Bailey Loosemore

Louisville Courier Journal

Warehouse X stands alone at the top of a hill, separated from the rest of the Buffalo Trace Distillery's buildings.

From a distance, it looks more like a shed than a bourbon warehouse; a place to store tools, not upward of 20,000 barrels.

But the small, strongly secured structure isn't something to be overlooked. In fact, the $1 million investment is home to possibly the distillery's largest experiment to date, a scientific endeavor so detailed that it might just put Buffalo Trace on the path to gold - or, the perfect bourbon.

"We believe a perfect bourbon has not yet been created," Amy Preske, the company's public relations and events manager, said. "The perfect bourbon would be a bourbon that got a score of 100 percent from various spirits writers that are well-known all over the world. Nothing has ever scored that high, so that's our goal. And we're trying all these different kinds of experiments to try to get there."

Buffalo Trace, located on a 400-acre property in Frankfort, first opened in 1787 and has since built a business around producing quality spirits, said Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley. To keep up that mission, the company began experimenting with aging and distilling methods about 20 years ago and has increased its efforts as the bourbon market thrives.

Today, Buffalo Trace employs a full-time distiller to produce trial spirits on a specially built pot still and is storing approximately 4,000 barrels to be periodically released under the company's Experimental Collection.

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In 2014, the distillery also cut the ribbon on Warehouse X, a five-chamber building that will test how four variables affect Buffalo Trace's signature recipe over the course of 20 or more years, starting with sunlight.

The goal of the project is to determine what, exactly, the variables - light, temperature, humidity and air flow - do to bourbon and to figure out how to reproduce the perfect flavor.

"The concept of the honey barrels, the best places to age, Harlen is proving those facts out by capturing this data, charting it," Patrick Clouse, warehouse manager, said. "And this gives him a playground of things that he can do and follow it up with scientific facts."

For the warehouse's first experiment, Buffalo Trace employees filled 150 barrels and split them between five chambers with different sunlight levels, ranging from zero to 100 percent light. Four of the chambers are controlled by monitors, while the middle chamber - a breezeway - is not controlled at all, with the barrels instead aging in nature's seasonal elements.

The idea for the breezeway stemmed from a tornado that ripped through the distillery's property years ago, tearing the roof off of one of its warehouses.

"The barrels were exposed for maybe not quite a year before we were able to replace that," Preske said. "We joked that we should call this the tornado bourbon, and we did. We released it under the E.H. Taylor line ... and it was a huge hit."

Each variable experiment is expected to last at least five years, but Clouse said that could always change, depending on when Wheatley thinks they're finished.

"He's got several experiment ideas that we're going to do next," Clouse said. "But which one is going to be more important may be determined by the results of this."

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Preske said Wheatley has sampled the bourbons in Warehouse X within the past few months and said he has already noticed significant changes.

"But that's all he would say," she added.

In a separate building, process tech John Stivers works mostly alone, distilling experiments created by a panel that determines which comes next.

Wheatley oversees the panel and said every idea goes on a spreadsheet - though those that aren't super exciting tend to be added to the bottom.

The idea list has increased over the years, and while Buffalo Trace started by distilling only a few per year, the company is now up to about 15 annually. The experiments are aged for various amount of times and are released periodically in 375-milliliter bottles once they're ready. Two - a sour mash bourbon and a 10-year bourbon aged in French oak barrels - were released in 2015.

Wheatley said some of the experiments have led to new products, but a select handful of others have never been released under the Experimental Collection.

"We've got some - we call them failed experiments - and we put them in a bottle, but didn't sell them," Wheatley said. "You can taste them; they're terrible. But we saved them because how do you know what terrible whiskey tastes like unless you've tasted it?"

The Courier-Journal got its hands on a few of these so-called failed experiments, and "terrible" as Wheatley put it, was mostly right.

A bourbon aged in sour wood tasted exactly as it sounds, with an odd feeling left on the tongue long after the liquid was gone.

But a few of the experiments seemed safe for consumption, which goes to show just how much care the Buffalo Trace team puts into choosing what winds up in your glass.

Remember to drink smart, drink safe. Reach reporter Bailey Loosemore at 502-582-4646 or bloosemore@courier-journal.com.

WAREHOUSE X

Learn more about Buffalo Trace's project at www.experimentalwarehouse.com.

FAILED EXPERIMENTS

Not all of Buffalo Trace's experiments work out. Here are examples of a few the distillery didn't release, with master distiller commentary.

#1: Sour wood - Bourbon whiskey was aged in barrels constructed from a tree, that when cut down, had an odor as if perhaps the sap had soured inside of the tree. The bourbon has a noticeable fruity flavor and has a bit of astringency.

#2: 26-year-old barrel from 1988 - A lost 1988 barrel was discovered in warehouse I. Aroma is complex with fruit notes. The taste is flat and soured. Peppery notes mingle with extreme oak flavors. The body is thin. This particular barrel was aged too long, beyond its ideal flavor profile.

#3: 5-gallon barrel - The taste of dry wood overpowers the mouth. There is a hint of sweetness, but there is a sawdust flavor that permeates through it. The flavor is lacking depth and roundness.

#4: 10-gallon barrel - The aroma is conquered by the strong smell of dusty wood. The taste is bland, dry and very tannic. The flavor lacks depth and body.

#5: 15-gallon barrel - The 15-gallon barrel is slightly sweeter than the smaller barrels, but the taste is still overpowered by a dry woody flavor. The taste has a little more depth but is still lacking balance.