454. An Evening at Rare Eagle 2.0

Oh 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.

Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival. We've got another amazing event coming your way this year. Be sure to join us at the half and I'll tell you a little bit more about the event taking place October 4th, 2025.

Todd and I are proud to have Smokies Lifestyle Cigars as the 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, long time listeners and new roadies. We'd love to have you here again today. We are hanging out in the rare Eagle bar. It has been a minute since we've been in the rare Eagle bar, but Rob was gracious.

Welcome.

Yeah. Invited us over Todd and a collective group of roadies put together a show for us.

Yeah. So we kind of crowdsourced this and. I had some good friends that shared without spoiling it, shared a couple of these pours. And we'll give them a better shout out when we get to those pours. But yeah, so what was fun about this is on our Bourbon Roadies page, which I highly recommend everybody go and join. It's a nice, fun net group of like-minded folks who share what they're drinking, share what bottles they find. And yeah, it's just a great group. And I do fun little giveaways when I can. But yeah, so I did a poll on there and I had, I believe I had like eight different bourbons listed on there and ranging, you know, some of the newer ones that have been released, like the new seven here, Old Fitzgerald, Baudenbon, Wheated, Bourbon, and a couple others. But anyway, so. Today we, I mean, well, I guess yesterday we kind of counted the votes and this is, these are the top five out of that eight.

So the group voted on this and decided which bourbon should be on this show.

Yes. So it's, I guess you could say it's a crowd, crowdsourced review, if you will, or this is a, this is extra aged bourbons. Yeah. Everything's over a 10 years old today, which is fantastic. Yeah, we've been talking about age statements. I mean, they're becoming a big thing. So apparently our listeners think so and our roadies think so too. So why don't we tell everybody what we warmed up on Rob?

What did we warm up on today?

The first one or the one that came off of your bar. Well, you know, we did too.

That first one was the stretch.

Okay. Yeah. We won't call that a warmup.

Don't talk the stretch. Just go straight to the warmup.

Okay. We'll go straight to the warmup. Yeah. We started off with the Eagle Rare 10-year. Yeah. And you know, what better... than to have Eagle Rare at the Rare Eagle. That's what I thought.

I mean, it just suits the moment that we're at the Rare Eagle bar. Actually, this is the reimagined Rare Eagle bar.

It sort of is. And for the listeners out there, I'm a bit of a patriotic person. I have a lot of historic American flags. collect eagles. I like a lot of bourbon and so forth. So it's kind of an eclectic little space, I guess you'd say. Kind of fun. I like to share it, show it off, and maybe even engage people in some historical information.

But you reached into the bowels of your collection in here. Cause I mean, you've got a lot of bottles, but you reached back there and you grabbed an unopened tenure Eagle rare and popped it for us. And that's what we warmed up on today.

And it's for good reason, right? Yes, it is. And are we ready to dive into why that's a good, I think we should delete in. OK, so me living in Frankfurt comes in very handy sometimes. Most times when I get like a text from someone, one of my friends at Buffalo Trace, I'm kind of like, I don't have time to stand in the line or anything like that. The other day I got one and I thought, okay, let's go try this. So I got lucky enough and so did AMSE, our good friend AMSE Winning from the Frankfurt Bourbon Society and sometimes he's on the show, but I got an Eagle Rare 12. They gave out, they had a big release. I think we've already talked about, I think 1,800 bottles in those. Pretty good release, right? Yeah, pretty good. I mean, that's 600 or 300 cases. So this one was a little bit smaller. It's kind of good that I won. I won't have to win that lottery they did. They may be drawn for that. Six bottle lottery. Six bottle lottery for a million people. But yeah, I got over there, and I think there were about 10 bottles left after I walked through there. So I got that, and I think he was about six people behind me. So I think when he got through, there was like three or four bottles left. But it was kind of cool. You kind of stand in line there, and there's always folks. I mean, they get there early. It's like Disney World, you know, they're trying to get in there early. So the folks I was talking to, they were from Minnesota and they had no clue that this was dropping. And so I told them and they were like, you'd have thought, you know, that they'd had hit the lottery. So it was pretty cool.

For the record, my, you know, my office is 20 minutes away and that's not close enough typically.

Oh, no. In fact, they dropped a Blanton's straight from the barrel. I think that was Friday, maybe. I'll say Friday, but we'll probably drop this in a couple of weeks. But yeah, which I've never seen that drop there. So they've kind of upped their game and their releases, which is pretty cool. But you got to be fast because word travels like wildfire.

Yeah. I don't think I could get there quick enough. You just need to go on the day you're able to go and you get what you can get.

Yeah.

And that's kind of the way it works. And it always seems to be old Taylor for me, which is fine.

Yeah, they had E.H. Taylor's small batch that day. It was their regular thing. And I almost grabbed one just to like, I think Rob and I were talking earlier, he likes to kind of stock up on those when people can't find one. Sure. You know, she shares it.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

But I didn't because I was like, no, I've struck gold once today.

So is that his Eagle Rare 10 burned into your memory, fellas?

Yeah, I mean, it's a great, always a great pour. I mean, if you can find it at MSRP, jump on that. I mean, 10 year product for. Was it about 45? Something like that.

99 or something. Maybe pushing up 50 now. It seemed to keep creeping up slightly.

Is that Buffalo Trace additional fee, I think, is what happens on that sometimes. All right. So we've got the 12 year in our glass.

It's had time to sort of acclimate to being in a glass, about 15 minutes. Yeah, I'd say so.

So with the Eagle Red 12, they upped it two years, obviously, but they also upped it five proof points. So it's a 95 proofer. I walked out of there at $52, so it's a $49.99. Again, If you find it at that price, jump on it, but you, everyone out there in Bourbon land kind of knows some places just don't put it.

It's basically a $10 increase for two more years.

Right.

Pretty much. Yeah. Which I think is fair.

I do too. Acceptable and palatable and all that good stuff.

All right. Well, let's check it out. Yeah. It is familiar on the nose, but I'm picking up just a little bit more kind of rich oak and a little bit, a little bit of like leather note.

Yeah. I'd say that's, that's the two things that really stick out to me as compared to the tin. I mean.

I mean, the cherry is still there, but it's a little more, um, I don't know, deeper. It's, it's kind of like, I think you, I think you'd mentioned that like the tenure always gives you, it gives you these Cola notes, right? Yeah.

Like cherry Cola, grape grape juice kind of thing. You know, then it's always, it's like the baking cabinet, your brown sugars, your little bit of clove, a little bit of cinnamon, little, this little, that. Yeah, the nose, it's not a huge difference.

It's not a huge difference, but it does lean more towards older oak. Kind of a little bit more.

You said that oak and leather.

Yep. What do you think, Rob?

Yeah, it definitely does. The color was a little deeper. I kind of noticed that right off. Because I honestly had a fear that it was merely a new age statement on the same old stuff. I mean, you know, every now and then we hear that a bottle is, a 10 year old bottle is made with stuff, minimum 10 and go up a little bit. And so I didn't know where this lies, but it's different. It's definitely different.

So this might be 10 up to 12, or it might just be 10. I mean, 12 up to 14. Something in there is a 12, right? Yeah. Yeah.

But I will recommend, this is going to be, it's going to be a regular bottle. And I say that with, you know, take that with a grain of salt, because most people are always complaining them while they can't find Buffalo Trace products. But eventually this is going to be out there. Yeah. This is their Mash Mill one, which is a tight lip secret, but most folks think it's about, what is it? I think like it's pretty high corn, like 18, 88, 89. Wow. I didn't know that. Seven rye, four malted barley. It's quite sweet.

I was kind of hoping for a little bit of chocolate note on it. I'm really not getting too much, but.

I'm getting this little light savory note.

Yeah. I think it is a more mature version of the 10 year. It definitely comes across nicely. Still has that cherry note though. I'm ready to sip. Cheers.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I'm sorry. I'm already in it. And I will say on the back end, I do get a little bit of that chocolate. Do you? Yeah. Not like I do in some of the malted rice, obviously, but.

I think that savory note kind of carries over in the oak.

Man, I'm getting like loads of nutmeg on that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Really good.

A little bit of spice on the nutmeg spice. Yeah, I get that.

Little dryer. You know, Rob? Cigar? What do you think? I think so.

I think you're onto something, Jim.

Yeah.

You old sly devil.

We are going to be, speaking of Eagles, Rob and I are going to be next week. We're going on a road trip to do a couple of barrel picks. And we'll announce those later, but these are additionally, these are barrel picks for bourbon on the banks. And, but while we're there. And you can probably surmise what the distilleries are going to be when I tell you where Rob and I are going afterwards. But we're going to go to the Screaming Eagle Cigar Bar in Clarksville, Tennessee. Nice. Since you like Eagles so much. Oh, I'm going to love it. 101st Airborne Hangout. Yep. Those are my kind of people. That's fun. Yeah.

So speaking of Buffalo Trace, they just announced one of those very, very rare bourbon. So it's their Colonel E.H. Taylor Jr. Distillers Council. It's a limited edition ultra premium, which basically means expensive. Lots of money. Get your walk. Kentucky straight bourbon, born from the very spirit of the pioneer who helped define American whiskey. So I believe this is the stuff that was fermenting in the old Pompeii. It's finally showing up. Okay.

So they were able to extract not, not just the yeast, but the recipe and everything else. So this is a recreation of it.

I'm assuming it's the same recipe, but you've been to Bourbon Pompeii where they had all those old fermenters down there. And I remember the one time I went, they had stuff in there fermenting.

Oh, they had stuff going in. But I'm wondering, when they originally excavated that, were they able to retrieve any yeast samples or anything?

You know, it being Sazerac, you got to think they tried. They had to try. Yeah, you'd think so.

There's some secret strain of yeast somewhere that

Now you're going to have to back up a little bit. Pompeii, I'm kind of lost.

So Bourbon Pompeii is, they were looking to expand, I guess, I'm trying to think what was above that. Jim, do you remember? Wasn't it like a ballroom or an event center or something?

In the basement of Buffalo Trace there, along the river.

So if you'd like the hard hat tour, they will take you under there. So they found this and excavated it. Now I'm back with you a little bit. A good friend of mine is the Bourbon archaeologist there and he's done all kinds of crazy work, but they actually fermented bourbon down there. The minute I saw it, I was like, oh, that's going to have a big price.

Yeah. Holy crap.

That's fantastic because these are basically like stone vats, right? Yeah. They're dugouts in the ground. But they were copper lined too, if I recall.

They were. They were. It's really neat. That's the tour you should do, I think. That's right.

I would imagine somewhere along the way, it just, they got tired of recovering after the flood and they said, we can't do this anymore. And they filled it in and I think they made an event center out of it or something. Something like that. I heard, but anyway.

So this is a hundred proof bourbon and you want to know the price tag? $1,500 out the door. Wow. That's easy for Rob.

Man, that hurt a little bit. That's a few of your flags, isn't it?

But that would look really good on you as a centerpiece.

Let's tell Pam about that. See what kind of response Rob gets as I talk about myself in the third person.

All right. So did you guys happen to save just a little bit of the tenure?

I did. I did as well. I kind of keep going back and forth. Oh, you have been. Okay. Well, I saw Todd do that once and I thought, you know what, that's not a bad idea. Cause I, my memory is about eight seconds long.

And you'd like to, you actually think I know something when I'm doing too, right? So.

You're like, I'll follow suit. Hold on.

There's a clear difference in these two.

There is. And again, my first fear was it was the same thing. Then they just up the age statement to where it truly ought to have been. But it's a different bottle, a different color, a different everything. It's good.

I think it's a step up. It's a little bit drier. It definitely has more oak on it. And for $10 more, two more years, I think it's a clear choice. I would, I would grab it.

Well, I did. So I think, yeah, I'm a, I'm a big fan and I've, I grabbed that, uh, I guess that was last week. I've already shared the heck. I shared it with the bourbon board and I've shared it with a few other friends.

So what do you think? Do you think that we're looking at a bottle that's going to replace the 10 year or do you think we'll have, cause it seems odd to have a 10 and a 12.

The folks I know that are over there say, it's going to be a 10 and 12. I think it's almost, you know, Weller has a rainbow, so why not start making different ego rares, you know?

But 10 and 12 years is they're both in that same sort of saddle. 12 does reach that higher end mark. And then you got the 17, which is big fuku bucks. Right. And I think it comes in at a hundred proof.

It used to be 90 back in the day, but I think it's a hundred. But maybe you'll see a 14 year old that, you know, and maybe 99 proof or who knows, you know, the wizards at Sazerac are always, you know, they're great marketers.

Well, I'm kind of thinking along the same lines, Jim. Again, another thing that I noticed is the bottle is exactly the same. So, you know, usually you, you know, there's a new I don't know, new marketing, new bottle, new everything. So I thought maybe the 10 would disappear as well.

Our good friend Todd told us that there's a very good chance that Harlan Wheatley will be listening to this episode. So just, Hey Harland, if you got your ears on, we love your 12 year 14 wouldn't be bad with it.

No, not at all.

All right. The one thing I'll, you were talking about the difference in the bottles is the, obviously the Eagle rares has that silver foil over the top. Whereas the 12 is kind of a call that like bronze, I guess. I think so. Yeah.

That's a good point.

But that's, and then there's a 10 and a 12. So there's not a great, I mean, I was kind of surprised that You know, the, it being so similar.

What does the 17 have on it? And I mean, I haven't had one very often, so it's been a while.

Yeah. And Harlan, if you want to pass one of those on our way, bring it down to the cigar bar in Simpsonville.

Yeah. Going back to the empty glass, which surprise, surprise. I have an empty glass now going back and nosing that empty glass is just. It's really got a nice oaky deep oaky note to it. Yeah. And a little bit of tobacco-y. It is tobacco-y. So I mean, yeah, big improvement. Worth the extra 10 bucks.

I don't know if you guys noticed, I've got my old tobacco knife and my spear up there on the bar found here recently. I like having alcohol and dangerous things on my bar. I got bullets up there. I got a bowl full of knives. Yeah, it just seemed like the right thing to do for me. I don't know.

You don't have a few drinks and start juggling those knives or anything, do you?

Haven't yet.

All right, shall we move on? Let's move on.

What's second on our agenda here?

We're going proof. I will say this. We're going proof by proof, so not by total number of votes, but these were all pretty close. Eagle Rare 12 was, I think, one of the top boat getters, and we'll get to the other top boat getter, but this was somewhere right in about fourth place or third place. And so this is the Luxro 12-year double barrel. So the cool thing about this one is they take, and they release these quite often, they'll take two different barrels and combine them rather than one single barrel. So it's kind of a double barrel, single barrel, a little bit, I guess you could say.

So you take two barrels, you combine them, then you put them back into barrels.

I don't think they put them back in barrels.

I think it's just double barrel. Double barrel. So it's two barrels married.

Yeah. Say that fast. Double barrel. Okay. Cheers. So 118.4 proof retails for about 189. This is an elder one. I had this a while. I believe this one was released in

Well, it says it's a 12-year, and it was bottled in 07. So 2019 release.

2019. And they released these. This is one you can definitely get at LuxRoe. Yeah. And I'm sure they're out there on some shelves. But I know it's one of those everybody grabs when they go to the gift shop or do a tour at LuxRoe.

OK, so we've turned a corner here. This is definitely a little bit different. What's the match bill on this?

So that's the thing. Most folks believe that The newer releases might be Luxro's own juice, whereas this might be Heaven Hill sourced. The reason for the 118.4 proof is the Luxro distillery opened in April, so there's your four, and it was April 2018. So see, it's definitely got to be, if the distillery opened in 2018, then it's still got to be sourced. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it could be a chance they may be, you know, they're owned by MGP now, so it's a good chance maybe they transition to double barrel MGP maybe.

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

I don't know. Might be something to look for if we can find a newer version.

Well, the nose is, uh, is nice, but it's kind of, um, it's, it's not overwhelming. It's very light. Yeah.

It does smell a bit heaven hillish.

Yeah, it does kind of little, little nutty. Okay. Nutty.

Yep.

I wouldn't be surprised. Cheers. Cheers.

Yeah. Nice.

Oh, that's good. Oh, that's real good.

It is real good.

That's really, really, really good.

Wow. Of course it is. Yeah. It's $189 good.

So if you're nosing it, you're like, yeah, OK, sure. But when you taste it, oh my goodness. That's great. That has a great palate to it.

Yeah. Now, again, you figure two barrels at 12 years, What would you think? Maybe 300, 350 bottles, probably most times.

Yeah. Maybe 380.

Yeah. So obviously you're not going to find this one when you get there since it's from 2019, but it's kind of a roll of the dice when you get one, I'm sure. And you're always probably going to get some different notes, but yeah, this is nice.

Yeah, it's, um, it's cinnamon. It's, uh, it does have that sort of nutty almond palette to it.

Sweet oak, some really nice sweet oak.

Really good. Expensive bottle, but wow. Good. Yes. I think I might've had one of these at one time or another. Uh, we did, we did an episode there a long time ago and, uh, We may have had something like this. Honestly, I don't remember. It's been a while.

That was back before they were acquired though. Yeah, that was. Yeah. Cause that was like this bottle. Yeah, that was, I mean, that only happened maybe, I want to say 21, let's go say four years, three, four years ago. Yeah.

I think you're saying LuxRoe acquired by whom?

MGP. Like in 2021, like right at the tail end of the pandemic in that timeframe. But we did an episode there in 2020, I think maybe, maybe 2019, 2020. I don't remember exactly, but. I mean, my brain can't remember all the emergence we've tried, but I wonder if we tried something.

All other 450 plus episodes. Yeah. I can't imagine.

Oh, this is really good though. Yeah.

It lingers. The finish just goes for days. I mean, it's...

Great whiskey. Great whiskey. It is. So when was the last time you guys were at Luxor, Rob?

Me? I've not been there.

Okay, Ton.

2019.

That's where I grabbed this. So that's when you grabbed this bottle. Okay. So this was all pre-MGP. Yes. So we're going to choose a winner winner chicken dinner tonight, right? At the end of the show. I mean, that's our thing. That's our thing.

We've got to rate them. Rob, you got to keep your notes. Nettle notes.

That's tough on an old guy.

Yeah. Yeah. This might be the first time you've ever done back to back episodes too, right? I know.

I told another roadie today, I thought your old show must be going to hell because it had me on it twice. So I'm feeling sorry for you guys.

We needed celebrities to like up our listenership. Everybody knows the Eagle Rare bar.

So what do you think of the episode we had? I've had several people tell me the past few episodes have been really, really good. And the one on Mother of Bourbon for me was just, I loved it personally. I went back and listened to it. I know I listen to these every time I edit the episodes. So I don't always go back and listen right away, but I went back and listened to that one again.

The edited version. Yeah.

Just in the car driving, I was like, all right, I want to listen to it again.

I'm actually catching up, and I listened to a few other podcasts. But I did give the book away, and that went to Alan Quiet, one of our roadies. And so he was very excited. And there's a good chance I'll probably include some other stuff in that. So yeah, cheers to Alan.

Alan, great. We love hearing about the winners on the giveaways. And we hope you enjoy that book.

Yeah, Jim and I both really enjoyed it. And I'm like you, that was Took us a while to get it going. I think Cave had some key card issues, so we scrambled and found a room. But once we got going, it was a fun chat.

Well, you've had 400 episodes, Jim, and you guys, and I know you've had a number of good hosts. I think you've got a Jim here with Todd now. Can you figure out what's the recipe for, why does a certain episode resonate with people?

I think it's the guest and the story. All the episodes are fun in their own way. I mean, they're all good in their own right. But sometimes the chemistry happens. The story meets the person who's your guest. Todd and I are in the right frame of mind and it just all just comes together and it just makes a great episode. I love history. I love whiskey history and to have somebody on the show that wrote a book about a whiskey figure that mostly is overlooked. This person mostly stayed under the radar and is being brought to life now is really cool. There's whiskey released that you can get off the shelf today that is in her honor. It's just fun, good stuff.

And some of them are kind of interesting. You know, some guys that, uh, what was it? The, the guy that did the movie, um, uh, documentary we just released. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. The, uh, Frankfurt heart of bourbon.

Yeah. I mean, that kind of stuff is incredible. Yeah.

I love it. Yeah. I mean, you know, we have different, kinds of listeners. We have listeners who do like music and we have listeners that prefer not to have music shows. Then we have, you know, history buffs and we have bourbon collectors and we have people that, that just, they just like to drink a reasonably priced bottle.

I've had folks that love craft stuff. They have folks that love the allocated stuff.

Sometimes they want us to hit the road. Sometimes they're happy when we're hanging out at the Eagle Rare bar. I just think the variety we bring and the sort of the mix is good. People just like the mix. And we've got a little something for everybody and every show is not going to be for you, but we'll hit home with you once in a while.

Well, I'm with you. I like that part of it. You guys did a great job. Thank you.

I appreciate it. I think we should, uh, take what's left in our glass here and carry it into the half. Mine would be molecules. Yeah. I've got a, I've got a little bit left, but, uh, we'll take it into half. We'll compile our notes and figure out where we stand so far. We're going to come back in the second half. We have how many whiskies? Three more, three more in the second half folks. And at the end of all this, we are going to take a vote and figure out who's the winner and who takes home the grand prize.

Yeah. Gets all the kudos. Yeah. It's all the kudos.

Were there any predictions on the, on the, on the votes?

No, I didn't really say for sure that we were doing those five, but they'll, they'll find out, but be curious to know. I'll have to do that the next time when we crowdsource what we taste next time.

Well folks stick around. We will be right back.

Hey, roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival again. We have another amazing event this year, but we want you to come early because we've got a lot of events leading up to the festival. Starting on Thursday, we've got another mixology with master mixologist Heather Wibbles on the Bourbon Bell and O.H. Ingram. Leading into Friday, we have got Peggy No Stevens. She's back with another bourbon pairing and a lesson called The Stave is the Rage. It's going to be amazing. Limestone Heritage Distilling is going to be bringing in three single barrels. You're going to learn a lot. We've got the VIP coming back and this year we are celebrating women in bourbon. This year, Bourbon on the Banks Festival promises to be even better than ever. We've already got more than 70 distilleries that are going to be there. More than anything, I need to encourage you to get your tickets as soon as possible. They're selling fast. Some of them are already sold out. If you want to come this year, please get your tickets. We don't want to miss you on October 4th in Frankfort, Kentucky on the banks of the amazing Kentucky River.

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All right, welcome back listeners. We are diving into our crowdsourced I guess bourbon roadie source, but it might be a better wording. Yeah, just kind of tasting. We put these options out there for our bourbon roadies to choose what we're going to taste today. And so our first pour was the Eagle Rare 12, which I was lucky enough to procure a bottle of that. Our second pour was the Luxe Road 12 year double barrel. And now we're ready to jump into pour number three. All right. And these are all extra aged whiskeys. Yes. Everything is double digits today. It's just kind of cool how that worked out. Cause we did have a few options in our, uh, in our poll on our roadie page that were under 10, but still they, everything had an age statement that I was going to try to keep it at an age statement, but it just happened that, yeah, we're doing double digits. I'm not complaining about you, Rob.

Heck no.

I was going to say, if we tally up all the ages of these bourbons, it gets up in our actual age. Exactly.

Yeah. Throw them all together. I don't know, it might get as high as us. Yeah, I was trying to keep that quiet.

Everybody loves how we do our math, so we won't even try that. Exactly. What's in our glass? Four, three is the new Riff 10-year bourbon. Yay. I know, which is crazy. It just seems like, It just seems like yesterday New Riff was opening up. I know it. It's up there by Party Source and all that.

They have now 10 year whiskey that they produced. That they produced, right. It's this new port on the river, kind of right there at the... Yeah, it's close. Yeah, and right next to Party Source. Great place. Great company. I can remember when they came out with the OKI.

Yeah.

They still drop those occasionally. They do, but I mean their original NGP sourced OKI. That was like, you couldn't even touch it hardly.

Yeah. So this is part of their high note limited edition. So I guess they're probably going to keep going up in year. I'd expect them, I don't know, I think they had a nine year, but. I feel like maybe they'll do a 12-year, kind of like the Eagle Rare. 65 corn, 30 rye, and five multi-barley. 120.5 proof. Retails for $89.99. Wow. $89.99, 120 proof, 10-year-old new Riff bourbon.

Fantastic.

So it's under that 10 a year mark that I always like to. Right. So you'd call that a value? You know, today's market, yeah. All right, let's check it out. All right, cheers. Oh, that's nice. Would you say there's like a new riff funk on that?

There's like this It does have kind of a funk to it. I don't know that it's a new refunk. I kind of like that. I'm going to coin the term if they haven't used it.

Yeah, we can go with that. Something good.

Shout out to my good buddy, Jeff Wack of Hello Again Whiskey Friends YouTube channel. He was kind enough to send us this pour and actually the next one, which we'll get into here. That's pretty fantastic. Thank you, Jeff.

Thank you.

Cheers to Jeff.

Come visit.

I love that. The nose has a bit of spice on it. It's, it's a nice, um, sweet candy spice. Yeah. It's kind of a classic nose. Yeah. I like it.

All right. I'm ready to sip. Cheers. Cheers. Yeah. I'm holding off, but I'm, I'm joining here.

Wow. That is concentrated flavor. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. That's the most viscous.

Is it New Riffy? You think this is New Riffy?

This is very viscous. It's also cool that they came out with this high proof because they do like their hunter proof. They do a lot of bottled and bond offerings and things like that, but they've upped the proof game, if you will. This is really good.

This doesn't like scream New Rift to me, although I know it is New Rift. I know they made it. It's got a hint of New Rift, but it's kind of leaning a little willity. Oh yeah? Wow. I think.

It's a little sweet on the tail end. It's like sweet spice. It's got a little bit of a bite to it.

It's concentrated.

There's a little bit of that. Well, it gives me that like red hot sentence.

Wow. Their stuff is turning really amazing in its age. Definitely for a bourbon, definitely has that, uh, it's leaning in that direction. Now I've always thought that new ref had this wonderful spice profile that was unique. And I've always thought the same thing about Willett. They've always had that, that, that very distinctive profile. They're, they've always been different, like they're different, but I think maybe at 10 years, they're starting to get similar. Okay. Yeah, I could see that.

Wow. This is really good.

Oh, I get the emails all the time about the releases. Cause I'm on that new riff. Oh, the club thing, but it's kind of a hike. Yeah, it is.

If I really wanted, it's not too bad. It's like two hours.

Yeah, I might have to do it now. I think I might have to do it. This is really good. This is one of the better, uh, expressions I've had out of new riff. It's good.

Yeah, I've had a lot of their single barrels, and they're all usually pretty solid, but I've had some real gems. And speaking of their single barrels, they're actually offering six-year single barrels. Wow. Yeah, usually they're kind of like four and five. And that's one of those things. You can actually go there and do kind of a partial barrel pick too, which is kind of cool. So if you had like five or six friends, you go and I think you figure you're going to get Well, with six year. You can do like quarter barrel. Yeah. So you'd walk out of there, you six friends, about 10, 40, 50 bottles. Yeah. Ten, five, eight, ten, something like that.

That's nice. It's pretty cool. Affordable.

You know, we just did a barrel pick where we got to about 10 bottles a piece, didn't we? We did.

And you also just did a pick for Bourbon on the Banks.

That's right. We just did another Bourbon on the Banks pick that Jephthah Creed. And yeah, we did a four green pick out there. We got to sit in the captain's chairs out in the Rick house.

That's nice.

The captain's chairs.

Pam and I stopped by there on Friday afternoons for one cocktail and move on.

You know they're making their rounds. Their pizzas are really good. I know. Brussels sprouts? Yeah. And their cocktails are great. And their whiskey is really coming into its own. It is. They had a rough start, but their stuff is really getting good now.

Yeah, definitely. And you're going to meet a lot of neat people out there.

Yep. You know, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to start going back. Jammin' Adjecta, they got something coming up here pretty soon, I think.

They do. They do the, what was it? The Baker Brothers? Something like that. Yeah, man. I probably just screwed up your whole episode with that. I don't know if that was the right name or not. I don't know.

Cut that out. People can always go to the Adjecta Creed website and figure it all out. But anyway. bourbon on the banks this year. Uh, you know, Jeff, the Creed is going to be there. Yep. The barrel pick we did, Amzie and I and others, uh, you know, uh, including, uh, I think we had maybe five or six people there. Um, it's going to be there. They're going to have that barrel pick and it's going to be, I think if I'm correct, if they just hold just a few weeks before putting it in the bottle, it's going to be eight years. So that's exciting. Yeah.

This is really good stuff. Yeah. Thank you, Jeff. That's, uh, that just made picking things a whole lot harder. I wasn't sure what to expect, but that's really good.

Yeah, this is definitely, uh, it's, it's elevated. It's, it's in, it's in the top, top shelf of what we're drinking tonight for sure.

It is maybe a little earthy too. I don't know. I'm trying to figure out a, some kind of profile to,

I think that there's a few distilleries out there that really stand out as having kind of their own unique profile. totally different from anybody else. I've always felt like New Ref is kind of there. I've always felt like Will It is there. I've always felt like, there's a number of them anyway, but a lot of companies make really good whiskeys, but they fit that traditional bourbon profile and you get a few that sort of stand out. You can almost pick them out. You drink it and you go, That's Heaven Hill, or that kind of thing, you know? Or that's Will It, or New Risk has been one of those.

Anyway, we've got another one coming up, right? Yeah. Another new riff. We're going to change gears though. We're going to do their 10 year ride this time. Also, thanks to Mr. Jeff Whack. 95.5. So they kind of copied the MGP match bill, if you will, but this is all their own stuff. Same proof 120.5 and same price 89.99 out the door. The nose is light. Spicy, but light.

Yeah.

I'm kind of excited about this one, because you and I often talk about how when it gets double digits on a rye, you start getting those candy... I know. They get an orange, hard candy orange.

I get a bit of a yeast. I love a good yeast aroma to it. For some reason, I'm catching a little of that.

It does? I mean, it's more candy, sweeter-smelled than the minty.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there's a little bit of mint there, a little bit of freshness to it. Uh, but I'm, I'm, I'm going to say this is going to be Jekyll and Hyde nose versus palette. I think the palette is going to come in just in, I'm just expecting great things. Let's see. Cheers. Cheers.

Wow.

Oh, that's really, It has moved towards game like this kind of reminds me of a like an old Carter. I am a little bit.

That's high praise.

Yeah. Yeah. This is this is reaching up there just a little bit.

Wow. Now, the viscosity on the bourbon seems a little more than the viscosity on this. It seems like this is really nice. There's like that nice like leathery, the mint is still there actually, but there's still like that candied sweetness.

And a little bit of licorice, but it is candied. Yeah. This is, this is reminiscent of like, um, Kentucky owl slash old Carter, some of their early ride releases. Okay. Um, the age isn't quite where those were, you know, but I think maybe, maybe the Kentucky Alice were around this age. Maybe, maybe 12. Okay. Yeah.

I don't remember exactly either, but yeah, really good. A little spicy finish.

Yeah, it is like white pepper.

Yeah. And it lingers.

Yeah. I'm getting this, like you talked about that orange, like this, like the candied orange and like the finishes after that pepper, there's like this citrusy rye dunked candied orange or something like that.

Rye dunked candy orange.

Oh my goodness. That's for the record book right there.

Oh my gosh. Slam dunk. Hmm. Man. Good stuff. Oh my goodness. I need to go to Newport. I'm ready. Let's drive up.

I bet this sold out because this is one of those they had for their club, but I bet it went quick. I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure I read this all sold out there. So I would imagine, I don't know like how many bottles went out to the public and things or retail stores, but.

I have a number of expressions from those guys and they're good. And I'm in pursuit of the monster. Is that something they do periodic?

I don't know if they, if they do or not, I haven't really followed them specifically. They had the, they did a lot of heirloom. They did like an heirloom corn bond. They did the Balboa rye. There was, they did some kind of turkey red rye or something. What was it? I don't remember this.

Sherry, they had a Sherry finish. They kept releasing like, I want to say it was like an eight year maybe, Sherry finish. They're always, I mean- They're strong. When they come, they're strong. They keep you on your toes if you're a big fan of theirs for sure.

They're not a small producer. They really put out a lot of barrels. I mean, they have a great capacity there and so they can meet market demands. So hopefully some of this stuff is out there and we can find it maybe in the wild. I would hope so. Or I don't know. You're not sure whether this was tied to as literally a special release.

I just know, you know, like you said, we get those, I'm on that new riff newsletter type thing. And I know it was a kind of a come and get one that day. Yeah. So, but I assume probably Some had to be released in that area, Cincinnati and that whole Cincinnati metropolis sprawl kind of thing. But yeah, if you see this, it's worth a try for sure.

It's worth a grab. No doubt about it.

Absolutely.

All right. So we've got one more whiskey to try and then we are going to tally our results. That's the plan, but this is a big boy.

This is the big boy. All right. So this is the new Russell's 13 year, 2025 release. This is the highest proof product they have ever released. Comes in at 123.8 proof. And we're going to surpass the price on the Luxro. This one retails for about $199.99. It's going to be hard to find though, because you say high-proof and wild turkey, well, every bourbon fan's ears just like perked up.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about some news about when one of the news items was this release. And I was thinking to myself, I wonder if we're going to get one.

I wonder if we're going to get one. Well, shout out to our good friend, Luke Reed. He's a roadie and he lives in Lexington and we swapped a pour. He hadn't had the Eagle Rare 12, so I gave him that and I think I gave him a dusty pour. Oh, one of the Elijah Craig barrel-proof pirates. Oh, cool. So I call it a good trade.

Yeah. Thanks to that dude, we got a show.

Roadies provide. Yeah. And this was probably the top vote getter, I think. I think this was probably number one, Eagle Rare, two, and then the rest were all pretty close. We'll see how they finish in the vote. Yeah. Right. Cheers. 75 corn, 13 rye, which is funny. We always talk about how that was considered high rye, but we had the new riff, which was 30% rye. Awesome. And then, well, 12% barley on this wild turkey. So, oh, turkey funk. Oh, wow. It smells like you like spilt a little bourbon on their, one of their Rick house floors and you're like, Oh no. So you tried to like, you got down on the ground and just licked it up. You were like, Well, I don't know about that, but you're like, I didn't mean to spill that, but you wanted to smell it anyway kind of thing. So it just kind of smells like dusty. It does. Like dust on the wood.

Yeah. When you get it to where, is it warehouse A there where you go do the pics? Where you do the pics. Yeah. I remember, I remember Eddie talking about it. You don't want to, you don't want to get down in that dirt under them ricks there. You know, there's probably dead bodies, Jimmy Berry down there.

You know, these, uh, charred charred oak candles I had this, this kind of the same, same smell, man. It's, this is really nice.

Wow.

Yeah.

Great nose. Great funk nose. Just not overly funky, but clearly wild Turkey product. Gosh.

A lot of vanilla. Oak is definitely pronounced the dust. I'm not getting that like cherry orangey thing that you know, some like orange slice.

But I am getting like toffee and a little, and some of the baking spices and you know, I think I think the main overriding note here is this rick house floor kind of where the turkey funk rick house floor. Like you walk in, like you said, you just walk into the warehouse and Eddie's standing there with a whiskey thief. Whiskey thief and saying, come on in.

Come on in, we're going to do 10 barrels today. So you get on the phone, call your wife and say, you're going to need a ride.

Hello, Darlin'.

Cheers. Thanks again, Luke.

Wow. That took a whole different direction, didn't it?

Yeah. That's really good. It's got the funk though. Oh yeah, it does.

Chewy. Gosh, gosh, gosh. Doesn't drink. Really proofy though.

No, but it's got a little bit of that inside of a bourbon ball kind of to it. Okay. You know what I mean? It's got that, that sweet bourbon ball filling to it.

That's heaven to me. That is so good. Yep.

Wow.

Okay. Give it away. Don't give it away. Right, right. Oh my goodness.

This is really good. So the cherries definitely, yeah, like rich, dark cherries. Get in the orange, like just a little orange zest. Dusty. Yeah, that dusty funk is still there. Clove. Yeah, clove. Yeah, like all spicy.

Still got the, um, the core, sort of the toffee notes, uh, uh, definitely the, the, the recount floor. I would say that the, the overriding sort of notes that are coming here are this, uh, sort of this rich toffee caramel note that comes through and it's, it's kind of sweet. The nose and the palette are a little different. In other words, it reveals a lot more in the palette. I think so too. This is an extra good expression of the Russell's 13.

Man, that is really good. Is that worth $200 to you?

Today it is. Tomorrow might not be.

You've got a 13 over there right on your shelf. I do. I do. I thought you did. Yeah. Very good.

Yeah. But you know, it was down in the 139 range, wasn't it?

Yeah, it's gone up a little bit. That's all things seem to do. Exactly.

You know, I may start rethinking the process a little bit and not go for so much volume. Now that there's some things like this out here that are so special, maybe once a quarter go for a a $200 range bottle. Maybe that's the approach because it's getting a little pricey, getting a little bit out of my range to do this consistently. But like you said, the overarching flavor in this is, it's really good. It's kind of old school to me. You do get the whole dusty, dank, dark distillery background. I don't get a lot of the, I'm not good at picking out the fruity flavors and things that you guys do, but the background of it, I do get that. It's just really good. Really good.

Yeah. Yeah.

This is a notable whiskey.

Let's just say that. You want to keep this one. The 2025 Russell's 13 is something you want to

At least try at a bar. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's going to be hard to find because it is what it is. Yeah.

Probably when we vote on these, I know we talked about it that maybe, you know, I'm probably just going to have to vote with my heart and forget about the price.

Okay. Okay.

I'm on board with that. Let's just, let's just, let's just not pay attention to price this time. Yeah. Our listeners know what the prices are so they can make up their own mind. We're just going to talk about what hit home.

Sure.

But I think you'd mentioned probably one of the things we ought to do here, since we do have five whiskeys this time, we don't want to get too muddled. Yeah, I think. Let's just, each one of us throw two out. Not that we're throwing them out. That's a bad way to say it, but set two aside.

I am not pouring any of these up.

Set two aside and pick your best three and we'll talk about what's our best three between the three of us. I think I got mine locked in. I think I do too. I think I do too.

All right. I may have a hard time remembering the three I want to throw out because I got in my head. Two. Just throw out two. Don't throw out three. I mean the two because I know the ones I want in.

That's too many. All right. Well, why don't we lead off then? Okay. You want to lead off or me? I can lead off. Okay. My number three. My number three, and this is tough because three and two are so close for me. Okay. My number three is the LuxRow.

My number three is the LuxRow.

Okay. All right. And I'm going to say my number three is IgorRare12. Okay. Okay.

Good deal. Nice. Nice. And let's switch it up a little bit here.

This time Todd's going to say his number two. OK, my number two is the new riff 10 year bourbon. Me too. I'm seeing a trend here.

All right. I'm probably going to have to go with you on that.

Ah, all right. Yeah. And the number one, we'll let you lead off Rob. What's your number one?

This one we just had.

The Russell's 13.

Yeah, the Russell 13.

I'm in. I'm in. Yeah, no doubt about it.

It's, that's special.

Yeah. So we were all in agreement on the number one and number two place. We just had a slight differing on the number three, which is fine. I actually, the Eagle Rare 12. Yeah. It was real close. It could have been in there. It could have been. Yeah. And the ride was good, too. I mean.

But that bourbon from New Riff was out of this world, wasn't it? Surprisingly good, yeah.

But how can you compete with this turkey?

They've been doing it a few more years more than New Riff has. Bravo to New Riff. I know my friend Jeff, they reviewed it. I have not watched his review, so now I'm going to have to go back and watch it because I didn't. want to be influenced or anything like that. And I've had friends review the 13 year and I didn't want to be influenced. So I've tried to avoid it as much as I could. And wow, those two are stellar.

I wonder how many people have put the Brussels 13 2025 head to head with the new 10 year bourbon. I don't know. It hasn't been done yet, right? Probably not. Yeah.

So I'd be surprised. Yeah.

Well, fantastic guys. Lots of fun.

Yeah. Shout out to all, like I said, Jeff Wack for the new riffs and Luke Reed for the Russells, man. Sure. Might have to see if he wants to trade some more ports. Sure. I know.

And you know, so in all fairness, I've entertained a number of people in the Rare Eagle bar this week. I haven't told you about it, Todd. Okay. I was telling Jim, probably 20 people this week, three different groups. And And, you know, we're kind of dispelling two of five bourbons. We're saying this one's the best, yada, yada. But I've had 30 bourbons this week and these are the best five I've ever had. So let's not get caught up in the fact that these aren't good. You know, these are incredible.

I almost feel like Rob should have gotten like an old, big old house in downtown Chubbyville and started an Airbnb, like a bourbon roadie Airbnb. Oh my gosh. As many people that stop in Rivendell would be calling him off. I know, I know.

You know, that's still not out of the question. It could happen.

But it's awesome you do that. It truly is. And I'm like you, there's a house across the street from me that is an Airbnb. And sometimes it's a family that comes through there, so you know. But other times it's like a group of two or three guys, and they just have that bourbon look. So I'm like, hey, after you guys are done touring, if you like. I've gone over there and shared pores with people from all over, all the states. It's just, I'd like, like you said, you, you're a great ambassador for us and for Kentucky and Bourbon.

And you know what? I see. I didn't, I mean, you know, we probably need to think about this as a, as a group, honestly. I mean, you know, I'm getting old. I need to downsize. a lot of this stuff is going to go somewhere. Maybe we need to have a bourbon roadies. Meet up again? Well, but a dwelling. We have our own Oh, that'd be cool, wouldn't it? Place where we... We should have bought the castle in Lexington. Yeah. Can we think of something maybe just slightly... A little smaller, yeah.

But it's been purchased.

Oh, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I mean, I think we're all having fun with that. It's not that... We're just doing it and having fun and enjoying meeting people. And I like sharing my history. I've got flags that are kind of crazy here and I'll keep talking, Jim, and you can cut out whatever part you don't like. So I got flags that only existed for a day. one day in the world. North and South Dakota were only supposed to come in as one state. The Dakota territories were slated to come in as one, but November 2nd, 1889, they came in as South Dakota and North Dakota. I got a 39-star flag that existed for zero days. You would think it'd be worth a fortune, but apparently they made a freaking boatload of them. And my flag is worth zero, apparently. Or somewhere north of zero.

But it's worth it to you though. It's worth it to me. That's what matters.

Exactly. And that's, so I've got, I've got, you know, 49 star, 848, 46, 45, 44, 43, 42, all the way down to 33 by your head there. And, um, They're pretty incredible to me. I was going to try to go into hand-painted art, and I realized the price of that with framing, and I was able to start buying these flags. Uh, for a price that, uh, rivaled that, but meant more to me. Yeah.

And, uh, when you're down here, you know it. You've got a bust of Abraham Lincoln. You've got George Washington, George Washington, you got American flags. You've got Eagles everywhere. Uh, lots of flags.

That was sort of the impetus for the Eagle rare bar, rare Eagle bar, 13 sets of Eagle bookends and Eagles everywhere. So just a patriotic place. Hope some of the, the roadies can come and join us sometime whenever they come visit you or Todd, the place is open. Let's have fun.

Awesome.

So much fun. I love coming here. Yeah. This is my first time here at the new one. So you've been to the old one though. I've been to the old one. Yes.

So this is, this is the re-imagined Regal bar. It's still the Regal bar though. All the, all the content's kind of the same. We're elevated a little bit, but the space is different. So moved around.

I'm very ambitious of those shelves. Cause I have what's called floor whiskey.

I did too. I had stuff hidden around, didn't realize how much I had at one point.

All right, folks. Well, we've had a great time today. We hope you've enjoyed this show. We hope we gave you some insight into some extra aged bourbons that you can pick up or at least try at a bar. It's always fun to get together with friends and taste new whiskeys that you haven't had. And today I think we all get to try something we hadn't had before, which is always good.

A lot of fun.

Yeah. All right. 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 week. Todd and I put together an episode on Wednesdays. Sometimes we'll have a guest on sometimes we'll invade Rob's bar, but we'll always have whiskey. We'll always have a good time. And, uh, hopefully by the end of the show, you'll learn a little bit more about what you ought to be drinking. We hope that we properly represent the brands and the things that we try. We certainly try to. Make sure you check out the Bourbon Road website, thebourbonroad.com. You can check out our episodes there. Our swag, our articles is a great place to pop in. Also pop into our Bourbon Roadies Facebook page. That's where all our good friends hang out. They share pictures of Bourbon, share Pourers of bourbon and tell us what to drink and tell us what to drink. That was fun. It's a lot of fun. So check that out. When you pop in there, you'll have to ask to become a member and answer three quick questions and then we'll put you in and you can start in the conversation there. We hope that you will scroll to the top of that app you're on. hit that subscribe button that way every week when we do drop an episode, you'll get that notification and Todd and I and guests can join you with your headsets on and whatever you're doing that day.

We hope that we hope to see you soon.

We hope to run into you at a local liquor store at an event. We definitely hope you'll come to bourbon on the banks this year. There are a few tickets left for the left for the twilight, but until the next time we'll see you down the bourbon road.

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