The Bourbon Society Blackacre meeting

[Bourbon HQ]

Last night, The Bourbon Society held our meeting at the historic Blackacre Home in Jeffersontown, KY. We had a wonderful meeting followed by a tasting featuring Julian Van Winkle as the guest speaker. Great food, great people and great cigars. I've included some photos. Perhaps Mike can elaborate on the story of the historical home.

Gayle Hack

[gillmang]

Looks like some some good tasting took place, Gayle.

That is a handsome Georgian/Federal-style building, I'd be interested also in the history.

Gary

[bourbonv]

I am glad that Gayle posted these photographs because I planned to make a post about this meeting anyway, with hopes he would post pictures.

Last night, the 15th of January, was the first meeting of The Bourbon Society for the year of 2007. It was the first meeting of the second year of the society's existance and the first meeting with me as President of The Bourbon Society. It was a very good meeting, but I will not take credit for anything other than luck for such a great meeting. This meeting came about because Katie Greene and Julian Van Winkle were in the Bourbon's Bistro on the same day. Katie had come to a Bourbon Society meeting to promote the bourbon tasting fund raising event I do for tham every year and Julian just happened to be there with Mike Miller from Chicago. By the end of the meeting Julian and Mike had joined us for the after meeting drinks and Katie volunteered the use of Blackacre for a meeting and Julian volunteered to be the speaker. It was a great combination.

Blackacre is an old family farm that was turned into a nature preserve in the 1970's. Think of it as a small Bernheim Forest in Jefferson county. The farmhouse was built around 1840, but the family had been living there since 1790. They have the Tyler family's license to distill there from 1798, one of the earliest in Jefferson County. The Tyler family made whiskey and Cherry Bounce on the farm and sold it at their saloon on Corn Island.

Since we usually hold our meetings at a bar where we can get food, we decided to pot luck this meeting so people would not be driving after drinking on an empty stomach. I knew the weather was going to turn colder that day and I volunteered to make a pot of Vegetable soup. Other brought utensils, water, homemade bread, KFC, desserts, vegetable tray and even some sushi. Julian brought along some Van Winkle Family Reserve 12yo, Pappy 20 and Pappy 23. I brought along a partial bottle of the first year's production of the 13yo rye, JD brought along some Twisted Spoke and Shay brought some Cuban cigars.

We started with our business meeting were discussed old business of next months meeting and event which want to be at Four Roses, and the plan to purchase a barrel of whiskey. We then had some new business as Wayne brought up a Cigar Club event on February 16th that will be a bourbon and cigar event and we have been invited to sign up for tickets. Brenda mentioned try to find a place for a website. The whole meeting lasted about 20 minutes. We then introduced Julian as the speaker.

Julian led us through the tasting of his products and spoke about some of his theories on aging. I had told him that this group for the most part had heard the normal distillery tour spiel on aging many times and wanted some more advanced information. Julian obliged. He discussed his theory of bourbons peaks and valleys as it ages. I came away with the following points as signifacant information.

1) Bourbon does have peaks and valley's and some times that extra year can do harm to the flavor profile. For example when I mentioned that I had a bottle of Pappy 15 that I thought was too woody, he said that was probably some that was 16 years old that he bottled because of the shortage of the 15 year old whiskey.

2) If he had his way he would bottle Pappy 15 within a week of it turning 15 years old and if he could he put the rest of those barrels in stainless steal for future use to prevent further aging.

3) He believes the wheat recipe ages better at extreme age than rye recipe. There can be exceptions to this rule, but they are rare exception.

4) He likes iron clad unheated warehouse and the bottom four floors for his whiskey. He believes that Pappy was right that for whiskey that old, heating the warehouses is not a good thing. The slow, natural process is the best method for making older whiskey. He also believes lower barrel proof and distillation proof makes for better older whiskey.

There were many other points and questions during his talk, but these were the ones that I found the most interesting. Matbe others at the meeting will add more. There are several Bourbon Society members on this forum.

After the talk we ate soup and bread and all of the other fine food available. We could not smoke in the historic house, but several of us braved the falling tempuratures to try one of Shay's cigars. The meeting broke up about 10:30. A good time was had by all.

If anybody on the forum who lives near Louisville and has not already joined the society but would like to join, just let me know. We hold monthly meetings and have had a couple of pretty damned good parties. I hope you will join us. If you live out of easy driving distance but think you might be in Louisville during a meeting, let me know because we do have guest at the meeting and you would be more than welcome to join us. The meeting are the 3rd Monday on odd months and the 3rd Tuesday on even months. The next meeting will be the third Tuesday of February.

[gillmang]

Nice report, Mike, thanks.

Gary

[brendaj]

Mike and Gayle,
Great shots! And you're so right, what a wonderful evening. The food was terrific. Mike's veggie soup is always good, and so are Chuck's gingersnap/habanero cookies. Chuck also brought some really interesting wheatberry chili. I thought that was so appropriate, considering we were drinking all that great wheated Bourbon...

Thanks to Julian, JD and Mike for the great Bourbon, and to Julian for sharing some info we don't normally get to hear.

Blackacre is truly beautiful, here's their site:
http://www.blackacrefoundation.org/index.html
My thanks to our Blackacre hosts, and all who made our first Bourbon Society meeting of 2007 so memorable.
Bj