Confirmation needed about Blanton's

[Vange]

Can someone verify if blanton's was indeed the FIRST single barrel bourbon? Thank you.

[barturtle]

I saw this question at the end of your other thread and am surprized no one with more authority than me hasn't answered it. To the best of my knowledge and several books I have say the same thing, yes Blanton's was the first single barrel bourbon. If I remember correctly 1983 was the first year.

[kbuzbee]

That's my memory as well, but the marketing departments keep rewriting history so who knows!

How many Bourbons out there now are the only one that is uncut and unfiltered?? 3? 5?

Ken

[Vange]

Yeah, that is so true about being uncut and unfiltered. Hmm, makes you wonder!

[barturtle]

Or how do you define Barrel Proof?

Is it the proof it comes out of the barrel or the proof it goes in?

[gr8erdane]

That's my memory as well, but the marketing departments keep rewriting history so who knows!

Given time, Makers Mark SB will probably have been the first. Just ask em....

[kbuzbee]

Good point. Could mean anything Maybe it's the proof of the barrel??

Ken

[bobbyc]

Given time, Makers Mark SB will probably have been the first.

Before he died and after he stopped being the VP at Maker's, Sam Cecil told me that he and Bill Sr had indeed done a Single Barrel, and it would have predated Blantons by a lot, decades probably. After so much extra aged pre-prohibition bourbons, I would not be at all surprized if there wasn't one made at some point then. So if the marketing department at Maker's burns a little midnight oil and cranks the story out, without the benefit of a bottle as physical proof, based on my conversation with Sam, I would clearly be in their camp.

When Soloman wrote there's no new thing under the sun, amoung others he had the distillers in mind for certain.

[barturtle]

Wouldn't the ultimate single barrel be back when they actually shipped the barrels to the taverns and they tapped them and would pour right out of the barrel or customers would bring in their own container and take it home?

That would predate any other.

[bobbyc]

That would predate any other.

Indeed, there it is! An even more exclusive single barrel would be the rigs that could only produce a single barrel a day!

[jsgorman]

I thought it was Elijah Craig.

[cowdery]

Since this thread has been revived, I'll chime in. Blanton's was, indeed, the first single barrel bourbon but, as someone observed, the concept of "single barrel" as something unique has to post-date the practice of dumping multiple barrels and mingling their contents together, which began when bottling itself became common early in the 20th century. Before that, whiskey was sold by the barrel, from which smaller units of sale were then drawn, so everything was "single barrel" then.

Another caveat is that Blanton's got the idea from single cask bottlings of single malt scotch, which came along earlier, so it wasn't a particularly original idea. That, to me, makes the fact that Maker's Mark may have toyed with it not all that significant. It's a pretty obvious notion. The problem with it is you need to build a special line for it, so it's a little more than just a marketing concept. There actually is some cost and commitment involved.

But Blanton's was, indeed, the first American whiskey to adopt the single cask concept.