It has been over a year since I have tasted the whiskey that Bill Thomas and I had made at Kentucky Artisan Distillery. I was hoping to have it bottled by now, but things have kept it from moving forward. Such is life – it always gets in the way of the best laid plans!

I decided to hold my BARDS (Bourbon And Rye Drinkers Society) meeting at Kentucky Artisan Distillery and taste the whiskey. We pulled samples from all four barrels and a sample of equal proportions of all four barrels – five samples in all. I made a pot of chili and Rosemary made cornbread, brownies and a cheese cake to serve as dinner for the members and their spouses. It was a very good meeting. We started off the meeting by pouring everyone a drink of Jefferson’s Ocean Rye. It was an excellent choice and several people thought it went well with the chili and the brownie. We sat down and ate our dinner before I started my presentation.

I was hoping to have Lisa Wicker at the meeting but she was under the weather and had to cancel. She was missed as I wanted her opinion on the whiskey. She was very influential in the decision to marry all the barrels together and bottle it in bond when we tasted it two years ago. I started with barrel one. It was well received by the group. It had a spicy note and as it sat, it opened up with fruit notes. The second barrel was more chocolate forward but still had the fruit notes of the first barrel. The third barrel was the group’s favorite. It had a wonderful mouthfeel and loads of apricot, vanilla, a hint of anise spice and chocolate. The fourth barrel was rich vanilla and spice. It is interesting in that all four barrels had different flavors, but they are all the same mash bill, the same barrel entry proof (103) and virtually the same place in the warehouse. They are on two two-barrel wine pallets and Jade Peterson, the Master Distiller at Kentucky Artisan Distillery, only moves them twice a year by switching the top pallet with the bottom pallet.

I wanted to make sure that we wanted to bottle all four barrels as a bonded whiskey and not as single barrels, so I had Jade pull a blend of all four barrels. Everyone thought that this was the correct way to produce this whiskey. The blended had characteristics from each of the individual barrels and I think it also brought out other flavors not found in the individual barrels. The resulting whiskey was very well balanced with rich vanilla with a hint of dark chocolate, apricot and raisin fruit, cinnamon and anise spice and oak wood. I am very pleased with the result.

There were many members who thought that maybe I should let the whiskey age another year before bottling it. It does seem to get better with age, but I am not sure. It is six years old now and I am afraid that it might start getting too woody if it goes longer in the barrel. It may be another six months in the barrel before it gets bottled as it is and that will mean another summer in the wood. I hope that it gets bottled sooner, but it may not, depending upon Bill and his time schedule.

In any case, this is turning out to be an excellent adventure. I hope to repeat it again in the future, once we have the brand created and the hard work done.

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller