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Whiskey

Patriotism never tasted so good.

As “America’s native spirit,” bourbon put American whiskey on the map. Now you too can navigate the legion of bourbon brands with confidence and make fantastic bourbon mixed drinks by learning:

A brief history of bourbon and the basics of how bourbon is made
A rundown of different types of bourbon, so you’ll know what you’re buying
Bourbon cocktail recipes from the Four Seasons restaurant

Bourbon Basics

Bourbon, a type of American whiskey made primarily from corn, is one of the world’s great whiskeys. Technically, bourbon can be made anywhere in the United States as long as it’s made following certain guidelines and processes. Nonetheless, nearly 95% of the bourbon sold worldwide is made in a roughly 900-square-mile area in the bluegrass country of central Kentucky. In fact, bourbon takes its name from its place of origin—Bourbon County, Kentucky.

Geology and climate explain why Kentucky has long dominated bourbon production. The Kentucky bluegrass country sits on a limestone shelf that adds calcium and other whiskey-friendly minerals to spring water while filtering out harsh-tasting minerals such as iron. The state’s temperature extremes also play a part, expanding and contracting bourbon as it ages, thereby causing it to absorb more of the vanilla-like sweetness of the charred oak barrels in which bourbon is aged.

A Short History of Bourbon

Whiskey-making was a profitable endeavor for Kentuckians as early as the 1780s, but it wasn’t until charred-barrel aging entered the picture that Kentucky’s whiskey became unique. It’s unknown who exactly invented bourbon, but credit is sometimes given to Reverend Elijah Craig, a farmer/distiller who supposedly set about deodorizing a fish barrel in which he wanted to store whiskey. Taking no chances, he charred the barrel inside—to his surprise, as the legend goes, the whiskey it yielded was dark, mellow, and tinged with a vanilla-like sweetness.

In the mid-19th century, James C. Crow developed a new production method for making whiskey. This method, known as the sour mash method, called for adding some liquid from a previous distillation to each new fermentation (much the way starter is used to make sourdough bread). Soon, legions of farmer/distillers loaded their product, with “Old Bourbon” stamped on the barrels, onto flatboats at the Ohio River port of Limestone for transport downriver to New Orleans, where sales of the new whiskey were so brisk that spirit merchants demanded ever-larger shipments. Bourbon production expanded to a few other states, including Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. For a time, Illinois produced almost as much bourbon as Kentucky. By 1900, bourbon was on its way to becoming a favorite whiskey the world over. In 1964 Congress declared that bourbon could be made only within the borders of the United States and declared bourbon to be “America’s native spirit.”

How Bourbon Is Made

By law, for a whiskey to be labeled as bourbon—or, more precisely, straight bourbon—it must be made using a five-step process that takes two years at minimum.

Grain choice: A bourbon distiller first decides which grains to use and in what proportion—a recipe called the mash bill. For the spirit to be labeled straight bourbon, 51% of the grain must be corn, though the proportion of corn in most bourbons is actually closer to 66–75%. So-called small grains—usually wheat, rye, or malted barley—make up the rest.
Mashing: The combined grains are mixed with local limestone water, then cooked to produce a mash (cooking also converts the grains’ starch into fermentable sugars). The distiller then adds yeast and sour mash from a previous batch and leaves the mixture to ferment into what is called beer, a process that takes three to four days. Sour mash, and the bacteria cultures it contains, jump-starts fermentation and helps to ensure consistency in different batches and preserve a bourbon’s characteristics.
Distillation: The fermented but low-alcohol beer is distilled twice. In most cases, the first distillation occurs in a columnar still that increases the liquid’s alcohol content to around 50% by volume. The second distillation takes place in a doubler, which not only lifts the alcohol content to around 63% but also removes impurities and fusel alcohol—an acrid distillation byproduct also called fusel oil because of its oily texture. The two distillations condense the beer into a raw spirit referred to as white dog.
Maturation: The white dog is moved into 53-gallon charred oak barrels for aging. Bourbon must be aged for at least two years, and only in unused, charred oak barrels. The barrels are stored in large multistoried warehouses called rickhouses. Most bourbon is aged from 4–12 years, but sometimes longer. The longer the aging, the more charred oak the bourbon absorbs as it expands and contracts during Kentucky’s hot summers and cold winters. The charred oak gives bourbon its amber color as well as its vanilla and caramel flavor.
Bottling: Before it’s bottled, most bourbon is filtered to remove sediment. It is also cut (diluted) with distilled water to bring the 112- to 125-proof liquid to 80–101 proof. Other than water, no additives, sweeteners, flavor enhancers, or coloring agents may be added to make bourbon. Also, unlike some other whiskeys, bourbon is never blended with any neutral grain spirits.