Bourbon is easy to buy badly. The shelf is a wall of similar looking labels, and the words that matter, straight, bottled in bond, single barrel, small batch, Kentucky, sit in the same size type as the words that mean nothing. Some are legal terms with exact definitions. Some are marketing.
This guide sorts bourbon the way it is genuinely categorised: what the law requires, what the extra words add, what the grain recipe does, how the barrels were chosen, and what strength changes.
What makes a bourbon a bourbon
Bourbon is defined in the United States Code of Federal Regulations, 27 CFR part 5. Five requirements do the work, and every bottle labelled bourbon meets all of them.
- Made in the United States. The word bourbon may not be used for a whisky that was not distilled and aged in the US.
- At least 51 per cent corn in the fermented mash.
- Distilled at 160 proof or less, or 80 per cent alcohol.
- Filled into charred new oak barrels at 125 proof or less, or 62.5 per cent.
- Bottled at not less than 80 proof, or 40 per cent.
Two things are deliberately absent. There is no minimum ageing time for plain bourbon, and no requirement that it be made in Kentucky. One further restriction is worth knowing: bourbon is the only whisky type in its row of the regulation that may not contain harmless colouring, flavouring or blending materials. Rye, wheat and malt whisky in that same row may.
The charred new oak requirement shapes the flavour more than anything else. A barrel is used for bourbon once, so every drop is pulling colour and sweetness out of fresh, freshly burnt wood. That is why even young bourbon tastes of vanilla, caramel and baking spice.
Buffalo Trace Bourbon at 40 per cent is the unfussy version of all of the above. Evan Williams Black Label at 43 per cent is the same idea with more weight behind it.
Straight, bonded, and what an age statement tells you
Straight bourbon is the type you will meet most often and a real upgrade on the base definition: a minimum of two years in charred new oak, and no colouring, flavouring or blending material at all.
No age statement is itself information. Any whisky under four years old must state its age on the label, so a straight bourbon carrying no age statement is at least four years old. That one rule is the most useful piece of label literacy in the category.
An age statement, where it appears, gives the age of the youngest whiskey in the bottle, not an average. Eagle Rare 10 Year at 45 per cent is the straightforward example, and the decade shows as dried orange peel, leather and dry oak rather than sweetness.
Bottled in bond is the strictest term on any American whiskey label: spirit from one distilling season, either January to June or July to December, made by one distiller at one distillery, stored at least four years in wooden containers, and bottled at exactly 50 per cent. The label must also name the distillery and the plant numbers. Nothing else on a bourbon label guarantees that much.
Kentucky straight bourbon, and why bourbon need not be from Kentucky
Bourbon can legally be made anywhere in the United States. Kentucky straight bourbon cannot.
The regulations require the state of distillation on the label of every American bourbon, and they allow it next to the type designation, as in Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, only where the product was both distilled and aged in that state. Combined with straight it tells you: distilled and aged in Kentucky, at least two years in charred new oak, nothing added.
Kentucky's position comes from scale, water and a climate that drives spirit in and out of the wood, not from the law. Eagle Rare and Evan Williams Black Label both carry Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey on the label. Plenty of good American whiskey does not, and the label always tells you which.
Mash bill: traditional, high rye and wheated
Corn must be at least 51 per cent. The rest, the flavouring grains, is where bourbons diverge. Most large producers keep the recipe private: Buffalo Trace identifies Eagle Rare only as Mash Bill #1, with no percentages published. Where a producer does publish the split, it predicts the flavour better than any tasting note.
Traditional. Corn, a modest amount of rye, and barley. Sweet and rounded, spice in support rather than in front. Willett publishes a recipe of 72 per cent corn, 13 per cent rye and 15 per cent barley for several of the small batch brands it bottles in Bardstown, among them Old Bardstown at 45 per cent, Rowan's Creek at 50.05 per cent and Noah's Mill at 57.15 per cent. One grain recipe, three strengths.
High rye. More rye brings pepper, dry spice and a firmer, less sugary finish. Willett publishes a second recipe of 52 per cent corn, 38 per cent rye and 10 per cent barley and commingles it into some bottlings. Johnny Drum Private Stock at 50.5 per cent is 35 per cent that recipe, which is why it reads spicier than its stablemates, and Pure Kentucky at 53.5 per cent takes 15 per cent of it. Johnny Drum Black Label at 43 per cent is the gentler bottling in the same line.
Commingled recipes. Not every bourbon sits in one camp. Kentucky Vintage at 45 per cent is built from two mash bills, the traditional one plus a corn heavy recipe of 79 per cent corn, 7 per cent rye and 14 per cent barley. The result is deliberately mellow.
Wheated. Wheat takes the place of rye as the flavouring grain. Softer and rounder, the pepper replaced by something closer to bread and honey. Wheated bourbons are the smallest of the three groups and they come and go, so look for a producer that states wheat in the mash bill rather than inferring it from a tasting note.
Single barrel, small batch and blends
Neither single barrel nor small batch appears anywhere in the American regulations. They are producer terms, and what they promise depends on who is using them.
Single barrel has a hard meaning in practice: everything in the bottle came from one cask, so variation between bottles is the point rather than a fault. Evan Williams Single Barrel at 43.3 per cent prints the year it went into oak, the year it was bottled and the barrel number.
Small batch means a marriage of a limited number of barrels chosen to hit a house style. Elijah Craig Small Batch at 47 per cent is the familiar example and a lesson in reading labels: Heaven Hill removed the 12 year age statement from the back label in January 2016 and now describes it as an 8 to 12 year old bourbon. Still well aged barrels. It just no longer guarantees the number.
Numbered batches go the other way and do not chase consistency at all. Old Louisville Bourbon Batch 2 at 48 per cent is exactly that batch, not a repeatable product.
Blends of older stock are their own corner. Widow Jane Bourbon Vault 15 Years at 49.5 per cent is a Brooklyn house's marriage of bourbons aged a minimum of 15 years, brought to strength with limestone mineral water from the Rosendale mines in New York. A blender's bottle rather than a distiller's, and it tastes like one: dark fruit, old oak, a long dry finish.
What strength changes
Forty per cent is the legal floor, not a neutral default. Higher strength bourbons carry more aroma and hold up to water and ice without collapsing, which is why many of the more interesting bottlings sit above 50 per cent. Willett 12 Year Bourbon Special Edition at 60 per cent is the far end of it here, with a 12 year age statement.
Treat the number as information rather than a score. A 57 per cent bourbon is a different proposition to a 40 per cent one, poured smaller and opened up with a few drops of water. If you are new to bourbon, start in the low forties and work up.
Rye whiskey, the near neighbour
Rye whiskey explains what the rye in a bourbon mash is doing. Same rules, charred new oak and the same distillation and barrel entry limits, but the mash must be at least 51 per cent rye instead of 51 per cent corn. Drier, more peppery, less sweet.
Willett Family Rye Whiskey 4 Years Small Batch at 54.5 per cent is the clean contrast, with a published mash bill of 74 per cent rye, 11 per cent corn and 15 per cent barley for the bulk of it. Taste it beside a traditional bourbon and the job of the flavouring grain becomes obvious. The rest is on our rye whiskey page.
Where to start
- Never bought bourbon before: Buffalo Trace Bourbon at 40 per cent.
- For mixing: Evan Williams Black Label at 43 per cent or Old Bardstown at 45 per cent.
- Want an age statement: Eagle Rare 10 Year at 45 per cent.
- Spice rather than sweetness: Johnny Drum Private Stock at 50.5 per cent.
- Mellow and rounded: Kentucky Vintage at 45 per cent.
- Ready for higher strength: Rowan's Creek at 50.05 per cent, then Noah's Mill at 57.15 per cent.
- Something old: Widow Jane Bourbon Vault 15 Years at 49.5 per cent.
- A gift for someone who knows bourbon: Willett 12 Year Bourbon Special Edition at 60 per cent.
The full range sits on our bourbon page, with the wider whisky collection alongside it, and we deliver to every Australian state and the ACT.