I’ll never forget how longtime bar owner and spirits buyer Thad Vogler referred to bourbon in his wonderful 2017 memoir “By the Smoke and the Smell: My Search for the Rare and Sublime on the Spirits Trail”:
“Sweet oak juice.”
Thanks to the Bottled in Bond Act of 1897 and further U.S. regulations passed after Prohibition, bourbon has been made pretty much exactly the same way — from at least 51 percent corn aged in new charred oak containers — for nearly 100 years.
Unlike used barrels typically employed for other spirits like Scotch and Cognac, new charred oak barrels often overwhelm an unaged spirit, injecting wood sugars that taste strongly like caramel and vanilla. By the time a bourbon has matured for a while and is ready to be bottled, you’re mostly tasting the barrel.
Or, as Vogler derisively put it: “Sweet oak juice.”
And yet, as someone who has tasted plenty of bourbon throughout countless eras from the past, I can tell you that sweet oak juice has tasted quite a bit different at different times in our nation’s history. In looking at my own tasting notes over the years and speaking with many vintage spirits experts, I’ve tried to encapsulate what bourbon has tasted like during key points over the last century and a half.
“None of these eras are better than the others,” says Whitney Rye, founder and owner of Bardstown, Ky.’s The Parlor Room, a rare and vintage tasting experience. “They are simply honest reflections of how bourbon was made at the time. Tasting them side by side makes it clear that flavor evolution is not about progress. It is about context.”
19th-Century Bourbon
Even among dusty hunters and vintage spirits drinkers, you won’t find many who have tasted bourbon from the 1800s. One reason for that is because so little was actually packaged, and it wasn’t until 1870 that “America’s First Bottled Bourbon,” Old Forester, became available to the general public. For those who have tasted 19th- century bourbon — including yours truly, who once had some poured from a large, glass demijohn — you’ll notice it’s a lot more moonshine-y, if you will, than what we are used to today. Distillation methods and aging had not yet been fully mastered to smooth down the rough edges. “Early bourbon was grain driven because it had to be,” says Rye.
Pre-Prohibition Bourbon
Prior to 1920 there were nearly 200 operating bourbon distilleries in Kentucky (and a ton more rye distilleries located in the Northeast, centered around Maryland and Pennsylvania). Many were still rooted in 19th-century practices. Meaning: less controlled fermentation thanks to reused, non-isolated yeast, a sweet mash process (as opposed to today’s more common sour mash) that allowed grain character to shine, and less focus on aging and barrel flavor. “The profile is earthy and grain-forward, with a dusty, almost soil-driven quality that feels agricultural in the most literal sense,” says Rye of a Pebble-Ford 6 Year from 1919, while admitting it might be a bit off-putting to some people. “This whiskey reflects an era when bourbon tasted like the farm and the stillhouse more than the barrel.”
Prohibition-Era Bourbon
Believe it or not, during the nearly 14 dry years of America’s “Noble Experiment,” from 1920 to 1933, you could still legally obtain whiskey. All you needed was a doctor’s prescription. You see, six companies had been granted the ability to sell “pure whiskey for medicinal use” and you might even recognize a few names; brands like Old Overholt and distilleries like A. Ph. Stitzel back when Julian “Pappy” Van Winkle himself was at the helm.
All of this whiskey had to be bottled-in-bond at 100 proof, government stamped, and boxed up with your doctor’s prescription (high blood pressure? digestive issues? tuberculosis?!) attached to the back of the bottle and sometimes even a “dosage” cap.
“Unlike later eras where barrels lingered due to oversupply, Prohibition-era whiskey moved as soon as it legally could,” says Rye. “Medicinal whiskey was never intended to age gracefully. It was meant to be functional. That urgency shows in the profile.”
“Early bourbon was grain-driven because it had to be.”
Still “sick” patients from the era would have tasted pretty good stuff — mature (Spiritus Frumenti was said to be “aged 17 summers”) with a dusty sweetness, some spice, a yeasty funk, and plenty of grain character as in previous generations. However, for the first time, Rye explains, “oak is more assertive than in earlier pours.” As whiskey historian Joshua Feldman tells me, “These were not necessarily connoisseurs’ bourbons.” Likewise, the small bottle sizes and poor closures means that if you find a vintage bottle today, there’s a high chance of oxidation and mothball notes.
Post-Prohibition Bourbon
By 1933, when Prohibition finally ended, there were only a handful or so bourbon distilleries left in Kentucky and Tennessee. Back then, we were in many ways still an agricultural country. Thus, the grain used would have been heirloom corn and not genetically modified, high-yield corn. There was much more malt, too, to aid in fermentation, mashed with well or spring water full of natural minerals, and fermented in surely bacteria-laden wooden vats. It would then be distilled on copper stills and aged in smaller, 42- to 48-gallon barrels, the typical size until around World War II when barrels became the 53-gallon standard still used today. Like some Old Crow bottlings I’ve had from the era, the result is a less sweet, breadier bourbon that can sometimes taste a bit thin due to less measured filtering and proofing practices of the time.
Glut-Era Bourbon
By the progressive 1960s, whiskey was starting to be seen as an “old man’s” drink to the hippies and, ditto, by the 1970s to disco goers. When vodka eventually won over the baby boomers now coming of drinking age, a bourbon glut began with bottles just sitting on shelves. After hitting an all-time peak sales number in 1970 with about 80 million cases moved, bourbon would go on a steep decline for the bulk of the end of the century. But that doesn’t mean it was bad.
“Glut-era bourbon benefited from neglect,” says Rye. In fact, because the distillers had so many well-aged barrels in their warehouses, they began dumping them into economy and lower-shelf bottlings. That Wild Turkey 101 or Old Grand-Dad from 1982 might have very well had undisclosed 15- or even 18-year-old bourbon in it. Thus, when you taste glut-era bourbon, the grain finally steps back and oak plays a balanced role; vanilla, caramel sweetness, and a certain spiciness dominates. Many bourbons from the era are said to taste like “brown cinnamon bombs” as Jack Rose bar owner Bill Thomas once referred to Old Forester bottlings from then.
“They are simply honest reflections of how bourbon was made at the time. Tasting them side by side makes it clear that flavor evolution is not about progress. It is about context.”
But perhaps the biggest difference from earlier eras is a velvety and expansive mouthfeel with a longer, lingering, never-hot finish. “The glut era shows how time, even when accidental, can soften edges and deepen complexity,” says Rye.
Modern-Era Bourbon
No doubt about it, bourbon made today — and for the bulk of the 21st century — has become sweet oak juice. But that’s not necessarily a slam in my opinion. By the end of the 1990s, Kentucky’s big bourbon distilleries, after decades of struggles, were finally humming along again. Not only were their flagship products beginning to sell again, but they had started to introduce ultra-aged spirits (think Pappy Van Winkle), single-barrel products (Blanton’s), and higher-proof bourbons (Booker’s).
“Modern bourbon is defined by intention,” says Rye. “Nearly every variable is controlled, from yeast and fermentation to barrel construction and warehouse placement.”
Distillery technology has seemingly gotten so good, so computerized and lab-analyzed these days that you’ll rarely smell or taste flaws in packaged bourbon like you might have in the past. In other ways, however, the bourbons of today can sometimes hit you over the head with aggressive flavor and punishing proof — it’s bourbon turned up to 11.
“What makes modern bourbon difficult to evaluate is that it rarely stands alone,” says Rye, who sees Maker’s Mark Cellar Aged as the epitome of great, modern bourbon. “Most contemporary releases either experiment aggressively or lean heavily on historic storytelling. Finding a modern expression that is neither chasing novelty nor selling nostalgia is surprisingly rare.”
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