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Kentucky Boy Uncorked: Brown-Forman's Tribute to Chris Morris · Aussie Bourbon Lovers

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  Incredible flavours, even better stories. One Pour,
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  10 Minutes. Aussie bourbon lovers sharing bourbon with Australia.
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  Well, it's an absolute honour to have Kerryn and Jack from Honey Barrel.
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  Thank you for having us. In the studio with us, actually. This is so cool.
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  And we're cracking something that we picked up at Kentucky Bourbon Festival. I know,
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  hasn't been opened before. Let me do the pop noise. You ready? Oh, is it
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  gonna pop, Dave? Oh, that's quite good. That was great.
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  This is Kentucky Boy. So this is Brown-Forman. It's celebrating Chris
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  Morris. I think it's 50 years of Chris Morris being the
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  master distiller, and now he's the master distiller emeritus at
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  Brown-Forman. And what they did is they took whiskey,
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  not going to let up there, from 3
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  of their big expressions that Chris was so fundamental in doing. So King Kentucky,
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  Birthday Bourbon from Old Forester, and Woodford Double Oaked. Yeah. Hey, cheers,
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  lads. Cheers. Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks for coming on. It's really cool to be
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  trying it. Yeah. So 3 individual bourbons that, well, I haven't, oh, I have
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  tried the Birthday Bourbon before. Yeah. But I don't,
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  yeah. And I tried King Kentucky Evergreen once. Yes, yeah. And then obviously
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  Double Oaked is really easy to get in Australia, so we've got quite a lot
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  of that. So the birch is, it's very honey on the nose. I get like
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  a pancake, like a maple syrup and pancakes on the nose. I get like a
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  very barbecuey, like a sweet barbecue sauce, like sweet rays,
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  just front of the palate. Do you know my immediate reaction?
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  This sounds a little bit too cynical, doesn't it? But it's just like, wow,
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  they used a lot of the double-oaked. Yeah. I was
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  saying before we started, Woodford Double Oak was one of the bourbons that
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  got me into something above your Mark
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  Corrin, your basic stuff. Woodford Double Oak was the one where I was like,
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  oh, Okay, maybe there's something to this. And that was, so seeing it in
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  this, it's pretty cool. It's really cool. And it's such a good profile. It's a
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  bit, yeah. And it's kind of got that lovely silkiness to it. I love it.
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  It's so drinkable. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like,
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  yes. Yeah, yeah. Double Lake, sometimes it's a bit too chunky. It's almost like it's
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  so desserty and it's so much like a big sticky date pudding or something.
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  You feel like, oh, I can't have too much of that. But yeah, this is
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  a lovely, A lovely balance. Apparently he didn't get to taste it before they bottled
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  it. That's what I've heard. Yeah, that's the rumour. Well, Jim Gaffigan was doing a
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  bit about that, wasn't he? Yeah. Who knows if it's true or not? I'm sure
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  it's true. He knows his stuff. But there's some interesting
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  kind of weird stories about this. One of them is that on the first day
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  of KBF, they didn't know, punters,
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  fans didn't know how much of it there was. So people queued for 2.5 hours
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  for this thing. And then we rocked up the next day and Yeah. Just waltzed
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  in and they're like, how many bottles do you want? We had to say one.
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  They're like, oh, you're allowed 2 each. And we're like, we can only take one.
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  Without a lower threat as well. People are like, what do
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  you mean? It's a long way back to Melbourne. It's what happens when you travel
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  and you've got to have a suitcase. You've got to fit it in a suitcase.
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  And that's it. Because this is like a historic label as well, right? Like they're
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  bringing it back for— Right. They've resurrected the brand. Yeah. Yep.
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  Yep. Yep. And So the story goes, it's not a story,
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  but what they're saying is that there's only that whatever that release is, that's it.
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  They sold as much as they could at KBF and then they'll sell the rest
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  at the distillery. And once it's done, it's done. They won't do any more with
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  it. I mean, they would've sold pretty much all of it at KBF, right?
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  I was, they would've sold a fair bit of it. Yeah. A large portion of
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  it went. What was the retail price, if you don't mind me asking for this?
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  $100 US for this? Okay. Yep. Yep. I think that's,
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  I think that's how it sold. Yeah. There's some people saying they think it's too
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  much. They think it should be closer to $60, which I don't know enough about.
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  I would be happy with $100, to be honest. See, I think as I'm
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  just sat with it, it's got a really long finish. It sticks around.
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  But I could see some bourbon drinkers not liking it because the finish is
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  not very bourbon-like. It actually goes more towards
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  that single malt, that sherried finish for me at least. It transitions.
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  Yeah, it is very nice. For me, it's definitely something I'd
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  like to drink, but it's just that classic Old Forester
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  profile. It's just a lot of what I like about it. Big dessert
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  notes in there. Like I said, I get a maple syrup and pancakes on the
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  nose. It's almost like you want to pour it on your pancakes. It smells great.
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  And then on the palate, again, it's that big maple
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  syrup, big caramel. It's very classic bourbon in a lot of ways, but it's like,
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  all the bourbon notes you want in like a— I'm getting like orange peel,
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  like, I get that, like a cooked orange peel. Yeah,
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  yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, I like sometimes toasted orange peel, is that a
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  thing? Or flambé, you know, when they like set fire to them, put it on
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  the side of your cocktail, like a fancy one. Yeah, yeah, because sometimes
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  it's nice just to— I think it sits in that like bracket of like you
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  can pour it, it's really good, you don't feel like you're drinking something like low
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  end. No. But it's not like super challenging in the sense it's gonna like give
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  you heartburn or it's gonna be like a really big whisky. Like, it is just
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  a really good sipping whisky. I think you'd be disappointed if you compare it to
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  King of Kentucky. Other than that, it is fantastic. So it's not
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  King of Kentucky. Yeah. I think that's very almost clever marketing that they've put some
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  King of Kentucky in there, because it makes everyone kind of
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  go, pardon what? It's as close as some of us will ever get. Yeah.
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  And I've never tried King of Kentucky, so I'm like, yeah, this It is a
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  good profile. Perfect proof. Yeah. And I think my memory of King Kentucky
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  is that it's just ridiculously
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  well balanced, like every bourbon that you could possibly want. Massive finish,
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  beautifully rounded, complex, and lovely, and right exactly
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  where you want it. Kind of drinks like what
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  I think of as a perfect bourbon. And this one, it doesn't have enough of
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  that. To me, this is almost too much of the going into that desserty,
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  double oaky, I don't know if it's too complex or whatever that
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  thing is, but it's got too much. Yeah. And I think I'm probably coming at
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  it from an angle of, in Australia, we don't have all of the
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  Old Forester range all of the time. So it's like, I cling onto all
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  of the Old Forester that I can get. I'm like, that's great. I love it.
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  Because I do, I enjoy it. And I think this to me is like,
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  I can see how people in the US are like, there's maybe something better to
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  buy for your $100. I get that. Sure. Maybe the 1910 for that price.
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  But if you say to me, you could buy a bottle of that in Australia
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  for I don't know what it translates to, but 150,
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  160, 170, somewhere in there. Oh yeah, sure. I enjoy
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  that. Thank you for sharing it with us. Thanks for coming in.
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  Having a chance to join us. What do you think about these things where
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  the distilleries will release something? There's a limited time
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  offering where they're kind of putting something out there,
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  kind of bringing back an old label or something like that. I mean, this hasn't
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  been done a lot before, I suppose, where they're really resurrecting an old brand.
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  But to me, there's a marketing play behind it. It's a PR
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  story. It's great that it's a testament to Chris and his work
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  and stuff, but is it too much of a marketing, a shot at marketing,
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  or are they genuinely trying to make a great whisky? See, I sit
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  on the side of someone like Chris has done so much for the industry.
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  I'm like, if you can do something special and there's the option to bring back
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  a label, do it. Sure. And I think Old Forester have been a brand that
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  they've got their limited releases, like Birthday Bourbon's a pretty hard release to get,
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  and they'll throw in the odd thing like the ranch bottle that they had and
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  things like that, but they've been pretty sparing, I think, with lots of
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  new labels. So I think if you can do something cool for someone like Chris,
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  I'm all for it. And I think stuff like KBF, I'm a
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  big fan of as well, because I'm like, although I wish I was there every
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  year and it's hard to watch from from the other side of the planet.
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  But it's, I'm like, whatever keeps the market exciting
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  and whatever keeps it interesting and keeps people engaged with it. Like, I'm all for
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  it. Especially when they can follow it up with good bourbon. It'd be different if
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  it was like all about the old label and all the, and then it was
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  terrible. You'd be like, well, that's it. But they've delivered on
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  really good stuff. Yeah. It's like, tell a story, tell a story, right? Like,
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  yeah. Like tell Chris's story, tell the Kentucky Boy story,
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  blending the 3 products that have each got their own, I guess, little backstory
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  in themselves. I'm all for it. I think if you create a product at the
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  end of it that's well priced, relatively, and it tastes pretty good,
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  I'm all for it. How about you guys? Where do you sit on that?
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  And yeah, I have this interesting thing about it. It's probably similar to you,
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  which is that I actually don't mind too much about the idea of a bit
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  of showmanship or theatrics around this thing,
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  because then that thing of one of the most sought-after bottles at KBF everyone could
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  get. And that's pretty crazy. Brown-Forman releasing a
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  bottle that everyone can get. That's kind of a lovely gesture for everyone.
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  And there's these things, Peerless, for example, released a bottle and they chose not
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  to release it when the VIP gates were open. They waited until 1
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  o'clock when everyone could have access. So anyone could be there and be in the
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  queue and take to get access to this bottle. So there's a bit of this
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  where it's like, it's kind of, there's a certain for the people-ness to it
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  as well. Yeah. Yep. I like that. I think if you're going to sell like,
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  you know, you see some limited releases where they're like crazy money for what they
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  are, like, and they're probably exceptional in their own way. I'm like, but for $100,
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  it's that choice where you can be like, well, I could buy it, you know,
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  or you can skip it if you want. But it opens the gate for a
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  lot of people, and I'm all for that as well. Um, and I think Brown-Forman
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  have always been pretty good with their pricing. Um, so yeah,
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  I wanted to ask a quick question about what, what do you guys look for
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  when you're looking into what Australia might like? And what you might be able to
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  bring to Australia, are you looking for a particular profile? Is there a flavour?
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  Is there a proof? Is there a story? Is it something that you're trying
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  to find? I think it's a bit of everything. The story really matters, I think,
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  for me. Proof,
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  you can't, it's a weird thing, proof, because there are people that
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  chase hazmat and will go crazy for hazmat whisky. So if
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  anything's over 70%, they'll go crazy. But I think
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  for your average consumer, I think proof in the,
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  just the one of, I think 100 to 110, I think it's a perfect proof.
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  But I think the story really matters and selling that story really
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  matters as well. That's for me. And I find that at shows
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  and everything, people do like a good story about a bourbon, not just,
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  this is an MGP and it's just been bottled by these guys and they just
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  put a label on it. That's it. Yeah. I think for me, it's like,
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  The question I ask myself every time we try a new whisky is,
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  would I buy this myself? And would I recommend it? And would I feel comfortable
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  with that? Because if someone comes to me and says, would you recommend spending X
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  amount of money on this product? And I say, yes, but I don't believe it.
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  That doesn't sit right with me. I'm like, I want it to be something I
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  enjoy and something that I believe in. And it's like all of the products for
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  us are just brands that we've tried and then look at and go, yeah,
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  I'd recommend it. 100%. And that's And I think then you tie that into,
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  you know, your next question after that is, is there a story to tell?
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  And again, going back to like the Blackwood thing or like Holiday,
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  it doesn't really matter how big the story is. Like, that can be a story
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  of 3 or 4 years. It can be a story of 200 years. Yeah,
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  it's still a story. And it's, and it's as long as there's something that's worth
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  telling, then that's, that's the other part. Because it's really hard to do events without
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  a brand story. It takes— there's a lot of like awkward silences and it's really
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  hard. So when you've got a lot of, a lot of information, it's easier.
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  You're right. We've never imported something we don't like to drink ourselves.
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  So every brand that we have, I have a bottle on the shelf and
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  it's open and I drink from it. And that's to me the— Well, that means
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  bringing the stuff that you like. And that's it. I just, you don't want to
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  recommend a whisky to someone and they go, oh, I really didn't like that.
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  If it's a difference of profile thing, sure, that will happen from that to that.
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  But if they go objectively, this is a bad whisky, then that
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  feels weird. And it's a passion project for us. We do it because we
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  enjoy it. So you want to work with the brands that you also drink yourselves
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  as whiskey drinkers. And that's kind of always the kind
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  of cool starting position for all of the brands we work with. So yeah,
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  so good. Well, I just love the stories behind them. That's great. Yeah,
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  absolutely. Thanks for sharing this. Thank you for sharing.
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  Thank you for borrowing it. What a bit of fun. Cheers.
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