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Jefferson’s to mature Bourbon casks on water
Jefferson’s Bourbon will explore the different ways whiskey matures on water by sailing two casks from Louisville to New York City this summer.
Jefferson’s casks will sail through central US river systems to the Atlantic Ocean
The brand’s founder Trey Zoeller has teamed up with chef and restaurateur John Besh to send the casks through a river system in central America to the Atlantic Ocean – re-enacting whiskey transportation methods from 150 years ago.
The casks will sail downstream from Louisville – the home of Jefferson’s – to New Orleans on board a 23-foot Sea Pro boat.
From New Orleans, the casks will be loaded onto Besh’s renovated rum runner boat and transported to Key West before being loaded onto a sailboat to travel north up the Atlantic, landing for a tasting party in New York City at the end of September.
Jefferson’s claims that the purpose of the experiment is to gauge the different ways in which the Bourbon matures on water, as opposed to dry land.
The brand also produces the Jefferson’s Ocean: Aged at Sea expression, which is the result of older Bourbon barrels aged for seven to eight years on land, that have then been further aged at sea for an additional five to 10 months.
The barrels stop at five different continents and cross the equator four times, allowing them to be exposed to different temperatures and atmospheres.
“My personal theory is that as the Bourbon constantly sloshed around in the barrels, the constant contact with the wood accelerated the maturation process,” said Zoeller.
“The barrels also sucked in the salt air and the sun caramelised the sugars in the wood and sped up the maturation process, producing a much different final product than we know today.
“It’s a Bourbon that, in my mind, tastes much more similar to Jefferson’s Ocean than Bourbon that is now aged in Kentucky – that’s what made Kentucky Bourbon so desirable and unique a hundred and fifty years ago and why buyers in cities like New York, Philadelphia and Boston demanded the Bourbon from Kentucky and were willing to pay more for it.”
Once the experiment is complete, the Bourbon will be available in rare allocation through a US auction and directly from the Jefferson’s distillery. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the John Besh Foundation.