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Update: We’ve added a SET C since SET A and B sold out, and we were able to assemble a pretty fantastic lineup on short notice:
Pour #1 - To warm up, an older private barrel pick OBSV that Jim Rutledge helped select (NEW, not in SET A or B)
Pour #2 - 2014 Small Batch Ltd. Ed. (same as SET B)
Pour #3 - 2013 Single Barrel Ltd. Ed. (same as SET A)
Pour #4 - 2014 Single Barrel Ltd. Ed. (same as SET B from prior pour)
Pour #5 - 2012 Small Batch Ltd. Ed. (NEW, not in SET A or B) (one of only 4,072 ever released)
Pour #6 - 2016 Small Batch Ltd. Ed. (same as SET B)
Pour #7 - 130th Anniversary (2018 Small Batch Ltd. Ed.) (Same as Sets A/B)
Pour #8 - May 2019 Distillery-only release (same as SET A)
Pour #9 - 2019 Small Batch Ltd. Ed. (same as Sets A/B)
Pour #10 - Small Batch Select (NEW, not in Set A/B)
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Fellow Drammers!
We're still pinching ourselves, but it's finally here: this Friday July 10th we'll welcome Brent Elliott, the Master Distiller of Four Roses bourbon, starting at 4pm PDT / 7pm EST / Midnight in London. The full bottle lineup is below, but first we wanted to give you a little background, because Four Roses has an incredible, roller-coaster history. They were the top-selling bourbon in the United States in the '30s, '40s and '50s, but then in the late 50s, their parent company Seagrams took them out of the US market entirely for decades (Seagrams wanted the US market to focus on Crown Royal instead, umm?), and so while it went on to be the top-selling bourbon in many international markets, it wasn't available in the United States again until after 2002 when Kirin Brewery Company purchased the Four Roses brand and heroically relaunched it stateside. Seagrams even considered closing the distillery altogether in the 1990s, and it was entirely thanks to then master distiller Ova Haney, Jim Rutledge (who would go on to be master distiller until he retired in 2005) and of course Al Young, their distillery manager for 17 years and global brand ambassador until he passed away last year, sadly. We had the honor of hosting Al Young at a special Drammers event back in November of 2017, and that night our bottle lineup focused on the effort by Al, Jim and Ova to prove to Seagrams that Four Roses was special and needed to be saved, so for that event we tracked down their juice from the 1970s, a bottle from the dark days of the 1980s ("Premium American Blended Whiskey" with "65% grain neutral spirits, ewwww....), their first-ever single barrel that they released in 1990 to prove to Seagrams that (if they'd only let them) they could raise the quality of Four Roses whiskey so much more.
For this Friday's event, we wanted to shift the focus, to see the evolution of Four Roses through Brent's eyes. Brent joined the company in 2005, and so this was just after Kirin had bought the company and allowed them to reintroduce it into the US, but it was still only a small handful of stores that carried Four Roses, and the brand was not well known (Brent has said that even when he went in for the interview, he thought he was applying for a job with Wild Turkey!). Brent didn't have a background in whiskey. Having studied chemistry in school, he went on to work for 1.5 years at a company that made the glue that holds the magnetic strip to the back of credit cards, then spent some time working in environmental chemistry in Nashville, a city he really enjoyed. Then one day he took a tour of the Woodford Reserve distillery and it just clicked for him that this is what he wanted to do. After applying for the job (and realizing it wasn't Wild Turkey!), he asked the interviewers where he could find a bottle of Four Roses on his drive down, and that night he picked one up, tried it and was blown away. Still, it was a difficult decision whether to take the job and move to Kentucky -- he'd recently gotten married, had just bought a house in Nashville, and from what he's said, in that region Nashville was the cultural center back then, so he kept putting off accepting the job, asking for more time to make a decision. On the day he finally had to give them an answer, Brent says that when he picked up the phone, he honestly didn't know what he was going to say, yes or no -- then it just came out of his mouth: "let's do it". Amazing. He first took on the role of being an assistant to Jota Tanaka (now Master Distiller for Kirin's Fuji Gotemba Distillery) who spent 9 years at Four Roses at the "director of quality", where most of his focus was on blending. When Tanaka went back to Japan in 2009, Brent took over the blending responsibilities at the company, working closely with Jim Rutledge and Al Young. Everyone thought Jim would continue to be the master distiller for decades, so it was a total shock to Brent when in 2005 he got called in one day to the CEO's office where he was told "Jim has retired, you're the new master distiller" (apparently they didn't ask if he wanted the role, they simply told him he had it, ha). Interestingly, Brent had previously told HR that he wasn't interested in the role, because it involved too much travel and he had two young kids at the time (also, he thought it would be filled by Jim for decades anyway), so when they gave him the role they basically told him something like "we know you have some concerns", but assured him he could do the job however he wanted.
So, back to this Friday and what we'll be drinking. For those of you who were at the Four Roses Al Young event we did in 2017, you'll see this lineup is almost entirely different. The idea behind it is to really see Four Roses evolution through Brent's eyes, from 2005 to the present, and as you can imagine we've secured an incredible lineup to do so. Everyone will get 10 pours, and will have to choose between the bottles in SET A or SET B. A quick note to help understand some of the coded letters you'll see below. Four Roses famously produces bourbon using 10 recipes, a combination of five different yeasts and two different mashbills, unique in the bourbon industry. Four roses denotes which recipe is used with the a code system, such "OESF" or "OBSK". You can ignore the first and third letters, they never change (the first letter means it originates at the Four Roses Distillery in Lawrenceburg, KY and the 3rd letter simply means straight bourbon), so it's only the 2nd and 4th letters that you want to look at. The last letter represents which of the 5 yeast strains, so OBSK means its a recipe using the "K" yeast strain. Here's a quick cheat sheet on what to expect from each yeast strain:
"K" - the spiciest of the 5, full bodied
"Q" - slightly fruity, spicy, medium bodied
"O" - floral (specifically rose petal), spicy and medium bodied
"F" - more herbal, minty
"V" - delicate fruit, spicy, creamiest of the bunch
Interestingly, the 5 yeast strain phenomenon dates back to the Seagrams era, and they used the multiple yeast strains to be able to maintain consistency. As for the mashbill, it's always either "E" which indicates 75% corn, a high 20% rye, and 5% barley, or "B", 60% corn, an even higher 35% rye, and 5% barley.
Ok, on to the whiskies we'll be drinking on Friday, drumroll please.....
Early Small Batch Limited Editions - the 2008 'Mariage' bottle (SET A) and the 2014 Ltd. Ed. Small Batch (SET B)
We'll start the timeline three years after Brent's arrival, in 2008. The limited edition edition series had started the year before, in honor of Jim's 40th year at the company, they created a special single barrel release, and weren't really sure anyone would even buy it, ha. But encouraged by the response they expanded in 2008 to have a limited edition single barrel and introduced a limited edition small batch, then called a "Mariage" bottle, the idea being that it was a "mariage" (they opted for the French spelling) of two different blends, which they repeated in 2009 before deciding the "mariage" title was too confusing and so they changed the name going forward to the Small Batch Limited Edition starting in 2010 (the 2010 was also a blend of 3 different batches, which complicated the "marriage" concept, ha). We secured one bottle of the 2008 bottle that started the series, which will be included in SET A. This is a legendary bottle, one of the most sought-after ever released by Four Roses and only 3,492 were released (this pour is meant to balance the scales a bit since SET B alone gets the legendary Al Young bottle). This 2008 Mariage bottle is a blend of OBSV 13yo 5 months with OESK 10yo 10 months. SET B gets the heavily awarded 2012 limited edition bottle, 1 of 12,516 bottles, 55.9% abv, a blend of 9yo OBSK, 13yo OBSV, 12yo OESV, and 11yo OBSF.
Early Limited Edition Single Barrels 2013 (Set A) and 2014 (Set B)
Our next pour will focus on Four Roses' coveted single barrel limited editions, a series that has received nearly as many awards as the small batch series. Back at our event in 2017, we tried the 2007 original single barrel, and the follow up 2008 release in honor of the 120th anniversary of the distillery. Interestingly, this series has its roots in the surge of consumer interest in bourbon circa 2005, fans would come to the distillery, learn about the 10 mashbills and want to try all of them, which ultimately led to the private barrel selections you can find in your favorite liquor shops, all of which was the precursor to doing effectively their own private selection in honor of Jim's 40th as we talked about earlier. Anyway, for this event we wanted to try a couple we didn't try at that event, and these 2013 and 2014 releases from just before Jim Rutledge retired seem like perfect choices, both very well received and by many thought to be even tastier than the 2007/2008 releases. Set A will get the 2013 release, 58.4% abv (Warehouse B5, Barrel 3-2Q), aged 13yo OBSK recipe, one of 6559 bottles. Set B will get the 2014 limited edition, 54.8% abv, Warehouse HW, Barrel 47-1I, aged 11 years, OESF recipe and one of 7,122 bottles.
The Secretariat Bottle (Both Set A and B)
Another one of the "greats" of the past decade, and incredibly expensive and hard to find today, this special limited edition single barrel was released in 2013 in honor of Secretariat winning the Triple Crown with runtimes that had gone unsurpassed for 40 years. Secretariat's owner, Penny Chennery, selected the barrels with then-master distiller Jim Rutledge. The blue and white checks on the neck of the bottle are in tribute to the Meadow Stables jockey silks. 50% abv, and only 3,504 bottles were released. Note that while each of these bottles is a "single barrel" release, of course you don't get 3,504 bottles from one barrel, so this was no doubt made from a single batch, across multiple barrels with a very similar taste profile (likely they went through a bunch of barrels in the batch to identify and remove barrels that had different profiles). So both of our bottles came from warehouse GE, and we've got bottles from barrels 17-LS and 17-2G.
2 Different Al Young Tribute Bottles
Before we turn to Brent's years at the helm, we need to take a moment to honor the late, great Al Young, who we had the honor of welcoming as our guest speaker back in 2017. That year, the distillery released a special small batch edition in honor of Al's 50th anniversary with the company and we all tried it as the grand finale for our event in 2017. As I'm sure most of you know, Al sadly passed away late last year, making it all the more special that our club was able to honor him in person a few years ago (and I actually had the chance to visit with him briefly at the distillery briefly this past September, where he commented on what a special tasting it was). Those of you with the SET B bottles will get another chance to try this incredible bottle, and it really is an achievement. The podcast Bourbon Pursuit has a great episode recording a speech Brent gave breaking down how he put together the Al Young bottle, and when asked Al said he wanted his bottle to be older than anything they'd used before, and to be different. To satisfy the older part, Brent picked out an old OBSV batch that they had 20 or so barrels aged 23 years. Brent also knew that Al particularly liked the F yeast recipes, so brent picked out an OBSF 12yo batch to bring in those wintergreen notes that would coat the palate nicely, and rounded it out with some "meat and potatoes" recipes, a 15yo OBSK and a 12yo OESV (V and K batches are the most common released by Four Roses, and these batches were meant to bring a smoothness to the blend without detracting from the core F notes and the woody note from the older batch). After playing around with finding the right blend, they only ended up using 5% from the 23yo, which is interesting to think about (and when their mechanized blending system made the actual dump, it ended up being 6%, which was close enough. The result speaks for itself, with a reaction to match (when you can find it on the secondary market today, it goes for thousands of dollars per bottle). As for the folks in Set A, you will get a special bottle we haven't tried before - a lesser known bottle that was also selected in honor of Al's incredible 50 years at the distillery, Whisky Magazine and Four Roses did a special barrel pick (OESF, aged 8 years 4 months, 54.7% abv, Warehouse KE, Barrel No. 56-1C) which we were able to get courtesy of Bill Thomas, the owner of Jack Rose Saloon in DC (who also provided the Mariage bottle above, and as an aside, we're preparing a benefit event for Jack Rose, details to come soon on that). Given that Al's favorite recipes were the F strain variety, it will be particularly interesting to see what a single barrel variety honoring Al's tastes looks like.
Enter our Guest Speaker Brent Elliot - His First Limited Edition Single Barrel and his first Limited Edition Small Batch Bottlings in 2016!
Brent became master distiller in 2015. As noted above, Brent had joined 10 years earlier, and had worked closely with Jim until his surprise retirement. Jim had left giant shoes to fill, having won Whisky of the Year multiple times in the few years leading up to his retirement, so pressure was on for Brent to maintain that high standard when he was charged with selecting the 2016 single barrel limited edition. This was labeled "Elliott's Select" and even had his face on it (their marketing department of course wanting to raise Brent's profile to match his new role). With his first selection -- the Spring limited edition single barrel, Brent opted for a message of reassurance, selecting the tried-and-true 14yo OESK recipe, and this is what SET A will be drinking on Friday, widely heralded as a peak reflection of the classic DNA that defines Four Roses. Bottled at 54% abv, 1 of 10,224 bottles released. Then for the Fall and what would be Brent's first limited edition small batch release (which SET B will be drinking) he set out to challenge himself to do something they'd never done before, using an OESO 12yo recipe as the anchor (which had never been used in a small batch limited edition before), and blending that with OBSV 12yo and OESK 16yo. It was a gutsy move, but the reaction was unanimously thrilled, and it has become increasingly difficult to find one of the 2838 bottles they released for this, even on the secondary market. He has commented since that in retrospect he wonders "what was I thinking releasing something so unusual?" but, after all, that commitment to challenge himself to celebrate a recipe they never had spotlighted in this series before is probably part of why Four Roses knew they wanted him as their next master distiller!
2018 Limited Ed. Small Batch: 130th Anniversary Bottling! (both Set A and B)
Next up, we'll skip forward a couple years to taste what Brent put together with a couple years of experience under his belt as master distiller -- the 2018 small batch limited edition in honor of the 130th anniversary of the distillery. I heard a recording of Brent talking about how he does these picks, and the time commitment is remarkable, taking many months of work, first picking a huge set of batches to work from, whittling them down to 8 or so, then spending a lot of time getting to know each batch individually before slowly working on upwards of 50 different blends before finally settling on the special release. All that work for (in this case) only 13,140 bottles! Well, Brent's process is obviously working for him -- this 2018 release was named best bourbon of the year by Whisky Magazine at their World Whiskies Awards. Although not indicated on the label anymore, reviews indicate it was a blend of 10yo OBSV, 13yo OBSF, 14yo OESV and 16yo OESK. A big thank you to Jerusha and our friends at Four Roses for generously donating two bottles from this release. 54.2% abv.
Brent's Distillery-Only Picks in 2019
On a visit to the distillery last year, we secured 1 bottle each (their cap for visitors) of 2 special single barrel picks that were only available at the distillery, a long tradition with Four Roses. Set A will get a May 2019 bottling of OESF, aged 10 years, 4 months, exclusively for the Four Roses Gift Shop (56%, Warehouse KE, Barrel 56-2T). Set B will get an OBSV 2019 pick (no age statement) created for their other location, the Visitor Center, bottled at 50% abv, Warehouse US, Barrel 19-6H.
2019 Limited Ed. Small Batch (both Set A and B)
We continue our march to the present with the most recent Small Batch limited edition offering, released last fall, and another gift from our friends at Four Roses. This batch includes is their first to feature a 21yo in the mix (2nd oldest for them, younger only than the 23yo in the Al Young bottling), which is OBSV, and combined with 15yo OESK, 15yo OESV and 11yo OESV. 56.3% abv.
Two Different Single Barrels Brent Picked out for our Event (Both Set A and B)
Our friends at Four Roses picks generously gave us two bottles each of two different barrel picks that Brent selected just for our tasting, and we'll likely bookend the event with these bottles unless Brent prefers a different order. So everyone in SET A and B will get to try both of these bottles. Both are barrel strength, one is (52.4%) abv OESV recipe, aged 10 years and 7 months (Warehouse PS, Barrel 26-IV) and the other is a OESQ recipe, aged 9 years and 10 months, 58.3% abv, Warehouse MW, Barrel 8-1M. We don't know much about these, but obviously dying to know why Brent selected these two in particular for us to try.
And that's our lineup! An incredible lineup if we do say so ourselves, and a wonderful tribute to Brent and the whole Four Roses team. If you already bought a ticket to this, please email to let me know if you prefer SET A or SET B. If you haven't bought a set yet, you will want hurry up -- as I write this there are only 14 of the 70 sets remaining and it will almost certainly sell out. I have started to assemble a partial 3rd set, so if you try to buy a ticket and see it's sold out, email me if you're interested in buying a 3rd set (which would include single barrel limited editions from 2013 and 2014, small batch limited editions from 2012, 2014 and 2016, the distillery only single barrel release from May 2019 referred to above, and a special single barrel OBSV that Jim Rutledge helped pick. If we get enough interest, and if there's time, I'll try to fill out the lineup and make it happen.