Bond, Bottled in Bond

I do love my movie references, and as you can clearly see, this isn’t a vesper variation, however, Early Times Bourbon is Bottled-in-Bond, and it’s delicious. If you’ve noticed the occasional whiskey referencing being bottled-in-bond but aren’t sure of what this means then you’re in luck. It is a reference to the U.S. Bottled-in-Bond Act, which set the benchmark for bourbon quality back in 1897. The Act states that bourbon must be from the same distiller in the same distillery during a single distillation season, and aged for at least four years. That’s pretty specific and although most bourbons don’t follow this any longer there are a few that you will find on the shelves of your local liquor store.

We wanted to shake up a cocktail that accentuated the delicious, rich profile of this 100-proof bourbon. When I tasted the whiskey neat, my palate was filled with notes of delicious caramel corn and chocolate with a little oak and cinnamon on the back end so I wanted to use ingredients that would balance show this great profile. I wanted to shake up a rendition of a classic sour cocktail and the lemon juice cut through the whiskey pretty nicely so I wanted to mix up something special for the sugar. With such a rich base, I decided to make a blueberry simple syrup to add a little complexity, and a dry white port to finish off the concoction.