TRANSCRIPT 🔗
WEBVTT
00:03.012 --> 00:06.328
Incredible flavours, even better stories. One Pour,
00:06.875 --> 00:10.642
10 Minutes. Aussie bourbon lovers sharing bourbon with Australia.
00:13.780 --> 00:16.630
Well, it's an absolute honour to have Kerryn and Jack from Honey Barrel.
00:17.016 --> 00:18.933
Thank you for having us. In the studio with us, actually. This is so cool.
00:19.432 --> 00:22.508
And we're cracking something that we picked up at Kentucky Bourbon Festival. I know,
00:22.813 --> 00:26.000
hasn't been opened before. Let me do the pop noise. You ready? Oh, is it
00:26.500 --> 00:30.068
gonna pop, Dave? Oh, that's quite good. That was great.
00:30.165 --> 00:33.618
This is Kentucky Boy. So this is Brown-Forman. It's celebrating Chris
00:34.118 --> 00:37.473
Morris. I think it's 50 years of Chris Morris being the
00:37.698 --> 00:41.649
master distiller, and now he's the master distiller emeritus at
00:42.149 --> 00:46.242
Brown-Forman. And what they did is they took whiskey,
00:47.206 --> 00:52.346
not going to let up there, from 3
00:52.846 --> 00:57.370
of their big expressions that Chris was so fundamental in doing. So King Kentucky,
00:57.870 --> 01:01.630
Birthday Bourbon from Old Forester, and Woodford Double Oaked. Yeah. Hey, cheers,
01:02.130 --> 01:04.290
lads. Cheers. Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks for coming on. It's really cool to be
01:04.790 --> 01:07.910
trying it. Yeah. So 3 individual bourbons that, well, I haven't, oh, I have
01:08.410 --> 01:11.350
tried the Birthday Bourbon before. Yeah. But I don't,
01:11.850 --> 01:15.610
yeah. And I tried King Kentucky Evergreen once. Yes, yeah. And then obviously
01:16.110 --> 01:18.370
Double Oaked is really easy to get in Australia, so we've got quite a lot
01:18.870 --> 01:21.560
of that. So the birch is, it's very honey on the nose. I get like
01:22.060 --> 01:24.500
a pancake, like a maple syrup and pancakes on the nose. I get like a
01:25.000 --> 01:28.110
very barbecuey, like a sweet barbecue sauce, like sweet rays,
01:28.120 --> 01:31.660
just front of the palate. Do you know my immediate reaction?
01:31.700 --> 01:34.420
This sounds a little bit too cynical, doesn't it? But it's just like, wow,
01:34.920 --> 01:39.240
they used a lot of the double-oaked. Yeah. I was
01:39.740 --> 01:42.920
saying before we started, Woodford Double Oak was one of the bourbons that
01:43.420 --> 01:46.760
got me into something above your Mark
01:47.260 --> 01:49.980
Corrin, your basic stuff. Woodford Double Oak was the one where I was like,
01:50.480 --> 01:54.320
oh, Okay, maybe there's something to this. And that was, so seeing it in
01:54.820 --> 01:57.640
this, it's pretty cool. It's really cool. And it's such a good profile. It's a
01:58.140 --> 02:00.500
bit, yeah. And it's kind of got that lovely silkiness to it. I love it.
02:00.860 --> 02:04.900
It's so drinkable. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like,
02:05.400 --> 02:08.620
yes. Yeah, yeah. Double Lake, sometimes it's a bit too chunky. It's almost like it's
02:09.120 --> 02:12.260
so desserty and it's so much like a big sticky date pudding or something.
02:12.760 --> 02:15.780
You feel like, oh, I can't have too much of that. But yeah, this is
02:16.280 --> 02:19.110
a lovely, A lovely balance. Apparently he didn't get to taste it before they bottled
02:19.610 --> 02:22.130
it. That's what I've heard. Yeah, that's the rumour. Well, Jim Gaffigan was doing a
02:22.630 --> 02:24.570
bit about that, wasn't he? Yeah. Who knows if it's true or not? I'm sure
02:25.070 --> 02:28.770
it's true. He knows his stuff. But there's some interesting
02:29.270 --> 02:31.950
kind of weird stories about this. One of them is that on the first day
02:32.450 --> 02:36.150
of KBF, they didn't know, punters,
02:36.650 --> 02:39.110
fans didn't know how much of it there was. So people queued for 2.5 hours
02:39.610 --> 02:43.010
for this thing. And then we rocked up the next day and Yeah. Just waltzed
02:43.510 --> 02:45.830
in and they're like, how many bottles do you want? We had to say one.
02:46.250 --> 02:48.760
They're like, oh, you're allowed 2 each. And we're like, we can only take one.
02:49.890 --> 02:53.770
Without a lower threat as well. People are like, what do
02:54.270 --> 02:57.670
you mean? It's a long way back to Melbourne. It's what happens when you travel
02:58.170 --> 02:59.260
and you've got to have a suitcase. You've got to fit it in a suitcase.
03:00.310 --> 03:03.810
And that's it. Because this is like a historic label as well, right? Like they're
03:04.310 --> 03:06.890
bringing it back for— Right. They've resurrected the brand. Yeah. Yep.
03:07.390 --> 03:10.910
Yep. Yep. And So the story goes, it's not a story,
03:11.410 --> 03:14.990
but what they're saying is that there's only that whatever that release is, that's it.
03:15.490 --> 03:16.910
They sold as much as they could at KBF and then they'll sell the rest
03:17.410 --> 03:20.250
at the distillery. And once it's done, it's done. They won't do any more with
03:20.750 --> 03:22.870
it. I mean, they would've sold pretty much all of it at KBF, right?
03:23.370 --> 03:26.370
I was, they would've sold a fair bit of it. Yeah. A large portion of
03:26.870 --> 03:28.630
it went. What was the retail price, if you don't mind me asking for this?
03:29.130 --> 03:32.430
$100 US for this? Okay. Yep. Yep. I think that's,
03:32.930 --> 03:35.103
I think that's how it sold. Yeah. There's some people saying they think it's too
03:35.603 --> 03:38.530
much. They think it should be closer to $60, which I don't know enough about.
03:39.126 --> 03:42.824
I would be happy with $100, to be honest. See, I think as I'm
03:43.324 --> 03:46.018
just sat with it, it's got a really long finish. It sticks around.
03:48.179 --> 03:52.708
But I could see some bourbon drinkers not liking it because the finish is
03:52.724 --> 03:55.818
not very bourbon-like. It actually goes more towards
03:55.834 --> 03:59.383
that single malt, that sherried finish for me
Load full transcript
at least. It transitions.
04:00.272 --> 04:04.120
Yeah, it is very nice. For me, it's definitely something I'd
04:04.185 --> 04:07.729
like to drink, but it's just that classic Old Forester
04:08.229 --> 04:11.498
profile. It's just a lot of what I like about it. Big dessert
04:11.998 --> 04:15.090
notes in there. Like I said, I get a maple syrup and pancakes on the
04:15.590 --> 04:18.281
nose. It's almost like you want to pour it on your pancakes. It smells great.
04:18.474 --> 04:22.226
And then on the palate, again, it's that big maple
04:22.726 --> 04:26.027
syrup, big caramel. It's very classic bourbon in a lot of ways, but it's like,
04:26.370 --> 04:30.100
all the bourbon notes you want in like a— I'm getting like orange peel,
04:30.600 --> 04:34.080
like, I get that, like a cooked orange peel. Yeah,
04:34.580 --> 04:37.980
yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, I like sometimes toasted orange peel, is that a
04:38.480 --> 04:41.880
thing? Or flambé, you know, when they like set fire to them, put it on
04:42.380 --> 04:45.820
the side of your cocktail, like a fancy one. Yeah, yeah, because sometimes
04:46.320 --> 04:48.560
it's nice just to— I think it sits in that like bracket of like you
04:49.060 --> 04:52.540
can pour it, it's really good, you don't feel like you're drinking something like low
04:53.040 --> 04:56.099
end. No. But it's not like super challenging in the sense it's gonna like give
04:56.599 --> 04:58.880
you heartburn or it's gonna be like a really big whisky. Like, it is just
04:59.380 --> 05:02.620
a really good sipping whisky. I think you'd be disappointed if you compare it to
05:03.120 --> 05:06.460
King of Kentucky. Other than that, it is fantastic. So it's not
05:06.960 --> 05:10.580
King of Kentucky. Yeah. I think that's very almost clever marketing that they've put some
05:11.080 --> 05:14.360
King of Kentucky in there, because it makes everyone kind of
05:14.860 --> 05:17.660
go, pardon what? It's as close as some of us will ever get. Yeah.
05:18.160 --> 05:21.414
And I've never tried King of Kentucky, so I'm like, yeah, this It is a
05:21.914 --> 05:25.389
good profile. Perfect proof. Yeah. And I think my memory of King Kentucky
05:25.421 --> 05:28.755
is that it's just ridiculously
05:28.771 --> 05:32.698
well balanced, like every bourbon that you could possibly want. Massive finish,
05:33.515 --> 05:37.009
beautifully rounded, complex, and lovely, and right exactly
05:37.041 --> 05:40.407
where you want it. Kind of drinks like what
05:40.907 --> 05:42.683
I think of as a perfect bourbon. And this one, it doesn't have enough of
05:43.183 --> 05:46.867
that. To me, this is almost too much of the going into that desserty,
05:46.899 --> 05:50.370
double oaky, I don't know if it's too complex or whatever that
05:50.870 --> 05:54.230
thing is, but it's got too much. Yeah. And I think I'm probably coming at
05:54.730 --> 05:57.970
it from an angle of, in Australia, we don't have all of the
05:58.470 --> 06:02.150
Old Forester range all of the time. So it's like, I cling onto all
06:02.650 --> 06:04.710
of the Old Forester that I can get. I'm like, that's great. I love it.
06:05.210 --> 06:06.960
Because I do, I enjoy it. And I think this to me is like,
06:07.170 --> 06:10.790
I can see how people in the US are like, there's maybe something better to
06:11.290 --> 06:15.110
buy for your $100. I get that. Sure. Maybe the 1910 for that price.
06:15.610 --> 06:18.070
But if you say to me, you could buy a bottle of that in Australia
06:18.570 --> 06:21.500
for I don't know what it translates to, but 150,
06:22.000 --> 06:26.360
160, 170, somewhere in there. Oh yeah, sure. I enjoy
06:26.860 --> 06:30.900
that. Thank you for sharing it with us. Thanks for coming in.
06:31.400 --> 06:34.520
Having a chance to join us. What do you think about these things where
06:35.020 --> 06:38.360
the distilleries will release something? There's a limited time
06:38.860 --> 06:41.900
offering where they're kind of putting something out there,
06:42.580 --> 06:45.135
kind of bringing back an old label or something like that. I mean, this hasn't
06:45.635 --> 06:47.640
been done a lot before, I suppose, where they're really resurrecting an old brand.
06:48.154 --> 06:51.686
But to me, there's a marketing play behind it. It's a PR
06:52.186 --> 06:55.395
story. It's great that it's a testament to Chris and his work
06:55.895 --> 06:59.490
and stuff, but is it too much of a marketing, a shot at marketing,
06:59.554 --> 07:02.797
or are they genuinely trying to make a great whisky? See, I sit
07:03.297 --> 07:06.073
on the side of someone like Chris has done so much for the industry.
07:06.234 --> 07:08.947
I'm like, if you can do something special and there's the option to bring back
07:09.447 --> 07:13.329
a label, do it. Sure. And I think Old Forester have been a brand that
07:14.003 --> 07:16.941
they've got their limited releases, like Birthday Bourbon's a pretty hard release to get,
07:17.037 --> 07:20.584
and they'll throw in the odd thing like the ranch bottle that they had and
07:21.084 --> 07:24.356
things like that, but they've been pretty sparing, I think, with lots of
07:24.856 --> 07:27.614
new labels. So I think if you can do something cool for someone like Chris,
07:27.662 --> 07:31.337
I'm all for it. And I think stuff like KBF, I'm a
07:31.837 --> 07:34.226
big fan of as well, because I'm like, although I wish I was there every
07:34.726 --> 07:36.905
year and it's hard to watch from from the other side of the planet.
07:37.018 --> 07:40.288
But it's, I'm like, whatever keeps the market exciting
07:40.320 --> 07:43.927
and whatever keeps it interesting and keeps people engaged with it. Like, I'm all for
07:44.427 --> 07:47.791
it. Especially when they can follow it up with good bourbon. It'd be different if
07:48.291 --> 07:51.670
it was like all about the old label and all the, and then it was
07:52.103 --> 07:55.998
terrible. You'd be like, well, that's it. But
they've delivered on
07:56.030 --> 07:59.413
really good stuff. Yeah. It's like, tell a story, tell a story, right? Like,
07:59.477 --> 08:03.750
yeah. Like tell Chris's story, tell the Kentucky Boy story,
08:04.250 --> 08:07.990
blending the 3 products that have each got their own, I guess, little backstory
08:08.490 --> 08:11.830
in themselves. I'm all for it. I think if you create a product at the
08:12.330 --> 08:15.900
end of it that's well priced, relatively, and it tastes pretty good,
08:15.970 --> 08:19.470
I'm all for it. How about you guys? Where do you sit on that?
08:19.970 --> 08:22.410
And yeah, I have this interesting thing about it. It's probably similar to you,
08:22.910 --> 08:25.550
which is that I actually don't mind too much about the idea of a bit
08:26.050 --> 08:29.290
of showmanship or theatrics around this thing,
08:29.790 --> 08:31.790
because then that thing of one of the most sought-after bottles at KBF everyone could
08:32.290 --> 08:35.508
get. And that's pretty crazy. Brown-Forman releasing a
08:36.008 --> 08:40.050
bottle that everyone can get. That's kind of a lovely gesture for everyone.
08:40.115 --> 08:43.762
And there's these things, Peerless, for example, released a bottle and they chose not
08:44.262 --> 08:47.612
to release it when the VIP gates were open. They waited until 1
08:48.112 --> 08:50.967
o'clock when everyone could have access. So anyone could be there and be in the
08:51.467 --> 08:53.345
queue and take to get access to this bottle. So there's a bit of this
08:53.859 --> 08:57.072
where it's like, it's kind of, there's a certain for the people-ness to it
08:57.572 --> 09:00.110
as well. Yeah. Yep. I like that. I think if you're going to sell like,
09:00.580 --> 09:03.620
you know, you see some limited releases where they're like crazy money for what they
09:04.120 --> 09:07.290
are, like, and they're probably exceptional in their own way. I'm like, but for $100,
09:07.800 --> 09:10.320
it's that choice where you can be like, well, I could buy it, you know,
09:10.820 --> 09:13.140
or you can skip it if you want. But it opens the gate for a
09:13.640 --> 09:15.920
lot of people, and I'm all for that as well. Um, and I think Brown-Forman
09:16.420 --> 09:19.780
have always been pretty good with their pricing. Um, so yeah,
09:20.280 --> 09:22.340
I wanted to ask a quick question about what, what do you guys look for
09:22.840 --> 09:26.098
when you're looking into what Australia might like? And what you might be able to
09:26.598 --> 09:28.916
bring to Australia, are you looking for a particular profile? Is there a flavour?
09:28.996 --> 09:32.474
Is there a proof? Is there a story? Is it something that you're trying
09:32.974 --> 09:35.488
to find? I think it's a bit of everything. The story really matters, I think,
09:35.537 --> 09:38.426
for me. Proof,
09:38.798 --> 09:42.788
you can't, it's a weird thing, proof, because there are people that
09:42.982 --> 09:46.877
chase hazmat and will go crazy for hazmat whisky. So if
09:47.377 --> 09:50.914
anything's over 70%, they'll go crazy. But I think
09:51.552 --> 09:54.361
for your average consumer, I think proof in the,
09:55.003 --> 09:58.806
just the one of, I think 100 to 110, I think it's a perfect proof.
09:59.416 --> 10:02.883
But I think the story really matters and selling that story really
10:03.383 --> 10:06.494
matters as well. That's for me. And I find that at shows
10:06.994 --> 10:09.848
and everything, people do like a good story about a bourbon, not just,
10:10.570 --> 10:14.085
this is an MGP and it's just been bottled by these guys and they just
10:14.101 --> 10:17.391
put a label on it. That's it. Yeah. I think for me, it's like,
10:17.520 --> 10:21.660
The question I ask myself every time we try a new whisky is,
10:22.160 --> 10:24.620
would I buy this myself? And would I recommend it? And would I feel comfortable
10:25.120 --> 10:28.800
with that? Because if someone comes to me and says, would you recommend spending X
10:29.300 --> 10:31.730
amount of money on this product? And I say, yes, but I don't believe it.
10:31.940 --> 10:35.020
That doesn't sit right with me. I'm like, I want it to be something I
10:35.520 --> 10:38.340
enjoy and something that I believe in. And it's like all of the products for
10:38.840 --> 10:42.540
us are just brands that we've tried and then look at and go, yeah,
10:43.040 --> 10:45.960
I'd recommend it. 100%. And that's And I think then you tie that into,
10:46.400 --> 10:48.750
you know, your next question after that is, is there a story to tell?
10:48.780 --> 10:51.920
And again, going back to like the Blackwood thing or like Holiday,
10:52.220 --> 10:54.600
it doesn't really matter how big the story is. Like, that can be a story
10:55.100 --> 10:58.180
of 3 or 4 years. It can be a story of 200 years. Yeah,
10:58.680 --> 11:00.720
it's still a story. And it's, and it's as long as there's something that's worth
11:01.220 --> 11:04.320
telling, then that's, that's the other part. Because it's really hard to do events without
11:04.820 --> 11:08.180
a brand story. It takes— there's a lot of like awkward silences and it's really
11:08.680 --> 11:11.280
hard. So when you've got a lot of, a lot of information, it's easier.
11:11.780 --> 11:14.460
You're right. We've never imported something we don't like to drink ourselves.
11:14.700 --> 11:17.960
So every brand that we have, I have a bottle on the shelf and
11:18.460 --> 11:22.000
it's open and I drink from it. And that's to me the— Well, that means
11:22.500 --> 11:25.880
bringing the stuff that you like. And that's it. I just, you don't want to
11:26.380 --> 11:28.500
recommend a whisky to someone and they go, oh, I really didn't like that.
11:29.000 --> 11:31.760
If it's a difference of profile thing, sure, that will happen from that to that.
11:32.260 --> 11:35.560
But if they go objectively, this is a bad whisky, then that
11:36.060 --> 11:39.980
feels weird. And it's a passion project for us. We do it because we
11:40.480 --> 11:43.945
enjoy it. So you want to work with the brands that you also drink yourselves
11:44.042 --> 11:47.447
as whiskey drinkers. And that's kind of always the kind
11:47.947 --> 11:51.516
of cool starting position for all of the brands we work with. So yeah,
11:52.102 --> 11:55.486
so good. Well, I just love the stories behind them. That's great. Yeah,
11:55.746 --> 11:58.398
absolutely. Thanks for sharing this. Thank you for sharing.
11:58.820 --> 12:00.832
Thank you for borrowing it. What a bit of fun. Cheers.
12:01.669 --> 12:05.195
Thanks for listening. Make sure you connect with us
12:05.695 --> 12:09.297
on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. And stay connected with us by clicking subscribe
12:09.378 --> 12:10.759
on your favorite podcast app.