510. Finished Four Ways: Aspen, Apple Brandy, Scotch & Gariana Oak

It's been a week of Mondays but the weekend's here Dust on my boots and a smile with my beard Neons humming low where the nose our name Same old bar stools but it never feels the same We raise a glass to the miles we've made To the stories told and the dues we've paid Amber light in a crystal glow A little burning 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 Ain't no mail, just the ties we've sewn On the long winding bird

All right. Welcome back. Brody's longtime listeners and fans of the burden road podcast. We're so glad to have you back again. Todd and I are hanging out in the corner Rick house, the newly designed and totally awesome Frankfurt bourbon society is corner Rick house.

Yeah.

Freshly painted. We've been working our butt on this. It's really nice. And you've got, you showed me when I came in here, cause this is the first time I've seen it. You've got the old crow corner.

Yeah, that was that was my one stipulation for this place. I was like, we're going to redo this. I want a little nook for Okro. It's where my grandfather worked and. It's more cozy now. The dark color. Yeah, it's more like speakeasy-ish a little bit. I think our next plan is maybe we've got the light covers. We're either going to get some new bulbs for those to kind of dim it down a hair. It's still pretty bright in here or we've got the covers over and we may get to see if we can find some darker covers.

We're getting there. We've moved across the room. We're on the other side of the room now in front of the bar. But I would imagine this might have to move when the bar is open.

Yeah, there's still some figuring out. I mean, today was let's get this together because we're having an event tomorrow night. It's our third Monday meetup. So you can kind of figure that when we recorded this. And it's also AMSY's 50th birthday is coming up. So yeah. Awesome. Big 5-0. Yeah. We're going to have some, I'm bringing out the big guns tomorrow. We're going to have some good pours. Sounds good.

Well, it's always a great time here at the Frankfurt Bourbon Society. Your meetings are tremendous. You have them on a regular cadence and man, it's good to be a member.

Yeah. We just had a Kentucky Senator here was here soon. We've got a abstraction spirits coming soon, which they're out of Paducah, I believe. So it's always fun. And we kind of slow it down a little in the summer, because as you well know, today is a blazing.

Yeah, the heat index was 105, and I was on a tractor for six hours today in the heat. It was tough.

And I'm assuming you don't have one of those AC covered tractors.

I wish. If I could go back and remake that purchase decision. You're like, I don't need that. I might do that. But anyway, it's done. It's behind me. Checked off the list, so we're good. But I was out last week. You had Chip Tate on. How'd that go? Great. Man, that guy knows his stuff.

fermentation and he's doing some really unique stuff. I think folks are going to be really wowed. I mean, some of it was like a cocktail in a glass a little bit and I'm sending those home with you today so you can try them.

I think you're looking forward to it. You want to hear his name, I think. Man, how awesome is the name Chip Tate? You know, that's just like Bart Starr or whatever, just a really great superhero name, right?

Yeah. And we were focused on his Ampersand brand that he's doing with Foley Wine LLC. And I did mention that we really enjoyed his burnt tavern too.

It was good. He does some good stuff. All right. So today, Todd, you have laid out four different whiskeys. There's a plan.

You've got a plan. Yeah. It's another, we are never finished with finished bourbons kind of, I mean, well, and some rise and yeah. So it's a little bit of a mix up, mash up. Yeah. Our proof range today is going to be 95 to, I think, what'd I say? 112.8. We've got a couple of releases that as we're recording this, are not on the shelf. So that's kind of fun and exciting. So by the time this releases, they'll be out there.

There may be a giveaway associated with that, may or may not. Yeah, for our folks that sign up for the bourbonroad.com website, there's some cool stuff coming down the line.

Awesome. Well, what's first on the tasting map today? So the first thing we have is one of our first times we've ever had this on the On the show, as far as I know, I didn't do a dig back, but this is Locke & Co. Big Blaze Bourbon. That is a Denver-based distillery that just earned unanimous Double Goat honors in the 2026 Denver International Spirits Competition for the second release of its limited edition Big Blaze Bourbon, a whiskey uniquely finished with Aspen wood sourced from trees burned in Colorado's historic East Troublesome Fire.

in their spiel there, they said uniquely finished in aspen states, but we do know they're not the first. Right, they're not the first. But it is still, with only having one other deciliter we know of doing that, that still leaves it quite unique, or maybe there might be an extra couple of them now. It's funny they're both in Colorado too, but that is where the aspens are, I guess. Yeah, the aspens grow at, what, greater than 10,000 feet, right?

Yeah. So a little more beyond the awards for this, the story behind the bottle is what stands out. 10% of all sales support the firefighters and first responders in Grand County, and I'm assuming that's in that general area of Denver, who battled the state's second largest wildfire, which destroyed more than 400 homes, scorched over 193,000 acres in 2020. The up, the 95 proof bourbon is aged more than five years in new American oak barrels before being finished with charred Aspen disc sourced directly from the wildfire area, creating a spirit literally born from the ashes of a blaze. So it's available throughout Colorado and online to 48 states and retails for about $56.99.

Oh, cool. So when they say aspen disks, now aspen trees can be little saplings even, right? So maybe they've got these sapling that were burned out and killed and they're cutting them into disks, you know?

Yeah, it sounds like.

Just they need to be smaller enough to fit in the bunghole, right? Yeah, I guess so. Huh. I didn't think of it that way.

Cause it's different than 291 does the, like he puts them on a grill, right?

Yeah. Yeah. They're, they're a little more long kind of, they're actually look more like staves. Right.

So I always pictured them as like a, you know, like a Dracula, like the stakes, the vampire and Van Helsing kind of thing. Let's check it out. Right.

Well on the nose, I'm getting like a nice sweetness, almost like a maple sweetness. Yeah.

I was going to say like a maple, like a little smokiness though, like smoked maple caramel. Yup.

Smoked maple. I like that.

Yeah. Sounds like a nice coffee.

And it's got sort of a freshness to it also, like a brightness. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's like Colorado thing. You just start thinking cooler thoughts. It's such a hot day. So we're both like, Ooh, to be in Colorado, standing on a mountain path.

Nice nose, simple, smoky, a little bit of mint to it. Kind of a, a sweet smoky maple. Yeah, you got it. I think you got it right. Sweet smoky maple caramel. Yep.

Cheers.

Cheers. There's a little brightness coming out. So it's nice. And I get that sort of that 291-esque kind of taste that you get from that aspirin.

I would say not as much though. It's a little lighter. It's a lighter kiss.

And the smokiness kind of falls off a little bit on the palette. It does, it does. The caramel still, it's really rich. The maple. You said this was five years old. That brightness I'm picking up makes it feel a little younger. So maybe the aging was less intense. Maybe done at a higher altitude. Maybe the cooler temperature. Proofing it down could do that too. Cause I mean- That's true. That is true. It's nice though. Yeah. Some of those notes, some of those, youthful, bright notes that you get from whiskeys in the two to four range. I hate to see them go. I like them. And they just disappear. Being able to hold onto those and still have the five-year-old more mature notes is a trick in itself. Yeah.

It's like a little bit of like that brightness is almost like a citrus brightness, like a splash of orange, maybe.

Yeah, I think this is not a super complex whiskey. This is a simple whiskey. It, um, it executes exactly what it states it is, which is a, uh, sort of a smoky Aspen finish on a five year old Colorado bourbon. I mean, it's just, and the charity thing. I like that. That's kind of cool too.

A little white pepper now coming on the finish. Okay. Just a little. It's not super spicy at 95 proof. I would love to know what they tone this down from. Like, you know, cause you've been out to 291 and some of those get...

They're, they're, yeah, they'll... A little hot. They'll put you on your behind real quick. So what was the price on this bottle? 56.99. Okay.

So five year bourbon, that's a little over 10.

I'd say a fair price for a bourbon that has this extra finishing aspect to it. I think it's interesting. I don't know if we've got the whole disc idea down, right? Maybe we can follow up on this and find out a little deeper, a little deeper on that. But that's, that's what I'm thinking anyway.

Like I said, the only other time I've had lock and co was I had won a single barrel in some sort of drawing or something and It was a little more similar to 291, like the big Aspen Stave flavor. Like this seems a little more subdued and it might be that lower proof.

Is there anybody else doing it? Is it just these two?

I mean, I don't know. There probably is. I feel like it's a, for right now, I've only seen this like Colorado thing, you know? Yeah.

Yeah, and surprisingly, you know, I think aspens sort of coexist with other trees starting around, I'm guessing, I don't know the science behind it, but starting around 9,000 feet, you sort of see them start to appear. And then you see the other trees drop off and then it's only aspens above that. And then they go away completely and you have nothing. But I'm wondering in that range where there's just not much oxygen, right? Right. Wondering how the fires proceeded up to that height. So these might be aspen trees that are down in the mixed group, right? Right. I would say so. Yeah. I mean, the fact that there were, I think I said 400 homes burnt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Always a danger out there, sadly.

Yeah. I know my son lives in Colorado Springs and that's around 6,500 to 6,900 feet. Yeah. Well below the Aspens, but there are people up on the, up in the mountains, up on the sides to get up there. Yeah. It's beautiful country. It is gorgeous. All right. All right. Good deal. I'm impressed. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a, and the price is fair. That one's opened up a little bit. All right.

Let's see old pallet. So you wanna let the folks know where you got to go and have some fun recently?

Oh yeah, so we did a family trip to Savannah. Great place for those listeners who live in Savannah, lucky you. Beautiful town, lots to do, great food scene, great beer scene. Yeah. whiskey scene, not so much. I mean, they do have a distillery there, but it's more of a, the Savannah distillery is more of like a, I think it's owned by the tour bus company. They sort of drop you there and you get a discount off your tasting ticket and mostly moonshine kind of stuff. But I remember seeing a lot of, was it burnt church?

Yeah. A lot of their stuff around that area. I didn't get to do a big

Burnt Church is within an hour of there, and there's some other distilleries nearby, but in Savannah proper, not really much.

Just that one Savannah distillery.

But it is a distillery, and I don't know if they're making their own stuff. I didn't see any real stills around. I think it's more of a tourist kind of thing. Very cool.

But yeah, we went there and enjoyed a tasting and enjoyed the stories that came along with it. And it was fun. Hey, you could check it off on your Drew Hanish book.

That's right. I actually, I asked Drew when we had the thing a few weeks back about Savannah. He said there are no distilleries there. So I don't know that he only does distilleries that produce their own product, right? For the most part. Did he do any NDPs?

Probably not. I think they had to distill something. I think you're correct. So they probably are sourcing. What was the name of it?

The Savannah distillery.

Old Savannah distillery.

Anyway, great place. Great beaches out on Tybee Island. Just the food is out of this world and the marketplace downtown is great. I mean, it's good. It's a great destination. Did you see one of the giant tankers go through or anything? Yeah, we saw the tankers. They're huge when they come by.

You just don't realize it until you're... How big they really are. I stayed there one time and was on the eighth floor and it was... Well above you. Well above me. I was like looking up at the top of it, going past. I'm like, holy cow, it's just huge.

Fun place to visit. I highly recommend anybody who hasn't been to Savannah to at least make a three-day weekend out of it. Have a good time there.

Yeah. All right. Let's move on to poor two. Yeah. So funny enough, we're kind of going reverse here. We're having we're going to have chicken cock. Oh, glory. The reason I say we're kind of going reverse here is after this show, we're going to have chicken cock as one of our places that I chatted with while you were gone, because I had to come up back to back, and I was able to do it. But this was one I wanted to get for the show, and I never could find it. And then, of course, after I recorded, I found it. But it just sounded so interesting. So this is O'Glory. This is their limited edition, hunter-proof American whiskey blend. It's created in collaboration with Lairden Company. Lairden Company does Apple brandies. I think they have one of the oldest, I guess, whiskey or brandy. Brandy producers in the US. Yeah, they are like DSP2 in that category or something like that. Been around for, I think, 200 plus years or something like that. Yep. So this was a 250th anniversary release. This expression combines 70% of chicken cox, Kentucky straight rye, excuse me, which is 95% rye, 5% malted barley, which is distilled at Bardstown for them. And then it is blended with 30% large bottle and bond apple brandy made with sweet apples. The company stated that it was four years old, 12,000 bottles were released, and MSRP on this is $65.

So this is a No Way of Bourbon. No Way of Bourbon. This is one of those whiskey others that we talk about.

This is actually a nice segue, because if folks listen to the Chip Tate, we literally had a rye and calvados brandy blended on there too. Yeah.

But these are gaining popularity.

You know, I think we're seeing some really off-the-wall stuff. Yeah. I mean, that pineapple. gloves are off. Gloves are off.

I think, you know, if something, you know, let's do something unique and they're just trying to draw interest, which and expand, yeah, expand, uh, move a few barrels out of the inventory. Yeah. But you open up your products to more people who would normally not sit down and drink a straight bourbon for sure. So yeah, they're, they're expanding their markets. No doubt. Yep. This has a great nose by the way.

I know this is like, uh, a walk in spring through like an orchard. Yeah. Really, really good.

Sweet red apples.

If you dig really deep, you start getting that rye mintiness, which is nice.

Yeah. I'm picking that up. Yep. This is fresh. This is, um, it's almost like I'm expecting my thirst to be quenched by it because I'm a little thirsty right now. Although I'm hours on the tractor today. Cheers. Cheers. Wow. Oh man. Buttery. That is. Smooth. We don't like that word, but smooth. Very smooth. Man, it just glides across the palate.

Yep. The apple's there. The rice spice is there. It's an overpowering rice spice.

You get this burst of sweetness up front, this cool wash across your palate, but you don't really get any bite in the middle. Just this buttery wash goes to the back and then ignites a little bit. Yep. Second zip.

Okay. I like this. I do too. Yeah. This is really good. I must feel like you could throw an ice cube on this and sip all day. That second sip really brought out the rye a little more. It's getting a little peppery-er.

Yeah, it's starting to get peppery and it's moving forward. So that spiciness is moving from the back. I'm salivating. Yep. Wow. This is really good. That is cool. What was the proof on it? 100. OK, so this can take a cube. It probably should.

Probably make some fun cocktails with this if you didn't do too much to it.

I mean, you could do it old fashioned with this. That would be really good. All right, Dave.

Dave Sandlin of House of Commons. I mean, I had to let you play around with this one.

So we know that this is not a true whiskey. This whiskey has been altered by adding in other things like brandy. But the label was truthful and told the whole story, right?

Yeah. And I think it's a great idea for this because you know, talking to, and I'll, little spoilers here, I went to, Copper and Kings and you weren't didn't have the time. You got really short notice and we did a brandy pick for bourbon on the banks. And wow, that was fun. We actually funny thing is we tried three bourbons that were finished in brandy barrels and they were all really good, really good. But we're like, no, you're we want a brandy. Let's try something a little different. So keep your heads open, folks. Go try this because it is a brandy finished in Weller barrels. Wow. really good. It's really unique and I think folks are going to dig it. Brandy is probably the first spirit made in the United States because, well, fruit was here before we figured out what corn could do.

One of the things we really haven't talked about is barrel prices. Barrel prices have plummeted, particularly finishing barrel prices. So you can pick up some pretty decent barrels now at a great price. You used to have to pay a lot for them. So we should see a lot more of this, I think. Well, that's really good. I think the first half of the show, Great start. Looking forward to the second half.

Yeah, definitely. So stick around and 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 whiskeys. They're all on there. Todd and I's tasting notes, our rating for the whiskey. We even cue up the episode on the tasting notes to where we tasted it on the show. So as you're reading our tasting notes, you can play it and listen to us talk about it. So I think we're the only podcast that does that. That's pretty cool. So another thing we have on there is our blog articles. We've got over 250 blog articles on there. We're putting new ones out all the time. And the all new Roadie Bar is now on the Bourbon Road website. So if you're a Roadie, come on, sign up, get in there. We have a chat room. We've got a place where you can post what's going on in your Bourbon world. We have a calendar of all the events that are coming up. We'll be posting in there our drawings, so as we're giving things away, you'll be able to come in there and sign up for the randomizer to get picked. You'll also be able to sign up on lists to come to something that we're sponsoring. Todd's got a great event that we're putting on in the fall, and everybody can come in and sign up for that. And we've also got coupons from our vendors for percentages off on stuff. 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. In the first half, we dove into Lock & Co. Big Blaze bourbon out of Denver. Really unique Aspen disc this time, rather. Yep. Finish, 10% of those proceeds go into the firefighters that helped respond to a very large blaze there, which, you know, it's one of those. things that kind of happens and you hate. Good palette, create interesting flavor, uh, competitively priced. And then we followed up with the very unique chicken cock, Oh Glory, which is 70% 95, five rye and 30% of Laird's apple brandy bottled and bond. And wow.

Yeah, really surprised me. Yeah, that's fun. It was really good. And, uh, I can see a lot of, events where that would fit in really well. A lot of times when I could make a good excuse for drinking that over a cube.

And if you recall, this is some foreshadowing folks. When we tried Lost Lantern, it was like a New York distilling rye and it was finished in apple brandy. There were a couple of them. It just seems to work. Like rye and brandy works well.

They do go good together.

I don't know. Probably more so than bourbon and brandy. But we're going to move on. We are at pour three and This one I'm pretty stoked about. This is Bardstown's Lox of Jura barrel finish. So Bardstown bourbon Lox of Jura barrel finish is a bespoke blend of straight bourbon and rye whiskey aged for an additional 32 months in single malt Scotch whiskey barrels sourced from the remote Isle of Jura. So finished in a combination of 84% ex bourbon and 16% ex sherry barrels previously filled with Scotch. It is a blend of 49% 11-year Indiana bourbon, 75 corn, 21 rye, 4% malted barley, a 30% 10-year Indiana rye, back to that 95.5, that rye being 95 and the malted barley being five, and 21% 12-year Kentucky bourbon, 75% corn, 13% rye, 12% malted barley. Proof is 104 and MSRP is 140. All right.

Let's check it out. You got all that? You put all that data in there? I'm overwhelmed by it. I was going to say, you've had a long day already, so. I did. If you need me to repeat anything, Jim.

Oh.

Great nose. What's really taking front row seats on this, though? I think a rye is standing out a little bit.

Is that? I'm getting that scotchy, like.

No, I'm, yeah, I'm getting the overwhelming kind of, a character in the room is, is the Scotch. But I mean, what, what liquid is standing up front? And I think the liquid that's standing up front is the rye. Okay. Out of the boo rye. It's kind of a boo rye, right?

I'm sure some of you skip ahead and you're thinking, Oh my God, peated Scotch. This is not a, not a PD one folks. It's more fruit forward. It's like the ride. There's like a, I think I said I got like a little like honeydew melon kind of. Yeah, I get the melon.

I think you're right about that, but it's a musk melon. There's like a little muskiness to it too. It's, it's a thoughtfully done. It's not thoughtfully introduced. It's not overpowering. It's, it's like the, It's a little bit louder than a silent person in the room, but it's not taking over the front, the people up front. It's kind of- I like that. Yeah. Well said. But the ride is definitely on the nose anyway.

And I'm thinking they definitely had to prove this down to 104. They probably didn't want to go too big with this.

So Sherry Casks and- So yeah, the Scotch was in, I guess it makes it sound like there were

Of the Scotch casks used, 84% were ex bourbon and 16% were ex sherry barrel Scotch casks. There's a lot of math in there.

I think these were very wet. A lot of percentages. I think these were very wet barrels.

I don't know.

You got to figure those get pretty dry when they get shipped to Scotland, right? True. Although maybe they fill them with water just to keep them damp. I don't, I don't know how that works. That'd be an interesting question for somebody who knows more than we do. All right. I'm ready to sip. All right. Cheers. Cheers. Oh yeah.

Oh, they're, they're on equal. The bourbon and the rye are on equal footing.

That's like all three are captured well to me. Like I get a little bit of sweetness. I get a little rye spice and I get those like orchard fruits. I'm getting a nuttiness too. Are you? Yeah. That might, that might be the Bardstown bourbon. Cause I started getting like, it's getting kind of their jam.

This is really good. It is so well blended. The lines are blurred between the three. That's well said.

Taking a second sip.

Yeah, it's becoming more scotchy.

See, I picked up, but there's still that rye spice of the tail end. I feel like this is one that like, depending on what you've had to eat that day.

It could be like a Jekyll and Hyde.

One day you could get a little more bourbon notes. One day you get a little more rye. I don't know.

Oh, what do they call that animal that has three? Um, a trimera, right? Is that a chimera? No, chimeras too. What's a, what would be three? And you can always say Jekyll and Hyde.

I thought it was a chimera because it had a tail of a snake and then two heads. One was a goat and the other was a lion. Maybe it was a chimera. Or Cerberus, the dog that protected Hades. We're getting really nerdy here. We are getting nerdy. Heads up folks.

Okay. For me, this is going as the longer it's got a great long finish, by the way. But the longer it sits on my palate without another sip, the more Scotchy it goes. Nice and warming just, but yeah, it's dripping.

Oh yeah. I mean, this is like, I don't think they could have nailed the proof point better. I think they hit the spot at this 104.

Yeah, this is going to get high marks from, I would assume, from everybody who tries it.

Except people that don't like scotch or think it's going to be peaty.

There's no smokiness, right? Zero. If there's any, it's so small that it's not an issue. Agreed. I'm not picking it up, but. I know mine today. But we don't know which Scotch barrels, right?

Well, do you know, I mean, Jura's a brand, right? Or Jura's the, I guess it's the Isle of Jura. I mean, yeah, didn't say. No, so we don't know.

Yep. Well, there's some Scotch drinkers who would probably be able to narrow it down better than we can. Know a lot more than we do. That's right. We love Scotch. We just don't know a great deal about it. Fantastic. Another home run for these guys. Very well done. Yeah, I like that a lot. They don't hit it out of the park every time, but they usually hit it out of the park.

Yeah. Hit a good double or triple. Yeah. All right, I'm gonna cleanse a pellet. Yep. Ready to move on? I'm ready. OK, we're going to stay in the Bardstown family, because they were kind enough to send us one of each. One of each.

They were boxed together, sort of like a paired marketing.

Yeah, there was some literature on there talking about going two different ways with blends.

So this is two experiments. released together more or less, but in separate expressions. Yes, for sure.

I'm sure they started some time ago because we had a smaller version. It was the Cascadia, which had the Gariana. This is the Bardstown bourbon discovery from 2026. This is a blend of three bourbons aged 7, 10, and 11 years, which were then rested for four months in Gariana oak barrels. Each barrel was custom made and hand toasted for three hours by Oregon Barrel Works to unlock additional layers of spice and complexity. Summer aging was chosen for maximum extraction and the whiskey was then gradually proofed before bottling. So the blend of the bourbons is a 55% 10-year Indiana bourbon, 75 corn, 21 rye, 4% malted barley, a 25% of 11-year Kentucky bourbon, 74 corn, 18 rye, 8% malted barley, 20% of a seven-year Kentucky bourbon, 74 corn, 16 rye, 10% malted barley. The proof clock's in at 112.8, and MSRP is same as the Jura at 140. Okay, great.

Well, you don't have to go back far in our episodes, episode 491, where we had the Garriana... Cascadia. Cascadia on, and the whole story behind. We're not going to repeat it for this episode, but it's definitely interesting to go back and hear the story of the Garriana oak and what makes it so unique. Oh, this is, uh, I want to hear you first. Wait a second. I'm getting a syrup of some sort here. Um, Oh, maybe a molasses, not a syrup. Ooh, you get molasses in there? Sugary.

Okay. I was going to say, first nosing, I got like a nice butterscotch.

I don't know. I don't know. I'm being torn away from my first impression here. So I wanted you to go first, but I couldn't wait. Yeah, sorry. I was filling the void. I kind of messed it up. I went from one nostril to the other and kind of lost what I was getting. But I can, I can see your butterscotch. I can see the burnt sugars. I was thinking, you know, molasses, maybe not quite not like the dark, not black strap molasses, you know, but, uh, just, just a mild molasses nose on it. It doesn't have any kind of like maple-y notes to it or anything, but, but just like a sure sugary syrup.

If I recall correctly, the other Garriana, we were getting like these fresh bright things or something, if I'm not mistaken. I'm ready to sip. Cheers. Cheers.

Okay. This one's more Pop Roxy. No more bite on the mid palate. What? Ooh. something a little like cola-esque. Yeah, I think, I think it does. I think it's definitely the leans. This leans sweet and thick. Yes. And a little burnt.

That sounds like what people say about me. Sweet, thick, and a little burnt. You get back from the beach. That's right.

Yeah, it's very interesting. I think a cola note might be right for that. But I'm gonna go back to this sort of well-cooked molasses, not overly cooked, not scorched sugar, maybe butterscotch. You kind of nailed it with that, I think, a little bit, because that gives you the temperature of the sugar, right? They took it that far. But it does have that buttery note to it.

There's some like cherry citrus kind of thing. I'm gonna finish that a little bit with that spice, like almost like a cooked cherries.

The finish is nice on it. It doesn't stick around as long as the Jura does, but it's very pleasant. It's a good palette. Do we know the prices of these two bottles? Both the bars sound $140. $140, okay.

There's a very unique note to the Garriana though. And I think it's, like I said, I haven't quite figured it out.

I didn't have to go back and look and see what we said about that, but my goodness. I feel like it was a little brighter to us then, but. Yeah, I'm going back to the review for episode 491 for the Garriana Oak. And it did have a mountain air character with a cedar-like and sandalwood aromatic. Sandalwood. There's a little bit of, yeah, I can see that. The palette was concentrated, mature oak flavors, baked cherry pie. but it had a buttery warm texture with aromatic spice. But it had some more cigar style flavors. It was a little more cigar-y.

Maybe that, you know, Cascadia is what? I guess that's Washington state, right? So two different, maybe carry on this? This was Oregon?

Yeah. And you know, the, the whiskeys and how they're treated are totally different between that review and this. I think we said the finish was like a, uh, a well-cooked ham with the cloves in it.

Remember that?

Sort of savory. But yeah, this is delicious.

This is really good. It definitely makes me want to try them side by side now though. I was going to say, I think you have that, right? Yeah.

Yeah. We're doing that. Okay. Good deal. Excellent. Excellent whiskeys. Both of these. Yes. I have my preference. I won't tell you what it is, but we're going to tell you in a minute. I do too.

Yeah, we're going to do, we're going to keep those four and we're going to do a winner winner chicken dinner, but we've got a bonus pour and we didn't want to bring this into that fold because this is, this one, it doesn't fit the theme ish. And then it's also a very expensive bottle and it's probably sold out though.

It's probably so you're probably not going to get it right.

But it's a fun drink and we should probably tell you about it. Yes. And if you haven't read Jim's article about this whole grand blending, go to the bourbonroad.com and check out his blog about it. So thanks to Mike Daler. This is the Los Lantern, United States of Bourbon. This is the seven... This is the Los Lantern United States suburban 1776 edition. So unlike the cask-proof 50 states that we did, this only has the 13 original states, a distillery from each of those 13 states. And I will list those because it's a lot shorter than when I did the 50. You did the 50 though. I know. And somehow made it all the way through without sounding like a goofball. These are 13 colonies, right? Yes. So, from Delaware, you had Painted Stay. From Pennsylvania, you had Liberty Pole. From New Jersey, you had Sourland Mountain Spirits. From Georgia, ASW Fiddler. Connecticut was Litchfield Distillery. Massachusetts was Triple Eight, which we've had some of their single malts. Highwire from South Carolina. Cathedral Ledge out of New Hampshire, Reservoir out of Virginia, King's County out of New York, Broad Branch out of North Carolina, and South County Distillery out of Rhode Island. Fantastic. So, this was blended in Vermont, bottled at Cass Strength, and limited to this 1,776 hand-numbered bottles. This one time only release will never be repeated. Components ranged on this from four to eight. I believe it was two to 10 on the Cast Strength 50 state one. Actually, MSRP was $199.99. Okay. $121.4 proof. And yeah, once again, hats off to... Her name is Nora. I'm no help. I know. I forgot his name.

Adam.

Okay. And hats off to Adam Polonsky for taking this on. He and Nora, God bless them.

Yeah. I mean, it was a, it's a, I'm sure it was a labor of love. It was something they planned over several years. It executed beautifully and we had their Barrel Proof 50 state version. I managed to pick up both a Barrel Proof version and the Hunter Proof version for myself. Well, actually one's for Rob Carter for the... bar, you can imagine. But I didn't pick this one up. I wanted to, but it was priced just a bit higher than the others. So I didn't do it. And I'd already spent about two bottles from them, so I don't need to do it.

And I'm going to give our buddy, Drew Hanish, a shout out. He did have them on the show recently, on his show. And it's a good... It's a good interview with them because you hear a lot how this this happened. It's it's a great story. Fantastic. But we we want to give this to do. I mean, it's been fun to do a whole show on last night. But, you know, we love them. And sometimes we just hate to like let a brand hog a lot of shows. Yeah.

In a good way. So yeah. So this is a bonus pour. It's not in the winter, winter chicken dinner lineup tonight.

And it's probably sold out.

Like I said, it's probably sold out anyway. But we'll tell you what we think about it. Cheers. Cheers. Nice nose. Yeah.

Very, um, this one seems to come off a little craftier than it does 50. It really does.

So it has, it has less heritage brands in it, right?

Yeah.

Or older burgers. Candy pecan. Oh, I kind of get that. Yeah. I, uh, I'm also getting, I'm getting butter and everything tonight. It must be, it just must be something I had. I don't know. It's buttery.

They're all buttery folks. You know what's interesting? If you handed this to me, blind, I almost might say this has almost a whiskey thief, like straight from the barrel kind of nose a little bit. There's some rich caramels going on there.

Yeah, maybe so. Slight grain. Maybe so. Or maybe even, what's that? What's the Tennessee Distillery in Franklin? A little leaper fork. Yeah. All right. Cheers. Oh, I'm glad I said buttery because it is buttery. I got that right. Yep. It is more crafty. Definitely is. Still good. But it should be. These are small distilleries in 13 founding states. And we know, I can tell you right now, I know how much I love Fiddler from ASW. It's a great porter. Some of the others I haven't had individually. It's like a rich, rich caramel. It is. It's warming. It's buttery. It's a lot of caramel there. It has some notes, like we talked about on the first part of the show, those desirable youthful notes that you get from whiskeys that are sub four years. Somebody's brought a few of those to the table in this one. No off-putting youthful notes. These are all top-of-the-line whiskeys that were put in here. Yeah.

That one leaves a serious sizzle, too, though. That's a really good blended bourbon. Yeah. It's nice. I think I prefer the somehow, which is amazing. Seems like 13 components would be a little easier to blend than 50.

Yeah. This one has more character, though. This one has more... Is it more stately? It's more founding fathers, youthful kind of... I think this flavor profile represents kind of the early nature of our founding of our country. Everything wasn't mature yet. It was new, it was fresh, it was rebellious. This is also fresh and new and rebellious. And you can sense the competing flavors in it. So with 50, they just, they kind of get mixed all together, right? Here you kind of still can pick up some stuff. Some nice like bursts of like,

It's like fruit, like a fruit medley almost. Yeah, that's fun. Little chocolate leather. I'm starting to get it now.

Yeah, fun. I think it's $199 for what it is. It's not a $199 bourbon, but it's $199 for what it is.

Agreed. I mean, I picture like if I had this bottle, I would bring it out on 4th of July. Yeah. Until it's gone. Yeah. I can share with friends. Yeah. Because it'd just be a cold pour. Election day.

All right. Very good. OK. So do we want to go back and review the four we are reviewing? So this one, as good as it was, is not in the final decision.

Yeah.

Let's do that.

So our first pour was the Lock & Co Big Blaze Bourbon, 95 proof. retailed for about $56.99, available throughout Colorado and online in 48 states. We followed that up with the Chicken Kakao Glory, a very different bird, if you will. That was a 70% blend of their 95.5 rye distilled at Bardstown and 30% of Laird's Apple Brandy. And then we moved on to Bardstown. with their Laksa Jura barrel finish, which, sorry. We moved on to Bardstown Laksa Jura barrel finish, which was there a bourbon blend that, excuse me, bourbon and rye blend that finished in... Jura, Isle of Jura barrels, Scotch. And then lastly was the 2026 discovery from Bartstown bourbon, which was a blend of aged seven, 10 and 11 year old bourbons finished in Gariana oak.

Okay. Quite a range. Quite a range. Four distinctly different whiskeys all bring totally different character to the table. Yeah. Um, all good in their own right, but very different and distinct enough that it's, it's relatively easy for me to score this time, I think.

Yeah. I mean, this comes down to finish proof, I think is a factor this time. Yeah. But, I'm glad we got to try all of these for sure. I am too, I am too. They're all unique and really good in their own way. Do you wanna start with your number four or you want me to go? Sure, I'm happy to.

So my number four is gonna be the Lock & Co. I thought it was an exceptional example of Colorado style whiskey using Aspen Staves to finish. Aspen Discs. Aspen Discs to finish. I think I've always loved 291 Distillery and there's reason for that. They have a very unique flavor profile, and I think that Lock & Co as well has their own very unique flavor profile. I like what Aspen brings to the table. I think it's at a five-year-old bourbon, you said? It has some of the notes that carried over from the that carries over from pre-four year. So maybe some of those better notes of youthful bourbons that carry over, that's a tough thing to do. And they did it well. I think it's a great whiskey, it's priced right, but it's number four today for me.

I'm going to agree with you. Um, and basically for all those same reasons. And I think it just got a little overproofed. If it had been a little closer to these proofs, maybe it had given them a run. I don't know. I mean, it's also going up against some older whiskey and well, I'm going to segue into my third place. I'm going to go ahead and jump in the third. And that's because again, proof and, but uniqueness. I think this one, beat the lock and co and uniqueness. And that's the chicken cock. Oh, glory. I like it. It's It's a hot day and it made me feel cooler for just a little bit. And we're inside, but it's still kind of warm in this Rick house, but we're in our building. But that's my number three is the chicken cock, Oh Glory. And I'm going to surprise you here. I am going to surprise you here.

Okay. And it's, you know, and I might get slapped around a bit by the listeners because I'm doing this, but there's a reason for it. I have, there's a method to my madness. So I'm going to put the discovery in number three. Okay. I can see that. And the reason I'm doing that is because my number two took me somewhere that was just delightful.

Yeah.

Yeah. It was really nice. So, um, yeah, so my number three is the discovery and then I'll jump to my number two. So the story continues. Okay. My number two is the, um, Chicken cock. The chicken cock. Okay. So I want to, my number two is the chicken cock of glory glory, which introduces the, uh, the Laird's Apple brandy. I felt like it took me to a place where I wanted to be hot day on the tractor. I mean, you're influenced by what you've eaten. You're influenced by what you had to drink. You're influenced by the day you had. My day was extremely hot and that apple brandy bourbon mix, just the idea of throwing a cube in there just really excited me. I think there's a place for that. I think it was really good. And honestly, when you put the discovery in that side by side, they're both quality. Uh, distillates. Yes. They're both really good. Great. Um, but for me, yeah, the number two is going to be the, uh, the chicken cock. Oh, glory.

Okay. And as you might expect, my number two is going to be the Gariana. Ah, yeah. So, I mean, I think we're consensus on our number one. Oh my goodness. Locks of Jura. Locks of Jura. My goodness. Maybe it's just our hunger for getting the malt Migos together again.

Could be, but you know what? That played a symphony on our tongues. I know. It really did.

It took me back to when you and I tried the Amroot with that single malt and that whole

just different and like we were saying like there's like at one moment you get a little bourbon one moment you get a little rye and then it just kind of finishes in this nice fruity scotch symphony yeah but when you're when you're drinking it and they're all there at once you can't see the boundaries like you don't see the lines between them it's like it's all it's all blended and it's one palette one flavor but then when you start to to spend more time with it, those lines start to define themselves and they start to come forward one at a time and introduce themselves. It's like, wow, how awesome of an experience is that? It's really good. That's craft. That is true craft. Well done, Danny. Yeah, buddy. Did a good job. Well, you and your team. I'm sure there's a lot out there that were involved in that. So another great show, another great lineup of whiskeys on the tasting mat. I think that No, you couldn't have done a better job of putting together whiskeys that weren't too similar. You know what I mean? Sometimes it's hard. We've had a few shows where it's very difficult.

Yeah, I've got a fun comparison coming up. I think it's going to be a neat one for us to do.

All right, well, I'm going to put them all together. Oh my goodness, really? I know it. I'm just going to do it. That is the kitchen sink. This is the kitchen sink. I haven't done it in a while.

And it's, uh, it's another thing I get slapped around by listeners for. So you put that together and there's like what? Four, four finishes. Did you even put the 1776 in there? Yeah, there's, yeah. So there's at least 13 states of this. 13 plus Indiana 14, Kentucky 15, Colorado 16. Um, yeah. 16 States. Wow. Yeah. And Laird's Pennsylvania. Uh, we had Pennsylvania. So yeah. Oh yeah. Pennsylvania was already there. Okay. I'm watching his face, folks. I feel like this one might be a little... Yeah.

I mean, it's good. Okay. It wouldn't take winner winner chicken dinner. It would probably finish third or fourth, but it's not bad. It's drinkable. Okay.

I salute you for trying that. Why not?

I've had such a rough day guys.

I have to go back real quick. When you were talking about the, the, uh, Oh glory. Cause I was picturing, you said you mowed today. So like, you know, if you had that on your moat, your tractor mowing, I was like, lines might get a little, Oh yeah.

It might get a little crooked.

You missed a spot.

Wow, yeah, great, great show, Todd, really good. Yeah, those were fun pours. All right, folks, well, we really want to encourage you to visit TheBurmanRoad.com. Check out what we have for you there. If you've not gone there yet and signed up for your account, you're really missing out. Agreed. Got some great people in there. The membership list is growing. A lot of great conversations, a lot of great giveaways. Todd, you've got some giveaways coming up.

Yeah. Can we tell them? Yeah. All right. We actually got two bottles of the discovery and the Gary, or the, excuse me, the discovery and the locks of Jura.

We're going to give away one of each. These aren't little old 375s. Nope. These are where the big boys this time. These are the full seven fifties, right? Yup. All right. So keep your eyes out for that, but you have to go to the bourbonroad.com If you don't already have an account, you have to sign up and that's it. That's all it takes. We don't want your money. Well, we'd love to have your money, but we don't require your money. You can join up and you can be a supporter and go in and make posts and join in on the giveaways and sign up for them. In fact, we just had a great meetup with our members, and we invited also the members of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society to join us for our sample soiree at the Frankfurt Bourbon Society Corner Ricker House. I don't even know how many bottles we had, probably over 100. I know you had a lot more than I did, but we're bringing a lot. Yeah. We brought, we brought a lot.

Yeah.

And it was a great time. We really enjoyed it. We had some people drove as far away from as Florida to come join with us. It was, it was a lot of fun. So we have those from time to time. We've got another one coming up in October, the day before bourbon on the banks. So if you were thinking about coming to, uh, to the Bourbon Trail in late September, early October. You might want to make a point of that. It's a lot of fun. But anyway, join up on the bourbonroad.com, get your Bourbon Roadies ID, get your personal tasting journal, get in with the people who listen to the show on a regular basis, have some fun, share some ideas with them, share some pictures. It's always fun. Anyway, we'd love to have you. A lot more chatter in there. It's getting a little busier. I love it. It takes a little time to build. Yeah. But the great thing about this is, is we found folks that we had something on Facebook and we still do, but less than half of our listeners actually have Facebook accounts. Yeah. So it's like, well, what do we do for them? So now we have it. It's the bourbonroad.com. And guess what, we make our own rules on there, so it makes it better. No ads.

No ads. Yep. No, yeah, just.

And all communication is by email, which is really nice. Nobody's texting you, pinging you. There's all that kind of stuff going on. You just get a weekly update on what's going on, and then you get, like, if somebody sends you a message or something, you get an email telling you, hey, so-and-so is trying to reach you. Yeah. So lots of fun. Anyway, we hope you come and check it out and join up. We do have additional levels of support that you can choose to do when you're on there. We've got a supporter level at $5 a month. We have another level at $10, and then we've got what we call our insider, which is at $20 a month. We've got people in each of those categories. It helps us get down the road. afford to do that, or you don't want to do that, no worries. Most of our members don't support. We've got good supporters though, and we appreciate every one of them. Uh, make sure you tune us in every single Wednesday. We put out an episode this time night, this week, next week, it'll be a distillery or a musician or something. We'll have somebody else on. We're always drinking whiskey. We're always having fun. You don't want to miss it. Scroll to the top of that app. You're on hit that subscribe button. That way you won't miss it. You'll get that notification and you can join us with your headphones on for a fun time, but until the next time we'll see you down.

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