51. Kickin' Back by the Fire with Some Ol' Fo'

This one has the nose on it. It's like honey nut Cheerios. You're always going to cereal, man. I'm a cereal guy.

He reminded me of that. Remember that show Beverly hillbillies, the Jethro?

Don't tell people that big chief ain't Jethro.

I'd have to whoop him. Jethro would pour a whole box of cereal in a bowl with a gallon of milk. I do drink a lot of milk.

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Find out more about their fine rustic furniture at logheadshomecenter.com. Hello, everyone. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we're at your house. We are out there at Jep the Bend Farm. I know. We're in front of the fire again, so there'll be a little popping and cracking, I'm sure.

Well, it's chilly outside, so I figured you'd like to be nice and warm and toasty.

There was snow on the ground this morning when we got up. There was. There was a little bit of snow. What's old Woodrow think about that snow?

He likes it. He gets out there and, you know, he runs around, goes crazy.

That's good for that dog. Oh, absolutely. All right, so today we have a couple of bottles to try in the first half.

It's just you and me and some old foe. Some old Forester, yeah.

All right, so old Forester has released a new barrel, kind of a new expression of the barrel selection program. So old Forester single barrels have historically been 90 proof versions.

Yeah, I think that kind of goes with that. Brown Foreman format, right? I guess it would be.

Yeah. I mean, you know, they've got the Whiskey Row series, which varies slightly in proof, but you know, the old Forester single barrel picks have always been at 90 proof. And so today we have one from the Silver Dollar. This is part of your collection.

Yeah, I picked up this silver dollar. If you don't know for our listeners, they it's a bar in near downtown Louisville on Frankfurt Avenue. And they have another bar called The Pearl, which has the liquor license to sell liquor. And that's where I picked it up from. It's one of their picks. Notes on it is banana, nut bread, oak and tobacco. Those are the published notes. That's the published notes. When you go in there, they'll hand you a list of bourbons and it has the notes to it. They're not going to offer you that list up. You've got to know about it.

The Pearl of Germantown is a small bar in Germantown. It's also a bottle shop, so they have that license to sell by the bottle, whereas the Silver Dollar Saloon sells by the drink. Yeah.

That's kind of their slogan, right? Now, if you go into the Pearl, you're going to think it's hole in a wall. And I'll tell you a little secret about that place. It's designed to be that way. They bought everything in there. Um, when they bought that place, they bought the furniture. They wanted to make it look like a dive bar and that's, that's what it is. They, but they got some great stuff.

Yeah. All right. So the format today is going to kind of be like this. So we, we did receive some samples from, The old Forester, they sent us out a couple of sample bottles of their single barrel offering. This is the George Garvin Brown single barrel and it's coming out in two expressions. One is proof down to 100 proof and then the other one is barrel strength. So I don't know this for a fact, but I'm assuming that when you do a barrel selection, you can choose to have it bottled either at 100 proof or at barrel strength. So that's kind of, you pull the trigger on that when you do your barrel selection. So before you had to go to 90 proof. That's the only thing you could do. So now they're given an option there. And I think that's a great thing. It seems to me that old Forester is really paying attention to what people are asking for.

I think that hits it on both ends. If you get somebody that has barrel proof, and we've talked about that in the past, That'll give them option, but you've got people that steal like at that 100 proof and that gives them that option. Right. So that's, you know, you're trying to get both audiences there, I guess.

Yeah. I mean, we've talked a little bit lately about distilleries that are hitting it on all cylinders, you know, kind of firing on all cylinders. And I think Old Forrest is one of those, you know. Their Whiskey Rose series is vastly successful. with some great expressions there, the 1910, the 1920, the 1897. And then they came out with that rye that was just really hit the spot. Favorite for bartenders. It's a good pour. It's nice sipping rye. Priced around 20 bucks, maybe 22. I don't know where it's at. The price is in everybody's area. But really putting out stuff, high flavor, high value. And now they're doing it again with this adjustment to their single barrel program. So kind of excited to try these one at a time.

Or you're over there talking. You know, I feel bad sometimes, Jim. You over there start talking and I'm like, man, I just got to get a drink of this. I'm over here sipping on it. That way I can gauge the look on your face. Well, I had a couple of buddies over before he came over today for lunch, a couple of good friends and stuff. And they, I let them raid my bottle collection and let them drink just anything I had and stuff they hadn't had that they can't afford. And, and I sent them home with some samples of stuff they hadn't had. And I mean, I let them open up everything. They're like, can I open this? Yeah. So Bob and Steve came over and they're actually two of, in our Facebook group, the roadies. Um, and, uh, so I had a couple of drinks.

I see a lot of posts from Bob in there. I think Bob is in there a lot.

And Steve's in there too. He's down at Shepherdsville and Bob's over in Goshen. So they're two local guys and both military vets. Um, so they, uh, they came over and got their two roadies, got to raid the Jeff, the Ben farm bar today.

Oh, good deal. All right. Well, let's get into this 90-proof old Forester single barrel and see what we think about it. And then we'll move on down the road. Let's do it. All right.

I definitely get on the nose, I get that banana bread.

I see what they're talking about. I kind of get that a lot with the old Forester, I think. I get that. It's pretty common. But this is kind of an oak forward nose, too. It's sweet, but definitely, what did they say? They say dry oak? That was on the palette, though, I think.

It didn't say on the palette. It just says, their notes are very basic. It just said banana nut bread, tobacco, and dry oak. You know what shocked me about this, Jim, was that this pick was only $45. I was just, I gotta get that $45. Wow. Yeah, it's a value pick.

Now these are barrels that are in the four to five year range, right?

This one was four years, six months old. Okay.

All right.

It's got a lot of color to it though. It's got great, you know, you can look at my glass there from over there and you can see that it has great legs on it.

It is a little thin, but there's a lot of flavor there. It is a little drying though. I would say that oak is, you know, they said dry oak. I don't know if they meant oak flavor that's kind of drying on the palate. You get that a little bit with some of the tannins.

I'm getting that right now, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's good. It's darn good. And for $45, I think it's a bargain.

Now she let me taste it before a bottle of it they had there open and I tried to pour it and then I bought a bottle. And you know, as I'm, I'm pretty happy with this bottle. Anytime you say banana nut bread, you know, fat guy like me get all happy, a little bit of butter spread on it.

Oh man. I'm not getting a buttery taste on this one. It's not real mouth coating, but like I said, it's a little thin. The finish on it, a little dry, just a hint of bitterness. Not bad though. Um, and, but you know, it's got a bit of a hug. It's drink a little hot and, uh, but the finish is kind of short.

Well, surprised how hot it is for, for a 90 proof. I just, I didn't think it would be that hot at all, but maybe heavy on the rye. Do you know what their match bill is there at Old Forrester?

I mean, I probably should have looked it up before we recorded here. I don't know. It may be available. I don't know. Well, we're going there in a couple of weeks, right? That's right. So Jackie Zeichen is going to sit down with us here in a couple of weeks, and we're going to talk all things Old Forrester.

Now, Jackie, here, we got your name right. I think we got your name right.

I hope we did anyway. If not, I'm sure she'll correct us.

Yeah.

All right, Mike. Well, I think that that's very nice. I enjoy that. I can tell you this much. I can tell that it is a little bit lighter, a little bit thinner than a hundred proof offering, but let's wait and see. We're going to try that one next.

I think you're right on that. I didn't think it would be that light. And I've drank a lot of bourbons today, so I drank some stuff that was super, just super coat your mouth and stuff today. I drank some Decades, which was, you know we've drank that before on the show, and that gives you a different mouth feel than what this would. Yeah, it's another level, right?

Definitely another level. Some of that stuff in there is 20 years old though. All right, well let's switch over to our 100 proof of the new offering. All right, so I'm looking at this 100 proof single barrel and it's not a lot darker than the 90 proof, just a hair, I think. But these are single barrels, Mike, so they're gonna vary a little bit from barrel to barrel, both on color, nose and palette, I'm sure.

That is not so much as that banana's not in there to me. This one's got more cherry on it.

Oh yeah, a lot more cherry. Not a spicy either. Caramel, vanilla, cherry. Not as much of that, that dry oak. I haven't tasted it.

That's just all on the nose. And I actually looking at the bottle, you know, it could be the bottles and Heather, the curvature of them and stuff, the sample bottle and the regular bottle we got. But the store pick I got is actually looks a little darker.

Well, it's hard to tell because that's a 200 mil flat bottle, flask bottle.

But I mean, in the glass, it looks like it's about the same.

Yeah, this one's definitely a lot more cherry and it's sweeter, I think. I think it's a lot sweeter than the last one. It's not drying on the back of the palate the way the other one was.

No, but I will tell you this, it's very peppery.

It is very peppery.

On the finish, I can just feel that pepper just tingling in my taste buds. That little pop rocks going off on the back. That's not a bad thing, you know, that's a good thing.

I like this one a lot better than the last one. I don't think it's just because of the proof. I think they both drink a little hot. This one's probably a little bit more because of the peppery finish on it. But I like the cherry. I like the sweetness on this. It's pretty darn good.

It's not bad. I don't know if I'd pick this up. If I thought it was this, maybe if it's a store pick, if I see a store pick and I'm sure somebody like the silver dollar will have a store pick this eventually and I'll get a bottle.

Well, this is in essence a store pick. I mean, this is Jackie's icon, this pick. She chose this and put this bottle together for samples. It's called the George Carvin Brown. I guess they give a little spot on the bottles just like they did on the last one to put the name of the pick or the store or whatever on it. 100 proof, definitely. much happier to have a hundred proof version of this in my hand than a 90 proof. You think so? For me, yes. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

So I'm happy at a hundred proof for that. I think, uh, stepping their game up a little bit, maybe realizing that whiskey pallets, in America are on the rise, meaning rise in proof. And we've talked about that past, you know, we started out somewhere in the 80 range maybe, and we've, we're rising in proof, I think over the years to where people, a hundred proof is not that much anymore. You used to hear a hundred proof, you're like, wow, a hundred proof, you know, wild turkey 101. Everybody was like, that's high proof stuff.

Well, you know, now bourbon lovers pallets are getting accustomed to elevated proofs, 120, 130, pushing 140 on some of them now.

And 100 proof is just the standard. So cheers to them to realize that, to see the future and where we're going.

Yeah. I like it when a distillery has their ears open, so to speak, you know, they're listening to what people say, you know, and I'm sure they had to listen to a lot of people say, Oh, can't we get that barrel strength? Can't we get, come on guys, this is our barrel. Can we get a barrel strength?

Do you, do you feel like people can take that too far and forget the past?

Yeah, I think so. But you know, I think a lot of, think about it though. It was 1890, what, when the Battlenbon Act was passed. And that was about, that was all built around hundred proof bourbon. Sure. So I think maybe we're just getting back to where we were.

Yeah, I think quite possibly. But, you know, I'm wondering if some bourbon companies out there, Jim Beam, the most, they put that commercial out lately that they said they're forgetting their past, looking at the future and they got scientists and stuff on there. a digital warehouse on there. I don't know, that kind of hurt a little bit when they said there, it almost said we're going to forget our history.

Yeah.

And I think that's a bad thing when you start forgetting your history and where you came from. Yeah.

Well, I mean, progress is progress. People have to change. I mean, it's a lot of this business is about efficiency as well. You know, one of the things that's happened over the years is barrel entry proofs have risen. The proof at which the liquid is placed into the barrel off the still has gone higher and higher and higher. And, you know, I think old Forrester is is working to try and make things a little bit better in that respect. I know that we were at Michter's. Michter's is running a lower barrel entry proof. A lot of the newer craft distilleries are looking at lower entry proofs in order to try and get more flavors or different flavors out of those barrels. So I like to see that. You know, I like to see the proofs getting moved up a little bit, you know, maybe not watered down as much. 80 proofs a little... Watered down. Watered down. 90 proofs even considered maybe a little bit watered down. But 100 Proof is right on spot for me.

Right on spot for you, yeah. I think you're right there. I just don't want to forget the past.

Or 101, as I like to say, is right there for me. Yeah, but we're drinking Old Forester today. That's right, Old Forester.

But I'm going to talk about that in a bonus episode. That's right.

So you've got a bonus episode coming up where you're going to dive into the history of the Browns and JTS Brown and all of that kind of stuff.

And even as ties to your wild turkey. Yeah, exactly. There's some, there's some ties there. It's a very fascinating and that's something me and Jim have talked about and talking about history and our listeners have said they'd like that. And we want to give you more of that. And I think that's something we like doing. We like talking about that history. We like talking about bourbon and we want to give our listeners what you want to hear. So Jim, I've already finished this.

Yeah, I'm just about done here. Well, I would like to say this. I'm glad to see the 90 proof version of these replaced with 100 proof. I think it's a bold move. It's a good move. I think everybody's going to be happy to see it happen.

I think Old Forester is seeing the future. They're looking at it. They're putting out products that people want to drink. They brought out a rye. You know, 10 years, 15 years ago, wasn't anybody drinking rye whiskey really?

Not so much, it's today anyway. But today, everybody has a rye whiskey.

Yeah. Even the big boys are, oh, we better put ourselves out a rye. You got Elijah Craig right now. I wonder if Elijah Craig ever thought, I'm going to make a rye whiskey. I don't know if he did. I don't know.

All right, well, I'll tell you what. For me, I'm really happy about this Hunter Proof. I'm ready to get into the barrel strength. How about you? Let's do it. All right, Mike. So we've got this barrel strength old Forrester single barrel in our glass. And this is, again, the George Garvin Brown single barrel. This time without a doubt is darker. Oh, it's it's I'd say it's almost double Yeah in color quite a bit darker, and I think the reason behind that is is because now on this sample bottle They sent us they list the proof as 130 to 135 so this is not a this is not a label I'm sure that they had to put through Cola, but it's just a sample sample bottle and But they're telling us that the barrels are going to range at barrel strength somewhere between 130 and 135 probably. Oh my gosh, that nose is totally different. Oh, that is a honey cherry syrup.

I got honey smackums cereal.

smack them. Is that the one with the frog on it? Yeah.

Yeah. That's, I smell that all day long.

Oh my gosh. That is all that is honey all day long. It surprises me. It's the same barrel. It's just a different proof point. Totally different on the nose.

Well, it's not watered down or anything. They didn't proof it down. So I wish we had known the exact proof on this. Yeah. Let's go ahead and cheers. Cheers. Oh, that is butter, cherry. When it first hit your mouth, the sweetness there is, the honey is there. The honey, honey butter cherry. Now it's hot on the back end, which would you expect from the higher proof?

Yeah, it's definitely hot. No doubt about it, but I'm going to tell you this much. This just changes that, that dram altogether. It really changes it. This is, it's impactful. It's very flavorful. I don't know why, but this one comes across very, very buttery and creamy on the palate.

You ever had a really, really good pepper jelly? Yeah. That's what I get in this right here.

You're still getting that pepper on the back end, aren't you? Well, I'm always going to probably get that pepper on the back, especially with this.

But I don't think it's the proof on this that there's the pepper. It's the rye in there that I'm getting that almost Tabasco taste on it. And I don't want to say that as a bad thing. It's a good thing.

It's definitely sweet. It's still sweet. It's, it's definitely a, but it's a honey cherry sweet and it's got, you know, that, that, uh, the fruits on that get a little bit darker with the higher proof. So I'm getting more of a cherry plum, cherry raisin kinda on it.

Do you know these guys are actually, they're founders, JTS Brown and George Foreman and Garvin Brown. They're all buried there in Cave Hill Cemetery.

Oh, OK.

I thought that was a neat fact. And so most people don't know there is a famous cemetery. And what's the band that had people die up in Cincinnati?

The Who.

The Who. And that's a tradition for bands to come to. When they come to Louisville, they would go there and pay their respects to that concert goer that died.

And, you know, Muhammad Ali's buried there. And Andrew Jackson, I think. Right? Is it Andrew Jackson?

I don't know about Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson's buried down at the Hermitage in Nashville.

Is that what it is? Colonel Sandhurst, the famous chicken man, he's buried there.

But there's more famous people there, but there's a lot of bourbon, what would you call them, tycoons, bourbon tycoons, they're buried there. And I thought that's pretty neat. So if you're on the bourbon trail and you're into that kind of thing, into that, and cemeteries or spookiness stuff. Hey, that's something else for you to do on the Bourbon Trail, I think, if you're going to do the urban bourbon tour. It's right downtown Louisville. I thought that's pretty neat.

That is neat. That is neat. Mike, I'm a big fan of this old faux barrel strength.

Maybe we can get us a bottle of each while we go there.

Yeah, I think I might want to. It's really good. Now these are single barrels, folks. So they're going to, they're going to vary from barrel to barrel. They're not all going to taste like this, this buttery hot cherry we've got here, but I think it, I'm trying to put a name to that.

And I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, man, they still let that honey smack him. So if you could have that hot, that's what it would be. Maybe if I put hot sauce and there's a Dallas Cowboys commercial with one of their wide receivers and they call him hot sauce and he has a bowl of cereal and he's putting hot sauce on his cereal. I wonder if he's eating them honey smack him with hot sauce.

Well, in full disclosure, everybody, we'll let you know that we did just crack these bottles. We haven't been sitting with them at all. So in order for us to give a fair review of it, I think we should spend a couple of days with it. What do you think, Mike? Oh, most definitely.

Most people know our reviews are a little bit different than everybody else's. We're not pretentious. We're not bourbon snobs. We're just two dudes that like to drink bourbon.

And we're two dudes that like different things. Yeah. So kind of get a view from both ends of the field, right?

I like the sweetness in it. I'm sure you like the spice in it. That's right.

I like the higher proof. I think you like the higher proof too.

I appreciate the higher proof for what it is. It's not for me every day. It's something I'll visit every once in a while. This is something I'm not going to sit down and drink two or three glasses of it. I can't do it. I'd be laid out on the floor.

It's good stuff though. I tell you what, Campbell Brown, Jackie Zichen, job well done. I think that those two teaming up have done some great things for Old Forester in the past couple of years.

Yeah, I think Jackie, from what I see from her, she... great marketing tool for that company. She's out there. She's engaging. And I think companies need to have somebody like her.

And she's got it. She's, she's in touch. She's in touch and she's got a great pilot.

And she drinks the bourbon. Yes, she does. I mean, that's, that's good. How's our, you know, how's our outreach doing, Jim? What do you think?

Us?

Yeah.

I mean, we're, I mean, I said it earlier in the show about all the Forester. I'll say it about us. We're hitting on all cylinders right now, Mike. Things are going good. You know, we just recently, I think I checked today, and we were number 28 on the Apple podcast chart. So that's, I feel pretty proud of that.

Man, I tell you what, thank you for bringing me onto this project, this podcast. I'm just amazed what two guys, just two old country boys out here in the country. You know, and we got a great podcast, but it's because our listeners, you know, they're tuning in, they're telling their friends about it and it's because of our listeners of what we're doing today. But it is a lot of hard work on me and Jim's effort to get an episode out there. And I don't think a lot of people realize what it does take to do an episode.

But we're having fun doing it. Yeah. I mean, I have a blast doing it. There's no doubt about it. We're getting to meet some great people, not just people who are well known and in the industry, but also great listeners. People that listen to us, that we meet when we go out. People on social media who reach out to us. We've got our Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies, and we've got 150 some odd friends in there.

And every one of them, I think, is very engaging. We got a lot of people posting every day now. I love it. It's hard for me to keep up with, but I do enjoy that of seeing their bars. If you got a bar, put it on there. Show us what you have. If you've bought a new bottle, hey, be proud of that bottle. No matter what it is, nobody's going to bash you in there. I'm telling you that right now. If they do, well, hey, they're out.

Yeah, yeah, we want to keep it civil in there. But, you know, some people listening might not know what the Bourbon Roadies is. So let me just give you a quick rundown. We have a Facebook page. Mike, you spend a lot of time working in that Facebook page and putting some nice posts out. But if you come to our Facebook page, the Bourbon Road, we're at the Bourbon Road. When you come there, if you select our group, we have a private group. called The Bourbon Roadies. And in The Bourbon Roadies, you can request to join. And once you request to join, you'll just have to answer a couple of questions. Pretty simple. We wanted to make sure you're 21 and you like bourbon and you're not making a mistake there by entering the wrong group. But once you come in, we'll welcome you like a long lost friend. chit chat and talk about bourbon and post pictures. And I think we've been mentioning over the past couple of shows here that we have a plan on doing some kind of live events, some chat rooms.

Yeah, we gave away some glasses this last week to five listeners that gave us great reviews on Apple podcasts. And hey, if you're out there, please give us a review. It helps us out. It makes us feel good. It boosts our egos. Not that I need my head to get any bigger, but it does help out. And we got some great people in the roadies. We got some distillers in there.

Yeah, absolutely.

We got some other podcasters in there. The Bourbon Lens, My Bourbon Podcast. Yeah. Who else is in there?

My bourbon journey. We got Jason from The Mashing Drum and some other people, some distilleries, some master distillers and other people in there. It's a great place. It's a good place to be. And we had somebody brought up something the other day about they had heard a rumor that Wilderness Trail was discontinuing their rye bourbon. And I just kind of tagged Uh, Pat heist in there and said, Pat, is this true? And he came back and said, fake news, fake news, because he's a member of the roadies. So it's a lot of fun. We have a good time. Well, Mike, let's, let's wrap up the first half here. Um, I'm going to tell you this, I'm going to rate them one, two, three, meaning I think I'm going to rate those, uh, in reverse order of tasting. My favorite is by far the barrel strength, then the hundred proof, and then the discontinued version. Well, I'm probably going to shock you with mine.

Yeah, let's hear it. I'd say my number one was that their new barrel proof. Oh, the barrel proof. Yeah. The store pick would be my number two. Okay. I liked that banana, that sweetness. And that, that hunter proof was just black. Kind of, I hate to say that, it was just there. I didn't find anything special in that one.

Well, that's the thing about single barrels. You know, when you get down in that proof range, you're taking a look at the flavor profiles of those two. You like the one that... Sweetness, that banana bread and stuff.

And that's just me. And we're going to differ sometimes, but we agreed on that barrel proof though. Absolutely. That is delicious. It's wonderful.

All right, Mike, we'll take a short break here. When we come back, we've got another pour. All right. We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Loghead's Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Loghead's Home Center, nestled in the hills of Kentucky, is an industry leader in building handcrafted rustic furniture. Family-owned and operated, they take pride in offering only the very best for their customers. The Logheads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled woodcrafters who are passionate about creating rustic furniture for people who appreciate the beauty of natural wood. Owners Tommy and Gwen don't just sell the rustic lifestyle, they live it. And you can be sure that Loghead's furniture will always be handcrafted in Kentucky by artisans who embrace the simple way of life. Loghead's rustic furniture is made from northern white cedar, a sustainable wood that's naturally rot and termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warrants to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com. And while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at LogHeadsHomeCenter. All right, Michael, we are back and we just put the old foo to rest.

What did you bring for us for me today, I guess? I'd say for us, but.

Well, you know me when I'm bringing it, it's going to be spicy.

Yeah.

So I brought you a rye. I brought Sagamore spirit, rye whiskey. Not a bourbon. Not a bourbon. And I actually got this bottle from a friend, Jason Calori. He runs the Mashing Drum Whiskey Room, but he gave me this bottle and it's a barrel select program whiskey. This one is barrel number 72 and it was actually picked by Mirage Fine Spirits and Whiskey Crusaders. and the Whiskey Crusaders pick 2019 barrel 72, floor six rack three. It's a six-year-old barrel proof rye. It seems like you've mentioned the Sagamore rye on a number of episodes we've had. It made an impression on you, I think.

I don't know if the nose on it does, and I'm nosing this, and it smells like Sagamore. And is that because it's malted?

You know, I don't know. This is 110 proof. 110 proof, straight rye whiskey. And let me see if I can figure something out from the back of the bottle here. Yeah, it's just a six year old rye barrel lit, uh, 110 proof.

You know, I think that in the old Maysville and, uh, some other rye whiskeys, they have that, I don't know what I keep calling it bitter percent. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I just think that kind of fruit, the fruity smell, it's a weird smell to me. I don't, I don't know.

Well, you know, Pennsylvania. in Maryland have a very long history of rye production. This is a Maryland rye. I've had the barrel strength version of this. I think we had it on an episode where we did the collaboration with the bourbon lens guys.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think it fared pretty good in that. It didn't win, but I think it did pretty good.

I think we're actually all shocked by it. By it was, uh, you know, the nose on it just is a little different.

Yeah, it does have that little bit of malty nose to it. I don't know if it has any malted rye in it or not. I can't answer that question, but we can reach out to them, find out.

I noticed our guest showed up, Jim.

I see Will Woodrow walked in here.

He walked in here and he's going to enjoy the fire with us. I spilled some bourbon on the floor earlier. I poured some sample bottles for Bob and Steve and he looked a little bit up and almost like he got a little pepper on his nose.

So is he a bourbon drinking dog? I guess he is.

He liked that bourbon. It didn't make him sick or anything. I kind of worried about that because we don't feed him any any different kinds of foods. He just eats dog food. Right. He don't get no table scraps or nothing like that.

You know, Jason always tells me, again, he's the one I got this bottle from. He always tells me he gets like blueberry on a Sagamore rye. I don't get the blueberry, but there's some kind of berry going on there.

It's definitely sweet. I think if you're, you were a, and I'm thinking that on some, a lot of rice now, if it's just a rye whiskey, it, it almost has that same flavor, you know, taste as a weeded bourbon.

Yeah, it's got a pretty good finish on it. I think it actually, this is medium to long. It's not drinking real hot for 110. It's drinking real sweet for 110. It's not drying at all. It leaves some pretty amazing legs on the glass. It's more of a sheet. It's leaving a sheet on the glass. It takes a while to form legs.

I could definitely set by the fire, just like we're doing right now and drink this. I mean, and I'm not a rye guy.

Yeah. Well, it drinks a little sweet for a rye. I think it does. And it's, uh, it's not too hot and not too spicy for a rye. It's definitely got that, uh, that berry kind of berry flavor, not much clove, but pepper. Yes. It does have a pepper to it.

The nose doesn't match the taste.

And you know, the nose has a little bit more of a dark fruit to it. And then the taste is a little bit more of a light berry kind of. Yeah.

I don't know. I'm still getting that bitterness on the nose or something like a yogurt smell. I don't know. It's almost off putting to me when I smell it. And I remember when we did it with the bourbon lands, we tasted that. That was the same comments. They said that the nose. You know, it just doesn't match up. And I think that's a good thing to me, is to tell everybody, hey, just because your nose doesn't agree with you, your taste buds might love it. Yeah, your taste buds might say, wow, this is some amazing juice.

Well, Mike, what do we got coming up? What else we got coming up? We talked about Jackie's IK.

We're going to start going on some more barrel picks. I'm going to go on my first barrel pick, and I'm excited about that, to go on a barrel pick. I've never been on one, and that's where I'm going to get to go into a Rick House and try some bourbonette.

Well, I'm happy for you. I'm glad you're getting to do it. I just went on one last week, back down to Barton again, did another foolproof pick. You know, the 1792 foolproof has gotten a lot of notoriety in the last year, got put on high on some lists.

Yeah.

So, but yeah, anyway, we did another one of those. Hopefully we're going to get to do another turkey pick this year. That would be good.

We're going to have Steve Coombs, um, coming on and now he's a great writer, uh, likes to pair food with bourbon. Maybe on our show we can get him to pair some, maybe some chocolates with some bourbon. Speaking of that, and this will go great with this whiskey that you just took a big swig of. I brought some chocolates. I got some chocolates here for you. I got a chocolate covered almond.

Oh, let's try it with the second one.

This is perfect. All right.

All right, folks, highly recommended chocolate and bourbon, right? That's the thing. You take a big chew of that chocolate and that almond. I'm making all kinds of noises on the microphone. Sorry, folks. Man, they are just made for each other.

If you haven't laid out some chocolates and eating it with bourbon and paired them together. Oh my gosh. Pretty good. And most people would drink after dinner. I'll say back in 1800s was cognac was the thing to drink. Cognac.

Yeah.

Was that the thing in brandy was the thing to drink with after a dessert whiskey, I think they called them. And port wine. So would this be today's Cognac? I don't know.

You know, it's not the same thing. But certainly, bourbon has... I mean, there are some things that bourbon goes extremely well with. I tell you, one of the things I had that I thought was really good was I had some Southern biscuits with some country ham and a little bit of apple butter on them. Eat that, drink it with some Knob Creek. Oh, it was really good. So there are some things out there that will surprise you.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that. Recently, me and Vivian went down to a new restaurant there in Louisville called Biscuits and Belly.

Yeah, I haven't been there.

Man, I tell you what, if you're in Louisville and you're on the urban bourbon trail, definitely stop by Biscuits and Belly on Main and they'll serve you right up some homemade biscuits. Their biscuits are about as big as my fist. That's a big biscuit.

stop by there and give them a try. All right, Mike, I'm going to, I want to throw a wrench in things here. Oh Jesus. So we just enjoyed the Sagamore, right? Yeah. I'm going to say let's raid your bar. Let's pick one. Well, I actually got two extra new bourbons over there. Yeah. So Jim, what'd you, what'd you rip out of my bar there? Well, I went for that new Baker's bottle. It's kind of, Kind of a nice looking bottle, you know, it caught my attention.

Yeah, I like the rebranding of it. You know, if you didn't know, they rebranded it. They went from a small batch to a single barrel. They got rid of the box, which I kind of like that. You know, the last couple, I hadn't seen that box.

The Baker's box.

Yeah. They had a box with it for a while. Some of the ones I'd seen.

Oh, you mean the new one, the new one. Yeah. Okay. Got it.

So this one, you know, going from a small batch to a single barrel, I could see that the price went up. A lot of people didn't like that, but I like it.

Yeah. Well, I mean, the difference, I think, would probably be that, you know, there's probably a little more labor involved in doing single barrels versus batch bourbon. Because we've been to Buffalo Trace and watched them when they're dumping like Dorsey Stagg or something like that. You know, they're just running the barrels down this assembly line, just dumping them all out and they're all going in one big vat. Sure. And then they're filling. Here, they've got to do it one barrel at a time.

And that's labor intensive. Sure it is. I like the bottle, I like the cork on it, how they, you know, the cork stopper in it. Little bit different of a bottle.

Yeah.

I don't know if that's another bottle out there like that.

I think another thing that happens with single barrels is you got to be a little bit more careful about not letting a bad barrel get through, right? Because if you got a barrel that's not quite up to snuff, it doesn't get masked by getting added to another hundred barrels.

It stands on its own. Now this, this barrel was 107 proof. Well, they're, they're, they're all 107 proof. We're going to proof it down.

They're all proofing them down to 107. And you know, this, this particular barrel is eight years and six months. So the seven on there is everything's going to be older than seven years old. Right. That's the minimum age for a Baker's.

This one has the nose on it is like honey nut Cheerios. You're always going to cereal, man. I'm a cereal guy.

He reminded me of that. Remember that show Beverly Hillbillies? Jethro? Jethro?

Don't tell people that. Big Chief ain't Jethro.

I'd have to whoop him. Jethro would pour a whole box of cereal in a bowl with a gallon of milk. I do drink a lot of milk. Well, Mike, I love the nose on that. It, you know, it's typical beam nose kinda. I get that like oats on it a little bit.

I'm not a big fan of oats and bourbon, but you know, I tried to steer you towards what for reserve oat.

You're like, Oh, I've had the oat grain. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going back to it. Sorry. I mean, I'm sure there were some people out there that liked the oat grain. It wasn't for me. This has got a little bit of a savory note to it on the nose. I think this would go good with a big piece of barbecue meat. A little bit of just a hint of dried fruit in there. A lot of oak though, right? This one does have, yeah, it's got a lot of oak, but you know, it's an eight and a half year old barrel.

Now what's the standard beam? How old is the standard beam? You know, just the gym beam. Yeah. I mean, probably three or four years old. Probably four years. You know, I wouldn't say it's less. It's double the age of that. Right. Spending that barrel for a while. How many bottles do you think to get out of each barrel?

At eight years?

Yeah.

140? Oh, at 107 proof. Man, my brain's not that good. I can't do that. I can't do that math. Yeah. I tell you right now, I think that this would pair so well with barbecue. country ham, bacon. It's kind of got that savory note to it. You know, the old Baker Beam, he was that wild child.

He rode a Harley leather jacket.

They said he was a quiet man. Yeah.

I love that history. And I'm, you know, we talked about that earlier, but I'm glad that they have an expression from, Knobcrete to Baker's, you know, they, they got the family in there for sure.

Well, I tell you, I think that, you know, Baker's has always been kind of, uh, passed over on the shelf in my opinion. It kind of got lost up there. You know, always sat next to Booker's up on the shelf, but I didn't often reach for it.

Did you? No, I passed it up myself. And I think I wrote that on one of our latest posts on social media that I'd walked past it plenty of times. I think because it was more in a wine bottle shape of a bottle. And it just didn't interest me. And then this came out. And there's two different expressions of this, correct? There's this right here, which is a seven-year-old. And then they had a 13-year-old. 13, right. And I think it all just flew off the shelf. Yeah.

Well, I think there's a little bit of hate out there. There's always going to be a little bit of hate when somebody changes something and raises the price, right?

I mean, look at Heaven Hill. They didn't release Heaven Hill bottom bond in Kentucky, right? And Kentuckians feel slighted by that.

But you know, it is a beautiful bottle. I think time will tell if it's going to be a successful expression. But for me, it's all about what's in the bottle. And this is good juice. This is good. I think it's a well-aged bourbon. It's got a good color to it. It's packed full of flavor. I don't think it's overly hot, but it does have a good finish on it. It definitely has a good amount of oak. The barrel did a job on this liquid. There's no doubt about it.

But it's also a single barrel. You might pick a bottle of this up and somebody else might get a bottle and it's going to be totally different because it's a single barrel. But the nice thing about this is it was released nationwide. So any of our listeners out there, you know, hopefully you could find a bottle of it and pick it up.

And that cork now, you don't want to throw that at anybody and knock them out. He's about a pound and a half.

We opened up the bottle a decade today and I hadn't had that open. We'd drink it before. Yeah. But I hadn't opened it yet. And my buddy's like, Oh, I'd like to try that. Can we open it? I said, let's open it. And the weight of that stopper, the cork is, that thing's got to weigh a half pound. I mean, this one's actually a, it looks like a tool piece of aluminum, I guess. Um, and that bottle is not cheap. They, I don't, that's not a bottle. I haven't seen that bottle. Yeah.

They, they had that one made special, no doubt.

Yeah. And that, that costs money. And I think people will need to realize that a little bit, but branding, there's a lot that goes into that. And I guess out there, we're not. trying to protect the companies or nothing. We're just saying, Hey, look at it for what it is. It does cost money to make money and they put the effort into it. And I say cheers to them.

Yeah. Well, Mike, we walked through a few expressions tonight. We got to try the, we went back in time and tried an older barrel pick from the silver dollar of an old Forester single barrel. Yeah, pretty good. I thought it was good. Then we got some samples in from old Forester and we got to try their hunter proof version as well as their barrel strength version. Cheers to old Forester for listening to the folks out there and trying to do what's right and what's in demand. I think that their new barrel program is going to be vastly successful.

I think their old barrel program was successful. I think it's going to be even more now.

Then we got to try some Sagamore.

We got to try a barrel pick of Sagamore Spirits Rye.

That's a good rye. I mean, if you're a rye fan out there and you're looking for something new that you haven't tried before, I would say reach for the Sagamore. It's a little pricey, but it's a good pour. And if you can find a barrel pick of it, go for it. Barrel picks are always good. They're outliers. They kind of, they jut out a little bit from the standard profile. And I like that a lot.

And then you picked this Baker's out. Baker's.

And I would say on the Baker's here that this is a sipping whiskey. Oh, most definitely. And the bottle's fine enough, has a nice enough look to it, and the juice inside's good enough. You can share this with a friend.

I was no doubt about that.

Give it as a gift or open it up when somebody special comes over and is hanging out with you for the weekend. I think that the bakers would be a fine choice. And I mentioned this when we were tasting it. I think if you're having barbecue or, um, you know, country ham or some, some, some good Southern style meat dinner, this, this, this will pair real good with it. I think it will. I'm still getting that honey note Cheerios on it.

If I had to list this and put it with those old Foresters and that Sagamore, this would come in second place, right behind that.

Barrel strength old fool.

Barrel strength old fool. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Let's talk about that tonight. So what, what takes the win tonight?

Wow. That barrel, that barrel strength old Forrester is, is something special. I think Jackie and them hit it on the head when they produced that and they decided, Hey, we're going to put this out. I think they're making the right decisions down there. A beautiful expression of, of whiskey for people to enjoy. And I really do think there'll be successful in it. Absolutely.

So number one, old Forester Barrel Strength Single Barrel.

Oh, no doubt.

Number two, the new Baker 7 Single Barrel.

I'm going with that. Yeah.

And number three is Sagamore Rye.

Oh, you say that, I'd say that single barrel pick, because of that banana notes and stuff. There we go. I don't know, that Sagamore, just that nose, the nose of it, just, I don't know, it hurts me a little bit, but then I tasted them. This is good whiskey.

Oh, we're different guys. Yeah, we like it different.

That, and then the Sagamore would be before that a hundred proof for me.

All right. Well, fair enough, Mike. I think, uh, I think I had a good time here tonight. I appreciate you inviting me over to sit in front of your fire. Woodrow's out. He is. He's done.

He's laying on my boots. He's what he's doing. I think my feet are sweating. He's a, he's definitely a warm guy.

Well, we'll close her down here. I'll give you a chance to let everybody know how to find us and reach out to us.

So you can find us at the Bourbon Road on Instagram and on Facebook. And you can go to our website and read our blogs, find our episodes on there. We haven't put our gear on there yet, our glasses or anything.

Yeah, I did want to say something about that. I just got an email from somebody that was on our website. And they tried to go to our store to make a purchase. And it didn't work. And I feel real bad about that. That's on me. I need to get that store up and running.

It's coming.

It's coming.

Remember, it's just me and Jim that's doing this. We don't have a big staff or anything. We're not other podcasts that there's 10 or 15 podcasts. It's just me and Jim. And we work. And we both have full-time jobs. That's right. And we both have farms that we have to take care of too. Please work with us. We're trying our best to get our stuff out there and we want to, we want to help our listeners out and we want you to have our gear out there. If you do have one of our glasses. and we've given some of them out. Please take a photo of your favorite bourbon in that glass. Put it up on the roadies, send it to us and we'll share it. I'll definitely put it up on our Instagram. I'll put it up on our Facebook. Help me.

Help me help you. There's two hashtags we encourage you to use. One is pound the bourbon road and the other one is pound your bourbon your way. You're your hash. It's called hashtags.

Hashtag you're bourbon your way. Yeah. And you're bourbon your way. So those two hashtags, I use them every time. If you put a post up there, hashtag your bourbon road. I want to see your bourbon road and I want to see your bourbon your way.

And who knows? You might even end up with another glass.

Yeah, I think our social media is doing great. I'm sitting here watching our phone and my phone just is always rolling with social media. So I love it. I love the interaction we're getting. Find us out there. You can send a Either one of us, a email at jim at the bourbonroad.com or mike at the bourbonroad.com and we'll get back with you. If you're a bourbon company out there and you want to work with us, we'll look forward to working with you. If you want to sponsor us, reach out to us. Let us know.

Absolutely. And if you're looking for a place to hang out with like-minded folks and chit chat a little bit about bourbon and what's on the shelf and what to buy and what not to buy, Join our Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies, and you can find us. Just search The Bourbon Roadies and you'll find us and request access. We'll grant it. We'd love to have you.

Yeah, I don't think there's one person that I haven't granted access to. You know, sometimes they don't answer my questions. I'm like, I'll just come on in. join a group. Some of those people I'd grant access to, as soon as I grant them access, they come in and they start interacting with us. And I think that's fascinating. We got some great fans out there. And I think we're building something great here.

Yep. Number 28 on iTunes or iPod, Apple podcast. We're heading for number one.

What do you think? I think that's, can we get to number one fans? Can we listeners, can we get us to number one? Tell your friends, tell your family, tell everybody about us. Like us on Facebook, get your friends like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, follow us on Twitter, follow us everywhere. Give us a review. Give us a review.

Honest review. Good or bad guys. We'll take it both ways. I like it. I like the great reviews. If you want to leave us a bad one. Well, we are a hundred percent five star reviews now. So yeah, I will not like that first four star, but I'll take it anyway. Just happy to hear back. Well, Jim, Mike, I say to our listeners out there, we'll see you on down the bourbon road.

See you down the road.

We do appreciate all of our listeners and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions. And if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.