BT Single Estate bourbon

[dcbt]

Probably several years away: http://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2015/05/buffalo-trace-plans-single-estate-bourbon-brand/

[GaryT]

Chuck had a post on his blog on this as well. I'm looking forward to it, while recognizing it is mostly a marketing play. I do think it will create a nice touring experience (and they already have lovely grounds). I expect the end product will be way too expensive for what it is, but I'll definitely look to try it. With the current competition, being able to have an "estate" whiskey that is completely sourced on the same property provides a nice differentiator. I wonder how much produce they can cultivate on the space, how many tons of grain that translates into, and ultimately how much whiskey they'll be able to produce. I'm thinking it will be a pretty small volume, so just to cover the costs of the enterprise it won't be inexpensive. Hopefully they'll have patience and allow it to mature well enough along before releasing it

[Josh]

Terroir, man. Terroir.

[Spade]

Seems like a cool idea. The only scenario where I could imagine getting one was as a memento if I did a tour and they were selling it for a reasonable price. Since it likely won't meet my definition of reasonable, I probably will never try it.

[squire]

One of the advantages of living in a rural area is we know the farmers who bring produce to our local Farmers Market. We can even drive by their fields and gardens and visit if we like. We get it fresh, we get it at the peak of ripeness, we can choose from different varieties and we can choose from stuff grown for flavor rather than suitability for mechanical harvest and extended travel. In a culinary sense this is great.

Whisky is made, not grown, so my interest is in what the distiller does with the grain rather than where he gets it. Will farm to bottle make a difference in the glass? Probably not, at least not that most would notice, yet the concept provides a fresh approach emphasizing accurate details rather than the usual hoopla so for that alone it's a positive.

[flaminiom]

I thought this land was adjacent or near BT. If so, part of me wonders if they're just buying up land for future expansion and/or buffer for that fungus issue. The farm to bottle thing might be a secondary bonus to utilize it.

[CorvallisCracker]

I ran into this concept while visiting Bend Distillery last October. Although right now their rye whiskey is straight-from-the-still MGP make, shipped to Oregon, cut with local ("Cascades") water and aged a whole twelve months in locally made barrels of Oregon White Oak (quercus garryana), they are growing rye on their own little ten acre field located just northwest of the distillery. They only started doing this in 2013 and the first batch of "Estate" rye is still in the barrel. Don't recall how long they plan to age it - that is probably in my notes, but those are at home and I'm not.

[TunnelTiger]

Curious, how much rye could they distill with an exceptional harvest of 10 acres?

[squire]

Damn little, relatively speaking, but they could toss a cup in a barrel of sourced stuff and still claim it contained whisky they made.

[portwood]

... they could toss a cup in a barrel of sourced stuff and still claim it contained whisky they made.

Hand-made single barrel small batch craft whiskey

yeah, I want some, LOL

[squire]

Which would explain why the word solera seems to be creeping into places where it didn't formerly dwell.

[CorvallisCracker]

Curious, how much rye could they distill with an exceptional harvest of 10 acres?

Rye generally yields 40-60 bushels per acre. From what I've read on the ADI forum, one can get about 4.2 proof gallons (meaning 50% ABV) per bushel.

So figure 50 bushels per acre, ten acres. 4.2 gallons of 100 proof per bushel gets you 2100 gallons. Cut to 80 proof gets you 2625 gallons, which is 9936701ml, or 13,248 750ml bottles.

Edited May 4, 2015 by CorvallisCracker

[TunnelTiger]

Damn, that's a whole lot more than I thought

[squire]

Me too . . . . . . . . . .

[CorvallisCracker]

Of course, that doesn't factor in Angel's Share, which in the High Desert is worse than in Kentucky...

[tanstaafl2]

So figure 50 bushels per acre, ten acres. 4.2 gallons of 100 proof per bushel gets you 2100 gallons. Cut to 80 proof gets you 2625 gallons, which is 9936701ml, or 13,248 750ml bottles.

I would happily sacrifice the extra 2700 or so bottles to get it at 100 proof! Of course as it ages the available volume presumably gets smaller and smaller and I am not really interested in more white dog or underaged whiskey.

[CorvallisCracker]

Returning to the original thread topic.

I wonder how much produce they can cultivate on the space, how many tons of grain that translates into, and ultimately how much whiskey they'll be able to produce.

Let's see if we can estimate that.

According to the article, they've acquired 233 acres, to be planted in corn, rye and barley.

In 2014, the US average yield of corn was 171 bushels per acre. Let's keep it conservative and assume BT manages 150 per acre.

As already mentioned, rye yields 40 - 60 bushels per acre. Let's assume 50.

Barley is highly variable, yielding 5 - 40 per acre. Let's go with 20.

All of these grains are fairly high in sugar and starch and can yield 4+ proof gallons per bushel. Let's go with 4 to make the math easier. (BTW, wheat yields only about 3 gal per bushel).

120 acres in corn = 72000 proof gallons

50 acres in rye = 10000 proof gallons

63 acres in barley = 5040 proof gallons

Total = 87040 proof gallons, 329482086 ml, or 439,309 750ml bottles.

That's pre-barrel. You still have to factor in spillage, angels share and, um, pilferage. :skep:

[dcbt]

Are those annual estimates?

[CorvallisCracker]

Are those annual estimates?

I'm assuming one crop per year, yes.

[dcbt]

Is it as simple as adding up the proof gallons to get to the 87k? I feel like there's some lowest common denominator effect that is needed based on mash bill. I may not be thinking about that correctly, though.

[CorvallisCracker]

Is it as simple as adding up the proof gallons to get to the 87k? I feel like there's some lowest common denominator effect that is needed based on mash bill. I may not be thinking about that correctly, though.

Don't know enough about fermentation to know how a combined mash bill would affect the production.

I will say that in the course of researching a book, I've spent a lot of time looking at pre-prohibition IRS annual reports. Commencing about 1880, they published state-by-state and national totals for bushels of grain used and proof gallons produced, and the calculated pf gallon/bushel ratio. In 1880 the national average was just under 4 pf gal per bushel. By 1910 that was approaching 4.5.

This calculation was summed across all grains. Then as now, most whiskey was made from corn, rye and barley malt, and made using mixed grain mash.

States that used mostly wheat to make whiskey (Oregon being one) were managing only 3 - 3.5 pf gal/bushel.

So I feel pretty confident about using 4 pf gal/bushel in these estimates. The real variability is the bushel/acre yield of a particular grain.

I just read the Cowdery article and see that BT bought an additional 49 acres over the 233...but not all of it may be used for grain production...so who knows?

[Darwin]

I find marketing gimmicks amusing. That said I hope it's a good bottle of juice.

[El Vino]

While I found the Single Oak Project fascinating as a science project but frustrating as a consumer, I have to imagine the Single Oak project was a commercial success. Imagine now the commercial potential for line extensions that take the most popular elements of the single oak project and produce them from the single estate portfolio. If Single Oak established the $100 price point for 10 YO bourbon, this might easily go well beyond that. It really is brilliant marketing. If it is at least more readily available than BTAC and Pappy and within range of my economics, I'd try it.

[Darwin]

Maybe they will release a Single Row edition.

[T Comp]

I find marketing gimmicks amusing. ... .