507. Smoke Signals: Four Cigar Blend Whiskeys with Scott Page

It's been a week of Mondays but the weekend's here Dust on my boots and a smile with my beard Neons humming low where the nose our name Same old bar stools but it never feels the same We raise a glass to the miles we've made To the stories told and the dues we paid Amber light in a crystal glow A little burning Where the good times roll Passing bottles like a piece of soul Every pour's a memory, every sip a spark Lighting up the night in the Kentucky dirt Ain't no mail, just the ties we've sewn On the long winding bird

Hello listeners and long time roadies. Welcome back again to another episode of the Bourbon Road. Tonight is kind of a special night. Todd has really set a big one up for us. We're going to have a great time tonight. We've got a lot of very special whiskeys and other things and a pretty cool guest. Who do we have tonight, Todd?

So Jim, tonight we've got Scott Page. We haven't had him on in probably 500 episodes. So it took him that long to get back. We had to go through his agent and all kinds of stuff. And we finally signed the contract. And here he is, Scott.

Welcome back to the show. Thanks, gentlemen. I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to tonight. The podcast is a different thing for me. But I love any time I can talk some whiskey and hang out with a couple of great guys. I'm all for it.

Well, I'm certain a lot of our listeners also patronize your channel and know of you and listen to you and watch you. Yeah, we are audio only, but you do the full spectrum. You do it all.

I do. I try to kind of fake my way through most of this stuff as good as I possibly can. And it's been a really, really fun time and experience. And really for the most part, the best part is honestly still the people. It's what kind of keeps me, I guess, really going. keeping this thing, you know, moving forward and all of that. So that's that's the best part of it for me is just meeting a lot of a lot of great people. And I've met a I've met a lot of great friends, you know, throughout the almost 10 years of kind of doing the YouTube stuff. So, yeah, it's been a it's been a hell of a journey, that's for sure.

Yeah, I'm trying to remember how long ago it was you were on the show. It was probably episode 10. Oh my goodness. And we're on what? Five Oh six. This will be five Oh six or five Oh seven. Something like that.

Something like that. Yeah.

Wow. We're losing. We're going to stop counting. It just doesn't matter anymore. I'm sure you guys put out an awful lot of stuff too. It's not uncommon for you guys to put out more than one a week.

Yeah, it can be a little daunting at times, but it is what it is. It's still fun. That's the best part of it. As much as this whiskey stuff is the same, there's always something that's different. It keeps you interested and tugging at everything it possibly can. It's a really fun community.

Well, Todd, why don't you tell us what you have in store for us tonight? What do you have in store for your two victims here?

So tonight, Scott's kind of a cigar guy as well. And you and I both dabble in every once in a while. So we've got tonight, we're going to go through four different cigar blends. As you guys well know, there's no real true definition of what a cigar blend is. In fact, we actually had one that we pulled out of tonight's pairing that literally was, they just called it a cigar blend, but there was nothing, it wasn't finished or anything. It was just, it was a Texas whiskey, but come to find out that's no longer being bottled as is. They've got their, a new kind of cigar blend.

So we kind of dropped that one, but. But we're not smoking tonight, but we are going to talk cigars.

Yeah, and I figure, you know, you guys, and we often talk about like what kind of cigar, like when we have just regular pours or something finished that we often talk about what kind of cigar might go, you know, if it's a pour that really shines and we think, oh, that'd be great with a cigar, you know, something really hearty and something to cut through that smoke a little bit. But so let's get to this first pour. What do you think, gents? Let's do it. Let's do it. All right, so first up is Will Horse Cigar Blend. The MSRP on this is 45 bucks. I think Jim and I have become big fans of theirs, and they're kind enough to send a lot of their samples, which we're definitely loving. So this is Five Year Green River Sourced, which is 70% corn, 21% rye, 9% barley. It's at their 101 proof. Port, Cognac, Sherry, and Armagnac finished for six to eight months, it says. Like I said, that MSRP of 45 bucks, I don't know.

They're almost giving that stuff away. Boy, yeah, that's a pretty good man. It's a really good price point. I mean, you know, nowadays why it's you really appreciate when some of them release things like this and with that kind of, you know, price tag on them. You know, we all know there's a lot of expensive ones out there, but man, it's nice when you see all these finishes and still a really kind of a price friendly whiskey.

A lot of times when you hear cigar blend, you think, oh my gosh, what's it going to cost me? Is it going to empty my wallet? But, you know, $45. Wow. Not bad.

Well, well, definitely not bad. You know, and I think the other thing was with cigar blend, you know, early on, the reputation was, you know, Amburana when people were not like very aware of what that was. And then it became such a dominant type of flavor profile within whiskey that, you know, I think it kind of quickly got to the point where it was just so overshadowing every other finish that was, you know, within that cigar blend that, you know, yeah, I don't know. And I don't even know where the first one came from with Amburana. That was kind of the the quintessential what we thought of and still think a lot of times of cigar blends now. So no idea.

I love it. I'm loving the nose on it.

I know very compote kind of thing.

Yeah, I'm getting the porto is coming through for sure. Yeah, for sure.

And I try to get dark fruit jammy kind of feel to it. I think if you kind of get into this thing a little bit more of that, there's a little bit of that earthiness, which I'm guessing is probably the, you said cognac, not armagnac, right? I think probably cognac.

It is port, cognac, sherry, and armagnac.

Oh, both. Okay. Okay. Interesting. That's very interesting that they're using two kind of similar types of finishes. I'd be interested to know why they went with cognac and armagnac. That's interesting. I don't know if I've seen a cigar blend with both before, but interesting.

It's got a real nutty nose on it, though. I think it's picking a lot up from those European barrels. That cherry? Yeah. Pedro Jimenez, possibly. Yeah, it's interesting.

It's a nice nose. I mean, for 101 proof. I mean, it's nice. It's got a great spice on it so far.

Cheers. Cheers. Not a big bite. Not a big bite. Kind of. You hit it, Scott, with that jammy. The jammy comes across on the palate, too. Yeah.

Yeah. It kind of it kind of feels like to me where it's very much the palette matches the nose. Yeah. Agreed to me. To me, to me, it has a fair amount of of kind of like a raw rice spice. That's that's there. Oak is nice. Like I I think it's a great little hundred and one proof finished whiskey. I mean, for that price, man, you can't go wrong with that at all.

And this is mild enough where, you know, it doesn't have to go with a Maduro. It could go with something a little bit lighter, a Connecticut wrapper or a barber pole even.

You know, that's that's interesting that you say that because, you know, there's a lot of people who have different approaches to like how they want to smoke cigars, whether they want their them to be more similar versus kind of the opposite effect or whatever. I've I've always been someone who likes a little bit of opposite. So for me, if I get like a cigar that has like with this, maybe even a heavier spice, maybe more like Nicaraguan tobaccos or whatever it may be, that would for me just kind of add to the experience of both of them for me. But to Jim's point, if you did, if you had like a Connecticut or something where they're a little softer approach, they would both be fantastic.

Yeah, you can even do like a barber pole wrapper where you get a little bit of both and and the filler could be maybe a Dominican filler. But yeah, it's really nice. Yeah, I would if I had to pick from my normal rotation, on this, it would be one of two cigars. It would either be the Monte Cristo, Nicaraguan, I like the Toro size. I don't know about you, Scott, but.

Yeah, I'm kind of the same way too. Toro is kind of the size depending on like time. You know, a nice robusto is is kind of nice, too. I don't generally go outside of of really either one of those. I don't like super huge, you know, ring gauges. Maybe if you get into that, you know, 50 is kind of right, you know, with like a nice Toro, maybe 52. Not really above that. I'm not a huge fan of of those, but yeah, it's got walking around with a Churchill hanging out.

So.

No, I'm not a not a Churchill guy. I think I feel I feel like you need to be like you. You have to look. You have to look like that belongs in your, you know, in your hand. I think in Churchill, like very, very few people can probably smoke that and still not look like they're trying too hard, if you know what I mean.

So by ring gauge, is that kind of like ring size almost on your for your finger? Is that kind of the similar?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you'll get the you know, obviously the the ring gauge and and then all the sizes have the different kind of, you know, names and stuff to them. So and there's a lot of there's a lot of different not a different sizes and techniques and, you know, all kinds of things. But at the end of the day, it's. you know, wrapper, binder, filler, if you've got some quality of all of that, then you've got a you've got a good good cigar. So so here is a question for Jim. So what's with cigars? What's your in terms of everyone kind of has a little bit of a price point. To me, when you get above a certain price point, I don't know if there's really the value from that standpoint, but I'm interested as to like what your kind of threshold for buying to you, what a good cigar would be.

Well, I'll treat myself every now and then, but I typically stay in the $16 range, let's say. Oh, okay. You know, maybe 20.

But you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're a, you're, you're a big, you're a big time guy. I mean, yeah.

I mean, not necessarily. I mean, I, my, my, like my daily drinker for a cigar. Right. And I don't smoke daily, but, uh, is a barber pole, uh, a Dominican barber pole from, uh, staticky cigar company, a friend of the show. Uh, you might know him Stanton holder. Great cigar, beautiful cigar, smokes wonderfully. And you know, you get those for, you know, if you buy a pack of 25, you get them for under 10 bucks a cigar. Not too bad.

Yeah, great deal. Yeah, no, not too bad at all. I've always found that for me, like buying a cigar, when I started getting above, generally speaking, you know, that $15, $15, $17 range, Yeah, to me, I don't I don't know if I notice as much of a of a quality difference. I would have to know like specifically all of the blends going into the particular cigar for me to get much above that. But, you know, I'd say like really honestly, 10 to 16, maybe 17 bucks is kind of where I I kind of stay within that that range for the most part. So. And if I'm if I'm mowing, I'm just I'm just have like honestly, I may have a two or three dollar like factory smoke or something. That's just an easy. I don't care if I finish mowing and doing everything and I burn it out. Who cares? You know, sweets. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, If you ask my wife, that was the very first thing that I kind of got into. I kind of went down that rabbit hole first, and I learned as much as I possibly could about that. And again, it's another one of those things where there's a plethora of information, so much stuff and. It's like it's like whiskey is you blending, you're blending different things to create different profiles. And yeah, that was the very first thing that kind of led me kind of into the whiskey part of it was when people started talking about pairing that with whiskey. I kind of did that. Now, that was a little bit after the fact. I mean, my dad had a little influence. with me on the the whiskey side of things. But once I kind of got wind of both of them, I put all of that stuff together and have really enjoyed both for years now. So, you know.

Going back to the nose, I just think that, you know, after a few sips, that jammy nose you talked about, Scott, really has amplified quite a bit. But for me on the palate, it's kind of settled in with that nice nutty taste. I love that. Yep.

Very pie kind of thing. Very pie, like very jam. Yeah. And there's a nice little sizzle for one on one proof on the tongue.

I think I couldn't. I couldn't agree with you both more. I mean, I think for at this price range for I mean, if they have this like classified, I mean, even on a bottle or whatever as cigar blend for 45 bucks, man, that's a nice, it's a really nice little, you know, sipping whiskey. You don't have to think too much, but it's got enough of a backbone to kind of keep your, keep your interest peak on this one. Yeah.

All right. We're not having, like we said, we're not having a cigar, but it's, it's got a lot going on. Yeah. All things considered.

Yeah, my gears are turning. I definitely am thinking about what cigar would go good with this because at $45, I should have a bottle of this around.

Yeah, it's, it's nice. I think to your point, like, I think I would like something if we're going like really polar opposites almost. Yeah. I think when you get into Connecticut and something soft, you know, Dominican tobaccos, you know, might really allow both of them to shine a little bit. I mean, might, could overshadow the cigar a little bit, but overall I think it'd be a nice little, nice little match.

Yeah. All right, Todd, what do you say? Are we doing winter, winter chicken dinner tonight?

Yeah, I think we always rank them. And since we're doing four, we'll rank them one through four tonight. So that's the way we do things around here, Scott.

Yeah, I like it. I like the way we roll. Yeah, I like that.

All right. So next up is the barrel cigar blend. And as you guys well know, Beryl uses bourbons from Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They're aged seven and a half to 18 years old. This one clocks in at 111.2 proof. The MSRP is $85. And this one's finished in Madeira, rum, armagnac, and Hungarian oak. So as we were discussing, I mean, it's pretty much, it's kind of like the Wild Wild West when it comes to cigar blends.

Interesting. Okay.

This could come off like a neural node at first.

Yeah. You, you nailed it. Definitely.

That is very interesting. A little pencil shaving kind of feel to it.

There you go. I wonder if that Hungarian oak has anything to do with it. We learned a little bit about oak before and I know that you can talk about French oak and other European oaks and they're really all the same. It's all the same genus. It's all the same tree. But the Hungarian oak is a different species. Altogether different.

I feel like the oak is really starting to show up a little bit more now, like more of a barrel influence on this one.

Yeah. You got to assume that 18 year bourbon is probably the Tennessee, which, let's be honest, that's probably dickle. And that might be a little bit of that mineralities coming from, but it's not like a good stony Tang kind of thing.

Well, plus the interesting thing. Well, plus the interesting thing with a lot of the older, older dickles, Um, it's one of those things as it ages, it almost ages out a little bit. You don't get it. You don't get it nearly as much there. They become a little bit more bourbon like kind of profiles than that normal mineral kind of note that we're a lot of people are used to.

It's so funny, Scott. You've taken me back here. I'm, I'm, I'm nine years old standing at the pencil sharpener. It's in my classroom.

Well, when you guys were when you were saying mineral, like I was thinking a little bit of that little bit of that pencil pencil shavings kind of feel to it. It's not off putting, though, like I would want any I would I wouldn't want anybody who is like listening to this now to think that we're not enjoying this. I mean, I really do enjoy the nose on this thing so far. So.

Yeah, it has a it has a. an aroma, an oak aroma that's unique in itself and very pleasant. I think it's very pleasant.

And there's there's some kind of fruit note that's on this. I'm trying to figure out exactly like what that is. It almost feels like a combo of of a dark fruit and citrus combo a little bit. I don't know what that is, but. A little earthiness, maybe this one, maybe. Yeah, there's boys in this palace. Cheers.

Oh, that's got a nice texture.

Very like velvety, isn't it?

Velvety and kind of sticky on the palate, too. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's really good.

And great, great oak and spice, though, on the thing. It's like cola, a nice cola note. Yeah, that's probably a good one. Like I was I was thinking what the with the spice and kind of that that almost like little hint of mineral and spice. It kind of feels a little Dr. Peppery kind of. Yeah. You know, there's a lot a lot of like kind of a spice factor like that baking spice that's there.

The flavors are much more concentrated than the wheel horse. And it's a hair proof, about 10 points higher, right? But the viscosity and the concentration of the flavors, I think you're right there, Scott. It kind of has this dark fruit, but there's some kind of fresh, freshness. Maybe it's a citrus, maybe it's a, I don't know, something else, something less dark, maybe kiwi or, who knows?

Kind of a brightness or something that's there. That's what made me think like Dr. Pepper, as kind of like spicy as it is, it's like very like a vibrant kind of soda.

I've shared this with a lot of people. I like this one a lot. They always do a really good job. Now they've, they've got a lot to choose from and they, they really, they try a lot of different stuff. And, but, but this is really good. This is, this is in line with what I would expect for expect from barrel. And this is probably a little, uh, I don't know. Maybe in the top tier of what they do. Maybe in the top one half of what they do.

I kind of, I kind of dig this one little, little more like kind of vanilla custardy kind of on the finish there as well.

A lot of vanilla on there.

What's the, what's the price point on this? Are we at a hundred to hundred and eighty-five bucks? Eighty-five bucks. All right, man. Not a bad, not a bad price either.

Yeah. I think for what it is is the bourbon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're kind of one of those that seems to have like kind of gotten forgotten a little bit. And that's a shame. They've been coming out with some, they're just plain Armagnac finish that we had on the show with them some time ago was outstanding. It's like a 12 year bourbon finish on Armagnac.

Yeah, I don't know what I don't know what it was about about Beryl. Like, I mean, I've always kind of really enjoyed a lot of their blends, but it always seemed like they just never got the traction that they really deserve for for whatever reason. I think early on it was. But I don't know if it was the batches or, you know, what what was going on. But, man, I've I've always really enjoyed what what Beryl and everybody, you know, on those teams are able to do. They do they do a really nice job.

They've always done really good at captivating shelf space though. I mean, especially at the big boxes, you know, you go and you go and you see how much room they get on the shelf. You're like, how do they do it? You know, how do they do this? Yeah. It's probably the price point and the fact that, you know, their finishes are in demand. I really liked their ice, their ice wine finish. That was so good.

Yeah, that was a that was a very interesting one that, yeah, when you get into kind of a little desert, deserty, that's for sure with that.

This is good.

I like that. Scott, you said what year did you start your show? Technically 2017, but that was just a deer in headlights and a quick a quick little story on that. The funniest part was and I won't take too long with this, but When I first loaded that first video, I had no idea when I published that thing that anybody would ever even see it. I was just my original idea was to create a video diary as I tasted through whiskies was just to kind of have something for for me. And then I got like a comment on a video from somebody I had no idea who in the world this was. And I'm like, what is going on here? Like, I didn't understand any of that. And, you know, Early on, it was just kind of, you know, I mean, this was just stumble in front of a cell phone and had no idea, no editing, no nothing. I mean, I knew nothing about what I was doing. And I just wanted to simply chronicle a diary of what I was kind of tasting and try to build on that as a as a reference. And that was kind of how it all started. And then I realized people were watching it and that made me want to learn more about things that if man, someone's going to like watch this, I don't want to sound and look like an idiot that I was at the time and maybe still am to some people. But it was a fun. It was it was a fun experience. I'm glad I've I've not not stopped kind of moving this thing forward. So.

I remember those days. I used to watch you a lot back then and I remember, didn't Jason help you with your first front reel where you had the barrels rolling down at Castle & Key?

He was he was nice enough to to put a little little kind of intro thing together for me. And yeah, I mean, I still know like very little about me. Fortunately, A.I. has kind of helped with a lot of those kinds of things nowadays. But yeah, I mean, when it came to that kind of stuff and that was never. at never anything I had any idea of how to how to do it. So, yeah, he was he was nice enough to do that thing for me. I think he just did it on some simple like I movie or whatever it was back then that people used. And yeah, he sent it over and I used that thing for for years and years. And yeah, so that was that was fun. It's awesome. That's awesome.

So how do you think your shows kind of changed from since that 2017 or maybe even how you've kind of changed?

You know, the funny part was I feel like within the whiskey part of it that early on, I started doing some of the live stream things before a lot of people that I remember anyway doing it, because it feels like now a lot of the guys that are here now and women or whatever, you know, started, you know, at or around covid or whatever, maybe somewhere there. But prior to that, there was myself and a couple of other guys that would kind of do some of these things. We were just winging it. We had no idea. But anyway, it was just It was less, less professional, less fun, less people, all of that. But not not not any less fun for me. It was just all part of the evolution of where things are now. Now it's just kind of. You know, you still have a lot of fun and it feels more like you are just kind of hanging out with some buddies, you know, talking to a camera. And and so that part of it's changed in terms of relationships is the is the biggest part of things. So you you know, and see a lot of these these same names that are in these chats. And I've fortunately had a chance to to meet a lot of people so that it makes that part of it, you know, much more special for me. So.

Yeah, I was gonna say the whiskey tube community is really tight. I mean, you know, some may... you know, go on to other things. But I mean, like you said, depending on what show you're watching, you'll see those same names kind of pop up.

You you really you really do. It's it is one of those things where there are a lot of people who have just been been there from the very, very, very early start. I mean, Todd was one of them. Todd was in very, very early and probably really one of the first guys I was able to kind of meet through the channel part of it. You know, Jim, of course, you know, early on we did the podcast. Jason and I did that. But, you know, being able to meet people was always the thing. Once I realized a little bit of what I was doing and how I was going to try to structure this, the goal was to then start meeting people. And and that was the best part. And it still continues to be the the best part of it for for me. Absolutely.

All right, guys. Well, we are coming up on the break. Any last? mentions for this barrel. I like it.

Did you guys kind of talk about what maybe what cigar might go with that one?

Oh, have you ever been to a Corona cigar bar? Have you ever been?

Not specifically, no.

Okay. Well, I know we like to vacation in Florida from time to time and there's a lot of Corona bars down there and they're really good. I love them a lot. Anyway, they have got a cigar that I really like and it's kind of in that same It's probably a little bit higher in the teens, maybe closer to $18 or $19, but it's the El Septimo Emperor Alexander. It's an excellent cigar. It smokes long. You can literally take it down four inches and the ash will still be there. It's just a wonderful smoke. And I think it would go good with this one. I really do. But the reason I mentioned that is because I just love the Corona cigar bars. They're just so much fun. They're so full of fun people. I'm always the oldest one in there. I hate that. But other than that, yeah.

This this this feels like to me like when you start getting into some of the different series of the like Oliva brands and stuff. I mean, I know that's a pretty popular brand. It's not one I smoke all the time. But the one thing I like about it, maybe the most is just the consistency. You kind of know like it has a lot of the the characteristics that I enjoy and just kind of a really good everyday cigar. And I feel like, you know, pick, you know, pick and choose whatever blend you want. And, you know, Siri V or whatever, whatever it may be. I mean, there's a lot of them. But that feels like in terms of like what I'm like picturing in my mind, smoking and tasting like a nice oliva would be a really nice pairing for for me on this one.

Fantastic. Awesome. Awesome.

All right, I think we're ready for that break and we'll come back. We've got two more pours to go through, so stick around. We'll be right back.

All right, Roadies, we finally, finally released our brand new website. We hope you get a chance to check it out at TheBurbanRoad.com. It is a total rewrite, remake, revamped. We've done it for you. We have all 500 or so episodes on there with all the details, searchable, all the show notes, everything. You can search by it. You want to go find out what we talked about on an episode way back when. You can do it. We've also got our tasting notes, our reviews of over 1,320 whiskies. They're all on there. Todd and I's tasting notes, our rating for the whiskey. We even cue up the episode on the tasting notes to where we tasted it on the show. So as you're reading our tasting notes, you can play it and listen to us talk about it. So I think we're the only podcast that does that. That's pretty cool. So another thing we have on there is our blog articles. We've got over 250 blog articles on there. We're putting new ones out all the time. And the all-new Roadie Bar is now on the Bourbon Road website. So if you're a Roadie, come on, sign up, get in there. We have a chat room. We've got a place where you can post what's going on in your Bourbon world. We have a calendar of all the events that are coming up. We'll be posting in there our drawings so as we're giving things away you'll be able to come in there and and sign up for the randomizer to get picked you'll also be able to sign up on list to come to something that we're sponsoring Todd's got a great event that we're putting on in the fall and everybody can come in and sign up for that and we've also got some coupons from our vendors for so percentages off on stuff so Definitely take the time to come to the website, check it out. We do want you to come in and sign up and join in. It's a lot of fun, it's free, it doesn't cost you anything. You're certainly welcome to donate if you want to, but it's free for all roadies, so come check it out.

All right, listeners, welcome back to the second half of the show. We're with our good buddy Scott Page from My Bourbon Journey. Jim and I and Scott have been tasting some cigar blend whiskeys tonight. What'd you think so far, Jim?

I think I'm having a time of my life. If I were on the back patio with an actual cigar in my hand, it would be great. I live too close to the railroad tracks for that to work for a podcast though, unfortunately.

Had I known and I would have been able to throw my light and stuff outside, I probably wouldn't have had too much of a problem getting out back with a with a few cigars. But to that point, you know, we're talking about individual cigars for each poor. Like we couldn't we couldn't smoke them fast enough without, you know, getting ourselves sick or something. So that that would be a little bit of a difficult proposition, you know, from from that standpoint. But.

All right, so we're up to our third poor, and this is basically where cigar blend came from. This is a Joseph Magnus cigar blend, and this is an older batch. This is back 79. This is blended by master blender, Nancy Fraley. The bass is 11 to 18 year old MGP bourbon from Indiana. And it's finished in Armagnac, Sherry and Cognac. And she used to take the time and write these, I guess like poetry tasting notes and give them names. So this one is called the sweet one two. So she compared this one to batch 27, which was called the sweet one. So this was kind of like the second coming of the sweet one. The proof on this is one twenty seven and these retail for about one ninety nine or so.

Nancy Friendly, what an icon in the business.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

And she's got she's got her thumbprint on and on so many things, too. And she does such an amazing job with with so many things.

And she finally just stepped away from there, too.

Yeah, yeah. She does a really great job. She does a great job of like, you know, getting her thumbprint on even, you know, brands that are like, you know, up and coming and all of that and really help put, you know, some of them on the map and create some fantastic, fantastic blends. I mean, that's that it seems to just be kind of our M.O. of like everything she touches just kind of turns to gold almost with things. Man, what a nose.

We're working on his nose, guys. It's a very decadent smell. What was the proof again? 127. Yeah.

So the ethanol is definitely popping on this one just a little bit. So I'm getting that on the nose first. And these have been in the glass now for about 30 minutes. So in a Glencairn, 30 minutes, room temperature. And yeah, a little bit of ethanol on the nose, but you expect some of that in the high 120s. Yeah.

And that Armagnac to me is just popping like I love it. It's probably Armagnac Cognac are probably two of my favorite finishes on on whiskey. Even even them being, you know, solo finishes or whatever it may be. There's something I love about that. that earthiness, almost a little bit of that, that great penis. I don't know if that's the the inner Wisconsin brandy coming out in me with that or what it is. But there's just something about that earthiness, the sweetness, the fruit that you oftentimes will get. And really, a lot of times kind of a leather tobacco kind of note like Armagnac and cognac have just a lot going on with with just that those single finishes. So

Those barrels, the Armagnac and the Cognac barrels are typically the large capacity barrels, right? Yeah, they're massive.

It's almost like Christmas cookies.

It's sweet. There is no doubt about it. I feel I feel like having within this cigar blend that it definitely needed, you know, an armoniac or cognac, some earthiness, something that's got something that's a little more aggressive to balance out that sweetness because it feels like the sherry that's on it. It does feel like it's sweet, like it is really showing up on from a sweet standpoint.

Right. Cheers. Cheers. Oh well, you know, Todd, that's held up real well. You've taken good care of that bottle. That's really good.

Man, that spice fruit and a little bit of that earthiness that's there, fantastic. I mean, it's probably one of the One of the best cigar blends that are out there probably always will be at least this. I mean, this is probably different. We got older. We have older whiskeys in here too than some of the more recent batches.

So I was going to say they're up to what maybe 500 or something now. I mean, these are pretty small releases to begin with, but I feel like. Like the bottles you'll find out there in the stores now should be like 400, 500, I think.

Yeah, I don't even know. It's actually been quite some time. I remember being at a bottle share maybe a couple years ago. I think it was What was the event that's by you, Todd Berber on the banks, Berber on the banks? Yeah, it was maybe two or three years ago. I was there and I brought I brought batch 10 with me and people had no idea. They're like, what is that? Why? What is this batch number? Like, why is it so low? And I'm like, man, guys, I've had this thing at my house, just sitting around here for years and years and. I knew a lot of people weren't going to have an opportunity to try to try some of those early those early batches. But yeah, needless to say, I didn't I didn't come home with that bottle. That's for sure. Yeah.

And you didn't expect to either, did you?

No, I did not expect it.

No more spice.

No, a little orange icing, like a little orange icing. Yeah, I can see it. I can see a little bit of the that orange sickle kind of feel. I love the spice on it, though. Spice is great.

Yeah. Nice nutmeg finish.

So would you grab a Nicaraguan filler for this one?

Man, I would I was just kind of thinking about the same thing. I would have no problem putting a big, heavy, full bodied cigar up with with this one. Yeah, this would be this would be a really a really good. I don't I don't think either one would would blow the other away. I think it would be a really, really nice combo. I do feel like it would maybe make the cigar slightly more spicy. I do feel that, though.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you could pretty much, uh, you could have your pick in the humidor of anything you want with this. It'd be fine.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel, I feel like you'd have to go like at least, at least kind of a medium strength, maybe, maybe full body, full body can be difficult, you know, sometimes, but at least, at least a medium strength, medium body plus I think you would have to have with, with a cigar like this, especially with that proof.

So overpower a Cubano, huh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm.

I definitely wouldn't want definitely wouldn't want anything with a with a lighter wrapper. Man, no, no, I don't think I don't think Cuban, I don't think Dominican, like none of that stuff. I think it would just get destroyed, to be honest.

Yeah. Wow. That's, that is a treat. That's really good. Thank you, Todd. That's a good bottle right there. Yeah.

That's a, that's a good, good bottle right there. I'm just curious. Do you know about the fill level on this, on your bottle?

It's probably like two thirds. It's one of those I don't bring out too often. I've got other stuff and I don't smoke cigars very often. And while I have my weird way of choosing the pours I choose, which I'm writing a blog about,

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, I do kind of like, you know, I've got a list of all the bottles I have opened and they're new. It's like an Excel spreadsheet and it's got all the information from each one. And like, if it's a single barrel, it says chosen by you guys and things like that. And so I just do kind of a random number generator to, you know, choose four or five pours when I'm going to have, you know, that kind of like usually on a Friday, Saturday kind of thing.

Yeah. That's kind of, that's kind of a cool way to do it. Then you're sitting there like trying to think about a million different things. Right.

There's no thinking you just do. Yes.

Exactly. I like that.

Yeah, sometimes when you say, oh, there's that bottle on my shelf. It's been a minute. Well, it's been a little bit more than a minute. Sometimes it's been like four years since you've.

Yeah, that's true. There are some that I go to once in a while that literally have dust on them that I've not, I've not picked it up. I've not touched it. I'm afraid to pull the cork out. Like I'm just, it's going to shatter cause it's probably all dried out or whatever. But, uh, Yeah, there's literally some some ones that I go to on occasion that have have dust and stuff on them.

Now, when friends come over, it's you know, it's a totally different ball game. It's kind of like, hey, you know, this is what I've got open. Do you see anything you want to try? So, you know, yeah. And then, you know, when you have your guys meet up in Bardstown, that I usually bring kind of some special stuff for that.

So, yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's always been, I think, one of the fun things for me is I've I've kind of really enjoy watching other people enjoy whatever it may be and their reaction to things more so than me just trying it or whatever. I mean, there's I mean, a lot of times, I mean, if if it's open, at least at my place, you can have it. And if it's not open, I mean, I probably wouldn't even have a problem opening it unless I've got one that's already open somewhere else. But Yeah, I mean, it is definitely meant to to be shared. That's that's for sure. So.

All right, Todd, shall we move on?

All right. This is a big boy. It's going to be interesting. So this is copper and cask again from Latitude Spirits. They're also the folks behind Will Horse. And this is their small batch series number 15. Their cigar blend, so they've done 15 iterations of the cigar blend. And it's a 21 year blended Canadian whiskey that was originally distilled and matured in Alberta, Canada. And it was composed of 17 barrels. You can't see it. Then transferred to Armagnac and Tawny Port finishing cask. And they finished for about six months and then blended and bottled at cask strength. And here's the kicker. This is 157.8 proof. I think this becomes the king of the proofs on the show, I believe, Jim.

Man, Jim, I don't know if I'd want to have a cigar with this one. I feel like my mouth might catch on fire, literally. We'll be like Puff the Magic Dragon if we had this thing too close to us.

I was going to look up the highest proof on the website, but honestly,

I think this is the new king. So this retailed for about 80 bucks. And it says it's sold out on their website, which is kind of a shame. But I tried this one because it sounded so interesting. So yeah, well, I'm excited to kind of see what you guys think. I mean, it's it.

It's a mouth puncher, but it's got some really cool stuff going on. I think, I think I went in a little bit too little too aggressively with the nose like right away. Uh, so Jim, before you smell that thing, just kind of slow, slow play yourself with that thing before you blow yourself away with this thing.

Yeah, I did. I kind of exhaled into the glass just a little bit before I took it.

Wow. Yeah, this is and that isn't that is interesting. That is interesting. What was that?

What was the finish again?

What is the finish? Tawny Port and Armagnac.

Boy, it's it's it's not very it's not very dark for it being like in in port. I'm guessing that. What was it short like? I think he's six months or so. Okay. All right. Yeah.

And it didn't say whether they were Ruby port or, uh, Tawny port barrels. It's Tawny. Okay.

Oh, man, there is there is something that's very, very aggressive on the nose. I don't know what I don't know what that is. It's called one fifty seven point eight. I mean, I don't know. Maybe that is exactly maybe it's like in my head. This is like what gasoline smells like. I've never smelled a lot of gasoline, but especially this close anyway. Yeah, this is fire fire.

All right. Like I said, I've got a lot of like cotton candy, though, is like a little bit of like strawberry.

Yeah, I can get the kind of the sugary candy kind of note there. Yeah. But the nose is not like overwhelmingly with, uh, with, or saturating my senses with, with flavors. I'm not able to pick out a ton of stuff.

Yeah.

I'm getting blocked by this big offensive 160 proof offensive lineman.

This is where for me, I've always struggled with, I know people go crazy for hazmat and all of that kind of stuff, but it's really never been my thing. And the reason because of that is I think a little bit of this effect is that when you have to focus so much on the on the ethanol side of it, it takes away a little bit of the experience for for me. And it always kind of has been. So, you know, I know getting getting past that and tasting it, that some of that can be amazing. But I've had so many like hazmat ones before that have just been so, you know, ethanol driven that I just can't focus on much else. Yeah, too hot, you know.

All right. But I think once you guys taste it, I hope you like it. So all right. Cheers.

And you said this is this is Canadian whiskey, correct?

Uh huh.

OK. Oh, my, my. Oh, and you know what it tastes like? Spicy. I mean, my God, it tastes like super. It tastes like super spicy apple juice.

Yeah. Yeah. OK. Wow. Oh, my God. For you.

I get like this pecan pie kind of vibe like pralines and cream on this.

This this is way beyond me. Like I'm I'm like, I got to like, yeah, my my sensories are firing on all things. It's as confused as possible. But my very first thing I thought was maybe that's what I was smelling, too, is this. Yeah. Apple juice, apple pie, something like that.

Yeah. But there's this, there's this ripe, um, cheese rind kind of note to it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funky.

Yeah.

That's a good that's a good way. Yeah, I wasn't many think a guy from the cheese state would be able to throw out some cheese analogies here. But yeah, this is this is some funky dirty ass feet stuff right here is kind of what this is. It's like it's like it's like cheese stuff between your toes or. This is if you want to experience this, these are the kinds of things that make make tasting these whiskeys enjoyable is like where this is going to take so many people, you know.

Oh man. But it's not, it's not making me think I don't want to drink this. It's like, it's just saying here's something that's totally out of left field. You've never tasted this before. Where did this come from? I don't think I've ever got that note in a whiskey before. No, no, that's very, very interesting.

I get a little like cocoa powder on the finish, a little raisin.

Oh my God, you're getting so many things that I have zero idea like what that is. Like this is like very one or two kind of things for me. But yeah, yeah. All right.

I mean, let's let your palate know it's there, but.

Yeah, you got to get the heat. I'm going to pair this with a big fat Guy Fieri knuckle sandwich cigar.

I don't even know where I'd go with this. I have no idea. I feel like it would definitely have to be a much cooler evening for me to enjoy whatever this pairing ultimately ended up being. It would have to almost be like a really nice fall evening or something. And oh, my Lord. It is it is interesting. I will say this about it. The more it kind of sits on the palate, I mean, it is a lot of flavor. You know, it is a It is a whiskey that you can have a small sip of, and it does. I mean, the finish part of it is as long as you're gonna get on a whiskey, I'll say that. That is fantastic.

Yeah, I think I'll have to, I'll be tasting this tomorrow morning when I wake up.

Yeah, I think you'll have to be brushing your teeth, not because you had a cigar, but because you had 157 proof cigar blend Canadian whiskey.

Well, I just thought it was so out of the blue and different that it just kind of shocked me. And I'm like you, Scott. My first thought was, if you got an open flame near this, wouldn't it be a bad idea?

Yeah. Yeah. If you wave your torch lighter over the top of this thing, you might blow up. You might explode.

Because you guys have done some found North picks, and that's Canadian whiskey.

I mean, there's some great whiskey coming from Canada, that's for sure. There really are. Yeah, that is that is one of the things with Canadian whiskey. I think it is still a little bit and it has everything to do with whomever it is that's doing the blends or whatever, because that that is, I mean, such an important thing with Canadian whiskeys. But if a few of them found North specifically, man, they do an amazing, amazing job of creating fantastic whiskeys for for people to and to enjoy. So. man. Well, thanks for thanks for including this one. This is it is interesting. That is for sure. It's very tropical or something. That's tropical.

OK, that's awesome. I know. Yeah. So what are some other cigar blends you guys can think of that of or maybe ones folks should kind of keep an eye out for?

Can you think of a few?

That's the first ones that came to my mind were Oh, what's a Jason Bronner's brand? Oh, uh, buzzard roost. Buzzard roost. Oh yeah. We had his cigar blend bourbon and it was fantastic. And then his, he always puts out a cigar blend ride. That's always really solid. And those are just kind of, those are unfinished. If I'm not mistaken, those are just, I mean, he does some barrel stay finishing type things on those. Um,

We had Brothers to the Leaf on. Brothers to the Leaf, yep. Oh yeah.

Brotherhood, yep.

Brotherhood.

I'm trying to think off the top of my head. Yeah, yeah. The old elk one for me is a little bit different because the I believe of the mash bill that they utilize with it. I've never been a huge fan of that. A lot of the old elk stuff just because of of that. But, you know, again, to each their own, you know, enjoy whatever it is you like. But man, like new cigar blends, that's I don't know if I've had like a new one recently that I can think of. Man, that's a good one. Or at least one that you're on. I will say this, the the one from Michigan. Oh, my God, what is it the Traverse City? No, not Traverse City. The the one that They do all the beer stuff. They do all the new Holland.

Yeah. Yeah.

The dragon's milk. Yeah. What is it? Wild, wild. What is that release that they do? They did a cigar blend. It did have Ambi Rana, but like very, very little while. Oh, while I run, while I run, that wasn't too bad. It had it had like one percent Ambi Ron in it. And it wasn't. And that's a rye, correct? It was, correct. And I thought it was really good. I judge a lot of whiskeys based off of texture as well, so it's always a big thing for me. But I remember that being a pretty solid one. I don't think it's a big run of bottles, but I remember that one being pretty solid as far as the newer ones.

Now I will, I will say something when, when you go to a cigar shop and I don't know how often you guys get out to cigar shops. When you go out to cigar shops, you typically don't have a huge selection of whiskeys to choose from because they just don't, the, the distributors just don't pay attention to them. They're just not big enough buyers of, of, you know, to be able to get the big bottles. Right. So I found a couple of whiskeys that I like. to have when I'm at a cigar bar and I've got a limited selection. And so the two that I go to, one is the Green River Full Proof, and the other one is the Wild Turkey Rare Breed. And those two seem to work well across the board with most of what I smoke when I don't have a big selection of bourbons to choose from. So. Interesting.

Yeah, I would say one of one of my like go to is quite often is the is the newer Heaven Hill bottle and bond. It's always been one for me that with the oak presence that it has in it. I know it's only a hundred proof, but I've always felt it's a whiskey that kind of, you know, punches, you know, above its its weight class. It just offers an awful lot. So I'm it's it's one I go to quite a bit and will stay with while Turkey, the Russell's Reserve single barrels are always one that I enjoy quite a bit as well. So. Awesome.

Are we ready for winner winner chicken dinner? I think so. Oh man. Jim, do you want to start us or I can start us. I think I can start us.

Yeah. So what's your, let's just, let's just do all four, right? We'll start with four, three, two, one. Sound good. All right. Yeah, that sounds great. So we'll pick. So my number four is going to be the copper and cask. And I'm just going to say it's going to be the copper and cast because I would have a hard time finding the right cigar to pair with it. And this is a cigar blend and it's a cigar show. And I'm not sure what I would pair with it. I said a big, big fat Guy Fieri knuckle sandwich cigar, but who knows? It's interesting and it got my attention, but I don't know how often I would reach for it. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, I'll go next, Scott. And I'm going to agree. I think it's really different. It's got some really interesting notes and flavors once you get past the heat and the burn. But yeah, it's my fourth place as well.

Yeah, this was as much as I mean, thinking about it, I think like to Jim's point, like do what would I want to reach for that? I mean, it would be very, very I would reach for it, I think, to share with people. But yeah, my fourth place, I think, would also be the copper and cask as well.

All right. All right, Jim.

Number three. My number three. My number three is going to be and you know, this is tough because the next three are all really good whiskeys. But I think I'm going to go with the wheel horse is my number three. It's a great value. It's a really good whiskey, but the other two outshined it just a little bit, I think.

Yeah. I'm going to agree with you. That's my number three as well. I think it just got maybe a little bit overproofed. It'd been interesting to see if it was maybe up in that 120s, 115 range, if it could have held its own with those others. But for 45 bucks, that's a buy all day in my book though.

Yeah. But yeah, number three. I'm right there with you guys. And like to Todd's point, I think that could be a really, really good whiskey. If you added another, yeah, maybe even 10 proof point, you know, higher, maybe 15 tops. I would love to try that at more of that 115, 117 range somewhere like that. I feel like that could be a whiskey that would really, really shine to be honest. But yeah, with it being 101, it was kind of getting over overshadowed by the other two at this point.

Okay. And we may flip flop on the next two, but, um, maybe not. We'll see. Um, so my number two is going to be the barrel.

My number two is going to be the barrel, but it is, I will say this for it. It's probably one of my surprises of the year. I really, really enjoy it. It is an excellent whiskey. I brought a ringer though. The ringer. I mean, that's an old batch of Joseph Magnus. It was going to be hard to beat that anyway, you know, but, you know, we haven't had Scott in a while and I wanted to treat him to something special. But yeah, that barrel was a great, great whiskey.

Man, guys, I think I think we're all on the same page here tonight. This seems a pretty pretty consensus for the most part. You know, on a given night, could you flip flop those two? You could. And I really was enjoying the that barrel cigar blend. But yeah, it was pretty, pretty close, but still a fantastic, fantastic whiskey.

It actually would be interesting to have it go up against some of the newer batches. Like you said, Scott, I think the newer batches are a little younger MGP barrels and things. I mean, that's hard to run up against some 11 to 18 year old MGP and hold you down.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think if you had the same kind of proof point on that wheel horse, I think that would have been very, very competitive with that barrel, to be honest.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. I think so. In fact, I'm not going to waste any time trying to get a bottle of that on my bar because I think it's really good. The wheel horse at 45 bucks.

I couldn't agree more. Like really even with it being 100 proof, like if you wanted to have or 101 proof, if you wanted to have really nice cocktails, that feels like it'd be for 45 bucks. Man, that's a great, great whiskey to have. I mean, I'd endorse that thing all day long. That's a really, really nice little bottle.

But winner winner chicken dinner goes to the, the Magnus cigar blend batch 79. Yeah. 79.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Awesome. I think, I think Todd knew what he was doing here. Yeah. You stack the deck.

That was more of a treat for you guys to enjoy. So.

I mean, if you think of a great cigar blend to a lot of people and you had to identify it, this kind of feels like what you'd try to explain, I think, to a lot of people if you were going to really enjoy a good one. Yeah, I think so.

Well, you know, the night might have gone different had we actually been smoking cigars. I don't know, but it's really hard to pair four cigars with four whiskeys in an hour. I don't think we can do that.

I feel bad burning through all those cigars and having them go out. And then at the end of the night, what am I going to do? Sit out back and smoke four cigars? I won't go to bed until like midnight.

Well, Scott, definitely the next time you're in the area, uh, holler at us, we'll, uh, we'll grab a few sticks. We'll find a good place to hang out and we'll enjoy a few pours with some good smokes.

Absolutely. I'll, I'll take you up on that for sure.

All right, Scott, we'd like to give you a chance to, uh, to sort of let our listeners know exactly where they can find you. what you're doing on a regular basis, a little bit about your picks and your channel and all that so that they can check you out when the show's over.

Yeah, well, thanks guys for having me on. I greatly appreciate it. I had a great time, Todd. Thanks for the whiskeys. This was a fun little blind right here. So not very often do you get a chance to do the cigar blend stuff, so that was a lot of fun. Yeah, as far as a channel and everything goes, mostly, mostly YouTube, some Instagram stuff that the Instagram stuff goes, both My Bourbon Journey and Mashin Journey Whiskey Club, which Jason from the Mashin Drum and I started that club. She's 2001 or excuse me, 2021. And yeah, that's going strong. We try to try to pump out several single barrels throughout the year. So that's that keeps us busy with all of those. But channel wise, I try to drop one or two videos a week for the most part. Tuesday nights, usually live stream night for me, eight o'clock Eastern. And yeah, I just try to stay as involved as I can within the the kind of the whiskey community and keeping up with a lot of people. So that that part of it is the is the fun part for me. So I try to to be as kind of centered with a lot of the people within the community. So enjoy that the most. But yeah, YouTube, Instagram are probably the two two biggest ones. A little bit of some carry over to Facebook stuff, but not not too much. But yeah, anybody can reach out to me any time. Watch the videos, do all that stuff. I greatly appreciate all the support.

Well, fantastic. It's been so great to have you on. Let's not wait another 500 episodes to have you on again, I think.

Yeah, that would be great. Man, I don't know if I'm going to make it to another 500 episodes to be honest with you.

All right. Well, folks, we hope you enjoyed the show. We certainly had a great time having some pours with Scott. We hope you'll check out his channel and all the work that he does. He's a great contributor and definitely a treasure for this industry we're in. So make sure you check him out. Also, make sure you check out the Bourbon Road website, thebourbonroad.com. We'd love to have you come in there and become an official roadie. It's real simple. You just go to thebourbonroad.com and click on that sign up button. It's free. It doesn't cost you anything. You get to come in, you get your own ID, you get your own pass to the Bourbon Road Bar. You come in and hang out with Cooper. He's there 24-7. Todd and I get in there from time to time, but we're always having fun in there. It's a great time. It's where our posts are. That's where our events are. That's where Todd posts his giveaways and runs his randomizers. It's a lot of fun. Also, our vendors love to come in there and give our roadies discounts. Jeff, definitely check it out. When you get done here and listen to this episode, go to the bourbonroad.com, create your free account, come in and hang out with us. It's a great time. Todd and I do this every week, every Wednesday. We have a great show. We have some fun. Sometimes we'll have a guest on like Scott. Sometimes it's just Todd and I going through some samples. I think Todd, we're caught up now. Are we caught up?

Uh, we've got a few new ones come in, so.

Okay. So we're not caught up. We're getting behind again. Okay. Well, we're, we're usually reviewing quite a few whiskeys. I think we just surpassed 1,360 whiskeys, uh, that we have tasting notes for on the, on the website. It's all searchable. And when you do find a whiskey you're interested in, uh, That tasting note will cue up our podcast to the exact moment in time where Todd and I are talking about it. So you can actually listen to our review while you're reading the tasting notes. It's a lot of fun. Check it out. But until the next time we will see you down the bourbon road.

Where the good times roll Passing bottles like a piece of soul Every pore's a memory, every sip a spark Lighten up the night in the Kentucky dark Yeah, we laugh too loud, let the worries go Find a little truth in the afterglow Ain't no man, just a ties-leaf song On the long winding bourbon Here's to the nights that turned into dawn To the friends who stayed when the rest moved on To the clink of glass and the stories spun And the quiet peace when the night is done On a bourbon road we ain't alone Every mile's marked by the love we've known From barrel to bottle to the hearts we hold there's a fire that never gets old so pour it up let the moment slow a little bit of life in every glow yeah forever we'll call this home on the long winding