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Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel A Sweet Finish to the Reverend's Story · Aussie Bourbon Lovers

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  Incredible flavours, even better stories.
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  One Pour, 10 Minuts.
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  Aussie bourbon lovers, sharing bourbon with Australia.
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  Oh, good pop there. Finally, I get a good pop.
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  What do we have in H?
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  We are having an Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel.
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  That's right.
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  Do you know why we're having an Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel H?
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  Because that's one you chose to have off the shelf tonight.
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  Really picking behind the curtain here. This is a good one.
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  Many reasons, David.
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  It's one of our favourites.
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  Elijah Craig is one of our favourites, and we love Toasted Barrel finishes.
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  Cheers.
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  So when we had Dan and Andrew on from Mictis, they told
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  the story of when Michters first released their toasted finish, and it
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  was the first time I'd done it. It was pretty innovative.
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  So this has happened, obviously, after that.
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  In fact, I reckon We Toast tasted some of the first of it.
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  And this is part of the story of why I had to get my hands on this bottle.
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  Because it's a toasted barrel harder to come by than just their regular.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  I don't even know if you get toasted barrel in Australia.
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  Because the Elijah Craig just their bourbon is very easy to
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  come by in Australia. Super easy.
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  In fact, it's one of the bottles you can really easily get.
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  I was thinking about it the other day that maybe it might be one of the ones
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  that I would say you should get.
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  If you're trying to get into bourbon, you like the big flavours.
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  It's super mature.
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  Lots of complex flavours, super mature for a, call it entry level.
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  It's their entry point.
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  It's really good.
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  But this is-It's a great easy to get one.
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  But this one is the toast bar, which means they've not only toasted it at the start
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  of the process, it's the end as well. Like rebarrel?
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  Yeah, rebarrel into a toasted barrel.
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  They say they toast it and do what they call a flash char.
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  It's like a quick char.
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  Yes, super quick. So just a little bit.
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  They flame it enough so that the barrel chars just a little bit.
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  Yeah, but that toasting, that gets a lot of the caramely flavours
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  by putting it in toast rather than just charring it.
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  Because charring it, because charring it like it goes all chocolate and dark.
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  But when they toast it, it's like... Yeah.
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  When people ask me about this, I think the best way to explain it is to think
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  about what you do when you make toast.
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  If you put the barrel in a toaster, you're going to get this.
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  You're going to slowly heat it up with this ambient heat.
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  Yeah, light brown.
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  That a thing.
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  But you're not Unless you did that for way too long, you
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  wouldn't get the blackness that you get from a char.
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  But then a char is exposed to fire, like putting it on like a log on fire.
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  I was going to say stick a marshmallow in the fire, that it lights up.
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  It gets a black outside.
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  Anyway, so-Oh, it's definitely smoking.
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  Speaking marshmallows, that chocolatey-Yeah, I'm sitting by the camp.
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  Smaury goodness that you're supposed to get on a toast and finish.
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  Can you definitely get the toast smell and the chocolate smell?
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  It does. It's like I'm about to drink a small.
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  How's the taste? Can I hear the smell?
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  It's so good. I remember this experience.
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  It's that lovely sweetness.
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  It's super desserty.
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  It's got that dessertiness. Oh, my goodness.
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  You get from…
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  It's not the same as Woodford Double O, but it's like a really yummy dessertiness.
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  Burberry is a sweet spirit anyway.
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  Yeah, but if you're going for something delicious, sometimes they can be quite
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  smoky and Whereas this is like, yeah, really desserty and chocolatey.
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  So two Kentucky Burbon festivals ago, they launched this and they were pouring it.
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  That was our first one? Yeah.
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  And this is the last we've got, Dave. I know.
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  We'll get some more and we're back in the US.
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  But we went to...
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  There was always that huge queue for the Heaven Hill stuff.
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  And I went to go and taste it. I was like, Oh, my goodness.
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  What's this? I want a bottle of that.
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  And they're like, No, that was what the queues were.
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  You can't get it.
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  You tasted it after So where did you get this for?
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  I mean, that cues for other stuff, too.
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  So I went back later.
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  I found a reason to have a business trip.
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  This is when you went back again?
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  I was like, We didn't bring it back from that festival.
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  We didn't. No.
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  But I went hunting for it to try to track it down.
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  In fact, I think I was looking for this when I found the C923, which is a funny-
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  That's a great example of how we just weren't in the know.
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  We were enjoying ourselves, torrying all the different bourbons and watching people
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  queue up for clearly delicious stuff.
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  But I reckon the difference on this, the finish gives it such a different
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  flavour to lots of other bourbons.
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  But I remember thinking, wow, that's really different in a
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  really wonderful way.
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  You are a fan of the different bourbon, Dave.
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  Well, especially after a big day of drinking bourbons.
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  It really did stand out. Well, the different ones stand out.
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  In a positive way, yeah.
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  But I like that. That's a good dessert.
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  Sit by the fire.
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  It would go really nice with some dark chocolate.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  I mean, it's quite desserty by itself anyway.
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  But yeah.
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  What can you tell me about Elijah Craig, Edge?
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  Well, Well, he is known as the Father of bourbon, though some people say that's a
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  claim to be the Father of Bourbon.
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  But I don't know. You know more about that than me.
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  Well, for Sure.
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  I mean, there's authors around.
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  It says on the bottle, Father of Bourbon.
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  It's a marketing thing, isn't it?
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  You put whatever you want on a bottle, theoretically.
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  But it's the story that he was one of the first.
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  Is he the first to have charred a barrel?
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  Is that what they supposedly say?
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  Yeah, that's what they imply.
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  Maybe they're a bit like us.
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  They don't double check all their facts.
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  Do you know one of the things that I really love about what happens here?
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  So they say in their marketing video, When they talk about this, they say, This is a
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  real homage to Elijah Craig because we're taking the barrel thing a bit further.
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  And he was the first to-Char the barrel.
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  Char the barrel, do things with the barrel.
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  And now we're going to do it, even again, to do a second finish.
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  Of course, they're not the first to do it.
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  They're really late to the party in terms of big distilleries doing this.
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  But this is a really wonderful example of just how much control
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  distilleries have over the flavours you can get from a barrel.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  Because, firstly, all the different ways they char it.
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  But then by putting it back in another barrel, how they've toasted it, how
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  they've charred that, what they do to that second process,
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  it just completely It changes all the flavours.
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  I don't know enough.
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  We should talk to someone who's like, it works in Coopering, but the heat that you
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  take the barrel to in the toasting process and the length you have it at, well,
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  literally, there's almost like a guidebook, I think, to if
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  you take it to a particular temperature, you're going to get vanilla or cinnamon.
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  It's an incredible science as to what flavour you want to get out of the barrel,
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  as to what level you toast it to, or level you chare it to, and
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  especially when they're rebarrelling it and putting it in a
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  toasted barrel at the end.
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  You're going to completely change your flavour again.
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  I think I want to learn a bit more about what a flash char means.
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  Is that chal one or is it like something else?
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  Is it something that's even lighter than chal one?
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  It sounds like the quickest chal possible, but then it's got to be a level of heat.
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  Yeah, well- Maybe when we go back, Dave, we need to go
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  to a Cooper Ridge where they make the barrels.
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  I don't think we should.
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  Not just learn about the bourbon, learn about the barrels.
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  You can probably get a Kelvin, too.
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  We should definitely go and do that. All right.
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  Can we put it on the list for September?
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  To expand our knowledge of not just bourbon.
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  We can-Let's get them on the podcast.
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  Let's have a chat with them and get them on the podcast and they can...
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  Or is that going to get too nerdy?
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  Is there such a thing? It's too nerdy?
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  No.
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  I'm glad you agree with me on that.
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  It's bourbon and bourbon barrels, and it's our special interest, Dave.
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  It's our special interest.
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  It's our thing as a married couple that we have together.
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  Special interest.
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  Can I make a wonderful admission to you that a
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  larger Craig small batch, the normal bottle you get on the shelf in Australia,
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  the one that you can normally get, looks almost identical to this bottle, but
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  it doesn't have the word toaster. Just have to say to toast it a barrel.
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  It's a nice little sticker at the bottom.
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  When you buy that in Melbourne, I had walked past that a whole lot.
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  In fact, I- The toaster one?
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  No, not toaster, the small batch.
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  Because it's a nice bottle.
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  I think I had it once and didn't think that much of it.
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  Then when we started doing podcast, I started a bit more reading about
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  the bottles we were talking about.
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  When we did that first podcast, I did a little bit of reading about what people
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  said about it and really came to appreciate just how good that bottle…
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  Because it's not very expensive. I think it's 75, 80 bucks or something.
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  In the scheme of bourbon.
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  Yeah.
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  I find the Elijah Craig is very easy drinking, is how I put it.
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  It's easy drinking, but it's very complex, and there's a really good amount
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  of stuff going on in there flavor-wise compared to...
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  I don't even know what I would compare it to, but at that same price point,
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  it feels like an old bourbon.
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  I think they're, I'm going to get it wrong, seven or eight years old.
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  And then around that price point in Australia, you won't get anything like
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  that, I don't think, until you get up to an equal rare.
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  Which, again, is ridiculously cost-effective for a really reasonable
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  value for a 10-year-old bourbon.
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  Anyway, sorry, we digress into value.
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  So I'm I became a bigger fan of Elijah Craig because of the podcast.
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  So this is what we've been trying to do right with the podcast
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  is learn more ourselves.
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  Yeah, learn more, share with others. Share some stories.
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  See if they know any good ones.
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  Or we can try some ones that we recommend.
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  We're sorry that the toaster barrel is hard to get in Australia, but we would
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  definitely try and get yourself- But definitely try and Lodger Craig,
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  because they're very easy to get.
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  Hands on a small batch for sure.
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  Tell us what you think. Yeah.
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  And then when you're in the States or if you can get your hands.
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  Actually, maybe the guys at Goodwater would have toaster Toaster Barrel.
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  They probably would. We should check it out.
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  They got good stuff there. They got great stuff there.
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  We should do some podcast there, too.
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  We should stop doing our podcast planning in the middle of the podcast.
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  People might send in their ideas, Steph.
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  Oh, you're welcome to send in your ideas.
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  But here's to a delicious, yet another desserty, yummy pour.
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  Yeah.
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  Get yourself some chocolate and have a Toaster Barrel while it's your creative.
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  Oh, yeah. I'm thoroughly enjoying this.
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  Cheers.
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  Listening.
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