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Maker’s Mark Distillery Visit 2012

This spring I visited the Maker's Mark distillery, along with seven other American whiskey distilleries in Kentucky and Tennessee. I had previously been to Maker's Mark and wrote about my visit here. As you'll read, I learned a lot of different stuff on this trip.

Maker's Mark uses a mashbill of 70% corn, 16% soft red winter wheat, and 14% malted barley. Bourbon must be a minimum of 51% corn but 70+ is normal. Malted barley is always used to aid in fermentation, and the remaining percent is usually made of up rye or wheat, more often rye.

At Maker's they prepare the grains a little differently than at other distilleries. They use a roller mill to crunch up the grains, rather than a hammer mill. This cracks the husk of the wheat but leaves it intact. The husks do go into the boiler with the other grains, but they boil it at a relatively low temperature so it won't break down and become available to the yeast for fermentation. They also cook their grains (to prepare them for fermentation) in an open-topped cookers, rather than pressure cooking them.

The grains are then fermented with yeast for three days.

The fermented grains are then distilled, up to 120 proof in the column still, and then up to 130 in the doubler. We smelled the two distillates: The first was very oily and minerally. After the second distillation it smelled fruity and light, like a typical white dog.

They put the new spirit into barrels at 110 proof. Most of the warehouses for Maker's Mark at six storeys tall. They are the only bourbon distillery that rotates all of their barrels throughout the aging process. Barrels are first racked on the top floors, then moved after two years and then moved lower again after another two.

Maker's 46, a new bourbon from Maker's Mark, begins as the same distillate, aged for the same amount of time. It is then aged an additional 8-11 weeks in barrels with 10 seared French oak staves in the barrels. They do this only in the winter, as that way the liquid sucks flavor out of the staves rather than sucking liquid into the wood of the staves as it would do in the hotter months of summer. I think the final product tastes like wood-spiced Maker's Mark- pretty tasty.

Visiting Maker's Mark

Free tours are available. Check the Maker's Mark website for more information.

July 6, 2012
Woodford Reserve Distillery Visit

This spring I visited eight American whiskey distilleries, including Woodford Reserve.

Woodford Reserve's distillery is in a charming setting, nestled down next to a stream in a little valley. The distillery is in a grey stone building dating to 1838, though everything inside it is new. Like most American whiskey distilleries, it changed names and owners many times over the years, changing to the Woodford Reserve distillery in 2004.

Woodford Reserve is made from a mashbill of 72% corn, 18% rye, and 10% malted barley. They use limestone-filtered well water to ferment the grains in Cyprus wood fermentation vats. They ferment for six days – quite a long time. The fermenting grains taste very sour, kind of like sour green beer.

The sour mash process is where you take leftover grains that have been fermented back into the new batch of grains that are going to be fermented. Here at Woodford Reserve, they "sour in the cook" as opposed to souring in the fermenter. That means they add the last batch's spent grains to the new grains when it is being cooked, previous to when yeast is added for fermentation. Sour mash is known for keeping consistency between batches, but also it is acidic and helps reduce bacteria in the new batch.

Woodford Reserve is unique in that they make a portion of their whiskey in pot stills. The stills look much as they do in Scotland, but here there are three of them. In Scotland, after the grains have fermented they separate out the grain solids from the sugary beer and only distill the liquids. In bourbon, solids and liquids are put together into the column still. So at Woodford Reserve, they put solids and liquids into the first pot still and distill it only up to 20 percent alcohol. For the most part they are just separating out the solids in this step, taking care not to burn them into the inside of the still.

The second and third distillations bring the alcohol up to 55 percent and 78 percent (this is just under the legal limit of 80 percent maximum distillation percent for bourbon), and then it is put into barrels. The spirit goes into the barrels at 55 percent alcohol.

The rickhouses for the aging spirits are heated for Woodford Reserve. They put a temperature sensor in a barrel on the ground level. When it reaches 60 degrees Fahrenheit, they heat the warehouse until the spirit reaches 85 degrees and then turn off the heat. This makes for faster cycles of the spirit moving in and out of the barrel wood.

Woodford Reserve is aged for an average of 7.3 years, and when they take it out of the barrel, they've lost about 50% of the whiskey to evaporation.

After aging, the pot distilled spirit is blended with column distilled spirit (distilled elsewhere) to make the final bottling blend. They do not say at which ratio these two spirits are blended for the bottle (and they didn't mention the column spirit at all until it came up in conversation), but say that it changes depending on flavor.

Visiting Woodford Reserve

Tours of the Woodford Reserve distillery cost $7. It is the most visited distillery on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, despite the fact that they only sell 165,000 cases of bourbon annually- a tiny fraction of what Jim Beam sells. For more information, visit the Woodford Reserve website.

June 29, 2012
Best Business Bars in Entrepreneur Magazine

I contributed a few write-ups to Entrepreneur Magazine's annual Best Business Bars story. It is the July issue, hitting newsstands now.

I wrote about Azucar Lounge in San Francisco, Drago Centro in Los Angeles, and ROOF at TheWit in Chicago.

Pick it up at the newsstand or read it online here.

June 27, 2012
Wild Turkey Distillery Visit

This spring I visited eight American whiskey distilleries, including Wild Turkey.

The Wild Turkey brand has been around a while, but the current distillery is just three years old, having moved across the street from the old one. It's clean, modern, and spacious.

Wild Turkey uses all non-GMO grains in their bourbon and rye, but they don't tell us their specific mashbill. Despite having several products (Russell's Reserve, Rare Breed, etc.) there is just one mashbill for their bourbon, and another one for their ryes.

They ferment the grains for three days before distillation.

The bourbon is distilled up to 115 proof in the 48-foot tall column still, and then up to 125 proof in the doubler, which acts like a pot still.

In column distillation, there are actually heads and tails, but they only appear when you first turn on the still (heads) and when you turn it off (tails). However, you can just add these back into the column when you start it up again, so there really is no middle cut from the column still.

The rickhouses for Wild Turkey are 7 storeys tall, and they have a total inventory of about 480,000 barrels. The barrels have a #4 char.

Wild Turkey was recently purchased by Campari. Previously it was owned by Pernod-Ricard, and in the deal of the sale Pernod-Ricard still gets to buy 90% of their used barrels for the next 10 years. I'm guessing all those barrels go to Jameson.

They have just released Wild Turkey 81 Rye. It is 81 proof. They have a 101 proof rye, but it was sold out already for the year back in April.

Visiting Wild Turkey

Free tours are available, and visitors do get tasting samples. Visit WildTukey.com for more information.

June 22, 2012
Jack Daniel’s Distillery Visit

This spring I toured eight American whisky distilleries, including Jack Daniel's.

As you'd expect, Jack Daniel's is a huge operation with a very slick tour. You start with a video at the visitors' center, then take a shuttle up to the top of the hill. There, they burn sugar maple wood into charcoal for the Lincoln County Process, in which newly-distilled spirit is filtered through charcaol before barrel aging. They weren't burning wood on the day I visited, so no bonfire for me.

Then we visited the cave spring where they get the water to ferment the grains before distilling, and then into Jack's old office. We saw the safe that killed Jack Daniel – he kicked it out of frustration one day and the injury caught gangrene and it eventually killed him.

The mashbill for Jack Daniel's is 80% corn, 8% rye, and 12% malted barley. The corn is #1 yellow corn. They say with a higher corn amount, you need a higher malted barley amount to help ferment it. They have 56 fermentation vats on-site that hold 40,000 gallons apiece. Fermentation lasts for 6 days – quite a long time. It reaches 11-12 percent alcohol after fermentation.

There are four distillation columns, all made of copper, and needing to be replaced every 9 or 10 years. (The whisky is only distilled in one of them, not all four. They just have four because they make so much whiskey.) Unlike most bourbon, there is no second distillation in a "thumper" or "doubler." They distill the whisky up to 140 proof (160 is the legal limit).

Then the whiskey goes through the Lincoln County Process. There are 72 vats, each filled with a ten foot layer of sugar maple charcoal. The whiskey is sprayed on the top of the vats and it slowly drips down through the charcoal, taking about 4-6 days to get all the way through. The charcoal in each vat is replaced every 4-5 months.

This is in contrast to George Dickel, the other major Tennessee whiskey, where they fill the vats up with charcoal and spirit, let it sit a week, and then drain the whole thing.

They say the charcoal filtering removes 80 percent of hte oils and impurities from the distillate. Gentleman Jack is filtered through charcoal a second time at bottling, through a thinner layer of charcoal.

The whiskey is aged in their 81 warehouses spread throughout the region. Barrels are "quarter-sawn American oak" with a #4 char. It takes one 60 year-old tree to make one barrel. On the plus side, there is extra wood left over from the tree for other things, and many barrels are reused after aging American whiskey to age other spirits for more than 60 years apiece.

The barrels are first toasted and then charred at their own cooperage, the Brown-Forman Cooperage.

Last year they sold 10.23 million cases of Jack.

Master Distiller Jeff Arnett describes the taste of Jack as "Sweet and oakey," as opposed to the "bold and spicy" of other American whiskies. We tasted Jack before it goes through the Lincoln County Process – it was noticeably oilier and grainier than it is afterward. Arnett says that the Lincoln County Process "removes the bitterness associated with the grain bill."

The Jack Daniel's Single Barrel bottlings always come from the top (hottest, most wood-influenced) floors of the rickhouse, while the Green Label comes from the ground floor.

Visiting Jack Daniel's

Contrary to popular belief, there are some tours where you're allowed to taste whiskey at Jack Daniel's. Those cost $10.

Though they don't really sell whiskey at the gift shop, they do sell "commemorative bottles" full of whiskey.

Visitor information is on the website here.

June 15, 2012
Distillery Visit: George Dickel

This spring I visited the George Dickel distillery, located in Cascade Hollow, Tennessee.

Dickel and Jack Daniel's are the two defining Tennessee whiskies: both employ the "Lincoln County Process" of running the new spirit through 10+ feet of charcoal before it is aged. Contrary to popular belief, this is not a requirement of Tennessee whisky, as Tennessee whisky is not its own category by US law. By putting "Tennessee" on the label it must be made in Tennessee, but beyond that Dickel and Daniel's meet all the requirements for bourbon.

In 1870, George Dickel founded the distillery, originally called Cascade Whisky, and it was renamed by his wife after Dickel died. Prohibition came early to Tennessee, so in 1911 the distillery moved to Kentucky, then closed during national Prohibition. Twenty years after Prohibition the distillery was rebuilt about half a mile from its original location.

The mashbill for Dickel bourbon is 84% corn, 8% rye, and 8% malted barley. All bourbon uses a majority of corn, malted barley to aid in fermentation, and a minority of either wheat or rye. At Dickel it is a pretty high percentage of corn for a sweeter tasting whiskey.

Most of the corn used for George Dickel is local, and the rye and barley comes from North Dakota. They distill here four days each week currently, so they have the capacity to make a lot more bourbon than they currently do.

The grains, which are cooked to make them easier to ferment, ferment with yeast for three or four days before they are distilled. The still is 42 inches in diameter and is three storeys tall. In a column still, the fermented mash (the grain solids and the liquids, unlike in scotch whisky where only the liquids are distilled) goes in near the top of the column. During distillation the alcohol comes out the top of the still and everything else goes out the bottom.

Most bourbons (but not Jack Daniel's) undergo a second distillation in either a "thumper" or "doubler." This second distillation acts like a pot still, so they say. Doublers are more common, and used here at George Dickel.

Originally Dickel distilled whiskey in the winter as they said it tasted best then. To mock that, the newly-distilled whisky is chilled to 40 degrees Fahrenheit before it is added to vats of sugar maple charcoal for the Lincoln County Process.

While at Jack Daniel's the whiskey is continuously dripped through a huge vat of charcoal and collected at the bottom, at Dickel the chilled distillate fills up the tank with the charcoal and sits together for about a week before it is drained. They have to refill the charcoal in each vat every 12-18 months.

The first distillation reaches 115 proof. The second distillation brings it up to 135 proof (160 is the legal limit). Though they can put whiskey in the barrel at up to 125 proof, at Dickel they store it at 115. The whiskey is aged in new American oak barrels with a char #4 on the staves and char #2 on the barrel heads.

As is common in American whiskey, the barrel warehouses (rickhouses) are not located right at the distillery, but are scattered about the hilltops nearby. This way they can take advantage of the cooling winds that blow through. Dickel has about 150,000 barrels of whiskey aging today.

Dickels rickhouses are all one storey structures. (Four Roses also uses one storey rickhouses but six storeys is the norm.) With one storey warehouses, there is less temperature differential between barrels aging at the top of the warehouse (those will be the hottest and get the most wood influence the fastest) and the bottom of the warehouse (where whiskey ages relatively slowly).

The angel's share, the amount of alcohol that evaporates from the barrels during storage, is 5 percent the first year and 3 percent each year after.

After aging, the whiskey is run though a paper filter to remove any charcoal bits before bottling.

Visiting George Dickel

Last year 17,000 visitors came through the distillery. The tour is free, but unfortunately there is no whiskey tasting as part of it. Visitors can buy bottles but can't drink them on site. For more information, visit Dickel.com.

June 8, 2012
Summer Whisky Cocktails in Whisky Advocate Magazine
Holy Smokes! They put my story on Summer Whisky Cocktails on the cover of Whisky Advocate Magazine!

Inside it's 7 pages of deliciousness, with recipes brought to you by:
- Alan Akwai
- Brendan Dorr
- Jon Santer
- David Delaney, Jr.
- Larry Rice
- Sam Ross
- Kevin Diedrich
- Kevin Kelpe
- Mike Ryan
There are swizzles and punches and highballs and bucks and smoky drinks! Run screaming to your local newsstand and pick up the Summer 2012 issue of Whisky Advocate today!
June 6, 2012
When Pot Distilled Whiskey Is Not Pot Still Whiskey

What is pot still whiskey?

The obvious answer is "whiskey that's made in a pot still," but apparently that's not true if you're in Ireland.

I was on a trip recently with whiskey writer/expert/class clown/author Dominic Roskrow and was showing off my sexy Irish whiskey distillery diagram, when he called me out on it. He said that the Cooley distillery makes no pot still whiskey.

"But they have pot stills in which they make whiskey, so obviously they make pot still whiskey," I said. It went back and forth for a few days, but the argument comes down to this:

In Ireland, "pure pot still" whiskey has long meant whiskey distilled from a combination of malted and unmalted barley. Thus "pot still Irish whiskey" doesn't tell us the type of still used to make it; it tells us the barley blend used. They claim if you distill another type of whiskey in a pot still (such as all-malted barley) in Ireland it is not pot still Irish whiskey.

That's like a basketball player arguing that an soccer ball is not a ball because it's not a basketball.

But apparently there is no use arguing logic in Ireland… so let's look at the law.

In his efforts to prove me wrong, Roskrow turned to someone with even more expertise in Irish whiskey, Peter Mulryan. Mulryan filled us in on how they've changed the legal definition to fit their local definition of pot still Irish whiskey. Mulryan wrote in an email:

Until very recently there was no legal definition of what constituted a Pot Still Irish whiskey, this allowed John Teeling [of Cooley distillery] to say that his single malt was a pot still whiskey, as it was distilled in a pot still. This was of course nonsense, as the traditional industry definition of a pot still whiskey has nothing to do with the distillation process itself; it was and is, all about the mash. A pot still whiskey is made from a COMBINATION of both malted and unmalted barley. Simple.

The industry and the Irish Government have recently clarified this new definition and it is now certified by the EU, John Teeling has backed down and he too now endorses this new legal status. At the same time the word 'Pure' was dropped from packaging, as the word had no standing in law, it was replaced by the word 'Single', this now appears on all Irish Distillers bottlings and literature.

So from the start of 2012 a single pot still Irish whiskey is one made on the island of Ireland, from a mash of malted and unmalted barely, which has been matured for at least three years in oak. However that was always accepted as the norm, the law simply enforces best practice.

But here's the thing: in order to conform to international standards, they had to drop the word "pure" from "pure pot still Irish whiskey." So apparently you can't just completely make things up in Ireland after all!

It's just too bad their also-historically-accurate-but-logically-nonsensical definition of "pot still" made it through legislation.

May 29, 2012
A Few Thousand Words on the Aviation, In German

In the current issue of Mixology Magazine, the premier German-language bartending magazine, I have a big story about the Aviation cocktail.

It covers a bunch of the history of the cocktail – how it originally had creme de violette and then the recipe was probably copied incorrectly and it was not made the right way again for decades. (I wrote a brief blog entry about that here.)

Then it delves into bartenders' preferred types of gins, maraschino liqueurs, and creme de violette, plus a whole bunch of variations on the cocktail. It includes recipes from Sierra Zimei, Humberto Marques, Brendan Dorr, Jacob Grier, and Olivier Jacobs.

It doesn't appear to be online yet, so I hope you German-reading print subscribers will enjoy it.

May 28, 2012
Another Commercial Clear Ice Cube Tray

As you may recall, through much experimentation I figured out a way to make clear ice at home.

I later found an ice cube tray that uses the same principle (controlling direction of freezing) to make clear ice.

And now someone just pointed me to another ice cube tray that also uses the same principle (and has the same name as the last one). The Polar Ice Crystal Clear Ice Cube Tray is more compact than the other model, but it makes just one big cube at a time.

Like the other model, this is an insulated container with a tray inside. The interior tray is perforated, so all the cloudy parts of the ice are frozen beneath the perforation and you chop it off after it's frozen.

This one costs $18.99. More info is here.

An index of all of the ice experiments on Alcademics can be found here.

May 28, 2012