What Is Bourbon?
When attendees to my tasting events have asked me this, I’ve always started with, “All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.” In the simplest terms, bourbon is a type of corn-based whiskey that is made in the United States. In the detailed, nerdiest terms, bourbon is (1) made in the USA, (2) made with at least 51% corn, (3) distilled to an ABV of no more than 80%, (4) aged in new charred oak containers at no higher an entry than 62.5% ABV and (5) bottled at a minimum of 40% ABV.
It isn’t necessary to care about (3-5) if you’re only a consumer, because they mostly pertain to alcohol levels in the production process. Especially since every whiskey you can buy in the United States will be at least 40% ABV. But the big things to remember are, it is a distinctly American product that is oak aged and made primarily from corn. If you don’t like the taste of corn, you might be more interested in rye or malt whiskey. But those of you who like the most iconic grain of the americas will love bourbon. Let’s get into it.
Bourbon wasn’t the first American whiskey. In fact, the name “bourbon” comes from a county in the state of Kentucky, so before we got our beloved fifteenth state we made whiskey in a very different way. The 13 colonies were on the east coast of the US, and most of them in the New England area. There, rye was the primary grain for whiskey. Not because people liked the taste of rye more than corn, but because rye fared better in the northeast’s soil and climate conditions. Plus, rye was used for bread and other foods, so everyday farmers could distill their excess harvest at home.
Fast-forward to a series of unfortunate whiskey taxes, which encouraged illicit distillers to travel into the wild in search of places to work outside of the purview of the federal government. As distillers moved west, corn became the favorable grain base for their whiskey. Moreover, the limestone-filtered streams that they could source their water from were ideal for having low iron content (iron affects the flavor and color). This area of production would become the states of Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana. We now consider these states to be the traditional home of bourbon, even though technically you can make it anywhere in the US.
America’s first bourbon distillery, or its oldest, is not known. But there are a few distilleries that claim to be among the first. One of them is Buffalo Trace Distillery, which calls itself “the oldest continuously operating distillery in America.” The original property was built in the early 19th century. Today, Buffalo Trace is admired for the elite quality of its whiskey portfolio.
By the late 19th century there were hundreds of distilleries, and in 1897 there was legislation put in place that strictly regulated bourbon production. This legislation was the Bottled-in-Bond Act and was probably the wisest decision ever made in America concerning whiskey. By law, if a whiskey was to be labelled Bottled-in-Bond (BiB), it would have to be made by one distillery in one season, aged for a minimum of four years in federally bonded warehouses, and bottled at exactly 50% ABV.
Something that is now taken for granted is that bourbon is one of the most regulated spirits in the world. Unlike almost every other type of whiskey, it is illegal to put artificial caramel coloring into a bourbon, which means that the hue of it tells you far more about its quality and age than would other whiskey styles. Bourbon is also very strict about what kind of barrels are used. Every time a bourbon is produced, it must be stored in new, charred oak barrels. This means that the reuse of old barrels is prohibited (however, one is allowed to finish a bourbon in used barrels after the initial, standard period). It also means that the barrels have to be exposed to high heat until a layer of active carbon is built on the surface of the wood. This is great for whiskey because that char layer helps to filter impurities out of the spirit as it ages. But if you look at Scotch or Irish whiskey, for example, these processes are elective. Thus, as a consumer, you can have more confidence in the bottle that you see on the shelf.
Sometimes you will see bourbons labelled as straight. Actually, the word “straight” can be applied to six different American whiskey styles: bourbon, wheat, rye, malted rye, malted barley, and corn. It prohibits caramel coloring from being added to any of these and requires a minimum of 51% of the base grain and a minimum of two years in aging. Remember that to be called bourbon, a whiskey must be aged in new charred oak barrels, but a particular number of years is unspecified. Thus, straight bourbon will be at least two years old (and is often older than that). If it is more than four years old then it doesn’t have to say how many years on the label, but many brands do anyway as a matter of pride.
Now that we know what bourbon, straight bourbon, and BiB bourbon are, we should discuss what they taste like.
The vast majority of oak used in the United States is Quercus alba or American white oak. This has a lot of natural vanillin, lactone and syringol in it. The flavors associated with these are vanilla (surprise, surprise), butter, coconut, and woodsmoke. It also has a high sugar content to it, which, when toasted by heat, caramelizes and dissolves into the bourbon.
Depending on what grains other than corn are used in the recipe, the bourbon might be softer (high-wheat), spicier (high-rye), or more floral (high-malted barley). Traditionally the second grain (highest percentage after corn) has been rye, but brands such as Maker’s Mark and Weller have contributed to making high-wheat bourbons more desirable. Malted barley is almost always used in small percentages.
Yeast also contributes to the profile of a bourbon. It brings the fruity flavors that we smell and taste in the whiskey such as orange, apple, pear, banana, cherry, and red wine. The way it does this is by dumping acids into the mash that, when bonded to alcohol, become esters. Even though no one squeezes an orange into the bourbon, in a way there is orange in there because the same ester present in the whiskey is present in natural oranges.
Realistically, there are hundreds of thousands of aroma and flavor combinations to be found in bourbon, but as you experiment more with the category you will recognize commonalities and become confident calling them out. One reason I started Distillare is to provide more people with that possibility. If we are honest, many of us buy a whiskey for the first sip, and if we like it then we feel happy drinking the rest of the bottle. But there is a lot of value in getting that “first sip” experience eight times for the same price. I think so, anyway.
On behalf of Distillare, I hope the info here benefits you as a consumer of good corn juice.
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