Up next in 10
This week on Bourbon Bytes (a whiskey podcast with a gaming twist), I’m breaking down the latest whiskey headlines, a Lunar New Year Scotch that sounds too good, and some gaming news I’m genuinely excited about. Whiskey News • Knob Creek x Eli Manning single barrel collab • Woodford Reserve Double Double Oaked (2026) goes beyond distillery-only (but that $200 price…) • Tomatin Year of the Horse 14 Year (PX sherry butt, cask strength) Gaming News • RuneScape turns 25 (year-long celebration) • Life is Strange: Reunion details + release date • Ranger’s Path: National Park Simulator is my exact brand of cozy chaos Byte-Sized Review I review the George Dickel x Leopold Bros Collaboration Blend Three Chamber Rye: bright, floral, super unique, and unexpectedly great in a Manhattan. I also break down whether it makes sense at MSRP. Listen, rate, and share your thoughts in the Discord: bourbonbytes.com Chapters / Timecodes 00:00 Cold Open: Knob Creek, Woodford, RuneScape + the Rye Review 00:30 Welcome + What’s in this episode 01:02 Knob Creek x Eli Manning Single Barrel 03:22 Woodford Double Double Oaked 2026 06:31 Tomatin Year of the Horse 14 Year (2011) 07:30 Gaming News: RuneScape turns 25 08:59 Gaming News: Life is Strange: Reunion 10:38 Gaming News: Ranger’s Path National Park Simulator 12:55 Byte-Sized Review: George Dickel x Leopold Bros Three Chamber Rye 21:52 Wrap-up + where to follow
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Today on the Bourbon Bites Podcast, we're covering new whiskey releases from Knob Creek and Woodford Reserve
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the 25th anniversary of RuneScape, and two upcoming video games that I'm very excited for
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Plus, I'm doing a bite-sized review of the George Dickel and Leopold Bros Collaboration Blend Three Chamber Rye
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Bourbon Bites podcast. I'm your host, Clifton, and this is the week of Thursday, January 22nd, 2026
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I hope you are ready for an episode packed with lots of whiskey and video game news, plus a bite-sized review of a rye whiskey that I've heard a lot of mixed things on
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So I'll be giving it my honest impressions a little bit later in the podcast
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But yeah, I have quite a bit of news to share with you guys that I'm curious to hear what you think about
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So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into it. The first of which comes to me from one of my favorite distilleries and one of my favorite labels
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Knob Creek is releasing a special edition bourbon with Eli Manning. So this is their second year actually collaborating with him
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He is doing a single barrel cast strength select. Apparently he's a big bourbon fan
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Master distiller Freddie Nose says they rolled out some of their finest barrels for him to pick from since he set the bar so high last year
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they say that one of the barrels stood out right away and they are excited to bottle it at cast
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strength because remember previously these knob creek single barrel picks were all proof to 120
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Well apparently this is being bottled between 112.2 to 121.6 proof. Now I'm a little confused
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about that fact because I would assume all the bottles that come out of the barrel are gonna be
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the same proof. I mean I can't imagine a situation where some are lower proof and some are higher
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I mean surely they're shaking the barrel up and mixing it up so it's a more more cohesive bourbon
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So I'm not sure if that's just a misprint in this article. I'm looking at southernliving.com
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So not exactly a whiskey focused publication. That could just be a mistake on their part
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I guess we'll just have to see how that comes out because it does say it was just picked from one barrel
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By the way, this will retail at $69.99 and and limited quantities are going to be available nationwide
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So check with your local retailer to see if they have this in stock. Based on that, it makes me think there's going to be a few barrels that he picked
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I mean, surely one barrel wasn't enough to do a nationwide release. Again, this was an exclusive article written for Southern Living
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so it could have a few mistakes in it. If you know more details about that, let me know
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I'm not going to seek it out. You know, I honestly didn't know who Eli Manning was before reading this article
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I'd heard of Peyton Manning but I didn't know he also had other fellow sporty brothers so not
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something I'm that interested in but it is cool to see brands do collaborations with influencers
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celebrities you know sports stars especially if they're ones that are big fans of bourbon I know
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a lot of people would love to pick up a bottle that was hand selected by one of their favorite
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people so I get that respect of it I don't get the confusion with the proof here on the website but
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you know if you find out more let me know on discord well another new but very limited release
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woodford reserve has just announced their 2026 bottling of double double oaked um it is launching
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or actually launched last week at the distillery um and it's going to be available for the first
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time ever at nationwide select retailers so this has always been one that people would line up at
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the distillery to get a chance to buy i've never had a bottle of it um i don't know if i've even
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tasted it from a friend but it's great to see that it is getting a nationwide release it's one that I
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think is highly sought after in the bourbon community I don't know that's just because it's usually more limited or if it's actually just that good it is rested for five to seven years in the
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first barrel and then up to two years in a second barrel so of course it's double double because in
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addition to the regular double barreling they are putting it in a separate heavily toasted
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lightly charred new oak barrels for that additional two years. So it's been a release
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since 2015, but it's always been distillery only as far as I'm aware. So I'm excited to see it make
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it beyond the distillery. Now, what I'm not excited about is the, well, two things, the proof and the
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price. So this is bottled at the standard Woodford Reserve proof of 90.4, and it's going to be
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available for $199.99. This went on sale last week at the distillery. It says you can also purchase
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it online and it select retailers but they predict it's going to go fast especially with this being
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the first time it's released beyond the distillery if you guys had a chance to pick that up let me
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know if you think it's worth the $200 price point woodford's always kind of been one that I appreciate
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for what it is but even the double oak it's just not quite my jam in terms of flavor profile even
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though you know I'm a huge lover of intense oak notes on a bourbon I prefer either a little bit
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higher proof, maybe a little bit longer age, but maybe double double oak will be my turning point
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So if anyone has this and wants to share a sample, I'd love a chance to review it. You can send me an
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email contact at bourbonbites.com or you can reach out to me on any social media channel at bourbon
5:18
bites. If you ever have anything you want me to review, just let me know whether you have a sample
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of it or just something for me to keep an eye out when I'm at the store. I love having your suggestions and not just kind of picking what to review on my own. I'd love to, you know, talk about
5:30
what you guys want to hear about And that goes with news stories as well Like I said at the top of the stream I love to hear you guys thoughts on the stories I feature on the podcast You can do so in our Discord server which by the way if you not yet on you can go to bourbonbites
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There's a link to the Whiskey and Gaming Lounge Discord server there. That's where our community tends to hang out throughout the week
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We're not just there on Thursday nights or regular stream nights. We do gaming hangouts every now and then
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We do a daily Wordle challenge in our arcade room. and I post about the latest movies and TV shows that I've been enjoying lately
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So if you want to get in on that and more, definitely check that out. We are doing our monthly movie night screening this Friday
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We're going to watch Do the Right Thing from 1989. This is a movie I've actually had for a while, but I've never had a chance to watch
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So I'm going to get together with some bike club members. Everyone $5 and up is invited
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And we're going to hang out, watch the movie, and then do a little hangout after
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Should be a good time. speaking of good time to matten which is a single malt highland whiskey is releasing their 14 year
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old year of the horse whiskey this was distilled back in 2011 and has been matured for 14 years
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in a first fill ex pedro jimenez sherry butt at 56.5 abv all those things sound delicious i'm a
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huge fan of px finished cast strength scotch whiskey i haven't really had much from to matten
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But seeing this release, you know, I love things that honor, you know, specific years, whether it's, you know, through the Lunar New Year, like the Year of the Horse, which is 2026, or just, you know, things that have a significant meaning to me just based on the year
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2011 was the year I graduated high school, so I guess it's relevant for that
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But also, I just like horses, okay? And I like PX Sherry, so I'm going to keep an eye out for this one
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Retail on it is about $127 US. It is going to be available worldwide starting this week
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so keep an eye out for that one I will be well that does it for whiskey news but there were a
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couple of video game news articles that I wanted to quickly mention because they're pretty relevant
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one big thing that's happening this year is runescape is turning 25 years old does that
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make you feel old that makes me feel really old I used to play runescape all the time when I was in
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middle school but yeah they are planning a big tribute to it apparently the old school version
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of the game that's been running on their servers has about 250,000 concurrent players at one point
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So people are still playing this, you know, 25 years after its release. I will say hearing that
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makes me a little curious to go check it out. I do love that. I never got too into MMORPGs
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but RuneScape to me was a little more, not entry level, but it was just easy to follow. You know
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things like World of Warcraft to me as a casual gamer were just quite a bit too involved. So
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classic RuneScape. I'm excited. Now they're not revealing too many details but they're saying
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this isn't just a one-off marketing gimmick. It's actually a year-long celebration. They put up a
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whole video on YouTube talking about their rollout of RuneScape Ahead, the old school RuneScape
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Winter Summit, and Dragon Wild Summit coming later this month. But each of them are going to focus on
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a different part of RuneScape and help the franchise spread its wings. So if you haven't
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picked up RuneScape in the past 25 years, maybe jump back into it. Now would be a good time because
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they're planning to keep the celebration rolling all through the year. And if you're on there
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maybe add me to your clan. Now there are two brand new games that I just heard about last week
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that I'm so excited to talk about. One is the newest Life is Strange game. It's called Reunion
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So this is actually a continuation of the first Life is Strange game based around the story of
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Max and Chloe. I've not played that one but I have played Life is Strange 2 and I've loved that game
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I haven't had a chance to go back and play the first one but I definitely will soon because this
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new game really picks up their story where it left off. So they actually had another follow-up
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game called Life is Strange Double Exposure so this is a direct follow-up of that follow-up
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So I don't want to read too much about the plot of the game just because I've not played the
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original game. But it is set once again at Caledon University, and the school has been mysteriously
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set ablaze. So she actually avoids the fate by jumping back in time and has three days to uncover
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how the fire started to prevent the school's destruction and all of her friends, students
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and faculty that were killed in the fire. So sounds pretty intense. I really like the storytelling
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aspect of Life is Strange, or at least in Life is Strange 2. So I'm really excited to go back and
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try the first game. So this is going to be released on March 26th and it'll be available for PS5
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Xbox Series X, and S as well as PC. It's going to be released as a $40 standard edition but there's
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also going to be some special editions including the deluxe edition, the twin pack which comes with
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both of those follow-ups including the double exposure, and the collector's edition which
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includes a vinyl soundtrack and lots of other cool art pieces to go with it. So depending on how big
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of a fan of that game you are, you might want to check out some of those deluxe editions
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Now lastly, there's one more game coming out that I am incredibly excited for. I've always been a
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fan of simulator games, just from the days of Roller Coaster Tycoon, to Cruise Ship Simulator
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to even more recent ones like The Sims 4 and Cities Skylines. It's just always been a genre
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of games that I gravitate towards. Well, there's a new one, and it is such a fun concept. It's called
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Ranger's Path National Park Simulator. They did a reveal trailer to it I think earlier this week
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but in the game you are a park ranger and your job is to maintain the trails, assist visitors
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check permits and respond to emergencies The game looks beautiful Check out the reveal trailer if you haven yet It just a very lush landscape and while those tasks don sound the most interesting I think just
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being able to explore your national park would be so much fun. I'm hoping the emergencies are
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like pretty thrilling. Like I hope it's like a wildfire, you know, or maybe a bear attack
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I don't know. I don't want to read too much into it because I want to be surprised when I actually pick it up. It's coming out March 10th by the way for PC. But this is the most I've been excited for
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a new simulation game in a while. So not only do you get to design your own park ranger but you get
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to control all these elements of your park including what wildlife is there, how your guests
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are loving visiting the park, attractions for them to visit. There's a lot to uncover in this game
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The March 10th date is actually just the early access to it but I will definitely be picking it
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up around that time just to give it a try and let you guys know how it is. I'm sure they'll have
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a wider release later. But March 10th is when it's coming to Steam and the Epic Game Store. So if you
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want to see me try that as well as lots of other games, check it out. Twitch.tv slash Bourbon Bites
12:18
I try to go live on there at least once or twice a week. Just kind of really building out that Twitch
12:22
platform. I'm hoping to get more viewers over there. So if you are a casual Twitch viewer or
12:27
if you've never considered checking out Twitch before, check it out. It'll still be me. It just
12:31
might be me playing some fun silly games with my friends, maybe some horror games. I'm a big fan of
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those. Or new releases like this, twitch.tv slash bourbonbytes. Well with that, let's go ahead and
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get into this week's bite-sized review. All right, well today's bite-sized review is not a new release
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at all. Actually this whiskey came out in 2022 and I avoided it because at that time a $115
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rye whiskey just sounded absurd to me. Now fast forward three or four years later and that's not
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that rare of a sight. I'm talking about the George Dickel and Leopold Bros Collaboration Blend
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Three Chamber Rye Whiskey. So this one's an interesting one. So George Dickel or Cascade
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Hollow Distillery has been releasing rye whiskey, but most of it has been sourced from MGP. So I was
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surprised to learn that the rye whiskey used in this bottle is their own distillate, which I've
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never had before today. Now we're not getting to try it in its purest form because this release is
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like I said, a collaboration blend. So they're taking the straight rye whiskey from Tennessee
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at Cascade Hollow and blending it with Leopold Bros three chamber still rye whiskey. So they
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are based out of Denver, Colorado and they really made their claim to fame back in 2021 when they
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came out with this rye whiskey. It was basically an older style that hadn't been done in a long time
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because it produced a really bold heavily bodied rye whiskey and really up until you know 2018-2019
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rye whiskey wasn't really that popular so it didn't make sense to make a highly flavored rye whiskey
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but they decided to bring it out in 2021. I haven't had a chance to try it on its own either
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but I love the idea of it and if this is good I'm gonna have to seek out a bottle of it after
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trying it. So yes this is a blend of column still rye whiskey from Cascade Hollow and their three
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chamber still rye whiskey from Leopold Bros. Now you're probably wondering Clifton why are you just
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now reviewing this in 2026? Well my local liquor store K&L Wine and Spirits apparently had a huge
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stock of these bottles available. It was a limited release I don't think they came out beyond 2022
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when it was first announced, but they kind of just sat on shelves. Retail, like I said, was around
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$115 in my area, but I noticed an email come out from them a couple weeks ago where they were
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selling this rye whiskey for $25. Yes, like almost $100 off MSRP. I don't know the reasoning
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I'd love to find out why they were selling it for so crazy cheap, but I was like, you know what
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this cannot be bad for $25. So I picked up a bottle and not gonna lie, I kind of wish I would
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have bought more because the next day they sold out. They had over 100 bottles available and yeah
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it was gone the next day. So people probably picked up on this before I did. I just didn't
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really know what to expect because again, I've never had George Dickles rye whiskey that wasn't
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sourced from MGP. So I didn't know if I would enjoy it at all. But I want to give it a proper
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review here on the channel because this is a 100 proof rye whiskey that's $115 MSRP and I'm getting
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a very rare opportunity to try it for less than 75% of that. Let's go in and get it poured. Now
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there's not an age statement on this whiskey which is one thing that kind of held me back as well from
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picking it up previously. You know being over $100 with no age statement is always a little bit of an
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iffy situation for me. It's definitely more of a try before you buy situation but I wasn't going to
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resist the opportunity to get it for $25. So that's going out the window. But with my score
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and rating, it's going to be based on the $115 price point. Now, as I was mentioning earlier
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this three chamber rye that they produce at Leopold Bros is described as like a full body
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really heavy rye whiskey. Whereas I'm assuming the part that's coming from George Dickel is a
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lighter bodied rye whiskey. We don't know for sure if this has been charcoal mellowed like they do
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their bourbon, but one could assume if it's from George Dickel or Tennessee in general and they're
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calling it a Tennessee rye whiskey it probably been through the Lincoln County process where they do some charcoal mellowing on it They even do this on their MGP rye that they source so I can imagine them not doing it on their own rye But let go ahead and give this one a nose
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Oh that's such a fun one. I think that's kind of my first impression I had of it
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It's very herbaceous. I mean rye is typically a little bit herbal a little bit bright and minty
17:11
This doesn't go minty to me. This goes almost a little floral. Like I'm getting a little bit of
17:15
like white flowers or even rose or rose water, there's a big bright floral note, maybe some
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honeysuckle as well, that's just bursting out of this glass on the nose. It's unlike any rye that
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I've noticed before. I wouldn't be able to tell you it's a rye whiskey just based on the nose
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It's just so bright. It almost reminds me of like a Highland Scotch with that much, you know
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floral element on the nose. Lots of vanilla too. I mean, all of the bright notes you can use to
17:43
describe a whiskey you get them there the only thing I'm not necessarily getting on the nose
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itself is the rye which is pretty crazy I guess potentially the only downside I could see from
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the nose is it does read pretty sweet I know some people are sensitive towards sweeter ryes
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especially things like Angel's Envy where they are finished in the rum cast that makes it really
18:02
really sweet on the nose it does read sweet but we'll see how it does on the palate cheers guys
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okay on the palette still those bright floral honeysuckle notes definitely more honey now I got
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like the rose earlier on the nose but on the palette it's a little more honeysuckle there's
18:19
a little bit of fruitiness there but it's more of a bright citrus fruit almost like a lemon zest or
18:24
an orange zest I will say body wise though for 100 proof this one does have a really viscous mouth
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feel it almost has like a syrupy quality to it when it's on the palette when the finish comes
18:35
around it does kind of shorten a little bit there but I would still say this is a relatively medium
18:41
to long finish for a 100 proof rye whiskey. The finish is sweet. It has a little bit of like a
18:47
milk chocolatey quality but again it's still bright and floral and just all around a really
18:53
unique interesting rye whiskey unlike any other one I've ever had. I see why some people are big
18:59
fans of this and I also see why people aren't big fans of this. I think the price point of $115
19:05
dollars, even in today's market, right? Things have gone up crazy for the past few years. I think it
19:11
does still seem high for a non-age dated rye whiskey. I love the collaboration between two
19:17
distilleries and I love the concept behind it, but I think not giving it an age statement really
19:22
is holding it back. And that could be because the whiskey that they're distilling at Cascade
19:26
Hollow or George Dickel is not really that old yet and they're putting it in there. So there could
19:30
be some three to four year old Tennessee rye whiskey in here. Maybe that's what's happening
19:35
here or even Leopold Bros. Maybe their stuff is young as well. But I would love to see a release
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like this made with a really good age statement and I think that would highly justify the price
19:45
of 115. So when I give a score I think about all things you know nose, palette, finish, price
19:53
availability. All that comes into play here. This was a very readily available bottle. It's set on
19:59
the shelf for years. It's still on the shelves except at K&L when they decided to pull this
20:03
trickery of making it so cheap. So I think in terms of all that considered I would give this
20:11
about a 7 out of 10. I think it's a great whiskey. I think it's a bit high for what it is. It's also
20:18
not going to fit everyone's palate. That bright floral element and a little bit of sweetness
20:23
could throw some people off especially if you're a fan of traditional rye whiskey
20:27
so I could see some people that don't want all that stepping away from this. Me however I love
20:33
fun funky ryes. You've seen that in plenty of my reviews. I tend to rate those higher than the
20:37
standard rye whiskeys. So for me I like it. I actually have been using this in Manhattans and
20:43
I think when you combine that sweet vermouth the darker red fruit notes of the sweet vermouth
20:48
with a bright rye whiskey like this it just explodes with flavor. You're getting the bright
20:53
citrus notes from the whiskey the darker red fruit notes and to me it's just been making a
20:57
fantastic manhattan now would i be making a manhattan with it regularly if it was full price
21:02
probably not but for a 25 bottle i really wish i would have bought at least five or six of these
21:09
just because i think it's it's a fantastic whiskey um at the discount price at the higher price it's
21:15
a good whiskey it's actually better than good like i said seven out of ten is pretty great i'd be
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curious to see a future release of this maybe at a higher proof maybe a higher age but I don't think
21:25
I'll do this again just because of the fact that this sat on the shelves for quite a while but it
21:29
does make me really excited to try not only Cascade Hollow's rye that they're making themselves but
21:35
Leopold Bros like I said I've not had anything from then but if their whiskey is this unique
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flavor that I've never had before I want to try it as well so I'll be keeping an eye out for their
21:47
whiskeys but i think that wraps us up for today's episode thank you all so much for listening if you
21:53
haven't yet leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform it does help out the
21:57
channel a ton i saw someone recently rated it five stars on apple they didn't leave a review so i can't
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say who it was so thank you for that but if you guys do want to leave a rating and review it does
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mean a lot i'll be happy to read it out here on the podcast but until then this has been the
22:10
bourbon bites podcast a whiskey podcast with a gaming twist cheers i'll talk to you guys next week
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