Coopers’ Craft
Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Written by Brian Donnelly, CSS, WSET III
Monday, February 28, 2022
Overview
Coopers' Craft is a Kentucky bourbon first released in 2016 and was the first new product from parent company Brown-Forman since Woodford Reserve in 1996. The brand is a tribute to the hard work and craftsmanship of their barrel makers, also known as coopers. Brown-Forman continues to be the only major distiller or spirits supplier to own and operate their own cooperages, which produces custom barrels for each of their American Whiskey brands (Jack Daniel's, Old Forester, Woodford Reserve, & Coopers’ Craft). This is in sharp contrast to the rest of the American Whiskey industry that sources barrels with customer specifications from stand-alone cooperages such as Kelvin, Barrel Mill, Black Swan, and many others.
In 1945, Brown-Forman purchased a former woodworking factory at 402 MacLean Street on Louisville's south side, converting it into their legendary cooperage. The company has one cooperage dedicated to producing barrels for just the Jack Daniel's brand, while the other cooperage makes barrels for Old Forester, Woodford Reserve, and Coopers' Craft. After these barrels have been used once to age Bourbon or Tennessee Whiskey, they are shipped off to the company's other brands to age Tequila (Herradura & El Jimador), Scotch (BenRaich, Glendronach, & Glenglassaugh), or Irish Whiskey (Slane). It is impossible to discuss Brown-Forman's brands without mentioning the company's emphasis on their barrels.
Great bourbon begins with great barrels, since half of the bourbon's flavor, some might argue more, and all of its color comes from the barrel. The Coopers' Craft brand uses their knowledge and expertise of barrel-making and maturation to create two bourbons that range from light and gentle to bold and complex. The bottle for the 82.2 expression is even designed to resemble a bourbon barrel. Under Master Distiller Chris Morris (Old Forester & Woodford Reserve), all Coopers' Craft is distilled, aged, and bottled by Brown-Forman in Louisville, Kentucky.
Photo by Brown-Forman
Production
Master Distiller Chris Morris is responsible for three great bourbon brands, but each is quite different from one another. Coopers' Craft is produced at the Brown-Forman Distillery in Louisville (Shively), Kentucky, along with Old Forester, but the two brands share different production specifications. The brand's mash bill is 75% corn, 15% rye, 10% malted barley. The fermentation process lasts three days, includes 18 % sour mashing, * and uses a brand-specific yeast strain, which Brown-Forman calls Yeast 1A. The combination of mash bill and yeast strain is known as the recipe. Each bourbon brand from Brown-Forman has a different recipe. All distillation is done at the Brown-Forman Distillery in Louisville (Shively), Kentucky. Coopers' Craft is double distilled, and the distillery uses a 48" and 60" copper column beer still with a doubler from Vendome Copper & Brass. The new make spirits, or white dog has an off-the-still proof of 142.5 (71.25 % ABV) and is cut or reduced to a barrel entry proof of 125 (62.5 % ABV). The brand uses purified water from Louisville throughout all parts of production. Since this brand is built around honoring the Brown-Forman coopers, or barrel makers, each expression's maturation process differs. Both expressions are aged between four and six years in a 53 gallon (200 L) new American white oak barrel with a propriety toast and char from the Brown-Forman Cooperage. All aging is done at the Brown-Forman's heat-cycled barrel warehouses, similar to Old Forester and Woodford Reserve. Brown-Forman says that one year of aging in a heat-cycled warehouse is comparable to an additional six months in the barrel in a conventional aging facility, also known as a rack house.
Virtually Tour the Cooperage
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Coopers' Craft 82.2, Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
The Coopers' Craft 82.2 is the product that launched the brand in 2016. This expression has a gentle flavor profile and is positioned as a gateway bourbon to pull newcomers into the category. The final touch that separates this product from other bourbons is that it undergoes a beech and birch wood charcoal-filter finishing after maturation and before bottling. This filtering lowers the pH level, which allows the whiskey to hold onto carbonation, creating a superior mixing bourbon. This product is bottled at 82.2 proof (41.1 % ABV).
Coppers' Craft 100, Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
First released in 2019, Coopers' Craft 100 is the brand's second and newest expression. This product has a robust, bold, and complex flavor profile and is perfect for whiskey forward cocktails, neat, or on the rocks. This product is aged in special chiseled and charred barrels that allow for an additional 50% surface area during maturation. This product is non-chill filtered and bottled at 100 proof (50 % ABV). This bourbon cannot be labled as bottled-in-bond, even though it is aged four years and bottled at 100 proof, because the final mingling of barrels comes from two different distilling seasons.*
Footnotes
*Sour mashing, sometimes referred to as backset, is a technique used to increase the liquid's acidity during fermentation by adding the acidic residue that comes out of the base of the beer still after distillation.
*Distilling Season = January 1st to June 30th or July 1st to December 31st*
Brown-Forman Corporation ©2022
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