Calumet Farm Bourbon

by Brian Donnelly

August 27, 2023

TL;DR

The brand is named for Calumet Farm, one of the world's most successful thoroughbred horse racing farms. All expressions are distilled at a partner distillery in Kentucky using a mash bill of 74 % Corn, 18 % Rye, and 8 % Malted Barley. The family of brands features expressions, or labels, aged 8-16 years in heavy # 4 char barrels sourced from Kentucky Cooperage in Lebanon, Kentucky.

History

The Calumet Bourbon brand pays homage to Calumet Farm, one of the world's most successful thoroughbred horse racing farms. The Farm produced two Triple Crown winners, eight Kentucky Derby Winners, eight Preakness winners, and eleven horses in the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame. William Monroe Wright established Calumet Farm in 1924 on a small farm in Lexington, Kentucky. After Wright died in 1933, his son Warren began to move the farm's business toward thoroughbred racing. After briefly developing the farm's stock and pedigree, the Wrights hired famed horse trainer Ben A. Jones. Through dedication, passion, and hard work, the farm began an unparalleled ascent, eventually topping the horse racing world. This rise to glory would cement Calumet Farm as one of the most dominant names in horse racing history. The Calumet Bourbon brand is not produced at the farm but made at a partner distillery in Kentucky. It is my understanding that the owner of Calumet's parent company, Western Spirits, also owns Calumet Farm.

Production

The Calumet brand uses a mash bill of 74 % Corn, 18 % Rye, and 8 % Malted Barley for all expressions. After the grains are milled and cooked, and the starches are converted to sugar, yeast is added, and the mash is fermented for 3-4 days. The fermented mash is called wash, wart, or distiller's beer. The wash is distilled in a column still with a condenser or cooler to an off-the-still proof of 130 (65 % ABV). The new make spirit, also called "white dog," is cut with water to a barrel-entry proof of 125 (62.5 % ABV). 

The brand uses a new American white oak barrel with a heavy # 4 char sourced from Kentucky Cooperage in Lebanon, Kentucky, owned by Independent Stave in Missouri. The company hand-selects American white oak trees and harvests them using sustainable practices to ensure the health of the forest. The oak is sourced from two growing regions: the Ozarks, which includes Southern Missouri, Northwest Arkansas, and Eastern Oklahoma, and Appalachia, which runs south from New York to the northern parts of Alabama and Mississippi. 

The aging warehouse, also known as a rick or rack house, is not climate-controlled, and the barrels undergo total seasonal temperature fluctuations, which is very important for the flavor development of the finished product. The extreme cold winters and hot summers force the liquid in and out of the charred wood, extracting flavors and dark color into the Bourbon. All Calumet Bourbons are aged between 8 and 16 years, which means that much of the liquid is lost to evaporation, also known as the Angel's Share. Typically, about five gallons from a 53-gallon barrel is lost in the first year, with about one and half gallons lost in each of the following years.

Finally, after maturation, water is added to achieve the desired bottling strength. The batch size, how many barrels are combined per bottling, and whether the bourbon is chill-filtered depends on the expression. I will discuss the batch size and filtration when I cover each individual expression.

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