Barrel Strength Bourbon. Carla Harris Carlton

son, Guy, and his grandson Jack all worked at distilleries before and after Prohibition, but no one in that branch actually owned a distillery again until 2011, when Minor Beam’s great-grandsons, Stephen and Paul Beam, opened Limestone Branch in Lebanon, Kentucky. There, they honored the distilling heritage not only of their father’s family but also of their mother’s, the Dants, by resurrecting that family’s most famous brand, Yellowstone Bourbon.

      Finally, David Beam’s youngest son, John “Jack” Beam, founded a distillery in Bardstown called Early Times. His son, Edward, was supposed to succeed him as distiller, but both men died in 1915. Brown-Forman eventually bought the brand name, and Early Times is still sold today.

      In 2011, Rob Samuels became the eighth generation to lead his storied bourbon family when he took over as chief executive of Maker’s Mark. The Samuels family has been in the whiskey business since 1840. Rob’s grandparents, Bill and Margie Samuels, developed Maker’s Mark, a smooth, sweet wheated bourbon, in the 1950s, and his father, Bill Samuels Jr., made the bourbon an international sensation through clever marketing.

      Another father-and-son team has been making fine Kentucky bourbon for decades at Wild Turkey in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Master Distiller Jimmy Russell has worked at Wild Turkey for just over 60 years and has the longest tenure of any Master Distiller in the industry. His son, co–Master Distiller Eddie Russell, has been with Wild Turkey for “only” 35 years and jokingly introduces himself as “the new guy.” Eddie’s son Bruce entered the family business in 2015 as a brand ambassador for Russell’s Reserve.

      For members of these distilling dynasties, whiskey runs through the blood. They’re not just making Kentucky bourbon. They’re making Kentucky history.

      Master Distillers Eddie (left) and Jimmy Russell of Wild Turkey (Photo courtesy of Wild Turkey)

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      Making Its Mark: The Rise of Premium Bourbon

      “I think in 20 years we’ll say ‘a $5,000 bottle of bourbon’ and no one will blink an eye. There is a shift happening right now … and I think nothing but good can come of it. It’s sure better than the alternative, where you can’t give the stuff away. We’ve seen that before.”

       —Harlen Wheatley, Master Distiller at Buffalo Trace Distillery

      BY THE 1970s, bourbon producers were facing a big problem. They had 8.5 million barrels aging in warehouses across the state, but their amber spirit had fallen from favor. Young people, having rejected whiskey along with everything else the previous generation had preferred, were drinking lighter distilled spirits such as tequila and vodka along with beer and wine. Having failed to foresee this change when they made their sales predictions years in advance, distillers now had a glut of inventory that no one wanted. And no one seemed to know how to turn things around.

      “When I started at Brown-Forman 40 years ago, bourbon wasn’t cool,” says Chris Morris, now Master Distiller at the Louisville-based spirits company. “There were just the everyday brands: our flagship brand, Old Forester, and Early Times; our competitors, Old Grand-Dad, Old Crow, Old Taylor, Old Fitzgerald. There was no activity in terms of excitement, no new brands, no annual Old Forester Birthday Bourbon. Everybody was fighting for the same pie, and the pie was shrinking.”

      Chris Morris, Master Distiller at Brown-Forman (Photo courtesy of Brown-Forman)

      With too much supply and not enough demand, some producers started cutting prices, but that just moved bourbon to the bottom shelf of the liquor store, and even lower in the public’s estimation. The future looked dark indeed. Morris, who joined Brown-Forman in 1980, refers to this period as “the worst of times.”

      Today, instead of gathering dust in package stores, many bottles of bourbon never even make it to the shelves: they are deposited directly into the hands of eager customers. Regulars cruise the bourbon aisle at their favorite shops like sharks, looking for something new, and buying frenzies erupt when a hard-to-get brand like Pappy Van Winkle is released. Bourbon has become a hot collectible.

      “All these limited editions are being hoarded by bourbon crazies who have bunkers full of juice,” says Eric Gregory, president of the Kentucky Distillers’ Association. “I don’t know what bourbon apocalypse they are waiting for, but I love it!”

      So what did distillers do to make bourbon cool again? They raised its profile—and they raised its price.

      “Since the ending of Prohibition, as an industry, we’ve probably shot ourselves in the foot 10 times,” Max Shapira, president of Heaven Hill Distilleries, says in Kentucky Bourbon Tales, a project conducted by the University of Kentucky’s Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History and the KDA, in which I participated as an interviewer. “Then finally, we started to do some things right. We introduced single-barrels, small batches. Today, there is more innovation than you could ever possibly imagine—unique ages, alcohol proof levels, and mash bills; packaging and labeling; all the elements that go into attracting new consumers.” Even flavored bourbon. “I mean, think about it: if someone in a marketing meeting even as little as five or six years ago had put his hand up and said, ‘I think we need a cherry-flavored bourbon, or a honey-flavored one,’ he would probably have been thrown out of the meeting. But these are the things that have helped to reinvent this segment of the industry.”

      Heaven Hill’s Max Shapira (Photo courtesy of Heaven Hill)

      And leading the way was a distillery in the middle of nowhere called Maker’s Mark.

      The first bottle of Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky was filled in 1958 at Bill Samuels’s distillery in tiny Loretto, Kentucky. At that point, many bourbon whiskeys were harsh and high proof—something you shot to feel the burn. Bill Samuels had a different idea. “He wanted to make a bourbon that actually tasted good,” says his son, Bill Samuels Jr., chairman emeritus of Maker’s Mark. To do that, he experimented with different grain combinations, eventually using red winter wheat in place of rye, which made his bourbon softer and sweeter.

      { Just A SIP }

      As a general rule, whiskey is spelled with an e in the United States and Ireland but without an e in Canada, Scotland, and Japan. Two notable exceptions are Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky and Old Forester Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky.

      Bill Junior’s mother, Margie Samuels, collected fine pewter. Each piece bore the mark of its maker, which was a sign of quality—so she suggested they call the new bourbon “Maker’s Mark.” She also designed the bottle and the label, including the font, and proposed that each bottle be sealed with red wax in the manner of expensive cognac. (Whenever Bill Senior objected to one of her suggestions for cost or other reasons, Bill Junior says, Margie would remind him who had graduated first in the class at the University of Louisville, and who had graduated last.)

      Maker’s Mark Distillery, in the rolling hills of Marion County, Kentucky, was founded by Margie and Bill Samuels. (Photos courtesy of Beam Suntory)

      Maker’s Mark Distillery, in the rolling hills of Marion County, Kentucky, was founded by Margie