481. Back in the Saddle: Jim Returns for a 4-Bottle Review

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

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

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.

Hello, listeners. The man, the myth, the legend is back.

Jim, welcome back from Dry January. It's great to be back. I tell you, I'm glad I do this every year. It's something that just, I started thinking about because I'll be honest, we drink just a little bit of whiskey.

Yeah, it can be taxing. I mean, a lot of times, I don't do the dry January thing, but there's a lot of weeks where I just, you know, go, I go into full shutdown mode and don't drink anything during the week. And then, you know, we usually were kind of try to record on the weekends. This seems to be a good time for us to record. So, you know, I'll go, go weeks.

So, you know, well, again, this year it was quite easy for me after the first couple of days, you know, you're like, Oh, I'm not making a drink today. I'm not going to have a drink. I'm not going to have a pour. Right. I'm not visiting the bar today. After a couple of days, you just sort of get into a routine of like, I don't drink. And I'll tell you, as long as it's easy for you, as long as it doesn't cause you a problem, I think you're good to go. And that's what it's all about.

Yeah. And I also feel like it's like when you come back and you have that first pour, it's like your palate is just like, oh, Oh, I remember this. And it seems like you have a super palette for a little while too.

Yeah, it does. The flavors are super amplified. I think so. It's pretty cool. It's good to do. And I highly recommend our listeners to reset once in a while and just check in, make sure things are good. That's right, for sure.

So today, we are going to have a little review show. We've got a few samples in and then a few that I've picked up. And one we're going to bring back from 2025, and we'll get to it later, from 2025, I should say, that I've recently just found. So I was like, and I'd heard great things about it. And again, we'll get back to it. But we're going to start off with Castle & Key. They have some new experimental Rye releases. And this is their. Spaniard mill rye finished in vino de Naranja barrels. Naranja, that's orange. Yes. And that is a Spanish fortified wine that I'm assuming it's fairly sweet. It's not one of those things you see on the shelf. I've had some Spanish wines and things like that, but I've never seen an actual vino de Naranja on the shelf and tried it. Because I used to enjoy my wines back in the day, every once in a while. But this one comes in at 115.8 proof. The mash bill on this is 63 rye, 17 corn. I'm pretty sure they use white corn. At least they do in their bourbon, so I'm assuming that coincides with the rye. And then 20 months of barley. OK. That's a high barley content. Yeah. Retails for about $65. And this one came out probably like fall of last year. I've had it for a while. We're honored. We had gone down to try, we have a couple of single barrels that have been aging. I think they're eight years old now and they're weeded bourbons down at Castle & Key. So we were with Brett Connors and he brought this out like even before it was bottled and he said, let us try it. When we were down there kind of walking around and tasting things. It really surprised me. I think Castle Key is starting to hit their stride. I think everybody wanted them to do really well, and they came out. It's not bad juice, but I think the expectations and the history that's there are just a little overwhelming. But the ryes are very tasty. Agreed. Our bourbon society has done a couple rye picks that have been great. The eight-year weeded bourbons we have, they've allowed us to kind of, I think we chose them at two. Yeah. So one of them, it's something special. Wow. And then the other was still a little rough. So hopefully, and I think our plan is to revisit it this year. Because I think we did this back in the spring of 2025. So it's been a while. So when are you going to barrel the good one? I don't know. It's one of those that likes to like not say anything. So it just keeps getting older and older. I'm like, well, you're also losing bottles and bottles too. Every time you sample, you got like the whole team there. There's like 10 of us and we'll get there and we'll have 40 bottles out of it.

Oh, wow.

But this should be out on the shelves. They're starting to do some fun experimental stuff. I know they just dropped a experimental rye finished in Haitian rum, which is one of the first Haitian rums finishes I've seen. But yeah, let's dive in. Let's check it out.

Oh, I like that nose.

Oh, it's like a chocolate orange.

Like one of those like candies, uh, and like there's a little bit of mint and like, uh, like an orange, um, like an orange iced muffin, like, uh, yeah, like a muffin with orange icing on it. Maybe a cupcake, orange icing.

From what I could find out, this is aged in those VDN barrels for about 11 months. So it's a nice little hall.

It does have a nice sugary note to it. Yeah. It smells sweet. Sweet. It's definitely got an icing.

Ready to taste? Yep. Cheers. Cheers.

Oh, that's really good. I know. Wow.

Nice spice.

Yeah, like immediately, as soon as you taste it, you get that impression of that orange kind of, but it starts to lean a little towards, what are those ice cream sickles things called?

Dream sickles, right? But then it departs from that and it goes back towards the icing.

I think it's a little more cakey icing for me.

I like it because it's got that, like you said, all that sweet upfront. And then it's got this nice spicy finish. That's just like sitting on my tongue, like the pop rocks effect, orange blossom too, like a little, a little bit of florality to it.

That is really well balanced. It's delicious. A nice balance of sweet and spicy. Um, the sides of my palette aren't really dripping, but the center, the mid palette is just, it lights me up. It's like really good. Lots of flavor.

Get a lot of activity. Yeah. Like that mid and front.

Yep.

And then that spices in the, like sitting at the back, a little bit of a nice kind of getting a little nice. Okay. I could, yeah. Sometimes I get more deal on some of the, restoration rise I've tried, but yeah, I was very impressed with this.

This is a delicious rye. Agreed. Really good. Yeah. So are you, are you getting the high malt content in this?

No, not like some of the others. I mean, 20% is a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. Now I do think the actual rye in this is, it's about three years, so it's kind of a younger rye. And I don't know if that includes the 11 months, so it might be closer to four, I forget. But this should be out there on the shelves. You know, Casunkey has a pretty good footprint in the markets.

So it says pretty good distribution. You said it's $69? It's $65, yeah. $65, okay.

And like I said, you may not see this one. I've started seeing the Haitian rum finish one. We also tried that cast-strength weeded, the seven or eight-year, that was really impressive. I think they're starting to turn the corner.

I love the distillery. I mean, if you're coming to the area and you haven't been to Castle & Key, I mean, now's not the time, of course. I mean, it's like three degrees outside. Frigid snow was coming down when you pulled in. Yeah. I didn't shovel my drive for you though.

Yes. Uh, It's been very slow to melt this time. We've been very cold here, which is kind of interesting.

I think we've been below freezing now for 14 days straight, I think. Something like that.

Almost two weeks. And I think another week ahead.

Yeah. Yeah, I think the next few days, it's going to start to ease up a little bit. We've had to keep our horses in, and that stinks because you've got to muck stalls. Yeah. They deposit about 50 pounds a day each, so it's a lot of work. Hey, could be worse.

You could have elephants there, right? I guess you could have elephants. Who mucks an elephant stall? Or zookeepers, I guess.

Oh my goodness. Who wants to be a zookeeper?

I know. I wonder if they draw straws. I'll take the snakes or the spiders or something. The birds. The birds. Something. All right. Shall we move on to two? You want to sit and enjoy that a little more?

I'm glad we kept a little bit of this. We'll come back when we do winter, winter chicken dinner.

All right. What do we have next? So we're going to stay in the rye family. This is the old Hover Holt 12 year rye from Jim Beam. This retails for $110. It's 117 proof. I couldn't find the match bill, but I'm pretty sure it's out there. This is a, uh, Old Overhold is a Maryland rye. Very historical brand. Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's the longest continuous running whiskey brand there is since 1810, I believe I saw. listeners may recall, we did the 10 year, probably it's probably been two years ago. And then last year, apparently, or I guess maybe even, yeah, two years ago, they dropped 11 and now recently just dropped a 12 year. Did we miss the 11? I think we did, but do you have a chance to taste it? I never saw it, never really heard. I don't know. It was like one of those that kind of snuck through somehow. I don't know, but I lucked into this 12 and I did preview this one. So I'm interested in your take. And yeah, like I said, retails for 110 should be pretty widespread distribution for this. So overhauled has always been a value.

rye typically can be found in the wells of many a bar.

Yeah, for sure.

It is a bonded rye.

They have a bonded rye. They have the just the regular, I guess, 80 proof. Yeah. There's, they had, remember they came out with the eight overhaul, which was the Monongahela. Right. If I get, I think they use grains from that area or something like for that. So they're kind of adding the, uh, the skews for that, I guess. So good deal. All right. Check it out. It's knows it. Oh, I like that. Oh yeah.

Ooh, some leather going on there. Yeah. So it's definitely got some age on it. It's, it's showing, but it's not candied.

And yet it's still got a little bit of sweetness, like a dried cherry. Like, you know, in, you get those like trail mixes. There's that kind of like dried cherry and cranberry kind of thing.

Cranberry.

That's what it is. Cranberry. But leather was a good call out. Caramel. Just a good classic nose. It doesn't have the big minty.

Rye spice. No, it doesn't. And it's got a really rich mahogany color to it. It's very dark, darker than what we just had. Oh, the legs are running down this glass too. That's nice. Oh, I'm looking forward to this.

All right. I know. I knew you'd be happy with two Ryes coming in. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that's different. Oh, that's good.

And it's really good.

That's where they're right. It doesn't assert itself on the nose, but it lets you know it's there a little bit.

It's dry. Yeah. It's oaky. It's leathery. Nutty. Spicy. Oak, pepper. Oak, pepper. Yeah. Pepper's the spice here. Going back to the nose. Oh, the palette just overwhelms you.

Yeah. It's kind of soft on the nose. Some nice, nice aromas, but the palette it's like, it's kind of a, you're expecting a little softness on the palette, which the mouth feel is great, but it's a, it punches. It's like, hello. Yeah. So it's, um, you know, I'm starting to get a little strawberry on the nose now. When you go back to the nose.

So it's really quite dry for me. Leathery, peppery, dry. I would love to say rich, but it's rich in a dry way. I don't know.

It is making my mouth water a little bit.

This is an exceptional ride. This is really good. I know it makes me want to hunt down the 11 years. It did not turn candy sweet though for me anyway. I mean, I'm not getting that.

Now you're like me, when you say, when you think of a candy sweet rye, you're like, it's almost like rock candy.

Yeah. Yeah. And usually you'll find that in the eight to 12 year range, eight to 10 year range. This one's gone past that. This one's dried out just a little bit. It's a little more elderly, I say, is a good way to say it, but a little more elderly. This is an elder, the elder version of a candy rye. But yeah, I guess it's still got this hint of fruit. It's more of an aged, dried fruit. Dried fruit, I like that, yeah. That's a good shout. Wow, that's really good. How much did you say this was?

110, so that's under the 10 a year.

Yeah, I would say, and it's fairly well distributed.

It's a bean product, and yeah. I mean, you might run across, the Tents came out a while back. Like I said, never saw the 11, but I mean, I'm kind of interested in finding an 11 year old now because we love the 10, we love the 12, so I'm like, did we miss something with the 11?

I'm just, I'm getting this like little hints of holiday spice in it.

Kind of nice.

Um, really good, really good. Right. Very different. I don't remember the 10 though. I can't, I can't draw that memory back. Right.

I know we liked it.

Yeah. I mean, we're liking it. I just don't remember the flavors. I think it's different now though.

Yeah. As you might expect. Yeah. A couple of years can change a lot. That really lingers out. Like it stays for days on the pallet.

Yeah. It's kind of very long finish. Is this out of the Frankfurt?

Distill it? No. I mean, I'm sure it's Claremont. I mean, they keep a few barrels there and that was, I think a lot of those were for that, what they call it, the campus series. But, So it's pretty much just like the Basil Hayden stuff, right? I don't know what they store there. I mean, you know, mostly it's a bottling facility, but they do have, I do know they're actually decommissioning one of the Rick houses out there. Cause I think there's, there might be three, but I know there's two and they're decommissioning one.

Oh, it's, it's definitely go, go get one of these. I would say definitely go get one of these. It's really good. Definitely. Um, Well, it's going to be tough at the end, though.

You've got a couple of other big ones coming up. Two starters, and two rise, and two good rise. Yeah. Yeah. And two reasonably priced rise, I thought. I mean, like I said, the Castle & Key, three years, but it's finished. I mean, it's also a little crafty. But I think, in my book, those are two. Well, obviously, I bought bottles, so two buys right there for me, for sure. All right. You think we're ready for a break? Let's do it. All right. Let's cleanse this palette because we're actually going to switch gears in the second half.

All right. Well folks, stick around. We will 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, Roadies. Jim's back with us, which I'm very happy for. I had actually had a great time with Drew and Jerry Daniels. I hope everyone enjoyed that show. And then I brought my good buddies, David Sandlin and Amzeon for a little bit of a French oak comparison, but the captain is back in his chair.

Well, those, those two episodes, uh, I really enjoyed it. I got to edit them, which was a pleasure because, uh, you guys did a great job and you had so much fun.

Yeah. You could tell you guys were having a blast. That's a carryover. I mean, we have, we're having fun. So, um, But in the first half, we had a couple of great rides. We had the Casone Key experimental series. That was their first volume. I'm not sure if it says volume one, but it was finished in VDN barrels, which is Vino De Naranja barrels. And then second up, we had the Old Overholt 12-year ride. Yeah, good stuff. Great start. Yeah. But like I said, we're going to switch gears and we're going to go into the Bourbon territory.

Yay.

Yeah. So Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Rye. This is their B525. We're stepping back. And the reason is. Did you say rye? Oh, I'm sorry. You said rye. I did say rye. Well, they have Barrel Proof Ryes, but I've not been able to find one because they're a hot commodity. But this is their B525 Barrel Proof Bourbon. OK. And I'd heard great things about this. A lot of reviewers. Jason was one of those I'd heard loved it. Scott was one of those I heard loved it. But I just kept seeing AE125, which I heard kind of mixed reviews. And it's, I don't know. I have a lot of barrel-proof Elijah Craigs now. So I'm trying to be a little pickier, I guess. So I kept waiting, couldn't find it. Kept waiting, looking, couldn't find it. And finally, I stopped here. We're at the Bourbon Road Bar, and I stopped at Paradise, and they had some. So I grabbed a bottle. So yeah, and we're getting ready to run through it today. So this is their B525, 11 years, six months. It came in at 126.2 proof. Their mash bill is 78 corn, 10 rye, 12 malted barley. And MSRP is about 75 bucks on these. Yeah. Always a good bargain.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's check it out. Yep. So this is, uh, this is always, I mean, you know, this is something, is it three, three year, right? Yes. A, B, and C. They're not like bookers.

Bookers will drop three or four. Yeah. But yeah, A, B, C. And, uh, and you know, we've, we did a show about a year ago.

Yeah. Going back in time through a bunch of different ones. And there's, there's been some, uh, some very popular, good, good releases in the past.

It's always solid.

Yeah. It's always solid. It's always good, but it does vary from release to release.

For sure. I think, uh, Probably sometime about that time, they dropped the age statement, because it used to be 12. And now they actually will give the age statement, which is the oldest whiskey in there. Like I said, this one's 11 years, six months. So that's the oldest in there. But that could have 14, 15, that kind of thing. But let's dive in. Check it out.

Oh, yeah. Nice nose. It's got a little bit of a sizzle to the nose though.

It's not getting that dry peanut shell though.

No.

It's more of a brown sugar molasses, nice oak.

Yeah, this one is definitely more in the oaky range. Darker fruits maybe? Darker, oaky. It's a good nose though. Maybe a little fig. All right, let's taste it. Cheers. Oh, wow.

That's good. You can see why this gets the acclaim that did this year. That's really good.

Wow.

I should add, I've not seen C925 either, but. Yeah.

This is really good. Now the palette is, uh, I mean the nose is good. No doubt. The palette trumps the nose. I think so. Yeah, I could see that. It's like warm, buttery.

still got those darker notes. It's almost like, uh, what's that? You love the word stewed fruits, stewed fruit. Yep. Stewed plums.

Yeah, this is definitely in the plum kind of date. There's not a lot of a bright fruit. There's not any bright fruit in this. This is a leather, uh, tobacco black cherries. Oh yeah. Dried black cherries like, like, It's really good.

Yeah. And a lot of cinnamon on that tail end to me.

Yeah.

Like not the cinnamon red hots, but like, you know, those red hard candies? Oh, what are they called? The big ones. You know, there'd be like the butterscotch candies and the yellow wrapped candies and then the cinnamon Yeah. Like it was in a red wrapping, like clear wrapping that kind of like cinnamon thing. You know, we like to bring our candies into the show.

Yeah. Love the color on this. Love the legs. This is a, it's got a great texture to it. Uh, like a rich, almost a dark amber, almost a, almost a mahogany.

Really good. A little bit of leather on this too. The more I sip. Yeah, I think this is the, I'm gonna have to agree. I think this is the one, if you're like, out there and see A, I don't know much about C. I've not seen much about C, but if you say A and B, grab the B. Yeah. Yeah. This is really good.

So there are definitely standouts in every year. And I think that this might be the standout for the year.

Yeah. Now 2020 is one of those years where like all three were hitters and there's probably like, I think you've got some of the older ones too, don't you? Like one of the 17s or something.

17s, 18s, 19s. Yeah. I've got several up there.

Cause they've had a couple that were feel like whiskey of the year, like during that 18, 19 maybe?

Yeah, I think there was a period of time there where they were really hitting their stride and a lot of really good Lodger Creek barrel proofs were coming out. C917, I think was another one. It's going to be a tough call today. I think it will be. We may not agree.

We might not today, actually. We may also have to re-sip through these, too. Oh, we kept a little bit this time. I did, yes. All right. Well, I figured we're going to do a boo-rye blend at the end. Oh, yeah. We'll do it.

We'll do it for sure.

Yeah. All right. Our last pour of the evening, because we're recording in the night, is the Old Forrester 117 series. This is their Prohibition Era still proof. It is a 130 proof, Mash Bill 72 1810. Retails for $65, but that's for a 375 milliliter bottle. It's not an age stated, but it's at least four. And this one, they made in honor of the distiller's holiday, which during that time during Prohibition, they were basically running out of medicinal whiskey, which you know, doctor, doctor, I need my medicine. And I'm pretty sure I've been one of those.

Congressman who are like, I need my whiskey.

What's going on here? Right. So they had a, what's called a distillers holiday. That was a hundred day period where all those with the medicinal license, you know, the license to distill medicinal whiskey could distill for a hundred days. And they were allowed to amp that distill it up to, you know, Usually bourbon has to go in the barrel at 125, but they allowed it to go in or distill it up to 130. So I guess I kind of figured that's probably just to get a little more juice out of it, probably. If you're thinking, well, wait, if they distilled that to 130, you can't call it bourbon.

Well, they distilled it higher, but they couldn't put it in the barrel any higher than 130, right?

Well, that didn't go into effect until much later, right? Oh, was it? Yeah.

OK.

I'm just saying now. Oh, Forester's calling it a bourbon. It obviously probably got distilled at up to 125, put in barrels, and they probably just proofed it down to 130. It was kind of an honorary type. But yeah, that's the tale behind this and cheers to this was sent to us as a sample.

And these are 375, $69. 65. 65. Yeah. Oh, that's O'Foe.

That's what O'Foe knows.

No doubt. It's funny how you can just like, it's so distinctive.

Yeah. And actually I would argue that all three of Brown Foreman's, I guess, main brands have a tail. Like I almost feel like if you, Woodford Reserve, he threw me some singer barrels that might throw me off, but Jack Daniels definitely has its thing. Yeah. Oak Forester has its thing. And I think Brown Forman, or Woodford Reserve does too.

It's a really nice nose. I like it a lot. It's just got a little bit of sizzle on it. Like, but it's not like the proof.

It didn't 130 and it's not, it's not a nose puncher. No, it's not.

It's a little bit of sizzle there, but you would, when somebody tells you one 30, you're like, okay, well that's not bad then. Cheers.

Cheers. Although we didn't give her nosing. What?

Okay. It's, it's hotter on the palate. Chocolate. Cocoa powder. Not super sweet. Toasted marshmallow.

Yep. There's a, yeah, it's a little bit of a s'mores kind of thing.

Yep. Oh, I like it. Only four years, huh?

Well, it's not age stated, but it has to be over four years because I think it says, I don't have them. We've got a sample, so I don't have all the details, but it's a straight. So it has to be over four.

Straight has to be over two.

Well, yeah. If it doesn't carry an age statement, it has to be over four. So it doesn't have the age statement.

Got it. I like it. I think I saw this This is the, the, uh, still proof. This is on the shelf at Costco for MSRP.

Okay.

So, but still, you know, when you're looking at 375 for $65, that's, you know, that's $130 bottle. Yeah. Right.

But they've dropped some really fun stuff in this experimental, you know, mainly experimental is where it's at. I mean, it's like, you know, we had the castle key and this 117 series has been going on for some time. Woodford has their, you know, their master distillers collection in those little, in those pints that they dropped. So it's.

I was kind of wondering about this one. When you told me what the lineup was, I was like, I'm wondering about this one. If I had a gripe, it kind of drops off quick. Yeah. There's not much of a finish here. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's a burst of flavors.

Short to medium. Burst of flavors early and then it lingers just, yeah, like you said, a little bit and then it just kind of drops off.

But it's kind of a really nice flavor to it.

Get a little more caramel now. Yep. Yeah, that's good.

Oh my gosh. I'm trying to put these in order in my mind. Trying to think of what they're, what they're going to come in at. Same.

Yeah. I'm going to try. I'm going to go back to a couple of them real quick.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

I'm sorry. Didn't have water for us today. It makes it harder when you don't have water.

Oh, wow. Go back to that ECBP after you've had that Forester. It does give it a little bit of that nutty toffee thing. Yeah. You definitely get that. Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. What are you going back to now? The Overholt.

That was number two, right? Uh-huh. OK. Oh my goodness. Oh, okay. Ooh, this is tough, man. I know it. This is going to be a hard one today. We're going to be all over the place, I think. Cause they're, they're kind of close and they're all really good. So this could just be a matter of palette preference. For sure. Ooh. Okay. That Castle and Key is an interesting revisit.

I'm trying to now. Okay. You're right. The youth kind of shows up on that. Yeah. So I'm going to go ahead and say that's going to be my fourth, but I also think if you see it out there, grab it. It's, it's a, it's a good pour. Yeah. So I say the same cause it's forth for me. And I've kind of figured, I mean, it's, it's going, it's running up against some big, big horses here today.

It is. No doubt about it. I think it's, uh, when, when, when I went back and I re-taste it, I'm like, Oh, wow. You know, that it kind of shines a light on itself. Yeah.

And I expected that. But I just wanted to try it, because I really enjoy it. We were honored to get to try that early. And yeah, if you see it out there, folks, I bet it would make some fun mixed cocktails, too, with that BDN. I mean, Manhattan or something like that.

All right. You want to go three?

You want to go three? OK. I'll go three. I'll go three. It's going to be the old foe. I'm going to agree with you. Yeah. OK. Yeah. I mean, it's really good. It is good. I think the thing that hurt it for me is, like I said, the finish just kind of jumps off the cliff a little bit. Drops off, drops off. Yeah.

So that leaves, that leaves the Elijah Craig Barrelproof and the old Overholt 12 as our one and two. What are they going to be?

My two is going to be the Elijah Craig Barrelproof. It is. It is.

Okay. I thought it was good, but So I'm going to differ with you there. I'm going to differ with you there and only because, um, I don't, I don't know. It just sort of hit home for me. The ECBP.

I mean, it did. So I'm going to go with the old Rover Holt as my number two. So we're reversed. We're reversed on one and two.

But that's okay. That's okay. Normally I would tend to lean Rye. But I think that ECBP was kind of tasty for me. It could be. I'm just coming off this dry January. I'm getting that satiating palette from the Elijah Craig. I would say that they're extremely close. I could have gone either way.

Yeah. I just like that. I mean, I wish we'd have found that rye.

last year, because I don't know. It dried out a little bit though.

It's kind of dry.

I would love for us to sit down and try the 10 and the 12, and if we could find the 11, and just sort of taste through them and see what's happened to it. I'm assuming this is I know, I'm curious, 13?

13?

Well, they keep going.

I mean, I know Jack Daniels is kind of doing their thing with the, you know, what, 10, 12, and then they just dropped the 15 last year, so.

So what do they do? Do they set aside a series of barrels and say, let's just, we're going to set these aside in the warehouse and we're going to work our way through them over the years? I guess so. It's kind of like roulette, let it ride. Well, really good. I mean, honestly. I would say at least for numbers one and two, um, I could, I could flip flop on another day probably. But, um, unless you're Craig Barrelproof is always just a good choice at 75 bucks. You can't beat it. And the old overhaul is, you said 110 ish. Both are buys. No doubt.

Yeah. I think today. I think we have four buys to me.

Yeah, we do have four buys.

We were given one of those as a sample, but if I saw that one, I'd probably, that'd probably be a good one to have for, you know, to share.

So number three was the, so number four was the Castle & Key. Number three was the Steel Pro from Old Forster, which by the way is at Costco for MSRP. Um, and then, uh, one and two were foot flop for you and I, and it was the Elijah Craig barrel proof B. 525. 525 and the overholt 12. Wow. Can't go wrong. Are we going to mix? Let's mix them. Let's do it. So this is a boo rye. Yeah. Oh my goodness. You were really anxious to do this.

Normally you're like resistant. Well, we have four really good pours and I'm also intrigued to know what the, uh, VDN will do as, I mean, we'll say 25% of the, uh, the blend, if you will.

I think Todd, I think sometimes when I do this and one or two of the pours is like a really super high value bottle, you get kind of like, what are you doing?

Right.

Oh, that nose. Oh wow. Man, that's a great port. Look at the color on that.

This smells great. It does. Give it a little swirl here. Oh my God. That is so good. Is it? Oh, I'm excited. Oh, wow.

Oh man. That is delicious.

I wonder if like over time though, if it would change.

I mean, well, of course. Cause you have to let them marry a little bit. So keep this in mind for like, I was going to say, holy cow, this could be a blend again. And like winter, or at least a fun one to send in and delicious.

I don't know if I poured the VDN last and I don't know. I'm getting that little orange. Oh my God, this is so good.

This may be the best one we've ever created.

Yeah.

It's like, what is it? Like 25% of the time it's like good and 75% of the time it's not.

It's like that, uh, what is it? Uh, weatherman thing, 75% of the time it works 50% of the time or something like that.

Oh my gosh. This is absolutely gorgeous. Delicious. All right, folks. Well, if you've been following this show, you've been listening closely. You know what we just put together. You can try it yourself.

Todd has been a great show. Lots of fun. Welcome back.

Yeah. Good to be back. Good to be sitting in the Bourbon Road bar and having a few pours with you. I do appreciate you covering me for the month of January.

The short month, I appreciate that. No, not the short month. We're on the short month. What am I saying?

So February is 28 days, right?

But the good thing was it was not too long of a month because we planned well ahead and recorded some episodes before we got to... We had our bourbon of the year and we had our craft distillery of the year. Very excited. I'll go ahead and announce they're going to be coming on the show soon. That's Whiskey Acres out of DeKalb, Illinois. I've reached out to them. I thought, hey, let's let them know they won the prestigious award and all the glamour that comes with it. So hopefully we'll be having them on the show. And I've been in contact with some others. We've got some fun stuff planned. I'm looking forward to it.

They get their star in the Bourbon Road Walk of Fame. That's right.

It's all mental, but it's there.

Fantastic. Well, it's been a great day, Todd. Lots of fun. Glad to be back. Glad to be having bourbon in my glass again, rather than Diet Coke. Yeah, it's crazy how much that orange shows up. Yeah, it's really something, isn't it?

And I felt like that was the, I had the least amount of that too. Interesting.

All right, folks, well, you can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook threads. We do all those things every single week. Todd and I will get together. We'll rat. We'll record a show. We'll have some whiskies on. We'll sometimes we'll have some guests on. Uh, we've got some road trips coming up. We're going to head out to some distilleries. A lot of fun stuff coming up. Make sure you tune in every single week. The best way to make sure you don't miss a show. is to scroll to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way when we do drop an episode, you get that notification letting you know that Jim and Todd have dropped another one. You can put your headset on. You can join us for a fun time drinking whiskey. We hope you'll check out the Bourbon Roadies on Facebook. That's our private Facebook group where all our friends hang out. Just go onto the Facebook and search the Bourbon Roadies and ask to join. Also check out our website, the bourbonroad.com. We have all our swag on there. Our episodes are on there. Our articles are on there. Uh, it's kind of our home on the internet. Todd and I will, uh, we'll love to see you when you come into, uh, bourbon country, when you head into the bourbon trail in Kentucky, you know, we're not far off the trail where Todd's in, uh, Frankfurt and I'm in Simpsonville. We're just, uh, two guys hanging out on the bourbon road and you're in town. Make sure you shoot us a message. Let, let us know you're going to be here. We'd love to have a pour with you, but until the next time we'll see you down the bourbon road.

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