Who says bourbon distillers are Old Fashioned? Well(er) most of them are after all. Four years into the Buffalo Trace Distillery online ‘Craft Your Perfect Bourbon’ interactive tool the results are in and the good news is not much has changed.
Back in 2015 Buffalo Trace Distillery located in Frankfort, Kentucky along the banks of the Kentucky River created an interactive website that allows whiskey fans to build their own favorite bourbon. They get to be their own master distiller and choose from the following six elements.
Craft Your Perfect Bourbon Experience
- Mashbill Recipe – What percent corn, rye, wheat, or barley?
- Make Whiskey – Milling, Cooking, Fermenting, Distilling
- Oak Barrels – Pick your char. Light or dark?
- Warehousing – Which floor in the rickhouse will host your bourbon.
- Aging – How long are you willing to wait?
- Proof – To cut or not to cut. Lowest possible proof to be a bourbon would be 80 proof. Straight from the barrel aged at the top of the warehouse it could be as high as 140. Can you handle that?
The Craft Your Perfect Bourbon Results
Two years later by 2017 more than 100,000 fans had participated in crafting their perfect bourbon. In response, Buffalo Trace released a new product to offer fans what they were asking for. This crowd sourced brand was called Weller CYPB, short for Craft Your Perfect Bourbon. Now, just two years since the launch of Weller CYPB, the number of people using the website has tripled to 300,000, and the results remain overwhelmingly consistent. The interactive “Craft Your Perfect Bourbon” website data shows whiskey drinkers prefer wheat recipe bourbon, aged 8 years on the top warehouse floors and bottled somewhere between 90-99 proof.
“Two years ago we were amazed to see the website data indicate such a strong preference amongst countless possibilities,” Senior Marketing Director Kris Comstock said. “We took that feedback from 100,000 fans to heart. Now with more than 300,000 participants, it is wonderful to see an overwhelming majority of fans still prefer bourbon with the specifications of our Weller CYPB. We are happy to continue giving bourbon drinkers more of what they crave every year.”
The latest website data shows stark differences between each variable and the next closest preference. There is nearly a 50,000 response difference between the wheated bourbon recipe and the second recipe preferred, Rye Mash #1. The data shows 23% of respondents would age their bourbon for eight years, compared to only 10% who would age their bourbon 23 years. About 73% of fans chose to age their perfect bourbon on the top floor compared to the middle or bottom floors, and nearly 48% of fans proofed their bourbon at 90-99.
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Annual Release of Weller CYPB
Weller CYPB fans will again have the opportunity to get a hold of this crowd-sourced bourbon as the annual release will begin arriving in stores this summer. Although very limited, one batch of this bourbon is produced each year. The Weller CYPB bottled at 95 proof (47.5 ABV) has a suggested retail price of $49.99.
Learn more about Buffalo Trace Distillery.
View all Kentucky Distilleries.
Weller Craft Your Perfect Bourbon
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