Up next in 10
This week on the Bourbon Bytes podcast, we’re kicking off June with a packed lineup of whiskey news and one of the most surprising reviews of the year. Four Roses just announced the start of its new Anthology Series, launching with a 21-year-old OBSF barrel-strength bourbon called The Origin. Russell’s Reserve 13 is back for Spring 2026 with a new release celebrating Eddie Russell’s 45 years of whiskey-making mastery. High West also returns with the 2026 edition of The Prisoner’s Share, now featuring High West’s own straight bourbon whiskey in the blend. On the gaming side, PlayStation’s latest State of Play brought new looks at Marvel’s Wolverine, Marvel Tokon, and Rayman Legends Retold. Then it’s time for a Byte-Sized Review of Bardstown Bourbon Company’s Distillery Reserve Mars Single Malt Japanese Blend. This limited release blends Kentucky straight bourbon aged 10 to 16 years with Japanese single malts from Mars Whisky, including whisky aged in Sakura cherry wood and Umeshu plum liqueur casks. It sounds wild on paper — but somehow, it works beautifully. At 109.8 proof and released in 375ml bottles for $100, this distillery-only experiment might be one of the best things Bardstown Bourbon Company has ever released. Topics covered: • Four Roses Anthology Series: The Origin 21 Year • Russell’s Reserve 13 Spring 2026 • High West The Prisoner’s Share 2026 • PlayStation State of Play highlights • Marvel’s Wolverine gameplay reveal • Marvel Tokon announcement • Rayman Legends Retold • Bardstown Bourbon Company x Mars Whisky review • Final score and whether this bottle is worth hunting Would you try a Kentucky bourbon blended with Japanese single malt? 00:00 Intro – Four Roses, Russell’s Reserve, High West & Bardstown Mars 00:29 Welcome + Episode Setup 00:55 Four Roses Anthology 21 Year Bourbon 03:01 Russell’s Reserve 13 Spring 2026 04:23 High West The Prisoner’s Share 2026 05:37 PlayStation State of Play Highlights 08:17 Byte-Sized Review: Bardstown Bourbon Company Mars Japanese Whisky Blend 16:08 Outro + Listener Question
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today on the bourbon bites podcast this month we're hitting the ground running with lots of
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new whiskey releases from four roses russell's reserve and high west plus i have a recap of
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playstation's state of play and a bite-sized review of the new barstown bourbon company
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mars japanese whiskey blend hello everyone and welcome to the bourbon bites podcast i'm your host clifton and this is the week
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of thursday june 4th 2026 and even though it is only june we have so many new announcements in the
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world of bourbon and whiskey that I want to make sure you guys know about. Most of these were just
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announced earlier this week, some of which you may have heard about earlier, but I'm excited to
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go through some of these highlights with you today. Probably the biggest news story is the
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announcement of the new Four Roses Anthology series. They're launching it this year with a
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21-year-old bourbon release. Yes, you heard that right, 21 years old. This whiskey was distilled
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back in 2002 and it's actually made up of entirely OBSF barrel strength bourbon. Now the proof is
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going to vary between 102.5 through 124.9 proof just depending on the barrels used for your
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particular bottle but the youngest whiskey in here is indeed 21 years old. They say that this new
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anthology is an annual storytelling experience that captures the essence of Four Roses through
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a curated collection of narratives. And this is scheduled to go all the way out through 2035 with
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a new release every year. They're naming this one The Origin and what a way to kick off a special
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release. Now one thing to keep in mind, this is going to be available exclusively at their distillery
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visitor center in Lawrenceburg as well as their Whiskey Row visitor center in Louisville. Pricing
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on this is going to be $500 retail. They're going to release only about 1,200 bottles and it's going
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to be available starting on July 10th. Quite a bit of a price jump compared to other Four Roses
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special edition releases, but you're also getting some of the oldest distillate I've ever seen be
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put out. And when you consider it compared to other 21-year-old bourbons, Pappy, $500 isn't the
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worst price ever. So I think Four Roses fans are going to be very excited for this. I know it's
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going to be one that's going to be very hard to get your hands on, but I think it's one that might
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be worth picking up, especially the start of this new series. I'm pretty excited for it
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I asked on our Discord server some of our Four Roses superfans, one of which is Alfonso
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He said, I'll probably not get my hands on it due to the scarcity and price point, but as a Four Roses fan, I would love to try it
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Even though it's not his favorite recipe from Four Roses, he said it's the age that makes him the most curious
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Time will tell. And then Fred jumps in and says, even considering the price, it's kind of tempting if I happen to be around
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So it sounds like the Bite Club community is pretty excited for this release
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All right, but let's keep the news rolling because we've got a lot to get through today. Wild Turkey actually just announced their latest edition of Russell's Reserve 13 for spring 2026
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They're considering this a limited, highly anticipated tribute release that celebrates master distiller Eddie Russell's 45 years of whiskey making mastery
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They say crafted from select barrels aged a minimum of 13 years. This year's batch is non-chill filtered and bottled at a new unique barrel proof point celebrating Eddie's signature style
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So the 2026 spring release is going to be 121.2 proof. Of course, like I said, barrel proof and non-chill filtered
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It looks like this one's going to also have a very special neck tag that celebrates Eddie's 45th anniversary
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So if you see it on the shelves, that's most likely this year's release. I've been mostly impressed with these Russell's Reserve 13
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I think it's some of the best wild turkey that's come out in years. If I get a chance to buy it at
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retail, which it depends, I don't know. Pricing has kind of been all over the place with this one
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The first release was affordable and it's only gone up and up in price over the years. Last year's
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MSRP was per bottle which I think it still worth it It really premium Russell Reserve but if they go up much more than that for this year especially with it being a special anniversary release I would probably be a little more hesitant But I think is a fair price point in today limited edition bourbon market Speaking of limited
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edition, we have a new edition of the Prisoner's Share from High West. This is their 2026 blend
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and it's the first to feature High West's own straight bourbon whiskey in the blend
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They're combining it with their straight rye whiskey and select sourced bourbon and rye whiskey
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And of course, these are finished in the Prisoner Red Blend Wine Barrels
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This is some of the most sought after High West I've seen other than like Midwinter's Night Dram or Boo Rye
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This is probably the next up in rare High West product. It's going to come in at a retail of $175
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It is available now to purchase on their website. Now, even though I am a red wine fan, I've not had the Prisoner myself, but I know it is very highly regarded
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It's very high price point as well, which is why I think they placed this high west release at a similar price point
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Now, I'm not saying anything about age in terms of the whiskey that's in here. But like I said, it's the first to feature their own bourbon, which is really cool
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I love to see them start to incorporate their own spirits in their special releases
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You know, for a while they were sourcing only and they've slowly been mixing more and more of their own distillate in
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This is the first time they've ever featured their bourbon in this. So really cool. I'm definitely excited to give it a try
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All right, well, before I jump into my bite-sized review, I do want to mention a big moment in gaming from this week
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PlayStation had their State of Play event, which is where they debut a lot of new releases
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And I want to feature a couple highlights that I think you guys should know about. One of which is the reveal of the new Marvel's Wolverine game
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And this game looks gnarly in all the ways. So I watched the gameplay reveal trailer from the State of Play and man, is it violent
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Like I know Wolverine, right? Like he's a pretty violent guy, but the amount of blood that's visible in this trailer kind
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of caught me off guard. You know, I thought they would tone it down a little bit, but they are going full on blood bath
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And trust me, fans of the series are loving it as well. They feel like this is a grown up expression of a Marvel game
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It's not, you know, watered down, you know, less violent like some of these other ones have
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It is a full on brawl and it looks like a lot of fun
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Like I love these games where you're just kind of like hack and slashing and it really
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does a good job of showing the type of combat in this game. It looks like a lot of fun, especially
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if you're a fan of like the Batman Arkham games. It's kind of some similar gameplay to that, but
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a lot more bloody. So check out that trailer if you missed it. Surprisingly, Marvel had another
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announcement. It was the Marvel Token, or I don't know how to pronounce it. It's T-O-K-O-N, but it's
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basically a successor to the Marvel versus Catcom era. So it's a fighting game. It's a lot of
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traditional like, you know, Street Fighter kind of vibes, but it features a lot of different
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characters from the Marvel Universe including Green Goblin and Carnage and Magneto so it's got
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a really cool vibe to it it's definitely a unique art style probably not my kind of game but it's
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kind of bringing a new era to the golden age of 3v3 fighting games so check that out if that's
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your style. Last one I want to mention is the remake of Rayman. Remember the Rayman games? I
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was a fan listen I was more of a Rayman fan than a Sonic fan if that says anything but there's a
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remake of the 2013 2D platformer Rayman Legends and it's going to be called Rayman Legends Retold
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and it's going to be a full remake. Now to be clear there's a little bit of confusion because
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they're calling it 3D but it's still functioning as if it's a 2D platformer it's just in a 3D
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environment so they're not fully changing it you know like full-on Mario 64 style it's just going
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to be updating the graphics into a 3D world but the same 2D action so I think that fact will make
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a lot of fans okay with it. It looks beautiful and I love that they're not changing what works well
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I'm hoping that fans love it too because it looks like a really good time. This isn't launching
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until October of this year but it's going to be available for PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch
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and PC. So it should be interesting. Keep an eye on that one. All right well with all that news I
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think it's time to take a step back, reset our palette with this week's bite-sized review
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Alright well if you listened to last week episode you already know about this whiskey I didn expect to receive a sample but after I recorded the episode I got a package from
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Bardstown Bourbon Company who sent me this new release so I talked a lot about the details last
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week I shared some thoughts from the bike club community if you missed that go listen to that
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on last week's episode I'll give you a quick rundown here but we talked about this in length
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last week. So I think it's funny that I finally got a chance to try it. Again, shout out to
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Bardstown Bourbon Company for providing this media sample for review. But yeah, if you don't know
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what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the new Bardstown Bourbon Company's Distillery Reserve
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Mars Single Malt Japanese Blend. And if that name sounds confusing, it's because it is. This is a
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bourbon whiskey from Bardstown Bourbon Company combined with two different Japanese whiskeys
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from the Mars Whiskey Company. The Japanese single malts are from Kamagatake and Sunuki
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which I said last week I'm probably mispronouncing, but these are aged in really unique casks. So the
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Sunuki is aged in rare Sakura or cherry wood casks, and the Kamagatake single malt is aged in
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Yumishu cask, which is a plum liqueur. So these are very unique flavor profiles being combined
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with Kentucky bourbon aged 10 to 16 years old. And you're curious why? Well, they say this project
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is about more than blending. It's about true integration. They're working to combine these
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Japanese single malts with Kentucky bourbon to create something entirely new. They say the result
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is a seamless conversation between two traditions where neither overpowers the other and both are
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elevated. So we'll see if that's true. Again, bourbon blended with Japanese single malt. Never
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heard of such a thing, but very, very excited to give it a try. Now, one other thing to note
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this is a very limited release. It's only going to be put out in 375 milliliter bottles
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they're going for about $100 each and they are available at the distillery only both the gift
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shop and the tasting room in Louisville so this is part of their distillery reserve series that
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started last year it's meant to be a small scale innovation platform and one-of-a-kind one-time
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only releases that show the experiments of finishing extended aging and uncommon blending
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well uncommon this is indeed but what really matters is how does it taste so let's go and
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get it poured. I think it's really interesting that they blended in such old bourbon here. Like
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I said, the bourbon's aged 10 to 16 years old. I'm not seeing an age statement on the single
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malt in here. I just would have thought maybe younger bourbon would have blended better with
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Japanese whiskey, but who am I? I'm just a random guy that enjoys whiskey. I'm not a master blender
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Let's go and give this one a nose. Oh, nice. Yeah. I mean, that's very bourbon forward on the nose
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It has a lot of that oak characteristic, which unsurprisingly comes from that 10 to 16 year old bourbon
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But you can tell there's something else there. There's a brightness to it that you wouldn't expect on such old bourbon
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It's got a little bit of a bright candied cherry note on the nose
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And the proof is showing itself. 109.8 proof. You can definitely smell on the nose
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This is going to be a relatively high proof whiskey. Surprisingly, the malt is expressing a little bit more of like a toasted note versus like a cereal grain
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It kind of gives me a little bit of nuttiness there as well. But overall, lovely nose. I mean, no complaints there
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But what's most important is how does this blend taste? Cheers. Oh, okay
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That's a lot more bourbon forward than I imagined this to be. You know, they say that neither overpowers each other
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and I was a little worried that that Japanese whiskey would kind of dominate a bit
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especially with those unique casks, you know, the cherry wood and the plum liqueur casks
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I thought it might just overshadow the bourbon completely, but that's not the case at all, at least here on First Sip
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it really just tastes like a uniquely finished bourbon on the palette i'm really struggling to
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find those specific single malt notes this to me it's it must be so delicate and so i will say well
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blended that it's really serving as more of an enhancement to the bourbon than a competing force
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for sure i mean really it's bringing out these really bright fruity and sweet notes on the bourbon
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that again i wouldn expect for my 10 to 16 year old whiskey there a lot of vanilla bake shop kind kind of notes there You do get a little bit of the plum Again it doesn it doesn taste like a you know like an aged plum or like you know some of the Japanese do like the plum wine It not necessarily that I thought it would be more of that You know I had a single malt
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from California that aged in similar cask and it was super like pickly. This isn't that. It's
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actually sweet and bright and it's just a really balanced fruitiness that again, compliments the
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bourbon extremely well. It's really good guys. I don't know what my hopes were. I don't know
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exactly what I thought this would be, but I was not expecting this. Now I'm looking at the breakdown
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here and it's starting to make a little bit more sense. So the bourbons make up 77% of the blend
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20% of the blend is from the Komagatsake distillery with the Yumishu plum cask. And only 3% is from
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the Sunuki distillery with the Sakura cask. So mostly bourbon here. That makes a little more
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sense. I thought it was more of like a 50-50 blend. That explains why this tastes like a bourbon
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that's been elevated just a bit. But it's doing some in a way that I think finishing tries to do
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but this is bringing much more flavor to it. And I know people might have issues with this
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but they're very clear this is a blend. They're not just calling it a straight bourbon whiskey
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They're saying this is a blend of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey and single malt
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Japanese whiskey. So as they say on the press release, this is kind of a whole new thing
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And I'll be real, I dig it. I'm a fan. This is really good. Probably one of the best releases
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I've ever had from Barstump Urban Company, if I'm being completely honest, they really went all out
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for this one. And I don't think they held anything back other than the availability, because like I
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said, distillery only a hundred bucks for a 375. That's the only thing holding it back. So when I
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give my scores here on the channel, I give it a straight one out of 10 rating, right? I don't
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break down the nose powder, anything like that, because this is a bite-sized review with this
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being so limited and allocated. That does affect the score a little bit. I always like to include
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availability. But that's kind of what the series is meant to be, right? It's meant to be an
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experimental one-off release. That being said, this is some of the best Bardstown Bourbon Company
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whiskey I've ever had. So with that, this is getting a 9 out of 10 for me. It's that good
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This is probably going to be one of the best things I've had all year. We'll see how it holds
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up when I do my top of 2026, but holy moly, was not expecting that to be so well blended and just
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really delicious pour. I'm excited that I'm actually sending this to my Bite Club members
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at the Bourbon Terabyte tier. That's where they get their monthly tasting and they get a chance to
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try things along with me. I'm sending this out to a few of them. Not quite sure where we're going to
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taste that, but I will be very curious to hear their thoughts. And you, if you've had a chance
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to try this, let me know what you think. Am I crazy or is this just one of the best, coolest
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things that's ever been done in recent whiskey history? I didn't mention it today, but I mentioned
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last week these have been mingled for 12 months so it's not like they're just quickly blending these
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together and putting them out they're really letting the cask settle and incorporate those
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flavors and i will say they've done an excellent job here so if you're at the distillery and you
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see this bottle available pick it up i don't think you'll regret it yes it's a smaller bottle yes it's
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100 bucks but the flavors here are something i've never experienced in my roughly seven or eight
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years of whiskey tasting so thank you again to the folks at barnstown bourbon company who provided
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this bottle for review. Again, this is still my honest opinion. I would have said I hated it if I
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hated it, but wow, do I love this. This is an incredible creation. But I think that does it for
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this week's episode. Thank you all so much for listening. Like I said, if you've tried any of
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the whiskeys I featured in my news stories, like the new Russell's, the new 21 year old Four Roses
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or this new Bardstown Bourbon Company release, leave a comment. Let me know what you think
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whether you post it on the YouTube video of this podcast recording or join our Discord server
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wherever you want to share it. I love to hear your thoughts about these releases. So I'm not
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just speaking in a silo to myself, but thank you all so much for listening. Make sure to follow me
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on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe on YouTube. I go live every Thursday. So the same
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day this podcast comes out, I do a live stream tasting through several different spirits. So
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youtube.com slash bourbon bites until next time. This has been the bourbon bites podcast
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Cheers. And I'll talk to you next episode. Thank you
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