The Noble Dram | Souvenir Bottles: Thoughtful or Throwaway (Season 2 | Ep. 4)

Your friends went on an epic trip… toured incredible distilleries… experienced world-class whiskey…

…and this is what they brought you back?

In this episode of The Noble Dram, we’re diving into “Survivor Bottles”—the whiskies that made it out of the gift shop, survived the suitcase, and landed on our bar. But the real question is…

👉 Did they survive for a reason… or just barely make the cut?

We’re cracking open gifted bottles from friends & loved ones who traveled the world and put their whiskey judgment to the test:
Was it a thoughtful, curated pick?
A last-minute panic buy?
Or just the only bottle that fit in a carry-on?

From blind reactions to the stories behind each pour, we break down whether these bottles are:
 🥃 Worth the trip
 ✈️ Worth the suitcase space
 😬 Or barely worth the the bottle they come in

And along the way, we debate what actually makes a distillery worth visiting—and whether mountains or beaches create better whiskey experiences.

👇 Drop a comment:
 What’s the best (or worst) bottle someone’s brought you back?

Travel the Noble Way.

Aaron’s Pour: Old Pali Road - Private Reserve Straight Bourbon - 93 Proof
Gavin’s Pour: Nelson’s Green Briar - Tennessee Whiskey - Marathon Malt - 103.4 Proof

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THE NOBLE DRAM HAS 2 PRIVATE BARREL PICKS! RESERVE YOUR BOTTLES HERE AND SAVE $10 PER BOTTLE:
Larceny Private Barrel
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1984702417357?aff=oddtdtcreator
Elijah Craig Private Barrel
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1984162846486?aff=oddtdtcreator

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Transcript

Gavin 0:00

Have you ever had a buddy call and say, hey man, I was just on vacation and I thought about you.

Aaron 0:06

I got a bottle for you. Yeah. Party is a bit nervous because it might be an absolute stinker. I mean a complete dud.

Gavin 0:15

Or the flip side of that, they could have stumbled on a true gym on their travels. And that gym could have been a true stud.

Aaron 0:25

So tonight we're tasting two bottles that we both received as gifts from people on trips. Let's find out. Are they duds or are they studs? This is the Noble Gram.

Gavin 1:15

We feel like every poor tells a story. Tonight, we got a fun one for us. Yeah, this should be good. This should be good. I'm looking forward to this one. So, as we all know, we've done quite a bit of traveling over the last bit of time, right? Just flew into town, and boy, are my arms tired. Yeah. Yeah. We we've even talked a bit of uh travel guides and whiskies of the world and all of the wonderful whiskey adventures. Also, part of that are souvenirs right? I think everyone, when you travel, especially on vacation, you want that one thing to bring back that just reminds you.

Aaron 1:57

Yeah, like there's a bit of uh just every time I see it, it's gonna remind me of that time we were sitting on the beach or wherever you happen to go. Um but there's a there's a gift selection, a souvenir selection that we as hardcore whiskey lovers tend to find ourselves gravitating towards. And it's bottles of brown water. Yeah. But it's it's not just us, it's when we have friends go on trips, right? They come back with stuff. That's right. So it puts us sometimes in a predicament. Is that a good way to word it?

Gavin 2:39

Yeah, yeah.

Aaron 2:40

Because on one side, you can get an absolute anchor. Like there's a reason you never bought that bottle. Um, it could be a distiller you've never heard of, it could be uh these guys just started and they just have nothing but new stuff, and it really hasn't aged out. I you just never know what you're getting.

Gavin 3:04

But on the other side, you could get the real stud in the box, right? Like something that is that hidden gym. Again, you may have never heard of the distillery, um, or it could be something like from a distillery that you you you enjoy, but it may be a distillery exclusive. So you unless you go to the distillery, you may never be able to get it. And so you have those friends that you know might think of you as they're on the trip and might bring a little something back for you to share, right? So as we're getting started, I kind of think we need a little pour of something that was gifted to us.

Aaron 3:51

No, it makes sense. So that or to you. That is that is tonight's theme. Gavin and I were both asked. We we decided we asked each other. Go find a bottle that somebody brought back from one of their trips to us, not one we purchased ourselves, so one that was really a bit of a dark thrown in the dark as to whether or not we would like it. So my bottle comes courtesy of my lovely wife. Lovely wife. Um she uh and our girls got to take a trip to Hawaii uh last year. Um, and nothing is quite as unfun as being at home while you send your wife and your daughters off to be on vacation in Hawaii. Um, work really is tough to get up and go to on those days.

Gavin 4:44

Well, I kind of think was that they weren't in Hawaii the same time we were in Kentucky, were they?

Aaron 4:51

No, no, okay, all right. Similar, similar. I think that was part of her justification for getting to go to Hawaii. I understand that. Yeah. All right, so pour number one. That's a wee, that's a wee glass. It's a it's a wee, a wee little dream. Um, part of the problem when it comes to souvenir hauling is you got to find room for it. And my wife figured out as you just buy the small bottle. Um, also, if it's a bit of a stinker, you didn't end up with a lot of whiskey. Fair. Good point. The risk you run though is what if this is an absolute killer bottle and you wish you had the full size and we don't. All right. So this is Old Pawnee Road. This is their private reserve straight bourbon. Uh clocks in at 93 proof, uh, 46.5 for the Metric Lovers. Um, this whiskey's claim to fame, it is 100% Hawaiian made. So these guys offer uh what they call their standard whiskey, which is old Pike Road uh blended whiskey. It is a blend of Kentucky bourbon and some of their own distillate. This one, however, 100% their own product. So as a straight bourbon, we know it was aged at least two years. Uh, and they gave us a grain profile, um, a new ratio that we've never tasted on the show before. 90% corn. 90%, 10% malted barley. Not just this is the the level of detail we've found. Not just malted barley, it is specifically two-row grain. Malted barley. So I actually got to find out the specific type of barley used. Uh, the other big claim to fame here, uh, this is our water from a well there at the distillery that comes up through the volcanic rock of the island of Oahu, right? Which is where the distillery is.

Gavin 6:58

I gotcha. I got so it's volcanic mellowed.

Aaron 7:02

No, no, no, no. They're not running the whiskey, they're not running the whiskey through the volcanic rock. The water is going through the volcano.

Gavin 7:07

Okay, okay, all right.

Aaron 7:08

Which would be an interesting twist.

Gavin 7:10

Like a talk about fire water.

Aaron 7:13

Yeah, for sure. For sure. All right, so this whiskey actually gets its name from um the old Polly Road, right? Makes sense. Uh, which was actually a road that ran from Honolulu up over the Ko'olau. I'm uh I'm uh I tried I tried so hard to get all these words. Koolahu Mountain Range, okay, which runs right through the middle of uh Oahu. Uh so the distillery, which is the Ko'ol uh Ko'ahu distillery. I love why do we keep giving maybe the ones that are hard to pronounce? Um so their distillery is on the opposite side of the mountain range. The old road used to be the Pali Highway. It has now been rebuilt, and the old road was kind of abandoned and left for the um the forest to grow back over, the rainforest to kind of encroach. And actually is now as a hiking trail. So you can hike up and down the the what was the old paved road is now kind of a I'm assuming busted up asphalt uh walkway. Uh so this distillery began back in 2018. Uh, two gentlemen, Eric, uh Eric Dill and Ian Brooks. Uh my wife got to meet both of them once she's there. She said they were lovely guys. Um Dylan Brooks. Right. Eric Dill. Eric Dill. Ian Brooks. Dill and Dylan. I was like, no, no Dylan. Dylan, Dill, Dylan, no Dylan. Dill and Brooks. This is straight Ian Japan. Um both both Eric and Ian, uh, Marine Corps veterans. So this is a veteran-owned uh business. And it's situated right up there, kind of on the far east end of Oahu. Um, spectacular views, beautiful rain coming in every day as it hits the hits the island. So I'm expecting this one to be sweet. At 90% corn, I'm I'm really expecting this one to to uh to coat the palate, so to speak. All right. Well while we while we sit here and sit sit uh uh sip and savor, I wanted to talk a little bit about souvenirs. Because what we're talking about is bottles being souvenirs that people bring back. So one of the conundrums you sometimes have when you are traveling, um, I'm gonna put you in the the traveler's perspective. I'm gonna get your thought on something. Sometimes you are visiting another country and there is a limited amount of volume you're allowed to bring back, or I should say legally bring back. Sometimes you find yourself at the distillery, and because of the three-tier system that is imposed in all these states, sometimes you're limited on what you can buy at the distillery, whether it's you can only buy one or only buy two. Sometimes you find yourself at the distillery that's doing some sort of fun release and they have limits on how many you can buy. There's a number of reasons why you might be standing at a store thinking to yourself, I would love to get my buddies these. But if I do, I might not get to bring anything home. So my question is standing at the store, uh, you're wearing shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops on your vacation, trying to figure out how to spend your hard-earned money. What do you do if you have to decide between yourself and your friends back home?

Gavin 10:47

I wish that I could say I've never had to make that decision, but I'd be lying because I have had to make that decision. Um for me, when I go to a distillery and I think about um doing a tasting and finding a bottle that I really enjoy, um it kind of also depends on the friend or the family member. How much you like them. How much you like them, but also like does this remind me of them?

Aaron 11:23

Do you make the cut? Yeah, you know, like you play you play start bench cut with your friends standing at the gift shop.

Gavin 11:31

I mean, who doesn't? Like you can't buy all your friends a bottle of something. I mean, you go broke.

Aaron 11:37

If you only have two friends, you can't fair good point. It's a perk of being me.

Gavin 11:43

So um if I go to distillery, or I mean, if we're gonna talk just whiskey in general, right? If I go to a distillery and I can only buy a limited bottle, number number of bottles, or can only fit so many in my suitcase, or uh the volume by which um I'm I'm restricted on bringing back, I really have to narrow it down to um i if I'm at the distillery and I've done a tasting, and man, I really love these four bottles or three bottles. Just buy them all. But it you can't sometimes, right? Like ship them. Yeah, that's the way to do this. Yeah, I mean you just gotta have a UPS account. Really, right? Uh that's one of the things that drives me nuts, and it's kind of one of my soapboxes for this, you know, three-tier system in the state of Texas, is you can only buy two bottles when you go to a distillery. That's why I always take my wife. Yeah, exactly. You gotta so I have an extra purchaser. Exactly.

Aaron 12:41

Um is that what your recommendation was?

Gavin 12:45

Yeah, it's a brilliant move. Um, the problem is is like our what I think is just really ironic is Texas is the come and take it state. And you have to leave it. Yeah, and you have to leave it. You can't take it with you.

Aaron 12:57

Yeah, I never thought of it that way, right?

Gavin 13:01

So the the thought of having to make a decision on do you bring back a distillery exclusive limited edition bottle for a friend, and that means that you miss out? It's tough, man.

Aaron 13:22

I would invite my friend over to taste my bottle. See, that's what it is. Yeah. Now I so maybe, maybe a bit of an expansion. If you find yourself at the gift store, do you immediately search your local shops back home, their websites to see if you can buy it back there to save you from hauling a bottle back from the distillery you can just pick up at your local store? Luckily, we know a guy. Yeah, our buddy. I have I have absolutely texted Geyser and asked him, uh, do you have this? And if so, how much is it? So I can decide whether or not to buy one.

Gavin 13:59

Exactly. No, absolutely. So if you have a guy, like definitely call your guy and see. Because the other fun spin on this question is um, you know, I may buy the distillery exclusives, and if I can buy two, I may buy two, and those may stay on my shelves.

Aaron 14:18

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're suggesting. I need to make sure everybody at home can hear this. I don't even finish my thought. Yeah, no, what you just said is both bottles are going on inside. I started with you can't you can't buy two for your friends and then miss on one yourself. And your answer is my friends get nothing if you can't pick between the two of them. You just get neither of them. Yeah, okay, that may so you cut the baby in half. You cut the baby in half.

Gavin 14:51

I mean, to be fair, like I'm on my trip, and this is my trip, and I want to share my trip with you, but the bottles are coming to me.

Aaron 14:59

But it's the only way to get them to look at your pictures, is you offer to let them have some of the whiskey a bottle you're at.

Gavin 15:06

So uh a way of thinking about it is going to your local bottle shop and picking up a bottle of the core range from them, and then giving that bottle to your buddies is a fun way. Fun spin. So the distillery exclusives.

Aaron 15:28

Let me I I feel like we should clarify this again. What you're suggesting.

Gavin 15:33

No, I'm not suggesting, I'm staying it.

Aaron 15:35

Okay, what you're stating is that you visit Distillery X. I don't know what distillery we're talking about, but you're there, and you say, My buddies would love for me to bring something back for them. And so you just place an order at a local shop here in Houston for bottles from that distillery, and then you come here, go and purchase them in Houston, not at the distillery. And then do you divulge that or do you present them as if they are authentic from the distillery bottles?

Gavin 16:10

Depends. Like, I think it depends on you. Will your buddy think it's hilarious?

Aaron 16:14

This is great.

Gavin 16:15

When they still have to do it.

Aaron 16:16

I'm now trying to think how what have you purchased for me? And is there a chance it actually came from the store down the street?

Gavin 16:24

Well, yeah, I think that's a good thing. I think there is there's a plausibility that this is happening. It depends on how much of a whiskey nut you are. I'm pretty nutty. You are pretty nutty. I am pretty nutty. Oh, actually, that's a that's a note here. No. Um, so to me, I think it just depends on kind of the person who I'm thinking about. And again, if I can get that bottle back home versus uh like a distillery-only sell, um, and how many bottles I can actually pick up and all those sort of things. So that it feels like a no-win.

Aaron 17:03

It's a win for me. No, no. No, I it's I when you whenever you have to pick between your friends or whatever, like it always feels like a tough spot to be in. So I understand that predicament.

Gavin 17:17

Based on that, though, I want to ask you a question. Okay.

Aaron 17:22

This makes sense. A little back and forth. A little back and forth. Whiskey banter.

Gavin 17:28

Have you ever fibbed or lied where you got a gift for someone?

Aaron 17:37

Okay, so um this is a tough one to answer because in fairness, I don't know who all watches this. Um every so often my mom calls me and says she watched it. But other than that, like what if my what if my wife watches these? I can't divulge all of that. I so I'll say this will be a tester. I I I will I will share a story. Uh this will be a tester to find out if my my sister watches these episodes or not. Uh-oh. Um, so uh the answer to your question is yes. I have do tell fibbed, if you will. Um I I was young. I was young, I didn't know better. Let's start there. Um you've grown a little. Yeah, no, I've I'm much more mature now than I used to be, uh, which is an embarrassing statement about how bad I used to be. I so I was in high school, uh, part of a traveling choir that that toured across Europe. Not nearly as awesome as it sounds. I mean, we had a good time, but um, we weren't part of a rock band touring. Uh, anyways, uh, this was this was at the height of Birkenstock craziness the first time around, right? This was a long time ago. And all my sister wanted was a pair of Birkenstocks from Germany. Uh-oh. So my mother very carefully put cash in an envelope and wrote on the side that that was for my sister's Birkenstocks. And as you do on vacation as a teenage kid, you spend more than you should on stupid stuff along the way. Whiskey and we we did. We were beer, we were beer drinkers back then, and yeah, everywhere in Europe you could order at any age. And so we every place we went, we ordered beer.

Gavin 19:29

Um they were feeding babies beer.

Aaron 19:33

Not that we even enjoyed it at that age, but like you you could, so you did. Um, no, so I found myself, I found myself the last night we get to Frankfurt, Germany, and I realize I need to go get the shoes, and I don't have enough. Like we went to the store, got there, and realized they're not cheaper here than they are back in the States. I had hoped that they would be cheaper, and thus that the little money I had skimmed off the top would uh would not be caught. So um we arrived back, uh, landed at the airport, and my mother had come to get me, and I I had to come clean that um I had not only uh foolishly wasted the money she had given me, but I also did not have the shoes. Uh, so we we stopped at the store on the way home from the airport and bought my sister a pair of shoes. Oh my gosh. And I'm sorry, sis. They were lovely shoes. You had no idea. They're probably made in the same place. It doesn't really matter at this point. But um, no, we we kept we kept them from it's only been 30 years or something ago now. Like it's been a long time. It's been a long time. If if uh if it makes her mad and she doesn't talk to me anymore, I I've I'll feel like there was other problems in the relationship with my sister than just the shoes.

Gavin 20:50

Birken stocks be damned. We got a confession tonight.

Aaron 20:54

I I I I have done this. I have done this. I the I think it's my one big fib, though. Like, I don't I don't I have I have bought stuff at the airport. They're like, no, no, I bought that while I was in town. I thought I thought of you. And technically what you did was you got to the airport and realized, oh shoot, I never got them anything and went racing to the gift shop at the the Hudson News and bought a stuffed animal.

Gavin 21:21

The Hudson News in Houston.

Aaron 21:24

Isn't that all of the airport?

Gavin 21:26

Uh in the airport at your home destination.

Aaron 21:30

No, no, no, no. Like if you just come back with like a NASA t-shirt and you're like, what is this from? You were in Florida. I was like, yeah, Cape Canaveral. Yeah.

Gavin 21:39

Space, Space Coast. It works.

Aaron 21:43

All right. All right. So hold up. I do, I do have, I do have one one little like this kind of we derailed, right? Conversations kind of have a way of leading themselves. I grew up as a kid. Uh, dad didn't do do a lot of business travel, but when he did go somewhere, he Brought back souvenirs for me and my sister, right? Um, it was a big deal. It was always trinkety level stuff, right? It really wasn't anything too award-winning, but it made us feel like at least dad thought about us while he was gone. I now, I won't say I travel for work a lot, but I travel for work from time to time. And the first time I went on a business trip, I stopped and bought each kid a little $10 t-shirt at whatever gift shop for whatever town I happened to be in. And I came home, and my wife was surprised by it. She's like, What is this? I was like, Oh, I went on a trip, I brought home souvenirs. And she's like, You went to Pennsylvania? Like, there wasn't anything like great about it. I was like, Oh, uh, it's what you're doing. And and and she she ultimately said, Don't do that. Like, that's weird. Like, and I'm like, I didn't think it was weird, but she like at the same time, I yes, if you're gonna travel on a regular basis, it felt like I might be a little overkill. So the question I guess I had is when you travel, not for vacation, but travel for work kind of stuff, do you pick up why four kids? Do you pick up trinket souvenirs for the family?

Gavin 23:10

Yes. Um write that down. Recently, I was on a work trip um and it was in a we were touring a specific space um as a reference to something that we're working on. And I stopped by a gift shop and bought something that was very meaningful to the reason why we were there, and uh brought that back home for my daughter and um technically my wife too, um, because she's able to uh partake in it. So uh yes you bought a Cinnabon at the airport, yeah. So we all got to share it, right? Um and then there are certain things that certain family members enjoy getting or collecting that if I'm someplace I might pick that up for them.

Aaron 24:12

But um so yes and no, I guess. Okay, yeah, I it's understandable. I uh I've known people who are on both ends of that spectrum. I just getting a read on who Gavin is. Who Gavin is. All right, so we can continue talking, but I want I wanted to to come back to old poly road. Old poly road. So I let's talk a little bit about what you get. I don't have a lot in here, so if you love it, we gotta go, we gotta sip sparingly. Yes, sir.

Gavin 24:41

All right, so on the nose, um I thought that it was maybe the perception of 90% corn got to my head. Sweet corn really came to mind on the nose. And then um I put corn syrup. Really? Yeah, I think there's I think that sweetness with the corn made me think of uh what's the Cairo Kairos. Karos, yeah. That's what that's what it reminded me.

Aaron 25:14

Cairo is a city in Egypt, it's different. Are you sure? And I don't think that's what they name the syrup after, I'll be honest. Uh yeah, probably right. I too so for me, like right off the bat, when I first put my nose in the glass, I got oak. Yeah, lots of oak. I would say the oak was much more prominent to me than the sweetness. I would say I would have said it's grainy, but I wouldn't have gone carrow syrup. Like it, it doesn't it doesn't smell syrupy. I actually put a note, overall, not as sweet as I expected it to be. It's a little more dry oak that I think became a little bit more of the prominent flavor. To be honest, knowing it comes from the warm climate in a humid area of Hawaii, that doesn't surprise me in the least. Uh but yeah, so I I had I had oakiness. Um I actually had baking spice. I get a bit of that kind of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, like that kind of stuff going on. Uh yeah, and I put grainy. Um like if you've ever if you've ever like opened a bag of like feed corn for deer, it's kind of got that it's corn, it's corn, you recognize it's corn, but it's not sweet like sweet corn. Um and it's not sweet like corn syrup, but you absolutely recognize that as a corn aroma. That that's what I'm getting more than more than sweet.

Gavin 26:43

And that's on the notes, right? Yes. So on the palate, I agreed with almost everything you said, but I got a lot of those same notes on the palette. I put it's oaky, it's sweet, there's the spice. Um I put there's a nuttiness to it.

Aaron 27:03

Um I I again we're off by a phase because I've got roasted nuts on the finish, and you're nutty on the palate. And I I I we wrote that down when I said something about being nutty, and then I was like, oh, maybe that's what that is. So I don't know if that's a little bit of um subliminal messaging to myself. Uh so what did you get on the palate then? So I so I I think the oakiness is a little softer on the palate, and I thought the spice kind of took the the the main stage. Um, I also think there's kind of a burnt sugar. Okay. Like um, like almost like the charred outside of a marshmallow, right? Like your kid gets it in there into the fire a little bit too far. I'm a I'm a golden brown marshmallow schmore guy. Um I also don't I also don't like the char on the outside of a hot dog, so like maybe I'm just more of a slow cooked guy. Slow cooked, you're a rotisserie guy. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I hadn't thought about rotisserie, like put your marshmallows on a rotisserie cooker over the fire. That's actually brilliant. Not every idea you have is bad. That's a good one.

Gavin 28:18

We'll put some soak them in whiskey and then let it roll.

Aaron 28:22

Oh my like the the little hot dog roller, like the 7-Eleven, just rolling marshmallows back and forth. Yep. That sounds like it'll be a mess to clean.

Gavin 28:32

On a marshmallow for sure. Uh all right.

Aaron 28:35

So does that carry through to the finish? Because I I feel like we've been slightly off on what we're picking up, but I mean we're gonna be.

Gavin 28:43

Um on the finish, I think it's a medium finish. There's a bit of a mellow tongue to it.

Aaron 28:50

Um it uh it's oaky now, but I was gonna say the the finish makes the palate taste sweeter. Like I didn't notice sweetness on the palate, but as soon as you finish the sip and it turns very tannic oaky, you're like, oh no, the palate was much sweeter than I thought.

Gavin 29:15

Yeah, agreed.

Aaron 29:16

I think we I think we're um I also got a bit of coffee. Like kind of the roasted coffee kind of thing on the finish. I mean, um, and and maybe that's the roasted nuts, roasted coffee, that kind of burnt sugar. Like uh some of those are very similar, um, and they're kind of base uh profiles. All right. Does this mean you're ready to put a number to it though?

Gavin 29:39

Yeah, I think I did we miss anything?

Aaron 29:41

Did you like, oh my god, I got I don't think so. Marzipan, Jordanian almonds.

Gavin 29:49

I'm more of a almond joy kind of guy.

Aaron 29:52

I so from a heat standpoint, because it at 93, it's not a real high proof, but I I thought it drank a bit hot.

Gavin 30:00

Yeah, no, I put spice on the palate. I think I think that that there's some hot haughtiness, hot, hotness.

Aaron 30:09

Is that H-O-T-T or H-A-W-T? P H A T. Fattiness? I don't think that's the word. I don't think that's where you want it. I don't know. Um not shorty, but shoddy. Yeah, I'm with you.

Gavin 30:23

Um yeah, I I think I think it is a little warm for being agreed. And maybe again, that's I swelled swirled it around a little bit. That might be part of it. I didn't just knock it back.

Aaron 30:40

Well, I think sometimes you take a sip of whiskey and the flavors are so prominent and distinct, you don't have to do much digging into it, right? This has got a little depth, but you kind of gotta get in there. So I I think that means you you you gotta leave it, let it linger on the palate just a little bit more. It brings a level of spice. I think that's where some of it. I think there's a youthfulness to it, right? I mean, two years, yeah. I I think I would have loved to see this. I don't know where you put a barrel in Hawaii that's cooler, but yeah, party is like air conditioned the warehouse just to slow that down a little bit, right? Um yeah, I I assume they're facing the same struggles that Texas faces and other hot climates.

Gavin 31:27

Yeah, going back to it, I get a celery note to it.

Aaron 31:35

Like celery seed, celery.

Gavin 31:37

Like a celery stick, yeah. Like maybe, maybe there's some nuttiness, so maybe I'm thinking like Remanian butter and celery.

Aaron 31:45

Yeah, I was interested in ants on a log. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I so thinking back to other hot climate uh whiskeys we've tried. Um there was this idea of hot climate str kind of refurbishing of a cast that has been worn down.

Gavin 32:06

Right.

Aaron 32:06

I I wonder if can't do it with a bourbon, right? Bourbon's gotta be a new barrel. It has to be one of their other options. But I wonder if there's there's tricks they can do to slow down some of that aging process, um, to soften that a little bit. Because I think there still was a youthfulness. But what I will say is sometimes the youth is overpowering, and I don't think it's overpowering here, though. Yeah, I agree. All right, give this one a number, Devin. I'm setting it at 78.

Gavin 32:36

78. That's a fair number. Yeah, I think I think talking about the youthfulness of it. Um I would love to try another expression from them as a comparison.

Aaron 32:53

Yeah, it's a long way to get there. No, I'm teasing it. So I I actually did do some digging. You can buy these from their website. Okay, you can buy this bottle and their standard whiskey release. Uh I'm assuming they're shipping from someplace here in the continental United States.

Gavin 33:12

The mainland.

Aaron 33:13

Yes, yeah, the mainland. Um, so for me, uh I'm at an 82. Okay. And I'll say I think I agreed with your 78. It's right at that edge of like, do you need a bottle in the collection? Do you not need a bottle in the collection, right? And I'll say the uniqueness of it being 100% from Hawaii. Um I think adds to that. I think there's always something cool about a bottle that somebody thought of you and brought back, right? And I think that adds a little bit to it too. So it pushes me up into the yeah, it's cool to have that one on the shelf. I want that one on the shelf. So that puts me at an 82 overall.

Gavin 33:54

All right. 82 for Aaron, 78 for me. It's a zipper. Yeah, yeah. I I I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's fun and it's unique, it's funky. Um, I've never had a whiskey from Hawaii that I can remember for this one.

Aaron 34:13

So I drug out the shirt. You did. I dragged out the wife actually bought this shirt in Hawaii too. So uh like I pulled out all the stops. Um, so we're at that point where we're ready for glass number two. But before we do that, um, check out this quick announcement. For the last couple weeks, we've been teasing a big announcement coming. That's right, the Noble Dram has a barrel pick.

Gavin 34:38

But we don't half-ass anything here. Not just one barrel pick, we got two.

Speaker 1 34:42

Larceny, barrel-proof, and Elijah Craig, barrel-proof.

Aaron 34:46

We want to give a special thanks to the guys at MR Liquor here in Northwest Houston that helped make these barrel picks possible.

Speaker 1 34:54

With them, we've reserved a limited number of each barrel pick for you, our noble listeners.

Aaron 35:00

For everyone who goes online, reserves a bottle before they go on sale to the general public, you get $10 off per bottle.

Gavin 35:09

Follow the link down below in the comments to reserve each one of these bottles.

Aaron 35:13

And don't miss a chance to enjoy two delicious drinks. Cheers. All right, welcome back. We do want to remind you uh that the barrels are coming quickly. So you only got a couple weeks left to do your reservation for a bottle. So make sure it's okay. Hit the pause button. We'll be here when we get back. Go get that taken care of. You don't want to miss out. So I got a splash left, but I got good news. You're gonna give me more whiskey.

Gavin 35:54

Yes. Uh, and I'm stoked about this. I'm gonna put this off the side. Um, so we made mention about your Wii bottle.

Aaron 36:03

It is a it's a very appropriate sized bottle. I don't like your your attitude.

Gavin 36:09

Oh. Well, I need you to make some room. It's not the size of the bottle, it's how you what's up. Oh, it's just I need you to please please do me a favor. Yeah, we gotta we gotta make some room. So my bottle, you know. On previous episodes, we bring the box out or the canister. Yep. This is far more impressive. Yeah, this is you know, size matters sometimes.

Aaron 36:36

So I was trying to think how to say this without being inappropriate. I don't think there is. Yeah, this has got big box energy. Big box, big box store right here. All right, get the bottle out of this thing so you decide to drink it. So, all right, may I may I move this monstrosity out of the way? I would appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Gavin 36:59

So, this bottle is Nelson's Green Briar, Tennessee whiskey, marathon malt. Marathon malt. Marathon malt. I'm intrigued. So this bottle comes from my good friend Justin, who has recently spent some time in Nashville, Tennessee. Uh, and uh not long ago, he said, Hey, let's get together. Uh, his kiddo is just a few months younger than mine, and we got the girls together to go have a play date and surprise me with big bucks and a wonderful new bottle addition to the shelf. So, Justin, thank you so much. Uh super.

Aaron 37:51

This is a nice looking bottle. Yeah, I mean, it presents really well. Oh, this is derailing. I know, so like it's got very much the old-timey feel that means it should come in a wooden box or wooden crate, I maybe maybe more appropriate term. Yeah, everything about this feels period specific.

Gavin 38:15

Agreed. So a little bit about this bottle. We do know the bash fill. Uh 70% corn. So a weak 70% corn compared to your 90% over here. Oh, but I already know where this is going.

Aaron 38:31

I cheated and looked at his notes.

Gavin 38:33

Uh, and we are 30% malted barley. I mean, I could smell greatness as soon as I picked it up, and now I know where it's coming from. The proof on this guy is 103.4. Ooh.

Aaron 38:48

So we're getting back to the point system. Is this a is this a barrel strength, or has this been uh does not say two ones? I think it's 103.4. It's an oddly specific.

Gavin 39:00

It's a good question. I don't know if it's barrel strength. Um, it does not say.

Aaron 39:04

I was gonna say it sounds like an FM radio station, but I think their principal points are always 103.4 Nelson's Greenbrier.

Gavin 39:12

Today's classics. Today's uh so this bottle or this expression is named after the historic neighborhood, Marathon Village, which is in Nashville, and it's also where uh Nelson's Greenbriar uh is currently located. To tell a little bit of background on Nelson's Greenbriar, it was founded originally by Charles Nelson back in the 1800s, um, and it became one of the foremost whiskey distilleries of its time. Uh, there's some fascinating history actually about Charles Nelson and his family. Like pretty, pretty like iconic and like they were sketchy. Ruffians. One of the things uh there they came from Germany and his dad, I believe So yes. I believe so yes. Uh his father owned, I believe it was like a soap uh and candle store, and decided to move to the United States for a better life. And so basically sold everything, melted or got gold, or melted everything down to gold, and then sailed across to the the US. Well, there was a big storm that hit, and Charles's dad went over overboard, right, and was full of gold.

Aaron 40:44

Yeah, he had sewn it into his jacket. So I'm gonna I'm gonna divulge a little bit of the secret. This nor this I don't know if this has happened yet. I've actually toured the Greenbrier distillery, so I've heard the story while we were there, and uh yeah, like he he was afraid somebody'd steal his gold, so he had like secret pockets sewn into his suit, and he wore the suit everywhere he was going, so he always had on. And when the boat, like he I don't remember if the boat did the boat sink, or he just got the edge, he just got over some. Yeah, there's several people that got knocked over, and he went over the edge with a suit weighted down full of gold and couldn't swim enough to keep himself above water with the weight of a jacket full of gold. Yeah, yeah, it's a tough way to go down. Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't in this dynamic. I don't know which is worse. Like you could you could be Charles in a weighted down suit of gold in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean swimming for your life, or you could be his family sitting on the boat watching everything you have sink with dad. Like, oh neither of those are good sports.

Gavin 41:57

Um so Charles, uh I believe was like 15 at the time, um, and did a few things, butcher, uh sold coffee, we had a grocery store, uh, meats, coffee, whiskey, all those fun things. The whiskey started taking off, and again, became like this massive success for Tennessee whiskey. He passed away, and his wife took over ownership. And she at the time was one of the only women that had this kind of um kind of prestige of a job for a whiskey distillery. So she was a pioneer, I guess you could say, in kind of the whisk whiskey in women. Um, however, what happened during prohibition, right? Misfortune happened through most of the United States, and the distillery closed.

Aaron 43:01

Yeah, I was gonna say they were not one of the ones that got the medicinal license thing, and it pretty much was a death sentence for your distillery.

Gavin 43:10

Exactly. Fast forward basically a hundred years, and Charles' three times great-grandsons were on a trip, found out some history about their great-great-great-grandfather, and were fascinated by it, and decided they were going to devote their time and energy on resurrecting this lost distillery. Right. So back in 2006, I think, or is when they really started learning more about their family history, and then in believe it took about three years to reopen the distillery. So in 2009 is when they fully opened.

Aaron 43:58

Yeah. Um I'm shocked at how much your internet research matches my memory of Mature. Because this is, I was like, yeah, this is a great story.

Gavin 44:09

I mean, it's fascinating to me that um, like I love the idea of lost distilleries. We talked about that on a previous episode. And the family catches wind of the historic nature of it, and then they resurrect the distillery and they kind of make it their own, but it's kind of going back into their legate family legacy and finding out some of this information. And it's fun for me. Like I love this kind of stuff.

Aaron 44:40

Yeah, well, so I'll add like well, one of the crazier anecdotes I caught in the tour that I thought was really cool is for those who don't know the name Delson Greenbar, because right up until recently it was kind of a forgotten name. When they first started their process of building the distillery and stuff, they were outsourcing the distilling so they could start aging stuff away. And they were contracted with the Belmade Distillery, right? Which was a name we we've all known for some time. And shortly after Greenbrier opens, the Bellmead distillery has a fire, if my memory serves right, and had some pretty significant damage. And so Belmade then contracts Nelson Greenbrier to be their distillery to make Belmade while they figure out what to do with a now burnt-up distillery. Uh, and ultimately Bellmead decided not to reopen. And so Nelson Greenbrier made Belmade for several years and then eventually took over that brand. Um, and then just here recently shelved the brand and moved that product line into the standard Greenbrier stuff. Um, yeah, I was I was fascinated by the kind of interconnection because like you hear a lot about that in Kentucky, right? But in Tennessee, you didn't hear as much about that kind of interconnection between places. And I also when I was first kind of learning to love bourbons, like Bill Mead was one of the ones I always enjoyed that. You get the little three half pack half bottle pack, and it was their standard, and then the I think there was a sherry cask and a something else cast that all came in a box and you got to write, and it was like having your own little tasting set. And I I remember thinking that was pretty fancy stuff like that. So I derail.

Gavin 46:46

Yeah, we're gonna do we're gonna zoom back in here.

Aaron 46:49

I said the story will lead itself wherever it goes, right? I just I'm just following.

Gavin 46:54

Yeah, there we go. As we've kind of talked through, as we're nosing and something and tasting and all those fun things. I want to know. Do you have a thing when you're traveling on vacation that you just have to have to bring back as your souvenir? And it cannot be whiskey. Is there something else?

Aaron 47:21

Ha! That was the obvious answer, right? So uh yeah, I I kind of made this little thing a while back when I first started visiting distilleries. I was like, man, I really want like the tasting glass, right? Some places give you a glass that's got their logo on it, and when you get to the end, you're like in your pocket. Um, some of them were like, no, no, sure. Or two or three. Yeah, yeah. You can just walk in that. You always wear, always wear cargo pants to do a distillery. So you need to walk out with extra stuff. No, I'm teasing. Um, yeah, and so it turned into collecting Glen Karens. And so it was really fun because you came home and and somebody came over for a whiskey, and I was like, Oh, I'm gonna let you let you have a sip out of my Angels Envy Glen Karen, or I'll let you have a sip out of my Logavulin Glencaren. Like, oh man, this is so cool. You got a glass from you get to tell them the story about you. This is a distillery. Um well, it also became a thing that people wanted to get for you. They're like, hey, we visited a distillery, and so we brought you this. And you're like, oh well, like I don't have a story with that glass now. And then I ran out of shelf space because I was like, Oh, yeah, I'll line up here. I was like, I now I got more than there. And now I'm well, I have to decide am I gonna put a bottle on the shelf or am I gonna put a glass on the shelf? I have more Glenn Karen's that have the name of a distillery on them than I have just regular Glenn Karen's that I actually drink out of. Um, and it's got to the point now where we're like, this is too much. I got I've got to stop doing this. So I've I've now subsequently stopped doing it. Um, the fun one when my kids were little, this is this is way back when. Um, do you remember the the little machines where you put in 50 cents and then one penny and then you crank the thing up? Yeah, yeah, and it would smash the penny into a picture of Mount Rushmore or whatever national park you're at or whatever. Um I actually found out they make books that have a little sleeve for you to put these in. Um, and so my kids did it. It was I've got too many kids, right? And so you had to you had to you had to work towards cheap gifts, and this was 51 cents, right? Is what it cost you. Um, and my nephew for years used to carry around a Ziploc bag of quarters and pennies, right? So if they were at a place and they had a machine, that's that's what he kept his mem his memories in, uh, was those. And so those were the two I had. I I've known people that shot glasses, I've known people that did um spoons from every state they visited. Uh old people do thimbles. I don't I don't understand thimbles. Um we grew up in an age, I I shouldn't say we, I grew up in an age, I grew up in an age which like hard rock cafe t-shirts from the town you visited, right? That was the way you showed off to everybody that you'd been to Fort Lauderdale. Is that you had the Hard Rock Cafe Fort Lauderdale or Harley Davidson? Um older siblings and ours, not mine, right? I I I'm oldest, but um had friends who had like older brothers and stuff, they would have the Hooters t-shirt from whatever town, right? And that was the way you just kind of wandered around. I also grew up in an age that if you went skiing, you'd left the lift ticket on the zipper, so everybody knew you'd gone skiing on your jacket all winter long. And so it was a it was a big deal to let everybody know the skipping. Starter jacket. Whatever wherever you'd visited, everybody knew you had gone there. Um, so yeah, those those are the kinds of things. But for me, it was it was glasses. Um I I am much more of the opinion now because I've gotten older. Um, I would rather have one big souvenir from a trip than six trinkets from places that I just like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with this when we get home. Um, so uh I'm more apt to look at art. Um, my dad, my dad went on vacation, came home with a grandfather clock. I mean, not necessarily carry-on. I mean he had a ship, but like, but now like every time the clock tolls, you're like, oh yeah, like that a little bit of a memory of that. Um, so I would much rather furnish my home or fit out my home or something like that. Um and so now it's it's an art piece to hang here in the whiskey room, like that kind of stuff is the things I tend to look for on trips, um, more than than trinkety things, which only means that I spend more now than I ever did on trinkety stuff. But that's you know, what do you think?

Gavin 52:01

For sure.

Aaron 52:02

All right, so hold up. I I don't know if I fully answered that. You asked, is there something you do? And then I spent a lot of time talking about things I don't do. Um I think I touched a little bit on the things I do, but my my question is when you go, we've all been there, right? The gift shop in Times Square, and you walk in and it's just full of stuff, or the gift shop at the cruise terminal in Cozumel, or wherever, right? And you walk in and you look around the room and you're like, I cannot believe people pay money for this. Like, what is that thing? You're just like appalled that that's a collectible. Oh man, I hope this doesn't get no, just piss half of the audience off right now. Just let them know that whatever they like is stupid.

Gavin 52:59

I would say stupid per se.

Aaron 53:01

No, no, no. Um, they're stupid for liking it. I understand what you're saying.

Gavin 53:05

Like, I gotta be careful here. I don't want to get in trouble. Um I'm a guy, I like, let me just say this. There are a few places that I want to remember the sand or the dirt, right? When we when we live in Scotland, I brought home a bunch of sand. And we've used it in different parts of our aquarium that you put it in?

Aaron 53:32

No, like um I feel like if you own an aquarium, if you were a fish guy, that would make a ton of sense.

Gavin 53:39

Like, I where are you putting sander on the house? Like, we've got like a bowl up on the bookshelf that's got some shells that we got from Scotland, and so it's its own little thing.

Aaron 53:50

Is there a Celtic ritual where you sprinkle sand across your doorway or something?

Gavin 53:55

Maybe. Um, we've got some like incense stuff that like I set it in on the sand, and so it kind of helps make sure.

Aaron 54:03

So now the sand smells like do you have a like one of those little rakes in a garden? You know me too well a little bit.

Gavin 54:12

Is it is it is it something unusual about the sand? No, it's just that like I want to touch Scotland. I want to touch Scotland. Oh, okay. So there's a little bit of that, but that's that's an experience for for me and my wife, right? Like we we brought that back. It's your it's your shared thing. It's it's our shared thing. But somebody else bringing me a bottle of sand from someplace they visited.

Aaron 54:47

I you you can buy at the gift shop somebody's already put sand in a bottle. Right. I don't you don't even know if that sand's from the place you're visiting. It's probably from China, it's probably from Lowe's. Just the playground bag of sand.

Gavin 55:02

No, I so like, or or somebody brought me a seashell from whatever distance place that they went to. Like, I I like seashells, but I I want I want the experience of going and picking those seashells.

Aaron 55:19

Yes. Here is the inherent problem with somebody else's souvenirs. I think you hit this on the head. Regardless of what it is, it's designed as a souvenir to come home. That it reminds you of the trip you went on. Right. If you're bringing it back to somebody else, it's a gift. It's not a souvenir, it's a gift. And there's nothing about your vacation that means anything to me. Right? Like, I don't, I'm not, I'm not being I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, but like you think back of sitting on the beach.

Gavin 55:56

Uh it was your drinking a Mac Mai Thai.

Aaron 55:59

It was your honeymoon and you were having you hardly left the room. Whatever it is, like you like the thing you remember about that trip, looking at your souvenir reminds you of that. When I sit in my house and look at your souvenir, none of that comes to mind. I didn't go on that trip. Yeah, it's it's it's one of those that has always perplexed me why people buy things that are location branded specifically and then give them away to other people. Like they weren't there. They it means nothing to them. And most of the time you see people do it, it's an item that is $3.99 at the gift shop. And you're like, you're just throwing away $4.

Gavin 56:41

Right. I'd rather you buy chocolate from bring me a snack. Bring me a snack that is only made in that location.

Aaron 56:49

Those little tortuga rum cakes that you can buy at every every cruise stop everywhere in the Caribbean. Bring me one of those. I would enjoy eating one of those. And then it's over. I don't have to look at it anymore in my house.

Gavin 57:02

But I get to experience your vacation because I I got to I got to taste it. I like I'd rather I'd rather eat it or experience it. Have an experience like a like a bottle of whiskey. Like that's an experience that I get to share with you. So I how do you feel about postcards? I'm okay with postcards. I like postcards because I'm older than you. I grew up old school. That was the only way to talk to people when they're on the game. Like, um, we've gotten postcards from like my sister-in-law that's that's um send stuff to to my daughter, right? And I think that that's a fun way of like hey, thinking about you.

Aaron 57:46

So a dollar thirty, you can let somebody know this is what I'm looking at wherever I happen to be, and I'm thinking of you all like that is perfectly sprinkle a little whiskey on it.

Gavin 57:57

Oh, just saturate the card when you're done. And then I get to smell it at the end. Like I'm okay with that. I so it's even better.

Aaron 58:04

Growing up as kids, we had we had uh a retired couple that live next door. Uh they were kind of pseudo-grandparents, if you will. Um, and they would often take like month-long journeys to places, and we would get a postcard from every place they stopped along the way. And so we kept an index card box of all of the all of the states they'd visited, all of the various countries. I my problem is most of my vacations are so short that I have to write the postcard in the airplane on the way to so I can mail it, so it's postmarked wherever we land. And then I've not seen any of the things we're going to. You have to send it the moment you get there, or else you beat the postcard back. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I I like the idea of we live in too instantaneous a world to wait six days to hear about what somebody's doing. It doesn't make sense anymore.

Gavin 58:58

But I I I would disagree with you there because I think um if you write it while you're in a hotel room or whatever, and you're and you're describing what you your daily event, and you're like, man, I I was thinking about you, like this is I, you know, this is what we did. I beat the postcard back, but the thought of them taking the time and writing a handwritten thing.

Aaron 59:26

Everything about this is Jeff. Is me is I'm picturing you like this is the old West, like rented the room above the tavern, and you're sitting at the little wooden desk in the corner with a candle, riding with a feather quill, and it's my dearest Gwendolyn. It has been a fortnight since I seen you last. Like, that's what I'm picturing. Never think about you riding a buscard in your hotel room. I'm sure it was a holiday and express, and I'm sure it's the ballpoint pen that was setting on the nightstand. Like, I understand that's not really what I but that's all I can picture now.

Gavin 1:00:03

Oh man. That's funny.

Aaron 1:00:06

You're gonna ask me about whiskey, and I got too caught up talking, and I did not write enough stuff to. Oh my gosh. Well, then I'll go. No, no, so I I if you start with the nose and you don't say vanilla, you're wrong. I didn't write vanilla. I get vanilla. There's so much vanilla on the beginning of this nose. Um I it's funny to me because like into the palate, into the finish, right? Like, I don't get as much of it. But every time I come back, I'm like, yeah, it's just vanilla. It's vanilla extract. Um every time I every time I pull the glass up. I this would be delicious in an old-fashioned. I'm sure it's way too pricey to put it in an old-fashioned, but this would make a delicious old physic.

Gavin 1:00:51

I think it would be great in an old-fashioned. Um, I think it stands pretty well on its own.

Aaron 1:00:59

Um I do, I wasn't, I wasn't insulting my whiskey when I said green. I was thinking the the that vanilla-y note, I think would go beautifully in that cocktail.

Gavin 1:01:11

Um, I I went to like the cereal note. I think that the you know, we talk about the cereal factor, we've talked about it several times. I think there's a lot of cereal grain notes to this. It reminded me a lot of um even a loaf of bread. Like a fresh loaf of bread. Uh, I think there's some like this is gonna sound weird. Some dirt earthiness note.

Aaron 1:01:41

I'm not sure. I'm kind of I'm ending cookie over bread. Cookie? But maybe that's the vanilla in your talk. Like what kind of cookie? Um, so I'm not a big chocolate guy. And I know we've had this conversation, and I you think I'm weird about this. Um, like nobody makes cookie. They make chocolate chip cookie. I like no chocolate chips. I was like, what are you talking about?

Gavin 1:02:09

No one makes cookie.

Aaron 1:02:11

No, but like they all make something else. They're like, oh, if it doesn't have chocolate chips, it's got walnuts and raisins or oatmeal or peanut butter. Like, you know, I just I just want cookie. The cookie that surrounds the chocolate chip chunks is my absolute favorite thing. Um, I will say the time to cook a chocolate chip cookie and the time to cook a cookie, not the same. Be very careful. I my wife, my every so often, your significant other, wife or husband, or our uh boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it is, right? Um, will do something that just expresses how much they love you. And my wife now makes cookie. She will she will make all of the batter, then separate some out for me, and then mix chocolate chips in for the rest of the family, and she'll make chocolate chip cookies for everybody else, and she'll make one batch of cookie just for me. But yeah, singular. She has to change the the timing and the temperature and all that kind of stuff to get it to work. So you gotta you gotta play with that a little bit, but I'm telling you, they're delicious.

Gavin 1:03:19

I feel like that's a challenge we need to have cookie on the episode.

Aaron 1:03:24

I I'm gonna tell you cookie and whiskey goes great together.

Gavin 1:03:28

All right. Well, I'm gonna have to talk with your wife and make the thing up.

Aaron 1:03:32

I uh before we get off the nose and head on to the thing. Um, old leather. Not not like new boot store, right? Sometimes you get that real rich leather. This is old leather. On the nose? Yeah. I was struggling to try to place that, and it wasn't until here right at the end that I it it clicked for me.

Gavin 1:03:53

Are you thinking like wallet, shoe, baseball?

Aaron 1:03:58

Old pair of boots. Old pair of cowboy boots. Okay, like um upside down on a fence post, been out in the weather. Like a weathered leather, whiskey weathered boots. Yeah, I mean, yeah. I got no problem with that idea. Whose beds have your boots been under? Um dare I say one of the better Shania Twain songs. I mean, what's better than that song? If you say I feel like a woman, don't worry about you. It's the number two song of hers. Yeah. Of hers. But no, whose bed have your boots been under isn't a great song. Uh okay. I feel obligated to put a link to that song on Spotify or something in the comments. I'll figure it out.

Gavin 1:04:45

Uh you know, I couldn't disagree with that idea of old leather cowboy boots. Um I still get just a lot of like cereal green notes on it. Oakiness on the nose.

Aaron 1:05:02

If you think I'm wrong, say I'm wrong.

Gavin 1:05:05

Actually, you're not gonna hurt my feelings. To go back to your cookie reference, there's a bit of like an oatmeal cookie note that I can get on it.

Aaron 1:05:14

No raisin, though. No raisin, but again, a cookie that doesn't exist. It's oatmeal. Oatmeal cookie. Hold the raisin. All right, on the palate, uh-huh. I I I get a mild oakiness. All right, I I think that on old poly road, the oak was a little sharper. Right? A little more tannic. This is a little softer oak and almost more charred. There's a bit of charcoal y kind of oak to it. Reminds me a bit of the smoker running. I won't say it's smoky, but like the smell of ash. All right.

Gavin 1:05:56

Um, I think there's A bit of spice to it.

Aaron 1:06:02

Um, I think compared to the first one, though, it's really mild spice. The first one was really spicy compared to this one.

Gavin 1:06:09

I think the other one was hotter at a lower proof. But maybe the spices more of a baking spice or a cinnamon spice. Um there's I I do get more of that kind of traditional bourbon caramel.

Aaron 1:06:31

But it's not sweet. I wouldn't I wouldn't say sweet. I I'm I'm with you. It's got bourbon y things, right? Um, but not in the same profile that you typically think of bourbon. It just dawned on me that that we picked two whiskeys, dumb luck, that are corn and barley.

Gavin 1:06:56

Yeah. We did not plan that at all. That's weird. Um so on the finish, how are you feeling on the finish?

Aaron 1:07:08

So first thing I wrote down is this is much more oily. Almost in the way that I it tastes oily. Not just feels, but tastes oily. Um again, I get charred oak. I get that kind of I'll say much more of a drying vanilla note. Um this is not as this is not as tannic as the old Bolly Road, but it has hints of like mild tannic oakiness to it, right? Um, I'm actually shocked at how dark this bottle is. Yeah. Um I'm assuming do we have an age on it? I don't recall us having age.

Gavin 1:07:51

It didn't say an age. No age statement. I my sleuthing says it's about six years, but I don't know if that's totally believe that.

Aaron 1:08:00

And I think this is the difference in climate and stuff, but I actually if you blindfolded me, put them in a black Glenn Karen, so I couldn't see the excuse me, the color. I'd have said old Poly Road was significantly darker in appearance without being able to see it. This is much darker than I expect out of its flavor profile. I thought the flavor profile was a little more muted. Okay.

Gavin 1:08:28

On the finish for me, I thought that there was a bit of creaminess to it. I I compared it to like a nutty bar or nutty buddy. I think there's some nuttiness to it that was more so than anything I got on the old poly road. Um could say it's a little smoother or more rounded out.

Aaron 1:08:54

This distinctly tastes like it has more age. Yeah. Of the two. I it's it's not even close.

Gavin 1:09:00

Uh this is something that there's still a little bit of spicy bite to it, but it's not punch in the face.

Aaron 1:09:12

Yeah, I what I'll say is I'm a little surprised at how much I think the malted barley carries through. I mean, 30% is quite a bit, right? I'm surprised the corn doesn't overpower it a little more than it does. Um I mean, I guess we're kind of talking overall, so we're heading towards a number here. I I think it's got a bit of that charcoal thing. I'm assuming this has gone through the Lincoln County process. It has, right? So I think you get a bit of that kind of charred oak or charred maple um smokiness that comes through in that. So I get that. Um I'll say if you're if you're doing compare and contrast, one is young and hot, one is older and more mellow, um, one is more bold, one is a little more rounded out. Rounded out. I don't know if there's an intelligence difference between the two. Um, yeah, so I we get to this point, I gotta put a number. I'm in an 81. Um, I'll say it's right at that edge of like, do I want a bottle? Do I not want a bottle? I like the uniqueness of the grain profile. It is distinctly different than classic bourbons. Um, it is certainly not a single malt, right? Like it it's this kind of weird hybrid thing going on. Um, and I think that in and of itself pushes it just a little above 80 to be in the collection. Um, it's not one that I'll say, like, oh my god, that was delicious. I I just want to sit and drink the bottle. It's a uniqueness that I like to have experience, but I don't know if it's one I'm gonna race to as a daily zipper, so to speak. So I'm in an 81. All right.

Gavin 1:11:07

Well, tell me I'm wrong. For this bottle, I think it's a bit of a marathon.

Aaron 1:11:15

Did you think the do you think the finish was long though? Well, it's the marathon implies that.

Gavin 1:11:20

Marathon malt?

Aaron 1:11:21

I know what you were doing. I was just like I was trying to figure out if he actually had anything to that or just a namesake.

Gavin 1:11:27

Just a namesake. No, um, I think that for me, this one is a little bit fun and funky. Um, it's not a single malt. Uh, it's not um punch in the face bourbon. It's it's kind of just different. Uh, and so I gave it an 87. Get your peanuts there. Yeah.

Aaron 1:11:52

I need it another. I get your peanuts. Um yeah, excuse me, what did you on the finish? It's got a little roasted peanut thing going on. Agreed. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. Sorry.

Gavin 1:12:02

So it's it's an enough, there's there's enough uniqueness to it that if you had a chance to get this bottle while you were at the distillery, because this is a exclusive, you could only get it at the distillery.

Aaron 1:12:16

That probably warrants a couple points that I didn't know.

Gavin 1:12:19

Yeah, exactly. So I think yeah, I want it on my shelf.

Aaron 1:12:25

Yeah, I think anytime it's a bottle you can't buy anywhere else except for the distillery, having one on your shelf coming, it's a little source of pride. So I think it yeah, I think that warrants a couple points. Unfortunately, it's not on my shelf.

Gavin 1:12:36

Too bad, so sad.

Aaron 1:12:38

Yeah. Only if you need somebody. This is one of those that I'm gonna have to come over to your house and drink it somewhere. Exactly.

Gavin 1:12:44

I know. All right, I'm in. I'm in. Okay, that actually begs a whole nother question about re-gifting.

Aaron 1:12:50

Yeah, no, we don't have time. We don't have time. We don't have time. We'll do a regift another time. We'll do a regifting episode. Um, well, I mean, a little bit of what we just did was re-gift. We regifted it with you, our noble listeners. All right. 87, 81. Um, let me say uh thank you all for going on this with us. Uh one of the fun parts of souvenirs is it gives you a chance to kind of re-experience stuff. And even though we didn't get to go on either of these trips, uh, this was uh an opportunity for us to be there uh by proxy, if you will. So um let me first say thank you for to to both people who thought of us in this instance, but those anybody that has that has shown up with a bottle on our port saying that we thought of you and wanted to share, there is no greater compliment uh for a whiskey lover than I thought of you and I wanted you to try this. So uh to that, we bid you adieu until next week. Cheers.

Gavin 1:13:58

We want to thank you, our noble listener, for joining us. We believe each whiskey has a story, and so do you. So give us your thoughts by leaving a comment. And if you have a whiskey you would like to see us share, let us know. You don't want to miss a single episode, so subscribe to our YouTube channel and make sure to like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to stay up to date on the Noble Drama.

Speaker 5 1:14:16

If you find watching us difficult, you can always listen to each episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. As always, be noble and enjoy your journey responsibly.