taste.

I love the way that the whiskey is still there. You can taste the whiskey. It's not like a cherry liqueur, right? It's like a whiskey with a note of cherry. And I really like that a lot.

Let's move on to Wendy. See what Wendy thinks. I like it better personally. It's not quite as strong of a taste for me. And I thought it was very good.

I think it's very, very good. Uh, I don't know what else to say about it. It's good. How do you think that would go with Dr. Pepper? Huh?

Hmm.

I don't know. Might have to put that to a test. Maybe cherry Coke, right? Oh, even cherry Coke? Yeah, that might be good in cherry Coke too. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

What do you think, Paul? Oh, I can definitely smell the cherry in it. And for me, in a glass of ice, yeah, it is a very enjoyable bourbon or whiskey.

Yeah. I like it because the cherry in it is natural. It's not like a Bing cherry or a sweetened cherry. It's just a real natural cherry. And like you said, it's still whiskey. Yeah. It doesn't overpower it too much. Yeah.

Very nice.

What do you think, Carolyn? I thought it was very good, but I think I would have to have this on ice and I could sip on this if it was chilled and put some real cherries in it. So yeah, thank you for bringing it.

So this is a Michigan whiskey and Traverse City is way up north, right? It's like up on the northern end of Michigan.

Well, the beautiful thing about living in Michigan is you always carry a map of Michigan right here. And yes, it is up on the very corner, upper part of Lake Michigan, and it's on a beautiful bay. And it started out as a resort town, but now it's grown into a full-size city of its own. And it has got a couple of distilleries, actually. And I love Traverse City, but maybe one I like just as much is one called Mammoth. Maybe you've had that before. They've got a couple of different places in a couple of different cocktail lounges around the state, but they make all of their stuff right there in Traverse City. And for my birthday last year, Carrie bought me a whiskey blending. So we went up to Mammoth in Traverse City and they laid out several different ryes and several different whiskeys and bourbons and gave us a notebook. And the notebook was to try and a bunch of different tiny little vials. So you could measure out this much and this much and this much of each one. And we ended up making our own bottles of bourbon. Oh, that's fun. And I did this with half a dozen of my friends. Again, a complete surprise from my fiance at that time. And we each ended up with a different bottle, but we got to spend an hour together blending our own whiskeys. And so it was really nice to try 30 percent rye and 40 percent this or 30 percent, 20 percent, 15 percent, whatever mix it was. And so I just wanted to make sure that I got Mammoth's name on your podcast because it is one of my very favorites in Michigan. I just couldn't bring a bottle of it. Couldn't find a bottle of it small enough to bring down.

So did you end up with a mixture that you thought was like the bomb?

Yes, exactly. And we literally spent an hour tasting different combinations. And so I'm sure that the last combinations were even better than the original combinations for lots of reasons. But we each ended up with a different bottle, and each of my friends each ended up with a different bottle by just pouring out different things. And of course, we call it birthday, the birthday bottle on our label. So I've never been to a place or seen a distillery that's done that before. And so I wanted to make sure we talked about that because I thought it was a very unique experience.

Well, I have to say that whiskeys that are finished in other flavors, whiskeys that are finished in other woods, other like honey barrels, cherry barrels, maple barrels, whatever it might be, were kind of taboo three or four years ago, a little bit. People are like, don't mess with my bourbon. Don't finish my bourbon. It's not really bourbon if it has this other flavor in it. Those days are gone. And I think the public in general has accepted the fact that there's a big world out there of flavored whiskeys, whiskeys that are finished in cherries or maple or honey or whatever it might be. And this particular one, this Traverse City Whiskey, is pretty damn good. I mean, it's really delicious.

I think it's got a really nice flavor, too. It does.

I'm glad I brought it down and that you guys are enjoying it. I really like that. And it brings people into the world of bourbon that would normally not come here. Right. I mean, Carolyn, you might not normally care a whole lot about bourbon, but when somebody puts a little bit of cherry in it,

Oh yeah, you add a little flavor and it can be very addicting, I'm gonna say. Absolutely. It is very good.

Absolutely.

Not that I want to keep shouting out all of these Michigan distilleries, but one more, since we're talking about flavored. Ugly Dog, out of Chelsea, makes several different flavored bourbons and whiskies. S'mores is one of them, and it smells and tastes like a s'more. But one of the ones that I really like is their peanut butter flavored whiskey. And it's very nice that we mix with raspberry liqueur and make PB&J's as a cocktail. It's a delicious thing. And we add smoke to it as well at the end, for sure. But peanut butter whiskey, I would have said with you a few years ago, no, no, no. But it's actually, there are a lot of good flavors out there, I agree. Yeah, it's a different day.

Things have changed so much, and we're aware of that. You know, we love bourbon. We love bourbon for what it is. We love the fact that bourbon whiskey has its place in the world. And it's very regulated, very strict. You know, what can be bourbon? Bourbon has to be 51% corn. It has to be aged in new oak barrels. Typically, to be a straight whiskey, it has to be at least two years old. It has to be made in the United States. And when all that's said and done, you have a wonderfully good whiskey. But then came finishing, right? Then came what happens if I put it in a barrel that aged honey or aged maple syrup or aged Merlot wine or Cabernet wine, or whatever it might be. And it has been a great thing, I think, for whiskey in general. And it's brought a lot more people into, kind of into the market, into the fold. And we love it. I think we love it a lot. It's a great thing.

I think sometimes people might feel that a bit of snobbish comes into the world of bourbons. But I think when you find something like this that is slightly different and has a broader appeal, I think the snobbish can go away a little bit. It can.

It can.

I think that's a good comment. I was thinking about when you were talking about the flavored bourbons, I was thinking about how many bourbons are now, they soak them in a rum barrel or they'll soak them in a brandy barrel. And so this, when the bourbons get those different flavors, it's just, It expands the whole world of bourbon. Some people like to be purists, and there are times I like to have a pure bourbon, but this is just something I'd like to have on my shelf just to taste once in a while, and I think my wife would really enjoy it.

Yeah, I think one of the things to keep in mind is that us as the consumer, those of us who are drinking this, we just want to know what's in the bottle, right? We want to know What have they done to it? How have they modified it? What makes it different from something else? So transparency is very important. It's very important to have truth in labeling, right? So if you look at the Traverse City whiskey here, I'm reading the bottle. It says it's a small batch, handcrafted Traverse City whiskey. It's a bourbon whiskey infused with Traverse City cherries and natural flavor. There's no guessing there. You know what it is. You don't have to say, is this bourbon? Is this not bourbon? What have they done to this whiskey? Truth in labeling is very important. And I would drink this again for sure, absolutely. Alright, so we have another whiskey that's in our glass. We've all been poured a little bit of it. And this is another whiskey from the Michigan area, right?

It is. It's from Holland, Michigan, which is a little farther south than Traverse City. But again, on Lake Michigan, it started as resort town and still is a small little resort town. And so what, tell us a little bit about this whiskey. This is from New Holland, and New Holland started about 20 years ago or so as a brewery. And they've got several different kinds of beer, but their most popular thing, I think, is what they call Dragon's Milk Stout. And it's something that I've drank for years because I like a heavier beer, especially in the wintertime. Wouldn't touch a stout or a porter here in Punta Cana. They're probably not even available, but in the wintertime in Michigan, as you can imagine, that's a nice drink. So, and the first one we had was an infused. This one here is aged. So this is bourbon whiskey finished in Dragon's milk stout barrels. So less than 10 years ago, they started distilling and they put their two together. The idea of beer and whiskeys or others can go together. And so they found finishing it in a stout barrel gave it a very unique flavor. And so that's why I brought it down, because I thought it would be quite different from the first one that we tried and an infusion versus a finishing in a different kind of barrel. Darker flavor, I'm guessing, and it's completely different.

Shouldn't.

What did you think of the nose? What did you think of the flavor?

So this is a little bit of a potpourri candy kind of nose, a little bit of a, I feel like I'm getting a little bit of the hops.

Okay. A little bit. Not everybody likes stout to drink. It's, you know, dark, heavy. A lot of people think it's a dark, heavy beer, but there's a lot of different kinds of stouts. It can come with a lot of different kinds of flavors. Dragon's milk goes a little bit towards caramel. And I think that's where they tried to get the merge with the bourbon.

Okay, so we got caramel from the bourbon. We got caramel from the stout a little bit.

I think so. That's what I smell when I first put up to my nose. But we should pass this around. Melody, what do you think?

So I'm not really sure about the nose, but it's a very interesting flavor. I also like darker beers, but my preference would be a porter versus a stout. but this is good, it's very interesting.

So is it more beer or more bourbon?

Definitely more bourbon, but it just has a very unique taste to it. It's good, it's very good. Let's see what everybody else thinks.

Carolyn, what is your take on this one? Okay, so when I try this, I have a lot of different flavors in my mouth after I swallow. So I think there's a big mix in the flavor of this, and I can't really determine exactly which one pops out the most. There's a little bit of a burn when you swallow, but the after flavor is actually pretty good. No, not bad. Rick, what's your take on it?

Well, like Carolyn said, I think it's really good. There's a differentiation between a milk stout and a regular stout. The milk stout is a softer stout, and that's why you're getting a softer taste with this than you are with an abrupt stout or breakfast stout. But yeah, the bourbon flavor is definitely the prominent flavor, and it's good. I've always liked it.

Well, my nose doesn't work half the time, and it's not working good right now, but the taste itself is very good.

Agreed, Ed.

Wendy? Yeah, it's pretty good. It's got that nice hot hotness that a bourbon has. It definitely tastes more like a bourbon to me than I don't really notice the beer taste to it too much. But yeah, I like it. It's good. Okay, Paul, what do you think?

Well, I'm not a really a stout drinker at all. I don't really care for them. But I do like a good dark amber beer. I don't taste that in at all. But this has that very sharpness to it when you drink it that I like in a bourbon. So it's very good.

Yeah. All right, so we've had a number of bourbons here today. We've had a couple from Michigan. We've had one from Kentucky. We've had, well, actually we've had two from Kentucky, right? Because Jim Beam's a Kentucky bourbon. It's nice to taste variety, certainly to explore different proofs. In the case of the Traverse City, we got to taste a kind of a finished bourbon, right? A bourbon that was finished with a little bit of cherry influence. This particular bourbon has a unique flavor that, I mean, I'm getting a little bit of the hop to it. but not overly hop. This has got kind of an, I want to say kind of an earthy flavor to it. And I really enjoy it. And now what was the name of this distillery again?

New Holland. It's a New Holland out of Holland, Michigan. And this particular bottle is called Beer Barrel Bourbon Dragon's Milk. Dragon's Milk Stout.

It's a stout finished bourbon. I like it a lot. I think it's a great whiskey. I think it's a lot of fun. I really appreciate you guys bringing down a couple of small bottles to us. A lot of fun. You got a little bit left there. You guys might have to finish this off before you return home. I don't think you're taking back partially emptied bottles.

We're not taking back partially emptied bottles. We're taking back a bottle of rum from the Dominican Republic.

Yeah.

And we'll leave this for all of our new friends to try. That's awesome. So what do you think about Excellence Punta Cana? I've been very impressed, never done a all-inclusive before and the service level is through the roof.

Those listeners we have who are thinking about maybe taking an all-inclusive trip, would you say coming to Punacana?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. The, uh, like Jerry said, the service has been fantastic. The people are just so warm and friendly. Um, I hadn't really thought I would ever want to do an all-inclusive and as everybody has told us, yeah, we're hooked now.

Yeah. Awesome. Ed, what do you think? Is this your jam?

Well. I've enjoyed myself, learned way too much for my little head to help with right now, but it's been interesting. I've enjoyed it. Thanks for having us.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Wendy, we loved having you here today.

Yeah. Thank you for the invite. It was very informational for me and it was nice to get to taste the differences and the different types of bourbons.

All right, Paul, thank you so much. Oh, yeah, you know, for me also, this is a brand new experience as an all inclusive resort. And this place that we're at, this excellence in Punta Cana is a wonderful place. I can't say enough about it.

We had so much fun here today. What about you, Rick? Well, it's been just a thrill to be here. Appreciate this Bourbons from Michigan. Appreciate your expertise. I've learned a few things today. I did not know. That's wonderful. But as far as the resorts are all inclusive is the way to go. I've been to Punta Cana five times. The excellence resort is the one. All right.

Carolyn. We loved having you here today. You're new to the bourbon world, but you've jumped in with both feet.

I did. I am a newbie for sure. And I would have never went to a bar and ordered a glass of bourbon in the past, but I will do so going forward. Awesome. So thank you for the samples and definitely enjoyed it. Thank you.

Well, we've had an awesome time here today. Melody, thank you so much for co-hosting today and carrying the mic around the room. We really appreciate it. You are the voice of the Roman Road podcast.

And I do want to thank Jerry and Carrie again for bringing samples from Michigan. It's been so much fun. And Rick, thank you, all of you, for taking your time out of your vacation to do a podcast with us here in Paradise.

Yeah, it's been a blast. I would say in general, we all recommend Excellence Punicana as a place to come. It's a great resort. It's a lot of fun. It's a good value. And just keep in mind that when it comes to bourbon, they're just going to have Jim Beam White Label, right? So bring a bottle with you. We love you all. Thank you so much. Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers.

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