Whiskey Tree

[shoshani]

PROBLEMS/QUESTIONS/CONTROVERSIES: Regan & Regan list an approximate mashbill for all the bourbons made at "Ancient Age Distillery" as 80/10/10. That can't be right, but which mashbill does that represent, #1 or #2?

Regan & Regan's book came out around 1997 or so; it's been reissued but not revised, so any information they have for "Ancient Age Distillery" would pertain to mashbill #2, the lower corn higher rye Age International mashbill. None of the BT whiskeys (that Buffalo Trace owns and that are made to mashbill #1) were on the market yet at the time the Regans wrote their book. That being said, I can't imagine a mashbill that's higher in corn and lower in rye than 80/10/10! So that indeed cannot be correct.

EDIT: I misspoke badly. I meant the BT whiskeys were not on the market *by BT*. Sorry about that. Benchmark, Charter, and others that BT currently owns and produces were on the market at the time the Regans wrote, but were owned and produced by other distilleries.

Also, a mashbill of 75/20/5 is listed for Old Fitz, Weller and Rebel Yell while at Bernheim. What is the current mashbill?

The actual classic Stitzel-Weller mashbill was, if I recall correctly, 70/18/12, a mashbill from which its derivative Maker's Mark deviates only fractionally. Over time Diageo's predecessors lowered the amount of barley malt, at one time experimenting with enzymes. What today's Heaven Hill Bernheim mashbill is, I've no idea, but they would only have what they inherited, ie the mashbills in use by UDV at the time of the sale. (I would imagine this holds true with BT and the Weller line, although the Van Winkle influence has no doubt led to their wheated mashbills at the very least being restored to the S-W proportions, if not the S-W processes. BT cooks under pressure, for example, a process Pappy spoke out against openly.)