Unlike other types of whisky – Scotch, Irish, Canadian, etc. – bourbon has no minimum aging requirement. You could pour the distillate into a new, charred white oak barrel, pour it back out immediately, and you’d have bourbon. It would be weak, probably terrible bourbon, but it would be bourbon. (And you’d have wasted a perfectly good barrel, since they can’t be reused to make bourbon.)
Source: Woodford Reserve Bourbon Academy
