Barrel Strength Bourbon. Carla Harris Carlton

Mark made its first profit in 1967: $1,000. The bourbon was popular in Kentucky but largely unknown outside the state. It would take a rocket scientist to launch it to national acclaim: Bill Samuels Jr., who joined the company in the early 1970s after a brief career in the aerospace industry. When he became president of Maker’s Mark in 1975, he says, his father gave him one directive: “Don’t screw up the whiskey.”

      Bill Junior didn’t want to mess with the bourbon; he wanted more people to drink it. His father had always been reluctant to advertise. Bill Junior, on the other hand, has been known to wear a red suit that lights up to promote Maker’s Mark. But in the beginning, he worked with the Doe-Anderson agency in Louisville to develop two low-key approaches that his father could accept: establishing an informal group of “ambassadors,” or Maker’s Mark fans who were willing to talk up the brand and request that their favorite watering holes carry it; and creating a series of ads that read like letters to consumers and included the tagline, “It tastes expensive … and is.” Doe-Anderson would later capitalize on Maker’s Mark’s red-wax seal in a series of clever billboards as the bottles became an industry icon, instantly recognizable on a back bar.

      But none of it would have worked, Bill Samuels Jr. explains, if what was inside the bottle hadn’t been good. “If we didn’t have a product that people couldn’t wait to go tell their friends about, then we were dead in the water, because there certainly wasn’t any momentum for bourbon,” he says. “And there was no such thing as ‘premium’ and ‘super-premium’ bourbon; it just didn’t have any of the connoisseurs’ cues… . If Maker’s Mark was to become what we wanted it to become, after Dad took the shackles off a little bit, the reputation of bourbon had to change. And somebody had to be first.”

      In 1980, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal named David P. Garino made his way to Loretto. His resulting story, “Maker’s Mark Goes Against the Grain To Make Its Mark: Bourbon Distiller Is a Model of Inefficiency by Choice,” ran on the front page. Suddenly, the distillery couldn’t keep up with the demand for its bourbon.

      Blanton’s single-barrel bourbon (Photo courtesy of Buffalo Trace Distillery)

      Other distillers took note of the success that Maker’s Mark was having by positioning its bourbon as special and sophisticated, and they followed suit. In 1984, Elmer T. Lee, distillery manager at George T. Stagg Distillery (now Buffalo Trace) in Frankfort, introduced the first bourbon that was mass-marketed as “single-barrel”: Blanton’s. Most bourbon is blended from the contents of many barrels in order to achieve a consistent taste profile. But now and again, distillers come across a single barrel that they think contains exceptional juice. Each bottle of bourbon labeled as single-barrel has been filled from just one of these so-called honey or sugar barrels.

      { Just A SIP }

      Buffalo Trace’s Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey was the drink of choice for Boyd Crowder, the antagonist in the Kentucky-set FX series Justified (2010–2015).

      To consumers, the designation indicated a higher quality. It didn’t hurt that single-barrel bourbon sounded a lot like the term “single-malt Scotch.” Even though the terms don’t mean the same thing (a single-malt Scotch is one produced in a single distillery), single-malt Scotches were beginning to fetch premium prices in the 1980s. Many more single-barrel bourbons would follow. In 1986, the creator was honored with his own label: Elmer T. Lee Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.

      Near the end of the decade, Booker Noe, Master Distiller at Jim Beam, introduced another innovation: the small-batch bourbon. His Booker’s, bottled at barrel strength with a label written in his own handwriting, was the first of what would become Beam’s Small Batch Bourbon Collection; in 1992, it was joined by Baker’s, Basil Hayden’s, and Knob Creek, all marketed as ultrapremium bourbon whiskeys.

      { Just A SIP }

      There is no official definition of, or requirement for, what constitutes a small-batch bourbon. A small batch can be drawn from one barrel or dozens of barrels—it means whatever the bottler wants it to mean.

      To market these new high-end products, industry executives decided to send their distillers out to liquor stores and bars along with sales reps, both to educate the public about bourbon and to give the brands a personality.

      Elmer T. Lee and Booker Noe went on the road, along with Jimmy Russell, who had become the head distiller at Wild Turkey in the late 1960s. Fred Noe, Booker Noe’s son and the current Beam Master Distiller, refers to the trio as “the elder statesmen” of bourbon. “By being accessible, shaking hands, and telling the stories of the bourbon industry through their eyes, they laid the groundwork for the popularity of bourbon today,” Fred says.

       A LIMITED EDITION OF ONE: SINGLE-BARREL SELECTIONS

      As the demand for limited-edition bourbon grows, many distilleries are now offering the most limited edition of all: a single barrel that is hand-picked by a liquor store, restaurant, or bar owner and bottled exclusively for that establishment.

      Along with two other bourbon writers, Susan Reigler and Michael Veach, I have had the honor and privilege of participating in a number of these selections as a member of the Bourbon Board of Directors for Party Mart, an independently owned store in Louisville.

      The procedure at most distilleries is very similar. We arrive at the tasting bar, usually located right in the barrel warehouse, where glasses, water, and crackers or chips have been arranged at each place. Three or four exceptional barrels, preselected by the Master Distiller, lie on their sides, bungs facing up. (Four Roses, which, with two mash bills and five yeast strains, has 10 recipes, pulls one of each.) The distiller, or a brand representative, removes the bung with a bung knocker and a chisel. Then, using a long copper “straw” called a whiskey thief, we take turns drawing bourbon from each barrel and depositing it either directly into the glasses or into a decanter that the distillery officials pour into the glasses.

      The tasting room at Four Roses’ warehouse and bottling facility (Photo: Carla Carlton)

      We nose and taste each sample, taking notes on each and discussing our reactions. We are looking for superior bourbon, of course, but we are also on the hunt for a sample that has a taste profile that is distinctive in some way. Why would you pay extra for a single barrel of Old Forester that tastes exactly like Old Forester?