A Conversation At Willett

The other day, Rosemary and I had lunch at The Bar at Willett at the Willett Distillery in Bardstown. While waiting for our table, Drew Kulsveen walked up to greet us. We gave our condolences for the loss of his mother Martha. Without her the Willett Distillery wouldn’t exist.

We were shown our table. Drew told us he would visit later after we had had our lunch. Lunch was a very good meal of smoked trout and a cheese board, split by Rosemary and myself. It was accompanied by a most excellent Manhattan cocktail.

After lunch, Drew joined us at the table and we started talking about whiskey. He brought out a bottle of eight year old (that is actually ten year old) wheat recipe Bourbon. It was very good and I mentioned it was as good as Stitzel-Weller Bourbon made while the Van Winkles owned the Stitzel-Weller Distillery. This got us talking about the flavor drift of Stitzel-Weller Bourbon over the decades. Drew thought the drift started in the 1980s and was caused by the distillery changing from jug yeast to dried yeast. I gave him my theory on the flavor drift with a timeline of when it happened.

Under the Van Winkles, the Bourbon had a mash bill that I believe was 72% corn, 16% wheat and 12% malted barley and was distilled at about 126 proof and entered the barrel at 107 proof. When the family sold the distillery in 1972, the new owners changed from jug yeast to dry yeast, probably about 1974. The next big change came in 1984 when they hired Ed Foote as Master Distiller. He was tasked with reducing the amount of malt in the mash bill and using enzymes. Malt was the most expensive grain and they were looking to make more profit in those trying times. They also started the slow change of raising the barrel entry proof to eventually, 115. Those were the main factors, in my opinion, for the flavor drift. None of the changes made a huge change individually, but taken together, there is a noticeable change in flavor. The bottle that we were tasting of wheat recipe Bourbon had a barrel entry proof of 108 and was bottled at that proof. It has an eight year age statement on the bottle, but Drew told us that it was actually ten year old Bourbon in the bottle. He mentioned that they had some difficulty in bottling it after eight years and decided to wait another two years to bottle it.

Our conversation ranged from business expansion to market volatility. We discussed the tariffs. Drew has a small amount of business overseas and gets some of his supplies from other countries, but he has stockpiled many supplies he needs for some time to come. We also discussed the new distillery that they are building in Springfield, Kentucky. It will significantly increase the production of the Willett brands, but they are not planning on any contract distilling.

We enjoyed our time at Willett and look forward to our next visit.