348. Single Barrel Select Showdown

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're very excited to have Blanton's bourbon shop.com is a new sponsor for the bourbon road podcast. In fact, this podcast is brought to you by Blanton's bourbon shop. Blanton's bourbon shop.com is the only official merchandiser for Blanton's original single barrel. Looking for unique gift. Blanton's bourbon shop has got you covered. Blanton's bourbon shop.com is your home for all Blanton's gifts. You know friends, it's never too early. Start planning your trip to the Bourbon Trail for 2023. We hope you'll join the Bourbon Road crew as we pull out all the stops this year at Bourbon on the Banks. So mark your calendars for October 6th and 7th and we'll plan on seeing you in Frankfort, Kentucky. Be sure to listen in during the halftime break for all the details on Bourbon on the Banks. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon. With me today, out on the patios, Brian Hyatt. How are you doing, Brian? Doing great. We're actually at your place today.

That's right. Sitting on the back porch, may hear some people swimming behind us.

Got the birds chirping. That's right. You got the smoker going. We just had a little bit of your smoked bacon. That goes good with bourbon. It goes great with bourbon. Yeah. So today we've got a show for everybody that I've kind of been looking forward to a little bit. I think this was kind of your idea but when you when you walk into the big box liquor stores now and and for us that would be Total Wine, Liquor Barn. You know when we walk into those stores now we see this growing collection of single barrel selections and it's getting big.

In fact

They used to just be a couple on the end of the aisle. Then they would spatter them through the center walkway a little bit. Sometimes they'd put them up by the front door. And now they've got a barrel select wall that is just full of them. And I, you know, I actually thought when I was picking up today's bottles, I actually thought I'm going to count these just so I could say on the show how many there are. And I began, I got to like 30, and I said, you know what, I'm not going to do this because somewhere in the middle I lost count, I forgot where I was, and I wasn't going to go back and start again. Anyway, so yeah, you can hear the kids. Yeah, yeah. They're having a blast out there. They're waiting until two o'clock to get started. So we have three single barrel selects today, and I mean there were bottles from, I mean, every distillery imaginable. The big guys, the small guys, some we haven't heard of. But I chose to go with three well-known brands. So today we're going to have Wild Turkey's Brussels Reserve Single Barrel. Ready for that. Which is something that, yeah, I'm ready for that too. They were sold, I was going to get a Four Roses, but they were sold out of the Four Roses Single Barrel slots. They did have some single barrels there but not the ones that were selections. And then after this one we're going to have a little bit of Makers Mark. We've got a special Makers Mark there and that's their own sort of stave selection. And then we're going to end up the day with a Knob Creek barrel select. So pretty exciting show. Tasting through these. Talking about single barrels. We'll talk a little bit about the barrel picks we're doing and urban on the banks, but I think it's going to be a great show. I'm excited. All right. Well, let's get to this whiskey. So what we have in our glass right now is a Russell's Reserve Private Barrel Selection. This is a single barrel. It says nine years. But it was distilled and dumped. It was dumped on 1-12-23, so January 12th of this year it was dumped. But it was distilled and put in the barrel in April of 2013. So it's just a few months shy of 10 years old. So, nice well-aged bourbon there. This is Camp Nelson A warehouse bourbon. It was on floor four. Yeah, this is, this is a big favorite of mine. So I'm kind of looking forward to these can be all over the place. So I always love getting my hands on a Camp Nelson bottle. Oh yeah. Tyrone bottles are good too. So it doesn't matter, but they're all good. But I particularly love the Camp Nelson's. Um, so what do you say we check it out? Let's do it. All right. Oh, by the way, I didn't say the proof on this is 110 proof. They all are. And, uh, Looking forward to it. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I'm getting a bit of toffee on that, like English toffee. Kind of a nice fruity note there, a little bit of floral fruity note. I'm going to say just a tad bit of like citrus.

I mean, there's no mistaking where this came from.

Yeah.

As soon as you get your first little sniff on it there, you know exactly.

It's got that something. While turkey whiskies have that something that's identifiable, and there are a couple of whiskey brands that have that, right? I mean, if you drink whiskey, if you drink bourbon long enough, you'll start to be able to pick out you know, the distilleries keynotes just a little bit. She can get fooled sometimes, but a couple of them don't fool you. Well, Turkey's one of them and Willett's another. That's right. Very, very difficult to get fooled by Willett, right? All right. Yeah, I love the no's on this. It's kind of got that nice departure from the sweetness as you get that citrus note on it, but it's always that toffee and a little bit of a kind of a caramel honey note on it. Right. The oak is just right there. The oak is, yeah, very forward. You get that sort of rick house oak, that well-aged oak to it. I think all the young oaks gone, obviously, at this point. All that early corn sweetness has disappeared probably four years ago. Man, I'm getting like a jam, like a raisin jam or something.

Yeah, I get that. I get the raisin.

Probably a plum jam, right? Is that what it is? I don't think you'd have a raisin jam. That's kind of a weird thing.

But you know, I'm always amazed and I know we've talked about this many times that how wild turkey. People just kind of look down on it some and I feel like that's changing to a certain degree. You know, when you think about 101 and this Russell's is just it's awesome.

Yeah, you can't go wrong with it. It's always a great barrel pick to go on too. So if you ever get a chance to go on a barrel pick at Wild Turkey and go through that whole process there, it's just probably one of my favorite barrel pick experiences. You just feel like you're going back in time. Once you get in that rick house, you just feel like you're going back in time. and you know if Eddie's leading it and the last pick I was on there Eddie led the pick and you know it's just it's just they just do it right and there's no limit to the number of barrels they'll put in front of you. So this actually was a $97.99 bottle. Okay. So you know in general with barrel picks I would say you will typically see about a 10% premium on them above what a normal bottle would cost. That's just what they do. It costs them a little bit more to do it, a little bit more to deal with it. And plus, it's kind of a unique thing. It's a premium item, and they're going to charge a premium price for it. So you're going to pay a little bit more. So this was just shy of $100. Um, I have bought these bottles anywhere between 60 and a hundred, depending on where you get them at. Always happy. Always happy when I get one. I'm ready to taste it. What about you? Cheers. Cheers. Oh my goodness, that is so good. We can just stop now. Actually, that's not fair to Makers and Knob Creek. Wow. Man, that is so good. That is so good. This has a little bit more kind of the back end bite on it. Yep. Obviously this is a higher ripe bourbon. The bite on the back end is a little bit strong on it. It's got a little bit of fire.

A little bit drying on the back too. What do you think? I think so. I wonder what our bacon did to us before we started this. Have you taken us down a little bit of a different path? I didn't even think about it. Why don't you tell everybody what you did to your bacon? So I bought some smoked bacon and just dropped a little brown sugar on it and a very small amount of my barbecue rub that I make.

Okay. Then you smoked it at what?

Around 275. Okay. And how long does it take to make that? It depends on where I put it on the smoker, but I can speed it up and have it done in about 15-20 minutes, but sometimes I like to put it as far away from the heat as I can and let it take a little while to get done. That was kind of a thick slice bacon too. It is, yeah.

Very thick. Yeah, so the smoke's getting all the way through it. Plus it was already a smoked bacon. That's right. Wow. That was really good. I would imagine it definitely affected our palate. Russell's, I don't know, I'm not talking so much about the sweetness of it, am I?

That's right. You know, there's definitely brown sugar in there, but you also had a hint of cayenne pepper, so a little heat that may bring the heat up on our palate when we're tasting through this. All right, well I'm going to hit it for a second sip and give it a fair shot here.

Very viscous, not super sweet up front. It could still be a little bit of that bacon playing on me, but I'm definitely getting the citrus and the toffees there on the palate as well. I smelled it. It was very prevalent on the nose. It's not very prevalent on the palate for me. You know, the caramel vanilla notes here are not like prominent notes for me. It's more the sort of that fruitiness that I get, that aromatic fruit. I'm going to say, you know, fig or plum or something more dark like that.

Oh yeah. That's, that's exactly where I was going to go. And as soon as you said the, the, the raisin or the plum, uh, a minute ago on the nose, I feel like that's what I'm getting at that psychological things got me now where I heard it. So that's what I'm.

That's what I'm getting. It's kind of funny when you sip on it, though. I take a sip of it and I get that. I get that initial lack of sweetness, but I get that nice wash of that. That. You know, that aromatic plum and fig or whatever it is, and then it kind of departs and I and out comes the citrusy a little bit on the back end, so. I love it. It's got a pretty tag on long finish. It sticks around for a very long time. It's not dripping down the sides and causing my glands to salivate like some whiskeys do. But it is treating the back of my palate to a nice finish. And it's a little bit of cinnamon, a little bit of black pepper. I get a little cinnamon, for sure.

I'll say I feel like this was a great pick. And it's your money on this one, not mine. I think it's money well spent.

Well, we can thank our sponsors. That's right. Blanton's Bourbon Shop for funding this episode. Thank you, Blanton's Bourbon Shop, but your money is well spent. Yes, yes. So yeah, so we've picked up these three bottles. You know, a lot of times we get bottles sent to us. A lot of times we're gifted bottles and we're able to review them. And sometimes we have this plan in mind for a show we want to do and we just have to go buy the bottles. That's right. Well, these are three bottles that I'm glad to put the money down for. They are getting more and more expensive every year, though. When's the last time you bought a bottle of this Russell's Reserve Single Barrel?

Wow. I mean, it hasn't been in 2023, I bet. I bet it was the earlier part of last year. Yeah. And I couldn't tell you what I paid for it then, but I've only got a couple bottles of it, so yeah, it had to be last year early.

So have you been to the distillery lately? I think you did go down there to meet Bo not too long ago, right?

Yeah, yeah. I actually had a meeting with a client and I had one of my employees with me and I said, let's just take a turn off here and go down and see if Bo's working. And of course he was. He was there and we talked for a little while and hung out and all that good stuff. It was right after all the big wind storms that came through Kentucky. But it's always so fun just to go there. The history, you know, my family is from Anderson County, Lawrenceburg, and I love being in that area, regardless of what I'm doing. But Wild Turkey is a special place.

Yeah, it is a very special place. Now, they were still in the temporary shop, right? down off the parking lot there. Yep. Yeah. Yep. So that I guess years ago that that gift shop that used to be the gift shop many many years ago I guess and then of course they moved to the gift shop up at the main distillery and then Now that's under construction again. Right. Renovation, I should say. And they've had to move back down to that little original shop, which is very quaint though.

It is. They had just finished the new porch and everything there, so everything was somewhat updated when you walked up to it. And it is very quaint. Very cool.

Yeah, I like it a lot. All right. Any final thoughts on this one before we move on? We're getting a little bit of breeze here and you know, the kids are playing in the pool in the backyard behind us. We've got the leaves rustling, the birds are in the trees. It's an absolute gorgeous afternoon.

It's beautiful.

And Brian, you live kind of in East Louisville. I do. About halfway between where I live out in Simpsonville and downtown Louisville. So how long does it take you to get down to Whiskey Row?

Oh, well, That's different for me because I take River Road regardless. I never jump on the interstate or 71 or anything. So it takes me a little bit longer, you know, 20, 25 minutes. Okay. Depending on what day it is, but in the interstates, not much faster 15 to 20, right? Right. Yeah. I just like that. That nice, comfortable ride. You know, I have to do it every day for work anyway, but it's a, it's relaxing to have the water over to your side and just Take your time. 35, 45 miles an hour most time.

So, you know, I'm sitting here just analyzing this finish on this whiskey and I do have one final note. Do you remember the Candy Good and Plenty? Kind of a hard candy coated licorice, right? I kind of just got that on that back end on that finish. Just a little bit of that Good and Plenty. Good and Plenty had Two colors, didn't it? It did. What were they? Pink and white or? They were. I believe it was pink and white. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I don't know if the two flavors had any difference between them, but that definitely got that little bit of a licorice pop on the back end on that finish just sitting there.

I always love your candy references because I have a sweet tooth and I eat way too much candy. And so every time you say one, I'm like, yeah.

So is your glass empty yet? It's close. It's close. Very, very close. So I'm going back to nose the empty glass. And this is always a real treat. When your glass is empty, you go back and nose it, because you're going to get so much more of the aroma when you do that.

You know, after a long day, and let's say I have a bourbon on the weekend at 3, 4, 5 o'clock in the afternoon, I'll set my glass to the side. I won't wash it and I'll give it another nose for our go to bed. Just it's amazing. It's amazing. Absolutely. All right, Brian. So what's in our next class? So, Jim, we have a maker's mark private selection. This is the fireside spice. So these are finished in 10 selected oak staves.

That's kind of what Makers does, right? Right. They've got the stave bill or whatever you want to call it where you can put up to 10 staves and you can mix and match them. You can do all the same one or you can mix different ones. Yeah. So this is a total wine pick. So the total wine people put this one together. What's the combination?

So we have two baked American Pure. We've got a roasted French I'm going to use my Kentucky accent on this one. Mendeon. Mendeon. Mendeon. Yes. And then there is toasted French spice. So the way that they have it is two baked pure American pure and then the four roasted French Mendeon and the four toasted French spice. So there's a lot of French oak in this one. That's right. Awesome. so you know just to let everybody know the other two options that they would have had to include in this barrel would have been the the Seared French and then the the Makers Mark 46. Got it. All right so we're sitting at 108.4 and this looks like it was dumped July 2022.

Okay, so the last bourbon we had was the Russell's Reserve and Russell's uses the wild turkey mashbill that is, well they call it a high rye mashbill, but it's around 12 percent. This is a weeded bourbon, so any spice we get out of this one is going to be coming out of the barrel. That's right. I'm a big weeded fan. I know you are. You like the sweeter whiskeys. I do. I expect this one to be a damn sight sweeter than the last one we had because it seemed more absent of sweetness. That's right. Maybe we blamed that a little bit on your bacon. I don't know. But you know that that that's a pretty daggone impressive whiskey we just had. So I'm looking forward to this one.

Now this one is named fireside spice.

Okay. So we'll see. All right. Cheers. Cheers.

Wow.

The nose on that is a little bit of like a little bit of maple. Definitely maple. I mean, there's no doubt it's sweeter. Yeah, a lot sweeter, but I'm getting a little sizzle on my nose.

A little bit of that ethanol burn, right? That's where the fireside comes in.

Yeah. I'm not getting kind of this, the real smoky part of it. And that's kind of what I expected when you said fireside, there'd be a little bit of smoke there. I mean, I am getting some, some charred barrel aspect from it, but. I just get this super sweet caramel cinnamon.

So the toasted French spices is probably playing into this quite a bit. And there were four of those.

There were four. OK, so almost half the the stave bill on this is is. Yeah, the spicy French oak. All right. Well, cheers. Cheers. Oh my goodness. Now that one is very, very sweet. Syrupy. Very viscous. Wow. Yeah. That's really nice.

Very good. Yeah. I mean, there's the, I agree, you know, going back second time for the, Get a little another nose on this. More ethanol for sure.

Yeah, definitely a little bit more ethanol. And, you know, this is very silky, very silky. So they've really kind of the viscosity is kind of high on this one. The legs on the glass are very like slow moving. But, you know, it kind of you know when you take a nose on it you kind of expect there's going to be a little bit there's going to be a wash of sweetness on this one but when it first hits the front of your tongue it's like oh yeah definitely a sweet bourbon but it's got a nice balance because it does that that that spice on the back is just sort of leveling everything out i mean there is there's definitely more spice than i expected you know it's in the name but i just didn't think it was going to be as much as it is so You know, it's kind of funny because I'm getting a little bit of like a, like a red man tobacco note on the back end of it. So the sweet chewing tobacco, right? Oh yeah. Does have a good amount of spice on it for a weeded whiskey. This is a very spicy whiskey. I'm not picking up any citrus to speak of getting, getting a little bit of those, that almondy nutty note.

I agree with that. There's not a whole lot of citrus, if any, that comes out for me.

I think we just had a belly flop behind us. Sounded like it. Yep. The finish on this is just kind of medium. It's a good, pleasant finish, so I really like it. But it's not sticking around. I keep having to pull my glass up and take another sip. that Russell's kind of just lingered and lingered and lingered and then changed. It was like, Oh wow.

I mean, I really liked this, you know, from the standpoint of like what you just said, I feel like I keep going back to it. And I feel like I get a little, just it changes a little bit for me, but I feel like I need to go and get a little bit more. This is one that a bottle would probably go pretty quick for me.

Yeah, we'd be in trouble though.

Oh yeah.

If we were to do out here on the porch. All right. Well, Brian, we're going to keep sipping on this during the break. We'll come back after the break and we'll still be drinking on this Makers. We may have a second pour of it. All right. And we'll talk to you when we get back. Any gift? Blanton's bourbon shop has got you covered. All of their hand-crafted wood products are made in their in-house wood shop with authentic bourbon barrels. Specializing in barrel-age potent treats, they use Blanton's barrels to age their own maple syrup, honey, and coffee. Find the most unique gift ideas for your golf lover, cigar connoisseur, avid coffee drinker, and Blanton's fan. Want to win an authentic Blanton's barrel head? Make sure you sign up for the giveaway on the home page of their website. Blanton'sBourbonShop.com is your home for all Blanton's gifts. As we mentioned earlier in the show, we hope you'll join us this fall on October 6th and 7th for Bourbon on the Banks. The festival itself is from 2 to 6 p.m. on October 7th and you can pick those tickets up at bourbononthebanks.org for $65. They also have an early access ticket for $75. It'll get you in an hour early and definitely get you access to some special pours. But if you always like that VIP access, this year they're bringing in the VIP access tickets. We'll give you access to their VIP tent and all the great things that go along with that for $175. Be sure to check out bourbononthebanks.org. You'll get all the details on this year's event. All right, so we're back and comfortably sitting on your patio. Oh. Still, you just filled up a little bit more of the makers in your class. I did. Got the sounds of summer behind us. The kids in the pool. Ah, listeners, I hope it doesn't bother you, but that is the sound of summer. That is. And you know, sometimes when you sit on your patio, you're not lucky enough to have total silence.

No, it was silent.

all day until we started. That's all right. That's kind of what it's all about, right? We're out under a couple of big shade trees. It's very cool out today. I think the temperature is in the mid 70s. It is. But we're in the shade, so it's probably closer to 70 here.

You know, I thought about going to the pool today and then I said, it is end of May. It has not been hot. I don't think I even want to stick my toe in the cold water.

That's the problem here. It may be warm enough to sit by the pool, but it's not warm enough to get into it yet.

Unless you have a heated pool. That changes things. Melody's at the pool today, so I'm sure they're just laying out drinking something really good. Pool drinks are good.

All right, so final thoughts on this maker's I think the finish on it, I'm not gonna say it's disappointing. I guess I was hoping, maybe that's what happens when you have a bourbon with a very lengthy, enjoyable finish and you follow it with a bourbon that has a very enjoyable finish as well, but it's not as short. It's just shorter. Yeah. But I think I like the nose on this one better. And you probably enjoy the palette because it's so sweet and fiscous.

I do. But I think the nose, The nose stands out the most to me on this one, more than the pallet to finish anything else. The nose is very, very pleasant.

Well, this is a winner. I would take it. I would take the maker's barrel select from just about any stave combination I've ever had has been pretty darn good. I think they designed that in such a way that no matter what direction you go with it, it's going to be good. It's just going to taste different. That's right. I love the variety you get out of them. They had two of them there I could have chosen from. One was a little bit more on the sweeter side. One was more on the spicy side. So I grabbed the spicier one.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right. I want to go back for the nose at the end here. Yeah, I just love the texture of that bourbon. That is a very, very good, nice, silky, smooth example of what a non-chill filtered barrel strength bourbon is supposed to taste like. I shouldn't say taste though, right? I should say what it should feel like on your palate. That's right. The texture. Awesome, we need to get down there again. It's been a while since we were at Makers. All right, so next on our list. Next on our list, we have a Knob Creek. And I have to say that it's been a minute since we've had Knob Creek on the show. I think the last time that we had a Knob Creek on the show would have been about a year ago. I wonder if we even had it when Freddie came on, I think. I think not. I don't think we had a Knob Creek when he was on the show last, but nevertheless Knob Creek has made many appearances on the Bourbon Road podcast. This again is another Total Wine Pick. This is Single Barrel Selected Bourbon 120 Proof from Knob Creek. This bourbon was barreled on October 1st of 2013, and it was selected in January of 2023. So both of those were January selections. The Russell's was a January selection, so was the Knob Creek. So this one is about nine and a half years old.

120 proof.

Knob Creek is always a wonderful example of a very well-aged oaky bourbon. So I'm kind of looking forward to this.

Let's check it out. Let's see how this nose goes after the last one.

Yeah. It will be different. Very different. Very different. Yeah. So this one is more subtle, less sweetness, more oak char, more kind of burnt marshmallow. I agree, I agree.

Burnt marshmallows.

But I am getting like a cinnamon, almost like a. Almost like a red hot. Like a cinnamon red hot. Yeah. Yeah. Like an atomic fireball. Atomic fireball.

That's better than a red hot. Yeah.

But this is all the nose, we haven't touched it to our tongue yet, so cheers. We can tell we're moving up a couple notches here in Peru. Yeah, this is the biggest proof yet. Oh, by the way, the price on this one, this is the Knob Creek 120 proof single barrel select, $62.99. So at $63, this is the lowest cost bourbon that we're drinking today. All right. At the highest proof. Cheers. Cheers. very, very oak forward, very much, much burnt marshmallows. Creme brulee a little bit. It just doesn't punch like I thought it was going to punch moving up to 120. Yeah, it doesn't have that high, high proof punch. You're exactly right. It does have the oaky notes and it does kind of have the spice to go with it, but Not the alcohol punch. But that's a good thing, right?

Oh, it's good. Very good. For 120 proof, it's a pretty, pretty easy drink.

This is more leathery. This is definitely more leathery than anything we've had yet. This is booker-esque. It is. Yeah, yeah. That definitely reminds me of a Booker's. Well, it should remind me of a Booker's, but this definitely brings Booker's to mind. I'll say this has been my favorite nose out of the three so far.

Has it?

Yeah, it's just got that kind of deep charred oak nose to it. A little bit of campfire smoke, but just kind of burnt sugar. That's why I said creme brulee, that's why I said burnt marshmallow. I'm not getting the chocolate notes with it, are you? I don't pick up chocolate. But I'm definitely getting kind of a leather.

I think the burnt sugar really, that's probably why I like it so much.

It can be a little drying, I don't know, a little bit of pucker on the back end from the tannins. But I think it's appropriate for this amount of wood effect to get those tannins along with it, so that's alright. I don't get the wonderful silkiness that I got from the makers. It is. It does have a good thickness to it, but it doesn't have that silky smooth. It is a little more drying for me. I think drying is, I think that's accurate. Oh, the wind is blowing. It's actually a breezy. This is a perfect porch day. It is. I've been looking forward to it. I just hope these noises we're getting in the background from the wind and from the birds and from the kids playing in the pool. I hope it's not off-putting to people as they're listening to this. I hope they enjoy the sounds of summer of this episode.

Well, you know, we talked a little bit about some summer bourbons the other day, didn't we? Yeah. So I think we're definitely moving rapidly towards that. I think we need to... Grilling out, watermelon, all the good stuff that comes along with it.

I think we need to pick out some refreshing summer bourbons that... Or rice. That we recommend for the hot days of summer.

I agree. So I'll tell you, typically when I go to the pool, the bartender there, we've known each other for a while and we hang out. We have a good time. Yeah. And sometimes Leslie says, you need to quit hanging out at the bar. Come over and hang out with us a little bit. But I have a good time conversating with everybody over there. And they don't have a great selection. My summer bourbon has just been Maker's Mark because it's such a limited selection that we get to choose from and he has nice healthy pores. Well there you go.

You can't go wrong with just a standard Maker's Mark. It's good stuff. That's right. I have to say though I definitely approve of Maker's 46 over that and then this particular one is just really good. Very good. I think the best thing that Makers ever did, and I know we're drinking Knob Creek right now, so we shouldn't talk too much about Makers, but that finish is just still sticking with me. Not really, but the idea of that finish is still sticking with me. The best thing they ever did was the Makers 46 in my opinion.

I agree. I can remember back when they came out with the cask strength the very first time. They had the smaller bottle. But the first time I had 46, I was in North Carolina visiting a friend. I said, hey, try this. I took a bottle of Pappy and some other things with me. And he said, give this a shot. It's like, wow, it's really good.

Yeah, the Makers 46 Cast Strength is something altogether. Oh, goodness. Yeah, it's really good. All right. So let's let's quit talking about Makers. We're drinking Nile Creek. This is some good stuff. And you know what? Today it's today's value pour at sixty two dollars, sixty two ninety nine. So let's go back over these prices again, just so everybody knows. So the the first thing we drank today was the Russell's Reserve Single Barrel Select. And that was a total wine pick at $97.99. And then second up was the Makers Mark Fireside Spice Barrel Select, which was $85.99. And now we're drinking the Knob Creek 120 Proof Single Barrel Select. all three total wine picks. This one's at 62.99. So you're always gonna pay, we talked about this earlier, you're always gonna pay a little bit more for barrel pick bottles. They just cost more, that's just the way it works. But you get that little something different that's not on the shelf and it's always a nice surprise when you get it. I kind of get excited when I get a barrel pick bottle that I haven't opened yet.

And like you said, there's so many more of them. I can remember getting excited anytime I would just see one normally out. And now they're everywhere, but I can think back 10 years ago or so and walk in and you see one and you get really excited and you're like, oh, I gotta have that. But I think it's always interesting. When Tyler's been on the show, he's had some that he's brought us and You just never know what you're going to get. It could be a very high profile bourbon that everybody wants, and it's something that you feel like you've got to have, and there can be a barrel pick, and it can be a little bit disappointing. I wanted it not to harp on blends, but it's such a wide range of what you get. But I'll say this Knob Creek, for the price point, it's kind of a no-brainer. This is one that if you can get it, you should get it. Yeah.

So if you go to a local liquor store, and I'm sure you have yours. I have mine out in Simpsonville. That's all I have. I don't have any big boxes out there. So you're usually going to walk into the store and find one or two picks on the shelf. That's about all you're going to see at a small place. You go into Total Wine, or you go into Westport Whiskey and Wine. Well, Westport Whiskey and Wine is kind of the example of an exception. That's exactly where I go to get my barrel picks, is I go over there.

And they always do really good. I mean, we had 291 on back November or December, and it was fantastic.

Yeah, really good. They kind of got into the barrel pick thing Chris Zabroski, who's no longer there, but he was a madman. He picked amazing barrels. And there were always probably 30 picks in the store there. So you could always find something. So he was way ahead of his time. People are starting to pick up on this. Certainly the big boxes are. And my goodness, if you come to Louisville, I would say three places to go to find single barrels. Well, obviously the distilleries are going to have them. But if you want to go to a big box store, definitely Total Wine or Liquor Barn. And then if you want to go to a smaller shop that has a great single barrel selection, definitely Westport Whiskey and Wine is at the top of that list.

I mean, it's been, they've done a fantastic job for, since I moved up here, you know, 15, 16 years ago. Yeah.

It's a great place. Not far from here.

How far is it for you to get down there and get a bottle? It's five minutes. Five minutes. Yeah. Leslie doesn't like when I drive in that direction. We've recorded a couple of episodes there.

We did have Chris on the show one time. OK. But yeah, that was that's a great place. And yeah, it's about time I go back and visit there again. All right, Brian. So we're kind of at the end of things here. We've got this Knob Creek and, you know, what do you think of the finish on this one?

You know, I really do like it. I feel like we've had a very nice selection here with all three. And I like everything that they've presented in their own different ways. And honestly didn't think that I would like the nose on this one better than the Makers, but I do. I like this nose better than everything else, but the finish, it's pleasing. Definitely I feel like a little bit longer. It's definitely longer than the last one, right? It sticks around. I don't know if it competes with the Russells. That was super long. Oh, it's fantastic. But yeah, I would say this was my favorite nose, the pallet. Probably goes to Makers for me.

and then overall overall yeah and i would say the the finish probably rustles yeah so if you had to pick one what's your pick for today well you know and consider price because we've got you know a 97 dollar bottle an 85 dollar bottle a 62 dollar bottle that's exactly where i was going to go you know if you're looking for the the best value i mean that knob creek but

I would probably lean towards the Knob Creek anyway. When I'm lining up and I'm looking at what I'm gonna purchase, I do always look at price point. I do take that into consideration. It's a big part of how I choose what I'm gonna get. And sometimes I'm happy, sometimes I'm not. But yeah, I think I would go Knob Creek, just price point and everything else considered What about you?

Well, for me, I'm just a I'm just a nut for Wild Turkey products. I just love them. They always hit that sweet spot for me. And so I'm probably going to lean towards the Russia single barrel, even though it's the most pricey one. This will last a very long time for me because I'll visit it every now and then and have a little pour. If I'm having somebody over and they want to try something special, I'll pour it for them. I think it's something that'll be around. This particular bottle will be around a while. We'll bring it to bourbon on the banks if I've got any left in it. I'm gonna go with that one. The Makers was amazing texture. I loved the nose on it. The Knob Creek was bold and, I'm not gonna say smoky, bold and oaky. And it did have a kind of a medium finish on it. I liked it a lot too. They all had their thing, but for me, I'm gonna pick Russell's Reserve Single Barrel. And just so everybody knows, these three bottles, when you add them all up, we're looking at about, with tax, about 260 bucks. So if you're gonna go pick out three good solid single barrels off the shelf, expect to spend somewhere around 250 bucks. Put them on your bar. But you won't be sorry. These aren't ones you're gonna sit down and make disappear on your porch one night. These are the ones you're gonna sip over time and enjoy. Like I said earlier in the show, Brian, I've really been looking forward to this episode because I'm a single barrel select nut. I mean, I just love them. And we've got some barrel picks that we're going to have in our booth at Bourbon on the Banks. I'm excited about those. We need to get back over there and we need to pick these barrels with Lawrenceburg Bourbon Company. Greg has been so kind. He's going to join us in our booth at Bourbon on the Banks. And we're going to have, I think we're going to have a rye and a bourbon pick there. So we're picking the bourbon. He's picking the rye, but he knows what he's doing with those ryes. He does. His ryes are fantastic. You know, I took that rye, that rye barrel pick home with me from him and I hate to say it. I'm kind of also embarrassed to say that it didn't last a week. That's terrible. But it was really, really good.

He's got some great whiskey in there also. He's doing it right. There's no question about it.

Absolutely. Well, the winds are picking up. The kids are quieting down. The birds are gone. but we're getting ready to eat some barbecue. That's right. I can smell the ribs. All right. Well, it's been a blast.

Where can people find us on social media, Brian? Well, you can find us everywhere. We're on Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and Facebook, and we have our own private Members group on Facebook with the bourbon roadies and it's a smaller group, Jim.

Yeah, it's a smaller group, but we keep it that way. That's right. Because we trim and prune just like a fine shrub. We make sure that we don't let spammers accumulate. We don't let bottle sellers accumulate. They do get in every now and then. but we do our best to keep control of that. So we keep it a small group, but a very friendly group and a great group of people that love to drink whiskey, share their bottles, share their stories of what they're drinking, share their pictures, just have a good time. We hope you'll check out the Bourbon Roadies on Facebook. That's our private group. But like Brian said, you know, we're on Twitter and YouTube and Instagram and TikTok. We're putting stuff out on all the social media. It's at the Bourbon Road. We hope you'll check us out. We're doing an episode every single week on Wednesdays. We'll have a good topic. Like today I think was a really good topic, Brian. It's one that we've been looking forward to doing again. Sometimes we'll have a guest on. Sometimes we'll be in an event or wrap up an event like we did last week. It's always fun. It's always informative. We hope you'll join us every single week. And Brian, what do they have to do to make sure they don't miss a single episode?

Yeah, so you can go to Spotify, Apple, Google, anywhere that has a podcast, and you're just going to click that subscribe button, and each time we release an episode, you're going to get notified.

And with that notification, you get that bell notification, you get that text, that whatever comes to you, it lets you know that, hey, it's time to listen to The Bourbon Road again. You won't miss a single episode. We do love to hear from our listeners, so make sure you reach out to us. You can go to our website, thebourbonroad.com. We've got a Contact Us page on there where you can fill it out. If you've got an idea for a show, if you've got a distiller in your hometown that's doing it right, if you've got a whiskey you've tasted and you want to let us know your opinion on it, we'd love to hear it. You can also find our swag on there, our t-shirts, hats, and carrying glasses. All the good stuff is on there. It helps get us down the Bourbon Road. We have our new Bourbonista shirts that we're very excited about. Yeah, so the ladies are definitely wearing their Bourbonista shirts everywhere. You've probably already seen them on social media. A lot of our listeners are posting them and definitely check it out for the ladies. You can always reach out to Brian and I on email. We're at team at the bourbonroad.com. Love to hear from our listeners. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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