Whiskey History: The Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897 - Blog post by Jonas Stengaard Jensen

The words guarantee a minimum of 4 years of aging in government-approved (bonded in American) warehouses, a minimum of 50% abv (100 proof among the Yanks) and production by one distiller at a distillery during a distilling season (January-June/June/July-December). In addition, the bottle must indicate where the contents were distilled and bottled. Thus, in some respects, this American quality requirement can be said to be even stricter than the European ones. In addition, the Americans were also a whole decade ahead of the British, as it wasn't until 1908 that a royal commission was set up to define the name whiskey based on a complaint from Irish distillers who wanted to do away with the Scottish imitators who were dishonestly profiting from the good "produced in Dublin" name by simply sending their casks on weekend stays in Dublin harbor.

The fact that the Americans had their seal of approval chiseled into law as early as 1897 can be attributed to one man's passion for good bourbon; Colonel Edmund H. Taylor Junior (note: he had military qualifications like the famous Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken, i.e. absolutely none whatsoever). Taylor is the closest thing to an American aristocrat, as he can boast kinship with both 4th President and Founding Father James Madison and 12th President and war hero Zarachy "Rough and Ready" Taylor. It is therefore with a certain poetic justification that Edmund Taylor is referred to as one of the founding fathers of the bourbon industry and a veteran of the war against bad whiskey.

American whiskey was no less plagued by unscrupulous back alley distillers who peddled immature wood spirits colored with tobacco spit under names like "fine old bourbon". These creative souls were known as "rectifers" and there were, of course, many honest businessmen among them who bought distilled spirits from various distilleries and then matured and blended them according to the rules of the art. Nevertheless, the entire industry suffered from a lack of control and standardization of what could legitimately be called 'whiskey', 'bourbon', 'fine' and 'old'.

Originally, it was as a banker that Taylor first came into contact with the distilling world, but after a study tour through Europe, he opened the Old Fire Copper (OFC) distillery in 1869 in Frankfort Kentucky, where he introduced a number of groundbreaking innovations such as continuous column stills and copper fermentation vessels. Unfortunately, Taylor had to sell the distillery eight years later, but it's still going strong under the name Buffalo Trace. Nevertheless, he remained a passionate thorn in the side of discount distillers and fought tirelessly for the promotion of quality bourbon. In collaboration with a number of whiskey-loving politicians, including Treasury Secretary John G. Carlisle, who belonged to a political grouping with the glorious name "Bourbon Democrats", Taylor sponsored the so-called "Bottled-in-bond Act" in 1897, which gave whiskey producers a tax incentive to comply and follow the quality requirements outlined above in order to be able to adorn their bottles with the words "bottled in bond".

So if you're looking for a quality bourbon, look for the three magic words. A perfect example could be Buffalo Trace's own Colonel EH Taylor Small batch bourbon, named after the man, the myth, the legend, who provided a firm foothold in a world of fusentasters and amateurs.