Keep Vulgarity In Its Place.

I like vulgarity as much as the next guy, but I'm glad it's not everywhere and I would prefer that it stay out of advertising. Vulgarity has power because it's transgressive, anti-establishment, risky. Nothing sucks the juice out of expression or imagery faster than advertising. Plus advertising is plenty vulgar enough already.

I say this as someone who has worked in advertising for 40 years.

Put the middle finger salute in advertising and pretty soon it will be on the Disney channel. 

So that's why I would just as soon that neither Wild Turkey nor Old Crow give me the bird.

For one thing, it's not that funny.

Sort of like Effen Vodka.

Bird Fight! Wild Turkey Sues Old Crow.

On June 21, I told you about the new Wild Turkey distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. I also told you about the brand's questionable new advertising campaign, built around the theme "Give 'Em The Bird."

So impressed by their own creative genius are the folks behind this campaign at Gruppo Campari (Wild Turkey's parent company) that they are suing Beam Global for using the line to promote Old Crow Bourbon. Campari claims Wild Turkey has used the slogan since 2006, when the brand was owned by Pernod. Campari bought Wild Turkey in 2009.

Old Crow was, of course, named after Dr. James C. Crow, a pioneering bourbon maker who died in 1856. The name "Old Crow" was used during his lifetime and Old Crow formally became recognized as a brand name not long after his death. The Wild Turkey brand was launched in 1940. That has nothing to do with the trademark case, but it's good to know.

As for which of them gave us the bird first, whichever one it is, I wouldn't brag about it. There is still such a thing as bad taste.

Isn't there?

In other bird-related trademark litigation, Beam Global has sued Diageo for failure to use its Jose Cuervo crow symbol in accordance with a 1997 agreement regarding Old Crow and other crow-related marks owned by Beam.

The 'What Happened To Old Crow" Story.

One of the most unusual stories I heard when I was working on the documentary "Made and Bottled in Kentucky (1991-92) was told by a man who identified himself as the last master distiller at Old Crow and who was by then a Beam employee working at Forks of Elkorn (formerly Old Grand-Dad and now Beam's Frankfort maturation and bottling facility), which is where Beam stuck all of the National production people it retained.

They had permission to show me around Old Taylor and Old Crow, then in ruins but still owned by Jim Beam as a result of the 1987 acquisition of National Distillers. It was just me and a couple of these old National guys. I wasn't shooting, just researching. There was no one with us from Beam PR.

This gentleman told me that in the 1960s, National enlarged the Old Crow plant and accidentally altered the percentage of setback they were using to condition their mash. He said this completely screwed up the flavor of the whiskey. Everyone, including he and the distillery tasting panel, told management it tasted wrong, but at that point they were making it as fast as they could and selling all they could make, so nothing was ever done to fix it.

A few years later, when the bottom fell out of the bourbon business, it was worse for Crow than any other major brand; double-digit share and sales losses every year. He said they finally figured out what the problem was and fixed it a couple of years before Beam bought the place, so for the last few years of production the whiskey from that plant was good.

I've never found another source who could either confirm or dispute that story.

New Old Crow Reserve.

Old Crow Reserve is a new product from Beam Global. It is unusual for a couple of reasons. First, it is a new line extension of an old brand. While this is common practice for most consumer packaged goods, it hasn't been done much with American whiskey, not lately. There also haven't been very many new products introduced at the lower price points. Most of the action has been at the mid-high to high end.

I guess it's also unusual in that it's not flavored, finished, or otherwise enhanced. It is Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, period. Those are the four magic words you want to see when you prowl the bottom shelf. They won't guarantee you a good value, but they are a step in the right direction.

Old Crow Reserve differs from standard Old Crow by having a higher alcohol content (43% instead of 40%) and being a little older (4 years instead of 3). Depending on your market, it may also be slightly more expensive than the original but still in the $10 to $12 range for a 750 ml bottle. If it's worth drinking, that's a real good price.

So? Is it? Is it worth drinking? Yes, it is. And that's saying something, since the standard Old Crow is not. There is for me now a drinkable/undrinkable line that Old Crow conveniently straddles. Standard Old Crow is just barely on the wrong side and Old Crow Reserve is just barely on the right side.

As such, Old Crow Reserve is even more like its close cousin, Jim Beam white label. The Jim Beam profile is milder than Crow. The distinctive Beam yeast signature is there. So is a bit of the heat and bite that betray the whiskey's youth, but that is where it also shows major improvement. It is nicely rounded, without the harsh alcohol bitterness typical of one so young. Instead, just when you're expecting the burn, you get a nice caramel and molasses note, a hint of char, some dark berry fruit, and a bright, clean finish.

I'll resist the temptation to run through the whole Old Crow history. Suffice it to say it is a good one, going back about 150 years. Old Crow whiskey was one of the first nationally-known brand name products of any kind. It came into Beam's portfolio by way of the National Distillers acquisition in 1987. In the post World War II heyday of American whiskey, Old Crow was Jim Beam's toughest competition for best-selling bourbon. It had already lost most of its luster before Beam took over. They left it on the bottom shelf and didn't do anything to develop it until now.

I have criticized Beam for not bringing out anything new for the enthusiast community. We still want more, more, more; but this counts, you get points for this. Thanks for listening.

Sold For Parts.

What's worse than being sold? Being sold for parts. Maybe not. Dead is dead.

Old Crow is a brand of bourbon whiskey. The distillery where it was made from 1878 until 1987 is being demolished. You can find out how to buy some of the pieces here.

Old Crow today is a bottom-shelf product but once it was considered the finest whiskey in the land. United States Senators asked for it by name. It was one of the first whiskey brands and, as such, one of the first branded products of any kind.

Old Crow was not the first American whiskey but it was one of the first to be sold under a brand name. Before Old Crow, whiskey was a commodity. People only rarely drank the product of one distillery. Instead, distilleries sold to distributors, who combined spirits from several plants, filtered it through charcoal or bone dust, then treated and flavored it in various other ways before selling it to the public, generally by the barrel. A saloon or general store would buy a barrel. If I wanted some whiskey, I would take my own ceramic jug or other container down to the store and fill 'er up.

Sometime in the 1840s, James C. Crow, physician and distiller; and his employer, Oscar Pepper, distillery owner; began to sell their whiskey by name, either as Old Pepper or Old Crow. Pepper continued to sell Old Crow after Crow's death in 1856. Even though the distiller was dead, his whiskey only grew in popularity. When Pepper died too his son sold the distillery and the Old Crow brand. A few years later, the distillery went one way and the brand went another. A new Old Crow Distillery was built close to Frankfort--that's the one they're tearing down now. The original one is today's Woodford Reserve.

After Prohibition, Old Crow was the flagship brand of National Distillers and the #1 bourbon in a country that, in those days, didn't drink much other than bourbon. When bourbon tanked in the 1970s, no brand fell harder than Old Crow. By the time Jim Beam bought National in 1987, it had reached its present lowly condition.

Jim Beam got the Crow distillery, and several others, when it bought National. It closed them all immediately. (There was a whiskey glut.) For awhile, Beam used the warehouses at Old Crow, and at Old Taylor next door, but they didn't age very well because of their location. Whiskey warehouses in the country tend to be on hills, for air circulation. Crow and Taylor are in a narrow valley.

So when the whiskey that was put there originally aged out, they didn't put any new whiskey in. Years went by and the buildings and grounds deteriorated. Roofs caved in, brick walls collapsed. Beam sold Taylor first. It has had several owners since but no one has done anything much with it. Not long ago, Beam sold Crow to these guys.

Beam still owns the Old Crow brand. Here's what I'd love to see them do. Take one more look at the Old Crow site. Pick one cool thing. Pick two if you want, but pick at least one. I don't care what it is. Maybe it's that big limestone sign. I don't even care. Pick one cool thing and find a home for it, somewhere people can see it, like at Clermont where you have the visitors center. It wouldn't have to cost very much. I'm talking about bricks and stone, something that's already been outside for a century and can stay outside. Something that doesn't need a building. Do the same thing with Old Taylor and Old Grand-Dad. Is there anything left at Old Overholt?

These companies all say they care about the history. Show us how much you care.