The New Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage Is Here

In 2003, the Iraq War began, “Chicago” won Best Picture, Tampa won the Super Bowl, and the next release of Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage (EWSBV) was distilled and barreled.

Advance release bottles of the 2003 vintage are making the rounds now and it will start to appear in stores any day. EWSBV rarely disappoints and 2003 is no exception. It’s similar to the 2002, a bit deeper and richer. Easily overlooked because it is so consistently excellent, there is no better way for a bourbon drinker to start the new year.

The EWSBV series began 17 years ago, a remarkable feat in its own right. It anticipated the bourbon renaissance and in a small way probably helped to bring it about. No other producer has done anything quite like it.

Even 17 years on, the concept is innovative and sophisticated. Each year, Heaven Hill bottles, in single barrel format, whiskey distilled nine years before. Although by law age statements just reflect a minimum age, EWSBV dump dates always reflect at least nine years but less than ten in wood, and they put each barrel’s exact fill and dump dates on the label, along with an identifying barrel number.

The idea is that there are slight differences from barrel to barrel within a vintage as well as between vintages, but there is always a family resemblance. As the series evolved it came to represent what Heaven Hill felt was the best of their bourbon output during a given year, a calling card of sorts, a sample of liquid from their vast inventory that possesses all the qualities they feel a first-rate bourbon should have, a benchmark.

Heaven Hill makes many different distilled spirits products for many different tastes, but they began in 1934 as a bourbon maker and have always been a bourbon maker most of all. Because the age of EWSBV is fixed at nine years it will never be their oldest bourbon. Instead it is the bourbon that says, “this is who we are, this is what we’re all about.”

One unique characteristic of Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage is that it is not a limited edition in the usual sense. Instead of making a finite number of bottles, they dump and bottle throughout the year based on how many orders they receive. They can run out theoretically but not practically, and scarcity is not the point as it is with a typical limited edition. This is reflected in, among other things, its modest price. Heaven Hill has always been about value so it makes sense that their signature bourbon is a good one. The suggested retail price is the same as last year, $25.99.

Now is the time to start looking for it at your local whiskey monger. They probably will still have some 2002 on the shelf too. The new vintage typically rolls out during the first two months of the year. Distributors and retailers tend to want the previous vintage to sell through before they release the new one, so if you don’t see the 2003 but see a lot of 2002, that’s probably why.

Since it’s always new without being newsy, the new EWSBV release doesn’t receive a lot of publicity, but it’s consistently one of the year’s most important bourbon releases.

Are You Doing Enough To Help Buffalo Trace Create The Perfect Bourbon?

Well, are you?

If not, your next chance has arrived. This month, Buffalo Trace Distillery (BT) will release the third round of Single Oak Project Bourbon, another case of twelve 375 ml bottles, each containing one of the 192 slightly different bourbons created for this project.

This is round three of sixteen. I first wrote about the project here.

Since the first release, nearly 1,000 consumers have posted feedback on the Single Oak Project website, rating some or all of the barrels they’ve tasted. Wheaters from high wood (the top of the tree) are leading, barrels #61 and #127, specifically.

Through this feedback, BT will determine which very specific characteristics bourbon drinkers like best, with a goal of using that information to create a 'Holy Grail' bourbon. The more people who participate, the more useful the results will be.

It’s a very long-term project.

For each release, BT cleverly compresses the number of variables presented, so while the project looks at seven variables, each 12-bottle release deals with no more than three. Therefore, any two bottles will teach you something cool. You can, for example, taste two whiskeys in which the only variable is barrel entry proof. Everything else is controlled for -- everything -- and you can taste the difference.

Although Single Oak Project Bourbon is sold only in the U.S., BT has recorded web site visitors from 31 countries.

This new release explores recipe, wood grain, and barrel entry proof. You can compare rye-recipe bourbon to wheat-recipe bourbon; and barrel entry proofs of 105° (52.5% ABV) or 125° (62.5% ABV), the legal maximum; as well as barrel wood grain rated as coarse, average, or fine.

The suggested retail price is $46.35 per bottle (375 ml), but some retailers are selling Single Oak by the case only.

You have to admire BT’s audacity, first in postulating that bourbon perfection can be attained, then in launching a project to attain it that will take 20 or more years to complete. Like building a medieval cathedral, it's a project to span generations.

Buffalo Trace On Track To Raise $200,000 For Charity.

Nearly $50,000 has been raised for charity to date through Buffalo Trace Distillery Millennium Barrel auctions. With more than two months and 100 non-profit fundraising events to go, the Distillery hopes to reach its goal of raising $200,000 for charity by the December 31st deadline.

The Millennium Barrel was the last of the twentieth century, filled at Buffalo Trace Distillery on Dec. 31, 1999 and placed in Warehouse V, the world’s smallest bonded aging warehouse, which holds one barrel.

In June of 2011, the company removed the barrel from the warehouse and bottled the whiskey, which yielded 174 bottles. Each Millennium Barrel bottle was packaged in a numbered hardwood showcase box that includes a piece of the historic barrel’s charred oak staves.

Buffalo Trace Distillery then offered all 174 bottles free to non-profit organizations wishing to raise funds for their charity. The only caveat was that the bottles had to be auctioned off by Dec. 31, 2011. Interested parties can check on upcoming charity fundraisers for their chance to obtain this piece of history here.

"Some of these non-profits have found really creative ways to raise money for their organizations," said Kris Comstock, Buffalo Trace Bourbon brand manager.

As an example, Comstock referred to the New York Cares organization that raised $6,255 by offering it as a special door prize only to premier ticket holders to their fundraising event. Several other organizations across the country have upped their dollars raised through similar creative strategies, such as bundling the Millennium Barrel bourbon with other upscale prizes.

"With more than 100 non-profits events still scheduled before the end of the year, we hope to reach our goal of $200,000 for these worthwhile causes," Comstock added.

We Like Single Barrel Bourbons. Here's Why.

I've been telling you about Beam Global's Knob Creek Single Barrel since last July, when it was still a rumor. We had a taste of it with Fred Noe in September. Now it's finally in stores.

In addition to being single barrel, this new Knob Creek expression is 120° proof, which is 60 percent alcohol, whereas regular Knob is 50 percent. That's already high as most straight spirits products are sold at 40 percent.

But that's not our subject today. It's that other thing, 'single barrel.'

You probably know that single barrel is higher quality than something that's not single barrel, but do you know why?

The major American whiskey distilleries each fill between 500 and 1,500 barrels a day. Those barrels go into aging warehouses where they will sit for the next several years. As they fill so shall they dump and the major American whiskey distilleries each empty between 500 and 1,500 barrels a day too.

Modern distilleries produce a very consistent product off the still. All of the whiskey going into the barrels is the same but immediately it starts to change and become different. No two barrels of whiskey age exactly the same way.

There are several reasons for this. First, no two trees are exactly the same. The barrel is very much a natural product and White Oak is the wood of choice because of the favorable way it interacts with the aging spirit. Although most American-made whiskey is aged in Ozark Oak, some use wood from other parts of the country.

Second, no two warehouse locations age exactly the same way. Aging conditions vary according to the location and orientation of the warehouse and the location of the barrel within the warehouse. A barrel near an outside wall, near the top and on the south side will be exposed to a lot more heat, for example, than one in the center on a low floor.

The differences between any two barrels can be great but more often they are small and subtle. Still, producers typically want a consistent product so they mix the contents of hundreds of barrels together in a big tank. This erases those subtle differences. The whiskey being prepared for bottling is then compared to previous batches and if it isn't exactly the same, it is corrected through the addition of whiskey selected for certain characteristics. This is how most whiskey is prepared for bottling.

There is nothing wrong with any of it. People want consistency. They want the bottle of Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 they buy today to taste exactly like the bottle they bought last week or last year.

But back to the whiskey still in the barrel and those subtle differences. Does the existence of those differences mean some barrels taste better than others?

Yes, it does.

Old timers called them "honey barrels." They are exemplars of their type, perfectly balanced. They're rare, but not that rare. Theoretically, a single barrel product isn't necessarily a honey barrel. If single barrels were selected at random you would get the whole range of variation, from worst to best, but they aren't.

With non-single barrel whiskeys, small flaws are erased through dilution and the whole batch can be adjusted to better match the brand profile. With single barrels, once a barrel is selected there is nothing else you can do with it. There is no place to hide. Because of this, there is very little point in doing a single barrel product if you are not going to seek out the very best barrels of a particular vintage -- more than 9 years old in the case of Knob Creek.

With a single barrel whiskey, you get to taste exactly what the distillery's tasters tasted when they selected that barrel, but unlike them you never have to taste a bad one. Although Beam would never put it this way, they essentially cherry-pick the best of the best for single barrel and put the rest into the regular expression.

Another way to look at it is that this is whiskey in its natural state. That is especially true of Knob Creek Single Barrel because of the high proof, which is very close to barrel proof so very little water is added. This is as close to tapping a barrel as you can get.

Although there are many other single barrel bourbons about, Beam is the first to do one on the same platform as the original expression. All this makes Knob Creek Single Barrel a welcome addition.

Knob Creek Single Barrel Still A Rumor, Except In Virginia.

Last month when I was researching the new Jim Beam six-grain bourbon, the folks at Beam hinted that the next new product would be something in the Knob Creek line. Then word came (not from Beam) that a Knob Creek Single Barrel is presently on the shelves in Virginia. From another source (also not from Beam) I learned that Beam has built a single barrel bottling line at the distillery in Clermont, Kentucky.

Also from Kentucky comes a report that retailers there have been offered a Knob Creek Single Barrel but they have to buy the contents of an entire barrel to get it. (That's 200+ bottles.) Several brands offer such a 'buy a barrel" program to retailers. Buffalo Trace has been the leader in this.

With the Buffalo Trace program the retailer gets to pick the barrel, usually from a pre-screened selection of three or four. Beam is not giving retailers that option, at least according to the report from Kentucky. In Virginia, the bottles come with a neck hanger that says the barrel was specially selected for them by Fred Noe.

Beam is unwilling to officially confirm or deny any of this, but it seems increasingly likely that a national roll-out of some kind of Knob Creek Single Barrel is imminent.

Evan Williams Single Barrel Vintage Is Exciting Again.

On Saturday, October 13, Heaven Hill is unveiling its Evan Williams Single Barrel 1998 Vintage at the J. B. Speed Art Museum in Louisville. I don’t know when they announced it but I hear it’s already sold out. The ad on the web site says, "Meet Master Distillers Parker & Craig Beam and noted Bourbon experts." I’m pretty sure I’m one of the noted Bourbon experts.

Heaven Hill does something like this every year. Good for them and that's what’s so great about the vintage concept; each annual release is 'news.' True as that is, it's hard for me to get all worked up about it every year. It's always good whiskey, it's always interesting to compare it to previous releases, but let's just say it's not up there with Christmas.

This year is different. I'm really looking forward to this one, and the one after that, and the one after that, for the next few years. Why? Because Heaven Hill's distillery in Bardstown (DSP-31) was destroyed in a fire in 1996. They don't like to talk about it but I do, because it's bourbon history in the making.

EWSB always has a barrel entry date on the label. Anything entered after November of 1996 isn't DSP-31 bourbon. Some of the 1996 and all of the 1997 is whiskey made at Jim Beam to Heaven Hill's specifications and supervised by Parker and Craig Beam (P&C). Subsequently, Brown-Forman also made whiskey for them, supervised by P&C, etc. Sometime in 1999 they began producing in their new home, the Bernheim facility in Louisville, but it took maybe another year or more before P&C got the operation there the way they wanted it. Because Heaven Hill needs more whiskey than Bernheim alone can produce, they have continued to use Brown-Forman’s plant in Shively too, so who knows where the next EWSB was made. That's why these next few years of EWSB will be so interesting. They will be the only legacy of the '96 fire that you can taste and take home with you.

What we're going to see or, rather, taste is a transition. Heaven Hill has pretty much committed to making EWSB represent the best single-barrel whiskey they can produce in nine years. Each year the pool changes but the criteria doesn’t. You expected them to clear the bar every year at DSP-31 after they got this thing going. With DSP-31 out of the picture and not one but possibly three different distilleries in the mix, it starts to get interesting again.

There seems to be nothing to be concerned about, as the 1997 is good and perhaps superior to some of the last DSP-31 vintages (though '94 is still the one to beat). I'm looking forward to tasting the new one next month, much more so than I have looked forward to it in years. Heaven Hill was good about telling us that the 1997 was made at Beam and I expect they will be equally forthcoming about this and subsequent vintages.

I’ll let you know what I think after October 13.