Four Roses is one of the most iconic Kentucky bourbons on the shelf. It’s massively respected and hugely sought-after — especially their single barrel releases (more on those later). But it wasn’t always that way. Barely two decades ago, it was a dismissed brand of whiskey that nearly shuttered for good. The public’s view of Four Roses was that it was swill, rotgut — the stuff your grandpappy hid in the garage.
Through diligence and commitment to craft, Four Roses has made an incredible comeback. Now, the whiskey is so good and nearly ubiquitous that I knew it was time to rehash and rank every single available expression. Available is italicized because Four Rose is truly unique in the bourbon whiskey world — using 10 different mash bills (recipes) to make its bourbon. Most distilleries (even the huge ones) will use one or two (maybe three if they’re doing something wheated).
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10 mash bills is a true outlier in bourbon, so it makes sense to break them down a little. Four Roses’ 10 mash bills are created from two distinct grain recipes with five different yeast strains. The grain recipes are a very high-rye bourbon mash bill of 60% corn, 35% rye, and 5% malted barley. This is called mash bill “B” — remember that for a little later. The other mash bill is a lower rye but still on the high end with 75% corn, 20% rye, and 5% malted barley. That’s mash bill “E,” you’ll need to remember that one too.
How do these two mash bills become 10 bourbon recipes? Yeast. Four Roses deploys five distinct yeast strains that it propagates in-house. Each yeast has its own structure that focuses certain flavor notes to be more present in the resulting beer and, later, the whiskey that eventually ends up in your glass. These strains are also given a letter name and are as follows:
- “V” — Delicate Fruit
- “K” — Slight Spice
- “O” — Rich Fruit
- “Q” — Floral Essence
- “F” — Herbal Notes
Why are the letters important, you ask? Well, they allow you to decode what is either in the blended bourbon or single barrel bourbon bottle you have. Four Roses uses a four-letter code to tell the drinker what they’re drinking. They look like this: “OBSK” or “OESO” or “OBSF”.
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You can decode it easily. “O” is for “Old Prentice Distillery” which is the old name for the Four Roses Distillery (which just celebrated 135 years of operations). The “E” or “B” is always the second letter and denotes the mash bill. The “S” tells you that the whiskey is a “Straight” bourbon. And finally, the last letter tells you which yeast strain was used.
So “OESO” is a Four Roses straight bourbon made with Mash Bill E and “Rich Fruit” yeast. Savvy?
That leads us to the “why?” of it all. Four Roses does this so that it can create a fantastic line of whiskey expressions, plain and simple. I’ll get into what’s in what bottle below. But trust me, it can be shocking how different a whiskey can taste based on yeast alone. Moreover, this also gives Four Roses the unique chance to release single barrel releases that highlight one of the recipes. That, in turn, makes the hunt for every recipe single barrel voracious. Seriously, when word gets out about a new single barrel release at Four Roses, the line to buy one can be miles long.
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHICH
