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Whiskey Wednesday: The Three Chamber Rye

Alright, let’s get this out of the way: I am a Leopold Brothers fan, I’ve been a fan of their work for years. They are one of the best examples of what a mid-sized distillery can offer to the larger spirits world. They’re not trying to grow beyond their capacity and that capacity is often defined by quality standards, not production goals. They once said that what they make is liquid food, and their products back it up.

But with all of those standards and expectations comes a pressure to deliver. Especially when it comes to the Three Chamber Rye.

The Three Chamber Rye journey is one that I have followed for years, for at least as long as I’ve been writing Bottled-In-Bond, LA. In fact it was something that I was able to taste right off the three-chambered still before it had ever been bottled. The pressure of those years since tasting the white dog on my expectations has been enormous but to truly understand why we need a history lesson.

The Three Chamber Rye takes its name from the still used to produce it. While many people these days are familiar with the difference between a pot still and a continuous still, chances are they’ve never heard of a three chamber still. That’s because the last one was decommissioned just after the end of Prohibition. 

But before Prohibition the three chambered still was the tool for making rye whiskey in the United States. We know this because of the Crampton and Tolman papers. These were two reports commissioned by the IRS after the passing of the Bottled In Bond Act of 1897. These papers would become the basis for the standards of identity for what would define a bourbon, a rye, or other spirits aged in wood in the US. Every distillery that was surveyed that produced rye whiskey, except one, used a chamber still.

The three chamber still works much like its name suggests, there are three chambers stacked on top of each other. Each chamber is separated by a valve to prevent wash from each chamber from flowing into the other. The best way to understand how it works though is to start at the end with the third chamber.

This is where the mash from the last run will have ended up as the last stop of the process. Stripped of almost all alcoholic content and essentially stillage, this spent mash is pumped out of the chamber. 

The valves on the other chambers are opened one by one and the mash from chamber two flows down into the third by gravity, the mash from chamber one flows into chamber 2 and the first chamber is refilled from the pre-heating chamber.

Once all of the chambers are filled the steam valve is opened. It rises through the bottom (third) chamber, extracting oils and flavors, passes up into the middle (second) chamber, extracts alcohol and more flavor, continues up into the first chamber continuing its extraction before passing into a heat exchange in the preheater charger to warm the waiting mash without interacting before the vapor passes into a thumper and condenser to become new make. 

Each of these chambers operates at its own temperature, pressure, time, and inefficiencies. Each extracts different flavors and compounds.

If you’re familiar with how a continuous still works this may sound like a more difficult, less efficient version of that. And for many years that’s how this still was considered: as a transitory technology between the pot still and the continuous still.

Todd Leopold’s research into this forgotten technology however, led him to an article about the Hiriam Walker distillery in the 30’s. At the time this distillery was the largest distillery in the world and rather than instill another continuous still the very deliberately had a three chamber still limiting their production numbers. This told Todd that this still must have been producing a whiskey of such a unique flavor that the average consumer would notice its absence. And this led the team at Leopold Bros to commissioning Vendome to make the first Three Chamber Still in 100 years.

I don’t think Vendome would have agreed to make this still for any other distiller, as it was the first still they ever made that they couldn’t guarantee would work, or even not explode. Yet once it was functional and paired with Todd Leopold’s skill as a distiller it became clear that the resulting whiskey, even before being aged, was incredibly unique. The Chamber still essentially worked as an oil extractor. 

By the time the mash hits the third, bottom chamber almost all of the alcohol has been stripped from it. This means that the steam is extracting oils, flavors, and other compounds that it carries into the other chambers that are then slowly mixed with the alcohol being pulled from those chambers before being passed into the condenser to be collected. This allows a lot of time for compounds to interact and to add in compounds that don’t usually have time to exist in more familiar distillations.

The production goes beyond just the technology though. When you look back at production in the late 1800’s you quickly realize that the grains grown then are drastically different from the grains grown now. Over the past 150 years we’ve bred grains to produce more yield, meaning more starch. This is efficiency at the cost of flavor.

To solve this, Leopold Brothers worked with local Colorado farmers to start growing essentially extinct Abruzzi Rye grain. This rye has a starch content of about 60-65% which is much lower than the 75-80% starch content of modern, comercial rye. This unlocked yet another key to the flavor of this bygone whiskey. Add this to the fact that it’s distilled to 100 proof, goes into the barrel at 100 proof, and five years later comes out at 100 proof and you have a whiskey that hasn’t been tasted in literal generations.

I’ve now been fortunate enough to taste this whiskey as a new make straight off the still in the first year of its operation, to be able to taste the first bottled release, and now the first single barrel release. It has a unique character worthy of the wait; floral, fruity, bready, unctious, and heavy.

That term heavy is important because it leads us to the next stage of the conversation. That’s right, we aren’t done yet! While doing more research, and examining the blueprints laid out by the Crampton and Tulman papers, as well as the flow charts of the Hiram Walker Distillery it became clear that this Three Chamber whiskey, this “heavy” whiskey, was a component. Just a part of the standard bottle of rye. It would be blended with “light” whiskey to create a completely separate flavor.

This “light” whiskey would now be what we consider rye whiskey distilled on a continuous still. To truly recreate pre-Prohibition Rye the Three Chamber Rye would have to be blended with a continuous still rye.

Without a Continuous Still of his own, Todd reached out to Nicole Austin of Cascade hollow, formerly George Dickel. If you haven’t heard of Nicole or her work at Cascade Hollow go Google her now. She deserves her own full breakdown for her innovation and creativity as she’s doing for a macro distillery what Todd has done for an independent distillery. (Which is why she happened to have a four year old, experimental, column distilled rye already on hand.)

The two were able to collaborate. Not just as individual distillers, but as a mid-sized distillery working with the largest liquor company in the world. They produced a collaboration bottling that equally featured the work of both distillers while recreating a historic flavor profile.

The result is one of the best, most versatile rye whiskeys I’ve ever tasted. It is bright, spicy, weighty, fruity, delicate, and slightly floral. While this is a whiskey to sip it is probably one of the best cocktail Ryes I’ve ever worked with. A Manhattan or Sazerac with the Collaboration Rye is stellar. 

*If only the price were.

As you can imagine recreating a century old style of whiskey, and doing it right, doesn’t come cheap. Getting a bottle of the single barrel Three Chamber Rye is a couple hundred dollars. And depending on where you live getting a bottle of the Collaboration is 100+.

I absolutely believe that the price is worth it for experienced whiskey drinkers. They both explore something new, unexpected, and delicious. I want to open that door to appreciate the complexity of this whiskey to more people. And the easiest way for that is with cocktails. But the price point, for now, is aspirational rather than available.

Leopold Bros might think they’re making liquid food, but with the Three Chamber Rye they’ve made a whole meal.

TASTING NOTES:

Leopold Brothers Three Chamber Single Barrel Rye
NOSE: Malt, Baking Spice, Light Oak, Herbs
PALETTE: Stone fruit, oily, lavender, bright spice, bready
FINISH: Long, floral, roasted peach, tobacco, oak

Dickel and Leopold Bros. Collaboration Rye
NOSE: Dried fruit, citrus zest, rye spice, vanilla
PALETTE: oak, caramelized pear, floral, stone fruit, dill, baking spice
FINISH: Long, honied, spiced apple

Whiskey Wednesday: Overholt’s Bond

Bottled in Bond has jumped the shark. Before what’s sure to be Jack Daniel’s latest premium priced bottled in bond hits Duty Free shelves worldwide let’s look back to a much more innocent time when a BiB release truly excited me. A time known as six months ago…

Before we jump in the Short Way Back Machine what exactly does Bottled-In-Bond mean? Well, here’s a link to a video of some fools talking about it, but here’s a quick refresher. The Bottled in Bond Act of 1897 was spearheaded by a group of distillers, lead by Col. E.H. Taylor, to instate a form of quality control on products calling themselves whiskey, as well as to give consumers the confidence that whiskey sold in this new contraption known as a mass produced glass bottle was reliable and un-tampered with.

Working with the U.S. Government they came up with a list of regulations to be labeled as Bottled-In Bond.

  • The spirit must meet all the legal requirements for that spirit.
  • It must be the product of a single distillery in a single distilling season.
  • It must be aged for a minimum of 4 years in a government bonded warehouse.
  • It must be bottled at 100 Proof
  • Every bottle must list the DSP (the distillery identification number) for both the location of distillation and location of bottling.

Follow all these rules and you get a tax break and US government slaps its seal of approval on the bottle in the form of a tax stamp to show that the liquid has not been tampered with after it was bottled.

The bonded warehouse is an interesting thing to note. In the olden days this meant that the warehouse was physically locked and could only be accessed by a tax assessor (see the above tax breaks, to ensure that there was no “unauthorized removal.” This Tax Man had the keys to the warehouse and it could only be opened with their help, which is how we end up with such delightful stories as that of Old Fitzgerald.

Bottled in Bond began to thrive. It was a mark of quality, and a mark of the distiller’s skill. However, after prohibition when stocks and profits were low distillers looked for ways to stretch out the remaining supply and to reduce costs. See: blended whiskey and applejack. The required aging and proof of bottled in bond raised the quality but also the price, and being unable to blend across distilling seasons meant there was less ability to utilize backstock. Brands that were once proudly Bottled-in-Bond began reducing proof and age and slowly disappeared. Most of those that survived have been consolidated under the ownership of Heaven Hill but also lost their premium status and became your “Granddad’s Whiskey” which despite what the current whiskey boom will tell you used to be an incredibly uncool thing to say.

On the flip side, the current whiskey and cocktail boom has reinvigorated interest in Bottled In Bond as a mark of quality and in mixing. This has lead to a rash of reintroduction of Bottled In Bond products but often at a steep mark up, which I believe misses the point and utility of Bottled In Bond. They’re meant to be versatile and approachable. One of the rereleases that got this right was Old Overholt.

Old Overholt is owned by Beam Suntory, which is the parent company of the largest Bourbon producer in the world, Jim Beam. And while Overholt is truly an old brand it doesn’t usually stand out for me.

It’s a barely legal rye, meaning it’s 51% rye in the mashbill, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Rittenhouse Rye is also barely legal and is a bottle I can’t live without. But bottled at 80 proof I’ve often found the Overholt to be oily and incredibly earthy. However, this past January Beam Suntory added a Bottled In Bond version of the Overholt, so lets see how it stacks up.

On the nose it smells definitively like a Jim Beam product. I associate this smell with the Jim Beam yeast strains. There is a woodsy, yeasty, nutty quality that carries through almost everything in the Jim Beam lineup. There is also an oakiness and dark wood scent that lingers.

On the palette the oiliness is still very much present, but it’s cut through with a heavy alcohol burn that dries out a vanilla and caramel while complimenting the rye natural spiciness. The finish is surprisingly short, leaving an alcohol tingle and a touch of green apple.

This new Overholt is a vast improvement over the old Overholt. However, this new bottle is undeniably a whiskey drinker’s whiskey. It is mean and uncompromising and honestly tastes a lot like what I would get if I blended the 80 proof Overholt with a bottle of Rittenhouse. Its price point makes it incredibly versatile as well. The new proof boost lets it stand up in cocktails while offering a flavor profile the is unique enough to justify including it on the back bar. Bottled in Bond is clearly becoming a hip term and producing a bonded version of a known branded may help boost sales, but that boost doesn’t mean it has to come with an inflated price tag or loss of character.

Just remember, not every reboot is terrible. And while something may jump the shark it doesn’t negate the quality of everything that came before the leap.

Whiskey Wednesday: Leopold Maryland Style Rye

Alright nerds, here’s a good one for you today. Maryland Style Rye.
Before the advent of the ‘Great Experiment’ that was Prohibition there were two dominant styles of American Rye Whiskey. The Pennsylvania Style (spicy, dry, and oaky) and Maryland Style, which was more floral, fruit forward and less aggressive. Among the many great things that Prohibition destroyed, Maryland Style Rye was one of them.

But the boys at Leopold Brothers are fighting the good fight and trying to recreate the style in the only way they know how: with exceptional quality and attention to detail. And boy are they fighting hard, you can read about the future here. But as for the pastWhile ye olden Maryland Ryes often achieved their more mellow nature and fruit flavors from additives and prune juice, the brothers are following their eco-distilling nature and recreating the flavors throughWight'sMarylandRye3.jpg careful distillation and selection of yeast strains to create a wholly unique product. They’ve even had an old time compound still made exclusively for them, and are working with local farmers to grow late 1800’s style rye, which has a completely different flavor and starch content than it’s modern descendant.

While we’re still waiting on the first batches off the new still, the current bottling shouldn’t be ignored. Young, but light and green. Green as in like biting into a huge green apple, apricot, and stone fruit. All supported by a rich chocolate malt rounding out to a juicy and more mellow finish than your more familiar ryes.