This is the eighth installment in a series on Bourbon by Zach Pearson. Read them all: Bourbon, Bourbon After the Act, Bourbon: What it is ... and isn't, Making Bourbon, Who Makes My Bourbon, Producer Capsules., Finding the Good Stuff, Tasting the Good Stuff, Neat, Mashbills, Geeky Information and Resources.

Old Fitzgerald Bonded Bourbon

(100 proof) DSP #1 – Bernheim, bottled DSP 31 – Heaven Hill, bottled 2013? $16

Golden amber color. Candy floss, honey and golden citrus on the nose, not sharp. Typical cream of wheat/plaster of Paris sweetness as well. Oily and slightly viscous, with alcohol burn fading into maple and corn sweetness at first, then more citrus and dusty-wheaty notes. The empty glass smells like bananas. Incredible value, if you like wheat Bourbons and can find it.

Very Old Fitzgerald 12 Year Bourbon

(90 proof), bottled 2009? $30

Moderate amber in color. Creamy nose, vanilla and marzipan, old furniture finish. The decrease is alcohol is evident, but there’s a drag of wood tannins across the front of the palate that takes a moment to turn from furniture shop (e.g. good wood aromatized by hot metal) to the cream of wheat sweetness. There’s some ornamentation of green spicy notes that must be from the wood, and this just feels heavier and more contemplative.

Old Weller Antique Bourbon

(107 proof) $26.50

This is the seventh in a series on Bourbon by Zach Pearson. Read them all: Bourbon, Bourbon After the Act, Bourbon: What it is ... and isn't, Making Bourbon, Who Makes My Bourbon, Producer Capsules., Finding the Good Stuff, Tasting the Good Stuff, Neat, Mashbills, Geeky Information and Resources.

So look… this doesn't work in Oregon. The best thing to do here is to keep an eye on the Next Month Price Change list, and find things that you want that are going way down in price. Most recently, this was the infamous Laphroaig 10 for $20.25, but about a year ago, A. de Fussigny Tres Vielle Cognac dropped from $220 to $100 a bottle, and if you know that it’s a 50 year old Cognac that hasn’t been made in 10-15 years… well, let’s just say it was worth the drive to Eugene to pick up two bottles.

It also doesn’t work in Washington, which is too new at the private liquor sales game to have dusty old bottles lying around. There’s a lot of clean, bright new liquor stores and some helpful people, but taxes being what they are up there… I’d just avoid wasting a lot of time looking in Washington for liquor.

This is the sixth in a series on Bourbon by Zach Pearson. Read them all: Bourbon, Bourbon After the Act, Bourbon: What it is ... and isn't, Making Bourbon, Who Makes My Bourbon, Producer Capsules., Finding the Good Stuff, Tasting the Good Stuff, Neat, Mashbills, Geeky Information and Resources.

Buffalo Trace

Distilling at what is now Buffalo Trace in Frankfort probably began in the 1850’s, but Edmund Haynes Taylor (yes, there’s an E.H. Taylor line) bought whatever was there and renamed it the “Old Fire Copper” distillery (OFC) in 1870. After an 1872 expansion, George T. Stagg (yep, there’s a BT label named after him as well) bought the place in 1878 only to have it struck by lightning and burn to the ground merely four years later. The 16 year old Albert Blanton (you guessed it – more whiskey named for him) started there in 1897 and was promoted to Superintendent in 1900. As Prohibition was winding down, the Schenley company bought the distillery, now named after Mr. Stagg in the wave of consolidation that saw distributors and marketers own distilleries.

In 1983, the plant was sold to some investors who were focused on the Japanese market under the name Age International. Though other companies will argue this point, what is now these investors did come up with Blanton’s. the first “single barrel” Bourbon in 1984.

This is the fifth in a series on Bourbon by Zach Pearson. Read them all: Bourbon, Bourbon After the Act, Bourbon: What it is ... and isn't, Making Bourbon, Who Makes My Bourbon, Producer Capsules., Finding the Good Stuff, Tasting the Good Stuff, Neat, Mashbills, Geeky Information and Resources.

About a year ago, GQ exerpted this great picture from David Haskell's The Kings County Distiller Guide to Urban Moonshining. Click the image on the left to see the detail. It’s pretty easy to see from this that there are really only thirteen major Bourbon producers in the United States. These 13 distilleries are owned by only nine companies.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You can’t walk into a liquor store and not see an entire 50 foot shelf of Bourbons with names you’ve never heard of. Some of them are even local. All of them have great stories on the back about how this particular Bourbon was the favorite of Ulysses S. Grant or Al Capone or was made by some hill-William from a secret family recipe only recently rediscovered inside a hollow log in Possum Lick, Kentucky. Like the Templeton Rye label to the left. Click it to expand and read it.

This is the fourth in a series on Bourbon by Zach Pearson. Read them all: Bourbon, Bourbon After the Act, Bourbon: What it is ... and isn't, Making Bourbon, Who Makes My Bourbon, Producer Capsules., Finding the Good Stuff, Tasting the Good Stuff, Neat, Mashbills, Geeky Information and Resources.

This is really pretty simple. A distiller buys grains off the commodity market: corn, wheat, rye, whatever their recipe demands. They also buy malted barley from a supplier; none of the large Bourbon distillers grow their own grains or malt their own barley. Each grain is milled into meal, which takes specialized equipment for each grain, then everything is cooked together, with the addition of each grain happening at a different temperature. Starch to sugar conversion is allowed to take place (due to the enzymes in the malted barley), then fermentation is started, typically with a secret yeast strain. After this, everything is dumped into a column still, where a first distillation happens. This liquid (at about 80 proof) is pumped into a doubler still where a second distillation takes it to between 110 and 150 proof. The spent grain, historically fed to pigs is removed from the still and a portion of it is used to “sour” the next batch of grain, ensuring proper pH for yeast growth.