Woodford Reserve
A popular brand of Kentucky Straight Bourbon, Woodford Reserve is owned
by the Brown-Forman Corporation which produces this premium whisky. However, its marketing is still carried out under Labrot & Graham, the former name of the distillery. This distillery is located in Kentucky in the Woodford County.
Earlier, this distillery was known as Labrot & Graham’s Old Oscar Pepper Distillery, which was located at a distance of about 8 miles from the town of Versailles, between Versailles and Interstate 64 off the U.S Route 60. Each bottle carries a unqiue bottle number and batch number combination, and possesses an alcohol content of 45.2%. The bottles do not contain any age statement. Since as per US Law, any whisky which is aged for less than 4 years requires the age statement, it can be concluded that the Woodford Reserve whisky is at least aged for more than 4 years.
History
Though,distilling on the site began very early in 1797 but the building for the distillery got constructed completely only in 1838, making it the oldest distillery among the nine bourbon distilleries still functional in Kentucky as of 2010. However, in all these years, since its inception, the site of the distillery did not remain operational for all the time. In 1995, the distillery could not make it National Register of Historic Places, but in 2000 it was listed as the National Historic Landmark.
It was originally established by Elijah Pepper and later on, he passed on his legacy to his son. In the mid 19th century, this distillery was named as Oscar Pepper when Dr. Crow carried out a wide array of activities in the distillery to enhance and codify the quality and understanding of the key bourbon-making processes including pot still distillation, sour-mash fermentation, and barrel maturation. Finally, the property was sold to Labrot and James Graham by the Pepper family in 1878, who owned and operated the distillery until 1941, and then sold the distillery to the Brown-Forman Corporation. This corporation operated the distillery till 1968 and then, they also sold it in 1971. However, they re-purchased the distillery in 1993 and performed refurbishment to get it into operation again. In 1996, they introduced the brand Woodford Reserve in the market.
Since, premium bourbon requires aging for very long years; it seems that they early bottles of the brand were matured in some other facility. In the Woodford Reserve brand, you will encounter the two variations known as Masters Collection. These are produces by deploying a relatively expensive pot still distillation process instead of the contemporary column still technology.
KENTUCKY STRAIGHT BOURBON WHISKEY
This Woodford Reserve is not manufactured, instead it is hand crafted in the small batches. Using this incredible process, the whisky is crafted at all the 5 bourbon flavor imparting sources, which give it a clean and crisp finish with a distinct taste.
WOODFORD RESERVE DOUBLE OAKED
It is prepared using an innovative approach towards twice barreled bourbon, which gives it a colorful and rick flavor. Matured uniquely in separate charred barrels of oaks, the second barrel which is deeply toasted before charring it lightly extracts the incredible amounts of sweet and soft oak character.