Fall Is A Great Time To Visit Bourbon Country.

One problem with visiting distilleries during the traditional summer vacation month of August is that most of them are quiet. Even though modern technology makes it possible to distill year round, and some do, hot weather is unpleasant for the workers so many distilleries shut down for at least a few weeks during the hottest part of the year.

That, of course, means they all start to crank back up in the fall. Buffalo Trace even makes a festival of it. The Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown is always the third week in September, 9/12-18 this year. Although it’s technically all week, most stuff happens on the weekend.

The Kentucky Bourbon Trail, sponsored by the Kentucky Distillers Association, will get you to most of the distilleries that give tours. Buffalo Trace and Barton 1792, both owned by Sazerac, give tours but aren’t on the trail. There are also several distilleries that don’t give tours but you can see them from the road.

As important as seeing the distilleries is seeing at least one cooperage (where they make the barrels). Brown-Forman Cooperage, in Louisville, where they build barrels for Jack Daniel’s and other Brown-Forman products, welcomes visitors through Mint Julep Tours. Kentucky Cooperage, in Lebanon, has two public tours a day, no reservations needed. You also get to visit Lebanon, which is charming. I recommend the Cedarwood Restaurant, located just west of the cooperage. It’s a real-deal Kentucky country restaurant, not some city folk’s idea of one.

I also like that Kentucky and Tennessee usually get two or three more weeks of nice weather in the spring and fall than Chicago does. When that first cold hawk (aka Mr. Hawkins) blows in from Lake Michigan, find I-65 and head south.

Elijah Craig Did Not Invent Bourbon.

Elijah Craig is a brand of bourbon made by Heaven Hill Distilleries. It comes as a 12-year-old or an 18-year-old, both excellent.

Elijah Craig was also a real person, c. 1738-1808, a Kentucky pioneer, community leader, entrepreneur, and Baptist minister.

But he did not invent bourbon whiskey.

The durable but unsubstantiated claim that Elijah Craig ‘invented’ bourbon can be traced to Richard Collins and his 1874 History of Kentucky. Collins does not identify Craig by name, but writes that "the first Bourbon Whiskey was made in 1789, at Georgetown, at the fulling mill at the Royal spring." This claim is included, without elaboration or substantiation, on a densely-packed page of "Kentucky Firsts." Since Craig operated "the fulling mill at the Royal spring" in that year, the "invention" is attributed to him.

There are several major problems with the claim. First, what made Craig's whiskey different from other whiskey made in the region? Second, the Georgetown site was never in Bourbon County, so if the place name and the whiskey have to go together, Craig cannot be the originator. In fact, the name 'Bourbon whiskey' was applied to all whiskey from that region beginning early in the 19th century but the style of whiskey we now call bourbon didn't really evolve until many years later, in about the middle of the century, long after Craig’s death.

The Craig claim has been convenient. His ministerial vocation was played up by wet forces in the run-up to Prohibition. When something has an inventor the story of its origin is much easier to tell, but actual history is seldom so neat. Whatever else it may be, historically the Craig claim is unsupported.

Japan Loves Its Highballs.

I’m mystified by the current highball craze in Japan. Rather, since I neither speak nor read Japanese, I should say I am mystified by what I’ve read in English about the current highball craze in Japan.

Back in June, Camper English introduced America to Mizuwari, the Japanese highball ritual. First you put ice in a glass and stir to glaze the glass. Then discard any water and add about 1 ½ ounces of whiskey. Stir that 13 ½ times clockwise, fill with soda water and stir another 3 ½ times, also clockwise.

They also sell canned highballs in Japan, so obviously not everyone takes them so seriously.

But this idea that the highball is whiskey and soda water over ice, period, is still a little too particular for me, here in the highball’s country of origin.

In American drinking culture, ‘highball’ is (or was, as this is somewhat archaic usage) just another synonym for ‘drinky-poo.’

It developed at a time when most people drank whiskey of some sort and most drank it diluted in some way, usually just with water. In the old days, most gentle folk liked to take their time getting drunk. The tall glass that is typically used for this simple mixture is called a highball so the drink, such as it is, came to be called a highball too. You could say "whiskey and water," but "a highball, please" would usually get you the same thing.

It’s similar to the Southern habit of referring to any soft drink as ‘Coke.’ If ‘highball’ means anything more than just ‘a drink,’ it means a drink in which whiskey is cut with water, a definition that ultimately was broadened to include ice, sparking water, club soda, ginger ale, lemon-lime soda, and a twist of lemon peel as garnish.

The highball is the un-fussiest of drinks, a distilled spirits version of beer. That’s why it seems wrong to ritualize it. But I’m broad minded about drinking. Do what pleases you.

English also observes that the typical Japanese highball is made with blended whiskey, either Japanese or scotch. The highball as I have described may be made with any whiskey you like, from anyplace. The one I'm drinking right now is Very Old Barton Bourbon, BIB, with lemon-lime soda, and ice, stirred about five times, but really fast, and not so much clockwise as back and forth. I apologize in advance.

Coming Soon: The Bulleit Experience At Stitzel-Weller Distillery.

Several years ago, at WhiskeyFest here in Chicago, I was chatting with a Diageo executive who opined that they would eventually have to do something about creating a "home place for Bulleit." What's a "home place"? Think of it as a distillery substitute. You can't visit the Bulleit Distillery because there isn't one.

What does Bulleit have to do with Stitzel-Weller? Nothing, except Diageo owns both of them. Stitzel-Weller is the old Van Winkle family distillery. Diageo has owned it for more than 20 years. The distillery itself has been dark since 1992, but they use the warehouses to age bourbon distilled for them by others, and may be using other parts of the facility too.

Although Diageo has never confirmed this, I'm pretty sure Bulleit is aged at Stitzel-Weller.

The Stitzel-Weller Distillery is located just south of Louisville in the suburb of Shively, where there were once dozens of distilleries. It was built just after Prohibition ended and operated for 60 years. Until Maker's Mark it was the only distillery making wheated bourbon. Its brands were Old Fitzgerald, W. L. Weller, Old Rip Van Winkle, Cabin Still, and Rebel Yell, none of which Diageo still owns.

According to the announcement, Tom Bulleit and his team are very excited about this  opportunity to share more about Bulleit while giving folks a close look at one of the most legendary distilleries of its time. Stitzel-Weller will also serve as Tom’s place of business when he is in Kentucky.

I haven't been inside the fence since 1996, so I'm excited too.

Pappy Van Winkle built Stitzel-Weller to be a showplace as well as a working distillery. It is great that this important landmark will be preserved and people will be able to experience it.

They haven't announced when it will be open to the public. I'll keep you posted as I learn more.

Micro-Distillers And The "Just Till We Get Going" Trap.

One of the recurring themes among new micro-distillers is: "We're going to make vodka just to get going, but what we really want to make is whiskey," or its variation, "We're going to buy and bottle bulk whiskey just to get going, until we can make and age our own."

So simple, so reasonable and, therefore, so alluring. But is it realistic?

After observing this pattern for the past half-dozen years or so, I have concluded that when new micro-distillers say that is their plan, they are in most cases either lying or naive.

Why is the "Just Till We Get Going" strategy a trap? Two reasons.

(1) People seem to think it's easy to build up a profitable business making and selling vodka, or buying and bottling bulk whiskey, as if you can work on that for a few minutes, just until the cash starts to roll in, and then go do what you really want to do. Not only will the business practically run itself, it will bring in enough revenue to fund the whiskey program.

Well, it's not easy. What's more, you can work very hard for a long time, become successful, and discover you're in a completely different business than the one you wanted to be in, no closer to realizing your dream than you were when you started.

(2) If you want to make whiskey but intend to start with a bulk product, you'll never be able to transition to whiskey you made yourself because it will never be the same or even similar enough to make such a transition. If you try to do both you risk diluting your brand and confusing your customers.

Great Lakes is a micro-distillery but they recently released a product that combines bourbon made by a major Kentucky distillery with malt whiskey made at Great Lakes. St. George has announced a similar project. This can work for them because they are established, have distribution channels, and have loyal customers. They have a receptive audience for anything they choose to produce, whether it's made by them or not. They can be perfectly honest about what they're doing and the vast majority of consumers, who don't pay very close attention, will still assume they made it because they have a reputation as micro-distillers.

But what about examples of startups that began that way? Templeton Rye has been around for six years and when they finally admitted the product isn't theirs, they said they were going to use bulk whiskey just until their own whiskey was old enough to bottle. In reality, they have made no effort to replace their LDI-made whiskey, though they have stopped pretending that they ever will. They have even admitted that, if they wanted to make it themselves, they would need a completely different distillery than the one they have in Iowa now.

High West's highly acclaimed Rendezvous Rye is a similar story. High West is now selling products it made, but they will never replace the current Rendezvous Rye, a bulk whiskey product, with whiskey made by them in Utah.

Last month I told you that Michter's plans to build a micro-distillery in Louisville. Even if, after aging, they mix their house-made whiskey with their sourced whiskey, the ratio will  be 10 to 1 or more, a drop in the bucket. The Louisville project is a way to give a company that doesn't have a distillery a symbolic one.

Another example is the Pogue family. Old Pogue has been on the market for seven years and just this year the Pogues are beginning the process of obtaining necessary permissions to start a very small (25-50 gallons a week) distillery in Maysville, Kentucky. Old Pogue has, by all evidence, been a successful product and, as such, sells a lot more than you can produce at a rate of 25 to 50 gallons a week. In fairness, they don't claim they are starting the distillery to produce the current Old Pogue Bourbon. They just want to bring whiskey making back to Maysville, where the family's historic distillery was located.

Aspiring micro-distillers, take note. The Pogues have come nearest to realizing some version of the "Just Till We Get Going" dream and it will, if all goes according to plan, have been a decade-long project the day their first drop comes off the still.

The Rufus M. Rose House Is For Sale.

Then

The Rufus M. Rose House is for sale.

Once valued at more than a million dollars, it was recently foreclosed and the bank has it listed for $315,000. They’ll probably take less.

Its significance, for our purposes, is that Rufus Mathewson Rose founded the original Four Roses Distillery. That claim is not universally accepted, however, as the present owners of Four Roses Bourbon only acknowledge its history back to Paul Jones, who brought the name from Atlanta to Louisville in 1884.

The Jones family built Four Roses Bourbon into a major national brand. For reasons unknown, Jones and his successors never acknowledged the Rose family, although they did claim that the Four Roses name was in use in Georgia as early as the 1860s.

As the Rose family’s version is told, the original "Four Roses" were Rufus Rose (1836-1910), his brother and business partner, and their respective sons who were also in the business. Four guys named Rose, hence "Four Roses."

Not very sexy.

The R. M. Rose & Co. Distillery was located twelve miles northwest of downtown, on Stillhouse Road in Vinings, Georgia. The Roses sold their whiskey through a chain of Atlanta-area stores that also sold tobacco.

Since whiskey brands, as such, were only just coming into existence in the last few decades of the 19th century, it’s possible Jones acquired some kind of rights from the Roses but it was Jones, not they, who first registered Four Roses as a national trademark in 1888.

The “official” (per the City of Atlanta) history of the house says the Roses were still making Four Roses Whiskey as late as 1907, when Georgia went dry and they moved to Tennessee, after which their trail grows cold. That claim, obviously, is inconsistent with the Paul Jones Company timeline.

Now

The house is prominently located on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta and is one of the few single family homes left in that neighborhood. It has five bedrooms, three baths, and 5,700 sq. ft. It is right next door to a Gladys Knight Chicken and Waffles location. If you want to find the listing, search the street address: 537 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30308.

According to the Atlanta Preservation Center, the 1901 house was designed by Atlanta architect Emil Charles Seitz Sr., in the Queen Anne style. For more than 50 years (1945-1998), it was the home of the Atlanta Museum, a privately-owned museum established by James H. Elliott, Sr. to display his eclectic collection, which included furniture belonging to Margaret Mitchell and a Japanese Zero war plane. It was the headquarters of the Atlanta Preservation Center from 1999 through 2001. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and designated as an Atlanta Landmark Building.

The Atlanta Urban Design Commission calls it “the sole survivor in the central business district of [the] era of grand residential development and is an invaluable part of our cultural heritage. It conveys a sense of residential Peachtree at a time when streetcars, not automobiles, determined the patterns of residential development and its importance as such cannot be overstated.”

The previous owner’s restoration plans fell through and Central Atlanta Progress, a private nonprofit community development organization, estimates it will take about $500,000 to whip it into shape as an office building or restaurant.

A better idea would be for Four Roses to buy it, restore it to its original glory, and operate it as a tourist attraction, which would also tastefully promote Four Roses Bourbon.

If you drink Four Roses Bourbon and think this is a good idea you might want to suggest it to them. They’d love to hear from you.

Buffalo Trace Distillery Announces Second Release In Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr. Collection.

Buffalo Trace Distillery has announced the second release in the Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr. collection. It is a single barrel bourbon aged in a warehouse built by Taylor in 1881 (Warehouse C).

The bourbon was aged for 11 years, 7 months, and Bottled-in-Bond at 100 proof. The recipe is Buffalo Trace rye-recipe bourbon mash #1.

It joins the E. H. Taylor Jr. Old Fashioned Sour Mash Bourbon Buffalo Trace released earlier this year. Availability will be similarly limited. The packaging is also similar, and reminiscent of Taylor’s bottles from nearly one hundred years ago.

E. H. Taylor is widely considered one of the founding fathers of the bourbon industry, fighting for the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897. During his lifetime, Taylor implemented several innovative methods still used today by Buffalo Trace, such as climate controlled aging warehouses.

Suggested retail is $59.99 per 750ml bottle.