How are small batches made?

[Bourbonmakesmepoop]

I'm curious, if anyone has any inside info to blending, how are the small batch bourbons blended together? In particular, the limited editions. Do they select x number of barrels and just blend them all at once, or do they start with the better ones that best match the profile and then add less tasty ones in order to maximize output to the point where if they add more, it won't be as good? If they made the batch half the size, would it be that much better or do you think all of the barrels chosen are good? Again, I'm talking limited editions. Sippin on some THH 2016 while pondering this and thought, who better to ask than straightbourbon.com?

[Richnimrod]

Interesting question!    I have no information; but will join you in watching this thread. 

I too, would like to know; if anybody has any 'inside' about this. 

I'm certain the process is different at 4-R than anywhere else; but that said, I wonder if it's different from distillery to distillery.... Or more similar (Except 4-R) than different.

This forum may yield some informative discussion.   Let's see.

[Old Dusty]

Only taking a stab at this based on what I have read, heard and witnessed. "Small Batch" is a meaningless term. There is no legal definition. It could mean 2 barrels, twenty barrels or two hundred barrels. The BTAC (like the THH you are sipping on) have the info sheets that tell how many barrels were dumped to comprise that particular bottling. If the bottle is made up of barrels that are all the same basic distillate there may not be a lot of art to the blend. Just select x number of 12 year BT wheated barrels and dump them as WLW. Of course they may taste each one first to see if they fit a profile. 

 

For things like the Four Roses Small Batch LE, it's a different story with multiple recipes vatted to create a blend. We only know the component recipes but not the ratios. The ratio and the choice of recipe is where the art comes in and unless you talk to Rutledge or Elliott and they spill the beans, none of us will know the proportions of each recipe in the vatting. Or why they chose those three or four components. 

 

There aren't too many other LEs that cross mashbill or recipe-maybe Blood Oath and Yellowstone and a few other NDPs.

 

I'm sure this isn't the kind of informative inside info you were looking for. But hope it helps.  

Edited February 13, 2017 by Old Dusty

[Prof_Stack]

Small batches are made just like big batches, except with a smaller mash bill.  Since there is currently no legal definition or meaning to "small batch", it seems more of a marketing term.

[flahute]

Dusty is correct about the lack of legal definition for small batch. Sometimes the distilleries will tell us how many barrels are in the typical batch. It's not usually posted anywhere but when you do a private barrel pick and are spending time with the master distiller they tell you things about the brand to help you understand it better such as about 350-400 barrels go into the typical Elijah Craig dump. (Going off memory there and am too lazy to go find my notes so I may be off by a bit).

 

I do have a little insight about the 4R LE's, but not the full scoop. I know that over time they are earmarking the barrels they think will be special and therefore candidates for LE Single Barrels or Small Batch. Every year in the spring they start working on that year's LE Small Batch. A panel of tasters draw from the set aside barrels and come up with perhaps a dozen different blends. I don't know how Brent does it, but when Jim was there, he had final say. He would taste the different blends and thin the herd for further work on the best ones. Some might be good as is, but others he'd ask to add a little of this or a little of that. It could be a 'flavor' he was asking for or one of the 10 recipes. He'd continue to narrow it down until there was a winner. He might try different things with the winner to see if it could be made better before calling it a lock. I do know that Brent was heavily involved in this process while Jim was there. Brent will put his own stamp on the brand now as he now has the final say.

 

Some will remember that the 2014 LE Small Batch was one of the least favorite in years. To be fair, it was following two years of blends that had that magic mutant OBSV 17yr old that turned everything into gold. This was a tough one because they just couldn't come up with anything that Jim liked. He kept rejecting the samples because they had an off note he didn't like. The eventual winner was one that Brent lobbied for. Jim eventually came back around and gave it his blessing. I for one liked it. It wasn't as good as the previous two years but it was still great. All of the negative reviews it received allowed me to stock up. 

[musekatcher]

I've wondered if the experienced distilleries noticed you always get variation in barrels based on the wood content and rack location, etc, and built a catalog of flavor occurrences over generations?  Then developed a recipe based on classification of each barrel?  Maybe each barrel gets sampled, and classified as an oak 1, 2 ,or 3 based on intensity, or a rye 1, 2, or 3, and so on?  Then they have a brand recipe based on ratios, like 3:3:2:2 for Oak2, Vanilla3, Smoke1, Rye3?  That way, no matter what kind of seasons you have, or barrel quality, or grain and mash quality, you can have a starting point and consistently produce a flavor profile associated with a brand, decade after decade?  You might even find out, that you need a minimum of 200 barrels, to get enough of each class to make two or three flavor profiles and brands regardless of the yield and distribution of different types?  And then, maybe a small batch, is the selection of those barrels out of the 200, necessary to complete that recipe?  For instance, if you only get 10 Vanilla3 barrels per 200, there's only so much of the 3:3:2:2 brand you can make, so you pull those barrels, which turns out to be 100 barrels in this hypothetical case, and that's your small batch, because you didn't compromise the brand, by trying to use the entire 200 barrels?  The remaining 100 barrels either go to something else, or wait for more Vanilla3's to emerge.