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Batch 36 Breakthrough: Barrel Bourbon Tastes & Tales · Aussie Bourbon Lovers

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  Incredible flavors, even better stories. One Pour,
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  10 Minutes. Aussie bourbon lovers sharing bourbon with Australia.
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  Oh, that might be my best pop ever. I don't know if I've done a
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  better one than that. I'm usually lackluster when it comes to this. That was a
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  good one, Dave. I reckon it was. This is a Barrel Bourbon,
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  double L, a barrel with a double L. And this
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  is batch 36 for everyone playing at home. Batch 36.
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  That is how many they've made or— Well, at the time that they did it,
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  they'd done 35 others. So that's how they do them. Yeah. Fair enough. Here you
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  go. Cheers. Great. 36. Wow. Look at the color of
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  that. That's a good color. It's very— Do you know what gives it that color?
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  The barrel? Yeah, the barrel, obviously. There you go. Barrel bourbon.
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  Barrel bourbon. There you go. Allow me to read from the bottle, the label here,
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  because this is actually interesting. Well, I'm excited because I had a little sneak peek
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  earlier, Dave, at the label. Yeah. Yeah. Go on.
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  So, well, I like that this is from more than one place. Look what I've
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  done. I've spilled some of those. Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee on it.
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  So the youngest stuff in here is 9 years old. Then there's Indiana.
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  It's got 7.5. Oh, sorry, that's not youngest. I lied about that. The youngest stuff
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  is 7.5 from Indiana. I lied about this. Yeah, I told you, you make stuff
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  up. Okay, so again, the youngest stuff in here here is
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  7.5 years old. It's got 7.5, 8, and 10 years from
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  Indiana. It's got 8-year-old and 15-year-old from Tennessee.
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  Ooh. And it's got 9-year-old Kentucky whiskey.
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  They're all bourbons, obviously, in here. So it's got some 7-year-old
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  and some 15-year-old, and they've mixed it all together. They don't tell you percentages
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  in this case. Yep. But they do tell you a derived mash bill.
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  So that what they do is they take all the mash bills and they do
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  the maths. Yep. In this case, 79% corn,
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  16% rye, and a 5% malted barley.
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  So it's very corn heavy. Yeah, well, 79% is a
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  fair bit, right? Yeah. And yeah, sure. Okay. Roll with it. Should be
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  nice and sweet. Oh, it's— I
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  actually— this is the first taste of this. I love this one. Walk Through the
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  Orchard, is it? What are you getting? Like lemons
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  and mandarins or something like that? Like a
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  You started that, but now I'm getting citrus.
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  Sorry, I've swayed you by saying what I'm
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  getting. You've sullied my nose.
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  Jeepers. I don't even know what that means. What? Before I said
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  that, what were you getting? Well, I didn't have a sullied nose.
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  You weren't walking through the orchard? It's not leather. It's not leather.
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  What I'm getting, it's a— Wow. There's something—
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  mine's definitely going sweet notes, but I'm also having trouble
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  getting much velocity out of the glass. Like, I'm— it's,
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  it's one of these ones where I'm having to dig a little bit to get
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  something out of the nose. It's not a strong smell. Like, it's not a strong
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  nose, not a smell. But we call that velocity.
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  Me and Dr. Blake.
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  Like, oh, Dave. Velocity.
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  Well, I'm getting a nice sweet nose. What are you getting?
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  Taste? Yeah, it is very, very good.
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  Maybe I, maybe I need to get better at nosing bourbon. But sometimes you
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  just don't get anything like— No, it is a very light nose. Like, you know,
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  sometimes you stick your nose in, it's like, whoa. And you're like,
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  you get the flavor or you get it like a connection
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  with a memory of that. Like this. Yeah, I got
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  those sweet notes, but it wasn't in your face. It was very Subtle.
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  So I have had a sip. Have you had a sip? Yes. I'm getting a
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  little bit of strawberry jam.
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  What's— why are you giving me that look? You're questioning everything I'm saying. No,
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  I'm not questioning it. I'm like, I had a jam reference as well. Oh,
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  you were going to say that too? I was going to say more marmalade.
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  Oh. Like the, you know, orange. Okay,
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  sure. So that sticky kind of sweet. Yeah. And mapley,
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  kind of like an orange maple marmalade. It's got a lovely richness to it
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  that you would kind of hope for, for something that's got some, some of that
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  older bourbon in it. I mean, it's not— you don't know what the blend is
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  in terms of how much old stuff in there is. The color's quite good.
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  It's stunning in that it's kind of— there's a lightness to it,
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  but there's an incredible depth.
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  Like, sometimes you'll have one that's like light on
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  the nose and light to drink. You're like, oh, this is an easy drinking bourbon.
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  I wish you'd say that about me sometimes. There's a lightness to him, but yet
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  an incredible depth. No, but like The flavor
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  on your mouth, it keeps changing and it coats.
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  I don't know. I really like it. I'm not
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  going to say the word that I say too much. I'm going to just say
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  it's stunning. It's stunning. Yeah, that's a big shout. Yeah.
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  Barrel Craft Spirits came to—
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  I've seen their stuff around and I probably have tried a few
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  of theirs, but maybe in like weird settings or something.
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  Oh, then one time I ordered some whiskey and they
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  gave me a little sample bottle, like one of those really little sample bottles,
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  and it had Seagrass, their rye
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  finished in— I'm not going to get all the— it was Madeira is definitely
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  one of them. I think there's 2. Yeah, casks. I remember their Seagrass
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  rye. We went through that bottle surprisingly quick for a rye.
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  We were like, I've got some good news, we've got another one because So
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  that's the thing that put them on my map. They've got
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  beautiful bottles. These bottles are unreal, but, and I've kind of wanted the bottles,
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  but then I didn't really find an expression I really liked. And then Seagrass was
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  like, wow, this is unreal. And initially it was actually quite hard to get here.
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  And then now it's really very— So you can get this here quite
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  easily? Well, Seagrass particularly, some of the, some of the different batches,
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  some more than others. Yep. But my
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  goodness, this is so good. This is really great.
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  Like, it's like, it's, yeah. It's got a lot of flavor without being heavy.
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  That's how I would describe it. Yeah. And we've
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  had the privilege now of tasting a few and they do have a few good
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  ones. Barrel Craft Spirits are an NDP,
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  a non-distilling producer. You remember what that is, right? They source
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  it all. Yeah, it's all sourced. Yeah. Which it gives them like, I know some
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  people like, you know, it's not genuine,
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  but it's like to me it gives them the capability to really get
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  the flavor they want because they can like mix all those and blend all
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  the, the ages and different flavors
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  they've got to create what they want. And they've created something really
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  good. I, I wish I remembered how much I'd paid for that because this
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  is a great whiskey. I just— I'm sure you could
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  Google it, Dave. I probably can Google it. No, because I'm kind of getting confused
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  about whether or not I got it for a really good price. And I'm just
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  like pleasantly surprised that it's great value or whether it was quite expensive
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  and it's like, yeah, it should taste like that. It doesn't really matter what the
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  price is as long as you enjoy the bourbon. Well, it does matter because I'm
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  thinking about getting more. Oh, well, in that case, maybe. Well, I suppose
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  I'll find out when I go to get more. Yeah, you definitely will. But I'm
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  really— this is a shopping podcast. I'm going to talk about whether or not I
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  buy more of it. Yeah, he's going to buy more. He likes it.
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  And look how far the bottle's gone already. I really like it and I really
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  like as well the— there's this nice
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  push. Maybe I'm biased about this. I feel like there's a nice push towards
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  NDPs, right? Yeah. Because I say
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  this, you're making stuff up. I'm a Pursuit Spirits,
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  you know, Bourbon Pursuit. I'm a massive fan. I listen to it when
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  I run, when I'm mowing the lawn. I listen to it as often as I
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  can. And obviously they themselves blenders like what the Barrel
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  Craft Spirits guys do. Yeah. And, and Ryan
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  Cecil, who's their, you know, the blender of the Kenny and Ryan combo,
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  I love listening to him and what he's doing and how he's doing it and
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  the way they're doing their adventure and all that kind of stuff. It's so much
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  fun. And so there's a bit of a resurgence in what they're doing and these
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  barrel guys are having a lot of fun with it. That's what I'm saying is
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  like there's an, there's an element of incredibleness to the old
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  school way of doing it, like a recipe barrel, one location,
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  all that, you know. But then there's also like a very fun,
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  adventurous spirit of like taking a bit from here and a bit from there and
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  this thing, right? Have fun and make a flavor that
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  you like or you think people will like, or you can vary
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  it up and change it. And like, I don't know, because sometimes
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  I feel sorry for people like who have to operate
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  from one still. And if they're only operating from one recipe or one or two
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  recipes, That as a blender, that must be a bit frustrating that you don't
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  get to do more. Well, if you get to play with— in this case,
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  they're playing with 3 different states. Yeah. And that might be quite a few different
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  mash bills to get that result. And that's a great result. I'm fascinated that there's
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  a 15-year-old in there and at the same time we're drinking a 7-year-old. Like I
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  said, it gives you scope for going— if
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  that 15-year-old on its own might have just been way too oaky and way too
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  strong and not really something that would have been that nice
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  to drink. But when you're able to mix it with different other ones, then you
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  get a, a really nice drop like this. It reminds
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  me of the great work that Ashley Barnes does and the time we got to
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  see what she was doing at the blending house. And people out there doing such
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  amazing stuff. Incredible, incredible work. And like,
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  to me, it still seems a bit like a dark art. Like, I'm still not
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  100% sure. I don't understand it at all. But I tell
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  you what, as far as that bottle label says, there's there's this much from Kentucky,
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  this much from Indiana, this much from Tennessee. When it comes out, I mean,
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  I mean, looking like that, I mean, I could probably make something look like that,
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  but looking like that and tasting like that, we'll happily— it's
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  kind of like that's opened up like crazy scientists blending
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  crazy good scientists. Crazy. The crazy kind of scientists that you want to be friends
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  with. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I say crazy in like the
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  nicest possible way. Like crazy fun scientists. Like you go, yeah,
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  drink whiskey, try this. There's white—
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  it's caramel strawberry jam, by the way. It's a— it's almost like
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  a— like a cookie. Grandma's kind of caramel, chewy caramel,
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  but it's been, I don't know, somehow chopped up in small pieces and put with
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  a strawberry jam. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's that— it's exactly that caramel. It's that
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  caramel. Yeah, yeah, quite sticky and chewy. Yeah, the Dutch kind.
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  Imagine if you had a stroopwafel, don't put it in the toaster, but put strawberry
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  jam on and then like have a crack at it. Maybe not so much cinnamon.
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  Maybe like take one of the waffly bits off.
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  Very specific. I'm trying to help the people at home who don't have,
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  you know, one of these nice bottles with them. Yeah, but have a, have a
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  Stroopwafel and imagine it's liquid. Well, if you put it in
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  the toaster long enough, it might be. Cheers. Cheers.
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  Thanks for listening.
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