74. Old Tub Bottled in Bond Bourbon

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, 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, everyone. I'm Jim Shannon. I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, we've got another bottle we're going to try. This time, not necessarily a craft distillery or a small distillery, not exactly artisanal distillery. But this is actually from?

It's actually from Jim Beam. Now, maybe one of the first artisanal distilleries. I guess so. But we did say every once in a while, we would step out, try one of the big boys. Now it's not Jim Beam though. This is old tub. So just recently they released old tub again or re-released it. As a bottled in bottle. As a bottle box. We know it's a hunter proof, four years old. Not quite that dark. I don't, you know, still got that golden amber, that honey bourbon color.

Yeah, now Old Tub, the Jim Beam Distillery when it first started was Jacob Beam Distillery or Jacob Beam Distillery. And then at some point later on, they renamed it to the Old Tub Distillery. And it wasn't until later on when they started actually putting their bourbon in bottles did it become the Jim Beam Distillery. The Old Tub is an old name for the Jim Beam Distillery. It's got a lot of rich history to it. But it hadn't been made for a lot of years.

Now there's no filtration or anything on this. It's not shield filtered. They just kind of strained it out, right?

That's literally what they say on the bottom. They filter out the chunks.

Well, hey, there's nothing wrong with that. So, you know, I'm kind of wondering why did they get away from old tub? Was that because people thought it was like an old bathtub or something?

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is to that. I think they resurrect old brands from time to time. I think they revitalize brands from time to time. And this is one that's been in the family for a lot of years. And glad to see it back. Definitely glad to see it out in a big bottle as a bottled in bond.

Now, I paid about $23 from this for liquor barn. Got my 5% military discount there. So $21 or $22 for that bottle was not... I didn't feel like it was a bottom shelf or as a bottled in bond, but I was excited to see it though.

Yeah, I like the label. I like the bottle. I think the bottle looks like an old, something you might see on the counter at a Wild West. Most definitely.

Got that cork top on it. I guess it's a retro bottle and stuff. Not something you'd normally see from Jim Beam, right? Most Jim Beam bottles are that square bottle. This is more of a typical whiskey bottle.

Well, let's check it out.

I think you're going to like this, Jim.

Yeah, I mean, it's got a great nose, a little bit of ethanol on the nose. I probably should have let the glass breathe a little bit first. That's got a nice baking spice to it. Definitely. Little clove in there. There is some, but I mean a lot of like nutmeg, cinnamon, kind of a little bit of bread to it. Kind of a, you know, bready. Got that nutty nose to it too. Banana nut bread. I'm not getting the banana.

Take the banana out and I'm getting the nut bread. So they actually produced this from 1880 to about 1943 is when they stopped. Definitely an old, old brand. I guess after that it went to just a Kentucky only release. I guess it was worldwide then.

It was, you know, I know over the past four or five years, you've been able to get it in the gift shop and you could find it in 375s, I think, at some of the stores. Little bitty ones, right? Yeah, the little bitty ones, but they didn't have the big bottle like this.

But that was only in Kentucky though, right?

That's correct. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'm going to taste it. Let's do it.

That's nice. Hits you first a little watery, but then it coats the tongue. I think it's actually, to me, it's a little light. That sounds funny coming from you. No, that's that watery. When it hits your tongue, it's kind of watery, but it kind of sticks.

Yeah, I'm not getting that stick. I do get that. I'm getting a little bit of corn there. I get some sweetness off it. Not as much pepper or spice as I thought I would get.

Yeah, I will say this. I expected that the palette would be a little more rich and sort of more rich baking spice palette than it is based on the nose. So the palette's not really coming through with as much richness as I expected from the nose.

Yeah, from a bottle and bond that's four to five years old, I would expect a little bit more from Jim Beam. And maybe this is something they rushed. To me, it has a lot of honey. on it like a light honey, a tea note maybe there.

Yeah. It's all mid. It's all in the mid palette for me. There's not a whole lot on the back end and the finish kind of goes away pretty quick.

Yeah. Not too bad for a $23 bourbon.

Yeah. I'm not saying that's all bad. I mean, it seems to me like, I mean, it's definitely a $25 bottle of whiskey.

I'm wondering if they would have took an eight-year-old or a 12-year-old and said, hey, we're going to make a 12 to 15, even 20-year-old bottled bond, kind of like wild turkey did. Yeah.

Yeah, but you wouldn't get it for $22 a bottle. No. Yeah. So I think it's appropriately priced for what it is. It's a respectable pour. Would I put it up against some other bottled in bonds? You know, I think it's different than like the Evan Williams bottle and bond, the white label. It's different. There's a different profile. But I would have to say that I feel like in a blind that I would definitely lean towards a more baking caramel kind of maple syrup thing that you would get from the Heaven Hill bottle and bond than I do from the Jim Beam here.

You know, I think if you said, okay, we're going to take some early times on bottle and bond and you're going to take a JTS Brown bottle and bond and you took this and maybe a JW Dan and T.W. Samuels, this might take last place every time.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you're probably right. And it has a lot to do, I think, with that first impression you get on the palate, that kind of watery wash you get into your mouth.

I'm still surprised that it's 100 proof and that you get that watered down taste, I guess.

I mean, it's sticking to my palate, but it just kind of washes in like water, brings a little bit of flavor to the front and the middle of your palate. It kind of falls off on the back end. There's no finish.

Maybe we've been drinking too many high-perfumers, Jim.

Well, we did follow a 109, right? Maybe that's not all fair to Mr. Old Tub here.

It probably would be a great mixer for me. I don't know if I would buy this again and maybe if I run out of the bottle and I might buy it again. But I don't think it's a, for me, it would be a pass. I would just I don't see it buying another bottle. Unless they're going to do something drastic to it and change it, it would be just something to make as a mixer. I think it'd be a fine mixer.

Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I think it would make a really good mixer. I think this would be great in old fashions. It'd be great in a high ball. It would be good in a mule, I think. Would it make Coke taste better? Yeah, it would make Coke taste better. What about a Dr. Pepper? I think it's kind of hard to make a Dr. Pepper taste any better.

It's pretty darn good already. Yeah, it is.

But yeah, I mean, I think that it's appropriately priced to be on a bar and to be in the well. and to be tugged on by somebody who's having eyeballs. And you know what? If you end up with a straight pour in your glass, it's okay.

It's okay. Yeah. You know what? It's cool, like you said, the label, the throwback, kind of a throwback whiskey to time and stuff. And it almost makes me think to the 1880s that maybe this is something that would have been a bottle that had been kind of watery a little bit, even though it's a hard proof. They were trying to stretch that dollar for themselves a little bit. I'm glad they brought it back. There's definitely people out there that are going to love this. There's a lot of Jim Beam fans out there. I always say, I hate to pass on something, but that's me.

Yeah. No, I mean, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. I think probably I'm a little more favorable on this than you are, but it could just be the nostalgia getting me. Would I like to see an older old tub, maybe an old tub select, bottom and bottom, maybe something with some more years on it? I think it would make all the difference in the world.

Let's see, I'm there with you. If you even doubled the price, let's say $46, and it was... two to three years older. I probably would go for that if it was, you know, some darker juice. I don't know how you get rid of that watery, that watered down taste. I'm not sure.

Yeah, I don't know. I can't explain that. If it's a bottle to bottle, it's a hundred proof. Why has it got that washy water front end on it? I don't know. But anyway, you know, that's our take on it. We don't pull any punches. We say it how it is and You know, old tub is probably, it's probably going to be a mixer for me.

Yeah. I mean, we're going to mix the hell out of this bottle right here. Oh, it's not going to waste. No, I don't think we've ever said, hey, we're going to drain pour a whiskey. I'd always, there might have been one or two.

Even if I did drain pour whiskeys, this wouldn't be one of them. No, because this is a good whiskey. It's just not to that sipper level. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Jim, man, another great review of not a craft distillery, Jim Beam product, that everybody is nationwide. People should be able to start seeing it on their shelves. If it's in Liquor Barn, it'll be Liquor Barns Across America. I'm sure you'll start seeing it at Total Wine and other places. Don't take our word for it.

Go grab a bottle for yourself, pull it off the shelf, take it home, take a sip of it. You might find that this is your thing, so you never know. So Jim, where can you find us on social media? We are on all social medias. We're on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, at The Bourbon Road. We also have a website called the bourbonroad.com where you can find our blog. Well, actually, Mike writes the blog every week, but you can find Mike's articles and his reviews and sort of the backstory on the different episodes we run. Two episodes a week. We're doing two episodes a week.

Sometimes we might throw a little bonus episode in there for you. So you got to pay attention. Hey, we got a Facebook group called the Roadies. Pretty simple questions in there. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon and do you agree to play nice? We got master distillers in there. We got authors. We got who's who in bourbon culture in there. If you have some spirits questions, come in there and ask. Share your recent buys. Share your opinions on whiskey. Share your reviews. Share your photos. Share your life's events like retirements, birthdays, new grandbabies, new babies, you name it. Tell our family about it. We love that. Me and Jim love seeing the roadies grow. We're right about 640 people right now, Jim. Yeah, that's really good. It's growing every day, right? That's right.

So we've just completed another review. We do these every week on Mondays. You'll hear us do a review of a craft distillery, sometimes a big boy. You never know. And then on Wednesdays, we do a long format show, one hour in length. And we'll interview someone. We'll bring somebody on the show. We'll either go to their location or they'll come to us or one way or another we'll get together.

Somebody's getting on that bourbon road one way or another.

That's correct. That's right. We are the bourbon road. We like to get out there and do it ourselves. So you can find me at One Big Chief. I'm JayShannon63 and we'll see you on down the bourbon road. 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 in 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.