Woodford Reserve Distillers Select - Batch 111

The distillery now known as Woodford Reserve was originally founded in 1812 in Versailles, Kentucky by Elijah Pepper, whose son Oscar Pepper built the current distillery buildings in 1838 and hired the legendary Dr. James Crow as master distiller. After Oscar Pepper died in 1865 without leaving a will the distillery continued production but fell into a complex ownership merry-go-round, during which it was renamed the Labrot & Graham distillery.  

Labrot & Graham was purchased by Brown-Forman for $75,000 in 1940 to make whiskey for their Early Times brand but became surplus to requirements and was mothballed in 1957. Brown-Forman sold Labrot & Graham in 1973, but bought it back in 1994, swapping the distillery's column stills for pot still production and launching the Woodford Reserve brand in 1996. Woodford Reserve bourbon is a blend of pot still whiskey from the Labrot & Graham distillery - renamed Woodford Reserve distillery in 2004 - and column still whiskey from Brown-Forman’s Shively distillery.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.