Elijah Craig is a small-batch bourbon made by prolific distiller Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Kentucky, and is named after Reverend Elijah Craig who is apocryphally credited with the invention of oak aging of corn whisky to create bourbon. This version replaces the old 12 year-old bottling, and is instead comprised of whiskey aged between 8 and 12 years.
Anchor Distillers (which is a distillery in California, but also does business importing and bottling sourced spirits) has loaded down the Hirsch label with every whisky marketing adjective in the book. This is – no, really – Small-Batch Reserve Selected Straight Bourbon Whiskey, which is “Crafted” in the USA. It also says “artisanally produced” on the back. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone accusing MGP of being a “craft” distillery, but there’s the word on the bottle none-the-less.
On a very serious business-related trip, for business, my wife and I dragged ourselves (complaining all the way) up to picturesque Sonoma County, California, to trudge through a tour of Sonoma County Distilling Company’s facility and reluctantly down a bunch of samples. For business.
… industry contacts allowed the brand to distill its recipe under contract at an undisclosed Kentucky distillery. The recipe, incidentally, includes not only a specific strain of yeast and a mash bill of 79% corn, 11% rye, and 10% barley, but the unusual choice of filling barrels at 103 proof (instead of the more cost-effective 120+ proof).
Brown Forman’s Old Forester brand, in an attempt to avoid being left in the dust of the whisky hype train, is releasing a series of special-edition whiskies in honor of the brand’s history of per-Prohibition distillation. … uses a mashbill of 72% corn, 18% rye, and 10% malted barley (for enzymes), the same as other Old Forester bottlings, and is by law at least 4 years of age. The 115 proof (57.5% ABV) is the distiller’s estimate of the probable bottling proof that would have been used during Prohibition for whisky intended for “medicinal purposes”.
Sonoma County Distilling, located in Rohnert Park, CA and opened in 2010, uses direct-fired copper alembic pot stills for its whiskies, which are twice-distilled (like most single-malt scotches, which are also distilled in pot stills). The West of Kentucky Bourbon No. 2 has a mashbill of Midwest yellow corn, unmalted Canadian wheat, and malted barley from Wyoming.
Of the big bourbon brands, I’ve said before that Knob Creek with its good price point and nice balance of classic bourbon flavors with a little extra fruit and citrus and an actual age statement has made it a regular in my drinks cabinet. … This single barrel release is made from a low-rye mash bill (77% corn, 13% rye, 10% malted barley) and bottled at a paint-stripping 60% ABV.
Owned and distilled by the Jim Beam company, Old Grand-Dad is named after famed distiller Basil Hayden. … Old Grand-Dad 114 is named, appropriately, for its 114 proof (57% ABV). This is not quite cask-strength, as they must water the whiskey down to hit a consistent 57% ABV, but it’s close. … Old Grand-Dad bourbons are purportedly from a “high rye” mash bill, despite a total lack of definitive information on the subject.
Basil Hayden is named after the famed distiller by that name who established a farm distillery in Kentucky in 1796. … In 1992 the Jim Beam distillery (which now owns the brand and produces Old Grand-Dad whiskey) produced a small-batch product named after Basil Hayden and using a high-rye mash bill. The whisky is bottled at 40% ABV and claimed an 8 year age-statement until 2014, when the age-statement disappeared from bottles.
The Benchmark Old No. 8 brand was purchased by Sazerac (Buffalo Trace) from Seagram in 1992, when it was originally distilled at the Four Roses distillery. Sazerac moved production to the Buffalo Trace Distillery and tacked “McAfee’s” onto the name, in honor of the McAfee brothers who surveyed the site of the Buffalo Trace Distillery in 1775, long before it was built.