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| To Dream, The Impossible Dream... |
America: land of dreams and
opportunity. Visiting is always a joy (despite ever increasing security checks
at Heathrow- yawn) and it highlights one of the great things about being UK
based- our closeness to the US and to Europe. We really do occupy a funny
middle ground between our friends on the other side of the Atlantic, and those
just across the Channel.
Having recently returned from another
trip to the States, it is easy to draw on the similarities (language, popular
culture, most foods, sense of humour, etc) to feel very much at home, but to
look at the 'differences' (currency, costs, weather, architecture, style, accent,
a lack of social responsibility to look after the poor and sick...) to realise you are
elsewhere.
And these differences do not stop at
currency, politics and tastes, for America also makes whisky, but an entirely
different style of whisky that we make here in the UK and these differences,
along with some striking similarities, were highlighted to me on a recent trip
to Heaven Hill distillery in Kentucky.
Heaven Hill is composed of two main
sites, both huge in scale; the result is a company whose fingerprints are seen across the whole whisky category, in Scotch, Irish and Japanese whisky
bottles because most of ex-Heaven Hill barrels end up being used to mature
spirit from producers in these countries. To put it simply, the ripples of
distilling here spread far and wide, on a truly global scale and all this under
the influence of the owners, the Shaprio family.
It is unusual to find a place with such
influence, such standing and such fame that is still ‘family owned’ and it is in this fact where we see, in
all the differences between Scotch and American whisky production, another
small similarity, another mirror of authenticity, as Scotland is home to
William Grant & Sons, producers of Glenfiddich, The Balvenie and Grants
blended Scotch, and also still family-owned and operated. In both you see a
friendship and a working relationship between the two dynasties, with much of
the William Grant Scotch distillate matured in ex-Heaven Hill casks.
As is the way with Kentucky bourbon
production, one distillery can accommodate the production of many brands, and
the Heaven Hill distillery is no exception. Spread over two sites, one for
spirit production (the Bernheim distillery in Louisville), and one now
specifically for the maturation of spirit (just on the edge of Bardstown,
Kentucky), the former contains column stills producing various base spirits
with differing mash bills, which will go on to mature, at their second site,
into individual, unique expressions such as Elijah Craig, Fighting Cock, and Parkers.
At this juncture, we could get bogged
down in the differing spirit profiles and make-up, looking at Heaven Hill’s portfolio and
drawing comparisons between their different brands. But seeing as this task
could encompass a blog in its own right (and not just a blog post), I want to
look at something more fundamental: maturation.
The one thing we can be sure of is that
prohobition had a huge impact upon spirit production in the USA. Not only did
it create a vacuum of quality spirit (often filled by Scotch smuggled into the
country), it provided a fertile ground for the cocktail to thrive and stuck the
nail in the coffin of several distilleries around the world, as well as in the
States itself. But for all the negatives, what it did do was create almost a
clean slate for the distillers of America to embrace new technology.
As a regular visitor to Scotland and
someone who writes a lot about Scotch, there are certain touchstones which can
nearly always be relied on: ancient distilleries, copper pot stills, small
dunnage warehouses, pagoda roofs... these are the 'shortbread tin' stereotypes
which don't just nod in the direction of heritage and history, but positively
support it. But let’s not forget that the original
distillers who first came to the newly discovered land of America would have
been Welsh, English, Scottish, Irish and European distillers, arriving to farm
the land which would have included running the occasional still, as they would
have done back home.
However, prohibition served to wipe
these small pot still artisans from the landscape and, once the Great
Experiment ended, it was time to rebuild the distilling business to quench the
thirst of a nation.
Now, if you’re starting a new business today, you
don’t head out to buy
a typewriter, headed note paper and stamps. You go and purchase a laptop,
register a domain and set up an email address. In the same way, the distillers
of America didn’t opt for pot stills (yesterday’s technology) but
for the new, efficient column still. They didn’t build small dunnage warehouses, only
three barrels high because that is the height a man can lift a cask to. Nope,
they built enormous cathedrals of casks, because items like forklift trucks
existed, to lift barrels into place. And thus the slow drift from the
similarities of the Celtic settlers and their relatives in Scotland, and the
modern distilling and maturation techniques seen in the bourbon business today,
commenced.
Column stills can also be found in
Scotland and it is the production of grain which keeps the industry alive
through blends (and now a growing category in its own right thanks to single
grain whisky from the likes of Girvan), and of course there are huge technical
differences in the base production of bourbon and Scottish grain whisky (the
basic grain make up, sour mashing, etc) but it is the maturation which really
is striking.
As with all Kentucky bourbon whiskey,
brand new American oak casks are used, imparting a strong, robust and sweet
flavour to the maturing spirit inside. But unlike those hobbit-esque warehouses
to be found on the distillery doorstep in Scotland, the warehouses at Heaven
Hill are, quite frankly, enormous. Seeing their sheer size put me in mind of
the first time I saw an Airbus A380 descending over London for its arrival at
Heathrow. Massive and a little bit scary.
Entering one of these huge, white
spaces (which look they might have been designed by someone with a fetish for
Soviet-era prisons) you are simply hit with a staircase, leading to a series of
floors and doors: The Maturation Zone in the Crystal Maze, perhaps. Perfectly
constructed, each level (of which there were thirteen!) houses an intricate
system of barrels, all holding a different style of spirit, designed to mature
for different lengths of time, becoming different brands of bourbon.
There was no musty smell of earth and
bung cloth as there would be in Scotland. But a sweet aroma of spirit, oak and
freshly cut pine. The temperature was warmer than outside (something you don’t get in
Scotland) and the barrels, all uniform, were organised by row. Walking around
them, up and down between the floors, was like flying around in the 3D grid
system in Blade Runner. Sadly, without an iconic glass of whisky in my hand, as
these casks were very much sealed.
Climbing the stairs to the very top and
peering down thirteen floors to the ground level, taking in the scale of
maturation, surrounded by other enormous warehouses, this couldn’t have been
anywhere else but America. This was maturation, supersized.
Back inside the safety of Heaven Hill’s visitor centre,
I was finally able to experience some of the magic of a single barrel bourbon
when I was handed a glass of whiskey, and one which represents some of the best
value for money of any bourbon on the market today:
Evan Williams Single Barrel - 2003/2013 - 43.3% abv - 75cl
Nose: Rich vanilla, red summer berry compot, a big splash of new oak, builders tea with about 15 sugars and a sprinkling of cinnamon. Rich with a big attitude, but not over-oaked.
Palate: This is where this badboy really delivers. The palate is seriously easy going, yet there is a foundation of big flavour with more vanilla, aprcot jam, some smoky BBQ sauce (without this being smoky, oddly) and rasberry travel sweets.
Finish: Robust, rounded and very well balanced with more vanilla and a hint of oak spice.
Overall: If you want a great example of a single
cask bourbon, at ten years of age, this is a real corker. I paid about $25 for this bottle (well under £20) and I'm note sure I could have spent $25 better, really. An absolute corker of a dram which is still only about £35 over here in the UK.
I had the chance to
pop into the new Evan Williams experience in Lousville and the plans there are
fantastic. They’ve just built a small pot still
operation which fills a barrel a day (when it is running) to bring a craft, pot
still element to Evan Williams, so look out for stocks from that in the future.
This scaled down visitor experience, in a former shop in the heart of
Louisville is, quite simply, one of the best whiskey-based attractions I have
ever visited, so if you find yourself out there, make sure you go.
In visiting Kentucky to discover the
joys of bourbon, you get to see the legacy of The Great Experiment and how it
has forever changed the landscape of distilling in America. With the craft
distilling revolution bringing back the pot still, and the stalwarts of the
business such as Heaven Hill offering seriously good liquid at such great
value, the future for American whiskey looks incredibly positive.
