The quest to make a great-great-great bourbon

Via The Oldham Era
Thursday, October 24, 2024

CRESTWOOD — Dick Burks definitely comes from what some would call obscure bourbon royalty. But now he’s on a path to change that as he introduces Burks Spring Bourbon — bottled here in Crestwood — and shares his family’s unique story behind it.

“When I retired, someone told me I should ‘get back into’ the bourbon business …” Burks says, in order to follow in the footsteps of his great-great-great-grandfather, George Richard Burks.

The elder Burks started making whiskey in the 1700s on a farm in Loretto, producing bottled-in-bond Kentucky straight bourbon whiskies for more than a century, until Prohibition hit. That Loretto farm eventually became Maker’s Mark, after it was sold to Bill Samuels.

Burks began to look seriously at the idea of recreating his grandfather’s bourbon when his friends and family began backing their support with real investment pledges. So, he studied.

“The whole point was to duplicate what my grandfather did, before Prohibition put him out of business,” he said.

His cousin still had a bottle of the original bourbon and they took it to Ferm Solutions in Danville, where owner Pat Heist can deconstruct ingredients to share exactly what makes up a mash bill.

“We wanted to not only reproduce the mash bill, but the proof,” he said.

But he couldn’t find a distiller able to interrupt their own productions for Burks’ small batch. A Shelbyville distillery handled the first distillation, which happened while COVID-19 was going on.

The first batch is almost six years old now, and strong, he says. “It’s 100 proof, high rye. It’s more of a bite — exactly like my grandfather said …”

But then he had to find another place to make his bourbon.

“A friend sent me out to Kentucky Artisan Distillery in Crestwood, and they said they’d love to do it for me,” he said.

So Burks says they moved all their barrels there in order to have them in one spot.

“We did five years of making bourbon, only had 70 barrels — so it’s definitely a small batch. We’re a small, hobby project, but I think it’s great bourbon,” he says. “We’re just having fun with it. The sales have been good, and we haven’t done any real marketing yet. No advertising … But we are did a taste-testing Aug. 3 at Party Mart on Brownsboro Road Shopping Center in Louisville.”

What was bottled in April is now out in packaged liquor stores, as well as in some restaurants.

Burks’ cousin is one of the investors in Burks Spring Bourbon. “So is my brother and my brother-in-law, and some others who are my golf buddies. There’s about 10 investors all together, counting myself …”

But putting a new bourbon together takes a lot of time and patience, he says, which he found out along the way.

Estimates of starting a new distillery can run near the $5 million mark, and the actual process of making the bourbon itself is very complex. It includes intricate steps like mashing — which determines the types and percentages of grains used, and fermentation, distillation, aging, then blending and bottling.

The family had some of the old labels from what his grandfather made.

“We didn’t duplicate it exactly, but we used it as a base,” he said.

“The government has to OK what you put on the label of a liquor bottle …” he says, referring to the approval needed by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

“That’s the hardest part of this is all of that — the bottles, the barrels, the licenses, it was very difficult. We were hoping to come out last October, but kept running into roadblocks.”

According to the Kentucky Distillers’ Association (KDA), distillers produced a record 2.7 million barrels of bourbon in 2022, the fifth year in a row topping 2 million. Today, there is a record inventory of 12.6 million bourbon barrels aging across the state.

The KDA also says distilling generates more than 23,100 jobs in Kentucky with annual salaries and wages of $1.63 billion ($2.2 billion including benefits). And that in 2022, Kentucky distillers shipped more than $500 million in exports, almost all of which was Bourbon.

Burks realizes what a powerhouse bourbon is, but for now he’s happy connecting with his family’s heritage and paying homage to his grandfather’s passion.

He says that down at the visitor’s center at Maker’s Mark, “that’s where my dad and aunt were born. There’s a historical marker there, talks about it — 1805, Charles Burks.” But his dad never joined the business.

“He was 17 when Prohibition started, and he moved to Louisville and got into the insurance business.”

Burks retired last year from 54 years in insurance, following in his own father’s footsteps. After more than half a century working, it’s been hard to slow down, he says.

“So, this does keep me busy, which I like.”

He also likes the fact that his backstory in bourbon is “really legit. A lot of these bourbon stories are made up — nobody can tell they’re not real. But you can tell ours is real.”

There are roughly 2,000 bottles of Burks Spring Bourbon available at select retailers. To find out more, visit burksspringbourbon.com.