Whiskey@Work

Rob and Mark try something new after almost three hundred episodes: a live blind tasting where they never say what's in the glass. No brand, no history, no mash bill, nothing but proof and a state of origin. They dig into the 1976 wine tasting that flipped the industry on its head, a college study that fooled sommeliers with food coloring, and the running theory that most drinkers can't actually tell a thirty dollar bottle from a three hundred dollar one. Somewhere in there: a whiskey made to spray on your glass to keep the bugs off, and the real, wild story of how one of bourbon's most respected names started as a $245 trademark purchase and ended in court.

We record this one out of a shipping crate at Sturgis, which tells you everything about the week we've had. This is close to twenty years into the Jack Daniel's tasting on the hill, and the guys in Lynchburg still know us by name. We get into the Squire program, why one of our regulars has the coin tattooed on his arm, and a Tennessee rye that clears 140 proof but drinks like hot summer afternoon in Sturgis.

Rob and Mark crack open a bottle of Old Grandad Bonded, the road trip whiskey that rode along with John Steinbeck across the country and earned a reputation as a natural biker's bourbon, strong enough to still taste like something and cheap enough not to sweat losing it. They dig into the Basil Hayden family history, that surprisingly high rye mash bill, what bottled in bond actually means, and the great label mystery: is that really Basil Hayden's face staring back at you from the bottle? They compare notes with its pricier cousin, swap stories about the Paper Plane cocktail, and count down to the Loud American Tasting up on the hill.

A hockey player from New Hampshire grows corn on Kauai and decides to make bourbon. Simple enough, right? Then the birds show up. Then the neighbors. Then the liquor commission. This week we're drinking Kapahi, a Hawaiian whisky (no e, we checked) tied to a fully built distillery on the island that has never made a single drop. We dig into the whole strange story, the spice that snuck up on both of us, and why this bottle logs more travel miles than it has any right to. Pour a glass and come figure this one out with us.

A friend of ours went to Hawaii and, since he doesn't drink, we gave him a mission: hit a liquor store and grab whatever's local. He came back with Old Pali Road, which gets called the original Hawaiian whiskey. That claim sent Mark digging, and he surfaced with a story about an escaped Australian convict and a still built from two whale blubber pots. Two Marine vets are behind this bottle, the mash bill leans hard on corn, and the water is filtered through volcanic rock for generations, or so the label says. Rob and Mark pour batch twenty-eight and figure out what's really Hawaiian about it.

A bakery, a bucket of paint, and a horse cart. Those three things somehow explain the Irish whiskey in our glasses this week. We got into Green Spot Château Montelena, and the story behind it wanders a lot further than the pour. There's a family shop that's kept one whiskey alive for seven generations, a handshake deal that saved it from disappearing for good, and a crew of Irish exiles who wound up embarrassing France at its own game. We're not going to tell you how a Napa winery loops all the way back to a shop in Dublin. That's the part you'll want to hear for yourself. Grab something good and listen up!

We've mentioned Eagle Rare on the show plenty, but we'd never sat down and asked the obvious question. Why does this bourbon even exist? Turns out it wasn't some heartfelt heritage project. It was built on purpose, with a target in mind, and the strategy behind it is honestly kind of genius.Then there's what it grew into. A ten year bourbon people actually hunt for, sitting around forty-five bucks, that neither of us can find a single bad word for.Pour a glass and hang out with Rob and Mark. The reason it was made is the best part.

Allisa Henley and John Lunn talked every single day for twenty years. Two stills, two personalities, one whiskey that fit together the way the two of them did. Then John was gone before he ever got to taste the finished blend.This week we're sitting down with Allisa, master distiller behind Sazerac's first Tennessee whiskey. She didn't take the usual road in, no chemistry degree, a business background, and years of learning the craft with her hands instead of a textbook. We get into what it means to carry something across the line that was supposed to be a two-person job, how that bond ended up baked into the bottle itself, and why she's convinced she can change what people expect when they hear "Tennessee whiskey."There's a name story , a quiet little tribute hiding on the label, and a phrase Allisa really ought to trademark before somebody else does.Pour something and settle in.