Behind the Label

Whether you’re new to bourbon or you’ve been buying labels for years, this class is for the part of you that’s wondered whether the $90 bottle was actually worth $90. Behind the Label isn’t about turning you into a cynic — it’s about giving you the legal literacy and the blind palate to buy bourbon for the spirit, not the story.

Every bottle has two stories: the one on the front label, and the one in the legal language on the back. Once you can read both, you stop paying for marketing and start paying for what’s actually in the bottle. And in blind tasting, students often find their preferences are not what they thought — and that knowledge is what lets you buy with confidence, not because you’re chasing what other people are chasing.

Two hours, in a small group, with Certified Executive Bourbon Stewards. By the end of the class:

• You’ll stop paying the story tax — no more $90 bottles bought because everyone else is chasing them
• You’ll know what “Distilled by,” “Bottled by,” and “Produced by” actually mean — and which bourbons are sourced from the same liquid as bottles three times the price
• You’ll buy bourbon based on what’s in the bottle, not what’s on the bottle
• You’ll have the blind-tasting confidence to know your real preferences — sometimes different from what marketing made you think you liked
• You’ll close the Find Your Unicorn arc with a shopping list that matches how you actually drink

The session opens with a Mystery Manhattan — built with a bourbon you’ll meet again at the end of the class. You enjoy it without knowing the story.

The flight is blind. Four pours from very different bottles — a transparent distillery flagship, a sourced NDP, a quiet workhorse, and a premium label (with the option for a hyped allocated bottle, if your instructors can source one) — without you knowing which is which. You’ll appreciate each before any reveal, then we look at the labels together. The class closes with a Unicorn reveal — and the reveal of what you’ve been drinking in your cocktail all night.

By the end, you’ll know exactly when you’re paying for the spirit and when you’re paying for the marketing.

What’s next: The Advanced track — yeast bio-chemistry, and eventually a Drunken Unicorn-led tour.