Latest / Aussie Bourbon Lovers / Whitney Rye: Bardstown, Bourbon & a 15-Year Willett in The Parlor Room

Transcript

Whitney Rye: Bardstown, Bourbon & a 15-Year Willett in The Parlor Room · Aussie Bourbon Lovers

• 0:03
  Incredible flavors, even better stories. One Pour,
• 0:06
  10 Minutes. Aussie bourbon lovers sharing bourbon with Australia.
• 0:13
  We're super excited. We're with Whitney Rye at The Parlour Room in
• 0:17
  Bardstown and host of the Mashbill podcast and of
• 0:21
  course owner of The Parlour Room. Here we are. Yes. So good. Thanks for coming
• 0:24
  and letting us in. Listen, I didn't do anything. I came to work. You all
• 0:28
  came here from a very, very long way away.
• 0:32
  Yeah, exactly. So thank you all for coming here. We're excited to
• 0:36
  be here. Yeah. Cheers. That's awesome. I'm super excited. Yeah.
• 0:39
  Should we start it off? Yeah. What have we got in our glasses? What have
• 0:43
  you poured for us, Whitney? So this is a 15-year sourced Willett that I
• 0:46
  picked with Drew Colesveen and Pablo Moy, along with a few of our closest
• 0:51
  friends who paid me a lot of money to be there. And we decided
• 0:55
  to do this one, but this is barrel number 4242. I only have
• 0:59
  a few bottles left of this, so I wanted to share it with you all.
• 1:01
  So I'm going to talk less, drink more, and let you guys kind
• 1:05
  of tell me what you think. Yeah. Wow. We'll ask a little questions.
• 1:09
  It's got a lovely,
• 1:12
  lovely nose. My goodness. I know I can barely smell right now.
• 1:18
  My voice is almost gone. Just like the weekend took
• 1:22
  it out of me and my body is like coming back punching me.
• 1:25
  So I've been a little congested recently, so I just went
• 1:29
  straight in, but it still tastes good. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. It's delicious.
• 1:34
  The, actually, I'm getting some lovely fruit, like some stone fruit characters
• 1:38
  on the, both on the nose and on the palate. And then, yeah.
• 1:41
  Yeah. That kind of great Willett body is so pretty. Right.
• 1:45
  This is very Willett. This feels to me like
• 1:48
  whenever we went through, so we, we had 6 lined up in front of us.
• 1:50
  And we got to try. And when I sat down initially and
• 1:54
  talked to Drew, I was like, hey, I got this new license. Like, I really
• 1:57
  want you to be my first barrel pick. And he was like, sure, let's do
• 2:01
  it. But then he was like, well, I want to come and see what you're
• 2:03
  doing. Like, I've heard about it. I've seen you around, like, whatever. Because we knew
• 2:07
  each other, obviously. I texted him to be like, hey, can we have coffee?
• 2:10
  And so he was like, I'm not going to wear any swag. Don't tell anybody
• 2:14
  I'm there. I'm going to come and take a classic. And I was like,
• 2:16
  do you want to do the Willett one? And he was like, no, just whatever
• 2:18
  you got. So he came in and did a like $40 ticket class,
• 2:21
  right? It was Buffalo Trace. It talked about the mash bill.
• 2:25
  So like E.H. Taylor Small Batch, Eagle Rare, like that sort of thing. Very base
• 2:29
  intro level to Buffalo Trace. And he came and he sat right over there.
• 2:33
  And at the end, like he, you know, he was just like
• 2:36
  drinking and going through the motions just like everybody. At the end, everybody left and
• 2:40
  he was like, I'm obsessed with this place. He was like, I love what you're
• 2:42
  building. I love that you're not doing tasting notes. I love that you're not doing
• 2:45
  mash bills. And I was like, yeah, this is called mash bill 1,
• 2:48
  2 wheat. And I was like, but I don't actually talk,
• 2:52
  I don't tell people the mash bill. I just tell them like, hey, this one's
• 2:55
  mash bill number 1, this one's mash bill number 2. This is why they
• 2:58
  have those mash bills. This is why they do it. And he was like,
• 3:01
  can I call Pablo? And I was like, of course. And I was like,
• 3:05
  well, Ethan, your barrel manager's right next door. Can I have them come over?
• 3:08
  They were gonna come by. And he was like, absolutely, bring 'em all over.
• 3:11
  So about 2 hours later, I have about 30 bottles
• 3:15
  lined up on the table because everybody just started bringing stuff.
• 3:18
  And Drew's like, here's what we're going to do. We're going to plan this 2-night
• 3:22
  event at Parlor. You're picking a 15-year with me. You're going to pick a 15-year
• 3:26
  with Pablo. And then they wanted to talk about each other's brands and
• 3:30
  really kind of break down any barriers between that. So this is the
• 3:34
  barrel pick that we did for that event. And yeah,
• 3:38
  and so my thing is with this one, I picked this immediately.
• 3:43
  Like there were 6 in front of us. I slid this one forward, kept trying
• 3:45
  them, went back to this and I looked at Drew. He's sitting right next to
• 3:48
  me and I was like, number 3. And he was like, number 3. And everybody
• 3:51
  else is still kind of tasting and we were whispering and I was just like,
• 3:55
  yeah, it's number 3. And then everybody was like, well, I really like number 4.
• 3:59
  I really like number 2. And I was like, I was like,
• 4:03
  well, let's revisit 2, 3, and 4.
• 4:07
  And they were like, oh yeah, yeah, number 3 was really good. And so we
• 4:10
  go through and finally it dwindles down and it was half and half.
• 4:13
  3 people wanted number 4, 3 people wanted number 3. Luckily I
• 4:17
  had a majority stake. You get to push the—
• 4:21
  But the second Drew was like, number 3 was my favorite, everybody was like,
• 4:25
  all right, we're good. We made the right call. But my, when I
• 4:28
  pick a barrel, what I look for is chocolate.
• 4:32
  I was going to say I get a burnt finish, like a burnt chocolate finish
• 4:36
  on the end of it, which is really nice. And I feel like chocolate just
• 4:38
  balances out every other thing, right? So you said stone fruit, like if you had
• 4:42
  stone fruit, if you have banana, like Old Forester and Barton have these notes of
• 4:46
  banana, all of those go really well with chocolate. So do
• 4:50
  any type of floral, any type of herbal goes really,
• 4:53
  like mint and chocolate go really well together. I just feel like chocolate has this
• 4:57
  ability to really combine and balance out a
• 5:01
  pour. So the second that I tasted this and I got that chocolate,
• 5:04
  I was like, this is it. This is my favorite.
• 5:08
  And so here we are. However long later.
• 5:12
  Well, you're a Bardstown local, so your favorite
• 5:15
  is going to be a good recommendation because you get to try all of them.
• 5:19
  100%. So I have a really great relationship with a lot of the distilleries.
• 5:22
  I've always loved Willett. I have not always been able to afford Willett,
• 5:27
  But I do this other podcast that we've just kind of
• 5:30
  done live on social media called Bourbon Bracket. I'm sure
• 5:34
  you all get this question all the time. What's your favorite pour? And I'm like,
• 5:37
  in what category? Yeah. That's a good response.
• 5:41
  And also on what day? Like what do you feel like? Right.
• 5:44
  'Cause sometimes I just want a martini. I don't even wanna drink bourbon. So I'm
• 5:48
  like, it depends on your mood. It depends on everything. Like if someone asks me
• 5:52
  what's the best pour you've ever had, I can answer that pretty quickly. If they
• 5:55
  ask you, you know, oh, out of these 4, what's your favorite? Great, I can
• 5:58
  answer that. So Crystal from Evergreen and
• 6:02
  Nikki from Liam Ashe, all of us did a barrel pick and we were
• 6:06
  talking and I was like, we should just do this live on Instagram. And so
• 6:09
  we did. And we pick a category. We're basically building like a bracket of bourbon,
• 6:13
  like a fantasy football draft, right? So the first week we did our favorite
• 6:17
  single barrel, but there were limitations. Can't be more than a year old.
• 6:20
  Can't be more than $150 because we want it to be approachable for people to
• 6:24
  go out and find. And it can't be a barrel pick. That was a big
• 6:28
  one that got us. Oh, because a lot of single barrels would be barrel picks.
• 6:31
  Exactly. Because they're technically, obviously a barrel pick is going to be one single barrel,
• 6:34
  but it's not like designed to be a single barrel, right? That's not what somebody
• 6:38
  can go pick up at the store. Well, it wouldn't be as readily available.
• 6:40
  Right. Exactly. Like this one. Not readily
• 6:45
  available at all. But we were surprised because then we would record
• 6:49
  it and we would all bring our favorite But we were surprised by the limitations
• 6:51
  of that. It was just like, dang. So mine was Blanton's Gold. Yeah. Okay.
• 6:55
  And I was like, this is probably the thing that made me really love story
• 6:59
  of bourbon, right? And then Crystal brought in,
• 7:03
  Crystal and Nikki both brought in a Heaven Hill product. I forget which ones.
• 7:06
  I think Elijah Craig 15 and a Henry McKenna 10-year. What they brought in.
• 7:09
  They're all great picks. Right. But then we did it blind 2 weeks
• 7:13
  later and I picked Henry McKenna. And so it
• 7:17
  was just, it's so cool to think about it that way and to break it
• 7:19
  down of like, when you ask, what is your favorite single
• 7:23
  barrel? I can answer that a little bit easier now,
• 7:27
  but you have to really think that question through because
• 7:30
  that's a really hard question for someone who has as much bourbon as we do.
• 7:33
  Right? Right. Yeah. And I mean,
• 7:36
  our appreciation of bourbon, we're comparatively
• 7:40
  new to it, having not been able to grow up in Bardstown. What's it been
• 7:42
  like growing up around here and then like having it always as part of what
• 7:45
  you do? It's amazing. I mean, I always tell people what you
• 7:50
  don't— people come into Bardstown and what they don't realize is that I'm friends
• 7:54
  with pretty much every master distiller. But beyond that, like, that's the cool thing,
• 7:57
  obviously. But beyond that, I'm friends with most of the brand teams. You know,
• 8:01
  these are people that I've worked with in the past or that I see consistently,
• 8:04
  and they're just out and about. You know, the amount of times I've ran into
• 8:07
  Ross Cornellison, or Drew Koolzveen, or even Connor
• 8:12
  O'Driscoll. Like, they'll just be at Mr. Tubb's or at Neat, and like, we'll just—
• 8:15
  I'll just be like, hey guys, how are you? You know, whatever. So growing up
• 8:19
  in Bardstown, if you don't already love bourbon,
• 8:22
  like, I feel bad for you because there's nothing else here.
• 8:27
  I mean, it is why we come here. That's why it's the bourbon capital of
• 8:31
  the world, right? We have 11 distilleries within a 15-mile radius of here.
• 8:34
  And they're great distilleries. I mean, if you think about Jim
• 8:37
  Beam, Maker's Mark, 1792, we have Four
• 8:41
  Roses Bottling, we have Bartow Bourbon Company, we have Luxco. I'm forgetting
• 8:45
  some, but you know what I mean. So many. Like, I apologize if there's
• 8:49
  one that I didn't mention. I'll randomly shout it out later. But I think it's
• 8:52
  one of those things where there's so much access that you almost
• 8:56
  lose the desire to access for a
• 9:00
  lot of people. I was not one of those people. I was like, why would
• 9:03
  I go anywhere else and open up a tasting room? Why would I have my
• 9:06
  podcast anywhere else? Like, this is my home. Yeah, but it's
• 9:09
  a lot of fun for me because I love bourbon. And I just remember,
• 9:13
  you know, I was like 7, 6 or 7 years old and I was driving
• 9:17
  home from Louisville with my dad. And if you've been here,
• 9:20
  Louisville's about 45 minutes north of us and you have to take I-65 south and
• 9:23
  then you turn off of the Clermont exit. Well, right there at the corner
• 9:27
  of 65 and Clermont is Jim Beam Distillery.
• 9:30
  I was 6 or 7, didn't know. And we were driving by, it was nighttime.
• 9:33
  And I look over and I was like, Dad, what's that little city right there?
• 9:37
  Because, right, if you've been at night and you drive past Jim Beam,
• 9:40
  everything's lit up. There's like little— and they're in this like valley,
• 9:44
  so you can kind of see it all. There's like smokestacks and
• 9:47
  different things. And he just laughed and he was like, little city, they make
• 9:51
  bourbon there. And, you know, obviously I was like, what's bourbon?
• 9:54
  He's like, you'll find out when you're older. Yeah. And then
• 9:59
  another story, like, I— we were driving by and my dad always drove
• 10:03
  me around. But I was like, why are there those prisons in the middle of
• 10:06
  Bardstown that have gates around them, but nobody ever comes
• 10:11
  or goes? Like, in my head as like a child, I was like, these are
• 10:14
  haunted. That's why they roped them off. And he's like, no, that's where they have
• 10:17
  barrels in there. And I was like, oh my gosh, those poor barrels. Because,
• 10:21
  you know, the Heaven Hill ones, if you look at them, I think they still
• 10:24
  do. Maybe not. But they paint all of them white. Yeah. Well, then you have
• 10:27
  like this black, you know, the black fungus is like seeping down from
• 10:31
  the windows. So it's like every child's horror. Yeah, yeah, right. Has that creepy feel.
• 10:34
  I was like, what's happening? Like, are all those prisoners just like stuck
• 10:38
  in there? And so, I mean, you know, there were, there were a lot
• 10:42
  of parts of it that I had to figure out, but I'll never forget like
• 10:45
  my first time stepping foot on Maker's Mark campus, you know, and just going and
• 10:49
  walking through and seeing the beauty. And I mean,
• 10:52
  this was 2012-ish. So I don't
• 10:57
  think they had Chihuly yet. But, you know, they were still touring Margie's Kitchen
• 11:01
  at that time. And it just changed. It changed the way that I
• 11:05
  thought about bourbon. I was like, this is beautiful. This is stunning. And then you
• 11:08
  look around and you see hundreds of tourists. Yeah.
• 11:12
  And I was like 23 at the time bartending. And I was like,
• 11:16
  this is people's Disneyland. Yeah. Like this is— I grew up here.
• 11:19
  This is a happy place. Yeah. This is the world, the happiest place on earth.
• 11:23
  I won't say the whole thing because I don't want y'all to get sued.
• 11:25
  Happiest place in the world. I'm like, not trying to get
• 11:29
  y'all trademarked, but that's how I felt about Bardstown.
• 11:33
  And so, you know, the more people that come in and see me,
• 11:36
  that's how I approach it is you're here.
• 11:39
  This— you could be at Disneyland. Yeah. You could be in Australia.
• 11:43
  You could be in Ireland or in Scotland or Mexico. You could be on the
• 11:47
  beach somewhere. But you chose to come here. Yeah. I take that seriously, and I'm
• 11:51
  going to make sure that you have the best darn trip you possibly can with
• 11:54
  some of the best darn whiskey that you possibly can. So that's kind of,
• 11:57
  you know, growing up in Bardstown made me who I am through
• 12:01
  and through. And it's something that I absolutely love.
• 12:05
  I'm very, very happy. The only other place I would have liked to grow up
• 12:08
  is probably Australia. So, but y'all have a lot of spiders. I was like,
• 12:13
  snakes and spiders. Yeah, snakes and spiders. Snakes and spiders and
• 12:16
  sharks, oh my. Like, there's just like, yeah, y'all got a lot of
• 12:21
  the, the danger of the bad. I've got a lot of good stuff. So our
• 12:25
  first trip here was we, we brought the kids over and we left them with
• 12:29
  our niece at Disneyland and we came out to see— yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 12:32
  you were like, we could go to Disneyland, we're gonna go to Bardstown
• 12:36
  instead. A great time. And then we all met up in New York afterwards.
• 12:38
  It was like, how was that? Cheers to that. Yeah, cheers. Thanks for coming on.
• 12:42
  This has been amazing. And thanks for having us here. And, uh, when you come
• 12:45
  to Bardstown, you got to come check out the parlour. Please do. Thanks, Benny.
• 12:48
  Cheers.
• 12:49
  Thanks for listening. Make sure you connect
• 12:53
  with us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and stay connected with us by clicking subscribe
• 12:57
  on your favourite podcast app.