Latest / Aussie Bourbon Lovers / Peerless 10-Year Reveal: A Bourbon Worth the Hype
Transcript
- 0:00Is it because I'm excited about what's in there that I got excited about how good that
- 0:20sounded? Maybe that's what it is. I should say, yeah. This special bottle Dave
- 0:24brought back from his latest business trip. What are we drinking tonight, Dave?
- 0:27This is a Peerless 10-year-old. It's the Henry Craver edition. It's the one that was only
- 0:32just launched. Well, if you're listening to this, oh my goodness, look at that colour.
- 0:39It's stunning.
- 0:41Don't be stingy now. I'm getting a bit extra because I heckled. That's good.
- 0:46Peerless in Louisville, Kentucky, they're celebrating 10 years of having
- 0:52aged whisky. This is the first time they're releasing an aged-stated product, I'm pretty
- 0:59sure. Beautiful bottle design. I mean, as Peerless always do.
- 1:03Yeah, their bottles are great. I'm amazed by the colour.
- 1:07And it's signed by Carson Taylor as well.
- 1:09Wonderful. Cheers.
- 1:12Oh, yeah.
- 1:13Dave's very excited about this one.
- 1:14On the nose. That's lovely.
- 1:17Well, you've tasted this already, right?
- 1:18There has been a bit of to-do about this in the modern world.
- 1:20I haven't tasted this, no.
- 1:21Oh, no. You've tasted some of the other ones while you were there, but not this one.
- 1:24Exactly, yeah.
- 1:25Oh, this is exciting.
- 1:27Ten-year-old Peerless don't usually age that, but Peerless do do a few things that are pretty
- 1:32unique. Always barrel strength, always sweet mash, always kosher.
- 1:38Yeah, I know.
- 1:39And this is all because they kind of go traditionally. They do things the hard way
- 1:45because this is the way that you set up what you wanted to do. You wanted to make the best
- 1:49possible bourbon in the best possible way in these small batches.
- 1:52Yeah, and it's compared to a lot of companies, quite a small company, Peerless.
- 1:55They are small, yeah.
- 1:56Yeah. It's like a small, and so they do things ... Well, when we first went there,
- 2:02or you went there before me, and then we went together, and now you've been again,
- 2:05so three times, so clearly this is one we like.
- 2:08Yeah. The stories are so good. Henry Craver, who this is named for, is the guy who had the
- 2:16original Kentucky Peerless distillery. This is back in the, I'm going to call it 1800s,
- 2:22that then had to be ... He kind of could see that prohibition was coming, so kind of closed
- 2:26everything down a bit early and kind of sold all these barrels to the Walgreens, the Walgreens
- 2:30brothers and things like that. There's so many cool stories around this. A true entrepreneur,
- 2:34all that kind of stuff. But then Corky Taylor buys the rights to Peerless.
- 2:40And they got their, is it DPS?
- 2:42DSP, 50?
- 2:42Yeah, that one.
- 2:44Yeah, Distilled Spirits Plant number?
- 2:47Yeah.
- 2:48And they've restored it. Here's the thing. Hang on, wait, wait. What are you getting on the nose
- 2:54for a start? Let's do this. Let's do this properly, because-
- 2:57Well, first thing that we see is the colour.
- 3:00And then what are you getting on the nose?
- 3:03I've heard other people talk about this, because I love hearing people talk about this.
- 3:06And the way that people described it, I was almost expecting a stagginess to the nose.
- 3:15Oh, like quite oaky.
- 3:17Not too oaky, but like a rich vanilla caramel with an oak balance. And on the nose,
- 3:24I'm getting a different note to that.
- 3:26It's got great legs.
- 3:28Yeah, it is that beautiful Peerless rich still.
- 3:31Yeah, yeah. You can definitely get the, I'm trying to work out what it is. It's like a,
- 3:37it's not Christmas pudding. It's like a really, I don't know, something very indulgent.
- 3:42To me, that's like citrus. Like it's got lovely age on it. I mean, look at the colour.
- 3:47It's almost like a citrus sweetness or something like a lemon curd or something like a lemon tart.
- 3:51No, I'm thinking of, you know, when you slice the orange, is the orange on top of like the fruit
- 3:55cake? Like some people will decorate the fruit cake. It's got like, or like that mandarin kind of,
- 4:02um, what's the word I'm looking for? Marmalade.
- 4:05Like a marmalade, sure.
- 4:06Yes. Yeah. That kind of marmalade fruit cakey smell. That's what I'm getting.
- 4:11We both said citrus notes, so we'll go with it.
- 4:15It's lovely, still really balanced.
- 4:16When could we possibly be wrong?
- 4:17Almost coconuts. Yeah, I'm getting coconuts. I'm going to like,
- 4:21it's quite a coconut. Rightio. Well, have a taste and tell us what you,
- 4:25what you're getting. Now that you've gone with coconuts and citrus, he's a happy man.
- 4:34This bottle will never run out.
- 4:35Yes, it is.
- 4:36It's the sad part, Dave. You can't get this in Australia. Dave brought this back from his
- 4:41latest business trip.
- 4:42He can barely get this in America.
- 4:43As a birthday gift for me. He just happened to be in Louisville on the day that they released it.
- 4:49That's right. I was there on a...
- 4:51Amazing.
- 4:51On a business trip, of course. That is lovely. That's beautifully balanced. That's
- 4:59all the things you want in a bourbon. Richness. That matte, the viscosity of the mouthfeel just
- 5:04kind of rolls off your tongue, rolls around. And then it's got this lovely, I think a grippy finish.
- 5:10Oh, it puts flavour everywhere in your mouth.
- 5:12That's lovely.
- 5:14Can you get flavour on your cheeks? I feel like tongue and cheeks, it's like, it's like it bursts.
- 5:20It's beautiful.
- 5:21117.5 through, I think. Or is that 0.6?
- 5:25Sometimes I get nervous. I mean, I love all Peerlesses, or most of them. There was one
- 5:31that was a licorice one once that I had. Oh, the Absinthe. There was one that was a bit...
- 5:34An Absinthe Fisher Eye.
- 5:35Yeah, yeah, yeah. But most Peerlesses, I'll say, I love.
- 5:38Yes.
- 5:39But that's particularly good. And sometimes, you know, when there's hype around it, you're like,
- 5:45this is going to be a good bottle, but is it actually going to be as good as what everyone
- 5:49says? This is pretty good.
- 5:51Peerless have this incredible cult following. And the first time I was in Louisville and someone
- 6:01said, where else are you going? And I said, I'm going to Peerless. And their eyes lit up and they
- 6:06were like, we just love Peerless. I started to get a bit of a glimpse of it, but there's this
- 6:11incredible thing of like, when special bottles are released, there's often a queue at the front.
- 6:17I've heard of lots of stories of the queue at the front. The videos of the people who queued
- 6:21for this bottle. And I wasn't able to be there on the day. I probably would have been in that queue
- 6:24if my travel plans had lined up probably, but I just didn't get the timing right. I was there
- 6:29the next day. Luckily there were still bottles. So I'm just so lucky that I got it. But people
- 6:35queued for hours. The line went around the block and down the street. Did you see that?
- 6:40I saw it, yeah, on social media. I was like, I think it came out the day of my birthday,
- 6:46maybe, or the day after. I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
- 6:48I was hoping you'd bring me back bottles. I did. I did. Happy birthday, Paige. And
- 6:54you know, I think it's kind of, it's, it's worthy. One of the things that's really interesting,
- 6:58right, craft distilleries, as someone who runs a small, well, we both run small businesses.
- 7:02Yep. You think about how hard it is to
- 7:05get going. And if you, I often want to hear people when they're running distilleries,
- 7:09I think particularly craft distilleries, I think about how hard the decisions you might need to
- 7:14make about how you use your resourcing and how you use your money.
- 7:18Especially early on. Say again?
- 7:20Especially early on, when you're just starting out.
- 7:23Yeah. But how do you make decisions, well, that really help create a really premium product,
- 7:29but with the limited, the finite resources that you have, because you're kind of just
- 7:33getting started. Yeah.
- 7:34Here's the thing about Corky Taylor and actually the tasting I did at Peerless this time around,
- 7:40the guy leading the tasting didn't make any bones about it. Corky Taylor had a massive exit from
- 7:45his business. He had a really successful business and came away with a huge amount of money and was
- 7:49like, what am I going to do? And so he had this huge amount of resourcing. And so all this stuff
- 7:54they do that's hard, sweet mash, barrel proof only, they have a low entry proof, all these
- 8:00things that they do that are like hard in distilling and sometimes only the big guys can do it. And
- 8:03even the big guys choose not to do it because they try to make more money. He's like, nah,
- 8:07I just want to make the best stuff the best possible way. No wonder it has a cult following.
- 8:11Yeah. Because he's not cutting corners. He's like, I want to do what's best regardless of the
- 8:17price. Do you remember the Tim Tam ad where the guy wished for the genie for a packet of Tim Tams
- 8:23that never ran out? I wish for a bottle of Peerless 10 that never runs out.
- 8:27Wow. There you go, Dave.
- 8:30This is lovely.
- 8:31I was a bit nervous there when you said the Tim Tam ad and I was like,
- 8:34are you wanting us to drink the Tim Tam slam with the Peerless 10? And I'm like,
- 8:39this is taking a little bit far.
- 8:40I feel like there's something, because we talked about this,
- 8:42that I want to do the Tim Tam slam but with Berlin.
- 8:44Yeah, but not with the Peerless 10.
- 8:46For people listening-
- 8:46For respect purposes, I really hope you don't.
- 8:50People listening not from Australia, a Tim Tam slam, the idea, a Tim Tam for a start is a biscuit.
- 8:56Yeah.
- 8:56Two layers of biscuit with like a chocolate cream middle.
- 8:59It's like chocolate cream middle and then chocolate coating on the outside. So to do a slam,
- 9:03you bite off one corner and then you bite off the corner on the opposite side.
- 9:08Right.
- 9:09And it's like a straw.
- 9:10And then you put that in a hot drink, like a hot chocolate or a coffee.
- 9:13It melts the biscuit, like the chocolate cream in the middle.
- 9:16And you kind of suck the liquid through it.
- 9:18Yeah, you can slurp a nice hot chocolate through a Tim Tam.
- 9:21Hilariously good fun, high calorie way to drink your drink.
- 9:25And chocolate goes well with bourbon, but one, it wouldn't melt it. And two,
- 9:28you wouldn't want to do it with a really good bourbon like this because that-
- 9:33I feel like we've got different views on this. I feel like we should definitely try it.
- 9:37Maybe-
- 9:37With a different bourbon.
- 9:38Different bourbon, not this one. Tim Tam slam's a great idea.
- 9:41I mean, drink it how you like it, but this is too good to risk a Tim Tam slam on.
- 9:47So can you get in Australia? No, sadly not. Can you get in the States? Well-
- 9:51Barely.
- 9:52Secondary, I'm sure you can get it. If you go to the Peelers distillery,
- 9:56maybe they might have a bottle left. I'm kind of doubting how to-
- 9:58But if you can't get this one, just any Peelers, like I highly recommend any Peelers because
- 10:03the store is amazing and all their bourbon tastes great.
- 10:07And the cool thing is this is batch one of the 10 year release,
- 10:10which means maybe next year-
- 10:10Does that mean there's more coming?
- 10:11Is there a batch two?
- 10:12Ooh, that's good.
- 10:13Who knows? And then of course it means that, so they're 10 years of distilling this year,
- 10:19which means if next year it's 11 years, do we get to see what the 11 year distillate's like?
- 10:23Or-
- 10:24Or are they tapping out of 10?
- 10:27Not 11 year distillate, but like the aged whiskey. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see.
- 10:30Who knows? I had a really interesting insight and we're not going to talk about it now.
- 10:36On this same trip, I spoke with someone-
- 10:39Who's hanging for the next episode.
- 10:40Who's worked at some really great distilleries,
- 10:44who gave me an insight about what's coming down the track.
- 10:46In Peelers? Or in just-
- 10:48Not Peelers. Other distilleries.
- 10:50You're going to have to keep us guessing.
- 10:51And I'm excited to maybe just give you the same little like mysterious clue that he gave me.
- 10:56Oh, wonderful. Well, here's the-
- 10:57That's just a teaser to the next one. That's a bit-
- 11:00And an endless bottle of Peelers 10.
- 11:02And congratulations to the Peelers team. What an amazing bottle.
- 11:04Well done.
- 11:05And 10 years. Cheers.
- 11:10Thanks for listening. Make sure you're connected with us on TikTok,
- 11:13Instagram and YouTube, and stay connected with us by clicking subscribe on your favourite podcast app.