How Long Does It Take to Make Good Bourbon?

"How Long Does It Take to Make Good Bourbon?" he asked with the innocence of youth.

Little did he know what a slug fest asking that question can ignite. Since the micro-distiller age has dawned, much of the discussion on that question has been bullshit. This is an attempt to answer it honestly and equitably in the context of our times.

Most micro-distillers are faced with a dilemma. They rarely have enough capital, or patience, to put their product away for four years or more, so they try to come up with ways to make it drinkable at a younger age. If they tell you it's the product they want to make and not a financial decision, they are lying. If it's not money it's petulance. They just don't want to wait so long.

So we have small barrels, spirals, vacuum pumps, finishes, and rationales that remind one of the fable, "The Emperor's New Clothes." And we have a lot of very hot, harsh, white-doggy spirits.

But it's not all bullshit. Some producers have tried to solve the problem thoughtfully and stylistically, remembering that the first rule of beverage making is: "Don't try to pass off disgusting crap with a good story. Make something that, first and foremost, tastes good."

At this, some have been more successful than others, but no product has been completely satisfying. Still, it's a worthy quest and none of them have been at it for very long. They will get better. They probably hurt themselves when they call their product 'bourbon' or 'rye whiskey,' if the taste and character one usually associates with those styles are nowhere to be found.

Which brings us back to the original question: "How Long Does It Take to Make Good Bourbon?" Let's assume that by "good bourbon," the questioner means the drink most whiskey drinkers would recognize as "good bourbon." The wisdom of the families and companies who have been making bourbon for a long time--several centuries in some cases--is that in a climate similar to Kentucky, it takes a minimum of four years in new charred wood to make something you would like to drink.

There are a few three-year-olds out there from the major distilleries, and they pretty much prove the point.

And four years, in itself, is a short cut compared to the minimum ten to twelve years it takes in chilly Scotland or Ireland. The short cut Americans came up with is the new, charred oak barrel, emphasis on 'new.' That innovation was a different and shorter route to deliciousness, but it made a different style of whiskey, as did our use of corn and rye instead of barley malt. We call that style 'bourbon.' 'Tennessee whiskey' is what Tennessee producers call the same style.

In a way, American rye whiskey should be called 'rye bourbon,' since it is whiskey made in the bourbon style but with rye as the dominant grain rather than corn. Wheat whiskey could probably be called 'wheat bourbon,' using the same logic. That's because, under U.S. rules, mash bill is the only variable. All require the new, charred oak barrel.

But that's just by way of making a point. No one is proposing that nomenclature.

If you're worried about all of those used-once barrels going into land fills, they don't. They go to Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Jamaica. You get the idea.

Looked at in that broad historical context, you can say today's micro-distillers are working on their own new style of whiskey, something that's tasty after less than four years in wood, and frequently much less. It's a work in progress. Some are trying to do it the old-fashioned way, although few have anything on the market that's more than two years old.

Eventually, though, they will. And through experimentation the younger products will get better too. Either that, or there will be a lot of second-hand stills for sale.

So, again, back to the question. Traditionally, in Kentucky and Tennessee, the consensus is that four years is the minimum, five to six is better, eight to ten is optimum, and beyond ten you're again getting into a different, wood-heavy style, which is risky but can be superb.

The Deconsolidation Of Irish Whiskey Continues.

In 1966, all of the whiskey producers on the Emerald Isle became one company and consolidated production at two distilleries, Midleton in the South, and Bushmills in the North.

Both distillery complexes made both malt and grain whiskey using both pot and column stills. Bushmills made Old Bushmills and Midleton made everything else.

It stayed that way for more than 20 years and the company, which came to be known as Irish Distillers Limited (IDL), came to be owned by Pernod Ricard.

Then something amazing happened. The consolidation slowly began to reverse itself. In 1987, Dr. John Teeling founded a new distillery at Cooley in an old government-owned industrial alcohol plant. It too made malt and grain whiskey. It was successful.

In 1994, ownership of the Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey brand was split off from IDL, but it continued to be made at Midleton.

In 2005, Diageo bought the Bushmills Distillery and the Old Bushmills brand from IDL.

In 2007, Cooley built a second (very small) distillery at Kilbeggan.

In 2011, Cooley was acquired by Beam, Inc.

In 2012, William Grant & Sons, owner of the Tullamore Dew brand, announced that it will build soon a new, $46 million distillery in Tullamore to make Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey.

When that project is completed, there will be five distillery complexes in Ireland owned by four separate companies. Sadly, none are Irish-owned, but it does show that industry consolidation is not always a one-way street.

And don't feel too sorry for IDL. Its distillery at Midleton is still the biggest in Ireland and its leading brand, Jameson's, is still the number one Irish whiskey in the world. It has recently seen sales grow at a double-digit rate. Who knows, maybe Midleton will need to expand too pretty soon, or IDL will build another distillery someplace else.

American entrepreneurs, take note. You don't even need to start from scratch. The Charles Medley Distillery in Owensboro, Kentucky, is available. It needs some more work, and mostly new equipment, but the buildings are all sound, including seven warehouses with space for about 140,000 barrels.

Beam Completes Cooley Acquisition.

Beam Inc. announced yesterday that it has completed the acquisition of Cooley Distillery, the award-winning Irish whiskey producer.

The acquisition includes the Kilbeggan, Connemara, Tyrconnell and Greenore brands, as well as aging inventory and Cooley’s malt and grain distilleries in Dundalk and Kilbeggan, Ireland. Cooley is one of only three sources for Irish whiskey and was the category’s only remaining independent producer.

"As one of the world’s fastest-growing spirits companies, Beam is excited to enter one of the world’s fastest-growing spirits categories," said Matt Shattock, president and chief executive officer of Beam. "We look forward to combining our whiskey expertise, brand-building firepower and strong routes to market with the experience, talent and passion of the Teeling family and the Cooley team to help take these award-winning brands to the next level."

There was an excellent article by Dominic Roskrow in the Fall, 2011 issue of Whisky Advocate about everything Cooley has accomplished in its short history.

While one may understandably wish they were still the brash, independent upstart, shaking the staid foundations of the Irish whiskey industry, this sale is a sign of success, not failure. Perhaps their trajectory will inspire another, new upstart to follow Cooley's path.

As noted above, Ireland has but three whiskey producers, now owned by Beam, Diageo and Pernod. Kilbeggan is the company's main blend and Tyrconnell is its main single malt. Both were introduced to the United States market by Heaven Hill, which had the exclusive U.S. distribution contract in the early years. Heaven Hill deserves credit for launching the brands and building them to the point where Cooley became the prize it now is for Beam.

In addition to its own brands, Cooley has been the source for several brands owned and marketed by non-distiller producers, most prominently the Michael Collins line (a blend and a single) owned by the Sidney Frank Company.

SMS. The Straw That Stirs The Drink.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how single malt scotch is the straw that stirs the drink of the entire whiskey category.

In 2010, 47,093,000 cases of whiskey were sold in the United States. (New DISCUS Data, released Monday.) Just 1,281,000 of those cases, less than 3%, were single malt scotch, yet that’s what people want to talk about, that's what dominates the general and enthusiast media, that’s what gets consumers and the trade excited, and (not coincidentally) that’s what produces everybody’s highest per-unit profits.

Mind you these are just the U.S. stats, but we are the world's largest whiskey market. Less than half of the whiskey we drink is whiskey made here, 44%. Another 34% comes from our friends to the north. The rest, 22%, comes from the whiskey motherlands of Scotland and Ireland. The smallest piece of that is single malt scotch.

Yet that is what whiskey enthusiasts care about. There are many good reasons for this and I'm not complaining. It's not a bad thing. It's a great thing. I drink single malt scotch, I love single malt scotch, I just happen to be a little more interested in whiskey subjects other than single malt scotch, American whiskey in particular. That makes me an oddball in the world of whiskey enthusiasts and whiskey writers, which may give me a unique perspective. (It must be good for something.)

I am also very interested in America's young microdistillery movement. I think American microdistilleries have the potential to make the American whiskey landscape a lot more interesting, in the same way that Scottish single malts are such an outsize part of what makes whiskey in general so interesting. It's not a perfect analogy because what keeps the single malt distilleries in business is a combination of what they sell as singles and what they sell to blenders, and I don't see a parallel to that evolving here.

On the other hand, bourbon and Tennessee whiskey aren't exactly analogous to Scottish blends. It's a completely different paradigm. You can't compare Johnnie Walker to Jack Daniel's and if you always look at American whiskey through a scotch prism you'll always see a distorted picture.

This potential to be American stir-straws is what the buyers of Hudson and Stranahan's must see. If American micros can build their business on a combination of great products, local pride and fun tourism, I can see parallels and how in not so many years microdistilleries could be an integral part of the U.S. whiskey scene, not for their sales volume but for intangible benefits similar to what Scottish single malts provide now.

New Michael Collins Irish Whiskey Gets It Right.

Sidney Frank was a genius. He created Grey Goose Vodka and sold it to Bacardi for $2.3 billion, the highest price ever paid for a single liquor brand. He also built Jägermeister into a 2-million-case brand.

Frank, who died in 2006, was the son of an orchard keeper who developed a taste for luxury during his one year at Brown University because his roommate’s father was president of RCA. He resolved then to marry rich. (These are all stories he told on himself.) He set his sights on Louise Rosenstiel, whose father Lewis owned Schenley, the largest distilled spirits company in the country.

After running his father-in-law’s business for a while Frank started his own in 1972. It still has Jägermeister and a portfolio of other products. He was preparing to launch Michael Collins Irish Whiskey when he died.

This month, Frank’s company re-launched the brand, named after one of the heroes of Irish independence. It’s still made at Cooley, Ireland’s only independent, Irish-owned distillery. And it still consists of two expressions, a blend and a single malt.

Promotion materials for the re-launch emphasize the new packaging, which is very nice and much more whiskey-like than the old one. The former package was beautiful but over designed and there was another, bigger problem: the whiskey inside wasn’t very good.

The re-launch materials say nothing about changing the whiskey but they clearly did. The former malt was hot, harsh and immature. The new one bears a 10-year-old age statement (the former was NAS) and tastes every bit of it. It is lightly peated, well balanced, and altogether pleasant. The blend has a similar profile. It is full-flavored, sweet, nutty and also very enjoyable. Together they make an excellent introduction to the high quality yet still mainstream Irish Whiskey segment, exactly where this brand should play.

The original was a product Sidney Frank himself approved, but even the great ones make mistakes. This new iteration is much improved. If you previously decided that Michael Collins is mediocre whiskey in a fancy bottle, give it another try. The bottle is not as fancy but the whiskey is much, much better.

Buy Your WhiskeyFest Chicago Tickets by Sunday and Save $10.

WhiskeyFest Chicago, sponsored by Malt Advocate Magazine, is Chicago's only major whiskey event. It is held each year at the Hyatt Regency downtown. This year it is on Friday, April 23, from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

For the second consecutive year there is no increase in ticket prices. Regular tickets are $110 each and early admission VIP tickets are $150 each. But order now (through Sunday, January 31) and pay just $100 for the standard admission ticket. Go here to order your tickets or here if you want more information.

They've also arranged for special room rates at the Hyatt. Unless you're like me and can get home on the #145 bus, staying there is a good plan.

If you've never been to one of these events, it goes something like this.

When you arrive and register, you receive a commemorative Glencairn Scottish crystal nosing glass. Then you enter the ballroom, which looks like you're at a trade show, with rows of booths. Each booth is hosted by a different whiskey producer and they are pouring one or several of their whiskeys. Sometimes the person doing the pouring is the master distiller or master blender.

There's also a substantial buffet, one at each end of the hall. It's a typical hotel buffet, but you can make a dinner of it.

In the adjacent meeting rooms, distillery representatives give presentations, most of which include guided tastings.

Most of the whiskeys you can buy in the United States are represented. Bourbon, rye, scotch, Irish, Canadian, Japanese, it's all there. Naturally, new expressions are often featured.

It can get pretty crowded. So it doesn't get too crowded, they limit how many tickets they sell. They always sell all of them in advance, so don't think you're going get tickets at the door.

I'll be there, though not in any official capacity. Once, a few years ago, I asked myself if I was there to work or there to drink and I opted for drinking.