anything added to it, such as coloring or flavoring.Char level One of the key requirements for straight whiskeys made in the United States is that they be matured in new, charred oak barrels (containers) for at least two years. Charring briefly over roaring flames of fire accomplishes several things, including altering some of the wood's chemical compounds, which prepares them for more advantageous contact with the virgin whiskey. Four levels of charring are traditionally employed, with level one being the lightest and level four being the deepest and most impactful. Experiments using even more severely charred barrels are ongoing. (I could discuss this topic at length for days, but not here.)Light whiskey Defined in January 1968 by U.S. government regulation, these whiskeys must be distilled to between 80 and 95 percent alcohol by volume and can be matured in either previously used or uncharred new barrels for any length of time.Mash bill Basically this is the recipe for the ratios of grains used in American whiskey; for example, straight bourbons are always created from mash bills that are made up of at least 51 percent corn with supplemental grains such as rye and malted barley or wheat and malted barley. Straight rye whiskeys mash bills must contain a minimum of 51 percent rye. Mash bills vary from distiller to distiller, depending entirely on the style of whiskey they prefer.Proof The variant measure of ethanol content in a beverage from alcohol by volume, whose origin arose in sixteenth-century England for taxation purposes. In the United States, proof is calculated as being twice the measure of abv, so 50 percent abv whiskey is 100 proof.Rickhouse/Rackhouse A traditional aging warehouse located within the United States, one that houses barreled whiskey for maturation in ascending wooden or metal racks, known as “ricks,” or on wooden pallets. Barrels are mostly laid horizontally, though some strategies have them vertically aligned (in palletized warehouses). Up to 20,000 barrels can be stored in a typical rickhouse. A federally bonded rickhouse is supervised by government agents. Free warehouses are not controlled by government agents. Rickhouses come in different construction variations, such as masonry with frames of concrete or steel, palletized, one-story flathouses, and steel-clad, with corrugated steel facings.Rye whiskey As a straight whiskey, rye must adhere to the regulations that dictate all American straight whiskeys. Must be at least 51 percent rye grain, must be aged in new, charred oak containers for a minimum of two years, must not be distilled to higher than 80 percent abv, and must not be barreled at more than 62.5 percent.Sour mash Mash is a mixture of grain, water, and malt, used in the creation of sourdough bread (the starter) and a majority of American whiskeys. Sour mash is a production process in which a portion of a previous mash is held back and then added to the next mash to trigger fermentation. This is done to improve overall quality and consistency of whiskey by exerting greater control over the growth of unwanted yeasts and bacteria, which could have adverse effects on the final product.Straight whiskey Must be produced from a minimum of 51 percent, respectively, of corn, rye, wheat, malted barley or malted rye; cannot be distilled to higher than 80 percent abv; cannot be entered into a barrel at higher than 62.5 percent abv; the containers must be charred, new oak containers aged for at least two years. These include straight bourbon, straight rye.Whiskey/whisky The spelling of whiskey with and without the e is a confounding side issue. Distillers in Scotland, India, Japan, and Canada prefer whisky while those in Ireland and most distillers in the United States utilize whiskey. To make it even more confusing, a handful of American distillers, namely Makers Mark, George Dickel, and Old Forester use whisky. Why should this be straightforward?
And so, we begin …
1 “This River Runes North West and Out of ye Westerly Side …”
THE EXACT SPOT on which the story of Buffalo Trace Distillery begins is in the northern reaches of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, known as Bluegrass, the verdant region immediately south of the state of Ohio. This location, whose precise coordinates are 38.2167˚N, 84.8709˚W, is ordinary by most mid-continental topographical standards. It is just a low, dipping bank, a sandy crossing point along the serpentine Kentucky River. However, since the late twentieth century, this site has become a hallowed destination for whiskey lovers, specifically because of the present-day distillery, its engrossing history, and its acclaimed roster of award-winning rye and bourbon whiskeys.
To best set the stage with regard to this point on the North American map and its recent occupant, it is necessary to first time-travel back 11,500 to 12,000 years to the cold, bleak conclusion of planet Earth's Pleistocene Epoch. This frigid period was the bracing remnant, an echo of the Northern Hemisphere's last great Ice Age. North America's two towering, blue-tinted glaciers, the Laurentide that lay east of the Mississippi River and the Cordilleran that lay to the river's west, were slowly receding northward into Canada. In their wake, the glaciers, at some points two miles thick, left great swaths of hardwood forests, carved river valleys and fathomless glacial lakes, grassy pastures, and vast, desolate, and arid plains.
Archaeologists postulate that as long ago as 9500–8000 BCE (Before Common Era) the hunter-gatherer ancestors of today's Native Americans were already active in the area of North America that encompasses parts of the present-day states of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, West Virginia, New York, Virginia, and Kentucky. Geologists refer to this distinctive area as the Salina Basin, a sprawling region south of the Great Lakes that is rich in deep layers of minerals and rock-salt deposits.1 Tribal histories point out that the Native Americans utilized salt as a condiment. In the slowly warming environmental conditions of the period, the small, nomadic groups of indigenous hunters became skilled in stalking big game, including mammalian behemoths like the wooly mammoth, bison, short-faced bear, dire wolf, ground sloth, and mastodon. Other predators included smilodons, the huge and ferocious genus of saber-toothed cats that without fuss or hesitation efficiently preyed on all mammals, including the era's scrawny, but swift and clever homo sapiens (Latin, “wise man”).
During the same period, a fateful North American event, called the “Pleistocene megafauna extinction,” occurred. In the relatively brief span of hundreds of years, as many as 90 genera of megafauna, that group of large mammals weighing more than 100 pounds, vanished due to a docket of still-speculative reasons. These possible causes included the gyrations in global climate as the Earth incrementally warmed; evolving terrain due to volcanic or seismic activity; widespread drought; overhunting by the increasingly adept and resourceful aboriginal tribes; and, perhaps most spectacularly, the yet-to-be discovered impact of an asteroid. Though major annihilations of plant, insect, and animal life have regularly occurred throughout the annuls of the Earth's history, no overwhelming body of evidence points to a single cause of such an extreme destruction of large mammals as the Pleistocene era closed. Most likely, this mass elimination happened due to a confluence of two or more of the cited causes. One result of significant note, however, involves one member of Pleistocene megafauna that somehow survived this cataclysmic event: the rugged bison.
With the heating up of North America's climate through the Archaic Period of 8000–1000 BCE, conditions in the Salina Basin region became more tolerable for the growing numbers of native peoples who populated the Bluegrass. Critically, fresh water was plentiful in the area presently known as Kentucky, as were big game and fresh water fish. The northwesterly flowing Kentucky and Licking rivers and their tributaries, along with cold-water springs, sinkholes, lakes and ponds formed through crevices in the karst, or limestone ridge, known as the Cincinnati Arch, created an accommodating habitat in which flora, fauna, and the hunter-gatherer native peoples could survive.
In the 2,000-year period that is known as the “Woodland Period,” from 1000 BCE to 1000 CE (Common Era), the social structure of the tribal populace grew more complex, as more permanent communities and residential compounds, some based upon primitive agriculture, began to be established. Pottery and basket-weaving became important skills and cultural emblems that defined tribal identities. The cultivation of crops centered mostly on the “three sisters” of Pan-American agriculture, beans, squash, and maize (also known as Indian corn), but also included the seasonal growing of amaranth, sunflower, and tobacco. By 450 BCE, the tribes started to build burial mounds
