70. Pinhook Rye'd On Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey

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. And this is the bourbon-roaded today, Mike. Well, we're not in the studio.

No, you got me sitting out here looking at your horses.

Yeah.

Well, it's only appropriate because of what we're drinking today. What are we drinking, man?

We are drinking the new Pin Hook Rye called Rye On. And it's the rye that was produced at the Castle & Key Distillery here in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Yeah, it was produced over there. They refurbished, that's the old Taylor distillery, and they refurbished it to the Cassone Quay. Now this rye has been aging over there for two years now. That's right.

So it's a younger rye and it is, like you said, it is 97 proof. It's called Ride On. It's got a picture of the horse on the front, 16.3 hands. But this is Pin Hook's straight rye whiskey produced at Castle and Gee Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. I think it's probably, what color would you say that is on the bottle? Apple juice? Yeah, it's apple juice. It's got kind of a lighter, yeah, it's kind of got like an apple juice color to it. So it's not real dark. It's got a white label and it's dipped in green wax, kind of a key lime wax. Key lime green.

Key lime wax. So it's 60% rye, 20% corn, and 20% malted barley.

I've heard some good things about this. I've not had it yet, Mike, but I think our friends John and Zeke from Dad's Drinking Bourbon have had this on the show. And if I remember correctly, they kind of liked it.

Well, I don't know. Those two jokers, they like anything.

Let's check it out.

What do you think? Let's do it.

Oh, it's got kind of a refreshing nose on a little bit of a spearmint. I'm getting a little bit of peach or nectarine. Yeah. Would you say the bardic content was in this? 20%. Yeah, so I'm getting that for sure. It's definitely coming through in the peach. Maybe some little bit of spearmint gum in there.

Yep.

It's very refreshing, very light, kind of on the nose. What you would expect from a rye? Now this is that Kentucky rye, right? 60% rye, so this is a Kentucky rye. Now I'm gonna go ahead and sip some of this. Oh wow, so this might be the first summer sipper rye I've had in a while. You know what I get out of this?

What's that? I get mom's cherry pie. Do you really? I get that buttery crust.

Now I get on the nose, I get kind of key lime, spearmint key lime, but on the palette knife, I'm getting mint jelly. You ever have mint jelly on lamb? I'm not a big lamb eater. You're not a big lamb eater?

Never have. I don't know why. I just, I never, never liked that. I'm still getting that, I'm still getting that cherry, like cherry juice, cherry pie. Baked a little bit. There's a spice in there that I'm not sure what it is.

I have to say this much. I have really been looking forward to trying some of the distillate coming out of Cassone Key. This is, other than their gin, this is the first I've had coming out of their distillery.

Now, this is not Castle & Key's recipe. It's just our contract distilling. And for our listeners, a lot of bourbon companies out there, a lot of distilleries, they don't produce their own juice. They don't have a steel or anything for it. So what they'll do is they'll go to a larger distillery, they'll hire them to use their equipment, and they'll cook their juice there.

So I guess there's two ways to do it, right? One way is to call up a place and say, hey, you got any barrels? I want to come taste them. Let me pick some that might fit my profile. The other way is to call them up and say, hey, I've got a recipe. Will you make it for me? Yeah. And that's what Pin Hook's doing here. And they're not hiding anything. If you hold up their bottle and you read it, it says distilled and bottled by Castle & Key Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky, aged for more than two years. Now, that is transparency. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that right there. You're not trying to hide anything. Is it Pin Hook? It's absolutely Pin Hook. But you know, they're getting somebody else to help them make it and there's nothing wrong with it.

Well, they're using somebody else's cook kitchen and they, you know, they have some help there. And I don't think there's, if I came over your kitchen, I'll say it's cooked in your Jim's kitchen. I'm using Jim's stuff to make this cherry pie right here.

Yeah. Well Mike, I have to say, I mentioned earlier, I think this is the first summer sipper rye I've had. One that I feel like, you know, you could drink this in the middle of summer, neat in a glass, and it's refreshing.

I'll tell you what, it's refreshing looking over at your horses. Now I wish I could see on the other side of the barn and see your two little goats there. See how your goat yard's doing, how the old billy goat, you know, you put up with. You put up the Taj Mahal goat houses for them, and then you built a rope bridge for them, I guess, a rope swing bridge for them. They got a ramp to get up in their house. That thing's got to be six foot off the ground for them. They're just jumping around and having a great time.

Yeah, they got names too. Peanut and Oreo. Peanut and Oreo. That's right. Well, Oreo is kind of funny. He's black goat, but he's got a one white stripe right up his belly up the side. Looks just like an Oreo cookie. He's funny. He's very vocal, isn't he? Yeah, he is. If you go out there and you make the horn, what's that called? Hook'em horns? Hook'em horns. You make your hook'em horn signal and you go towards him like that. He wants to rear up and buck at you. So pin hooks,

Once this is gone, this is gone. Next year, they will have a different rye expression. What they say they're going to do is release a new expression every year. Their master blender, Sean Josephs, he's also one of their founders. He's putting these together. I even liked their stuff before that whenever they were sourcing their whiskey and they had their vertical series and I was hoping they would continue that. I don't know if they are or not, but I love their packaging. It's nice, beautiful, slim bottle. I love the different colors of wax that matches the label. I love that they put their horses on there, the different horses. A beautiful expression of Rye Whiskey, Jim, and I think you're right. This is very light on the palate.

What did you say this was, proofwise? 97 proof. I think it is a refreshing, crisp Kentucky rye. I think it's a fine example of a Kentucky rye. And I think it's well aged at two years. I can't imagine what this would taste like at four. I bet it would be just knock your socks off.

So you've got your rye whiskies. I got my weeded whiskies and we kind of meet in the middle with bourbon, right? That's a pretty good compromise.

Absolutely. I'm going to give a big thumbs up to this, Mike. I'm going to say that from what I've tasted out of this, I think Pin Hook and Castle & Key are on the right track.

I think for me, I don't think I would rush out and buy it just because it's a little bit light on the palette. I don't know if I wouldn't like something that's a little bit older, a little bit darker of a ride. And that's probably strange hearing from you, but I think the older and darker they get, the sweeter they get. And then that kind of hits me in my sweet tooth. That's my area. Maybe 110 on this and two more years, I can dig it. So maybe in two years, I'll get a bottle.

I don't think anybody who picks up this bottle of Rhydon is gonna be disappointed. I think they might either say, yeah, it's good as it is, or it needs a little more time. And what was the price on this? I think it was right at $40. So not too overly bad. No, it was good. And Mike, you and I pay a little bit more for our bottles than the average folk because we're kind of remote out in rural country. Yeah. So I would say maybe this is $37, $38 in town. It's a good bottle. And I'm impressed. I haven't had the bourbon yet. I'm looking forward to trying it.

I think when we do get to try something from Castle & Key or Bourbon, I really do believe that they're really trying out there. They're trying to do things right, and there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

And we know a couple of other distilleries that are sourcing from Castle & Key, and they've got some things coming down the road. Looking forward to... Trying a few of those.

Whiskey in America is an exciting time right now, I think. I think the COVID-19 hit it pretty hard and there's going to be some distilleries that don't make it through this, but there's going to be a lot of them. And I think our craft distillery episodes will help our listeners. If you're out there and you're looking for something, give one of these small craft distilleries a chance. You see it on the shelf when you're walking by, Man, Mike and Jim talked about that. I saw it. They said good things about it. Give it a chance if it's within your price limits and help these smaller distilleries out. Absolutely.

Well, Mike, you can find us at TheBurbanRoad.com. We are on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at The Bourbon Road. We have a Facebook group.

We've got the bourbon roadies. You go into our regular Facebook page. You can click on the bourbon roadies in there. Come and join. Three questions, right? Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? And do you play nice, pretty much? We don't talk about politics. We don't talk about religion. But what we will talk about is we'll talk about whiskey. We'll talk about bourbon. We're creating a family in there. People share their stories. They share their photos. And they share their whiskey with each other as we found out. And we'll be having another show about that, just about shared whiskey from our guys and gals in that group that have sent us bottles. I love it.

And this is our weekly view on craft distilleries. This is called Craft Distillery Monday. We take a sort of an inside look at a craft distillery every Monday. So short episode, 10, 15 minutes. Let everybody know what we're looking at and what we're trying on a daily basis.

Mike, how do you think this is going so far? I think it's going great. A lot of distilleries started reaching out to us. If you're a distillery and you want us to try your stuff, reach out to us, send us an email, send us an Instagram message, send us a Facebook message. We're not very secretive guys. We're in trouble if somebody's stalking us, Jim.

That's right. But send us something.

We'll link up with you. We'll tell you how you can get us some whiskey. We'll try it. We'll sit down. We're not going to pull any punches though. We're just who we are.

I mean, I like what I like, Mike. I like spicier. I like more aggressive whiskeys. You like the softer, sweeter side of things. Well, I'm surprised you like this because this is definitely not aggressive. It's not.

There's no pepper on it at all.

You know why I like it? I like it because it's hot in the summertime, and this is a rye that I think you can enjoy during the summer.

I actually put an ice cube in this. Now, you know I like to drink my whiskey neat, but I might throw an ice cube up in here in the summertime.

I think it'd be good in a meal, too. Ice cold meal. Ice cold meal. Mike, we'll see you on Down the Bourbon Road. We'll see you. 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.