Drinking Blanton’s Gold: Rare Bourbon with Glassware Guru Denver Cramer

We’re pouring something a little extra special today — Blanton’s Gold. And to match the pour, we’re joined by someone extra special too: Denver Cramer from legendary Aussie glassware company Denver & Liely.

This one’s part bourbon tasting, part banter, and part deep appreciation for what makes bourbon and glassware such a great pairing. We talk about:

• The real reason Blanton’s Gold is smoother than you'd expect at 51.5%

• Why Aussies (and the Japanese) got the good stuff first

• What bourbon means to Denver… and his partner

• And whether he actually owns more than one shirt

It’s rich, relaxed, and full of gold—both in the glass and in the stories.

Chapters

• 00:00 – Intro and welcome

• 00:15 – Guest: Denver from Denver & Liely

• 00:45 – The pour: Blanton’s Gold (from ~2020)

• 01:30 – Why this bottle matters

• 02:20 – Smoothness at 51.5%: a surprise

• 03:10 – Why Aussies had access before Americans

• 04:05 – A smudged dump date and a story

• 05:00 – Denver’s partner’s unexpected reaction

• 06:00 – Glassware geekery, take 3

• 07:30 – That shirt… again

• 08:20 – Gold vs other Blanton’s editions

• 09:40 – Final sips and goodbyes

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Incredible flavours, even better stories.
One pour, 10 minutes.
Aussie bourbon lovers sharing bourbon with Australia.
Hey, got a pop.
That was a good one.
That was a good one.
Good pop.
We're the squeak.
special guest today.
Yeah, we've got...
Drinking some Blanton's with who, Dave?
We've got Denver back from Denver and Lyley, the magnificent bourbon glasses.

(00:26):
And when it was last with us, we tried the side by side with the whiskey glass.
But thanks for coming back, mate.
Yeah, no worries.
you're here with us again.
Wearing the same shirt.
Yeah, yeah.
How embarrassing.
We haven't showered yet.
What's the...
What are we drinking, We're drinking a Blanton's Gold.
And it was dumped on, we think about 2020 because it's been smudged.
know.
Well, it's the fifth of something.

(00:47):
It's got the date on the bottle and it says the fifth and then it's a big smudge, but itlooks like a, I'm going to guess a 20 is the last one, but quite a few years ago.
Hey, cheers.
Thanks for coming back and hanging out with us.
Cheers.
So why did you pick it Blanton's Gold for us to pour?
This is just a favourite of ours at home.

(01:09):
So, um,
Pre...
Pre-Bubba.
This is the only one that my missus will drink.
What?
My will drink more?
Yeah, this is...
And sitting at 51.5, I thought it would be something much lower proof than this.

(01:31):
It's a great one to drink.
It's a little L on the...
I just checked the horse's hoof on each bottle.
It's just so smooth.
It's like...
That's crazy.
51.5.
Very easy to drink.
It's so She's got good taste.
And the fun thing that I really like for us as Aussies about plantains is that it's soeasy.
comparatively, quite easy for us to get.

(01:52):
But there's a lot of American bourbon lovers who just can't get their hands on it.
Well, I it was a gold that wasn't available in the States for the longest period.
And it was available in Japan and Australia, but they just never did it there.
I think it was only like a couple of years ago or something that they started doing gold.
Last year at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, there was a huge queue and I was like, oh, isit Blanton's one?
And Dave's like, yeah, that's the green one.

(02:14):
They made for Australia that we can just get in the bottle.
Yeah.
Get a trolley full of them at dance.
But you always know you're going to get something delicious when you get a blends.
Oh, a hundred percent.
We really, really love it.
at home.
Um, it's just, yeah, just something that means something to us.
Like, and just a whiskey that I can drink in my partner.

(02:36):
Yeah.
As opposed to like everything else.
Like.
All of the whiskeys she's not interested in except for that.
Well, she's got good taste and it is about who you drink it with.
uh What I reckon is interesting about this is that I love a single barrel as much as thenext person, but there's a great consistency to the Blanton single barrels.
Like you know when you get a Blanton, it's going to be pretty good and that flavor profileis pretty much bang on.
Yeah.
I've got a funny feeling like they, they must cherry pick surely.

(02:59):
Surely.
And they've got a big, big they always, they do taste different, but they're alwaysreally.
Yeah, but they have to like, if they're making out of a tree, the barrels, some trees areshit.
Yeah.
So they don't have to.
Yeah.
They're going to taste it and they're not going to pick it as a single barrel.
they'll blend it into something else.
Yeah.
Isn't it Heaven Hill or who does it?
I know.

(03:20):
It's Buffalo Tracks.
Buffalo Tracks.
Yeah.
They'll just blend it into something else.
Yep.
But yeah, all the best ones go into that.
And maybe the other ones just go into like the green or the regular brown one.
Can we nerd out a little bit about, so single barrel is, it means these bottles is onlygoing to be a couple hundred of them maximum.
And it's, they've dumped the everything out of that.

(03:40):
This has been proofed down, but what goes into your glass is from only one barrel.
And so that's what single barrel means, but then there's things like full proof or batchproof or, you know, these, all these different kinds of terms.
When it comes to your glasses, there like a, does it, does it help if it's a higher proofor if it's a particular single barrel better?
Is there something off the shelf that's 80 or 90 proof?

(04:00):
Well, we designed, this one's got a bigger opening than the whiskey glass.
That's designed for like the higher proofs in general that you get in, in bourbon andpeople tend to like value like higher proofs more in bourbon for some reason.
I don't see it the same way.
think there are amazing sort of lower proof bourbons like Nick does.

(04:20):
um But yeah, we designed it for proof, for generally higher proof.
You've got a bigger opening and it kind of blows off the volatiles.
um And you're not meant to be having like an alcoholic experience when you're drinkingthese sort of bourbons.
You're meant to be tasting like the subtleties and different flavor notes and the...
the quality of oak and all of that kind of stuff that these guys put a lot of effort into.

(04:44):
They're not putting effort into trying to get the highest proof.
So that's not meant to be the race.
So that's what we focus this glass on is to take that out of the equation a little bit.
And it should be a smoother, more, it's like bourbon and bolder, I guess.
It definitely takes off that like alcohol smack you get in the face.

(05:05):
Yeah.
When you first sort of...
nose burb and then you kind of go back again and enjoy it.
Whereas this is just like delicious straight up.
it's got the, what we called, I can't remember what you call it now, but we like duringdesign, we call it a chode.
but it was, um, this, this stump on the bottom, which kind of isolates hand heat and heatis obviously an issue in, Kentucky and Tennessee.

(05:27):
But you can also, because the wider opening put ice in, which a lot of people enjoy itwith ice.
so this glass was designed for use in Kentucky and Tennessee.
This is a great segue to my favorite thing, right?
This is this thing that we love about bourbon so much.
Spheres.
I like ice spheres, but I don't usually put them in a Blanton's gold.
the thing of you should drink bourbon how you like it is that this is cultural thing.

(05:49):
And you would have seen this when you were in Kentucky.
This is this thing of like, there's so, there's this lovely warmth to this idea of like,if you want to have Blanton's gold or something equally special with a Coke, and that's
how you're to have the best night.
Everyone's okay with that.
No one's upset about that.
Yeah, whereas there's other worlds and you would have seen in some of the other wordswould maybe that's maybe not the best idea Yeah, wouldn't put a really good bottle of

(06:11):
scotch with a coke and everyone goes that's Yeah generally in Scotch.
Yeah, definitely, but um, you know, there are people like Dave ah I can't remember hislast name now.
He does smoky coke II, which is like LeFrogue from memory and and coke and it's actually areally nice drink.
Yeah
So fuck everybody else.

(06:32):
Drink it how you like it.
I probably shouldn't have swore.
You're allowed to swear.
So it's not for kids?
It's not for kids, we're drinking for the kids.
Well what happens when you're at home and your Mrs goes, okay, tonight I'll be alright,we'll have a bourbon.
This is the only bottle you can crack open.

(06:52):
It hasn't quite happened since we've had a little guy.
But yeah, more so wine and things like that.
And if she's going to have a bourbon, which I hope like end of this year maybe, it's goingto be this one for sure.
Lots of great memories with that, that particular bourbon.
She didn't sneak into the birthing suite like we did.

(07:12):
That's a story of hands I think.
Or was it Blayton's Gold?
No.
It was a different one, but it was our celebratory bottle quads.
was all over.
You know, we the ice chips for, you know, obviously.
Medical reasons.
Ice chips, but we were using them to mix with our drinks.
Because Martin Cocker was a great celebration.
celebration.
New life.

(07:34):
Exactly.
Drink it how you like it.
Drink it how you like it.
This is one of favorite things.
Of the time you spent in Kentucky and like the time you've, cause you, you know, it'spretty special that you get to spend so much time with pretty cool distillers doing pretty
cool stuff, research and hearing stuff.
Was there anything that surprised you about what the guys were saying about how they wantto enjoy their own?
bourbon that they're making?
Is there anything that kind of like, as you were going through that process, you go, Oh,well, I didn't, I didn't expect you to say that.

(07:59):
that's a good question.
Um, from birth sweets to bourbon and Kentucky.
Well, see, here's the thing is that like, think a lot of us as bourbon fans and stuffdon't get a chance to hang out with the distillers as much as we would like to.
And the insight that you would have about someone who is kind of giving them their productor they're opening a bottle of brand product and kind of going out.

(08:20):
if I can choose how I want to enjoy this.
These are like you're pretty unique.
Yeah, it's generally I found interesting was that they liked a lower proof.
So just adding like a bunch of water or, you know, adding not so much ice, but justproving it down to really kind of delve into it.
It's not about sort of like the proof.

(08:41):
I found that interesting in general across the board.
So yeah, that was kind of cool.
It's funny.
Does that bring out more of the flavors like proving it down or.
um
That's subjective, but yes, I'm saying general.
Changes the flavor.
Yeah, there was some blenders in Scotland that would do 50-50.
Yep.
So 50 % water and 50 % the whiskey just to really get into it and to really understand it.

(09:08):
Wow.
So yeah, it's against, I guess, general marketing and all that kind of stuff.
But it is worth the experiment.
think you guys should probably do that.
Or maybe at some stage we do an episode on...
on the experiments that they do behind the scenes.
Yeah.
And we'll just do it on the table here and then experience the same bourbon in variousways.

(09:30):
Cause when I started drinking, there's no way I would drink it neat.
I was very much a like, yeah, whiskey and Coke to start with.
And then when we started getting more into the bourbons, was, I would always have ice.
But yeah, I reckon maybe the last six months after our episode with
They were like, it tastes best when you, you don't mix it with all this stuff.

(09:54):
And I was just like, it does.
uh And haven't gone back.
it's just, yeah.
It's really subjective.
Yeah.
Because like I can really enjoy a bourbon with ice on a hot day sitting outside.
Like, and there's a particular house that we stay in in East Nashville.
And we just sit down and porch in the evening.

(10:14):
And with ice, just, it's just magic.
And I think like,
That's probably how the forefathers and mothers of Bourbon probably wanted you to justreally enjoy it and enjoy the people that you're with and having those conversations.
And all the different seasons too.
think summertime with ice or a cocktail or, you know, it's delicious.

(10:37):
But then in winter, you like have it neat in front of the fire.
Yeah.
And it's warming then.
Like it's beautiful.
Like there's so many different aspects and perspectives and facets of Bourbon.
Cue the scene of facets.
Beautiful.
Well, Dan, thanks so much for coming on again.
If you do want to get your hands on one of these beautiful bourbon glasses from Denver andLyley, can just head to DenverandLyley.com, That's it.

(10:59):
Get your hands on some.
It'll make every bourbon taste better.
Wow, that was a good one.
Yeah, yeah.
It's got a real clank to it.
That was good.
bye.
Thanks for listening.
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