OBS Meeting-May 15, 2013--Paul Pogue, A family affair!

The Owensboro Bourbon Society was very pleased to have Paul Pogue of Old Pogue Bourbon as our guest speaker on Wednesday, May 15th. The Pogue family began making whiskey pre-civil war and opened the Pogue Distillery in Maysville, KY in 1876. Like many distillieries, prohibition tooks it toll on the Pogue's, with the distillery going silent.

As many of you know, Maysville is often considered the "birthplace" of bourbon. At the time, it was called Limestone and resided in Bourbon County, Kentucky. As the whiskey flowed down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, their would often be requests to send down that "old bourbon county" whiskey, which eventually was shortened to "bourbon whiskey".

The Pogues have offered a very fine bourbon (Old Pogue) since 2004. Their bourbon is approximately nine years old. Here is where the story gets interesting. The Pogues are a close family and decided to obtain the land where their original distillery sat. With extensive renovations they built an artisan craft distillery and began making their own Rye and Bourbon a year ago.

The driving force to taking on this significant task was to spend more time together as a family. Each of the Pogue's has a day job, but they are all active in the distillery, which produced approximately one barrel of whiskey a week.

The OBS had the pleasure of tasting a very unique "new make" product, Limestone Landing Malted Rye. The Rye is obtained from  Canada and distilled in Maysville. Limestone Landing offers complexity, uniqueness and a long finish in what is clearly a well crafted Whiskey.

The OBS also got to taste this malted rye with one year of aging, called Five Fathers Malted Rye. One of the things that I thought was very refreshing is that the Pogue's are aging their product in 53 gallon barrels (not the small barrels). The age lends more complexity to the rye. I think this could be an outstanding rye whiskey with 5-7 years of aging.

Paul Pogue did a wonderful job taking us through the family lineage and discussing the bourbons and rye that this fine family is producing. He is a fine gentleman who took a passion and created a family affair!

Cheers!