The story of Four Roses bourbon is a similar one to its compatriots. A label steeped in history became outlawed, then was brought back in an era of industrialization. For more than forty years Four Roses wasn’t a bourbon brand at all. Seagram’s, the company that owned the label at the time, saw promise in the blended whiskey segment of the market and that was all they produced. It wasn’t until 2002 that a bottle of Four Roses straight bourbon hit the shelves in the US since before prohibition.

However, what makes Four Roses interesting was the company’s desire to, not just produce a great bourbon, but to produce a bourbon that was consistently great. The issue here was yeast: before the mash ever hit the stills it needed to be fermented, and that fermentation was wildly variable. Along with White Labs, Four Roses isolated five main strains of yeast to ferment their mash named V, K, Q, O, and F. These five strains are utilized in concert with one another to make base bourbons that are then blended together to make a stellar final product.