The Bonding Experience
Mordecai Jones is selling a pig-in-a-poke. The character played by George C. Scott in the raucous 1967 movie The Flim-Flam Man has just stolen a truckload of rot-gut from moonshiners and is looking to unload it on a sucker. The con is that he’ll replace the liquor in the sample jar with something truly outstanding. He needs something that is the polar opposite of cheap hooch. He settles on bottled-in-bond Bourbon.
Once the patsy gets a taste of the good stuff, he’s an easy mark.
In the ’60s, when American whiskey was riding high, the words “bottled-in-bond” were a mark of distinction that placed a drink at the pinnacle of the spirits world. Then the distinction all but disappeared. When the whiskey category slumped for decades, so did the importance of its top designation. Even when whiskey made its comeback in the new century, it was led not by bonded samples, but products with names such as “small batch” and “single barrel.” Bottled-in-bond seemed quaint.
But the category is now roaring back. Liquor stores are stocked with examples that run from Bourbon to rye to corn liquor and even brandy. Moreover, modern mixologists have rediscovered the potent charms of this type of spirit, using it in classic cocktails as well as newly invented drinks. At a stout 100 proof, bonded spirits also provide formidable partners when paired with cigars.
The bonded story began as a form of consumer protection in the late 19th century, when the spirits industry was largely unregulated and beset by unscrupulous dealers called rectifiers, who would add foreign substances to whiskeys, some as vile as turpentine, to try to mimic the aging process. The Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897 created a category with guaranteed standards; the designation meant that government agents had overseen the manufacture and that the spirit in the bottle was made in one season at one distillery and bottled at no less than 100 proof. Furthermore, it specified the age as not less than four years. And, perhaps most to the point, it meant that nothing but water was added, no coloring, no sweeteners, no unaged spirits.
While the act didn’t purport to assure quality, it pretty much turned out that way. “Just seeing that word ‘bonded’ on the label, it’s giving you a lot of information,” says Tim Heuisler, global small batch brand ambassador for Jim Beam. “A lot of words [on a label] are just advertising. Bonded is pure and legally defined and if you know what bonded means you have an expectation of what you’re going to get into. It’s a reassurance. You can feel good about this purchase.”
Perhaps that’s because bonded whiskeys have become a showcase for distillers. It’s their art on display in a pure form. “It’s as unchanged as it can be, so it’s sort of a feather in your cap if you do it well,” says Isaac Winter, the general distilling manager at High West, a Utah-based craft whiskey maker that recently released a bonded rye. “It’s my ion product for our team.”
Making a quality bonded product is one of the true tests of a distiller because there is nowhere to hide. Distillers typically marry barrels of whiskey from different years to create a taste profile that can be repeated year after year. Do that and you won’t get the bonded label. It all has to come from one six-month period—spring or fall—from a single year. It’s a snapshot of the conditions that existed during a distilling season.
“It’s almost the spirits answer to the wine vintage,” says Winter. “We celebrate each one of the vintages and their distinct personalities.”
The single distillery requirement further showcases a distiller’s skills. Even the stringent rules for straight whiskey, which also forbid additives, allow intermingling distillates from separate facilities provided they are in the same state. That would disqualify a product meant to be bonded. Originally, government agents were on hand at bonded warehouses to ensure this constraint. Hence the term. It lets the buyer know exactly where the spirit was made.
The four-year-old minimum (some are much older) works against micro-distilleries in creating bonded products as they have smaller and younger stocks to choose from. Yet as the trend progresses more are finding themselves with enough old whiskey to enter the category. New York Distilling just debuted the seven-year-old, bonded Jaywalk Rye. On the other hand, a landmark brand like Jack Daniel’s in Tennessee can choose from myriad barrels from any given season to create a bonded product. Master distiller Chris Fletcher says that he could make any of its products as bottled in bond. The Lynchburg distillery now offers bonded versions of both its Tennessee whiskey and its recently added rye whiskey.
Time is also key to making bonded whiskeys. When Prohibition ended in 1933, most distilleries had been shuttered for 13 years and had to start aging from zero. It wasn’t until four years later—1937—that bonded whiskey became generally available again, and the definition was also legally modified from “at least” 100 proof to exactly 100 proof. That regulation created a sweet spot for cocktail building, one that bartenders are taking advantage of today. Higher alcohol content allows a spirit’s flavor to stand up to the quickly melting ice in a drink that is shaken or stirred. At the same time, a 100-proof product doesn’t overwhelm a cocktail as a cask-strength spirit might. (The latter category—also a current whiskey trend—delivers spirits that have no added water and often top 120 proof.)
When Jack Daniel’s approached the category, creating in 2018 their first regularly available bottled-in-bond issues, classic cocktail applications immediately came to mind, says Fletcher. “We thought of one word: bold.”
The building blocks for both its bonded products were whiskeys that were already aging in the company’s warehouses: the venerable Old No. 7 Tennessee whiskey and the relatively new rye. Each bonded issue uses their original grain recipes, and reaching the 100 proof mark was simply a matter of adjusting the amount of water added before bottling. (Almost all American whiskeys come out of the barrel at far above 100-proof and are diluted to various bottle strengths, most as low as 80 proof.)
The technique for creating bottled-in-bond brands, Fletcher says, was to focus on individual barrels that held whiskey with darker character, for instance, those that by accident of their placement in the warehouse garnered deeper flavors than the fruiter notes of the familiar Old No. 7. In a way, it’s like a small-batch spirit, melded from fewer barrels than the standard release—except that “small batch” is a marketing term that has no legal definition, while bottled-in-bond does.
What Mordecai Jones probably wouldn’t have picked as a decoy to bait his mark was a rye version of bonded whiskey. That other category of American whiskey, with its spicy grain content, had fallen out of favor by the 1960s. Hence, bonded ryes had all but disappeared. But rye in general experienced a resurgence in the 21st century when whiskey lovers and classic cocktailians rediscovered it. The simultaneous rebirth of both rye and bonded whiskey is one of the great joys of the whiskey world. Today, ryes rival Bourbons in the bonded section of the liquor store.
For Heuisler, who represents the Old Overholt rye in Jim Beam’s portfolio, that is fitting. “Ryes were some of the first bonded whiskeys made. It wasn’t until Prohibition that rye lost its foothold.” He points out that while Overholt is a whiskey that was first made in Pennsylvania in 1805, many bar customers are unaware that the venerable brand is what goes into so many cocktails classically made with rye. The bonded Old Overholt is a way to underscore the importance of the category and revive its heritage. “For us,” he says, “it’s a point of pride.”
