518. Heirloom Grains & Hazardous Proof: A Craft Rye Deep Dive

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 dirt Ain't no mail, just the ties we've sewn On the long winding bird

Hello again, listeners. Welcome back, roadies, longtime listeners and new listeners alike. Love to have you join the Bourbon Road podcast. Todd and I are sitting in the Bourbon Road bar. Todd's put together another flight of whiskeys tonight that sort of span A little bit of variety.

Span variety and span proof. Yeah. Yeah, we got a big gap in proof. We're all over the place tonight. We are, but it's all ryes. It's all crafty. It's all ryes, so should be fun.

Too bad it's not Friday, because it's like, all right, all right, all right, it's Friday.

Friday, that's right. But yeah, we've gotten some cool stuff in. A few of these I picked up myself. I've had them for a while and just hadn't cracked them open. I've heard good things and so we're going to dive in and then The fourth pour is going to be the treat because that was given to us by David Sandlin. So, okay. I'm very excited to let you try that.

David, for our listeners who don't know, is the proprietor of the House of Commons in Frankfurt. Probably one of the most noted bourbon library, bourbon bars in the state of Kentucky. He's probably wore out.

He's wore out. Yeah. We're recording this after bourbon on the banks. It looked like a blast. I saw a lot of great photos, heard great things. I've watched a few. There were some YouTubers down there. I've watched a couple there talking about it. And most of them wanted to go two days, which they just said it's just too much for one day.

I tell you what, 60-somethings were good for one day. I mean, I guess I could do a second day with a proper night of rest. But the problem when you go to Bourbon on the Banks is you do not get a proper night of rest. It's all about the party afterwards. It's like, oh my gosh.

It's the same. We kicked it off, you know, you kicked it off Thursday night. I didn't get to make it out to Whiskey Thief that evening. My kid had soccer practice. And then by the time I got dinner, it was like 830 and they still had school that day.

Well, I just heard the whiskey thief was just packed. It was. So when we took our Bourbon roadie slash Frankfurt Bourbon Society photo, I mean, there must've been 50 people in the picture.

Wow. Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit. It was a lot.

I mean, I would say a third of the crowd was our peeps. That's pretty awesome. It was pretty cool.

Then followed that up with our meetup at the Bourbon Society building, the corner Rick house. And man, that was fun.

It was fun. And you know what? We, we kind of stirred things up a little bit this year. Um, you know, we, uh, We decided to, uh, so for the past five years or so, we've had the bourbon road bar at bourbon on the banks and a tent and everybody who attended was able to come by the tent and visit Todd and I and, and, uh, have, have a chat and have a few pours and, but this year we didn't do the tent. Yeah. You set up a hosting at the Frankfurt Bourbon Society Corner Rick House.

Yep. Tables galore, full of bottles that we'd had on the show. Despite telling folks not to bring bottles, they brought bottles. Because that's what bourbon folk do. Yeah, that's true. And we had folks like Barry Brinniger was there, formerly of RD1 Spirits. Now he's with Bespoken. So he had some fun stuff. We had Michael Hinch. He works for Leriken. Yeah, he was there. There was, uh, the lady from leapers fork. She dropped off some stuff that we're hopefully going to have them on a show soon.

It's got you bourbon boys dropped in.

It was, it was a lot of fun. I mean, huge, huge turnout at all times. There were probably like 30, 40 people in there. So, and I would say in total probably 70 or 80 folks probably stopped buying that.

It was a real party. It was a Bourbon Road epic. Todd and I put out, I'm going to say somewhere around 50 plus bottles for people to taste. These were bottles that appeared on the show during the year. during 2026. Since we started running out, I even pulled some from 2025 that were at the corner of Rick House. But here was the big surprise of the evening. Todd ran a randomizer. We gave away t-shirts to pretty much everybody. We gave away hats and bourbon road flasks. I mean, it was just a grand party. We had such a good time. Everybody had a great time. Todd ran a randomizer and everybody that was there joined up on the bourbonroad.com website and entered the randomizer and Todd started calling out names. And as soon as your name was called, you got to grab any bottle from any table that we had set out. That we'd had on the show, yep. We'd had on the show. And people would brought bottles too. We asked them to set them aside. Right. But nobody left without a bottle. They didn't because they didn't have to. Maybe they didn't want a bottle, but I mean, our collection dwindled significantly in one night.

Yeah, I was able to open a few new ones of my own stuff. That's why we've got what we got today.

I grabbed one bottle and brought it home. Single malt that I guess was probably yours and I brought it home. Which one was that? Do you recall? I don't even remember. Now it's gone. But it was a blast. We had such a good time. I think that this was the best Bourbon Road Bar event for Bourbon on the Banks that we've ever had. And I've heard from so many roadies who came to that event. They said, oh my God, it was epic. It was unreal. And I just think we need to continue in that fashion if we can.

Yeah, we had folks, I think Darren McCauley was in, he had just retired, so he was in for his first event. So it was nice to meet him, Eric Mays, and his girlfriend, Robin Cooney, they were in from Wisconsin. And then of course, the Ohio crew, the Burbanoffee, they gave us t-shirts.

They brought us Burbanoffee t-shirts. I'm telling you folks, if you're not a roadie, if you're not experiencing these wonderful times we have with our Bourbon Road family, you need to think about it. We have such a great time. And you know what? There was no cost to this. It was free. Yeah. Well, I mean, you had to pay $5 for a one day membership to the bourbon society so that we stayed within, uh, laws and insurance purposes.

Um, and you could have had that and, uh, the, uh, pork belly you made, man. Did you like that?

Oh yeah.

I think, uh, When we record here, I think you need to make some of that more often. I can do more of that. I really liked pork belly. It was fantastic.

It's not the most healthy dish in the world, but man, was it crunchy and crispy and delicious. So maybe not every show. Not every show. Maybe once a month we treat ourselves. All right.

It worked well with bourbon and rice. It did.

It did. So we've kind of got our eyes set on next year and we've emptied out the bourbon road calendar for 2026 so far. So we need to think about what's next. I put up a new giveaway, but yeah, I think

Maybe we'll do like a poll or something and figure out when folks would like maybe come down on a random weekend, not necessarily a festival weekend. I think it'd be just kind of fun if we could put something like that together. But yeah, we'll see. And we won't dive super deep into bourbon on the banks, but I'm sure it was a blast. You and Rob were there, but I figure we'll get Diane and probably Amzie on and talk about What went well, what kind of failed and like, yes, you know, what they learned, you know, cause it's always learning experience.

But as always, Diane kills it. She does such a great job and the rest of the team, the rest of the volunteers. And it was just, I think that every year it just gets a little bit better. And that's, that's all you can ask for. Right.

All right. So let's get this rise. All right. So we had this brand not too long ago. They did the big blaze bourbon, which was the fundraiser for like the fire fighters type thing where they'd had that big fire out in Colorado. So this is lock and Co's distilling from Denver, Colorado. This is their Aspen age rise. So very similar to two 91. Right. I use a lot of Aspen. So this is 90 proof. Retails for about $65, it looks like. It's a 95-5 rye, obviously their own distillate. Aged for over two years and new 30-gallon oak barrels from the barrel mill in Minnesota, followed by an additional eight months finished with those hand-cut charred Aspen wood disks. I want to ask them to send a picture of that to share.

I think they're like coins or something.

I'd be curious to know if they're that small, or maybe a little bigger.

I think they fit through a bung, is my guess, right? You think so? It just seems like they should. Yeah, maybe so. I mean, I know that the stuff from 291 can fit through the bung. Yeah. It's the long staves, but they're about 18 inches long.

I think if I remember correctly, I think I've seen those. They look more like, um, like Kenlin. Oh, I was going to say like stakes that you take, you know, like, like vampires or Dracula or something, wooden stakes or something.

All right. I love the nose. Fresh Colorado air Aspen. I feel like I'm standing at 9,500 feet right at the tree line. It's like a York peppermint patty.

I'm standing on a tree line except it's bourbon.

I mean rye instead of... Yeah, it's got a nice nose. It is refreshing and a little minty, a little...

burnt, like the Aspen, like a little bit, like a little light smokiness.

The last one we had was due to a fire though. Big blaze. Yeah. I think I love the nose. I think it's very inviting. It does have this, uh, this smoky sort of, um, I don't know.

Like if you went through a forest, like an Aspen forest. Yeah. And it,

But Aspen's not an evergreen. It's a deciduous tree, but it has a light color bark and sort of a pear-shaped leaf on it. Kind of a silver hue to the leaf. I like it.

I love the nose on this. It's nice. I've seen single barrels. That's the first time I ever had their rye. a single barrel. So cheers. Let's try it. Cheers.

Okay. Nice. It's a little younger, but it's, it's crisp. It's bright. It kind of matches that, that nose that we just had. Agreed. There's just enough oak bite. to solidify it as an aged whiskey. It's, um, it's, it's a sipper. This, this could be for me, a, uh, a sessionable kind of whiskey. I can drink a lot of this.

I feel like this would be like even better in Colorado though. Like if you're just like in Breckenridge. Yeah, something like that. You know, just kind of Oktoberfest in Breckenridge, Colorado. It's a little cool at the base, at the base of the slopes waiting to go up on the ski lift. That second step really brought out the mintiness. That's nice. I like that. Yeah. Locking code. Good job. And we will rank these, but like I said, the proof range today is. Oh, it's a proof. This one's 90. 90.

Okay. Yeah. This is sessionable. This is something that, um, yeah, you could sit at the bottom of the lift and just drink a little too much of, and then this is a ski slope.

This is after you break something, you're like, I need a drink. Yeah.

It's good. I like it. It's very solid, very well crafted. For a lighter, younger, finished rye, it's pretty darn good. Yeah. I'm trying to think of what it reminds me of. It reminds me of with the Aspen portion of it set aside. It reminds me of a, uh, a younger Penelope, maybe, um, yeah, I don't know.

It's hard to say. It's, it's really good though. I think the impressive thing is it doesn't come off as like a knockoff 291. No. It's kind of got its own vibe. The discs seem to not impart as much Aspen.

I think Michael 291, they do things, they're a more bolder, brasher, deeper, kind of kick it out, hit it out of the park kind of company, right? This is a little more subdued. Little subtle. This is a little more, I call it sessional. This is a porch whiskey. This is something, like I said, you sit at the bottom of the lift and you just enjoy. And then later on you determine whether or not you want to go up or not. And I would say after a bottle of this, you don't go up. You just stay at the homestead. Yeah. Doesn't he leave a nice little tingle? It's good whiskey. Yeah. It's good whiskey.

Do we have a price on this? Like I said, I think it's about 65 bucks. Yeah. Fair, fair price. Good. I mean age-wise, but it's craft.

Lock and Co, Denver, Colorado. We don't know if they're on the back range. Are they in Aurora or are they downtown Denver? So it's the Aspen area.

Aspen, Denver. Yeah. Okay.

Cool. Really good. Yeah. That's a winner. Well, it's my favorite so far. That's right.

All right. Ready to move on? Let's move on. All right. This one's pretty unique. This is Stolen Wolf Distillery, which is in Lititz, Pennsylvania. This is their Rosin Rye, a revival whiskey made from historic, nearly extinct Rosin Rye grain. So the rosin rye was developed in the mid 1910s by Joseph A. Rosen and later lost due to cross contamination. The grain was revived starting in 2015 by Lara Fields and Greg Roth using a small five ounce sample from the USDA seed bank. So it's grown locally by the Klein family farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which I've been there, not to that particular farm, but I've been to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And the first batch, which was distilled on September 7th, 2019 by the late master distiller Dick Stoll, who previously distilled rosin rye at the Historic Mikters in Pennsylvania, which is kind of unique. Sadly, I think he passed away before they released this.

There are other people using the rosin rye.

I was going to say Mammoth. Drew Hannes just talked about Mammoth. They're like in Michigan. I don't know. The seeds are multiplying.

I guess so, yeah.

And actually, funny enough, we, I think we, when I say we, the Frankfurt Bourbon Society, we have some Rosen rye that we're going to use if we ever distill again. Cool. I believe.

I'm going to go on that one. I haven't been on one yet with you guys.

Oh, well, distilling is kind of like, you used to be a home brewer, so you know how that works. You're pretty much watching water bowl a lot and things like that. So it's more about just sipping, chatting and drinking. So, you know, we're pretty good at. So this is an older release. They kind of did. And I think this may even be single barrel. So this one came out in 20. 25 or 24. It's approximately about 110 MSRP. Proof is 106.5.

Okay, are we climbing? Are we climbing a proof? Yeah, we're gonna do the climb.

Okay.

So we went from 90 to 106. So this should be an interesting... The nose does not give away the proof. It's very candy-like. Yeah, it is. It's very nice. I like it. But it's not super impactful. The nose is just light and airy.

Now, it's my understanding the Rosen rye was, I mean, that's what made Pennsylvania ryes, you know, Pennsylvania ryes back in the day.

It's got a little more of an earthy nature to it.

I'm liking this nose though.

Yeah, me too.

It's very different from what we just had.

Yeah. It's, it's a little more earthy, a little more, um, the nose is subdued a little bit. Yeah. Not as bright and fresh as the last one.

It doesn't have that Aspen sort of freshness. It's another youthful one. I believe it's 31 months. Okay. So a little under three.

Rice can do that. Rice can get away with that. Get away with it. Sure. Yep. Cheers. Cheers. Oh, that's a twist and a turn. Oh, that's good though. It is good. So total lack of sweetness on the palate. I'm going to take a second sip because I got a little sweetness that time compared to that first one.

But I think it's because of that, you know, Aspen Stave, which was minty.

I'm getting a dry bitterness on the mid palate. Oh yeah.

Oh, I like this a lot.

It's good. There's like nothing upfront. I'm getting nothing. Maybe something's wrong with me, Todd. I don't know.

I'm getting nothing up front. It's almost bourbon-esque to me today. It's got like these baking spices galore. There's caramel, maybe like a little baked apple pie kind of vibe.

Oh my goodness. The tip of my tongue is like turned off or something because I'm not getting anything up front. Wow. I wonder, what did I eat? I had an Italian sub sandwich. Maybe that had something to do with it.

I don't know. It's not coming off very minty though.

I did drink a Long Island ice tea before the show. I know, kind of weird, huh? That's random. It's random. That's like an OG, OG drink. Well, no, but I didn't make it. It was just one of those cut waters.

Oh, okay.

So I was like, Jim's in there pouring all kinds of stuff, eyeball glass. Oh, I've been training AI agents all weekend and I just needed something to pour, so.

Yeah, this would confuse a lot of people. I'm not getting much mint. There's a little hint of dill. For me, it's dry.

It's a little tannic. It lacks sweetness, nothing. I'm getting nothing on the front of my palate, nothing at all. I'm getting a nice, wonderful sizzle and sensation on the mid palate, a little bit on the back. I mean, it's great. I like it, but it's, um, it's devoid of sweetness for me. So I'm, I don't know how that's happening.

You're getting it. I'm not. I'm not going to say it's like super sweet, but compared to that first one. Yeah.

Interesting. Well, two different takes on it.

Yeah. It's good. That's what's fun about rise. Yeah. So who is this again? What's the proof? What's the price? Stole and woof 106 proof. It is, um, retails for about 110. It's kind of like just coming back to the market. So maybe that's why it's pretty young, but you know.

Well, I'm, I'm blocking away my decisions on it, trying to figure out where it's going to sit in winter, winter chicken dinner. Um, it's, uh, it's totally different than that first whiskey. I'm gonna save a little bit. I want to come back to it. Okay. It might change up completely on the next visit. I'm down with that.

All right.

Well, two very different, very, um, tasty rise in the first half time. Been pretty good. And we done, we haven't done an all right show in a while, have we? It has been a while. That's kind of why I do the status. I'm glad you did because, uh, we, we do tend to lean rye and having an all right show every now and then is a good thing. I know we've got our rye lovers out there.

Yeah, us included.

All right. All right, folks, we'll stick around. Todd and I are going to continue to sip on these two former opinions, get ready for the showdown at the end of the show. When we come back from the break, Todd's got two more for us. Um, one he said, get ready for. Yeah. The other one's a pick from. Well, we will say, yeah. All right. Stick around folks. We'll be right back.

We argue notes, vanilla or smoke, but it's all just part of the bond we spoke.

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. Today we are diving into some craft ryes and what a fun start. So we started that off with a lock and code distilling Aspen Age Rye, a 90 proof, easy drinking, take me to the ski slopes kind of rye, minty, just a little touch of that Aspen, I don't know, like, Freshness or something like that. And then we followed up with Stolen Wolf's Rosin Rye. They release those in single barrels. And like I said, this is an older one, so I know you can order directly from them because that's how I got this one. They're bringing back this rye that's been gone for quite some time. And oddly enough, our next one is bringing back a rye too that's kind of been long gone. So I'm kind of interested in seeing how this turns out. What'd you think, Jim?

Yeah, yeah. For me, I had two totally different ryes in the first half, both of them excellent in their own way, very different, unlike each other in pretty much every way. But a good start to the show. I'm ready for the second half.

All right. So this is Jaywalk heirloom rye whiskey. This is a cast strength. They also release this in single barrels. This comes from New York distilling company. It is the purest expression of Horton, a 17th century historic New York rye variety brought back from just 10 surviving seeds through a collaboration with Cornell university and grown in the Finger Lakes region. 10 seeds. Yeah. So we've got, there's, it's like a mini theme in between the craft rye thing.

Oh my gosh, that's crazy. That is crazy. So yeah, you wonder how they, they probably found them in an old cabin or something, right? Or you wonder how they come up with those just 10 seeds. Then they go into some super secret seed bank somewhere.

Right. One of those little, uh, they go to some old general store that's still open or closing and they had like those seed packets on the back or something on the, you know, the thing you spun around. Oh my gosh, this is crazy. So each bottle comes from one hand-selected barrel, typically aged for seven to nine years and bottled a cast drink. This one is 116 proof. They range, it says they go in at the barrel at 115. So the match bill is 75% Horton rye, 13% New York corn, and 12% malted barley, and retails for about I believe it's about 102.

So 17th century is the 1600s. So we literally are talking about like Mayflower times. Yeah, I guess so. Wow. Cool.

That is cool. Yeah. We're getting some history today. At least some seed history. Horton rye.

The nose is subdued again. A little bit of fruit to it though. Not a lot of like deep spice or, uh, clove or not getting any like pine or it's just, uh, yeah, very nice.

Not overly. Yes. Not a complex.

I'm wondering if I, if we taste it and we come back to the nose, it might blossom a little bit more.

Maybe.

Cheers. Cheers. Wow. Yeah. Another totally different palette. It's got a really bready vibe to it. Yeah. Yeah. This is more rye muffin. Yeah. Um, but nuts, a little bit of nuts to it. Like, um, like a walnut rye muffin. Ooh. Like a black walnut, rye muffin. You're going that deep. I'm going that dark. Black walnut, rye muffin. Let me take a second sip. Yeah. The nuttiness. Yeah. This is, um,

green walnuts, like, Oh, that's green walnuts. Yeah. I can see that. This is really nice. Yeah, it is. Wow. I know. I love finding things like this. Like I said, uh, I picked this one up some time ago too, off of seal box. I used to have that, uh, deal where you'd buy like buy three, get three free. Yeah. And this was like, yeah, you know, sometimes you just take a flyer. You get a few things you really want. And you're like, eh, let's try something else.

There's like a, there's a little stone fruit going on there too. Um, I mean, it's complex. Let's face it. This is, this is a complex, right? Whiskey. How old they didn't seven, seven years. Okay. Yeah. So it's had time to develop that complexity.

I don't know anything about, you know, I know King's County is one of those that uses some small brails up there and they have some outstanding rise.

Is this an Empire Rye? With the heirloom? I don't know.

I mean, well, I mean, it's all New York, everything but the malted barley came from New York. So I think, isn't that...

I can't remember the exact rules of Empire Rye, but I do know it needs to be... I think most of it has to come from New York. I don't know if it all does or not. But, but the, but the barley is just a small percentage to kick in the, uh, the enzyme. Wow. That's delightful. That is really good. That is so different. So unique. I've had a lot of Empire rise and I have to be honest, I'm just saying I like about half of them.

Yeah. Okay.

Just kind of the way I am. I like Kings County.

They put out some really nice rise. Um, New York wise, I had some black button, but that was a bourbon, which I think they may have closed. But I think it's cool and unique that they're trying to, you know, trying to touch into their history. Granted, you can make bourbon everywhere, but Kentucky's got all the history. So it's kind of cool to see Pennsylvania, Maryland rye styles pop up.

How cool is it that a rye variety from the 1600s got down to 10 seeds remaining in the world and they were able to resurrect it and turn it into a product? I mean, that's unreal. That is so cool. You know, so many things disappear from existence through, um, you know, extinction. And it's not just animals, it's plants as well all the time. And for something like that to have gotten down to just 10 seeds, probably in some vial in a locker somewhere.

I mean, it's just unreal. Some guy's old jeans or his overalls, he just found them in there.

Yeah, a lot of that stuff is just wild rye that existed a long time ago and it honestly probably didn't produce, didn't have high yields, didn't have reasons for people to want to pursue it. But somebody managed to find a few seeds left over somewhere and preserve it. And for it to come back, it's just amazing. And you know what? It does have a really unique flavor.

Agreed. I mean, all three of these had, for sure. I mean, the Aspen Staves kind of give that a different vibe, but. Yeah. All right. Are we ready for the big boy? The big boy. All right. All right. So this is what we have been waiting for. Yes. And I think we gave a little precursor on a recent show about this one. So this is Whiskey Thief Distilling Company's Hazardous Rye. So what they did with this was they released this at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival and You know, there they do five barrels. So I guess they get so low or something that it's kind of hard to, you know, take the whiskey thief and get some bourbon or rye out. So I guess they put them back in their barn to age a little more. So this one got up to 145 proof. That's 72.5% alcohol by volume. And so it actually says straight from the barrel. So they released a bunch of these at Kentucky Barber Festival. And I believe they may have had some down at the Barber of the Banks Festival as well. But our kind friend, David Sandlin was kind enough to, he had a few of these and he graciously gave us one.

Thank you, David.

And it's, I believe it's, let's see, seven year, 95.5 as well. Just got a barrel number, but it does have a flammable liquid little item on it. And I thought the funny part was on the back, it says no safety data provided. And that's got a dash WZ, which is Walter, Walter's ouch.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

David is a definitely a friend of the show, um, house of commons, friend from Kentucky. Epic bourbon bar, uh, a supporter of the show. Uh, not only does he support by providing bottles from time to time like this, but he also offers all of our roadies a discount. If they walk in to his establishment, show your ID.

I hope some of our roadies were able to check it out. I'm sure it was packed all bourbon on the banks weekend.

We didn't make it over there. Rob and I talked about going there, but we were just, I mean, I'll be honest with you, any of these bourbon shows where you're walking around all day drinking bourbon and then you go eat dinner somewhere, you got nothing left if you're at 60 something.

Unless you're out of practice because I mean, usually we're like man in the booth. So it's a little more busy. You get to have a sip here and there, but you're usually, you know, talking to folks and doing things like that. So actually being an attendee and getting in to enjoy, you know, Like you said, walking around, talking to folks, meeting folks. It's a whole different ball game. So you're a little out of practice. I think that's what it was.

Yeah. We got stopped a lot by, by roadies. And it's funny because, you know, we're an audio podcast.

So it's like, how do the people know what I look like? But they know, I don't know how they know.

They know pictures on the sites or whatever, but yeah, we got stopped a lot. We ended up at one. Uh, picnic table with a whole bunch of roadies around us and just had a, just a wonderful time chatting about whiskeys and taking pictures and just, it was just a fun show. Sorry you missed it, but you, you and the family had a great time in Florida.

We did, we did till we got run off by a, by a hurricane, but it happens. So this one did have a big retail price, $199.99. All right.

Well, this one on the nose exhibits large amounts of ethanol, which you would expect that has met proof, but at the same time you can pick up nice subtle notes of, uh, of the whiskey underneath. Yep.

It's darkest in, I mean, it's the darkest. This is, this is seven years and compared to the seven year New York distilling hair, uh, Jay walk it's night and day.

All right. Man, I'm looking forward to this. Some darker fruits. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers. That'll warm you up. Oh yeah. That's what you need before you go out in the wintery cold this winter. Yep. That will warm your tummy and protect you from all the elements.

What's that thing you say when sometimes rise get to, they get like that rock candy. Yeah.

They turn candy like after about seven to 10 years, but these being short barrels, because that's what they turn them into it. Whiskey thief, when they thief from the barrel until it gets low and then they stick it back up on the shelf, that's a short barrel. All that head space in the barrel causes evaporation and it just concentrates. Yeah. Kind of a neat concept to do that. Yeah, I thought so too.

I actually called Dave on the way here to figure out what this was about because it said straight from the barrel. And I'm like, but wait, you know, that's not one that you borrow your own. But it's got a nice little sizzle.

So this is a combination of five barrels.

It says a single barrel. Well, they're single barrels, but they hand filled single barrel.

But, but in order for them to get enough bottles, they probably had to do a series of barrels, right?

Yeah. He called it a particular series. Uh, let's see if it says it on here. It does not, but I think they just release like different ones, different proofs. So like I said, this is, Probably, I don't know, maybe 40, 50 bottles came out of this and then they had another 95, five rye or maybe a different mash bill and only 40, 50 bottles of that came out.

Yeah. Wow. Really good. Great. Great. Great. I enjoy it. Yeah, this is a, I'm glad we had this one at the end. It's a, it's a powerful punch.

It's kind of interesting because that May Day ride, a lot of times I'll get like, that's another, there are special releases that they do around May and it comes off a little more like lemon bar, like minty lemon bar kind of thing. Whereas like you said, this is sweet.

Yeah, sweet. It's got a little bit of everything in it. I think it's, It's, it's definitely candy-like. It's more concentrated. It's a little syrupy. Barrel char, but it's got, it's got a tremendous mouth feel and it's very warming. Very warming.

Did it make you sweat or anything? I could sweat. I could sweat. No, no doubt.

All right, Todd, great lineup tonight. A lot of great rye whiskies. Let's go over them one through four again for our listeners. So they know what we, we went through.

You got it. So first up, we had the Aspen Aged Rye from Lock & Co. It was a 90 proofer. Probably, like I said, I wish I had a single barrel of it to maybe throw up against this. Delicious. Yeah. Simple, easy drinking. Second, we followed that up with the Stolen Wolf, the Rosen Rye. Pretty cool. Unique story. And then followed that up with another unique story with the New York Distilling Company's Jaywalk Heirloom Rye. seven year single barrel. And then lastly was the whiskey thief beast, if you will. So the proof range, we went from 90 to 145. So kind of unfair to the little guys, but. But maybe the proof maybe turns you off on that one.

I mean, it's pretty strong. There's no doubt about it. It's got great flavor. I love the concept behind it. I love the story behind it because I know whiskey thief. I know what they do. They open their barrels up. They sit there and thief out of them. And at some point they're going to get low enough where they can't effectively thief samples out for the visitors. So they have to move them off and they got to do something with it. How better to do than to age it further and then combine them into some sort of a release. I think it's a great idea. Green. I'm going back. Me too.

All varied rice. Like there's a, we've had a- They're very different. They're very different. An array of flavors on these rice, which is a lot of fun.

Yep. Wow. I'm torn. I'm really torn.

Did you go back to two? Getting sweetnesses on?

Let me do it again. I did, but- Okay. No. Nope. Okay. My sweetness meters turned off tonight. I think I know what I like. I think I know what I like and for different reasons. Um, it's gonna do our top three though, right? Let's do our top three. We'll start with you though tonight. Wait a second. You started first last time, I think. All right. So my number three, my number three is going to be, The number three pour. The New York distilling company, Jaywalk. Yep, the Jaywalk. I really liked it a lot. I thought it was very unique. I thought it had a good flavor. I love the story. I think the story's affecting my vote a little bit, but yeah.

And this is one of those that... Our single barrel, we may have had another one that meant a couple of years older. Yep. Could have been even better. I thought it was fantastic, but I'm going to agree with you. It's my number three as well. Oh, okay. Cool.

All right. My number two. Oh, this is tough because man, this is so close. My number two is going to be the whiskey thief. My number two is going to be the whiskey thief. Is it really? Yep. And it was delicious. It was wonderful.

Um, but I, there was a better rye. Okay. I'm interested in seeing your better rise, my better rye. Um, so I like the locking Co. Do you really, are we different? We are different. We are different. That's, that's stolen wolf. Oh, see we're different. Yeah.

But for me, yeah, it was totally different. Yeah.

And I thought we were when you said, okay, wow, that's cool though.

Yeah, it is cool. All right.

Well, everybody got votes. So that's awesome. And you even went low proof tonight. So that's kind of, I thought it just might get blown away by the proof here.

I think I just like sessionable whiskeys. I just like whiskeys that you can sit on the porch and just drink pour after pour after pour and just, and they just, they just go down. They just, they're good. They're just, I don't know. I've got, I've got a place in my heart for sessionable whiskeys and I, and that locking co was for me, it was just really good. Okay. Well, we'll leave that here.

Are you going to leave that for me? Yeah.

Well, thank you, Todd. That was a small bottle. So for sure. Yeah. Good deal. Great show. I love it when we have the right shows. Yeah, I really do. It's a lot of fun. Sadly, you know, it's the ugly stepsister in the world of whiskey to bourbon, but... It is. And you know what the funny thing is, is that for the longest time, you know, bourbons were leading the way and Ries were like behind, right? They were behind, but they were still relevant, but they were behind. Then came single malts. And then all of a sudden Ries like... getting supplanted by, it was like, oh my gosh, Wright had his day. It had his chance. It didn't quite make it.

I love it though. But I think there's a lot, you know, you hear, I don't like rides too spicy. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of good rides out there, especially on the craft side of things where it's more fruit forward. I mean, like I said, we got all kinds of flavors today and I thought that was really cool.

Well, folks, we're going to turn this episode over to Cooper and Cooper is going to scan it and dissect it and analyze it and determine how Todd and I rated these whiskeys. It's going to put up our ratings for each whiskey on the website. Cooper is also going to summarize the show for you and put it up on the website with all our insights. That happens every single week on the show where we do a full reconciliation of our tasting on the show. We're well over 1,400 whiskies on the show now. Every single one of them is ranked and rated. And the tasting notes are on the show, the details on the cost and where you can find it, who makes it, what goes into it, all those things. And we also queue up the 20 seconds to a minute to two minutes or so that we dedicate on the show to talking about that tasting. So when you go and look at one of our reviews, all you gotta hit is the play button on that review and you'll get the 20 seconds or a minute or two minutes of Todd and I talking about it. So it's kind of unique in the world of whiskey reviews. Not a lot of people do that. In fact, I don't think anybody else is doing that right now. I'd be surprised. I'd be surprised. Jim's a whiz. You can go into a liquor store. You can look up a whiskey. You can search the Burden Road website within two seconds and find out if it's on our site. And then you can listen to us talk about it for 20 seconds to a minute to two minutes and decide if that's something you want to buy. We hope you do it. We hope you enjoy it. We hope you come to the bourbon road.com and check it out. We'd love to have you as a roadie on the website and join us every week for our episodes. When we release them, Todd and I, we put on an episode every Wednesday. It's always fun. We're always drinking whiskey. We try to, I mean, Todd really is the, is the master here. He tries to change it up every week. Give us something new to talk about, vary it a little bit, come up with some lineups. The tasting Matt is always, uh, varied and different. Never know what's going to show. Never know what's going to show. But we try to kind of theme it or try to. There's always a theme. It's always good whiskey. I mean, I don't think we have anything on the show that I wouldn't go out and purchase, but, um, they do vary. They do scale differently and that, you know, you never know who's going to win on a given week. For sure today. I don't know. I don't know who won today. We can't really point it. It was either locking co or.

Yeah, but for you, they came in fourth and for me, the lock and coat came in fourth. I mean, it's all close, but yeah. So maybe in the second place may have come in, but we're the winners. Let's just put it that way. That's right.

Yeah. Well, we do appreciate our distillery sending us whiskies. That's how we, uh, gather the things that we, uh, that we taste on the show. If you're a distillery and, uh, and you've got a whiskey out there that you want us to try and be, be sure to reach out to Todd or Jim at team at the bourbon road.com and let us know. We'd love to have you on the show. Uh, we do it every week. You listen to us on your favorite podcast app. The best way to help us out is to scroll to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way every single week you get a, a notification that we've dropped another episode. You can put your headphones on, jump on that lawnmower, sweep that house, drive down the road to that next sales meeting, whatever it is that you do with your headphones on. We'd love to be a part of your day, but until the next time 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 line 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