*Glenn’s Creek ¡Cuervito Vivo!™ Bourbon Whiskey Bottle. Image credit: Glenn’s Creek Distillery.*

After yesterday’s review, I hope you’ve at least looked at Glenn’s Creek. Seriously, if that review didn’t drive some traffic there, I’m not doing a good job explaining myself.

Today, though, we’re taking a step back in time. Back to Biblical times, 1823 (10 points for the reference). Yes, seriously - that far back.

In 1820, a 30-ish Dr. James Crow emigrated to the United States from Scotland and set his sights on the growing American whiskey hub of Kentucky. He came from a place where pot stills dominated the whiskey world and a time where the Coffey still was over a decade from being invented. For 18 years, he worked at various distilleries - during which time he learned the newfangled Coffey hybrid pot/column still - finally catching the eye of Oscar Pepper in 1838.

Pepper was bringing Crow on as the Master Distiller, a title and position Crow had more than earned. In the intervening years between emigration and the Pepper Distillery (W. A. Gaines, for the purposes of ownership), Dr. Crow made the most significant evolutionary step in whiskey and distillation since copper: perfecting the sour mash method.

Sour mash isn’t the sexiest term, but most whiskey drinkers will have heard of it (just look at every bottle of Jack Daniel’s No. 7 Sour Mash). It’s the process of taking spent stillage, a mixture of leftover mashed grain and liquid, and putting it into the next batch of mash. This does a few things:

Ensures a more consistent flavor from batch to batch since the same yeast strains and, ideally, the same micro-biosphere as previous batches, and
Lower the pH of the new mash, making the environment favorable for yeast and, more importantly, less favorable for bacteria we don’t want in the mash (it’s just fine for our good friend lactobacillus)

The changes don’t have to be huge - for Wilderness Trail, for example, a distillery using the sweet mash method (brand new everything each batch, no use of spent stillage), the difference between a sweet mash and a sour mash is about 1-1.5 pH, around 5-6 on the scale. Just that little bit, though, has an oversized impact on the microenvironment in the mash. Before Dr. Crow, sour mashing had been used but never standardized and, according to lore, never measured scientifically. It was just known as a “good thing” for the whiskey.

With a sacchrometer and hydrometer and some litmus paper, Dr. Crow made consistency his mission. And thus, eventually, Doc Crow’s bourbon was born.

It was the bourbon of its age, favored by multiple presidents, the top clubs and bars in the country, and those who sought a higher quality whiskey. It’s quality and reputation carried it for nearly 125 years, past Dr. Crow’s death in 1856 and all the way through the 1950s and early 1960s. Some of my all-time favorite bourbons were produced under the Doc Crow label in the 50s and 60s, including the Traveler and the legendary Chessmen collection.

All good things must end, though, and for a brand named for a man for whom consistency of process was everything, it was the changing of that process that proved its undoing. According to multiple sources, sometime in the late 50s the proportion of setback - the spent stillage from the previous batch put into the new batch - was changed, which led to a decline in flavor and quality. The fall was swift, dovetailing with the overall bourbon glut and precipitous industry decline in the 60s. Soon enough, the Old Crow brand was no more.

Jim Beam swooped in and bought the brand name in 1987 from National Distillers, but from what I can tell there was never a serious effort made to resurrect the brand as it once was. The venerable brand became a bottom-shelfer, a three- or four-year-old bourbon at 80 or 86 proof (the latter being Old Crow Reserve). It’s got its place, but no one will mistake it for the rich, flavorful, decadent Old Crow of yesteryear. And just like that, like the One Ring, it was forgotten by all but those who knew to remember.

Enter David Meier and Glenn’s Creek.

The Old Crow property was largely abandoned, sometimes used for aging but rarely for much else. The buildings were dilapidated, covered in so much overgrowth it took 30 minutes just to cut through to the front door (true story). Beam still owns the distillery portion of the Crow property, so Glenn’s Creek took over the one part not under Beam’s aegis: the former bottling plant.

The challenges were enormous: operating in the shadow of a legendary figure and brand, without the 48-foot column still, with different grains and conditions, no idea of the mashbill, and an unknown yeast strain. For the yeast, they trapped some from the fermenters, but haven’t yet tested it against a database like that at FERMsolutions. For the rest, they’re using a self-designed and fabricated pot still, nano-batch bourbons, and a mashbill based more on weight than on percentage (listen to the episode on Wednesday to hear the story around that).

Grumpy Dave acknowledges the legacy he’s taken on, and doesn’t shy from it. He’s making Old Crow, but his own way, with the tools and knowledge available. The little crow lives again - ¡Cuervito Vivo! - and I sure hope it sticks around. It’s close, and damn good bourbon in its own right; what I care most about is the thought and care. Beam sat on this brand for decades, keeping it in the basement. Glenn’s Creek may not have the rights to the name, but it has certainly grabbed hold of the spirit. Pun intended.

Glenn’s Creek ¡Cuervito Vivo!™ Bourbon Whiskey: Specs

Classification: Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey

Origin: Glenn’s Creek Distillery

Mashbill: 87% Corn, 8% Rye, and 5% Malted Barley (By Weight, about 70/20/10)

Proof: 102 (51% ABV)

Age: 24-27 Months Old

Location: Kentucky

Glenn’s Creek ¡Cuervito Vivo!™ Bourbon Whiskey Price: $70.75

Official Website

Glenn’s Creek ¡Cuervito Vivo!™ Bourbon Whiskey Review: Tasting Notes

Eye: Clear amber. Thin rims, almost no drops or legs.

Nose: Heady bourbon notes flow from the glass, slight varnish with lots of fresh corn. Nectarines, white and mild, just a bit of tangy acidity. Sweet, fresh corn milk.

Palate: Thick and astringent, pepper on the front half of my tongue. Complex corn, roasted and sweet, creme brulee specked with vanilla beans. Mouthfeel is syrupy, less hot than the first sip, varnish or lacquer sensation all over my tongue. Roasting corn and dark malt emerge.

Finish: Medium length, the roasting grains warming against a coating pepper sensation. Fills the entire palate top to bottom.

Overall: This somehow tastes dusty. How are they doing this? The profile isn’t overly complex, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s classic bourbon, corn-forward and decadent.

Final Rating: 8.5

10 | Insurpassable | Nothing Else Comes Close

9 | Incredible | Extraordinary

8 | Excellent | Exceptional

7 | Great | Well above average

6 | Very Good | Better than average

5 | Good | Good, solid, ordinary

4 | Has promise but needs work

1-3 | Let’s have a conversation