Balchem’s Bourbon & Brainiacs event took place at the Frazier History Museum during the 2025 ADSA annual meetings in Louisville, Kentucky. This bonus episode takes a deep dive into bourbon tasting!
Balchem’s Bourbon & Brainiacs event took place at the Frazier History Museum during the 2025 ADSA annual meetings in Louisville, Kentucky. This bonus episode takes a deep dive into bourbon tasting!
After introductions, Steve leads off in his role as the bourbon steward and describes the two bourbons and a rye whiskey for the tasting. (2:14)
Steve gives some instructions on the best way to taste bourbon like an expert, including determining your dominant nostril, the “Kentucky Chew,” the “Kentucky Hug,” and moving from lowest to highest proof. (4:48)
Steve leads the guests through tasting Buffalo Trace and Maker’s Mark 46 bourbons and Angel’s Envy rye whiskey. The panel discusses their impressions and talks about mash bills, crop variation and the health of the bourbon business. (7:00)
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Scott (00:07):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Tonight we got a very, very special episode, uh, of the Real Science Exchange because we're here at the 2025 ADSA meetings. Tonight we're raising a glass to, uh, uh, Fein Bourbon to celebrate the ADSA and the remarkable members that drive innovation and excellence in dairy science. We're coming to you from the, uh, balms, uh, bourbon and brainiacs event here at the Frazier uh, museum, um, where we'll show stories from the ADSA meetings past alongside, uh, so many, many of the, uh, uh, past alumni of the Real Science Exchange. So I want to, uh, ask you just to, to join us tonight and toast the, uh, A DSA community and share the stories that make it unforgettable. So, let's get started. We're gonna start, uh, I'm going to start real quick just to ask you guys real quick, uh, introduce yourself. Most of you guys don't need an introduction, but over here to my left, uh, Dr. Jose Santos, tell us just a quick word about yourself.
Jose Santos (01:11):
Well, I work at the University of Florida. I'm originally from Brazil, but I've been here in the US for the last, uh, 32
Scott (01:17):
Years. Yeah, Dr. Firkins
Jeff Firkins (01:21):
Hi, O
Scott (01:23):
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Jeff Firkins (01:25):
Well, um, I'm at Ohio State and I'm kind of closing in on my 38th year. Wow. There. So,
Scott (01:31):
Nice.
Jeff Firkins (01:32):
Been a long time. Yeah. And I'm originally from northern Illinois, and, um, so I love ruminant nutrition, especially there at cows. Yeah.
Scott (01:41):
Good. Well, thanks for joining us tonight. Dr. Weiss, you're no stranger to the pub. Uh, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Bill Weiss (01:47):
I'm retired from the Ohio State University. I worked there for 39 years, including, uh, graduate work, uh, minerals, vitamins, and some other stuff. Great, great place to work, but it's also great to be retired
Jeff Firkins (02:02):
So,
Scott (02:02):
Yeah. Yeah. Good. And then to my right is a new face. Uh, Steve Yates, uh, not been, uh, at the pub before, at least not this pub. Tell us a little bit about yourself, 'cause you're gonna be playing a, a, a key part of this first segment. Well,
Steve Yates (02:14):
Thank you, Scott. I am a proud, proud graduate of the University of Kentucky and am the group sales manager here at the Frazier, where I conduct guided tours on our spirit of Kentucky Bourbon Exhibit and also do bourbon tasting. So I'm been given the honor of being able to be the bourbon steward tonight at this fine event and the pleasure of being a guest and your, and your all's fine podcast. So thank you very much.
Scott (02:36):
You're very welcome. So I see we've got three bourbons laid out here before us. Take a, take us through it, Steve.
Steve Yates (02:42):
Well, actually we have two bourbons and a rye whiskey. Um, we have, when, when the folks at B contacted me, they, they asked what would be a good selection? And I always like to have a bourbon with a traditional rye mash bill, one with a weed, uh, mash bill, and then a finished bourbon. And what I mean by that, for a bourbon to be bourbon, it's gotta be at least 51% corn with a bunch of other requirements. But that is what we have here on the left. Buffalo Trace, a traditional blend of low and high rye that gives it just a great traditional bourbon flavor. A lot of corn, a lot of sweetness at 90 proof. The Maker's mark is a, uh, weed bourbon that is finished with french oak staves. And what I mean by that is they age it like they would regular maker's mark around six years.
Steve Yates (03:28):
And when that is done, they take the product and they dump it in a holding receptacle, and they put fresh about 15 freshly seared french oak staves inside. They give it an extra kick of flavor that differentiates it from the regular maker's market. So that's at, um, 94 proof. And then the last expression is Angels Envy finished rye, which the difference between a rh a bourbon, uh, rye has to be at least 51% of the corn or the ingredient in the, in the, uh, spirit. But what they do, it's 95% corn. And then once it's, once it, the distiller says it's ready, they take it and they finish it in a rum cast for an additional three to six months. So it has a lot more sweetness to it, almost like an after dinner lour to me. Um, so that's the three that we picked, so that when the, the folks who were at this event, they would get three distinctly separate or distinct flavoring flavor profiles, so it wouldn't be the same thing. Uh, the last, the thing I hate the most is when people taste three things that are exactly the same, and then it just comes down to what costs, what. I think there's so many vast varieties of flavor profiles. Give people three distinctly different ones and let them decide which one they like the best.
Scott (04:39):
So we're gonna be tasting all three of these, Steve? Yes, sir. Is there a right way or wrong way to, to, to, to taste these? I'm, I'm assuming maybe not a shot. It's probably not the way to go. Well,
Steve Yates (04:48):
Well, I, I tell people on my tours that if they want to ha uh, harken back to the days in the fraternity basement and throw it back, that's, that is their prerogative. Because as Jimmy Russell, the message distiller at Wild Turkey told me many years ago, there's no wrong way to drink bourbon, but if you want to taste it and get all the flavors, here's how I was taught by Freddie Johnson, who is a Bourbon Hall of Famer at Buffalo Trace. Um, first thing, here's a little interesting science. You all, you guys may find this very interesting. When you smell bourbon, you want to do it with your mouth open. So take the glass on your far left in front of you, cover up one side of your nostril, give it a smell with the mouth open, and then do the other side. And you should get a stronger sense of smell on one side than the other.
Steve Yates (05:32):
And that is your dominant nostril. And the other side acts as a filter. Freddy showed me this a buffalo trace one day, and I thought it was absolutely, it's more an one of the cool things about the human anatomy than it is bourbon. But it, it's interesting and it can change. Like if you're right-handed, you will not always be a a right-handed or right nostril dominant person. I gotta tell a quick story, Scott. First time I did this, we were up in our speakeasy and the door was open and a group walked by and they stuck their head in and they thought we were snorting bourbon
Steve Yates (06:15):
Get it on the tip of your tongue and on your gums and swish it around and hold it like mouthwash for a couple seconds. That's called the Kentucky Chew. You're chewing on it, getting your whole mouth acclimated to the, the spirit. Then just let it slide down. And that warm feeling you get in your belly is called the Kentucky Hug. Okay? And so we're gonna see what, what smells, matches up with what tastes. I'm not as big a person on Tasty Notes because I, I can tell you what I like and what I don't like. We had this conversation earlier, um, but let's try this and see if this works for you guys.
Steve Yates (06:51):
And we're gonna go from lowest proof to highest proof. That's how I tend to like stair stepping that way. Get your mouth acclimated. Now I should have asked, has has, has everybody had Buffalo Trace or, so we now Yeah, that's my go-to. It's a really, what I call a very good everyday sipper. Yeah. 90 proof. So it's not like a huge shock to your system, but that first taste, if you have multiple, if you're doing a, a tasting is always the hardest because your mouth isn't acclimated to the alcohol, right. So that the one the bats lead off is taking one for the team. Now, I ideally there would be a little bit left in here and I always suggest if you wanna put a little water in it to see if that makes a difference. I, I think that's a waste of good Kentucky water personally. But every, everybody has their own, uh, opinion. This, these are all very smooth. And I don't think, you know, I, I do that more for higher proof bourbons just to give people a different taste. But that is the baseline. That's how the process that I was taught to taste bourbon, to get that full, uh, experience in your mouth, do the chew, do the hug, and then just kind of go from there.
Steve Yates (08:02):
So that is the buffalo trace. Now is, uh, do you just wanna go down the line or did you want Yeah, no, that'd be fine. Yeah, the, you got any questions guys?
Jose Santos (08:10):
So you would taste exactly like you do with
Steve Yates (08:13):
Wine? Very similar to wine doctor. Yes, sir. Um, the, the analogies between wine and bourbon are, are numerous. How you taste, um, you don't wanna buy just on price, you know, there's so many different things. Find your flavor profile, find your palette before you drop a decent amount of money on a bottle. So yes, that would be my recommendation, but there are different times when you decide you wanna do it a different way. And there's no wrong way. It's whatever you want to do at the time. That's just the way I think it is the best way when you're, especially if you're trying something for the first timer in a group, to kinda give you that full effect, that Kentucky effect. Now this next one is the Maker's 46, and we get the mash bill on this. And what I mean by that is the recipe, it is 70% corn, 16% red winter wheat.
Steve Yates (09:01):
And if my Kentucky math serves me right, 14% Malta barley, um, when you smell this one, it's a, it's a little different than what you regularly would get with Maker's Mark. But what I tell people, when you have a wheated bourbon that if you think about it like bread, wheat bread is sweet and rye bread is spicy. It's the same thing in whiskey. Nothing to do with the, um, alcohol content but with the flavor. So this should have a little bit more sweetness to it. Give this a taste and see if, first off, if it tastes different than the buffalo trace and see if you like it a little better or if it's not so much your flavor
Jose Santos (09:38):
And how, how consistent it is from harvest to harvest. Like
Steve Yates (09:42):
There are very, well there are variables with that. And you know, with the grains and the weather has a lot to play with it, you know, I would imagine. So those are very good questions. They try, they try to get as much consistency as they can, but really the only thing they can con really control is the percentage of grains that go in it and then the proof that's on it. 'cause you can use water to get it to the proof, they control the things they can control, and then they deal with the things that mother nature throws at 'em. But
Jose Santos (10:09):
They would not blend from one year to the next to make sure that's, is somewhat
Steve Yates (10:13):
The same. They try, they, it is a small batch, so they, you know, and makers, I don't know how many they do, they do try to strive for consistency. So I would think they are gonna try to do that to the best of their ability. But it's gonna vary from batches to batches because the, the, the years that you get are not gonna all be from the same year or, or they're not all gonna have the same, uh, winters or summers. Because master distillers in Kentucky, in an ideal world, get really cold winters and really hot summers. So you're gonna get that, those barrels expanding and contracting, pulling those sugars out of those caramelized white oak barrels. And that's ideal. But we know nothing is ideal when it comes to mother nature. So some years are gonna have more flavor than others. That's why these folks truly are chemical geniuses in my opinion, because they have to try to strive. They're striving for consistency, but it's an ongoing battle that is constant. Let's give this one a taste and tell me first, have y'all had the 46 before? Some have said no and we had one. Yes. Okay.
Bill Weiss (11:17):
So how is this different from regular, from the regular one? Well, around the
Steve Yates (11:21):
Regular makers, the regular makers is like around six to seven years, but when it's done, they put it in the bottles and they ship it out. It's the finishing, isn't it? It's the finishing with the French oak staves. It's like 10 to 15 freshly seared French oak staves. They put it in the barrel that the bourbon just came out of, put the bourbon in a holding receptacle and then they put it back in that barrel with the french oak staves to give it that extra boost of flavor. Yeah.
Bill Weiss (11:44):
The mash bill though, is about the same.
Steve Yates (11:46):
Is the same. Yes. The mash bill is the same,
Jose Santos (11:48):
Is just the eight. Yeah. But this has a more of an alcohol kick.
Steve Yates (11:51):
Okay. We went, we went from 90 to 94, so there is a little bit more alcohol in it. That's a good observation.
Scott (11:58):
I didn't get as heavy a nose on on this as I did with the buffalo trace.
Steve Yates (12:03):
Well, I didn't either. And part of that is now the one advantage that the, that I think you get for the first one is the nose because you don't, you haven't had anything. No, it's kind of acclimated to it. Yeah. It, it's new. That's the advantage of it. The disadvantage is your mouth isn't acclimated to the alcohol. Yeah. So that is kind of a, I guess I would ask you guys as opposed to a rye bourbon and a, a wheat bourbon that was finished. Could you tell the difference in the taste? Yeah. One may be more towards your palate or towards your preference, but that's the whole thing. I just always wanna make sure that people can tell the difference.
Scott (12:37):
They tell the difference, but I can't tell you what the difference is.
Steve Yates (12:40):
Scott (12:46):
I'll make some stuff up. That's what I'll do.
Steve Yates (12:47):
Well that then we'll solve all the world's problems. Now the third one is angels envy rye whiskey. As I mentioned, rye whiskey as opposed to bourbon rye has to be the predominant grain, at least 51% as opposed to bourbon, where it's corn has to be 51%. Very unique mash bill with the angels envy rye, 95% rye, 5% b to barley. Um, and it's about six to seven years just like regular angel envy. But where regular angel envy is finished in a port wine barrel, this rye whiskey is finished in a rum cask. So you're gonna get a lot of sweetness to it. It's, it's a hundred proof. It's opposed to regular maker's. Mark is like 86 point something. So it's a little bit stronger in alcohol and to me it has a very sweet flavor to it. Um, give this one a, a smell and see if you get
Scott (13:39):
Oh yeah. Smells,
Bill Weiss (13:40):
Smells. Rummy.
Steve Yates (13:42):
It does rummy or yummy.
Scott (13:44):
A little bit of, I
Steve Yates (13:45):
Can smell. We got a new mark. We got a new T-shirt we just invented. It's yummy. And rummy makers, you're gonna owe me for this or angel, I'm sorry. Angels In my. I'm gonna, but let's give this one a smell and, and or taste and see what you think.
Steve Yates (14:02):
See this to me is distinctly different than the first. Oh, very different. The first two very different. You may have liked it better. You may have not have liked it as well. Yeah. But it very different. Yeah. Yeah. Toss doesn't even, I mean it doesn't even really taste like rye whiskeys to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The sweetness kind of tones down the rye because a lot of people will come up if you have rye a tasting and they're like, oh, I don't like rye. And I'm like, give this one a taste and make up your own mind on this because it is, it doesn't taste like a traditional rye. Even at 90, that's me. Even 95% rye in it. The rum come, is kind of forward to me. Not too keen.
Bill Weiss (14:37):
I like rye, but I'm not too keen on
Steve Yates (14:39):
This. Well, and see, I I appreciate the candor because that I'm the opposite
Scott (15:44):
Wasn't drinking this kind of stuff
Steve Yates (15:45):
Well no, I was drinking something called Kentucky Tavern or Kentucky Gentlemen, and let me assure you, there were no gentlemen that were making that. So
Scott (15:55):
No, you're right. This one does taste kinda like an after dinner drink just a little bit.
Steve Yates (15:58):
So, well, I tell people all the time when I have this on my bar, and I usually do, it lasts about two to three times longer before it gets drained because I have to be in a specific mood to want to drink it. Drink it, yeah. Or, you know, in a certain cocktail or whatever it may be. So, but it, there is a time and a place for it. You know, it's just this, the finished bourbons like the 46 and the Angels Vy R are, that is the largest growing segment in the bourbon. The finished bourbons. Folks like Jimmy Russell at Wild Turkey, they think that it is just you, it's it abysmal. You're ruin, you're ruining it. But you know, there, it's what I call a loophole. 'cause the only thing you can add to bourbon, another one of the rules is it can only be water. Right? But you're not adding rum to it. You're putting it in a rum receptacle. So it's kind of like a, it's a, uh, loophole. You know? So some people, a lot of what they're doing that for in my opinion is for people who don't think they like whiskey and it's too strong for 'em. So they're making something, I call it the candy cigarette effect. You know, they're making something that more people can stick their toe in the pool for and, and then they hopefully will move to something else. So,
Jose Santos (17:08):
So how's the bourbon industry? They're doing well, they're thriving or
Steve Yates (17:13):
Well, they are doing well. We have, right now there are over 14 million barrels of bourbon that are aging in Kentucky. We have four and a half million men, women and children. So that's enough for every person that lives here to have three barrels themselves. But,
Jose Santos (17:27):
But there's a major issue going on in the us like the young people don't drink.
Steve Yates (17:31):
That's part the same alcohol's part that's part of it. Sure, there's potential issues with tariffs on the horizon and all that kind, especially with Canada, but it's kind of a wait and see take type thing with that to see how that all shakes out. Um, it might be, you know, I know during COVID a lot of distilleries may do by making hand sanitizer and they adapted that way when they couldn't get it from other places. So bourbon is thrive. I'll give you an example. When the Frazier opened up, uh, with the spirit of Kentucky in 2018, there were six distillery slash tasting rooms within two miles. Well now there are 14 of them. So there are people, they keep adding them. People keep coming in. Bourbon's a $9 billion industry in Kentucky from production to tourism and agriculture and combined, it's right up there with, um, the equine industry and the automotive parts industry. So there are concerns that is for sure, doctor, but it, it still is holding its own right now.
Jose Santos (18:29):
You know, this, uh, smells a little bit of
Steve Yates (18:32):
Molasses to me. Yeah,
Jose Santos (18:34):
Yeah.
Steve Yates (18:34):
Well, here's what I tell people all the time. Whatever it smells to you, that's the right answer. There's only, there's only one critique that matters, and that's the person who's got the glass in front. Because the people who are, you know, all the master distillers are chemists by trade. Right. And they can tell you everything you're supposed to, to smell. But when I'm on the other side, if I get one thing right, I'm pretty happy. So it, it's not, I can, I'm kind of like Scott said, I can tell you what I like or what I don't like and why, but I'm, I, you know, this is fine. Corinthian leather, this smells like, I don't know. I mean, everybody's different in that regard, right? But that's a great up and it changes by day. Yes. What you had to eat all kinds of things. Yeah. So it's, you know, that's very subjective. Yeah. For lack of a bit. This
Jose Santos (19:18):
Is heavy alcohol. Yeah.
Steve Yates (19:19):
Yeah. This will indeed. Yeah. So that's, so what we're gonna do here is once we're once, as I rotate out and get the tap, I'm gonna pour these for the, um, the people that are here for this meeting and hopefully they will enjoy it with the same type of, uh, enthusiasm and gusto that you find gentlemen did. Thank you. They keep academia where it needs to be.
Jose Santos (19:41):
Ignorant and bourbon.
Steve Yates (19:42):
So
Scott (19:42):
Yeah. No, it's good. You gotta
Steve Yates (19:43):
Get started. No, no. You had some of the best questions. I should have expected it from a fellow SEC guy. So I get these, oh, IO guys, I gotta keep an eye on. But you know, I piece the
Speaker 6 (19:54):
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