68. Dry Fly Distilling - From Farm to Bottle

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

Welcome back for another installment of Craft Distillery Monday here on the Bourbon Road. We would like to thank our friends at Premium Bar Products for sponsoring this episode. If you're ready to step up your game at your home bar, check out premiumbarproducts.com to choose from their wide selection of glassware, all of which can be custom engraved with your personal message or logo. And there's no minimum order. So after the episode, head over to premiumbarproducts.com and check out everything they have to offer. Now let's get on with the show. Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyatt. This is the Bourbon Road. And once again, Mike, in my basement.

Well, you know, we find ourselves in here and maybe we should call this the craft distillery studio.

You know what? Here's what I think. We need to step out of the box. We need to go out to the goat petting zoo out there, grab a seat on the bench and record a podcast episode. Oh my gosh.

The billy goat has spoken. So Jim, I got us another craft distillery to try. They got a great reputation. You're seeing their stuff on social media. You're seeing them out there on Facebook. Now this is not a bourbon though. I brought a wheat whiskey for you. Yeah. Okay. Well, I like wheat whiskies.

Yeah. So let's talk about a couple of wheat whiskies before we talk about this one. All right. So we got Bernheim.

Probably like a granddad of wheat whiskies. You got Woodford Reserve that released their wheat whiskey two years ago or last year. That's right. Who else has got a wheat whiskey? You have Redemption that has a wheat whiskey. And then you've got all these craft distilleries that Dave Pickerel was part of, and he's put his hands in those. And I guess if you would say it's a wheated bourbon or a wheat whiskey, the predominant grain would be wheat. A little bit smoother of a grain, right?

Softer on the palate.

Now, this is a three-year-old wheat whiskey. It's straight. It's cast strength. Well, let's tell them what it is.

This is Dry Fly out of Washington. Okay. So this is not the first Washington whiskey we've reviewed.

Sure is. We've been hitting a couple of different states lately. We did a couple in Virginia, we did a couple in Washington, and we'll be doing a couple in Texas.

So we're getting out of our comfort zone of Tennessee and Kentucky. So dry fly. Now, this is something to do with fishing, right? I mean, dry fly. Well, fly fisherman.

On the bottle, you see a little boat on the back with two guys in it. One's paddling down probably a Western River, I would call it. Another one's slinging a fly out there all the way around on the bottle to the fly on the front.

Yeah, it's the first time I've seen a label on a bottle. transition from the front of the label all the way to the back of the label, and the two are tied together with that fly line.

That's pretty nice. That's pretty cool. A nice bottle. They even have it stamped on the bottom of the bottle, dry fly. A little bit bigger. I would call this the size of a Stag Junior bottle.

It looks a little like the Rebel Yale bottle.

Yeah, a little bit wider, I think. It's got that heavy glass base on the bottom, maybe to keep it from tipping over. I'm excited about it.

It's 120 proof, so it should be right up your alley. Yeah, it's a high proof, but it's a light color.

Now that might be because it's three years and it's aged out there in Washington.

OK. Different climate. So we don't know specifically the match bill on this. I know. But the proof is 120.

So this is a hot whiskey as far as proof goes. We'll find out whether or not it's hot on the nose and hot on the palate.

It's actually kind of got a really light nose to it, doesn't it? Not overly ethanol.

And I would expect that out of a wheat whiskey to be a little bit more lighter on the nose. You don't get that corn just flowing through.

Yeah, I'm not getting a lot of baking spice, not a deep caramel to it. It's just kind of a light honey, a sweet honey. I'm getting a little bit of a nut to it, but it's kind of like a sunflower seed. I don't know that I've ever gotten a sunflower seed on a Hmm. Honey and sunflower seeds.

I get the honey. I don't know about the sunflower seeds. I was thinking of something more like almonds.

I was trying to, I mean I'm getting a nutty flavor to it but I was trying to figure out what that nut was and I mean it could be an almond but sunflower seeds came to mind. You know, whiskey does that. Whiskey tends to cause you those memories, those memories that you have of tastings and food, it causes them to come out.

And I'm getting something, I'm getting a little bit of a, you ever had a like candied like pineapples, like those dried pineapples are super sweet.

I'm getting that powdery, that powdery from the double bubble powder on it. Oh yeah, yeah, I get that. Okay, so for me, I'm gonna sort of consolidate all that. I'm getting a very light nose, but it is a sweet honey sunflower and double bubble nose on it.

You know what I'm getting? You ever opened up a bag of jelly beans?

Yeah.

Smell those jelly beans, that sugary goodness.

Jelly bellies? Jelly bellies.

That's what I'm getting.

It's got a great nose. I like it.

For a younger whiskey, it's got a great nose on it. Let's taste it. Let's do it. Cheers.

That's got a deep, rich flavor to it. Kind of surprising for a wheat whiskey. I didn't expect that kind of richness to come out in the palate. For as young as it is, it's very bold. A three-year cast-strength wheat whiskey

It's a little dry. It's not overpowering though. No. I get a little bit of nut buttery, just maybe some toffees coming through, a little bit of vanilla. You ever tasted vanilla that you put in your like in baking?

Like just took a drop of it. Just a drop of that. I've never actually taken a drop in my mouth, no. I have.

I'm not sure why you did that. I'm just curious what it tastes like. When we go to Mexico, we always bring back several bottles of pure vanilla. We like to give them to friends and family. I think we brought you guys back some vanilla last year.

Yeah, I'm getting those Necco candies too on the palette. It's that chalky, powdery, the same with the double bubble kind of the whatever that, what is that? The cornstarch they put on the outside? Yeah. Is that what it is? The same with the Necco's. I tell you what, that's got a little bit of pepper on it. It does. It does. Surprisingly. Sometimes you find that with these wheat whiskies and it's kind of surprising, isn't it? When you get that, it's like you get this peppery back in and you're like, where's that coming from? There's no right in this. Does that come from the barrel still? I think it does. I think it does. I think it comes from the barrel. For me, it's very welcoming. I like it because I like to taste something that's soft up front and gives you a little bit of a shout on the back end. I like that.

I think this place is doing great, great stuff.

Now, Mike, I know these are short shows on these reviews, but I'm going to take another pour. How long have you had this bottle?

I think about a year now I've had it. I saw it. Oh, actually he didn't see this. So me and Vivian went out to Kansas city to watch a Kansas city cheese football game and her cousin, her husband came from Utah and he knew I wanted a bottle of this. So he picked it up and we did a little whiskey swap. I brought a whole bunch of Kentucky stuff. I think I bought him, brought him three or three Blanton's bottles, brought him some Eagle rare, a Henry McKenna, a caribou. I brought him a little bit of everything, brought it out there. You were hauling gold there. Little, little bit. Making sure the truck was locked up. And then somebody tried to break into my pickup while we were out there and I had it all locked up in the back of my bed and somebody tried to break into the tonneau cover. And I went out there and my tonneau covered latches all bent up and everything, but it worked because they couldn't get in there. They must've tried and unsuccessfully and luckily I lucked out and stuff. But we traded and I brought this back to something, you know, I can't be the self-proclaimed weedy king of Kentucky and not have this weak whiskey on a shelf.

So what do you have to say to our listeners about how they should enjoy this. Should they enjoy it as a neat pour? Should they try it as a mixer? Now, this is a $50 bottle, somewhere in that range.

I think it's $52 MSRP. I don't know. You drink how you want to. I'd set down this. It's every bit of 120 proof, I think. It could sneak up on you and you have that old wobbly leg going on. like you don't run up two or three miles. So I would say I'd sit down and sip this. This is definitely a sipper.

Yeah, I'm not sure I would try to mix this with anything. Maybe a highball.

I don't know that this would really make great old-fashioned. It might make though, just put it with a little L8-1 though.

Yeah. Now, I think this might be good in the meal or an L8-1 or a ginger ale and bourbon. It might be good. Yeah. It does have a little bit of a bite on the back end. And that's that pepper. Yeah, that peppery. Surprisingly so. Beautiful bottle. I think they're doing a good job here. $50? Yeah. I mean, hey, everybody knows their own wallet, right?

They do. What's a bottle of double-oaked Woodford cost? About that, right? Yeah. So if you're going to compare it to other whiskeys, I wouldn't compare it to anything else. If you want to buy it, you're a weeded person. You're looking for something a little bit different. This is something. Their story, they just say they like to fly fish. On the back, you was reading their their story there. I got to salute them for that. They didn't try to come up with some fancy story or some backstory or anything like that. They are who they are, right?

So let me read a little bit from the bottle because I did this on the last episode. True American Farm to Bottle Whiskey is from Washington State with a fly fisherman's patience and an eye for detail. This whiskey starts with grain grown on the Wasoda Farm, a 116-year-old homestead farm 30 miles from our distillery. We mash, ferment, distill, and age every single drop. No fish stories here. This is a real small batch. Handcrafted American whiskey. Thank you for choosing Dry Fly Whiskey. And then it goes on to say, listen to the sound of the river and you will get a trout. These guys are true fishermen, I think.

Now they do have a bourbon. I'd like to try to get my hands on that bourbon and try that. give it a review. And I think these craft distillers we're trying, everybody wants to see what they're making. I'd say once again, if you're a craft distillery out there and you want me and Jim to sip on your whiskey a little bit, little friends and just give it a review, give it a hard tasting notes, I guess we don't do them like everybody else does. And we just sit down and talk about it really. That's right.

Well, Dry Fly Mike, I think that I'll sit down with you anytime and have a pour of this. I think it's something that... I'm not a big weeded whiskey guy. Let's face it. You know where I stand. Yeah. But this is good stuff. You like that pepper on that back here.

I do. I do like that. And it's right at that 120 proof, but the nose will fool you.

So everybody, if you are not following us on Facebook, you're not following us on Instagram, and you're not in our Bourbon Roadies group on Facebook, we invite you to join us, follow us, like us. Our Facebook group is just a bunch of really nice people hanging out, talking whiskey, sharing photos, sharing bar pictures, called the Bourbon Roadies on Facebook. Search it out, you'll find us. Come on in and join us. We'd love to have you as a member.

Yeah, I love to see people's new photos or bars. I just like the conversations going on. We got even master distilleries and their distillery owners in there talking with with our listeners, talking with the roadies. It's just a great community we're building. It's like a little family. So much so that. Me and Vivian, we had a grandchild and I shared that photo in there and I So many people congratulate us on our first grandchild and we're pretty happy about that. So make sure you look for those photos and I'll be trying to do an episode with my son down there while we're going to visit him.

It'd be awesome. Mike, we're just a podcast. We're just bourbon bullshitters. Yeah, we're just two dudes. Just two dudes, non-pretentious. We don't pretend to be anything. We're not, we're not, uh, we're not telling you how you should drink your whiskey. You drink the whiskey the way you want to.

Yeah. If you want to mix it with Coke, heck, we might even do an episode about that. Just, Hey, what makes Coke tastes better? That's right. Or Pepsi. If you're a Pepsi guy.

So we are the Bourbon Road. We do this twice a week. On Mondays, you'll hear us talk about a new craft distillery. On Wednesdays, we'll interview somebody really cool. And we've got some great ones coming up, Mike. I'm excited. Me too. We'll see you all down the Bourbon Road. Cheers. We do appreciate all of our listeners and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop on all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions, and if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.