It is a Kentuckystraight bourbon whiskey brand introduced in 2008 and bottled at 47% abv, with 8–10 year aging. It is sold in glass 750 ml and 1.75 liter bottles. The company is identified on the product label as the Willett Distilling Company, which was the original name of the company until its name was changed in 1984 to Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, Ltd. (KBD). In October 2012, the company announced that it would return to using the Willett Distillery name as its primary business name.[2] Recent bottlings are identified on the labels as a small batch bourbon, whereas it was originally released as a single barrel bourbon.[3]
Willett Pot Still Reserve is bottled in a decorative decanter that received a "double gold" award for packaging design at the 2008 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.[4] In addition to the double gold medal for packaging, the product was also awarded a gold medal for taste at the event.
Malt Advocate Magazine rated Willett Pot Still Reserve at 90 ("outstanding") on a 100-point rating scale in January 2008.[1] It also included the brand in its 2008 Whisky Awards as one of the top ten new whiskies for 2008.[5]
Although the company has had the word distillery or distillers in its name (and similarly uses "distilling company" in the various company names that it prints on labels), it did not actually operate as a distillery in the period between the early 1980s and January 2012. The company has been refurbishing and enhancing its prior distillery plant, and resumed limited test distilling on January 21, 2012 – with plans to support both column still and pot still distillation processes.[6][7][8][9][10][11] However, since multi-year aging is required, their products will continue to use whiskey distilled elsewhere for some time to come. The company generally does not identify where in Kentucky its products are actually distilled, although it has been reported that most of their products have been distilled by the Heaven Hill Distillery, which has its company headquarters located close to the Willett Distillery Company.[11] The two companies are located about a half mile from each other along the same road in Bardstown, Kentucky.
Product name and history
Although the product has the term pot still in its name, it has been reported that the initial distillation process for the product was performed using the more common column still distillation method– with a pot still used only for the doubler stage.[12]
The product is named after the Willett family which founded the company that produces it. The company began as the Willett Distilling Company. John David Willett (born in 1841) had been the master distiller for the Moore, Willett & Frenke Distillery, which he had formed with his brother-in-law Thomas S. Moore of Bardstown, and a Mr. Frenke of Louisville. In 1876, Willett fell ill and sold his interest in the company.[13] The resulting company became the Mattingly Moore Distillery. John David Willett would, however, live on for another 38 years after this transaction. He died in 1914.
Starting at the age of 15 with a five-year stint at the Mattingly Moore Distillery, his son A. Lambert Willett (born in 1883) picked up his father's profession.[13] Lambert Willett then worked for the Max Selliger & Co. Distillery for twenty years – eventually becoming one-third owner and superintendent of the plant.[13] A. L. "Thompson" Willett, Lambert's son (born in 1909), also joined him at the plant as assistant superintendent. Lambert Willett later purchased a farm and, together with his sons and especially led by Thompson Willett, founded the Willett Distilling Company on the site. Thompson and Lambert Willett used John David Willett's bourbon recipes as the basis of the whiskey that they would distill there and brand as "Old Bardstown".
The construction of the Willett Distilling Company began in the spring of 1935 (just after the 1933 repeal of alcohol prohibition in the United States), and the company produced its first batch of 300 bushels (about 30 barrels) on March 17, 1936. Five years after founding the Willett Distilling Company, Lambert Willett left Max Selliger & Co. to pursue the family business full-time.[14] Lambert Willett and at least four of his sons held substantial positions of responsibility at the company. Lambert Willett died in 1970.
A. L. "Thompson" Willett, the son of Lambert Willett, was the president of the Willett Distilling Company. At one time, he was also the president of the Kentucky Distillers Association, and he also held a number of other positions of prominence in the community. Thompson Willett's daughter Martha Harriet Willett and other members of her generation of the family worked for the company as well, and in 1972 she married Even (pronounced Evan) G. Kulsveen of Hamar, Norway, who would later purchase the company.
During the 1970s energy crisis, the company switched from producing whiskey to producing ethanol for gasohol fuel.[14] This strategy soon failed when fuel prices returned to lower levels, and the distilling facilities were completely shut down in the early 1980s.[14]
Kulsveen purchased the company and the property on July 1, 1984, and renamed the company to Kentucky Bourbon Distillers (KBD), Ltd. For some time, KBD continued to produce bourbon from the aging barrels that the Willett distillery had produced before they had stopped distilling. However, as time moved on, KBD increasingly began to purchase its bourbon from other distilleries and operate as an independent bottling company. Kulsveen continues to operate the facility to this day, and the next generation of the family, including their son E. A. "Drew" Kuslveen and their son's wife Janelle,[2] their daughter K. M.-B. "Britt" Chavanne and her husband Hunter Chavanne, are also now involved in the company.[9][15] Drew Kulsveen manages production, his wife Janelle runs the gift shop and tasting room, and Britt Chavanne runs day-to-day operations, and Hunter Chavanne covers sales and marketing.[2][10]
The company introduced the Willett Pot Still Reserve bourbon brand in 2008. It was originally a single barrel bourbon. Each bottle was sealed with a label identifying the individual aging barrel, the number of the bottle within the series of bottles for that barrel, and the total number of bottles from the barrel (example: "Bottle No. 116 of 242 from Single Barrel 149"). However, at some point in time roughly around 2015, it stopped being a single barrel brand and became a small batch brand instead. The bottles as still sealed with a paper labeling strip, but they no longer carry bottle numbers (example: "Small Batch Bourbon made in Kentucky – Batch No. 16A3"). For its definition of the term "small batch", the company said in 2011 that it used at most 12 barrels per batch for its "small batch" brands.[16]
The company also makes another brand of whiskey with a similar name – called Willett Family Reserve. The Family Reserve brand is a limited-production barrel proof single barrel whiskey produced in bottles that resemble wine bottles in shape. (Several other brands produced by Willett, such as Rowan's Creek and Noah's Mill, also use wine-type bottle shapes.)
Whisky or whiskey is a type of liquor made from fermented grain mash. Various grains are used for different varieties, including barley, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky is typically aged in wooden casks, which are typically made of charred white oak. Uncharred white oak casks previously used for the aging of port, rum or sherry are also sometimes used.
Bourbon is a type of barrel-aged American whiskey made primarily from corn (maize). The name derives from the French Bourbon dynasty, although the precise source of inspiration is uncertain; contenders include Bourbon County in Kentucky and Bourbon Street in New Orleans, both of which are named after the dynasty. The name bourbon may not have been used until the 1850s; the association with Bourbon County did not appear until the 1870s.
George Dickel is a brand of Tennessee whisky produced in Tullahoma, in Coffee County, Tennessee. Today owned by Diageo, the modern brand was introduced in 1964, though the distillery has a longer history. Whisky production and aging takes place at the Cascade Hollow Distillery, which offers tours to the public and is part of the American Whiskey Trail. George Dickel operates the second-largest distillery in Tennessee, selling 130,000 cases in 2013, while the largest is Jack Daniel's, which sold 11.5 million cases the same year.
Jim Beam is an American brand of bourbon whiskey produced in Clermont, Kentucky, by Beam Suntory. It is one of the best-selling brands of bourbon in the world. Since 1795, seven generations of the Beam family have been involved in whiskey production for the company that produces the brand. The brand name became "Jim Beam" in 1943 in honor of James B. Beam, who rebuilt the business after Prohibition ended. Previously produced by the Beam family and later owned by the Fortune Brands holding company, the brand was purchased by Suntory Holdings in 2014.
Evan Williams is a brand of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey bottled in Bardstown, Kentucky, by the Heaven Hill company. The product is aged for a minimum of four years. It has been ranked as one of the world's best selling whiskey brands.
Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc. is a private, American family-owned and operated distillery founded in 1935 and headquartered in Bardstown, Kentucky, that produces and markets the Heaven Hill brand of Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey and a variety of other distilled spirits. Its current distillery facility, called the Heaven Hill Bernheim distillery, is in Louisville, Kentucky. It is the seventh-largest alcohol supplier in the United States, the second-largest holder of bourbon whiskey inventory in the world, the largest, independent, family-owned and operated producer and marketer of distilled spirits in the United States, and the only large family-owned distillery company headquartered in Kentucky.
Woodford Reserve is a brand of premium small batch Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey produced in Woodford County, Kentucky, by the Brown-Forman Corporation. It is made from a mixture of copper pot still spirits produced at the company's Woodford Reserve Distillery, and column still spirits from the Brown Forman Distillery in Shively, Kentucky. Each 45.2% alcohol by volume bottle bears a unique batch and bottle number. The brand was introduced in 1996. Domestic sales of Woodford Reserve surpassed one million cases in 2021.
Single barrel whiskey is a premium class of whiskey in which each bottle comes from an individual aging barrel, instead of coming from blending together the contents of various barrels to provide uniformity of color and taste. By contrast, some other whiskeys, even ones that are not blends, may be combined from more than one batch, or even from differing years to achieve consistency. The whiskey from each barrel is bottled separately, with each bottle bearing the barrel number and in most cases the dates for the beginning and end of aging. Each barrel is believed to contribute unique characteristics to the finished whiskey.
Four Roses is a brand of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey produced in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Its Spanish Mission-style distillery was built in 1910 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Old Prentice Distillery. The company's warehouse for aging and bottling operations is in Cox's Creek, Kentucky. The brand and its products have evolved and transformed since the company's founding in the late 19th century, and especially since the firm's acquisition by the Kirin Brewery Company of Japan at the beginning of the 21st century.
Small batch whiskey is whiskey produced by mixing the contents of a relatively small number of selected barrels. Small batch whiskeys are commercially positioned for the upper-premium market. The term is most commonly used for American whiskey but is sometimes used for other whiskeys as well. For example, the Bowmore distillery in Islay, Scotland, has produced a single malt Scotch whisky labeled as "small batch".
Old Forester is a brand of Kentucky straight bourbon whisky produced by the Brown–Forman Corporation. It has been on the market continuously for longer than any other bourbon, and was the first bourbon sold exclusively in sealed bottles. It was first bottled and marketed in 1870 by the former pharmaceutical salesman turned bourbon-merchant George Garvin Brown — the founder of the Brown–Forman Corporation. During the Prohibition period from 1920 to 1933, Brown–Forman received one of only six licenses authorizing lawful production.
Willett Distillery Ltd, is a private, family-owned-and-operated company that produces bourbon and rye whiskey. Over the years, the company has bottled whiskeys that range from two years of aging maturity up to 28 years. The company was named Kentucky Bourbon Distillers (KBD) between 1984 and 2012.
It has been common practice in the whisky industry for more than a century for distilleries to sell barrels of whisky to blenders and independent bottlers as a means of making additional income. In fact, some distilleries exist solely to serve independent bottlers, and do not market any brands themselves.
Copper Fox Distillery is a distillery that produces American whiskey in Sperryville, Virginia and Williamsburg, VA. The owner and operator of Copper Fox Distillery is Rick Wasmund.
Town Branch is a Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey brand produced by the Lexington Brewing and Distilling Company of Lexington, Kentucky which is owned by Alltech. Town Branch Distillery is the first distillery to be built in Lexington in more than 100 years.
Old Pogue is a brand of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. Located in Maysville, Kentucky, the Old Pogue Distillery carries strong family ties dating back to the 1870s, and is privately owned by members of the Pogue family.
Knappogue Castle Irish Whiskey is a brand of premium single malt Irish whiskey produced by the Irish Distillers subsidiary of Pernod Ricard. The brand is named for historic Knappogue Castle in County Clare, Ireland, originally built by Clan MacNamara in 1467. Knappogue Castle is known for bottling one of the oldest and rarest known Irish whiskies, Knappogue Castle 1951, a pot still whiskey produced at the now-defunct B. Daly Distillery.
Atherton Whiskey was a pre-prohibition brand of Kentucky Straight Bourbon whiskey first produced by J M Atherton & Co, a chemical and distilling business.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to whisky:
↑ Cowdery, Charles K., "Pot Stills Versus Column Stills", The Chuck Cowdery Blog: American Whiskey & Other Stuff, February 26, 2008. (Access date December 11, 2010.)
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