My latest story is up on Details.com. I took a look at Michael Veach's amazing book Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage and wrote about a few of the many bourbon myths he busted.
These include who invented bourbon, why it's called that, what they used to put into it to make it taste older, and more.
Go read the story on Details.com.
Here are some new booze launches of late:
Peligroso Cinnamon
SakéMoto, imported by SakeOneThe world’s first 84 proof cinnamon-flavored tequila is infused with 100% pure cinnamon and a blend of secret ingredients.
Peligroso Cinnamon launches March 2013, to key markets across the country including California and Nevada. The suggested retail price will be $29.99.
SakéMoto is brewed with rice from the Yamaguchi prefecture in Japan and created with mountain-sourced water from the Nada region. It is the result of over two years in development working with a Japanese brew master to craft the perfect Japanese style saké for the American marketplace. SakéMoto's brewer has 41 years of saké brewing experience and the brewery has been crafting saké since 1743.
SakéMoto is a Junmai saké – meaning, it is made purely from rice, water, yeast and koji (the natural mold that converts rice starches into sugars), and given that it is junmai grade, the rice is polished to 70%. SakéMoto is distributed nationally at a suggested retail price of $11. For more information, please visit sakeone.com.
Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
The limited edition release Elijah Craig Barrel Proof Small Batch will begin shipping in mid-March with a national average retail price of $39.99. It is a 12 year old, barrel proof bourbon without chill-filtering.
It will have a hand written proof/alcohol by volume information, which will vary from one dump to the next. The proof of the initial release will be 134.2, or 67.1% alcohol/volume.
Michter's Original Sour Mash Whiskey
During the 1970s and 1980s, Michter’s Original Sour Mash was the brand's best selling whiskey type. Despite its popularity it disappeared from the marketplace in 1989 when the distillery, which dated back to 1753, went bankrupt.
Since its rescue in the 1990s, Michter’s has focused on producing single-barrel rye, single-barrel bourbon, very small batch bourbon, and unblended American whiskey.
Twenty-three years passed before Michter’s resurrected its Original Sour Mash Whiskey. It will sell for a suggested retail of $44 for a 750ml bottle.
Jefferson’s Presidential Select 21 Year Old Straight Bourbon Whiskey
This new product joins the Presidential Suite (Jefferson’s Bourbon, Jefferson’s Reserve, Jefferson’s Presidential Select and Jefferson’s Rye). Jefferson’s Presidential Select 21-Year-Old Straight Bourbon Whiskey is aged in new oak barrels for 21 to 24 years and bottled at 94 proof (47% ABV). It will be released nationally on April 1, 2013.
Jefferson’s Presidential Select 21-Year-Old Straight Bourbon Whiskey consists of 15 lots of bourbon aged from 21 to 24 years. Because of the evaporation that occurred over the aging period, Jefferson’s will have just 2,000 cases to release of this spirit.
Jefferson’s Presidential Select 21 Year Old Straight Bourbon Whiskey is priced at $119.99 for a 750ml bottle and is available for purchase at fine spirits retailers across the country.
Mount Gay Black Barrel
This is a new marque was released in celebration of the brand’s 310th anniversary of Mount Gay with select availability nationwide beginning in April. Mount Gay Black Barrel boasts double pot distillation and maturing in bourbon oak barrels which are combined with the harmonious blending orchestrated by the Master Blender to create an outstanding rum.
All Mount Gay rums are made from a blend of single column and double copper pot distillates and matured in toasted oak barrels. Black Barrel has a higher proportion of double distillates and, after hand selection by Master Blender Allen Smith, Black Barrel is the only marque finished in charred bourbon oak barrels.
Black Barrel will retail for $29.99.
Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel Straight Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey
This bottling is 110 proof and non-chill filtered. Chill-filtration is a common process whereby the whiskey is chilled at temperatures below freezing and is passed through an absorption filter thus removing fatty acids and other flavor contributors such as esters and proteins. By avoiding the chill-filtration process, the whiskey is bottled with more flavor compounds and a deeper color which is denoted by an impressive haze when ice or chilled water is added.
Every expression of Russell’s Reserve – both the Bourbon and rye Whiskey - is matured in only the deepest number 4 or “alligator” charred American white oak. The aged whiskey barrels are hand selected only from the center cut of the rick house – since that's where the optimal maturation occurs.
Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel (750ml) will be available nationwide at specialist liquor stores priced at $49.99.
EPIC Vodka
EPIC is made with hand-selected wheat harvested from the Champagne region in France and is distilled in the Cognac region.
EPIC vodka will be available in a classic unflavored vodka at 80 proof plus six different flavors in 70 proof each; Peach, Whipped Cream, Kiwi Strawberry, Cherry, Cake and Coconut. More flavors will be added at later dates. EPIC will start shipping to about 30 states in February and will be available nationwide as the year progresses. It is available in 1.75 ml, Liter, 750 ml and 50 ml. Suggested retail pricing for EPIC 750 ml is $12.99.
Knappogue Castle 14 Year Old Twin Wood Irish Whiskey
Following in the tradition of sherry cask-aged Knappogue Castle 1951, the oldest known Irish whiskey, this single malt derives its Twin Wood name from the fact that it combines whiskey aged in two types of wood: Oloroso Sherry casks and bourbon barrels. Single malt Irish whiskey spends a minimum of 14 years in bourbon barrels; it’s then combined with more Irish single malt aged in casks infused for Knappogue Castle with Oloroso Sherry.
The Andrews family began bottling single malt Irish whiskey when most other producers were still making blends. Knappogue Castle is named after the 15th century castle in western Irelandbought by Mark Edwin Andrews II, who restored the castle in the 1960s. He amassed an impressive and rare collection of pure pot still whiskey; when the whiskey reached its peak age, it was bottled and named after his beloved Knappogue. The last of Mr. Andrews’s whiskey, Knappogue Castle 1951, is the oldest and rarest Irish whiskey in the world, and it is still available for purchase by special order. Many years later, Mark Andrews III continues his father’s legacy by with a line of premium vintage Knappogue Castle Irish whiskies and Castle Brands.
Knappogue Castle Twin Wood 14 Year was bottled in October of 2012. It is non-chill filtered and bottled at 92 proof, distinguishing it from the 80 proof 12 Year Old and 16 Year Old Knappogue Castle whiskies. The suggested retail price is $59.99.
Glenmorangie Ealanta
Glenmorangie Ealanta is the latest addition to its Private Edition range. Scots Gaelic for "skilled and ingenious," Ealanta is a 19 Years Old Glenmorangie, matured exclusively in virgin American white oak casks from the Mark Twain National Forest in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri.The casks selected from oaks of the Mark Twain National Forest were absolutely top quality and were unusual in that they had not previously held any liquor, such as bourbon.
Glenmorangie Ealanta is bottled at a strength of 46% and is non chill-filtered for extra texture and mouth feel. It will be available in limited quantities as only 1,500 9l cases have been made available for the US market.
Glenmorangie Ealanta is the 2013 addition to the ongoing Private Edition range, comprising so far of the Sonnalta PX, Finealta and Artein.
Phraya Rum
Phraya is a rum distilled, matured, blended and bottled in the Kingdom of Thailand. Phraya is aged in oak barrels using a maturation technique developed to suit the tropical climate of south-east Asia. The warehouses are sited over cool lagoons which is fundamental the deep maturation process. The tropical climate cycle effectively slows down the ageing process and thus imparts a depth to the rum- Upon its coming of age between seven and twelve years old, barrels are selected for blending. The oak barrels are ‘fired’ to invigorate the wood within the cask. Phraya is distilled using the waters of the Ta Chin River. Phraya is sourced from an abundance of specially-grown sugar cane, nourished by the soil of Nakhon Pathom.
Phraya will have initial distribution in CA, IL, WA and NY and will be in stores in February for a suggested retail price of $39.99 - $49.99.
Westward Oregon Straight Malt Whiskey
House Spirits Distillery, the Portland-based craft distillery known for Aviation American Gin, has announced the launch of Westward Oregon Straight Malt Whiskey.
Westward is an original malt whiskey that is inspired by the Irish tradition, but crafted in a distinctively American style. Every numbered bottle begins with a wash of 100 percent locally-sourced Northwest two-row barley, which is then fermented with Scottish and American ale yeasts and double pot distilled. This spirit matures in full-size, two-char new American oak barrels for at least two years, allowing Oregon’s dry, hot summers and wet, cold winters to contribute to its flavor.
Available immediately in California and Oregon, Westward whiskey will be available in New York and DC in April, and it will roll out to other markets over the next few months. The anticipated retail price for a 375ml bottle is $49.99.
Pike Creek Whisky
Pernod Ricard USA announces the addition of Pike Creek Whisky to its portfolio of global whisky brands. Pike Creek is a small batch whisky, aged in American oak Bourbon barrels and finished in vintage Port barrels. Matured in warehouses in Pike Creek, Ontario, Canada. Making its debut in April 2013, Pike Creek will initially be launched at retail in WA, OR, ID, CO, TX, LA, GA, NC, NY and NH.
Pike Creek (40% abv/80 proof) will be available in 750ml for a SRP of $31.99.
This spring I visited 8 American whiskey distilleries, including Buffalo Trace. Buffalo Trace is owned by the Sazerac company. They make Buffalo Trace, Blanton's, Elmer T. Lee, Eagle Rare, Van Winkle, and other whiskey brands, plus the make/own/import other spirits including Rain vodka, Puebla Viejo tequila, and Glenfarclass scotch.
Unlike most of the other American whiskey distilleries I visited, Buffalo Trace feels like a campus or a mini factory town. Other distilleries have just the central distillery and bottling line, but the aging warehouses are spread further afield. They're closer by at Buffalo Trace.
The name Buffalo Trace comes from the paths that the buffalo took to this area, where they would cross the river. The distillery is located where several paths intersected. Our guide Freddie said that this site is also probably where the first bourbons were ever shipped down the river to New Orleans in the early days of bourbon.
Here at Buffalo Trace, several rickhouses are built of brick on the outside and have many windows, unlike the typical metal-clad warehouses. However, the inside of the brick warehouses are wooden structures that hold the barrels, not connected to the outside framework.
Having all of this close together makes for a good tour- you can walk from building to building (as I did) and see every part of the distilling, aging, and bottling operation.
Buffalo Trace launched the first single-barrel bourbon, Blanton's, in 1984. We saw it being bottled. We also saw the vats for chill filtration, which was helpful as I was about to give a talk about filtration in spirits right after my visit.
We were also treated to seeing the bitters room, where they make Peychaud's and Regan's Orange bitters. I got to try those suckers out of the tap! To make them, they add the ingredients to one of 7 little tanks, age them 2 weeks, filter the solids, let them rest a week, and then bottle them.
Visiting Buffalo Trace
Information about visiting the distillery is found at BuffaloTraceDistillery.com. There are regular tours, hard hat tours, tours specializing in the time right after Prohibition, and even a nighttime ghost tour.
This spring I visited 8 American whiskey distilleries, including Heaven Hill.
Heaven Hill makes whisky brands Evan Williams (the second largest bourbon after Jim Beam), Elijah Craig, Bernheim Wheat Whiskey, Old Fitzgerald, Rittenhouse Rye, and Georgia Moon Corn Whiskey, plus they make and/or own Burnett's vodka, Hypnotiq, Lunazul tequila, and many other brands. They are the only company that makes all of bourbon, rye, corn whiskey, and wheat whiskey. They have nearly 1 million barrels in storage.
Though the visitors' center and many rickhouses are here, the distillery is elsewhere - the distillery and many warehouses burned down in a major fire in 1996. After the fire they purchased the Bernheim distillery in Louisville to do the distillation, along with some rickhouses there.
For three generations, master distillers at Heaven Hill have been descendants of Jim Beam.
We visited one of the warehouses - actually the rickhouse in which several "whisky of the year"s have aged. It is seven floors tall and we walked to the top for the view. Most of those "best whiskies" were aged on the top floor here.
Our guide pointed out where the distillery was that burned down.
For all their bourbons, they use a single mashbill. (They didn't give out the specific numbers but said it's about 70% corn and 10% each rye and malted barley. Update: see the comments for specifics.) Between all the brands, age and proof are the only differences; not the recipe. When they distill a spirit and put it into a barrel, it's not designated to be a specific brand - they pull barrels as needed to make specific flavor profiles of their products.
Visiting Heaven Hill
The Bourbon Heritage Center opened in 2004, and still looks shiny and new. Inside, you get the typical displays of bourbon history and the history of the company, plus there is a cool round bar tasting room inside.
There are several tours available - mini tour inside the visitors' center, an 1.5 hour tour that visits a rickhouse as I did, a trolley tour around downtown Bardstown, and a 3 hour "Behind the Scenes" tour. More information about visiting Heaven Hill is here.
This spring I visited the Maker's Mark distillery, along with seven other American whiskey distilleries in Kentucky and Tennessee. I had previously been to Maker's Mark and wrote about my visit here. As you'll read, I learned a lot of different stuff on this trip.
Maker's Mark uses a mashbill of 70% corn, 16% soft red winter wheat, and 14% malted barley. Bourbon must be a minimum of 51% corn but 70+ is normal. Malted barley is always used to aid in fermentation, and the remaining percent is usually made of up rye or wheat, more often rye.
At Maker's they prepare the grains a little differently than at other distilleries. They use a roller mill to crunch up the grains, rather than a hammer mill. This cracks the husk of the wheat but leaves it intact. The husks do go into the boiler with the other grains, but they boil it at a relatively low temperature so it won't break down and become available to the yeast for fermentation. They also cook their grains (to prepare them for fermentation) in an open-topped cookers, rather than pressure cooking them.
The grains are then fermented with yeast for three days.
The fermented grains are then distilled, up to 120 proof in the column still, and then up to 130 in the doubler. We smelled the two distillates: The first was very oily and minerally. After the second distillation it smelled fruity and light, like a typical white dog.
They put the new spirit into barrels at 110 proof. Most of the warehouses for Maker's Mark at six storeys tall. They are the only bourbon distillery that rotates all of their barrels throughout the aging process. Barrels are first racked on the top floors, then moved after two years and then moved lower again after another two.
Maker's 46, a new bourbon from Maker's Mark, begins as the same distillate, aged for the same amount of time. It is then aged an additional 8-11 weeks in barrels with 10 seared French oak staves in the barrels. They do this only in the winter, as that way the liquid sucks flavor out of the staves rather than sucking liquid into the wood of the staves as it would do in the hotter months of summer. I think the final product tastes like wood-spiced Maker's Mark- pretty tasty.
Visiting Maker's Mark
Free tours are available. Check the Maker's Mark website for more information.
This spring I visited eight American whiskey distilleries, including Woodford Reserve.
Woodford Reserve's distillery is in a charming setting, nestled down next to a stream in a little valley. The distillery is in a grey stone building dating to 1838, though everything inside it is new. Like most American whiskey distilleries, it changed names and owners many times over the years, changing to the Woodford Reserve distillery in 2004.
Woodford Reserve is made from a mashbill of 72% corn, 18% rye, and 10% malted barley. They use limestone-filtered well water to ferment the grains in Cyprus wood fermentation vats. They ferment for six days - quite a long time. The fermenting grains taste very sour, kind of like sour green beer.
The sour mash process is where you take leftover grains that have been fermented back into the new batch of grains that are going to be fermented. Here at Woodford Reserve, they "sour in the cook" as opposed to souring in the fermenter. That means they add the last batch's spent grains to the new grains when it is being cooked, previous to when yeast is added for fermentation. Sour mash is known for keeping consistency between batches, but also it is acidic and helps reduce bacteria in the new batch.
Woodford Reserve is unique in that they make a portion of their whiskey in pot stills. The stills look much as they do in Scotland, but here there are three of them. In Scotland, after the grains have fermented they separate out the grain solids from the sugary beer and only distill the liquids. In bourbon, solids and liquids are put together into the column still. So at Woodford Reserve, they put solids and liquids into the first pot still and distill it only up to 20 percent alcohol. For the most part they are just separating out the solids in this step, taking care not to burn them into the inside of the still.
The second and third distillations bring the alcohol up to 55 percent and 78 percent (this is just under the legal limit of 80 percent maximum distillation percent for bourbon), and then it is put into barrels. The spirit goes into the barrels at 55 percent alcohol.
The rickhouses for the aging spirits are heated for Woodford Reserve. They put a temperature sensor in a barrel on the ground level. When it reaches 60 degrees Fahrenheit, they heat the warehouse until the spirit reaches 85 degrees and then turn off the heat. This makes for faster cycles of the spirit moving in and out of the barrel wood.
Woodford Reserve is aged for an average of 7.3 years, and when they take it out of the barrel, they've lost about 50% of the whiskey to evaporation.
After aging, the pot distilled spirit is blended with column distilled spirit (distilled elsewhere) to make the final bottling blend. They do not say at which ratio these two spirits are blended for the bottle (and they didn't mention the column spirit at all until it came up in conversation), but say that it changes depending on flavor.
Visiting Woodford Reserve
Tours of the Woodford Reserve distillery cost $7. It is the most visited distillery on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, despite the fact that they only sell 165,000 cases of bourbon annually- a tiny fraction of what Jim Beam sells. For more information, visit the Woodford Reserve website.
This spring I visited eight American whiskey distilleries, including Wild Turkey.
The Wild Turkey brand has been around a while, but the current distillery is just three years old, having moved across the street from the old one. It's clean, modern, and spacious.
Wild Turkey uses all non-GMO grains in their bourbon and rye, but they don't tell us their specific mashbill. Despite having several products (Russell's Reserve, Rare Breed, etc.) there is just one mashbill for their bourbon, and another one for their ryes.
They ferment the grains for three days before distillation.
The bourbon is distilled up to 115 proof in the 48-foot tall column still, and then up to 125 proof in the doubler, which acts like a pot still.
In column distillation, there are actually heads and tails, but they only appear when you first turn on the still (heads) and when you turn it off (tails). However, you can just add these back into the column when you start it up again, so there really is no middle cut from the column still.
The rickhouses for Wild Turkey are 7 storeys tall, and they have a total inventory of about 480,000 barrels. The barrels have a #4 char.
Wild Turkey was recently purchased by Campari. Previously it was owned by Pernod-Ricard, and in the deal of the sale Pernod-Ricard still gets to buy 90% of their used barrels for the next 10 years. I'm guessing all those barrels go to Jameson.
They have just released Wild Turkey 81 Rye. It is 81 proof. They have a 101 proof rye, but it was sold out already for the year back in April.
Visiting Wild Turkey
Free tours are available, and visitors do get tasting samples. Visit WildTukey.com for more information.
This spring I toured eight American whisky distilleries, including Jack Daniel's.
As you'd expect, Jack Daniel's is a huge operation with a very slick tour. You start with a video at the visitors' center, then take a shuttle up to the top of the hill. There, they burn sugar maple wood into charcoal for the Lincoln County Process, in which newly-distilled spirit is filtered through charcaol before barrel aging. They weren't burning wood on the day I visited, so no bonfire for me.
Then we visited the cave spring where they get the water to ferment the grains before distilling, and then into Jack's old office. We saw the safe that killed Jack Daniel - he kicked it out of frustration one day and the injury caught gangrene and it eventually killed him.
The mashbill for Jack Daniel's is 80% corn, 8% rye, and 12% malted barley. The corn is #1 yellow corn. They say with a higher corn amount, you need a higher malted barley amount to help ferment it. They have 56 fermentation vats on-site that hold 40,000 gallons apiece. Fermentation lasts for 6 days - quite a long time. It reaches 11-12 percent alcohol after fermentation.
There are four distillation columns, all made of copper, and needing to be replaced every 9 or 10 years. (The whisky is only distilled in one of them, not all four. They just have four because they make so much whiskey.) Unlike most bourbon, there is no second distillation in a "thumper" or "doubler." They distill the whisky up to 140 proof (160 is the legal limit).
Then the whiskey goes through the Lincoln County Process. There are 72 vats, each filled with a ten foot layer of sugar maple charcoal. The whiskey is sprayed on the top of the vats and it slowly drips down through the charcoal, taking about 4-6 days to get all the way through. The charcoal in each vat is replaced every 4-5 months.
This is in contrast to George Dickel, the other major Tennessee whiskey, where they fill the vats up with charcoal and spirit, let it sit a week, and then drain the whole thing.
They say the charcoal filtering removes 80 percent of hte oils and impurities from the distillate. Gentleman Jack is filtered through charcoal a second time at bottling, through a thinner layer of charcoal.
The whiskey is aged in their 81 warehouses spread throughout the region. Barrels are "quarter-sawn American oak" with a #4 char. It takes one 60 year-old tree to make one barrel. On the plus side, there is extra wood left over from the tree for other things, and many barrels are reused after aging American whiskey to age other spirits for more than 60 years apiece.
The barrels are first toasted and then charred at their own cooperage, the Brown-Forman Cooperage.
Last year they sold 10.23 million cases of Jack.
Master Distiller Jeff Arnett describes the taste of Jack as "Sweet and oakey," as opposed to the "bold and spicy" of other American whiskies. We tasted Jack before it goes through the Lincoln County Process - it was noticeably oilier and grainier than it is afterward. Arnett says that the Lincoln County Process "removes the bitterness associated with the grain bill."
The Jack Daniel's Single Barrel bottlings always come from the top (hottest, most wood-influenced) floors of the rickhouse, while the Green Label comes from the ground floor.
Visiting Jack Daniel's
Contrary to popular belief, there are some tours where you're allowed to taste whiskey at Jack Daniel's. Those cost $10.
Though they don't really sell whiskey at the gift shop, they do sell "commemorative bottles" full of whiskey.
Visitor information is on the website here.
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