BourbonEnthusiast.com

http://www.phillymag.com/whiskeyfestival/index.php?text=seminar.txt

Did anyone happen to go to the Philadelphia Whiskey Festival and attend the Buffalo Trace seminar?

Seminar A
Mark Brown, Buffalo Trace Distillery
Mark Brown will discuss some of the many exciting bourbon experiments being conducted by the Buffalo Trace Distillery in the ever diligent search for the "perfect Bourbon".

I wonder what experiments are going on...

The ones I've heard about, either directly or indirectly, include:

• Aging in French oak
• four-grain bourbon
• wheat whiskey (a la rye whiskey -- at least 51% wheat)
• lower-proof barrel entry

All told, I understand, there are more than 50 experimental barrels aging currently. Chuck or somebody else here will know more.

Per Ken Weber there are roughly (1,500) experimental concoctions.

When we toured BT, we saw an empty BARTON barrel in the dump room. It appeared to be the only one, although I can't be certain. Now maybe all it represents is some outsourced bottling on Barton's part, but with all this experimentation talk...I choose to let my imagination run wild until somebody in the know reigns it in.

We have photo proof of this, by the way.