8 Tasting Notes for Bourbon (You Can Use At Almost Any Tasting!)

As I mentioned in my last cocktail post, I recently connected with Cheers! American Spirits, an organization that promotes the use of American Spirits in Canada. In particular, bourbon is an exceptional category of spirit that is exclusive to the USA because it legally has to be made in the USA in order to be considered bourbon.

I’ve talked a number of times about the requirements around making bourbon, however, today I wanted to centre on some tasting notes that you can use to describe the spirit at almost ANY bourbon tasting!

There are a number of flavour notes in bourbon that are common amongst MANY because of them being made from predominantly corn and aged in brand new charred oak.

Let’s break down these elements a bit:

Corn: Corn is quite sweet and that will translate into the spirit. In addition, it often creates vanilla notes in the spirit (in fact one engineering scientist was able to create vanillin compounds from corn bran).

Wood: American Oak, or quercus alba, has a number of compounds in it that are extracted during the maturation process. Because bourbons must be aged in brand new charred oak, they will extract more of these compounds that a previously used barrel. Therefore, citing ‘toasted oak’ as a tasting note would be accurate.

A few of the compounds that are found in American Oak that impact the whiskey include:

– Furfural: We perceive as sweet/nutty notes (almond/walnut especially)
– Hydroxymethyl Furfural: We perceive as butter/caramel
– Cyclotene: We perceive as maple/caramel
– Vanillin: We perceive as vanilla
– Guaiacol: We perceive as smoky/peppery notes
– Eugenol: We perceive as clove/nutmeg/cinnamon

In addition, many of the other wood sugars derived from the Hemicellulose in the wood will present caramellic flavours which will develop into richer descriptors like cocoa/chocolate over time. Therefore you will find bourbons that have been matured longer will develop those more cocoa-y notes or alternatively ones that have been ‘double oaked’ often cite cocoa notes too.

Don’t believe me? Let’s explore some brands’ tasting notes below: