460. Ranking the Titans: Old Forester Birthday vs. Bardstown Hokkaido

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. Smoky's Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Find out more during the halftime break and at smokyslifestylecigar.com. The Surgeon General warns that cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease and is not a safe alternative to cigarettes. All right. Listeners, welcome back once again to the bourbon road podcast. Todd and I are hanging out again in the corner Rick house. Yep. Yep. Home with the Frankfurt bourbon society. We have four tremendous pores today. This is a sample review show. I think we're finally getting caught up, Todd.

We are. So heads up PR people. He needed to send some more.

But today, we've got some big hitters today. These are some pours that people are going to want to stick around for.

Yeah. Some are going to be hard to find, as is usual the case, but there's a couple on here. I think they're going to be out there and folks should find them. I've already previewed a couple of these because they're my bottles and I shared them with folks. I'm excited for you to try the two I have tried. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

So I guess today we're going to start off with the ultimate unicorn.

Ultimate Unicorn or a, it's a, definitely a Ultimate Unicorn.

One of the Ultimate Unicorns.

I think their ultimate would be, well, spoilers, King of Kentucky. Yeah. That's their ultimate, but this is probably a very close second.

Well, this one just has this fan following because of its very specific use of an expression.

And it's got that very unique bottle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And well, anyway, let's not hold out any longer. What's our first pour of the day?

Our first pour of the day is Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, the 2025 release. Came in at 12 years old, only 92 proof, which I was kind of surprised at. Usually they'll be 95 or higher. They didn't be like 95 to 105, but This is a kind of a rare departure for them, it says. This is actually, I guess, 12 years ago, they ran a batch of sweet mash. Oh, Forster did. I'm like, what? Whoa. I know. Experimental. I know. So all this is sweet mash. These were chosen or distilled by emeritus distiller Chris Morris and assistant master distiller Caleb Trigo. Trigo or Trigo? I apologize. And they were aged in warehouse K floors one through five. So a little on the top, a little on the bottom. So what you kind of, you know, you think of those top ones, you'd think that's where your higher proofer is going to be, but that lower Lower floor is going to be where you're kind of like, there's probably not a whole lot of fluctuation between where they distilled it at and what it proved out to be.

Now, it wasn't that long ago that Old Forester sent out notifications to their great following of people that the birthday bourbons were going to be available and that you needed to get on the list.

Yeah, there was a lottery that they themselves, I think that was just Last week. Last week. Yeah. So I'm not sure when this will drop, but there will still be some out there at retail stores.

So this is kind of a first look.

Yeah.

And we've, we've had some opportunities in the past where we've actually been in Old Forrester trying it well in advance. This year we still have it in advance, but it's going to come soon. So if you haven't gone and signed up at Old Forrester, put your name on the list. Time to do it. Yeah. That or catch it at a bar. I guess you got to get the invitation email, don't you?

Yeah.

So if you're not on the list already, you're probably not going to get it.

It seems like every distillery has a newsletter anymore. I mean, you want to keep folks in tune with what you got going on.

These are kind of the spam emails you want to get.

Yes, for sure. Much better than somebody asking for money like a king or something, right?

Well, the 2025 old Forrester birthday bourbon Those of you having children this year, this would be a good one to pick up.

Yeah. Um, so this is in honor of their founder, George Garvin Brown. So that's, uh, it's released always about that same time. I think it's like September. Yeah. September 2nd.

Right.

So, Oh my goodness.

That's an old Forester nose. That has a great nose to it. Oakey cherry. Anyway, nose is a little bit above 92 proof. Yeah. I'd say though. Yeah. Cherry. Cherry is the functional word here, I think. Cherry and walnut, maybe.

Ooh, I like the walnut call out.

Yeah.

Like there's definitely that 12 year old presence for sure.

Yeah, good stuff.

It's a great nose. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that's delicious. Now we just had the extra, extra old on and it was, it was something pretty special too.

The cherry is a standout on this one, I think.

Yes. It's very soft too. Yeah. And that's that 92 proof it's cut. You can definitely has that cut feel to it, like with some water.

It definitely drinks above its proof. Um, and, and right, I mean, right in that 12 year age range, it's very nice.

I think the one thing, everybody loves that bottle, but ooh, that almost came off like a bubblegummy type of. I'm getting a little bit of bubblegum, like cherry bubblegum kind of. But it's a, their bottle is squat. It looks almost like a, I don't know, like an odd genie bottle or something, but it's a shelf hog. Yeah.

It takes up a lot of shelf, but I don't think, I don't think liquor stores mind too much. I was going to say, and I'm sure they'll make perfect fans don't mind either.

They'll make space for it.

That's right. Wow. that's really good. I just wish I had some recent memory of a birthday bourbon that I could compare this to. But unfortunately, those memories are long gone.

I was lucky enough to... I was trying to think. I'd have to look. 21 or 22, I lucked into one. And it was also a 12-year, I think. But it came in at about 102 proof. And it was It was really good. I'm like one of those that's not super crazy about the old Forrester birthday. I mean, give me King of Kentucky all day, every day.

We're not going to go pay $600 for a bottle.

Right. But yeah, these are very hit or miss for me, I guess. But this one's a, yeah, even at 92 proof, like you said, it drinks, it punches above. weight, so to speak.

Yeah, and the release on this is usually fairly substantial. So there's a number of bottles that go out. They certainly go out nationwide. A lot of stores get their allocation of them. And everybody has a chance to get one. It doesn't mean you will get one. And the few that are available are going to be priced a little bit higher than retail. Yeah, for sure. But there's always that chance. If you've got a good relationship with your store or you own a store,

That might be the best way to go. You just got to own your own liquor store. Speaking of Brown Foreman, as we're doing a review, they send us a lot of fun news too. Woodford Reserve has just introduced its latest expression in the distillery series, and it's a 12-year-old American single malt. I know. Probably the oldest single malt in Kentucky right now, I would think.

Yeah, so Woodford kind of entered that single malt world. It's been half a dozen years ago, hasn't it? Yeah, some time ago. Yeah, so they've been playing in this realm for a while now. For them to have one that's reached that age is pretty impressive.

So it's going to be SRP of $99.99, but that is a 375 milliliter, much like the chocolate redux that really, really wilded us.

So this would be equivalent of a $200 full bottle. Yeah. Yeah.

And fingers crossed, we may be getting a sample of that to review. That would be good. We've got to restock. So I'm always reaching out. I'm like, please, please, please. Kind of like Oliver Twist. Please, sir, can we have some more?

Well, I'm like it.

I'm a big fan.

If you want to get me a bottle tot, I'm perfectly happy to receive it.

And you have a birthday coming up, right?

I just went. Oh, that's right.

That's right. We celebrated on a Facebook page.

Yep. I just went. I just hit that official can retire age. But I'm not retiring yet. I'm having too much fun.

You know what's neat about our, so we have, for those that don't know, we have a bourbon roadies group. So a lot of people show what they're drinking and it's a fun community. So that image of the birthday cake I put to wish you a happy birthday was generated by Gemini. I said, I need a bourbon barrel birthday cake. And it was pretty good. I was like, oh, that looks really good. We're actually speaking of birthdays are the Frankfurt Burn Society birthdays coming up soon. And yeah, I may have to go see if we have a really fun bakery called Wicked Whisk here now. And they might be able to make something like that. Make it real.

How old is Frankfurt Burn Society? 2018. Okay.

So we'll be seven years old. Yeah. Seven years. Awesome. Yeah. I think we're going to have a little birthday party kind of thing. Yeah.

All right, shall we move on to pour two? Let's do it. I'm going to save just a little bit of this because are we going to do winter chicken dinner?

I think we got to. OK. All right, number two. No bonus pour today, though. I almost brought one, but. Yeah, I didn't. So, I mean, we could always dig one out of the pack, I guess, but I think we'll just go with this one.

We could even reveal kind of the backroom secrets here. This is the second episode in a row, so we've got to be kind of careful, too. That's true.

We've got to get home. So this is Penelope Cigar Sessions. This is their first limited release of a whiskey that they worked with a couple of different cigar companies or heads of cigar companies to come up with this. And this one's pretty unique. You'll see a lot of cigar releases that cognac, armagnac finishes and things like this. But these guys went a different route. So this is a 101 proof. It's six years. It doesn't have an age statement, but $79.99. It's a blend of straight bourbon, American single malt, and American light whiskey, which I thought was pretty unique. Wow. And it's meant to complement a medium bodied cigar. You see I'm wearing my cigar shirt today. I see that. Is that Stanton Holder?

Stanton's new place. Yeah, it's a statiki cigar company.

So you're going to need a medium-bodied cigar to go with this.

Yeah, he's got a great, great Cubano, which would go great with this.

Stanton, I need a shirt, too.

Yeah. Listen, I know you listen to the show, Stanton. Todd needs a shirt. That's right. I support you.

But yeah, so I'm excited about this one. I have tried this one before. So I'm really intrigued to see more your reaction. I know what my thoughts are on this already. I really like it. But it did not say what percentage of was bourbon, what was single malt, what was light whiskey. Wow.

It's got a nice nose on it. Yeah.

It's kind of light. There's a little bit of like, like I get a little bit of chocolate.

I'm getting a little bit of like cotton candy.

Are you? Yeah. So you're picking up, see that, that makes me, you're picking up the light whiskey a little more. See, I feel like I'm picking up like the malty or like the single malt a little more. Cause there's like a bready chocolate fruit, like stewed fruits kind of thing.

Yeah. So I'm getting like the candy notes. I'm getting the cotton candy, the bubble gum. That's funny. That's interesting.

That's why whiskey is so much fun.

It's awesome. It's so great. Cheers. Cheers.

So about the palette.

Yeah, stone fruit.

Yep. Stone fruit. It's like dried peach.

Yep.

Still getting a little bit of that chocolate. Yeah, but it's like sugar. There's a big sweetness to it, I'm sure.

There's a big sweetness. So if you were to take a peach and slice it in half, get the pit out, sprinkle it with big crystal sugar, put it on the grill. You know what I mean? Okay. I've never done that. I've never done that either, but I'm just picturing, how do you get this flavor? If I had to reproduce the method of getting this flavor, what would I do? Yeah. I think it's like candied peach on a grill. It's really good. It's not burnt though.

It's not burnt. No, it's a different, definitely a different take, which is kind of unique. Oh, that's delicious. Yeah. I'll have to send you home with some so you can drive a cigar. Yeah, I would appreciate that. That's really good.

That's kind of unique.

But I feel like that's why I kind of want to know the percentages, because I feel like it comes off more of the single malt. Now, what's this expression called again? It is the Penelope cigar sessions. And this is, I believe it even says something like batch one.

This is not meant to go with a very robust and dark cigar. This has been to be something medium. I would say this would even go with a Connecticut wrapper, but I think that this is a mild to medium intensity cigar. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, I don't know how it would hold up to something like you said, like a darker smoke, I guess. But I think Penelope is one of those really, I can't say rags to riches, but their journey has been really interesting. Mike Palladini and Danny Police, and Danny's actually been here to the Bourbon Society. This is just some time ago, but such a nice guy. So they wanted to wanted to get into this biz and started buying barrels. I think the first time they bought barrels was like, they were like, how many can you buy? And they were like, we were thinking of like two and like, but they were like, you need to buy more than that. So they bought a few more and then like from MGP and that was basically their primary source. And They named it, I believe it's after Mike's daughter, whose name is Penelope.

That's the early days of source and barrels.

Can I get two? No, you have to make 50. Oh, we need investors. It's one of those brands that through marketing and through their hard work, it really took off. And the crazy thing is, MGP went and bought them back basically. So now they are still a big part of it. And they're, I mean, it's got to be fun for them because they have the pick of the litter of barrels. Sure. Now they have unlimited inventory. I saw something, they had some sort of walnut finished. Might be called a walnut old fashioned whiskey that's already finished kind of thing. So, but super nice guys.

Great whiskey. Really good. Yeah, I've always been a big fan of Penelope. I love their bottle. It's just an amazing looking bottle. And they've always done a super job of putting together great. I mean, I love their marketing. They do such a great job. And I can understand why they got picked up.

So we've got some other news. Blue Run has announced a new offering called Glimmer. Oh, OK. If you're familiar, Blue Run, another company that started with I believe the guy that designed their butterfly originally worked for Nike. So they got bought up by Core Spirits. But Glimmer is a limited edition, 103.2 proof, Kentucky straight bourbon finished in gin barrels, which probably made your ears perk up a little bit. They use Bar Hill Tomcat gin barrels. Have you ever heard of that one? No, I haven't. I'm guessing it's maybe a smaller thing. I'm not much of a gin man. I know your Tanqueray's and There's a few others, but- Bar Hill Topcat. Yeah. Bar Hill Topcat. SRP on that is $149.99. So a little pricey, but yeah. So keep your eyes out. Jack Daniels has announced their single barrel Heritage Barrel Tennessee whiskey, which that's kind of an old school, version of Jack Daniel's whiskey. So it's matured in barrels with a high toast and low char technique.

You got some coming?

I reached out. She said she was out, but she said next go around. Next go around.

OK.

So this is an ongoing release. Yeah. It became a yearly. I mean, it was kind of one of those, you know, they started with that special release thing, or they'll do that experimental series. And sometimes if something really takes off.

Yeah.

So $69.99 for a 100 proof. unapproved single barrel of that. Cool. Great stuff. And one other that right here in Frankfurt, Buffalo Trace has announced they're going to have a restaurant. It's not going to be quite like the extent that Bardstown, Jim Beam, and even Heaven Hills got. More of a cafe style. Yeah. So it's called the John G. Carlyle Cafe. And for those that don't know, he He's painted as one of the big proponents of, and kind of got the Baldwin and Bonn act kind of in gear with E.H. Taylor. If you listen to Drew, Drew Hanash, he has other opinions on that, but we'll let you decide. But it says it should be ready in spring of 2026, and it's going to be lighter fare, like sandwiches. salads and things like that.

So you get tired of waiting in line, go to the cafe and hang out.

Yeah, and they're going to have cocktails too, which I thought that's something that Buffalo Trace has never had. They've actually kind of upgraded up their sampling game. They had, are you familiar with that Prohibition series they came out with, which is in the boxes? Sure. There were like five and it was pretty pricey. Well, they poured one with some samples like a couple of days ago, which was kind of neat. Walnut Hill was the one. I didn't make it over four of that, but I was like, oh, jealous, you know, that kind of thing.

You're so close, Todd. You should not miss these things.

I know. But sometimes when I'm at the laptop, I can't get away from the laptop. It's the way that works.

Well, that Penelope has left a great finish, uh, behind and I've really enjoyed it. Uh, but we are moving on. Are we not after the break? Yep. All right. So we had, uh, in the first half we had the old Forrester birthday bourbon big. One of the unicorns.

One of the hard ones to find.

And then we had the Penelope cigar sessions.

Sessions. Sessions is what it's called. And meant for a medium bodied cigar. So I'm guessing they'll play around with it and maybe session two will be something for more, you know,

like a barber pole or something where it has a little bit of Maduro leaf, a little bit of Connecticut leaf, maybe in a spiral wrap. You know, maybe something like a Toro might smoke for an hour or so. You got this, maybe an hour long smoke sipping on this. I think I think it'd be good.

Yeah. And it makes sense. A lot of folks like to have a glass of scotch with a cigar. Sure. Like I said, you've got a little more of the light whiskey on that nose of that. But I think the American single malt really shines on the palate on that one.

So you're saving a little bit of each so we can go back? I am. I am. All right. Good deal. All right, folks. We'll stick around. We are going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we have two more samples to go through. They're kind of big ones, so you don't want to drop off now. And we'll 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 Frankfurt, Kentucky on the banks of the amazing Kentucky River.

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Welcome back, listeners. In the first half, we tried the Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, the 2025 version, 92 proof, $199.99 for $750, 12 years old. Our second pour was the Penelope Cigar Sessions American whiskey because it's a blend of single malt bourbon and light whiskey and Like I said digging I found like a six-year age statement on that and it retail for about $79.99, but I think it's great bargain I'm actually on both of those because you know the birthday bourbon is tough to get yeah But if you can if you can land it at retail if you can get it at retail.

I Think you're good to go. I just don't pay those big.

It's just fine at $199.99 is the problem but I'm sure, like we said, there was a raffle through Old Forrester itself. But if you win, you've got to pick it up there. I didn't see that.

If you have 10 or 15 different email addresses, you should be good.

10 or 1500, I don't know. It'd be interesting to know how many people just enter those kinds of things. All right, but we're ready to move on to pour three, and this is one that was sent to you, so tell us about it.

This is the Barchtown Bourbon Company Hokkaido Mizunari Oak Barrel Finish. This is a more recent release from Barchtown Bourbon Company. This is a blend of straight whiskies, finished for 28 months in Japanese Mizunara oak barrels. Which we've had a few of those lately. I'm excited. We have. And they're all usually pretty good. But let's talk about the components of whiskey that goes into this. We have a 47% of the blend is a Kentucky 15 year with a mash bill of 75, 13, 8, and 12. So four grain. Four grain, OK. Then 33%, so that's 47%. Now the next one is 33%, Kentucky 14-year. And this is 78, 10, and 12. Okay. And then 15% of it, so we're getting the smaller portions now, is in Indiana 9-year. 45, 51, and 4. So this is a rye. Oh, right. That's a change. Yep. And then 5% Tennessee, 18-year. Did you hear me? Uh-huh. 18-year Tennessee, 84, 8, and 8. Which I believe is George. Yep. Yep.

So

So the youngest in there is the nine year Indiana and very little of that. Yeah, very little of that, only 15%. So 85% of the whiskey in this bottle is 14 years or older, 14, 16 or 18 year old whiskeys from Kentucky and Tennessee. And then of course rounded out with a nine year from Indiana with a little bit of Indiana rye. So this should be pretty interesting.

Yeah. We've, like I said, we've had some Mizunari lately and it does some really interesting stuff to whiskey, I think. Yeah.

These are some, these are some expensive barrels. This is a 109.3 proof. So, 103.9, 54.65% alcohol. And one of the things that we learned about Mizunara is it plays differently with different mash bills. So the fact that we've got four distinct mash bills in here of four different age ranges means that the Mizunara has had a playground to work in. So I'm really looking forward to trying this.

Do you recall the MSRP on this? I don't have it. Do you have it? I was taking a look. I feel like it was running along those lines of, it does come in, we got like a pint sample or something like that.

375 I think, yeah.

I think that is the, it's the size it comes in. So I want to say, 99.99. I mean, I feel like, you know, that's Danny's playground, but I feel like the, what was the cathedral we tried to remember that one? That was aged in the old wood from the French, from Notre Dame. I feel like it was a 375 at 99.99. Okay. Fair enough. Another one's probably going to be a little hard to find unless you're in Kentucky, but you may look into it out there.

Right. In the States. Another Mizunara oak. I know. Mizunara is a freaky wood. It does all kinds of great things. Oh yeah. Oh, that nose is great. Yep.

It's just, it's hard to paint a picture in words what it does though. It's like this pseudo savory thing.

Yeah, it's savory and it's got this kind of a sassafras spice to it a little bit. Not much, but I don't know. It's kind of weird. Like a light sassafras. It's a nice, I mean, older- Reminds me of like a new pair of shoes, new pair of leather shoes a little bit.

Ooh, I like that. Like new leather. Okay. New leather. I like that. There you go. I mean, there's obviously some nice oak spice because of the ages on there.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Oh my gosh. That is, that is very nice. It's dancing on the palate.

Yeah. Buttery.

Yeah. Buttery savory. You, you hit the note there.

Yeah. It's very savory.

Yeah. I like the leather note. I think the leather note holds true. Um, but it's not old leather. It's new leather. Really delicious.

Yeah, man, that's great. The oak spice is still very prevalent. There's like, what would you say, like a brown, like there's a fruit in there, like a baked pear, like with like almost.

I'm kind of getting Danish butter cookies too.

Yeah.

Wow. This is really good. Danny, my man. Yeah, you are killing it, dude. That's really good.

And I did see, I think discovery 13 is getting ready to drop soon. So hopefully that'll be showing up to review. Those discoveries have really gotten magical over the, over the years. He's really finding his groove and throwing some really old barrels in there.

Wow. That is fantastic. I tell you what, I have been super impressed with the last three or four specialty releases out of Parchetown Bourbon. Yeah. Really, really impressed. I mean, their stuff's always been good. Don't get me wrong. But the last three or four have been like over the top.

Yeah. Really delicious. That cathedral was so unique. Wow. Sorry folks. I'm kind of, just sitting here enjoying this one a little too much. So we both got a little quiet.

Well, I mean, we have to rank these at the end. So we're making sure we give each its due. And we're fair about it. I'll save a little bit so we can go back and check again. But this is really good. I mean, I've become a huge fan of Mizunara.

Yeah, it's pricey and unique for sure. So in some other news, A. Smith Bowman, also tied into Buffalo Trace, that's a Sazerac brand, has expanded its experimental oak series by releasing its third and final whiskey in the series, a Hungarian oak finish, which if you're familiar with Old Charter, which is a brand that Sazerac also owns, they've kind of played around with Hungarian oak and Mongolian oak. It's made from a blend of liquids aged for 12 years in charred Hungarian oak barrels, MSRP of $79.99 and 115 proof.

Now remember, we just had a lesson in oak when we went on. Yes, we did. That was awesome. the Western Europe oaks, those in the Netherlands and Belgium and France and Spain, are all the same species. Yes. If you want to hit a new species, you've got to go to Hungary, which is a different species of oak. So even though the tarar changes in those different areas, so the flavor will change.

Yeah, I would think the growth rates on trees in each area would be different, right? Those things change.

I would think as you go north, it's different. But when you go to Hungary, you hit the Hungarian oak. This is a new species. This is a different species. This is an Eastern European oak, and totally different.

Yeah, it was funny to learn that Spanish oak is just French oak.

It's just French oak grown in Spain. Or European oak. Or European oak, yeah.

It's just wherever you're at. That's what he said, I believe. Yeah, that's good. All right, so. Our last one. It's a fairly rare release and should be out there everywhere, I would think. But it is Jefferson's Reserve Cast Strength. OK. This is 130 proof. From what I can tell, it's eight years old, retails for about $70. And it's their first release of a cast strength that's not been out on the ocean. So this is a non-ocean. Non-ocean. And from what my understanding is, Don't hold me to it, but this is their own distillate. Oh, cool. Yeah. OK. And I have tried this one. I watched Jason Clory review this, and he really, really liked it. So I procured us a bottle. So this one's my share. Thank you, Todd. Yes.

Due diligence. Oh, that's a nice floral note to it. Yes. It's like cherry blossoms. Yeah. Oh, that's, I mean, I, I don't know that I know what a cherry blossom smells like, but you certainly made me sense it when you said that.

It's a little like you, the ethanol is there on this one.

It's definitely got a little bit of a nose bite to it. What's the proof? 130. 130. Yeah. So that, that explains things. Wow. That's actually really nice. Yeah. It's light and powerful at the same time. That's a good shot.

Cheers. Cheers.

Wow.

It's really good.

It is.

Everybody hears me say, wow, that's really good. So many times.

Four times a show. Four times a show. I think the thing like with this one is, you know, you'll hear like, Black cherry. This is like that maraschino. It's like those really bright red ones. Like nuclear cherries. Yeah, the really sweet ones. It's a very sweet whiskey, for sure. But I get that in spades, just like this maraschino, almost like amaretto. Amaretto. Yep. Yep.

And amaretto is an almond liqueur, right?

Yeah, there's a little bit of nuttiness. Yep.

Yep. It's really good.

And for 80 bucks for basically a, what, eight year?

Yeah. The nuttiness, the wood notes in this are in trumps.

Or sorry, $70, my bad.

Yeah. Definitely has a nutty wood, like it's got a kind of a mixture of new oak and mature oak, but, um, and then nut flavor coming in. I think it's, I would almost call this a nutty bourbon.

See, I think that sweet cherry shines for me.

It does. No, it really does. But those are like the nuclear cherries, the bright red ones, right?

Yes. Usually the ones that go in your cocktail. Luxardo was the other one I'm thinking of, which are a little darker.

They're the ones you want to make sure when you put one or two in your old fashioned, you make sure you get some of the dripping black juice.

That's right. But yeah, I'm so glad I got this bottle. It's very impressive.

It's really good.

Probably the best thing I've had from Jefferson's except, well, a friend shared one of those old releases that had Stitzel Weller juice. It's hard to beat that. Like Voyage 10. Oh, I can't remember what it was. It was like a special limited blah, you know, whatever.

I mean, I don't know what Voyage is on now. I have no clue. It's 35 or something. Who knows? But I haven't, I haven't procured a bottle in a while, but.

Wow. All right. A few more notes of news real quick. Our good friends at Pursuit Spirits, Kenny and Ryan, their own spot on Whiskey Row in Louisville just opened on August 14th. Congrats, fellas. Yep. They invited me. But between soccer practices, dance class, not my own, of course. But I just couldn't get up there that day. But we did do a barrel pick with them recently. And that was a great experience. And that'll be available at Bourbon on the Banks. But it's got to have a retail space, a multiple tasting room experience. The lower level has a cocktail lounge called The Trial and Error, which is kind of a fun name. And I thought one of the really cool things is they have an in-house studio, a podcast studio there, which maybe we've been in talks about going up to record with them, so maybe we'll get to record there in their space. Let's do it.

Yeah, I'm ready.

And then speaking of them, their good buddy Fred Minnick has just announced his new book. It's called Bottom Shelf, How a Forgotten Brand of Bourbon Saved One Man's Life. And it's kind of a memoir of Fred's. He's a combat vet and an Oklahoma State grad. He's a Bourbon historian. He's had some great books, which I've read, I think, most of his books. And so I'm very excited about that because the brand that I believe he's saying people kind of forgot about is Oh Crow. So I'm kind of interested to see his tape because we had our own kind of take on the Frankfurt Bourbon documentary. So I'm curious to see if... if he got the same info that we kind of got. It's available for pre-order, I'm sure, Amazon and other places.

His books are always great to read. Yeah, definitely.

And then lastly, you and I are both country music fans. And Barman 1873 bourbon, which I've kind of seen out there lately. I think it's kind of a sister brand to, was it Five Trail? Yes. The Coors? Coors. Yeah. So it's a 92 proof blend of hand selected bourbon from Coors. And they have launched a limited edition commemorative bottle in celebration of its partnership with Grammy award winning country singer, Laney Wilson. Heart like a truck. Yeah, heart like a truck. And what's a watermelon, watermelon moonshine. Yeah. So only 6,000 bottles were available and they're going to be, what's kind of cool is they kind of released them where her tour is kind of going around. Kind of a bigger city. So if you're like Nashville, obviously, Dallas, Denver, Chicago, Tampa, anything like that. And only a $39.99 MSRP. That's great. It's going to have kind of a special label on it to differentiate it from their normal release. But yeah.

That's great news. It's pretty cool.

I like Lainey's Country Bell Bottoms or something.

Yeah. Yeah. She's a great artist. And I always love to hear her songs. And Melody and I are big fans. But that's kind of a neat team up. Awesome. Yeah. Wow. Todd, we've had four great whiskeys tonight. I know.

We've got a rep. There's a part of me that says we should probably pause and go into a deep dive. I'm going to go through them one more time, real quick. Okay. Yeah. I think I need to do that.

All right. Let's do it. All right. I'm going to taste in forward order instead of reverse order because we just finished with the Jeffersons. Right. So I'm going to go back to the old Forester.

Yeah. Old Forester was our first pour, birthday bourbon, 12 year.

I just can't, we can't do water in between because we're on air. We're not going to edit all this out. We're just going through them again.

That'll be Sikkar, very single malt forward on the palate for sure. The Bardstown Hokkaido Mizunara. Oh my gosh.

It just hits home.

Yeah. Spoilers.

I don't want to give spoilers.

Yeah. But we probably just did.

Yeah.

All right. I know my scores. I think I'm ready to.

Yep.

All right. Who wants to go first? We're going to rock, paper, scissors? No, I'm kidding. I'll go first. You're number four. I am number four. I'm going to go, and I talked about this, some of these are just hit and miss with me and this is a good bottle, but the old Forester birthday.

Okay.

I just wish it had a little more

Yeah. I'm so close on three and four. I'm like so close. I could actually agree with you, but I'm going to go with the Penelope.

Are you? Okay.

I'm going to go with the Penelope. I feel like the old Forrester, and it could be just a, Just a fond memory thing. I don't know, it could be affecting me a little bit, but they're so close. I mean, they're neck and neck. And that's good for you Penelope, by the way. Yes. I mean, you're being compared head to head with the old forced birthday bourbon. And so I'm going to go with the Penelope number four. Okay.

I am intrigued to like, I'm not a big cigar smoker. We've talked about that on here before. So, but I'm kind of like, may have to try that. Yeah. If I can find something medium. Third place. Third place. I think you kind of told.

Yeah. I'm going to go with the old foe.

Okay. So I'm flip-flopping. Okay. So I'm going to go with the Penelope Cigar. It's my third.

Were they close for you as well?

Yeah. I mean, we, once again, we had some great pours. I mean.

Yeah. Yeah.

Really good. I'm pleased this punch that we got to try these.

I mean, if you can get the old Forrester folks, congrats. Go for it. Get it. Enjoy it. Put it on your shelf. Share it with friends. Make an event out of it every time you have a tasting. But if you can grab this Penelope, get your hands on it.

Yeah. If you're a cigar smoker, I think you owe it to yourself. If you're one of those that tries a lot of cigar blends, which many companies have now, this is kind of an interesting take on that. And I think you should try it.

And I can guess, but what's your number two? My number two is going to be the Jeffersons. I really like it.

I was tickled pink when I got that and tried it. It's a fun pour. It's really cool to see if indeed it is their own stuff. It's a really good bourbon.

It's a really, really good bourbon. And I think there was a lot of space between three and four and one and two.

Yeah, yeah, I would agree.

I think that it was not a big decision to go, if you had to divide them into twos, that was a pretty easy decision to make. Anyway, Jefferson is my number two as well. We agreed, number one. We agree on the number one, the Bardstown Hokkaido. Absolutely gorgeous. Yeah. Delicious. Wonderful. Danny and team, you guys killed it again. You continue to kill it time after time. If you can get your hands on this distillery reserve.

Bravo.

Yeah. Good stuff. Go to the distillery, drive to Kentucky, go to Bartstown bourbon company, have dinner, have lunch.

Have a pour because it might not be there in a bottle, but you should surely be able to have a pour.

It is absolutely wonderful. It's a great pour. It's a, it's a whiskey that represents true craftsmanship and, and you know, they've got it in spades there. They always do such a great job. Todd, I'm going to do the big combo here. Wow. That one's going to be really interesting. I don't know. I'm just going to do it because we're wrapping up. Do you have one more note? Any more news, anything like that?

I think that's pretty much covered everything.

Yeah. All right. So this is just about the final pour, everything put together. I had about equal parts of each. You didn't, but you're flying solo.

I'm kind of enjoying them all on their own.

Somebody's got to be crazy. All right.

I kind of hate to put anything with that. Yeah. Okay. It's a little disjointed.

Yeah. A little disjointed. It's not as good as any one of the other four.

Yeah.

So anyway, it's always fun to try though.

Agreed.

I didn't have much there. There might be a half an ounce.

Yeah, very little.

A lot of fun.

Great show. Yeah, always. Hats off to our folks that sent us these to try. You got the Bartstown. We got the Old Fo. The other two I picked up just because I thought they'd be good for the folks to hear about. So yeah.

Yeah, as always, like we say, just because you didn't make number one or number two or number three, number four is still a phenomenal pour. Yeah. So nothing bad to say about any of these great pours all the way around. 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 places. Todd and I will put out an episode every single Wednesday, except next week. It will probably be on Thursday. Jimbo and Melody are going to Europe and I'm not going to be around to edit next week's episode. If I can get it done in advance, I will. but likely it will be delayed by a day. So if you get the episode on Thursday, just be kind to us. We did our best.

I've got some fun things in the works with some other folks. We'll get them recorded, but we'll see when we can drop them. All right. Be patient.

Yeah. So make sure you scroll to the top of the app. You're on hit that subscribe button. That way when we do release it, uh, one day late this week, next week, sorry folks, but when we do release it, you'll get that notification, letting you know that we have dropped another one. You can put those headphones on. You can cut that grass. You can drive to the next sales call. You can do whatever it is with your headphones on. We would love to be a part of your day. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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