Four Roses: Kentucky's Ten Recipe Bourbon Distillery
Among Kentucky's many bourbon distilleries, Four Roses in Lawrenceburg stands apart in one very specific and technically fascinating way: it uses two different grain recipes and five proprietary yeast strains in all possible combinations to produce ten distinct bourbons, each labelled with a four-letter code that identifies its recipe. This system, which has no equivalent among the major bourbon producers, gives Four Roses an unusual degree of control over its flavour palette and provides whiskey enthusiasts with a transparent, verifiable framework for understanding how small changes in grain bill and yeast selection produce genuinely different spirits.
The distillery's history is more complex than its current incarnation might suggest. Four Roses was, for decades, a distinctly American brand that sold its bourbon only for blending and export — particularly to Japanese consumers — while its domestic market was supplied with a blended whiskey that did not represent the quality of the underlying distillate. The revival of Four Roses as a premium bourbon brand, under the stewardship of master distiller Jim Rutledge from 1994, is one of the significant recovery stories in American whiskey, and the systematic ten-recipe approach that defines the brand today was a central part of that revival.
The Two Mash Bills
Four Roses uses two grain recipes, designated in its coding system as B and E. The B mash bill is what would be called a low-rye recipe in Kentucky bourbon terms — it contains approximately 60 percent corn, 35 percent rye, and 5 percent malted barley. The E mash bill is a high-rye recipe containing approximately 75 percent corn, 20 percent rye, and 5 percent malted barley.
The difference in rye content significantly affects the character of the new-make spirit before yeast, fermentation conditions, and ageing are taken into account. The B mash bill's higher rye proportion produces a spicier, drier new-make with more of the characteristic rye grain flavour — the peppery, herbal quality that rye contributes to bourbon. The E mash bill's higher corn proportion tends to produce a sweeter, more approachable spirit with softer grain character.
These two recipes alone would give Four Roses more grain recipe variety than most distilleries — Maker's Mark, for example, works with a single wheated mash bill, and Buffalo Trace's flagship expression from a single primary mash bill. But the mash bill is only the first half of the Four Roses system.
The Five Yeast Strains
The second axis of the Four Roses system is the five proprietary yeast strains, designated in the recipe code as strains O, K, Q, F, and V. Each yeast strain was developed by Four Roses's predecessors and produces a distinctly different fermentation signature — different ester profiles, different fusel alcohol production, different aromatic characteristics in the finished spirit.
The V strain produces a light, delicate fruity character. The K strain contributes a light spice with a creamy texture. The O strain adds a rich fruit flavour. The F strain contributes a herbal, more complex quality. The Q strain produces particularly floral notes in the distillate. These are generalised descriptors; the actual flavour contribution of each yeast interacts with the mash bill, fermentation conditions, and distillation to produce nuanced effects that trained tasters can distinguish but that resist simple summary.
The combination of two mash bills and five yeast strains produces ten recipes, each identified by a four-letter code: the first letter is always O for the distillery; the second letter indicates the distillation style (B or E for the mash bill, in the code system actually labelled differently — the full code uses four letters such as OESO, OESK, OESV, OESF, OESQ for the E mash bill strains, and OBSO, OBSK, and so on for the B mash bill strains). Each of these ten combinations is fermented, distilled, and aged in new charred American white oak barrels at the Lawrenceburg distillery. All barrels are aged in the single-storey barrel warehouses at Coxs Creek, several miles from the distillery — single-storey warehousing produces more even maturation conditions than the multi-storey rickhouses common in the wider Kentucky industry.
The Product Range
Four Roses Yellow Label, the entry-level expression, is a blend of all ten recipes. Master blender Brent Elliott — who succeeded Jim Rutledge in 2015 — assembles the Yellow Label to represent the house style across the full recipe palette, emphasising approachability and consistency. The standard bottling proof is 80 proof (40 percent ABV), and the Yellow Label is one of the better everyday bourbons available at its price point precisely because it is assembled from genuinely interesting individual components.
Four Roses Small Batch uses a selection of four recipes — OBSK, OBSO, OESV, and OESK — chosen because their combination produces a result that Brent Elliott has characterised as the most flavourful and complex at the small batch scale. It is bottled at 90 proof and is the expression most recommended for someone who wants to understand the Four Roses house character at a level of complexity above the Yellow Label.
Four Roses Single Barrel is the clearest window into the ten-recipe system. Single barrels are selected from across the recipe palette and bottled without blending at 100 proof (50 percent ABV). Each bottle's label indicates the specific recipe — the four-letter code — from which that single barrel was drawn, the barrel number, and the warehouse location. This allows for direct comparison between different recipe expressions, and private barrel select programmes (available through retailers and the distillery directly) allow stores and consumers to choose a specific recipe from a specific barrel.
Limited Releases and the Collector's Market
Four Roses's annual limited releases have become among the most anticipated events in the American whiskey calendar. The Small Batch Select, introduced in 2019 and now a permanent expression at 104 proof (52 percent ABV), uses six specific recipes from a six-year minimum age selection. The Small Batch Select is unchill-filtered and uncoloured, representing the clearest expression of the small batch philosophy without age statement constraints.
The Limited Edition Small Batch, released annually in autumn, uses a different combination of recipes each year — typically aged between 9 and 23 years — selected and blended by Brent Elliott to represent the best of the aged stock available. These releases consistently receive among the highest scores in bourbon reviews and have significant secondary market demand. The 2022 Limited Edition featured a combination of 23-year and 14-year bourbons from selected recipes, producing an extraordinarily rich and complex whiskey that demonstrated the ageing potential of the Four Roses production system.
The Coxs Creek Warehouses and Ageing Approach
The single-storey warehouses at Coxs Creek, where all Four Roses barrels age, are an important part of the house style. Most Kentucky distilleries use multi-storey rickhouses where temperature variation between floor levels — the upper floors are warmer in summer, cooler in winter, and experience greater temperature swings — produces significant differences in maturation rate and character. Barrels from the upper floors of a Kentucky rickhouse mature faster and develop more wood character than ground-floor barrels from the same batch.
Four Roses's single-storey warehousing means that all barrels experience the same temperature range and therefore mature more consistently. This gives the blender more predictable material to work with and reduces the barrel-to-barrel variation that can complicate blending decisions. It also tends to produce a slightly different maturation character — somewhat less extreme in its wood influence than very high rickhouse barrels, with more grain character retained through the ageing period.
If you want to visit Lawrenceburg and taste the ten-recipe system for yourself, the Four Roses distillery is on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and offers tours and tastings that explain the mash bill and yeast system in detail. The distillery's Visitor Center has been expanded and improved to handle the significant increase in bourbon tourism that has transformed Lawrenceburg over the past decade. You can find Four Roses and all other Kentucky bourbon producers on the distillery map.