429. The Jimmy Beam Episode

Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon. And I'm your host, Todd Ritter.

We've got a great show for you today. So grab your favorite pour and join us.

Todd and I are proud to have Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars as a sponsor of this episode and as the official cigar of the Bourbon Road Podcast. Our hosts and listeners alike enjoy the ultimate experience of premium cigars. Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Find out more during the halftime break and at Smokey's Lifestyle Cigar dot com. The Surgeon General warns that cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease and is not a safe alternative to cigarettes. The Hill House Bed and Breakfast, located in Loretto, Kentucky, is ready to be your bourbon country home away from home. Located less than three miles from Maker's Mark, the Hill House is convenient to Bardstown and the rest of the Bourbon Trail. The next time you visit bourbon country, choose comfort and convenience. Choose the Hill House Bed and Breakfast. Listen in at the break for more details or visit their website at thehillhousekentucky.com. All right, Rodie, so welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. We are in the corner Rick house today. There's three of us here today. Todd, what do you think? Yeah, special guest. Special guest.

Been a minute.

Now, Amzie, you've been here a few times.

I have. Always, always great to be here with you guys.

I don't think we keep counting you anymore. I think it's just been just long enough where you're probably due to bring us in on the second half. What do you think, Todd? That sounds good. That sounds good. Yeah, I think we'll do that.

Yeah, I'm starting to run out of fingers at this point to count.

Well, we've got a great show for you today. Todd, as always, has orchestrated a fantastic episode with some really great whiskeys. And the three of us are going to go through some tastings. And we've got kind of a theme, Todd? Kind of, yeah.

A tie-in to a couple bottles and then, yeah, the other couple bottles are tied in to one of those bottles.

It's kind of an interesting... I mean, you could draw a line between everything somewhat, but I think people will kind of get the ideas because we go through it.

Just a few things that are on the shelf and hopefully out there available for folks. We've got the price ranges vary, the proofs vary as always.

All right. Well, I'm really looking forward to this. This bottle that I brought was actually a gifted to me by Todd. So Todd, thank you very much. You're very welcome. I actually had one of these on order and waited and waited and waited and waited and toss. Todd saw my pain and found one for me. So I was able to cancel my online order, and we're going to have the 70th anniversary Jimmy Russell bottle from Wild Turkey. Wild Turkey, yeah. So I know this has been out a little bit.

Yeah, it's been out a little while, but there's still maybe a few out there. And then, I mean, you might get lucky if you're here and down and I know they're still dropping some at Wild Turkey's gift shop and things.

Yeah. And there's, there's a pretty good production scale on this one. So, you know, prior issues like diamond and, and, you know, things like that were kind of limited to five, five to 10,000 bottles, I think. And I think with this 70th, we're up in the hundred thousand range. So putting together just a few extra bottles for people.

Right. I think the word is actually there's going to be a continuous eight year is

Yeah.

What I've heard out there in the rumor mill, you know.

So we have heard and all Wild Turkey fans holler, yeah, man. Yeah. They've been sitting across the seas for years, so keep some in house. Well, that is what's in our first glass. It's the Wild Turkey 101 Jimmy's 70th anniversary release. It's an eight year whiskey, but I've been told. or I've seen that there are eight, nine-year-old barrels, which is something that Jimmy truly loves, right? He likes that 101 proof wild turkey whiskey. He likes it in the eight, nine-year format, preferably. And he likes it from the Tyrone warehouses, A through D. So, you know, there's probably not any Camp Nelson stuff in there. I guess there could be, but I would say probably not since he's kind of a Tyrone guy, right? He likes to keep it in house.

That's on their side of the river. Those Camp Nelsons are over in another county.

So I'm really looking forward to this because I am a Wild Tricky 101 lover and I haven't had this one yet. So Todd, thank you and cheers fellas. Cheers. There's a great nose on it. Yeah.

A lot of vanilla, bright cherries.

Getting like baked apple pie. Yeah. Really kind of sweet. Yeah. It's got a really sweet nose. Yeah. A little caramel on there. Great nose. Appropriate. Definitely Turkey. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that is so good. Nice sweetness. It's hard to argue that. Jimmy might rewrite about an eight, nine year. Yeah, really good. You kind of get it all at once. You get the sweetness, you get the spiciness, you get the oakiness, you get the sort of that Rick House flavor, aroma mixing between your nose and your tasting.

Oh man, that's good.

Definitely has caramel and spades. I don't know, I don't know if it's Werther's or not, but it's very, like a soft, chewy caramel kind of.

Was that Werther's or the soft ones, right? No, those are the hard ones. The hard ones.

Which ones are the soft ones? They have the caramels too, the soft ones. Do they? Everybody, yeah, you know, if you're going to do hard candy, you can have a soft one too.

I kind of like the soft ones myself, but...

I mean, Brock's is obviously... other ones you think about as the chewy caramels. But yeah, well done. I mean, 70 years. I'm hoping I even live that long. So to be in the distilling business for 70 years, that's a hats off thing.

These bottles retail around $75 to $79. I think it's $79. I can't remember. I did place my order off the Wild Turkey website, but I thought it was in the 70s and then, of course, you got to add the shipping and all that stuff.

I think that sounds about right.

I've heard that in places that it's a little harder to get the secondary prices on these have gone upwards of $200 because people just had to have it. I think there's enough bottles out there. It shouldn't happen.

Yeah. And it's, I think it's come back down to earth a little bit. Maybe it seems like maybe 30 or 40 over MSRP.

So, you know, I think if you just keep your eyes open, you'll, you'll see it. It'll, it'll pop up or if you get a chance to go to the distillery, they're dropping bottles there from time to time. Right.

Yeah, yeah. That's what I've heard. As far as I know, they're still dropping them. I think the really cool thing about this is like, you know, it's cut to 101, but it's still got a really nice viscosity to it.

I mean, it's great mouth feel. Now you wonder, I mean, I haven't heard any like secrets on this or anything, but do you think they stuck strictly with eight, nine-year-old barrels to truly honor Jimmy? Do you think they might have snuck a few?

I mean, there's always probably a few outliers, you know, 10 or 11 or something maybe, but no.

A little something to add because it's got a little bit of a nice like extra aged oak bite on it. It's chewy. I love it. Yeah, it's really complex. Yeah, it's complex. The finishes has a lingering sweetness. Yep. And that's interesting.

Just a little spice on the back of the tongue too that kind of lingers.

Well, this is a really good bottle. So the word on the street is what? That maybe the eight-year might become more of a... That's the word, yeah. Yeah.

That they'll start dropping some sort of eight-year bottle here in the States. For years, they've been sending an eight-year over as an export and even 12.

I think the domestic label popped up on the TTB website. Okay. Yeah, I saw some pictures of it.

Yay.

I know. It's exciting.

Well, it's not that much different than what's already out, right? Because it's six to eight year, right? So we're getting a guaranteed date. So it's probably more like eight and nine years or like this probably, but I'm sure this was carefully crafted for this special, special release.

Be interested in know like, obviously these are really good barrels, but I know I've had friends go do barrel picks at Russell's and, or excuse me, at wild Turkey. And they had hopes of getting Russell's, but like at barrel proof, they were lower than the one 110, which Russell's has to be. So they ended up getting them as just like the new single barrel 101s. Right. Yeah. So be curious to know if like how many of these barrels in this, you know, very large batch were under that 110 cusp, but still so good that they kind of all maybe gone into this or something. Cause you know, eight and nine is that sweet spot nowadays for most of your single barrel pick, Russell's.

Isn't that their excuse on why they raised a barrel entry proof a few years ago? Cause they were having trouble sometimes finding barrels for Russell's. I believe so. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's happened to a number of groups that go down to pick a barrel and they're hoping for a, but when the time comes, you know, you end up with something altogether different because they can't meet the minimum requirement on it. So it's kind of disappointing.

It's still good whiskey. I was going to say it's still Turkey. It's still good whiskey. It's still a winner. But not what you went for, right? Right. Right. But they got rid of the Kentucky Spirits and now it's just kind of says like a single barrel 101 pick, but it kind of has that rare breed bottle shape look to it these days. So if you see something like that, check them out. I mean, I know I've had some friends that have done some of those picks and turned out really well.

Well, fantastic. You guys just did a pick over there. We did. Yeah?

Well, we did it a while back. It finally just got delivered after.

So what's the turnaround now for a wild turkey barrel to get from barrel pick to in your hands?

Yeah, well, I don't know if you should ask us, because ours took some time. There were some people there before us that morning. They got theirs two months before we did.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Yeah, there was some kind of a mix up between the distributor, I believe, and Wild Turkey. Got it. So ours sat at Wild Turkey for some time.

Okay, so probably more like three months is typical. You guys waited almost six, didn't you?

Yeah, I think ours was bottled on August 20th of last year. Yeah.

So it's kind of a shame. I wish I had to hung on to it in the barrel for like another month. And I think it would have been a 10 year.

Yeah.

Although I have no complaints. I think we have a, it's a really fun, unique barrel.

Yeah. I think it's something like nine years, 10 and a half months maybe.

It's close enough for nine plus.

Yeah.

But it was a Camp Nelson F and yeah, I love it. I was so excited to get that in. Fantastic. Well, I love this. This is really great. Yeah, this is delicious.

And if this is something we can look forward to getting close to on a normal release, I'd be pretty excited.

I was going to say, I'm all about, you know, do a 71st anniversary, do a 72nd. Just keep on going if you're going to drop that.

Well, they're going to have to do a 75th if he's still in the game. In the game. I imagine he will be. He's still showing up for work, right?

Still shows up, signs bottles. Actually, the last time I saw him in person, he was actually at one of our little restaurants here. that I think he went to a lot. And sadly, it closed because Buffalo Trace bought it, oddly enough. It's Jim's Seafood here, which is, if folks are familiar about coming into Frankfurt and doing a Buffalo Trace tour, it is literally like, I don't know, maybe 500 yards from Buffalo Trace. So he was there. I almost bought his dinner, but I knew he'd probably say something. I don't know. Yeah.

You know, the funny thing is the day we did our barrel pick over there, he and Jereta drove down. Remember as we were coming out of the Rick house, he came up and he said, oh, I saw Frankfurt Bourbon Society was here. But then one thing he did was he actually asked us about Jim's seafood and if we had heard anything. So I'm thinking maybe that's why he drove down and not really to see us at the Frankfurt Bourbon Society. Wanted the inside scoop on what was going to happen with Jim's seafood.

All right. Well, once again, Todd, thank you for the gift. I'm going to enjoy every drop of this. Excellent. Excellent. Definitely a go get one in the $70 range. For sure. Yeah. 100% worth that price. Really good. Really good. So what do we have next on our list?

Well, I brought an old granddad, 16 year. I really wanted this when they came out with it. I have an uncle who gave me a bottle of medicinal, an old granddad a few years ago that's actually 16 years old. I have a big birthday coming up next year, 50, and I intend to open that bottle then. That's why I wanted one of these and thought about saving it. Twisted his arm. Yeah.

Well, I told Todd, I was like, realistically, I'm going to open this before then because I really want to try it.

So yeah, old granddad, Beams and Torrey released this last year, 16 years old. Other than that, don't have much information on it. Beautiful bottle. Yeah, it is. Gorgeous bottle.

Yeah, it's the squat bottle. You'll see the old granddad 114 still bottled in. I mean, it's been in that bottle for for years. I mean, that shape, I guess they, 87 or 90s.

So is that a big red 16 on the front?

You know, actually it's funny. I was looking for the 16, Jim. I didn't see that, but yeah, it's kind of in the background on the front label.

Because I remember you told me before we started recording that the age was on the back label, but I'm looking at this front label. It's like a three by two inch. Yeah. 16.

And it does actually say aged 16 years. So maybe it's time to go to the eye doctor.

Well, 16 years is nothing to bark at. That's, that's pretty awesome. That's double what we just had in the, in the wild turkey. So there's going to be, uh, some interesting notes coming off this one. I'm pretty excited to try it.

And it does say aged a minimum of 16 years.

Okay.

So there could be some 30 year old barrels in this. Yeah. Just saying. And, uh, and proof down to 100 proof.

And that's a high rye mash bill, which I can't, I know, I wouldn't say it's minimum corn. I feel like it's like 51 and then probably.

It is a 63% corn, 27% rye and 10% malted barley.

Okay. And how much rye is in a wild turkey?

12. 12, yeah.

That's what I'm saying. And wild turkey was always considered the high rye, right? Mm-hmm. I don't think they can claim that any longer, can they? I don't think so. They're just fine. They don't need to change anything. Yeah, yeah. All right, cheers, fellas. Cheers. Cheers.

Okay, the rye really pops on this.

Yeah, it really does. Like there's a minty leather. It's definitely a different pour altogether than what we just had from wild turkey.

Yeah, very, very perfumey, like laurel. Like big French vanilla.

You know, as I nose it, I'm not getting this 16 years.

No, I mean, but there's some like dark, I get like the leathery mint thing. Yeah. There's a plant out there called Corsican mint, which kind of has this like leather and mint thing when you rub it. But there's a lot of like French vanilla too.

Yeah, it's a really nice nose though. Yeah. I do like the nose on it.

Very excited about that. I almost get like some apple on the nose. Yeah. Like a, like a green apple. A bit. Yeah.

Green apple, minty green apple. It smells like it's going to be dry to me. Not super sweet.

But tannic. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. All right. Cheers. This one's cut to a hundred proof. So we'll see. Cheers.

I just had a flashback, but I don't know where to.

Was it 16 years ago? I don't know.

I just tasted this. I'm like, oh my gosh, I've had this before. It comes across the palate as a drunken green apple. A drunken green apple. I love that.

There's some spice there too. Yeah, absolutely. It is a little drying. Like it's making my, the saliva glands kick into extra. Finish is a little short maybe, but I like it. I mean, I've heard kind of like mixed reviews, but I'm not going to hate on this.

I'm trying to think what is reminding me of it. Every now and then I'll get a note and it'll be like, boom, but I can't remember.

You know, I think sometimes like the nose on this was so impressive that on the pallet, it's got a lot to live up to. And maybe that's where some disappointment comes with people, but I think it's great.

It's a little nutty.

It's almost got like a bitterness, a walnut, green walnut bitterness to it. Wow. Yeah, that's a good call. I can see that. Which is interesting because, you know, those Claremont or the The series of the Frankfurt, the Claremont, and the Boston were all kind of in that range. But that was our lower Brie mash bills. And those came out really nice. Now, this is bottled here in Frankfurt, right? Should be.

You know, I would think so. That's one thing that's interesting. And of course, the old Grandad plant is here in Frankfurt. It does clearly say Claremont, Kentucky on the front label. I think the only thing they're bottling

At Frankfurt is the like the whole high volume stuff. Yeah. Some high volume stuff.

Some of the, I know they have some like liqueurs and things like that.

Okay. Now they did bottle, I think they bottled the Frankfurt, that Frankfurt bottle of the, what was that series called? We tried the whole one and even tried the blend of them.

Oh, you got it. Gardens Creek campus series.

Yeah. Yeah.

So on the tour over there, sorry, Todd, I know you missed when we had to go that time. I hate to twist that knife, but I think everything that they sell in a plastic bottle is bottled over here. That's what I was thinking. So they do ship container trucks in, tankers, of unaged spirit, will fill barrels there at the old granddad plant, age them in their warehouses, and also they will then truck barrels over to what were the old crow rick houses in Millville.

Oh, that's right next door. Yeah.

I always forget those are there.

They will then bring those barrels back, dump them and bottle them at the plant over here. Now I think they may also get tankers in of age spirit to bottle over there as well. They just don't distill any product at the old granddad plant. Sadly.

Yeah. That's all right. As long as they're dealing whiskey, I'm good with it. Yeah. I forgot all about the, the, the Rick houses there on Glens Creek. Yeah. Yep.

Yeah, because it was one of theirs that burned a few years ago.

This is good whiskey. For me, it's a little dry. Not tannic, but there's no sweetness on the finish for me. No, that rye is still popping.

I'm getting a little more mint now as we go, almost like a spearmint type thing, which is really interesting. the rye of that mash bill, even though it's less, seems to be really shining at this age.

So, drunken green apple finishes as kind of a walnut.

Spearminty walnut. Spearminty walnut, yeah.

Interesting. I haven't had anything that I could say those were the notes to.

We'd like to dare to be different. And I don't know if we talked about price on it, but it's around $200. Yeah.

I mean, it's a special release. Yeah, something that old is you got to pony up some dollars. Now I go back and I nose the empty glass and it's a good nose.

It's a really nice nose.

I would say for me, the nose trumps the palate. It's really good. I would say so.

You know, I had that experience years ago with the Four Roses Al Young release. Thought I had a tremendous nose that the palate just couldn't. It was a very good bourbon, but the nose just, you know, was so much better that it kind of trumped the taste and the palate.

And I'm kind of okay with that. If I can get a really good nose on a bourbon, I'm pretty happy with that. I know taste is everything, but a good nose on a bourbon can get me excited.

Yeah, I mean, I can. I think there's been a few pours I've had where I've just, you know, it has a crazy good nose and you'll just sit there and get lost in the nose for a while.

Yeah.

So are we going to do this thing at the end of the show again today where we kind of- Give our rankings? Give our rankings?

I think we got it. It's our thing now.

It's our thing.

People expect it. We're going to throw an AMC's lap. So it'll be really interesting today, I think.

Yeah, we got three people. So- Three wacky opinions. All right. Well, this is great. So we've got two more whiskeys and maybe a bonus pour. Who knows? We haven't gotten to the bonus pour the last couple of times, have we?

We always threaten it.

Sometimes we just get caught up in the ones that were definitely on the list. All right. Alright folks, so we're going to continue sipping on this 16 year old old granddad into the half. We're going to take a short break and get our glasses filled for the second half. We'll be back with you in a few minutes. We hope you stick around. More to come. Cheers. Few things pair better together than a fine whiskey and a premium cigar. and Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Their exclusive collection is meticulously hand-rolled from aged tobacco sourced from the Dominican Republic. Revel in the artistry that only decades of experience can bring. The owner, with over 10 years of cigar mastery, curates blends that capture the essence of family tradition and innovation. Embrace the journey and indulge in a harmonious symphony of Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars, an experience truly beyond compare. Find out more at SmokeysLifestyleCigar.com. When you're traveling the Bourbon Trail, location and comfort is everything. That's why I recommend making the Hill House Bed and Breakfast your home away from home. Located in the heart of Bourbon Country, the Hill House Bed and Breakfast is less than five minutes from the Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, Kentucky, giving you easy access to the Bardstown Distilleries and all points of the Bourbon Trail. The owners, Cheryl and Jim, offer four comfortable and cozy rooms along with a gourmet hot-plated breakfast every single morning. And, when you return from a long day of fun, it's time to enjoy a bit of the Bourbon Trail nightlife. Relax on the large outdoor patio, complete with a blazing chiminea and solo stove, or curl up on the sofa and chairs, put a record on the turntable, and relax with snacks and fruit in front of the gas fireplace. An evening at the Hill House is a perfect time to raise a bourbon glass full of cheer in the company of family and friends. We know you'll enjoy your stay at the Hill House Bed and Breakfast as much as we did. Find out more at TheHillHouseKentucky.com

Well, welcome back, everyone. In the first half, we tried some amazing wild turkey, Jimmy Russell's 70th anniversary edition, and the old granddad's 16-year-old that I brought. I think Todd's got a couple bottles for us to try here in the second half.

Yeah, so the first one we're going to try is the Knob Creek Bourbon X or Times Rye. So this is kind of their, they can't call it a boo rye because well, High West was the first to coin that phrase and trademark that phrase. So they call this their bourbon and there's like a little X on the label and then rye. So this particular bottle has 30% nine year bourbon. and 70% seven-year rye, so a little heavier on the rye. Their bourbon, of course, for this is the 75, 13, 12 mash bill. And then their rye mash bill is 55 rye, 35 corn, and 10% malt. Proof on this is 113. As usual, we were pretty close. The first one, we kind of went with the 101 because it wasn't as old. I mean, it's eight years. And we were kind of a little concerned that the 16 year would I don't know, like mute the pallet for that, but- It held its own.

I mean, they're 101, 100, so it's pretty close.

So we just decided to go with the Jimmy first. So this one is 113 and this retails, I got it for like 45 bucks here at Capital Sellers. Fantastic. And I've heard fantastic things about it. All right. Well, I'm ready. Let's check it out. Now this is coming off, I mean, there's a little bit of mint, but like a little more grassier, dry note.

It's greener, it's greener, but it's fresh. It's got a kind of a freshness to it. But grass, not grassy in a bad way.

No, no, like maybe even like fresh cut.

Yeah. Almost wanted to say a little piney. Yeah. Almost maybe even like, I thought maybe some rosemary a little bit.

It was very aromatic.

Very floral.

It's got a little bit of a bite to it. I'm definitely getting the rye and a little bit of the extra ethanol on it. It's kind of, it's, it's, it's not singeing the nose hairs, but it's letting me know it's over 100%. Yeah.

And at 70% rye, I mean, it's obviously going to dominate. I can't say dominate, but it seems like that 30% bourbon is, I mean, I'm not getting that like nuttiness from a Knob Creek bourbon as much.

All right. Let's taste it. Cheers. Oh, that is very concentrated. Oh, and there's the peanut nuttiness. Good flavor.

Wow.

So this was intentional. This was not a happy accident, right? This is something they did on purpose. Some of the boot rides are accidental releases, right? Somebody opened the wrong valve or whatever it was. Yeah, I've heard that story before, yeah. Be curious to know if that was high West deal, but it's not a, I mean, you see a few out there, but there's not a whole lot of boot rides.

That's what happened while Turkey, right? The Forgiven was someone accidentally They didn't empty something out before they started filling the next vat or something like that. Yeah.

And actually I had heard that within the last year, there was another tanker of wild turkey liquid that met that same criteria that was available for purchase. So I think from time to time mistakes happen, right? Things go awry and awry.

No pun intended.

But anyway, I don't know where that ended up, but I thought it would end up maybe at Lawrenceburg, but no longer Lawrenceburg, of course. Right.

Well, have they since done intentional

bourbon rye blends at Wild Turkey to continue to do the, uh, the unforgotten was one of those master keeps where it was a rye and then they put it in rye barrel, like I guess like a double barrel rye almost.

Um, but not that I can think of Ames. This is really good. Um, it's very concentrated flavor. There's a lot going on in, um, but it's, it's aromatic. It's, um, it's got a little bit of like it, uh, it's kind of minty, but at the same time that pine forest slash grassiness, I don't know, fresh cut grass, fresh cut.

The bourbon seems to show up a little more on the palate than it does the nose. I'm getting that little bit of nuttiness, cherry. Yeah, this is good. And for 45 bucks, it's really good.

Yeah, it's got a little sizzle factor to it. I would say that, um, this is not for the faint of heart. This is not for the meek. This is for, um, for bourbon drinkers that like a little bit more extreme flavor, a little bit more something that's going to.

I wonder if it's like their way to like segue folks into like, eh, I'm not really a rye drinker. So, Hey, try this bourbon rye blend. And then they're like, Oh, hello. You know, this is really good.

And then, you know, there's a lot more, I know there's a lot more bourbon lovers than there are rye lovers. I still don't get how people cannot like rye, but that's just my thing. I appreciate it. It means they're on the shelf more. Yeah, that's true.

You know, I read an article the other day, um, and I think it was, uh, Laura Petruzzio being interviewed in this article. And one of the things she was talking about was Pennsylvania rye. Um, but you know, a lot of your distillery tours, they talk about rye being the flavoring grain. So rye whiskey has just got more flavor in it. Yeah. So I don't know why.

And rye does this crazy thing between like six and 10 years where it just sort of, it transforms into this. It goes from being this minty aromatic, like, I don't know. I don't know. There's this thing into this orange candy syrup. I heard people say like rock candy. Rock candy. I mean, it just makes this transition. It happens. I think in years, fairly rapidly in a couple of years. Wow. It can get really good. And then. rise in excess of 10 and 12 years. Once they go into the teens, they can just become amazing.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just unreal. So can bourbons that don't get me wrong, but rises. They, they, they're like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They kind of just change.

And they also, and they also come to age quicker. Yeah, obviously. So, you know, you can drink it to your rye and go, wow, that's good. For some distilleries. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think we're all thinking like the reason you say that, like hard truth. Hard truth. I don't know.

They got a two-year-old tastes like a five-year-old.

Yeah. I still think somehow Brian sold his soul to the devil to make that good of a ride or something, because it's amazing.

But I'm really impressed with this. Their bourbons are great too. How much, how old are they? Like what kind of age do they have on those?

Close to five, I know they waited until four to drop those out.

Yeah, I'm ready for another trip up. So I do like that distillery. I like going up there. They're great people. They've got a great tour, fantastic tour. How do we get off track here?

We're good at that. Anyway. A great venue, yes.

Well, I'm really impressed with this, like for $45. So $45, the Knob Creek Bourbon X Rye, It is, what's the proof again? 113. 113 and what's the price?

Nice little punch, 45 bucks.

$45. Yeah, this is a buy all day long. This is really good.

I had heard the hype and the funny thing is this was like when I went up to the special event that I got to go to at Jim Beam where Fred and Freddie were chatting and talking about different things. This is what I was looking for. I wanted to get this bottle. And there were a few in there, but there were some other things going on. So I was like, oh, I'll grab that when it's closer time to go. And we went back out there, and I think you know, maybe to try Latest Bookers or, you know, something, whatever, because it was kind of like different pours at different times and they would talk about them. So I go back in there, completely wiped and I was like, you got to be kidding. So I waited a long time to find this bottle, but that's a buy.

Yeah, definitely a buy. Yeah. You know, I think I like this better than Knob Creek bourbon or Knob Creek rye. Like the Yeah. Combining these two, I think makes it great. Yeah.

And this, this would be, I guess the category of this would just be an American whiskey, right?

It's curious. I wonder where that like, you know, they're single barrel picks. were like set at 120. I've heard they're going to have some cast proof versions for, I can't remember if it was like stores or certain groups or things like that. So sometimes you'll see a single barrel pick kind of from here on out. That'll either be at the 120 that you normally see or some will be at cast proof. So you get a, you find something at 127 proof that your group really likes. It's going to come out at 127, which is pretty fun. And then their rise are at Is it 110? Did they come out at 110 or 115? We've had, we've done a few picks. Yeah, I don't recall.

Okay. So I'm, it's curious to know. And they now have an age statement on the single barrel rye picks, correct? That they're at least a certain age, I think. Nine? Or is it seven maybe? I think rye is seven.

This is a, like it's seven. So it's a seven, okay. This is using seven years, so.

But. Wow. I have not paid enough attention to Knob Creek lately. It's kind of been off my radar. And that's a shame because it's a fantastic whiskey.

Actually, I think we're kind of trying to line up. Maybe our next upcoming pick is maybe a Knob Creek bourbon or something like that. So that'd be interesting to see if we could get a cash proof version.

Yay. Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, that'd be good. So your bottles are showing up or they're here from the last pick. They are here in house. Yeah. All right. They just.

They are, uh, the folks around the pick team and, um, got kind of first dibs and we were allowed to pick two and, or buy two. And then, um, they're going to drop Monday for our, our other members and we'll see how that goes. Yeah. We got 162 bottles and. Oh, that's pretty good.

That's not bad. That's not shabby.

Out of a almost 10 year. I mean, it was about a month shy.

Yeah, so the bottle counts definitely go down every year. What is it? It's like six year a year, usually around what? Close to 200, right? And then as you go up each year, you use 20 bottles a year?

10 bottles?

There's some math out there on Google, I'm sure. Yeah, but I mean, it's a real thing. I mean, by the time you get to 10 years, you're probably down to 160, which is about 10 a year, 10 bottles a year, you lose. That's, that's rough. But you know, you get better whiskey.

I'm just glad we didn't get like some sort of short barrel where there's like 40 bottles, which I've seen that happen too.

Yeah. And you get what you get because you don't get to like go test the barrel and see how much is in it.

Well, a lot of places they will, if you ask them, they usually have a stick there and because some liquor stores or groups that they need a certain number. And usually if it is a very short barrel, then you can pick one of the others. Right. Yeah.

Well, that's good to know.

Yeah. I will say just, I would like to add on this, this Russell's reserve pick we have, it is a fundraiser for us as well. One of our founding board members, Omar Marshall, we lost to colon cancer a few years ago. And so a portion of the proceeds will go to the colon cancer association.

Oh, fantastic.

That's great.

So, uh, these bottles are available to members only. Yes. And they're available, uh, on the members website so they can get on there and purchase them. And if you're not a member of the, uh, Frankfurt Bourbon Society, you just go to frankfortbourbonssociety.com. Yep. And, uh,

If you get on there quickly, you may still have a chance to buy one of these bottles.

They're going to go pretty quick. We have some members that are out of state that come in on occasion. When they are in, we try to accommodate them. Obviously, a lot of the out-of-staters usually come in for a Beverly on the Banks festival, which works out well.

I think it's kind of cool to be an out-of-state person who has a membership locally here. And when you come into town, if there's an event or something, you come hang out with your family, right?

Yeah. And like Todd said, we will hold bottles for people. I mean, we've had people before that By the time they get here, they've got five or six bottles to take home with them.

Good deal. Yeah. All right. Well, fantastic pour. Really good. Yeah. That's very pleased with that. It seems like anymore I'm not really paying attention so much to this purist idea of this is a rye or this is a bourbon. An American whiskey can be amazing, right? Yeah. You throw some of the rules out the window, but you can get some really good whiskies.

Yeah. Agreed. I think maybe it was during Prohibition, I don't know, where somewhere along the way rectifying became a bad word. All the finishing we're seeing now, blending like this. rectifying whiskey is what they're doing.

It is. I mean, you know, rectifying, I think, a long time ago was fixing bad whiskey, right? That's what it was. It was fixing bad whiskey.

Or trying to make something be a whiskey. Like, you know, you hear about the prune juice and. Yeah. Tobacco. Kerosene. And yeah, just crazy stuff that they put in things.

But the demand was in the late 1800s, the 1880s, the demand for whiskey was so high. that, uh, I think we've said this on the show before that, uh, the average adult male would drink 18 gallons a year and the, and, and adulthood started at age 15.

So maybe even younger, they were working back then. That's right. I can't imagine.

So, uh, if there was a disruption in, you know, the flow of whiskey into your state or area, you know, rectifiers were there to try and make something out of nothing, I guess. Right. Yeah. And a lot of times they made poison.

Yeah, and I think those are the ones that gave the art of rectifying a bad name.

But I think you can take less than optimal whiskey and turn it into something palatable using certain techniques.

But in this case, I think they took two great whiskeys and put them together and had a very great whiskey, so really good. All right.

So Todd, what do we have in our next class?

All right. This is our fourth one. And we're going to, this is kind of a full circle thing.

Yeah.

So this is the latest bookers. This is the 2024-04 bookers. And it's called Jimmy's Batch. And the reason it's called Jimmy's Batch is in honor of Jimmy Russell. And that's kind of, if you kind of go look on the website and read about this, it talks about how like, Fred and Jimmy have just been friends for years. Jimmy obviously was friends with Fred's dad, Booker, of course, and things like that. So, I mean, there's a really close bond in that. I think it's really cool that these guys at Beam were like, Jimmy's hit his 17th anniversary. Let's make a batch for him. It's pretty awesome. It is pretty cool.

It is really cool. It is really cool.

So this one retails for about $99, maybe a little more here and there, depends on where you're at. 125.8 proof. Oh, we're up there now. Yeah, this is the top dog and the proof. Seven years, nine months, and 19 days. And then it obviously breaks down where the floors and warehouses, which It's kind of funny, like, I know, you know, you think about some of the warehouses at Buffalo Trace, you know, like warehouse H and things like that, you know, but obviously Turkey is like a huge one. Everybody's like, what warehouse did that come from? But beam, you know, you're kind of like, so like 12%, fifth floor of seven, these are all seven story warehouses and that's warehouse Z. 20% of the fifth floor of warehouse one, so we've gone from alphabet to numerals, 46% from the third floor of warehouse three, and 22% from the fourth floor of warehouse Q. Wow.

Yeah. When you run out of letters, you have to start using numbers or you're never going to run out of numbers, but you can run out of letters. Maybe they started with letters and ran out.

That'd be a good trivia question. Like I wonder how many Rick houses they have there.

Hmm.

I don't know, but it's a lot. I'm sure it's a lot. I'm sure. Cause they are the largest bourbon company, right? So Jack Daniels is big. Yeah. And Jim Beam is big. These are the two behemoths, right?

Then you add like Beam Suntory also owns Makers. Although it's kind of funny, there's still that. I won't say animosity, but it's kind of like the Twix thing. There's right side, left side kind of thing.

It's really funny.

Because I remember the last time I was there to do a pick, and I think somebody raised a question about that. And he said, we don't talk about them. Our tour guide and single barrel guy, he was like, we don't talk about that.

There's an awful lot of barrels being produced and there's an awful lot of rick houses and you drive anywhere in that general area of Kentucky, you're going to see a rick house on almost every hill.

I wonder if some of the nomenclature from letters to numbers could be different campuses of theirs. I know when they did the Knob Creek Rye. Is it called cask strength or something like that a few years ago? Uh, that was warehouse a, which is at the old granddad plant here in Frankfurt. Okay. Is where those were aged.

Yeah. Oh, you know what? There's warehouse Q is in Frankfurt too. Maybe I know it is because that's the special special release for Jim beam employees at Frankfurt. I forgot about that. So Q is Frankfurt.

Wow. There you go. There's some Frankfurt liquid in here. Yeah. They don't distill anything here, but they do agent here.

But also that makes me think, we talked about the Millville ones. I wonder what those are. I have no idea what those are, what warehouses though are. Those are, there's what, three down there? I don't know, there's? Yeah, I think so. Three or four. There's a really long flat one, which is probably similar to like the ones they have at Four Rows. I've never seen Four Rows as Rickhouse, but I've heard they're just like one level, right? And then you have, it's like enough to put six rows of barrels up. All right. Let's nose this. We're getting all distracted on nerdy stuff.

Oh yeah. So there's definitely a lot more alcohol, ethanol on the nose here. Some rich caramel.

Yep. Not as nutty as I was expecting.

It's kind of light on the vanilla for me, but the caramel's kind of the dominant thing. It's got a little bit of a aromatic note to it, kind of a, it's not a minty, it's like a, oh yeah. So they're adding, what's that, the cologne to the fingertips.

So I saw someone do this a few years ago.

He's doing like the gladiator thing where he picks up the sand, but he poured a little bourbon in his hands.

So that's how Freddy, Freddy takes you through the nosing. He always puts a little bit of his palm and rubs it. Yeah. Yeah.

So the alcohol, as it dissipates, like, like on my hands, the peanut really comes out. Okay. The nuttiness. Me, I'm like, you're wasting that. Yeah. You're wasting that. But at first it's going to be a lot of alcohol, but then as it goes away. I got to try this. Like you'll get some of the caramel sometimes.

Yeah, it's really nice. This is all, it's got some subtle nutty notes to it.

Oh wow.

Yeah. Like I said, especially like, you know, as it helps the alcohol kind of evaporate away, you lose that.

So you pour a little bit of the bourbon in your palm, you rub your hands together until it's dry and then you hold it up to your nose.

And it kind of changes that at first you get a lot of the ethanol. And then as that goes away, the other caramel, like a sweet caramel. Yeah. Yeah. It'll bring out the caramel. I get the nuttiness on this too. Okay. MC. Yeah. We brought you on for some nerdyism. What was, uh, like maybe a payday candy bar here. Yeah. There you go.

Yeah. All right. I'm ready to sip. Cheers. Cheers guys. Oh yeah. Pow, right in the kisser. A little cinnamon red hot to go with that caramel, nuttiness, vanilla.

Yeah, the vanilla is in the palate for sure. Yep. Nice texture. Chewy. Nuttiness.

Kind of a little like cherry or something.

Yeah. It's a good Bookers. It's a good Bookers. Yeah, we had a fun little Booker's recording not too long ago.

So I wonder if they blend it and then decide what it's going to be called, or if they decide what's going to be called and then blend it. I wonder what the order is there. I don't know. What do you think?

I think they got to probably go in with an eye, like with this one. I mean, they were like, Jimmy's 70th. So I think the match. Does it drive what they do, you think? Do they try to please Jimmy, or do they? I don't know, probably. I mean, it's got that cherry that you can kind of get from bean. I mean, sorry, you get for a while turkey. I mean, turkey, I sometimes get like that orange zesty thing going on.

Jimmy's not a big fan of like 130 proof whiskeys though. Right. But I mean, it's gotta be a Booker's. So sorry, Jimmy, we'll name it after you, but it's going to be 130 proof. Yeah.

Be curious to know if like, I'm sure, you know, they gave him a bottle or two or however many. Yeah. So be curious to know how he like, did he cut it down to 101 or with him, I kind of figure he probably tried it as is and then maybe cut it a little bit. So if you ask Jimmy what the secret of life is, what do you think? Family, drink more bourbon. Probably a good combo of all those. Yeah. You'd probably say Geretta. Yeah. His wife.

Yeah.

Country life. I'd say one for him too. I feel like he is somebody who has enjoyed his work. Yeah. And that probably helps.

So even though he's working, he's been kind of a retired working guy for 20 years.

I'm not sure how long he's been doing like the just, I mean, he just comes, hangs out, comes and he's got his own parking space there at the gift shop. He doesn't use it anymore. Now he just pulls right up to the front door and parks his car.

But it's, you know, it's kind of like. Not the scooter anymore.

If there were a king of distilling, you know, he'd probably be.

Everybody else would be kissing his ring, I think, so. Yeah.

Okay. I kind of got them in my head about you guys. This is a tough one today. It is tough. All right. Well, I think we should take it to the vote. So we're not doing the bonus. I think we're already at almost 30 minutes in this half. We probably ought to just, because this discussion will take a while.

Yeah. Plus, I think that one would kind of stick out. So we'll save that for a later date. OK.

Well, then our listeners are going to know that when we say there might be a bonus that there really won't be, because we rarely get to the bonus.

It's kind of like a teaser. It's like, hey, we might do this. So it just keeps them hanging on. It's like cliffhanger.

Will they do that fifth one? They don't like to be played, though. I don't know. This might blow back on us. Let's see. That's all right. There's four great whiskeys here. We're going to rake them, and we're going to let everybody know what we think.

All right. I'm ready. All right. Written in stone or at least in pen on my paper here.

All right.

Amzie.

Oh, put it in your lap first. Your number four.

Oh, number four. This was hard today because I really enjoyed all of these and I'm not gonna lie. I was kind of surprised at where I'm ranking them. Um, I probably will put the, bourbon, x-ray, or whatever in fourth place. And I really enjoyed that one.

Yeah, there's no losers here, of course. But Todd?

I'm going to go with the OGD 16. I like it, but if you take into all things into consideration cost and things like that, I think it falls a little short.

Yeah, normally we don't bring cost into the picture, but I think in this case, probably it's not a bad idea to do that because the disparity is big. Yeah.

And if you like, I'm trying to look at like numerous things to like, yeah, so it's kind of like that. That's the one thing that hurt it.

For a 16 year old at that price, I expected a little more bang for my bucks or,

AMSE's bucks?

For me, it was a little dry. Yeah.

And I think- There's some fun stuff going on with it, but- Yeah.

I think it's a good pour. I don't think that I would spend the 200 on it, but I did enjoy the opportunity to try it. For me, I think it's my number four as well.

Okay. Okay.

All right.

But thank you for sharing, AMSE.

Yes, definitely. Thank you.

Happy to do so.

And I'm going to mix it up a little bit this time. I'm not going to go to you first, Amzie. I'm going to go to Todd first. Okay.

My third place is the bookers we just had.

Okay.

Enjoyable. But yeah, again, I like the others a little better for various reasons. Yeah.

And then I'll go before you. I'll let you come last this time, Amzie. For me, it's the Bookers as well. And here's the reason why I didn't see Jimmy in this pour. For me, it was really good. It was a good example of a Bookers pour. But other than saying it's for Jimmy, I didn't get the Jimmy feel. I'm not so sure. They honor Jimmy, they honor Jimmy with it, but they didn't like, uh, they didn't try to drive to his palette. Right. I guess that's what I mean. And it's, you know, that's probably hard to do because they don't have that kind of like, you know, beams got that beam thing. Exactly. But you know, it was the overwhelming highest proof. It did pack a lot of flavor. It was really good. Uh, 90 ish dollars a bottle.

Maybe a little more, maybe a hair less.

It's a fair price for a good high-proof whiskey and it's a buy, but for me, it's my number three.

You could find a lot, so it's out there on the shelf. I would say my number three probably is the old Grandad 16. Mostly, I think, too, because of the price. I don't know that I would by another one, but I think it had some unique qualities that probably bumped it up a little for me.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, I guess it's my turn to go first this time. Second place, yeah. So for my second place, believe it or not, surprised as you might be, is the Wild Tiger Jimmys.

Ooh.

Yeah. I was not expecting that. Yeah, I know. I know. And the reason for that is something else caught me by surprise. OK.

So I would say for me, my second place would probably be the Bookers. So I'm normally not a huge fan of Bookers, but this one, one of my favorite Bookers that I've had probably, I did enjoy it. Like the nose on it, like the palette, so yeah. And also I kind of like high-proof bourbon, so.

Another one with that. Todd. My second place is the, Knob Creek bourbon rye. Okay. For the price all day. It's a value. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think our listeners are going to be totally confused about how we can take our three picks, our three judgments and make a winner out of it. I don't know how we're going to do this, but so you've got the Knob Creek as your number two. As my number two, which makes

What's your number one? It would have to be the wild turkey. Jimmy Russell, 70th anniversary. And you?

Wild turkey. All right. And I'm going to go with the Knob Creek bourbon x-ray. Yeah. So two to one, the wild turkey wins. I'm ashamed that I'm kind of the big wild turkey. I was going to say, I'm going to take your bottle back. It was really good, but you know what?

I was- You know, Jim's like, okay, I'll take the bourbon run.

We could swap. No, I love Jimmy's 70th. It was a great pour. No doubt about it. But that to me is an indication of what's to come in the eight-year 101 releases that are down the road.

It's hard to go against Jimmy. It just really is. He's awesome.

Yeah. So believe it or not, I didn't choose the wild Turkey. I chose the Knob Creek bourbon X rye. And it's just, it was a flavor bomb. It had a lot going on. Um, it was, I mean, 40 bucks, 45, $45. Oh my goodness. Actually. Yeah. If you started to consider a price, that's a, that's a good thing, but. The win today goes to the Wild Turkey 70th anniversary, Jimmy's 70th anniversary bottle and well-deserved.

Yeah, I will say this about the KC bourbon x-ray. That's going to be the one that anybody and everybody should be able to find because I mean, you know, Knob Creek's are out there everywhere.

So, yeah, I will go buy a bottle of that bourbon x-ray.

Yeah, I think, I think that I need a bottle of that as well, but I'm not going to trade you my Jimmy 70th. Thank you so much for getting that for me. And I'm going to cherish every drop of it for what it is. It's an amazing pour. Actually all four of these whiskies tonight were tremendous pours. Another great show, another great lineup of whiskies. And I promise you folks. One of these times we're gonna say there's a bonus pour and we're actually gonna have a bonus pour. We have. We have. Pretty sure we have before. It's just been a minute.

Yeah.

All right. Good stuff, huh?

Yep. All right. Fun. Thanks for joining us, Amzie.

Yeah. Always fun to have you on, Amzie. Thank you for bringing us in on the second half. You fulfilled the requirement of those who have been on more than five Bourbon Road shows. You got to bring us in on the second half.

Now I have to go get a tattoo now, right?

Is that the Todd and I need to design it first. We're working on the design. It's going to be. The road less traveled. All right, folks. Well, you can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook threads, all those things every single week. Todd and I put out an episode on Wednesday. Sometimes we'll have guests on, we'll have friends on like Amzie. We'll have distilleries on or musicians or it's always a fun time. We're always having a great time. We're always drinking great whiskeys, and we're always striving to let you know what things you should probably have on your bar. So tune in every week, and the best way to not miss a show is to scroll to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way every single week you'll get a notification, a bell notification, a ding on your phone saying that Jim and Todd have dropped another episode and we're going to get you through that next day of driving to the next sales call or cutting grass or shoveling snow or whatever it is that you do with your headphones on. We'd love to be a part of your day, but until the next time we'll see you down the bourbon road.

you