Latest / Aussie Bourbon Lovers / Burnt Butter & Vanilla: Tasting Weller Antique 107

Transcript

Burnt Butter & Vanilla: Tasting Weller Antique 107 · Aussie Bourbon Lovers

• 0:00
  Incredible flavours. Even better stories. One pour. Ten minutes. Aussie bourbon lovers
• 0:08
  sharing bourbon with Australia.
• 0:11
  Oh, it wasn't a very big pop, but we'll...
• 0:16
  I used to play the timpani and that sounded like a timpani boom.
• 0:19
  Oh, a little boop.
• 0:20
  Boom. It's because we've kind of consumed a lot of this.
• 0:24
  Oh no, the bottle's almost empty today. What are we drinking?
• 0:27
  Awella Antique 107 Barrel and Batch pick. So Barrel and Batch is an Australian... Well,
• 0:36
  I want to say it's an online liquor store, I suppose. Online bottle shop.
• 0:39
  This is why you do the intros. You know exactly what we're doing. I was just going to say
• 0:43
  Awella.
• 0:44
  Awella. We're drinking Awella. Oh my goodness, that is an undersell. So Barrel and Batch
• 0:49
  are one of the many online liquor stores available to us. Cheers.
• 0:56
  And they've done a Awella release, Antique 107.
• 1:00
  107. And the flavour, on the sticker, it gives it a bit of burnt butter and vanilla pods.
• 1:07
  Not to give away... That's a spoiler alert, isn't it?
• 1:09
  Well, that's not going to influence now how one knows it, but we had to do the episode
• 1:13
  because...
• 1:14
  Stick your nose in that until we don't get burnt butter and vanilla pods.
• 1:16
  Anyone who can see, we're very, very close to the end of the bottle.
• 1:18
  That's why I thought we'd better do an F about it.
• 1:20
  Yeah. Okay, let's see what we get.
• 1:22
  Sometimes this happens, you know, I get a gift and we get really excited about it.
• 1:26
  So we just start drinking and then we're getting close to the end and I'm like,
• 1:29
  Oh, we've done an episode about that bottle.
• 1:31
  Don't know if we're going to get another one anytime soon.
• 1:33
  Antique 107. Oh, what's on my nose?
• 1:36
  Yeah, you're definitely getting that buttery...
• 1:38
  Burnt butter and vanilla pods is all I'm getting going.
• 1:40
  I was going to say it definitely smells like butter. Like it's melting butter on pancakes.
• 1:44
  You know when you put butter on your pancakes and they just really melt?
• 1:48
  You can really smell the butter.
• 1:49
  I was going to do a different note, but now I can't think of any other things other than burnt butter.
• 1:52
  That's why you shouldn't have read the label.
• 1:54
  But it does accurately label it.
• 1:57
  But the trick will be that's on the nose.
• 2:00
  What do you get when you taste it?
• 2:02
  Hang on. I've got other notes.
• 2:04
  I think I've got other notes. Can I do another?
• 2:06
  Yeah. Give us some more notes other than burnt butter and vanilla.
• 2:09
  Maybe is it...
• 2:11
  What's that...
• 2:13
  What's the cookie?
• 2:14
  It's like a French cookie, I think, that has cinnamon and sugar on it.
• 2:17
  And it is very buttery.
• 2:19
  I don't know.
• 2:20
  And is it in the shape of a love heart or something? I don't know.
• 2:22
  It's like...
• 2:23
  I've had other ones. Yeah.
• 2:24
  And there's quite a lot of the sugary shape on the top still.
• 2:26
  Yes. Yeah.
• 2:27
  That one.
• 2:28
  But it's real buttery.
• 2:29
  Boy, it's buttery.
• 2:30
  It smells like a drinkable croissant.
• 2:33
  Oh, yeah.
• 2:34
  Yeah.
• 2:35
  Wait. That cinnamon note's really good for me.
• 2:37
  Cinnamon and sugar. Cinnamon and sugar.
• 2:39
  Yeah. Or like cinnamon and sugar on toast.
• 2:41
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:42
  That's what I used to have as a kid.
• 2:43
  With butter.
• 2:45
  With butter.
• 2:46
  We're just going back to the butter and the cinnamon.
• 2:47
  But you put lots of butter on a really good toasty piece of toast,
• 2:51
  and then you'd sprinkle cinnamon and then a little bit of sugar.
• 2:54
  Do you know one of my favorite things about tonight is I went
• 2:56
  and got the Denver & Lylee bourbon glasses.
• 2:58
  Look how good this is.
• 2:59
  And the pour that you've given me is exactly the size pour I was hoping for.
• 3:04
  It's hard to do a little pour in these glasses.
• 3:06
  They're great.
• 3:07
  They're perfect.
• 3:08
  Yeah.
• 3:09
  That's so pretty.
• 3:10
  Come on then.
• 3:11
  Let's taste it, and then I'll tell you.
• 3:12
  We'll talk a little bit more about it.
• 3:13
  Let's see.
• 3:14
  You go ahead because if you've played along before,
• 3:19
  H loves telling the Weller story, so we'll get that out of her in a sec.
• 3:22
  But wait, what are you getting on the palate?
• 3:24
  What does it taste like?
• 3:25
  Burnt butter and vanilla pods?
• 3:26
  Oh, yeah.
• 3:27
  It's definitely got that buttery feel to start with,
• 3:32
  but you can really taste that wheatiness at the end.
• 3:36
  You have this uncanny knack of picking out a grain that I can't do.
• 3:41
  I can't do it at all.
• 3:42
  To me, the flavor of it is like harvest time as a kid.
• 3:48
  That's what I get.
• 3:49
  As soon as I taste it, I'm tasting that dust from being on the tractor
• 3:54
  or near the header or one of the trucks that's loading the grain.
• 3:58
  I need to get a second sip.
• 3:59
  Yeah, have a second sip.
• 4:00
  I haven't warmed up properly because I found that quite warm.
• 4:04
  You know when you're tasting whiskey, if you haven't warmed up.
• 4:06
  I've got a really smooth, buttery start,
• 4:09
  but then it almost sharply changes flavor and is that very nice,
• 4:14
  wheaty, grainy feeling.
• 4:17
  Yeah, that's what I got, like really smooth start and then like,
• 4:20
  bang, here's your wheat.
• 4:23
  What do you get, Dad?
• 4:25
  Yeah, I agree with you.
• 4:27
  The mouthfeel's got this nice oiliness to it,
• 4:30
  although maybe this burnt butter thing is getting stuck in my head.
• 4:33
  It's probably what it is.
• 4:34
  It's the menthols thing.
• 4:36
  Don't read the label first.
• 4:39
  Maybe some bit of apricots.
• 4:40
  I pick apricots out a lot, don't I?
• 4:42
  Not quite chicken tonight, apricots, but like.
• 4:45
  See, all I'm getting is sitting on the header with my dad.
• 4:47
  Are you?
• 4:48
  I can't do that.
• 4:49
  I don't have any grain notes.
• 4:51
  Like just wheat.
• 4:53
  It's like.
• 4:54
  Caramelly, apricotty, caramelly kind of goodness there.
• 4:58
  Yeah, there's vanilla and caramel, but like, yeah.
• 5:01
  Yeah, I get that really, like the buttery,
• 5:04
  what you're probably getting is like a fruity flavor.
• 5:06
  As soon as it goes in my mouth, it's really smooth,
• 5:09
  and then it hits the back and it gets that delicious, creamy taste.
• 5:13
  It's a really, it's a really tasty pour.
• 5:15
  I don't see why it's almost empty.
• 5:17
  Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 5:18
  Antique 107 is about the proof.
• 5:21
  It is 53.7 proof.
• 5:23
  That can't be right.
• 5:24
  I've got it wrong.
• 5:25
  53.5 proof, which is the.
• 5:28
  Making up facts again, too.
• 5:30
  It's 100, adds up to 107 if you double it,
• 5:32
  which is how we get the proof.
• 5:34
  It's the red one in the rainbow.
• 5:36
  We'll come back to the rainbow in a sec.
• 5:38
  Well, the Weller family came to the United States in the 1740s, I've read.
• 5:43
  Oh, there you go.
• 5:44
  Yes, and William LaRue Weller,
• 5:46
  who's the one who we all know about, was born in 1825.
• 5:49
  He's the guy who apparently is the guy who first started to say,
• 5:53
  you should be putting wheat in your bourbon,
• 5:55
  and he was spooking about it all the time.
• 5:57
  And now lots of bourbons are weeded.
• 5:58
  Lots of bourbons are weeded,
• 5:59
  the most famous of which was named after his assistant.
• 6:02
  Oh.
• 6:03
  A fellow by the name of.
• 6:06
  Come on.
• 6:07
  What's the most famous weeded bourbon?
• 6:10
  What?
• 6:11
  The most famous weeded bourbon.
• 6:12
  The one everyone wants but can't get a bottle of.
• 6:15
  Stoho Pond?
• 6:16
  You can get a bottle of that.
• 6:17
  Pappy Van Winkle.
• 6:18
  Oh.
• 6:19
  Julian Van Winkle became his assistant and was the guy who went around.
• 6:23
  I was going to say Buffalo Trace isn't a person's name,
• 6:25
  but Pappy Van Winkle is.
• 6:27
  Yeah.
• 6:28
  And so he went around and was helping William Weller.
• 6:31
  I feel like you.
• 6:33
  I know that, but when you ask the question, I freak.
• 6:36
  Sorry.
• 6:37
  Okay.
• 6:38
  You'd be no good on a trivia team with this stuff.
• 6:39
  Anyway, so.
• 6:40
  Some of the guys that are playing trivia with on Friday night.
• 6:42
  But we come back on a full circle here.
• 6:43
  So what happens is William Weller starts doing the weeded thing,
• 6:47
  goes around saying, look,
• 6:48
  you need to be using more wheat as the flavor ground in your bourbon.
• 6:51
  So was it called Weller then?
• 6:52
  Were they making it back then or not?
• 6:54
  So the brand Weller and W.L. Weller,
• 6:57
  which is kind of the way that it presents on the,
• 6:59
  if you look at a logo, that's like a W.L. in that crest.
• 7:01
  Yeah.
• 7:02
  Actually was only really brought about by Buffalo Trace.
• 7:04
  So he would have probably been selling bourbon under his own name,
• 7:07
  I guess.
• 7:08
  But I don't actually know the answer to that.
• 7:09
  But Pappy Van Winkle,
• 7:11
  I'm pretty sure, was making Whiskey Hunter the Van Winkle.
• 7:14
  Yes.
• 7:15
  That's definitely something.
• 7:16
  Yeah.
• 7:17
  But so Weller and William LaRue Weller in the antique collection,
• 7:22
  all that kind of stuff,
• 7:23
  is all a Buffalo Trace kind of invention, I suppose.
• 7:26
  But this guy had been doing this stuff.
• 7:28
  And I suppose the family had been doing it too.
• 7:30
  And it was always weeded.
• 7:31
  So now that I've said that much, can you now tell us what a Weller is?
• 7:35
  A Weller, this is the bit I love.
• 7:37
  A Weller is the people at Buffalo Trace who make the Pappy Van Winkle,
• 7:42
  which is a very sought after weeded bourbon.
• 7:45
  They have a panel of like 16 or 18, I can't remember the exact number,
• 7:51
  but a big panel of people who taste all the bourbon, like each barrel,
• 7:56
  to see if it's going to be at Pappy level.
• 8:00
  And if it's at Pappy level, it gets bottled as Pappy,
• 8:03
  sold for a lot of money.
• 8:05
  But even if one person in that panel disagrees that it's not up to Pappy
• 8:11
  standard, it gets bottled as a Weller.
• 8:14
  So it means that it's like really good stuff that's not quite Pappy.
• 8:21
  But it's still really good stuff.
• 8:22
  It's still really good.
• 8:23
  The Weller Rainbow has, is it six different expressions in it?
• 8:27
  All the labels are all different colours.
• 8:29
  They're different colours.
• 8:30
  So they look roughly the same, but they're different colours.
• 8:32
  Yeah.
• 8:33
  So green.
• 8:34
  It's hard to have them all lined up.
• 8:35
  Yeah, you can get the Weller.
• 8:36
  Well, you can try to get the Weller Rainbow.
• 8:37
  It's hard to get your hands on.
• 8:38
  But green one is the one that's the easiest to get.
• 8:41
  And in Australia, we can get it very easily.
• 8:43
  Every dance will have some.
• 8:45
  Can I get this one in Australia?
• 8:47
  Well, this is Australian barrel pick.
• 8:49
  So you can definitely or you were able to get this obviously,
• 8:51
  but you can't anymore.
• 8:52
  I think it's sold out.
• 8:53
  So those ones, easy enough to get.
• 8:56
  Probably the next easiest to get in Australia is the black one,
• 8:58
  which is the 12 year.
• 8:59
  Yeah.
• 9:00
  We're now into territory of not cheap anyway.
• 9:02
  Yeah, yeah.
• 9:04
  The blue one is the full proof.
• 9:06
  So it's at 114 proof.
• 9:09
  Then there's the orange one, which is single barrel.
• 9:11
  I've never seen an orange one.
• 9:12
  I hadn't either when I saw one maybe a few months ago.
• 9:15
  Oh, on one of your business trips.
• 9:16
  Shut up.
• 9:17
  I was on a business trip.
• 9:18
  And I had it and it was delicious.
• 9:19
  Didn't bring back the bottle.
• 9:20
  But it was still a single barrel.
• 9:22
  No, I was at a bar.
• 9:23
  I didn't see the whole bottle.
• 9:24
  I didn't see it to buy.
• 9:26
  And then the white one is this CYPV, craft your perfect bourbon.
• 9:29
  So it was kind of like put out as a vote to the people
• 9:32
  and they could all vote on the flavors.
• 9:34
  And then they crafted this expression, which is this white labeled CYPV.
• 9:39
  Is that easy to get or not?
• 9:40
  Well, I mean, I suppose it's probably as easy to get as a single barrel,
• 9:44
  something like that.
• 9:45
  You can get it, but it's not that easy to get.
• 9:47
  If you get them all, it's considered a well of rainbow.
• 9:49
  Wow.
• 9:50
  And if you've got a well of rainbow, you're doing really good.
• 9:52
  You're doing well.
• 9:53
  But we don't have that.
• 9:54
  You're doing well.
• 9:55
  I'm sorry.
• 9:56
  Sorry, Dash.
• 9:57
  This particular single barrel is from Barrel and Batch,
• 10:00
  is apparently six years old.
• 10:02
  Yes.
• 10:03
  But they're not usually aged out.
• 10:04
  It doesn't say six years on it.
• 10:05
  That's just something that the guys who picked it must be able to tell us.
• 10:08
  Yeah, it would be new.
• 10:10
  I suppose when you pick the barrel, you can't get it.
• 10:12
  They definitely picked a good one.
• 10:15
  Maybe it's because I've had a bit of a cold,
• 10:17
  but I'm actually enjoying the nose of this more than I'm enjoying it.
• 10:20
  Is that weird?
• 10:21
  Well, I think it's like whether your palate,
• 10:24
  like if your palate's not in the mood for a wheated bourbon
• 10:26
  that leaves that wheaty flavor, I think,
• 10:30
  and you're wanting something kind of a bit sweeter,
• 10:33
  I think you're not going to like it, like in that moment.
• 10:35
  It's not that you don't like it, but it's like if you're enjoying that nice,
• 10:38
  beautiful vanilla and buttery smell, but then you're getting a wheaten finish,
• 10:43
  sometimes it's, yeah, it's a bit harsher.
• 10:46
  Is it weird that one of my favorite things about bourbon is how good it smells?
• 10:49
  I really, really like nosing a really nice.
• 10:52
  I like the smell.
• 10:53
  I like the taste.
• 10:54
  I love the stories and I love the people.
• 10:56
  Oh, wow.
• 10:57
  You should make a promo for that.
• 11:02
  The story about how this bottle came to be is that I was hanging out with a friend
• 11:08
  of mine, Kane, who also listens to the podcast.
• 11:12
  And he's one of the original fans.
• 11:14
  Hi, Kane.
• 11:15
  And he asked me a weird sequence of questions about what kind of bottle should
• 11:20
  someone get, someone who had done such a big favor for them,
• 11:23
  and I answered all the questions.
• 11:24
  And then he's like, what about these ones?
• 11:26
  And he showed me a list of like online shopping and I was like, oh, wow,
• 11:29
  this one's really good, but it depends on what this person would like.
• 11:31
  I didn't realize that he was.
• 11:33
  Oh, he was tossing you out.
• 11:34
  He was getting me a gift and then moments later he put his phone back in his pocket
• 11:38
  and he was like, thanks again for doing that thing.
• 11:40
  And I was like, oh, what?
• 11:42
  That's crazy.
• 11:43
  And so when this arrived, I was so chuffed.
• 11:46
  And I'm kind of sad that it's almost gone, but we've really enjoyed it.
• 11:49
  We have definitely enjoyed this.
• 11:51
  And I certainly didn't expect this as a thank you for that.
• 11:54
  But I'm really grateful for it.
• 11:56
  But if you're getting a gift, a Willow is a good one because it's got a great,
• 12:00
  like the story of the link to the tappy and the fact that, you know.
• 12:06
  It's such a complex question, though, what gift should I get, isn't it?
• 12:09
  I know.
• 12:10
  I don't know.
• 12:11
  It depends on what they like.
• 12:12
  Exactly.
• 12:13
  You're supposed to drink what you like, right?
• 12:14
  But I would pick this off a shelf because they've put the burnt butter
• 12:17
  and vanilla pods on a little gold sticker because that guarantees it's going
• 12:22
  to taste delicious.
• 12:24
  Yeah.
• 12:25
  Yeah.
• 12:26
  But everyone experiences stuff differently as well, right?
• 12:28
  I know.
• 12:29
  I know.
• 12:30
  I don't know.
• 12:31
  What is the perfect gift?
• 12:32
  I mean, a few episodes ago we were talking about the Virginia Black.
• 12:33
  That's a great bottle, but what's in there isn't actually even bourbon.
• 12:37
  Yeah, but it depends on what people like, I suppose.
• 12:39
  Like, it depends on whether you're wanting something light, something, like,
• 12:43
  really aged, like that really oaky-ness that you get.
• 12:47
  Or might you accidentally get something that's over-aged.
• 12:49
  You just try to go for a big age number and then, whoops,
• 12:52
  got you something that was just like chewing your fist.
• 12:55
  You can't go too wrong.
• 12:56
  You can't go too wrong.
• 12:57
  This is why I like bourbon.
• 12:58
  It's got that corn sweetness that isn't as harsh as some, like, whiskeys.
• 13:02
  But, yeah, that's why I like bourbon.
• 13:05
  Well, here's to enjoying bourbon exactly how you like it,
• 13:08
  as old as it needs to be, just like us.
• 13:14
  We're old, Dave.
• 13:15
  Cheers to being old.
• 13:16
  Yeah, being old and antique.
• 13:21
  Thanks for listening.
• 13:22
  Make sure you connect with us on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube
• 13:25
  and stay connected with us by clicking subscribe on your favorite podcast app.