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COVER
STORY - February
2001 by Claude Hammond Sidebar-
For those who still drink scotch exclusively, it’s time to wake up and smell the sour mash; bourbon has arrived in a big way. And this has benefited the distillers and bottlers of Kentucky’s favorite beverage in no uncertain terms. By law, bourbon must be made from at least 51 percent corn and aged in charred oak barrels for no less than two years. The reason for its resurgence has been a two-fold lesson in marketing and quality production. “Bourbon has always been a great drink,” said Jerry Dalton, master distiller for Jim Beam. “But the world is discovering something that Kentucky’s master distillers have known for a long time. That’s the fact that bourbon can compete with the best scotches and cognacs.” “What we’re seeing is not a resurgence of bourbon, but an emergence,” said Bill Samuels, CEO of Maker’s Mark. “Distilleries are producing better bourbon than ever before.” “I think that all the bourbons measure up favorably to all the scotch whiskies,” Samuels said. “Bourbon in general has been incredibly undervalued and malt whiskies incredibly overvalued. Bourbon has so much better a nose. The bouquet is incredible. And there’s never been as good a tasting bourbon available out there as there is today. The great things about bourbon are its simplicity, its honesty and its Kentucky roots.” Terms like “single barrel,” “small batch” and “vintage,” almost unknown a decade ago, now distinguish the super-premium bourbons. A single barrel bourbon has been bottled from an individual barrel whose content has been sampled and ruled superior by a master distiller. A small batch bourbon (usually 50 barrels or less in size) is bottled from a short run of the still where the master distiller pays special attention to both its manufacturing and aging processes. Thus far, there is only one vintage bourbon, which also qualifies as a single barrel (Heaven Hill’s Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage series), but others are expected. “There’s now a vintage dated single malt scotch out there,” said Larry Kass, group marketing manager for Heaven Hill. “It’s a healthy sign when you see the scotch people imitating the bourbon people.” Bourbon’s new popularity can’t be discussed without mentioning the influence of five master distillers;
Julian “Pappy” Van Winkle’s Stitzel-Weller distillery in Shively produced some of the best bourbon in the industry from the 1940s until its acquisition by a New York firm in 1972. Van Winkle and his family made and promoted their Old Fitzgerald brand with an emphasis on quality from the 1940s through 1972. Using folksy wisdom, the elder Van Winkle espoused the high quality of Old Fitzgerald in a column he wrote for ads in magazines like Outdoor Life and Sports Illustrated. From the 1950s to the sale of their distillery in 1972, Van Winkle and his son, Julian Jr., had a sizeable portion of bourbon’s high-end market with their Old Fitzgerald brand. Though his family sold the Old Fitzgerald brand along with its distillery, Julian Van Winkle Jr. kept possession of a pre-Prohibition label, appropriately named Old Rip Van Winkle. “When we sold the distillery, my father started this business of resurrecting the Rip Van Winkle label,” said Pappy’s grandson, J.P. Van Winkle III. “He bought it and some whiskey stock and went into the business of selling bourbon decanters. When I joined him in 1977, the whiskey was a very small part of the business. When decanters rose in price, the market for them fell off. That’s when I started focusing on the whiskey business after my dad’s death in 1981.” So now, J.P. Van Winkle III continues his family tradition from a small distillery on the banks of the Salt River in rural Anderson County. There, he bottles several award-winning bourbons, including Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve, a 23-year-old bourbon (the oldest domestically sold) that was named “Best American Whiskey” in the December issue of Food and Wine magazine. The Van Winkle Family Reserve 20-year-old scored 99 out of 100 and won the World Spirits Championship of Chicago’s Beverage Tasting Institute in 1996. William Samuels Sr. developed the recipe for Maker’s Mark. Several years after selling the huge T.W. Samuels Distillery near Bardstown, he purchased and restored the tiny Star Hill Distillery in Loretto and commenced to distilling the brand in 1953. Maker’s Mark has been making super premium bourbon since that date, with an average run of the still filling a scant 19 barrels.
How William Samuels developed a recipe for Maker’s Mark by baking various kinds of bread using distiller’s grains is now an industry legend. How his son marketed the brand is legendary in terms of high-end branding. “I never believed you could bore people into liking your product,” Samuels said. “And I never believed that bourbon should be sampled in a brandy snifter with your pinky sticking out. I didn’t like boring and I didn’t like stuffy. I just injected my own style and personality into the market just like dad injected his own style into the creation of the product.” The first small batch bourbon was developed during the years Booker Noe was master distiller at the Jim Beam distillery in Clermont (Noe is Jim Beam’s grandson). For special occasions, Noe would give friends and family members bottles of bourbon he selected from barrels whose contents he found to have exceptional taste. “The people at Jim Beam saw the success of single malt scotches and when they found out what Booker was doing, they decided to bottle it,” said Beam’s Jim Kokoris. The year was 1988 and the first small batch bourbon was born. Appropriately, it was named Booker Noe’s. (Technically, the whiskey also qualifies as a single barrel bourbon.) The brand remains the industry’s only straight-from-the-barrel, undiluted and unfiltered bourbon and its potency is in the 125 proof range.
Booker Noe’s has won a slew of awards and accolades, most recently winning the Silver Medal at the 25th Annual International Wine & Spirit Competition held in London, England last June. “A tasting of small batch bourbons left me in awe of Booker’s,” wrote a critic for The Chicago Tribune. “The small batch jump-started the bourbon business,” said Jerry Dalton, the current master distiller at Jim Beam who assisted in the initial taste evaluation of Booker’s in Noe’s kitchen 13 years ago. The commercial success of Booker’s has led to Jim Beam’s production of three other premium brands; Knob Creek (now the best-selling small batch bourbon), Basil Hayden’s and Baker’s. Each has its distinct recipe and method for aging. At the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort, Master Distiller Elmer T. Lee made another big innovation for super premium bourbon, developing Blanton’s, the first single barrel bourbon in the industry. “I was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time,” Lee said. “The owners of the distillery were interested in producing a premium bourbon and asked me to help them develop it. I recalled the single barrel bourbon concept that Col. Albert B. Blanton used in the mid 1930s and ‘40s, where he selected special barrels for bottling high-quality whiskey. Col Blanton was the resident manager, owner and master distiller here for 55 years, retiring in 1952.” Lee, who’s 81 years old, has been at Buffalo Trace Distillery since 1949 and worked with Col. Blanton during the first three years of his career. He has been semi-retired since 1986, working with the distillery exclusively in the production and promotion of Blanton’s and another single barrel bourbon bearing the Elmer T. Lee label. “We select the premium bourbons from different warehouses. Blanton’s comes from Col. Albert B. Blanton’s favorite warehouse, which was Warehouse ‘H.’ The bourbon that bears my name comes from my favorite warehouses, ‘I’ and ‘K.’ Each is aged is a different way.” Buffalo Trace makes two other super premium bourbons, Rock Hill Farms and Hancock Reserve. The company will bottle another super premium label, Eagle Rare, sometime in 2001. Two other members of the Beam family preside over the distilling at Heaven Hill. Parker Beam and his son Craig supervise the distillation of their own award-winning bourbons. The premium products they produce include Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage, Elijah Craig 18 Year Old Single Barrel (the only 18-year-old single barrel), Elijah Craig 12 Year Old and Henry McKenna, the only extra-aged Bottled in Bond bourbon (100 proof, 10 years old). “When you produce something that is vintage dated, it gets down to the weather and the individual barrel that makes the bourbon special,” Parker Beam said. His selection of the Evan Williams Single Barrel 1990 Vintage, which was first marketed in late 1999, met with considerable success. The Spirit Journal rated it “Whiskey of the Year” for 2000, a recognition of which Beam is proud. The Elijah Craig 12 Year Old also won the double gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition held in September. But Beam is not resting on his laurels. “Our Evan Williams 1990 Vintage was really good whiskey,” Beam says, “but I think that we’ve topped it with our 1991 vintage.” Near Versailles on Glenn’s Creek, the Labrot & Graham distillery is a picture postcard of a place that is also a National Historic Landmark. Located among thoroughbred horse farms, whiskey was first made at the site in 1812 by pioneer distiller Elijah Pepper. Louisville distiller Brown-Forman purchased the distillery in 1941 and, following a decline in demand for bourbon, sold the place in the 1960s. Following the renewed demand for premium bourbon, Brown-Forman repurchased Labrot & Graham in 1994, then restored it and put it into operation by 1996.
“We have the only copper pot stills still in use in the industry,” Creason said. “And while most distillers double-distill their product, we are the only bourbon distillery in the business that triple-distills its product. The stills had to be made in Scotland, because no one makes this kind of equipment anymore in America.” The first product to bear the re-born Labrot & Graham label is Woodford Reserve, which has achieved an impressive following, becoming the second-largest selling premium bourbon. But Woodford Reserve is just the first of what will be several premium bourbon brands made by Labrot & Graham. “We have several different bourbons aging in our warehouses,” Creason said. “This includes one bourbon we’re making that contains both wheat and rye.” (Bourbons contain a secondary grain after corn that is usually either wheat or rye – to combine the two is a rarity.)
Jimmy Russell, master distiller at Austin, Nichols & Company’s Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg, has also produced a limited-edition bourbon called Russell’s Reserve, a 101 proof 10-year-old from select barrels. “We premiered the bourbon at the Bardstown Bourbon Festival this past fall,” said Michael Sachs, Associate Brand Manager for Wild Turkey. “We limited its production to only 3000 bottles, and it was all sold within three months. We would like to increase production for next year, but we have to ensure that what goes into each bottle is only the best.” West Kentucky’s entry into the super premium bourbon category is Wathen’s, which is distilled by Charles Wathen Medley in Owensboro. Medley represents the seventh generation of his family to make the product and, like Beam, Dalton, Lee and Noe, is a stickler for quality with distinct convictions about what makes good bourbon. “It’s the best product I’ve ever made,” said Medley. “We use a beer still that’s 100 percent copper and a doubler that’s 100 percent copper. I never had enough money to experiment. The bottom line is, it’s handmade and hand-bottled in the best possible way.” There are other super premium bourbons out there, indicative of the commercial success of brands produced by established distillers. Consumers have discovered that the mysterious way that three or four grains can be combined, cooked, fermented, distilled and aged by a talented master distiller can result in a variety of wonderful tastes and aromas. “Late in the
afternoon after a day’s work is the best time of day
for bourbon, preferably in a quiet environment,”
comments Elmer T. Lee. “It’s a pretty good way
to end up the day.” Claude Hammond is
editorial director of The Lane Report.
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A decade ago, bourbon
was widely viewed as being a drink for old fogies. It was
something that dad drank. If one wanted a stylish and
trendy distilled beverage back in 1991, then usually a
rare single-malt scotch was in order. 
The patriarchs of the
bourbon industry that saw the importance of marketing
super premium quality are the late Julian P.
“Pappy” Van Winkle and William Samuels Sr.
“He thought he
was a prophet; we thought he was a little crazy,”
said Bill Samuels of his father. “It looked like the
day of American whiskey had finished and the public had
moved on to other things. The first thing he had to do
was to figure out what he was going to do. He borrowed
ideas from friends in the industry. Now experimenting on
how to make whiskey is illegal unless you own a
distillery, so he went to the kitchen.”
“My bourbon is
aged in special locations in the rack house and I taste
the best of the best in regards to the batches they send
me,” said Noe. “My son Fred and I sit around
the kitchen table, sniffing, sipping and looking at the
color. Everything’s got to be just right before we
send it back to the distillery for bottling.”
According to Labrot
& Graham General Manager William Creason,
Brown-Forman decided to make its new premium product at a
premium site, surrounded by Bluegrass horse farms.
“We hired an architecture student to research and
look at old distillery sites all around the state,”
he said. “No other place came close.” The
historic stonework of Labrot & Graham’s still
house may be what most impresses visitors, but what
impresses distilling professionals most about the site
are the ultra-traditional copper pot stills inside. 
There are newcomers
to the super premium bourbon brands.