Four Roses New Mashbills: 20 Potential Recipes

Huge new dropped today at Four Roses and they are introducing two new mashbills! Four Roses has been using the same two mashbills for decades in combination with their five yeast strains making a total of 10 recipes. What this potentially means is that Four Roses will be introducing 10 new recipes (20 total!).

Four Roses New Recipe 1

The first new recipe boasts an even higher percentage of rye in the mashbill consisting of 52% corn, 43% rye and 5% malted barley. This will be the highest rye mashbill Four Roses offers. Four Roses is known for their high rye and higher rye mashbills but this takes it to another level. I expect this recipe to be big, bold and spicy. Pairing this with a K yeast will be a spice bomb or an F yeast I would expect big notes of tobacco and mint. This mashbill will almost be considered a rye whiskey.

Four Roses New Recipe 2

The second new mashbill unveiled is more like a traditional Kentucky bourbon with a 85% corn, 10% rye and 5% malted barley. This will be the lowest rye mashbill Four Roses offers. I am the most excited to try this recipe’s 85% corn content with a O or V recipe. The fruit flavors paired with the increased sweetness of the corn content should lead to a huge flavor bomb. The amount of corn content in this mashbill will hopefully lead to an increased viscosity which is one of my favorite traits in a bourbon.

Questions About The New Recipes

• Do we know if these have already been distilled and aged?
• If there are current stocks how old are they?
• Have both recipes been distilled with all 5 yeast strains?
• How much of these new stocks are there?
• Will there be any new brand extensions of the standard offerings?

Four Roses Potential

There is obvious a lot of unknown, but the future is extremely bright for Four Roses. I had thought about Four Roses potentially adding a 6th yeast strain but never would have imaged two new mashbills. If they release barrel strength single barrel options of 20 different recipes, that will be an amazing accomplishment the bourbon world has never seen.

Four Roses is known for their 10 unique recipes AND their ability to blend bourbon. Many different distilleries and companies have been finishing, in my opinion sub-par bourbon, in secondary casks to impart flavor and hide the less desirable characteristics in young, 4-6 year old bourbon. Four Roses uses their yeasts to impart flavor and ages their bourbons much longer than most of the competition. If there are some aged stocks of these new recipes, it would be amazing to see some of them pop up in a Limited Edition Small Batch or even their own unique blended bourbon label extension.

My guess is stocks are low and on the younger side and it will be a while until we see any of these in a limited edition product. Brent Elliott took over as master distiller at Four Roses in 2015 and I am guessing this project starting sometime after that. My guess would be these stocks are in the 5-7 year range.

Four Roses has invited Mellow Moments Club Members to apply to be apart of their new MMC Bourbon Board. Four Roses is taking application from members through Friday May 23rd. They will select 12 participants to go to the Lawrenceburg, KY distillery to meet with Brett and discuss and give feedback on the new recipes. I am sure once these meetings occur some more information will begin to leak out. Four Roses does an excellent job at keeping their fans involved in their process and some new great bourbons will be heading our way soon!! Continue to check back for more details!