There is nothing more romantic than the story of a revived brand, and none seems to have done it as well as Kentucky Owl. Founded in 1879, the brand created Whiskey until Prohibition shut it down.
A hundred years later, the great-great-grandson of the founder revived the family business with a view to respecting the past but looking to the future. And with that, a boutique Bourbon business known for its limited releases was reborn.
Its latest release, the Maighstir (which is Gaelic for master) epitomises the creativity and disruptive nature of the brand.
To find out more, we talk to Master Distiller Dr. Maureen Robinson about blending, legacy and turning Bourbon into Scotch
There is nothing more romantic than the story of a revived brand, and none seems to have done it as well as Kentucky Owl. Founded in 1879, the brand created Whiskey until Prohibition shut it down.
A hundred years later, the great-great-grandson of the founder revived the family business with a view to respecting the past but looking to the future. And with that, a boutique Bourbon business known for its limited releases was reborn.
Its latest release, the Maighstir (which is Gaelic for master) epitomises the creativity and disruptive nature of the brand.
To find out more, we talk to Master Distiller Dr. Maureen Robinson about blending, legacy and turning Bourbon into Scotch
Tiff Christie:
This is Cocktails Distilled, a podcast that takes your favourite spirits and cures from the still to the cocktail glass. In each episode, we talk to distillers and creators about particular expressions that their brands have released, what they are, why they were created and in what cocktails they can be used. Are you ready to understand what's in your glass? Or perhaps should be Welcome to Cocktails Distilled.
Tiff Christie:
There is nothing more romantic than the story of a revived brand. There is nothing more romantic than the story of a revived brand, and none seems to have done it as well as Kentucky Owl. Founded in 1879, the brand created whiskey until Prohibition shut it down. A hundred years later, the great-great-grandson of the founder revived the family business with a view to respecting the past but looking to the future, and with that, a boutique bourbon business known for its limited releases was reborn. Its latest release, the Maester, which is Gaelic for master, epitomizes the creativity of the brand. To find out more, we talked to master blender, dr Maureen Robertson, about blending legacy and turning bourbon into scotch.
Tiff Christie:
Thank you for joining us, maureen.
Tiff Christie:
Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
Tiff Christie:
The obvious question is what made you, or perhaps former master blender John Rea, think of blending bourbon so that it tasted like scotch?
Maureen Robinson:
Kentucky Owl Maester is the third expression in the Kentucky Owl Limited Collaboration series. The first one was in the style of an Irish whisky and the second one was in the style of a Japanese whisky. So I think the natural progression was to do a Scotch-style bourbon.
Tiff Christie:
And how difficult was it to get a bourbon to taste like Scotch?
Maureen Robinson:
In doing all these collaborations, the cask selection was really key. So what we were doing was we were just nosing and tasting lots of casks to try and get samples of casks that were reminiscent of a Scotch, and then blending them together to make up the Kentucky Elm Meister.
Tiff Christie:
And how long was the process from when the idea came about to when the bottle was released?
Maureen Robinson:
If you were thinking about it as how long it took us to actually nose and taste the samples and do some blending, you could say it was like six to eight weeks. But there's a lot of pre-work you have to do before that and that can take several weeks. So let's say you have to begin with you sort of think about what the blend is on paper, with using your experience and your knowledge, and then we then you have to find the cast that were representative we were looking for. You then had the administration side of things, like everything else. You've got administration. You've got to do all the paperwork to order the samples and then, because of where the location of the casts are, it can take a few weeks because we don't actually have a place where we store casts just for us. We've got them stored all over the place. So we then had to put out letters to bring the samples into the main place.
Tiff Christie:
Now, on top of that, though, you were doing this remotely, or most of it remotely.
Maureen Robinson:
Yes, I was doing it remotely. John was also John and I are a bit alike where he was doing it down in Louisville, down in Kentucky, and he was bringing all the samples into his house, which I think it was in his basement. He had his own little blending room and I had my own little blending room here in Scotland, which was mainly my kitchen and my office. So between us we actually were collaborating. John was really good from my perspective that he helped me a lot with his knowledge of what Scotch whisky knows and tasted like. He actually did a lot of pre-filtration of the samples first, before he actually sent samples over to me to assess them as well, and also when he was doing that, he also sent me four recipes that he had pulled together to see what he thought might have been in the ballpark of what we were looking for. Okay, so when he sent the samples over to me I then nosed the samples then did they made up the blends that he had made up, and from them I actually picked one that I thought was the closest to the one that we were looking a bourbon, reminiscent of a scotch, and so I then started playing around again.
Maureen Robinson:
I started tweaking that blend. I then played around different percentages and things that just to get things just that little bit closer to what I was expecting it to be like, and so I made up I think in total it was about another four blends I made up, and from these four I picked what I thought was really what I thought should be in the bottle, and it was reaching the target we were looking for. So I then sent that on to John, who then made up the recipe in his little blending room, and then, thankfully, he agreed with what I had come up with. And that was us. That was us. We had actually decided right, this is what we're going to put in the bottle.
Tiff Christie:
So what sort of qualities in the bourbon were both you and John trying to find?
Maureen Robinson:
bourbon were both you and John trying to find? We were trying to find aromas and flavours that you thought was maybe Scotch, you know sort of Scotch aromas and flavours. Let's say you get the lighter styles, lighter styles, speysides, you know where you've got like fresh fruits, citrus notes, just a hint of sweetness and vanilla. But we were also looking because this was to be reminiscent of a scotch, but not, it's a bourbon, so you didn't want to lose the identity that it was a bourbon, so we were also looking within that category. We're also looking for the woody oakiness you would often find in a bourbon, but not too robust or robust, not the right word but not too strong. And also bourbon tends to have that sort of vanilla sweetness about it as well. So we're looking for that as well and when we're looking at all the samples and basically what we're trying to do is get the combination and to make a really good bourbon and how many iterations did you go through in the end?
Tiff Christie:
how many blends did you create?
Maureen Robinson:
probably, in fact probably about eight, nine because you know john had already done his, you know for it. He thought pass them on to me and then I sort of played around with them as well, so I did another four as well. So basically, from a blending perspective, that maybe was quite, actually quite lucky. We landed, and quite quickly on that, because normally sometimes it's a hit or a miss when you do new innovations, because you have in your mind what you're wanting to do, you have me, what flavor and aroma profile you're looking for and you're also thinking ahead on the consumer. You know what you're trying to create for the consumer. So sometimes you can be lucky and you could do this in maybe two or three. You know trials, but sometimes it can take you a lot longer. So I suppose we were sort of quite lucky that we we managed to do um, probably eight, nine, before we actually landed on the actual recipe.
Tiff Christie:
Tell us a little bit about the whiskies that you chose to use.
Maureen Robinson:
The final blend was like three rye straight bourbons and one wheat straight bourbon, and we used a range of ages between four-year-old and nine-year-old Right. So again, it was us getting the balance between each of these as well, there was different percentages and things like that, which is something we can't tell you about because that's the secret bit. So that was really what we found and, as I said earlier on, what I found was that the younger ages they were reminiscent of a lighter, still scotch, like citrus fruits and the fresh fruits and just that hint of sweetness. But the older ages was where we got the sort of oaky, woody with a hint of what I term as floral or perfumed coming through.
Tiff Christie:
So age and perhaps even things like yeast and mash bills really do come into play when you're deciding on the blend.
Maureen Robinson:
Yeah, as a company, kentucky Ale at the moment we don't own a distillery, so we source a lot of our barrels and a lot of what we are looking at when we are sourcing is it's all about the Roman flavours, the yeast thing. We don't always know that information, but we actually bring it into our stock. We are actually looking at what the Roman flavour we're buying. We do have a bit more control. What we do now, because we've actually got one distillery, actually does a lot of our distilling for us now and they actually distill against our mash bill and the type of casks we want to put it into. So we've got a bit more control over the starting products and what we used to have Before.
Maureen Robinson:
It was always we bought in lots of casts from third-party sources but we didn't buy anything if we didn't think it was the quality that we wanted. The other thing on the key in what you were saying about the age and the mash bills, one of the things we are also looking when you're doing innovation is you're understanding who the consumer is and what the market is and, as I said earlier, the aroma and flavor program is what you want to achieve. So that's what you're looking for in the different casts no-transcript how difficult is it to understand what's in the head of consumers.
Maureen Robinson:
I probably don't always do that part of it. You've got people who actually try to understand what the market, what are people drinking, what kind of bourbons are they drinking, and things like that and then you sort of look at that and then you start to understand maybe where their profile's going and you try to introduce that that's always in the back of your mind what you think they're drinking is for when you're looking at your own profiles.
Tiff Christie:
Now quickly, if people don't understand the role of a blender can you explain the nuances of what you do?
Maureen Robinson:
I'm often asked that and sometimes it's very difficult to try and explain it, because it's one of these things like most people, when you do a job, you just do it and you don't think about what you're actually doing. The blend's got quite a varied role, but one of the key attributes is they have to have a sense of aroma and flavor and then, through time, building up your own language so that you're consistent when describing certain aromas and flavours, because that's one of the things I tend to call it memory. As long as you stick to how you describe an aroma and flavour, somebody else might think it's completely different. As long as you're consistent in that, when it comes to making things, when you're actually coming to innovation and making things up, even just maintaining quality assurance you understand that's what you know you want and that's what you're looking for for that aroma. So it tends to be a lot of memory work. Aromas do play an important role when you're creating new products, and the other thing that we often do is you know we do a lot of organic electric assessments, and it's not just for innovation, it's for quality assurance as as well. Let's say Kentucky Elm Mesa is a limited edition, but Kentucky Elm also got a core brand called Kentucky Elm Confiscated and that we produce that all the time. So basically we've got we've got to make sure the quality of that's you know and consistent and good quality. So that's why you still have to do lots of assessments all the time. And you're also looking at recipe management. So basically you're looking at the inventory to make sure that you can consistently produce the quality of the whiskey in the bottle, not saying that the recipe stays the same all the time.
Maureen Robinson:
That's a blender's job as well. If, for some reason, you weren't able to get something, one of your key areas is you've got to maybe change that slightly, but without changing the quality and the flavour and what's in the bottle. And also in innovation, you've got the development of new products, and then you sometimes create market research prototypes. Especially if you're doing something, you might want to go and do some consumer research, it just depends. Then you've got to commercialize the final product.
Maureen Robinson:
So the thing is, when it comes to commercialization that's another bit you've got as a massive blender, you've got to be able to at the very end, once you've blended all the casks, because what you've got to remember is when you're doing blending in the you know sort of in the lab and things like that, you're assuming each cask is the same. You know that the volume in that cask is the same. So when it comes to actual reality, you do you, you can apply different parameters to get you as close as possible to what the final liquid would look like, you know, from a volume perspective. But once you put them all together it could be.
Maureen Robinson:
There's just a slight nuance that's not quite the same as what your prototype was you know, what you were doing, so you'd also have some casts at the side, and then what you'd do is you would play around with what you've got in your vat, then maybe have to add a couple of casts just to bring it up to the quality you want. So that's another important role of the master blender is actually making sure that what you thought you were going to do is what you do in the bottle, casks that are sitting one shelf away from one another but with exactly the same liquid can be incredibly varied, can't they?
Maureen Robinson:
Yes, and part of that is when you come to actually looking. You know if you're making up the blend. You're looking at that as well where the position of the casts are, and sometimes you bring samples in from these different positions, which, for a limited edition and a new innovation, that's okay at the beginning, but from a quality assurance point of view, let's say, if it's a product that you're continuing to produce, that gets a bit more complicated because you do, you might not always get in the same way you had them before, so you actually do have to bring in some cast and check out what you're doing. The other thing for a blender is, you know, get involved in the brand stories and you also have a lot of pr stuff to do as well PR media, which, when I first started that wasn't a blender didn't do that, but over the years that has steadily become part of our job now.
Tiff Christie:
When you were working on Maester, you were still in Scotland. You weren't the master blender for Kentucky Owl at that point, john Rea was still. I suppose, in a way, maester was the expression that passed the baton to you.
Maureen Robinson:
Yes, you could say that, and basically what it is is I have got really big shoes to follow in John's footsteps because I was 45 years in the Scottish side of the business. John was 40 years as the master distiller for Rosie's. He actually retired and then Kentucky Hill brought him back, so he's got a lot of experience in the bourbon side, whereas I'm now I'm the rookie in the bourbon, learning my craft. Regarding bourbon, yeah.
Maureen Robinson:
There's not much difference between the process, it's the aroma and flavors. That's the bit I have to get around. You know, start to get a bit more in scotch. Yeah, I built my own sort of language. You know aroma language. I'm now starting doing something similar in bourbon and it's very at the beginnings at the moment. But the more I I bring in lots of samples and nose and taste for other projects and things like that, I'm going to start building that language up.
Tiff Christie:
Do you think that Scotch whiskey drinkers, who may be familiar with your work at the Singleton or other Scotch brands, will find it a bit odd that a keeper of the queer is now blending bourbon?
Maureen Robinson:
I'm not sure and they might find it a bit funny. But what I'm hoping is that it will instill some curiosity for them to try bourbon, because there's a lot of people out there who maybe might be interested in tasting bourbon but they're a bit frightened because some of the brands in bourbon they're very oaky and very sweet and I, to be quite honest, I was one of them. I used to think bourbon was just very oaky and sweet, but until I started on the Mista project I was completely bowled over by the flavours and aromas you could get in a bourbon. They're very similar to scotch from aromas and flavours. There's so much out there.
Maureen Robinson:
There's quite a lot of diversity of flavours and it could be. It's just that somebody needs to maybe just start experimenting in bourbon and just find something that suits them, and that's what I was hoping that maybe if you are a scotch drinker that you might find with Maester it's reminiscent of a Scotch, but you're actually getting all the other nice flavours you can get in a bourbon that doesn't have to be overtly oaky and woody, are very sweet. There is lots of you know fruitiness there, citrus fruits I call it floral notes and you, you know, sort of just like green notes. You know there's lots of other aromas and flavours coming through.
Tiff Christie:
Let's take it from the other side, though. If you're a bourbon drinker, what will you find appealing about this expression?
Maureen Robinson:
I think also from a bourbon drinker's perspective, it's also shown you that there's a lot of diversity of flavour within bourbon, that it doesn't all have to be. You know very heavily charred casks because, as you know, bourbon has been new charred casks, and that was one of the things I learnt when I started doing Maester was I was surprised with the flavours is that you can actually they have different charring levels in the casks. You know that you have what's called there's a lightly charred, then what they call is a c1 up to c4, and you can also toast them as well. So so from a bourbon perspective, it allows you to innovate even within bourbon, because you can actually choose to toast and char your cass differently to get different flavours. So you can go from a lighter style to a very heavily oaky woody style. So, and then as a blender, you can actually take some of these lighter styles mixed with some of the heavier styles to come up with something that people might enjoy.
Tiff Christie:
Coming from that Scotch whisky background, though, what do you believe you bring to the world of bourbon blending?
Maureen Robinson:
For me and I think it's not just me, it's other blenders as well it's up to us as blenders to show the consumer that they have choices by showing how versatile bourbon can be, and there is a myriad of flavour out there waiting to be explored. And there is a myriad of flavour out there waiting to be explored. So it's almost like the idea is to start bringing in bourbons that are different and allowing people more choice to pick what maybe is their favourite style.
Tiff Christie:
So in that idea, how do you want people to drink this expression?
Maureen Robinson:
Well, I'm a great believer that people should drink their whiskey the way they like it and again, that's something they may have to explore because historically I think people tended to drink bourbon neat and maybe with a dash of water. And there is some products out there. They actually drink it with Coke and things like that. Some products out there, um, they, they actually drink it with coke and things like that. But again, to me it's up to you to experiment how you like to drink it. Now, that would be quite an interesting evening. So just sitting there playing around, you know, got a bourbon. I think I'll try this with water, I'll try it with ginger ale, try it with something else. Just just experiment what you want to do.
Maureen Robinson:
But one of the ones I like to do when I'm drinking whiskey is is take the whiskey but add a clump of ice, but solid ice, not the sort of ice it melts very quickly, you know, like the ice balls you get and things like that put that in the glass, then just add a dash of water.
Maureen Robinson:
Yeah, now what that does is the water starts to heat up the whiskey, because it's as soon as it touches the whiskey it starts heating up and that steadily starts to melt the ice. So every time you're nosing and tasting, maybe sipping, and having a nose at the aroma as it dilutes, you're changing that. It's actually starting to, you know, introduce more flavors into the whiskey as you're sipping it, and that's one of these things I tend to call that my flavour journey. It's quite good just to sit there with this glass, just sitting, sipping and just enjoying everything that's coming through. But again, as I say to me, the way you drink it is the way you enjoy it, and I don't think anybody is totally right. As I say, it's a personal choice.
Tiff Christie:
Now being a somewhat floral whiskey, though it could potentially work quite well in cocktails.
Maureen Robinson:
Yes, it could. It's one of the things. I haven't tried it yet. I'm not the best cocktail maker or creating cocktails in the world, but I think it could make a good cocktail. That's one of my experiments. I probably need to do in the house is just try. Is it good as a Manhattan and old-fashioned, you know, and things like that. Just, I haven't actually done it. But, and again, the serves you have with whiskey. It can be a mood thing as well, because it depends the mood you're in. You know, maybe you're in the mood to have a cocktail, you know, have it as a pre-dinner cocktail, or you might be in the mood just to sit after dinner and just have a dram and enjoy it. So again, to me it's a very personal choice.
Tiff Christie:
If mood is an aspect of what we drink and when we drink it, does a somewhat floral bourbon like this have a particular time or occasion that you think it best suits?
Maureen Robinson:
Kentucky Maester is quite versatile and personally I think you could drink it whatever the occasion is. But if you're somebody who wants to explore the bourbon category but unsure where to start, maybe Kentucky Ale Maister might be your stepping stone. If you're a person who enjoys drinking scotch, so it could be a stepping stone into somebody who's not used to the bourbon category but they're willing, they want to try it, then maybe this one is maybe one to try.
Tiff Christie:
And if they are trying it as the first step into bourbon, what's their second?
Maureen Robinson:
step. If you take it from a Kentucky ale perspective, you might then want to experiment with the confiscated Kentucky ale confiscated because it's more traditional than the collaboration series, so that might then get you into more traditional bourbons.
Tiff Christie:
Well, now that you're at the helm, can we expect lighter, more floral bourbons coming out from Kentucky Owl, or what sort of future direction do you want to take the brand?
Maureen Robinson:
I think the Maester was all about. It had a specific theme to it. It was, which we reminisce at Scotch, but to me, I'll be looking to create bourbons that are a combination of different aromas and flavours. There'll be a lot of tradition there. You know I'm not there to completely change the bourbon category, that everything has to taste like a scotch, so it's really looking at the differences you could do. What's there in your inventory? What can you do to that inventory to create something that's really good quality and also being consistent with it? So that's one of the things as a blender. Also, when you're actually when you're creating something, you you've got to make sure you've got the inventory to back it up, because if you don't, all you're going to do has been changing it, and the whole point is, if you've got something that's a core brand, it's all about the consistency and the quality of it. So to maintain that. So it's easier if you actually start with something that you know you can control with the meister.
Tiff Christie:
What has the reaction been? I?
Maureen Robinson:
think they're very favorable and I think most people have been quite surprised at their own flavor, some of the things I've been doing recently. There's some people I've been speaking to and they some of them were bourbon drinkers and scotch drinkers and they are quite surprised at how you had a lot of scotch flavors in there as well as the bourbons. You know, I think a lot of people were a bit wary as to how can you make a bourbon nose and taste like a scotch type thing. So I think I think they were actually pleasantly surprised and also, I think for some people who maybe were used to certain bourbons, it maybe introduced them to just how different bourbon could be. You know it didn't have to be very okay and vanilla sweet. There was lots of other flavours in bourbon that you could experiment with.
Tiff Christie:
Can you tell us anything about the new distillery that the brand is in the process of building?
Maureen Robinson:
If you go onto our website, it'll tell you all about Kentucky Hill Park. So basically, what it's going to be is there will be a distillery, We'll have a rickhouse who's there? We'll also have the blending bottling will be done there, and also a visitor centre, and when do they estimate that that's going to be ready?
Maureen Robinson:
It's actually in an old quarry oh okay, just outside Barstown, and what they've allowed it to do is they've allowed the quarry to flood again. So basically it's on the banks of like two lakes and so there's a lot of wildlife about there as well. So originally I think they bought the land just before COVID and, of course, course, everything shut down. So at the moment I think they're thinking maybe 2027-29. They had hope for 25, but that's just went completely out because Covid started and then, of course, we couldn't stand and of course, it was getting materials after covid as well. That was, you know, trying to get source materials impossible. So but they have started, they, I know they have started.
Maureen Robinson:
One of the times I was I went out to see it again. It was actually we were out on the lake. Actually I think it was the bourbon festival last year, the kentucky bourbon festival in barstown, and we actually got a boat boat. One of the team managed to get a boat and they took us round. When it's up and running, it will be an amazing sight. We started laying the roads, but we've also started laying the foundations for the rickhouses as well, which will make it easier. As soon as we get them built. We can actually move all our casts into one place, which makes it a lot easier for us when we want to bring samples in for when we want to do blinding. So it makes it a lot easier doing it that way I can imagine.
Tiff Christie:
All right, maureen, look. Thank you so much for your time now. If people want more information, they can of course go to the website, which is kentuckyalburbancom, or connect with the brand via your socials.
Maureen Robinson:
Yeah, it's been a pleasure speaking to you today and yes, as you say, if you want to get in touch with Kentucky, I'll do it through the website.
Tiff Christie:
All right, Thank you, maureen, and we'd also like to thank you for listening. Be sure to visit cocktailstostillcom to access the show notes and, if you like what you've heard, we'd love you to subscribe, rate or give a review on iTunes. Until next time, cheers.
When you were working on Maester, you were still in Scotland. You weren't the master blender for Kentucky Owl at that point, john Rea was still. I suppose, in a way, maester was the expression that passed the baton to you.
Do you think that Scotch whiskey drinkers, who may be familiar with your work at the Singleton or other Scotch brands, will find it a bit odd that a Keeper of the Quaich is now blending bourbon?
If mood is an aspect of what we drink and when we drink it, does a somewhat floral bourbon like this have a particular time or occasion that you think it best suits?
Well, now that you're at the helm, can we expect lighter, more floral bourbons coming out from Kentucky Owl, or what sort of future direction do you want to take the brand?