First things first, before I respond,
a good article for anyone interested in MGP (the Indiana distillery that produces a lot of whiskey for places that basically claim they make it themselves).
And apologies for the length of the post, but you put a lot of thought into yours, and I wanted to be able to respond as thoroughly.
My point is that the brewers elsewhere are trying to make specific styles of beer and so copy the water of where that style was first made as its a key part of the recipe. It's not just "get good water" with Burton and Plzen waters both being good water for making beer and thus interchangeable - the waters make radically different beer, because they are radically different - as different as the different yeasts in the two different styles.
The difference in the other ingredients owes a lot to the difference in the water - arguably its in the ingredient that shapes the beer style the most. The soft water of Bohemia lends itself to lagering, the hard water of central/southern England lends itself to making darker ales (and that's just dealing with one factor of the water). Colorado water is significantly harder than the softer waters of Kentucky and Tennessee (the area where almost all Bourbon is made, though Tennessee doesn't like using that name to describe its similar whiskey) - that's going to give its own distinct features. They might not actively be trying to make a different style of whiskey, but are they actively trying to make that same style? Does the Colorado distillery make its water more Appalachian the way that brewers make their waters more like Burton/Plzen?
I largely don't disagree with you, but as you mentioned in your reply, water is the most important ingredient in beer. It comprises 90-95% of the product, so of course it has a reasonably large impact on the flavor profile of different styles of beer. But obviously at a higher proof, there's less water in whiskey comparatively, so in turn it's less important in the overall composition. I'm not saying that it isn't important, but I would argue that it's less important than the grain, the barrels and other things that import flavor that comes across more easily than sedimentary materials in the water itself. I just texted a distiller friend of mine who says that everyone modifies pH and removes chlorine (everywhere), but he isn't familiar with any distilleries filtering through limestone. He also said that a lot of distilleries out here dilute with Eldorado Springs water to market it as Coloradoan.
So you can't make Scotch in Kentucky, but you can make "a reasonable facsimile" if you import a lot of ingredients. By this line of reasoning, you can make "a reasonable facsimile" of Bourbon in Colorado if you transport ingredients from further east. Lets suggest the adjusting of ingredients to match the original locale as being the same as importing.* But if its just going with the bare minimum legal definition (designed for defining the product for export to certain countries who use the term 'Bourbon' to mean 'American whiskey' while trying not to sully the term too much domestically), and using unaltered local ingredients, it's not even making "a reasonable facsimile" of what people actually mean by Bourbon. That's fine, but it is its own thing, not Bourbon.
Well, to start with, in my opinion the most important flavor component in whiskey is the barrel. By definition, for bourbon, the barrels have to be new, charred, American white oak. So that limits the amount of differentiation to start with. Whereas Scotch might utilize used bourbon or used sherry barrels for their aging, that's not allowed when you call it bourbon. In addition, almost every distiller gets their barrels from Independent Stave, a company based in Missouri. So if everyone is using the same barrels for their whiskey, again, there isn't really going to be a differentiation between different regions if the same component is used in all places. Then the other barrel component is the amount of char, which even within Kentucky/Tennessee varies distiller to distiller, so there's not a Kentucky type char and a Colorado type char. It's all allowed to be called bourbon as long as there is some char.
As for the grain itself, of course there will be a little bit of differentiation in the corn and/or adjuncts based on where they're grown. The real question is would corn grown in Kentucky taste different than the corn grown in Colorado? To be honest, I don't know. I know distilleries like to use their grain as a marketing technique, but it remains to be seen if anyone can actually smell/taste the difference of the "grain terroir". But this isn't like wine where I can smell the difference between grapes grown in limestone soil vs. a clay soil, which as a trained sommelier, I can do rather easily. I'd argue the most important contribution the grain provides to flavor is the grain bill itself, i.e. the percentages of corn, rye, barley, wheat, etc. And again, that varies just as much amongst Kentucky distillers as it does anywhere else.
My distiller friend said the following:
Commodity corn probably isn't going to taste any different, and that is what most use. Heirloom varieties (blue corn, etc.) do taste different, but that's probably not a product of where it's grown.
But the available ingredients are MUCH closer in Ireland to Scotland than the Rockies to the Appalachians.
I already argued against this above.
Ditto storing conditions and other such things that effect the product. I'm talking about if someone wanted to make Scotch in Ireland, using a similar recipe, not saying that they do actually use a similar recipe.
If an Irish distiller wanted to make Scotch with the peating, the malting, the only distilling twice, etc but didn't import (or muck about with to make closer) the ingredients, it wouldn't be Scotch, merely a similar product. We're talking about a step further away than what you call "a reasonable facsimile" here. But still closer than Bourbon made in Colorado as the difference in the ingredients and conditions is less.
The storage conditions are going to be largely the same for bourbon however, as again, it has to be in the same kind of barrel. Yes, there could be temperature/humidity variations depending on where you age the barrels, but I would argue that those effects are probably less than you'd think. Look at Maker's Mark or Jim Beam. They produce so much bourbon that they are aging their barrels in a climate controlled warehouse, not some specific cave with endemic bacteria and yeast that affect the flavor.
Let Colorado be proud of what it makes, rather than trying to pretend its something else. That's what Tennessee does, despite having much more similar conditions to Kentucky than Colorado!
We are proud that we make damn great bourbon! And re: Tennessee, there's is just a marketing technique too. Calling it "sour mash whiskey" is just announcing on the bottle a technique that almost all distillers use, Tennessee or not. There is nothing different about Tennessee's whiskey. And Colorado distillers proudly call out that it's Colorado bourbon too, but I just take it for what it's worth that we're not doing things dramatically differently than our Appalachian counterparts. It's a lot like Tito's that became insanely popular because they labeled their vodka as gluten free. Well no shit, Sherlock. All spirits are gluten free unless they have additives like flavored vodka or something along those lines.
Going back to Pilsner, Miller Lite is not a Pilsner despite its branding in the US as such. For a start, it uses corn syrup to supplement the malt's sugars - a big no no for beer in Central Europe. It uses Galena hops in addition to the variety that define Pilsner. It's a Pilsner-based recipe, but it isn't a Pilsner. It adds stuff - as would using harder water in your Bourbon recipe. Doesn't mean its a bad beer, just means its mislabelled. I'm not particularly fussed if a Pilsner is made in Czechia or Canada, but there's defining elements of the style that require fairly precise ingredients (one of which is water). Same with Bourbon.
I agree that labeling matters. There needs to be certain standards for sure. But I think the crux of my argument (and for the record, I'm enjoying this discussion, so thanks for engaging), is I look at bourbon like I look at Burgundy. In Burgundy, there are very specific rules. If it's red, it's Pinot Noir -- the end. If it's white, it's Chardonnay or, very rarely in comparison, Aligoté. But within Burgundy, there are large differences. Those from the Côte de Nuits (the northern part of Côte d'Or) are a lot more delicate and elegant. Those from the Côte de Beaune (southern part of Côte d'Or) are more powerhouses. The cheaper whites (village level and below) are rarely aged in oak, where the Premier Cru and Grand Cru start to be. The soil is largely limestone, but there are variations within the region itself. But, either way, the AOC decided that the wines that met the basic standard could be called Burgundy (or a more specific regionalization).
The U.S. has decided that there are basic requirements for what constitutes bourbon. The requirements are specific in a certain sense and also pretty liberal in others. Since Kentucky distillers aren't consistent on a lot of those variables (grain bill, char level, ageing length, etc.), I don't see where the line is to exclude other regions from labeling their whiskeys are bourbon if there isn't an appreciable difference between the ingredients, the methodology, nor the flavor of the resulting spirit. Yeah, the U.S. is a larger region than Burgundy, but I feel like the analogy applies.
Chris
