American Bourbon Spirit

Bourbon is America’s most famous spirit, you can read all about the history of this great drink on our Bourbon Whiskey page. The US regulations state that bourbon must be made from 51% corn and aged in new charred American oak barrels. But it doesn’t say how long the new make has to be in those casks to be classified as bourbon. Meanwhile if it is labelled ‘straight bourbon’, it must spend two years ageing.

UK and EU regulations, however, stipulate a spirit must spend a minimum of three years ageing in wooden barrels in order to be classified as whiskey. So therefore there are certain bottles that we stock which are labelled as bourbon but can’t technically be sold as whiskey over here which is why we have a separate ‘American Bourbon Spirit’ list page. We hope that this makes sense.