Bourbon tasting

After completing a tour of Kentucky's bourbon trail I decided to do a little more bourbon tasting on my own.  The Liquor Barn chain of stores in Kentucky has an impressive selection, including a good selection of the 50 ml 'airline' bottles.  They hold just a bit more than a standard 1.5 ounce American shot (50 milliliters = 1.6907 ounces).

I picked up seven bourbons:

1. Jim Beam original - (AKA Jim Beam white)
2. Jim Beam Black - double aged
3. Red Stag - Spiced with Cinnamon
4. Booker's
5. Wild Turkey Rare Breed
6. Old Forester
7. Bulleit Bourbon Frontier Whiskey

• The first four are produced by Jim Beam distillery.  The Booker's is part of Beam's small batch collection.  Beam Inc. trades on the NYSE with the symbol BEAM.  Beam owns a large family of liquor brands, including Courvoisier, Windsor, Pucker, Maker's Mark Bourbon, and DeKuyper to name a few.
• Number five is from the Wild Turkey distillery, which is owned by parent company Gruppo Campari, who also makes Skyy vodka, Frangelico hazelnut liqueur, and others.
• Number six is from Brown-Forman distilleries.  Other Brown-Forman brands include Woodford Reserve bourbon and Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey.
•  Lastly, the Bulleit brand is owned by parent company Diageo, who produces many other brands, including Johnnie Walker, Captain Morgan, Tanqueray, and Guinness beer, to name a few.

In the 21st century, bourbon is made by large corporations, but then so is the vast majority of liquor.  It does seem that big-liquor-inc allows its bourbon making divisions to operate with a fair degree of independence.  Maker's Mark and Woodford Reserve are certainly small operations as shown by their old cypress fermenters.  And US law requires that bourbon be made in a traditional manner - aged for at least two years in oak barrels - so there is still a certain hand-crafted charm to these products.  Each of the barrels is hand loaded into the rick house where is will wait for that fateful day some 2 to 20+ years in the future when it can be tasted, catergorized, and bottled.