508. Pineapples, Bloody Butcher & Big Fat Liars — A Four-Bottle Showdown with Drew Hannush

It's been a week of Mondays but the weekend's here Dust on my boots and a smile with my beard Neon summin' low whether it knows 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've paid Amber light in a crystal glow A little burnin' 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 dirt Ain't no mail, just the ties we've sewn On the long winding burb

Welcome back listeners and long-time roadies. It's Todd and Jim again, sitting in the corner of Rick House in Frankfort, Kentucky. We've got a guest with us today.

Who do we have, Todd? We've got Drew Hanisch back. He's in town doing some work on some things, which we'll let him talk about. We had a big night last night that we'll also talk about. So Drew, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me. Now, I haven't counted. Have you counted? Is it his turn? I meant to. I believe this is six. Oh, we're overdue. We're overdue. I think he brought us in last time. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we're good. So we've said it's like a hundred. I don't know. I mean, we don't want a paycheck.

That's right. Put you on the payroll.

Yeah. We've got some great bottles today. You've put together a lineup for us. So the Tasting Mat has four whiskeys on it today. It does. And why don't you tell everybody what's coming up first here?

All right. So our first pour, and we were lucky enough to get this bottle last night at this event we were at, which we'll discuss here in a little bit. And this is the WH McBrayer 250th Special Edition. It's a limited release Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. featuring only 1,776 bottles. It's always cool when you do something like that. It does have an MSRP of $100. It was released on June 5th. It has a proof of 105. It's a blend of 11 barrels, aged five to seven years. And of course, it's using their Bloody Butcher corn mash bill, which is 88.4% Bloody Butcher, 5.8% Heritage Rye, and 5.8% Malted Barley. OK.

So the box is fantastic. Yeah, very American. Well done. Yeah, definitely. And you know, I sit here and I'm looking on the box of this, at this picture of Judge McBrayer and I'm thinking, man, it was amazing how they brought him to life last night in that movie, wasn't it? It was. Yeah. Yeah. So adjusting his coat.

Right. So, so last night we went to our good friend, Bo Cumberland's, uh, event where they showed the new Spirits, Spirit of Lawrenceburg, right? Yep. Documentary. And it was, I guess it started about four o'clock and I mean, we didn't get out of there until like 1030. It was a lot of chats. Drew and I both interviewed, well, you interviewed the director and, you know, I guess

Jerry was the gaffer, the gripper, something like that. He's more of a producer, right? And he was in it a lot. He was in it a lot.

But yeah, it was a really fun event. It was a nice night.

Yeah, one of the things I told Bo after the event, we had a chance to talk for a few minutes. And one of the things that I noticed about his documentary as it had my attention 100% of the time, every scene all the way through. I never felt like It was dragging it all, like they spent too much time on one subject. It felt like the flow was great. And there's another historical documentary guy who's very similar to that, who we call both sometimes the Kentucky's version of... Yeah, Ken Burns. Ken Burns. And so, Bo has that knack. He has that knack of putting together something that just keeps your attention for the full, I think it was an hour and 15 minutes, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah. Well, what was interesting about it, too, is when you're in an event like that, and you're watching a documentary that's about the area. And then as we were introducing, people were putting up their hands to say which families of these distilling families they were part of, that these were their ancestors. And it's like, you start to get a real feel for, there's more going on on that screen than just somebody kind of going through and telling you about distilleries. that these are real people and this was a real history.

But the whiskey we're tasting first, this McBrayer 250th, Judge McBrayer played a huge role, both in the documentary, but of course in the Lawrenceburg history of bourbon making.

So I thought it was perfect to start with that after last night's event. And like I said, Bill Jr. and Bill Sr. were both in attendance and their wives, and they were kind enough to give us a bottle to review. So that was perfect. There were other, a lot of, I guess, luminaries in the Bourbon world, Cave Zamanian.

That's the way he's like, most people say it.

So it's like Zamanian, I think, or something like that. His co-author, who I actually interviewed, Eric Goodman was there. Lisa Wicker from You caught me off guard.

Thank you. Yeah, well, you're right.

I thought you'd be like, you know, that steel trap of mine, you couldn't remember. Yeah. It's been a while, though.

That steel trap is rusty.

And then a couple other like YouTubers, I believe. Yeah, Bo Garret. I missed his from Turkey. Oh, Bo Garret from Turkey. Yes, Bourbon Balls. Yeah. Greg Keely was there from Leriken. So it was just a really fun event. Yeah.

Well, and got the tour of the Dowling House, too. Yeah, the Dowling House.

What a gorgeous place. Andrew Hanisch was there.

Yeah, that's right. Doing the story of four roses right off the cuff. Which was fantastic. Wow, that was amazing. I really enjoyed that.

Okay, well, let's refocus here. Let's talk about the whiskey at hand. That's right. This is the WH McBrayer 250th celebration bottle. Would you say 50, 105 proof? 105 proof. This is the low proof of the night. Our range is really tight tonight though. 105, I think 109.6 Special edition, 11,776 bottles. So I mean, that's a reasonable number of bottles.

Nice mix of rye and oak. Yeah. On the nose.

Get some nice like stone fruits too though.

Like a little bit of a pear, apple. I am getting like a, a very nice like a grain note to it, but it's, it's a, it's a well aged grain note. What was the age on this?

Age five to seven. Five to seven. Okay. Eleven, it was a, yeah. Eleven barrels aged five to seven. I'm trying to think if they have run out of like the distillate they got at wilderness trail, because I think they weren't one of those that no longer does sourcing. Well, they source. Well, actually it was their mash bill, but it was distilled at wilderness trail and then Campari bought them. So I think some of those, okay. You know how that goes. Yeah. Cause I think they may be getting their stuff distilled.

Which distillery it came from.

Well, there's a little bit of a Bardstown vibe to it now. I do know they sourced from there too. And that's where they've kind of moved to.

There's a little bit of just a light mint note to it. All right. Ready to sip? Yes. Cheers. Cheers, guys. That's nice. It's a full palate experience.

They're one of those that does the low entry proof too. So at 105, there's probably not a whole lot of water added to that. Maybe even.

I mean, it's sticking to my palate. It's holding on. It's not dissipating real fast. It's probably more sweet upfront, but kind of dries out.

It does dry out a little bit. Yeah. It's like the, that rye note kind of pulls in with the little bit of the char from the, from the oak. Yeah.

And the oak kind of sticks around on the back of the pile a little bit.

It's a little cinnamon. Yep. Yep. It's nice. It is nice. Fruits are still there. Not getting that earthy vibe I sometimes get with bloody butcher corn sometimes, like a little earthy and herbaceous kind of thing. Mushroomy. Sometimes. So, you know, we'd like to say they flew you in for the special event, you know, in a private jet or something like that.

I flew myself in on my own private car. Right.

It just kind of worked out well because you're here and you're getting ready to do some serious diving this coming week. Yes. Want to tell the folks what that's about?

Yeah. So I did this crazy thing about four years ago, writing the Lost History of Tennessee Whiskey. And while writing the Lost History of Tennessee Whiskey, I started having opinions about bourbon and I was trying to figure out how to talk about it. From a historical standpoint, from apples to apples, the 1820s, 1830s, 1840s, and I started to realize that there really isn't a lot written about that time period in Bourbon's history. It kind of gets bounced over and then everything comes after the Civil War. I had just done the research for the chicken cock brand and I knew that that came out of Paris, Kentucky, Bourbon County and was interested to find that there were more distilling names in that county than I anticipated there would be because the myth has been kind of built up that there was this big county called Bourbon County. It was a fifth of the state and and that people so, you know, had a connection in all the counties that got carved out of it that they kept calling things, this was old bourbon, this was old bourbon. And when you look at the actual timeline, you find that it was only a fifth of the state for about two years. And then it got sliced up into a much smaller piece, which two years later got sliced up into what is now Bourbon County. So The whole idea that people were reminiscing for this old place called Bourbon County, when it really wasn't there that long, didn't make a lot of sense to me. And as I started digging in a little bit more, and I've been doing this for about two years, digging through newspapers, digging through... The Western Citizen is the second oldest newspaper in the state. It came after the Kentucky Gazette. It was 1811, I think was the year it was founded. And I was digging through those newspapers in that office because they still have those old 1800s newspapers. And what a shock to open up a page and look in an early 1800s and see bourbon whiskey written in 1821. And I realized I'm looking at the ad that everybody touts as the first mention of bourbon whiskey sitting on this page right in front of me. So I keep digging and digging, and there was actually very meticulous updates on what was going on in the bourbon industry or in Bourbon County with all of the different distillers. There's tons of information after the Civil War and a little bit before the Civil War. So I just started collecting all that information. And I kept thinking one of these days, I need to write a book about the history of Bourbon and really focus on two things, the origin of the name and also its ties to Bourbon County. And so this week, I will be basically interviewing families, kind of what Beau did with Spirits of Lawrenceburg. and trying to get some of the stories that they have. I have all the research. I could write the book right now. But When you talk to people and you get some of this oral tradition, it can spark some new things for you to go investigate. And sometimes they have some fun stories that can be integrated in to make the book even more interesting. I mean, I'm already finding that I'm having to kind of chop things out. I'm releasing this actually on my podcast as I write it. So, um, basically every other week, I will have another chapter that's put out as I'm writing it so that people can listen along. I'm doing this because I want other people who are history minded to listen. And if they can give me additional information that they go, wait, I'm not sure about that. Or I get in touch with the family later on that hears the podcast and goes, wait, I've got more of a story with that. then once I actually finalize the book for print, it will be as complete as I can get it. Wow. That's pretty cool. That is cool. That is really cool.

I have a question though. Do you bring your own like white gloves when you're doing this archival stuff?

You're like, I've got my own. Well, interesting story. I got a chance to go, I did it in my third season, I believe it was, to go to George Washington's distillery and spent some time with Steve Bayshore, the distiller and miller there. And while I was there, I was also asked by one of the resident historians, would you like to see the original distillery books? And I said, they're here. And he said, yes. And yes, we can bring them up. And I'm like, okay, sure, why not? I'm not gonna turn that down. And so it took a little while and then they took me into the library and right in front of me are all the distillery ledgers, how much rye, how much grain, all hand signed by George Washington at the top of each page. And I reached, I'm looking and I'm going, I'm looking, saying, I'd love to turn the page, what do I do? You can turn the page, just do it gently. And I was like, wow. No gloves or anything. It was just like, but they don't let it. I mean, it's hidden basically in a storage area below where nobody's getting to it. Light's not getting to it. It's not really getting any chance for damage. But that was probably one of the coolest moments in my whole journey, being able to do that. Because my dad worked on writing histories of presidential families. And so he, I mean, whenever I went in to talk to my dad, his library had a book for every president up on the wall and you could just ask him about any president and he would give you all sorts of details on who they were. And I just felt in that moment when I was turning that page, like my dad was right behind me, you know, going, be careful. I think I would break out in a bit of a sweat.

Could you do that for me? I'm a little nervous. I'm starting to sweat. And then your fingers would start sweating. Yes.

Definitely touching history. So this 250th bottle was a great pour. Really enjoyed it.

I don't think I talk about the availability. And funny enough, I texted Bill before we're recording this, and he was kind enough to He's such an awesome guy. Like he replies, like five minutes later, he said, we are sold out online, but it is available in Northern Kentucky at revivals, uh, vintage spirits, which is the place where you can get dusty pores. Um, and that party source up there. And he said that we are holding off other stores to bring it with us to bourbon on the bank. So they should have about 60 bottles to sell there at the event.

And what was it? What's the price on it? Uh, the MSRP was a hundred bucks. Okay. Fair. Fair enough. All right, good deal. Yeah, that's really good. Well, shall we move on down the road?

Yeah, let's move on down the road. So next up is the Hard Truth Double Oak Sweet Mash Bourbon, which is very exciting. I've only had a few of their bourbon products since they shocked the world with their two and three-year-old rise there for a while. So this is a limited release. The proof is 106.1. And it undergoes a secondary aging for over a year and a second custom char new American oak barrel. The mash bill is 73% corn, 19% rye, 8% malted barley, and only use 28 barrels, and the MSRP is about 60 bucks. Let's see, anything else? We have to get one of these for Melody. Didn't give an age statement.

So Melody is a, a hard truth fangirl. She actually, she always tells me, go down to the bar and bring up some of that sweet mash. She doesn't realize that other people make sweet mash too. From her perspective, sweet mash means hard truth. So it's kind of like, I was like, go grab a Kleenex. And the other day she sent me down and I came back with a little bit of a frown on my face saying we were completely out. She was disappointed. She was very disappointed.

If you think about it, they're the only ones that put in big letters right on the front of their bottle.

I was supposed to get up there and talk to Brian and get some bottles, but this pour was... Samples sent to us by our good friend Jeff Wack. Hello again, Whiskey Friends.

Jeff seems to be coming through quite a bit lately.

Speaking of that, I want to give him a shout out because I sent him a bunch of our single or some of our pours that we've had recently. Put them all in a box. They have my handwritten labels on them. And he's literally doing like little blinds with them every day on their whiskey channel, Hello Again Whiskey Friends. So he's had a blast with it. And he obviously gives us a little publicity. He says, you know, these were given to me by Todd at the Bourbon Road podcast. So I highly recommend folks go check those out because he's been trying a lot of the things we've tried in the past few months.

He's one of our supporting roadies too. He is indeed. Yeah. All right. Cheers.

Cheers. You guys went straight to the sip.

What do you even know? So enticing, right? I got kind of lost. I was getting a lot of herbal notes on the nose. It was, it was mild.

Yeah. So the nose was, was a little subdued. I mean, maybe, uh, but the palette is, it's very rich. It's a kicker.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a lot going on there. It's got an extra.

It's a light nose. You expected that marshmallow thing with a toasty, but not quite there. It's more just classic little like.

But it does have a punch of sweetness on the palate, but it's also very concentrated flavors.

Yeah. After taking a sip, it becomes very herbaly and on the nose. And I think the reason that it sticks out so much is because it's kind of counter to that sweet note when you first get it on the palate. Some dark fruits there. It's really nice.

A little bit of graham cracker.

I can see that. I get cola notes in it too, a little bit.

Yeah. It's a little bit darker. I mean, it's like a, a really, like a toasted granola or, or, or you said Graham crackers. I go with the Graham.

I can see granola too though.

Yep.

Um, but chocolate on that finish.

Yeah, but there's some chocolate in there. I mean, it's dark chocolate, bitter note. I've been really enjoying some of that. Um, So those granola bags of granola for cereals.

I was going to say this is like a trail mix almost a little bit with like the little chocolate chunks in there. Yeah.

That's a really nice pour.

Wow. That's delicious. What I was going to say, I was supposed to meet up with him. We were, I was planning a trip up there. I was going to take my folks and my kids and all that. And my mom started having some issues. She had knee replacement surgery and started having some issues. So we never could get up there.

The thing about this is it's double oak. But it's not overly oaky. No.

There's a little spice at the end, but yeah.

It definitely captured the wood sugars of that second barrel though. I mean, it definitely sweetened up a bit, I'm sure. I mean, if we could drink the original whiskey, I think we'd find this to be a bit more sweet.

Yeah. I'd be curious to know what they did with the second barrel. Like, because I know they are big on like the whole wave charring and doing different things.

But they do that as alternatives. Right. So yeah, so they have like Four Roses does the different recipes. Heart Truth does the different barrel treatments. Right. So it's kind of interesting. Have you been up there, Drew?

I did. I went up there, got the whole behind the scenes thing. That place is, it's Disneyland.

Yeah. Did you do the off the road tour there? Wasn't that fun? That was fun.

And it'd be fun to do the moonshiner for a day thing too. Did you go out on the Tiki boat? I did not go on the Tiki boat. I did see the world's smallest floating rick house though. One barrel on it. One barrel. Yes. I wonder what that barrel is going to go for. For how long it'll sit out there.

Yeah.

Yeah, or how much rocking actually happens on a pond. A pretty still pond, yeah.

Occasional log might fall in and cause some ripples, maybe some fast jump.

It's not quite the Mississippi. If a squirrel jumps in the water, that's about as much wave as you're going to get.

That's right. But the restaurant is a big deal.

I mean, it's really nice. Yeah, it is.

I like that place.

Well, and that amphitheater. And so, yeah. I love that it's in the town of Nashville.

Yeah.

So it's got all these musical connections too. Yeah.

I feel like they may have gone to, what is it, Mills River in Asheville to the Sierra Nevada brewery. Cause I just went there recently and I was like, Oh, this looks like hard truth. Only Sierra Nevada bigger, you know, that place is so great.

This is how you say Mills River. And it's like, That was one of the first places I historically researched. They used to run boats down Mills River. And if you ever look at Mills River, you would never know it because it looks like it's half empty. Well, the boats that they ran down it kept beaching. So yeah, that didn't last long. But yeah, Mills River is right, right near where I grew up.

All right, well, we're at a good spot here, don't you think? Yeah, take a little break and come back and sip on two more. Sounds good.

All right, 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 the bourbon road.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, you know, 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, our 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 out come to something that we're 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 diving into some pours after a big night in Lawrenceburg. Our first pour that we actually got there at the event was the WH McBrayer 250th Special Edition. That is their Bloody Butcher corn recipe. Great start. And we followed that up with the Heart Truth double oak bourbon, which that's the only other bourbons I'd had were like that. I think they had their four grain, I believe, and then a bottled and bond. And yeah, so that was kind of fun. That was a little different double oak, I thought, than most.

Yeah, I thought it was good.

Yeah, it was really good. And of course, we'll do our winner winner chicken dinner. Oh, yeah, I got to start thinking about that. But I think we're ready to move on to number three, and this one's the curveball here. So this is the Bardstown Victoria Pineapple barrel finish. So it says, our newest barrel finish began thousands of miles from Kentucky in the Caribbean, where we sourced rum casts that once held premium rum aged with prized Victoria Pineapple. Small, fragrant, and celebrated for its remarkable sweetness, the fruit left a lasting imprint deep within the wood. So they took those barrels and they filled them with a custom blend of 10 and 11 year old straight bourbon and rye and then actually added fresh pineapple to echo that same process that gave those original barrels their remarkable character. So yeah, drawing out the tropical flavors hidden deep within the wood.

So this is, this is a, a finished American whiskey.

This is a blend of straight whiskeys finished in rum barrels, oak staves and pineapple with flavor.

Yes. Yeah. Says available only in Kentucky and makes you wonder how heavy handed and I get the pineapple right away. Yeah. Uh, it makes you wonder how heavy handed pineapple would be, uh, when adding actual juice to the, to the whiskey.

So did they add juice to the whiskey?

I didn't buy the pineapple itself.

Oh, I thought that the barrel was the pineapple in it. Yeah. Oh, they did. Interesting.

They did that before in another one that we talked about. The honey. They poured honey into it. All right. Okay. Gloves are off.

There you go. There you go. Yeah, Danny's dropped the gloves. All right.

So retails for about 140. This is a pricey guy. And that's for $3.75?

It's actually a $7.50.

This isn't a part of that smaller... If we like it, we're all going to go home and buy a pineapple and drop it in our whiskey.

I was going to say, this is screaming like cocktails or something. Grilled pineapple?

It does. It's very tropical.

And it's sweet, and you almost want the coconut to come through, but it's not.

Yeah. Burning the nostrils a little. It's heating it up. It's almost distracting me from the nose.

Uh, I don't, when I was 6.1 is the proof. I don't think I mentioned that.

So we're standing that tight band tonight. Yep.

Tight band does say it's aged for 27 months in those pine rum barrels. Originally.

So I get, I get a toast note, but I don't necessarily get like the burnt sugar note.

No, it's like you said, it's all tropical to me too. Yeah. Yeah.

This is a fun summer pour, right? We're going to see. We'll see.

It is on the nose.

It's breaking all the rules. An over ice drink for sure. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers. Oh my goodness. That is way sweet. Oh wow. It is. It is milky. Yes. For sure. It is. I'm not going to put it in old smoky territory, but

It's like a reduced old smoky moonshine to me almost. This reminds me a little bit of the green river honey, but it's a punch of flavor. It's a punch of sweetness.

What's interesting is it's not necessarily, it is syrupy, but it's not necessarily overly syrupy. But it's, and it's not like an Ambarano where like that flavor is just completely taking over everything, but it's there. It is almost like a cocktail whiskey by itself. By itself. By itself. Yes. Agreed.

Yeah. I can see a lot of people really liking this. Yeah. Particularly people who aren't like bourbon centric, know, I don't know, people who really treasure their burdens and they treasure the rules that control them.

Right. There's a bit of novelty to it as well. I feel like this is like one of those folks would just, it's such a different thing.

The hard part for me is spending $140 on something that's so heavily influenced. That's a challenge for me.

Although I do pick up, I start getting that little rye spice, like the second and third sip where the sweetness, I'm kind of getting used to it. And I'm starting to pick up a little more. It's like a little cherry going on there. I would enjoy this. this cocktail.

Yes. I really would. I think I would. And if you're talking about a 750 and you're doing, you know, three ounce cocktails, two ounce cocktails, 12 cocktails for $140. 10, 12, $15 cocktails. Right.

I think you go old school with this and you put put it in carbonated water or, you know, do a highball with it.

Yeah, I guess so. I would try that highball. I'm not a big highball guy, but I might be one to try. Yeah. Cause I think the only other highball I ever tried was just like, I think it was something that beam and it was just beam and soda or soda. Right. Yeah. If it's just club soda to me.

This is my favorite part about doing this research into Four Roses was that as the deeper you start getting into the mid 50s and 60s, you start reading about how people drank their whiskey then. And like Winston Churchill, we hear that Winston Churchill drank Johnny Walker Red for lunch every day. And you're like, oh, he must have been a lush. Well, no, actually what they do is they put a splash of Johnny Walker Red at the bottom of the glass and fill the rest of the glass with water. So he was just flavoring his water is what he was doing. And so when you start thinking about these distilleries, creating very mild whiskeys. That's what they wanted. They wanted something that didn't have too much flavor. You wanted to have something that just would kind of, you know, you could dilute and not feel bad about it, you know, and then it'd be very easy to drink and very refreshing without necessarily.

Well, Todd, we've got a pretty decent size bottle of that. What do you think? Do you think it'll be at the The sample soiree on the 22nd? Yeah. Yeah? OK.

Some people need to try that one because it's very different.

Yeah.

All right. Shall we move on to the last one? Yeah. All right. This one's I'm kind of excited about. You picked this one up at a store. This is Big Fat. No, not Big Fat. It's Big Fat Liar. It's the first aged whiskey released from Potter Jane Distilling Company in Springfield, Kentucky. which was launched by industry veterans, Denny Potter and Jane Bowie to playfully confess and apologize for previously found they would never source whiskey. So they are decilling there. Our good friend, Doug Keller has been there, I think a couple of times and tried some of their, I mean, I think they've probably the oldest they've got is maybe two year old product. So, This is a six year old Kentucky straight bourbon. And it was vatted for seven months in American and French oak cast from independent state limited to about 1200 bottles. And it hit the, uh, Kentucky market during Kentucky bourbon week, which was back in about mid June, I believe is what that was a month ago. Yeah. And, uh, I think, I don't know what you pay for it, but it says MSRP is about 49.99. 49. Yeah.

I paid about $10 more than I got it as a small shop. So yeah. So yeah, I'm intrigued. Yeah. Looking forward to it.

I am going to rinse that sweetness out of me.

You need a little bit of water. That is the tough part about that is it's also because it's heavy body that sticks to your mouth.

I almost put it last, you know, we're going proof because this is 109.4 or two.

You know, in the future, that one probably goes last.

With something finished, I'm like, yeah, it's going to kind of overshadow the unfinished stuff. But I thought, I was thinking it was going to be coming in a little light. Obviously, no.

And these guys, they're a hoot. They're so much fun. They feed off of each other, Denny and Jane. I think our episode 273 they were on. They pick at each other all the time. And you look at this bottle and it's got a pair of... On fire jeans on the front of it. Big fat liar, liar, pants on fire. Yeah.

It just makes sense. They're such fun people. But I also recommend if you get a chance, probably their YouTube or excuse me, their Facebook page and their Instagram page. They came out with some really funny videos about like where they said they were never sourced and released something that.

Liar, liar, pants on fire. That's right. Ooh. Got a nice nose to it. It's a little subdued. Like the, I'm getting that French oak though. It's got a, it's a little bit on the lighter side. It's a seven year whiskey. Uh, it said under seven. So under seven.

Okay.

Under seven could be like six months, but no, this is not six month whiskey. This is, this is well aged whiskey.

Yeah. It's really light on the nose.

It's, uh, I'm just getting like lots of vanilla. Yeah. Some kind of typical, typical bourbon notes, you know.

Um, yeah, it's mostly the oak notes I think coming through and they're just so subtle. Sometimes I'll take a little sip just, uh, so that when I go back with the nose, there's something to offset against.

Maybe a little bright citrus, just a little.

All right, ready to sip.

Cheers. Cheers.

There's a little pop frocks going on there. sweet sizzle candy on the sides of my tongue. I'm getting a little bit of dripping going on. That's always a good sign. Yeah.

Good mouthful though.

Yeah. It's nice and viscous.

Just a little heat on top and the heat actually just stays on the top of the palette. Yep. Does not go, it's not a Kentucky hug kind of thing. Nice.

What did you say, the mash bill? Did they give a mash bill on this? No mash bill. She actually chimed, our friend Doug posted something about this bottle on the bourbon roadies page. And I was like, interesting. Wonder where it came from. And she gave, uh, Jane Bowie commented that it, I'd have to look it up. It was something like the key word was like truly or something like that. Yeah. So I don't, yeah.

I mean, there's a little bit of that dark chocolate espresso that comes in on this. Nothing to me is like really overly out front on it. It's one of those whiskeys that's just kind of a steady journey all the way through.

I said, I'm curious where they would source from as there are quite a few options. And she said, Todd Ritter, we found a liquid we truly love. Okay. I know, but that's so vague. I'm like, yeah, truly and truly is capital.

Oh, it's.

Truly is all caps. True story, but they didn't, weren't selling, so.

Truly love, truly. I don't know.

It's a mystery. We'll have to ask it again. Yeah. I mean, of course, that could be under the NDA. Yeah, right. Ask Cooper.

Cooper, look this up for us.

Yes. Well, I mean, it's a good bourbon. It's got a lot of really good notes to it. It's well balanced. It's kind of light on the nose. The palate comes across. It's got a little bit of sizzle when it comes in at first, but anytime the sides of my palate drip a little bit, I know it's exciting my palate, which is a good sign.

I just, I keep, I must be craving coffee or something because for some reason I just get like coffee bean on the- That's funny.

I'm getting like, the fruits are still there, like an apple cobbler kind of thing. And that citrus that I was getting on the nose a little.

Yeah. I want to go back to the nose, Todd. I do get a little bit of like an apple note to it.

Yeah.

Solid pours though.

Yeah, very good. And this is a good, I mean, there's an outlier in these four today, obviously, but these were, it was evenly matched.

I think it was.

It's very close.

I'm not sure how this winter winter chicken dinner is going to come out. I'm not either.

Before we go, Drew, I mean, is there anything else that's coming up on your show that our listeners that listen to you as well should be,

On top of doing the reveal of the book, I'm also going to be working on a series called The Legends of Whiskey Lore. So the idea of this is I want to do little profiles of people who are in the industry historically that have mattered and tell their stories, but do it in a shorter form, maybe a 15-minute episode. Now, I say do a 15-minute episode. Whiskey Lower was supposed to only be 15-minute episodes when I started, and they've somehow crawled up to 40 minutes sometimes in an episode because I just keep finding more stuff. But I'm really going to try to stay disciplined on this and focus on really important people who I think are deserving of attention. And this all built out of the episode I did with Jerry, where we were talking about the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame and the fact that there were people like E.H. Taylor and James C. Crow that were not in the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame. And how do you keep those legends out? And the issue is, is that usually that they're going to go with people they know and people who they've had some closer experience with to be able to. So a lot of the people that are in the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame are more modern people, which is understandable. But I thought, There are a lot of people in the whiskey industry. We're talking Irish whiskey, scotch, American whiskey, and all the research that I've done. I'm just trying to think, if I came up with a list of 10 people or 12 people who would be the most impactful people in the history of whiskey, let me do a profile on those to get started and then maybe crowdsource after a while on Instagram and say, start nominating some people, you know, who should be in this little whiskey lore hall of fame and I'll do some profiles of them along the way. That's so cool. That is cool.

Yeah. Well, I'm a little bit I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Do you need extra of anything? No, I think they're all very close in proof. They all bring something different to the mat. I'm just not sure what my order is. I think I know one and two, three and four. I'm not sure. And plus the whole thing with like, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Let's just go for it. Let's just do all four. Yeah. Okay. All right. Who wants the, I let off last time. It's your turn Todd.

Oh, great. Throw it right in my lap. All right. My number four is going to be the Bardstown pineapple.

Okay.

It's just, it's interesting, worth a try. I'm not going to say it's not because it's, It's a very unique pour and sometimes the unique pours are what draw me in and push them to number one, but not this time. It's still too sweet for me. Okay. Okay. So that's going to be my number four.

This is a challenge for me because I have to try to figure out what my grading criteria is. Is it something that I would want to drink? That I could see a purpose of the point that I want to drink it or one that I think it's a quality spirit and one that somebody should... And this time I'm just going to go with, if I were going to grab a bottle from just what's in the glass, how would I rank them? I probably put the Potter Jane as the bottom one for me. And the only reason on that is because I wasn't getting probably as much of the experience out of it. It was very even all the way through. But there wasn't a complexity there to me to keep me really interested. It would be something that would be a great drink if I'm talking with friends and I want something that's just a really nice drinker that I can enjoy along the way. But I tend to want to find something that challenges me or gives me a comfort of some form if I'm drinking it when I'm just wanting to pay attention to a whiskey. So that would come in as my number four.

Fair enough. So for me, yeah, so when I'm out beer drinking with Melanie, And there's all these crazy, like flavored beers and stuff. I don't touch them. Yeah. I'm not that guy, right? I like the tried and true, the Kolsch, the, you know, the Mars and the, you know, whatever. I like to stick with the basics.

Add into the fruit smoothies, I think is what they call them.

So with that said, even though I kind of enjoyed the pineapple whiskey from Bardstown? Bardstown, bourbon company? It would not be something I would reach for.

No. So I am intrigued, like I said, I feel like you could make some really fun cocktails with that.

But the price kind of doesn't work out there. So when you're looking at, yeah, I could make some cocktails with it, but my cocktails are going to be made at home at $15 a piece. Right. Yeah, probably not. Yeah. Yeah. For me, I love what they're doing. Keep doing it. Danny, you're doing a great job. Don't, don't listen to Jim. I think I really, I really liked the, the, the honey from green river.

Yeah.

Um, even though it was one of these kinds of things where they poured honey in the barrel, right? I mean, but man, I put it in Arnold Palmer, you know, a little bit of iced tea and lemonade. It's amazing. At $40 a bottle? Yeah. Yeah, I can do that, right? Yeah. This is a little bit too high of a price. So yeah, it's my number four.

All right. My number three is going to be the Potter Jane. OK. Like you said, it's nice. I found it nicer than obviously the pineapple. Just not as expressive as I thought it might be. Yeah. It's a good solid pour. And at $49, that's not a bad price for that. Yeah.

This was the challenge for me on the next one because, as I say, I was judging it by what was in the glass rather than by price. If I'm going to go by price, it's probably going to penalize my next one, which is the Bardstown Bourbon Company. The thing about that whiskey is that it's probably not something I'm going to grab when I'm in the mood for a whiskey. It's going to be something when I'm in the mood for a flavor. And so if I, because I liked the flavor, I thought the flavor was great. I thought it had a really nice, I like mouthfeel. Yes, it's slightly syrupy, but it's not overdone. So from that standpoint, I liked it. The $140 though for, you know, this kind of goes to the, you know, My guilty pleasure is apple pie moonshine from Old Smoky because, but I don't buy it. And the reason I don't buy it is because as soon as I buy a jar, it's the one thing I can't control myself on.

And I will drink that whole dang jar of apple pie moonshine. So we don't want to get you for Christmas. Right. Yeah.

So I could see you have a cheap date in that respect. The thing is, on this one, I would feel guilty every time I was sipping out of it, wanting to drink it at any speed. Yet it's that kind of a drink that it would be something that I'd probably have a little bit, three or four of them in the evening. Because once you taste that, it's kind of like, the food chemists come up with a little sweet in whatever food they're making to make you crave it. That's what's going to happen with this. And that $140 is going to disappear very quickly.

Could be something a rock would tone down the sweetness if you let it sit for a little while, maybe. It might be interesting.

All right, Jim, what's your third? Yeah, mine's going to be the Potter Jane. So, you know, I kind of categorize that as crushable. I mean, it's it's a very drinkable bourbon and or and it's just but it's one hundred nine proof. You know, the price is right, but it's a little proofy for a crushable bourbon. It sort of checks all the boxes for a basic bourbon. It just didn't stand out. It didn't have that one note that just grabbed me. So yeah, I mean, would I buy another bottle? Probably. 49.99. Not bad. It's good bourbon. Yeah, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. In fact, I would highly suggest that our listeners go out and get a bottle of it. But it's not going to be anything that you're going to write a story about. It's not like it doesn't have that one tasting note that just jumps out at you. You're like, wow, they really, it's well-balanced. It's good.

All right. This is where I found some difficulty. OK. But my number two. is going to be the hard truth, Double Oak. Oh, OK. Yes. Really liked it. It did have some dark, richer flavors. But I think today, my first place just edged it. I mean, we're talking like you're in horse racing country, so it was by a nose. It really was. Yeah. Great offering. We've got a Mizunara finish, I think, still left. And maybe I can hook back up with Brian. So hopefully we're going to have them on the show. But it's going to be my number two today. Yep.

OK. I'm going to go with the McBrayer. OK. McBrayer, mainly because there's complexity there. It's, again, one that maybe I just need to sit with a little bit longer and just relax with and do some some study time with it and let it come to me. It feels like that's there. My number one was a little bit more expressive, so I decided to go with this one for number two.

Okay.

All right. Well, I'm going to agree with you on this.

Oh, the time breaker. Okay.

I am going to agree with you on this. All right. I liked both of them and they are very, very close to each other in terms of a difficult choice. But yeah, I think the McGregor falls in the second place for me as well. I thought it was good. I didn't really get the red corn kind of experience from it that I thought I might. Surprisingly, I kind of liked it. I like that. I like what you get from, um, bloody butcher. I like what you get from Jimmy red. They're very different and I like them both, uh, in different ways. Uh, but this one didn't just, it was, it was a great whiskey. It's worth every penny what they're asking for it. And, and I think, yeah, you could go out and buy it now and be perfectly happy with the bottle, but it's my number two. Okay.

So I'm the odd man out and that's my number one. It was cause he gave me the bottle and you know, but no, it's a, I really enjoyed it. I mean, I like the McBrayer line anyway, the judges that have been, I think I've gotten to just about every release or at least tried every release. And yeah, that's, it keeps falling suit. I mean, it's just a good board.

Yeah. Love what they do with the branding on it too.

Yeah. Yep. And so for the number one, I mean, we don't have to announce it cause we know what it is. Your guys number one. Our number one.

Tag team, you know what I mean?

All right, Drew, you're no longer invited back.

Oh no.

Just kidding. I think, you know, Hard Truth puts out quality whiskey all the time. You know, they've had some special releases that have been really, really good. They've had some, I don't know, they just do their job very well. I just think that they really do. And the Sweet Mash, it really does make a difference. I mean, it really does.

I think the big thing for me was that I know there's a craze about double oak these days. I don't like an overly oaky whiskey. And to me, there's a finesse here to be able to do two different barrels and not have it overwhelm the whiskey. And I thought that all the complexity stayed in that whiskey and nothing was really just taking over.

I think we got the extra shot of wood sugars from that second barrel without the marshmallow. You even said, Todd, it was missing the marshmallow effect. And that, I think, was that balance they got from that second barrel, that toasted barrel. We just didn't get those extra charred notes, those extra wooded notes that drove it a little too far, but we did get the sweetness. So it was a nice That was a nice touch with that secondary barrel.

Yeah.

And that's hard to, that's hard to do sometimes. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's also cool to see them like, yeah, they're bourbons are starting to hit the shelf more. Like I said, they were, their rise are very, very special.

But all four whiskeys tonight between 105 and 109 proof, all four really good, nothing wrong with them. They're very different, very different whiskeys. I don't think we had two that were like similar. We had maybe similar in scoring maybe, but not similar in flavor profile. They were all very different. So I think they're all worth picking up for different reasons.

And, uh, just, just know that for 140 bucks, that ball's going to go pretty quick.

Just put a straw in it. That pineapple from barstown is very tasty. And if you like sweet, like fruity whiskeys, yeah, that's a mood whiskey for sure. And if, and if your spouse likes it, and would appreciate it, maybe pick it up. I mean, it's certainly going to get your attention when you drink it. Definitely. Definitely. No doubt about it. But it's a cocktail on its own. Agreed. I think he nailed it. All right. Well, I was going to combine them all, but that would be fruitless. Because we know it's going to take over. No pun intended. We know it's going to take over.

Just a drop. Yeah. All right, Drew, we want to give you a chance to let the folks know where they can find you.

OK. Well, best place, Whiskey Lure podcast. Or you can go to whiskylure.org and find all my socials. Instagram is where I hang out the most. And I also have my books at whiskylure.org slash Amazon. You can get straight to my Amazon page through there and see all my books there. that's about the size of it all.

Yeah. And speaking of your books, I believe you are going to, you've given us permission to allow the folks that sign up on our website to get a discount, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

So just do, uh, just do roadies 2026.

We got it. We'll set it up. No doubt. Thank you for doing that. Yep. So yeah, I mean, you're, you're, uh, you're, you're traveling America book. I mean, it needs to be in the console of your car because when you're out, when you're out having a good time, you need to be able to reach for that bad boy.

No doubt about it. Plenty of, plenty of distilleries all over this country and, and some very interesting ones.

We're always asking each other. I wonder if Drew's been to that one. Right.

Yeah. Not as many as I, you know, I'd love to say I've been to 400 of them. So, you would think I've been to quite a number, but- That's just here in America? Well, no, that's here and overseas. Okay. So, when you talk about 60 in Kentucky or, you know, probably 50 in Kentucky that I've been to and 40 in Tennessee, that's already taken out a big size of a chunk. Yeah. And then 50 in Ireland. So, you know, add that on.

Yeah, it adds up quickly. Well, it's always a pleasure to have you on. I mean, we need to do it more often. You're just a great guy to have on the show. We really appreciate it. And yeah, listeners, definitely check out the Whiskey Lore podcast. Drew's going to be releasing these episodes as he's writing his book. That's going to be a fun journey to be on.

Especially if you're a history nut, because I always like to throw some outside of whiskey history to tie things in.

All right. Well, you can find the bourbon road everywhere out there, but the main place we like to send you to is the bourbon road.com. That's our new website. It's got everything you want to track the bourbon road podcast. It's got all of our episodes are on there. Our tasting notes are on there. The bourbon road bar is on there. It's a great place to hang out. We even let you write your own tasting notes. So you can have your own journal on there where you keep track of your whiskeys and you can share those out to the world. So it's a great place to be. Make sure you drop in and sign up on TheBurdonRoad.com. There's no charge. I mean, it's, it's free. We just, we just want you to be part of the roadie group and hang out with us. Um, when you get in there, we've got, uh, we've got Cooper, he's our, he's our, you know, onsite bartender and he hangs out and, and talks to the talks to the guests.

And I thought I might add, I mean, we can actually do the math and figure out, you could type in Drew Hanisch and figure out how many episodes he's truly been, if this is the sixth or the fifth. But I'm pretty sure it is the sixth.

I think we made him do the second half intro. Are you going to bring him on again? I mean, come on, guys.

But that's a really cool thing. I mean, you can do, that search engine is so cool. You can type in Makers Mark and it'll bring everything we've ever reviewed at Makers Mark. And you can go straight to that review and things like that. Jim made magic.

All right. Well, we've got over 1,360 reviews on there now after the show. There'll be four more. So anyway, yeah, when you find a review on there of a whiskey you're interested in, it's quick to search it out. And not only do we give you our our tasting notes and our results from the review, but you can also click on the listen button and you can hear the 15 or 20 seconds or 30 seconds of the review that we do on the show. So you'll get to hear us talk about it as we're drinking it. So pretty cool to be able to do that. Uh, but yeah, we'd love you to come in and hang out, join up, uh, you know, come into our, our chat room, talk with us, hang out, make some posts. Uh, it's a great thing. We only had about, uh, I mean, we had like 3000. We still have about 3000 people on our, our Facebook page. On the bourbon roadies. The problem is only about half our roadies actually do Facebook. So not everybody is Facebook people, right? So we created the website so it's everybody, everybody can come there. and you come in and you hang out and you talk with us. No ads. No ads. And there's also no rules. We can do what we want. Right.

We actually have a giveaway going on, which will probably be over by the time this airs, but we're doing giveaways, some fun giveaways. We've got a book by Clay Risen that you donated that will be given away soon. So, Come join, win things, chart.

We'd love to have you there. Every week, Todd and I put on an episode on Wednesday. We hope you scroll to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way you don't miss it. You get that notification. You can put on your headphones. You can join us for a fun hour of drinking whiskey, laughing and having a good time with great guests like Drew. 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 Lighting 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