High West Prairie Bourbon!

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Welcome to the Whiskey Chasers, where we talk about our passion for whiskey and its history, either amongst ourselves or while interviewing distilleries. All while enjoying a glass. I'm Steve. I'm Nick. And I'm Chris. Please enjoy responsibly while enjoying this week's episode of The Whiskey Chasers. We're going sunbear with this one.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

We're going sunbear. The sad news, the last one that you did, the s uh dart, the dog. Junk junkyard. Junkyard Dart. We opened that brand new last time. And you could hear the hiss. It wasn't as good, thankfully. It wasn't as good as the one that we did for gosh. I just edited.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

It was um Fire and Flask?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Nope. It was the one right after Fire and Flask. It was uh Jimmy Red.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Which one we what would you but did we open I don't know what it was? Was it that black? Was it the frigate?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

It was like a can of pop. Might have been the frigate. It sounded like a can of pop, and it was it was a good one. It was real good.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

This one's not gonna have it. It might have a good hiss, but those were older than this one. This one's only got five years, a little over five years of age on it. I'm trying to remember do we have to do that? We've gone through a can or two of that, haven't we? We have, and we I think we've had it on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Blockade Runner is what we had with it was blockade runner. That's what we did with the with the uh Jimmy Red.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

The Jimmy Red. So that's the other one we lost. No, no, no, we hadn't. Okay, that one's good. Well, I'm trying to figure out did we the full Virginia Flake? Did we lose that one?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

What was the other bottle that we did? Uh that we that we lost.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I don't think we would have smoked full Virginia Flake with Bullet. I think that must have been on a different one. Steve will tell us.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I feel like you did one that you've already had before for bullets.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

I'm sure I did because it's bullet.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Bullet tenure, we did Blackpoint.

unknown 1:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

But gel bees.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah, okay. Not a huge loss there. Blackpoint was good. I think it had some some cigar leaf in it. But I think we've actually done that on the podcast before. I don't think that was the first time doing Blackpoint. I can't remember. But anyway, today we're doing something special. Uh it's one of the tins I've had cellared away. This stuff is sought after. This is the first iteration of Sunbear. I believe this is the first one. After this, they came out with another one. Uh Black Locust. Okay. I think is what it was. And then they just recently came out with another one that sold out in about a minute and a half. A minute and a half. Yeah. People were all upset because they couldn't get their hands on it. But that one was a navy flake. So, but what they do with the Sunbear Um is the head blender, Jeremy Reeves, he's a blender for Cornell and Deal. He has on the side, kind of like you, Steve, he's got his, he keeps bees.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

So he's got his own local honey that he that he does. So he had an idea one time to to pull out some leaf, some special leaf, uh, and blend it up. And then he uh added some unique tequila. I'll have to see what it says on here. I can't remember what it's called, but he added tequila and then he added his own honey. So this is their literally one of a kind.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Um, and then they always do limited runs. This one was they only did 8,000 cans when he did this one.

unknown 3:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Um, and it like I said, it's sold out. Uh, this one's 5,658. We're gonna pop it. Um, but this has got 2014 Bosma leaf, 2013 Izmir. So they for these special releases, these small batch releases, they all use leaf that has been sitting around for a while and it's it's limited qual quantity, and like when it's gone, it's gone, kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

So almost like if you can think of an orphan barrel. They got stuff sitting around, like this is gonna be gone. What can we use it for? So that's what he does. But this one is a blend of fine red and bright virginias, balanced by the Bosma leaf from the 2014 ismere leaf from 2013, Sunbear uh mends itself with subtle notes of South Carolina garden grown honey from the personal beehives of Jeremy Reeves. There you go, head blender. Um, see they dri oh drizzling of silver tequila and elder flower. That's what it was.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

Oh, elder flower.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Yeah, for a natural, refined tasting tobacco and underlying swashbuckling boldness. Sun beers, but sun beers, you just so it goes on and on. But pretty unique pipe tobacco, and it's again, it's a non-aromatic. Like, this is not considered an aromatic pipe tobacco, right? But you got tequila, you got elderleaf, you got honey, you got very special choice tobacco. So let's get into it. We we've smoked this before, it's been a while. I still have yeah, we got some like way back at the start of the podcast. Yeah, way back in the past. Yeah, like so. Yeah, it's been a while since we've had it, and I wanted to give it a shot. So that was nice. Sounded good. Oh, it's aromatic. You can smell it. Oh, yeah, it smells great. I think it's oh, but then again, this has got age on it. Last time it didn't, so right. This really smells great. This might be quite an experience. See, I always like to after I pop these. I mean, obviously I gotta smelt myself, but then I like to see Nick's reactions because he likes to smell this stuff. Crazy sniffer. He's got the crazy sniffer because it's like a room note expert. He does, yeah, because he doesn't smoke it, but he really enjoys the smell of it. But both burning and non-burning.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

You get a lot of that honey and the elderflower. You do, yeah. Yeah, I don't get the tequila, but I get that elderflower and that honey.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, you really get the elderflower. I almost wonder if the tequila is working so well with the elderflower that it's combined. But that actually makes me wonder if that would be a fantastic little finish on a on a bourbon or a rye. Elderflower? Tequila slash elderflower. Because I feel like the tequila would add the kind of those agave nuances, which is almost that kind of burny kind of but the elderflower would kind of round it out. It would round it out, yeah. Yeah, that would be an interesting pairing. I mean, it's an interesting pairing to begin with, but that would be interesting. Okay, and it's come it's kind of a broken flake. You know, it'd be even more interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Do uh extra nejo tequila? Yeah. Finished in elderflower liquor. Liqueur. Like can you do barrels? Like why not? I've never heard of aged elderflower.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Um, yeah, I don't I mean, they really have a whole lot of tequila finished in anything. Yeah, they have somewhat some things, but you just don't think I mean that's a great combination, elderflower and tequila. I mean, I almost feel like if there's not a cocktail already, there should be one. Just mixing the two.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

That could be like uh tequila sunset instead of a sunrise.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Tequila um siesta. Midday little midday nip. A little midday action there. What are you reading over there?

SPEAKER_02 7:17

I was reading the back of High West. Uh, the our our bottle today is high west whiskey, the American Prairie Bourbon, a blend of straight bourbon whiskies. Uh, high West does not distill. As far as I know, I don't think they distill any of their stuff. Uh do they now? They do now. Oh, nice, their stuff.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

That bottle probably not. That that one's been sitting on the shelf for a while.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

There's another reason why this one is not and will not.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Right. Oh, so this one still is not. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

They even made a point on their website to say artwork has changed, but the mash bill and recipe is still the same. They are not gonna change that. So they're still sourcing. They changed the artwork on this one. The new bottles, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, um, but I was reading the back of this, and this is a really cool bottle that we're doing right now because uh a couple weeks ago, I went to Kentucky with my in-laws and my uh my family over there, uh, my wife's family. And uh, with this trip, um, we split up the vehicles a little bit, and I rode with my father-in-law the whole way down. So it's like a six-hour drive with just me and him, which is by far the longest time the two of us have spent alone together. So, you know, got to got to know each other pretty well.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Not very many bathroom stops, kind of quite lots of bathroom stops. But he's older, he's probably gonna over and over. That's fair.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Yeah, traveling is different when you get older. Um, but uh on the way though, uh, he likes to listen to his podcasts and stuff also. Uh, he usually goes down the conspiracy route uh theory route uh or political stuff and all that. Earth is flat or uh a lot of aliens, a lot of aliens. Um we align it a lot of stuff. He's a little wack-adoodle when it comes to some of that kind of stuff. But when we were going, he also likes his history and and all this. And so I was like, you know what? There's this new podcast put out by Meat Eater, um, which is a great podcast network uh with lots of cool stuff. Meat Eater. Meat Eater, yep. They have a series on Netflix and stuff too. It's like a hunting and fishing kind of podcast. But they've started this uh uh Western University series kind of thing where they're going through a lot of the history of the of the West, and they did a whole episode on the pronghorn antelope.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Steve, I'm kind of disappointed. Yeah, because I was really hoping that you've had that story of like, hey, let me show you this new podcast. It's called the Whiskey Chasers. Oh, he's already a fan of us.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

He's already on board. The pronghorn. The pronghorn, yeah. Is it from America? Is it America? It is okay. It's it's America slash Mexico, South America, it's all in the Western hemisphere. Um, we it is a weird animal that is very, very unique because it has no living relative. So like humans. Wait, sorry, no living relative never evolved from something. It so it has, but all the other iterations have have are are long gone. So, you know, 5,000 years ago, there were four or five versions of the pronghorn, and those other versions have all died out. So we call it an antelope, but that's technically not true. It's it's closer to a giraffe in terms of its actual like genetics, which is weird. Are they big? They're not big, they look like an antelope, they look like a deer rabbit. Um, but they are incredibly fast, they're they can go 65 miles an hour, uh, and they have their their lungs and stuff are huge, so they can go 65 for like two or three miles. So it's not like a cheetah that can book at to about that speed for you know 30 seconds. Because lions go after uh antelopes, but not these ones, not these ones. These guys have no natural predators because of their speed. What do they eat? Grass, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

They're like eat grass or whatever else. How come we never trained them like we do, like dog sleds? Instead, we did the wagons, you know what I mean? Like, well, they're not very strong. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

So they can't really pull stuff. Why don't we really like use those instead of horses? Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Well, they don't they can't pull stuff, they're not, they're not strong, they don't have any they can't maybe strong enough in a pack.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

I mean, we can get them in like 10, 12 packs, you know?

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Get them some steroids. This podcast went into a whole bunch of cool stuff about why they still do that, because it's kind of weird that they do that because there's no predators that can do that. So, because it's like, so why can they still do that? Right, because there's no reason for that to evolve to do yeah, to like back that off. So they're kind of they're they're they're actually programmed to fight predators that are long ago extinct. So it was a cool, cool little podcast on that front. Um, but he started the story with Liz watching a pronghorn going next to his car at like you know 45-50 miles an hour or so, and then he beelines it and he sees a fence. And instead of jumping over the fence, he dives, goes sideways, and goes through the through the barbed wire fence. It's super hardcore. Okay, so uh, but yeah, so the prong horn is a super cool animal, and like humans, it doesn't have another ancestor that's still alive, and so we you know, people say monkeys or whatever, but that's still not really another version of a human. That's another like a thing. We do, yeah, we do eat them. For oh, we eat them. I don't know if it was just for like showing. We did at one point. Um, maybe that's why they're so fast, poachers or whatever, right? Yeah, yeah. So what they're because they don't have any predators and stuff, they became a pretty big part of the market hunting of ages ago. We gotta depopulate them. Yeah, Lewis and Clark were the first people to document them and watch them and stuff, and they had similar herds. Something that would be in like Africa, yeah, yeah. That's exactly it. They they look like African animals. Where do they where are they at? They're all all throughout the West here and down into Mexico and stuff. So more drier climbing? Yeah, drier. All right. Yeah, not mountain climbers or anything, they're prairies. But they're on the front of the bottle, they are on the front of this bottle, and I was reading the back of this. Part of the money is donated to um a preservation area that supports longhorns and bison and all that stuff out west. Do we train them? We do not train them, we gotta train them.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

We gotta train them. If you got like like 12 of those and hooked them up to a wagon back in the day, that's way better than like Balto and his team of sledors. I mean, think of think of how quick people would have gone across the Oregon Trail.

SPEAKER_02 14:13

I mean, think about it.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

I mean, come on.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Uh so yeah, so how so that was just kind of cool that way. I just learned about a whole bunch of stuff about the pronghorn, and then this bottle's gonna go to help protect them. So that's kind of cool. Multiple ways.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Whenever you're done fondling that bottle, I will I will pour some. Sorry, did you guys? I thought we were just looking at it today. If you want to keep going for a little bit, that's fine. But but whenever you're finished, didn't realize I was holding up the bottle. You want you wanna hand it back to you? Yeah, if you wouldn't mind, no. I think I got everything I needed. Get out your feels in, huh? It is a cool anybody who's ever uh drank or seen high west, their bottles are so high west. You know what I mean? Like they're so west. What does that even mean? Out west, old west. Okay, uh Clint Eastwood, hang them high, uh shoot them up, six guns. You know what I mean? Like it's just there, it's like almost looks like it's it should be in a saloon. It's like old glass, like it's got the chips and the bubbles and stuff in it. I wouldn't even call it hand blown, it's just like old like sea glass. It's like not like full of imperfections.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Yeah, it's kind of speckled almost. Like glass is speckled.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

It's very speckled and kind of gritty, and it's got like a beachwood top, although it's probably not beachwood, but it looks like beachwood. It does, it looks like it and uh you know an old wanted poster looking label. That's exactly what that looks like, like an old wanted poster. That that you know, that uh wider would serve. So it's just very cool looking bottle. They make good products, now they make their own. Some of their stuff. Some of their stuff, not this one.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

This one they uh were very clear that they are not changing uh on their website.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Out of all of them, this is the one that they're keeping the way to yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

So they made a note to say they've recently updated their packaging, but the whiskey inside hasn't changed. And this one, they say it's a blend, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Yeah, it says American American carefully blend of straight bourbons at least two years old.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Sourced, it's all sourced, yes. Uh so they got one, they have a straight bourbon, 75 corn, 21 rye, four barley from MGP. They have an 84 corn, eight rye, eight barley, and they won't disclose where that's from because they're contractual obligations.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah, which is interesting because it has some MGP aspects to it, but not enough to be like that's MGP, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yeah, and so they could possibly be making some of their own stuff and putting it in here, but the blend isn't changed. Like if they were you'd want to put that, right? They want to put it on there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

But I think it's interesting that they're they take two-year-old bourbons and they're blending them together. It's great for two years old.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

It is. This is their cheapest bottle, I think. That they do.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

It's the only one that's like what 37, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

38, yeah, 38 with tax, maybe. And it's just their their bourbon offerings. Just their bourbon. Because they do a lot of other stuff.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

They do, they do a lot of ryes, they do a lot of whiskeys, they do a lot of one-offs too. They may do they do a single malt. Yeah, a lot of a lot of one-off uh finishings and and that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

When they first started, they did the rye, bourbon, and the campfire. Those are the only three that I remember seeing of High West when they first got their start. And the campfire was the most expensive one they did, which I it sounds like it'd be great for this series.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yeah, the campfire sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Sounds great, it's it's wonderful, but it's not a camping bottle.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Not not it's too campfire, like it's it's it is campfire.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yes. Um, and their rye is really good, but I think this is perfect for camping.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Yeah, the campfire has some scotch in it, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yes, yep. It's a blend of whiskies and then some scotch, too. So some scotch whiskies, American whiskeys, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:32

So if you don't if you can't get camping, that's when you have a campfire to remind yourself of the camping. Of the camping, yeah. But you don't take that camping, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, so just 80. Actually, it's pretty it's pretty flavorful for 80. Again, you're getting uh a good amount of flavor for something that's not too high proof, which is what you want for a camping whiskey. That's what I was gonna say. It's not proofy, but it has a lot of flavor to it. It could be all of the aesthetic of the bottle, but I just feel like this is great for like like if you were camping in the desert and it's like super cold at night, you know, and you got like a serape kind of a blanket, you know. Oh what? What's what's a serape? Like a poncho sort of deal, a little bit. It's like the multicolored pattern that the that western pattern. Like the good, the bad, the ugly when he's wearing that thing. That's uh yeah. So, what's the difference between that and a poncho? It's basically a Mexican blanket with a hole in the middle that you stick your head through. It's literally all it is.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Poncho's waterproof? Is that the the only difference?

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Yeah, poncho. That was a poncho, but now ponchos are like waterproof, but like a like a serape, a poncho, they're like kind of the same thing, kind of the same idea. But it's got that, I don't know what you call what do you call that pattern?

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Aztecy?

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Native American of some sort. Um there I used to know the name for that.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

There's sure there is a name for it, but I don't know what it is.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

But it's a pattern if you've ever seen those cheap Mexican blankets that are actually fantastic. It's that pattern.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

Like woven blankets or whatever that you get it for like 10 bucks. They're really cheap, but they're uh great. They're great.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

It's like that aesthetic with the turquoise and the sand and the desert and the cactus and the it's like that kind of camping, like west, out west, I feel like. But this goes along with that, you know. Falsa blankets, that's what they're called.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Is serape the name of the pattern?

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Mexican blankets. I wonder if serape is the name of the pattern. Heavy weaved. Yeah, it might be. Or saltillo blankets. That's my best Mexican uh saltillo, sutillo. I don't know, I don't know. Why not? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I feel like the the little bit of tequila in the silk coat kind of goes along with that.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

The in the in the pipe.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

I also like how uh in this campfire camping kind of thing that we got going, um, a lot of our bottles or in our heads, the things that we're looking for are western. Yeah, they're not southern, they're western. Yeah, so it's a very much the cowboy motif. Yeah, which is interesting. Uh, and that's you know, I'm thinking of camping. A lot of times I'm not camping out west. I mean, you you can, but like you can also camp here or in Ohio or south or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Oh, you can camp out on the east coast, you can camp anywhere. Yeah, you can buddy of mine just got back from beach camping. He didn't recommend it. Didn't recommend it because he was like, sand was everywhere. It's just the wind's blowing, he goes in your tent. He's like, it's it's in your food, it's because he like legit beach camped, like and he's like, I don't recommend it. I was like, Yeah, you can't really go anywhere to cool down either, you know. Like, I mean in the water, I guess, but then yeah, I don't know. I just feel like there's no shade, you know, like right. And I am not a beach guy. I like the beach, but not for camping.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

No, I I'm I am a uh like I'll go to the beach, but I have no interest in sitting on sitting on a beach. I will go with a glasses. Or I want to go in the water. I want to go swimming. Uh scuba diving. I can't surf. I've never tried surfing, but I would. It is in the water, I like it. On the beach, I'm just sitting there cooking. I don't really want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah, see, I can do it. I'm a beach bum. But what the my thing is, and I could do it for eight, 10 hours. I really don't care, especially as long as I have my beach hat. I'm good to go. But when I'm done, I'm done. And what I want to be, I want to go take a shower, and I want to be in the air conditioning for the rest of the night. And I don't want to be, I don't want to have sand follow me into the room, which is almost impossible. Right? Right, exactly. Really almost impossible. But I am, I am a I could be on the beach. I could, I could be a beach bow. I mean, I smoke cigars out there and because I mean, good luck smoking a pipe. I've tried it, don't do it. You can't. But you can smoke cigars. And uh we normally have like a whole tumbler full of of whiskey. And then honestly, with my beach hat, it's so such a wide brim. It's like you have your own shade. If you get too hot or you gotta take a leak, you just go out in the water.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Right. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah, I mean, it's really not then if you can uh hopefully you can walk down to a little spot and grab yourself a couple of fish tacos and maybe a pina colada and there you go, mose mosely mosey your way back to your k your uh your your beach chair and continue, rinse and repeat until you can barely stumble back to your room, take a shower, get some food and call it an evening. You know, it's a good time. I like I like the beach, but I don't want to camp out on there.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Right, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

But I almost feel like camping uh going back to camping in the desert, right? That's sand as well. I just feel like that'd be different because it's gotta be like less breezy, there's no water involved, it's dry. That stuff probably doesn't even stick to you, right? Because it's so dang dry. You know, I I've never really but I've been in New Mexico, I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time on the beach, or not the beach, but the desert. And uh I kind of wanted to. I just think that would be cool. I have a feeling I would enjoy the because I did like New Mexico. I was like, this is my kind of and I've never been to Arizona, but I'd like to go. Like I feel like I could be out west. It's my kind of vibe, and it's dry heat, man. I don't sweat out there.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Like we make fun of it here in Ohio, but when people say, Oh, it's dry heat, so it's okay. That's true, though. Like it is true. When I was working out in Colorado and stuff, like I was in a flannel shirt in the in 80 degree weather, and I was fine.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Like it was such a different you could wear boots and jeans and not feel like I'm sweating my ace off, yeah. Right. But here, like it gets you know 80, 90 degrees, and you're like, I am dying, I'm melting into a puddle. Then also at night, it's like effing freezing over there. So you almost get like both seasons every day.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Yep. When I was in Colorado, I was there for the summer, and multiple times pipes froze at night because of because of how cold it gets at night. And every I mean we had I had a coat on in the morning, every morning. Like it was it is different on on how fast the weather changes throughout the day.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Dude, I I would sit out um and drink my coffee in the mornings and smoke my pipe in New Mexico, and it was awesome because it felt like a crisp, almost winter day, which if if you've ever sat out and you know had your coffee out on a porch, like in that, it's like the perfect time of year for that. It's not that cold, but it's kind of frosty. Yeah, and you know, you got a hoodie on or whatever. That's such a great time to be sitting out smoking a pipe and drinking a cup of coffee for sure. Then by the afternoon, it's like summer, it's just great. Yeah, you get fall and summer in the same day, it's great. Same day. And there's like not that many bugs out there.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

There really isn't, not near as many bugs. Um, yeah, and and high west is based out of Utah, and so I think it's based out of Salt Lake. I think so too. Yeah, either, but maybe Park City. Um, but either way, what's the difference? Yeah, well, they're in different cities, okay. So both in Utah though. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Are they close by each other though?

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Uh like semi-close. I mean, I was when I was out in Utah, we were pretty close to Park City. Um, they're they're probably like an hour apart. Oh, okay. Like so that's not bad. Close, but not necessarily not like a subdivision, like they're both big cities. That's pretty close. Oh closer than Toledo, right? Yeah. Uh founded in 2006 by David Perkins and his wife Jane. David was a biochemist, so he did a lot of chemistry. Look at that kind of brain on bread. I know it, right? Uh, but he got the idea because he went to some distilleries in Kentucky and we're like, hey, this distilling process is not that far off from fermentation or anything else that he was working on.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

And there's really nothing out there, like distillery-wise, even at that time. Yeah, not a lot.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Kind of an untapped market.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

Well, because Salt Lake's well, Utah, Utah's pretty dry. Utah's pretty dry. Like, like the Mormon, exactly. There's a lot of Mormons drink. Mormons do not drink. So, uh, and and a lot of Utah is pretty much controlled by the Mormon church. So there most people in Utah are Mormon by like a pretty significant margin.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

85% of the population.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Yeah, it's pretty hefty. Um, and it's a weird place for a lot of reasons. Utah is a weird place, uh, all because of the Mormons. But I've heard it's beautiful, it is beautiful, it is incredibly salt.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

A lot of the salt we get in the world comes from Utah. It does. Probably from the lake, yeah. The salt lake. No, they're actually underground. There's like underground like cave salt, salt caves and stuff. Yeah, redmond salt. That's yeah, redmond, you said redmans, yeah. Redmond's redmans, yeah. Some people say going back to the compute conspiracy theories, some people say that that's from uh giants.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

From salt, yeah, all salt. Yeah, yeah. Have you seen this? Because why? Yeah, if you're crumbling up right here.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

If you look down on them, if you look at so this is a wild one. If but if you look at the the photos um of what salt looks like, the salt stones that they cut out of, and like big slabs of meat, it looks the exact same. And meat, uh, actually, like flesh, like like meat, like animal or human or whatever, will eventually, when it petrifies, be like salt, like it is salt. Uh, and it you almost couldn't tell the difference at a certain point when it petrifies. Um, so the whole giant thing, there's all these things about giants back in the day, all this stuff. But if you look at these caves, there's a lot of these caves that literally look like you're inside like the ribcage of a giant human being, and they're like carving these big chunks of salt, and you really can't tell. And they they look like parts of different muscles and things. It's pretty wild when you look at it. Is the argument that the salt cave is a giant? Yes, okay, and that they are walking around inside a giant, and there's multiple giants that you know died or whatever. They're walking around inside a petrified giant, okay. Um, and they're basically just we're just eating their their salt. But it's weird. I mean, do I believe it? No, but like when you watch the when you look at the videos and you watch a watch videos and you look at the photos, it actually is quite compelling. Yeah, and I will say that it does look 100% like meat, like 100% like it's so weird. It's like there's veins and there's veins and tendons and all like it looks like other than the fact that it's rock hard, it looks like meat. Yeah, it's crazy. You should you should pull up a photo of it and you'll be like, oh I will put that up.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

I I like a good conspiracy theory. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

And there's they're they're all over the place out there, you know. I I don't believe basically any of them, but yeah, they are fun. With the exception of the world being flat, right? Oh, for sure, yeah. Because everybody knows that.

SPEAKER_03 30:06

No question the world is flat.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I'm not even I'm not even questioning that. We all know that that is a fact. I mean everything else, I don't know, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

High West though started really small, uh, only a 250-gallon still uh in saloon. That's how they started out. In a saloon, they did a still in saloons, they kind of did use our idea from Tin Cup. Yeah, they were like, let's go with our aesthetic. Yeah, let's go in a in a historic livery stable in ground.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

So yeah, that do they still have it up and running, you think?

SPEAKER_02 30:38

I don't know if they have that location up and running, but they do have distillery tours and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Destination distillery. What are you looking at?

SPEAKER_01 30:44

I'm not crazy, right? I mean, I didn't realize it was red to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Oh, yeah, it looks like me.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

I thought salt was white or clean.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

No, or or pink from the Hamala. Yeah, but this one's red. Yeah, it's redmins salt, yeah. Yeah. Red man's the giant. It's the it's the man's oh the red man. Uh got it.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

So they even Indians, huh?

SPEAKER_00 31:05

The giant Indians?

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Right, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Is that why the giant redmans? Well, the thing is if they were that big, they could just take one step and go to any pretty much any country they wanted to, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:14

So I mean if caves are the body of a giant, that's a pretty big giant.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Well, have you seen the the big photos of the trees that the giants cut down to? Have you heard about this?

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Like the red, like the like the whipped up or like the red oaks?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

There's well, no, there's there's these big massive, massive like tree stumps throughout the world that they don't look like they they're petrified. Again, petrified wood or or not, but they they what they look like is massive mountains that have been cut down. They look like tree, like there's no disguise. If you Google this, they look like these big, massive tree stumps, like massive, massive, like so big like they would reach into outer space, right? Um, but the the thing about this was supposedly in the Bible, and I I haven't looked into this, but supposedly there's some verses that talk about the angels uh were sent to the earth to cut down the trees or the giants, or somebody cut down the trees right before the flood, so no evil could escape the flood, basically. Okay. Uh so there's all and that's what Noah's Ark was made out of. That's why it's so big. So if you look, if you look into it, it's kind of like a thing. Do I believe it? No. But if you look at these things, they if they're not tree stumps, I mean, I don't know what they are. They do look like, and they were so big, like like the size of Dublin could fit on a tree stump. Like that's how big these things are.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

Yeah, okay. It's like your plateaus in like deserts and stuff or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Like, yeah, again, if you look at the photos, you're like, if that's not a tree stump, I don't know what it is. Like, because they do look like there's knots and everything else, and there's like the circle, like they had to have been. But but the quite that begs the question say though, say they are tree stumps. Who could cut that down? Yeah, other than these giants, right? Or something else. But they were saying these giants existed because they cut down these tree stumps.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

So lots of determination. And we're gonna start a spin-off episode. Where did the axes go? Yeah, where's the song?

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah, there's a big axe laying around there somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Not even worried about the tree anymore. I want to know what it was cut out with and where it went.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

But anyway, anyway, going back to going back to high west here, yeah. So they've been around since the 90s. Is that what you said? Uh 2006. Oh, 2006. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. Uh now they did make uh what I've heard you guys describe as probably one of the best finishings. Uh yeah, PKA, which is that I'm so upset that I finished mine and I quit.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

I'm so upset they quit making it.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Yeah, why? Well, so they quit making it, but uh there's rumor, there's several rumors that they've come out with different finishings that they partner with different other companies that compare to Yippikaye. One of them being uh Casa Noble is a tequila company, and they just came out with a second release of it. It's uh part of some of the barrels are finished in first, it's a blend of MGP rye and their rye. So uh high west rye is 80 rye 20 barley, MGP is 95.5. So they blend those two. Part of the blend was then finished in Ambrano wood, and the rest was finished in uh Casanoble tequila barrels, and then they put that together. Uh they did one, they do one now once a year with uh prisoner wine uh called the prisoner share. High West does this? Yep, so it's called Prisoner Share, and it's finished in uh prisoner wine barrels. That's really hard to get your hands on, but I've heard his fan flippantastic. I feel like they've done a few others.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

I just feel like there's and I've said it before, but I think more people should use verm dry vermouth as a finishing.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Uh did they do dry and sweet vermouth for the Yippie Kai? They might have just dry. I think it was two different types of vermouth barrels, but I don't know if it was two types of dry vermouth barrels that I did it in, but I'm pretty sure theirs was two different types of vermouth that they finished it in, which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

It was so good, and it was one of my favorite bottles of all time.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

The only thing that Chris and I have had that came close to it was two James does a rye finished in sweet vermouth barrels.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

That one is so on my list today.

SPEAKER_01 35:39

The only other one that has ever compared to Yippicai.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

I have no two James in my collection, and I and I want I really want two, like it's one of my favorite like distilleries. That's a Michigan distillery, yeah, right? Yeah, which I mean, probably the absolute best thing to ever come out of Michigan. Yeah, I mean, and that's really saying something because there's not much even Journeyman, even better than Journeyman. Well, I said one of the best. I'm not saying come on, there's not there's not a whole lot about Michigan I like, but those two places for sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

As an Ohio-born person, I still I really like Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

That we bashed Detroit as much as we did.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

No, not because Detroit's a great city. I think if I remember right, if I remember right, my my defense of Detroit was not super good.

SPEAKER_00 36:31

And you kind of conceded at one point. You're like, well, I it just yeah, it's a cool art city with but it's just a little rough. But remember saying, like, you know, that little white speck on top of chicken shit. That little bird is chicken shit too. Something to think about. But the western side with all the white side, yeah. Yeah. But going back to Vermouth.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

I think High West is great for camping. Their bottles are, in my opinion, fantastic for packing.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Yep. Nice and tall and thin. So it makes it nice to slide along the side of a bag. They're kind of thick, double, like dual, double.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

I was about to say, but for something about them and 10 cup that we did, both of their glasses just seem really thick. Robust. Robust. Like I could smack it up against a rock and probably crack it, but not shatter.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

This actually, I think you would have a hard time breaking, trying to break. Yeah, exactly. Whereas other bottles, you could drop them and break them.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Uh, real quick, pick up that bottle and read the bottom part of it, uh, in like underneath the low logo that's like embroised. Park City. Park City, Utah. Okay, so now that there we go.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Now we know that's where that's where it's from. Away from the Mormons. Non-child.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Well, still very Mormony. No coloring or flavoring added. Good to know. Yeah, I'm so glad.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Curious as to why you felt like it to put that on there.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

It is a blended two-year. So, you know, you might worry. You might worry about that. Well, you know, I read that wrong.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

It's 46%. Oh, 46%. I was a little off. Okay, so it's 92 proof. Yeah. So that's good. Good for them. Good for them because and that's good. It tastes good. It tastes like 92%. Uh 92%. I thought I thought it but it's so small, it was like this, and I tried looking down. You see that, Nick? It looks like eight, like 40, doesn't it?

unknown 38:20

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

I was like, oh, that's 40. No, it's 46. Yeah. I mean, I like it. I've always liked high west. I don't think I've ever had a bottle of it. I didn't. Well, I think the mid-winter's night dram is good, but is it over a little overrated? Because it's sorry to get and so expensive. I think it's just a little bit overrated. It's good, don't get me wrong. But people pay an ungodly amount for that. And it's just not that good. You know what I mean? But I digress. I mean, it's not bad though. It's very good.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

You know what? I am kind of upset that they took away, they were done with Yippikaye, but they kept midwinter night's dram around. I would have gone the other way too. Me too.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Same here. And you know, the the uh talking about you know just the aesthetic and overall look and marketing, but the yippie kai, the bottle of yippikaye is really a cool looking bottle. Yeah, like they did that, they nailed it, they just nailed it. It's good. And I think, didn't we eat? I think we had that one time. We were eating tacos, some good ones, and I think we were we were drinking that and eating tacos, and I was like, this is such a pairing, so good. Like, because again, I just equate that bottle to like you know, the Alamo and like like that that kind of west, like almost like uh like on the border of Mexico, kind of a kind of a west, you know what I mean? Like San Antonio and and uh a lot of people probably wouldn't equate the two with together, but I just feel like it's that kind of a thing. So it almost goes with that kind of vibe, that that food and the desert and the you know, like barbacoa and things like that, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Yeah, which is interesting that we go that way with this bottle because it's a Utah bottle, so I mean it's a mountain bottle. Yeah, it's really not, it has nothing to do with the yeah, that far speed.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

It just kind of gives you that feel, it's just southwest vibe, yeah. And even the old west was not like super like it was west, but it wasn't like southwest, you know what I mean? Unless you were like fleeing, fleeing the law and you were going down to old Mexico, you know what I mean? But uh, I just I get that. I get the the it's like Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett and saving the Alamo and swigging a bottle of high west, you know.

unknown 40:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

I like that. I like that vibe. There's not a whole lot of things that give off that vibe. No, there's really not. Even things that go after that vibe don't really no, they usually they usually fall short. They fall short, yeah. Yeah, this is good. This one does not fall short, doesn't fall short for their basic offering. It's just so great, and it goes great with any camping.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Yeah, now would 38 bucks be too much?

SPEAKER_02 40:54

No, no, I think that's okay. Yeah, I think with inflation sub 40, I think is really what you're looking for. Uh so this is a higher end version, but it's you know, still still within camping realm.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

You gotta think 10 years ago this was easily 30 bucks, yeah. Uh no more. So that it's just inflation that's made it gone up. So 40 bucks is is 40 and under is fantastic for camping. I think. Yeah, I mean it I just think it goes along with it. But how does it sorry? How does the pipe go along with it? What do you think, Steve?

SPEAKER_02 41:26

I'm liking it. I think that for me, I don't know if either one is adding to the other or if they're just kind of paired nicely that they complement each other. I don't know that one is helping the other necessarily. I think they're just they're they're two separate that I think is maybe improved by the combo. Okay, but neither one I feel like is overshadowing the other one.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

Right. Do you agree with that? I do agree. I was gonna say, like, I don't think I think you'd have one without the other just fine. I think they're playing very well together. Yeah, they're not dependent on each other, um, like with we we get with other pairings. It's almost like uh the side, like like if you were to have uh co you know coast laws aside with something, it would you don't need one or the other, but it goes well together. Beans and and like a side of beans and tacos, like that kind of a thing, or yeah, or whatever, you know, whatever you want to come up with is they're good for each other. They're also good independently, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

Uh but I will say for the tobacco itself, after after not having smoked it for a while, flavor is so good. It's so interesting, it's so unique, it's great. I think it's having for me, I'm having a little hard time keeping it lit, but I think it's because we just popped the 10. And sometimes this stuff, especially with the addition of the honey and the everything else, maybe it's a little moist. Yeah, maybe a little bit. But that being said, it when when it is lit, it's burning really well. It's just not staying lit. And it's uh, I mean, for something like this type of tobacco to be that white of an ash, that's pretty interesting. You see that? Yeah, yeah. It's burning it's not burning completely, yeah. For sure. For for not wanting to stay lit, it's burning like it's like it's staying lit. You know what I mean? But you really do get a lot of those. I get a lot of the elder flower. Yeah, yeah. What you smell uh out of the tin is actually what you taste. Yeah, and which is you don't you normally get that. Yeah, it's very that's very cool.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Now, is this uh tobacco you take camping? Yeah, oh yeah. I would really yeah, so this wouldn't be airmatic.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

I would feel like I would take this more on the like what we've been talking about. I don't know. Like a west kind of camping. But then again, I don't think I'd really want to go camping with it. But I wouldn't want to go when it's like super humid and buggy. Yeah, this would be terrible for humid and buggy, but this is a dry camping experience. This is maybe fall, maybe more chilly. Yeah. Uh like like if you weren't worried about bugs and heat, this would be fun. Fantastic. Perfect. Because again, it's not an aromatic. It's not clawing. It's not like I don't think the room notes probably overly sweet. But it does give you just a little bit more than a standard, like whatever. You know what I mean? It's very close to an aromatic without being an aromatic.

SPEAKER_03 44:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

It's like a finished. I mean, it's it's the difference between it would be like an aromatic would be like a liqueur. And this would be more like a finished whiskey.

unknown 44:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

It's got some flavors in there that are not like normal to whiskey. Right. Like it's maybe a little sweet flavors, but they're finished. So it's so small and minute, it's just playing with it. But it's not like a liqueur. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Well, then perfect.

SPEAKER_02 44:46

Well, perfect. Well, perfect. Yeah. I think uh yeah, uh, it's a great bottle for camping. Um, great pipe for fall camping. And yeah, good good times all the way around.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Good times all around.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

Um great vibes. Great vibes. All right, till next time. Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you want more great content and other perks, be sure to support the show by clicking the link in the show notes. We can be reached on our website, whiskey tasterspod.com, with any ideas for the show. Thanks again.