Latest / The Noble Dram / The Noble Dram | Gavin's Collection Selection (Season 2 | Ep. 22)

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The Noble Dram | Gavin's Collection Selection (Season 2 | Ep. 22) · The Noble Dram

• 0:00
  Aaron: Riddle me this.
• 0:01
  Aaron: What does tonight's episode in an NBA roster have in common?
• 0:41
  Aaron: Thanks for joining us on this this episode of The Noble Dram.
• 0:45
  Gavin: THE Noble Dream.
• 0:47
  Aaron: I'm just sticking with what I said.
• 0:49
  Aaron: In honor of LeBron James signing with the Philadelphia 76ers, which two guys from Houston don't care about at all, we said we should make this fun.
• 1:02
  Aaron: And I said, what if you could make the perfect NBA roster of whiskies?
• 1:09
  Aaron: Yes, if you caught us a couple months or a couple weeks ago, maybe a month now, we talked about if you were starting a whiskey selection from scratch, what must a collection have?
• 1:24
  Aaron: That's correct.
• 1:25
  Aaron: And and I put together bar-none, the best list ever made of whiskeys from around the globe.
• 1:36
  Gavin: Best?
• 1:36
  Gavin: I don't know.
• 1:40
  Aaron: The 12 that you should have in your selection.
• 1:42
  Aaron: So tonight we posed Gavin with the same problem.
• 1:46
  Aaron: It's not even a problem.
• 1:48
  Aaron: It's it's a problem.
• 1:49
  Aaron: I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you, if you've never sat down and and whittled it down to 12, that's a problem.
• 1:56
  Aaron: That's a hard task.
• 1:57
  Aaron: That is a hard task.
• 1:59
  Aaron: I will say I expect at some point for you to slightly apologize for the way you treated me last time when I when you s when you scoffed and chastised me about how hard it was.
• 2:11
  Aaron: I was like, I think I I think you're underestimating how many good whiskeys are out there that you would love to put on the list that just simply can't make it.
• 2:19
  Aaron: Yeah, but you cheated.
• 2:21
  Gavin: You cheated because you didn't only do 12.
• 2:23
  Gavin: 12 is hard, right?
• 2:25
  Gavin: I mean, really hard to narrow it down.
• 2:27
  Gavin: And then you cheated and went 24 because you just couldn't do it.
• 2:30
  Gavin: You couldn't get down to 12.
• 2:32
  Aaron: I think the problem is what one man's pocketbook supports, another man's might not.
• 2:39
  Aaron: And so I wanted to make sure that I I'm a man of all people, not just not just the the upper socioeconomic group or the lower.
• 2:49
  Aaron: I'm a man who can I can span that distance.
• 2:52
  Aaron: So tonight we put Gavin to the test.
• 2:56
  Aaron: So we're gonna do this same format we did last time.
• 2:59
  Aaron: There was a list of 12 types, 12 categories of whiskey.
• 3:07
  Aaron: You were asked to pick one from each category.
• 3:11
  Aaron: All right, and at some point I assume you broke the rules.
• 3:15
  Aaron: Maybe you are Gavin.
• 3:18
  Aaron: So I get to decide where we start because that's how you did it.
• 3:22
  Aaron: You picked, and I just had to kind of throw them out.
• 3:24
  Gavin: Dig them out of the box as we're gonna pick it, and I'm gonna pull them out and pour some.
• 3:29
  Aaron: I'll be honest.
• 3:30
  Gavin: I'm gonna share.
• 3:31
  Aaron: I'm feeling spicy tonight.
• 3:33
  Aaron: You're always spicy.
• 3:35
  Aaron: Let's start with a rye whiskey.
• 3:38
  Aaron: Really?
• 3:38
  Aaron: You want to go rye?
• 3:39
  Aaron: Yep.
• 3:39
  Aaron: I'm so excited.
• 3:40
  Aaron: Let's do rye first.
• 3:41
  Aaron: All right.
• 3:41
  Aaron: And then I want to pour of said rye because I'm historically not a huge rye guy.
• 3:47
  Aaron: And if you're telling me this is the rye to have, I think I gotta try it.
• 3:53
  Gavin: We've mentioned it a few times.
• 3:54
  Gavin: I have been on a rye adventure over the last, I don't know, six months or so.
• 4:00
  Aaron: I think by definition, it's not an adventure.
• 4:02
  Aaron: Why?
• 4:03
  Aaron: You said a journey is something you do by yourself, an adventure is something you do when you take friends.
• 4:10
  Aaron: I didn't go on this journey with you.
• 4:13
  Aaron: Well, you kind of have.
• 4:14
  Aaron: You kind of have.
• 4:16
  Aaron: You are blazing your own trail through the wilderness.
• 4:19
  Gavin: All right.
• 4:20
  Gavin: Well, me and a few other guys in our group then, because I'm gonna pull out the Sagamore Spirits Rye.
• 4:28
  Gavin: That's that's where we're starting.
• 4:29
  Gavin: I I will say I don't I don't hate the pick.
• 4:32
  Gavin: Well, I'm glad.
• 4:34
  Gavin: I haven't hated the pick either because this is there's only a few pores left.
• 4:40
  Aaron: This is not the only bottle of rye from Sagamore we've owned.
• 4:46
  Aaron: This is so true.
• 4:48
  Aaron: All right, so I'm not I don't want to delve into the nose and stuff yet.
• 4:51
  Aaron: We're gonna save that till the uh midway point.
• 4:53
  Aaron: But tell me why, Sagamore.
• 4:55
  Aaron: You're gonna put that over there.
• 4:56
  Aaron: I'm gonna go all the way to the end.
• 4:58
  Gavin: So I did this because also I like to break some rules.
• 5:02
  Gavin: It's got pretty tagged a little bit.
• 5:04
  Gavin: Um some of these bottles I'm gonna pull out tonight may or may not be uh single barrel releases or square picks.
• 5:16
  Aaron: That's a stink, that's a stinker of a move right there.
• 5:18
  Gavin: So a little bit, but if you're gonna go after a rye, um finding something that is fun and funky and unique.
• 5:27
  Gavin: And you're gonna hear me say fun and funky a little bit because my collection is fun and funky, and that's I live and die by that um when it comes to whiskey.
• 5:38
  Gavin: Uh, my shelves at home, I do have typical releases, but I also like to go off the beaten path and find just something really strange and out there.
• 5:48
  Gavin: And a lot of times I get a lot of barrel picks um and single barrels.
• 5:52
  Gavin: So having a Sagamore spiritual rye, something that is one of a kind.
• 5:58
  Gavin: Uh this um um expression or or this pick was from a local shop uh here in Houston that had them um actually on uh sale.
• 6:10
  Gavin: So it was a really good deal.
• 6:12
  Aaron: Do you do you remember the name of the group that picked this?
• 6:15
  Aaron: Um I don't remember.
• 6:16
  Aaron: It's a great name.
• 6:17
  Aaron: The HTX Barrel Monks.
• 6:19
  Aaron: That's right.
• 6:21
  Aaron: I'm not even Catholic, but I'm in.
• 6:24
  Gavin: I'm in.
• 6:24
  Gavin: So this this was a pick that um one of our buddies Steven clued me in on, and so I ran over and got it and um wish I would have gotten a few more bottles.
• 6:34
  Gavin: This is great.
• 6:34
  Gavin: Seven years, um, 110 proof.
• 6:37
  Gavin: Um it's a blend of um high rye.
• 6:44
  Gavin: Um, and then also they they uh uh mix it in with some low rye bourbons or whiskey, not bourbons, some whiskey.
• 6:51
  Gavin: Sorry.
• 6:52
  Gavin: Um so yeah, right off the bat, it smells absolutely amazing.
• 7:00
  Aaron: Yeah, I I mean we're going to delve into this later because I I I think this needs as our first pour of the night.
• 7:08
  Aaron: I think this needs a little time to to open an air up.
• 7:11
  Aaron: I need I need a little time to catch up to it, if you will.
• 7:14
  Gavin: Yeah, it is we're we're starting uh 110 proof.
• 7:18
  Gavin: I get 110 proof.
• 7:20
  Gavin: So uh totally stoked for where we're gonna go throughout the rest of the evening here.
• 7:26
  Aaron: All right, so bottle number one, Sagamore Rye.
• 7:31
  Aaron: That is correct.
• 7:31
  Aaron: That is your rye whiskey.
• 7:34
  Aaron: That is my that's right.
• 7:35
  Aaron: Not to be confused with my second category pick, which we got kind of chastised about.
• 7:41
  Aaron: I'm going to say high rye bourbon because we called it rye bourbon or ride bourbon last time.
• 7:48
  Aaron: And somebody said, you know, there is no such thing as ride bourbon.
• 7:51
  Aaron: And I said, Yeah, I knew that.
• 7:53
  Aaron: I was just making up words as I went along.
• 7:55
  Aaron: I think if there's anything you'll you should know about us now, rule following might not be our forte.
• 8:04
  Aaron: So, next bottle, the high ride bourbon.
• 8:10
  Gavin: All right.
• 8:11
  Gavin: For that, we go to our good friends over at Bulleiit.
• 8:15
  Gavin: Uh-huh.
• 8:16
  Gavin: This is the 10-year Bulleit bourbon.
• 8:20
  Gavin: This is this is manly stuff.
• 8:22
  Gavin: This is frontier bourbon.
• 8:24
  Gavin: Frontier bourbon.
• 8:25
  Gavin: So this bottle, I think, um, is something at the price point.
• 8:30
  Gavin: Uh, I paid like 44 bucks for this.
• 8:34
  Aaron: Maybe we should, maybe we should we deviate to our you know how much you paid for the sagamore?
• 8:38
  Gavin: Um, the Sagamore, let me hear.
• 8:40
  Gavin: I got my cheat sheet here of all my bottles.
• 8:42
  Gavin: It's all right.
• 8:42
  Gavin: Uh the Sagamore, I paid basically 60 bucks for that bottle.
• 8:46
  Gavin: Okay.
• 8:46
  Gavin: Um, and so for the bullet, uh, right around 44 bucks.
• 8:53
  Gavin: Um, some of these prices are what I actually paid for.
• 8:56
  Gavin: Some of, I mean, I did pay for them.
• 8:58
  Gavin: Um, some of them are what people who would have not shoplifted the bottle would have had to pay for it.
• 9:03
  Gavin: That's right.
• 9:04
  Aaron: No, um, what is the statute of limitations on shoplifting?
• 9:07
  Aaron: How how long before you can admit to it on the internet?
• 9:10
  Aaron: That's actually a good point.
• 9:11
  Aaron: I don't know.
• 9:11
  Aaron: Maybe we should all do it.
• 9:12
  Aaron: We should probably talk to a lawyer.
• 9:14
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 9:15
  Gavin: For a variety of reasons, but this one specifically.
• 9:18
  Gavin: For sure.
• 9:19
  Gavin: Uh, I think this uh whiskey is really good, you know, mixing in old fashions.
• 9:26
  Gavin: Um drinking on the rocks a little bit.
• 9:29
  Gavin: It's a good pool cider, uh, if that's something that you're really into.
• 9:33
  Gavin: Um, what's the proof on this one?
• 9:36
  Aaron: Uh that is um is it uh 45.6, so 91.2?
• 9:44
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 9:45
  Aaron: The old classic 91.2.
• 9:47
  Aaron: Uh everybody makes it.
• 9:48
  Aaron: That's right.
• 9:49
  Aaron: Um, yeah, at 91.2, that's a reasonable sipper.
• 9:54
  Aaron: Um it might be a little light to stand up to a big glass of ice, but like if you drink fast like we do, like maybe not a problem.
• 10:03
  Aaron: Absolutely.
• 10:04
  Aaron: Um, depends on yeah, how fast you drink and how much you like ride with it.
• 10:08
  Aaron: You don't like from a price standpoint though, at what price point do you feel like mixing in with something else?
• 10:17
  Aaron: Old fashions, cocktails, um with I know you're a seven up or sprite guy, right?
• 10:23
  Aaron: Like, at what point do you like say, like, hey, I don't for that price, what's the harm in mixing it?
• 10:30
  Gavin: You know, there are definitely whiskeys that are, you know, 40-50 bucks that feel fine to mix.
• 10:40
  Gavin: I've mixed hundred dollar whiskeys um before.
• 10:44
  Gavin: Um, you know, I don't think that speaks well to the hundred dollar whiskey that you're like, we should put coke in this.
• 10:50
  Gavin: No, I'm not saying coke.
• 10:51
  Gavin: Well, I guess you said mix.
• 10:53
  Gavin: I was thinking putting on uh on ice.
• 10:55
  Gavin: So uh mixing, yeah.
• 10:56
  Gavin: Ice would be totally different in my own.
• 10:58
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 10:59
  Gavin: So mixing, yeah.
• 11:00
  Gavin: I think 50 bucks tops is probably more than I would spend on a mixer.
• 11:06
  Aaron: I had a good friend of mine.
• 11:08
  Gavin: 25 is like perfect for me for a mixer.
• 11:10
  Aaron: Yeah, sub 30, I think, was probably where my head was.
• 11:13
  Aaron: That's that different range, right?
• 11:15
  Aaron: Like I can, I can I can talk to rich people that can afford $30 a bottle.
• 11:20
  Aaron: Um, no, his argument, because he always put a splash of Diet Coke in his um bourbon, and I kind of had chest and I was like, I'd really be honest, I think you're kind of ruining the bourbon.
• 11:31
  Aaron: He's like, Yes, but it makes my diet coat taste so good.
• 11:35
  Aaron: And I was like, all right, well point.
• 11:37
  Aaron: I can't argue with that.
• 11:38
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 11:39
  Gavin: Are you what all do you mix with your uh whiskies?
• 11:43
  Gavin: Do you do Dr.
• 11:44
  Gavin: Pepper?
• 11:44
  Gavin: Do you do like what all sodas would you mix?
• 11:48
  Aaron: So I I will say the vast majority of what I consume is unmixed in any way, shape, or form.
• 11:55
  Aaron: However, um I I I had a reversal of opinions uh a couple years ago.
• 12:04
  Aaron: I had gotten into making cocktails and I'd found a recipe for a Dr.
• 12:10
  Aaron: Pepper syrup old fashioned.
• 12:13
  Aaron: And they basically took a two-liter of Dr.
• 12:15
  Aaron: Pepper, added some more herbal stuff, some orange peels, vanilla beans, that kind of stuff, and boiled a two-liter down to two cups.
• 12:27
  Aaron: So it was thick, syrupy.
• 12:30
  Aaron: And then you use that in lieu of simple syrup and bitters in an old-fashioned.
• 12:36
  Aaron: And I was like, this is phenomenal.
• 12:38
  Aaron: And I called my buddy, who always put bourbon in his Dr.
• 12:42
  Aaron: Pepper, and I had always chastised him.
• 12:44
  Aaron: And I called him, I was like, I need to apologize.
• 12:46
  Aaron: Because I I now make a cocktail that's exactly what you've been drinking, less some of the water.
• 12:53
  Aaron: And I feel really bad.
• 12:55
  Aaron: So um now I think if I I'm working on my girlish figure, I'm a Dr.
• 13:03
  Aaron: Pepper Zero guy now.
• 13:04
  Aaron: Oh zero.
• 13:05
  Aaron: But bourbon, bourbon in a Dr.
• 13:08
  Aaron: Pepper Zero?
• 13:09
  Aaron: Pretty tasty.
• 13:10
  Gavin: If you're talking to straight mixers, what I will say is for the people out there that frown upon mixing sodas with your whiskeys, I believe it was Elmer T.
• 13:23
  Gavin: Lee himself who, when asked how he likes his whiskeys, was he puts a little 7Up or Sprite in it.
• 13:32
  Aaron: I the story, the story goes that Mountain Dew soda was created to be a mixer with whiskey.
• 13:41
  Gavin: So all I gotta say is folks out there that have spent a ton of money finding the Elmer T.
• 13:47
  Gavin: Lees out there, and then also feel like you're gonna chastise people for mixing with sodas.
• 13:54
  Gavin: Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.
• 13:55
  Gavin: I'm just saying.
• 13:56
  Aaron: You can't come out here and at bottle two of twelve, make the claim that people should mix seven up with their Elmer T League.
• 14:04
  Aaron: Good.
• 14:05
  Aaron: I'm not saying no one's gonna watch the rest of the episode of TV.
• 14:09
  Gavin: Said it.
• 14:10
  Gavin: So I didn't say it.
• 14:11
  Gavin: The man himself.
• 14:13
  Gavin: So the story goes.
• 14:14
  Gavin: All right, mini bottle number three.
• 14:17
  Aaron: Where are we going?
• 14:18
  Aaron: Let's let's stick in the bourbon world.
• 14:20
  Aaron: Let's do the wheat head.
• 14:22
  Gavin: The weeded.
• 14:23
  Gavin: All right.
• 14:24
  Gavin: So this one, you are no stranger to.
• 14:28
  Gavin: Oh, the green river weeded.
• 14:32
  Gavin: That is a tasty bottle right now.
• 14:34
  Gavin: Let's put that over there.
• 14:35
  Gavin: This one is really fun for us, uh, for those out there uh that do not know.
• 14:40
  Gavin: Sometimes, before we get on camera, Aaron and I have a pre-sipper.
• 14:46
  Gavin: And it is not often enough.
• 14:48
  Gavin: Let's just be honest.
• 14:49
  Gavin: I mean, we don't do it often enough.
• 14:51
  Gavin: Lately, we haven't been doing it.
• 14:53
  Aaron: The problem is we we we get to run them behind, and we get in here, we're like, we gotta get to get to getting.
• 14:58
  Aaron: Gotta get to getting.
• 14:59
  Aaron: Uh, this.
• 15:00
  Aaron: What sounds more country than this phrase "Gotta get to getting"?
• 15:05
  Gavin: Ah, it's so good though, right?
• 15:06
  Gavin: Um, uh, this it is uh, I believe it's 45 maybe 90 proof.
• 15:16
  Gavin: It's a 45er.
• 15:17
  Gavin: Yeah, look at this guy.
• 15:18
  Gavin: This guy.
• 15:19
  Gavin: Um, so not not not high proof, um, very sweet, something that is just an easy sipper to get going uh before you really uh start, you know, turning on the chainsaw and getting going.
• 15:34
  Aaron: You know, I don't know.
• 15:35
  Aaron: I don't know what that means.
• 15:36
  Gavin: I don't know either.
• 15:36
  Aaron: I think he's making that shit up as he goes.
• 15:38
  Aaron: All right.
• 15:40
  Aaron: All right, so both of these bourbons, though, we have stepped down in proof.
• 15:46
  Aaron: I feel like it is only fitting that for bottle number four.
• 15:51
  Aaron: Oh, did you mention price on this one?
• 15:52
  Aaron: Sorry.
• 15:53
  Aaron: Uh sorry, price on that.
• 15:55
  Aaron: We are at $35.
• 15:56
  Aaron: Now we're talking, see, $35 all day.
• 16:00
  Aaron: All day long, all day mixing that one.
• 16:02
  Gavin: I think we've both owned many of these bottles.
• 16:05
  Aaron: It's weeded whiskey, tends to be a little lighter, a little softer flavors, slightly lower proof, makes it a lot more approachable.
• 16:14
  Aaron: I if if you're having a collection and somebody comes over and they're not a big whiskey person, you absolutely give them a low-proof weeded bourbon, right?
• 16:23
  Aaron: That's a perfect spot to start.
• 16:25
  Aaron: All right.
• 16:26
  Aaron: I think though we need to go back up, ramp it back up.
• 16:29
  Aaron: We started at 110, we dropped down.
• 16:31
  Aaron: I think we need to come back up.
• 16:33
  Aaron: Give me your overproof, your high proof bourbon.
• 16:37
  Gavin: My high proof bourbon.
• 16:38
  Gavin: I don't think you're a stranger to this one either.
• 16:41
  Gavin: See.
• 16:42
  Aaron: So far, it feels like you just keep picking bottles that I picked.
• 16:48
  Aaron: Except for this one.
• 16:49
  Aaron: No, no, hold up.
• 16:50
  Aaron: Who picked this bottle?
• 16:52
  Gavin: Actually, you you and I picked this bottle.
• 16:54
  Gavin: That's what I'm talking about.
• 16:55
  Gavin: Like, this is this one.
• 16:56
  Aaron: We actually picked this barrel, I think.
• 16:58
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 16:58
  Gavin: So this uh in the world of high proof, this is it.
• 17:02
  Gavin: This bottle, um, Aaron I plus our whiskey group got the opportunity to do our first, or at least my first barrel pick.
• 17:12
  Aaron: Yeah, not a this was before the noble dram was a thing.
• 17:16
  Aaron: Yep.
• 17:16
  Aaron: Um, this was eight guys on the back patio drinking way too much old Forester barrel proof.
• 17:24
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 17:24
  Aaron: Single barrel.
• 17:25
  Aaron: It was it was a lot of fun.
• 17:27
  Aaron: Uh if you you've never had heartburn until you've drank six glasses of old forester barrel proof.
• 17:34
  Gavin: I still might get a little heartburn on this one.
• 17:36
  Gavin: I mean, it is it is hot.
• 17:37
  Gavin: Um, it is so fun uh to be the first barrel pick that we were a part of, at least for me.
• 17:43
  Gavin: Um so a high proofer right here.
• 17:48
  Aaron: I will say, old Forester single barrels all tend to be tasty.
• 17:54
  Aaron: I've yet I've got too many of them.
• 17:56
  Aaron: I've got two sitting over my shoulder right here behind us.
• 17:59
  Aaron: Um, and those are just the two that are open.
• 18:01
  Aaron: I've got three more on the floor.
• 18:03
  Aaron: I enjoy them.
• 18:05
  Aaron: I'm with you.
• 18:06
  Aaron: I almost think it's too proof forward.
• 18:10
  Aaron: I'll concede, I think this is those tend to be a better with a nice cube in them.
• 18:17
  Aaron: Absolutely.
• 18:19
  Gavin: When when we talk about overproof bourbon, I think we uh we all really want to go to those, you know, really high.
• 18:25
  Gavin: I think I'm not I can't remember exactly what your picks were, but I would say they're probably wrong.
• 18:30
  Aaron: No, no, no.
• 18:31
  Aaron: I I brought my list just in case.
• 18:34
  Aaron: You want to know what my overproofed bourbon was?
• 18:36
  Aaron: I think one of them was Elijah Craig.
• 18:37
  Aaron: Elijah Craig barrel proof again.
• 18:40
  Aaron: You can't see it here, but I got eight of those up there.
• 18:43
  Aaron: Um, and then Russell's reserve single barrel.
• 18:46
  Gavin: Yeah, I mean, it's hard.
• 18:47
  Gavin: I mean, Russell's Reserve.
• 18:49
  Gavin: I've got several of those and have had several.
• 18:53
  Aaron: Um, but it was it was probably the easiest category for me to pare down to just a few because you walked in the room, I was like, well, I got six of those, and I got four of those, and I got five of those.
• 19:07
  Aaron: Like, it's got to be one of those, right?
• 19:09
  Aaron: Um, yeah, I'm with you.
• 19:12
  Aaron: I none of those are bad decisions.
• 19:15
  Aaron: Agreed.
• 19:16
  Aaron: Um, hey, run them in rotation.
• 19:18
  Aaron: Finish one, go get the other one, finish it, go get just keep working your way around.
• 19:23
  Aaron: All right.
• 19:24
  Aaron: Um about a hundred bucks.
• 19:28
  Gavin: Yeah, I think my memory's think it was uh about a hundred bucks.
• 19:31
  Gavin: Um maybe have gotten a little bit of a discount because we helped pick it, but uh I think for general.
• 19:37
  Gavin: I'm not pausing.
• 19:38
  Aaron: I think he I think he might have charged us extra because he knew we were gonna buy him.
• 19:42
  Gavin: Like there was no way we weren't doing it.
• 19:44
  Gavin: That's what happens.
• 19:46
  Gavin: I mean, I bought backups to backups to that bottle.
• 19:48
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 19:49
  Aaron: And it is I think it's I think it's part of the secret ploy of barrel picks, is they're like, well, that's a case sold to that guy, and that's a case sold to that guy.
• 19:59
  Aaron: If we can get six guys on the barrel pick committee, we've sold the entire barrel already.
• 20:03
  Aaron: Yep.
• 20:04
  Aaron: All right.
• 20:05
  Aaron: I think this is an excellent, uh smattering of American-made whiskeys.
• 20:12
  Aaron: Yes.
• 20:12
  Aaron: So let's deviate.
• 20:14
  Gavin: Oh, where you want to go?
• 20:16
  Gavin: Tell me where you want to go.
• 20:17
  Aaron: Let's go Irish.
• 20:18
  Aaron: Ooh, Irish.
• 20:20
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 20:20
  Aaron: No, no.
• 20:21
  Aaron: So I don't I think you're Irish.
• 20:24
  Aaron: I I'm I tried to pick an order to ask that I think would lead into the next one.
• 20:30
  Aaron: Overproof bourbon into Irish was a really bad transition.
• 20:35
  Gavin: So bad.
• 20:36
  Gavin: Uh, this is the Bushmills.
• 20:38
  Gavin: That's the Bush mills 10-year single malt whiskey right there.
• 20:42
  Aaron: Um, single malt?
• 20:43
  Aaron: Single malt.
• 20:44
  Aaron: So you kind of cheated and didn't get the single grain or the pot stilled.
• 20:50
  Aaron: Yep.
• 20:52
  Gavin: So I'm a bush mills fan.
• 20:53
  Gavin: You're heavy blue on the label sometimes, really.
• 20:56
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 20:56
  Gavin: Uh I'm a Bushmills fan.
• 20:58
  Gavin: Uh, been to the distillery.
• 21:00
  Gavin: Uh, if you get your if you get an opportunity to go to Ireland, uh, there's a fantastic roadside tour.
• 21:07
  Gavin: Um, and then you can hit some castles, and then you can end up at Bush Mills.
• 21:12
  Gavin: And uh what I think it was 1608 was when um it either I can't remember the story if it was that's when the king commissioned it.
• 21:23
  Gavin: Uh I believe that they were distilling on the site or at Bush Mills previous to that, but then I think in 1608 uh is when the king commissioned it.
• 21:32
  Gavin: So when you think about the world of whiskey, it's hard not to think about Bushmills because they have been around for so bloody long.
• 21:42
  Aaron: Um longer than the vast majority of distilleries.
• 21:48
  Aaron: We did the Irish episode and we talked about how big Irish whiskey had gotten and how it nearly imploded on itself down to a very Very limited number of distilleries that ultimately began to kind of group up trying to protect themselves.
• 22:05
  Aaron: Um, it is so wonderful to see the Irish whiskey market begin to balloon back up again.
• 22:12
  Aaron: Far cry from where it was at its highest point.
• 22:15
  Aaron: But I it's it's awesome to see that style of whiskey continue on.
• 22:21
  Aaron: All right.
• 22:22
  Aaron: So this is our first foray outside of US soil.
• 22:26
  Aaron: All right.
• 22:27
  Aaron: I think we stay outside the U.S.
• 22:30
  Aaron: soil.
• 22:30
  Aaron: Okay.
• 22:30
  Aaron: Where would you like to head next?
• 22:33
  Aaron: I'm giving you the open category of international.
• 22:36
  Aaron: Not the open, open, the international category.
• 22:40
  Aaron: You want to go international?
• 22:41
  Aaron: I do.
• 22:41
  Aaron: That's why I said that.
• 22:43
  Aaron: All right.
• 22:44
  Aaron: Uh oh.
• 22:45
  Aaron: Do you got one in there that's not in English?
• 22:48
  Gavin: Oh no.
• 22:50
  Aaron: Oh no.
• 22:51
  Aaron: I may have actually left that bottle.
• 22:53
  Aaron: All right.
• 22:53
  Aaron: Tell us what it is.
• 22:55
  Aaron: Um, I will crop in the image of a bottle right here.
• 22:58
  Gavin: Wow, I can't believe I left that.
• 23:00
  Gavin: Um, I was actually gonna break the rules on this one too.
• 23:04
  Gavin: What?
• 23:04
  Gavin: Oh, that's why I had to set aside.
• 23:06
  Gavin: Dang it, dang it.
• 23:10
  Gavin: I'm so embarrassed.
• 23:11
  Gavin: So I was gonna break the rules.
• 23:12
  Gavin: Should be.
• 23:14
  Gavin: Um, yeah, because this was gonna be shame.
• 23:16
  Gavin: This was gonna be my big reveal.
• 23:18
  Gavin: I'm wrong.
• 23:19
  Gavin: All right.
• 23:20
  Gavin: So my breaking of the rules of international is I don't think that you can have a whiskey selection, collection, collection, selection without being local, right?
• 23:31
  Gavin: I don't think is this the Texas is a whole other country nonsense?
• 23:37
  Gavin: Yes.
• 23:38
  Gavin: All right, what were you bringing?
• 23:40
  Gavin: I was gonna bring the Still Austin Cavados cask.
• 23:44
  Gavin: Oh, I don't have that one.
• 23:46
  Gavin: I just got regular.
• 23:46
  Gavin: I cannot believe I left it.
• 23:48
  Gavin: Sorry, folks.
• 23:49
  Gavin: Um, but we'll just just as a placeholder.
• 23:52
  Gavin: There we go.
• 23:53
  Gavin: We've been a still Austin on the gun.
• 23:55
  Aaron: This is embarrassing.
• 23:57
  Aaron: This is Still Austin Cavados.
• 24:01
  Aaron: Yes.
• 24:01
  Aaron: I'm teasing, that's not how you pronounce it.
• 24:03
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 24:04
  Aaron: Um, so I feel obligated now to mispronounce something in every single episode.
• 24:10
  Gavin: Gosh, I can't believe I left that.
• 24:11
  Gavin: I'm like over here, like, did I is it nope, it's not in the boxes.
• 24:15
  Gavin: Um what do you do?
• 24:16
  Gavin: It's what happens when you have to tote around boxes of whiskey everywhere.
• 24:21
  Gavin: Um, so not everywhere, just here.
• 24:23
  Gavin: Stop driving them all over town.
• 24:25
  Gavin: I don't know.
• 24:26
  Gavin: I've been driving whiskey around town quite a bit lately.
• 24:28
  Gavin: Oh, shoot.
• 24:30
  Gavin: Um, so uh yeah, I wanted to do something different.
• 24:35
  Gavin: Uh, I do think that Texas whiskey is its own thing, and I'm I'm a big advocate for that.
• 24:41
  Gavin: Um as we've mentioned in previous episodes, I started my whiskey adventures and journeys in the Scotch world, uh, and then was very timid to get into bourbon and American whiskies.
• 24:55
  Gavin: So when I found myself in Texas, what do you do?
• 24:59
  Gavin: You you own your own backyard, right?
• 25:02
  Gavin: And so I started really uh diving into local distilleries, and that um really helped ramp up my um obsession, might be strong word, but for bourbons and American whiskies.
• 25:16
  Gavin: And if you catch the episode last week where we happen to be at Bent Distilling Co.
• 25:22
  Gavin: and got a chance to sit down with them, there's wonderful, wonderful things happening in the Texas market.
• 25:29
  Aaron: I hate to say this because one, I don't ever like to admit that I might have been wrong, but I have had to backtrack just a little bit on Texas whiskey.
• 25:39
  Aaron: Um, I will say, as the years have gone on, the the feedback loop from now made stuff, age stuff, okay, let's try tweaking just a little bit.
• 25:50
  Aaron: I with every subsequent revolution back around, we are absolutely getting better as a group.
• 25:58
  Aaron: Still not in love with all of them, but I have been really pleased and honestly surprised by a number of different distilleries we have uh tasted from that were just unlike anything I expected to get.
• 26:14
  Gavin: Our boy is growing up over here.
• 26:16
  Gavin: Sorry, I'm a proud never mind.
• 26:18
  Aaron: I take it back.
• 26:19
  Gavin: I take it back.
• 26:20
  Gavin: I take it back.
• 26:21
  Gavin: I hate all of them.
• 26:22
  Gavin: He's gonna hand it.
• 26:23
  Aaron: Kevin's gonna give me a hard time.
• 26:24
  Aaron: I don't want any part of it.
• 26:25
  Gavin: So uh you can give me a hard time because I left the bottle at home.
• 26:28
  Aaron: So there isn't really a Texas whiskey that you like.
• 26:31
  Aaron: That's what I'm hearing.
• 26:31
  Aaron: Um I like I like lots of teams.
• 26:33
  Aaron: Nope, nope, nope.
• 26:34
  Aaron: Only the ones that I have were the ones you make.
• 26:36
  Aaron: All right, we should.
• 26:38
  Aaron: We are six bottles in.
• 26:40
  Aaron: We are halfway through the collection selection.
• 26:43
  Aaron: Already.
• 26:44
  Aaron: It is time to talk about the Sagamore uh rye, the seven-year.
• 26:52
  Aaron: Yes.
• 26:53
  Aaron: Your bottle, I assume that you were gonna make me talk.
• 26:57
  Aaron: So I don't want to jump the gun, but um some ryes have a distinct kind of dill aroma to them, very herbaceous.
• 27:07
  Aaron: Yeah, like what's the like a big dill.
• 27:10
  Aaron: Um this one doesn't have that, but yet it's not overly minty either.
• 27:16
  Aaron: I actually get just a waft of like so.
• 27:22
  Aaron: I'll say number one is mint, but on the nose.
• 27:25
  Aaron: But number two, I'm getting like almost a pine or like a juniper kind of uh hint to it.
• 27:32
  Aaron: It reminds me a bit of a gin and that kind of sharp bite of juniper to it.
• 27:43
  Gavin: Okay, I mean I get the mint.
• 27:46
  Gavin: I didn't really get pine until you said it.
• 27:49
  Gavin: And I guess maybe that's the power of persuasion.
• 27:53
  Gavin: Um but uh for me, uh I think it's got brown sugar on it.
• 28:00
  Gavin: I think there's some cherry notes to it.
• 28:05
  Aaron: Um more of a sour cherry than a sweet cherry, though, right?
• 28:11
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 28:11
  Aaron: Like that's not that's not the rich ooey gooey Luxardo or like the dark rich bing cherry.
• 28:19
  Aaron: This is very much the you get in the stop at the gas station on a road trip and get a thing of sour cherries.
• 28:25
  Aaron: I mean, I was thinking almost like a chocolate-covered cherry.
• 28:28
  Aaron: No, not even close.
• 28:30
  Gavin: Yeah, that's what that's there's no chocolate on this.
• 28:33
  Gavin: I I do.
• 28:35
  Gavin: I get I think maybe it's just that brown sugarness.
• 28:38
  Aaron: And I also don't get a great deal of brown sugar.
• 28:40
  Aaron: You don't get brown sugar?
• 28:41
  Aaron: There's nothing sweet about this.
• 28:42
  Aaron: You're so wrong.
• 28:43
  Aaron: This this is oaky.
• 28:46
  Aaron: I'll get I'll give you oaky.
• 28:48
  Aaron: I mean, I am oaky, but that's you're either this smells like it's from Muskoki.
• 28:54
  Gavin: You're either an oak or you're a willow.
• 28:56
  Aaron: Oh, for God's sakes.
• 28:58
  Aaron: This is derailing horribly.
• 29:00
  Aaron: All right, on the palate, I actually think it gets a little bit more flour and a little bit grassy on the palate.
• 29:07
  Aaron: Um, some of the mint actually fades on the palate.
• 29:11
  Aaron: Comes roaring back on the finish, right?
• 29:13
  Aaron: Um, but on the palate, I actually thought it it had more of a floral, grassy.
• 29:18
  Aaron: Um, I won't say quite hay, because hay often makes me think dusty.
• 29:23
  Aaron: And I don't know if I get quite the dustiness.
• 29:25
  Aaron: I do get a bit of that old oak barn kind of thing on the nose, but not so much on the palate.
• 29:33
  Gavin: On the palate, uh, I think I think there's it's very almost like syrupy.
• 29:38
  Gavin: There's like a molasses almost feel to it.
• 29:41
  Gavin: Um like the molasses that isn't sweet.
• 29:47
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 29:48
  Aaron: Um as a kid, you found the jar of molasses, you're like, that looks gooey rich like honey.
• 29:55
  Aaron: And then you're like, that's not.
• 29:57
  Aaron: It does not taste sweet like honey.
• 30:01
  Gavin: Um there's a bit of like uh fruitiness that I got off of this on the palate as well.
• 30:06
  Gavin: I'm not sure which fruit you're referring to.
• 30:09
  Gavin: Cherries.
• 30:13
  Aaron: No, no, no, no, there's nothing.
• 30:15
  Aaron: You don't get any of that?
• 30:16
  Aaron: No.
• 30:17
  Aaron: I wish I did and make it better.
• 30:21
  Aaron: So here's where I will say in this really weird I get mint again on the finish, but I actually get this like this little flash of like pink hubba bubble bubblegum on the finish.
• 30:37
  Aaron: Hubba bubble bubba bubba bubba bub.
• 30:40
  Aaron: And then the the pine resin tree kind of thing comes over and back.
• 30:48
  Aaron: And I get I get that dry oakiness and that that subtle mint.
• 30:52
  Aaron: But yeah, just for a brief moment, you're like, oh, bumble gum in there, and then it's gone.
• 30:58
  Gavin: Uh, I mean, I can't agree with you the whole way through that, but um, there's a bit of that.
• 31:04
  Gavin: I think the mint definitely shows up.
• 31:07
  Gavin: Um, I do get uh the sweetness to me.
• 31:10
  Gavin: I know you don't feel like you get sweetness.
• 31:12
  Gavin: I feel like it's fair to you.
• 31:14
  Aaron: I think if you were gonna sample any of these bottles, all of them would be noticeably sweeter than that one.
• 31:21
  Gavin: I don't know that Green River, I don't know if it'll hold up to that.
• 31:25
  Aaron: Uh the Green River is absolutely it's like this.
• 31:27
  Aaron: I'm positive.
• 31:28
  Aaron: That is a glass of dessert.
• 31:30
  Aaron: Well, no, I'm not saying that.
• 31:31
  Aaron: I think I I think the proof Oh no, no, no.
• 31:34
  Aaron: I I'm just talking sweetness.
• 31:36
  Aaron: Sheer sweetness.
• 31:38
  Aaron: I think this one has to be the least sweet of the six you put up.
• 31:41
  Aaron: But all you've talked about so far is how sweet it is.
• 31:44
  Gavin: All right.
• 31:44
  Gavin: Well, it's a it's because I have a sweetness for this one.
• 31:51
  Aaron: All right, I'm thinking about a number.
• 31:52
  Aaron: Oh, are we putting numbers to them?
• 31:54
  Aaron: Well, I think.
• 31:55
  Gavin: Well, you need to put a number two.
• 31:55
  Gavin: I don't know if I can put a number two because this isn't my pick.
• 31:58
  Gavin: I would expect you to pick high numbers.
• 32:00
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 32:01
  Aaron: Um in rye whiskey.
• 32:03
  Aaron: Then you and I are not going to have the same number.
• 32:08
  Gavin: I know or not.
• 32:09
  Gavin: This is why I wanted to taste this.
• 32:12
  Gavin: Yeah, no, I like this one.
• 32:14
  Aaron: I like this one.
• 32:14
  Aaron: Listen.
• 32:16
  Aaron: Just because it doesn't match what I enjoy, it's not my favorite thing, doesn't mean it's a bad whiskey.
• 32:23
  Aaron: It just doesn't hit the palate the way I want it to.
• 32:27
  Aaron: I'm at a 79 on this one.
• 32:29
  Aaron: Holy snow.
• 32:31
  Aaron: I'm not positive.
• 32:32
  Aaron: I'm not positive I need this one in my selection.
• 32:35
  Aaron: Oh my gosh.
• 32:36
  Aaron: Now, what I will say is in a selection of 12, I think you owe your collection to have a rye whiskey.
• 32:46
  Aaron: Because if you're going to mix this into a cocktail with sugar water, that's gonna add the sweetness that this is clearly missing.
• 32:54
  Aaron: Don't listen to Gavin.
• 32:56
  Aaron: If you're going to add bitters and fruit and all that, this is gonna stand up against that, right?
• 33:05
  Aaron: This is not gonna get pushed around like a weeded bourbon would, right?
• 33:11
  Aaron: So I think your collection is owed a rye whiskey.
• 33:17
  Aaron: But doesn't mean I'm going to love the rye whiskey just inherently for what it is.
• 33:22
  Aaron: Sorry.
• 33:23
  Aaron: Alright.
• 33:24
  Aaron: I'm assuming you're going to tell me like 92.
• 33:27
  Gavin: Uh, not quite in the 90s.
• 33:29
  Gavin: I put this as an at an 86.
• 33:31
  Gavin: I'm gonna put an at an 86 because this is one of those rye whiskeys that it's one of a kind, right?
• 33:41
  Gavin: But it's it's not like my absolute gotta have it all the time rye whiskey.
• 33:49
  Gavin: But it is one that I absolutely enjoy, and I think that you should have it.
• 33:54
  Gavin: And if you can if you have the opportunity to get their barrel select, absolutely go grab one.
• 34:01
  Aaron: Like I said, I think one of the problems I have always faced with rye whiskeys is that some of the rye's that I actually enjoy don't really taste like rye's.
• 34:12
  Aaron: And so it's a bit of a misnomer to say, well, I have a rye whiskey, but it doesn't taste like rye.
• 34:17
  Aaron: Well, then it didn't really fit the need of having a rye whiskey in your collection.
• 34:21
  Aaron: Right.
• 34:21
  Aaron: That's my argument.
• 34:23
  Aaron: That's why I think even if it's not a a glass you love to sit on its own, if this is the only 12 you get, you still need something that fits that slot.
• 34:34
  Aaron: Right?
• 34:35
  Aaron: Mm-hmm.
• 34:35
  Aaron: Absolutely.
• 34:36
  Aaron: All right.
• 34:37
  Aaron: We're gonna pause for a sec, we'll come right back, we'll talk about the second six bottles, and Gavin will try to point out how I was wrong, and I will once again prove to the world I'm better at picking whiskies than he is.
• 34:55
  Gavin: You just may have more practice.
• 34:58
  Aaron: We'll see you there.
• 34:59
  Gavin: What if your next pour actually meant something?
• 35:06
  Aaron: Not just a good night, but doing real good.
• 35:10
  Aaron: This is pouring forward.
• 35:15
  Gavin: Where whiskey means purpose.
• 35:17
  Gavin: Where we spotlight real people and real stories.
• 35:22
  Aaron: And show up when it really counts.
• 35:26
  Gavin: No middleman, no fluff, just impacts.
• 35:31
  Aaron: Here at the Noble Dram, we believe that whiskey is more than just what's in the glass.
• 35:36
  Gavin: It's about the people that you share it with.
• 35:38
  Gavin: And to that is, head over to thenobledram.com and find out how you can pour it forward.
• 35:45
  Aaron: Enjoy a dream and be noble.
• 36:00
  Gavin: All right, enough of Aaron's shenanigans.
• 36:04
  Gavin: Uh, I'm tired of you kind of just poo-pooing on everything.
• 36:09
  Gavin: We're gonna continue on.
• 36:11
  Gavin: There were several bottles I agreed with.
• 36:14
  Aaron: You just had a couple of them.
• 36:16
  Gavin: Uh I'm not so sure.
• 36:17
  Gavin: I just I don't think I don't I I don't think you can actually pick a good selection collection.
• 36:24
  Aaron: Oh, wow.
• 36:24
  Aaron: I watched, I watched, I went back and re-watched the episode because I wanted to make sure it was still as good in preparation for this week.
• 36:34
  Aaron: Every one of my picks was top-notch.
• 36:36
  Aaron: Every single one of them.
• 36:38
  Gavin: Of course they are, because they're those were yours.
• 36:40
  Gavin: Let's get to mine.
• 36:41
  Gavin: Wow.
• 36:41
  Gavin: I want to know where you want to go next, though.
• 36:44
  Aaron: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:44
  Aaron: Oh, sorry.
• 36:45
  Aaron: Um, well, I I think if if we're gonna start with the category that's probably my least likely to enjoy, I think I am owed the most likely category for me to enjoy.
• 37:00
  Aaron: I want I want scotch.
• 37:03
  Aaron: Okay.
• 37:04
  Aaron: But I want it to be the sherried variety, and I want it smoky.
• 37:13
  Aaron: I want a peated sherried scotch.
• 37:16
  Aaron: All right.
• 37:17
  Gavin: Are you ready for this one?
• 37:19
  Gavin: Give me that glass of greatness.
• 37:20
  Gavin: This one might shock you a tad bit.
• 37:22
  Gavin: All right, are we ready?
• 37:24
  Gavin: No, all right.
• 37:27
  Gavin: We are going Blad noch.
• 37:30
  Gavin: You're right.
• 37:31
  Gavin: You're right.
• 37:32
  Gavin: That is not what I thought we were going.
• 37:33
  Gavin: This is the Alinta.
• 37:35
  Gavin: Also, a lowland whiskey.
• 37:40
  Aaron: Oh, this is I'll be honest, of all of the whiskeys I was gonna drink for this character, this would have not been it.
• 37:47
  Aaron: Uh this is the nickel creek of scotches.
• 37:50
  Gavin: The nickel creek of scotches.
• 37:52
  Gavin: And I am almost out.
• 37:54
  Gavin: This may, this may finish her out.
• 37:57
  Gavin: Let's see.
• 37:58
  Gavin: Oh, we got a pour left.
• 38:00
  Gavin: Uh, I'm so excited for this.
• 38:02
  Gavin: I've been waiting.
• 38:03
  Gavin: Put it here, put it, put it here.
• 38:06
  Aaron: Let's keep them in order.
• 38:06
  Aaron: Let's have a pour with you with this.
• 38:09
  Aaron: I'll be honest, it's been a while since I had a bottle of Bladnoch.
• 38:14
  Gavin: I will say it is not the only bottle I've had of Bladnoch.
• 38:20
  Gavin: What I will say is the bottle itself, when we talk about bottle shapes, colors, it is a pretty sexy bottle.
• 38:30
  Gavin: I like I like the more square, um, almost squatty bottles.
• 38:38
  Gavin: I think they are harder to pack if you're gonna travel with them.
• 38:42
  Aaron: I don't know.
• 38:42
  Aaron: This thing, this thing feels like it'd club people.
• 38:45
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 38:45
  Aaron: You put it on the outside of your suitcase, it'd still make it.
• 38:48
  Gavin: Like that bottle will become a decanter or something in the house at some point.
• 38:53
  Gavin: Um, but this, we are um like I mentioned, it's in the lowlands.
• 38:58
  Gavin: Uh, first launched in 2022.
• 39:01
  Gavin: This is their heavily peated expression.
• 39:05
  Gavin: So it's matured in first-filled X bourbon and then also first-filled PX sherry casks.
• 39:13
  Gavin: Uh, 47 uh percent ABV or 94 proof.
• 39:18
  Gavin: And our peated or parts per million number 60.
• 39:24
  Gavin: Nice.
• 39:26
  Gavin: So this actually no age statement.
• 39:28
  Gavin: Um, no age statement.
• 39:29
  Gavin: Okay.
• 39:30
  Gavin: This may be the most peated whiskey we've had on the show so far at 60 ppm.
• 39:38
  Aaron: No, not true.
• 39:39
  Aaron: What do we have that was over uh our big standard release is 65.
• 39:43
  Aaron: Oh, is it 65?
• 39:44
  Aaron: That's right.
• 39:44
  Aaron: Okay.
• 39:45
  Aaron: Most most are in the 50 range.
• 39:48
  Aaron: This 65 is exceptionally high, right?
• 39:52
  Aaron: Like in the in the normal offerings.
• 39:54
  Aaron: Um, 60 is awful, so extremely high.
• 39:56
  Aaron: There is no question.
• 39:58
  Aaron: I don't even have to pick the glass up to tell you how peated that is.
• 40:01
  Aaron: Okay, I absolutely got peed on.
• 40:04
  Gavin: Uh, so we are sitting at $65 for this bottle.
• 40:08
  Gavin: Okay.
• 40:08
  Gavin: I am really excited.
• 40:14
  Aaron: So to talk about this one here.
• 40:16
  Aaron: Why in a category that is probably dominated by Isla and the Islands?
• 40:24
  Aaron: Why'd you pick a lowland?
• 40:27
  Gavin: I picked a lowland because I like to be fun and funky and a little different.
• 40:32
  Gavin: Right.
• 40:33
  Aaron: I this is the fun and the funky, or the fun or the funky?
• 40:37
  Aaron: Is this both or just one?
• 40:38
  Aaron: This is both.
• 40:39
  Aaron: I I the fun is still out.
• 40:43
  Aaron: Funky for sure.
• 40:44
  Aaron: Nailed funky, got it.
• 40:45
  Aaron: Right?
• 40:46
  Aaron: We'll see how fun it is as the glass goes on.
• 40:48
  Aaron: We've got we've got a little bit more time to get really fun with it.
• 40:51
  Aaron: I'll be honest, the only other Bladnoch I had I was not overly wobbled by.
• 40:56
  Aaron: This one is different.
• 40:58
  Aaron: It is.
• 40:59
  Aaron: This one is distinctly different.
• 41:02
  Gavin: Um, and that's why I bought this bottle.
• 41:06
  Gavin: I was really intrigued by it when I saw it at the store.
• 41:10
  Aaron: And the glass on the bottom is like three-quarters of an inch thick.
• 41:16
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 41:16
  Aaron: That bot that empty bottle weighs two and a half pounds.
• 41:20
  Gavin: Like that is insane.
• 41:22
  Gavin: And the box that it came in really fun, almost velvety kind of box to see through.
• 41:28
  Gavin: Like the whole golden panels on the sides.
• 41:30
  Gavin: Yep.
• 41:30
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 41:30
  Gavin: The whole the whole package I thought was absolutely amazing looking.
• 41:35
  Gavin: And I've never actually tasted it.
• 41:39
  Aaron: For future reference, I'm gonna clip that audio out and we're gonna use that again later.
• 41:42
  Aaron: Oh, yeah.
• 41:43
  Aaron: But how the whole package looked amazing.
• 41:46
  Aaron: Continue on, continue on.
• 41:49
  Gavin: Sorry, we started off the rails again.
• 41:52
  Gavin: Sorry, Mom.
• 41:52
  Gavin: This time it wasn't me.
• 41:54
  Gavin: I'm just happy for that.
• 41:55
  Gavin: Um, yeah, I think when when you're building uh your roster of, say, 12 bottles, um you want to stay to the norm at some level, but then you might want to venture off and go off the beaten path.
• 42:11
  Gavin: It's like going on vacation, right?
• 42:12
  Gavin: Like you can have a plan about where you want to go, what you want to see, but it's those fun adventures off to the side and getting off the beaten path, I think you really start having more fun with it.
• 42:25
  Aaron: Well, I mean, we talked about that.
• 42:26
  Aaron: If you're if you're planning a day at the distillery, do not back yourself up from place to place to place.
• 42:34
  Aaron: Leave yourself some time that when the tour guide wants to talk about something, or you stumble into the master distiller in the gift shop, like give yourself a minute or two to kind of just soak up the atmosphere of where you are and let the day kind of take you.
• 42:54
  Aaron: Um, I think so often we're so worried about did we get did we get from one photo op to the next photo op and you fail to see the backdrop of your photos, right?
• 43:05
  Aaron: Um, yeah, same thing holds.
• 43:07
  Aaron: Same thing holds in life.
• 43:08
  Aaron: Yeah, exactly.
• 43:09
  Aaron: And the whiskey adventures, right?
• 43:12
  Aaron: So I'm surprised at $65.
• 43:15
  Aaron: Yeah, this is really like when you start running through your classic peated sherried scotches.
• 43:26
  Aaron: $65 is pretty much a like a base price for all of those guys that you think of, right?
• 43:34
  Aaron: Right.
• 43:35
  Gavin: Um, that's what I paid, and that may have been on sale right in 1908 when you were over there when I was a wee lad.
• 43:44
  Gavin: Um, it was in Euros.
• 43:45
  Gavin: I'm not even positive of how that translates.
• 43:48
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 43:49
  Gavin: Shillings is what I was gonna say.
• 43:53
  Aaron: What would pence pence?
• 43:55
  Aaron: Shillings are like quarters, aren't they?
• 43:57
  Aaron: That's a good question.
• 43:58
  Aaron: Isn't a shilling a quarter of A pound, but a pence is like a penny.
• 44:02
  Aaron: I think it's like an eighth of that or something.
• 44:05
  Aaron: I don't know.
• 44:06
  Aaron: Or I don't know.
• 44:08
  Aaron: When you swipe the credit card, it does all the man for you.
• 44:11
  Aaron: You don't have to do it.
• 44:12
  Aaron: There is no more dangerous thing in your life than swiping your credit card because it could be one dollar or ten thousand dollars.
• 44:21
  Aaron: Swipes the same.
• 44:23
  Gavin: That's fair.
• 44:24
  Aaron: That's a good point.
• 44:24
  Aaron: All right.
• 44:25
  Aaron: We're gonna come back to this.
• 44:27
  Aaron: Uh we absolutely are.
• 44:30
  Aaron: Um, I've been I've been sitting here jotting notes about how how much of this one I enjoy.
• 44:35
  Aaron: All right, so let me cross this one off the list.
• 44:38
  Aaron: All right.
• 44:38
  Aaron: Where do you want to go next?
• 44:40
  Aaron: Let's do let's keep with scotch.
• 44:42
  Aaron: We're running out of other options, so we're gonna keep with scotch for a while.
• 44:46
  Aaron: Um, let's keep with sherried, but go unpeated this time.
• 44:49
  Aaron: Let's let's get the peat out.
• 44:51
  Aaron: Okay.
• 44:52
  Aaron: Depeat it.
• 44:53
  Aaron: Is that a is that a thing?
• 44:54
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 44:55
  Aaron: Depeated?
• 44:56
  Aaron: I mean, I guess you can say that a little bit if you want.
• 45:00
  Gavin: All right.
• 45:00
  Gavin: Unpeated sheeried scotch.
• 45:03
  Gavin: I want to know.
• 45:04
  Gavin: Can you guess what mine will be?
• 45:06
  Gavin: Oh, I got a pretty good idea.
• 45:08
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 45:09
  Aaron: You want to say it?
• 45:10
  Aaron: The question is, would you be able to recognize it at a distance?
• 45:12
  Aaron: And the answer is no.
• 45:13
  Aaron: We found that out.
• 45:14
  Aaron: This is Balvenie's Double Wood, isn't it?
• 45:17
  Aaron: Yes.
• 45:17
  Aaron: 12-year Double Wood.
• 45:20
  Gavin: The dozen.
• 45:21
  Gavin: The dozen.
• 45:23
  Gavin: The dozen.
• 45:23
  Gavin: That's right.
• 45:24
  Gavin: Um, we've mentioned it several times.
• 45:27
  Gavin: We've had it on the show before.
• 45:28
  Gavin: This is pretty much my house scotch.
• 45:31
  Gavin: It is my go-to.
• 45:32
  Gavin: Uh, if you caught if you caught uh the Balvenie um distillery kind of highlight show that we did, Curious Pete.
• 45:41
  Gavin: Uh, we talked about it slightly.
• 45:43
  Gavin: Um, this is kind of what what I think scotch should taste like, using Aaron's words when he talks about one of his favorites.
• 45:51
  Gavin: When I think about scotch, this is what I think it should taste like.
• 45:56
  Aaron: So, in the dynamic of this kind of double-matured bourbon and sherry, roughly 12-year age, Balvinie was one of the first ones to come on market with this.
• 46:14
  Aaron: And they really set the standard by which every other distillery seems to race towards.
• 46:21
  Aaron: Macallan's 12-year, geared around that same double oak.
• 46:27
  Aaron: You start looking at GlenDronach and Ben Riach, and like you start running down the list of other distilleries that also release a 12-year split maturation between bourbon and sherry.
• 46:40
  Aaron: I and they're all aiming towards that flavor.
• 46:44
  Aaron: Now, I think the question can be debated.
• 46:49
  Aaron: Did the Balvenie do it the best, or did they just do it first?
• 46:55
  Aaron: And I think that's a palette thing.
• 46:57
  Aaron: Right?
• 46:58
  Aaron: Agree to disagree.
• 47:00
  Aaron: I think the Balvenie is one of the better ones out there, right?
• 47:05
  Aaron: Hop, skip, and a jump down the road is Aberlour, which I think gives their 12-year double cask every bit of run for the money with Balvenie.
• 47:14
  Aaron: But yeah, I think at its price point, and that they were the trendsetters, they were the ones who came on the market first, they're the guys who created it.
• 47:23
  Aaron: I it's a great bottle to have.
• 47:25
  Aaron: Also, what I will say is, unlike probably every bottle on this side, everyone who walks into your home will know what that one is.
• 47:39
  Aaron: Whether you are a Scotch drinker or not, you know the name Balvenie and you know the 12-year double wood.
• 47:46
  Aaron: Like that is a quintessential whiskey, so to speak.
• 47:51
  Aaron: So I like the idea of having a recognizable one that when somebody comes over and wants to try something in, you're like, I don't know anything about the rest of those, but I do know that one.
• 48:00
  Aaron: I'll try that.
• 48:01
  Gavin: Yeah, I'll have a pour of it.
• 48:02
  Gavin: I think anywhere you go in the world, you're probably aimed to find the Balvenne 12-year Double Wood somewhere on a whiskey list somewhere.
• 48:11
  Aaron: Yeah, we were having the debate over, you know, we talked about craft distilleries.
• 48:16
  Aaron: And although I think in its production method, it feels very craft.
• 48:24
  Aaron: And then compared to the other distillery that it shares ground space with, this is clearly the smaller of the two, right?
• 48:32
  Aaron: It feels crafty in that regard.
• 48:34
  Aaron: But it's hard to be you a ubiquitous brand and then claim to be craft.
• 48:41
  Gavin: I think what I will say on that front, I don't think they claim to be a craft distillery.
• 48:46
  Gavin: I think they they claim to hone in the craft of making whiskey, right?
• 48:52
  Gavin: So I think there's two different things we're talking about.
• 48:54
  Aaron: I fair.
• 48:55
  Aaron: I like I said, I I'm not that this wasn't a statement as to what they claim to be.
• 49:01
  Aaron: We were discussing whether or not they fit that mold.
• 49:04
  Aaron: And I think their production method does feel a bit crafty.
• 49:15
  Gavin: I mean, when you've got um, you know, a stash of bottles that are tens of thousands of pounds to get, I don't think you're craft anymore.
• 49:26
  Gavin: You know what I mean?
• 49:27
  Gavin: Um, that is one of the things that when you start really eyeing a brand and kind of being brand centric and brand loyal, you start really looking at like what can you get?
• 49:42
  Gavin: What can you afford?
• 49:43
  Gavin: You start looking at these really high age statement uh bottles, and you're like, uh, there's there's no way I'm able to spend that kind of money to get a 30, 40, 50, 60 year old bottle.
• 49:57
  Gavin: Like it is insane to me.
• 49:59
  Gavin: Um, but seeing those bottles like um firsthand, eye to eye with those bottles, if a bottle has an eye, um, seeing those bottles on the shelf.
• 50:10
  Gavin: It's got the one on the top.
• 50:12
  Gavin: Yeah, fair.
• 50:12
  Gavin: It's cyclopsic.
• 50:14
  Gavin: Is that even a word?
• 50:15
  Gavin: But to see we're making everything up tonight.
• 50:18
  Gavin: To see those bottles, and you're like, holy smokes, like that bottle is 30,000 pounds, like it's it's insane.
• 50:25
  Gavin: But that's heavy, yeah.
• 50:27
  Aaron: A little too rich for my blood.
• 50:29
  Aaron: I think you're talking dollars pounds, not weight pounds.
• 50:33
  Aaron: Yeah, the the Bladnoch, the Bladnoch is about 10,000 pounds, but that's just a glass.
• 50:40
  Aaron: It's just a glass.
• 50:41
  Aaron: All right, where do you want to go?
• 50:44
  Aaron: I let's stay unpeatded, but let's move away from sherry.
• 50:48
  Aaron: So let's go.
• 50:49
  Aaron: I I I think we we had a bit of a debate.
• 50:52
  Aaron: Is it floral or is it bourbony on the unsherried?
• 50:57
  Aaron: Unsherried.
• 50:59
  Aaron: So I'll say, I'll say unsherried.
• 51:02
  Aaron: Maybe that's a better way to describe it than floral scotch or scotch.
• 51:09
  Gavin: However, so you want to go scotch unsherried.
• 51:12
  Gavin: Unsherried.
• 51:14
  Gavin: All right, depeated de-sherried.
• 51:17
  Gavin: This one.
• 51:19
  Gavin: I'm gonna go the Glenmorangie 12-year, the original.
• 51:26
  Aaron: Another, another excellent bottle.
• 51:29
  Gavin: Boom.
• 51:29
  Gavin: I can't speak more volume to this bottle.
• 51:35
  Gavin: You know what I mean?
• 51:36
  Aaron: I thought you were just gonna stop talking for a minute.
• 51:38
  Aaron: I was like, just nailed it.
• 51:40
  Aaron: Nailed it.
• 51:40
  Aaron: I can't speak.
• 51:42
  Gavin: It is, it is a fantastic bottle I have on the shelf.
• 51:46
  Gavin: I've had probably a dozen of these over my whiskey adventures.
• 51:51
  Gavin: Um, between I believe they had a 10-year um Glenmorangie uh original that they had, I believe, don't quote me on that.
• 52:00
  Gavin: David Blackmore.
• 52:01
  Gavin: You can definitely quote me on that.
• 52:04
  Gavin: Um, you should chastise him if he's wrong, David.
• 52:07
  Gavin: Uh, if you haven't, for those out there that haven't checked out our um Glenmorangie episode, or no, it was the Ardbeg episode.
• 52:15
  Aaron: Yeah, we talked a little, we talked a little Glenn Moe.
• 52:17
  Gavin: It it ended up being a Glenmo.
• 52:20
  Gavin: Oh, yeah.
• 52:20
  Gavin: We dabbled.
• 52:21
  Gavin: So we will in the future have have one with David.
• 52:23
  Gavin: Uh, and I can't can't wait for that one.
• 52:25
  Aaron: But I kind of wonder when we do the Glenmo conversation, how much are we gonna talk about Ardbeg?
• 52:30
  Aaron: That could be really fun.
• 52:32
  Aaron: So with a rare, rare, rare exception, I've never been disappointed by a bottle of Glen morangie.
• 52:43
  Aaron: Um the 12 is so ubiquitous for Highland Scots to me.
• 52:55
  Aaron: Um, the other thing I really enjoy about Glenmorangie, I think this is a great launching point, is every other offering is some level of finishing twist to this whiskey, right?
• 53:09
  Aaron: Starts here and goes other places.
• 53:12
  Aaron: So if you're really wanting to delve into what can whiskey do because of the barrel, drink 12 and then drink something else from Glenmo, right?
• 53:23
  Aaron: And then you'll realize oh, that's what that barrel brought to the game.
• 53:28
  Aaron: Come back and drink 12 and go to a different one, right?
• 53:31
  Aaron: Oh, that's what Sherry brings, that's what port brings, that's what Saturn's brings, that's what like pick your barrel, right?
• 53:39
  Aaron: But they all come back out of that core 12.
• 53:44
  Aaron: Um yeah, it's I hate to say it, I hate to say it, but I like that pick.
• 53:50
  Gavin: I like it.
• 53:51
  Gavin: Um can't help but notice that we've got two 12s next to each other.
• 53:55
  Gavin: So there's something about that magic number 12, 12, and 12.
• 54:00
  Gavin: You know what I mean?
• 54:02
  Aaron: All right, I believe you.
• 54:04
  Aaron: All right, where do you want to go?
• 54:06
  Aaron: Um looking back at my list, trying to figure out what I had picked.
• 54:10
  Aaron: Do you need a count?
• 54:11
  Aaron: For this one, I'd pick the Aberlour 12.
• 54:13
  Aaron: So come to find out, I still agree with myself.
• 54:17
  Aaron: Of course you do.
• 54:19
  Aaron: You'd be surprised how often I come back and realize I forgot what I was doing.
• 54:23
  Aaron: All right, so we did your wife.
• 54:25
  Aaron: We did peted cherry, we did unpeated sherry, we did unpeated unsherried.
• 54:31
  Aaron: Now we do peated unsherried.
• 54:34
  Aaron: Peated scotch, peated unsherried.
• 54:40
  Aaron: Did you have one of those?
• 54:41
  Aaron: Dude Petered Floral.
• 54:44
  Aaron: I think that's what we did.
• 54:45
  Aaron: Peter Floral, yeah.
• 54:46
  Aaron: Unsherried.
• 54:46
  Aaron: Peter Floral.
• 54:48
  Aaron: Peter Floral.
• 54:49
  Aaron: But I went to high school with you.
• 54:51
  Aaron: Peter Floral.
• 54:52
  Gavin: Great guy.
• 54:53
  Gavin: This one.
• 54:54
  Gavin: Highland Park?
• 54:55
  Gavin: Guess that 12.
• 54:57
  Gavin: I mean.
• 54:59
  Gavin: Yeah, I can't.
• 55:00
  Gavin: Goodness.
• 55:03
  Aaron: Highland Park makes delicious whiskey.
• 55:05
  Aaron: You just make delicious whiskey.
• 55:08
  Aaron: I in it.
• 55:10
  Aaron: I'm gonna I'm gonna say, I don't know if this is controversial now.
• 55:15
  Aaron: Highland Park went through this window of they kind of leaned way big into the marketing of Viking stuff.
• 55:25
  Aaron: And it felt gimmicky, and it felt like it was somehow lessening the quality of the whiskey that was in the bottle.
• 55:34
  Aaron: And it wasn't until I kind of like I kind of backed off a little bit from Highland Park, and then caught a podcast.
• 55:42
  Aaron: Someone's talking about how one of their favorites was Highland Park.
• 55:45
  Aaron: I was like, man, I haven't had one of those in a while.
• 55:46
  Aaron: I went drug.
• 55:47
  Aaron: I was like, nope.
• 55:49
  Aaron: Even in a silly-looking bottle, they really make good whiskey.
• 55:53
  Aaron: Um, yeah, I'm a I'm a huge lover of Highland Park.
• 55:57
  Gavin: Can't argue with this one.
• 55:58
  Gavin: Like, I get it, I get the the Viking, I I I understand why they leaned into that, but I a hundred percent agree with you.
• 56:07
  Gavin: I think when I really started delving into scotches, like when I lived in Scotland and I looked at the bottle of the Balvenie and Glenmorangie and so and so, and then I saw Highland Park, it just felt off to me.
• 56:28
  Gavin: And so I steered clear of it.
• 56:32
  Aaron: I fully understand that the history of Scotland overlaps, intermingles, however you want to say it, with the story of the Vikings.
• 56:42
  Aaron: Totally get all that.
• 56:44
  Aaron: However, when I think of Scotland, I don't think of Vikings.
• 56:50
  Aaron: Agreed, right?
• 56:51
  Aaron: When I think of Norway, and I think of Sweden, and I think of Iceland, totally think about Vikings.
• 56:59
  Aaron: So I to me it always felt as a weird combination, probably way more to do with my lack of understanding of history than the truth behind the history of the Highland Park region, right?
• 57:15
  Gavin: 100% agree with that.
• 57:16
  Gavin: That's one thing tonight we will agree on is I felt the exact same way.
• 57:21
  Gavin: That everybody's selection should have a Highland Park and a Glenmorangie.
• 57:24
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 57:24
  Gavin: And the Balvenie and the Bladnoch.
• 57:27
  Gavin: And the lost we go down the line, right?
• 57:31
  Gavin: Um, so yeah, I this is a wonderful um get into uh the Highland Park.
• 57:38
  Gavin: It's a good introduction to it.
• 57:40
  Aaron: But this leaves us one scotch left.
• 57:44
  Aaron: Ooh, one scotch.
• 57:45
  Aaron: Okay, the blended.
• 57:48
  Aaron: The blended.
• 57:50
  Aaron: And I know, I know what he picked, I know what he picked.
• 57:53
  Aaron: He is so predictable.
• 57:55
  Aaron: He's got monkey shoulder.
• 57:59
  Aaron: This is one loves some monkey shoulder.
• 58:02
  Aaron: I get it.
• 58:03
  Aaron: I mean, there is nothing wrong with this pick.
• 58:06
  Gavin: If you like the Balvenie, there's no reason you don't like monkey shoulder.
• 58:11
  Aaron: I'm gonna tell you the trick here.
• 58:13
  Aaron: People at home who've been taking notes know this.
• 58:15
  Aaron: Uh-huh.
• 58:16
  Aaron: Monkey Shoulder was my pick.
• 58:18
  Aaron: Yes.
• 58:19
  Aaron: Yes.
• 58:19
  Aaron: That is a combo Aaron and Gavin pick.
• 58:23
  Aaron: That is.
• 58:23
  Aaron: If you have not owned a bottle of monkey shoulder, for shame, absolutely phenomenal.
• 58:32
  Aaron: It is a blended malt.
• 58:33
  Aaron: So that means a blend of malted whiskies, so you still get all of that bold flavor of single malts without that kind of soft neutral thing of single grains or grain spirits.
• 58:50
  Gavin: For sub $35 for a scotch.
• 58:55
  Aaron: A third of that bottle is Balvenie, isn't it?
• 58:57
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 58:58
  Aaron: I'm not quite sure what the like I don't know what the ratios are, but it's three different distilleries, one of which is Balvenie.
• 59:04
  Aaron: Exactly.
• 59:05
  Aaron: So yeah, you kind of gotta love it.
• 59:07
  Gavin: Like it is, it is um, I use it a lot.
• 59:11
  Gavin: Like I you can drink it neat.
• 59:13
  Gavin: It's something that I cook with.
• 59:14
  Gavin: Like I've mentioned it before in other episodes.
• 59:18
  Gavin: I make a mean drunken chili.
• 59:21
  Gavin: Little monkey shoulder in that drunken chili.
• 59:23
  Gavin: It is I'll be honest, that Bladnoch can be good and chili.
• 59:26
  Gavin: Fair.
• 59:27
  Gavin: I think most any of these would be fantastic.
• 59:31
  Aaron: The 12th.
• 59:32
  Aaron: Oh, the 12th, are we sure?
• 59:34
  Aaron: Ultimately makes it the final bottle of the night.
• 59:38
  Aaron: The open category can be anything you want.
• 59:42
  Aaron: Absolutely anything.
• 59:47
  Aaron: The open category.
• 59:48
  Aaron: It's another bottle of Balvenie 12.
• 59:51
  Aaron: Sorry.
• 59:52
  Aaron: Good no, but good no, but that's not true.
• 59:55
  Aaron: All right, let's see.
• 59:56
  Aaron: What do I got?
• 59:56
  Aaron: I'll be honest.
• 59:57
  Aaron: I'll be honest.
• 59:58
  Aaron: There's a couple of them that come to mind.
• 1:00:00
  Aaron: Yep.
• 1:00:03
  Aaron: I think there's I think there's a chance there's a bottle of Lochlea.
• 1:00:06
  Aaron: Loch lea.
• 1:00:08
  Aaron: Lochlea in there.
• 1:00:09
  Aaron: I think there's a chance that it could be Isle of Rassey.
• 1:00:11
  Aaron: Those are both two that you are preaching from the hilltop four.
• 1:00:17
  Aaron: You also started the day with barrel picks.
• 1:00:22
  Aaron: And I happen to know two guys who picked two barrel pigs here recently.
• 1:00:27
  Aaron: So I think there's a good chance you lean back into the bourbon world.
• 1:00:31
  Gavin: There's a good chance.
• 1:00:32
  Gavin: There's a good chance.
• 1:00:33
  Gavin: And throw one of our picks in there.
• 1:00:34
  Gavin: There's a good chance for my open category.
• 1:00:37
  Gavin: I do bacon wrap shrimp in all my open categories.
• 1:00:41
  Gavin: I also said I'm going to be a little fun and funky.
• 1:00:45
  Gavin: Oh, where's the is this fun or funky or both?
• 1:00:48
  Gavin: This is both.
• 1:00:49
  Gavin: All right.
• 1:00:49
  Gavin: I like it.
• 1:00:50
  Gavin: I have a little correction to make.
• 1:00:52
  Gavin: We are not experts at any of this, right?
• 1:00:56
  Gavin: The correction is we had boot hill on the show, right?
• 1:01:02
  Gavin: That is true.
• 1:01:04
  Gavin: We did have boot hill so far.
• 1:01:05
  Gavin: Fact check, yes.
• 1:01:07
  Gavin: Fact check, yes.
• 1:01:08
  Gavin: Facebook is happy with you.
• 1:01:09
  Gavin: We also mentioned the 100% wheat category, right?
• 1:01:13
  Gavin: Wheat whiskey.
• 1:01:15
  Gavin: I could not remember if I had a not even just a weed of whiskey, but a hundred percent wheat whiskey.
• 1:01:21
  Gavin: Gotcha.
• 1:01:21
  Gavin: Right.
• 1:01:22
  Gavin: There's two differences.
• 1:01:23
  Gavin: We talked about that on the show.
• 1:01:24
  Gavin: Journeyman's distillery - the corset whips and whiskey.
• 1:01:33
  Gavin: I mean.
• 1:01:34
  Gavin: Good lord, that is funky.
• 1:01:36
  Gavin: It is funky.
• 1:01:38
  Gavin: And this is a hundred percent wheat whiskey right here, cash strength.
• 1:01:43
  Gavin: That's your open.
• 1:01:45
  Gavin: That's my open.
• 1:01:47
  Aaron: That is my out-of-left filled that is absolutely out of left field.
• 1:01:52
  Aaron: A distillery none of us have ever heard of for a whiskey type.
• 1:01:56
  Aaron: Most of us have probably never had.
• 1:01:58
  Aaron: That is the most Gavin Bick I have ever heard of the whole time.
• 1:02:02
  Aaron: Um it may not make the air, but you will not leave the house without me trying this before we go.
• 1:02:12
  Gavin: Alright, so truth be told, this bottle has made an appearance on the back patio before.
• 1:02:18
  Gavin: Someone may not have tried it that way.
• 1:02:20
  Aaron: But I don't, I don't recall having tried it.
• 1:02:22
  Aaron: But if we if I did, I didn't realize what I was trying.
• 1:02:25
  Aaron: I think let's put it that way.
• 1:02:27
  Gavin: I think because this was out of left fill, everyone kind of steered clear of it.
• 1:02:32
  Gavin: We were drinking a lot of other things that night.
• 1:02:34
  Gavin: But yeah, this has made one appearance on the back patio.
• 1:02:37
  Aaron: All right, so one of the one of the caveats you gave me, and I think it is only fair to return the favor.
• 1:02:45
  Aaron: Okay, if you got a 13th bottle, what would be your honorable mention?
• 1:02:52
  Aaron: Did you and did you anticipate this question enough to have brought the bottle?
• 1:02:58
  Aaron: Or are you gonna pull something out of thin air?
• 1:03:01
  Gavin: I'm gonna break the rules a little bit more.
• 1:03:05
  Gavin: Because I don't want You don't get two.
• 1:03:08
  Gavin: Yeah.
• 1:03:09
  Gavin: Oh god.
• 1:03:10
  Gavin: Gavin gets two, right?
• 1:03:12
  Gavin: Because Aaron got 24 plus one.
• 1:03:16
  Gavin: So what two?
• 1:03:18
  Gavin: Gavin's gonna pull a couple out here.
• 1:03:20
  Gavin: So you mentioned Loch lea.
• 1:03:22
  Gavin: This I have been preaching from the I literally was in the store a couple days ago and um was walking the aisles uh at our local big box store.
• 1:03:37
  Gavin: Here, we'll put it somewhere over here.
• 1:03:40
  Aaron: I don't know, I don't know.
• 1:03:40
  Aaron: We only we only set the stage for 12 bottles, and now you have 14.
• 1:03:45
  Gavin: Um, I was in a local in a local big box store the other day, and a guy was walking down the aisle just like talking over with one of the sales guys, and um was asking something about being fun and different and unique.
• 1:04:01
  Gavin: Did he ask for something fun and funky?
• 1:04:03
  Gavin: Not fun and funky, just something you fun and unique.
• 1:04:06
  Gavin: And I couldn't help but overhear the Lochlea batch one cast strength is on sale, and I just pointed him over and I was like, hey, listen, I actually own a bottle of that, so I cannot argue with you.
• 1:04:20
  Gavin: It is absolutely amazing.
• 1:04:22
  Gavin: I've owned like six bottles of this, it's a shockingly good bottle, yes, and um, I think they're on batch two now, so you can find batch if you can find batch one, it's absolutely amazing.
• 1:04:37
  Aaron: As many people like to say in the whiskey world, it is an absolute banger.
• 1:04:42
  Aaron: It is a banger, yeah.
• 1:04:44
  Gavin: All right for Scotch bean cash strength, it's absolutely amazing.
• 1:04:46
  Gavin: 14th.
• 1:04:47
  Gavin: 14th.
• 1:04:49
  Gavin: I can't argue with this.
• 1:04:52
  Gavin: I can't help but pull in our milk dud stud.
• 1:05:01
  Aaron: It is larceny.
• 1:05:03
  Aaron: It is the sleeper of the two picks.
• 1:05:05
  Aaron: I absolutely this is this is in no way disparaging towards the Elijah Craig pick.
• 1:05:10
  Aaron: It is an absolute delicious one.
• 1:05:13
  Aaron: Screaming hot, Dragon's Fire was a very appropriate name for it.
• 1:05:18
  Aaron: But what I will say is across the board, everyone who has purchased a bottle of the Milk Dud Stud Larceny Barrel Proof has commented back to about how absolutely amazing it is.
• 1:05:33
  Aaron: Um it is what I will say is everyone who buys the Elijah Craig buys one and takes it home and drinks it, right?
• 1:05:40
  Aaron: Everyone so far who buys a larceny goes home, tries it, goes, I gotta go get another one of those.
• 1:05:46
  Aaron: We have sold more of those in twos than we have in ones.
• 1:05:50
  Aaron: Um, yeah, absolutely phenomenal.
• 1:05:52
  Gavin: What I will say is my buddy um ended up buying a few bottles, asked for a couple more, got a couple more, and then literally.
• 1:05:59
  Gavin: Texted me and asked for 12.
• 1:06:02
  Gavin: 12 more bottles.
• 1:06:04
  Aaron: Yeah, you cracked this open amongst a group of whiskey buddies, and the next thing you know, lots of people want bottles.
• 1:06:11
  Aaron: So um, what I will say about this.
• 1:06:13
  Aaron: I hate that you broke the rules and got to 14, but I cannot disagree with you at all.
• 1:06:18
  Aaron: That it's an excellent bottle.
• 1:06:19
  Gavin: What I will say, this is this this is uh the noble dram pick for Larceny.
• 1:06:24
  Gavin: Um, if you get an opportunity to find a Larceny um private barrel pig, do it, grab it, take it.
• 1:06:31
  Gavin: But if you're in the local Houston area, uh by the time this airs, if there's still any left, head over to MR Liquors.
• 1:06:42
  Aaron: Yep, we were we were there just a couple days ago.
• 1:06:45
  Aaron: Talk to them.
• 1:06:45
  Aaron: They still got a couple cases left.
• 1:06:47
  Aaron: Yep.
• 1:06:47
  Aaron: Um, so not gone yet, but getting close.
• 1:06:51
  Aaron: All right.
• 1:06:52
  Aaron: We gotta talk about we gotta we gotta talk about blind knocking.
• 1:06:56
  Aaron: I accidentally drank it all.
• 1:06:59
  Aaron: Um, well, no, no, no.
• 1:07:01
  Aaron: I'm not not killing it.
• 1:07:03
  Aaron: Here.
• 1:07:04
  Aaron: Um, here.
• 1:07:05
  Aaron: I'll do I'll do the honors.
• 1:07:06
  Aaron: All right.
• 1:07:07
  Aaron: All right.
• 1:07:07
  Aaron: So let's start with the nose.
• 1:07:09
  Aaron: Um, this may come as a shock, but Pete.
• 1:07:12
  Aaron: Pete on the nose.
• 1:07:15
  Gavin: Um he just kind of lands.
• 1:07:21
  Gavin: All right.
• 1:07:22
  Gavin: He he spilled a little.
• 1:07:26
  Aaron: Um, so I will say what I what I expected was um a much smokier nose, but it's really not as smoky as it is peaty.
• 1:07:39
  Aaron: There is a great deal of peaty earthiness without the overwhelming smoke aroma, um, which I know kind of bucks the trend of what you would think.
• 1:07:51
  Aaron: Normally the thought process is peat and smoke go hand in hand.
• 1:07:57
  Aaron: Um, this one is distinctly more peat forward and less smoke.
• 1:08:01
  Aaron: I put smoky.
• 1:08:04
  Aaron: No, I'm not saying there is no smoke.
• 1:08:07
  Aaron: I'm just saying normally a peat aroma that is this pronounced carries with it a smokier note, too.
• 1:08:14
  Aaron: I gotcha.
• 1:08:16
  Gavin: Um on the nose, I also put um there's a honey leather note.
• 1:08:21
  Gavin: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
• 1:08:23
  Gavin: So it's like if you took an old wallet and smothered it in honey and then took a sniff of it, it's right on point.
• 1:08:30
  Aaron: Just chewed on a baseball glove that had been in a barrel of honey for a while.
• 1:08:33
  Aaron: Yep.
• 1:08:34
  Aaron: Yeah, I I um it is sweeter on the nose.
• 1:08:39
  Aaron: I expected with PX aged or PX first fill, right?
• 1:08:44
  Aaron: I expected there to be more dark fruit on the nose, and there really isn't.
• 1:08:47
  Aaron: The bourbon barrels really shine.
• 1:08:50
  Aaron: It's that vanilla honey sweetness that really shows up on the nose.
• 1:08:55
  Aaron: The palate, though, that switches.
• 1:08:58
  Aaron: Tell me what you get on the palette.
• 1:09:00
  Aaron: So the palette to me, I get fruit.
• 1:09:03
  Aaron: I think the anticipation is with PX matured, I was expecting raisins.
• 1:09:10
  Aaron: I actually get more plum or dark cherry than raisin per se.
• 1:09:16
  Aaron: Okay.
• 1:09:16
  Aaron: Still dark fruits, right?
• 1:09:18
  Aaron: I mean, I'm not I'm not saying it completely bucked the the expectation, but I expected sun-made raisins, right?
• 1:09:26
  Aaron: Like the box of the little box of raisins you got in your lunchbox when you were a kid.
• 1:09:30
  Aaron: That's exactly what I was expecting.
• 1:09:32
  Aaron: And I don't know if I quite get that.
• 1:09:35
  Aaron: Hmm.
• 1:09:36
  Aaron: Hmm.
• 1:09:37
  Aaron: You agree?
• 1:09:38
  Aaron: You wrote raisins?
• 1:09:39
  Aaron: Raisins.
• 1:09:40
  Aaron: What you what'd you write first though?
• 1:09:41
  Aaron: Raisins isn't the first thing on your list.
• 1:09:43
  Gavin: I wrote, I there's a bit of like a campfire smoke.
• 1:09:46
  Gavin: Like you've you've been by the campfire and it's aired out a little bit, but your clothes still smell like campfire.
• 1:09:55
  Gavin: I get a little bit of that kind of residual smoke smell.
• 1:09:59
  Gavin: And then I put raisins, and then you said fruit.
• 1:10:02
  Gavin: I think there's that dark fruit.
• 1:10:04
  Aaron: So the the weird part for me is as it transitions into the finish from the palate, the fruit actually lightens.
• 1:10:14
  Aaron: I get almost like a like a heavily grilled peach kind of thing on the finish, where we went from really dark fruits, and as it transpires, like the fruit flavors get lighter and lighter and lighter as the finish runs, which is really intriguing to me.
• 1:10:32
  Aaron: Okay.
• 1:10:33
  Aaron: Um, you remember golden raisins?
• 1:10:35
  Aaron: Right?
• 1:10:36
  Aaron: The the green grapes that are gotten dried out.
• 1:10:39
  Aaron: I get that on the finish.
• 1:10:41
  Aaron: Not the dark red raisins, but like the green goldens.
• 1:10:45
  Aaron: Um, yeah, and I will say I think the smokiness becomes it's most prominent for me on the finish, compared to the nose, which I got a lot of peat, and the smoke was secondary to the peat.
• 1:11:01
  Aaron: On the finish, I get more smoke, and the peat becomes kind of secondary to that.
• 1:11:05
  Aaron: So I a fascinating twist.
• 1:11:08
  Aaron: I will say normally when you think of lowland scotches, you think of light, fruity notes, floral-y kinds of things.
• 1:11:18
  Aaron: Like that started to show on the finish.
• 1:11:20
  Aaron: And I don't I don't know if that's the method by which they run the still or what kind of yeast they're using.
• 1:11:27
  Aaron: I'm not sure where that comes from in this, but it absolutely turns true to its origins and carries a bit of a lowland flavor out on the finish.
• 1:11:39
  Gavin: I mean, I don't know if I have to say anything because I think you hit everything that I wanted to say.
• 1:11:45
  Gavin: I think when we talk about the length of a finish, I think it is a medium-ish finish.
• 1:11:56
  Aaron: I mean, in the in the world of peated, the big, bold, smoky peat flavors aren't as long as others.
• 1:12:04
  Aaron: Right.
• 1:12:04
  Aaron: In the world of scotches, uh this is probably one of the longest finishes sitting on the table.
• 1:12:14
  Aaron: Right?
• 1:12:15
  Aaron: So I understand what you're saying when you say medium, but I think in the grain scheme, it's medium amongst the really long finishes.
• 1:12:21
  Aaron: Yeah.
• 1:12:21
  Aaron: Right?
• 1:12:22
  Aaron: Um, exactly.
• 1:12:23
  Aaron: Yeah, I I mean you start you start looking around here at which ones might dissipate much, much faster.
• 1:12:30
  Aaron: And I was like, yeah, all of them.
• 1:12:32
  Aaron: All of them would go away much faster than this one.
• 1:12:35
  Aaron: I want to know, do I have to do number again first?
• 1:12:39
  Aaron: Technically your bottle, but normally we split up those duties.
• 1:12:43
  Aaron: I forget what we did on my collection selection episode.
• 1:12:48
  Gavin: But I'm gonna make them go first anyways, because I'm gonna be over here writing a number.
• 1:12:53
  Gavin: Well, write it down fast because I got it.
• 1:12:55
  Gavin: I mean, you've had two pours of this, so I've already I've already got mine written down.
• 1:12:58
  Aaron: You're you do, huh?
• 1:12:59
  Aaron: All right.
• 1:13:00
  Aaron: 87.
• 1:13:02
  Aaron: 87.
• 1:13:03
  Aaron: 87.
• 1:13:04
  Aaron: This is a really, really, really tasty pour.
• 1:13:08
  Aaron: Um, it has the things you tend to look for in a peated cherry.
• 1:13:16
  Aaron: It's got it's got all of that, but it does it from a place that you don't see it coming, right?
• 1:13:22
  Aaron: Lowlands is not a place I think of peated Sherried.
• 1:13:26
  Aaron: Um, I expect lighter, um softer notes that would work into blends.
• 1:13:34
  Aaron: This one brings all the stuff that you love about Isla, but you don't have to get on a boat to go get it, right?
• 1:13:43
  Aaron: Um, yeah, that's an excellent one.
• 1:13:45
  Aaron: That is that is fun.
• 1:13:46
  Aaron: And it, I'll say it's $65.
• 1:13:49
  Aaron: That's damn tasty.
• 1:13:53
  Gavin: I I put this, I put this beautiful scotch whiskey um at a 90.
• 1:13:59
  Gavin: I think that in the world of fun and funky, not being your typical um expression from a region, just kind of out of love field, this is perfect.
• 1:14:12
  Gavin: Um being that I started in Scotches, I was not a big Lowland fan, to be honest.
• 1:14:20
  Gavin: And then starting to try to adventure through it and understand it a little better, and then finding something that was a little off-kilter from what they're typically known for.
• 1:14:31
  Gavin: I was like, all right, let's try it.
• 1:14:33
  Gavin: And I fell in love with it.
• 1:14:35
  Aaron: Lowlands have historically been the area that the rest of Scotch drinkers turn their nose up at, right?
• 1:14:42
  Aaron: Like, I get that.
• 1:14:43
  Aaron: They're lowly, right?
• 1:14:45
  Aaron: Fair enough.
• 1:14:46
  Aaron: Um, no, I excellent, excellent, excellent bottle.
• 1:14:51
  Aaron: I could not uh have enjoyed that more.
• 1:14:54
  Aaron: All right, so we started the episode.
• 1:14:57
  Aaron: Do you remember the premise I gave you?
• 1:14:59
  Aaron: Why we were doing this?
• 1:15:01
  Gavin: Um to let's just kind of level set here.
• 1:15:06
  Gavin: It was for me to prove you wrong.
• 1:15:08
  Gavin: Right?
• 1:15:09
  Aaron: Failed miserably, but we're gonna try their second target tonight.
• 1:15:13
  Gavin: What was that?
• 1:15:15
  Aaron: Um we started with you had to pick 12 because 12 is the roster number for an NBA team.
• 1:15:26
  Aaron: Yes, but only five play on the court at one time.
• 1:15:32
  Aaron: Oh.
• 1:15:32
  Aaron: So my challenge to you right now, completely off the cuff, if you had to pick your starting five from the table.
• 1:15:42
  Aaron: I'll even let you pick from the extra two, you drug.
• 1:15:45
  Aaron: If you want to pick from the 14 on the table, what are your five starters?
• 1:15:52
  Aaron: Gosh, my five starters.
• 1:15:54
  Aaron: All right.
• 1:15:54
  Aaron: And this does not have to be a perfect collection if you want to do all bigs, right?
• 1:16:01
  Aaron: No point guards.
• 1:16:02
  Aaron: If you just want perimeter shooters, like however you want to set up your team, you want to run and gun, you want to post up.
• 1:16:11
  Aaron: I I'm running out of basketball analogies.
• 1:16:14
  Aaron: All right.
• 1:16:14
  Aaron: I went to a football school.
• 1:16:15
  Aaron: I'm sorry.
• 1:16:16
  Aaron: All right.
• 1:16:16
  Aaron: You want me to pull them out and no, no, just just just call them out.
• 1:16:20
  Aaron: Call them out for what they are.
• 1:16:21
  Gavin: All right, the Balvenie.
• 1:16:22
  Gavin: Number one, the Balvinie Doublewood or the Balvenie, I should say.
• 1:16:27
  Gavin: Uh Lochlea.
• 1:16:28
  Aaron: Lock Lee, one of the two that didn't make the original 12.
• 1:16:33
  Aaron: Just throwing that out there.
• 1:16:35
  Aaron: Yep.
• 1:16:35
  Aaron: Larceny.
• 1:16:37
  Aaron: Larceny, the other one.
• 1:16:39
  Aaron: This is like this is like you picking the girlfriend over the wife, dude.
• 1:16:43
  Gavin: This is dangerous.
• 1:16:44
  Gavin: Um, oh gosh.
• 1:16:47
  Gavin: I'm not gonna do monkey shoulder because I've got the balvini already.
• 1:16:51
  Gavin: So um, yeah, I'm with you there.
• 1:16:54
  Aaron: If you have the Balvenie, you don't need the Monkey Shoulder in that dynamic.
• 1:16:58
  Gavin: Um goodness, this is weird.
• 1:17:00
  Gavin: This is hard.
• 1:17:01
  Gavin: Um, Bladnoch.
• 1:17:03
  Gavin: Bladnoch four.
• 1:17:05
  Gavin: Four.
• 1:17:06
  Gavin: Four so far.
• 1:17:07
  Gavin: Three scotches, one bourbon.
• 1:17:09
  Gavin: All right, and then we're gonna go to the Still Austin.
• 1:17:13
  Gavin: The Still Austin that didn't even make the trip here.
• 1:17:17
  Aaron: Yes.
• 1:17:18
  Aaron: All right, two bourbons, three scotches.
• 1:17:22
  Aaron: That feels like a fair split.
• 1:17:24
  Aaron: Yeah, that's the starting lineup for Gavin's all-star team.
• 1:17:28
  Aaron: Yep.
• 1:17:29
  Aaron: Agreed.
• 1:17:30
  Aaron: All right, raise a glass.
• 1:17:32
  Aaron: Uh-oh.
• 1:17:33
  Aaron: Here we go.
• 1:17:34
  Aaron: Till next week, my friends.
• 1:17:37
  Aaron: Cheers.
• 1:17:38
  Gavin: And Slante Mhath.
• 1:17:42
  Aaron: We want to thank you, our noble listener, for joining us.
• 1:17:45
  Gavin: We believe each whiskey has a story, and so do you.
• 1:17:47
  Gavin: So give us your thoughts by leaving a comment.
• 1:17:49
  Aaron: And if you have a whiskey you would like to see us share, let us know.
• 1:17:52
  Gavin: You don't want to miss a single episode.
• 1:17:54
  Gavin: So subscribe to our YouTube channel
• 1:17:56
  Aaron: and make sure to like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to stay up to date on the Noble Dream.
• 1:18:01
  Gavin: And if you find watching us difficult, you can always listen to each episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
• 1:18:06
  Aaron: As always, be noble
• 1:18:07
  Gavin: and enjoy your dream responsibly.