Rob and Houston crack open a bottle that's been sitting on the shelf way too long. Highland Park 12 Viking Honour. From Orkney, a tiny island ten miles off the northern tip of Scotland where the wind blows so hard you can tell what religion a guy is by his travel pants.

The whole thing was started by a guy named Magnus, a church officer who hid barrels under the pulpit and faked a smallpox outbreak to keep customs away. A man of God doing the Lord's work.

Here's the thing about this whisky though. The peat is unlike anything else out there, and it comes down to one simple fact about the island itself. Something most people never think about. Tune in to find out why it matters.

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Rob and Mark crack open a bottle that's been sitting in the dark for a couple years in Houston's basement. This week they're pouring Driftless Glen Single Barrel Bourbon from Baraboo, Wisconsin. A double gold winner from the San Francisco Spirits Competition that most of the whiskey world still hasn't found yet.

There's a geography lesson (Rob holds his own), a story about glaciers that somehow makes a bourbon taste better, and the slow realization that Wisconsin has been quietly making something special.

Ninety-six proof, five years old, warm all the way through.

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Rob and Mark sit down with Ray and Patrick from Johnson Brothers and Jason Dvorak from Mr. Liquor in Rapid City for something genuinely special. They're barrel picking a Two XO Gem of Kentucky, and if you know what that means, you already know why this episode matters. If you don't, they'll catch you up.

Six barrels. One pick. And a unanimous decision that honestly surprised nobody by the end.

Along the way they dig into the wild origin story of Two XO, what it actually means to be a blender at that level, why the Gem of Kentucky is now barrel-program-only, and what separates a good bourbon from one that makes you stop talking mid-sentence. Plus tasting notes ranging from "breakfast pastry" to "hot tamale" to "what's in grandpa's pocket."

It's whiskey education wrapped in a really good hang.

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