517. The New Riff Brown-Forman Sandwich

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 whether it knows our name Same old bar stools but it never feels the same We raise a glass to the miles we've made To the stories told and the dues we've paid Amber light in a crystal glow A little 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 dirt Ain't no mail, just the ties we've sewn On the long winding bird

Welcome back, roadies, long-time listeners and new listeners alike. Great to have you for another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. Today we're airing from the Bourbon Road Bar in Simpsonville, Kentucky. Todd's got quite a lineup for us today. Todd, what do you have?

We have some great friends. Let's just go ahead and throw that out there. All these pores today came from some of our friends. And we'll go through those, but today we've got kind of a mini battle, if you will, one of the OGs, a couple of Brown Foreman products, and then, dare I say, a new riff on the block.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we got two products from New Riff out of... new port too.

Awesome. Well, they make some great stuff. And you know, they're not, I mean, they're new kids on the block or you said new riff on the block.

When you compare to Brown Foreman. When you compare to Brown Foreman, they're, yeah, they're just a day old. So the first one we're going to even dive into has something to do about like how long Brown Foreman, well, at least an employee there has been there. Oh, wow. So let's dive in, shall we? Let's do it. All right. So this is Kentucky Boy. This was released from Brown Foreman at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. It was also released there at Old Forester in Louisville, and I'm sure it was probably at a few other retail shops there around town in Louisville and then you go to her directly because our good friend of the show, John Griffin, ordered two bottles and he lives in a state that Can't ship to. So this is not the first time he's had packages delivered to my door. And then when he comes into town, we just hang on to him and not give him to him. And he was kind enough to say, keep one of those for yourself. He got two bottles of this. And I was like, well, thank you. And funny enough, I'm going to pay it forward to a friend who was looking for this bottle big time. So perfect. Yeah. So comes around, goes around. So like I said, Kentucky boy, it's a result released for Kentucky Bird Festival. And it was to honor the master distiller emeritus, Chris Morris, his 50th year. I mean, we talk about Jimmy being there a long time, but- Chris has been there about- I mean, not as close, but- A generation less. Right. Like driving a car less, I guess, 16, but pretty amazing. Yeah. I mean, you know, this has an MSRP of 99.99. Hunter-proof, no age statement, although looking on the internets and things, you find out it says about 10. This was crafted by Woodford Reserve master distiller Elizabeth McCall and Old Forrester assistant master distiller Caleb Trigo. They blended Woodford Reserve double-oaked barrels, Old Forrester birthday bourbon barrels, and King of Kentucky barrels. Wow. Yeah. The big trio. So what's kind of cool about the Kentucky Boy was it's a label that was bought back in the 20s, I guess, pre-Prohibition and by Brown Forman. And they kind of hung on it. And then after Prohibition, they released some stuff. And then, yeah, for this one time only thing to kind of Tipped the hat to Chris Morris. They brought this label back. Wow. Another cool thing about it is Proceeds Support Second Stride, an equine adoption charity for retired thoroughbreds. Cool. Yeah. So, you know, but let's jump into this now.

Let's do it. Let's do it. I made you smell this one before we... I know it.

And it just screams Brown Foreman. Yeah. It screams more the double oak than the other two to me.

Uh, yeah, but it's got this, uh, it's got this Brown Foreman, King of Kentucky kind of nose to it that, uh, That chocolatey hint of cherry. You said leather. Yeah, that combination of those three. That just says this is a Brown Forman product. And I think we all saw a comment, it's like rare to find a bad Brown Forman nose. Yeah, it is. They are very, very good. And they don't always match the palette. Correct. But they're always an enjoyable nose. You smell it, you go, Ooh, I can't wait to taste this. And that's so true of this one. It has that wonderful, wonderful nose, rich, Um, dark it's, it's well aged. I don't know what the ages are on this, but I would imagine with those barrels, we're probably talking a mixture of older and younger barrels.

Like I said, younger being seven to eight. Word is 10 ish. Okay. Maybe. All right. I mean, maybe more clues will come out as we, uh, as we go, but.

All right. I'm going to taste it. Same. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that's good. It's got some older barrels in it. Yeah. I can get that right now. Chocolate's still there. It's very, very mature oak, well-aged.

The oak is bourbon. Yeah. It's right there.

Very nice. Some interesting facts about Chris Morris, a couple of things about Chris Morris. Now, he's been on the show a couple of times, but a couple of fun facts about Chris Morris. the, uh, the bourbon or whiskey nosing and tasting wheel. He's the proud inventor of that. Right. Uh, Chris Morris also, uh, was among the group of master distillers that made whiskey for the first time at George Washington house. So his, uh, farm or whatever you want to call it Mount Vernon. Yeah. This is not a sweet one though.

It's, uh, it's got like a, dried cherries, almost like a flat cherry cola a little bit.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's way elevated from what I'm going to say here, but it does remind me of, uh, the early times bottle and bond back when it was made at, uh, Brown Foreman. Right. Um, of course this is a much more mature and well-crafted version of it, but it has that same base flavors. Yeah, the oak on this is, there's been a few of these barrels that had whiskey in them for a while. Yeah. The finish kind of like passes on a little quick. What do you think? I mean, the hug settles in, but you're right. The finish is kind of diminishing. Makes you want to keep drinking it, but you got to, the sips are closer together than they need to be. I don't want to say like, like I said, that dried cherry, but there's like cranberry a little bit. Maybe a little bit of cranberry. Um, like a sharp fruit. Little tobacco. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a, it's a good whiskey. Like tobacco. I would even say barn. Yeah. Like when you walk in a tobacco barn and you smell, that's kind of like the taste. So this won't drop until after, but we are just a few days from Bourbon on the Banks.

That's right. We're days, two days from it. Three days, yeah, two days from. And literally one day from when the Festivities really kick off. That's right, because really it kicks off on Thursday night. This is Wednesday before Bourbon on the Bank. So tomorrow night, we will go to the Whiskey Thief kickoff party.

Yeah, I'll be there a little late. Son's got soccer practice, but.

Well, we normally see you there for sure. You do show up. Yeah. Yeah. And they're excited.

They weren't, they're like, they wanted to come because they like, they found a toad last year.

So they like exploring out there.

My kids are easy.

There'll be goats running around. That's true.

They'll have some goats to play with.

I'm very excited.

Be good to see, uh, Some roadies and some old friends.

Well, cheers to Chris Morris. Cheers. Congratulations, my friend. It's been quite a journey for you and I'm glad to see you receive the. the nod that you deserve. Yeah.

So I got to ask a quick question of you. So if they were to honor Jim Shannon with a blend like any distillery out there, what would it have in it? Oh my goodness. It would probably- You'd put some turkey products, wouldn't you?

Yeah, it would probably be wild turkey base. Maybe, or maybe a rye. I don't know. I'm kind of wide open. I don't have like a fixed kind of thing. Yeah.

Speaking of ryes and whiskey thief, I've got one we aren't going to have to have on the show. I don't even know if it's available, but. Yeah. It's something. So what's AMSE going to be pouring tomorrow night? I believe they're going to dive into some of our barrels, I think is the plan as well. We'll see. I mean, it could be a little too chaotic. I mean, if you recall last year, there was a... It's a heck of a crowd. I feel like it keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Well, it's funny we're talking about this because by the time this show airs, it would have been a couple of weeks behind us that we had the event at Bourbon on the Banks. But nevertheless, for us, it's two days from now. And I'm darn excited for it. And I always look forward to going to Whiskey Thief and having Amzie walk around with a bottle. It's fun. He gives us extra good pours. Right.

He'll probably give me a small one just because he always gripes about me giving too small a pour.

All right. That's a good start. We've got a big range on proof. Let's go over the numbers on that one again. What was the proof? 100. 100 proof and what was the price on the bottle?

$99.99. $100 bottle, 100 proof, special release.

And is it available on the shelf as well, or was it only at the.

There's been a lot of clamor for it. So I feel like it's going to be one of those folks are going to have to find probably at a bar or something like that. Now, uh, it didn't say numbers. It did, you know, limited release. Sure. You just never know. Um, Like I said, he ordered it directly from them. So, I mean, maybe check the website. I mean, maybe they'll drop some more. Maybe they hold some cases back. And if you happen to be at Old Forester, maybe they'll drop a few cases, you know, like people that do tours there or something like that.

Those honorary bottles that recognize years of work are usually do pretty well in the long run. So, I mean, you can't go wrong at a hundred bucks. Right. All right.

We're going to switch it up. Yeah. All right. We're going to go to new riff and this is called duet. This is a six year old American whiskey bottled at 111.2 proof. It's a collaboration between New Rift Distilling and Rheingeist. You a Rheingeist fan? Yeah, I'm a Rheingeist fan. Truth IPA for those. It's a Cincinnati brewery. A lot of great beers. So the mash bill on this is a 57% malted barley, 37% raw barley, and 6% rye, which is a very unique mash bill. Like I said, six years. So is it malted rye? Or is it just rye? 57% malted barley, 37% raw.

Okay, unmalted.

Price is $79.99. This was available there at New Riff and probably in the surrounding areas there around Cincinnati, Covington, Newport, that kind of thing. Aged primarily in New American oak barrels with select portions finished in Spanish Oloroso and Pedro Jimenez sherry cask. The blend was then transferred and rested in massive oak footers, sorry, I knew that and still said it wrong, traditionally used for beer maturation at Rheingeist. And then finally, it was re-barreled into used American oak to harmonize flavors before bottling. So pretty unique. Yeah.

A lot of malt in this. Let's check it out. It's got a little bit of ethanol in the nose. but a light, kind of fruity, light fruity nose. Yeah.

Almost like melon. Yeah. You know, we had our, for Frankfurt Barber Society's Castle and Key pick, and I gotta say it, I get a little melon, but like, I'm kind of getting it on the nose here.

Yeah, it's definitely a light, fresh fruit kind of, I mean, melon, I could go for that, but like a, not like a watermelon, but like a, Uh, what are the green ones called? Honeydews? Yeah. Yeah.

Not really getting the Sherry influence though, are you? No, that'll probably come on a palette. Maybe. All right. Cheers.

Cheers. Yes. On the palette. Yes. In spades. Wow. Totally different.

But that's a barley beast. That barley is really there. It is.

I like the proof this is at though. It feels just right. Shout out to Jeff Wack, our Cincinnati connection. Thank you, Jeff.

Check him out on Hello Again Whiskey Friends. I've been sending him a bunch of things to review himself. He does these little one off, like probably 10 minute reviews and he's been doing them blind, which is kind of fun. And then he reveals, he shows the folks, because I wrote a nice little label and he shows the folks. He puts in a black glen so you can't see it or anything like that. So it's been pretty fun.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh, this is nice. It's drying, but man, the finish forever finish.

There's a nice like citrus punch to it too. It's a little bready, little honey. I'm still getting that melon a little bit too. But boy, it settles in on the back of the pallet for a long stay. Yeah. Leaves a nice little sizzle.

Yeah.

I like it. I do too.

Yeah. This is clearly a malt, a barley malt whiskey. So that rye does play with it a little bit, but wow, the finish on this. Yeah. Crazy. It is crazy. So the nose and the palate do not really match, but they're complementary. I think the melon carries over, but everything else is kind of, yeah.

The nose was a little fruitier. This is a little zippier, spicier.

Yeah, it's like a Jekyll and Hyde kind of thing. It's the same whiskey. It's the same person. Right. but you get the, the soft kind gentleman, which is the nose and you got the evil Jekyll and Hyde back end. Yeah. This is a much more powerful, uh, once it enters the palette, then through the, through the nose.

So now have you kind of taken a gander at who all's going to be? At Bourbon on the banks yourself? I have not.

Okay. I was just kind of wondering. They're up to like 70 or they're up to 80 now, right?

I think it is. I think so. One, I want you to hopefully go talk to, as folks may or may not know, I'm going to rainy Florida for vacation apparently, but Colpick, they were a hot ticket. at Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Really? And AMC has a couple of single brails that I tried. Yeah. It's a small town, but that's one that's piqued my interest. And it'd be kind of fun to obviously reach out to him. You know, we like to help out the small guys and definitely the, you know, the Kentucky small guys. Oh, absolutely. And then I've got to figure out someone to buy all the single brails I helped pick. I'm going to have to give you your ANSI, my credit card.

Do they normally take them back? Uh, yeah, they do. The Kentucky distilleries did. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. The storage from outside of Kentucky, probably leave them at, uh, um, what we actually have an agreement on anything that isn't show sold from short barrel. In fact, I think we're already buying some, but anything that isn't sold out from Short Barrel, since they're out of Georgia, we're going to purchase for the Bourbon Society, which you can't go wrong there. I was going to say, I have no qualms with that. I helped pick that one. It's another Ozzy Tyler pick. So it's fantastic. I know The folks at Capital Sailors, I think they're only carrying a few because most have licenses to bring this time. Boondocks, I think that was another one I was a part of. They're going to have their bourbon. I'm very excited about that Jephthah Creed. I want a couple bottles of that. Like I said, we've talked about them a little bit. I think they've turned the corner in a great way. Yeah.

Yeah. I think everybody, and we said this on the last show as well, I think everybody needs put the past into the past and give Jeff another try because they've gotten past that point and their stuff is damn good now.

Yeah. I think we'll be having them on the show soon. We talked to Sam.

Yeah.

Yeah. Had a good time with that pick.

It just goes to show you how important it is to make the right decisions early on in business. It doesn't matter what your business is. If you make the wrong decisions early on, they can really stick with you for a while. It takes a long time to regain a reputation. I think Castle & Key kind of fits that too. They do.

They absolutely do. They weren't putting out bad stuff. It just wasn't...

It was overhyped and then under delivered. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of what happened. I think it wasn't that it was bad. It's just that it didn't live up to the hype. Yeah.

Some great single barrels though. I mean, the Frankfurt Barber Society chose a couple of rides that were really, really good, but those small batches they were putting out were nice, but

As bourbon drinkers, we always expect greatness too. We received dozens, if not hundreds of bottles in the mail from distilleries that chose to make mistakes and do things the wrong way early on just because Their wallet forced them to, and well, those are hard to live down. Man, I'm really liking this one. Yeah, it's good. It's fun. Yep. All right. What do you think? Take a break? Yeah, let's take a break. And when we come back, you've got two more for us. We've got another example of New Riff and then another Brown Forman. Yeah. We've sandwiched New Riff in between two Brown Formans. All right. Folks, don't go away. We will be right back. All right, Roadies, we finally, finally released our brand new website. We hope you get a chance to check it out at TheBurbanRoad.com. It is a total rewrite, remake, revamped. We've done it for you. We have all 500 or so episodes on there with all the details searchable. All you know all the show notes everything you can search by it You want to go find out what we talked about on an episode way back when you can do it We've also got our tasting notes our reviews of over 1,320 whiskies. They're all on there Todd nice our tasting notes our rating for the whiskey We even cue up the episode on the tasting notes To where we tasted on the show. So as you're reading our tasting notes, you can play it 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 Kentucky Boy from Brown Forman, a really fun release that they dropped for Kentucky Bourbon Festival in honor of Chris Morris's 50th year at the company. We follow that up with New Riff's duet. What would you say? Like a Barley Beast? A Barley Beast, yeah. That's a good way of saying it. A Barley Wine with a Barley Wine whiskey.

With a right kicker, yeah.

Kind of like a Barley Wine whiskey. So we're going to follow that up with another New Riff product. And this is called Headliner. This is an annual, highly limited charity-focused special release. This is another tie-in. We have another charity bottle. This was originally launched in 2024 to celebrate the distillery's 10-year anniversary. Each annual expression features a unique complex blend of aged whiskeys. A substantial portion of the bottle sales from the Headliner series goes directly toward funding local nonprofit organizations in Northern Kentucky and the greater Cincinnati area. I just caught myself doing that breathing thing. So this is the 2026 release. Obviously the punk rock edition pays homage to the 50th anniversary of punk rock. It marks two major milestones for the series. It's the first blend in which every whiskey is at least 10 years old and is the distillery's first 50-50 bourbon and rye blend. It's 118.8 proof, nonchill filtered, $150. highly limited and sold exclusively via online lottery to members of the free new Riff Whiskey Club requiring in-person distillery pickup. So one, you're going to have to find via a friend in Cincinnati, maybe at a bar. And some of those proceeds go to Big Brothers, Big Sisters or Greater Cincinnati and Tri-State Trails, which I'm assuming is some sort of rails to trails or something like that. All right. So 50% 11-year-old malted rye bourbon, which is 65% corn, 30% malted rye, 5% malted barley, 25% 11-year-old straight rye, which was 95.5, 95 being the rye, 5 being the malted rye. And then 25% was a 10-year-old Balboa rye, 95% Balboa rye, and 5% malted rye. So mostly rye.

Mostly rye. Well, rye bourbon. So it's a malted rye rye bourbon. Yes.

Okay. Ooh, I like that nose.

So this would be an American whiskey. Kind of a boo rye kind of thing, but- Yes, but they can't say boo rye. They can't say boo rye. We can say boo rye. We can say boo rye. Good nose.

Yeah, but it's leaning heavy on the rye. Yeah, it does.

Which I'm not, no complaints on my hand. No, me neither. I like it. It's a, it's a little bit darker fruity. It's got a nice, um, compact spice nose, like a very, it's not like a, you're trying to figure out which is it pepper? Is it, you know, is it what this is? This is pretty much like a, black pepper and clove kind of nose. I think it leads in that direction.

Not overly minty. I'm not, I'd almost wager. I'm not getting much of anything.

And you would think you get a little of that from the 95.5, but you're not. You're getting more of the sort of the clove black pepper. But the bourbon undertones are there. It's very nice. You get a little bit of that remainder of the of the baking spice cabinet.

Shout out again to Jeffrey Wack.

Yep.

Good deal. Tasty.

Can't wait to taste it. I mean, it's tasty on the nose. Let's see what the palate's like. Cheers. Cheers. Warm, buttery, silky. It's one of those. Sides of my palate are starting to drip. Yep. I just got all... This really excites the palate. There's a lot going on here. And it goes away pretty quick. Wow. I thought with that... Did you take a second sip? I'm going to.

I was going to say the second sip, the first, yes, it kind of just cruised on through that second sip, starting to linger a little better. What do you think?

It's still not super long, not compared to the duet. Yeah. It's a different animal than the last one we had. It's a pleasurable finish, but it's not long lasting. I thought with that silkiness, with that warm sort of viscous palette, it would stick. But man, it sure made my palate drip. Great, great impression. I wanted it to last longer.

Third sip, I'm starting to get that citrusy rye, a bit of grassiness, but I think the rye is the star here.

If you poured this to me blind, I would struggle saying, I would just think it was a rye. It's an interesting combination. You are getting those notes. I'm getting the, like I said, the black pepper and the clove and then a little bit of the citrus that you're talking about. But in the same token, there's a little bit of earthiness to it as well. And yeah, really nice. Um, it is warming me up a bit, but the, the flavor is dissipating, but the heat is not really good. Really tasty. Very, um, it definitely excites the palette for sure.

Some nice oak spice said like a dark cherry too.

Maybe. Very dry. Yeah. Very dry, dark cherry, maybe. Like something, dry cherries, maybe. It's an interesting, it's a lot going on here. I mean, you could sit and analyze this for a bit.

Have you been to the New Rift Distillery? No, not per se. I've been near there because I've been to, was it Party Source or whatever?

No, I've never taken the full tour. I've been in the gift shop in the main lobby and it's easy to do if you go to Party Source. But anyway, beautiful place. It's a, it's not a difficult trip for us to go pick up a bottle if we were to buy one.

No, it's two hours.

Yeah.

Hour and a half.

Yeah.

If you run into bad traffic, it's two hours, but yeah, it's one of those I've been there a few times and just haven't gone in. I do like, I think they're putting out some great stuff. I hear like their eight year, just their regular straight eight year bourbon is fantastic.

I think I've got a couple of new Riff bottles over there somewhere.

And then I really love that first tenure they put out of the bourbon. Actually, we both did. Yeah. And shout out to Jeff again. I loved that so much he found me a bottle and sent me a bottle.

Now does Jeff live on the Kentucky side or on the Cincinnati, on the Ohio side? I believe he's up in the North Eastern suburb type thing.

I have his address that I could look up on my phone, but I think he's up that way. Maybe like just on the outskirts a little bit.

Like blue ash or somewhere up in the.

Yeah, I don't recall.

Okay. Well, that's kind of northeast. 71 and 75 cross the river at the Bent Sprint Bridge together and then they split. 71 runs towards Columbus and 75 runs towards Dayton. So the northeast side of Columbus is kind of, the northeast side of Cincinnati is kind of where 71 penetrates. I mean, his address does say Cincinnati, so.

Yeah. Uh, but I'm sure it's like, you know, one of those like sections of, yeah.

Yeah. It's got a lot of little burgs, whatever you want to call them, but.

All right. We've got one more. We're going to switch it back to Brown Foreman and this one's got a proof. Okay. She's dark too. Oh, that looks like a cherry cola. It does.

Oh, that's a great color. Mahogany, kind of a reddish mahogany. Love it.

So shout out to our friends at the mashup podcast when I did a, I was up there for a conference and sat in with them for a couple of shows. They record a couple of shows back to back. Cause they usually just kind of do like focus on one bottle review and maybe like 15, 20 minutes where, so they did like three shows that night or something like that. And I sat in on two of them. But this is the Jack Daniels Angel Shared Distillery Series number 17. And that's 017, one of the small pint releases that they put out quite often. So the concept, it is named High Angel Share because the barrels were aged on the very top floor of Barrow House 1-13 on Coy Hill. So it's a Coy Hill. It gets the bourbon nerds all a tizzy. The extreme heat at the top of the house caused massive liquid evaporation, the Angel Share, resulting in an ultra concentrated high profile, excuse me, high proof flavor profile. This is traditional Tennessee whiskey, 80% corn, 12% malted barley, and 8% rye. Yeah, sorry. Do it again. So this is their traditional Tennessee whiskey, 80% corn, 12% malted barley and 8% rye. This was released in August, 2026. You could probably only find it there at the distillery that day and then surrounding areas kind of that thing. So we've got some exclusive stuff today, but you know. Kind of a low rye Tennessee whiskey. Yeah. So this is one of those, like I said, 375 milliliter bottles and retails for about 45 bucks at the end. You could get at that. Was it the White Rabbit Bottle Shop? Have you been to Jack Daniel's? I have not. I haven't either. Yeah. I need to go. Road trip. Road trip. I know. Maybe my son will play soccer there. It'll be easier to do. Oh. Brown form a nose.

Yep.

There's some heat there though.

There is some heat there. I think I finished a few nose hairs. I stuck my nose too far down in the Glencairn. That one tickles way in the back of the brain. Yeah, it's got that, that really great Brown Foreman nose to it, but it's that Jack Daniel's nose, right? I mean, let's face it. Yeah, they may be owned by Brown Foreman, but they are themselves a profile of their own. So it's like a lot of brown sugar.

No banana.

No, I'm not getting any banana.

Maybe that, maybe that top shelf or the top of the Rick house just burns that banana off. Yeah. It's a, it's a powerful whiskey. You can tell. Yeah. This is, I mean, the nose makes you think I'm in for a big boy treat here.

But it's got, it's got a nice, um, dark oaky, a little bit of a, uh, a little bit of a touch of leather and just that, that, that Rick house funk that you get, um, I don't know. It doesn't seem like it's been baking in the sun like they're talking about, but maybe it has. It still has some nice delicate notes up front. It's not all beast. I will say this for 138.4.

Like I forgot to blow, like I said, like sometimes if something's really proofy, you just kind of give it a little like that and you'll blow the ethanol out a little bit. So it burnt the nose a little bit, but not too much.

So I'm interested in seeing how this... Let's cheers.

Cheers.

It's hot. It's hot, but it's rich. It's very rich. The first impression you get is heat. You get contact burns from it. I'm joking. I'm kidding, of course. But you feel the contact heat from it. It definitely impresses itself right away that it's a high proof whiskey. But a very nice palate settles in around that heat. And there's a lot of flavor there. Going back to the nose. Yeah. I'm not getting much on the nose now. The pallets sort of taken over. I'm going to take a second sip. It's a brown sugar bomb.

Um, leave some serious white pepper on the finish.

That has a great, great palette. Really delicious. Um, cinnamon butter. Um, that's a great shot. Um, Like, um, what's that? Apple butter, maybe like, but like a really concentrated apple butter. Yes. I love that. That's a great shout. Um, And the finish settles in and stays.

It's more of a sizzle. I don't know if like, it's like, you know what I'm saying? Like the flavors don't hang a lot. It's just kind of leaves that like, I don't know if it's a proof sizzle to me.

Could be. It's a, it's enjoyable. I'm really liking it. Uh, this is, this does remind me of other Jack Daniel's high proof examples that, uh,

they have a similar impression on the palate. I was going to say, Jack Daniel's might be one of the most consistent. If you see a single barrel of their whiskey or their rye, it's, it's probably going to be a treat. I mean, it's going to be a proofy treat, but it's rare to see them like, like when you see folks do pics of that, put out a, like a dud,

This is going to be hard tonight. These are all well matched. They each bring something a little bit different to the table. This one certainly brings a powerful punch.

This brings something, right?

Yeah, it does. It's good. It's really good.

I like it. I feel like the, I tried this with them at the show when we were recorded and I feel like it's improved or maybe my palate's a little different tonight.

I'm trying to think of my brain here. So we had a Kentucky boy and then we had the first new riff, which was the duet, which had really good flavor. And probably the youngest, I would say of the four. It had a good finish. Then we had the headliner, which was a real impression on the palette, but the finish kind of dropped off on that. And then this, which is kind of well balanced, as powerful as it is, everywhere on the palette gets a nice treat all at once. I don't know. It is a little hot. Yes.

I think I'm locked in.

Yeah.

Are you? I think tonight some clear cuts to me.

Okay. But I'll give you a moment. I need a moment.

Okay.

I got to ask a question.

Are you going to blend all these?

Because I get saved a little bit. Did you? Because I'm thinking this one may be a weird little mess. Cause there's a lot going on with this. Yeah, I'm ready. You can lead off this time. Okay.

Again, we always say this for great pores tonight, but my number three is going to be the Kentucky boy. Okay. All right. I've heard mixed reviews, but I like it. There's something about it.

And yeah, that nose was killer. So my number three is going to be the Jack Daniels we just had.

Okay. My number two is going to be the Jack Daniels we just had.

Okay. And my number two is going to be the Kentucky boys.

So we just flip-flopped on two and three.

And the number one, Todd, the number one is going to be the young guy. Yeah. The duet. The duet. Yeah. For me too. I think that that, uh, it was just a really good whiskey. Yeah. It had some crazy, just, just crazy flavor profile that just, just fit the moment. And that mash bill was, I didn't know what to expect and it turned out really well. The nose and the palate were different, but complimentary. And one was like, is that the one I called Jekyll and Hyde? Yeah, kind of Jekyll and Hyde, where this nice clean cut city boy up front on the nose. misled you onto what you're getting yourself into on the palette, which was more of an evil Jekyll kind of... I don't know.

It was good.

Anyway, so I agree with you completely. We were pretty much in agreement. The one that didn't make the cut was the one that had the finish that went nowhere. Which was still A solid pour. It just didn't... And you know what? It was the only one of the four that caused my palate to drip. I know. Isn't that funny? But then it went away. It was like... So that just tells you folks how much a good finish really matters. Because if you don't get a little time to enjoy it, you're sipping, sipping, sipping to try to keep... you're defeating the purpose. You don't get to really examine the whiskey and spend time with it because you're having to refresh your palate the whole time.

But still good. Great whiskey.

Yeah.

Agreed. Thank you, Jeff. And thank you. mash up. Thank you for John, John Griffin. Yeah. Yeah.

Another great review show. I don't know which one we're going to call this one because, uh, let's say it's the new riff brown form and sandwich. It was a new riff. I don't know if you'll find that on any menu out there, but. Yeah. Another great lineup, Todd. Good job putting this together. And I've had a fun time today. I feel like we don't usually get a lot of Brown Foreman products on the show, or as many as we should. Same way with the Four Roses. It seems like they're not, even though we've had one recently, we don't represent them often enough.

Right. I need to find some contacts for those. I mean, most, yeah, PR. Seems like PR folks just kind of disappear. We've not been getting Jim Beam things lately. And I've reached out to the contacts you found again for me. And so I don't know. And we had a Jack Daniels. We were getting Jack Daniels stuff for a while, if you recall, because we got the 10, 12, and 14 that one year. PR folks turn over a lot. I think they do.

They just turn over and they take all their contacts with them. I guess so. So, I mean, we do the best we can, but then they end up representing a soap or something. We get this stuff like, would you like to have soap person on your show? No. Right.

But, you know, thankfully we have some good friends that are willing to share with us. So it's pretty awesome.

All right. Well, another great show, Todd. You can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can also find us at thebourbonroad.com. That's our home away from home. That's where we'd love to see all of our listeners visit when they get a chance. It's kind of the place we built for you. It's the house that Jim and Todd built. It's the place where we'd like to have you come and make your place to talk all things whiskey. We've got a nice forum in there where people can post and got the Bourbon Road Bar with live chat and event schedule. Todd runs his randomizer giveaways in there. I think he got one going now.

Yeah, I mean, despite this being dropped three weeks later, I'll be actually doing a randomizer tomorrow for some lucky winner. All right. That's another bottle. Yeah, it's speaking of Oh, Forrester, it's their Angel Share Rye, I believe, won that 117 series.

All right. Well, folks, you definitely don't want to miss out on that. We also have a schedule of events that we do, so you want to get in there and check that out, and also a lot of really cool discounts from our vendors. So take a few moments, go to theburdenroad.com, sign up. It doesn't cost a dime. It's free. We'd just love to have you. If you're listening to the show, we'd love to have you on the site. There's an opportunity if you want to donate there, but it's certainly not required. We'd love to have you in there and join in with the chats, post pictures of what you're drinking. Every member gets a ID card. And every member gets a personal whiskey tasting journal that you can keep online and you can share out. So you do a review of a whiskey you like, you can hit the share button and you can put it on any social media platform or share it in an email, share it in a text, do whatever you like with it. Or you can even share it on thebertmanroad.com amongst the other members. We'd love to have you do that. Every Wednesday, Todd and I put out a show. It's always fun. We're always drinking whiskey. Sometimes we have a guest. Sometimes it's just Todd and I drinking through a few whiskies like he's lined up for us tonight. We'd love to have you join us every week. The best way not to miss out. is to scroll to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way you get that bell notification, that text message, that email, letting you know that the boys have dropped another one and you can join us with your headphones on for an hour of just a whiskey bliss. So love to have you every single week. But in the meantime, we'll see you down the Bourbon road.

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