515. Revenge of the Maltmigos: Five American Single Malts Across Five States

Down along the Kentucky Highway when the evening sun goes low. Four old friends come together with the Amber River's flow. Jim brings stories from the trail, Rob brings a glass or two. And he's got a bottle waiting and Todd says, boys, let's see what's new. We're them amigos, four amigos on the run. Chasing down American whiskey, till the setting sun. Jim and Robin and Zee, Todd is riding too. Four glasses raised together, here's to me and you. Yeah, the road may wind forever, but there's one thing that we know, there ain't a better bunch of friends.

Welcome back, listeners, long time roadies and friends. We're here at the corner of Rick House again in Frankfort, Kentucky for another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. Todd, who do we have with us today?

Jim, it's been a while, but we have saddled up the Maltmigos. It is revenge time. It's revenge of the Maltmigos day.

Yeah. I've been looking forward to another episode with the Maltmigos. This is the revenge of them.

So without further ado, we've got Amzie winning with us. Amzie, welcome back to the show. It's been a minute.

Glad to be here, as always, with the Maltmicos. Yeah.

And who can forget Rob Carter is in the house. Hey, Rob. In the house. Good thing you had me now. You know, we're going to be dying off here soon.

Don't go rushing that. There's plenty more single months to drink, buddy. But yeah, I put together like some special single malts. Just I mean, it's going to be hard to find today, but there's some special stuff here. I'm hoping you guys are going to enjoy. We're going to travel. We're going to ride these horses through single malt land. We're going to hit, I think, five states today. And it's I think you guys are going to join. We've got four regular pores that we can rank at the end. And then when we've got a really special one that will just have at the end and enjoy, but. Bonus pour. Bonus pour. All right. We always love that bonus pour. All right. So the first one, our glass, it's from Los Lantern, but it's one they sourced from Oak and Gris, which is out of North Carolina. Oak and Grist, I don't think I've heard of them. So yeah, they're an 100% grain to glass craft of story located in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It opened its doors in 2017. They're known for marrying traditional Scotch distilling techniques with native Appalachian terroir. All its barley is sourced within 60 miles of the distillery, and the co-founders are William Goldberg, who has a background in sustainable agriculture, and Edward Dodson, the legendary former master distiller of Scotland's iconic Glenmore distillery. Oh, oh. So other just to give a little shout out about their products here. Wow. They just released a nine-year, which literally just came out this month. So that one sounds pretty exciting because I'm not going to tell you guys the age on this one until we sip it. And I'm going to let you guys maybe kind of throw some guesses out there. But like I said, this was one that Lost Lantern, one of our favorite places to talk about. They sourced the single cask. It's 125.6 proof. and retail for 90 bucks. And there still may be a few out there.

So a Scottish style American single ball. Yes. And what was the proof again? 125.6. Okay. Well that's, that's not Scottish at all.

Fun fact, our three main pours here, the first three pours are 125.6, 125.7. Our third pour will be 125.4 and then fourth's an odd ball. And there's a reason it's going to be fourth. And then our, special one is 120. Okay.

So we're drinking some, uh, some elevated proofs today.

Now, Jim, are you being facetious? You said that's not Scotters.

Scotch whiskeys are normally paying more in the 85 to 95 proof range. All right. So not that they don't have higher proof Scotch whiskeys. They do. You did say Appalachian style though.

So yeah. So, but they said they were following

traditional Scottish methods. Yes.

It's like moonshine meets scotch.

Okay. Well, it's very light in color. Very light in color. And I'm going to say that's light straw, light straw color.

Definitely.

Beautiful fruity nose though. almost get like an apple juice.

Oh, it does. I agree. Totally. Totally fruit. Maybe, maybe some grape in there.

I get a lot of grape. But, but maybe like a white grapes, right?

Yeah.

It looks like white grape juice.

which I kind of had brandy on the brain when I was smelling it.

I could see that brandy tie in a little bit. Apple brandy, a little bit.

No, it knows it's a little bit proofy. It's got some ethanol. Yeah. Great nose, though. Yeah. Wonderful nose. Very fruity, very aromatic. A little bit of an ethanol hit to it, but it's nice.

You know, kind of like you get on some of those, you know, lighter unpeated scotches like Glenlivet or something like that. Kind of has a nose like this. All right.

So you dive in. Cheers, my amigos. It's been a while.

That's buttery. Buttery. There's a nice little spicy kick though. It does.

Brings out the orchard. Very nice and very green forward. Fruit is all over the place on that. It's like a fruit medley. But man, that warming buttery wash I got from it was really nice. It's not extra viscous. Like it's not like this velvety viscous or, but it did have that buttery sensation to it.

You know, when I take a sip initially on the palette, I get like juicy fruit because it's fruity, but it's all there's something I can't place. That's like slightly floral. Yeah. I would say like a little bit of honeysuckle. Yeah. Yeah.

It's got a little spicy zest though, on that tail end. It lets you know it's there. It does.

Yeah. Trying to think, you know, which direction that spice leans. It almost leans a little anise.

Okay.

See how I get a little like white peppery tingle on the tongue.

So any guesses on how this is? I'm too sure it was used to expert bourbon barrels.

3.5. 10.

And yeah, I would, I would stay there that eight to 10 year range. I mean, I think it's got some age to it. Cheers to Rob Carter.

It's three years old. Wow.

Wow.

I just took a guess just because of the lightness. But then when you said to use Barrow, I'm like, oh, I forgot about that. Yeah.

But we've got a few today that are going to be using some new American oak too, though. So it's.

But that's, you know, my brain always likes eight to 12 stuff, I guess. But that's not to say I don't like this. You know, just because I said three, it just was a little lighter. But that's got some great flavor.

I don't get the normal, you know, youthful. Tells that I would get now. Maybe that's because this is all malted barley Yeah, and I'm used to you know, whatever I'm used to is coming from corn and I did get sort of the grain in it Yeah during the taste and so maybe that's an indication.

Yeah

When you said that grain forward and I chose my date by the lightness before I tasted. So that was the only thing I was going on.

So obviously they do make a low proof version. They also make a, I thought it was interesting, a Geneva styled gin. Jennifer. Yep. Okay.

Yep. So Jennifer is, um, is what it was called in the late 1700s. So it was very common in the colonies at that time. Yeah, Dutch style. Dutch style.

So we, to go back to a couple of years ago when we had the episode with Jop van der Ort, one of the Frankfurt Bourbon Society board members and Norbert Teebarts from Holland. I've had some Geneva with them a few times.

So yeah, a lot of the, the, the Hessian troops that were hired in during the revolutionary war to fight against the colonies were big fans of that. So it was, they kind of, that came with them more or less.

There you go. It's your history moment.

And for you roadies listening to me, I don't know what the hell they're talking about.

All right. What do you guys think? I like it. Good start. I think it's really good. Yeah. It's quality stuff. No doubt about it there.

I know I'm intrigued by that nine year release that's out there. I don't know what kind of production was on that. I'd probably guess it at 20, you know, after what we just went through. Right. So. All right. Are you ready to move on? Let's move on. All right. We're going to travel up to Minnesota this time. This is Brother Justice. American Single Malt, this is also a single barrel, 125.7 proof, retails for about $85. They are an award winning craft distillery based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The company uses ingredients entirely sourced from their state, which I think that's just a popular thing. It's like, it's kind of odd to find a place that makes single malt. barley, getting their barley from out of state.

It seems like- Especially in Minnesota, because there's plenty of barley right there. Right.

So the distillery is named after Brother Justice, who was born William Treadle, a real life Benedictine monk from central Minnesota, that during Prohibition, he was building high quality copper whiskey stills and gave them to local farmers to help them avoid financial ruin. He famously believed that while making whiskey was illegal, helping his community survive hard times was not immoral. Funny enough, this place, I guess, once they determined the regulations to be an American single malt, they are now calling theirs an American whiskey because it's, from what I read, I guess there's a proof cap on the maximum distillation of single malts of 160. So I'm guessing with their recipe and the way they were distilling, they were going over that.

Okay. So they're breaking the rules and just calling it an American whiskey. Yeah. But it is a malt whiskey. Yes.

Uh, so some other products folks can find out there's a silver whiskey, which is an unaid whiskey that was lightly kissed by a barrel before bottling, uh, recently released founders reserve three. And they also have a cold peated whiskey. Oh, yeah. So interesting. Let's dive in.

So from American Pete Boggs, I don't know.

since breadier, darker fruits. Yeah.

And get some oak on there. Definitely some oak. This wasn't the one that was touched, lightly touched. No, that was there. That was the other one. They called it silver whiskey.

Yeah, this was more than lightly touched. Jim, that bottle is right there. Grab it. And I was trying to remember if it had the age on the side.

Very cool bottle.

It may not.

I do not see it anywhere. Yeah, this was darker for sure. I don't know why I'm thinking brownies. Ooh, you got a little chocolate brownie? Little chocolate brownie. Little what do they call cosmic bars? Cosmic bars.

Cosmic brownies, the little bevy ones.

Yeah, with the little stars or something.

You get a little hint of that chocolate, like you do in the Woodford chocolate malted rye or the redux or the whisper. Just a hint.

Very nice. I'm getting a little anise on this one this time. Just a little chocolate, little anise, darker fruits. All right. Cheers. Cheers, Sherman.

Okay. That one is a full palette experience. The rich level goes up for sure. Getting a little bit of mint. And so it started to make me think about Andy's. Andy's chocolate mints, yeah. A little bit. But it's not super sweet.

It's a nice rich caramel. Can he fakes a little bit? But I do think that like, yeah, that chocolate, like a chocolate mint, a little orange zest to.

Yeah, I could, I could maybe see a little bit of fig in it. I was trying to think of like fig Newton kind of fig, right? Instead of more like a regular turkey fig, you know, out of a bag.

It's solid. I like it.

Yeah. That's a, that's a tasty whiskey right there.

You know, I do still like that cosmic brownie thing because, you know, they're not super dark, rich brownies. It's a lighter kind of chocolate note that's in there.

So as we're recording this, we're about what? I guess three weeks, four weeks from Bourbon on the Bank. So it's been a little crazy. Jim and I have been able to do some barrel picks. We did one to Jeff the Kree, which was a lot of fun. I think. They're one to keep an eye on. I think folks can have their minds blown a little bit when they try some of these single rails that are coming from them.

Cause we had, I thought we had three outstanding choices. I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a great, a great time.

Yeah. And you know, one thing I liked was the, well, it kind of surprised me. The one we picked was the youngest. Yeah. But I thought I had some nice fruity notes to it.

What age was it?

Was it maybe seven, six, was it seven? I don't recall.

I thought it was seven.

The others were like eight, maybe seven to eight. I think is where we were at. I thought it was interesting that she was like six, 10 months, I think. And then I think the other ones, if we, if they wait more than a month of barrel, it'll be eight.

It was interesting way that she approached that by picking those barrels because she has like her own I guess she had kind of like, what was that, like blue grassy and then like deserty and then.

Yeah. They've got decadent dessert, Kentucky homestead or fields of bluegrass.

Yeah.

There are three flavor profiles.

That's a neat way to do it. So she's broken her barrel standard into three main categories or taste profiles.

Now who was choosing this choice or autumn?

I believe Joyce chose the barrels we chose from. We did that with Chris. I don't remember Chris's last name, but Wilkins. It's a lot of fun. We've also done a brandy pick lately. It's been a busy week and then we actually took a weekend off. Jim and I took a weekend off. He went to Ohio and I went north to Indiana.

I went on a beer adventure. I saw that.

My biggest question is, what did you bring back from your co-host who likes beer too? We drank it all. I brought you something. See, I thought about you. I appreciate that. I brought him some Necco wafers, folks.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah.

So Pam and I go to Jeptha on Fridays at late afternoon for a cocktail. before we go out to eat or whatever. Nice. It's a great little spot. Meet a lot of cool people from all over the world. It's right on the interstate, easy to get to.

I think we're going to try to get out there and talk to Chris someday soon, because we tried their blue corn. It's like a hundred proof.

Yeah, I was going to bring that up. I don't know if they'll have it at Bourbon on the Banks, but it's called Bruce's Blue.

Yeah, really nice.

Yeah, I was pretty impressed by that.

So that was made specifically for liquor bars. Right. I think it's at liquor barn. Yeah. And the gift shop and the gift shop. So you can get it liquor barn in the gift shop.

Wow. Yeah. I've had that over there. It's blue corn. It's good stuff.

So it's been a while since the malt Migos have written. Rob, what have you been up to as far as just, ah, just working, man.

You know, it's a, it's tough out there. It's a tough gig. Yeah. I was at Dangerfield used to say it's a dog eat dog world and I got on milk bone underwear. So it's kind of story of my life.

Well, you're going to join me at permanent on the banks this year.

I am looking forward to it.

Yeah.

So Todd, you're going to be in Florida with the fam. Yeah.

I'll be roughing it out. All right. I'll be thinking about you. Yeah.

So, so my sidekick Rob's going to be my sidekick and we're going to, we're going to take in all the, all the wonderful things.

There you go. I got to pick out an outfit and get a cigar.

I was going to say, I'm going to have to give you a list of bottles to buy for me, Rob, and I'll just give you, leave you a credit card so you can pick up all the single bottles I'm going to. If he's going to give you a credit card, we'd do more to get bottles.

I may shun my responsibilities and join you guys. Here you go.

It's so hard to find good health these days. Well, that's a great whiskey. That's a really good whiskey. You know, it seemed like it was warmer in temperature than the other one.

Yeah.

Just a general statement there. I thought it felt warmer on the palate.

These are kind of night and day difference, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Light, fruity, floral, dark, brooding on the other one. Yeah. Yeah. Brooding. Yeah, brooding.

I like that. My goal was to like, challenge you malt wise. I mean, you know, some of them can have a lot of similarities, but yeah, we've got some fun ones today. We're going to even change it up more in the second half. So, yeah.

All right. Well, let's take a short break. We'll continue sipping on these two. Folks will be right back. Don't go away. More malt and malt Migos to head your way. Be right back. Cheers.

Sip, Sabor, and Support a Good Cause at Metro United Way's United Spirits Fall Festival presented by Bright Spring Health Services. The event is back at the beautiful Progress Park this year on Thursday, October 15th from 6 to 10 p.m. Nothing beats a crisp fall evening, a glass of bourbon, and the warm of a glowing fire. At United Spirits, we also throw in delicious chef-prepared food and a special live performance by the Crashers. Participating distilleries include Castlin Key, Maker's Mark, Michter's, Kentucky Peerless, and more, as well as pours from West End Gin and cold beer from Country Boy Brewing. And the best part of it, it all supports the crucial work of Metro United Way. United Spirits tickets are $100 and are available online at MetroUnitedWay.org slash United Spirits. That's MetroUnitedWay.org slash United Spirits.

All right, we're back with the Maltmigos. We are tearing through some single malts from all over the place and we're going to continue this journey. Jim, what do you think?

I loved them. I think they're both good. They were both very different in the first half, but both candidates for the winner, winner chicken dinner. We'll see how they line up at the end, but we've got two more going here. And one of them looks like chocolate syrup. I'm very excited about this one.

This is my friends did this pick some time ago and it's no longer available, but we've had this product or some of their other products on the show before. In fact, I think the last time we were together. So this is from Old Line out of Baltimore, Maryland. They sourced from middle, Midwest spirits. It's sore. Sorry. It's their main, their mash bill or their recipe, but yeah. Contract distilled. So this is a Madera cast finished American single mock 125.4 proof, seven years old. This only retailed for a ridiculous $65. Wow. Yeah. So, like I said, O-Line Spirits is based in Baltimore, Maryland and was started by Mark McLaughlin and Arch Watkins, who are two retired U.S. Navy aviators who used to fly EA-6B Prowlers off of aircraft carriers. So they went out to Seattle to a craft distillery. convention kind of thing and met Bob Stilnovich, the owner of Golden Distillery, who was retiring. Mark and Arch were so impressed that they basically stayed with him for about a year and bought his equipment and shipped it back to Maryland, all the way from Washington state. They're, so like I said, they also, they distilled in-house, but I guess being so popular, they're also having some contract distilled there at Midwest. So this was aged in New American Oak for four years and then Madera cast for three. Wow. Yeah. So, and it, it is dark. Yep. So, and like I said, you guys may remember the Navy strength. Yeah. That was the one we had on the last show. And I think even way back, you guys tried just their regular. Yeah. I remember the story. Yeah. Yeah. I'm familiar with it and that great, great story. So the Navy strength episode was episode 393. If people want to listen to us crazy Montmigos again.

All right. Yeah. Cool. All right. All right. Let's hit it with a nose.

Oh my goodness. It really smells like you should pour this on a warm buttered biscuit. I mean this stuff smells like dessert.

It does. It's, it's almost got a, like a little bit of a fruit cake and a, I can see that little maple, maple fruit, maple.

But I do, I almost get like a little like sorghum or molasses type note to it also.

I was going to call it molasses early on.

And I think that's what made me think of the mesquite.

That's what I smell the same thing. You guys getting that nuttiness from the Madeira a little bit? Yeah.

Wow. Like almost like, I'd say like pralines or something.

Well, you literally could just take a hot just dripping with butter biscuit and just pour this right on it.

But like I said, this was chosen by my friends. Hello again, whiskey friends who've Jeff Wax been on the show and has sent us pours. It was also chosen by another friend of mine. They have like a bunch of YouTubers and they all kind of like team up together to sell to their their fans. So it works out really well. Dick Glendow, he's out in California. I think Dusty Dan may have been a part of this, too. Oh, but it's, it's just decadent.

Yeah. This is a different kind of animal. I mean, I won't lie on the nose alone. I just want to say this one wins.

But I am ready to taste it now. Cheers. Cheers.

Little roasty coffee. Yeah. Like roasted chocolate coffee. It's rich.

Yeah, it's definitely chocolatey. It's Kahlua. Kahlua.

Kahlua. Because it's got the rum base to it, that sweetness that comes through.

There's a little, yeah, I could get the like molasses rum thing. Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is, I kicked myself when I only got one bottle.

So for breakfast, you can put this on the biscuit and in your coffee.

Exactly. What do you think about this one, Rob? I like it.

That's really good.

Oh yeah. Now I've seen some other single barrels, but I don't know if I've ever seen one that was aged in Madera that long. I mean, they may be out there, but.

This is phenomenal. This is very different from anything I've had before. You know what's cool about this one?

You know our how guys. They were like, I think it was Rhett. He was like, I've never really tried many American single malt. So I sent this one without a label. It's just a pour to them. And I said, when you guys have this for your, what they call it, their breakfast get togethers and whatever. I was like, let me know. And like, I'll, I'll let you know what you're drinking. And sure enough, they did. And I was like, it's an American single malt. And like, they were like, no way.

That's awesome.

Cause it does have like a, I mean, if you do this at somebody blind, they might think it's rum or like a Finnish bourbon kind of thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I would be able to say it was a, if it was blind, I didn't know. I don't know. I wouldn't call it out as a single bomb.

I don't know what I would call it.

There's a little getting a little more licorice and anise on the finish now.

Yeah. This has got all kinds of depth to it and it's not wide and it's not wide and like flavors. It's very deep and sort of very narrow.

Dark dimension. But it's a very dark dimension. You got that right.

Tunnel vision starts to close in on you.

I got a pretty deep caramel flavor or aroma to it early on. And then, uh, yeah, it's just really good.

Wow. Let's see. These guys are doing great work. I know it makes me want to kind of.

Baltimore, right? Uh huh.

Okay.

But I feel like you can order directly from them. And that's one thing I didn't do a deep dive into where you like, obviously the lost lantern. You could have gotten that oak and grist from them at some point, but check online. I mean, there's a lot that seems to be a very. Old line distillery. Old line. You can order directly from them. They ship to a lot of States. I think that's, that's the one way some of these smaller distilleries are kind of getting around, you know, I'm sure distributors out there are kind of like bringing it in a little bit and not ordering as much. So, you know, check some of these places out online and give them a whirl.

So the old line single malt Madeira cask, 125.4. Wow. Just decadent.

These are the type of offerings, I guess, that I really enjoy because There's not too many out there that we wouldn't drink on a normal day, but a lot of them are normal stuff and have good flavor. But when you can kind of go outside the box and get all the flavors that's in there and that deep color.

This would be great after dinner. I was going to say, it's a cool day today.

So this would be great like nighttime around a fire.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You talked about that. It made me think, you know what? I feel like this has gone away from society. But when I was a kid, there was always the St. Bernard that had the little cask under its neck that would save you in the avalanche or whatever. That's what it should have in that little barrel.

And I just want to point out, no one's complaining about the size of the pores I've poured today.

Very proud of you Todd. So we've got enough to go back and revisit for winter, winter chicken dinner.

If you go back to some of those other Montmigos, they complain a lot about my pores, but I'm just thinking of their safety in there.

Don't want to shock the pallets too much. When you talk about Malt Amigos, we are the four Malt Amigos, but who were the three Amigos? What were the actors?

Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short.

Martin Short. Martin Short. OK. Funny.

And yeah, I love that movie. It's like one of those like when you just catch it on, you're like, oh, I'm going to sit here and watch it. You know, you know, one of those, you know, know a lot of the lines kind of thing, like so very old one. And there's a little lady she's sewing, you know, so very old one. So like the wind. And the was it the airplane passes over and he goes, that's a mail plane goes. How do you know that? Can't you see its little balls? All right.

So what do we have next time? All right. This one's going a little get a little crazy. OK. Yeah.

I'm ready to get crazy. So this one is from Virginia. Like I said, we're traveling all over America today. Carolinas, Minnesota, Maryland, via Ohio, and now Virginia. So this is Virginia Distillery's first cut cigar blend. This is a 108 proof, but there's a reason I threw this at the end. It's seven years old, retailed for $60, and there are still some available. You can order directly from them. Probably some in that immediate area. I know one of our Bourbon Society members was just down there, Scott Sherman. He did a visit there. The Virginia Distillery Company is the largest dedicated American single malt distillery in the U.S., located in Lovingston, Virginia. No clue. It was founded by Dr. George G. Moore in 2011, but he tragically passed away suddenly in 2013. But his wife, Angela, and their son took over the operation and brought in Harry Cockburn, the former distillery manager at Balmore. another big name in the Scotch world. And Dr. Jim Swan, a world renowned maturation expert. So this particular expression sat in ex bourbon barrels for five years before portions were placed in eight different finishing casks. Yeah, eight. So Sherry, pheno Sherry, Hort, STR, which stands for Shave Toasted Re-Charred Barrels, Chateau Palmer Cabernet Cask, Armagnac, Cognac, and a small portion was matured in Smoky Isla Scotch Cask. Oh, wow. So this is like a kitchen sink here. So some of the other products you guys may have, Couraging Conviction, that's one of theirs. They also have a what I thought was kind of neat. They have something called the Brewers Coalition series. So they've taken their single malt and finished them. I think there were like 20 brewers barrels. So like they teamed up with Goose Island, the Brewery Boulevard. Yeah, it was crazy. I was like, holy cat, they're like barley wine finishes, blind ale finishes, Belgian finishes. So pretty interesting. Pretty interesting. Shall we hit it? Yeah, it is. I got intrigued to see this. This one's pretty wild.

Oh, yeah, this one's another like darker fruity kind of. It's a little bit of that smokiness.

But on the nose, like I would say scotch. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

On this one, definitely.

Oh, that's very nice. Like definitely like, you know, not American.

I'm expecting a thick, rich, sweet, fruity palette, but that may not come.

I'd be curious to know if they cut it, like how much they cut it because 108 seems like a like they cut it some to get it to that, I would think. But that's just me. But I don't know for sure. So like I said, I almost do this in our cigar episode with Scott Page, but he's not a single mom guy at all.

No.

And he does not like like smoky scotches and single months at all. So this is not real smoky. I get a touch. Just a kiss.

All right. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers.

Wow.

Softer on the palate for sure. We've dropped a lot. We've dropped a lot. This is.

But the flavors. It's concentrated, a little sticky.

Nice. Little chocolate coming through. Little chocolate, little touch of that smoke like. Yeah. Smoked chocolate. I can get a little that like a bright berry, kind of like the wine and a little bit wine finish. I was going to ask, uh, the, uh, the Fino Sherry, you know, I've heard of all the Rosso and PX. What's, uh, anyone got anything on Fino Sherry?

Okay. I've seen it on the menu, but I don't really know the difference.

Look at that one up folks. We'll wiki it when we get home too.

It's, it's a little savory to it. Yeah.

After having those other three, I think my wish is.

Did you say which port? I did not. Did not. That's a tawny.

After having those other three, I kind of wish it was about that same proof, just the drop off and proof. But I was like, I wanted to try this because it's. Yeah. What makes me want to buy a bottle of port on the way home? Now you cigar guys, what do you think? Would this go well with a cigar?

Yeah, no doubt. This is really good.

Yeah, I would have to say that I, I wouldn't think this was an American single malt. I would have to guess it was actually a Scotch. Yeah.

I'm getting that like there's that light smoke, but that wine finisher is really big. Like you said, the pork seems to really, really pop. Yeah, I think the pork comes through a lot on it. Maybe even the Cabernet too. Could be.

Very nice. Another another great poor.

By the way, I looked it up. Fino Sherry is a bone dry, pale and crisp fortified white wine from Spain.

OK, interesting.

But that may be the most finishes I've ever seen on anything. Counting the ex bourbon barrels, that would be nine finishes.

That just seems like way too much trouble.

We've never had anything finished in a grappa before, have we?

I don't know. Have you ever had grappa on here? We need to go off road in some time.

Yeah.

That would be good. Yeah.

Or get our own barrel and do it.

If we can do that. Zach has 30 barrels, so maybe we can talk him into doing something. We've got some good brandies lately because they've got 26 barrels, 24 barrels. How many barrels do you guys have?

I think at Whiskey Thief, Frankfurt Bourbon Society has 23. It should be 24, but one of the distillations, I don't know if it was a fermentation issue, a distillation issue, but we didn't get the yield we would normally get and we just got one barrel. So 23.

And we're actually talking about bottling one of those probably this and check it out October. Yeah. Later October and hopefully we'll be bottling one of those.

Yeah, I think we're going to. So we'll have our Frankfurt Bourbon Society event out there. We probably are going to pull some of the older barrels and do it as a barrel pick sort of for our members. We'll let people vote and decide which one. We're going to bottle.

Bring Rob. We'll give him a special invitation. He knows people.

I'm joining. I'm signing up. I'm in. You should.

Just for all our listeners out there, there's not a whole lot of. Yeah. societies that have their own collection of barrels in aging. All right.

Well, I mean, it's just embarrassing. You guys have a whole lot of fun. You do a lot of cool things. You have events like nobody's business and. all open to your members. It's a great club. I'm just a few miles down the road. The only reason I haven't joined, but that's no excuse. I need to get in.

Looking forward to it. It's only one county away. I learned earlier that Rob doesn't like to go more than one county away.

If somebody signs up and let's just pick a place, let's just say somebody lives in Virginia. We're talking about a Virginia product here. So if somebody lives in Virginia and they decided they want to be a member of the Frankfurt Burma Society, there's no problem with that. And they can, and if you have a barrel pick release, they can get onto the website and buy it and pay for it. And the next time they're in the area, they can stop by and pick it up. Certainly have a few.

Yeah. Yeah. We've got members in, uh, I want to say Wisconsin, uh, what can Iowa or Kansas.

Uh, Adam, he is in, um,

But we've got Dusty and Luke, I think they're in Iowa. We've got some people in the Carolinas. We have some members in Alabama, Georgia. And so what they'll do is they're people that they like to come visit the area. They'll try and make some of our events. You know, another thing that I think is a little unique to us as a lot of groups. If they do a barrel pick, they have a, you know, an official tasting panel that does all their barrel picks. We don't do that. Uh, depending on the size of it, we send one or two board members and the rest of our members can sign up if they want to go on a barrel pick. We run those through a randomizer. And, uh, you know, for a lot of people going on a barrel picks, kind of a once in a lifetime thing. Frankfurt Bourbon Society. You can do it a few times.

It was for me. I got to go with you guys last year on one. First time I'd ever done it. It was loads of fun. And, you know, your membership fee is so cheap. I mean, if you come into town once a year, you're getting your value. If you don't do anything else, it's so crazy.

I was going to say we had for the short barrel pick for Bourbon on the Banks, we literally had, what, 30 people try that and pick.

Yeah. We just let our members do it. I think we had 37 people sign up and they sent a full size 750 ML bottles. And I said, well, everybody can come and set up a survey monkey and everyone just voted for their favorite. And that's what we went with. Oh, that's cool. That was cool. That's awesome.

All right. Well, we've been through the four. We have been through the four. We got a special bonus pour. But do we want to start sipping on that or do we want to start rank picking our top three or?

Yeah, I think by the time we vote, you know, it kind of it kind of leads us into the end of the show. So why don't we go ahead and. and have our bonus pour. Okay. But we understand that the four primary whiskeys that we've had on the show so far are going to be in the winner winner chicken dinner.

And I'll, I'll recap those real quick. So our first pour was the last lantern. They are independent bottler. That was the oak and grist distillery single malt, single cask. That was 125.6 proof of three years old. out of Black Mountain, North Carolina. Our second pour was Brother Justice American Single Malt Single Barrel from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our third pour was the Old Line Madeira Cask Finished American Single Malt Single Barrel that was chosen by my friends at Hello Again Whiskey Friends. That was from Baltimore, Maryland via Columbus, Ohio. And then lastly, we had the Virginia Distillery First Cut Cigar Blend from Virginia Distillery Company out of Lovingston, Virginia. But without further ado, our special pour. Our bonus pour. This is just for fun. Yeah. Is the Strand of Hands Founders Release. This is a 12 year old. Wow. I'm single malt. So the oldest release I've ever had. So Stranahan's began with a literal disaster in 1998. Volunteer firefighters, Jess Graber, or excuse me, volunteer firefighter, Jess Graber, respond to a massive barn fire in Woody Creek, Colorado. The barn belonged to George Stranahan, a physicist, philanthropist and founding of founder of Flying Dog Brewery, which. Sure. You're pretty aware of that, Jim. Had the crazy art on the labels. Yeah. After the fire was put out, the two struck up a conversation over a shared love of fine whiskey. Graber, who had been secretly experimenting with backyard moonshining, had a light bulb moment. He realized he could use Flying Dogs premium 100% malted barley beer wash to distill a spectacular Scottish style single malt whiskey. So Greyburn Stranahan partnered up, moved the production to Denver, Colorado, and opened the distillery doors in 2004. It's been around for 22 years.

Yeah, these guys were early to the game, very early to the game. So you might even say that they, they're kind of the pioneers. Yeah, for sure.

American single malt. I mean, I'd put them Westland, McCarthy's, there's a few others like the OGs, if you will. Right. So these 12 year barrels of single malt were aged in new heavily charged American white oak barrels. And then some were finished next bourbon barrels and next blonde ale casks. So some of the other products you might see readily available are their original. They do do some single barrel picks, Blue Peak, Diamond Peak, and then Snowflake. I've never had Snowflake though.

Yeah, you've had the Blue Peak. I've had Blue Peak and I've had just a good daily drinker.

It's really good. And I've had some really good single barrel picks from them, but. Yeah, this one retailed for about $1.99. I doubt you can find it. It was hard to find, but I just snagged it. Speaking of Adam Dorman, he's a member in the roadie and he sent me a pour of this and it just blew me away. So I was like, I got to find this. It's like one of those, it's definitely the first single one I had to go and super seek and find, but well worth it. But I hope you guys enjoy. Brought this one out for the mom. He goes to check it out.

The revenge.

Oh, oh, oh. Well, that's like walking into a bakery with like all the pastries. There's like and it's got like almonds and like there's like a little bit of almond extract, almond extract.

There's cinnamon buns. There's Root beer, 120 proof. I think I said that I'm just getting this like light hint of a coconut. Oh, I can see that.

There's a lot going on here. It's been a while. Like I said, I brought brought out the A game this time or tried to. Wow. I'm going to quit saying words so other people can just analyze what they want to say.

I was going to say, Andy's been struck mute. So it reminds me of Andy's Bakery here in Frankfort. I think they just call it their morning bun or breakfast bun. So it's got like some cinnamon, some other probably sweet honey type stuff. And I want to say a little bit of orange zest in it.

It's like a little bit of like praline, like candy pecan type thing too. It's a decadent, decadent nose. I mean, this is a candle in a note like in the nose. All right, boys, let's get it. Let's do it.

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I'm watching Jim's face.

Yeah, like coconut. Coconut is there. Yeah, I can see that. still carries over that decadent bakery.

That's cinnamon hit me pretty good.

Yeah, definitely cinnamon. And I really do think I get a orange note.

I know Andy uses like zest and orange zest.

You know those cow tails candies, this cream center of them. Kind of getting that.

So who is it? Some restaurant like a steak restaurant has a warm bread with like Texas Roadhouse, right? Cinnamon butter.

Thanks. Texas Roadhouse with cinnamon butter. That's a good call.

What about a, you know, cheers to Dolly, um, one of her, uh, she has the cinnamon rolls there, the Dolly cinnamon rolls at Dollywood. Did you guys ever try those?

No, I haven't. Sadly, I've never been to Dollywood. We brought some home the last summer. Wow.

I'll give you my credit card.

Do you think if you were just doing a drive-by on this glass, you might think potentially Ambarana? Yes, 100%.

I could see that.

That was my first impression when I nosed it earlier.

That's a good one. And that's one of my favorites. Maybe that's what resonated so much. I love the resonance.

You know Rob, I agree with that cinnamon butter at Texas Roadhouse because you also put way too much of that on there for like each bite. Absolutely. And somehow, the decadence, yeah, made me think of that.

Truly decadent.

All right. Well, I hate to break you guys out of your railroad here and all this, but we've got to rank these. All right.

Well, let's set aside this wonderful strain of hands. Bonus pour. You don't have to set it aside. You can continue.

Oh, we will. We will make you think more.

So we have four whiskeys here that were the main show today and I'm thinking we might just want to pick our top three. I think that works. Yeah. It's a little complicated otherwise. And just because we leave one out doesn't mean it wasn't a great whiskey. It just means it didn't make the top three. Agreed.

They're all good.

They're all good whiskeys.

Who wants to lead us off today?

Are we going to rank them? So we'll start at number three and we'll go around the table and everybody gets to pick their number three.

I'll go. OK. Uh, you know, gosh, man, in all fairness, it is, it is tough, but, um, you know, I think, let's see, was it the number two, the Carolinas?

No, number two is the Minnesota brother justice.

I'm going to say that's my number three. Okay.

Okay. And my number three is going to be the last one we had. The cigar cut from Virginia. Okay.

Uh, I'm with Rob. Uh, the sec, he gets confusing. Number two is number three for me. Yeah. So no, the, the brother justice that we had second is probably my number three.

My number three is actually going to be the Oak and Grist. That was from lost line. I like that.

So we're kind of all over the place. Confusing listeners left and right. That's okay. That's right. We're actually so that means now that we're probably got a pretty good chance of all four of them at least receiving some votes. I think so.

Yeah, I just like that Scotty vibe to that.

Yeah.

All right, Rob, you ready for your number two?

Yeah, I'm going to do the, I'm going to say that last one we had, the 108, the, what was it?

The Virginia cigar blend. Cigar cut.

And it was very good. I want to qualify that by saying that maybe the average drinker that likes a nice pour that's not too hot would probably choose this as their number one. So, but.

I'd be curious to know if like that.

Pete might come up on a, like your average drinker though, a little bit more. So for me, the reason I chose that one as my number three rather than my number two was because I just felt a little confused by it. I mean, it was good and it did show itself as a single malt and that was great, but it was like, I just couldn't, I couldn't unravel it. I couldn't figure it out. So the brother justice is my number two. Number two.

All right.

Uh, so I might be the standalone on this one. I think I'm going to have to say the old line is my number two, much as I loved it. It was good. It's going to be number two for me.

My number two is going to be the brother justice. I'm going to agree with, with Jim over there. Very solid poor.

That was good. All right. So now we're at number one. Yeah. Number one. What you got, Bob?

Yeah, I'm thinking the old line. Old line. It was kind of my number one. Just a lot, a lot there. And I got a lot of, you know, kind of flavors. I got some molasses and I don't know, just a lot of stuff. Great color. Just good, good pour.

I'm going to go with the old line as well. But I will say in defense of, of number of the cigar blend, the old line is a little, you know, you're not so sure it's a, it's a, but, but it's, it's absolutely, in my opinion, the best whiskey of the four. So.

You know, when I just put it up to my nose again and you know, these candles, when you walk in a room that just fill the room, that's kind of what I got out of that. Yeah. It's just, wow.

All right, Todd. Yeah.

So I think you're going to be the oddball.

I'm going to say you're going to be the oddball. So my favorite is probably that cigar blend from the Virginia distilling company. You know, I do like scotch, like single malt scotches. To me, it was the most on par with a Scotch. I really would have thought that was a Scotch from, I don't know, Alvini or Glen Fittick or someone. I thought it was very well balanced. Probably the reason I didn't go with the old line is I think maybe it was a little too heavy on the Madeira finish. And so I think that kind of overpowered the whiskey itself a little bit. And that's why I said that. both very good. And I would love to have a bottle of either one.

Absolutely. I'm going to agree with Jim and Rob, that old line. It's a big one. Like I said, I'm kicking myself for only getting one bottle of that.

I'm going to kick you for not getting four.

I've got a question for you guys. Does anything beat the founder, excuse me, the Stranding Hands founders?

I would put it head to head. Gosh. I would have to do a head to head with it.

It's pretty close though. I mean, it's impressive.

It's really, really good. It leans a bit, uh, Ambarana. Yeah. But it's really, really good.

Yeah. Now that you've said that, it's more than, you know, I just went back to it. It's just, It just hit me again, that Ambarana.

So, you know, and I'll say my, when I first noticed it, I would have said this has Ambaran in it. And I will not lie. I am not a very big fan of Ambarana. However, I love this. So I think on the nose at first, I thought it was Ambarana. because whatever compounds are in there make it smell like that. But I don't think it's Ambarana that comes through so much in the palate as more of the distinctive cinnamon and some other flavors. Yeah.

It just, it just happens to be in that same family. It feels like it, I guess. It's really five. Great. I was going to say, I feel like I did a good job because we did boats all over.

I'm just a lone oak and grist guy, but maybe I can find that.

I like it when Todd pats himself on the back.

Good job, Todd. You know, it's always cool cause I'm like, you know, since I brought the pores, I'm like watching faces and expressions and like, you know, it was like, this was an experience.

I knew he was going to be really proud when he poured us those healthy pores.

If you got anything left in your glass, please pour it back in my bottle. Cause those are all too good to waste.

That's what I do with my wife.

I mean, I was the lone Oak and Grist guy, but I think that's, it was very like unpeated scotch. Like I like that orchard fruits. It's nice. I'm curious to see if like, if we could find that nine year, I'd be interested in seeing what that tastes like. Cause a little more age, but. Yeah. Cheers guys. It's like I said, it's been a minute we've tried a few times, but life is busy. You know, Rob's rustling cattle and then another county over or something.

You know, you asked me just to give the listeners an update. I have got a new hip. That's right. And, uh, you know, I recommend that to anyone. If you, if you got something that needs to be repaired, so now you can shoot from the hip again.

You can honestly say, don't wait 10 years, not wait 10 years.

I was in pain for 10 years. Um, probably drank a lot of bourbon because of the pain, frankly, which is not a good recipe, but, um, I did that and, uh, now I'm pain free thanks to a good surgeon. So yeah.

just in time to mosey around bourbon on the bank.

It's going to be a fun time. Well, the malt amigos have had their revenge. Thank you, Todd, for putting this together. Thank you, Amzie and Rob for showing up for another great show. It's been a blast. We always have so much fun. Yeah. And this is that little side road we take every now and then that's, that's not bourbon and it's, it's fun to have kind of our, our little tasting panel here, our own little expert.

We're getting better. That's right.

We are improving with age. I've never been called one of those before.

I feel bad. We're pigeonholing Rob though. He's become a single malt guy. I was going to say, there's worse things, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Not hurting my feelings.

All right. We've had a great time today. We hope you folks listen to us every week on Wednesday when we put out an episode. Todd and I are always doing something fun and exciting with whiskey. Usually it's with bourbon, but today it was with single malt American whiskeys. Lots of fun. But yeah, the best way not to miss an episode is to jump on to that app you're on. Well, you're already there listening to us. Go to the top, hit that subscribe button. That way, when we put out the next episode, you'll get that notification letting you know that we've put out another episode and put the headphones on and join us for another hour of whiskey fun. Uh, definitely take your, take a moment and go to the bourbon road.com. That's our website. It's built for our roadies, for our members. We'd love to have you come on there and sign up and join in. It's a great place to meet other, uh, whiskey friends. It's a great place to, uh, to share what you're drinking, what you're pouring, what's on your bar, what you've discovered out there on the shelf. It's always fun to share with friends. The website is designed to support that kind of interaction with posts and chat and all the good things that go along with it. Todd's even doing giveaways on there.

Yep.

So if you get in there and you get signed up for these giveaways, you might end up with something really neat. Yeah. Every first of the month.

All right. That's my plan.

I usually try to announce them as soon as I do.

Yeah. By the second or third, I'm putting something else up new to give folks a chance to get on there.

All of our articles are on there. All of our episodes are on there. Every member gets to to have their own tasting journal and you can publish particular tasting notes that you like. If you've got a particular whiskey you tasted and you really like it, you can publish that on the internet and everybody will get to see your tasting notes on it. So a nice little tasting journal.

I was going to say, if you're a Rob Carter groupie fan, you could literally search him and find every episode he's been in, which is awesome.

They're out there. I'm going to do that when I get home. Gentlemen only please.

We also have our, our, our supporting vendors who have given, um, discounts to our listeners. So get on their cigars and books and all kinds of good stuff. So, um, house of commons here in Frankfurt gives a discount to, uh, to roadies. So definitely check it out. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.