bourbonveachdotcom

I thought I would add more thoughts to my previous blog on High Proof Whiskey. Let us start with a bit of history on barrel proof whiskey. 

Stitzel-Weller first released their Original Proof Bourbon in the late 1940s. Barrel entry proof was 110 proof and the legal maximum barrel entry proof. It was in 1964 that the maximum was raised to 125 proof. Nobody released a higher proof until the mid-1990s because nobody wanted to drink high proof whiskey in the 1960s and 70s. Then in the 1990s, Jim Beam released Booker’s Bourbon at barrel proof and you started to see more companies release barrel proof whiskeys.

I remember going to the release of Jim Beam’s Small Batch Collection at the Seelbach Hotel in Louisville in 1994. It was a tasting with Paul Pacault and Booker Noe. I think it is important how Booker presented the tasting of Booker’s Bourbon. We each had brandy snifters with about one ounce of each of the Bourbons from the collection. When we got to the Booker’s Bourbon, Booker told us this is how he drank Booker’s – he took his water glass which was about half full of water and ice and poured his Booker’s Bourbon in the glass and drank it. He did not even sample it at full proof. It was made to add water to the drink of whiskey, in Booker’s case, a lot of water and ice. High proof whiskey should be drunk with water added to the whiskey. At barrel proof and unfiltered, Booker’s Bourbon does have a lot more flavor than the lower proof whiskey that has been filtered when you add water to the drink.

When whiskey is judged by quality control, they add water to the whiskey reducing it to about 40 proof. At the lower proof the bad tastes in whiskey come through better than at barrel proof. They do this because they want to be sure to catch these unwanted flavors before reducing the proof for bottling. A good distiller knows that a musty or vinegary whiskey barrel can ruin a whole batch of bottled whiskey. I believe that is one reason why some distillers release their whiskey at such a high proof in order to hide some bad flavors in the whiskey. I always taste high proof whiskey with water.

High proof whiskey can taste very good but it depends upon a lot of different factors. Where the barrels were stored in the warehouse is one factor. A barrel stored high in a rack house will be exposed to much higher temperatures and get a lot of its flavor from the barrel quicker, but it means the barrel will dominate the flavor of the whiskey. There will be more wood tannins and spice in the flavor and less flavor from the yeast and grain. Lower floors of a warehouse will allow for slower aging and bring out more fruit, vanilla, chocolate and other flavors from the barrel. Back when Julian Van Winkle picked the early barrels for Pappy Van Winkle, before joining with Buffalo Trace and he could still get barrels of Bourbon distilled at Stitzel-Weller, he would only pick barrels from the bottom two floors of the warehouse.

Barrel entry proof is another factor. If the whiskey starts at a lower barrel entry proof, it will not reach the high proof of 130 or higher. The lower proof allows for more grain flavors and fruit flavors from the yeast to come through as well as vanilla and caramel from the barrel. The final factor is the amount of time the barrel has aged. A barrel that has been aged for over 12 years can quickly be dominated by the wood tannins from the oak of the barrel. This can lead to a very dry and bitter whiskey. 

Barrel proof, high proof whiskey can be good whiskey, but water should be added to reduce the proof to a drinkable proof that does not numb the taste buds and allows the whiskey flavors to come through.

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller