Four Roses Bourbon Was Nearly Lost. Now It's Entering a Bold New Era

When Brent Elliott walked into Four Roses for the first time in 2005, he wasn't thinking about becoming a whiskey master distiller. He wasn't even sure he'd get a job.

At the time Elliott was a 32‑year‑old chemist living in Nashville, working on "time‑release tobacco" and glue for credit cards. He was newly married and unsure where his career was headed. But he loved bourbon, loved science and loved understanding how things worked. When he toured the whiskey distillery in Lawrenceburg, KY, he felt something click.

He met with the leaders of the distillery and things seemed to go well. "They couldn't make any promises about what the brand was going to do, but I could tell they had a lot of vision and a lot of confidence in the liquid," he remembers.

Elliott wasn't exactly a Four Roses expert–he tasted it for the first time the night before his interview but really liked it. "As long as everybody's halfway decent, I think this is where I want to be," he remembered,

Everyone was more than decent. And Elliott, who started as assistant manager of quality control, found himself learning from some of the most influential figures in the modern bourbon industry. Joe Tanaka was his demanding sensory mentor. Jim Rutledge was the charismatic steward of the brand's revival. Al Young was the keeper of the brand's institutional memory."

Elliott joined Four Roses a few years after an incredibly tumultuous period in the brand's history. Under Seagram's, the company went from selling straight bourbon in the United States to turning it into a bottom-shelf blended American whiskey. (Seagram's did continue to sell Four Roses straight bourbon in other markets.) By the early 1990s, the distillery's quality had slipped sharply-"going really bad for about three years or more," said Rutledge-and Seagram's contemplated shutting the plant down altogether. Rutledge, who had spent his career inside the company, took over the distillery in 1994, stabilizing production and improving quality. When Kirin purchased Four Roses in 2002 and brought the straight bourbon back to US shelves, the groundwork for the brand's comeback had already been laid.

Elliott stepped in just when that momentum was picking up. "All I've known since I've been here is that tailwind," he said. "The only challenge was how to make more, how to maintain the quality and still meet demand." What Rutledge had preserved, Elliott would learn to expand-first as a chemist, then as a blender and eventually as the master distiller.

The Innovator Inside the Traditionalist

Four Roses has long been known for its ten‑recipe system: two mashbills, five yeast strains, which yields endless blending possibilities. The recipes came to be because at one point during Seagram's ownership, five different distilleries were producing whiskey that went into Four Roses. All five distilleries were making two mashbills with one yeast strain. Blending ten recipes was part of Seagram's philosophy of achieving a consistent product. Over the years, Seagram's started downsizing and closing its distilleries. So Four Roses was forced to make all the whiskey itself.

Elliott reveres Four Roses's signature ten recipes, which provide him with a wealth of resources to create new whiskeys. This stock pile led to him creating the brand's Small Batch Select, which was released in 2019. It was the first permanent addition to the lineup since 2006 and the first blend Elliott created entirely under his own name. The whiskey became a modern staple, admired for its depth and balance.

Now, Elliott is expanding the palette of flavor even further. Four Roses has begun laying down new mashbills-an extra‑high‑rye bourbon and a low‑rye bourbon early as well as experiments with rye whiskey and a wheated bourbon.

"It's going to be interesting to see how expanding that pushes the direction of Four Roses," he says. He's also exploring finishing techniques-carefully. In a recent closed‑door tasting, Elliott shared some early trials with experimental casks with me. Some combinations were stunning; others, he admits, were "kind of weird." But the point is the experimentation. "It's fun to play around," he says. "Consumers are becoming more savvy, looking for more unique, interesting flavors."

A New Era Begins: Anthology Chapter One

Part of this new era is the Four Roses Anthology, which is a new ultra‑premium annual series designed to tell the brand's story through rare, intentionally chosen releases. Chapter One: Origin is the inaugural bottling-a 21‑year‑old bourbon that now stands as the oldest release in the distillery's history. It's built from the OBSF recipe, meaning the high‑rye mashbill ("B") paired with the "F" yeast strain known for its delicate herbal and mint‑tinged character. Elliott selected barrels that had held onto that signature profile even after two decades in wood, resulting in a whiskey that's layered but still tastes like Four Roses with notes of apricot, vanilla and spiced mint. Only about 1,300 bottles will be available ($500) and sold in July at the distillery as well as a pop-up shop on Whiskey Row in Louisville.

"This release represents more than age; it represents legacy," Elliott says in the announcement.

The series will explore the brand's 138‑year story chapter by chapter, beginning with the romantic origin tale of founder Paul Jones Jr., who was said to have proposed to a young woman and asked her to wear a four‑rose corsage to signal her answer - a gesture that ultimately inspired the name.

The brand also enters this new era as part of Gallo, which this past April bought the brand in a deal worth up to $775 million.

Despite the innovation, Elliott still blends by nose and palate, still marvels at the unpredictability of barrels, and still believes that bourbon's magic lies in the tension between science and art. "There are plenty of times where I don't know where that came from," he says of blending. "Something else happened. Something we don't understand at the microscopic level."

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 3, 2026, where it first appeared in the Drink section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published June 2, 2026 at 10:04 PM.