Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2022 i American Whiskey Magazine

It’s a growing trend that may have started in 2007 when Brown-Forman master distiller Chris Morris decided to try something new for that year’s release of his annual, limited Woodford Reserve Master’s Collection. The Seasoned Oak Finish expression utilized a small batch of Woodford that had been matured as usual, typically six to seven years, and then transferred to a second barrel for additional aging. Morris went on to explain that the second barrel had an important difference from the original. The oak was allowed to season longer with a specific purpose in mind. “The natural drying of rough oak stave wood in preparation for coopering is called ‘seasoning’. During the seasoning process, several changes occur in the wood. Tannins are lost as rain, snow, or applied irrigation ‘rinses’ the…

Science is only now beginning to explain what tradition has taught generations: if you leave a whiskey in a barrel for years, or decades, under certain conditions, when you come back it will most likely taste better. What happens in the barrel is somewhat known, but always a mystery. Two barrels that come off the cooper’s line right next to each other, filled with the same batch of new make, sitting next to each other in the rickhouse, may have very different characters. The thousands of variables affecting spirit maturation test the complexity of what science can explain. Maturation happens in two phases: extractive and reactive. In the US, the minute new make enters the barrel, you can call it whiskey. It also starts contracting wood flavors that very same…

The concept of independent bottling is one that can often cause a slightly quizzical look to fall across the faces of those learning about it – I can say this with confidence, as I was one such person back in the day. Simply put, the bottler in question hand selects casks from distilleries far and wide, then bottles them under its own name and tells their story. Lost Lantern is one such independent bottler that is shining a light on the way we think about this section of the whiskey world. By hunting down whiskeys that lovers of the spirit are yet to discover, the founders are telling a story through flavor. But who are these adventurous folk? They are two people who created something wonderful that they wished already…

It has been nine decades since distilled spirits supplier Heaven Hill first operated a distillery in Bardstown, and now the company is deepening its roots in its home community again. Heaven Hill Distillery has unveiled its plans for a new $135 million distillery, set to open by 2024 in Bardstown. The state-of-the-art distillery will augment Heaven Hill’s distilling capacity in order to meet the increased global whiskey demand, while also making its return to distilling in Bardstown since the 1996 fire. After the fire, in which Heaven Hill lost its onsite distillery, seven rickhouses, and almost 100,000 barrels of whiskey, the company’s distilling moved to the historic Bernheim Distillery in Louisville. Meanwhile, bottling, aging of whiskey and other functions continued in the Bardstown area. “The people of Bardstown have helped…

The Land of Enchantment has wooed many to its arid, colorful, and some say spiritual landscape of the Southwest portion of the United States. I myself was wooed by what seemed like a mysterious and enigmatic destination, after growing up on the East Coast of the US and criss-crossing this country several times, stopping to survey the beauty of the Mojave Desert and the soul-changing cave paintings and spectacular majesty of the Grand Canyon. The desert can be an inspiration, and those that have found a connection to it speak of magic. So, I wondered to myself, what are distilleries in these areas producing? Are they as unique as the landscape around them? Are they similar to the hidden gems of colorful cactus flowers and glints of turquoise hidden in…

Making cigars is about much more than just rolling up some tobacco leaves. Blenders work painstakingly to achieve desired flavor profiles using tobaccos grown from different seed stocks and in different regions that have been cured in various ways. Much like master blenders in the whiskey world, with barrels of whiskey, cigar blenders aim to create the best possible product using the leaves available to them. Cigar blenders have to consider a number of factors. If the filler tobaccos have too many leaves, air will not be able to pass through the cigar. Binder leaves can add to the overall flavor of the cigar on top of their primary job of holding the filler tobaccos together. Wrapper leaves are typically the predominant flavor profile in the cigar, but many modern…

There has been a proliferation of barrel finishes and stave finishes in the last five years. Oftentimes it comes from newer brands trying to stand apart from the crowd with new and innovative flavor profiles, but even the heritage distillers are getting in on the action. While these envelope-pushing flavor profiles seemed to pop up overnight, they were the result of decades of research. For Andrew Wiehebrink at Independent Stave Company (ISC), this research is his daily life. “[Independent Stave Company] has been doing this research for probably about 20 years,” explains Wiehebrink. “They had concentrated on just the regular charred barrels, which they had down pat, and I’ve been doing this specific research almost non-stop for about six years now.” The research Wiehebrink is referring to delves into not…

BOURBON IS MY COMFORT FOOD: THE BOURBON WOMEN GUIDE TO FANTASTIC COCKTAILS AT HOME by Heather Wibbels. 2022, The University Press of Kentucky, $27.95 Author Heather Wibbels has combined her passion and expertise for making cocktails with an accomplished photographer’s eye to produce a stunning book. Bourbon is my Comfort Food was inspired by the 10th anniversary of the Bourbon Women Association, an educational whiskey appreciation society. The book celebrates the variety and history of Bourbon and rye cocktails, complete with Wibbels’s color-saturated, full-page photos of her and some guest contributors’ creations, among them cocktails from Bourbon Women board members, branch members, and winners of the organization’s annual Not Your Pink Drink contest. Covering all kinds of bar basics, including equipment and glassware, and the classic Bourbon cocktails, the book…

As part of the distillery’s exploration of malted rye, New Riff recently unveiled its experimentation with sherry finishing. The limited-edition Sherry Finished Malted Rye Whiskey is bottled at barrel strength and without chill filtration, and has been secondarily aged in oloroso and Pedro Ximénez sherry casks. The latest foray into the distillery’s malted rye whiskey exploration was made available in May this year. “Last year we released our Malted Rye Whiskey, and experiencing its remarkably elegant, sophisticated character gave us another idea,” said co-founder Jay Erisman. “We think of it as a malt whiskey first and a rye whiskey second, which raised the question: what would happen if we treated it like other malt whiskeys and aged it in sherry casks?” New Riff’s first batches of 100 per cent malted…

The Manhattan is a classic whiskey cocktail, ranking right up there in terms of popularity with the Old Fashioned. Both cocktails are simple to make, even for home bartenders, but it’s also easier to mess up than you might think. The most common mistake is not measuring ingredients, but even pairing the right whiskey with the right vermouth and bitters can prove to be a challenge. Now, thanks in part to social distancing, beverage companies are creating ready-to-drink, or RTD, versions of cocktails tailored to the at-home cocktail enthusiasts. These aren’t the malt beverages of yesteryear, either – they are real cocktails with all the guesswork taken out. “There’s no denying that the rise of the at-home drinking occasion over the last two years has lent itself to the growth…

Oh that’s a story,” said Gabe RiCharde, spirits manager at Balcones, when asked about the first barrels the distillery filled. Long story short, they found out their cooper was buying barrels from Mexico, and they went directly to the source for five-gallon barrels. “They were taking full-sized barrels, shaving down the toast and char layer and making a new barrel, but what we realized was that this oak was really, really old. We were getting barrels that were made to age Kentucky Bourbon, then travelled to Mexico to age Tequila, then were used again to age Mexican brandy. Then, those barrels were stripped and made into a new barrel. Basically, the wood was seasoned as hell.” It’s no wonder that Baby Blue, the original Texas whiskey, initially had a bit…

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