“THERE WAS ICE IN THE BOTTOM
OF THE DISTILLERY – WE WERE
ESSENTIALLY WALKING THROUGH
A SKATING RINK.”
To be legally labelled a bourbon, a spirit first
has to meet a few strict criteria. It must be
distilled from 51 per cent corn, unlike its
barley-heavy cousins. It must be all-natural
- that is, there can be no flavour or colour
additives (again, unlike other whiskies).
Ageing must take place in new charred-oak
barrels, which lend the spirit its distinctive
caramel flavour and reddish colour. “People
think it has to be four years old,” Eaves says.
“But a straight bourbon only has to be two.
And it has to be made in the U.S. A lot of
people think it has to be made in Kentucky,
but it’s the American spirit.”
In a traditionally male-dominated industry,
one that’s governed by a just a handful
of families, Eaves’ path into the bourbon
‘fraternity’ is, if not entirely unheard of,
certainly rare. Even rarer was the gig she
was about to be oered as she stepped inside
the dilapidated Old Taylor Distillery. “The
windows were broken, and there was ice in
the bottom floor of the distillery – we were
essentially walking through a skating rink,”
says Eaves of her first time inside the building.
“The roof was collapsed, and everything was
coated in asbestos and lead. Then Wes stops
me and says, ‘We want to know if you’d be
interested in joining our team. Building this
thing, designing your brand. This could be
your playground.’”
Despite her job at Woodford, which she
adored, the opportunity was diicult for
Eaves to turn down. Normally, master
distillers at established brands have to
adhere to strict, age-old recipes. But Eaves
saw this as a chance to create something
new, something that challenged the status
quo, something distinctly her own. Her
acceptance came with a caveat, though: if
she was going to enter into a partnership
with these men, she needed to be sure they
could take direction from a woman. “My
last request was that I had to meet their
wives,” she says. “We all had dinner together.
Will’s wife is the chief counsel at Keeneland
[Kentucky’s historic racetrack], so she’s a
boss. Wes’s wife is a dentist, so she inflicts
pain on people for a living. I knew they
could handle it and, right then, I realised
we could be partners.”
You wouldn’t know it from the industry’s
PR material, but trained distillers like Eaves
are actually the exception, not the rule. While
many adopt the ‘master distiller’ title, Eaves
says more than a few have “never distilled
a drop in their lives”. But Eaves is the real
McCoy. While she serves a marketing function
as the face of the distillery, she also oversees
all aspects of the job – most importantly, the
recipe and production of the bourbon itself.
The buck, and the bourbon, stops with her.
To fashion her bourbon, Eaves sought counsel
from Colonel Taylor. After accepting the role
at Castle & Key, she opened one of the few
remaining bottles of the Colonel’s 1917 bourbon
for a taste. Expecting little from the antique
tipple, her palate was pleasantly smacked by
notes of butterscotch sweetness and a touch of
spice. Curious, Eaves had the spirit analysed
by some lab technicians. They already knew
the Colonel preferred white corn, owing to
marketing materials they’d recovered from his
reign. The analysis revealed that he also used a
high percentage of barley, as well as a little rye.
Using her lesson from the Colonel as a
foundation, Eaves crafted her own recipe.
She spent countless hours working to refine it.
And then, she stopped. “We put our bourbon
into very high-quality casks, and then Mother
Nature takes over,” she explains. “I’m not going
to try and control the flavour profile or what
comes out of the warehouse. A lot of people
have come to expect consistency in flavour,
but we’re really after consistency in quality.”
The distillery has already released gin
and vodka, and the rye whisky could be
ready in as soon as a year. As for the
bourbon? “It’ll be ready when it’s ready,”
Eaves says. At time of writing, “ready” is
about three years away. Just enough time
to save up for a one-way flight to Kentucky. •
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113 SMITH JOURNAL
- Master distillers weren’t ocially
documented until after Prohibition,
so it’s hard to know for sure.
