Friday, January 18, 2013

Jacob's Ghost Launch Delayed

Yesterday we talked about Jack Daniel's Tennessee Rye, which is arguably a 'white whiskey' product, even though it's not classified as such. Last fall, Daniel's arch-rival Jim Beam announced its own white whiskey, Jacob's Ghost.

Both products were slated to launch in January and Tennessee Rye is starting to appear, but Jacob's Ghost has been pushed back slightly. Bottles are starting to ship to control states now and may appear soon. Ohio, for one, has a reputation for getting product on the shelf as soon as it arrives, without regard for the producer's intended launch date.

Most states, however, won't see it until March.

Although both are as transparent as vodka, the Beam and Daniel's products are quite different. Beam's is named after 18th century family patriarch Jacob Beam. It is standard Jim Beam bourbon, aged for one year, then heavily filtered to remove all of the color and most of the harsher flavors.

The result is a spirit that is still raw, but much milder than white dog, with significant amounts of corn body and barrel sweetness. Beam envisions it mostly as a cocktail ingredient, but they won't object if people want to drink it straight too.

1 comment:

  1. In defense of Ohio, why do these companies care about the release date? This isn't a hollywood movie release with an opening weekend where the movie starts playing everywhere at the same time. I've never seen bottles show up in my local stores on time, if they show up. I'm not going to see the 2012 OF birthday bourbon because my local store still has the '09 on the shelf. I always see new whiskeys at least a couple of months after everybody else has. Maybe I just don't go to the right places?

    We need bourbon listings like they have movie listings for showtimes and locations of movies, we need store hours and availabilty of new whiskey. RRSB now available at times square wine and liquor 11am to 1am. something like that.

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