Bourbon+ Digital Issue

T h E p E o P l E, s T o R i E s, A n D s C i E n C e BeH i N d T h E B oT t L e | D i G i T a L I s S u E

Corn

THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT OF BOURBON

Jas E. Pepper HAND-M ADE SOUR M ASH BOURBON

Mixology

THE SA ZER AC: A COCK TAIL RICH IN HISTORY

Bar Scout LOUISVILLE’S RECBAR

Bourbon Joy

WITH FREDDIE JOHNSON, A TOUR AT BUFFFALO TRACE CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE

The premium whiskey from Tennessee as remarkable as the story behind it.

Double distilled and charcoal mellowed for astonishing smoothness, then aged a minimum of seven years.

DRINK HONORABLY™. UNCLE NEAREST PREMIUM WHISKEY, 46.5% ALC/VOL, UNCLE NEAREST, SHELBYVILLE, TN. © 2019 UNCLE NEAREST, INC. WWW.UNCLENEAREST.

Heaven Hill Distillery. Bardstown, KY © 2019

Introducing Our New Podcast Heaven Hill Distillery has been distilling and patiently aging American Whiskey for more than eight decades. Now, it's time to share the stories behind those whiskeys and the people who make them on our new podcast, Tales from the Hill. From our early days after the end of Prohibition through today's Bourbon boom, our podcast dives deep into the heritage of Heaven Hill Distillery, told by the people who know it best.

Grab your favorite whiskey and listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen Now

HeavenHillDistillery.com/podcast

TALES FROM THE

HILL

Distillery 291 founder Michael Myers is a former New York fashion photographer who has captured the beauty of celebrities ranging from Angelina Jolie to Sam Elliott. But, like many Americans, Myers felt his soul rip apart after September 11, 2001. In his quest to reinvent himself, Myers moved to Colorado, learned how to distill, and created one of the most award-winning craft distilleries in the country. In this issue’s photo essay, Myers combines his past with his present, finding art in both human and still form.

Photography by Michael Myers

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A former fashion photographer turned distiller, Michael Myers used a technique called photogravure to etch a photographic negative into metal. If you look closely, you’ll see the image on the left is on the bottom of the still. In this photo, Myers’ two worlds become one.

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Celebrated actor Sam Elliott always played grizzled characters, who were known to sling a pistol from time to time. His deep voice evokes a certain toughness, while this still, forged from copper, can take a beating and still churn out lovely liquid.

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Two contrasting subjects: The cactus needs little water; the inside of the still requires water to make whiskey. 291’s Michael Myers has made a career out of contrast, from his unique photographic eye to his desire to make competitive Colorado bourbon.

Features

32

42

Bourbon Joy

The American Grain, The American Spirit

With Freddie Johnson, a tour at Buffalo Trace can change your life.

Corn, the essential ingredient of Bourbon, was here before Columbus

50

61

Baking with Bourbon

Roll Out the Barrels

Successfully using Bourbon in desserts takes thought, patience, good ingredients, and sound technique.

Something special happens when beer meets bourbon.

Correspondence: Page 18

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Award winning, Independently Owned Kentucky Bourbon and Rye Whiskey D I S T I L L E D , A G E D , A N D B O T T L E D I N N E W P O R T, K E N T U C K Y

Departments & Columns

16

68

86

Editor-in-Chief ’s Note

Entertaining

Whiskey Business

Andrea the Great

20 Managing Editor’s Note Deep in the Heart of Texas

The Authentic Experiences and Confessions of a Kentucky Hostess

Big-money Players Invest in Brown Spirits

77

89

Bar Scout Recbar

22 Here’s Proof

Little-known Shots of Whiskey Wisdom

25 The Wet Whistle

Sharing a Drink with Lonesome George

27 Young Spirits

Frey Ranch Estate Distillery

79 Mixology

90

The Sazerac: A Cocktail Rich in History

A Day in the Life

81

92

Vintage

What I’m Drinking

Jas. E. Pepper Hand-made Sour Mash Bourbon

82 Amateur Hour

Bourbon from A to, um, W: A glossary

84 Bourbon Club

The Bourbon Crusaders

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Whiskey Pairings

Dessert, Cigars, and the Art of Indulging with Whiskey

Scott Neil

Offstage with Locash

96 Back in the Day

Memories of Booker Noe

Behind the Story: Freddie Johnson, Spirit Guide FRED MINNICK, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

About 10 years ago, on a cold, rainy day, I took my wife on her first bourbon tour.

I had been covering bourbon for a couple of years, and while I had given Jaclyn many winery and distillery experiences, I had neglected to show her our own backyard beauty. I arranged the tour at Buffalo Trace Distillery.

Why there? I can’t really say. However, Jaclyn was enthusiastic about the possibility of sipping Elmer T. Lee with that bourbon’s namesake.

Alas, she didn’t meet Elmer.

But she became a lifelong fan of somebody else.

Freddie Johnson extended his hand to my lovely wife and said, “It’s an honor for me to show you the distillery my dad worked in and now I work in.” She shimmied a little, ducked her head, and smiled from ear to ear.

Freddie connected instantly, through a simple piece of personal history. He took us inside the warehouses, up the stairs to observe the beer still, through the bottling line that always seems to be tempting people to swipe a bottle of Blanton’s, and into the gift shop, where we wished the tour wasn’t over. We all just wanted to spend one more minute with Freddie.

Since then, Freddie has starred in the documentary Neat and entered the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame, and he has touched the lives of thousands.

When people speak of Freddie, they refer to him as a tour guide, which he is, but he’s so much more. Freddie embodies bourbon in a way that makes you feel connected to the spirit beyond its taste. He represents its evolution, connecting us to the people and lifestyle of America’s spirit through personal experiences and relationships that span lifetimes.

Without him, bourbon is just another drink.

With him, bourbon is family.

Just take a tour with Freddie, and you’ll see.

ADAM CRUFT

Cheers,

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Digital Preview

PUBL ISHER John Thames ED ITOR -IN- CHIEF Fred Minnick Managing Editor Carla Carlton Entertainment Editor Peggy Noe Stevens Production Manager Addy McDaniel

Art Director Laura Buchanan McElroy Creative Director Mary Katherine Sharman Designer & Illustrator Russ Grimes

Copy Editor Lauren Helmer

CON TRIBUTING WRITERS Lew Bryson, Steve Coomes, Chuck Cowdery, Dan Dunn, Kevin Gibson , Matt Pietrek, Kelsey Westbrook, G. Clay Whittaker CO NT RIBUTING ARTISTS & PHOTOGRAPHERS Terry Allen, Derek Baune, Hollis Bennett, Adam Cruft, Stephen DeVries, Brian Grossenbacher, Andy Hyslop, Anna May, Cary Norton, Mike Schalk, Frederick Stivers, Carla Van Wagoner

MARKETING Website Production Manager Renée Beauchamp Film Services Sampley Brothers

Website Creative Services Michael Eman Brand Development Sean Greenberg

Publishing Consultant Samir A. Husni, Ph.D. Finance Director Margie Thames Consumer Relations | Office Manager Danielle Dickinson Bourbon+ (ISSN 2640-9798) is published four times a year by Covey Rise LLC, 6400 Hwy 63 S, Alexander City, AL 35010. Subscriptions are $30 US for one year (4 issues). Canada one-year subscriptions are $50 US (4 issues), and International one-year subscriptions are $70 US (4 issues).

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Postmaster: Send address changes to PO Box 7500, Big Sandy, TX 75755-7500 S U B S C R I P T IO N S & C O R R E S P O N DE N C E To subscribe to Bourbon+, e-mail customerservice@bourbonplusmag.com; call (833) 256-1201; or mail to Bourbon+, PO Box 7500, Big Sandy, TX 75755-7500. To contact Bourbon+, visit www.bourbonplus.com; call (866) 311-3792; or mail to Bourbon+, 6400 Hwy 63 S, Alexander City, AL 35010.

S U B M I S S IO N G U I DE L I N E S To offer stories and /or photographs to be considered for publication in Bourbon+, email them to submissions@bourbonplus.com or write to us at our editorial office. Letters and emails should include full contact information. We reserve the right to edit letters for clarity and brevity.

Editorial Office: 10605 Meeting St., Suite 102; Prospect, KY 40059 Bourbon+ may not be reproduced or photocopied without the written permission of the publisher, Covey Rise LLC. © Covey Rise LLC 2020

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Deep in The Heart of Texas CARL A CARLTON, MANAGING EDITOR

It was late evening in Dripping Springs, Texas, and all the visitors to Treaty Oak Distilling had long since gone. Following a leisurely afternoon of tasting and touring, another Kentucky spirits writer and I were sprawled at a corner table in the distillery’s restaurant, still jawing with the production crew about their juice. While these guys appreciate Kentucky bourbon, they have no interest in imitating it: They want to make Texas bourbon.

The talk turned to how the Texas climate affects the aging time of whiskey. “What’s the oldest bourbon you’ve got here?” I asked.

“Five years,” said Rob Cantu, head of operations. “I even know the barrel number—309. Heck, let’s go find it!”

With cell phones lighting the way, we ambled through the dark Texas night to the distillery building. Rob quickly spotted barrel 309 on a top rick. One of the warehouse guys scrambled up like a squirrel, popped out the bung, and inserted a plastic tube. Phillip Dormont, who’s in charge of R&D at Treaty Oak, sucked on the tube until the bourbon—a rich, dark amber— began to flow into a small bottle, which we passed around to sample.

Treaty Oak, which began with a 15-gallon still, moved to this 28-acre spread—a former ranch just outside Austin—three years ago. When they invited me to visit in October 2018, they were on the verge of expanding their sales into seven new U.S. markets after partnering with Florida-based Mahalo Spirits Group. (Read more about that on page 84.)

In taking this step, they joined a select number of craft distillers that have attracted national attention and aspire to national distribution. But in every other way, they were just like all the craft distillers I’ve met: enthusiastic, engaged, and passionate about what they’re doing, with a “we’re all in this together” vibe. They weren’t at the distillery after closing hours on a Friday just to talk with us—they are always at the distillery after closing hours on Friday, hanging out like family.

The Treaty Oak was a council oak in Austin where land treaties were signed. Distillery founder Daniel Barnes chose that name for the history, but also, he said, because the Treaty Oak was “a place where people came together to fight for a cause, for community, and for unity. That’s what all of us are doing.”

They want to be successful, sure. But they also want their spirits to tell a story. And having the opportunity to meet folks like them and share those stories with you is what makes working at Bourbon+ such a pleasure.

ADAM CRUFT

Cheers,

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he r e ’s pr o o f

Little-known Shots of Whiskey Wisdom By the Numbers

Number of white oaks the Angel’s Envy team (brand, production, finance, everyone)

Number of white oak trees Angel’s Envy will plant in spring

personally planted in the Daniel Boone

2019 through its Toast the Trees initiative. Angel’s Envy plants

National Forest in one day in April 2017. The Arbor Day Foundation picks up the rest.

a tree with the Arbor Day Foundation for every photo posted to public social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) with the hashtag #ToastTheTrees during September (Bourbon Heritage Month).

The year 2017 marked the first time the distillery planted more trees (12,030) than it used in barrels for production.

Number of white oak trees planted since Toast the Trees began in 2014.

The number of acorns that will develop into a white oak tree.

RUSS GRIMES

(One tree produces more than 2,000 acorns per year.)

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2018 unveiling of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Welcome Center at the Frazier History Museum downtown. There are now nearly a dozen bourbon experiences in Louisville, compared to none in 2011.

Kentucky Common: Bourbon’s Bluegrass Beer Cousin Bourbon in Pennsylvania? Rye not?

Corn, barley, and yeast: In the 1800s, these

Pennsylvania was renowned for rye whis-

common.” A dark cream ale that originated

the oceans of the fish we love to eat—

key, but there was bourbon in the Keystone

in Louisville, common is one of only three

overfishing, agricultural runoff, climate

State, too. Think of Michter’s and brands

beer styles indigenous to America.

three bourbon ingredients also made their living as a beer style known as “Kentucky

like Old Hickory, made at the Publicker distillery in Philadelphia.

Weird Science Some of the same factors that are depleting

change—are also leading to a veritable “jellyfish hellscape,” according to a recent

The style was largely forgotten for several

article in MEL magazine. These gooey blobs

generations, having been wiped out by Pro-

are taking over the seas, and we may need to

Now Wigle Whiskey, in Pittsburgh, has a

hibition, but it has returned in recent years

eat our way out of danger, writes Zaron Bur-

new Pennsylvania Bourbon. It’s a wheater,

and is now certified by the Beer Judge Cer-

nett III. If that sounds disgusting, take heart:

all organic, and locally sourced. Wigle is

tification Program as a Historical Beer. As a

A couple of researchers have discovered a

aging it in 53-gallon barrels for 23 months,

result, Kentucky breweries are embracing it.

just under “straight.” Kind of quirky, but

way to make jellyfish more edible—and it involves bourbon. In essence, they submerge

that’s Wigle. It’s bold, sweet, and surpris-

the creatures in base ethanol for a few

ingly well-integrated for its age.

days, then dry them into thin, crispy discs.

The scientists experimented with bourbon

We’re probably still hooked on rye here

to give the jellies a more pleasing flavor.

in Pennsy, but this heralds the return of

Imagine “bourbon-flavored jellyfish chips

a strong second choice. Welcome back,

that crunch like a potato chip, but disappear

bourbon. —Lew Bryson

like spun sugar, leaving only the smoky flavor of a good bourbon,” Burnett writes. Yeah, still pretty gross. But yet another indication that everyone is jumping on the bourbon Interestingly, the beer was tied closely

bandwagon.

enough to bourbon that brewers long believed Kentucky common to have been sour mashed. Recent research has proved that

It Was How Much?

notion wrong, but many brewers still make

$1.1 million. That’s how much a single

sour versions of common using Lactobacillus.

750ml bottle of 60-year-old Macallan single-malt Scotch went for at a Bonhams

They Said It

The light-bodied cream ale is a good summer

auction in Edinburgh. The record-setting

sipper, with a lightly sweet and bready flavor.

price could buy around 250 barrels of

It’s low in alcohol, highly carbonated, and

6-year-old straight Kentucky bourbon at

ultimately refreshing. You can even make it a

wholesale. In other words, anybody have

“Remember what Muhammad Ali always

backside companion for your next neat whis-

$1.2 million? We reckon it’ll take an addi-

said: ‘If it’s true, it ain’t bragging.’”

key pour, for a true Kentucky boilermaker.

tional $100,000 for the bottles and labels.

—Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, at the

Cheers. —Kevin Gibson

Asking for a friend.

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THE WET Whistle

CARLA VAN WAGONER / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

I

SHARING A DRINK WITH LONESOME GEORGE

BY DAN DUNN

n 2003, I was hunkered down at a crowded bar in Montecito, California, minding my own business, making love to a tonic and gin. All of a sudden, a guy tried to squeeze between me and my neighbor to grab a drink. Slightly annoyed (I need space when I hunker), I turned to see a sizable set of choppers that could belong to only one man. Lonesome George.

The Delaware Destroyer. George Thorogood.

“You’re George Thorogood,” I helpfully reminded him.

“Yessir, I am,” he replied with a toothy grin.

“Wow,” I said. I was feeling poetic.

Please know that this “wow” was not one of apathy, but of awe. George Thorogood is one of my heroes, up alongside Sinatra, Tom Waits, and The Replacements in the pantheon of songsmiths who played pivotal roles in my relationship with alcohol.

My late grandfather, who immigrated to Philly from Italy, worshipped Sinatra. Poppy and I used to listen to his paesano for hours on end in the family room in the basement of my grandparents’ house, where a black velvet painting of Sinatra pouring himself a glass of Jack Daniel’s was displayed prominently next to a smaller photo of Pope Paul VI. Velvet Sinatra was pure kitsch, but to me that painting might as well have been the Mona Lisa. Something about that black-and-white bottle in Sinatra’s right hand just stuck with me. Little did I know it, but that was my first encounter with an influencer.

Or, should I say, an under-the-influencer. There would be many more to come.

Next was Kiss and “Cold Gin” (“the cheapest stuff is all I need to get me back on my feet again”), “Alabama Song” by the Doors, and Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville.” These were the booze-soaked tunes that got my mother through Philadelphia in the 1970s, where music was as close as we were gonna get to watching the sun bake while nibblin’ on sponge cake.

As a teenager in the mid-1980s, I discovered The Replacements, and instantly clicked with “Here Comes a Regular,” a drunkard’s lament about the grim reality of the lonely people

in a neighborhood dive. I was in love.

“The Piano Has Been Drinking” by Tom Waits inspired a yearning to find a bar where stools catch fire, the jukebox takes a leak, and the bouncer is a sumo wrestler creampuff Caspar Milquetoast. Over the years I’ve found a few. Around that time I also discovered the Pogues’ “Streams of Whiskey,” “Brass Monkey” by the Beasties, and Merle Haggard’s “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink.” It was music to drink to, sure, but it was more than that. It was an ethos. A way of life. And for every misty romanticization, there was a warts-first look at the perils ready to stick you with a broken bottle.

Now here I was, face to face with the man who had penned the immortal words, “You know when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself.” And I had replied with the immortal word, “Wow.” And now he was ordering. I could feel the moment slipping away. I had to do something. Snap out of it, Dunn!

“Hey, George, you think I could buy you that drink?”

He fixed me with a look that said he was a man who didn’t need things bought for him.

“It’d mean a lot to me,” I said.

“Well,” he replied, “when you put it that way, how can I refuse?”

Which is how I got a chance to tell George Thorogood about the time I saw one of his concerts during my senior year in high school. That night, you might say I got caught up in the spirits of things, causing me to sleep until noon the next day and miss school. There was hell to pay when my mom found out, but it was worth it. I’d seen Thorogood sing “I Drink Alone” in the flesh. I had glimpsed my future.

“So…you cut school to see my show, huh?” Thorogood asked.

I nodded.

“And I thought I was bad to the bone,” he said with a smile.

Then he thanked the bartender for his Scotch and split. I remember exactly what I ordered next. One bourbon and one beer. And I drank them just the way I like. Alone.

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YOUNG SPIRITS

FREY RANCH ESTATE DISTILLERY Bringing farming to the forefront.

BY JAKE EMEN

COURTESY OF FREY RANCH ESTATE DISTILLERY

C

olby Frey is driving me around his family’s farm in Fallon, Nevada, where generations of Freys have been born and raised. “We’ve been growing grain in Nevada since 1854,” he tells me while cruising up the Frey Ranch driveway in a Ford F-250 pickup and waving to his children, who are eating breakfast on the back deck of his century-old home. This is a family operation. That truck isn’t actually his, though. It belongs to Russell Wedlake, the general manager of Frey Ranch Estate Distillery, who lives in a separate house on the property. All the better for coming over any time of the day or night to troubleshoot an overf lowing fermentation tank.

It’s sizzling hot in late July, and a murky haze hangs in the air from the raging Carr Fire, the smoke blowing over the Sierra Nevada mountains. Fallon is known for its cantaloupes, and for being the site of the Navy’s Top Gun school. It has also been dubbed The Oasis of Nevada, and the Frey Ranch distillery does indeed welcome you like an oasis, beckoning overheated visitors with promises of air conditioning, beautifully blackened copper stills, and free samples.

Frey Ranch gained its license in 2006 and began distilling in 2013, and while their gin and vodka have long since been on store shelves, the distillery’s first whiskey—a four-year-old, four-grain bourbon matured in full-size barrels—was released in mid-November 2018. “Bourbon was always going to be the focus,” Wedlake says. But rather than release a younger whiskey, a work in progress, the farmer’s

ethos of doing things the right way the first time led to a more patient approach.

“Everything we sell here was 100 percent grown, mashed, distilled—everything—right here on the farm,” explains Ashley Frey, Colby’s wife and the distillery’s marketing manager. “Within a mile radius, basically. Nothing has left our possession until you buy the bottle—it’s totally under our control.”

The bourbon mash bill is 67 percent corn, 12 percent malted barley, and 11 percent wheat, all of it grown on Frey Ranch. That’s a fine-tuned recipe, and the distillery is emphasizing the bourbon’s grain characteristics in its flavor profile. And why not? When you’re growing your own grain, you can vouch for its quality all the way from seedling to sip. Bottled at cask strength, the bourbon showcases a rich, caramel-forward palate, with bananas, spice, and yes, natural grain flavors, particularly from the corn and wheat, shining through.

Frey Ranch owns 1,400 acres and farms a total of 2,500 acres, with alfalfa as the chief crop. This year, it’s all being sent across the world to Dubai. Last year, it was all bought by a customer a mile away. That’s the modern farming life for you. There is also a winery, Churchill Vineyards, on-site,

Opposite: “I’ve always loved whiskey,” says Frey Ranch owner/distiller Colby Frey. “We’re growing all this grain and thinking, ‘Why the hell aren’t we making anything from this?’”

BOURBON+ 27

The Freys, whose family has been farming the state of Nevada since before it was a state, obtained a license in 2006 and started distilling in 2013.

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for local breweries as well. That’s not the only aspect of the operation in need of expansion. A 1,400-barrel warehouse is already overstuffed with some 2,000 barrels, loaded pallets standing in the middle of what would otherwise be a wide central walkway between racks. An 8,600-barrel warehouse under construction should ease the burden, at least for now—at maximum production, the distillery could churn out 100,000 cases annually.

By serving as their own supplier, Frey Ranch can grow any grain they like, focusing on exact specifications of the crops and how they’re cultivated. And with their own malting operation, they can malt anything they’d like—even corn.

“We’ve never seen that for sale,” Colby says. “But by malting our own grains, we can do anything.” Consider another planned whiskey release: a “quad malt,” essentially the fourgrain bourbon in all-malted form.

“I’ve always loved whiskey,” Frey says. “We’re growing all this grain and thinking, ‘Why the hell aren’t we making anything from this?’” Luckily for us, they are now.

+

COURTESY OF FREY RANCH ESTATE DISTILLERY

which was started essentially because grapes as a crop don’t require much water. But the family’s tradition, experience, and passion are all tied to the grain. “That 150-plus years my family has here, that’s a lot of trial and error,” Colby says.

There are other whiskeys on the way, including a single malt, rye, wheat, corn, and oat, but Frey Ranch is, above all, a bourbon operation. “We always wanted it to be bourbon,” Colby says. “We want to be the bourbon guys who have an oat whiskey, not the other way around,” Wedlake adds.

The distillery even has its own malting drum, something they designed themselves. “To really be an estate distillery, we have to malt our own barley,” Colby says. “This is what sets us apart.”

Production is already outstripping capacity, so a new drum is on the way, with longer-term plans to do maltings

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Bourbon Joy WITH FREDDIE JOHNSON, A TOUR AT BUFFALO TRACE CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Story by Fred Minnick Photography by Terry Allen

A

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Jimmy Johnson, Jr.

“You never bring out your good stuff for the people you don’t like or when you’re in a hurry.

When you bring out your special bourbon, you’re about to spend some quality time with somebody you care about.”

As Mr. Johnson, Jr., protected Kentucky bourbon, little Freddie ran around the distillery, often getting into trouble.

One worker in particular, a Mr. Harrison, used to tattle on young Freddie to his father. “I never liked that very much,” Johnson remembers.

Even after all these years, Johnson shows a slight frown when pondering getting in trouble for sneaking into the warehouses as a boy. But that’s about the only time you’ll see him show a hint of anger. In a word, Freddie Johnson is joy—bourbon joy.

“When we were interviewing him for Neat, we had to make the heart of bourbon about the heart of Freddie. He uses bourbon as a springboard to life,” says A.J. Hochhalter, the film’s creator and director. “A good tour guide can entertain, but a Freddie tour is a different experience. Once Freddie does his thing, they’re hooked.”

That’s true. Just ask Jennie Slover and Ricky Perry, whose first date was a Freddie tour. And get this, after meeting on eHarmony, they switched lines at the Buffalo Trace visitors center to have Freddie as their guide. “I still don’t know why I

ABOVE : COURTE SY OF BUFFALO TR ACE DISTILLERY

s warehouse workers de-bung barrels, pools of flowing bourbon splashing into steel troughs, a tour guide walks a group of children into the Buffalo Trace cistern room. While it may seem strange for young people to see alcohol production, the National FFA organization sends busloads of kids to Kentucky distilleries during its national convention. “We talk about the importance of their families and the grains they produce,” says Freddie Johnson, the Buffalo Trace tour guide. “There is one thing, though: On these tours I don’t call it a whiskey. I call it the product.”

The parents and grandparents of these youngsters grow the food and fiber that serve the world, including the dent corn hauled into Buffalo Trace that’s milled, cooked, fermented, and distilled to create “the product.” After the fermented corn mash is distilled, the grains drop to the bottom and are later dried to feed to livestock. This behind-the-scenes tour allows these future agricultural leaders to see and feel—just not taste—the Kentucky pride in every kernel of corn and oak barrel, and on this day, they were fascinated.

Except for one.

Away from the group, a single 14-year-old boy held his head down low, with his back against a post.

The teacher barked at him to get with the group. And that’s when Johnson intervened. He walked up to the boy and asked, in his Kentucky drawl, “Are you a doodler?”

The boy nodded his head yes. Johnson asked why. “Because I’m bored. When I got it, I got it. But in school you have to do it three or four times, so I doodle so as to not be disruptive,” the boy said.

“I’m a doodler, too,” Johnson said, citing his inability to sit still.

Of course he is.

Few people would take the time to interact with the young doodler, let alone try to help him. But that’s Freddie Johnson, a third-generation Buffalo Trace Distillery worker whose infectious bourbon passion has inspired thousands, if not millions, through tours and his emotional connection in the film, Neat: The Story of Bourbon.

Born in Paris, Kentucky, Johnson moved to Frankfort at age five. His father, Jimmy Jr., served the George T. Stagg Distillery, now Buffalo Trace, as a leak hunter. He traced through warehouses with cedar pegs, a hammer, and a light, and could smell, hear, and just sense the sweet, precious liquid slipping out of the barrel. Johnson, Jr.’s gift was to find the leaks and hammer in the cedar peg before the barrel drained dry. And his father, Jimmy Johnson, Sr., was close friends with the distillery’s onetime CEO, Col. Albert Blanton, whom he met on a Kentucky River bank as a child.

Freddie Johnson grips two bottles of Buffalo Trace in an area where he can tell you everything about the surroundings.

On a tour with Johnson, you’ll learn about the trees, buildings, rail system, and even ghosts. That’s right, if you like Paranormal, Freddie has some stories for you!

Freddie Johnson holds a photo that includes his father and grandfather.

When Freddie gives a tour, he may choke up talking about his father.

The passion is very real and is one of the reasons why he is in the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame.

did that, but everything happens for a reason,” Perry remembers.

For Slover, the date was certainly atypical. She had never sipped bourbon and had little interest in it, which perhaps made her more nervous than normal. “Here I was on a blind date with a guy I didn’t know, and Freddie was, well, Freddie.”

Inside the Blanton’s bottling room, Freddie explained the eight stages of a horse race and how each topper has the horse and jockey in a different position. He tossed a cork to Slover and asked her to sound out the letter under the horse. “O,” she said, and Freddie sounded out “O” to the whole group. Everybody laughed, and the tour went on.

But for the couple, it was magical.

Since 2016, they’ve returned to Buffalo Trace several times, including the distillery’s holiday light-up ceremony in 2017, when Perry got down on one knee in front of the crowd and asked Slover to marry him. She said yes, and they will wed at the Buffalo Trace Distillery in 2020, where Johnson will walk Slover down the aisle. Slover’s father passed away decades ago, and her three children were not the right fit to walk her in this moment. It had to be Freddie. “Freddie means the world to us,” she says. “And I think he knows now how much he means to us.

But I also don’t want him feel like he’s taking this away from somebody else. If Freddie doesn’t do it, I will give myself away.”

The Promise The first African American inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame, Johnson began his bourbon career with a simple promise.

“I made two promises to my father. If anything would ever happen to him, I would come home and be his caregiver,” Johnson recalls. “And he wanted me to work at the distillery in his lifetime so he could tell people he had three generations that worked there.”

And then, Johnson got the phone call: His father was ill. He returned home.

Freddie’s father, Jimmy, also made a promise: “He promised [Mark Brown, Buffalo Trace CEO] that he would live long enough to roll out the six millionth barrel, and I believe my father lived so long because he made that promise.”

In fact, when Jimmy made that promise, Mark Brown got a little snippy with him. “He rolled the first millionth, second, third, fourth, fifth, and for the sixth, I told Jimmy he’s doing it. He replied, ‘But I’m 83.’ I told him: ‘I don’t care,’” Brown

On a Buffalo Trace tour, visitors see many wonders. From the artisan Blanton’s jockey toppers to flowing bourbon straight from the barrel, Buffalo Trace affords an opportunity to step back in time.

BOURBON+ 37

38 BOURBON+

Letter s to Fredd i e Editor’s Note: These are emails sent to Buffalo Trace about a Freddie tour. The distillery redacted the sender’s names, but gave Bourbon+ permission to publish the emails.

“Every once in a while, okay that’s cliché, but on few and

rare occasion one has an opportunity such as this: an opportunity that actually begs one to share in this manner.

“At 2:30 p.m. today (Tuesday, March 20) my wife and I

were on the Pompeii tour and our guide was Freddie. From beginning to end, he was possibly the happiest, most engaged employee I’ve ever encountered. Before we even exited the visitors center building at the beginning of the tour, I said to my wife, ‘This is a man who loves his job.’

“Fact or fiction, he told us of playing on campus as a kid

and how he was a second- or third-generation employee.

He was a terrific ambassador for your company, and every step of the way, he was happy and pleasant and positive and informative—he simply exuded positive energy and pride in the company. There was no call for tips, but I wish I had done so anyway but I did not…I’m hopeful this letter finds its way to benefit him in a similar way (I would think a couple of bottles of Four Grain would be a great sentiment…Ha ha—one for him and one for me).

“My best regards to Freddie, and compliments to both of

you for fostering a work environment where men like Freddie can work for such fulfillment and with such passion.”

“My husband, 17-year-old son and I toured your wonderful

facility on Saturday, April 23rd at 10:30. We enjoyed ourselves greatly and now I’ll have to work out 24/7 just to burn off all the Buffalo Trace Bourbon balls consumed or for preparation of consuming more Bourbon Cream which has now replaced my Irish Cream! Anyway…on to the point of my email.

“Our 17-year-old son Aaron wasn’t too thrilled that his

parents separated him from his friends and social media outlets by ‘making’ him go on a road trip to Kentucky.

We had a nice weekend and Aaron said the trip was great ONLY because of Freddie. Freddie’s zest/passion for his job, historical knowledge, enthusiasm, contagious smile and ‘Freddie-isms’ such as ‘Isn’t that beautiful?’ were positive memories for an impressionable 17-year-old soon to be heading out in the world on his own in another year.”

As Freddie Johnson pours a half ounce of Buffalo Cream, a bourbon liqueur, he tells stories of how good this drink is with ice cream, root beer, or an atypical drink. Freddie has the gift of getting his visitors to fall in love with whatever he is pouring.

remembers with a smile. “Now, it’s Freddie’s turn.”

For Freddie, the rolling of barrels symbolizes the great connection between friend and bourbon and Buffalo Trace workers and customers. It’s another opportunity for the brilliant man to show that bourbon is more than an intoxicant liquor or the value spirit. It is a conduit to life. “You never bring out your good stuff for the people you don’t like or when you’re in a hurry. When you bring out your special bourbon, you’re about to spend some quality time with somebody you care about,” Johnson says.

It’s even more than just sipping. Freddie’s bourbon passion transcends the glass and pulls on your heartstrings, no matter who you are. He can even change a young doodler’s life.

That teenager who refused to pay attention on Freddie’s tour got a life lesson: After confessing his doodler ways, the boy learned how he could apply the Buffalo Trace tour to life.

“I asked him: ‘You know why you’re here?’” Freddie recalls. “‘Because your teacher is trying to show you theories and applications.’”

Johnson then pointed toward the moving barrels, explaining the equipment was using the principles of inertia. “The unit is a cradle,” he told the boy. “The barrel hits. It turns around and gets the next barrel using the principles of science. That’s all your teacher is trying to do, to take the things you’re learning and apply them to the real world.”

Much like thousands of people before, the young boy would never be the same. Freddie’s words changed his life. The boy’s teacher later wrote to Freddie, telling him that the younger doodler struck a deal with the teacher. “When he got it, he started helping the other students ‘get it,’” Johnson says. “He was voted most outstanding student and became a leader in his school.”

And it all started with a bourbon tour with Freddie, who has touched more lives than he can possibly know. “Yeah, it’s a bourbon tour,” he says. “But it’s really so much more. You plant seeds.”

Giving tours since 2002, Freddie has planted a lot of seeds—and harvested a lot of joy.

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F red die’s ta st ing not es Eagle Rare 10 Year Old

W.L. Weller 12 Year

E.H. Taylor Single Barrel

When I am alone just thinking back about

The second of my one-two punch for quiet

To round out my top three bourbons, E.H.

my first visit to Buffalo Trace and the

moments of sipping is Weller 12. It reminds

Taylor Single Barrel at 100 proof would fill

journey since, the Eagle Rare 10 year old has

me of walking into my family home after

the bill. Reminds me of when we would go

become one of my favorite go-to bourbons.

moving away. I had never really thought

fishing during the spring. If you look for

Just a few years older than Buffalo Trace,

about it until requested to share a few

something that is warm and robust to take

but it provides a soft citrus fruity nose that

words about my favorite go-to bourbons.

the chill out of the air, E.H. Taylor Single

is also spicy. Then the caramel and vanilla

When entering the house the smell of fresh

Barrel at 100 Proof is just what the Colonel

drift in reminding me of how my dad would

fruit from mom’s fruit bowl always greeted

would have ordered. When we would come

puff on his pipe, filled with his own long,

you. First it was the apples, then the citric

in from one of our fishing trips we would

green tobacco. He had aged it himself,

aromas would follow softly. That’s Weller

look for something that had a little bit of

and would slowly nose that smoke, then

12—almost like caramel apples and sugar

heat to it because it would always warm us

take a sip of bourbon. His Ancient Age

coated orange slices. When sipping it, you

up. Full of flavor, and whether you threw

had become my Buffalo Trace/Eagle Rare.

get a full mouth feel that is somewhat spicy,

it in your coffee or you did it neat by the

Something about the mouthfeel makes you

but then it softens and it opens up all these

fire, both provided the same effect. Heat,

want to let it linger. Slowly caramel with a

sweet fruity flavors, like when you would put

a lot of spice, you would pick up on fresh

bit of pepper, then sweet spices round out

a handful of candy corn in your mouth with a

oak, and the char added just enough of a

the finish.

few cinnamon candy hots. The flavor is soft

caramel note that it smoothed it out without

and lingering but not overly sweet or hot.

slamming you.

BOURBON+ 41

The American Grain The American Spirit CORN, THE ESSENTIAL INGREDIENT OF BOURBON, WAS HERE BEFORE COLUMBUS. Story by Lew Bryson

BOURBON+ 43

multi-stalked and sporting finger-width “ears” with a few yellow kernels. These are teosinte, the genetic parent of corn, not much more productive than a heavy grass.

But over there…a few plants look different. These stalks are thicker, and some big leaves grow out of them along with the smaller stalks. The ears are thicker, and there are more kernels. And they are being tended by someone, and kept from the other plants. This is corn, maize, the result of a beneficial mutation. It was so beneficial that by the time Columbus reached the Americas, corn had spread throughout both the South and North American continents. And that was even long before anyone knew about bourbon!

A Powerful Grain

“A natural genetic mutation took teosinte to what we see today: maize, what we call corn. Teosinte doesn’t look much like corn. But in the biology, they’re much more closely related than they look.”

If I could tap the spiritual power of this mighty and mythic plant to somehow shift back to its birth thousands of years ago, I’d find myself in a valley in southern Mexico.

The bright moonlight would not show rows of mighty stalks, speaking to itself in leafy whispers of a golden river of harvest. It would show a scattering of shorter, bushy grasses,

44 BOURBON+

“Once Columbus ran into it and took seeds back to Europe,” Lee says, “in a hundred years it was being grown on every continent where Europeans traveled. That’s incredibly fast. Once people realized what it could do, they jumped all over it.”

Corn’s gift is in its production. Even the early strains

OPENING SPREAD AND LEFT: DEREK BAUNE; RIGHT: RUSS GRIMES

L

ate one night, sometime in July, the moon is full.

The cornfield beckons me: tall, rows deep with a fresh green smell that fills the night, overwhelming the rich aroma of the earthy clay. I step into the field, gently pushing aside the broad leaves, straight-stemmed and roughridged and raising a mild itch as they brush against my bare arms. The corn is tall, tassels nodding over me at 6 feet. It is solidly trunked, a mighty grass with stems over an inch thick, showing young ears that will bear grain in the fall and rooted with a tangle of shoots that grips the dirt like a fist.

The ground is clear between the rows; few weeds can intrude under this fast-growing canopy that sucks up the daylight. Now, in the cool, still night, I pause, far into the field, breathing shallow, quiet breaths, and I hear it: the rustle of the corn, a grass so prodigious that you can actually hear it grow.

“In one of two valleys in Mexico,” says Dr. Chad Lee, director of the Grain and Forage Center of Excellence at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, “a natural genetic mutation took teosinte to what we see today: maize, what we call corn. Teosinte doesn’t look much like corn. But in the biology, they’re much more closely related than they look.”

That mutation made bigger ears, a stronger stalk. But it also created a cob that held onto the seeds. “That’s a disadvantage for wild plants, but a great advantage for crop plants,” says Lee. “Because of how corn grows, a human would have had to have seen that and saved the seed for replanting. It would not have survived in the wild.” That’s where the cooperation between man and corn began, and it’s been of incredible benefit to both of us.

Corn is an amazing crop. Like the potato, another American native, it was so useful, so productive, that European explorers took it home. Corn had a willing partner with reliable seagoing vessels, and its propagation exploded.

A Mexican grass that is grown as fodder and is considered to be one of the parent plants of modern corn.

For about 9 pounds of seed on an acre (just a bit less than a football field in size), early farmers could expect 500 to 800 pounds back. But today...

North American cereal plant that yields large grains, or kernels, set in rows on a cob. Its many varieties yield numerous products, highly valued for both human and livestock consumption.

BOTTOM: BRIAN GROSSENBACHER; TOP: HOLLIS BENNETT

gave back incredible returns on seed investments. For about 9 pounds of seed on an acre (just a bit smaller than a football field in size), early farmers could expect 500 to 800 pounds back. That was extraordinary, and a very small amount of seed to hold back. Eat your fill, feed your livestock, and sell the surplus (or distill it). It was a miracle crop.

Then early plant breeders took corn from diverse populations in the Americas and crossed them. “When you bring two diverse populations together, you often get superior offspring through hybrid vigor,” says Lee. “They put these different populations together, and got offspring more productive than either of the two previous types.”

How much more productive? “For that same 9 pounds of seed,” Lee says, “you’d get about 1,100 pounds in harvest.”

These were the early “dent” varieties, so named for the distinctive dent in the top of each kernel. That was the norm for about a century, from the 1850s through the 1930s.

Farmers would walk their fields, looking for the biggest, most productive plants, and they’d put those aside for seed. But it wasn’t increasing the yield a lot.

So agronomists decided to go back to the original seed stock and crossbreed again, and the results were astonishing. “A farmer today expects to plant about 19 pounds of seed per acre, and expects to harvest 11,000 pounds of corn,” Lee says. A tenfold increase! “In our research, in some fields, we’re getting about 20,000 pounds from about 38 pounds in seed. The incremental increase is phenomenal.”

When farmers realized the yield from these hybrids, they stopped saving seed and started buying it from breeders. Lee says it was a paradigm shift in industry, the first time this had happened in history. Corn became a reliable cash crop with huge benefits for American farmers, and for the bourbon industry.

Making Corn Liquor How did corn liquor, and then barrel-aged bourbon, become our national spirit? It was all about that incredible yield. Even when farmers were scrabbling out a living growing rye on the rocky soils of western Pennsylvania, they produced more than they needed to sustain themselves. As we’ve all likely heard, it’s much easier to transport one barrel of whiskey than 10 bushels of grain, and you’ll get more money for the whiskey as well.

When those same farmers floated down the Ohio River and landed in the “dark and bloody ground” of Kentucky, they were in for a treat when they planted corn in the rich earth.

The yield of corn in this soil meant that distilling was going to be a major method of adding value and concentrating dollars to move this bounty to market.

Bourbon was a natural. The prodigious yields of corn drove the production, and the sweet flavor of corn drove the consumption. Put into a charred oak barrel to age and develop, bourbon became America’s spirit, and an industry was born.

But at the heart of it—behind all the history, the mystery, the economics, and the farmers—it’s all about the chemistry locked up in that yellow kernel. That’s the trick of fermentation and distillation. Grain is full of hard, insoluble starches, and yeast has to turn those into alcohol and a rainbow of flavoring compounds and aromatics. But starch does yeast no good.

Yeast is a simple animal, and it needs simple food: sugar.

The first step in making bourbon, before any making actually takes place, is inspecting the corn. Shelled corn arrives in trucks or railcars, and samples are taken for processing and checked for nitrogen, moisture, and visible evidence of mold.

But the quick test is simple. BrownForman Master Distiller Chris Morris showed me this years ago at Woodford Reserve, telling me that you can size up a whole trailer of corn in about 90 seconds. Take a Pyrex measuring cup, scoop it full of corn, and heat it in a microwave oven for a minute. (There was actually a microwave in the shack where the trucks came in, for just that reason.) Take the corn out and smell it. The heat will power aromas into bloom; if there’s anything wrong with the corn, it’s going to jump right out at you.

Marianne Eaves, the master distiller at Castle & Key Distillery (who trained under Morris), confirms that seeing and smelling are critical to quality assessment. “We always look at foreign material, moisture content, bushel weight, and aflatoxin/mycotoxin [mold/fungus] levels,” she says, but “it is very important to do a sensory check on the grain, even if every other parameter is exactly in line. If it has an ‘off’ aroma, it will be rejected.”

Cracking Corn Once approved, the corn moves to the mill. You have to crack open the corn physically to get at the starches, then add

Opposite: Corn became America’s hallmark grain, and whiskey played a huge role in its growth. Even today, distillers mostly purchase corn from area distillers to make bourbon.

BOURBON+ 47

Something Different Distilling may be strongly traditional, but corn moves on. There’s a major controversy right now over genetically

48 BOURBON+

modified (GMO) corn—corn that has had genetic material inserted by direct cellular-level manipulation rather than traditional crossbreeding. Europe doesn’t want it, or bourbon made with it, and distillers hungry for the export market are avoiding it. “That’s the biggest reason,” says UK’s Dr. Lee. “They’re trying to provide what the consumer wants.”

That’s at the traditional distilleries. But there are hundreds of newer, distinctly nontraditional distilleries making bourbon in 2018, and not only do they have different ideas about yeast, and barrel sizes, and warehousing, quite a few of them have very different ideas about corn, too. Non-GMO is just a start, and yellow dent is yesterday’s news.

“We planted 20 acres of Bloody Butcher next to a field of yellow dent non-GMO corn. The deer would walk through the yellow corn to eat the Bloody Butcher, and they ate it and ate it and ate it. That brought our yield down, but it told us something: They had a choice, and they wanted to eat the red.

So I wanted to eat it, too.” That’s Joyce Nethery, founder and master distiller at Jeptha Creed, a new bourbon distillery in Shelbyville, east of Louisville, who is distilling with Bloody Butcher, a red heirloom corn strain that she grows on her family’s farm.

“That was probably seven years ago,” she says, referring to the deer year. “It was hard to find, but since that first crop, we’ve not had to buy seed. It’s open-pollinated.” Nethery has rejected the hybrid vigor, and the yields that go with it, in favor of flavor, and difference. “It mashes and distills well.

Our yield is slightly lower; there’s a bit less starch and a little more protein.”

And that’s the hitch, says Dr. Lee. “You do those heirlooms, you’re back to 1,100 pounds [yield] an acre. If they’re growing it, they’re absorbing the cost difference. But if they’re asking another farmer to grow it, there’s no way the farmer’s getting the yield to make it worthwhile.”

He agrees, however, that the Netherys have a very good reason for using Bloody Butcher corn, a very bourbon reason: the story. “The heirlooms offer a direct connection to the past,” he says. “There’s a lot of nostalgia in that. That’s a chance to carve out a different market.”

Corn’s story is mythical, spiritual, as I felt on my midnight walk. Native American beliefs include corn spirits: Selu of the Cherokee, the Aztecs’ Chicomecoatl, and Iouskeha, who brought corn and fire to the Huron. Spirit has become flesh: Humans spread corn across the world, we cared for it and increased it. Corn, in turn, fills our bellies, fills our fuel tanks, and fills our glasses. Nothing else is like corn, and nothing else is like bourbon.

+

HOLLIS BENNETT

water, and cook it. Some distillers use giant pressure cookers to break it down faster, but a traditional boil works about as well.

Cooking is a multi-role process. Eaves takes us through it: “The primary reasons for cooking are to clean or sterilize the grain, solubilize the sugars (making them dissolve easier), release starch from protein and fiber, break down protein into amino acids, and to reduce the viscosity of the mash,” she says, having noted that this is a complex process. “Corn in particular goes through a few processes during the cook in order to hydrolyze all the starch into fermentable sugars: gelatinization [breaking down starch molecules], which is partly liquefaction [hydrolysis of starch to dextrin], and then saccharification [releasing glucose from the dextrin].”

Brief ly, cooking (or “mashing”) cleans the corn (and malt and rye/wheat), breaks down proteins and starches, and releases the enzymes that convert the starches to sugars. That’s why the malt is in there; this partially sprouted barley has more than enough enzymes to chew up all the starch in corn and convert it to the sugars that the yeasts will feast upon. (That’s something we’ll talk more about in the next issue.)

Corn needs that boost from malt. “The starch composition of corn vs. rye vs. malted barley is very different, and the enzymes work differently on each grain,” Eaves notes. “Corn starches take the most energy to break down; rye comes next.”

The malt itself has some starches, but is mostly there to do the enzymatic work.

The enzymes convert the mash from a starchy, sticky porridge to a sugary, slippery soup. The soup is pumped to the fermenter and dosed with yeast. The grains are not filtered out, as they are for brewing beer or for making almost every other whiskey in the world. It’s just how bourbon is made.

“Fermenting off of the grain would totally change the flavor of the distillate,” Eaves says. “I do think it’s probably a combination of tradition and character. You get more prominent ‘grainy’ notes, but they change in the barrel over time.”

The fermented beer, thick with corn grits, is pumped to the still. There, the corn solids are left behind, falling to the bottom of the still to become animal feed. The corn’s spirit, its flavors and aromas, rises to the top and escapes, to go on to the barrel and work with the oak to become bourbon. A higher calling than cornbread, to be sure.

Th e D om in ion of D e n t At some point in the American agricultural progress, yellow dent became the dominant corn, and you see its fat ears and red cobs everywhere. Dent corn is high-yielding, stores well, and is generally reliable, but there were yellow and white varieties. Why did yellow become the favorite?

“There are a couple different stories,” says Dr. Chad Lee, director

of the Grain and Forage Center at the University of Kentucky. “One says that white corn was supposed to be more flavorful, but yellow corn is higher in beta-carotene, more nutritious. Or, at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, a yellow corn won the prize. After that, all the farmers felt they had to grow yellow corn.”

Whichever story is true, yellow

dent is “corn” in America, the hard, starchy bounty that dominates American agriculture. It is the biggest crop in the country, both by dollar value and acreage. It becomes food for humans and livestock, fuel for cars and trucks, feedstock for the chemical industry, and, of course, bourbon. Kentucky distillers use between 15 and 20 million bushels of corn per year.

50 BOURBON+

Baking with Bourbon SUCCESSFULLY USING BOURBON IN DESSERTS TAKES THOUGHT, PATIENCE, GOOD INGREDIENTS, AND SOUND TECHNIQUE. Story by Steve Coomes Photography by Stephen DeVries

BOURBON+ 51

Basic Spirited Truffle, recipe page 58

52 BOURBON+

O

ne need only nose and taste bourbon’s classic aromas and flavors to understand why the spirit is an ideal fit in holiday desserts. Brownies, bundt cakes, truffles, sticky puddings, and tarts practically beg for at least a dash (though preferably a dose) of the oaky-sweet brown liquor.

The final amount depends on the dessert maker’s aims: Will it provide a hit of subtle sweetness discovered as a bite dissolves on the palate, or a generous rush of aromas when retrieved from the oven? Either result is magic when mastered.

But while bourbon-infused sweets are easy to eat, pastry chefs and chocolatiers agree that making them isn’t so simple. They dispute the notion that “everything goes well with a lot of bourbon” and warn that such assumptions could turn an otherwise delicious dessert into a plateful of frustration.

Experts, whether paid pros or veteran hobbyists, will tell you that bourbon plays well only with certain ingredients, in limited amounts, and at specific temperatures. In other words, respect the booze.

Oh, Bourbon: Behave!

Why so tricky? Bourbon (like any liquor) is a liquid that, when juxtaposed with certain dessert ingredients, may not cooperate. Bakers who’ve found themselves on its bad side learn quickly that even a vigorous beating with a mixer won’t force bourbon to play nice with certain chemical opposites.

How to get it to commingle correctly, you ask? Dairy fats: heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, or butter. To make a truff le’s inner ganache smooth and creamy, for example, the chocolate must first be cloaked in dairy fat. Without that protective layer of lipids, chocolate blended with bourbon will “bloom”—the ironically beautiful term describing the ugly greying that happens to cacao when it’s forced out of solution by a water-based liquid.

“It’s not pretty, I’ll tell you that,” says Kelly Ramsey, owner and chocolatier at Art Eatables in Louisville. The company makes custom bourbon truffles for nearly all of Kentucky’s largest distilleries. “Water—and bourbon is mostly water—is chocolate’s main enemy. By adding cream or butter to the chocolate first, you’re priming it to help it incorporate the bourbon, or in another recipe, a liquid flavoring.”

Jessica Grossman, pastry chef at Charleston, South Carolina-based Patrick Properties Hospitality Group, says another common bourbon-dosing mistake that bakers make is heavy-handedness with the bottle. Not only can too much bourbon overpower other f lavors, any addition of liquid to a recipe requires that an equal amount of another liquid be removed to compensate for the new amount.

“Where people go wrong is they don’t back off on the

amount of liquids already in the recipe,” says Grossman. Conversely, when bourbon is added to recipes made up mostly of dry ingredients, some fail to increase the amount of dry products to absorb the additional liquid. “In a blondie recipe I have, there is no loose liquid in it. So if I add bourbon, I have to add a touch more f lour to get the right consistency.”

Want to ruin your truffles? Add too much bourbon, Ramsey says.

“Your liquids have to be in ratio with your solids or you’ll never get the mixture to set up firmly enough to roll it,” she says. “You won’t be able to shape them correctly.”

Higher-proof whiskey boosts the bourbon flavor slightly, she adds, but “if you really want strong bourbon flavor, just drink bourbon! Why bother with the effort to make truffles?”

Bourbon also can become an escape artist in long-baked cakes. Due to evaporation, recipes that contained a few generous ounces of it at the outset may show little evidence of it at the end.

“When you’re baking a pound cake, which takes an hour, the flavors can get carried away in the heat,” says Grossman.

While some evaporation is inevitable (and sometimes preferable, since it tames sharper alcohol aromas), bourbon will retain more of its influence, she says, when used in dishes with shorter heating cycles. “If you want that bourbon flavor for a pound cake, work it into a really good bourbon glaze. It’ll stand out more.”

Pichet Ong, pastry chef at Brothers and Sisters restaurant in Washington, D.C., uses bourbon in his Pineapple Pudding Cake batter and also in its sweet Bourbon Ginger Glaze (recipe page 56). The cake, which Ong says is similar to sticky toffee pudding, is laden with liquids and meant to be gooey when finished with the bourbon glaze. The quarter cup of bourbon in the batter, he adds, delivers mouthwatering aromas, while the glaze delivers classic bourbon notes of oak and brown sugar directly from fork to tongue.

“I really like to use bourbon in a sauce as a soak for cakes,” says Ong, a three-time finalist for Outstanding Pastry Chef in the James Beard Awards. “When you balance the soak with sugar and fruit juice, the alcohol from the bourbon is not so intense. An alcoholic overtone can throw off the dessert.”

Essential to the pudding cake’s high moisture content is the use of pineapple pulp, a byproduct of fresh juice made for cocktails at Brothers and Sisters’ bar. The pulp, he says, adds beneficial texture and heft to the pudding, which is firm enough to slice.

“Sometimes I take dried raisins and figs and soak them in bourbon before adding them to the pudding cake recipe,” he says. “That creates a lot of bourbon flavor, which I like.”

BOURBON+ 53

“But while bourbon-infused sweets are easy to eat, pastry chefs and chocolatiers agree that making them isn’t so simple. They dispute the notion that ‘everything goes well with a lot of bourbon’.”

BOURBON CARAMEL PECAN TART Recipe by Jessica Grossman

Cool to room temperature.

FOR THE SHORTBREAD CRUST

warm and fluid; stir in cream.

Remove from heat. Whisk egg

Serves 8 FOR THE FILLING

and egg yolk together in small

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

bowl, and pour in small amount

1 cup all-purpose flour

cup thick caramel sauce

of warm caramel mixture. Whisk

½ cup pecan meal

cup honey

thoroughly and add egg mixture

½ cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons heavy cream

back into caramel mixture, stirring

9 tablespoons cold unsalted butter,

1 large egg

until completely incorporated. Stir in

1 egg yolk

bourbon and salt. Fold in breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon bourbon

and half the pecans.

cut into small cubes

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line

1 cup breadcrumbs, from lightly toasted

TO PREPARE

bottom of an 8-inch square cake pan or

Pour filling over prepared crust. Sprinkle

9-inch round tart pan with parchment

1¾ cups toasted pecan pieces, divided

bread slices

paper. Set aside. Place all ingredients in

remaining pecan pieces on top. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, rotate

bowl of food processor. Pulse until mix-

Increase oven temperature to 350

pan, and continue baking 7 minutes more

ture resembles coarse meal. Press firmly

degrees. In a medium saucepan over

or until golden brown and filling is set.

into parchment-lined pan. Bake for

medium heat, melt butter. Stir in

Serve slightly warm or at room tempera-

10-15 minutes until very lightly browned.

caramel and honey and heat just until

ture. Cover any leftovers with plastic wrap.

54 BOURBON+

BOURBON+ 55

PINEAPPLE PUDDING CAKE Recipe by Pichet Ong

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

5. While cake bakes, create the

Serves 8

Generously butter 8-inch round cake

Bourbon-Ginger Glaze by bringing

pan, line bottom with parchment,

unsalted butter, cream, brown sugar,

then butter paper.

ginger, and salt to boil in a small

FOR THE PUDDING CAKE 2¼ sticks unsalted butter at room

temperature, plus more for lining pan

saucepan. Let boil at medium heat for 2. Place pineapple pulp, ginger, and salt

2 minutes, whisking constantly. Remove

1 whole pineapple, juiced, separated

in a medium saucepan with 1 cup water.

from heat, add bourbon, and set aside

from pulp; save pulp and keep juice

Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high

to cool.

for beverages or discard (about 6

heat and cook for 10 minutes until

ounces reserved pulp)

pineapple is soft and paste-like, scraping

6. After the cake has finished baking,

One 1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled,

every 2 minutes to prevent scorching.

let it cool for 5 minutes, then quickly

sliced thin and chopped

Turn heat to low, add baking soda, and

unmold cake into baking dish slightly

(about 1 ounce)

cook 1 minute, stirring and scraping.

larger than the cake. Glaze cake with

¼ teaspoon salt

(If mixture boils over, heat may be too

1 cup water

high; turn off heat and let sit before

applying sauce several times to let it

1 teaspoon baking soda

heating again.) Stir in orange juice and

soak into cake. Let cool completely.

1 orange, zested, then juiced

bourbon. Set aside pot, and let cool 15

¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon bourbon

minutes while preparing next step.

cup sugar cup diced candied ginger

of warm Bourbon-Ginger Glaze by

To Serve: Before serving, warm cake in baking dish in oven at 350 degrees for 5

3. Place the remaining butter, sugar,

minutes, glaze again with more sauce.

1¾ cups all-purpose flour

orange zest, and candied ginger in bowl

Slice cake into wedges, and serve each

2 teaspoons baking powder

of electric mixer fitted with paddle

with 2 tablespoons of crème fraîche

1 large egg

attachment. Mix at medium speed until

and baked orange slice.

creamy, about 2 minutes. Add pineapple FOR THE BOURBON-GINGER GLAZE

mixture and mix on medium speed until

Chef’s Note: Some substitute sour

(Yields about 2½ cups)

incorporated, about 2 minutes.

cream for crème fraîche, but the real

1 stick unsalted butter

thing is better and easy to make. In a

1 cup heavy whipping cream

4. Add flour and baking powder over

glass container, combine 1 cup heavy

1 cup dark brown sugar

45 seconds until flour is fully blended.

cream with 2 tablespoons buttermilk.

One 1-inch piece fresh ginger,

Mix in egg at low speed, paddling anoth-

Cover and let rest at room temperature

er 30 seconds to incorporate. Transfer

for 24 hours until thickened.

peeled and cut into ¼-inch slices

¼ teaspoon salt

to lined cake pan; bake until tester

3 tablespoons bourbon

inserted comes out clean, about 35

Sour cream or crème fraîche, optional,

to 40 minutes.

for serving

Baked orange slice, for serving

56 BOURBON+

Tips for Top Bourbon Desserts

Though some cooks might consider this tip too obvious, Ramsey and Grossman both said too few follow it: Read through the entire recipe at least twice before beginning. Doing so allows you to understand the order of events before setting off. Other key pointers: Buy the best ingredients you can afford. “Great ingredients inform everything you do to the recipe, so spend the money where you can,” Grossman says. Note, however, that “the best of the best” isn’t always the right fit for each recipe. “Fancy European butters are fattier than most American butters, and our recipes aren’t written with that in mind,” for example. A quality butter from Cabot Creamery or Land O’ Lakes works just fine.

Chocolate is subjective. “If you want the dessert to be sweet, use milk chooclate,” says Ramsey. “If you want really dark chocolate, use 70 percent cacao.”

Fresh dry goods perform best. If you don’t bake regularly, ditch your dubious flour and buy new in the smallest quantity possible. “Nothing ruins a dish like stale f lour,” Grossman says. “Same for baking powder if the recipe calls for it.” Both are inexpensive, so buy new if yours is old.

Ditch the nuts, too. Common nuts like pecans and walnuts are high in oil and can become rancid easily. “Nothing is worth ruining with sour nuts,” Grossman says. “Taste them before you use them, and store them in the freezer if you don’t use them all at once.”

Use lower-proof, lower-cost bourbon.

“I’ve learned that lower-proof bourbon works better in baking, and my go-to is Jim Beam 80 proof,” Grossman says. While better bourbons generally make better cocktails, that rule doesn’t apply to desserts, she adds. “I read recently that if you don’t drink it, don’t cook with it. That’s nonsense. I’m not putting Pappy Van Winkle bourbon into my pecan pie. The vanilla, caramel, and toasty and toffee notes come out just as well in less-expensive bourbons.”

+

BOURBON+ 57

BASIC SPIRITED TRUFFLE Recipe by Kelly Ramsey

In a small, heavy saucepan, bring cream to a

Yields 30-40 truffles

simmer, stirring and scraping pan sides with heat-proof spatula every few minutes. Place

INGREDIENTS

chocolate in a separate glass bowl. Pour sim-

8 ounces chocolate (for a dense, dark flavor, use

mered cream over chocolate, add vanilla extract

62% cacao or higher; for a sweeter truffle,

and bourbon, and let stand a few minutes. Stir

use 40% or lower), chopped into small pieces

until smooth. Refrigerate for 4 hours. Using a

½ cup heavy whipping cream

small melon baller, scoop out truffles and quick-

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

ly roll into balls. Place on a baking sheet lined

2 tablespoons bourbon (for stronger spirit flavor,

with parchment paper. Place in the fridge for 30

minutes to firm, then roll again, toss in cocoa

use higher-proof bourbon)

2 cups cocoa powder, to finish the truffles

58 BOURBON+

powder, and refrigerate overnight.

Tips for Top Bourbon Desserts

Though some cooks might consider this tip too obvious, Ramsey and Grossman both said too few follow it: Read through the entire recipe at least twice before beginning. Doing so allows you to understand the order of events before setting off. Other key pointers: Buy the best ingredients you can afford. “Great ingredients inform everything you do to the recipe, so spend the money where you can,” Grossman says.

Note, however, that “the best of the best” isn’t always the right fit for each recipe. “Fancy European butters are fattier than most American butters, and our recipes aren’t written with that in mind,” for example. A quality butter from Cabot Creamery or Land O’ Lakes works just fine.

Chocolate is subjective. “If you want the dessert to be sweet, use milk chocolate,” says Ramsey. “If you want really dark chocolate, use 70 percent cacao.”

Fresh dry goods perform best. If you don’t bake regularly, ditch your dubious flour and buy new in the smallest quantity possible. “Nothing ruins a dish like stale flour,” Grossman says. “Same for baking powder if the recipe calls for it.” Both are inexpensive, so buy new if yours is old.

Ditch the nuts, too. Common nuts like pecans and walnuts are high in oil and can become rancid easily. “Nothing is worth ruining with sour nuts,” Grossman says. “Taste them before you use them, and store them in the freezer if you don’t use them all at once.”

Use lower-proof, lower-cost bourbon.

“I’ve learned that lower-proof bourbon works better in baking, and my go-to is Jim Beam 80 proof,” Grossman says.

While better bourbons generally make better cocktails, that rule doesn’t apply to desserts, she adds. “I read recently that if you don’t drink it, don’t cook with it. That’s nonsense. I’m not putting Pappy Van Winkle bourbon into my pecan pie. The vanilla, caramel, and toasty and toffee notes come out just as well in less-expensive bourbons.”

+

Art Eatables Truffles by Kelly Ramsey BOURBON+ 59 59 BOURBON+

60 BOURBON+

roll out the

barrels Something special happens when beer meets bourbon.

STORY BY KEVIN GIBSON

TERRY ALLEN

T

wo gentlemen sat enjoying cigars, some thick, chocolaty beer, and a Jim Beam at the swanky LaSalle Grill in downtown South Bend, Indiana. They’d been paired at a table for an annual cigar dinner populated by players from the spirits industry. Neither man knew they were about to change the beer industry forever.

Greg Hall, then master brewer at the Chicago-based Goose Island Brewing Company, had been looking for a unique beer to brew for the company’s commemorative 1,000th batch. As the men’s conversation turned toward flavor profiles, Hall had an idea. So he asked his new acquaintance, Booker Noe, who was then master distiller for Jim Beam, about doing a collaboration.

“I decided to go for broke and ask him if I could get a few barrels from him,” Hall recalls. “He said, ‘Absolutely, of course.’”

Soon, Hall had four freshly emptied Jim Beam barrels, into which he poured an imperial stout. After a few months of commingling, beautiful flavors emerged, and Bourbon County Stout, one of America’s most revered craft beers, was born.

Fortune dictated that this chance meeting between distiller and brewer, which happened in 1992 (possibly; with the brew log now missing, the year is uncertain), would have a long-lasting impact on the brewing industry, one that has rippled across the country and beyond over the last quarter century. It’s difficult to know why this took as long as it did.

Beer had been aged in whiskey barrels and released publicly at least once before—Samuel Adams did it with Triple Bock, a dark, complex American strong ale—but nothing captured the imagination of beer drinkers in the infancy of so-called “craft beer” like what would be called Bourbon County Stout (BCS).

Noe “was very encouraging with the whole craft beer thing,” Hall recalls. “He was such an interesting guy. His countenance was just so low and slow and kind of what you might expect from a Southern gentleman who was born before the Second World War.” The beer went on sale with little fanfare in the taproom of Goose Island—the brewery, now owned by Anheuser Busch

BOURBON+ 61

InBev, was then a small brewpub on Chicago’s North Side. It wasn’t the kind of beer people were used to. It was dark, boozy, sweet. The bourbon and oak imparted vanilla, char, and other flavors that were mostly foreign to beer. The truth is, no one at Goose Island thought Bourbon County Stout would ever be brewed again. It was an odd, however tasty, experiment.

But it was brewed again, and after it started to gain traction in the taproom, Hall took a batch to the Great American Beer Festival in 1995, where it was met with what might be described as enthusiastic confusion. The beer was so unlike anything else that had ever been entered that it was, believe it or not, disqualified. But the intrigued judges nevertheless awarded Bourbon County Stout an honorable mention. Thanks to a Southern gentleman who happened to be a distiller with an interest in good beer, something special was in motion in the beer industry.

COURTE SY OF FOUNDER S BRE WING COMPANY

Tasty Bedfellows More and more brewers began trying out bourbon barrels, but the craft beer industry was still struggling to take hold. In a day when this new wave of beers were called “microbrews,” most new breweries offered basic styles like pale ales, ambers, and porters. Now-popular IPAs and goses were rarities in American breweries.

But forward-thinking brewers kept experimenting as the 1990s spilled into the early 2000s. Jeremy Kosmicki had just been promoted from a job in packaging to brewing in 2001 at Founders Brewing Company, a small brewery in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which was then located in a rental space in the city’s downtown. A bourbon-barrel beer enthusiast named Tom Griffin, known for connecting Midwestern breweries with barrels, offered a couple to Kosmicki and then-Head Brewer Nate Walser.

Their general response was: “Sure, what the hell?” They filled the barrels with a Founders staple, Breakfast Stout, and the first batch of what is now an industry standard in bourbon-barrel stouts was born. Founders Brewing won’t say how much Kentucky Breakfast Stout (KBS) is produced each year, but it continues to be an industry unicorn for the brewery, which shipped about 625,000 barrels of beer in 2018.

Like Bourbon County Stout, though, KBS had a slow start.

Once the first batch was finished, the brewers thought it was good, but the base beer was a little thin and had lost some of

It’s hard to imagine a world without bourbon barrel finished beers. But the concept is a relatively new one. While brewers have long used barrels, in the past couple decades, they only started to widely use bourbon-specific barrels to draw those rich caramel and vanilla flavors.

its chocolate and coffee flavors. They doubled the base beer for better results, but the length of the finishing process and the cost of the ingredients and barrels made the final result so expensive that it didn’t sell well.

By 2006, however, the beer and the barrel had been married to perfection, and people from all over the Midwest formed lines around the block to the Founders Brewing taproom on KBS release day. Kosmicki said he believes relative scarcity contributes to the continued demand for KBS and other bourbon-barrel beers like it, but such beers also appeal to those who seek higher-end products and are willing to pay up for craft cocktails and hard-to-get spirits. “It’s a higher-quality

“Everyone’s looking for innovations that are a little different than the norm,” Fred Noe says. “I think a lot of it is that you never know. People innovate and do things because if you don’t try, you don’t know what might happen.”

product with more effort put into it, and I think that means a lot to a growing group of people,” he says.

The growing love for bourbon only fuels the fervor: An estimated one-third of America’s more than 6,300 craft breweries now have barrel-aging programs.

“I think it’s symbiotic,” Kosmicki says. “The more bourbon people drink, the more barrels become available, and the more beer we can make out of them. It’s a logical step.”

But not just any barrel—or beer—will do. As Mike Siegel, Goose Island’s research and development brewer, says: “It’s more than just flats of wood wrapped in iron.”

For one, it’s about having relationships with distilleries so that you know you’re getting the barrels you want. It’s also about knowing what was in the barrels to start with, and what that might mean to your base beer. And the fresher the barrel, the better the results.

When barrels from Heaven Hill or Buffalo Trace arrive, he said, “we crack them open to make sure they’re glistening. We want them wet.”

The alcohol and flavors from a bourbon barrel can be overpowering to many beers, so choosing the right beer is important, and this usually goes back to what Hall did in choosing a robust imperial stout for the first batch of Bourbon County Stout.

BOURBON+ 63

“These days, it goes into the barrel at about 12 percent alcohol, with a lot of residual sweetness,” Siegel said. “That’s one of the keys to Bourbon County Stout—it’s got a lot of body and viscosity, kind of a mouth-coating sweetness. It’s a good match for the bourbon barrel, meaning the whiskey flavors the alcohol. A thinner-bodied beer or lower-alcohol beer would be easily overmatched.”

The Bourbon County Stout stays in the barrel for about 11 months. At Goose Island, barrels are kept in a warehouse that is not temperature-controlled and where temperatures can fluctuate between 45 and 75 degrees.

“We’re not as exposed as rackhouses are in Kentucky,” Siegel said, “But the seasonal fluctuations provide a similar effect—certainly enough for expansion and contraction, an opportunity for the whiskey to flow in and flow out of the wood and the beer to flow in and flow out.” Even after a barrel is dumped, anywhere from 4 to 5 percent of the whiskey remains soaked into the wood.

64 BOURBON+

Barreling Forward Jerry Gnagy is head brewer for Against the Grain Brewery in Louisville, Kentucky, which produces a rising unicorn beer called Bo & Luke, a smoked imperial porter aged in bourbon barrels. People line up for this beer, which has been released annually for six years at special events.

With a prime location in the heart of Bourbon Country, Gnagy has been barreling beers for a decade and a half, and recalls the days when he could go directly to Angel’s Envy and hand-pick freshly emptied barrels from a warehouse. The demand was different then.

Empty barrels “were still trash for the distilleries,” Gnagy says. “They were looking for ways to get rid of them. We would get 23-year-old Fitz barrels. That’s kind of the origins of what

TERRY ALLEN

What’s this interesting looking plastic contraption on top of the barrel bungs at Against The Grain Brewery? It’s called an airlock. The purpose of an airlock is to allow CO2 to release from the fermentation process going on inside the barrel while preventing outside contaminants from getting into all that liquid goodness.

Oxidation also takes place, bringing with it a nutty, almond note, he said. Beer and barrel will create flavors of vanilla, dark fruit, chocolate and more, and variants of the original beer are wildly popular. Siegel said some barrels have faint notes of citrus—he specifically recalled an Elijah Craig 12-yearold barrel—providing an opportunity to add ingredients like orange peels and chocolate.

“Chocolate and orange go together, and of course bourbon and orange certainly go together in the form of cocktails, so when you dig a little bit deeper, it’s not that wild an idea,” Siegel said.

As he holds barrel aged products, Against the Grain brewer Jerry Gnagy observes a demand for these products unlike anytime before. For barrel-aged products, brewers can expect long lines and charge a premium.

And Gnagy stands to be ahead of them all, for a simple reason: He’s in Kentucky, an instant trust factor among bourbon drinkers.

BOURBON+ 65

Of the styles commonly used for barrel finishes, stouts and porters seem to be the most commonly used products for barrel finishes. The richness of these styles stand up to the depth and complexity a bourbon barrel provides.

66 BOURBON+

2017 to do a version of Bourbon County Stout to commemorate the fateful night when his father met Hall over drinks and cigars. It was a chance to honor his late father, a legendary distiller and member of the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame.

More recently, Fred Noe worked with Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing Company and Budweiser in 2018 to create new bourbon-barrel beers, but they weren’t the traditional big imperial stouts or barleywines that have proven to work so well in bourbon-soaked oak.

Oakspire, the New Belgium release, was an imperial rye ale aged in a specially designed “missile” filled with oak spirals and char from Knob Creek barrels, which added brown sugar and caramel notes, plus a little spice, to the beer. Budweiser’s Reserve Copper Lager is a light-bodied beer that replaces traditional beechwood with Jim Beam barrel staves in fermentation, giving the beer overtones of vanilla and spicy oak.

When Big Beer starts betting on bourbon barrels, you know it’s truly become a “thing.”

“Everyone’s looking for innovations that are a little different than the norm,” Fred Noe says. “I think a lot of it is that you never know. People innovate and do things because if you don’t try, you don’t know what might happen. It might be a flavor profile that is unique. I think the sky is the limit.”

+

LEF T: TERRY ALLEN; RIGHT: COURTE SY OF GOOSE ISL AND BRE WING COMPANY

we started out with.”

Barrels are much more in demand today. Against the Grain and many other breweries now go through established brokers like Independent Stave to procure them, but are still mostly able to get what they want, even if they aren’t personally selecting them at the distillery. Having a middleman has been a good thing, Gnagy says.

“Obviously, Buffalo Trace doesn’t want to deal with us saying, ‘Hey, we need six barrels.’ They would have to have a full-time position doing that,” he says.

Imperial stouts continue to be optimal choices for bourbon-barrel aging because of the complementing f lavor profiles, although barleywines and other boozy styles also are fine choices. If Hall had decided to brew a Bohemian pilsner and put that into Beam barrels, it likely would have been chalked up as a failed one-off.

But with the surge in barrel-aged craft beers today, brewers are experimenting more and more with lighter styles. Gnagy put a light-bodied German Helles into a barrel a few years ago with some success, for instance. Heck, the next unicorn might be in a barrel somewhere right now.

Bringing everything full circle, Booker Noe’s son Fred Noe, master distiller at Jim Beam, worked with Goose Island in

BOURBON+ 67

Derby Entertaining THE AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCES AND CONFESSIONS OF A KENTUCKY HOSTESS. Story by Peggy Noe Stevens

BOURBON+ 69

It’s not the Kentucky Derby without a fabulous hat­—­the bigger, the better. (Pictured: Madelynne Meyers, Miss Kentucky USA)

I

n Kentucky, some of our most cherished and lasting memories can happen during the Kentucky Derby. There’s the regal pageantry of our thoroughbreds, the ceremony of tradition, and undoubtedly the entertaining.

Oh, the stories I have.

I thought I was clever to hide my stash in a hoagie, surgically cutting away the cheap French bread and inserting bourbon miniatures. When I was in my 20s, the Derby was the Everest of Louisville social gatherings, and sneaking bourbon into Churchill Downs was the thrill of the hunt. I held court in the third turn of the infield, never seeing a race. Although I was a rookie at entertaining, I poured friends rounds of drinks in paper cups and handed out country ham biscuits with Doritos.

Just before the big race, the masses fell silent to hear Stephen Foster’s “My Old Kentucky Home” over the stadium speakers.

On cue, tears of pride streamed down my face as I sang with the crowd. I was swept away. No matter where you were from, Derby made you a Kentuckian.

My bourbon-smuggling days are over, but not the tradition of Derby hospitality. After attending 25-plus races, I know that entertaining comes in all shapes and sizes—from hosting dozens of people wearing black tie in luxury suites over several days, to putting up six people in our home for a good 72 hours, to stepping over sprawling college students who were sleeping anywhere they could find a blanket. That is our way—our hospitality, our best in show, our Derby. We are casual and we are elegant, and it all comes together through entertaining. So let this Kentucky woman share some Derby know-how, whether you’re entertaining in your own home, or meeting here in Kentucky for the first Saturday in May. If you have bourbon and the song sheet to “My Old Kentucky Home,” we are off to the races, as they say.

OPENING SPRE AD AND LEF T: ANDY HYSLOP

The Coveted Invite The famous red-coated bugler sounds the call to the post at the track. My bugle sounds directly after Christmas, as there is no rest for the party planner. Derby tickets are a coveted, bucket-list ask, and attendance requires quite a bit of advance notice for arranging hotels, transportation, and events.

Prepare Yourself and Your Guests Include who, what, when, where, and the dress code on the invitation, so your guests know if events are casual or dressy.

You might include your own clever message, such as, “Hats optional, betting money mandatory.” Be specific about what to pack, anticipated weather, agendas, travel logistics, and other details.

Consider putting a “Derby essentials” basket in the guest/ hotel rooms, filled with bourbon, snacks, f lip-f lops for the

track, an equine-related gift and, most important, ibuprofen, for aching feet, or for those who are “over-served” at the races.

Prepare for stamina. Derby is the epitome of entertaining, with exciting and emotionally charged days spilling into postrace entertaining that might extend into the morning hours.

Build in the gift of transition time. With bourbon Bloody Marys at brunch, juleps for afternoon, and bourbon and branch water late at night, put on your seat belt.

There are more than ample concessions and buffets at the track, but we carry Kentucky “picnic food” in clear plastic containers and pack our own julep cups for our guests.

Garnish Your Wardrobe Like Your Cocktail The horses are not the only things people are watching. Like a garnish for a cocktail, the accoutrements of the wardrobe include the following at the track: Hats: Hats serve a functional as well as a design-savvy purpose. The inside truth is that you select the width of the hat depending on the personal space you wish to have around you.

The tiny aisles in the stands at the track and a paddock-packed social hour can make you feel like you are wearing someone else’s perfume. Once the hat is on, it stays on for the day. Men adorn themselves with stylish hats as well, and wear colorful, race-themed ties. Matching the kaleidoscope of jockey silk colors is a signature hallmark of Derby fashion.

Layers: We love that temperamental May weather swing when maturing whiskey in the Bluegrass, but layer your clothing, please. I also bring two types of shoes—one that I wear into the track and one I wear out (see post-race). Did I mention pockets? You’ll need them to hold winnings, wallets, phones, flasks, sunglasses, tickets, lipstick, binoculars, and more. We also admire decorative lapel pins shaped like juleps, horses, bourbon bottles, or roses for both men and women. My husband ceremonially wears a gold horse pin from 1962 that belonged to his grandfather.

For your at-home party: A melting pot of zany hats and shorts, jeans, and just plain comfortable and festive clothing will mimic the energy of the track. Even in shorts, we still have contests for who wears the best Derby hat at the house. Derby offers you an incredible opportunity to really stretch your normal attire to an unconventional height of pomp and circumstance.

Don’t Let the Juleps Fool You In old Kentucky, we used what was abundant. Mint grows like wildfire just in time for Derby. The bourbon of the 1800s was not the Pappy quality we have today. It’s why God gave us simple syrup (boiled sugar water). Combine and you have a julep. The silver cup comes into play, as the winners of horse

BOURBON+ 71

2 cups granulated sugar 2 cups water 7 mint leaves 3 ounces bourbon Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan and boil until the granules have dissolved. Turn off the heat and steep approximately 5 mint leaves in the hot mixture until it cools.

Remove the mint sprigs and refrigerate the sugar syrup.

Tear 1 to 2 mint leaves, depending on their size, from the stem. Place 1 tablespoon of the syrup and mint leaves into a julep cup, and muddle together at the bottom of the glass.

Add 2 to 3 ounces of your favorite bourbon and stir. Pack with crushed ice and garnish with a mint sprig and straw.

Tip: I always make the syrup several days before the party to really marry the flavors and texture. For flavored juleps, use your favorite marmalades and preserves (¼ to ½ cup per, depending how sweet you like your julep). Boil mixture and steep the mint accordingly. Store in the fridge. The beauty of the mint julep is that you may dial up or down any of the ingredients to your personal taste. I like to freeze my julep cups before making the drinks in order to have nice frosty glasses.

72 BOURBON+

Table Luxuries We tend to graze like horses all day, so ample supply and variety on your Derby buffet table are musts. When planning the Derby menu and décor in your home, first ask, elegant or casual? What time of day? Brunch, evening meal after the track, or all-day soirée? We are easy. You can serve many of the same foods with all styles of entertaining—it’s the extent to which you dial up, or dial down, your table luxuries (china, crystal, and silverware) that will set your party aesthetics.

I choose a bright tablecloth to symbolize the jockey silks.

For centerpieces, consider native Kentucky botanicals such as forsythias, hydrangeas, and azaleas, and, of course, roses to embellish the “Run for the Roses” theme of the day. Intertwine florals with equine-related props such as horseshoes, miniature trophies and horses, mock betting tickets, and so on.

If you’re feeling extravagant, start polishing the silver platters now. I use all types of silver trays, but also mix in wooden

ANDY HYSLOP

PEGGY’S MINT JULEP

races would sometimes celebrate by drinking from their trophies. That was damned ingenious, as the silver would frost and keep that magic elixir cold on a sweltering Kentucky day.

But you do not have to use silver; in fact, the official track glass is a collector’s item and may be purchased online for your in-home party. Or gracefully check the floor of the track stands for abandoned glasses and stack them for carry-out.

There is no greater symbol of hospitality than the julep, but we argue on how to make good ones. I do believe in the ceremony of the whole thing. Juleps get a bad rap from the watered-down mass servings at the track with their puny, wilted mint leaves. You appreciate a julep only when it is well made. My special turbo julep is not a mere drink—it’s a Bluegrass ceremony. The “turbo” comes in as we like the extra “splash” beyond the calculated recipe. If you’d like to take it one step further, you may create flavored juleps, steeping fruits and herbs into the simple syrup. All that julep talk and now I want a cigar, which are also plentiful and track appropriate.

For your home Derby bar, stock bourbon, and lots of it.

Bloody Marys, beer, and Champagne are also appropriate.

What I absolutely prepare in advance are mixers and simple syrups, arrayed in decorative vintage decanters. Ice in variations from crushed (for the juleps) to block for the bourbon and branch can be tricky, so camouflage your coolers under the bar table to replenish when necessary. Mint is always the garnish, and horse-themed straws and faux silver cups can work for enticing guests. My friends enjoy bourbon swaps at parties, so I keep small tasting glasses on the bar for experimentation.

Don’t forget the nibbles, such as fine cashews and cayenne cheddar wafers.

BOURBON+ 73

derby buffets Traditional Derby buffets you would find in any home for both casual and elegant parties

Elegant: Shrimp cocktail Cheddar wafers Country ham and beaten biscuits with bourbon marmalade Mini Hot Brown bites and Bénédictine tea sandwiches Bibb lettuce with bourbon vinaigrette Tomato aspic Burgoo

Steamed asparagus with hardboiled egg crumbles, and red pepper.

Fancy potatoes (Fingerling, Duchess, or Lyonnaise) Sliced beef tenderloin with Henry Bain’s sauce Corn pudding Cheese grits Homemade yeast rolls Bourbon chocolate-dipped strawberries Bourbon candy and truffles Louisville chocolate chip pie

Casual: Country ham and biscuits with bourbon marmalade Mixed green salad Burgoo Pimento cheese and Bénédictine spread BBQ and ribs Fried chicken Cheese grits Baked beans Cornbread Broccoli casserole Louisville chocolate chip tartelettes Pecan pie Bourbon Candy

pieces and stoneware, which are traditional and create a varied level of elegance. Julep cups to hold the silverware, or silverware rolled in linen napkins and tied with twine, also give a nod to down-home Kentucky elegance. My finest china greets the table, stacked and ready. Guests enjoy the family stories behind the heirloom pieces that have been collected over many years. Do try to separate the dessert table from the buffet, to showcase the desserts with perfect bourbon pairings.

A casual buffet table still boasts the colorful tablecloth, but instead of all the silver and whatnot, go for baskets and stoneware and forgo the china. Instead, there are myriad Derby- and equine-themed paper plates, and this is the perfect time to use the official Derby glasses. Either way, my sage advice is to

Sometimes we do the hospitable thing and share our bourbon with our new line friends. Just remember betting etiquette at the track: Say how much you are betting, what place (win/ place/show), and finally, the horse’s number (they can’t keep up with names).

At home parties, we gather around the TV as if around a warming campfire. Continuous conversation of “who” you are betting on, whether it be by jockey silk color, favorite number, or massive study of the stats, is drowned out only by the thunderous clap of the gates and roars of cheering for your picks.

In-home parties beckon race fans to pool monetary resources together, so that Lady Luck may shine on the big race. We set up a faux betting window, and the person with the best math skills

I just can’t articulate the emotion of Derby. It reveals itself to me every year as I stand on a chair in the box with my arms around my guests, swaying with the entire stadium (tears included) to “My Old Kentucky Home.”

put the buffet out all day and choose dishes that have staying power, as your guests are sure to circle the track back to the buffet after Derby.

Outside, let your guests know they’ve arrived at the Derby house by hanging a horseshoe or rose wreath on the door. As your guests arrive, greet them with programs and tip sheets (you can find them online) for insider information. When folks begin to leave, I offer them a potted mint to grow in their backyard, or bourbon candy wrapped in a faux julep cup. At Derby, every last drop of hospitality is offered.

FRED MINNICK

Betting Windows and Other Derby Etiquette My father taught me to read a racing sheet when I was 12 years old, so that I would leave him alone. We supply our guests with their own programs. When someone studies the racing form, you interrupt only if they ask a question. The infamous $2 bet is low-hanging fruit, but even if your return is $2.60, bragging rights are allowed.

Sometimes seeing the horse prior to the race seals your commitment. We enjoy escorting guests to the paddock between races to see the seasoned athletes up close and personal. This is also the time to wait in lines (many of them) for cocktails and restroom breaks. We don’t mind, because it’s social etiquette to exchange information for the next race while waiting. I’ve met the most interesting people standing in line.

gets to book the bets. We also do a drawing of the Derby horses prior to the race to give hopeful ownership to the “grand purse.”

Post Derby Walking to your car watching the winners cheer and the losers jeer is entertainment. You’ll see women who’ve transitioned to flip-flops dangling their spike-heeled pretties by two fingers, and everyone clutching their stack of Derby glassware. The crowd, once crisp and polished, is now faded from the day at the track.

There is always a cascade of smoked ribs and BBQ and lastchance beers served at the carnival of houses surrounding the track. We indulge. I never met a Derby guest who did not leave fat and happy, either from the track or a home party.

Yes, horse racing is still the premier sport in Kentucky.

Whether at home, at the track or at an elegant fête, it’s Derby, y’all. Time to bring out the “family whiskey,” meaning the bourbon we hold back for special occasions.

I just can’t articulate the emotion of Derby. It reveals itself to me every year as I stand on a chair in the box with my arms around my guests, swaying with the entire stadium (tears included) to “My Old Kentucky Home.” Wherever your party is around the world, everyone who sings along is initiated as a true Kentuckian on Derby Day, and I invite you to be my guest.

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Who wants Pappy and Pinball?

Recbar is an old school gamer’s and bourbon lover’s paradise, with just enough deep fried goodness and contemporary video games to make everybody happy.

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b a r s c ou t

Recbar

Louisville, Kentucky

BY STEVE COOMES

ANNA MAY

I

t’s a safe bet that a restaurant chock-full of arcade games won’t have a great whiskey lineup. Make that bet against Recbar, however, and you’ll lose—badly. The sprawling bar and restaurant is divided into three, deep rectangular rooms: The dining room and bar in the center is buttressed by side rooms stuffed with 140 video and pinball games.

At full song, the pinball room’s lights and sounds are reminiscent of Raoul Duke’s hallucinations in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It’s overstimulation worth experiencing, especially when there’s whiskey nearby to calm your X-Men-jangled nerves. Recbar’s list of 150 whiskeys includes 110 bourbons.

“We didn’t set out to have this huge whiskey selection,” said Corey Sims, co-owner of the three-year-old business. “Now we don’t have shelf space for everything on our list.”

Sims and co-owner Tony Thomas were managing others’ restaurants when they began planning to open an arcade bar.

Combing eBay and Craigslist, the men bought used game machines until their garages were filled. Luckily, around the time their collection outgrew an offsite storage unit, the building they needed for their business went up for lease.

The business opened in 2016, and sales took off. The only arcade restaurant and bar in town drew critics’ praise for terrific food, but its bar is what raised the owners’ eyebrows. Sims and Thomas expected strong craft-beer sales, but customers demonstrated an unexpected preference for their whiskey selection.

“Louisville is a great town for bourbon, so we wanted to have enough of it to be on the Urban Bourbon Trail,” Sims said, referring to a city-driven marketing program that requires a minimum of 50 bourbons on offer at participating spots. “We just didn’t anticipate it doing so well.”

But it did, and Sims and Thomas kept adding to their list to coax more demand. A clear sign that Recbar’s liquor distributor loves the business is a whiskey list bejeweled with highly allocated bottles like the entire Buffalo Trace Antique Collection and nearly everything from the Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery.

Sims said such eye-catching names draw drinkers to an area of Louisville not known for selling such sips.

“Out here we’re a little off the beaten path of the better-known

bars, restaurants, and bourbon distillery tours, but people seek us out,” Sims said.

As business boomed, game counts grew and the whiskey list ballooned. Sooner than expected, Recbar’s owners were leasing the whole 10,000-square-foot building and planning Recbar No. 2, a 20,000-square-foot site 30 minutes away.

Today, 90-minute weekend-table waits are common, but with games and a well-stocked bar available, no one gripes about circuiting a Mario Kart track—drink in hand, of course. The family-centric spot means children are always welcome, but come 10 p.m., when only guests 21 and older can stay, “kids go home and adults get to be kids again,” Sims said.

By design, Recbar casts a wide demographic net—from birthday parties, corporate events, and gaming competitions to “girls’ night out,” guys up for whiskey flights, and neighborhood regulars in search of a great burger and a stout pour.

“We’ve got a small, but good, cocktail list,” said Sims, pointing to a top-selling Bourbon Slushie. The only other bourbon cocktails on the 10-item list are the Token Old Fashioned and the Always a Classic, a Manhattan riff using 1792 Bourbon. “We’re not smoking sage for craft cocktails here.”

Recbar’s premium position rests solely on its whiskeys, and brands poured neat, on the rocks, or in flights are the most popular. The priciest, a $200 flight dubbed The Elitist, includes Pappy Van Winkle 15-, 20-, and 23-year; while the cheapest, Rye-Diculous, costs $10 for sips of Michter’s Straight, Rabbit Hole, and Bulleit. Customized flights are encouraged. “We price the whole flight based on the most expensive pour you choose,” Sims said. “It keeps things simple and lets people be creative.”

Recbar’s whiskey list is, in fact, so simple that prices aren’t listed. Sims said he and Thomas want guests to review the collection without being distracted by the cost.

“People’s eyes tend to go to a price that makes them think that whiskey’s the best—which certainly isn’t the case,” Sims said. “We want them to ask questions beyond price so we can get a feel for what they’re looking for. When we know that, we can guide them toward something that will give them a value, which is the most important thing to us.”

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THE SAZERAC 2.5 ounces rye whiskey 1 sugar cube 2-3 dashes Peychaud bitters 2-3 dashes absinthe Dash absinthe into an Old Fashioned glass. Swirl to coat the glass. In a mixing glass, drop in sugar cube and dash with bitters. Muddle. Add whiskey and ice. Stir to chill, and strain into absinthe-coated glass. Enjoy!

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mixology

THE SAZERAC: A COCKTAIL RICH IN HISTORY

BY MOLLY WELLMANN

C ARY NORTON

A

hhhh, the Sazerac cocktail, the official drink of New Orleans …what a drink, and what a history! It has stood the test of time, rolling with the ups and downs of the changing world and people’s changing tastes. Some have called it the first original cocktail, a “cocktail” being defined as a mixture of sugar, water, bitters, and spirit. While I don’t believe it’s the first, it shows up in the early 1800s, and there is written evidence of people drinking similar concoctions as far back as the late 1700s—telling the story of the Sazerac does require going back in time!

Let’s start in the 1790s on the island of Saint-Domingue.

From 1791 to 1804, a slave rebellion solidified independence from Napoleonic French rule on what is now known as Haiti, while forcing a large number of wealthy French plantation owners to flee.

Antoine Amédée Peychaud was just a wee baby when his family abandoned their coffee plantation in 1804 and resettled in New Orleans. A.A. Peychaud grew up to become a pharmacist and opened an apothecary at 123 Royal Street in the 1830s.

He was also an active member of the Concorde Blue Masons Lodge Fraternal Order, holding many titles including High Priest of the Royal Arch.

At his apothecary, Peychaud came up with a gentian-based bitters that some believe was inspired by his family’s Haitian nanny. Peychaud would mix a toddy of Cognac, a lump of sugar, and his special bitters in a small egg cup called a coquetier and serve it to his fellow Masons. The drink became very popular, not only as a medicinal remedy, but also as a great pick-me-up. Peychaud’s cocktail was soon being made in many of the coffee houses throughout New Orleans.

Enter: a man named Sewell Taylor. In the 1840s he opened one of the most popular coffee houses in New Orleans, the Merchant Exchange. (These were not Starbucks-type coffee houses. From the late 1700s through the mid-1800s, many saloons in America were veiled as coffee houses…but that’s a whole other story.) Taylor was also a liquor and wine merchant who brought in a number of products that became quite popular.

One such product was a Cognac made in Limoges, France, called

Sazerac de Forge et Fils. Soon the cocktails being made with the singular smoky brandy had come to be known as Sazeracs.

By 1850, Sewell had moved his coffee house and opened a liquor store. Aaron Bird, and a little later, a partner, John Schiller, moved into the Merchant Exchange and changed the name of the establishment to The Sazerac House. (The Sazerac cocktail was so popular that there were several Sazerac Coffee Houses listed in 1850s New Orleans directories.) Schiller became the sole proprietor of The Sazerac House in 1860 and hired a man from Maryland named Thomas Handy, who had also been a clerk for Sewell Taylor in his merchant business. In 1869, Handy inherited The Sazerac House from John Schiller, along with $250,000 ($12 million in today’s dollars). And Peychaud closed his apothecary to manage The Sazerac House for Handy in 1870. By the next year, Handy had created the Thomas Handy Co., which specialized in wine and liquor; was the sole importer of Sazerac Cognac; and had purchased Peychaud Bitters.

It was under Thomas Handy’s ownership of The Sazerac House that the Sazerac recipe was changed. The Cognac was replaced with Maryland Club Rye, and a dash of absinthe was added. I think there were a few reasons for these changes.

One, tastes in America had evolved. American rye whiskey was very popular, and there was plenty of it, especially in New Orleans. The Sazerac Cognac, along with other French wine, was getting harder to come by following the great French wine blight caused by the Phylloxera aphid. The addition of absinthe reflected a growing trend of making “fancy drinks” at America’s drinking establishments.

The Sazerac House closed before Prohibition, and Thomas Handy sold his company to a man named Christopher O’Reilly, who reorganized it into the Sazerac Co. This iteration of the Sazerac company eventually acquired the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky, which honors its owners’ history with the Thomas H. Handy Sazerac Rye and the Sazerac Rye 18-Year-Old in its annual Antique Collection release. The City of New Orleans proclaimed the Sazerac the official drink of New Orleans in 2018. Cheers to a wonderful old cocktail rich in history!

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v intag e

Jas. E. Pepper Hand-Made Sour Mash Bourbon

BY MATT PIETREK

THE YEAR: Around 1890 THE HUNT: One of two bottles purchased at auction more than a decade ago, when mere mortals were still able to snag something of note.

WHERE TO FIND THIS BOTTLE: Canon Whiskey and Bitters Emporium, Seattle PRICE PER POUR: $1,150 US PRESIDENT WHEN DISTILLED: Benjamin Harrison

The Story If ever a bottle suggests that it harkens from the infancy of bottled American whiskey, it’s this one. You could easily overlook it on the shelves of a bunker near Seattle’s Canon Whiskey and Bitters Emporium. But its simplicity belies its creator’s central role in the American whiskey narrative.

Canon owner Jamie Boudreau purchased the rarity well before vintage prices spiraled to the heavens—and well before he realized he’d someday own the largest American whiskey collection in the world.

“I found two bottles, both with low levels, and […] married them to limit oxygen exchange,” he says. It’s not the most expensive pour on Canon’s captain’s list, but it’s certainly in the ultra-rare echelon.

MIKE SCHALK

Jas. E. Pepper As for the man whose name graces the label, well, his story is filled with accolades and important changes to American whiskey laws, but also rife with jaw-dropping lawsuits and public controversy.

Born in 1850, James E. Pepper was the grandson of Elijah Pepper, who began distilling whiskey around 1780. Elijah’s son Oscar took over the distillery in the 1830s, upgraded it and renamed it the (Old) Oscar Pepper Distillery, and hired

Scottish chemist James Crow, who played a pivotal role in perfecting the sour mash process. Crow’s name lives on today as “Old Crow,” one of Oscar’s brands. Oscar died in 1865, and son James took the distillery’s reins under the tutelage of Col. E.H. Taylor, Jr., another hallowed American whiskey name.

Claiming he was stifled by his mother’s involvement in the family business, James sued her for complete control.

Within five years, he had driven it into the ground and was forced to sell the distillery, which bounced among owners before winding up with Labrot & Graham. The distillery is now known as Woodford Reserve (“Labrot & Graham” appears on every bottle in homage).

James soon returned with a new distillery, intending to resume production of Old Oscar Pepper. But Labrot & Graham were using that name. Brash young James again filed suit—this time for trademark infringement—but lost and rebranded his whiskey as Jas. E. Pepper. He lost another lawsuit to Labrot & Graham in 1891.

Despite his early setbacks, Pepper did eventually find success. In 1890, he helped make it legal for distilleries to bottle their own spirits. Counterfeiting soon became rampant, so he introduced the signed and sealed paper strip covering the bottle cap, which (in theory) proved authenticity—the forerunner of the tax stamp. Along with Col. Taylor, he advocated for the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897 and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

He also became immersed in horse racing, co-owning two Kentucky Derby contenders and taking horses to Europe to run.

He traveled the US in his private rail car, dubbed “Old Pepper.”

By 1895 he was a baron of American whiskey, attending dinners alongside Roosevelt, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Tiffany, and Steinway, all members of 19th century American aristocracy.

At Seattle’s Canon, Boudreau proclaims, “We practically have the entire history of bourbon in this building.” For $1,150, you can taste the life of Jas. E. Pepper, who steered American whiskey through turbulent times to take its rightful place on the world stage.

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A m at eur Hour

Bourbon from A to, um, W: A glossary

BY CARL A CARLTON

September will be here before you know it, and it’s Bourbon Heritage Month. Since you’ll be hearing even more bourbon talk than usual, we thought it would be helpful to have a glossary of common—and not-so-common—industry-related terms at hand.

Are there others you’re wondering about? Drop me a line at carla@bourbonplus.com.

ALLIGATOR CHAR: The most common level at which the inside of a barrel is charred—No. 4 on a scale from 1 to 4—so called because the blistered surface resembles the cracked skin of an alligator.

ANGELS’ SHARE: The amount of bourbon that evaporates during the aging process.

BACKSET: The thin liquid that remains after a batch of whiskey mash is distilled. A portion is added to the next batch when making sour mash whiskey to ensure consistent flavor (sort of like sourdough bread starter). Also known as setback, stillage, and spent beer.

BARREL PROOF/BARREL STRENGTH: Bourbon bottled straight from the barrel, with no water added. Also known as cask strength.

BOTTLED-IN-BOND: Under the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897, a consumer-protection measure, bottled-in-bond bourbon is produced in one distillation season by one distiller at one distillery; aged for at least four years in a government-bonded warehouse; and bottled at 100 proof with nothing added but water.

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BUNG: The stopper in a barrel.

BUNG KNOCKER: The hammer used to strike a chisel to remove the bung; resembles a small sledgehammer. Also makes a good epithet. (“You bung knocker!”)

CHILL-FILTERED: Whiskey that has been chilled and passed through a series of filters to remove esters, fatty acids, and proteins before bottling so that it doesn’t cloud when water or ice is added to a glass. Producers who favor chill-filtering say consumers view a cloudy whiskey as inferior. Those opposed say that removing the natural byproducts of distilling dilutes the flavor.

COLUMN STILL: A tall metal column, usually copper or stainless steel, fitted inside with a series of perforated horizontal plates that separate alcohol from water during first distillation. Also called a continuous still.

DEVIL’S CUT: The several gallons of bourbon that are lost because they have soaked into the walls of the barrel.

DISTILLER’S BEER: The thick, fermented liquid that enters the still for first distillation.

DOUBLER: Copper still used for second distillation of whiskey that removes impurities and concentrates the alcohol.

FINISH: The vapors you continue to smell, taste, and feel after you swallow bourbon.

FINISHING: Changing/enhancing the flavor of bourbon by additional aging in a second barrel—sometimes another oak barrel, but often a barrel that has been used to age a fortified spirit such as Port wine or Sherry. These spirits are no longer technically bourbon because a flavor has been added.

HEADS: The first 5 percent or so of the alcohol to evaporate during distillation, which is condensed, collected, and discarded because it is high in undesirable compounds such as methane.

HEARTS: The second, and longest, percentage of alcohol to come off the still, this is collected and aged. TAILS: This last, low-proof segment contains usable alcohol but also has some impurities. It’s captured and later redistilled.

HONEY BARREL: Slang for a particularly tasty barrel of bourbon or whiskey that will likely be bottled as a single barrel.

ILLUSTR ATIONS: RUSS GRIME S; PHOTO: BUL AT SILVIA / AL A MY STOCK PHOTO

LOW WINES/HIGH WINES: Low wines are the liquid that goes into a doubler after first distillation; high wines emerge from the doubler following second distillation.

MASH: Mixture of cooked grains and water to which yeast is added to begin fermentation.

MASH BILL: The grain recipe for bourbon or other whiskey.

MASH TUB: The large container in which milled grains are cooked in water in order to break down their starches before fermentation. Also known as a cooker.

MOONSHINE: Until recently, moonshine meant untaxed liquor and folks went to jail for making/selling it. While distillers still meet the slammer if they make untaxed liquor, moonshine has become a distiller’s fanciful term for unaged spirit that could have become whiskey if it met a barrel.

POT STILL: Another type of whiskey still. Heat is applied directly to the pot containing the mash, and the resulting alcohol vapors travel through a condensing coil. The spent mash must be cleaned out each time, so this is known as batch distilling, rather than continuous distillation.

PROOF: The measure of alcohol in a spirit. In the United States, it’s expressed as double the percentage of the alcohol by volume (ABV).

RICKHOUSE: The building in which the barrels of whiskey are aged. Also called a warehouse or rackhouse.

SINGLE BARREL WHISKEY: Whiskey bottled from one barrel that has not been mingled with any other whiskeys.

SMALL BATCH WHISKEY: Whiskey that has been produced by mingling the juice from several barrels. There is no official definition; the number of barrels is up to the distiller.

STRAIGHT BOURBON/ WHISKEY: Whiskey that has been aged for a minimum of two years.

SOUR MASH/SWEET MASH: Two methods for making whiskey or bourbon. In the sour mash method, a portion of the backset is added to the next batch of mash during fermentation to balance pH levels and ensure consistency. In the sweet mash method, a brand-new batch is produced each time.

STRAIGHT UP/ UP: Sometimes considered interchangeable, these terms actually have different meanings. “Straight up” means bourbon neat, with no ice. “Up” refers to a drink that is shaken with ice, then strained into a stemmed glass.

SWEATING THE BARREL: A process to reclaim some of the devil’s cut in which an empty, used bourbon barrel is filled with water and rolled on its side over a period of days or weeks.

TOASTING: A lighter level of heat applied to the inside of a barrel or barrel head that helps to mellow the tannins and release vanillins and other flavors.

WHEATED BOURBON: Bourbon with a mash bill that contains wheat as the secondary grain, rather than rye.

Also referred to as a “wheater.”

WHISKEY THIEF: A long “straw,” often made of copper, used to draw whiskey from a barrel for sampling.

WHITE DOG: Bourbon in its clear state as it leaves the still.

Also known as new make.

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b o urb o n cl ub

The Bourbon Crusaders

S

hared interests often bring people together to partake in libations—and sometimes, something magical arises from the resulting conversations. A passion for bourbon drew the Bourbon Crusaders together, but the desire to benefit the greater good has propelled them into becoming a fundraising powerhouse. Just three years in, they’ve raised more than $400,000 for charity, all in the name of bourbon. This group of self-proclaimed bourbon geeks is changing the way whiskey lovers find unique bourbon experiences and make charitable contributions.

The Bourbon Crusaders began in a hotel room in Atlanta. A fellow with a large Twitter following of bourbon enthusiasts had put out a call to say, “‘Hey, I’m going to be in Atlanta, if folks want to get together and share some drinks,’ so about six to eight people got together and had just an epic bourbon tasting,” said Bourbon Crusaders cofounder and governing body member R.J. Sargent. The industry champion (who wishes to remain anonymous in this story) next offered to bring folks along on a barrel selection. About a dozen eager whiskey fans chose a barrel of Knob Creek at Jim Beam, and then three barrels at Four Roses, all in one weekend.

“We were just a bunch of bourbon nerds dorking around Bourbon Country. We decided, ‘Hey, this is kind of fun—let’s do it more often!’”

Sargent said. During that long weekend with the opportunity to select barrels, a common thread emerged: Each individual was passionate about the idea of giving back to the community, and often donated bottles to charitable events. The Bourbon Crusaders were born.

Soon, the Crusaders began creating bourbon experiences to raise money for causes dear to the hearts of industry folk.

The first, which honored the retirement from Four Roses of Master Distiller Jim Rutledge, took place in 2016 at Mint on Mellwood, the event space of Mint Julep Experiences in Louisville. Rutledge chose the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation as his beneficiary, and the event, which included a silent auction, a Q&A with Rutledge, samples from barrel picks, and a surprise

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live auction with bourbon author (and Bourbon+ editor-in-chief) Fred Minnick as auctioneer, raised a cool $27,000.

With more time to prepare, the Crusaders knew they could top that in 2017. They partnered with Heaven Hill to honor the late Parker Beam, who had died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and raised $54,000 for the Kentucky chapter of the ALS Association. But it was their third-ever event, in 2018, that left members and attendees in shock and awe.

Willett to Be Cured, in which the Bourbon Crusaders teamed with Willett Distillery to raise funds for the Louisville chapter of the American Cancer Society, was “pure magic,” said Crusaders member Brett Atlas, who was still gushing weeks after the event. The cause was a personal one for Willett’s Kulsveen family, as patriarch Even Kulsveen had recently begun a private battle with Stage 4 lymphoma. (Kulsveen went into remission in May 2018.)

Sargent describes that night’s auction as if he’s recalling something out of a dream, one that continued to get better with each passing moment.

He remembers the moment Drew Kulsveen pulled Minnick aside and began adding rare bourbon selections and experiences. Eventually, bids were climbing so high that he announced that any group that put up $45,000 could not only select and purchase a barrel, but Willett would also handle the government filing, and the group could put their name on the bottles. Five groups ponied up.

In all, the auction raised more than $340,000.

During the auction, Sargent tried to avoid eye contact with Lynn Palmer, the representative from the American Cancer Society, who was welling up with emotion, as he knew he’d break down. “I was out of my mind with how amazing it was,” he said.

From a hotel room in Georgia just 3 years ago to that surreal moment in November 2018, it’s clear that the Bourbon Crusaders have found their niche. “We’re on to something,” Sargent says. “We’ve figured out how to do these events, how to improve the experience for our guests, and ultimately how to raise more money for charities.”

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RUSS GRIME S

BY KELSEY WESTBROOK

BIG -MONEY PLAYERS INVEST IN BROWN SPIRITS

BY CARL A CARLTON

D

aniel Barnes grew up in the Navajo Inn, a motel and restaurant owned by his parents, in tiny Menard, Texas.

By age seven, he was getting paid to wash dishes, standing on a plastic crate to reach the sink. “It taught me hard work, and to not be afraid of having a different kind of job,” he said.

In 2006, he started a distillery in an 800-square-foot warehouse in north Austin using a 15-gallon still built by his fatherin-law. “Then we moved up to a 50-gallon still. We thought we were big time. We were doing fermentation in blue plastic barrels—the humblest beginnings possible.”

As he started putting rum back to age, he moved into a larger building nearby. But he wanted to make whiskey, and “we saw we needed to move out of an urban setting.” In 2013, he and partner Nate Powell invested in 28-acre Ghost Hill Ranch about 30 miles west of Austin in Dripping Springs. Treaty Oak Distilling—named for one of the original council oak trees in Austin under which several land treaties were signed— is now home to a distillery, a rickhouse, a brand-new Cocktail Lab, and a restaurant that in October 2018 was rechristened “Alice’s” for his mom.

Treaty Oak produces three gin expressions (Waterloo No. 9, Waterloo Antique, and Waterloo Old Yaupon), and three whiskeys, Red-Handed Bourbon, Red-Handed Rye and Ghost Hill Texas Bourbon. And at the beginning of 2019, Treaty Oak began a national rollout of its spirits, thanks to a partnership with Florida-based Mahalo Spirits Group.

“A lot of times you see money come into a brand and then immediately the attitude is, ‘Let’s see the case volume go up, let’s have a cash liquidation event and get out of here.’ And the brand becomes somewhat numb when that happens. The story

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gets marginalized, and frequently the juice gets marginalized.

They got the long-term vision. If the business does build up and gets sold, great. If the business doesn’t get sold and we turn it into a large, profitable whiskey distillery, great. Both outcomes are equally awesome to me, and I think they feel the same way.”

As the craft distilling movement continues to build, such stories are becoming more common, as small operations attract the notice of larger companies.

In 2014, St. Louis-based Luxco bought a 50 percent share of Limestone Branch Distillery in Lebanon, Kentucky, in a deal that allowed the Beam brothers who founded Limestone Branch to regain ownership of the Yellowstone bourbon brand that was once associated with their ancestors.

In 2015, Bermuda-based Bacardi Limited purchased Angel’s Envy, along with its Louisville Distilling Co. subsidiary and distillery on Louisville’s Main Street.

In 2016, Constellation Brands acquired the Utah-based distiller High West.

In 2017, SPI Group, a Luxembourg company probably best known for Stoli vodka, bought Kentucky Owl, a boutique blended bourbon created just three years prior by Dixon Dedman, owner of the Beaumont Inn in Harrodsburg and named for a brand created by his great-great-grandfather.

For investors, these deals represent a way to grab a piece of the burgeoning brown spirits category. More than 23 million 9-liter cases of American whiskey were sold in 2017, generating over $3.4 billion in revenue for distillers, according to the Distilled Spirits Council. Sales in the category have increased 37 percent from 2012 to 2017, with gross revenue increasing by 51 percent.

Distillers, meanwhile, benefit not just from an infusion of cash, but also from the bigger players’ industry expertise and larger marketing footprints.

A year after Constellation acquired High West, for instance, sales of its American Prairie Bourbon had more than doubled, which Constellation marketing vice president Carl Evans attributed in great measure to his company’s sales force and market penetration. In February 2018, High West received international exposure at the Winter Olympic Games as the first-ever spirits sponsor of U.S. Ski & Snowboard—advertising it would have been highly unlikely to secure on its own.

Steve Beam, co-owner of Limestone Branch with his brother Paul, said he wasn’t looking for a partner when they met with Luxco to discuss opportunities with the Yellowstone brand.

But the partnership “has been the best decision,” he said.

“Luxco brought much more than just financial assistance.

They also brought a worldwide distribution network, economies of scale, and access to their vast stores of bourbon. I no longer have to spend time negotiating with distributors, or deal with every state’s monthly paperwork. It has allowed me to concentrate on distilling the best bourbon possible and traveling to promote the brand.”

Luxco has since built its own distillery in Kentucky. Lux Row Distillers opened in April 2018 in Bardstown, partly so that Luxco could distill its own bourbon brands, rather than

source them, and partly so the company could tap into the state’s rapidly growing bourbon tourism industry. It was the third distillery to open in the past five years in Bardstown, the “bourbon capital of the world.”

SPI plans another one—and how. The proposed $150 million Kentucky Owl Park will feature a distillery, a convention center, and eventually, a luxury hotel—a sort of Disneyland of bourbon. But some observers wonder how this might affect the bourbon, which has until now been produced in tiny, much sought-after batches.

Such concerns must be ironed out before a deal is signed, says Philip McDaniel, CEO of St. Augustine Distillery, which is supported by a group of investors. “The purchaser and the purchasee need to be really honest with each other the minute a large name brand says it’s going to put its name next to a brand that’s had a small, loyal, local following. To protect and maintain the relationship of the brand and their customer base, [the distiller] needs to be proactive and up front: How is the purchaser going to treat the owners and the distillers? Will they stay? Will they be allowed to have control?”

Some craft distillers might ultimately decide that a local following is enough. But for Barnes, in Texas, bigger was always going to be better. “We always had the plan of Treaty Oak becoming more of a national brand. It was my life’s passion, and where I wanted to go.”

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whis k e y pa ir ing s

Dessert, Cigars, and the Art of Indulging with Whiskey

BY G. CLAY WHITTAKER

TERRY ALLEN

A

little over a decade ago, a childhood idol of mine made a profound statement that changed the way a lot of people see the world. His name was Cookie Monster, and in 2004, the overindulger-in-chief of Sesame Street proclaimed that his namesake treat was, in fact, a “sometimes food.”

It was groundbreaking to look into the googly eyes of a blue puppet and see that he’d found a benefit in moderating his intake of one of his favorite things.

My own indulgences tend to self-regulate these days. It’s not that I don’t enjoy whiskey, cigars, and, yes, dessert, but the truly special ones just don’t seem to show up all that often.

Case in point: the now re-released Michter’s Toasted Barrel Bourbon, which had been off the market since 2015 due to low stocks. It’s a well-crafted, finished bourbon, all but perfected in a second toasted-not-charred barrel that adds depth of sweetness and hints of smoke. The first release managed to spend most of its shelf time entirely under the radar, but by this year’s re-release it was being appropriately hyped.

I find these days that it makes the perfect end-of-night bourbon, particularly when paired with crème brûlée.

Crème brûlée also remains a sometimes pleasure. Most of us don’t keep a brûlée torch on hand. I don’t—I reserve this dish for special occasions and nights out. And it makes the perfect whiskey dessert: The burnt sugar and vanilla flavors are classic notes in a well-aged bourbon, and the contrast of creamy softness and hardened brûlée shell makes a nice foil to the whiskey’s sweet and spicy character.

But the pairing goes much deeper than that. With crème brûlée, Toasted Barrel’s more subtle flavors rise to the top: The clove and cinnamon notes take center stage, and the orange peel brightness emerges. You notice more about the grain characters in whiskey when they’re paired with charred sugar.

Of course, these sort of “treat-yo-self” evenings rarely end when the last plate is cleared. Enter one of my favorite

cigars of all time: Tatuaje Vérité Vintage 2009.

Vérité 2009 was a cigar before its time, an estate-grown cigar made entirely of tobacco from the same fields and the same year. As with great wine vintages, those opportunities come once every few years at most.

The Vérité was Tatuaje founder Pete Johnson’s crowning achievement at the time. In the early days of my cigar-tasting career, Vérité was the mostly ignored secret value in New York cigar shops. The salesmen who had given up on selling it picked it frequently as their end-of-shift smoke, usually pairing it with coffee.

I gravitated to bourbon, as I found that the cigar’s earthier, baking-spice-and-leather character emphasized the whiskey’s sweetness.

With Toasted Barrel, it’s a delight. The cigar brings out the bourbon’s corn, citrus, and toffee notes, while becoming more leathery and developing more assertive espresso notes.

Where crème brûlée takes this bourbon low in register, the cigar seems to take it to another octave.

Sadly, the supply has mostly disappeared. Short of the occasional back-corner find made while visiting a new tobacconist, they’ve all but gone from the market.

But in the years since, Johnson has released another vintage: the 2013 Vérité. It’s a bolder cigar, with more pepper notes, but I suspect time will mellow it brilliantly. And it makes the same magic with Michter’s current release, emphasizing those highs and adding its own lows.

Of course, the typically stiff-collared setting where you’d enjoy crème brûlée isn’t the only one where this pairing works. On a recent football weekend I found myself outdoors with a few close friends, feet against a fire pit, roasting marshmallows with glasses of Toasted Barrel and cigars in hand—another of Tatuaje’s leathery, cocoafilled smokes: the Seleccion de Cazador Taino.

I distinctly remember someone saying, “We should do this more often.”

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a day i n t he l if e

Scott Neil

Ret. U.S. Army G reen Beret & American Freedom Distillery Co-founder

BY CARL A CARLTON

T

he U.S. Special Forces veterans behind American Freedom Distillery in St. Petersburg, Florida, have a special bond: They all served in Afghanistan following the events of September 11, 2001. Two of them, Mark Nutsch and Bob Pennington, were among the horse soldiers dispatched immediately following 9/11, whose daring story was told in the 2018 movie 12 Strong.

After the military, the veterans found a new mission: making great whiskey. They visited distilleries all over the world—in Scotland, Ireland, Kentucky—to gather intel on production, aging, and bottling. The bottles for their signature Horse Soldier Bourbon are pressed from molds made from salvaged World Trade Center steel. As they put it, “We’re not just a story—we’re history.”

In June 2019, as Team American Freedom, they participated in the historic 75th anniversary celebration of D-Day, when Allied forces took the beaches of Normandy, by parachuting into drop zones from a C-47 that was used in the invasion. While the official anniversary of D-Day is June 6, the team jumped on June 5 to honor members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) who secretly dropped behind enemy lines in advance to pave the way for the Battle of Normandy.

To make things even more interesting, they jumped with a barrel filled with bottles of Horse Soldier Bourbon (cask strength, of course). We caught up with American Freedom Distillery cofounder Scott Neil, who served 25 years in the Army, 17 of them as a Green Beret, in mid-April as the team was practicing their jump in Palatka, Florida.

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Q: First, thank you for your service. American Freedom has quite a story. Does everyone who works at the distillery have a Special Forces connection?

A: Most of the principals, co-founders, and employees were members of either the Army Special Forces or Army Rangers.

Q: What made you decide to start a distillery?

A: None of us had any experience in distilling. It all came about after several of us took a trip to Yellowstone, riding horseback through the Thorofare, and stopped at a small craft distillery.

We were so captivated we stopped the trip and hit every craft distillery from Yellowstone to Tampa.

Q: Why jump out of a plane with a barrel of bourbon?

A: We have always been on the edge in our previous military lives and have jumped into very unique situations with very unique equipment. We thought: “We make bourbon, we jump,” and like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, we joined the two.

Q: So I guess the barrel has its own chute?

A: The fine folks at the Round Canopy Parachute Team in Palatka, Florida helped rig the chute to the barrel. They were assisted by Army riggers who have rigged thousands of cargo chutes in Afghanistan and Iraq. The plan is to drop the delivery altitude to 500 feet and use jumpmaster techniques to deliver the chute to the middle of the airfield. Of course, we can always tandem-jump the barrel, much like one does with a skydiver.

Q: How are you practicing? Have you lost any barrels to the cause?

A: For some of us, it has been a while since we last jumped on active duty. We had to do jump refresher training and jump twice to become current again. We have been practicing with the C-47 Tico Belle, a historic aviation platform that was originally part of the D-Day invasion. The barrel is full of water, as we didn’t want to waste the bourbon if it broke apart. We first used our Horse Soldier bottles filled with water for a few practice runs. On our first run, we miscalculated the drop zone and it landed in the trees. I guess you could say that Mother Nature and the forest wanted their wood back! For subsequent drops, we dialed everything down, from the altitude to the rigging on the barrel.

On the final jump, we placed Horse Soldier Small Batch bottles in the barrel and successfully dropped it in the middle of the drop zone. We then hosted a Whiskey and War Stories event for over 50 members of the Round Canopy Parachute Team, who will also be jumping into Normandy.

Q: How did you score the use of the Tico Belle?

A: Through the Round Canopy Parachute team. They had introduced us, and we formed a great friendship with the pilot, who was a veteran himself.

ADA M CRUF T

Q: Once you and the barrel are safely on the ground in Normandy, what will happen to the bourbon?

A: That’s actually the easiest part: We will share it with the various celebrations happening around the 75th anniversary events. One could say that we brought Freedom to France— American Freedom, that is.

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What I’m Drinking OFFSTAGE WITH LOCASH

LoCash CHRIS LUCAS & PRESTON BRUST

duo of LoCash, formed in 2004, scraped and clawed to get where they are today. Vocalists Chris Lucas and Preston Brust didn’t think they were going to make it. Then in 2011, when it seemed their career was over, Keith Urban recorded a song they’d written called “You Gonna Fly” that went to number 1, and their lives were forever changed.

LoCash later wrote Tim McGraw’s “Truck Yeah,” another number 1 hit. Now they’re set to play the Hometown Rising Country & Bourbon Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, September 14-15. We caught up with them at H. Clark Distillery in Tennessee.

What They’re in the Mood For Lucas: Oak. I like anything with oak.

Brust: Something good.

What They’re Drinking Weller 12-year-old, once a mainstay bourbon in many households that has turned into an endangered species. It’s hard to find. As we learn, LoCash doesn’t like the cheap stuff anymore.

Tasting Notes Lucas: It smells amazing, like a great bourbon. It connects me to our song, “I Love This Life.” I sit in my bourbon room, crack open a good bourbon, taste it, and think about everything I have worked for.

Brust: Man, that’s got a sweet edge. I’m really connecting with it. Getting my nose in there: I’m going all the way in. I’m tasting what I am smelling, too, which is honey. Honey is jumping out.

When we were playing in bars, you would just drink anything we could take—we didn’t respect bourbon as much. As we learn and grow, we start to respect the taste. If you drink higher-end bourbon, you appreciate it more.

When you get to taste something like this, it’s like savoring a memory. This bottle opens up that well of memories. We just released a new single called “One Big Country Song.” And this is one Big Country Bourbon.

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COURTE SY OF LOC A SH

Like many country music stars, the talented

CMC Rocks Music Festival Australia, March 2019

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Here’s to the pursuit of great bourbon and lasting memories afield.

jeffersonsbourbon.com Please Drink Responsibly

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Bottled by Kentucky Artisan Distiller y for McLain & Kane, Crestwood, KY

BY CHUCK COWDERY

switched my drink of choice from Scotch to bourbon shortly after I moved to Kentucky in 1978. Being in Louisville and in the business, peripherally, on the marketing side, I was aware of efforts to revive the then very moribund bourbon category. Even after I moved to Chicago in 1987, I continued to follow bourbon as a business, in addition to drinking it.

At my first contact with Booker Noe, I didn’t exactly meet him. Then, as now, Jim Beam was run out of Chicago, so naturally some of the earliest events to promote the Small Batch Collection happened there. The Collection consisted of four bourbons: Booker’s, Baker’s, Basil Hayden, and Knob Creek.

Booker, who had just retired as master distiller at the Beam distillery that now bears his name, was beginning his second career as spokesperson for the line.

Shortly after the Collection was launched, I attended a tasting in downtown Chicago at the Hilton. A Beam PR person hosted the event and gave an introduction, then Booker led a tasting of the four bourbons. There were perhaps 30 people in the audience.

After the tasting, they opened the floor for questions.

At one point they had mentioned that Basil Hayden had a different mash bill from the other three, so I asked what the mash bills were. One of the PR people answered very quickly, “Sorry, that’s proprietary information,” then went on to the next question.

About five minutes later, while someone else was speaking, Booker walked over to where I was sitting, bent over, and whispered in my ear: “The Jim Beam mash bill is 75 percent corn, 15 percent rye, and 10 percent malt. The Basil Hayden mash bill, which is Old Grand-Dad, is 60 percent corn, 30 percent rye, and 10 percent malt.”

I quietly said, “Thank you.” He grinned and walked back to the front of the room. That was Booker in a nutshell.

In 1991, when I interviewed him for the documentary Made and Bottled in Kentucky, I had a pretty good idea what I’d be getting. Although we recorded the interview in Booker’s living room, there were several Beam PR people about. At least two of them were recording the interview themselves, on audiocassette recorders. Based on my Chicago experience,

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I knew their efforts to keep Booker “on message” would be futile. Booker refused to be controlled.

The interview went great.

We shot with a small crew, just three of us. After we broke down the lights and put everything away, Booker invited us to join him for drinks in the kitchen. He told us about the time Annis, his wife, made her famous bourbon baked beans using high-proof Booker’s instead of 80-proof Jim Beam White Label, and blew the door off the oven.

In her defense, the bourbon we know today as Booker’s was originally just whiskey he brought home from the distillery for his household use. He would tap a likely barrel and fill a standard Jim Beam 1.75L bottle. It didn’t even have a label on it. The whiskey was, naturally, unfiltered and barrel strength, about 126 proof (63 percent ABV). What we drank that morning (it was about 10:30 a.m.) came from such a bottle, but he gave us each a bottle of “real” Booker’s to take home.

As we were saying our goodbyes, Booker told us to wait another minute and went out through the screen door, across the patio, through the backyard, and into a small brick building on the alley—his smokehouse. He came back with about a yard of his homemade cured and smoked venison sausage for each of us.

Booker was a big man, in height as well as girth. I have a similar physique. When I commented on the resemblance, he put his arm around me and said, “Chuck, you and me are full-grown men.”

I didn’t spend a lot of time with Booker after that. If I saw him at an event, such as the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, he was usually surrounded by adoring fans. I might say Hi, or wave from the back of the crowd. In later years, as the diabetes caught up with him, he stopped traveling, but he would still show up during the Bourbon Festival.

A few years ago, at the Bourbon Classic in Louisville, I was sitting with Joretta and Jimmy Russell, just the three of us, and Jimmy was reminiscing. He talked about how much he missed Booker and Elmer T. Lee, his closest friends in the industry.

They were the original bourbon brand ambassadors. “Road warriors” was Jimmy’s description. They got the great bourbon revival off to a very good start. They were full-grown men.

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back i n the day I

MEMORIES OF BOOKER NOE

There’s a secret to how we make our handmade bourbon.

But we’ve never been good at keeping it.

At the Maker’s Mark Distillery in Loretto, Ky., you can discover all our secrets and more with an up-close, personal tour that includes a chance to dip your own bottle of Maker’s Mark.® Of course, if you like the taste of our bourbon, you’re sure to enjoy the delicious offerings of our on-site restaurant, Star Hill Provisions.® It’s open daily for lunch, so stop in for a bite while you’re at the distillery. We can’t wait to see you here.

WE MAKE OUR BOURBON CAREFULLY. PLEASE ENJOY IT THAT WAY. Maker’s Mark® and Maker’s Mark 46™ Bourbon Whisky, 45% and 47% Alc./Vol. ©2019 Maker’s Mark Distillery, Inc. Loretto, KY

makersmark.com