Have you ever wanted to create your own mashbill and see how it turns out?

[flahute]

Of course you have. I'd venture that most of us whiskey geeks have an idea for something and I remember some threads in the past with a similar theme.

I was fortunate to participate in this exact exercise at Heaven Hill's Build-a-Barrel event at the Kentucky Bourbon Affair. The description for this event didn't describe it fully so I wasn't expecting as much latitude as we had. If you don't read to the end, the critical detail here is that Heaven Hill is actually going to distill, age, and bottle this for us.

 

The event was held at the Evan William's experience in downtown Louisville. We were split into three groups of about 8-9 people each and went through three stations to discuss/learn about the grains that go into the whiskey (along with some sensory exercises and tasting of white dog); the mashing and distilling process with some detailed discussion led by Charlie Strong next to their pot still; and the aging process led by Bernie Lubbers in which we tasted sbs 1 year old bourbon aged in chinquapin oak along with two 7 year old bourbons aged in standard white oak at both #3 char and #4 char. All along we were making notes and over a lunch break were discussing what we might do.

 

We reconvened and Larry Kass led the final discussion and voting. As a full group, we first voted on grains to be used. HH gave us full latitude here to go with a malt whiskey, wheat whiskey, corn whiskey, odd mixed grains (if we really wanted to) along with the standards: rye whiskey, wheated bourbon and rye based bourbon. As a group we voted for a typical rye bourbon recipe with a mix of yellow and white corn.

 

With the grains decided, the three groups reconvened to decide on mashbills and came up with three different mashbills that we all voted on.

Mashbill #1 - very standard, I'm forgetting the ratios off hand, but it was very close to the typical HH mashbill.

Mashbill #2 - 65% corn, 25% rye, 10% malted barley.

Mashbill #3 - 51% corn, 30% rye, 19% malted barley.

 

Mashbill #3 won. Wow!

 

We then voted on barrel type from both 3 and 4 yr air dried chinquapin oak and 2 and 5 year air dried standard white oak.

We chose the 5 year air dried white oak at a #4 char. (Char levels 2,3, and 4 were available to us)

 

We then voted on entry proof and went with 115. (Could have gone as low as 110 and as high as 125).

 

We then voted on warehouse and floor level in warehouse. Choices were Bardstown, Deatsville, Glencoe, and new warehouses at Cox's Creek. Floor levels were low (1-3), middle (4-5), and high (6-7). We voted for Bardstown, middle floors. (I really wanted Deatsville). 

 

Here's the really cool part. Charlie Strong is going to distill two barrels worth for us on the pot still at the EW Experience. HH is then going to age it for us and will make samples available to taste at various intervals along the way. They will also send us tasting notes for those who can't taste in person. We will decide as a group when to bottle these. (They won't let us age for a crazy long time of course). When ready, they will create a custom label and each person will get 2-4 bottles depending on barrel yield. 

 

This was truly a unique and incredible opportunity and I have to give Heaven Hill massive amounts credit for coming up with this. 

[DonutsNBourbon]

wow that's incredibly awesome!  even better is that you get to taste along the way and then decide when it's ready.  

[tanstaafl2]

Sounds like fun! The whiskey tree lists the HH standard mashbill as 75/13/12.

 

Although I probably would have advocated for the "odd mixed grains" mashbill, probably to no avail. For me HH already makes a lot of plenty good rye bourbon even if it doesn't have quite as much rye in the typical mashbill as choice 3. I would want to try to make something a little more unusual.

[squire]

Sounds like a great experience Steve, wish I'd been there.

[Richnimrod]

I will agree with all who have commented before me; "Great Fun", and VERY interesting!.... and add this:

I'd have tried a very high corn mashbill, ...were it available (my great great grand uncle made a 'moonshine' down in a 'holler' in Southwest KY, from nearly all corn according to my dearly departed Dad); something like 86% corn, 8% rye, 6% malt.

Flahute: I assume you'll be keeping us abreast of the tasting notes and bottling date....?

[dcbt]

Dumb question: if there were three groups of 8-9 people, and HH is making 2 barrels, and each group member gets 2-4 bottles, what is HH doing with the rest of the yield?  Seems like 2 barrels would yield a crapload more than 48-108 bottles...  Or did I misread something?

[Paddy]

^^^^my money is that any residual will be a limited gift shop offering.

 

P. S.  Great report Steve!

[squire]

Yeah, what's up with the other bottles?

[flahute]

3 hours ago, tanstaafl2 said:

Sounds like fun! The whiskey tree lists the HH standard mashbill as 75/13/12.

 

Although I probably would have advocated for the "odd mixed grains" mashbill, probably to no avail. For me HH already makes a lot of plenty good rye bourbon even if it doesn't have quite as much rye in the typical mashbill as choice 3. I would want to try to make something a little more unusual.

There wasn't any appetite in the group for a truly odd mashbill. I thought there would be a big push for a wheated bourbon since that's all the rage these days, but there were only a couple people who wanted to do that. There was one wheat whiskey person also. A rye recipe bourbon was the clear winner in the vote. I was one of the proponents for a high rye mashbill. 4R does it of course, but I wanted to see what HH could do with 30% rye.

[flahute]

1 hour ago, Richnimrod said:

I will agree with all who have commented before me; "Great Fun", and VERY interesting!.... and add this:

I'd have tried a very high corn mashbill, ...were it available (my great great grand uncle made a 'moonshine' down in a 'holler' in Southwest KY, from nearly all corn according to my dearly departed Dad); something like 86% corn, 8% rye, 6% malt.

Flahute: I assume you'll be keeping us abreast of the tasting notes and bottling date....?

One interesting note: 8% barley is as low as they will go. They need that minimum to get the fermentation they need.

 

I will indeed keep you all abreast of how it goes with the periodic tastings and ultimate bottling.

[flahute]

1 hour ago, dcbt said:

Dumb question: if there were three groups of 8-9 people, and HH is making 2 barrels, and each group member gets 2-4 bottles, what is HH doing with the rest of the yield?  Seems like 2 barrels would yield a crapload more than 48-108 bottles...  Or did I misread something?

Good question. That figure was mentioned before the vote so they didn't know what floor of the warehouse we wanted. If we ended up on the top floor of Deatsville for example we'd likely have a pretty low yield. We also didn't discuss bottling proof. If we go with barrel proof that also keeps the total bottle number lower. That said, there are surely going to be a fair number of extra bottles which I'm sure some of which will be kept by HH for research purposes. Perhaps they will also let us purchase extras beyond the 2-4 we get for participating.

Don't know. This is the first time they've done this so not all the details are worked out. They are still figuring things out.

[tanstaafl2]

23 minutes ago, flahute said:

There wasn't any appetite in the group for a truly odd mashbill. I thought there would be a big push for a wheated bourbon since that's all the rage these days, but there were only a couple people who wanted to do that. There was one wheat whiskey person also. A rye recipe bourbon was the clear winner in the vote. I was one of the proponents for a high rye mashbill. 4R does it of course, but I wanted to see what HH could do with 30% rye.

 

Not surprised there wasn't much enthusiasm for something really different. And of course the barrel or so a day pot still at the EW experience probably isn't going to be all that reflective of the typical whiskey that comes off the column still at Bernheim anyway so it will be a bit of apples to oranges. Still, it sounds like an interesting experience!

[flahute]

Whoops - just realized I got the distillers last name wrong. I wrote this first thing in the morning (that's my excuse) and I can't edit my post now.

His name is Charlie Downs and he was at the Bernheim distillery for many years.

[GaryT]

That sounds like it was a helluva lot of fun!  Look forward to hearing how it turns out!  I looked at the various options, and I think what the group wound up with is almost 100% what I would have voted for (I'd have loved to see 110 entry proof, but excited they didn't go for the highest possible proof!)

[LCWoody]

Very cool, sounds like something most of us would have loved to been apart of. 

[Kpiz]

Very cool event. Big fan of the mashbill chosen as well - reminds me of this post by Gary about Wathen's, which says that many years ago bourbon mashbills tended to have a higher proportion of malt than is used today http://www.beeretseq.com/kentucky-whiskey-making-in-the-wathens-over-100-years/ (skip down to the 8th paragraph or so)

[PaulO]

Steve, you have all the fun.  Does the EW Experience have its own DSP #?  I think a bottled in bond would be really cool.  Unfiltered too, if you can. 

[flahute]

On 6/21/2016 at 4:56 PM, Kpiz said:

 

On 6/21/2016 at 11:57 AM, squire said:

Sounds like a great experience Steve, wish I'd been there.

What do you think of the chosen mashbill squire? If you were there, what would you have done? Given as many years that you've been drinking bourbon I'm curious how you would lean.

 

11 hours ago, PaulO said:

Steve, you have all the fun.  Does the EW Experience have its own DSP #?  I think a bottled in bond would be really cool.  Unfiltered too, if you can. 

I'd think they would have to have their own DSP since it's a unique location apart from Bernheim. BIB would be great if we can't get it at barrel proof. I'll definitely lobby for unfiltered.

 

On 6/21/2016 at 4:56 PM, Kpiz said:

Very cool event. Big fan of the mashbill chosen as well - reminds me of this post by Gary about Wathen's, which says that many years ago bourbon mashbills tended to have a higher proportion of malt than is used today http://www.beeretseq.com/kentucky-whiskey-making-in-the-wathens-over-100-years/ (skip down to the 8th paragraph or so)

Great link, thanks. We were specifically thinking about older bourbons when we decided to go with the higher malt content.

[jsrudd]

On 6/22/2016 at 1:06 AM, flahute said:

We then voted on entry proof and went with 115. (Could have gone as low as 110 and as high as 125).

 

What was the discussion like over the barrel entry proof? Why did you all not go with the lowest possible? 

[flahute]

12 hours ago, jsrudd said:

What was the discussion like over the barrel entry proof? Why did you all not go with the lowest possible? 

The short answer is that not everyone present understood the value of low entry proof. We did not have an extensive discussion about it as a larger group. Our group (one out of the three groups) discussed it because we brought it up ourselves. I don't know what happened in the other two groups.

There were so many variables to decide on (which was a good thing), but some got more attention than others.

I think some people were thinking about the ultimate barrel yield and that you get more (possibly, depending on bottling proof) with a higher entry proof. Others wanted low entry proof for quality. Some where trying to strike a balance.

When it came time to vote, the show of hands started with 125 and then worked its way down. I wanted 110, but when the vote for 115 came up, it seemed pretty close to the 120 hand count and I was afraid of splitting the vote between 110 and 115 so I voted 115 to make sure we at least got that. (It was clear there weren't going to be enough 110 votes left).

[Paddy]

^^^Well played Steve.  You can't win every battle, but you won the war. 

[Harry in WashDC]

Thanks, Steve - and to you commenters for an interesting discussion.  After dinner, I think I'll sit back and have some HHSS#2 and muse about this or even cogitate.  No baseball tonight, either; Nats are licking their wounds from five straight road losses before facing Milwaukee tomorrow.

[Ozark]

Thank you Steve,

 

What a great experience and I do appreciate the insight.  

[squire]

23 hours ago, flahute said:

What do you think of the chosen mashbill squire? If you were there, what would you have done? Given as many years that you've been drinking bourbon I'm curious how you would lean.

 

 

 

There are two that intrigue me, both very old ones . . .

1) 60% Rye, 30% corn and 10% malt.

2) 45% rye, 45% corn and 10% malt.

 

My third wish (Bourbon Fairy gives us three wishes, right?) would be about 100 proof off the still and straight into a new barrel for around 6 years.  Let the warehouse staff pick the location for optimum aging.

[flahute]

2 hours ago, squire said:

There are two that intrigue me, both very old ones . . .

1) 60% Rye, 30% corn and 10% malt.

2) 45% rye, 45% corn and 10% malt.

 

My third wish (Bourbon Fairy gives us three wishes, right?) would be about 100 proof off the still and straight into a new barrel for around 6 years.  Let the warehouse staff pick the location for optimum aging.

Well now I'm intrigued. No. 1 is pretty close to 4R so I can imagine that. No. 2 is neither a rye or a bourbon. What whiskey of yesteryear had such a mashbill? Fascinating.

 

(100 proof off the still sounds divine. What floor would you put it on? (Yes, I know you said to rely on the warehouse staff, but I'm curious what floor you think would be ideal for 100 proof off the still and into the barrel).