BARDSTOWN, Ky. — One of the last Beams in the bourbon business dribbles his dark amber liquid into a glass.

        “Now,” Parker Beam says, in quick-fire speech that defies drawl. “You smell any difference?”

Parker Beam is the seventh generation of Kentucky's famous bourbon making family. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        The wiry whiskey man with the thinning silver hair stands behind a small bar in the basement family room of his house, set on 500 green acres outside this small central Kentucky town. He slides a shot of his Evan Williams 1991 Vintage Single Barrel Bourbon next to a glass of the Evan Williams 1990. Both whiskeys exude a heavenly toffee-caramel aroma, but the 1991 vintage — the one on the right — smells different, more complex.

        Is it mint? Citrus?

        “I'm not sure, either,” he says, taking a sip of bourbon followed by a “splash” of cold spring water. “I don't know how to describe it. But I know it's good bourbon.”

        And the seventh-generation Beam master distiller knows how to make it. Like all the others, Mr. Beam sampled these two whiskeys the day they dripped out of the still over a decade ago. Then, the new, clear bourbon called “white dog” smelled and tasted mostly of grainy corn.

        But based on experience and perhaps instincts inherited from ancestors, Mr. Beam decided these immature whiskeys were going to be special. He sealed them in new oak barrels and stacked them high in metal-clad “rickhouses” that sit quietly in the rolling countryside.

        There, the cold winters and hot summers worked magic inside the oak, transforming the raw white dog into critically acclaimed bourbons. Both the Evan Williams 1990 and 1991 vintages were named “Whiskey of the Year” by The Spirit Journal and Malt Advocate, respectively.

        “It's hard to get better than the '90,” Mr. Beam allows, now leaning at his bar. “But I do like the "91 a little better.”
       

Barrels and barrels

        No one's sure, but as master distiller at Heaven Hill Distilleries (no relation to Jim Beam Distilleries) for 26 years, Mr. Beam may have produced more bourbon than anyone. Heaven Hill — the nation's largest independent family-owned producer of distilled spirits — holds nearly one fifth of the world's bourbon stock. The company makes Echo Spring and several other inexpensive “well” whiskeys, but it was also among the first to produce the premiums that became popular in the early '90s — hand-picked single-barrel and small-batch bourbons.

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        In addition to the award-winning Evan Williams single-barrel bourbons, Heaven Hill makes Henry McKenna Single Barrel and the 12- and 18-year-old Elijah Craig Bourbons. The 12 year-old Elijah Craig was one of only two bourbons (the other was Labrot & Graham's Woodford Reserve) to bring home a unanimous double-gold medal from the San Francisco World Spirits Competition last fall.

        Although Mr. Beam has received little attention outside bourbon's inner circle, those at Heaven Hill revere his talents.

        “Parker can pull whiskey out of a barrel, rub it between his hands, smell it and know whether it's going to be good bourbon or not,” says Max Shapira, president of Heaven Hill. “I can't do that.”

        Since the company was founded by Mr. Shapira's father and four uncles in 1935, Heaven Hill (named for previous landowner William Heavenhill) has employed only master distillers named Beam. Following the relatively short tenures of Joseph “Mr. Joe” Beam and his son, Harry, Parker's father, Earl, held the title from 1946 to 1975.

        Now, Heaven Hill is blessed with the only two Beams left in bourbon: Parker and his son, Craig.
       

Boehm became Beam

        The Beam family's influence on the bourbon industry has been long and widespread. The first Beam, Jacob, was a German immigrant (the German spelling was “Boehm”) who moved to Kentucky and sold his first barrel of whiskey in 1795. His descendants have worked in some capacity at most of the distilleries in the commonwealth. The most famous was James Beauregard “Jim” Beam.

        A colorful salesman, Jim Beam formed the Beam & Hart Old Tub Distillery in 1895. After Prohibition ended, the company was named Jim Beam Distillery, and it would become the most recognizable bourbon brand in the world.

        “Jim Beam wasn't the best whiskey man,” says Parker, of his great-uncle. “He was the most well-known.”

        The way Parker tells the story, his father, Earl, worked at Jim Beam along side his brother (Parker's uncle), Carl. When Carl turned down an offer to come to Heaven Hill as master distiller in 1946, Earl took the position.

        At Heaven Hill, Earl Beam, a stern-looking, no-nonsense man who wore a fedora, soon became known for his tremendous work ethic and attention to detail.

        “Earl was rigidly inflexible on quality,” says Mr. Shapira. “Quality was paramount to him.”

        Parker remembers his father getting up early on Sundays to put on a coat and tie. Sometimes, he would go to church.

        “Always, he'd go to the distillery,” he says. “He lived and breathed the distillery.”
       

"I had no choice'

        Young Parker followed his father from the mash tubs to the stills and up the stairs of the rickhouses, listening, smelling, sometimes tasting.

        “If I had been a hog, I would have learned to make whiskey,” he jokes. “I had no choice.”

        His father showed him how to culture the fermentation yeast, a strain they say Jacob Beam brought to Kentucky in the late 1700s. Parker never took a chemistry class, but learned to use his nose and palate to make bourbon — like the Beams before him. Now, he claims he can stick his nose into a fermenter and figure out how much whiskey the mash will produce.

        He worked for Heaven Hill all his life, except for three years in his 20s when he drove trucks in Atlanta.

        “That was kind of like a hitch in the Army,” he says with his crooked smile. “I knew I was coming back. I always felt I was destined to be a distiller.”

        Parker returned to assist his father at Heaven Hill in 1960, and took over as master distiller in 1975. His father never retired officially from the distillery. Earl kept an office and came to work another 10 years to check on things.

        “The only thing that kept Dad from coming in at the end was his legs,” Parker says. “He didn't have the strength to get up and down the stairs in the warehouses.”

BOURBON NOTES

• According to federal law, bourbon must be made from at least 51 percent corn mash and aged a minimum of two years in charred, new oak barrels. Most bourbon is made in Kentucky, though that is not a requirement.     • Located at 1064 Loretto Road (Ky. 49), just outside Bardstown, Heaven Hill Distilleries offers tours at 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, or by appointment. Appointments required for large groups. Information: (502) 348-3921.     • Heaven Hill has named some of its bourbons for famous whiskey men. Evan Williams was the first to open a commercial distillery in Louisville in the late 1700s. An 18th-century Baptist minister who fled Virginia because of religious persecution, Elijah Craig settled in Kentucky to make whiskey. He was one of the first to ship bourbon from Kentucky to New Orleans via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Henry McKenna was an Irish-immigrant farmer who began making bourbon in Kentucky around 1855. His whiskey was a national favorite until the early 1900s.     • Master distiller Parker Beam usually drinks his bourbon straight or “neat,” without ice or water. He follows each sip of whiskey with a gulp of cold spring water (he calls it a “splash”) from another glass. This helps clear his palate for the next sip of bourbon, he says. His father, Earl, poured a healthy dose of bourbon into a glass and then swiped it quickly under a running faucet — to add just a little water.

        Almost until his death in 1993 at age 87, Earl sat on his front porch outside Bardstown watching trucks haul grain to Heaven Hill — just to make sure they got there.
       

Staying in shape

        No doubt, it was his father's training that drives Parker to put in long hours, six to seven days a week at Heaven Hill. Most mornings, he's up before 6 a.m. feeding his Angus cattle. Then he runs three miles, up and down the runway at the Bardstown airport across from his house. He's kept this routine for more than 20 years.

        “I run because I like to eat,” Parker says, while polishing off a thick filet mignon and potato at a restaurant in town.

        Someone else might speculate he runs to keep his legs in shape to climb all those warehouse stairs.

        After his run, Parker usually talks to his son by phone before work. Although he lives in Bardstown, Craig Beam makes the daily drive to Louisville to oversee production at the new distillery. Heaven Hill bought the modern Louisville facility after a 1996 fire destroyed its Bardstown distillery.

        Heaven Hill still ages and bottles its bourbon at the old plant in Nelson County. Parker believes his whiskey wouldn't age properly in the heated brick warehouses in Louisville. No one disagrees.
       

Father-son teamwork

        During those early morning phone conversations, father and son discuss the day ahead and work out problems. Over dinner and at family gatherings, the Beams mostly talk, sometimes argue, about bourbon.

        Age hasn't mellowed Parker. He has strong opinions on how to properly make bourbon — and on other styles of whiskey.

        “I've never tasted a good Scotch (whisky), so I don't know what it's supposed to taste like,” he says proudly.

        Like his father, Craig grew up with the bubbling tubs at the distillery. He learned to taste and “nose” whiskey from Parker and his grandfather. His first paying job was sweeping pigeon droppings in the rickhouses. He studied animal science and agriculture at the University of Kentucky, but returned to Bardstown in 1982.

        “I always knew this is what I wanted to do,” says Craig, 42, who most believe will become the eighth generation Beam master distiller.

        But at 59, Parker makes it clear he is in no hurry to retire. His wife, Linda, persuades him to go on vacation once in a while, and he piddles at golf. But his life is steeped in bourbon.

        “If you look at what Dad did, I'm still far away from retirement,” he says.

        Without sounding immodest, Parker regrets not receiving more credit for his craft. After legal threats from Jim Beam Co. years ago, Heaven Hill agreed not to put the Beam name on its bottles. He may not be that famous, but Parker is satisfied his bourbons rank with the best.

        “There is no bad bourbon,” he says, in what must be a practiced set-up line. “We just think ours is better.”

        Parker also isn't bothered by a fact of life he can't change: Craig is his only son, and Craig has two daughters. For more than 200 years, only men have distilled bourbon.

        Will Craig be the last of the Beam distillers, or will his 7-year-old blond, blue-eyed daughter, Olivia — the one the Beams believe has the right “fire” in her — grow up to break the gender barrier?

        “Could be time for that,” Parker says.

        Being named Olivia Beam sure won't hurt her chances.

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