433. The Four Maltmigos Ride Again

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, listeners, welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. Todd and I are in the Bourbon Road bar. Yep. But we're not alone. Not alone, D.

The Malt Migos are here.

The Malt Migos are here.

I dubbed that today, yeah.

Yeah. So there's four of us here today and they're old hats at doing the Bourbon Note podcast. Yeah. Why don't you introduce them?

First of all, we've got my good buddy, Amzie Winning, Frankfurt Bourbon Society President, and he's also on the board for Bourbon on the Banks. And then Super Rob. Super Rob is here.

In the house, straight from the Rare Eagle bar. Almost 2.0.

So close. Well guys, welcome. It's great to have you here. Everybody has brought a bottle today because today we are, it's a little bit of a competition, but at the same time, you know, we're just celebrating the official certification of American Single Malt as a As a thing. As an American thing, yeah. It's an American thing. So it's been a little bit over a month now, I guess, since the... I think it was passed in December and then January 17th it became firm in law. Right. And there's been a flood of American single malts come out. There were certainly some before that.

Yeah. But I think you'll start seeing some more and more and more.

And what makes American single malts so important is the fact that single malt as a category in general, whether it be American or Scotch, is a huge category. It's big. I mean, we all like to think that bourbon is big, but bourbon is very small compared to Scotch. In the world, yes, for sure. In the world of whiskey, bourbon is not king. Although it might've seemed that way to us here in the US, but Scotch has always held the crown. And for us to be able to make whiskies that can compete in that market, that's a big deal. It's a big deal for our distilleries here in the US too.

Yeah, I just saw there was an agreement made with India too, so I'll be curious to see if latch on to bourbon and rise from America or if it's more like these new American single months.

The tariff trade agreement with India for whiskeys. Oh, wow.

I'm kind of interested in seeing what really picks up there as far as those three American products.

All right. So we have, and we're going to say it, we have four bottles tonight, plus a bonus.

A kicker. I could literally hear the groan in the future.

The listeners are all saying they're not making it to the bonus pour.

But we'll try. It's a good one. I think we can do this.

We do it. But we are going to drink four different American single malts tonight. We're going to drink them. We're going to talk about them, share information, and we'll rate them at the end. What do you say we don't score our bonus pour? That'll just be our bonus pour. OK. Sound fair?

That sounds good.

Because I think it's got a chance in doing pretty good, possibly.

Fair enough. It's interesting. I've had it before. I've actually had that one before. Oh, you have.

It is good. So it's not a shoe in.

I don't know. I don't think so either. We've got some interesting things to try.

All right. Okay. Well, you ready to get rolling? Let's roll. All right. So, uh, actually I'm starting off tonight. We're going in order of proof and, uh, and tonight I brought the, uh, town branch, Kentucky single mall. This is, uh, out of Lexington, Kentucky. And, uh, it is, uh, made by the town branch distillery there in Lexington. It is a 87 proof, seven year old whiskey. Seven. Nice. Seven year old. So it's got some decent age on it. It has very little color though. This is a very light looking whiskey. Yeah. Straw? The straw, light straw color. It looks like a Japanese single malt, doesn't it? It does. It looks really light, like a single malt. And it is produced by the Lexington Distilling Company in Lexington, Kentucky, but it is a town branch distillery product. So I think we should take a look at it. Now let's do this.

And they're one of those that's been making American single malts for quite a while. I mean, I forget when they kind of first started, but their owner Pierce or their owner Pierce Lyon was Irish, a horse guy. And I think he even owns a Irish single malt company over there. And so he wanted to make something like that over here. So I'd say they probably have some nice older single barrels stashed somewhere.

So it's nice and light and fruity.

Definitely fruit on this one.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I pick up a little bit of like a pear nectar kind of thing. I'm very familiar with pear nectar because that's what we use in our mimosas here at the Shannon House.

I'll add that.

You know, I get a little bit of peach and almost it's like a canned peaches, not a fresh peach, but like canned peaches. Orchard fruits.

You do pick up the barrel. The nose is nice. It's light. It's clean and fresh.

You know what this retails for off the top?

It was marked down. So this was on sale. I got it for $35. It was marked down from 50. So this is normally around a $50 bottle. Every now and then when you walk into Kroger's, you get lucky. They've got something that's not a quick mover, and they'll put it on sale there to move it out.

Sometimes the clearance shelf has some nice stuff too. It does. It really does. And it's no indication of how good it is.

Sometimes you can get some really good things on the clearance shelf.

Definitely.

All right.

I'm ready to sip. Cheers. Cheers, all. Cheers.

Nice. Sweet with a mid-pallet bite.

Juicy fruit. Yep. Nose and palate kind of tango together. Still getting that pear, peach, orchard fruit type thing. Pretty easy sipper. What do you think, Graham?

Yeah, definitely. I was thinking the same.

This could be dangerous. This is one of those that goes down real easy.

Sit on the front porch, next thing you know, you're out, you're empty, your bottle's empty with a couple of friends.

Not too far off from that mimosa you were speaking of.

Yeah. So now that I sip on it, I'm sort of leaning more towards Amsi here. It's definitely more peach than pear. Yeah, I'd agree. Definitely more peach than pear. But it still has that kind of juicy fruit note to it. I don't even know what juicy fruit is. I don't know what fruit flavor juicy fruit is, but it's some mix up of stuff.

It's an amalgamation of juicy fruits. I was going to say, only Wrigley knows, right?

Yeah, I can see where this might be a pretty desirable pour.

I mean, this comes off as like some of those unpeated scotches. I mean, if you were to maybe pour this blind and, you know, one of those unpeated scotches, you might, you might fool some people.

Yeah. Somebody told me this were a light whiskey finished in a peach brandy barrels. I would say, yeah, okay.

So do we want to talk about like some of the stipulations for American single malls?

Yeah, let's, uh, let's do that. So Todd, you've done a little bit of research on this. Um, and, uh, so now that it is a category, obviously has rules that go with this. Once you lay those out for our listeners.

Right. So one of the first things obviously is it has to be mashed, distilled and aged in the United States. That one's pretty cut and dry. Distilled entirely at one US distillery, which I would have thought it would have been kind of obvious, but maybe- Well, in order to be a single malt, right? Yeah. Maybe. I wonder how that works for like your contract brewers. I guess it wouldn't matter.

As long as it's at one distillery. Yeah. You could still put up- What does it say? Mashed, distilled, and aged? And aged in the United States and distilled entirely at one US distillery. Oh, in the United States. So it could be distilled at one distillery and then shipped in containers and aged elsewhere.

Elsewhere, yeah. In the US. In the US. Got it. Like bourbon, it can be distilled to a proof of 160 or less. There's not that barrel entry proof for this, though, of going in at 125 like bourbon is. Stored in oak barrels, either used, uncharred new, or chard new, which is the little different with a maximum capacity of 700 liters. So they can use the, I guess, 700 liters. These would be the cognac casks. Yeah. So some very big, yeah, very big barrels. So anybody, anybody know the leaders to.

Is it 4.1 liters per gallon, right?

I can't recall. I always have to look it up and re-educate myself every time I want to get into that realm.

See, I was going to do the old Americans will use anything with the metric system and say it's probably like two cows worth.

Yeah, definitely. It's good that we got some non-mathematicians like ourselves to get on this show because we're always struggling with the math.

Exactly.

Moving on, not to be bottled less than 80 proof, very similar to bourbon. Unlike bourbon, they can use caramel coloring, but if they use caramel coloring, it has to be designated on the label. But no flavorings other than finishes. So that's actually like scotch because some of the scotches and Irish whiskeys probably as well can use coloring to give it a little more shelf presence, I guess is what that's for.

And Canadian as well, correct? That's correct.

Yes, that is correct. Uh, and then the last thing will, they can also, there's a straight American single malt, which has to be at least two years. So they can label it as such, but it didn't, I mean, I didn't look, this is actually the TTBs website I looked on and it didn't say like if it was a three year, didn't, It didn't say much about like an age statement or anything. But to call it straight, it would have to be definitely a two.

It seems like some pretty reasonable regulations around it. I'm not a big fan of adding color, but okay. So if they've got to compete in the world market and the world's adding colors, why not?

I know, which is funny because we kind of poured these out and we've got two kind of light colored ones, which maybe a little younger, maybe use barrels. And then we have two, two pretty, well, two in the bonus are quite, quite dark. Yeah. So, yeah.

You know, having said that, um, The lighter colored ones might have turned me off otherwise, given the fact that I typically look at something and I see a deep, deep amber color and I vacillate more to that. However, that would have been bad because this has got a great flavor. Again, I might've moved away from it, but had I just looked at the color, it reminds me of mellow corn. Are you familiar with that? Which is actually not a bad flavor in itself, but anyway, it looks this yellow golden color. I'm always sensitive in spite of my own desires and favoritisms. Would this be a low-proof, nice fruity, easy drinker? I think this would be a nice drink for someone that doesn't appreciate a cask-drinked high-proof or whatever. A nice little pour. It's not my cup of tea per se, but I mean, dang.

But you like that little hint of malt in there. You like that malt.

I do. I do.

You know, the funny thing is they should really hire us to write their tasting notes because our tasting notes are much more interesting than what we see on the side of a bottle. But I'm going to read them out to you just to see. So we've all kind of given our notes, right? Okay. Sweet cereal nose with notes of molasses, vanilla, brown sugar, and nutmeg. Where's the fruit?

Wow.

See, I would say like that peach green tea you get from Lipton and peach gummy rings. Honey, stone fruit. A little bit of a note. Stone fruit, yeah. Honey I can kind of see.

I think that green tea, you hit on something there. That's a kind of dominant little flavor.

Well, anyway, for on sale Kroger for $35.

It's good.

Yeah. Good. Nice. Goodbye for 35. Yeah.

It's a good spring pour.

Yep. And yeah, I've got nothing more to say about this one other than it is a small batch whiskey and it is labeled as handmade. So what does handmade mean? I think Tito's is handmade, right? Yeah.

So there you go. Quotation marks.

All right. I think it is time to move on. So what do we have in our next class?

All right. I had the chance last summer to go down to Old Pepper Distillery in Lexington and met the distiller down there, Cody Giles. In talking with him, I think the malt whiskey was sort of a pet project of his. I think it's something he really enjoys. I don't have a ton of details. It does say it is 100% malted barley, aged over three years. It's 100 proof and aged in new charred oak. From what I recall last time I tried it, I think there may be a little bit of peated malton here.

Okay. Good deal. So is it, is it that single malt means, cause it means different things in different places, whether you're Irish or Scotch or here in the U S in the U S single malt means it's a 100% barley product made at a single distillery. Yes. That's the definition of single malt in the US. And there are the other things you've talked about, but basically it can be any number of barley malts, as long as it's all barley malt. Some could be peated, some could be not, whatever it is. Some can be caramelized or roasted or even roasted to chocolate if you want it, I guess. But at the end of the day, as long as it's produced at a single distillery before it enters the barrel, You're good. Good to go. I think you're good to go. Okay. Good deal.

All right. Also, it should be noted another Lexington product. So yeah, we're good.

Two Lexington products. Yeah. Two Kentucky products, two Lexington products.

Both distilleries are actually pretty close together too, if you're in that neck of the woods.

And you said the proof is 100 on this. 100 proof. Okay. Well, this is a new chart.

That, yeah, that new chart must, it kind of makes me think that The first one from town and branch was definitely used. I mean, yeah, this is three. That's seven.

Good point.

Okay. All right. So this one definitely has a different nose to it altogether. Different.

A bit like baked bread a little bit for me. It's like walking a walk-in humidor.

Like I can get that. I was thinking it was kind of like a, uh, a warehouse kind of smell, not necessarily a Rick house smell, just a warehouse smell, like an old dusty warehouse, like a tool room or a machine shop. Yeah.

Getting some nice caramel notes. Yeah. A little sweetness from the caramel vanilla on there. Maybe like I said, the first, the first smell made me think of when I walk in a humidor and just that wonderful smell. Yeah.

We got Rob, anything? I was wondering if that, that peaty smell, this is light peat is kind of what gives us that musty and or something. I don't know.

If I recall, it's got some peat in it. I think there is some.

Well, we might taste it and it might be clear to us. I was going to say. Cheers. Cheers. Wow. Sweet, meaty.

More like darker fruits, raisin. Yeah. I would even go, yeah, like stew. We often talk about like the stewed fruits type thing.

And this has got kind of the molasses in it that I didn't get in the town branch. So they even said it on the bottle they had it, but I'm getting it in this one. Yeah.

Ironically. I'm a bit of an expert on molasses. I didn't catch it in that other one either. And that's another bad story for another night.

It's got a great flavor to it, but it is, for me, it does have this kind of a multi-meaty kind of mid-palate to it.

Do you feel like at the end you get a little bit of heat? I think it's fairly light, but I think there's a little bit there.

I mean, it's not smoky by any means. None at all. There's something there.

Do you remember about what this ran, MC?

So I believe this is gift shop only. I think it was 45, maybe $50. Okay. Honestly, I think it was on sale for 45.

You guys are in my wheelhouse.

Yeah, I like that 30, $40 range a lot. Absolutely. And we're actually seeing some pretty good products in that range lately. So yeah.

So another thing on the distilling production side would be that malted grains are very expensive. They're labor intensive to make. And so it takes a lot of money or a lot more money to make a malt whiskey versus a bourbon where it's at least 51% corn. And so some of these, I would imagine the profit margin isn't huge.

Yeah. Yeah. Barley is just an expensive crop. That's why they limit it in other whiskeys, right? Because it is the expense. One of the other marks of corn's cheap. Yeah. You know, corn's cheap, wheat's a little more expensive, but barley is where you got to get out your wallet.

Someone really coats the entire inside of my mouth.

Yeah. I might even say this is not chill filtered.

Really?

What do you think?

I don't know.

It's just got a heavier, thicker, is this, is, are they a pot still? No, I believe it's column still. Okay.

You guys are over my head on that stuff. I don't pay much attention. Maybe I don't do much research.

I don't know that I can really tell the difference between the two, to be honest with you, but I do know that when somebody has a pot still whiskey, it typically has a heavier, oilier, softer mouth.

I think more of those oils do come through in a batch distillation or a pot still. The columns just tend to strip some of those out.

Okay. Well, I like the pot still then.

Yeah.

I'm a pot still guy now.

Yep. This is impressive. I like it. And this is a good whiskey. This is really good. And you said $45. Yeah. Wow. That's a buy.

You know, I think that's the sad thing. You know, this town branch was on sale at Kroger. This was on sale at their gift shop. And I think a lot of people are in town to buy bourbon, you know, in this area. And sadly, they just don't give the malt whiskey a shot.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of in our blood here to drink bourbon and people, not only people who live here drink bourbon because they grew up on bourbon, but the visitors are here to buy bourbon.

Yeah. I think single malt is probably going to have that like area like, you know, they're big in California. Like, it seems like there's like that West Coast thing going on. Um, so, and then I know like there's a few, like Cedar, we had Cedar Ridge on the last time we had our Montmigo show and that was, you know, Iowa. So maybe they'll have better luck. I'm kind of interested to see like when Kentucky distilleries do it, how it fares. I mean, it might do really well out of state, but you know, As Kentuckians, it's like bourbons in the blood.

If they can figure out how to get their bottles on their shelf, but not on the bourbon shelf, right? Because honestly, I understand why they might want it on the bourbon shelf because all the people come to town to find bourbons. But what about the people that are not going to the store for bourbons? They're going to the store for malt whiskies and they go to the Scotch Isle and that's where you want to find this town branch and you want them sitting over there in the American single malt section. You know, they might get more attention from the people who drink malt whiskies all the time.

Yeah. Now, now I wonder how much it's someone accidentally grabbing a malt whiskey thinking it's a bourbon. Yeah. Honestly, you know, it's mixed in with the others.

Yeah. I don't think he'd be too upset. I wouldn't be not with this one anyway, for sure.

No, I mean, I find them very unique. And it's a nice change of pace from your rise and your Bourbons.

And with no limit on barrel entry proof, I can see some pretty hot stuff coming out at some point. What do you think? I can't even imagine something that enters the barrel 160. It seems like it would singe the inside of the barrel itself.

You wouldn't have to toast it. It just does it itself. You know, you'll see that sometimes actually with Brandy's cognac and things like that can go into a pretty high entry proof. Every time you reuse a barrel, you want to go in higher than the entry proof of the previous product in there.

Wow. 430 some episodes and I'm still learning stuff.

That is awesome. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. I heard that somewhere. Someone that had knowledge of barrels and distilling mentioned that, um, sounds like a Bishop thing. It may have been on the distiller's talk, his podcast, someone he had on there.

And the reason is because you've already extracted those things out that come out with the water. Now you're looking for those things that are alcohol extracted, right? Yeah, exactly. Got it. So different flavors all together. So what happens if they go in? Because there's this thing called re-charred barrels. So what happens when they do that? Does that reset to zero and start all over again?

You know, I don't really know. I had an Apple brandy once from Alan Bishop there at Spirits French Lick and his first old Clifty Hoosier Apple brandy was in a recharge Chardonnay barrel. And I really think you end up caramelizing some of whatever that previous product was. And it's not the same as just caramelizing the sugars in a barrel. So I think it kind of depends on what was in there before. Got it. This is good. I know two winners so far. Do you feel like now you're noticing more Pete on the nose?

I think I do.

Yeah.

It's a good one. Yeah, it's a good one. So I don't think we talked at all about like distribution. You said yours was, you thought gift shop only. I believe so.

When I looked on their website a minute ago, they don't even list this on the website.

Okay. For the town branch, the one we had first. I feel like they're pretty extensive. Yeah, they're pretty extensive, but they also have online sales. Kentucky is pretty good about online sales now. They didn't used to be so great, but now they're getting better. I think they have a dozen states or so that they ship to.

It's going to be a tough call today for rating these. Okay, but we're going up in proof next half hour.

These are like night and day though. Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what? We'll see what the next couple bring, but that's one of the things anyone who has drank much scotch whiskey is that there is a huge variation from things that taste like light honey all the way to something that tastes like a burning tire. And so I don't know if we're going to see that in American single malts. I kind of hope we do.

Yeah. This one's kind of interesting in that, you know, I don't think it really reminds me of like an off the shelf scotch. And I think that's the new barrel, maybe. Yeah. The town branch kind of really reminded me a lot of like an Irish whiskey. Yeah, I think so too.

And I think that's what they shoot for because of those ties to Mr. Lyon.

But this is one of those things that we get to do that the other people don't, you know, that allows us to stand out a little bit. Yeah. Heck yeah.

It's kind of like we, uh, it took the IPA from England and we made it all bold and hoppy. I mean, bass and things like that are nice, but.

What do you think Todd? Good place to break? I think so. All right, folks stick around. We'll be right back. We're going to chill out a little bit. We've got some charcuterie here and we're going to have a few snacks and drink a little whiskey. We'll be back. Well, it'll probably be 20 minutes for us, but it'll be two minutes for you. So that's right. See you shortly. 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 Smoky's Lifestyle Cigars, an experience truly beyond compare. Find out more at Smoky's Lifestyle Cigar dot 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

All right, welcome back listeners. Rob Carter here. This is a part of the show where Amzie and I take over. Todd, we're going to take a break. These two losers sit back and sip more bourbon.

We should let them take over an episode. Give us like a week vacation or something. I'm in.

I'm in. I'm all for it. Yeah. Oh my, that might get ugly.

I was going to say, you should be careful what you wish for.

Exactly. Exactly. I've seen a lot of people come and go. Yeah. So again, we've got a couple of more single malts to selections we're going to go through. A little more discussion and lively banter and starting off here with Todd's got a little expression for us to play with. So Todd, take it away.

All right. So what I've got, this is from Lost Lantern. You'll remember Aaron. It's like three, three episodes ago. Four episodes. It's a little longer. Was it? Yeah. It was probably about maybe like 10 or so. Oh, wow.

Times fly. I was going to say it flies.

But that was a lot of fun. I really liked that they were, you know, seeking out some places that, you know, some I've heard of and some I haven't. And this is a, Single malt from a St. George's distillery out of Alameda, California. And Los Lantern likes to kind of like, this is like a four barrel batch. So they like, they called this mountain meadow. So all four barrels from this St. George's spirits out of Alameda, 107 proof, little heftier price tag. This one, I think it was like 150. I mean, crafty. Yeah. But yeah. So. And we've gone, we went light, dark, and now we're back to light. So this must be probably, I would reckon this is some used barrels. This is four years old. And, uh, you know, this is really light.

This is a lighter than apple juice. Yeah. It does. It looks like some light. Yeah. Yeah. Like some, uh, low sugar, low sugar, uh, apple juice.

But yeah, I really enjoyed talking to Aaron and, you know, I knew we were going to do this single malt show again. And I was like, Hey, I'm going to throw a few bucks their way. And I grabbed this and yeah, I'm kind of interested in seeing how it turns out. Fantastic. Well, let's check it out. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Very, very, um, interesting nose, a little more, uh, white, grapey.

Okay. You're eating grape white. Okay.

Okay.

So looking at this glass, if I knew nothing about the beverage, this could be any beverage in the world. If I knows this and looked at it, I don't know if we got many wine drinkers listening. I would think this is a late harvest Riesling dessert wine. Okay. Absolutely. This is a white dessert wine, like an ice wine or something like that.

So you're getting grapes too?

Yeah. What grapes?

Okay.

Yeah.

Rob? Well, you know, they entered, they threw that thought in my head. What else am I going to say? I'm not smart enough to come up with a good one after that.

You're like, Rob's like, reverse demeanor. Yeah.

Dang it.

Let me come up with my own. But I will, you know, now that they've introduced that into my brain, I kind of have to concur. I get a lot of that. Okay.

This throws like, I tried this cause I was a little worried, you know, didn't want to bring something. Just didn't show well, but I get like, like lemons. This is like Myers lemons, like. I can see a little bit. Yeah, I can see. And you talked about that juicy fruit.

I'm getting a little juicy fruit gum. Yeah. And having said that little lemon pledge, you know, is kind of where my nose went after you said that. But I get, for some reason, a little herbal essence too.

Yeah. It's like floral and citrus. And here's the other thing that made me think of when I tried it was like hops. There's like almost a hoppy, citrusy hoppy note.

So, you know, with all those notes you just mentioned, that screams complexity. Yeah. It really does.

But like I said, four years old, 107 proof, a little heftier price tag, but.

I just think on the nose, I would never guess this was a whiskey if I didn't know. Yeah.

But this is another one like front porch, nice day. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's really like.

You expect this to quench your thirst. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like lemonade. Yeah. Cheers.

Cheers. Cheers. Okay. Definitely still stays along the line. I mean, it's clearly whiskey, but it's still writing that almost wine line.

You know, very smooth. I'm still getting like the dank hops and lemon. That's what the hops is there.

I think you're right.

Which is funny because like, I mean, it's not hot finished or anything like that, but like you said, the dank hops and I don't want this to sound bad.

And my dog to get sprayed by skunk Friday, but there's almost a little skunky hop kind of thing.

You get that? Yeah.

Like Simcoe or something.

Yeah. Little Heineken. Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Good call. Good shout out. Kind of a muted, muted hop.

That's awesome.

You said Heineken. That's perfect. The funny thing is even when you drink it over there, it still tastes skunky.

But you know, but with all that said, I really like this. Yeah, I really do.

It's really unique. This is one of the more surprising whiskies I've had. You know what else they do in Alameda?

They bust myths. Myth busters. Oh, is that where that's where they do all their rockets to the moon and cars on fire and that's where they that's where they are is in Alameda, California.

Okay.

Whatever they have to blow things up and they have to get away from people that go to the, the, the old air base there or whatever it is, the shipyard. That's cool.

Yeah. This is kind of different.

We like to bring crazy trivia every now and then.

So just in case you want to say, I've learned two things today. One from AMC and one from you, Rob.

Not much to offer brother. I'm, I'm, I'm just wall candy here.

But you were saying there's kind of an event coming up, a local event coming up this weekend, right?

Yep. Yes, sir. Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. My wife is executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Shelby County. And as you all know, they try each year to build a home for a deserving family. Most recently built one for a beautiful young lady. Man, I'll cry. Ashley Dale in Shelby County last year, and she's loving her home. This year, the annual fundraiser is Saturday, March 1st, 6 o'clock at the Shelby County Convention Center. They have a great dinner, great live music, a magician, and some fantastic auction items, many of which are some pretty nice bourbons, I know. Well, I do know, matter of fact, I just forgot about this because my wife, I don't think she's listening to this. I thought I owned this bottle and I found out I didn't own this bottle. And one of the Pappy lineage will be raffled off. Very nice.

And hats off to you for your wife donating that for you.

I shed a tear or two and then I'll be donating a bottle or two myself. nothing spectacular, but things that are a bit hard to find that people enjoy. So we'll do that. And yeah, it's a great event. And it's their major fundraiser to help fund that home effort for the next recipient. So anybody that can help out or who might have an item to donate of some sort, a bottle of bourbon or or anything that could go on the auction items, be greatly appreciated. Next Saturday, March 1st, 6 p.m., Shelbyville Convention Center. Look it up on Facebook.

Yeah, just look up Shelby County Habitat for Humanity, and I think you'll find it. Yeah, if you were at last year's Bourbon on the Banks event and you came into the Bourbon Road tent and tried some of our whiskies we had on the Bourbon Road bar, you might have had an opportunity to try a 1970s Jim Beam when you were there. I actually picked that up at that event last year. I forgot about that. You can always find some Dusty's. You can find some good bottles there. There's a lot of great stuff. I even got my smoker there, I think, three years ago.

That was a 78 or nine bottle of, was it not?

I don't remember the exact date of it.

That was the one that was bottle killed though, that day.

Yeah, yeah. Everybody loved it. In fact, It was interesting because that came from an old collection, I guess, from somebody who had passed, and it made its way into the auction there. But the gentleman who owned the bottle, his daughter, was actually at event last year and she got to drink that and take a picture with it. It was her father's.

That was pretty cool. Yeah. I forgot about that. Yep. Thank you, Mark and Julie Gross. Shout out to the roadies. There's a couple of roadies in Indiana, now Ohio, and Mark's a former Indiana trooper. Yeah. Pretty cool dude. Yeah.

Rob, we'll have to, well, we have an event tomorrow night at the Frank Burb Society. So we'll spread the word for that and, you know, maybe get a few people down there.

Sure. Appreciate it. Yeah. It's always a great event and neat little event. It flows well and have a good food. So it's not a boring event.

So is tomorrow the blind event? The blind tasting event?

Yeah. Todd, Todd is in, Todd, Quote, Trebek Ritter is in charge of that one.

We're having a trivia contest from all night and some blind pours. So one of our other board members has donated some really fun stuff and I've donated some stuff. So we're going to have door prizes and there's a first place, second place, third place prize. And yeah, it's going to be fun.

Good night to just show up and join.

Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

All right. Back to the whiskey. Back to the whiskey. Back to the whiskey. Let's remind, we've had a little bit of chatter going on. Let's remind the listeners what we're drinking.

Says the computer guy.

So this is from St. George's distillery out of Alameda, California, but Los Lantern is one of those places that likes to highlight these smaller distilleries. So this is under their brand name. You can find Los Lantern products on seal box and you can actually order directly from them, which is what I did. This was a four barrel blend of very unique barrels that St. George had. And yeah, so retails for about 150, a little pricey, but.

You know what else that reminds me of Amzie? A grappa.

Oh, a little bit. Yeah, I could see that. If it had just a little more hint of like that, um, Anise a little bit.

Wow. I mean, there's, there's some notes here that I'll be honest with you. You're just not going to get from bourbon, right? These are things you're not going to get from bourbon.

If you got this in a bourbon, you'd be like, wait, something's going on here.

Something's wrong.

What did they, what did they pour into this? This is just one of the most unique whiskies I've ever had. in a good way.

Yeah, I don't think I've ever been able to mistake it, a whiskey for a wine in an episode before. So in order to go that far, it's... I like to keep you guys on your toes. Yeah. Good job, Todd. Good job.

I was at a little festival type thing. Big Red Liquors in Indiana puts this thing on every year. It's a fundraiser they have at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. And all of the admission, the tickets, the admission prices go to charity. And then they raffle for the chance to buy their allocated products. And they're a huge chain. So they have a lot to raffle off, all the Van Winkles and antique collection and everything. And St. George had a booth set up. And I stopped there a year or two ago and tried several of their products. And they were all phenomenal. Maybe three different types of malt whiskey, absinthe, gin, whatever. Everything was great. So if you get a chance to try their stuff, I would recommend it.

Yeah. I mean, I just think it's a general rule. If, uh, if you're a whiskey fan and you enjoy trying things that are, um, new and different and out of the box, search out your regional and local distilleries because there's some real surprises out there. And you never know. I mean, you really never know, right? I mean, look at JT Malik. Oh, wow. How cool is that? Yeah. And you said St. George's? St. George, yeah.

I'd never had anything from them. Honestly, I had not heard, so I took a flyer. And I think I called him Aaron, but it's Adam Polanski. Adam Polanski, okay.

Yeah, so there's some great things going on out there in the smaller distilleries and buying local, buying regional is very important. Especially, I mean, we all know that the bourbon market is not, the whiskey market in general, is not as hot as it was a year ago. Things are cooling just a little bit. And with that said, your local or regional places are going to be struggling a little bit more. Pay attention to that. Yeah. Take care of them during your town.

You know, and the other thing, their prices are going to be higher. They don't have the economy of scale that, you know, they're not putting out hundreds of barrels a day. They're lucky if they're putting out a hundred barrels a year. Yeah.

Yeah. So, uh, this, this past weekend I had family in and, uh, some, some bourbon drinkers and, you know, so I typically, well, I'll just tell you, so like Thursday night, we sip through 10 different bourbons.

Kind of a late night there.

Late night. Well, then the following night we sip through 11 further different bourbons. And the point of that is to just appreciate all the crazy differences in flavors. And this would be a great piece of that lineup or any of these that we've had so far. The unique flavors is what I go for. I don't have a lot of the high end, high dollar stuff. So, you know, to have some, just some unique flavors. Says the guy who donated them.

Well, he was forced to donate them happy. Did you guys ever watch that show back in the seventies? Maybe even in the eighties, but primarily the seventies called Sanford and Sons. Yes. the father and son owned a junkyard. And you remember his son would say something and his dad would say, oh, I got something. I've got something like we can use for that. And he would go and he would move pillows and couches and open little chests and things. He would find it and he'd bring it. He could always find something that they needed in his vast collection of junk. Well, Rob's that way with whiskey. He's got all these little like, little like foot stools that you can open up and there's like whiskey bottles.

Until my wife found them.

In fact, my dad's ringtone is the Sanford and son theme song because he doesn't like to pitch stuff very often.

Oh my gosh, that's too funny.

All right. Well, Rob, it's time to put you on the spot again. The next bottle is yours.

Tell you what, this is a tough night. I might as well run this show. What the heck's going on?

Well, I think you're doing a good job. I thought that intro into the second half was making you executive producer, which I don't know what that does, but I think you pay us.

Yeah. Well, so, you know, kind of back to the Kentucky thing. I do like. Kentucky bourbons, Kentucky spirits, and so forth. Again, my buddy Mark Gross picked up this bottle for me, the New Riff Sour Mash Single Malt. I had forgotten to look at it a little bit, in that I wasn't sure of the age on it. So I got online and found out, you know, of course, Bottle obviously says seven years, but research states that it actually, many of the bottles are nine years and beyond. So, you know, it's got some good age to it and had no idea how complex it was. And it's almost, I won't say infinity, but They have like five different malts that are involved in this, along with multiple types of barrels. Some barrels have been scraped and, you know, re-charred, some are scraped and what's the lower level? Toasted. Yeah, that toasted. And then some are just re-barreled and some are put in brandies, you know, just various things. So this is quite a complexity of blend, I guess you'd say.

So can you tell us a little bit about the malts that are in this?

Yeah, yeah. And of course, I didn't know much about these, but the Maris Otter, the Golden Promise, the barley wine style, the Belgian quadruple. And they kind of classified those four into two different ends of the spectrum. two of them as kind of base products that are kind of pedestrian maybe in their flavors, nothing crazy. And the other two have some great flavors to them, some unique taste. And so they'll kind of blend those. And then Then they started adding the Scottish peated malted barley. I had to write that one down.

Did they give you a percentage on that or do we just need to figure it out on our own?

Well, no, it was all kind of wild percentage. Yeah. The, the, the, they ended up with about 10% of it peated. Oh, wow.

Okay. That's a good amount.

Yeah. Now I haven't even, I haven't even knows this yet. So I'm, I'm anxious to get there, but I know Maris Otter because I used to brew beer.

Yeah. I was going to say Gold & Thomas as well.

Yeah. That's a very English, very European like, um, yeah, they're that barley. Yeah. So what's the proof on this, Raul?

This one's 113.8. Wow, we're moving up to just the latter one just a little bit. Seven to nine-year-old and so forth.

And this one is a very medium dark amber. Maybe even dark amber. Yeah. It's got a nice color to it. Yeah.

The nose is just, like, the first thing, it's just, every time I go to it, it's something different. I've had, like, green banana. I had birthday cake vanilla, like vanilla icing there for a minute. I've had like honey, like almond type thing.

So. So some of the barrels, just, just for your edification here, red wine barrels, uh, made from French and American oak brandy cast from Portugal and freshly dumped Olorosa Sherry cast. Wow. Among others. So, so, I mean, truly as I don't know, you know, if it's four factorial here or what we're talking about, the possibilities are, but, uh, it's, it's. And they ran it all through the kitchen sink.

I was going to say, this is a thing called the kitchen sink mold.

It's got a lot going on. Wow. That is amazing. Well, these guys are, these guys are great craftsmen. They really make great whiskeys up there.

Cast strength without chill, without chill filtration. So no chill.

I could swear I just got a little jalapeno. For me, the very first nose on this was molasses. And specifically, you know, sometimes you taste or smell something and it brings back a memory. My grandfather had cattle, he'd put molasses on their hay and stuff to get them to eat it. And it was that type of molasses, like a sweet feed molasses. Put molasses on the hay. There's an even more.

So, Amzie, did I tell you about my molasses experience? No. Oh my gosh. All right, real quickly. Guys, hear it. All right. I think I was eight or nine, dead of winter, fully had my coveralls on, eight or nine years old, little bitty guy. My dog had kind of gotten over into where the cattle were, but we also had half barrels of molasses. And as I was coaxing my dog out away from the cattle and backing up, I tripped and fell. and my butt went to the bottom of a molasses barrel. I had molasses from my chin to my knees and couldn't get out. I couldn't eat molasses for a while. I had some horror story from that, but I'm over it. I'm getting better. I'm loving the snows. Yeah, I agree.

It does change. It's all over the place in a fun way.

But at the core of it, it's rich and dark and almost syrupy, not quite, but almost syrupy. It's got a very rich nature to it.

I think some of that cherry comes out in the nose a little bit maybe. All right. I'm ready to sip.

You're going to get a bunch of flavors. I already did. Sorry. Yeah, I did too. Yeah, I thought I was behind, so I did too.

Cheers. Cheers. I don't know how long Rob's molasses story was going to be.

He's not supposed to stop talking. I'm more drink. I tried to cut it short. Sorry about that. I was scarred for a while. Okay. Hmm.

It's got a concentrated T note too. It's really good. It's richer.

You know, if I had to say, well, let me, let me state that I believe this is about a $70 bottle, if I recall. So not, not horrible, but kind of getting up there, you know. This would stand up to a cigar. Yeah. But what I was going to say is given all that stuff, I just stated about the various barrels and so forth. I'm not sure I'm getting all the. fruit and floricity that I expected. It's great, got great body. I'm seeing some good legs. The color's awesome. A lot of good stuff, but I'm not getting as some of the varieties we've gotten on some of the others. Just me.

I think that this one is just, uh, you know, the, the sherry, maybe it was a port, some of that just dark rich flavors in this, you know, prune, raisin versus like the lighter type grapes. I mean, this is. darker, richer.

Great. I mean, it's great flavor. I like it.

We talked about the pepper being a cigar single mop, but this would probably be even better with a cigar.

It's a little tobacco-y. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is.

This is for your evening dessert cigar. Yeah. This is the nightcap.

And it's been fun. Like I said, we went light, like light and springy, a little darker, like maybe fall and then summer. Back again. I think that limit, like lemony thing that the St. George brought was kind of summer. And then this is just like, this is like winter. Four seasons. I know. Four seasons in Montmigos. It's always good to get the band back together.

Yeah. And again, maybe the winter concept is that I don't get as much of the floral. I get the deeper flavors that you would expect.

Now, did you pick that up store here in town or?

No, at the distillery. Okay. At New Riff? Yep, New Riff. I haven't even been up there. My buddy Mark comes through there on his way down sometimes and he'll pick me up something.

Well, that was a good grab. No doubt. Yep. We might all need Mark's number.

Yeah, exactly.

He can mule us all one back.

I can hook you up.

For anybody that wants to try this one, they do have it at the bar at House of Commons in Frankfurt. This one? Oh, they do. OK. Nice. I've actually had it there twice.

Oh, you have?

I liked it left to go back.

I sent some guys there this weekend to House of Commons. Good on Dave. I didn't realize he had any single month there.

That's great for Emsi. He literally walks across the street from work. Right. You don't even have to go home first. You can just go straight.

Good thing they don't open too early.

The sad thing is we can't get there from the bourbon society building anymore because the bridge is closed. Are they fixing that bridge? It's still up in the air. They don't have funding? I know they tried to get grants kind of thing. He and I both know some folks that are on the city commissioners and things like that. I don't know. Still kind of up in the air.

Yeah. It's my understanding. It may actually be the footings.

I'm figuring they maybe do some sort of rope bridge we could walk across.

I'm like, let me just search.

Why could you not walk across? That's the thing.

I mean, I guess they must really be concerned about it. And what I've heard, it's the footings and not the bridge itself, maybe. So they're afraid the whole bridge is just going to fall in the river.

I've put on a few pounds for sure, but I'm like, sure that can't bring this bridge down.

But dang.

Well, we can always put it in like a rope, a tree rope. That's what, that's what. Yeah. Yeah.

What was he saying?

One of those rope bridges. Oh, rope bridge. Yeah. Or what's the, what's the thing they do to- Oh, zipline.

Zipline across. Yeah. So go to the, go to the corner Rick house, have a few pours and zipline over to St. Clair. Nothing dangerous about that. Great pour.

Excellent pour. I know. This is, uh, This is going to be tough to call because it's kind of like, do you go dark or do you go light? And the biggest question of all is, do we get to this bonus pour? Yeah, no, we will get to the bonus pour.

I literally think there's a firing squad of listeners that are ready to shoot us down if we don't get to the bonus pour this time, because we have failed them on too many occasions.

We get to talking and we just, you did think ahead and we went ahead and pre-poured the bonus board this time. We did. Good point. We're committed. That probably helps.

So are we ready to switch to the bonus board while we debate the score on the first four? Heck yeah. Yep. Okay. So the thing is here, folks, is we are not going to actually include the bonus pour in our scoring. So we're going to score the first four bottles, four, three, two, and one.

We'll just go around and see who's number four, who's number three, who's number two, who's number one. It's going to be tough.

But we'll be sipping on the bonus pour. All right, so we all have our bonus pour in our glass and we can let everybody know what it is. Amzie, you brought this bonus pour today.

Yeah, this is something from Single Cask Nation. It's a group. You can find Single Cask Nation on Facebook. They have a website. And they source whiskeys from all over the world, bourbon scotches. They've actually done rums and then do their own private labeling. Not many people get to do that. They've even done, I think, some wild turkeys.

They did. They're single cast nation. They had a Russell's 15 that was like epic. Yeah.

Yeah. And Turkey let them do their own label on it though. So single cast nation. This is from a Westland distillery out of Washington state. This is, okay. So distilled at Westland distillery, aged in nine years, first fill sawturn cask. It was distilled in September of 2014, bottled March of 2024. It is 52.3% alcohol. I was at 104.6 proof, a non-chill filtered, no color added.

So 10 year American single malt and Saturn casks. Oh my gosh.

Get ready. Yeah. So Saturn is a, is a white dessert wine. Um, That naturally undergoes a type of fermentation they call noble rot.

Oh wow.

And if you ever have sautern, it's kind of a little bit of a, it's sweet and a little bit funky kind of.

Okay.

And that's a nose.

Like it's a little sweet, a little sour and funky. A little sweet, sour and funky.

I think you're exactly right. It's like a, it's got a little. Very good. Wet washcloth.

Yeah. I love that. Little buttery at first, almost. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they're one of those cool places that we talked about, Lost Lantern, like teaming up. They've also teamed up with some smaller distilleries too, and done like Black Button out of New York and some other smaller distilleries. They'll team up. Cedar Ridge, I think they may have had a Cedar Ridge, but don't hold that tomb. I think you may be right.

I will say also, if you do go on the Singlecast Nation website and read their descriptions, you will read some of the most amazing descriptions ever. Poetry.

Yeah. Linguistic. Yeah. Representation.

Chad GP doing its thing.

I have great respect for Single Cast Nation. They've got some tremendous picks. And I apologize for the whitewash cloth note, but you just say what comes to mind because that's real.

Well, back to the farm life. if you've ever been around a corn silage silo that's fermenting, I did kind of get a little bit of that in my brain.

And that could be some of that noble rot from the Saltern.

When you said that, that's, that's what turned me, turned my mind to that.

All right. Well, we're going to enjoy this. We're not going to rank it. So why don't we sip on this and talk about it. But at the same time, I think we should go around the room and let's just recap the four whiskeys that we're grading here. And each person that brought a bottle, we'll talk about their whiskey. I'll start. I had the town branch, Kentucky single malt. It was 87 proof-ish, seven-year-old. It was very light in color. It had some softer notes from fruitier notes. It was the lighter of the bunch, I think, maybe. And then we'll move on now to Amzie.

Yep. I had the, uh, the old pepper, uh, malt whiskey, a hundred percent malt, uh, a little bit of Pete to it. Um, what, uh, what do we say there? Some tobacco, uh, fruits. Yeah. Darker fruits. Um, 100 proof. Um, you know, and I think it was one that, uh, Kind of had some bite to it also.

Yeah. That had that juicy fruit on the mid palette kind of, right? Yeah.

And then I brought a lost lantern. This, um, they source different barrels from different distilleries, mostly craft distilleries. And it was, uh, from St. George out of Alameda, California, 107 proof, um, four different barrels. I think I even read there was like a, maybe 600 bottles of this, um, lemon. Juicy Fruit, Summer in a Glass, they dubbed it Mountain Meadow, so a lot of floral notes too. Yeah, so pretty unique. And Rob?

Yeah, and I had the New Riff Single Malt. a seven-year-old up to some nine-year-old barrels apparently, cast strength, 113.8 I believe it was, and had some kind of, well, a bold color, you know, a nice color to it and some nice flavors, maybe some deeper leather, tobacco. vanilla, molasses, not the florals or so forth, a good flavor. I remember too, and I never heard this before, I had a little sheet here I was looking at that said, we're talking about this chard They, they de-charred, used de-charred. So they, they shaved off the inside and re-toasted. And then on the, on the, the part that was re-charred, they shaved off and re-charged, re-charred these barrels. I've never witnessed that.

It was kind of like putting it on a lathe and cutting the insides out of it, right?

Yeah. Like, yeah, like, yeah, exactly. Like kind of shaving it out and redoing it. So some, you know, That was a wild bottle. Actually, there's a lot of stuff to that, but it was another good one. Four good ones. All right. I don't want to vote.

You got to vote. You're on the spot here. But I'll tell you what, I'll give you a little bit of time to think about it. I'm going to start out. I'm going to be the first to go here. So my number four, and again, we, you guys have heard us say this in the past, but you know, uh, there tonight, there are no losers. These were four whiskies that I think, I don't think any of us would tell you not to buy. These are all four whiskies that are probably on the list, but I'm actually going to say the town branch is my number four and I will. popcorn to AMSE.

Yeah, I think this is a rough one. You know, we kind of mentioned it being kind of like the four seasons here that we all had. There's a reason I live here in Kentucky. I love the four seasons. You know, I love the difference. The changes, you know, I would love to own each one of these bottles. And I think I'm going to agree with you, Jim, that, that, I mean, still, I really enjoyed it. I intend to go to Kroger and try and find a bottle for $35, but yeah, it's probably my number four.

Okay.

Todd. I'm going to agree. Yeah. I think I'd like to have that a little higher proof. I mean, it's got some fun things. I've had some others that are very similar to that at a higher proof that just blew me away, but I think the lack of proof, but yeah.

Yeah.

Spring sipper. Yeah.

Spring sipper. And you know, again, not fair, but as, as old grizzled drinkers, maybe Jim and I, especially, you know, we've, we enjoy the higher proofs, the spicier, I mean, given the option. So that, that would probably be my least favorite of the four, but. But see, now what I would do, I'd keep that around for my wife, for people that come in that don't want the high proof. Man, I don't know why they wouldn't like that. Good stuff.

Be a great introduction. To whiskey in general, I think it would be a good introduction. It's light, easy to drink.

I'm always frustrated with people that want to bring someone into their bar and say, here's, here's the best thing in the world right here. Try this stag.

Yeah.

And they hand somebody 131 proof sip of bourbon. I mean, you, you probably just ruined a bourbon drinker for life. Cause if that's what bourbon is, you know, they're not going to like it. So go down 50 points and enjoy yourself.

When we first moved to Frankfurt, Stagg was out. So as you did back then, I went to the liquor store and I bought a George T. Stagg because you could just do that. And that was the, I think it's 143 something proof. That was a new bourbon drinker, right? Tried a little bit of that neat. My head was like the cartoon where there's the mushroom cloud. Now I can handle that. But as a beginner, that was, I mean, it was.

And I want people to join me and have a little fun and sip and taste and recognize flavors and stuff. And if they can do that at the 80 proof while I'm doing it, the 130 proof, then we're all having fun.

All right, Rob. Well, you, you actually got to go last on this last round. I guess what you get to be the first one to call it your number three.

I knew there was fool's gold there. Well. I'm probably going to go, what was the second lightest one there?

That free mine, The Lost Lantern? Oh yeah, yeah. The Lost Lantern. Yeah. Okay.

And again, no other reason than my brain kind of likes the deep colors and so forth and some of the deeper flavors. But again, I loved that one. It had a lot of good stuff to it, but.

All right. Todd? I'm going to go with AMSY's Pepper. Uh, nice pour. I was really surprised cause I did not know what to expect. I even think I asked him, um, you know, Pepper there for a while. He used to source from MGP when they first got started. And I was kind of curious to, to know if that was their own distillate. So I really liked that. And if he got that at 45 bucks, yeah, that's a, that's a good buy, but that's my third place.

Yeah. Amzie, you're number three.

So I think on this, I'll probably go with the, the new riff. Okay. I really liked it. I love that molasses note to it. A lot of finishes going on there. And I think sometimes more isn't always better. And I get some of those finishes. Like I really can pick them out a little bit. And almost one where you can maybe lose the whiskey a little bit in some of the finish. The kitchen sink factor. Yeah. And that's why I'd go number three on that.

Maybe too much competing, right?

Oh, this is tough. This is really tough. Yeah, this is nitpicking. I know. I just made up shit as I was going.

I didn't know what I was going to say.

For me, my number three will be the Old Pepper. And again, I think for me that

The answer was easy for the town braves to be number four.

It wasn't as easy for the old pepper to be number three. It could have been number two, but it was number three for me. So you picked that as well, right?

Yes, that was my number three.

So yeah, I think I'm with Todd on that one. What did you pick? He went with mine. Yeah, he went with the lost lantern. Okay. So there's a little bit of differentiation here. He's never come back on the show again.

See, that's the goofy part. That thing, like, yeah, I mean, that was pretty, pretty amazing, but it's not kind of where I really reside. Yeah, sure.

And we talked about that, like, there's these lighter ones and the dark ones. So it's kind of like, what's your mood and what are you into?

Now talk to me in July.

All right. Well, we're going to, we're going to shift the responsibility to AMSE here and we're going to go for the number two pick.

So number two, uh, I think I go with my, uh, old pepper. Okay. Yep.

Todd. My second place is going to be Rob's new riff. And it's not because he picked mine for third. I swear. Revenge. I love the nose. It probably. Like I said, I got so much stuff on that nose. It was every time I went back, there was something different, but like the pallet was a little convoluted, I think, maybe. But yeah, I mean, that's a winner. I would love to have a bottle of that.

I think I'm going to go with for number two.

Yeah.

Yeah. Probably pepper. Pepper. Okay. Pepper. Yeah.

All right. Yeah. These are really close. These are really close. It's tough.

Yeah.

For me, my number two is, uh, the new ref. And I know this is a little confusing for those at home. We're trying to keep track in their head of what's going on here, but we'll, we'll straighten it all out for you.

We'll straighten it all out for you.

Buy any of them, I guess. Buy any of them.

I'll square it away here in a little bit.

And for me, the new riff and, and I kind of agree a little bit with Todd there. It, it had a lot going on, but I don't know that it all, um, went together. It kind of is too much, maybe, uh, delicious. Wonderful. I love that they did all this amazing variety into this one bottle. I think it's great. Um, and I'm going to go buy a bottle for sure. But I think that, um, it was just, it's, it's a bit much.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Like I said, that nose was just every time I'd go in there, there would be something new, something different, but like the palette, this was.

Yeah. This would be my pick to have with a cigar. Yes, for sure.

Cigar, single malt for sure. The other thing is, cause I've kind of still been sipping on that is probably from the Sherry, the porch, whatever some of those, some kind of nutty notes are coming out now too. Yeah.

All right. Well, we will switch to Todd here and we'll let you name your number one. It's not just because I brought it, but it's the lost lantern.

Yeah. I swear. Yeah. It's, it's so different.

So the hundred dollar gift certificate goes to... All right.

That didn't even pay for the bottle.

Good point, good point. Just really unique. Maybe that was my version. It got a little pricey there, I guess. But again, this is stupid, but that single malt that I brought is... Again, I was underwhelmed with the fact that there was a lot that went into it that didn't seem to come out in the flavors. you know, I would have kind of expected a little more in that regard, but it's still kind of, you know, good proof, solid flavor and a decent nose. So kind of up my alley.

I would say more than decent. I really love that nose. Thank you. So what's your

So new riffs, my favorite.

You're number one. Well, good, because that's your bottle. You get to take it home and enjoy it.

There you go. It was accidental.

All right. For me, I'm going to go with a lost lantern. I just think that any whiskey that can trick me into thinking it might be a wine.

Pretty much out of the box. Fair enough. You're not driving tonight, are you? Not tonight. We are at the Bourbon Road bar. Oh, thank goodness.

It was really good. I think, no, I know for sure that all four of these bottles need to be on my bar. No doubt about it.

But the, what's it called? Mountain Meadow? Mountain Meadow is what they dubbed it. So it was a, Four barrel blend of St. George out of Alameda, California. Yeah. It's fantastic. It's really, really different.

Yeah. I mean, I would recommend, if you have a nice bar and you want a diverse bar, that's a must have. I like it.

Amzie? Yeah, that lost lantern that Todd brought is my number one also. Just kind of mind blowing to me because I mean, I've still got it here. I pick it up. I smell it. I would bet money. It is like an ice wine or something like that. Um, but the, the palette, the taste is great. Finished lasts forever on it. Um, that that's a really neat one. And I, I think I'll get a bottle of that.

So can we, can we kind of, so do we all feel like the, um, Todd's bottle here is probably taking the number one spot.

I think so.

Overall, even though Rob tried to bring it down.

Give the details to our listeners one more time. The number one whiskey of the night. Los Lantern, and they source, and it's from St. George Distillery out of Alameda, California. This was four years old. We didn't really, since the proofs worked out, we didn't really compare it to the color with your town and branch, but it would have been interesting. And I think they had been close, very light colored, pricier, $150. But with craft comes price. And I ordered this directly from them. There may be a few bottles left, anybody's interested. And I know not all of them are straight from them, but there's some, I think, were maybe like three or four states that they sell out of. They're based in Vermont. And yeah, I just took a flyer because I knew we were going to do this and yeah, it worked out well. So is our number two then the pepper? I would say probably the new riff. I feel like the new riff, Pepper, and then the town branch.

Okay. So one, two, three, and four, the lost Lantern, the James Pepper, no, the new riff, sorry, the new riff, then the James Pepper, then the town branch. Yeah. Yep. All right. And let's talk a little bit about this, uh, this bonus pour, which we actually got to today.

Yeah, absolutely.

This is the single cast nation.

This is a 10-year-old. No, just shy of that. It was nine-year-old. Nine-year-old. From Westland out of Washington state.

Westland single malt aged in Saturn barrels. Fantastic pour. When you come back to that, I get that butterscotch thing, but then the second nose gets that like sour,

funky, whiny thing, which is, that's pretty crazy. Like the first nose is like this big waft of like Werther's.

All right, roadies, if you're going to have a blind bottle share with your friends, if you're going to have a few people over to your home bar, why don't you try some American single malts?

I mean, throw a curve ball out there. Throw a curve ball.

It's a lot of fun. And you might even find a few of these on sale. We certainly did. Right? Well, you guys did. I did not. You didn't.

You brought the big bucks.

Lifestyles are rich in things.

Well, when word gets out, that was number one tonight. The price is sure to skyrocket.

Go check. I don't know how many bottles were left.

Well, he did do four barrels on this one.

I think it said about 600 bottles or so.

Good looking bottle, good looking label, if that means anything to you. Kind of does to me.

I like that they promote the craft stuff.

I wonder if my wife asked me to pour her a glass of wine, if I poured that, if she would know the difference.

Well, proof was, surely. Wine's got a little burn to it tonight. Yeah, I guess so.

What is this, Jim? Maybe add a little water?

Yeah.

Well, it's been a fun show. It's been a lot of fun. The Malt Migos, I like it. The Malt Migos. Yeah. I think this is our- No, we're not starting a second podcast at all. No, no, we're not. We don't have time.

But I mean, I am excited about new categories. We talked the other day about how we hope they come up with a rice whiskey category because man, TJ Melick is knocking it out of the park. JT Melick. JT. Did I say TJ? Yeah. JT Melick is knocking it out of the park.

You're thinking of what's his TJ Hooker, the old William Shatner show. Oh, sure. I know that the Kirk whiskey was nothing to talk about.

So in spite of being the bourbon road, we're not bourbon snobs.

We're not bourbon snobs. No, we always have claimed to take a side road from time to time, and we do enjoy other whiskeys. I've mentioned on many occasions how gin is my other bourbon, and tequila is my other bourbon. In fact, Millie and I just went to Cincinnati on a fun couples weekend, and we went to a Scotch bar, and we went to a gin bar. Wow. We had a great gin bar. That's interesting. We went to a gin bar. Yeah, it was really good. I'd never been to a gin bar before. I have not. So if you ever get a chance, you're in Cincinnati, go to 5050 Gin. It was a lot of fun. It's a small place. They might seat six or eight people, but it was fun. Six or eight, wow.

Maybe. The word quaint comes similar.

Yeah, it's kind of, there's two sister bars that share an open door between the two. Okay. So you can go back and forth. It's a lot of fun. It is cool. A lot of fun. So we'll get out there and explore and experience new things and, and try stuff you haven't tried before.

Bourbon is great.

We love it, but there are other things out there.

Absolutely.

And we- Like malted rice, right?

Malted rice, yeah. We walked through a number of unique ones tonight.

Yeah, we did. Yep.

So, and hopefully very soon we'll be broadcasting live from the Rare Eagle Bar.

It's going to happen soon. We'll make it happen.

That's good. I'm already thinking about my next, uh, American single mouth that I'm going to bring. So there you go. That or you pick the theme.

Your bar, your theme.

Good point. I'm pretty easy. We'll figure something out. Yep.

Just bring something, right?

Yeah, heck yeah.

All right. Well, it's great to have the Malt Migos together once again. It was a lot of fun. All right. Well, folks, 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 on Wednesdays, we come out with an episode. Sometimes we have a guest on. Sometimes it's a distillery or a musician or an author or a comedian or something fun. Sometimes it's just us guys sitting down to have a good pour and enjoy ourselves. We always have a good time. We're always drinking great whiskeys. We're always letting you know exactly what it is you should have on your bar or try or, you know, spend your hard-earned money on. We hope we make some good recommendations and we hope you'll tune into us every single week. In order to not miss a show, scroll up to that app, the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way, every time we release an episode, you'll get a notification that Jim and Todd have dropped another one. We'd love to have you with us every single week. We'd love to be a part of your day. Whatever you're doing with your headsets on, we'd like to be a part of it. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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