Thinking Drinkers: a beginner's guide to bourbon

It’s the Kentucky Derby this weekend. True story. It’s a horse race. In Kentucky. Ladbrokes knows all about horse racing, the betting company recently reported a heavy drop in first-quarter profits due to what it described as ‘unfavourable results’. As far as we can tell, using a nap on a cockle and stinking up a bookie’s pay-out with a winning whinny is favourable for most of us. Are we right, you guys?

With that in mind, why not take a punt on the American gee-gees? Kick the bookies while they’re down. And don’t let the other half nag you out of it; if Ladbrokes is to be believed a bet won’t leave you saddled with debt anyway. No, you should just trot along to a bookies, pick a name on the hoof and ride your luck. Why not take a neigh-bour? He won’t be left with a long face. Horses.

Bourbon is a fixture as firm as the running and losing at the Kentucky Derby, with more than 120,000 Mint Juleps sunk with dreams and tears each year at Churchill Downs. The simple and refreshing bourbon cocktail proves the perfect foil to the slick heat of what race-goers describe as the ‘fastest two minutes in sport’, a claim hotly contested by our wives. Indeed the spirit is as synonymous with Kentucky as the little men on horses, with local and abundant bourbon production one of the key regional attractions, earning it the status of America’s national spirit.

Bourbon is a style of American whiskey that has evolved with the country. When the first Europeans ran aground on eastern shores they applied distilling enthusiasm and techniques to the abundant rye growing around them. After independence these settlers expanded west and south and took the whiskey with them. When the first Wild West saloon ominously christened itself Brown’s Hole and opened its Wyoming doors in 1822, everyone from brothel keepers to foolish gold prospectors slaked a thirst with the stuff, often distracting them from trapping beavers or poking cows. This gunshot whiskey had names like Skull Bender and Panther Piss and induced high-noon style flare-ups in the mouth, but the further south settlers travelled the more rare rye became and a sweeter corn took its place. And as 20th century distilling techniques were tweaked, yeast strains isolated and wood management mastered, corn became the bourbon mainstay and the spirit softened.

Today, Kentucky’s bourbons take you a prairie mile away from the gut rot of the frontier and provide you with a sweeter spirit experience. Here then is some tipster-style tic and tac to help you select an American whiskey best suited to drowning your sorrows, should you foolishly flutter this weekend.

Mash up

The mash is the mix of grains used to create fermented beer before distillation and is particularly important in American whiskey. Corn gives the spirit soft sweetness, rye the acidity and spice, wheat some gentle honey and malted barley a biscuit-dry finish. Manipulating the mash bill can define the whiskey character. Some brands carry ‘sour mash’ on their label but nearly all bourbons use the method, it refers to the acidic residue left over from the first distillation that’s added to the mash to change the Ph level - it compensates for the region's hard water.

Yeast injection

Distillers in the bourbon world are protective of their proprietary yeast strains and some use more than one strain in the process. Yeast does its work during fermentation but at this stage produces congeners such as esters with fruity character that might change character during distillation and even aging.

Brown lining playbook

Bourbon plays by a very specific set of rules; while it can be made anywhere in the USA it must be made from a mash containing 51 per cent corn, distilled to a maximum of 160 proof (80% abv), stored at a maximum of 125 proof (62.5% abv) and in new charred oak containers, then bottled at 80 proof or 40% abv minimum. It can be a mix of ages; an age statement will refer to the youngest in the bottle and is only mandatory if the youngest is under four years.

Tennessee whiskey is bourbon in essence, but has earned its own status which is preserved by the North American Free Trade Agreement and defined as Straight Bourbon Whiskey produced in the State of Tennessee. Jack Daniel’s is the most famous brand.

Straight whiskey rules can apply to a spirit that is predominantly rye, corn, wheat or malt. This spirit must be aged for two years minimum in oak, with no colour or flavouring added. So Straight Bourbon Whiskey follows the above bourbon rules and those of straight whiskey. Straight Rye Whiskey doesn’t follow bourbon rules but does these.

If you see ‘Small Batch’ on a label it refers to a blend of whiskey from a small selection of barrels, although this is not actually regulated. Single barrel denotes whiskey from one barrel deemed strong enough to stand alone.

Wooden performance

Much like Scotch, when the distiller runs his American whiskey off a still it’s ‘water white’ or transparent and wood imparts the tan tint. In the case of bourbon the wood used is American oak. The oak holds congeners, or flavour compounds, and you’ll discover vanilla a regular bedfellow courtesy of vanillins in the wood, elsewhere the eugenol keeps things spicy under the sheets and lactones deliver a lovely bunch of coconuts.

Recommendations

Note that here we provide you with a selection of entry level and intermediate bourbons to get you familiar with the category. We are not including rye or other forms of American whiskey - as ever, our ongoing columns will give us a chance to return to these spirits in more detail.

Knob Creek 9YO, Wild Turkey 101, Eagle Rare 10YO,

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Makers Mark (Waitrose, £29.50, 70cl) is a safe ride with a slightly softer and sweeter missionary of an entry point for the category. The mash bill of corn with higher levels of wheat deliver a laid-back-in-the-fields, honeyed bourbon.

Four Roses Yellow Label (Whisky Exchange, £20.95, 70cl) is the science whiz of the stable; this one has a yeast injection with as many as five strains complimenting two mash bills. A perfect introduction if you’re not looking to put your house on a runner, it’s a smooth and creamy sip.

Woodford Reserve Distillers Select (Whisky Exchange, £28.75, 70cl) is a stayer, boasts plenty of stamina and is a trusted performer; this flagship Kentucky Straight Bourbon from Woodford ramps up the rye in the mash bill for a beautiful balance of spice and sweet.

Knob Creek 9YO (Amathus, £33.30, 70cl). There’s an obvious gag here, a big one, but we’re better than that. Honestly. Full of big rich, sweet qualities courtesy of a careful aging process in the warehouse.

Wild Turkey 101 (Whisky Exchange, £27.35, 70cl) is old-school, free from new-fangled fripperies but with a big 50.5% abv kick. Flighty rye makes it a spicy story with clove braying before soft maple syrups and treacled toffee nut calms it down.

Old Fitzgerald 12 Year Old (Master of Malt, £37.75, 75cl) is the stallion of the bourbon farm, bounding out of the glass and sporting a rich, sun-dried hide. Huge oak notes rear up on the nose for like-minded studs, but the graceful canter of honey, chocolate and vanilla would also satisfy the fillies in the paddock.

Old Forrester Kentucky Straight Bourbon (Whiskey exchange, £48.95, 100cl) is an oldie-but-goodie, tempting the connoisseur jockey for one last ride. Popping with pepper and allspice from the high rye, zesting some warm orange across the track of the tongue and taking in the soft vanillas by a nose.

Eagle Rare 10YO Single Barrel (Master of Malt, £36.58, 70cl) is distilled at the oldest continuously operating distillery in America, the same stable as Buffalo Trace. It strides across the tongue with warm cherry notes, sprays of orange peel and droppings of thick rich burnt sugar before it claws at the finish with crisp, dry oak.

Mint Julep

This is medicine, at least that’s what people thought for a few hundred years. Not so much now. A Persian potion, it tickled lips in the 10th century when it included juice of poppy, or opium, which is a nice twist. Sea-faring traders introduced it to the French and then America, and the skag was eventually replaced with mint and a spirit of choice, usually served up in the morning. Rye was initially added to brandy but as bourbon took hold of the Americans it become the ubiquitous ingredient. Popular on a hot American summer afternoon, particularly in Kentucky, this has become the Southern Style serve of drink and is the cocktail most revellers drown their sorrows with at the Kentucky Derby.

Glass: julep cup or highball

60ml bourbon

15ml sugar syrup

2 sprigs of mint

Muddle one of the sprigs of mint in a mixing tin with the bourbon and sugar syrup. Add ice and shake. Strain into the glass over crushed ice, stir and top with ice. Garnish with the remaining sprig.

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