91. Blaum Brothers Straight Rye 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 we have another Craft Distillery Monday, Mike. Heck yeah we do, man.

What do we got? Well, you brought Blom Brothers Distilling Company's straight rye whiskey for me to drink.

Yeah. And you heard of, had you heard of blonde brothers before? I had, they had that not our bourbon.

Called it the nother bourbon. Yeah. And it was an MGP, but they were very upfront with it. They were straight with everybody about what they were doing. They pulled on punches and they say that they're bonafide, which I always kind of thought was like a Southern gentleman and stuff. But when we looked it up, It means you are straightforward and you tell it like it is. Is it bona fide two words or is it bona fide one word? I don't know. I can barely spell my own name, so I'm not sure. But I would like to tell everybody what you're wearing today. Jim showed up in my house. He's not a hunter, but he's got a camo hat on and he looks like Larry the Cable Guy today.

He said, get her done. Get her done. Get her done. Well, my camo hat actually says Gettysburg.

Gettysburg, not get her done. Not get her done. That's right. 92% rye, 5% smoked malt, and 3% malted barley.

Okay. So the larger percentage, so altogether 8% malted barley, but 5% of that is smoked. Smoked, yeah. So they didn't quite want to introduce all that smoke. So they just did a little bit of it. 5% of it is smoked.

It sounds like they're doing it their way. This has been aged for four years and it runs about $50. MSRP, and you picked this up at a, I'd say not a country store, but not an urban store. So, we paid a little bit more for it, right? Got it at Gold Big Blue Liquors. That store we told everybody about. That store that we talked about a few times, yeah.

So, yeah, I saw this and remembering the Nader Bourbon, which honestly were some well-selected barrels, very tasty stuff. I thought, well, let's give these guys a try. This is a high rye bourbon, no doubt about it. 92%?

Yeah, it's not that Kentucky rye as most people would call it or southern rye. I think it's great. I think they're stepping out of that box with something different and they're putting that smoke malt in there. Let's nose this thing and see what we think. Let's try some bonafide rye whiskey. What do you say?

Now, this is four years old, you said? Four years. It's a little sweet on the nose, but I am picking up just a little bit of youth for some reason. I shouldn't be doing that with a four-year rye. You would think that would all be gone by now.

See, I get a little bit of that charred oak in there with that floralness that you would expect from a rye. Not too much smoke on it though.

A little bit. I probably, if I didn't already know that it had smoked barley in it, I probably wouldn't say it. But I do get a little bit of smokiness, but I might attribute that just to the barrel, you know?

I get the floor I get on this is like... when I'm cutting grass in there, it's springtime or even in the middle of summer. And I've had those wildflowers out there and I might mow over some of those that Vivian loves so much. Cut them down. I get that nose on that, that floral nose. Little bit of spice in there.

There's a little bit of spice and a little bit of fruit on the tail end with that spice, I think. But that's all, that's all in the nose. We haven't tasted it yet. So I'm ready to dip in like, let's do it. That's really nice.

Definitely has that smokiness to it. I can taste that.

Definitely in the palate. Not so much on the nose, but more in the palate. Still, I don't know that I would pick it up as a smoked grain. It's subtle enough where, you know, if you're somebody that doesn't really like their doesn't really like smoky malt type drinks, then I would say this won't bother you. I mean, it's not overly smoked.

I'm getting a little bit of a creamy caramel on this. You know, it just kind of coats your mouth a little bit.

It's a nice well-rounded mid-palate spice, I think. I'd call this a white pepper again.

You know, we talked about that before, what a white pepper is for cooking. It's not an overpowering, it's not like it's gonna bite your tongue. It's just real light pepper. You got me a bag of that anise candy for my birthday and I've been eating the piece here and there.

I wish I had a piece right now because I'm picking up a little bit of anise in this. And it's, uh, it's nice. It's nice. Very mellow. Just, just very subtle, but I'm getting it.

So it was your birthday. So Jim, how old are you?

I'm 31. 31. Yeah.

Man, you're good looking 31 year old man. No, I'm 57. 57.

Yeah.

Would that make you the oldest spirits podcaster?

I would say it could be. I mean, as far as I know, it's called experience. Experience. I've got experience.

I'm experienced. Experienced. I like that. I bonafide experience. You got a, you got a storehouse of knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. I would say I'm the biggest guy in podcasting, but John Edwards from dads might have me beat. He's a big boy. He's a big man. Yeah. John will give me that, but he's been working out too lately a lot. So maybe, maybe, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see if he can bench big chief. Oh, I don't know about all that. This guy has a little bit of, now it's set on my palate a little bit. I get a little bit more of like raisin and cocoa in it.

Yeah, absolutely. So the raisin is, so I started talking about the anise, but I had that raisin on my mind the whole time because I'm definitely getting that. Almost not that.

You ever eat raisin bran and you get them raisins out of there? They only put like three raisins in a box of raisin bran, right? I don't know why they, you know, you get a giant box from like Sam's Club and you dig in there and you'll just get three raisins in that entire box.

But it wasn't that way when we were kids. I remember raisin bran when we were kids. You know, three flakes, one raisin probably. Cheating us these days. Well, cheating the kids. I don't eat raisin bread anymore, so.

I think this is awesome. I can taste the oak in this still a little bit now. I'm starting to get that little bit of Kentucky hug.

There's a bit more hug to this. We've had some rice lately. We've had some really good rice lately. This is a good rye. The hug on this is definitely It's high on the chart because it's a pretty daggone good hug on this. But the alcohol is not a lot upfront, you think?

Yeah, I don't think it's upfront. I just, not a whole lot of alcohol. This means a hundred proof. So it's not like it's a 120 or 130. I think it's right where it needs to be. I'm not a rye guy, so you know, but I'm starting to like rye more. This for me would pair great with some pulled pork or even some of that Himbele prosciutto as Steve Coombs likes to call it. Some smoked ham or something. I think that would pair nice with that, some smoked meat.

Yeah, this is good. This is really good stuff. So I think, you know, and they didn't send us this bottle, we purchased it. But in any case, we're just being fair on it. I think that this is a good solid rye. It does have a little bit of youth. I get a little bit of youth on the nose, but on the palate it seems good solid four-year-old rye.

I got to say Matt and Mike, they're the brothers there. Straight up some great whiskey guys if you're listening to this. I got to say, I just love your honesty of what you got going on. Even on their website, they make kind of, I won't say they're making fun of themselves, but they are just throwing it out there to be real. You know, they wrote a deal on their disclaimer. The brother's grandfather did not distill moonshine for Al Capone. They don't have a secret family recipe and they were not the first distillery since prohibition to do this or that. You know, that speaks truth to power right there. And I got to salute those guys for just saying what it is. You know, they just looked like two dudes that wanted to make some whiskey. Some new blood that just wanted to get in the whiskey business, right? Yeah. They, they're bottles that standard whiskey bottle, maybe kind of like the shape of an old Forrester bottle a little bit. Not overly impressive. To me, it kind of hides itself on the shelf a little bit, but I do like the colors on it. Red, white, and blue. I mean, how can you go wrong with red, white, and blue, right? So I think that's a great pickup, Jim.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a good zipper. For me, I would sip on this rye. I like the way that HUD grabs me a little bit. So I might call this a fall rye. We're almost a fall now, not quite there, still in the grips of summer, but I would call that a fall rye and it would be tasty to sit outside by a fire, a little chill in the air and sip on this. I think it'd warm you up a little bit because that hug just stays with me.

We're almost there. Yeah. This one might even be a pair of good. I don't know if Steve would... agree with me or not, but this might pair perfectly with some Big Chief's chili. There you go. No, it would. I think it would. Yeah. I think it would pair good with chili. It's not overly spicy. Like you said, it gives you that Kentucky hug, watching some football or sitting down by the fire. I think it's perfect. Definitely a sipper. I don't know if I would buy it as a gift for someone just because it would step out of that realm of something totally different, which it is. I'd sit down and sip it.

Yeah, this is good whiskey. I would share it with somebody. I would definitely use it as a mixer. I would sip on it myself. I would share it with a friend. Probably not gonna gift this bottle as well because I think it doesn't just stand up and say, I'm special, I need to be given away. But it's good. It's worth another buy, right?

Yeah, I'll buy it again.

I definitely will. I think it's a fair price.

I think it's a good whiskey. And yeah, I'm happy to have it on my bar. It's definitely not going to go to waste. Even if it's at your house or my house, this wouldn't go to waste at all. Number one, because we're sharing our whiskey with not only our friends, but our bourbon roadies out there. That's right. So if you're listening to us, you're a bourbon roadie. You see this on the shelf. It's worth a pickup. If you've got that $50 in your pocket, me and Jim always say that we are different parts in our life right now, different places, different incomes. So we don't know what you have to spend. Jim had $50 to spend.

That day I was lucky enough to have $50. I usually don't.

whatever. No, I usually have no cash on me at all, but I got lucky that day. Jim does not live in a river down by the road. I live in a box down by the river. Jim doesn't live in a van down by the river is what I want to say. No, I live in a box by the side of the road. Box by the side of the road where you do live pretty close to the road. So yeah. All right. So I think it's a great one, Jim. Thanks for bringing it over, man. Another great craft distillery. Um, our listeners, if you're listening out there, just go ahead and scroll back up and hit that subscribe button for us. And while you're doing that, you might as well give us a review, I think. So scroll back down, scroll back down and hopefully you want to push that five stars, push four, three, two, and please don't push that one on us. Don't do that to us. If you have to do it, you know, we'll take it. But at least leave us a review and tell us what you thought so we can fix it in the future. That's right. We want to make it better, right? I like these long brothers. We want to be upfront, honest with everybody. So our listeners out there, if you don't know, that we have a private Facebook group. It's called the Bourbon Roadies. A couple of great giveaways on there right now, Jim. Yeah, yeah. So it's really happening.

I mean, people have been kind of swarming to the group over the last few days, haven't they?

Oh, yeah. So our good people, though. Oh, good people swarming to the group. Great people. That's what we want. We don't want that rudeness in there. We want everybody treating everyone fairly. From the beginner that gets excited about finding a bottle of Buffalo Trace, to the guy that's been doing it for 50 years, and he doesn't get excited about much. Maybe a bottle of Pappy's that he's had, and that's it. So that's how our group is. Two great giveaways right now. We have a bottle of Stack Junior, big cheese photo bomb giveaway. But Adams has given away a bottle of Elijah Craig barrel proof C119. So two big bottles. I'm giving away batch 14 and some samples of batch 13 and batch 12. So I think those are two great giveaways. Not a whole lot you got to do for those. Leave some reviews, send old big chiefs some photos, help me out while I'm on vacation because I'm taking Vivian down to Florida because we were supposed to be in Mexico, but COVID and all that mess has messed our vacations up, Jim.

Yeah. And if you're not handy with a camera and you just like to look at pictures, make sure you follow us on Instagram at TheBurbanRoad.com. You can find us on Facebook at TheBurbanRoad.com, Twitter at TheBurbanRoad.com. We also have a website called the bourbonroad.com. Getting the picture here? The bourbonroad.com. The bourbonroad.com, yes. We put all of our episodes up on the website. We've got some blogs up there on each and every episode. Hopefully we'll have some reviews pretty soon on there and you can buy some of our swag. We definitely would love to see you in the Roadies though. The Roadies is a great group of people. Private Facebook group. Request to join. Three questions. Come in and just have a great time.

Yeah. So you can find me at OneBigChief on Instagram and I'm jshannon63 and we will see you 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 it if you'd subscribe and rate us a 5 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.