Bourbon Lens

A battle of ten year old bourbon whiskey.  An Elijah Craig store pick goes head-to-head against Henry McKenna Bottled In Bond.  How did it fair?  Find out as Scott and Michael compare the two bourbons from Heaven Hill.  Michael also tested Scott with a blind tasting of Early Times Bottled-in-Bond.  Does it hold up for Scott?  

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Grab your favorite bourbon or whiskey and listen as we discuss our experience on a private distillery tour at Jim Beam. The Jim Beam Fire Chief showed us around The James B. Beam Distilling Co. and their Craft Distillery. We sampled a 9 year old Knob Creek straight from the barrel; a unique whiskey tasting experience. We discuss what the Jim Beam has in the works for the future as they look to expand their reach even further as the world's #1 bourbon brand.  

Special thanks to Fire Chief Kevin Mercer and Ben Burks for the experience and for having us out to your distillery. Check them out on Instagram: @Chief_Mercer & @BennysBizzness 

Show Links

• Kentucky Bourbon Festival
• • Barrel rolling competition 
• Bourbon and Beyond
• Hometown Rising 
• Knob Creek Straight from the Barrel
• Fred B. Noe Craft Whiskey Distillery - Coming Soon

We would appreciate you giving us a 5 star rating on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a written review.  This helps others discover our podcast and will help us grow.

Also, be sure to follow us @BourbonLens on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at [email protected].

Visit our website BourbonLens.com to check out our blog posts and see what we are up to.

Today, we take a trip out west to the High West Distillery. We sample 6 different High West whiskies and provide our impressions of the products and the brand.

High West Whiskey

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The Bardstown Bourbon Company is looking to mix things up in the Bourbon and American Whiskey industry.  It's taking on the big names like MGP (Midwest Grain Products) and becoming the new source of high quality spirits for non-distilling producers.  The Bardstown Bourbon Co. is also producing its own products and is mixing in some into older bourbons to produce blends that drink like much older bourbons.  

We sample two bourbons being produced by Bardstown Bourbon Company, The Fusion Series and The Discovery Series.  Hear our thoughts on each in the week's episode.   

SHOW NOTES AND LINKS:

• Blending whiskey and bourbon. 
• Older aged products mixed with newer stock. 
• Who does it?
  • Smooth Ambler Contradiction
  • High West Double Rye
  • Spirits of French Lick -The Wheater 
  • Whistle Pig Farmstock
  • Graton Distilling - Redwood Empire 
• MGP Ingredients Stock Plunged as Aged-Whiskey Sales Dashed Spirits
• Mark Gillespie (@WhiskyCast) says:
  • The key takeaway from that story was buried...when Gus Griffin told analysts that buyers were having trouble raising capital to buy large stocks of MGP's aged whiskey. Is that a short-term issue, or are investors starting to shy away from building new Bourbon brands?
• Craft Whiskey: Sourcing to Distilling Transition 
• Smooth Ambler Contradiction
  • At Smooth Ambler, after we began merchant bottling the whiskey we call Old Scout, it occurred to us that at some point it may be fun and interesting to blend a little of the delicious bourbon we source with the smooth and sweet wheated bourbon we distill here in West Virginia. With that notion in mind, Contradiction was born; a blend of whiskey we make with whiskey we do not.
• NDP, CDP, and Distillers -Rabbit Hole Blog 
• MGP By Mashbill 
• More MGP Whiskeys 

We would appreciate you giving us a 5 star rating on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a written review.  This helps others discover our podcast and will help us grow.

Also, be sure to follow us @BourbonLens on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at [email protected].

Visit our website BourbonLens.com to check out our blog posts and see what we are up to.

Do we still need "bottled-in-bond"?  Stay Bonded! The motto of Bernie Lubbers, the "Whiskey Professor" and brand ambassador for Heaven Hill Distilleries. Bernie is a wealth of knowledge of all things bourbon and The Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897. We attended a tasting event at Liquor Barn recently and we are reporting back on the event.  We discuss the products we sampled and compared. We also discuss some of Bernie's insight into the recent news from Heaven Hill, 7 year Bottled-In-Bond. He addressed the controversial product marketing decision being made by the brand.  We enjoyed the event and hope to attend many more in the future.  We highly recommend you do the same.

SHOW LINKS:

Liquor Barn Event Description

The Whiskey Professor's Website

Heaven Hill Bottled-In-Bond (New 7 Year Old Bourbon)

More Whiskey From Heaven Hill

We would appreciate you giving us a 5 star rating on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a written review.  This helps others discover our podcast and will help us grow.

Also, be sure to follow us @BourbonLens on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at [email protected].

Visit our website BourbonLens.com to check out our blog posts and see what we are up to.

A detour from the Kentucky Bourbon Trail for the podcast. We toured Louisville's only brandy distillery, Copper and Kings, for this week's episode of the podcast. We discuss how to make brandy and how Copper and Kings is innovating and staying relevant in the city that runs on bourbon. Copper & Kings does not ignore the influence of Bourbon in this city and they embrace it in some of their processes.  Copper & Kings utilizes sonic aging, the process of rapidly aging spirits using sound waves generated by music.  

Show Links:

Music Playlist Is A Key Ingredient For Louisville Distillery

Copper & Kings Official Website

Loud Music Is the Key Ingredient in This Distiller's Brandy

Take a self-styled Everything-But-Bourbon tour of Louisville

Chilled Magazine - Copper & Kings is America's Most Imaginative Distillery

Brandy in the Heart of Bourbon County: A Visit to Copper & Kings

Heavy Metal Aged Whiskey -  More on Sonic Aging

Sonic Aging: Pro Audio's Next Untapped Market?

We would appreciate you giving us a 5 star rating on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a written review.  This helps others discover our podcast and will help us grow.

Also, be sure to follow us @BourbonLens on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at [email protected].

Visit our website BourbonLens.com to check out our blog posts and see what we are up to.

Whatever you do, do not call it Bourbon!!  It's Tennessee Whiskey and they get very protective of the name.  Although Tennessee Whiskey and Bourbon might share some characteristics, do not confuse the two. Rival states and rival whiskies.  What is Tennessee Whiskey and how does it differ from Bourbon?  Find out in today's episode.

Flight of Whiskey from Tennessee:

• Uncle Nearest 1856
• George Dickel Bottled in Bond

What is Tennessee Whiskey?

• Lincoln County Process

• The Science Behind the Lincoln County Process

• The Alcohol Professor - Lincoln County Process

(1) Manufactured in Tennessee;

(2) Made of a grain mixture that is at least fifty-one percent (51%) corn;

(3) Distilled to no more than 160 proof or eighty percent (80%) alcohol by volume;

(4) Aged in new, charred oak barrels in Tennessee;

(5) Filtered through maple charcoal prior to aging;

(6) Placed in the barrel at no more than 125 proof or sixty-two and one-half percent (62.5%) alcohol by volume; and

(7) Bottled at not less than 80 proof or forty percent (40%) alcohol by volume.

• Bourbon Veach on the Process

We would appreciate you giving us a 5 star rating on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a written review.  This helps others discover our podcast and will help us grow.

Also, be sure to follow us @BourbonLens on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at [email protected].

Visit our website BourbonLens.com to check out our blog posts and see what we are up to.

Are age statements on whiskey labels a thing of the past?  Or are they making a comeback in the bourbon world? We have seen distilleries remove age statements from bottles over the years, but it seems that some distilleries are making a return to the practice.

Are age statements valuable to you and your purchasing decisions for bourbons? We discuss the relative importance of age statements to other types of whiskies, including Scotch Whisky.  

Show Links:

Knob Creek to Restore 9 Year Age Statement (Removed in 2016)

Barton 1792 Bourbon to Release 12 Year Old Bourbon

Why You Should Be Drinking Non-Age Statement Whisky - WHISKY ADVOCATE

Age Statements - A Catch 22 :  BREAKING BOURBON COM

TTB ONLINE Re: Age Statement Rules

Is No Age Statement Trend Bad News for Bourbon?

Demystify Age Statements on Labels

Fred Minnick's Article from 2016 on Elijah Craig Age Statement Changes

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

We would appreciate you giving us a 5 star rating on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a written review.  This helps others discover our podcast and will help us grow.

Also, be sure to follow us @BourbonLens on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at [email protected].

Visit our website BourbonLens.com to check out our blog posts and see what we are up to.

Happy Michter's Monday! We love bourbon and visiting bourbon distilleries. On this week's episode, we feature our tour of the new Michter's Fort Nelson Distillery in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky. We've toured a lot of facilities and we always find something that sets a distillery tour apart from the rest. Sometimes its the process of whiskey making, other times it's the history of the American whiskey maker.  Find out more in this episode.  

We would appreciate you giving us a 5 star rating on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a written review.  This helps others discover our podcast and will help us grow.

Also, be sure to follow us @BourbonLens on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at [email protected].

Visit our website BourbonLens.com to check out our blog posts and see what we are up to.

We discuss the brand new bourbon from Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company. Peerless decided to never source their whiskey and have had a lot of success with their rye whiskey.  Their bourbon has been aging for 4 years and is finally ready for release to the public. We grabbed a bottle and will give our thoughts on the bourbon as well as Kentucky Peerless as a brand.  

We also discuss Heaven Hill Distillery and the re-release of their Bottled in Bond Bourbon. With one additional year of age, a new bottle and label, this bourbon will release in more markets with an MSRP of 3 times higher than the previously discontinued version.  

We would appreciate you giving us a 5 star rating on your podcast app of choice and please leave us a written review.  This helps others discover our podcast and will help us grow.

Also, be sure to follow us @BourbonLens on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at [email protected].

Visit our website BourbonLens.com to check out our blog posts and see what we are up to.