Lessons of the Barrel: Bourbon and Branding (Part 1)
If I wanted to buy a bottle of single barrel bourbon in 1983, I would have been, tragically, out of luck. Beyond the glaring fact that I was an infant and could no more buy bourbon than I could lift and pour the bottle, the concept of a single barrel bourbon product was still a year away from its advent. It simply didn’t exist yet. At least, not for the consumer.
Single barrel bourbon, bottled from one individual barrel, is now a staple of nearly every bourbon brand’s repertoire. The distinction between a single barrel bourbon and a blended one is vast. Bourbon’s color, and much of its flavor, comes from the barrel in which it is aged. As such, two barrels with the exact same ingredients (mashbill), barreled on the same day, aged in the same rickhouse, on the same shelf, could, and often do, produce wildly varying flavor profiles.
For blended (non-single barrel) bourbons, an expert will use their sharp palette to choose any number of barrels with specific flavor profiles that will meld nicely, and blend them together in order to homogenize the drink into the recognized, brand-specific flavor that loyal customers will recognize. This is one way bourbon brands did, and still do, carve out brand recognition in a competitive market. Customers choose a brand and they know what taste they’re going to get.
But that method alone only got bourbon so far.
The truth is, not many people, infants or otherwise, were buying bourbon in the 1980s. Bourbon, which flows primarily (but not exclusively) from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, had ceded much of its national and global market clout to clear liquors and wine coolers. The bourbon industry had stagnated and then dipped drastically. Bourbon distilleries were closing en masse. America’s Native Spirit needed a fresh face to present to the world, and they found it in 1984 at the George T. Stagg Company. Master Distiller Elmer T. Lee had the idea to bottle bourbon that wasn’t blended to a specific taste, but out of single barrels, with their unique flavors and distinctions on sharp display. You never knew exactly what you’d get, and that was part of the fun.
The concept of moving away from your signature flavor might feel counterintuitive to the concept of building brand recognition, and this is a sensible intuition. But the truth is, by this point in history, the pertinent challenge was not for individual boubon companies to stand out among other bourbon companies, the challenge was for bourbon itself to reemerge on the global stage in an intoxicating sea of Vodkas, Scotches, and Gins. And as it turns out, an exciting line of premium, single barrel bourbons was the perfect talisman to inspire such a comeback.
Mr. Lee called his single barrel bourbon Blanton’s, after his old boss and mentor Colonel Albert Bacon Blanton, who used to serve bourbon from single barrels privately for his most valued guests. The concept quickly spread among competing companies, and played a pivotal role in giving bourbon the premium-product image it so sorely needed. Blanton’s, with its distinctive horse and jockey toppers, remains one of the most coveted single barrel bourbons on the market. With the single barrel movement helping to establish bourbon as an artisinal, premium option, bourbon once again surged to global prominence over the coming decades, and today it enjoys record sales and global interest. Blended bourbons and more affordable, familiar flavor profiles still drive the industry, but the intrigue and romance of the single barrel gave “Big Bourbon” the touch of class it needed to regain its foothold in the global market, and ascend higher than anyone could have imagined.
With the general bourbon brand now in safe standing, individual bourbon companies would still need to consider how branding could help them stand out in an increasingly crowded and competitive field.