Yes, Mike, but surely almost all distilleries then were using sour mash, so to claim it as something traditional and a value point seems a little, well, ad-oriented, which is Chuck's point I think.
This brings up something I have long wanted to ask on a bourbon board.
Do you Mike (with your inventory of interesting, often older, products) or does anyone have experience tasting a sweet mash bourbon?
I wonder if a sweet mash bourbon is really all that different from a sour mash bourbon. Is the point really only one of product consistency? This is something of interest to companies who want to sell a consistent product but perhaps less to connoisseurs (if that term doesn't sound too highfaluting) who appreciate differences in quality bourbons and recognise the process cannot (and should not) be completely standardised.
Now there's a coup: bring an authentic sweet mash bourbon to Gazebo!
Maybe it is more simple than I think: is it not possible some bourbons currently in the market are sweet mash? Surely some single barrel bourbons (anyway) aren't always made with sour mash. What happens when (some) companies start distilling again in a new season? The first mash means there isn't any back set to add to the fermenter, right? Some distilleries may borrow some from a friendly local company (i.e., a competitor) but I would doubt that possibility can always be relied on.
Can it be some of the variations noticed, say, from year to year in the EWSB bourbons result from some being sweet mash bourbons? (I don't recall if their label promises sour mash or not).
Shucks, I just love that phrase sweet mash, I wish someone would market (explicitly) a sweet mash bourbon, I'd buy it in a nonce. A bourbon sangaree made with sweet mash whiskey, why, I'd walk a spell (preferably in the Kentuck hollows) for that one.
Gary