475. The Wrath of Todd: Tasting the Harden's Creek Trio

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

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

Hello there, this is Drew Hanisch of Whiskey Lore and I'm so happy that the Bourbon Road guys are going to let me promote a little bit about my new book coming out called Experiencing American Whiskey. It is a travel guide to whiskey distilleries in the entire United States. Lots of details in this book to help the traveler along the way and I'll tell you more about it at the break.

All right, listeners, welcome back for another great show. We're hanging out, Todd and I are hanging out, it's just us today, hanging out in the Bourbon Road bar. And we have another sample show for you today. We're gonna focus again on some Jim Beam products.

Yeah, this is kinda like the Wrath of Todd. This is like the second, second Star Trek kinda themed almost, or Beam, you know? So Beam me up, Scotty, and the Wrath of Todd, so. So last week we had a guest on, a great show, really enjoyed it. Yeah. and floored floored like i tried i think you'd let me try the southern double rye or something like that and it was good yeah i think it's like 95 proof but wow wow these guys are taking their grain serious yeah they really do i mean It would have been hard to pick a favorite out of those three, to be honest.

That Singlemont was really good. We don't typically do winter, winter chicken dinner when we have a guest, and rightly so, we shouldn't. But it was wonderful to have them on. Now we've had both husband and wife on the show.

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

It is pretty cool. So just to sort of give everybody an idea of how the year is going to wrap up here. Uh, so today this, this episode is releasing on, uh, the 24th Christmas Eve Christmas Eve.

So happy Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone. And, uh, then on the 31st on New Year's Eve, um, we're going to release another sample show.

Yeah, we're actually getting close to knocking out the backlog. Getting close, but then the next thing you know, more stuff will come in.

So you know why that's important, right?

It's not a bad problem to have when samples and bottles come in to review and taste.

But it is really important because the very next show, the first show of 2026 is going to be our 2025, let's just call it Whiskey of the Year.

Yeah. Recap, we'll kind of talk about some of our favorite things. I was kind of thinking maybe, of like some of our surprise pours of the year kind of thing. Maybe like do some little top five or top three lists. You know, we did a lot of single months this year, I felt like, so we might have like a We could almost probably do our favorite single model of the year too.

Probably could, but let's keep it simple. We've always done our favorite bourbon of the year. I think now it's only fair to talk about, you know, what's our best whiskey there? And then, you know, like I said, we've got another show after this one. We're going to go through the last of our samples for the year. And I think you all enjoy that show as well. And we'll talk a little bit, you know, when we go through those samples, we'll probably touch on, you know, the fact that we're going to have our unveiling the first week in 2026.

So, all right, Todd, you've laid this one out today. Yeah, we've actually talked about this one, kind of teased this one a little bit. We're diving into the Hardens Creek, the newest releases of that. You folks may recall, Jim and I went through the campus series some time ago. I think that was before I was an official. Was that before? I thought you were official by then.

I might have been official.

Regardless, I was on the show, and we went through the, those were all 17 years. I believe they were 110 proof. Some was aged at the Jim Beam and Claremont, obviously. Some was aged at Boston, which is not too far from that area. And then the other 17 year release was aged in my hometown of Frankfurt, which is pretty cool because not a lot of people know about that Frankfurt. It's kind of like it's out there and it does its thing, but it's mostly bottling. a lot of the, I think they owned a Kuiper too, the schnapps and things. And a lot of that gets probably 99 bananas and oddities like that.

But I'm sure our listeners have started to see these on the shelves because I've been out and around and I've started to see these on the shelves. So, and they're interesting bottles. Yes, for sure.

And this was kind of an An odd way of presenting these. I mean, they're named after, well, one's named after a fun guy and the other two are named after animals. So are we ready to dive into the first one?

Let's hit the first one.

All right. So this one is mushroom, which is made up of one single floor, warehouse R, and it's uniquely close to the earth is what they say. And with no windows for sunlight to pour in, it's as cool and dark as the underside of a fallen log. It feels like the kind of place you might stumble across a fascinating creature, the witch's hat mushroom thriving in the shade of the forest floor. So yeah, this was, they could call this release one. So I don't know if they were going to stagger them a little bit, but I feel like they all kind of came out the same. All these will be from Claremont and it has like, I'm guessing like, it has like a direction like East. So I'm guessing maybe on the East side of the campus or maybe the barrels were, yeah, maybe East facing warehouse. And I guess they bottled this in the fall.

Okay. Good deal. Yeah. So this is the mushroom. The mushroom. Hardin's Creek, the mushroom. And you will see these on shelves everywhere. Yeah. I believe I'm going to look up. I forgot to write down, you know. Like how much? Yeah. The how much part. Okay. Well, we're drinking from sample bottles today that were sent to us by Jim Beam. Thank you very much for sending these samples to us. I will say that there are a few companies out there that really go over the top when they send out their samples. The marketing that comes along with it, the bottles, the labels, they really do it upright. And these were definitely some bottles that were done right and accompanied with a lot of good marketing materials to help us do a better show.

Yeah. So about $170. But I actually saw some at Kroger for like 140 already, which was kind of.

Well, 170 is MSRP, but they're trying to move them. So let's check it out. Let's check it out.

H? H is 11 years. These were actually cut to 110 proof. And these are actually surprisingly, I think, some of the first releases that Jim Beam has done at 700 milliliters too.

So that earthy sort of fungi note, is that real or am I just imagining it? I don't know. I'm definitely getting an earthy note to it. But it's funny how you can be impressed upon by the description of something.

Right. There's a lot of caramel, some nutmeg.

Yeah, I'm getting some black pepper. Maybe white pepper.

There's a nuttiness to it, but it's not like peanut. It's kind of like, I don't know, like some almonds and like some, it's like a, like a little bit of mixed nut bag. You know how you get like a bag of mixed nuts and crack them during the winter, that kind of thing.

Yep. Well aged, nicely aged. The color on it is just medium amber.

Yeah.

It's not real dark. So I'm wondering if they sit really low in the warehouse, do they have less of that pumping in and out of the barrel like they do up high? I would say so. Temperature swings aren't as great down there, right? Right.

I was just kind of looking at the other two and the colors are all pretty similar though. Yeah, they are. Someone smarter than us could probably had some sort of color spectrum thing and could say one might be, might be a little darker than the other.

One 10 proof, not, uh, not, uh, ethanol on the nose. Very nice. Yep. The legs are, uh, impressive. I'm looking forward to a little bit of texture on this. So let's check it out. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, it's peppery.

It's soft.

It's got a nice viscosity to it. It does. It does. It does have that viscosity that I kind of was hoping for. The legs kind of gave that away just a little bit, but it does have a little bit of peppery bite to it. Yeah. A little bit of nuttiness. Okay. I'm not getting witches hat mushrooms.

There's a little bit of earthiness to it a little bit. Caramel still there. Honey. There's a little bit of sweet honey.

It settles in for a nice hug in the back. The, the, um, the finish is a bit lengthy on it, but it's more, this is more of a mid palette bourbon. It's really sitting on my mid palette.

Yes, I would agree with that. It's lingering for, like you said, it's got a nice little finish though. It's just sitting there.

Yeah, I definitely think it's got this nice peppery bite to it. I said, when I was nosing it, I picked up the pepper. I said, first I said pepper and then I said, no, white pepper.

But now that it's on the pallet, I'm going to go back to black pepper.

Caramel, black pepper, a nice nuttiness. I agree with the almond. I think that's the right call. Or mixed nuts. So it's maybe in a way that you can't tell which nut it is. It's definitely not shell. It's definitely not peanut. Texture's good. Finish is good. Pleasant finish. Lingering. Nice pour.

Now this Hardin's Creek line started in 22. They came out with those Jacob's Well.

I believe we may have tried that one together as well, I think. We did. Actually, we had the first Hardin's Creek release sitting in Baker Beam House down at Jim Beam with Freddie. Okay. I didn't make that one. So maybe that was just you. That might've been just me, but yeah, the first Hardin's Creek release was there.

Because they came out with two versions of that. There was one that was like 15 years and then I was 16. They also came out with the Colonel James B. Beeman, which was the two year.

Right. I'm trying to remember. It was, um, Jacob's well. And what was the other one?

I don't remember. Was it the Goat and Promise? That was that corn whiskey. We tried that. We reviewed that one too. We did. Yeah, we did.

11-year corn whiskey. I don't remember. And I'm not going to dig for it because I won't pick it out. But yeah, they initially released with two separate bottles to represent the Hardin's Creek. And they were both good, but they were both very different.

Yes. And then I think they released the Jacobs well, the older one, because they, they put the months rather than the year on it. I remember that 180 months. Yeah. You had to do some math.

Yeah. 180 months. If you figure that out, that's, that's up there, right? Like eight, 17, 18 years or something.

The more sip on this, it does get a little earlier to me. Like it's got a little bit of a,

Yeah, funk. The more you step on it though, the more the kind of the little bit of a better note comes on the back of the palette.

Okay. I think the one thing, like I said, all these will be 110 proof. You got to think at being at the bottom level, probably not a whole lot of proof fluctuation. So this one might've been the one that was cut the least to get to 110 maybe. I would think so.

Okay.

Wow.

Really good. Yeah. Excellent. Oh man. I didn't save enough rooms. Winter, winter chicken dinner. Cause I need to blend too. I know it.

All right. Let's move on to the beaver. So, for almost a century, Warehouse W has sat sturdy in its creekside location, its dense five-floor construction enveloped in the humidity of the surrounding air. It feels like the kind of place you might find a familiar creature, the North American beaver, setting up a lodge built to last where the stream cuts through the forest. Once again, Claremont, this is considered lease two. It has that east denomination, which they don't explain, and then, yeah, bottled in the fall.

East, east. So yeah, so they have, now, if you go to the campus there at Claremont, they do have rick houses on the east side of the campus, and they do have warehouses on the west side of the campus.

Yeah, I did a Knob Creek, but I don't know, I don't recall what warehouse they took us to. It was a fun experience.

Yeah. I just wonder if the humidity around a creek is enough to really affect, I mean, everything affects whiskey, right? Right. I guess it does.

Or so they say.

Or so they say. Yeah.

All right. I'm going to hit the nose. Yeah. Let's check out the beaver.

Okay. So this one's kind of, yeah, it's different. It's different. Yeah.

This is smelling a little more true to Knob Creek form, I think. Yeah. Maybe a little brighter though. It does.

It's got a little bit of like a little hint of fruit on it. The pepper's not there, but more, more oak influence, a deeper, darker caramel.

All right. So what's the proof? What's the age? Still 11 and still one 10. Okay. So everything's the same. Yes. Okay. I'm a little like. Apple too though.

I mean, that might be the fruit I'm picking up. Yeah.

I mean, sometimes it's just like what those, I know you recall like back in the day when you used to get like that old label, the Knob Creek picks, some of those were like 14, 15 year old. Oh yeah. And you'd get some really rich, like dark cherry notes and things like that on this. But I think you're right on this. This might be apple, apple peel.

And then the baking spice cabinet is in there, you know, A little bit of nutmeg. All right. Let's taste it. Yeah. Cheers. Oh, that's nice. Okay. That's front and mid. That apple's still there though, a little bit. Oh, and rear. This, this makes an impression all the way across front, mid and rear of the pallet settles in nicely. rich caramel.

Wow.

I'm still getting that apple. I'm like a caramel. There you go. Caramel apple. Let me put them, let me put them together. Um, cinnamon's there.

Yep. Yeah. This is definitely got a little bit of the baking spice cabinet in it. Uh, cinnamon. I'll go for that. Definitely does not have the bite of the pepper though.

It's almost like a, You took a baked apple pie and then just kind of drizzled a bunch of caramel on it to me. Or some of those old time, those old timey donuts, the apple cinnamon donut kind of thing. Oh, yeah. I know what you're talking about.

That was at Dunkin, I think. Do you like going to Panera and getting those apple fritters?

Well, I've got to be honest. I am literally probably like a one minute walk from Andy's Bakery, which is locally owned. And I go over there quite a bit to usually get a second cup of coffee. I work from home most of the time. I do some travel for work. But his pastries are, I mean, and it's local. I like to support local. His pastries are some amazing stuff. You guys have got a couple of great donut shops. Well, three that I know of. Yes, there's Bee's Bakery, which is closer downtown, and then Poppy's, which is kind of to the right if you're going from downtown to Buffalo Trace.

You keep going past and it's on the right.

Yep. Over by Locals Pizza. Yep. We have a lot of neat little places.

Yeah, you do. Yeah, there's no shortage of baked goods in Frankfurt, that's for sure.

Yeah, I think it was the Ohio crew was kind of disappointed because I think Andy and his wife and their son went on vacation when bourbon on the banks was going on. Oh, yeah. It was like fall break. So.

I know they wanted to get over there and get some things, but the finish is a little shorter on this one for me. It's great. It's just as, it's just as pleasant. It just doesn't last as long, but it lacks that bitterness that I got from the first one. Yep. Um, so I mean all, all in all, this is a great, great pour.

Yeah.

I guess we'll still kind of have to rank these, right? I think we should, but I'm going to have to get a little bit more of the mushroom, I think. Right. I wasn't paying attention and I drink at all. That's the problem when you have your show, that first glass of the show typically goes quick. Yeah, that's a solid. Very solid. Very different. Both of these are very different. I'm interested to know how much they thought about these names. You know, was the name related specifically to the location or did it have something to do with the flavor as well? Because I'm not getting like creek water with this or humidity or anything like that.

Right. Maybe this is what a beaver would like to drink. I don't know. But I think you're seeing kind of this trend where some of these distilleries are highlighting certain warehouses. I mean, obviously everyone knows the wild turkey thing and warehouse H at Buffalo Trace. But then you also, Jack Daniels has Tanyard Hill, they're the warehouses up there. And then everybody's favorite for Jack Daniels is Coy Hill.

Yeah. The funny thing is when I think about it, now we've had the market in bourbon dip before, but I don't know that the drinking public, the bourbon loving public was as educated as they are now. So when your marketing department is trying to figure out in a slightly down market, how you get the interest of your potential customers, It was handled a lot differently the last time than it is now. You know, I think before, you know, it was about decanters and the on-the-shelf wow factor, right? And then the blended to give it almost like a vodka-esque taste. And now it's more about, let's appeal to the to the nerdiness of the bourbon drinker, you know, what shelf did it come off of? Which way did the Rick house face things like that?

How close was it to the creek? Was it bottled with the sun and was out or was it a cloudy day? You know, so, but I think you're right. I mean, I think the nerds like to know, like to get very specific. I mean, there are, you know, there's those wild Turkey fans that. They have their favorite Rick houses. You know, there's, there's a reason that while Turkey's putting out camp Nelson ease and you know, that kind of thing, the single Rick house releases and things like that. So absolutely. It's definitely a thing.

All right, Todd, what do you say we take a short break here?

Yup.

Fill up your glass. My mushroom a little bit more, and then we'll get into that third animal or that third, uh, whatever it is in the second half. It's the owl. Stick around folks. We'll be right back.

Hello there, Drew Hanisch, Whiskey Lore, and I am excited to announce that I have a brand new book coming out called Experiencing American Whiskey. If you have checked out my travel guide to Experiencing Kentucky Bourbon, you'll know that I go deep into the details of Kentucky Bourbon. Well, imagine that I've spread this out across the entire United States now, and I'm covering a thousand distilleries, coast to coast, and even Alaska and Hawaii, I have 227 detailed profiles in there from the distilleries that I've had firsthand contact with. I give you all the details that you need to know, like when they have tours, if they do tastings, cocktails, and everything is in a state by state format so that you can roll through, find your particular state that you're traveling to, and have all that information at your fingertips. On top of that, I have a website resource where you can bookmark and actually create a wish list of the distilleries that you'd like to visit. I cover state regulations so you know how many bottles of whiskey you can walk out with from a store from a distillery and so on. So it is an exciting book. It is the biggest thing that I put together to this point. And right now it is going to be going on sale on January the 13th, but it is actually available for pre-order right now at whiskylore.org slash shop. That's Whiskey Lore's travel guide to experiencing American whiskey.

All right, welcome back listeners. We've been diving into the latest latest set for the Harz Creek and It's kind of like the animal set, I guess, is the best way to describe it.

I don't know what you call it, but yeah, it's almost like every bottle gets a mascot.

Yeah.

It's like collegiate teams.

So we had the mushroom. called, I guess, Erthy is what it's kind of what they called it. And then Beaver. And now we're ready to move on to the Owl. I'm very impressed with both the first two. Yeah, they were excellent. I think we said about runs about 160, 170. 110 proof, 11 years, so yeah. And our last one we're gonna roll through is the Owl. And here's the tale of the Owl, if you will. At nine floors high, warehouse G is a rarity, as warehouses are no longer built so tall. I wonder what the limit's probably six now, maybe? Seven, I think. Is it seven? Okay. I thought it was seven, yeah. Iris is one of the few standing relics that enjoys such a towering view. It feels like the kind of place you might spot a majestic creature, the Great Horned Owl, soaring high above the forest canopy as it keeps wise watch over the happenings below.

It's just, it's up there crapping on the barrels. Yeah.

So, and everything again is the same. It's really, this is considered release three Claremont, the East designation and then bottled in the fall, I guess. Yeah. All right. Let's check it out. This one is a little darker. I will say that it is a little darker. This one might be the darkest of the three. All right. So, you know, you think of owl and the loft. So I wonder if all the, it doesn't really say all these came from that top of that nine stories, but probably higher up though.

I would think so. Since they named it the owl, I would think it came from the top. I would say between the distillery cat and the barn owl, they probably don't have too many mice in the rick houses.

Right. This is a richer, darker nose for sure.

It definitely delves into the deeper, darker notes of a bourbon.

I could probably go ahead and say this is my kind of nose.

So I like this.

This is probably if we're first placing the nose, this is probably got, got me.

Is this a little more Booker-esque? Oh yeah. Booker-esque. You made it.

Yeah.

All right, and the ethanol is a little more apparent on it. I know it's the same proof, but it's coming across a little bit more.

Deeper, darker, it has a... There's a lot more vanilla on this, I feel like.

I would say that this whiskey has been in and out of the barrel, in and out of the barrel walls a few more times. Or it's dove deeper into the wood.

Be interested in it. Like we said, those higher, higher floor barrels are going to get higher improved typically. So this one might've been cut more too though. Love it. Great nose. Yeah. This is, this is my jam. This is the nose winner for sure.

All right.

Cheers.

Okay. Yeah. This is in Booker's territory.

That's classic beam almost.

Yeah. This is really good. It's rich, rich, has a nice wash across the tongue, settles in on the back. Immediately you feel that hug building up on this one. Kind of a late cherry note. Yes.

That's that almost like a black cherry.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think this one's my jam.

I would say this is lovely, but that's a little too delicate of a word for this. This doesn't deserve a delicate word. No. This has got some punch to it. This does.

A little more charred oak character, I think. A little more spice. It'd be interesting to see how, like, I think you got quite a bit of spice on that first one. How, which of the two is the spicier of the two? I have to go back and check that.

This one's more wood spice.

I think this is more oak spice for sure. Wow. Great whiskey. Really good. Oh yeah. I went back and sip the mushroom.

Yeah.

Definitely spicier on this one. The owl.

Yeah. The mushroom was kind of a, just a peppery note. This is rich. This is deep. This is dark. Camel vanilla.

Yeah. After the brightness of the, uh, the beaver too.

Yeah.

Yup.

Nice. Very nice.

Agreed.

Wow. All three. Very distinct. Very different. Um, I would like to know, a little bit more. Maybe we should send out an email to the media contact here and ask them a few questions. Give us a little more detail on this. Was this literally from the top four? What does East mean? Right.

They did offer up their space for us to record, but I mean, it's It's really hard for me to like plan something like that. Yeah. So maybe, maybe come springtime we can go up there and visit. That'd be cool. I didn't even know they had a recording studio. I think you were aware of it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a couple of places that have those, but that's a, I think you said that there was somebody else that was setting one up as well. Trying to remember. Really good. Yeah. Really good. Delicious. Well, we're definitely gonna do a winter, winter chicken dinner today. We're gonna pick our favorite. I hope we haven't given it away. I don't think we have. I think, well, maybe we have. But we're actually gonna do a bonus pour, right? So what do we have? Well, I guess I should tell everybody. I was gonna say, Jim, what do we have in our glass? What's in glass number four? All right, so in glass number four, we're departing the Hardin's Creek series and we're going to a distillery only bottle here. This is the James B. Beam Distilling Company's Distiller's Share. And for those of you who have had the opportunity to pick up one of these bottles, you'll know that each one's crafted a little bit differently. They come in 375s. They're available at the distillery, in the bottle shop. Today we're trying number eight, and this just so happens to be another American single. Oh, how about that?

Can't escape it.

Can't escape it. So Beam is making single malts. This is one that was picked up at the distillery. Melody and I stopped in there one day and this just got my attention. And it's been out for a little while. This is a late 2024 bottle, but it's something that hasn't been on the show yet. And we thought it would round out today's Hardin's Creek episode.

Yeah.

I mean, we're staying in, staying in the family, so to speak. We are. So this is an American single malt finished in sweet Pete barrels. And, uh, this is also from the Claremont, uh, distillery. It's a five year old American single malt finished in white oak barrels. Uh, actually I'm sorry. This is a spring of 25 release. I said 24, didn't I? Okay.

I thought it was, yeah, I thought you got it earlier this year.

This is a 20 spring of 25 release.

And it is 109 proof and it does come in a 375 milliliter bottle. And let's just say with tax at the distillery, somewhere right at around $70. Yeah.

So, but I think all this stuff is distilled there at the, they have like a really small distillery, correct? Kind of their experimental distillery, which is kind of like their playground now, I guess. Or one of their playgrounds.

So I'll kind of go over what they say on the website about it. It is something that Freddie worked on. Obviously, he's Mr. Experimental himself. He's really getting out there and trying some new things. It's an American single malt finished in special sweet peat barrels that import, impart a sweet smoky nose with hints of chard, oak, vanilla, and tobacco on the finish. We'll, we'll determine that on our own. Uh, but he said that grandpa liked to say whiskey's meant to be drunk, not collected. Oh, Booker would love not collecting this one. So there you go.

Wonder what Booker thought of single malts. Or even if he tried to, I, you know, I don't know.

I think he had an appreciation in general for whiskey, but I believe that, uh, bourbon was his first love. Well, his wife was his first love, but bourbon was his first whiskey love.

All right.

So let's check it out. We'll get to figure out what sweet Pete is on the notes. That's definitely the mope. Yep. It's like, uh, it's bready. It's ready to me. It is. It does. It does have that serial note to it. Yeah. Serial. That's a great call. Um, but it is light compared to what we just had out of the Hardin's Creek, uh, owl.

Not really getting the Pete. Are you maybe just. A tease of smoke.

Yeah. I'm getting a peach cobbler. A peach cobbler. Huh? Yeah. Okay. A little bit of tea. Tea. Yeah. Maybe honey. Not getting a lot of the smoke though. Sweet Pete. Sweet Pete. What is Sweet Pete? I don't even know.

That's definitely one to ask. Yeah.

That's one to figure out. What is Sweet Pete? What is Sweet Pete? Cause this is not coming across as like a smoked, peated malt, right? All right, let's check it out. Cheers. Cheers. Just tons of sweetness there.

Very sweet. Wow. Cotton candy, cotton candy. Nice.

Um, smoke though, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, but kind of an odd smoke, like a cold smoke, like a, not a, it's lightly reminiscent of, remember the burnt tavern we had that had the smoke.

Yeah.

Kind of close to that a little.

I mean, I know he didn't use Pete on that. He was just charring and that kind of thing. But,

Yeah, I'm gonna stick with the peach cobbler. A little bit of butteriness. It is brighter though. It does have that cereal note to it. Maybe that's the crust on the cobbler. I'm just not getting this like.

Oh, what is that at the tail end of that? That second sip really brought something new to the table.

Is it something that you kind of recognize but can't come up with?

No, I'm gonna say like a caramel with like those caramel chocolate with sea salt on it, like the big bits of sea salt.

Oh, big chunks of salt.

And then that kiss of smoke. Now I'm starting to get the smoke a little more after, you know, having a couple of sips.

Yeah, but it's not, um, it is sweet.

It's not a medicinal note. It's a sweet kiss, sweet smokey kiss.

So I wonder if that's the difference between like, uh, a sweet Pete and like a, like a, like a smoke Pete is that you get, you don't get that medicinal note. You don't get that.

I was going to say, it really tones. I'm starting to get like, the more I sip, the more I'm getting the smokiness. So I think you're right. It does tone that iodine down.

Wow. That's really good. That is fun. You know, these are fun little bottles. You pick them up. They're 375s. They're not cheap. So when you buy a 375 for $60, $70, you know, now you're talking 121.40 for a full bottle, but I don't think you need a full bottle of this.

No, and it's one of those, I mean, it's exclusive. It's something like, I think I've talked, I've got batch nine and 10 because they came in the Jim Beam Barrel to box set. So we may get around to those at some point. So there's always probably a new one dropping. I mean, probably about every four months, as it sounds like. I mean, yours is kind of like the spring release. And I think I've got nine and 10, like probably summer and fall or something like that.

Well, I like it a lot. I do. I think I could drink this one. Um, I could drink this daily actually. Would this fly with a cigar in your opinion? It might get drowned out a little bit. I don't know. Maybe if it's super mild cigar. What do you think?

Yeah, probably mild. I mean, it's, it's really sweet.

Yeah. Add it to a sweet tip cigar. I don't know. Maybe it'd be all right. I don't know. I don't know. It's, I mean, it's always worth a try.

I mean, the fact that it's a single month is just kind of what I was thinking. You know, some of those single months.

Yeah.

All right. If we do this ranking, are we going to, it's just kind of an extra, I don't think we should include this one.

It's hard to find and it's, it's hard to get. Uh, it's a little, it's a little bit older release. You said 10, 11 or out nine, nine and 10 or out. Yes. So this one's Oh eight. So it's, it's from before, but it was nice to have a little bonus port at the end. Let everybody know what we think. I think in general, the stiller share series is something interesting that, uh, as you're driving. North and South and I-65 and you have an opportunity to pull off, it is not far off the highway. If you have a chance to pull off and visit Jim Beam, like so many hundreds of thousands of people do. Right. pop in there and pick one of these up and whatever's currently available. Grab a bite to eat too. Oh man, the kitchen table restaurant is out of this world. Yeah. It's a great place to stop off the interstate. You should plan your meal around, try to time yourself, you know, especially during the holidays when you're traveling, pop in there, have a quick meal, grab a bottle, take it to your family event and share it with your friends and family. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. All right. Wow. Great show. Let's, uh, let's, let's do winter, winter chicken dinner. What do you do it? All right. You want to go first? I'll start off my number three. My number three is tough. Um, my number three is the mushroom.

My number three is the mushroom.

Okay. All right.

I had, I have kind of a feeling we may, may lock stock.

I think we may.

Yeah. I think we may. Shall I go second? Go second. All right.

My number two is going to be the beaver. And I'll join with you on that. Number two is the beaver. I didn't get the creekside effect of the beaver. I thought it was a great pour, but actually the mushroom was a great pour as well. But one stood out. Yeah. So if you're standing in, well, now this is a matter of preference. I should say this. I was just getting ready to say, if you're standing in the liquor store and you're looking at these three beautiful bottles and they are beautiful bottles on the shelf,

Yeah, I think some, I don't remember the artist's name, but painted the labels and all that kind of thing.

If you have no personal preference based on what you've heard on the show today so far, I would lean towards picking the owl. But you may find that one of the other two profiles that we described fits you a little bit better. You can't go wrong.

I was going to say, you've got mushroom. There was an earthiness to it. There was. uh, the beaver, a little brighter, fruitier. And then, you know, if your palette is like dark and rich and that now it's going to be for you.

Yeah. If you like, if you like really rich, deep and dark, um, Jim beam products. You'll like, you'll like the owl. Yeah, that's good. All right. All right. I'm going to put them together. I think so too. I don't know what this is going to do though. Unfortunately, I've got a lot in there that makes it.

I don't pour that single waltz in there.

I won't do that.

I can't discombobulate it.

We're not going to grade. We're not going to grade the distillers, um, share number eight. We're just going to. But I'm going to let this marry just a second here. A little swirly. A little swirly. Try it.

Oh, wow.

The nose is nice. The nose is really nice. It's a little bitter. The nose is great, though. See, I don't mind that. I kind of like it too, but it definitely hit me as a bitter. I think the bitter note of, remember the mushroom started to get bitter towards the end. I think that maybe is it sat in the glass and oxidized a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to take this upstairs with me after the show and want to sip it. It's not going to waste. That's for sure. There you go. And I am going to put the distiller share in with it.

Oh, he's going all in.

I don't know what that's going to do with it. What do you think? I don't know. I'm intrigued. It could get kind of weird, but I'm just, I'm thinking, you know, logistics here.

I got to carry one glass upstairs with me. You got to sip and talk about it now that you've done it. I've done it. I've done it. So what does sweet Pete do to the Hardin's Creeks?

I'm not getting the difference on the nose. Okay.

Jim has taken one for the team here.

The bitterness is gone.

Yeah.

Getting that sweet smokey kiss a little. It moved up front a little bit. It's sweeter, more balanced. You're going to make me do this, aren't you? Yeah, you should do it. You should do it. It takes the bitterness out. It balances it out. I'm not getting the, like the malt note to it and the peat note to it. I think that, I think it's more the sweetness of it helped what the mushroom brought.

Of course, our portions that we poured in each glass could be a little different because I'm, I didn't swirl it. Let's see. Cause I'm getting like the green apple all of a sudden.

Yeah. This is all not really fair. Cause you know, when you're blending whiskeys, they must marry for a time. They have to. You can't just put them together.

Those are definitely something that can like, it may taste good today, but if you don't come back and check it in a week, it could get a little, It can go south. Yeah. I mean, sometimes, I mean, that's a rarity, but I've played around with blends and I actually got one that I've been debating to send to Jason and it's getting late, so I need to probably do it or don't. But I'll at least share some with you too. All right.

So what's your general take on this one? on the board with the sweet Pete added. Like, yeah, it's a, I mean, it's nice. Yeah. It's better than the three together. I think you think so. I think it, I think it counterbalances that bitterness from the Albrad in.

Yeah. I think you're right. I'm getting this like really like the green apple was like popped back in for some reason.

Well, nobody's going to do this. They're all looking at us right now.

I'm saying are these fools, but Hey, if you, Play around, it's fun.

I mean, it's like a chemist's lab sometimes. We've got a few more great shows this year. Definitely check them out. Well, at least one more after this and then be on lookout for January 7th as we drop our Whiskey of the Year announcement and it's going to be a great show too. So make sure you check that out. You can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook threads. We do all those things every week. Todd and I get together. We do a show. Sometimes it's a review show like this. Sometimes it's a, a guest on like we had last week. Uh, we try to mix it up as much as we can. We're always having fun. We're always drinking whiskey. The best way not to miss a show is to go to the top of that app. You're on hit that subscribe button. That way, when we do drop a show, you'll get that bell notification. You'll know that one's coming down the pipe. You can get your headset on, you can go out there and do whatever you do with your headset on, and you can enjoy the day with us. We hope to check out the bourbon roadies. Just go to Facebook, the bourbon roadies, just search it out. It's a great group of people. It's a private channel on Facebook. A lot of people listen to the show. They share whiskeys. They share fun. They share stories. It's, it's a great time. Check it out. Also go to the bourbon road website, the bourbon road.com. We've got our swag on there. Anytime you buy something off the bourbon road, you help us get down to that next interview to that next stop on the road. We do wish all our listeners a Merry Christmas. Yes, indeed. Thank you for tuning in all year. We hope you have a great Christmas with your family and we hope you have a happy new year. We will be with you on Wednesday the 31st for another episode. Make sure you check that out. But first and foremost, enjoy time with your family and be safe. Stay off those crazy roads. If they're nasty, just pour yourself a glass of whiskey and just relax. Stay home. Yep. Enjoy. All right. Well that's it for now. We will see you down the Bourbon Road.

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