Smoke Wagon Halloween Edition Review, Blue Run High Rye Bourbon, & ConcernedApe‘s Haunted Chocola...

On today's episode of the Bourbon Bites podcast, I'm tasting Smokewagon's new Halloween edition bourbon

talking about Blue Run's High Rye Bourbon from Jim Rutledge and a new spooky game from the developer of Stardew Valley

Hey everyone, welcome to the third episode of the Bourbon Bites podcast

I'm your host, Clifton. And you may have noticed that, yes, this is the second podcast this week

I think I decided to move back to the Friday release date

I think that works better for me because usually I try to get a produced video out earlier in the week

I do my live streams on Thursday nights over on YouTube. So Friday, there's usually time midweek for me to record these

So for now, I think I'm going back to Friday. So, hey, this week you get a little bit of a two-for-one

But hopefully you don't mind it because there's some really cool things I want to talk about today

One thing I did want to bring up before that, I know a lot of people have been reaching out saying they're having trouble finding the podcast on Apple Podcasts

And I actually did a test just before recording this. And you're right. For some reason, even when you search for the full name, Bourbon Bites Podcast, it doesn't come up

So I'm not sure what the issue is. I don't know if it's, you know, because it's so new

But if you are having trouble finding it, you can always just go to bourbonbites.com

There should be a direct link to it there. as well as the Podbean page

which will have all the different podcast platforms. So like I said, I'm not sure if it's because it's so new

or there's no reviews. But speaking of which, if you feel so inclined

and you've been enjoying the podcast so far, I would love if you could leave me a review over on Apple

If you do, leave me a rating and a review. Could be positive or negative

You know, no pressure there. But once you've left a review, send me an email, contact at bourbonbites.com with your mailing address

I'd love to send you a Bourbon Bites challenge coin as a token of my appreciation

If you haven't seen my challenge coins, I absolutely love them. They are metal

They are gold colored. They're designed like an old arcade token. The front has my logo

The back says no mash value instead of no cash value. They're big enough to fit over your Glencairn

So if you're, let's say, recording a podcast and you want to let the whiskey sit for a minute without letting it, I guess, go bad

you can put the coin on top of it. So like I said, leave me a review over on Apple Podcasts and just let me know once you've posted it and I will get one of those coins out to you as a token of my appreciation

See what I did there? Arcade token. Yeah. Anyways, let's get on with the podcast

So today I am drinking a bourbon I picked up a few weeks ago

I've been wanting to do on the channel, but I haven't really had an opportunity to do it

There's a chance I might do it this Saturday and do a gaming stream, but that all depends on what time I finish up a local, my local groups getting together to do a tasting

So may not be able to make it home in time for a gaming stream. But this is Smokewagon's Straight Bourbon Whiskey Halloween Edition

So this is the same as their regular Smokewagon release. But the label is so, so cool

They've replaced the flowers with skeleton hands. I posted a picture over on Instagram, which, by the way, if you're not following me there, it's at Bourbon Bites

So you can check out that label. So, so cool. I picked this up for $30, which is, you know, I think what it's supposed to be

I've seen this bottle from $70 all the way up to $200 on secondary, which, let's be real, that's just stupid

This is just four-year-old, you know, MGP Bourbon from Indiana. There's nothing special about what's in the bottle

They even mentioned on their website that this has not been pumpkin spiced

uh so don't get your hopes up there but it is just a special edition bottling for halloween

um so i thought for this episode since we're releasing it right before halloween it'd be a fun one to try tonight um i haven't tasted this is actually a fresh

cork pop so let's go ahead and get it open so while i let that open up a little bit let's talk about some whiskey news shall we

um speaking of indiana spirit french lick or spirit of french lick has filed a ttb label

for a new product called Whiskey Witch, which is a wheat whiskey with peat smoked malt

The label looks really cool. It has a bunch of like occult style symbols on it

I'm surprised that it's not out yet. It still says coming soon. Definitely seems like it was meant to be a Halloween release

but maybe they got delayed a little bit. I have not actually had anything from Spirit of French Lick

They're trying to really push themselves out there because when most people see something's distilled in Indiana

you automatically assume MGP, but they are an actual distillery based in indiana i would love to try their stuff eventually but this one sounds really cool i mean it 100 proof uh wheat whiskeys are you know really rare especially with craft distilleries But the fact that they doing like a peat smoke to it I don know if it going to be kind of like a new back setter rye or back setter bourbon something like that

But they do say peat smoke. So I'm very interested to see how that comes out. They say that they are paying homage to the traditional occult-leaning folk distillers that believe superstition, luck, and the mysteries of the process have as much to do with whiskey making as modern theories and modern knowledge of the distilling process

Which is an interesting perspective. I mean, I think it does play into a lot of luck

You know, what's a good barrel? What's a bad barrel? But honestly, it's just a cool label

I don't know the price on it. And it still just says coming soon. But I thought that was kind of relevant for today's Halloween episode

But if we're talking about whiskeys that are already out, Blue Run High Rye Bourbon was just released

I've seen so many people talking about it for good and bad reasons

I have not had anything from Blue Run, but this is a brand, especially this release, is Contract Distilled by Jim Rutledge

who, of course, is the legendary former Four Roses distiller. This release in particular is a four-year-old bourbon distilled at the Castle and Key Distillery

which if you all know me, I absolutely love everything Castle and Key

I haven't actually, I say I love everything Castle and Key, but that's just based on my experience of visiting the distillery

and learning the history and the story of how that got started. You know, the old Taylor Distillery

It's such a cool facility and I love their gin. I have not had a chance to try their rye though, so I haven't had much of anything that's actually come from them in terms of bourbon or rye

Like I said, this is a four-year-old release. It's 111 proof. Mashville is 65% corn, 30% rye, and 5% malted barley

And it's only made of about 100 selected barrels for this batch or for this bottling

Part of the reason people are talking about it is because that four-year-old craft bourbon comes with a $99 price tag

So it's a hot topic. I, you know, I think Jim Rutledge is, you know, if there's anything that he's backing with his name, it has to be good

Hopefully, you would hope he's, you know, not just putting this out to make a quick buck

However, $99 for a four-year-old bourbon. For me, that's definitely, most definitely a try before you buy

Now, I say that, but as of right now, it's sold out at Sealbox, which is where I saw it for sale

so there's obviously a demand for it um it's just i mean there's just a lot of bourbons that you can

get for you know under a hundred dollars that are you know more than double the age maybe three times

the age um and of course you know higher proof as well i mean 111s you know nothing to to skalk at

or whatever but it's still i don't know from four-year-old distillate uh from castling key

which i'm not really i've heard some mixed things about the stuff actually coming out of there So I definitely would love to try it

You know, if Blue Run is listening to this podcast, you'd love to send me a sample to change my mind

Please do. Contact at bourbonbites.com. But no, seriously, I love the label

I love the look of the bottle. But $100 for a four-year-old, even if it's a high-ride bourbon, it's just, you know

not really something I'm willing to pay. Especially when Jim Rutledge himself says for a four-year-old bourbon, he's impressed

with the quality of this release. and he looks forward to evaluating the subsequent releases of these barrels after additional

maturation. So to me, it sounds like he's like, hey, these barrels are good. There's some good

stuff going on here. But I'm very excited to see what they do after, you know, with some extra age

So to me, I don't know, maybe it'll go up in price. I know they had their 14-year-old blue run

that was like $250, I think, MSRP. A lot of people said it was good, but not $250 good. So

You know, I'm not denying that this four-year-old bourbon could be really good. But, you know, to get that $100 price point, I mean, you got to be pretty spectacular

Or at least, you know, I mean, it's obviously hard to find because it's already selling out

But I don't know. What do you guys think? Have you guys tried anything from Blue Run or have you tried this release

Let me know on our Whiskey and Gaming Lounge Discord server, which if you haven't yet joined, why not

It's open to everyone. You can go to bourbonbites.com and click the link there to join us over there for things like hangouts, gaming sessions, and bottle shares of new pickups that we've gotten

It's always fun to see what new bottles people are picking up. So if you picked up one of the Blue Runs, let us know over there and let us know how it is

So let's go ahead and dive into this Smoke Wagon Halloween edition

I love a good spooky theme. Did you guys see that ghost tequila thing that came out, I guess, probably last month

I been looking for it but not willing to pay the ridiculous secondary prices for it I imagine it just average tequila in a pretty but um this again i only paid 29 for it i got it at knl wine and spirits so it definitely not

worth overpaying for i i assume i don't know we're about to find out tonight so let's go ahead and

give it a nose oh yeah that's very i mean it's very familiar i'm a big fan of indiana bourbon

from mgp yeah this is really light there's a lot it's very corn forward i think on the nose

a little bit, I guess I want to say sour. You know, it's almost like when you go into a distillery tour

and you see the mash, it kind of has like a sour mashy note in the air

if that makes sense. It's definitely grainy. It's like a grainy, sour note

But it's just there at the tip of the nose. But it's still, it's very sweet

It's maybe honey on that as well. I'm not getting too much barrel notes

again it is you know four years old definitely it smells very light and approachable on the nose

let's go and give it a taste cheers guys oh wow that's a lot more like i expected on the palate

i was a little i was a little worried with the nose i'm like you know this this smells really young like it literally just smells like you know grains and mash um but on the palate okay this is

this is getting into good territory i mean especially again 30 dollars um i would say it's

very rich in like mouthfeel wise it's creamy it's thick um still really really sweet um leaning

towards the honey like i said on the nose there's also like a um graham cracker kind of note like

a honey graham graham cracker it's oaky and nutty at the same time not really dark rich oak but it

has a lot of good characteristics of a bourbon that i would assume is older than what they say

is in here. Yeah, it doesn't have, you know, too long of a finish, but honestly, for 30 bucks, I mean

I'd buy another one. I really need to try more Smoke Wagon because I haven't had too much

experience with it, honestly. I have had a couple Uncut Unfiltered releases. I had their Small Batch

which I think was the, I think that's like $50. So I need to get all three of those together

both this, you know, standard straight bourbon, the Small Batch, and the Uncut Unfiltered

and maybe a single barrel if I can get my hands on it and do a smoke wagon flight

Cause that's something I haven't done. And I really love that they're based out of Las Vegas. Yes, they are sourcing from, you know, MGP, but Las Vegas is one of my favorite cities

in the country. I've been dying to go back there, dying like the skeletons on this bourbon

Okay, I'm just kidding. But no, seriously, it's such a great city and I would love to visit

I don't know if they have like a tasting room out there, but it just, it just seems like

a really cool operation there. So yeah, I think, I mean, even, okay, let's say you're listening to this after Halloween and the spooky edition is no longer available

Just the regular straight bourbon from Smoke Wagon. Like I said, they say it's about four years old

It's not actually ACA and I'm noticing it now. It's listed on a couple of websites

It's four years old. Not sure if I mentioned it, but it is 92.5 proof, 46.25% ABV

So again, $30. I would definitely buy up another bottle of this

Like I said, I'm going to a local group's whiskey tasting event this Saturday. Definitely going to bring this bottle because day before Halloween, I mean, you love a good spooky bourbon

Speaking of spooky, I just heard the news recently that Concerned Ape, who is the creator of Stardew Valley

is putting out a brand new game, his first new project in over 10 years

And it's called Concerned Ape's Haunted Chocolatier. If you don't know much about Stardew Valley, it is a farming sim, Harvest Moon-esque game that came out with amazing reception

So my husband actually has been following the game since it started development. He's been following Concerned Apes blog, and he's been following it for years

So this guy is literally just a one-man team, or at least he was when the game first came out

He's since worked with publishers, getting it on different consoles. And originally it was just a PC game, but it made its way to console, it made its way to mobile

and it just took the world by storm. So I'm so excited to see he's working on a new game

and especially with it being the haunted theme. I mean, what a great time to announce it

He announced it, I think it was probably last week, over on Twitter, but he put up an article on his website

He put up a trailer video, more like a teaser. But man, this new game looks so good

So it's definitely different from Stardew Valley. However, stylistically, it looks so similar

with the same charm, the same style of gameplay, the same visuals, same character design, but

it's all new characters, all new themes, and it almost seems, now it's hard to tell because

there's not much info out about it, he says actually he doesn't want to be too specific

because he doesn want to pigeonhole himself into a certain direction with the game He wants it to just kind of go with the flow see where it takes him but he did say that you know where stardew valley is a lot more humble you know you living off the land you growing your own food he wanted to kind of explore

and go into more fantastical elements which there are some in stardew valley of course

but that's where the magical haunted ghost chocolate comes in is what he says and he says

chocolate represents that which is delightful the haunted castle represents the allure of the

unknown, the ghosts represent the imprint of the past. All of these things are important. However

don't think for a moment that because this game features ghosts in a haunted castle

it's an evil or negative game. On the contrary, he intends for the game to be positive, uplifting

and life-affirming. So super excited about this. It seems just, like I said, there's not much info

about it. He doesn't want to, you know, pigeonhole himself, but it seems like the core of this game

is gathering ingredients, making chocolate, and selling them, and running a chocolate shop

But of course, if you know Stardew Valley, it's much more than the core aspect of the game

There seems to be a lot of battling elements to it. There's enemies. I'm sure there's going to be relationships just like Stardew Valley

It seems more like a traditional RPG when it comes to the fighting of the enemies, at least based on the trailer

And yeah, I'm just super excited about that. It's currently in development. There's no release date or any other details as of now

which you know I'm like I kind of want to date but I mean honestly I really hope he takes his

time with this he obviously isn't rushing it out Stardew Valley is still a successful game there was

just a recent update to it I haven't played it in a while need to go back to it I actually said

for a while Stardew Valley was I alternate so sometimes I'm really into Stardew Valley and

then sometimes I'm really into Animal Crossing right now with the new Animal Crossing release

coming out early next month which if you missed my podcast on that that was episode one where I

talked about that um i've been all animal crossing now you know building up my uh island getting it

ready for the new update um but man stardew valley has consumed hours upon hours upon hours of my

life um and it's a fun game to play with my husband too we both um enjoy playing that together

as well as doing our own um farms and comparing and seeing who can uh date alex the fastest i

mean that's what i've been going for although i alternate sometimes sometimes i'm approaching alex

to marry and other times I'm a big fan of uh Sebastian sometimes but usually it's either Alex

or Sam those are two have been my favorite uh guys that I've wanted to marry in the game but

let me know if you've played Stardew Valley who is always your love interest uh there's a lot of

really interesting characters and I imagine um the haunted chocolatier game will also have some

very interesting uh characters I hope that hopefully there's still the dating aspect I mean

And I think that's, people love that the most about Starter Valley. I think there's got to be that in the game

But yeah, stay tuned. I'll definitely, if there's more updates about that that come out, I'm happy to share them

with you because like I said, super excited about this. I have on Twitter alerts for that account, but it seems like a lot of fun

So keep an eye out for more from Concerned Ape about the Haunted Chocolatier game

But with that, I think that wraps up this episode. Let me know how I'm doing

If you have not yet joined our Discord, like I said earlier, you can also email me privately

contact at bourbonbites.com or you can give me a call which i'm going to be featuring some

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it means a lot to me honestly at the time of recording we're just under 100 downloads which

is crazy i launched this less than a week ago um we'll see if we get over 100 with this release or

this episode right here so uh make sure to download it and like i said leave a rating and review if you

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my youtube channel speaking of youtube channel if you're listening to this on friday last night i was

live with Ardbeg's national brand ambassador, Cameron George. He's such a great guy. Go check

out the replay of that stream. We did some LEs, some committee releases and things like that

And it was a lot of fun, I assume, because I'm recording this the day before

Though with that, this has been Bourbon Bites Whiskey Reviews with a gaming twist

I'm Clifton. Cheers, and I'll talk to you next podcast