Brown-Forman: Whiskey Worth Knowing

The history of American whiskey is as rich and robust as what we find in a glass of bourbon. At Brown-Forman, we pride ourselves on honoring that heritage by handcrafting a collection of unique super-premium American whiskies.

But what are we talking about when we talk about whiskey? Whiskey at its core is a distilled spirit made from a grain base. Whiskey can be made in a variety of ways, from a variety of grains, in a variety of stills, and derive flavor from a variety of aging techniques. But a whiskey's ultimate flavor boils down to a few key factors. What a consumer enjoys when they crack open their favorite bottle is equal parts nature, science, and art.

Hi, I'm Tim Holtz, Brown-Forman's historian and corporate storyteller. Part of my role is to help manage the Brown-Forman corporate archives. But it really started in 1870 with that commitment that our founder George Garvin Brown made to his consumers on the label of Old Forester, the same guarantee that's on that label today. And people, when they hear the Old Forester guarantee, they often think of the very last line: 'Nothing Better in the Market.' But if you really want to understand Brown-Forman's commitment to quality whiskey, it's the first part that you really need to pay attention to, and that is: 'This whiskey is distilled by us only, and we are responsible for its richness and fine quality.' Today we often use the term 'super premium' to apply to whiskeys, but super premium is a term that Brown-Forman has used in many different ways throughout our 150 years. At Brown-Forman, consistency and quality in our whiskies is not by happenstance. From fermentation to distillation to maturation to owning our own cooperage, we expect to know why we created great whiskey. So anytime during our production processes, if we create a barrel that's particularly unique or particularly not up to our standards, the first question we're going to ask ourselves is: why did that happen? And for 150 years, we have been studying how we make whiskey, and that's why today we're the leader in American whiskies, because we know more about whiskey from how it's made to how it's aged and how each step in that process affects what goes into the bottle and eventually into your glass.

Speaking of the bottle from which the whiskey comes, it was indeed Brown-Forman who was the first to bottle and seal the bourbon it produced way back in 1870. And it all started on Whiskey Row in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, with the founding of Old Forester Distilling Company.

Hi, I'm Jackie Zeiken, master taster for Old Forester. So not only am I there with the brand team to decide how we're going to deliver our products to market, but also play a key part as to what those products are going to be. I'm part of our sensory team and I'm part of our quality assurance to make sure that every bottle of Old Forester is living up to the legend George Garvin Brown said a long time ago of quality and consistency. Old Forester is a brand that was actually founded on principles of quality and consistency. So back in 1870, George Garvin Brown set out on a mission to change the landscape of whiskey by sealing his product in a glass bottle and selling it exclusively that way to ensure no one had tampered with it. We still hold true to that today with Old Forester. Quality is our number one priority. Our whiskey goes through so many different quality checks. We go through quality checks with our grain, with our distillate. We do checks on those barrels as they're aging in our heat-cycled warehouses. And then of course we're always making sure that before it goes into a bottle, it matches batches that came before it. Old Forester is committed to always, always, always having the best product on the market.

Brown-Forman may have been the first to label, bottle, and seal its bourbon, but that wasn't the only first in Brown-Forman's history. Innovation is a popular word in the American whiskey category today. It's been a part of Brown-Forman throughout our 150-year history. It started with our founder George Garvin Brown, who created Old Forester to provide a consistent quality whiskey to his consumers. To do that, he had to be one of the first in our industry to batch whiskey together, because as we know today, every barrel has its unique characteristic. So to create consistency, he batched barrels of whiskey together from the different distilleries he was purchasing whiskey from to ensure that his consumer got that consistent quality, and he guaranteed it by sealing it in that bottle. The first bottled bourbon in America, still on the market today. But it just didn't start with batching and bottling. We came up with new and innovative products through many different parts of our history. In 1910, a fire at our distillery and bottling plant on Main Street here on Whiskey Row required us to re-barrel whiskey and put it back in new barrels while repairs were made to the bottling plant. When that whiskey came out, it had that unique, what we now know today as a double-barrel character. We were the first to offer a single barrel. In the 1960s, our President's Choice was personally selected by our president of the corporation, George Garvin Brown II, because as he was tasting whiskey for the bottling process, he would set aside unique barrels that he found had outstanding character. It was also in that line the first single-barrel, barrel-proof that we're aware of in our industry, because if you bought the whole barrel, George Garvin Brown would bottle it at exactly the proof he tasted it as it came out of the barrel. We've also been an innovator in packaging. In the 1950s, we offered our decanter series designed by the famous industrial designer Raymond Loewy. In 1938, we offered the very first personalized package for our Old Forester as a gift as part of our holiday line. And we continue to innovate today.

It's clear that Old Forester has firmly stood at the pinnacle of quality bourbon for years, bridging a gap between the traditional and the innovative.

Part of my job as master taster involves new product development, and at Old Forester we are constantly coming up with new ways to innovate and give you different sides of the Old Forester spectrum. Now, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel because we have it down. We are making quality and consistent whiskey always. We don't need to try any sort of fancy ploys to appeal to trends, but we do understand that everybody's palate is a little bit different, and we want to make sure we deliver a different Old Forester for everyone so that everyone can find one they enjoy. So by owning the entire process from the barrel to the distilleries, all of that, we're able to pull different levers to really bring out different flavor profiles that might speak to you personally.

Travel 60 miles east of Louisville and you'll find yourself in Woodford County, home of one of Brown-Forman's fastest-growing brands, Woodford Reserve. At a time in spirits history when vodka reigned supreme, Brown-Forman's forward-thinking leadership invested in rebuilding one of Kentucky's oldest and most historic distilleries.

Hello, I'm Chris Morris, I'm the master distiller at Woodford Reserve. As master distiller, I am responsible for the quality and the innovation coming out of the Woodford Reserve Distillery. Brown-Forman chairman and CEO, the late Owsley Brown the First, issued a challenge to the company that we would introduce a new Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, a bourbon whiskey that would have its own distillery and a distillery that would be open for tours. You might think, what's the big deal? Bourbon is popular today. It seems like a new distillery is being opened somewhere every day. And if you can come to Kentucky, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Kentucky bourbon tourism as it's called, is a number one tourist attraction for the state. But that wasn't the way it was then. The bourbon industry, as I mentioned, had been in a long decline. Famous distilleries had just closed, and the Kentucky Bourbon Trail? Forget it. So Owsley's challenge, his idea, was quite revolutionary. Let's just call that innovation: doing something different. So we purchased the long-abandoned historic Labrot & Graham Distillery in Woodford County, eventually renamed it Woodford Reserve, created a new bourbon whiskey, and reconfigured this old distillery for tourism. It was a game changer. It revitalized the industry. Since the launch of Woodford Reserve, we've seen over 400 Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey brands introduced to the market. So it all comes down to Owsley's vision of creating a new bourbon, Woodford Reserve.

While Brown-Forman's Old Forester brand was a trailblazer of old, it was the founding of Woodford Reserve that placed Brown-Forman at the forefront of the modern whiskey craze. Today, Woodford Reserve has become the go-to bourbon for enthusiasts, connoisseurs, restaurateurs, and bartenders alike, and it enjoys a prominent place on the back bar of some of the world's most important cocktail and fine dining destinations. But that's not merely by chance. There was a focus for the first time on creating a whiskey based on flavor. Where does flavor come from? It comes from the same five sources: what's the water's impact, what is the grain recipe, how does fermentation, distillation, and the maturation processes build and deliver flavor? We knew this new bourbon had to be different. It had to have flavors that were attractive not only to bourbon drinkers but to drinkers of other spirits. We wanted to capture as many tongues, palates, and noses as possible. And that came back to making each of the five sources of flavor have a discernible impact on the final product. That meant doing common processes uncommon.

Hi, I'm Elizabeth McCall, the assistant master distiller for Woodford Reserve. My main role is to ensure the quality of our beautiful spirit, Woodford Reserve Bourbon. Here at Woodford Reserve, we do something I like to call 'couture barreling.' That means that every barrel is made to match the brand. Our whiskey matures in these couture barrels for five to seven years, but honestly, it's all about flavor and how it tastes at the end of the day.

While Woodford Reserve has become an instant classic in the Brown-Forman portfolio, we have to travel some 300 miles south to the town of Lynchburg, Tennessee, to experience the brand that has truly defined American whiskey to consumers around the world: Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey. The Jack Daniel's Distillery was founded in 1866 by Jasper Newton Daniel, or Jack Daniel himself. With the help of trusted friends, advisors, and first head whiskey maker Nearis Green, Jack began producing whiskey with the simple yet exacting commitment to high standards. George Garvin Brown's commitment to quality on the Old Forester label guided Brown-Forman for decades. When we acquired Jack Daniel's in 1956, the Motlows could have sold their whiskey to many different companies with much higher bids, but they chose Brown-Forman because we shared a similar commitment. Like our Old Forester guarantee, they had a commitment to quality that their family had stuck to since Uncle Jack created the brand many years before. And you can still see their commitment today as you walk into the office. On the wall is a plaque that says: 'Every day we make it, we'll make it the best that we can.' Now it wasn't just Jack's quality product that made it a natural fit for Brown-Forman; it was how easily the people who produced the whiskey blended with the Brown-Forman family.

Hi, I'm Chris Fletcher, the master distiller at the Jack Daniel Distillery here in Lynchburg, Tennessee. A lot of people ask me, how do you get to be a master distiller, and especially here at a distillery like Jack Daniel's? And I tell them it's a lot of luck and maybe a little bit of skill. But I grew up here in Lynchburg, born and raised. My parents' house is only three miles from the distillery here, so I kind of grew up in and around the distillery. And actually, my grandfather was our master distiller. So it's a very special thing for me to be the distiller here at Jack Daniel's. You know, the greatest advantage of what we do here at Jack Daniel's really is our whiskey-making team. It's the people, it's the families here in Lynchburg that make our whiskey what it is. Lynchburg is in the second smallest county in the state of Tennessee, so we don't have a lot of things. There's not a lot going on. We only have one stoplight in our whole county. There's no shopping malls or supercenters or anything like that. But we're really good at doing one thing.

And just as families often uphold certain traditions over generations, Jack Daniel's has remained steadfast to the practices that make each bottle of Old No. 7, Gentleman Jack, and beyond beacons of consistency and flavor. As Old Forester is woven into the history of Kentucky, Jack Daniel's is woven into the whiskey history of Tennessee.

Okay, a lot of people ask me, how is Tennessee whiskey different from bourbon? Obviously, to be Tennessee whiskey, you do have to produce and age the whiskey within the state of Tennessee. And then secondly, Tennessee whiskey must be filtered through a bed of hard maple charcoal. It does have to be maple charcoal. And this process has been done for probably hundreds of years. Some distillers may choose to only use one small piece of charcoal. We actually choose to use a very densely packed 10-foot vat of charcoal, where the whiskey will slowly work its way through, and it'll take a couple of days for the whiskey to work its way through this charcoal. So while this process does not add anything to the whiskey, it does remove a lot of the corn and oily notes that it gets from the fermentation and distillation process. So by the softening or mellowing of the spirit prior to the barrel, this is one of the things that makes Jack Daniel's so smooth and so soft on the finish. And really, I think of it as an early form of quality control. It's how a young Jack Daniel, when he was taken under the wing of Mr. Nearis Green, was taught how to make whiskey. And it's an old-fashioned and an extra step that we actually invest quite a bit of time and money into.

Our brands have been the most recognizable names in all of American whiskey for well over a century. We've led the way in innovation while staying true to each brand's heritage, craft, and unique character. And while American whiskey isn't something we invented, it certainly didn't get to be where it is today without us. Today, when consumers walk into the American whiskey aisle and look at those shelves and shelves of products, often the first thing they turn to is the bottle to read the label. But as many of us know, what's on the label of a bottle of whiskey is not always the truth. Very often it's just purely marketing. But at Brown-Forman, when you pick up a bottle of Old Forester and you read the guarantee written by our founder George Garvin Brown nearly 150 years ago, you know that that is both a mantra for how Brown-Forman commits themselves to the whiskey within that bottle and a personal commitment from the Brown family, who has guarded that guarantee for over 150 years through six generations of Brown family members.

Throughout our over 150 years of whiskey-making tradition, we've set the bar for premium whiskey and continued to push the boundaries of what it means to make delicious, quality spirits. This truly is whiskey worth knowing.