Getting It Right the First Time

Finished last night after I got home from the Marty Stuart concert in Skokie.

I have a running joke with another writer on the whiskey beat. When we contrast our experiences with producers, she inevitably quips, "yes, but you're Chuck Cowdery."

That I am Chuck Cowdery is undeniable and one of the few privileges of being Chuck Cowdery is that I receive a lot of whiskey, unsolicited. I get so much that boxes may sit, unopened, for months. 

I write very few reviews. I don't find them useful, for me to write or for anyone to read. I especially don't review limited editions because they're usually so limited, or so costly, most people who read the review will never get to try them. What's the point?

Which brings me to the bottle pictured above. I have a long history with the Western Kentucky distillery now known as Jackson Purchase. I'm going to go into some of that history in a minute, but let's get to that empty bottle pictured above.

Most times, when bottles I receive are opened, I drink a little and move on to something else. Many of the samples I receive are in 200 ml bottles, or smaller. Even a lot of those don't get emptied, or I use them in cocktails. 

The point is, I have to really like something to finish a 750ml bottle of it, and I really like this Jackson Purchase bourbon. What is exceptional about it is this. It's not exceptional. No exotic finishes, fancy blends, or unique mash bills. It is a standard, rye-recipe bourbon. The only unusual thing about this release is the proof, 117.8° (58.9% ABV).

But being unexceptional makes it exceptional because this is the distillery's first release. They got it right the first time. Craig Beam is the master distiller at Jackson Purchase. His former employer, Heaven Hill, puts out whiskey this good every day, but they've been doing it for nearly a century. For most new distilleries, their first release is a little rough, a bit too young, or too harsh, or simply rough around the edges. It might be perfectly good whiskey and, hopefully, worth the price, but it's not everything it could be and probably will be when the distillery has a few years under its belt. 

The "wow" here is that they got it right, right out of the box.

So, now, some of that history.

Fulton County is as far west as Kentucky goes. It hugs the Tennessee border on one side and the Mississippi River on the other. Hickman is the county seat. It hosts about 2,500 souls. Just outside of Hickman is the distillery. It gradually emerged from a corn field beginning in about 2006. The glass-fronted still house is illuminated at night. 

Back then it was called the Fulton County Distillery. It was built by W. Ray Jamieson, a successful Memphis attorney. When I first wrote about it in 2016, I noted that although Jamieson was not a young man, he seemed in no hurry to finish his distillery. At that time it was more or less complete. He had retained the services of two Wild Turkey retirees, Curtis Smart and Donnie Sims, to run the place.

He had a 24-inch Vendome column, a 7,500 gallon mash cooker, four 8,750 gallon fermenters (with space for four more), and a 350 horsepower boiler. He had two wells with year-round cold water.

For even longer than he had been building his distillery, Jamieson had been collecting stills. "I tell people I'm lawyer turned honest bootlegger," he joked. Most are contemporary moonshine stills taken out of service by law enforcement. A few are hundreds of years old.

Jamieson envisioned a complete visitor experience at the distillery, with dining, lodging, and a museum featuring his stills collection. He predicted, not entirely seriously, that Hickman would become “the next Lynchburg.” Much like Lynchburg, Tennessee, it is not on the way to anywhere. 

After Jamieson, the place went through several owners, each with a plan to open it up and start making whiskey. None did. When the current crew took over, led by Beam and Terry Ballard, another veteran distiller, they did some upgrades and then, finally, threw the switch.

I'm not sure how widely available it is, but Jackson Purchase Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey runs about $65 a bottle.