The Bourbon Review: Four Roses Kentucky Straight Bourbon Review

Four Roses – founded by Rufus Rose in Atlanta, Georgia but the Four Roses Distillery and it’s whiskey were not trademarked until 1888 by Paul Jones Jr who then bought the Frankfort Distilling Company in 1922, giving Four Roses control over their own supply. This also allowed Four Roses to be produced during Prohibition for ‘medicinal purposes’. 

By 1943 Four Roses came under the ownership of Seagrams who not only moved production from the Frankfort Distilling CO to a new location in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky but they also pulled Four Roses from the domestic US market to focus on Europe and Asia and it wasn’t until 2004 that Four Roses returned to American shelves .

Four Roses use 2 different mashbills plus 5 yeast strains, each of which are distilled and barrelled individually to produce 10 variations of whiskey. Each whiskey they produce is made from between 1 to all 10 variations to create a specific profile.

They use a 4 letter code to track these styles

O stands for Old Prentice,  S for Straight Whiskey,  V,K,O,Q,F for the yeast and B or E for the mashbill

Mashbill B is 60% corn, 35% rye and 5% malted barley

Mashbill E is 75% corn, 20% rye and 5% malted barley

The entry level Four Roses uses all 10 variations to build it’s profile. It’s a no age statement straight whiskey which means it’s at least 4 years old but is at least 5 years old according to the company website.

Four Roses Bourbon 40% abv/80 proof  $20

Nose: A nice combination of fruit, spice and oak. Vanilla, caramel, peach, orange slices, mint and sawn oak. A little cherry and some light clove.

Palate: Very approachable with just a gentle spice kick. Vanilla and caramel to start off plus ripe red apple. Some peach in there too. The rye spices make themselves known with clove and cracked black pepper plus a hint of menthol. Toasted oak rounds out proceedings.

Finish: Short to medium with brown sugar, clove and oak.

Score: 5 out of 10

Overall: A pretty decent entry level bourbon. A nice sipper with a good mouthfeel. It’s fairly simple but well put together and the alcohol is well integrated with no off notes. The nose is a class above the palate but overall nothing wrong here for the money.

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