Four Roses Distillery with Master Distiller Jim Rutledge (April 2006)
Read More
Four Roses has one of the most beautiful distilleries in the industry and also gives one of my favorite tours.
This time I was in for a special treat since we had a group tour with Master Distiller Jim Rutledge.
Jim is standing in the grain receiving barn holding a 'grain thief', used for taking samples from each truck as it arrives.
Jim started the tour with a brief history and overview of the distillery.
Four Roses was founded in 1888 and was the top selling bourbon in the US during the 30's, 40's and 50's. The company then shifted sales to export only and became the top selling bourbon in Japan and Europe.
Four Roses has recently become available again domestically, although only in Kentucky, with their standard yellow and single barrel labels.
The single barrel product uses a mash bill of 60% corn, 35% rye, and 5% barley malt with a light fruity yeast to balance the high rye. It is aged for 7 to 9 years. Four Roses boasts the highest rye content in the bourbon industry.
Here you can see the beer frothing in a view port on the column still.
This (and the flowing spirit shown below) was interesting to see since the distillery was not operating the last time I visited.
This picture shows spirit coming off the column still.
These next pictures show the fermenting tanks. The first shot shows mash being added to a tank.
The rest show fermentation at various stages. It is actually quite tasty at this point.
Four Roses uses two mash bills and five strains of yeast to create up to ten different distillates. This allows them great flexibility in creating or maintaining any flavor profile they need.
Our final stop was the tasting lab. Jim allowed us to sample white dog and bourbon from a number of the ten possible recipes.
The cabinet in the background contains top shelf bourbon from other distilleries to use as a comparison.
