New American Spirit Made the Old-Fashioned Way
By Morris Dye
When Brown-Forman, the Kentucky-based beverage conglomerate behind such well-known brands as Jack Daniel's, Southern Comfort and Canadian Mist, set out to raise the bar on sagging sales of bourbon whiskey in the early 1990s, the greatest obstacle it faced was a problem of perception.
Virtually all the big names in premium whiskey hailed from the British Isles, and although Kentucky bourbon did have its devotees, this all-American liquor was widely regarded as a lesser deity in the global pantheon of distilled spirits.
Master distiller Lincoln Henderson hoped to change all that by crafting a product that would be considered not just a great bourbon, but a great whiskey, period.
"We wanted people to realize that bourbon whiskey is every bit as much a world-class spirit as the whiskeys from across the ocean," Henderson says.
Woodford Reserve, the small-batch premium bourbon Henderson and his colleagues unveiled in 1996, has since become one of the fastest-growing whiskey brands in America, with sales surpassing 50,000 cases in 2003. Its smooth yet complex character has earned widespread acclaim, along with multiple gold medals at the International Wine and Spirit Competition and the International Spirit Challenge, both held in London, and the World Spirits Competition in San Francisco.
"We have a brand now that can compete on a level playing field with the single-malt scotches, and even the high-end Johnny Walker Black," says Wayne Rose, global brand manager for Brown-Forman. "Bourbon is now seen as a category that has some cachet, and we think a lot of that is driven by brands like Woodford Reserve."
By law, any spirit labeled as bourbon whiskey must be distilled in the United States from fermented grain mash comprised of at least 51 percent corn, and aged a minimum of two years in charred new oak barrels. Most of the rich flavors and aromas characteristic of bourbon come from the wood itself, and from a thin layer of char coating the inside of each barrel. The unpredictable nature of the aging process means that no two barrels come out tasting exactly alike, and a small percentage of barrels in any given batch, known as "honey barrels," will produce exceptionally good results.
For the initial bottlings of Woodford Reserve, which currently retails for about $30 per 750-milliliter bottle, Henderson selected honey barrels from the existing bourbon stock at a Brown-Forman distillery in Jefferson County, Ky. Meanwhile, the company restored the historic Labrot & Graham Distillery in Woodford County, Ky., and outfitted it for small-batch production of Woodford Reserve made the old-fashioned way.
"We decided to go back and make whiskey essentially the way it was made in the early 19th century," Henderson says. That meant using cypress-wood tubs to ferment the grain, distilling it in copper pot stills imported from Scotland and aging the whiskey in stone warehouses that allow seasonal temperature fluctuations to aid in maturation.
The first batches of bourbon produced at this showcase distillery reached maturity last April and are now part of the Woodford Reserve "mingle," which continues to include handpicked honey barrels from Brown-Forman's Jefferson County facility.
"As we were selecting the honey-barrel character for Woodford Reserve," Rose says, "we were also producing whiskey in the pot stills that replicated that flavor, so we were able to maintain the flavor profile."
To savor the full spectrum of flavors in bourbon, Henderson recommends pouring it over ice and allowing it to sit for a few minutes until the ice begins to melt.
However, Rose insists that there's really no right or wrong way to drink it.
"There is nothing so special about Woodford Reserve that says it's sacrilege to put Coke in it," Rose says "Another way that we've had particular fun and success with Woodford Reserve is as an infusion drink. People are soaking maraschino cherries in it, and after a few days, the cherries give it a nice, pleasant flavor. Put that into a Manhattan and it makes the best Manhattan you ever had."
For information about free public tours of the Labrot & Graham/Woodford Reserve Distillery, see www.woodfordreserve.com.
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