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Campari ‘resurrects’ historical Bourbon brands
Campari America is set to launch the first two expressions in its new Whiskey Barons Collection, which aims to “recreate historically significant Bourbons that were lost after Prohibition”.
Old Ripy and Bond & Lillard are the first two launches under Campari America’s new Whiskey Barons Collection
To create the bottlings – called Old Ripy and Bond & Lillard – the group collaborated with T.B. Ripy IV and Tom Ripy, great-grandson and great-great-grandson of T.B. Ripy, who operated a distillery on the site of Campari’s Wild Turkey Distillery in the late 19th century.
Together with Norm Matella, Campari America’s North American Technical Center manager, and Robin Coupar, Campari America’s global whiskies brand ambassador, the team analysed historical documents, family archives and experimented with different blends to “achieve a final product as close to the original whiskeys as possible”.
The whiskeys were distilled at Campari’s Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Joint master distillers Jimmy and Eddie Russell were not involved with the creation of the expressions due to their commitments to Wild Turkey, but Eddie Russell will create future Whiskey Barons releases.
Described as an “ambitious undertaking”, Whiskey Barons will see Campari work with the descendants of historical distilling families to “resurrect” original Bourbon recipes and distilling techniques.
Bond & Lillard, first distilled by Revolutionary War veteran John Bond in 1820, is aged for a minimum of seven years in timber warehouses. The whiskey is also charcoal filtered, which “simulates the aeration process that happens in the barrel”.
Old Ripy is aged for a minimum of eight years in timber warehouses and is non-chill-filtered, allowing it to “retain congeners, fusil oils, lipid fats and proteins” found in the original recipe.
Both expressions will be released at an unspecified time in 2017.
In 2014, UK group Diageo launched the Orphan Barrel Whiskey Distilling Company to bottle “forgotten” whiskeys.