Old Forester Rye Olfactory Experience at New Orleans Bourbon Festival

If you thought the whiskey business was a male-dominated industry – you would be mistaken. Come to find out, women have been making whiskey since days of yore. And any bourbon festival whose mission is to continue to highlight “Women in Bourbon”, is just one of many reasons to attend the New Orleans Bourbon Festival.

The three-day event featured exclusive bourbon maker dinners and rousing VIP reception. Friday and  Saturday evening Grand Tastings offered attendees the opportunity to enjoy exceptional bourbon and cuisine in the midst of the unique charm and culture of New Orleans. Add to the mix a schedule of sessions including notable industry figures and experienced and relevant speakers as well as interactive tasting seminars and you have a not-to-miss event.

For me, the prospect of “experiencing the intricate aromas and flavor notes of Old Forester Rye through sensory exercises, as well as distillate, two year, and mature sampling to showcase the maturation journey from distillation to a finished Rye palate that is spicy yet floral” piqued my interest. Led by Old Forester’s Master Taster Jackie Zykan, the Old Forester Olfactory Experience was engaging and informative with bracing sips of bourbon expressions.

With Old Forester, the founding brand of Brown Forman – makers of Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve, and Old Forester – success lies in not being the most expensive whiskey but rather one that boasts consistency and quality as its key standing points in a whiskey that people can afford to drink. “Today we’re going to eat, drink, and sip New Orleans Bourbon Festival things”, is how Old Forester Master Taster Jackie Zykan opened her spirited session at the recent New Orleans Bourbon Festival.

Scheduled at 10:00 a.m. following an evening of exclusive bourbon dinners and VIP welcome reception “Burlesque & Bourbon” revelry, some attendees were dragging. Jackie engaged the audience with humor and guided us through a spirited sensory experience celebrating the new Old Forester Rye launched in January.*

Jackie began with a brief history of Old Forester. America’s First Bottled Bourbon® was introduced by George Garvin Brown in 1870 on Whiskey Row at 322 Main Street in Louisville, Kentucky. It was the first bourbon to be sold in sealed glass bottles to ensure quality, made according to Brown’s 1870 Original Batch process of batching barrels from three distilleries to create a consistent flavor profile. Now, 150 years later, Old Forester Rye was introduced to the market in response to demand from bartenders who favored Old Forester bourbon. The emphasis at Old Forester continues to be consistency and quality at an affordable price point.

How does Old Forester do this? They own the entire process. Jackie makes the point that Old Forester is the only supplier that actually makes their own barrels. “Step 1: they make their own barrels (Brown Forman Cooperage) to ensure quality and a consistent char; Step 2: there are quality checkpoints along the way – everything starts with the grain – if the grain isn’t good, the distillate, if the distillate isn’t good, the end product won’t be good”.  She added that they reject grain a lot – every truck and trainload that comes to the distillery goes through a full sensory panel.

Old Forester Olfactory Experience

To deconstruct what goes on aromatically in a product as it ages, we were tasked with smelling each of the jars you see on the table and attempt to identify the aroma. Jars 1-5 speak to the notes in the distillate that will transform in the barrel, 6-10 speaks to the maturation process. Isolating ingredients. When you get a glass of whiskey in front of you and someone says, this reminds me of…

That tie to an emotional place, a memory…that’s what whiskey is all about.

We started with grain: three types of bread on our paper mats: cornbread, rye, and wheat – according to Jackie, “the two best food groups: bread and whiskey”. Truth the morning after. We began our discovery of what goes on aromatically in a product while it ages. First up, a bite of cornbread and then taste the 100 proof Old Forester distillate to focus on pulling out that corn aroma and flavor.

Then, progressed to the rye bread, tasting the 100 proof rye distillate, and a discussion of the different mashbills. Their 86-proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon is the brand’s entry-level product and is made from a mash bill of 72% corn, 18% rye, and 10% malted barley. Although Old Forester is produced in Kentucky, bourbon can be produced anywhere in the U.S., must have at least 51% corn in its mash bill, and be aged in new, charred oak barrels.

 

There are 5 main categories of aromas: floral, green notes, fruit, sweet aromatics, and spice. Reassured that one’s inability to isolate and identify the different aromas and characteristics in a whiskey is the number one thing Jackie hears from whiskey drinkers,  I can say without embarrassment that I was able to correctly identify only 4 of the jars but will continue to fine-tune my olfactory ability.

Sniffing the aroma jars revealed these ingredients:

1. rose; comments: my mom’s scented candle, roses, citrus notes
2. dill
3. fruit-citrus-lemon; comments: lemon oil, smells like summer, sunshine, candy – lemon heads
4. pine – woodsy, eucalyptus, mint
5. floral – magnolia
6. black pepper; comments: cedar, hamster cage, 1897 expression
7. apple, baked apples; comments:  layers produced by maturation- huge component in Old Forester
8. root beer, Sassafras; comments: very prominent note
9. spice – cinnamon
10. brown sugar

Becoming a Master Taster

I am constantly inspired by the women who have blazed their path in the spirits world, from production to cocktail development in what is thought of as a male-dominated field. Come to find out in my research, women have actually played a very prominent role in the making of whiskey since well before Prohibition.

In the early colonial days,” Minnick explains, before industrial distilleries were popular, “women were the first distillers.”Back then, it was out of necessity. Women distilled in their kitchens, and whiskey was used as medicine. “If you had a scratch or a sore ear or a headache,” Minnick says, a woman would give you whiskey. “It was the Tylenol, the ibuprofen of the day.”In fact, the skill of making whiskey was so coveted that men in the 1700s took out classified ads in gazettes looking for women who were good at distilling. “It’s hilarious,” Minnick says. “It was the Match.com” of the day. Men would ask women to marry them based on their distilling talents. {Source: Not Just a Man’s Drink. NPR}

Jackie Zykan graciously offered insight into the direction a woman, or man, for that matter, might take to launch their career as a Master Taster.

How did your career in whiskey begin? 

While working my way through a biology and chemistry degree, I was working in the restaurant industry in Saint Louis. The day I could legally bartend was my first shift behind the stick. I continued bartending until relocating to Louisville, KY for my first husband’s job. An opportunity opened up for a new restaurant group on Whiskey Row in downtown Louisville as a bartender and was quickly assigned the bar manager role. As they grew and expanded concepts, I grew with them, eventually becoming their beverage director overseeing all their programs. At the same time I was picking up shaker for hire opportunities with a variety of brands across the city and making a name for myself in the bourbon industry. The opportunity with Old Forester presented itself as a result of those connections, and as a result of the convergence of my experience in the industry combined with a science base to understand production. I was arguably more interested in scotch when I was back I Saint Louis, and didn’t get exposed to the full scope of the bourbon industry until moving to Louisville. The rest is history.

What skills should a person interested in being a Master Taster acquire? 

The job varies from brand to brand, but I can certainly speak on the role in terms of Old Forester. The position itself involves a massive amount of public speaking, travel, and of course, tasting! The job can be stressful and multifaceted and demanding, so a genuine passion for learning and the bourbon category in general is bare minimum as that will fuel you through burn out. Of all the knowledge I use in my job on a daily basis, nothing replaces experience. 

What education or certifications, if any, are required or recommended?

A minimum requirement of a Bachelor’s degree to start (even better if the emphasis is a physical science as it relates to the production process), and the Certified Spirits Specialist exam is a great thing to have on your resume, as are any of the wine/sommelier certifications. My position had a specific training protocol developed by the Brown-Forman sensory lab and master distiller, which encompassed production, quality and sensory laboratory procedures, and competitive set education.

Did you always know you wanted to be a Master Taster or did this affinity and skill reveal itself somewhere along the line? 

It wasn’t the initial plan, but life has a funny way of taking you where you need to be and not so much where you thought you wanted to be. I always had a sensitive palate, and fine detection of variances always came easily to me. In my early bartending years I learned every drink by smell and not taste, and I actually think that had a lot to do with registering aromatics with me. I always took great pride in the drinks I was putting across the bar, and that same standard of quality has now translated into standing behind a solid, balanced, product made with the highest standards of quality and consistency. 

Three Classic Rye Cocktail Recipes

Jackie Zykan’s favorite Manhattan recipe:

1 oz Od Forester Rye

1 oz Old Forester 100 proof bourbon

0.75 oz Cocchi de Torino vermouth

1 dropper-full Old Forester smoked cinnamon bitters

1 dropper-full Old Forester bohemian bitters

Stir all ingredients with ice. Strain into glass. Serve with Luxardo cherry garnish and lemon swath, oils expressed over drink. 

 

Perfect Manhattan (classic recipe)

2 oz old forester rye

0.5 oz Contratto Bianco vermouth

0.5 oz Carpano Antica vermouth

2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir all ingredients with ice. Strain. Serve with Luxardo cherry garnish. 

*On January 19, 2019, venerable distillery Old Forester announced the debut of Old Forester Rye, their first new mash bill in 150 years. Old Forester Rye’s mash bill is 65% Rye, 20% Malted Barley, 15% corn and based on an historic recipe, acquired in 1940 by Owsley Brown I. “Such a high proportion of barley allows for a fully natural fermentation process, forgoing the need for artificial enzymes commonly found in high rye mash bills. Additionally, a generous percentage of malt yields a uniquely floral character, balancing the sharp, brisk spice of the rye grain. Continuing our legacy of quality and consistency, Old Forester uses its own proprietary yeast strain, produces every barrel, and distills every drop. {Old Forester}

About New Orleans Bourbon Festival

Whiskey lovers do not want to miss the New Orleans Bourbon Festival! 2019 was the festival’s third iteration and by all accounts, it gets better each year. It’s true that the city whose motto is “Laissez les bon temps rouler. Let the good times roll.“, knows how to host an unforgettable party. Couple that with New Orleans’ world-renowned food, music, culture, and a historic relationship with bourbon and you have the New Orleans Bourbon Festival!

The Bourbon Festival seeks to provide attendees with an opportunity to enjoy exceptional bourbon and cuisine in the midst of the unique charm and culture of New Orleans. They accomplish this by inviting the finest bourbon distilleries and restaurants to participate. The festival also works with distilleries to bring to life the 2019 theme which was to continue highlighting “Women in Bourbon” and provide the most experienced and relevant speakers to the mix as well as recruiting event sponsors that share their mission. {New Orleans Bourbon Festival}

Disclosure: I was invited to attend the New Orleans Bourbon Festival and the Old Forester Olfactory session as a member of the media. As always, words and opinions, unless otherwise noted, are my own.