Four Roses riding historic rollercoaster to return to bourbon prominence

Brent Elliott has called Four Roses home for nearly 20 years, first stepping foot on campus as an employee in 2005.

Today, as he holds the title of Master Distiller, he looks back on how spontaneous it was for him to jump into the distilling world.

“My background is in chemistry. I was actually taking a tour at another distillery and something just clicked. I realized that they certainly needed chemists because at some level everything is chemistry," Elliott said.

"Bourbon evolved at a time when we didn’t really understand the science behind it. Now with modern techniques and more understanding of the science and chemistry that goes on behind it. We can better control what’s happened. We have a better understanding of it.”

The Four Roses brand has gone through quite the evolution itself since it was born in 1888.

Like so many distilleries, they have thrown themselves fully into the world of hospitality and entertainment, particularly highlighting the history held on the Lawrenceburg campus.

"We're sitting in a relatively new visitor's center. This was just completed in 2021. That was all in response to the increase in visitor traffic," Elliott said.

"Even now, we have around 85-90 thousand visitors a year at this location and it's growing."

Inside that visitor's center sits the Al Young archive collection, an interactive exhibit taking guests through the timeline of bottles distilled over the years.

The oldest bottle goes back to 1914. I really like some of these prohibition era bottles because they’re actual medicinal bottles. They have prescription instructions on them and signatures by the physician," Elliott said.

“All of the competition was thinned during that time in prohibition but Four Roses, we were one of those brands that you could buy as medicine.”

Prohibition thrust Four Roses into a household name.

It was one of the most iconic bourbons through the 1950's when the company actually left the United States.

“For a long time we were export only as a straight bourbon whiskey. You couldn’t even get us in the United States. When we came back in 2002-03, we were relatively unknown. We come a long way in the last 20 or so years just to regain that iconic stature," Elliott said.

Along the way to restoring that prominence, Elliot has learned how tight knit the bourbon industry is.

There's a level of camaraderie he described as unique in any business.

"Of course, there’s competition at some level but it’s cooperative. There’s this sense that we’re all in this together, we’re all friends. We all want to see the brands, the industry, the category grow," Elliott said.

"We’re all so proud of the Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey that we really do work together. There’s a lot of camaraderie that you won’t see anywhere else.”

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