83. Buck - Eight Year Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

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.

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 and I'm Mike Hyatt and this is the Bourbon Road and today, Mike, another craft distillery Monday. Yeah, we got a kind of a cowboy one, right? Yeah, I'm looking forward to this one. So today we are reviewing Buck Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. It is an eight year old. Like I said, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. So it was manufactured here in Kentucky. It is being sold by a distillery called Franklin Distillery out of Fairfield, California.

So it's eight years old is like a buck deer getting bucked off a horse. I mean, it's got horse horse. Yeah. It's got that guy on a horse getting bucked off and stuff. So yeah. Um, pretty nice looking bottle and stuff. I was trying to think of some bottles that out there that look like that. Um, it's got its own distinctive bottle. So I got to give them that.

It's got kind of a throwback label on it. If it didn't have the picture on it, it would look like something out of the pre-prohibition time.

Yeah. One of those like old burnt photos or one of those old timey photos when you go to like Gatlinburg or you go out to Sturgis and you get dressed up in those old time clothes. That's the kind of photos on it.

So all we really know about this right now is they say it's ranch hand certified. It's a 90 proof and it is a sour mash whiskey.

So old school. Cause we probably think it's a beam or a heaven hill or something like that.

Yeah, it could be one of those two. I would, I would lean, definitely lean in that direction, but let's go ahead and get into it and we'll let everybody know what we think about it.

Give a little bit of tobacco note on that.

Yeah. So it definitely has a bit of oak presence on it. You're getting at, uh, that older leathery tobacco kind of aged a little bit of leather in there that, you know, that aged worn leather. Saddle leather, right? Yeah. For this it would be or boot leather.

I don't know. Leather. Yeah. Boot leather. Don't smell too good. No floral, not a whole lot of florals or anything like that. Not a whole lot of sugars come out of this for me. Um, that eight year is that oak, that leather, a little bit of tobacco. You said chocolate covered cherries, right? Jim.

Yeah. So I'm getting a little bit of hint of cherry to it and, uh, and definitely kind of an almondy nutty nose to it. So I'm picking those up. I don't say they're the prominent notes, but they're the ones that are a little bit different that I'm picking up. So that's what kind of makes me lean possibly. And again, this is, we're just nosed it so far. So that's kind of got me leaning in the heaven hill direction, maybe, or beam direction. Well, let's, let's taste this joker. That said, it didn't have a lot of sweetness on the nose, Mike, but what do you think about the palette?

You know, the other night we, uh, We actually drank some bourbon or some rye whiskey that was had a sweetness on the front end, but some spice on the back end. And this, this was almost the same little bit of sweetness on the front end. Um, I could get that chocolate coming through just a little bit, some nuttiness, maybe a Belgian waffle covered in maple syrup, something like that.

Yeah.

Some nuts in it, right? Most definitely. Maybe like an almond or something.

sipping on it, it definitely drinks like a little bit older bourbon. It's got that age on it. Uh, it does have a little bit of dryness on the back of the palette, but not too much.

Could you see a cowboy drinking this off after coming off a dusty trail or something?

Or, I mean, I can sit and I'm sitting here looking at the bottle. I'm a, yeah, I'm picturing a cowboy with this in a saddle bag. Now the bottle isn't one of the round wild west bottles. It's more of a, a flat. What would you say this bottle looks like as far as like, it's a little bit more like a St. Cloud bottle has a kind of like that. Yeah. Yeah. I would say you're right. I'd call that a saddle back bottle.

Um, it's cause it's flat like that and it would fit in a saddle bag. Nice and flat. A round bottle is not too good for a trail ride or anything like that. So this is something, be something perfect. Some guy out west, if he was going up in the mountains or something, take with him.

She got a real big pair of boots.

You put this in your boot.

That's me. Well, Mike, I picked this one up at total wine, uh, here in Louisville, Kentucky, and, uh, I paid $28 for it. A Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, eight years old, $28.

That's a hell of a buy. I think. Yeah. I'm wondering which distillery they got this from and what that distilleries eight-year-old bourbon would cost. And if we could compare the both of them, that would be awesome.

Well, let's talk about some other distilleries that are in our area that have bourbons in the eight-year-old range. While Turkey 101 is about $25 a bottle, right? Yep. Um, now some of these are really six to eights, you know, like the Barton is, uh, you know, kind of seven years normally. And it's, uh, it's about $40. Right. What about blends? It's, uh, well, it's, it's actually in that range, right? It'd be in that range. Yeah. Um, we're looking at 50 to 60. Yeah. Um, Knob Creek.

Well, you got nine year, you got 12 year, you got 15 year, but you're talking those bottles will cost a lot more than this right here. I, Jim, I, Hey, I got to salute you, man. This is some good bourbon for that $25 range, eight years old. Um, is this the future of bourbon right here? Is this what we're going to see is more of these coming out?

You know, my opinion is, is that, you know, with, uh, with the bourbon boom, a lot of distilleries have really ramped up their production. So there's a lot of barrels that are going to be starting to come available, already coming available and will be coming available in the future. And depending on their need internally, there may be some extra inventory that needs to be pushed out to some, uh, sourcing distilleries. And yeah, I think we'll see a lot more of this.

I think they, they hit the nail on the head on this one. I don't know who their blender is. Um, who got it down to that 90 proof, but you know, hats off to you. I, you know, the more I drink this, it does dry on the back end has that kind of medium to long finish on it, but It leaves that sweetness on your, on your palate, you know?

Yeah. And it keeps growing on me. The nut keeps growing on me and I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure it out. Is it almond or is it peanut for me? It's a little more almond and then it is peanut, but a little more peanut. I might be leaning towards Jim beam as a source distillery, a little more almond, maybe towards heaven hill. Um, hard to say. We could be totally off. I mean, it could be, who knows somebody else altogether, but, I don't think it's a Barton.

And you know Barton really well. You've been down there for several picks, so you know their juice really well. I couldn't speak to that. And I don't want to bourbon bullshit my way through this one right here and give it an honest review.

I'd say this is a buy all day long.

It's a sipper. If you're looking for a bottle that's $25 out there, and if we can get this in Kentucky, then I'm sure it's getting sent all over the United States. I'd say this is a buy.

Yeah, I'll join in with you on that Mike. And not only is it a buy, but when you can buy a bottle for 25 to $30 and you can give it to a friend and let them try something absolutely new that they've never had before and, uh, It's not like a birthday bourbon or anything like that, but you give somebody a bottle of buck. It's an eight year old solid Kentucky bourbon. It has a good flavor profile. It's likely something they haven't tried before. And you're, and it's a, well, it's an inexpensive gift, right? 25, 30 bucks.

That's not bad at all right there. I think you'd be hard pressed to get another bottle out there. Like you said, um, something a little bit different. something different label. If you got somebody out there that rides horses, they're into rodeo, this would be a perfect gift, I think. Absolutely.

Well, Mike, I would say that we probably ought to reach out to these guys and, and see if we can't figure out what their story is because, uh, I'm impressed with this one. What's it, what else is to come?

Well, that's true, but there seems like they're pretty top lip. You know, when we do our research on them and stuff, you can't find a whole lot about them. You can't find their mash bill. Um, we do know it's 51% corn. We know that for sure. Cause it's a bourbon. So I think you're picked a winner, Jim, you know, I've been striking out, I guess, lately on bourbons. Every time we do a review, I'll get something for us. And I'm like, and this is, this is going to be a winner and it just isn't a winner for me. So.

Well, it's getting hard for me to, to pick a bourbon that you don't already have in your bar because you've got a lot of bottles, Mike, you got a whole lot of bottles.

I found a new store yesterday. They had, they had even more bottles I didn't have. And I was just, I was like a kid in a candy store.

Was it buy, buy, buy?

No, I actually told the guy said, Hey, uh, my wife's out the truck. We've had a long day. If I walk out there with a bottle, she's probably going to kill me. Walked out there and she was like, You didn't buy nothing in there. And I was like, I wanted to, they had a, I want to say they had 20, more than 20 store picks in that store. Wow. Wow. So me and you might have taken it and it's in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. So they got some good picks in there. I, I was very impressed with their bottle selection. from what he said, they have the largest bourbon selection in central Kentucky. Wow.

That's the name of the store.

So yeah, the name of that store is go big blue liquor, um, right off one 27 and me and Vivian were over there yesterday doing the world's lost garage sale. You know, it goes all the way from Michigan all the way down to Florida. So we drove part of it, drove from Lawrenceburg all the way to Danville, stopped at a little bar that I like to go to bar grill, I guess, would you call it? Copper and Oak had a drink there on the way back though. I saw that liquor store and I was like, I'm going to go in there and they have three rows of bourbon. That's pretty impressive. Wow.

Yeah, let's go. I'm ready. Road trip for sure. Road trip.

Hey, what a great little town to go to too is Lawrenceburg because it's like Americana, right? That's right. That main street, all those big houses, historical, I guess they'd call it barons row. Is that what you'd call it? Whiskey baron row.

Yep. Yep. And you never know if you're just going to bump into Jimmy Russell, right?

Jimmy Eddie might even bump into Bo Garrett over there eating, eating lunch or something. You never can to who you're going to bump into in Lawrenceburg. So yeah, I, if you're in Lawrenceburg, your wild Turkey, you're driving over four roses stopped by go big blue liquor. They got some great picks in there.

All right. Well, Mike, you do shoot straight when it comes to liquor stores, you know, sometimes you're telling people to stay away from them. Sometimes you're telling people to go to them. So this time it's a go-to.

It is a go-to. Their prices are good. I wasn't anything overpriced. They actually had some rhetoric 25 on the shelf in there.

Yeah.

I was quite surprised by that. Priced perfectly. All their other whiskies were priced perfectly. They weren't trying to rob anybody. I thought it was great. And I would say that's, you know, you're on 127 right there. You're on the whiskey trail. You're on the bourbon trail. Absolutely.

All right, Mike, well, eight year old buck, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey out of California distillery who's sourcing their liquid. Definitely a big thumbs up from me, a sipper, maybe even a giver, you know, hand a bottle to a friend. I'm pretty impressed with it. I'm going to probably grab another one when this bottle is gone.

Yeah. Cause you can't tell if what, how they're going to change over time and stuff. And I agree with you on all those points, Jim, a sipper, I'd give it to a friend, share it with a friend. Great bottle. I, I salute you. I passed that bottle up before not knowing enough about it and kind of shame, shame, shame, shame, Mike, shame on you for passing up that bottle.

All right. Well, Mike, it's another great episode, another great review, a good one today. And why don't you tell everybody where they can find us.

So you find us on any social media platform, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram at the Bourbon road.

We have a Facebook group. Called the bourbon roadies. It is a private group on Facebook We do ask a few questions if you want to join but they're simple ones We want to make sure you're old enough to drink you understand You're getting yourself into a bourbon group and we also want to make sure you know that We expect you to play nice once you're in there. So come join us. It's a lot of like-minded people We're just right at about 800 members now, a lot of great conversation, pictures of bottles, sharing of whiskey. We don't sell it in there, Mike. Don't sell it, do we? Heck no, we don't. That's right. No sell.

You get in trouble for that.

But we do give it away. We do give it away. We give it away. Other members give it away. They like to share samples. It's just a lot of fun. Um, we also have a website called the bourbon road.com. You can listen to our podcast on there. Uh, you can read our blog. Mike, uh, authors, a lot of great blog content on there. You can also buy some of our merch. We've got some Glen Karen glasses on there. We, uh, we always invite you to come in and see if you, you might want to pick up something there. Mike, how many episodes a week do we do now? It was almost three, right?

Well, so we'll do a bonus episode every once in a while just to tease everybody with, but we do two episodes a week. On Mondays, we release our craft distillery review, 15 minutes long. And then on Wednesdays, our big show, hour long, you can get you to work and get you back. great interviews on there of guests or just sometimes just me and Jim sat down and shooting the shit. That's right.

And, uh, we love to drink bourbon. It's the underlying theme of the show, but we, we like, we like people and we like stories. So we're always looking for that story. So Mike, another great episode. I guess we'll see everybody 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 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.