Bonding Period and the taste of whiskey

There's a lot of history and 'lore' behind bourbon so discuss both here.

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Bonding Period and the taste of whiskey

Unread postby bourbonv » Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:37 am

For the past 150 years, the length of the bonding period has played a direct role in how the whiskey taste. Bonded Warehouses made their first appearence on the Kentucky landscape in 1866 when the government started to register warehouses place them under the control of Internal Revenue Gaugers. The Bonding Period of whiskey was one year, which was an improvement over the practice of paying the tax right off the still. After a year the barrel would be removed from the warehouse and "Gauged" for its proof gallons and the tax paid. This meant the first 3 gallons or so of whiskey that was soaked into the wood of the barrel in the first year, was not taxed. Over the next 20 years the bonding period was increased, first to 2 years, then 4 years and finally 8 years in the 1880s. It was not until the 1950's that the Bonding Period was increased to the 20 years of today.

What all of this means is that American Straight Whiskey was really designed to be an 8 year old product before the 1950's. In reality most was designed to be a 4 year old product which means products like "Weller Antique" really did deserve such a title when it was first marketed even though it would be considered young at its 7 year age statement in today's market. It also meant distillers had to make a product that would age quicker than they do today. They did this by distilling at a lower proof and placing the whiskey in the barrel at a lower proof. This gave the product more grain flavors and better barrel flavors in the first few years.

It was the 1950's that saw the change. Schenley led the way in this change because the had created a huge reserve of whiskey in anticipation of distillery shutdowns for military alcohol during the Korean War. This shut down never happened and they knew that by 1959 they would have to pay all of this tax at once unless they could increase the bonding period. They pushed this through Congress and increased the Bonding Period to 20 years. A few years later Congress then defines Bourbon as an American Spirit and new regulations are placed in the books that define how this spirit can be made. One of the new regulations was the increase of barrel proof to 125 from 110.

In the 1960's the consumer started to see these changes in their product (Nothing happens quickly in a product that has to be made at least 2 years in advance). These new regulations changed the flavor profile of most brands but it would have been a slow change since barrels do age differently. Unless the product was a bonded whiskey, there would be a period of about 5 years where higher barrel proof whiskey would have been married with the original recipe whiskey in larger and larger amounts until the older whiskey was gone. Even in Bonded products this could have been done if the distiller simply made some of both types of entry proof whiskey each year until they had changed the profile.

These are some of the reason that you find an often drastic taste change in a brand when comparing a bottle from the 1950's to a modern bottle of the same brand.

Mike Veach
Mike Veach
"Our people live almost exclusively on whiskey" - E H Taylor, Jr. 25 April 1873
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