A Misspent Youth in the South

– William Larue Weller

In the South we take Bourbon for granted. Those of us of a certain age, before the warnings of Dr. Benjamin Spock, likely had a pacifier or three dipped in a tumbler of Kentucky’s finest at some point. If mixing Bourbon with Mother’s Milk for a good night’s sleep wasn’t your first introduction then certainly those of us educated at a Southern state school’s “Flagship” institution of higher learning were introduced to the spirit right about kickoff time of the first home football game. Its axiomatic, a coming of age in the South and a bottle of distilled spirit made a stone’s throw from Frankfort, Ky.

Regardless of when you were introduced to Bourbon, if you were raised in the South there is a better chance than not that you view Bourbon as a given, as ubiquitous a southern beverage as Iced Tea or Lemonade (which mixes nicely with Bourbon, by the way). Well, it bears noting that the rest of the world has a different view.

What you may not know is that Bourbon is the most strictly regulated distilled spirit in the world, and by extension the purest of origin rivaling the finesse of XO Cognac, the layers of flavor from an old Scotch and the power of an Eau du Vie. Sure, there are “rot gut” producers of Bourbon using whatever means necessary to get liquid in the bottle but even those bottom feeders are held to the same strict regulations as the rest of the best.

In order for a distilled Spirit to be called Bourbon it must jump through the following hoops as defined on 4 May 1964 by the U.S. Congress (look, they’re not playing around here, this is federally regulated stuff)

• Must be made of a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn and may only include Corn, Wheat and/or Rye and Malted Barley.
• Must be distilled to no more than 160 proof (80% alcohol by volume).
• Must be 100% natural (nothing other than water added to the mixture).
• Must be aged in new, charred oak barrels.
• Bourbon aged for a period less than four years must be labeled with the duration of its aging.

Maybe we’re just living right over here at Cork & Bottle, but to coincide with this sudden blast of cool, blustery weather we’ve just gotten in the mother lode: a stock of rare, reserve and the finest Bourbons produced and honestly a selection that would make a Kentucky Colonel salivate. Considering that there are really only 9 active distilleries in Kentucky today (though the brands they produce are numerous) it bears noting that a lion’s share of our great Bourbons come from the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort – arguably the world’s epicenter of fine Bourbon. In my humble opinion there is no finer stock of fine Bourbon in the world than the fine elixir gently aging under myriad labels currently in barrel at Buffalo Trace.

So, the weather is right and the hooch is here. Kickoff is tomorrow. Got Bourbon?

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