Episode 2 - The Father of Bottled In Bond And The Great Beyond

Hey there, Backyardigans, how y’all are! Welcome to (finally!) our first episode of 2019! How has the new year been for you so far? It’s been an interesting start for me. Had an incredible, and I mean incredible Christmas Break that bled over into the New Year. As you may know, I am still working on my Bachelor’s degree, I actually will graduate this May, not braggin’, and in the final stretch here I took a winter intersession course through the month of December. That was the only thing, the only thing that I can point to that I completed during this Christmas Break. Nothing else got done, folks. My family and I stayed at home for 14 straight days, and as the guy says in “Office Space,” “it was everything I imagined it could be.” Our lives are extremely hectic, with my wife and I working full time, our daughters in junior high and high school, one in dance, one in pre-med classes, me going to school part time, volunteering with my dog and trying to squeeze in a podcast now and again really fills up your calendar! So when you get a chance to just shut things down, and boy did we shut things down, it is a VERY nice change of pace. I called it “low-level debauchery.” We stayed up late, slept in late, watched movies, opened Christmas presents, instantly consumed all of Grandma B’s famous pecan rolls, and played HOURS of Playstation. And I mean hours. In fact, a friend of mine reminded me that Playstation sent each Plus member a breakdown of their stats for 2018. I believe my December had over 90 hours of Playstation use. My eye sockets still hurt. It was incredibly relaxing. And necessary. And I have to tell you, there was a direct correlation between how incredible our Christmas break was and how horrible it was to go back to work and school the next week. The greater the break, the more having no break sucked! And any of you geeks out there playing Red Dead 2? Oh my word, folks. Prepare to be obsessed, lose all track of time, stay up late and go blind. In fact, that’s probably the tagline of the game, but I wouldn’t know because I didn’t waste any time looking at the game case. I don’t normally geek out about video games, but good grief RDR2 is a lot of fun, and whiskey, specifically Kentucky Bourbon, abounds throughout the game.

Speaking of bourbon, let’s talk about it, why don’t we? One of the Christmas presents I got… well, I got it myself, truth be told. BUT I WAS REQUESTED TO DO SO. Let me clarify that part! Here’s what happened: I got my brother a bottle of Colonel EH Taylor for Christmas, the Small Batch Bottled-in-Bond version all nice with the canister and everything. I bring it home, show it to the wife, explain how I’d love to try it sometime because I’ve never had it, wife says why don’t you get yourself one for Christmas, I argue with her for what must’ve been almost 4 seconds, drive back to the liquor store, pick up my own bottle. Meanwhile, the wife has to drive the kids to the uncle’s so they can all go to The Nutcracker, and I’m left all alone. What to do, what to do. Several beautiful pictures later, the bottle’s open and I’m sampling a cup of Christmas cheer thanks to the good colonel. Now, don’t hate on me, but I didn’t realize it was bottled in bond. Don’t judge! I’ve never had it before so how would I know, right? But that got me thinking… is there still a legitimate reason for the Bottled In Bond Act? Before we get to that, let’s review the BiB requirements (from the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 27: Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms):

“Produced in the same distilling season by the same distiller at the same distillery;”

“Stored for at least four years in wooden containers wherein the spirits have been in contact with the wood surface” (to be specific for bourbon, the wooden containers are to be new American White Oak barrels - it doesn’t mention that in the regs but in order to be considered bourbon it has to be, as well as made in the U S of A).

“Unaltered from their original condition or character by the addition or subtraction of any substance other than by filtration, chill proofing, or other physical treatments (which do not involve the addition of any substance which will remain incorporated in the finished product or result in a change in class or type);”

“Reduced in proof by the addition of pure water only to 100 degrees of proof; and

Bottled at 100 degrees of proof.”

And why do we have that regulation, folks? Well, to prevent unscrupulous distillers from adding or subtracting from what is identified as bourbon, so you don’t get tobacco spit, arsenic, root beer, muddy water, and God knows what else in your juice! During the closing days of the Wild Wild West, it is well known that this was quite the epidemic, and the good Colonel Taylor saw through these hucksters and the industry-damaging potential they carried with them with their unscrupulous business practices. He is one of the fine people we can thank for bringing legislation to clean the bums out of the business, or at least make them straighten up and fly right. But that was 1897. (March 3, 1897, for those of you keeping score at home). It’s 2019. It’s almost one hundred twenty-two years later! Is there still a need for distilleries to go the Bottled In Bond route? Look at it this way: Nowadays, with 24/7 news coverage and social media, news travels extremely fast. And bad news travels especially fast. Do you think a distillery would risk the certain-to-be-fatal attention that brewing shady juice would bring? I honestly don’t think one distillery would risk that, especially any that employ a social media team. A bad reputation is terminal these days, and your distillery isn’t going to last long if people don’t trust you or your product.

So I’ll ask again, is Bottled In Bond still necessary? I think it still is. First of all, I think the threat of legal action, and the guarantee that others are following the law, keeps everyone on the straight and narrow. Maybe it’s the unnecessary rule that only becomes necessary if it’s not a rule. Maybe it’s a reminder that even in the Wild Wild West, during our wild and wooly days, we still found a place for law and order. A measuring stick to ensure a manufacturer, in this case, a distiller, did what he said he’d do. Or maybe it’s just good marketing.

Secondly, and more importantly, a lot of distilleries are removing age statements from their labels these days. Now I’m not an expert on this subject, but I have yet to hear a legitimate business reason for doing this. I’m sure there are plenty of business reasons for doing so, but none legitimate. If you made a product and then let it sit for more than four years without selling it, wouldn’t you tell your customers this? I understand some companies are using this as a marketing ploy to jack up the price of their product, on the mistaken assumption that older is better. Well, if they fleece the fools, what do I care? If product marketing tempts a poorly-informed customer, instead of the product itself, that is really out of our hands. Removing the age statement isn’t a fix for this, and in fact, I feel it’s a bad solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.  

I will be honest, I have yet to have a BiB that compares to the Wild Turkey 101. I’ve had the Evan Williams BiB, Colonel Taylor, Old Grandad and even Rittenhouse’s Rye BiB, and in my very humble and highly unqualified opinion, the WT101 leaves them all behind. (And yes, I know the WT101 isn’t BiB, just trying to show that the higher proof isn’t the turnoff for me for those other brands). At any rate, the Bottled-in-Bond act is still with us, and its anniversary date is coming up quick. What else? What else can I ramble about? You know, I think this has gone on long enough and I’ve troubled you fine folks more than you have a right to, so we’ll end this here. A special thanks to the incomparable Chris Haugen whose music we used today, along with the Jingle Punks for their tune at the beginning of the show. You can find the music for both of these incredibly talented artists on YouTube’s Audio Library. Thanks for listening, again if you have any comments on our program or the pictures and videos we provide, please drop us a line at backyardbourbonbroadcast@gmail.com or find us on the interwebs or social media - we’re on Instagram @backyardbourbonbroadcast and on Twitter @bourbonandstory. Once again, thank you for listening, and we’ll talk to you next time on the next episode of the Backyard Bourbon Broadcast!

EH Taylor