Just Sharing

[Oak&Char]

I'm brand new--post #1--I wanted to share some things that I have recently found that I am pretty pumped about. Figured I would share it on here and see what you guys thought because all of my friends are beer drinkers.  I don't know what to think about the Old Watermill head that I picked up. Cant really find too much information on the distillery. I am however very excited about the others! My favorite Bookers is the 2014-06. I wish I could have come up with a head from that batch! Any information that you could share about the bourbon would be great! Thanks. 

[RWBadley]

2 hours ago, Oak&Char said:

I'm brand new--post #1--I wanted to share some things that I have recently found that I am pretty pumped about. Figured I would share it on here and see what you guys thought because all of my friends are beer drinkers.  I don't know what to think about the Old Watermill head that I picked up. Cant really find too much information on the distillery. I am however very excited about the others! My favorite Bookers is the 2014-06. I wish I could have come up with a head from that batch! Any information that you could share about the bourbon would be great! Thanks. 

Very cool and welcome!

 I was just sat down with a cool one and saw your post. Odd my timing lately but here's what's in my glass and I had to do a double take. 

Cheers

RW

 

[Paddy]

^^^That's the old Early Times Distillery number (354, formerly the Old Kentucky Distillery), now in use by Brown-Forman.

 

 

[NDN98]

Welcome

[tanstaafl2]

15 hours ago, Oak&Char said:

I'm brand new--post #1--I wanted to share some things that I have recently found that I am pretty pumped about. Figured I would share it on here and see what you guys thought because all of my friends are beer drinkers.  I don't know what to think about the Old Watermill head that I picked up. Cant really find too much information on the distillery. I am however very excited about the others! My favorite Bookers is the 2014-06. I wish I could have come up with a head from that batch! Any information that you could share about the bourbon would be great! Thanks. 

 

 

 

Digging back into the SB archives  one of our resident historians of all things bourbon, Chuck Cowdery, made mention of it some 8 years ago. It seems Old Watermill Rye was a pre prohibition era whiskey and that the brand name at least was eventually acquired by B-F after prohibition and made by them for awhile (hence the DSP 354). The original Old Watermill distillery in Shively, Old Kentucky Distillery Co., had long since been torn down so this was probably made by B-F as one of the many mid or bottom shelf whiskey's they made. The barrel suggests it was filled in 1986? The suggestion of this post is that this was the brand name predecessor to the Rittenhouse Rye that B-F began making for HH after the fire in 1996.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2017 by tanstaafl2

[HoustonNit]

I find this interesting and hoping someone can explain this to a newbie. The barrel heads are marked Booker's. Isn't Booker's essentially the same as standard Jim Beam. I thought after years of sitting in the rickhouse they find standard barrels they really like and use those as Booker's. Is that how it works or do they take new barrels and put them in the best spots of the rickhouse and premark them as Booker's?

[Oak&Char]

29 minutes ago, HoustonNit said:

I find this interesting and hoping someone can explain this to a newbie. The barrel heads are marked Booker's. Isn't Booker's essentially the same as standard Jim Beam. I thought after years of sitting in the rickhouse they find standard barrels they really like and use those as Booker's. Is that how it works or do they take new barrels and put them in the best spots of the rickhouse and premark them as Booker's?

I also think its interesting that all of them are marked James Beam AND Bookers. When I buy pallets of barrel heads there are only a couple of variations on the pallet. Makers Mark, James Beam, Jim Beam, and Clermont Springs are what I have seen. I would say that maybe they are labelling the barrels as Bookers once they make a choice but then again if it was a secondary stamp you would think that they would be somewhat crooked or at least not completely in line with the original stamp which suggests to me that its stamped all at once. Great info guys. I love SB already!