A Flat Chunk of History

History lies deep, back in this hollow.

Labrot & Graham sits by the banks of Glenn's Creek, a shallow, broad stream that splashes over reefs of limestone. This branch of the creek was home to a number of distilleries back in the days, some pretty small and crude in the beginning. The thrilling thing for me is that this is where Dr. James Crow -- the celebrated namesake of Old Crow -- perfected the art and science of sour mash whiskey making.

Not a lot about bourbon history can be exactly pinpointed. We don't really know who first charred the barrels, or who first distilled with corn, or who first distilled in Kentucky. There's lots of stories, but facts are scarce on the ground. Crow's hard-nosed experimentation (he was a physician and kitchen chemist) on sour mash techniques is well-documented, and it happened here.

There has been a distillery on this site, off and on, since 1812. Just last year the site was named a National Historic Landmark, and rightly so. But that's not the only thing that makes L&G unique for the bourbon lover.

Labrot & Graham uses three pot stills (and only pot stills) to make their whiskey. Other bourbon distillers use more efficient column, or continuous stills. L&G also uses the only remaining stone warehouses to age their whiskey. It's fascinating, intriguing, almost experimental stuff.

All of which has next to nothing to do with Woodford Reserve. The whiskey distilled in Labrot & Graham's pot stills won't be ready for sale until next year at the earliest. Woodford Reserve, which is bottled at L&G, is blended from specially selected barrels of whiskey that may otherwise have been labeled as Old Forester. Brown-Forman wanted very badly to restore and operate this beautiful old distillery, but they also wanted product immediately, so they created a flavor profile and pulled barrels of whiskey to blend for that profile.

This does not make Woodford Reserve "re-bottled Old Forester," as some have suggested. This kind of selective blending takes place all the time, and is, in bourbon distilling, a wholly legitimate way of creating new bourbons. After all, the Jim Beam Small Batch whiskies all come from only two different mashbills. It's all in the aging.

What has this aging done for Woodford Reserve? Ohhh, good things. Good things. I'm rolling a copita glass of it in my hands now, and good things are filling the air. Sweet, rich corn, some smoky maple, some hints of vanilla, and a touch of astringent dryness in the background.

Taste and test. Zing! There's some spicy heat up front, must be some rye in this booger. Much drier than expected, and light on the tongue, this is one that zips rather than sips. The flash goes on like a long split-shimmer of lightning... but the thunder never comes. Instead there is a long, calm finish, brittle-sweet and delicately minty.

I love Woodford in juleps. The WHAM! cuts through the chill of the shaved ice and the frosted cup, the long gentle whooooooshshshsh complements and embraces the mint. It's great sipping whiskey, too, and... I have to admit, it makes a great mixed drink, having had a Woodford sour forced on me (and having liked it so much I asked for another!). If you do such a thing, do it right: make a sour, don't use a mix. Try this recipe:

2.5 oz. Woodford Reserve
1.5 oz. FRESH lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon superfine sugar

Combine in a shaker glass with ice. Shake well, strain into sour glass, garnish with orange slice and maraschino cherry. (This is from Gary and Mardee Regan's excellent The Book of Bourbon, and it's a real drink indeed.)

What's going to happen when triple-still whiskey starts coming out of the warehouse? Well, no one really knows. Will they be able to pull a profile out of this stuff that will taste like Woodford Reserve? If not, what's the point? (Other than the obvious high-end sales.) It's hard to say what will happen.

At this point no one knows except Brown-Forman, and they aren't talking; believe me, we've asked. Linc Henderson and Dave Scheurich did drop some hints about some "secret projects" when I talked to them at last year's Kentucky Bourbon Festival, and one of the projects involves a four-grain whiskey, one distilled from a mash of corn, malted barley, rye, and wheat. Different stuff coming (and Buffalo Trace is working on some even wilder ideas... but epinions apparently doesn't know they exist, so sorry!), and we'll see it all in the next three years or so.

Maybe history will be made again on the banks of Glenn's Creek.



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