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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 33 BOURBON AND BUREAUCRACY So you keep bourbon on hand? "Well, there's always a lot of bourbon in my ofce. Obviously, we only have Kentucky bourbon: Woodford, Old Forester, Maker's Mark, Bulleit. Those are kind of staples. No Pappy. I have some at home but not in the ofce. What's great is when you fnd a gem. (My son and I) found one the other day that I didn't even know existed: W.L. Weller has a 12-year-old product. That is not easy to fnd; we're probably not going to get much of it." Any bourbon misconceptions from the non-Kentuckians? "A lot of people drink the same old bourbon for all their lives; they might have started on Old Fitzgerald or Rebel Yell or something like that. Of course, there's so many more bourbons now. It's not as varied as wines are, but still. Now there's bourbon from Colorado, Massachusetts, New York. Tennessee's making actual bourbon now, as opposed to just sour-mash whiskey. I hate to say it, but there are some quality products coming out of other places; I don't try to serve them at our events, though." What's your bourbon primer? "Start with Basil Hayden's, which is a smooth baseline bourbon. And then make sure they have Woodford. Most everybody's had Maker's Mark, because it's omnipresent. That's kind of the range. Then you get all the way up to George T. Stagg at 140-proof. But obviously I don't start people there." Do you only discuss bourbon when the caucus meets? "Oh, no, no. A lot of it's an opportunity to talk across party lines about other issues. Every year in the budget committee, we do a long markup of the budget. It usually starts at 10 in the morning and goes to 10 at night. So the last one, after 5 o'clock, I came up to the ofce, got four or fve bottles of bourbon, took them down to the room that's of of the business room, and started inviting people to come in and have a taste. The rest of the markup went a lot more smoothly after that. We made some compromises, so bourbon can bring people together. I don't know if it's going to bring Barack and Mitch together, but…." Speaking of the president, what would you drink with him? "I would probably bring a bottle of 23-year-old Elijah Craig. When people ask me what my favorite bourbon is, I tell them that's a politically dangerous answer. But I answer that two ways: My default bourbon — so I walk into the bar, don't want to look at a bourbon list, just say, "Give me this!" — is Woodford. But if I had one drink of bourbon left in my life, it would be Elijah Craig 23-year-old." With bourbon involved, things have to get funny. Any good laughs from your meetings? "The only one I can think of recently is, when I did that for the budget committee that night, Paul Ryan (the Republican congressman from Wisconsin), who had been the chairman of the committee, said, 'Do I smell bourbon?' This was in a session, and I sit two chairs away from him. I said, 'Yes, Mr. Chairman, and your members are enjoying it greatly.'" Sometime between 2006 and 2008, our representative in Congress, John Yarmuth, started a bourbon caucus. "Somebody invited me to a wine-caucus event, and I said, 'A wine caucus? Is there a bourbon caucus? There ought to be because bourbon is the only indigenous American spirit,'" Yarmuth says. The caucus now has about 40 members (Rand Paul came to the frst meeting) who promote the bourbon industry (and drink on late voting nights). "And we're taking full credit for the bourbon boom because the creation of the caucus just happened to correspond to the incredible popularity rush that bourbon has experienced," Yarmuth says. Illustration by Kendall Regan nine more Things Every Louisvillian Must Know About Bourbon Kentucky is perfect for bourbon- making. The limestone-fltered water, hot summers and cold winters come together to make the best bourbon on earth. But that doesn't mean we're all experts. We once asked a bartender for a recommendation. "Five Roses or something?" she said. Here's a primer. The word "bourbon" is said to come from Bourbon County, Kentucky, which distilled early versions of the spirit and in 1786 comprised 34 of today's counties. The name could also come from Bourbon Street in New Orleans, where most of Kentucky's bourbon ended up. Law requires bourbon's mash bill to have at least 51 percent corn, though many bourbons have a much higher corn content (80 percent and it becomes corn whiskey). The mash bill also consists of malted barley and wheat and/or rye. Wheated bourbons, like Maker's Mark, are generally sweeter. Bourbons with rye mash bills are spicier and more common. The brewed and distilled mash, aka the "juice," must age in a new charred white-oak barrel. Straight bourbon must age a minimum of two years, and the age must be on the bottle if it is less than four years old. The bottle's age statement represents the youngest bourbon in the blend, though there may be bourbon from older barrels in the bottle. Barrels aged higher up in the rickhouse (that's what the aging warehouses are called) develop higher proofs, due to more evaporation, than those aged closer to the ground. Barrels from the top and bottom are usually blended together to get every batch just right. Barrel-proof bourbon is usually the highest-proof item on the shelf because it isn't blended with water. Some of the bourbon evaporates from the barrel. That's called the "angel's share." "Blended bourbon" only has to be 51 percent bourbon. Step away.