Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose home state happens to be Kentucky. tariffs on steel by zeroing in on bourbon, slyly trolling U.S. In 2018 the European Union’s trade warriors retaliated against U.S. Like others that have flirted with globalization, the whiskey industry is facing its own trade troubles. “We’re seeing everything in this new age of bourbon,” says whiskey historian Fred Minnick. Entire craft brands with names such as Angel’s Envy and Blood Oath have been born out of barrel-finished whiskeys. Distillers are marketing premium whiskeys finished in barrels that once bore Napa Valley cabernets or Caribbean rum. Near the Armagnac barrels in the workshop that Willett oversees are oak sherry casks from Spain and a stack of cachaça barrels from Brazil made out of a native Brazilian hardwood. This new trend in bourbon-making is part of the long march of globalization in the world of whiskey. But these days a growing number of bourbon makers are following the example set by Scotch distillers and adding an extra step-transferring their whiskeys from those congressionally mandated charred oak barrels to imported brandy, sherry, and port casks that add undertones to the vanilla and caramel notes that bourbon drinkers have traditionally prized. Tradition and American oak still live strong. Now a whiskey boom and a new generation of artisanal distillers looking to differentiate themselves in an increasingly crowded market is changing the business.
And through history that’s what Kentucky distillers have done, leaving their bourbons to mature through hot summers and damp winters in warehouses filled with tens of thousands of barrels. The floor of Speyside Cooperage’s outpost in Shepherdsville, Kyīourbon, the most American of spirits, has for decades been governed by a 1964 congressional resolution requiring that corn make up at least 51% of the mash from which it’s distilled, that it be made in the U.S., and that it be aged in virgin American oak barrels with a charred interior. But the oak barrels imported from France were now about to embark on a new phase of their life, poised to lend flavor to a generation of Kentucky’s finest. There, on a recent winter day, what you’d have seen was a phalanx of 450-liter (119-gallon) Armagnac casks stacked two high. Ask Aaron Willett what the future of bourbon looks like, and he’ll take you out onto the floor of Speyside Cooperage’s outpost in Shepherdsville, Ky.
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