- All distillery starts out
with hygiene and quality.
How they prepare the
grains, their yeast strains,
that's the science.
And then after that, how you mature it,
how you bottle it, how your
filter it, you can multi-brand.
Literally, when we go around,
we're gonna let you see
the guys who really make it.
I hope your audience speaks
Kentucky-ese. (laughs)
(upbeat music)
- The products, and the
process for making the whiskey,
is the same way it was
in the 1700 and 1800s.
- It's grain, water, yeast,
beer, that you distill
and put into a barrel.
The only thing you can do
is filter it and add water.
There's are strict set of limitations
that you have to adhere to.
- So really the only thing
that's change around here
are some of the techniques
and some of the technologies,
but the process is still the same.
- Bourdon is a product
of the United States.
Made anywhere in the U.S.
We have five important
things that we need to follow
to be able to call it bourdon.
First thing, has to be make
from at least 51% corn.
Aged in a new charred oak container.
Can't be distilled any
higher than 160 proof.
Can't go into the container
any higher than 125 proof.
And we can't add any
coloring or flavorings.
Now one of the reason we make
so much bourbon here in Kentucky,
is because of our water.
This part of the state
sits on a limestone bed,
and the water filters
through that limestone.
This does two main things.
First thing, that water's
picking up calcium.
Which gives us a nice sweet flavor.
But also that limestone removes iron.
Iron is terrible for making whiskey.
Makes a really bitter off-tasting whiskey.
So you have to start with
a quality water source
if you're gonna have a quality bourbon.
- When grain trucks come in
here we probe that grain truck
four times, probe it twice in
the back, twice in the front.
Now we're looking for mold,
bacteria, cobs, whatever in it.
That be very important, 'cause
you bring mold and all in,
you done ruin your bourbon.
- At the very top where
those pipes are coming in.
That's where we take
the corn and clean it.
Because this will give you bad bourbon.
So the grain cleaner is going to clean out
everything that we don't want
that's coming off that truck.
- Once it's been inspected
it will get offloaded
into the bins outside.
We use a hammer mill to
crush the grain into a meal.
Corn, the starch is all inside the kernel.
So you have to break the
kernel to get to the starch,
which is what we're after.
- We're then gonna mix that
with our limestone water
in our cooker.
(machine whirring)
So what we just heard
was the start of a cook.
We are boiling out limestone
water, we'll start with corn,
then with rye, and then with
malted barley in sequence.
And that will give us our mash.
- [Man] All right, folks,
we talk about fermentation next.
Now yeast is gonna be the
main actor in fermentation.
Now we have these starchy grains,
we got the sugars out of those
through the mashing process.
Yeast is gonna consume those sugars,
produce heat, CO2, and alcohol.
- These two fermentors give you just one
of the best descriptions of
what happens, this is brand new.
So it's brand new filled
up, there's no fermentation
going in this one.
It's where the yeast is saying,
well, did you feed me well or not.
Look at here, this is when
the yeast says, thank you.
(man laughs)
Taste this, is that about
the best sourdough bread
you've ever had?
- Yeah, it might be.
- This one has been here for three days,
so if you feel on here there's grain cap.
And that sorta locks in things.
But if you break through the
grain cap, and taste the beer,
that's the finished product.
- [Man] From the fermentor
we're going to move
into the source of flavor.
It's how we distill.
- [Man] So after three
days in those fermentors,
we're gonna bring the
beer over to this column.
Inside there are perforated plates.
That beer's gonna be piped into the top,
and it's gonna drip down.
Wash down over those plates.
- Put your hand on top of that.
Now if that hand, you imagine,
was a scouring pad made of copper.
When you boil it the second
time, and it has to go
through your hand or that
copper, it will pick up
a lot of impurities.
- Alcohol, of course, has
a lower boiling point.
So if we get that temperature just right,
that alcohol, it's gonna
vaporize, rise to the top,
while that spent mash
and water continues down.
Now the alcohol vapor rising off the top,
we're gonna collect it, condense it.
It'll end up in the first tail box,
at this point we call it low wine.
- And you notice has grungy it is.
That is the copper sulfate
from the malt and corn oil.
- [Man] Gonna pull a sample off here.
Well, that's what it smells like
when it first comes off the still.
It's quite different than what we collect,
and what we put in the barrel.
- So we're gonna take that low wine,
we're gonna sent it over
to our second still.
It is a pot still, what we call a doubler.
We're gonna gently
redistill that low wine.
Strip away from more
impurities, a bit of water,
collect those good alcohol
vapors, condense them once more.
They're gonna wind up
in the second tail box.
This time as high wine.
- So the spirit ends up in the gauge tank
there we will add limestone water,
that as this point has been filtered.
Every bourbon distillery
distills over 125 proof,
every bubon distillery
adds water to its spirit
going in the barrel.
- And the most expensive component
of the bourbon is the barrel.
Average cost of a newly
charred white oak barrel,
in today's environment's
about $150 a barrel.
This year alone, we're going
through 100,000 barrels.
And it will be three to 23
years before you can even
resell the barrel or do
anything else with it.
(upbeat music)
So imagine the investment
that they have in the future
when they're doing this every
year for the next 20 years.
(machine knocks)
- [Man] As that clear whiskey
is sitting in the barrel
in the warehouse exposed
to seasonal changes,
it's gonna be breathing,
expanding and contracting,
in and out of the wood.
- Because Mother Nature has
a lot to do with the moving
of the whiskey in and out of the wood.
And it's not temperature,
it's barometric pressure.
When the whiskey warms
up inside the barrel,
the molecules expand,
just like a two liter soda
bottle when it gets hot.
The pressure is so great
inside that barrel,
it pushed the whiskey out
into the grain of the wood,
through the char.
And when it does that,
because the water molecules
are smaller than the alcohol molecules,
it actually pushed some of the water
out through the grain of the wood.
- Meaning our volume drops.
And as we heat and cool,
the barrel is also pull in
the air of the warehouse.
- So what's actually going
on inside the barrel is,
the alcohol molecules
are trapped in the wood,
and it breaks down the saps and resins.
And so when a whiskey
travels back the other way,
when it cools down or
when the pressure changes,
it pulls those flavors
from the sap and resin,
and the color from the char,
back into the heart of the barrel.
I tell people to think of the barrel
like a teabag, all right?
So you use that barrel
one time for bourbon.
You try to use it again
to make the same product,
just like a cup of tea,
the color and taste
is not the same, it's gonna be diluted.
- After six or seven years,
we'll have lost 50% of
its original contents.
- And the longer you leave it after that
the less you're gonna have.
Sometimes you open up the
barrels, they're empty,
heartbreak city.
- It's the end.
- [Man] But what's left is a
very rich flavorful product.
- There's not a single barrel in here
that tastes like another barrel.
- This barrel was filled
the same time this one was,
and they're put right next to each other
and they taste completely different.
- These quadrants are set
up, and depending upon
where I place the barrel
in this warehouse,
and on which side of the
warehouse, and on which level,
I can extract different chemical flavors
from the white oak itself.
- [Man] We batch 130 barrels together
to make a consistent flavor profile.
- [Man] You're taking
things that are overstated
and things that are understated,
and you can balance them and
make them better together.
That's why we do it.
And I don't care what
distillery you go to.
Everybody has to do it that way,
especially for a uniform profile.
- Isn't life a journey?
