Wood and time are the two most expensive items to producing bourbon, and that the most valuable commodity at any distillery is experience.

The terms, KENTUCKY – STRAIGHT – BOURBON – WHISKEY, all mean something on their own, and when they appear together..

Read a bourbon label can be challenging. But if you know the procedures and all that is involved, a bourbon label typically gives you the age, state, and brand.

On May 4th, 1964, Congress passed a resolution designating bourbon as the native spirit of the United States. This resolution codified the industry standards for production and claimed that anything labeled and sold as bourbon had to be made exclusively in the United States. And, this legislation differentiates bourbon from Scotch, Irish, Japanese, and other types of whiskeys.

Here are a few of the basic categories, terms, and general whiskey vocabulary on your bourbon label:

A bourbon whiskey must meet the following qualifications to be considered bourbon:

1. It must be distilled from a grain mash consisting of at least 51% corn.
2. It must be distilled at a maximum of 160 proof, and barreled at a maximum of 125 proof.
3. It must be aged in a new, charred oak container. Additionally, the oak must be virgin, meaning that the container cannot have been used for any other purpose prior to the whiskey entering and the barrel used to age bourbon may only be used once. The industry standard is an American white oak barrel, usually 53 gallons.
4. Additional flavoring or coloring may not be added to the distilled spirit. Only water, to cut the proof, or bourbon from other barrels may be added to the whiskey.
5. It must be made in the United States.

The term “straight” bourbon is a legal reference to the liquor’s age. Straight whiskey is aged for a minimum of 2 years. It is rare that a whiskey develops any depth of flavor prior to that 2-year mark.

Proof

Proof, or alcohol by volume (ABV), determines a lot about the juice inside the bottle: flavor profile, mouth feel, aroma and overall strength. Distillers can’t legally sell 100 percent alcohol as Bourbon, so they dilute it with water to the desired ratio. The proof changes slightly while the Bourbon is in the barrel and some evaporation occurs. ABV – Alcohol by Volume, proof (which is 2 times the ABV in the U.S.)

Mash Bill

Mash bill tells you the type of grain the Bourbon is made of. To be Bourbon, whiskey has to contain between 51 and 80 percent corn; distillers augment the corn with various amounts of malted barley, wheat and/or rye,

Single Barrel

This product is a bottling which consists of whiskey from one barrel. No other barrels go into bottling. When purchasing single barrel whiskeys, there will be significant variances between barrels.

Cask Strength

This indicates that water isn’t added to the whiskey after aging, prior to bottling. Typically whiskeys of this sort will be sold at higher than 46% ABV, but there isn’t a minimum. Most other whiskeys are sold between 40-46% ABV as their standard proof.

NCF (Non Chilled-Filtered)

Chill-filtration is the industrial process by which some companies remove congeners from their products. At lower temperature and/or when water is added to whiskey which hasn’t been chill-filtered, the whiskey becomes cloudy. Additionally, there are small particles which are removed by this process to ensure the whiskey is clear of debris. However, these congeners and particles contain flavor and texture and removing them affects the end result.

Age Statement

Increasingly, NAS (no age-statement) whiskeys are a product makes a claim that their whiskey is x number of years old, not a drop of whiskey in the bottling can be younger than that age statement. The product can be older, but it cannot be any younger. With whiskey, if a bottling is stating their whiskey is x number of years old, you can be guaranteed that it is at least that old.

Straight

This term is only used with American whiskeys. It means that the whiskey is aged at least two years in charred new oak barrels (straight corn whiskey can be aged in used charred oak barrels or un-charred new oak). It can be a blend of more than one straight whiskey type (i.e. bourbon, rye, wheat, corn), provided all the whiskey comes from the same state.

Understanding the meaning behind words and phrases on a bourbon label helps the consumer make more informed choices when looking to purchase a valuable product.

Bonded or Bottle-in-Bond

A term which is only used in the United States. Whiskey which is aged for a minimum of four years under government supervision; distilled from one distillery, one distiller, and from one distilling season. The whiskey is also bottled at 50% ABV..

• The product of one distillation season and one distiller at one distillery
• It must have been stored (i.e., aged) in a federally bonded warehouse under U.S. government supervision for at least four years
• Bottled at 100 proof (50% alcohol by volume).
• The bottled product’s label must identify the distillery (by DSP number) where it was distilled and, if different, where it was bottled.

References:

1. https://www.artofmanliness.com/living/food-drink/read-bourbon-label/
2. https://distiller.com/articles/whiskey-label