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JR's notes:

I've been lucky enough to go to Kentucky twice and fell in love with Bourbon Whiskey at first sip. There's a great deal going on over there after years of slump and I was delighted to do this piece for the 'Bars and Clubs' supplement HARPERS WINE AND SPIRIT WEEKLY, which was published in September, 1999. The supplement is now known as HOT (HARPERS ON-TRADE) magazine, and the Harpers website is at www.harpers-wine.com

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Bourbon: Taking the Biscuit

Both the whiskey and the biscuit take their name from the family of King Louis XVI of France, as does the city of Louisville, Kentucky. John Radford investigates the whiskey...

Max Allen, 'bartender emeritus' at the Seelbach Hotel on Fourth street in Louisville, son and grandson of bartenders, has been in the business for 40 years and knows about 1,400 cocktails by heart, half of which involve Bourbon Whiskey. The two most popular are the Manhattan and the Old-Fashioned, and the refined Camptown ladies, of course, prefer the Mint Julep, especially on race-days. Of course, the purists insist on taking it neat, over ice, or - for the dangerously modern - with a little spring water. In the Oak Room Bar on the mezzanine floor he opens when he has a customer and he closes when the last guest leaves. This is a remarkably relaxed approach for the state of Kentucky, two-thirds of which is still 'dry', never having repealed prohibition.

Bourbon whiskey is back in business in a big way after years in the doldrums, not just in export markets but in America, too. Part of the reason is new thinking in the distilleries, 'small-batch' and 'single-barrel' brands and a move away from the monolithic corporate identity which dominated the industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Most distilleries have a dedicated visitor-centre these days and some - such as Maker's Mark in Loretto, and Labrot and Graham in Versailles - have become tourist attractions in their own right.

However, in the Old Seelbach Bar in Louisville, you could be forgiven for thinking that nothing has changed. The row of Bourbon bottles is bigger than it was, true, and the cocktail list is quietly expanding. They play funky live jazz of an evening and young Patrick, the up-and-coming downstairs bartender, knows his Bourbons and discourses enthusiastically on the merits of each.

In any discussion the name of Booker Noe is likely to crop up: he's the grandson of Jim Beam, lives in a grand clapboard mansion in Bardstown and was one of the first to release 'small batch' whiskey on to the market - barrels from the middle of the warehouse where the temperature has been more stable and the spirit has aged more gently. Some are bottled straight from the barrel, coarse-filtered and at barrel-strength - up to 126° American proof (63% abv), and some are chill-filtered down to 80° (40% abv) but each is made to a specific recipe (some of which go back to the 1790s) using different proportions of corn (maize), rye, wheat and barley-malt.

These have helped to create a new generation of young Bourbon enthusiasts who argue over the various merits of the new-wave brands, sipping them slowly over ice and finding toffee, caramel, whipped cream, autumn herbs, spring flowers, oak and woodsmoke among the complexities in the glass.

Upstairs, things are more relaxed. Max believes that it takes five years to make a bartender: 'two years to learn what to do, two years to learn what not to do, and a final year to learn how to do it nicely. You have to care for your customer. If the customer sneezes, you catch the cold'. This attention to detail seems to be inherited: he has a photograph of his father, taken in 1923 (during prohibition) shaking a cocktail for F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Louisville Chief of Police, the Mayor of the city and Al Capone.

On race-days - particularly the day of the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May - he opens at 6:00 am and mixes cocktails for the jockeys, owners and trainers before they head for Churchill Downs. Race days are red-letter days in Louisville. Max recalls the lady owner whose horse won the Derby and she was so delighted she rode it through the streets of the town and up the steps into the hotel lobby; he once took an over-indulged and keyless customer home to 'the white house second from the corner', climbed through the kitchen window, let the customer in, and left him in a reclining chair only to find out the following morning that he'd been a block short, and it had been the wrong house.

What is it about Bourbon whiskey that makes it such a good base for cocktails? According to Max it's because it's a strongly-flavoured spirit which mixes well with sugars, herbal flavours and bitters without losing its character. His most popular brands are Maker's Mark, Blanton's, Rare Eagle and Wild Turkey. His personal preference is for Henry McKenna ( a single-barrel whiskey) - because he knew the family - and Maker's Mark but, of course, like all the best bartenders, he never drinks while he's working. He used to stop for a drink on the way home from work, but then, he says, all his customers would come in and insist on buying him drinks. He'd get home to find his wife shouting 'drunk again!'. 'Yup', he'd say. 'So am I'.

Max has vowed not to retire until they carry him out of the bar in a box. His grandfather (who started work at the Seelbach in 1907) retired at 92, his father retired at 86, and his two sons have just enrolled at bartending school, to continue the family tradition.

The new generation Bourbon whiskey has come a long way from the rather harsh, high-strength spirit that many people remember from twenty years ago. By law the mash must contain 51% corn and at least some barley-malt but, after that, it's up to every distiller's secret formula. At one time, the 'whiskey factories' would use mostly corn (the cheapest grain), distil and age at the maximum strength permitted by law, and bottle at 2-4 years old. Today, even the supermarket brands are likely to be older than that and the single-barrel and small-batch brands will be bottled on an ad hoc basis when the distiller has decided that the time is right - typically between seven and eight years old. In addition, the best whiskey is distilled at a lower strength and goes into the barrel even lower - having been 'cracked' in advance with de-ionised water, allowing for a gentler relationship with the wood. By law, Bourbon must be aged in new white-oak barrels which are only used once - indeed , many of them are sold on to the Scotch whisky industry.

In this way, Bourbon whiskey has reinvented itself. For some admirers it's been restored to the cocktail-bar glamour of the 1920s. For others, it's an enthusiasm to be taken as seriously as the study of fine old malt Scotch whisky, but for the industry it's a renascence which has been long-awaited and hard-won.

For the on-trade, of course, it's a whole new world of opportunity: as more and more of the premium-sector Bourbons become available in the UK a whole new market is waiting to discover it, whether neat over ice or in one of the classic cocktail mixes. All that's needed are bartenders with the skill to recreate that magic in the glass... And do it nicely.

Those three top cocktail recipes in full (all measures are 25 ml):

Manhattan (from the Manhattan Club, New York City, 1874) - 3 measures of Bourbon, 1½ measures of sweet vermouth (though some sassy New Yorkers now prefer dry), 2 drops of Maraschino cherry juice; stir or shake with ice, strain and serve with a cherry.

Old-Fashioned - half a lump of sugar, 2 dashes of bitters; cover sugar with water and mix. Add one ice-cube, 2 measures of Bourbon; serve with lemon twist, garnish with orange, lemon or cherry to taste.

Mint Julep - take some fresh mint and put it in a bowl, adding Bourbon until the leaves are covered. Marinate for 15 minutes. Remove the leaves and wrap them in a clean cotton cloth. Wring them out over the bowl of Bourbon until they're completely dry - this is now your mint stock. Make a sugar syrup from equal parts of icing sugar and water, and chill the syrup. Mix the syrup and your chosen Bourbon in the ratio of 3½ parts whiskey to one part syrup. Then add the mint stock until it's minty enough for you. Serve over crushed ice in tall glasses, and garnish with a sprig of fresh mint.

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