Oh, friends, and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon, and I'm your host, Todd Ritter. We've got a great show for you today. So grab your favorite po and join us. Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival. We've got another amazing event coming your way this year. Be sure to join us at the Half and I'll tell you a little bit more about the event taking place October 4th, 2025.
Todd and I are proud to have Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars as a sponsor of this episode and as the official cigar of the Bourbon Road podcast. Our hosts and listeners alike enjoy the ultimate experience of premium cigars. Smokey's lifestyle cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Find out more during the halftime break and at Smokey's Lifestyle cigar.com. The surgeon general warns that cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease and is not a safe alternative to cigarettes.
The Hill House Bed and Breakfast, located in Loretto, Kentucky is ready to be your bourbon country home away from home. Located less than 3 miles from Maker's Mark, the Hill House is convenient to Bardstown and the rest of the Bourbon Trail. The next time you visit bourbon country choose comfort and convenience. Choose the Hill House bed and breakfast. Listen in at the break for more details or visit their website at the Hillhouse Kentucky.com.
Alright, longtime listeners and new listeners alike, welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. Todd and I are sitting down. Today is, uh, part two of our walk through Los Lantern Lost Lantern Summer collection, yeah.
The, uh, good folks there, Adam Polonski, Norah Ganley Roper were kind enough to send us. 8 samples to Run through and we're we're going to the dark side today or they knew we couldn't do it in one show, right, and you know I say the dark side, but it's the side that I think you and I both kind of love the best and we're gonna dive into some rice today. Outstanding. I'm looking forward to it. So we already had the bourbons on in part one. And uh that was that was a fun show. I really enjoyed it.
All those whiskeys were great. um I I'm usually pretty surprised at Lost Lantern and particularly one distillery that keeps kinda kind of bubbling up near the top that we'll probably mention again today, right?
Uh, it's in they're in the blend, but they don't have a single barrel ride this time, uh, and that was Whiskey Acres out of DeKalb, Illinois, and yes, it really It floored us, uh, I think one of our listeners out there, uh, Mike Dowler was such a big fan, he went out and ordered one and I was like, it's OK, Mike, I did too because I really really enjoyed it.
Well, glad to hear there's getting, uh, some people are getting some some use out of our reviews and they and they are trying a few things out there. It's always good to see. It is. I like, like I said, I'm so happy to be a part of their mailing list. I mean, I even joined their. Their monthly, uh, subscription service, we'll see how that goes, that can be a little pricey.
I was kinda hoping to be quarterly like Jim Beam or something, but um, yeah, it's I've gotten a couple bottles from them already and it's really fun, fantastic. OK, so 4 whiskeys today, uh, all rise, and then A bonus kicker at the end, a bonus kicker we'll try to get to. OK, place your bets. Well, let's uh let's move on, please. Alright, so the very first one we're gonna step into is it's a new one to me, it's called Far North, and it is in um Minnesota.
So I just found out it is the furthest north distillery in the United States when you say contiguous, really contiguous contiguous. So we had a far north expression during oh it was it was in a blend, wasn't it? uh during the bourbons that we so we have heard of it before, but we haven't had the right for sure, right, so this one. Comes in at 111.5 proof, it's a 4 year, there were 226 bottles. And this one retails for $100?
OK. And I actually did a little deeper dive on this, so, uh, 65% Hazlet rye, 25% heirloom corn, it didn't divulge what that heirloom corn was, and then that leaves 10% barley. Alright, well, let's check her out. Alright, cheers, cheers. We both had a warm up, by the way. Yes, we did, and it was a ham is a rye, we started with a rye. Oh, this is very uh grain forward, yeah, grain forward.
There's like a nice cooling kind of little mintiness, a little mintiness to it, um, and refreshing nose on it, but, uh, not overly spicy but definitely a cereal, a heavy cereal note on it kind of gives me like that spirits of French lick kind of vibe a little bit, kind of a Melba toast thing. Right toast for sure, yeah, alright, very nose. What what did you say the proof was 111.5. OK, it definitely noses, it's nice, it's a nice soft nose. Alright, cheers, cheers.
It's, it's definitely sweet, candy like. It's got um. A jelly belly kind of. Yeah, a little herbaceous, little herbaceous, kind of like one of those uh. Oh, Like green jelly bellies, it gives you kind of that um. I don't know. See, I would see like the green jelly belly with like about half a black liquorish one maybe and then I don't know there's I don't really have a mint jelly belly. Yeah, they don't.
This is kind of like you put 2 or 3 jelly bellies in your mouth, you get that kind of merged flavor. Really kind of sweet though, yeah, sweet. It does give a little spicy tingle on the in the mid palate. It does, it does just have that um. That kind of of Familiar lepers for kind of, I could see the to it, you know. Um, and maybe this is, I, I think I got a little bit of that in the blend we had that they were in and on the last show. And I think, uh, I think we might even have called it out.
It was. Kind of a uh a spicy gumdrop kind of note. I think that's a good, that's like, yeah, that that black spicy gumdrop. Yeah sugar coating on it. Yeah, sweet, and uh. Yeah, kind of a liquorice spice, but very nice and sweet, not a toasted barrel. Didn't go into the kind of comes off like one maybe. Like I said, it's got a nice spiciness like. Once you Go through it a little bit, it gets really spicy on that middle and front palate. It's very unique.
Yeah, this, this definitely reminds me of like a Libra's fork for sure. I like it. So while we're sitting here enjoying this, um, we've got some news to share, um, one of the things that recently just happened and you weren't able to make it, but I got to go up for like a preview before their grand opening was Dark Art's new place in Whiskey Row in Lexington, or the whiskey, uh, what do they call that in Lexington, it's like the Manchester area but distillery row.
So they just opened their new place and uh they had a ribbon cutting this past week and the grand opening was like the Friday night. They also did really well in Fred Minnich's Ascot Awards and their barely legal bourbon took home best in show. I know fantastic, isn't it? Well, McAuley does great things over there and he's got some tre he's got a tremendous palate, yes he does, and we've we've seen that uh at work uh in different.
Different barrel picks and you know, even when we went there and did a barrel pick with him. Another thing is, you know, Heaven Hill just announced the 2nd edition of its highly anticipated grain to glass. Uh, Kentucky straight rye whiskey. This is something that we've all been looking forward to. We do not have our hands on it yet. Not a second batch. I do have a first batch of batch, but I mean to the chairs, right?
Uh, it's another opportunity for us to give it a shot, and uh I really look forward to it. Also, um, both speaking of Heaven Hill, both Elisha Craig and Larceny barrel proof editions are out, uh, the B 925, 525525s, gets a little confusing, yeah. And uh so definitely keep your eyes out for those. I've noticed that the prices on those and the availability is through the roof. I mean, it, it's really good. You can get them, you get them at a fair price.
I say through the roof, I don't want to make it sound like they're expensive. I think they're at around $69 about 70 $70 and uh readily available at many places when you go in the store. So if you're looking for that high proof Heaven Hill, Elijah Craig or Uh larceny, they're out there. Yeah, that's one of those though if the hype hits it big, they go quick, right, like we had that comparison and we had the B 523.
And Oh no, excuse me, the C 923, and we were like, yeah, that was one of those that everybody scarfed out. So don't dillydally if you see it. I mean, it's always uh it's always a good buy, you can't beat it solid solid bottle. Uh, our good friends at Old Forester reach out to us and just wanted to let the folks know that they actually have their own cherries now, which, you know, we share everything and so I thought that was pretty interesting.
Um, you can find them there at their old Forester gift shop for 1999 and through bourbon barrelfoods.com, which didn't. Were they one of your sponsors at one point? Noter barrel. I remember you've had, you know, you've gone through a few and I was that one just kind of rung a bell, so I've definitely heard of them. And uh 11 last note and then we'll get on to on to tasting here, uh, the Jacob's pardon, the new release of the collective cast Collective series is out.
So it's a 16 year old American whiskey. It's um, basically it's a unique spirit that was finished in 50 year old Orosso sherry casts, which I can imagine would give it some really interesting and unique flavors. Yeah, hopefully they'll reach out to us and we might get a love to get a little bit of that. That might be fine. Alright, so first pour, pretty nice. Yeah, I like it. I like it, like I said, it's a, it's a little bit uh gumdroppy kind of jelly belly, sweet and spicy.
It's uh it's a nice pour. It's definitely a unique profile. So the second one we're gonna dive into is Fray Ranch. They're back again. Yay, yep, this is uh their Nevada straight rye, 230 bottles. They're a 5th generation farm, which that's pretty impressive, and this is a 6 year 118.5 proof. How do you convince 5 or 6 generations of kids to keep going, to keep it going? It's gotta be tough.
It's gotta be tough because I mean you see like these farms go up for sale, you know, when you grow up on a farm, you're like, I don't want to be a farmer and it's tough. I know, yeah, but I guess, I guess they make it fun for the kids. And he's made it real fun. He's distilling now, so. Alright, 118.6 proofre ranch. Darker nose, oh yeah. It's like a Mint chocolate chip. Oh, I'm getting a little bit of like a, yeah, I, I do get kind of the mint chocolate chip note to it.
I'm also getting a little bit of like a I don't know, like a Like a sour peach or something on a peach, OK. I'm a big fan of their rise, cheers, cheers. It's definitely fruity, fruity and sweet. Almost like a Yeah, I see what I'm getting, it's brandy like a little bit. Oh, OK. Oh wow, that made the This is really good, this is like just churned up like the the. The flow works in my side of my mouth like it just really got just like it it pushed all the buttons on my on my tongue.
Oh, that's good. Oh man, fruity sweet, um, still get a little bit of chocolate, the chocolate's actually starting like it's on the finish, right? The chocolate's sitting there on the finish. Oh, quite a bit, but I'm getting the fruit, a little bit of fruit, and it's kind of when you go back and back and forth between your palate and your nose. Just bounce back and forth. You get this nice balance of uh fruit, spice, chocolate. Little warming effect too. Oh, that's really good. Colby, dude.
Now I'm pretty sure they use like some sort of winter rye, I think. Like the, like in the wheat whiskey, they use like that winter, that hard red winter, I think so. Yeah, that chocolate is just like, yeah, like you said, it's like fruit and then you get like a like dipped in chocolate. Yeah, it's definitely like a chocolate covered some piece of fruit. I don't know, but. I want to say like pineapple and like it's a little bit of like pineapple.
I was saying like sour peach, but I, I don't know I think I'm just trying to pick at things because I'm not sure exactly what the flavor is, but it's definitely fruity, chocolatey. It has a very nice, very nice, uh, flavor on the palate and a nice nose. Yeah, that's a good Good bottle right there. So did Mike, um, get on the subscription or did he just buy the one bottle?
I think he just bought the one bottle, so uh I think my friend Adam Dorman was thinking about getting that one too, so yeah, good deal. We're doing our work, I guess, yeah. Fantastic. So some other news we got recently was that Victor's Distillery is going to release their 2025 shanks and Bamberger's declaration. Very soon, uh, these are annual limited releases and are renowned for their exceptional quality and unique characteristics.
And I'll just, I'll just sort of list some other new releases. These are, these are ones you can keep your eye out for, uh, barrel Foundations, double barrel bourbon. Uh, the Doc Holliday bottle in bond straight. Uh, the World Whiskey Society's Doc Holliday bottling bonds straight, uh, Chattanooga Whiskey, they come out with those experimental batches, batch 42, the Amaro barrel finished rye is is released. Uh, dragon's milk. There you go, yeah, uh, they've released their origin bonded for 2025.
Speaking of peaches, I've had a few of those. I get peaches. Yeah, it's really interesting. Uh, larrikin has a decade rye cognac cask. Have you had it? No, but we've been talking about reaching out to Greg, so that's more of a reason to do so soon, so maybe we'll get up there and He'll let us try that, that sounds uh. Delicious and new riffs 2025, yeah. And uh anything else here, let's see, uh, Boone County, did you say?
Yeah, Boone County, uh, definitely has a release there uh what was it that they released? Lewis Loader 15 year bourbon, the 15-year bourbon, I was gonna say that'll be highly sought after. age statements are are becoming a big thing and I think It's just gonna continue and people are gonna throw numbers on those bottles and that draws the collectors and when even the new people see something like that, it's an instant draw because Older age means good is typically, you know, the thinking and.
Do you feel like uh releases have increased in uh pace a little bit? Um, LTOs, I mean those are still, I mean, you're starting to see a lot of other like even the smaller craft distillers doing some like really small LTO's and I think it's It works because it When something's hard to find. People are gonna want it, usually if it's obviously if it's a good product and Well, we can't get them all on here, but we'll try to get a few of them and we do our best, yes, we do.
All right, um, what do you think of this one? Let's final notes on it. It's really, really good. I mean, I'll go ahead and say it's a leader in my clubhouse right now. I mean that far far north was excellent. I mean, it was good. It was just, um, for me, um, it was just, it's a very unique profile, so it's hard to compare 1 to 1 with something else, uh, that, uh.
Frey Ranch kind of check checks the boxes, like I was saying it was pushing all the buttons on my tongue, you know, so it's got a lot going on, it does. Well, in other news, you've got some word for us on burping on the banks. Yeah, if you don't have a ticket, it's sold out, but there are still some Twilight tickets left, so yeah, uh yeah, I think it's like 4 to 4 to 6 on the which is still a pretty good deal because a lot of the fun even happens afterwards.
So once, uh once it's over, there's It kind of clears out on the streets, right? Well, it also kind of clears out, you know, you got some you start seeing the people that may have had maybe a few too many pores, you know, start to stagger on out, but yeah. And on an October day it's let's hope we get some of that nice October weather and it'll be nice and like Hopefully like Sunny but like sweatshirtty kind of that's.
I mean, Friday night's kind of the night we let it all loose, you know, it's, uh, after we get, so in the morning we get there and we set up the tent, we get everything set up and everything and you're out there obviously working too, Todd. Yeah, I do some volunteers, so yeah, but, uh, that evening is, it's, it's a grand party down down in Frankfurt. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a great place to be and there's no tickets required for that.
Just show up in Frankfurt, uh, do the uh pub crawl with us and And just enjoy and have a good time. Yeah, I would even say come out Thursday night to Whiskey Thief. it's uh great last year, they usually have like a fire going and music and a whole lot of people out there just it's just a It's like being at a field party but there happens to be a still there, which is nice. Yeah, another thing is I just did a barrel pick with some friends.
Uh, they call themselves the Simpsonville Cigar and Bourbon Club, which is kind of cool, just a great group of guys, uh, but they picked a barrel, uh, from down home of some eight-year MGP rye, which was in a toasted barrel. It's really good. And uh it was only a group of about a dozen of us that split the barrel. So I've got uh I've got 10 bottles, Todd, I brought you one today. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. You're welcome. You have to let, let me know what you think about it.
I definitely will. So we also heard from Amy Winning. He uh let us know that he had a small group went to Bespoken. Um, spirits, I believe, and they just picked another single barrel for the bourbon on the banks, and it was a 9.5 year Barton finished and Riesling ice wine barrel. I know that's fine. I was gonna say that that makes you we had that barrel which was you're a big fan of it was really good and get this. 142.3.
Whoa, can you say hazmat ice wine, you need the ice wine to cool down the hazmat. You may need some ice for sure. But yeah, that uh that'll be at the um bespoken.
Booth there at the Bourbon on the Banks and they'll have a flag and yeah you can buy that no idea on prices and once we get closer, I'm sure Amy and Diane will let us kind of know the prices on those different single barrels that you know we've been lucky enough to be on a few of those picks and I think this is the first pick that neither you or I went on.
Yeah, I think we've been on all the best one who knows the one who knows who knows, but no. Yeah, there's still a few more to go and I think like I said, we're hoping to do it in a little, you know, obviously it's Hopefully if you're gonna be in town that time, you might try to take a crack at it, but we're gonna give a couple more barrel pick chances to our listeners, yeah, so join the bourbon roadies, that's where we do the roadies, the roadies on Facebook.
Alright Todd, well, we've got 2 down, 2 to go, and uh bonus, poor + 2 plus, so uh I think we've uh talked about these in a good amount. We'll kind of rehash them when we come in for the second half. We're gonna take a short break, folks. We're gonna kinda sip on our first two a little bit and talk amongst ourselves. When we come back, 2 more. Uh, expressions from the summer collection from Los Lantern and then a bonus pour at the end. Don't go away, stick around. We'll be right back.
Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival again. We have another amazing event this year, but we want you to come early because we've got a lot of events leading up to the festival. Starting on Thursday, we've got another mixology with master mixologist Heather W Wibbles on the Bourbon Bell and OH Ingram. Leading into Friday we have got Peggy No Stevens. She's back with another bourbon pairing and a lesson called The Stave is the rage. It's gonna be amazing.
Limestone Heritage distilling is gonna be bringing in 3 single barrels. You're gonna learn a lot. We've got the VIP coming back and this year we are celebrating women in bourbon. This year, Bourbon on the Banks Festival probably. This is to be even better than ever. We've already got more than 70 distilleries that are going to be there. More than anything, I need to encourage you to get your tickets as soon as possible. They're selling fast. Some of them are already sold out.
If you want to come this year, please get your tickets. We don't want to miss you on October 4th in Frankfurt, Kentucky on the banks of the amazing Kentucky River. Few things pair better together than a fine whiskey and a premium cigar. In Smokey's lifestyle cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Their exclusive collection is meticulously hand rolled from aged tobacco sourced from the Dominican Republic, revel in the artistry that only decades of experience can bring.
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Located in the heart of Bourbon country, the Hill House Bed and Breakfast is less than 5 minutes from the Maker's Mark distillery in Loretto, Kentucky, giving you easy access to the Bardstown distilleries and all points of the Bourbon Trail. The owners, Cheryl and Jim, offer 4 comfortable and cozy rooms along with a gourmet hot plated breakfast every single morning. And when you return from a long day of fun, it's time to enjoy a bit of the bourbon Trail night life.
Relax on the large outdoor patio complete with a blazing chimpana and solo stove, or curl up on the sofa and chairs, put a record on the turntable, and relax with snacks and fruit in front of the gas fireplace. An evening at the Hill House is a perfect time to raise a bourbon glass full of cheer in the company of family and friends. We know you'll enjoy your stay at the Hill House Bed and Breakfast as much as we did. Find out more at the Hillhouse Kentucky.com. Alright, welcome back, listeners.
We're gonna dive into two more of these incredible ride from the Summer State collection from Los Lantern. They are known for shining the light on craft distilleries, and this time their their focus is on estate distilleries, which I think is really cool. So our very first pour was from Minnesota, far north, their estate grown rye, which was a 4 year 111.5 proof rye.
There were 226 bottles of that and retails for about 100 bucks, which we will divulge where they can get those um towards the end of the show. And then second, one that really wowed us and as expected, it's a ranch, so yeah, Nevada straight rye, 230 bottles, 6 years, 118.5. And now we are ready for actually I think this is gonna be my dark horse, so I've had some Corbon Cash single barrels and I don't know if you've had any, but I think this is this ring a bell.
Yeah, they're out of Merced, California. This is a 7 year, 133 proof, so this is the top top dog of the proof, uh. Proof battle if you will, 108 bottles, this one actually goes for $130. So funny story about this place is, it's been known as a sweet potato farm. Oh wow, yeah, so so you go from sweet potatoes. To Berman. Alright, I'll check it out. Oh, this is, uh, it's it's got a little bit of singe factor, just a little bit, a little heat in there. But it's also rich and uh kind of caramelly.
Darker fruits, not a whole lot of mint, like. Honey drizzled fruits, honey, I think I like that, honey and fruit. Now they also, let's see now. They actually use 100% Merced rye, which that's where they're they're out of Merced, California, I believe. Now this is Northern California. I, I didn't do my like Google mapping thing, but if you're going rye, I would think so gotta think up in the northern part. You know, if you get it back in there, there is a little bit of mint.
Like, uh, you don't want to jam your nose down in this glass because it can be a little bit that, you know, at 130, what was it 133, 132, 133 exactly, yeah, it can, it can overwhelm your nostrils just a little bit. We talked about that candied orange that we got on the Menden mill from Nevada recently and I'm a little bit of that maybe. Does have that candy though to it. Cheers, cheers. Oh, bingo, bingo. Very, very nice. She warms you up though.
I'm warmed you up, but I'm trying to figure out what is that. There's rye. I mean it's rye for sure, but there's like also like like toasted almonds and uh it's nutty, it's a little chocolatey, it's definitely rice spicy. There's a little bit of a serial note to it. I'm trying to figure out, I recognize, well, recognize means I can name it. I can't name it. There's a flavor there that I I get a flash in my mind. I know what it is, but I can't tell you what it is. Chewy. It's very chewy.
Yeah, I've yet to have something awry of theirs that didn't blow me away. Mm, that's a great ride. I've only had their bourbon, I think maybe once. It was OK. I think that's one of those, you know, we've often said that ryes tend to Age a little quicker and then like a 7 is like that's a yeah, 78 years on a rise is a sweet sweet spot.
They got this big flip they take late in life and late in life for a rise is 7 to 10, 7 to 87 to 9 in that range, they kind of flip, become candy-like, they sort of, they go in a different direction, they lose those youthful notes, they lose a lot of those uh. Overly spicy notes and get a little bit more sweet candy notes. This one's still pretty spicy at 7. She lets you know she's there, that's for sure. Yeah, this is really good. There, I'm gonna come up with it. I'm gonna tell you what it is.
I wanna keep sipping on this. I wanna figure out exactly what that flavor is. I'm nailing, OK. So Jim, what is it about, I mean, you've always said you were a big rye guy. I mean, do you just like that candy note? Is that what it is? Uh, I, I don't know that it's just candy. I I just think I like things that um have a bite. I've always liked spicier foods. I've always liked um. Things that uh get your attention, you know, um, mild palate I don't have, so I just, that's it.
But I also think of like hard truth, which you're also a big fan of it's it's very soft, it's very fruit forward. I mean, but they're fantastic too, so I mean I can appreciate a ride that doesn't punch you in the face for sure, but I also can appreciate one that does. Yeah. So of the 3 we've had so far, you know, A lot of people won't drink rice because they are spicy, which do you think would appeal to like, well, I don't like rice because they're spicy.
Which of these three, so for me the the far north was um spicy grummed up gumdrop spicy. The Fray ranch was well balanced, chocolatey, I think really wide appeal on the ranch. This one again, because of its high proof, brings that that big bite, which it has, and plus a lot of people know their bourbon before they taste it, and that little bit of ethanol that comes off that can really get your attention. So it might could shock the senses if you could shock the senses.
Yeah, I agree, but it's really good. The free ranch has some proof to it, but I think if it's gonna appeal to someone that's not crazy about ride, that would be the one to. Yeah, I need to have my eyes on Corbin Cash. They're making some good stuff. Jason Clori and Scott Page have done a couple of picks with them, and, and we didn't have anything from Corbin Cash in the first episode with the Bourbons, right? No, and but they may have been a part of the blend.
Like I said, I tried one of there was a California bourbon in one of the blends. Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure they were trying to say estate. I'm pretty sure they did have a bourbon theirs, but like I said, I've only had like one single barrel bourbon. A po that I wanna say my buddy Vic Galindo sent me, he's out in California and he's actually one of the ones that kind of turned me on to them and um. Yeah. Just felt like it needed a little more age to it. I mean, this is probably the darkest.
Of the 4 I don't know. My glass is empty. Oh, whoops, but maybe not of the 5. I'm looking at number 5 there, the bonus, the bonus board could have a cheat code. It depends on if they used a small barrel for that maybe. All right. Well, I enjoy this. I, I definitely do. Carbon Cash, thumbs up for me. I thought you would like that. Yeah, I figured that was right up your alley.
I definitely want to keep your eye out like this is the 3rd single barrel I've had and maybe even 4 or 5, some you know, friends and pours, but. Oh, just, just excellent, excellent, excellent. So talking about what's on the shelves, have you been to the liquor store lately and see anything that's priced to sell, anything that really gets your attention?
Because there are a few, uh, Kroger's is real big, you know, they've usually got I've not been in a while, um, let's see, I guess most recent I went to Capital Cellars and that was our, uh, the old Fitzgerald seven year Balden bond weeded bourbon, so which will be we got something lined up for that kind of an age statement review show for that so but.
Yeah, um, that's, yeah, I've not been out too, like, for example, I haven't seen the uh the wild turkey 81018 year in the wild, haven't seen it and um. I think that I think we might have mentioned, I think I might have mentioned that I found the uh the benchmark foolproof at like was it $17 on sale?
I am seeing those Kroger, my Kroger here or one we have two here, one's on the east side, west side, and they, they always have all of those now, which when a $40 bottle normally and I saw it on sale for $17. I was like, what the heck is that a mistake? Got to move it, I guess. Well, maybe they're making room for more stuff. I don't know, it's interesting. Lots of fun though. Keep your eyes open, folks. There are some uh some great deals out there happening.
I was gonna say, if you come to Frankfurt. You can message me and ask where to go and I'm gonna either tell you a Capri Sellers, which is one of our local places that their prices, they don't have a huge selection, but their prices are pretty reasonable. A lot of the other, we have a lot of little. Gas station, liquor stores, prices are gonna be crazy, they'll be. at or above secondary, but go to our Krogers. Kroger, sometimes they'll have closeouts.
And like you you said you picked up a foolproof from Green River recently which, whoa, $17. I mean that's cheaper than that was one of our favorite pores of 2024. I know I think it's just that for whatever reason people aren't grabbing it and so they have to clear it out. But I'll be honest with you, that's a great pour for me. I love that one. I should have bought them all, but you're being nice. I'm being nice. That's right. Alright, so we are ready to move on to our pour number 4.
So po number 4 is kind of similar to what they did with the bourbons, and they called it the farmers' fields where they took barrels from Corbin Cash, Fray Ranch, far north and Whiskey Acres and blended to make. A farmer's fields rye blend. So this is all four components. There were 538 bottles of this one, retails for 100 bucks, um, it has a Corbin cash. Looks like an 8 year in this one.
Far North had a 4 year blend in this blended into this, Fray Ranch had a 6 year blended into this, and then Whiskey Acres, uh, a 3 year. OK, yeah, and funny enough though, Whiskey Acres uses that Hazlet rye which we talked about for far north, so 75%. And 25% corn. And what was the other rye that was used by Carbon Cash? Um, they use the Merced, yeah, and then sorry, yeah, and then Fray Ranch uses it's called winter rye and that's 100% rye. Fantastic.
No malted barley which I've always, you know, we talked to uh.
The guy from Minon Mill and he was talking about oats really coming up, but I've always heard rye can be a little tricky too, so like it seems like 100% rye would be rye is foamy, not gummy, rye tends to foam a lot, but uh, but yeah, I I think that in the case where they're not using malted grains in their mash bill, they've got to add some Some uh Enzymes enzymes in order to kick things over, but I'm ready to try this farmer's fields. 117.4% proof and the price on this bottle, $100 100 dollars.
All right, cheers cheers. Oh, OK, so this, this actually noses like a mixture of those, yeah. It's like a cool mint, like a cool mint, a little bit of chocolate in the background, um, the grain from like the far north and then with the whiskey acres 3 year riot, you gotta think there's probably some grain coming from that too because if I remember they were quite grain forward, yeah, yeah. Oh, this is nice, this is nice. Now you can find these on Los Lantern, you can order directly from them.
I don't remember there's quite a few states, um, Seal box gets a few, and then you could also, if you're at their Vermont tasting room, you can buy them there. Alright, we'll taste it, yeah. 00, nice. That's nice. Is that buttery? That is buttery, oily, yup, yep. What's bringing that to the table? Man, he's got a blend, he's got some blending skills that first the bourbon farmers' fields was excellent and this is uh. And then we also tried the far flung, didn't we?
the far flung birdman which had like 5 or 6 different craft things in there. Hats off to to Adam. Yeah, this is really good. This is a little um Softer than I expected. Oily, buttery. Not a lot of sweetness on it. Not a lot of spice on it, just kind of subdued a little bit, that everything kind of blends together to bring down the The temperature overall, I'm getting a lot of that cooling mint note. Well done, Adam. Yeah, yeah, I like it.
Yeah, so as we talked before, there were um You know, what do we think your, what's, what, what has the largest appeal across the board? And I think that um. This might Play hardball with the Fre ranch. OK, a little bit. So you say the the blend would shine for carbon drinkers for people who are maybe, yeah, so for people who maybe shy away from rise a little bit, I'm thinking the Fray ranch and the farmers' fields are probably the best choices for them is what I'm saying.
See, I would think the mint minty spice thing. Might throw them off on this one. I'm not getting a lot of that chocolate note that we got from the Fre Ranch. Wow, that is really good. That's a nice, yeah, that's a nice point. Well, Todd, we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to figure this out. We're going to figure out what our order is. Yeah, come up with a winner winner chicken dinner. 1 A, 1 B, 1 C, 1 D. Well, I, I think, you know, why don't we, um, how do we do this in the past?
Did we start sipping on the bonus pour while we graded the other ones? Yes, it gave us time to, you know, just Right, deep dive into our thinking and like our whole like go back and think about. What each pore did for us. Yeah, I, I get this feeling that you and I are not gonna agree completely today. Oh, I don't know. See, I kind of thought we would, you think so? I don't know. I, I'm intrigued.
Sometimes we're right in alignment with each other and sometimes we differ a little bit because we have our own personal profiles, so we would prefer. Yeah, but that's what makes it fun. All right, so this is the dark horse and literally we call it the dark horse because it is dark. It is very dark. So this is another single this is one of their single cash series, this is from Kings County Distillery out of Brooklyn, New York.
It was released in 2024 and this is 126.4 proof, just to be clear, this is not part of their summer and I kind of flipped through just to see if it was still available, it was not, but OK, yeah, I mean I just thought it was it's yeah, it's our bonus pour and I just thought, you know, it's last liner, we'll sip it and it'll obviously just clarify everything we just had and we'll just be like, OK, this is 1234. So this is our thinking bonus pour this is our thinking whiskey. OK, let's try it.
OK, it's kind of traditional. Mhm. It's a little darker notes going on there. What was the proof again? 126.4. OK, so it's a hefty, it's a hefty whiskey. I'd also be curious to know, I know in the past they've used some smaller smaller barrels, but And who, who actually distilled this? Kings County, Kings County. I've had some Kings County in the past. They've sent us stuff and uh. And I'm interested to try this. I don't think that I've had anything at this proof level.
I mean they're one of those I've seen like hazmat single barrel releases which is kind of odd when you think it's coming from, you know, you think hazmat, you think something that's gonna be like in and out of the barrel a lot and then that proof goes up but. Right, cheers, cheers. Oh wow. 00. She's a second act. She's, that's like. Oh, that is really good. So, See if I can put this into words.
Um, it definitely has that initial syrupy wash and a lot of sweetness that comes in, feels like you're almost like you're sipping on a maple syrup, but it's not maple flavored. It's just that consistency, that deepness of sugar. But then it comes back at you with this like, uh, this nice spice punch that comes off the, so sweet, spicy, it is very sweet. That might be the sweetest of the five, it is. This also has a little bit of a nutty note to it. A lot of char like barrel char.
This is a this is a complex bold, deep whiskey. It's got a lot going on. So 80% New York grown rye, 20% malted barley. Is this an Empire Rye? Uh, I don't know my mash ball on that Empire Rye, but it's New York, so maybe that's what it is. Yeah, I mean, I think I don't remember what the rules are exactly for Empire Rye, but they have to source them within New York State, right? So I would think it would fit right that fit right in that bill.
Start to get a little bit of chocolate, so there's like a little bit, yeah, a little darker chocolate, I guess. Oh, that's a nice whiskey. That's a cigar whiskey right there. Yeah, that's the end of the, that's the end of the night ride. It works well. All right, so let's talk about what we have here. So last week on episode part one on the bourbons, I led off with my first choice. By your first choice, you mean your, I, I told you what my number 4 was first.
OK, so this week you get to tell us what your number 4 is first. OK, my number 4 is going to be the far north, OK, and I'm gonna agree with you completely. I like it. Yeah, it just didn't click my rye bells and like you said, we've said we're both big ride guys and some good stuff going on. It does have that like I mentioned, that leaper's fork, uh. Uh, spiced gumdrop flavor to it, but also that spice gumdrop flavor at 111 proof, kinda, it's a little bit more. Towards a 4 year whiskey, right?
Yeah, it was 44433 or 4 year whiskey here. I'd like to revisit that at like 6 or 7. I think it needs a little more time. Um, this is not going to get it because it's already been bottled, but I think this whiskey in particular could use another year, maybe, but that's just me being a snob, I think. Yeah. I want to keep an eye out for, I think, yeah, definitely for sure. All right, so we agree there, we agree there. My number 3 is the Corbin cash.
I know, I know, but it's just, I just think it, I just think the it's great flavor, no doubt, but I just think that that those extra proof points just made a little hot, a little hot for you, little hot. OK, my number 3 is going to be the farmers' fields, blend of 4 different ryes. Excellent blend, I mean.
You know, I think We've seen a lot of blends out there where they take, you know, your Barton's, your MGPs, your Tennessee's, that seems like it's a lot easier than taking some craft distilleries and and making magic out of it and that's that's a magical craft blend, I think. I mean, hats, like I said, hats off to Adam Polanski for putting that together, but. That's my number 3. Yeah, and my number 3 is the farmers' fields. OK, so I, I just feel like, uh, it's, I think it's a great blend.
For me, I think it, it was. It scored higher than the Corbin cash because I think the Corbin cash came off to me as a little on the hot side. Um, maybe, maybe in my old, old years, I'm starting to become a wimp. I don't know, but I just felt better at 117 proof than I did at 133. So, uh, so yeah, my, my number. 3 is the farmers' fields. So my #2 is going to be the Corbin cash. I know. I that was my dark horse, but today it did not win. I liked a lot of that.
Things going on with it, but yeah, I in fact I've had some single barrels that I think would come out a winter if I threw them in here, but I mean that's an excellent, excellent rye and it's proofy, it's a big, big, big drink, but yeah, it's, I'm telling you folks, if you see one out there, give it a whirl if you like rye, it's uh they're they're putting on some great stuff. So you and I are gonna flip flop on 2 and 3. So I'm definitely the Farmers' fields on my number 2.
So I was Farmers' Fields 2, Corbin Cash 3, you were just the opposite, just the opposite. So I think that, but that leaves us at the number one in agreement, which is the Fre ranch 118.6, yeah, which is kind of crazy. Usually you'll see those up in that 120 plus, yeah, so but that was. That was a special special rye. I think the barrel count on that was pretty big, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was like 200 plus, yeah, so I mean it's always nice when you can get a barrel-proof rye out of the barrel at 220, 230 bottles. That's a 6 year too. Oh yeah. How do you do that in uh Nevada? I mean, isn't that like dry dry northern desert kind of stuff. Maybe they're good friends with our friends at Mendon Mills and they like in the Scotland the Scotland Rick House for a little while. So the Fre ranch right took the day at 118.6 proof. All these bottles are right around $100.
Yeah, the only ones not would be the Corbin, the Corbin cash was $130 and I think that was it was only 108 bottles, so that was kind of a low bottle proof jump too, yeah. Uh, we, we, you know, I didn't match again this time, but I think we both agree on the #1 and the #4. We just kind of flip-flopped on 2 and 3. Different day we might have flip-flopped all over the place. Who knows, but I'm loving this bonus pour like Kings County is, uh.
I have to, I have to say that the last time I had a King's County, I wasn't as impressed as this time. This is really good. A lot of those craft things that you tried years ago are starting to hit that 4567. And that's when things start to get magical, I think, especially for craft distilleries. I mean, really good, yeah, maybe, maybe not, we don't know, Empire Ryde, but we think so, yeah, we're gonna say it is most likely, yeah. Great show Todd. Yeah, this was fun.
Cheers to Adam and Nora for, you know. Being fans of our show and sending us these pores, I can't wait till the next like the winter collection or something, so I feel like this is our first part one and part two show. Have we had one before? Not that I remember. Oh. to do a deep dive into the archives. I mean, yeah, I don't think we have done a part one and part two. When you guys did the uh blend. Uh, was that just one show I think it was just 11 show she she, uh, scored it.
So 450, episode 450 was the bourbon Los Lantern, the 450 cheers to 50 to 450. We're getting there. And then, uh, and then this will be episode 451. So we'll run them back to back. So we, if you managed to listen to this episode first then you didn't pick up episode 450, we suggest you go back and listen to that one as well. So we, we broke down the eight expressions that were sent to us out of the summer collection into two separate shows because It just seemed, we can't do it, it just seemed.
Like it'd be hard to I don't know, I just like comparing the, yes, we had 3 bourbons and 1 wheat whiskey, but I just felt that worked and then of course 4 different rides yeah just kind of worked that way and then so to all you whiskey companies out there that want 2 episodes on the bourbon Road, just send us a case, yeah, just send us a mixed cases what you will overwhelm us and we'll sort it out. All right, lots of fun. So great.
I really enjoyed this, Todd. We got another great episode coming out after this one. yes, oh, I. I feel, I feel like that was our like best like. dual interview that we've ever had. It's when we do usually, I mean it was in person which helps because you can you could quickly see like.
You know, facial expressions to where like yeah, well, not not that but just like the flow was so good like you would ask and I mean Cave spoilers was great and yeah I I'd love that show it's gonna be my favorite and.
It was like I'd never met him, but I felt like I was just sitting around with someone I've known for a long time and you know, I was very read that book quick you I let you borrow it and yeah, yeah, we got through the book and we've already read the next book for the next show of an author we're gonna have on and uh we love our bourbon books. And so yeah, Kay was great. He had been on, he had been on once before, like episode 100 or so back back in the day.
Uh, and then we had his whiskeys on again, maybe 30 or 40 episodes later, but this is we really neglected Rabbit Hole for probably 300 episodes, so it was nice to have him on again. Yeah, it was fun, um. Took a took a little while to get us into a nice room to record, he was having some security card issues which was kind of funny, but um, yeah, um looking forward to folks' reaction to to that show. I thought it was a lot of fun and I tell you what, um.
We had some of their, I mean this was, we went through the Mary Dowling line, we'll go ahead and tell you that and Impressive. Yeah, I think so too. I think they're starting to hit their sweet spot too.
Yeah. And then so many distilleries are, you know, so many distilleries are really their whiskey is starting to hit that like really uh nice range of age and, you know, revealing the craft that went into it and You know, early on, a lot of the sellers had to make the choice to put stuff out before it was ready and uh. My hat is not off to them for doing that, but I know they had to. You got to keep the lights on.
Unfortunately, a lot of that resulted in bad reviews and so forth, but If you got patience, if you can stick around, if you can wait until whiskeys come of age. You really get to see the the variety and craft and what some of these guys are doing and you know, uh, Los Lantern.
Definitely shows that off, yeah, and I think, you know, sometimes go back and revisit it's been a while and you were, you know, you were like, there's something there, but Well, maybe it's time to go check them back, check them again and yeah, I think in some cases I think you'll be really, really impressed with. Here's our problem, there's 3500 distilleries in the United States, we have 450 episodes, so we've kind of gotten around a little bit.
For us to actually have had somebody on more than one time, that's, that's a bonus for them. Yeah, we do have to do a daily podcast, which I don't have time for that. Yeah, I mean, for me, like the last time and this Kings County is wonderful. I'm enjoying it. It's wonderful. But the last time I had Kings County on, I wasn't so impressed. So unfortunately, you know, we just can't immediately come back to somebody.
So if you've got a whiskey that's reaching that ripe old age and you think it's ready for an honest review by Todd and I, make sure you get it to us. We'll we'll check it out. Um, you know, if you're due for a review on the Burton Road, if your whiskey hasn't made it on our show for a while, um, squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? I love it. Right. Love it, Todd. Cheers, cheers. I did the old blend of all the classes. I didn't have enough in 3 of mine to even warrant that, so.
All right folks, well, you can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, threads, all those places. Every week, Todd and I get together, we put out an episode, we hope you'll like. We're always drinking whiskey. We're always, uh, not always have a guest on, but sometimes it's just Todd and I like today. But uh we're always having fun.
We're always laughing, we're always telling you what whiskeys we feel might be good additions to your bar. We hope you're paying attention to it. We know a few are, Mike Dahler, we, we appreciate you, buddy. Uh, go out and buy the whiskeys that we think that are good and give them a try and then let us know, did we miss our mark or did we hit it on the nose? Yeah, we might have to start some sort of buyback program, but I know he didn't complain about it, so there's that. All right.
Well, we'd love you to check out the bourbon Road.com. That's our web page. All our articles are on there, blog articles, uh, our podcasts are on there, all our swag is on there, our hats and shirts and all the good stuff we like to sell. Yeah, I just wanna add Jim just wrote a like a glowing. blog about the Frankfurt Bourbon documentary and yeah, thank you for the kind words.
It was, like I said, I was like 0.5% and Bo was 99.5% but yeah it was awesome to be a part of and we're actually gonna try to work with him on some fun stuff in the future and uh but again thank you it was I think it turned out really well. I mean we did a premiere of that and it was a little.
Just needed a little bit of fine tuning so we got some really good feedback from Frankfurt Burn Society members yourself, Drew Drew Hannish at Whiskey Lore and some other folks and but again, thank you for the kind words about that documentary. Well, if you want, if you want to hear Todd's prowess and and uh narrating a documentary, a one hour documentary, I definitely suggest you go to the Bourbonroad.com, go to our latest articles.
And look at the article on uh the heart of Bourbon, where we sort of take a review of that um of that documentary. Um, it is definitely up there in my opinion with meat. Thank you. So you did a great job. I think that you, uh, you kind of position in your narration, you kind of positioned yourself as our best friend going through the show with us. It was really cool. I really think you did a good job just comforting and sort of walking us through.
The history of Frankfurt and all the things here. I, I know that Bowe, um, he created this documentary, but you, uh, You, you voiced it. So good job. Thanks. All right, we're proud of you Todd. So check it out, folks, check out, uh, and you can find it on YouTube. It is called uh Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Kentucky, the heart of Bourbon and just search it out. Be Cumberland. Uh, and, uh, and you'll find his, his, uh, his feed on there.
I think he's my journey through Whiskey Whiskey or something like that. Anyway, give it a like, give it a watch, definitely check it out, yeah. In the meantime, we would love for you to, uh to join up and, uh, and subscribe and make sure that you get a notification each time that Todd and I put out a new episode. That way, uh, you know, you don't have to get surprised by it. I mean, you shouldn't get surprised by it.
We put it on every Wednesday, but we'd love for you to, uh, to get that notification telling you that we just put out another episode. The way to do that is scroll to the top of the app here on, hit that subscribe button. And you won't have to worry about it anymore. You don't have to worry about putting it in your schedule, checking to see if we have new episodes. You'll just get that notification telling you that we've dropped another one.
And we'll get you through that next sales call drive, that next trip to Florida, that next cutting the grass, whatever it is that you do with your headset on or in the car with your speakers on. We'd love to be part of your day. But until the next time, we'll see you down the road.