It’s remarkable to think about the sheer depth of resources you must have access to, when you’re a master distiller at a company like Beam Suntory. All those barrels at the various Beam rickhouses, spread out across numerous sub-brands and companies. All of those barrels being used for complex blends of whiskies in Japan. The permutation of all the combinations one could produce must be in the millions.
To that end, it’s not surprising that the whiskey sphere got a little excited when Beam announced the release of its new Legent Bourbon, described as “a unique bourbon that brings together the best of the East and West in a way no other whiskey producer can.” In doing so, they’re claiming to have harnessed those resources that only they have access to. In execution, however, we’re not so sure they’ve succeeded—at least on a conceptual level.
The makeup of Legent is this: It starts with a non-age-stated Kentucky bourbon from the Beam stock. Portions of this starter bourbon are aged in red wine casks and sherry casks. The three threads are then blended by Shinji Fukuyo, the Chief Blender of Suntory, and bottled at 94 proof, for what is ultimately a Kentucky bourbon with wine and sherry influences.
My first thought, reading this process: If you’re going to bill a bottle as a special project and an equal collaboration between American and Japanese distillers, then shouldn’t it actually feel like an equal collaboration? Would it not have made far more sense for Legent to involve the blending of American whiskey and Japanese whisky? What was there to stop them from using some lovely single malt from the Suntory stock to make a bottle that would truly have been the product of two nations? I’m not trying to downplay the importance of the art of blending, but simply making Shinji Fukuyo the blender feels like outsourcing a job to the Japanese guy, rather than making him an equal partner in the creative process. Would he not have preferred to have a chance to blend some of his own stock into the proceedings? Perhaps they even could have used some of the rare, sought-after “Mizunara oak” that has been making waves in Japanese whiskey? Any way I look at it, the way Legent was created feels like a missed opportunity for a more equal collaboration. Maybe I’m alone in this.