Lux Row Double Barrel 12Yr and Getting a Pleasant Surprise from a Crackerjack Pour

We crack open a fresh bottle of Lux Row Double Barrel 12-Year Bourbon — a distillery-only release that you can’t get in Australia, and maybe nowhere else outside Bardstown.

In this episode, we talk:

• 🛢️ What “double barrel” really means in this case (2-barrel batch, not rebarreled)

• 🏭 The contrast between Lux Row’s massive operation and smaller craft distilleries

• 🧪 Neck pours, proof levels, and aging dates from both barrels

• ✈️ Why we picked this bottle on our trip and what makes it special

It’s high-proof, high-flavour, and a rare pour with a big Kentucky memory behind it.

🟠 Keywords: Lux Row, double barrel bourbon, 12-year bourbon, distillery-only, Bardstown bourbon, barrel strength, Aussie bourbon podcast

 

Chapters

00:00 Opening a New Bottle: Lux Row Double Barrel 12 Year 02:00 The Distillery Experience: Size and Uniqueness 04:00 A Hefty Cork 04:15 Tasting Notes 06:04 Tour Insights: Behind the Scenes at Lux Row 09:07 An Innovative Approach to Stave Finishing 11:31 Final Thoughts on Lux Row Bourbon

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Incredible flavours, even better stories.

(00:05):
One Pour, 10 Minuts.
Aussie bourbon lovers, sharingbourbon with Australia.
It's always a good sound when there's nota really echoey pop because you
know it's a brand new bottle.
We're opening a brandnew bottle right here.
What's it of, Dave?
See, I thought the deal was that you weregoing to tell me while I pour it

(00:26):
because it's, I'm going to spill some.
Well, it's a lux It's a lux row, andthey call it the double barrel, 12-year.
Yeah, double barrel, 12-year.
I think they used to callit the double single barrel.
I'm really excited that we'reopening a brand new bottle.
We're so often finishing a bottle, butHere's to a brand new Luxro.

(00:46):
Cheers.
Beware the neck pour, I suppose,is that thing as well, right?
On a brand new bottle, yeah.Yeah.
Maybe we should let it sit for 6, 7 hours.
That's a bad joke.Sorry.
This was from our recent trip.
We went to Luxro I thinkone of the things I absolutely loved about
the tour of this distillerywas how incredibly different it was

(01:10):
from all the other ones we'd been on.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a lover of thelittle guy, and I love all the little
unique distilleries that we go to andthe whiskies and bourbons that they make.
But I found this one fascinating becauseit was huge, massive, and just the
The comparison ofseeing the little ones that here are 12

(01:34):
barrels or here are 280 barrels or tothese massive, massive, massive warehouses
filled with so many barrels.
It was incredible to see.
Yeah, Luxro is big.
I mean, it's not likeJim being big or what.
No, no.
But it was, I think, like we'vebeen to Yellowstone and a few of those

(02:00):
beautiful little ones, and then to goin contrast to this-Sorry, you're right.
Big, beautiful.
Yeah, it was just a great experience tocompare the different way they
go about it, I What is it?
This is a distillery-only, really.
She can only buy this bottle at thedistillery, which is, I think, why I got

(02:21):
this one, because I think it's like- Therewas a hard choice between a few of our
favourites when we were tasting, and wewent this one because we knew that
we couldn't get it anywhere else.They make some nice stuff, Luxro.
And you can get some of it here.
I think you can get some of ithere, but you can't get all of it.
You definitely can'tget this in Australia.
This is only available at the distillery.

(02:42):
Here's the fun thing, right?
It's a doubleBarrel means there's two barrels
blended together to make this one bottle.
As in they do a batch of two barrels,and that's what you're getting.
It's barrel strength.They're not cutting with water.
When it says twelve years, are bothbarrels Barrel's 12 years old or
the oldest one is 12 years old?

(03:03):
The front of the label evensays when they were aged since.
So the first barrel for this particularbottle was aged since,
what's that going to be?
Sixth of December, 2011, and theother one, fourth of October, 2011.
It's got the barrel number.
This particular one comes in 118.
4 proof or 59.
2% alcohol.

(03:24):
2011?
What were we doing back in 2011, Dave,when they were putting this in a bottle?
What were we doing?Definitely no kids.
Were we married?Yeah, we were married.
Yes, we were married.Sorry, we were very married.
Not as happy as now, though.Keeps getting better, right?
I know.With every bottle of bourbon.
It's 118 proof?

(03:45):
Car strength.
I just said that bit.Yeah, sorry.
I'm just looking.
I love when they put all thenumbers and everything on the label.
Yeah.What about this?
Sorry.
It's strange to be talkingabout detail packaging.
Hold that caulk.
Oh, it's so heavy.It's so heavy.
Is it copper or brass?It weighs a lot.
It's very substantive.
That's like crazy.

(04:05):
It's really, really heavy.We want to drop that.
Yeah, I'd prefer you put it back in.On your toe.
That's really cool.
I'm definitely getting honey ontoast when I put it near my nose.
It's like breakfast in a glass.
I remember now why I bought this.
This is such a lovely...
Have you tasted some yet?Not yet.
I'm still enjoying the smell.

(04:26):
This has that level of complexity to methat some of those big,
old, good ones have.
It's almost got a little bit of that.
Everyone's going to think ofthem enough for saying this.
C923-ness.
You know that thing of theElijah Craig C923 had that thing where it
sat on your tongue with that beautiful,rich flavour and hung on your palate in a

(04:50):
way that was just exactly what I wanted.
It just sits on the back of my...
Like the middle back of my tongue, andit's just clinging on, giving me
A really good time over and over.
So much more in-depth.
I'd just say it's really yummy.
Oh, really yummy.Come on.
I don't really describe abourbon as yummy very often.
And that's yummy.

(05:12):
It's like it juststicks to your It's not like a caramel or
when you're having a really goodlolly and it stays in there.
And there's a complexity to it.
But at 118 proof, it's notintimidating complexity.
It's likea richness or like a completeness It's
like this or something inthe way that it drinks.

(05:33):
Is it strange to say it changes flavour?
Excuse me, I'm so I'm trying to-I don'tthink that that's-It's like-No, I
think that's a good thing to say.It's sweet and then it's really rich.
Yeah, I think That's good.
Then after a minute or so, it's likereally dark chocolate in
the back of your head.Yeah, dark chocolate I like as well.
Yeah.

(05:53):
Lovely.
Tell me about the tour because yousaid you really liked the tour.
Yeah.
We had this great younggirl show us around.
I'll Great young girl.
She wasn't 10 or anything?No.
As in like- We had anexcellent tour guide.
Yeah.I can't remember her name.
I feel really bad, but she was fabulous.
She really knew her stuff.
But it was that thing ofwe got to Thief in the Barrel and

(06:15):
It was just the difference between thelittle ones and the massive big one.
I just like seeing the…
You saw the trucks pull up outsideand they were loading stuff in.
This is so yummy.
I'm sorry to interrupt you.
See, use my word.
It's so yummy.
Yeah, it is really yummy.
Sorry, the truck is pulling up.
As in you just got to see a bit more ofthe big scale,

(06:36):
behind the scene production-y stuffthat sometimes you don't see.
But it was interesting to see on a largerscale, and they were building
All these brickhouses and place where theywere drying all the grain
because there were lots of…
I can't remember that.
These big, tallthings where they dried out.

(06:58):
Was it the farmer?
Yeah, the spent grain.
Was it giving the farmersfor feed afterwards?
There was all these really coolinitiatives that they were doing to
help the local farmersand to use local produce.
It was just really fascinating tosee that on a really big scale, because I

(07:19):
often really love how unique some of thedifferent little distilleries are, but
they can only be that waybecause they're so tiny.
Whereas to see someone on a bigger scale,trying to do really good stuff for the
environment and really good stuff forthe farmers, I just really enjoyed it.
There's a few things that standin my mind in that Rick house.
Do you remember walkingto that Rick house?

(07:40):
Yeah.
And your neck would getall looking at the roof.
It's beautiful and big.
And it's at one of these Rickhousesthat's designed for tours.
The first landing when you walk in, it'snot to take photos, which I
really like to take photos.
But then- But they thought aboutall that as part of building it.
Well, but unlike some of theother Rickhouses you walk into.
Like at Buffalo Trace, you're not walkinginto a Rickhouse where they

(08:02):
designed it for a selfie moment.
They were walking into aRickhouse for a long time.
Exactly.
But great.
Obviously, that's prettycool for us, the visitor.
But one of the things Ienjoyed, there's two parts.
The first one is,as we went through, we did a little lap
of the rick house, walked down the back.
One of the barrels-Completely leaked.

(08:24):
But the staves had almostburst open or something.
It looked like it was still lookedlike it Still holding the liquid.
We got to see some reallycool stuff on that.
There was a few there.
There was one that was leaking, and Iwanted to just tip it up so it
stopped, but they just-They don't move.They don't move them.
I was like, I just wantto tilt it a little bit.
Stop leaking.

(08:45):
The other one isthey're doing a stave finish, and
they showed us how they did that.Do you remember this?
No.
So think of makers 46.Yeah, I remember that.
You crack open the top of the barrel, youput staves on a ring, and you drop the
ring in, and you seal it back up again.Oh, that's right.
Yes.
Because I remember them showing us that itmake it, but not-You

(09:07):
don't remember this one?I remember it now, yeah.
Can you describe what it was?
I think you should.
You clearly remember it better.Yeah.
What it is, is they'vegot their stave still.
It's not that it's not staves, butthey're cut into very small length.
It's not like a full barrel stave.
It's like a, I don't know what we call it,like a 20 centimetre,
15 centimetre-a ruler.Section of the stave.

(09:29):
Probably It's the same width still.
But then it's fed into whatmust be some food-grade netting.
If you imagine what youroranges would come in.
Yeah, like an orange bag.
But like a big string of chunks of staves.
And then it all goesdown through the hole.
And they feed it in through the bum hole.
Because they don't haveto lift the whole lid off.

(09:49):
They just literally feed that in.
And it's fed into the thing.
Then that's when they finish.I totally forgotten about that.
That is cool.It's like palletised barrel storage.
It's like, obviously that's way moreefficient and not as romantic, but
I really like it when it's romantic.
Put the barrel on the side, drop awhole ring of a whole charred stave in.

(10:12):
Don't put it in.
It's a food-grade plastic.
Yeah, but it was that thing ofit gets a really good result.
We're drinking it and talking about it.
I think sometimes you get to say too muchabout how the sausages are
made on some of these tours.
I think I would have preferrednot to have done that.
Oh, really?That's just fair.
But this is one of theI love that it's different.

(10:32):
You're right.Everyone does this differently.
Sorry, I feel likethat's a negative thing.
I'm loving this bourbon so much, andthis bourbon is not finished at all.
I like that you like the romatics, Dave.
I love the romance and the stories andstuff of the way bourbons are done
is one of my favourite things.
I've never told you this, have I?
It's stuck in my brain.
That's the way that they're…

(10:53):
I think I've got…
They're going for efficiency, andthey're not marking
that moment to I don't like you.
I get it.You got to be efficient.
It's like...
It's clever.It's very clever.
Of course, they're using2025 techniques to do things for
their manufacturing, their drink.Yeah.

(11:15):
Of course they are.I don't know.
Dave likes it done old school.
Yeah, I like old school stuff.Anyway.
It definitely creates delicious liquid.
This is incredibly tasty.
If you can get out to theLuxrode Distillery, do the tour.
It is excellent.You'll have a great time.
You get to taste stuff, youget to pee from a barrel.
But you won't be able toget to buy this bottle.

(11:37):
Well, not that exact bottle, buthopefully, they have limited supply.
But if you're there and you've got abottle that looks like this one, get your
hands on it because, goodnessgracious, this is delicious.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Thanks for listening.
Make sure you're connected with us onTikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and stay
connected with us by clicking subscribeon your favourite podcast app.