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FOR AN INDUSTRY whose main ingredients are provenance, heritage and history all cooked in the slowest of slow cookers, the first few years of the new mil-lennium must have felt like a commercial tsunami.

Bourbon isn’t exclusive to Kentucky but all the genre’s big hitters are here. Once you’ve left the freeways with their endless succession of Days Inn motels, McDonald’s takeaways and roadside diners, the state immerses you in its beauty. And nestled among the verdant forestry and affluent grazing paddocks are some of the world’s prettiest distilleries. Not just pretty, but almost palatial and possessed of a sense of purpose and a certain superiority. They make the finest bourbon here and they know it. And for much of their history the producers have kept their eyes fixed on the road and got on with producing fine spirit, either blissfully unaware of or absolutely disinterested in what distillers elsewhere were doing, including the noisy neighbours over the border in Tennessee to the south.

Until about a decade ago nothing would ruffle Kentucky’s bourbon producers, though once a year the circus came to town in the shape of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, and with it a growing number of new aficionados.

You’d meet on the lawn outside Four Roses Distillery early on the Friday morning to talk bourbon, bathing in shards of warm sunlight and catching the autumn dew on the grass. The smell of coffee and grits and crispy bacon would waft over guests as they relaxed and laughed, meeting old acquaintances for the first time since the last festival and planning the days ahead.

And what days. Competitions, funfairs, bourbons shared in bars and tents and on lawns; bourbon with cigars while listening to jazz, bluegrass, country and rock ’n’ roll; and, on the Saturday night, the big bourbon gala on the outskirts of bourbon capital Bardstown, when the great and good of Kentucky toasted America’s finest spirit.

At the heart of all of this were the legendary distillers who provided personality and gravitas in abundance – Parker Beam at Heaven Hill, Jim Rutledge at Four Roses, Lincoln Henderson at Woodford Reserve, Booker Noe at Jim Beam, the indefatigable Jimmy Russell at Wild Turkey, Julian Van Winkle, and the eccentric genius Bill Samuels at Maker’s Mark. They were undoubtedly heady days. And if you ever had the pleasure of sipping bourbon with ice while watching the sun setting over the Ohio River and the evening sky turning chocolate orange on a balmy Autumn evening, then you’d have felt as I did – that time had stood still.

But of course it hadn’t. Time is a relentless pursuer and has a habit of catching up with everyone eventually. Boy has it caught up with Kentucky these past few years.

SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS

Booker Noe, a gentleman who would not only offer a drink to any stranger but a meal and accommodation should they be required, has passed on. Parker Beam has been struck down by severe ill health. Bill Samuels, Jim Rutledge and Lincoln Henderson ‘retired’ from frontline duty – in theory anyway.

Meanwhile the world was catching up with Kentucky. So what happened?

There have been three significant developments which have turned the world of bourbon on its head in recent years and will ensure that the state’s whiskey industry will never be quite the same again.

The craft distilling revolution, first ignored, then dismissed by some as a distraction, has refused to go away. Indeed, the number of new distillers has continued to grow. A couple of months ago the American Distilling Institute reported its 1,000th member.

Unsurprisingly, many of the new wave of distillers are making bourbon and, while straight bourbon must be matured for a minimum of two years and the giants of Kentucky mature their spirit for significantly longer, a corn whiskey need spend only seconds in a virgin oak barrel to be called ‘bourbon’.

That means some of the new distillers are playing footloose and fancy free with the quality of their bourbons – something which initially concerned the guardians of quality in Kentucky and beyond.

“The problem is, if a guy buys something called bourbon in New York and it tastes nothing like it should, then the guy’s going to take a poor image of the category,” Julian Van Winkle once said to me. “While it’s good that people are getting to hear about bourbon, it’s not good if they’re trying bad spirit.”

A few years on, though, it seems that what has happened is a new generation of affluent urban drinkers have heard of bourbon through excellent style bars such as The Whisky Lounge in New York and, with disposable in-come to call on, they have gone back to the source and discovered Kentucky’s finest bourbons, developing a premium market in the process.

Charles Marshall, consigliere at Spirit Cartel, which markets Four Roses, says consumers are turning to recognised brands because they have better education and know to seek out the proven heavyweights.

“Consumers are becoming more aware of the link between small-batch, craft-produced liquor and a high level of quality,” he says. “They actively seek bars that offer this point of difference and are prepared to pay a premium for them. However, brands need to be able to back up the craft and premium claims.

“We’re not worried about the pretenders. Premium, authentic whiskeys such as Four Roses will always shine through. It’s been around since the days of Whisky Row back in 1888, with more provenance than you can shake a stick at and it’s made with premium ingredients – for these reasons it’s on fire.”

Fernando de Vicente Meirás, senior global marketing manager GTR for Beam Suntory, says consumers are seeking reassurance from established names across the entire brown spirits category.

“Consumers of bourbon are consumers of premium brown spirits in general, be it single malts, bourbon or cognac,” he says. “They have demonstrated their desire to explore the category as a whole, rather than remaining loyal to one spirit. As a company we are working with this in mind to create products of outstanding quality, innovation, tradition and heritage to respond to our consumers’ tastes and capture the loyalty of this group.”

So, while the established names have been able to hold off the new competition and actually feed off it, the new attention, particularly from younger drinkers, has resulted in the second distinctive trend – a period of sustained innovation and new product development.

PACKAGING MAKEOVER

At the turn of the millennium bourbon was still positioned on the bottom shelf and had an image problem. Now virtually every Kentucky bourbon has been given a packaging makeover and there’s been a succession of brand extensions – everything from special finishes such as Beam Double Oak and Devil’s Cut to a more ‘youth friendly’ Wild Turkey 81, with an abv of 40.5% instead of the meatier 50.5% of Wild Turkey 101.

“The launch of Wild Turkey 81 was an acknowledgement that different drinkers want different things,” says Jimmy Russell’s son Eddie, who has taken on much of the brand ambassadorial duties for Wild Turkey. “It’s not a criticism of Wild Turkey 101 – more a recognition that some people don’t like their spirits so strong.”

The increase in interest among younger drinkers, who are drawn to bourbon’s sweetness and flexibility as a core spirit in cocktail making, has forced the bourbon companies to take the fashion market more seriously, says Beam’s de Vicente Meirás.

“Innovation in such a diverse and dynamic sector is a must, not a choice, and there are a number of ways that travel retail is spearheading innovation in the spirits business.

“Beam Suntory is responding to this opportunity with a robust pipeline of new product innovations, as well as products launched exclusively into travel retail where consumers proactively seek a unique offering that is unique to that environment.

“We’re passionate about creating new, innovative, best-in-class pro-ducts that honour the long tradition of our company and legacy of our master distillers,” he says.

“Innovation in such a diverse and dynamic sector is a must, not a choice, and there are a number of ways we are spearheading innovation in the spirits business. Beam Suntory is responding to this opportunity with a robust pipeline of new product innovations.”

The third significant development has been the growth of spirits drinks with added flavours. The rules governing bourbon production are very strict, and nothing can be added to the basic mix of grain, yeast and water matured in new oak barrels. But that hasn’t stopped a huge growth in the number of whiskeys flavoured with honey, maple, and cinnamon.

Unsurprisingly the shorthand for such drinks is flavoured whiskeys – and they are huge.

This is an area where there is a potential problem with the newer craft distillers, some of whom are using the word ‘bourbon’ for a variety of concoctions which include coconut and a range of fruit juices.

TRUE AND IMPROVED

So what is the effect of all the changes? Has the heart of bourbon been swept away and its core values diluted?

Absolutely not. While the bottles might be fancier, some of the off-shoot products more bizarre, and the overall marketing image more glitzy, at their core the great bourbons remain unchanged or improved, and a growing premium bourbon category is exciting drinkers across the world.

Kentucky’s distilleries report healthy and growing sales figures in a large number of markets and point to the fact that in many territories they are only beginning to scratch the surface. With potential markets such as India and China only just starting to open up, there is massive optimism about the future.

According to Marshall of Four Roses, the balance between big and small distilleries with the likes of Four Roses and Maker’s Mark in the middle, make for a winning formula.

“The behemoths recruit the punters to the category but the likes of Four Roses will make sure they stay,” he says.

“The increase in the popularity of bourbon has led to an overall boost in bourbon drinking across the board, from large-scale established producers to smaller, high-quality craft distillers.

“We know we’ve only scratched the surface with Four Roses in markets such as the UK and we’re looking forward to taking it to the next level. People want high-quality, craft spirits and they are gaining in popularity week by week in an increasingly diverse and exciting UK bourbon scene. This is a trend we expect to see carry on into the immediate future.”

Back in Kentucky, where new warehouses, visitor centres and even distilleries reflect the growing confidence, there’s a collective shrug of the shoulders when you talk of all the fuss.

“It’s all and good these folk drinkin’ bourbon in these new-fangled ways,” says one distiller with a glint in his eye. “But what’s wrong with bourbon on the rocks or maybe with a splash of water?”

And with that he lifts his glass, winks, and takes a hefty slug. “Just as it should be,” he says. And you know bourbon is still in safe hands.