Jefferson’s Founder’s Reserve Bourbon Is Superb

Welcome to Taste Test, where every week our critic Jonah Flicker explores the most buzzworthy and interesting whiskeys in the world. Check back each Sunday for his latest whiskey review.

A 20-year-old single malt scotch is really not that old, it’s an age statement that you’ll often find in a distillery’s core range. A 20-year-old bourbon, on the other hand, is pretty damn old. There’s a lot of potential at this age for the whiskey to become a tannic oak bomb that tastes like sucking on wet wood. But there are, of course, exceptions—Michter’s 20 Year is great, albeit expensive and elusive, and Pappy Van Winkle’s 20 and 23-year-old bourbons remain unicorn bottles. Add Jefferson’s new Founder’s Reserve to this list of successful older bourbons, a 20-year-old whiskey with a surprising wine cask finish that is an absolute treat to drink.

Jefferson’s was founded by the father-son team of Trey and Chet Zoeller back in 1997. The elder Zoeller passed away a few years ago, but for many years Trey has been the face and force behind the brand, which has been owned by French company Pernod Ricard since 2019. If you’re a bourbon fan, you’re probably familiar with Jefferson’s many finishes and gimmicks, like the Ocean Aged at Sea series in which barrels travel around the world on container ships, or the Tropics Aged in Humidity which involved shipping casks to Singapore to mature in hotter, wetter conditions. Whatever you think of these concepts, it’s really hard to argue with the quality of the bourbon and rye involved, which are nearly always very good.

Jefferson’s has released some other age-statement bourbons that are even older than this new release, matured for 21, 25, and even 30 years. Yikes. I can’t speak to the quality of that last one because I don’t know if I’ve ever tried it, but what I can tell you is that the new 20-year-old Founder’s Reserve is fantastic. Where does the bourbon actually come from? We don’t know because the brand will only say that it’s a Kentucky straight bourbon that was finished in a French Bordeaux wine cask. How long was the finish? Again, we don’t know (trust me, I asked).

Giving a bourbon this old a secondary maturation is a pretty bold move, because most people dropping hundreds of dollars on ultra-aged whiskey just want to taste ultra-aged whiskey, full stop. Also, there’s going to be speculation among the whiskey world that the finish is an attempt to fix an over-oaked bourbon. But it seems like that would be difficult to pull off, and I don’t think a wine finish could solve that problem. I asked about the finish, and heard the following back from Trey: “We didn’t want to just bring out another age-statement bourbon, it’s not our style to be so typical. We wanted to showcase the liquid in a unique Jefferson’s way, one that reflects the backbone of how the brand was built, with a pioneering spirit and love of experimentation, paired with real expertise in maturation and finishing.” That sounds pretty on-brand.

The press release for this whiskey explains that this particular cask finish is supposed to be a tie-in to America’s 250th birthday because the brand’s namesake, Thomas Jefferson, traveled to Bordeaux when he was U.S. minister to France. Sure, I guess that makes sense. But how does the whiskey actually taste? Founder’s Reserve was bottled at cask strength of 94 proof, pretty low by barrel-proof standards (this was due to the high humidity in the rickhouses, according to the brand). But that works in its favor and not against it. This is a deeply flavorful bourbon with rich notes of cherry syrup, dark chocolate-covered almonds, vanilla pudding, leather, wet oak (in a good way), tobacco, Concord grapes, and barrel-aged maple syrup on the palate, along with some bitter licorice and light tannins to balance things out on the finish. The effects of the wine cask finish are notable but not overwhelming, and it clearly does not seem to have been used to mask any off notes that could pop up after 20 years in a barrel.

Just 250 bottles of Founder’s Reserve are being released, each individually numbered, signed, and priced at $500 apiece. This bottle very well could skyrocket in value in the coming months, given its limited availability and—more importantly—how good it actually is. If you’re a bourbon drinker who is always on the hunt for ultra-aged bottles, keep looking for that Michter’s and Pappy. But definitely give this bottle a try as well, because it might just be easier and to find at the moment—and it’s delicious.

Score: 95

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